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Hudson Institute Issues Commentary to Washington Free Beacon: Why No One Cares About the Climate Conference
WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on Nov. 14, 2025, to the Washington Free Beacon:* * *
Why No One Cares About the Climate Conference
By Mike Watson
Suppose they held an international summit and nobody came? The Brazilian organizers of the annual United Nations climate conference are close to finding out. They pulled out all the stops, including bulldozing tens of thousands of acres of rainforest to clear a new highway to the host city, Belem. International ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on Nov. 14, 2025, to the Washington Free Beacon: * * * Why No One Cares About the Climate Conference By Mike Watson Suppose they held an international summit and nobody came? The Brazilian organizers of the annual United Nations climate conference are close to finding out. They pulled out all the stops, including bulldozing tens of thousands of acres of rainforest to clear a new highway to the host city, Belem. Internationalbusiness leaders flocked to earlier summits, and 150 heads of government attended the one in Dubai two years ago. The moguls are steering clear of Brazil, though, and only 53 national leaders are making the trek (a shame, considering all those temporarily converted "love motels").
The sudden bursting of the climate-alarmism bubble is nearly as shocking as the global shrug that has accompanied it. Not so long ago, the climate movement was widely believed to be the most urgent cause of our time. Global do-gooders flew around the world urging others to cut transportation-related greenhouse gases, agencies and bureaucracies developed plans to slash carbon emissions, and C-suites lobbied their governments for green targets and subsidies. Now Germany is trying to avoid hosting next year's climate gabfest.
This allegedly existential threat seems to have vanished with little notice, and observers are fumbling for an explanation. Many point an accusing finger at Donald Trump, but he is far from the only bubble-burster. Xi Jinping and the emerging artificial intelligence industry have also forced decision-makers to reconsider the vast amounts of energy and attention poured into the climate crusade.
The environmental movement's preferred strategy for addressing climate change involved big international treaties to reduce carbon emissions. According to this plan, the rich industrialized countries would sharply reduce their emissions and send funds to alleviate the climate-related suffering of poorer countries and finance their economic development, albeit free of the taint of fossil fuels.
This plan never got very far. Few industrialized countries were actually willing to pony up: At the 2016 Paris Climate Accords, rich countries pledged to pay $100 billion annually through a nebulous combination of public and private contributions by 2020, but only hit even that fuzzy target years late. The 2024 conference announced a new $1.3 trillion target for 2035 that is on the same path.
And no country, rich or poor, is willing to throttle its economic development enough to meet climate goals. According to the Climate Action Tracker, no country has taken sufficient action to meet the Paris Climate Accords target. This year's updated national plans do not come close either.
Trump ended the charade. He made clear that Americans are not going to shut down their factories and pay speculative damages to foreign kleptocrats. Despite their solemn promises to soldier on regardless, other developed countries are quietly moving in the same direction as Trump. The European Union eased off its carbon emissions goals just last week.
Xi also made the fulfillment of climate targets foolhardy economically and strategically. His country has played a double game on climate issues, claiming developing-country status to evade criticism of its horrific environmental record and driving out of business environmentally friendly manufacturers in the United States and Europe. China's strong-arm tactics on rare earths are making other countries uneasy, and some are trying to rebuild their green energy industries rather than use the cheaper and more readily available Chinese products.
The artificial intelligence boom also reduces the appeal of green activism and green investments. AI data centers require massive amounts of energy--Morgan Stanley estimates the United States could in 2028 have 20 percent less power than it needs because of the buildout--and tech companies and power utilities are racing to meet that demand. The greens' hostility to energy production threatens to doom the United States to losing the tech competition with China, and they are getting run over as a result.
The tech buildout has also taken the shine off green technology. The one-for-one replacement of fossil fuels with windmills and solar panels imagined by climate activists is costly, duplicative, and wasteful, but it made a lot of sense to investors who expected their home government to ensure a return on investment. Building out data centers and the plants to power them promises far greater profits, though, and capital is flowing in that direction.
The news is not all bad for people concerned about the climate. Bill Gates, long one of the most prominent champions of green projects, pointed out just before COP30 that "climate change is a serious problem" in his view, "but it will not be the end of civilization." For poor people around the world, "the biggest problems are poverty and disease, just as they always have been." He thinks a greater focus on innovation will improve the most lives and protect the planet best.
This is good news for humanity but, according to Gates, a "tough truth" for climate activists. Why this truth--that our problems are not existential--is a hard one is an even greater mystery than what happened to the climate bubble.
Read in The Washington Free Beacon (https://freebeacon.com/columns/why-no-one-cares-about-the-climate-conference/).
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Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/foreign-policy/why-no-one-cares-about-climate-conference-mike-watson
[Category: ThinkTank]
Goldwater Institute: Week in Review - Dreams Shouldn't Depend on Government's Whims
PHOENIX, Arizona, Nov. 15 -- The Goldwater Institute issued the following news:* * *
Week in Review: Dreams Shouldn't Depend on Government's Whims
When Jim Griset proposed to build a small, boutique hotel in downtown Prescott, Ariz.'s historic district, the project met every requirement in the city's code. But a city commission repeatedly rejected Jim's project anyway, not based on objective rules but on subjective and constantly changing standards. That's illegal, so the Goldwater Institute stepped in.
Goldwater attorneys highlighted the city's obligations under Arizona's Permit Freedom Act, ... Show Full Article PHOENIX, Arizona, Nov. 15 -- The Goldwater Institute issued the following news: * * * Week in Review: Dreams Shouldn't Depend on Government's Whims When Jim Griset proposed to build a small, boutique hotel in downtown Prescott, Ariz.'s historic district, the project met every requirement in the city's code. But a city commission repeatedly rejected Jim's project anyway, not based on objective rules but on subjective and constantly changing standards. That's illegal, so the Goldwater Institute stepped in. Goldwater attorneys highlighted the city's obligations under Arizona's Permit Freedom Act,a Goldwater Institute law that ensures cities use clear, objective, and pre-existing rules when deciding permit applications. After an independent reviewer confirmed that there was no legal basis for denying Jim's permit, the Prescott City Council reversed the commission's decision and greenlighted the project.
The Goldwater Institute helped pass the Permit Freedom Act precisely because property owners like Jim deserve rules that are fair, objective, and consistently applied.
Read more (https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/property-rights-victory-prescott-hotel-greenlighted-thanks-to-goldwaters-permit-freedom-act/).
Fighting in Michigan for the Right to Try 2.0
Before entering politics, Michigan state Rep. Jamie Thompson spent years as a nurse caring for people who were fighting for their lives. That's why Thompson is now fighting in the Michigan Legislature to pass the Right to Try for Individualized Treatment Act, legislation that would allow rare-disease patients to access medicine made just for them based on their genetics, even if it hasn't been approved yet by the FDA.
With the help of the Goldwater Institute, Thompson took to the pages of the Detroit News this week, explaining that "for too many patients, especially those facing some of the world's most deadly illnesses, the greatest obstacle isn't their illness, but the regulatory system standing in their way."
The Right to Try for Individualized Treatments Act, or Right to Try 2.0, builds on the success of Goldwater's original Right to Try Act, which was passed in 41 states before it was signed into federal law in 2018. Already, 16 states have taken the next step to ensure that patients with rare diseases are not denied access to potentially life-saving treatments because of bureaucratic obstacles.
Read more (https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Michigan-Right-to-Try-Thompson.pdf).
Why Won't Arizona Attorney General Release Rent-Fixing Complaint Numbers?
If a state leader plans to spend tens of thousands of public dollars suing local businesses for allegedly engaging in an illegal scheme, shouldn't taxpayers be entitled to know if anyone has even complained about the purported conspiracy? Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes apparently doesn't think so.
This week, the Goldwater Institute sued Mayes to compel her to comply with Arizona's Public Record Law and to release documents detailing the number of complaints her office received before filing a lawsuit last year against nine residential landlords and RealPage, a property-management software company. Mayes accused the landlords and RealPage of colluding to artificially raise rents. But when the Goldwater Institute filed a records request for the number of complaints her office received--no names, no private information, just the number--Mayes denied the request, claiming that even the number is confidential.
Taxpayers have a right to know how the government is spending their money and pursuing justice in their name. That's why the Goldwater Institute will continue to demand transparency and to hold the government accountable.
Read more here (https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/how-many-complained-about-alleged-rent-price-fixing-arizonas-ag-wont-say/).
Examining the Life and Ideas of Ben Franklin, the Greatest American
On Nov. 21, the Goldwater Institute's Timothy Sandefur will sit down with Dr. Mark Skousen for a live webinar to discuss The Greatest American, his new book on Benjamin Franklin. They will discuss Franklin's views on trade, slavery, and the Constitution, as well as his timeless legacy.
It's not too late for you to sign up to join the discussion! Register here to reserve your spot (https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Rp-rz2MSSZWfTagKITxmWg#/registration).
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Original text here: https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/week-in-review-dreams-shouldnt-depend-on-governments-whims/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Center of the American Experiment Issues Commentary: Housing Affordability - A Story of Supply and Demand
GOLDEN VALLEY, Minnesota, Nov. 15 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary on Nov. 14, 2025:* * *
Housing affordability: A story of supply and demand
By John Phelan
The big buzzword in politics right now is "affordability." Things aren't affordable, the argument goes, or are becoming less so, and voters will reward the party that they see as most likely to make things more so.
Within this, housing is a particularly pressing concern, and it is easy to see why. There are lots of ... Show Full Article GOLDEN VALLEY, Minnesota, Nov. 15 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary on Nov. 14, 2025: * * * Housing affordability: A story of supply and demand By John Phelan The big buzzword in politics right now is "affordability." Things aren't affordable, the argument goes, or are becoming less so, and voters will reward the party that they see as most likely to make things more so. Within this, housing is a particularly pressing concern, and it is easy to see why. There are lots ofways to show this, but, as Figure 1 shows, the median sale price of a new house in the United States has risen from about four times median household income between 1987 and 2001 to an average of about five times since 2013. Given how vital housing is to people, this is a big part of the affordability squeeze.
Econ 101 tells us that the rise in a price is driven by decrease in supply/increase in demand or some mix of both. A way to test this in housing is to look at the stock of it relative to the population. Indeed, Figure 2 shows that as house prices started to tick up as a multiple of household income from about 2001, the stock of housing in the United States responded, growing relative to the population, from 5.5 housing units per ten Americans in 2003 to 5.6 in 2008; "the cure for high prices is high prices," as the old saying goes.
After 2008, however, the ratio fell to a low of 5.4 in 2018 and house prices as a multiple of household income marched up from 4.3 in 2009 to 5.8 in 2022. This slump in the housing stock relative to the population occurred because house building fell off a cliff in 2005, as Figure 3 shows. That year, 2.1 million houses were started in the United States, but this fell to 554,000 in 2009. The number of starts drifted up from there and picked up pace from 2019 to 2021, driving that increase in the housing stock relative to the population and decline in house prices as a multiple of household income since 2022 seen in Figure 2.
Worryingly, housing starts have drifted down since then. This, the record suggests, will drive upward pressure on house prices, ceteris paribus.
The politics of housing affordability
The record on house building is not uniform across the United States and, consequently, neither is the record on housing affordability.
Figure 4 shows that the number of residential construction permits issued per 1,000 residents in 2023 ranged from more than eight in Idaho, North Carolina, and Florida, to between one and two in Alaska, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.
And people move to where they can find a place to live. Using Census Bureau data on population and housing, Figure 5 shows the rate of New Privately Owned Housing Units Authorized per 100,000 residents for 2024 on the x (horizontal) axis and the Net Domestic Migration rate per 100,000 residents for 2024 on the y (vertical) axis. The relationship is statistically significant, and variations in the rate of housing permit issuance can explain 57.3% of the variation in net domestic migration rates in 2024.
Figure 5: Relationship between house building and net domestic migration
Source: Census Bureau and Center of the American Experiment
Is there a political aspect to this? According to Ballotpedia, in 2024 there were 23 states, including North Dakota, with a Republican trifecta -- we'll call this "Red America" -- and seventeen states, including Minnesota, with a Democratic trifecta, which we will call "Blue America." Adding together state totals in each for population, net domestic migration, and new houses permitted, we can calculate net rates per 100,000 residents of housebuilding and net domestic migration for Red and Blue America.
Figure 6 shows that, in 2024, Red America had a housebuilding rate -- 564.9 per 100,000 residents -- 2.0 times greater than Blue America, with 281.8. For domestic migration, Blue America lost 360.3 people per 100,000 residents in 2024 while Red America gained 263.9.
Why is it that Blue America finds it so much harder to build houses than Red America? That is a question to which we shall return, and it is one of great consequence.
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John Phelan is an Economist at the Center of the American Experiment.
john.phelan@americanexperiment.org
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Original text and figures here: https://www.americanexperiment.org/housing-affordability-a-story-of-supply-and-demand/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Capital Research Center: Shutdown Doesn't Happen If Patients Are in Charge of Their Health Spending
WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following commentary on Nov. 14, 2025:* * *
The shutdown doesn't happen if patients are in charge of their health spending
A report that appeared 43 months ago in Capital Research magazine explained the real issue causing the 2025 shutdown.
By Ken Braun
"Patient power is dead," a report that first appeared 43 months ago in the March/April 2022 issue of Capital Research magazine, presciently provided all the information needed to understand the just-concluded, longest federal government shutdown in American history.
But those who ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following commentary on Nov. 14, 2025: * * * The shutdown doesn't happen if patients are in charge of their health spending A report that appeared 43 months ago in Capital Research magazine explained the real issue causing the 2025 shutdown. By Ken Braun "Patient power is dead," a report that first appeared 43 months ago in the March/April 2022 issue of Capital Research magazine, presciently provided all the information needed to understand the just-concluded, longest federal government shutdown in American history. But those wholearned about the shutdown as it happened from America's health care and political journalists are likely still confused. Regime media reliably mangles complex issues, with government shutdowns and health care being two of the worst examples. Mix them together and you have a perfect storm for misinformation.
In control of Congress and the White House back in 2021, Democrats passed a measure to hike Affordable Care Act subsides. As has been widely reported, Democrats were withholding support to reopen the government this fall because of their desire to continue those payments.
"Democrats say they won't budge on their demand that Republicans support the higher federal subsidies they first passed in 2021, which hold down costs for people with ACA plans," reported the Wall Street Journal in early October. [emphasis added]
It was a typical example of misleading coverage.
Back in September, the Congressional Budget Office informed lawmakers that extending the subsidies for another ten years will tack $350 billion onto the largest government debt ever racked up by any government in the history of governments. Mathematically astute observers have pointed out that health insurance firms are the real beneficiaries of these payments. Shelling out that $350 billion doesn't "hold down costs" at all--for anyone.
What readers of CRC's 2022 "Patient power" report know is that despite the name, health "insurance" isn't really insurance. It's a third-party payment system that puts government and insurance blobs in charge of most of the money, rather than the patients.
That makes health bureaucracies the customers, not us.
This runs contrary to how we became the richest society in the history of Earth. In most things, American customers have spending power over what they need and desire. Even the large New Deal and Great Society programs, such as food stamps and Social Security, put the cash directly into the accounts of the people making the purchases.
But with health care, we give government and government-aligned insurance firms control over our spending power. In 1960, before we made most of these mistakes, health care accounted for 5 percent of our GDP. It is now nearly 18 percent.
It doesn't need to be this way, as CRC's "Patient power" report explained way back in 2022:
On July 19, 2017, at least 155 demonstrators were arrested by U.S. Capitol police for creating a coordinated disturbance at U.S. Senate office buildings. The scofflaw infiltration was in response to planning by lawmakers to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (i.e., Obamacare). The Washington Post reported the protesters had hoped to "have more than 500 people occupy offices of 52 Republicans."
This acrimony occurred because an astounding amount of wealth and power is at stake. The United States currently spends $11,600 per person each year on health care. That adds up to well over $900,000 during the average lifetime of 79 years.
Both before and after Obamacare, most of that cash was controlled by big insurance companies and big government. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) didn't so much change our costly third-party payment system as cram millions more people into it.
Excluding 64 million Medicare beneficiaries, the federal government alone spends more than $750 billion per year on health care, all of it tax dollars taken from Americans whom the government programs are supposed to help. Even setting aside several hundred million dollars more chipped in by state governments every year for their share of Medicaid spending, just the federal spending on health care comes to more than $2,700 per person each year.
That's $10,800 in taxpayer health spending every year for every family of four. Who should control that money if not big government and big insurance bureaucrats?
On one side are the advocates of finishing the job and creating a full single-payer "Medicare for All" program in which government controls almost all health spending.
The opposing camp would empower patients with a much larger share of the control over government health dollars. In 2008, GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) proposed dividing up a big chunk of the government health dollars into vouchers (known as a refundable tax credits) of $2,500 per person and $5,000 per family ($3,300 and $6,600 in late 2021 dollars, respectively).
These vouchers would have gone to everyone, providing universal health coverage. But it would have been the opposite of single payer because it would have empowered every adult and family to decide for themselves the level of health coverage to purchase and what to pay for out of pocket. Think of it as "multi-million-payer," the payment system Americans use for most everything else.
A system biased heavily to patient control over spending has been in place in Singapore for decades. The average resident of Singapore is just as wealthy as an American, but the Singapore citizen spends one-third of what we do on health care to get results as good or better than ours. In 2013 the Brookings Institution issued a report on the Singapore program: Affordable Excellence: The Singapore Healthcare Story. In 2019 Newsweek ranked Singapore General Hospital as the third-best hospital on the planet.
The purpose of that 2022 report was to survey the NGOs that were promoting the Affordable Care Act rather than patient-powered reforms. An online version of the report, broken up into seven sections, is provided below.
Patient Power Is Dead: A Tour of the Left's Advocacy for Government Control of Health Care Dollars (full series)
Obamacare and Alternatives
Medicare for All
Big Labor and Medicare for All
Labor Unions and the ACA
Promoters of the Status Quo
The Arabella Network
Arabella's Secretive 2018 Election Projects
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Ken Braun
As managing editor and director of content of CRC, Ken Braun edits Capital Research magazine. He also conducts investigative research and drafts profiles for InfluenceWatch.org. He previously worked...
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Original text here: https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-shutdown-doesnt-happen-if-patients-are-in-charge/
[Category: ThinkTank]
CSIS Issues Commentary: Russia's Intense Air Campaign in October
WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on Nov. 14, 2025:* * *
Russia's Intense Air Campaign in October
By Yasir Atalan, Erik Tiersten-Nyman and Benjamin Jensen
Moscow's aerial campaign appears to be entering a new phase that sees higher ballistic missile strikes, sustained Shahed salvos, lower Ukrainian intercept rates, and increasingly fragmented launch patterns driven by industrial production cycles rather than coordinated operational design. These trends show that Russia's strike campaign is now shaped more by what its factories ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on Nov. 14, 2025: * * * Russia's Intense Air Campaign in October By Yasir Atalan, Erik Tiersten-Nyman and Benjamin Jensen Moscow's aerial campaign appears to be entering a new phase that sees higher ballistic missile strikes, sustained Shahed salvos, lower Ukrainian intercept rates, and increasingly fragmented launch patterns driven by industrial production cycles rather than coordinated operational design. These trends show that Russia's strike campaign is now shaped more by what its factoriescan produce than by integrated battlefield planning. To counter this turn, Ukraine's foreign backers must undermine the illicit supply network that allows Russia, despite sanctions, to import electronic components.
In October 2025, Russia conducted one of its most intensive strike months of the entire war. Moscow launched approximately 5,300 Shahed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), 74 cruise missiles, and 148 ballistic missiles, marking a sustained high pressure across all three systems while also reviving its campaign against Ukrainian energy infrastructure. This represents not only the largest ballistic missile salvo since the start of the conflict, but also one of the few months in which all systems operated simultaneously at above-average levels.
In the same period a year earlier, Russia launched roughly 1,900 Shahed UAVs, 42 cruise missiles, and 33 ballistic missiles--which was a period of Russia's consolidation of firepower strikes--but the 2025 numbers are nearly three times higher across all systems. The kamikaze drone alone increased from 1,900 to 5,300 monthly launches, driven by Russia's in-house expanding production capacity. In fact, Shahed drone launches are at wartime high levels in the last six months. With this saturation strategy, the hit rate is close to 20 percent, a significant increase from last year. Likewise, ballistic launches jumped from 33 to 148, a more than fourfold increase, showing that Russia can now sustain long-range strikes deep into the war. In fact, on October 16, Russia set a new record by firing 26 Iskander-M/KN-23-type ballistic missiles in a single day, nearly doubling its previous high of 14. These figures highlight that Moscow is not relying solely on kamikaze drones but can still generate large ballistic salvos after more than three years of sustained conflict.
Looking across the full campaign, October 2025 underscores how far Russia's strike capacity has evolved from its early, more limited posture. In late 2022, Russia launched only a few dozen drones and missiles per month, often constrained by inventory and operational uncertainty. Shahed activity, for instance, began with fewer than 300 drones per month, mostly imported, with hit rates under 10 percent, while ballistic launches were rare and sporadic. Entering 2024, Russia established a steady rhythm of multisystem attacks, with Shahed output consistently above 1,000 per month and growing sophistication in timing and targeting. The step change in 2025--peaking with October's more than 5,000 drones and 148 ballistic missiles--marks the culmination of this curve.
Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine continues to depend on sustained and adaptive strike campaigns. The ability to fire nearly 150 ballistic missiles in a single month shows that, despite sanctions and battlefield attrition, Russia's strike infrastructure remains resilient and capable of periodic surges. At the same time, the data shows a shift in launch behavior: What began as coordinated mass strikes has become more fragmented and system-specific, shaped by production cycles and stockpile availability rather than unified operational planning. In short, Russia's strike strategy now reflects industrial rhythm more than battlefield design--launching what it can, when it can, while still keeping sustained pressure on Ukraine's defenses.
Diverging Launch Patterns
In 2024, Russia's strike systems often moved together. Shahed UAV and cruise missile launches were moderately synchronized, with roughly 60 percent positive month-to-month correlation, while ballistic launches tended to move in the opposite direction--suggesting substitution between ballistic missile and drone use. By October 2025, that relationship has largely disappeared. The correlation among all three systems has fallen to near zero.
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Figure 1: Correlation of Month-to-Month Changes in Attack Patterns
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This means that Russia's drone, cruise, and ballistic launch patterns now operate independently of one another. Rather than reflecting coordinated targeting campaigns, their usage likely depends on separate supply chains, stockpile conditions, and production rhythms. The decoupling of these systems marks a transition from integrated strike coordination toward a more opportunistic, resource-driven model.
Shifts in Volume and Performance
Russia's overall strike volumes have not followed a single linear trend. Ballistic launches surged sharply in October 2025, when nearly 150 missiles were fired--one of the highest monthly totals since the start of the war. While the exact success rate varies by definition, the October spike underscores both Russia's production capacity and its willingness to employ more scarce systems during key operational windows.
By contrast, Shahed drone launches have stabilized at roughly 5,000 per month since May 2025. This plateau indicates a mature production and deployment rhythm rather than a continued climb. Hit rates for Shaheds hover between 15 and 20 percent, with recent months showing increases in both hits and shoot-downs. That pattern points to an adaptation race: Russia improving swarm coordination, and Ukraine upgrading short-range air defenses and electronic countermeasures.
Cruise missile use has remained comparatively flat across 2025. Earlier in the year, Russia appeared to reduce its reliance on cruise systems, possibly conserving them or facing production limits. Their performance trends have been volatile--hit rates declining for much of the year before rebounding in recent months. These swings likely reflect a mix of new missile variants, improved Ukrainian defenses, and evolving targeting priorities.
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Figure 2: Ballistic and Cruise Missiles Launch Patterns
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Operational Implications
The disappearance of correlations across strike systems highlights a broader change in Russia's operational approach. What began as coordinated mass-salvo tactics has become a more modular and adaptive structure: large Shahed and cruise barrages alternating with ballistic surges.
For Ukraine, these shifts demand continued agility. Air defense must be able to pivot rapidly between massed drone swarms and high-speed ballistic or cruise strikes. This reinforces the need for layered defense--integrating radar, mobile interceptors, and electronic warfare systems--and for steady resupply to offset rising interception demands. And it illustrates why Kyiv's foreign backers, including Washington, must sustain the flow of air defense platforms.
Just as important, when supply lines and production schedules become the driving force behind Moscow's battlefield strategy, the optimal counter is to attack the plan. It is time to revisit a mix of broader secondary sanctions targeting Moscow's ability to import critical electronic components. It is time for Europe and the United States to hold China accountable for sustaining the war in Ukraine and to link compliance with trade talks.
In sum, Russia's October 2025 strike behavior marks a transition toward flexibility and resource-driven tactics. The decoupling of its main strike systems--combined with stabilized kamikaze drone output, periodic ballistic surges, and volatile cruise performance--suggests a maturing but constrained firepower strategy, shaped as much by industrial capacity as by battlefield design. As a result, the only way to attack the plan is to restrict industrial capacity.
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Yasir Atalan is a data fellow in the Futures Lab at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Erik Tiersten-Nyman is an intern with the CSIS Futures Lab. Benjamin Jensen is director of the Futures Lab and a senior fellow for the Defense and Security Department at CSIS.
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Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-intense-air-campaign-october
[Category: ThinkTank]
CSIS Issues Commentary: Jungle Thunder - A Multinational Approach to Improving U.S. Capabilities in Jungle Warfare
WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on Nov. 14, 2025:* * *
Jungle Thunder: A Multinational Approach to Improving U.S. Capabilities in Jungle Warfare
By Wilder Alejandro Sanchez and Andre Carvalho
A sizable U.S. Navy fleet continues to sail across Caribbean waters, hunting down vessels suspected of transporting drugs. Meanwhile, U.S. Marines have been deployed to Puerto Rico, where Cold War-era military facilities have been reopened. On November 13, Secretary Pete Hegseth announced via social media Operation Southern Spear, ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on Nov. 14, 2025: * * * Jungle Thunder: A Multinational Approach to Improving U.S. Capabilities in Jungle Warfare By Wilder Alejandro Sanchez and Andre Carvalho A sizable U.S. Navy fleet continues to sail across Caribbean waters, hunting down vessels suspected of transporting drugs. Meanwhile, U.S. Marines have been deployed to Puerto Rico, where Cold War-era military facilities have been reopened. On November 13, Secretary Pete Hegseth announced via social media Operation Southern Spear,led by Joint Task Force Southern Spear and U.S. Southern Command, which will have the goal of "[removing] narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere." At the time of writing, the general assumption in Washington is that targeted air strikes against Venezuela will occur. More extreme analyses have discussed a U.S. military invasion of Venezuela. The latter possibility is unlikely, given that the number of troops deployed (so far) is not conducive to invading Venezuela like the U.S. operations in Afghanistan in 2001 or Iraq in 2003.
Analyses of a hypothetical U.S. military operation with boots on the ground overlook one critical issue: jungle warfare (JW). U.S. troops in Venezuela would not just fight in Caracas or Maracaibo; they would also have to engage in jungle operations. JW is a unique type of combat, something that the U.S. military has not had to engage in (apart from select operations in Africa) since the Vietnam War. Fortunately for Washington and the U.S. armed services, there are many partners and allies in South America, whose militaries are experts at this type of warfare. In this analysis, the authors propose a method to improve the U.S. military's capabilities and training in JW: the multinational exercise Jungle Thunder.
The Experience of Amazonian Countries in Jungle Warfare and Operations
The Amazon rainforest spans vast territories across multiple South American nations, making it a near-permanent theater of operations whenever armed conflict arises. Several interstate conflicts in South America prominently featured combat operations in jungle environments: the Acre War between Brazil and Bolivia (1902-1903), the Colombia-Peru War (1932-1933), and the recurring border disputes between Ecuador and Peru in 1941, 1981, and 1995. Additionally, the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay (1932-1935)--widely recognized as one of the most significant and bloody conflicts in Latin America during the period--also occurred within a heavily forested, tropical context.
Beyond interstate warfare, internal armed struggles have been a persistent feature of Latin American security dynamics, especially during the Cold War and into the present day. Insurgencies across the region have consistently utilized jungle terrain as a sanctuary and a base of operations. While insurgents often conducted terrorist attacks and engaged in urban combat in densely populated areas, they also relied heavily on remote, forested regions to conduct guerrilla warfare and evade conventional forces. Nowadays, remnants of Cold War-era insurgent groups, particularly those involved in narcotrafficking, continue to operate in jungle environments. In Colombia, these include dissident factions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), as well as the influential Segunda Marquetalia group, which maintains a presence in remote regions such as the Catatumbo. The National Liberation Army (ELN) remains active as well, often operating in similarly isolated regions. In Peru, residual elements of the Shining Path, particularly those aligned with the Militarized Communist Party of Peru (Militarizado Partido Comunista del Peru), continue to engage in armed activities within the valley of the Apurimac, Ene, and Mantaro Rrivers valleys (commonly referred to by the acronym VRAEM). Likewise, the Paraguayan People's Army (Ejercito del Pueblo Paraguayo, or EPP) maintains a presence in remote forested areas of Paraguay.
It is important to note that military operations in the Amazon are not exclusively directed at counterinsurgency or counterterrorism objectives. Armed forces across the region are also tasked with combating illegal mining, narcotrafficking, arms smuggling, illegal logging, and illegal fishing operations. Standard border security operations also require sustained patrolling of isolated Amazonian frontier regions, often accessible only by river or air.
Regional Training in Jungle Warfare
To ensure operational readiness across the Amazon Basin (a region characterized by dense rainforest, challenging terrain, and remote access), South American armed forces maintain continuous training regimens specifically focused on JW. For example, the Peruvian Army operates the Escuela de Selva del Ejercito del Peru, a dedicated JW school established to provide its soldiers with the necessary skills to survive, maneuver, and fight in tropical forest environments. In Ecuador, the army operates the Iwia School (Escuela Iwia), an institution with a distinctive mandate, and is specifically designed to recruit and train indigenous soldiers from the Ecuadorian region. Brazil, home to the world's largest share of the Amazon rainforest, maintains an extensive JW doctrine and infrastructure. The Brazilian army's Jungle Warfare Training Center (Centro de Instrucao de Guerra na Selva, or CIGS) is globally recognized for its demanding courses. Regional militaries in countries like Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru all have units specifically trained in JW.
Even the Venezuelan military maintains several units focused on jungle operations. These include Jungle Infantry Brigades No. 51, 52, and 53. If there is ever a land war between Washington and Caracas, these jungle troops will be critical actors as warfare moves from urban areas to the rest of Venezuelan territory.
The U.S. Military: Jungle Training
Currently, the premier venue for U.S. jungle training is the Jungle Operations Training Course (JOTC), located at the Lightning Academy in Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. The 25th Infantry Division, stationed in Hawaii and aligned with Indo-Pacific Command, plays a unique role in preserving what remains of JW training in the U.S. Army. While the JOTC provides a technically sound and physically demanding environment for JW training, its operational impact is limited by several constraints.
U.S. military field manuals about JW also suggest that this type of knowledge is a lost art. Historically, the US Army doctrine has dedicated limited but focused attention to jungle operations. The most notable example was Field Manual (FM) 90-5: Jungle Operations, first published in 1982. A critical examination of the more recent FM 3-0: Operations manual--the central doctrinal reference for the U.S. Army's operational art--reveals how marginal JW has become within the contemporary multi-domain Operations (MDO) construct. In FM 3-0, jungle terrain is mentioned only in passing. On the other hand, the armies (and other services) in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru have entire manuals dedicated exclusively to JW.
U.S. Military Training in Latin America and the Caribbean
The U.S. military regularly conducts multinational exercises with its Latin American and Caribbean partners. These activities are primarily organized under the auspices of United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), the geographic combatant command responsible for most of the Western Hemisphere. Among the key exercises facilitated by SOUTHCOM are UNITAS, TRADEWINDS, RESOLUTE SENTINEL, and PANAMAX--each designed to foster regional cooperation, enhance interoperability, and build partner capacity across a spectrum of security domains.
In recent years, there has been a discernible increase in U.S. military interest in JW, consistent with growing recognition of the operational and strategic challenges posed by dense, tropical environments. A notable example of this renewed emphasis occurred during UNITAS 2021, which Peru hosted. For the first time in the history of this longstanding exercise, a jungle and riverine warfare component was included. Participating forces conducted training in Peru's Amazon region, specifically in the vicinity of Iquitos, providing a rare opportunity for hands-on experience in a complex and austere environment.
Bilateral exercises have also occurred: the Brazilian and U.S. armies have included JW components to bilateral training (such as Exercise CORE 23). Besides Exercise CORE, as of 2025, a total of 47 U.S. officers and sergeants have completed the CIGS course in Brazil. Moreover, in 2025, the U.S. South Dakota National Guard and troops from Suriname carried out a "first-of-its-kind jungle warfare," via which "service members from the SAF [Suriname Armed Forces] and the South Dakota Guard spent 10 days sharing critical skills in survival, navigation, and patrolling." Recently, U.S. troops in Panama carried out JW training with local security agencies.
Recommendation: Exercise Jungle Thunder
While these initiatives represent important steps forward, they remain limited in scope and frequency. Considering the strategic importance of jungle terrain in the Amazon regions, the authors propose the establishment of an annual multinational exercise titled "Jungle Thunder." The primary objective of this initiative would be to provide regular, rigorous training in JW for U.S. Army and Marine Corps units alongside their South American counterparts.
Jungle Thunder could be held annually or biannually, and would ideally rotate among Amazonian host nations, beginning with Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. Other countries within the region, such as Ecuador and Guyana, could also serve as potential hosts, contingent upon their capabilities and willingness to participate. Furthermore, this exercise could be expanded to include U.S. allies with a history of JW training, notably France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, as their militaries also train in their respective greater Caribbean territories and with regional partner nations.
The proposed exercise offers several strategic benefits. First, it would strengthen military-to-military relationships between the United States and its regional partners, fostering deeper operational interoperability and trust. The armed forces of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Paraguay would likely welcome the opportunity to train alongside U.S. personnel on a more frequent and structured basis.
Second, Jungle Thunder would provide an invaluable opportunity for U.S. Army and Marine Corps units to develop and maintain proficiency in JW, a skill set increasingly relevant to global operations. Furthermore, riverine operations are a capability that the United States military has generally lost since the Vietnam War, the heyday of the U.S. military's Brown Water Navy; hence, U.S. troops would greatly benefit from training in Amazonian rivers. The exercise could also integrate the participation of the U.S. National Guard, particularly units involved in SOUTHCOM's State Partnership Program. For instance, the South Carolina National Guard's partnership with Colombia could be leveraged to support this initiative, thereby enhancing both training outcomes and bilateral defense ties.
Third, the Amazon jungle is ideal for testing emerging defense technologies. The exercise could serve as a proving ground for a wide range of systems, including uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), uncrewed ground vessels, electronic warfare systems, loitering munitions, robotic systems, and advanced camouflage solutions. During her tenure as commander of SOUTHCOM, General Laura Richardson emphasized the potential for the region to function as a testbed for innovative technologies in partnership with the Department of Defense and defense industry stakeholders. Her successor, Admiral Alvin Holsey, continued to support this initiative. Exercises such as Operation Windward Stack, the Hybrid Fleet Campaign Event 2024, and Operation Southern Spear (initiated in January 2025) have incorporated autonomous and uncrewed systems.
Moreover, it is important to acknowledge that South American militaries already employ UAVs for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions across the Amazon. These forces can share their operational experience and insights with their U.S. counterparts, thereby fostering mutual learning and enhancing the collective ability to operate effectively in jungle environments.
Conclusions
The U.S. Army, Marine Corps, and other branches of the armed services continue to conduct training in JW. However, this type of training remains sporadic and is typically limited to select units. In contrast, for many South American militaries--particularly those operating within the Amazon Basin--JW constitutes a core component of their operational identity and institutional tradition. Colombia and Peru have conducted sustained counterinsurgency campaigns in the Amazon for decades; as a result, generations of Colombian and Peruvian military personnel have developed deep expertise in counterinsurgency JW. Meanwhile, given its vast Amazonian territory, the Brazilian military considers JW one of its core pillars.
Should the situation between Washington and Caracas deteriorate, the White House could order air strikes against Venezuela. If a land operation occurs, JW will be a critical component of a ground campaign. To be ready, the U.S. military must regain knowledge about this type of combat. And South American militaries can help.
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Wilder Alejandro Sanchez is a senior associate (non-resident) with the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Andre Carvalho is a PhD researcher at the Brazilian Army Command and General Staff College and a research fellow at MINERVA. The views and opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not represent the official stance of the Brazilian Army.
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Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/jungle-thunder-multinational-approach-improving-us-capabilities-jungle-warfare
[Category: ThinkTank]
CSIS Issues Commentary: How Important Is Blue Origin's Second New Glenn Launch?
WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on Nov. 14, 2025:* * *
How Important Is Blue Origin's Second New Glenn Launch?
By Clayton Swope
On November 13, 2025, Blue Origin conducted the second launch of its New Glenn rocket, successfully sending NASA's two ESCAPADE spacecraft on their way to Mars and executing a communications test mission for Viasat, a commercial satellite communications operator. As of November 2025, only SpaceX and Blue Origin have successfully vertically landed an orbital-class rocket booster, though Rocket ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on Nov. 14, 2025: * * * How Important Is Blue Origin's Second New Glenn Launch? By Clayton Swope On November 13, 2025, Blue Origin conducted the second launch of its New Glenn rocket, successfully sending NASA's two ESCAPADE spacecraft on their way to Mars and executing a communications test mission for Viasat, a commercial satellite communications operator. As of November 2025, only SpaceX and Blue Origin have successfully vertically landed an orbital-class rocket booster, though RocketLab, as well as a stated-owned enterprise and company in China, are aiming to accomplish similar feats soon. The question now is whether Blue Origin can scale the production and launch of New Glenn to meet significant government and commercial demand for the rocket. Additionally, given Blue Origin's success with New Glenn and plans for the Blue Moon lunar lander, it may have an opportunity to play a greater role in NASA's Artemis program and steal the spotlight from SpaceX.
Q1: What is the history of Blue Origin?
A1: Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000--two years before Elon Musk founded SpaceX--to make spaceflight more affordable and accessible. In a 2018 interview, Bezos called Blue Origin his "most important work," measuring the success of his space venture over "a couple of hundred years." For most of its first decade, Blue Origin operated under a veil of secrecy, eventually revealing plans for a crewed sub-orbital reusable rocket, New Shepard, in 2010. In 2011, Blue Origin began work on an orbital-class rocket engine called the BE-4, which eventually came to power United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Vulcan and Blue Origin's own New Glenn rocket. While the BE-4 flew into space for the first time on the maiden flight of the Vulcan in January 2024, the first flight of the New Glenn occurred in January 2025. On its first launch, the rocket successfully deployed its payload but was not able to land its reusable first stage as planned. On its second flight, however, the rocket not only deployed its payloads, but landed its booster on a sea-based platform in the Atlantic Ocean.
Q2: How does Blue Origin compare to SpaceX?
A2: Commentators have often described the rivalry between Bezos and Musk as a billionaire's space race. SpaceX and Blue Origin have competed for contracts with NASA and the Space Force. Both companies have tried to accelerate commercial human spaceflight, building and launching spacecraft capable of carrying humans into space. By many measures, over the last decade, SpaceX has appeared to come out ahead, both in terms of technical and business achievements. SpaceX has been awarded at least $3.4 billion in U.S. government funding and contracts since 2008. Since the first successful launch of the Falcon 1 in 2008, SpaceX has accomplished a remarkable number of space firsts. SpaceX conducted the first vertical landing of an orbital-class rocket booster in December 2015--nearly a decade before New Glenn achieved the same milestone. SpaceX was the first company to dock a private spacecraft at the International Space Station and first company to launch a commercial crewed mission into orbit. In 2018, SpaceX first launched the Falcon Heavy rocket, which offers performance somewhat comparable to New Glenn.
Meanwhile, observers have criticized Blue Origin for being sluggish and taking a meandering approach to rocket development. More fairly, one could contrast SpaceX's willingness to fail fast and incorporate lessons from its failures with the more measured approach of Blue Origin. But in the race to develop a new heavy-lift space launch vehicle, both approaches have yielded positive results. Over 25 years, Blue Origin has methodically--albeit sometimes without as much fanfare as SpaceX--ticked off wins with its Goddard demonstrator, New Shepard sub-orbital rocket, and New Glenn heavy-lift rocket. Though Blue Origin was awarded some Pentagon funding in 2018 to develop New Glenn, the company ended up footing most of the development costs for the rocket and the infrastructure at Cape Canaveral required for its operation. As of 2023, Bezos had reportedly invested more than $10 billion of his own money in Blue Origin, which in no small part has funded New Glenn's development.
Q3: What is the significance of the second New Glenn launch?
A3: Blue Origin is now only the second entity on Earth to successfully vertically land an orbital-class booster. By the end of the year, however, China may also demonstrate a successful landing of an orbital rocket stage for two different rockets--rockets that are much smaller than New Glenn. In 2026, Rocket Lab plans to test a new medium-lift reusable rocket. What both the histories of SpaceX and Blue Origin, as well as those of Rocket Lab and Chinese competitors, show is that developing new space launch vehicles, particularly reusable ones, is incredibly hard. In 2024, the founder of Rocket Lab, Peter Beck, observed that developing rockets is "just really freaking hard to do and there is zero margin for error." Consider that Musk first spoke about plans to develop a rocket capable of lofting 100 tons into low Earth orbit--the rocket that would become Starship--in 2005. Yet, after over 10 launch attempts, many which involved the "rapid unscheduled disassembly" of the rocket, Starship remains under test and development.
Q4: How are NASA and other customers counting on New Glenn?
A4: Blue Origin plans to launch its Blue Moon Mark 1, an uncrewed lunar lander intended to deliver cargo to the lunar surface, on its third New Glenn launch, scheduled for early 2026. As part of this mission, Blue Origin intends to land the Mark 1 on the Moon and demonstrate technologies it will use to build and operate the Mark 2 crewed lunar lander, which NASA selected to carry astronauts to the Moon as part of the Artemis program. Given the success of New Glenn and the upcoming Blue Moon Mark 1 mission, NASA may increasingly turn to Blue Origin to ensure that the Artemis program remains on track to return astronauts to the Moon before China lands humans there for the first time by 2030. The acting NASA administrator expressed interest in reopening opportunities for companies to propose alternatives to SpaceX's Starship Human Landing System, specifically highlighting the potential for Blue Origin to play a new role in the Artemis III mission. Using the Blue Moon Mark 2 lander for Artemis III would mean accelerating development of the lander, which is currently slated for the Artemis V mission in 2029, so that it can be used for the earlier Artemis III mission, which NASA plans for 2028.
Beyond New Glenn's role in the Artemis program, the question is whether Blue Origin can build and launch the new rocket at scale. In its application to the Federal Aviation Administration to launch from Cape Canaveral, Blue Origin stated that it expected to conduct up to 12 launches per year. So far, Blue Origin has managed to conduct two New Glenn launches in 2025, with the third launch not expected before January 2026. In addition to building BE-4 engines for its own rocket, Blue Origin provides the engine for ULA's Vulcan rocket. Blue Origin, thus, will need to produce BE-4 engines at a fast enough clip to satisfy demand for Vulcan (two BE-4 engines per rocket) and New Glenn (seven BE-4 engines per rocket). To date, there have been questions about whether ULA can deliver on the scale desired by launch customers. Blue Origin, no doubt, will try to dispel concerns that New Glenn will have a similar fate, as it has customers already waiting in line for New Glenn launches. In 2022, Amazon signed a deal with Blue Origin for 12 launches, with an option to buy 15 more, to support deployment of its Amazon Leo broadband constellation. In April 2025, the Space Force also awarded launch contracts for New Glenn. Before it can rest on its laurels, Blue Origin will need to show it can significantly ramp up the pace of New Glenn launches to support NASA's Artemis plans and meet demand from its other customers. There are many space missions--at NASA, at the Pentagon, and at Amazon--counting on New Glenn.
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Clayton Swope is the deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project and a senior fellow in the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
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Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/how-important-blue-origins-second-new-glenn-launch
[Category: ThinkTank]