The secretary’s order, signed Friday but first made public Tuesday, came after an eye-opening investigation by ProPublica revealed Microsoft had been relying on China-based engineers to support DOD cloud computing systems.

Short on specific details, Hegseth’s order enlists the CIO — with the support of the department’s heads of acquisition and sustainment, intelligence and security, and research and engineering — to “take immediate actions to ensure to the maximum extent possible that all information technology capabilities, including cloud services, developed and procured for DoD are reviewed and validated as secure against supply chain attacks by adversaries such as China and Russia.”

Hegseth first referenced his order in a video posted to X on Friday, in which he said, “some tech companies have been using cheap Chinese labor to assist with DoD cloud services,” calling for a “two-week review” to make sure that isn’t happening anywhere else in the department’s tech supply chains.

The secretary, in both his video and the new memo, stopped short of calling out Microsoft specifically. However, a spokesperson for the company has since stated publicly that it has made changes to “assure that no China-based engineering teams are providing technical assistance for DoD Government cloud and related services.”

“This is obviously unacceptable, especially in today’s digital threat environment,” Hegseth said in the Friday video, claiming that the system at the center of the incident is “a legacy system created over a decade ago during the Obama administration.”

He added: “We have to ensure the digital systems that we use here at the Defense Department are ironclad and impenetrable, and that’s why today I’m announcing that China will no longer have any involvement whatsoever in our cloud services.”

The memo itself calls on the department to “fortify existing programs and processes utilized within the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) to ensure that adversarial foreign influence is appropriately eliminated or mitigated and determine what, if any, additional actions may be required to address these risks.” Specifically, it cites the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) — the final rule for which, as of Wednesday, is undergoing regulatory review with the Office of Management and Budget — acting CIO Katie Arrington’s new Software Fast Track program, and the FedRAMP process as existing efforts the Pentagon CIO should rely on to ensure the department’s tech is secure.

Within 15 days of the order’s signing, DOD’s Office of the CIO must issue additional implementing guidance on the matter, led by department CISO Dave McKeown.

On top of that, it taps the undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security to “review and validate personnel security practices and insider threat programs of the DIB and cloud service providers to the maximum extent possible.”

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The planned engagement approaches as the war between Russia and Ukraine rages on, the U.S. and Israel have been bombing Iran, and China worries the West with its ongoing military buildup.

Mihkelson shed light on his team’s plan for the upcoming trip during a briefing with DefenseScoop and other participants in the country’s Defence Study Programme last week.

“We’re not asking for anything. We are showing through our own commitments and actions, and what is our understanding on what should be done together as allies — and why it is important our alliance and Europe remain as good allies for us when it comes to how to balance China and China’s growth,” he said.

Mihkelson has served in the Riigikogu (the official name for the Parliament of Estonia) for more than two decades. Prior to that, he worked in multiple capacities as a journalist, including as a foreign correspondent based in Moscow. 

At last week’s briefing, he provided an overview of his nation’s current political and industrial landscape, particularly in the context of national security. 

Estonia is known globally for its efficient operation of digital government services. Mihkelson said this legacy is in many ways linked to the nation’s history of being occupied by the Soviet Union for 50 years, before gaining independence in the early 1990s. Now, according to the MP, Estonia has the highest number of technology startup “unicorns,” with a valuation of $1 billion or more, per capita in the world. 

Regarding his upcoming trip to Washington, which will mark his fifth in this capacity, Mihkelson said his team aims to meet with a range of U.S. government leaders — including members of the new Trump administration, lawmakers and officials serving at the State and Defense Departments.

“In the Pentagon, it’s critically important — especially for our Defence Ministry right now — to understand, kind of, what is [senior leaders’] way of thinking? What is [Undersecretary of Defense for Policy] Elbridge Colby thinking currently about the force posture in Europe or in Asia? And when I asked Americans in the south of Estonia, ‘What if somebody could ask you is it worth it to be here? Can you train enough? Is it really, like, important for you to be here as a soldier?’ The answer was ‘Absolutely, yeah,’” he told DefenseScoop. “This is why we have to be constantly in communication with Washington as well, to make sure that they at least get some sort of feedback directly from us, about what is important for us as a really committed ally.”

Officials in his delegation are also looking to meet with “think tankers” from the Hudson Institute, Heritage Foundation, and other organizations that prioritize shared research interests with Estonians.

Noting that his team previously had “quite a difficulty” meeting with the National Security Council and other White House elements of the former Biden administration, Mihkelson said he’s keen to engage with “smart people who understand the strategic reality in its complexity” now serving under President Donald Trump. 

Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Mike Lee, R-Utah — who recently met with the chairman in Estonia — are among the lawmakers he’s looking to connect with again while in Washington.

Regarding topics on the docket for discussion with his American counterparts, Mihkelson pointed to ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, and what he referred to as expanding efforts by Russia and China to divide the U.S. and its allies. 

“[China is] strongly united against, first and foremost, the United States,” he said, adding that Beijing seeks to undermine the U.S. internally and globally “as a leader of the free world.”

This preview of the trip was held shortly before Trump ordered the bombing of three nuclear sites in Iran.

But on the conflict that continues to evolve in the Middle East, Mihkelson said last week that he was “more than sure that the status quo is broken” after Israeli airstrikes destroyed what he called “quite significant amounts” of Iranian military assets.

“This might end up with very dramatic change, not only in the Middle East, but that will affect all of us,” he noted.

Beyond “close allies in America” and around Europe, Mihkelson and other members of the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee are also set for trips to meet with some of their security partners in the Pacific region, including New Zealand, Australia, Japan and the Philippines.  

“It’s just to really understand better what’s happening in that part of the world, which is very much directly connected to our security when it comes to progression in Taiwan, of course. And it’s also to explain, how do we see what should be done together as partners and with our allies to make sure that Russia and China will not succeed in destroying the world,” Mihkelson told DefenseScoop.

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“With our commercial assets, we have observed five different objects in space maneuvering in and out around each other in synchronicity and in control. That’s what we call dogfighting in space,” Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael Guetlein said Tuesday during the annual McAleese Defense Programs Conference. “They are practicing tactics, techniques and procedures to do on-orbit space operations from one satellite to another.”

A Space Force spokesperson told DefenseScoop that the series of demonstrations occurred last year and featured three Chinese Shiyan-24C experimental satellites and two experimental space objects known as the Shijian-6 05A/B. The rendezvous proximity operations tests were observed in low-Earth orbit via commercially available data, they added.

The demonstrations serve as yet another example of adversary advancements in space-based capabilities over the last few years. Co-orbital satellites could maneuver close to U.S. space systems in an attempt to disrupt or even directly hit them — raising further concerns about their potential use for military operations.

“Unfortunately, our current adversaries are willing to go against international norms of behavior … and they’re willing to do it in very unsafe and unprofessional manners,” Guetlein said. 

Along with maneuverable space vehicles, China has worked to develop anti-satellite missiles and other non-kinetic weapons that can attack U.S. platforms on-orbit. Russia has demonstrated similar counterspace capabilities, such as its 2021 test of an ASAT weapon that destroyed another Russian satellite. Moscow is also reportedly developing a nuclear space weapon that could create a massive energy wave and destroy multiple sats.

At the same time, the Space Force is monitoring cyber operations against U.S. space assets almost daily. Adversaries are also using their own satellites to shadow American on-orbit systems in a “cat-and-mouse game,” Guetlein said.

Guetlein’s comments come as the Space Force begins discussing its efforts to develop counterspace capabilities more publicly. The service recently added “space control” — that is, the ability to disrupt, degrade or destroy adversary systems via both kinetic and non-kinetic effects — to its list of “core functions.” Space control ops could include orbital warfare, electromagnetic warfare and other counterspace efforts.

And while the Space Force may be actively pursuing both offensive and defensive capabilities, Guetlein warned that Washington is at risk of losing its edge over Beijing and Moscow.

“There used to be a capability gap between us and our near peers, mainly driven by the technological advancement of the United States,” he said. “That capability gap has significantly narrowed, and we’ve got to change the way we’re looking at space, where that capability gap may reverse to not be in our favor anymore.”

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U.S. and allied officials have previously warned that American and allied pilots, engineers or other technical experts could be contacted online — via emails, networking sites or job listings — or in person as part of hiring efforts aimed at gaining knowledge for China about Western military tactics, techniques and procedures.

“To do this, the [People’s Liberation Army] has used private companies, like the Test Flying Academy of South Africa (TFASA), Beijing China Aviation Technology Co. (BCAT) and Stratos, to hire former fighter pilots from Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States and other Western nations to train PLA Air Force and Navy aviators,” according to a press release issued Friday by U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa.

The Pentagon views China’s People’s Liberation Army as its top strategic competitor.

DefenseScoop has reached out to USAFE and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations to ask if the latest warning was prompted by a recent uptick in these types of recruitment efforts or new methods of recruitment.

In Friday’s press release, officials suggested that current and former service members should immediately contact an Air Force Office of Special Investigations detachment or submit a tip online if they or a colleague have been targeted for recruitment to train foreign militaries.

The commander of AFOSI, Brig. Gen. Amy Bumgarner, noted that aviation know-how gained by the Chinese military poses a threat to national security.

 “AFOSI, alongside our law enforcement and counterintelligence counterparts will continue our unrelenting pursuit of any adversary jeopardizing our people, security, or resources to ensure the Air Force’s ability to fly, fight, and win in a future conflict,” Bumgarner said in a statement.

The press release noted that the latest warning was being issued after recent updates to German laws and those of other allied nations that allow for stiffer penalties for people who aid adversaries’ militaries.

“The new laws passed last year are proof that allies will seek to hold individuals accountable when they compromise the safety of our teammates by pursuing employment backed by our adversaries. We welcome these legal changes and encourage others allies to consider similar measures,” Gen. James Hecker, commander of NATO Allied Air Command and U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa, said in a statement.

American companies providing defense services to foreign countries are subject to U.S. laws, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, the release noted.

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Briefing the media in Stuttgart, Germany, during his first official overseas trip as the Pentagon chief, Hegseth shared new details about the Trump administration’s vision for DOGE-related disruption and modernization pursuits — and how they may or may not impact military and civilian personnel in the near term.

“There’s plenty of places where we want the keen eye of DOGE, but we’ll do it in coordination. We’re not going to do things that are to the detriment of American operational or tactical capabilities,” Hegseth said.

Mirroring promises he made on the campaign trail, President Donald Trump set DOGE up the same day he was officially sworn in, Jan. 20.

An executive order formalizing its establishment stated that the organization’s purpose is “to implement the President’s DOGE Agenda, by modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.”

Trump immediately tapped Musk — a politically vocal billionaire businessman whose company SpaceX has contracted with the Pentagon and other agencies — to steer DOGE under the designation of “special government employee.” 

Since its launch, the Musk-led team has attracted widespread attention for its controversial probes into federal hubs including the Treasury Department and U.S. Agency for International Development.

“USAID has got a lot of problems that I talked about with the troops — pursuing globalist agendas that don’t have a connection to ‘America First.’ That’s not the Defense Department. But we’re also not perfect either,” Hegseth told reporters on Tuesday.

He confirmed that he hopes to welcome Musk and the DOGE team to the Pentagon “very soon.”

“There are waste redundancies and headcounts in headquarters that need to be addressed. There’s just no doubt. Look at a lot of the climate programs that have been pursued at the Defense Department. [The DOD] is not in the business of climate change, solving the global thermostat. We’re in the business of deterring and winning wars,” Hegseth said. “We want to look forward to finding efficiencies, and many others [including] the way we acquire weapon systems.”

The new SecDef also responded to questions from reporters about the new administration’s strategic military aims in Africa, Europe and the Indo-Pacific.

“As far as external threats, there’s just no doubt the communist Chinese ambitions are robust. Their view of the world is quite different than ours, and whoever carries that mantle is going to set the tone for the 21st century,” he said. 

Hegseth emphasized that Trump “ran on being a peace president” and therefore does not want conflict with China under his leadership. 

“But being strong — peace through strength — is how you deter that. And we want to posture for that, just like we believe the Europeans alongside our support need to on the continent, as well,” he said. 

“The [People’s Republic of China’s] intentions are pernicious, not just in their part of the world, but also in South America and then on the African continent. And America’s posture there, along with allies and partners, is going to matter about contesting that space. So, it certainly remains a priority,” Hegseth added.

In response to reporters’ questions regarding whether the administration is planning to reduce U.S. troops’ presence abroad any time soon, he acknowledged that there’s a broad understanding across DOD that officials are going to review force posture around the world. 

However, he said there “are no plans right now in-the-making to cut anything.”

After meeting with senior military leaders from U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command at their joint headquarters in Germany on his first international trip as SecDef, Hegseth will head to Brussels, Belgium, to attend the NATO Defense Ministerial and the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting.

The defense secretary suggested that, in those engagements, he’ll push for “a rapid peace deal” to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, and urge NATO allies to each spend 5 percent of their GDP on defense (though the U.S. has not pledged to make the same percentage level of investment).

“We’re going to have straight talk with our friends. This kind of urgency of this moment requires friends talking to friends about capabilities, about leadership, about stepping up, about burden-sharing and the incentives to say, ‘The European continent deserves to be free from any aggression, but it ought be those in the neighborhood investing the most in that individual and collective defense.’ That’s common sense, as the president talks a lot about. Common sense is you defend your neighborhood, and the Americans will come alongside you in helping in that defense if and when that happens. And I believe it will,” Hegseth said.

Before concluding the weeklong trip, Hegseth is slated to meet with his counterparts in Poland, where he plans to discuss furthering bilateral defense cooperation and deterrence opportunities along NATO’s eastern flank.

“This is a very important part of the world for us. The president feels that way as well,” Hegseth told reporters.

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As highlighted in the Pentagon’s latest China’s Military Power Report — a congressionally mandated, annual study that details the breadth of Beijing’s military strategies, capabilities and modernization efforts — the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) “is modernizing and indigenizing its aircraft and unmanned aerial systems, rapidly matching U.S. standards.”

During a briefing with reporters ahead of the 182-page document’s publication, a senior defense official said the reference to matching American standards is specific to China’s advancements in UAVs, rather than the PLAAF as a fighting force writ large.

“They’re definitely continuing to improve their capabilities, but we would not assess that they have caught up with or surpassed the U.S. Air Force” technologically as an armed service, the official said. “That would go beyond the judgement that we reach in the report.”

The assessment comes as organizations across the DOD work to develop and buy their own unmanned systems across multiple domains. Notably, the the Pentagon next year plans to field thousands of attritable drones of various types to counter China’s military build up in the Indo-Pacific as part of the department’s ambitious Replicator program.

China is moving forward on its “comprehensive” UAV modernization efforts, as indicated by a number of increasingly modern systems designed for operations across theater and echelon levels, according to the new report.

The nation has marked several key milestones in the last three years, such as airshow displays and operational appearances of several new systems, the document noted. Those platforms include the WZ-7 Soaring Dragon drone, as well as the new WZ-8 reconnaissance UAS and a redesigned version of the GJ-11 stealth unmanned combat air vehicle.

While the People’s Liberation Army is continuing to use its uncrewed aerial systems to conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, Beijing is also expanding its employment of large drones for other operations such as “anti-submarine roles, firefighting, and weather modification,” according to the report.

At the same time, China is using industry air and trade shows to showcase its growing number of manned and unmanned systems that can be teamed together during combat.

“In these concepts, PRC developers are demonstrating an interest in additional growth beyond ISR and [electronic warfare] into air-to-air and air-to-ground combat, with substantial development efforts to produce swarming capability for operational applications,” the Pentagon report stated. “PRC researchers have disclosed the development of a future multi-domain kill-web designed to target penetrating counterair by coordinating across aircraft, sensors, and missiles.”

The Chinese government is also prioritizing the development of AI-enabled technologies for autonomous vehicles, predictive maintenance and logistics, automated target recognition and other military tools, according to the DOD.

“To actualize the level of AI integration that the PLA is envisioning, Beijing recognizes the need to leverage developments from across its commercial and academic sectors. By 2030, the PLA expects to field a range of ‘algorithmic warfare’ and ‘network-centric warfare’ capabilities operating at different levels of human-machine integration. [Chinese Communist Party] leaders believe AI and machine learning will enhance information, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities and enable a range of new defense applications, including autonomous and precision-strike weapons,” Pentagon officials wrote in the report.

“The PLA plans to use AI and machine learning to enhance missile sensors, which may make those missiles more accurate,” they added, noting that the People’s Liberation Army and other Chinese defense organizations have hosted artificial intelligence competitions and “used public purchasing platforms” to increase military access to civilian research and technologies.

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Tensions between China and Taiwan have been on the rise in recent years — particularly since Chinese President Xi Jinping revealed his intent to ensure that the People’s Liberation Army would be prepared and equipped to “unify” (or invade) its smaller neighbor by 2027. Although Beijing sees the island as a piece of its territory, Taipei has been under the rule of its own separate government for roughly 75 years.

The security situation in the Indo-Pacific seems more uncertain this week, after Taiwan national security officials raised alarm that they’re detecting a large fleet of warships, high-altitude surveillance balloons and other markers of potential future aggression they associate with China’s military.

“We have remained focused on the [People’s Republic of China’s] activity for quite some time. That’s why the PRC has been our pacing challenge for the last four years. We’ve talked about their coercive actions in the region. And certainly, this latest activity is something that we will continue to monitor and make sure that that nobody does anything to change the status quo in the [Taiwan Strait],” Austin said during a press briefing to close out a multi-day trip to Japan, which will mark his final visit to the Indo-Pacific as the U.S. defense chief.

The secretary highlighted joint pursuits that America and Japan executed on during his tenure, including an ongoing push to collaboratively upgrade their militaries’ command-and-control frameworks and expanding their shared operational responsibilities.

Notably, the Taiwan Strait is considered one of the world’s most critical waterways for global shipping, as heaps of valuable trade assets pass through it every day. Beijing so far does not appear to have made it clear whether the capabilities its surging near the strait this week are part of a training exercise, military drill — or some other, more threatening scheme.

Responding to DefenseScoop’s questions in Japan Wednesday, Austin didn’t say if he’s spoken to his Taiwanese counterparts about the still-evolving incident, or if his team has any indications of China’s reasoning for the deployments near the island this week.

“Our policy hasn’t changed. We’ll continue to do what we can to help Taiwan acquire the means to defend itself. Again, that work continues on. But this latest activity — we’ll continue to monitor it and see what happens,” he said.

Austin also expressed confidence that the U.S. military will continue to have the capacity and focus to deter China and work with its allies to promote peace around the Indo-Pacific, even as conflicts around the Middle East and in Ukraine continue to expand.

“Throughout [the last four years], the PRC has been our pacing challenge. And we have done a number of things that — globally — can help our partners and allies,” he told DefenseScoop. “A combination of what we’ve done to help Ukraine defend itself and put more pressure on Russia, to help Israel do what it’s done, has made Russia weaker and Iran weaker as well. And so that has had an impact.”

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Austin is representing the United States and participating in formal exchanges with multiple international military partners at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus) on Wednesday and Thursday, marking the latest stop of his week-long trip to multiple nations across the Indo-Pacific region. 

Speaking on the condition of anonymity to preview his plans ahead of the events, two senior U.S. defense officials attending in Austin’s entourage briefed reporters on the secretary’s agenda for the conference.

Leading up to the ADMM-Plus, those and other Pentagon officials suggested there was a chance Austin and Dong would directly connect on the sidelines of the event. Hope was building over the course of this week on the U.S. side for the possible linkup — particularly following President Joe Biden’s meeting with People’s Republic of China President Xi Jinping in Peru on Nov. 17.

But the night before the main ADMM-Plus events kicked off, the U.S. officials told reporters that Beijing — through an American defense attache — rebuffed Austin’s invite for the formal meet-up.

“I regret that the PRC chose not to meet here. The PRC decision is a setback for the whole region. As I’ve said consistently, the right time to meet is anytime now,” Austin told reporters in a press briefing late Wednesday after his meetings at the ADMM-Plus concluded.

U.S.-China relations are historically complex, and America’s contemporary national defense strategy identifies the Chinese military as the Pentagon’s top pacing threat. The nations’ rivalry could reach a tipping point in the near future regarding Taiwan, a self-governing island in East Asia that’s considered one of the United States’ closest partners in the region — which the PRC also claims as part of its territory. 

The senior defense officials told reporters that the rationale that Beijing provided for its rejection was related to the roughly $2 billion weapons sale package the U.S. approved for Taiwan in October, consisting primarily of missile and radar systems.

However, they also noted that, in their view, it’s all part of a long-standing pattern of PRC behavior that involves turning military-to-military communications on and off — due to whatever political reason fits their purposes at the time. Examples in the recent past, they said, include the 2023 Chinese spy balloon incident and then-House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in 2022. 

The U.S. officials additionally pointed to what they view as intensifying corruption issues across China’s government — and a hesitancy from that nation so as to not show vulnerability in such discussions with their Western counterparts — as reasoning for the PRC’s refusal to chat at the ADMM-Plus.

Despite no plans with Dong on the ground in Laos, Austin’s meeting schedule at the summit is packed with engagements. On Wednesday, the secretary joined other defense chiefs in separate bilateral meetings with New Zealand, Laos, Cambodia and Singapore. 

He also participated in the U.S.-ASEAN Informal Defence Meeting with the military leaders and defense ministers from the countries in attendance. 

While these events weren’t open to the press onsite, the U.S. defense officials said Tuesday that Austin planned to spotlight significant concerns about some of the regional and global security challenges in the Indo-Pacific — including the PRC’s ongoing coercion in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, and North Korean troops training with Russian forces as the war in Ukraine wages on.

At this year’s ADMM-Plus, Austin is also set to unveil a new “Department of Defense Vision Statement for a Prosperous and Secure Southeast Asia.”

According to a draft summary of that document shared with reporters ahead of its release, “the United States seeks to advance the collective capacity of ASEAN and individual Southeast Asian nations by investing in” the following areas: exercises, education and training, defense industrial capacity building, defense mitigation of climate impacts, and domain awareness and defense.

Though mentions of specific technology-driving initiatives were light in that document, the U.S. indicated it’s committed to helping its Asian partners with “securing domain awareness, whether in the air, maritime, cyber space, or information environment.” 

“The United States will enhance maritime capacity building programs with a focus on using commercially available technologies to expand maritime domain awareness, continuous presence, and scientific research through unmanned systems complemented by artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to maximize awareness,” according to the vision statement.

Briefing the press on Wednesday after the summit, Austin said this new vision statement will be put forward on Thursday, and it’s “focused on practical cooperation and mutual respect — and that includes training the next generation of leaders and tackling emerging challenges and deepening maritime cooperation.”

“I’m also pleased to announce the second ASEAN-U.S. maritime exercise for next year, which ASEAN member states approved earlier today, and I look forward to meeting with key allies and partners,” Austin told reporters.  

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In on-stage briefings and sideline conversations with DefenseScoop at the NATO summit last week, senior officials from multiple nations in the alliance discussed recent moves — including a blatant call-out and new measures in the Washington Summit Declaration — to accelerate plans that will help them collectively prepare for and defend against hybrid warfare tactics from Russia, China and elsewhere.

“These threats are present, real and increasingly tangible,” a British government official told DefenseScoop. 

Hybrid warfare involves a mix of conventional and unconventional methods that state and non-state actors use to destabilize and sow doubt in the minds of target populations. 

The scale and intensity of these covert and overt activities — like spreading disinformation, sending groups of migrants to storm borders, jamming GPS signals, economic pressure and more — have been rapidly expanding for NATO allies, particularly since the Russia-Ukraine war began in February 2022.

“This war started before from a hybrid war,” a spokesperson for Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told DefenseScoop in an interview during the Washington Summit.

Security experts have studied how Russia conducted hybrid operations against Ukraine leading up to its full-scale invasion.

Beyond those activities, the Polish government official pointed to a “huge network” of munitions factories explosions in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and other locations, which they said suggests that Moscow “prepared for the invasion from those actions to destroy munitions.”

At the NATO summit in Madrid in June 2022, alliance leaders formally adopted a refreshed Strategic Concept, which included the alliance’s aims back then to more strategically confront and counter emerging hybrid threats.

“Since we put out the Strategic Concept, we’ve been working to turn it into real plans, real programs that demonstrate that NATO is capable and effective in dealing with exactly these kinds of challenges. That’s going to be carried forward at this summit,” U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said last week at the summit in Washington.

Blinken continued: “But I can tell you from the meetings that we’ve had to prepare for this summit, every ally is acutely aware of this, every ally is acutely focused on this, the fact that we’ve seen attacks in recent months — arson attacks, sabotage attacks, attempted assassinations, misinformation, disinformation, cyber threats. This is not — these are not one-offs. This is part of a deliberate strategy by Russia to try to undermine our security and undermine the cohesion of the alliance. It’s not going to work because we see it and we’re acting on it.”

Not long after those remarks, NATO heads of state and government formally adopted their 2024 consensus document, known as the Washington Summit Declaration.

In it, they explicitly “reiterate that hybrid operations against allies could reach the level of an armed attack and could lead the North Atlantic Council to invoke Article 5 of the Washington Treaty.”

Article 5 calls for all members of the alliance to consider an armed attack on any NATO member as an attack against all members, and to provide assistance to the country being threatened.

Taking it even further, the allies also specifically spotlight recent coercive and divisive tactics against the alliance led by parties associated with Russia and the People’s Republic of China.

“The PRC continues to pose systemic challenges to Euro-Atlantic security. We have seen sustained malicious cyber and hybrid activities, including disinformation, stemming from the PRC. We call on the PRC to uphold its commitment to act responsibly in cyberspace,” they wrote.

Regarding China, NATO committed to “boosting” capabilities that promote members’ shared awareness and resilience.

“Russia has also intensified its aggressive hybrid actions against allies, including through proxies, in a campaign across the Euro-Atlantic area. These include sabotage, acts of violence, provocations at allied borders, instrumentalisation of irregular migration, malicious cyber activities, electronic interference, disinformation campaigns and malign political influence, as well as economic coercion,” officials stated in their Washington pledge. “These actions constitute a threat to allied security. We have decided on further measures to counter Russian hybrid threats or actions individually and collectively, and will continue to coordinate closely.”

Although they did not elaborate on these agreed upon “measures,” the allies promised to more deeply support their “partners most exposed to Russian destabilization.” 

Regarding these inclusions, the British government official told DefenseScoop that, in their view, “it is only right that a future-ready NATO alliance evolves and commits to defending against emerging threats alongside conventional ones.”

During a briefing with reporters at the Washington summit, Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Gabrielius Landsbergis also said he’s pleased that the provisions regarding hybrid activities were laid out in the new communiqué. 

“My country is one of those who are being under threat by those so-called hybrid threats. In some cases, I challenged the notion itself that it’s called ‘hybrid threat,’ because it’s more than that. When Russia is involved in direct kinetic attacks, we should find another name to call it. I would prefer to use it a ‘terrorist attack,’ or ‘state-sponsored terrorist attack,’ but when we say that there will be an answer — and we do not shy away from even Article 5 when it comes to the attacks against NATO countries when they could be considered of a hybrid nature — I think that’s a very strong message that is being sent to Moscow,” Landsbergis said.

The spokesperson for Poland’s Foreign Ministry told DefenseScoop that their nation has also been experiencing “a rainbow of hybrid threats.”

“From the Polish point of view we are, all the time, under pressure of hybrid war — all the time,” the senior official said. “First of all, we have constant pressure on our border.”

“Before the war we had mostly children and women migrants, now most of them are old men, and 19% of them are not with Belarusian but with Russian visas. And Polish Secret Service [agents recently obtained] movies, which show how [these individuals] are trained on how to escape, how to pass by the wall, and — this is important — how to attack police, soldiers and members of the guard,” the spokesperson noted. 

“And we had some wounded soldiers” recently, they added. “There was a Polish soldier who was killed on the border. And during this event, he received an attack from a knife under the bullet-proof vest — like the movies instruct them.”

The Polish Secret Service has also stopped “sabotage groups” in their territory who often seek to disrupt logistics and other transports of materials to the Ukrainian border, according to the official.

“And all the time, Poland is under cyber attack,” the spokesperson also told DefenseScoop. 

Speaking on a panel about NATO’s technology modernization priorities, Microsoft’s general manager for national security and emerging technology Robert Blair explained how nation-state and other actors looking to harm the alliance are currently extremely active in cyberspace.

“And we don’t see that threat vector going down anytime soon. Just in terms of cyber attacks, we are facing roughly 345 million cyber attacks [for] Microsoft and our users every day,” Blair said. “And these attacks are not just prolific, they’re becoming more advanced.”

In his view, “the main reason that the Ukrainian government was able to sustain its control of its services to its people, is that it digitized its economy, it digitized its government and digitized the services to its people — so that when the Russians combined cyber and kinetic attacks and what we’re calling a new sort of hybrid warfare, they’re able to move those services outside of areas of harm into areas where they could continue.” 

“So, this is the time for NATO to take a look at these threat vectors. This is the time for NATO to digitize,” Blair said.

However, while these and other summit participants praised the alliance’s strategic focus on countering hybrid threats as they continue to escalate, some experts have since warned that NATO’s language in the Washington pledge doesn’t go far enough. 

“These sections of the communiqué convey the high level of concern within NATO around these critical issues, but they also lack specificity. For example, NATO should lead efforts across the alliance to change national legal frameworks to recognize state-supported cyber attacks. One hopes that sections 12-14 of the communiqué will be further developed in the coming year, not least because indirect political warfare is just as popular in Beijing as it is in Moscow,” Michael John Williams, a nonresident senior fellow in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, wrote in a review after the summit.

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In a telephonic briefing from Botswana on Monday, the Africom commander previewed his plans for the African Chiefs of Defense Conference that kicks off there Tuesday. Langley also shared new updates on the U.S.’s security posture and near-term operational plans in Africa.

“When I talk to all these countries, they’re not asking for U.S. troops on the ground, if you will, to any scope or magnitude. They say it’s their fight. They’re looking for capabilities — whether it be exquisite capabilities for intel-sharing, or being able to achieve the capability to identify indications and warnings for themselves — and that benefits both countries, because I’m charged to be able to identify indications and warnings of those that can hurt the homeland,” Langley said.

In May, the Defense Department announced that it had reached an agreement with the Nigerien military to remove all U.S. weapons and personnel from the West African nation — per the recent direction of the military junta that overthrew the elected government of Niger and installed the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland in July 2023. 

Before then, American service members had been working directly with the Nigerien military for more than a decade. Inside the country, they’ve operated across two military bases known for their drone arsenal and associated missions, called Air Base 101 and Air Base 201.

“There’s a joint statement out between the U.S. government and Niger on us being able to complete the movement of equipment and personnel by 15 September. Right now, we’re on pace, on plan, moving heavy equipment out of Air Base 101, and it will conclude with Air Base 201,” Langley told reporters. 

Following a similar demand from Chad’s leaders on the heels of Niger’s call, the U.S. military is now also removing forces from that nation as well.

In terms of his team’s overarching plan now, the general said Africom aims to work more closely with its partners in the region on tech-enabled activities to deter threats and respond to crises. 

“I don’t measure that in the amount of equipment, or the relocation of equipment. I measure it by capabilities,” Langley explained. “So, with that … I went on a listening tour [across West Africa] to ensure that I understood and I learned what capabilities they need going forward.”

DefenseScoop asked the commander whether Africom will move to invest in more terrestrial, space-based, or other intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) technologies to expand situational awareness and provide military leaders with a clear picture of the region — particularly once there are no longer U.S. boots on the ground.

“We’re assessing what we need to do to continue the counterterrorism fight. Our overall strategy, of course, to our ends are to deter threats and crisis response, but we’re also doubling down and bolstering partnership capacity and maintaining access and influence in a number of countries, and positive influence in a number of countries across the Sahel [region] and close to West Africa, because we see what direction the threat is going,” he responded.

In parallel with this “ongoing assessment,” Langley noted, the command also wants to help strengthen the capabilities of America’s African partners, who demonstrate “a shared interest and a shared threat that they’d like to counter themselves.” 

“So building up their capability by, with, and through, is what is going to be our primary objective. It’s not measured in how much ISR that we have — but collectively how much capability and capacity our partners have to fight terrorism. And then we’ll determine what additive [types] of exquisite capabilities we do [need] to be able to give an overall advantage of being able to identify indications or warnings against the threat,” the commander told DefenseScoop. 

Notably, against the backdrop of this transition, Langley also pointed to multiple ways Russia and China are each working fervently to outflank America and the West’s economic and military involvement and influence across Africa.

“The [People’s Republic of China] — they are very active on the African continent,” Langley told DefenseScoop.

Now that China has set up a naval base in Djibouti, the general said he knows they’re also “actively seeking and engaging with a number of other countries on the periphery of coastal West Africa, both in the East and in the West.” 

“So, we’re actually watching it and trying to determine what their overall objectives are. Is it power projection? Is it air denial and anti-access? That is something to be considered, and we’re watching that all the time to determine what China’s overall intentions are engaging with these other countries,” Langley noted.

During the briefing, he also confirmed that the summit this week marks the first time the annual African Chiefs of Defense Conference is being held on the continent of Africa.

“It’s African-led and U.S.-enabled,” Langley added.

More than 30 nations will be involved in the event.

“Every country has their different types of challenges and drivers of instability. That’s what’s going to be [on the table] for discussion,” the Africom commander said.  

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