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Responsible Statecraft
Responsible Statecraft is a publication of analysis, opinion, and news that seeks to promote a positive vision of U.S. foreign policy based on humility, diplomatic engagement, and military restraint. RS also critiques the ideas — and the ideologies and interests behind them — that have mired the United States in counterproductive and endless wars and made the world less secure.
Top image credit: Project on Government Oversight
Air wars, drones, and US bases left strangely unprotected
February 05, 2026
The Bunker appears originally at the Project on Government Oversight and is republished here with permission.
Gravity takes over
It’s been a year since President Donald Trump launched what eventually became known as his Golden Dome for America. Powered by rhetoric, this multi-layered shield began soaring skyward 12 months ago, armed with a pledge to protect (PDF) the U.S. against all air and space threats. Last week, dragged down by reality, it reached its apogee and slowly began its slow and inexorable plunge back to Earth.
Some will say The Bunker is overreacting to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. After all, the term “Golden Dome” doesn’t even appear in the 62-page document. Yet the probe focuses on the heart of Golden Dome — its ability to detect and track missile launches. Failure’s fingerprints are all over the effort.
That’s not solely due to the rose-colored glasses worn by the defense-industry titans involved, although that’s certainly part of it. Those contractors include Lockheed (the Pentagon’s #1 supplier), Raytheon (#2), Northrop (#3), and L3Harris (#6). More important is the hubris of political leaders insisting on miracles that taxes, talent, tinkering, and time cannot yet produce. “The whole thing is at risk,” an unidentified former senior Pentagon official told Politico about Golden Dome February 2. You’d think someone who had to return to the airport recently because of an electrical problem aboard Air Force One — surely the world’s most-ready aircraft — would be a tad more skeptical when it comes to assaying technology’s wonders, and limits.
Per that new GAO report, the Pentagon’s Space Development Agency is pushing to put a fleet of 300 to 500 satellites into low Earth orbit to detect, warn, and track enemy-missile launches with infrared sensors. The SDA launched the first such satellites in September. This “Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture” (PDF) constellation is projected to cost nearly $35 billion through 2029.
Thirty-five billion.
That’s with a “b,” as in boondoggle.
But SDA “is overestimating the technology readiness of some critical elements it plans to use,” leading to “unplanned work” that “has added to already delayed schedules,” the GAO said (PDF). SDA is rushing to deploy the satellites, meaning it “is at risk of delivering satellites that do not meet warfighter needs” (the rush shouldn’t come as a surprise: the 7-year-old agency’s motto is Semper citius, Latin for Always faster). SDA keeps awarding contracts “irrespective of satellite performance.” And the Pentagon “does not know the life-cycle cost to deliver missile warning and tracking capabilities because it has not created a reliable cost estimate” because SDA only “required limited cost data from contractors.”
The GAO simply lists the problems plaguing the program. It doesn’t reach any conclusion regarding its utility or futility. So, The Bunker will step into the breach, based on decades of covering defense procurement: Golden Dome will never come close to achieving what Trump says it will. Taxpayers, however, will spend (and borrow) as if it can.
One more thing. These satellites last only five years. Current plans, the GAO said (PDF), call for replacements to be regularly launched “in perpetuity.”
Ukraine keeps rewriting the rules of combat
The share of Russian targets destroyed by Ukrainian drones now stands at more than 80%, Kyiv’s ministry of defense said January 26. Most of those low-cost drones are produced inside Ukraine. Those two factors — cheap and homemade — are why drones are destroying four of every five Russian targets following Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor nearly five years ago.
Ukraine claims it launched 819,737 drone strikes in 2025, including nearly 240,000 aimed at personnel, 62,000 against light vehicles, 29,000 against heavy vehicles, and 32,000 against Russian drones. “In December 2025, our units neutralized 35,000 occupiers – killed and badly wounded,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said. “Over 10 years of war in Afghanistan, the Soviet army lost half as many troops as the Russians lost in just one month of this war.”
Perhaps. It is important to recall what Aeschylus, the ancient Greek tragedian, supposedly said about truth being war’s first casualty. Nonetheless, regardless of the numbers, Ukraine has shown that drones can enable a smaller, weaker state to repel an attack by a more powerful adversary. That’s a tectonic shift.
Fascinatingly, Ukraine is gamifying warfare by awarding its drone operators points for video confirmation of their kills that they can use to procure new military gear. It’s like “Amazon for the military,” a top Ukrainian official said.
“We clearly record every single hit,” Zelensky said last week. “We also have points awarded for every hit. … Our bonus-based electronic points system is working to scale up the results our defense.”
One way it is trying to scale up its defense is to give its drones the ability to kill without human guidance, according to the January 25 cover story in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. “The era of killer robots has begun to take shape on the battlefield,” C.J. Chivers wrote. “Drones with newly developed autonomous features are now in daily combat use.”
US bases exposed to drone attacks
Major U.S. military bases and sensitive defense sites inside the country remain vulnerable to drone attacks, despite policies purportedly requiring their defense. There have been numerous cases of mysterious drones poking around U.S. military installations in recent years. Concern over such attacks spiked following 2025’s Operation Spiderweb, a Ukrainian drone attack on Russian aircraft launched from trucks deep inside Russia.
But there is confusion over which U.S. military facilities warrant drone protection, according to a January 20 report by the Department of Defense inspector general. While nine categories of military bases inside the U.S. — ranging from nuclear deterrence to missile defense — are to be protected from such attacks, there are curious omissions.
Training bases, for example, aren’t automatically on the list. So, Arizona’s Luke Air Force Base, where 75% of F-35 pilots learn to fly the world’s most advanced jet, isn’t protected. “Because training is not explicitly listed as one of the nine covered mission areas,” the IG said (PDF), “DoD officials told us that training is not covered.”
Neither are all sensitive military-production sites. California’s Air Force Plant No. 42 — owned by the Air Force but operated by private companies who are building the B-21 bomber there, as well as maintaining B-2 bombers and RQ-4 Global Hawk drones — isn’t designated for protection from drone attacks, either. Or maybe it is. Best to let the IG “explain”:
“DoD officials could not tell us whether or not it is covered. The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (USD[P]) list of covered facilities and assets shows Plant 42 as not covered. However, the Air Force’s list shows Plant 42 as covered, but Air Force officials told us that Plant 42 is not covered. In August 2024, a series of UAS [Unmanned Aircraft System] incursions occurred at the Air Force’s Plant 42. Air Force officials told us that the government-owned, contractor-operated facility was denied coverage during the active incursions.”
Apparently, the fog of war has spread from the world’s far-flung battlefields to that sprawling factory in Palmdale, California, 50 miles north of Los Angeles. While the Pentagon has issued more than 20 policies and regulations governing drone defenses for domestic bases, “most of the DoD documents are secret and therefore cannot be discussed in this advisory,” the IG said (PDF). Besides, “some of the requirements within the DoD documents contradict one another.”
But not to worry! The Pentagon has told the IG it is cleaning up this mess. Just to make really, really, sure, on January 30 it issued new guidance to protect U.S. military bases, and other critical infrastructure, from drone attacks.
Here's what caught The Bunker's eye recently
NATO nations are facing a balloon blizzard from Russian-allied states that are currently smuggling cigarettes but could carry weapons, Aaron Wiener, Mary Ilyushina, and Ellen Francis of the Washington Post reported January 30.
Defense contractors defend their payments of dividends to stockholders while the Trump administration is saying that they should be spending more modernizing their factories, Drew FitzGerald reported February 2 in the Wall Street Journal.
Drones threaten the battlefield primacy of tanks. The U.S. Army just got what might be its final tank model, Dave Phillips reported January 30 in the New York Times.
Tanks for reading The Bunker this week. Please forward this missive on to future readers so they can subscribe here.
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Top photo credit: Cuba's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Carlos Fernandez de Cossio speaks during an interview with Reuters in Havana, Cuba, February 2, 2026. REUTERS/Norlys Perez
A deal that Cuba (and Trump) cannot refuse?
February 05, 2026
Last week, President Trump declared a national emergency regarding Cuba and threatened to impose 30% tariffs on countries supplying Havana with oil. The move made clear that Washington is exerting maximum leverage over the island in bilateral talks the president says are taking place but Cuban authorities deny.
As Cuba's economy descends into free fall and its population leaves the island at unprecedented levels, Trump says he'll be "kind" and wants to avoid a "humanitarian crisis" in the deal he intends to strike with Cuban leaders. At the same time, he reiterated his hopes that talks will lead to a "free Cuba" and the return of Cuban Americans who left after the 1959 Cuban Revolution and resettled in South Florida.
As Cuban authorities say they are ready for “serious dialogue” with the U.S. on a range of issues, except for “its constitution, political system and economic model” — and in the wake of an apparent detente with the ruling regime in Venezuela following the capture by the U.S. military of its president, Nicolas Maduro — one could ask, what would a realistic deal with Cuba look like right now?
An obvious agreement with Havana is waiting on the table for Trump to seize. If only his advisers, most importantly Cuban-American Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to whom he has thus far effectively outsourced Cuba policy, weren't leading him to believe that the Cuban regime is about to collapse, and that civil unrest from prolonged power cuts will magically produce a pliant regime rather than a consolidation of the armed forces and mass emigration during an election year.
Through pragmatic negotiations, Trump can strike a deal with Cuba that helps revive the country's tourism industry, gain access to critical minerals and supply chains for U.S. companies, and resolve billions of dollars in outstanding property claims through investment in future development and infrastructure projects. In exchange for the lifting of U.S. restrictions on travel and investment, Cuba can release political prisoners, accept more U.S. deportees, reduce its ties with extra-hemispheric actors, and boost security, counterterrorism, and judicial cooperation with the U.S. — setting the two adversaries on an imperfect, yet necessary, path toward normal relations.
To be clear, Trump’s threat to impose increased tariffs on exports to the U.S. by third countries, particularly Mexico, if they continue to provide fuel to Havana would constitute collective punishment that could result in the needless death of thousands of innocent Cubans.
The pretext that Cuba — a tiny, broke, and aging island — constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the United States is ludicrous. The consensus view of the U.S. intelligence community is that Cuba does not sponsor or finance terrorism. There is also no evidence that Cuba hosts foreign military or intelligence bases; and there is no credible evidence that it welcomes transnational terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, as Trump’s executive order asserts.
Cuba is, in fact, a reliable U.S. partner on shared security issues and seeks even greater counternarcotics and counterterrorism cooperation with Washington, which many U.S. law enforcement agencies favor as well.
These issues, among others that form the basis of the administration’s purported “America First” foreign policy toward the Western Hemisphere, should remain front and center in any talks with the Cuban government, which some dissident media outlets say have been taking place between the CIA and Raul Castro’s son, Alejandro Castro Espín in Mexico since at least last week. Castro Espin was the lead Cuban negotiator during secret bilateral talks under the second Obama administration which concluded with the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Yet Rubio and his allies in Congress who have long rejected dialogue with a government they see as illegitimate and who insist that the president cannot lift Cuba sanctions until there is regime change, could play spoilers in any deal with Havana. Rubio, however, has been forced to go along with Trump’s apparent rapprochement with the chavista government in Venezuela, and, while Cuba may be the one issue where Rubio will not moderate his stance, he may decide that any future presidential aspirations he may hold would not necessarily be undermined by going along, at least in the short term, with something less than the overthrow of Cuba’s government.
Rubio and other high-level Cuban-American officials would be wise to put aside their maximalist demands for immediate regime change — which, in any case, have never produced concessions from the Cuban government — and help deliver a realistic deal for the president that can help advance his strategic aims on immigration drug trafficking critical minerals, and reducing Russian and Chinese influence 90 miles off Florida’s coast.
The good news is that these areas, including others, such as economic reforms in Cuba itself, are ones that Havana is open to discussing, assuming the U.S. upholds its side of the deal, sources familiar with the Cuban government’s thinking tell RS.
Trump’s executives have for years scouted and registered Trump’s trademark on the island, and the president has many wealthy Cuban-American friends and donors who would like to do business there on favorable terms. As Cuban tourism plummets, with hotel occupancy rates hovering around 25%, Trump could, under Cuba’s current foreign investment laws, facilitate the development of numerous hotels and resorts on Cuba’s prime, yet underdeveloped, oceanfront real estate, similar to his company’s recently announced plans in Vietnam. These privately owned developments could offer a major boost to the Cuban economy if accompanied by relaxed U.S. travel restrictions to the island and the issuance of specific licenses to import U.S. provisions and fuel.
Cuba also has the world’s third and fifth largest reserves respectively, of cobalt and nickel, both strategic minerals currently being mined by the Canadian firm Sherritt International. A deal with Cuba could include an agreement for U.S. companies to bid on Sherritt’s mining concessions, explore Cuba’s modest offshore oil reserves — currently being developed by Chinese, Angolan, and Australian firms — and help modernize the country’s deteriorated energy infrastructure, as the island seeks in its foreign investment portfolio.
Trump has mentioned that he wants the “people that came from Cuba, that were forced out or left under duress, taken care of,” leading many to believe he’s referring to the billions of dollars in unresolved property claims stemming from the nationalizations that took place after the Cuban Revolution.
Because Cuba has no money to pay out these claims — and with two of these high- profile disputes being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court this month — Trump could work out an arrangement whereby certified claimants could acquire investment stakes in much-needed development and infrastructure projects on the island, similar to the debt conversion program Cuba recently worked out with Spain. Washington and Havana made limited progress on resolving these claims through similar mechanisms in 2015, yet any serious negotiation would have to contend with Cuba’s counterclaim for billions of dollars in damages from Washington’s 64-year-old trade embargo.
With these commitments made by the U.S. side, which could help revive the Cuban economy, assuage some of the island’s energy shortages, and clear obstacles to increased foreign investment, Cuba could commit to releasing hundreds of political prisoners, as Secretary Rubio has demanded. Havana abided by a similar, Vatican-mediated deal reached in the final days of the Biden administration last year.
It could also agree to accept more regular deportation flights from the U.S., a priority of Trump’s, and commit to boosting security cooperation, resuming joint counternarcotics operations and contributing intelligence to U.S. anti-money laundering and terrorism financing investigations, as the island has repeatedly offered.
But most importantly, with increased investment, tourism, trade and security ties with the U.S., Cuba could agree to reduce its economic and military ties with extra-hemispheric actors like Russia and China which the island has sought out mostly out of necessity, not choice.
*****
Trump recently acknowledged that Cubans are “tough people,” noting that their government has endured despite the economic challenges it has faced following the collapse of its chief patron, the Soviet Union, more than 30 years ago. Before his first term in office, he said that he was “fine” with President Obama’s opening to Havana but insisted that he would’ve made a better deal.
Trump intuitively understands that pragmatic engagement and direct negotiations — rather than coercion, intransigence and force— offer the best path to securing cooperation from Cuba and advancing U.S. interests on the island.
It’s now up to Marco Rubio to decide whether he wants to stand in the president’s way, or help break a 60-year stalemate and deliver the deal with Cuba that Trump has always sought.
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Top image credit: Russia's President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Syria's President Ahmed al-Sharaa during a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on October 15, 2025. Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool via REUTERS
Why Russia survived — and may thrive — after Syria regime change
February 04, 2026
Late last month, Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa visited Moscow, for the second time since assuming office.
“I saw a lot of snow on the way and recalled a story,” he said to President Putin in the Kremlin. “I recalled how many military powers tried to reach Moscow, but failed due to the courage of Russian soldiers, and also because nature itself helped to protect this blessed land.”
These were surprising remarks from a military leader whose forces had been bombed by Russian war planes during the Civil War, though they appeared sincere.
Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s downfall was a blow for the Kremlin, but it did take it on the chin. Now, the relationship needs to be rebuilt on a new basis—not between patron and client, but on an equal footing. Russia is a part of the new Syrian government’s diversification agenda: Syria needs all the friends it can get, but without becoming a pawn in somebody else’s geopolitical game. Moscow, for now, seems happy to offer that.
For Syria, pragmatic reasons lay on the surface. Moscow is a long-term military partner. Most of its weapons come from Russia, and Syrian personnel are trained to use them. Syria needs a helping hand with efforts to maintain the peace, and the Russian Military Police officers, effective in the past and acceptable to the local population, man eight observation points between Quneitra and the Golan Heights. Damascus has been in talks with Moscow to deploy Russian monitoring forces to stabilize Southern Syria, for which discussions with Israel are ongoing.
Damascus seeks to open the country to the world, but Syria has few ready offers, while the Kremlin is prepared to deliver economic assistance and grain shipments to show goodwill as it continues negotiations over its military bases there. Notably, Russia holds around US$ 20 billion in investments across productive sectors in Syria, encompassing energy, infrastructure and industrial facilities, which serve the country's long-term needs.
The international equation is also in Moscow’s favour. Russia’s permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council gives it leverage to support the new government, and it remains influential in regional affairs. The U.S. and Russia no longer play against each other, and their interests in Syria have become congruent, while the end of the Iranian presence was a relief for both.
Washington and Moscow wish the new government well in restoring stability and territorial integrity, as the withdrawal of U.S. support to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces showed. This change prompted Russia to leave its base in Qamishli, but it had served its purpose, and the times have changed. The troops are going to where they are needed — to Ukraine.
There are other reasons that are less obvious. During al-Sharaa’s first visit to Moscow in 2025, one member of his delegation did not wear a beard, which was unusual in the Islamist-led government. This was the President’s older brother, Maher al-Sharaa, who holds the most trusted position of Syria’s Secretary-General of the Presidency (head of the Presidential Office). Until 2022, while Ahmad led the holy war in the Middle East, Maher worked as a women’s doctor in Russia’s Voronezh, and was married to a Russian.
Thus, reaching out to the new leadership was possible due to deep-running personal connections, and Maher al-Sharaa was put in charge of building relations with Moscow.
Moreover, the leaders’ political instincts coincide. The situation in Syria is not ideal, but al-Sharaa knows that Moscow is not going to lecture him on democratic deficit and human rights. What matters most is that Syria has a stable government that controls the country and fights the Islamic State (IS), and that its leadership is driven by national interest.
Putin’s own remarks suggest that he believes the Syrian president deserves respect. Al-Sharaa is a self-made leader who rose to prominence through the trials of war, and could well prove to be more effective than Assad, long tangled up in corruption and family scheming.
The two sides have a reciprocal concern to disrupt security threats emanating from each other’s territory. While Assad, in asylum in Moscow, keeps to his end of the bargain, living as a private pensioner, figures from his Alawi entourage in Russia are reportedly plotting against the new powerholders in Damascus. Al-Sharaa needs Putin to stop these clandestine activities and press for the repatriation of siphoned Syrian funds.
Moscow has security concerns of its own. In the 2010s, at least 5,500 Muslim fighters from Russia went to Syria to join Salafi-jihadi groups. North Caucasian battalions, such as Ajnad al-Kavkaz, made a prominent contribution to the victory of Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Several commanders were rewarded with senior appointments in the new Ministry of Defence, such as Abdullah al-Dagestani, the leader of Jaysh al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar.
On their entry into Damascus, the North Caucasian fighters raised the flag of the Imarat Kavkaz, a terrorist organisation from Chechnya, which was previously believed to be defunct.
Moscow prefers the fighters from Russia to integrate in Syria rather than attempt to return to their homeland, join IS or fight for third countries, particularly Ukraine. The connection between Chechen actors and Ukraine intensified since 2022, when they took their conflict from Syria to the battle of Bakhmut and into Kursk, threatening to target the North Caucasus. Their presence in Syria requires delicate handling by al-Sharaa. His former Chechen comrades-in-arms already signalled displeasure, and he cannot afford to turn them into enemies.
Long-term investment in human capital through culture, education, and mobility to Russia has also fostered social integration. At least 35,000 graduates of Soviet and Russian universities entered the Syrian professional class during Assad’s reign. After a brief hiatus, in 2025, Moscow restarted the allocation of student scholarships.
Culture is important for both nations, especially since Syrians are painfully aware of the heritage lost during the war. Here, rehabilitation efforts in Palmyra through a partnership with the Russian State Hermitage in St. Petersburg and the Russian Institute of the History of Material Culture have been appreciated. Even more illustrative was the January 2025 reopening of the Opera House in Damascus, with Tchaikovsky’s pieces played at the inaugural concert. Classical music may not be for everybody, but a critical mass exists who feel that string concerts of Syrian musicians trained in Moscow and St. Petersburg are an integral part of Damascene city life, as well as art exhibitions, and performative displays by the Russian-educated artists.
Transnational individuals and networks also contributed to societal penetration. Examples include co-ethnic politicians and businessmen with connections to both Russia and Syria, such as Ziad Sabsabi, the Aleppo-born Chechen politician who became a senator from Chechnya in the Russian Federal Assembly, and Syrian-Ingush businessman Loay Al-Youssef. Consequently, business ties, work and diaspora connections with informal power-brokers in Syria created a dense matrix of horizontal relations that could operate largely independently of central powers.
In total, multiple assets in Syria provide Moscow with a foundation for developing a new policy built on shared interests rather than Damascus serving as a supplicant. There are many moving parts, but, if effective, it could be more enduring and mutually beneficial than the old Assad arrangements of the past.
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