This year’s Paris Defense and Strategy Forum – the annual superpower gathering of some 300 military chiefs, munition developers, and policy wonks from 30 countries held inside the French military school that failed to teach Napoleon Bonaparte how to strategically retreat from Moscow – was not a gathering intentionally calculated to make America grumpy again.
Although the official theme of the powwow was a milquetoast “Europe at the Crossroads,” it didn’t take long for the conclave to devolve into a three-day tutorial on French President Charles de Gaulle’s observation, “You may be sure that Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.”
The U.S. military brass on hand bit hard on their complimentary croissants; a pack of allied Polish colonels beat a hasty retreat to a cordon sanitaire established behind a falafel lunch wagon. Bejeweled commanders of Cameroonian troops stroked their silk aiguillettes, watching the West’s group therapy session on U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian despot Vladimir Putin in stiff-lipped silence.
“Would Trump help us if Morocco invaded Spain?” an Andalusian think-tanker fired into a troop of haggard and humorless American officers.
“We have no intention of invading Spain,” a friendly voice thankfully interrupted in Moroccan-accented French.
A funny thing happened on the way to the forum.
There’s apparently no longer any antidote to American hubris, particularly when Chatham House Rules allowed politically panicked government officials and their confidential kibitzers here to speak freely but without being identified or quoted on whether the theatrical camaraderie between Trump and Putin ends in the carnage of “GoodFellas.”
Welcome to the grave new world, a place where NATO war planners privately paint Americans as inhabitants of a hyper-individualistic and contrarian postmodern culture. As delegates here behind doors choreograph the new global scene, the U.S. is portrayed as a cartoonish realm ruled by fringe ideologues, where Trump enthusiasts and Putin’s fascist force majeure march in lockstep against democracy and the post-war Western alliance.
Make no mistake. Trump’s approach toward Putin – seen as an affectionate embrace, coupled with his criticism of NATO, have sent a rumble of fear and frenzy through Europe.
“It’s very real,” reckons a soldier who should know better than most.
This comes from one of the scrambled eggheads responsible for NATO’s Allied Joint Doctrine for Psychological Operation assaults on the Kremlin’s smear campaign to defile Ukraine and the alliance.
“The White House portrayal of Putin as our friend is creating holistic havoc with the American public,” the PSYOP gunner warns. “What are the motives? Why is the administration blindly defying reality? I don’t know.”
Olena Tregub, founder of Ukraine’s International and Anti-Corruption Commission and the former chief muckety-muck, responsible for managing the distribution of civilian and military aid from the U.S. and elsewhere, says she’s spent every day since Trump’s election trying to find out why.
“Drones and PSYOPs: three years into the war and that’s the narrative,” explains Tregub, a graduate of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. “I’ve worked to ensure military equipment gets to the Ukrainian frontline; now I ensure accurate information enters the battle for American hearts and minds … you know our drones hit 22 percent more Russian targets in February than in January.”
In the annals of warfare, few domains have evolved as rapidly and as stealthily as PSYOPs. Once the purview of leaflets and loudspeakers, Tregub says Ukrainian battlefield is witnessing a mostly silent revolution, where AI and drones are the new cavalry, reshaping not just the terrain, but the minds of combatants and civilians alike.
“This is the silent whisper,” a Ukrainian “PSYOPerator” says. “The idea is to turn the fog of war into a navigable mist and defeat Putin.”
The Ukrainian delegates here are storytellers, spinning tales of resilience and defiance that they hope will echo far beyond the battlefield. Yet they say the true genius lies not in the AI technology, but in its integration with psychological jujitsu against the Russians and offering global investors access to AI drone tech at bargain-basement prices after the war.
Until then, a NATO intelligence officer, not authorized to speak on the record, says Ukraine’s AI-PSYOPers must exist within a very tense acronym. Russia has slapped bounties on the country’s PSYOPerators, drone engineers and AI wizards.
A former U.S. intelligence agent who operated in Russia says Putin, between 2014 and 2022, authorized at least 66 extraterritorial assassinations, including targeted killings in the European Union and Britain. He expects the number to rise significantly, regardless of any peace deal.
“Unauthorized individuals attempted, and were stopped, from entering the forum’s closed sessions on Ukrainian armaments,” says a senior NATO adviser to the Ukrainian weapons sector who could not reveal their identity, citing fear of Kremlin retribution. “There are targets on our backs, particularly the people who are designing and producing these weapons. We must be exceptionally careful.”
But that hasn’t stopped the marketing campaigns. Business is business, and Ukraine is in dire need of seeding a post-war economy.
If and when peace breaks out, professional weapon merchants suggest a great place to start looking into some 300 Ukrainian companies that manufacture and operate the country’s super-secret AI drone arsenal is the Smart War Company, a Kyiv consulting firm that functions as the Walmart of modern mayhem.
Smart War can source just about anything that can remotely go boom in the night, short of a charismatic cluster bomb.
For those seeking a dreadnaught with the charm of Disney’s underwater Princess Ariel and the kill ratio of a Skynet Hydrobot, Ukrainian intelligence chief Kyrylo Bundanov says “Ammo Ukraine’s” “Marichka” submersible is a “paralyzer” priced to move at $433,000.
Named after Ukraine’s favorite fairytale mermaid, Marichka can swim for 621 miles with 440 pounds of explosive clout in her tail and comes with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s seal of approval.
“We also make Palianytsia, a new method of drone missile retaliation against the aggressor,” Zelenskyy wryly told Western investors last year during a speech to the nation. “It’s named after a variety of Ukrainian bread.”
According to the projectile's user’s manual, Palianytsia can toast targets in Russia.
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