Following Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's startling announcement in July that the US military would begin mandatory testosterone screening for personnel, the Pentagon released a clinical guidance document on September 2 outlining the new medically questionable policy.

The next day, though, the clinical guidance document disappeared, as did an accompanying statement by spokesperson Sean Parnell. The withdrawal was first reported by Reuters.

In a statement sent to Ars Technica, the Pentagon said that the document, titled "Clinical Guidance for Health and Human Performance Optimization," had been temporarily rescinded on September 3 to allow for updates.

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Anthropic is rebuilding ties with the Trump administration after its Pentagon fight, potentially reopening the door to federal AI contracts.

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Anthropic is rebuilding ties with the Trump administration after its Pentagon fight, potentially reopening the door to federal AI contracts.

The post Anthropic Wins Back Trump Administration’s Trust After Pentagon Fight appeared first on TechRepublic.

Operation Southern Spear, the U.S. campaign against alleged drug trafficking small boats off the coast of several South American nations, continues unabated. But while both the public and politicians seem to have become numb to this campaign – or perhaps distracted by the seemingly endless Iran debacle - a few things have remained constant. First, U.S. military forces are killing boat crews without any effort to apprehend them. Second, this practice lacks, as it has from inception, any credible legal justification.

President Trump bragged that his administration has reduced by more than 90% illegal drug importation by sea. Like so many other bombastic or mendacious claims made by the President, there was no data or methodology provided to corroborate this alleged statistic, which is wildly exaggerated. What is more concrete is the human toll this ongoing campaign has inflicted to date. According to a recent report, at least 233 people have been killed in these strikes on 67 boats, all part of a campaign.

Even if the President’s exaggerated assertions of efficacy were accepted, and even assuming these attacks are coordinated with coastal countries like Ecuador, the inherent illegality is in no way altered. Why? Because interdicting the flow of illegal narcotics – even when the importation operation is controlled by criminal gangs – is not a war and does not justify invocation of wartime authority. It is, instead, a law enforcement problem. More specifically, the authority to attack ‘enemy’ personnel and resources with lethal combat power may be justifiably invoked only in situations of armed conflict. When the United States chose to address that problem through the lens of wartime attack authority, it forfeited any claim of legal justification.

The administration knows that, as a matter of international law, the United States may designate individuals as enemy belligerents and attack them with lethal combat power only in the context of an armed conflict. This is why from inception it has emphasized the gravity of harm to Americans resulting from illegal narcotics smuggled into the nation. Proponents of this campaign have emphasized that more Americans are killed every year by illegal drugs than were killed by the September 11^th terrorist attacks. No one questions the tragic consequences of this problem. But every harm to the nation or its people does not ipso facto indicate the existence of an armed conflict. Instead, it is why and how that harm is inflicted that are decisive.

Thus, it is obvious why supporters of this campaign consistently claim the harm caused by illegal drugs means we are at war with drug traffickers: because they seek to justify invoking wartime authority to attack these boats and occupants. Doing so avoids the pesky challenge of apprehension and criminal prosecution – the normal and legally presumptive method for disabling criminal threats: the very modality used by the U.S. prior to this invalid assertion of armed conflict (and apparently one that was more effective). More fundamentally – and problematically – it seeks to validate what by any objective measure is the invalid campaign that is employs lethal force as a measure of first resort based not on the imminent threat posed by the target of attack, but instead on the assertion that target is a member of an enemy group.

The loss of 233 enemy combatants in a war – what international law calls an armed conflict – might be expected. Enemy casualties in the ongoing armed conflict with Iran are undoubtedly more substantial. But it is the context of armed conflict that makes such loss of life unremarkable. This is because in that context the customary international law principle of military necessity justifies targeting enemy personnel – members of the enemy organized armed group – with lethal force as a measure of first resort. And, unlike a law enforcement use of force, the objective of such attacks is not limited to eliminating an individual threat, but instead to bring about the submission of the enemy as a whole.

This is an exceptional use of force authority invoked by States precisely because armed conflict is considered an exceptional situation. Unlike peacetime, armed conflict involves a contest – hostilities – between the State and armed groups operating at the direction of enemy leadership. More fundamentally, the objective of that enemy group would have to be to inflict harm on the U.S. or its assets. It is that motive and conduct that distinguished the September 11^th attacks from criminal gangs smuggling illegal drugs into the United States. Unlike al Qaeda, these groups do not operate with the objective of inflicting harm on the United States (it would be an odd drug dealer who wants to kill his customers) nor do they engage in hostile attacks against the U.S. or its interest abroad.

This is why State invocation of this exceptional power is supposed to be limited to situations of genuine threats to the nation from groups organized for that purpose. It is justified only when a state is challenged by the military forces of another state or by a non-state organized armed group capable of engaging in sustained combat operations. Absent such a situation, state security forces must respond to what is a criminal threat with law enforcement type rules for the use of force. Whether police, Coast Guard, or regular military forces are utilized, lethal force is justified only as a measure of last resort and only when reasonably assessed that the individual subjected to that use of force presents a threat of death or great bodily harm.

This binary use of force construct is reflected in ‘peacetime’ versus ‘wartime’ rules of engagement: use of force control measures utilized by U.S. commanders to align authority with mission requirements. During the many military operations outside the context of armed conflict – including military support to law enforcement – deadly force is authorized only in response to an actual or imminent deadly threat, the same use of force authority applicable to law enforcement officers. That means that it is the conduct of the ‘target’ offering a direct threat that triggers any use of deadly force in response. In contrast, wartime ROE authorize use of deadly force as a first resort against individuals identified as members of the enemy armed group (unless they have surrendered or been disabled by wounds or sickness). Unlike a conduct-based use of force decision, this authority is triggered by a determination of enemy status.

This shift in lethal force authority is perhaps the most significant consequence flowing from a situation of armed conflict. It is also why the existence of armed conflict is not left to arbitrary assertions but is based on widely accepted objective conditions – the so-called conflict classification test that looks at issues like the intensity of the violence, the degree of organization of the group and its ability to carry out sustained operations. That test is pragmatic and, as noted above, covers both state and non-state threats. But it is not so elastic as to allow a state to bypass the peacetime use of force constraints by simply characterizing a threat posed by criminals as an armed conflict.

Yet that is exactly what the U.S. has done to justify lethal targeting of small boats. These boats may indeed be trafficking in illegal narcotics, and the occupants may indeed be members of criminal syndicates or gangs (although there has been scant information provided to validate these claims). And those drugs may indeed be destined for the United States. But none of this indicates the existence of an armed conflict.

Sadly, the continuation of this campaign seems to have numbed the public and Member of Congress to the perpetuation of this illegality. Yet this is also a reminder of an historic legal maxim: the repetition of an illegal act shall not make it legal. When committed under the authority of the United States, it does, however, stain our national reputation and undermine our claim to stand for the rule of law.

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to Editor@thecipherbrief.com for publication consideration.

Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief

“I do think there's a lot of evidence to believe that we're accomplishing the military objectives [of the Iran War], which is destroying the Iranian Navy, the Iranian Air Force, their air defenses, the missile production capabilities, drone production capabilities. That's going well. But how that translates into strategic success has been, I think, the weakness in this entire operation and continues to be today. And I think that if we were to take a step back to February [when the Iran War started], and think about where we are today, I don't know that this would be in our theory of success. It would probably be a branch plan that would not be going so well. And I'm worried about that.”

That was retired-Air Force Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, former Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategy, Integration, and Requirements, now a professor of policy analysis at the RAND School of Public Policy and a non-resident adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Aerospace Security Project.

He was speaking on July 23, at a CSIS event, The Air Campaign Returns: From Epic Fury to Midnight Hammer, along with retired-Air Force Gen. James Slife, former Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force, former Commander of Air Force Special Operations Command, and also a non-resident adviser to CSIS’ Aerospace Security Project.

The two former senior Air Force officers not only gave their frank views of the Iran War, but also discussed the future of warfare and its impact on the Air Force and other U.S. military forces. I will start with their views on Iran and the war and then move on to other subjects they dealt with.

Since the Strait of Hormuz is central right now, let’s begin with their views on the Strait which I found inciteful.

Ret.-Gen. Slife began by pointing out, “Military planners have struggled with the Strait of Hormuz challenge for years and years. I mean I don't think it's any surprise to anybody that's paying attention to how this has played out, because geography favors Iran in the Strait.”

Slife continued, “I mean they [Iranians] have three sides of the Strait of Hormuz, right? It's a very narrow waterway. It's very shallow. The ability to maneuver inside the Strait is very limited. It's crowded. I mean there aren't a lot of great options.”

Then, as a former Air Force commander he offered the following views: “I mean, frankly, if there was a great option for how air power could unblock the Strait of Hormuz, it would probably be unblocked at this point. There are things that I think the air component is doing in conjunction with the naval component to target the means that Iran uses to exercise control over the Strait. But it is a very difficult problem. Geography just doesn't favor us in this regard.”

Ret.-Lt. Gen. Hinote added, “I think we're dealing with the problem of small numbers,” and then explained, “The [U.S.] joint force can be exceptionally good at preventing the majority of attacks on shipping [in the Strait]. That could even get into the 90% plus range. You could even call it 98%. But it's that last 2% that the joint force just has the most difficulty stopping [Iran from hitting a transiting ship] because you just can't stop everything when there are these mountainous rugged shores that Iran controls and they can use that as [protective] cover to attack shipping.”

Hinote went on, “So the problem is not necessarily that we're not militarily successful. I call 98% pretty militarily successful, but it's that last 2% that the [ship] insurance companies cannot accept. And so that's, I believe, the true dilemma that is facing the world economy today -- that as long as Iran has the will to try and negate shipping through the Strait, it's going to have some level of capability to do so. And that just creates a conundrum that we just haven't solved and [are] unlikely to solve.”

The two former Air Force generals also raised the issue of Israeli and U.S. forces having different missions for their military involved in attacking Iran.

Ret.-Gen. Slife put it this way: “I wonder to what extent the difference in [U.S. and Israeli] targeting reflects different national aims between Israel and the United States. I don't have any way of knowing that, but I do think it's noteworthy that we are actually, we have pursued very different target sets which may tell us something about what our respective national aims are.”

Ret.-Lt. Gen. Hinote picked up that idea saying, “To me, the Israeli theory of success is pretty straightforward. They [the Israelis] believe the Iranian regime will always be hostile to them and they believe that they have to go back and back and back to re-strike things and to re-strike the regime targets. And you might think of that as a strategy that we've heard called mowing the grass…meaning that the grass is going to grow back and we're going to go back and they are resigned to some way of mowing the grass again for years.”

That means, according to Hinote, “The more [Iranian] regime leaders we [meaning the Israelis] can kill, the better, because that means it takes more time for the new regime leaders to be dangerous to us.”

As for the U.S., according to Hinote, “We're at a stage now where we're fighting a coercion campaign…Hey, we want the Strait [of Hormuz] open. Hey, we want you to give up your nuclear aspirations.”

But now, as he adds, “There's nobody left in Iran who really can make that decision and enforce it up and down what is left of the government and military apparatus. So we're in a state now where what you might have thought of as the strategic aims and the military means, not only were they not necessarily totally aligned, they may have in certain circumstances worked against each other -- and that's a really difficult place to be.”

That is because, as Hinote points out, “We [the Israelis and U.S.] did one of the most successful, maybe the most successful decapitation operation [of Iranian leadership] in history. And so given that, I think you expect that there's going to be a high degree of paralysis and inaction at the

highest levels of the Iranian government. So you're almost thinking like, okay, well, what at that point, how do you take advantage of that strategic paralysis?”

However, there was no “strategic paralysis” in the Tehran regime, nor was there an internal uprising, as President Trump called for that night last February when he announced the first Iran attacks were underway. “When we are finished,” Trump said to the Iranian people, “take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will probably be your only chance for generations." Trump also called on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the armed forces and police to "lay down your weapons and have complete immunity" otherwise "face certain death."

As Hinote put it last week, “We're in a state now where what you might have thought of as the strategic aims and the military means not only were not necessarily totally aligned, they may

have in certain circumstances worked against each other -- and that's a really difficult place to be. And I think one of the reasons why it feels intractable right now is because you have that disparity.”

In fact, Hinote added, “The United States would like to be done with the Middle East, so that we could finally execute some sort of pivot to Asia. And we'd like to get out of all of these very expensive bases in the Middle East. And so we have a theory that is we want to put the [Iranian] regime into some sort of state where we don't have to go back anytime soon -- and we get to a steady state that is better than what was in existence on February 28th [when the U.S. and Israel first attacked Iran].”

Slife also mentioned an effect on U.S military readiness from the Iran War that need further attention when he said, “You know that all our readiness is built around how we generate and deploy forces, particularly for the Air Force and the Navy. We've seen heavy deployments beyond what the [military] services feel like they can routinely support from a readiness perspective and so those things always have a delayed effect.”

Slife added, “I think just the pace of operations over the last year has probably exceeded the Air Force and the Navy's ability to maintain levels of readiness going forward. So, I think we were going to have to pay close attention to that over the next three-to-five years, because there is always a delayed impact to these kinds of heavy operations.”

Hinote spoke about “the mission to rescue the [U.S.] back-seater of the F-15E [that was shot down over Iran]. We've only heard a little bit about that. My sense is that it was a huge operation that required tremendous integration across multiple types of forces in a very difficult time frame.”

He pointed out the difference from the troubled April 1980 Iran rescue attempt that was, he said, “so bad that it led to reforms for the next decade in the United States military. We may see that [the April 5, F-15E back-seater] rescue operation, in contrast, stands as being one of the best we've ever seen.”

Hinote then explained why saving the back-seater was so important.

“What if that weapon-system officer would have been captured and paraded in Iran on TV with the entire world seeing it real time,” Hinote said, “You could see that any political objectives that we were trying to achieve would be all the more difficult to achieve with one single pilot being paraded around in Iran…So, not only was the true political nature of the whole operation in jeopardy, but you [the U.S.] were willing to send what I think is going to end up being scores of airplanes into harm's way, multiple units, helicopters and such to go rescue this one pilot so that the political objectives could be preserved.”

While public concentration currently is on what’s not yet worked to end the Iran War, that rescue operation was one element that did succeed.

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to Editor@thecipherbrief.com for publication consideration.

Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief

“This is not at all a strategy-driven [FY 2027 defense] budget. This is a budget-driven budget. If you look at the Truth Social posts by the President [Trump] and the statements of the people around him, he [President Trump] makes very clear that this budget was driven by a budget number, a budget target, an arbitrary level that was set based on five percent of last year's GDP…They set this arbitrary level and then at relatively the last minute in the budget development process the [Defense] Department was told come up with a request that gets you to this number, this $1.5 trillion number. And so they did.”

That was Todd Harrison of the American Enterprise Institute and one of the nation's top experts on defense strategy and the defense budget, speaking last Tuesday at the Brookings Institution as part of a panel on The FY 2027 defense budget: How much is enough?

Remember, as I wrote last week, the Trump FY 2027 defense request is for $1.15 trillion with another $350 billion request to be placed in a FY 2026 reconciliation package; and there now also is the new FY 2026 supplemental request, which has another $67 billion for the Defense Department.

House members have been weighing all the defense numbers and this week may be voting on a FY 2026 reconciliation package of $95 billion with only $73 billion for defense – far less than what was being sought.

Last Tuesday, Harrison went on to explain what may have been going on: “I say it is absolutely not a strategy-driven [FY 2027 defense] budget because they didn't have to make hard choices. They made some easy choices.”

As an example, Harrison said, “Do you want, you know, a fourth generation fighter jet? Buy some new fourth generation [F-15s]; or do we want to continue buying the fifth-generation fighters like the F-35 we have in production; or do we want to invest in sixth generation fighters? Do all of them, right? You can do all three at once, if you have a virtually unlimited budget, you don't have to make those hard tradeoffs.”

And, in fact, all three are included in the proposed FY2027 defense budget.

But Harrison goes on to suggest another way to view this Trump defense budget giant increase saying, “There's still a limit to how much the department can consume in terms of this funding…because I don't think they [the Trump budgeteers] actually intend this to be like a one-year budget authority number, especially with the reconciliation [set at $350 billion]. I think it is actually more like a five-year budget number that they're trying to get pre-funded up front, but they actually plan to spend it at a slower pace over the next five years.”

Harrison also looked at “the parts that I think absolutely don't belong in here are these big pots of money they created in defense-wide accounts that have very little description with them.”

For example, he picked out “$54 billion in the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group (DAWG) line item. That is a single program element that's got $54 billion in it,” Harrison said. “That's unprecedented. If you read the budget description with it, it gives very little detail. You know, it's [clears throat] supposed to be investments in drones and things like that, but like tell us

quantities, tell us specific types of drones, like tell us what you're going to be using it for, and that detail is not there.”

Harrison went on, “It appears they haven't figured that out yet, so I think $54 billion is quite a reach, trying to ask for that much money for something that has not yet been well defined. So, I think that there are areas here where they've really overshot and they've tried to just throw everything in there and ask for a super high number. And I wonder if they almost expect that they're not going to get that full number -- that Congress will cut them back down quite a bit. But they were just trying to reach that overall $1.5 trillion level.”

As Yahoo Finance pointed out earlier this month, the $54 billion for DAWG sought for FY 2027 is 243 times greater than what DAWG got this year, and “now exceeds the entire Marine Corps budget request of $52.8 billion and represents nearly 15% of the entire $350 billion reconciliation package.”

Harrison’s view: “You get to the endgame, Congress is going to have to sort through this and say, ‘Okay, what are the what things in here are serious things that really do need to get funded one way or the other, and we'll have to figure out how to make that happen, and what are the other things that were just budget gimmicks or just filler?’"

Harrison was not the only expert on last Tuesday’s Brookings panel.

Joining him were David Wessel, who runs Brookings’ tax and fiscal policy in the economic studies program; and Mara Karlin, professor at John's Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, who has worked for six Defense Secretaries over her career.

Wessel took a broader financial view saying, “The President is proposing a big defense budget at a time when we have unsustainable fiscal trajectory, and so I think that raises an important question and that question is…budgeting is about tradeoffs and the President and Congress at the moment seem to be avoiding trade-offs. There are ways we could offset if defense spending is really important. We should think about ways to pay for some of it either by cutting some other places in defense or raising taxes. And there's some ideas floating around on that, but none of them are politically popular.”

Wessel also raised two other issues: “I think it also requires some trust on the part of the public that the money is being well spent and that relies on Congress doing oversight. And secondly, that we are sticking with a military that is nonpartisan and follows the leadership of the President and the Congress, but is not totally politicized. And I'm afraid that the trust in the military is being eroded by some of the personnel decisions that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is making. And I think that's a problem.”

As for Karlin, she referred to the Trump national strategy and focused on what she called “a break with the bipartisanship that has characterized how folks have thought about these threats for a long time.”

Karlin noted, “The real emphasis of this [Trump national] strategy is on the Western Hemisphere, right? The real threat is seen in this strategy as these alleged narco-terrorists as they're so named…So, that's the priority.”

But, she adds, “You then see China mentioned, but in a pretty circumscribed way, just the first island chain. And in general, the language reads a lot softer than almost any recent defense strategy. You see a desire to downgrade involvement in European affairs, a little bit of mention of the Middle East, but in no way signaling that we would be starting this massive [Iran] conflict. And so here's where I think, there's some confusion worth highlighting because traditionally a national defense strategy is a decoder ring. It's going to tell you where the Secretary of Defense will put their energy and attention.”

“When we look at this budget, this very large budget, that's really at kind of World War levels,” Karlin said, “and frankly, the number [$1.5 trillion] isn't really merited by the strategy.”

She explained, “If one were really to just prioritize the Western Hemisphere and this quite circumcised focus on China as a major threat, and not be involved in most other regions of the world, in fact, the Trump administration could have put out a quite tiny defense budget request. So I leave you with a bit of perplexity.”

Two more things Harrison mentioned need recording.

“I forgot to address the [Trump] battleship issue,” Harrison said at one point, “because you know that's in here and far from defending it, I think that's one of those examples of things that got thrown in because they didn't have to make tough choices.”

Then he explained, “No one in the Navy can say with a straight face that we're going to go from starting a brand-new, clean-ship design in FY 2027, to procuring the lead-class [battle]ship in FY 2028, to going to all the way by FY 2031 being at full rate production, ready to buy them at one per year. That doesn't pass the laugh test…And so are we just setting ourselves up to spend a few billion dollars chasing, you know, this weird idea before we eventually have to cancel it and then things go back to the way they were before.”

Finally, Harrison said, “I think there needs to be some fundamental look on the congressional side at just how do we reform the budget process to get it working again; open the aperture to things like changing the start date of the fiscal year [which now begins October 1], re-jiggering the committee structure.”

I believe Harrison is questioning why each year the Armed Services Committees in both the House and Senate each authorize spending programs, and then the House and Senate Appropriations Committees set the actual dollar-level of funds made available for that year.

“You know,” Harrison said, “I'm talking a lot of third rails here, but I think we're at that kind of point like we were in the early 1970s where Congress realized it [the budgeting process] just wasn't working. I think that they need to do some serious inward-looking reform like that.”

I agree, having twice worked on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the 1960s, and followed defense spending over the past 60 years. Harrison is right – the Legislative Branch system for passing Executive Branch funding needs to be repaired.

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to Editor@thecipherbrief.com for publication consideration.

Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief

Author’s Note: This article is not about ‘endless wars’ as a critique of U.S. military interventions — that debate belongs elsewhere. It examines a distinct and increasingly visible pattern: how U.S. adversaries wage continuous, long-term conflict against the United States across peace and war, both below and above the threshold of open conflict. The aim is to clarify the nature of the competition we are already in.

Countering Endless Warfare and its Networks

The United States is not at peace. As I argued in Part I, the United States is already in a continuous, long-term conflict with determined adversaries who are waging warfare without crossing the threshold into open conflict. Endless Warfare is a framework for understanding how those adversaries pursue an enduring approach to erode and supplant U.S. power, influence, and global leadership over time.

Endless Warfare is not simply another label for the gray zone or cognitive warfare. Both are important elements and merit their own approaches, but Endless Warfare describes the adversary’s persistent, long-term strategy, not just the elements that enable it.

Given this operating environment, this is about far more than terminology. It is about how we understand conflict, how we achieve deterrence, how we protect decision autonomy, how we retain leverage, and, most importantly, how we disrupt the networks that fuel Endless Warfare.

What are the essential next steps?

Endless Warfare Requires a Different Strategic Mindset

Militaries are often criticized for planning to fight the last war. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was undermined by Russia’s underestimation of how much warfare had evolved since Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in 2014. The United States potentially faces that same risk today. It is important that we are prepared to fight and win the next conventional war, but there are risks in a focus on only that strategy. We must also prepare to fight and win—with the appropriate instruments of national power—the Endless Warfare being waged on the United States by its adversaries; warfare that incorporates gray zone activity, cognitive warfare, weaponized negotiations, proxies and surrogates, and other subversive networks.

This change in strategic mindset is not because of a lack of capability. The United States has considerable experience, resources, and capabilities in this space. Endless Warfare is conceptually different from conventional war—particularly given the ambiguous nature of gray-zone activity and cognitive warfare—and therefore demands a different approach.

Yet because it is a continuous state of conflict, it also requires the same level of national leadership and vision, organization, critical thinking, sense of urgency, and collaboration with allies that we apply to conventional conflict. This is achievable but will take some effort. It may require a senior White House official, such as a Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Competition, to integrate interagency action and coordinate a sustained national response to this threat.

That Deputy National Security Advisor would not replace existing responsibilities of Departments and Agencies. The role would be to ensure that strategic deterrence in the gray zone, cognitive advantage, conflict negotiations when adversaries seek to extend rather than resolve conflict, and network disruptions are integrated into a coherent and sustained national response to the threat of Endless Warfare against the United States.

Strategic Deterrence in the Gray Zone

Strategic deterrence is one component of a broader approach to countering Endless Warfare. Gray zone activity is a powerful enabler of Endless Warfare because it gives our adversaries a space to undermine the United States while avoiding armed conflict.

Our adversaries have calculated that there are more gains than risks in the gray zone and that any risks they do face are acceptable. Actions that seek to counter or defend against gray zone activity but that do not impose meaningful costs or create credible deterrence may simply reward gray zone activity.

An effective strategy for achieving strategic deterrence in the gray zone rests on deliberate preparation, clear communication, a national approach, and the resolve to change the risk calculus of our adversaries.

Deliberate preparation means collecting and analyzing information on adversary gray zone trends, capabilities, and intent before they act; routinely coordinating at the national level so roles, responsibilities, and decision paths are clear; and reorienting institutions and the interagency to maintain effective balanced capability in both conventional and gray domains.

We also must communicate clearly domestically, to our allies, and particularly to our adversaries. A simple but clear message for our adversaries: “We will see what you’re doing, we will publicly attribute it to you, and we will impose costs that exceed your gains.”

This message is credible only if it is backed by action over time. The United States must convincingly demonstrate its resolve to proactively and persistently employ national capabilities to change the risk calculus and behavior of our adversaries.

This range of national capabilities includes coordinated diplomatic and allied action, economic sanctions and restrictions, cyber operations, legal and financial disruption, public attribution, denying access to critical technologies, cognitive measures, military posture and partner capability-building and—when necessary—kinetic responses. Recent examples illustrate that imposing costs is possible.

In 2021, the United States publicly attributed the SolarWinds supply-chain compromise to Russia, expelled Russian Intelligence Officers, and imposed broad financial penalties under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

In early 2025, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Sichuan Juxinhe Network Technology Company and associated individuals for their role in Salt Typhoon for attacks on network infrastructure of multiple major U.S. telecommunication and internet service providers.

These were hard-earned wins for U.S. Departments and Agencies involved, but Russia and China appear to have absorbed the costs and continued their operations. Achieving strategic deterrence means that actions like these must become the norm, not the exception.

The goal of strategic deterrence in the gray zone is to shape adversary decision-making before action is taken. It means proactively shaping the environment so adversaries hesitate before they act—a critical step in disrupting the cycle of Endless Warfare.

Gaining a Cognitive Advantage

Countering the impacts of cognitive warfare is essential to countering Endless Warfare. My colleague, Austin Branch, and I argued in The Cipher Brief that it was possible—and necessary—for the U.S. to seize a 21st-century cognitive advantage.

That argument is even more urgent today given the central role of cognitive warfare in our adversaries’ strategies of Endless Warfare. Cognitive Security, at its core, is the protection of human cognition and decision autonomy—our individual and collective ability to accurately perceive global events, to trust the knowledge we have and the information we receive, and to make confident, independent decisions free from external manipulation, influence, or coercion.

Cognitive Security is also about offense—outthinking, outpacing, and outmaneuvering our adversaries in the cognitive domain.

Our adversaries should understand that their leaders, institutions, networks, proxies—and decision-making—are vulnerable to cognitive pressure and influence. The goal is to force them—not the United States—to confront the uncertainties and risks of cognitive warfare and to weaken their ability to wage Endless Warfare.

There are some positive steps at the national level.

We now have a first-ever NSC Cognitive Advantage Director, and the FY26 NDAA directs the Secretary of Defense to formally define cognitive warfare for the Department. The Department’s Strategic Capabilities Office recently launched a Cognitive Warfare Project to advance the military’s cognitive warfare capabilities. There is clearly opportunity here.

Yet, these early steps remain fragmented. In contrast, China’s United Front Work Department, Russia’s Active Measures networks, and Iran’s diverse network of surrogates reflect centralized national direction and a long-term horizon as elements of a national strategy.

In this vital process, America’s approach has to be equally well-coordinated and strategic. It is essential that these new efforts avoid bureaucratic hurdles, over-prescription that may stifle innovation, and creating silos. Our adversaries will not wait for us to catch up.

Our national narrative—America’s Story—also plays an important role. As Branch and I argued in the Cipher Brief, our national narrative is both sword and shield. It projects power, influence, and advances our interests. It tells the story of our values, history, aspirations, and view of the world. It supports confidence in our actions, our institutions, and our global commitments.

Importantly, America’s Story counters adversary narratives and actions that seek to undermine America at home and abroad. It can serve as a powerful antidote to adversary campaigns that use cognitive warfare to sustain prolonged conflict. America’s Story was built at a time when much of the world saw America as liberator, peacemaker, builder, global diplomat, and above all, a powerful symbol of sacrifice, freedom, and self-determination. The long arc of America’s Story is its strength.

The United States cannot let this national narrative get lost in episodic political turbulence—its role in countering our adversaries is too vital.

Countering Weaponized Negotiations

In the era of Endless Warfare, adversaries often use negotiations as a continuation of conflict by other means—not as instruments of resolution. Negotiations can play an outsized role in Endless Warfare even though they only occur periodically. The central challenge is distinguishing when talks aim to legitimately resolve a conflict versus when they are designed to shape its next phase.

Today, drawing lessons directly from Russia’s behavior—from Georgia to Ukraine—and from Iran, several principles emerge that can strengthen our negotiating posture when facing adversaries that practice weaponized negotiations.

Those key principles include:

No upfront concessions. Make no upfront concessions to get an adversary to the negotiating table. Such actions erode diplomatic, economic, and military leverage and can shape the entire negotiations on unfavorable terms.

Establish clear overarching objectives and non-negotiable redlines early. This preserves decision autonomy, provides a framework for decision-making, and prevents adversaries from reshaping objectives to their advantage.

Proactively counter narratives. During negotiations over Ukraine, Russia repeatedly pushed narratives, such as “Ukraine can never win” and “territory concessions are inevitable,” to shape Western perceptions of what constituted a realistic outcome. Anticipating and countering false narratives ensures negotiations are not manipulated.

Concessions must be conditions-based. Any concessions given during negotiations must be based on measurable, verifiable actions with automatic snap-back mechanisms if commitments are violated.

Be willing to walk away. The desire for any agreement should never outweigh core national security interests. Suspending or ending talks is better than enabling or accepting a settlement that resets the conflict in an adversary’s favor.

Chester Karrass put it plainly, in life you don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate. This is a powerful counter to American assumptions that raw power or battlefield success will carry the day at the negotiating table.

Countering Endless Warfare Networks

These measures—deterrence, cognitive advantage, and managing weaponized negotiations—greatly improve America’s posture, but they do not by themselves disrupt Endless Warfare networks.

The ultimate goal is systematically confronting the adversary networks that pose an enduring threat to the U.S. These networks fall into two broad categories: state institutional structures and more ambiguous structures that blur the line between state and non-state activity.

Institutional networks include military organizations, intelligence services, party organizations, proxy structures, and state-directed organizations such as IRGC-QF, MSS, GRU, and FSB, as well as the specialized units responsible for assassinations and sabotage, influence operations, and cyber-attacks as a few examples.

Ambiguous networks include ghost fleets, shell and front companies, criminal organizations, illicit financial systems, logistics systems influence networks, cyber hacktivists, proxy militias, smuggling organizations, and other similar entities.

These networks are not abstract. Iran, Russia, and China employ different approaches to Endless Warfare, but each illustrates how adversaries develop and employ both institutional and ambiguous networks to achieve persistent strategic objectives over a long timeframe. Just as a few examples:

Iran’s network of proxies and surrogates, built over decades, allows Iran to project power, coerce and intimidate its neighbors, and get inside the decision space of its adversaries at relatively low cost. The IRGC is an enabler of Iran’s distributed networks with global reach.

Russia’s networks conduct cognitive warfare against the U.S. and the West and conduct sabotage, assassinations, and political coercion across Europe. Russia’s “ghost fleets” have allowed it to generate billions in revenue despite Western sanctions.

China’s Cyber networks probe and penetrate U.S. critical infrastructure to sustain access, collect information, and provide a disruption capability during a crisis. Its networks enable sophisticated influence operations inside the U.S. and the transfer of critical technologies that directly enhance its military capabilities.

Shared and overlapping networks in gray and ambiguous spaces play a critical role. Ghost fleets, front companies, terror networks, illicit financial organizations, and criminal enterprises allow adversaries to bypass sanctions, sustain operations, and reduce international pressure.

Some of these networks are visible and attributable, others are intentionally obscured and decentralized to complicate attribution and defy sovereignty, international law, and national laws, including those of the U.S. We should expect our adversaries to fiercely protect these resilient, adaptive, and self-recovering networks they have carefully developed over time, often over decades, to gain and sustain a strategic advantage.

The critical question is how the U.S. can systematically reduce the effectiveness of these networks.

To paraphrase H.L. Mencken, for every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. That is the dilemma facing the U.S. now. Overly simplistic approaches or single solutions that do not take into account the complexities of Endless Warfare and the commitment of our adversaries to that approach will consume time and resources but ultimately fail.

Countering Endless Warfare requires a sustained, network-centric strategy employing the instruments of national power—diplomatic, military, economic, technological, informational, cognitive, and kinetic—rather than a series of independent actions. This strategy consists of three mutually reinforcing lines of effort built on one foundational principle.

First, identify and prioritize the networks that pose the greatest long-term threat to the United States. There are no official estimates of this ecosystem of networks—and what constitutes a network has not been clearly defined—but Iran, Russia, and China, collectively direct or enable a very large number institutional, commercial, criminal, cyber, intelligence, influence, and proxy networks worldwide.

Second, sustain campaigns to daylight, degrade, disrupt, and impose costs on institutional networks that conduct and oversee attacks on the United States and our allies. It is unlikely that the U.S. can dismantle foreign institutional networks, but those networks can be degraded, constrained, and made costly and less effective.

Third, dismantle, disrupt, and prevent the regeneration of ambiguous networks by severing the financial, logistical, technological, and organizational systems that support them. This is not a one-time activity. Ambiguous networks are more vulnerable, but they are often adaptive and can regenerate or be replaced.

Cognitive Security and Cyber Defenses have a combined vital role to play. None of these efforts will succeed unless American citizens, business leaders, military commanders, and policy makers are less vulnerable to influence, manipulation, and coercion—preserving America’s decision autonomy—and unless governments, institutions, organizations, and critical infrastructure are less vulnerable to technological exploitation and disruption.

Summary

The concepts in this paper are difficult to neatly categorize because they describe a form of warfare that is not fully defined. As conventional warfare evolves, so do the more nuanced aspects of warfare that take place below and above the threshold of conflict and in the ambiguous space between peace and war. I offer four takeaways.

First, Endless Warfare is a distinct adversary strategy already underway by China, Russia, and Iran and should be treated as a current strategic threat—not just a future one.

Second, endless Warfare is sustained by sophisticated and interconnected networks that must become a primary target for U.S. and allied efforts.

Third, countering Endless Warfare requires a proactive, persistent, and network-centric approach backed by national-level leadership, a new framework for strategic planning, a sense of urgency, and coordinated interagency action. Is ittime to consider a senior White House official, such as a Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Competition, to integrate interagency action and coordinate a sustained national response to this threat?

Fourth, strategic deterrence in the gray zone, cognitive advantage, disciplined negotiations, and network-focused disruption are core tools of that sustained national response to make Endless Warfare increasingly ineffective, costly, and ultimately unsustainable for China, Russia, and Iran.

Endless Warfare will not end because our adversaries choose peace. It will end when it is no longer effective.

All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the U.S. Government. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying U.S. Government authentication of information or endorsement of the author’s views.

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to Editor@thecipherbrief.com for publication consideration.

Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief

“We [the Joint Chiefs of Staff] often times in the national security decision-making process or White House meetings -- outside of the Pentagon process -- will go back and forth between military issues and political issues. And I think it's incumbent upon us to kind of stay in, you know, what the current [Joint Chiefs] Chairman [Air Force Gen. Dan] Caine describes as ‘the midfield’ in that regard. So we have to be aware of the political environment within which we're operating, but we have to be nonpartisan. And as long as we stick to addressing the military dimension of the problem, and not fall to the temptation to start participating and waxing eloquently about issues that are not in our purview, I think we can maintain that character.”

That was ret.-Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, former-Joint Chiefs Chairman during the second Obama and first Trump administrations, speaking last Tuesday on a panel entitled Inside the Pentagon: The Chairman, Congress & Combatant Commands, as part of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ (CSIS) 2026 Global Security Forum.

Also on the panel were ret.-Navy Adm. John Aqualino, former-Commander of Indo-Pacific Command and former-Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), a one-time Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

The panel’s hour-long discussion covered a variety of current issues and also at times provided a behind-the-scenes look at past Pentagon leaders’ thinking.

For example, Dunford said at one point, “I can't think of a time when I was participating in the National Security Council where I was dealing with a military problem. We were dealing with strategic problems that had a military dimension. And that's really important because in that capacity, you are providing advice about the military dimension and how the military dimension can best support the political objective that's been articulated by the President.”

Dunford further explained, “It's not the [Joint Chief] Chairman's role to go to the National Security Council and advocate for a particular policy that involves much more than just the military dimension. It's the Chairman's role to represent the other Joint Chiefs and provide military advice, again in a way that's integrated with all the other elements of national power to accomplish a particular objective.” And he repeated, “I think it's really important both in public and private that we be seen as advisors and not advocates.”

In Dunford’s view, discussions at the National Security Council “ought to remain private and most often they're very highly classified.” He added, “Even today, I don't feel at liberty to discuss what went on inside the National Security Council or what I specifically recommended.”

I quote these Dunford views because these days, for example. many Trump critics who disagree with the President’s decision last February to attack Iran, have wondered why no top military commander has yet to publicly voice opposition to that decision.

As Dunford explained his view, “Number one, it's the elected official who gets to decide. And number two, the best military option, in other words, the option that I might have offered that would provide the best military outcome may in fact not be the best option for the President when he looks at it from a broader strategic perspective."

He went on that his military option “may or may not be in a broader strategic context when you take into account our diplomatic, our economic interests and the other competing demands that the President may have at a given time strategically, whether they be in the security realm or elsewhere”

Dunford continued: “As I used to say, the President looks through this with a much bigger soda straw than those of us in uniform. And we need to be attentive to that in the public space and not put pressure on the Executive Branch to make a decision one way or another because of what military advice may be out there in the public domain.”

However, when Dunford went to see a Chairman of the House or Senate Armed Services Committee, he said, “Obviously you know the Legislative Branch of our government has a need to be informed about these issues and so the way I would approach it is less would I address specifically the advice I gave to the President, or again advocate a specific military option to be adopted. More often than not, what I would try to do is highlight the interdependent variables that went into the recommendation; talk about the risks; perhaps walk through each of the options that might be available from military perspective and the pros and cons of each, but then not be in a position publicly to say it should be this option or that option.”

As a former Committee Chairman, Thornberry said, “One branch [the Legislative] is responsible for raising and supporting; providing and maintaining; approving all the money, declaring war; and the other branch [the Executive] for the operations of the military. So we divide the authority. We have civilian control of the military, which is an important principle, but we make sure that it's a professional [military], nonpartisan, not taking sides.”

Thornberry also said, “It's important for Congress to hear from that professional military and to hear directly. Now, sometimes that'll need to be behind closed doors in classified sessions and some you can get franker that way, but it's not just Congress hearing. It's the American people hearing from the chairman or the combatant commanders or whoever.”

When it comes to congressional hearings, Adm. Aqualino spoke of a suggestion he had made that’s worth repeating.

He said, “I made a request of the chairman [of the Armed Services Committee] on the House side and the Senate side that said, ‘Hey, let's have a classified session first. Let me answer everything that I can in the classified space that will give you the understanding and oh, by the way, I think it'll help shape your questions for the public side.’ That ended up being very, very, I think effective both for Congress and certainly for me because it really made sure they understood where we were, why we were doing what we were doing and how it was going to deliver. And again, I thank all of the members of Congress for accepting that position because I found it very helpful.”

Actually, however, most closed-session hearings of those Armed Services Committees are still held after the public ones, although Aqualino’s approach is much more rational.

Dunford talked about how warfare has been changing.

“If you think about conflict,” he said, “this go back to the 1990s, you could assume that a conflict would be isolated to particular geographic area. It didn't involve largely sea, air, and space, and the homeland was protected. We didn't have the homeland issues…So, when you think about managing risk, you could manage risk within a specific geographic area. As the character of war began to change, threats to the homeland increased. We're now operating in sea, air, land, space, and cyberspace. We know now that there's no conflict that can be isolated to a specific geographic area.”

These days, Dunford said, “We can see the conflict in Iran and Ukraine and the global implications of those two conflicts. There needed to be somebody that could help the Secretary of Defense think about risk across all geographic combatant commands and in all of those domains and in the context of broader strategic issues like service readiness and being prepared for the conflict or crisis that that was going to come even as we were dealing with one that may be ongoing.”

Planning has also changed.

“When it came to planning,” Dunford said, “we used to have single numbered plans. You'd be familiar with those, where plans were focused on the Korea plan or the Iran plan. Well, there's again if you agree with me that there's no conflict [now] that doesn't have broad global implications. Planning needs to be done, not in a geographic combatant commander’s region, it needs to be done globally. Certainly informed by the supported combatant commander if it's a Indo-Pacom (India-Pacific) or not Pacom (Pacific) commander perspective. But while he's fighting the fight against China, there are certainly things happening globally that are going to require the prioritization and allocation of resources again back to foundationally defense of the homeland.”

Adm. Aqualino’s views of the Joint Chiefs system are worth repeating.

“When you talk about the [military] service chiefs as members of the Joint Chiefs,” he said, “that is an incredible thoughtful bunch to help the Chairman shape best military advice to remove blind spots that may be missing, and to get an incredibly broad perspective. So he [also] gets it from the Combatant Commander operational required to provide options through the lens of a single theater.”

Aqualino added, “Then the Joint Chiefs are able to put a layer on top of that and say, ‘Hey, more broadly, here's what I think it looks like globally. Here's what it looks like through the [separate military] service lens.’ And all that information informed the chairman to ultimately take the best option to the President. And then whenever I brief the [Service] Secretary, the [Joint Chiefs] Chairman was sitting in the room and sometimes we agreed, sometimes we disagreed…My advice was taken sometimes, and other times I got thanked for my interest in national defense. That's just the way it works.”

Looking back, Aqualino said, “I do think it has worked pretty well to have the [Joint Chiefs] Chairman speak for the whole military and yet not be directly in the chain-of-command. So far it has given him an objectivity where he didn't have to necessarily defend a decision, because they are political decisions, but he [the Chairman] can look at that broader picture about the state of our military, about the threats that we face, and I think those discussions for Congress to understand have been really important.”

One other point came up from former-Congressman Thornberry that also needs to be recorded, because neither Dunford nor Aqualino mentioned it.

“I got to say I think today there's a strain on between civil military relations,” Thornberry said, adding, “Part of the professionalism of the military is that it's a meritocracy. It's based on who does their job well, who can excel. And there have been some universally respected officers who've been fired recently with no explanation. And I think that leads to questions about what's really going on here. Is it still a meritocracy?”

At another point Thornberry said, “We were concerned…about using the military for law enforcement responsibilities, especially on the border during my time and now it's more broadly. I think that creates tensions, too. And so maybe this 250th anniversary is a good time for us to kind of remember, okay, what are the protections in our Constitution and in our system? And do we need to remember and maybe refresh some of them to make sure that the military continues the sort of respect that it has.”

With that background, I want to close with something Dunford pointed out early in his remarks that I think is worth consideration.

“Through most my career,” Dunford said, “polling said that about 80% of the American people had confidence in the U.S. military -- and that's 62% plus or minus today. Just in 2016 and 2017, Republicans had an over 90% favorability rating of the U.S. military. It's now somewhere in the 60s, overall about 62 percent. So we can put aside what our own personal judgments are. The data would tell us that there is a decline in the confidence U.S. military which reflects challenging times overall. We live in an incredibly hyper-partisan environment…[and] there is in many corners a declining trust in institutions broadly and one of those institutions has been the U.S. military. I think we can't be complacent about that.”

Dunford went on, “Why is it important: Number one, for recruiting and retention. The American people need to see the U.S. military as their military. It can't be partisan. Number two, when we're sending men and women in this harm's way, they have to have the support of the American people. And it can't be seen as a Republican or a Democrat decision to send people to war. These are Americans that got to be supported by the American people at home.”

We all should agree with that.

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to Editor@thecipherbrief.com for publication consideration.

Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief