BREAKING: A man who threw a sandwich at a federal agent during Trump’s law enforcement surge in Washington, D.C., is found not guilty of assault.

“Without a plan for terminating a war in Taiwan, Washington would risk repeating the pattern of U.S. strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan that many Trump officials critiqued: winning the first battle but losing the war,” argues @zackcooper.bsky.social.

We wrote this week on Golden Dome, about which we still know relatively little. What's clear is that cost will be sensitive to the number of space-based interceptors. And that depends on the basic question: what scope of threat is this meant to tackle? www.economist.com/interactive/...

😮 Norway finds out that its electric busses - produced by a Chinese firm - can be remotely controlled from China! The good news of this is that the Norwegians realised this because they did a cybersecurity test. We need to think about, and test, stuff like this more. www.focus.de/panorama/wel...

Fascinating paper from IFRI, and the framing itself is a sign of the times - a Europe-Russia power balance. The intro sets the scene in stark words: "European countries can no longer avoid the “Russian Question” as Russia has chosen war."

This is Queen Mary and Queen Anne erasure

Former chairman, Gen (ret) CQ Brown in @warontherocks.bsky.social today with an important article warontherocks.com/2025/11/raci...

Brings to mind the Fran Leibowitz piece in the New Yorker complaining that New York had become so disagreeably safe that midwesterners would come as tourists, @pmskinner.bsky.social 🙂

Hegemonic suicide

Hegemonic suicide.

Let’s pay our troops the Constitutional way 🇺🇸

Good lord.

It's journalistic malpractice not to immediately follow these statements with questions like "Are you saying you didn't sign it?" and "Was it signed by autopen?" And "Is someone else making decisions for you?"

The West used to play dirty – and during the Cold War, we were good at it. Nowadays, we leave grey-zone tactics and hybrid warfare to Russia, which is winning the disinformation war.

Liberal democracy is the whole point of America. Without it, there is no America, much less an American military profession.

7/Now more than ever we need to develop a set of norms Around the use of economic coercion so that we can buy up guardrails against illegitimate uses of the economic weapon. academic.oup.com/jiel/advance...

"Al Qaeda militants are moving closer to seizing the capital of the West African nation of Mali, which, should the city fall, would become the first country in the world run by the U.S.-designated terrorist group." www.wsj.com/world/africa...

In our polling with YouGov, since the start of his second term Donald Trump's net approval has fallen 17pts among white Americans (+17 to -1), 28pts among Hispanic Americans (-9 to -37) and 38pts among black Americans (-36 to -74)

Helpful thread from @peterlucier.bsky.social explaining the ruling

Thank you President Trump for protecting me from the armed gangs that previously terrorized Farragut West - wait

This. As others have called it, it’s an O-3 mindset in a job above O-10

Hard to imagine a more sinister & dangerous argument, couched in euphemism & high-minded language. "This essay does not argue liberalism will collapse, only that [US] military officers should be intellectually (and spiritually) prepared for alternatives." warontherocks.com/2025/10/the-...

The Good Samaritan, by Joseph Highmore, 1744, 📸 by @patricksmith04

Ukraine has the potential to be one of the most important security providers for the rest of Europe, especially as the United States withdraws from the continent, writes Fredrik Wesslau.

Damage control after the Dutch revelations. Trip won’t stop European services from doing what they believe is in their best interest-protecting their sources and methods from an admin they don’t trust to safeguard them on issues like Russia. At this point, that distrust is baked in.

My running list of fellowships and other opportunities has been updated, including a veteran fellowship recently highlighted by Jason Galui - the Stand-To Veteran Leadership Program at the Bush Presidential Center. nathankfinney.com/fellowships-...

We calculate that Ukraine will need approximately $389bn in cash and arms over four years. Whether Europe rises to this challenge will be a test of its aspirations to act without depending on America

The integration of national security and foreign policy across domains is, well, why you have a functioning NSC.

Children tear-gassed. Teenagers tackled to the ground. Bellingcat analysed footage of clashes between federal officers and civilians after a judge issued a restraining order on crowd-control tactics in Illinois: www.bellingcat.com/news/2025/10...

This the stupidest thing Maduro can do. Russia and Iran won't help. China won't: Xi and Trump just met to lower trade barriers. Even if any of them did, it'll be too little (and too late). Still worse: it provides the U.S. further justification to remove him. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...

It was a joy to meet in person someone I learn so much from here, @jfb1066.bsky.social 🙂

#TIL one of the last Lafayettes was killed as a cavalry platoon leader in 1945. #WW2 Here is Marie Xavier Jean Bureaux de Pusy Dumottier de Lafayette, holding the sword of his ancestor, the Marquis de Lafayette. When he died near Saint-Nazaire he was serving as a lieutenant in the 8ème Cuirassiers.

SCOOP: The decorated rear admiral who was heading the critically important Office of Naval Research, and who brought lengthy experience in Navy tech-leadership to the job, "is being replaced by a 33-year-old former DOGE employee with no apparent naval experience." www.thebulwark.com/p/scoop-trum...

Eurobonds for Ukraine, say we. www.economist.com/leaders/2025...

I curtsey my thanks for this high praise, @peterlucier.bsky.social!

Q: What are the Pentagon’s military objectives in the Western Hemisphere, and how do the strikes help reach that outcome? A: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’m going to find an answer based on more than hunches, but government employees signing NDAs for public work seems wildly inappropriate. The balance between the need for secrecy vs the principle of public disclosure is determined by law, not individual convenience and discomfort

Flagging via Reuters: U.S. military officials involved with Trump's military operations in Latin America have been asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, three U.S. officials say, a development that raises new questions about a military buildup that Venezuela fears may lead to an invasion.

"The Bulgarian site, expected to become operational in 2027, will focus on manufacturing gunpowder and 155-mm NATO-standard artillery shells. The project is valued at 511.3 million euros, with Rheinmetall holding 51 per cent of the shares in the joint venture." balkaninsight.com/2025/10/28/r...

Sarkozy is going to jail but he’s not the first one. In our new dataset we track modern leaders who have been prosecuted by their own states. There are 215 of them. Turns out leader prosecution is a common & healthy practice in democracies. Full access link: foreignpolicy.com/2025/10/28/d...

Another out-take from my just-released book The State and the Soldier:

Donald Trump's approval rating in our tracker has fallen to -18, the lowest it has ever been (lower than any point in his first term) www.economist.com/interactive/...

From my book: "Grant was forced to arbitrate the Constitution—to choose between its two sources of civilian oversight of the military. He followed the law: In peacetime, Congress’s authority is supreme in matters of military policy. The commander in chief’s authority is supreme only in wartime.”

a great education from one of the best civ-mil experts —>

"Trump got very upset to discover that the Republican political hero hates his signature policy."

Trump has destabilized civilian-military relations more than any president in recent memory, Kori Schake writes. The last comparable crisis ended with Ulysses S. Grant’s historic choice:

A good history lesson and reminder that today's issue can not be solved by the military. Gift issue www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

From my book: "Grant was forced to arbitrate the Constitution—to choose between its two sources of civilian oversight of the military. He followed the law: In peacetime, Congress’s authority is supreme in matters of military policy. The commander in chief’s authority is supreme only in wartime.”