Given the resolute Japanese resistance to China, Russia, and North Korea, along with strong support for ties to US allies in the Indo-Pacific region, Japan already appears to be defending its national interests in Asia quite normally. Even so, the record of recent decades suggests that it has not been easy for Japan to reach these outcomes, as challenges still await. If the White House mismanages this relationship, Japan’s pursuit of enhancing its security capabilities, which is ultimately in Washington’s interest, becomes harder.

Tightly clinging to the United States, unambiguously attendant to threats to its security, and governed by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) after it garnered an overwhelming mandate, Japan under Takaichi would appear to be a rare exemplar of stability in a world racked with uncertainty.

Yet Japan continues to face two key foreign policy challenges in becoming a so-called normal country. First, being a “normal country” is widely equated with both proving to the United States that Japan can carry its weight on matters of international security and standing up to Japan’s principal ally by gaining a voice on such matters. Second, it is understood to mean playing a large role in shaping how Asia is being transformed. At times, there have been signs of hubris: gaining equality with the United States and taking leadership of East Asia, as if those prospects were within reach.

Japan was defeated in World War II, but its memories of glory have inspired it to seek a new status in the world of nations, and it is looking to the United States for validation and to Asia for leadership. By calling this quest “becoming a normal nation,” the Japanese have built their case on at least four dimensions: geopolitics, regionalism, soft power, and national identity. Usually, this quest is seen through the lens of bilateral relations in Asia. Here the focus is on balancing the United States and Asia, putting today’s challenges in the context of the previous fifty years.

A chronological approach to meeting those challenges is reflected through the course of five decades: (1) the hubris of the last decade of the Cold War; (2) the highs and lows of opportunism in the 1990s; (3) the jolts of reality in the 2000s to 2012; (4) the Abe recalibration of the 2010s; and (5) the Biden and Trump impact of 2021 to 2025.

The Hubris of the Last Decade of the Cold War

From the late 1970s, the Japanese openly articulated their ambitions for becoming a leader in Asia and an equal to the United States. Confidence was rising rapidly, revealing new views of great power relations, heightened desire for regional leadership, optimism for spreading Japanese culture to positive effect, and a reconstructed national identity as the basis for a “normal” nation.

Japan’s two paramount international goals of the last decade of the Cold War were to gain equality with the United States and to assume leadership in East Asia. The former required recognition of its unique role on all four dimensions above, including Yasuhiro Nakasone’s geopolitical assertion of it becoming an “unsinkable aircraft carrier.” The latter gathered momentum with the Fukuda Doctrine, centering on Southeast Asia. Both assigned a major role to China, Russia, and the “four little tigers.” Neither was yet a fulsome assertion of the ascendant goals of a country rapidly growing in confidence; they served as stepping-stones.

Japan’s geopolitical reasoning in the late 1980s treated Russia and China differently from prevailing US thinking. Washington saw a chance to transform the Grand Strategic Triangle by capitalizing on Mikhail Gorbachev’s “new thinking” while embedding China in the international economy with attendant political transformation. Japan viewed Russia more cynically; it counted on boosting its value to the United States through a greater role in deterring Russia as it also gained leverage with the United States and China as a bridge between the two. Thus, the Grand Strategic Triangle in East Asia became a kind of quadrangle. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Tiananmen massacre, the Japanese had to rethink their geopolitical ambitions.

Regional leadership also had to be reconceptualized. With Japan’s economy booming and the “flying geese model” convincing it of a long-term, favorable division of labor in Asia, it expected regional leadership to follow, particularly as the United States continued to lose economic vitality. Many spoke of the coming “Pacific Century.” Yet extrapolation of recent growth rates came to a crashing halt at the start of the 1990s, as the economic “bubble” burst and China’s reform direction had shifted. The aim of regionalism needed adjustment.

Japanese optimism about soft power—admiration for its harmonious society, eagerness to study Japanese, and fascination with its culture—proved to be unexpectedly rooted in the spillover from its “economic miracle.” When the bubble economy turned to stagnation, the soft power of Japan went into a downward spiral. Its neighbors proved most resistant. No longer was soft power appeal, as autonomous regionalism, a way to win US validation.

National identity also took a big hit by the early 1990s. Shelves of books on “Nihonjinron,” or the theory of Japanese distinctiveness (superiority), lost any appeal. The Japanese understood the need to “internationalize” but coupled that with more intense claims of distinctiveness rooted in history. China and South Korea would quickly turn the history lens against Japan.

The Highs and Lows of Opportunism in the 1990s

On the one hand, the Japanese doubled down on aspirations of the 1980s given the openings made available after the end of the Cold War. On the other, they experienced frustrations far beyond those felt earlier. Geopolitical shifts raised hopes, regionalism appeared much more promising, barriers to soft power projection seemed to have fallen, and limitations on national identity imposed by the Cold War were receding. Uncertainty fueled rethinking, at first by both conservatives and progressives and later by the former newly emboldened.

The Grand Strategic Triangle shifted with Russia, a weak offshoot of the Soviet Union, seen as vulnerable to autonomous Japanese diplomacy, and China, alienated from the United States, seen as amenable to enhanced ties to Japan. Even more than Washington, Tokyo was confident that the Grand Strategic Triangle was no more. Indeed, its leadership role in Asia created the possibility of a new great power triangle of the United States–European Union–Japan, privileging economics over security in national power. It could press Moscow, desperate for money, and Beijing, anxious to recover from post-Tiananmen pariah status. Although the Gulf War damped enduring hopes about the primacy of economics, geopolitical optimism prevailed.

Expectations for regionalism rose sharply. East Asia appeared ripe for a “community” (kyodotai), freed of the Cold War. As the European Union solidified and North America forged its own free trade agreement, the Japanese were confident that they could steer their region in the same direction. If Seoul and Beijing were resistant and some in Southeast Asia too insistent that Washington be excluded, causing a backlash in Japan’s essential ally, hopes remained to the 2000s. In the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis of 1997, Tokyo pressed for a regional approach, to US dismay. It struggled to find a suitable balance between globalization and regionalism.

Soft power did not advance as expected in the 1990s. Economic stagnation reverberated in loss of interest in the Japanese model and even in Japan’s cultural products. Moreover, in both China and South Korea, the focus shifted to historical memory, diminishing soft power. US soft power proved resilient, widening the divide with Japan contrary to expectations. If interest in Japanese culture—traditional and innovative—survived, it was of a lesser order.

Japanese national identity was in flux after the boundless rhetoric of the 1980s. Apologies to reassure neighbors came from a coalition government, peaking with the 1995 Murayama statement. Revisionist defiance came from some LDP officials, fueled by anger toward the leaders of South Korea and Jiang Zemin’s rude behavior toward the emperor. Relying more on the United States by decade’s end, the Japanese focused on identity gaps with neighbors. If many on the right grew emboldened, little separation with US identity defied their ambition.

The 1990s witnessed flux beyond any other decade, both the highs of heady expectations and the lows of unexpected disappointments. The left lost clout as it clung to idealistic hopes. The right overreached in geopolitics, regionalism, and especially national identity. At the end of the decade, there was still optimism about breakthroughs with Russia, China, and even North Korea as well as leadership in regionalism, despite fast-changing realities.

The Jolts of Reality in the 2000s to 2012

The low point in Japanese confidence over the post–Cold War period came in the 2000s, as ties to neighbors deteriorated amid frequent leadership turnover. Responses included: new dependence on Washington, sporadic spikes in hope for Asian partners, and competitive balancing versus China. Junichiro Koizumi did the most to boost US ties. Yukio Hatoyama raised hopes for Asian regionalism the most. No sustained strategy could be developed. By 2012, idealistic regionalism had been discredited, and stronger leadership was sought for an energetic geopolitical approach and a more alliance-centered approach to regionalism.

Japanese soft power fell to its nadir in the 2000s. Interest shifted to South Korean soft power, notably in Japan, and even Chinese soft power, burnished by Hu Jintao. Political instability compounded economic stagnation to lower the allure of Japanese soft power.

The Japanese national identity shifted from optimism to pessimism over the 2000s. Junichiro Koizumi briefly boosted optimism, assertedly piggybacking on US leadership, openly challenging Chinese, Russian, South Korean, and North Korean moves, and insisting that stagnation was over. Shinzo Abe and Taro Aso went further, but leadership turnover and the about-face after the LDP lost power left a muddled impression. On history, Asian and US ties, and recovery from stagnation, there was no blueprint for how to reassert confidence. Jolted by marginalization from Northeast Asian neighbors and the futility of cooperative appeals, Japan was ready for a new approach but not for abandoning the lingering hubris.

The Abe Recalibration of the 2010s

The second Abe stint as prime minister carried an abiding message, although it was split into three distinct phases. The main message was that Japan had renewed its pursuit of becoming a “normal” nation after the recent hiatus. In 2013–14, that was accompanied by revisionist defiance of other states. In 2015–17, it shifted to more pragmatic accommodation to boost diplomatic results. In Abe’s final years, 2018–20, there was a residue of defiance, further pragmatism, and increased recognition of operating in the shadow of US assertiveness. In all three phases, Abe’s diplomacy in Asia tested the degree to which Japan was realistic.

From stage to stage, Abe steered Japan closer to joining the West, even as he reasserted hubris at odds with that objective. On geopolitics, he refused to accept the accumulating evidence of Russia drawing closer to China, as if Japan could dissuade it, and of the United States gearing up to resist their aggressive partnership. Again, the Grand Strategic Triangle dynamics were not fully to Japan’s liking, and it fought a futile battle to transform them.

On regionalism, Abe proved to be a forward thinker, leading the United States in envisioning the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific.” His overtures to India and Australia served US interests, recognizing Japan’s supportive role, although Abe’s impatience with South Korea failed to serve the goal of regionalism, which the Barack Obama administration had started to conceptualize.

Did Abe’s personalized style boost soft power? Japanese diplomacy drew greater attention, perhaps reverberating in cultural appeal. After a period of marginality, Japan seemed to be back. Yet there was little effect from “Abenomics” and none of the allure seen in the 1980s.

Abe’s biggest impact was on national identity, replacing the pacifist legacy of the postwar era with talk of a security-oriented, realist power. Although some progress in that direction had been made since Nakasone’s time in office, this was the decisive breakthrough. Even so, some identity issues remained in flux: the quest for autonomous identity as an Asian power, historical revisionism versus neighbors, and identity symbols driving diplomacy. By 2020, all had receded somewhat in the shadow of bipolarity, but none had disappeared. Summitry with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping still loomed with uncertain alliance effects, history was again damping ties with South Korea, and powerful symbols still clouded realist diplomacy.

The Biden and Trump Impact of January 2021 to February 2025

Joseph Biden’s mini-lateralism facilitated a rebalancing of Japanese foreign policy amid growing threats, while Trump’s unilateralism in 2025 had a sobering effect on autonomous ideals. In 2021, Japan both felt elevated as the paramount US partner in the Indo-Pacific framework and prioritized on an initiative for which Japan took credit, and it fell in line on an agenda joining military security, economic security, and “universal values.” With Fumio Kishida’s response to Russia’s war on Ukraine and US-led sanctions on both Russia and China, Japan closed ranks with its ally as never before in the interregnum. If Trump’s flaunting of US unilateral power marginalized Japan at times, it further recognized the necessity of offering support.

On geopolitics, the reality of the Grand Strategic Triangle finally sunk in, leaving no role for Japan as an independent force. Abe’s “honeymoon” with Putin was put in the rearview mirror. A Xi Jinping “cherry blossom” state visit to Japan had faded into dire warnings of a virulent Chinese response to Japanese involvement in a “Taiwan contingency.” If Trump’s diplomacy with Xi left Japan squirming on the sidelines, no autonomous path was in sight.

On regionalism, Japan could not revert to leadership ambitions and had to sit back as the US approach left the Quad and trilateralism with South Korea in limbo. It tried to sustain the gains of recent years despite lukewarm US interest, anticipating future US leadership. A bright spot was continuity in Japan–Republic of Korea ties. With many states in Asia troubled by Trump’s tariff onslaught and arbitrary security thinking, they looked to Japan more as a stabilizer.

Soft power could only be an afterthought at a time of military and economic coercion. As US soft power deteriorated, Japan’s weakness was exposed in being unable to fill the gap.

Uncertain at the beginning of Takaichi’s tenure was how national identity would fare. Is a staunch rightist prepared to reassert historical revisionism? Can relations with South Korea be kept on an even keel? Will Trump’s dalliance with Putin, goodwill toward Xi, and possible renewed “bromance” with Kim Jong-un prove manageable given Japan’s sharp breaks with these countries? Can Takaichi remain strategic until a new US president rights the course? This is not only a matter of policies. It is also a test of normalcy in abnormal circumstances.

The Takaichi-Trump Summit

Trump’s decision to launch a war on Iran put Japan in a difficult situation for at least five reasons: (1) it diverted focus from the Indo-Pacific, supposedly the shared priority; (2) it ran down the resources necessary for defense in the Indo-Pacific, even leading to transfers away from Japan; (3) it drove up energy prices, cutting supplies on which Japan counted; (4) it played into the interests of Russia and China; and (5) it turned a summit Japan expected to be about solidarity versus China into one mostly about pressuring Japan to aid the US war. Thus, it exposed Japan’s biggest weakness as an ally—lingering constitutional restrictions on participating in a war that did not threaten Japan’s sovereignty—rather than its strengths as an ally.

On the geopolitical front, recent upgrading of Japan’s image in facing China, Russia, and North Korea was overshadowed by Trump disparaging its failure to commit assets to the Strait of Hormuz. Japan seemed to be further away from “normalcy.”

Conclusion

The legacy of defeat in 1945 remains not yet swept fully aside at the beginning of the third era since World War II. In the Cold War period, the Japanese focused on economic power as the initial pathway to becoming a “normal nation.” Over the interregnum, security power came to be the foremost test of normalcy. Reshaping the Grand Strategic Triangle, establishing an East Asian regional community, overpromising Japan’s soft power, and overselling national identity distinctive for history and autonomy proved problematic.

Japan has advanced a long way toward its goal of becoming a “normal nation,” but it is not confidently there yet, nor are final steps yet clear. Resisting threats to regional and global order, standing side-by-side with US leadership, and taking initiative in partnerships across Asia are all hallmarks of a mature approach to the challenges Japan is facing. Takaichi’s summit with Trump signals another step along this trajectory. In rejecting a demand that other US allies are resisting, Japan is acting normally too.

On the four dimensions, Japan struggled to grasp challenging realities. For geopolitics, it was slow to recognize the paramount role and durability of the Grand Strategic Triangle of Washington-Beijing-Moscow with little room for Tokyo to maneuver. As for regionalism, it had to grasp the priority of internationalization and futility of outmaneuvering Beijing over Asian regionalism. Once enamored of its cultural appeal, Tokyo hesitated to appreciate the limits of its soft power and of separation from US soft power. Finally, putting history atop its national identity reconstruction had to be reconsidered for Japan to maximize its influence.

Equality with the United States and leadership in Asia proved tantalizing but unrealizable. A “normal nation” does not require either of these goals to be achieved. More realistic are the goals of fully joining the “West” and becoming part of a coalition of like-minded countries in Asia under US leadership striving to manage China’s hegemonic aims and its partnerships. A “normal” ally has agency to pursue its own interests but is wary of inflating its potential.

In danger of marginalization from the accelerating unilateralism under Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, Japan faces an urgent need to recalibrate its understanding of a “normal nation.” It can and should build a military force befitting its substantial gross domestic product and threatening regional environment. Having built up mini-lateral networks across Asia since Abe’s stints as prime minister, Japan must institutionalize its diplomatic outreach to like-minded states. Its cultural appeal endures, but it could be better aligned with “universal values.” Perhaps the biggest challenge will be to reconstruct national identity, showcasing postwar success. By looking back to Japan’s earlier aspirations, we can be more precise about today’s needs.

Japan does not have the support within its region that European allies enjoy and faces a more threatening environment, too. Japan needs even closer US military ties, US-led regionalism in Asia, and more coordination with US allies including South Korea, and it faces wariness about autonomous diplomacy with China and Russia and even more caution in arousing regional anger over revisionist speech. These factors give it less leverage on the United States than most European states have. What is deemed normal in one setting may not be so in another. Yet given lingering restrictions on military activity, Takaichi may not have the domestic foundation to be as supportive of US actions as others have.

What remains unclear is the lessons Japan is drawing from its pursuit of “normalcy” over the past decades. Does it recognize instances of overreach and the need to not repeat them?

Admittedly, in 2025 Trump’s foreign policy agenda tests any country’s desire to proceed normally. Yet Takaichi faces a special challenge. The record of the past five decades and her own rightist pedigree make it imperative that she look back for the essential lessons.

In 2026, as the world moves beyond the post–Cold War era, Japan’s pursuit of “normalcy” is accelerating, but it is also being channeled in a more realistic direction. The overoptimism since the last decade of the Cold War has given way to more sober calculations. Alliance with the United States is understood in a new light. Partnerships with other US allies loom on a more equal basis. Management of more challenging relations in Asia proceeds without the exaggerated hopes of bygone years. While gaining recognition as a regional and global power retains great appeal, the meaning of “normalcy” differs from what it was previously.

Image: Facebook | Prime Minister’s Office of Japan

Indo-Pacific Focus as Endgame?

If the objective was to free up capacity for the Indo-Pacific by entrusting Middle Eastern security to regional partners, the diplomatic architecture designed for precisely that purpose already existed. The Abraham Accords aimed to normalize relations between Israel and key Arab states and build a regional security framework that could function with diminished American involvement. While the 2023 Israel-Hamas war disrupted further diplomatic normalization, the security cooperation dimension of the accords remained broadly intact. The Iran campaign, paradoxically, has placed even that surviving architecture in jeopardy.

A deeper structural problem, however, undermines the post-Iran optimism. The principal variable binding Israel and Saudi Arabia together is the shared perception of an Iranian threat. No persuasive case has been made that this alignment would survive the removal of that precise threat. Removing a common enemy does not automatically produce durable peace; it can just as easily unleash suppressed rivalries. The expectation that Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other regional actors would seamlessly assume collective responsibility for Middle Eastern security without American underwriting requires a theory of regional cooperation that has no empirical precedent in the Middle East.

Iran had accumulated substantial quantities of near-weapons-grade uranium but had not entered the final weaponization stage. In fact, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard stated before the Senate Intelligence Committee that Iran had shown no effort to reconstitute its enrichment capabilities since Operation Midnight Hammer the previous year. This is a qualitatively different situation from the 1994 North Korean Yongbyon crisis, where Pyongyang was actively producing fissile material and had very likely already secured weapons-grade plutonium.

Another angle to the refocus on the Indo-Pacific argument is that a weakened Iran would disrupt China’s energy supply, given that Iran exports 90 percent of its oil to China.

Yet China is 85 percent energy self-sufficient. Coal remains its primary energy source at over 51 percent of total consumption, and renewable energy surpassed oil in 2024 to become the country’s second-largest source. Crude oil accounts for less than 20 percent of China’s total energy consumption, meaning that Iranian oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz represents, by the Nomura financial services group’s calculation, only about 6.6 percent of China’s overall energy picture. Beijing has also built substantial insulation against precisely this scenario: as of early March, China held approximately 1.39 billion barrels of oil in strategic reserves, enough to cover 120 days of net crude imports. China’s electric vehicle push has already displaced over one million barrels per day of implied oil demand, and that figure continues to grow.

China can replace lost Iranian volumes by increasing imports from Saudi Arabia, Russia, Brazil, and other suppliers, though at a higher cost that would squeeze margins for independent refineries in Shandong province that relied on discounted Iranian crude. The disruption is economically inconvenient for Beijing, but it is not strategically crippling.

Yet energy security is not what has defined US strategy toward Iran. One expectation from the Trump administration could be to neutralize the Middle Eastern threat before pivoting to Asia. But such a coercive reset was never part of the stated Asia-first playbook, and whether it is achievable remains deeply uncertain. The Iran campaign is a departure from, not an expression of, the strategic framework its architects publicly endorsed.

China’s Gambit

If the United States is successful in defeating a major Middle Eastern power, the question is whether Beijing will think twice before testing Washington over Taiwan. This argument, which assumes that engagement in one theater deters adversaries from acting in another, is a modern iteration of Cold War domino theory. This argument rests on the Domino Theory logic of “reputation for resolve”—the claim that demonstrated willingness to fight in one context credibly signals willingness to fight in others. Yet the evidence suggests that adversaries often assess current capabilities and interests, not past behavior in unrelated theaters.  Indeed, Epic Fury’s impact to date should not be underestimated: precision strikes against more than 2,000 targets within 100 hours, the intelligence penetration required to eliminate senior Iranian leadership, and the evident integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into targeting, battle damage assessment, and the compression of kill chains. These are capabilities that any potential adversary would study with intense interest. Beijing and Pyongyang will not be indifferent to what they have observed. The speed and precision of the opening salvos represent a qualitative leap in operational tempo that the People’s Liberation Army’s own planners must now account for.

But this form of deterrence, rooted in demonstrated physical capability rather than political signaling, raises an uncomfortable question: was a large-scale war the only available method to communicate it? Operational capabilities can be showcased through exercises, selective demonstrations, and controlled technological disclosure without expending actual inventory. The United States has historically employed such methods effectively. The problem with demonstrating capability through sustained combat operations is that it simultaneously depletes the material base that makes such capability possible. The AI-enabled targeting systems are impressive, but the Tomahawks, SM-3s, and terminal high-altitude area defense (THAAD) interceptors they direct toward their targets are finite and slow to replace. The campaign that showcased American operational brilliance is also consuming the resources required to replicate that performance against a far more capable adversary.

Iran has actively exploited the cost asymmetry. As of early March, Tehran had launched roughly 585 ballistic missiles and 1,522 drones, exceeding the total volume of the entire Midnight Hammer campaign. The logic is straightforward: cheap drones exhaust expensive interceptors, followed by ballistic missile salvos. A PAC-3 missile segment enhancer interceptor costs approximately $3.9 million; an Iranian Fateh-313 costs less than $500,000.

An ecosystem of 51 prime defense contractors during the Cold War has consolidated into five. The defense workforce has shrunk to roughly a third of its 1985 level of 3.2 million. For some critical systems, supply chains have narrowed to a single vendor: the Stinger missile, used to intercept drones, has only one manufacturer. The Trump administration has proposed raising the fiscal year 2027 defense budget to $1.5 trillion, a 66 percent increase over the prior year. But funding alone cannot overcome the absence of production capacity and skilled labor. Money does not build missiles; factories and workers do.

Those are real risks facing the world’s most populous and economically dynamic region. Bear in mind, too, that Taiwan faces approximately $20 billion in undelivered American weapons orders, including delayed F-16V fighters and national advanced surface-to-air missile air defense systems critical for countering Chinese airpower. Japan confronts roughly one trillion yen in outstanding US defense equipment deliveries. Multiple Patriot batteries have been redeployed from allied nations to the Middle East, along with THAAD interceptors and launchers. The simultaneous removal of both mid-altitude and high-altitude missile defense systems from the Western Pacific weakens the layered defense architecture in a region where North Korean and Chinese missile threats are intensifying, not receding.

For key US allies, including South Korea and Japan, the focus is on the pragmatic presence of the United States that goes beyond rhetoric. The relevant metric is not the political symbolism of American resolve in the Persian Gulf; it is the number of interceptors available to defend their airspace. It is no coincidence that Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae subtly noted that “the security environment in the Indo-Pacific, as well as the Middle East, is extremely grave” in her meeting with President Trump on March 19.

What Lies Ahead

There is a plausible long-term scenario in which depletion forces the very military-industrial mobilization that Asia-first strategists have long advocated but never achieved through peacetime policy alone. But such mobilization takes years. Scaling THAAD production will not yield meaningful inventory until 2027 or 2028 at the latest.

The United States may now be accepting severe near-term risk in the Indo-Pacific in exchange for a potential long-term payoff: the elimination of the Iranian threat, a forced rearmament cycle, and the eventual consolidation of strategic focus on China.

Whether this gamble succeeds depends on the duration of the campaign, the administration’s ability to resist mission creep, the speed of defense industrial mobilization, and, most critically, whether Beijing judges the current window of American overextension as a moment of opportunity.

What reassures allies and deters adversaries is not the spectacle of distant bombardment. It is the tangible presence of military capability where it is needed most. The challenge for the United States is ensuring that the physical means of deterrence remain credible in the Indo-Pacific while they are being expended at an alarming rate thousands of miles away.

Image: A group of oil tanks stores imported crude oil at Qingdao Port Crude Oil Terminal in Qingdao City, Shandong Province, China, on August 10, 2025. (Photo by Costfoto/NurPhoto)

Natalia Kopytnik: Welcome back to The Ties That Bind, a project of the Foreign Policy Research Institute examining the past, present, and future of NATO and the transatlantic relationship. I’m Natalia Kopytnik, the Communications Director at FPRI, and this week I am very pleased to introduce a special episode of The Ties That Bind.

Now, throughout this series, we heard a lot about how individual NATO countries are thinking about and bolstering their defense and preparedness in an increasingly complicated security environment. But often these conversations are quite confined to a military and government context. After all, it is natural that we expect our leaders to think of our safety and plan accordingly. But do we really think about what our role as individuals would be in this context? My guests this week argue that no, we do not, but we really should.

I am very pleased to welcome to the podcast Admiral Rob Bauer and Eleonora Russell. Admiral Bauer was the 33rd chair of the NATO Military Committee from June 2021 until January 2025. He also previously served as the Chief of Defense of the Netherlands. Eleonora Russell served as a Strategic Communications Advisor to the NATO Military Committee and is an award-winning speechwriter. Together, they co-authored the 2025 book, If You Want Peace, Prepare for War: A Blueprint for Deterrence. We spoke about the core lessons from the book, what a whole-of-society approach really entails, how to effectively rebuild trust and engage citizens and industry leaders, and what the future of the Alliance may look like if we overcome the mentality that military strength alone will keep us safe.

Thank you both so much for taking the time to join us today on The Ties That Bind. 

Adm. Rob Bauer: Hello, Natalia. Nice to be there. 

Eleonora Russell: Thank you for having us. 

NK: So, of course, among many things, I wanted to talk about your book, which was released last year, If You Want Peace, Prepare for War: A Blueprint for Deterrence, which outlines the seven lessons for bolstering security and preparedness. At first glance, one would think this would be a more tactical, military strategy book, but as a non-military expert, I really enjoyed the framing of this book. It really encompasses practical advice for everyone: for politicians, for business leaders, for civilians. And, as I understand it, the book was based on a speech that you both worked on that Admiral Bauer gave 2023. 

To set the scene, at that moment, what was the impetus for the speech? What was the initial reaction from the audience? Did you expect at that time that it would be so impactful that it would evolve into a book? 

RB: Well, of course, when we gave the speech in February 2023, we were about a year into the full-scale war in Ukraine.

And in that year, my conclusion was that the military plans in NATO, from the strategies down to the tactical plans, were revised. That was a lot of work, but it had been done. And in the Vilnius summit, we agreed to the regional plans, even. So basically, there was a lot of thinking done in the military in NATO, and the discussion we had was, “Okay, if the armed forces are restored to the strength they need, are we there? Is that sufficient?” The answer of that discussion was no, 

because we also need an industry that can produce [during] peak demand signals. And we need a financial sector that is willing to invest in the defense industry. And we need people to be more resilient: so, [we need] this idea of a more whole-of-society approach, where everybody needs to understand they play a role in preventing war. And of course, if it is war, everybody plays a role, as we see in Ukraine.

Very important to prevent war: you need to be resilient. If you are resilient, then you will be more successful in your deterrence. Because if your opponent sees that everything works and is strong and can withstand a shock, it is more difficult for them to win. So that idea resulted in the speech in February 2023. I think it was received well. It didn’t go viral at the time—it got some attention, but it didn’t go viral. But for us, it was the starting point of the book.

The lessons, we can be rightfully proud of ourselves in a way, because more than a year into the Trump administration, [with] the wars that are going on in Venezuela, and the threats to Greenland, and the war with Iran, all the lessons that are in the book are still valid, still important to learn and to implement. In that sense, although a lot has changed, the book is actually still viable.

The other thing we are extremely proud of is that the book is now translated into Ukrainian and will be published in Ukraine in April. 

ER: We really tried to make this an accessible book, easy to read for everybody, because the topics are very heavy and big. So we wanted the language not to be that—that’s why it reads like a speech. And if there’s one thing that we really hope that people will feel after reading it, is that not only that they need to do something but also that they can do something.

The world being as it is—and we’ll talk more about that in this podcast—it can leave people with a sense of fear and a sense of paralysis of, “I have no idea how to and what my role in all of this can be.” 

What the book is about is how to make yourself stronger, how to make the community of which you are a part of the stronger, and by doing that lowering the chance of minimizing the chance of war happening to you. And then if it should still happen, that you win it very fast, because we will win it. We have no doubt about that. 

NK: That’s what I took away from it, and it was a very enjoyable read.

ER: Thank you for that because they are very heavy topics.

NK: It was extremely accessible. So, for me personally, I think the two chapters that really resonated—and I think will resonate also with our listeners, because they talk much more about human character and behavior, and, as you mentioned, the need for community, which is somewhat rare in discussions of security and foreign policy often. Admiral Bauer, you said in the book that the responsibility for protecting freedom does not rest solely on the shoulders of those in uniform, because war is a whole-of-society event, so preparation for war must also be a whole-of-society event. In your view, what does that a civilian who has embraced that sense of responsibility look like now in 2026?

RB: You have to go back a little bit into history. I think around the early 1990s, we started to outsource a lot of government functions to business. And that was for reasons of efficiency, because everybody thought that the private sector would be better and cheaper in everything. So healthcare went that way, public transport went that way, energy production went that way.

So many, many areas where the government was the provider and the guarantor of those services went to businesses and to the private sector. In a way, we have outsourced, also in the minds of people, security to the armed forces. And people literally tell me, “I pay taxes and therefore, you provide security for me.”

The fascinating thing is that when there is a war, the professional soldiers will go to war for us. People should not have any doubt about that. But the unfortunate thing about war is that soldiers die and soldiers get wounded. And then where do you think we will look for new soldiers? It is in our nations. It is amongst the younger people and the able people in our nations to become soldiers because it is us that should defend our nations, not the armed forces. It is us.

And, of course, you have a group that does the work and is trained and is able to work with all the weapon systems and the ammunition and the airplanes and the ships and the tanks. But society as a whole is responsible for our security and for many other functions in our society, by the way. So, I think that is one of the big changes that needs to happen, that we get out of this mode of individualism and “It’s all about me. It’s all about how someone else will solve my problem.” 

Everybody’s angry at the government, when a lot of people actually can do something themselves and then help not only themselves, but also society. Things like part-time working is not a right. It’s a luxury. So, when you talk about taking responsibility—I spoke to a producer of weapons in Ukraine, and I asked him, “How many hours do your employees work?” And he said, “240 hours per month, 20 days a month, 12 hours per day.” That is more, much more, almost double of what European nations produce. And the reason is simple, because people in Ukraine that are not in the armed forces, that group is shrinking because of the people that die and get wounded and more and more soldiers need to go up to the front.

Therefore, the people that are available to do all the other things like education and healthcare and administration and business, that group is shrinking. Therefore, the people that are in that group need to work harder. It’s very, very simple. And nobody talks about it in a negative way in Ukraine. Everybody understands this is necessary.

I think all these examples [show that] we want a lot. We want to save the planet. We want to have our part-time work week and have fun because people say, “I’m not living to work. I want to have some time and I want to enjoy life.” I hope people can have that. But it is a luxury in a way, because now the time is such that I think we need to do more together to make our societies stronger, including the armed forces. But there’s much more that needs to become stronger.

ER: There are so many ways in which you can serve your country. If you work at an energy company, if you work at a supermarket, if you work in water supply, if you work at the municipality—wherever you work, most likely you are in one way or another supplying a good or a service that keeps your country running. And if you can make sure that you talk to your colleagues at work about, “What are we going to do if war comes to us? Are we prepared? How are we going to make sure that we keep on supplying what we always supply?” then you are serving your country.

So, it’s not only about defense. It’s not only about conscription or reservists. It’s such a broad task for everybody. That’s one part. 

And then if you zoom in on an individual level, it’s about making sure that in your own household you have enough to survive, for instance, a couple of days without electricity, that you don’t immediately have to lean on supplies that are given to you by the government because they might not be there.

So, you need to make sure that you can hold your own for a couple of days and that you can help your neighbors. Talk to your family, talk to your family members that you know might be struggling, make a plan, and talk to each other. “Okay, if we can’t reach each other by phone, are we going to come to your house or my house? Better that we talk about that now because we may not be able to reach each other.” It sounds scary, and it sounds maybe to some people ridiculous, but it can give you so much of a sense of, “We have a plan. There’s security. I’m part of a group and the group will take care of me and I will take care of the group.”

RB: It’s not just about war. This is also about Spain that had ten hours without electricity. It’s about Berlin that went four and a half days without electricity. So, this is not a war scenario per se. This is also a part of normal life. The people in Finland and Norway and Sweden, they live in an area where because of snow or storms or bad weather, you might be isolated. Therefore, you better have some water and some batteries and some wood. For them, it’s normal. And therefore, it’s not, “Oh my God, you have to prepare for war.” No, no. 

Also, if it’s war, it’s good to have [these things]. But in normal life, you might need it too. 

NK: Yes, or not just to assume that someone else is going to take care of that for you. I think that is a natural segue to the other chapter that really stood out to me, which was, I think, the central theme of this book: reframing one’s point of view from, like you said, an individualistic, self-centered, self-interested context, and putting oneself in the context of community. So as you say, “fighting for the we in a world of me.”

And I think naturally another factor in all of this is trust: trusting entrepreneurs and industry leaders to make the right investments and make the right calls, military leaders to make the right plans. But it’s also ultimately about citizens trusting one another and trusting their institutions.

Unfortunately, we see that the trend over the past few decades has been that there is a real decrease in trust in institutions and specifically in government. In the US, Pew Research Center does a study—I think they’ve been doing it since 1958—where they ask how many Americans trust their government to do the right thing. Last year, only 17 percent trusted the government to do the right thing, which is a very low number. I think when they first asked it in the 1950s it was something like 70 percent. Also, 44 percent of US respondents said that they don’t trust their fellow citizens. That’s also quite stark. 

But in general, these numbers show that there is a real scarcity of trust. And if there’s a scarcity of trust, that compromises the ability for leaders to carry out plans, services, and for people to have that collective sense of responsibility. So, Admiral Bauer, I’ll start with you. 

What do you think, how does a prepared leader make the case for civilian preparedness, for people taking that responsibility, and for persuading them to “fight for we in a world of me?”

RB: I think the lack of trust is part of this move to individualism. So because we thought we would need nobody other than “me,” and everything is focused and is centered around “me,” and I can organize everything and I normally get what I want. And if all these things mean that if there is someone else saying, “Hey, we need to organize things in this country as well. We need roads, and we need healthcare care, and we need all sorts of things therefore we want you to pay taxes” and then people say, “No, no, no, I don’t want to pay taxes to the things you want to spend it on. I want to spend everything on the things I want.” So, I think there is a connection between this distrust of the government and individualism.

Because people for a long time thought they didn’t need anybody else but themselves. And I think that is wrong. I think a society is not the sum of all these individuals. It is much more than that. You see actually with the pandemic, for example, but also in a war or in another crisis, that people actually understand this, and they start to help each other.

Then they automatically move away from this system where people also believed that everything was available. So if you open the tap, there’s water. If you put a plug in the electricity, you have electricity. Everything always works. People think that’s normal, but it isn’t. And therefore, we are spoiled in many ways.

So, if things go wrong for whatever reason, like we saw in the pandemic, then actually the interesting thing is that people start to help each other. That’s basically what we say in the book as well.Look after each other, help each other. 

Of course, there are things that are too big to organize as individuals. That’s why the government does that for you. And I know there in the US, the federal government has a negative perception, and people [don’t] want to have that close to home. But even then, your municipality needs some money for running the roads and the ambulances, and then people are angry because they have to pay. Come on, guys, if you want a functioning country, then you need some organization, which is the government.

But in a way, we have neglected this, I think. And we haven’t done any maintenance to our democracies in the last 40, 50 years, because we thought it was such a good concept that you actually didn’t have to do anything to maintain it. But everybody who is in a relationship knows it’s hard work and you need to invest in a relationship and you need to make sure that everybody believes that everybody is doing their utmost to make the relationship, in this case, the democracy, our country, work properly.

NK: Yeah, definitely. It’s a two-way street, not a one-way street. 

ER: Just about that point about democracy being under threat, both from outside and from the inside—the threat of war is one of the few things that bring people together. It’s immensely difficult to bring a polarized society together because there are all sorts of economical, historical, political reasons why that evolved into the way it is. And then a large outside threat like the threat that we are now facing can also be in a way—in a horrible way—an opportunity to find those things that unite us and to work together, to learn step by step, to trust each other again.

And that starts with what we were talking about earlier: about companies being ready, about companies trusting the government again, about government trusting citizens, citizens trusting the government. It starts with small steps, but it can also be a way to bring everybody together again. If we do that, we minimize the chances of our adversaries attacking us because they are watching, they are using and abusing the polarization that is already out there. And they are watching very, very closely how we behave to every single new development. So there’s a real chance of preventing war if we start trusting each other again.

NK: I think that also speaks to the importance of effective communication, which is also a central theme of the book. So perhaps I’ll turn to you, Eleonora, here. In the book, you include a great quote, which I’m forgetting that the source, but it was basically, “The first casualty of war is truth.”

And you point out the examples of Russia’s war against Ukraine. But now also we see this, right, with the American-Israeli war with Iran. We’ve seen the just onslaught of misinformation, disinformation, AI-generated videos of military action, of drone wreckage, of explosions that are all fake.

It’s just overall eroding trust right in verified reporting in official statements. In the Gulf, some governments have said, “You’re going to get really high fines or even jail time if you are caught spreading this kind of content,” because they want people to only consult government-run accounts. But of course, these tactics are limited in the NATO context. But it does seem like the line between who owns truth is really getting blurred. 

You know firsthand how much language plays a role in shaping strategy and how important it is to craft the right messaging—in your view, how do government leaders own or protect the truth in this very complicated information environment without limiting the freedoms and the rights that obviously define our societies?

ER: There are many sides to this. One is that governments need to invest in the capability but to push back on fake news that is out there and to push the big tech companies to invest in that capability as well, because it is possible. It’s just a matter of making sure that there are departments of people working on that. That’s one point, because we see with the rapid increase in technology, the deepfakes that were disseminated at the start of the large-scale war in Ukraine—if you look at those now, you think, “wow, that’s outdated,” because the deepfakes that are coming in now about what is happening in the Middle East are already so much more evolved. It’s going very, very fast. So that makes that investment of resources crucial.

But there’s another side to this that, if you talk about what the leaders need to do, and I believe that this is not only government leaders, but leaders across the board need to do as well, is there needs to be more leaders who are honest. And when I say honest, I mean really honest in their messaging.

You need to be consistent. That’s one part of it, because if you’re consistent, if there is fake news surrounding a statement that you’ve made, people will start to notice it because it’s so far off from how you normally behave and what you normally say.

But the honesty element is also very crucial because if there is a large gap between polished politicians or CEOs and the influencers that are almost proud of being ignorant, but they’re unpolished, therefore they are “better than,”  that can also create distrust. So I think leaders need to not worry so much about being polished and taking zero risks. There are way too many people who do my job, who work in PR and make everything look better than it is. And people see through that. They know when you’re bullshitting them. They appreciate it if you say, “You know what, I can’t answer that because I don’t know.” Or, “I’m so angry about what just happened. I’m so disappointed.” Show emotions, be yourself, and people will respect that. They may not always agree with you, but they will take you seriously. 

NK: Admiral Bauer, you mentioned an example in the book about a moment of communicating honestly, I believe it was while you were the Chief of Defense in the Netherlands, about a delay in a delivery, if I’m recalling correctly, and you thought that when you were relaying this information, people would be angry or upset. But actually, they were shocked that you were just being honest about the situation and doing your best to resolve it. 

RB: Yeah, so I expected disappointment from them and anger. Then most of them came to me in the first break during those meetings and said, “Rob, it’s amazing that you told us this. And you are the first one who actually tells us about your problems.” But basically, we all have the same problem. And so it’s good to actually talk about this and be honest with each other about our real problem. 

Because there is a tendency amongst nations to say, “No, no, no everything is fine. Everything is fine. Don’t you worry. I will have the troops. I will have the capabilities. I will have the ammunition when the war starts.” And then when the war starts, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, who is to fight for us with our troops and our capabilities, finds out then that he will get only 75 percent. I’m not saying that is the percentage, but he might find out he has less troops available and less ammunition than everybody promised. And that’s wrong. It is wrong to make things more beautiful when it comes to a serious subject such as security. I understand we’re not going to tell President Putin everything about NATO when it comes to our weaknesses and our concerns, but amongst ourselves, we should talk about them.

So one of the fascinating things I believe is that the people are very anti-government or that are not trustworthy of their government and are skeptical of what the government is doing and they don’t want the government to interfere with their lives—that group is actually the same group that will be angry if things have not been arranged when the war starts. And so, they don’t want to be involved. They don’t want to do anything. But at the same time, I’m pretty sure that when the war starts and things have not been organized properly, it is that same group that will be angry at the government that they haven’t prepared. So it’s even more mind boggling that people have two faces in that respect.

NK: Speaking of organizing efficiently, one of the chapters that was in the book is about the issue of efficiency and effectiveness, right? It was quite shocking, actually, to read about all of the layers of bureaucracy and standardization that bogged down things that should be a lot more straightforward.

You talk a lot about business leaders and how they play a role in that. But on that note, have you seen any positive examples of things changing for the better on that front, where there is increased efficiency, even in one industry or one area or process since you’ve written the book? 

RB: I think there is some movement away from efficiency. People started to understand that efficiency thinking now, after so many years, has a negative effect on the strategic effectiveness of our nations.

And the reason is because, if you have an economy that builds just in time, just enough, that is the same as [if you were to] order your car at the dealer and he can tell you that your car will be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2026 because you have this very special model and with all the extras. And they tell you it will be delivered in December 2026, even though the date is [only] most likely. And the reason is that when you order the car, it is put into the production system and therefore they can fill the whole production system, which is perfect because it is extremely efficient. 

But the problem we are looking at, with the pandemic, when it was about medical supplies, and in a war with the military, is that we say, “I don’t want my car in the fourth quarter of 2026. I want 1,000 cars next week.” And the industry and our society is unable, until today, to actually deliver to that peak demand signal.

Because we simply do not have the structure, we don’t have the workers, we do not have the capacity to do it, and we are in year five of the war in Ukraine. Still—there’s improvement, there are more factories coming and production capacity is going up, but not at the pace you actually need when you are in a war. So, you need to produce not just when it is possible, you need to do it just in case. You need to have stocks, you need to make sure there is enough ammunition, that there are enough spare parts. All these issues are then connected to production times that are extremely long. 

The Patriot missile production is one and a half years. So if you have stock for one and a half years, you’re okay. But if you have stocks for 30 days and the production time is one and a half years, you are in serious trouble. 

ER: In terms of the good news—that’s my role always in the conversation—is that you see (there’s definitely still a huge problem in the defense industry) across industries at large that the topic of resilience, the topic of preparing for war is [increasingly] becoming a boardroom topic. 

CFOs are realizing that this goes well beyond crisis management of a temporary interruption of your normal business activity, it’s a strategic topic that the company needs to think about. So that’s very positive. There’s a big willingness to think about it and to invest. But there’s sort of a public-private dance going on where both sides are waiting on the other to act first. And that’s our job right now. Our daily work is trying to bring them together and make those two sides trust each other and persuade them to make that first step. But there’s definitely a lot more awareness and a sense of urgency than there was a couple of years ago. 

If I can give you one small example that gives me hope. There’s an energy company in the Netherlands that decided to give all of its maintenance people a special course in how to open an elevator in case of a power outage because thousands of people in the Netherlands might be stuck in an elevator. The firefighters have to do, of course, a lot of things at the same time. So if they don’t have to worry about the people in elevators, that saves them an immense [amount of time] and therefore saves lives.

If those maintenance people have that ability to open the elevator, then that makes the job of the firefighter so much easier. So, it’s not always about huge investments. It can also be about using capacity that is already out there, but using it in a way that you do something good for society as a whole and not only for your company.

NK: You mentioned how war and resilience are making their way into the conversation also on the industry level, not just in closed political and security conversations. And you dedicated the book to the people of Ukraine going into the fifth year of war. As you mentioned in the book, Ukrainians are constantly shifting between this concept of “What do I want the situation to look like?” and “What does it actually look like?” And it’s this combination of idealism and realism that allows a society to constantly adapt to changing circumstances, be prepared for anything, but also still all work towards the same thing, the bigger picture, which is ultimately victory, right? 

Now, in the West, we do have more of those conversations about resilience, because that’s how we define this whole concept in the West: under this umbrella term of resilience. But for many still, as normal citizens, the concept of war still does feel far away, either geographically, generationally, culturally. I think for North Americans specifically, I don’t think there is that collective generational experience of what living through a war means outside, of course, of military personnel. Because for Americans, wars are removed. They’re fought far away. Their aims are often nebulous. There is no military draft anymore. So it’s a bit remote. The main reference point for this concept of resilience for Westerners is that you learn if you are or aren’t resilient only when you’re put in that situation, and only when the war actually comes knocking at your door. 

So, how can leaders explain the concept of resilience as something worth investing in and nurturing during times of peacetime? 

RB: I think, and I don’t know whether people in the US feel this, but I would say in cyber, you could say we are at war. Russia and China are attacking the US, the Netherlands, and the whole world daily with enormous amounts of attacks. For Russians, most of the time they are preparing for war because they want to nest in systems. Whether it’s energy, whether it is hospitals, whether it is industry, they want to be there to disrupt—once the war starts—from a distance the systems that basically make sure that our societies work and function.

The Chinese do that too, most of the time they steal information and intellectual property. So, it has more economic motives. There are examples in the US where, I think, a pipeline system or where serious cyber attacks were disrupting the daily lives of people. This is already going on. People should understand it’s not complete peace any longer. And if you look at disinformation, I think we are also in a way, in war, because there is so much disinformation out there where people should really be concerned about, as we talked about earlier, what is the truth? What are the facts?

It is much more difficult now than a couple of years ago to find that. And then for companies, for example, if there is a war somewhere else, it might or most likely will have an effect on your supply chain. Because the IKEA CEO found out on the day the sanctions hit Russia that 25 percent of his supply, wood for the BILLY bookcase, came from Russia. Therefore, overnight, he had to find for one quarter of his raw material a new supplier. So, you don’t have to be at war to be seriously touched in a negative way, influenced by war. And I think the people in the United States now find out when they try to put gas in their car that the price of gasoline has gone up dramatically. 

So people will find out, because so many things are connected in our world, that when the war in the Middle East is now fought, that it has an effect on our oil prices and gas prices, and therefore has an impact on the price of heating your house, driving your car, and all these things. Some products are not coming as fast as usual because they have to sail around South Africa now because they can’t go through the Suez Canal. All these things have an impact. And then, yes, indeed, there’s no war in the US, but there is an impact of that war.

ER: The way that we look at it, the biggest problem is not so much a lack of a sense of urgency. I think the sense of urgency is there also in North America. I’m more concerned about a lack of confidence in our ability to do something about it.

And that’s something that you see across North America and Europe: a lack of confidence. And that’s why it’s so important to look and learn and be inspired by what the people of Ukraine are doing, because they are showing us every day what people can do if the unthinkable happens. 

There’s this story that we always tell in the theater show that we do in the Netherlands about this topic. It’s the story of a little girl called Erika, who was six years old when her father passed away in the war and was killed at the front. She was six years old and she thought, “What can I do? My father’s unit is still fighting. What can I do?” She started making these little headbands, flowers, and she sold so many of them that she saved enough money to buy multiple rocket launchers, vehicles for her father’s unit. If a six-year-old girl in Ukraine can do that, who has just lost her father in a war, then how can we, in our position of immense privilege, having decades of peace, how come we think that we have nothing to offer, that we are weak and we can’t possibly face the world around us? That’s something that we try to push as much as we can, because people need to realize how strong they are.

RB: But it’s fascinating, you have those influencers in Dubai and they basically escaped many nations because they didn’t wanna pay taxes. And then the war started in Iran and Iran retaliated also to the UAE (United Arab Emirates), and now those people are in danger.

And then they demand from their former country—because basically they left because they didn’t want to pay any taxes—to be picked up by the armed forces.

And so, it is so interesting how privileged we are and how far away we are from understanding that it is not given. It’s not a privilege. All these things need to be arranged and all these things take effort and all these things cost money. If you want your government to pick you up with an aircraft, the armed forces need to have those aircrafts and you need to have pilots that can actually do the work.

People don’t understand that it takes time and that it is an effort. It’s not a given. People think it is there when they need it. Until they don’t need it, they don’t want to buy it, they don’t want to pay for it, they don’t want to be involved, but suddenly they want it.

And the same is with a lot of people that talk about the environment. They want the refinery out of their nation, the chemical industry out of their nation because it is dirty, but they still want all the products. They want the plastic cups and they want the gas and they want all the things that are produced there. But “not in my backyard,” they don’t want it close to them. 

NK: Well, since you brought up Dubai influencers naturally, my next question is thinking about the next generations, the younger generations. 

Something that you mentioned in the book is that if we do not have an active memory of an event or feel an emotional connection to it, we often misjudge its risk. And I feel like that really stuck with me because, as we started this project with the 75th anniversary of NATO, there was a lot of talk about, “What does the next era hold? What does the future generation of NATO leaders or generally leaders in all these countries look like?”

And I think younger generations both in Europe and in the US, lack the kind of Cold War memories that really served as a founding principle of the Alliance. So, there are not these obvious reasons for supporting the things that NATO stands for. There are so many other problems in the world, in these countries. Younger people have to deal with economic instability, the polarization of the political system, and the impact of technology on our lives. So, sometimes these historic alliances seem a bit outdated or abstract.

How can we more clearly connect the achievements of NATO being a force for global security all of these 75-plus years, all of the good that has come out of that—how do we connect that with the palpable concerns of younger generations to get their buy-in? Because I think without their buy-in, NATO’s long-term survival and success might be under question in a few generations. 

RB: I think one of the things is that my generation–I started in the Navy in 1981. It was the height of the Cold War. And then we basically were more successful than communism, and that led to the implosion of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union. And then we thought this was the “End of History” by Fukuyama. Basically, we thought it’s democracy that has won, and therefore this is it. Until eternity, this is the situation.

And then that generation has seen no victories, actually. That is the sad thing. They saw the pandemic, and they saw wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq that were not successful. And they saw all sorts of things that were basically worrying and they are worried about climate change. So there’s depression-type thinking. And maybe people therefore flee to this idea that you need to also do a lot of fun things because you never know what the results [will be].

But I think if you look at the younger people now, not the millennial, but the people that are now between, let’s say, 15 and 25, they sort of understand that they are part of the solution. I find that very promising. I think they understand that the world is changing and that they have to play a role and that they are important in the solution. I have high hopes for the younger generation, actually. 

ER: Don’t forget there’s 3.5 million young people serving in, mostly young people, armed forces across the Alliance. And that number is growing because armed forces across the Alliance are growing. And those people in the past may have had to explain to their friends and families why they did what they did. But since after all the world events in the last couple of years, they don’t have to explain anymore. 

Everybody knows why what they do is extremely important. And that means there’s a ripple effect that comes from that, that I think a lot of young people want to do something for the greater good and realize that it’s necessary. They want to do work that matters, that has an impact in the world. It’s not only about what they pay you, it’s about what you contribute to in your daily work. So I’m very hopeful, to be honest. If you look at polling across NATO, there’s a lot of support for NATO across the Alliance in the younger segments. 

NK: Well, it’s good to perhaps end on a hopeful note. Before we conclude, at the end of these conversations, I always like to ask my guests to reflect on their home country’s path towards NATO membership and what that moment in time of a session looked like. But of course, with the Netherlands, that would be unfair since none of us were alive then, when the Netherlands joined as a founding member in 1949. 

But instead, I’d love to hear, just to close out, about both of your careers in NATO: if there was a moment that stood out to you, and you really felt like this is what it all was for, a moment that perhaps gave you hope and made you also proud to be a part of it.

RB: For me, that was the response from NATO and the EU after the full-fledged invasion. I think everyone was focused and willing to help Ukraine and to not give in to the Russian aggression. [I was proud of] the fact that NATO was adding value to our societies because of the need for more security and the rising threat. 

I think the years that Eleonora and I were in the NATO headquarters were basically very positive years in the sense that all the nations were working together very closely and were very united with regard to Ukraine. There’s now more cracks, not because we left, but because of other situations. But yeah, I think those were very special moments.

And then an incident in that period was, for example, when there was a missile that hit a house in Poland. It was in November 2022. The great thing was that people expected that everybody was going to scream about Article V, but actually the Polish government and the Alliance—it happened in the middle of the night in a remote area. It was bad weather. So everybody said, let’s find out first what happened. And everybody took the time to find out what had happened. Then the next day, there was a meeting of the North Atlantic Council. And the conclusion was it was a Ukrainian air defense missile that went off course into Poland whilst, of course, trying to hit Russian cruise missiles that were attacking Ukraine. 

So, the responsibility was still with Putin because they attacked Ukraine. But of course, these things happen. And therefore, we didn’t start a war because of that, but we took the time to act responsibly. 

ER: There’s this quote from former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander General Bernard Montgomery upon the creation of NATO. He says that if we would have had NATO before, we would have been able to prevent the first and second World Wars, and in its creation lies the best hope we have in preventing a third. That was true in 1949, and it’s very much still true today. 

Working for NATO, traveling the world, the Admiral traveled to all of the 32 Allied nations, plus I think 27 partner nations—all in all, about 200 trips in the three and a half years. And everywhere [he went], whether it’s NATO or a NATO partner, people believed in that and people saw that. And that’s still there, despite the—as the Admiral rightly says—difficulties that there are in a relationship. That belief, I feel, to the core is still there. Well, it’s certainly still there in us. I hope it’s there in you, that belief. It’s something so unique in the world that armed forces are able to trust each other to this extent, that nations are able to trust each other with their lives.

NATO is a life and death organization. That’s what sets it apart from the UN, from the EU, from the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe). It’s something we need to be extremely thankful for. 

NK: Admiral Bauer, Eleonora, thank you so much for such a thought-provoking conversation and sharing your insights with us today.

The book is If You Want Peace, Prepare for War: A Blueprint for Deterrence. And if there’s anything that you take away from it is that sometimes a great place to start is to just look in the mirror. So thanks so much again for joining us today on The Ties That Bind. 

RB: Thank you very much, Natalia. 

ER: Thank you, Natalia.

In late 2020, drones burst onto the national security scene in a new way. During the Nagorno-Karabakh war between Turkey and Armenia that year, videos of Turkish long-endurance TB-2 and loitering Harop drones identifying and striking Armenian air defense systems flooded the internet. Even more sophisticated Russian systems like the S-300 were marked, monitored, and destroyed by Azerbaijan’s force of Turkish and Israeli drones. These images garnered lots of media attention at the time, and helped inaugurate a new role for drone warfare—hunting air defense systems.

The videos were more revelatory than innovative. The Israelis and, later, the Americans have used drones to spot air defense sites since the technology began to proliferate in the 1970s. However, with age comes innovation—specifically through the use of data links and high-definition video to share information with regional “shooters” and then to “market” success to an audience eager to understand how the war is unfolding.

The current American and Israeli campaign against Iran has demonstrated the utility of drones for surface-to-air missile (SAM) and ballistic missile destruction and suppression. Using open-source techniques, we are able to track those advances using publicly available information from sources like state media and satellite imagery. Videos and images from the war, dubbed Operation Epic Fury by the United States, demonstrate how American long-endurance drones are being used to identify, monitor, and destroy Iranian air defenses as part of the broader air campaign against the Islamic Republic—and in some cases then pass data to other shooters in the region to destroy the SAM.

US Central Command has released dozens of videos compiling clips of US air strikes on a diverse array of Iranian targets. These videos typically consist of sensor footage from a drone or aircraft, which tracks a target, often marks the target with a laser, and records some kind of guided munition destroying the target. Based on the speed and quality of the footage, and its similarity to videos released of US strikes on boats in the Caribbean, the majority of the footage is taken by US long-endurance drones like the MQ-9 Reaper. Footage released from targeting pods on faster-moving jet aircraft appears qualitatively different from most of these videos. Reporting also indicates much of the footage comes from drones including MQ-9s.

Image of a strike in the Caribbean for comparison. Note the censored reticule in the center of the image.

The MQ-9 is armed, and can carry Hellfire missiles or gliding Small Diameter Bombs to destroy targets. It can also likely cue longer-range fires against targets, providing “buddy lase” for laser-guided weapons delivered by other aircraft. Indeed, some of the CENTCOM videos imply drones are cueing up Precision Strike Missile strikes from High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems launchers, though whether that is really the case is unclear. While there is no direct evidence of this being the case, the US Navy and Air Force have touted exercises where a drone or F-35 datalink is used to pass coordinates to a ground-based shooter to target air defense components.

Based on an examination of more than 35 videos released by CENTCOM, US drones helped destroy several elements of the Iranian air defense systems. The drones helped destroy at least three radars. Of the three destroyed radars, one clip showed a guided bomb destroying a derivative of the Soviet Spoon Rest P-12A radars, perhaps a Matla-ul-fajr-3, after it was painted by a drone. The Iranians have previously touted the Matla-ul-fajr series as key to providing early warning and serving as part of their integrated air defense network. Those radars provide early warning for the air defense network (such as it is) around the nuclear site at Natanz, and as such are some of Iran’s more important radar systems.

A Spoon Rest-derived radar struck in a video released on February 28, 2026.

While the road looks different to the Spoon Rest derivative shown destroyed in the CENTCOM video, one of those radars was destroyed very early in this round of conflict, at a site north of Kashan.

The strike on the early warning radar near Kashan was on the same day that the United States struck the entrances to the underground enrichment halls at Natanz nuclear facility.

Beyond blinding the sensors, American drones have helped destroy Iranian air defense shooters of all vintages.

Many of the videos include clips of guided bombs hitting anti-aircraft gun emplacements.

An anti-aircraft gun site struck in a video released on March 6, 2026.

The US has used the drones to target many older SAMs as well. One clip shows a bombing of what appears to be an SA-2/HQ-2, another an SA-5, and several clips show what are either leftover HAWKs from the pre-revolutionary era or the Iranian reverse engineered version of that SAM, the Shahin.

SA-2/HQ-2 in a video released on March 4, 2026.

A Soviet SA-5 site with rails and concrete cover in a video released on March 11, 2026.

A HAWK or Shahin launcher at an elevated launch site in a video released on March 15, 2026.

More contemporary Iranian SAMs have been caught by American drones as well. What appears to be a Raad-1 SAM system was destroyed. The Raad-1 uses the Taer-1, an Iranian copy of the SA-6 Gainful.

Raad-1 system armed with Taer-1 SAMs, derived from the Soviet SA-6.

Raad-1 system in a video released on March 13, 2026.

The most advanced Iranian SAM systems shown being destroyed thus far are likely Khordad-15s. The Khordad-15 can use both the Sayyad-2 and Sayyad-3 SAMs. The Sayyad-2 is a reverse engineered version of the American SM-2, and the Sayyad-3 is an improved version of that copy with a longer range.

Two videos show a drone lasing a Khordad-15 launcher shortly before a guided munition hits it.

A likely Khordad-15 launcher lased by a drone in a video released on March 9, 2026.

In one video, the launcher cooks off, suggesting it was loaded with SAMs.

The SAMs in a likely Khordad-15 launcher cooking off after a strike in a video from March 9, 2026. Note the dual exhaust in the bottom of the screen, which matches the canister placement in the previous image.

While likely not any of the SAMs appearing in the videos, an air defense site next to the airbase near Isfahan which housed both an SA-5 launcher and more modern Iranian mobile SAM launcher was shown to have been destroyed in satellite imagery.

The curious blend of old and reverse-engineered SAMs at the same site apparently did not pose much of an issue to either the US or Israeli air forces.

That air defense site had previously hosted one of Iran’s four S-300 systems. However, the Israelis destroyed the radar for that system in the aftermath of True Promise 1 and the remaining S-300 components were either relocated or put into storage soon after.

A likely Cobra V8 with antennas deployed in a video released on March 18, 2026.

A final interesting type of target attacked by US drones are Iranian electronic warfare systems. Multiple videos have shown what appear to be Cobra V8 EW system. This system, which resembles the Russian 1RL257E Krasukha-4, is supposed to jam radars and complicate drone operations. Given two examples of drone-aided destruction of Cobra V8s in the examined videos, it seems to be less than effective against American platforms.

The US drone operation in Iran is dependent on many factors. The USAF has localized air superiority, so the large and lumbering drones are able to operate deep inside Iran. However, as was the case during Operation Rough Rider in Yemen, even disparate and poorly operated air defense can target these drones. According to the Wall Street Journal, the United States has lost up to 11 drones during Epic Fury, although not all can be attributed to surface to air missiles. In at least one case, according to author interviews, happened when an Iranian ballistic missile struck the hangar a US MQ-9 was housed in in Jordan. Yet, when one stacks up the losses of Iranian missiles to drones against losses, the so-called cost exchange ratio remains in favor of the United States.

During 2025, the Russian military continued to experiment with improving its employment of uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) in support of its maneuver forces. The Russian military actively records statistics on the effectiveness and success of different types of UAS in its units and develops recommendations for improving their efficiency. One of these initiatives was titled “Drone Line” by Russia’s 2nd Combined Arms Army (2 CAA), which began last summer. It was developed in response to the rapidly expanding role of UAS in the war and to Ukraine’s own Drone Line initiative, which was scaled at the end of 2024 and beginning of 2025. However, these two initiatives differed despite the same title.

Ukraine’s Drone Line involved the establishment of five UAS regiments and brigades, which were intended to reinforce the maneuver brigades holding the front line. These units were initially assigned to the Ukrainian Ground Forces but were later transferred to the newly formed Unmanned Systems Forces. These Drone Line units were supposed to operate further past the forward line of enemy troops (FLET) than the UAS units within a regular maneuver brigade. The goal was to extend the “kill zone” from 10 kilometers beyond the FLET to 15 kilometers.

The Russian 2nd Combined Arms Army’s Drone Line was instead a method of task organizing the employment of strike UAS units within the army, which was responsible for 32 kilometers of frontage. The concept was an attempt to more systematically organize strike UAS assets in support of offensive operations instead of having each regiment or brigade’s UAS assets focus on its own area of responsibility.

In the 2 CAA’s case, the system was divided into two echelons and 18 sectors covering 32 kilometers of the front line. The first echelon was titled the “total clearance zone” from the FLET to 5 kilometers past the FLET. It was divided into 10 sectors, each approximately 3 kilometers on average. For this echelon, the group had assigned an authorized strength of 165 personnel.

The second echelon was the “zone of detection of advancing forces’ logistics,” which is assigned to target logistics routes from 5 to 10 kilometers past the FLET. It was divided into 8 sectors, averaging 4 kilometers each. The authorized strength for this grouping was 293 personnel, and was mostly composed of UAS personnel from spetsnaz, reconnaissance, and artillery units. The group was allocated 560 UAS per day: 360 copter-type first-person view (FPV), 111 fiber optic cable FPV, and 89 fixed-wing type FPV (Molniya). Lastly, detachments from the Rubicon Center were responsible for engaging targets at a depth of more than 10 kilometers past the FLET.

Graphic depicting the 2nd Combined Arms Army’s Drone Line Concept from the summer of 2025. (Courtesy of Cole Petersen)

The Drone Line experiment with the 2 CAA was scaled and later employed by the entire Center Group of Forces (GOF) by the end of the summer. For Center GOF, it initially involved 60 sectors along the front line with two echelons in depth. These sectors were divided up by the GOF’s subordinate formations, with 15 sectors assigned to the 2nd Combined Arms Army, 12 to the 8th Combined Arms Army, 14 to the 41st Combined Arms Army, 14 to the 51st Combined Arms Army, and 5 to the 90th Tank Division.

As with the previous scheme, the total clearance zone ran from the FLET to 5 kilometers past the FLET and involved 33 sectors. The second echelon, zone of detection of advancing forces’ logistics, involved 27 sectors that ranged from 5-10 kilometers past the FLET. Responsibility for this second zone was also assigned to spetsnaz, reconnaissance, and artillery units, as was the case for the 2 CAA’s initial scheme.

For the third echelon from 10 kilometers and further beyond the FLET, Center GOF modified the initial 2 CAA concept by assigning specific sectors for units. Twenty two “isolation” sectors were assigned to separate spetsnaz brigades and Rubicon detachments. For this third echelon, Center GOF assigned three to the Rubicon-7 detachment, three to Rubicon-Ts (Center), four to Rubicon-D (Dnepr), two to Rubicon-8, and two to Rubicon-V (East). There were also four assigned to both the 3rd and 24th Spetsnaz Brigades’ Vega fire support battalions. The Rubicon-DM (distance mining) detachment was later deployed and initially assigned 9 areas for remote mining by UAS, including Molniya. At the end of the summer, Center GOF had placed a limit on usage of 4,000 first-person view (FPV) per day—including both quadcopter and fixed-wing variants.

Center GOF’s leadership continued to refine the concept during the fall. The total number of sectors in the first two echelons was reduced from 60 to 54, the number of isolation zones was reduced from 22 to 12, and the number of remote mining zones was increased to 14. Notably, Center GOF did not include the UAS units from the 68th Army Corps or naval infantry grouping, including the 40th, 155th, 61st, 336th naval infantry brigades, and 177th Naval Infantry Regiment, in the drone line system when they were deployed in its area of responsibility. By the fall, Russia’s Center Group of Forces had approximately 1,700 UAS crews operating under its command, including those from attached units. This was the densest coverage of Russian UAS capabilities along the front line.

Map courtesy of Andrii Karbivnychyi

Russia’s 6th Combined Arms Army—part of the West Group of Forces—operating in the Kupyansk direction also experimented with the Drone Line concept last summer, but assigned sectors and zones in a different manner. The first echelon ran from the FLET to 5 kilometers past the FLET. The priority targets were personnel, equipment, and weapons, intending to immobilize Ukrainian forces. At least 100 UAS crews were assigned to this zone, including a company from the 16th Spetsnaz Brigade. These units were equipped with FPVs with fiber optic cables, Vobla-type UAS, R-18-type bomber UAS, and UAS interceptors.

Up to 60 UAS crews were assigned to the 2nd echelon, which extended from the FLET to 25km past the FLET. The priority targets in this zone included antennas, repeaters, satellite communication systems, electronic warfare, artillery, supply routes, and concentrations of forces and reserves. The UAS assigned for this area included Orlan-10, Zala-16, and Supercam intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) UAS, as well as Molniya and Lancet kamikaze UAS. The 3rd echelon ran from 25-35km from the FLET, and the priority targets included UAS launch sites, logistics centers, supply routes, and concentrations of units and reserves. Eight crews were assigned to this zone, equipped with Orlan-10, Zala-16, and Merlin ISR UAS, as well as Lancet and Kub strike UAS. In total, approximately 170 UAS crews were assigned to support the 6th Combined Arms Army during this period. According to Ukrainian units in this direction, the system was effective, and Russian employment of UAS was becoming more sophisticated.

Conclusions

As with Ukraine, the Russian military is constantly revising its methods for employing UAS most effectively. This includes task organizing the responsibility of recon and strike UAS at different depths. More specialized units, including those from separate spetsnaz brigades and Rubicon detachments, have better funding and support, and can operate at greater depths beyond the front line due to their higher-quality equipment and better-trained teams.

Similar debates have occurred in the Ukrainian military regarding ownership of depths and coordination between different formations. This is in part a reflection of the command-and-control relationship for Ukrainian UAS units. Units in Unmanned Systems Forces can be placed in direct support of Ground Forces units, but they are typically not subordinate to army corps commanders who own the battlespace along the front line, which can create friction and coordination issues.

Notably, Russia’s Drone Line experiments are occurring across military districts and groups of forces. Center GOF was one of the first to scale the system; however, the Western GOF’s 6th Combined Arms Army, as well as the Southern GOF’s 3rd Combined Arms Army, have also experimented with the concept themselves. In each case, the number of sectors differed. Throughout the war, Ukraine has typically innovated first with UAS, UGVs, and other new capabilities. The Russian military learns from these developments and will often copy them and scale them more effectively.

In 2025, the Russian military narrowed the gap in UAS employment with Ukraine in part through the emphasis on scaling elite UAS units like Rubicon and GROM Kaskad, and new employment concepts. Nonetheless, these developments did not prove decisive, and the deployment of elite UAS units in the Center GOF direction did not lead to a breakthrough in the fall of 2025.

Image credit: A service member of the 422nd Unmanned Systems Regiment walks next to a heavy strike drone at a training ground, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine March 23, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer

A New War or Just an Old One?

The fighting between Israel and America on one side and Iran on the other that began on February 28, 2026, was not the outbreak of a new war but the continuation of a five-decade-long conflict between Iran’s theocracy, its Sunni neighbors, and the West. Since its inception, the Islamic Republic of Iran has legitimized its rule by domestically incorporating Shia theology into all aspects of daily life and pursuing a foreign policy dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the removal of American influence from the region. Iran invested in nuclear and ballistic missile programs as a means to this latter end. It also conducted unconventional warfare operations that killed Americans from Beirut to Afghanistan and Iraq and threatened American economic trade routes and partners from the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait to the Levant. The destruction or degradation of Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs by joint US-Israeli strikes in June 2025 and today is just another chapter of this conflict. So are efforts at regime decapitation and change. How should Americans view this conflict as it stands today, and what might they need to prepare for in the near future?

The replacement of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with his son Mojtaba Khamenei maintains the regime’s strong theological and anti-Western orientation. Mojtaba Khamenei is unlikely to deviate from the direction set by his two predecessors due to a military defeat—Iran has suffered defeat before. Furthermore, some estimate the influence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has actually increased within Iran’s government since these attacks began. Yet, whoever leads Iran will have to make decisions about the current conflict based on the balance of power between the two sides. While the fog of war makes the view of this balance difficult to see, two factors are already clear.

First, Iran is a much weaker threat to Israel and the region due to the degradation of its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

Second, Iran is stronger as a force in international economics due to its demonstrated ability to close the Strait of Hormuz. Ironically, this latter factor may provide it with more leverage in international affairs than the former.

Even if Iran had developed a nuclear weapon and viable delivery system, something four decades of effort could not, its ability to turn that capability into leverage would have been limited due to the narrow utility of nuclear weapons beyond deterrence and the certainty of mutual assured destruction if Iran ever used one against Israel.

However, Iran has shown the world it can close the Strait of Hormuz without a navy or air force. The use, or the threat of use, of drones, cruise missiles, and mines against shipping in the strait has given Iran unprecedented leverage on the world’s economy despite having lost control of its own airspace.

The Strait of Hormuz and Economic Warfare

In the first two weeks of this conflict, Iranian missiles or drones struck 22 merchant ships, sending maritime insurance rates skyrocketing and forcing most international shipping to anchor outside the strait or stay inside the Persian Gulf with their cargoes. Not all shipping has stopped. Iran is currently running what Lloyds of London characterized as a “toll booth system” allowing select ships to pass through Iranian territorial waters with an IRGC escort if they have either made diplomatic coordination with Tehran or paid fees (in Chinese yuan) reportedly equaling two million US dollars per vessel. For those not willing or allowed to do so, the strait is effectively closed, something that did not even happen during the 1984–1988 Tanker War between Iran and Iraq.

Twenty percent of the world’s oil and natural gas and a third of its fertilizer pass through the Strait of Hormuz as well as substantial amounts of other crucial materials such as petrochemicals and helium (a vital coolant in chip manufacturing and MRI machines). The closure of the strait to most of the world’s shipping is already causing a cascading series of international economic problems including increased inflation, market volatility, and supply chain disruptions.

The administration is sending two Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs) with approximately 5,000 Marines to the region and deploying several thousand paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division. One third of the actively deployable ships in the US Navy are in the Middle East. Speculation is that these forces will be used to open the strait if reported negotiations with Iran fail to.

Peace Now?

It is at this moment that the conflict is most likely to either de-escalate back to the long-term smoldering of tensions that have defined US and Israeli relations with Iran since 1979 or escalate into a long war.

Facing the specter of a ground war and increased inflation that will undermine its chances in the mid-term congressional elections, the administration may decide to pocket its victories of having destroyed or severely degraded Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs and decimated its leadership (as a lesson to future Iranian governments). It can therefore afford to come to an agreement, formal or understood, with Tehran with tangible results to show for its efforts.

What will Iran want to end this fighting? Iran will want what every state wants: to survive and not be coerced. The air war has considerably damaged the regime’s ability to maintain itself and has further wrecked its military and economy. However, Iran’s regime succeeds by surviving. Since the first commandment of politics is “thou shalt stay in power,” an accord or modus vivendi that allows it to do so will be a victory for it as well. Therefore, the stage could be set for some type of agreement that ends this latest chapter of conflict with Iran.

What might such an agreement look like? Its general form would probably end attacks on Iran’s regime, although leave UN sanctions in place, in exchange for an end to Iranian attacks against maritime shipping. The question of Iran’s nuclear and missile programs might be left unresolved but also rendered moot due to the destruction already inflicted on both. This would be similar to the agreement that ended the Cuban Missile Crisis when President John F. Kennedy secretly agreed to remove US missiles from Turkey and promised not to invade Cuba in exchange for Premier Nikita Khruschev’s overtly backing down and removing Soviet missiles there.

The wild card for this arrangement could be Israel. On one hand, this operation is popular in an otherwise divided country. Ninety percent of Jewish Israelis support it and the Netanyahu government could be tempted to continue it to achieve maximum results such as a fall of the regime. However, Israel may need to turn the majority of its air force and air defense assets due north to deal with the Hezbollah rocket attacks from southern Lebanon. There are reports that Israel is considering once again occupying this region south of the Litani River, which may force it to focus on just one war at a time. Finally, if the United States wants peace, Israel will be pressured to join as well, despite whatever reservations, to not lose the support of its main ally.

Peace Much Later: The Costly Options of a Long War

 However, if this does not happen soon, then both sides could take steps that will lead to a long war. While President Trump has expressed optimism that this conflict will end soon and stated that other nations need to take care of opening the Strait of Hormuz, it remains to be seen if Iran will stop fighting once the US and Israel stop bombing. Furthermore, only the US has the military capacity to open the strait, whose closure affects the American economy as well as the world’s. Therefore, the United States may feel compelled to use military force to open the Strait of Hormuz and then take steps for regime change that exploits ethnic-national divisions in Iran. Iran may retaliate by fully closing the strait and increasing attacks against its Sunni neighbors to undermine their regimes.

Opening the Strait of Hormuz will require time and costly military operations. The approach of two MEUs to the region has raised speculation that they may be used to either seize Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export facility, or smaller islands near the strait such as Larak, which the IRGC is using to screen oil tankers allowed to transit its territorial waters, or Abu Musa, which is also claimed by the United Arab Emirates.

Seizing Kharg Island to stop Iranian oil exports will require landing a MEU within artillery and drone range of Iran’s coast to conduct a mission that can be achieved more cheaply and safely by aerial attacks against any tanker docking there. Occupying either Larak or Abu Musa might provide greater leverage against Iran and block its “toll booth” operations, albeit with the same risks involved in occupying Kharg Island.

Iran’s trump card is to mine the Strait of Hormuz and close this international waterway to everyone until it is assured of its own survival. While air strikes have struck Iranian naval mine storage facilities and minelayers, it is unlikely that they have eliminated all of these stealthy weapons. If necessary, Iran could mine the strait using small civilian craft or simply by floating mines down from rivers. This is how North Korea mined Wonsan Harbor during the Korean War.

Minesweeping the Strait of Hormuz will be a slow and dangerous enterprise. The US Navy has only three Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) in the Fifth Fleet with mine countermeasure modules—two of them are currently undergoing maintenance in Singapore. The LCSs and other countermine assets must operate within range of Iran’s anti-ship weapons for a task that usually takes weeks if not months. An international force took over two months to sweep Iraqi mines laid near Kuwait during the First Gulf War. Clearing Haiphong Harbor of US mines laid during the Vietnam War took six months. Joint US-Japanese minesweeping operations to clear Japan’s inner waterways after World War II continued for over two years. All of these operations were also done in peacetime. Therefore, at little additional cost beyond what it is already paying, Iran can either kinetically or financially (through exorbitant maritime insurance rates) stop shipping through the Strait of Hormuz until it has what it wants from the United States and Israel.

Even if mines are not used, Iran’s inventory of drones provides a deterrent to keep maritime shipping from using the strait. An amphibious and/or airborne assault to seize the littoral areas of Iran near the strait to eliminate this threat would be a fool’s errand. Advanced versions of the Shahed-136 drone have a range of approximately 1,200 miles, meaning they can be fired from anywhere in Iran and hit shipping in the Persian Gulf. Even if a ground force occupying Iran’s coast could keep it from launching drones and missiles, it would have to number in the tens of thousands and stay in place until there is regime change in Tehran. Otherwise, the anti-shipping threat returns when the ground force leaves.

Regime change in Iran is easier said than done. After the slaying of 30,000 demonstrators earlier this year, the Iranian opposition may not be ready to try again. The administration could try to jump-start regime change by using ethnic-national forces already conducting insurgencies in Iran—specifically, the Kurds and Baluch. The idea has already been raised and could be raised again. This strategy would require time for insurgencies to grow strong enough to threaten the regime, air support for the insurgents, and a political plan that can unite disparate ethnic factions with anti-regime Persians. A regime change strategy, therefore, requires an extended war until these things can happen.

The Islamic Republic of Iran could fall, thus ending tensions with its neighbors and the West. However, the regime has a core of supporters who know that losing power also means losing their wealth, prestige, and even their lives. It may not go down without a fight. Inciting ethnic-nationalist groups, who make up almost half of the population, towards separatism could push moderate Persians to support the theocracy in order to maintain Iran’s territorial integrity. A civil war that pits Persian Iranians against their Kurdish, Baluch, Arab, Azeri, etc., fellow citizens will weaken the state, end its adventurism in the Middle East, and reduce its military threat to its neighbors. It will also produce massive refuge flows into Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, and Turkmenistan similar to those during the Syrian Civil War, which affected domestic political stability in the Near East and throughout Europe. The risk will be high that regime change will create an extended period of internal chaos in Iran that could also destabilize some of its neighbors.

Furthermore, attempts to undermine Iran’s regime and territorial integrity will lead to increased retaliatory strikes to undermine the Gulf states (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates). These countries to date have done a credible job in air defense but will face an inevitable logistical problem in a long war of matching costly interceptors against cheap drones. Moscow has every incentive to keep this war and resulting high oil prices running as long as possible and can provide Tehran its own drones (ironically based on Iranian designs). Drone attacks against Gulf state commercial buildings, desalinization plants, data centers, oil terminals, and tourist spots will cause economic losses and an exodus of workers. This will put considerable economic and political strain on the Gulf states due to decreased oil sales, attacks against vulnerable infrastructure needed to live in the desert, and the loss of commercial, data, financial, and tourist industries as well their role as a world-wide transportation hub.

Conclusion

The two foreseeable futures for this conflict are for the parties to either declare victory short of their maximum goals or to escalate the war into a long-term struggle resulting in months or years of combat. The first scenario would mean a return to the status quo ante in the region with two major modifications: the unlikelihood of Iran ever becoming a nuclear state and the certainty that it will have greater leverage in the future on international economic relations due to its proven ability to close the Strait of Hormuz. The second scenario would mean an uncertain future for the region that could see regime change in Iran and resulting internal chaos and refugee flows or regime survival solving nothing for the United States, Israel, and their Middle Eastern partners. To either outcome would be added the lingering effects of a worldwide economic downturn from the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz. What fate awaits will depend on the calculations of a few world leaders to determine what they want and how much they are willing to sacrifice for it.

Image: An Iranian man walks past the portraits of late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei during a flag ceremony marking Iran‘s Islamic Republic National Day in the Abbasabad Cultural and Tourist Area in central Tehran, on April 1, 2026. The event takes place amid US-Israeli military operations in Iran. Iranians voted yes in a referendum for the Islamic Republic regime forty-seven years ago. (Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto)

Russia’s Decree No. 821

In November of 2025, Decree No. 821 was quietly signed into law. The measure forces foreigners already living in Russia to choose between conscription and leaving the country, mandating at least one year of military service to apply for permanent residency. Unnaturalized foreigners seeking citizenship must present proof of service with the military or the Emergency Situations Ministry, or a certificate of excuse. Decree No. 821 canceled out the former status quo, Decree No. 10, which simplified the path for military recruits—as well as citizens of post-Soviet countries—to obtain Russian citizenship, but did not mandate military service. In conjunction with the decree, the state also began to target migrants with new laws labeling certain activities as “extremism” or “threats to security,” for which the punishment is expulsion, increasing pressure on them to find legal security through military service. Some of these activities include using uncertified websites and databases or holding religious services in private residences. These legal amendments came into play at a time when Russia’s death toll from its war in Ukraine reached 325,000 men, and casualties totaled 1.2 million. Notably, the updated citizenship guidelines do not apply to Belarus, Russia’s close ally. 

Following Decree No. 821, Russia openly increased military recruitment propaganda campaigns on TikTok, Facebook, Telegram, YouTube, and VKontakte (a Russian version of Facebook. Although the campaigns are clear in stating that the work opportunities are military-related, they tout benefits that some individuals never receive. Promoted opportunities include one-year service contracts with a monthly stipend of 204,000 rubles (about $2,500), a signing bonus of 2–3 million rubles (about $24,630 – $37,000), and citizenship eligibility for the applicant and his or her family. While recruitment primarily targets men, it also reaches women, enticing them into positions in drone assembly and factory work. 

Though direct military recruitment clearly increased—with 33 percent of recruitment efforts targeting foreigners in 2025, up from only 7 percent in 2024—the main issue young Africans face is signing onto military positions falsely advertised as civilian opportunities. Conservative estimates find that nearly 2,000 African men were promised a similar set of benefits for signing contracts to be drivers, cleaners, security guards, mechanics, and other roles: a monthly stipend of 179,300 rubles (about $2,200), a signing bonus of 1,059,600 rubles (about $13,000), and Russian citizenship. Deceptive postings appeared on advertising boards for civilian jobs like VisaPlus7, various social media platforms, and were shared through fake employment agencies. Upon inquiring, the men found themselves in coercive situations, pressured to sign contracts written in Russian without a translator present. Soon thereafter, they were sent to the frontlines of Russia’s war in Ukraine, after receiving anywhere from 1.5 to three weeks of basic training. Decree No. 821 opened the pathway for Russia to claim that the African soldiers willingly joined the Russian military for employment and legal status, deeming them “volunteers”. One fortunate Kenyan national, Patrick Kwabe, escaped to Nairobi during his service. He is quoted as saying, “You need to escape, or you die. There are only two ways.”

A Case for Human Trafficking

Russia’s new system of deceptive “military recruitment” provides grounds to be labeled as a human trafficking case. The United Nations defines human trafficking as the “recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of people through force, fraud, or deception, with the aim of exploiting them for profit, often using fraudulent employment agencies and fake promises of education and job opportunities to trick and coerce victims.” The lack of transparency for what role the reported African men are signing up for, the language barrier in their contracts to keep them in the dark, and the false promises of high-paying employment and university opportunities all align directly with the UN definition. The lives of these men are expendable to the Russian military, which has already faced over 1 million reported casualties. Russia aims to increase its military force by over 400,000 personnel in 2026 and is turning to countries with limited job opportunities to replace its growing personnel deficiencies. 

Why African Soldiers? 

Russia also traffics fighters from the Middle East and Asia, but why do men from 36 African countries find themselves being used as “cannon fodder” for the war? Africa is one of the youngest continents in the world, with people under age 25 making up 60 percent of the population. Approximately 12 million young Africans enter the labor market each year, but only three million secure formal employment, leaving the rest to enter the informal sector. Given this context, it is unsurprising that offers of secure employment and citizenship for the whole family are enticing. The 2025 youth unemployment statistics from three countries spearheading the fight against Russia trafficking African men to the battlefield are as follows: Ghana at 32 percent, Kenya at 67 percent, and South Africa at 62.4 percent. In environments with limited opportunities, African men find themselves more susceptible to trafficking, and Russia finds itself with a large pool of vulnerable people it can target. 

Attempting Diplomacy

Ghana

For Ghanaians, efforts to combat Russia’s deceptive military recruitment are ongoing. Of the 272 Ghanaian men confirmed to have been lured to the Russian frontlines, 55 are pronounced deceased. On March 15, 2026, Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa stated that the foreign ministries of Ghana and Russia will cooperate to resolve issues surrounding the enlistment of Ghanaian youth, though the announcement was only shared on social media and does not elaborate further. A February meeting between Ablakwa and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy discussed efforts to protect Ghanaian youth who are being deceived and sent to war. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha also met with Ablakwa to discuss the return of two Ghanaian prisoners of war who were captured while fighting for Russia. Though the two men have been confirmed to be alive and in good health, they have not yet been released, and Ablakwa is continuing discussions with Ukraine to get them home. No further updates on talks with Russia have been shared.  

Kenya

Following reports of over 1,000 Kenyans being recruited to fight in Russia, on March 16, Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov agreed to stop enlisting Kenyan nationals to fight in the war. While news outlets focus on the uplifting update, the fact is, in a recent Facebook post, Lavrov is heard saying that foreign soldiers are fighting voluntarily and will not have the need to be repatriated once their contracts are completed. Russia’s military allows foreign citizens to voluntarily enlist, providing the government with a convenient loophole, as it can demonstrate “willing” signatures from soldiers deceived into fighting. To maintain positive bilateral relations following the March 16 meeting, Kenya is focusing on shutting down recruitment agencies that run the trafficking operations and banning its citizens from enlisting in the Russian military. In response to the enlistment ban, Russia passed a law last month that protects foreigners from extradition to their home countries, rendering the ban ineffective. 

South Africa

The situation in South Africa differs from that in Ghana and Kenya. In February, Russia returned 15 of the 17 lured South African men at the request of President Cyril Ramaphosa after he received their distress calls made from the Donbas region. Two of the men remain in Russia: one is receiving medical treatment, and the other is undergoing travel processing. Like Kenya, South Africa has a law banning enlistment in foreign armies. This law has drawn legal scrutiny of repatriates who are now being questioned to determine if they were truly misled and, more importantly, to identify the people who organized their travel. 

Another factor is at play in South Africa: one of the accused participants in the trafficking operation is a former Member of Parliament. Duduzila Zuma-Sambudla, the daughter of former South African President Jacob Zuma, was accused by her sister of participating in the operations. In a sworn affidavit, Zuma-Sambudla claimed she was tricked and believed she was sharing an opportunity for non-combat, paramilitary training, which she herself had previously taken part in.

The enlisted men, including the 17 from South Africa and an additional two from Botswana, were told they’d undergo training for the uMkhonto-weSiizwe (MK) Party and would receive the benefit of attending Russian universities afterward. Instead, they were sent to the frontlines in eastern Ukraine. Accounts from the families of the affected men say they were directly persuaded by Zuma-Sambudla to go to Russia. Prior to Ramaphosa’s successful diplomatic efforts, former President Zuma and his daughter traveled to Russia to discuss their return with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but were unable to get a meeting with him. Though the investigation is still ongoing, half of the South Africans recruited were relatives of the Zuma family, which could lend credibility to Zuma-Sambudla. However, it is still all too possible that she trafficked members of her own family. As Zuma-Sambudla remains a polarizing figure in the country, the elements surrounding her case could affect the public’s perception of the human trafficking issue, instead viewing it as a political matter with a former MP facing the direct fallout rather than focusing on the victims themselves. 

Russia’s Ratings

Increased calls from victims’ families—and subsequently their governments—to stop human trafficking across African countries signal growing mistrust about travel to, opportunities in, and ties with Russia. A recently published Afrobarometer survey (conducted from 2024 to 2025) shows that among all the foreign actors operating in Africa, Russia consistently rates lowest in popularity. Among the three countries in this article, South Africa has the most positive views of Russia at 40 percent, while Ghana and Kenya both rank around 25 percent. These numbers will likely decrease further as more families expose the nefarious recruiting operations. 

Despite this, there are no clear signs that the affected governments officially seek to break ties or distance themselves from Russia. Instead, they have all acted to maintain positive relations with Russia: the Ghanaian Ministry of Foreign Affairs mentioned the trafficking issue only in passing and labeled it “youth enlistment” in a statement issued following a technical session with Russia. In the meeting between Kenya’s and Russia’s Foreign Ministers, Mudavadi stated, “We do not want for ⁠any reason our partnership with Russia to ⁠be defined from the lens of the special operation [in Ukraine] agenda. The relationship between Kenya and Russia is much broader than that.” Lastly, the South African Government expressed “heartfelt gratitude” toward Russia for returning its men without placing any blame on the country for luring them in the first place. 

Support Against Trafficking

Despite the absence of any break in Africa’s ties with Russia, the trafficking operations provide an opening for the continent’s allies to act. The European Parliament has already taken action by submitting a joint motion calling for a resolution on the trafficking issue, condemning Russia’s actions, demanding sanctions on individuals and entities aiding the recruitment, and urging member states to bilaterally engage with the African Union. Member states are already utilizing the label of “human trafficking” as a basis for national prosecutors to track victims’ movements across EU states on the way to Russia, and have also urged technology company Meta to remove thousands of false job schemes across its platforms, to which it obliged. The European Parliament also plans to cooperate with respective embassies to secure the return of the deceived men, and the United States should follow suit. One avenue to do so is through the US Africa Command’s Combating Trafficking in Persons program, which provides informational campaigns, policy enhancements, and training for foreign government officials in human trafficking awareness. Using a mechanism already in place, the US military could work with embassy partners to prevent further cases. Additionally, private sector collaboration is a powerful resource to utilize. Non-governmental organizations could support governments and institutions in recording the victims. One such effort is already underway at Swiss-based INPACT (All Eyes on Wagner), which tracks victims lured into the Russian army with contributions from digital protection companies and other non-governmental organizations. 

As this situation continues to unfold, to appropriately act, the international community must collectively acknowledge that the deceived men are victims of human trafficking, being exploited as disposable soldiers on the frontlines of the war in Ukraine. While African governments balance maintaining healthy relations with Russia and protecting their own, the time to provide support in dismantling “recruitment” networks is now. 

Image: Five suspects appear at the Kempton Park Magistrate’s Court for allegedly contravening the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act by planning to fight in Russia‘s war in Ukraine, in Johannesburg, South Africa, December 1, 2025. (REUTERS/Oupa Nkosi)