At the end of the last century, 50,000 Americans a year bled to death from traumatic injuries in hospitals, in traffic accidents, and as a result of gun violence. The problem of “bleeding out” was also one of the military’s top concerns on the battlefield.

Today, thanks to a clotting agent discovered by a brilliant, but obscure inventor in the early 1980s and brought to market by his visionary salesman partner 20 years later, thousands of lives have been saved in combat, and on the streets.

The remarkable and unlikely story of the clotting agent QuikClot, and the two men who persisted in bringing it into the public light, is told in a new book, “In the Blood: How Two Outsiders Solved a Centuries-Old Medical Mystery and Took on the U.S. Army” by Charles Barber (Grand Central Publishing).

Barber, a writer in residence at Wesleyan University and lecturer at Yale, chronicles the discovery of the clotting agent in a Connecticut basement in 1983, and the three decades filled with wild twists, turns, and seemingly unsurmountable challenges, that spawned a $500 million success story.

The following excerpt has been adapted from “In the Blood.”

The Story behind QuikClot: A Medical Miracle of the Iraq War

Sometime in February 2002, Lieutenant Commander Timothy Coakley of the United States Navy, who is also an emergency physician, was riding shotgun in a Humvee traveling across the deserts of southern Iraq. Coakley, who was an emergency physician, was in charge of one of the Marines’ “Shock Trauma” platoons that arrived in Iraq before the war started to build up the medical supply chain.

The Humvee in which Coakley was riding was driven by a corporal under Coakley’s command, and the vehicle was part of a much larger convoy of cargo trucks and Humvees heading towards Baghdad. Suddenly the radio system crackled to life. The division commander said in rushed tones that a Marine in a truck half a mile ahead had been shot in the neck.

Within minutes, Coakley and his driver found the cargo truck pulled over by the side of the road. On the ground was a tall, blond, blue-eyed Marine gasping for air and writhing in agony. Blood spouted out of his neck, and was splattering all over his chest and legs in dark, ever-widening crimson circles. A medic kneeled over the fallen Marine, hyperventilating and saying, “Oh my god! Oh my god!” over and over again. Coakley examined the young Marine and saw that, for the moment, anyway, he was lucky. A sniper’s bullet had passed through the Marine’s neck, but had narrowly missed his windpipe and carotid artery. Still, the solider was losing a great deal of blood, and quickly. Coakley instructed the medic to call for a military ambulance. Then Coakley got on his knees and went to work.

Coakley retrieved surgical gloves and compressed gauze from his medical kit. “Coakley depressed the gauze into the gaping cavities in the soldier’s neck, one in the front and one in the back. The Marine remained conscious but wore a stunned expression, looking stoically up toward the sky. The gauze slowed the bleeding but not much: the flow of blood was still voluminous. Coakley knew he needed to find a solution quickly or the solider was at risk of bleeding out. Coakley rifled through his medical kit. Inside he found a small beige pouch labeled QuikClot. He remembered at a pre-deployment training three months earlier that a medic had explained QuikClot was a brand-new product, derived from a simple mineral called zeolite, which was said to be capable of stopping big bleeds. No one knew exactly how QuikClot worked, but it was thought to absorb the water in blood and keep the platelets and clotting factors, thereby putting the clotting process on steroids. Of this, Coakley had been skeptical. He’d spent the early part of his career as an operating room technician. Even in the controlled environment of the operating room, Coakley had seen that nothing was particularly good at stopping large quantities of blood. But now he had no other options. He glanced at the product directions, opened the packet, and poured its contents into the hole in the Marine’s neck. Then Coakley waited, expecting nothing, a sinking feeling growing in his stomach that the soldier’s life was in the balance.

And nothing did happen at first, but then after five or ten seconds, it appeared that the blood began to slow. After twenty or thirty seconds, Coakley clearly saw the blood thickening into a kind of dark crimson Jell-O. And then, in the next minute, the bleeding effectively ceased. Coakley packed the gauze into the wounds again, and this time he was able to fully control the excess bleeding. It was like a clot had formed in front of his eyes. Holy shit, Coakley thought, the military finally came up with something that works. I can’t fucking believe it. “You’re going to be all right,” Coakley said to the Marine, this time with conviction. He held the gauze in place until the military ambulance, a modified Humvee with a red cross on it, arrived twenty minutes later. Coakley helped lift the Marine into the ambulance, and watched as the Humvee drove away, gradually disappearing across the desert. He thought the Marine would survive, but you could never know for sure. Whatever this QuikCot was, Coakley mused, it had promise. But then again, he thought, anything could work once, never to be repeated again—particularly in combat.

A few weeks later, Coakley was in another convoy. It was late afternoon, and Coakley was traveling in a line of trucks and Humvees along a meandering avenue. The four-lane road was lined with palm trees and shops and houses and schools made from stucco and concrete. Coakley heard but never saw the bomb. Even in the tightly sealed confines of his Humvee, with its bullet resistant windshield, the sound was frightening. In the ensuing chaos, it was unclear exactly where the bomb had detonated. His driver kept moving forward. The chatter commenced on the radio: “Holy fucking shit: A bomb went off!” A minute later, after crossing a bridge, Coakley spotted a man lying on the sidewalk, and Iraqi civilian who was bleeding badly and crying out. Coakley saw that a large portion of the man’s back had been ripped open. He was dazed but conscious. Coakley could see that there was no shrapnel embedded in the wounds. However, he knew that there didn’t have to be shrapnel to cause damage. The initial blast of an Improvised Explosive Device was not always the most destructive. The greater part of the damage was often meted out by the second or third or even fourth blast waves, which created hurricane-like forces capable of eviscerating and even amputating body parts.

The man’s blood ran in rivulets down the sidewalk. This time Coakley didn’t hesitate. He ripped open two packets of QuikClot. The blood once again congealed within 30 seconds and in a matter of minutes, the massive wound was controlled simply with gauze. Coakley tried to assure the man that everything was going to be okay, even though neither spoke the other’s language. It took a full two hours for an Iraqi ambulance to arrive. Coakley sat with the man the whole time.

Coakley wondered what it was about QuikClot that made it such an effective blood-clotting agent. It was a little like science fiction. He resolved that whenever the war was over, if he survived, he would study QuikClot in the Navy labs once he got home.

***

In November 2005, Lieutenant Ryan Kules, of the Army’s First Armed Division celebrated Thanksgiving dinner with the 24 soldiers under his command, at his base near Taji, Iraq, That dinner was the last thing he would remember for weeks. Early in the morning of Nov. 29, 2005, his patrol was on the way back to from an early morning mission. As the senior officer in the command, Kules had chosen to ride in the lead Humvee even though he didn’t need to. “I rode in the lead because part of being a leader is putting yourself out in front,” he said later. The Humvee ran over artillery shells buried in the road. Two soldiers in the vehicle with Kules were immediately killed. Kules was thrown a hundred feet, landing in an irrigation creek.

Medics found his right arm and left leg, which had been blown off his body, before they found what remained of Kules. Remarkably, Kules was conscious, and—this defies belief—trying to stand up. One medic applied the same product -- QuikClot -- to what little was left of his leg and arm, which stopped the bleeding enough to stabilize Kules. One the helicopter ride to the combat hospital in Baghdad, Ryan had lost his pulse more than once and could have been pronounced technically dead on two occasions. When his family first saw him in the hospital in Germany, he was almost entirely wrapped in bandages. The only visible parts of him were his forehead, a toe, and his ears, which were caked with dried blood. Doctors told Kules they weren’t sure he was going to live. He underwent three dozen surgeries and remained an inpatient at Walter Reed for four months. But Kules survived. Eighteen years later, he is the father of three teenage children and a senior officer at the Wounded Warrior Project. In the 2020 federal legislation named in his honor to boost funding for adaptive technologies in housing for wounded veterans was signed by the President.

***

The physician William Mayo said, “Medicine is the only victor in war.” All wars lead to medical progress – World War II for example led to greater use of antibiotics, the Vietnam War led to advances in burn care and frozen blood products, to cite just two examples. QuikClot, the product which saved Kules and the young marine, has since been called the medical miracle of the War on Terror. The product had actually been invented two decades before it was ever actually used, by Frank Hursey, an obscure mechanical engineer in Connecticut who ran a struggling company in a corner of an industrial park. Some months Frank couldn’t pay his rent. He used zeolite in the machines he built to generate oxygen, and studying zeolite, he realized it was a perfect natural sieve which caught things within his cavernous crystalline structures. He knew very little about blood, but he knew about half of blood is comprised of water. What if he put zeolite into the bloodstream, he thought: wouldn’t it capture the water in the blood, and make the result mixture saturated with the things that created blood clots? As simple as the idea was, no one had ever thought about trying to clot blood in this way. Doctors had always tried to promote clotting by adding something to the blood, not taking it away. But Hursey -- who had no medical training -- was right.

Getting the product to battlefield, however, would take another twenty years. Hursey wrote a patent but it expired, as he was unable to pay the maintenance fee. He contacted drug companies but none were interested. It wasn’t until he took on a business partner, Bart Gullong, who was a marketing powerhouse, that Hursey got his invention to the Marines and the Navy in the months after 9-11. But even once in Iraq QuikClot was controversial. The Army believed that the product could at times burn the surrounding tissue in the wounds of soldiers in the intensity of its mechanism of action; the Navy acknowledged this side effect, but said it only occurred about three percent of the time and given that soldier’s lives were in the balance, the risk-reward ratio tilted heavily toward QuikClot.

But in 2008, Hursey, now working closely with the Navy, found another mineral that clotted blood just as well but caused no heat. As I write now, QuikClot (also called Combat Gauze) is in every first aid kit of every American warrior, and used by first responders all over the world. The company that Hursey and his marketing partner created was sold a few years ago for more than half a billion dollars.

Most importantly, soldiers like Ryan Kules and the young blond Marine (in the chaos of the moment, Dr. Coakley never did get his name) are still alive.

From “In the Blood: How Two Outsiders Solved a Centuries-Old Medical Miracle and Took on the U.S. Army” by Charles Barber. Copyright © 2023 and reprinted by permission of the author and Grand Central Publishing.

Charles Barber is the author of “In the Blood: How Two Outsiders Solved a Centuries-Old Medical Miracle and Took on the U.S. Army”, to be published May 30, by Grand Central Publishing. He is a writer in residence at Wesleyan University, a lecturer in psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine, and the author of the critically acclaimed books “Songs from the Black Chair: A Memoir of Mental Interiors” (Univ. of Nebraska, 2005), “Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry is Medicating a Nation” (Pantheon, 2008), and “Citizen Outlaw: One Man’s Journey from Gangleader to Peacekeeper” (Ecco, 2019). The title essay of his first book won a 2006 Pushcart Prize. His work has appeared in The New York Times and the Washington Post, among dozens of publications. He has been a guest on the Today Show, the Morning Show, CNN, BBC, and NPR’s Fresh Air. He was educated at Harvard and Columbia universities, and lives in Connecticut with his family.

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When someone mentions nonprofits, chances are you picture homeless shelters, free medical clinics, museums and other groups that you believe are doing good one way or another.

Most of these organizations are legitimate. But not all nonprofits are principled or embrace missions everyone considers worthy of the tax-exempt status that the government grants some 2 million organizations.

You might presume that the government would automatically refuse to grant tax-exempt status to white nationalist and anti-government groups. Yet as a scholar who has researched nonprofit accountability, I’ve seen the authorities struggle to draw the line between which organizations deserve to operate as nonprofits and those that don’t.

8 purposes allowed

The wide array of U.S. nonprofits includes many media outlets, chambers of commerce and political parties. But the term usually refers to the organizations that meet the requirements of Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code. Officially designated as charities, these groups don’t pay income taxes and can accept tax-deductible donations.

All 501(c)(3)s must apply to the Internal Revenue Service for tax exemption unless their revenues are less than US$5,000 or they are a church, synagogue, mosque or other house of worship.

The IRS usually grants this status to any applicant with at least one of eight purposes, including being charitable or educational.

Figuring out if food banks deserve exemption is generally straightforward, as they engage in an obviously charitable activity.

Determining whether organizations are truly religious or educational is harder.

Oath Keepers Educational Foundation

Some groups with ties to the Oath Keepers — an extremist group with leaders who were found guilty of seditious conspiracy connected to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — were granted this status.

Until recently, the Oath Keepers had chapters scattered across the country, and the main group never became a 501(c)(3) organization. But the Oath Keepers Educational Foundation and several smaller affiliated groups did obtain that status.

The foundation told the IRS when it sought charitable status that its primary purpose was “to give veterans an opportunity for continued involvement in community service.”

The Oath Keepers network has largely collapsed amid the prosecution of its members who engaged in the Jan. 6 attack. Most notably, founder Stewart Rhodes was found guilty in 2022 of seditious conspiracy for helping plot the insurrection. He is expected to be sentenced around May 25, 2023, and could spend more than two decades in prison. Rhodes was also listed as the foundation’s president when it was established.

When the Oath Keepers’ former spokesman Jason Van Tatenhove testified before Congress in 2022, he revealed that the group was radicalizing its followers and spreading violent messaging.

The Three Percenters, another extremist group with ties to people who were convicted for their role in the Jan. 6 attacks, was a charity at that time. Its leadership subsequently dissolved the organization.

Unite the Right ties

Other white nationalist groups, such as Identity Evropa and the National Policy Institute, have received 501(c)(3) status over the years.

Both of those groups were among the organizers of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, where participants attacked progressive counterprotesters, killing one of them and injuring many others.

Policing tax exemption

Although it’s a crime to lie on the application, some groups seeking to become charities do. The IRS doesn’t verify those statements, however, presumably because the threat of prosecution generally prevents misrepresentations, and the cost of verifying what every group says is very high.

Small groups can use a simplified version of the required form, but it is so poorly designed that the IRS has granted exemption to many ineligible organizations. In one extreme case, a scam artist set up 76 fake charities using this form, as The New York Times discovered in 2022.

Another obstacle is that applicants are usually forming new organizations, so the IRS examines their intentions rather than their actions.

Respecting free speech

Because Americans prize the right to free speech, the IRS treads carefully when determining which nonprofits don’t deserve tax-exempt status.

Big Mama Rag, a radical feminist nonprofit magazine, lost its tax exemption in the late 1970s. The IRS revoked its charitable status upon seeing that the magazine refused to publish views contrary to its own. When the magazine fought back, an appeals court determined that the criteria the IRS and a district court had used to deny exemption were unconstitutional because they were based on the organization’s constitutionally protected views.

This case set an important precedent: The government considers charities advancing unpopular views to be educational enough to keep their tax-exempt status.

The IRS now evaluates educational methods, not content. Educational charities must support their assertions with facts and without inflammatory language.

The only reported court case of a group failing this test was a blatantly racist organization, the Nationalist Movement.

That organization sought to “favor Caucasian, Christian, and English-speaking Americans of Northern European descent.” The IRS revoked its 501(c)(3) status in 1994 after determining that the Nationalist Movement was a propaganda organ.

Revoking charitable status is complicated

And it is not always easy to revoke tax exemption, either.

The IRS has historically been underfunded. In 2013, when the Republican-led Congress decided that the IRS was biased against conservative nonprofits, lawmakers penalized the agency by cutting its budget and explicitly forbidding it from creating rules that would draw sharper lines between political and charitable purposes.

It turned out that the IRS was also subjecting progressive groups to an extra layer of scrutiny — and official government reports found inappropriate criteria but no anti-conservative bias. In any case, because it hampered IRS enforcement, this dust-up made it harder for the IRS to root out charities that didn’t deserve the designation.

Unfortunately, the $80 billion added to the IRS budget from 2022 to 2031 is unlikely to increase the scrutiny of charities, because there are too many other priorities, like updating software and making tax scofflaws pay up.

Maintaining diversity

The Oath Keepers Educational Foundation appears to have lost its 501(c)(3) status. The government, which makes it hard to tell why a former charity has lost its tax-exempt status, has not clearly indicated whether this was a voluntary decision on its part or the result of a negotiated settlement with the IRS.

It’s also possible that the organization simply failed to file required annual paperwork with the IRS for three years in a row. That omission automatically causes charities to lose their tax-exempt status, although it can be restored.

While the fact that the white nationalist groups mentioned above ever got charitable status is disturbing, a search of the IRS database of tax-exempt organizations shows that none of them have it today.

In my opinion, a large part of the strength of the nonprofit sector lies in its diversity of causes and viewpoints. For this reason, I think it’s better for the government to err on the side of authorizing too many tax-exempt organizations than to quash free speech or meddle with trying to determine which faith traditions are deserving.

But it should be clear that charities that encourage violence and cheer on extremism are not contributing to society with any of the purposes the IRS allows.

Service member concerns drive bipartisan conversation and change. To this end, we’d like to see Congress leverage COVID-19 infrastructure to remove barriers to mental health care for our active duty service members, and make telemedicine a reliable way to deliver care. The “return on investment” is likely to be repaid by increases in military readiness and resiliency; and, importantly, will signify to service members that their mental health needs, including the provision for continuity of care, are a priority.

Mental health care needs in the military

Members of the armed services are at high-risk for mental illness. Demands of military service, which include prolonged separation, combat stressors, frequent relocation and reintegration, have created mental health challenges for service members that hamper our forces’ resiliency, agility and readiness; and can lead to devastating self-inflicted loss of life.

Federal agencies have recently made lasting commitments to veteran suicide prevention; interagency initiatives that focus on crisis-intervention and will save veteran lives. However, in practicality, the programs stop short of addressing the mental health of service members whose concerns are not elevated to the level of suicidality. Personalized mental health resources focused on prevention, resiliency and keeping service members ‘fit for duty’ are much less accessible.

One success story piloted by the military is embedded mental health, or EMH, care, which can offer service members quick, easy and personalized provider access. Unfortunately, EMH is not widespread, plagued by staffing shortages and doesn’t address continuity of care, which is essential for quality mental health care.

This is not to say that military leaders and lawmakers have not prioritized mental health programs. Service members and their families have access to military treatment facilities, or MTFs, and online platforms, such as Military OneSource and Telemynd.

Unfortunately, in-person mental health appointments lag by upwards of 6 months, and telehealth platforms do not offer continuity between duty stations or facilitate transitions of care. Experience shows that this results in service members shying away from establishing care or forming relationships with mental health providers.

Realistic solutions

1. To address the present-state lack of provider-based mental health care across state lines, one solution includes federal protection to expand telehealth-enabled services. The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, or PREP Act, could be leveraged to authorize Health and Human Services, or HHS, to provide immunity from liability in additional emergency circumstances, outside the current scope of biosecurity threats.

Additionally, HHS’s Amendment 4 (2020), which precludes state and local governments from enforcing more restrictive policies, could be advanced to allow for interstate practice of telemedicine. The social determinants of health that make access to mental health care for service members should be classified as an emergency, and the telemedicine framework established for COVID-19 applied for service members in need of resources under The PREP Act and Amendment 4. Thus, paving the way for existing telemedicine providers to offer expeditious, long-term access to care across stateliness and irrespective of changes in regional insurance provider.

2. Streamline telemedicine credentialling and licensing for mental health professionals across states, cementing protections that allow providers to practice across state lines. Establish an electronic nationwide credentialing system to compile data, forms, and rules for professionals that meet federal and state requirements. A nationwide system could fast-track credentialing, simplifying regulation at the state level. In the end, mental health professionals would have a manageable and rapid way to understand and meet credentialing requirements across states, broadening the pool of providers eligible to serve military members.

Is it feasible?

Access to telemedicine for veterans and active duty service members has been top of mind. In 2018, the Department of Veterans Affairs expanded telehealth coverage to better serve patients ‘anywhere’ in the country. This initiative was life-changing for geographically-isolated veterans, but is limited to VA providers vs. mental health professionals providing care to active duty service members. Furthermore, Congress recently passed the Veterans Mental Health Care Improvement Act, which acknowledges that telehealth resources improve access to care, assesses barriers to care, and earmarks funds to expand capabilities. These examples showcase the appetite to improve access to mental health care via telemedicine within our Armed Services.

States and professional jurisdictions are also beginning to address these challenges. In 2019, Arizona passed a landmark law to recognize out-of-state occupational licenses, including behavioral health specialists. The Nurse Licensure Compact, an organization that helps nurses receive licenses valid throughout the country, has also navigated the complicated landscape of uniform licensure requirements, and lobbies to grant nurses opportunities to practice across stateliness, particularly in support of crisis care and telemedicine.

Time to act

Beyond the military, telemedicine has been shown to be a legitimate way to relieve stress on the national health care system. Efforts made to reduce telemedicine barriers for mental health care in the military could lay the foundation for improving access to mental health care for all Americans.

Courtney “Stiles” Herdt is an active duty naval aviator and is currently a military fellow with the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Ian Porter is an active duty flight surgeon and physician currently stationed in Jacksonville, Florida. The views expressed do not reflect the official position of the Departments of Navy or Defense.

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In the mid-1990s, I picked up the military classic “Art of War” hoping to find insight into my new career as an officer in the United States Marine Corps.

I was not the only one looking for insights from the sage Sunzi, also known as Sun Tzu, who died over 2,500 years ago. “Art of War” has long been mined for an understanding of China’s strategic tradition and universal military truths. The book’s maxims, such as “know the enemy and know yourself,” are routinely quoted in military texts, as well as business and management books.

Initially, I was disappointed. It seemed Sunzi’s advice was either common sense or in agreement with Western military classics. However, a few years later the Marine Corps trained me as a China scholar, and I spent much of my career working on U.S. policy in the Indo-Pacific region. This deepened my desire to understand how leaders in the People’s Republic of China see the world and choose strategies. Looking for insight, I turned to classical Chinese philosophy and finally encountered concepts that helped illuminate the unique perspective of Sunzi’s “Art of War.”

Today, I am an academic researching how Chinese philosophy and foreign policy intersect. To comprehend “Art of War,” it helps readers to approach the text from the worldview of its author. That means reading Sunzi’s advice through the prism of classical Chinese metaphysics, which is deeply shaped by the philosophy of Daoism.

Daoist roots

China’s intellectual tradition is rooted in the Warring States period from the 5th to 3rd century B.C.E., the era during which Sunzi is thought to have lived. Though a time of conflict, it was also a time of cultural and intellectual development that led to the rise of Daoism and Confucianism.

Confucian philosophy focuses on maintaining proper social relationships as the key to moral behavior and and social harmony. Daoism, on the other hand, is more concerned with metaphysics: trying to understand the workings of the natural world and drawing analogies about how humans should act.

Daoism views existence as composed of constant cycles of change, in which power ebbs and flows. Meanwhile, the “Dào,” or “the way,” directs all things in nature toward fulfilling their inherent potential, like water flowing downhill.

Helping nature take its course

The Chinese word for this concept of “situational potential” is 勢, or “shì” – the name of Chapter Five in “Art of War.” Almost every Western version translates it differently, but it is key to the military concepts Sunzi employs.

For example, Chapter Five explains how those who are “expert at war” are not overly concerned with individual soldiers. Instead, effective leaders are able to determine the potential in the situation and put themselves in position to take advantage of it.

This is why later chapters spend so much time discussing geography and deployment of forces, rather than fighting techniques. One does more to damage an opponent’s potential by undermining their scheme than by merely killing their soldiers. Sunzi is concerned about long supply lines, because they lower an army’s potential by making it harder to move and vulnerable to disruption. A general who understands potential can evaluate troops, terrain and scheme, then arrange the battlefield to “subdue the enemy without fighting.”

In Daoist thought, the correct way to manage each situation’s potential is to act with 無為, “wúwéi,” which literally translates as “nonaction.” However, the key idea is to disturb the natural order as little as possible, taking the minimum action needed to allow the situation’s potential to be fulfilled. The term does not appear in “Art of War,” but a contemporary reader of Sunzi’s would have been familiar with the connection between nurturing “shì” and acting with “wúwéi.”

The importance of acting with “wúwéi” is illustrated by the Confucian philosopher Mengzi’s story about a farmer who pulled on his corn stalks in an attempt to help them grow tall, but killed the crop instead. One does not help corn grow by forcing it but by understanding its natural potential and acting accordingly: ensuring the soil is good, weeds are removed and water is sufficient. Actions are most effective when they nurture potential, not when they try to force it.

From the battlefield to the UN

In a Daoist understanding, leaders hoping to chart an effective strategy must read the situation, discover its potential, and position their armies or states in the best position to take advantage of “shì.” They act with “wúwéi” to nurture situations, rather than force, which could disturb the situation and cause chaos.

Therefore, in foreign policy, a decision-maker should attempt to make small policy adjustments as early as possible to slowly manage the development of the international environment. This approach is evident in Beijing’s use of “guānxì.” Meaning “relationships,” the Chinese term carries a strong sense of mutual obligation.

For example, the PRC waged a decadeslong effort to take over the United Nations “China seat” from Taiwan, where the Republic of China government had fled after Communists’ victory in the civil war. Beijing accomplished that by slowly building friendships, identifying shared strategic interests and accruing owed favors with many small states around the world, until in 1971 it had enough votes in the General Assembly.

Trend-watching today

The concept of “shì” also provides a lens for understanding the PRC’s increasing pressure on Taiwan, a self-ruled island that Beijing claims is its own territory.

Sunzi might say that discerning the current trend in the Taiwan Strait is more essential than conventional questions about comparative military strength. Several factors could push Taiwan closer to Beijing, including the island’s loss of diplomatic allies and the pull of the PRC’s massive economy – not to mention Beijing’s growing global clout vis-à-vis the U.S. If so, shì is in Beijing’s favor, and a nudge to persuade the U.S. to stay out is all that is needed to keep the situation developing to the PRC’s advantage.

Or is the potential developing in the other direction? Such factors as a growing sense of a unique Taiwanese identity and the PRC’s troubled economic model may make closer ties with the mainland less and less appealing in Taiwan. In that case, Beijing may see a need to appear strong and dominant so Taiwan will not be lulled into counting on support from Washington, D.C.

A surface reading of Sunzi can easily support an emphasis on troop deployments, intelligence and logistics. However, an understanding of “shì” highlights Sunzi’s emphasis on evaluating and nurturing situational potential. It is not that the former are unimportant, but a decision-maker will use them differently if the goal is to manage situational trends rather than seek decisive battle.

That “Art of War” continues to top sales lists demonstrates its lasting appeal. However, to be useful as a guide to understanding security policy and strategy, my experience in the Indo-Pacific region suggests one must dig into the principles that shaped Sunzi’s view of the world and continue to shape the view of leaders in Beijing.

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The last several years have shown us concerning developments in our adversaries’ approach to cybercrime. While reported cyber incidents decreased last year, our adversaries have grown more sophisticated in their approach. As we evolve our defenses, our adversaries evolve their tactics.

This is a game of one-upmanship and we’re losing.

For example, multi-extortion tactics—where an attacker exfiltrates data to extort a victim before their data is locked in a ransomware attack—occurred in about 70% of ransomware cases, compared to only 40% in mid-2021. Our adversaries’ ability to exploit the very technology Americans rely on day in and day out is extremely concerning.

Cyber criminals and malicious nation states do not distinguish between industries, business size, or geographical location. These attackers use domestic-based infrastructure to launch attacks on U.S. soil. Leveraging domestic cloud infrastructure, email providers, and other services, bad actors disguise themselves as legitimate network traffic to evade detection.

Preventing and disrupting these attacks will require enhanced public-private partnerships. In the 2018 National Cyber Strategy, the Trump administration called out this challenge and the need to address it. Meanwhile, the Biden administration continues to grapple with a response to this growing threat trend in its 2023 National Cybersecurity Strategy. This is a time for decisive leadership, not hesitation.

While cyber criminals take advantage of gaps in our visibility over domestic infrastructure, foreign nation states, such as Russia, give them safe harbor and shelter them from prosecution. In April 2021, the Biden administration levied sanctions on Russia in part for cultivating and shielding cyber criminals. These sanctions, while necessary, have clearly not been enough to deter Russian-based attacks.

To mitigate the risk of the increasingly complex cyber threat landscape and to deter the harboring of cyber criminals by nations, the U.S. must take a strong, cross-sector, and whole-of-government approach.

Serving as Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, I see the immense value of our government agencies working together to address the threat both from home and abroad. Unfortunately, cyber defense is often siloed within each government agency, leaving gaps in communication and interagency cooperation.

The creation of the State Department’s new Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy gives us a tremendous opportunity to improve this interagency cooperation. To make the best of this opportunity, the State Department must prioritize efforts to engage the international community in addressing the growing threat from cybercrime as well as cyber aggression from nation states like China. This should be done in close coordination with the Office of the National Cyber Director, which Congress created to streamline efforts across the government, including with our international partners. Doing this will improve our collective cybersecurity.

As Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, I have oversight responsibility over the Department of Homeland Security, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. CISA plays a vital role in protecting our domestic infrastructure, but over 80% of critical infrastructure is privately owned and operated. This means success is dependent on a voluntary relationship framework, not duplicative bureaucratic red-tape. CISA must build trust and establish close partnerships with the private sector and other government stakeholders, like the State Department and ONCD, to share timely, actionable, and contextualized information to stop cyber-attacks in their tracks.

The need for increased information sharing between the federal government and private industry is not new; it has been a foundational dilemma in cybersecurity for years. CISA’s recent efforts, such as the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative, are steps in the right direction. But it’s clear that this effort is a work in progress, and Congress must play a role in refining the process.

This is just a small facet of a complicated threat picture. However, an overarching strategy to guide individual agency and sector efforts across government and industry will help combat cyber threats. The Biden administration’s National Cybersecurity Strategy has the potential to be that strategic guide, as long as a strong and clear implementation plan follows.

When it comes to our nation’s cyber defenses, time is of the essence. Every minute our networks are not properly defended and prepared to meet new threats gives our foreign adversaries the upper hand.

Cybercriminals and nation states do not consider the agencies involved or the boundaries between sectors when they plot and carry out attacks, so it is imperative that our government agencies and the private sector work together to defeat them before it’s too late.

Rep. Mark Green, a Republican, is a physician and combat veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq, where he served three tours. He is chair of the House Homeland Security Committee and serves on the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees.

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The Department of Defense is full of talented, patriotic leaders who show up to work every day to keep Americans safe. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin set a new course for the department by personally committing not to join a defense contractor board or lobby on their behalf once he leaves public service. The secretary demonstrates true leadership, but there are still too many Pentagon employees who are cozy with a vast industry of influence peddlers. The revolving door between the Department of Defense and the high-priced world of defense contracting and consulting threatens our national security — and it’s time to slap a padlock on it.

Every year, the Department of Defense receives more discretionary taxpayer dollars from the federal budget than any other part of the government. The defense industry produces the weapons we need, and it also produces enormous rewards for its executives and investors. Companies want to keep the money flowing, so they hire Pentagon officials to help them win multibillion dollar government contracts — contracts that are awarded by their own former colleagues. For example, Lockheed Martin, the Pentagon’s biggest contractor, added the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to their corporate board. The boards of the Pentagon’s other top weapons contractors include former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Chiefs of Naval Operations John Richardson and Gary Roughead, Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work, Air Force Chief of Staff Mark Welsh, and Vice Chairman James Winnefeld.

The defense industry revolving door pays off — for the defense industry. In 2019, a government watchdog found that the Pentagon’s 14 largest contractors had hired 1,700 former Department of Defense senior civilian and military officials. That’s an entire small town of Pentagon officials going to work for the defense industry — and the vast majority of them came straight from jobs managing contracts for the department. That same year, DoD’s six largest contractors reported $18.4 billion in profits. To many Americans, this looks like corruption.

This isn’t just about former acquisition officials winning big contracts for Boeing or Lockheed Martin. Our top national security officials commonly leave public service to hang out a shingle, providing their strategic and military advice in exchange for lucrative fees. Many end up on the payroll of foreign governments. The Washington Post found officers working “mostly in countries known for human rights abuses and political repression” like Saudi Arabia, Libya, and the United Arab Emirates. Since 2015, more than 500 retired military officers, including admirals and generals, retired from the U.S. military only to sign up to be on the payroll of foreign governments. In response to a letter I sent with Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the Department of Defense provided information that strongly suggests that the Pentagon routinely rubberstamps approvals for former American military officials to work for foreign governments.

Our national security policy is distorted when defense contractors have an outsized influence over the Pentagon or when senior leaders see no problem with selling their credentials to the highest bidder. The next chair of the Joint Chiefs should set an example from the top by making strong ethics commitments. In addition, the Pentagon and Congress should make other structural changes.

It’s time to tighten up our nation’s lobbying laws. That means closing loopholes that allow corporations to avoid reporting their influence-peddling activities and ending the practice of companies giving officials golden parachutes before they enter government service.

All senior military and civilian officials at the Pentagon should be barred from working for or on behalf of major contractors for at least four years after they leave service. The Constitution barred officers from working for foreign governments; we should return to that standard. Any exceptions granted by DoD should be made available to the public.

In 1959, Congress held 25 hearings to investigate the revolving door between defense contractors and senior military officials. Gen. Omar Bradley, our country’s first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified he did not believe any former government official should “bring any influence” to win contracts for a company.

Self-dealing through the revolving door undermines public confidence and fails to honor the sacrifices service members and their families make to keep this country safe. The best way to show our gratitude is to make sure national security decisions are driven only by what keeps Americans safe.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., serves as chair of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel.

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About the guests:

Bruce McClary is the senior vice president of membership and communications for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. As the lead spokesperson, McClary provides communications support for the nation’s largest and longest-serving network of nonprofit credit counseling organizations. He also manages activities focused on industry collaboration and membership growth. With decades of experience in the financial service sector, McClary often draws upon his direct experience as a debt collector, lender, and NFCC Certified Credit Counselor when speaking to journalists about personal finance matters. During his career, he has provided one-on-one financial counseling to thousands of consumers, trained financial educators, and reached millions more through print and broadcast media.

Shelby Myers is a military spouse and mom of two. Her background is in education, but currently she stays home with her kids and volunteers on base. Myers advocates for programs that support military families, and small businesses of all kinds. She spends her time exploring, blogging and enjoying everything the military throws at her.

About the podcast:

The Spouse Angle is a podcast breaking down the news for military spouses and their families. Each episode features subject-matter experts and military guests who dive into current events from a military perspective — everything from new policy changes to research on family lifestyle challenges. The podcast is hosted by Natalie Gross, a freelance journalist and former Military Times reporter who grew up in a military family.

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Drawing on extensive research, interviews with women who served in the 1970s and 1980s, and her personal experiences in the Air Force, Bjorkman weaves together a riveting tale of the women who fought for the right to enter combat and be treated as equal partners in the U.S. military.

On the Brink of Victory

On August 9, 1990, two days after the start of Desert Shield, Army Captain Victoria Calhoun, a CH-47 “Chinook” helicopter pilot at Fort Bragg, deployed to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, as part of an advance party to conduct reconnaissance and prepare the base for more arrivals. Calhoun found the adventure she had sought for years. The weather was horribly hot. Thousands of microscopic sand pellets from frequent dust storms blasted unclothed skin, and the sand clogged everything—tents, food, weapons, and aircraft parts.

After earning her ROTC commission, Calhoun had trained for field artillery, then went to flight school at Fort Rucker and on to West Germany, where she asked to fly the Army’s newest helicopter, the UH-60 “Black Hawk.” A superior officer denied her application saying, “A woman’s not going to get to fly a UH-60 before I do.”

Calhoun opted instead for the Chinook and cut her teeth flying in Germany’s rugged mountains. In 1989, she requested a transfer to Fort Bragg, figuring if any action happened, it would be from there. She was right. That December, her unit deployed to support the Panama invasion. But her operations officer wouldn’t let her go because he didn’t think women should be in hostile territory. Even worse, he replaced her with a less-experienced male pilot.

Seven months later, she feared she might also sit out Desert Shield. Calhoun’s battalion commander called the unit together to address them about the upcoming deployment. The operations officer who had cut her from the Panama mission asked, “Are the women going?”

The battalion commander looked perplexed. He said, “They have to go; we’re not mission capable without them!”

While Calhoun helped the Army settle into Saudi Arabia, Air Force crews began hauling tens of thousands of people and millions of pounds of equipment to the Middle East. Reserve units in the U.S. began activating. Units with cargo aircraft were in high demand, and cargo reserve units, where women aviators were concentrated, were among the first to activate.

Army officers weren’t the only ones confused about whether women were supposed to deploy. On August 6, Stephanie Wells, a C-5 cargo pilot, called her reserve unit at Kelly Air Force Base, Texas, to volunteer to fly missions to the Middle East. The chief pilot told her women were excluded.

The pronouncement shocked Wells. She couldn’t understand why women weren’t eligible. Maybe the Saudis had requested no women?

The chief pilot called Wells back at ten thirty the next evening. Women weren’t excluded after all. She started packing her bags.

On August 13, Wells flew her first Desert Shield mission, loading cargo in the U.S. and flying it to the east coast of the U.S. The next day, she flew to Rota, Spain, and then on to Sigonella, Italy. Sigonella was a zoo—aircrews swapped stories about thirty-hour days with only ten hours of crew rest and being crammed into rooms with three people all trying to get some sleep.

On August 28, while Wells was back home in Houston, one of her unit’s C-5s crashed on takeoff from Ramstein, Germany. Only one crewmember survived. Wells was selected to notify the aircraft commander’s family of his death, since the family lived north of Houston. She and a chaplain from the local Air National Guard unit donned their service uniforms and arrived at the house at midnight. It was one of the hardest things she ever had to do. She wrote in her diary, “Tough! Tears my heart out. Tears flow. Emotions out of control.”

During peacetime, the C-5s might have been grounded after a crash or perhaps had some restrictions put on them while investigators figured out what happened. But with the war, the aircraft kept flying.

By early October, enough coalition forces were in place to blunt an Iraqi attack into Saudi Arabia, but an offensive operation to dislodge Iraqi forces from Kuwait needed much more coalition equipment and personnel, so the stream of transport aircraft into Saudi Arabia continued unabated. The United Nations Security Council set a deadline for Iraq to withdraw: January 15, 1991.

Wells flew to Bahrain on January 15. Everyone suited up in their chemical warfare gear. The Iraqis didn’t budge. The deadline passed. Nothing happened.

The next morning, Wells was the most frightened she had been since she’d been activated. The war seemed inevitable, but when?

The next morning, Wells wrote, “THEY DID IT!”

Desert Shield turned into Desert Storm.

The day after Desert Storm started, Captain Christina Halli, a KC-135 tanker pilot at Minot Air Force Base, raised her hand to deploy. A couple of weeks later, she piloted a KC-135 tanker headed toward Iraq. Although it was night, she had the lights out on her aircraft. So did the other two dozen aircraft trailing nearby. The aircrews talked to no one, not even to each other.

Halli led the flight of four fighter aircraft assigned to her for refueling. Her tanker and the other aircraft in the strike package had departed from Incirlik Air Base in Turkey thirty minutes earlier. As Halli neared the Iraqi border, the boom operator extended the refueling boom. One at a time, Halli’s fighters slid in, maneuvering below and behind the larger aircraft, inching closer and closer until the operator plugged the boom into the fighter and fuel flowed.

Halli longed to fly one of the fighters. Her four years at the Air Force Academy had been studded with tales of combat bravery, especially stories about legendary fighter pilots like the maverick and mustachioed Robin Olds, whose “Wolf Pack” of F-4s shot down seven North Vietnamese MiG-21s in a single engagement. There were no legendary tanker pilots.

At Iraq’s northern border, Halli started a U-turn as she watched the fighters enter Iraq and split up for their individual targets. She and the other tankers then flew racetracks in the sky, waiting for the strikers to return in an hour or two. The orbits kept the defenseless support aircraft far from Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missile sites. But the enemy still shot at the larger aircraft, including once when a surface-to-air missile exploded above a tanker.

While they waited, Halli observed the light show in the distance. First, Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery lit up the sky as the fighters neared their destination; explosions from the ground followed as bombs and missiles pummeled the targets. The end of the light show signaled that it was time for her to prepare for the fighters’ return.

Halli maneuvered her tanker to a rendezvous point in the sky. The fighters shed their cloaks of darkness one at a time as they neared the tanker. In an intricate dance in the Syrian sky, thirsty aircraft gulped down fuel for their triumphant return to Incirlik.

After air forces demolished much of the Iraqi defenses, the ground war began on February 24. That day, Major Marie Rossi, the company commander of one of Victoria Calhoun’s sister units, appeared on CNN, saying, “This is the moment that everybody trains for—that I’ve trained for—so I feel ready to meet the challenge.”

On the second day of the ground war, Calhoun and her Chinook lifted elements of the 101st Airborne Division to Forward Operating Base Cobra, ninety-three miles inside Iraq. She never saw anyone shooting at her, but the missions inside Iraq allowed her to log twenty-two hours of combat time, just like her male counterparts. She came within ninety miles of Baghdad during one mission.

Offensive operations ended at 8:00 a.m. on February 28, but not the danger. Marie Rossi died the day after the cease-fire when her helicopter collided with an unlit radio tower during an early morning flight.

Thirty thousand women deployed during Desert Shield and Desert Storm. The combat exclusion law did not keep women from harm’s way: women logged combat time, thirteen died, twenty-one were wounded, and two became prisoners of war.

The war dispelled any remaining doubts about the capabilities of women under the pressure of combat. Their performance also shot down attacks on women that they were too weak, they would hurt unit cohesion, or they would get pregnant or claim family issues to avoid deploying. None of those predictions came true.

***

In the wake of Desert Storm, it was clear that women were part of the team. The U.S. military could no longer go to war without them. Americans also became more accepting of the idea that women could serve in hostile areas.

Thrilled by their performance and the public’s newfound acceptance, women aviators thought perhaps the archaic 1948 law that prohibited women from flying in combat would finally be repealed. The timing was perfect: within a few days of the war’s end, the House Armed Services Committee began hearings on the 1992 defense budget. It would be easy to slip a provision into the budget authorization bill that changed the law, and representatives Pat Schroeder and Beverly Byron did just that.

Carolyn Becraft, a former Army officer and advocate for women in combat, was shocked and thrilled when the defense authorization act, including the amendments to repeal, passed out of the committee with a 100 percent vote. On May 22, 1991, Becraft was even more amazed when the full House voted to repeal the combat exclusion laws.

The House vote gobsmacked both the Department of Defense and anti-feminist Elaine Donnelly, who opposed all women in the military. Donnelly and her supporters regrouped, and their hard lobbying against women in combat roles quickly made a dent. Senator John McCain, who had originally supported repealing the law, wobbled.

Becraft felt the momentum slipping away. She called Rosemary Mariner, one of the Navy’s first pilots. Less than a year earlier, Mariner had broken a barrier when she became the Navy’s first woman to command an aviation squadron, VAQ-34. Mariner hadn’t made it into Desert Storm, but she had trained male pilots who had.

Becraft told Mariner, “This is what you gotta do. This is important for you aviators. You can’t have one fifty-year-old Army dietician fighting for you. You gotta do it.”

“It” was a letter writing campaign. Becraft sent Mariner a list of members on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees and told them that Women Military Aviators members needed to write to all the lawmakers. “You need to say these laws restrict me from what I can do.”

But lobbying from the opposition had shifted the momentum. All four service chiefs testified at Senate hearings on the House bill that they opposed women flying combat aircraft or serving on ships other than hospital ships.

Senators William Roth and Edwards Kennedy weren’t ready to give up. The Senate would be debating the 1992 National Defense Authorization Act on July 25, and the two senators co-sponsored an amendment to that bill. The amendment did not have to go through committee; it would be voted on by the full Senate. But passage was uncertain.

Then the opposition made an unforced error. On July 18, the Washington Times published an article by reporter Suzanne Fields, who had recently flown in the back seat of an Air Force F-15 fighter airplane at Langley Air Force Base. Her takeaway was that male pilots were right to be skeptical that women could deal with the physical demands of flying a fighter.

Heather Wilson, a 1982 Air Force Academy graduate, Rhodes Scholar, future congresswoman, and future secretary of the Air Force, was steaming after she read the article. Wilson had left the Air Force after deciding the service was not a viable career path, given the restrictions put on her. By 1991, she was involved with politics and, with the Senate hearings only a week away, she sent word to the WMA membership: “Activate your Rolodexes!”

Carolyn Becraft called Rosemary Mariner with a similar plea: “Get your women and come to Washington.”

The fight was on.

From “The Fly Girls Revolt” by Eileen A. Bjorkman. Copyright © 2023 and reprinted by permission of the author and Knox Press.

Eileen A. Bjorkman, author of The Fly Girls Revolt, is a writer, pilot, aeronautical engineer, and retired Air Force colonel. As the sixth woman to graduate from the Air Force Test Pilot School, she is widely recognized as an Air Force trailblazer. She was a flight test engineer during her Air Force career, flying more than 700 hours in twenty-five different types of military aircraft, including fighters such as the F-4 and F-16. She retired from the Air Force in 2010 as a colonel after thirty years of active-duty service. She is also a civilian pilot with more than 2,000 hours of pilot time. She is currently the Executive Director at the Air Force Test Center, Edwards Air Force Base, California and is the first woman to hold that position.

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Military retirees normally receive a generous pension, but the problem for their survivors is that retired pay ends when the retiree dies. At the time of retirement, retirees can enroll in SBP and pay 6.5% of their retired pay, so that when they die, their surviving spouse would receive an SBP annuity equal to 55% of the retiree’s pay. Based on the latest Department of Defense statistics, 68% of military retirees with families have opted into SBP.

Challenges and Opportunities

The challenge of SBP is that if the spouse dies first, the total amount paid in is forfeited, which is one reason almost one-third of those eligible for SBP have declined it. Another reason that some veterans declined SBP is because of the “widow’s tax.” If a veteran dies of a service-connected illness, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will pay their spouse Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC), which is a tax-free benefit usually equal to $1,563 per month.

Previously, there was an SBP-DIC offset, known as the “widow’s tax,” in which a spouse’s SBP annuity was reduced by the amount of the DIC payment. Congress phased out the widow’s tax over the past three years, making SBP more valuable. Because of this, the 2023 SBP Open Season provides a unique opportunity for military retirees to revisit their SBP decision, which would otherwise be irrevocable.

If retirees would now like to enroll, they can “buy in” to SBP. To do so, they must pay all previous payments that they have missed since they retired, plus interest, and start paying the 6.5% premium from their retired pay going forward, until they have paid in for a full 30 years. At the retiree’s request, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) will calculate the cost of enrolling in SBP, and the retiree can then decide whether to enroll. If they do enroll, they must pay the back premiums either in a lump sum or in installments over 12 months – plus installment interest. Unlike regular SBP premiums that do reduce taxable retired pay, the payment of back premiums does not reduce the retiree’s taxable income.

The back payments required to “buy in” can be significant, but so can the benefits for the retiree’s family. For example, a Lieutenant Colonel who retired over 30 years ago has retired pay of approximately $6,200 per month, which will end when he dies because he did not enroll in SBP. He requested his buy-in letter from DFAS, which specified that to make up for the premiums that he would have been paying every month for the past 30 years plus interest, he would need to pay $180,000. That is a huge sum, but by buying in to SBP, his widow will receive about $3,400 each month. If his widow outlives him by just 52 months, she will have received more than the $180,000 buy-in cost. The amount of the widow’s annuity should keep pace with inflation because retired pay and the corresponding SBP annuity will increase with annual COLA increases, with no additional contributions from the retiree.

Military retirees who enrolled in SBP at retirement have a one-time chance during open season to permanently discontinue SPB premiums. If they discontinue SBP, they will not receive any refund of funds already paid into SBP and their family will not receive any annuity when they die. In most cases, they will have to get the concurrence of their spouse or other beneficiaries to disenroll.

Approaching Enrollment

Obviously, enrolling or disenrolling from SBP is a significant financial decision that retirees and their families need to make carefully. The cost of the “buy in” enrollment may not be as high as the $180,000 example, especially if someone retired more recently. Anyone who has had financial, health or family circumstances that have changed since they retired should carefully examine this unique opportunity. To take the first step toward considering enrollment, military retirees should go to the special DFAS page where they can complete a letter of intent to enroll. DFAS will then reply with exactly what the “buy in” to SBP would cost. Retirees should consult with qualified financial professionals who understand military benefits and can carefully consider what is in their family’s best interests in the context of a comprehensive financial plan.

Michael Meese is a retired Army Brigadier General and is President of the American Armed Forces Mutual Aid Association (AAFMAA).

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There were things that I expected to miss when my husband deployed. His laugh, his smell, sleeping next to him in bed. His him. And then there were things that snuck up on me. I missed being a parent with him. Not all the crappy parts—the disciplining, the nose wiping, the puke cleaning, and the lunch packing. Although I missed those too. But I missed the funny parts. The moments when you look at someone watching your child and they are just as amazed, amused, baffled, and delighted with them as you are.

I missed laughing with my husband as our daughters grew into their personalities. I missed him being a part of those stories, and so I’ve written down some of them.

Living With Wolves

She stands there, hip cocked to the side, right foot slightly forward and tilted out, unblinking as she stares me in the eye and slowly, deliberately, one corner at a time, opens the candy bar.

And I am sad, because now, my 5-year-old will have to fend for herself, living with the wolves.

We are caught in a weird state of in-between. My husband is gone but not yet deployed. He spends his days training at Fort Stewart, Georgia, and his nights eating meals, real meals, talking to real people who long ago graduated kindergarten.

My days are spent with school drop-offs, sock pickups, and trying to exhaust the endless energy of a three-year-old. My nights are spent scheduling the exact minute I need to put water on to boil. In my new job, I make phone calls to college students throughout the evening. Spaghetti noodles with Ragu mean a level of project planning no military mission could compare with.

This is my first job after finishing my degree. Accepting the offer made me feel like a professional, grown-up woman, career-minded and worldly. As I sit, balancing my laptop on my lap, noodles and red sauce drying on my Walmart tank top, watching my child eat her last meal, one chocolate square at a time, licking each finger, I reconsider all my life choices.

I cannot scream, cannot yell, cannot send her to her room forever, or take away everything she has ever loved. Because, above the sound of rage rushing with the blood into my ears, I hear the small voice of a hesitant mom asking for help as she tries to change her life.

“We are in this together. As long as you are trying, I will try right along with you,” I assure, speaking to her, to myself, and even to the small, chocolate-covered monster standing in front of me. “We are in this together,” I say again, regaining a sense of purpose.

And in that moment, that wonderful moment of knowing that things will get better, and we will be OK, and my daughter will be able to stay with me and live a wonderful childhood, she catches my eye. I see the baby she had been and the woman she will become. She sees me love her.

She stands there, smiling, proud of herself, then she crumples the candy bar wrapper into a small, tidy ball, takes this ball, backs up, and without breaking eye contact, tosses it behind the TV stand. She dusts off her hands and walks away.

As she leaves, I feel sorry for the wolves.

Morning Madness

My youngest insists on dressing herself.

And why not? She is three, after all, and doesn’t know her colors, can’t properly zip or button, and takes four hours to pick out a pair of socks that don’t match. But, this is what we are doing now.

I remember the first day of the school year. It arrived with lunches packed and ready, shoes lined up by the door, healthy breakfasts served around the table after singing my daughters awake. Little mice rushing in after me to dress them.

But we are now three weeks in. Lunches are mashed into ziplock bags with one hand while I chug coffee with the other. Shoes are under the bed, out in the yard, and hidden in the cereal cabinet. Breakfast is a crumbling Poptart and my singing has become louder. Actually, it sounds a lot like yelling. The mice have run away in fear, and this one is dressing herself.

On top of this morning madness, this is also the time my husband FaceTimes the girls. He is four months into a deployment, and they look forward to hearing his voice and seeing his face.

My youngest hears my phone ringing from her room and rushes out, wearing nothing but underwear and one of my socks. “Daddy, guess what? I am dressing myself!”

She yells about her day, her new friend, the spaghetti we had for dinner, and her daddy nods along, pretending to keep up. He breaks in long enough to tell her to go get dressed. I take the phone and thank his two-inch face.

As I hang up, I check the clock and see that time is running out. I stand in the hall, knock and offer my help, pleading to just let me pick a shirt, push a leg into her pants, anything to move this process along. She emerges as my pleas edge closer to demands. She has dressed herself.

We arrive at school and enter a classroom filled with the alphabet; the numbers one to 10; animals, real and make believe, roaming the magic story rug; and the kind Ms. Judy. Ms. Judy who sees the best in all the kids and, maybe more importantly, in all the parents.

Ms. Judy smiles as we walk in and discreetly waves me over. “I love having her in my class; she is just so sweet and cute. But did you notice her pants are on backward? I think her shirt is on inside out?”

My gaze falls on the beautiful mess that is my youngest child. “Yes, I know. She dressed herself.”

Birthday Party

Before I was a mom, I didn’t know an invitation to a 5-year-old’s birthday party could cause so much stress.

The sparkly little piece of paper sat there taunting us. “Come and Celebrate,” exclaimed the mermaid, riding a unicorn, holding a rainbow, and promising a magical day of fun.

It was not so much a whine but a plea I heard spill out: “But I won’t know anyone. They won’t be nice to me. I don’t want to go, and my hair looks stupid.”

Reassurances were given automatically. This is a great way to meet people and make friends, it’s a party, it will be fun, and everyone will be nice. Your hair is so pretty!

We were going. It was settled.

The big day arrives. Outfits are picked out, replaced, mixed together, cried over, and finally settled on. A gift is purchased, something soft and colorful with glitter and stickers. My daughters, 5 and 3, hope for vanilla cake while I root for chocolate cupcakes with sprinkles. My husband, the girls’ daddy, deployed to Kuwait, thinks it will be Mississippi Mud Pie with real worms, which makes us all laugh over FaceTime.

As we drive up to the birthday girl’s house—obvious by the five pink balloons on the mailbox—the pleas start back up. “My stomach really hurts. These shoes are pinching my toes. We could go home and eat candy bars instead. What if they don’t like me?” exclaims an anxious voice.

But it is too late. We have been spotted. A tumbling mass of tutus, princess dresses, and fairy wings race toward the car to usher us in. The party is a hit: games, three sprinklers, gift bags, a bowl of pretzels covered in white chocolate and labeled “Fairy Wands” in bright letters.

My girls disappear only to pop back up soaking wet, laughing, and covered in frosting.

I stand with my hip propped against a tree, running my hands through my hair. Another mom makes her way toward me and I drop my hands as she asks to share my shade. We smile and nod at each other as kids run by. My voice is hesitant as we start to talk. “Belle is my favorite princess. She likes to read books. Want to go with me to get a cupcake?” And finally, “Do you want to be my friend?”

Hours later, cake eaten, presents opened, best friend bracelets made and exchanged, exhausted but happy words fill the car as we head home. “That was so fun. I’m glad we came. Everyone was nice, and I made a new friend!”

“See, Mommy, I told you there was nothing to worry about. Parties are always fun. I knew you would make friends, and you have the prettiest hair,” my daughter replies with a huge smile on her face.

Andrea Renee Sandoval Rathbun is a disabled combat veteran and an active-duty military spouse. She resides outside of Fort Polk, Louisiana, by way of Albuquerque, New Mexico. She has two daughters who are full of stories and a husband with a gift for listening. She sometimes gets it wrong but always finds a way to write.

An op-ed from three House Democrats that ran in Military Times claims that the Limit, Save, Grow Act would slash $30 billion from veterans spending. It seems their math came from applying the rough percentage of the budget cuts the GOP believes is fiscally responsible – lopping about 22% off a bloated federal budget proposed by the Biden administration – and they are claiming that means the GOP is pushing to cut 22% of funding to veterans.

Republicans believe there’s plenty of overspending in the budget, but have vowed to keep defense and veterans spending adequately funded. Regardless of our veteran status – one of us is a veteran and one of us is not – our commitment to the men and women who have served will never waver.

Our Democratic counterparts are misrepresenting that, fear-mongering to make up for their lack of viable solutions to our soaring national debt. By outrageously accusing House Republicans of cutting funding for veterans, they have proven they are willing to play dangerous political games at the risk of a U.S. default on our debts.

The VA’s budget has increased from $50 billion in 2002 to more than $300 billion in 2023. That’s 500 percent over the past two decades. This suggests the problem is not one of funding but rather one of administration. The GOP has always prioritized veterans in budget negotiations – but this administration, especially the VA Secretary, seems to be laser-focused on the bureaucracy rather than the veterans it serves. This needs to change.

Instead of debating how much funding the VA gets, we need to discuss how the VA is spending its funding and whether or not those funds are actually helping veterans.

House Republicans passed a debt ceiling solution that puts spending at the FY22 level, which both President Biden and then-Speaker Pelosi signed off on, that was in place just four months ago – all while protecting the VA. Those who are spreading lies about Republicans’ solution now are the same people who claimed that inflation would be transitory, there is no crisis at our southern border, their botched Afghanistan withdrawal was a success, and China’s invasion of our airspace was just a weather balloon.

Veterans are not political pawns, and under our Republican leadership, they never will be. Their healthcare will never be compromised, and if anything, we will work to improve its delivery by expanding access to it. Veterans’ earned benefits will never be scrutinized – if anything, we will work to modernize the systems and processes by which they obtain them. House Republicans are building a modern VA that works for today’s veteran community, not defunding it. We hope Democrats and the VA Secretary will join us in that effort.

It’s time for Joe Biden to put his money where his mouth is and negotiate with Speaker McCarthy in good faith. No more lies and political games. The success of our country now and for generations to come depends on it. Republicans have always prioritized veterans in their budget negotiations, and this negotiation is no different, as long as President Biden holds up his end of the deal.

Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., is a Marine Corps veteran and serves as the Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., serves as the Majority Whip in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The genesis of an amphibious lift shortfall is the Corps’ abandonment of its long-standing requirement for a larger fleet of 38 ships. This requirement, formalized in a 2009 agreement between the secretary of the Navy, the Marine commandant and the chief of Naval operations, led to a decadelong reversal in declining numbers of amphibious ships.

That positive trend changed with the commandant’s 2019 guidance, in which he stated that the primary rationale for 38, the ability to support a two-brigade landing, was no longer valid.

Setting the stage for the Corps’ future operating concept, Force Design 2030, the commandant argued that “different approaches are required” in the face of modern threats to “massed naval armadas.”

Instead, the Corps would focus on smaller units dispersed across the littorals.

Dispersion may well be warranted in light of projected threats, but what the commandant overlooked was that abandoning one requirement without articulating a new one meant the Navy would simply shift funding. In short, the Corps touted its “divest to invest” approach, the Navy only heard “divest.”

As the retirement of older ships and the delay of new ones became reality, Marine leadership struggled to stem the bleeding.

It articulated a new minimum of 31 ships in 2022, but unlike the previous requirement, the new number offered no operational logic beyond past Department of the Navy studies, which actually allowed as few as 28 ships.

Congress supported the Marines’ new number nevertheless, and inserted language in the 2023 National Defense ­Authorization Act to require the Navy to maintain a fleet of 31.

At office of the secretary of defense’s (OSD) direction, the Navy plans to pause its successful dock landing platform (LPD-17 Flight II) shipbuilding program and accelerate the decommissioning of its dock landing ships (LSD-41/49) early. If the dock landing platform ship line is not continued, the amphibious fleet eventually will decline to 25 ships when the last of the dock landing ships are gone.

Marine leadership is now fixated on maintaining 31 ships. A Marine official recently commented that the size of the Navy’s amphibious fleet left the Corps ­unable to respond to the earthquake in Turkey. He used the occasion to reinforce the requirement: “31 is the number.”

The problem is, the Navy currently has 31 amphibious ships. A listener would be forgiven for some confusion: A 31-ship fleet is inadequate, but a 31-ship fleet is what the Corps must have?

As the crisis in Sudan demonstrates, 31 ships are not nearly enough. A fleet that small does not support the Corps’ needs, including deployments of sufficient Marine expeditionary units. These ­forward-deployed units provide flexible forces for a variety of routine operations like engagement with allies and partners and presence in troubled areas. The ­Marines, vehicles, aircraft and other equipment are uniquely suited to respond to earthquakes, typhoons, noncombatant evacuations and other contingencies. But they can do this only if they have the ships from which to operate.

In the past, Marine expeditionary units and the Navy amphibious ready group ships upon which they embark deployed in overlapping cycles, ensuring continuous presence in key areas. With 31 ships, this presence is routinely “gapped,” meaning a deployed MEU/ARG returns home months before the next one sails.

The absence of a MEU/ARG anywhere near Sudan is a foreseeable consequence of an inadequate fleet. The MEU/ARG closest to Sudan remains in predeployment training, their predecessors having returned to the U.S. months ago.

Deploying ships to meet a small-scale contingency, or to reinforce units responding to a larger one, is often impossible with a fleet this small. A robust amphibious fleet is essential for crisis response, and the inability to respond in Sudan and Turkey are only the latest examples. When asked to accelerate a MEU/ARG deployment as the war in Ukraine broke out in 2022, the ships could not deploy early, Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl told the Senate Armed Services seapower subcommittee.

Fewer ships stress the remaining fleet. Ships require extended maintenance periods between deployments.

However, as maintenance begins, additional problems, often corrosion-related, are discovered, and decisions are required whether to extend maintenance or to ­defer the repairs. Amphibious ships, whose well decks literally invite the sea inside the ship’s hull, are especially susceptible.

Record-low ship readiness rates are an indicator of an overstretched fleet more than any other contributing factor. According to the commandant, fewer than one-third of the Navy’s amphibious ships are ready to deploy, Defense One reported.

The commandant is mounting a strong effort to reverse these developments, but rebuilding the fleet will require a long-term, sustained effort, and a true partnership with the Navy, OSD and Congress to prioritize the resources toward this critical national requirement. ■

Maj. Gen. Christopher Owens (retired) is a career Marine Corps officer, aviator, educator and operational planner. From 2015–2017, he served as the chief of Naval operations’ director of expeditionary warfare (OPNAV N95).

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In 2019, federal lab regulators ordered the prestigious U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, or USAMRIID, to halt all work with dangerous pathogens, such as Ebola and anthrax, which can pose a severe threat to public health and safety.

Army officials had assured the public there was no safety threat and indicated that no pathogens had leaked outside the laboratory after flooding in 2018. But in a new book released April 25, investigative reporter Alison Young reveals there were repeated and egregious safety breaches and government oversight failures at Fort Detrick, Maryland, that preceded the 2019 shutdown. This article is adapted from “Pandora’s Gamble: Lab Leaks, Pandemics, and a World at Risk.”

Unsterilized laboratory wastewater from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland, spewed out the top of a rusty 50,000-gallon outdoor holding tank, the pressure catapulting it over the short concrete wall that was supposed to contain hazardous spills.

It was May 25, 2018, the Friday morning before Memorial Day weekend, and the tank holding waste from labs working with Ebola, anthrax, and other lethal pathogens had become overpressurized, forcing the liquid out a vent pipe.

An estimated 2,000-3,000 gallons streamed into a grassy area a few feet from an open storm drain that dumps into Carroll Creek — a centerpiece of downtown Frederick, Maryland, a city of about 80,000 an hour’s drive from the nation’s capital.

But as the waste sprayed for as long as three hours, records show, none of the plant’s workers apparently noticed the tank had burst a pipe. This was despite the facility being under scrutiny from federal lab regulators following catastrophic flooding and an escalating series of safety failures that had been playing out for more than a week.

***

Before the outdoor tank failed, there had already been breaches of other lab waste storage tanks inside the sterilization plant.

On May 17, 2018, in the wake of devastating storms, workers at Fort Detrick discovered that the plant’s basement was filling with water that would reach 4 to 5 feet deep. Some of it was rainwater seeping in from outdoors. But a lot was fluid leaking from the basement’s long-deteriorating tanks that held thousands of gallons of unsterilized lab wastewater.

As basement sump pumps forced floodwater into these tanks, the influx disgorged lab waste through cracks along the tops of the tanks, sending it streaming back toward the floor.

The steam sterilization plant, referred to as “the SSP,” was built in 1953. It was designed to essentially cook the wastewater that flowed into it from Fort Detrick’s biological laboratories, ensuring that all deadly pathogens were killed before the water was released from the base into the Monocacy River.

The research institute’s safety protocols called for a two-step kill process for lab wastewater. Before it was sent down drains into Fort Detrick’s dedicated laboratory sewer system for heat treatment at the plant, lab workers were supposed to pretreat potentially infectious liquids with bleach or other chemicals.

But chemical disinfection can be tricky. To be effective, it requires workers to use the right kind of disinfectant at the right concentration and, importantly, to ensure that the disinfectant remains in contact with the microbes long enough to kill them.

Any living organisms left behind could multiply.

Despite the plant’s importance to protecting public health, by May 2018 it had become a rusting, leaking, temperamental hulk.

It was 65 years old and was supposed to have been torn down already. But a replacement plant completed at a cost to taxpayers of more than $30 million had suffered a “catastrophic failure” in 2016 and couldn’t be repaired, records show.

So even though the sterilization plant was in significant disrepair, the institute still used it, with a much smaller amount of waste coming from a U.S. Department of Agriculture lab that worked with weeds and plant diseases.

On a typical day in 2018, state records show, these facilities sent about 30,000 gallons of laboratory wastewater into the plant, which had five 50,000-gallon storage tanks in its basement, plus an additional nine interconnected 50,000-gallon storage tanks outside.

Fort Detrick officials had been aware for some time that the tops of the aging basement storage tanks had multiple leaks caused over the years by chlorine gases accumulating on the surface of the wastewater, according to a state investigation report of the incident and the Army garrison’s responses to questions.

It was so much of an issue that the garrison’s Directorate of Public Works employees, who operated the plant, had to make sure the tanks didn’t ever fill up completely or else the potentially infectious water would spill out.

Their workaround was to try to limit the amount of waste in each basement tank to about half capacity. But the flooding in May 2018 made that impossible because the sump pumps were sending so much water into the sterilization system.

Lab inspectors from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had apparently failed to recognize the plant was in such disrepair. The CDC offered no explanation of how the problems were missed, but after the incident it created a new policy and task force for overseeing labs’ wastewater decontamination systems.

Samuel Edwin, director of the CDC’s select agent regulatory program, did not grant an interview. Two years before the plant flooded and failed, the CDC had hired Edwin from USAMRIID, where he had spent eight years as the biological surety officer and responsible official in charge of making sure USAMRIID’s labs complied with federal regulations.

Edwin, in an emailed statement, said he wasn’t aware of any corrosion or leak issues while he worked at USAMRIID.

*** photos got the base’s attention.nUSAMRIID’s leadership.ors from the CDC inspected the plant annually, Edwin said, adding: “FSAP did not observe, and I did not report, any issues with the SSP during this time.”n vz

Four days after the plant flooded, CDC inspectors arrived at Fort Detrick and spent May 21 and 22, 2018, inspecting the facility. As the CDC inspectors left Fort Detrick, they allowed USAMRIID to resume some research activities.

The long Memorial Day weekend was coming up, and the weather forecast showed more rain headed toward Frederick. To protect the plant against further flooding, a decision was made to pump the water inside the basement’s waste storage tanks into the auxiliary tanks outdoors. The hope was to free up an additional 80,000 gallons of capacity, Fort Detrick said in response to questions.

Things didn’t go as planned.

Somewhere along the way, an automatic shut-off feature designed to keep the outdoor tanks from overfilling was deactivated, Fort Detrick officials later said in response to questions.

***

It was an employee of the National Cancer Institute, which has a research building at Fort Detrick near the plant, who spotted wastewater spewing from an outdoor wastewater tank, over the containment wall, and into a grassy area with an open storm drain inlet that sends runoff into Carroll Creek, according to records and Fort Detrick’s responses to questions. The person called it in to the “trouble desk” of the garrison’s Directorate of Public Works on that Friday morning, May 25.

But nobody checked on the tank until noon, Fort Detrick said. The dispatched workers reported back that they didn’t see any leaking fluid. They checked the tanks again at 2 p.m. and still saw nothing. So nothing was done.

If not for the persistence of the unidentified National Cancer Institute employee, the leak would have been ignored.

On the Wednesday after the holiday, that person contacted the Fort Detrick safety manager. They wanted to follow up on their previous report — and this time they provided photos proving the tank had been spraying wastewater nearly a week earlier.

The photos got the base’s attention.

The Fort Detrick Command was immediately notified. So was USAMRIID’s leadership.

But another day passed before anyone alerted state and local authorities.

***

A significant question remained: What was in the lab wastewater that spewed out of the tank?

If viable organisms like anthrax bacteria had been sent into public waterways, the consequences could be disastrous for USAMRIID, Fort Detrick — and the CDC regulators who allowed them to keep operating despite the jury-rigged sterilization plant.

The risk that people or animals would become infected was probably low, with any organisms likely reduced below infectious levels as the waste became diluted by the floodwaters still surging through the area’s streams and rivers. But public backlash and headlines were certainties.

So, what was in the wastewater?

Nobody seemed to be looking very hard to find out.

USAMRIID and Fort Detrick officials offered only generalized assurances that their tests hadn’t detected any pathogens. But they would not release copies of testing reports.

Rather than serve as watchdogs in the public interest, all levels of government seemed to largely defer to USAMRIID and its expertise — despite the organization’s egregious safety breach and potential self-interest in damage control.

In the weeks before the tank started spewing wastewater, USAMRIID had been experimenting with 16 organisms, and lab officials said they had tested the concrete pad and the ground adjacent to the tanks and hadn’t detected any of them. Anthrax was the organism of greatest concern because of its ability to persist in the environment, something many pathogens can’t do for very long.

Other organisms that were possibly in the wastewater were Ebola virus, Lassa fever virus, Junín virus, Marburg virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, eastern equine encephalitis virus, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, Nipah virus, Burkholderia pseudomallei, Burkholderia mallei, Francisella tularensis, western equine encephalitis virus, Dobrava-Belgrade virus, Seoul virus, and Chikungunya virus.

But all test results were negative, USAMRIID officials said.

How meaningful was USAMRIID’s testing?

USAMRIID and Fort Detrick officials didn’t do any environmental tests until May 31 and June 1 — about a week after the tank overflowed. By then, it had rained, which, in response to questions, USAMRIID acknowledged would have had a “dilutional effect” if any pathogens had been present.

Did USAMRIID test two samples or 20 samples or 200 samples? What were the detection limits of the testing methods used? How might the rain — or wind or sunlight — have affected the ability of the tests to detect organisms a week after their release?

USAMRIID and Fort Detrick officials would not release copies of the testing reports. For months, they wouldn’t even say how many samples were tested.

“The test plan was reviewed and approved by the CDC,” USAMRIID said in a written statement.

CDC lab regulators said USAMRIID developed and conducted its own testing.

“USAMRIID test results indicated the public health risk associated with any potential release was negligible; however, you would need to contact USAMRIID for full information about the testing methods and results,” the CDC said.

Eventually, after months of requests, USAMRIID said its testing to determine whether pathogens had escaped involved just five swab samples collected from “various locations” at the plant.

As further evidence that no deadly microbes had escaped, records show that Army officials noted to state and local officials — without providing reports or details — that they had done additional validation testing inside USAMRIID’s laboratories that showed lab drains contained sufficient disinfectant to kill anything poured down them. The implication was that there was no risk from the plant’s unsterilized wastewater and that the heat-treating process was nice, but not necessary.

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that these drain tests weren’t performed under real-life conditions. Instead, the Army acknowledged, they were done in empty labs where no work had been occurring and no animals were present.

Of perhaps greater concern: The drain tests were performed solely in response to the regulatory and public relations crisis from the lab leak in May 2018. It was the only time — from January 2015 through at least March 2022 — that USAMRIID had checked the adequacy of the disinfectant in its drains, the Army’s FOIA response said.

Excerpted from “Pandora’s Gamble” by Alison Young (Copyright 2023). Used with permission from Center Street, a division of Hachette Book Group Inc.

Alison Young is an investigative reporter in Washington, D.C., and serves as the Curtis B. Hurley Chair in Public Affairs Reporting for the University of Missouri School of Journalism. During 2009-19, she was a reporter and member of USA Today’s national investigative team. She has reported on laboratory accidents for 15 years for news organizations that include USA Today, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and ProPublica.

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On April 11, the Biden Administration met with Balkan leaders to pledge support for their efforts to shut down Russian news sites disseminating disinformation. U.S. support could go a long way toward helping Balkan countries in their attempts to remain autonomous from Russia, which uses disinformation to try to undermine democratic governments in the post-Soviet space.

For the past three years, intelligence analysts and disinformation researchers at my company have been closely following the tactics and strategies of Russian disinformation operations. Here are some suggestions that the U.S. could take that would make even more of an impact in countering the anti-Ukraine disinformation being disseminated by Russia.

The State Department’s suggestions to block websites are a start, but will likely only impact the low-hanging fruit and activities of unsophisticated actors. Countries should not only be targeting the IP addresses and domain names of sites spreading falsehoods, but also the companies that host and support those web addresses. Other State Department-recommended efforts – such as labeling foreign government accounts, and enacting regulations that require transparency around foreign ownership of media properties – will take time to implement. There are some other steps that the U.S. could take in order to help counter the effects of Russian disinformation in the Balkans.

We know that Russia routinely uses bots – computers that pose as humans for disinformation campaigns – to exaggerate the “impact” of its messaging. A lot of Russian disinformation is actually remarkably crude and unconvincing for increasingly skeptical internet audiences, so they want to create the illusion of impact. In today’s hyper-networked media environment, having a “successful” comms strategy is an important component of great power status.

Therefore, it would be worthwhile to increase our capacity to detect bots and trolls by investing in the development of resources, personnel and software that can find the bots. Fact-checkers can use AI-based tools and large language models to recognize disinformation, however the lack of automation and the increasing sophistication of Generative AI-created disinformation makes it challenging to keep up.

Current U.S. resources are insufficient to be competitive in the fight against disinformation. Meanwhile, Russia has invested heavily in state-aligned international broadcasters, RT (Russia Today), RT Balkan and Sputnik News, purveyors of disinformation, as well as social media manipulation and hacking. Although the U.S. created the Global Engagement Center dedicated to fighting disinformation in 2016, countering disinformation has not been a budgetary priority.

Paid ‘influencers’

For the past few years, the Kremlin has paid “influencers” and popular bloggers to spread propaganda and disinformation. Although major social media platforms restricted many official Russian government accounts, these so-called “influencers” are still operational. Social media accounts owned by the Russian government, lawmakers, affiliated media, and influencers should be deleted to block this propaganda channel.

Another important policy the U.S. should consider pursuing, is to sanction fake news outlets and pro-Russian disinformation actors who are spreading propaganda under the guise of journalism. The EU has sanctioned RT and Sputnik News, but U.S. sanctions would hold even more sway. Sanctions are one of the most powerful tools the U.S. has in fighting disinformation.

The U.S. and European governments should urge all Western allies and partners, especially eastern European countries like Georgia and Moldova, to take similar steps as those listed above.

It’s important to understand that many of the disinformation narratives pertaining to Ukraine that are circulating in the U.S. don’t originate from Russia, but come from far-right actors living in the U.S. who are anti-Biden and anti-Ukraine. Thus, U.S. officials need to recognize that pro-Russian disinformation is not purely a foreign policy issue, but also a domestic one for them.

With its global influence and resources, the U.S. has the capability to make a significant difference in the battle against Russian disinformation and establish a model for other world leaders to follow. These recommendations would go a long way toward leveling the disinformation playing field.

Noam Schwartz is CEO and co-founder of ActiveFence, a global trust and safety company.

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This article is an Op-Ed and the opinions expressed are those of the author. If you would like to respond, or have an editorial of your own you would like to submit, please email C4ISRNET and Federal Times Senior Managing Editor Cary O’Reilly.

In January, the United States and Japan agreed to keep the U.S. 3rd Marine Division in Okinawa (instead of Guam) and to replace it with the new 12th Marine Littoral Regiment in 2025. The two countries also agreed to share ammunition storage at Kadena Air Base.

In February, the United States and the Philippines agreed to designate four new sites as part of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, or EDCA, which provides access for U.S. forces.

In March, the United States agreed as part of the AUKUS security partnership to increased U.S. submarine port visits to Australia and to rotate up to four Virginia-class submarines by as early as 2027.

Also in March, the Pentagon’s budget request included $2.3 billion for military construction west of the international date line — a $400 million increase from the prior year.

So far so good. But overcoming a decade-long “say-do” gap on Indo-Pacific posture and keeping pace with a rapidly evolving Chinese military threat will require sustained urgency matched by robust investment.

Building on recent political momentum is critical. With Japan, we need ambitious defense diplomacy to secure new access for U.S. forces and to make shared use of bases, ports, airfields and other facilities the rule, not the exception. And after years of legal and political challenges, the U.S. and the Philippines need to make up for lost time and maximize the potential of EDCA sites through accelerated investment and expanded combined training and operations.

More posture dollars should be focused directly on achieving a more distributed and resilient posture. Most investment in the Indo-Pacific is dedicated to maintaining existing facilities or executing legacy posture initiatives, some of questionable relevance to the current or future threat. That investment is also geographically concentrated. West of the international date line, the Pentagon plans to spend 75% of fiscal 2024 military construction funds in Japan and Guam — up from 66% the previous year. Going forward, more investment is needed in the second island chain, Oceania and Southeast Asia.

Beyond politics and budgets, achieving a “transformative” effect on Indo-Pacific posture requires actually moving forces. The Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” was matched with two additional destroyers and fifth-generation fighters in Japan; an additional submarine and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery in Guam; and rotational littoral combat ships in Singapore, among other moves. The Biden administration needs to demonstrate similar follow-through, and there’s plenty of options to do so.

The Air Force has operated fifth-generation aircraft for nearly two decades, but it has no plan to permanently station its most advanced fighters in the Indo-Pacific. The Air Force has promised to maintain a continuous fighter presence at Kadena Air Base in Japan, including fifth-generation aircraft, as it withdraws and retires F-15C/D aircraft. Beyond that, it has offered no specifics. Basing F-35As at Misawa Air Base in Japan would be a strong next step.

The Multi-Domain Task Force is central to the Army’s contribution toward joint operations in the Indo-Pacific. But while it has based MDTFs in Washington state and Hawaii, the Army does not yet plan to station an MDTF west of the international date line. The Army chief of staff recently hinted this may change. The Biden administration should ensure it does, including by prioritizing access for an MDTF in defense diplomacy with Japan.

The Navy has long pledged to send its most advanced ships and aircraft to the Indo-Pacific. However, of the Navy’s 20 commissioned Virginia-class submarines — critical to the U.S. military’s advantage over China — the Navy has sent 14 to Atlantic ports and just six to Pacific ports. And none of the Navy’s most advanced attack boats are homeported west of the international date line. While keeping pace with Russia’s submarine threat is critical, the Biden administration should rebalance that laydown by stationing Virginia-class submarines in Guam and San Diego, California.

The Biden administration should also accelerate investment in the logistics network that is essential for credible deterrence and effective warfighting. Fuel storage and distribution is critical, especially with the planned closure of Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility. But the Pentagon is kicking the fuel can down the road. The Defense Logistics Agency plans to spend at least $360 million over the five-year Future Years Defense Program in projects for fuel facilities and storage west of the international date line. But it has requested no funding for those projects in next two fiscal years, and punted most projects to FY27 and FY28. Working with Congress, the Biden administration should accelerate these projects as able.

The weaknesses of U.S. force posture in the Indo-Pacific have contributed to the erosion of credible deterrence. But with sustained diplomatic urgency, robust investment and more advanced capabilities, a transformation of U.S. force posture can help restore and preserve credible deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.

Dustin Walker is a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute think tank. He was previously a professional staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee and an adviser to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

By writing this, we can help you explain the upside of life as a military child, when a well-meaning outsider asks you, “Isn’t being in uniform hard on your children?” We want to celebrate the good things that come from growing up within the military — despite multiple moves and the stress of parents being absent, and sometimes deployed — including the strength, independence and resilience we’ve seen grow in our own children.

And if you’re just starting your family, in the early years of your service, and wondering if the sacrifice of time away will hurt your kids, we’d like to share with you the gifts you are giving them: lifetime membership in a close-knit community that welcomes newcomers and makes them feel at home, in an era when many Americans don’t know their neighbors. It also nurtures in them a lifetime allegiance to something larger than themselves, and an up-close example from their parents of how to live their ideals.

Between the two of us, we have seven wonderful kids who have moved at least a dozen times, changed schools more than 30 times, and parted ways with too many friends to count. Yet the military lifestyle helped them grow into confident, accomplished young adults because of their experiences, not in spite of them.

Deployments were the most challenging, more for them than us. We had our mission to keep our focus.

For them, imagining what we were experiencing and “not knowing” often became a negative distraction. Collectively, the two of us spent roughly 2,000 nights apart from them — nights when we didn’t eat dinner with them, hear about their days or tuck them into bed.

We missed their soccer games, teacher conferences, sad and happy moments, proud accomplishments, as well as important milestones and events in their lives. We were absent for birthdays, special occasions, Mother’s and Father’s Days, holy days and holidays. Our kids laughed without us and cried without us. Some years they even grew up physically and emotionally — without us.

Yet they somehow found refuge with each other and the military community surrounding them. Unfortunately, the community outside the gates didn’t really understand what they were going through.

On a rare occasion when Paul picked his daughter Marissa up from school, her friends remarked, “we didn’t even think you had a dad. Why is he gone so much?”

Writing about these experiences isn’t always easy, because it evokes raw emotions and conjures up painful memories. Especially when it comes to our kids, and what they experienced, too. It is difficult to personally convey their courage and selfless sacrifice in the face of adversity to anyone outside of our own immediate families.

We don’t share this with you to elicit sympathy or pity. Quite the contrary — in a lot of ways our children — Marissa, Luke, Karl, Nick, Joey, Jack, and Sam — are better human beings as a result of the challenges they faced as military kids.

Yes, thousands of children of deployed troops are without their mother or father right now, but when military families move and start over, they have other military families to lean on for support — the kind of support system few Americans have in any part of the country. When someone asks, “why is your mom, or dad, gone so much?” we encourage you to tell them: defending our country, but don’t worry. We’ve got lots of extended family — our military community — keeping watch for us back home.

Paul Cucinotta and Kevin Schmiegel are retired Marine colonels who have 47 years of service between them. They previously led three national military and veteran nonprofits and recently co-founded a social impact company called ZeroMils.

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Given this stark reality, it is crucial that Congress block the Air Force’s budget-driven request to retire 32 of its F-22s, while also providing the resources necessary for tomorrow’s air superiority mission.

The Air Force’s fighter inventory stands at less than half of what it was in 1990. Does anyone think the world is any safer today? Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Chinese aggression in the Pacific, combined with Iran’s and North Korea’s aggressive nuclear ambitions, suggest otherwise.

These aircraft average nearly three decades in age. They were flown hard in nonstop combat deployments that began with 1991′s Operation Desert Storm and have never stopped. That has exacted an extreme toll on their physical condition. Old, small and worn is a recipe for disaster when facing a burgeoning set of global security demands — but that is an accurate description of today’s Air Force.

Focusing on Air Force fighters is important; while the Navy and Marine Corps have fighters, they largely exist to support organic functions like carrier battle group defense and Marine Air-Ground Task Force support. Even if these objectives are met, these fighter inventories are too small to meet large-scale combatant command requirements.

The same holds true for allied air forces; U.S. Air Force fighters stand alone in the ability to directly meet combatant command demands as job No. 1 in large volume.

Air Force leaders have long known these realities, and that is why they made plans in the 1980s and 1990s to replace F-15s, F-16s and A-10s with a new generation of fighters in the form of the F-22 and F-35. However, post-Cold War cuts, compounded by a subsequent focus on combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, saw these plans go by the wayside.

The requirement for 781 F-22s was cut numerous times, with 187 aircraft ultimately procured before production was canceled in 2009, representing less than half the stated military requirement. F-35s were supposed to be acquired in high volume — with Defense Secretary Robert Gates committing to the Air Force procuring 80 F-35s per year from 2015 through the 2020s, with the final Air Force F-35As procured in 2034.

That did not happen — with every annual request far below that figure. That is why the current fighter force is in a freefall, with aircraft retiring without new backfills (note the F-15s withdrawn from Kadena Air Force Base last year without a direct replacement).

Bottom line: The nation has assumed tremendous risk in its fighter modernization portfolio; the legacy fighter backstop is out of life while demand is surging.

That is why Congress must stop further erosion in the Air Force’s fighter inventory and block the request to retire 32 F-22s. Service leaders are arguing that the F-22s in question are early production examples that do not meet combat deployment standards. This is partially true, but even these versions can defeat any fourth-generation enemy fighter.

US Air Force warns of aging fighters, poor purchasing efforts

Regardless, even in their present form they are sufficient to meet training requirements. That is a crucial contribution, for absent that capacity, the more modern versions would have to pick up the training load, effectively decreasing the size of F-22 combat force. Not only would this increase fatigue, but it would reduce F-22 availability to combatant commands where they are in high demand; that is more than a squadron’s worth of the world’s most advanced air superiority aircraft. That is taking excessive risk given combatant commands’ demands far outstrip supply.

These circumstances reveal the Air Force’s precarious fiscal position. Service leaders openly acknowledge the issue is money. They are forced to cut the F-22 program due to insufficient funding to invest in both F-22 sustainment and the Next Generation Air Dominance effort — the eventual F-22 replacement. While there is no question that NGAD is crucial, the most optimistic forecasts suggest it will not be fielded until 2030. That is an aggressive target, and reality suggests it will slip.

Hope should not be confused for a viable set of combat capabilities in adequate numbers. The real answer demands resourcing the Air Force to retain and adequately fund its full F-22 inventory, while also providing adequate resources for NGAD.

Build rates for types in production, like the F-35, should also be boosted to fund current capacity gaps. Given that the Air Force has received less money than the Army and Navy for the past 31 years in a row, it is no wonder why its resources are strained. It is older and smaller than it’s ever been in its history.

This Air Force fighter resourcing decision portends massive implications for joint force operations. That this problem exists in the context of the war in Ukraine — a conflict where the inability to secure air superiority highlights the criticality of this mission in the starkest possible terms — makes it even more concerning.

Congress needs to do the right thing: Fund the Air Force sufficiently so it can secure air superiority today and tomorrow. If leaders think this expense is too great to bear, they need to consider the alternative. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley recently testified, “the only thing more expensive than fighting a war is losing a war.”

Douglas A. Birkey is the executive director for the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

On St. Patrick’s Day, my life was forever changed. At my place of work, a patient sexually assaulted me.

When it happened, I froze. He was an officer, and I was just a junior enlisted soldier. As is common with perpetrators of sexual violence, there was also trickery and deception involved that had me questioning what just happened.

Still, I reported the assault immediately to a supervisor, who then sternly told the patient “not to touch the medics.” I pushed it out of my mind and went back to work.

But afterwards, I skipped chow and went back to the barracks, just feeling really horrible and “off.”

I was off duty the next day, and when I went to lunch, one of my favorite NCOs, who happened to be a military policeman, came to sit with me. He called me “Doc.” I looked up to him both as a big brother and also because he was well over six feet tall. He immediately noticed that “off” feeling that I couldn’t seem to shake.

When he asked me what was going on, I told him that something weird happened to me at work. As I recounted the situation, his eyes widened as I described behavior that he clearly thought was wrong. And he also clearly thought that just having my supervisor give the harasser a verbal warning wasn’t enough.

Even as I sat there, still wondering if I had made too big a deal of the incident, I saw him, the patient who assaulted me, walk by in the chow hall.

“He doesn’t even live in this zone,” I thought, my heart racing. “Officers don’t live in this zone.”

My NCO agreed, and kept telling me, “Doc, that’s not normal.” And he encouraged me to tell my company commander, but I was scared.

Seeing that, he walked me over to see the company commander, his seasoned steady presence calming me down, and backing me up. He sat with me while I recounted to the commander all that had happened, and then he walked with me back to the barracks.

From then on, whenever I went anywhere, I had an NCO with me. If it wasn’t my tall NCO, it was someone I’ll call the “calm NCO” from the same military police section. Everywhere I went, I had my NCO guardians, carefully watching and protecting. I never walked alone, ate alone, or went anywhere alone.

The report of the incident went all the way up to our battalion commander, who had a stern talk with this young officer. Later, the battalion commander called me over after a briefing, and asked to talk to me in a crowded auditorium, with other troops in earshot. I stood at attention as he told me he had talked to the young officer, who had just felt so bad that “he scared me.” The battalion commander told me the young officer was even crying in his office, and the commander said he was sure it wouldn’t happen again.

I walked back to our zone with the tall NCO accompanying me — and towering over me — and told him what the battalion commander had said, adding, “I feel bad that I said anything.”

My tall NCO gave the calm NCO a knowing look, then told me firmly, “Doc, don’t feel bad.”

My tall NCO had seen this young officer after his meeting with the commander, talking to friends indignantly and making fun of me and my attempt to report his behavior. He wasn’t sorry. His tears were for show; he just didn’t want to be reprimanded.

After the assault, and despite the commander’s lecture, my harasser was frequently in my zone, even though he didn’t live there. It felt like I couldn’t escape him. At the gym, or the chow hall, he would just appear.

But my NCOs were always with me, at the gym, at breakfast, and at the smoke pit in the evening, cutting it up and calming me down. Or trying to. During this time, I began to have anxiety, insomnia, nightmares, and even suicidal ideations. I was sure that I was unsafe. This same thing and even much worse things were happening to many of the other junior enlisted females on our base. It was clear to me that I was not going to receive help from the chain of command until something much worse happened to me.

Thankfully, my NCO guardians kept safe, at least physically.

While I was overseas, I had no words for what happened to me. I didn’t ever say out loud “sexual assault.” I didn’t say “stalking.” I didn’t use the words victim or survivor. And I certainly didn’t recognize that I had the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. That’s when the body’s natural response to trauma, like hypervigilance, anxiety or nightmares, which normally subsides in a month or so, instead becomes habitual, and interferes with daily life. I had only heard of PTSD for war heroes, not for young girls too far from home.

All I knew was something unfair had happened to me.

I also knew that soldiers who asked for help for mental health issues stopped progressing in their careers, so if I sought help for my traumatic response to the assault and the stalking, I feared the same might happen to me. And I wasn’t going to let this abusive officer take all that I had worked so hard for away. He had taken enough.

So, I didn’t get any mental health services.

Ease the path to mental health care after military sexual trauma

As the weeks/months wore on, I told a female NCO about some of my nightmares and the way that I was feeling hunted and unsafe, she was the first to verbalize directly to me that something wasn’t right — my trauma response was interfering with my every waking, and sleeping, hour.

She helped me get home as fast as possible, on our unit’s first rotation out, when I was originally slated to in the last group to leave the country. I am not sure I would have made it home if I had been overseas much longer, as my mental health was deteriorating quickly.

There was no “Me Too” movement when I was assaulted. It was not something people talked about. It felt like it was my burden alone to carry. And no one in my chain of command would step in to help me.

I see now that though many things were handled poorly, I was not alone. I had a tall NCO, a calm NCO, and a female NCO that saved my life.

As we take time to focus on sexual assault awareness and prevention this month, it is easy to focus on all the horrible things that soldiers have done to their brothers and sisters in arms. I am part of an estimated 42% of female service members that have survived military sexual trauma.

But as a survivor, I don’t want us to lose sight of all the soldiers who do uphold our shared values. Though I was traumatized and wronged by soldiers, I was protected and consoled by them as well.

That is why I am writing this, to shine a light, and showcase the hope that can be found in times of seemingly unrelenting suffering. I want to illuminate the way that by stepping in when you see something wrong happening to those with less power or rank than you, you can change, or save someone’s life.

Without the care and protection of those NCO guardians, I believe I would have killed myself.

To all the NCOs who saved my life: Thank you.

I am married now, I have children, and I am an NCO that tries to slow down and notice soldiers more, because of the way you slowed down and noticed me in my sorrow. It didn’t take a movement or a spotlight for you to notice the road I was walking. And I never had to ask you to walk it with me.

You exemplify what it means to be the “Backbone of the Army.” Thank you for being unwavering, bold, and fearless. Thank you for being compassionate, gentle, and empathetic. Thank you for helping me to love serving in the Army, despite its flaws, for almost a decade. Thank you for your selfless service to those who serve beside you.

Thank you for all that you do.

Very Respectfully,

Your Soldier

Sgt. C is an Army sergeant who was granted a pseudonym to protect them from potential harm to their career.

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Suggestions that there is no need for a sea-based battle staff platform fly in the face of Cold War and recent history.

Conversion and hybrid flag platforms since World War II have been inadequate in capability or unable to support communications technology advancements. Today’s joint force needs multiple, sea-based options for staff placement, as increasingly accurate weapons make fixed land bases vulnerable. Command ships provide greater survivability and more flexibility than land-based counterparts.

Complex joint operations in the Pacific, such as the invasion of the Philippines in 1944 and even the compact June 6, 1944, invasion of Normandy, showed that cramming a senior admiral or general, staff, and radio needs into a combatant ship was good for neither party. Merchant ship conversions became popular as their lack of dedicated weapon systems meant they could have more space for flag facilities, additional radios, boats and staff berthing. One commander of 7th Fleet, Adm. Thomas Kinkaid, had used such a ship in the Leyte Gulf operations: the amphibious force command ship Wasatch.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur used the cruiser Nashville as his flagship for many of his World War II campaigns including Leyte Gulf, but switched to a converted Mount McKinley for the 1950 invasion of Inchon.

The 1970s inaugurated a new period in command ship development with the commissioning of the LCC class (Blue Ridge and Mount Whitney), which were purpose-built as command vessels with the space, weight, power and cooling margins for significant growth. While designated as amphibious command ships, both vessels have performed numerous other command and flagship duties over their long careers.

The converted cruisers and amphibious ships would have been superseded as flagships regardless of their age due to the growth in staff for joint operations. From operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm forward, the U.S. military has increasingly operated as a joint team directed by joint headquarters of increasingly larger size.

Modern, 24-hour continuous, complex joint operations require far greater numbers of people thinking and working to develop solutions for the commander on everything from combat operations, logistics, weather, and political impacts on operations. For a three-star fleet or four-star joint commander, this means hundreds of staff that must be housed, fed, given the chance for exercise and some leisure, and above all enough communication options to be a viable command center.

While some have suggested merchant or cruise ship conversions as cheaper options, costs are still significant. The expeditionary sea base class is a viable option, but the next ship in that class would need to be purpose-built as a command ship with a state-of-the-art communications suite and modularity to serve in a number of roles. The baseline expeditionary sea base is $650 million, but even with these modifications the price would likely remain less than $1 billion for a ship likely to serve three to four decades at good value to the taxpayer.

A cruise ship would be faster but would not be built to military survivability standards, and it would need significant communications upgrades and likely internal changes to accommodate a naval or joint staff of operational size.

Two decades ago the Navy planned a new class of joint command ships, JCC(X). That class never made it to construction due to continued Navy budget cuts during the global war on terror. The five-year hiatus in construction of the amphibious transport dock ship LPD 17 might have instead allowed for a new, four-ship build of two JCC(X) vessels and two new tenders on the same hull form as originally discussed in the early 2000s.

In the last 35 years it has been easy to command from shore-based headquarters often, as all those operations were focused on land-based objectives and had minimal maritime combat components. Some missions — like the 2011 Operation Odyssey Dawn joint multinational operation against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi — were forced to be commanded from the sea due to national caveats of NATO member states.

Moving command of the operation to the Mount Whitney allowed flexibility in conducting operations. Then-President Barack Obama gave a short time to prepare for the operation. And by stipulating “no boots on the ground in Libya,” he made a U.S. Navy command ship and its embarked maritime operations center’s team the perfect tool for the task.

The vast maritime spaces of the Indo-Pacific and Arctic regions limit the number of land locations for command and control, and advanced targeting available to peer competitors makes those land-based locations vulnerable to first-strike action. Having a sea-based command post does not mean that all operations need be controlled from those ships, but rather the command ships offer flexible alternatives for commanders to lead the fight from a mobile and less-targetable location.

Alternatives such as large deck amphibious ships (LHD and LHA) are available, but embarkation of a large staff with significant communications needs would significantly degrade the warfighting potential of those ships and deny operational commanders their full use. For all these reasons the Navy must ensure that Blue Ridge and Mount Whitney remain available as command ships until they can be properly relieved by new-construction command vessels.

Steven Wills is a naval expert at the Navy League’s Center for Maritime Strategy. He served for 20 years in the U.S. Navy.

Last Congress, we honored our promise to toxic-exposed veterans by providing benefits and care to approximately three million veterans exposed to toxins, including burn pits. However, this achievement is meaningless if the funding to implement it is gutted. Republicans have promised to reduce funding to fiscal year 2022 levels — which risks a 22% decrease in resources for veterans’ care and benefits. And many of them are calling for even deeper cuts.

Cutting care and services by nearly a quarter is a disservice to the men and women who have served this country, and befuddling given how often Republicans wrap themselves in the flag and embrace the veteran community.

Here’s what House Republican’s proposed cuts would mean for veterans — reduced veterans’ access to care, fewer staff to process claims, longer wait times for benefits, less support for national cemeteries, weakened VA cybersecurity and telehealth services, and a further deteriorated VA infrastructure. VA Secretary McDonough says the cuts could mean a potential reduction of 30 million healthcare visit for veterans and the loss of over 81,000 VA employees providing benefits to veterans.

This news is guaranteed to land with a thud in veterans’ communities nationwide. As members of Congress who sit on committees with jurisdiction over veterans issues, we hear from veterans, and the organizations that advocate on their behalf every day. We encourage our House Republican colleagues to ask our country’s 19 million veterans whether they think slashing investments in their well-being makes sense. Our guess is they won’t like the answer.

There’s a saying, “either put up or...” It’s time for Republicans to put their money where their mouth is, and demonstrate their commitment to America’s veterans by producing a budget that honors those who served, lest they allow veterans’ healthcare and benefits to be held hostage by the extreme wing of their party.

Veterans’ care and benefits are sacred promises we pay to our veterans as part of the cost of war and in acknowledgment of their sacrifice. We owe it to our nation’s veterans to honorably recognize their service — not subject them to political hijinks with potentially disastrous consequences.

Rep. Mark A. Takano, D-Calif., serves as the ranking member of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., serves on the House Appropriations Committee, where she sits as the ranking member of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee. Rep. Chris Deluzio, D.-Pa., is an Iraq War veteran and vice ranking member of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

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About the guest:

Destiny Huff is currently the proud wife of an Army armor officer and a former military brat of a retired command sergeant major who served 27 years in the Army. She is a licensed professional counselor, certified trauma-focused cognitive behavior therapist, and certified supervisor who has worked with military service members and their families as a mental health professional. Huff received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Georgia Southern University, a master’s in clinical-counseling psychology from Valdosta State University and is currently a doctoral candidate in the general psychology program at Walden University with a research focus on the use of bibliotherapy as a clinical strategy to address the unique challenges that military children face. In 2022, Huff received a crash course in special education and individualized education plans (IEPs) when her oldest son was diagnosed with autism. After advocating early on for her youngest son who has a speech delay, she learned the importance of having to advocate in the school setting and became a special education parent advocate and master IEP coach to help other families advocate for their children and prevent them from going through what her family went through.

Tricia Ross is a proud military wife of 21 years and has worked on behalf of military families for over two decades. She is incredibly passionate about connecting families to resources that alleviate hardships commonly associated with frequent moves throughout a military career. Ross brings valuable experience working with national nonprofits in volunteer and program management, as well as marketing and communications. She holds a bachelor’s degree in behavioral science from Wilmington University and a master’s in human services from Capella University. She is the director of communications for The Rosie Network, a nonprofit organization committed to supporting the next generation of military-connected entrepreneurs. She also volunteers as the marketing director for Partners in PROMISE, an organization dedicated to protecting the rights of military children in special education. In addition to actively fighting for military families, Ross also teaches English as a second language business and entrepreneur classes at Coastal Carolina Community College. She lives with her husband and four children in Jacksonville, North Carolina.

About the podcast:

The Spouse Angle is a podcast breaking down the news for military spouses and their families. Each episode features subject-matter experts and military guests who dive into current events from a military perspective — everything from new policy changes to research on family lifestyle

challenges. The podcast is hosted by Natalie Gross, a freelance journalist and former Military Times reporter who grew up in a military family.

Follow The Spouse Angle on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts.

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As part of a joint military exercise with the Philippines, the U.S. Navy is slated to sink a mock warship on April 26, 2023, in the South China Sea.

The live-fire drill is not a response to increased tensions with China over Taiwan, both the U.S. and the Philippines have stressed. But, either way, Beijing isn’t happy – responding by holding its own staged military event involving actual warships and fighter jets deployed around Taiwan, a self-governed island that Beijing claims as its own.

The tit-for-tat war games underscore a reality that U.S. presidents have increasingly had to contend with as the 21st century has drawn on. More than a century after President Theodore Roosevelt made the United States the preeminent maritime power in the Pacific, that position is under threat. China is seeking to displace it.

As a scholar of East Asian security and maritime disputes, I believe that the growing rivalry between the U.S. and China over dominance of the Pacific has the potential to define geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific region for the next half-century.

Already, ongoing maritime disputes pit China against several Asian countries. For example, China regularly challenges the maritime rights of Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia in the South China Sea and Japan in the East China Sea.

But the disputed waters are also of huge strategic importance to the U.S. It is where China is flexing its growing military might in the face of U.S. allies and partners, notably Taiwan, which the U.S. has committed to defend. If a war between China and the U.S. is going to happen, I believe the South China Sea is likely to be a major theater, with Chinese aggression toward Taiwan the spark.

The scramble over the South China Sea

For centuries, the dozens of islands, shoals, reefs, banks and rocks in the South China Sea were regarded as little more than hazards to navigation.

But with the discovery of large reserves of oil and gas in the 1970s and billions of dollars’ worth of fisheries, the previously largely ignored sea has gained significant attention from the countries whose shorelines meet it.

It led to a revival of elapsed conflicting claims of “ownership” over the sea.

China currently claims legal rights to the vast majority of the South China Sea, extending well beyond the boundaries established by the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

This claim by China, designated on maps by a nine-dash line, overlaps with the legally recognized maritime and territorial rights of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia.

Over the past decade, China has consistently engaged in low-level coercive activities called “gray zone tactics,” such as small-scale deployment of the Chinese Coast Guard in disputed waters and the manning of fishing vessels with civilians trained by the Chinese military. The purpose is to harass others and assert Chinese maritime rights outside legal Chinese waters, as recognized under UNCLOS.

Since 2013, China has also built up several reefs and shoals into artificial islands, building military bases with runways, radar technology and missile-launching capabilities.

In 2016, an UNCLOS Annex VII arbitration panel ruled that China’s nine-dash line claims were illegal and rejected China’s rights to maritime features in the legal waters of the Philippines.

But despite the legally binding nature of the ruling, China has continued to militarize its artificially built-up islands and harass neighboring countries’ military and fishing vessels. It has also denied passage to U.S. Navy ships legally sailing through waters in the South China Sea.

Successive U.S. administrations have aired concern over developments in the sea. In 2020, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a U.S. position on the South China Sea, rejecting China’s maritime claims and its “bullying” tactics as “unlawful.” His successor, Antony Blinken, in 2021 declared: “Nowhere is the rules-based maritime order under greater threat than in the South China Sea.”

But why does the South China Sea matter so much to the U.S.? The answer lies in economics and power politics.

A source of trade, natural resources

About one-third of the world’s shipping transits the South China Sea. In all, more than US$3.4 trillion worth of products – everything from rubber ducks to cars – is transported through its waters every year.

The sea connects the Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean, allowing trade from East Asian countries to flow to and from billions of people in South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe. It is also where 14% of all U.S. maritime trade passes through. It is a crucial route for outgoing U.S. goods as well as getting products to the U.S. Without it, the transport of products we use every day would slow down, and these products would cost more.

And then there are oil and gas. Around 30% of all global crude oil transits through the South China Sea. Furthermore, there is an estimated $11 billion worth of oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of proven deposits of natural gas in the sea, as well as undiscovered oil and gas.

Meanwhile, more than half of all fishing vessels in the world operate in the South China Sea.

For economic reasons alone, the U.S. and the rest of the world need open trade routes and sea lanes in the South China Sea. Preventing one country – especially a hostile China – from controlling these trade routes and resources is a crucial policy concern for Washington.

Power politics at sea

Although economics plays a part, China’s actions in the South China Sea are part of a much broader aggressive campaign. Beijing views territorial and maritime control in the region through the lens of its national security. It seeks to project its power in the region and defend the Chinese mainland.

Ultimately, as acknowledged by the U.S. government, China is looking to overturn the status quo, replacing the U.S. as the superpower.

This battle for power is already taking shape in the South China Sea, with regular confrontations between U.S. naval vessels and China’s maritime militia and navy.

The artificial islands in the South China Sea provide China with military capabilities far beyond the mainland alone. These outposts can be used to help counter and fight the U.S. and its allies, for example, in a war over Taiwan.

While the U.S. is not itself a claimant in the South China Sea disputes, the waters there remain a significant priority for the national security interests of Washington, too.

It is why the U.S. and its allies conduct freedom of navigation missions through the South China Sea and engage in naval exercises such as the one taking place in April 2023 with the Philippines.

With China playing by a different set of rules than the U.S. and its allies in the region, the risk of clashes at sea is very real. It could even lead to conflict between the two most powerful countries in the world today.

The next time a warship is blown up in the South China Sea, I fear that it may not be just a drill.

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The stunning arrest of 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira on charges of illegally sharing U.S. intelligence has once again renewed questions on the handling of classified documents.

Since the discovery a decade ago of top-secret documents leaked by Edward Snowden, questions on the vulnerability of the nation’s most sensitive intelligence were only intensified after a variety of classified papers were found earlier this year in the possession of former U.S. President Donald Trump at his home at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

Teixeira is accused of the “alleged unauthorized removal, retention and transmission of classified national defense information.” He has not entered a plea as yet to the charges involving the leaking of U.S. intelligence, including documents on Russian efforts in Ukraine and spying on U.S. allies.

The charges carry a maximum penalty of up to 15 years in prison.

Over the years, The Conversation U.S. has published numerous stories exploring the nature of classified documents – and how different motivations play a part in an individual’s decision to mishandle the nation’s secrets. Here are selections from those articles.

1. What are classified documents?

Before coming to academia, Jeffrey Fields worked for many years as an analyst at both the State Department and the Department of Defense.

In general, Fields writes, classified information is “the kind of material that the U.S. government or an agency deems sensitive enough to national security that access to it must be controlled and restricted.”

Of the three levels of classification, a “confidential” designation is the lowest and contains information whose release could damage U.S. national security, Fields explains.

The next level is “secret” and refers to information whose disclosure could cause “serious” damage to U.S. national security.

The most serious designation is “top secret” and means disclosure of the document could cause “exceptionally grave” damage to national security.

2. Violations of the Espionage Act

On April 14, 2023, U.S. prosecutors charged Teixeira in connection with violations of the Espionage Act.

Joseph Ferguson and Thomas A. Durkin are both attorneys who specialize in and teach national security law. They explain the Espionage Act.

Typically, violations of the act apply to the unauthorized gathering, possessing or transmitting of certain sensitive government information and fall under 18 U.S.C. section 793.

Ferguson and Durkin also urge patience before rendering judgment on any case involving violations of the Espionage Act, in part because of the classified nature of the potential evidence and the risk that further exposure would have on U.S. national security.

“The Espionage Act is serious and politically loaded business,” they write. “These cases are controversial and complicated in ways that counsel patience and caution before reaching conclusions.”

3. How to fight future leaking

Cassandra Burke Robertson is a scholar of legal ethics who has studied ethical decision-making in the political sphere.

She points out that criminal prosecutions alone may not be the only way to prevent the flow of classified information.

It all depends on an individual’s motivation.

But unlike Snowden, Reality Leigh Winner or Chelsea Manning, Teixeira does not appear to have wanted to right a perceived wrong or become what is known as a whistleblower.

In cases where the motive is unclear, Robertson suggests that a potential deterrent is establishing a workplace environment that encourages employees to bring potential ethical and legal violations to an internal authority for review.

Known as internal whistleblowing, such actions may prove effective in not only protecting classified information from reaching the public but also prevent another national security embarrassment.

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That tragedy made me realize health care must go beyond diagnosing and treating a disease. A healthcare professional must understand and care for all the factors of a patient’s life — socio-economic status, race, prior trauma, environmental exposures, veteran status, and more — to effectively care for them.

At the Department of Veterans Affairs, we teach more than 118,000 health professional trainees annually how to treat the whole patient — not just the symptoms in front of them, but the struggles the patient might be going through that impact their health. That integrative approach is what I learned when I trained at the Boston VA Medical Center, and what drew me to return to the VA.

In fact, roughly 70% of all doctors in the U.S. trained at VA facilities, and with the veteran population currently at 19.5 million, and more veterans eligible for VA health care through the PACT Act, we need more health professionals who are trained to meet their unique clinical needs.

Nationally, VA is the largest training platform for health professions education through partnerships with 96% of U.S. medical schools, including my alma mater, Harvard Medical School. Trainees learn to understand the patient as a whole — their goals, dreams, and challenges — and provide them with the right treatment, resources, and approach to their care. It’s through their clinical training working with veteran patients that trainees often experience their own pivotal moments — their why — that shape them as health care professionals.

VA training is packed with technical clinical skills — like those taught by VA surgeon Angela Guzzetta, MD, medical simulation surgical director of University of Texas Southwestern School of Medicine, who trains residents in robotic surgery at the Dallas VA. But it is VA’s interprofessional training that sets us apart. VA trains students and residents in over 60 health professions including pharmacy, nursing, general and specialized medicine at over 150 of VA’s medical centers in a learning environment that values each team member’s expertise.

Take, for instance, Minneapolis VA Physiatrist Alex Senk, MD. As a physical medicine and rehabilitation physician resident interested in sports medicine at University of Minnesota, he completed training at the Minneapolis VA spinal cord injury unit. There, he developed his passion for adaptive sports. He now teaches physiatry residents to incorporate adaptive sports to inspire severely injured veterans to achieve their goals. He’s even become a dive buddy for disabled veterans like Seth Thomas, a paraplegic who now is deep-water scuba dive-certified.

Clinicians like Orlando VA Nephrologist Abdo Asmar, MD, teach how to provide culturally competent care — care that meets the social, cultural and linguistic needs of patients. His trainees are residents at University of Central Florida School of Medicine, one of the more than 285 Minority Serving Institutions that partner with VA.

VA also remains at the forefront of teaching and championing accreditation for emerging health care disciplines while focusing on Veteran-specific needs. Training programs in specialties that are now integral to the health care landscape include psychology, geriatric medicine, nurse practitioner and social work. VA also is leading the way in accredited chiropractic residencies like the one Nate Hinkeldey, DC, established at the Des Moines VA that is advancing chiropractic medicine as part of the interdisciplinary health team.

These are just a few of the outstanding medical professionals who trained — and now teach — at VA. And we need more like them.

VA is on its way to achieving its goal of hiring 52,000 additional employees including physicians, nurses and other clinical occupations this fiscal year, keeping with Secretary Denis McDonough’s commitment to bring new medical staff onboard faster and more efficiently. In fact, VA has onboarded nearly 23,000 new hires — a 2.5% growth rate — since the start of this fiscal year, the most in the history of VA for that time period.

I invite medical professionals, current and recent VA trainees to join VA in our mission to serve veterans. You can be part of our team and have the opportunity to learn, to teach, and to heal an incredible patient population — our veterans. It will be one of the best decisions you ever make.

Dr. Shereef Elnahal serves as the Department of Veterans Affairs under secretary for health. Dr. Elnahal holds an M.D. from Harvard Medical School and an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School.

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