The close attention that Beijing is paying to the new USMC strategy became clear about a year ago when the Global Times [环球时报] published an unusual editorial decrying Washington’s new determination to deploy anti-ship missiles proximate to China. Arguing that the new American strategy aims to correct a U.S. Navy prioritization for “open ocean control” rather than “close-quarters engagement in confined waters,” this article concludes that Washington’s effort to “control maritime chokepoints [aims to] curtail the freedom of rivals to operate at sea … [and] introduces new risks … .”

A much more detailed study of the new USMC strategy appeared in early 2025 in the naval magazine Modern Ships [现代舰船]. This Chinese assessment noted with considerable alarm that the USMC was experimenting with unmanned surface vessels capable of firing the stealthy LRASM anti-ship cruise missile and that these units could alternatively serve as forward scouts, fixing targets for long-range U.S. military fires. Still, this analysis underlines some weaknesses of the USMC strategy, including the range limitations of related sensors and drones, and even characterized the air-defense capabilities of the USMC as “precarious.” Another study in this same magazine had earlier drawn attention to the logistics quandaries raised by the new strategy.

A 2026 Chinese analysis in another Chinese navy-affiliated magazine, Shipborne Weapons [舰载武器], offers a sharper critique of the Marines’ new approach, noting that the creation of the Marine Littoral Regiments (MLR) “actually represents campaign preparation by the USMC to militarily intervene in China’s unification.” At the outset, this study notes that many American think tanks raised doubts about the strategy, suggesting that forward bases without sea and air control could prove “untenable.”

There is a recognition in this analysis that the new mobile missile launchers that are being deployed by the USMC are small, light, and thus “not easily discovered by … surveillance.” In the end, this study concludes that the USMC strategy is vulnerable because the “U.S has no way to quickly establish air superiority. This could take weeks or months and would entail massive losses.”

Among the most remarkable pieces written by Chinese experts on the new USMC direction is one that was published in translation recently by the China institute at U.S. Naval War College (NWC). That translation deserves extra attention due to the fact that it was written by senior active-duty Chinese Navy officers and also because it was published originally in a sensitive internal circulation Chinese military journal too.

Though this piece does not touch directly on the sensitive Taiwan issue, and it also explicitly notes the USMC strategy aims at deterrence of Beijing, it nevertheless explains that the new USMC deployments amount to “continuous penetration and encroachment into our near seas” and argues that China must “establish effective countermeasures.” Notably, this high-level rendering links the USMC strategy to China’s improving submarine force in significant detail, observing that forward deployed Marine forces could deploy “hydro-acoustic arrays and other assets to establish barrier zones and monitoring areas to track Chinese submarine operations.” Similar arguments are made that U.S. deployments could degrade Chinese air defenses by employing drone swarms “to overwhelm our radar tracking capacity.”

The Chinese Navy authors caution against applying resource-intensive assets to defeat such American asymmetric tactics. However, the conclusion of the article is rather disturbing since it argues that China must counter this posture by deploying a Chinese “proactive offensive posture, aggressively expand[ing] our operational reach, [and] project[ing] forces forward.” Elaborating, they counsel: “We must maintain and normalize forward-deployed forces, extend[ing] undersea combat capabilities as far forward as feasible.”

This conclusion and other aspects of these Chinese-language analyses raise some rather uncomfortable questions for U.S. defense planners. The final translation done by NWC strongly hints that the Chinese Navy may be adopting a more aggressive approach as a direct reaction to the forward lean in American strategy. This seems to be a very clear manifestation of the so-called ‘security dilemma,’ wherein two powers’ defensive measures develop into a dangerous escalatory spiral. Moreover, there is a clear recognition by Chinese strategists that forward USMC elements could be vulnerable due to logistics challenges and lack of proper air and missile defenses. It would not be the first time that the USMC was deployed haphazardly in East Asia at the cost of many American lives.

Understanding these dynamics, American leaders should recalibrate and opt to rely less on forward defense. Alternatively, the USMC should aim to embrace the strategic depth of the Pacific and its myriad island archipelagos (e.g. the Philippines) in a less costly, less risky, more sustainable, and clearly defensive strategy.

Lyle Goldstein is director of the China Initiative at Brown University’s Watson School and concurrently serves as director of the Asia Program at the think-tank Defense Priorities.

The effort to implement the Warfighting Acquisition System — transforming the acquisition system around speed, accountability and mission relevance — is both necessary and overdue.

However, if this reform is to deliver its full promise, it must extend beyond headquarters processes, portfolio structures and contracting authorities. Acquisition reform needs to migrate to the last tactical mile — where warfighters confront real-world friction, adapt in real time and generate operational lessons that should shape requirements, accelerate integration and compress acquisition timelines.

The true test of these reforms will not be how quickly decisions move through the system, but how effectively the system learns from the edge, where combat effectiveness is ultimately determined. The avenue to more certain victory leads to and from the warfighter, embracing analysis at the last tactical mile.

America’s warfighters operate at the edge, just as good operations analysts — like those in my own organization — must do in a fast-moving acquisition ecosystem. Successful acquisition reform will need insights from the edge, empowered by empirically trained analysts (uniformed and civilian) who understand systems, tactics, strategy and operations as seen from the perspective of the sailor, soldier, airman, guardian or Marine.

Speed in acquisition will not be achieved by process reform alone. Analysis at the tactical edge is often overlooked but in need of energy and capital to capture insights that drive decisions. Rapid acquisition to field systems that provide military utility demands a continuous learning loop between those who build capability and those who employ it under actual operating conditions — and the ability to measure results quickly.

In this loop, field-level insights should not be treated as downstream feedback after system deployment; they must become upstream drivers of requirements refinement, system integration and prioritization.

By institutionalizing this feedback loop, the department can reduce costly redesign cycles, shorten decision timelines and field capabilities that are not only delivered faster but have greater military value. This is consistent with the department’s own shift toward “speed of relevance,” operational outcomes, and fulfilling the promise to the warfighter.

The department does not need to build this learning architecture from scratch. Proven models already exist in pockets within the force. The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, for example, works closely with warfighters to test and analyze new systems. The operator perspective gets fused early into the technical development process, which then allows fielding at speed. This approach to development can outpace program-of-record development, even when going after the same warfighting gaps.

But this warfighter-centric approach should not be confined to formal military innovation organizations alone. Operator-informed analysis must extend across the defense ecosystem, accelerating integration, reducing acquisition timelines and scaling trusted results.

This is not mere assertion. When acquisition works, whether rapid or otherwise, it does so in part because analysts got in the foxhole, in the aircraft, or inside the combat information center to assess, validate and inform acquisition efforts from the point of view of the warfighter.

I know, because my analysts have led that kind of impactful work. We have designed and executed tests of prototypes in the real world, providing independent technical analysis of performance. Analysis at the tactical edge has uncovered critical problems that have to be addressed before warfighters can safely use systems. It has also revealed new tactical use cases for systems — ones that weren’t anticipated by the manufacturer.

The complexity of the counter-IED fight in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom offers a clear case where warfighter feedback alone was not enough to assess a technology’s utility. So many counter-IED systems were being pushed to the warfighters that it became important to understand which systems worked under which conditions.

Yet one of the most challenging problems in analysis is proving a negative. In other words, if an IED did not go off, was that because of the counter-IED system or not? Our analysts deployed alongside Marine Corps units to collect data and employed complex statistical methods to make that determination. Lives were at stake, and our analyses made a difference.

The department’s shift to the Warfighting Acquisition System is both necessary and timely. Victory on future battlefields belongs to the nation that can create military advantage through rapid acquisition and wartime adaptation. That much is clear. But enduring speed does not come from process redesign alone. It comes from building an acquisition enterprise that learns from the warfighter — where data is analog and results require deep insight to interpret.

If the department fully integrates such a learning loop, it will do more than shorten timelines. It will create a force that adapts faster, integrates better and delivers combat-relevant capability at the pace warfare demands. This is how acquisition reform becomes warfighting advantage.

Dr. Katherine A. McGrady is the president and chief executive officer of CNA, which operates the Center for Naval Analyses, a federally funded research and development center that pioneered the field of operations analysis in support of the U.S. Navy during World War II.

President Trump’s February 2025 executive order, “The Iron Dome for America” (later rebranded as Golden Dome), directed the Department of Defense to protect U.S. citizens and infrastructure from all forms of aerial attack. The department took a first step toward assigning responsibility for a U.S. air and missile defense architecture by standing up the Golden Dome office. But critical elements of any near-term defensive shield remain outside its control: namely, the U.S. air and missile defense systems that have proven their worth on Ukrainian and Middle Eastern battlefields.

The Aegis system, for example, is a U.S. Navy program—though its ballistic missile defense component is funded by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). Patriot interceptors, in turn, belong to the Army. Theater High Altitude Aerial Defense (THAAD) batteries and the Ground Based Midcourse Defense System (GMDS) are developed by the MDA but operated and maintained by the Army. U.S. Northern Command is responsible for U.S. air surveillance but relies heavily on radars belonging to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) — and so on.

The Golden Dome director’s position in the Defense Department hierarchy — reporting directly to the Deputy Secretary of Defense — reflects the urgency of the task. But it does not convey any actual authority to direct the decisions of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Transportation secretaries.

Diffusion of responsibility is a recipe for failure.

For Golden Dome to work, the Defense Department must draw on lessons from some of its most successful Cold War innovations — specifically, the organizational innovations that made its game-changing technologies and operational concepts possible. Admiral Hyman Rickover, perhaps the leading exemplar of Cold War innovation, took nuclear propulsion from the blackboard to the fleet in just five years.

To quote Rickover: “Unless you can point your finger at the one person who is responsible when something goes wrong, then you have never had anyone really responsible.” Golden Dome fails this test, precisely because — according to the Defense Department itself — it is a “team effort” in which “we’re going to need all the services and agencies that do this kind of work to step up.”

Rickover took the opposite approach. If something was critical to the Navy’s nuclear propulsion program, he established de facto (and often de jure) control over it. For example, he successfully co-opted the Cabinet-level Atomic Energy Commission. Established in 1947 to oversee all U.S. nuclear matters, the AEC was a potential bureaucratic roadblock. At Rickover’s prompting, therefore, the Navy issued him orders to “report for duty with the Division of Reactor Development” in the AEC (and to the Navy for “additional duty”).

With one foot in the Navy and the other in the AEC, Rickover became the central U.S. authority for nuclear propulsion. This allowed him to coordinate the activities of two separate executive departments, often by proposing an action from one department and then convincing the other to approve it. His dual office, Naval Reactors, remains part of both the Navy and the Department of Energy (successor to the AEC) to this day.

The Rickover approach is not how the Pentagon normally does business. “I can assure you,” Rickover told Congress in 1979, “that having one individual responsible for a total program is a unique concept within the Department of Defense.” But Rickover made it his business to acquire unchallenged authority over all areas that concerned “his” reactors.

The Secretary of Defense must likewise assign total responsibility for Golden Dome, with autonomy and authority to match. This will entail taking the requisite authorities from their normal stewards and re-delegating them to the Golden Dome director.

For example, ballistic missile defense responsibility is currently bifurcated between Golden Dome and the Missile Defense Agency. MDA should be moved under Golden Dome. Similarly, airspace surveillance operations and modernization are divided between DoD and the FAA, with the latter contributing the lion’s share. The Golden Dome director must have a Rickover-like dual assignment in the FAA. And if homeland defense is indeed an urgent priority, DoD should take a hard look at whether the Aegis and Patriot programs should be moved under Golden Dome as well.

This process will be challenging, but far from impossible. And while Rickover’s nuclear power program is one of the most remarkable Cold War innovations, other success stories such as General Bernard Schriever’s Atlas ICBM and Undersecretary of Defense William Perry’s F-117 stealth fighter applied the same core insight: comprehensive organizational authority is just as important as any technological or industrial-base factor. DoD must heed this lesson if Golden Dome is to succeed.

Thane Clare is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

Among these ideas, none have been more controversial than the proposed Trump-class battleship.

Proponents argue that this new capital ship would bring concentrated fighting power with new high-tech weapons and large magazines that could fight independently and also withstand substantial punishment in battle. With its currently planned nuclear propulsion, moreover these behemoths could patrol for extended periods without the need to refuel.

Critics have taken aim at the project’s enormous expense, as well as the feasibility of the proposed design that is characterized as over-ambitious.

Into this roiling debate, it is instructive to survey a rather different perspective: What do the Chinese make of this project? An Aug. 21 article in China National Defense News [中国国防报] provides some initial insights into how America’s chief global rival is assessing this potentially major change in direction for the U.S. Navy surface fleet.

This article, published in an official paper of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) does note that the ship could have the advantages that “large vessels can continue to execute certain combat missions even when communications are jammed, and their hulls offer superior damage resistance compared to small or medium-sized ships.” It notes that smaller, distributed platforms could overly “rely on stable data links.” In addition, it’s worth observing that this rendering does note that the planned U.S. battleship would have nuclear propulsion, and would possibly also carry nuclear-armed missiles.

Nevertheless, the Chinese analysis, mirroring many Western evaluations, is suffused with ample skepticism.

For 15 Trump-class battleships built between 2028 and 2056, the costs would amount to $275 billion, with the lead class carrying the price tag of $23.4 billion. The report says that cost is 55% higher due to the change from conventional to nuclear propulsion and terms this price as “exorbitant.” Illustrating some familiarity with nuclear power issues, the analysis adds that “nuclear waste disposal and vessel dismantling following retirement are not included” in the $275 billion estimate.

“Unfinalized designs and insufficient technological maturity” are also flagged as potential major problem that may cause delays and cost overruns. Potentially carrying rail guns, hypersonic weapons, as well as lasers, this critique seems quite valid. As the PLA assessment states: “This ‘build the platform first, install equipment later’ approach could increase the risks.” The piece cites the examples of the both the Zumwalt-class destroyer and the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) as relevant examples of recent problematic programs.

Notably, the Chinese article is also particularly attuned to potential shifts in the basic U.S. Navy warfighting doctrinal paradigm.

The article observes: “This design differs from the Distributed Maritime Operations concept that the U.S. Navy has been advancing in recent years. The theory of distributed maritime operations emphasizes the dispersal of detection, command, and strike capabilities across multiple nodes … to mitigate the impact that damage to a few large vessels would have on the entire formation.”

In a closely related point, the PLA article also broaches the question of whether large surface combatants are simply too vulnerable to quiet submarines, hypersonic missiles, and “drone swarms.”

Apparently quite aware of major difficulties in U.S. shipbuilding, the Chinese military assessment adds that leading American shipyards “are currently facing average delays of five years, with the delivery cycle for a single ship extending from approximately five years in the early 2000’s to about eleven years today.”

Noting that the new battleship program could have cascading results for other high priority U.S. Navy programs, the article concludes: “Assembly of nuclear-powered battleships … could further slow the construction of aircraft carriers and submarines.” These Chinese strategists are no doubt aware such a delay would further impact the Asia-Pacific naval balance.

China itself has indicated interest in nuclear-powered surface vessels. Thus, they have thoroughly investigated the newly renovated Russian battle cruiser Admiral Nakihimov.

Yet it is would be foolhardy to invest in such ambitious platforms for the U.S. Navy at a time when the service confronts so many shipbuilding challenges and when the nation also faces an inevitable process of belt-tightening. Perhaps some of America’s allies can experiment with the new battleship concept. But the U.S. Navy will be well advised to go toward its time-tested strengths, especially in undersea warfare, but also in the emergent domain of drones.

Overall, America’s sea service must bring its force structure into alignment with a new strategy appropriate to the multipolar world that involves reducing expensive “presence” missions and embracing more cost-effective hedging.

That will most likely mean a less high-profile role for surface combatants and thus recognizing the reality that the Trump-class battleship will most likely never get built.

Certainly, this Chinese military article implies that at least some Chinese strategists are eager for the U.S. to pursue that extravagant project, knowing that it is folly and would thus weaken Beijing’s chief rival.

Lyle Goldstein is director of the China Initiative at Brown University’s Watson School and concurrently serves as director of the Asia Program at the think-tank Defense Priorities.

Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby said that the review was meant to ensure that NATO allies are “moving fast and irreversibly” to “take primary responsibility for the defense of Europe” in a speech to the North Atlantic Council on Aug. 27.

Germany, for its part, has taken notice – and acted.

Berlin’s role in NATO has been defined for decades more by its restraint than by its contribution, a nation constitutionally cautious about military power and chronically underspending on defense.

That era is over. Spurred by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s naked aggression in Ukraine and increasingly sharp demands from the Trump administration, Germany has undergone a strategic transformation so rapid and consequential that it has become the most important European nation in the alliance, not just by virtue of its economic clout, political power, and geographic position, but by the choices it has made about how to use them.

The foundation of Berlin’s power is economic. Germany boasts a GDP of approximately $5 trillion, the largest in Europe and the third largest in the world.

But for too long Berlin did not translate its economic clout into necessary levels of defense spending. That is now changing.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on July 3 that “Germany is doubling its defense budget within four years.” Berlin’s defense spending as a percent of GDP has grown from 1.43% in 2021 to an estimated 2.69% for 2026.

The government promised last year to increase the budget to €162 billion ($189 billion) by 2029. That would put Berlin above 3% of GDP and on a path to achieve the minimum 3.5% of GDP on core defense requirements by 2035, a commitment codified by alliance members in the 2025 NATO Hague Summit Declaration.

Germany established a €100 billion (approximately $113 billion) special defense fund in 2022, the most significant single defense investment decisions by any European government in response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. That accelerated procurement across every combat domain, from air defense and armored vehicles to maritime and cyber capabilities.

These investments are strengthening the already robust defense industrial base in Germany, anchored by companies such as Rheinmetall, TKMS, Hensoldt, Diehl Defense, MBDA Deutschland and KNDS Deutschland.

Many of these companies are creating industrial partnerships with American companies, deepening the transatlantic defense production relationship.

Rheinmetall, for example, a preeminent land warfare systems producer in Europe, has established joint ventures with American partners in Ukraine and is in active discussions about co-production arrangements with U.S. defense companies for a 155 mm artillery munition and ATACMS, what is known as the Army Tactical Missile System.

Those partnerships will strengthen the American defense industrial base and will help Germany carry more of the security burden in Europe and better support Ukraine, while increasing the alliance’s capacity to sustain high-intensity, long-duration conflict.

The most visible and important expression of Germany’s strategic transformation is its decision to permanently station a combat brigade in Lithuania, the first time Germany has permanently forward-deployed combat forces outside its borders in Europe since the end of the Second World War. The 45th Armored Brigade in Lithuania represents a fundamental shift in German strategic culture: from a nation that once exported pacifism to one that accepts forward deterrence as a national responsibility.

For the Baltic states and Poland, which have long been skeptical of German commitment, this is what matters most: not defense budget percentages or procurement contracts, but German soldiers standing guard on NATO’s eastern flank.

That is a message that Putin understands.

Europe’s most powerful economy, its most capable defense industrial base, and now its most consequential forward military commitment are all moving in the same direction at the same time. That convergence of economic weight, industrial capacity, and forward strategic commitment is what makes Germany indispensable to the alliance’s future.

China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea have formed what we describe as a new Axis of Aggressors. They are “pursuing unprecedented levels of cooperation,” according to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine. That cooperation is making each of these adversaries more formidable.

At this moment of growing risk, Americans should not take its allies and partners for granted. The United States is powerful, but Americans need help given growing threats and finite resources.

Disagreements will arise between Washington and Berlin, but those disagreements must not be allowed to derail Berlin’s growing defense investments and transatlantic unity and cooperation.

Americans need friends that match words with deeds and help carry the shared security burden.That is exactly what Berlin is finally doing — and Germans, Americans, and the NATO alliance will be more secure as a result.

Rear Adm. (Ret.) Mark Montgomery and Bradley Bowman are senior directors at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Bowman and Montgomery are co-authors, with Elaine K. Dezenski, of the new book “Axis of Aggressors: Countering the Cooperation of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.”

Extensive damage to one of our most significant forward bases in the Middle East is likely to have profound tactical and strategic repercussions that are only now coming into focus.

The idea that this broad functioning hub, built over decades, was significantly degraded in the space of a few days by a regional player is unimaginable.

I have fond memories of Bahrain both from past port visits, where it provided much-needed rest and relaxation, decent shopping and fitness options, and from my time as a government trainer when I flew over for shipboard training once every six months. I always felt safe there.

That NSA Bahrain is now virtually uninhabitable, with families left in limbo, as described in recent reporting, is difficult to grasp.

The damage is estimated to be close to $400 million. Buildings reportedly harmed include the Fifth Fleet headquarters, a barracks, several warehouses, communications towers and a potable water station.

Ships, including several U.S. Coast Guard vessels, appear to have been relocated, along with a large portion of the staff and their facilities. Thankfully, no one was killed or severely injured at the base, according to U.S. military sources.

It’s important to understand that NSA Bahrain is more than just a headquarters. Among its many functions, the installation provides a regional naval operating base for U.S. Navy forces in the Middle East. NSA Bahrain is home to NAVCENT and U.S. Fifth Fleet, along with numerous tenant commands.

Whenever ships, aircraft, personnel or cargo are moving throughout the region, chances are they have been supported by NSA Bahrain.

The installation provides the physical infrastructure that keeps American military power continuously available in a strategically vital region. It is foundational to America’s ability to project maritime power in this critical theater.

The idea that the U.S. could not prevent and defend against a predictable attack on a Fleet Headquarters — and our sailors stationed there — is quite startling. It likely is just as alarming to our allies.

The depth of NSA Bahrain’s impact became clear as the stories of scarcities of parts, food, mail and supplies to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln hit the news. Before long, pieces of the puzzle began falling into place as to the connection between ship supplies and the lack of a familiar resupply source.

Stretching supply lines that were once hundreds of miles away out to thousands of miles has far-reaching implications for forward-deployed ships and is likely to become a significant constraint in maritime operations.

Having deployed to the area multiple times, I can attest to such impacts. The fact that the U.S. did not preemptively — or at least expeditiously — evacuate families and dependents is truly mind-boggling. Even now, six months later, well over a thousand evacuated troops and their families are still in limbo, with many separated from pets and belongings due to the devastation.

The potential loss of NSA Bahrain is effectively the equivalent of losing an aircraft carrier. It could not have come as a surprise that Iran would attack it in retaliation, yet it — and those living and working there — were left exposed and the facilities inadequately protected from Tehran’s ballistic missiles.

The U.S. has superb air defense capabilities that could potentially have formed a near-impenetrable “dome” over our citizens, as they have over Israel and parts of Ukraine in recent history. Ballistic missile defense destroyers boast incredible defensive capabilities and could have been stationed effectively at sea to protect the Fifth Fleet Headquarters.

Instead, there is now talk of “reducing the footprint” of U.S. forces in the region, a “strategic retreat” that will have a significant impact on logistic support for our ships and troops in the region, making them even more vulnerable.

I commend Vice Adm. Curt Renshaw, the commander of Naval Forces Central Command, 5^th Fleet, and Combined Maritime Forces, for his honesty and candor when he told Bahrain evacuees at a town hall, “When we started this journey, there were some pretty clear rules. As we’ve moved on, we’re really in uncharted territory right now.”

Adm. Renshaw’s frustration is understandable. What is striking is not simply the physical damage, but the continuing uncertainty six months later surrounding the operational status and future of one of America’s most important naval headquarters — and importantly, the status of the personnel and their families.

What, precisely, is the current operational status of NSA Bahrain and the Fifth Fleet headquarters, and what capability did the U.S. lose when Iran demonstrated that it could strike this critical naval hub?

Fifth Fleet is still functioning, but the infrastructure from which it operated has been badly degraded. While there is certainly a need for operational security, it is important for the American people to understand how this situation happened, the magnitude of the impact and how repeating it can be avoided.

If NSA Bahrain is not reconstituted to something near its pre-attack capabilities, it will fundamentally change how the U.S. Navy operates, supplies and maintains its ships. It will also upend how we support regional coalition partners in the Gulf region.

It is my hope that it is resurrected with sufficient support and security to make it safe and viable again.

John Cordle is a retired Navy captain who commanded the destroyer USS Oscar Austin and the cruiser USS San Jacinto during his 30-year military career. He is a recipient of the U.S. Navy League John Paul Jones Award for Inspirational Leadership.

Sometimes it changes the outcome of a battle. Sometimes it means the difference between life and death. Eisenhower credited his meteorologists as one reason the Allied invasion of Normandy succeeded. They gave him the information he needed to make a decision at a moment when weather meant the difference between victory and defeat.

This underpins a simple reality: Weather does not accommodate the mission. The mission accommodates the weather.

That is why the Pentagon should be paying attention to the El Nino forecast now. Whatever one’s views on long-term climate trends, the military still has to operate in the weather it actually experiences. And the weather forecast for the second half of 2026 is giving the Department of Defense something commanders rarely get before disruption arrives: months of notice.

On June 12, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared that El Nino had formed, and current forecasts suggest it may become a very strong event by fall or winter, one of the strongest in the modern record.

That means significant warming of the Pacific Ocean will influence the broad weather patterns we experience through the rest of the year. It cannot tell us when and where extreme weather will hit, but it is a significant threat indicator.

NOAA is forecasting a below-normal Atlantic hurricane season. At the same time, El Nino conditions tend to shift typhoon activity eastward in the Pacific, toward Guam and the Marianas.

The region’s exposure is not hypothetical. This year, Guam and the Northern Marianas have already been hit by two major typhoons. Typhoon Sinlaku brought widespread blackouts, flooding, and infrastructure damage in April. Super Typhoon Bavi followed in July, its eye passing over Rota, leaving severe outages and flooded roads on Guam and Saipan while thousands were still recovering from the first storm.

Whatever the forecast holds, these storms are a reminder of what installations in the region face. The El Nino outlook says: Be ready for more.

The Pacific is not the only concern. El Nino is also expected to reshape weather across the United States as the year progresses, especially this winter.

NOAA’s historical outlooks associate El Nino with a stronger southern storm track: wetter conditions across the southern tier of the country; a greater risk of heavy rain and flooding in parts of California, the Gulf Coast and the Southeast; and a generally warmer northern tier.

For the military, that is not an academic forecast. It means installations across the South and Southwest may have to contend with more flooding, more drainage and access problems and more interruptions to training and maintenance, just as they are already operating through a punishing summer.

Heat stress remains part of the story as well.

Training bases in the South already face more days above safe thresholds for strenuous outdoor activity. El Nino will not create that problem, but it arrives on top of it, extending a year in which commanders may have to manage both the immediate effects of extreme heat and the prospect of a wetter, stormier winter ahead.

Years ago, after Hurricane Michael devastated Tyndall Air Force Base in 2018, I asked the base commander what he would have done if he had six months’ warning that the storm was coming. His answer was revealing. He did not begin with a five-year military construction plan or a new regulatory framework. He talked about operations. He would have done more hurricane drills. He would have made sure his people knew what to do. He would have prepared the force to absorb the shock.

That is the right way to think about this El Nino forecast. Six months of warning is not enough time to redesign a vulnerable installation. It is enough time to prepare to operate through disruption.

For commanders and installation leaders, that preparation is not mysterious. It means testing continuity plans and making sure the mission-essential functions of a base can continue if normal operations are interrupted. It means checking backup power, fuel, water, communications, drainage and access routes before a storm or heat emergency exposes the weakness for you. It means revisiting training calendars and work-rest cycles in places where extreme heat is increasingly likely to interfere with readiness. And it means asking the basic operational question: If a storm takes this installation offline for a week, what absolutely has to keep functioning?

The larger lesson is not limited to this one forecast.

El Nino will pass, but the baseline it returns to is not the baseline of thirty years ago. Each of these events now arrives atop a warmer ocean atmosphere, which means the same seasonal pattern delivers more water, more heat and stronger storms than its predecessors did. That is not a policy argument; it is an input to planning.

Another seasonal forecast will take this one’s place. Another storm season will come. Another heat wave will test the assumptions built into training schedules and installation operations. The military does not have the luxury of ignoring those warnings because they arrive under the label of “weather” rather than “war.” The weather is part of the operating environment. It always has been.

The Pentagon cannot control the weather, but it can use the intelligence it has been given. El Nino is a threat warning. The military should treat it like one.

John Conger served as the U.S. principal deputy under secretary of defense (comptroller) from December 2015 to January 2017.

The hard truth is this: America cannot dominate the modern battlefield if the Department of War does not know where its critical materials, components and software come from.

A fighter jet, missile battery, naval vessel, radar system, drone or armored vehicle does not begin on the factory floor of a prime contractor. It begins with minerals, metals, magnets, chips, chemicals, software, castings and forgings — thousands of components moving through supply chains that stretch across the world. In a major defense program, those chains may run five or six tiers deep, while government visibility often stops at the first or second.

That gap is the danger. America’s vulnerabilities are buried in the lower tiers — the subcontractors and vendors supplying specialty metals, electronics, chemicals, software and raw materials that Washington is not watching.

And that is exactly where President Trump’s new executive order, “Securing America’s Defense Supply Chains and Ensuring Domestic Acquisition of Critical Materials,” strikes.

For too long, Washington has pretended a weapons system is “American” if final assembly happens in America — even when critical inputs come from foreign adversaries or suppliers vulnerable to foreign ownership, control or influence. That fiction may satisfy a lobbyist. It will not survive a war.

Congress recognized the danger in 10 U.S.C. 4872, which restricts acquiring covered materials from covered nations. But laws are only as strong as their enforcement — and waiver culture, contractor convenience, and bureaucratic inertia have hollowed out those rules.

That era is over. The Trump policy is simple and tough: end the loose waiver process, expose hidden supply chains, vet the lower tiers, qualify trusted sources and hold contractors accountable.

Beginning January 1, 2027, waivers under 10 U.S.C. 4872(c)(1) and (e) will no longer be business as usual. A contractor seeking relief must identify the noncompliant source, document exhaustive efforts to find compliant material or prove none was available, lay out the steps to remove it from the supply chain and commit to a strict timeline.

Failure to qualify a domestic source will not count as “non-availability” unless the contractor shows active, adequately funded and ongoing efforts to qualify one. In plain English: No more, “We tried nothing, and we’re out of options.”

To expose hidden supply chains, the order directs the Secretary of War to begin rulemaking requiring contractors to map critical supply chains for national-security acquisitions identified by the department — from raw materials to the end products delivered to the military — through a tier-by-tier bill of materials tracing components, parts, software and materials back to their origins.

This is not paperwork. It is battlefield preparation. If a missile system depends on a foreign-controlled supplier, the Department of War needs to know before the shooting starts. If a naval platform relies on a sole-source supplier vulnerable to bankruptcy, takeover, cyber disruption or production bottlenecks, that risk must be surfaced and mitigated. If a supply chain runs through an adversary-controlled chokepoint, that is a strategic exposure, not an accounting detail.

To vet the lower tiers, contractors must screen suppliers and subcontractors supporting critical supply chains for financial risk; foreign ownership, control or influence; and manufacturing and supply risk. They must report significant risks and fix them on a strict, tracked timeline.

On trusted sources, the message is blunt: qualify or replace. For decades, contractors have hidden behind slow qualification processes while adversary-linked suppliers stayed embedded in America’s defense industrial base. No more.

Contractors relying on supply chains that include materials or components supplied by unreliable foreign suppliers must promptly qualify and use alternatives, consistent with law, safety, mission requirements and contract terms. The Department of War will speed the testing and qualification of new sources and materials. And when outdated regulations block rapid qualification for defense production, those roadblocks must come down.

On the accountability front, national security contracting is not a game of hide-the-ball. Contractors that fail to qualify required alternatives can lose task orders, contract options or the contract itself. And contractors who commit fraud, deliberately mislead the government, or knowingly or willfully fail to implement approved mitigation plans face every lawful action and contractual remedy the secretary deems appropriate, with possible referral to the Attorney General.

The broader message of this new Trump administration EO should be clear. America’s arsenal of democracy begins in the mine, the refinery, the forge, the foundry, the chemical plant, the semiconductor fab and the machine shop.

Peace through strength requires strength through secure supply chains: American weapons built with domestic, allied, and trusted materials; sunlight, enforcement, qualification and accountability.

And one overriding rule for every defense contractor: Never put an American warfighter at risk because an adversary-linked supplier was buried five tiers down.

Peter Navarro is the White House Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing.

That calculus has changed. Adversaries have invested in the capabilities needed to interdict supply lines — long-range fires, drones, electronic warfare, anti-ship weapons, proxy networks that can reach ports, rail corridors, and staging areas far from any front. The vulnerability of the logistics infrastructure that sustains combat power is no longer an abstract concern, it is the operational problem of this moment, and it is not unique to the Middle East. The supply chain as battlespace is the defining characteristic of modern conflict.

These same adversary investments are driving sustained, high-tempo combat operations that can burn through critical munitions inventories — precision strike missiles, air defense interceptors, long-range fires — at rates that take years to replenish. What once looked like an abstract readiness concern is now headline news. In this environment, knowing precisely where every asset is, protecting it with optimized precision, and integrating that picture into combat planning isn’t a modernization initiative, it’s a necessity. We have the technology for that comprehensive, near real-time common operating picture (COP), we just need to link it.

The technology is here

Episodic tracking — the military’s primary in-transit visibility approach for 30 years — was built for a different operational environment. It tells you when cargo passes a fixed reader but, in a contested environment that’s not visibility, it’s a guess.

Mesh networking changes the equation entirely. Battery-powered tags form ad hoc networks, relaying location and condition data through mobile gateways to satellite uplinks, delivering near real-time asset visibility across any mode of transportation without fixed infrastructure. The architecture is hardened for contested environments: tags can suppress their own emissions when the threat environment demands it and come back online automatically based on location; communications are encrypted; the network uses frequency hopping to resist targeting. It works in the field, across truck, rail, and sea, at scale.

Once materiel is deployed, AI-enabled platforms can now fuse asset locations, threat data, terrain, unit capabilities, and route status into a single real-time operating picture — and model the consequences of protection decisions before forces are committed. Optimization engines evaluate and analyze the full picture to recommend courses of action. Auto-tasking allocates units as conditions change. What once required significant, manual staff effort across disconnected systems can now be accomplished in a unified interface, fast enough to match the pace of combat. This capability, too, is proven and operational.

A COP across the lifecycle

Taken separately, each capability is valuable. Taken together, they represent something the joint force has never had: a COP that ties where a resource is to what the force can do with it. A COP that follows every resource — equipment, ammunition, fuel, sustainment — from depot to forward position, continuously informing protection requirements and enabling smarter combat decisions as the picture evolves.

Consider what that means in practice. A commander knows not just that a critical shipment departed a depot — but precisely where it is, in near real time, as it moves through rail yards, ports, and contested sea lanes. When the threat picture shifts, the protection platform immediately recalculates coverage, recommends reallocation and flags gaps. When assets reach a forward position, the same data that tracked them in transit feeds directly into combat planning. Inventory is not an estimate, it is a fact, integrated into every decision downstream.

That integration matters most when inventories are under pressure. Modern conflicts are consuming critical munitions inventories faster than they can be replenished, eliminating the margin for waste — misrouted shipments, unprotected convoys, planning based on stale inventory data — disappears. A COP does more than improve efficiency. It prevents the compounding losses that turn a supply shortfall into a capability gap.

This is a different theory of how logistics and operations relate to each other. The traditional model treats supply chain management and combat planning as sequential — logistics delivers, operations consume. The integrated model treats them as continuous and interdependent. The COP does not end at the depot gate or the port of embarkation. It persists through the entire lifecycle of a resource, from production to employment, updating in real time and driving decisions at every echelon.

Commanders who can continuously see their assets can redirect them before disruptions become crises. Protection cells who can see the full logistics picture — not just unit positions but the routes, schedules, and vulnerabilities of the supply chain itself — can defend it proactively rather than reactively. And planners who can query actual inventory rather than projected inventory can design operations around ground truth, not assumptions that dissolve on contact.

We get to choose

The threat environment that made this architecture necessary is no longer theoretical. From the Strait of Hormuz to the U.S. Pacific Command, adversaries are investing in the precise capabilities designed to disrupt sustainment, fracture visibility, and exploit delay between detection and decision.

The technology to close those gaps already exists, and the operational need is visible. What remains is the decision to connect these systems deliberately, under a unified architecture with the processes and authorities to move at the speed the threat demands.

Robert Yon is LMI’s vice president, Sensor Mesh. Yon leverages his experience as a former USMC officer to identify technology solutions for the military’s greatest challenges, with an emphasis on addressing logistics. As VP, Sensor Mesh, he leads the implementation of LMI’s SPECTR asset visibility tool, and oversaw its recent successful deployment during USTRANSCOM’s Turbo Fusion exercise.

This is not a temporary surge. It is a structural shift to taking care of our own backyard. It will take time, to be sure, but the tracks are laid and the train has left the station. We invite our American friends to judge us not by old assumptions, but by the record we are building together.

When I last wrote in these pages, in 2025, we had a plan – Readiness 2030, a nearly one trillion-dollar roadmap to buy new weapons and technological equipment. It signaled a fundamental rethink of the EU’s role in European defense spending, and big opportunities for American defense firms.

Today, we’re making that plan happen. Let’s look at what’s already advancing – Europe collectively spent 2.1% of GDP on defense in 2025, above NATO’s benchmark. Frontline allies like Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are moving toward spending 5% of GDP. Eighteen member states have already taken the next step under the EU’s new $200 billion defense financing program. And the first $6 billion-plus is already being deployed to help countries procure faster, strengthen defense production and deliver the capabilities Europe and NATO need.

Bigger budgets are only part of the story. Europe has fundamentally changed how it thinks about defense. The era when Europe outsourced too much of its security is over. New factories are opening, existing production lines are expanding, and private investment is flowing into next-generation drones, armored vehicles, artificial intelligence and electronic warfare. That investment is already translating into new industrial partnerships. At the NATO Summit, Lockheed Martin and Rheinmetall announced plans to produce ATACMS missiles in a newly opened production plant in Germany, the first time the system will be manufactured outside the United States.

We’re also changing how Europe buys defense. For too long, 27 national defense markets operated under 27 different sets of rules, creating duplication, delays and unnecessary costs. The European Union is helping bring those markets together, making it easier for countries to procure jointly, invest together and give industry the predictable demand it needs to expand production and deliver capabilities faster. These initiatives and more are helping Europe move from fragmentation towards integration.

None of this comes at America’s expense. Quite the opposite. As Europe invests more in its own defense, the alliance as a whole becomes more resilient and better prepared for the threats we face together. Europeans remain the largest customers of the U.S. defense industry, accounting for nearly 40% of U.S. arms exports (worth $130 billion) – and supporting American manufacturing, innovation and high-skilled jobs. At the same time, more than half of European defense procurement continues to come from U.S. suppliers. Europe’s defense investment is creating a larger market, and as that market grows, so do the opportunities for American defense companies.

Let me be clear – this buildup is not about replacing the United States. It’s about becoming a stronger, more capable ally and balanced partner in a security relationship that benefits both sides of the Atlantic and keeps deterrence credible.

One year ago, we promised action. Today, Europe is delivering – and learning valuable lessons in what works and what doesn’t. A powerful example of this is Putin’s war in Ukraine. Together, the EU and its member countries have mobilized more than $300 billion in support for Ukraine, making Europe the largest provider of overall assistance. Importantly, a significant share of military support is being spent with U.S. defense companies through joint procurement and European-funded purchases, reinforcing both Ukraine’s defense and the transatlantic industrial base.

The lesson from Ukraine is clear: modern warfare rewards speed, adaptability and scale.

Europe has become very good, our defense commissioner Andrius Kubilius recently argued, at producing “haute couture missiles” – highly sophisticated and expensive systems. The next challenge is to combine that excellence and attention to detail with the ability to produce “good enough” capabilities at scale, including drones and other rapidly deployable systems. In other words, I am reminded of the English idiom “don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.”

Later this year, the EU will formulate its vision for securing the region in our new European Security Strategy. It will help shape the next chapter of Europe’s defense transformation.

Stay tuned – we are just getting started.

Jovita Neliupšienė is the ambassador of the European Union to the United States.