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national security
Don't Pull the Trigger: Say, 'No!' to New Plutonium Pits
The rush to increase production at 80 pits per year by 2030 unnecessarily increases the risk to workers and sidelines necessary environmental cleanup at the sites that already have ongoing release of radioactive waste into the air, water, and soil from legacy activities.
Jul 15, 2026
Plutonium pits are the radioactive core “trigger” of every US nuclear weapon. On detonation, the plutonium sets off a nuclear chain reaction initiating a nuclear explosion. The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, or NNSA, plutonium pit production Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, or PEIS, public comment period ends this Friday, July 16. Our input regarding this major component of today’s nuclear arms race is critical.
Paradoxically, on that same day, 81 years prior in 1945, the nuclear arms race began when the United States bombed New Mexico with the Trinity test. The PEIS released in April this year provides an incomplete and non-comprehensive environmental review of this accelerated race to develop new plutonium pits by 2030. The justification put forth stems from a Cold War mentality of Congress from 2014 requiring the United States to develop the capacity to produce 80 plutonium pits per year by 2030, subsequently bolstered by the 2018 Trump administration's Nuclear Posture Review requiring the US to produce 80 pits per year by 2030; 30 at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and 50 at the Savannah River Site.
As background, the majority of current plutonium pits completed production at the contaminated Rocky Flats plant outside of Boulder, Colorado by 1989. Therefore most plutonium pits are roughly 30-40 years old. Currently there are over 15,000 plutonium pits in reserve at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, and over 5,000 which are suitable for use in strategic reserve. These large grapefruit size pits have at their core the incredibly hazardous radionuclide plutonium 239, which has a half life of 24,000 years.
Concerns over the aging of the current stockpile have been the impetus for building new pits. That concern was largely put to rest with the congressionally mandated 2006 JASON study, which confirmed that plutonium pits would last at least 100 years, and a subsequent 2012 Lawrence Livermore National Lab study found “...no unexpected aging issues are appearing in plutonium pits artificially aged to 150 years of age…” and they “...performed as designed.” This scientific evidence deemed as inconvenient was ignored. A subsequent new JASON Study was completed in 2025, and the NNSA has refused to release the results despite congressional demands and watchdog agency lawsuits, presumably due to the inconvenient results threatening their multibillion dollar windfall.
Historically the only thing that can be guaranteed in this proposed increased plutonium pit production plan is that it will be significantly delayed and far over budget.
As noted, this current race to rapidly expand pit production will occur at the existing, and already contaminated, sites at Savannah River in South Carolina, and the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico. It’s as though these communities are expendable.
The current draft PEIS only gives lip service to addressing the environmental impacts, failing to adequately take into account the dangers posed by the production of these pits to surrounding communities. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, while the PEIS “clearly highlights an increased risk of radiation in the environment and across communities near facilities and workers it dismisses them as negligible continuing the most harmful and risky option of continued multi-site operations…. with only passing acknowledgement of the increased impacts at other sites, including nationwide transportation and impending waste management bottlenecks.”
According to a peer reviewed study published last week in the journal Science and Global Security, the Department of Energy has underestimated the potential deadly consequences if plutonium were to escape the Los Alamos National Laboratory. In the most serious case, if more than one kilogram of plutonium was to escape, the town of Los Alamos could become unlivable, and radioactive particles could spread across state lines. As many as 3,200 people could eventually get cancer with an estimated 1,000 deaths. Under certain circumstances, particles could travel as far north as Central Colorado and as far south as Southern New Mexico.
The draft PEIS fails to address the “no action“ option of not producing plutonium pits, thus dismissing it outright, presuming that production moving forward is a foregone conclusion. The rush to increase production at 80 pits per year by 2030 unnecessarily increases the risk to workers and sidelines necessary environmental cleanup at the sites that already have ongoing release of radioactive waste into the air, water, and soil from legacy activities on site. In addition, most reviews have concluded that this deadline is not realistic.
In addition, the proposed production will add fuel to the current ongoing arms race and proliferation disregarding the purported mission of the NNSA to “promote international nuclear safety and non-proliferation, and reduce global danger from weapons of mass destruction.” This will further erode confidence in the sincerity of the United States and its legal obligation under Article VI of the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, NPT, to work in good faith with other nations to abolish nuclear weapons.
Historically the only thing that can be guaranteed in this proposed increased plutonium pit production plan is that it will be significantly delayed and far over budget.
Imagine the international capital that could be gained by placing the entire plan on hold. Our national security would not be compromised. And there would be massive financial savings to be realized.
We must demand a more complete and transparent PEIS that addresses the entire environmental, economic, and health impacts to the communities directly at risk, as well as our entire nation and world. Absent that, we are not dealing with science, but rather opinion, conjecture, and fearmongering. Use your voice today by submitting your comments via email to PitPEIS@nnsa.doe.gov, being sure to reference Doc: DOE/EIS-0573.
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Unlawful US Attack, Says Cuban President, 'Would Trigger a Bloodbath With Incalculable Consequences'
"Cuba, which already endures a multidimensional aggression from the US, does have the absolute and legitimate right to defend itself against a military onslaught," said President Miguel Díaz-Canel.
May 18, 2026
As the Trump administration seeks to justify a war with Cuba using what Cuban officials have called “increasingly implausible accusations” that it poses a danger to national security, President Miguel Díaz-Canel warned on Monday that an American assault would trigger a "bloodbath with incalculable consequences."
US President Donald Trump has imposed a punishing fuel blockade on Cuba for months that has devastated the island's civilian population with the explicit goal of forcing its government from power and has, on many occasions, threatened to use military force, including to outright "take" the island.
The densely populated island of nearly 11 million people is already in the midst of a humanitarian crisis as a result of "energy starvation" from the blockade, which has left the country's renowned healthcare system struggling to function, with 100,000 patients awaiting surgery, according to a recent United Nations report.
"The threats of military aggression against Cuba from the world's greatest power are well-known," Díaz-Canel said in a post to social media on Monday. "The threat itself already constitutes an international crime. If it were to materialize, it would trigger a bloodbath with incalculable consequences, plus the destructive impact on regional peace and stability."
His comments came after Axios reported Sunday on "classified intelligence" shared by unnamed senior US officials stating that Cuba possesses around 300 drones acquired from Russia and Iran and had been considering plans to attack the US military base at Guantánamo Bay, various US military vessels, and Key West, Florida.
Reporter Marc Caputo described the intelligence as a possible "pretext for US military action" against the island and quoted an unnamed senior official as saying it was "a growing threat."
Republican legislators, particularly those in South Florida, have seized on the report to argue for even harsher action against Cuba. US Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart and Elvira Salazar both said it was further evidence that Cuba poses a "threat to national security." Rep. Carlos Gimenez said it must be "dealt with accordingly."
However, buried deep within the report was the acknowledgment that "US officials don't believe Cuba is an imminent threat, or actively planning to attack American interests." Rather, the drones would be reserved for a scenario in which "hostilities erupt" in the event of a US military attack, which has been telegraphed for weeks by the Trump administration.
Cuba has not denied having drones, with its embassy saying on Sunday that it "has the right to defend itself against external aggression." But Cuba denied any intent to attack the US preemptively, saying that US officials were "distorting as extraordinary the logical preparation required to face a potential aggression."
Díaz-Canel reiterated on Monday that Cuba "poses no threat, nor does it have aggressive plans or intentions against any country."
"It has none against the US, nor has it ever had any—something the government of that nation knows full well, particularly its defense and national security agencies," the Cuban president continued.
"Cuba, which already endures a multidimensional aggression from the US, does have the absolute and legitimate right to defend itself against a military onslaught," he added. "Yet that cannot be wielded, either logically or honestly, as an excuse for imposing war on the noble Cuban people."
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Trump Threatens to Jail Journalists Who Received Leak About US Pilot Downed in Iran
“We think we’ll be able to find it out because we’re going to go to the media company that released it and we’re going to say: ‘National security—give it up or go to jail,'" the president said.
Apr 06, 2026
President Donald Trump vowed Monday to find the "leaker" who disclosed that US forces could not locate the second pilot stranded in Iran after their F-15 fighter jet was shot down, threatening to jail unnamed journalists who received the information if they do not reveal its source.
Trump claimed that Iranian authorities did not know that a second pilot of the downed two-seat warplane was missing until after the news report, which made the US rescue mission "much more difficult."
“We’re looking very hard to find that leaker,” Trump said. “We think we’ll be able to find it out because we’re going to go to the media company that released it and we’re going to say: ‘National security—give it up or go to jail.'”
Trump: "They didn't know there was somebody missing until this leaker gave the information. Whoever it was, we think we'll be able to find out, because we're gonna go to the media company that released it and we're gonna say, 'National security. Give it up or go to jail.'"
[image or embed]
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) April 6, 2026 at 10:27 AM
“The country, Iran, put out a major notice... offering a very big award for anybody that captures the pilot," Trump continued. "We have to find that leaker, because that’s a sick person. Probably didn’t realize the extent of how bad it was."
"We’re going to find out," he added. "It’s national security, and the person that did the story will go to jail if he doesn’t say.”
While the president did not say which "media company" he was talking about, the first widely cited reporting about the missing second pilot was broadcast Friday by CNN, CBS News, and The New York Times.
Israel journalist Amit Segal—who has close high-level links to the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—claimed Monday on his Telegram channel that he was the first to publish information on the second pilot.
"We are about to see Trump’s promise to find and imprison whoever leaked the info about the second pilot vanish into the ether," US investigative journalist Ryan Grim said on social media Monday in response to Segal's post.
Both pilots were successfully rescued. Some critics mocked Trump for presuming that Iranians would not know that the two-seat F-15 is crewed by multiple pilots.
Since early in his first administration, Trump has discussed jailing journalists and political foes who leak or refuse to say who disclosed information. The president has also long denigrated journalists as the "fake news media" and the "enemy of the people," sowing distrust of an entire profession that culminated in physical attacks on reporters during the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.
Trump's threat comes as the president said he is "considering blowing everything up” in Iran if the country's leaders don't reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday night. This, after Trump said during a nationally televised address last week that he would bomb Iran "back to the Stone Ages" if the vital waterway is not reopened.
Responding to the president's remarks, Freedom of the Press Foundation advocacy chief Seth Stern said that “Donald Trump has long harbored bizarre fantasies about having journalists arrested and even sexually assaulted in prison for refusing to burn their sources."
"But journalists don’t work for the government and their right to publish government leaks is protected by the First Amendment which, despite Trump’s efforts, remains the law of the land," he continued. "It does not disappear whenever the words 'national security' are uttered. To the extent that the government is allowed to withhold information, it’s up to the government to keep its secrets, not journalists."
“Confidential sources are the lifeblood of investigative journalism," Stern contended. "Sources who come forward at great personal risk won’t do so if they don’t trust that their identities won’t be revealed, as Trump knows well from his days impersonating publicists to brag about himself to reporters."
"Some of the most important news stories in American history have come from confidential sources, including stories that have brought down corrupt presidents," he added. "That’s why Trump is so obsessed with leaks. It has nothing to do with national security."
Update: This article has been updated with reaction from Freedom of the Press Foundation advocacy chief Seth Stern.
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Trump Threatens Tariffs on Any Nation That Opposes US Efforts to Conquer Greenland
"Double whammy! Trump wants to raise prices on Americans to help invade Greenland, which we don't want."
Jan 16, 2026
President Donald Trump on Friday suggested that he would expand his legally contested and costly tariff regime to target any countries that don't support his plan to conquer Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory opposed to a US takeover.
While he was supposed to be speaking about rural healthcare at the White House, Trump recalled threatening Europe with tariffs on pharmaceuticals and said that "I may do that for Greenland too. I may put a tariff on countries if they don't go along with Greenland, because we need Greenland for national security. So I may do that."
Responding to a clip of Trump's remarks on social media, journalist Adam Cochran cited multiple federal laws and called his comments "impeachable."
Meidas Touch editor-in-chief Ron Filipkowski called the president "the Mad King."
Congressman Darren Soto (D-Fla.) wrote: "Double whammy! Trump wants to raise prices on Americans to help invade Greenland, which we don't want."
Polling has shown that the US seizing Greenland is unpopular with not only Greenlanders but also Americans. As Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Denmark and Greenland's foreign ministers met earlier this week, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that just 4% of US voters think it would be a "good idea" for Trump to take the territory by military force, and only 17% of approve of the president's push to acquire it by any means.
Other countries have rallied around Greenland and Denmark amid Trump's threats, and troops from several nations that have long been allied with the United States—including France, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom—arrived at the Arctic island this week.
The European Union's defense commissioner, Andrius Kubilius, said Monday that he agreed with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen's assessment that a US takeover of Greenland "will be the end of" the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
A bipartisan group of US lawmakers was in Copenhagen on Friday to meet with Danish and Greenlandic leaders, including Frederiksen. The Associated Press reported that the delegation leader, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), thanked the hosts for "225 years of being a good and trusted ally and partner," and said that "we had a strong and robust dialog about how we extend that into the future."
The only Republicans to join the delegation were Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Thom Tillis (NC), who isn't seeking reelection. Murkowski told journalists, "Greenland needs to be viewed as our ally, not as an asset, and I think that's what you're hearing with this delegation."
"I think it is important to underscore that when you ask the American people whether or not they think it is a good idea for the United States to acquire Greenland, the vast majority, some 75%, will say we do not think that is a good idea," Murkowski added, according to Reuters. "This senator from Alaska does not think it is a good idea."
As the Hill detailed Thursday:
A Republican senator who requested anonymity said Trump's talk of taking over Greenland has generated more opposition from Republicans in Congress because of the dire implications such an aggressive move would have for the future of NATO.
"You see, more than in other incidents, pushback by Republican senators on this topic," the lawmaker said.
"I have no understanding how this is an idea to begin with," the senator added with exasperation, warning that taking Greenland will undermine NATO and put Ukraine at greater risk.
On Thursday, after another bipartisan meeting with Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said that "what I thought was remarkable is that they talked to us about how the entirety of Greenland and the entirety of Denmark right now is focused on whether there is an invasion coming from the United States."
"This would be a cataclysm, the United States going to war with Europe," he warned. "We're trying to show Denmark that they have support on both sides of the aisle in Congress, but we need our Republican colleagues to speak up right now."
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Understanding the Dangerous Trump-MAGA National Security Strategy
Declaring an end to Pax Americana, the strategy reinforces white supremacy, authoritarianism, and kleptocracy at home and abroad.
Dec 22, 2025
After living on life support in the last half of the post-Cold War, Pax America is now a memory. It was relegated to the dustbin of history with the “Trump” National Security Strategy published earlier this month. President Donald Trump and his clique are not solely responsible for the reduced ambitions of the United States global empire. The world—including the United States—has changed. The strategy is the answer of a right-wing billionaire sector of the US elite to tectonic economic, military, and technological changes.
Eighty years ago, when the US emerged as the world’s dominant power nation, it possessed 50% of the world’s wealth, the most advanced “conventional” military forces, and was the only nation possessing genocidal nuclear weapons. After European nations and Japan rebuilt their economies in the aftermath of WWII, China brought 600 million people out of poverty, and the demise of colonialism, the US share of global GDP has fallen by half to 24%. These changes have had an immense impact on what can be spent to develop and deploy “advanced” and murderous militaries, the number of engineers and scientists a nation can produce, and even the exercise of soft power.
Other forces have also been at play. Witness the emergence of the Global South as a powerful force. South Africa had the temerity to challenge the Western assisted Israeli genocide in the International Court of Justice. The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and others) are contesting US economic dominance. And the Emirates have emerged as a powerful economic and political force with leverage over Trump.
The strategy is also a mutant offspring of the information revolution and of an extreme right-wing Supreme Court that played a central role in birthing an immense concentration of wealth resulting in the rise of new and anti-democratic elites reminiscent of feudal era princes, lords, and masters.
The strategy is contradictory, ignorant, and white supremacist; written in highly accessible language designed to win support of the MAGA masses.
Thus, a powerful sector of the US billionaire elite has developed a revised, destructive, and nationally self-destructive strategy to reinforce their privilege and power for the still emerging multipolar world disorder.
The Trump strategy is painful to read. It reeks of white supremacist rhetoric and policy commitments. It begins with fawning and obsequious praise of our Great Helmsman, Trump. And it is rife with braggadocio that belies observable reality, for example the boasts of having obliterated Iraq’s nuclear program and ending eight wars including Gaza, Rwanda-Democratic Republic of Congo, and Thailand-Cambodia. But the strategy does crystallize what was implicit during Trump’s first term in office and what we have witnessed and suffered in the past very painful year.
There is also the truism that foreign policies are manifestations of domestic priorities. From reinforcing white supremacy to authoritarianism and kleptocracy, this is also the case for the Trump-MAGA strategy.
Analysts across the country and foreign leaders have been stunned by the strategy’s declaration of the end of Pax Americana, the confession that global hegemony is a “fundamentally undesirable and impossible goal.” Richard Haass, formerly the president of the liberal Council on Foreign Relations, declared that the strategy is “ the biggest redirection of US foreign policy since the end of WWII and the dawn of the Cold War…” Chinese officials describe it as “moving from unipolarity to multipolarity." And Russians have not been shy about saying that it is consistent with their vision. European leaders are panicked.
How the World Sees the Strategy
Chinese leaders, since their pursuit of new great power relations in the Obama era, see the new US military and economic priorities as the logical consequence of US post-Cold War “hegemonic failures”: failed and disastrous imperial wars, its economic fragility, social and political fragmentation, and the worldwide perceptions that the US is no longer invincible.
Walden Bello, among the most inspired and inspiring Asian analysts and progressive political leaders, describes the strategy as a compromise document negotiated between three forces in Trump’s coalition: Maximalists who “still cling to the dream of American dominance," Specifists led by Elbridge Colby at the Pentagon and his allies “who believe America must retreat from Europe and the Middle East to focus single-mindedly on China,” and Continentalists or “neo-Monroeists, led by Stephen Miller and Vice President JD Vance, “ who advocate “an almost hermit-like retrenchment, turning the US into a fortress continent.”
In Europe, where fear has abounded that the United States would abandon its continental protectorate, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared the end of Pax Americana. Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister, warned that the strategy places the US to the right of the extreme right in Europe. And reflecting an increasingly shared belief, a researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations declared that “the West as it used to be no longer exists.” And he is right.
The strategy has also sown panic among US neoconservatives and liberal imperialists. Speaking for many, Anne Applebaum remarked that it is “hard to think of another great power ever abdicating its influence so quickly and publicly.” And for some, the New York Times eight-page special opinion section which argues that the US military has been “overmatched” by China provides a path back to “normalcy.” It urges still greater military spending, focusing on creating greater AI and cyber warfare capabilities, and returning to the era when the Pentagon had 51, not 5, primary military contractors.
Extending the MAGA Counterrevolutionary Agenda
The strategy is contradictory, ignorant, and white supremacist; written in highly accessible language designed to win support of the MAGA masses.
The historian Heather Cox Richardson was clear that the National Security Strategy is explicit in its goal of creating a "white supremacist country," rejecting immigration, and "'restoring Europe’s civilizational self-confidence and Western identity.” We hear echoes of Nazi and Charlottesville “great replacement” rhetoric as code words and dog whistles such as “restoration and reinvigoration of American spiritual and cultural health,” defending and preserving “civilization,” and “strong traditional families that raise healthy families” appear throughout the document.
While the strategy pledges the “predisposition to non-interventionism,” gunboat diplomacy continues apace with the largest US naval flotilla since the Cuban Missile Crisis assembled off the coast of Venezuela.
Its featured first goal is to establish “full control over our borders.” Why? Because “mass migration has strained domestic resources, increased violence and other crime, weakened social cohesion… undermined national security.” This despite actual crime statistics that immigrants are one-third less likely to be imprisoned than those born in the US, that construction and agricultural employers are hurting as tens of thousands of dedicated workers are deported, that fewer young workers mean weakened Social Security and support for our aging population. And our universities and industries that depend on attracting the best and brightest from around the world are deprived of essential human capital.
If that weren’t enough, the strategy pledges to “root out” diversity, equity, and inclusion in foreign, as well as domestic, policy—one other way that Trump and MAGA are sabotaging the nation’s foundations.
And on the subject of contradictions, while the strategy pledges the “predisposition to non-interventionism,” gunboat diplomacy continues apace with the largest US naval flotilla since the Cuban Missile Crisis assembled off the coast of Venezuela that is illegally sinking boats, murdering sailors in clear contravention of international law, and enforcing a blockade to impose regime change in Venezuela, and by extension Cuba.
Prioritizing Commerce and Profits
Soon after Donald Trump’s reelection a former senior US arms control diplomat was asked by his Russian interlocutor what Trump’s foreign policy priority would be. The answer: Trump’s first, second, and third priorities would be doing all that he can to enrich himself and his family. Not surprisingly we have been delivered the country’s most mercantile foreign policy agenda in more than a century. Access to other nations’ raw materials and markets are the priority, and, in another break with at least three generations of foreign policy rhetoric, the strategy is explicit that human rights concerns will not be a factor that interferes with US commercial interests and that the US won’t be imposing "democratic social change.” The New York Times: put it well when it carried a report saying, “The world as seen from the White House is a place where America can use its vast powers to make more money.”
What is its agenda? Seeking “balanced trade,” access to resources, protecting supply chains, and “reindustrialization.” Never mind that despite Trump’s devastating tariffs, which are increasing costs for Americans and alienating much of the world, offshored manufacturing is NOT returning to the US. Other commitments include maintaining the “dollar’s global reserve status,” pushing back against “Non-Hemispheric competitors'" economic inroads in “our hemisphere,” and the insistence on Latin American nations granting no-bid contracts to US companies. Taiwan’s value is boiled down to semiconductors and serving as a geopolitical cork, US forces are to maintain a "free and open Pacific” for trade purposes, and Saudi Arabia and the Emirates are seen as resources for investments. “Every US Government official that interacts with these countries should understand,” US diplomats and the world are told, “that part of their job is to help American companies compete and succeed.”
Geopolitics
After conceding that the US will not seek to control developments in every corner of the world, the strategy opts to maintain US primacy via balances of power and consolidating spheres of influence, not that China is to have a sphere. Consistent with its Biden and Obama predecessors, we are to be reassured by the Trumpian commitment to building the “world’s most powerful, lethal, and technologically advanced military,” ostensibly to “protect our interests” and to maintain the world’s “most advanced economy.” It allows no light to shine between the Trump agenda and the New York Times’ call for increased US military spending to modernize the US military industrial base, to maintain the world’s most deadly nuclear arsenal, and to divert hundreds of billions of dollars to military contractors to build Trump’s “Golden Dome” of missile defenses that will never work.
The strategy is consistent with the Jesse Helms-John Bolton insistence on sovereignty—personal and national. This should be read as white individualist sovereignty and rejection of international law, the United Nations, and foreign aid on which millions of human lives have depended. Moreover, the order in which the strategy addresses geopolitical regions is telling. First the Western Hemisphere, then Asia, then Europe, then the Middle East, and finally Africa
Europe
But let me begin with antecedents to the Trump-MAGA animus toward Europe. More than 200 years ago, as he retired from the presidency, George Washington warned the newly independent nation to avoid dangerous European entanglements. Prior to World Wars I and II, powerful isolationist movements opposed the US entering those wars. Decades later, in 2003, anger in response to French resistance to joining the US in its Iraq War for oil led to congressional dining rooms renaming French fries as “freedom fries!”
Since 1945, Western Europe has been a US protectorate. When NATO was founded in 1949, Lord Ismay, the alliance’s first secretary general, observed that its purpose was to keep Russia out, Germany down, and the US in. Now, after NATO’s expansion to Russia’s borders, European economic competition as well as collaborations with the US, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and the reelection of a president more aligned with Russian authoritarianism that European liberal and social democracy, the strategy makes clear that the US will no longer guarantee Europe’s security. Europe must make its way between the hammer and anvil of Russian military power and China’s economic juggernaut. With the strategy’s mercantilist priorities, Europe is primarily valued for its trade and investment opportunities,
The strategy distances the US from NATO and brings it closer to Russia, which is seen as small potatoes compared with China. Moscow is a major nuclear power, but not an economic power. It makes clear that despite its ambitions Ukraine cannot join NATO—something that neither former President Joe Biden nor the most powerful NATO allies would tolerate. And as Trump insists that European NATO nations must take the lead in attending to their own defense, he simply offers to mediate between Europe and the Eastern powers, not to protect it. Worth noting, Walden Bello writes that this appears to include “Russian suzerainty in Eastern Europe.”
As economic security is traded for military capabilities, it further opens the way for fascist forces to gain power.
It is no secret that Trump, like Putin, has little patience for democracy, and this illuminates an underreported dimension of the strategy. Contagious thoughts travel. Thus, by their very existence, European democracies pose political and cultural threats to autocracies—American as well as Russian or Chinese. Ideologically, as well as economically and militarily, a growing number of European leaders now experience the US as a “security risk” for Europe. In a clarion call warning, a Danish intelligence report advises that “the United States uses economic power, including in the form of threats of high tariffs, to enforce its will and no longer excludes the use of military force, even against its allies.” In the tradition of international relations mirroring the rules of the game among Mafia families, the fate of Copenhagen’s mineral rich and geostrategically vital (think ice melt in the Northwest Passage) Greenland colony is at risk.
Perhaps worse is the strategy’s commitment to support “like minded” and racist “patriotic” parties—extreme right-wing and fascist—across Europe. In barely disguised code, the strategy warns that Europe faces “civilizational erasure" necessitating US to support “resistance.” There were intimations of this policy transformation in Vice President Vance’s February Munich Security Conference speech; his expressed support for the fascist right Alternative for Germany party; and the administration’s embrace of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Italy, and Marine Le Pen in France.
In response to the fragility of US commitments to NATO, European elites have turned to create a more unified European military, either to reinforce NATO or potentially as an independent power. Since Vance’s Munich speech, compounded by fears that Russian ambitions may not be limited to eastern Ukraine, this process has been on steroids. Pressure is on to create an integrated European military-industrial complex. To increase the number of troops under arms, conscription and other forums of voluntary enlistment are being reintroduced. The numbers of tank forces and warplanes are being increased, and pressure is on to increase AI and cyber-security capabilities. Germany now seeks to become the continent’s major land power. And off-camera diplomacy quietly continues over whether the French or British nuclear weapons should replace the US nuclear umbrella as the source of extended deterrence.
As the newly created Stop ReArm coalition warns, this vastly increased military spending also threatens the viability of social democratic welfare commitments. As economic security is traded for military capabilities, it further opens the way for fascist forces to gain power.
Reinforcing US Indo-Pacific Military Dominance and Containment of China
That Danish intelligence report reminds us that with “the USA’s increasingly strong focus on the Pacific Ocean” the pivot to Asia and the Pacific begun by President Barack Obama remains at the center of US military and economic policy.
Media reports have concentrated on the strategy’s economic, not military, competition with China, in its section “Win the Economic Future, Prevent Military Confrontation.” There we read about the focus on industrial policies, intellectual property theft, protecting supply chains and access to minerals and rare earths, fentanyl, and propaganda and influence operation. Gone is Biden-era confrontational rhetoric.
Yes, China is no longer described as a peer competitor. The strategy advises that “the Indo-Pacific… will continue to be among the next century’s key economic and geopolitical battlegrounds…we must successfully compete there.” But, like the magician who diverts our attention when she shuttles a pea under shells, the media misses the continuity of US imperialism dating back to the “opening” of Japan, Admiral George Dewey’s gunships in Manila Bay, and US forces joining in repressing China’s nationalist Boxer Rebellion. Despite Trumpian allergies to alliances, the strategy reports that “President Trump is building alliances and strengthening partnerships in the Indo-Pacific that will be the bedrock of security and prosperity long into the future."
Toward that end, the strategy stresses the US need to maintain dominance over the First Island Chain that extends from South Korea, through Japan, to Taiwan and the Philippines, extending westward to Australia. Instead of seeking regime change in Beijing, consistent with 80 years of building military alliances and creating hundreds of US military bases across the Asia-Pacific and Biden’s lattice-like network of Indo-Pacific alliances, Trump and company are explicit about containing China via balance of power dominance and Indo-Pacific alliances. Highlighted are the Biden era QUAD (US, Japan, South Korea, and India) and AUKUS (Australian, Britain, US) alliances. They are called to increase their burden sharing and move to burden shifting, the willingness to sacrifice their troops in US wars. And, to ensure their loyalty to Washington, the strategy calls for their collaborations into an “economic group” to ensure they don’t become “subordinate to any competing power.”
How serious is the competition? Two weeks after release of the strategy, US nuclear-capable bombers joined Japanese warplanes in a show of force. This came one day after Chinese and Russian bombers flew around western Japan to demonstrate Beijing’s rage at Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's warning that Japan would move to defend Taiwan if it were attacked.
Three other US military commitments to contain China are worth noting. To enforce US “deterrence” of China, the strategy promises to “build a military capable of denying aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain” and the US will not tolerate “any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.” This, we are told, will require still greater US spending—including for defense industry bases. It insists that the US will not tolerate a “competitor” attempting to control the South China Sea, across which one-third of world trade travels. And after maintaining strategic ambiguity over US commitments to Taiwan, we are now told that war there must be avoided because it would have “major implications for the US economy;" because the autonomous island provides direct access to the Second Island Chain (Japan, Guam, and Micronesia), and its loss could split Northeast and Southeast Asia into two theaters; and because it is a “key” to controlling the South China Sea.
Thus, it came as no surprise that within days of the publication of the strategy, the Trump administration committed to selling Taiwan $11 billion of advanced military equipment to help transform it into an unappetizing military porcupine.
Some believe that the strategy’s less than hysterical language about China was designed to ensure that our would-be monarch receives the adulation he believes is his due when he travels to the Middle Kingdom in March. But profit and business deals come first. Shortly before the strategy was released and the TikTok deal was done, Trump signed off on Nvidia selling its second-most advanced chips, with AI and military capabilities, to China. How many of these chips, reported to give China a boost in the AI race, will ultimately land in China has yet to be determined. That uncertainty may provide Trump with one dimension of leverage in future negotiations with Beijing. But if Trump limits the numbers and uses each shipment as leverage, the effects will be far less dramatic.
The Global South (Trump’s “Shithole” Countries)
Beyond the tectonic signaling of the end of the 80-year transatlantic alliance, media outlines have shared the shock of the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, a naked recommitment to US Western Hemispheric neocolonialism and hegemony. It’s about who gets the money, about oil, and about the white nationalist obsession with race.
As we see in recent reports, the US Central, European, and African Commands are to be downgraded and integrated into a new International Command, with the transfer of some forces to the Western Hemisphere, and, we can assume, to the Indo-Pacific. Thus, we now have an aircraft carrier fleet and thousands of troops redeployed from Europe to Venezuela, and in the words of the strategy, to “address urgent threats in our hemisphere.” On the subject of ideological and political alternatives, it is worth remembering that the Cuban economy is dependent on Venezuelan oil.
On other fronts, the strategy isn’t hesitant in describing Washington’s ambitions for Latin America. Where the US has “the most leverage,” we are instructed that it "must be sole-source contracts for our companies.” And, with Trump’s racist fantasies of an invasion of as many as 30 million immigrants—criminals, rapists, drug dealers, and more—and Immigration and Customs Enforcement shattering families and communities across the nation, the strategy tells us that “the Era of Mass Migration is Over.”
Proverbs tells us that “a people without a vision will perish.” It thus behooves us to provide alternate visions of what real security is and how to achieve it.
Terrorism originating in the Middle East is no longer a major security concern. Since Trump bowed to Saudi monarchs in the opening months of his first term, and his son-in-law took $2 billion as a going away present, Trump and his family have been wed to the Saudi and Persian Gulf emirs. We saw Qatar’s influence when it forced the White House to impose an Israeli-Hamas ceasefire in the wake of Israel’s assassination of Hamas’ lead negotiator in Doha.
While Trump claims that Venezuela has stolen our oil under its soil, neither Trump nor Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have yet to claim that it is our oil under Middle East sands. Instead, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates are described as a source and destination of international investment, including nuclear energy, AI, and military technologies.
Consequently, not unlike China, the strategy rejects previous commitments to encourage social and political change in the Middle East. It “accept[s] the region, its leaders and its nations as they are.” It commits our country to “prevent an adversarial power from dominating the Middle East, its oil and gas supplies.” In order to do so, it pledges the “revitalization of our alliances in the Gulf, with other Arab partners, and with Israel.” Along these lines, it celebrates its collaborations with Israel but does not name Trump’s complicity in Gaza genocide or that its missile attacks on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure came in the midst of negotiations with Tehran.
When it comes to Africa, the strategy has little to say about what Trump once described as “shithole” countries. It will look to “select countries” to “ameliorate conflict” as it seeks to “foster mutually beneficial trade relations.” The goal is to “harness Africa’s abundant natural resources and latent economic potential." So much for the end of colonial exploitation!
From Here
In a recent webinar about the “Security Strategy,” I was asked what then must we do? The challenge is as old as the commitment to building an empire in the Declaration of Independence, the genocidal conquest of a continent, the brutality of colonial conquests at the end of the 19th century, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s valedictory warning about the dangers of the military-industrial complex.
First and foremost is our responsibility to name and denounce the Trump-MAGA assault against constitutional democracy, against our security, and the well-being of rising generation, and people in other nations who are at the receiving and losing end of the strategy.
Proverbs tells us that “a people without a vision will perish.” It thus behooves us to provide alternate visions of what real security is and how to achieve it. My list begins with the non-utopian paradigm that served as the foundation for the end of the first Cold War. That was the concept of Common Security diplomacy that recognizes that security cannot be achieved against a rival, but only through difficult win-win diplomacy with competing nations. It has been observed that China has been able to take 600 million people out of poverty, and to create what is fast becoming the world’s most advanced infrastructure, in large measure because it has not wasted lives, wealth, and resources in wars for almost a half a century. Defending constitutional democracy and electing a US government committed to providing housing, health, food, and justice are essential places to begin. And there is no going back to those good old days that never really existed!
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Trump Continues 'War Against Renewables' With Halt of Five Offshore Wind Farms
"Trump is killing jobs, raising energy costs, and harming the planet," said Sen. Tim Kaine. "Grinch!"
Dec 22, 2025
The Trump administration's efforts to thwart a transition from climate-wrecking fossil fuels to renewable energy continued on Monday with a halt on five wind farms along the US East Coast under the guise of national security concerns.
The US Department of the Interior announced that it is immediately pausing Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind off Virginia, Empire Wind 1 and Sunrise Wind off New York, Revolution Wind off Rhode Island and Connecticut, and Vineyard Wind 1 off Massachusetts, citing unclassified government reports that "the movement of massive turbine blades and the highly reflective towers create radar interference called 'clutter.'"
Bloomberg reported Monday that "President Donald Trump has long opposed offshore wind power and began imposing restrictions on it within hours of taking office this year. The policies have led to numerous court battles, and a federal judge this month ruled his ban on projects was illegal. Citing national security issues may be a more legally durable way to keep wind turbines out of US waters."
"Offshore wind farm projects raised national security concerns under previous administrations, too. The Defense Department under former President Joe Biden pushed successfully for changes to leases being sold along the West Coast to address some of the issues," Bloomberg noted. Elsewhere, such as in the United Kingdom, government and industry have responded to radar interference issues by investing in mitigation technologies.
Responding to the news on social media, American anthropologist and journalist Scott Carney said that "shutting down wind farms in the name of national security only proves that Trump is a national security risk. Lying that climate change doesn't exist is not an effective policy against environmental collapse."
Jonathan Cohn, political director of the grassroots group Progressive Mass, pointed out that "if these were oil drilling projects being canceled, Republicans would scream that canceling the project was theft from the company. If renewable energy is canceled, those same Republicans cheer."
Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, warned that "any company would be crazy to invest a dime in Donald Trump's America... The jerk can confiscate property any time he wants for any reason he invents."
According to the New York Times: "Vineyard Wind 1 is currently under construction and partially operational, with about half of the project's 62 turbines sending power to the electric grid as of October. Once complete, the project could produce enough electricity to power 400,000 homes."
Congressman Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.) declared that "wind farms are an essential part of a diversified energy strategy. Trump's cancellation of approved, in-progress projects wastes public dollars and widens the gap between America and its competitors."
Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), whose constituents would benefit from the Revolution Wind project, said that "the president has taken an axe to wind energy, solar projects, and our state's clean hydrogen sector, putting hundreds of people out of work and saddling households across the state with even higher electricity bills. The state of Connecticut, led by Attorney General William Tong, already took him on to halt his illegal stop work order before, and we're prepared to do it again."
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said: "Trump is killing jobs, raising energy costs, and harming the planet. Grinch!"
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) similarly responded: "Donald Trump is trying AGAIN to kill thousands of good-paying union jobs and raise your electricity bill. I have been fighting Trump's war against offshore wind—a war that threatens American jobs and American energy. I will keep fighting to make sure these projects, the thousands of jobs they create, and the energy they provide can continue."
Sierra Club legislative director Melinda Pierce said in a statement that "blocking construction on all offshore wind projects underway in the US is an attack on our economy and our public health. The Trump administration's vengeance towards renewable energy knows no end."
"Instead of progressing us forward as a nation, they are obsessed with attacking a growing industry that provides good clean energy jobs and affordable, clean electricity," she added. "Americans need cheaper and more reliable energy that does not come at the expense of our health and futures."
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum discussed the decision on Fox Business Monday, pointing to the radar interference concerns.
Noting the appearance, writer and filmmaker Lee West said: "So 'national security' means suspending wind farms Navy approved for years—while drilling rigs multiply off Florida. The [administration's] pretexts grow taller than turbine blades."
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‘Pretty Explicit White Nationalism’: Trump National Security Strategy Document Leaves Critics Aghast
One critic described the document as "a pretty explicit defense of using the state as a means of enforcing white supremacy."
Dec 05, 2025
The Trump administration on Thursday released its official National Security Strategy, and many critics noted that it was loaded with rhetoric frequently used by white nationalists.
Some of the most inflammatory rhetoric in the document is aimed at US-allied European countries that supposedly face "the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure" within the next 20 years.
In particular, the document accuses the European Union of enacting policies "that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence."
The document goes on to claim that "should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less," while emphasizing that US policy is to help "Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation."
Jon Henley, Europe correspondent for the Guardian, noted in a Friday report that the document "appears to espouse the racist 'great replacement' conspiracy theory, saying several countries risk becoming 'majority non-European.'" Henley added that the document "underscores the Trump administration's clear alignment with Europe’s far-right nationalist parties, whose policies centre on attacking supposed EU overreach and excessive non-EU migration."
Scott Horton, legal affairs and national security contributor to Harper's and an adjunct professor at Columbia Law School, wrote on Bluesky that the document "reads like something written by Vladimir Putin," given its depiction of Europe as being "degenerate and... racially adulterated through the in-migration of dark-skinned people."
Progressive activist Max Berger argued that the document "contains some pretty explicit white nationalism." He pointed to the document's support for dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives as a way to restore "a culture of competence."
Berger also flagged a section in the document that named "ending mass migration" as the top US national security priority, which he described as "a pretty explicit defense of using the state as a means of enforcing white supremacy."
Edmund Luce, a columnist for the Financial Times, also took note of the administration's emphasis on "competence and merit" in the document. This is ironic, Luce continued, because "this administration personifies the opposites" of those traits.
Journalist Michael Weiss argued in a post on X that the document shows that it is now official US policy to promote and assist far-right parties in Europe.
"[US Vice President] JD Vance's intervention in Germany's election, on behalf of [far-right party Alternative für Deutschland], was not a one-off," he wrote. "It is now ingrained in the U.S. National Security Strategy... Europe is be treated as enemy terrain to be destabilized by America's enabling of far-right parties."
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NSPM-7: A Blueprint for Silencing Progressive Movements
Directing state power against those who participate in movements for justice and equality undermines genuine efforts to confront all manifestations of bigotry and oppression while weakening democratic life.
Nov 24, 2025
In the past few months, the Trump administration has intensified its assault on political dissent. The September 25 release of National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” capitalized upon the shooting death of Turning Point USA leader Charlie Kirk and marked an alarming escalation in the regime’s suppression of political dissent in the name of national security.
The NSPM-7 memorandum casts a wide net by identifying a wide swath of previously protected criticisms of American policy, capitalism, Christian nationalism, and fascism as potential threats to US security. This language reveals the government’s effort to construct a political category of terrorism so broad that it can encompass nearly any form of progressive or left-aligned civil society work.
The intensifying campaign now unfolding against progressive movements in the United States did not arise overnight. It reflects an expansion of strategies that have been enacted since some of the country’s earliest days, with historical precedents in the US government’s attacks on anti-slavery movements, Civil Rights organizations, workers’ rights movements, and anti-war activists. NSPM-7 presents itself as a decisive response to domestic extremism, but in reality, it repurposes long-standing tools of state surveillance and criminalization, and directs them toward a broader range of political actors. By framing a wide spectrum of views that challenge the administration as potential state threats, it merges national security logic with partisan hostility.
The administration’s recent designation of several European anti-fascist groups as global terrorist entities, along with its earlier attack on the Palestinian civil society groups Al-Haq, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), and Al-Mezan, fits squarely into this same trajectory. It signals an effort to construct a transnational narrative in which resistance to authoritarian politics is reinterpreted as a form of organized danger to US security. This new global framing reinforces the domestic one. Together, they redefine dissent as a matter for preemptive national security intervention rather than as a form of democratic disagreement.
NSPM-7 does not establish new criminal prohibitions. It instead reorganizes existing authorities in order to expand their reach to subvert political dissent.
The approach embedded in NSPM-7 was foreshadowed in Project Esther, an October 2024 document by the Heritage Foundation that outlined the very methods now being enacted through federal authority. Presented as a plan to combat antisemitism, it has instead served as a justification for coordinated attempts to weaken civil society groups, especially those connected to Palestinian solidarity work. Jewish Voice for Peace, for example, appears prominently in Project Esther. The project treats dissenting Jewish movements as potential enemies of the state while ignoring the sources of real antisemitic violence from white supremacist organizations and Trump’s own network. In doing so, it advances an agenda that uses the language of Jewish protection to mask a campaign that targets, among many groups, Jewish progressives and anti-fascists.
NSPM-7 does not establish new criminal prohibitions. It instead reorganizes existing authorities in order to expand their reach to subvert political dissent. The most troubling aspect is the encouragement to intervene before any political act occurs. This “pre-crime” approach draws directly from earlier post-9/11counterterrorism practices that targeted Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian communities on the basis of suspicion rather than action. Those attacks produced widespread surveillance, infiltration, and community fear, and in doing so made the public less safe. The new Trump memo now positions those same strategies to be used against a much wider segment of civil society. Anyone associated with advocacy for Palestinian rights, critiques of US foreign policy, challenges to state violence, or left-aligned social movements is a potential target.
Historical parallels offer important context. Under National Socialist rule, Germany relied on security language to arrest, imprison, and murder political opponents. Italy and Spain under fascist regimes treated labor groups, social movements, and minority activists as subjects for surveillance, detention, and execution. The United States has its own history of using national security claims to silence and even execute dissenters during the Cold War. In each case, the crucial step was the transformation of political disagreement into a threat to national security.
As a scholar of modern Jewish history and Holocaust studies, I view the current moment in part through these historical precedents. The misuse of claims about protecting Jews while weaponizing antisemitic accusations against figures such as Zohran Mamdani and George Soros demonstrates that anti-Jewish hatred is not being confronted as a social prejudice but instrumentalized in support of a racist, authoritarian regime. The effect is to direct state power against those who participate in movements for justice and equality. This undermines genuine efforts to confront all manifestations of bigotry and oppression and weakens democratic life.
There is, however, another dimension to this history. Communities that endured earlier waves of repressive counterterrorism policy also developed strategies of collective defense and political resilience. What is required at this moment is recognition of the scale and coherence of the strategy being deployed. ICE raids, the false designation of peaceful Palestinian human rights groups as terrorist organizations, to attacks on transgender people—these should not be viewed in isolation. They are components of a coordinated effort to curtail the activity of civil society. The appropriate response begins with solidarity across movements, a clear understanding of the racial and political foundations of these policies, and, most of all, a refusal to allow this expansion of state power to become normalized.
The administration’s actions demand a collective defense of democratic spaces. The lessons of the past are clear: attacks on our civic freedom can be resisted, but only when communities recognize the stakes and act together. This moment requires precisely that resolve.
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Cover-Up Feared as Epstein Files Law Lets DOJ Redact Info Sensitive to ‘National Security’
"Not national security that has anything to do with the national defense or harm to the nation," said independent journalist Ken Klippenstein. "But the self-serving kind that protects the system from the people."
Nov 20, 2025
After its near-unanimous approval in Congress and following months of sustained public pressure, President Donald Trump signed a law on Wednesday releasing the files from the FBI's investigation into the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
The law is called the "Epstein Files Transparency Act," but critics fear that a key provision could allow the US Department of Justice to keep critical information from coming to light.
The law requires Attorney General Pam Bondi to "make publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials" related to the investigations into Epstein and his partner and coconspirator Ghislaine Maxwell within the next 30 days.
But critically, it gives Bondi expansive power to redact large amounts of information, potentially burying material that may be incriminating to the president, whose relationship with the disgraced financier has become the subject of greater speculation with each new set of documents released.
One provision allows Bondi to redact documents to strike information that "would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution." Last week, Trump ordered Bondi to open investigations into Epstein's connections with several prominent Democrats: Among them are former President Bill Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman.
Lawmakers have raised fears that these investigations were enacted to give Bondi greater leeway to scrub information from the record. On Monday, Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.), the law's Republican cosponsor, warned that the DOJ "may be trying to use those investigations as a predicate for not releasing the files."
But another largely overlooked section may give her even more sweeping authority. The law states that information may also be redacted "if the attorney general makes a determination that covered information may not be declassified and made available in a manner that protects the national security of the United States, including methods or sources related to national security." It also allows her to redact information deemed "to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy."
While the law requires Bondi to issue a written justification for each piece of redacted information and also clarifies that no file shall be "withheld, delayed, or redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary," it does not define the criteria Bondi must use to determine whether something is in the interest of America's "national security," "national defense," or "foreign policy."
"One glaring loophole will prevent full transparency: It’s called national security," wrote independent journalist Ken Klippenstein Monday, as the House moved toward a vote on the files. "Not national security that has anything to do with the national defense or harm to the nation, but the self-serving kind that protects the system from the people by depriving them of information."
There are many cases in recent memory of the US using national security as a justification to withhold information from the public. Earlier this year, the Trump administration used its "state secrets" privilege to deny a judge's request to turn over information related to its extrajudicial deportation flights to El Salvador, arguing that it would compromise its diplomatic relations with that country. Meanwhile, past administrations have used national security to justify keeping the public in the dark about everything from the military's use of torture to the government's mass surveillance of American citizens.
While the primary interest in Epstein surrounds his alleged role in facilitating a sex trafficking ring for the political and economic elite, there are clear cases where the government could attempt to use national security as a justification to keep information hidden.
For example, recent documents have revealed the extent of his involvement with foreign intelligence and dealmaking. Drop Site News has reported extensively on Epstein's long history working as an informal fixer for former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to secure deals with several foreign nations that benefited Israel and attempted to shape global politics, including in the United States, to its interests.
Klippenstein has also raised concerns about the inclusion of the word "unclassified" in the bill, which he noted "is an official word that in theory only exists when it comes to national security matters; that is, that the release of such information could cause 'harm' to national security."
He said he asked Massie and the law's Democratic cosponsor, Ro Khanna (Calif.), for comment on why that word was included at all since the law does not relate to national security. Neither responded.
But Massie told journalist Michael Tracey back in September that a similar provision to redact info related to “national defense” was included because, "You have to put that in there if you’re going to get them to sign it."
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who fought against the release of the files until the bitter end but ultimately voted for the bill along with all but one member of the House, invoked what he called "national security concerns" in a last-ditch effort to stop the discharge petition that brought the Epstein bill to the House floor.
It echoed what Bondi herself said back in March when asked on Fox News why any information besides victims' names would need to be stricken from the record: "Of course, national security."
"If large sections of the files remain redacted or withheld, the public may face a truncated version of 'transparency,' one that protects many of the powerful rather than exposes them," wrote independent journalist Brian Allen. "This is not just a story about Epstein. It is a stress test of our system of accountability."
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'Deep Deception': Report Details How Deep-Sea Mining Industry Exploits National Security Fears
"Mining the deep ocean in defiance of international consensus," said one retired defense official, "would erode U.S. credibility, fracture alliances, and set a dangerous precedent for unilateral resource exploitation."
Jul 22, 2025
As officials meet in Jamaica for a summit on the international seabed this week, a new report by the climate action group Greenpeace details how the deep-sea mining industry—failing to make a convincing case that its exploitation of the deep sea is necessary for a green energy transition—is trying a new strategy: lobbying Congress with the intent of classifying mining on the ocean floor as a national security priority.
In the Monday report, titled Deep Deception: How the Deep Sea Mining Industry is Manipulating Geopolitics to Profit from Ocean Destruction, Greenpeace describes how firms like the Metals Company (TMC), a Canada-based mining company, have spent years trying to convince policymakers around the world that mining in the deep ocean for minerals like copper, nickel, manganese, and cobalt is essential to manufacture electric vehicle batteries for a green transition.
But much of the key data underpinning that argument was produced by mining companies themselves or published by academic journals with financial interests in the industry, and support for the sector from electric carmakers has waned in recent years as the industry has failed to prove it can mine the ocean floor "in a way that ensures the effective protection of the marine environment," as one statement calling for a moratorium read.
Confronted with growing opposition to the notion that deep-sea mining—in which companies use equipment to comb the habitat of tens of thousands of species and potentially spread mining waste for miles—can serve as a key climate solution, Greenpeace said, "these fickle deep-sea entrepreneurs are jumping ship."
Now "they are eager to embrace politically opportunistic 'national security' storylines," reads the report.
"For TMC, the green transition was always a false narrative," said Arlo Hemphill, project lead for the Stop Deep-Sea Mining campaign at Greenpeace USA. "The numbers just didn't add up to justify opening the world's last unspoiled wilderness to mass-scale extractive exploitation. Now, the industry is repackaging itself as essential to national security and defense, exploiting real geopolitical tensions for personal profit. It's a dangerous and unnecessary strategy that could destroy the international seabed to enrich a few."
The report was released as the International Seabed Authority (ISA) convened in Kingston, Jamaica for its 30th Assembly, with governments under heavy pressure from the deep-sea mining industry to fast-track a Mining Code under which they could move forward with ramping up operations—even as 37 states and nearly 1,000 international scientists now support a moratorium on deep-sea mining.
As the ISA began its meeting on Monday, Pew Environment explained the risks carried by deep-sea mining—from noise and light pollution to the endangerment of species scientists haven't yet discovered.
"The deep sea is one of Earth's most pristine and fragile ecosystems," said Grace Evans, senior associate of ocean governance at Pew Charitable Trusts. "Once we damage it, we can't go back."
TMC began "targeting defense and industrial policy stakeholders" in 2022 as it was still pushing its green energy transition narrative.
The company spent nearly half a million dollars over two years to hire lobbying firms to influence votes on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in 2023 and 2024—and succeeded in pushing the Department of Defense (DOD) to deliver a report "assessing the processing of seabed resources of polymetallic nodules domestically."
TMC's lobbying push also convinced 31 Republican members of Congress to write to then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in 2023, asking him "to develop a plan to address the national security ramifications of [China's] interest and investment in seabed mining."
In March, TMC announced it would seek permits from the U.S. to mine the international deep sea under American authorization—a move that "brazenly" bypassed international treaties and consensus, said Greenpeace.
Greenpeace's report comes four months after that application and three months after President Donald Trump signed an executive order signaling the government's intent to "rapidly" develop and invest in U.S. capabilities to explore and collect seabed mineral resources through "streamlined permitting," with the White House asserting the U.S. "has a core national security and economic interest in maintaining leadership in deep-sea science and technology and seabed mineral resources."
"We will not stand by while a neocolonial deep-sea land grab takes place that will harm our communities, disrupt our cultural connection to the ocean, and endanger our livelihoods."
Under the order, the Trump administration signaled its "readiness to unilaterally authorize deep sea mining in both U.S. and international waters," reads the Greenpeace report—potentially violating the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the U.S. has not signed.
Days after the order was signed, TMC applied to the U.S. government for deep-sea mining exploration licenses and commercial mining permits. The Greenpeace report details how the Trump administration and companies including TMC are working together to once again promote a false narrative about the necessity of deep-sea mining—one that is actually meant to provide "a lifeline for an industry in crisis."
Global defense industries "likely represent only a tiny fraction of overall global consumption" of the metals found in polymetallic nodules in the deep sea, according to the report—meaning that as with the electric auto industry, the defense sector's true demand for deep-sea mining is much smaller than the industry and the Trump administration would have the public believe.
"The U.S. defense demand stands for a tiny percentage of our domestic consumption of critical metals. And to be honest, U.S. defense is not a big user of anything," Jack Lifton, executive director of the Critical Minerals Institute, told Greenpeace. "Given what the defense industry and the DOD and the different contractors are doing in terms of securing metals from elsewhere, friendshoring, reshoring, recycling, there is no need to mine the seabed for cobalt or nickel or rare earths."
While metals that can be accessed through deep-sea mining do have military uses, "the scale of this military use is relatively modest compared to global civilian demand—dwarfed by the commercial manufacturing sector," reads the report.
For example, the U.S. currently imports manganese ore from Gabon, South Africa, and Mexico, and "a substantial deep sea mining development could nearly double the global supply of manganese in its first year, resulting in an immediate oversupply" and a reduction in the value of the metal and the global mining operation. The U.S. also already has a stockpile of 322,000 tons of manganese in Arizona.
In a foreword to the Greenpeace report, retired U.S. Army Major General Randy Manner wrote that "the bedrock of national security" lies in "global stability, the rule of law, and ecological resilience"—not in accumulating new minerals and weaponry.
"Mining the deep ocean in defiance of international consensus would degrade all three. It would erode U.S. credibility, fracture alliances, and set a dangerous precedent for unilateral resource exploitation," said Manner.
In the Pacific region—where deep-sea mining companies aim to operate—several states and leaders have called for a ban. moratorium, or precautionary pause on the practice, with Pacific Island Heritage Coalition Chair Solomon P. Kaho'ohalahala warning that "the Pacific is not a sacrifice zone."
"We will not stand by while a neocolonial deep-sea land grab takes place that will harm our communities, disrupt our cultural connection to the ocean, and endanger our livelihoods," said Kaho'ohalahala. "This July, ISA member states must make it clear where they stand—for their foundational principles of equity, multilateralism, and environmental protection or unbounded corporate greed."
At the ISA meeting in Kingston, Greenpeace International campaigner Louisa Casson said governments around the world "have sent a clear signal that the deep-sea mining industry will not get international approval any time soon"—even amid industry pressure and the Trump administration's push.
TMC's application to the U.S. "shatters" the firm's credibility "and serves as a stark warning to others considering this reckless path."
"Governments have also reaffirmed that there should be no deep sea mining in the global oceans while major political and scientific questions remain unresolved," said Casson. "Deep sea mining is a dangerous gamble we cannot afford, and the only responsible way forward is a global moratorium."
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