Armed troops patrolling an American city is not a welcome sight. (Photo by Sean Lee on Unsplash) President Donald Trump’s plan to flood Democratic-led cities with armed National Guard troops, and, according to some reports, even active duty forces, is a terrible idea on many fronts. Forget the fact that the situation in the cities […]
Authoritarian regimes are known for repeating false claims to demonize the opposition and justify seizing more power. A similar pattern emerged under President Trump. Virtually every one of his Executive Orders begins with fantastical claims about threats to America posed by his opponents. These claims are then used to justify coercive and often illegal actions […]
The PlaybookOver the past eight months, the U.S. Foreign Service has faced a fundamental transformation. In 2025, the Trump administration adopted and operationalized the personnel overhaul blueprint laid out in Project 2025 to dismantle the non-partisan, professional core of the State Department and to replace it with a cadre of political loyalists beholden to executive […]
A Free Press is as essential to a democracy as State Controlled Media is essential to a dictator. President Trump has been raging against our free press since before he became president, and has continued to rage until this day. We heard “fake news,” as a descriptor of mainstream media early on. We then heard […]
Dear Presidents, We write on behalf of The Steady State, a group of more than 330 former senior national security and law enforcement professionals. Our members have served under every President of the United States—Republican and Democrat—over more than four decades. We are former Ambassadors, Inspectors General, Flag Officers, CIA Chiefs of Station, FBI Special […]
“The US Intelligence Community is under attack,” warns a well-documented, sobering recent analysis from a respected intelligence authority at the London-based Royal United Services Institute (known by its acronym, RUSI) that hasn’t received the attention it deserves. “What is new is that this adversary now sits in Washington, D.C: the current administration,” the RUSI analyst’s […]
We write on behalf of The Steady State, a group of more than 330 former senior national security and law enforcement professionals. Our members have served under every President—Republican and Democrat—for decades. We are former Ambassadors, Inspectors General, Flag Officers, CIA Chiefs of Station, FBI Special Agents, Defense and Homeland Security officials, and senior Intelligence […]
In his September 30, 2025, meeting with flag rank (general and admiral) officers and senior NCOs of all the military services, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made remarks regarding ‘rules of engagement’ that, in the view of someone who spent 20 years in uniform, including two tours in Vietnam, were troubling and highly problematic. The first […]
DATE-TIME GROUP: 301800ZSEPTEMBER25 FROM: EMBASSY OF FREDONIA, WASHINGTON D.C. TO: MFA NAGADOCHES CLASSIFICATION: CONEOFSILENCE // FREDONIAN EYES ONLY SUBJECT: SITREP 18 “THE FREDONIA PROJECT” – OBSERVATIONAL DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA IN CRISIS SEPTEMBER 12-30 2025 SUMMARY: IN ACCORDANCE WITH MFA DIRECTIVE 1826-APRIL-1, THIS EMBASSY HAS INITIATED A REGULAR SERIES OF ANALYTICAL DISPATCHES REGARDING THE INTERNAL DYNAMICS […]
Americans’ safety is a top concern for every U.S. ambassador and the whole of their Missions. Critical to this are the Embassy Consular sections who handle most of the support for Americans in-country, with the assistance of other embassy offices. Every State Department Foreign Service Officer must do at least one tour of consular work. […]