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Rand Report: The People's Liberation Army Navy's Approach to Maintenance Management
SANTA MONICA, California, June 19 (TNSLrpt) -- The People's Liberation Army Navy's Approach to Maintenance Management - A report from Rand - June 18, 2026, (71 pages) - Cristina L. Garafola, Joslyn Fleming, Sam Wallace, Bradley Martin, and Sale LillyHere are excerpts:
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The ability for navies to procure, field, and sustain large surface combatants is central to modern power projection. The U.S. Navy's approach to ship procurement coupled with infrastructure issues and workforce shortages at U.S. shipyards have led to significant delays in both naval shipbuilding and maintenance activities. ... Show Full Article SANTA MONICA, California, June 19 (TNSLrpt) -- The People's Liberation Army Navy's Approach to Maintenance Management - A report from Rand - June 18, 2026, (71 pages) - Cristina L. Garafola, Joslyn Fleming, Sam Wallace, Bradley Martin, and Sale Lilly Here are excerpts: * * * The ability for navies to procure, field, and sustain large surface combatants is central to modern power projection. The U.S. Navy's approach to ship procurement coupled with infrastructure issues and workforce shortages at U.S. shipyards have led to significant delays in both naval shipbuilding and maintenance activities.Tensions between high operational demands and the need to conduct training and maintenance to sustain ship readiness levels have resulted in significant mishaps and crashes. The ability of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) to sustain its growing inventories of more-capable systems will rely on its logistics capabilities and processes. Understanding the PLAN's approach to maintenance management is a necessary step in assessing the People's Liberation Army's ability to sustain a modernized force, and there are implications for both competition and conflict.
In this report, the authors examine how the rapid growth and modernization of the PLAN inform maintenance management and activities, approaches that other navies have taken to balance maintenance demand and supply and how the PLAN's approaches compare with them, how maintenance is controlled and organized to meet maritime-specific requirements, and the factors that shape the PLAN's ability to maintain and sustain its forces.
Key Takeaways
* The PLAN has moved from iteratively designing and producing small ship classes to series production of larger ship classes. Series production could help streamline maintenance requirements but has stressed the maintenance workforce and associated organizations, such as vessel training centers, which ensure ship deployability.
* If overhaul rates of newer ship classes remain similar to those for older destroyer classes, then overhauls of China's most-capable surface combatants will begin in 2031 and last through at least 2042.
* The PLAN is likely to take a hybrid approach as it continues to replace old force structure, invest in the skill of its maintenance forces, and pursue a repair-focused investment strategy.
* The PLAN has focused on improving its maintenance self-sufficiency, but organic maintenance units still appear to undertake surface-level maintenance practices and depend on higher maintenance echelons to conduct more-sophisticated repairs. This tendency could be further exacerbated if the PLAN continues to grow its force structure.
* Although the PLAN has promoted innovative problem-solving and sought to destigmatize mistakes, sources still emphasize dogmatic adherence to standards.
* Theater-specific demands, such as high operational tempos in the Eastern Theater Command Navy, could shape each Theater Command Navy's maintenance management and activities.
* Morale issues might have an impact on retention, particularly for naval units that are shore-based rather than ship-based.
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View the full report here: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RRA3300/RRA3368-1/RAND_RRA3368-1.pdf
[Category: ThinkTank]
Ifo Institute: German Economy to Grow by 0.8% in 2026
MUNICH, Germany, June 19 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release on June 18, 2026:* * *
German Economy to Grow by 0.8 Percent in 2026
The ifo Institute forecasts growth of 0.8 percent in gross domestic product (GDP) for the German economy this year. The economic experts also expect 0.8 percent growth for the coming year. "While a massive energy price shock caused by the Middle East conflict is slowing down the economy, a highly expansionary fiscal policy is supporting growth. The economy is currently being shaped by conflicting forces," says Timo Wollmershauser, Head of Forecasts ... Show Full Article MUNICH, Germany, June 19 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release on June 18, 2026: * * * German Economy to Grow by 0.8 Percent in 2026 The ifo Institute forecasts growth of 0.8 percent in gross domestic product (GDP) for the German economy this year. The economic experts also expect 0.8 percent growth for the coming year. "While a massive energy price shock caused by the Middle East conflict is slowing down the economy, a highly expansionary fiscal policy is supporting growth. The economy is currently being shaped by conflicting forces," says Timo Wollmershauser, Head of Forecastsat ifo.
According to the ifo Institute, the energy price shock will slow down economic growth by 0.4 percentage points, respectively, in both years, while expansionary fiscal policy, with massive additional spending on infrastructure, climate neutrality, and defense, will contribute 0.5 percentage points to economic growth in each year.
According to Wollmershauser, the recovery that began last year will pause in the current second quarter. "The German economy will stagnate temporarily but not fall into a recession," says Wollmershauser. "Starting in the third quarter of 2026, the recovery is likely to resume and pick up speed toward the end of the year, as long as the Middle East conflict does indeed ease."
The current growth in gross domestic product has come at a high cost. It says that the government's financing deficit will significantly worsen - from 2.8 percent in 2025 to 4.1 percent in 2026 and 4.9 percent in 2027. Gross debt will rise to around 68 percent of economic output by 2027. The real costs of the energy price shock resulting from the Iran war are also said to be substantial: According to the forecast, Germany will lose about EUR 34 billion in purchasing power in this year and the next due to the sharp rise in prices for imported energy. The inflation rate is expected to rise to 2.9 percent in 2026 and decline only slightly to 2.7 percent in 2027.
The long-term outlook from the ifo economic experts is not very optimistic. Demographic change and weak productivity growth are expected to keep potential growth at a historically low 0.1 percent through the end of the decade. While the current government measures had a stabilizing effect in the short term, they primarily served to preserve the existing structure. "To sustainably boost growth potential, far-reaching reforms are needed to transform a government-supported respite into lasting, self-sustaining economic growth," says Wollmershauser.
The forecast is based on the assumption that the Middle East conflict will deescalate in the coming weeks, and the Strait of Hormuz will reopen. The assumed trend in energy prices is based on the average futures market prices in May 2026. In this scenario, the price of crude oil should start to fall again as early as the third quarter of 2026 and cost slightly less than USD 80 by the end of 2027. Since the agreement reached last weekend, futures market prices have pointed to energy prices falling faster. In this case, the inflation rate is also likely to decline faster, and growth should be higher. However, it is also possible that the agreement reached over the weekend will not hold, and the conflict will escalate again. If so, energy prices would remain high, and the economic slowdown would be more severe.
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Table: Key Forecast Figures for Germany
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Forecast (https://www.ifo.de/en/facts/2026-06-18/ifo-economic-forecast-summer-2026-energy-price-increase-acting-brake-fiscal-policy)
Publication (https://www.ifo.de/en/publications/2026/article-journal/energiepreisanstieg-bremst-finanzpolitik-schiebt)
You Might Also be Interested in Press (https://www.ifo.de/en/press)
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Original text here: https://www.ifo.de/en/press-release/2026-06-18/german-economy-grow-0.8-percent-2026
[Category: ThinkTank]
Hudson Institute Issues Commentary: Ukraine Military Situation Report on June 17, 2026
WASHINGTON, June 19 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on June 17, 2026, by nonresident senior fellow Can Kasapoglu:* * *
Ukraine Military Situation Report | June 17
Executive Summary
* Battlefield assessment. Combat activity remained intense last week, with key pressure points emerging in Huliaipole and Pokrovsk and dangerous urban combat in Kostiantynivka.
* Russia targets cultural landmarks. To target the cultural foundations of Ukrainian statehood, Russia's strike campaign ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, June 19 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on June 17, 2026, by nonresident senior fellow Can Kasapoglu: * * * Ukraine Military Situation Report | June 17 Executive Summary * Battlefield assessment. Combat activity remained intense last week, with key pressure points emerging in Huliaipole and Pokrovsk and dangerous urban combat in Kostiantynivka. * Russia targets cultural landmarks. To target the cultural foundations of Ukrainian statehood, Russia's strike campaigncontinued to hit Ukrainian population centers and targets of symbolic value, including Kyiv's Dormition Cathedral.
* Ukraine deepens its defense ties with Europe. Ukraine responded to Russian attacks by conducting long-range strikes of its own, and by forging deeper defense ties with its European partners for missile defenses and for strike, propulsion, and counter-drone systems.
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1. Battlefield Assessment
Last week the Ukrainian battlespace continued to witness over two hundred tactical engagements each day. Russian offensives again targeted Huliaipole, Pokrovsk, and Kostyantynivka, while Lyman, Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Orikhiv, Oleksandrivka, and Kupiansk also saw increased combat. Additionally, the Ukrainian General Staff noted that Russia used thousands of attack drones to target Ukrainian positions, rear areas, and population centers.
Russian forces reached the outskirts of Kostiantynivka from multiple directions and continued to infiltrate the city. Infantry activity emerged from the east of the city through Novodmytrivka, with additional pressure from the Berestok and Illinivka axes. Kostiantynivka is quickly becoming another attritional flashpoint in Donetsk Oblast. Russian forces appear to hold a manpower advantage around the city and are shifting focus to a longer campaign to capture it.
In addition to their strikes against military infrastructure, Russian forces targeted the cultural symbols of Ukrainian statehood. On June 15, Russian strikes badly damaged the Dormition Cathedral at Kyiv's historic Pechersk Lavra monastery, a vital symbol of Ukraine's Orthodox Christian heritage and national identity. The attack set fire to the roof of one of Ukraine's key religious sites and formed part of a larger barrage of missiles and drones that killed at least 11 people nationwide.
The Security Service of Ukraine stated that a Shahed-type drone hit the Dormition Cathedral, which had previously suffered war damage, including during a January strike that hit monastery buildings and caves. The latest attack coincided with increased diplomacy around the Group of Seven summit in France, where President Donald Trump spoke separately with Ukrainian and Russian leaders about ending the war.
Ukraine, for its part, conducted a drone strike that forced a major refinery in southeastern Moscow to suspend operations after a fire damaged its main processing unit. The refinery is a key fuel supplier for Moscow Oblast. Though a second processing unit at the installation may recover, the attack supports Ukraine's expanding campaign against Russia's refining and fuel distribution network.
2. Ukraine Deepens Its Strategic Defense Ties with Europe
Ukraine continued to deepen its ties with the most prominent European defense companies. The relationship between Ukraine and its private-sector European partners now reaches beyond arms deliveries to strategic systems, including missiles, turbojet and turboprop propulsion, joint production, and deep-strike and counter-drone systems.
MBDA, a multinational European defense corporation, is among the firms moving deeper into Ukraine's long-range strike ecosystem. The European missile manufacturer signed a memorandum of understanding with LUCH, a Ukrainian designer of components for the defense industry, to support further development of the Neptune cruise missile, including the NEPTUNE2 with deep-strike capability.
This agreement matters for two reasons. First, it links Ukraine's wartime missile experience with one of Europe's most important weapons developers. Second, it signals that Ukraine's long-range strike program is moving beyond wartime emergency adaptation and toward structured industrial cooperation with European partners.
MBDA also agreed to partner with Ukrainian Armor, a defense company located in Kyiv, on deep-strike and counter-drone solutions, with a focus on technology exchange, joint production, and other possible joint ventures. Additionally, Ukrainian Armor signed a separate agreement with a Czech firm, AviaNera Technologies. This partnership covers turbojet and turboprop engines for Ukrainian missile and drone platforms, and aims to expand production, localize technologies, and explore joint ventures. This agreement will likely improve Ukraine's propulsion capabilities, which have been a critical bottleneck for Kyiv.
Collectively, Ukraine's agreements with its European defense partners mark a shift from arms delivery to coproduction. Kyiv is securing technology and production transfers with Europe to enable scalable defense growth. In addition to seeking weapons, Ukraine is building a European-integrated industrial base for missiles, drones, air defenses, and counter-drones.
Another Ukrainian defense technology firm, Fire Point, signed a memorandum of understanding with the German radar manufacturer Hensoldt at Eurosatory 2026, the world's largest land and air-land defense and security trade show held last week in Paris. The agreement supports the development of the Freyja air-defense system, a mobile radar designed to detect and track more than 1,500 targets at ranges of up to 155 miles.
Under the terms of the deal, Hensoldt commits to producing, testing, and supplying the Freyja ground-based missile-defense architecture. Hensoldt'sTRML-4D radar is the most important sensor in the Freyja system. Fire Point, for its part, will have overall design authority over the system. The company will produce, test, and deliver its Fire Point FP-7 missiles and integrate the main components into the system. The Ukrainian company's FP-7.x interceptor concept is designed for high speeds and recently passed a controlled maneuvering flight test.
This deal marks Ukraine's attempt to move from improvised wartime air-defense adaptations to a structured missile-defense industrial program. The cooperation between Fire Point and Hensoldt demonstrates tangible progress in Kyiv's effort to add a proven European radar layer to its defense-industrial architecture. Progress in this arena may offer Ukraine a pathway to counter Russia's missile threat using systems built to Ukrainian requirements.
3. What to Monitor in the Coming Weeks
While Kostiantynivka has turned into a meat grinder for Russia's invading forces, Ukraine's hold on the city is weakening. The coming weeks will determine whether Ukrainian forces can hold critical terrain and deny Russian assaults further tactical gains.
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At A Glance:
Can Kasapoglu is a nonresident senior fellow at Hudson Institute. His work at Hudson focuses on political-military affairs in the Middle East, North Africa, and former Soviet regions.
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Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/national-security-defense/ukraine-military-situation-report-june-17-can-kasapoglu
[Category: ThinkTank]
Center on Budget & Policy Priorities: Automatic Continuing Resolution Is Not a Good Solution for Government Shutdowns
WASHINGTON, June 19 -- The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities issued the following report on June 18, 2026, by senior fellows Richard Kogan and Sam Berger:* * *
An Automatic Continuing Resolution Is Not a Good Solution for Government Shutdowns
The Senate may soon consider a proposal to provide for an automatic continuing resolution (CR), which would extend funding at the prior year's level whenever the President and Congress fail to enact full-year or temporary funding for a fiscal year. Government shutdowns impose substantial costs on individuals and families in general and federal employees ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, June 19 -- The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities issued the following report on June 18, 2026, by senior fellows Richard Kogan and Sam Berger: * * * An Automatic Continuing Resolution Is Not a Good Solution for Government Shutdowns The Senate may soon consider a proposal to provide for an automatic continuing resolution (CR), which would extend funding at the prior year's level whenever the President and Congress fail to enact full-year or temporary funding for a fiscal year. Government shutdowns impose substantial costs on individuals and families in general and federal employeesin particular.[1] And with shutdowns occurring more frequently and lasting longer, there is heightened interest in finding a way to avoid them. But while seeking to prevent shutdowns is a laudable goal, this automatic CR legislation raises significant concerns and is likely to empower some of the very destructive forces it hopes to address, even allowing a president to pick and choose which programs to effectively shut down indefinitely, without any input from Congress. And these concerns are only heightened with the current Administration, which has shown a willingness to exercise executive powers in extreme (and sometimes unlawful) ways.
Here are some of the major problems with this Senate proposal (S. 4632, introduced by Senators James Lankford and Maggie Hassan[2]). It would:
* Significantly reduce pressure to reach agreement on full-year appropriation bills, effectively locking in funding levels that are often inadequate. An automatic CR freezes funding at the prior-year level for every program, with no adjustments for changing circumstances, including inflation. And by allowing the government to keep operating without any action or agreement by the President and Congress, it is likely that an automatic CR would stay in effect for extended periods, possibly the entire fiscal year or longer.
* Greatly strengthen the President's hand in the annual appropriations process. The President could repeatedly and indefinitely veto any appropriations bill that provides more funding than he supports or includes legislative language aimed at ensuring he is complying with congressional intent in funding matters, without concern that it would result in a disruptive shutdown of key government operations.
* Give the President powers when an automatic CR is in effect that allow him to pick and choose which programs he wants to maintain and which he wants to shut down. Provisions in the bill effectively allow the President to operate programs at the prior year's levels or effectively shut them down -- both based only on his choosing -- for the duration of the CRs, which could easily be very late in the fiscal year, the entire year, or even longer.
* Impose new rules on congressional action that create pressure only on Congress, effectively giving President Trump and future presidents the power to hold Congress hostage to achieve their desired outcome.
Shutdowns cause substantial damage. But as painful as shutdowns are, automatic CRs could cause a longer-term unraveling of the annual appropriations process and inflict damage that, while possibly less immediately evident than a shutdown, could have more severe long-term consequences. If automatic CRs become the norm for significant parts of the federal government, they would likely yield funding levels that would become less adequate and less efficiently allocated over time. This in turn would result in critical funding priorities being unmet, less funding for medical research to save lives, and millions of families left without the help they need to afford the growing cost their basic needs.
Automatic Mechanism Could Prolong Disruptive, Inefficient Funding Bills
Congress employs continuing resolutions when it has failed to enact all the regular annual appropriations needed to fund government operations before the fiscal year begins on October 1. CRs provide temporary authority for agencies to continue operating at some specified rate of spending, usually based on the prior year's funding level. CRs have specific expiration dates, typically lasting no more than two to three months and sometimes as little as one day. In addition, they are automatically superseded when regular appropriations are enacted. Often, successive CRs are needed before Congress finishes regular appropriations.
CRs typically include "anomalies": spending increases above the prior year's level to pay for pressing needs in particular programs or spending reductions reflecting reduced funding needs. Even short-term CRs typically include a number of anomalies. When Congress has enacted CRs for a full fiscal year, those measures included many pages of upward and downward adjustments to reflect changes in needs.[3] Indeed, even the temporary CRs enacted by the start of the fiscal year, October 1, have averaged 11 pages over the past decade.[4]
In contrast, automatic CRs would be a mechanical, hard freeze at the prior year's level on a program-by-program basis, with none of the anomalies to adjust funding to address pressing needs. For instance, anomalies have been included to ensure sufficient funding to prevent households from losing their rental assistance, and to maintain participation for all eligible applicants in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) -- neither of which would have been possible at frozen levels due to inflation or other factors. Under the Lankford-Hassan proposal's hard freeze, the most a program would get is current funding, and even that's not a given, since the bill grants the President leeway to reduce or perhaps zero out funding for programs he doesn't like (discussed more below).
The levels set by an automatic CR would be less problematic if they were only in effect for a short period, as is often the case with regular CRs. But once legislation makes CRs automatic, they would likely become the default approach, with an automatic CR remaining in place for extended periods.
Today, long delays in enacting full-year appropriations are already common, given the increasingly contentious nature of appropriation debates, with major disagreements over both funding levels and legislative "riders" that would change underlying laws. And this is the case even though the looming expiration of short-term CRs pressures policymakers to come to agreement and creates definite deadlines for doing so. An automatic CR, with no deadline and no votes needed to create or extend it, would have no such action-forcing event. Further, it would free the President to veto any appropriations that he dislikes, with little repercussions.
The Lankford-Hassan proposal, which would put in place a 14-day CR that renews automatically, attempts to create pressure to finish appropriations bills by restricting members' paid travel and requiring Congress to address only appropriations while an automatic CR is in effect. But all of this pressure is on Congress -- it reduces pressure on the President to negotiate in good faith. Indeed, the main pressure the proposal creates, by preventing a government shutdown, is for Congress to accede to the President's demands.
Without the often-painful disruptions caused by government shutdowns, those who oppose the appropriations bills being negotiated -- whether the President or a determined minority in Congress -- would face no pressure to resolve appropriations disputes, leaving funding levels for every program frozen at the prior year level or lower.
Automatic CRs Would Shift Power to the Executive
Enacting an automatic CR would shift power from Congress to the executive branch. In particular, the President would be able to veto appropriations bills he does not support without causing the disruption associated with a government shutdown. For a president looking to cut programs, there is little incentive to agree to any new bills without significant concessions.
Further, the current version of the Lankford-Hassan proposal includes two provisions that were not in previous versions of this bill (or any automatic CR bill) before this Congress. These provisions would allow the President to withhold or limit funding for a program covered by an automatic CR to avoid "impinging on final funding prerogatives."[5] This kind of language is typical in short-term CRs to prevent significant program spending prior to Congress setting final levels in a full-year appropriations bill. But under an ongoing set of rolling 14-day automatic CRs, the President could simply withhold nearly all funds for programs he wants to eliminate, leaving those programs on life support; if he continues to veto bills for the entire fiscal year, he could effectively close down such programs.
All of the pressure created by the Lankford-Hassan proposal would fall on Congress. This bill would essentially allow President Trump and any future president to hold Congress hostage to get the changes they want: the President, by continually vetoing appropriations bills and triggering an automatic CR, could keep Congress stuck in Washington, reduce or zero out funding for targeted programs, and face little or no political pressure to reach an agreement.
These concerns are heightened with the current Administration, which has routinely proposed deep cuts in non-defense appropriations that Congress has largely rejected on a bipartisan basis. In 2026, for instance, the Trump Administration proposed a 21 percent cut relative to the 2025 level for non-defense programs. But the final appropriation bills provided a slight increase (1.1 percent) in overall funding, with some receiving increases and others declining, reflecting updated funding priorities. Notably, the Administration proposed more than a 34 percent cut for the departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. But Congress' appropriations bill provided them an increase of nearly 7 percent, primarily to accommodate the rising cost of rents so that rental assistance could continue serving the same number of families (even though that is still only 1 in every 4 eligible households).[6]
Further, the President could veto an appropriations bill for reasons beyond just the funding levels. Congress appropriates money often for broad budget accounts (for example, "Aircraft Procurement, Air Force") and then provides more explicit instructions in the accompanying committee and conference reports. During the second Trump Administration, Congress has gone a step further to try to address the Administration's brazen interference with federal funding, placing report language directly in the text of 2026 appropriations bills, as well as including other targeted guardrails to ensure that the Administration follows congressional intent.[7] And it seems that Congress will need to pursue even more robust, government-wide guardrails in 2027 appropriations to contain the Administration's ongoing abuses -- efforts the Administration will surely resist.[8] Indeed, a president could use his power to continually veto appropriations bills and so impose an indefinite automatic CR to pressure Congress to enact legislation he favors that has nothing to do with annual appropriations.
Finally, it is worth noting that the Lankford-Hassan proposal also creates imbalances in the legislative process that give more power to a determined minority. For instance, the proposal would prohibit the Senate from acting on business other than appropriations while an automatic CR is in place unless the prohibition is waived by a two-thirds vote. This two-thirds requirement would apply in the Senate even when the fundamental cause of a lack of appropriations is the failure of the House to act -- or a deliberate choice by the House not to act. And when the two-thirds majority requirement is in effect, a determined minority can effectively grind the entire legislative process to a halt -- on both appropriations and other matters as well. That is particularly true when that minority is of the same party as the President, who can support them by vetoing appropriations.
Automatic CRs Would Make It Easier to Shrink Government
Automatic CRs would give a powerful new tool to those who want to cut funding for programs and services. If a freeze under an automatic CR became the default, policymakers opposed to funding increases for particular agencies or programs could prevail simply by blocking any appropriations bill providing those increases (such as by filibustering it or refusing to bring it to the floor). Similarly, if the President preferred a funding freeze to a regular appropriation bill, a simple veto would do the trick and the bill's opponents would only have to sustain the veto. The longer a freeze is in effect, the larger the reduction in purchasing power (as inflation and a growing population push up the cost of providing federal services and benefits). This fundamental flaw applies even if an automatic CR does not include provisions such as those in the Lankford-Hassan proposal that grant a president additional power to cut below a freeze level.
Currently, appropriation levels are set through the give and take of the legislative process. But with an automatic CR, policymakers could bring about freezes without ever actually voting for them, simply by voting against the alternatives. Opponents of funding increases could take a "hands off" approach to shrinking government, with little incentive to reach agreement on appropriations.
While design changes to an automatic CR might moderate some of the problems with this mechanism,[9] the biggest problems would remain. An automatic CR would make it more difficult to revise program-by-program discretionary funding levels each year to respond to pressing national needs and would diminish Congress' role in establishing national priorities.
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Sam Berger, Senior Fellow
Richard Kogan, Senior Fellow
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End Notes
[1] A "government shutdown" affects only a portion of federal programs -- those funded by annual appropriations and where funding has lapsed because regular appropriations bills or a continuing resolution has not been enacted. Almost three-quarters of federal programs are financed outside the annual appropriations process. For an explanation of government shutdowns, see Center on American Progress, "What Happens During a Government Shutdown?" September 21, 2023, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/what-happens-during-a-government-shutdown/.
[2] Prevent Government Shutdowns Act of 2026, S. 4632, https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/4632.
[3] The full-year continuing appropriation for fiscal year 2011 (P.L. 112-10) contained 94 pages of anomalies and other adjustments and covered all of the government except the Department of Defense. See https://www.congress.gov/112/plaws/publ10/PLAW-112publ10.pdf. The full-year continuing appropriation for fiscal year 2013 (P.L. 113-6) covered seven appropriation bills and included 23 pages of anomalies. See https://www.congress.gov/113/plaws/publ6/PLAW-113publ6.pdf. And the full-year continuing appropriation for fiscal year 2025 (P.L. 119-4) covered the entire government and contained 31 pages of anomalies. See https://www.congress.gov/119/plaws/publ4/PLAW-119publ4.pdf.
[4] Those start-of-year CRs have been the vehicles for other provisions as well, such as extensions of expiring health or transportation provisions or, on occasion, enactment of the full text of regular appropriations for one or a few appropriations subcommittees. This can aid Congress in the enactment of other legislation that might instead have been vetoed -- another reason that an automatic CR might weaken Congress and strengthen a president. Counting the additional material, those start-of-year CRs have averaged 60 pages of text over the last decade.
[5] Section 1311(f) states that "no grants" shall be made "that would impinge on final funding prerogatives." This language is not limited to congressional prerogatives, and could affect education and housing grants, or the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, for example. Section 1311(g) states that "only the most limited funding action ... shall be taken in order to provide for continuation of programs, projects, and activities." This language would allow a president to fund any program below the freeze level while an automatic CR is in effect. See Prevent Government Shutdowns Act of 2026, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119s4632pcs/pdf/BILLS-119s4632pcs.pdf.
[6] Joel Friedman et al., "Tight 2026 Non-Defense Funding Rejects Trump's Proposed Deep Cuts, But Congress Will Need to Continue to Guard Against Administration Abuses," CBPP, revised April 9, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/tight-2026-non-defense-funding-rejects-trumps-proposed-deep-cuts-but.
[7] Sonali Master, Sam Berger, and Devin O'Connor, "Congress Should Include Robust Government-wide Guardrails in 2027 Appropriations to Halt Unprecedented Interference by Trump Administration," CBPP, May 18, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/blog/congress-should-include-robust-government-wide-guardrails-in-2027-appropriations-to-halt.
[8] Ibid.
[9] An alternative approach to an automatic CR, for instance, would set funding at the previous year's level adjusted for inflation or economic growth. While this would reduce the problems caused by a funding freeze, it wouldn't solve the other problems that an automatic CR poses. Funding priorities wouldn't adjust to reflect new realities, and opponents of new investments could simply hold out for an automatic CR rather than negotiate new levels and funding priorities.
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Original text here: https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/an-automatic-continuing-resolution-is-not-a-good-solution-for-government
[Category: ThinkTank]
Capital Research Center Issues Commentary: Enemies of Energy - Union of Concerned Scientists
WASHINGTON, June 19 (TNSrpt) -- The Capital Research Center issued the following commentary on June 18, 2026, by Managing Editor and Director of Content Ken Braun:* * *
Enemies of Energy: Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)
"Modern technologies like wind and solar power are safe, abundant, cheap, reliable, and they don't heat up the Earth," claim the Union of Concerned Scientists who are clearly not concerned when their turbines eat up the Earth.
Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from Enemies of Energy, a research report created for the Capital Research Center.
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One way to identify ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, June 19 (TNSrpt) -- The Capital Research Center issued the following commentary on June 18, 2026, by Managing Editor and Director of Content Ken Braun: * * * Enemies of Energy: Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) "Modern technologies like wind and solar power are safe, abundant, cheap, reliable, and they don't heat up the Earth," claim the Union of Concerned Scientists who are clearly not concerned when their turbines eat up the Earth. Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from Enemies of Energy, a research report created for the Capital Research Center. - One way to identifyanti-energy NGOs pretending to be nature-saving nonprofits is to look at their website for pictures of wind turbines and solar panels polluting what could--and should--be pristine landscapes. Doing this with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) required less than one second of research during February of 2026. Plastered atop the UCS home page was a huge photo of a snow-capped cliff, soaring gloriously above the ocean and covered with... giant turbine towers. (The image has since been replaced but is still available from the Wayback Machine). The UCS motto embedded this slogan on the image: "We use science to make change happen." Hopefully their idea of "change" will be kept from the similarly soaring peaks in places such as the Rocky Mountains and Yosemite Valley. [i]
"Modern technologies like wind and solar power are safe, abundant, cheap, reliable, and they don't heat up the Earth," claim scientists clearly not concerned when their turbines eat up the Earth. [ii]
The scientists also aren't concerned about the limits of astronomy, meteorology, and math. To accept their "reliable" claim, it's necessary to believe the Earth has stopped spinning and hiding the sun every day; that cloud cover doesn't exist; and that the wind shows up exactly where it's needed, when it's needed, and goes away when it isn't needed. The "abundant" claim is impossible and the price irrelevant if the energy isn't reliable.
So, weather restricted power is definitely "cheap," but only in quality. That should be a concern for the scientists.
The UCS is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt nonprofit that reported total revenue of $41.9 million for the year ending September 2024, with $50.3 in expenses, and net assets of $60.8 million. Their IRS filing for the year reported that a combined $28.2 million was spent on the "climate and clean energy program" and the "clean transportation program." That's more than half of total expenses, so most of what UCS reported it was doing during the year was in one of those two, closely-related areas. The NGO spends less on other objectives, such as food safety and nuclear weapons proliferation. They are primarily an anti-energy NGO.[iii]
This is one of the objectives of the "climate and clean energy program," according to what the UCS told the IRS: "UCS works to make sure the major fossil fuel companies face legal, financial, reputational, and political consequences for misleading the public about climate science and solutions." [emphasis added] [iv]
Again, the UCS is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charity and isn't legally permitted to engage in a lot of political behavior. Threatening to inflict "political consequences" against a critical American industry doesn't come off as very charitable.
In addition to their war against hydrocarbons, the UCS has a cleverly nuanced animosity towards nuclear power, which emits no emissions other than water vapor (steam).
For most of its history there was no question that the UCS was opposed to nuclear power. For example, in February 1987 the New York Times reported the UCS was petitioning the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to close down eight nuclear reactors in five states.[v]
And in 1997 researchers from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst released a study examining the economic consequences of shutting down nuclear power stations by profiling the 1992 shutdown of the Yankee Rowe nuclear facility in Massachusetts. "Sophisticated protests by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a powerful advocacy group, against the continued use of the plant were frequent," wrote the authors. The report did not mention involvement from the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, nor the League of Conservation Voters. The only one of today's biggest anti-energy NGOs credited with the successful euthanasia of Yankee Rowe was the UCS. [vi]
France spent the 1970s and 1980s building a nuclear power industry that now provides 70 percent of their electricity and turned the French into Europe's largest electricity exporter. Americans could have done this as well, but growth of American nuclear power was stunted during this period, in no small measure because of the work of anti-nuclear NGOs. The Union of Concerned Scientists deserves a lot of the blame for today's lack of emissions-free nuclear power in America.[vii]
That destructive advocacy against America's largest source of emissions-free energy is hard to find on the UCS website today. Their page explaining nuclear power now concedes that "the low-carbon electricity provided by existing nuclear power plants is increasingly valuable in the fight against climate change," but goes on to raise the predictable and dubious/hypocritical claims about safety, cost, and waste disposal. The headline of the page says it all: "Nuclear Power: Low-carbon electricity, with serious economic and safety issues."[viii]
Now the UCS wants us to remember that they have always been just a "nuclear safety watchdog" rather than a major impediment to the technology. But their policy is to be pro-nuclear in principle (saying they support it if it can be made perfect) yet opposed in practice (because nothing is perfect). It's a distinction without a difference. [ix]
A more reliable description of the UCS nuclear energy agenda was revealed in a 2020 comment the group sent to a state public utility commission, purportedly seeking to help Xcel Energy plan its investments in electricity generation: [x]
We can't avoid the dangerous and unjust impacts of the climate crisis if we swap coal for another polluting fossil fuel, and every dollar Xcel spends on nuclear is one less spent on clean energy. [emphasis added]/[xi]
Translation: reliable and carbon-free nuclear energy is bad because it takes money that should be spent on unreliable wind turbines and solar panels.
The evidence all points in the same direction, whether it's images of mountaintop wind turbines on the UCS home page, the decades of advocacy against reliable and clean nuclear power, or obscure comments made to public utility commissions. The Union of Concerned Scientists is very concerned with promoting the weather dependent power industry, but much less concerned with protecting the planet and empowering the people who live on it.
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Endnotes
[i] Home page. Union of Concerned Scientists. Accessed February 20, 2026. https://web.archive.org/web/20260223201912/https://www.ucs.org/
[ii] "Power Ahead." Union of Concerned Scientists. Accessed February 20, 2026. https://www.ucs.org/take-action/power-ahead
[iii] Union Of Concerned Scientists Inc. 2023 IRS Form 990. (EIN: 04-2535767) Accessed February 23, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/42535767/202512119349301666/full
[iv] Union Of Concerned Scientists Inc. 2023 IRS Form 990. (EIN: 04-2535767) Accessed February 23, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/42535767/202512119349301666/full
[v] "Group Urges Closing of 8 'Unstable' Reactors." New York Times. February 10, 1987. Accessed February 23, 2026. https://web.archive.org/web/20150524210930/https://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/11/us/group-urges-closing-of-8-unstable-reactors.html
[vi] Mullin, John R.;Kotval, Zenia. "The Closing of the Yankee Rowe Nuclear Power Plant: The Impact on a New England Community." Journal of the American Planning Association; Autumn 1997, Vol. 63 Issue 4. Accessed February 23, 2026. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/ecc8c9b0-50ad-44b9-b8e8-8b1b8ced2dcb/content
[vii] Nuclear Power in France. World Nuclear Association. Updated and accessed February 23, 2026. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france
[viii] "Nuclear Power: Low-carbon electricity, with serious economic and safety issues." Union of Concerned Scientists. Accessed February 23, 2026. https://www.ucs.org/energy/nuclear-power
[ix] "Nuclear Power: Low-carbon electricity, with serious economic and safety issues." Union of Concerned Scientists. Accessed February 23, 2026. https://www.ucs.org/energy/nuclear-power
[x] Orr, Isaac. "Clown Show: Union of Concerned Scientists Claims Nuclear Power Plants Are Not Clean Energy." Center of the American Experiment. December 22, 2020. Accessed February 23, 2026. https://www.americanexperiment.org/clown-show-union-of-concerned-scientists-claims-nuclear-power-plants-are-not-clean-energy/
[xi] Orr, Isaac. "Clown Show: Union of Concerned Scientists Claims Nuclear Power Plants Are Not Clean Energy." Center of the American Experiment. December 22, 2020. Accessed February 23, 2026. https://www.americanexperiment.org/clown-show-union-of-concerned-scientists-claims-nuclear-power-plants-are-not-clean-energy/
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Ken Braun
As managing editor and director of content of CRC, Ken Braun edits Capital Research magazine. He also conducts investigative research and drafts profiles for InfluenceWatch.org.
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REPORT: https://capitalresearch.org/app/uploads/FINAL-PDF_CRC_EnemiesofEnergy.pdf
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Original text here: https://capitalresearch.org/article/enemies-of-energy-union-of-concerned-scientists-ucs/
[Category: ThinkTank]
CSIS Issues Commentary: Irregular Warfare - Winning the Cognitive Domain
WASHINGTON, June 19 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on June 18, 2026, by Erol Yayboke, senior fellow (non-resident) with the Futures Lab, and Nickolas Wilcox, director at CACI International Inc.:* * *
Irregular Warfare: Winning the Cognitive Domain
The United States has repeatedly proven its ability to execute decisive kinetic strikes. Adversaries understand this, which is why they increasingly avoid conventional confrontation. Instead, they operate in the space of irregular warfare: leveraging autonomous systems, conducting cyber and infrastructure ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, June 19 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on June 18, 2026, by Erol Yayboke, senior fellow (non-resident) with the Futures Lab, and Nickolas Wilcox, director at CACI International Inc.: * * * Irregular Warfare: Winning the Cognitive Domain The United States has repeatedly proven its ability to execute decisive kinetic strikes. Adversaries understand this, which is why they increasingly avoid conventional confrontation. Instead, they operate in the space of irregular warfare: leveraging autonomous systems, conducting cyber and infrastructureattacks, and directing cognitive campaigns shaped by AI-driven narratives aimed at influencing populations and undermining legitimacy.
Despite attempts to catch up, the United States is behind on irregular warfare. Against the backdrop of continued hostilities in the Middle East, this analysis frames a critical challenge within irregular warfare: how to better leverage data and AI tools to win the cognitive domain.
Irregular warfare is not a new concept. The contest for hearts and minds has existed from Augustus to Petraeus; however, recent conflicts, from Afghanistan and Iraq to the ongoing tensions with Iran, highlight a persistent gap. The United States dominates conventional and tactical spaces but struggles to define, much less achieve, desired end states, including longer-lasting periods of peace between violent conflict. Despite battlefield success, the failure to align military, diplomatic, economic, and cognitive tools toward a coherent end state has repeatedly limited the ability to secure lasting outcomes.
The United States possesses the models, compute, resources, and talent to compete offensively in the information environment; however, it has not demonstrated the same willingness as Russia, China, and Iran to engage in cognitive warfare, often leaving uncontested space for adversaries deploying AI-generated content at scale--including, of course, Iran's recent viral videos.
As conflict simmers in Iran and beyond, military and intelligence leaders should assess the cognitive ground already lost and determine what it will take to regain initiative, including the intentional use of data to power agentic AI. As with any campaign, the first step remains defining strategic objectives before attempting to compete.
What Winning Doesn't Look Like
The United States' inability to win peace starts with failing to define success.
Take the conflict with Iran as an example. There are Iranian supporters of U.S. and Israeli actions. Many of them live outside of Iran, but research suggests that there is a small but vocal minority of anti-regime voices using virtual private networks, proxies, and other available tools from within the country to circumvent censors and share their views. However, these same signals show that there is a larger group of anti-regime voices who are displeased with Operation Epic Fury. They hate the regime, but they hate the United States more, a situation that suits Iranian generals just fine. Despite plenty of evidence suggesting that kinetic air power alone has no recorded examples of facilitating peace--much less regime change--these disaffected Iranians are the people who President Trump initially hoped would reinvigorate the protests of early 2026 and seize control of their government. Instead, the bombings, resilient leadership structures, shifting U.S. priorities, and the persistent information campaigns waged by Iran on its people and externally have soured the very Iranians on whom the president was initially relying.
Winning the cognitive domain requires first redefining success as sustained influence over public and diplomatic opinion, with an aim to reduce the possibility of escalation with adversaries and shift toward cooperation--or at least coexistence. Data is a major underappreciated difficulty in achieving that success.
Intentional Data: The Unsung Hero
Measuring incremental and strategic success in the cognitive domain is challenging: With intangible attributes like belief and perception, how does one definitively know if efforts present return on investment or even measurable results?
The answer begins with data. The United States possesses vast amounts of information, yet very little of it is purpose built. Most datasets are adapted from commercial markets or legacy intelligence frameworks that rely on overwhelming big data, which is expensive to decipher and often irrelevant. More importantly, these streams are often optimized for winning in a kinetic fight, not winning the cognitive domain. The result is that signals are noisy and expensive, leaving unstructured and hard-to-access environments underexploited. Consequently, planners operate with incomplete pictures of the systems they seek to influence.
The goal must be to feed better, more intentional data into analysis engines. Intentional data is not collected; it is designed. It begins with clearly defined strategic outcomes and builds collection, aggregation, and processing mechanisms aligned to a singular goal and clearly defined attributes of change. Today, we can discern human characteristics, attitudes, and various types of behaviors and beliefs as tangible metrics. Via agentic AI and ever-improving processing power, human behavior is targetable at the community--and even individual--level.
Systems must have the ability to process intentional data at scale and at the speed of relevance. Rapid advancements in agentic AI, particularly those powered by models that go beyond lean structures and static training datasets, mean that the capabilities exist today to meet the challenges outlined above. But technology without strategy compounds the issues of data and AI models. The speed, scale, and velocity of future data are only useful in service of a defined and codified strategy, one that ensures the agents have specific, intentional tasks; provide truly measurable results; and have humans in the loop at multiple points along the journey.
Reforming how and when humans make decisions within these decision loops is critical if agentic AI is to be deployed effectively and with trust in cognitive warfare. Human and agent actions must be tied to clearly defined strategies and outcomes, with mechanisms that measure progress against defined attributes of change, employing the next level of data and AI constantly pushing the bounds of capability. This requires integrating intentional data, suitable authorities, and operational design as a forethought, not an afterthought.
What Winning Looks Like
Winning the cognitive domain requires the United States to play the game adversaries are playing, thoroughly understanding and appreciating the unique nature of each conflict and its actors. And yet, adversaries continually outperform the United States in the cognitive domain, taking the fight to Americans and their allies at home and abroad. Realizing this deficit, the Department of Defense published an instruction on irregular warfare that better defines coercion in environments where success is more subtle and difficult to achieve. According to an official involved in issuing the instruction, an accompanying irregular warfare strategy document was drafted and coordinated informally across the department and shared with a panel of experts from defense and academic communities. This strategy should be reviewed by the Trump administration and issued immediately to give the military services and combatant commands the tools with which to operationalize it.
Though it is easier to define winning when dealing with conventional military terms like degrade, deny, disrupt, destroy, delay, and manipulate, these are insufficient given the current state of competition and the increasingly irregular nature of warfare. Part of the Trump administration's review should include coordinating a more realistic and useful definition of winning the cognitive domain. For example:
* de-escalation between hostile actors without conceding strategic ground, particularly in the information environment;
* persistent influence over key audiences and decisionmakers;
* strategic expansion of partnerships and alignment across allies and neutral actors; and
* the ability to shape environments without escalation to conflict.
Success should thus be seen as a constant state of competition, wherein the adversary believes it is in its best interest to cooperate and compete. Irregular warfare strategies and tactics should not be designed to close the door on adversaries; they should be designed to create positional advantage, staying ahead in a perpetual--not terminal--game of strategic competition.
The United States has spent decades optimizing for conflict without fully defining success in competition, much less in irregular warfare. The result has been tactical excellence paired with strategic ambiguity, exactly what can be seen in Iran. Reframing winning as sustained advantage, rather than decisive victory, shifts the game: from impossible endpoints to achievable positioning, from nebulous outcomes to actionable systems, and from big data to intentional data. This reframing would require a fundamentally different posture than the one that gave the United States decades of war with no clear definitions of success, particularly in the cognitive domain.
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Erol Yayboke is a senior fellow (non-resident) with the Futures Lab at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. He is also the chief operating officer at FilterLabs.AI.
Nickolas Wilcox is a director at CACI International Inc.
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Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/irregular-warfare-winning-cognitive-domain
[Category: ThinkTank]
AFPI Applauds FTC Lawsuit Against WPATH Harming American Children
WASHINGTON, June 19 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following statement on June 18, 2026:* * *
AFPI Applauds FTC Lawsuit Against WPATH Harming American Children
The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) released the following statement in response to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), along with the states of Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska, and Texas, filing suit against the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) for allegedly promoting false and unsubstantiated claims to sell experimental medical transitions on American children:
"This lawsuit is a victory ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, June 19 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following statement on June 18, 2026: * * * AFPI Applauds FTC Lawsuit Against WPATH Harming American Children The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) released the following statement in response to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), along with the states of Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska, and Texas, filing suit against the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) for allegedly promoting false and unsubstantiated claims to sell experimental medical transitions on American children: "This lawsuit is a victoryfor American children and another rebuke to the radical gender industrial complex that has been preying on vulnerable families," said Dr. Jennifer Bauwens, AFPI Director of American Values.
"Parents are being deceived with fallacious science and emotional manipulation to push drugs and surgeries that do not actually help children but are increasingly showing great and irreversible harms. These are not 'lifesaving' treatments; they are chemical and surgical experiments that rob children of their mental and physical health. We must protect our kids from those who profit from their confusion and distress."
AFPI stands firmly with the FTC and the states fighting to defend parental rights, biological reality, and a basic understanding of child development. No American child should be subjected to these irreversible, dangerous medical procedures.
Our nation's future depends on raising strong, healthy, and mentally sound generations, not lying to children and parents to create a generation of lifelong patients for profit.
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Original text here: https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/afpi-applauds-ftc-lawsuit-against-wpath-harming-american-children
[Category: ThinkTank]