Trump's bumbling attempt to rob American taxpayers is backfiring

Former President Donald Trump speaking at a MAGA rally, hosted by Turning Point Action, at the Arizona Federal Theatre in Phoenix, Arizona on July 24, 2021, Gage Skidmore

Bill Blumand
Truthdig

June 11, 2026 

Whoever designed President Donald Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department must be a fan of the Ocean’s Eleven movie franchise. The multi-act plot lines are strikingly similar: Put together a motley crew of risk takers; pick a seemingly invincible target rich in treasure; infiltrate the target; exploit its weaknesses; and get away with an improbable heist while the guards are asleep, distracted, or otherwise occupied.

Act One of Trump’s story arc began on January 29, when he and his eldest sons and the Trump Organization filed the lawsuit in federal district court in Miami. If only briefly, it seemed like the plan just might work. In 2019, an IRS contractor named Charles Littlejohn leaked multiple years of the Trumps’ confidential tax records, along with those of over 7,000 other wealthy individuals, to The New York Times and ProPublica. The Trumps alleged in their complaint that the IRS and the Treasury Department had willfully failed to safeguard their tax information, and that each viewing of a news article mentioning the data constituted a separate $1,000 violation. The total—accounting for harm from embarrassment and reputational and financial injury—ran into the stratosphere.

There is no doubt that Littlejohn broke the law. In October 2023, he pleaded guilty to the unauthorized disclosures and was later sentenced to five years in prison.


But a few things stood in the way of a courtroom victory for Trump and his family: First and foremost, Trump filed his complaint in his individual capacity, placing himself, as the nation’s chief executive, on both sides of the litigation, with his former personal lawyer and now-acting Attorney General Todd Blanche representing the defense.

Neither Blanche nor Trump has backed away from the addendum to the settlement agreement reached in the Miami case that confers civil and criminal immunity on the president and his sons.


The arrangement came to the attention of various public watchdog groups that quickly filed amicus briefs in the case, decrying the litigation as collusive and riddled with irreconcilable conflicts of interest. Collusive litigation is illegal and, if proven, warrants dismissal and court-ordered sanctions. It could also conceivably lead to a future criminal prosecution for conspiracy to defraud the United States, in addition to other offenses. And, because Trump filed the case in his individual capacity, he would not be protected from future prosecutions by the immunity the Supreme Court accorded him two years ago for actions taken within the scope of his official duties.

Another problem for Trump: The case was assigned to Judge Kathleen Williams, a no-BS jurist appointed by Barack Obama. On April 24, Judge Williams ordered the parties to submit briefs on the collusion issue by May 20. The order specifically mentioned remarks made by Trump in press interviews that indicated he understood the nature of the case and that if the litigation were to be settled, he would be in the unique position of negotiating with himself, an admission that could prove critical in future investigations to establish criminal intent.

The order prompted Blanche, Trump, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to open the second act of their Ocean’s Eleven ploy. Instead of filing the requested briefs, they submitted a request to voluntarily dismiss the case on May 18. Believing she no longer had jurisdiction over the case, Judge Williams granted the request.


Later that same day, Blanche announced that the lawsuit had been resolved with the DOJ entering into a “settlement agreement” that created a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” slush fund to be drawn from the Treasury Department’s general “judgment fund,“ created by Congress in 1956 as a permanent appropriation to pay litigation judgments entered against the United States. Under the agreement, Trump’s allies, including the January 6 insurrectionists, would be authorized to file claims for monetary compensation due to the alleged weaponization of President Joe Biden's Justice Department against them. The claims would be adjudicated by a committee, selected by the attorney general, that would operate in secrecy with no public reporting requirements and whose members could be fired at will by the president.

The following day, Blanche tacked on an “addendum” to the settlement that ordered the IRS and the DOJ to permanently end all current and possible future tax audits and investigations into the Trump family that were or could have been pending at the time of the settlement. The actual language of the addendum is so nebulous, according to some analysts, that it could be read to immunize the Trumps from any future investigations, civil or criminal, initiated by any and all federal agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the FBI.

The settlement prompted immediate and uncommon bipartisan criticism in Congress and outrage in the media. It also sparked additional litigation with new lawsuits aimed at blocking the anti-weaponization fund filed in Virginia and the District of Columbia. On May 29, District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema, sitting in Alexandria, Virginia, issued a temporary restraining order preventing the transfer of any money from the Treasury Department to the fund, and precluding the DOJ from taking any further action on the fund. The judge set a June 12 hearing date for oral arguments on the TRO.


Meanwhile, on May 27 in Miami, a group of 35 former federal judges filed a motion to reopen the case, urging Judge Williams to investigate whether the parties had perpetrated a fraud on the court. The judge responded swiftly with an order requiring Trump and his sons to submit a reply brief by June 12. This highly unusual step was necessary, she explained, in light of the “grievous allegations [raised by the 35 judges] that Plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed this litigation solely to avoid judicial scrutiny of a lawsuit that ‘was collusive from the start’ and was only filed to provide the imprimatur of legality for an unlawful settlement.”

We are now in Act 3 of the administration’s Ocean’s Eleven drama, the part where Trump and his minions back down and regroup. In a hearing before a House Appropriations subcommittee on June 2, Blanche said that the administration would not go forward with the anti-weaponization fund. On June 5, in filings in both the DC and Virginia cases, the DOJ put Blanche’s pledge in writing in motions requesting that both cases be dismissed as moot.

To date, however, neither Blanche nor Trump has backed away from the addendum to the settlement agreement reached in the Miami case that confers civil and criminal immunity on the president and his sons. That benefit, if implemented, would accord the Trumps even more protection than a presidential pardon. It may also have been the real goal of the litigation from the outset.

But the scheme is unlikely to succeed. Whether Judge Williams or her colleagues in DC and Virginia strike down the addendum, the granting of immunity remains an act of blatant corruption. There is no reason to believe a future Department of Justice in a Democratic administration will honor the grant. It may take a few years for the curtain to fall on the president’s Ocean’s Eleven heist, but in the end, he may emerge as the caper’s biggest loser.

‘Trillionaires Shouldn’t Exist’: Obscene Musk Milestone Spurs Calls for Aggressive Wealth Tax

“The level of wealth that Mr. Musk has reached requires human exploitation, wage theft, wage suppression, anti-competitive markets, monopolistic control, price collusion, inadequate tax systems, and corruption.”

A poster attacking Elon Musk’s wealth in a world of large-scale hunger is displayed on a bus shelter on June 11, 2026 in Tottenham, England.
(Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Jun 12, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Elon Musk’s net worth surged past $1 trillion on Friday as SpaceX—the rocket company he founded and controls—made its debut on the public market, prompting global revulsion and calls for an aggressive wealth tax to rein in out-of-control inequality.

“Musk became the world’s first trillionaire because our tax system shields the wealth of the ultra-wealthy from taxation while requiring working to people pay taxes on every paycheck,” said Igor Volsky, director of the Tax the Greedy Billionaires Campaign. “Today’s milestone should serve as a wake-up call to us all.”

“Unless we plan to cede control and agency over our future to a handful of ultra-wealthy individuals, lawmakers must pursue bold tax policies that actually meet this moment—not just slowing the accumulation of extreme wealth, but reversing it,” Volsky added. “That means passing taxes on billionaire wealth ambitious enough to make the ultra-wealthy less wealthy, reduce the stranglehold they have over our economy and democracy, and restore the ideal that no one in America gets to buy their way to unchecked power.”

Reuters reported Friday that “most of Musk’s wealth now rests with SpaceX, where ⁠he holds a stake worth roughly $866 billion.”

“Along with Tesla and the rest of his properties, his net worth will exceed $1.1 trillion when the stock begins trading Friday,” Reuters noted. “The tally includes stock components that would vest over time.”

While Musk’s on-paper fortune could drop below the trillion-dollar mark if SpaceX’s stock price drops below $135 per share—which is highly possible, as experts argue the company’s valuation is absurd—campaigners said Friday that the milestone is an appalling product of a society that has allowed the mega-rich to dictate policy, funneling immense wealth to the very top while millions worldwide face hunger, violent displacement, and preventable disease. Oxfam has estimated that just a 10% tax on Musk’s fortune could lift 800 million people above the extreme poverty line.

“Eighty-six of Americans are worried about the price of food. Elon Musk is a trillionaire. These two things are deeply, inherently connected,” said Erica Payne, founder and president of the advocacy group Patriotic Millionaires. “The level of wealth that Mr. Musk has reached requires human exploitation, wage theft, wage suppression, anti-competitive markets, monopolistic control, price collusion, inadequate tax systems, and corruption. Mostly inadequate tax systems and corruption.”

Musk’s companies, including SpaceX, have relied heavily on and benefited massively from government contracts, subsidies, and research, while paying minimal taxes.

The New York Times reported last year that SpaceX “has most likely paid little to no federal income taxes since its founding in 2002 and has privately told investors that it may never have to pay any, according to internal company documents.” As for Tesla, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found earlier this year that the company “avoided almost all federal income tax on over $12 billion of US income over the past three years.”

Musk, whose immense wealth is largely stock appreciation that is not taxed in the US unless shares are sold, paid nothing in federal income taxes in 2018, according to ProPublica. “Between 2014 and 2018, he had a true tax rate of 3.27%,” the investigative outlet noted.

Writer Elizabeth Spiers argued Friday that “trillionaires shouldn’t exist,” noting in a column for The Nation that “as Musk’s wealth multiplies, he continues to prosper on the public dime.”

“Musk’s cosmic-scale wealth-hoarding is particularly abhorrent when you place it against the backdrop of how much damage he’s done,” wrote Spiers. “It’s hard to quantify the scale of destruction and deprivation that he will never personally be held accountable for. How do you value the lives of the hundreds of thousands of people who have died since Musk, in his words, gleefully ‘fed [USAID] into the woodchipper’? How do you value the lives of people who will die because DOGE cut major biomedical research funding?”

“Musk has enriched himself via a rigged investment economy ensuring that those with the most contribute the least—or in many cases, nothing at all,” Spiers added.

As Elon Musk Becomes a Trillionaire, Report Highlights ‘Darker Realities’ of His Texas SpaceX Fiefdom

“Mr. Musk’s bid for planetary reach is about to be turbocharged with billions of dollars of rocket fuel. Who will suffer the fallout if it all blows up?”


A SpaceX facility where the company builds its Starship rocket is seen in Starbase, Texas, on Saturday, Aug. 23, 2025.
(Andrea Leinfelder/San Antonio Express-News via Getty Images)

Brad Reed
Jun 12, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire on Friday, as his private space exploration firm SpaceX became a publicly traded company with a market cap of $2 trillion despite reporting negative net income for two of the last three years.

To mark this occasion, The New York Times published an essay by journalist Amy Gamerman, who has spent the last several months documenting life in Starbase, Texas, a city built by Musk to house SpaceX employees.



‘A New Pinnacle of Oligarchy’: Elon Musk Poised to Become World’s First Trillionaire



‘Trillionaires Shouldn’t Exist’: Obscene Musk Milestone Spurs Calls for Aggressive Wealth Tax

Gamerman wrote that it’s best to think of Starbase as a corporate fiefdom that has been granted extraordinary treatment by Texas’ state government.

“One new Texas law makes interfering with Starbase’s operations potentially punishable with jail time,” the journalist explained. “Another allows the company to shut down the highway into town and to the beach at the mayor’s discretion. Another shields SpaceX, and by extension Starbase, from lawsuits by neighbors over nuisance caused by its rockets.”

While the community of nearly 600 people appears idyllic, Gamerman found there are several “darker realities” lying beneath the surface, with one resident who wished to remain anonymous saying that Starbase is “like living in a dictatorship” where people fear raising concerns will lead to retaliation by the company.

Another disturbing aspect outlined in Gamerman’s essay is the way that Starbase seemingly operates outside the laws and norms of the rest of society.

For example, the city has now erected electronic gates on every single road leading to Starbase Village, the main center of the city where SpaceX employees live and that is cut off from other parts of the community.

“Those who live outside the gates of Starbase Village... often feel shut out,” wrote Gamerman. “Amber Pompa said her father, Homer Pompa, a disabled veteran who lives near Starbase Village, has no access to the restaurants or any other buildings there. And as Starbase expands, new gates have gone up in other parts of town.”

Gamerman also highlighted the story of Jose Luis Bautista Jr., a 25-year-old construction worker who died in an accident in Starbase last month. When the nearby city of Brownsville dispatched an ambulance to take Bautista to a hospital, Starbase officials denied it access and said their own emergency medical services were handling the situation.

The incident, noted Gamerman, is being investigated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Taking a look at the broader picture, Gamerman expressed concern that Musk becoming a trillionaire could allow him to expand his vision of billionaire-owned cities across the US.

“Mr. Musk’s bid for planetary reach is about to be turbocharged with billions of dollars of rocket fuel,” the journalist concluded. “Who will suffer the fallout if it all blows up?”

Why the World Must Not Look Away From Gaza

The Israeli prime minister has made it explicitly clear that he has no intention of following any peace road map, planning instead for the permanent incremental takeover of Gaza.


Palestinians fill plastic containers and cans with water distributed by tankers as they struggle with a severe water crisis caused by heavy damage to infrastructure from Israeli attacks in Gaza City, Gaza on January 13, 2026.
(Photo by Abdalhkem Abu Riash/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Ramzy Baroud
Jun 12, 2026

Common Dreams

Gaza requires urgent international attention.

What is happening in the besieged and devastated strip at the moment by far exceeds an unfolding humanitarian disaster; it is a calculated geopolitical reshaping. Israel is actively executing a plan to permanently occupy the vast majority of Gaza, with consequences that require little elaboration considering what we already know about the ongoing genocide.

Currently, much of the international debate centers on a single official: Bulgarian diplomat Nickolay Mladenov. The former United Nations special coordinator has been designated by the United States as the executive director of the Trump administration’s newly established ‘Board of Peace’—an international council founded to oversee the implementation of Washington’s 20-point Gaza road map.

The issue, however, is much bigger than a single Washington-backed bureaucrat. A growing number of Palestinians and political analysts accuse Mladenov of manufacturing the very conditions that continue to obstruct progress on the agreement’s transition to its second phase.

With nearly the entire population of Gaza living in sub-standard tents and surviving on the meager rations permitted through Israeli checkpoints, it is the highest form of immorality to demand political concessions in exchange for basic sustenance.

Under the framework, the official transition to this second phase—which President Donald Trump and the Board of Peace declared to have begun in January 2026—demands sweeping, one-sided Palestinian concessions, most notably the total disarmament of armed factions.

This demand is a recipe for the failure of the entire project, especially given that Israel has completely failed to implement the most basic requirements of the agreement’s first phase. It has refused to halt its routine military incursions, has failed to withdraw its forces to the originally mandated “Yellow Line” demarcation, and continues to deny entry permits to the technocratic committee slated to assume civil governance of the Strip.

Mladenov’s insistence on Palestinian disarmament before the agreement can advance—without a single guarantee of Israeli compliance—conveniently flips the narrative. It cynically reframes systematic starvation and the blockade of medical and construction supplies as a Palestinian failure to honor commitments.

In reality, Mladenov holds no real cards; he is merely a cog in a larger machinery controlled by Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister has made it explicitly clear that he has no intention of following any peace road map, planning instead for the permanent incremental takeover of Gaza.

Speaking at a conference in an occupied West Bank settlement on May 28, Netanyahu explained his strategy with total clarity, abandoning all diplomatic doublespeak: “We are currently squeezing Hamas; we now control 60% of the territory of the strip—you know this. We were at 50, we moved to 60. My directive is to move to...” he said, pausing as an audience member shouted “100!”

Netanyahu smiled and responded: “Let’s go step by step. First of all, 70. Let’s start with that. We’re pressing them from all sides, we’ll deal with the remnants.”

This is the actual blueprint of the Israeli government, declared openly to domestic audiences. The admission was so brazen that even US Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed frustration at Netanyahu’s candor. Testifying before Congress on June 2, Rubio remarked, “We have a plan—it doesn’t call for that,” referring to further Israeli territorial expansion.

Yet, Rubio quickly reverted to Washington’s standard line: “And at the end of the day, we understand that what we want, and I think what the Israelis would ultimately want, is a Gaza that is governed by a non-Hamas entity.”

While the immediate priority for Palestinians is not governance but lifesaving food, clean water, medicine, and basic survival, Netanyahu and Rubio view the entire crisis through a political lens. The US-Israeli plan is predicated on achieving, through diplomatic strangulation and engineered famine, what they failed to fully achieve through military might.

A rare, decisive answer came from United Nations spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, who summed up the UN position plainly: “One hundred percent of Gaza should be for the Palestinian people.” The problem, however, is that the UN’s rhetoric is backed by no real enforcement mechanisms.

The international community has walked directly into a trap, outsourcing the future of the Gaza Strip to the Trump administration and its Board of Peace. Even the designated technocratic committee has been rendered entirely irrelevant, excluded from a decision-making process left solely to diplomats beholden to the White House.

The situation on the ground remains catastrophic. Since the fragile, heavily compromised ceasefire took effect on October 10, regular Israeli violations and airstrikes have killed nearly 1,000 Palestinians and wounded thousands more—the vast majority women and children. When added to the horrific toll of the initial two years of war, the official number of Palestinians killed has surpassed 73,000, with over 173,000 injured.

Furthermore, credible epidemiological studies and medical journals have concluded that the true death toll is vastly higher.

With nearly the entire population of Gaza living in sub-standard tents and surviving on the meager rations permitted through Israeli checkpoints, it is the highest form of immorality to demand political concessions in exchange for basic sustenance.

Netanyahu’s “step-by-step” annexation does not hinge on what Palestinian factions decide to do; his expansionist timeline is shaped independently of Palestinian compliance.

Arab, Muslim, and allied nations must fundamentally shift their diplomatic strategy. They must firmly insist on completely delinking humanitarian aid from the future governance or demilitarization of the Gaza Strip.

Starvation cannot be tolerated as political leverage for war criminals. Netanyahu is emboldened by a history of international impunity, speaking openly of expanding his military footprint regardless of the consequences of such action.

The international community must remind Israel’s government that the survival of millions of Palestinians cannot be held hostage to the political ambitions of an extremist coalition.



Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Ramzy Baroud
Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of the Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books including: "These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons" (2019), "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (2010) and "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (2006). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.
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How Western Media Normalizes Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing in Lebanon

Like in Gaza, where genocide proceeds apace in spite of a declared ceasefire, the media tend to report “ceasefires” in Lebanon without caring to highlight the fact that it’s not a ceasefire when Israel is still pummeling the country and massacring people.


A child suffering serious injuries is brought to hospital after an Israeli airstrike on a building on April 08, 2026 in Nabatieh, Lebanon.
(Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

Belen Fernandez
Jun 12, 2026

FAIR

In October 2024, one year into Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip and attendant assault on Lebanon, the Israeli army did a thing. It invited journalists from major Western corporate media outlets on an incursion into Lebanon’s ravaged south, accompanied by Israeli military personnel who would interpret the wreckage in Israel’s favor—not that the Western media have ever required much assistance in this regard.

Reporters from the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, Reuters, BBC, Fox News and a handful of other special guests signed up for the cross-border sortie. It was, as Habib Battah and Christina Cavalcanti note in an investigation for the Public Source (8/27/25), an “awkward hybrid between a traditional embed and the kind of all-expense-paid publicity trip that journalists refer to as junkets, freebies and dog-and-pony shows.”

Never mind that it is entirely illegal for journalists or anyone else to enter Lebanon from Israel—what’s one more illegal invasion from a country that has been invading Lebanon pretty much since its founding? As Battah and Cavalcanti emphasize, these media professionals were also embedding themselves “within a national project of extraordinary transnational violence,” hosted by an “extrajudicial occupying military power—a critical point that all of them would fail to mention in their coverage.”

The Israelis certainly hit the jackpot with the coverage, as reporters excitedly discovered boots and helmets allegedly belonging to Hezbollah—clear proof that the group had been plotting a nefarious attack on Israel. New York Times Jerusalem correspondent Isabel Kershner, an old pro at conducting preemptive journalistic strikes on Lebanon, did not disappoint with her dispatch (10/13/24), “Just Over the Border From Israel, a Hezbollah Cache of Explosives and Mines.”

And in report after embedded report, Israel’s chosen journalists faithfully transmitted the tiresome and counter-logical notion that Hezbollah was somehow the aggressor in the arrangement—as opposed to the army that was busily slaughtering thousands of people in Lebanon while implementing a scorched-earth strategy.
‘Urgent evacuation warnings’While the October 2024 embed was one of the more preposterous embodiments of Western corporate media’s special relationship with Israel, outlets continue to do a fine job of sanitizing Israeli brutality even when their reporters are not physically viewing the region from inside an Israeli armored vehicle. Since March of this year, Israel has killed at least 3,613 people in Lebanon and displaced 1.2 million, obliterating entire villages and otherwise expanding the ecocidal policy honed in the Gaza Strip.

There has been no remotely comparable destruction on the Israeli side, and a recent Reuters article (5/31/26) that had attempted to suggest some symmetry now comes with the preface: “This May 31 story has been corrected to remove a reference to tens of thousands of Israelis being displaced by Hezbollah fire, in paragraph 3.”

Like in Gaza, where genocide proceeds apace in spite of a declared ceasefire (FAIR.org, 10/21/25), the media tend to report “ceasefires” in Lebanon without caring to highlight the fact that it’s not a ceasefire when Israel is still pummeling the country and massacring people, all the while setting the stage for a massive land grab with its creeping so-called “evacuation orders.” These “evacuations” have been focused on the Shiite demographic, with Israel warning Christian and Druze communities not to allow Shiite neighbors to take refuge in their towns (New York Times, 4/1/26).

Lebanese journalist Habib Battah, co-author of the aforementioned Public Source investigation, suggested to me that such orders might be more accurately termed “ethnic cleansing directives.” But that, of course, would be way too much for corporate media outlets to handle—and so it is that we learn about Israel’s “urgent evacuation warnings” and “large-scale evacuation orders,” as though it’s some sort of public service announcement, fire drill or other fundamentally legitimate Israeli undertaking, rather than entirely illegal in addition to downright psychopathic. From a legal and moral perspective, after all, you can’t just go around ordering people in other countries out of their homes, oftentimes only to bomb them when they comply.

Then there’s the matter of the “Yellow Line” or “security zone”—more terminology borrowed from Gaza (FAIR.org, 5/19/26)—which denotes the portion of south Lebanon that Israel is currently illegally occupying. But Israel has never been very good at staying within the lines, and its latest “evacuation orders” spanned no less than one-fifth of the entire country, far beyond its own unilaterally appointed Yellow Line.

As Battah remarked to me, the media’s acceptance and deployment of such arbitrary vocabulary creates “artificial structures” and a sense of orderliness, when in reality “there’s no yellow lines, there’s no yellow, there’s no colors—these are just illegal invasions.” And because media are committed to sanitizing Israel’s behavior rather than questioning it, “colonization becomes normalized.”
‘A warning to residents’

The eagerness of journalists to do Israel’s bidding is all the more confounding given that Israel is currently the No. 1 killer of journalists in the world. A recent Associated Press article (5/29/26), for example, reduced the pulverization of Lebanon to simply “ongoing fighting in southern Lebanon between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters.”

A June 4 Reuters writeup blamed Hezbollah for having “rejected” the latest US-mediated “ceasefire” plan—which, mind you, would basically have given Israel the green light to seize south Lebanon outright. Reuters refrained from referencing the thousands of Lebanese casualties since March, but did allow Israel the usual space to defend its depredations: “The Israeli military, in a warning to residents of the south, said it was continuing to target Hezbollah facilities.”

This is not to say that corporate media do not report on the destruction, displacement and killing in Lebanon; they do—and sometimes even sympathetically. But the refusal to paint a consistent and properly contextualized picture of what is actually going on in the country means that they mostly just end up legitimizing Israel’s war crimes.

Imagine for a moment that Hezbollah had just killed thousands of Israelis in three months and occupied northern Israel. In doing so, it laid waste to 5,000-year-old cities, and bombed the fuck out of everything from homes to ambulances to World Heritage sites to university students to environmental activists who protect sea turtles. Suffice it to say we’d be hearing a lot more about the utter barbarity of it all—and that Hezbollah wouldn’t be allowed to claim ad nauseam that it was targeting “military facilities.”

Almost three years into a genocide that has officially killed nearly 73,000 Palestinians and given Israel every opportunity to blind the world with its true colors, it is no short of an abomination that Israeli officials are still permitted to insist—with little to no media pushback—that they only target “terrorists” and “terrorist infrastructure.” If Israeli officials were to claim that two plus two equals eight, or that Elvis Presley was living in a cave in Madagascar, would the corporate media also report such information with a straight face?

By taking Israel’s word for it, journalists wind up essentially validating mass killing and occupation—as in the corrected May 31 Reuters piece that straight up makes the case for Israel’s seizure of a 900-year-old castle that lies nowhere near the imaginary colored line:
The advance into Beaufort Castle has granted Israeli troops a vantage point over much of southern Lebanon and northern Israel, from which attacks have been launched ⁠towards Israeli residential areas.

‘Iranian proxy on its borders’

Of course, willful media decontextualization and omission of relevant history facilitates the conversion of Israeli propaganda into “news.” One handy trick is to always, always, always remind audiences that Hezbollah is a “powerful Shia group supported by Iran,” as the BBC (5/28/26) puts it.

On March 13, CNN ran an analysis datelined Tel Aviv that bore the headline: “The War That Never Ended: Israel Seizes Moment to Finish Fight Against Hezbollah, Iran’s Proxy in Lebanon.” The analyst proceeded to justify Israel’s belief that “it needs to establish a strong military defense to protect civilians from the Iranian proxy on its borders.”

But while invoking Hezbollah’s support by Iran is practically a requirement for Western media reports, it is never deemed necessary to qualify Israel’s own orientation in any way—like, I dunno, “The war that never ended: Genocidal psychostate backed to the hilt by global superpower seizes moment to finish fight against Hezbollah.”

As for why this fight started in the first place, the media can somehow never summon the energy to explain that Hezbollah owes its very existence to Israel’s apocalyptic 1982 invasion of Lebanon that killed tens of thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians, prompting the group’s formation. Indeed, Israel’s lengthy history of invading Lebanon—not to mention its 22-year occupation of the south of the country, which ended in its ignominious eviction by the Hezbollah-led Lebanese resistance—would seem to be pretty crucial context in terms of understanding the current war. But those journalists who do bother to provide a bit of background do so in as ambiguous and cursory a fashion as possible, as in the New York Times’ explanation (6/3/26) that “Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shiite militia group, has been in conflict with Israel, on and off, for decades.”

A May 13 NBC News intervention headlined “Amid Ceasefire, Israeli Forces Ramp Up Destruction of Homes in Southern Lebanon” offers a roundabout summary of Hezbollah’s origins: “The group, formed in the early 1980s as a civil war consumed Lebanon, was created with support from Iran and sought to expel Israeli forces from Lebanese territory.” The piece went on to discuss some details of the present destruction in south Lebanon, including footage from a video posted to X on April 24 in which
two excavators can be seen destroying solar panels in the Christian border town of Debel, where a photo last month showed a soldier taking what appeared to be an axe to a statue of Jesus.


In a statement to NBC News that can be safely filed under the can’t-make-this-shit-up category, the Israeli army “said…that the damage to the solar panels was not in line with its values, and that disciplinary measures had been taken.” Here’s praying that corporate journalists might someday have the balls to take Israel to task on more existential matters.



© 2023 Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)

Belen Fernandez
Belén Fernández is the author of The Darién Gap: A Reporter’s Journey through the Deadly Crossroads of the Americas and Inside Siglo XXI: Locked Up in Mexico’s Largest Immigration Center, among other titles. She is an opinion columnist at Al Jazeera.
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China-ASEAN Blue Economy Common Market: Pursuing Maritime Cooperation And Ocean Governance In The Evolving Global Geopolitical Landscape – Analysis

June 13, 2026 
By Rommel C. Banlaoi


Building a China–ASEAN Blue Economy Common Market is a strategic, developmental, and geopolitical endeavor, as it directly addresses issues of maritime cooperation and ocean governance in shaping the future of Asia and the wider Indo-Pacific region. The seas serve as lifelines for trade, energy, and connectivity, and their sustainable management is essential to regional prosperity. By advancing collaborative frameworks in fisheries, shipping, marine conservation, and disaster response, China and ASEAN, through the Blue Economy Common Market, can transform the ocean into a shared domain of peace and development.

The Asia-Pacific has emerged as the epicenter of global power competition. Maritime disputes, freedom of navigation, and resource exploitation underscore the urgent need for cooperative governance mechanisms. We are living in an era of strategic uncertainty shaped by a major power transition and the contest for influence across critical sea lanes. The global order is no longer unipolar as it is evolving into a multipolar, fluid, and contested system driven by the phenomenal rise of China, India, and other emerging powers.

In this shifting landscape, a Blue Economy Common Market, anchored in maritime cooperation and ocean governance, could serve as a stabilizing force, offering a vision of shared prosperity amid geopolitical flux.

Great Power Rivalry

The United States and China are now locked in a rivalry that spans trade, technology, security, and ideology. The European Union and other major powers are also asserting influence. Regional organizations like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are striving to maintain centrality amidst many regional security challenges in both traditional and non-traditional fields.

Economically, global growth is slowing as a consequence of US-Iran War. Supply chains are being restructured because of various regional trade arrangements like the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), and the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA). Technological bifurcation is accelerating due to US-China major power competition. The COVID-19 pandemic already exposed global vulnerabilities in logistics. Now, climate change and energy transitions are reshaping industries worldwide.

Maritime cooperation and ocean governance in Southeast Asia through the Blue Economy Common Market present both urgent risks and transformative opportunities. Fragmentation and great power competition threaten to destabilize the region, while environmental pressures such as overfishing and climate change compound these challenges. These overlapping risks underscore the need for collective action and highlight the vulnerability of Southeast Asia’s maritime domain to both geopolitical and ecological stressors.

Yet ASEAN’s centrality offers a way to stability, enabling the bloc to act as a convenor that promotes dialogue, integration, and sustainable development. Through initiatives like the Blue Economy Common Market, ASEAN can transform contested maritime spaces into cooperative zones, harmonizing regulations, fostering joint research, and advancing ocean industries. In doing so, ASEAN, in collaboration with China, strengthens resilience, protects ecosystems, and positions itself as a global leader in ocean governance.

Impacts of the Blue Economy Common Market

The China–ASEAN Blue Economy Common Market represents a transformative vision for maritime cooperation, where nations treat ocean resources as shared endowments requiring protection and sustainable use. By integrating industries such as fisheries, shipping, tourism, and renewable energy, the initiative seeks to diversify regional economies beyond traditional manufacturing. This diversification not only strengthens resilience but also fosters innovation in marine biotechnology, aquaculture, and green shipping technologies.

The Common Market’s emphasis on supply chain stability is important. By encouraging joint investment in ports, shipping networks, and digital maritime infrastructure, the framework builds shared capacity to withstand future shocks. Whether disruptions arise from geopolitical tensions or global crises, coordinated maritime connectivity ensures smoother trade flows and greater resilience. This collective approach transforms vulnerabilities into opportunities for stronger regional integration.

Finally, the initiative advances a deeper sense of interdependence between China and ASEAN, reinforcing a vision of a shared future in the Indo-Pacific. By incorporating cooperation into ocean governance and economic development, the Common Market strengthens trust, reduces conflict potential, and promotes collective security. In doing so, it positions maritime cooperation not merely as an economic strategy but as a cornerstone of sustainable development and long-term regional stability.

Challenges Ahead

However, the journey forward is full of challenges because of several interrelated factors.

Geopolitical rivalries, particularly the intensifying U.S.–China competition, may cast the Common Market as a strategic alignment, which in turn could invite counterbalancing measures from other global powers. Economic uncertainties also loom large, as inflation, energy transitions, and technological decoupling threaten to disrupt maritime industries and undermine stability. Environmental pressures add another layer of complexity, with climate change and ecological degradation posing significant risks to sustainability and long-term resilience. Finally, institutional limits within ASEAN’s consensus-driven model may slow progress, while differing national interests could complicate efforts at harmonization and collective action.

These challenges underscore the strong need for strategic foresight, institutional innovation, and confidence‑building measures among participating economies.

The Philippines as a Bridge

In this context, the Philippines occupies a unique geopolitical position. As a treaty ally of the United States and a close neighbor of China, the Philippines can serve as an important bridge in U.S.–China great power relations. This bridging role is crucial to creating a conducive geopolitical environment for the success of the China‑ASEAN Blue Economy Common Market.

The Philippines can also advance ASEAN’s centrality by syncing maritime cooperation and ocean governance into its regional strategy, ensuring it is not forced into difficult choices between major powers. This means initiating trilateral dialogues with China and the United States on maritime security and economic cooperation, while also promoting joint blue economy projects such as sustainable fisheries management, renewable energy ventures, and marine biodiversity protection. These initiatives would highlight the Philippines’ role as a bridge-builder, reduce tensions, and demonstrate leadership in balancing ecological sustainability with economic growth.

At the same time, Manila can pursue confidencebuilding measures in the South China Sea, including cooperative marine environmental protection, disaster response coordination, and joint scientific research. By leveraging ASEAN platforms, the Philippines can institutionalize U.S.–China engagement in ways that support regional stability and economic integration.

Alignment with the Code of Conduct

It is very important to align the China‑ASEAN Blue Economy Common Market with the ongoing negotiation and eventual conclusion of the Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea. The COC serves as a confidence‑building mechanism that can provide the normative foundation for cooperative maritime development.

By synchronizing the Blue Economy initiative with the COC, China and ASEAN can ensure that economic integration is underpinned by rules‑based order, maritime stability, and peaceful dispute management. This alignment will strengthen trust, reduce tensions, and create a secure environment for sustainable economic growth in the region. In this way, the Blue Economy becomes not just an economic vision, but a regional peace‑building strategy.
Key Tasks and Measures

To advance under these conditions, several interconnected tasks are paramount.

First, an institutional framework must be established through the creation of a ChinaASEAN Blue Economy Council. This body would serve as the central mechanism for coordinating policies, setting standards, and resolving disputes, ensuring that cooperation remains structured and effective.

Another important measure is infrastructure connectivity, which involves developing smart ports, green shipping corridors, and digital maritime platforms. These innovations would enhance efficiency, reduce environmental impact, and strengthen regional trade links.

A strong emphasis on sustainability is also essential. This means committing to marine conservation, investing in renewable energy, and pursuing carbon reduction strategies to safeguard ecosystems while supporting long-term economic growth.

To make these ambitions feasible, financial support must be secured. A dedicated Blue Economy Fund could provide resources for small and medium enterprises, foster innovation, and build capacity across the region.

Finally, peopletopeople linkages are vital. Promoting academic exchanges, maritime education, and joint research initiatives would deepen mutual understanding and cultivate the expertise needed to sustain the blue economy for future generations.

Transforming the vision of a China–ASEAN Blue Economy Common Market into reality requires integrating maritime cooperation and ocean governance, while carefully navigating the region’s geopolitical complexities, particularly in the context of the Hainan Free Trade Port.

The Role of Hainan Free Trade Port

Hainan Free Trade Port is strategically positioned at the heart of the South China Sea, serving as a vital gateway to ASEAN. Its location along one of the busiest maritime routes in the world allows it to facilitate shipping, logistics, and cultural exchange, while also playing a role in regional maritime security. This geographic advantage makes Hainan a natural hub for advancing connectivity and cooperation between China and Southeast Asia.

Policy innovations further strengthen Hainan’s role. With preferential tariffs, streamlined customs, and liberalized investment regimes, the port offers a business-friendly environment that attracts global investors and fosters cross-border trade. These measures not only reduce barriers but also create a platform for testing new governance frameworks that can later be scaled across the region.

Economically, Hainan is diversifying into marine biotechnology, ocean tourism, and renewable energy, positioning itself as both an innovation laboratory and a demonstration site for China-ASEAN maritime connectivity. By showcasing sustainable practices and cooperative governance, Hainan can act as a bridge of cooperation, setting standards for ocean governance and maritime collaboration that benefit the wider Asia-Pacific region.

Conclusion

The ChinaASEAN Blue Economy Common Market represents far more than a conventional trade framework. It is also a bold geopolitical vision designed to anchor resilience, sustainability, and integration across Asia’s maritime sphere. By weaving together economic cooperation with ocean governance, it seeks to transform the IndoPacific into a zone defined not by rivalry but by collaboration. Its urgent mission is to craft a maritime future that is cooperative, sustainable, and inclusive, one where shared prosperity flows from the responsible stewardship of oceans and seas.

Updated and revised version of a Plenary Speech delivered at the China-ASEAN Blue Economy Cooperation Dialogue: Building a Strategic Hub for the China-ASEAN Blue Economy Big Common Market — The Strategic Task of “Creating a New Maritime Hainan” hosted by Hainan Institute for Free Trade Port Studies, China Oceanic Development Foundation, and China Foreign Affairs University with the support of China Institute for Reform and Development (CIRD) and co-organized by Hainan Reform and Development Research Foundation and Huayang Center for Maritime Cooperation and Ocean Governance held in Haikou, Hanan, China on 10 May 2026.


About Rommel C. Banlaoi
Rommel C. Banlaoi, PhD is the Chairman of the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research (PIPVTR) and President of the Philippine Society for International Security Studies (PSISS). He is currently a Non-Resident Fellow of the Huayang Center for Maritime Cooperation and Ocean Governance and member of the Board of Directors of China Southeast Research Center on the South China Sea (CSARC) and Director of Philippines-China Studies Center. He served as the President of the Philippine Association for Chinese Studies (PACS) and member of the Management Board of the World Association for Chinese Studies (WACS).

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Inside Rubicon: The Structure Of Russia’s Elite Drone Center – Analysis

June 13, 2026 
 Foreign Policy Research Institute
By Rob Lee and Dmytro Putiata

(FPRI) — One of the Russian military’s most important developments in 2024-2025 was the establishment of the Rubicon Center for Advanced Unmanned Technologies under the Ministry of Defense’s Directorate for Advanced Inter-Service Research and Special Projects. As with many Russian innovations in the war, Rubicon’s genesis was a response to Ukrainian innovation. In part, it was a reaction to Ukraine’s Drone Line initiative and innovative Ukrainian drone units. Rubicon was officially established on August 2, 2024, by the order of Minister of Defense Andrei Belousov a few months after his appointment. This decision was a logical step in improving the procurement and development of unmanned systems in the Russian military. While organizations like the “Judgement Day” project played an important role, their experience and innovations were not shared uniformly across the Russian military and their funding relied on support from volunteers. The Rubicon Center was established to centralize research and development, analysis, procurement, and combat deployment of unmanned systems, including unmanned aerial systems (UAS), ground vehicles (UGV), and surface vessels (USV).

Rubicon has a broad remit. It plays an active role in developing the doctrine for the employment of unmanned systems: developing and spreading new tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) across the military, training unmanned systems forces’ units, and improving and modernizing unmanned systems and other technologies. Since its formation, Rubicon has been a high priority for Minister Belousov. It is well funded and able to operate differently than conventional forces with a distinct culture. Its members are paid similarly to specialists from the Special Operations Forces (SSO), a significantly higher compensation than that of conventional forces. At the start of operations, it could also afford to be much more selective about the personnel it recruited, and was authorized to take unmanned systems teams from conventional forces.

In addition to its headquarters, Rubicon consists of combat formations. These units, mostly detachments, played a notable role in priority directions along the front line in 2025. Rubicon detachments were a qualitative improvement over conventional drone units, with substantial quantities of drones available and a much greater capacity for innovation. They also pursued more specific missions, typically targeting UAS teams and logistics targets at greater distances behind the front line. These detachments were tasked with experimenting with new equipment and tactics, which could be shared across the military. As a group of forces-level assets, they played an important role in reducing the time required between locating and striking targets, thus broadly improving the kill chain. In several respects, Rubicon combat detachments would ameliorate systematic issues or problems conventional forces could not fix. This included training UAS and counter-UAS (CUAS) crews from conventional units in the occupied areas on the latest TTPs and lessons learned. To some extent, Rubicon has compensated for the conventional forces’ generally slow adaptation cycle through its own innovations. Unlike other units, Rubicon detachments receive equipment directly from manufacturers and provide direct feedback, which leads to a more rapid drone innovation cycle.

Rubicon Center’s Approximate Structure in 2025

Rubicon includes a total of seven departments or centers, but it is important to emphasize that its structure is constantly evolving. Russia is actively scaling the number and size of its unmanned systems formations, which will likely continue. The main components of its structure include a headquarters, drone development center, instructor training center, analytical center, supply/sustainment unit, and combat formations.

Rubicon has a command group led by the center commander as well as seven deputy commanders responsible for religious support/unit ministry team (chaplain), physical readiness, legal affairs, research and development, combat training (G7), combat operations (G3), and political affairs/FSB counterintelligence officer. Next is the headquarters/staff led by the chief of staff. It consists of an operations section (G3), signal section (G6), intelligence section (G2), command post, personnel/manning section (G1), state secrets protection office/classified control office, UAS service section (cell), electronic warfare section, and communications control post (signal control node).

There is a sustainment and support section that consists of a technical directorate with a deputy commander for armaments, chief of technical inspection point (maintenance control point), and automotive service officer (motor pool). A logistics/sustainment directorate (G4) is led by the deputy commander for logistics with an organizational planning section and materiel and technical support department. The section also consists of a financial management office, human resources department, and specialized services, which typically include a RKhBZ (CBRN) defense officer and an air defense officer. In total, the command group, headquarters/staff, and sustainment section included approximately 100 personnel.

The next section is the operational test and combat employment units, which consist of a heavy FPV UAS test detachment, UAS test and evaluation detachments, an unmanned surface vessel (USV) test detachment, a special unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) test detachment, and an air defense systems test detachment. The Center also has its sustainment/supply units, including a warehouse section, medical aid station (role 1), transportation company/motor transport section, maintenance and repair unit, and security/force protection platoon.

The research and development block consists of six departments: innovation and advanced technology development, capability integration and fielding, analytical, medical technology development, training, and communications, and command and control systems. The innovation and advanced technology development department has a variety of functional groups: multi-rotor UAS, fixed-wing UAS, unmanned ground systems, unmanned surface systems, computer vision, artificial intelligence, software development, electronic warfare systems development, signals intelligence and electronic protection systems, UGV control systems development, field testing and validation, reverse engineering, and a defense industry cooperation cell.


The capability integration and fielding department includes the following groups: FPV systems, medium-range heavy UAS, EW and SIGINT systems integration, unmanned surface vessel integration, UGV systems integration, and technical sustainment. The analytical department includes the UGV employment analysis group, internal systems technical support group, software engineering group, and open-source and media analysis (OSINT) group. The medical technology development unit consists of an operator performance and human factors lab and an interactive training systems lab. The training department includes a command element, six training platoons with 18 personnel each, and a training support platoon. Lastly, the communications, command, and control systems department includes an experimental communications systems test group, fielded communications systems integration group, and technical maintenance group.
Table of Organization for Rubicon Combat Formations


In April 2025, there were eight Rubicon detachments. Six of these detachments were formed subordinate to each of Russia’s six groups of forces. These were the Rubicon-S (North), Rubicon-Z (West), Rubicon-Yu (South), Rubicon-Ts (Center), Rubicon-V (East), and Rubicon-D (Dnepr) detachments. The table of organization for the six detachments was 149 personnel, but their actual numbers ranged between 120-141 personnel, or 85% strength on average in April 2025. Russia also formed the Rubicon-Reserve and Rubicon-DM (Distance Mining) detachments, which were subordinate to the Joint Group of Forces led by General Gerasimov, which commands the war. Since then, Rubicon has scaled considerably with a total of 17 detachments, two unmanned systems battalions (roughly half the size of a detachment), and six companies.

Elements from Rubicon-S, Rubicon-Yu, and Rubicon-D were employed in Kursk oblast and played a key role in Russia’s retaking the salient held by Ukrainian forces around Sudzha. They were redeployed primarily to the Donetsk region in April, and had an immediate effect on the fighting in that direction. The Kursk operation was an immediate demonstration of Rubicon’s effectiveness. Retaking Kursk was a key political goal for Russia, and the new method of reinforcing areas of the front with elite strike UAS units focused on disrupting logistics demonstrated results.

As with Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces’ units, including the regiments and brigades in the Drone Line initiative, Rubicon detachments and teams are sent to reinforce priority directions. Given their capabilities and resources, the deployment of Rubicon detachments is a strong indication of Russia’s priority directions for offensive operations. During much of the summer and fall of 2025, there were several Rubicon detachments operating in support of the Center Group of Forces (GOF), whose area of responsibility includes Pokrovsk, Myrnohrad, and Dobropilla. In addition to the Rubicon-Ts detachment, which should be operating under the GOF, elements from Rubicon-D (Dnepr), Rubicon-7, Rubicon-8, Rubicon-DM (Distance Mining), and Rubicon-PVO (Air Defense) were all supporting Center GOF during this time. Russia also redeployed its naval infantry brigades and regiment to this direction at the end of the summer, which conducted several company-size mechanized assaults as well as dismounted infiltration. The redeployment occurred after the deep infiltration in mid-August. This was Russia’s main axis of advance during the second half of 2025, with the objective of advancing to Barinkove in Kharkiv oblast where they planned to meet units from the Western Group of Forces advancing from the Lyman direction. If successful, this would have encircled the cities of Slovyansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka, and Kostyantynivka.


On the other side, they faced many of Ukraine’s most capable UAS units, including elements from Magyar’s Brigade, Lasar’s Group, the Rarog Regiment, and other units. Russia did manage to advance and occupy most of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad during this time, but failed to exploit the deep infiltration that occurred east of Dobropillia in August. The deployment of several assault regiments, special operations forces, UAS units, and the redeployment of the 1st Azov Corps headquarters managed to stabilize and then improve the situation, despite the deployment of so many Rubicon teams. According to brigades in the Kostyantynivka direction, some Russian advances were attributable to Rubicon’s actions. Once they could not resupply their infantry or UAS positions in some areas, they could not sustain their positions and counter Russian infiltration. Rubicon has thus far managed to complicate the situation for Ukrainian brigades holding the front line, but, so far, this not been sufficient to enable a breakthrough.
Table of Organization and Equipment for Rubicon Detachments


Rubicon not only scaled the number of combat formations, but also the size of its detachments. With the increased size and diverse capabilities, detachments can now operate more autonomously and can perform a greater variety of missions. The standard Rubicon detachment increased in table of organization strength from 149 personnel in early 2025 to 474. Out of this total, there are 52 officers, 46 warrant officers, 78 sergeants, and 298 soldiers. The command section has 39 personnel, including the commander, deputy detachment commander, deputy detachment commander for operations (S3), deputy detachment commander for logistics (S4), head of communications service (S6), and deputy detachment commander for armaments/chief of materiel. The command also includes the staff of 22 personnel with the chief of staff, deputy chief of staff, two assistant chiefs of staff, an instructor, reconnaissance/intelligence section with three personnel, and battle command group with 14 personnel.

The detachment’s combat component has 245 personnel. The quadcopter FPV group has 106 personnel and is led by the group commander and deputy group commander for operations. It is composed of four FPV platoons, each led by an officer. Three of these platoons have eight teams with three personnel each and the 4th platoon has six crews with four personnel per team. Each team is led by a sergeant. There is also a fixed-wing FPV group of 72 personnel. This group has two platoons with eight teams each. Each team has four personnel. The reconnaissance-strike group has 69 personnel with four S-350NJ Supercam and four Zala ISR UAS teams. Each of these teams has seven personnel with pilots for both ISR and loitering munition UAS (typically, a Lancet variant). Each of these teams is led by an officer with two warrant officers. The aerial reconnaissance group has 35 personnel with two Orlan-10 UAS teams and six additional ISR UAS teams. The Orlan-10 teams are led by officers and have five personnel, whereas the regular ISR teams have three personnel and are led by sergeants. The detachment has a counter-UAS group of 29 personnel with two radar teams, two electronic warfare teams, and two radio-electronic reconnaissance teams. There is also a communications platoon with 15 personnel, an ordnance group, maintenance group, support platoon, and a medical evacuation group.

Recent Developments

In addition to the broader expansion of the Unmanned Systems Forces branch in 2026, the Russian military continues to scale the size of Rubicon as well as the 50th “Varyag” Unmanned Systems Brigade. Most of this expansion is occurring in its combat formations. At the end of March 2025, Rubicon’s total strength was approximately 1,450 personnel with an authorized strength of 2,500. As of this spring, Rubicon had approximately 5,000 personnel with an authorized strength of 9,000. This includes approximately 175 personnel in the headquarters, 270 personnel across seven departments (including research and development), and 700 involved in training and support functions. The remainder of personnel are in combat units.

While Rubicon remains a critical component of the Russian military’s unmanned systems’ capabilities, its future role is unclear. Interestingly, it appears the 50th “Varyag” Unmanned Systems Brigade may become the critical unit for Unmanned Systems Forces. Both Rubicon and the 50th Brigade are now tasked with countering Ukraine’s increasingly successful middle strike campaign, a key priority for the Russian military. The 50th Brigade will deploy battalions to help defend the airspace in Russian regions neighboring Ukraine, with Rubicon focused on defending occupied areas.

The previous commander of Rubicon was Colonel Sergei Viktorovich Budnikov, who previously served with the 61st Naval Infantry Brigade and 9th Guards Artillery Brigade. However, he was replaced as the commander of Rubicon by Sergei Aleksandrovich Zbukarev and is now the commander of the 50th Brigade. Approximately 600 personnel from Rubicon transferred to the brigade with him. The change in leadership and movement of personnel suggests that Rubicon may eventually lose its central role in the development of unmanned systems. There have been multiple attempts to significantly alter Rubicon, including removing or reducing its research and development center.

The emphasis on rapidly scaling Rubicon’s combat detachments appears to be creating challenges. The center was authorized to poach UAS teams from conventional regiments and brigades. Therefore, the further scaling of its combat formations is, at least partially, coming from conventional forces. This will likely lead to weakening the organic intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and UAS fire support capabilities for ground units. Notably, the same thing occurred when Ukraine scaled its Drone Line regiments and brigades, which took many of the best pilots and teams from the maneuver brigades, leaving them, at least temporarily, weaker. To increase its size, Rubicon has lowered its standards. As with special operations forces, attempts to increase size too rapidly will result in a drop in quality. While Rubicon’s growth is contributing to more target strikes each month, it is also tasked with greater responsibilities to address the Russian military’s growing challenges in the war. But these challenges need to be addressed in a more systematic fashion by conventional forces.

Rubicon is also competing for talent with the 50th Unmanned Systems Brigade, which is attempting to increase its size from 1,300 personnel to 7,000. The Unmanned Systems Forces had approximately 87,000 personnel at the end of 2025, with plans to reach 165,000 by the end of 2026. Russia is currently failing to meet its monthly recruitment quotas. The plan includes recruiting 68,000 contract soldiers and transferring 10,000 servicemen from elsewhere in the military this year, but, if recruitment of civilians is insufficient, more service members will likely be transferred. Russia is also scaling the size of its unmanned systems units at all levels, including elevating newly-formed unmanned systems regiments subordinate to military districts and fleets into brigades. The scarcity of talent, and struggle to recruit Russia’s most capable and technologically savvy young men and women, will remain a key constraint.


The above analysis was originally published on Two Marines, a newsletter on Russia’s war in Ukraine, defense technology, and modern warfare, on June 5, 2026.

About the authors:Rob Lee is a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia Program and a former Marine infantry officer
Dmytro Putiata is a drone warfare expert who served in several units in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. He served in the 36th Marine Brigade and Ummanned Systems Forces’ 20th Separate Unmanned Systems Brigade “K-2”.

Source: This article was published by FPRI

About Published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute
Founded in 1955, FPRI is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization devoted to bringing the insights of scholarship to bear on the development of policies that advance U.S. national interests and seeks to add perspective to events by fitting them into the larger historical and cultural context of international politics.
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Celebrate The Fourth Of July, But Don’t Forget The Twelfth Of June

George Mason National Memorial. Photo Credit: Tim Evanson / Flickr

June 13, 2026
By William J. Watkins, Jr.


Naturally, the main event of America’s 250th anniversary celebrations will be the Fourth of July, in honor of the Declaration of Independence. But a little tailgate party would be appropriate for the Twelfth of June. For it was on that date, 250 years ago, that Virginia’s Declaration of Rights was adopted.

Written primarily by George Mason, Virginia’s declaration inspired Thomas Jefferson in writing the nation’s founding document. It set forth in plain language America’s first principles and provided guideposts for the establishment of a republican government.

It’s no accident that this seminal declaration originated in Virginia. Jamestown, founded in 1607, put many of those principles and structures into action well before 1776. As Lyon Gardiner Tyler—son of President John Tyler and himself president of William & Mary from 1888 to 1919—observed, “jury trial, courts for the administration of justice, popular elections in which all the ‘inhabitants’ took part, and a representative Assembly” were created in the Old Dominion “before any other English settlement was made on this continent.”

In the Declaration of Rights’s first section, Enlightenment thought and Christian principles intersect to affirm the equality of all men and their possession of rights such as “the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” If this language sounds familiar, it’s because another Virginian—Jefferson—borrowed from it when composing the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.


The Virginia declaration’s second section rejects the British idea that an artificial body such as Parliament could possess ultimate authority. In the commonwealth, “all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people,” the declaration states. Government officials are thus “trustees and servants and at all times amenable to” the people.

The third section proclaims that “government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community.” If a government fails to achieve these ends, “a majority of the community has an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.”

In the next four sections, the declaration rejects the hereditary offices found in the British system; asserts that power should be divided among three branches of government; commands frequent and free elections so the people can deliberate on the conduct of their magistrates; and prohibits the suspension of duly enacted laws without legislative consent.

After setting forth these principles of republican government, the Declaration of Rights turns to individual liberties necessary for a free society. Many of these provisions would later appear in the Bill of Rights—the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, ratified in 1791.


Section 8 deals with the rights of an accused person in criminal cases. A criminal defendant has a right to confront the government’s witnesses, present evidence in his own defense and demand a speedy trial by a jury of his peers. Prosecutors are prohibited from compelling the accused to give evidence against himself or hiding the nature of the charges from the defendant.

The ninth section, mirrored almost exactly by the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, avers “that excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

Section 10 outlaws the British colonial practice of using general warrants—a legal process that authorized searches and seizures without specifying the premises to be searched or the alleged contraband to be seized. No such fishing expeditions would be allowed in Virginia. Similar prohibitions in the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment are modeled on the Declaration of Rights.

The remaining sections protect civil jury trials, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and civil control of the military.

A society can remain free, the Virginia Declaration of Rights teaches, “but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.”

So, yes, on July Fourth, by all means heartily cheer the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. But to understand the principles behind the American Revolution and republican government, dust off George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights and study its plain language. It is essential to discerning the pillars of America’s government and the purpose of the nation’s independence.

This article was originally published in The Washington Post

About William J. Watkins, Jr.
William J. Watkins, Jr. is a Research Fellow at The Independent Institute and author of the Independent books, Crossroads for Liberty: Recovering the Anti-Federalist Values of America’s First Constitution, Reclaiming the American Revolution: The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions and Their Legacy, and Patent Trolls: Predatory Litigation and the Smothering of Innovation.
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