Daily Brief: 26 December 2025

Europe | Geopolitics | US sanctions EU officials over content moderation laws, ending transatlantic regulatory cooperation

Situation

On December 23, 2025, the US State Department imposed visa restrictions on five European officials, including former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, for enforcing the Digital Services Act. Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused them of participating in a “censorship-industrial complex” and threatened to expand sanctions if other foreign actors don’t reverse course.

This marks the first time America has sanctioned allied officials for enforcing their own domestic laws. The European Commission condemned the sanctions and promised to “respond swiftly and decisively to defend our regulatory autonomy.”

Context

Unlike previous trade disputes, this confrontation targets the fundamental legitimacy of European digital governance. The DSA treats platforms as infrastructure requiring democratic accountability, while US law shields platforms from government interference through the First Amendment and Section 230.

Both regulatory systems have extraterritorial effects—European rules constrain American expression when platforms adjust policies globally, while American platforms dominate European digital life under US legal assumptions. The EU-US Trade and Technology Council, established in 2021 to coordinate digital governance approaches, has effectively collapsed.

By publicly naming targets, the administration created “audience costs” that make retreat politically expensive for both sides, transforming a regulatory dispute into culture-war theater.

Trajectory

Transatlantic regulatory cooperation in its previous form cannot survive explicit American rejection of European sovereignty over digital governance. The institutional machinery built over decades—regular meetings, shared definitions, mutual recognition agreements—is being dismantled.

The internet’s architecture makes jurisdictional boundaries porous, creating a sovereignty trap where every assertion of authority by one party constrains the other. With no neutral ground available, competing claims over the same digital space will intensify, forcing allied nations to choose between regulatory autonomy and transatlantic unity.

China | Defence | US drone task forces cannot close ten-million unit annual production gap through speed alone

Situation

CENTCOM launched new drone task forces promising sixty-day delivery cycles to counter China’s mass production advantage in autonomous systems. The Rapid Employment Joint Task Force and Task Force Scorpion Strike bypass traditional acquisition to accelerate deployment.

China produces ten million drones annually worth $29.4 billion—four times US spending. DJI commands ninety percent of global consumer drone sales. A US-manufactured drone costing $500,000 might cost $50,000 in China, reflecting different industrial ecosystems rather than just labor costs.

CENTCOM’s LUCAS program illustrates the gap: their reverse-engineered Shahed-136 costs $193,000 per unit versus Iran’s $20,000 original.

Context

The disparity reflects structural differences in military-industrial approaches. The US produces drones like fighter jets—small batches, exquisite specifications, extraordinary cost. China integrates military and civilian production with acceptable risk tolerance for mass output.

Ukraine demonstrates operational implications: Ukrainian forces lose 1,500 drones monthly while the US Air Force considers three percent Reaper attrition “unsustainable.” Iranian Shahed drones overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses through volume, creating cost-inversion traps where $400 drones force expenditure of $100,000 interceptors.

Supply chain dependencies compound the challenge. Chinese battery specifications determine American drone architecture, while China dominates rare earth materials essential for motors and sensors.

Trajectory

Speed at procurement margins cannot compensate for structural industrial capacity deficiencies. Sixty-day prototypes require different capabilities than sixty-day mass production, which demands industrial capacity that doesn’t exist.

The Defense Innovation Unit’s forty-one percent decline in prototype transitions reveals the “valley of death” between innovation and production. Budget structures, not bureaucratic friction, constrain scaling.

High-attrition disposable doctrine becomes economically inevitable regardless of military preference. CENTCOM already faces this dynamic as Houthis force million-dollar missile expenditures against thousand-dollar drone threats.

Yesterday’s Assessments

• The Unmaking of the West
• The Sixty-Day Mirage: Why CENTCOM’s Drone Task Forces Cannot Close the China Gap
• Daily Brief: 25 December 2025

Until tomorrow.