Back at JFK Special Warfare School to teach PSYOP

It’s always a happy occasion to be back at Fort Bragg, teaching psychological operations courses to our special operations forces. Recently I was at the John F Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School for a two-day PSYOP session for officers and senior NCOs. Our PSYOPers keep getting better and better. Over the years, I’ve seen … Read more

Trump’s America-first national security strategy embodies 30 years of Center for Security Policy ideas

by J Michael Waller / Center for Security Policy / May 31, 2018 Thirty years of hard work paid off in January when President Donald Trump issued his America First National Security Strategy. In cooperation with others and often alone, Center for Security Policy had promoted most of the elements that President Trump has embraced … Read more

‘Deepfakes’ – Artificial intelligence-powered videos – can be weaponized for political & military

Senator Marco Rubio and I discussed the dangers of “deepfakes” – artificial intelligence-powered fake videos that can impersonate real people. Bill Gertz broke the story in the Free Beacon. “Michael Waller, an information warfare expert, said deepfakes also could be used by U.S. intelligence agencies for offensive information warfare operations against hostile states or terrorist … Read more

Talking on Fox about Russian cyberattack

  Charles Payne had me on his “Making Money” show on Fox Business, to talk about the newly reported Russian cyberattack on our nation’s electrical grid and critical infrastructure. The show aired live on March 16. The American grid is extremely vulnerable to foreign cyber attack. Government and industry have wanted to avoid the issue … Read more

On BBC to explain nerve agent attack on Russian double agent

The BBC hosted Dr Waller to explain Russia’s illegal chemical weapons program that was apparently used to try to assassinate a former GRU officer who had taken refuge in Britain after a 2010 spy swap. In the early 1990s, Waller worked with three former Soviet chemical weapons scientists at the heart of the illegal Novichok … Read more

Empowerment and leverage: Key elements of Trump’s National Security Strategy

by J Michael Waller / InFocus / Winter 2018 With global conflicts stretching the United States toward the breaking point, many feared that the world’s only superpower in 2017 was headed over a cliff. Flailing policies in Afghanistan stole hard-fought American military gains and had made the Taliban enemy a player again. Things became even … Read more

Putting the strategy back in strategic communications

Volume 3 of our Defence Strategic Communications scholarly journal is out, published by NATO’s Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence in Riga, Latvia. This is an excellent, truly international journal containing a surprising range of original perspectives. I’m happy to be a founding member of the editorial board. Subjects for Volume 3 range from the eclectic … Read more

Trump is going to need a bigger wall

by J Michael Waller / Town Hall / December 6, 2017 President Donald Trump is going to have to build a bigger wall on the border with Mexico, not because of the Mexicans, but because of the Obama holdovers he has kept in place. Venezuela is on the verge of unleashing a major refugee crisis, … Read more

Making the world safe for prosperity: State Department needs overhaul to become business-friendly

by J Michael Waller, PhD / Georgetown Research Summary. The State Department’s shift toward building “civil society” abroad has clashed with the mission to promote traditional US national interests. Occasionally it has harmed legitimate American business interests abroad. To illustrate the problem, this paper describes how international NGOs operated in a single country to target … Read more

American troops are in Niger partly because US ignored call from wise African general

by J Michael Waller / The Daily Caller / October 27, 2017 “American troops are in Niger because the US didn’t listen to a wise African leader who wanted to stomp out regional jihadists before they became a real problem. “If the United States had accepted an offer of strategic partnership six years ago, it … Read more