Allies uber Alles

August 24, 2026

Faithful readers will notice that this week I am again repeating myself. In the last substack, I harped on a favorite topic: the salience of character. This week I return to another hobby horse: the importance of allies.

Max Boot’s Washington Post column today* presented the following facts. In the CNN poll of polls --- July 22d to August 17, 2026 --- President Trump’s popularity in the United States was at 36% approval and 63% disapproval, his lowest ever. Mirroring that sad state of affairs, a recent Pew poll of 36 countries showed that 76% of the respondents had no confidence in Trump and 57% of the respondents had an unfavorable opinion of the United States. For the first time, the international poll showed that more people outside the United States had a positive opinion of China than they did of the United States.

For generations, Russia and China envied our global reach and our security relations with some 60 countries. Today, those ties, especially in Europe and the Americas are somewhere between frayed and unravelling. While our NATO allies are spending more, they are looking for options beyond simply following America’s lead. Trust is disappearing.

While allies love to free ride on superpowers, the declining health of our alliances today is a result of US policies that smack of both ignorance and arrogance. With little need to elaborate, here’s a bare-bones list of cases where we have backhanded our allies.

· The attempts to annex Canada and Greenland, grave insults to the precious sovereignty of our allies;

· Statements that cast doubt on the reliability of US security guarantees;

· Tariff wars governed less by interest and more by spleen. Canada, QED;

· Sucking up to Putin, Xi, and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un at the expense of our allies;

· Failure to adequately support allied efforts in Ukraine;

· Big stick military action in Venezuela and unlawful killing of drug smugglers in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific;

· Disrespect for international law and institutions, seen by lesser allies as important insurance for the rule of law;

· The insistence by Team Trump that our allies come to our aid in the current war with Iran even though they were not consulted before the initiation of hostilities.

· Near constant verbal disrespect toward our allies by Trump and his cabinet officers, including disrespect toward their war dead.

The latest example of such disrespect toward our allies came when our clueless Secretary of Transportation said the Canada had no military, which was news to the 71,000 uniformed members of the Canadian Armed Forces. Many of them work daily with our airmen in the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD). Nearly 200 Canadian soldiers gave their lives in support of our efforts in Afghanistan. They fought well in World War II and Korea and supported allied forces in Desert Storm.

In all, allies can be a pain. They kvetch, they complain, they slow you down. More powerful allies like Israel can entice a more powerful nation to be the fool who rushes in where angels and wisemen fear to go.

On the other hand, allies add legitimacy and strength. They enhance deterrence. They caution your adversaries. They are valuable in logistical support. Our allies in Northeast Asia, Australia, Philippines, the Middle East, and Europe are a large part of how the United States can be a global power with global interests.

One hopes that our problems with allies are temporary. I like to think that our alliance relationships can bounce back after 2028, although the damage has been significant. Trust takes decades to build up and hours to be lost. Some states, like Britain and France on the issue of nuclear forces, have made new arrangements that the alliances will have to take into consideration. It will be difficult to bring back the good old days, but the presence of real threats works in our favor.

How should the United States behave toward its allies in the future? It is not mysterious. Allies are sovereign entities. In that regard, they are equal to every other state. When power is added to the equation, states become unequal. In alliances, lesser powers fear both abandonment and entanglement. They will free ride when possible and many have requirements for strong welfare spending. Those are givens.

Alliance-wide agreements on defense spending are good things, but they are not the end of the alliance relationships. Some allies greatest contributions will come in providing geography and facilities. Peace through strength is the ultimate goal and fighting over future budgets has to take a back seat to the perception and reality of strength and deterrence. Our alliances wash too much of their dirty laundry in front of their enemies.

In all, alliance relations require respect and continuous coordination. Basic leadership principles suggest that praising in public but criticizing in private should always be the first rule of action. If you want Allies in on the landing, you will have to bring them aboard before the takeoff. It only remains to remind everyone of Churchill’s observation: the only thing worse than fighting with allies is fighting without them. Let the repairs begin.

Note:

Max Boot, “Trump’s Bullying Has Backfired,” Washington Post, August 24, 2026, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/08/24/trumps-attempts-intimidate-home-abroad-have-backfired/

Joe Collins writes from South Florida. He worked for DoD for 46 years and taught at West Point, the National War College, and Georgetown University.

Character Strikes Again

August 12, 2026

Once upon a time, character was king. You could not run for office, or occupy a position in government, if you had a behavioral problem that suggested a serious character defect.

I realize that this “rule” was often about the appearance of good behavior, rather than real character. I also realize that character and mass opinion about what was right kept many folks from being their best selves and punished “different” people as if they were somehow bad or damaged human beings. Still, the standard, reasonably applied, was and is a good one. Somehow, someway, we lost sight of this standard, and it is crushing our nation.

In January 2025, I warned in this substack that President Trump and many of his cabinet officers had problems in regard to character, commonly defined as the moral, ethical, and mental aspects of our humanity, those things, like integrity, that define a person. Character is easily judged by past and current behavior.

Here are some examples of character defects in action.

The President was an ethical nightmare in his business dealings, and he was accused and convicted in a civil trial of sexual assault and fined over five million dollars. His subsequent gain of billions in net worth in one year as President has given a new dimension to the concept of conflict of interest.

The Trump Administration’s goals have little to do with the national interest. Trump’s behavior and decisions in his second term have been guided by grift, glory, and retribution.

His SECDEF nominee, Peter Hegseth was a minor Fox News commentator, a drunk, and a serial womanizer. He was the least qualified SECDEF in history, and he has not learned much on the job. Reportedly, he was the leading cheerleader for the attack on Iran.

Trump’s HHS nominee, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. had no background in science, except for his acceptance of numerous conspiracy theories. He recently stood out in the Administration’s attempt to limit childhood vaccinations and its failure to control a measles epidemic.

Trump’s DHS Secretary, Kristi Noem was openly having an affair with an aide and spent government funds on lavish trips and government aircraft. She failed to control ICE’s rogue immigrant deportation operation.

These three, just to name a few, have had poor job performance, and Secretary Noem was fired along with the Attorney General, Pam Bondi.

The new and recently confirmed Attorney General, Todd Blanche is still Mr. Trump’s personal attorney and also an ethical nightmare. He blew the rollout of the Epstein files. He has supervised the systematic destruction of the career force in the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the crown jewels of the federal civil service. He was recently confirmed in his position by half of the Senate, without a single Democrat vote.

That brings us to the greatest character failure in the first two years of this Administration: the Congress. The Republicans in Congress have slavishly voted for Trump’s program even where it ran up against their own institutional interest. They have markedly increased the federal budget deficit and let the President run roughshod over the Constitution on war powers. The few representatives and senators who raised their objections have been voted out or quit politics altogether. The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson has become a White House errand boy. Trump’s childish and dysfunctional desire for retribution has made life in the majority in Congress a living hell.

The neglect of character has continued into the electoral process. The Democrat contender for Senate in Maine, was found to be a serial abuser of women. No one initially checked and then it took a few women coming forward for him to drop out. He looked and sounded great, the consultants gushed, before any vetting of his character. They overlooked his 20-year Nazi tattoo as some sort of youthful indiscretion.

Things were even worse in Texas. Ken Paxton, the scandal plagued attorney general, publicly cheating on his wife, was picked as the GOP’s candidate to run for the Senate seat held for 25 years by John Cornyn, who was pushed out by President Trump. Paxton was a known low-life when he was picked, but he had strong support from President Trump. In one of the reddest states in the Union, the Democrats now have an excellent chance of winning a Senate seat.

Some of you will cry foul and submit their list of Democrat ne’er do wells, like California’s Don Juan, Eric Swalwell. I would gladly add them to my list of GOP goats. My point is much simpler than red or blue. Character is important. Our current leaders are defective in this regard. We have to vote on character before ideology or party identification. Bad folks don’t get better when given great power. This fact wasn’t a surprise to our parents, but we are having to re-learn it. Vote for men and women of character.

Joe Collins writes from South Florida. He is an old soldier who spent 46 years working for DoD with over 25 years of teaching Strategy in and out of uniform.

Sen. Lindsey Graham and Our Lives

July 12, 2026

Like everyone in America, I was shocked to read of the sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham. Truth be told, I hadn’t thought much about him lately.

In my day brain, he was a good guy when he was John McCain and Joe Lieberman’s sidekick. The three amigos cut a wide swath in Washington, DC. They were my kind of Senate Republicans. They were thoughtful hawks, open to debate, and had lots of friends across the aisle. I loved the fact in 2016 that Graham attacked Trump for being a kook and a know nothing.

I hated the fact that he flip-flopped on the issue of Trump. He set out to regain his “relevance” by becoming a toady, a golf partner, and a confidant for the new President. After the January 6, 2021 insurrection, he broke with Trump, but his righteous condemnations lasted only a few days. He became one with the MAGA machine and stayed that way.

But sudden death makes you think. It makes you reassess. It forces you to open your mental aperture.

Legislators trade principles for power and influence. They work in the ultimate sausage factory, and one must appreciate the meat, even if its processing is suspect and unpalatable. Holding your nose, closing your eyes, and cold compromises are SOP, 24/7, 365.

We should also avoid letting our angst come to the fore on the day of someone’s death. After Graham’s body is in the ground, we can debate his political legacy. Today, we should highlight some of his good works. In this era of polarization, some of Graham’s most eloquent testimonials came from Democrats, especially his old comrade, Joseph Biden.

Lindsey Graham was a patriot and a devoted son of South Carolina. After losing his parents as a teenager, he became the head of his family. He served 30 years as an Air Force JAG officer in both active and reserve components. It must have seemed unusual when he visited Iraq and Afghanistan as a senator and the chair or ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. He then stayed on to perform reserve duty as a senior Air Force lawyer. He kept at it until he reached the rank of Colonel. Few active legislators show that kind of grit.

Graham was a true expert in National Defense and foreign affairs. He was a neo-con and a war hawk. He was very pro-Israel. To say the least, mistakes were made in those areas in the 21^st Century. Lindsey Graham did not prevent any of the worst mistakes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, or Iran. In fairness, however, every congressional action that created and maintained our Armed Forces for a generation has had his fingerprints on it. He has been a guardian angel in the Senate for the people of Ukraine, where he spent the last few days before his death.

Senator Graham loved the people in the Armed Forces and supported them with every ounce of his considerable energy. He was a frequent visitor to combat zones. I met a group of legislators in Afghanistan in February 2002, when four or five of them, including Medal of Honor winner, Senator Daniel Inouye flew18 hours on a weekend to Bagram Airfield to spend a few hours with the troops, mostly local airmen and soldiers from the oft-deployed 10^th Mountain Division. These men loved the troops, and the troops returned the sentiment.

If you listen to those who spoke for him today, he was one of our best senators, often on the inside of bipartisan legislation on many issues, including immigration reform. For decades, he was at the forefront of judicial policy. He will be missed in the Senate.

Lindsey Graham’s life of service is also a reminder about the nature of our lives and our existence as human beings. We tend to see our time on earth as a series of unfolding 5-year plans or sequential, foreseeable events. Too often, like the announcement this morning, we are reminded that accidents or unplanned events play a great role in our lives. It may be a flood, a tornado, a clogged artery, or the sudden death of a loved one that becomes a prominent benchmark in our lives. An old saw tells us that people plan, and God laughs. But even if you don’t believe in God, you must believe in the power of accidents and unplanned events.

This is a great argument for life insurance, but it is also a reminder that our grip on this life is far less certain than our daily behavior suggests. Maybe today, we should call a friend, or a long lost relative to check in before it’s too late.

Rest in peace, Senator Graham. You ran your race and made your mark. We will debate your legacy for years, but in the meantime, may the Almighty have mercy on your soul and care for your family and friends.

Joe Collins writes from South Florida. He worked for DoD for 46 years, 28 or them in Army uniform. He taught at West Point, the National War College, and Georgetown University.

America at 250 Years

July 3, 2026

Our great Republic is celebrating its 250^th birthday. It is cause for celebration and reflection.

Our founders often referred to their new country as an “experiment.” NETFLIX recently ran a wonderful four-parter on that theme that focused on the revolutionary experience and our Constitution. Today, that experiment has grown to a nation of 350 million people, the oldest Republic in the world. The Founders would be amazed at our progress, our development, and yes, our faults. Still, while mistakes were (are, will be) made, the results have been astounding.

We live in the richest and most powerful country in the world. We have conquered the frontier, prospered in the center of a great continent, developed a rich life with our two friendly neighbors, crushed slavery, and survived a great Civil War.

The 20^th Century was our century and witnessed the emergence of a superpower. We were a decisive factor in the victory over the Kaiser. We beat the great depression. Along with strong democratic allies, we defeated fascism, militarism, and communism. We created and led a multi-dimensional world order that has been remarkably constant until late. Even our national wealth today, compared to other powers, like China, Japan, and all of Europe, is more than holding its own. AI promises to help us continue that status. But we still struggle with issues of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Why is there such angst and division in our country? Bret Stephens, a critic of today’s America, said a few days ago in his New York Times column that we are in a state of “perpetual cringe.” If we were a movie, we would be an “absurdist tragedy, Waiting for Godot meets “Pulp Fiction” meets “Dumb and Dumber.” I can’t track a central theme through all those great and not so great works of fiction, but Stephens thinks that we are in big trouble, and I partly agree with him. We have miles to go toward a more perfect union.

My faithful readers suspect that I am now going to blame this trouble on Donald J. Trump. Only a bit. We have some problems that he has exploited. He is no Washington, Lincoln, or Roosevelt. But our most serious issues were here before he came down the golden escalator and will be around after he’s gone.

So, here’s a “to do” list for America, if we want to continue our winning streak to our 300^th Birthday and beyond. We are lucky that both the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution point us in the right direction.

First, income inequality. Knock it back. We are growing the rich and shrinking the middle class. There are too many poor, hopeless, and in some cases, homeless folks. The situation is even more serious among ethnic and racial minorities. Our setbacks are their tragedies. This is a public-private sector problem. Let the dialog begin.

The growth of our budget deficit and national debt is highly dysfunctional. Our government is over-programmed, and our people are undertaxed. Yes, we are severely undertaxed for the level of programs we can’t live without. Hard decisions and compromises will be necessary.

Second, Congress is broken. In our Constitution, Congress is the lead (Article 1) branch of government. It must be independent and active. It should work through grand compromises, every day. But gerrymandered districts produce antibodies to compromise. One party control of both houses is also a problem. If a strong President dictates to weak leaders in the Congress, the Constitution and commonsense will be subverted. Important tasks will go unaddressed.

One example: Defense spending is out of control. It is a bottomless pit of need with no design and little assessment between competing platforms. It is above serious oversight. Defense critics are often portrayed as unpatriotic. The Department of Defense spends too much. A colossal trillion-dollar budget will be followed by a gargantuan 1.5 trillion-dollar budget, even as DoD is way too slow to adapt to technological changes.

We must involve the allies in the solution to this problem, which can also be part of solving their defense problems. We need special help on drones and shipbuilding NOW. Allies can be great customers and great sources of industrial power. We can’t wait for a fantasy land solution where we rebuild US shipyards and factories.

Avoiding dysfunctional wars of choice will also help the defense budget. Imagine how well off we would be today if the current Administration came to Congress for authorization before going to war with Iran! Once upon a time, this was a key issue for more activist congresses. No special recommendation here, except to follow the letter and spirit of the Constitution.

Another example: Health care is crying out for reform. We are no longer an international leader in this field. Many countries, like Germany, are achieving better results at much lower per capita costs. No one can match our innovation, but we are failing the test of affordable health care for all. Again, another key issue for an activist Congress.

Third, civic education and job training. Too many people don’t know how government works and can’t reason through the problems of modernity.

We woof constantly about job training for the future; we just don’t do it. I am happy to see the new emphasis on the trades: important jobs, good wages, coupled with a rising demand for these services. What’s not to like! AI won’t fix your air conditioner.

The poor state of education in the first twelve years of schooling also impacts the electorate’s ability to analyze information. Many people are easily fooled or disinformed. Congress and the Executive Branch need to get tough on disinformation that originates in foreign countries. Fact checking needs help from all directions.

Fourth, technology. Getting the best tech, like AI and robotics, the fastest way possible is important, but so is the welfare of the population, the base of the electorate. We need to be careful that we don’t suddenly wipe out whole sectors of jobs, like taxi and truck drivers. AI and robotics must move forward fast, but if you do this on the back of the working class, you will multiply societal ills. A society with a guaranteed income is not an ideal that we should be seeking. AI needs supervision and regulation, another important job for Congress that they are not carrying out.

Finally, restore civility. When I was young, at least in my dimming memory, people treated one another with respect. They listened, even when they disagreed. The anonymity and universality of the internet has helped to break that down.

I participate on Facebook and X, the old Twitter. On policy issues, it is common for respondents who disagree with you to call you a moron, a communist, or worse without writing a word about the issues at hand. Sadly, leaders on both sides of the political aisle have fallen into that bad habit as well.

More prominent figures are threatened or physically harassed. Congressional town halls or even school board meetings often look like riots. We have stopped seeing each other as people, only representatives of a political wing or social movement. We are already an advanced society with high levels of physical violence. This could easily get worse before it gets better. At the limit of incivility, we need better, proactive law enforcement and domestic intelligence activities. Let’s identify killers before they kill and take appropriate action.

Racism, antisemitism, and religious bigotry have all grown in an era of unprecedented wealth and prosperity. These -isms are like germs or vermin that lie dormant in dry or cold weather. Domestic or foreign irritations bring them to the fore. They multiply in the heat of bad policy and discrimination. They get passed down to the young. Again, educational systems must take on antidiscrimination as a mission. No American bigotry by our 300^th birthday should be a goal.

The poor treatment of immigrants of all sorts by our government is atrocious and another aspect of growing incivility. Deportation may be necessary, but cruelty is not. Hopefully, this dysfunctional policy will pass away quickly. We desperately need a comprehensive immigration policy, another mission for a better Congress.

While we are at it, we need a renewal of civic virtue and a reemphasis on character in public life and business leadership. Our founders risked it all for God and country. To them, honor was sacred. We need to rediscover those urges. Let’s start by demanding clean records and decent personal behavior from our political candidates. Let’s get the tsunami of dark money out of politics and diminish conflicts of interests among politicians, from the lowest county clerk to the President.

We will make it to our 300^th birthday. We will be, as we are today: rich, loud, and nationalistic. We will be as powerful, but hopefully, less clumsy and more intelligent in how we use that power. If we address these five issues, we will be a shinier city on a hill, making progress in our pursuit of happiness.

May Almighty God bless these United States and all 350 million of us, today and at our 300^th Birthday.

Joe Collins writes from South Florida and wishes you all a happy and safe Indepedence Day.

Iran: Limited War, Limited Joy

June 27, 2026

Opinion on the war in Iran reminds me of that point on an academic panel where everything has been said, but not everybody has said it. The panelists doodle, look at their watches, and the audience begins to leave, bailing out for another panel or perhaps a strong drink.

To plow some new ground, let’s quickly look at some of the claims about the war’s status and then consider Iran in the wider context of limited wars in general.

Claims about the war start with the President’s: it was a great victory. It is hard to support this claim. We even tried at one point to say that decapitation was regime change. Now we know that the new bosses talk and act just like the old bosses, but with more creativity and motivation.

Like the Timex watches of yore, Iran took a lickin’ but kept on tickin’. Just today, Iran again struck what’s left of our naval base in Bahrain. Iran’s conventional Navy and Air Force are gone, but truth be told, they were never important. Iran’s small boat, strait-control flotilla, their drones, the IRGC, the forces of oppression, and even their missile force are still robust. Their once rebellious citizens are quiet. Iran is also on the cusp of financial gain. It is now able to sell oil legally and angling for sanctions relief in other areas. The war has also stuck a dagger in US-Israeli security cooperation. Netanyahu’s war-without-end has tanked Israel’s popularity in the United States.

A second claim, popular among journalists is that the war was a tactical victory and a strategic defeat for the United States. This claim is closer to truth on the ground today, but 1) Iran’s security forces have been severely damaged, 2) their leadership (but not the regime) has been overturned, and 3) the Great Satan can smack them again, as it did today, whenever they become too aggressive.

Iran’s reputation as a regional power depends on its ability to support the three Hs: the Houthi, Hamas, and Hezbollah. The first has been slammed, the second is on death’s door, and the third is mainly in hiding as the IDF occupies more of Lebanon than it ever has. The IAF and America’s three air forces now know nearly every inch of Iran. Claims of Iranian victory would require a plethora of caveats.

A more accurate claim may well be that we don’t know what this war’s outcome is, because it’s not over yet. A final verdict depends on what happens in the negotiations on Iran’s nuclear future and the final status of the Strait of Hormuz. If Iran gives up its quest for nuclear weapons, the Strait returns to a free and open international waterway, and Iran moderates its behavior in the region, the United States and Israel won. If Iran continues its quest for nuclear arms, sets up a toll booth in the Strait of Hormuz, and continues to support the three Hs, then we have wasted our time, blood, and treasure. Iran will take home the gold, literally and figuratively.

Most likely, the outcome will be midway between the two extremes. In short, our four-month long war in Iran will be a typical limited war.

Historically, the rule is simple and constant: limited war, limited joy. When you win, you win a little, and it fades quickly. When you lose, you lose a little or a lot, but it often doesn’t matter as much as you thought it would. Even if you are fantastically successful, as we were in Desert Storm, the good feeling doesn’t last much longer than the victory parade.

Perhaps the most successful limited war outcome came in Northeast Asia without a clear-cut victory. In the Korean War, the United Nations forces (remember them?) achieved, after much US blood and treasure, a stalemate on the ground that laid the foundation for an economic and political miracle. That grand miracle took place over generations with great effort from the United States and a virtual revolution by the South Koreans who created a vibrant democracy and incredible prosperity in a very poor (and very small) land. We are not headed for such an ending with Iran.

The problem with Iran was that we tried rhetorically to make this into a great war for regime change and then used inadequate means to bring that about. Both Israel and the United States assumed that they could get grand results with relatively modest inputs. Yes, 13,000 targets destroyed is a modest input. Great victories come with occupation and subjugation of your enemy, not simply by physical destruction. To do this, you must have the support of your people and their representatives.

But even that can fail. We did that successfully (at first) in Iraq, but it still did not create a strategic victory. Terrorists and insurgents had a vote. Despite a grand effort, time dragged on and total victory proved to be illusive.

To achieve grand objectives, you need all instruments of power working together at great cost. Iran was not weak; it was resilient, not brittle. Tehran played a weak hand brilliantly. But the law of limited war applies to all sides. Limited war, limited joy.

Today, the Iranians are still in the game, but the contest is not over. The history of limited war suggests that both sides may claim victory in the end, but they will do so with ashes in their mouth.

Joe Collins writes from South Florida. He served in DoD for 46 years, nearly 28 of which were in an Army uniform. He welcomes your comments and criticism of his essays.

Trump’s National Security Failures

June 15, 2026

As I noted in Strategic Affairs no. 58 (October 2025), I am increasingly concerned that our security is at serious risk. In this edition, I want to focus the argument on how we should think about risk to our national security and then assess briefly some of the key failings of this Administration.

There are a few key national security tasks for every President and his Team. First, in the given security, political, and economic environment, they must define the key national security objectives that will allow the nation to survive, live independently, and prosper. Next, they must identify the key threats to our interests. They then must provide for the common defense, preparing to defend or further those interests. Most administrations focus not only on today’s force, but also on the next force, and distantly, on the one after the next force.

Every nation harmonizes its key tools of national security --- defense, diplomacy, intelligence, and information --- to create a successful national security policy. Trade, routine diplomacy, and foreign aid should work hand in hand with intelligence and defense. Economic and technological power underpin every bit of security policy.

In all these activities, every Team must take into consideration allies who can add to its power. The United States has security arrangements with nearly 60 nations which have created tremendous advantages and frequent complications for our national security policy. Allies fear both entanglement and abandonment by major powers. In the end, allies remain sovereign entities and even binding alliances, like NATO, require consultation and patience. As Churchill noted, the only thing worse than fighting with allies is fighting without them.

At the limit, our national security policies create war fighting capabilities for general and limited wars. Our capabilities and demonstrated will also create deterrence, a function of both power and our reputation for using power successfully. Despite robust defense budgets, both our war fighting capabilities and our deterrence have suffered in the last 18 months.

In Ukraine, the Administration has pursued peace at the price of decreasing deterrence and annoying our allies. Team Trump ended military and economic aid to Ukraine and brags that it permits our European allies to buy our high-tech systems to transfer to the Ukrainians. Leaders lead by example, but our example here is transactionalism and putting the full burden on our allies. America first approaches America alone.

In Iran, Team Trump rashly attacked Iran and hit 13,000 targets. The United States and Israel killed the Iranian military and political leaders who have been replaced by even worse hard liners. The Iranians tied up the Strait of Hormuz, attacked our allies, drove up the price of gas, and devastated our bases. They are continuing to extract concessions for things that they had previously agreed to do in the JCPOA that Trump tore up in 2018. All of our tactical success has led to a damaged Iran claiming strategic victory. At the same time, we have wasted a vast array of missiles and high-tech weapons that we would need in a big war in Asia.

In the great competition with China, President Trump appeared weak by holding up our military sales to Taiwan and kow-towing to Xi Jinping. While Japan and Australia are getting tough on China, President Trump raised doubts about our commitment to Taiwan. If we won’t help Ukraine to defeat the Russian aggressor, what will we do for Taiwan?

Senior national security leaders are usually the top people in the Cabinet. Trump’s selection of Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi --- both fired --- were not inspiring. His pick of Tulsi Gabbard for DNI puzzled the whole world. She is a known Russian sympathizer and conspiracy theorist. She too is leaving for family reasons. The Presidents picks to replace her are without the national security experience required by law.

Secretary of Defense Hegseth has been a disaster and has repeatedly fired or removed women and minority officers, even striking some from the one-star (Brigadier General or Rear Admiral lower half) promotion lists. He is the least qualified person ever to occupy that post. His volatile temperament has led to a gaffe-a-week, like his criticism of European immigration policy at a solemn commemoration of the D-Day invasion of France in 1944. The SECDEF and the Vice President never pass up a chance to criticize our Allies in Europe. For his part, Vance lavished praise on the authoritarian leader of Hungary, recently ousted in a landslide election.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has fared no better. Over 100 embassies have no Ambassador. The ranks of career foreign service officers have been cut. USAID, which managed two-thirds of U.S. economic and humanitarian aid, has been eliminated. The United States runs high-level diplomatic negotiations through the friends-and-family program. Experienced diplomats are routinely ignored.

America’s basic problem today starts at the top. While most Presidents are fixated on national security, our current President has been distracted. His goals aren’t the security and prosperity of the nation. He is focused on personal goals: grift, glory, and revenge on his political enemies. His efforts in the security realm have been transactional and often of questionable motive. He cannot even tolerate a full-time national security advisor or serious deliberate planning efforts. His Cabinet is an echo chamber of sycophants.

Our security is at serious risk.

Joe Collins writes from South Florida. He worked for the Dept of Defense for 46 years and has taught at West Point, the National War College, and Georgetown University.

Thinking about Drones

May 30, 2026

My grandson has taken up ice hockey. I was amazed recently to watch two teen-aged teams go head-to-head. The game is so fast, all others pale in comparison. The fans can’t blink, or they lose their situational awareness. The experts say that the good players skate to the puck, but the best players skate to where the puck is going to be.

The nature of war is constant, but the character of conflict is constantly changing. Today, the speed of change, driven by AI, robots, and drones is akin to the speed of hockey.

The good strategists are telling us that the future is in drones, robots, or unmanned aerial or nautical systems. Ukraine is currently the top player in the league. Their expertise has thwarted Russia, which is also very much into drones. Iran deserves dishonorable mention here as well. Its shahed drone has been shared with Russia, who improved it, and created factories in Russia to manufacture it. The United States reverse engineered it and now uses the LUCAS (Low Cost Unmanned Attack System) in the field. Still, Iranian drones kept our million-dollar anti-missile force very busy in the first of the three months of war with Iran.

The war in Ukraine, nearly 5 years old in this phase, is a stalemate, largely due to Ukrainian drones and Russian incompetence. A few months ago, American pundits said 70 percent of casualties were caused by drones. This week, experts like retired General David Petraeus, say that drones are causing 90 percent of the casualties. In a related matter, Ukraine is solving its infantry shortage by having robots occupy terrain.

The good strategists are now recommending that we train with Ukraine, emulate its acquisitions processes, adopt its tactics, and recognize that Kyiv is the preeminent land power on the continent. Getting, not letting, Ukraine into NATO is again a recommendation among techno-pundits. Buying lots of drones has crept to the top of every defense expert’s wish list. Wiser heads are trying to figure out how to reorganize tactically and administratively to optimize for the drone era. All of this is great, but improving the current force is the military equivalent of where the puck is now.

How can we skate to where the puck is going to be? We should begin by thinking in terms of current forces, the next force, and the force after next.

The United States currently has the best offensive capabilities for air, land and sea warfare. As we move to incorporate more AI, drone, and robot technologies into the current force, let’s be sure NOT to throw the baby out with the bathwater. All those who argue that the tank, the manned naval vessel, the helicopter, etc should be scrapped are way ahead of the game.

While drones in Ukraine have helped to cause a World War I-like stalemate, in the next force, we should aim to turn drone and robot technology into an impenetrable defensive system and an enabler for Multidomain Offensive Operations. We should not throw out current force structure for offensive operations.

The force after next may well be a shift in emphasis from big ticket land, air, and sea forces to a mass, drone and robot force with remnants of traditional offensive systems. For example, a squadron might be three or four air or ground platforms that control hundreds of targetable drones or swarms of pre-programmed, autonomous drones. A tank company may be ten soldiers controlling 50 robot tanks. A fleet may have a handful of ships controlling dozens of naval drones. Counter drone systems would be programmed into each system, and there would also be layered, general support missile and drone defensive forces.

Along the way, we need to avoid scenario fixation. The next great conflicts won’t mimic the key variables in the Iran war, or the Ukraine war. Technology is a key variable but not the only one. To be ready for the future, we should study the tactics and techniques of potential adversaries. How and why our next adversary will fight is of supreme importance. We should recall the French and German armored forces in 1940. Both were formidable, but the Germans had a better operational concept as well as lessons learned from their attack on Poland.

In the end, the best technology and ready forces require a national plan with realistic goals, helpful allies, and the support of Congress and the American people. Americans are already fascinated by high tech systems, but our experience in Iran has proven that those systems alone are just not enough for success in warfare. Technology will always be a key variable in conflict, but not the only one.

Joseph Collins writes from South Florida. He served in DoD for 46 years, 11 of which were in strategic affairs in the Pentagon. He taught strategy at West Point, Georgetown, and the National War College.

Trump’s Biggest Mistakes in Iran

May 3, 2026

Team Trump has made a number of unforced errors in Iran. As much as I want them to succeed against this vile regime, this war has been troubled from the beginning.

Yes, we have over 13,000 successful missile and bomb strikes; we have destroyed the ancient Iranian air force; we’ve sunk the major ships in their Navy; we have killed their leadership; and yes, we have blockaded Iranian ports and broken their economy.

On the other hand, Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz and raised the price of gas in the United States to over $4.40 per gallon. The new Iranian leaders have not given an inch on their stockpile of enriched nuclear material or their future nuclear weapons program. The Iranian inventory of missiles and drones has been more robust than we estimated. The Iranian people are not poised to revolt. At the sixty-day mark, to be kind to Team Trump, we are at a stalemate.

Here are some of the Trump Administration’s greatest mistakes made in or because of the Iran war.

1. Abandoning the JCPOA: In Trump 45, Team Trump tore up the agreement that was effectively controlling Iran’s ability to enrich uranium. The Iranians, absent international supervision, rapidly increased their stockpile and reduced the time it would take them to build a nuclear device. Trump wants to make a better deal. It may not be possible.

2. Listening to Prime Minister Netanyahu: Presidents before Trump have never agreed to attack Iran because of the inherent difficulties outlined below. Iran is twice the size of Texas, and nearly four times the size of Iraq with three times its population. Iran is a master of irregular warfare, and its network of proxies is unequalled by any power in the world. No other US president has joined Israel in offensive actions against its neighbors.

PM Netanyahu by all reports enticed President Trump to attack Iran again with promises of regime change and exaggerated nuclear fears. That was despite Trump’s claims that we had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program just a few months before. Many officials, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, tried to warn the President, but Trump sided with Secretary of Defense Hegseth and Netanyahu. The degree of difficulty in attacking Iran has been validated. Iranian resistance, resilience, and endurance have been validated as well.

3. Sensitive Assumptions: President Trump assumed that the Iranian leadership was weak and would quickly agree to his demands. He assumed a short conflict that would not significantly raise gas prices at home or block the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump admitted to being surprised that Iran would fiercely attack its neighbors, many of whom housed U.S. bases. These installations are now severely damaged.

4. Lack of complete plan: Although there was an excellent initial strike plan, there was no national plan with clear political objectives. There were numerous conflicting statements about our goals, which now seem to be centered on control of Iran’s nuclear program. Many of the contingency forces needed were not prepositioned in the area of operations. For example, there were no minesweepers or ground force units that could be used for raids on islands in the Gulf. Indeed, minesweepers had been removed from the area some months before the start of hostilities. Delay followed as these assets were deployed from Latin America and East Asia.

5. Weak Popular and Congressional Support: Unlike past presidents, the President did not speak to the nation or secure congressional support before initiating hostilities. President Trump and Secretary of Defense Hegseth are also resisting War Powers Act requirements for reporting and now, for a congressional vote at the 60-day mark. Congressional support has dropped and public approval of the war is very low, compared to recent conflicts.

6. Regime Change Misunderstood: Some members of Team Trump confused leadership decapitation with regime change. A regime is a set of laws, institutions, and standard operating procedures. It is not a particular set of leaders. Killing a political leader and replacing him with his wounded son is not regime change. Killing a general and replacing him with his deputy is not regime change. Hundreds of Iranian leaders were killed but the regime has continued to march. If anything, hardliners and the IRGC are ascendant. Regime change comes best from the local population, but they are in no shape now to contest the regime.

7. Allies Dissed: Team Trump has bruised our allies with criticism, tariffs, and public complaints. As with Congress, the Administration did not seek allied approval or assistance before the conflict began. When control of the Straits became critical, Washington demanded allied support which has been spotty at best. What Trump ignored here was the old maxim that if you want your allies with you on the landing, you must convince them before the takeoff. As I am writing this, Trump and Hegseth announced that the USA would withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany, widely seen as retribution for slow German support on the Iran war. As is often the case, President Trump has doubled down on his initial mistake of transactional relations with his important allies.

8. Drones Neglected: The Administration has slow-rolled its adaptation to drones. As a result, the United States and its allies in this war have often used expensive anti-missile systems against cheap Iranian drones. Using million-dollar systems to crush systems that cost hundreds or thousands is madness. The Ukrainians warned us, and we have been slow to heed the leader in this field. The new defense budget has a massive increase of drone and robot-related appropriations.

9. Inventories Reduced: The Trump Administrations, like its two predecessors, has not adequately addressed shortfalls in missile, drone, and PGM inventories. This war reduced US inventories much faster than expected. Like shipbuilding, our serious drone, missile, and PGM problems have now put at risk our readiness for major conflicts in other theaters, like the Indo-Pacific.

I cannot tell President Trump what he should do tomorrow. He is in a major bind in Iran. I hope he can strike a deal that helps us and restores peace in that troubled region. I am not optimistic that he can do that, but that’s what I am praying for.

For the future, to avoid mistakes of this magnitude, President Trump can help himself by firing Secretary Hegseth, the Iran War cheerleader, revitalizing the NSC decision making process, and hiring a full-time National Security advisor. The President needs to focus our resources on the nation’s highest priorities. He must spend more time on serious policy planning and less on Truth Social.

Joe Collins writes from South Florida. He spent 46 years in DoD as a soldier and a civilian. He was privileged to teach at West Point, the National War College, and Georgetown University.

In Iran, Just War Theory is Just Not Enough

April 22, 2026

Nearly 1600 years after his death, Saint Augustine is making a comeback.

Pope Leo XIV and few of his cardinals have criticized the war on Iran. They declared it to be an unjust war, all but footnoting Saint Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, and one of the most interesting characters in the annals of Christendom.

Augustine was a rowdy 4^th – 5^th Century libertine who declared in his youth, “dear Lord, give me chastity and continence, but not just yet.” He was brought to the Catholic faith through the prayer and example of his mother, Saint Monica. He was a great thinker and philosopher, the inspiration for the Augustinians, the Roman Catholic religious order that Pope Leo XIV served and led. It was no surprise when the Pope started his pilgrimage to Africa in Algeria, once home to Augustine’s city of Hippo.

Among Saint Augustine’s many contributions was his work on Just War Theory. He did not invent the thought. Aristotle, Cicero, St. Ambrose and, later, Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote about it as well. Augustine wrote about just war at a time when Christianity was becoming respectable and evolving into the official religion of the declining Roman Empire. The main question for policy and religious doctrine was when a Christian state could ethically use war to further its interests.

Augustine laid out the criteria that have become the basis for Western thought on this subject. To begin, Augustine made a presumption against war being a just course of action. He set a high bar for a state to win a Just War exception.

Rachel Bitecofer in a recent Substack summarizes the six necessary criteria for Just War. These criteria define right reasons to go to war, and right conduct in war. I add a seventh criteria, discrimination, a key part of the tradition, to her list:*

· Just Cause: “Real aggression or imminent threat.” Preventive war is out of bounds.

· Legitimate Authority: “Authorized by a lawful governing authority.”

· Right Intention: A “goal of justice or peace,” not revenge or expansion.

· Last Resort: “All realistic diplomatic options … have been exhausted.”

· Probability of Success: A “reasonable chance of achieving goals.”

· Proportionality: “The harm caused by war must not outweigh the harm it seeks to prevent.” There must be a balance between the good achieved versus the harm done.

· Discrimination: Warring parties must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. In war, both sides must protect civilians to the greatest degree possible.

There is little doubt from this list that the Israeli and American war against Iran doesn’t meet the criteria for Just War. There was no chance of an imminent attack by Iran. In the United States, there was a defect in the legitimate authority. President Trump did not consult the Congress and failed to convince the American people that war was necessary. Diplomatic efforts had not been exhausted. A better plan would have cast doubt on the probability of success. There are arguments in this case about both sides’ harsh treatment of civilians.

To assess the utility of Just War Theory to the present, we should remember the context in which the basic criteria were written down. Virtually all states in the fifth century were authoritarian. Slavery was present in nearly all of them. Citizens did not have basic human rights. The Just War criteria did not address subversion, international terrorism, or state sponsorship thereof. Although wars in antiquity were violent, the specter of weapons of mass destruction did not exist. Ironically, while defending itself against attack from abroad, Iran would meet Just War criteria, weeks after it killed 30,000 or more of its own citizens.

Just War criteria are useful, but they are a simple snapshot, while international relations is a confusing movie with multiple plots and no intermissions. Clearly, we need a better moral/ethical framework to match the socio-political conditions of the 21^st Century.

We again are learning in the Gulf that a constant applies: limited war, limited joy. America and Israel have done major damage to Iran’s conventional military and economic capabilities, but the future of Iran’s nuclear program and its ability to affect the region through proxies are harder to target. Neither of these two things are a direct function of conventional military power, except for missilery, where Iran, according to the Director of DIA, still maintains a significant inventory. To date, Iran’s ability to leverage its control of the Strait of Hormuz has been masterful. The attack by Israel and the United States may have delayed, not hastened the inevitable revolt against this vile regime.

Changes in the character of conventional warfare favor cheap, mass-produced weapons, like drones, over jet fighters, tanks, or large naval vessels. The great teacher here is not the US Dept of Defense, but Ukraine, the master of warfare in the drone age. Using Western PGMs and expensive missile defenses to defeat cheap drones may be necessary, but it is economic madness. The United States and Israel need to make major changes in this area.

Regardless of negotiated settlements, Iran will remain a major threat to U.S. and allied interests in the Gulf. Moreover, an old, mature regime with new leaders will likely be more motivated to fight Israel and the Great Satan. Iran’s motivation to develop nuclear weapons will likely increase. Worse than failing Augustine’s Just War test, America and Israel’s preemptive attack has failed the test of effectiveness and efficiency. Barring qualitative diplomatic advances or a successful rebellion, we will again face the need to mow the Iranian grass in the future.

Joseph J. Collins writes from South Florida. He is a retired Army Colonel and senior civil servant, as well as a full-time professor for 25 years at West Point, and the National War College. He also taught for two decades as adjunct faculty in Georgetown’s Security Studies Program.

Note:

*Rachel Bitecoffer, “Trump vs. the Pope,” The Cycle, April 20, 2026, https://thecycle.substack.com/p/trump-vs-the-pope .

Iran: Lessons Encountered or Emerging

March 30, 2026

Our war in Iran --- and it is a preventive war --- is not over, but it is never too early to begin to look for lessons. I follow the Brits on this issue: lessons encountered, not lessons learned. At this stage of the war with Iran, it might be lessons emerging. Few national players learn and retain lessons. Even fewer learn comprehensively. Some do, however, and it pays off. Some examples:

· Consider Japan in the early Twentieth Century. A major power was born through study and national effort. It rose to triumph in the Russo-Japanese war, surprising the Western world with its skill and prowess.

· The United States in the post-Vietnam funk remade its Armed Forces for contemporary conventional conflict. It triumphed 15 years later, first in Panama, and then in Operation Desert Storm. That high level of tactical and operational mastery continues to this day.

· Ukraine learned on the fly how to stop a Russian onslaught and is now teaching the world how to fight in the drone age.

So, be skeptical, but it is possible to learn with huge payoffs in effectiveness and efficiency.

Learning military-related lessons is, however, easier than learning politico-military or strategic lessons. Military organizations can learn operational, tactical, and technical lessons and pass them on to the next generation through their school systems. The larger strategic lessons are harder to conceptualize and often in the wheelhouse of civilian decision makers who may be uneducated in strategic affairs. These days, senior US politicians with extensive national security education and experience are rare. Indeed, Team Trump seems to favor less experienced senior players or even neophyte civilians. In the Trump Administration, strategic planning has been constrained and the system built around the National Security Council has fallen into disuse. Military planning seems to be the only thorough planning system that’s in good health.

Where are we in Iran, a few weeks into the conflict?

On the military end, there have been some impressive results. The United States and Israel have hit 15,000 targets with almost no loss of combat aircraft due to enemy action. The entire Iranian national security leadership has been targeted and killed. The Iranian Air Force and Navy have been effectively destroyed, and its missile force has been degraded by as much as 90 percent. There has been less progress on degrading Iran’s nuclear program, but it was “obliterated” in last summer’s campaign, according to President Trump. (I am of the opinion that being heavily bombed by two nuclear powers will increase Iranian incentives to build a bomb, even if the ayatollahs fade away.)

Some downsides for the United States: Three US fighter-bombers were destroyed by friendly fire early in the conflict. US bases in the region have taken a shellacking with commensurate casualties. The United States has expanded a great number of precision guided munitions, already in short supply. The United States and its Arab allies showed themselves to be unprepared for counter-drone warfare, further stressing their high-tech missile forces, such as the Patriot air and missile defense system. There have been thousands of civilian casualties in Iran, Israel, Lebanon, and in the Gulf countries.

One industrial example stands out: the United States fired nearly 500 Tomahawk land attack missiles at Iran. The United States only purchases about 60 of them per year! American strategists focused on a potential conflict with China are pulling their hair out.

Still, the Iranian government continues to function. Iranian security forces put down a rebellion among the people weeks before Israel and the United States attacked. This vile regime killed tens of thousands of its own citizens. After our effective bombing, it is not clear whether this war has made an Iranian-caused regime change more or less likely in the next 5 years. (The United States and Israel should be arming and advising the Iranian resistance. I see no proof that we are.)

Iran has retained nearly a thousand pounds of enriched uranium. To our apparent surprise, Iran effectively attacked its US-allied neighbors with missiles and drones. In attacking its neighbors, Iran has inflicted over 300 casualties on US forces and destroyed a half dozen US tanker or battle management aircraft. Using its geographic advantage, Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, something which Team Trump somehow thought to be a low probability. The price of gasoline in the United States has topped $4 per gallon. Inflation will surely increase.

Iran is bloodied but unbowed. Escalation looms. The Houthis in Yemen have fired missiles at Israel. Israel is moving on Hezbollah in Lebanon. The equivalent of two brigades of American Marines and Paratroopers are headed toward the region. American boots on Iranian soil may be in the offing. Peace talks, not negotiations, have started with the help of Pakistan, eager to bolster its standing with the United States.

So, what lessons appear to be emerging? Most of them are not new, and some are blinding flashes of the obvious.

First, watch your assumptions. Many in White House thought that Tehran was weak and would fold or make concessions easily. Wrong. Following that first assumption, many believed that this war would end well in a short period of time. Wrong again. But that is why there were no ground forces in the area when the war started. No one thought that we would need them. Never underestimate your opponent. Iran is clearly not Venezuela.

Second, have a comprehensive plan. This administration has had many operations where there seemed to be no planning for contingencies or end states. Team Trump never articulated a single, primary goal in Iran. Was this war about a new nuclear deal, regime change, or the destruction of conventional military assets? All of these reasons were trotted out at one time or another. Of course, if you assumed Iran was weak and that they would fold quickly, you could be satisfied with impressive operational metrics, and not concerned about the possibility of problems in the Strait of Hormuz, or Iran attacking our allies in the Gulf.

Third, have a comprehensive planning process. There seems to be nothing left of the NSC staff and planning process. That’s the process where all instruments of national policy are brought to bear to create national plans. Secretary of State Rubio is dual hatted as the National Security Advisor, but he does not appear to be doing that job. Instead, we have historical grievance, Presidential whim, and Israeli enticement pulling us into war. As noted above, detailed military planning seems to be the last semblance of professional planning that exists in the US government. The President should restore normal intelligence briefings, appoint a full-time National Security Advisor, and insist on deliberate, independent planning for future operations.

On the military end, we have a PGM/missile/ship building industrial crisis. We need a Congressional committee to inventory our assets and determine the best ways to fill our arsenals. The need is critical and demands action and lots of money. If an Iran contingency tests our ammunition resupply system, we are in trouble. If Russia can go to North Korea with hat in hand, we can press our allies for industrial assistance. If we can’t do the factory work here, I bet it can be done in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, or heaven forbid, Europe.

Fourth, involve Congress and the people. Oddly, this is the rare major operation where the President did not “sell” the need to go to war to the American people and secure the blessings of Congress. In 1990, 2001, and 2003, the Bush administrations pursued votes in congress before going to war. Perhaps Team Trump was dizzy with success after their Venezuela operation. As a result of ignoring the people and the Congress, even Republicans are skeptical. The American people are overwhelmingly against the operation and very concerned over the possibility of ground operations. As the price of gas rises and inflation creeps up, the people are likely to show more of their anger in the mid-term elections.

Fifth, allies are critical for US strategy, but if we want them in on the landing, we should invite them to participate in the take-off, and not call on them when we have to declare an in-flight emergency. President Trump’s treatment of our NATO allies in this case is a perfect example of how NOT to reassure our allies or win their help in an out of area, preventive war.

Israel is one ally that has been a full partner in this operation. Some would say that they pulled us along with them. While we had our eyes on a new nuclear/missile agreement, it is clear that Israel is focused on regime change. It is not clear how the Israel’s series of leadership decapitation strikes fit in here. Killing ayatollahs or IRGC generals who pass the baton to their son or their senior deputy is not regime change. It is also unclear if decapitation favors conflict termination. In any case, the revitalized National Security Council should perform an autopsy on how we entered this conflict. Trump, Rubio, and Netanyahu each have lots of explaining to do. We are in the odd place of not knowing how this war began.

Prior to Operation Epic Fury, it is clear that no one in the Trump Administration remembered then-Major General Petraeus’s 2003 request: tell me how this ends. Right now, it is unclear, to put it kindly. America and Israel are ahead tactically, but Iran is flexing its strategic muscles. In any case, as I told 20 years of Georgetown graduate students, the law here is “Limited war, limited joy.” Anyone who thinks that this “excursion” will solve the Iranian problem once and for all is ignoring the lessons of history.

Joe Collins writes from South Florida. He served in DoD for 46 years as an Army officer, a Pentagon appointee, and a professor at West Point and the National War College.

Iran Again and Again?

March 6, 2026

A few friends asked what I thought of the first week of the second U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran.

At the risk of repeating myself, I am always of two minds about using force against Iran. On the emotional side, I remember that we “owe” Iran for its perfidy. On the rational end, I remember that there are severe limits to what you can accomplish by attacking the heinous government of 90 million, mostly innocent people. I have come to believe that a hostile Iran was not a problem to be solved, but a condition that we had to endure and contain until political evolution works its wonders. As maddening as my bill of particulars is, I know that the Iranians have a list of American crimes too.

Still, we are haunted by our own memories. The hostage crisis in 1979 was traumatic. The new Iranian government humiliated the United States for a whole year. The mullahs made anti-Americanism a part of their religion. Tehran became the top sponsor of terrorism in the world. They were implicated in the death of over 200 of our Marines and other servicemen in Lebanon in1983. They were the chief supporter of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. Every terrorist-related death in Israel for five decades has an Iranian pedigree. For decades, Tehran was the top supporter of the murderous Assad regimes in Syria. After 2003, the mullahs and their revolutionary guards destabilized Iraq --- which was already a mess --- and killed hundreds of American soldiers with their Explosively Formed Projectiles, the ultimate roadside bomb.

In my last Pentagon days, I visited a young Lieutenant and one of his NCOs at the old Walter Reed Army Hospital, both seriously wounded by EFPs. The Lieutenant, an alumnus of my alma mater and a veteran of a unit I had served with years before, was severely wounded. He was fighting hard (and successfully) to get back to the battlefield, crushed by losses in his platoon, sad that he had not been able to do more. His Sergeant was worse off. He lost a leg, his career, and possibly, his family’s economic security. His sense of despair was profound. Hundreds of other soldiers and marines were not as lucky as these two. Section 60 of Arlington Cemetery is full of young men and women who died at the hands of the Iranian regime.

In recent years, the mullahs and the revolutionary guard worked hard to develop a nuclear weapon. U.S. presidents tried to negotiate with them, all agreeing that Iran should never get a nuclear weapon. Iran also joined with Russia in their attack on Ukraine. The thousands of Shaheed drones sold by Tehran proved to be so effective that the Russians built a factory to produce their own version of this deadly UAV.

A few months ago, American and Israeli forces attacked a much-weakened Iran to degrade and destroy its nuclear weapons and fuel enrichment programs. Both governments claim and still claim that their massive attack “obliterated” these dangerous programs but determined Iranian efforts to repair them may well be a key motive for this second attack by the United States and Israel. Massive, anti-regime demonstrations and the carnage that followed may also have provided an incentive to attack again.

At the same time, the American efforts appear problematical. The massive sea and air attacks have further obliterated Iranian security forces and decapitated the current crop of leaders, but the bloom is off the rose. We seem to have been unprepared for Iran to retaliate widely in the Middle East. Evacuating thousands of U.S. civilians seems not to have been part of the plan. The United States and its allies are using scarce, multi-million-dollar missiles to counter cheap drone attacks. While we have achieved air and naval superiority, our efforts to keep oil flowing through the straits of Hormuz have been inadequate. Six U.S. soldiers died in Kuwait in what was an unprotected structure in a logistics area that all of a sudden became a combat zone. The stock market tanked and fuel prices are rising.

As Daniel Rothkopf, an expert on national security planning wrote, “never has so much risk or such sweeping military action of so much consequence been undertaken with so little apparent planning or weighing of potential consequences, both intended and unintended.” *

I have to agree with Rothkopf, the author of the definitive history of the National Security Council. Some initial observations.

American efforts are unconstitutional. This is clearly a war that requires congressional approval. Both Bush 41 and 43 received congressional approval from both houses of congress before they undertook major military operations in Kuwait and Iraq, respectively. Emboldened by lethal counterdrug operations and the military operation in Venezuela, President Trump did not even bring congressional leadership on board before the operation. He did not warn the public of the upcoming war. The Republican controlled House and Senate have shown little desire to fulfill their constitutional role in this case. They are trying not to call this a war even though the President and Secretary of Defense say that it is a war.

American efforts are unfocused. In various speeches over the first few days, the goal of the U.S. efforts has varied. Initially, the administration focused on regime change, but that swiftly gave ground to degrading security forces, anti-nuclear efforts, and anti-long-range missile strikes. Without a goal to focus the effort, we won’t know when we win. We should also avoid overstaying the patience of the American people or outlasting our supply of missiles and smart bombs to the tune of a billion dollars per day.

We should be aware that Israel may not have the same goals, or even the same understanding of goals as we do. With regard to Hamas and Hezbollah, the Israelis assumed eternal hostility as a given. Their strategy has been “mowing the grass,” requiring repetitive operations that stabilize the situation but don’t achieve permanent results. Sir Basil Liddel Hart’s notion of fighting to achieve a better peace seems foreign to their thinking. How that will affect their operations against Iran is difficult to predict. It seems clear that many people in the United States don’t want to be hooked up with more large-scale wars in the Middle East.

One week into it, our new war in the Middle East is headed to a highly destructive yet uncertain end. I want to believe that, despite all the loose ends, it will end well, but decapitation is not regime change, and thousands of dead Iranians may not help our cause. We have surely mowed the lawn and the rubble may bounce, but we don’t seem to be headed to a better peace with Iran.

Notes:

*As quoted in David Sanger, “Trump Follows His Gut. His National Security Advisers Try to Keep Up,” New York Times, March 6, 2026, A9.

Joe Collins writes from South Florida. He spent 46 years in the Department of Defense.

Four Years of Russian Aggression in Ukraine

February 26, 2026

Let’s call it “The War of Russian Aggression.” Somehow, some fools in the West seem to believe that there is some guilt on both sides, and we should be a neutral honest broker in our approach to peacemaking in Ukraine. They are wrong. We need to screw our courage to the sticking post and get back to supporting democratic Ukraine against Russian aggression.

It’s been four years since the Russian invasion, which was preceded by 8 years of irregular warfare against Kyiv. This war of aggression is the largest war in Europe since the end of World War II. It has been tremendously destructive of soldiers, civilians, and infrastructure. It has become a war of attrition.

Here are some numbers: *

Total Casualties: 1.8 million souls, killed, wounded, or missing. 54,000 of these casualties are Ukrainian civilians. According to the United Nations, 5.9 million Ukrainians have left the country, and another 3.7 million people have been displaced inside Ukraine.

Russian Casualties: 1.2 million, the result of bad strategy, brutal assaults, Ukrainian fighting skill and technological innovation.

Territory: Russians hold roughly 19.4 percent of Ukrainian territory, a bit more than they held in 2024. CSIS experts note that in a recent offensive, Russia advanced only 70 meters per day.

Economy: Both nations have bare-bones, war economies. Ukraine has only 60 percent of the electrical power that it needs. Russia’s economic growth has slowed and its once fruitful trade relationship with Europe has mainly ended.

Russia’s strategic goal was the reestablishment of a new Russian empire in the Near Abroad. Its immediate objective in 2022 was to seize all of Ukraine, starting with a rapid dash to the capital and efforts to decapitate the government. I do not believe that Putin was motivated to invade by the fear of NATO expansion. Russian security officials no doubt hate the thought of NATO expansion, but in the case of Ukraine, it was not an imminent threat but only imprudent diplomatic talk.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was part of the gathering of the lands, a feature of both Russian and Soviet foreign policy. The desire to expand was magnified by the ideological and religious notion that Ukrainians are not a separate people. To these ideologs, Russians, Belarussians, and Ukrainians are one people united by shared history, language, and the Russian Orthodox Church.

Most observers, including many American generals, thought that the Russian war on Ukraine would be over quickly. They underestimated Ukrainian skill and nationalism. They drastically overestimated Russian military competence. At present, Russia’s immediate goal is to take the territory it has under its control plus 20 percent of the Donbas Region that they have been unable to conquer.

Ukraine would dearly love to eject all Russian forces from within its borders, but that is not possible. At present, they pursue an immediate ceasefire with no farther territorial losses. Contrary to the wishes of the Russians and Western dealmakers, Ukraine will not cede territory for a peace agreement. Ukraine doesn’t trust Russia and at present has little faith in written security guarantees from the West. They remember the “guarantees” that they received in 1994 from the United States and the United Kingdom when they gave up the Soviet-era nuclear weapons on their territory.

In terms of exploitable weaknesses, both nations lack sufficient manpower and an apparent inability to fully mobilize their own populations. Robotics and drones make up for it on the Ukrainian end. The Russians have been able to recruit proxy forces from North Korea, African conscripts, and mercenaries of various origins. China and Iran have also been helpful but not always in overt ways.

The Russians have improved their use of long-range fires and effective combinations of infiltrating ground forces with support from air munitions and drones. While the Russians have had modest success on the battlefield, they have also directed much airpower to attacking civilians in cities, as well as the Ukrainian health and electricity infrastructure. Russia has devastated Ukraine’s energy grid and carried out nearly 3,000 attacks on medical facilities by air, missiles, and drones. The frequency of these attacks rose 20 percent in 2025 over the previous year.

Ukraine suffered a setback in 2025. The United States, eager to emphasize its peacemaking chops and push the Europeans to take the lead, stopped its direct military aid to Ukraine. As President Trump bragged in the State of the Union address, Europeans can still buy U.S. weapons and donate them to Ukraine. Overall, despite the Europeans stepping up their aid, global military aid to Ukraine was down 13 percent in 2025, with humanitarian and financial aid down 5 percent.

The war grinds on, looking like World War I without the trenches. The Ukrainians are willing to make peace, but Russia, or more accurately, Putin is not. He has played the United States like a fiddle, enticing us to curtail our aid to improve chances for a peace treaty, a grand “deal,” one that might earn our president the Nobel Prize. We gave more effective assistance to Ukraine under Biden.

Here are 5 things we can do to raise the costs for Russia and end this war:

· Give Putin a deadline of one month to accept a ceasefire or we will call a halt to peace talks.

· Reopen U.S. direct military aid to Ukraine, emphasizing long-range ground attack systems and strategic air defense weaponry.

· Ask NATO and the EU to develop and publicize plans for an international security guarantee force for post-conflict Ukraine.

· Begin to spend frozen Russian bank deposits in U.S. and European banks to defend Ukraine, and

· Bring a permanent Ukrainian mission to Germany or the United States to teach NATO forces how best to use drones and robots in modern warfare.

As Pershing’s American Expeditionary Force was the makeweight in Allied victory in World War I, an American show of power and resolve can convince Putin that, like the Kaiser, it is time for him to press for peace and accept a fifth-of a-loaf in Ukraine. Rejoining the fight for freedom from foreign aggression will no doubt impress our potential adversaries around the world. Winning a war against an aggressor can create righteous popularity for any president.

*Note on Sources:

The statistics used in this paper are from Associated Press, “4 Years into Russia’s Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine, a Look at the War by the Numbers,” February 26, 2026, reprinted at https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/4-years-into-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-a-look-at-the-war-by-the-numbers ; and Seth G. Jones and Riley McCabe, “Russia’s Grinding War in Ukraine: Massive Losses and Tiny Gains,” CSIS Briefs, January 2026, https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-grinding-war-ukraine . These papers cite material from various sources, including the United Nations and the Institute for the Study of War, perhaps the most diligent and detailed organization chronicling this conflict. The author notes with appreciation various articles by Australian Army Major Gen. ret. Mick Ryan and Carnegie’s Michael Kofman on the subject of the war in Ukraine.

Joe Collins writes from South Florida. He worked for the Department of Defense for 28 years in an Army uniform, and 18 years as a DoD civilian. He served 11 years in the Pentagon, finishing as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense. He taught at West Point, the National War College, and in the adjunct faculty of Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program. He holds a doctorate from Columbia University, where he also taught, and is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

NATO and U.S. Interests

February 14, 2026

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Under Secretary of Defense Colby are in Europe showing love and appreciation for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a center of gravity for American national security.

Last year, as you may well recall, Vice President J.D. Vance attacked the allies with his speech at the Munich Security Conference. Later, Trump’s National Security Strategy and President Trump himself went after Europe and NATO, attacking its martial prowess, lying about its war dead, and criticizing its domestic policies. Over the year, we have also stopped our generous aid to Ukraine. We are still providing some intelligence and “allowing” the generous Europeans to buy our top-end weapons to defend Ukraine. Add to all that, the tariff disputes and the Greenland-Denmark debacle that have led our allies to doubt our fidelity and, in a few cases, our collective sanity. Trust that has been developed over decades has been jeopardized by bad policy and harsh rhetoric designed to please internal audiences of know nothings.

So, we can be glad that Rubio and Colby have said good things about our policy toward Europe and poured oil on these troubled waters. Let’s hope (against experience?) that the Administration has come to its senses on the importance of Europe and how to deal with mature middle powers.

If the White House needed any advice on that score. A gaggle of former U.S. Ambassadors to Europe and Supreme Allied Commanders wrote about what we get from NATO. It was a practical and important list. *

They wrote that NATO’s importance goes way beyond the defense of Europe and that it provides “the legal and physical infrastructure for the United States to operate globally.” It does this by providing strategic basing and eliminating the need for dozens of bilateral agreements.

Furthermore, NATO shares the global burden by “deploying … non-U.S. resources in support of U.S security objectives.” NATO nations, under Article 5 of the NATO treaty, came to our aid after the 9/11 attack. Over 1,100 European soldiers died in Afghanistan. NATO nations provided $3.4 billion to build the Afghan security forces.

In 2025, non-U.S. NATO “defense spending surged to over $560 billion annually.” Urged by President Trump and motivated by Russia’s attack on Ukraine, our allies have pledged to contribute 5% per annum for national and alliance security. NATO’s European pillar is being strengthened.

America’s trade with Europe tops $1.6 trillion dollars, “making Europe our single largest economic partner.” NATO nations also support our policies in East Asia. As noted, NATO nations have also taken the lead in providing the economic and military support to Ukraine. Intelligence sharing with NATO’s 31 nations is a boon to America’s intelligence agencies. NATO standardization of equipment and procedures is a force multiplier for the United States in Europe and Asia, where key allies have adopted many NATO standardization agreements. NATO and the European Union have also dampened security threats in and among European nations. There is no amount of extra defense spending that could replace the assets and the legitimacy that the Alliance can bring to the table.

All of this is well and good, but the wonderful letter from “the 16” neglects a historical and geopolitical backdrop. Twice in the 20^th century, the United States ignored instability and the shifting balance of power in Europe. Twice, the United States, falsely believing that it was somehow insulated from war by the Atlantic Ocean, was drawn into huge conflicts on the European continent. From 1939 to 1945, 39 million people died in Europe in what Churchill called “the unnecessary war.” Today, Russia remains an important threat. Despite its decrepit economy, Russia’s nuclear power, military potential, skill at subversion, and aggressive government make it a potent threat that must be met by a strong alliance.

Europe counts also for geopolitical reasons. The United States is a global power with global interests. It is one of two superpowers with China emerging rapidly as you read this substack. A superior global power cannot allow a regional balance to shift decisively against it. It must maintain a strong deterrent in the most important theaters: Europe, East Asia, the Western Hemisphere, and the connecting oceans. It must also be able to “ride to the sound of the guns” wherever its interests are challenged.

NATO is an essential part of our capability to take that ride. The health of this great Alliance is fundamental to U.S national security and indeed, to global security. We neglect it at our peril.

*I read the statement by the 16 Ambassadors or Supreme Commanders at Ivo Daalder (Ambassador), “NATO is Vital to US Security,” America Abroad, February 12, 2026.

Joseph Collins writes from South Florida. He worked for 46 years at the Dept. of Defense and was educated at Fordham and Columbia universities, both of which are on Secretary Hegseth’s woke list.

Are we the good guys?

January 28, 2026

In the police action film, “Rip” --a film about virtue, revenge, and police corruption-- the hero police lieutenant, played by Matt Damon, has tattooed on one hand, A.W.T.G.G. It’s short for the critical life (and foreign policy) question: Are we [still] the good guys? Abroad, it matters a lot to the United States to be the good guy, but there are dissenting opinions.

Team Trump favors a foreign policy that increases the US “take” from foreign relations. Power is what matters and success is partly measured in resources and territory. While avoiding conflict with other great powers, the Trump Administration is prone to pressuring neighbors and allies. The MAGA team is fond of quoting the Melian Dialog as a rule of action: “the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.”

(The Athenians utterly destroyed the uncooperative Melians. The contrived dialog wasn’t meant to be a prescription. Rather, it was a description of how war-weary Athens had degenerated into a cruel and unjust power, a burden on, not an asset to its allies. It was one of the reasons that Athens lost to Sparta.)

For some, US allies are a burden too. They must do more for the common defense, and they must do more for the United States. The disregard for our allies has extended to the vile slander that they held back in Afghanistan and Iraq. The truth of course is the opposite. In Afghanistan alone, there were over 1200 allied deaths, half of them British and Canadian troops. Italians, French, and Danes also bled liberally for the cause, not to mention the 66,000 Afghan government soldiers, airmen, and cops who gave their all.

Historically, middle powers have balanced against great power threats or aggressive alliances. Miraculously, since 1945, the United States has avoided that counterbalancing. Our alliances and security partnerships ---nearly 60 nations--- are the envy of our adversaries and a great addition to our own power.

(Don’t get me wrong: Allies and alliances can also be a pain in the butt. The tail can wag the dog. Burden sharing will always be an issue. Mutual entanglement is a fear for both middle powers and great powers. To have allies available for our conflicts, we have to be involved in theirs.)

How have we avoided wearing the black hat in world politics? There are a few reasons in no particular order that stand out.

First, after World War II, we set up an economic and political system where the strong were accommodated and the weak were somewhat protected. International law and organizations helped. Yes, the United Nations security council, the UN agencies, the World Bank, the IMF, all were there to help dull the sharp edges of an international system that was still state-centered and anarchical at its roots.

Second, in the security realm, NATO, our alliances in Northeast Asia, and the Middle East dampened great power rivalries and regional aggression. These alliances were critical to our victory in the Cold War. The Alliances also helped to mature democracy in the former Soviet and Warsaw Pact nations.

Third, geographically, we were blessed to live in a peaceful hemisphere, dominated by two oceans, our continental reach, vast wealth, and an attractive civil society. Consider the great advantage of having only two relatively prosperous nations, Mexico and Canada, on our borders with compatible regional economies and no significant security issues. Yes, trade and labor issues, galore, but up until this past year, those issues were settled in productive, non-coercive agreements. Drug trafficking grew as our wealth created an insatiable demand for narcotics, easily produced in Mexico and Latin America.

Fourth, the United States declared its open leadership of the free world and was especially helpful to democracies, capitalist countries, and even authoritarian states who colored inside the lines. At the same time, we bled for the system and did not demand tribute, or the advantages of being an occupying power. We could even go into war-torn Iraq and NOT take their oil, even as the war drained our treasury. We wanted access and free and fair trade, which remains a sensitive subject, especially as Europe, Northeast Asia, and the Middle East grew in riches and ambition. Trade was further complicated by our post-industrial status and the colossal rise of the Chinese manufacturing economy.

As Team Trump throws sharp elbows abroad, it believes in unchecked presidential power at home. It is little interested in the opinion of foreigners. It does not wish to be the leader of the free world, nor does it worry about its image abroad.

Team Trump wants to dominate the Western Hemisphere, Europe (which it viscerally dislikes), and the Middle East, increasing our “take” in resources and territory from the world we know. It still wants to deter China in East Asia, but it is not clear if it would defend Taiwan if it had to.

Team Trump follows the short form of Machiavelli’s dictum: it’s better to be feared than to be loved. It is more oriented on a China-Russia-United States condominium than being the leader of the Free World. Foreign travel, student enrollments and tourism are suffering in light of strife at home. Nobody in the White House or Foggy Bottom appears to care.

In the movie “RIP,” the mysterious police lieutenant, has a second tattoo on his other hand. This one answers the “are we the good guys” question. W.A.A.W.B.: “We are and always will be.” I would like to think that this will always be true for the United States, but Team Trump’s short-term, transactional, naked power approach may be creating a new American image, one that will make us trade our white hat for a black one.

Joseph Collins is a veteran of 46 years of service with the Department of Defense with over a decade in the Pentagon.

Greenland or Trumpland?

January 18, 2026

I’ve been to Greenland. It’s a key location for the United States, Canada, and NATO, but there’s no need to own it, and even less need to create a crisis with our allies over the issue.

Here’s what you should know about the latest Trump-generated crisis:

The Arctic, with much melting ice, will be increasingly important for maritime commerce. In case of a world war, the Arctic could well be a key theater of conflict. In general, there is increased NATO, Russian, and Chinese interest in economic and military operations in the Arctic.

Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark, a part of the country of Denmark, not a colony. (Remember the importance of that distinction when France fought for Algeria?) It sits astride the GIUK, the Greenland-Iceland-UK Gap, an important naval choke point. It is also key terrain for early warning of missile attacks, and home to a small US Space Force base, the last of what was once more than a dozen US installations there.

Greenland has a small population of about 57,000, mostly Inuit people, who live along the southern tip of this gigantic island. Greenland is three times the size of Texas, and 80 percent ABOVE the Arctic Circle. There are roads in settled areas in the south, but no land routes to connect settlements. The landmass is also 80 percent covered by the Greenland Ice Sheet, present for nearly 20 million years, miles deep, and breaking up at an accelerated pace. In August 2024, our cruise ship could not send motorized tenders into a tourist port because of ice flows blocking the harbor! Greenland is chockfull of rare earth minerals, but they will be difficult to extract.

Southern Greenland could host active NATO airbases, but no nation, including the United States, has proposed to station aircraft squadrons or a naval flotilla there for many decades. In my week near and on Greenland, I only saw one military vessel, a Danish frigate, not far from the capital of Nuuk.

Denmark pays close to 750 million Euros per year in aid to Greenland. The people there have EU-level benefits, far more generous than those of US citizens. The cost of living is high. A modest, brightly colored, 3-bedroom house --- which my wife found quaint --- could cost a million dollars. A guide noted that every bit of lumber, dry wall, nails, shingles, beams, etc. has to be imported. Fishing, furs, and a modest level of tourism seemed to me to be the only local industries.

Denmark has provided Greenlanders essentially free health care and generous educational benefits. As one, young, tri-lingual guide told us, talented Greenlanders can study to the Ph.D.-level in Denmark, tuition-free with a generous personal stipend.

There is no immediate threat to Greenland today. The intrusive presence of Russian and/or Chinese ships is a fairytale, or a lie, if you prefer. I worry less about the Russians in the short term. Much of their vaunted Navy is out of commission, and the Russian reputation for overseas client support --- think Venezuela, Syria, and Iran --- has been trashed by Putin’s inability to act due to his troubles in Ukraine.

Any scenario of future combat near or above Greenland is difficult to imagine. Hostile military operations in southern Greenland would require a robust amphibious assault. Land operations on the Ice Cap would be somewhere between impossible and unimaginable. Special operations are possible, but it’s hard to imagine an objective that might require them.

While Greenlanders and Danes have insisted that Greenland is not for sale, they insist that it is open for business and mutual security activities. The United States could build bases or, if motivated, acquire mineral exploitation rights. These benefits are there for the asking. So is NATO collective action to improve Greenland’s defenses for the long-term.

So, why would President Trump insist on “owning Greenland” when all finite benefits are already there for the asking? Why would he double down on this insanity at the risk of alienating our great ally, Denmark, or damaging the NATO alliance?

Here are some POTENTIAL explanations:

First, he has been poorly advised. This is always a possibility, especially when mated up with his general lack of knowledge and refusal to study this or any other subject matter at hand.

Second, as with Venezuela, Trump’s actions and orders have NOT been vetted thru a mature national security decision-making process, causing initiatives with no sense of sequential actions or mature end-states.

Third, Greenland (and maybe Venezuela too) are all about distractions from the release of the Epstein files.

Fourth, influential friends have convinced him that there is money to be made in mineral extraction, but that will require physical possession of the territory and US taxpayer investment in infrastructure before extraction can occur.

Finally, this may be all or mostly about glory for Mr. Trump. Greenland is not really green; it could be renamed Trumpland.

The first two of these potential explanations are given, but which one of the other explanations is propelling us into this allied crisis is anybody’s guess. Maybe chaos is the goal. If that is true, with Minneapolis, Venezuela, and Greenland, we are getting close to the finish line.

Joe Collins writes from South Florida and is in despair over what’s happening and will happen in Venezuela, Greenland, and Minneapolis.

The Venezuela Debacle

January 9, 2026

President Trump noted in an interview this morning that his power is restrained only by “my own morality, my own mind.” * Given the limits of his demonstrated morality and intellect, this is a scary statement. It is also fundamentally wrong. Reality has a way of making us “fortune’s fool,” as Romeo lamented. Even the greatest powers have material and situational limits. Even those with the strongest will can be frustrated by circumstances, or tempted into pyrrhic victories, where the value of the prize is dwarfed by the enormity of the cost.

The American operation in Venezuela has all the hallmarks of a disaster in the making. Experts note that we have already spent between a half billion and a billion dollars in military operations in and around Venezuela. While we have avoided heavy casualties of our own, we have killed over 200 smugglers, security personnel, and Venezuelan civilians. The President is talking about a commitment that may last years. Here are some key limitations:

First, the aim of the operation is still not clear. You can’t have a successful policy without clear goals. We snatched the evil Maduro for his drug-related crimes and apparently scored (will score?) a hefty shipment of oil from Venezuela. But while our Fleet stands guard at sea, we have no long-term plan to execute. Previous Strategic Affairs’ essays have complained about the emasculation of the instruments of U.S. foreign and national security policy. Alongside meticulous military planning, National Security Council interagency planning has apparently ceased to exist. The Bush Administration worked for nearly a year on a plan for postwar Iraq that was inadequate. Compounding that precedent, the Trump Administration appears to have none at all. One legislator lamented that the President has consulted more with U.S. oil companies than he has with the Congress.

Second, if the aim here is cheap oil for the United States, there are several obstacles. The oil is heavy crude and requires more refinement than its more attractive cousins. The oil infrastructure in Venezuela is broken. The willingness of U.S. oil producers to spend tens of billions over many years is questionable, especially given the current oil glut. The government in Caracas owes billions in arrears to major oil companies and has been hostile to foreign producers. Venezuela is already one of the most violent places on earth. Who will provide security for the rebirth of the Venezuelan oil enterprise? Are we prepared to put U.S. boots (and blood) on the ground to increase oil production?

Third, the U.S. ally in this case is the rump of the Maduro government. While we have decapitated that government, it is now led by Maduro’s deputies, his partners in that criminal enterprise. While short-term cooperation between Team Maduro and Team Trump is possible, the rump of the Maduro government is a lame horse for the long journey to modernization. Politically, it is nearly impossible to see Maduro’s allies helping to bring about democracy and rule of law. Without a better Venezuelan government and improved stability, how can the oil companies justify the huge investments needed to bring Venezuela’s oil industry into the future?

Fourth, U.S. success in this coercive exercise allows greater license for our adversaries. China and Russia might retaliate for their loss of face here, or they may even take a page from Trump’s playbook to combine military force and lawfare to deal with their adversaries on either of their peripheries. Imagine indictments in Moscow or Beijing followed up by Russian or Chinese spetsnaz seizing foreign officials on their peripheries. Neither of these adversaries need additional incentives to use aggressive tactics against their neighbors. Ignoring the norms of great power behavior can have disastrous consequences.

Fifth, the Administration will find that further entanglement with Venezuela will be self-limiting. While it’s one thing to raise the importance of the Western Hemisphere in our policy, a big problem in Venezuela with a limited payoff in the long term will keep the United States from using its weight on more important issues in Europe or East Asia.

Finally, Congress, belatedly, has had enough. The Republican majority in Congress is slowewly awakening to the importance of checks and balances. The Senate will call a vote to ensure that future military operations in Venezuela require Congressional approval. The President last week was forced to veto two bills passed by both houses of Congress.

The mid-term elections loom like the sword of Damocles over the President’s head. He has already speculated about impending impeachments. Trump’s disrespect for the rule of law and best practices, however, pales in comparison to his overall policy ineffectiveness. In Venezuela, we will end up as fortune’s fool.

Joseph Collins served 46 years with the Department of Defense. He has taught at West Point and the National War College and held adjunct professorships at Columbia and Georgetown universities.

*In a New York Times interview by David Sanger et al., January 8, 2026

The War on Drugs is Bogus

January 1, 2026

Happy New Year, dear readers. Let’s get to it!

Words have meaning. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words rule the world. When we disregard accepted, commonsense definitions, we run the risk of anything from confusion to catastrophe. We have reached that latter point in the southern Caribbean and the eastern Pacific. We have killed over 100 alleged smugglers of cocaine and in at least one case, marijuana! Please note, deadly fentanyl —a product of Mexico— has not been involved in any of these cases. Sadly, these bloody operations may well be a mere distraction in a broader policy that’s aimed at oil and regime change.

The Executive Branch has declared war on “narco-terrorists.” There are many problems with the actions taken in response to that declaratory policy.

First, war is an act of violence to achieve political goals. Narcotics manufacturing and smuggling, no matter how huge, is a criminal enterprise. Cartels and smugglers are not foreign enemies. They may be supplying “poison,” but there are millions of Americans demanding those substances. If drug cartels are foreign enemies, then American drug users are in league with the ‘enemy’ and engaged in treasonous activity. If low level smugglers can arbitrarily be put to death, can we do the same for domestic pushers, addicts, and even recreational drug users? I hope the answer is “of course, not.”

Second, the Executive Branch can’t declare war by itself. It needs Congressional approval. There are many circumstances where the Executive Branch can use force on its own, but when that force is premeditated, offensive, and repetitive over time, it requires Congressional approval. Sadly, the Congress is derelict in its duty, but silence is not a valid authorization.

The Administration is abusing the Constitution and ordering members of the U.S. Armed Forces to commit extrajudicial killing. In one case last fall, there remains a serious question as to whether our forces committed a war crime by killing shipwrecked smugglers, a war crime without a real war, in George Will’s apt description.

Third, the Administration is hiding behind its declaration of drug cartels as narco-terrorists. The assertion here is that since they are now terrorists and not just criminals, we can ‘light them up’ whenever we encounter them, just as we did in the war on terrorism. Wrong.

In the war on terrorism that began in 2001, U.S. forces operated under an authorization to use military force, an authorization that is still in force. It was oriented on al Qaeda, its affiliates, and its successors, who sadly, still operate --- mainly, but not exclusively --- in the Middle East and Africa.

In a similar vein, some apologists for the Administration are asserting that drugs are weapons of mass destruction that kill thousands of Americans per year. Again, Americans are welcoming this elaborate set of poisons to come to our shore. Yes, many Americans are dying, but the same is true from firearms. Neither drug cartels nor firearms manufacturers are providing weapons of mass destruction, like nuclear or chemical weapons. We must note again that the deadliest drug poison is fentanyl, and no fentanyl comes from Venezuela or Colombia. Why our counterdrug efforts have focused on Venezuela is another question that requires congressional scrutiny?

Fourth, there are other methods available to solve the problem of drug smuggling at sea. In Fall 2025, Coast Guard vessels seized 27 metric tons of cocaine. One vessel, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Hamilton seized 20 tons of that entire haul. No one was killed. The smugglers were taken into custody. Why are we killing smugglers and destroying small boats off the coast of Venezuela and now Colombia? Are we doing this because we can and it’s relatively easy, or is there a deeper reason for the carnage?

Fifth, at the risk of further repeating myself, narco-terrorist (or -ism) is a contradiction in term. Narcotics cartels, smugglers, and domestic pushers want monetary profit and as little publicity as possible. Terrorists engage in “propaganda by deed.” Spectacle and political effects are the object of their acts of terrorism, with new terrorist recruits and internal repression as bonuses. Monetary gain is not a goal, even if it is sometimes necessary to pay the bills.

The incompatibility of narcotics smuggling and terrorism is telling. You can make war on international terrorists, but narcotics smugglers and cartels are criminal enterprises. Curtailing drug traffic requires creative law enforcement and international police activity. An effective counterdrug policy at home also requires efforts to lower the demand for drugs. Drug trafficking is criminal activity and a public health problem.

Military force is a blunt instrument with different capabilities and limitations. A military-led war on drugs is bogus. Declaring war on drugs only makes sense as an analogy. Killing low level smugglers off the coast of Venezuela and Colombia is an ineffective way of controlling drug traffic, and it may well be a great distraction from a larger policy of oil seizure or regime change.

Joseph Collins writes from South Florida. He served in DoD for 46 years. He also taught for over twenty-five years at West Point, the National War College, Columbia University, and in Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program.

Trump’s National Security Strategy

December 11, 2025

Finally! Strategic Affairs gets to address a strategic issue, Trump’s National Security Strategy (NSS). Sadly, the document falls short in many ways. It is not a good strategy, but it reflects the President’s (and the Vice President’s) real inclinations.

Here are my comments and objections, in the order presented by the document:

A strategy is meant to bring together ends, ways, and means. This one does not, but, to be fair, most of the other Presidents’ did not as well. They are all long on goals and vague on how to go about achieving them. While these documents are designed to guide policy, their authors live in fear of interfering with policy or creating a roadblock to current operations.

The strategy’s introduction, signed by the President Donald J. Trump, starts with lies and exaggerations, very much in keeping with his typical behavior. In his ten months in office, he says “we have brought our nation --- and the world --- back from the brink of catastrophe and disaster…. No administration in history has achieved so dramatic a turnaround in so short a time.” He goes on in the introduction to note that America is respected again, despite much evidence to the contrary.

Later in the document, President Trump is lauded (p 8): “He negotiated peace” in eight bilateral conflicts, including peace between Israel and Iran, a very strange “negotiation.” In Asia-Pacific, the lies continue. “President Trump single-handedly reversed more than three decades of mistaken assumptions about China….” This process began in the Obama Administration and gained momentum in the Biden administration. It has been well documented by articles by Kurt Campbell and his deputies in Foreign Affairs.

I am not surprised with this level of lies. Shortly after publication, President Trump put himself on a par with Lincoln and Washington, giving himself an A++++ on our faltering economy and the affordability ‘hoax.’

The strategy clearly rejects the fact that the United States has been and should continue to be the leader of the free world. The document falsely asserts that we convinced ourselves that “permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country.” This mischaracterization is another lie. The United States defeated communism, managed the world order, and generally kept the peace for eight decades. Trump maligns free trade and our global burdens. In their place, he puts bullying, trade restrictions, and distrust of our allies.

Under the heading of what we should want, he lays out our conventional national objectives that show little space for allies or global leadership. By scoping down what we want and rejecting a world leader’s global view, he does a fair job on most objectives, but it is a neo-isolationist view. He ends the “we want” section with a plea for “soft power,” which daily erodes from killing drug smugglers, dissing our allies, and the cultivation of authoritarian regimes. The strategy also pleads for the restoration of our spiritual and cultural health, happy people, and “strong, traditional families.” Wouldn’t it be nice?

Under the heading of what “we want in and from the world,” he lays out our “core, vital national interests.” He puts the security and prosperity of an American-dominated Western Hemisphere (South America, Central America, Mexico, the USA, and Canada) as the top interest. The strategy notes a Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, explained below.

In the Indo-Pacific, no up-front mention of the China threat, but fair trade, freedom of the seas, and “secure and reliable supply chains and access to critical materials” are the key interests. Security is handled in the regional part of the document.

The strategy outlines U.S. interests in Europe: “support our allies in preserving the freedom and security of Europe, while restoring Europe’s civilizational self-confidence and Western identity.” As Europe is revitalizing its defenses and taking the lead on helping Ukraine against Russian aggression, the President (and VP J.D. Vance) are worried about the effects of immigration and the European Union on the soul of Europe. Team Trump favors new right, MAGA-compatible states in Europe, like Hungary, over the traditional power-house nations of Great Britain, France, and Germany.

Unmentioned in the document is the fact that we have stopped direct, material support to Ukraine. The NATO allies have taken over the material support for Ukraine, except where they purchase --- yes, purchase --- American weapons to donate to Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression.

In the subsequent discussion of means to “get what we want,” Team Trump fairly lists our strengths, but again, it neglects our nearly 60 allies and security partners around the world. While our vast alliance structures were in the past listed as our key strength, this section ends with “the goal of this strategy … [is] to strengthen American power and preeminence and make our country even greater than it has been.”

Eight pages into the document, Team Trump hits on the principles of strategy. In describing the strategy, the document notes that the Trump foreign policy (not the US policy, but Trump policy) is “pragmatic without being pragmatist, realistic without being realist, principled without being idealistic, muscular without being hawkish, and restrained without being dovish. It is not grounded in traditional, political ideology. It is motivated [by] … two words, America First.” (I have eliminated here the document’s strange use of quotation marks.)

This nice linguistic twist simply says that the Trump policy will be pragmatic, realistic, principled, muscular, and restrained. It lists a number of principles including a “predisposition to non-intervention,” obviously relaxed in the cases of Yemen, Israel, Iran, and Venezuela. Interestingly, another principle is the “primacy of nations,” and a bias against “the sovereignty-sapping incursions of the most intrusive transnational organizations…” Turns out the European Union is one of them.

The section on principles also includes a neat paragraph on the balance of power, which ends with the statement, perhaps a MAGA lament, that the act of balancing “sometimes entails working with partners to thwart ambitions that threaten our joint interests.” In my 46 years with DoD, I would amend that to read “always” entails working with partners. Our complex system of alliances and partnerships --- nearly 60 nations --- is our greatest advantage over China and Russia, who can only count on Cuba, Iran, and North Korea.

The next section is on priorities. Lots to mine here, but some gems are: “the era of mass migration must end.” Allies must take responsibility in their region for basic security. We are here to help them with burden sharing. Economic security is fundamental, and the United States will pursue balanced trade, access to critical materials and supply chains, reindustrialization, reviving our defense industrial base, energy dominance, and financial sector dominance. No surprise, the strategy rejects the notion of climate change and “net zero” ideologies that “have so greatly harmed Europe, threaten the United States, and subsidize our adversaries.”

The second half of the document deals with regional priorities. It duplicates or expands some of the earlier material. (Repetition makes for good learning but boring substacks.)

The big news here is that the number one concern is not China and the Indo-Pacific meta-region. It’s the Western hemisphere.

“After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region. We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces throughout the region or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets in our Hemisphere. This “Trump Corrolary” to the Monroe Doctrine is a common-sense and potent restoration of American power and priorities, consistent with American security interests.”

The strategy says that our goals for the Western Hemisphere can be summarized as “enlist and expand,” with old friends and new partners to strengthen stability and bolster our nation’s appeal as the Hemisphere’s “economic and security partner of choice.” In practical terms, the strategy entails increasing military presence, “targeted deployments” for anti-drug and anti-immigration actions, prioritizing commercial diplomacy, and working against foreign commercial and security in-roads in partner nations.

The lengthiest regional section is on Asia-Pacific. The document touts American economic and societal strengths, US tariff policies, and the need for allies to trade more with the United States. In the security area, “deterring military threats,” highlights the need to deter war against Taiwan and notes: “the United States does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.”

The strategy also highlights the need to deny aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain and in the South China Sea. One key to making this happen is greater burden-sharing among our allies. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Australia are called upon to spend and do more. Lastly, the strategy notes that the United States also needs to do more, not only in military spending but also in renewing our industrial base.

The strangest regional section is on Europe. While the Europeans have upped their defense spending and virtually taken over the effort to help Ukraine thwart Russian aggression, the Trump NSS is down on Europe and the European Union but amazingly comfortable with Russia.

Here’s Trump’s Europe: losing global GDP share (yes), liberties and prosperity undermined by the EU, lacking self-confidence to standup to Russia, and facing “civilizational erasure” from excessive immigration. On the war in Ukraine, “a large European majority wants peace, yet that desire has not translated into policy, in large measure because of those governments’ subversion of the democratic processes.”

What the strategy misses here is that the Europeans do have a Ukraine policy: to help Ukraine fight hard to frustrate Russia’s aggressive war aims. For our part, we want peace “to reestablish conditions of strategic stability … and to mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and the European states,” which would presumably mean war with the United States as well. For all the problems in Europe, it’s the Trump Administration that lacks a clear view of reality and the guts to stand up to Russia.

The final short sections on the Middle East and Africa end the thirty-page document. The strategy presents the Middle East as old business, and a passing obsession, except for oil. Like most other US administrations, Team Trump has almost nothing to say about Africa.

What’s missing here? The strategy says little about terrorists in the Middle East, little about North Korea, and has only passing references to Iran. It has nothing for those who are looking for clues about Venezuela or so-called narco-terrorism, a true contradiction in terms. The United States absorbption of Greenland and/or Canada does not appear in the document.

What we have here is a guide to the Trump transactional approach to foreign policy based on a false picture of the last 80 years of American history, coupled with a strange fascination with authoritarian leaders and discomfort with our allies.

I would love to hear your take on the new strategy. Here’s hoping that the next issue will be full of your comments.

Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year to all.

Joe Collins writes from South Florida and will be travelling for the holidays.

Illegal Orders, Operations, and Larger Issues

December 4, 2025

I began the last issue of Strategic Affairs with an assertion: “… the targeted killing of drug smugglers in the waters off Latin America is against US law, International Law, and Commonsense.” Since then, the Venezuela issue has been inflamed by the alleged killing of shipwrecked survivors of the first strike, which could be a clear violation of the Law of Armed Conflict. As I am writing this, the claims and counterclaims are flying faster than the speed of sound.

Congress will hold hearings, and that is a welcome sign of legislative oversight after more than 20 of these strikes. Today, Admiral Frank Bradley, the operational commander, will appear on the Hill to testify behind closed doors. Hard facts may be established, or we may well remain in the “fog of war,” to quote the SECDEF’s apt phrase. We may learn more specifics here, but the issue of potential war crimes should not blind us to larger issues.

Here are six things that demand our attention:

First, the entire Venezuela business reminds us that the warning of the “seditious six” were warranted. There have been illegal orders and activities. This Administration has frequently skirted or disobeyed laws. Suspicion is warranted and so were warnings about not obeying illegal orders.

For example, the Hatch Act --- which forbids government employees from making partisan political statements --- is violated daily in public pronouncements from the White House. The President engages almost daily in conflicts of interest for his personal gain. The parade of serious criminals pardoned by this President raises questions, especially when the latest pardon is for a cartel operative/head of state who put hundreds of tons of drugs on our shores.

More to the point, illegal orders have potentially been issued in the Venezuela cases. An order to kill them all, a “no quarter” order, is illegal. The killing of shipwrecked personnel is so clearly illegal, that it is singled out as an example of an illegal order in the 1200-page DoD Law of War Manual. It may have happened in the first of the kinetic strikes.

Mark Kelly can’t be court martialed for repeating what every soldier is taught in basic training. Kelly and company are also protected both by the First Amendment and the Speech and Debate clauses of the US Constitution.

Second, the entire Venezuelan counterdrug operation is of dubious legality. Congress authorizes war or the use of deadly force by the US Armed Forces. There are exceptions, such as self-defense, but using the military to attack low-level cocaine smugglers has not been authorized. Team Trump has not even made a serious effort to keep Congress informed or to seek such authorization.

An objection here comes from the great number of folks confused about terrorism. They think that the President can designate groups as terrorists and then those bad guys are somehow put into in a global free-fire zone. Baloney. Not true. Congress must authorize the use of force, especially if it becomes habitual and not some one-off exception. Twenty strikes require a congressional authorization.

Third, drug cartels and smugglers are heinous creatures, but they are criminals not terrorists. As George Will noted, narco-terrorist is a contradiction in terms. Narcotics criminals want profit, not publicity. They want to fly under the political radar. Terrorists engage in political violence, often seen as “propaganda by deed.” They live for publicity and political effects, not monetary profit.

Drug smugglers deliver drugs to our shores, but they do so because a segment of our society is willing to pay them handsomely for their goods. Another Pogo moment for the United States. The “ally” of these enemy cartels are American drug consumers, addicts and recreational users, the demand side of the drug abuse equation.

Fourth, the kinetic counterdrug operations off the coast of Venezuela are curious. If we want to use force against cartels, why aren’t we focused on fentanyl coming from Mexico. Fentanyl is the most potent, killer drug, and it does not come from Venezuela, a second-rate drug trafficker by global standards.

Could it be that these kinetic drug operations are a cover for a more sinister and larger purpose? Why is one-third or our operational NAVY, off the coast of Venezuela? Are we planning to invade to depose Maduro? Is this counterdrug operation a cover for a more ambitious goal: capturing or controlling Venezuela’s oil reserves, the world’s largest by some reports? Could this naval presence be the prelude to another nation-building nightmare, another diversion from preparing to deal with more serious national security threats?

Fifth, while congressional hearings on the first kinetic drug strike are important, it is much more important for this Congress to focus on the larger picture off the coast of Venezuela. Like Lucy, this Administration has a lot of explaining to do. It is good that the Congress has been spurred to action by potential war crimes, but for the national interest, the Congress should widen its aperture and find out why a one-third of our deployed Navy loiters near Venezuela.

Finally, the potential war crime issue in Venezuela is yet another example of the Pentagon’s growing reputation for incompetence. It was clear that Pete Hegseth’s confirmation was a tremendous gamble. If Signalgate, the banishment of the media, and the attempted renaming of the whole Department were not enough, it is now clear that Hegseth’s best efforts and odd temperament have not been equal to the demands of the job. He holds little influence in the Administration. DoD needs a more serious and more effective leader.

Here’s hoping that our president can see that and our Congress awakes from its year-long slumber and once again takes up its Article 1 national security responsibilities. Beat Navy!

Joseph Collins writes from South Florida. He spent 46 years with the Department of Defense and has written a lot about irregular warfare and various strategic issues.

Killing Smugglers

November 24, 2025

I am not a lawyer and never pretended to be one. But I am a retired officer and professor of political science. I have spent many hours learning about the Constitution, the Law of Armed Conflict, and International Law. These normally arcane subjects have recently hit the front pages, and I have some thoughts. This is the first of two essays on the subject.

To begin, the targeted killing of drug smugglers in the waters off Latin America is against US law, International Law, and Commonsense.

In all but the case of self-defense or other urgent circumstances, the President cannot order the US Armed Forces to use deadly force abroad without Congressional authorization. The Founders spoke of declarations of war by Congress, but such declarations have gone out of style in international relations. In the United States, Congressional authorization, however, has not. Our 20-year war on terrorism began with such a congressional authorization and successive administrations did their best to tie their actions to it or subsequent authorizations concerning Iraq.

To the contrary, the Trump Administration thinks it has a power to use deadly force on its own authority. It has labelled the targets narco-terrorists and used the same language used in the war on terrorism. There are some problems here. As George Will pointed out, a narco-terrorist is a contradiction in terms. A narcotics smuggler wants money, not political effects. A terrorist wants political effects, money be damned. Terrorism has been defined as “propaganda by deed.” Publicity is an intermediate goal. Narcotics smugglers, to the contrary, avoid the limelight.

By the way, labelling a group as “terrorists” does not automatically grant the President some super power to use deadly force against them. Again, Congress has not authorized these 80+ killings in Latin America.

Another problem is rationale. The Administration originally tied their killings to stopping the flow of fentanyl. The boats that they are blowing up, however, contain cocaine, not fentanyl, which in this hemisphere comes from Mexico, over land, and not by sea.

The Administration has also not presented any proof that these small boats carried cocaine. Nearly all the boats destroyed could not have reached the United States on their own power. Even if they were laden with cocaine, US actions are not convincing as acts of self-defense to ward off an attack.

More recently, the United States has undertaken a massive buildup of forces adjacent to Venezuela. Some have opined that killing the drug smugglers is part of a pressure campaign against Venezuela’s dictatorial government in order ultimately to __________ … fill in the blank with your favorite regime-altering rationale. No one in this Administration has stated the purpose of this build-up. Further attacks on Venezuela also lack both popular support and congressional authorization.

The murders at sea also don’t pass muster with International Law. We often poo-poo international law, but I dimly remember Professor Louis Henkin at Columbia Law saying that 95% of nations obey international law 95% of the time. It is important. One reason it is important is that we don’t want the great powers to create a bad precedent that can be used by the Putins or the Saddam Husseins of this world. Killing unarmed people because you can is a bad precedent and certainly not conducive to a warrior spirit.

International law generally says that you can use force against another state when it attacks you, or if it is about to attack you. The latter is called preemptive war, like Israel’s attack on its Arab neighbors in 1967. Preventive wars, like the US attack on Iraq in 2003, are discouraged and often considered illegitimate. If a nation is building up and may in the distant future attack you or your allies, you have to use other means, not deadly force to remedy the situation.

It may be cold comfort, but a state is expected to use diplomacy, international organizations, and economic measures to resolve the dispute before going kinetic. At a certain point, anxious power and legal principle will wrestle. In extremis, despite the salience of international law the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.

International law also stresses proportional response to hostile action. You can’t nuke an opponent for a spitting on your Ambassador. You can’t kill a criminal who is smuggling something into your country. You can arrest and try them. And don’t get lost in claims of false economy. It is more expensive and dangerous to kill a criminal or smuggler than to apprehend them, try them, or deport them. At home, we have learned over the years that capital punishment is often more expensive than long-term incarceration. Punishment without process is unjust in nearly all circumstances.

And that brings me to common sense. If you were a police chief and one of your cops told you that he had lots of bad information about a low-level suspect, would you authorize the police officer to kill the suspect. Of course, you wouldn’t, if for no other reason than it would be easier and more productive to investigate and then try the suspect and the accomplices.

What we are doing in Latin America violates US law, international law, and common sense. Why are we doing it? Why is a third of our warfighting Navy off the coast of Venezuela?

Joseph Collins served in the Department of Defense for 46 years. He taught for 25 years at West Point and the National War College.