Trump falls for Zelensky's dapper look, 6 months after dressing him down at White House
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was certainly hoping that a spot of fashion diplomacy on Monday could get US counterpart Donald Trump to help his country reach a peace deal with Russia.
Despite the life-and-death matters unfolding in Ukraine, much of the speculation among the White House press corps was about whether Zelensky would wear a suit.
In February, Ukraine's wartime leader was ridiculed by a right-wing US reporter for wearing military-style garb instead of a business suit when he visited the Oval Office.
That mocking exchange set the tone for an astonishing blow-up a few minutes later when Trump and Vice-President J.D. Vance proceeded to berate Zelensky for not being 'grateful' for US support against Russia's invasion.
What a difference six months makes.
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Trump falls for Zelensky's dapper look, 6 months after White House dressing down
The fates of nations have rarely, if ever, been decided by sartorial choices. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was certainly hoping that a spot of fashion diplomacy on Monday could get US counterpart Donald Trump to help his country reach a peace deal with Russia. Despite the life-and-death matters unfolding in Ukraine, much of the speculation among the White House press corps was about whether Zelensky would wear a suit. In February, Ukraine's wartime leader was ridiculed by a right-wing US reporter for wearing military-style garb instead of a business suit when he visited the Oval Office. That mocking exchange set the tone for an astonishing blow-up a few minutes later when Trump and Vice-President J.D. Vance proceeded to berate Zelensky for not being 'grateful' for US support against Russia's invasion. What a difference six months makes.
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Ball and Tanter write that the line arcs from Kyushu's Kagoshima down the Osumi Islands to Okinawa, then via Miyako and Yonaguni past Taiwan to the Philippines' Balabac, onward to Lombok in eastern Indonesia and across the Sunda Strait to northern Sumatra and the Andamans with key nodes at Okinawa and Guam and allied sections provided by Japan and Taiwan. The Fish Hook's purpose is not subtle, and Beijing knows it. Underscoring the threat the network poses to China's submarine force, Ryan Martinson writes in a June 2025 Center for International Maritime Security article that even with rapid modernization, China's submarine fleet remains critically vulnerable to US undersea surveillance. Citing People's Liberation Army Navy officers in the Military Art journal, Martinson says Chinese submarines face a 'fairly high probability' of detection during peacetime operations, even within the First Island Chain. 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The writers add that stealth enables early deployment to shape the battlespace, while integration with aviation units enhances interdiction. They add that submarines bolster China's ability to maintain persistent pressure, complicate Taiwan's maritime awareness and deter foreign intervention. Neutralizing the Fish Hook would have equally profound implications for China's nuclear deterrent. China is implementing a bastion strategy in the South China Sea, where its nuclear ballistic-missile submarines can operate inside a protected zone defended by artificial islands, land-based aircraft and warships. Further, China's nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) armed with the JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missile do not have the range to hit the US mainland from the South China Sea, although the longer-ranged JL-3 will allow it to do so. However, in a bastion strategy, China's SSBNs remain bottled up in a small operational area, which is routinely patrolled by US nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs), as opposed to Pacific open-sea patrols that exponentially increase the difficulty of tracking down submarines. XLUUVs that can harass seabed arrays, complicate acoustic baselines and strike at repair ships would be a force multiplier for any future transition from bastion patrols to broader, less predictable open-sea deterrent patrols. None of this makes the XLUUVs a silver bullet. The US and its allies have spent decades refining anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and are unlikely to cede the initiative. 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It adds that gaps in ASW and underwater domain awareness persist despite these efforts. Whether China can turn its growing undersea arsenal into a durable advantage depends more on surpassing US surveillance and exploiting gaps in allied ASW defenses, which are still thin across the Pacific. Between those facts lies the real test for the drones on parade—whether they can do enough, soon enough, to blind an adversary that has spent decades learning to see under the waves.
