Think Tanks
Here's a look at documents from think tanks
Think Tanks
Featured Stories
Jamestown Foundation Posts Commentary: Vucic Uses Brezhnevian Playbook on Politics of Conditional Sovereignty
WASHINGTON, July 31 -- The Jamestown Foundation posted the following commentary on July 30, 2026, by Blerim Vela, a former chief of staff to the President of Kosovo, in the foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor:
* * *
Vucic Uses Brezhnevian Playbook on Politics of Conditional Sovereignty
Executive Summary:
* Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic's reported late-June move to leave the presidency while preparing to return as prime minister. This is a continuity maneuver rather than a strategic change of direction. Serbia's regional posture toward Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro is likely ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 31 -- The Jamestown Foundation posted the following commentary on July 30, 2026, by Blerim Vela, a former chief of staff to the President of Kosovo, in the foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor: * * * Vucic Uses Brezhnevian Playbook on Politics of Conditional Sovereignty Executive Summary: * Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic's reported late-June move to leave the presidency while preparing to return as prime minister. This is a continuity maneuver rather than a strategic change of direction. Serbia's regional posture toward Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro is likelyto remain unchanged.
* Belgrade treats neighbors' sovereignty as conditional, a logic that resembles the Brezhnev Doctrine's limited sovereignty model and later Russian President Vladimir Putin-era arguments about protecting Russians abroad.
* Ambiguity over the sovereignty of Serbia's neighboring states is a problem because it is treated as negotiable, while revisionist actors gain leverage and regional stability and the region's complete Euro-Atlantic anchoring becomes harder to achieve.
-
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic's late-June announcement that he would resign the Serbian presidency while preparing, most likely, to return as prime minister is not a meaningful break in policy or a serious strategic turn (Radio Slobodna Evropa, June 29). In the Balkans, office changes have often served to preserve power rather than surrender it, and Vucic's move belongs to that tradition. As in Russian President Vladimir Putin's earlier tandem arrangements, the point is not constitutional modesty but political continuity--a title change, the same center of gravity, and no reason to expect a different posture toward Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, or Montenegro (see EDM, February 3). The resignation may alter protocol, but it is unlikely to alter Serbia's regional behavior.
Serbia's relations with Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro are often treated as separate disputes rooted in distinct historical grievances. Beneath these apparently disconnected controversies lies a coherent strategic logic. Rather than seeking solely territorial revision, Belgrade continuously treats neighboring independence as formally real but politically incomplete, legitimate only within limits Serbia itself is prepared to recognize (see EDM, July 16, 2020). The comparison is not one of ideology but of political method, and it bears a clear affinity with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev's doctrine of limited sovereignty, translated into the realities of twenty-first-century Balkan politics.
Brezhnev's prescription rested on a simple, far-reaching premise. Formal independence could be subordinated to a center's interpretation of acceptable political conduct, thereby transforming inequality into necessity. When Soviet tanks rolled into Prague in 1968, Brezhnev justified the invasion in the language of collective socialist responsibility, arguing in effect that the sovereignty of a smaller state ended where the interests of the bloc began. That logic was not confined to Czechoslovakia. It became a principle of rule in which the periphery was permitted autonomy only so long as it did not challenge the center's preferred order (Pravda, September 25, 1968). The brilliance of the doctrine lay in its moral disguise. It transformed coercion into guardianship and made hierarchy sound like stability.
Putin later adapted that logic in a different rhetorical key, substituting civilizational protection for socialist orthodoxy and the defense of compatriots abroad for party discipline. His language of the "Russian world" (Russkiy mir) and of protecting Russians beyond Russia's borders is not a Soviet echo in the narrow sense, but the political formulation is recognizably similar (President of Russia, September 5, 2022). Moscow claims that its neighbors are never fully external because memory, ethnicity, and security make them part of a wider historical space (German Council on Foreign Relations, May 3, 2016). That turns interference into a duty and makes coercion appear as responsibility. One does not need to share the Soviet worldview to understand the continuity. The center decides the outer limits of legitimate sovereignty and then presents that decision as natural.
Serbia under Vucic operates in a closely related register. Belgrade does not pursue an overtly classic imperial project. It instead composes influence through legalistic claims, cultural authority, and selective diplomatic pressure, which together allow it to shape the behavior of its neighbors without assuming the costs of overt coercion (see EDM, September 28, 2021, August 19, 2022, June 14, 2023). This is what gives Vucic's regional policy its deceptive strength. It does not need to proclaim domination because it works more effectively when presented as pragmatism, minority protection, or regional responsibility. In the Balkans, that language has always mattered because political claims are rarely made in naked form. They are usually wrapped in the language of historical injury, national duty, or protective realism.
Kosovo illustrates the first dimension of that strategy, namely diplomatic ambiguity and the politics of recognition. By insisting that Kosovo's full recognition is politically impossible and by treating every concession as a potential surrender, Belgrade preserves leverage while denying closure (Reuters, February 16, 2018; Radio Evropa e Lire, June 15, 2022). The effect is to keep Kosovo suspended between statehood and contingency in Serbian discourse even as it functions in practice as a state with its own institutions and external relations. This is not merely symbolic. It has practical consequences for diplomacy, trade, security, and the wider European order. A state whose legitimacy is continually questioned is not simply denied diplomatic normality. It is made vulnerable to the fiction that its sovereignty remains unfinished.
That fiction matters because unresolved status disputes in the Balkans are rarely local. They create openings for external powers that thrive in ambiguity. Russia has long understood this, which is why Serbia's claim on "the unresolved status" of Kosovo has so often served as an instrument of strategic delay (Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, October 28, 2019). As long as the question remains open, it can be reopened, instrumentalized, and used to slow broader Western consolidation. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervention in 1999 ended one phase of violence, but it did not produce the kind of political closure that would make the region immune to later manipulation (see EDM, August 19, 2022). Kosovo therefore remains a test case for whether Europe is willing to accept Serbia's policy of indefinite indeterminacy as a substitute for settlement (see EDM, June 14, 2023).
Bosnia and Herzegovina reveals a second dimension, namely institutional fragmentation and constitutional leverage. Belgrade's role as sponsor and interlocutor for Bosnian Serb elites amplifies existing constitutional fragility, especially within Republika Srpska, where demands for secession are often framed as domestic grievances rather than as parts of a larger regional pattern (U.K. House of Commons, December 12, 2025). That interplay turns constitutional paralysis into strategic opportunity. When central institutions are weakened, external actors such as Russia gain openings through local partners, legal complexity becomes a vehicle for influence, and Bosnia's unfinished statehood remains available for manipulation. Here the question is not recognition in the narrow diplomatic sense but the durability of state authority itself.
The Bosnia problem is particularly acute because external leverage does not need to present itself as coercion to be effective. It can operate through routine political endorsement, repeated symbolic alignment and the cultivation of local veto players who understand that instability increases their bargaining power. That was visible in the Dayton settlement and remains visible now. A constitutional order designed to end war can, over time, become an arena in which fragmentation is converted into bargaining power (Centre for Eastern Studies, November 25, 2025). Serbia's influence in this environment does not depend on direct control from Belgrade. It depends on a regional system in which domestic weakness and external interest reinforce one another. The result is a state that exists but under conditions that can be continually exploited.
Montenegro shows the third dimension, namely identity politics and cultural influence. Cultural and religious affinity, especially through the Serbian Orthodox Church and broader narratives of belonging, create dense social ties that Belgrade can mobilize to shape domestic politics (Voice of America, June 3, 2020; see EDM, February 3). That does not amount to direct rule, but it steadily narrows the space for independent strategic choice by normalizing the idea that Montenegro's most consequential decisions are not purely national matters but part of a wider Serbian moral horizon. In politics, this can be more effective than a formal threat because it works through identity, memory, and legitimacy rather than through visible pressure.
The importance of Montenegro becomes clearer when one remembers the 2006 referendum (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, May 21, 2006). Formal independence did not end the political struggle over orientation, identity, and regional allegiance. For Serbia, it merely shifted the terrain on which that struggle was fought. Small states in the Balkans have often been vulnerable not because they lack sovereignty, but because others insist on interpreting it for them. Montenegro's case shows that conditional sovereignty can be exercised not through tanks or ultimatums, but through ecclesiastical influence, cultural narratives, and the steady suggestion that national orientation should align with a broader Serbian moral horizon.
This is not a Balkan anomaly detached from broader geopolitical competition. Serbia continues to engage with the EU accession process while preserving strategic cooperation with Moscow and Beijing, thereby maintaining diplomatic flexibility without committing definitively to a single great-power alignment (see EDM, May 13, 2024; Markovic Khaze, August 7, 2025). That posture gives Belgrade room to maneuver, but it also complicates external assessments because partnership and patronage can coexist so long as ambiguity remains politically useful. Serbia can present itself as constructive in Brussels, receptive in Washington, and simultaneously open to alternative alignments elsewhere. That flexibility is an asset only so long as no external actor insists on clarity.
The challenge is the gradual normalization of conditional sovereignty as an accepted feature of Balkan politics. Every unresolved accession trajectory and every ambiguous security assurance weakens the finality of statehood and expands the political space in which revisionist practices prosper. If Europe is serious about regional stability, it must consider enlargement as geopolitically consequential rather than administratively routine. The mistake in recent years has been to treat the Western Balkans as a technical file rather than as a strategic frontier.
The danger is not simply that Serbia pursues a more assertive regional policy. It is that the broader European order has grown accustomed to forms of ambiguity that would once have been treated as intolerable. Conditional sovereignty becomes normal when external actors cease to insist on its costs. That is why Belgrade's behavior matters beyond the Balkans. It exposes a wider weakness, namely the tendency to confuse managed ambiguity with stability.
The political order of the Balkans will not become secure through rhetorical reassurance or open-ended dialogue alone. It will become secure only when the finality of statehood is made real through institutions, security guarantees, and a clearer hierarchy of political commitments than the region has so far been allowed to develop.
* * *
Dr. Blerim Vela served as Chief of Staff to the President of Kosovo (2021-2023) and as a member of Kosovo's National Security Council. He holds a PhD in Contemporary European Studies and writes on governance, defense, and security in Southeast Europe.
* * *
Original text here: https://jamestown.org/vucic-uses-brezhnevian-playbook-on-politics-of-conditional-sovereignty/
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
Vucic Uses Brezhnevian Playbook on Politics of Conditional Sovereignty
Executive Summary:
* Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic's reported late-June move to leave the presidency while preparing to return as prime minister. This is a continuity maneuver rather than a strategic change of direction. Serbia's regional posture toward Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro is likely ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 31 -- The Jamestown Foundation posted the following commentary on July 30, 2026, by Blerim Vela, a former chief of staff to the President of Kosovo, in the foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor: * * * Vucic Uses Brezhnevian Playbook on Politics of Conditional Sovereignty Executive Summary: * Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic's reported late-June move to leave the presidency while preparing to return as prime minister. This is a continuity maneuver rather than a strategic change of direction. Serbia's regional posture toward Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro is likelyto remain unchanged.
* Belgrade treats neighbors' sovereignty as conditional, a logic that resembles the Brezhnev Doctrine's limited sovereignty model and later Russian President Vladimir Putin-era arguments about protecting Russians abroad.
* Ambiguity over the sovereignty of Serbia's neighboring states is a problem because it is treated as negotiable, while revisionist actors gain leverage and regional stability and the region's complete Euro-Atlantic anchoring becomes harder to achieve.
-
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic's late-June announcement that he would resign the Serbian presidency while preparing, most likely, to return as prime minister is not a meaningful break in policy or a serious strategic turn (Radio Slobodna Evropa, June 29). In the Balkans, office changes have often served to preserve power rather than surrender it, and Vucic's move belongs to that tradition. As in Russian President Vladimir Putin's earlier tandem arrangements, the point is not constitutional modesty but political continuity--a title change, the same center of gravity, and no reason to expect a different posture toward Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, or Montenegro (see EDM, February 3). The resignation may alter protocol, but it is unlikely to alter Serbia's regional behavior.
Serbia's relations with Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro are often treated as separate disputes rooted in distinct historical grievances. Beneath these apparently disconnected controversies lies a coherent strategic logic. Rather than seeking solely territorial revision, Belgrade continuously treats neighboring independence as formally real but politically incomplete, legitimate only within limits Serbia itself is prepared to recognize (see EDM, July 16, 2020). The comparison is not one of ideology but of political method, and it bears a clear affinity with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev's doctrine of limited sovereignty, translated into the realities of twenty-first-century Balkan politics.
Brezhnev's prescription rested on a simple, far-reaching premise. Formal independence could be subordinated to a center's interpretation of acceptable political conduct, thereby transforming inequality into necessity. When Soviet tanks rolled into Prague in 1968, Brezhnev justified the invasion in the language of collective socialist responsibility, arguing in effect that the sovereignty of a smaller state ended where the interests of the bloc began. That logic was not confined to Czechoslovakia. It became a principle of rule in which the periphery was permitted autonomy only so long as it did not challenge the center's preferred order (Pravda, September 25, 1968). The brilliance of the doctrine lay in its moral disguise. It transformed coercion into guardianship and made hierarchy sound like stability.
Putin later adapted that logic in a different rhetorical key, substituting civilizational protection for socialist orthodoxy and the defense of compatriots abroad for party discipline. His language of the "Russian world" (Russkiy mir) and of protecting Russians beyond Russia's borders is not a Soviet echo in the narrow sense, but the political formulation is recognizably similar (President of Russia, September 5, 2022). Moscow claims that its neighbors are never fully external because memory, ethnicity, and security make them part of a wider historical space (German Council on Foreign Relations, May 3, 2016). That turns interference into a duty and makes coercion appear as responsibility. One does not need to share the Soviet worldview to understand the continuity. The center decides the outer limits of legitimate sovereignty and then presents that decision as natural.
Serbia under Vucic operates in a closely related register. Belgrade does not pursue an overtly classic imperial project. It instead composes influence through legalistic claims, cultural authority, and selective diplomatic pressure, which together allow it to shape the behavior of its neighbors without assuming the costs of overt coercion (see EDM, September 28, 2021, August 19, 2022, June 14, 2023). This is what gives Vucic's regional policy its deceptive strength. It does not need to proclaim domination because it works more effectively when presented as pragmatism, minority protection, or regional responsibility. In the Balkans, that language has always mattered because political claims are rarely made in naked form. They are usually wrapped in the language of historical injury, national duty, or protective realism.
Kosovo illustrates the first dimension of that strategy, namely diplomatic ambiguity and the politics of recognition. By insisting that Kosovo's full recognition is politically impossible and by treating every concession as a potential surrender, Belgrade preserves leverage while denying closure (Reuters, February 16, 2018; Radio Evropa e Lire, June 15, 2022). The effect is to keep Kosovo suspended between statehood and contingency in Serbian discourse even as it functions in practice as a state with its own institutions and external relations. This is not merely symbolic. It has practical consequences for diplomacy, trade, security, and the wider European order. A state whose legitimacy is continually questioned is not simply denied diplomatic normality. It is made vulnerable to the fiction that its sovereignty remains unfinished.
That fiction matters because unresolved status disputes in the Balkans are rarely local. They create openings for external powers that thrive in ambiguity. Russia has long understood this, which is why Serbia's claim on "the unresolved status" of Kosovo has so often served as an instrument of strategic delay (Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, October 28, 2019). As long as the question remains open, it can be reopened, instrumentalized, and used to slow broader Western consolidation. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervention in 1999 ended one phase of violence, but it did not produce the kind of political closure that would make the region immune to later manipulation (see EDM, August 19, 2022). Kosovo therefore remains a test case for whether Europe is willing to accept Serbia's policy of indefinite indeterminacy as a substitute for settlement (see EDM, June 14, 2023).
Bosnia and Herzegovina reveals a second dimension, namely institutional fragmentation and constitutional leverage. Belgrade's role as sponsor and interlocutor for Bosnian Serb elites amplifies existing constitutional fragility, especially within Republika Srpska, where demands for secession are often framed as domestic grievances rather than as parts of a larger regional pattern (U.K. House of Commons, December 12, 2025). That interplay turns constitutional paralysis into strategic opportunity. When central institutions are weakened, external actors such as Russia gain openings through local partners, legal complexity becomes a vehicle for influence, and Bosnia's unfinished statehood remains available for manipulation. Here the question is not recognition in the narrow diplomatic sense but the durability of state authority itself.
The Bosnia problem is particularly acute because external leverage does not need to present itself as coercion to be effective. It can operate through routine political endorsement, repeated symbolic alignment and the cultivation of local veto players who understand that instability increases their bargaining power. That was visible in the Dayton settlement and remains visible now. A constitutional order designed to end war can, over time, become an arena in which fragmentation is converted into bargaining power (Centre for Eastern Studies, November 25, 2025). Serbia's influence in this environment does not depend on direct control from Belgrade. It depends on a regional system in which domestic weakness and external interest reinforce one another. The result is a state that exists but under conditions that can be continually exploited.
Montenegro shows the third dimension, namely identity politics and cultural influence. Cultural and religious affinity, especially through the Serbian Orthodox Church and broader narratives of belonging, create dense social ties that Belgrade can mobilize to shape domestic politics (Voice of America, June 3, 2020; see EDM, February 3). That does not amount to direct rule, but it steadily narrows the space for independent strategic choice by normalizing the idea that Montenegro's most consequential decisions are not purely national matters but part of a wider Serbian moral horizon. In politics, this can be more effective than a formal threat because it works through identity, memory, and legitimacy rather than through visible pressure.
The importance of Montenegro becomes clearer when one remembers the 2006 referendum (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, May 21, 2006). Formal independence did not end the political struggle over orientation, identity, and regional allegiance. For Serbia, it merely shifted the terrain on which that struggle was fought. Small states in the Balkans have often been vulnerable not because they lack sovereignty, but because others insist on interpreting it for them. Montenegro's case shows that conditional sovereignty can be exercised not through tanks or ultimatums, but through ecclesiastical influence, cultural narratives, and the steady suggestion that national orientation should align with a broader Serbian moral horizon.
This is not a Balkan anomaly detached from broader geopolitical competition. Serbia continues to engage with the EU accession process while preserving strategic cooperation with Moscow and Beijing, thereby maintaining diplomatic flexibility without committing definitively to a single great-power alignment (see EDM, May 13, 2024; Markovic Khaze, August 7, 2025). That posture gives Belgrade room to maneuver, but it also complicates external assessments because partnership and patronage can coexist so long as ambiguity remains politically useful. Serbia can present itself as constructive in Brussels, receptive in Washington, and simultaneously open to alternative alignments elsewhere. That flexibility is an asset only so long as no external actor insists on clarity.
The challenge is the gradual normalization of conditional sovereignty as an accepted feature of Balkan politics. Every unresolved accession trajectory and every ambiguous security assurance weakens the finality of statehood and expands the political space in which revisionist practices prosper. If Europe is serious about regional stability, it must consider enlargement as geopolitically consequential rather than administratively routine. The mistake in recent years has been to treat the Western Balkans as a technical file rather than as a strategic frontier.
The danger is not simply that Serbia pursues a more assertive regional policy. It is that the broader European order has grown accustomed to forms of ambiguity that would once have been treated as intolerable. Conditional sovereignty becomes normal when external actors cease to insist on its costs. That is why Belgrade's behavior matters beyond the Balkans. It exposes a wider weakness, namely the tendency to confuse managed ambiguity with stability.
The political order of the Balkans will not become secure through rhetorical reassurance or open-ended dialogue alone. It will become secure only when the finality of statehood is made real through institutions, security guarantees, and a clearer hierarchy of political commitments than the region has so far been allowed to develop.
* * *
Dr. Blerim Vela served as Chief of Staff to the President of Kosovo (2021-2023) and as a member of Kosovo's National Security Council. He holds a PhD in Contemporary European Studies and writes on governance, defense, and security in Southeast Europe.
* * *
Original text here: https://jamestown.org/vucic-uses-brezhnevian-playbook-on-politics-of-conditional-sovereignty/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Jamestown Foundation Issues Commentary: Ukrainian Drone Attacks on Refineries Far From Only Threat to Russia's Oil Industry
WASHINGTON, July 31 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on July 30, 2026, by Paul Goble, specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia, in the foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor:
* * *
Ukrainian Drone Attacks on Refineries Far From Only Threat to Russia's Oil Industry
Executive Summary:
* Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries have sparked a country-wide gas shortage and cost Moscow significant export earnings. They are far from the only threat to Russia's oil industry. Other, less dramatic threats are likely to prove more significant.
* Much of Russia's ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 31 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on July 30, 2026, by Paul Goble, specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia, in the foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor: * * * Ukrainian Drone Attacks on Refineries Far From Only Threat to Russia's Oil Industry Executive Summary: * Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries have sparked a country-wide gas shortage and cost Moscow significant export earnings. They are far from the only threat to Russia's oil industry. Other, less dramatic threats are likely to prove more significant. * Much of Russia'spipeline network and tanker capacity, dating from Soviet times, is aging and increasingly prone to leaks, reducing the flow of oil to refineries and export markets on which the Kremlin relies while fueling growing anger among Russians.
* As older fields are exhausted, Russia is being forced to develop new ones in the Far North, where global warming threatens infrastructure and collapse and requires money Moscow lacks or refuses to spend to prevent new disasters.
-
Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries have sparked a country-wide gas shortage and cost Moscow significant export earnings. They are far from the only threat to Russia's oil industry and even to Russian President Vladimir Putin's standing (see EDM, December 22, 2025, July 10, 14). Other underlying threats, while less dramatic so far, may prove more significant, as they could reduce Russia's production and earnings over time (see EDM, June 25). Much of Russia's domestic pipeline network and tanker capacity, dating largely from Soviet times, is aging and increasingly prone to leaks that reduce the flow of oil over the longer term to refineries as well as to export markets on which the Kremlin relies, while sparking ever more domestic anger among Russians (Window on Eurasia, April 14, 2024, July 24; Novye Izvestia, June 24, 2025; Meduza, September 3, 2025; Arctida, July 14). As Russia's older fields are exhausted, it is being forced to develop new and more distant ones in the Far North, where global warming threatens infrastructure collapse and requires money Moscow does not have or is unwilling to spend to prevent new disasters (Window on Eurasia, August 18, 2021, May 17, December 6, 2025; see EDM, March 4, 2025; Nasha Versia, February 10).
To keep public alarm over the current crisis from spreading to these deeper, longer-term problems, the Russian government has played down these risks, blocking coverage of many of these developments in the central media and even ending the release of data that could allow others to track and report on what is happening (Yesli Byt' Tochnym, March 22, 2023; IStories, July 14, 2025). Environmental activists, both in Russia and internationally, have been sounding the alarm and documenting their concerns with evidence drawn from government sources, where leaks of another kind are also a problem for the Kremlin. The most prominent coverage of the oil industry's problems has come from the Bellona organization in Norway, which gained fame for reporting on Soviet-era dumping of nuclear waste in the Arctic, and from Arctida, a Russian emigre group that tracks developments in the northern regions of the Russian Federation (The Moscow Times, March 31; Arctida, July 14). Arctida's coverage is significant for tracking problems in the Russian oil industry that extend beyond the refineries Ukrainian drones have destroyed.
In the wake of those attacks, Raya Levashova, climate and environment analyst at Arctida, has drawn particular attention to these broader problems. More than half of Russia's 250,000-kilometer (155,342-mile) oil pipeline network is worn out, she notes, and should be repaired or replaced because leaks are now a significant problem. In some places, as much as 80 percent of the oil-carrying infrastructure needs to be replaced now (Arctida, July 14). She adds that, in 2023, the last year Moscow released such data, there were 14,716 major pipeline ruptures, spilling oil into the surrounding environment, contaminating it and limiting the flow of oil to refineries. That figure, already alarming, has almost certainly grown since then, which explains why Moscow has worked so hard to keep such information under wraps.
The Arctida analyst says worse is yet to come as the number of such leaks will skyrocket in the coming years as Rosneft builds a new 9,000-kilometer (5,592-mile) network in the Russian Far North, where it is developing new fields. This pipeline system will be new and thus avoid the problems of aging infrastructure, yet global warming, melting permafrost, and the company's unwillingness or inability to spend the money needed to ensure its stability could certainly increase the risk of leaks. Rosneft is upbeat about the new routes, saying shipments from the Taymyr Peninsula will begin this September. Levashova sees little reason to accept those claims. Only 700 kilometers (435 miles) of the projected 9,000 kilometers (5,592 miles) have been laid as of June, and the company faces serious problems coping with global warming's impact on pipeline stability (Arctida, July 14).
Levashova says environmentalists such as her are worried that as the project proceeds, the risk of leaks will rise dramatically and harm the fragile ecosystems of the High North. Rosneft's approach, she argues, is based on the assumption that environmental conditions will remain stable rather than deteriorate, despite scientific projections. Even pipeline segments that are stable today will be at risk as temperatures rise and the permafrost melts further. Specifically, the relatively inexpensive but low-capacity thermosyphons (passive heat exchange systems that allow for the circulation of air in the ground) that the company is installing will no longer work effectively since they rely on larger differences between air and ground temperatures than those already present in many places in the Russian North and expected across the entire region in only a few years (Arctida, July 14).
Even "at current rates of warming," she concludes, "localized engineering solutions can no longer guarantee the safety and stability of industrial pipelines; the risks of deformation and loss of containment are rising in step with the climate crisis. In addition, this crisis is being worsened in part by the oil being burned after traveling through these pipes." She points out that the Russian government has failed to impose fines stiff enough to discourage Rosneft and others from cutting corners, thereby allowing the companies to build in ways that make accidents more likely. Moscow has instead reduced rather than strengthened environmental protections and enforcement (Novaya Gazeta, June 24). As Levashova puts it, "It is often more cost-effective for Russian oil companies to pay fines and compensate for damage than to invest" to prevent such disasters (Arctida, July 14).
Taken together, these trends mean the oil crisis in the Russian Federation will not end even if Ukrainian attacks on refineries do, unless Moscow redirects spending to ensure its pipelines and tankers are safe. The Putin regime is unlikely to take those steps, even with prices remaining high due to the U.S. conflict with Iran. The consequences for the Russian economy and for people across the Russian Federation--first in the Far North, then more broadly--could be enormous and, over time, exceed those of the current Ukrainian drone attacks (Yesli Byt' Tochnym, September 22, 2023; Arctida, March 25, 2025; East Russia, May 13, 2025; Caspy.Land, July 9).
* * *
Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy.
* * *
Original text here: https://jamestown.org/ukrainian-drone-attacks-on-refineries-far-from-only-threat-to-russias-oil-industry/
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
Ukrainian Drone Attacks on Refineries Far From Only Threat to Russia's Oil Industry
Executive Summary:
* Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries have sparked a country-wide gas shortage and cost Moscow significant export earnings. They are far from the only threat to Russia's oil industry. Other, less dramatic threats are likely to prove more significant.
* Much of Russia's ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 31 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on July 30, 2026, by Paul Goble, specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia, in the foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor: * * * Ukrainian Drone Attacks on Refineries Far From Only Threat to Russia's Oil Industry Executive Summary: * Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries have sparked a country-wide gas shortage and cost Moscow significant export earnings. They are far from the only threat to Russia's oil industry. Other, less dramatic threats are likely to prove more significant. * Much of Russia'spipeline network and tanker capacity, dating from Soviet times, is aging and increasingly prone to leaks, reducing the flow of oil to refineries and export markets on which the Kremlin relies while fueling growing anger among Russians.
* As older fields are exhausted, Russia is being forced to develop new ones in the Far North, where global warming threatens infrastructure and collapse and requires money Moscow lacks or refuses to spend to prevent new disasters.
-
Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries have sparked a country-wide gas shortage and cost Moscow significant export earnings. They are far from the only threat to Russia's oil industry and even to Russian President Vladimir Putin's standing (see EDM, December 22, 2025, July 10, 14). Other underlying threats, while less dramatic so far, may prove more significant, as they could reduce Russia's production and earnings over time (see EDM, June 25). Much of Russia's domestic pipeline network and tanker capacity, dating largely from Soviet times, is aging and increasingly prone to leaks that reduce the flow of oil over the longer term to refineries as well as to export markets on which the Kremlin relies, while sparking ever more domestic anger among Russians (Window on Eurasia, April 14, 2024, July 24; Novye Izvestia, June 24, 2025; Meduza, September 3, 2025; Arctida, July 14). As Russia's older fields are exhausted, it is being forced to develop new and more distant ones in the Far North, where global warming threatens infrastructure collapse and requires money Moscow does not have or is unwilling to spend to prevent new disasters (Window on Eurasia, August 18, 2021, May 17, December 6, 2025; see EDM, March 4, 2025; Nasha Versia, February 10).
To keep public alarm over the current crisis from spreading to these deeper, longer-term problems, the Russian government has played down these risks, blocking coverage of many of these developments in the central media and even ending the release of data that could allow others to track and report on what is happening (Yesli Byt' Tochnym, March 22, 2023; IStories, July 14, 2025). Environmental activists, both in Russia and internationally, have been sounding the alarm and documenting their concerns with evidence drawn from government sources, where leaks of another kind are also a problem for the Kremlin. The most prominent coverage of the oil industry's problems has come from the Bellona organization in Norway, which gained fame for reporting on Soviet-era dumping of nuclear waste in the Arctic, and from Arctida, a Russian emigre group that tracks developments in the northern regions of the Russian Federation (The Moscow Times, March 31; Arctida, July 14). Arctida's coverage is significant for tracking problems in the Russian oil industry that extend beyond the refineries Ukrainian drones have destroyed.
In the wake of those attacks, Raya Levashova, climate and environment analyst at Arctida, has drawn particular attention to these broader problems. More than half of Russia's 250,000-kilometer (155,342-mile) oil pipeline network is worn out, she notes, and should be repaired or replaced because leaks are now a significant problem. In some places, as much as 80 percent of the oil-carrying infrastructure needs to be replaced now (Arctida, July 14). She adds that, in 2023, the last year Moscow released such data, there were 14,716 major pipeline ruptures, spilling oil into the surrounding environment, contaminating it and limiting the flow of oil to refineries. That figure, already alarming, has almost certainly grown since then, which explains why Moscow has worked so hard to keep such information under wraps.
The Arctida analyst says worse is yet to come as the number of such leaks will skyrocket in the coming years as Rosneft builds a new 9,000-kilometer (5,592-mile) network in the Russian Far North, where it is developing new fields. This pipeline system will be new and thus avoid the problems of aging infrastructure, yet global warming, melting permafrost, and the company's unwillingness or inability to spend the money needed to ensure its stability could certainly increase the risk of leaks. Rosneft is upbeat about the new routes, saying shipments from the Taymyr Peninsula will begin this September. Levashova sees little reason to accept those claims. Only 700 kilometers (435 miles) of the projected 9,000 kilometers (5,592 miles) have been laid as of June, and the company faces serious problems coping with global warming's impact on pipeline stability (Arctida, July 14).
Levashova says environmentalists such as her are worried that as the project proceeds, the risk of leaks will rise dramatically and harm the fragile ecosystems of the High North. Rosneft's approach, she argues, is based on the assumption that environmental conditions will remain stable rather than deteriorate, despite scientific projections. Even pipeline segments that are stable today will be at risk as temperatures rise and the permafrost melts further. Specifically, the relatively inexpensive but low-capacity thermosyphons (passive heat exchange systems that allow for the circulation of air in the ground) that the company is installing will no longer work effectively since they rely on larger differences between air and ground temperatures than those already present in many places in the Russian North and expected across the entire region in only a few years (Arctida, July 14).
Even "at current rates of warming," she concludes, "localized engineering solutions can no longer guarantee the safety and stability of industrial pipelines; the risks of deformation and loss of containment are rising in step with the climate crisis. In addition, this crisis is being worsened in part by the oil being burned after traveling through these pipes." She points out that the Russian government has failed to impose fines stiff enough to discourage Rosneft and others from cutting corners, thereby allowing the companies to build in ways that make accidents more likely. Moscow has instead reduced rather than strengthened environmental protections and enforcement (Novaya Gazeta, June 24). As Levashova puts it, "It is often more cost-effective for Russian oil companies to pay fines and compensate for damage than to invest" to prevent such disasters (Arctida, July 14).
Taken together, these trends mean the oil crisis in the Russian Federation will not end even if Ukrainian attacks on refineries do, unless Moscow redirects spending to ensure its pipelines and tankers are safe. The Putin regime is unlikely to take those steps, even with prices remaining high due to the U.S. conflict with Iran. The consequences for the Russian economy and for people across the Russian Federation--first in the Far North, then more broadly--could be enormous and, over time, exceed those of the current Ukrainian drone attacks (Yesli Byt' Tochnym, September 22, 2023; Arctida, March 25, 2025; East Russia, May 13, 2025; Caspy.Land, July 9).
* * *
Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy.
* * *
Original text here: https://jamestown.org/ukrainian-drone-attacks-on-refineries-far-from-only-threat-to-russias-oil-industry/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Hudson Institute Issues Commentary to The Diplomat: How the U.S. Can Counter China's Emerging Tech Trap
WASHINGTON, July 31 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on July 30, 2026, by Asia-Pacific Security Chair Patrick M. Cronin and research associate Pinshan Lai to The Diplomat:
* * *
How the U.S. Can Counter China's Emerging Tech Trap
Welcome to the world of AI diplomacy.
-
China has entered a new phase of strategic competition. After spending more than a decade exporting roads, ports, fiber-optic cables, and digital infrastructure through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Xi ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 31 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on July 30, 2026, by Asia-Pacific Security Chair Patrick M. Cronin and research associate Pinshan Lai to The Diplomat: * * * How the U.S. Can Counter China's Emerging Tech Trap Welcome to the world of AI diplomacy. - China has entered a new phase of strategic competition. After spending more than a decade exporting roads, ports, fiber-optic cables, and digital infrastructure through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), XiJinping is now seeking to export something even more consequential: China's entire artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem, from chips and cloud infrastructure to foundation models, standards, applications, workforce training, and governance.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang warned about China fusing the BRI and AI late last year. The deeper a country climbs into that stack, the harder it becomes to climb out. If the BRI created the debt trap, China's latest initiative risks creating a far more consequential tech trap.
China's AI Diplomacy and the Emerging Tech Trap
China's emerging AI diplomacy centers on a proposed World AI Cooperation Organization (WAICO), supported by AI application centers, open-source models, technical training, digital standards, and infrastructure assistance. Together, these initiatives represent the next evolution of Beijing's international strategy, aligning a diplomatic strategy with an AI technology stack. Built directly on the Digital Silk Road, already a major pillar of the BRI, this new effort carries implications that may prove even more profound.
Xi has made a cottage industry out of launching global initiatives. His Belt and Road Initiative, announced in 2013, became Beijing's signature vehicle for courting the Global South by financing infrastructure, securing access to critical resources, and exporting connectivity to China's digital architecture. Since then, Xi has unveiled a succession of increasingly ambitious frameworks: the Global Development Initiative in 2021, the Global Security Initiative in 2022, the Global Civilization Initiative in 2023, and the Global Governance Initiative in 2025. Each repackages Beijing's vision for international order, while adding another layer to an expanding architecture of Chinese influence.
Washington should take this challenge seriously. Following the rapid dismantling of USAID, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has sought to preserve strategically valuable elements of American foreign assistance while shifting toward commercial diplomacy that advances economic security, technological leadership, and U.S. reindustrialization. Whatever one thinks of the broader retreat from traditional development assistance, the administration has begun to assemble important new instruments of economic statecraft. The next step should be to integrate these initiatives into a coherent AI development strategy that enables trusted partners to build sovereign AI capabilities while reinforcing U.S. technological leadership.
China and the United States remain locked in a managed competition across the Indo-Pacific, particularly over military access within the First Island Chain. Beijing seeks to deny U.S. power projection inside its expansive maritime periphery, while Washington seeks to preserve the ability to penetrate China's anti-access strategy should deterrence fail. Yet the decisive contest between Washington and Beijing is no longer confined to a military balance in the Western Pacific. Increasingly, it concerns who will shape the technological foundations of future economies, governments, and societies.
Provided deterrence holds, the central competition is likely to be economic and technological. The nation that establishes leadership in AI and other critical technologies will enjoy advantages that extend well beyond innovation, conferring lasting economic, military, and geopolitical clout.
China's AI diplomacy serves several strategic objectives simultaneously. It strengthens domestic technological self-sufficiency, expands the global market share of Chinese firms, creates long-term dependencies across the developing world, and enhances Beijing's geopolitical influence relative to the United States.
Recent advances suggest that these ambitions can no longer be dismissed. Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 frontier model, following earlier breakthroughs such as DeepSeek and rapid progress by Alibaba's Qwen and Zhipu AI, demonstrates that China is narrowing the gap with leading U.S. models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok. Britain's AI Security Institute estimated that China's lag behind the United States in frontier models has narrowed from roughly nine months to only four or five months in little more than a year.
But the decisive competition is not simply about producing the world's most capable AI model. It is about determining whether dozens of emerging economies build their future digital infrastructure around an ecosystem ultimately shaped by the Chinese Communist Party. Beijing's strategy rests on three mutually reinforcing pillars: shaping international standards, dominating domestic innovation, and expanding globally. If pursued successfully and left largely uncontested, this approach would advance not only Xi's vision of national rejuvenation but also China's long-term ambition to become the dominant power in Asia through AI-enabled technological leadership.
Xi's speech at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai earlier this month presented this effort as a contribution to humanity, promoting a distinctly "Chinese solution" through what Beijing described as "non-monologue cooperation among Global South nations." Yet the proposed system remains unmistakably China-centric. Chinese models would run on Chinese infrastructure, built by Chinese firms, governed by Chinese standards, and increasingly embedded in foreign digital ecosystems.
Countries that build their digital future around Chinese AI ecosystems may gradually become dependent on Chinese cloud infrastructure, foundation models, digital identity systems, surveillance technologies, smart-city platforms, payment systems, cybersecurity services, technical standards, and workforce training. The result is not merely commercial dependence, but lasting political leverage embedded deep within the operating systems of partner governments and societies.
Unsurprisingly, many developing countries have welcomed WAICO despite its strategic implications. Indonesia, for example, traditionally seeks to remain nonaligned in U.S.-China technology competition, yet Jakarta quickly endorsed Beijing's new AI initiative. Chinese firms including Alibaba and JD.com have already invested heavily in Indonesia's largest e-commerce platforms, deepening commercial integration and technological dependence. Huawei's dominant position in Indonesia's - and much of the developing world's - 5G network infrastructure provides a foundation upon which Beijing can now layer AI services and governance institutions. management systems and automated vehicles supplied by other Chinese state-owned enterprises. COSCO's controlling ownership stake has already raised concerns about data collection, surveillance, and the strategic implications of embedding Chinese digital infrastructure into critical overseas logistics hubs. Chancay is more than a port; it is a preview of how physical infrastructure and AI ecosystems can reinforce one another in China's expanding global influence strategy.
Winning the Contest for the World's AI Ecosystem
Competing effectively will require the United States and its allies not only to offer competitive technologies but also to develop coordinated standards, financing, infrastructure, and long-term strategic planning. Fortunately, the foundations of such a strategy are already beginning to emerge.
Recent initiatives such as Pax Silica, designed to secure trusted semiconductor and critical mineral supply chains; FORGE, which seeks to expand allied industrial and technology ecosystems; and the Genesis Mission, focused on accelerating frontier AI partnerships and innovation, provide important building blocks. They are reinforced by the United States' unmatched innovation ecosystem, led by companies including Nvidia, OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Oracle, and many others.
Yet these initiatives remain largely supply-side policies. They strengthen U.S. technological competitiveness but do not yet amount to a comprehensive strategy of AI diplomacy.
If the administration follows through on the emerging AI Spark initiative, it should become the centerpiece of U.S. AI diplomacy. Rather than offering trusted partners isolated technologies, AI Spark could provide access to the entire AI stack: advanced semiconductors, compute capacity, cloud infrastructure, secure data centers, resilient networking, reliable energy (including small modular reactors where appropriate), AI software, cybersecurity, developer tools, workforce education, digital governance expertise, technical standards, financing mechanisms, and regulatory assistance.
ASEAN should be among AI Spark's highest priorities. By partnering closely with Southeast Asian nations to deliver affordable, trusted, and interoperable AI infrastructure, the United States and its closest allies can help countries build sovereign technological capabilities while deepening long-term strategic partnerships with Washington. With the Philippines in the ASEAN chair this year and handing off to Singapore at year's end, this is a propitious time for gaining regional support.
In effect, Washington should offer the AI equivalent of a Marshall Plan for the digital age. The objective is not to create dependence on the United States. It is precisely the opposite: to help countries develop sovereign digital capabilities without becoming captive to any single authoritarian technology ecosystem. Like the old proverb about teaching someone to fish rather than simply giving them a fish, AI diplomacy should empower nations to sustain their own technological development. Helping build a wider constellation of technologically capable partners is not charity; it is enlightened self-interest.
Achieving that vision, however, requires more than rhetoric. It demands a coherent industrial strategy capable of mobilizing U.S. innovation, attracting allied investment, and leveraging initiatives such as AI Spark. Washington should establish a dedicated AI Stack Development Fund to help trusted partners finance secure, interoperable AI infrastructure. Such a mechanism could attract bipartisan support because it simultaneously advances U.S. competitiveness, strengthens alliances, and expands opportunities for U.S. and allied technology companies.
The strategic stakes are difficult to overstate. The countries that build AI infrastructure today will shape tomorrow's technical standards, software ecosystems, government procurement decisions, cybersecurity practices, digital governance frameworks, military applications, and ultimately long-term economic growth. Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming foundational infrastructure, much as electricity, telecommunications, and the internet once were. First movers will enjoy enduring influence.
Writing for Foreign Affairs in 2021, Kurt Campbell and Rush Doshi argued that strategic competition would determine the world's operating system. Increasingly, AI is becoming that operating system. Whoever helps countries build their AI capabilities will shape the rules, standards, and relationships that govern the 21st century.
Here, the United States possesses significant comparative advantages. Unlike China, it can offer not only frontier technology but also trusted partnerships grounded in private-sector innovation and a network of democratic allies. It offers openness rather than coercion, interoperability rather than exclusivity, and resilient partnerships rather than political leverage.
The United States' allies are central to that advantage. Japan, South Korea, Australia, Taiwan, and other trusted partners contribute world-class capabilities in semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, cloud infrastructure, AI applications, and digital governance. Together they can offer something Beijing cannot: an open, resilient, and genuinely pluralistic AI ecosystem rather than one dominated by a single authoritarian power.
China clearly understands that artificial intelligence is becoming an instrument of geopolitical influence as much as technological innovation. The United States should understand the same. AI Spark, if properly resourced and sustained across administrations, could become the foundation of a durable strategy that advances U.S. interests while helping partners strengthen their own technological sovereignty.
If the Belt and Road Initiative created fears of debt dependence, AI Spark should become the United States' answer to China's emerging tech trap. The objective is not to force countries to choose Washington over Beijing. It is to ensure they have a meaningful choice.
The United States cannot prevail simply by building the world's most advanced AI. It must also become the world's preferred partner in helping others build, deploy, and govern AI on their own terms. The contest is no longer simply about who builds the most powerful AI models. It is about who builds the world's AI ecosystems, and whether those ecosystems expand freedom or entrench authoritarian influence.
Read in The Diplomat (https://thediplomat.com/2026/07/how-the-us-can-counter-chinas-emerging-tech-trap/).
* * *
At A Glance:
Patrick M. Cronin is the Asia-Pacific security chair at Hudson Institute. His research analyzes salient strategic issues related to US national security goals in the Indo-Pacific region and globally.
At A Glance:
Pinshan Lai is a research associate with the Asia-Pacific Security Chair at Hudson Institute.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/technology/how-us-can-counter-chinas-emerging-tech-trap-patrick-cronin
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
How the U.S. Can Counter China's Emerging Tech Trap
Welcome to the world of AI diplomacy.
-
China has entered a new phase of strategic competition. After spending more than a decade exporting roads, ports, fiber-optic cables, and digital infrastructure through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Xi ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 31 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on July 30, 2026, by Asia-Pacific Security Chair Patrick M. Cronin and research associate Pinshan Lai to The Diplomat: * * * How the U.S. Can Counter China's Emerging Tech Trap Welcome to the world of AI diplomacy. - China has entered a new phase of strategic competition. After spending more than a decade exporting roads, ports, fiber-optic cables, and digital infrastructure through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), XiJinping is now seeking to export something even more consequential: China's entire artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem, from chips and cloud infrastructure to foundation models, standards, applications, workforce training, and governance.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang warned about China fusing the BRI and AI late last year. The deeper a country climbs into that stack, the harder it becomes to climb out. If the BRI created the debt trap, China's latest initiative risks creating a far more consequential tech trap.
China's AI Diplomacy and the Emerging Tech Trap
China's emerging AI diplomacy centers on a proposed World AI Cooperation Organization (WAICO), supported by AI application centers, open-source models, technical training, digital standards, and infrastructure assistance. Together, these initiatives represent the next evolution of Beijing's international strategy, aligning a diplomatic strategy with an AI technology stack. Built directly on the Digital Silk Road, already a major pillar of the BRI, this new effort carries implications that may prove even more profound.
Xi has made a cottage industry out of launching global initiatives. His Belt and Road Initiative, announced in 2013, became Beijing's signature vehicle for courting the Global South by financing infrastructure, securing access to critical resources, and exporting connectivity to China's digital architecture. Since then, Xi has unveiled a succession of increasingly ambitious frameworks: the Global Development Initiative in 2021, the Global Security Initiative in 2022, the Global Civilization Initiative in 2023, and the Global Governance Initiative in 2025. Each repackages Beijing's vision for international order, while adding another layer to an expanding architecture of Chinese influence.
Washington should take this challenge seriously. Following the rapid dismantling of USAID, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has sought to preserve strategically valuable elements of American foreign assistance while shifting toward commercial diplomacy that advances economic security, technological leadership, and U.S. reindustrialization. Whatever one thinks of the broader retreat from traditional development assistance, the administration has begun to assemble important new instruments of economic statecraft. The next step should be to integrate these initiatives into a coherent AI development strategy that enables trusted partners to build sovereign AI capabilities while reinforcing U.S. technological leadership.
China and the United States remain locked in a managed competition across the Indo-Pacific, particularly over military access within the First Island Chain. Beijing seeks to deny U.S. power projection inside its expansive maritime periphery, while Washington seeks to preserve the ability to penetrate China's anti-access strategy should deterrence fail. Yet the decisive contest between Washington and Beijing is no longer confined to a military balance in the Western Pacific. Increasingly, it concerns who will shape the technological foundations of future economies, governments, and societies.
Provided deterrence holds, the central competition is likely to be economic and technological. The nation that establishes leadership in AI and other critical technologies will enjoy advantages that extend well beyond innovation, conferring lasting economic, military, and geopolitical clout.
China's AI diplomacy serves several strategic objectives simultaneously. It strengthens domestic technological self-sufficiency, expands the global market share of Chinese firms, creates long-term dependencies across the developing world, and enhances Beijing's geopolitical influence relative to the United States.
Recent advances suggest that these ambitions can no longer be dismissed. Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 frontier model, following earlier breakthroughs such as DeepSeek and rapid progress by Alibaba's Qwen and Zhipu AI, demonstrates that China is narrowing the gap with leading U.S. models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok. Britain's AI Security Institute estimated that China's lag behind the United States in frontier models has narrowed from roughly nine months to only four or five months in little more than a year.
But the decisive competition is not simply about producing the world's most capable AI model. It is about determining whether dozens of emerging economies build their future digital infrastructure around an ecosystem ultimately shaped by the Chinese Communist Party. Beijing's strategy rests on three mutually reinforcing pillars: shaping international standards, dominating domestic innovation, and expanding globally. If pursued successfully and left largely uncontested, this approach would advance not only Xi's vision of national rejuvenation but also China's long-term ambition to become the dominant power in Asia through AI-enabled technological leadership.
Xi's speech at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai earlier this month presented this effort as a contribution to humanity, promoting a distinctly "Chinese solution" through what Beijing described as "non-monologue cooperation among Global South nations." Yet the proposed system remains unmistakably China-centric. Chinese models would run on Chinese infrastructure, built by Chinese firms, governed by Chinese standards, and increasingly embedded in foreign digital ecosystems.
Countries that build their digital future around Chinese AI ecosystems may gradually become dependent on Chinese cloud infrastructure, foundation models, digital identity systems, surveillance technologies, smart-city platforms, payment systems, cybersecurity services, technical standards, and workforce training. The result is not merely commercial dependence, but lasting political leverage embedded deep within the operating systems of partner governments and societies.
Unsurprisingly, many developing countries have welcomed WAICO despite its strategic implications. Indonesia, for example, traditionally seeks to remain nonaligned in U.S.-China technology competition, yet Jakarta quickly endorsed Beijing's new AI initiative. Chinese firms including Alibaba and JD.com have already invested heavily in Indonesia's largest e-commerce platforms, deepening commercial integration and technological dependence. Huawei's dominant position in Indonesia's - and much of the developing world's - 5G network infrastructure provides a foundation upon which Beijing can now layer AI services and governance institutions. management systems and automated vehicles supplied by other Chinese state-owned enterprises. COSCO's controlling ownership stake has already raised concerns about data collection, surveillance, and the strategic implications of embedding Chinese digital infrastructure into critical overseas logistics hubs. Chancay is more than a port; it is a preview of how physical infrastructure and AI ecosystems can reinforce one another in China's expanding global influence strategy.
Winning the Contest for the World's AI Ecosystem
Competing effectively will require the United States and its allies not only to offer competitive technologies but also to develop coordinated standards, financing, infrastructure, and long-term strategic planning. Fortunately, the foundations of such a strategy are already beginning to emerge.
Recent initiatives such as Pax Silica, designed to secure trusted semiconductor and critical mineral supply chains; FORGE, which seeks to expand allied industrial and technology ecosystems; and the Genesis Mission, focused on accelerating frontier AI partnerships and innovation, provide important building blocks. They are reinforced by the United States' unmatched innovation ecosystem, led by companies including Nvidia, OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Oracle, and many others.
Yet these initiatives remain largely supply-side policies. They strengthen U.S. technological competitiveness but do not yet amount to a comprehensive strategy of AI diplomacy.
If the administration follows through on the emerging AI Spark initiative, it should become the centerpiece of U.S. AI diplomacy. Rather than offering trusted partners isolated technologies, AI Spark could provide access to the entire AI stack: advanced semiconductors, compute capacity, cloud infrastructure, secure data centers, resilient networking, reliable energy (including small modular reactors where appropriate), AI software, cybersecurity, developer tools, workforce education, digital governance expertise, technical standards, financing mechanisms, and regulatory assistance.
ASEAN should be among AI Spark's highest priorities. By partnering closely with Southeast Asian nations to deliver affordable, trusted, and interoperable AI infrastructure, the United States and its closest allies can help countries build sovereign technological capabilities while deepening long-term strategic partnerships with Washington. With the Philippines in the ASEAN chair this year and handing off to Singapore at year's end, this is a propitious time for gaining regional support.
In effect, Washington should offer the AI equivalent of a Marshall Plan for the digital age. The objective is not to create dependence on the United States. It is precisely the opposite: to help countries develop sovereign digital capabilities without becoming captive to any single authoritarian technology ecosystem. Like the old proverb about teaching someone to fish rather than simply giving them a fish, AI diplomacy should empower nations to sustain their own technological development. Helping build a wider constellation of technologically capable partners is not charity; it is enlightened self-interest.
Achieving that vision, however, requires more than rhetoric. It demands a coherent industrial strategy capable of mobilizing U.S. innovation, attracting allied investment, and leveraging initiatives such as AI Spark. Washington should establish a dedicated AI Stack Development Fund to help trusted partners finance secure, interoperable AI infrastructure. Such a mechanism could attract bipartisan support because it simultaneously advances U.S. competitiveness, strengthens alliances, and expands opportunities for U.S. and allied technology companies.
The strategic stakes are difficult to overstate. The countries that build AI infrastructure today will shape tomorrow's technical standards, software ecosystems, government procurement decisions, cybersecurity practices, digital governance frameworks, military applications, and ultimately long-term economic growth. Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming foundational infrastructure, much as electricity, telecommunications, and the internet once were. First movers will enjoy enduring influence.
Writing for Foreign Affairs in 2021, Kurt Campbell and Rush Doshi argued that strategic competition would determine the world's operating system. Increasingly, AI is becoming that operating system. Whoever helps countries build their AI capabilities will shape the rules, standards, and relationships that govern the 21st century.
Here, the United States possesses significant comparative advantages. Unlike China, it can offer not only frontier technology but also trusted partnerships grounded in private-sector innovation and a network of democratic allies. It offers openness rather than coercion, interoperability rather than exclusivity, and resilient partnerships rather than political leverage.
The United States' allies are central to that advantage. Japan, South Korea, Australia, Taiwan, and other trusted partners contribute world-class capabilities in semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, cloud infrastructure, AI applications, and digital governance. Together they can offer something Beijing cannot: an open, resilient, and genuinely pluralistic AI ecosystem rather than one dominated by a single authoritarian power.
China clearly understands that artificial intelligence is becoming an instrument of geopolitical influence as much as technological innovation. The United States should understand the same. AI Spark, if properly resourced and sustained across administrations, could become the foundation of a durable strategy that advances U.S. interests while helping partners strengthen their own technological sovereignty.
If the Belt and Road Initiative created fears of debt dependence, AI Spark should become the United States' answer to China's emerging tech trap. The objective is not to force countries to choose Washington over Beijing. It is to ensure they have a meaningful choice.
The United States cannot prevail simply by building the world's most advanced AI. It must also become the world's preferred partner in helping others build, deploy, and govern AI on their own terms. The contest is no longer simply about who builds the most powerful AI models. It is about who builds the world's AI ecosystems, and whether those ecosystems expand freedom or entrench authoritarian influence.
Read in The Diplomat (https://thediplomat.com/2026/07/how-the-us-can-counter-chinas-emerging-tech-trap/).
* * *
At A Glance:
Patrick M. Cronin is the Asia-Pacific security chair at Hudson Institute. His research analyzes salient strategic issues related to US national security goals in the Indo-Pacific region and globally.
At A Glance:
Pinshan Lai is a research associate with the Asia-Pacific Security Chair at Hudson Institute.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/technology/how-us-can-counter-chinas-emerging-tech-trap-patrick-cronin
[Category: ThinkTank]
Hudson Institute Issues Commentary to News24: Crucial Caveat in Trump's Saudi Nuclear Deal Intended to Cut China, Russia Out of the Middle East for Decades
WASHINGTON, July 31 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on July 30, 2026, by Zineb Riboua, research fellow at the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East, to News24:
* * *
Crucial Caveat in Trump's Saudi Nuclear Deal Intended to Cut China, Russia out of the Middle East for Decades
The Trump administration's announcement that it was negotiating a 30-year civil nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia immediately generated concern.
Under the proposed arrangement, ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 31 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on July 30, 2026, by Zineb Riboua, research fellow at the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East, to News24: * * * Crucial Caveat in Trump's Saudi Nuclear Deal Intended to Cut China, Russia out of the Middle East for Decades The Trump administration's announcement that it was negotiating a 30-year civil nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia immediately generated concern. Under the proposed arrangement,the US would provide nuclear technology and materials to support the kingdom's civilian nuclear energy ambitions, prompting speculation that the program could eventually provide Riyadh with the technical foundation for a nuclear weapons capability.
The following day, however, President Donald Trump added a critical condition.
Saudi Arabia would receive access to American nuclear technology only if it formally joined the Abraham Accords and established diplomatic relations with Israel.
The agreement therefore extends beyond energy cooperation.
It uses access to advanced American technology as leverage to advance a broader strategic objective: integrating Saudi Arabia into a US-led regional security architecture.
That objective reflects the transformation already taking place across the Middle East.
Recent conflicts demonstrated the advantages enjoyed by countries embedded within US and Israeli security networks.
Intelligence sharing, integrated air and missile defence, and coordinated early-warning systems proved their value under sustained Iranian missile and drone attacks.
Governments that remained outside those arrangements found themselves considerably more exposed.
Saudi Arabia faces precisely that challenge.
Iranian missiles and Houthi drones continue to threaten oil facilities, ports, airports, desalination plants and population centres across the kingdom.
As Vision 2030 expands Saudi Arabia's industrial base through nuclear facilities, logistics hubs, data centres, and advanced manufacturing, the number of high-value targets will only increase.
Protecting those assets requires capabilities that Israel has developed over decades.
Systems such as Arrow have repeatedly intercepted long-range ballistic missiles, while David's Sling has demonstrated its effectiveness against medium-range threats during sustained combat.
The strategic logic extends well beyond missile defence.
Saudi Arabia and Israel confront the same adversary.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps coordinates the network responsible for the principal security threats facing both countries, supplying the Houthis, financing Hezbollah, directing Iraqi militias and supporting missile forces that threaten Gulf infrastructure.
Israeli intelligence has spent decades penetrating that network, producing operational knowledge unmatched by any regional partner.
Israel has likewise expanded intelligence and security activities around the Gulf of Aden, recognising that countering Houthi operations requires persistent monitoring of the maritime approaches connecting the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.
Normalisation would allow those capabilities to support Saudi defence directly.
Israeli radar, intelligence, early-warning systems, and missile-defence technologies could be integrated into Saudi security planning, strengthening deterrence while reducing the burden on US forces.
For Washington, closer Saudi-Israeli coordination would gradually shift the US from serving as the indispensable intermediary to leading a network of partners capable of reinforcing one another.
Timing is equally important because the US is not the only country competing to shape Saudi Arabia's technological future.
China brokered the 2023 Saudi-Iran rapprochement and has sought to portray itself as an alternative security partner for the Gulf.
At the same time, Russia's Rosatom is constructing nuclear reactors in Egypt and Turkey, while Chinese state-owned nuclear companies continue pursuing reactor projects across the region, including in Saudi Arabia.
Nuclear cooperation creates strategic relationships that endure for generations through fuel supply, engineering services, maintenance, regulatory assistance and workforce training.
The country that builds Saudi Arabia's civilian nuclear infrastructure will retain long-term influence over one of the region's most consequential strategic sectors.
Recent events, however, have underscored the limits of Beijing's approach.
Chinese diplomacy did not prevent Iranian weapons from reaching the Houthis, attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea continued and Chinese purchases of Iranian oil remained a critical source of revenue for Tehran's regional proxy network.
Military operations over the past year instead demonstrated the effectiveness of the US-led security framework, where integrated intelligence, air defence, and operational coordination produced tangible results against common threats.
Washington therefore possesses an opportunity that may not remain available indefinitely.
Conditioning civil nuclear cooperation on Saudi accession to the Abraham Accords aligns US technological leadership with its broader strategic interests, strengthens a regional coalition confronting Iran and limits opportunities for China and Russia to establish long-term influence through critical infrastructure.
Using that leverage now could shape the Middle East's strategic balance for decades.
Read in News24 (https://www.news24.com.au/opinion/crucial-caveat-in-trumps-saudi-nuclear-deal-intended-to-cut-china-russia-out-of-the-middle-east-for-decades/news-story/9871506b7e51b866dee8d05befb7c831?amp&nk=607b9086aecfe22e3843447772089374-1785412949).
* * *
At A Glance:
Zineb Riboua is a research fellow with Hudson Institute's Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/foreign-policy/crucial-caveat-trumps-saudi-nuclear-deal-intended-cut-china-russia-out-middle-east-zineb-riboua
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
Crucial Caveat in Trump's Saudi Nuclear Deal Intended to Cut China, Russia out of the Middle East for Decades
The Trump administration's announcement that it was negotiating a 30-year civil nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia immediately generated concern.
Under the proposed arrangement, ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 31 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on July 30, 2026, by Zineb Riboua, research fellow at the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East, to News24: * * * Crucial Caveat in Trump's Saudi Nuclear Deal Intended to Cut China, Russia out of the Middle East for Decades The Trump administration's announcement that it was negotiating a 30-year civil nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia immediately generated concern. Under the proposed arrangement,the US would provide nuclear technology and materials to support the kingdom's civilian nuclear energy ambitions, prompting speculation that the program could eventually provide Riyadh with the technical foundation for a nuclear weapons capability.
The following day, however, President Donald Trump added a critical condition.
Saudi Arabia would receive access to American nuclear technology only if it formally joined the Abraham Accords and established diplomatic relations with Israel.
The agreement therefore extends beyond energy cooperation.
It uses access to advanced American technology as leverage to advance a broader strategic objective: integrating Saudi Arabia into a US-led regional security architecture.
That objective reflects the transformation already taking place across the Middle East.
Recent conflicts demonstrated the advantages enjoyed by countries embedded within US and Israeli security networks.
Intelligence sharing, integrated air and missile defence, and coordinated early-warning systems proved their value under sustained Iranian missile and drone attacks.
Governments that remained outside those arrangements found themselves considerably more exposed.
Saudi Arabia faces precisely that challenge.
Iranian missiles and Houthi drones continue to threaten oil facilities, ports, airports, desalination plants and population centres across the kingdom.
As Vision 2030 expands Saudi Arabia's industrial base through nuclear facilities, logistics hubs, data centres, and advanced manufacturing, the number of high-value targets will only increase.
Protecting those assets requires capabilities that Israel has developed over decades.
Systems such as Arrow have repeatedly intercepted long-range ballistic missiles, while David's Sling has demonstrated its effectiveness against medium-range threats during sustained combat.
The strategic logic extends well beyond missile defence.
Saudi Arabia and Israel confront the same adversary.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps coordinates the network responsible for the principal security threats facing both countries, supplying the Houthis, financing Hezbollah, directing Iraqi militias and supporting missile forces that threaten Gulf infrastructure.
Israeli intelligence has spent decades penetrating that network, producing operational knowledge unmatched by any regional partner.
Israel has likewise expanded intelligence and security activities around the Gulf of Aden, recognising that countering Houthi operations requires persistent monitoring of the maritime approaches connecting the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.
Normalisation would allow those capabilities to support Saudi defence directly.
Israeli radar, intelligence, early-warning systems, and missile-defence technologies could be integrated into Saudi security planning, strengthening deterrence while reducing the burden on US forces.
For Washington, closer Saudi-Israeli coordination would gradually shift the US from serving as the indispensable intermediary to leading a network of partners capable of reinforcing one another.
Timing is equally important because the US is not the only country competing to shape Saudi Arabia's technological future.
China brokered the 2023 Saudi-Iran rapprochement and has sought to portray itself as an alternative security partner for the Gulf.
At the same time, Russia's Rosatom is constructing nuclear reactors in Egypt and Turkey, while Chinese state-owned nuclear companies continue pursuing reactor projects across the region, including in Saudi Arabia.
Nuclear cooperation creates strategic relationships that endure for generations through fuel supply, engineering services, maintenance, regulatory assistance and workforce training.
The country that builds Saudi Arabia's civilian nuclear infrastructure will retain long-term influence over one of the region's most consequential strategic sectors.
Recent events, however, have underscored the limits of Beijing's approach.
Chinese diplomacy did not prevent Iranian weapons from reaching the Houthis, attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea continued and Chinese purchases of Iranian oil remained a critical source of revenue for Tehran's regional proxy network.
Military operations over the past year instead demonstrated the effectiveness of the US-led security framework, where integrated intelligence, air defence, and operational coordination produced tangible results against common threats.
Washington therefore possesses an opportunity that may not remain available indefinitely.
Conditioning civil nuclear cooperation on Saudi accession to the Abraham Accords aligns US technological leadership with its broader strategic interests, strengthens a regional coalition confronting Iran and limits opportunities for China and Russia to establish long-term influence through critical infrastructure.
Using that leverage now could shape the Middle East's strategic balance for decades.
Read in News24 (https://www.news24.com.au/opinion/crucial-caveat-in-trumps-saudi-nuclear-deal-intended-to-cut-china-russia-out-of-the-middle-east-for-decades/news-story/9871506b7e51b866dee8d05befb7c831?amp&nk=607b9086aecfe22e3843447772089374-1785412949).
* * *
At A Glance:
Zineb Riboua is a research fellow with Hudson Institute's Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/foreign-policy/crucial-caveat-trumps-saudi-nuclear-deal-intended-cut-china-russia-out-middle-east-zineb-riboua
[Category: ThinkTank]
Center of the American Experiment Issues Commentary: Incoming Teachers' Union President Endorses Book on Classroom Activism
MINNETONKA, Minnesota, July 31 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary on July 30, 2026, by senior policy fellow Catrin Wigfall:
* * *
Incoming teachers' union president endorses book on classroom activism
Newly elected National Education Association (NEA) President Princess Moss has endorsed a new book that argues teacher activism should be considered a central part of the teaching profession.
Moss, who takes office as NEA president on Sept. 1, wrote an endorsement for "The Critical ... Show Full Article MINNETONKA, Minnesota, July 31 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary on July 30, 2026, by senior policy fellow Catrin Wigfall: * * * Incoming teachers' union president endorses book on classroom activism Newly elected National Education Association (NEA) President Princess Moss has endorsed a new book that argues teacher activism should be considered a central part of the teaching profession. Moss, who takes office as NEA president on Sept. 1, wrote an endorsement for "The CriticalImportance of Teacher Advocacy: Empowered Educators on the Front Lines" while serving as the union's vice president. The endorsement was recently flagged by the North American Values Institute (NAVI), a conservative education policy organization that tracks K-12 issues and teachers' unions.
In her blurb, Moss praises the book for telling the stories of "educators who refuse to separate teaching from their fight for justice" and who "organize" and "challenge power."
Moss's willingness to put her name behind a book focused on teacher activism isn't official NEA policy, but it is a telling preview of where her priorities lie heading into her new role. The NEA has long been active in political and social issues, and Moss has made it clear she wants to push further in that direction. In a recent Education Week interview, she summed up her campaign approach in three words: "organize, organize, organize." The union, she said, has already been doing plenty of that, but she wants to become even more intentional in those efforts.
According to the foreword, teachers who work "in isolation focused solely on curriculum" may help students navigate injustice but "do little to disrupt its reproduction." The book is meant to serve as a "roadmap" for educators "who are interested in understanding the connection between teaching, education, and activism." Its essays offer "models of resistance," as teacher activism should be viewed not as an exception, but as "the path forward."
One contributor, a math teacher, writes that "activism is my pedagogy," according to NAVI's report, and argues that "being a teacher without being political is dangerous for students." Her chapter closes with: "Decolonize your mind and your classroom." The same teacher drew national attention in 2023 after describing "indoctrinating students" with Marxism.
For other contributors, activism isn't just something they bring into their teaching but is central to how they see themselves. Another essay, written by a self-described Democratic Socialist, calls 9/11 an "awakening" for her, saying she hoped the attack would force the United States to confront its own "imperialism." The same essay discusses "Zionists," including a claim that the author has been hacked "numerous times by Zionists," along with pointed language criticizing colleagues who, in the author's view, misunderstand the term.
Where Minnesota comes in
Education Minnesota, the state's teachers' union, is an NEA affiliate. A portion of members' dues funds the national union's advocacy work, and Moss has pledged to expand that work as she takes office. Minnesota educators who would rather their money not support that agenda have a narrow window to opt out. The annual opt-out window runs from Sept. 1 through Sept. 30. More information about the process is available here (https://www.educatedteachersmn.com/opt-out-now/).
* * *
Catrin Wigfall is a Policy Fellow at Center of the American Experiment.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.americanexperiment.org/new-teachers-union-president-backs-book-urging-activism-in-the-classroom/
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
Incoming teachers' union president endorses book on classroom activism
Newly elected National Education Association (NEA) President Princess Moss has endorsed a new book that argues teacher activism should be considered a central part of the teaching profession.
Moss, who takes office as NEA president on Sept. 1, wrote an endorsement for "The Critical ... Show Full Article MINNETONKA, Minnesota, July 31 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary on July 30, 2026, by senior policy fellow Catrin Wigfall: * * * Incoming teachers' union president endorses book on classroom activism Newly elected National Education Association (NEA) President Princess Moss has endorsed a new book that argues teacher activism should be considered a central part of the teaching profession. Moss, who takes office as NEA president on Sept. 1, wrote an endorsement for "The CriticalImportance of Teacher Advocacy: Empowered Educators on the Front Lines" while serving as the union's vice president. The endorsement was recently flagged by the North American Values Institute (NAVI), a conservative education policy organization that tracks K-12 issues and teachers' unions.
In her blurb, Moss praises the book for telling the stories of "educators who refuse to separate teaching from their fight for justice" and who "organize" and "challenge power."
Moss's willingness to put her name behind a book focused on teacher activism isn't official NEA policy, but it is a telling preview of where her priorities lie heading into her new role. The NEA has long been active in political and social issues, and Moss has made it clear she wants to push further in that direction. In a recent Education Week interview, she summed up her campaign approach in three words: "organize, organize, organize." The union, she said, has already been doing plenty of that, but she wants to become even more intentional in those efforts.
According to the foreword, teachers who work "in isolation focused solely on curriculum" may help students navigate injustice but "do little to disrupt its reproduction." The book is meant to serve as a "roadmap" for educators "who are interested in understanding the connection between teaching, education, and activism." Its essays offer "models of resistance," as teacher activism should be viewed not as an exception, but as "the path forward."
One contributor, a math teacher, writes that "activism is my pedagogy," according to NAVI's report, and argues that "being a teacher without being political is dangerous for students." Her chapter closes with: "Decolonize your mind and your classroom." The same teacher drew national attention in 2023 after describing "indoctrinating students" with Marxism.
For other contributors, activism isn't just something they bring into their teaching but is central to how they see themselves. Another essay, written by a self-described Democratic Socialist, calls 9/11 an "awakening" for her, saying she hoped the attack would force the United States to confront its own "imperialism." The same essay discusses "Zionists," including a claim that the author has been hacked "numerous times by Zionists," along with pointed language criticizing colleagues who, in the author's view, misunderstand the term.
Where Minnesota comes in
Education Minnesota, the state's teachers' union, is an NEA affiliate. A portion of members' dues funds the national union's advocacy work, and Moss has pledged to expand that work as she takes office. Minnesota educators who would rather their money not support that agenda have a narrow window to opt out. The annual opt-out window runs from Sept. 1 through Sept. 30. More information about the process is available here (https://www.educatedteachersmn.com/opt-out-now/).
* * *
Catrin Wigfall is a Policy Fellow at Center of the American Experiment.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.americanexperiment.org/new-teachers-union-president-backs-book-urging-activism-in-the-classroom/
[Category: ThinkTank]
CSIS Issues Commentary: Autonomy and Affordable Mass in Latin America and the Caribbean
WASHINGTON, July 31 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on July 30, 2026, by Americas Program fellow Henry Ziemer:
* * *
Autonomy and Affordable Mass in Latin America and the Caribbean
On April 21, 2026, General Francis L. Donovan, commander of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), established the command's first-ever Autonomous Warfare Command. As detailed in a press release, the SOUTHCOM Autonomous Warfare Command (SAWC) will be dedicated to fielding autonomous, semi-autonomous, and uncrewed systems for "disrupting and degrading narcoterrorist ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 31 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on July 30, 2026, by Americas Program fellow Henry Ziemer: * * * Autonomy and Affordable Mass in Latin America and the Caribbean On April 21, 2026, General Francis L. Donovan, commander of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), established the command's first-ever Autonomous Warfare Command. As detailed in a press release, the SOUTHCOM Autonomous Warfare Command (SAWC) will be dedicated to fielding autonomous, semi-autonomous, and uncrewed systems for "disrupting and degrading narcoterroristand cartel networks, and responding to life-threatening crises caused by large-scale natural disasters." The announcement was also a recognition that, in order to make good on the commitments to the Western Hemisphere outlined in the new National Defense Strategy and National Security Strategy, the United States would need to rethink its force posture in the region.
To date, Washington has signaled its reprioritization of the Americas through assets that are at hand, particularly naval forces. In March 2025, the destroyers USS Gravely and USS Spruance deployed to the Caribbean and eastern Pacific on counternarcotics and border security missions. In August 2025, the United States commenced a massive military buildup in the Caribbean as a part-counternarcotics, part-pressure campaign against Venezuela. The latter component of that mission would be fulfilled on January 3, 2026, when U.S. forces captured dictator Nicolas Maduro as part of Operation Absolute Resolve. The mission involved the largest concentration of U.S. forces in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) since the overthrow of Manuel Noriega in Panama during Operation Just Cause. At its height, roughly a quarter of the deployed U.S. surface fleet was stationed in the Caribbean, while more than 150 aircraft were used the night of Absolute Resolve. Such overwhelming force was warranted given the operational demands associated with a complex and contingent special forces raid like that which seized Maduro, but the sheer size of the force assembled imposed trade-offs for U.S. defense posture elsewhere, especially in the Middle East. Perhaps most notably, the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford executed a redeployment from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean in November 2025, where it remained through Operation Absolute Resolve. The carrier then redeployed quickly to the Middle East to support Operation Epic Fury, only to suffer a potentially disastrous onboard fire, highlighting the heavy toll imposed by months of high-intensity operations.
As operations in the Western Hemisphere shifted toward countering organized crime through the ongoing Operation Southern Spear, and more recently supporting earthquake recovery in Venezuela, the equipment and capabilities needed in theater have also changed. Exquisite systems such as aircraft carriers, stealth jets, and precision-guided munitions have less impact on the LAC's most pressing security threats than distributed, reliable, and networked intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms. Indeed, the region stands to be one of the primary beneficiaries of the U.S. military's push for "affordable mass," and there are significant opportunities for large numbers of relatively low-cost autonomous and uncrewed systems (UxS), including airborne, surface, and subsurface, to provide a robust operational picture for SOUTHCOM while reducing the human resources demands presented by LAC's vast and variegated geography. However, while the announcement of SAWC is a step in the right direction, more can be done to leverage renewed focus on the Western Hemisphere to prepare the United States for future defense threats. SOUTHCOM, and the Pentagon more broadly, must seize this moment to help partner militaries develop their own uncrewed and autonomous capabilities, as well as lean in on confronting the rise in criminal adoption of the same technologies.
Lifting the Fog
The threats facing LAC thrive in obscurity, and the region provides ample cover for illicit actors. Geography alone--arid deserts, dense jungles, and vast oceans--makes total visibility difficult across the region difficult for any single state to achieve. The first step is therefore to bring these activities into the light, but this is easier said than done. During the inaugural Shield of the Americas Summit in March, President Donald Trump exhorted the assembled leaders to "just tell us where they [the criminals] are." The problem, in many cases, is that LAC countries do not have the ability to find and track criminal activity.
In South America, vast and sparsely populated interior regions offer safe havens for clandestine airstrips, coca fields, and wildcat gold mining operations. For instance, the Ecuadorian military detected 1,095 illegal fuel taps in the country in the first nine months of 2025, which are used to siphon off oil from pipelines and put money into criminals' pockets. In the Caribbean, extensive coastlines and territorial waters simply cannot be policed by individual navies and coast guards. While the United States provides critical capabilities through Joint Interagency Task Force South, Joint Task Force Counter Narcotics, and now SAWC, the territory in question is difficult to police without either drawing away too many U.S. assets from other regions or enlisting allies. These challenges are also not going away. Contrary to the Trump administration's claims, drug seizures by U.S. authorities have not meaningfully declined since the beginning of lethal strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, suggesting that traffickers remain undeterred from moving their product by sea and have likely shifted their routes to employ lower-profile methods.
Recent criminal experiments with uncrewed semi-submersibles represent a potential new phase in the constant race between smuggling routes and interdiction efforts, allowing traffickers to move their product without exposing personnel. Searching for these kinds of criminal activities by hand is time consuming for humans but is an ideal use case for long-endurance UxS. Integrating these drones with AI can also help dramatically increase domain awareness and the fidelity of data governments can collect on illicit economic activity. To this end, the United States and Argentina recently inked an agreement to conduct joint patrols in the southern Atlantic and facilitate the transfer of maritime patrol aircraft as well as "vertical takeoff drones suitable for operation from offshore patrol vessels." This partnership offers a model for U.S. collaboration with other like-minded governments in the region, including Peru, Ecuador, and Chile, which struggle to achieve domain awareness over their extensive coastlines and exclusive economic zones in the face of drug trafficking and illegal fishing.
Rolling out more autonomous and uncrewed ISR platforms could also be a boon to U.S. defense technology startups. Both legacy "prime" contractors and a host of younger startups are vying to be the ones to provide new technological solutions to the United States' most pressing defense challenges. Many of these groups have focused on providing autonomous or uncrewed capabilities, ranging from the high-end "loyal wingman" prototype jets under development by Anduril and General Atomics, to Saronic's drone boats recently used to rescue the downed crew of an Apache attack helicopter off the coast of Iran.
One challenge facing U.S. policymakers from this proliferation of defense tech firms is the need to test how new systems perform under real-world conditions. LAC provides an ideal environment for such hands-on testing. SAWC could present a testbed for new ISR platforms, permitting experimentation against the environmental and tactical realities of the region. At the same time, LAC represents a comparatively forgiving tactical environment. While the capabilities of major transnational criminal organizations should not be underestimated, their electronic warfare capabilities and air defenses are a far cry from those U.S. forces have confronted in the Strait of Hormuz, for instance. Thus, while success in the Western Hemisphere should not be taken as the sole metric when evaluating new systems, the region can provide an initial acid test, allowing both the Pentagon and private industry to iterate rapidly to meet operational needs.
Winning the Innovation Battle
Another vital priority for LAC countries is bolstering their defenses against weaponized drones. Mexico and Colombia in particular have experienced a surge in criminal drone use, with both countries reporting hundreds of attacks in 2025 alone. This threat is metastasizing to other regions as well. During a bloody clash in the crowded urban confines of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the Comando Vermelho gang used drones to drop explosives against police forces. As a result, Brazil and Colombia are currently making major (by regional standards) investments in unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and counter-UAS (C-UAS) capabilities. In Colombia, outgoing President Gustavo Petro announced a $1.68 billion investment to procure C-UAS technologies, while the country has also begun production of a domestically designed UAS. This is one program that incumbent Abelardo de la Espriella is likely to preserve and expand upon as he pursues a more hardline approach to Colombia's nonstate armed groups. More recently, the Brazilian army submitted a plan to invest 456 billion reais ($88.7 billion) between now and 2040 to shore up the country's air defenses and counter the threat posed by armed drones.
The United States is also undergoing a massive reevaluation of its C-UAS strategy, led internally by Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF 401). The effort enlists both legacy prime contractors such as RTX and Lockheed Martin as well as new entrants such as Epirus and Anduril to accelerate C-UAS capability deployment. Here again, greater focus on LAC may pay dividends for the United States in other theaters. Especially with respect to homeland defense, Washington's partners in the Americas are already confronting the kinds of threats against which JIATF seeks to provide protection. Pushing emergent C-UAS capabilities to LAC militaries would therefore not only help the region contain the growing drone menace, it could also provide the United States with further insight into how these technologies work in the field against irregular opponents.
However, LAC countries face serious budget constraints when it comes to new equipment procurement, while the kinds of drone, counter-drone, and advanced ISR capabilities LAC countries need to fight modern transnational criminal organizations cannot always be purchased secondhand. In many cases, the best answers to the challenges LAC countries face in the security domain are themselves systems the United States military is just now beginning to roll out. In other cases, doctrine has not caught up with capability. For example, directed energy air defense systems harbor promise for cost-effective C-UAS, but as recent events in El Paso and along the U.S.-Mexico border show, these systems can be highly disruptive if they are not paired with updated domestic legal authorities and interagency coordination. LAC countries will be understandably reluctant to invest limited resources in equipment that remains relatively unproven and requires substantial training to integrate into their forces.
If the United States is serious about reprioritizing the Western Hemisphere, it needs to think creatively about building partner force capacity. Simply transferring legacy defense articles, or even providing greater foreign military financing, will not be enough to address the emergent security threats LAC partners face. To this end, the United States' authority to approve direct commercial sales (DCS) of defense articles and services by private industry to partner countries without a government-to-government agreement could be a starting point. The United States, under the auspices of an America First Arms Transfer Strategy, should consider expanding the use of DCS to allow countries to enter service-forward agreements with U.S. defense technology firms. Under this arrangement, U.S. defense contractors would not only provide a capability such as aerial ISR or C-UAS, they would train partner forces in the use of this technology. At the end of the period, partner governments would have the option to either allow the contract and the capability to lapse, renew it, or purchase the now-depreciated equipment directly at a discount. This would have the advantage of enabling LAC militaries to acquire new capabilities quickly, but without locking them into a specific platform.
While often overshadowed by more headline-grabbing developments around Cuba or Venezuela, the United States' pivot to the Americas is driving critical tactical and technological innovation. Building on this momentum to test new autonomous and uncrewed systems and strengthen partner nation capacity will not only help advance security and stability in the Western Hemisphere, it will prepare U.S. forces to confront the changing character of future combat around the world.
* * *
Henry Ziemer is a fellow with the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/autonomy-and-affordable-mass-latin-america-and-caribbean
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
Autonomy and Affordable Mass in Latin America and the Caribbean
On April 21, 2026, General Francis L. Donovan, commander of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), established the command's first-ever Autonomous Warfare Command. As detailed in a press release, the SOUTHCOM Autonomous Warfare Command (SAWC) will be dedicated to fielding autonomous, semi-autonomous, and uncrewed systems for "disrupting and degrading narcoterrorist ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 31 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on July 30, 2026, by Americas Program fellow Henry Ziemer: * * * Autonomy and Affordable Mass in Latin America and the Caribbean On April 21, 2026, General Francis L. Donovan, commander of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), established the command's first-ever Autonomous Warfare Command. As detailed in a press release, the SOUTHCOM Autonomous Warfare Command (SAWC) will be dedicated to fielding autonomous, semi-autonomous, and uncrewed systems for "disrupting and degrading narcoterroristand cartel networks, and responding to life-threatening crises caused by large-scale natural disasters." The announcement was also a recognition that, in order to make good on the commitments to the Western Hemisphere outlined in the new National Defense Strategy and National Security Strategy, the United States would need to rethink its force posture in the region.
To date, Washington has signaled its reprioritization of the Americas through assets that are at hand, particularly naval forces. In March 2025, the destroyers USS Gravely and USS Spruance deployed to the Caribbean and eastern Pacific on counternarcotics and border security missions. In August 2025, the United States commenced a massive military buildup in the Caribbean as a part-counternarcotics, part-pressure campaign against Venezuela. The latter component of that mission would be fulfilled on January 3, 2026, when U.S. forces captured dictator Nicolas Maduro as part of Operation Absolute Resolve. The mission involved the largest concentration of U.S. forces in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) since the overthrow of Manuel Noriega in Panama during Operation Just Cause. At its height, roughly a quarter of the deployed U.S. surface fleet was stationed in the Caribbean, while more than 150 aircraft were used the night of Absolute Resolve. Such overwhelming force was warranted given the operational demands associated with a complex and contingent special forces raid like that which seized Maduro, but the sheer size of the force assembled imposed trade-offs for U.S. defense posture elsewhere, especially in the Middle East. Perhaps most notably, the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford executed a redeployment from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean in November 2025, where it remained through Operation Absolute Resolve. The carrier then redeployed quickly to the Middle East to support Operation Epic Fury, only to suffer a potentially disastrous onboard fire, highlighting the heavy toll imposed by months of high-intensity operations.
As operations in the Western Hemisphere shifted toward countering organized crime through the ongoing Operation Southern Spear, and more recently supporting earthquake recovery in Venezuela, the equipment and capabilities needed in theater have also changed. Exquisite systems such as aircraft carriers, stealth jets, and precision-guided munitions have less impact on the LAC's most pressing security threats than distributed, reliable, and networked intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms. Indeed, the region stands to be one of the primary beneficiaries of the U.S. military's push for "affordable mass," and there are significant opportunities for large numbers of relatively low-cost autonomous and uncrewed systems (UxS), including airborne, surface, and subsurface, to provide a robust operational picture for SOUTHCOM while reducing the human resources demands presented by LAC's vast and variegated geography. However, while the announcement of SAWC is a step in the right direction, more can be done to leverage renewed focus on the Western Hemisphere to prepare the United States for future defense threats. SOUTHCOM, and the Pentagon more broadly, must seize this moment to help partner militaries develop their own uncrewed and autonomous capabilities, as well as lean in on confronting the rise in criminal adoption of the same technologies.
Lifting the Fog
The threats facing LAC thrive in obscurity, and the region provides ample cover for illicit actors. Geography alone--arid deserts, dense jungles, and vast oceans--makes total visibility difficult across the region difficult for any single state to achieve. The first step is therefore to bring these activities into the light, but this is easier said than done. During the inaugural Shield of the Americas Summit in March, President Donald Trump exhorted the assembled leaders to "just tell us where they [the criminals] are." The problem, in many cases, is that LAC countries do not have the ability to find and track criminal activity.
In South America, vast and sparsely populated interior regions offer safe havens for clandestine airstrips, coca fields, and wildcat gold mining operations. For instance, the Ecuadorian military detected 1,095 illegal fuel taps in the country in the first nine months of 2025, which are used to siphon off oil from pipelines and put money into criminals' pockets. In the Caribbean, extensive coastlines and territorial waters simply cannot be policed by individual navies and coast guards. While the United States provides critical capabilities through Joint Interagency Task Force South, Joint Task Force Counter Narcotics, and now SAWC, the territory in question is difficult to police without either drawing away too many U.S. assets from other regions or enlisting allies. These challenges are also not going away. Contrary to the Trump administration's claims, drug seizures by U.S. authorities have not meaningfully declined since the beginning of lethal strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, suggesting that traffickers remain undeterred from moving their product by sea and have likely shifted their routes to employ lower-profile methods.
Recent criminal experiments with uncrewed semi-submersibles represent a potential new phase in the constant race between smuggling routes and interdiction efforts, allowing traffickers to move their product without exposing personnel. Searching for these kinds of criminal activities by hand is time consuming for humans but is an ideal use case for long-endurance UxS. Integrating these drones with AI can also help dramatically increase domain awareness and the fidelity of data governments can collect on illicit economic activity. To this end, the United States and Argentina recently inked an agreement to conduct joint patrols in the southern Atlantic and facilitate the transfer of maritime patrol aircraft as well as "vertical takeoff drones suitable for operation from offshore patrol vessels." This partnership offers a model for U.S. collaboration with other like-minded governments in the region, including Peru, Ecuador, and Chile, which struggle to achieve domain awareness over their extensive coastlines and exclusive economic zones in the face of drug trafficking and illegal fishing.
Rolling out more autonomous and uncrewed ISR platforms could also be a boon to U.S. defense technology startups. Both legacy "prime" contractors and a host of younger startups are vying to be the ones to provide new technological solutions to the United States' most pressing defense challenges. Many of these groups have focused on providing autonomous or uncrewed capabilities, ranging from the high-end "loyal wingman" prototype jets under development by Anduril and General Atomics, to Saronic's drone boats recently used to rescue the downed crew of an Apache attack helicopter off the coast of Iran.
One challenge facing U.S. policymakers from this proliferation of defense tech firms is the need to test how new systems perform under real-world conditions. LAC provides an ideal environment for such hands-on testing. SAWC could present a testbed for new ISR platforms, permitting experimentation against the environmental and tactical realities of the region. At the same time, LAC represents a comparatively forgiving tactical environment. While the capabilities of major transnational criminal organizations should not be underestimated, their electronic warfare capabilities and air defenses are a far cry from those U.S. forces have confronted in the Strait of Hormuz, for instance. Thus, while success in the Western Hemisphere should not be taken as the sole metric when evaluating new systems, the region can provide an initial acid test, allowing both the Pentagon and private industry to iterate rapidly to meet operational needs.
Winning the Innovation Battle
Another vital priority for LAC countries is bolstering their defenses against weaponized drones. Mexico and Colombia in particular have experienced a surge in criminal drone use, with both countries reporting hundreds of attacks in 2025 alone. This threat is metastasizing to other regions as well. During a bloody clash in the crowded urban confines of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the Comando Vermelho gang used drones to drop explosives against police forces. As a result, Brazil and Colombia are currently making major (by regional standards) investments in unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and counter-UAS (C-UAS) capabilities. In Colombia, outgoing President Gustavo Petro announced a $1.68 billion investment to procure C-UAS technologies, while the country has also begun production of a domestically designed UAS. This is one program that incumbent Abelardo de la Espriella is likely to preserve and expand upon as he pursues a more hardline approach to Colombia's nonstate armed groups. More recently, the Brazilian army submitted a plan to invest 456 billion reais ($88.7 billion) between now and 2040 to shore up the country's air defenses and counter the threat posed by armed drones.
The United States is also undergoing a massive reevaluation of its C-UAS strategy, led internally by Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF 401). The effort enlists both legacy prime contractors such as RTX and Lockheed Martin as well as new entrants such as Epirus and Anduril to accelerate C-UAS capability deployment. Here again, greater focus on LAC may pay dividends for the United States in other theaters. Especially with respect to homeland defense, Washington's partners in the Americas are already confronting the kinds of threats against which JIATF seeks to provide protection. Pushing emergent C-UAS capabilities to LAC militaries would therefore not only help the region contain the growing drone menace, it could also provide the United States with further insight into how these technologies work in the field against irregular opponents.
However, LAC countries face serious budget constraints when it comes to new equipment procurement, while the kinds of drone, counter-drone, and advanced ISR capabilities LAC countries need to fight modern transnational criminal organizations cannot always be purchased secondhand. In many cases, the best answers to the challenges LAC countries face in the security domain are themselves systems the United States military is just now beginning to roll out. In other cases, doctrine has not caught up with capability. For example, directed energy air defense systems harbor promise for cost-effective C-UAS, but as recent events in El Paso and along the U.S.-Mexico border show, these systems can be highly disruptive if they are not paired with updated domestic legal authorities and interagency coordination. LAC countries will be understandably reluctant to invest limited resources in equipment that remains relatively unproven and requires substantial training to integrate into their forces.
If the United States is serious about reprioritizing the Western Hemisphere, it needs to think creatively about building partner force capacity. Simply transferring legacy defense articles, or even providing greater foreign military financing, will not be enough to address the emergent security threats LAC partners face. To this end, the United States' authority to approve direct commercial sales (DCS) of defense articles and services by private industry to partner countries without a government-to-government agreement could be a starting point. The United States, under the auspices of an America First Arms Transfer Strategy, should consider expanding the use of DCS to allow countries to enter service-forward agreements with U.S. defense technology firms. Under this arrangement, U.S. defense contractors would not only provide a capability such as aerial ISR or C-UAS, they would train partner forces in the use of this technology. At the end of the period, partner governments would have the option to either allow the contract and the capability to lapse, renew it, or purchase the now-depreciated equipment directly at a discount. This would have the advantage of enabling LAC militaries to acquire new capabilities quickly, but without locking them into a specific platform.
While often overshadowed by more headline-grabbing developments around Cuba or Venezuela, the United States' pivot to the Americas is driving critical tactical and technological innovation. Building on this momentum to test new autonomous and uncrewed systems and strengthen partner nation capacity will not only help advance security and stability in the Western Hemisphere, it will prepare U.S. forces to confront the changing character of future combat around the world.
* * *
Henry Ziemer is a fellow with the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/autonomy-and-affordable-mass-latin-america-and-caribbean
[Category: ThinkTank]
America First Policy Institute: Wisconsin - Great American Comeback
WASHINGTON, July 31 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following fact sheet:
* * *
WISCONSIN: THE GREAT AMERICAN COMEBACK
The Economy: The Working Families Tax Cuts Delivers for America's Dairyland
The Working Families Tax Cuts (WFTC)--enacted as the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) and signed July 4, 2025--delivers what supporters call the largest federal tax relief for working families in a generation, and its provisions are built for farm country: permanent 100% expensing for equipment and facilities, a permanent 20% small-business deduction (AFPI, 2025c), and a stronger dairy ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 31 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following fact sheet: * * * WISCONSIN: THE GREAT AMERICAN COMEBACK The Economy: The Working Families Tax Cuts Delivers for America's Dairyland The Working Families Tax Cuts (WFTC)--enacted as the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) and signed July 4, 2025--delivers what supporters call the largest federal tax relief for working families in a generation, and its provisions are built for farm country: permanent 100% expensing for equipment and facilities, a permanent 20% small-business deduction (AFPI, 2025c), and a stronger dairysafety net (American Farm Bureau Federation, 2025). The America First Policy Institute's (AFPI) Office for Fiscal and Regulatory Analysis (OFRA) estimates the law's new worker-focused provisions alone save the 3rd District's biggest beneficiaries--joint filers with two or more children--an average of $1,640 for tax year 2025 (AFPI, OFRA, 2026c).
* * *
Figure 1. Estimated Average Working Families Tax Cuts Savings by Household Type, Wisconsin's 3rd Congressional District, Tax Year 2025.
* * *
* Wisconsin is working: The state's unemployment rate ticked down to 3.3% in June 2026--0.9 points below the U.S. rate of 4.2%--with labor force participation at 64.5%, a full three points above the national rate (Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development [DWD], 2026). That edge has held since the close of the Biden Administration, when Wisconsin's 3.0% stood 1.1 points below the national 4.1% in December 2024 (DWD, 2025).
* Paychecks are rising--and stretch further: Per capita personal income reached $70,570 in 2025, up 4.1% before inflation (Bureau of Economic Analysis [BEA], 2026a), and the 3rd District's median household income was $73,367 in 2024 (Census Reporter, n.d.; U.S. Census Bureau, 2024). Overall prices run about 5.9% below the national average--with rents about 20.7% lower (2024 data) (BEA, 2026b, 2026c). Stack federal tax relief on below-average prices, and affordability becomes a western Wisconsin advantage.
* Federal reform: The WFTC delivers no tax on tips (up to $25,000), no tax on overtime (up to $12,500/$25,000 joint), a $2,200 Child Tax Credit, a new $6,000 senior deduction, and a deduction of up to $10,000 in car-loan interest on U.S.-assembled vehicles (Internal Revenue Service [IRS], 2025, 2026a). The Tax Foundation's 2026 average-tax-cut map estimates the average Wisconsin filer saves $3,177 in 2026, below the national average of $3,813 (Tax Foundation, 2026)--but the relief looms even larger as a share of taxes owed: The average filer in the median state keeps about 15.8% of what they would otherwise pay (Brashers, 2025).
* AFPI has modeled the WFTC district by district: The new worker-focused provisions alone--one slice of the broader $3,177 statewide full-bill average for tax year 2026, which also counts permanence of the 2017 tax cuts and business provisions--save the average 3rd District filer $694 for tax year 2025, rising to $1,061 for families with children, $1,082 for seniors, and $1,640 for joint filers with two or more children (AFPI, OFRA, 2026c). Statewide, a Wisconsin nurse who works overtime keeps an estimated $1,808--about 47% more than the $1,227 a similar nurse saves in Illinois at a nearly identical wage (AFPI, OFRA, 2026a, 2026b).
* The OBBB is built for dairy and cranberry country: Wisconsin makes 25% of the Nation's cheese--more than any other state (Cowsmo, 2025; U.S. Department of Agriculture [USDA], 2025)--and grows about 60% of its cranberries (PolitiFact, 2023), including major marshes in Monroe County, in the district (PBS Wisconsin, 2018). The OBBB locks in a $15 million death-tax exemption so family farms pass to the next generation and raises the Dairy Margin Coverage program's Tier I cap from 5 to 6 million pounds (American Farm Bureau Federation, 2025), and AFPI estimates the bill pours $62 billion into the farm safety net and cuts taxes for farmers by more than $10 billion (AFPI, 2025c).
* The district builds the future: El Capitan--delivered in late 2024 as the world's fastest supercomputer, and still America's fastest (No. 2 worldwide on the June 2026 TOP500 list)--was built at Hewlett Packard Enterprise's high-performance-computing manufacturing center in Chippewa Falls (Hewlett Packard Enterprise, 2024; HPCwire, 2021; Swinhoe, 2021; TOP500, 2026), and La Crosse-based Kwik Trip is investing more than $151 million in its dairy, bakery, and distribution operations under an expansion announced in 2023--more than 500 new jobs by 2027 (Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, 2023).
Energy: Wisconsin's Power Supply Is Secured for Another Generation
President Trump's Executive Orders 14154 (Unleashing American Energy) and 14156 (Declaring a National Energy Emergency) put reliable, affordable energy back at the center of federal policy, and Executive Order 14302 (Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base) directs an American nuclear renaissance (Exec. Order No. 14154, 2025; Exec. Order No. 14156, 2025; Exec. Order No. 14302, 2025). Wisconsin produces little oil or natural gas of its own (U.S. Energy Information Administration [EIA], n.d.), so the state's energy story is the power it builds and keeps--and in September 2025, federal regulators secured its nuclear anchor for two more decades.
* Point Beach is licensed into the 2050s: On September 29, 2025, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) renewed the operating licenses of NextEra Energy's two-unit Point Beach plant--Wisconsin's only operating nuclear power plant--authorizing Unit 1 to run through 2050 and Unit 2 through 2053 (NextEra Energy, 2025; U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission [NRC], 2025).
* New generation is being built for a growing grid: In May 2025, state regulators approved We Energies' $1.5 billion plan for more than 1,200 megawatts (MW) of new natural gas generation--an 1,100-MW plant in Oak Creek and a 128-MW facility in Paris--to serve surging demand, including Microsoft's $3.3 billion data center campus under construction in Mount Pleasant (BizTimes Milwaukee, 2025).
* The district has nuclear history--and nuclear ambitions: La Crosse-headquartered Dairyland Power Cooperative, whose member cooperatives and municipal utilities serve rural western Wisconsin, operated the state's first commercial nuclear power plant at Genoa, in the district, from 1967 to 1987--and in 2022 it signed an agreement with NuScale Power to evaluate deploying small modular reactors (Dairyland Power Cooperative, n.d.; Public Service Commission of Wisconsin, n.d.).
* More supply is the affordability play: Wisconsin residential electricity averaged 19.21 cents per kilowatt-hour in April 2026, about 2% above the national average of 18.83 cents (EIA, 2026a). Keeping Point Beach online and adding firm, home-grown generation is how Wisconsin keeps power reliable and prices in check as demand grows.
* Federal reform: Executive Order 14302 sets the goal of 10 new large reactors under construction by 2030 (Exec. Order No. 14302, 2025), and AFPI's OBBB analysis notes the bill "maintains support to produce reliable nuclear energy through tax relief" (AFPI, 2025a). Nationally, U.S. crude oil production set another all-time record of 13.6 million barrels per day in 2025 (EIA, 2026b).
Education: The Birthplace of School Choice Keeps Breaking Records
School choice was born in Wisconsin: In 1990, Milwaukee launched the Nation's first modern school voucher program with 337 students in seven schools (Borsuk, n.d.; Wisconsin Legislative Council, 2025). Thirty-five years later, a record 60,972 students use the state's four parental choice programs (Wisconsin Examiner, 2025), and the OBBB's new federal scholarship tax credit--up to $1,700 per donor--launches January 1, 2027, in states that opt in (IRS, 2026b).
* * *
Figure 2. Wisconsin Parental Choice Program (Statewide) Enrollment, From 511 Students in Its First Year to 23,417 in 2025-26.
* * *
* Choice keeps growing: Enrollment across the Milwaukee, Racine, statewide, and special-needs choice programs rose by 2,349 students to 60,972 in 2025-26 (Wisconsin Examiner, 2025). The statewide Wisconsin Parental Choice Program has grown roughly 45-fold--from 511 students in 2013-14 (Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction [DPI], 2014) to 21,638 in 2024-25 (Wisconsin Legislative Council, 2025) and 23,417 students in 2025-26 (EdChoice, 2026; enrollment counts vary slightly by source)--and beginning in 2026-27, the statutory cap on school-district participation is gone entirely (Wisconsin Examiner, 2025).
* Choice is on the ground in western Wisconsin: Regis Catholic Schools in Eau Claire enrolls students tuition-free through the statewide choice program (Regis Catholic Schools, n.d.), and Aquinas Catholic Schools in La Crosse enrolls choice students across its preschool-through-12th-grade system (Aquinas Catholic Schools, n.d.).
* Public-school choice is a Wisconsin habit, too: In 2024-25, 75,126 students attended a public school outside their home district through open enrollment (DPI, 2025b)--a program especially valuable to rural families across the Driftless Area. And results hold up: Wisconsin students on average performed at or above the Nation in every grade and subject tested on the 2024 Nation's Report Card (DPI, 2025a).
* Federal reform: As of July 24, 2026, 30 states had signed up for the OBBB's federal scholarship tax credit (IRS, 2026b)--but Wisconsin is not among them: The Legislature passed a bill to opt the state in, and Gov. Evers vetoed it on March 30, 2026. Wisconsinites can still claim the federal credit for donations, but the resulting scholarships will flow to students in participating states unless Wisconsin opts in (Wisconsin Examiner, 2026). Meanwhile, Workforce Pell Grants took effect July 1, 2026, opening federal aid for short-term skills credentials (U.S. Department of Education, 2026), and Executive Orders 14190, 14191, and 14242 expand education freedom and return authority over education to the states (Exec. Order No. 14190, 2025; Exec. Order No. 14191, 2025; Exec. Order No. 14242, 2025).
* AFPI helped carry Milwaukee's idea nationwide: Beginning in early 2022, AFPI's Center for Education Opportunity produced more than 20 research reports, state fact sheets, and model education savings account legislation as universal school choice swept eight states (AFPI, 2023)--a movement that began in Wisconsin.
Safer Communities: Wisconsin's Fentanyl Crisis Is Receding--and Enforcement Is Locking In the Gains
Fentanyl reached every corner of Wisconsin--including the river towns of the 3rd District. Now the tide is turning where families live: Overdose deaths are falling across Wisconsin, and La Crosse County just recorded its fewest in more than a decade. Under the Trump Administration, the border has been secured at historic speed, and interior enforcement has surged--reinforcing and locking in those hard-won gains.
* The fentanyl tide is receding in western Wisconsin: Unintentional overdose deaths among La Crosse County residents fell from 55 in 2023 to 17 in 2024--the county's lowest total in more than 10 years (News 8000, 2025; WIZM, 2025)--and deaths were holding at that low level through late 2025 (WXOW, 2025).
* Statewide, the crisis is easing: Overdose deaths fell from a record 1,830 in 2022 to 1,185 in 2024--a drop of more than a third (Casey, 2026; Wisconsin Department of Health Services, n.d.). Nationally, overdose deaths fell almost 14% in 2025--a third straight annual decline (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2026).
* Interior enforcement has surged in Wisconsin: In late June 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested 39 illegal aliens across the state in one of its largest Wisconsin operations since January 2025--many with criminal records including convictions for sexual abuse, drunk driving, and drug possession, according to the agency (Wisconsin Watch, 2026). ICE has made at least 1,700 arrests statewide over the past year, and roughly 80% of those arrested from January 2025 through March 2026 had prior criminal convictions or pending criminal charges (Wisconsin Watch, 2026).
* Enforcement shrinks a real fiscal burden: The Federation for American Immigration Reform, an immigration-reduction advocacy group, estimates illegal immigration costs Wisconsin taxpayers about $695 million a year--including roughly $505 million for education (Federation for American Immigration Reform, 2023). AFPI's Wisconsin analysis urges E-Verify to shut off the illegal-hiring magnet, citing an estimated 65,000 illegal aliens working in the state (AFPI, 2025b).
* The southwest border--the corridor the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) identifies as a primary route for the Mexican-cartel pipeline that supplies Wisconsin's fentanyl (DEA, 2024)--has been transformed: Southwest border apprehensions in fiscal year (FY) 2025 totaled 237,538--the lowest level since 1970--versus roughly 1.6 million in FY 2021 (House Committee on Homeland Security, 2025). In June 2026, apprehensions (9,848) were 94% below the prior administration's monthly average, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reports 14 consecutive months of zero releases at the border (Athrappully, 2026; DHS, 2026b). DHS also reports more than 675,000 removals in the Administration's first year and, by its own estimate, 2.2 million self-deportations (DHS, 2026a).
Conclusion: The Comeback Is Compounding in Western Wisconsin
The Great American Comeback is reaching the Driftless Area. Federal tax relief worth $3,177 to the average Wisconsin filer in tax year 2026--and $1,640 in tax year 2025 to the district's joint filers with two or more children from the worker-focused provisions alone--lands in an economy where unemployment sits at 3.3%, and America's fastest supercomputer was built in Chippewa Falls. Point Beach is licensed to power Wisconsin into the 2050s, while La Crosse's own Dairyland Power studies the next generation of reactors. The state that invented school choice just set another record--60,972 students--with the last statewide-program caps coming off in 2026-27. And with enforcement surging and the border secured, those hard-won gains are being locked in where it matters most: La Crosse County's overdose deaths have fallen to their lowest level in more than a decade--and are holding there. The federal reforms are in place--western Wisconsin's families are collecting the returns.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/wisconsin-the-great-american-comeback
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
WISCONSIN: THE GREAT AMERICAN COMEBACK
The Economy: The Working Families Tax Cuts Delivers for America's Dairyland
The Working Families Tax Cuts (WFTC)--enacted as the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) and signed July 4, 2025--delivers what supporters call the largest federal tax relief for working families in a generation, and its provisions are built for farm country: permanent 100% expensing for equipment and facilities, a permanent 20% small-business deduction (AFPI, 2025c), and a stronger dairy ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 31 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following fact sheet: * * * WISCONSIN: THE GREAT AMERICAN COMEBACK The Economy: The Working Families Tax Cuts Delivers for America's Dairyland The Working Families Tax Cuts (WFTC)--enacted as the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) and signed July 4, 2025--delivers what supporters call the largest federal tax relief for working families in a generation, and its provisions are built for farm country: permanent 100% expensing for equipment and facilities, a permanent 20% small-business deduction (AFPI, 2025c), and a stronger dairysafety net (American Farm Bureau Federation, 2025). The America First Policy Institute's (AFPI) Office for Fiscal and Regulatory Analysis (OFRA) estimates the law's new worker-focused provisions alone save the 3rd District's biggest beneficiaries--joint filers with two or more children--an average of $1,640 for tax year 2025 (AFPI, OFRA, 2026c).
* * *
Figure 1. Estimated Average Working Families Tax Cuts Savings by Household Type, Wisconsin's 3rd Congressional District, Tax Year 2025.
* * *
* Wisconsin is working: The state's unemployment rate ticked down to 3.3% in June 2026--0.9 points below the U.S. rate of 4.2%--with labor force participation at 64.5%, a full three points above the national rate (Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development [DWD], 2026). That edge has held since the close of the Biden Administration, when Wisconsin's 3.0% stood 1.1 points below the national 4.1% in December 2024 (DWD, 2025).
* Paychecks are rising--and stretch further: Per capita personal income reached $70,570 in 2025, up 4.1% before inflation (Bureau of Economic Analysis [BEA], 2026a), and the 3rd District's median household income was $73,367 in 2024 (Census Reporter, n.d.; U.S. Census Bureau, 2024). Overall prices run about 5.9% below the national average--with rents about 20.7% lower (2024 data) (BEA, 2026b, 2026c). Stack federal tax relief on below-average prices, and affordability becomes a western Wisconsin advantage.
* Federal reform: The WFTC delivers no tax on tips (up to $25,000), no tax on overtime (up to $12,500/$25,000 joint), a $2,200 Child Tax Credit, a new $6,000 senior deduction, and a deduction of up to $10,000 in car-loan interest on U.S.-assembled vehicles (Internal Revenue Service [IRS], 2025, 2026a). The Tax Foundation's 2026 average-tax-cut map estimates the average Wisconsin filer saves $3,177 in 2026, below the national average of $3,813 (Tax Foundation, 2026)--but the relief looms even larger as a share of taxes owed: The average filer in the median state keeps about 15.8% of what they would otherwise pay (Brashers, 2025).
* AFPI has modeled the WFTC district by district: The new worker-focused provisions alone--one slice of the broader $3,177 statewide full-bill average for tax year 2026, which also counts permanence of the 2017 tax cuts and business provisions--save the average 3rd District filer $694 for tax year 2025, rising to $1,061 for families with children, $1,082 for seniors, and $1,640 for joint filers with two or more children (AFPI, OFRA, 2026c). Statewide, a Wisconsin nurse who works overtime keeps an estimated $1,808--about 47% more than the $1,227 a similar nurse saves in Illinois at a nearly identical wage (AFPI, OFRA, 2026a, 2026b).
* The OBBB is built for dairy and cranberry country: Wisconsin makes 25% of the Nation's cheese--more than any other state (Cowsmo, 2025; U.S. Department of Agriculture [USDA], 2025)--and grows about 60% of its cranberries (PolitiFact, 2023), including major marshes in Monroe County, in the district (PBS Wisconsin, 2018). The OBBB locks in a $15 million death-tax exemption so family farms pass to the next generation and raises the Dairy Margin Coverage program's Tier I cap from 5 to 6 million pounds (American Farm Bureau Federation, 2025), and AFPI estimates the bill pours $62 billion into the farm safety net and cuts taxes for farmers by more than $10 billion (AFPI, 2025c).
* The district builds the future: El Capitan--delivered in late 2024 as the world's fastest supercomputer, and still America's fastest (No. 2 worldwide on the June 2026 TOP500 list)--was built at Hewlett Packard Enterprise's high-performance-computing manufacturing center in Chippewa Falls (Hewlett Packard Enterprise, 2024; HPCwire, 2021; Swinhoe, 2021; TOP500, 2026), and La Crosse-based Kwik Trip is investing more than $151 million in its dairy, bakery, and distribution operations under an expansion announced in 2023--more than 500 new jobs by 2027 (Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, 2023).
Energy: Wisconsin's Power Supply Is Secured for Another Generation
President Trump's Executive Orders 14154 (Unleashing American Energy) and 14156 (Declaring a National Energy Emergency) put reliable, affordable energy back at the center of federal policy, and Executive Order 14302 (Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base) directs an American nuclear renaissance (Exec. Order No. 14154, 2025; Exec. Order No. 14156, 2025; Exec. Order No. 14302, 2025). Wisconsin produces little oil or natural gas of its own (U.S. Energy Information Administration [EIA], n.d.), so the state's energy story is the power it builds and keeps--and in September 2025, federal regulators secured its nuclear anchor for two more decades.
* Point Beach is licensed into the 2050s: On September 29, 2025, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) renewed the operating licenses of NextEra Energy's two-unit Point Beach plant--Wisconsin's only operating nuclear power plant--authorizing Unit 1 to run through 2050 and Unit 2 through 2053 (NextEra Energy, 2025; U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission [NRC], 2025).
* New generation is being built for a growing grid: In May 2025, state regulators approved We Energies' $1.5 billion plan for more than 1,200 megawatts (MW) of new natural gas generation--an 1,100-MW plant in Oak Creek and a 128-MW facility in Paris--to serve surging demand, including Microsoft's $3.3 billion data center campus under construction in Mount Pleasant (BizTimes Milwaukee, 2025).
* The district has nuclear history--and nuclear ambitions: La Crosse-headquartered Dairyland Power Cooperative, whose member cooperatives and municipal utilities serve rural western Wisconsin, operated the state's first commercial nuclear power plant at Genoa, in the district, from 1967 to 1987--and in 2022 it signed an agreement with NuScale Power to evaluate deploying small modular reactors (Dairyland Power Cooperative, n.d.; Public Service Commission of Wisconsin, n.d.).
* More supply is the affordability play: Wisconsin residential electricity averaged 19.21 cents per kilowatt-hour in April 2026, about 2% above the national average of 18.83 cents (EIA, 2026a). Keeping Point Beach online and adding firm, home-grown generation is how Wisconsin keeps power reliable and prices in check as demand grows.
* Federal reform: Executive Order 14302 sets the goal of 10 new large reactors under construction by 2030 (Exec. Order No. 14302, 2025), and AFPI's OBBB analysis notes the bill "maintains support to produce reliable nuclear energy through tax relief" (AFPI, 2025a). Nationally, U.S. crude oil production set another all-time record of 13.6 million barrels per day in 2025 (EIA, 2026b).
Education: The Birthplace of School Choice Keeps Breaking Records
School choice was born in Wisconsin: In 1990, Milwaukee launched the Nation's first modern school voucher program with 337 students in seven schools (Borsuk, n.d.; Wisconsin Legislative Council, 2025). Thirty-five years later, a record 60,972 students use the state's four parental choice programs (Wisconsin Examiner, 2025), and the OBBB's new federal scholarship tax credit--up to $1,700 per donor--launches January 1, 2027, in states that opt in (IRS, 2026b).
* * *
Figure 2. Wisconsin Parental Choice Program (Statewide) Enrollment, From 511 Students in Its First Year to 23,417 in 2025-26.
* * *
* Choice keeps growing: Enrollment across the Milwaukee, Racine, statewide, and special-needs choice programs rose by 2,349 students to 60,972 in 2025-26 (Wisconsin Examiner, 2025). The statewide Wisconsin Parental Choice Program has grown roughly 45-fold--from 511 students in 2013-14 (Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction [DPI], 2014) to 21,638 in 2024-25 (Wisconsin Legislative Council, 2025) and 23,417 students in 2025-26 (EdChoice, 2026; enrollment counts vary slightly by source)--and beginning in 2026-27, the statutory cap on school-district participation is gone entirely (Wisconsin Examiner, 2025).
* Choice is on the ground in western Wisconsin: Regis Catholic Schools in Eau Claire enrolls students tuition-free through the statewide choice program (Regis Catholic Schools, n.d.), and Aquinas Catholic Schools in La Crosse enrolls choice students across its preschool-through-12th-grade system (Aquinas Catholic Schools, n.d.).
* Public-school choice is a Wisconsin habit, too: In 2024-25, 75,126 students attended a public school outside their home district through open enrollment (DPI, 2025b)--a program especially valuable to rural families across the Driftless Area. And results hold up: Wisconsin students on average performed at or above the Nation in every grade and subject tested on the 2024 Nation's Report Card (DPI, 2025a).
* Federal reform: As of July 24, 2026, 30 states had signed up for the OBBB's federal scholarship tax credit (IRS, 2026b)--but Wisconsin is not among them: The Legislature passed a bill to opt the state in, and Gov. Evers vetoed it on March 30, 2026. Wisconsinites can still claim the federal credit for donations, but the resulting scholarships will flow to students in participating states unless Wisconsin opts in (Wisconsin Examiner, 2026). Meanwhile, Workforce Pell Grants took effect July 1, 2026, opening federal aid for short-term skills credentials (U.S. Department of Education, 2026), and Executive Orders 14190, 14191, and 14242 expand education freedom and return authority over education to the states (Exec. Order No. 14190, 2025; Exec. Order No. 14191, 2025; Exec. Order No. 14242, 2025).
* AFPI helped carry Milwaukee's idea nationwide: Beginning in early 2022, AFPI's Center for Education Opportunity produced more than 20 research reports, state fact sheets, and model education savings account legislation as universal school choice swept eight states (AFPI, 2023)--a movement that began in Wisconsin.
Safer Communities: Wisconsin's Fentanyl Crisis Is Receding--and Enforcement Is Locking In the Gains
Fentanyl reached every corner of Wisconsin--including the river towns of the 3rd District. Now the tide is turning where families live: Overdose deaths are falling across Wisconsin, and La Crosse County just recorded its fewest in more than a decade. Under the Trump Administration, the border has been secured at historic speed, and interior enforcement has surged--reinforcing and locking in those hard-won gains.
* The fentanyl tide is receding in western Wisconsin: Unintentional overdose deaths among La Crosse County residents fell from 55 in 2023 to 17 in 2024--the county's lowest total in more than 10 years (News 8000, 2025; WIZM, 2025)--and deaths were holding at that low level through late 2025 (WXOW, 2025).
* Statewide, the crisis is easing: Overdose deaths fell from a record 1,830 in 2022 to 1,185 in 2024--a drop of more than a third (Casey, 2026; Wisconsin Department of Health Services, n.d.). Nationally, overdose deaths fell almost 14% in 2025--a third straight annual decline (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2026).
* Interior enforcement has surged in Wisconsin: In late June 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested 39 illegal aliens across the state in one of its largest Wisconsin operations since January 2025--many with criminal records including convictions for sexual abuse, drunk driving, and drug possession, according to the agency (Wisconsin Watch, 2026). ICE has made at least 1,700 arrests statewide over the past year, and roughly 80% of those arrested from January 2025 through March 2026 had prior criminal convictions or pending criminal charges (Wisconsin Watch, 2026).
* Enforcement shrinks a real fiscal burden: The Federation for American Immigration Reform, an immigration-reduction advocacy group, estimates illegal immigration costs Wisconsin taxpayers about $695 million a year--including roughly $505 million for education (Federation for American Immigration Reform, 2023). AFPI's Wisconsin analysis urges E-Verify to shut off the illegal-hiring magnet, citing an estimated 65,000 illegal aliens working in the state (AFPI, 2025b).
* The southwest border--the corridor the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) identifies as a primary route for the Mexican-cartel pipeline that supplies Wisconsin's fentanyl (DEA, 2024)--has been transformed: Southwest border apprehensions in fiscal year (FY) 2025 totaled 237,538--the lowest level since 1970--versus roughly 1.6 million in FY 2021 (House Committee on Homeland Security, 2025). In June 2026, apprehensions (9,848) were 94% below the prior administration's monthly average, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reports 14 consecutive months of zero releases at the border (Athrappully, 2026; DHS, 2026b). DHS also reports more than 675,000 removals in the Administration's first year and, by its own estimate, 2.2 million self-deportations (DHS, 2026a).
Conclusion: The Comeback Is Compounding in Western Wisconsin
The Great American Comeback is reaching the Driftless Area. Federal tax relief worth $3,177 to the average Wisconsin filer in tax year 2026--and $1,640 in tax year 2025 to the district's joint filers with two or more children from the worker-focused provisions alone--lands in an economy where unemployment sits at 3.3%, and America's fastest supercomputer was built in Chippewa Falls. Point Beach is licensed to power Wisconsin into the 2050s, while La Crosse's own Dairyland Power studies the next generation of reactors. The state that invented school choice just set another record--60,972 students--with the last statewide-program caps coming off in 2026-27. And with enforcement surging and the border secured, those hard-won gains are being locked in where it matters most: La Crosse County's overdose deaths have fallen to their lowest level in more than a decade--and are holding there. The federal reforms are in place--western Wisconsin's families are collecting the returns.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/wisconsin-the-great-american-comeback
[Category: ThinkTank]