On January 29, Forward Defense Nonresident Senior Fellow Paul Amato published an article in RealClearDefense on the Trump administration’s ambiguity on nuclear deterrence in the Korean peninsula. In the article, Amato argues that silence on the regime ending policy risks emboldening North Korea and unsettling South Korea and Japan.

Fellow

Paul Amato

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Missile Defense Nuclear Deterrence

Forward Defense leads the Atlantic Council’s US and global defense programming, developing actionable recommendations for the United States and its allies and partners to compete, innovate, and navigate the rapidly evolving character of warfare. Through its work on US defense policy and force design, the military applications of advanced technology, space security, strategic deterrence, and defense industrial revitalization, it informs the strategies, policies, and capabilities that the United States will need to deter, and, if necessary, prevail in major-power conflict.

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The post Amato in RealClearDefense on the 2025 National Security Strategy appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Scowcroft Strategy Scorecard:
Grading Trump’s second National Defense Strategy

On January 23, the Pentagon released the 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS), a document that builds on the previously released National Security Strategy. The NDS gives the Trump administration a chance to define the military threats facing the United States and how it plans to counter them. Read on to see how our experts grade the latest strategy.

Matthew Kroenig

Vice president and senior director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

This strategy marks a shift from past National Defense Strategies, with a distinctive focus on the Western Hemisphere. It correctly recognizes the risk of a simultaneous conflict, but would have benefited from more clearly defined goals.  

Distinctiveness

Is there a clear theme, concept, or label that distinguishes this strategy from previous strategies?

Prioritizing the homeland and the Western Hemisphere is distinctive and marks a shift from the past two National Defense Strategies, which both prioritized great power competition with China. The strong focus on both the Western Hemisphere and the Indo-Pacific, however, raises the question of whether hard decisions were taken about prioritization, or does this document instead reflect compromises between different factions within the administration focused on different theaters. 

Sound strategic context

Does the strategy accurately portray the current strategic context and security environment facing the United States? Is the strategy predicated on any specious assumptions?

Yes, this strategy contains a dedicated section on the current security environment that outlines the challenges posed by China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, and importantly recognizes the challenge of strategic simultaneity, the risk of multiple conflicts occurring in overlapping time frames. This section risks downplaying the threat from Russia and Iran. Several past administrations, going back to at least President Barack Obama, had also hoped to do less in Europe and the Middle East in order to pivot towards Asia, only to have serious security crises erupt and thwart their plans.  

Defined goals

Does the strategy define clear goals?

The strategy would have benefited from a dedicated goals section. Past NDSs have laid out broader, global defense goals, such as deterring attacks against the United States and its allies, defeating adversaries if deterrence fails, and assuring allies. This strategy does not articulate such overarching goals. To be sure, it mentions more specific goals in the sections on lines of effort, such as deterring conflict in the First Island Chain, but would have benefited from providing a clearer vision of success.     

Clear lines of effort

Does the strategy outline several major lines of effort for achieving its objectives? Will following those lines of effort attain the defined goals? Does the strategy establish a clear set of priorities, or does it present a laundry list of US foreign policy activities?

The strategy very clearly identifies four important lines of effort: defend the US homeland; deter China in the Indo-Pacific through strength, not confrontation; increase burden-sharing with US allies and partners; and supercharge the US defense industrial base. The section on China seems to incorrectly imply that a confrontational US stance raises the risk of conflict, when in fact the problem is the Chinese Communist Party’s stated revisionist goals.  

Realistic implementation guidelines

Is it feasible to implement this strategy? Are there resources available to sustain it?

For more than four years, I have argued that the United States needs to do three things to resource the strategic simultaneity problem: revitalize the US defense industrial base, strengthen nuclear deterrence, and get allies to step up and do more. This strategy recognizes and affirms all three of these steps, with a heavy emphasis on revitalizing the US defense industrial base, which will be supported by US President Donald Trump’s promised $1.5 trillion 2027 defense budget, and increased allied burden sharing. 

Joe Costa

Director, Forward Defense Initative, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

The strategy reaffirms longstanding US principles, such as nuclear deterrence, preventing adversary dominance in key regions, increasing burden-sharing, and reinvigorating the defense industrial base. It rightfully articulates the perennial problem that global requirements consistently outpace the demand of military forces, and therefore ruthless prioritization is required. The biggest risk is the reward and punishment approach toward allies and partners. Unquantifiable factors such as unity of purpose, trust, cohesion, and reliability are the essential elements for creating these durable military alliances. By largely ignoring the core values that hold US military alliances together, and explicitly stating that the Department of Defense (DOD) will prioritize cooperating with “model allies,” this strategy could create long-term structural risks that significantly limit the DOD’s ability to deter and prevail against adversaries. 

Distinctiveness

Is there a clear theme, concept, or label that distinguishes this strategy from previous strategies?

Yes. Homeland defense is explicitly tied to border security and US “military dominance” in the Western Hemisphere. Allies and partners are implicitly rewarded or punished to take primary responsibility for their own defense. Economic interests prevail over core values that underpin military cooperation, and the threats posed by the United States’ adversaries are deemphasized in favor of the main message, which is: keep your “demands reasonable and cabined,” and we can maintain a “sustainable balance of power.” 

Sound strategic context

Does the strategy accurately portray the current strategic context and security environment facing the United States? Is the strategy predicated on any specious assumptions?

Persistent threats posed by the United States’ adversaries are deemphasized in favor of the larger message on deconfliction and deescalation. The strategy makes three key assumptions that deserve serious examination:  

1. the DOD can achieve NDS objectives absent a coherent approach to allies and partners across the US government (e.g., if allied economies are hurt by tariffs, will they still spend more on defense?);  
2. allies and partners will respond to US rewards and punishments in a way that aligns with NDS objectives; and
3. US adversaries will adjust their longstanding goals and accept the DOD’s “gracious offer” in favor of a “sustainable balance of power.”   

Defined goals

Does the strategy define clear goals?

Yes. The four priorities are clearly stated throughout the document. 

1. Defend the US homeland 
2. Deter China in the Indo-Pacific through strength, not confrontation  
3. Increase burden-sharing with US allies and partners  
4. Supercharge the US defense industrial base

Clear lines of effort

Does the strategy outline several major lines of effort for achieving its objectives? Will following those lines of effort attain the defined goals? Does the strategy establish a clear set of priorities, or does it present a laundry list of US foreign policy activities?

Lines of effort are defined with varying degrees of specificity. Tradeoffs exist between the four priorities. For example, forces off the coast of Venezuela, and the naval “armada” recently redeployed from the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East, limit what’s available now and potentially degrade future readiness to deter China in the First Island Chain. If this new strategic approach erodes trust with allies and partners, it could adversely impact their collaboration in areas that are essential to achieving the strategy’s end states. How the DOD manages and balances the risks that come with these tradeoffs will determine the success of the overall strategy.  

Realistic implementation guidelines

Is it feasible to implement this strategy? Are there resources available to sustain it?

Further analysis is required, but aspects of the strategy likely will have to be modified. For example, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the Golden Dome could cost more than $800 billion over twenty years, with other estimates going even higher. In addition, the full impact of the DOD’s personnel actions is still unclear—including reported reductions to the cyber workforce, which could adversely impact homeland defense. Lastly, it remains an open question how allies and partners will react to this shift in US defense strategy.  

Alexander B. Gray

Nonresident senior fellow, Geostrategy Initiative, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

The NDS builds usefully upon the National Security Strategy (NSS) by carefully reflecting on the primary security threats to the United States and prioritizing those threats alongside the regional areas of greatest importance to core US interests. This exercise, while contrary to nearly four decades of US strategy, is both overdue and salutary in an era of rising great power threats and diminishing domestic resources. The NDS’s call for a wartime-level mobilization of the defense industrial base (DIB) reflects the seriousness of the challenge and the DIB’s criticality in meeting even the whittled-down priorities found in the NSS and NDS. Taken together, the NSS and NDS are an epochal shift in US strategy and represent a decisive break with post-Cold War conceptions of the United States’ limitless strategic bandwidth. 

Distinctiveness

Is there a clear theme, concept, or label that distinguishes this strategy from previous strategies?

As with the National Security Strategy, the NDS represents an abrupt break from the strategic documents from previous administrations of both political parties. The NDS rejects explicitly the need to uphold the “liberal international order” and instead prioritizes the capabilities and requirements needed to implement the core US interests outlined in the NSS: defense of the homeland, the Western Hemisphere, and a “free and open” Indo-Pacific.

Sound strategic context

Does the strategy accurately portray the current strategic context and security environment facing the United States? Is the strategy predicated on any specious assumptions?

Building upon the NSS, the NDS captures both the greatest challenges facing the United States, beginning with China and its threat to the three core regions of US concern (the homeland, the hemisphere, and the Indo-Pacific), and the need to prioritize in a world of limited resources and domestic political constraints. By understanding the threats but also the limitations facing Washington, the NDS captures the unique environment at this moment in US security policy.  

Defined goals

Does the strategy define clear goals?

The NDS forces clear priorities and largely explains how the administration envisions converting those priorities, whether regions of focus or a renewed emphasis on a revitalized defense industrial base, into actionable policy. In its ruthless focus on avoiding previous periods of strategic overstretch, the NDS (like the NSS) succeeds in a goal-oriented approach to strategy.  

Clear lines of effort

Does the strategy outline several major lines of effort for achieving its objectives? Will following those lines of effort attain the defined goals? Does the strategy establish a clear set of priorities, or does it present a laundry list of US foreign policy activities?

The NDS is anything but a laundry list, and the prioritization exercise it represents will have a cathartic effect on both resource allocation and the time and attention of government officials across the chain of command. For each priority, the NDS explains broadly how the administration will define success, which will be useful in holding officials to account for execution.  

Realistic implementation guidelines

Is it feasible to implement this strategy? Are there resources available to sustain it?

The strategy can be implemented but will face fierce congressional and institutional resistance by forcing prioritization on a bureaucracy and larger national security apparatus that has become accustomed to avoiding hard choices and doing everything, everywhere, simultaneously. The NDS is appropriate to available resources but must be advocated for consistently to avoid the inevitable mission creep that will be encouraged in many parts of Washington.  

Imran Bayoumi

Associate director, GeoStrategy Initiative, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

The National Defense Strategy makes clear the priorities of the Department of Defense. It has clear goals and lines of effort but lacks detail in how it plans to achieve these stated outcomes. The strategy overlooks key regions and allies, such as Taiwan and Australia, and risks underestimating the threat posed by China. Failure to account for the strategic reality and the nature of the threats that the United States finds itself facing will make it harder to achieve the goals set out within the strategy.

Distinctiveness

Is there a clear theme, concept, or label that distinguishes this strategy from previous strategies?

The 2026 National Defense Strategy builds on the 2025 National Security Strategy with its clear focus on defending the homeland, with the claim that “for decades, America’s foreign policy establishment neglected our nation’s Homeland defenses.” But past NDSs have also prioritized the homeland, including the 2022 NDS, which listed “Defending the homeland” as its top priority, albeit while recognizing the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as a pacing threat. The strategy is distinct through its continued promotion of the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, but this concept is not expanded on throughout the document.  

Sound strategic context

Does the strategy accurately portray the current strategic context and security environment facing the United States? Is the strategy predicated on any specious assumptions?

The strategy rightly recognizes that China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea all pose threats to the United States, but it does not mention China’s position towards Taiwan and seemingly downplays the global threat posed by Russia in Africa, the Arctic, and elsewhere. In Africa, the focus only on the threat from “Islamic terrorists” ignores the support provided by China and Russia to governments across the continent. At the same time, the strategy overstates some threats, saying that in the past “U.S. access to key terrain like the Panama Canal and Greenland was increasingly in doubt,” which is not true.  

Defined goals

Does the strategy define clear goals?

The strategy has four clearly defined goals that build on the priorities set forth in the National Security Strategy.  

Clear lines of effort

Does the strategy outline several major lines of effort for achieving its objectives? Will following those lines of effort attain the defined goals? Does the strategy establish a clear set of priorities, or does it present a laundry list of US foreign policy activities?

The strategy clearly lays out four lines of effort that build on the defined goals, but some are more detailed than others. More clarity on how the DOD seeks to deter China or supercharge the defense industrial base would be helpful.  

Realistic implementation guidelines

Is it feasible to implement this strategy? Are there resources available to sustain it?

The strategy calls for having allies in Europe, in the Middle East, and on the Korean Peninsula take on more of a role in their own defense but does not detail changes in US force posture or presence that would likely be expected with such an announcement. The lack of details makes it difficult to understand how exactly the strategy will be implemented and how challenging it will be to do so.  

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

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The post Scowcroft Strategy Scorecard: Grading Trump’s second National Defense Strategy appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The Ukrainian government has an obvious interest in supporting the growth of the defense tech sector, but many officials believe the top priority remains preventing strategic vulnerabilities. The list of potential threats includes infiltration by corrosive capital, a loss of sensitive technologies, and systemic risks arising from insufficiently regulated markets. Experts emphasize the need for new policy instruments, clearer definitions, monitoring systems, and alignment with G7‑style economic security practices. So far, discussion of these issues remains mostly conceptual, leaving businesses uncertain about rules, timelines, and risks.

Ukraine’s economic security debate is currently being shaped by three overlapping realities. First, the global economy has shifted away from maximum trade liberalization toward a more security-based paradigm, particularly in strategic sectors such as defense, energy, critical minerals, and advanced technology. Second, Ukraine is fighting a full‑scale war, making economic resilience and industrial capacity existential concerns rather than abstract policy goals. Lastly, Ukraine’s defense and dual‑use sectors have undergone an unprecedented transformation since 2022, emerging from a prewar model dominated by state enterprises to become one of the most dynamic segments of the Ukrainian economy.

The core question now is not whether the state should intervene, but how to design intervention that protects national interests without suffocating private initiative or driving away international investors. This means finding the middle ground between security and economic freedom. Democratic Ukraine must seek to strike a better balance than its authoritarian adversary in order to enable the kind of continued defense tech innovation necessary to prevail on the battlefield and increase deterrence.

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There are currently concerns that Ukraine’s fast‑growing defense tech sector risks inheriting longstanding governance problems including opaque procedures, slow decision‑making, and uneven enforcement. Recent corruption scandals in Kyiv have already damaged trust, creating what some businesses have described as “negative expectations.”

From the Ukrainian government’s side, there is recognition that institutions are still adapting, with many of the available economic security tools still fragmented or not yet fully operational. This represents an opportunity for Ukraine if the country is able to build governance structures tailored to strategic sectors rather than retrofitting existing and outdated bureaucratic models. Creating a new generation of transparent institutions to address defense sector exports, investment screening, and procurement could become a competitive advantage for Ukraine if designed with private sector input from the outset.

Export licensing is one of the most acute potential bottlenecks. Ukraine’s defense tech businesses currently face a process requiring excessive approvals from multiple institutions, with little accountability or predictability. There is also a perception of unequal treatment, undermining confidence in the system. Ukrainian officials, meanwhile, tend to stress the necessity of strict controls to prevent leakage of sensitive technologies.

A risk‑based and tiered export control regime could address these concerns. By clearly defining a narrow list of highly sensitive technologies requiring strict oversight, the Ukrainian authorities could create faster and more predictable export pathways for less sensitive defense and dual‑use products. This would support economic growth while preserving core security interests.

Wartime currency controls and capital movement restrictions severely limit the ability of Ukrainian defense sector companies to expand internationally. Multiple investors have noted the paradox of profitable Ukrainian firms being unable to deploy their own capital abroad, forcing them to raise funds outside the country simply to operate globally.

From the perspective of Ukrainian policymakers, currency restrictions are viewed as necessary to preserve macro‑financial stability and to prevent capital flight. Targeted exemptions for vetted defense and dual‑use companies, particularly those pursuing foreign acquisitions or joint ventures aligned with national priorities, could unlock growth without undermining financial stability. Such a mechanism would signal trust in compliant firms and reward transparency.

Another key issue is intellectual property (IP). Standard IP processes are too slow for wartime innovation cycles. In the dynamic current environment, Ukrainian companies rely on trade secrets and know‑how rather than formal patents, but this increases risks when partnering internationally.

Ukrainian officials acknowledge the importance of innovation but have so far only been able to offer limited concrete solutions. Accelerated IP pathways for defense and dual‑use technologies, combined with support for joint research and development frameworks with trusted foreign partners, could help Ukrainian firms secure protection in allied jurisdictions while strengthening international integration.

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There is a degree of uncertainty in Ukraine’s expanding defense tech sector that can be seen in inconsistent terminology, unclear boundaries, and undefined red lines. A shared vocabulary and published strategic framework, co‑developed by the public and private sectors, could help reduce this uncertainty.

Different priorities lead to diverging visions. Defense tech industry executives and investors tend to view the issue of economic security primarily through the lens of scalability, competitiveness, and speed. Their key assumptions include the notion that innovation thrives in predictable, transparent environments.

Many also argue that Ukraine’s combat‑tested technologies represent a unique global opportunity, while cautioning that excessive controls risk pushing talent, capital, and IP abroad. With this in mind, industry representatives and investors generally support targeted security measures but fear blanket restrictions that treat all technologies and companies as equally sensitive.

Ukrainian officials tend to frame economic security primarily as a defensive necessity. They warn that adversaries actively use markets, investment, and technology transfer as weapons. Many are also concerned that under‑regulation could result in irreversible strategic losses. Naturally, their perspective prioritizes caution, monitoring, and alignment with allied security frameworks, even at the cost of slower growth.

The central tension here is time-based and risk‑based. Businesses operate on market timelines and accept calculated risk, while governments operate on security timelines and seek to minimize worst‑case scenarios. Without structured dialogue, these differences manifest as mistrust rather than complementary roles.

If managed effectively, wartime Ukraine’s approach to economic security in the defense tech and dual-use sectors could become a model for the country’s broader postwar reconstruction. Ukraine has the opportunity to redesign institutions in a strategic sector that already commands global attention. Success may depend on whether government policy is seen by businesses as a partnership or as an obstacle.

Constructive cooperation grounded in transparency, risk‑based policy, and continuous dialogue can transform economic security from a constraint into a catalyst for Ukraine’s long‑term strength and sovereignty, providing significant security benefits for allies and partners along the way. This is a realistic objective. After all, industry, investors, and government all ultimately seek the common goal of a resilient, innovative Ukrainian economy integrated with democratic allies and protected from adversarial exploitation.

Bridging the gap between perspectives is less a matter of ideology than of process, trust, and execution. Ukraine is currently in a period of transition that is marked by many significant challenges but no irreconcilable obstacles. Industry and investors are ready to scale globally while the government is racing to build safeguards against unprecedented threats. The task now is to synchronize these efforts.

Eric K. Hontz is director of the Accountable Investment Practice Area at the Center for International Private Enterprise.

Further reading

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With Kyiv’s Western allies unlikely to risk war with Russia, Ukraine’s most realistic security guarantee remains a strong military coupled with the ability to strike targets deep inside Russia, writes Serhii Kuzan.

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

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UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values, and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia, and Central Asia in the East.

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The post Ukraine’s defense tech sector can play a key role in economic security appeared first on Atlantic Council.

At the same time, Trump’s current NSS is more explicit than its 2017 predecessor in delineating a hierarchy of regions and interests. Whereas earlier versions still treated the Middle East as a central theater of policy execution, the new strategy bluntly states that not all regions matter equally at all times—and that the Western Hemisphere and the Indo-Pacific should receive the lion’s share of strategic attention. The NSS also reinforces the notion that economic security, energy dominance, and revival of the defense industrial base are fundamental to national security, not peripheral to it. Although the NSS is a statutory planning document and therefore binding on departments for implementation, Trump’s foreign policy style has always been adaptive, personalized, and operationally flexible. Thus, the NSS should be treated as a reliable directional guide, one that shapes expectations, alliances, budgeting, and bureaucratic activity, while leaving room for Trump’s preference for personal diplomacy and transactional deal-making where needed.

It is in this context that the Middle East—and particularly the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)—emerges not as a downgraded region, but as a strategically redefined one: less central to day-to-day US force planning, yet still pivotal to the administration’s concepts of burden-sharing, deterrence, and regional stabilization.

The Middle East: Enduring interest, but no longer central

Among the most striking elements of the new NSS is its recalibration of the Middle East’s place in US foreign policy. For decades, the region consumed disproportionate diplomatic attention, military deployments, and crisis-management resources because it supplied vital energy, served as a Cold War battleground, and generated conflicts with global spillover potential. Today, those foundations have weakened: the United States is a net energy exporter with greater resilience to supply shocks, and great-power competition now plays out far more in the Indo-Pacific and in technological and economic domains than through Middle Eastern proxy wars.

However, the fact that the Middle East no longer dominates US strategic planning does not imply disengagement or irrelevance. The NSS is careful to define the Middle East as a region of enduring interests that must not be relegated to instability or hostile domination. The United States retains core objectives: preventing any adversarial power from controlling Gulf hydrocarbons or the chokepoints through which they transit, ensuring freedom of navigation of waterways such as the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz, countering terrorism and radical movements, supporting Israel’s security, and expanding the normalization dynamic of the Abraham Accords.

The regional focus is therefore shifting from militarized management toward political stabilization, strategic deterrence, investment collaborations, and cost-efficient conflict management. The NSS frames the Middle East increasingly as a zone of partnership, innovation, and capital exchange rather than as the site of long, resource-intensive wars. The NDS adds an important nuance: while confirming that the Middle East is no longer the central theater for US force planning, it explicitly commits to retaining the capability for “focused, decisive action” in the region, illustrated by operations such as Midnight Hammer against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and Rough Rider against the Houthis, while expecting regional actors to manage most of the security workload between such interventions.

Burden-shifting: The GCC as regional security providers

One of the clearest implications for GCC states is the NSS’s burden-shifting logic. Washington does not intend to underwrite regional security in the same way it once did. Instead, the White House expects capable regional actors, particularly Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and to a lesser extent Qatar, to assume leadership in securing maritime routes, deterring hostile adventurism, stabilizing proximate conflict zones, and countering terrorist networks. The United States will remain a strategic backstop, especially at the high end of military power, but the NSS encourages a division of labor where Washington leverages diplomatic influence, advanced deterrent capabilities, and intelligence, while expecting Gulf capitals to provide financial, logistical, and regional operational support. The NDS makes this division of labor more explicit by directing the Department of Defense to “empower regional allies and partners to take primary responsibility for deterring and defending against Iran and its proxies,” while the United States concentrates on high-end enablers, surge operations, and global priorities such as homeland defense and the Indo-Pacific.

This is not a sudden change, but rather a deeper institutionalization of trends that have been emerging for a decade. The GCC has long demonstrated an increased appetite for autonomous security roles, whether through counter-piracy patrols, Yemen interventions, Red Sea stabilization efforts, or investments in Central African and Horn of Africa equilibria. Trump’s NSS validates these ambitions and situates them within a US strategic architecture, rather than treating them as ad hoc regional experiments. For Gulf capitals, this recognition is beneficial: their regional activism is not only tolerated, it is encouraged as a core element of maintaining regional stability in lieu of direct US military domination.

From conflict theater to economic and technological platform

Another significant shift in the NSS narrative is the re-casting of the Middle East as an economic, technological, and financial platform, rather than a theater for perpetual conflict. The NSS recognizes that regional leaders have embraced diversification, industrial development, and sovereign wealth strategies that expand beyond hydrocarbons. It also emphasizes US opportunities in nuclear energy, artificial intelligence (AI), defense industrial cooperation, logistics networks, and supply chain localization. The Middle East is treated as an increasingly strategic geography for future economic corridors, especially those linking Africa, South Asia, and the Mediterranean.

This framing aligns neatly with GCC trajectories. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar have long sought to position themselves as global logistics hubs, aviation nodes, sovereign wealth investors, and technology accelerators. With the NSS emphasizing US economic security, energy dominance, and domestic manufacturing revival, Gulf states can leverage bilateral partnerships to show how investment projects, whether in nuclear energy, AI, aerospace, or critical minerals, support American jobs, reindustrialization needs, and technological gains. If packaged correctly, a Gulf-US economic deal now has political value in Washington that goes far beyond foreign direct investment: it can be framed as contributing to domestic industrial revival and strategic supply chain safety. The NDS reinforces this economic-security linkage by treating arms sales and defense industrial cooperation with GCC states as part of a broader effort to “supercharge” the US defense industrial base, making Gulf procurement and potential co-production not only a regional stabilizer but also a mechanism for sustaining US military capacity.

From deterrence to decisive operations: The NSS–NDS approach to Iran

The NSS conveys a strong view that Iran’s disruptive influence has weakened due to Israeli military pressure and to targeted US actions designed to degrade Iran’s nuclear potential. However, the situation has shifted dramatically in recent weeks. Widespread protests across Iran, triggered by deep socioeconomic grievances and political repression, have created an atmosphere of internal volatility not fully captured in the NSS released in late 2025. The Trump administration has responded with forceful rhetoric, warning Tehran that further repression or attempted regional escalation could trigger additional US military strikes. These warnings, coupled with reports that Washington is actively considering another limited, targeted strike on Iranian military infrastructure, have generated both reassurance and unease in GCC capitals. Here, the NDS adds two revealing elements: first, it publicly frames Operation Midnight Hammer as having “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program and weakened the regime and its Axis of Resistance. Second, it explicitly states that Gulf partners and Israel are now expected to carry primary responsibility for containing Iran’s conventional and proxy capabilities, with the United States stepping in episodically when decisive force is required.

The ongoing instability in Iran introduces a new variable into the regional equation. While the NSS presents Iran as strategically weakened, current developments demonstrate that internal unrest can make the regime simultaneously vulnerable and unpredictable. The possibility of US kinetic action raises concerns about Iranian retaliation across the Gulf, whether through drones, cyberattacks, missile strikes, or activation of regional proxies. GCC leaders therefore view current tensions through a dual lens: understanding that US pressure aligns with long-standing Gulf concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, yet also wary of the escalation risks that accompany any US–Iran confrontation.

The NSS balances deterrence with an emphasis on pursuing peace deals and post-conflict stabilization, including in Gaza and Syria. Trump’s political style is highly confident about presidential diplomacy and conflict resolution, and the NSS treats mediation as a strategic tool to bring difficult bilateral environments into a more stable architecture. This dynamic underscores that while the NSS prioritizes stability and “realignment through peace,” the Trump administration remains fully prepared to use force when it believes core US and allied interests are threatened, a stance entirely consistent with the NSS’s emphasis on “peace through strength.”

Although this is broadly reassuring for the GCC, residual anxiety remains. If Washington chooses to secure regional stability through big-ticket diplomatic bargains, especially where Russia or Israel are involved, Gulf capitals will expect assurances that their security will not be traded for conflict de-escalation. However, many Gulf leaders now possess significant diplomatic capacity and mediation credibility of their own. The NSS creates an opening for GCC states to position themselves as mediators or stabilizers rather than as passive recipients of US decisions. The Gulf’s growing diplomatic centrality, from Gaza cease-fire talks to Sudan, Libya, or the Horn of Africa, fits well with an NSS that prefers localized responsibility and regional realignment rather than direct US intervention. Still, the current crisis underscores a critical reality: any US–Iran confrontation, even a limited one, will have immediate consequences for Gulf security, energy markets, and maritime stability, reinforcing the importance of GCC preparedness, joint air and missile defense integration, and sustained coordination with Washington as the situation continues to evolve. In this sense, the NDS largely confirms the NSS’s direction of travel but narrows the margin for ambiguity: it signals that future Iran-related crises will be handled through short, sharp US operations nested within a regional architecture in which the GCC and Israel shoulder greater routine responsibility.

Will GCC capitals be surprised or concerned?

Little in the NSS will shock senior decision-makers in the GCC. Most regional governments have already experienced Trump’s approach firsthand, benefitted from strong bilateral ties, and understand that Washington’s foreign policy has permanently moved away from nation-building, democracy promotion, and open-ended security commitments. The more consequential shift in recent weeks has been the intensification of US–Iran tensions, which has temporarily elevated the Gulf within Washington’s strategic focus despite the NSS’s assertion that the region is no longer central. GCC capitals now find themselves preparing for multiple scenarios, ranging from a calibrated US strike on Iran to potential Iranian retaliation, even as they recognize that none of this contradicts the NSS’s underlying logic of deterrence, burden-shifting, and threat-management rather than long-term occupation or nation-building.

Overall, the NSS is more likely to produce re-calibration than alarm. The strategy is consistent with Gulf countries’ expectations that they will be treated as indispensable pillars of regional stability and as partners in defense technology, energy investment, and maritime security. The NDS largely reinforces this assessment: it does not downgrade GCC importance, but instead clarifies the price of being central—greater spending, deeper integration with Israeli and US forces, and a willingness to absorb more day-to-day risk in managing Iran and regional crises.

How the NSS will guide GCC responses

The NSS will provide Gulf policymakers with an actionable framework for deepening relations with Washington. First, Gulf capitals can present themselves as regional security providers, offering maritime patrols, counter-terrorism support, Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab stabilization, and specialized capacity-building. Second, GCC countries can frame investment deals as US industrial wins, emphasizing how AI, aerospace, nuclear, and defense co-production create US jobs and secure American supply chains. Third, Gulf states can symbolically align with Washington on sovereignty narratives, emphasizing secure borders, state authority, and skepticism toward external ideological intervention, areas where their domestic priorities already converge.

Finally, GCC states will possibly manage their relationship with China more carefully, offering Washington assurances that high-sensitivity sectors will remain insulated from Chinese involvement while still leveraging Chinese trade and capital where appropriate. In doing so, Gulf leaders can demonstrate that multi-vectorism increases stability and economic growth without jeopardizing strategic trust.

A strategically manageable landscape

The Trump administration’s NSS is a sophisticated refinement of “America First.” It sets clear priorities, clarifies regional hierarchies, and emphasizes economic and technological competition as the foundation of power. For the GCC, the implications are significant, but manageable. Rather than being marginalized, Gulf partners are now expected to assume greater security responsibility, serve as stabilizers, and act as premium platforms for bilateral economic and technological exchange. The NSS ultimately positions GCC countries not as passive dependents of US security guarantees, but as mature strategic actors capable of shaping their region while deepening mutually beneficial ties to Washington.

Read together with the NDS, the picture becomes sharper: the GCC is central to a burden-sharing model in which the Middle East is no longer the main theater of US strategy, but remains a crucial test case for how America First can combine limited, decisive US force with empowered regional allies to deliver “peace through strength” without returning to the era of open-ended wars.

Kristian Alexander is a senior fellow and lead researcher at the Rabdan Security & Defense Institute (RSDI) in Abu Dhabi.

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An unusual stop in Jordan

Of the three countries on Wang’s itinerary, Jordan stands out as unusual. Chinese leaders frequently engage with countries in the Gulf, but Jordan isn’t a typical destination for Beijing’s officials. While in Amman, he met with King Abdullah II, Crown Prince Hussein, and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi.

At the bilateral level, the message was that China wants to enhance the strategic partnership signed during the king’s 2015 visit to Beijing. This elevated partnership would focus on increased economic and investment cooperation and deeper political trust. As Wang conveyed to Safadi, “China will remain Jordan’s most reliable strategic partner in its development and revitalization process.”

This is an odd description of the China-Jordan relationship, which is not especially strategic. There has been little in the way of political or security cooperation between the two; Jordan is deeply tethered to the United States, limiting opportunities for China to make serious inroads. The economic side of the relationship has also been modest. Data from the American Enterprise Institute’s China Global Investment Tracker shows relatively insignificant engagement, with $1.96 billion in investments over the past twenty years and $5.54 billion in construction contracts for Chinese companies in Jordan since 2005. Trade has also been muted. Data from 2023 shows China exported $5.44 billion to Jordan, while Jordan exported $986 million to China.

Given the limited political and economic relations at the bilateral level, the likely reason for the Amman stop in Wang’s Middle East trip was to discuss diplomatic efforts on the Palestine issue. Beijing has been making efforts to be a more significant actor on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and with no influence with the Israelis, working with the Palestinians is China’s only access point. In July 2024, Beijing hosted a delegation of fourteen Palestinian political groups, releasing the Beijing Declaration in which these factions pledged to end their divisions and form an interim national unity government. Since then, Chinese diplomacy has been active but not particularly effective, although to their credit, they continue to advocate for Palestine, regularly voicing support in the United Nations and offering Beijing as a potential mediator.

In Wang’s talks with the king and crown prince, the focus was on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, “the need for cooperation between China and the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization,” the cease-fire in Gaza, and the urgency of stopping attacks on West Bank Palestinians. 

The week before Wang’s trip, the third round of China-Saudi-Iran trilateral talks were held in Tehran, and discussions significantly focused on regional security issues—including on Israel-Palestine. Clearly, Chinese diplomats are working to enhance their profile on the issue. 

With the China-Arab States Summit scheduled for June 2026, regional analysts should expect more coordination between China and the Arab League on Palestine. And Wang’s visit to Jordan might indicate King Abdullah’s presence at the summit. If so, it would be his first trip to China since 2015, when the strategic partnership was announced.

Engagements with the Gulf

The Saudi visit was not at all surprising given the depth of relations between Beijing and Riyadh. Chinese capital has been flowing into the kingdom at a higher rate in recent years, with Saudi media noting a 29 percent gain in the stock of Chinese investment in Saudi Arabia from 2023 to 2024. Trade continues to surge, with China ranking as Saudi Arabia’s top trade partner. 

During the visit, Wang met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan. The foreign ministers jointly held the fifth High-Level Joint Committee (HLJC) meeting, a mechanism developed after Chinese President Xi Jinping’s 2016 state visit, which resulted in the China-Saudi comprehensive strategic partnership agreement. Since then, the HLJC has been used to chart the course for bilateral cooperation, with regular senior meetings that coordinate trade, investment, contracting, and diplomatic efforts.

Wang emphasized the increasing depth of the partnership while meeting with the Saudi crown prince, telling him that “China is ready to be the most trustworthy and reliable partner in Saudi Arabia’s national revitalization process.”

Contrasting the United States on trade

That Wang focused on trustworthiness and reliability in both Amman and Riyadh was clearly carefully chosen messaging. In his meeting with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Secretary-General Jasem al-Budaiwi, Wang tried to position China’s reliability as a reason to jump back into talks for the long-negotiated China-GCC free trade agreement. Wang noted that “the talks have lasted for more than twenty years, and conditions for all aspects are basically mature, it is time to make a final decision.” Claiming that free trade is “under attack,” he described a China-GCC free trade agreement (FTA) as “a strong signal to the world about defending multilateralism.” All of this served as a not-particularly-subtle means of comparing China as a defender of trade in the face of US tariffs. 

The FTA was also a focus in Wang’s talks with UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed. Wang expressed hope that the UAE could play a role in moving the FTA towards a conclusion, while his counterpart responded that he’s willing to play a positive role in the matter.

Despite Wang’s positioning of Beijing as a reliable trade partner, the China-GCC FTA talks have been stalled for nearly a decade. During Xi’s 2016 visit to Riyadh, he said he wanted a deal done within a year. Four rounds of talks that year didn’t get the FTA finished, and the GCC rupture from 2017 to 2021 put negotiations on hiatus. Since then, every meeting between senior Chinese and Gulf officials has included Chinese statements about the need to conclude the agreement as soon as possible. 

It’s worth pointing out that since 2023, the GCC initiated six anti-dumping investigations against China, while Saudi Arabia has launched four of its own and Oman recently launched one as well, citing the need to “safeguard the local market from price distortions caused by imported products sold at unfair prices that do not reflect actual production costs.” UAE Minister of Foreign Trade Thani al-Zayoudi said at the World Economic Forum in October that “we are seeing huge dumping coming from China to our local markets,” and “we must make sure we are protecting our industries.” 

As Gulf countries look to develop local manufacturing, free trade with China isn’t an easy sell. Yes, China is a global trading superpower, but it is very much a one-sided trader, pursuing a mercantilist growth model that floods other countries’ markets while decreasing its own imports. Unfettered Chinese imports look more like a threat than an opportunity for Gulf countries at this stage in their development.

In any case, Wang’s visit did highlight the many areas of cooperation between China, the Saudis, and Emiratis. Talks included cooperation on oil and natural gas, renewable energy, technology, research and science, education, tourism, and security. China may not have reached the status of most reliable and trustworthy, but it is clearly signaling its ambition to be a more serious partner. 

Jonathan Fulton is a nonresident senior fellow for the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs and the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. He also serves as an associate professor of political science at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi. 

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As of January 13, the Human Rights News Agency, a US-based human rights group, estimated that the death toll has climbed above two thousand since the start of the protests on December 28 last year. This is while the Iranian government, as it has done previously, enacted a complete internet blackout, where the entire nation continues to remain under the world’s largest digital prison.

“I saw snipers in our neighborhood—in all these years I’ve never seen such scenes,” said Sahar, a doctoral student in the Saadat Abad neighborhood in Tehran, in a brief phone conversation via Starlink satellite connection.

Her voice was more distraught than in our previous conversations earlier in the week. She also explained how, since Saturday, fewer people have been going on the streets. “At first, there were families, old, young, but now everyone’s terrified, given the bloodbath.”

So far, Tehran’s crackdown on the demonstrations appears to have turned into a bloodbath, in which the only victims appear to be ordinary Iranian people—those who for long have been paying the price of the brutality of the Islamic regime, topped with the global isolation resulting from decades of sanctions and pressure imposed by the United States and its allies.

Against this backdrop, US President Donald Trump may have a real opportunity to be an effective dealmaker with Iran. However, if he is serious about a durable, win-win outcome for both the United States and Iranians, there is only one asset worth betting on: the Iranian people.

Today, Iranian society is more unified against the Islamic Republic than at any point since 1979. Nearly three weeks into the latest nationwide protests, this time ignited not by a single spark but by the country’s wider economic freefall, Iranians have taken to the streets in extraordinary numbers.

Speaking shortly before the regime’s blackout began, Sepideh, an Iranian journalist who has been arrested multiple times and isn’t using her last name for security concerns, explained how she believes Iran is at one of the “most dangerous junctures” in its modern history.

“There is zero possibility of reform within this regime,” she told me. “But history also shows that the [United States], the UK, and Israel don’t prioritize the Iranian people either—only their own interests. This is what makes me afraid of what’s coming.”

Asked about Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last monarch, she says with a deep sigh that “he has some supporters because there is no strong domestic opposition, as those voices have been crushed domestically over the years. But I struggle to believe in someone backed by foreign powers, tied to monarchy, and unable to form a coalition.”

Some others express a more fatalistic openness, including Sahar, who—prior to the internet blackout—told me how many Iranians “believe anything after this regime will be better. We want a complete separation of religion and state. This deck of cards needs to be reshuffled.”

These voices capture the nuances within the Iranian society today—united in its rejection of the Islamic Republic, deeply wary of foreign agendas, and desperate to reclaim agency over their own future.

For the United States, meaningful support for the Iranian people requires resisting the impulse to frame their uprising through the language of takeover or intervention, and instead prioritizing concrete protections for civilians in light of the brutal repression inside Iran. This means keeping Iran connected to the world, shielding protesters and journalists from digital isolation, and ensuring that accountability efforts target perpetrators of violence rather than a population already trapped between domestic repression and coercion from abroad.

Furthermore, it means treating internet access as humanitarian aid—funding circumvention support, satellite connectivity where feasible, and protection for independent journalists. This can help to ensure that the regime cannot repeatedly convert blackouts into a weapon of mass impunity.

An open, empowered Iranian civil society would not be a liability to US interests; it would be one of Washington’s greatest assets.

If the goal is to empower Iranians rather than freeze them into permanent victimhood, economic engagement must run alongside pressure on the state. This does not mean enriching the regime or reopening a flood-gate of funds to Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-backed entities. Rather, it means expanding lawful, carefully assessed, people-to-people commerce that bypasses state hijacking and manipulation.

This includes enabling small and medium-sized Iranian businesses, freelancers, and entrepreneurs to access global markets; lifting travel bans for Iranian students, artists, medics, scientists and civil society members while banning entry to government-affiliated individuals; widening licenses that allow US and European firms to provide cloud services, payment rails, logistics support, and professional tools directly to Iranian users; and supporting diaspora-led investment vehicles that fund Iranian startups, cooperatives, and cultural industries without routing capital through regime-controlled entities. Such engagement gives Iranians income, skills, and stake—converting isolation into leverage and dignity rather than dependency.

Despite decades of sanctions, Iran has cultivated one of the most educated populations in the region and a resilient tech ecosystem that mirrors Silicon Valley’s platforms under far harsher conditions. Iranian youth have built local equivalents of Amazon, Uber, YouTube, and DoorDash with little capital and almost no global access. With the right engagement, Iran could generate trillions in long-term value—benefiting not only Iranians but also US businesses and consumers. A reintegrated Iran, charged by its people, would open a new frontier in trade, education, technology, and culture.

Meanwhile, none of this negates Iran’s military capacity. After more than four decades of isolation, Iran recently went head-to-head with the world’s most powerful militaries. Even Israeli defense analysts were surprised by some of its capabilities—proof that such sophistication does not emerge from a broken society. Beneath the Islamic regime’s aggression lies decades of scientific and technological investment made by the Iranian people themselves, who—if empowered and allowed self-determination—could become Washington’s strongest allies in the region.

Trump’s rhetoric amplifies the contradictions Iranians already live with. His warnings to Tehran and expressions of solidarity have landed with equal parts validation and fear. For some protesters, his words signal that their struggle is finally seen as entwined with an uncertainty of what’s to come. For others, Washington’s bombast risks giving the regime a pretext to paint the Iranian people’s unified dissent as foreign-engineered. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s accusations that protesters act “to please Trump” reveal just how threatening even rhetorical pressure can be to a regime terrified of losing control—one that’s now at its weakest point than ever before.

Iranians understand the stakes. They have watched Russia and China extract economic leverage from their isolation, and they fear becoming yet another bargaining chip. As Behzad, an Iranian journalist who is going by his first name for security purposes, told me, “everyone wants a piece of Iran. Sometimes I wish we lived in a poorer, smaller country; so at least we could live freely—far from domestic corruption and foreign interference.”

Still, across class, gender, and belief, Iranians remain united in one demand: the dismantling of the current regime. They do not ask the United States for bombs or saviors. They ask for surgical, effective, and thought-through support that enables them to reclaim their own agency in the absence of the current regime.

If Trump is serious about peace, stability, and a lasting legacy, the path forward does not run through air strikes or transactional deals with a failing theocracy. It runs through the Iranian people who, if given the chance, could build one of the world’s most dynamic democracies and one of Washington’s most valuable partners.

Tara Kangarlou is an award-winning global affairs journalist, author, and humanitarian who has worked with news outlets such as NBC, CNN, CNN International, and Al Jazeera America. She is also the author of the bestselling book The Heartbeat of Iran, the founder of nonprofit Art of Hope, and an adjunct professor at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, teaching on humanized storytelling and journalism.

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On January 7, Atlantic Council vice president and Scowcroft Center senior director Matthew Kroenig was interviewed on DW News about the US seizure of a Russian flagged oil tanker carrying Venezuelan oil. He contends that the move signaled US resolve in quarantining the Venezuelan regime and adopting a firmer approach toward Russia in the Western hemisphere.

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Matthew Kroenig

Vice President and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

China Defense Policy

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On January 5, Atlantic Council vice president and Scowcroft Center senior director Matthew Kroenig was quoted in Politico’s “National Security Daily” on the Trump administration’s Venezuela policy. He explains that administration’s ambiguity is intentional and aimed at preventing fractures within the Republican party.

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Matthew Kroenig

Vice President and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

China Defense Policy

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Bottom lines up front

• The recent US capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro is consistent with the Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy.
• While the new strategy is primarily about narrowing and prioritizing US objectives globally, it is also committed to an expansive vision of US interests in the Western Hemisphere.
• The White House should next expand its concept of “hemispheric defense” and increase its military presence, further reducing Chinese, Russian, and Iranian influence in the hemisphere.

WASHINGTON—The daring US operation that captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and transported him to the United States to stand trial for his crimes signals a dramatic shift in US foreign policy, with implications far beyond Venezuela. The Trump administration’s decision to depose the Maduro regime is the embodiment of its recent National Security Strategy (NSS), which prioritized the defense of the US homeland and the Western Hemisphere.

While most National Security Strategies are quickly forgotten, both of Trump’s strategies have served as reliable guides to his approach to foreign affairs. His 2017 NSS announced a US focus on great-power competition, principally with China, and heralded an important shift of the United States’ attention after decades of Middle Eastern preoccupation. The president’s 2025 NSS, released in December, set about prioritizing US security interests globally and identified protection of US territory and the Western Hemisphere as the central tasks of US foreign policy. Importantly, the NSS also carved out a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, citing malign activity by “extra-hemispheric powers” as a serious threat to US national security.

As such, the recent Venezuela operation should be understood as of a piece with the president’s earlier focus on acquiring Greenland, his calls for resuming US control over the Panama Canal, and his interest in stemming the flow of narcotics trafficking and illegal migration in the hemisphere. In each instance, extra-hemispheric influence has played a significant role in galvanizing Washington’s concern: Chinese outfits own key facilities along the canal. Russia and China conduct military activity near Greenland and in the High North. And Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran hold long-standing influence in Caracas. With the Maduro capture, Washington is sending a powerful signal that it is taking the NSS seriously, and that it is prepared to act swiftly to enforce the Trump Corollary.

Beijing’s ambitions in the Western Hemisphere have long been a concern for Washington, but recent trends are particularly alarming. In late December, reports emerged that China’s People’s Liberation Army was conducting war games simulating combat in the Western Hemisphere. This news came shortly after Beijing published an official strategy for Latin America that takes an increasingly belligerent tone in asserting its regional interests there. China actively supports the destabilizing Cuban regime, including by maintaining a surveillance post on the island just ninety miles from US territory. With Beijing increasing its efforts to extend coercive economic diplomacy across the hemisphere and its public interest in West African naval access fronting the Atlantic Ocean, the Trump Corollary seems poised to clash with China’s strategic posture.

The sheer number of potential flashpoints between the United States and great-power rivals such as China under the rubric of the Trump Corollary demonstrates an important point about the administration’s strategy: While the new NSS is primarily a document about narrowing and prioritizing US objectives globally, with a lesser focus on Europe and the Middle East, it is wholly committed to an expansive vision of US interests in the Western Hemisphere. This is likely to lead to near-term adjustments to US policy, with the goal of better operationalizing the Trump Corollary to address the hemispheric challenges facing the United States.

Here are three areas to watch in the coming months.

First, under the rubric of “hemispheric defense” that guided US security strategy in the hemisphere for decades, the Trump administration should expand the geographic definition of the hemisphere for the purpose of applying the Monroe Doctrine and the Trump Corollary. By stating unambiguously that the hemisphere is broadly defined as the Aleutian Islands to Greenland and the North American Arctic to Antarctica—with Central and South America and the Caribbean in between and the Pacific and Atlantic approaches to the hemisphere included—the administration could effectively place the region in lockdown, preventing encroachment by China, Russia, and Iran.

Second, to operationalize hemispheric defense going forward, the administration should expand the rotational and permanent deployment of US land, naval, Coast Guard, and air assets in the hemisphere. As the Trump administration works to reposition US forces from legacy bases in Europe and the Middle East, it could simultaneously expand or reopen US facilities in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. It could also seek to establish or expand rotational or permanent access agreements with US partners such as El Salvador, Ecuador, the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba and Curaçao, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and others.

Beyond these countries, Washington could seek a more expansive agreement with Costa Rica, which lacks a permanent military and currently allows the US military access on a case-by-case basis. A new agreement with Costa Rica could look like the comprehensive defense arrangements the United States enjoys with Pacific Island partners such as the Marshall Islands, Palau, and Micronesia. Similarly, as the administration explores its options for a broader political solution to the president’s desire to acquire Greenland, the United States could request expanded access to the island under the 1951 defense agreement and begin prepositioning anti-submarine warfare and Arctic training assets there to counter Chinese and Russian malign activity in the High North.

Third, the administration can begin leveraging such force posture changes to actively deter malign activity and advance US interests in the hemisphere. Greater US forward presence in the region would, among other outcomes, help deter Chinese and Russian collaboration with the Cuban regime, which has spread chaos and destabilization across Latin America for decades. Expanding the US presence in Costa Rica and the Dutch Caribbean would help ensure access to the Panama Canal while the administration seeks broader solutions to Chinese influence. A stronger US Coast Guard and naval presence in the Caribbean would help combat narcotics trafficking and illegal migration that pose a direct threat to the US homeland. Further north, increasing US assets in Greenland would contribute to Arctic security.

While the administration’s actions in Venezuela have shocked the world and sent a strong message to US rivals in Beijing, Moscow, Havana, and Tehran, they are likely only the starting point for a longer-term and more comprehensive reappraisal of US core interests in the hemisphere and the means to achieve them. The Trump administration has a unique opportunity, built around its NSS and its audacious Venezuela operation, to reimagine the contours of US hemispheric defense for years to come.

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On January 4, Atlantic Council vice president and Scowcroft Center senior director Matthew Kroenig was quoted in a Bloomberg article titled “Trump Snatches Maduro But Leaves His Regime in Charge for Now.” He explains that the Trump administration is attempting to influence the Venezuelan vice president to secure outcomes favorable to the US.

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Matthew Kroenig

Vice President and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

China Defense Policy

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On January 2, Atlantic Council vice president and Scowcroft Center senior director Matthew Kroenig was interviewed on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” about foreign policy challenges for 2026. He analyzes threats from the People’s Republic of China, speaks about protests in Iran, and discusses the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy.

Staff

Matthew Kroenig

Vice President and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

China Defense Policy

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On January 4, Alexander B. Gray, a GeoStrategy Initiative nonresident senior fellow, was interviewed on Bloomberg about the decision to capture Nicolas Maduro. He explains that the Trump administration has redefined US core interests as inextricably linked to the Western hemisphere, and argues ousting Maduro eliminated a hostile regime and narrowed the strategic space for US adversaries.

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Alexander B. Gray

Nonresident Senior Fellow

GeoStrategy Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Policy Defense Technologies

The GeoStrategy Initiative, housed within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, leverages strategy development and long-range foresight to serve as the preeminent thought-leader and convener for policy-relevant analysis and solutions to understand a complex and unpredictable world. Through its work, the initiative strives to revitalize, adapt, and defend a rules-based international system in order to foster peace, prosperity, and freedom for decades to come.

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The current state of affairs is far from unprecedented. In early 1940, Polish officers tried to warn their French counterparts about Nazi Germany’s new blitzkrieg tactics but were ignored. France surrendered soon after. There is still time to adapt to the transformations that are now underway, but the clock is ticking.

One of the key lessons from the war in Ukraine is the evolving role of soldiers. People are now the most expensive, vulnerable, and difficult resource to replace on the battlefield. Meanwhile, many of the core weapons systems that dominated military doctrines in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries are becoming less relevant. Tanks, artillery, and other traditional systems are simply too expensive and are unsuited to the challenges created by newer technologies.

Unmanned systems of all kinds have emerged since 2022 as a fundamental element of modern military doctrine. This is radically changing everything from the structure of armies to the role of the individual soldier. Remotely controlled equipment no longer needs a large crew to support it, while individual models are becoming more compact and maneuverable. As a result, the power of unmanned weapons systems is increasing exponentially, while production is expanding to industrial scale and becoming significantly cheaper.

More and more soldiers now serve as unmanned systems operators. Those who remain in more traditional roles perform tasks such as special operations, guard duties, or logistical functions. The war being waged by Ukraine has demonstrated that the modern battlefield features a kill zone up to 25 miles deep and spanning the entire front line. This zone is controlled by drones that destroy any infantry or equipment. Combat operations are increasingly conducted by drone operators located deep in the rear or in underground bunkers.

In these conditions of drone dominance over the battlefield, any attempts to stage major breakthroughs are doomed to failure. Instead of tank columns and artillery duels, offensive operations require maximum dispersal of forces and the greatest possible camouflage. The main task of troops is to gradually shift the kill zone deeper into the enemy’s rear.

Success depends upon the ability to rapidly produce large quantities of inexpensive combat drones and continually update their control systems. Initial tactics involving single drones and individual targets are already becoming a thing of a past. Instead, operators can now use artificial intelligence to control entire fleets featuring large numbers of drones deployed simultaneously. This approach allows a single soldier to manage kilometers of front line space rather than just a few hundred meters. The result is a reduction in the need for mass mobilization and an emphasis on the professionalism and technical skills of each operator manning the front.

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Combat operations now boil down to two main scenarios: Either the collapse of an enemy who is not prepared for the new intensity of combat, or a positional struggle in the style of World War I. In a protracted positional war, it is crucial to ensure control over the kill zone and maintain sufficient supplies while depriving the enemy of similar capabilities. The protection of logistics networks and the infliction of maximum damage on the enemy’s rear areas is of decisive importance.

First and foremost, this means cutting off ground supply routes. To protect logistics, armies must develop fleets of maneuverable transport drones that are not dependent on road quality and can navigate minefields. Meanwhile, to ensure the steady supply of ammunition and spare parts to underground storage points along the front lines, a mobile air defense system featuring interceptor drones is necessary.

At the strategic level, key targets are now weapons factories, logistics centers, and command posts, which are often hidden deep in the rear or located inside underground bunkers close to the front lines. Destroying these high-value targets requires guided missiles or other air strike capabilities. Military planners are therefore faced with the challenge of moving away from expensive manned aircraft toward reusable strategic drones.

Testing of fully-fledged unmanned aircraft is already underway. The transition toward unmanned aviation will open up the mass deployment of guided aerial bombs, which are significantly cheaper than missiles. In addition, strategic drones will themselves be able to act as “aircraft carriers” for kamikaze drones.

The same principles apply equally to the maritime theater of operations. Ukrainian Sea Baby naval drones have already proven themselves by destroying numerous warships from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and carrying out attacks on Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers.

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To ensure their future national security, states must focus on the mass production of unmanned systems and their components. China currently accounts for the lion’s share of component parts. This is a challenge for any country that seeks to play a role in global affairs. China must be deprived of the strategic advantages it enjoys due to its status as the leading producer of components for unmanned systems.

Many NATO generals appear to think that recent technological advances are making war cheaper and creating a more level military playing field. This is a mistake. In reality, any reduction in the cost of weapons is more than offset by the need for increased quantities.

It is also important to stress that unmanned technologies alone are not enough. Another key factor is an army’s access to reliable digital communications similar to Starlink. Without this capability, it is impossible to coordinate combat operations, collect data, and maintain connections between individual units and command structures. It is no coincidence that China is already investing billions to address this issue.

The transformation currently underway in the military sphere also increases the role of cyber warfare. Disruption to logistics, power outages, and communications breakdowns can all provide the enemy with the opportunity to advance. A hacked cyber system can expose vital defenses or dramatically reduce the possibility of recovery.

Looking ahead, technological innovation in the military must be recognized as a national priority when allocating defense budgets. This applies to everything from unmanned systems to the development of artificial intelligence.

The most important revolution must take place within the minds of today’s military generals. A comprehensive rethink of existing military doctrines is currently needed. Armies must be completely re-equipped. It is time for the top brass to acknowledge that they should either change or give way to a new generation of military strategists.

Ukraine’s experience since 2022 has confirmed that in order to be successful in modern warfare, armies should model themselves on technological giants like Amazon and SpaceX. They must embrace flexible thinking and be capable of competing in terms of implementing new innovations.

In an era of accelerated military change, all countries face a simple choice of adapting or accepting the inevitability of defeat. The winners will be those who embrace the lessons from the technological revolution currently underway on the battlefields of Ukraine.

Oleg Dunda is a member of the Ukrainian Parliament from the Servant of the People party.

Further reading

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The only winner from Ukrainian wartime elections would be Putin

By Yuriy Boyechko

Ukrainians are fighting to defend their democracy against Kremlin authoritarianism, but they are also in no rush to hold wartime elections amid relentless Russian bombardment and with millions of Ukrainians displaced, writes Yuriy Boyechko.

Conflict Elections

UkraineAlert Dec 23, 2025

Reclaiming Russia’s ‘historical lands’: How far do Putin’s imperial ambitions extend?

By Peter Dickinson

Putin has again vowed to “liberate Russia’s historical lands” via negotiations or military means. The list of countries that could qualify as “historically Russian” in Putin’s revisionist worldview is long and extends far beyond Ukraine, writes Peter Dickinson.

Central Europe Conflict

UkraineAlert Dec 10, 2025

Russian drones and blackouts test the resilience of Ukraine’s second city

By Maria Avdeeva

With Putin’s army now advancing to the east and the Russian bombardment of civilian targets intensifying, Kharkiv residents are now facing what may become the most difficult winter of the entire war, writes Maria Avdeeva.

Defense Technologies Drones

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

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values, and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia, and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post The art of war is undergoing a technological revolution in Ukraine appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On December 19, Atlantic Council Vice President and Scowcroft Center Senior Director Matthew Kroenig published an opinion letter in the Wall Street Journal titled “What Trump’s Foreign-Policy Detractors Miss.” In the article, Kroenig argues that critics of the new NSS overlook the practical roadmap it lays out for addressing core strategic challenges.

Staff

Matthew Kroenig

Vice President and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

China Defense Policy

The post Kroenig in the Wall Street Journal on the US National Security Strategy appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Zelenskyy’s commitment to democratic principles is commendable, but he should nevertheless resist international pressure to rush into wartime elections. Attempting to hold a national vote at a time when the country is under relentless Russian bombardment and while millions of Ukrainians remain displaced by the war would not be a demonstration of democracy; it would be a strategic blunder that could hand a propaganda victory to Moscow.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

The issue of potential wartime elections in Ukraine has been raised on numerous occasions since spring 2024 when Zelenskyy’s presidential term officially ended, with Russia frequently referencing the absence of elections in Ukraine as part of efforts to undermine the legitimacy of the current Ukrainian authorities. These Kremlin claims of illegitimacy are inaccurate. The Ukrainian Constitution specifically forbids elections while martial law is in place, which has been the case in Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

This constitutional barrier to wartime elections is not a mere legal loophole or a convenient excuse. It is a foundational safeguard designed to ensure the continuity of governance during times of national crisis. Of course, it is possible to argue that the relevant legislation could be revised. But any attempt to change the Ukrainian Constitution would risk a constitutional crisis in the middle of a major war. It would divert the attention of Ukraine’s parliament, the country’s judicial system, and the public away from the war effort, with obvious potential for political infighting and domestic instability.

The constitutional arguments against a wartime election are convincing, but the main reason why Ukraine cannot go to the polls while the Russian invasion continues is because any such vote would fall far short of recognized democratic standards in terms of freedom, fairness, and representation. A truly democratic election requires a level playing field, security for participants, and the ability for all eligible citizens to cast their ballots. None of these conditions can be met in today’s Ukraine.

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How Russia’s winter warfare strategy targets Ukrainian civilians

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Security problems alone should be enough to rule out the idea of a wartime ballot. With Russia bombing civilian targets across Ukraine on a daily basis, candidates would be unable to stage any public campaign gatherings in safety. Likewise, polling stations would become high-value targets for Russian drones and missiles, creating unacceptable risks for thousands of election workers and millions of voters.

The logistical challenges of a wartime vote would be similarly overwhelming. Millions of Ukrainians are currently located abroad as refugees in the European Union and elsewhere. Millions more are internally displaced inside Ukraine. This creates huge issues for voter registries, which would need to be completely revised and updated. Furthermore, the voices of Ukrainian citizens living under Russian occupation would be silenced entirely, disenfranchising a large portion of the overall electorate and further undermining the credibility of any vote.

If Zelenskyy chooses to proceed with a wartime election, the potential for domestic political destabilization would be huge. An election held under wartime conditions would inevitably be a flawed process, with millions unable to vote and security restrictions placing limits on meaningful campaigning opportunities. Regardless of the outcome, Russia would seize on these flaws in order to declare the results illegitimate, sow internal discord, and undermine the credibility of the Ukrainian government in the eyes of the international community. The resulting instability could prove a far greater threat to Ukraine’s survival than any perceived democratic deficit.

According to his country’s constitution, Zelenskyy is the legally elected leader of Ukraine and will remain so until conditions in the country allow for the relaxation of martial law restrictions and the organization of genuinely free and fair elections. This will only become possible once a comprehensive and verifiable ceasefire is in place. Until the bombs stop falling, the Ukrainian government’s priority must remain the defense of the nation.

Ukrainians are fighting to defend their democracy against Russian authoritarianism, but they are also in no rush to hold a wartime vote. Instead, opinion polls consistently demonstrate that most Ukrainians oppose the idea of any elections while active hostilities continue. When the right moment arrives, Ukrainians will be the first to demand their democratic rights and will insist on new elections. However, they understand that the right moment has not yet arrived.

Yuriy Boyechko is CEO of Hope For Ukraine.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Dec 10, 2025

Russian drones and blackouts test the resilience of Ukraine’s second city

By Maria Avdeeva

With Putin’s army now advancing to the east and the Russian bombardment of civilian targets intensifying, Kharkiv residents are now facing what may become the most difficult winter of the entire war, writes Maria Avdeeva.

Defense Technologies Drones

UkraineAlert Dec 11, 2025

Russia’s insistence on a defenseless Ukraine betrays Putin’s true intentions

By Peter Dickinson

Russia’s key demands during US-led peace talks all appear designed to leave Ukraine disarmed and defenseless. This is a clear indication of Vladimir Putin’s intention to continue his invasion and complete the conquest of Ukraine, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Disinformation

UkraineAlert Dec 9, 2025

Europe’s choice: Fund Ukraine now or pay a far higher price if Russia wins

By Elena Davlikanova, Lesia Orobets

Europe’s reluctance to pay for Ukraine’s defense is shortsighted, write Elena Davlikanova and Lesia Orobets. If Russia’s invasion succeeds, Europe will soon have to boost defense spending to levels that would completely dwarf the current cost of backing Ukraine.

Conflict European Union

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

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values, and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia, and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post The only winner from Ukrainian wartime elections would be Putin appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Last week, the White House released its new National Security Strategy (NSS), representing the Trump administration’s view of the world’s greatest challenges—and how the United States can protect its interests. The strategy marks a significant departure in framing from the first Trump administration and has caused a stir in Washington and around the world. Experts at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security dove into the document and graded it based on five criteria.

Matthew Kroenig

Vice president and senior director at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

The strategy earns a “B” grade from me. It explains what is new and different, with a new focus on the Western Hemisphere. It reaffirms longstanding principles of US grand strategy, like nuclear deterrence and preventing hostile countries from dominating important regions. It announces new policies for new problems, like how to maintain US technological leadership. On the negative side of the ledger, it dismisses longstanding principles that continue to work, such as promoting democracy and human rights. It also fails to adequately identify the threat posed by revisionist autocracies and a strategy for countering it. 

Distinctiveness

Is there a clear theme, concept, or label that distinguishes this strategy from previous strategies?

Yes. The strategy identifies the Western Hemisphere as a priority theater for US national security strategy through the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. This is a change from past strategy, and the promise of new economic engagement will be welcomed by countries in the region.

Sound strategic context

Does the strategy accurately portray the current strategic context and security environment facing the United States? Is the strategy predicated on any specious assumptions?

The strategy would have benefited from a dedicated strategic context section. The discussion of the national security threats facing the nation—especially from the “Axis of Aggressors” —are only thinly sketched.

Defined goals

Does the strategy define clear goals?

Yes. The strategy is remarkably clear in its articulation of the goals on page five. This includes defined goals to achieve US dominance in emerging technologies, support allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific, and counter adversaries in the Western Hemisphere.

Clear lines of effort

Does the strategy outline several major lines of effort for achieving its objectives? Will following those lines of effort attain the defined goals? Does the strategy establish a clear set of priorities, or does it present a laundry list of US foreign policy activities?

The strategy lists many principles and activities, but it does not aggregate these up into major lines of effort.

Realistic implementation guidelines

Is it feasible to implement this strategy? Are there resources available to sustain it?

More so than its predecessors, this strategy does specify clear priorities and rules out activities (like intervention and democracy promotion) that had been part of past strategies. One can debate the wisdom of the prioritization, but the hard-nosed prioritization does make the strategy inherently sustainable. As with all strategic documents, resourcing will be a major challenge to enacting the vision laid out within it.

Nate Freier 

Nonresident senior fellow, Geostrategy Initiative, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

The 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS 25) appears to signal that the United States is no longer the broadly collaborative status quo power that the world has come to rely on since World War II. Instead, it suggests that the United States is now increasingly a more transactional revisionist power intent on altering its relationship with the rest of the world, often explicitly to its near-exclusive benefit. Since World War II, US strategy has generally exhibited an enlightened self-interest, recognizing the tangible and intangible benefits of its being a coalition-builder, a first-among-equals leader, and a reliable heavyweight international arbiter. The first has historically generated exploitable power via strength in numbers and the latter two have often preserved for the United States the right to set agendas and tilt outcomes in its favor. NSS 25 appears to mark a sharp departure from this traditional governing philosophy and, in doing so, engenders significant risk.  

Distinctiveness

Is there a clear theme, concept, or label that distinguishes this strategy from previous strategies?

In practical terms, NSS 25 is distinct in that it does articulate a clear, unambiguous, and circumspect set of vital interests and priorities. And specifically, for example in the Indo-Pacific, it does at times deliver clear strategic logic as to why continued US commitment is essential. Further, NSS 25 exhibits a novel predisposition to lead with US economic, commercial, and technological advantage as principal competitive instruments. However, there is real risk in its under-defined approach to the often-malign behavior of “larger, richer, and stronger” rival states (e.g., Russia) and their illegitimate employment of the cover of “sovereignty” to prey on vulnerable neighbors and third parties. The strategy also exhibits an explicit abandonment of some timeless US commitments to political liberalization, human rights, and human security as if these are not—even in the context of “flexible realism”—often prerequisites for the long-term security of US interests. 

Sound strategic context

Does the strategy accurately portray the current strategic context and security environment facing the United States? Is the strategy predicated on any specious assumptions?

Strategic context is the environment against which strategy is applied, within which it unfolds and adapts, and because of which it succeeds or fails. NSS 25 is excessively inward-looking and offers little substance on what is a highly contested competitive environment between rival states. The United States faces ongoing resistance from a combination of its purposeful rivals (e.g.,  the People’s Republic of China and Russia), as well as the environment within which it and they compete for advantage (e.g., physical proximity, structural vulnerability, prolific connectivity, fragile alliances and economies, and domestic and foreign disharmony). US rivals want to weaken the US position, replace the United States as the world’s indispensable great power, and force onerous constraints on US influence where it counts most. NSS 25 harbors real risk in that it focuses on what the United States wants but does not adequately portray the degree to which rivals will exploit strategic conditions, their inherent capabilities, and US action and/or inaction to advance their interests at US expense.  

Defined goals

Does the strategy define clear goals?

In combination and from a practical standpoint, an interpretation of NSS 25’s description of what the United States should want for itself and what it also wants “in and from the world” provides an adequate picture of this administration’s direction. However, it is critical that goals match context. Context should, after all, flag the kinds of hazards and opportunities that help define and realistically shape goals. Thus, NSS 25’s limited articulation of context and the lack of substance attending this gap makes it difficult to adequately assign value to the strategy’s goals in isolation. Nonetheless, as a practical matter—save for what might be called the strategy’s rebalance to the Western Hemisphere—NSS 25’s goals at home and abroad are by themselves clear and, for the most part, consistent with traditional US security objectives. But there are risks embedded in the goals. For example, the strategy’s explicit rebalance to the Western Hemisphere and its softer, more conditional commitment to European defense and security have the potential to trigger horizontal rival escalation in perceived vacuums of US interest and commitment, as well as unfavorable ally and third-party bargaining with rivals as US activism is perceived in retreat.  

Clear lines of effort

Does the strategy outline several major lines of effort for achieving its objectives? Will following those lines of effort attain the defined goals? Does the strategy establish a clear set of priorities, or does it present a laundry list of US foreign policy activities?

In some combination of NSS 25’s “Priorities,” as well as the “how” embedded in its description of regional approaches, one can discern actionable lines of effort. The “Enlist” and “Expand” elements of Western Hemisphere strategy and the three elements described under Asia (“Leading from a Position of Strength,” “Economics,” and “Deterring Military Threats”) have within them testable hypotheses for success and broad approaches to achieving it. However, NSS 25 would benefit from a more coherent design that is animated by a thorough description of the context within which it is to be implemented. Context, goals, and lines of effort, after all, provide a singular theory of the case. As described earlier, the degree to which economics dominate the amended US approach to Asia is notable and novel. But success here would seem to rely on a distinctively US commercial line of effort lying substantially outside the traditional control of US decisionmakers. Novel can be a strength and weakness. At minimum, novel here suggests an area of risk that merits significant alignment in a coherent strategic design with other complementary lines of effort where the risk associated with underperformance is mitigated by the potential for acceleration in adjacent efforts more under US policymaker control.    

Realistic implementation guidelines

Is it feasible to implement this strategy? Are there resources available to sustain it?

Overall, this is a high-risk strategy. At times, it is stripped down and minimalist. And, therefore, the prospects of the United States achieving its limited objectives are better than are the chances for success in pursuit of more expansive and ambiguous strategic ends. However, the real risk here is in the strategy’s broad thrust. As US decision makers implement a strategy that so explicitly rethinks and rescopes the United States’ global role, they should expect that those who have either relied on or resisted US influence will themselves recalculate their strategic choices in ways that ignite a disruptive and unfavorable realignment of actors and forces within the international system. Further still, there are troubling elements of values erosion, ethno-centrism, and cultural shaming throughout the strategy that—when operationalized—have the potential to change how the world sees the United States, as well as the degree to which the actors upon whom the United States relies are willing to cooperate with it. 

Alexander B. Gray

Nonresident senior fellow, Geostrategy Initiative, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

The Trump NSS is a powerful break from thirty-five years of US strategies that promise to prioritize everything and end up prioritizing nothing. With shrinking resources and public aversion to global entanglements, the NSS provides defined, manageable, and clear US national interests and places them in a strategic framework that can serve to advance US strategy.  

Distinctiveness

Is there a clear theme, concept, or label that distinguishes this strategy from previous strategies?

The Trump administration’s NSS is a fundamental break with three decades of US strategy. The document is unlike anything put forward by a US administration since the end of the Cold War. Rather than assume that the United States has limitless global interests, the NSS seeks to undertake a difficult and needed referencing of “ways” and “means,” ultimately giving priority to those regions and tasks deemed most essential to core US interests. By seeking prioritization, and making the concomitant difficult choices, the NSS is truly unique and the most definitionally “strategic” document produced by the US government since 1991. 

Sound strategic context

Does the strategy accurately portray the current strategic context and security environment facing the United States? Is the strategy predicated on any specious assumptions?

The NSS accurately reflects a more constrained strategic environment, with less material resources and public support for international engagement that is ancillary to core US interests. By focusing on the “basics,” and starting with defense of the homeland and working outward, the NSS refuses to accept that US strategy must ceaselessly expand to meet global challenges rather than picking and choosing which global challenges are most directly tied to US interests. The focus on the Western Hemisphere, and the unique threat posed by extra-hemispheric actors like China, is decades overdue; the NSS makes plain that protection of the homeland and the hemisphere and the pursuit of US interests in the Indo-Pacific are interwoven for the foreseeable future.  

Defined goals

Does the strategy define clear goals?

The NSS’s goals are clear: defend the homeland; defend the Western Hemisphere, particularly from extra-hemispheric actors; prevent the rise of a dominant hegemon in Eurasia; and secure a free and open Indo-Pacific. This is a crisp, thoughtful, and calibrated elucidation of the central challenges facing US policymakers, and it forces Washington to ask difficult questions about commitments and obligations outside of these core tasks.  

Clear lines of effort

Does the strategy outline several major lines of effort for achieving its objectives? Will following those lines of effort attain the defined goals? Does the strategy establish a clear set of priorities, or does it present a laundry list of US foreign policy activities?

The NSS is the most prioritization-focused strategy produced by the US government since 1991. The challenge facing implementers of the NSS will come down to interpreting and crafting policy responses for the main lines of effort mentioned. For instance, when extra-hemispheric powers meddle in the Western Hemisphere, what should be the US response? What level of Chinese influence is acceptable, and how should it be addressed? These are the types of questions, below the level of grand strategy, that force policymakers to make difficult decisions in real time.  

Realistic implementation guidelines

Is it feasible to implement this strategy? Are there resources available to sustain it?

The most difficult part of any strategy, and particularly one as different from the recent past as this NSS, is implementation. Not only will there be extraordinary institutional resistance in Washington, and in allied and partner capitals, to this dramatic reorientation of US policy; there will also be the pressure of world events that frequently pull policymakers, even those dedicated to changing course, into unwanted entanglements. To execute this strategy, the Trump administration will require discipline to resist the “noise” of day-to-day news and focus with determination on prioritizing the core US interests named in the NSS.  

New Atlanticist Dec 5, 2025

Experts react: What Trump’s National Security Strategy means for US foreign policy

By Atlantic Council experts

Atlantic Council experts delve into the newly released document outlining the Trump administration’s principles and priorities for US foreign policy.

Defense Policy Politics & Diplomacy

Memo to… Sep 9, 2025

Memo to Congress: Capabilities matter more than numbers for US forces in Korea

By Adam Kozloski, Markus Garlauskas

When it comes to the US military presence in South Korea, what the US force is capable of doing matters more than exactly how many troops are stationed there. As the US Senate and House draft this year’s must-pass National Defense Authorization Act, they should focus on requirements, not setting a floor for USFK.

Scorecard Oct 14, 2022

Scowcroft Strategy Scorecard: What grade does Biden’s National Security Strategy get?

By Atlantic Council

Our strategy experts praised the document for being clear-eyed about the challenges posed by Russia and China, but downgraded it for a lack of focus as well as concerns about how to implement its ambitious aims.

National Security Politics & Diplomacy

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

Learn more

The post Scowcroft Strategy Scorecard: Grading Trump’s second National Security Strategy appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Colleagues from the Atlantic Council and I spent two intense days in Warsaw this week, meeting with senior officials, former officials, entrepreneurs, executives, and experts from across Poland’s divided and contentious political spectrum. We also met with the newly arrived US Ambassador Tom Rose. This came after four days in Prague and meetings with Czech senior civilian and military officials, and with the new US Ambassador Nicholas Merrick.

News of the rail line sabotage broke the last day of our Warsaw visit. Russian sabotage and aggression against Europe—drone and fighter jet overflights; attacks against Baltic Sea cables; and various incidents in Germany, Czechia, Poland, and other countries—are not new. Everywhere we went, Poles spoke, quietly and earnestly, of the possibility of war returning to their country. Poland, like its neighbors in Central Europe, has enjoyed more than a generation of peace, democracy, and rapidly increasing prosperity. To many of the Poles we spoke with, these times may soon seem like the “before times” of wistful memory.

The Poles are neither alone nor “Russophobic” or alarmist. Senior German officials, burned and now wiser after their long and futile search for accommodation with Putin’s Russia, now speak in similar terms. The head of Germany’s intelligence service, Bruno Kahl, testified in October to the Bundestag about the possibility of a Russian attack on Europe. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has spoken of the possibility of open conflict with Russia as early as 2026.

What then should Europe and the United States do about this trend of actual and suspected Russian aggression? This was the question that formed the basis of many of our discussions in Warsaw and Prague.

First, Europe and the United States need to face the music. Putin is not interested in doing business with the United States or Europe except on his terms, terms that include a demand for tacit recognition of his empire acquired through war. He will not break with China; he will not do a “deal” for peace in Ukraine, except when faced with insurmountable strength. His aggression against Europe is intended to intimidate the West into stunned acquiescence while he seeks to reverse the fall of the Soviet and Russian empires.

The Trump administration has spent a lot of energy pushing for a sustainable settlement of the war in Ukraine. And rightly so. The core of the administration’s outline of a settlement could work: a cease-fire in place and security for Ukraine, with Europe in the lead but with strong US backup. But the US administration still sends mixed messages, seemingly reflecting different schools of thought within it. That won’t do. The Trump team needs to be as steady and internally united in its pushback against Putin’s aggression as it has been against Iran and other adversaries.

Second, Europe needs to get real, and fast, about doing more for its own defense. The Trump administration has often, and rightly, put that in terms of a push for greater European spending on its military. That push has met with success in the form of NATO’s agreement at its 2025 Hague summit to a target of 5 percent of gross domestic product on defense, broken down into 3.5 percent on “hard” military expenditures and 1.5 percent on associated defense spending.

But spending is an input, and the output in military capability is what matters. We spent much of our time meeting with business executives from the Czech and Polish defense sectors, talking about the rapidly changing technological challenge of new weapons such as drones and the need to move fast from a sluggish peacetime procurement cycle to rapid turnaround. That’s no abstract challenge but an immediate necessity.

Fortunately, there is good news coming from Central Europe. High-tech start-ups that move fast, working with Ukrainians to apply battlefield lessons to production, are springing up all over both countries. Some are small. Others are mid-sized and growing fast. Still others, such as one Czech company we met with, are already investing in large-scale military production, including in the United States. A Polish firm is building state-of-the art reconnaissance satellites and launching them on SpaceX rockets.

One big task for these companies is to scale up and work with their US and European counterparts to turn topline defense spending into frontline military capacity. The United States can help. The United States and Europe have been sparring over trade and risk looking at their respective defense industries on what sometimes seem like zero-sum terms. That won’t do, especially in the face of the near-term danger of Russian aggression. To use the vocabulary of the Trump administration, there are a lot of good deals to be done in the defense sector. By helping remove barriers to technology transfer, defense trade, and investment, the United States can do the right thing for common security and make good money along the way.

Third, the United States and Europe can tighten the screws on Russia’s economy. The Trump administration has finally introduced its first new Russia sanctions, on the energy giants Rosneft and Lukoil. Now the administration must enforce them. And if it turns out that Russia is behind the latest attack on Polish rail lines, the United States and Europe should scale up sanctions. A full financial embargo, with limited and defined exceptions, might be a good place to start.

Fourth, the United States and Europe should speed up provision to Ukraine of weapons to target Russian infrastructure. And they can consider asymmetrical measures to counter Russian physical sabotage. These can be covert, but Russia should not have the luxury of taking action against the West without fear of countermeasures.

Even a brief visit to Warsaw, with its history of wartime destruction, communist oppression, and present prosperity and vulnerable peace, can concentrate the mind. Poles, whatever their politics, look to the United States, whatever its politics. And the Poles are pulling their weight on defense, with other Europeans starting to do the same. Putin represents the latest incarnation of the old adversary of the twentieth century—an aggressive tyranny. He’s on the march. But countries of the free world have good options if they will take them.

Daniel Fried is the Weiser family distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former US ambassador to Poland.

The post Dispatch from Warsaw: How to respond as Putin ratchets up the pressure appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Introducción

La seguridad alimentaria está en el núcleo de la seguridad nacional, regional y global. Cuando las sociedades tienen garantizado el acceso a los alimentos, poseen una probabilidad mucho mayor de mantener la estabilidad social y política; cuando carecen de ella, sucede lo contrario. Afortunadamente, el hemisferio occidental—las Américas—es una región con seguridad alimentaria. Aunque el acceso a los alimentos sigue siendo un desafío constante, la abundancia alimentaria caracteriza en general a las Américas, gracias a una base favorable de recursos naturales, condiciones geopolíticas benignas y una amplia cooperación pública y privada orientada a mejorar los métodos de producción y fomentar la innovación. 

Sin embargo, el futuro podría no parecerse al pasado. Varios factores clave de cambio podrían alterar la trayectoria de la seguridad alimentaria hemisférica, amenazando la estabilidad y productividad de los actuales sistemas agroalimentarios o, por el contrario, ofreciendo esperanza de que estos se vuelvan aún más sólidos y resilientes. Estos factores incluyen el deterioro de ecosistemas sanos y estables, la rápida transformación de la geopolítica, la erosión de las instituciones multilaterales, la creciente inflación y volatilidad de los precios de los alimentos, la promesa de la innovación y las tecnologías emergentes, y los cambios generacionales en la agricultura y la producción agropecuaria. 

Aunque estas fuerzas se cruzan, muchos líderes las perciben como desafíos aislados. Su interacción multiplica el dinamismo del sistema, lo que exigirá que los responsables de políticas públicas, líderes empresariales, inversionistas y agricultores encuentren soluciones innovadoras frente a un panorama agroalimentario que cambia rápidamente y cuyo futuro no es del todo predecible. 

Alimentación, sociedad y política 

Ningún otro bien tiene un impacto tan profundo en la sociedad y la política como los alimentos, porque las personas necesitan comer todos los días. A menudo, basta con un solo gran aumento en los precios de los alimentos para alterar las dinámicas sociales y políticas dentro de un país o incluso de toda una región. Aunque los precios altos de los alimentos afectan de manera desproporcionada a los países vulnerables, pobres y frágiles, también pueden tener un gran impacto en naciones que, en principio, son ricas y estables. 

La definición estándar de seguridad alimentaria, adoptada en 1996 por la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Alimentación y la Agricultura (FAO) y solo ligeramente revisada desde entonces, establece que: 

La seguridad alimentaria existe cuando todas las personas, en todo momento, tienen acceso físico, social y económico a alimentos suficientes, inocuos y nutritivos que satisfacen sus necesidades dietéticas y preferencias alimentarias para llevar una vida activa y sana. 

Sin embargo, faltan algunos elementos importantes en esta formulación de la seguridad alimentaria. Uno de ellos es la estabilidad ecológica. La seguridad alimentaria depende de la sostenibilidad de los sistemas naturales de la Tierra que son esenciales para la producción de alimentos. Un segundo elemento es la estabilidad del sistema internacional, específicamente la estabilidad de un orden comercial basado en normas que garantice que los alimentos puedan desplazarse fácilmente desde los países con excedentes hacia aquellos con déficits alimentarios. 

Estas condiciones no deben darse por sentadas. Mirando hacia el futuro, es probable que el mundo se vuelva más dinámico y menos estable, con aspectos tanto positivos como negativos. Para prosperar, los sistemas agroalimentarios mundiales deberán volverse más resilientes y adaptables. 

Seguridad alimentaria en las Américas 

El hemisferio occidental desempeña un papel indispensable en la seguridad alimentaria global. 

Lado de la oferta: Producción agrícola en las Américas 

Los cinco países con mayor producción primaria de cultivos (por tonelaje) en el mundo se encuentran todos en las Américas: Brasil, Estados Unidos, Argentina, México y Canadá. El hemisferio también cuenta con los principales exportadores de los cuatro cultivos básicos: soya, maíz, trigo y arroz. Además, las Américas producen una amplia variedad de cultivos especializados, entre ellos café, aguacates, limones, limas, naranjas, arándanos, cranberries, quinua, almendras y muchos más. 

La agricultura continúa siendo un componente esencial de las economías nacionales en las Américas. La participación de la agricultura en el PIB supera el 5% en la mayoría de los países y llega a más del 10% en algunos de ellos. 

Lado de la demanda: Calorías y nutrición 

La definición de seguridad alimentaria de la FAO subraya que, si las personas no pueden acceder a una dieta nutritiva a precios estables y asequibles, no se puede hablar de seguridad alimentaria. 

En las últimas décadas, el hemisferio occidental ha reducido gradualmente su nivel de inseguridad alimentaria. En términos comparativos, ha tenido un buen desempeño. Entre 1990 y 2015, América Latina y el Caribe fue la única región del mundo que logró reducir el hambre a la mitad. Actualmente, el hemisferio presenta mejores resultados que el promedio mundial en cuanto a subalimentación, inseguridad alimentaria severa y prevalencia de emaciación infantil (niños pequeños con bajo peso). 
(Aunque varios países tienen un rendimiento inferior, como Haití, Bolivia, Honduras, Ecuador y Guatemala.) 

En los indicadores relacionados con dietas poco saludables, como el sobrepeso y la obesidad, las Américas muestran un desempeño menos favorable. 

Finalmente, las mujeres en las Américas son ligeramente más propensas que los hombres a sufrir inseguridad alimentaria. 

Factores de cambio en las Américas y más allá

La seguridad alimentaria en las Américas enfrenta varios factores de cambio significativos que se cruzan e interactúan entre sí. 

Cambio ecológico 

Los riesgos ecológicos se encuentran entre las mayores amenazas para la seguridad alimentaria. Los principales riesgos incluyen el cambio climático, la deforestación, la pérdida de biodiversidad y la erosión y degradación del suelo. Quizás la amenaza más grave para la producción agrícola sea la combinación de sequía y calor extremo, condiciones “secas-calientes” que se volverán más frecuentes tanto en el mundo como en las Américas. 

Una posibilidad desalentadora para el futuro es la aparición de fallas simultáneas en múltiples regiones productoras de granos básicos (“fallas en las canastas de pan” del mundo). Las Américas, hogar de varios de los principales productores mundiales de cultivos básicos, enfrentan esta posibilidad. El cambio climático también afectará negativamente a la mayoría de los cultivos especializados, incluidos el café y los plátanos. 

Los agricultores se verán afectados de manera diferente dependiendo de dónde trabajen dentro del hemisferio, el tamaño y los recursos de sus fincas (financieros y de otro tipo), si son agricultores de subsistencia o están integrados en los mercados nacionales, regionales y globales, y los tipos de cultivos que producen. Los pequeños agricultores en contextos más pobres estarán en mayor riesgo debido al tamaño reducido de sus parcelas y a la falta de acceso a seguros y otros recursos. 

Potencialmente, los cambios ecológicos con impactos a gran escala podrían generar importantes déficits en el suministro mundial de alimentos, provocando pánicos en los mercados, precios altos, acaparamiento y una ruptura del comercio internacional. La inseguridad alimentaria se dispararía. 

Turbulencia geopolítica y geoeconómica 

Un segundo conjunto de riesgos proviene de la incertidumbre geopolítica y geoeconómica creciente. Un sistema comercial abierto y basado en normas ha sido esencial para mejorar la seguridad alimentaria, al fomentar una mayor integración económica que, a su vez, contribuye a la seguridad alimentaria mediante mayor crecimiento económico, más empleo, aumento de ingresos, reducción de la pobreza y dinamismo económico. 

Sin embargo, el sistema mundial de comercio de alimentos ha sido perturbado por varios acontecimientos geopolíticos importantes, incluyendo guerras (como la de Ucrania), políticas comerciales y sanciones que generan choques imprevistos en los insumos agrícolas, las cadenas de suministro y las exportaciones agroalimentarias, lo que resulta en mayores costos de producción y precios de los alimentos. 

El sistema agroalimentario mundial podría estar regresando a un orden proteccionista previo a los años 1990, cuando los países solían aplicar aranceles elevados solo a unos pocos cultivos políticamente sensibles (como el azúcar o el algodón). Hoy, el proteccionismo emergente es mucho más amplio, afecta a un número mayor de cultivos y lo implementa una lista cada vez más larga de países. 

Los patrones comerciales también están cambiando debido a la geopolítica. El comportamiento de China es un ejemplo significativo. Hace una década, China importaba más productos agrícolas de Estados Unidos que de Brasil; hoy, importa casi el doble de Brasil que de EE. UU. La desvinculación de China del mercado agrícola estadounidense ha ayudado a que Brasil se convierta en el mayor exportador mundial de soya. 

Además, después de que Estados Unidos impusiera aranceles en agosto de 2025 a ciertos productos agrícolas brasileños, Brasil probablemente intensificará su interés en desarrollar mercados de exportación alternativos, incluidos los acuerdos con China. 

Incertidumbre institucional 

Las instituciones multilaterales han contribuido a generar una prosperidad sin precedentes—aunque desigual—al fomentar el comercio global y hemisférico. Sin embargo, hoy estas instituciones están bajo una enorme presión. Las principales potencias comerciales del mundo, junto con muchas naciones más pequeñas, han estado dispuestas a romper normas establecidas y leyes internacionales de comercio, creando una gran incertidumbre en torno a las reglas comerciales. 

Las Américas se benefician más que otras regiones de un sistema global de comercio agrícola abierto. La agricultura siempre ha sido un tema controvertido en las negociaciones comerciales, desde los orígenes del Acuerdo General sobre Aranceles Aduaneros y Comercio (GATT) en la década de 1940. A pesar de ello, las instituciones multilaterales funcionales son de gran valor porque crean un mercado global estable y basado en normas, lo cual posibilita el comercio de alimentos a gran escala. 

Inflación y variabilidad de precios 

La inseguridad alimentaria se agrava con una inflación rápida de precios y una alta variabilidad de precios. Desde los años 2000, los sucesivos choques han generado nuevos niveles base de precios más altos. Los alimentos son menos asequibles, y los hogares enfrentan más dificultades para mantener una dieta saludable. 

La inflación y la volatilidad de los precios de los alimentos son tan problemáticas en las Américas como en otras partes del mundo, y se han convertido en un tema clave social y político. En América Latina, el aumento de los precios de los alimentos ha sido un principal impulsor de la inflación regional, mientras que en América del Norte, el alza de precios ha sido una de las principales causas de la crisis del costo de vida que afecta a muchos hogares. 

Inversión: Innovación, tecnología e infraestructura 

Las innovaciones y aumentos de productividad dentro y fuera del ámbito agrícola —derivadas de los avances tecnológicos, las mejoras en los procesos y las inversiones en infraestructura— han sido fundamentales para aumentar la oferta de alimentos y satisfacer la creciente demanda mundial. 

Desde la década de 1990, las ganancias globales en eficiencia han superado ampliamente otros factores, como el uso de más insumos por hectárea, la expansión del riego en tierras de cultivo o la apertura de nuevas áreas agrícolas (por ejemplo, la conversión de tierras forestales en agrícolas). 

Sin embargo, el crecimiento mundial de la Productividad Total de los Factores (PTF) —una medida de eficiencia que evalúa los insumos agrícolas en relación con los resultados— se está desacelerando. Después de aumentar de forma constante durante décadas, la PTF ha comenzado a caer, especialmente en las Américas. 

Las inversiones en infraestructura en gran parte del hemisferio también siguen siendo insuficientes, con trillones de dólares necesarios para mejorar las redes de transporte, energía y logística. 

Por ejemplo, en Canadá, el déficit de infraestructura, estimado en casi 200 mil millones de dólares, es particularmente relevante para las exportaciones agrícolas de ese país, que incluyen tanto productos alimenticios (como granos) como insumos agrícolas clave (como fertilizantes) producidos en su vasto interior. Reducir los costos y aumentar la eficiencia del transporte de estos bienes hacia los mercados internacionales exigirá modernizar la infraestructura de transporte. 

Cambios demográficos 

El empleo agrícola como proporción del PIB mundial lleva décadas en descenso. El hemisferio occidental ha seguido esta tendencia, lo que demuestra que la agricultura se está volviendo más intensiva en capital y más productiva. 
Hoy se produce más alimento por persona empleada en el sector. 

Sin embargo, existe un efecto generacional negativo asociado a esta tendencia. En todo el mundo, los agricultores están envejeciendo, en parte porque las oportunidades laborales en las fincas están disminuyendo. 
Esta tendencia es más pronunciada en las regiones más ricas, donde la proporción de empleo agrícola es menor, como en la Unión Europea y los Estados Unidos. 

Hacia un futuro con seguridad alimentaria 

El mundo necesita una nueva y audaz forma de pensar sobre la seguridad alimentaria, una que incorpore una comprensión integral de cómo fuerzas divergentes están creando un panorama agroalimentario dinámico e inestable, que moldeará el futuro de maneras impredecibles. 

Ecología 

Un desafío central será garantizar que la producción de alimentos siga siendo rentable y resiliente frente a los cambios ecológicos disruptivos. 
Las sinergias entre los servicios ecosistémicos saludables, una producción agrícola robusta y la rentabilidad pueden encontrarse mediante la aplicación adecuada de imaginación, creatividad, formulación de políticas, inversión y acción práctica, utilizando el conocimiento y la participación de los agricultores y sus comunidades. 

La agricultura es un importante impulsor del cambio ecológico, incluido el uso del suelo y las emisiones de carbono. Sin embargo, al mismo tiempo, la agricultura posee un enorme potencial —bajo las condiciones nacionales e internacionales adecuadas— para ofrecer soluciones sólidas y duraderas. 

Los enfoques sinérgicos incluyen una amplia gama de técnicas y prácticas agrícolas alternativas, así como tecnologías novedosas, entre ellas: 

• La agricultura regenerativa 
• La siembra directa (no-till farming)
• La agroforestería 
• La agricultura climáticamente inteligente 
• El Manejo 4R de Nutrientes (Right sources, Right rates, Right times, Right places: fuentes, dosis, momentos y lugares correctos para aplicar nutrientes). 

Aunque muchos de estos enfoques se consideraban antes experimentales o no comprobados, hoy eso es mucho menos cierto. Por ejemplo, la agricultura regenerativa cuenta con un número creciente de adeptos —incluidos agricultores— que creen que puede generar beneficios ambientales tangibles sin sacrificar los rendimientos en las fincas. Existe una enorme cantidad de tierras y suelos degradados que podrían revitalizarse mediante estas prácticas.

 
En las Américas, la degradación representa un problema serio, pero también una gran oportunidad. Brasil, por ejemplo, posee vastas extensiones de pastizales degradados que podrían volver a ser productivas utilizando métodos regenerativos, lo que ayudaría a reducir la presión sobre la conversión de bosques en las regiones del Cerrado y la Amazonía. 

Comercio, geopolítica e instituciones 

El aumento del proteccionismo y la competencia geopolítica socavan la cooperación entre Estados y erosionan la confianza internacional. El comercio mundial de alimentos depende de la fortaleza de las instituciones multilaterales y de los acuerdos internacionales, que suelen ser contribuyentes subestimados a la seguridad alimentaria global. Hoy, estas instituciones están siendo erosionadas, y el riesgo es la posible caída de todo el sistema multilateral de comercio. 

Una mayor cantidad de diálogo entre los Estados es un antídoto necesario. 
Un objetivo podría ser la creación de nuevas instituciones regionales, empezando, por ejemplo, con los principales productores agrícolas del hemisferio —un posible grupo “A5” compuesto por Estados Unidos, Brasil, México, Canadá y Argentina— para reunir a los ministros de agricultura en torno al diálogo comercial. 

Los resultados de dicho esfuerzo podrían incluir: 

• Pactos regionales de seguridad alimentaria 
• Compromisos de inversión en investigación agrícola
• Acuerdos para evitar políticas comerciales que distorsionen los mercados 

Una idea relacionada es la creación de un Consejo Hemisférico Permanente de Seguridad Alimentaria, que reúna a los gobiernos para coordinar respuestas a crisis y choques, identificar vías para una mayor cooperación científica y tecnológica, y reforzar la norma que reconoce la responsabilidad del hemisferio como principal proveedor de alimentos para el resto del mundo. Instituciones hemisféricas existentes, como la Organización de los Estados Americanos (OEA) y el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID), podrían desempeñar un papel clave en la convocatoria y apoyo de este consejo. 

Inversión en innovación, tecnología e infraestructura

La mejora constante de las actividades dentro y fuera de las fincas —incluyendo el uso innovador de nuevas tecnologías y procesos, así como la inversión de capital en los factores que las posibilitan (como la infraestructura)— es fundamental para garantizar que el hemisferio y el mundo sean seguros en materia alimentaria. 

La agricultura regenerativa y otros sistemas agroalimentarios sostenibles pueden potenciarse mediante la aplicación de tecnologías avanzadas. Algunos ejemplos incluyen: 

• Fuentes de energía alternativas que mejoran las operaciones dentro y fuera de la finca, reduciendo al mismo tiempo la huella de carbono. 
• Herramientas de teledetección geoespacial aplicadas a la agricultura de precisión, que permiten identificar y proteger los activos ecológicos. 
• Robótica y tecnologías digitales móviles (incluyendo una mayor integración de dispositivos portátiles en las prácticas agrícolas) que pueden mejorar la eficiencia y reducir el impacto ambiental. 
• Analítica impulsada por inteligencia artificial (IA), que puede integrar y utilizar flujos de datos provenientes de múltiples aplicaciones. 
• Biotecnologías que mejoran la productividad agrícola y la eficiencia en el uso de nutrientes, al tiempo que protegen activos ecológicos como el suelo y el agua. 

Los agricultores son tanto usuarios como creadores de tecnologías y procesos innovadores, y deben tener la capacidad de adoptar y aprovechar estos avances. Sin embargo, la adopción en el campo no es lo mismo que la invención en laboratorio. 

Las encuestas globales de agricultores muestran que muchos son reacios a adoptar nuevas tecnologías o procesos cuando enfrentan altos costos iniciales de inversión y rendimientos inciertos. 

Por ello, los programas públicos de extensión agrícola, que conectan a investigadores y agricultores para fomentar el aprendizaje mutuo y la transferencia tecnológica, son críticos. Fortalecer los servicios de extensión debe ser una prioridad central para lograr una adopción amplia de innovaciones agrícolas. 

Asimismo, mejorar la infraestructura para fortalecer las cadenas de suministro agroalimentarias es esencial. Se necesitan estrategias que aborden este desafío desde la perspectiva de la resiliencia social e incluso transfronteriza (internacional). 

Los agricultores del futuro 

Para evitar el declive demográfico del sector agrícola, es fundamental que la agricultura se vuelva financieramente, socialmente y culturalmente atractiva para las nuevas generaciones. 

Para muchos jóvenes —especialmente aquellos sin una herencia familiar agrícola—, dedicarse al campo puede parecer anticuado, poco rentable, difícil, ajeno o poco atractivo… o todo lo anterior. 

No existe un conjunto único de soluciones reconocidas para revertir esta tendencia demográfica. Sin embargo, la evidencia global sugiere que una combinación de intervenciones podría ser suficiente: 

• Facilitar el acceso a la agricultura, reduciendo las barreras de entrada, como el acceso limitado al financiamiento asequible y a la tierra cultivable. 
• Cerrar las brechas de conocimiento y habilidades mediante programas de capacitación en campo, becas y programas de aprendizaje. 
• Incentivar la participación de candidatos no tradicionales, como mujeres jóvenes, en la agricultura. 
• Resaltar el papel creciente de la tecnología digital, la robótica, los macrodatos (Big Data), la teledetección, la inteligencia artificial y otras aplicaciones técnicas que resultan atractivas para los jóvenes ambiciosos y con afinidad tecnológica. 

En resumen, el futuro de la agricultura dependerá de su capacidad para integrar la innovación con el atractivo social y económico, de modo que las nuevas generaciones vean en el campo una oportunidad de progreso y liderazgo, no una ocupación del pasado. 

Conclusión breve 

Una cuestión central es si los actores clave del hemisferio —gobiernos, agricultores, sector privado, investigadores, fundaciones, grupos de la sociedad civil y el público— estarán dispuestos a invertir en procesos y enfoques transformadores que reduzcan riesgos a la vez que incrementen la prosperidad, la sostenibilidad y la resiliencia. 

Promover la difusión de innovaciones críticas para la seguridad alimentaria será una parte importante de esta ecuación. Es imperativo que los países y las instituciones multilaterales del hemisferio encuentren financiamiento y compartan el conocimiento tecnológico necesario para apoyar programas adaptados a las necesidades de la región. 

Otros actores no gubernamentales, incluyendo inversores, sector privado, investigadores, científicos, analistas y comunidades agrícolas, también deben actuar de manera concertada para visualizar, crear y fortalecer las herramientas necesarias que aseguren un futuro con seguridad alimentaria. 

Este reporte fue elaborado por el Atlantic Council con el apoyo de The Mosaic Company como parte del proyecto Seguridad alimentaria: alineación estratégica en las Américas

Peter Engelke es experto sénior del Centro Scowcroft para Estrategia y Seguridad del Atlantic Council, y experto sénior del Centro Global de Energía. Su diverso portafolio de trabajo abarca previsión estratégica; geopolítica, diplomacia y relaciones internacionales; cambio climático y sistemas terrestres; seguridad alimentaria, hídrica y energética; tecnologías emergentes y disruptivas y ecosistemas de innovación basados en tecnología; y demografía y urbanización, entre otros temas. Es el creador de la serie de publicaciones extensas más leída del Consejo, Global Foresight. Las afiliaciones previas de Engelke han incluido el Centro de Política de Seguridad de Ginebra, la Fundación Robert Bosch, el Foro Económico Mundial y el Centro Stimson.

Matias Margulis es profesor asociado de la Escuela de Políticas Públicas y Asuntos Globales y miembro de la facultad de Tierras y Sistemas Alimentarios de la Universidad de Columbia Británica. Sus intereses de investigación y docencia se centran en la gobernanza global, el desarrollo, los derechos humanos, el derecho internacional y la política alimentaria. Además de su investigación académica, Margulis tiene una amplia experiencia profesional en el ámbito de la formulación de políticas internacionales y fue representante canadiense ante la Organización Mundial del Comercio, la Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económicos y la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Alimentación y la Agricultura.

La Iniciativa GeoStrategy, alojada dentro del Centro Scowcroft para Estrategia y Seguridad, utiliza el desarrollo estratégico y la previsión a largo plazo para servir como el principal referente y convocante de análisis y soluciones relevantes para las políticas públicas, con el fin de comprender un mundo complejo e impredecible. A través de su trabajo, la iniciativa se esfuerza por revitalizar, adaptar y defender un sistema internacional basado en normas para fomentar la paz, la prosperidad y la libertad durante las próximas décadas.

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Introdução

A segurança alimentar está no núcleo da segurança nacional, regional e global. Quando as sociedades possuem segurança alimentar, elas têm muito mais chances de alcançar estabilidade social e política; quando não a possuem, ocorre o contrário. Felizmente, o hemisfério ocidental — as Américas — é uma região com segurança alimentar. Embora o acesso aos alimentos continue sendo um desafio constante, a abundância de alimentos geralmente caracteriza as Américas, graças a uma base favorável de recursos naturais, condições geopolíticas estáveis e ampla cooperação entre os setores público e privado para aprimorar os métodos de produção e promover a inovação.

Entretanto, o futuro pode não se parecer com o passado. Diversos fatores determinantes de mudança podem alterar a trajetória da segurança alimentar no hemisfério, ameaçando a estabilidade e a produtividade dos atuais sistemas agroalimentares ou, alternativamente, oferecendo a esperança de que esses sistemas se tornem ainda mais fortes e resilientes. Esses fatores incluem o declínio de ecossistemas saudáveis e estáveis, as rápidas transformações na geopolítica, a erosão das instituições multilaterais, o aumento da inflação e da volatilidade dos preços dos alimentos, o potencial da inovação e das tecnologias emergentes, bem como as mudanças geracionais na agricultura e na produção agropecuária.

Embora essas forças se interconectem, muitos líderes as veem como desafios isolados. A interação entre elas multiplica o dinamismo do sistema, o que exigirá que formuladores de políticas públicas, líderes empresariais, investidores e produtores rurais encontrem soluções inovadoras diante de um cenário agroalimentar em rápida transformação — e não totalmente previsível.

Alimentação, sociedade e política           

Nenhum outro bem exerce impacto tão significativo sobre a sociedade e a política quanto os alimentos, pois as pessoas precisam se alimentar todos os dias. Muitas vezes, basta um único grande choque nos preços dos alimentos para alterar as dinâmicas sociais e políticas dentro de um país ou até mesmo em toda uma região. Embora preços elevados de alimentos tenham um impacto desproporcionalmente negativo sobre países vulneráveis, pobres e frágeis, eles também podem afetar de maneira significativa países que, de outra forma, seriam ricos e estáveis.

A definição padrão de segurança alimentar, adotada em 1996 pela Organização das Nações Unidas para a Alimentação e a Agricultura (FAO/Food and Agriculture Organization) e apenas ligeiramente revisada desde então, é:

A segurança alimentar existe quando todas as pessoas, em todos os momentos, têm acesso físico, social e econômico a alimentos seguros, nutritivos e em quantidade suficiente para atender às suas necessidades dietéticas e preferências alimentares, permitindo uma vida ativa e saudável.  

Algumas peças importantes do quebra-cabeça da segurança alimentar estão ausentes nesta formulação. Uma delas é a estabilidade ecológica. A segurança alimentar depende da sustentabilidade dos sistemas terrestres subjacentes, essenciais à produção de alimentos. A segunda é a estabilidade do sistema internacional, especificamente a estabilidade de uma ordem comercial baseada em regras, que garante que os alimentos possam se mover com facilidade de países com excedentes para países com déficits alimentares.

Essas condições não devem ser tratadas como garantidas. Olhando para o futuro, é provável que o mundo se torne mais dinâmico — e não o contrário — com ganhos e perdas. Para prosperar, os sistemas agroalimentares globais precisarão se tornar mais resilientes e adaptáveis.

Segurança alimentar nas américas

O hemisfério ocidental desempenha um papel indispensável na segurança alimentar global.

Lado da oferta: Produção agrícola nas Américas

Os cinco maiores países produtores de culturas agrícolas primárias do mundo (em volume) estão todos nas Américas: Brasil, Estados Unidos, Argentina, México e Canadá. O hemisfério também abriga os principais exportadores das quatro principais culturas globais: soja, milho, trigo e arroz. Além disso, as Américas produzem uma ampla variedade de culturas especiais, incluindo café, abacate, limões, limas, laranjas, mirtilos, cerejas, quinoa, amêndoas e outras.

A agricultura continua sendo uma peça fundamental das economias nacionais nas Américas. Em grande parte dos países, sua participação no PIB é superior a 5%, e em alguns casos ultrapassa 10%.

Lado da demanda: Calorias e nutrição

A definição de segurança alimentar da FAO enfatiza que, se as pessoas não tiverem acesso a uma dieta nutritiva a preços acessíveis e estáveis, elas não estarão em situação de segurança alimentar.

Nas últimas décadas, o hemisfério ocidental reduziu gradualmente seu nível de insegurança alimentar. Comparativamente, teve um bom desempenho. Entre 1990 e 2015, a América Latina e o Caribe foram as únicas regiões do mundo a reduzir a fome pela metade. Atualmente, o hemisfério apresenta desempenho superior à média mundial em indicadores de desnutrição, insegurança alimentar grave e prevalência de emagrecimento em crianças pequenas, (embora vários países apresentem desempenho inferior, incluindo Haiti, Bolívia, Honduras, Equador e Guatemala). Em métricas relacionadas a dietas inadequadas, como sobrepeso e obesidade, as Américas tiveram desempenho menos favorável.

Por fim, as mulheres nas Américas têm uma probabilidade ligeiramente maior do que os homens de enfrentar insegurança alimentar.

Fatores de transformação nas américas, e além

A segurança alimentar nas Américas enfrenta diversos fatores significativos e interconectados de transformação.

Transformações ecológicas

Os riscos ecológicos estão entre as maiores ameaças à segurança alimentar. Os principais riscos incluem mudanças climáticas, desmatamento, perda de biodiversidade e erosão e degradação do solo. Talvez o mais preocupante para a produção agrícola seja a combinação de seca e calor — as chamadas condições “quentes e secas” — que ameaçam se tornar mais frequentes em todo o mundo e nas Américas. Um cenário desanimador para o futuro é a ocorrência de múltiplas falhas nas “breadbaskets” (quebras simultâneas de safra em regiões produtoras de grãos-chave). As Américas, que abrigam vários dos principais produtores mundiais de culturas alimentares básicas, enfrentam essa possibilidade. As mudanças climáticas também terão impacto negativo sobre a maioria das culturas especiais, incluindo café e bananas.

Os agricultores serão impactados de maneiras diferentes, dependendo de onde se localizam no hemisfério, do tamanho e dos recursos de suas propriedades (financeiros e de outra natureza), de serem agricultores de subsistência ou estarem integrados aos mercados nacionais, regionais e globais, e dos tipos de culturas que cultivam. Os pequenos produtores em contextos menos favorecidos estarão sob maior risco, devido ao tamanho reduzido de suas propriedades e à falta de acesso a seguros e a outros recursos.

Potencialmente, transformações ecológicas com impactos em larga escala podem gerar déficits significativos na oferta global de alimentos, provocando pânico nos mercados, elevação de preços, acúmulo de estoques e colapso do comércio. A insegurança alimentar aumentaria drasticamente

Turbulência geopolítica e geoeconômica

Um segundo conjunto de riscos decorre da crescente incerteza geopolítica e geoeconômica. Um sistema comercial aberto e baseado em regras tem sido essencial para o avanço da segurança alimentar, promovendo maior integração econômica — o que beneficia a segurança alimentar por meio de crescimento econômico mais elevado, maior geração de empregos, aumento de renda, redução da pobreza e dinamismo econômico.

Ainda assim, o sistema global de comércio de alimentos tem sido impactado por diversos eventos geopolíticos significativos, incluindo guerras (como a guerra na Ucrânia), políticas comerciais e sanções que geram choques inesperados sobre insumos agrícolas, cadeias de suprimentos e exportações agroalimentares — resultando em aumento dos custos de produção e dos preços dos alimentos.

O sistema de comércio agroalimentar pode estar retornando a uma ordem protecionista anterior aos anos 1990, quando os países costumavam aplicar tarifas elevadas apenas sobre algumas culturas politicamente sensíveis (como açúcar ou algodão). O protecionismo atual, no entanto, é significativamente mais amplo, afetando um número maior de culturas e sendo implementado por uma lista cada vez mais extensa de países.

Os padrões de comércio estão se transformando em função da geopolítica. O comportamento da China é um exemplo significativo. Há uma década, a China importava mais produtos agrícolas dos Estados Unidos do que do Brasil; atualmente, importa quase o dobro do Brasil em relação aos EUA. Esse processo de desacoplamento da China em relação ao mercado agrícola norte-americano contribuiu para que o Brasil se tornasse o maior exportador mundial de soja. Além disso, após a imposição de tarifas pelos Estados Unidos, em agosto de 2025, sobre determinados produtos agrícolas brasileiros, é provável que o Brasil intensifique seu interesse em desenvolver mercados de exportação alternativos para produtos agrícolas, incluindo a China.

Incerteza institucional

As instituições multilaterais têm contribuído para proporcionar uma prosperidade sem precedentes — embora desigual — ao impulsionar o comércio global e hemisférico. No entanto, essas instituições estão agora sob enorme pressão. As maiores potências comerciais do mundo, assim como muitos países menores, têm demonstrado disposição para romper normas estabelecidas e leis internacionais de comércio, gerando incertezas em torno das regras que regem o sistema comercial.

As Américas se beneficiam mais do que outras regiões de um sistema global de comércio aberto de produtos agrícolas. A agricultura sempre foi um tema controverso nas negociações comerciais, desde a origem, na década de 1940, do Acordo Geral sobre Tarifas e Comércio (GATT/General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade). Apesar disso, instituições multilaterais funcionais são valiosas, pois criam um mercado global estável e baseado em regras, que, por sua vez, possibilita o comércio de alimentos em larga escala.

Inflação e volatilidade dos preços

A insegurança alimentar se agrava com a rápida inflação de preços e a elevada volatilidade dos preços. Desde os anos 2000, choques geraram novos patamares mais altos de preços. Os alimentos se tornaram menos acessíveis, e as famílias enfrentam maior dificuldade para consumir uma dieta saudável.

A inflação e a volatilidade dos preços dos alimentos são tão problemáticas nas Américas quanto em outras regiões do mundo, tornando-se uma questão social e política fundamental. Na América Latina, o aumento dos preços dos alimentos tem sido um dos principais impulsionadores da inflação em toda a região, enquanto na América do Norte, o aumento dos preços dos alimentos é uma das principais causas da crise do custo de vida enfrentada por muitas famílias.

Investimento: Inovação, tecnologia e infraestrutura

A inovação dentro e fora das propriedades rurais, aliada ao aumento da produtividade, decorrentes de avanços processuais e tecnológicos, além de melhorias na infraestrutura, têm sido fundamentais para aumentar a oferta de alimentos e atender à crescente demanda. Desde a década de 1990, os ganhos globais de eficiência superaram amplamente os demais fatores, incluindo o uso de mais insumos por hectare de terra, a extensão da irrigação em áreas cultivadas e a expansão de novas terras agrícolas (por exemplo, a expansão da agricultura em áreas anteriormente florestadas).

Infelizmente, o crescimento global da Produtividade Total dos Fatores (PTF — métrica de eficiência que relaciona os insumos agrícolas aos resultados obtidos) está desacelerando. Após décadas de crescimento contínuo, a PTF passou a registrar queda, especialmente nas Américas.

Os investimentos em infraestrutura em grande parte das Américas também permanecem subdesenvolvidos, sendo necessários trilhões de dólares para impulsionar a infraestrutura do hemisfério. No caso do Canadá, por exemplo, o déficit de infraestrutura — estimado em cerca de US$ 200 bilhões — é particularmente relevante para as exportações agrícolas do país, que têm importância global. Essas exportações incluem produtos alimentares como grãos e insumos agrícolas essenciais, como fertilizantes produzidos no vasto interior canadense. Para viabilizar o transporte desses produtos volumosos aos mercados externos de forma mais barata e eficiente, será necessário modernizar a infraestrutura logística do país.

Mudanças demográficas

A participação do emprego agrícola no PIB global vem diminuindo há décadas. O hemisfério ocidental tem seguido essa tendência, evidenciando que a agricultura está se tornando mais intensiva em capital e mais produtiva. Cada vez mais alimentos são produzidos por pessoa contratada no setor.

No entanto, há um efeito geracional negativo associado a essa tendência demográfica. Os agricultores em todo o mundo estão envelhecendo, em parte devido à redução das oportunidades de emprego no campo. Essa dinâmica é mais acentuada nas regiões mais ricas, que apresentam a menor participação relativa de empregos no setor agrícola, como a União Europeia e os Estados Unidos.

Construindo a segurança alimentar do futuro

O mundo precisa de uma nova e ousada forma de pensar sobre a segurança alimentar — uma abordagem que incorpore uma compreensão abrangente de como forças divergentes estão criando um cenário agroalimentar dinâmico e instável, que moldará o futuro de maneiras imprevisíveis.

Ecologia

Um dos principais desafios será garantir que a produção de alimentos continue sendo lucrativa e resiliente diante das mudanças ecológicas disruptivas. É possível encontrar sinergias entre serviços ecossistêmicos saudáveis, uma produção agrícola robusta e lucratividade, por meio da aplicação adequada de imaginação, criatividade, formulação de políticas públicas, investimentos e ações práticas, baseadas na contribuição e no conhecimento de agricultores e comunidades rurais.

A agricultura é um dos principais vetores das mudanças ecológicas, incluindo as relacionadas aos padrões de uso da terra e emissões de carbono. No entanto, ao mesmo tempo, a agricultura também possui um enorme potencial — sob as condições domésticas e internacionais adequadas — para oferecer soluções sólidas e duradouras.

Abordagens sinérgicas incluem uma variedade de técnicas e práticas agrícolas alternativas, bem como tecnologias emergentes, como agricultura regenerativa, cultivo sem revolvimento do solo (no-till farming), sistemas agroflorestais, agricultura inteligente para o clima (climate-smart agriculture) e o Manejo 4R de Nutrientes (4R Nutrient Stewardship) — um conjunto de práticas de gestão de nutrientes que prioriza o uso das fontes corretas, nas doses certas, nos momentos adequados e nos locais apropriados.

Embora muitas dessas abordagens tenham sido consideradas, no passado, experimentais, inovadoras e não comprovadas, hoje essa percepção mudou significativamente. A agricultura regenerativa, por exemplo, conta hoje com um número crescente de adeptos — incluindo produtores rurais — que acreditam em seu potencial para gerar benefícios ambientais concretos sem comprometer a produtividade das lavouras. Há uma quantidade expressiva de terras, incluindo solos, que poderiam ser revitalizadas por meio dessas práticas. Nas Américas, a degradação representa um problema grave, mas também uma grande oportunidade. O Brasil, por si só, possui extensas áreas de pastagens degradadas que poderiam ser reincorporadas à produção agrícola por meio de métodos regenerativos, contribuindo para reduzir a pressão por conversão de florestas nas regiões do Cerrado e da Amazônia. 

Comércio, geopolítica e instituições

O aumento do protecionismo e da competição geopolítica enfraquece a cooperação entre os Estados, desgastando a confiança internacional. O comércio global de alimentos depende da força das instituições multilaterais e dos acordos internacionais — instituições que, muitas vezes, não recebem o devido reconhecimento por sua contribuição à segurança alimentar mundial. Atualmente, essas instituições vêm sendo enfraquecidas, e o risco é o colapso de todo o sistema multilateral de comércio.

Mais diálogo entre os Estados é um antídoto para esse cenário. Um dos objetivos deve ser a construção de instituições alternativas — por exemplo, começando com os maiores produtores agrícolas do hemisfério, um grupo “A5” formado por Estados Unidos, Brasil, México, Canadá e Argentina — para reunir ministros da agricultura em torno de um diálogo sobre comércio. Os resultados potenciais incluem convenções regionais de segurança alimentar, compromissos de investimento em pesquisa agrícola e acordos para evitar as políticas que mais distorcem o comércio.

Uma ideia relacionada é a criação de um conselho hemisférico permanente de segurança alimentar, destinado a reunir governos para discutir respostas a choques, identificar caminhos para uma cooperação científica e tecnológica mais ampla e reforçar a norma que reconhece a responsabilidade do hemisfério perante o restante do mundo como um dos principais fornecedores de alimentos. Instituições hemisféricas, como a Organização dos Estados Americanos (OEA) e o Banco Interamericano de Desenvolvimento (BID), podem ser mobilizadas para convocar esse conselho.

Investimento em inovação, tecnologia e infraestrutura

A melhoria contínua das atividades dentro e fora das propriedades rurais — incluindo o uso inovador de novas tecnologias e processos, além do investimento de capital nos elementos que os viabilizam (como a infraestrutura) — é fundamental para garantir a segurança alimentar no hemisfério e no mundo.

A agricultura regenerativa e outros sistemas agroalimentares voltados à sustentabilidade podem ser aprimorados por meio da aplicação de tecnologias avançadas. Exemplos incluem:

• Fontes alternativas de energia podem aprimorar os sistemas dentro e fora das propriedades rurais, ao mesmo tempo em que reduzem as marcas das emissões de carbono.
• Ferramentas de sensoriamento remoto geoespacial aplicadas à agricultura de precisão podem identificar e contribuir para a preservação dos recursos ecológicos.
• Tecnologias robóticas e digitais móveis (incluindo a integração mais ampla de dispositivos portáteis às práticas agrícolas) podem aumentar a eficiência da produção agrícola, ao mesmo tempo em que reduzem o impacto ambiental.
• As análises orientadas por inteligência artificial podem integrar e utilizar fluxos de dados provenientes de diversas aplicações.
• As biotecnologias podem melhorar a produtividade no campo e a eficiência no uso de nutrientes, ao mesmo tempo em que protegem recursos ecológicos, como o solo e a água.

Os agricultores são tanto utilizadores quanto criadores de tecnologias e processos inovadores, e precisam ter condições de adotar e aplicar essas inovações. A adoção no campo não é o mesmo que a invenção em laboratório. Pesquisas globais indicam que os produtores rurais tendem a hesitar em adotar novas tecnologias e práticas quando os custos iniciais de investimento são elevados e os retornos financeiros são incertos.

Programas de extensão agrícola financiados com recursos públicos — que conectam pesquisadores a produtores, promovendo aprendizado mútuo e transferência de tecnologia — são fundamentais. O fortalecimento dos serviços de extensão deve estar no centro das estratégias para ampliar a adoção de inovações pelos agricultores.

Aprimorar a infraestrutura para fortalecer as cadeias de suprimento do sistema agroalimentar também é fundamental. Há uma necessidade premente de desenvolver estratégias que enquadrem esse desafio em termos de resiliência social e até mesmo transfronteiriça (internacional).

Agricultores para o futuro

Para evitar o declínio demográfico da agricultura, é fundamental tornar a atividade agrícola financeiramente, social e culturalmente atrativa para as novas gerações. Para os jovens — especialmente aqueles sem vínculo familiar com o setor —, a agricultura pode ser percebida como uma atividade ultrapassada, pouco lucrativa, difícil, distante da realidade ou “sem apelo” — ou todas essas coisas ao mesmo tempo.

Não existe um único conjunto de soluções reconhecidas para reverter as tendências demográficas no setor agrícola. No entanto, evidências de diversas partes do mundo indicam que uma combinação de intervenções pode ser eficaz: facilitar o acesso à atividade agrícola, por meio da redução de barreiras de entrada (como o acesso a financiamento acessível e a terras cultiváveis); reduzir lacunas de conhecimento e habilidades por meio de programas de capacitação prática nas propriedades rurais, bolsas de estudo e estágios supervisionados; incentivar a entrada de perfis não tradicionais na agricultura — como jovens mulheres — e destacar o papel cada vez mais relevante desempenhado pelas tecnologias digitais, pela robótica, pelo Big Data, pelo sensoriamento remoto, pela inteligência artificial e por outras aplicações técnicas que despertam o interesse de jovens ambiciosos e familiarizados com tecnologia.

Breve conclusão

Uma questão crucial é saber se os principais atores do hemisfério — governos, produtores rurais, setor privado, pesquisadores, fundações, organizações da sociedade civil e o público em geral — estarão dispostos a investir em processos e abordagens transformadoras capazes de reduzir riscos e, ao mesmo tempo, aumentar a prosperidade, a sustentabilidade e a resiliência.

Promover a difusão de inovações essenciais para a segurança alimentar será um elemento crucial dessa equação. É indispensável que os países e as instituições multilaterais do hemisfério encontrem fontes de financiamento e reúnam o conhecimento tecnológico necessário para apoiar programas adaptados às necessidades específicas da região.

Outras partes interessadas, não governamentais — incluindo investidores, o setor privado, pesquisadores, cientistas, analistas, além de agricultores e comunidades agrícolas — também deve agir em conjunto para conceber, criar e fortalecer as ferramentas que serão necessárias à garantia de um futuro com segurança alimentar.

Este relatório foi produzido pelo Atlantic Council com o apoio da The Mosaic Company como parte do projeto Segurança alimentar: Alinhamento estratégico nas Américas.

Peter Engelke é pesquisador sênior do Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security do Atlantic Council, bem como pesquisador sênior do seu Global Energy Center. Seu portfólio diversificado abrange prospecção estratégica; geopolítica, diplomacia e relações internacionais; mudanças climáticas e sistemas terrestres; segurança alimentar, hídrica e energética; tecnologias emergentes e disruptivas e ecossistemas de inovação baseados em tecnologia; e demografia e urbanização, entre outros temas, sendo o criador da série de publicações de formato longo mais lida do Atlantic Council, Global Foresight. As afiliações anteriores de Engelke incluem o Geneva Centre for Security Policy, a Robert Bosch Foundation, o World Economic Forum e o Stimson Center.

Matias Margulis é professor associado da School of Public Policy and Global Affairs e membro do corpo docente de Sistemas Agrícolas e Alimentares da University of British Columbia. Seus interesses de pesquisa e ensino abrangem governança global, desenvolvimento, direitos humanos, direito internacional e política alimentar. Além de sua pesquisa acadêmica, Margulis possui vasta experiência profissional na área de formulação de políticas internacionais e foi representante canadense na Organização Mundial do Comércio, na Organização para a Cooperação e Desenvolvimento Econômico e na Organização das Nações Unidas para a Alimentação e a Agricultura.

A GeoStrategy Initiative, sediada no Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, utiliza o desenvolvimento de estratégias e a prospecção de longo prazo para servir como principal referência e articuladora de análises e soluções relevantes para políticas públicas, visando a compreensão de um mundo complexo e imprevisível. Por meio de seu trabalho, a iniciativa busca revitalizar, adaptar e defender um sistema internacional baseado em regras, a fim de promover a paz, a prosperidade e a liberdade nas próximas décadas.

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The post O futuro da alimentação nas Américas appeared first on Atlantic Council.

• Introduction
• Food, society, and politics
• Food security in the Americas
• Drivers of change in the Americas and beyond
• Toward a food-secure future
• Conclusion
• About the authors

Introduction

Food security is at the core of national, regional, and global security. When societies are food secure, they stand a much greater chance of social and political stability; when they are food insecure, the opposite is true. Fortunately, the Western Hemisphere—the Americas—is a food-secure region. Although access to food is an ongoing challenge deserving greater attention in every country (as there are hungry people across the hemisphere), food abundance generally characterizes the Americas. Historically, the hemisphere has owed its unique position to several factors: a favorable natural resource base; equally benign geopolitical conditions; and extensive public and private cooperation to improve production methods and support innovation.

However, the future is not guaranteed to look like the past. Several key drivers of change are afoot that could alter the trajectory of hemispheric food security. These drivers bring with them uncertain outcomes, alternatively threatening the stability and productivity of current agrifood systems or offering hope that they could become even stronger and more resilient in the years to come.

This report assesses the future of food in the Western Hemisphere. It focuses on the major uncertainties that are driving change in the agrifood systems within the hemisphere and the world. These drivers represent risks or opportunities, and sometimes both. They include the decline of healthy and stable ecosystems, rapidly changing geopolitics, the erosion of multilateral institutions, increasingly inflationary and volatile food prices, the promise of innovation and emerging technologies, and generational shifts in farming and agricultural production.

These forces are not siloed. Rather, they intersect. There might be an awareness that these individual drivers of change represent obstacles to (or opportunities for) achieving durable food-security solutions in the future, yet many leaders see them as isolated challenges rather than as intersecting ones, obscuring the bigger picture.

The drivers discussed in this report therefore are not just accumulating layers of risks and opportunities. Rather, their interaction multiplies the system’s dynamism. This emerging dynamism will require policymakers, business leaders, investors, and farmers to find innovative solutions in the face of a rapidly changing, and not entirely predictable, agrifood landscape. Yet such outlooks may not arise. Complacency is a big risk, if leaders believe that the status quo will continue to improve, requiring changes only at the margins. In such a situation, the hemisphere would become far more vulnerable to unexpected shocks because there would not be enough appreciation for how ecological, technological, geopolitical, and institutional changes are reshaping the future.

This concern is not hyperbolic. A very recent external shock—the COVID-19 pandemic—erased major progress that the hemisphere had made on reducing hunger, which should remind us that the foundations of food security remain shaky. Looking ahead, there is little margin for error, as even moderate shocks can have profound consequences.

Food, society, and politics

Food security is at the core of national, regional, hemispheric, and global security. When societies are food secure, they stand a much greater chance of social and political stability; when they are food insecure, the opposite is true.

This axiom, although a simple one, has been demonstrated time and again throughout history. High food prices occasioned by war, poor harvests, or high taxation of the peasantry (or all three) preceded the onset of the French Revolution in 1789 and the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, to name just a couple of famous examples from history.

Today, despite far greater agricultural production at national and global levels, such disturbances still recur with alarming frequency: The 2007–2008 food riots across Africa followed commodity price spikes for agricultural inputs (oil, principally) that inflated the price of food; the 2010–2011 Arab Spring was preceded by food-price spikes owing to multiple breadbasket harvest failures across several world regions; and Russia’s war in Ukraine, which disrupted wheat, fertilizer, and natural gas exports, blocked the flow of agricultural inputs and outputs and dramatically raised food prices globally. Millions of additional people became food insecure around the world.

No other good has such an impact on society and politics as food because people need to eat every day. “Food riots are as old as civilization itself,” as one food security analyst summarized the impact of food on social and political stability. Often, it will only take a single big food-price shock to change social and political dynamics within a country or even an entire region. Although high food prices have a disproportionately negative impact on vulnerable, poor, and fragile countries, they also can have an outsized impact on otherwise wealthy and stable ones. Japan offers a recent example. In July 2025, soaring rice prices in Japan directly contributed to the defeat of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party in parliamentary elections.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) adopted a definition of food security at the 1996 World Food Summit (see box 1 for the history of the concept), which has persisted with only slight revision:

• Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.

This definition contains four main dimensions, or pillars:

1. The physical, supply-side availability of food, typically assessed at the national level and consisting of domestic agricultural production plus food imports.
2. Household access to food, which is dependent on household incomes and food prices (set by a combination of market and nonmarket forces).
3. Nutritional intake by individuals, which is not the same thing as caloric intake; nutrition depends in part on dietary diversity.
4. Stability of the first three pillars over time.

A couple important pieces of the food security puzzle are missing from this formulation. One is ecological stability. Food security depends on the sustainability of the underlying Earth systems that are essential to food production. Maintaining the integrity of these Earth systems, including the integrity of the world’s soils, water, biodiversity, nutrients, and atmospheric conditions (precipitation and temperature, primarily), is critical. A second missing piece is the stability of the international systems, specifically stability of a rules-based trading order that ensures that food moves easily from food-surplus to food-deficit countries. Such a trading order improves food security through enhancing agriculture productivity and (under emergency conditions) enables swift distribution of humanitarian aid in the form of food. Such a system helps to avoid trade conflicts and establishes international norms for the notion that food security is in the collective interest and responsibility of all parties.

The capacity of the current international system to encourage global production and trade in food has increased over time, dramatically so over the past several decades: The FAO reported that in 2021, the world traded some 5,000 trillion kilocalories of food, more than double the amount that it did in 2000. A central piece of this equation has been the existence of key multilateral institutions that have had the credibility and authority to provide a forum for states to negotiate trade agreements, resolve trade disputes, and monitor and enforce commitments.

None of these conditions should be treated as a given. Looking ahead, the odds are high that the world will become more dynamic rather than less so, with no guarantee that dynamism will have more upside than downside. To adapt and thrive within changing conditions (with both positive and negative impacts), the world’s agrifood systems will need to become more resilient and adaptable. The good news is that humankind has the tools—or can develop the necessary tools—to ensure such outcomes.

Food security in the Americas

The Western Hemisphere is in a fortunate position regarding agriculture and food. Its natural endowment is significant, consisting of arable soils and plentiful rainfall distributed across numerous regions suitable for agriculture (temperate, subtropical, and tropical). The hemisphere’s highly productive agriculture benefits from relatively stable political and economic environments, medium-to-high income levels, and reasonably well-functioning domestic and international markets, all stimulated by public, private, and academic sector investments in agricultural research and development (R&D).

As a result, the hemisphere’s aggregate production capacity in both staple and specialized crops gives it an indispensable role in providing domestic food security but also meeting the world’s food needs.

There are several caveats to this picture, which this report endeavors to make clear. First, several driving forces are changing baseline conditions that will alter the hemisphere’s future, for better or worse. Second, the Americas might be fortunate in many respects, but it is not a single bloc of countries acting in unison. Trade disputes, unfortunately, are becoming a sharper and more common part of the hemisphere’s diplomatic landscape, for example. Finally, as this report also makes clear, food security is not just about supply-side agricultural production. Food insecurity remains a problem in the Americas as it does everywhere in the world.

Supply side: Agricultural production
in the Americas

The five largest primary crop producing countries (by tonnage) in the world are all in the Americas: Brazil, the United States, Argentina, Mexico, and Canada. As shown in table 1 and figure 1, the hemisphere also contains top exporters of all four primary crops: soybeans, corn, wheat, and rice. The largest producers of food in the Americas are, therefore, critical for ensuring global food security. What happens in the region matters greatly, because developments in the Americas have an outsized effect on global trade in food.

In addition to the largest primary crop producers, the Americas also lead in the production of a wide range of specialty crops, including coffee, avocados, lemons, limes, oranges, blueberries, cranberries, quinoa, almonds, and more. Numerous countries in the hemisphere are leading producers of these crops. For example, Peru is in the top three global producers of avocados, blueberries, and quinoa, while Colombia is a leading global producer of coffee, sugar cane, avocados, and agave fibers.

For many countries in the Americas, agriculture continues to be a critical piece of their national economies. As shown in figure 2, agriculture’s share of gross domestic product (GDP) is above five percent in most countries and is above ten percent in a handful of countries in Central America, the Caribbean, and South America. Over the 2023–2024 period, agriculture’s share of Brazil’s GDP was 6.24 percent while its agricultural exports represented nearly half (49 percent, at $164 billion) of Brazil’s total exports by value. Both figures demonstrate the spectacular growth in Brazil’s intensive farming, especially of soybeans (see also box 2).

Demand side: calories and nutrition

The FAO’s definition of food security, which is broadly accepted among experts, emphasizes that food security is as much about access and affordability, especially by vulnerable populations, as it is about the aggregate production of food. If people cannot access a nutritious diet at affordable and stable prices, they will not be food secure.

In recent decades, the Western Hemisphere has gradually decreased its level of food insecurity. In comparative terms, it has done well. Between 1990 and 2015, for example, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) was the only region in the world to reduce hunger by half.

As shown in table 2, the FAO’s latest data indicates that the Western Hemisphere continues to be relatively food secure. Over 2022–2024, the two major subregions in the Americas, North America on the one hand and LAC on the other, performed better than the world average. This is reflected in several key metrics related to the reduction of caloric intake of food, in particular undernourishment (calorie deprivation over time), severe food insecurity (a measurement of households going without food for periods of time), and the prevalence of wasting in small children (an indicator of undernourishment). On metrics related to poor diets such as overweight and obesity (both of which are indicators of too many calories rather than too few), the Americas performed less well.

These outcomes are consistent with levels of wealth. Although an oversimplification, as national wealth increases, per capita consumption of food rises. Most countries in the Americas are classified by the World Bank as either high- or upper middle-income countries. (Note, however, that lower-income populations, including those within both lower- and higher income economies, are at increasing risk of obesity, in part due to easy availability of inexpensive processed foods with low nutritional value.)

There are several countries in the Americas that underperform. According to the FAO, over half (54.2 percent) of Haitians are undernourished, while just 10.7 percent of adults are obese (compared with over 40 percent of US citizens); Haiti is the most fragile state in the Americas. Although undernourishment is much lower across the hemisphere now than in previous decades, it nonetheless remains high in several countries including Bolivia (21.8 percent), Honduras (14.8 percent), Ecuador (12.1 percent), and Guatemala (11.8 percent).

There is a gendered dimension to deprivation, with women being more likely to be food insecure than men. This difference worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing to a 3.3 percent gap between the genders in Latin America in 2021, before reducing again by 2024. In North America, the gap has worsened every year since 2020, from 0.1 percent in 2020 to 0.5 percent in 2024.

Drivers of change in the Americas and beyond

Strategic foresight asserts that the future likely will not conform to our expectations. It is risky to assume that the future will consist of a simple linear extrapolation of one or two current trends. Hence, the discipline focuses as much on the intersections of the drivers that together will drive multiple possible futures. Food security in the Americas is no different, as there are several significant intersecting drivers of change that will
shape the hemisphere’s future.

Changing ecology

Ecological risks are among the greatest threats to food security in the Americas. A rapidly changing climate creates the primary set of risks, from rising heat and worsening drought and flooding. Other ecological risks exist as well in specific subregions, for example deforestation, biodiversity loss, and soil erosion and degradation.

Of these changing ecological conditions, perhaps the worst for agricultural production is the combination of drought and heat, or “dry-hot” conditions. Trend data show that such conditions are becoming more frequent and intense. An Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) study of drought patterns, released in July 2025, found that the share of land globally exposed to drought has doubled since 1900.

Dry-hot conditions threaten to become more frequent across the Americas. In North America, for example, scientists estimate that the now decades-long megadrought that has impacted northern Mexico and the southwestern United States might be the worst in 1,200 years. In South America, the frequency of dry, hot, and flammable weather has increased across much of the continent since the early 1970s. Such changes are highly consequential for agriculture. A 2021 study, for instance, showed that increases in Brazil’s dry-hot conditions, combined with the impacts of deforestation on temperature and rainfall, have already pushed 28 percent of the country’s agricultural land beyond its optimum productive range, with further projections of 51 percent by 2030 and 74 percent by 2060.

One of the more discouraging climate-driven outcomes is the possibility, even probability, of future multiple breadbasket failures (i.e., “simultaneous harvest failures across major crop-producing regions” around the world). Climate change likely will make such failures more common in the future. A 2021 study projected that the probability of multiple harvest failures globally was “as much as 4.5 times higher by 2030 and up to 25 times higher by 2050.”21 Another, focusing on the impacts that oscillations such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) might have under future warming, concluded that shifting ENSO and NAO patterns might “expose an additional 5.1–12% of global croplands” to such oscillations, with strong ENSO/NAO negative phases “likely to cause simultaneous yield losses across multiple key food-producing regions.”

The Americas, home to several of the world’s major producers of staple crops including soybeans, corn, and wheat, faces the possibility of multiple breadbasket failures. It is entirely possible that in the years to come, severe dry-hot conditions could strike simultaneously in the United States, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina. The consequences for agricultural production and global food security would be enormous.

A changing climate also will negatively impact most—perhaps all—of the other crops grown across the Americas. Coffee and banana production, to name just two examples, likely will be severely affected by increased heat and altered precipitation patterns. A recent scientific study conducted by the University of Exeter forecasts that 60 percent of the regions currently producing bananas—including regions in Central America—will be unable to do so before the end of this century, owing principally to increased temperature. The world will not have to wait nearly that long to see such effects because climate-driven impacts are already occurring. In 2024, the FAO reported a 38.8 percent annual increase in global coffee prices “primarily driven by supply-side disruptions, stemming from adverse weather conditions” including drought, heat, and flooding in major coffee-producing countries including Brazil, Vietnam, and Indonesia.

Because farmers are on the receiving end of changing ecological conditions, it is critical to understand how they are impacted by such change and how they process those changes.

Doing so will assist in defining the policy and investment options with the greatest likelihood of mass adoption on farms and in farming communities. Farmers will be impacted differently depending on where in the hemisphere they farm, their farm sizes and resources (financial and otherwise), whether they are subsistence farmers or integrated into national, regional, and global markets, and the types of crops they grow. Taken together, farmers do not experience changing ecological conditions in the same way at the same time. Smallholder farmers in poorer settings, for example, will be at greatest risk from climate-driven impacts given the small size of their landholdings and a lack of access to insurance and other sources of resilience. It follows that farmers’ perceptions of ecological impacts on their farming operations will not follow a straight line. Farmers will parse the impacts of environmental hazards such as drought, heat, or flooding differently.

In sum, ecological change dramatically increases the risk of declining crop yields while shifting the locations where crops can be grown. Potentially, ecological change with impacts at scale could generate significant shortfalls in global food supply, causing market panics, high prices, hoarding, and a breakdown of trade. Food insecurity would spike.

Geopolitical and geoeconomic turbulence

A second set of risks stems from rising geopolitical and geoeconomic competition and uncertainty. An open, rules-based trading system has been essential to improving hemispheric and global food security. Trade in that system has precipitated more economic integration of the region—more bilateral trade and investment agreements, greater investment flows, and exchange of technical know-how—which benefits food security via higher economic growth, greater employment opportunities and rising incomes, poverty reduction, and general economic dynamism. It also has allowed governments to see that a set of policies, including more focus on innovation and competitiveness and less on trade distortions and protectionism, is the best path forward.

Yet this trajectory is now subject to geopolitical risk. Over the past two decades, the global food trading system has been disrupted by several significant events including wars and related phenomena (e.g., civil strife, terrorism). Such events generate (largely) unanticipated shocks to agricultural inputs, supply chains, and agrifood exports, resulting in higher production prices and, therefore, consumer prices. The most well-known and significant of these events is the full-scale war in Ukraine, which upon its onset in 2022 immediately resulted in higher global prices for key commodities including natural gas and nitrogen fertilizers (because Russia is the world’s third ranking natural gas exporter and natural gas is a critical input for nitrogen fertilizers); potash fertilizers (primarily from Russia and Belarus) and wheat (before the war, Ukraine was the world’s seventh-largest wheat exporter).

Although global input markets, for example for fertilizers, are broadly resilient, at the same time they also clearly are affected by geopolitical turbulence arising from trade policies, sanctions, shocks such as wars, and other phenomena. While the war in Ukraine is an important case, it hardly exhausts the list of current examples. In July 2025, the World Bank said that sanctions and restrictive trade policies “are playing an increasingly significant role in reshaping global fertilizer markets,” citing China’s discretionary export restrictions on nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers to protect its domestic agriculture, and the European Union’s (EU) June 2025 tariffs against Belarusian and Russian fertilizers to reduce EU dependence on these countries.

An even more difficult problem is the risk that the hemispheric and global agrifood trading system is returning to a protectionist order, which risks the benefits that have accrued since the emergence of a rules-based trading model in the 1990s for agriculture established under the World Trade Organization (WTO) 1994 Agreement on Agriculture. Under that model, countries tended to place high tariffs only on a few politically sensitive crops (such as sugar or cotton). Yet today’s rising protectionism is much broader, affecting a larger number of crops, including staple crops, and implemented by an ever-longer list of countries. The result is likely to undermine food security by increasing food prices—with impacts falling most harshly on poor households—and reducing profitability by raising both producers’ and exporters’ costs, lowering investment and decreasing productivity.

Over the past several decades, the largest agricultural producers in the Americas, including the United States and Brazil, have become the world’s largest agrifood exporting nations. Southern Cone states have pushed agricultural exports as key pieces of their export-led growth strategies, especially to China given its rapidly growing demand for commodities. With such a high dependence on global agricultural exports, the biggest agricultural producers in the Western Hemisphere ought to be the most heavily invested in a global agrifood free-trading regime. Tariff and nontariff barrier uncertainty negatively impacts agrifood producers, processors, distributors, and consumers.

These disruptions have other distorting effects. Trade patterns within the Americas, and between the Americas and the rest of the world, are shifting because of trade tensions. China’s behavior in international agricultural markets is a significant example, with direct relevance to the Western Hemisphere. A decade ago, China imported more agricultural goods from the United States than from Brazil; today, China imports almost twice as much from Brazil as from the United States, including in soybeans and corn. China’s shift toward non-US sources (including but not limited to Brazil) began even before the 2018 trade dispute with the United States. In addition to supply diversification, China also has dramatically increased its stockpiling of food (grains, soybeans, and frozen meat), which it defines as a strategic good.

Further, China’s decoupling from the US agricultural market has had major consequences for trade patterns in that it has helped Brazil become the world’s largest exporter of soybeans. Since the 2018 Sino-American trade dispute, Brazil’s global soybean exports have increased by 40 percent, while those from the US have remained flat.

Geopolitical and geoeconomic turbulence has distorting effects on global trade in food. The biggest concern for global food security is the impact on food prices, both in terms of inflation but also price variability. Such turbulence also can generate trade disputes and, therefore, contribute to fractured relations among states. After the United States levied tariffs in August 2025 of up to 50 percent against certain Brazilian agricultural goods including coffee, beef, and sugar, Brazil immediately asked the WTO for consultation, arguing that the tariffs violate international trade rules. A likely immediate effect of the tariffs is to hasten Brazil’s interest in developing alternative markets for its agricultural products, including with China. A second and (often) underappreciated concern is that unstable trade rules and fluctuating market access make it more difficult for farmers to plan and make production and investment decisions, increasing their economic uncertainty.

Geopolitical tensions and rising trade protectionism are also likely to lead to slower economic growth. This is important because in the Americas, as everywhere, economic growth coupled with rising incomes are keys to increased food security. If slower economic growth combines with higher food prices owing to increasing trade friction, then there is a greater risk of more food insecurity in the future. International food trade is being shaped increasingly by geopolitical considerations rather than market signals, thereby realigning trade patterns in unpredictable ways.

Institutional uncertainty

Multilateral institutions are a hallmark of the current international order. Most of the world’s biggest and most important institutions that exist today were created after 1945. Although not without criticism, much of it deserved, these institutions have been central to building a global order which has delivered unprecedented—if also uneven—prosperity. When it comes to trade, the data say as much: Today’s global trade is 45 times by volume and 382 times by value greater than it was in 1950. Moreover, since the mid-1990s, global trade growth has accelerated, averaging 4 percent growth by volume annually and 5 percent by value.

However, the multilateral institutions that have facilitated this growth in trade now are under enormous pressure from all sides. One reason is that the world’s largest trading powers as well as many smaller ones have been willing to bend or even break established norms and international trade law. China, for example, has taken advantage of its status as a developing country under the WTO to engage in unfair practices, including massive subsidies, heavy use of state-owned enterprises, forced technology transfer, and protection of its domestic market (for example, limiting foreign companies’ and investors’ access to its technology and financial markets).36 Further, the United States is preventing the WTO’s Appellate Body from functioning as designed, preventing the organization from enforcing its own rules.

Such developments are important because they create uncertainty surrounding trading rules and thereby increase friction among countries when it comes to trade. Even worse, these developments create space wherein the breaking of rules by some countries prompts others to believe they can as well. Both India and Indonesia, for example, recently have taken advantage of the lack of a functioning Appellate Body to
implement policies that likely are in violation; Indonesia instituted a ban on nickel exports (to induce nickel processors to relocate to Indonesia) while India heavily subsidized steel and pharmaceuticals. By some estimates, two-thirds of initial WTO rulings made about trade disputes have been appealed, but the Appellate Body cannot convene itself.

The decline of multilateral institutions is significant because the Americas benefit more than other regions from an open global trading system in agricultural goods, per table 1 above. Agriculture always has been a controversial topic in trade negotiations, extending back to the origins of the Global Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in the 1940s. Despite this fact, functional multilateral institutions are valuable because
they create a stable, rules-based global marketplace that in turn enables trade in food at scale.

In sum, a breakdown of multilateral institutions and rising protectionism portend headwinds for agriculture in the years to come, increasing risks and possibly disincentivizing investments by farmers. Such developments erode the open agrifood trading system that globalization made possible. The Americas have utilized open trade to expand agriculture production and exports and, therefore, is most at risk from the unraveling of that system

Price inflation and variability

The price of food is a core metric for food security: For the world’s consumers, the most desirable food prices are both low and stable over time. Food insecurity is made worse when the opposite applies: rapid price inflation combined with high price variability. Unfortunately, as shown in figure 3, the latter situation has characterized global food prices for much of the past quarter century.

Since the 2000s, shocks have occurred with such frequency that prices settle on a new higher baseline rather than returning to previous levels. The FAO noted this trend as early as 2009: Prior to the 2006–2008 global food-price shock, “real prices [in food had] shown a steady long-run downward trend punctuated by typically short-lived price spikes.” But by the mid-2000s, the FAO observed, this trend no longer held. As of 2008, its own food-price index “still averaged 24 percent above 2007 and 57 percent above 2006.” Indeed, as shown in figure 3, since the mid-2000s, global food prices have risen to a new and higher level after each exogenous shock. The most recent global shocks—the COVID-19 pandemic followed by the full-scale invasion of Ukraine—has had the greatest impact on sustained high food prices.

The upward trend in the price of food has important implications for food security around the world. Food is less affordable; households have more difficulty consuming a healthy diet, and they are forced to switch to less nutritious foods and/or reduce their total consumption of food. This cost-of-living crisis erodes food security gains and threatens to make societies less stable.

Food-price inflation and volatility is as problematic in the Americas as elsewhere in the world, increasing food insecurity and becoming a key social and political issue. In Latin America, rising food prices have been a major driver of inflation across the region. In some cases, such as Argentina, food prices have contributed to extreme inflation rates. In North America, food prices also continue to rise and are a major cause of the cost-of-living crisis experienced by many households.

Investment: Innovation, technology, and infrastructure

Public- and private-sector investments in on- and off-farm innovation and productivity have been critical enablers of modern agrifood systems. A question to be answered in the years to come is whether such investments will increase agricultural productivity and sustainability enough to match or exceed demand-side pressures for more food (from population and income growth), even as baseline conditions from other drivers—ecological, institutional, geopolitical—become more challenging.

Historically, on- and off-farm innovation and productivity increases, which stem from process and technological developments plus infrastructural improvements, have been fundamental to increasing the supply of food to meet rising demand. Since the 1990s, global efficiency gains have been the largest contributors to global growth in agricultural output. Efficiency gains have far outstripped the other contributors, including the use of more inputs per hectare of land, greater extension of irrigation to cropland, and expansion of new agricultural land (e.g., expansion of agriculture into previously forested lands).

In agriculture, efficiency is gauged using total factor productivity (TFP), a metric of inputs relative to outputs. If total on-farm output (e.g., volume of crops produced) is growing faster than inputs (defined as labor, capital, and material resources), then TFP is increasing.

That is the good news. The bad news is that global TFP growth is now slowing. After steadily increasing from a 0.55 percent annual growth rate during the 1970s to a peak of 1.97 percent annual growth rate in the 2000s, TFP has since fallen back to 1.1 percent annually (figure 4). Within the Americas, the picture is even more dire. Between 2011 and 2020, TFP increased by only 0.9 percent annually in Latin America and the Caribbean. In North America, typically at the global forefront in productivity and efficiency gains, TFP grew over the same period by just 0.2 percent annually. The Americas significantly lagged the global average (figure 5).

The decline in TFP over the past fifteen years is a worrisome development, as it threatens to undermine progress toward an elusive goal, which is to produce enough food to meet growing global demand while simultaneously retaining on-farm profitability and reducing environmental impact. Analysts at the US Department of Agriculture recently made this argument. “At the global level,” they wrote, “improvements in agricultural productivity have not been rapid or universal enough to make a significant dent in the effect of agriculture on the environment.” If TFP were to continue to slow down in the future, the impact “could [negatively] affect food prices, [lead to] the expansion of agriculture into more natural lands, and [threaten] global food security.”

Nor is underinvestment in innovation the only form of investment risk. Despite the hemisphere’s reliance on trade in agriculture and food, infrastructure across much of the Americas remains underdeveloped. The so-called infrastructure gap in the Americas refers to how the hemisphere’s ports, railways, bridges and roads, telecommunications, and other forms of infrastructure are insufficiently robust in kind, quality, and/or maintenance. In 2021, for example, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) estimated that countries in Latin America and the Caribbean alone would need to invest $2.2 trillion in “water and sanitation, energy, transportation, and telecommunications infrastructure” to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The IDB’s estimate included not just funds for new infrastructural investment but for maintenance and replacement as well (at some 41 percent of the total).

North America is not exempt from this problem, as both Canada and the United States face large infrastructure deficits. As is well-known, for decades the United States has largely underinvested in infrastructure. Despite passage of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which directed the federal government to spend some $1.2 trillion over five years on infrastructure, investment levels in the United States will remain insufficient absent systematic changes in how funds are raised by local, state, and federal governments.

Likewise, in Canada, the infrastructure deficit, which is estimated at $196 billion, is of particular importance to that country’s globally important agricultural exports, which include foodstuffs such as grains (wheat, principally) and key agricultural inputs such as fertilizers, largely produced in the country’s vast interior. Getting bulky grains and inputs to external markets more cheaply and efficiently will require Canada to upgrade its transport infrastructure, including railway lines, bridges, and ports, which are key in all circumstances but especially so during periods when unexpected disruptive factors, such as recent port labor strikes or extreme weather events, create choke points that necessitate rerouting. The recent announcements by the government of Canada to expand the Port of Montreal is a step in the right direction. However, significantly greater ambition will be required to push Canada’s infrastructure investments to levels comparable to other leading OECD countries.

Policymakers, the private sector, farmers, investors, and the scientific and technological communities will need to find solutions to these challenges. Doing so will require some combination of enhanced public and private investment in on- and off-farm infrastructure, R&D, improved piloting and scaling of new technologies, and implementation of policies to encourage farmers to become more innovative, productive, and efficient.

Demographic shifts

Agricultural employment as a share of global GDP has been trending downward for decades, owing to the ongoing mechanization of farmwork, increasing urbanization and industrialization, and other factors. According to the World Bank, in 1991, 43 percent of the world’s population was employed in agriculture. By 2023, that figure had fallen by almost half, to 26 percent.

The Western Hemisphere has followed this trendline. In Latin America and the Caribbean, agricultural employment fell over the same 1991–2023 period from 21 percent to 13 percent and in North America from 2.8 percent to 1.6 percent. As can be expected, given differences in income levels, structure of national economies, and crop specialization, there are widespread differences in agricultural employment across the hemisphere. In 2023, several countries still had employment levels in agriculture above 20 percent: Haiti (by far the most, at 45 percent), Ecuador, Guatemala, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Peru, and Honduras. In contrast, the hemisphere’s biggest producers of staple crops—the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina—are all well below the global average of 26 percent, in most cases in low single digits.

This demographic transition underscores how agriculture is becoming more capital-intensive and productive: more food is being produced per person employed in the sector. The largest food producers also typically have the lowest share of farmers and agricultural workers employed in the national economy, as the United States, Canada, and Argentina all show (each is at less than 2 percent of their populations employed
in agriculture).

However, there is a generational downside to this demographic trend: farmers worldwide are aging in part because on-farm employment opportunities are declining. The trend appears to be worse in the wealthiest regions having the smallest share of employment in agriculture. In the EU, for example, only 11.9 percent of farmers were under forty years old in 2020.52 In the United States, only 9 percent were under thirty-five years of age in 2022.

Toward a food-secure future

The world needs a bold new way of thinking about food security, one that incorporates a comprehensive understanding of how divergent forces, including those identified in this report, are creating a dynamic and unsettled agrifood landscape that will shape the future in unpredictable ways. To avoid negative future scenarios and increase the odds of positive ones, what is needed is a shift in the prevailing debate about food security that incorporates all these driving forces. That debate should stress that these forces combine in important and not entirely predictable ways to disrupt agrifood systems.

Such an outlook recognizes, for example, that geopolitical tensions add risk to other phenomena such as climate change to make an already perilous situation more difficult.

Policymakers and other leaders across the Americas should recognize that these drivers intersect and combine, in turn reshaping the hemisphere’s agrifood outlook. The challenge is clear: They will need to develop strategies and design policies that will lead to resilient and sustainable food systems that minimize the impact of shocks—both natural and human-made—on the production, distribution, and access to food.

Ecology

As stated above in the introduction, a central challenge will be to ensure that food production can remain profitable and resilient in the face of disruptive change. Ecological changes and the environmental resources that the world relies upon for productive and healthy agriculture systems are critical pieces of this equation.

A key task concerns how best to frame this problem for policymakers, business leaders, and farmers, to relay that ecological changes threaten to undermine progress toward a food-secure future. How these stakeholders act through policies, investments, and practices to mitigate and adapt to ecological changes will go a long way to determining whether the hemisphere’s future is food secure or insecure.

Farming is inherently uncertain because of the vagaries of weather and disease, so efforts to minimize the instability caused by ecological changes, including climate change, extreme weather, disasters, and other phenomena, will help farmers to manage this complex set of risks. Integration across risks is an important way to frame the problem, not only because the problem itself is multifaceted but so too are the solutions. Synergies among healthy ecosystem services, robust agricultural production, and profitability can be found with the right application of imagination, creativity, policymaking, investment, and on-the-ground application by utilizing input and knowledge from farmers and farming communities.

Agriculture is a major driver of ecological change, including land-use patterns and carbon emissions. Yet at the same time, agriculture also holds enormous potential, under the right domestic and international conditions, to provide robust and lasting solutions. Doing so would require that policymakers, investors, farmers, scientists, and technologists and society writ large coordinate efforts toward effecting scalable change.

Synergistic approaches include a range of alternative farming techniques and practices as well as novel technologies that collectively hold great potential not only to perform at a high level of output but at the same time go some way toward repairing the natural world. These strategies, which overlap in practice, include regenerative agriculture, no-till farming, agroforestry, climate-smart agriculture, and 4R nutrient stewardship practices (referring to nutrient-management practices focusing on the right sources, right rates, right times, and right places for nutrients). Such approaches aim to improve resource efficiency, reduce waste, protect ecosystems and ecosystem services including freshwater sources, soils, and biodiversity, while retaining profitability. Through the more efficient use of resources, carbon sequestration in soils, land and forest conservation, and improved management (for example, of water and waste processes), these strategies also can mitigate the agricultural sector’s significant greenhouse gas emissions.

Although many of these approaches once were considered experimental, novel, and unproven, that is far less the case today. Regenerative farming, for example, now has more adherents (including farmers) who believe that the diverse methods falling under it deliver tangible environmental benefits without sacrificing on-farm yields—a claim that is also drawing greater financial-sector interest and investment. A global survey of farmers, conducted in 2024 by McKinsey and Company found that over three-quarters of farmers in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, and the United States were adopting no-till or reduced tillage practices. Farmers’ willingness to adopt these and other regenerative practices were “underpinned by economics,” according to McKinsey, with respondents in the Americas ranking increased yields as their primary motive for adoption, followed by lower production costs and additional revenue streams.

There is an enormous amount of land worldwide and in the Americas that could be revitalized through such approaches. Land degradation, which by extension means the degradation of the world’s soils, is a massive problem. The world is losing at least one hundred million hectares of productive land each year, with some forecasts suggesting up to 95 percent of the world’s arable land could be in some kind of degraded state
by 2050.

In the Americas, degradation is a serious problem but also a big opportunity for soil and land regeneration. Brazil alone has enormous swathes of degraded pastureland. Embrapa, Brazil’s agricultural research agency, estimated in 2024 that the country has approximately twenty-eight million hectares of degraded pastureland (classified as intermediately or severely degraded). Bringing this land back into production using regenerative methods would help alleviate forest conversion pressures in Brazil’s Cerrado and Amazon regions.

One important consideration for policymakers is that if trade in agriculture and food becomes more costly, there is a risk that the fiscal capacity to invest in policies to make agrifood systems more productive and resilient in the face of ecological change will be reduced. Hence, this report focuses on understanding how these issues are linked and addressing them through greater international cooperation to promote more sustainable and resilient agrifood systems.

Trade, geopolitics, and institutions

Rising protectionism and geopolitical competition undermine the incentives for states to cooperate. Trade tensions risk spilling over into diplomatic tension, eroding international trust. In such conditions, states will be less likely to collaborate, which can sour international relations. If the world’s biggest economies are becoming more protectionist and eschewing a rules-based trading system, a zero-sum world returns, with many states, concerned by protectionist measures placed on them from elsewhere, believing they must adopt such policies. More dialogue among states, not less, is an antidote.

An increasing number of governments around the world appear to no longer see the equation in these terms. China, for example, is seeking greater self-reliance in food through stockpiling and other measures. It also has weaponized tariffs for its own purposes, imposing large tariffs on grain imports from Australia and more recently on Canada. These are not isolated incidents but part of how China exercises its power, given its outsized impact on world markets.

As articulated in this report, global trade in food depends on the strength of multilateral institutions and international agreements. These institutions are often underappreciated contributors to global food security. Today these institutions are being eroded by rising geopolitical and diplomatic conflict and other forces. The rapid rate of their erosion is worrisome.

Despite the WTO’s flaws—of which there are many—it remains valuable because it has the reach and standing to create and enforce global trading rules. Yet the organization is failing at doing so, in large part because of its own rules (decisions are made by consensus) and even more so because the largest trading countries no longer want to abide by a rules-based system. The risk is a collapse of the entire multilateral trading system. “The reversal of global economic integration [if the multilateral trading system were to fail] would bring with it growing lawlessness, conflict, and disorder in the global economy,” one scholar writes, and with it “the international system at large.”

One aim should be to build alternative institutions within the hemisphere consisting of states having the critical mass to achieve desired outcomes. One such solution would be to mimic the Group of Seven and Group of Twenty, two examples of institutions that bring leaders from the world’s largest economies together to attempt to coordinate solutions to various global challenges. One possibility would be to start with just the largest agricultural producers in the hemisphere—an “A5” consisting of the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, and Argentina—to bring agriculture ministers together for systematized dialogue about hemispheric trade. Dialogue outcomes might include regional food-security compacts that generate commitments to invest in agricultural research leading to breakthrough technologies (“agtech”), to avoid the most trade distorting policies (export bans, for example), and more.

A related idea is to construct a standing (as opposed to episodic) hemispheric food security council to bring willing governments together for discussing responses to future shocks, identifying pathways for greater scientific and technological cooperation, and buttressing the norm regarding the hemisphere’s responsibility to the rest of the world as a major food supplier. Hemispheric institutions such as the Organization of American States (OAS) and Inter-American Development Bank can be leveraged to convene this council, given their credibility in addressing hemispheric affairs, including in trade. Using the inter-American system to convene a hemispheric food security council consisting of foreign, environment, and agriculture ministers—alongside representatives from industry and producer groups—should appeal to a wide set of stakeholders.

Investment in innovation, technology, and infrastructure

The constant improvement of on- and off-farm activities, including innovative use of new technologies and processes, and capital investment in the phenomena that enable them (including infrastructure), are central to ensuring that the hemisphere and the world are food secure. Innovation and investment also are critical components of agrifood systems that not only are productive but also sustainable and resilient, given
the need to prepare for climate-driven shocks in the future. Innovative technologies and processes, and the infrastructure that undergirds them, can build redundancy and efficiency into the agrifood system in anticipation of such shocks.

Regenerative agriculture and other agrifood systems focused on sustainability can be enhanced through the application of advanced technologies. Examples include:

• Alternative energy sources can enhance on- and offfarm systems while reducing carbon footprints.
• Geospatial remote sensing tools for precision farming can identify and help safeguard ecological assets.
• Robotics and mobile digital technologies (including deeper integration of handheld devices into farming practices) can improve agricultural efficiencies while reducing environmental impact.
• AI-driven analytics can integrate and utilize data streams from numerous applications.

Such technologies will become more critical in the future, as ecological changes make farming more difficult. Rising heat, for example, will create harsher working conditions for farm labor, in turn requiring machines and other technologies to alleviate workers’ outdoor exposure during periods of extreme heat.

Biotechnologies should be added to this list, given their promise to improve on-farm productivity and nutrient use efficiency while protecting ecological assets such as soils and water. Biofertilizers, for example, aim to improve soil fertility and nutrient use efficiency through application of living organisms including bacteria, fungi, and algae, with crop yields increasing by an estimated 10 percent to 40 percent. They also help
plants withstand abiotic stressors, some brought on by climate change, including drought, salinity, and extreme temperatures.

How can governments, the private sector, and other actors together ensure that the right mix and scale of investments are being made that will lead to innovative technologies and processes across the hemisphere’s agrifood systems? Additionally, how can they ensure that innovative technologies and processes are transformative at all scales, including for the hemisphere’s millions of smallholder farmers in addition to its largest producers? Some technologies and processes are more suitable for large-scale applications because of high cost or other considerations, for example. Improving access to the benefits of such technologies will require improved pathways for dissemination of knowledge, practical know-how, access to capital, and other services (e.g., training).

Every year, researchers at Virginia Tech produce the Global Agricultural Productivity Report, which tracks and analyzes TFP trends. The 2025 version asserts that reversing the decline in TFP growth—including low growth in the Americas—will require five “policy, investment and research priorities,” which are:

• Invest more in strengthening and expanding multistakeholder dialogues, agriculture extension services, and incentive structures for technology transfer to smallholder farmers.
• Expand access to markets for all participants in the agrifood value chain, including smallholder farmers.
• Strengthen trade as it “enhances competitive prices” which incentivizes investment in improved inputs and technologies” while facilitating “the exchange of knowledge, innovations, and best practices across borders, driving productivity gains.”
• Reduce food loss and waste.
• Invest in public-private partnerships, joint ventures, knowledge sharing agreements and platforms, and interdisciplinary research.

These types of innovative practices have real impact on agrifood systems at every level, down to the farm itself. Innovation delivers new seeds and crop varieties, creates more efficient production methods, solves practical problems faced by farmers (pests and disease), and creates new markets for goods and services provided by farmers (such as using sugarcane to produce ethanol to reduce carbon emissions of transport
fuels).

Farmers are both users and creators of innovative technologies and processes, so their knowledge and experience should be included in robust feedback loops. Moreover, farmers must be able to adopt and utilize innovative technologies and processes to realize their full positive contributions. This is not an automatic process, as on-farm adoption is not the same thing as laboratory invention. When making investment decisions, farmers are businesspersons, concerned about the upfront costs and return on investment (ROI). Global surveys of farmers indicate they are hesitant to adopt new technologies and processes if the technologies and processes are unfamiliar or they face high initial investment costs or uncertain ROI.

Publicly funded agricultural extension programs, which connect researchers at universities and other institutions to farmers—in the process, enabling mutual learning and successful technology transfer—are critical to improving agtech adoption. Maintaining and strengthening extension services (including public funding) should be central to any country’s aspiration to build world-class agrifood systems based on widespread technology and process adoption by farmers.

Improving infrastructure to strengthen agrifood supply chains is also critical, especially as higher temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, more frequent and powerful disasters, and other problems will put more infrastructure—e.g., ports, bridges, roads, railroads, canals— at risk. Ports are especially at risk, with most food trade moving by cargo ships. The Panama Canal, which in recent years has had low water levels due to Central American drought, is a good example. (Chinese ownership of port facilities also has proven controversial in the United States.) Beyond adaptation measures designed to improve individual pieces of infrastructure, there is much need for strategies that will frame the challenge in terms of societal and even transboundary (international) resilience. Canada, for example, in 2023 released a whole-of-society National Adaptation Strategy that emphasizes the need to make physical infrastructure (and communities) more resilient to climate-driven impacts.

Farmers for the future

Ensuring a food-secure future in the Americas must place human beings at its center. This formula long has been the focus on the demand side of the food-security equation: The goal always is to ensure that all humans always have access to affordable and nutritious food.

Yet the same logic also holds on the supply side of the equation. To avoid the demographic decline of farming amid the chronic aging of the world’s farmers, it is imperative that farming be made financially, socially, and culturally attractive to younger generations. Unfortunately, such conditions are not prevalent in many countries (perhaps most) around the world. The reasons for this are many. To young people, particularly those without a family heritage in agriculture, farming can be perceived as backward, unprofitable, difficult, alien, or uncool—or all the above.

There is no single set of recognized solutions to assist in turning the demographic trendlines around. However, evidence from around the world suggests that a combination of interventions, some obvious and others not so much, might suffice. The obvious ones are to make it easier to gain access to farming in the first place by reducing barriers to entry (access to affordable financing or access to farmland through ownership or long-term contract), and closing knowledge and skills gaps through on-farm training programs, scholarships, and apprenticeships. There are less obvious interventions, too. One such intervention is to incentivize nontraditional candidates to enter farming, for example, young women, in addition to traditional candidates (typically men). Another is to stress the increasingly important role played by digital technologies, robotics, big data and remote sensing, artificial intelligence, and other technical applications that appeal to tech-savvy and ambitious young people.

Although none of these solutions will guarantee a demographic rebound in farming, there are examples of where the curve has been bent toward youth. Brazil’s farmers are getting younger rather than older. They appear to be attracted by the prospect of getting rich in Brazil’s booming, forward-facing, and tech-savvy industry.

Conclusion

The issues outlined in this report should be seen as a starting point for discussion. The challenges and the opportunities facing agrifood systems in the Americas in the coming decades will be profound. A central question is whether the hemisphere’s key actors—governments, farmers, the private sector, researchers, foundations, civil society groups, and the public—will be willing to invest in the transformative processes and approaches that will reduce risk while increasing prosperity, sustainability, and resilience.

This report has put great emphasis upon generating productive dialogues among key stakeholders. Promoting the diffusion of critical innovations for food security will be an important piece of this process. It is imperative that governments and multilateral institutions in the hemisphere find financing and pool technological know-how to support programs tailored to meet the needs of the region.

Beyond that, however, it is critical that nongovernmental stakeholders, including investors, the private sector, researchers, scientists, analysts, farmers, and farming communities, act in concert with one another. They must themselves build the transnational dialogues to assist in envisioning, creating, and strengthening the tools that will be needed to ensure a food-secure future.

This report was produced by the Atlantic Council with support from The Mosaic Company as part of the Food security: Strategic alignment in the Americas project.

Peter Engelke is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security as well as a senior fellow with its Global Energy Center. His diverse work portfolio spans strategic foresight; geopolitics, diplomacy, and international relations; climate change and Earth systems; food, water, and energy security; emerging and disruptive technologies and tech-based innovation ecosystems; and demographics and urbanization, among other subjects, and he is the creator of the Council’s most widely read long-form publication series, Global Foresight. Engelke’s previous affiliations have included the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, the Robert Bosch Foundation, the World Economic Forum, and the Stimson Center.

Matias Margulis is associate professor of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs and a faculty member of Land and Food Systems at the University of British Columbia. His research and teaching interests are in global governance, development, human rights, international law, and food policy. In addition to his academic research, Margulis has extensive professional experience in the field of international policymaking and is a former Canadian representative to the World Trade Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

The GeoStrategy Initiative, housed within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, leverages strategy development and long-range foresight to serve as the preeminent thought-leader and convener for policy-relevant analysis and solutions to understand a complex and unpredictable world. Through its work, the initiative strives to revitalize, adapt, and defend a rules-based international system in order to foster peace, prosperity, and freedom for decades to come.

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The post The future of food in the Americas appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Public Event Wed, November 5, 2025 • 3:00 pm ET

Representative Adam Smith on how Congress will shape US defense policy

AN #ACFRONTPAGE EVENT—Representative Adam Smith (D-WA), ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, shares his priorities for the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and discusses how Congress can ensure the Pentagon meets today’s security challenges.

Security & Defense United States and Canada

“I don’t think simply committing this large number of assets—hundreds of millions, probably billions of dollars by the time it’s done—to blow up some drug boats in international waters in Latin America is going to make an appreciable difference” in the fight against drug trafficking, said Representative Adam Smith (D-WA), the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, at an Atlantic Council Front Page event on Thursday. 

The event, part of the Atlantic Council’s Commanders Series, came amid uncertainty over whether the Trump administration’s campaign of attacks on boats that it claims are trafficking drugs will escalate into an effort to overthrow Venezuelan autocrat Nicolás Maduro.

Based on a briefing he received from the State Department and Department of Defense on Wednesday, Smith said he thinks that “the administration does not want to go to war with Venezuela.” But, Smith added, US President Donald Trump sometimes “very quickly” changes his mind. “So who knows?”

Thursday’s event also came amid the longest US government shutdown in history, with the House out of session even as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the next fiscal year has yet to be passed, a situation Smith called “unbelievably disruptive.”

Read below for more highlights from this conversation with Smith, which was moderated by Fox News Chief National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin. 

The NDAA

• “The NDAA itself is moving forward,” Smith said of the annual bill, noting that different versions have been passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate, and now the two versions need to be reconciled.
• One of Smith’s priorities for the bill is acquisition reform: “My position is we’ve had the risk wrong for a long time” on defense acquisition policy, said Smith. “We’ve been only focused” on the risk of corruption in the procurement process “as opposed to the risk of not moving fast enough,” he said. One way to speed up acquisition, he said, is “consolidating the decision makers” in the process “instead of having to go through nine or ten different layers.”
• Smith also said he wants to “have procurement people stay in their job longer.” Constant turnover in procurement roles, he said, “doesn’t really help with corruption. It just means that the person doesn’t know the system as well when they’re working on it.”

US strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific

• Transnational drug-trafficking gangs in the Western Hemisphere are “a problem for our national security” and “a problem for Latin America,” Smith said. “You’ve got budding narco-states down there. They’re having a harder and harder time dealing with that. We need to be engaged and involved in that.”
• However, Smith was critical of the Trump administration’s campaign of attacks on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific. “It seems very problematic to me that we have decided that drug dealing will now have the death penalty attached to it,” with “no process whatsoever.”
• “They’re certainly bad policy in my view,” Smith said of the strikes.

US military presence abroad

• “I think one of the mistakes that we have made is to assume that our global presence is just a cost that isn’t benefiting us,” Smith said of US troop deployments abroad. 
• Citing threats posed by Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and transnational terrorist organizations, Smith said that to pull US troops back from allied countries now and “ignore” these dangers “places us at risk.”
• Smith took issue with the Trump administration’s decision to draw down its forces in Romania and noted that there is “bipartisan, bicameral support” in the House and Senate armed services committees “to maintain our presence in Europe and defend them.”
• “If any of you have been to Romania, the Baltics, Poland,” said Smith, addressing the crowd, “they want a lot of things, but the one thing they want more than anything is us,” meaning a US military presence. “They don’t believe Russia wants to come in and kill a bunch of US troops. So a little bit of presence can give us a maximum amount of deterrence, and we’re going to fight that out in the defense bill.”

Daniel Hojnacki is an assistant editor on the editorial team at the Atlantic Council.

Watch the event

The post Representative Adam Smith on the NDAA, Venezuela, and the United States’ role in the world appeared first on Atlantic Council.

China was already the biggest international player in Iraq’s upstream sector—operating several large oil fields across southern Iraq—before Chinese companies were awarded new oil and gas blocks under al-Sudani’s premiership. The only oil and gas contract auction held during al-Sudani’s administration—the May 2024 “Fifth+ and Sixth” licensing round—was dominated by a combination of Chinese national oil companies and privately held Chinese exploration and production (E&P) companies. Interest from large Western oil companies (supermajors) was tepid (only Shell placed a bid, and it was unsuccessful), and interest from US companies was virtually nonexistent. Beijing’s dominance of the bid round was so complete that the only non-Chinese company to land an asset was an Iraqi firm, KAR Group.

Chinese financing has also appeared to give Chinese companies an inside track to winning critical energy infrastructure projects. Under a program that was initiated well before al-Sudani’s government, in 2019, Iraq now directs about 150,000 barrels per day worth of oil revenues into an escrow account, which then functions as collateral to unlock loans via the state-owned firm Sinosure. In its early days, this vehicle was used to fund projects outside of the energy sector, but al-Sudani’s government has recently leveraged the Chinese financing program to push forward two pieces of critical energy-sector infrastructure:

• A $2.6 billion pipeline project to bring treated seawater to giant oil fields for water injection, awarded to the China Petroleum Engineering and Construction Corporation
• A one-billion-dollar gas pipeline project linking an Anbar province gas field to power generation facilities, some of which are also built by Chinese companies.

Chinese financing is also likely to make or break an $18 billion integrated project that was awarded earlier this year to China’s Geo-Jade Petroleum for the upstream development of the Tuba oil field in the Iraqi city of Basra and the construction of an oil refinery, two power plants, a petrochemical plant, and a fertilizer plant.

China’s appeal to Iraq is obvious. On the upstream side, Chinese companies will accept commercial terms that Western majors and US E&Ps simply will not. Indeed, China’s success in Iraq’s 2024 oil and gas contract auction was less a function of any deliberate Iraqi strategy to favor Chinese companies than it was a reflection of the structure of the auction, in which the sole criterion for deciding a winning bid was a company’s willingness to accept a narrow profit margin. This structure put Chinese companies at an advantage, because vertically integrated Chinese national oil companies can make money on projects by assigning major contracting opportunities to their subsidiary entities. At the same time, small Chinese E&Ps can operate at a lower cost than their Western counterparts. Chinese companies can also access state financing with relative ease since Beijing sees a strong presence in Iraq’s upstream sector as a strategic priority for securing long-term crude supply.

Supermajors and US E&Ps have also found al-Sudani’s government eager to do business, even as these companies cannot compete with Chinese firms in open bid rounds. Al-Sudani’s administration inked major contracts with both TotalEnergies and BP after bilateral negotiations, and it is holding ongoing talks with both Chevron and ExxonMobil. Sudani’s government has also signed a memorandum of understanding with the privately owned US E&P company HKN Energy.

Al-Sudani’s government appears to see significant strategic value in courting supermajors and US E&Ps, even if the terms these companies demand are less advantageous for Iraq than those accepted by Chinese companies. Successive Iraqi governments have long been wary of creeping Chinese consolidation over Iraq’s upstream sector. For example, Iraq’s former oil minister, Ihsan Ismaael, told the Iraq Oil Report in 2021 that he rejected an effort by Lukoil to pursue an asset sale at West Qurna-2 to a Chinese company, because, “we need to keep the same balance of market share in the south.”

Additionally, a range of oil officials have told the authors that Iraqi oil officials often voice a preference for the technology and approach of supermajors. Meanwhile, increased US investment in Iraq’s energy sector is perceived by policymakers in Baghdad—based on our research and conversations with key leaders speaking on background—as a tool for mitigating the risk of sanctions enforcement against Iraqi entities by the US Treasury Department.

With Iraqi parliamentary elections looming, US and Chinese companies alike will be engaging a new government at some point in 2026. Even if there is a new prime minister at the helm, the next Iraqi government’s policy toward international energy investment is likely to be shaped by the same forces that have informed al-Sudani’s approach. Regardless of the specific makeup of the next Iraqi government, it is likely that Chinese firms will continue to enjoy an advantage—stemming from Iraq’s desire for favorable commercial terms and the relative ease of access to Chinese financing. At the same time, Iraq is also likely to continue soliciting megaprojects with supermajors due to their technical capacity and potential geopolitical value.

Jared Levy is the director of the Iraq Oil Report‘s research services division. He oversees a team of data collectors and analysts that provide private sector and government clients with a range of subscription products and bespoke research and briefing services. He previously ran the Iraq office of a market entry advisory company.

Ben Van Heuvelen is the editor-in-chief of the Iraq Oil Report. His work has also been published in the Washington Post, Bloomberg, the Atlantic, and Foreign Policy. He regularly briefs investors, diplomats, governments, and nongovernmental organizations on Iraq’s political and business environment. He previously worked as a research fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, DC.

The post Why China is here to stay in Iraq’s energy sector appeared first on Atlantic Council.

South Korea and Australia have consistently built upon cooperation as two “middle powers” in a region of ever-growing global importance and dynamism. At the same time, the two countries have bolstered their respective alliances with the United States, building regional bilateral and multilateral collaboration. Ultimately, capitalizing on the potential for growing collaboration and cooperation between the United States, South Korea, and Australia could be key to maintaining security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific. However, when it comes to bringing several countries together in a collaborative environment, there are inherent challenges to reaching a consensus.

To meet that challenge, the Atlantic Council and the Korea Foundation gathered mid-career and junior experts from the United States, South Korea, and Australia in two private workshops. The group identified several obstacles to cooperation—namely, differing geostrategic circumstances, diverging threat perceptions, different strategies for engaging with China, and a lack of consistent engagement between the countries. Despite this, there are several key opportunities to bolster cooperation—namely, defense industrial cooperation, joint endeavors in science and technology, developing maritime security, and collaborating on engaging additional partner countries and multilaterals.

The rising generation of policymakers we spoke with zeroed in on four ways to improve the trilateral relationship:

• cultivate defense industry collaboration and public-private cooperation;
• institutionalize relationships and expand joint exercises;
• foster expanded R&D of critical technologies; and
• develop disaster-resilient infrastructure projects and early warning systems.

Lauren D. Gilbert is the deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative housed within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. In this role, she oversees research and programming focused on engaging with US, allied, and partner governments and other key stakeholders to shape strategies and policies to mitigate the most important rising security challenges facing the region.

Kester Abbott is a research associate at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney and a non-resident James A. Kelly Korea fellow at the Pacific Forum. He works on US Indo-Pacific strategy, defense industry issues, and Northeast Asian security dynamics, with a focus on South Korean foreign relations.

Hannah Heewon Seo is the events administrator at The Australia Institute, with a background in international affairs organizations in Australia and South Korea. Her focus centers on foreign relations and diplomacy, particularly engagement with the Asia-Pacific, and the opinions expressed do not represent those of The Australia Institute.

New Atlanticist Aug 26, 2025

Five questions (and expert answers) about where the US-South Korea alliance goes from here

By Atlantic Council experts

The US and South Korean presidents met on Monday in Washington to discuss a range of bilateral issues, from security to shipbuilding.

Korea Nuclear Deterrence

Issue Brief Sep 11, 2024

A next-generation agenda: Bridging Indo-Pacific and European perspectives on security

By Lauren Gilbert, Malthe Munkøe, Hyunseung David Yu

This next generation agenda proposes policy recommendations designed to improve security cooperation among the United States, South Korea, and European NATO countries in the context of current global security threats, diverging national security perspectives, and imminent leadership changes.

Economy & Business Europe & Eurasia

Issue Brief Dec 20, 2022

A next-generation agenda for US-ROK-Japan cooperation

By Lauren D. Gilbert, Kyoko Imai

Trilateral cooperation among the United States, Japan, and South Korea has proved challenging over the years, owing largely to historical tensions. As a result, this project has sought perspectives from next-generation leaders of the three countries to define areas where targeted, flexible, and informal cooperative arrangements can provide clear mutual benefit to all.

Coronavirus East Asia

The Indo-Pacific Security Initiative (IPSI) informs and shapes the strategies, plans, and policies of the United States and its allies and partners to address the most important rising security challenges in the Indo-Pacific, including China’s growing threat to the international order and North Korea’s destabilizing nuclear weapons advancements. IPSI produces innovative analysis, conducts tabletop exercises, hosts public and private convenings, and engages with US, allied, and partner governments, militaries, media, other key private and public-sector stakeholders, and publics.

Learn more

The post A next-generation agenda: South Korea-US-Australia security cooperation appeared first on Atlantic Council.

This kind of access gives China options for coercion, deterrence, and signaling, pursued through temporary and targeted effects in a “gray zone” crisis, as well as for conducting larger-scale attacks in the event of a major conflict. With this in mind, it is essential that the private sector—not just the US government and military—better prepare for attacks on the US electrical grid resulting from a geopolitical crisis or conflict in the Indo-Pacific. Importantly, this preparation should include both assessing the geopolitical risks and practicing what to do in a crisis.

During a recent industry forum in California, we heard from senior utility executives, grid operators, market strategists, and other experts about the range of complex challenges that the energy sector faces. Utilities must, for example, keep costs in check, meet regulatory standards, manage load growth, and advance the energy transition. At the same time, we contend that they need to treat Chinese cyber and supply-chain exposure as a standing threat—part of the context of overall strategic planning and risk mitigation—given the geopolitical risks the United States faces. During the forum, we discussed a pressing question on a panel with an unusual focus for industry: how to protect the mission to deliver reliable, safe, and affordable power as geopolitical risks rise, particularly the threat China could pose to US electrical infrastructure in the context of a regional crisis or conflict. Based on our discussions, we came to three overall takeaways.

First, utilities should identify practical geopolitical crisis indicators to monitor that, when the indicators occur, should move utility leaders from watchful to active measures. One such indicator is Chinese military exercises that move beyond the routine and are on a scale indicative of invasion preparation and/or involve live-fire training that interferes with access to Taiwan. Other indicators could be narratives from Chinese official sources that aim to justify imminent “defensive” military action, sudden pressure on key vendors, or export controls that signal possible supply disruptions. None of these signposts require classified sources, as they are visible in publicly available information and sector channels.

Second, utility leaders need to take action now. Addressing cyber and supply chain infiltration risks to power infrastructure is not only a job for cybersecurity professionals and government officials, nor can it wait until a geopolitical crisis or attack. Grid operators, supply-chain leaders, control system engineers, and procurement officials each have roles in ensuring resilience.

A range of actions can help mitigate risk. For example, contract language can clarify product security and transparency requirements. Steps can be taken to harden control system equipment and network pathways, particularly for China-sourced devices. And utilities should regularly and thoroughly test controls on vendors’ remote access to operational technology. More broadly, utilities should seek to de-risk: diversify suppliers before a crisis, keep targeted spares for the most critical equipment, and engineer by focusing on addressing high consequence events so the most important grid functions have robust fail-safe controls.

The third—and clearest—takeaway from our conversations in California was about the need for preparation rather than prediction or reaction. Regular, realistic, leadership-level tabletop exercises are the single best way to build discipline for the first forty-eight hours of a fast-moving event, especially since misinformation is likely to surge.

Tabletop exercises, long used by the US military and government as a low-cost way to improve preparedness for a high-intensity crisis or conflict, can serve the same purpose for the private sector. Comprehensive exercises expose single points of failure, validate who decides what, test communications, and force hard choices on where to deploy resources. They also create a common picture of risk and available response options that hold under pressure.

These issues have important implications for a broader audience, given the potential implications of energy disruptions for all aspects of the United States’ national security and economy. This basic three-point approach is simple and practical, even if implementing it while balancing other considerations will be complex for the industry:

• Watch for indicators that geopolitical risks are rising;
• Keep sharing and implementing best practices within the energy sector and with its partners to strengthen resilience; and
• Run regular leadership-level tabletop exercises that simulate the key decisions that leaders in a vital sector will face in a geopolitical crisis.

Introducing this three-step approach into response systems and building on it will go a long way toward making sure that essential services stay running, even if a crisis erupts halfway around the world.

Victor Atkins is a nonresident fellow with the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, where he specializes in cyber intelligence, national security, and industrial cybersecurity issues. A former Department of Energy official, he served as deputy director for operations of its Cyber Intelligence Directorate, and after details to the National Security Council staff and US intelligence community. He is the director for critical infrastructure security consulting at 1898 & Co., part of Burns & McDonnell.

Markus Garlauskas is the director of the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He is a former senior US government official with two decades of service as an intelligence officer and strategist, including twelve years stationed overseas in the region.

The Best Practices Forum that helped inform this analysis, and the authors’ participation in it, was hosted and sponsored by Burns & McDonnell. The event adhered to the Chatham House Rule to foster transparency, candor, and forward-thinking approaches. The views expressed here are the authors’ own.

The post US power utilities must prepare for a crisis in the Indo-Pacific. Here’s how they can start. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Ukraine’s mobilization challenges are no secret and have been steadily mounting for much of the war. During the initial days of the full-scale invasion in early 2022, an unprecedented flood of volunteers made it possible to dramatically expand the size of the Ukrainian armed forces to around one million troops. However, as the conflict has dragged on into a fourth year amid consistently high casualty rates and escalating problems with desertion, this initial flow has slowed to a relative trickle. Individual units have responded by launching their own slick advertising campaigns to attract fresh recruits, while military mobilization officials have become notorious for dragging eligible men off the streets straight to military bases.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

The mobilization issue has been exacerbated by President Zelenskyy’s reluctance to lower the age for compulsory military service from twenty-five to eighteen. This has led to criticism from Ukraine’s Western partners, who have argued that it is unrealistic to wage a major war while exempting so many young Ukrainians from mobilization. Rather than take the politically dangerous decision to reduce the conscription age, Zelenskyy has backed an incentive scheme to attract volunteers in the eighteen to twenty-five age bracket. However, the initiative has so far failed to fill the gaps in Ukraine’s decimated front line units.

The recent decision to lift international travel restrictions on young Ukrainian men aged eighteen to twenty-two has further complicated Ukraine’s manpower problems. Around 100,000 Ukrainian males have left the country since restrictions were eased around two months ago, Britain’s Daily Telegraph reports. This exodus deprives the country of potential future army recruits and has created a range of more immediate personnel issues that are already reverberating throughout the Ukrainian economy. While some of these men may plan on returning to Ukraine, experience since 2022 suggests that many will seek to settle elsewhere in the European Union.

Eurasia Center events

Online Event Fri, January 30, 2026 • 9:00 am ET

How Russia’s winter warfare strategy targets Ukrainian civilians

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Moscow is also facing difficulties replenishing its invasion force amid catastrophic losses in Ukraine that dwarf the death toll from every other Kremlin war since 1945. Putin initially sought to address this problem by launching a partial mobilization in September 2022, but the move proved hugely unpopular and led to around one million young Russians fleeing the country. Instead, the Kremlin has introduced a system a lavish financial incentives including huge enlistment bounties and generous monthly salaries in order to attract volunteers willing to join the invasion of Ukraine. While it has proved necessary to repeatedly increase the sums on offer, this approach has made it possible to secure around thirty thousand new recruits per month.

Based on the current trajectory of the war, Russia’s manpower advantage over Ukraine will only grow wider during the coming year. This is already making itself on the battlefield, with Russian forces exploiting gaps in Ukraine’s defenses along the more than one thousand kilometers of front line and edging forward at multiple points. While Putin’s troops have so far been unable to achieve any major breakthroughs, Russia’s territorial gains are slowly but surely adding up.

The most intensive fighting is currently taking place in the Donetsk region as Russia seeks to complete the capture of Pokrovsk. If Putin’s commanders succeed in taking the city, it will be seen by many as vindication of the Kremlin strategy to grind out victory by relying on the sheer size of the Russian army. Putin has long believed that he can win the war by outlasting the West and overwhelming Ukraine. He will view Kyiv’s increasingly evident infantry shortage as a strong indication that time is on his side.

For Zelenskyy, there are no easy options. Lowering the mobilization age would generate a new wave of recruits but could also pose a significant threat to Ukrainian national morale. Reforming the terms of military service to provide greater rotation guarantees while also adopting a more meritocratic approach to the appointment of army commanders may help restore flagging public confidence and attract more volunteers, but this would take time that Ukraine quite frankly no longer possesses.

For now, the battle-hardened but exhausted and outnumbered Ukrainian army has little choice but to remain in a defensive posture. Ukraine’s commanders must be prepared to cede ground when necessary in order to preserve precious fighting strength, while looking for opportunities to maximize enemy casualties. The goal should be to withstand the Russian onslaught until a combination of punishing front line losses, escalating long-range strikes inside Russia, and deepening economic woes finally forces Putin to the negotiating table.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Oct 28, 2025

UN report: Russia targets civilians in systematic bid to depopulate Ukraine

By Peter Dickinson

Russia is deliberately targeting Ukrainian civilians in a deadly drone strike campaign that aims to depopulate large parts of the country and constitutes a crime against humanity, according to a new United Nations report, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Defense Technologies

UkraineAlert Oct 16, 2025

Putin seeks more foreign fighters amid mounting Russian losses in Ukraine

By David Kirichenko

With fewer and fewer Russians ready to volunteer for the war in Ukraine, Putin is seeking to recruit more foreign fighters from across Africa, Asia, and beyond, writes David Kirichenko.

Africa Americas

UkraineAlert Oct 6, 2025

Putin rejected Trump’s generous deal. Time to try peace through strength.

By Sergiy Solodkyy

President Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine by offering Putin Kremlin-friendly peace terms have failed to convince the Russian dictator. It is now time to speak to Putin in the language of strength, the only language he truly understands, writes Sergiy Solodkyy.

Conflict Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding

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

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values, and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia, and Central Asia in the East.

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The post Russia’s advance on Pokrovsk exposes Ukraine’s growing manpower crisis appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Director for Northern Europe, Anna Wieslander, was interviewed October 27 in an Al Jazeera article on Russian hybrid warfare against European countries.

Wieslander warns that the goal of the hybrid warfare is to exhaust Europe towards being “more recipient towards the final goal that Russia has for Europe, which is a division again into spheres of interest”.

There is currently no coordinated policy for European countermeasures against Russian hybrid warfare, and Wieslander calls for tougher and more coordinated countermeasures against the shadow fleet and on a much lager scale.

The post Wieslander interviewed in Al Jazeera appeared first on Atlantic Council.

• Introduction
• Key findings summary
• Methodology
• Part I: Russian intent
• Part II: Deterrence
• Part III: Response
• Recommendations and key findings
• Conclusion

Introduction

This report presents the findings and recommendations of the Atlantic Council project, Sustaining Allied Responses to the Threat of Russian Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) Escalation. The objective of the project was to analyze the prospects for Russian use of chemical or biological weapons specifically in Europe over the next five to ten years; identify how the United States and its European allies and partners could deter and prevent Russian use of these weapons in Europe; and, should deterrence fail, assess response options.

Background

Russia has a well-established and clearly demonstrated strategic objective of undermining stability in the Euro-Atlantic region to reverse its loss of status following the end of the Cold War.¹ This strategy is characterized by hostility toward the United States and its allies and partners in Europe.²

Over recent years, Russia has demonstrated its intent to provoke instability in Europe by acting with malign aggression that is both overt and hybrid in nature. The starkest example of Russia’s revanchist aggression is its full-scale illegal invasion of Ukraine, launched in 2022. Russia has also been conducting hybrid attacks—hostile activities using tools of statecraft below the threshold of conventional warfare to shift the balance of power in its favor—against the United States and its allies in Europe.³

A willingness to use chemical weapons has long been a feature of Russian aggression, both on the battlefield in Ukraine (specifically chloropicrin), and on the streets of Europe.⁴ As a result, Russia was described as “the most acute nuclear, biological, and chemical threat in the near-term” in the United States’ 2023 Strategy to Counter Weapons of Mass Destruction.⁵ This parallels the same terminology used in the 2022 National Defense Strategy and 2022 National Security Strategy.⁶ Undermining the cohesion of the United States and its NATO allies is a core goal of Russia’s political and military strategy. The Kremlin has shown that it is willing to use, or threaten to use, whatever capabilities it possesses, including CBRN weapons, to achieve this goal.

Research question

Our primary research question was, “What are the prospects for Russian use of chemical or biological weapons in Europe over the next five to ten years, and how can the United States and its European allies and partners counter such threats?” To address this question, the project team examined the following:

• In what scenarios might Russia use its arsenal of chemical and biological capabilities to achieve its geopolitical goals in the five-to-ten-year time frame? What developments in European security more broadly over the same period would increase or decrease the risk of Russian use of chemical or biological weapons?
• How might the United States and its European allies and partners enhance their overall defense and deterrence posture to reduce the risk of potential chemical or biological weapons use in the next five to ten years?
• How can the United States work with European allies and partners to coordinate and standardize comprehensive responses to the potential deployment of Russian chemical and biological weapons?
• To what extent could Russian use of chemical or biological weapons in Europe escalate further to the use of nuclear weapons, and how can the United States work with its European allies and partners to reduce the risk of escalation?

Key findings summary

Our project illuminated several findings for US and European decision-makers:

• Russia will likely continue using chemical weapons in Europe in a range of scenarios over the next five to ten years, particularly if doing so undermines Alliance unity and disrupts Ukraine’s integration into the West. Based on its recent behavior, however, Russia appears less likely to use biological weapons. Furthermore, while Russia has threatened nuclear use, a large-scale nuclear attack appears unlikely.
• To credibly deter Russia from nuclear escalation, the United States and its European allies and partners must ensure that Russia understands that using—or threatening to use—chemical and biological weapons would both fail to achieve its intended outcome and incur intolerable costs.
• Since the end of the Cold War, CBRN defense has been deprioritized among NATO allies, including the United States. Amid calls for increased defense spending, CBRN defense capability development is an area primed for greater investment.
• The United States should leverage NATO to facilitate greater coordination between civilian and military entities to enhance whole-of-society resilience to CBRN threats.
• Information and intelligence sharing is critical to achieving a common threat perception among NATO allies and partners. Expanded information sharing and effective strategic communications can deter Russian use of chemical or biological weapons and ensure a coordinated response if deterrence fails.
• The United States and its European allies and partners should take steps to raise the public IQ related to CBRN threats, particularly as it pertains to chemical and biological threats.
• The governance of emerging and applied technologies is difficult within the bounds of existing treaty regimes. Sanctions and export controls can complement treaty organizations to monitor and contain potential CBRN threats from such technologies, including dual-use systems and components.

Methodology

The project team adopted two principal research methods for this project: a series of scenario-based workshops and interviews with subject matter experts and officials from the United States, Europe, and NATO. The team also conducted secondary research to develop the workshop methodology and to corroborate information and insights gleaned during the workshops and interviews.

Scenario-based workshops

In January 2025, the project team convened experts and officials to take part in two scenario-based exercises. The first group, which was convened virtually, consisted of subject matter experts and researchers from the United States and Europe, while the second group (convened in hybrid format) consisted of officials from the United States, NATO, and European governments. See Appendixes B and C for more information about the participants and the methodology, respectively.

The project team created a plausible exploratory scenario in which tensions between Russia and the United States and its European allies and partners (primarily Ukraine) had grown over a five-year time frame. The scenario provided a framework for participants to consider the key questions of Russian strategic intent, and implications for allied deterrence and responses to Russian aggression.

The workshops presented two scenarios in the year 2030: one in which Russia carried out a chemical attack against NATO allies based in Ukraine, and one in which Russia carried out targeted biological attacks against allied officials in Europe. These attacks concerned low-level use of chemical and biological agents, rather than major battlefield use of such weapons. Thus, the focus was on how Russia might use these capabilities to test escalatory dynamics, rather than to achieve major military objectives. The workshops divided participants into two groups; each group focused on either the chemical or biological scenario. The workshops primarily asked participants to analyze why Russia might consider the use of chemical or biological weapons strategically advantageous in these scenarios; propose how to deter Russia from further use of chemical and biological weapons; and recommend how the United States and Europe should respond to Russia’s use of such weapons. The two groups reconvened after the exercise to share key findings from their discussions.

Interviews with officials and experts

Informed by the insights from the workshops, the project team conducted interviews with US, European, and NATO officials and experts. The interviews provided direct perspectives on the potential for Russian CBRN escalation over the next five to ten years and how the alliance can deter and respond to possible Russian chemical and biological escalation. The interview stage also enabled the project team to explore the additional question of nuclear escalation following Russia’s potential use of chemical or biological weapons.

The following report presents our analysis of Russia’s intent to use CBRN weapons, possible deterrence considerations to be employed by the United States and its European allies and partners, and response options for the United States and Europe to respond should deterrence fail. The report concludes with our overall findings and recommendations.

Part I: Russian intent

Vladimir Putin described the breakup of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.”⁷ NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept makes clear that Putin’s ambition to reverse the outcome of the Cold War is at the heart of Russia’s efforts to reestablish spheres of influence and direct control over its former Soviet empire, including NATO allies.⁸ Russia’s hostile actions seek to undermine the rules-based international order that defines the worldview of NATO and its members.⁹

At the 2007 Munich Security Conference, Putin signaled clearly to the world that he believed undermining the international rules-based system was necessary to carry out his revanchist ambitions.¹⁰ Russia has since demonstrated repeatedly that it is willing to use violent and aggressive means to further this ambition. This includes conventional military aggression, as demonstrated by Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia, 2014 annexation of Crimea, and 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.¹¹

Russia’s hybrid campaign of aggression

In addition to conventional military aggression, Russia’s campaign has included a well-documented and long-running “shadow war” of hybrid tactics against NATO and its allies.¹² This hybrid campaign has included critical infrastructure attacks, acts of violence, weaponized migration, election interference, and information campaigns, which have intensified in volume since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.¹³

The threat and the use of Russia’s CBRN capabilities has been a feature of Moscow’s hybrid campaign. In spite of the long-standing norms against using CBRN weapons, enshrined in international treaties and conventions, Russia has demonstrated that it is able and willing to deploy these weapons,¹⁴ including in NATO territory.¹⁵ Russia has also demonstrated a willingness to use chemical weapons during its illegal invasion of Ukraine and long supported the former Assad regime in Syria that used chemical weapons against civilians.¹⁶

The psychological value of chemical and biological weapons

For Russia, chemical and biological weapons have many potential uses and bring many advantages. At their most basic level, chemical and biological weapons, either in a battlefield scenario or a civilian context, are agents of terror. Several interviewees noted the Russian state employs these weapons—or threatens to—to instill fear in European populations and among Russian dissidents in exile.¹⁷ Russian willingness to use chemical weapons in this manner also sends a clear signal to the domestic Russian population about the Putin regime’s tolerance for any potential threats and challenges. A clear demonstration of this tactic was the 2020 Novichok poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which took place in Russia.¹⁸ While untested, it can be safely assumed that Putin would resort to extreme measures, including using CBRN weapons as necessary, to ensure the survival of his regime.

Some participants described public awareness in much of Europe about how chemical or biological weapons are used and the effects they can have as generally low. Those participants suggested that Russian use of CBRN weapons would be a means of causing widespread panic and manipulating emotions and public actions. The confusion they could potentially sow could create fertile ground for disinformation campaigns designed to undermine public trust in their governments.¹⁹ Such an attack could also expose frailties in broader social resilience in the target community.

Challenging norms–and NATO

Many participants in both the workshops and interviews reflected that a significant incentive for the use of chemical or biological weapons is to further degrade the broadly accepted international norms and standards in place since World War II. Russia’s documented use of chemical weapons sends a signal that it does not consider itself to be constrained by rules, norms, or obligations like other countries. It is an assertion that, as a supposed great power with an extensive and sophisticated CBRN toolbox (a legacy maintained from the Soviet era), and a permanent seat on the United Nations (UN) Security Council, Russia can act with relative impunity to flout and degrade the rules-based system that it opposes. Allies should continue to acknowledge and challenge this behavior, but more public reporting on Russian chemical and biological weapons and how they compare to restrictions outlined in the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) could improve awareness of Russia’s possible intent.

In more general terms, the actions of the Russian regime demonstrate that Russia places lower value on human life than the United States and its allies, whether that is of Ukrainian civilians, unwitting bystanders to Russian crimes, or its own military personnel.²⁰ This cultural disregard for the suffering of even its own people affords Russia the space to conduct more reckless attacks and bear the subsequent consequences that the United States and its European allies and partners would not.

By their nature, different chemical and biological weapons have a broad range of properties, methods of delivery, rates of contagion, and lethality.²¹ While the CWC includes verification measures, the BWC does not. Participants noted that Russia could calibrate the nature, scale, and target of any chemical or biological weapon attack to create maximum uncertainty, exploit potential differences in threat perceptions and willingness to stand up against Russian aggression, and degrade international conventions. In many senses, the greater utility of chemical or biological weapons is not their lethality, but their impact on the adversary’s thinking. As one participant put it, “the intention isn’t to kill, but to complicate.”

This coercive element confers chemical and biological weapons and the range of effects they can create, with significant strategic value for Russia. Through the use (or threatened use) of different chemical or biological weapons in a range of scenarios, Russia might hope to influence allied decision-making and actions, such as potential Ukrainian integration into Western-oriented institutions. Participants observed that Russian use of chemical and biological weapons in these scenarios could be a means of Russia signaling that it considers the West has crossed its political red lines.

In a hypothetical battlefield context, the threat of chemical weapons use could limit the efficiency of allied military operations by imposing extra precautionary measures and influencing battlefield planning. In Iraq, the fear that Saddam Hussein could use chemical weapons degraded efficiency on the battlefield.²² After decades of underinvestment and neglect in the principles of operating in CBRN contaminated environments, Russia may be tempted to expose shortfalls in allied CBRN readiness on the battlefield.

For Russia, chemical and biological weapons serve an additional military function of making up for potential conventional military shortcomings. Where the Russians might be outmatched by NATO in conventional terms, unencumbered by moral or legal constraints, they might consider it a legitimate part of their doctrine to use asymmetric capabilities that can tilt the scales in their favor.²³ Participants in our exercises speculated that the likelihood of Russia resorting to chemical or biological weapons would increase should Russia face imminent conventional defeat on the battlefield, either against Ukraine or NATO. This assumption is supported by the 2024 change in Russian nuclear doctrine, which lowered the threshold for first use of nuclear weapons to a new, lower standard.²⁴

The escalatory dilemma

Russia’s recent changes to its military doctrine, and the potential use of chemical and biological weapons either in civilian or battlefield contexts, must be considered within the framework of political and military escalation.²⁵ Several interviewees noted that, because these are weapons that NATO allies do not and would not use, Russia’s previous use of chemical weapons and potential willingness to turn to biological weapons give the Kremlin an extra rung on the escalatory ladder.

Unlike nuclear escalation—which is well-studied, more clearly defined, and more widely considered taboo in the case of first-use of nuclear weapons—the escalatory dynamics of chemical and biological weapons use are more ambiguous and less certain. The scale and severity of chemical or biological weapon use could be calibrated to avoid crossing an obvious threshold that demands a military response, while at the same time clearly crossing a normative line that NATO allies would not cross, all the while posing a difficult conundrum about the appropriate and proportionate response.

Additionally, the dual-use nature of many of these chemical or biological agents (which may have legitimate and peaceful origins and uses) makes attribution challenging and presents sufficient deniability. This makes it difficult to establish clear lines of acceptable use and potentially hampers efforts to cohere a forceful and united response. At the same time, it allows Russia to simultaneously send a message of intent to allies and sow further confusion and distrust, while mostly avoiding (or limiting) punishment. In short, per one workshop participant, “it helps Russia to establish escalation dominance without committing to war.”

However, in many discussions throughout the project, there was considerable uncertainty over whether and how escalation to chemical and biological weapons use would increase the subsequent prospects of nuclear escalation. While many participants recognized that Russia’s willingness to disregard norms when it comes to chemical weapons in particular could logically lead to nuclear escalation and that Russia had invoked rhetoric around nuclear weapons use in recent years, participants agreed that taboos around nuclear weapons use exert more of a constraining force on Russia. Several participants noted the reported influence that China and India were able to wield against Russia in October 2022 to help de-escalate Moscow’s nuclear rhetoric at the time.²⁶

Participants noted that where chemical or biological weapons can be deployed in such a way as to sow confusion and inject escalatory ambiguity, the line that nuclear weapons use would cross is much more definitive. No participants envisaged these scenarios escalating to the use of nuclear weapons unless Putin felt it was the last and only option for his personal survival.

Part II: Deterrence

As outlined above, Russia has and could continue to use chemical or biological weapons depending on the state of its conventional capabilities. The United States and its European allies and partners play a crucial role in deterring Russia from using any CBRN weapon. It is therefore critical to consider the scenarios in which Russia might turn to such weapons. Russia might even assume that previous responses to chemical attacks give them scope to escalate to larger-scale strategic weapons.²⁷

For deterrence to be effective, like-minded nations must make clear that they are prepared to impose intolerable costs (economic, geopolitical, or military) on Russia should it use chemical or biological weapons, while also maintaining some ambiguity as to the exact nature of a response. Demonstrations of intelligence sharing among allies to present a unified threat assessment may clarify how the United States observes the Russian threat in the CBRN domain. Given how critical it is for civilian institutions to be integrated in the response to a potential CBRN attack, particularly related to chemical and biological threats, a whole-of-government approach to deterrence is essential for how the United States and its European allies and partners should position themselves vis-à-vis Russia. Outside-the-box thinking around potential partners and nontraditional allies may also aid in strengthening deterrence. The following takeaways emerged from our analysis, including discussions with key stakeholders in the United States and Europe.

Deterrence can yield powerful results

Deterrence by punishment would be harder to inflict if Russia were to use a chemical or biological weapon, given that there would not be a proportional response.²⁸ However, the United States and Europe still have options for precise, measured, and consequential actions. Workshop participants agreed that specific actions or escalation using CBRN threats from Russia would have severe consequences warranting a response, including stringent economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure campaigns, and, in some instances, retaliatory military strikes. With the nuclear deterrent as the foundation for any response from the United States (alongside that of the United Kingdom and France), any threat of retaliation against Russia will be stronger.²⁹ In addition, the United States and European countries could implement measures such as export controls, sanctions, international condemnation, or stationing NATO troops closer to Russia’s borders to deter Russian CBRN use.

Participants reflected that the most likely scenario in which Russia would turn to CBRN threats would include hybrid attacks on the United States and Europe. Deterrence of such threats remains a “riddle” as one interviewee put it, where more degrees of ambiguity are present that do not apply to conventional (or nuclear) escalation. When approaching the more tactical use of chemical or biological weapons, there is more opaqueness given the dual-purpose nature of substances, technologies, and delivery systems. Workshop participants did not come to consensus on how the United States and its European allies should view (or respond to) such threats within the hybrid domain or at the tactical applications of chemical or biological weapons.

The role of attribution in deterring CBRN use

During the workshops and interviews, participants continuously reiterated that attribution is critical to deterring Russian chemical and biological threats and holding Russia accountable for past use of chemical weapons. Intelligence and information sharing play an important role in attribution. One interviewee remarked that Russia may think twice about staging chemical and biological attacks if there is more publicly available information about their chemical and biological capabilities, facilities, and deployment means.

However, timely technical collection and forensic analysis capabilities are lacking among NATO allies, leading to questions about the accuracy and reliability of attributing attacks. Several existing capabilities—including detection, intelligence, and surveillance systems—could prevent escalation with chemical and biological weapons, but these systems are not well resourced across the Alliance. Many NATO member states lack adequate expertise in sample collection, robust laboratory infrastructure, and the requisite instruments to conduct analysis, all of which impede attribution.

Some participants we spoke to, particularly on NATO’s eastern flank, reflected on a need to strengthen intelligence, monitoring, and detection capabilities to improve their overall deterrence and response posture. Investment in capabilities to investigate and attribute attacks could prevent Russian escalation. For attribution to be effective, the United States and European allies and partners must also possess a shared understanding of indicators and warning signals ahead of an attack.

Preparedness and resilience are essential

Participants described the need for the United States and its European allies and partners to limit the consequences of Russian chemical and biological attacks. The notion of “deterrence by resilience” or “deterrence by preparedness” (a subcategory of the broader notion of “deterrence by denial”) is one paradigm for thinking of how the United States could successfully prevent Russia from turning to chemical or biological weapons. The following considerations came up most frequently as areas for investment.

Capability development and deployment

Allied military representatives broadly agreed that CBRN-related equipment—either related to attribution (including detection and surveillance systems) or response (such as decontamination or personal protective equipment [PPE])—is often overlooked in favor of high-caliber defense systems. Counter-CBRN capabilities are frequently considered too niche for broader collective defense.

Investment in CBRN defense capabilities, discussed further in the response section of this report, provides a deterrent signal in addition to preparing allies to fight through a chemical or biological attack. However, nearly everyone we interviewed recognized that these capabilities are often siloed to specialist forces and not broadly integrated within general purpose forces. Ministries of defense across the Alliance should set baselines for CBRN defense-capability targets, including PPE, gas masks, and treatment, across the total force and resource these priorities accordingly.

Exercises and training

Regular and comprehensive exercises that incorporate a variety of US and European military forces would underpin an effective deterrence strategy toward Russia. Some participants described the importance of joint training among special operations forces (SOF) that might be equipped to respond to chemical and biological weapons use. Components of these exercises should be incorporated into broader training, which can enable preparedness in times of crisis. Participants pointed to several preexisting multinational exercises as examples to demonstrate readiness to deter CBRN escalation.³⁰

Other training—including tabletop exercises and war-games—can be deployed to help decision-makers design more effective standards to aid and inform how the United States and its European allies and partners can deter potential Russian use of CBRN threats. Tabletop exercises and war-games leveraged by the Pentagon and DTRA with their European counterparts can be used to strengthen strategic and operational thinking about how to deter Russian escalation by providing opportunities to try new approaches under the guidance of expert facilitators.

Whole-of-society resilience

To be effective, deterrence by resilience must incorporate all facets of society to respond to instances of crisis or threats.³¹ To deter potential CBRN threats through preparedness, European allies and partners must warn the public, without fear-mongering, of the risk of escalation. Several participants noted the importance of preparing populations to withstand and defy threats from Russia, which includes activating and sustaining civilian institutions such as hospitals that would treat those affected by a chemical or biological attack. As part of a whole-of-society approach, greater awareness of chemical and biological threats is needed; public health personnel, first responders, law enforcement, teachers, and others ought to understand the effects of chemical and biological agents and how to respond appropriately. Similar to the military, civilian agencies should procure and maintain CBRN defense capabilities to protect and treat civilian populations in the event of a chemical or biological attack.

One phrase that is often repeated in expert circles is “raising the IQ” on nuclear threats. This concept applies to chemical and biological threats as well so that more individuals are cognizant of their scale and severity. Mental and emotional preparedness would enable the public to resist Russian efforts and contain the potential consequences associated with a Russian attack. Demonstrating societal resilience, in which wider social and civil functions can withstand CBRN escalation, could deter Russia from employing CBRN weapons.

Wielding the information space

Russia consistently utilizes the information space to instill fear, distrust, and confusion.³² In addition to responding to these types of stories with clear, fact-based information that demonstrates why Russian claims are false, the United States and its European allies and partners can also pre-bunk and dispel any false or misleading claims that Russia produces about CBRN-related threats. Participants pointed to the importance of sharing proactive messages about resistance to such narratives through a variety of means—including traditional media, official government communications, and social media—to dissuade Russian perpetrators from deploying attacks. Eye-catching social media posts and multimedia tools can extend reach to nontraditional communities to help dispel Russian claims. As one participant noted, winning the information war must be combined with the requisite military power and civilian capability to deter Russia.

Be cautious of setting red lines

While US and European officials must be clear about the consequences of escalation, interviewees resisted establishing so-called red lines that are overly specific. Many interviewees pointed to the infamous case of the Obama administration’s supposed red lines regarding Syria’s use of chemical weapons during its civil war in the 2010s. Such thresholds, which may be politically sensitive to apply, would leave the international community in a difficult position with respect to enforcement or punishment, which could undermine the credibility of deterrence.

Participants called instead for political rhetoric to be vague externally, where Russia and its allies would have difficulty determining the threshold for response, while being precise internally about the consequences of Russia’s actions. This distinction would provide space for the United States and its European allies and partners to determine the requisite response to CBRN threats stemming from Russia.

Diplomacy as a deterrent

Russia finds itself somewhat isolated in the current geopolitical environment. However, the Kremlin frequently looks to several nations—including China, Iran, and North Korea—to bolster Russia’s defense. These relationships could provide options to engage non-European nations to deter Russia from CBRN escalation. For example, China reportedly engaged Russia to discourage the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine and the deployment of nuclear weapons in space.³³ Given the degree to which Russia depends on China to prop up its wartime economy, there may be an opportunity to leverage China to dissuade Russia from turning to CBRN escalation, particularly if China upholds international regimes regarding CBRN use.³⁴ India may also be able to influence Russia given its role in supporting Russia’s economic stability amid Western sanctions and may have sway in discouraging CBRN escalation.

Part III: Response

The results of our workshops, interviews, and secondary research illuminated opportunities to enhance US and European responses to a CBRN attack should deterrence fail. Given its role in coordinating allied planning, NATO will be a critical actor in any response effort. Our discussions with NATO and European officials revealed consistent, close cooperation among military elements at NATO, while understanding that support required from civilian entities is a more nascent effort. However, the mandate for responding to a CBRN incident typically falls within the civilian sectors of many European governments, so political-military coordination is essential to ensuring all facets of government are aware of their roles in the event of a CBRN attack. Enhancing cooperation to promote coordinated responses includes the following best practices.

Ensure broad awareness of CBRN threats

Allies we interviewed broadly agreed that awareness of Russian CBRN threats cannot only reside within the specialist communities at NATO or in national militaries. At the political level, there is general agreement at NATO and within European capitals that Russia’s CBRN threats are an immediate concern. However, it is less clear how much allies are willing to invest to counter these threats, both now and in the five-to-ten-year time frame. Those geographically closest to Russia were most acutely aware of the threats and adamant about engaging with NATO allies via training, exercises, and exchanges to ensure active cooperation.

Variations in threat perception also appeared to be generational, according to our discussions. For example, officers who have served since the end of the Cold War described a lack of investment in CBRN defense in the absence of acute Soviet chemical, biological, and nuclear threats. The perception of such threats was lower in the post-Cold War era, which led the United States and Europe to deprioritize investment in preparedness. Given Russia’s continued flouting of international norms against the use of chemical weapons, and the primacy of nuclear warfare in its military doctrine, US, NATO, and European leaders need to uphold what they have recognized in recent strategic guidance as a critical threat emanating from Russia and invest in their forces accordingly.

Expand CBRN training to the total force

Training is an area that appears ripe for further investment. European military leaders we interviewed agreed that expertise cannot reside in the CBRN specialist communities alone. General purpose forces must also be trained on CBRN threats and equipped to fight through contaminated environments. To ensure broader awareness of CBRN threats, NATO and national military exercises should include elements of chemical, biological, or limited nuclear use scenarios. Military and civilian leaders we interviewed recognized the drawbacks of having personnel exercise in restrictive protective gear, given how it can slow maneuver, but it also puts troops at a disadvantage if they need to operate wearing the gear in a real-time scenario without much experience. NATO’s CBRN-focused exercises, described in the previous section, are an important step toward ensuring interoperability among NATO forces, but these lessons can be expanded beyond CBRN defense units to include NATO SOF and other elements of NATO’s deployable forces.

Better integrate military and civilian components

Apart from military preparedness, it is critical for national military and NATO elements to understand the capacity of civilian institutions, as first responders will have the authority for coordinating a response to incidents that occur outside of military operations. During the workshops and the interviews, participants expressed the need for greater integration of civilian and military personnel on topics such as decontamination and training, which necessitates the ability to share information between sectors.

Civilian institutions also play a critical role in responding to chemical and biological incidents, which could include attacks. Preparedness within national, subnational, and local institutions—including, for example, hospitals, research laboratories, public health institutions, law enforcement agencies, manufacturing facilities, and entities managing critical infrastructure—are essential to ensuring readiness for potential chemical and biological attacks. Civilian institutions could be underprepared for the crisis operations that would be required in the event of a chemical or biological attack. Better coordination with military counterparts can bridge these gaps to ensure a whole-of-society response to potential attacks, which also has an important deterrent effect when highlighted via strategic communications campaigns.

The European Union can play a role in fostering greater access to critical resources, such as PPE and laboratory equipment, particularly in times of crisis where traditional processes are too slow. The European External Action Service, which is the EU’s diplomatic service, has long partnered with NATO to ensure mutual understanding of threats and how to best prepare NATO allies and EU member states for possible CBRN attacks with information and tangible assets.³⁵ This relationship is vital to ensure stronger political-military coordination and should be expanded to account for greater CBRN-related cooperation.

Leverage NATO for coordination and capabilities

NATO’s 2022 CBRN defense policy represented a shift from the focus on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) terrorism of the early 2000s to a state-based threat actor that more closely aligns with the modern security environment.³⁶ NATO’s International Staff is overseeing the implementation of this policy, which is critical to ensure guidance flows to capitals so national authorities can promote a consistent approach. A response aligned with NATO demonstrates unity, which in turn demonstrates alliance cohesion in the face of continued Russian threats. Several NATO allies, including the United States, UK, and Finland, have their own national policies, but for those that do not, the NATO policy provides a roadmap for driving national prioritization of CBRN threats and response options for these threats aligned with NATO’s priorities.³⁷

As NATO allies consider greater thresholds for defense spending, more investment is needed in CBRN defense equipment and capabilities. An essential aspect of capability development is deploying and positioning of attribution, detection, and surveillance systems. NATO is well poised to lead collaborative efforts and ensure that states without adequate CBRN defenses learn from leaders in the field. NATO’s High Visibility Projects (HVP) includes three initiatives to improve cooperation around facilities, equipment, and detection.³⁸ CBRN defense projects have also been part of NATO’s Smart Defence Initiative since 2014.³⁹

Consider the information domain

As noted in the deterrence section, proactive communication about military and civilian activities to safeguard the entire population from a CBRN attack serves an important deterrent function while bolstering societal resilience. Effective use of the information domain is equally critical to reassuring the public regarding CBRN responses.

States can disseminate proactive messages to get ahead of any false or misleading information that Russia may seek to inject within open societies. This includes emphasis on strategic communications, fact-checking initiatives, media literacy, and education campaigns for adults and children alike.

The health sector can offer lessons in disseminating information about emotionally sensitive topics in a way that recognizes the severity of a threat without stoking fear. For example, the UK Health Service launched a public health campaign in 2025 to counter fears of taking antibiotics, which has become a top issue among UK residents.⁴⁰ Similar approaches can be taken to inform the public about chloropicrin or other agents Russia has used. Such communications should focus on facts, and in the realm of CBRN weapons, be clear about the rare and limited nature of exposure to such threats so as not to provoke undue stress or fear.

Integrating deterrence and response

Through the course of our research, we identified two activities that served both deterrent and response functions. First, being clear and unafraid of imposing massive costs to Russia (including economic, geopolitical, or military actions) for its use of chemical weapons could deter it from continuing to deploy chemical weapons or prevent escalation. Accountability is also an important part of response. Since 2014, Russia has acted with impunity in the absence of credible deterrent threats to its use of chemical weapons. Although many countries and international organizations have condemned Russia’s use of chemical weapons and imposed sanctions on Moscow, these actions have not stopped Russia from using chemical agents to achieve geopolitical goals. The consensus during our workshops and interviews is that Russia has a long history of incorporating CBRN weapons into its strategy and planning, which makes them both a near-term threat and a long-term strategic threat. Bringing treaty violations forward has had limited impact on Russia’s behavior, but increasing economic sanctions could reduce Russian access to funding, equipment, facilities, and technologies that could advance their chemical and biological weapons ambitions.

Second, the United States and its European allies and partners should clearly communicate potential consequences to deter future actions and inflict damage on the sectors on which Russia relies on for the development of its chemical and biological capabilities. The apparent threat of what a potential CBRN escalation would entail, including the diplomatic, informational, military, and economic implications, is essential for deterring Russia from turning to these threats, but following through on these actions also serves to punish Russia in response to its illicit activities.

Recommendations and key findings

Recommendation: Allies should continuously assess and evaluate Russia’s strategic objectives. To better coordinate threat perceptions across the Alliance, the United States and its European allies and partners should consider opportunities to expand collaboration on joint threat assessments related to Russia’s CBRN capabilities. As the Office of the Director of National Intelligence crafts the annual joint threat assessment report, insights from European allies and partners will be critical to assemble the most comprehensive picture of Russian CBRN threats; integrating perspectives from the Office of the NATO Assistant Secretary General for Intelligence and Security will be paramount in this effort.

Recommendation: Instead of publicizing red lines, the United States should champion the achievement of internal consensus regarding acceptable thresholds of Russian activity based on treaty obligations, while externally preserving ambiguity as a component of deterrence. NATO, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), and the United Nations are valuable forums for such deliberations and can play roles in imposing costs on Russia for CBRN use. However, internal debates within national governments are required to achieve consensus, which can take time. International investigations, such as those previously led in Syria by the OPCW (an intergovernmental body), are also time-consuming, and Russia politicizes the results to undermine effectiveness. Therefore, this recommendation could take years of sustained effort to carry out.

Recommendation: Within the United States, the Department of Defense (DoD) should work with the relevant authorities within the Treasury and Commerce departments to inflict the requisite economic pain on Russia through, for example, sanctions and export controls, to undermine its ability to sustain its biological and chemical weapons programs. Unified public messaging campaigns from the United States and Europe that condemn Russian CBRN weapons deployment would reinforce activities conducted behind the scenes.

Recommendation: The United States and its European allies and partners should identify methods for cooperation with nontraditional partners to dissuade Russia from leveraging CBRN threats as part of their military doctrine. Through NATO or the UN, the United States should explore opportunities to engage China and India to dissuade Moscow from pursuing further CBRN weapons development and use.

Recommendation: As concerns about potential deployment of Russian CBRN weapons grow, the US DoD should emphasize and prioritize efforts to expand counter-CBRN capabilities. Specific needs include sufficient systems to detect, surveil, and attribute CBRN threats. The United States could leverage the OPCW (and vice versa) for its experience in investigations. As the United States and its European allies and partners update guidelines for defense spending, CBRN defense warrants renewed attention and investment. The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) should advocate for European counterparts to place greater emphasis on CBRN defense. The DoD and the relevant subagencies should emphasize these systems when outlining US defense policy and national security strategies as they pertain to CBRN threats. Such systems will aid in deterring Russian CBRN threats while expanding readiness, preparedness, and resilience within the United States and across the transatlantic community. Ministries of defense and crisis response agencies should set baselines for CBRN defense capabilities and stockpile accordingly, including PPE, gas masks, antibiotics, and laboratory equipment.

Recommendation: DTRA and the broader US defense community should expand training on CBRN threats by incorporating elements of chemical, biological, and nuclear warfare scenarios in tabletop exercises and war-games. Inclusion of these scenarios can complement crisis situations posited in Europe to identify deterrence strategies and response options. CBRN considerations are often perceived to be too niche and left to specialist communities to design strategy and crisis responses. However, it is critical for decision-makers within the entire chain of command to possess a broad awareness of CBRN threats and simulate planning. The Joint Staff should ensure that service-level training incorporates these considerations into doctrine and training. Then, DTRA’s liaison officers could support training at US military commands and within multilateral institutions, such as NATO.

Recommendation: The United States and its NATO allies should incorporate the NATO SOF Command more directly into operational planning, particularly when thinking through the requisite deterrence and response implications of Russia deploying a CBRN weapon. NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) could help drive this coordination with support from the United States. Given the hybrid nature of many CBRN threats from Russia, within SHAPE and NATO Allied Command Operations (ACO), the United States and its NATO allies could consider a greater role for responding to hybrid threats alongside preexisting military structures. The US should expand CBRN defense cooperation, particularly on training, exercising, and information sharing. Elsewhere in Europe, allies recognized the leading role the United States plays (as well as the UK) in sharing intelligence with NATO; for allies with limited intelligence capabilities of their own, US information might be the only source of CBRN-related intelligence. Some allies expressed uncertainty over the prioritization of CBRN-related cooperation as a new administration begins its work in Washington, but at the individual level, cooperation remains close. NATO leaders should leverage productive working relationships to ensure sustained, coordinated prioritization for CBRN defense across all echelons of NATO planning.

Recommendation: As the need for additional CBRN defense capabilities and equipment grows, so too does the need to strengthen the private-sector capacity to supply the requisite functionalities. The US government should expand relationships with the defense industry and bolster production capacity to sustain supply chains and replenish depleted stockpiles of PPE. The DoD can also leverage lessons learned for production capacity and procurement protocols from the COVID-19 pandemic, when the Pentagon supported the production of PPE through the Defense Production Act to increase production of critical supplies and equipment. The DoD’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment and the Defense Logistics Agency can both play an important role in facilitating these relationships while removing unnecessary barriers to procurement processes within the DoD. Similar efforts should be undertaken with European counterparts of these agencies and at NATO, though the implementation of this recommendation could require years of investment.

Recommendation: Demonstrating close cooperation between civilian and military entities can have a deterrent effect if communicated properly, while also ensuring military entities are aware of the resources that reside in civilian institutions. Key areas for investment include interoperability of CBRN defense equipment; standards and procedures for treating exposure to chemical or biological agents; availability of civilian infrastructure for military use; and protocols for military members seeking care in civilian hospitals. NATO is well poised to encourage cooperation between military forces and critical civilian institutions that are often on the front lines of such responses, including public health agencies, local hospitals, and law enforcement. European nations can leverage the examples of their peers to their advantage. In the United States, the DoD is well positioned to support interagency coordination among European allies and partners with respect to emergency preparedness mechanisms, capability development, and training. OSD should consider embedding highly skilled personnel within US military commands, diplomatic missions, and other frameworks to facilitate the exchange of information and expertise.

Recommendation: A whole-of-society approach to resilience—to include health institutions, law enforcement, critical infrastructure, business community, and other sectors—can help strengthen attribution systems for identifying and attributing chemical and biological attacks. The United States should coordinate with its European allies and partners to encourage greater resilience and preparedness within civilian institutions and foster information sharing across national borders.

Recommendation: Preemptive and frequent intelligence sharing, in classified and open-source settings, is critical to deterring Russia from using CBRN weapons; this practice presents a unified approach among the United States and its European allies and partners. All allies should aim to more regularly share relevant information. The US national security apparatus should conduct a complete review of potential barriers to information and intelligence sharing to identify areas for streamlined sharing with NATO allies. The Defense Intelligence Agency could lead such an initiative on behalf of the DoD, with a focus on greater use of open-source intelligence to draw further public attention to Russia’s CBRN capabilities, facilities, and development. The United States should encourage similar reviews across NATO member states to improve Alliance-wide access to intelligence and information and ensure that this subject is a standing agenda item for the relevant NATO committees, including the Defense Policy and Planning Committee and the Civilian Intelligence Committee.

Recommendation: To support NATO’s 2022 CBRN Defense Strategy’s effort to improve shared understanding across the Alliance, more consistent and comprehensive messaging is needed within the capitals of NATO allies, particularly around the policy planning process and the integration of civilian entities within a coordinated military response in the event of a CBRN-related contingency. The US Mission to NATO can champion efforts to expand knowledge and understanding of Russian CBRN threats within NATO while sharing lessons learned from European allies and partners throughout the US government.

Recommendation: The US Defense, State, and Homeland Security departments have produced public messaging campaigns related to Russian CBRN threats and methods to improve media literacy. These efforts should expand to include greater emphasis on debunking false and misleading claims related to CBRN threats. Additionally, the US government should incorporate European allies and partners in messaging efforts to counter Russian malign influence operations around CBRN threats.

Recommendation: The United States should work with European allies to identify best practices in crafting public awareness-raising campaigns for how to respond to suspected CBRN attacks. Public messaging should focus on practical steps individuals can take in an emergency, without prompting undue alarm among the wider population.

Recommendation: US and European governments should explore opportunities to partner with civil society organizations to craft prebunking, media literacy, and fact-checking initiatives that can successfully communicate proactive messaging to broader publics in the Euro-Atlantic area, particularly given the scientific and technical nature of CBRN threats. Proactive messages about resistance to Russian narratives should be disseminated through a combination of means, including traditional media, official government communications, and social media. The United States could also explore joint research initiatives with European institutions. EU member states can leverage the European Defense Fund, which provides research into common defense and security priorities, including in CBRN-related issues. Partnerships between universities, scientific foundations, and think tanks can facilitate greater knowledge and information sharing related to CBRN threats.

Recommendation: Technologies such as synthetic biology and additive manufacturing continue to evolve, and their applications will remain difficult to foresee. The international community must remain vigilant to how technologies can be exploited. To that end, the United States must continue and expand its restrictions for known suppliers of potential dual-use technologies to Russia. The DoD should coordinate with the Department of Commerce to expand the use of export controls to address instances where Russia is able to obtain capabilities and equipment, such as pharmaceutical components, biotechnologies, and chemical precursors. Critical to the success of these controls, however, is including like-minded European allies and partners into conversations about technologies of concern. The Department of Defense should work with the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control to strengthen and expand the list of sanctioned entities that aid and abet Russia’s biological and chemical weapons development programs.

Conclusion

This project demonstrates that Russian chemical and biological threats are a concern now and will continue to pose challenges to European security in the next five to ten years. To enable European allies and partners to counter these threats, the United States can leverage its strong security and defense relationships with European allies and partners to improve capabilities and raise the profile of chemical and biological weapons issues within governments and among populations. The existing chemical and biological defense infrastructure in the United States, NATO, and in some European countries provides lessons for the broader Euro-Atlantic community. With greater investment comes greater confidence that deterring Russia is feasible, but if deterrence fails, attention now can ensure that the United States and Europe are prepared to effectively respond.

Please note that the appendixes are not included in the online version of this publication, but they can be accessed in the attached PDF file. The appendixes contain the following information: Appendix A – Acronym List; Appendix B – Workshop Participants; Appendix C – Exercise Methodology; Appendix D – Interview Participants; Appendix E – Biographies. These appendixes provide additional details and insights on the research methods and findings.

The research team thanks the US Department of Defense for sponsoring this work and for the guidance and support provided throughout the course of the project. Special thanks go to the wide range of experts and stakeholders, inside and outside of the US and European governments, who took part in the scenario-building exercises, contributed their perspectives during the interview process, spoke during roundtable discussions, and participated in other contexts to enrich the analysis.

We would also like to acknowledge Hans Binnendijk and John Watts for their support in conceptualizing the methodology and structure of the scenario workshop exercises. Hans and Katarzyna Zysk provided useful peer reviews to improve the quality of the report. In addition, we would like to thank Torrey Taussig and Matthew Kroenig, who offered strategic direction, peer review, and key perspectives throughout the project. Within the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative team, we recognize our current and recent colleagues Inga Samoškaitė, Zak Schneider, Kristen Taylor, Kimberly Talley, and Luka Ignac for their project management and research support. We would also like to thank the Atlantic Council’s Gretchen Ehle, Nicholas O’Connell, and Caroline Simpson, whose support for this project was invaluable.

This report is intended to live up to General Brent Scowcroft’s standard for rigorous, relevant, and nonpartisan analysis on national security issues. The Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security works to continue his nonpartisan commitment to the cause of security, support for US leadership in cooperation with allies and partners, and dedication to the mentorship of the next generation of leaders.

The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the US Department of Defense or the United States Government.

Staff

Philippe Dickinson

Deputy Director

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Transatlantic Security Initiative

Chinese East Asia

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Ryan Arick

Nonresident Fellow

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Transatlantic Security Initiative

NATO Security & Defense

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Natasha Lander Finch

Senior Fellow

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Transatlantic Security Initiative

Arms Control Europe & Eurasia

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On September 30,  Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Elliot Ackerman authored an article in The Free Press entitled “Pete Hegseth Wants a ‘Warrior Culture.’ Does He Know What That Means?,” in which he discusses Secretary Hegseth’s changes to service member culture.

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Elliot Ackerman

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Afghanistan Defense Policy

Forward Defense leads the Atlantic Council’s US and global defense programming, developing actionable recommendations for the United States and its allies and partners to compete, innovate, and navigate the rapidly evolving character of warfare. Through its work on US defense policy and force design, the military applications of advanced technology, space security, strategic deterrence, and defense industrial revitalization, it informs the strategies, policies, and capabilities that the United States will need to deter, and, if necessary, prevail in major-power conflict.

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On September 17, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Owen Daniels was featured on the Network 20/20 Virtual Briefing Series alongside Janet Egan and Sam Winter-Levy. The panelists discussed the ramifications and strategic implications of the US-China AI race and China’s rapid progress in AI development.

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Owen J. Daniels

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Industry Defense Policy

Forward Defense leads the Atlantic Council’s US and global defense programming, developing actionable recommendations for the United States and its allies and partners to compete, innovate, and navigate the rapidly evolving character of warfare. Through its work on US defense policy and force design, the military applications of advanced technology, space security, strategic deterrence, and defense industrial revitalization, it informs the strategies, policies, and capabilities that the United States will need to deter, and, if necessary, prevail in major-power conflict.

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The post Daniels weighs the consequences of the US-China AI Race on Network 20/20 appeared first on Atlantic Council.

“When the Chinese came, they bullied, they killed,” Choejor said of China’s invasion of Tibet in the 1950s. “There was no freedom, no religion. After so many brutal acts, there was no way to stay silent. We couldn’t stay living like that. We suffered. But there was no other choice. We had to fight back.”

When it comes to their culture, history, and geography, Tibet and Ukraine appear to have few things in common. But scratch beneath the surface and you’ll find many surprising similarities, including the fact that when neighboring empires invaded their homelands, the Tibetan and Ukrainian nations summoned a devotion to their freedom and an unbreakable will to fight for it.

Beginning in the mid-1950s, Tibetan irregulars fought a decades-long insurgency against China’s occupation. It wasn’t until 1974, and at the Dalai Lama’s request, that they finally laid down their arms. The legacy of this armed resistance continues to inspire generations of Tibetans, both inside Tibet and in exile, to resist Chinese oppression in other, non-violent ways.

Likewise, Russia’s invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014 spurred a nationwide resistance movement to take root, paving the way for Ukraine’s remarkable stand in February 2022. After more than three and a half years of full-scale war, Ukraine’s will to resist remains unbroken.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

I’ve spent the past thirteen years embedded in the Tibetan and Ukrainian freedom struggles, wanting to understand how these two nations summoned the will to defy the empires that meant to destroy them. This quest has taken me to the ends of the earth and to the extremes of the human experience. I dodged Russian snipers on Ukraine’s battlefields and crossed remote Himalayan passes that soar as high as jetliners fly.

Along the way, I met Ukrainian university students who adapted small commercial drones to kill their Russian enemies, and shared tea with Tibetan monks and nomads who had fought on horseback, armed with swords and World War I-era rifles, against China’s mechanized invasion. Throughout it all, I’ve been consistently surprised by all the similarities these two stories share.

Whether I was talking to a 20-year-old Ukrainian soldier or an 80-year-old Tibetan veteran, I kept hearing the same humble explanations for their actions, such as the shared sentiment that they had “no other choice.” For many of those I have met, going to war for their homeland’s freedom wasn’t really a decision at all. It was automatic and instinctual, like an immune system response. Their country was invaded and innocent people were dying, so they had to fight. Simple as that.

Ukrainian soldier Denys put it to me like this: “Wars aren’t won by surrendering. You have to fight. If you don’t fight, you won’t be supported by anyone. Because it’s your own freedom and you have to fight for it.”

Kelsang Tsering, a former Buddhist monk who served in the Tibetan resistance from 1955 to 1974, had a similarly matter-of-fact explanation for his decision to resist China’s occupation. “I saw what China was doing in Tibet and it made me so angry, I had to fight,” he said.

Tsering and I spoke over tea one evening at his home in a Nepalese refugee settlement. A flickering fluorescent lamp lit the room. A picture of the Dalai Lama hung on the wall. Tsering’s wife sat on the floor, legs folded, spinning a prayer wheel while she chanted a Buddhist mantra. I asked Tsering if it was difficult for him to take a life in combat, given that he was once a Buddhist monk who eschewed all violence, even the killing of an insect.

“In the beginning, I was thinking we were monks, and so we shouldn’t kill,” he answered. “But when I recalled all the abuses, all the terrible things the Chinese did, I forgot my hesitation. After seeing so many bad things, I forgot that killing was a sin.”

Such moral certitude echoes what I’ve heard from many Ukrainians. “The Russians came to our country and killed our people. It’s our country, our land, our families. For us, it’s very clear. We kill them, or they kill us,” a Ukrainian special operations soldier named Serhii told me.

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China and Russia are on the march against the US-led world order. Yet, the way I see it, America’s military might isn’t the only obstacle holding these aggressive, wannabe empires at bay.

By refusing to surrender their identities and submit to imperial rule, the Tibetan and Ukrainian nations defy the fantasies of civilizational greatness, detached from historical reality, that the Chinese and Russian regimes depend on for their domestic legitimacy. The authoritarians in Beijing and Moscow see such expressions of independence and self-determination as existential threats to their grip on power. Their retaliation has been brutal.

Russia launched its disastrous full-scale invasion in 2022 to destroy the Ukrainian state and extinguish Ukraine’s national identity entirely. China, for its part, has spent decades trying to erase Tibet’s culture and ethnicity. Today, after seventy-five years of occupation, Tibet is a nightmarish Gestapo state for the Tibetans living there, a chilling portent of what Ukrainians are fighting to prevent from happening in their homeland.

The irony, of course, is that the Ukrainian and Tibetan nations are more unified today than they ever were prior to being invaded. Rather than break Ukraine’s spirit, each new Russian atrocity reinforces the resolve of the Ukrainian population to resist. As for Tibetans, a people once divided by regional dialects and cultures, they’ve now coalesced around a single version of their language and national identity, at the heart of which is their universal devotion to the Dalai Lama.

The price of freedom is set by those who wish to destroy it. And yet, as the Dalai Lama said in a speech not long after the Soviet Union collapsed, “brute force, no matter how strongly applied, can never subdue the basic human desire for freedom.” In today’s troubled world, that’s a message worth remembering.

Nolan Peterson is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former US Air Force Special Operations pilot.

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

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On September 22, 2025, Andrew Michta, nonresident senior fellow in the GeoStrategy Initiative, was published in RealClearDefense. He argues that the next U.S. National Security Strategy risks misreading history again.

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Andrew A. Michta

Nonresident Senior Fellow

GeoStrategy Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Central Europe Eastern Europe

The post Michta published in RealClearDefense on the next U.S. National Security Strategy appeared first on Atlantic Council.

This unity was on display when the President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Mohammed bin Zayed, arrived in Doha one day after the attack, and Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman condemned Israel’s “brutal aggression” against Qatar and vowed that Riyadh would stand with Doha “without limit.” Such solidarity speaks volumes about how much intra-GCC dynamics have changed since the Emirati and Saudi-led blockade of Qatar, which ended less than five years ago.

Beyond the GCC, leaders and representatives from across the Arab-Islamic world convened in Doha on September 15 for an emergency summit organized by the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Together, they issued a unified condemnation of Israel’s strike on Qatar. In his address, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani warned of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s expansionist ambitions, calling the notion of turning the Arab world into “an Israeli sphere of influence” a “dangerous illusion.”

US security guarantees under scrutiny

For decades, Gulf governments have depended on the United States as their primary security guarantor, particularly against Iran and Ba’athist Iraq. However, a series of US foreign policy decisions in the twenty-first century—including Washington’s response to the 2010–11 Arab Spring, the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and its limited reaction to the 2019 attacks on Saudi Aramco and the 2022 Houthi strikes on Abu Dhabi—have, to varying degrees, gradually eroded Gulf states’ confidence in America’s commitment to their security. Israel’s recent military strike on Qatar, however, brought those concerns to the forefront, sharply intensifying doubts among Gulf monarchies about the reliability of the US security umbrella.

As CNN and Axios have reported, US and Israeli officials claim that Netanyahu notified the Trump administration prior to the launch of this operation. If true, this contradicts the White House’s claims that the notification only came after Israel’s military launched the missiles at Doha. Nonetheless, Trump responded to Israel’s bombing of Qatar by referring to the Gulf country as a “great ally” and warned Netanyahu’s government to be “very careful.”

Regardless of the timing and which version of events is accurate, Doha’s key lesson is that the American security umbrella failed to prevent this unprecedented attack from occurring. Given that Qatar has hosted the US Central Command’s forward headquarters at al-Udeid Air Base for over two decades and was designated a Major Non-NATO Ally in 2022, Doha is now questioning what these aspects of its defense partnership with Washington truly mean in practice if Washington permits (or at least fails to prevent) an Israeli strike on Qatari territory.

This incident has also prompted similar concerns among other GCC members, who are now asking what protections, if any, they have that Qatar did not. If Israel is willing to carry out such an operation with apparent impunity, what would stop it from targeting individuals deemed “terrorists” by its government elsewhere in the Gulf—such as a Houthi representative based in Muscat?

Against the backdrop of Israel’s increasingly assertive regional posture—including its strike on Doha, the June attack on Iran that launched the Twelve Day War, ongoing military operations against the Houthis in Yemen, and frequent airstrikes across Syria since last year’s fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime—the GCC states are finding themselves more closely aligned in their threat perceptions. As each of the six monarchies pursues ambitious economic development and diversification agendas, regional stability has become a shared strategic imperative. Attracting investors, business leaders, and tourists depends on maintaining a secure environment—not just within their own borders, but across the broader region. From the Gulf’s perspective, Israel’s actions are casting a long shadow over the viability of these visions for economic transformation.

In this context, it was unsurprising that Gulf leaders swiftly condemned Israel’s strike on Qatar and expressed unequivocal solidarity with Doha. For all six monarchies, the imperative is clear: to signal that such acts of aggression must not be normalized or allowed to become a precedent. While Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinian territories, and Yemen have become routine, Gulf states are united in their determination to prevent any GCC member from being added to that list. There is a growing consensus across the Gulf that Israel must face consequences for its actions to deter any future attacks on Gulf monarchies.

Gulf options

Lacking the military capacity to respond directly to Israel, GCC states are compelled to explore alternative, non-military options. Chief among these is the strategic use of their close relationship with US President Donald Trump and key figures within his administration. Gulf leaders are likely to press Washington to exert its considerable leverage over Israel to prevent any future attacks on a GCC member. Aware of the Trump administration’s reliance on the Gulf monarchies for advancing US economic, geopolitical, and security objectives, these states possess diplomatic and economic levers that could be employed skillfully.

Given the UAE’s status as the Gulf state with the closest ties to Israel, Doha and possibly other GCC capitals are quietly encouraging Abu Dhabi to reassess its relations with Tel Aviv. Although a full abrogation of the Abraham Accords in response to the September 9 Israeli strike on Qatar remains unlikely at this point, Emirati officials may consider recalibrating bilateral ties to convey that aggression against any GCC member carries consequences. Even if short of abrogating the Abraham Accords, Abu Dhabi and Manama could expel ambassadors, downgrade diplomatic relations (as the UAE did with Iran in January 2016), or decrease their public engagement with Israel. Looking ahead, should Israel continue to act with impunity and Washington fail to restrain its behavior, Abu Dhabi could retain its option to withdraw from the Abraham Accords altogether as a form of leverage. Nonetheless, aside from strong rhetoric condemning the attack on Doha, so far the UAE’s only diplomatic action in response to Israel’s bombing of its fellow GCC state has been to summon the deputy Israeli ambassador to Abu Dhabi.

Ultimately, GCC members face an inflection point as they grapple with new regional realities. Israel’s willingness to strike a Gulf state and Washington’s tacit acquiescence have exposed a critical vulnerability in the Gulf’s longstanding reliance on the United States as its principal security guarantor. Should further Israeli attacks occur, Gulf leaders will be confronted with the challenge of managing a growing security threat absent the protective umbrella they have long depended on. With no alternative global or regional power both capable and willing to replace Washington in this role, the Gulf monarchies may be increasingly driven to deepen intra-GCC defense coordination and revive aspirations for a more autonomous, NATO-style security framework. Developing robust missile defense systems and credible deterrent capabilities will require time and sustained investment. Yet, this trajectory appears increasingly necessary.

In parallel, Gulf states are likely to expand strategic partnerships with Pakistan and Turkey. Both of these countries have their own vested interests in preserving Gulf security and sovereignty amid an increasingly assertive Israeli posture and perceived US disengagement. Just eight days after the Israeli attack on Doha, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed a defense treaty, which puts the Kingdom under Islamabad’s security umbrella. This is particularly relevant given Pakistan’s increasingly grave concerns about an Israeli-Indian nexus within the context of the armed conflict between Islamabad and New Delhi earlier this year, as well as Turkey’s perception of a growing Israeli threat in Syria.

Iran can be counted on to opportunistically seize this moment to capitalize on its Arab neighbors’ growing distrust of Washington and try to bring Tehran closer to Doha and other GCC capitals. Although it is extremely doubtful that the fallout from this Israeli strike on Qatar will lead to any major GCC-wide pivot toward Iran as a security partner, Tehran will be positioned to gain in mostly symbolic ways while advancing its anti-Israeli rhetoric and narrative of standing with other Muslim-majority nations in opposing Israel.

In sum, while the precise trajectory of GCC responses remains uncertain, Israel’s strike has served as a shock, compelling all six members to re-examine long-standing assumptions about the reliability of their US security guarantor. In its wake, the Gulf monarchies have displayed strong unity at a time when rethinking twenty-first-century Gulf security is no longer optional. Whether through greater intra-GCC coordination, diversification of external partnerships, or renewed efforts toward strategic autonomy, the region now stands at a critical juncture—one that will shape the contours of Gulf security for years to come.

Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics, a Washington, DC-based geopolitical risk consultancy. He is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Georgetown University.

The post How Israel’s strike on Doha is forcing a Gulf security reckoning appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Director for Northern Europe Anna Wieslander has featured on Swedish radio September 10 & 11 following the news of NATO forces shooting down Russian drones over Poland and commented on the NATO response and reactions from world leaders.

September 10, Wieslander says that “it was about time NATO reacted in such a way” and continues to say that Russia is testing the responses and resolve of the alliance. The NATO response was “absolutely necessary” deems Wieslander.

September 11, Wieslander also comments on the absent US response to the incident, saying that it is “curious” that neither the President nor any secretary in the administration has condemned Russia’s actions.

Listen to the features here:

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As the drama swirled, Rubio’s visit was an opportunity to consolidate long-term trust, cooperation, and collaboration with the United States’ partners in Mexico City and Quito. This and earlier trips to the region by the US secretary of state are part of a larger effort by Trump administration, which seeks to tie shared security together with enhanced prosperity for the Western Hemisphere. While progress is being made, the months and years to come will reveal whether this approach can overcome the region’s entrenched challenges.

A new implementation group in Mexico

In Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum and her cabinet welcomed deeper security cooperation with the United States while her secretary for foreign affairs, Juan Ramón de la Fuente, emphasized Mexican sovereignty and respect for territorial integrity during the joint press conference. Mexican officials stated clearly that each country must act against targets within their own borders. This emphasis on sovereignty should be seen in part as an attempt to shut down speculation by some that the United States might take unilateral action, including strikes against US-listed foreign terrorist organizations or other groups in Mexico.

Perhaps the biggest, most tangible announcement that came out of Palacio Nacional was the creation of a high-level implementation group to follow up on security commitments between the United States and Mexico. These commitments include coordinating joint operations against drug, arms, and human trafficking; overseeing efforts to dismantle cross-border tunnels and illicit financial networks; and designing rapid-response protocols for emerging threats. The new group is designed to give structure and permanence to bilateral security cooperation, and it will bring together senior US and Mexican officials from security, foreign affairs, and intelligence agencies. With the ability to spin off specialized subcommittees on issues such as fentanyl, firearms, and border infrastructure, the group will in effect act as a secretariat for security cooperation, with clear accountability built in through periodic progress reports to both governments. This marks an important step forward for cooperation between the United States and Mexico.

New security funding for Ecuador

Ecuador was once touted as one of the safest countries the region, but violence has increased in recent years. With five thousand murders this year as of July, the country’s homicide rate has increased by 40 percent in 2025 compared to the previous year. Much of this violence stems from criminal organizations and cartels. Reflecting this, the United States on Thursday designated Los Choneros and Los Lobos as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists.

While US-Ecuador cooperation is not new, the rise in violence, despite President Daniel Noboa’s efforts to tackle crime, underscores the urgency of providing increased US muscle to back his administration’s mano dura, or firm hand, policies. During his visit, Rubio announced nearly twenty million dollars in support for Ecuador, including six million dollars for naval drones. Rubio also mentioned the possibility of US troops on Ecuadorian soil, and, with an invitation from the Ecuadorians, potentially reopening a US base that was closed in 2009 under former President Rafael Correa.

The geopolitical significance of these announcements should not go unnoticed. These positive developments represent a major shift for US relations with Ecuador, a strategic ally that was once estranged and now in many ways sees eye-to-eye with the Trump administration, despite how heavily indebted it is to China. This stands in sharp contrast to US relations with long-time allies in the region, such as Colombia, whose ties with Washington have recently become more strained.

Also during the visit, US and Ecuadorian officials sketched the outlines of a potential migrant deportation agreement, though the details are pending. Last but not least, Rubio mentioned progress toward a bilateral trade deal.

From security cooperation to economic prosperity

Rubio’s focus both on enhancing security cooperation and on deepening economic ties is important, and his trip points the way toward a broader strategic vision for the region.

The Atlantic Council’s February 2024 Redefining US Strategy with Latin America and the Caribbean for a New Era report argues that the future of US engagement with the region must center on mutual, inclusive growth rooted in secure ties rather than transactional outreach. Specifically, the report envisions a revamped partnership built on shared values and country-specific strategies.

In effect, Rubio’s trip is a step toward turning that blueprint into a reality. The US secretary of state’s visit presented security cooperation as the entry point, but prosperity as the true test of success. Security cooperation should be conceived as a means to an end—in Latin America, that end should be economic security.

As Rubio said in Ecuador: “You cannot have economic prosperity without stability, and you cannot have stability without security. For example, it’s nearly impossible to attract foreign investment into a country unless you have security.”

With so much discussion surrounding the US counternarcotics operations in the Caribbean, it’s worth remembering that those shows of force are only one piece of the puzzle, and they should not distract from broader US efforts to build trust and enhance security cooperation in the region.

María Fernanda Bozmoski is director, impact and operations, and lead for Central America at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

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The northern third of the Donetsk province is the last remaining part of eastern Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region that is still under Kyiv control. It has been at the epicenter of Putin’s invasion ever since the onset of Russian aggression more than a decade ago in 2014, and is home to Ukraine’s most extensive network of fortifications. Putin’s proposed peace terms pose a series of grave political and military threats for the Ukrainian authorities.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

Gifting Russia large swathes of unconquered territory that thousands of Ukrainians have died defending would be an extremely bitter pill for the Ukrainian population to swallow, to put it mildly. It would also be widely seen as rewarding Russia for launching the largest European war since World War II. This would legitimize Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine and set the stage for further Russian aggression.

Even if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was personally inclined to appease Putin, he does not constitutionally have the authority to cede land. Instead, changes to Ukraine’s borders must be agreed via a national referendum. Any indication that Zelenskyy favored accepting Putin’s territorial demands would likely provoke strong domestic opposition. This would potentially destabilize Ukraine, creating a range of opportunities for Russia to exploit. A weakened and divided Ukraine would be far more vulnerable on the battlefield and in the diplomatic arena.

Alternatively, if Zelenskyy maintains his current position and continues to rule out Putin’s Donbas land grab, the Kremlin will likely use this rejection to poison the Ukrainian leader’s relations with US President Donald Trump by portraying Ukraine as the main obstacle to peace. Putin would no doubt welcome the opportunity to drive a wedge between Kyiv and Washington as Moscow seeks to isolate Ukraine and reduce international support for the Ukrainian war effort.

Militarily, the surrender of the northern Donetsk region would place large parts of eastern Ukraine at risk of being overrun by the advancing Russians. The region currently serves as a bastion against Russia’s invasion. While there is no guarantee that fortified areas will be able to hold out indefinitely against Russian attacks, Putin would almost certainly be forced to sacrifice huge numbers of troops before achieving his goal. In this sense, the Donbas fortress belt is one of Ukraine’s trump cards in its war of attrition against Russia.

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Over the past eleven years, Ukraine has constructed a range of defensive fortifications in the northern Donetsk region centered around the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. The area has served as a logistical hub for the Ukrainian war effort and has been a focus of efforts to develop defense in depth. If Ukraine retreats from this stronghold, Russia would be able to secure a vital staging post for further advances while avoiding hundreds of thousands of casualties. The Ukrainian military would then be forced to hastily construct new fortifications in significantly less favorable terrain.

With current military technologies favoring defensive operations, Ukraine’s fortress belt in the northern Donetsk region represents a formidable obstacle for Putin’s invading army. The ubiquity of drones above the battlefield makes large-scale mechanized breakthroughs extremely challenging to accomplish, leaving Russia to rely on small groups of infantry to infiltrate Ukrainian forward positions. This approach can be successful against thinly defended and hastily constructed defensive positions, but is unlikely to prove effective against the most heavily fortified sector of the Ukrainian front lines.

Ukrainians recognize the need for concessions, with a majority acknowledging that areas of the country currently occupied by Russia will likely remain under Kremlin control as part of any peace settlement. Crucially, however, almost nobody in Ukraine believes that handing over additional unconquered territory in the Donbas would satisfy Putin’s imperial ambitions or remove the threat of future Russian invasions. On the contrary, most Ukrainians agree that this would only encourage the Kremlin and embolden Putin to go further. He would be able to do so from a position of strength, having secured Ukraine’s fortress belt without the prolonged fighting that has proved necessary in order to secure far smaller territorial gains elsewhere in eastern Ukraine.

From both a military and political perspective, it would make little sense for Ukraine to accept Russia’s territorial demands and voluntarily surrender the northern Donetsk region as part of a peace deal. As long as Kyiv continues to control the Donbas fortress belt, there is a good chance that the Ukrainian military can turn the entire region into a graveyard for Putin’s invading army. Meanwhile, a withdrawal would leave large parts of Ukraine dangerously undefended and dramatically undermine faith in the country’s leadership.

Even if Putin concentrates his best military units in a bid to complete the conquest of the Donbas region, he would almost certainly be forced to pay a very high price for any significant advances. Indeed, the Russian army may become bogged down for years in bitter fighting that would dwarf earlier battles of attrition and could conceivably change the entire course of the war. This is exactly why Putin is pushing for Ukraine to surrender the region without a fight, and helps explain why Ukraine is reluctant to do so.

Mykola Bielieskov is a research fellow at the National Institute for Strategic Studies and a senior analyst at Ukrainian NGO “Come Back Alive.” The views expressed in this article are the author’s personal position and do not reflect the opinions or views of NISS or Come Back Alive.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Aug 21, 2025

Putin is facing a fuel crisis as Ukraine escalates attacks on Russian refineries

By David Kirichenko

Historically, Russia’s sheer size has always been considered one of its main strengths. By launching waves of airstrikes across the country, Ukraine now intends to exploit this vastness and transform it into Russia’s greatest weakness, writes David Kirichenko.

Conflict Defense Technologies

UkraineAlert Aug 21, 2025

Sorry, Trump, but Putin will not pursue peace until he is facing military defeat

By Elena Davlikanova, Yevhen Malik

Following the recent Alaska and White House summits, it should now be abundantly clear that Russia will continue to reject Trump’s peace overtures until Putin faces significantly more pressure to end the war, write Elena Davlikanova and Yevhen Malik.

Conflict European Union

UkraineAlert Aug 19, 2025

A strong Ukraine is the only realistic security guarantee against Russia

By Peter Dickinson

Ukraine’s Western partners are preparing to offer security guarantees as part of efforts to prevent further Russian aggression, but it far from clear whether Western governments would actually fight Russia on behalf of Ukraine, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Defense Policy

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

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UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values, and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia, and Central Asia in the East.

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The post Putin wants to capture Ukraine’s crucial fortress belt without a fight appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On August 5, MajGen Arnold Punaro (ret.), a Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow, discussed developments in the Russia-Ukraine conflict on Bloomberg Radio. In his interview, he applauded efforts to bolster the US defense production, advocated for increased sanctions on Russia, and expressed deep distrust in President Putin. Punaro emphasized that rewarding Russian aggression would only enable malign state actors. 

Advisory Council member

Arnold Punaro

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Industry Defense Policy

Forward Defense leads the Atlantic Council’s US and global defense programming, developing actionable recommendations for the United States and its allies and partners to compete, innovate, and navigate the rapidly evolving character of warfare. Through its work on US defense policy and force design, the military applications of advanced technology, space security, strategic deterrence, and defense industrial revitalization, it informs the strategies, policies, and capabilities that the United States will need to deter, and, if necessary, prevail in major-power conflict.

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The post Punaro discusses the Russia-Ukraine conflict on Bloomberg Radio appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On August 26, MajGen Arnold Punaro (ret.), a Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow, published an article in RealClear Defense, titled “Restructuring Our Military for a Multi-Front War.” In the article, Punaro argues that existing US military posture, designed to confront a single major adversary, is inadequate for emerging strategic reality. He emphasizes that the evolving global environment requires a military force able to deter and prevail across multiple theaters. 

Advisory Council member

Arnold Punaro

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Industry Defense Policy

Forward Defense leads the Atlantic Council’s US and global defense programming, developing actionable recommendations for the United States and its allies and partners to compete, innovate, and navigate the rapidly evolving character of warfare. Through its work on US defense policy and force design, the military applications of advanced technology, space security, strategic deterrence, and defense industrial revitalization, it informs the strategies, policies, and capabilities that the United States will need to deter, and, if necessary, prevail in major-power conflict.

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The post Arnold Punaro featured in RealClear Defense on restructuring the US military appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Director for Northern Europe, Anna Wieslander gave her assessment of the Russia-Ukraine negotiations after the Alaska and White House-summit in a longer interview in “Superpowers” by Times Radio, August 22.

Wieslander comments on the three main dimensions of the peace talks, how the Europeans leaders succeeded in increasing leverage for Ukraine at the White House meeting and the potential composition of security guarantees.

Wieslander also calls for more pressure on Russia from both the “superpower” US and Europe, stating that neither is using all its instruments at the moment. “Europe must step up and take a bit more risk towards Russia”, says Wieslander proposing the creation of a reconstruction fund for Ukraine based on frozen Russian state assets as one possible action.

“This is the moment, this is where Europe has to change and increase its support to Ukraine”, says Wieslander.

The post Wieslander interviewed on Times Radio appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On August 19, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Owen Daniels was featured on Episode 108 of the German Marshal Fund’s China Power Podcast. In the episode, Owens discusses US-China competition in artificial intelligence, China’s AI strategy and ambitions, and how Beijing is leveraging AI to expand its global influence. Daniels also explores what the United States can do to maintain and bolster its technological leadership.

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Owen J. Daniels

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Industry Defense Policy

Forward Defense leads the Atlantic Council’s US and global defense programming, developing actionable recommendations for the United States and its allies and partners to compete, innovate, and navigate the rapidly evolving character of warfare. Through its work on US defense policy and force design, the military applications of advanced technology, space security, strategic deterrence, and defense industrial revitalization, it informs the strategies, policies, and capabilities that the United States will need to deter, and, if necessary, prevail in major-power conflict.

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On August 14, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Owen Daniels published an article, “China’s Soft Power Tools and Whether They Work,” in War on the Rocks. In the article, Daniels examines China’s strategic use of open AI platforms as a tool of soft power, highlighting how models like DeepSeek’s R1 and Moonshot AI’s Kimi K2 pose both technological and diplomatic challenges for the United States.

Fellow

Owen J. Daniels

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Industry Defense Policy

Forward Defense leads the Atlantic Council’s US and global defense programming, developing actionable recommendations for the United States and its allies and partners to compete, innovate, and navigate the rapidly evolving character of warfare. Through its work on US defense policy and force design, the military applications of advanced technology, space security, strategic deterrence, and defense industrial revitalization, it informs the strategies, policies, and capabilities that the United States will need to deter, and, if necessary, prevail in major-power conflict.

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The post Daniels examines China’s AI soft power strategy in War on the Rocks appeared first on Atlantic Council.

This issue brief is part of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s National Defense Strategy Project, outlining the priorities the Department of Defense should address in its next NDS.

Executive summary

The next National Defense Strategy (NDS) will likely continue to emphasize deterring great-power competition from escalating into conflict; accelerating the development and deployment of new technologies and capabilities; shifting resources from the United States’ military presence in Europe and the Middle East toward the Indo-Pacific; and strengthening the defense industrial base. However, the time has come for the NDS to give greater attention to another essential component of US military power: its human capital.

While effective diplomacy, exquisite sensor platforms, and advanced weapon systems are essential to deterrence, the men and women in uniform—and the Department of Defense (DoD) civilians who support them—remain the United States’ most enduring strategic advantage. They are highly capable and resilient, rigorously trained and well-educated, and operate within a decision-making structure where plans serve as starting points and a commander’s intent guides action.

The upcoming NDS must therefore elevate the “people” component of the US national security enterprise—integrating personnel challenges and opportunities more directly into the strategy and recognizing the robust capabilities of the people behind the platforms. Three specific priorities stand out in this regard: recruiting, service member resilience, and quality of life. While this list is by no means exhaustive, these issues demand urgent attention and investment if the current administration hopes to fulfill its promise of “peace through strength.”

Beth Foster is the former executive director of the Office of Force Resiliency at the US Department of Defense.

Alex Wagner is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s GeoStrategy Initiative and former assistant secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve Affairs.

Issue Brief Jul 24, 2025

Five pillars for deterring strategic attacks

By Mark J. Massa, Alyxandra Marine

As its highest priority, the Department of Defense must deter strategic attacks on the United States. A five-pillar strategy could guide efforts to prevent nuclear and nonnuclear threats while ensuring resilience and readiness against large-scale nuclear attacks on the US homeland.

Defense Policy Defense Technologies

Issue Brief Aug 21, 2025

Addressing China’s military expansion in West Africa and beyond

By Tressa Guenov

As China expands its military reach in West Africa, the United States risks losing strategic ground on the continent. The next National Defense Strategy must confront China’s ambitions beyond the Indo-Pacific, balancing defense diplomacy, bilateral military relationships, and counterterrorism.

Africa China

The Adrienne Arsht National Security Resilience Initiative, in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, works to advance resilience as a core tenet of US and allied national security policy and practice.

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The post Winning through people: The human capital advantage in great-power competition appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On Monday August 18th, Anna Wieslander, Director for Northern Europe, appeared on Swedish news program Aktuellt to comment on the Washington-summit between President Trump, President Zelenskyy and European leaders.

European leaders tried to bring greater clarity to the issue of American security guarantees to Ukraine, but question marks remain comments Wieslander. Wieslander goes on to say that the meeting became “an opportunity for Europe to demonstrate that Ukraine’s fate is crucial to the security of all of Europe”.

Watch the interview starting 16 minutes into the program.

The post Wieslander interviewed on Swedish TV appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Wieslander says that it is vital that President Stubb cooperates with the rest of the Nordic Countries to bring forth a joint message of the Nordic perspective on Russia.

The post Wieslander interviewed by Swedish SVT News appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On Saturday August 16th, Anna Wieslander, Director for Northern Europe, appeared on Swedish news program Aktuellt to comment on the Alaska-summit between President Trump and President Putin.

“The messages after the Alaska meeting do not indicate a step closer to peace,” says Wieslander who warns that we are not headed in a direction of peace but in a more dangerous direction. “Someone has to put pressure on Russia, I think this is Europe’s role. If we don’t do it, we will be the ones who suffer the most, along with Ukraine”, Wieslander says.

The post Wieslander on Swedish TV, Aktuellt appeared first on Atlantic Council.

According to a Bloomberg report, the terms proposed by the Kremlin “would lock in Russia’s occupation of territory seized during its military invasion” in exchange for an end to the fighting. This would also require Ukraine to withdraw its troops from areas in the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces that it currently controls, ceding them to Russia.  

The exact nature of the territorial settlement being discussed by Russia and the United States is still in question. “We’re going to get some back, and we’re going to get some switched,” Trump commented August 8. “There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both.”  

The Trump Administration has also been in touch with Ukrainian and other European leaders to review what Russia is offering. Of course, Ukraine must agree to any deal. There is some concern in Kyiv that Trump might try to compel Ukraine to accept conditions he settles on with Putin. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pushed back indirectly by noting that the Ukrainian Constitution requires that any territorial changes must be approved by a plebiscite authorized by the country’s parliament.

How did Trump reach this point? Over the past two months, the US president set the stage by steadily increasing pressure on the Kremlin. He achieved this by persuading NATO members to increase defense and defense-related expenditures to 5 percent of gross domestic product over the next decade and, crucially, by confirming that military aid to Ukraine would be part of this.

Additionally, Trump agreed to sell US weapons, including advanced arms, to NATO members for transfer to Ukraine. He also set a deadline for Russia to back a ceasefire, first giving Putin fifty days to comply, and then reducing it to ten days ending August 8.

Following US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff’s August 6 meeting with Putin, where the Russian leader handed over terms for a ceasefire, Trump imposed tariffs on India for purchasing Russian oil, further increasing the pressure on Moscow. But given the ongoing talks with the Kremlin, Trump chose not to introduce more sanctions when the August 8 deadline passed without a ceasefire.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

The Trump Administration is understandably pleased that the Kremlin now seems to be negotiating seriously. The leverage Trump assembled since June has certainly created the conditions for this. At the same time, it is also true that in reaching this moment, the US appears to have given up a great deal without achieving any concessions from Moscow beyond a willingness to stop hostilities as part of a ceasefire, not a peace settlement. 

Put another way, territorial concessions to Russia are front-loaded, but critical issues that Moscow must accept will only be handled in subsequent peace negotiations. These issues are related to legitimate Ukrainian security concerns. They are presumably very important to the White House because Trump’s objective is to achieve a durable peace that ensures a stable, secure Ukraine. This includes Russian acceptance of the ongoing arming of Ukraine by the United States and other NATO nations, and the stationing of European peacekeepers in Ukraine.

There are also important tactical considerations. In the discussions with Russia about a ceasefire, the Administration made two critical concessions. They allowed the Kremlin, after the August 7 sanctions on India, to escape the August 8 deadline; and they accommodated Putin’s insistence that Zelenskyy not participate in this week’s Putin-Trump talks about the future of Ukraine. That has the smell of the 1945 Yalta Summit, where the United States, the Soviet Union, and Britain decided the fate of half of Europe over the heads of those nations.

These US concessions only encourage Putin to demand more and give less. His goal remains to achieve effective political control of Ukraine. The terms he is currently discussing with Trump reflect what Putin is willing to accept and do now. It says nothing about what he will do in the future.

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How Russia’s winter warfare strategy targets Ukrainian civilians

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The Trump team seems to have recognized that it may have gotten ahead of itself and responded too enthusiastically to Special Envoy Witkoff’s initial report on his meeting in Moscow. This has been underscored by the revelation that Witkoff misinterpreted what Putin said, thinking that the Russian dictator was prepared to withdraw Russian forces from Ukraine’s Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces. 

In any case, US Vice President JD Vance spent the past weekend in the UK consulting with the Brits, the Ukrainians, and other Europeans, who have called for a full ceasefire, no territorial concessions before a ceasefire, and strong security support for Ukraine. 

It is notable that the White House is now once again talking about potentially inviting Zelenskyy to Alaska, but only in soft way, saying that it is “open” to the idea. They are likely trying to persuade the Kremlin to accept this. The question is if they will insist. The answer to that question will be an indicator of whether Trump is ready to do what is necessary to make the upcoming summit a step toward a stable peace.

It is understandable why Putin does not want either Europe or Ukraine represented in the exchange. He wants a deal with Trump that will be presented to Kyiv and other European capitals as a fait accompli. But since Trump wants a durable peace, adding Ukraine and Europe to the talks makes it easier to achieve that objective.

At a minimum, the White House should demand strict reciprocity in the negotiations. If Moscow insists on the acceptance of Russian control over Ukrainian land for a ceasefire, it must accept strong measures to bolster Ukrainian security as well. 

Trump can underscore this by using the negotiating period to announce another large weapons sale to NATO countries for transfer to Ukraine, and by letting Putin know that if the bombing of Ukrainian civilians and cities continues beyond the Alaskan meeting, more secondary sanctions will be enacted. This is the path to a stable peace.  

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

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jul 24, 2025

Ukraine is now an indispensable security partner for the US and Europe

By Oleksiy Goncharenko

Ukraine’s million-strong army and unique experience of the twenty-first-century battlefield makes it an indispensable security partner for the United States and Europe, writes Oleksiy Goncharenko.

Conflict Defense Industry

UkraineAlert Jul 30, 2025

A Ukraine without Ukrainians: Putin is erasing Europe’s largest nation

By Peter Dickinson

Russia is systematically erasing all traces of Ukrainian national identity throughout occupied Ukraine as Vladimir Putin pursues an extreme form of eliminationist imperialism in the heart of twenty-first century Europe, writes Peter Dickinson.

Civil Society Conflict

UkraineAlert Jul 14, 2025

A Western-funded drone surge could end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

By Mark Boris Andrijanič

Ukraine has the technology, talent, and industrial potential to prevail in the war with Russia, but currently lacks the funding to scale drone production to the necessary levels, writes Mark Boris Andrijanič.

Conflict Defense Technologies

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

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values, and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia, and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Alaska Summit: Trump must press Putin over future Ukrainian security appeared first on Atlantic Council.

But this isn’t simply about eliminating Hamas strongholds or reasserting deterrence. The decision to delay the occupation, or the holding of territory, until the war’s two-year mark suggests a broader strategy: to change the strategic calculus of Hamas and force serious negotiations. Yet the risks are immense, and the aftermath could lead to an entrenched insurgency if mismanaged.

Hamas has refused to release all remaining hostages unless Israel ends the war entirely, leaving Hamas with a postwar role in Gaza. This is a nonstarter for Israel, which now appears to be trying a new approach.

Israeli leaders say it is not a long-term play. “We don’t want to keep it,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday. But if the war ends and no credible alternative is ready, then the burden to run Gaza may fall—by design or default—on Israel itself.

A tactical move with strategic intent

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have already carried out intense operations throughout Gaza, including targeted incursions into Gaza City, Khan Younis, and Rafah. However, none of those operations constituted a long-term reoccupation of major urban centers. The Israeli security cabinet’s decision to formally occupy Gaza City in the coming weeks marks a turning point.

This decision is not about taking territory for the sake of holding it; it’s about political leverage. By occupying the symbolic and administrative heart of the Gaza Strip, Israel sends a clear message: Time is not on Hamas’s side, and continued resistance only invites deeper Israeli entrenchment. If Hamas is banking on international pressure or war fatigue to compel an Israeli withdrawal, this move upends that assumption.

The timeline is telling. Less than two months from now will mark two years since the deadliest single-day attack on Israelis in the country’s history. For Netanyahu and the Israeli security establishment, occupying Gaza City near this anniversary serves two purposes: It underscores Israel’s resolve, and it creates a pressure point for negotiations. Israel can signal to its international partners that it has been patient and methodical, and it is now escalating in response to Hamas’s intransigence, not out of retribution but strategic necessity.

Occupation requires manpower and will be costly

But this is not a low-cost move. Occupying Gaza City will require thousands—possibly tens of thousands—of troops to secure neighborhoods, defend against improvised explosive devises and ambushes, maintain logistical supply chains, and conduct ongoing counterterrorism operations. Urban occupation is one of the most manpower-intensive military tasks. Every street corner and apartment building becomes a potential battlefield.

While the IDF has shown proficiency in high-intensity urban combat, occupation is a different proposition. It requires not just soldiers with rifles, but an infrastructure of civil-military coordination, intelligence, and stability operations. It also puts Israeli soldiers in prolonged close contact with a hostile or traumatized population—an environment ripe for insurgent recruitment and propaganda wins.

The Israeli public, which has largely supported the war effort to date, may not be prepared for the long-term toll this could take—not just in soldiers’ lives, but in national morale, budgetary strains, and international backlash. Gaza is already one of the most densely populated and devastated regions in the world. Prolonged occupation risks entangling Israel in day-to-day governance challenges it is neither equipped for nor politically eager to assume.

Forcing a shift in Hamas’s calculus

Nonetheless, the strategic rationale remains: By raising the cost of Hamas’s continued resistance, Israel hopes to change the group’s internal decision-making. So far, Hamas has shown little appetite for a deal that includes surrendering power in Gaza or releasing hostages without major concessions. A permanent Israeli presence in Gaza City could threaten Hamas’s core identity as the ruling authority in the strip.

In other words, Israel may not need to “win” Gaza City militarily; it needs to make its occupation untenable for Hamas politically. This is coercive diplomacy through military means—reframing the war not just as a battle for survival, but as a pressure campaign to extract terms Hamas has so far refused to accept.

However, coercion cuts both ways. The more pressure Israel applies, the more Hamas may double down on its resistance narrative, appealing to regional and international sympathizers. The conflict could escalate into a broader regional confrontation or draw greater intervention from Iran-backed proxies. And the longer Israel occupies urban areas, the more international legitimacy it may lose.

The post-Hamas problem: Who governs, and at what cost?

An even bigger question looms: What comes after Hamas? If Israeli forces do occupy Gaza City and succeed in removing Hamas from power, who fills the vacuum? Some proposals have floated an international Arab security force, possibly backed by the Palestinian Authority (PA), but these plans are speculative at best and politically fraught. The PA is viewed with suspicion in Gaza, and Arab states are reluctant to assume control over a war-torn territory under Israeli military watch.

If the ultimate burden falls to Israel, that would place the IDF in the role of both security guarantor and de facto governing authority. History shows how quickly such roles can devolve into quagmires. The US experience in Iraq is a stark reminder: Removing a hostile regime is relatively fast; securing the peace is the long, grinding challenge.

Should the local population view the IDF as occupiers rather than liberators, a protracted insurgency is not just possible—it’s likely. Gaza’s dense urban environment, deep social trauma, and history of resistance create ideal conditions for asymmetric warfare. Even if Hamas is deposed, remnants or new factions could emerge, prolonging instability for years.

Leverage with a long tail

Israel’s decision to occupy Gaza City is an ambitious move aimed at accelerating the endgame in a war with no easy exits. It is an attempt to force Hamas to the table and reassert strategic dominance. But it is also a gamble—one that requires overwhelming force, careful planning, and a credible plan for what comes next. Without those, Israel risks trading one form of conflict for another: from a war against Hamas to a war against a brewing insurgency.

Alex Plitsas is a nonresident senior fellow with the Middle East Programs’ Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative and leads the Initiative’s Counterterrorism Project. He previously served as the chief of sensitive activities for special operations and combating terrorism in the Office of the US Secretary of Defense.

The post Israel’s gamble in Gaza City signals a push toward negotiation—but risks a long insurgency appeared first on Atlantic Council.

In September, Transatlantic Security Initiative nonresident senior fellow Dr. David Auerswald’s co-authored book, Overseen or Overlooked? Legislators, Armed Forces, and Democratic Accountability was published by Stanford University Press. This book aims to understand the similarities and differences among the world’s democracies regarding the role of legislatures in democratic civil-military relations.

Fellow

David Auerswald

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Transatlantic Security Initiative

Defense Policy Europe & Eurasia

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

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The post Auerswald in Stanford University Press on legislators, armed forces, and democratic accountability appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Meanwhile, another Ukrainian front line unit has recently showcased a new robotic platform that is reportedly capable of shooting down Russian warplanes and helicopters. The system features a Soviet-era anti-aircraft missile launcher mounted on a remote-controlled robot, providing Ukrainian troops with enhanced defense against aerial attack while reducing their exposure to Russian drones.

These two developments underline the growing importance of robotic systems for the Ukrainian war effort. The Commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, Major Robert Brovdi, has identified the deployment of robots as a top priority for the embattled nation. “Drones are currently creating a kill zone extending 20 kilometers from the front lines,” he stated in July. “The next challenge is to replace Ukrainian infantry with ground-based robotic systems that can take over all the logistical tasks in the front line area.”

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

The increased use of ground robots by the Ukrainian military reflects an emphasis on innovation that has enabled Ukraine to counter Russia’s often overwhelming advantages in terms of conventional firepower and manpower. For example, since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion more than three years ago, Ukraine has dramatically increased domestic drone production and earned a reputation as a global leader in drone warfare.

Similar trends are now evident in the development and deployment of Ukrainian robotic systems on the modern battlefield. Earlier this year, Ukrainian Ministry of Defense officials said the country intends to produce up to 15,000 ground robots by the end of 2025. If this target is reached, it would represent a massive expansion in the use of Unmanned Ground Vehicles or UGVs.

Robotic systems are in many ways an ideal solution for Ukraine as the country seeks ways to leverage its proven tech prowess in order to defend itself in a grueling war of attrition against a far larger enemy. With the Russian invasion now in its fourth year, mobilizing sufficient troops to maintain the war effort is becoming an increasingly acute problem for the Ukrainian authorities amid high casualty rates and an alarming rise in the number of desertions. This has led to questions over how much longer the Ukrainian military can hold the current front lines, and is believed to be fueling optimism in Moscow that a decisive breakthrough may soon be possible.

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While robots can never completely replace humans on the battlefield, there are a range of front line functions that robotic systems are suitable for. At present, Ukraine’s growing robot army is most commonly used in a logistical role to deliver supplies to troops in the trenches. With drones now a ubiquitous feature above the battlefield, any soldiers or vehicles moving around close to the front lines immediately become targets. Tracked or wheel-mounted robotic systems make it possible to resupply forces without risking casualties.

Crucially, robotic systems can be used to evacuate soldiers. Since 2022, the dominance of drones has made it more difficult to withdraw the wounded from the battlefield. This has led to increased Ukrainian losses, with injured troops often unable to receive medical attention in a timely fashion. While robotic transports are also vulnerable to drone attack and can face a range of other technical obstacles, the use of such platforms for emergency evacuations does increase the chances of survival.

Ukraine is also developing robotic systems capable of playing more direct defensive and offensive roles in the combat zone. While soldiers are still needed to guard trenches and consolidate any territorial gains, armed robots can potentially help maintain defensive positions and prevent Russian advances. This could reduce Ukraine’s reliance on dwindling manpower reserves and limit casualties.

Volunteers and private companies are playing an important part in efforts to develop new robotic models and integrate them into the Ukrainian military. They are faced with an array of practical challenges. In addition to securing the necessary funding and resources, it can also be difficult to provide training for military personnel who are desperately needed for combat duty.

While Ukraine’s senior military and political leadership are believed to appreciate the potential benefits of robotic systems, some field commanders reportedly remain reluctant to embrace new technologies. This legacy of the Soviet past has led to an uneven picture at different points along the line of contact, with many Ukrainian brigades able to invest time and money into developing and deploying robotic systems while others receive only limited access.

In order to fully capitalize on the promise of Ukraine’s robotic ground systems, more support must come from the Ukrainian government and the country’s international partners. Foreign investment is also needed to help Ukrainian developers boost output. Meanwhile, front line units must be given the resources and flexibility to train soldiers in the use of new unmanned systems, with commanders empowered to identify and prioritize the most effective robotic solutions.

Ukraine’s rapid wartime defense tech progress is driving the expansion of the country’s robot army. This is helping to address manpower shortages across the front and allowing the Ukrainian military to at least partially compensate for Russia’s greater resources and far larger population.

With the right investment and technical support, robotic systems could become a key element guaranteeing Ukraine’s national security and protecting the country against further Russian aggression. In order to reach that point, Kyiv and its partners must act quickly to scale up production and integrate new robotic technologies along the front lines of the war.

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

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jul 24, 2025

Ukraine is now an indispensable security partner for the US and Europe

By Oleksiy Goncharenko

Ukraine’s million-strong army and unique experience of the twenty-first-century battlefield makes it an indispensable security partner for the United States and Europe, writes Oleksiy Goncharenko.

Conflict Defense Industry

UkraineAlert Jul 29, 2025

Trump offered Putin victory in Ukraine. Why did Putin refuse?

By Peter Dickinson

Trump thought he could get a peace deal in Ukraine by offering Putin generous terms that amounted to a Russian victory. But Putin rejected Trump’s offer because he cannot accept anything less that Ukraine’s complete capitulation, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Disinformation

UkraineAlert Jul 14, 2025

A Western-funded drone surge could end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

By Mark Boris Andrijanič

Ukraine has the technology, talent, and industrial potential to prevail in the war with Russia, but currently lacks the funding to scale drone production to the necessary levels, writes Mark Boris Andrijanič.

Conflict Defense Technologies

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

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On August 4, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Elliot Ackerman published an article entitled, “How Being an Intelligence Officer Made Me a Better Writer,” with The Free Press. In the piece, Ackerman details how his career as a veteran of the Marine Corps and CIA special operations has informed his fiction writing.

Fellow

Elliot Ackerman

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Afghanistan Defense Policy

Forward Defense leads the Atlantic Council’s US and global defense programming, developing actionable recommendations for the United States and its allies and partners to compete, innovate, and navigate the rapidly evolving character of warfare. Through its work on US defense policy and force design, the military applications of advanced technology, space security, strategic deterrence, and defense industrial revitalization, it informs the strategies, policies, and capabilities that the United States will need to deter, and, if necessary, prevail in major-power conflict.

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The post Ackerman publishes article, “How Being an Intelligence Officer Made Me a Better Writer” on The Free Press appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On July 30, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Russ Rumbaugh joined host Tom Rhoads on the All Things Financial Management podcast, produced by the Society of Defense Financial Management and Guidehouse. In the episode, Rumbaugh shared insights on current developments and challenges shaping the defense financial management landscape.

Fellow

Russell Rumbaugh

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Policy Maritime Security

Forward Defense leads the Atlantic Council’s US and global defense programming, developing actionable recommendations for the United States and its allies and partners to compete, innovate, and navigate the rapidly evolving character of warfare. Through its work on US defense policy and force design, the military applications of advanced technology, space security, strategic deterrence, and defense industrial revitalization, it informs the strategies, policies, and capabilities that the United States will need to deter, and, if necessary, prevail in major-power conflict.

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On July 23, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Owen Daniels was interviewed by Sumi Somaskanda on BBC News regarding the administration’s latest AI Action Plan. In the segment, Daniels explains that while the strategy includes familiar elements for researchers, it also introduces promising initiatives such as strengthening the US open model ecosystem, enhancing evaluation and security, and expanding workforce training. He notes that questions remain about how the plan will be implemented and whether it will be adequately resourced.

Fellow

Owen J. Daniels

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Industry Defense Policy

Forward Defense leads the Atlantic Council’s US and global defense programming, developing actionable recommendations for the United States and its allies and partners to compete, innovate, and navigate the rapidly evolving character of warfare. Through its work on US defense policy and force design, the military applications of advanced technology, space security, strategic deterrence, and defense industrial revitalization, it informs the strategies, policies, and capabilities that the United States will need to deter, and, if necessary, prevail in major-power conflict.

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On July 25, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Owen Daniels published an article, “China’s Overlooked AI Strategy: Beijing Is Using Soft Power to Gain Global Dominance,” in Foreign Affairs. In the article, Daniels discusses how China is leveraging low-cost, open-source AI models as a soft power tool to expand its global influence, particularly in the developing world, posing a growing challenge to US technological leadership and strategic diplomacy.

Fellow

Owen J. Daniels

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Industry Defense Policy

Forward Defense leads the Atlantic Council’s US and global defense programming, developing actionable recommendations for the United States and its allies and partners to compete, innovate, and navigate the rapidly evolving character of warfare. Through its work on US defense policy and force design, the military applications of advanced technology, space security, strategic deterrence, and defense industrial revitalization, it informs the strategies, policies, and capabilities that the United States will need to deter, and, if necessary, prevail in major-power conflict.

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The post Daniels publishes article on China’s soft power strategy in AI in Foreign Affairs appeared first on Atlantic Council.

• Introduction
• Geopolitics
• Climate change
• Emerging technology
• Conclusion
• Recommendations

Introduction

Canada’s threat landscape is rapidly evolving. To address this new reality, Canada is reframing its strategies and shifting its defense policy priorities and security footing to be nimble and adept within these regional and global contexts. As a reflection of this reality, in April 2024, Canada’s Department of National Defense (DND) and Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) released Our North, Strong and Free: A Renewed Vision for Canada’s Defence, emphasizing three main global trends of significance for Canada: geopolitics, climate change, and emerging technology. Though Canada faces challenges beyond the scale of its geographic size, population, economy, and military footprint, it must maximize its opportunities to assert its comparative advantage in an increasingly competitive world.

Over 2024 and 2025, the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, in partnership with the DND Mobilizing Insights in Defence and Security (MINDS) program, hosted three virtual workshops with government officials, academic experts, and participants from the public and private sectors of Canada, the United States, and Europe. The insights gathered from these conversations helped inform this report, which assesses how these three critical arenas—geopolitics, climate change, and technological development—create challenges and opportunities for Canada’s national security.

Geopolitics

Geopolitics is a significant driver of change in Canada’s threat landscape, especially for the DND and CAF. Geopolitics is a central element across the varied challenges facing Canada, whether those posed by authoritarian regimes, through increased tensions in the Arctic, and within Canada’s evolving role in the transatlantic and Indo-Pacific regions. Authoritarian powers such as Russia and China promote values that directly undermine Canada’s commitment to upholding a stable and peaceful international order, the rule of law, and democracy worldwide, making it critical for the DND and CAF to be equipped to address these emerging geopolitical threats.

One of Canada’s biggest geopolitical challenges arises from strategic vulnerabilities in the Arctic, given that 40 percent of Canada’s territory and more than 70 percent of its coastline is in that region. The Arctic also holds significant strategic value due to its vast reserves of critical minerals and resources, including “13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and 30 percent of the world’s untapped natural gas.” As climate change accelerates ice-cap melting, Arctic shipping routes are becoming increasingly accessible and navigable, particularly the Northwest Passage that hugs the North American Arctic coastline.

A changing Arctic creates new pathways for geopolitical competition, as authoritarian adversaries such as Russia and China have demonstrated an increased interest in extending their presence and influence in the region. Russia, the world’s largest Arctic state with key strategic military capabilities located in the Kola Peninsula, is threatened by the NATO accession of Finland and Sweden—two countries that historically maintained strategic nonalignment with military alliances during the Cold War. In turn, Russia has sought to strengthen its Arctic presence by allying with other “potential Arctic stakeholders” including other BRICS countries. Critically, Russia has deepened its collaboration with China on a series of joint projects in the region. This collaboration includes a joint military exercise in the fall of 2024, during which Russian and Chinese forces carried out coordinated patrols in the Arctic region, as well as joint coast guard patrols extending into the Bering Sea. Additionally, military aircraft from both countries were detected by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) after entering Alaska’s Air Defense Identification Zone.

Although China is not an Arctic state, its 2018 Arctic white paper identifies China as a “near-Arctic state,” clarifying its long-term ambition to become a polar great power by 2030. China is developing a “Polar Silk Road” that enables it to both access Arctic resources, including critical minerals, oil, and gas, and support dual-use research conducted in its two permanent research stations and elsewhere in the Arctic region. In December 2024, China introduced a “polar-ready” cargo ship that is “capable of transporting a wide range of cargo, including offshore oil shield, wind and nuclear power equipment, as well as large vessel steel structures of sections.” Weighing 58,000 tons, the ship has been likened by Chinese bloggers to the size of an aircraft carrier.

Russia’s and China’s growing ambitions in the Arctic present escalating challenges to Canada’s interests in the region, including the possibility of eventual territorial disputes that could threaten Canadian sovereignty and national security. Though DND/CAF have indicated that there are no “immediate threats to the Arctic,” it nonetheless is crucial for them to allocate adequate resources to ensure the sustainability of their defense operations while enhancing Arctic domain awareness in response to emerging challenges in the region.

In addition to the Arctic, Russia and China also pose significant threats to Canada’s interests in the transatlantic and Indo-Pacific regions. As a founding member of NATO that has long benefited from the alliance’s security guarantees, Canada’s defense priorities have historically been closely aligned with those of the Alliance. While Canada continues to uphold its NATO commitments—including through military, humanitarian, and financial support to Ukraine—workshop participants emphasized the need for the CAF to adjust resources from the transatlantic to the Indo-Pacific theater (in addition to the aforementioned Arctic region), where China’s growing influence poses an increasing geopolitical threat. Canada considers itself a “Pacific nation,” with the Indo-Pacific region representing its second-largest export market and encompassing six of its thirteen top trading partners. China’s emergence as a strategic threat is further strengthened by its increased collaboration with Russia. Just prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow committed to extensive cooperation with Beijing in the form of a “no limits” partnership consisting of advanced military technology transfer and substantial economic support.

This evolving geostrategic situation requires the DND/CAF to carefully balance its resources across the transatlantic and Indo-Pacific theaters, given the growing collaboration between Russia and China, in targeting Canada’s defense priorities. The CAF has committed additional resources to the region, including maintaining a continuous submarine presence. Currently, HMCS Ville de Québec is set to join the United Kingdom’s Carrier Strike Group deployment in the Indo-Pacific, and the Royal Canadian Navy has been participating in freedom of navigation movements alongside allied countries in the Taiwan Strait. Moreover, Indo-Pacific nations have expressed increased interest in developing defense partnerships with Canada, agreements that have the potential to boost the DND and CAF’s regional presence. In May 2025, South Korea’s Hanwha Ocean and Hyundai Heavy Industries visited Ottawa and pitched a plan valued at C$20 billion (US$14.57 billion) for submarines and armored vehicles. In the same visit, Hanwha Aerospace proposed a C$1 billion deal to supply DND/CAF with mobile howitzers and rocket-propelled artilleries. This highlights significant opportunities for the DND/CAF to collaborate with like-minded Indo-Pacific partners to enhance Canada’s posture and capacity to deter security threats in the region. Workshop participants specifically identified joining the AUKUS partnership as a significant security benefit to Canada by enhancing the DND/CAF’s Indo-Pacific posture.

In the Atlantic Council workshop focused on geopolitics, experts emphasized how China presents a complex and multifaceted challenge that extends beyond traditional defense concerns. China’s economic and trade power, its technological capabilities, and the large Chinese diaspora in Canada all contribute to China’s multifaceted presence. Given this issue, a major challenge for Canada that stood out among workshop participants is the shortage of China experts within the DND and CAF. Although fostering the next generation of China experts requires significant time and investment, doing so is essential to ensure that world-class China assessments are included in broader strategic considerations that include alignment of domestic and foreign policy approaches toward China. While much of the current focus on China surrounds trending topics such as artificial intelligence and critical minerals, it is crucial for the DND/CAF to also deepen its understanding of China’s internal politics and how these dynamics shape its defense posture. These insights could inform DND/CAF’s strategic response to security threats.

In addition to the DND/CAF’s engagements in other regions, it is important to consider the US position in Canada’s security context. The United States and Canada have numerous shared strategic interests, including in addressing authoritarian adversaries, and have collaborated across many bilateral defense initiatives such as NORAD, which plays a critical role in protecting the countries’ respective airspaces. Canada has played an important role in modernizing outdated NORAD tracking systems and there is talk amongst experts on potentially increasing Canada’s contributions to North America’s missile-interceptor defense capabilities. Workshop participants emphasized the need to reaffirm Canada’s commitments to NORAD by investing more money in upgrading NORAD equipment.

However, the bilateral relationship has been tested by recent disagreements centered on tariffs and trade, given the importance of the trading relationship between the two countries (totaling around $1 trillion annually). During a March 2025 trip to Washington, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced his intention to reduce Canada’s reliance on US military equipment, including a reconsideration of a previous commitment to purchase F-35 fighter jets. A Canadian exit from the F-35 agreement would signify considerable change in the current US-Canadian defense procurement process, which is established by the Defense Production Sharing Agreement—a unique and long-standing bilateral agreement that seeks to integrate US and Canadian military collaboration to align both countries’ defense industrial bases for shared defense needs.

An ongoing concern regarding Canada’s relationship with the United States and other transatlantic NATO partners is its continued shortfall in meeting NATO’s 2 percent spending guideline (i.e., the expectation for each NATO member state to allocate at least 2 percent of gross domestic product to defense spending). Currently, Canada allocates approximately 1.4 percent of its GDP on defense. Initially, Carney pledged that Ottawa would reach the 2 percent threshold by 2030 through increased investments in rearmament, Arctic infrastructure resilience, submarine procurement for enhanced underwater capabilities, and increased shipbuilding initiatives. Most recently, NATO member states agreed to increase their defense spending to 5 percent of GDP. Canada also signed a deal with the European Union for Canadian companies to participate in ReArm Europe.

However, workshop participants underscored the importance of establishing a more credible and consistent defense-spending track record to demonstrate Canada’s renewed strategic commitment to its transatlantic allies. While Carney’s new pledge to reach the 2 percent defense-spending target within the year is an improvement, it is not sufficient in today’s threat environment—particularly as other NATO allies like Belgium and Denmark have already met the 2 percent GDP benchmark more quickly¹ and Canada has previously shown a lack of commitment to reaching the target. Canada must promptly meet this 2 percent target (and ultimately the new 5 percent pledge) to dispel previous assumptions about Canada’s commitment to the Alliance. If Canada fails to meet the target numbers quickly and robustly, this will undermine the CAF’s capacity to effectively collaborate with Canada’s traditional allies on critical security issues including the war in Ukraine.

Climate change

Canada is the world’s second-largest country by land mass, with a coastline of 151,019 miles and nearly 40 percent of its geography considered Arctic. Climate change is increasingly impacting Canadian national security, with melting ice and rising sea levels, as well as extreme climate disruptions threatening the country’s population, infrastructure, and natural resources. Canada’s defense, economic, and technology ecosystems face vulnerabilities from climatic disruptions that the DND and CAF must address for the changing security landscape of the future.

The Arctic is experiencing a major transformation, becoming one of Canada’s most strategically challenging threats to manage. To surveil and exercise the defense and security of the Arctic region, CAF stations around 500 full-time military personnel alongside 1,800 Canadian Rangers year-round through operations like NANOOK. Their presence is tasked not only for military safety and security threats, like understanding operational challenges of the environment, developing unique skill sets, and evaluating equipment for extreme weather conditions, but to respond effectively to climate emergencies through Operation LENTUS. With no national emergency or disaster management authority in Canada, the CAF is frequently deployed for relief missions to protect populations around the country alongside local, provincial emergency-management responders. With climate change worsening, the frequency, duration, and intensity of CAF deployments throughout the region are increasing.

The Arctic’s higher than average global temperatures are melting ice and raising sea levels faster than in other regions around the world. This difference, known as Arctic amplification, is creating glacier retreat, ice thinning, coastal erosion, and permafrost thawing, which damage the Indigenous communities, roads, houses, water supplies, industry pipelines, and waste disposal structures in northern Canada. These effects have serious implications for the CAF, placing competing demands and priorities on its resources and training. The CAF’s bandwidth is limited and requires decisions about which capabilities it will use for various missions. Waterways that flood local communities pose regional disruption, and the increasing Russian and Chinese maritime and aerial presence threatens how the CAF operates in the Arctic. With forces dividing their time and equipment between disaster response and critical defense training to defend Canada of threats in the deteriorating global security environment, CAF readiness is at risk of being overburdened and underfunded. Deploying CAF is expensive, and these funds are decreasing the amount available in the operational DND budget, creating concerns over maintenance and readiness. Additionally, the CAF equipment utilized for national disaster response is not what is appropriate for helicopter evacuation operations, for example, because it is designed for warfighting.

The effects of climate change and demand for CAF assistance are not limited to the Arctic and melting ice. Extreme climate disruptions including drought and heat have severely affected provinces across the country, as a surge in wildfires affects Saskatchewan, Manitoba, British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario. Rising fire risk has demanded that CAF provide evacuation support across the provinces, particularly in sparsely populated rural regions home to Indigenous communities. Rising frequency and expanding areas of impact have strained CAF’s ability to provide timely emergency response.

Emerging technology

Emerging technologies are important pieces within Canada’s national security landscape. Canada possesses operational niche strengths across several key technological areas, including nuclear energy, space, and artificial intelligence. Although Russia and China currently dominate the global uranium supply chain, Canada possesses the world’s largest high-grade uranium supply deposits and has significant potential to leverage its uranium production to advance its civilian nuclear industry in emerging innovations. This potential is reinforced by current innovative initiatives, such as the construction of small modular reactors in Ontario. In the space sector, Canadian companies like Telesat have developed satellite constellations that rival major players such as SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Kuiper, offering competitive services with a smaller environmental impact. Furthermore, with 3 percent of the world’s top-tier AI researchers and the G7 leader in AI-related scholarly outputs per capita, Canada is well-positioned to emerge as a global leader in AI. Ultimately, investment and procurement in these and other emerging technologies are crucial to Canadian national security.

However, Canada faces numerous challenges in this space, particularly within the defense procurement system, that hinder the DND and CAF abilities to effectively develop, acquire, and use advanced technologies. Workshop participants highlighted the fragmented aspects of Canada’s defense procurement process, which has no centralized authority to coordinate efforts and lacks transparency. Participants also highlighted the scale issue within the defense procurement process. While Defense Research and Development Canada and other departments are investing in Canadian start-ups to boost the country’s defense industrial base, these efforts are insufficient to sustain the companies’ operational costs throughout long procurement processes. As there is also limited domestic investment from the civilian sector, many tech start-ups simply do not have enough capital to remain operational. Instead, they prioritize commercial ventures, which are typically more profitable and accessible, over the highly competitive defense industry.

Alternatively, Canadian defense start-ups often pursue opportunities in foreign defense markets, which are often more lucrative and viable for sustaining operations. Some emerging technology companies initially founded to advance Canadian defense priorities had to shift toward commercialization and secured contracts in other regions, such as the Nordic region, for an extended period before having an opportunity for domestic Canadian defense contracts. This reflects a common trend among Canadian tech start-ups, where they are forced to procure investment abroad to remain operational, despite their potential value to national defense. Experts in the workshop emphasized the need for the DND and CAF to support investment in these domestic defense start-ups and prioritize dual-use companies, which can develop critical defense operational capabilities, while also generating commercial returns that can support the company’s long-term viability.

Technology start-ups also can be supported through shortening defense procurement cycles and reducing the burden on companies to fully develop their technology before seeking investment. In the workshop, US defense experts noted the success of the US Department of Defense’s program providing grants to start-ups in the ideation phrase, allowing these companies to test their technologies and foster innovation without the immediate pressure of securing capital. This model is particularly relevant for Canadian start-ups that often face funding constraints and thus are discouraged from pursuing defense innovation in an uncertain domestic market where capital is not guaranteed. Moreover, by providing early-stage grants, start-ups are more likely to agree to licensing their technology exclusively for the DND and CAF, bolstering Canada’s defense capabilities. Current programs such as NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) help accelerate the defense procurement process. However, workshop participants believe that these programs do not have enough investment capital to fully service Canada’s vast technological talent and, moreover, are not adequately advertised to start-ups.

The Canadian government has begun to address reforms needed to bridge the well documented “valley of death” for defense procurement. Representatives in the workshop noted the whole-of-government effort outlined in the Defence Procurement Reform of 2025 as progress toward addressing these issues, but other experts argued that there needs to be further collaboration among government agencies, the defense industry, and civilian companies. Strengthening these relationships could involve the DND and CAF partnering with civilian firms and academia to provide a secure environment for testing experimental technologies using real data and providing shared secure facilities for civilian firms. Within the defense industry, the Canadian government can encourage bigger defense contractors to engage and work with innovative Canadian start-ups, elevating smaller emerging technological firms. Enhancing collaboration across all sectors of Canada’s defense apparatus would allow the DND and CAF to more effectively identify up-and-coming technologies that best suit Canada’s defense needs and ensure they fully capitalize on the most advanced innovations available.

Workshop participants also highlighted the importance of personnel and talent. While Canada has skilled tech experts, it experiences a brain drain as many are drawn to higher paying commercial opportunities in the United States or elsewhere. The DND and CAF could capitalize on dual-hatted uniformed members who work in commercial industries, provided there is no conflict of interest, to drive defense technological innovations, as they are well suited to understanding commercial and defense needs. Furthermore, the DND and CAF could recruit and retrain veterans who can also provide the operational expertise and specialized technological knowledge needed to innovate emerging defense technologies. Ultimately, a culture shift is needed to rekindle innovation in the Canadian talent pool to include a stronger commitment to advancing domestic defense capabilities. Encouraging Canadian technological experts to apply their expertise toward national defense and motivating domestic investors to support domestic defense companies would better enable the DND and CAF to attract, develop, and retain Canada’s skilled workforce.

In addition to looking inward to strengthen Canada’s emerging defense ecosystem, Canada should also work closely with its allies to mutually reinforce each other’s operational strengths. Workshop participants stressed that Canada has a small population and GDP in proportion to its large landmass, making it difficult to fully capitalize on its defense potential. The recent agreement at the Canada-EU summit, allowing Canadian companies to take part in the EU’s $1.25 trillion ReArm Europe program, highlights the strong interest from foreign governments in partnering with Canada’s defense sector. Canada should build on this momentum by pursuing similar partnerships with like-minded allies and encouraging investment in domestic defense companies to boost homegrown innovation and continue to build up the domestic emerging dual-use technology ecosystem.

Conclusion

Canada’s role as a middle power is actively evolving due to geopolitical and climate changes. The DND and CAF need to adopt new strategies to address the changing threat landscape to better achieve their respective missions. There is a clear strategic need to leverage and invest in Canada’s comparative advantage in emerging technologies and deepen partnerships with allies to address these issues and further its defense leadership in important regions such as the Arctic, which is pivotal to Canada’s security. Here are some recommendations drawn from the three workshops and desk research to support the DND and CAF’s mission.

Recommendations for the DND/CAF

1. Canada should develop an annual whole-of-government national security strategy to clearly communicate its security priorities to allies and the international community, and to provide a unified framework for governmental departments and private industries to align their efforts.

The Canadian administration’s grand strategy is currently driven by fragmented reports and mission statements that, together, inform its broader defense posture. The Department of National Defence is primarily guided by its latest strategy, Our North, Strong, and Free, but Canada currently lacks a unified, whole-of-government strategy which communicates national defense priorities to both allies and adversaries. While the DND acknowledges the importance of maintaining a regular strategy, the latest Canadian strategy provides for an update every four years—which is inadequate given how much can shift in the geopolitical, environmental, and technological landscapes within a single year. By publicly articulating a yearly coherent national security strategy, the Canadian government can transparently signal its defense intentions to the international community and be more responsive to the ever-evolving threat landscape. This step would enable allies and partners to align more effectively with Canada on shared objectives and deter adversaries by clearly defining boundaries Canada is committed to upholding.

2. Due to the High North’s vital role in defending Canadian national security, the Arctic should be the priority for both the DND and the CAF, with defense efforts in other regions supporting this overarching focus.

Given the growing geopolitical and climate considerations of the region, a Canadian national security strategy should clearly articulate the Arctic region as Canada’s top defense priority, particularly since securing the High North has become essential to Canadian domestic security. A cohesive, whole-of-government national security strategy centered on the Arctic would not only safeguard Canada’s High North interests but also bolster its position in other key regions, particularly the transatlantic and Indo-Pacific theatres. As both Russia and China have shown strategic interest in the Arctic that poses challenges to Canadian security, prioritizing this region and formulating a strong defense strategy would enable Canada to enhance its independent influence and engagement globally.

3. The Canadian military establishment must maintain its relationship with the Pentagon while also working to diversify its partnerships for defense needs such as military-equipment procurement.

The United States will always be Canada’s closest ally due to its shared border, common values, mutual threats, and long-standing defense cooperation. This close working relationship must be maintained. Canada can achieve this by prioritizing NORAD modernization and enhancing its defense capabilities, including the development of interceptors to support US efforts in safeguarding the North American continent and the shared border. However, the DND and CAF should also actively support Canada’s efforts to diversify its defense partnerships by engaging with like-minded allies, particularly those with comparable defense and industrial capabilities, such as Japan, South Korea, and Sweden. These countries align well with Canada’s role as a middle power focused on strategic stability. Strengthening ties with Nordic and Arctic NATO members is essential, as they share similar Arctic interests and are likely to pursue comparable defense technologies tailored to the High North. Canada can advance this goal by investing in initiatives like NATO’s DIANA in collaboration with other like-minded partners, such as AUKUS, to more effectively promote joint defense innovation and interoperability. Moreover, Canada can draw valuable lessons from the experiences of smaller states in rapidly and efficiently increasing their defense spending, particularly from how Denmark and Belgium were able to meet NATO’s defense budget targets within a short time frame. Likewise, Canada can emulate Finland’s experience in expanding naval and shipbuilding capacity in a cost-effective manner.

4. The Canadian government should create a national disaster management and response body similar to the original purpose and structure of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to limit the extent to which CAF forces are deployed to manage Canada’s increasing climate disruptions.

Damaging effects of climate change will only increase in the future. The Canadian government must recognize the country’s increasing vulnerability to climate change and its fragmented system of disaster response that relies on provincial leadership. The government needs to proactively build a national force with adequate equipment designed for disaster response and resilience dedicated to managing climate emergencies without relying on CAF personnel and resources. This FEMA-like force should be managed by Public Safety Canada—and reinforced with coordination efforts for information sharing and joint training exercises with the DND and CAF.

5. The DND and CAF should prioritize investment in scalable, climate-resilient infrastructure in the Arctic and North, ensuring that funds associated with Our North, Strong and Free are directed to designing airstrips, logistics facilities, and equipment prepared for flooding and increased adversary activity.

Climate change is the most pressing and proximate threat both to Canadian security in the Arctic and to the communities there. Expanding the amount of CAF architecture/presence requires consideration of the region’s evolving threats of higher sea levels and new opportunities for foreign adversaries to covertly or overtly operate in the Canadian Arctic.

6. The DND and CAF must continue to maintain their partnerships with Indigenous communities to improve Arctic navigation and operational skills in line with the Arctic and Northern Policy Framework.

Cooperation with Indigenous groups supports understanding of the evolving northern environment and infrastructure affected by climate change. The CAF should establish new operations (like NANOOK) focused not only on defense to assert its presence and sovereignty in the North, but strategizing for increasing climate disruption. The CAF should also integrate Indigenous expertise into the new Northern Operational Support Hub locations to improve surveillance, resilience, and responsiveness across the Arctic.

7. The DND and CAF should work with the Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) to prioritize domestic investment and commit to reaching the 5 percent defense spending goal by collaborating closely with Canadian industry and academia. This approach would strengthen Canada’s defense capabilities and contribute more meaningfully to Canada’s alliances by offering capabilities that are valuable to its partners.

The DND and CAF should accelerate progress toward meeting the new NATO defense spending target of 5 percent. A key part of this effort involves strengthening collaboration with Canadian industry and academia to drive innovation in emerging technologies critical to national defense. To that end, the DND and CAF should work closely with DRDC to further invest in initiatives, such as NATO’s DIANA, which help to accelerate the development of emerging dual-use technologies and develop secure dual-use shared facilities to foster innovation in high-level, dual-use applications. Such efforts can help shorten procurement cycles, reduce reliance on foreign funding for companies to remain operational, and stimulate dual-use innovation. Leveraging and recruiting the right talent is also essential for the DND and CAF, such as engaging military reservists with commercial-sector experience, recruiting veterans with operational expertise into transitioning back into defense-related industries, and working closely with Indigenous rightsholders on climate and environmental technologies. By prioritizing domestic innovation and talent recruitment in emerging defense technology, Canada can move more quickly toward the original 2 percent NATO defense spending target and the new 5 percent target while also sending a credible signal to allies of its commitment to shared defense goals.

8. The DND and CAF need to work with other government agencies to target investments in niche operational capabilities that play to Canada’s advantage.

The DND and CAF also should collaborate with other government agencies to strategically direct investments toward operational capabilities that align with Canada’s unique strengths. Given Canada’s small population and dispersed infrastructure in comparison with its vast geography (unlike larger nations such as the United States or China), it cannot pursue defense capacity building across all areas equally. Instead, Canada should focus on its existing operational advantages in specialized sectors such as space, nuclear technology, and artificial intelligence. By prioritizing and enhancing these niche strategic defense capabilities, the DND and CAF can position Canada as a global leader in these fields. This approach would allow Canada to contribute high-value capabilities to allied partnerships, such as AUKUS, and encourage deeper collaboration by offering Canada’s specialized logistical assets and comparative advantages.

Peter Engelke is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security as well as a nonresident senior fellow with its Global Energy Center.

Ginger Matchett is a program assistant with the GeoStrategy Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Samantha Wong is an assistant director with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub.

The Atlantic Council would like to thank its partner, The Department of National Defence’s Mobilizing Insights in Defence and Security (MINDS) program, for supporting the Council’s work on this publication.

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

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On July 16, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Guido Torres published an article, “Development or Dependence? Rethinking China’s Economic Playbook in the Americas,” on the Irregular Warfare Initiative’s website. In the article, Torres discusses how China is using economic statecraft across Latin America and the Caribbean as a form of irregular warfare, leveraging infrastructure, trade, finance, and diplomacy to build strategic influence and dependency, while urging LAC nations and their partners to recognize and counter this coercion to protect their sovereignty.

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Guido Torres

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Policy Defense Technologies

Forward Defense leads the Atlantic Council’s US and global defense programming, developing actionable recommendations for the United States and its allies and partners to compete, innovate, and navigate the rapidly evolving character of warfare. Through its work on US defense policy and force design, the military applications of advanced technology, space security, strategic deterrence, and defense industrial revitalization, it informs the strategies, policies, and capabilities that the United States will need to deter, and, if necessary, prevail in major-power conflict.

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The post Torres publishes on China’s economic statecraft in Latin America appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On June 11, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Guido Torres was interviewed by Expediente Público on the topic of China’s growing aerospace presence in South America and its implications for transparency, sovereignty, and regional security. Torres warned that China is leveraging space cooperation agreements in South America, particularly in Argentina and Chile, to establish facilities that may serve dual-use (civilian and military) purposes, raising concerns about transparency and sovereignty.

Fellow

Guido Torres

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Policy Defense Technologies

Forward Defense leads the Atlantic Council’s US and global defense programming, developing actionable recommendations for the United States and its allies and partners to compete, innovate, and navigate the rapidly evolving character of warfare. Through its work on US defense policy and force design, the military applications of advanced technology, space security, strategic deterrence, and defense industrial revitalization, it informs the strategies, policies, and capabilities that the United States will need to deter, and, if necessary, prevail in major-power conflict.

Learn more

The post Torres interviewed by Expediente Público on China’s access to South American aerospace appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On July 23, 2025, Daniel B. Shapiro, distinguished fellow at the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs, testifies before the US Senate Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism on US diplomatic strategies for a dynamic Middle East. Below are his prepared remarks.

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Rosen, distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today at this critical moment for U.S. policy in the Middle East.

It is a critical moment because it presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to help reshape the Middle East in ways that will bring more peace and prosperity, and less conflict and violence to those who live in the region, and will bring significant benefit to the interests of the United States. In every moment of opportunity, there is also risk, including the risk of missing the mark and losing the window to achieve the greatest possible gains. So I thank you for this timely hearing that I hope can shed some light on the best path forward.

The huge opportunity flows from the steady progress in the region toward greater integration from 2020 to 2023, then the tragedy of Hamas’ vicious terrorist attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023, and then the response of various actors in the war that followed.

In the nearly 21 months since the attacks, a combination of Israeli and U.S. military power has dealt blow after to blow to the Iranian-aligned Axis of Resistance: Hamas, which began the war; Hezbollah, which entered the war on October 8; the Houthis in Yemen; Shia militia groups in Iraq and Syria; and, ultimately Iran itself. Along the way, Iran’s key regional partner, the Assad regime in Syria, crumbled when neither its Iranian, Russian, nor Hezbollah allies were able to rescue it. All told, Iran is at its weakest point in decades.

The scale of the Iranian miscalculation is immense. First, Iran encouraged their chief proxy, Hezbollah, to engage in a war of attrition with Israel. At a moment of Israel’s choosing, in a series of dramatic attacks, Israel decimated Hezbollah’s strategic weapons, leadership, and fighters, which left the organization unable to carry out the mission for which it was built — to serve as a deterrent or second strike capability to protect Iran from Israeli or American attack. Hezbollah’s collapse also produced a dramatic change in the policy of the Lebanese government, which may result in the terror group’s disarmament and marginalization.

Second, Iran twice abandoned its longstanding caution, wherein it sought to avoid direct confrontation with Israel or the United States and to fight asymetrically and via proxies. On April 13 and October 1 of last year, Iran launched two massive, overt, state-on-state acts of war against Israel — hundreds of ballistic missiles, cruse missiles, and drones. Israel’s air and missile defense, buttressed by U.S. support, and in April, by an international coalition, largely defeated these attacks. But these events are critical context to the events last month when Israel and the United States conducted strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities. That war did not begin on June 13, 2025. It began 14 months earlier.

I believe the military confrontation with Iran that unfolded over 12 days in June was necessary and inevitable. President Trump was right to seek a diplomatic deal with Iran, and right to demand that Iran give up its uranium enrichment capability — which enables them to produce the material needed to produce nuclear weapons. It was never likely that Iran would agree to those terms, and certainly not without a credible military threat. 

I supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action when it was signed in 2015 as the best available way to buy the most time on the Iranian nuclear program. I opposed the United States’ withdrawal from the JCPOA without a better plan in 2018, which cost us some of that time. But those positions ten and seven years ago were not relevant to the situation we faced in 2025. The fact is that Iran was far too close for comfort to producing a nuclear weapon, and it had to be stopped.  

Three things had changed. First, the IAEA documented that Iran possessed over 400 kg of 60 percent enriched uranium, enough for 10 bombs, with the ability to enrich it to 90 percent (weapons grade) within days. Second, Iranian nuclear scientists over the previous year had engaged in various activities and research that would significantly shorten the time for them to build a weapon — a separate process from enrichment — if and when they got the order from their leadership to do so. And third, Iran’s decision to attack Israel directly twice last year fundamentally changed the calculus of what they were willing to do and what they could do. If any one of the ballistic missiles that reached Israel were tipped with a nuclear warhead, we would be in a different world. The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has long called for Israel’s destruction, was dangerously close to having the ability to carry it out.

The Israeli campaign, fueled by deep intelligence penetration of the Iranian system, did significant damage to Iranian nuclear facilities, air defenses, its ballistic missile production and launching capabilities, and high value targets in the Iranian military, IRGC, and nuclear program. Operation Midnight Hammer ordered by President Trump against Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, using unique U.S. capabilities, caused additional grave damage to those sites. President Trump’s initial comment that their nuclear sites were “totally obliterated” preceded the technical collection of a battle damage assessment, which takes weeks, and implied, probably inaccurately, that their nuclear program is completely out of business. But based on my understanding of the munitions used and the success of their deployment, those sites will not be usable for enrichment or uranium conversion for a significant period of time — time we can perhaps extend through a range of means.

None of this means the threats posed by Iran and its proxies are eliminated. They may be down but not out. Iran likely retains its highly enriched uranium stockpile, although it may or may not have current access to it, and it could have the ability and motivation to try to sprint to enrich it to weapons grade and build a crude nuclear device. A much-degraded Hamas continues to fight Israel in Gaza, and Hezbollah has not given up hopes of rearming. The Houthis — which the Biden Administration struck in a series of deliberate and self-defense engagements over months, and the Trump Administration struck in an intense campaign over weeks — retain capability to attack Israel and to disrupt shipping in the Red Sea, which they have recently resumed doing with deadly results.

But the gains produced by military power over the last 21 months are significant. Now we need to use all the tools at our disposal, not just military tools, to consolidate those gains.

In a moment, I will pivot to the main focus of this hearing, which is the diplomatic path forward. But, following my service at the Department of Defense in the last year of the Biden Administration, I would be remiss if I did not emphasize that there will remain a critical need to maintain a robust U.S. military capability in the region in the period ahead, and that doing so enhances our ability to seize diplomatic opportunities.

Briefly, Israel’s military dominance in the region is undisputed, with air superiority from the Mediterranean to Tehran. Not every problem in the region is a nail that should be addressed with a military hammer. But that capability can work in tandem with a steady U.S. posture to deter our adversaries, who, as mentioned, continue to pose threats — whether Iran’s reconstitution of its nuclear program, its threat to shut down shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, or Houthi aggression. A sustained U.S. presence also provides reassurance to our friends that we will not abandon the field. These friends include Egypt and Jordan, in whom we invest with military assistance, and Gulf states, which host many of our forces and which President Trump visited and secured further investments in our military partnerships. Our partnerships also help ensure these countries will not turn to Russia or China as security partners.

Perhaps most important is the role of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). With Israel’s integration into CENTCOM in 2021, and the deep trust and interoperability built up by CENTCOM and the Israel Defense Forces over these past 21 months, we have an extraordinary combined ability to deter and respond to threats. Beyond cooperation with Israel, CENTCOM serves as the convener and integrator of U.S. military partners across the region. Thanks to our unique capabilities, enduring presence, and CENTCOM’s exceptional leadership, U.S. partners in the Middle East look to us to shape the security environment and coordinate responses to key threats, strengthen their capabilities, conduct bilateral and multilateral exercises, convene high-level strategic exchanges, improve interoperability, and continue to build out an Integrated Air and Missile Defense architecture.

Turning to the diplomatic opportunities, we should keep our eyes on these mutually reinforcing strategic objectives of: 1) bringing this period of regional conflict to a close and transitioning to a period of sustained stability; 2) expanding the circle of regional integration that was broadened by the Abraham Accords; 3) deterring and defanging the threats to the United States and our allies and partners posed by Iran, and preventing a resurgence of Iran’s regional influence through its terrorist proxies; and, 4) building a more sustainable regional order led by a network of U.S. partners including Israel and Arab states, with the United States as an active participant but at a scale that also enables adequate attention to critical interests in other regions.

With the remainder of my time, I would like to propose a number of key initiatives in support of these objectives.

First, help achieve a permanent end to the war in Gaza, with a fully developed day-after plan that releases all hostages, protects Israel’s security, removes Hamas from power, provides relief for Palestinian civilians, and enables regionally-supported reconstruction for Palestinians who want to live in peace with Israel.

Our other goals of expanding regional integration cannot get off the ground until the Gaza war ends. A 60-day ceasefire would bring much-needed relief, but it must transition into the end of the war without a return to fighting. That will require Israel agreeing to certain terms, but also intense pressure on Hamas brought by Qatar and other international actors. That is the first key to getting Arab states involved with the next phase of reconstruction. 

At the moment, the risk is that we will a slide into the only alternative: a full-scale Israeli occupation of Gaza, with more dead hostages, more dead Palestinian civilians, more dead Israeli soldiers, no positive involvement by Arab states, and deepening isolation of Israel. In the immediate period, which we all hope will soon see a ceasefire, the United States should:

• Withdraw President Trump’s misguided Gaza Riviera proposal, which has emboldened the most extreme members of the Israeli cabinet to press for full occupation, the massing of Palestinian civilians in a camp along the Egyptian border, and the removal of much of the Palestinian population from Gaza. Those Gazans who wish to leave should, of course, have the freedom to do so, and many countries should be encouraged to receive them. But the mass evacuation of hundreds of thousands or more to a handful of receiving states is not going to happen. If it were done involuntarily, it would be a violation of international humanitarian law and constitute ethnic cleansing. These ideas are widely rejected across the region, will discourage Arab states from helping stabilize Gaza, and even delegitimize more reasonable efforts to help individual Palestinians who wish to relocate to do so.

• Enable a vastly improved mechanism to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza. There is a legitimate problem of Hamas hijacking aid provided through international organizations and using it for themselves and for political power. Hamas bears much responsibility for the hunger crisis in Gaza. But the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) alternative is vastly insufficient, and has been deeply flawed and dangerous in its design, leading to far too many deaths of civilians attempting to access it, many caused by IDF fire. Getting aid directly into the hands of Palestinian civilians and prevent its hijacking to Hamas’s benefit is a worthy goal, and the only solution is to flood the zone with so much aid that it is easy to access and loses its market value. With hunger becoming more widespread across Gaza, Israel should be enabling international organizations and GHF to distribute aid across the entirety of Gaza, not limited to a handful of distribution points.

• Press Israel to revise their targeting protocols to minimize civilian casualties. Hamas leaders and fighters remain legitimate targets, and the challenge of their using civilians as human shields remains. But the civilian toll of many recent strikes has been too high, and Israel has admitted to numerous recent mistakes.

Regarding day-after planning, the United States should:

• Make clear that the terms for the permanent end of the war require the release of all Israeli hostages and the departure from Gaza of a critical mass of Hamas leaders and fighters, with the support of Arab states, for exile in distant locations, sufficient to ensure Hamas is completely removed from power. Arab states should be encouraged to speak in unison and join Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ call for Hamas to leave Gaza. A U.N. Security Council resolution could follow. The United States should organize plans for this departure, drawing on the 1982 evacuation of the PLO from Beirut.

• Organize an Interim Security Mission for Gaza (ISMG), with U.S. leadership based outside Gaza, enabling troops from Arab states such as Egypt, the UAE, and Morocco, and possibly non-Arab states such as Indonesia, to secure humanitarian aid delivery, border crossings, and basic law and order. The ISMG would enable the gradual introduction of Palestinian Authority Security Forces, which should be trained for this mission under the supervision of the Office of the Security Coordinator in Jerusalem under the continued leadership of a U.S. 3-star general or flag officer.

• Work with Arab states on the installation of improved leadership of the Palestinian Authority and the establishment of Gaza leadership linked to the PA and supported by Arab states such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia, with help in governance, training, and education, and reconstruction funded by a range of Arab and international states. Arab states will only play this role, however, if they see it linked to the establishment of a future Palestinian state. So it will be necessary to find the proper expression of this vision, even if the timelines will be longer and the dimensions different than those envisioned in previous peace efforts. 

• Articulate strong opposition to any Israeli moves toward annexation in the West Bank, and urge Israeli and Palestinian security forces to act to prevent violence by their own sides, as instability in the West Bank could damage prospects for stability in Gaza and harm prospects for regional integration. I commend U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee for his recent highlighting of the importance of Israel holding extremist Israelis who commit violent acts to account.

Second, work toward the continuation and expansion of the normalization and integration process marked by the Abraham Accords, which has stalled but not receded during the war. Specifically, the United States should:

• Prioritize discussions with Saudi Arabia on the timing, conditions, and mechanism of normalization with Israel. Nothing would do more to reshape the politics of the region that normalized relations between the most influential Arab and Muslim state and Israel. The Saudis seek expanded security cooperation with the United States, which we should be prepared to grant, provided the Kingdom meets U.S. needs that protect our interests in the region and regarding competition with China, including strict limits on Saudi-Chinese military cooperation. We should be mindful that Saudi officials have consistently made clear that a requirement for them to normalize relations with Israel is the establishment of a pathway to a Palestinian state — a bar that may be impossible for the current Israeli government to clear — and they are sensitive to extensive Israeli operations and holding of territory in Syria and Lebanon. Continued work on the framework of this triangular deal can take place even if its ultimate fulfillment may be more likely in 2027 than this year.

• Prepare to resume the work of the Negev Forum as soon as possible after the war ends. This standing group of Israel, the United States, and four Arab states (UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, and Morocco) includes six working groups and a structure for multilateral projects aimed at bringing the benefits of regional integration to their citizens. As early as possible, a Negev Forum ministerial should be held, with additional invitees such as Jordan, Mauritania, and Indonesia, and activity should resume in the working groups. The Atlantic Council’s N7 Initiative, which I led in 2022-2023, is poised to support the Negev Forum as it has in the past.

• Appoint and confirm the Special Envoy for the Abraham Accords that Congress created in the NDAA for FY2024. The appointment of a high-profile envoy in this role will communicate the United States’ seriousness about expanding these agreements, and provide important buttressing to the work of Special Envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff.

• Elevate the work of the House and Senate Abraham Accords Caucuses, which is essential to add the expertise and jurisdictional focus of their diverse members and to convey the bipartisan commitment to expanding regional integration.

• Continue work toward a non-belligerency agreement between Israel and Syria that reaffirms the 1974 Disengagement Agreement, supports connections between Israeli and Syrian Druze communities, and allows for limited economic, environmental, water, and health cooperation, without the need to address the final status of the Golan Heights. A return of the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), enhanced by visits and supervision from CENTCOM representatives, can help stabilize the border region. President Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on Syria is a gamble, but the right gamble, to give the greatest possibility for stabilization of Syria after years of brutal rule and civil war and preventing Iran from exploiting chaos to reestablish a foothold. But the government in Damascus must be held accountable, including for its treatment of minorities and establishment of inclusive governance. Israeli strikes on central government facilities in Damascus are destabilizing and have already become a dangerous factor in Syrian domestic politics; they must be avoided. Finally, it is critical that the United States not withdraw all its forces from Northeast Syria until adequate preparations are in place for proper sustainment of counter-ISIS operations, supervision of ISIS detention centers, and peaceful integration of Syrian Kurdish factions into national institutions.

Third, capitalize on the severe damage to the Iranian nuclear program and the weakening of the Iranian-led axis to secure a long-term improvement in the regional security environment. The United States should:

• Seek renewed negotiations with Iran to sustain the gains of the military strikes on its nuclear program and prevent the program’s reconstitution. 

• Insist on full access for IAEA inspectors, the location and removal of Iran’s HEU stockpile, and an assurance of zero enrichment going forward. Separate negotiations will also need to commence on meaningful limits on Iran’s ballistic missile inventory

• Maintain pressure on Iran toward those ends, by coordinating with UK, French, German, and EU officials on the leverage of, and if necessary the implementation of, JCPOA snapback sanctions, and by devoting additional attention and resources to scaling back Iranian oil exports to China.

• Make clear that additional military strikes by Israel or the United States are possible if Iran seeks to move, hide, or reconstitute elements of its nuclear program, or if it refuses to give access to IAEA inspectors or exits the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Congress should be properly consulted before any such strikes. While the United States maintains escalation dominance, we must nevertheless remain vigilant to deter and defend against potential Iranian or Iranian-sponsored attacks on U.S. bases and personnel or asymmetric attacks on American, Israeli, or Jewish targets anywhere. Iran should be on notice that any attempt to harm current or former U.S. officials will bring an automatic kinetic response, and the United States should coordinate with allies on a common set of diplomatic and economic penalties that would be triggered by hostage taking.

• Prepare for the possibility of internally-driven regime change. It should not be a policy goal of the United States, nor a project to be achieved by military means. But we must recognize that the regime and its ideology remain the main fuel of destabilization across the region, and are deeply unpopular among the Iranian people due to the regime’s brutality and corruption. We should provide appropriate support to the Iranian people, much as we did for anti-Communist movements in countries under Soviet domination during the Cold War. Our efforts should include enhancing Iranian citizens’ ability to communicate via internet access and to receive accurate information, publicly condemning repression by the regime, sanctioning regime officials responsible for abuses, and highlighting regime corruption that harms the Iranian people. We should develop now a plan to support a transition so we are not caught flat-footed if the Iranian people take matters into their hands, including organizing reconstruction funding from international donors, preparing to unwind U.S. and international sanctions with targets and incentives for the new authorities, planning to provide support for post-conflict transition and institution-building, and coordination with responsible elements of the Iranian diaspora.

• Continue to support and pressure the Lebanese government and Lebanese Armed Forces in the disarmament of Hezbollah and establishing state institutions as the sole legitimate possessors of the means of force.

• Develop a whole-of-government approach to combatting and weakening the Houthis, drawing on diplomatic, political, economic, public messaging, intelligence, and military tools, in coordination with Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and others. 

• Negotiate with Iraqi authorities to secure a sustained, limited U.S. military posture to support counter-ISIS missions, with full self-defense authorities and capabilities. Our presence in Iraq helps the Iraqi Security Forces succeed in this ongoing effort, provides reassurance to our Kurdish partners, and enables us to balance Iranian influence in Iraq.

Finally, as the war winds down, work should begin now on negotiating the next U.S.-Israel military assistance MOU. 

The current MOU expires in 2028, which means it would be best to have a new MOU in place within a year or so, to ensure no delay in necessary acquisitions. A new MOU should ensure that the United States upholds its legal obligation and national interest to ensure Israel’s qualitative military edge, be grounded in planning for the threats of the next two decades, and provide sufficient funds to rebuild, sustain, and upgrade Israel’s air defense inventory, which has been stretched in multiple defensive engagements. I should note that it is entirely legitimate and appropriate in the context of MOU negotiations and our enduring close security partnership with Israel for the United States to raise questions and concerns about the need for Israel to minimize civilian casualties in its operations and the obligation to ensure the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in need. 

This is a hefty list of objectives and priorities to pursue to advance U.S. interests in the Middle East. It takes significant resources to carry out foreign policy initiatives at this scale: personnel with a range of diplomatic experience and expertise; functional and adequately resourced foreign assistance programs in key countries; international broadcasting; and more. If it is left to just a few high-level officials with access to the president, much of the implementation work will not get done. Meanwhile, China is deepening its activity and influence in all these areas everywhere the United States pulls back. 

I am deeply concerned that the Trump Administration’s drastic cuts to personnel at the Department of State, including experts in nuclear diplomacy, sanctions enforcement, and counterterrorism, the elimination of the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the decimation of our international broadcasting capabilities, are leaving us ill-prepared and under-resourced to properly seize the opportunities before us. It will be a terrible own-goal if our own lack of preparation and denial of tools in our own toolkit prevent us from being effective in executing on the long list of priorities we must pursue, thereby providing an advantage to our competitors.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I look forward to answering your questions.

Through our Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, the Atlantic Council works with allies and partners in Europe and the wider Middle East to protect US interests, build peace and security, and unlock the human potential of the region.

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On July 22, Stephen Rodriguez, senior advisor at Forward Defense, published a piece in War on the Rocks entitled “Titans, Trailblazers, and Translators: Forging a Unified Defense Industrial Paradigm”. Rodriguez, working at the intersection of the defense industrial base and technologies, identifies a growing tension between the two. To address this challenge to enduring national security, he says, the strategic imperative is to “harness the industrial might of the titans, fuse it with the digital velocity of the trailblazers, and leverage the deep integration expertise of the translators.”

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Stephen Rodriguez

Senior Advisor

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Policy Defense Technologies

Forward Defense leads the Atlantic Council’s US and global defense programming, developing actionable recommendations for the United States and its allies and partners to compete, innovate, and navigate the rapidly evolving character of warfare. Through its work on US defense policy and force design, the military applications of advanced technology, space security, strategic deterrence, and defense industrial revitalization, it informs the strategies, policies, and capabilities that the United States will need to deter, and, if necessary, prevail in major-power conflict.

Learn more

The post Stephen Rodriguez in War on the Rocks on the defense industrial paradigm appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On July 14, Atlantic Council Senior Advisor Harlan Ullman published an op-ed in the Hill on US President Trump’s “restructuring” of the National Security Council (NSC). He argues that clearly defined and streamlined decision-making processes are essential to improving the NSC’s effectiveness and ensuring coordinated national security policy.

International Advisory Board member

Harlan Ullman

Senior Advisor

The post Ullman in the Hill on Trump’s National Security Council appeared first on Atlantic Council.

With the launch of Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, followed by escalation with Hezbollah and Iran, harrowing images from the strip, and fears of Palestinian displacement to Egypt—Egyptian anxiety is elevated, and the national debate has shifted from reform to national security. By the end of 2023, al-Sisi had secured a third term without a meaningful electoral contestation amid calls for national unity.

It’s clear that the post-October 7 era has not only devastated the Gaza strip, it has also influenced Egypt’s economy and domestic political dynamics—and the impacts extend beyond the ballot box. This includes deepening ideological fractures among Egypt’s intellectuals and secular opposition, further discrediting their democratic narrative while lending credibility to conspiracy theories, and restoring the battered image of Egypt’s military as the nation’s ultimate protector.

Displacement overshadows political reform

After years of mismanagement, Egypt faced an economic crisis between 2022 and early 2023. Inflation climbed to over 32 percent by March 2023, and foreign debt exceeded $160 billion. These pressures created a narrow opening for discussions about political and economic reform and the military’s expanding role in the Egyptian economy.

To mitigate domestic discontent and reassure international donors, al-Sisi announced a “National Dialogue,” launched in May 2023. The dialogue was officially framed as a platform to promote political reform and to gather input from the full political spectrum, except the banned Muslim Brotherhood, on the country’s economic and governance challenges. Moreover, the government released several secular political prisoners, allowed the return of some exiled dissidents, permitted media space for opposition, and lifted the asset freeze and travel ban imposed on many human rights defenders. The “State Ownership Policy Document,” issued and approved in December 2022, pledged a timeline to reduce the state’s dominance over key economic sectors.

These steps raised some hopes that the 2023 presidential and 2025 parliamentary elections would differ from previous ones, where al-Sisi won 97 percent of the vote and state allies dominated parliament. They also raised the expectation that the state would allow greater participation for secular opposition, tolerate more serious candidates to compete with al-Sisi, allow for the opposition to form independent electoral lists, or at least guarantee broader inclusion within state-approved electoral lists in the coming parliamentary election. Egypt’s drained intellectuals and opposition groups, still recovering from the failures of the post-2011 uprising hoped for a modest revival of political dynamism after years of exclusion under al-Sisi.

Yet, the outbreak of the Gaza war abruptly shifted the national discourse, and the debate of political reform quickly faded behind the war’s horrific scenes, along with debates over plans to displace Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan. Amid public anxiety, Egypt’s December 2023 presidential election passed largely unnoticed and without serious competition. Al-Sisi secured a third term with an overwhelming majority, with 89.6 percent this time, facing only nominal opposition, calling his victory a “rejection of the inhumane war in Gaza.”

Even the conviction and imprisonment of former Member of Parliament Ahmed Tantawi—who had sought to run for president—for possessing and distributing unauthorized election documents sparked far less public debate than expected. With parliamentary elections expected by within weeks, there is little meaningful discussion of electoral reform or the measures that guarantee free elections, especially after a new amendment to the election law was hastily passed in parliament. and approved by the president without serious public debate or political consensus with opposition. Many fear the parliamentary election will merely echo the presidential election’s non-competitive and tightly controlled nature.

Polarizing the polarized intellectuals

Since 2011, Egypt’s intellectuals have been divided along multiple fault lines—first between reformists and revolutionaries, then between Islamists and secularists. These divisions sharpened during the brief presidency of Mohamed Morsi, a senior Muslim Brotherhood figure, and deepened after his 2013 ouster, backed by many secular groups and the military. The ensuing economic deterioration, coupled with the shattered dream of democratization, have disillusioned most of the Egyptian intellectuals despite their differences.

More recently, however, mounting economic hardship and the failure of the post 2011-2013 political trajectories have begun to soften these ideological rifts, creating space for some intellectuals and opposition figures to reflect and publicly reassess a decade of political failures. Yet the conflict in the region has reopened old wounds, turning debates over the conflict into a new arena for polarization.

Many Islamists, leftists, and Nasserist figures voiced strong support for both Hamas’s and Iran’s responses to the recent US-Israel strikes on Tehran’s nuclear facilities, framing Hamas and Iran as legitimate anti-colonial resistance forces. In contrast, many nationalists and liberal figures condemned Hamas, blaming it for derailing the Israeli peace process in the nineties and portraying the October 7 attack as reckless and damaging to the Palestinian cause. Nationalists and liberals have also accused Iran of destabilizing the region through its proxies and irresponsible actions.

Ultimately, what began as debates over Hamas’s strategy and its outcome soon escalated into media confrontations, accusations of treason, and ruptured ties within the intellectual class. In an already drained political landscape, the resurgence of these fractures deepened weakness within Egypt’s intellectuals and opposition.

Discrediting democracy and embracing  conspiracy

The Gaza war’s impact went beyond political actors and debates, shaking the cultural foundations of Egypt’s reform movement. The inability of the Western-led international community to halt the scale of suffering in Gaza served as a second major blow to the liberal democratic narratives that were embraced by many Egyptian intellectuals since the 1990s, including the framing of democracy a prelude for development, peace, and progress.

In Egypt, perceived Western double standards deepened public skepticism towards democracy, increasingly seen not as a normative framework for foreign policies but as a tool of political pressure primarily serving Western interests. Many Egyptians were reminded of the US decision to freeze military aid to Egypt in 2013 over human rights concerns—after the Egyptian Army ousted Morsi. For some Egyptians, the human rights violations committed by their governments since 2013—which once drew US sanctions—now pale in comparison to the international accusations of genocide committed by Israel in Gaza, which the West met with outright support or passive silence. That inconsistency was also apparent in Washington’s decision to launch strikes on Iranian targets linked to its nuclear program, while continuing to support Israel—a state widely believed to possess a nuclear arsenal.

The agenda of Palestinian displacement abroad—once dismissed during the 1990s and 2000s as a conspiracy theory amplifying a fringe agenda in Israel—now appears real as Israel and the United States publicly pushed proposals to export the Gaza crisis into Egypt.

This is not the first instance in Egypt’s recent political history where Egypt’s versions of a liberal peace narrative have faced a popular reckoning. The first came when the 2011 Arab uprisings devolved into civil wars rather than democracy. And now, conspiracy theories that framed those uprisings as a Western plot to divide Arab countries and ensure Israel’s regional supremacy are experiencing a revival.

Amid these dynamics, the image of Egypt’s army and president—previously tarnished by widespread socioeconomic suffering—began to recover. The military has once again emerged as the ultimate protector with current and past traumas colliding: memories of the Sinai insurgency and post-June 2013 terrorist attacks, the enduring conflicts in neighboring Sudan and Gaza, and now Israel seizing control of the Rafah crossing. The Egyptian troop presence in Sinai, al-Sisi’s public rejection of US President Donald Trump’s plan to displace Palestinians from Gaza and his refusal to meet Trump at the White House, as well as widespread media calls to rally behind the state amid a national security threat all reinforce this image.

By strengthening the image of the army and the president, while weakening Egyptian dissidents through polarization and discrediting their democratic narrative, the Gaza war further enhanced the asymmetry between a strong, entrenched authority and a weak, fragmented opposition and intellectuals. This growing imbalance continues to block any meaningful change in power dynamics.

Al-Sisi’s security concerns

Despite al-Sisi’s renewed confidence in his restored image, and state media calls for national unity, his persistent security concerns remain.

The Palestinian cause has historically been a potent mobilizing force against the Egyptian authority, frequently harnessed by political Islamist movements like the Muslim Brotherhood, whose formal political role al-Sisi dismantled in 2013. Yet while the Brotherhood’s organizational presence has been curbed, its narrative over the conflict—alongside that of the broader “resistance camp”—may  resonate with some of the Egyptian public, particularly among a younger generation that came of age during one of the most violent phases of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Many in this cohort are disillusioned with prospects for peace and increasingly receptive to boycott campaigns, championed by Muslim Brotherhood media, against Israel and the United States. They are also exposed to narratives framing the Egyptian regime as a complicit actor aligned with Western interests and Israel’s war in Gaza. The appeal of these narratives, coupled with rising sympathy for Hamas in the early months of the war and the resurgence of Islamism in neighboring Jordan—as seen in the September 2024 elections—has likely deepened al-Sisi’s anxieties. Although there is no immediate sign of large-scale pro-Palestine mobilization, due to the state’s zero-tolerance to demonstrations, these dynamics raise the risk of rekindling ideological currents viewing them as potential challenges to its stability.

Ultimately, the post-October 7 era has not only demolished Gaza. It also disrupted Egypt’s fragile political opening: deepening polarization, weakening opposition forces, and temporarily consolidating the public standing of the president and military amid heightened insecurity. The erosion of the foundations of democratic narratives, widening fractures among intellectuals, and the simmering threat of Islamist mobilization leave Egypt’s political opening increasingly elusive, with the country seemingly sliding back into political stagnation.

Whether Egypt can resist these turbulent crosscurrents—reshaped by the regional war—without sliding again into stagnation, or revive its reform ambitions, remains the defining challenge in the post-October 7 era—one that the parliamentary elections are likely to reveal.

Amr Salah Mohamed is a scholar and lecturer at the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University, specializing in conflicts in the Middle East and Egyptian politics.

The post How the war in Gaza diminished dreams of political reform in Egypt appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On June 2, Rob Murray, non-resident senior fellow at Forward Defense and the Transatlantic Security Initiative, appeared on CNBC to advise on a radical rethink of deterrence from a European perspective. Murray states that the architecture behind defense financing has been uniquely designed for peacetime, so the European financial community will have to rework their financial alliance to maximize each other’s national security interests.

Fellow

Rob Murray

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Industry Defense Policy

Forward Defense leads the Atlantic Council’s US and global defense programming, developing actionable recommendations for the United States and its allies and partners to compete, innovate, and navigate the rapidly evolving character of warfare. Through its work on US defense policy and force design, the military applications of advanced technology, space security, strategic deterrence, and defense industrial revitalization, it informs the strategies, policies, and capabilities that the United States will need to deter, and, if necessary, prevail in major-power conflict.

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The Transatlantic Security Initiative aims to reinforce the strong and resilient transatlantic relationship that is prepared to deter and defend, succeed in strategic competition, and harness emerging capabilities to address future threats and opportunities.

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The post Murray featured in CNBC on fundamental changes to UK and NATO defense spending. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

• Executive summary
• Background
• Analysis
• Key findings 
• Recommendations
• Conclusion
• Author and acknowledgements
• Appendices

Executive summary

If the United States wants to increasingly use offensive cyber operations internationally, does it have the supply chain and acquisition capabilities to back it up—especially if its adversary is the People’s Republic of China?   

Strategic competition between the United States and China has long played out in cyberspace, where offensive cyber capabilities, like zero-day vulnerabilities, are a strategic resource. Since 2016, China has been turning the zero-day marketplace in East Asia into a funnel of offensive cyber capabilities for its military and intelligence services, both to ensure it can break into the most secure Western technologies and to deny the United States from obtaining similar capabilities from the region. If the United States wishes to compete in cyberspace, it must compete against China to secure its offensive cyber supply chain.   

This report is the first to conduct a comparative study within the international offensive cyber supply chain, comparing the United States’ fragmented, risk-averse acquisition model with China’s outsourced and funnel-like approach.   

Key findings:  

1. Zero-day exploitation is becoming more difficult, opaque, and expensive, leading to “feast-or-famine” contract cycles.  

2. Middlemen with prior government connections further drive up costs and create inefficiency in the US and Five Eyes (FVEYs) market, while eroding trust between buyers and sellers.   

3. China’s domestic cyber pipeline dwarfs that of the United States. China is also increasingly moving to recruit from the Middle East and East Asia.  

4. The United States relies on international talent for its zero-day capabilities, and its domestic talent investment is sparse – focused on defense rather than offense.   

5. The US acquisition processes favor large prime contractors, and prioritize extremely high levels of accuracy, trust, and stealth, which can create market inefficiencies and overly index on high-cost, exquisite zero-day exploit procurements.  

6. China’s acquisition processes use decentralized contracting methods. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) outsources operations, shortens contract cycles, and prolongs the life of an exploit through additional resourcing and “n-day” usage.     

7. US cybersecurity goals, coupled with “Big Tech” market dominance, are strategic counterweights to the US offensive capability program, demonstrating a strategic trade-off between economic prosperity and national security.  

8. China’s offensive cyber industry is already heavily integrated with artificial intelligence (AI) institutions, and China’s private sector has been proactively using AI for cyber operations.  

9. Given the opaque international market for zero-day exploits, preference among government customers for full exploit chains leveraging multiple exploit primitives, and the increase in bug collisions, governments can almost never be sure they truly have a “unique capability.”    

Recommendations:  

1. Strengthen the supply chain by creating Department of Defense (DOD) vulnerability research accelerators, funding domestic hacking clubs and competitions, expanding the National Security Agency’s (NSA) Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations (CAE-CO) program, and providing legal protections to security researchers.  

2. Improve acquisition processes by establishing a government-sponsored vulnerability broker in a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) to decentralize and simplify exploit purchases while increasing cyber capability budgets and expanding research on automated exploit chain generation.  

3. Adjust policy frameworks to consider counterintelligence strategies in the zero-day marketplace (burning capabilities of malicious actors while recruiting willing ‘responsible’ actors into a more formal pipeline), funding n-day research through US Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) where appropriate and leveraging alliances like the Pall Mall process to counter China’s growing cyber dominance.  

Without meaningful reforms, the United States risks ceding to China whatever strategic advantage it has left in cyberspace. By fostering a more deliberate offensive cyber supply chain and adjusting acquisition strategies, the US can retain a steady supply of offensive cyber capabilities to maintain its edge in the digital battlefield. 

Background

Securing the zero-day supply chain (and its private sector market) is crucial to US-China conflict in cyberspace 

China and the United States are engaged in strategic competition in cyberspace. While cyber operations are often an overlooked area of geopolitical power, both countries’ militaries, intelligence communities, and law enforcement agencies conduct cyber operations. They do so to obtain intelligence crucial to national security, assist conventional military operations, and even create kinetic effects to achieve strategic goals. To make a cyber operation possible, one must have the capacity to break into a particular system: offensive cyber capabilities (and particularly zero-day vulnerabilities) are the necessary strategic resources required to conduct such operations. 

The United States clearly wishes to further leverage its cyber prowess in the international arena, particularly against the People’s Republic of China (PRC).² Doing so would help the United States protect its vital national security and economic interests, international partnerships, and norms. However, to operationalize a “cyber power” strategy, the United States must acquire enough high-end capabilities to ensure it can achieve such strategic goals. Moreover, the timeline for implementing these policies is urgent, given the increasing potential for conflict with China in the coming years. Thus, given the international privatized offensive cyber capability marketplace, how can the United States and its allies continue to ensure the availability of offensive cyber capabilities (focusing on zero-day vulnerabilities), while limiting China’s access to those same capabilities? 

Cyber operations consist of a variety of offensive cyber capabilities — many of the most crucial cyber capabilities involve the exploitation of “zero-day” vulnerabilities (also known as zero-days or 0days). Zero-day vulnerabilities are issues or weaknesses (“bugs”) in software or hardware, typically unknown to the vendor and for which no fix is available— in other words, the vendor has had “zero days” to fix the issue. Some of these vulnerabilities are exploitable: an actor with knowledge of the vulnerability could write code that takes advantage of said vulnerability. This results in a “zero-day exploit”—code enabling a range of behaviors that could include establishing access into the computer system the software is installed on, escalating privileges on those systems, or remotely issuing commands. 

The work of finding vulnerabilities and writing exploits, thanks to its strategic necessity to governments worldwide, has become a billion-dollar international services industry in the last 20 years. Private firms now often create cutting-edge offensive cyber capabilities for governments. Given the sensitivity around supporting government cyber operations, many of these firms do not openly advertise their services, shrouding the industry in secrecy. Between this secrecy and the variation in products offered (i.e., governments target different technology systems, and no two zero-days are identical), the supply chain for such capabilities is not only opaque to outsiders, but also to governments and even among players in the industry. 

Within this highly fragmented and opaque market, large firms, like the United States’ L3Harris or ManTech, frequently hold multi-million dollar valuations.³ Notably, Israel’s NSO Group’s worth reached $1 billion at its peak.⁴ Meanwhile, individual US government agencies receive millions of dollars to procure offensive tools.⁵ Such companies’ tools have clearly been purchased by such government agencies and put to use in modern-day cyber operations. Notably, of all the zero-day vulnerabilities found exploited “in-the-wild” in 2023 and 2024 by Google, around 50 percent of them were attributed to commercial vendors that sell capabilities to government customers.⁶ While this statistic only encompasses detected zero-day exploits, this is still a significant set of capabilities being provided by private sector actors. 

The offensive cyber capability industry itself is international and ranges in professionalization depending on the region; companies in Russia, Israel, Spain, Singapore, and the United States all have varying relationships with their home governments, other firms (including middlemen and brokers), international government customers, and even cyber-criminal groups. However, the study of offensive cyber capabilities has largely over-indexed on firms based in Israel and Europe rather than the United States’ greatest geopolitical rival: China.⁷ This is surprising, as the Chinese hacking and cybersecurity ecosystem is robust. Chinese companies have, on multiple occasions, are directly linked to Chinese government-sponsored cyber operations against the United States. Moreover, the development of offensive cyber capabilities in the United States remains largely unstudied or examined in a way that does a disservice to the domestic hacker community.⁸ 

Why is this question important? 

At first glance, it can be difficult to see why the private sector zero-day exploit market—a series of obscure companies selling code that can enable governments to break into widely-used software—would be important in preserving national interests in cyberspace, particularly against China. A simple explanation of this relationship is as follows: the United States and its allies rely on an increasingly digital world, and China is both a savvy adversary and hardened target in cyberspace.⁹ When any country’s intelligence community wishes to infiltrate high-value, hard-to-access digital targets, it likely must use zero-day exploits or other bespoke (i.e., custom-made or tailored) offensive cyber capabilities. Intelligence organizations from both the United States and China, due to decreasing internal supply and rising demand for such capabilities,¹⁰ have increasingly relied on acquiring such exploits from the private sector zero-day exploit market.¹¹ However, the private sector zero-day market is murky and more international than policymakers expect; even if the United States and China are truly entering a “New Cold War,” both countries still source capabilities from an overwhelmingly opaque international market of offensive cyber capability firms, and do not know if they are being supplied with potentially overlapping capabilities. In short, any cyber operation that relies on an acquired capability, conducted by the United States, China, or anyone else, carries a counterintelligence and operational security risk, with no guarantee that they can source a similar capability in the future. Thus, securing the cyber supply chain (understanding the industry, constraining malicious actors, and ensuring availability from trusted parties) is important to address such risks. 

While former President Joe Biden’s administration sought to constrain private sector actors with additional regulation and placing bad actors on the entities list,¹² these policies were framed around human rights concerns largely out of Europe and Israel. President Donald Trump’s administration is moving away from this approach, focusing on China as a geostrategic threat over transnational digital repression framings,¹³ as well as signaling willingness to engage with private sector actors in the space. The Trump administration, as of 2025, has accelerated plans for a US Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) 2.0, focusing on working better with private industry partners.¹⁴ This is a continuation of the first Trump administration’s policies: Trump was the first president to delegate the authority for offensive cyber operations down to the secretary of defense (through National Security Presidential Memorandum–13) allowing USCYBERCOM more leeway to conduct operations without presidential approval, albeit still with a robust interagency review process.¹⁵

If the United States wishes to further leverage its cyber prowess in the international arena by leveraging private sector partners, does it have the supply chain and acquisition capabilities to back it up—especially if its adversary is the People’s Republic of China? Although the author does not condone general analogies between cyber and other domains, supply chain and acquisition analysis in the cyber domain can be similar to nuclear or other arms proliferation questions. For example, to answer whether a country has the capability to construct a nuclear weapon, one must understand how much enriched uranium the country can easily acquire. Similarly, to answer whether a country can become a cyber power that can access the hardest of digital targets, one must ask how easily it can source and acquire zero-days and other offensive cyber capabilities. 

Methodology 

This report combines quantitative data analysis and interviews of experts from across the offensive cyber capability ecosystem. The underlying research—conducted over ten months, from June 2024 to March 2025—occurred in three stages.¹⁶ It has since been revised and updated. The first was a comprehensive literature review of US-China cyber conflict, how the offensive cyber capabilities industry works, and recent policies on combating the proliferation of spyware from the Biden administration (which has impacted zero-day exploit acquisition and sales). The second then analyzed data scraped from the open internet, largely from the website “CTFTime” (well-known for tracking Capture the Flag (CTF) competitions internationally),¹⁷ as well as secondary sources containing anonymized and aggregated information on the cybersecurity ecosystem. This report includes statistics from this dataset—the full dataset is available upon request. The third stage involved interviewing experts from across the national security and offensive cybersecurity ecosystem. The interviews, which began in December 2024 and concluded in March 2025, comprise the most significant aspects of this research. The approximately thirty experts consulted, both virtually and in person, came from one or more of the following backgrounds: 

• Business leaders and senior employees of offensive hacking or vulnerability research companies in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada; 

• Senior defense acquisition and innovation officials in the US government; 

• Security researchers internationally who focus on China or wider Asia-Pacific cyber issues; 

• Current and/or former US and Five Eyes (FVEYs) intelligence officials; and 

• Current and/or former US national security policy officials. 

To narrow the project’s scope, and given the foreign intelligence and military concerns China poses, this paper focuses primarily on acquiring zero-days for foreign intelligence and military customers, rather than for domestic law enforcement. Although some of the analysis and ultimate policy recommendations may be applicable to law enforcement, the analysis was conducted with intelligence and military end uses in mind. Because of the lack of publicly available reporting on this topic, the interviews are a major part of the paper’s findings. A list of interviewees can be found in Appendix B. For security reasons, many interviewees asked to remain unattributed. Anonymous interviewees are not individually cited in the text to avoid identifying them based on their aggregate comments. 

The author’s background as a student, cybersecurity practitioner, think tank fellow, and founder of a Washington DC-based hacking conference¹⁸ heavily contributed to sourcing interviews with the hacking and cyber policy community. However, the author recognizes that, given the highly fragmented nature of the offensive cyber capability industry, the findings in this paper are likely only part of the wider truth, and reflect her biases and affiliations. Many sources are former and current industry colleagues. One of the interviewees is her husband, Derek Bernsen, whose DARPA program, Intelligent Generation of Tools for Security (INGOTS), is mentioned in the paper. Any omissions, errors, or factual inaccuracies are the author’s alone. 

The majority of the paper consists of an analysis of the US supply and acquisition funnel of offensive cyber capabilities, followed by an analysis of China’s supply and acquisition funnel, from which the author makes conclusions and recommendations for US policy moving forward. There are plenty of risks to this approach, two of which are mirror imaging bias and “whataboutism” (justifying an approach because another party has conducted similar activity). The author has tried to, wherever possible, seek to remove such fallacies from her analysis. She justifies the overall approach through the following (somewhat obligatory) Sun Tzu quote: 

Analysis

This section addresses the relative supply chains for offensive cyberspace operations to the United States and China, building around a tripartite model to encompass a set of industry and government relationships characterized by significant degrees of internal complexity, opacity, and fragmentation. This model addresses (1) what the underlying international market of offensive cyber capabilities looks like, (2) what parts of this international market supply China and/or the United States with offensive cyber capabilities, and (3) how the United States and China acquire such capabilities. 

A. The international offensive cyber supply chain 

All software is built by people, and there are three types of bespoke software often used in a cyber operation:¹⁹ (1) exploit code that takes advantage of a software vulnerability, (2) a malware payload, and (3) technical command and control.²⁰ All three are “offensive cyber capabilities.” While individual governments with the right expertise can build their respective capabilities in-house, many rely heavily on commercial vendors.²¹ In a 2024 report, the Atlantic Council identified forty-nine commercial vendors along with thirty-six subsidiaries, twenty-four partner firms, twenty suppliers, and a mix of thirty-two holding companies, ninety-five investors, and one hundred and seventy-nine individuals, including many named investors.²² Despite over-indexing on firms in Italy, Israel, and India, companies and individuals named in this dataset hailed from every major continent except for Antarctica, suggesting that each continent likely has hackers that provide offensive cyber capabilities to governments.²³ While only a small subset of these firms can and do sell zero-day exploits, these named vendors are likely just the tip of the iceberg. Top-tier vulnerability research talent exists worldwide, hailing not just from the FVEY countries (the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia)²⁴ and China but also from smaller nations like Egypt, Vietnam, and Cyprus (see Figure 1).²⁵

Figure 1: Heatmap of major known commercial vendors for offensive cyber capabilities, suppliers, and investors, 2024

Moreover, the above dataset excludes talent not yet plugged into the government cyber marketplace. CTF competitions (hacking contests in a simulated environment), Live hacking competitions (where hackers hack into systems live on stage), and bug bounty programs (usually company-run reward programs that encourage hackers to find and report system vulnerabilities) enable hackers to develop similar skill sets as those required for government-sponsored hacking. These programs and competitions are both common recruiting pipelines for defensive cybersecurity companies and offensive vendors alike.  

The number of individuals that participate in such programs globally is staggering. In 2020, HackerOne, a well-respected bug bounty platform, reported around 600,000 users spanning 170 countries.²⁶ A 2024 survey by Bugcrowd, one of the largest bug bounty and vulnerability disclosure companies on the internet, revealed most of Bugcrowd’s over 200,000 hackers hailed from India, Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan, Nepal, Vietnam, Australia, and the United States;²⁷ 78 percent of them are self-taught, and 58 percent of them were under twenty-five years old.²⁸ While not all of these individuals possess the skills to find zero-day vulnerabilities and write code to exploit them, multiple security experts interviewed estimated that there are likely thousands of international individuals able to do so, with numbers in the low hundreds that can be trained to do so well.²⁹

What is required to create and sell a zero-day exploit? 

Finding a vulnerability in a technology product or system is a highly manual, labor-intensive process that requires in-depth knowledge of how the target product works. Vulnerability researchers usually acquire such knowledge by reading through a target’s codebase and dependencies for small idiosyncrasies and mistakes.³⁰ Depending on the size of the codebase (ranging from hundreds to millions of lines of code),³¹ this can be a time-consuming process. 

However, finding a vulnerability (or “bug”) is only the first step to creating a zero-day exploit. Once a bug is found, there are a series of follow-up questions that need answers. Is the bug exploitable (i.e., can it be used to do anything useful)? If so, can it be exploited reliably, or could it alert the target that something is wrong? Does the exploit work on only one version of the target or across multiple versions? These complex questions usually require additional quality assurance (QA) testing to produce a field-ready exploit, with the QA’s rigor depending on the risk aversion of the end customer.³² Any additional time spent conducting QA tests carries a risk that the technology firm producing the product finds the underlying vulnerability in the meantime and patches it, decreasing the value of the exploit.³³

Instead of selling a single exploit, it is usually more lucrative and impactful to link the individual exploit (known as an “exploit primitive”) with others to create an “exploit chain,” using multiple exploit primitives in conjunction with one another to achieve a particular effect, such as gaining full control over a system. As of 2025, exploit chains are no longer just an option for greater impact; now, they are often necessary to achieve any effect on a modern, enterprise-grade system. Many recent offensive security talks at major conferences,³⁴ alongside security advisories from dominant technology firms,³⁵ have moved away from analyzing primitives and toward analyzing exploit chains for this reason. However, not every exploit primitive can be used in the same chain. When trying to create a functioning full exploit chains (“full chains”), a company may work with middlemen (or “brokers”) to purchase primitives for the exploit chain they want to build.³⁶ This comes with additional risks. Since middlemen work with other middlemen, the original source of a zero-day exploit is often difficult to ascertain. This also raises the potential that multiple parties have access to the same exploit, which, in turn, leads to a higher likelihood of discovery. 

Because only a small number of big technology firms create most of the products used globally today, bug collisions (i.e., the parallel independent discovery of a vulnerability by multiple researchers) are also growing increasingly common.³⁷ This dynamic increases the risk for buyers and sellers, as a bug collision means an exploit is more likely to be used by multiple parties, resulting in a higher risk of discovery or false attribution by the private sector. This also erodes trust between the buyers and sellers of a capability, as the buyer can only take the seller’s word that the bug was concurrently discovered rather than resold. 

While selling offensive cyber capabilities (and particularly zero-day exploits) to governments is a lucrative profession, it is a risky industry. Creating a zero-day exploit to leverage against a widely used technology product may require between six and eighteen months of full-time engineering and research work.³⁸ Unless an offensive cyber capability firm has multiple engineers working on different products or uses different payment schemes, this timeline can lead to long downtimes between exploit sales. This “feast-or-famine” payout schedule carries risks for companies that rely on one or two windfalls a year to pay their overhead and engineering costs.³⁹

In addition, finding a customer to sell exploits to is more difficult than it first seems. In general, potential sellers must find an existing government contract through which to sell their exploits or know the right government individual to speak with.⁴⁰ Unless an offensive cyber capability firm has hired employees who have recently left a government interested in such capabilities, actual buyers may be extremely hard to find.⁴¹ Thus, international hackers without former government connections normally sell their products to middlemen, many of whom operate internationally.⁴² Even then, the exploit may go through multiple levels of middlemen to get to a government customer,⁴³ frustrating both buyers and sellers. Buyers know that exploits sold to them have extremely high mark-ups, given the number of middlemen involved, and often will not know who the original bug producers are. Meanwhile, sellers are likely aware of the extreme markups, but do not know whether their bugs were sold to multiple governments.⁴⁴

Throughout both the development and sale of an exploit, offensive cyber capability firms are also subject to counterintelligence risks by adversary governments. Since 2022, North Korea has consistently targeted vulnerability researchers globally to steal their tools and exploits.⁴⁵ Vulnerability researchers also frequently report being solicited by foreign intelligence at security conferences, falsely claiming to work for FVEYs governments.⁴⁶ On the U.S. side, government response to this counterintelligence threat has been half-hearted at best. While the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) reportedly announced initiatives to protect high-risk communities against cyber threat actors in 2024,⁴⁷ security researchers who have tried to contact CISA have not found the program helpful.⁴⁸ As a result, the offensive cyber capability industry does not perceive that the US government is interested in protecting this community, even from one of the world’s most unpopular and totalitarian nation-states. 

As a result, most vulnerability researchers do not spend more than a decade in the profession, instead choosing to pivot into less risky segments of the cybersecurity industry.⁴⁹ The individuals who stay in the market tend to do so for some combination of three reasons. First, they firmly believe in the mission—this largely describes either likely former government employees who have moved out to the private sector or individuals who wish to have their work “used for good.”⁵⁰ Second, they are profit-motivated. The “feast” element of the feast-or-famine model provides an incredible windfall for certain highly skilled individuals. Third, they simply enjoy the challenge. A large portion of the vulnerability research community, and the hacker community writ large, exhibits a large amount of awe for their vocation (i.e., the only person who hacks textile looms, or the first person to “pop,” or exploit, the newest iPhone can feel like a superpower).⁵¹ This vocational awe creates camaraderie among the most passionate vulnerability researchers worldwide. For some researchers, exploitation is art, and they will often try to put the art above the artist. In that sense, some individuals in the global market, particularly those who interact more with the international community online or participate on international CTF teams, perceive geopolitics as an inconvenient truth.⁵² Chinese and Russian researchers can admire the work done by American researchers, and vice versa, while understanding that they will likely never work together.⁵³ 

B. The US acquisition pipeline

Given this international sphere of private sector hackers with the capability to find and exploit capabilities, how does the United States develop and leverage this community to supply its offensive cyber operations? The sections below—and those mirrored in the following section on China—focus on sources of supply (companies that provide capabilities and talent pools that support them) and acquisition methods (contracts, regulations, and informal roadblocks or enablers). 

Supply—International, opaque, and loosely affiliated networks. 

Companies—Prime and subcontractor ecosystem. 

While the US government has highly sophisticated cyber capabilities developed in-house, it increasingly purchases offensive cyber capabilities from a wide network of prime and subcontractors. Many of the large firms that sell offensive cyber capabilities to the US government are the same defense contractors that sell it other forms of software or even weapons. Large, traditional prime contractors like Raytheon (rebranded RTX)⁵⁴ and L3Harris,⁵⁵ as well as more technology-focused firms like Peraton, compete for multi-million dollar government contracts to support cyber operations and provide capabilities to the government.⁵⁶ Many individuals who work for these firms are former DOD or Intelligence Community employees.⁵⁷

When large prime contractors cannot fulfill contract requirements, they often portion out the work to subcontractors. Some prime contractors are heavily reliant on small businesses, boutique research firms, and even individual researchers to satisfy contracts. Many of these subcontractors attract high-end vulnerability researchers and exploit developers worldwide, who are looking for flexible hours, high pay, and a company culture that better reflects the hacker community.⁵⁸ Some contractors, to boost available capital, are funded or partially owned by venture capital, private equity, or other investment firms, which can shape the company structure and strategy. For example, AE Industrial, a private investment firm, acquired Israeli firm Paragon in 2024, and sought to merge it with US subcontractor RedLattice, which it also owns.⁵⁹ The United States also likely sources its tooling through its intelligence-sharing relationship with the FVEYs.⁶⁰ Given its existing close cooperation between the five countries’ signals intelligence (SIGINT) agencies and emphasis on “cooperative security”, this cooperation likely translates to capability sharing as well.⁶¹ 

The services and products such firms provide (whether as the subcontractor or the prime contractor) differ based on their government contract vehicle. Internal research and development services contracts enable government research teams to break into harder targets by providing supplement staff.⁶² Procurement contracts for zero-day exploits exist in various forms, and subscription models for a company’s full catalog (i.e., a flat fee for year-long access to everything the company finds) are not uncommon.⁶³ For less sophisticated government clients, private sector firms may provide Access-as-a-Service models (i.e., black-box and end-to-end solutions) where the contractor guarantees product maintenance for a specified timeframe.⁶⁴  These Access-as-a-Service models combine zero-day exploits with other tooling into an all-in-one spyware solution, such as NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware.⁶⁵ Many prime contractors and subcontractors in the United States and FVEYs experience similar issues and risks listed in the previous section (i.e., feast-or-famine timeframes, middlemen, counterintelligence risks, and general difficulty of the field), which impacts recruitment. 

Some companies that provide capabilities directly to the US government have been innovating in the nexus between artificial intelligence (AI) and cyber operations. However, while individual researchers use AI to assist with code auditing and fuzzing, many focused on this field affiliate with academic institutions or large US technology (“Big Tech”) firms rather than government contractors.⁶⁶ Open, unclassified offensive initiatives do exist. For example, the Intelligent Generation of Tools for Security (INGOTS) program, within the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), seeks to automate the creation, modification, modeling, and analysis of exploit chains.⁶⁷ However, INGOTS is an exception to the norm. Most of the US intelligence community experiments with AI in-house,⁶⁸ and US policymakers currently spend far more money to encourage companies to use AI for defensive applications (e.g., DARPA’s AIxCC partnership with Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, the Linux Foundation, and the Open Source Security Foundation to design, test, and improve novel AI systems to automatically find and fix vulnerabilities in code).⁶⁹

The DOD’s AI strategy (originating in 2018 with updates in 2020 and 2023) has revolved around “Responsible AI”—developing and using AI capabilities in accordance with the DoD AI Ethical Principles while delivering better, faster insights and improved mission outcomes.⁷⁰ While the Trump administration has been moving away from “Responsible AI” strategies, its new Project Stargate, an injection of $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure in the United States, is giving significant funding to OpenAI, whose investments in cybersecurity have been largely defensive in nature.⁷¹

Domestic talent—Decentralized, defense-forward. 

Feeder systems into US and US-affiliated offensive security firms come from a loose conglomerate of internship programs, cybersecurity conferences, and hacking competitions. Technology companies sponsor many of these conferences and competitions  to encourage talent to go into defensive cybersecurity careers (a worthwhile but orthogonal field for the purposes of this paper’s analysis). The bug bounty industry, as well as the defensive cybersecurity industry in the United States, hires plenty of hackers and former government cyber engineers (who might otherwise apply to work in offensive capability development) into defensive or more IT-focused roles.“SkillBridge and CSP Coordinators,” Microsoft: Military Affairs, accessed March 16, 20⁷² Some programs have formal relationships with the government, like the CyberCorps Scholarship for Service program, Hack the Pentagon, or University-based NSA Centers of Excellence.⁷³ However, many of these programs funnel students into defensive jobs. Notably, of the 461 NSA cyber centers of excellence, only twenty-one are certified to train students in cyber operations.⁷⁴

Few universities have applied (i.e., non-theoretical) offensive cyber programs that feed directly into the private vulnerability research industry.⁷⁵ Many students who learn how to hack in college do so through extra-curricular security clubs or CTF teams. In 2024, among all registrants, the United States had the most registered academic teams competing in CTFs on popular platforms.⁷⁶ Many CTFs that US teams compete in are at cybersecurity conferences,⁷⁷ hosted by academic institutions,⁷⁸ or sponsored by technology companies.⁷⁹ However, without consistent funding, alumni engagement, and professor buy-in, these clubs and teams often risk disappearing entirely due to lack of overt support from their home universities.⁸⁰

Moreover, few university programs produce engineers ready to write fully functioning exploits. Multiple vulnerability research firms interviewed referenced a “training valley of death,” where entry-level engineers out of university still require a year or more of talent development before they can produce a marketable product.⁸¹ While some intermediate-level trainings exist in companies or at conferences, they are currently insufficient—in either technical depth or timeframe.⁸²

The US government has created more support for hacking contests, but at a much smaller scale than in other countries. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published a report on cyber competitions in 2016, suggesting that parts of the US government have historically understood the importance of such contests in developing offensive talent.⁸³ NIST currently supports the US Cyber Games to recruit, train, and develop the team representing the United States in international cybersecurity competitions, this program engages with 2,000 individuals in a single contest, the US Cyber Open, and annually trains approximately 150 students.⁸⁴ Unfortunately, it is far from the lofty, nationwide efforts pitched in NIST’s initial paper and is dwarfed by the sheer size of Chinese sponsored competitions (as shown in later sections). 

Undermining all these efforts is the anti-government sentiment that remains strong within the US cybersecurity and hacking community, which likely contributes to difficulty in maintaining an offensive talent pipeline. Much of the original US hacking community emerged from countercultural activities like phone phreaking (i.e., bypassing Pacific Bell telephone lines to make long-distance phone calls without paying). Law enforcement responses from the 1960s to the early 2000s treated many hackers as criminals rather than innovators. In 1990, the Secret Service’s Operation Sundevil seized more than forty computers and 23,000 data disks from teenagers in fourteen American cities and charged individuals who managed hacker magazine “Phrack” with interstate transport of stolen property. The charge was based on information published by Phrack that later proved to have been already publicly available.⁸⁵ The arrests and subsequent court cases resulted in the creation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.⁸⁶ While the US government has made significant strides toward repairing the relationship with domestic hackers in recent years, anti-government sentiment still persists.⁸⁷

Reliance on and integration with the wider international hacking community 

The US hacking community relies on and interacts heavily with the international hacking community. Multiple FVEYs vulnerability research company employees and founders interviewed claimed to hire individuals from other FVEYs countries, Europe, and South America to provide services.⁸⁸ This international nature of US talent is most publicly apparent at the upper echelons of vulnerability research and exploitation competitions. Pwn2Own, sponsored by the American-Japanese cybersecurity software company Trend Micro, is the epitome of Western live-hacking competitions for vulnerability research companies. While initially starting at a security conference in Canada, the competition has expanded to events in the United States, Canada, Japan, Ireland, and Germany.⁸⁹ While the United States had the most participating teams by country at Pwn2Own Ireland in 2024, they numbered only four teams out of seventeen, which included countries like the Netherlands, France, Vietnam, Taiwan, and South Korea (see Figure 2). 

Figure 2: Number of teams participating in Pwn2Own Ireland 2024, by country

The talent pipeline for offensive security in the United States also corroborates this claim, particularly when looking at CTF competitions. CTFs serve as talent development and recruitment for both vulnerability research firms and the wider cybersecurity industry. Data from the CTFTime website (used widely in the West for tracking CTF competitions) shows the United States, as a country, has the most registered teams (16,774 as of August 19, 2024).⁹⁰ However, there are just as many teams that are “international” in nature—over 16,000 either do not align with a single country, or have members competing and collaborating on the same team from multiple countries (see Figure 3). 

Figure 3: Teams on CTFtime by country, as of August 2024 (thousands)

The most famous CTF competition in the world also corroborates this trend. DEF CON CTF, held annually in Las Vegas during DEF CON – the world’s largest hacker conference, attracts both university students and seasoned industry professionals alike. Of the top twelve scoring teams in 2024, none of them came solely from the United States. All the top teams with US players were either international teams who practiced remotely with each other to qualify as a team, or multiple single-country teams that merged with each other to compete (see Figure 4).⁹¹ For example, the 2024 winner was Maple Mallard Magistrates, a joint Canadian and US team formed by participants at Carnegie Mellon University, Korean-American Vulnerability Research Company Theori, Inc.,⁹² and the University of British Columbia. Notably, joint Chinese and Russian teams, as well as single-country teams out of China placed within DEF CON CTF 2024’s top twelve. 

Figure 4: Top scoring teams at the 2024 DEF CON CTF, and their countries of origin

US offensive cyber capability acquisition methods 

Organizations that contract capabilities for cyber include federal intelligence agencies, military, and law enforcement—such as the NSA, USCYBERCOM,⁹³ and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Contract requirements differ by agency. Some organizations can ingest single exploits, while others do not have the in-house talent to independently weaponize capabilities. Normally, the latter organizations require end-to-end, black-box solutions that necessitate additional engineering work and safeguards.⁹⁴

Government contracts for offensive cyber are compliance-heavy and favor large primes 

The contracting ecosystem, with its many compliance requirements, inherently favors large prime contractors despite the earlier noted heavy reliance on small businesses, boutique research firms, and even individual researchers to fulfill contracts.⁹⁵

Put simply, small cyber businesses find it incredibly difficult to navigate DOD acquisition processes.⁹⁶ Little reporting on the specifics of US offensive cyber capability acquisitions is openly available. Yet, the general US software contracting requirements offer valuable insight. The feast-or-famine timelines of zero-day exploit contracts require a company to have existing capital to withstand long downtimes between sales (like a large prime contractor), in which smaller companies may be one faulty bug away from going bankrupt.⁹⁷ Any prime contractor on a government contract (i.e., a contractor bidding directly on a government contract) must also meet the incredibly stringent standards within the Federal Acquisition Regulations, including having cleared individuals for classified government contracts, meeting cybersecurity and other regulatory requirements,⁹⁸ and getting financial systems audited.⁹⁹

Clearance requirements are also a large pain point for small exploit businesses, as many exploit contracts are classified. Businesses must go through the complex and costly Facility Clearance process to bid or even perform on such contracts,¹⁰⁰ which is difficult for smaller vendors.¹⁰¹ Moreover, certain contracts have active clearance prerequisites, which requires a vulnerability research company to have the resources to obtain employee clearances (or find another vendor to sponsor the needed clearances). This can also exclude foreign companies from the bidding process (as foreigners, in general, cannot hold US security clearances).¹⁰²

Despite the hacker community’s international nature, some customers also informally restrict the nationalities of employees who may work on contracts, limiting the ability of companies who wish to hire hackers abroad.¹⁰³ Despite all these regulations, interviewees confirmed that many of these smaller firms and foreigners may, in effect, actually be working on such contracts anyway, via the sales of their services and products to added layers of contractors (or middlemen) at, of course, an additional expense to the government.¹⁰⁴

On the government side, additional focused regulations and policies trigger based on the product or agency’s risk aversion 

Aside from the procurement process, additional regulations trigger (and place added burdens on the government buyer) depending on the type of offensive cyber capability acquired. If an exploit is sold to the government individually, the government organization must send the exploit through the Vulnerabilities Equities Process (VEP). All vulnerabilities sold to the United States government go through the VEP. Effectively, it is an interagency process that balances whether to disseminate vulnerability information to the vendor/supplier in the expectation that it will be patched or to use the vulnerability for national security and law enforcement purposes.¹⁰⁵ It is possible to get a waiver to circumvent the VEP, but only if the government agency can assert a deeply pressing national security need for immediate use.¹⁰⁶

If the exploit is sold as part of an end-to-end spyware solution (or via an Access-as-a-Service model), other regulations also trigger. The US government, under Executive Order 14093, must ensure that a solution does not pose “significant counterintelligence or security risks to the United States Government or significant risks of improper use by a foreign government or foreign person.”¹⁰⁷ Biden signed the order in 2023 to prevent the US government from supporting businesses that also enable human rights abuses abroad while mitigating the risk of such businesses to US government interests. Because end-to-end spyware solutions enable less sophisticated clients to conduct cyber operations, vendors providing such solutions have been caught selling to authoritarian countries, many of whom had not yet built high-end cyber operations organizations in-house and did not have regulations to deter government spying on civil society organizations, political opposition groups, or journalists. The most famous example of a vendor engaging in such activity was the Israeli company NSO Group, whose sale of its Pegasus spyware to the Saudi government resulted in the spying on and subsequent assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.¹⁰⁸

The US military and intelligence communities also have additional internal requirements for procured zero-day vulnerabilities, particularly in the name of stealth and risk-aversion. Zero-day exploits provide the lowest risk of detection in a cyberspace operation (as they do not rely on previously known “n-day” vulnerabilities) and can offer initial access to a system by exploiting pre-existing weaknesses rather than having to somehow manufacture weaknesses in an adversary system. However, to further minimize the discovery risk of an operation, a government buyer may further require a seller to submit its product to QA testing for reliability to see whether and how often an exploit fails.¹⁰⁹ Failure means that the exploit does not succeed in triggering the desired activity and potentially leaves suspicious artifacts on the target device.¹¹⁰ The reliability requirement adds cost and time, and it can also create risk of intellectual property and trade secret theft if the third party conducting QA is a competitor of the original seller.¹¹¹

0-days v. n-days: What’s the difference? 

The focus on zero-day exploits as capabilities in this paper may suggest that zero-day exploits are the dominant methods of exploiting systems. The opposite is true: zero-day exploits are not the dominant way to exploit systems and get information in the offensive ecosystem. Oftentimes, the simplest methods of obtaining access are the most effective, even if they may get attributed, or “burned.”¹¹² While simple methods can include phishing emails or social engineering, they can also include “n-day exploits”—exploit code that uses known vulnerabilities to achieve a certain goal, effectively relying on a target not regularly updating their systems. 

A zero-day exploit, when compared to an n-day, or other more common capability, is similar to comparing an F-35 fighter jet to a commercially-made drone: one is an exquisite, highly tailored capability, while the other can be made cheaply and at scale—however, while there are incredibly important things an F-35 can do that drones cannot, both can fly from point A to point B and deliver a payload. 

A government buyer’s interest in stealth can, at times, create market inefficiencies. Various vendors interviewed claimed that certain government customers may not tell a seller what type of target or exploit they want, leading to an inefficient process, where vendors might work on an exploit that a government customer has no intent to purchase.¹¹³ Alternatively, vendors said that other government customers purchase a company’s entire catalog of exploits to hide the specific exploit they are after. However, this is likely a decreasing practice given the increasing cost of zero-day exploits.¹¹⁴ Both of these practices likely seek to increase operational security and avoid the risk that anyone outside the government buyer learns of any intended targets in cyberspace, especially when dealing with a market of increasingly international firms. 

Given the increasing costs of exploits and stagnating budgets, US government customers can also become territorial against others within the interagency. Some vendors interviewed noted that government customers can become possessive and completely unwilling for their vendors to share exploits with other customers.¹¹⁵ This can cause vendors to avoid selling even completely distinct products to other government agencies, for fear of damaging the relationship with a current buyer.¹¹⁶ While buying bugs jointly is a potential interagency option, it is rare. Coordinating the movement of funding between agencies is time-consuming, requiring forethought that is not consistent with the normal marketplace tempo.¹¹⁷ Throughout this relationship, trust between the supplier and end client is key. There is a risk that the government client will cut into the supplier’s bottom line by being too risk-averse and territorial.¹¹⁸ There is also the risk that the supplier has worked with untrustworthy parts of the international supply chain, resulting in an untrustworthy product for the government client. In this field, trust is currency. 

International and regional policies around exploit sales affecting government purchasers are also on the horizon. In 2024, the United Kingdom and France initiated the Pall Mall Process as an international dialogue meant to establish guiding principles for the “development, facilitation, purchase, and use of commercially available cyber intrusion capabilities.”¹¹⁹ The process emerged from international outrage over NSO Group’s sales to numerous authoritarian countries worldwide, alongside additional revelations that the offensive cyber capabilities market was growing rapidly. This mission, in theory, is much broader than “end-to-end” spyware: it encompasses development, sales (from brokers or companies), and use of spyware– which includes the acquisition, development, and maintenance of zero-day exploits.¹²⁰ The consultation summary report initially included laudable proposals around zero-day exploitation, such as encouraging VEP programs internationally and creating clear guidelines for vendors in the space.¹²¹ However, several follow-on reports on Pall Mall have focused mainly on applying international law frameworks toward government use of such capabilities or state-by-state policies guides. This suggests not only a divergence in stakeholder interest for what topic Pall Mall should tackle first but also a divergence in understanding of how to translate international norms to an operational level across countries.¹²²

US Big Tech companies as a strategic counterweight 

Because the use of zero-day exploits in cyber operations inherently takes advantage of weaknesses in private sector software products, US domestic technology companies’ cybersecurity measures are a strategic obstacle to US offensive cyber goals. In many ways, this is a strategic obstacle by design. The public outcry over US intelligence community’s efforts to influence the distribution of deliberately insecure products,¹²³ or mandating backdoors into existing technology products¹²⁴ has shifted US policy away from built-in eavesdropping tools and towards ensuring that US products are secure by design.¹²⁵ However, companies like Google, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, or Cisco are frequent targets for vulnerability research and exploitation because their products are so prevalent. Any private sector vendor, with or without insider knowledge, can easily assume that a zero-day exploit against a widely used application will likely be more attractive to a potential government customer, and thus are incentivized to exploit those applications. This is particularly obvious in the mobile market, where Android (developed by Google) is on 71 percent of all mobile phones globally, and iOS (developed by Apple) is on 28 percent—in other words, 99 percent of global mobile phones run US Big Tech software.¹²⁶ As a result, plenty of offensive cyber capability firms worldwide have been found selling products with iOS and Android exploits.¹²⁷

US Big Tech companies, to protect against exploitation and government operations against their users, have invested heavily into cybersecurity defenses, taken steps to make their products secure, and thwarted government attempts to make their products less secure through regulation.¹²⁸ The complexity and robustness of cybersecurity mitigations (such as sandboxing, logging crashes, and other exploit mitigations) have prolonged development cycles for exploits (from days or weeks in the early 2000s to 6 to 18 months or more)¹²⁹ and have also driven up prices.¹³⁰

The actions by US Big Tech companies have made zero-day exploitation incredibly difficult over the last decade for five reasons. First, security measures have resulted in hyper-specialization within the offensive cyber capabilities industry. As product codebases become ever more complex, learning how a product works to find vulnerabilities becomes more time consuming, and vulnerability researchers have fewer incentives to look at more than one product.¹³¹ Second, thanks to layered security measures, most vulnerability research shops now must not only find single exploits (i.e., exploit primitives), but also be able to chain them into exploit chains to successfully gain access to the newest iOS or Android phone.¹³² Third, the act of chaining exploits together and maintaining the chain for a government customer has also become increasingly complicated,¹³³ with large technology firms employing quick turnarounds to fix vulnerabilities (i.e., “quick-patch cycles”).¹³⁴ Fourth, some US Big Tech companies have created threat-hunting teams, like Google’s Project Zero, dedicated to researching zero-days found “in-the-wild” (i.e., being actively exploited by an attacker)¹³⁵ and conducting novel research¹³⁶ to directly thwart efforts made by offensive firms to exploit any devices.¹³⁷ 

Finally, Western Big Tech firms have begun suing offensive cyber capability firms in US federal courts. While the lawsuits do not yet involve US firms, the precedent set in these cases may open US contractors to risks of future lawsuits. In 2019, WhatsApp sued NSO Group for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the primary US anti-hacking law, and the WhatsApp platform’s terms of service.¹³⁸ This case was widely regarded as a win for human rights. Namely, a large company with a wide history of providing products to human-rights-abusing governments, who primarily used the platform to spy on domestic civil society groups and even against US government personnel, was forced to cease their activities exploiting WhatsApp software and to pay significant fines.¹³⁹ However, because the argument laid out in the case relied on an explanation of how NSO’s exploits worked, both vendors and government officials alike have concerns about the ripple effects it may cause in the zero-day research community.¹⁴⁰ In particular, NSO Group was found in violation of the CFAA because their Pegasus spyware used a WhatsApp exploit to deliver Pegasus to WhatsApp users across all major operating systems, even despite the fact that they were likely doing so on behalf of a government customer.¹⁴¹ While, unlike with the Israel-based NSO Group, the national security carve-out in the CFAA could protect most US firms, this particular part of the anti-hacking law has not yet been tested in US courts.¹⁴²

C. China’s acquisition pipeline 

Supply—Well established, comprehensive feeder systems 

Companies—Prime and subcontractor ecosystem, with outsourcing of both capability and operations to the private sector. 

China’s offensive cyber capabilities firms are also a mix of both large prime contractors and smaller bespoke companies. However, unlike US defense primes, prime contractors for China’s offensive cyber projects are often the same Chinese big tech firms that sell products in the global market. China’s major cybersecurity firms, such as QiAnXin, Huawei, Qihoo360, and NSFocus provide services directly to the Chinese military—Qihoo360, China’s leading antivirus company, assisted with China’s hack of the US health insurance company Anthem.¹⁴³ Many of the large technology firms also have internal bespoke teams that focus on offensive security work. However, unlike the Google Project Zero model, such internal teams directly provide research on exploitation to the government rather than making government-funded zero-day research hard. Chinese large technology firms also directly fund or subcontract work to small- and medium-sized offensive security start-ups.¹⁴⁴ Cofounders of such offensive security start-ups are usually serial entrepreneurs, who also encourage families to enter the industry.¹⁴⁵ For large tech firms that do not have embedded offensive security teams or bid for government contracts directly, China’s 2021 Vulnerability Disclosure Law forces engagement with the overall offensive pipeline regardless (as explained in the sections below). 

Chinese offensive cyber capabilities firms (both prime and subcontractors), such as No Sugar Tech seen in the image above, provide multiple offensive-cyber services at once. These can include various offerings, selling targeting platforms, various hacking services, or even access to victims’ devices and data directly to the Chinese government—an outsourcing of both capability and operations to the private sector. This is a much broader remit than US firms, which often only provide the capabilities. When Chengdu-based offensive security company iSoon’s marketing materials and internal chat logs were leaked online in 2023, researchers discovered that iSoon sold all three services (hack-for-hire, selling victim data gained by directly hacking targets, and targeting platforms for such hacking) to a variety of Chinese government clients.¹⁴⁶ iSoon also subcontracted for the major Chinese cybersecurity company Qi An Xin, while sourcing vulnerabilities and other capabilities from other firms when they could not source services in-house.¹⁴⁷ For example, iSoon cooperated with Chengdu 404 on research regarding “software vulnerability of information systems”—Chengdu 404 was previously indicted by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) for conducting computer intrusion campaigns against more than 100 global victims.¹⁴⁸

Chinese researchers also experiment heavily with changing the underlying cyber landscape by using AI, with government support. As early as 2017, the Chinese government began to integrate “intelligentization” into its armed forces and contractors: the concept of incorporating numerous emerging technologies—including decentralized computing, data analytics, quantum computing, AI, and unmanned or robotic systems—into the PLA’s conceptual framework.¹⁴⁹ Chinese cyber actors have been using large language models since 2024 to create deepfakes for disinformation campaigns,¹⁵⁰ but this likely only scratches the surface. Researchers believe China already utilizes even more cutting-edge AI research in cyber operations. Since 2021, at least six Chinese universities with links to known Chinese state-sponsored cyber operations have been conducting cutting-edge AI research.¹⁵¹ Moreover, China’s AI industry has deep connections with its offensive cyber industry. Since 2021, an AI tool created by Huawei, a sanctioned Chinese company, has been a dominant contributor to the Linux kernel. A majority of contributions from Huawei’s AI tool, known as “HULK bot,” are fixing previously unknown vulnerabilities (the tool is a machine-learning enabled fuzzer).¹⁵² Despite Western-led efforts to prevent Chinese firms from obtaining semiconductors able to support the training of high-end large language models, this has not impacted Chinese AI firms as deeply as initially expected and suggests that Chinese cyber operators will increasingly be able to utilize AI research in the future.¹⁵³

Domestic talent—Large, centralized, state-sponsored 

While the United States relies on an international talent pool to secure these capabilities, China largely relies on its domestic talent but is moving to capture more of the market in East Asia. China has an incredibly robust domestic talent pool of offensive hacking talent: the Chinese hacking ecosystem, as judged by their CTF competitions alone, is immense. Government sponsorship ensures large-scale funding, extensive participation, and stable career pipelines for top competitors—China’s top ten CTF national competitions attract over 11,000 participants on average.¹⁵⁴ This is in stark contrast to the 2,000 individuals participating in the US Cyber Open, the top contest within the US’s relative handful of government-sponsored contests. By sheer numbers alone, it is unsurprising that China each year has more graduates in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (or “STEM”) fields than the United States produces in total college graduates.¹⁵⁵ 

Of course, the Chinese CTF ecosystem is only part of a comprehensive and deliberate feeder system from universities, cybersecurity conferences, and hacking competitions into the Chinese offensive cyber apparatus. Chinese military universities and high-end science and engineering schools produce high-caliber graduates in deeply applied offensive cybersecurity research, some of whom are encouraged to develop final projects that involve hacking into US companies.¹⁵⁶ Many of them, upon graduating, either work on offensive teams of existing offensive security firms, found an offensive cyber start-up, or work directly for high-end teams in China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) or People’s Liberation Army (PLA).¹⁵⁷ Talent pools from China’s higher education are also supplemented by a wide array of government-sponsored hacking competitions and conferences. The Chinese government has hosted hundreds of official CTF and other industry standard hacking competitions, often in partnership with many of its ecosystem’s offensive security companies and with universities that provide financial incentives for students to participate.¹⁵⁸ Many other CTF competitions were directly founded by top Chinese teams that used to compete internationally,¹⁵⁹ while other competitions have involved breaking into real foreign technology products or even enterprise systems.¹⁶⁰ The Chinese government and its major offensive firms seek to recruit directly from these competitions.Interview with Dakota Cary, Fellow, Atlantic Council Global China Hub, January 8, 2025.  

Unlike the United States, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has the unique advantage of having a hacking community that originated in explicit, patriotic alignment with state interests, making such hackers easier to recruit. One of China’s first hacker groups was the Hongke Union who, in 2001, famously took down the White House website and defaced websites of US businesses in retaliation for the collision between a US spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet off of Hainan Island.¹⁶¹ In the early to mid-2000s, as China was experiencing unprecedented economic growth, China’s hackers either professionalized and created technology companies, were co-opted directly into China’s growing cyber forces, or both. For example, the head of the Green Army, Jiye Shen (a.k.a. “Goodwill” on hacker forums), created the internet security company NSFocus in 2000.¹⁶²

Meanwhile, the PLA, in 2005, directly recruited Tan Dailin (谭戴林, a.k.a. Wicked Rose), a student from the Sichuan University of Science and Engineering, to design hacking tools for the Chinese military.¹⁶³ Wicked Rose then formed a patriotic hacking group to break into DOD computer systems in 2006.¹⁶⁴ MSS, China’s foreign intelligence organization, also began recruiting talent both directly and indirectly during the early 2000s.¹⁶⁵ This organization has suited the many hackers less able to conform to physical fitness tests or other rigid requirements the PLA typically requires of its military recruits, with just as many benefits.¹⁶⁶ 

The Chinese government has spent the last decade effectively closing off its domestic talent pool from outside influence. From 2016 to 2021, China effectively began to prevent hackers from sharing research with the global hacking community. In July 2016, Wooyun, a vulnerability disclosure platform created by the Chinese “ethical hacking” community, which had engaged frequently with Taiwanese and other international hackers, was suddenly taken down, and its founding members were arrested by Chinese authorities without charges.¹⁶⁷ Some China researchers speculate that the takedown was an action taken at the behest of the MSS, China’s primary intelligence service, who wished to control the vulnerability marketplace.¹⁶⁸ In 2018, China announced a regulation (“Regulating the Promotion of Cybersecurity Competitions”) effectively banning hackers from travelling abroad to participate in hacking competitions, as well as requiring any vulnerabilities found through domestic competitions to be directly reported to the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), China’s law enforcement organization, and other relevant departments.¹⁶⁹ Chinese hacker participation at contests like Pwn2Own dropped to zero, and the number of presentations given by Chinese researchers at Taiwanese conferences fell precipitously.¹⁷⁰

More recently, China has expanded its reach into East and Southeast Asia through hacking competitions and partnerships with regional researchers, seeking to secure additional talent on its own terms. Academics from the Harbin Institute of Technology and Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications have advocated for actively engaging with hacking communities in East Asia seeking to influence future international standards for how vulnerabilities are discovered and managed.¹⁷¹ While Chinese hackers cannot participate in most Western hacking competitions, Chinese CTF events often attract or even outright invite talent in the wider East and South Asian regions to participate. The QiangWang Cup and RealWorldCTF (respectively, linked to the PLA and MSS) are two Chinese hacking contests that historically have had participants from Vietnam, Japan, Russia, Ukraine, and even the United States.¹⁷² Moreover, China prolifically sponsors and hosts international hacking conferences to draw in international talent. Chinese researchers, while unable to participate in most outside hacking competitions, still have a large presence at “Hack in the Box” Dubai and other conferences, which reflects the coordination and sharing that China and the United Arab Emirates have in cyberspace. Chinese conference “GeekCon” (active in China from 2014 to 2021) re-established itself in Singapore from 2021 onwards, soliciting international talks and insinuating that they still abided by China’s vulnerability disclosure laws.¹⁷³ Elite Chinese and South Korean offensive security research companies (Pangu Team and POCSecurity, respectively) consistently collaborate to recruit international talent to MOSEC, a conference on mobile security hosted in Shanghai every year.¹⁷⁴

It is clear that China, while limiting the activities of its domestic hackers, already sources some vulnerabilities from foreign hackers living abroad. COSEINC, a Singaporean vulnerability research company run by Thomas Lim (a Singaporean national with ties to China),¹⁷⁵ was put on the US entities list in 2021, likely for selling exploits to the Chinese government.¹⁷⁶ Lim, a known entity in East Asia’s vulnerability research circles, publicly stated that he was not against selling his products to the Chinese government.¹⁷⁷ China may also be tricking researchers into handing over bugs to the Chinese state. In 2021, Taiwanese vulnerability researcher Orange Tsai reported a vulnerability to Microsoft that impacted its exchange servers two days after a Chinese Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) group began exploiting the same vulnerability in its operations. This suggests that either two separate individuals (one Chinese and one Taiwanese) independently discovered the vulnerability, or information about the vulnerability was somehow obtained from the researcher by a Chinese entity.¹⁷⁸ 

China’s offensive cyber capability acquisition methods. 

Government contracts for offensive cyber care less about stealth than access and provide additional resources to firms. 

The Chinese system accepts higher operational risk for the sake of speed and flexibility. China’s acquisition system has decentralized mechanisms, such that even provincial and municipal government entities contract directly with local cyber firms. iSoon’s former website listed over fifty-six different clients, ranging from the MPS to a wide variety of various provincial, city, and municipal public security bureaus—effectively the equivalent of FBI field offices.¹⁷⁹ Based on the leaks, iSoon held individual contracts for goods and services with several municipal and provincial level bureaus (similar in size to the Cincinnati or Pittsburgh police departments) purchasing hack-for-hire capabilities. Chinese legal scholars have also bemoaned China’s national intelligence apparatus’s lack of clear pre-, mid-, and post-supervision structures for intelligence operations more broadly.¹⁸⁰ This suggests that decentralization is a feature of the overall system rather than an exception.¹⁸¹ 

Unlike in the United States, where government acquisition is slow and risk-averse, Chinese firms can operate opportunistically, sometimes combining cybercrime with state-sponsored activity, with minimal fear of reprisal as long as they align with state interests. Internal discourse from within the Chinese hacker community suggests that, despite China’s cybersecurity laws and ancillary legislation on regulating vulnerabilities, there is a grey zone for what activity is permitted, versus what may get a patriotic Chinese hacker “invited to tea” at MPS or MSS offices.¹⁸²One famous example is Wicked Rose, who, after creating the NCPH hacker group and defacing multiple US websites, was arrested by the MPS in 2009 for engaging in domestic cybercrime.¹⁸³ He likely received a commuted sentence in exchange for an agreement to contract for the MSS just two years later (which resulted in Wicked Rose founding Chengdu 404, a company indicted by the DOJ in 2020), and was likely permitted to continue his criminal activities as long as they targeted victims outside China.¹⁸⁴ China researchers interviewed have also suggested that the Chinese government gives hackers significant leeway, while underpaying them for services and handling its most sensitive matters in-house.¹⁸⁵ While the Chinese government deliberately depresses prices and exercises monopsony power, its decentralized model and allowance of a “grey zone” enables a more flexible contracting environment that enables smaller players. Small and medium-sized companies like iSoon, Chengdu 404, and others have been shown to obtain contracts through a mix of “guanxi” (networking and relationship building) and formal contracting processes.¹⁸⁶ 

Most importantly, the PRC’s overall contracting process, including the loose leash on its corporate hackers-for–hire, largely does not penalize organizations when they are caught or attributed. In 2013, the security firm Mandiant published a report on APT1, the first publicly-outed Chinese threat group, and attributed it to the Chinese PLA Unit 61398.¹⁸⁷ While the report initially sent shockwaves through the Chinese state security apparatus, many quickly realized that naming and shaming did not result in strategic level or department level pain.¹⁸⁸ Rather, most US policies that resulted from “naming and shaming” threat groups fell into two groups: DOJ indictments of individual Chinese hackers (who likely were not planning on leaving China for a US-extradition friendly state anyway) or economic sanctions on Chinese offensive security companies that did not plan on doing much business with Western firms.¹⁸⁹ Thus, while middle managers of China’s security services likely must prioritize both operational tradecraft and obtaining intelligence of strategic value to the Chinese Communist Party, the goal of obtaining such intelligence significantly outweighs the requirement to adhere to tradecraft and professionalism, as there are few real costs of attribution on the managers of such operations.¹⁹⁰ Of course, like the grey zone, there are likely exceptions to this rule, such as if a single Chinese company causes the wider CCP intelligence apparatus to “lose face.”¹⁹¹

China’s apparent preference for results over attribution also enables Chinese organizations to utilize riskier capabilities (such as noisier, easier-to-detect n-day vulnerabilities) and to reuse infrastructure, even when it allows Western organizations to better detect them. In that sense, truly “burning” (or disposing of) a capability is much rarer in China.¹⁹² Moreover, this preference provides room for private-sector hackers to experiment. Some Chinese offensive cyber capability shops can also observe what other countries’ offensive teams are doing “in-the-wild” and attempt to echo the techniques of other countries’ APT groups.¹⁹³ For example, Chinese APTs were able to exploit a vulnerability linked to NSA hacking tools leaked online in 2017, prior to the leak itself, suggesting that either an elite Chinese team found the same bug as the NSA during a similar timeframe, or they were able to detect the NSA exploit, reverse engineer it, and then use it themselves.¹⁹⁴ 

Finally, CCP intelligence and law enforcement mechanisms clearly provide consistent resourcing to their offensive firms, likely to help shorten the feast-or-famine cycles. Experts following the Chinese cyber capabilities market largely agree that the Chinese government likely has a method of vulnerability sharing among both their private sector and government operators, with tiers of access and privileges.¹⁹⁵ The sources of vulnerabilities likely range from hacking competitions like the Tianfu Cup,¹⁹⁶ acquisitions from existing contractors (both foreign and domestic), and vulnerability reports into the MSS-operated China National Vulnerability Database (CNNVD), and other government vulnerability databases. 

China’s combination of revealed results-forward preference over stealth, and commitment to resource sharing with its private sector, results in a unique vulnerability resourcing process, where small subsets of more elite hacking “A-teams” get early access to the zero-day vulnerabilities. However, once the vulnerability is discovered, the Chinese government opens the capability to other groups.¹⁹⁷ This was famously evidenced in the 2021 Microsoft Exchange attacks, where a Chinese APT group exploited a vulnerability targeting Microsoft Exchange two days before the vulnerability was reported to Microsoft on January 5th.¹⁹⁸ Before Microsoft could issue a patch for the vulnerability, multiple other Chinese APT groups began using the same exploit in their campaigns.¹⁹⁹ Microsoft released a patch for the vulnerability on March 2^nd – one day later, Chinese threat groups began exploiting the vulnerability en-masse.²⁰⁰ However, while the Microsoft Exchange vulnerability is the most notorious example, Chinese threat analysts have seen this pattern play out for even non-critical vulnerabilities in other public-facing services, such as web servers, virtual private networks (VPNs), and other edge devices.²⁰¹ This rapid weaponization of both 0day and n-day vulnerabilities also explains why certain campaigns use relatively new vulnerabilities or access points to gain entry into targets that are relatively low-hanging fruit—at this point, the “D-teams” have obtained access to the capabilities previously used by “A-teams.”²⁰² In some senses, this results in an enormous ability to efficiently weaponize offensive cyber capabilities—this system enables organs of the PRC government to efficiently build, acquire, and weaponize capabilities ranging from the mediocre to the exquisite.²⁰³ It also stands in stark contrast to the US model, effectively extending the shelf-life of a purchased capability. 

Currently, China has yet to engage with the Pall Mall process or other international codes of practice to regulate the acquisition and use of offensive cyber capabilities. 

China uses its CTF and regulatory ecosystem to solicit bugs informally from hackers for national security use; its major technology companies are strategic allies in sourcing exploits. 

As stated previously, China effectively prevented its domestic vulnerability research talent pool from sharing research with the wider community between 2016 and 2021. During this time, China began ramping up hacking opportunities and vulnerability disclosure programs domestically: the CNNVD (the previously mentioned MSS-run vulnerability database) grew its partnerships from fifteen technical support units and partner companies in 2016 to 151 companies in 2023.²⁰⁴ This expansion drew in Chinese Big Tech firms like Tencent, Huawei, and Hikvision, which would report vulnerabilities in their own products. Other partners also included specialized offensive capability firms. Moreover, hackers who could no longer compete internationally were encouraged to compete in Chinese live-hacking competitions, like the famous Tianfu Cup, founded in 2018 as a “Chinese Pwn2Own.”²⁰⁵ However, both the Tianfu Cup and the CNNVD have ties to the Chinese intelligence and law enforcement apparatus. In 2017, researchers found that if a vulnerability was reported to the CNNVD that had value to MSS cyber operations, the CNNVD would delay publishing the vulnerability, write an exploit for the vulnerability, and use it in operations.²⁰⁶ Meanwhile, the Tianfu Cup was (and remains) a vulnerability feeder system for the MPS, China’s national police. Vulnerabilities submitted as part of the Tianfu Cup competition are sent straight to the MPS, which would be used in law enforcement operations against Uighurs and other minority groups.²⁰⁷ If the vulnerabilities were not already full exploit chains (i.e., ready-to-use), the MPS would disseminate the proof-of-concept code to private firms to further exploit.²⁰⁸

In addition to its domestic researchers, China has even integrated its respective heavyweight  tech firms into its offensive cyber programs. Unlike US Big Tech companies, which act as a strategic blocker against the US vulnerability ecosystem, Chinese technology companies (and even foreign tech companies operating in China) are far more beholden to the Chinese government and have largely been co-opted into the CCP’s vulnerability acquisition funnel. This is unsurprising. While Chinese technology firms have similar market caps to their Western counterparts, their primary consumers are still domestic Chinese users. For example, Huawei, the leading smartphone company in China, only makes up 4 percent of the global smartphone market.²⁰⁹

China began integrating “civil-military fusion” concepts into its cybersecurity industry starting in 2017, embedding military units into its domestic cybersecurity companies.²¹⁰ Setting up a PLA military-civil fusion center in a company enables the Chinese military to connect with industry peers and resources almost seamlessly by embedding military members into companies to work side-by-side with internal staff.²¹¹ Various entities, including universities and private companies, use this model to collaborate with the Chinese government to submit zero-days, co-partner on defense research labs, and set up private IT infrastructure for state-sponsored hacking operations.²¹²

PRC’s integration of technology companies into its offensive pipeline does not end with staffing choices. State policies demand forced disclosures of vulnerabilities. Since 2021, the PRC has required all software companies operating in China to (reluctantly or otherwise) report vulnerabilities that impact any systems, regardless of source, directly to the PRC government. In 2021, China released new regulations on vulnerability management, the Regulations on the Management of Network Product Security Vulnerabilities (RMSV),²¹³ which mandates reporting all industry-wide discoveries of vulnerabilities to the Chinese government within 48 hours.²¹⁴ This affects all technology companies operating in China, including foreign software firms. In the disclosure, companies are encouraged to upload proof-of-concept code and instructions on how to replicate the vulnerability, which would undoubtedly be helpful to Chinese offensive missions.²¹⁵ It also has impacted US critical infrastructure firms: one of the companies found to comply with the Chinese law is Schneider Electric, a US industrial control systems and energy company, whose products (and subsequent vulnerabilities) are likely offered with minimal alteration in both the US and Chinese markets.²¹⁶ 

Companies that do not comply with the law are penalized. In 2021, an engineer in Chinese company Alibaba found and disclosed a critical zero-day vulnerability impacting Apache Log4j (a widely used software application) to the US Apache Foundation (maintainers of Log4j) instead of notifying Chinese regulators.²¹⁷ As a result, Chinese regulators suspended a cooperative partnership with Alibaba regarding cybersecurity threats and information-sharing platforms for six months.²¹⁸ It is important to note that this RMSV process is separate from and, in many ways, completely counterproductive to the internationally accepted bug bounty and coordinated vulnerability disclosure process.²¹⁹ Instead of interfacing directly with the manufacturer of a technology product and encouraging them to be more secure, China’s RMSV regulation circumvents this process by (1) mandating that the Chinese government be notified first instead of the company and (2) persuading the sharing of exploit code, but only with the government. 

Despite this, Chinese technology firms still contribute to finding bugs in Western technology firms. Chinese researchers accounted for 27 percent of all vulnerabilities reported to the bug bounty programs of Apple, Google Android, and Microsoft from 2017 to 2023.²²⁰ Many of these contributions are also from security companies that have links to the Chinese intelligence apparatus.²²¹ These contributions are frequently linked to a small handful of individuals within these companies, and a company’s contributions to such bug bounty programs fall when one or more Chinese hackers transitions between security companies.²²² Given the strict chokehold the CCP holds on these firms and their vulnerability reporting pipelines, researchers in the US speculate that the CCP’s security services recognize that some slackening of restrictions is necessary to retain a truly robust talent pool, especially for hackers that are motivated by international recognition rather than mission or money.²²³ It is also likely beneficial to the PRC that its hackers and companies are seen as responsible stakeholders in the global cybersecurity market. 

Key findings 

During the literature review, data analysis, and expert interviews (as laid out in the above sections), nine key findings emerged: 

1. Zero-day exploitation is becoming more difficult, opaque, and expensive. The global hacking ecosystem is highly international and fragmented. The amount of time and capital required to develop an impactful capability has escalated dramatically in the last decade, leading to riskier feast-or-famine contract cycles. The growing number of publicly discovered zero-day threats does not detract from this market trend, in fact, the increase suggests a concurrent rising number of players in the international market. Multiple sources interviewed estimate the number of individuals consistently producing zero-day exploits is in the low hundreds globally. 

2. Middlemen create market inefficiency and erode trust in the market. Given the lack of transparency in the zero-day market, middlemen with prior government connections further drive up costs and create inefficiency in the US and FVEYs market, while eroding trust between buyers and sellers. 

3. The United States relies on international talent, while China relies on domestic might. The US offensive cyber workforce relies heavily on international talent pools in South America, Europe, and other FVEYs countries. China’s domestic cyber pipeline dwarfs that of the United States, but China is also increasingly moving its supply network out to the Middle East and East Asia. 

4. Talent investment in US offense is lacking. US government investment into the offensive talent pipeline, however sparse, has focused on defensive jobs, whereas China has well established and comprehensive feeder systems within its offensive apparatus. US talent in exploit development also experiences a “Training Valley of Death” between junior and intermediate levels. 

5. US acquisition favors large prime contractors, slows acquisition in pursuit of stealth, and adds additional risk through opacity. US cyber capability acquisition favors large defense contractors, who take on heavy compliance burdens while shifting project requirements to smaller firms. The US government internally prioritizes extremely high levels of accuracy, trust, and stealth, which can create market inefficiencies and a reliance on high-cost, exquisite zero-day exploit procurements. Certain US government customers deliberately lengthen the contract cycle by refusing to share information about desired capabilities with firms, leading to an inefficient process where firms may work on an exploit that a customer has no intent to purchase. 

6. China’s acquisition uses decentralized contracting methods, outsources operations, shortens contract cycles through additional resourcing, and prolongs the life of an exploit through “n-day usage.” While China also relies on large prime contractors, government ministries have decentralized government procurement processes, such that even provincial government offices issue contracts to firms. China’s regulatory environment actively encourages vulnerability reporting to the state, often integrates corporate research with government offensive strategies, and widely enables private sector hack-for-hire operations. China has also shortened the feast-or-famine contract cycle for exploits by providing additional resources to its private sector firms, and it continues to use exploits after their discovery. 

7. US cybersecurity goals, coupled with Big Tech’s dominance, are strategic counterweights to the US offensive capability program. Because zero-day exploits in cyber operations take advantage of weaknesses in private sector software products, the global market dominance of the US Big Tech companies ensures that, as such, they act as a strategic obstacle to US offensive cyber goals. This demonstrates a strategic trade-off between economic prosperity (and global trust in US products), and national security. In contrast, China’s tech firms have a far less global market share, and they are a strategic enabler of China’s offensive cyber program. 

8. International partnerships for unique offensive cyber capabilities attempt to leverage different circles, but the opaque market offers no guarantees. The United States leverages international alliances, particularly within the FVEYs intelligence-sharing network, to bolster its cyber capabilities. In contrast, China focuses on cultivating regional influence and integrating offensive cyber capabilities from East Asia and the Middle East. However, given the opaque international market, preference for full chains leveraging multiple exploit primitives, and the increase in bug collisions, there is no 100 percent guarantee of unique capability. 

9. China leans forward on AI in cyber operations. China’s offensive cyber industry is already heavily integrated with AI institutions, and China’s private sector has been proactively using AI for cyber operations. The US government’s primary efforts with both AI and cyber have largely been defensive in nature, or within the intelligence community internally, although some DARPA programs have encouraged open offensive innovation. 

Recommendations

It is impossible for the United States to match China’s supply of zero-day exploits by sheer numbers alone, and adopting the Chinese policies for acquisition and supply is the equivalent of stooping to the level of an authoritarian state. However, there are myriad ways to materially and quickly bridge this gap. Informed by analysis from over 30 expert interviews and open-source data gathering, this report concludes by offering ten recommendations across supply, acquisition, and operations to close this capability gap. Each of these recommendations must be filtered through a consideration of timeline (swift action is needed given the increasing potential for conflict with China in the coming years), feasibility (cyber is one of the last bipartisan domains but with implications for contentious national issues and cross-cutting networks of civil society, government, and industry stakeholders), buy-in from the hacker community (alienation or acceptance from this community will determine failure or success), and maintaining Western values (to learn from CCP cyber models without adopting them wholesale). 

Supply 

1. The United States government should create vulnerability research accelerators through existing investment vehicles. 

The United States struggles to obtain capabilities from skilled smaller firms, relying on prime contractors with burdensome overhead costs. Creating Vulnerability Research Accelerators (VRAs) through the DOD’s Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO), In-Q-Tel, or the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) could significantly bolster the supply of zero-day exploits by fostering the growth of small, specialized research teams. This would circumvent the de facto requirement for a small business to go through a prime contractor to sell offensive capabilities to the government. These accelerators would focus on supporting small businesses (those with at least five dedicated vulnerability researchers), ensuring that funding and resources are directed toward those generating the original research rather than prime contractors with existing relationships with the government. The VRAs would help these companies navigate the complex federal contracting process, get Small Business Administration certifications, hold and pay for security clearances, and connect companies directly to government contracts. By doing so, the accelerator would significantly lower the barrier to entry and reduce administrative burdens that often deter small but highly skilled teams from engaging with government contracts directly. 

2. The NSA should expand its CAE-CO program, provide grants to private organizations that support existing CTFs and offensive security conferences, and directly fund CTF teams at top universities. 

Domestic CTF teams at universities die without adequate funding and support. The NSA should bolster the pipeline of skilled vulnerability researchers while demonstrating that the US government values and invests in offensive security talent. It could do so by providing grants to private organizations or academic institutions that support CTF competitions, offensive security conferences, and university-based CTF teams. Directly sponsoring CTFs and hacker clubs at leading universities would nurture talent at the source, as CTFs have long been a testing ground for some of the world’s best exploit developers and security researchers. Government funding, paired with resources and mentorship, would encourage students to view vulnerability research as a viable career path, ultimately fostering a new generation of skilled researchers. The NSA, through these grants, could also encourage additional academic institutions to create programs that comply with CAE-CO accreditations or postgraduate programs that solve the “Training Valley of Death,” taking apprentice vulnerability researchers to cyber “journeymen” status. 

This program should also pair with grants among FVEYs and other allies to fund companies that conduct “cyber journeyman”-like training, host international CTFs and security conferences, or hire international researchers at higher rates than Chinese or other firms, expanding the pool of talent while strengthening partnerships abroad. This approach would help cultivate both domestic and international pipelines of vulnerability researchers, ensuring that the United States and its partners remain competitive in offensive security innovation. This is most important to do within international fora outside the US sphere of influence. For example, offensive conferences in South Korea, Thailand, and Singapore could provide ample networking opportunities with hackers who risk of getting pulled into China’s vulnerability acquisition orbit. The international hacker community tends to view the US government with skepticism, but it is notably more receptive to private companies that are perceived as supporting the community—even if those companies work closely with the government. By positioning itself as an enabler rather than a direct participant, the US government can build trust while supporting the development of offensive security skills. 

3. DOD and Congress must expand programs on AI-enabled vulnerability research and consider n-day exploitation where possible. 

Investing in technologies that reduce dependency on zero-days—such as automation, AI-driven vulnerability discovery, and novel exploitation techniques—would future-proof US cyber capabilities, effectively “intelligentizing” DOD’s cyber organizations. As software security continues to advance, traditional exploit chains are becoming harder to develop and maintain. While defense is important, the DOD must also prioritize research into next-generation exploitation methods that can help sustain offensive capabilities in the long term—particularly for other, harder targets in East Asia. Expanding government programs, like AIxCC and INGOTS,²²⁵ while encouraging offensive firms to create additional tools, like Google’s OSSFuzz,²²⁶ would enable firms already conducting vulnerability research to do so in a more scalable manner while also assisting defensive efforts. Alternatively, creating a section under the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for “automated code auditing” or “exploit chain generation for both n-day and 0day” for the armed services could send a demand signal to the wider defense innovation ecosystem, encouraging venture capital and other investment firms to find ways to scale the labor-intensive process of vulnerability research. 

To combat excess slowdowns due to risk aversion, as well as to extend the life of an acquired capability, USCYBERCOM should also consider additional policies around n-day exploitation and use. This could lengthen the lifecycle of an acquired capability, prevent excess waste and time in contract cycles, and also provide additional resourcing to junior-level talent in offensive cyber firms (who can likely exploit n-days but are not yet able to reliably conduct zero-day exploitation). USCYBERCOM is an ideal organization to try new policies around n-day acquisition as, while stealth is important in military operations, it is not required for all of them. 

4. DOJ should provide legal guidance and counter-intelligence protection to vulnerability researchers. 

Vulnerability researchers in the private sector, particularly those who participate in bug bounties, often rely on their companies or entities like the Security Research Legal Defense Fund²²⁷ to defend themselves from lawsuits that seek to chill their research. The legal challenges are only more numerous for individuals selling these capabilities for national security purposes, especially if the individual is selling capabilities for classified purposes, which cannot be disclosed in court without greymail concerns. While the US government has clear interests in protecting security research (e.g., through DOJ policies not criminally prosecute good faith security research and the CFAA’s subsection for a national security carve out to hacking),²²⁸ as well as protecting individuals from counterintelligence threats, there is no centralized task force actively looking to protect hackers (especially ones without clearances), and no policy priority to ensure that civil lawsuits are settled with an eye on how they impact private sector hacking supply chains.²²⁹ 

One potential solution is to empower the DOJ’s Civil Division to intervene in civil lawsuits through existing procedural mechanisms if an offensive capability firms’ researcher faces a lawsuit by a technology company (particularly if the researcher works for government interests).²³⁰ This would likely need pairing with a publication on transparent criteria for how to define “government interest” for CFAA purposes, and how firms can seek protection under those terms (similar to how the DOJ’s “good-faith security research” policy published in 2022 clarified what cases DOJ would or would not prosecute against hackers).²³¹ Another approach would be to establish a federally funded legal defense fund modeled after the Security Research Legal Defense Fund, providing independent legal support to security researchers working on US government contracts. Additionally, a task force could be created within the FBI or the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s (ODNI) National Counterintelligence and Security Center (paired with the first “demand” option below) to address counterintelligence concerns raised by hackers and provide a clear point of contact for researchers facing foreign threats or legal retaliation. These measures would help foster a safer and more reliable environment for the private sector supply chain supporting US cyber operations. 

Demand

1. Create a government-sponsored vulnerability broker for the US intelligence community within a federally funded research and development center. 

On the demand side, establishing a government-sponsored broker for vulnerability acquisition could streamline the fragmented and opaque market, particularly for companies without existing connections into the US federal contracting system and individual researchers who may reach out to private sector middlemen. The current landscape relies heavily on private brokers, who often inflate prices and obscure the true value of individual exploits. A government-backed intermediary could improve efficiency, offer more predictable payment structures, and reduce the risks associated with relying on third-party brokers. While this effort could be coordinated at a National Security Council (NSC) level, a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) would likely be the best place to implement such a program. This is because, thanks to interagency equities and Title 10 / Title 50 concerns, there is likely no single agency within the Intelligence Community or DOD that a government-sponsored middleman could work without spawning duplicate structures across the ecosystem, causing a drain of government resources.²³² 

Such a program would likely need an individual at the helm with experience in exploit acquisition, one who would understand the needs of the various agencies and also be able to interface directly with the hacker community. Any bug would still need to go through the VEP,²³³ and then funnel vulnerabilities to existing contracts based on need. This middleman program should also be able to solicit bugs regardless of origin, directly contracting with friendly international suppliers beyond even the FVEYs. This program could also offer additional insights into the zero-day supply chain for future coordination amongst the FVEYs and additional regional allies. 

2. Decentralize, internationalize, and simplify the process for purchasing bugs. 

Government acquisition moves at a glacial pace, even for cyber capabilities. The US government must find ways to decentralize purchasing authority away from prime-heavy government contracts. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, in March 2025, began moving towards more efficient software acquisition mechanisms. However, this effort is largely tailored to commercial software solutions (which zero-day exploits are not).²³⁴ The DOD could create an acquisition vehicle specifically for cyber capabilities used in support of SIGINT or defensive efforts, particularly for cheaper capabilities purchased directly from researchers or small firms. This could be in the form of creating a Software Acquisition and Practices (SWAP) for offensive cyber specifically, or by expanding programs for offensive cyber acquisitions under Other Transaction Authorities.²³⁵ Any acquisition mechanism, to succeed, cannot contain US person or clearance requirements, allowing companies the flexibility to hire international talent. 

Congress could also alter the US government’s Simplified Acquisitions Program to enable the US government to purchase offensive cyber capabilities. All products that support overseas contingency operations²³⁶ or that facilitate defense against or recovery from a cyber-attack can already be purchased via the micro-purchase program (if the cost is less than $20,000) and can be acquired through the Simplified Acquisitions Program (if the cost is less than $800,000 domestically or $1.5 million abroad).²³⁷ It is far more likely that lower-tier vulnerabilities will fall under the Simplified Acquisitions program than the micro-purchase program, but the micro-purchase program could provide for one-off technical projects or additional resources given to offensive cyber capabilities firms, which could supplement government operations and lessen the burden of feast-or-famine cycles.²³⁸ 

3. Resource such processes accordingly. 

Raising the budget for zero-day acquisition across the government is also essential to ensure companies do not go out of business when making exclusive sales to the government. Increased funding would allow the US government to secure higher-quality vulnerabilities and reduce concerns that a single purchase of a critical exploit does not ruin the acquisition budget for the rest of the fiscal year. Additionally, while big-ticket iOS and Chrome vulnerabilities garner widespread attention, real cyber operations often rely on lower-profile but highly specialized exploits tailored to niche devices and environments. These require not only technical sophistication but also partnerships, trust, and deep operational knowledge—especially when targeting software specific to a particular region or industry. Policymakers must recognize this complexity and resource the ecosystem accordingly, ensuring both intelligence-gathering and operational effectiveness while holding stakeholders accountable for outcomes. Expanding cyber-specific pathways of the Simplified Acquisitions Program (which already exist for “facilitating defense against or recovery from cyber [attacks]”) and raising the cap for cyber capabilities up to $3 million that fall under a simplified acquisitions program would further assist this effort to buy higher quality, harder target exploits. 

Policy

1. Identify highly skilled foreign researchers and hire them wherever possible.