Unrestricted

Unrestricted (pronounced uhn-ri-strik-tid)

(1) Not restricted or confined.

(2) In the classification of documents, having no security classification.

1766: The construct was un-+ restrict + -ed.  The un- prefix was from the Middle English un-, from the Old English un-, from the Proto-West Germanic un-, from the Proto-Germanic un-, from the primitive Indo-European n̥-.  It was cognate with the Scots un- & on-, the North Frisian ün-, the Saterland Frisian uun-, the West Frisian ûn- &  on-, the Dutch on-, the Low German un- & on-, the German un-, the Danish u-, the Swedish o-, the Norwegian u- and the Icelandic ó-.  It was (distantly) related to the Latin in- and the Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-), source of the English a-, the Modern Greek α- (a-) and the Sanskrit अ- (a-).  The verb restrict was in use by at least the 1530s in the sense of “to limit, bound, confine (someone or something), prevent from passing a certain limit in any kind of action” and was from the Latin restrictus, past participle of restringere (bind fast, restrain) and perfect passive participle of restringō (draw back tightly; restrain, restrict), the construct being re- (back, again) + stringō (press, tighten, compress); as an adjective, it was a doublet of ristretto. By the eighteenth century, the word had come to be regarded as a Scotticism but the infection spread quickly to Standard English.  As the past-participle adjective from restrict (in the sense of “limited, confined”), restricted has become associated with the classification of government documents, in the sense of “not for public release”, use seems not to have been routine until 1944 when a system of classification was codified by the US government.  Prior to that, although restrictions of distribution were common, concepts such as “Restricted to [names or designations]”, “Secret”, “Top Secret” etc were used but there was no standardization within departments or even between branches of the military.  When used as a suffix to form possessional adjectives from nouns, -ed was from the Middle English -ed, from the Old English -od (the adjectival suffix), from the Proto-Germanic -ōdaz, from the primitive Indo-European -ehtos.  It was cognate with the Latin -ātus. 

Glory road: A “Derestricted” sign in Australia's Northern Territory from the days of “no speed limits”.

In use, the older adjectival use was simply “restrict” and although “unrestricted” would seem an absolute (ie something either is restricted or it is not), dictionaries confirm the comparative is “more unrestricted” and the superlative “most unrestricted” although at least one style guide notes those forms can be regarded in a similar way as “very unique” (ie technically incorrect but widely used and well-understood.  The related adverb “restrictedly” was and remains rare.  In the US, well into the twentieth century, the appearance of the word “restricted” in advertisements, signage and such was verbal shorthand for (depending on context and location): “No Jews”, “No coloreds” etc.  Although the words “unrestricted” & “derestricted” describe similar states, different histories are implied and that’s a product of the ways in which the absence of restrictions came about.  Unrestricted means literally “no restrictions” (access to something or somewhere; rights to engage in trade etc).  “Derestricted” means that previously restrictions must have been imposed but those have since been removed.  The use applies to document classifications and in the now rare cases of roads with no speed limits (although some of those were something of a linguistic outlier because in many cases they never had any restrictions to be derestricted.  For obvious reasons, in English, “unrestricted” is the more commonly used form.  Unrestricted, unrestrictive & unrestrictable are adjectives, unrestrictedness is a noun and unrestrictedly is an adverb.

1978 Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL 6.9 on the Northern Territory's derestricted roads.  

Although the factory only ever claimed 225 km/h (140 mph), top speed of a UK-delivered “Euro spec” 6.9 (ie one not fitted with the power-sapping anti-emission devices fitted to those built for sale in the US or Australia) turned out to be a verified 237 km/h (147 mph) which reflected the experience of European testers who achieved 238 km/h (148 mph) on the German Autobahns.  Unexceptional now, such pace was in the 1970s a reasonable achievement for a heavy cruiser with pre-modern aerodynamics; at high-speed, the fuel consumption was as awe inspiring as one might expect from a 6.8 litre (417 cubic inch) V8 at full throttle.  The most powerful of the W116 range (1972-1980), technically the 6.9 was a V116 (the "V" denoting the 100 mm (4 inch) longer wheelbase) and was the spiritual successor to the old (W109) 300 SEL 6.3 (1967-1972) which adopted the classic muscle car formula for the 1964 Pontiac GTO by taking the 6.3 litre (386 cubic inch) V8 (M100) from the huge 600s (W100, 1963-1981) and putting it in a mid-sized car previously powered by nothing larger than a 3.0 litre (183 cubic inch) straight-six.  The distinct "hot rod" flavor of the 6.3 made it a more entertaining drive than the 6.9 but the latter was a vastly improved machine and the template on which the factory would build decades of success.  One quirk of the 6.9 was the use of a dry sump; with the lower hood (bonnet) line of the W/V116, the V8 was simply too tall to fit if conventionally lubricated.   

Idealistic lawyers (they do exist) and others have for centuries argued it is the existence of and adherence to laws which makes possible civilized societies, the alternative often expressed as “the law of the jungle”, best understood in the vernacular “kill or be killed” world in which life of man was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”, memorably described in Leviathan (1651) by the very clever and deliciously wicked English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679).  However, what the lawyers, at least privately, acknowledge is the extent of adherence to laws closely is tied to (1) their enforcement and (2) a layered system of punishments for transgressions.  In domestic legal systems, this is comprehended as the apparatus extending from receiving a fine for overstaying one’s time at a parking meter to being hanged for murder; the existence of laws does not prevent crime but the perception of the chance of detection and the subsequent penalty for many operates as a deterrent and the debates about relationship between certain penalties and their deterrent effect continue.

Mahan's The Influence of Sea Power upon History 1660-1783.  In the last decade of the nineteenth century, probably no book was more read in palaces, chancelleries & admiralties.

In war, although usually the opposing sides have geo-political objectives, for those doing the fighting, historically the business was about killing each other and in practice that of course quickly and understandably came to imply “by whatever means possible” but for many centuries there have been conventions which form of “rules of war”, the most celebrated the various chivalric codes (codified during of the Middle Ages) which sought to regulate the behaviour of soldiers, particularly towards civilians.  However, as US Navy Captain Alfred Mahan (1840–1914) pointed out in the epoch-making The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 (1890), it’s impossible by mere agreement to outlaw the use of a militarily effective weapon so is it any more plausible for a statute, treaty or agreement to limit “mission creep” in the methods?  Whatever knightly codes may have existed, there seems little doubt that on the battlefield (or the towns subject to rape & pillage) habits do tend towards “unrestricted warfare”, military historians and legal theorists often pondering whether in “existential conflicts”, law reasonably can be expected to retain its intended force.

In what was a rhetorical flourish rather than a substantive legal point, in the dock before the IMT (International Military Tribunal) which in 1945-1946 sat in Nuremberg to try 22 of the surviving senior Nazis, Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945) claimed to be quoting Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) in citing: “In the struggle for life and death there is in the end no legality.”  Like William Shakespeare (1564–1616), a few phrases have been attributed to Churchill on the basis of “sounding Churchillian” and although there’s nothing in the record to support the case those exact words ever passed his lips, Göring’s paraphrase was not unreasonable.  After the fall of France in 1940, Churchill did make clear his view “there could be no justice if, in a mortal struggle, the aggressor tramples humanity while those resisting remain bound by violated conventions” by which he meant if the Nazis ignored international law, it was an absurdity for the Allies fully to remain constrained by it while fighting for their very survival.  Churchill was not advocating the rejection of established law as a principle; he was saying when a state faces the prospect of destruction at the hand of an enemy ignoring the accepted rules of war, strict legalism must not be allowed to prevent an effective defence.  That wasn’t a novel idea Churchill formed upon assuming the premiership.  Months earlier, when serving as First Lord of the Admiralty (minister for the navy), he’d discussed whether the UK should regard itself still restricted by the legal conventions Germany’s forces were ignoring: “The Germans have torn up the conventions and the usages of war.  We cannot allow ourselves to be bound by rules which the enemy does not observe if by doing so we place our country in mortal danger.”  While not exactly the words used by Göring in the dock, he captured the spirit of Churchill’s meaning.

Lindsay Lohan on the cover of Vogue Arabia, March 2026.  Among the topics raised in discussion about her not uneventful life was “…coming of age in the spotlight in a time of unrestricted paparazzi access and near-constant tabloid scrutiny.”

Of course on 15 March 1946, borrowing the thoughts of “…one of our greatest, most important, and toughest opponents…” to support his argument modern, industrial, total war had rendered irrelevant traditional legal restraints, he was still harbouring the (faint) hope he might escape the noose and thus has a good motive in seeking to undermine the moral authority of the tribunal by suggesting even Churchill had acknowledged that in existential war, legal rules collapse.  This was not the construction of legal theory in the abstract, just as Churchill was explaining the pragmatic nature of military necessity because as he pointed out: “without victory there is no survival” and were the UK unilaterally to obey the rules while its opponents did not, the nation might lose the war.  Neither man ever sought to maintain that in war laws vanish, only that as demanded in extraordinary and reprehensible circumstances, they may need to be ignored.  Essentially, Churchill was asserting he wasn’t prepared to behave with the propriety of Caesar’s wife while Göring cavorted with Caesar’s whores; with that the Reichmarshall gleefully would have agreed and although his hopes the tribunal might find his paraphrased defence exculpatory were by then faint indeed, he still had an eye on the figure he hoped to cut in the history books.  

The doctrine of military necessity of course dates from the first time some prehistoric character picked up a stick or rock to gain tactical advantage in an argument and despite the various codes of warfare promulgated over millennia by philosophers, priests and politicians, that doctrine survived into the age of musketry and later, atomic bombs.  It’s the Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) who often is quoted because, with his commendable economy of phrase, succinctly he explained why necessity so often prevails over legality in existential war.  In On War (1832), he observed “War is an act of force, and there is no logical limit to the application of that force” and, anticipating the idealists, added: “Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat an enemy without too much bloodshed… Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy.”  What Clausewitz called Kriegsräson (necessity in war) meant in practice was (1) war has an inherent tendency toward escalation, because each side must use whatever means are necessary to defeat the other and (2) “arms races” will tend to ensue.

Imperial Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg in field uniform including the famous Prussian Pickelhaube (spiked helmet, the construct being Pickel (pimple, pickaxe) +‎ Haube (hood, cap)), Berlin, 1915.  Even when serving as chancellor (prime minister) von Bethmann Hollweg sometimes wore military uniform; Germans adore uniforms (note the jackboots).

Later in the century, German military jurists expressed this logic through the principle Kriegsräson geht vor Kriegsmanier (military necessity overrides the customary rules of war) by which they meant the laws and customs of war could be followed only to the extent adherence did not impose an unacceptable military cost; if survival (and in practice: “immediate advantage”) demanded those rules be violated, necessity prevails.  What was at the time the most outrageous admission of the application of the doctrine came in 1914 after Germany violated Belgium’s neutrality and was delivered by Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (1856–1921) who between 1909-1917 served as one of a series of inadequate replacements of Otto von Bismarck (1815-1989; chancellor of the German Empire (the “Second Reich”) 1871-1890); imperial chancellor of the German Empire 1909-1917).  In what must remain among the more ill-advised statements delivered by a politician, von Bethmann Hollweg on 4 August 1914 stood in the Reichstag (lower house of the imperial parliament) and explained to assembled members the German war-plan required the army marching Belgium to attack France and that Germany being a signatory to the Treaty of London (1839) which guaranteed Belgium’s neutrality had been rendered irrelevant by military necessity, the always quoted passage being: “We are violating international law, but necessity knows no law.”  Not all historians agree Realpolitik held a greater fascination for Germans than others but for students of the art, the chancellor’s speech appears in just about every text-book on the subject.  Warming to his theme, when the British ambassador to Germany protested the violation, von Bethmann Hollweg responded it would be an absurdity were Britain to go to war “just for a scrap of paper” (that scrap being the treaty the Germans had in 1839 signed as co-guarantors of Belgian neutrality).  That cynical turn of phrase was echoed a generation later when, under cross-examination in the dock at Nuremberg, Göring almost gloatingly admitted he and the other leading Nazis had regarded the many treaties they’d signed as “just so much toilet paper.”

Like many a defendant, the defrocked Reichmarshall was at times evasive or dissembling but on the matter of the regime’s attitude to treaties, he was truthful.  A highlight of the 50^th birthday celebration for Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany 1938-1945) had been the presentation to the minister of a diamond-studded casket containing facsimiles of all the treaties he had signed during (his admittedly busy if not productive) tenure.  When one of his aides remarked that there were only “a few treaties we had not broken”, Ribbentrop was briefly uncertain how to react until he saw “…Hitler’s eyes filled with tears of laughter.”  It was said to be a good party which must have been welcome because by 1943 there wasn't much to celebrate in Berlin.  Like Göring, Ribbentrop, was convicted on all four counts (planning aggressive war, waging aggressive war, war crimes & crimes against humanity) and sentenced to be hanged; his life did end on the gallows, unlike Göring who, in circumstances never explained, cheated the hangman by taking poison.

Periscope cam: Footage of USN submarine strike on the Iranian Navy’s frigate IRIS Dena (released by the Pentagon (unclassified)).

One of the intriguing legal matters explored before the IMT was the matter of the lawfulness of “unrestricted submarine warfare” and those discussions were recalled when, early in March, 2026, the Pentagon announced a USN (US Navy) submarine had torpedoed and sunk the Iranian Navy’s IRIS Dena (a Moudge-class frigate) with the loss of more than half the ship’s compliment of 130-odd.  Pete Hegseth (b 1980; US Secretary of Defense (and War) since 2025) described the act as one of “quiet death” although that was a reference to the torpedo’s stealthy approach rather than the explosions which doomed ship and crew.  It was the USN’s first sinking of an enemy warship by torpedo since World War II (1939-1945) and because (1) the US and Iran undeniably are in a “state of armed conflict” (any legal distinction between that and “war” as traditionally defined ceasing decades earlier much to matter), (2) the Dena was a warship and (3) the action took place in international waters, the attack doubtlessly was within the rules of war and the reaction of Tehran in branding it an “atrocity at sea” was a political rather than legal claim.

Defendants in the dock, Nuremberg, 1946.  All were guilty of something and a dozen were sentenced to be hanged (including one in absentia) but the IMT acquitted three who subsequently were prosecuted by German courts.

What however remains of interest is the recent change in tactics by the US which now uses military-level missiles to target and sink what appear to be civilian vessels from Central America, the White House claiming the boats are being used to smuggle narcotics.  When considering the lawfulness of “unrestricted submarine warfare”, the IMT in 1946 held that while international law did limit the conduct of navies in their interactions with non-military (ie merchant craft, fishing boats etc) vessels, because the British merchantmen were from the beginning of the war armed and captains had been ordered by the Admiralty to if possible ram U-boats, they were not entitled to the warning provisions of the protocol.  Beyond that, with reference to the failure on the part of German U-boat (submarine) commanders to rescue their shipwrecked victims, the tribunal observed:

“The evidence further shows that the rescue provisions [of the Protocol] were not carried out and that the defendant [Großadmiral Karl Dönitz (1891–1980; head of the German Navy 1943-1945, German head of state 1945)] ordered that they not be carried out.  The argument of the defense is that the security of the submarine is, as the first rule of the sea, paramount to rescue and that the development of aircraft made rescue impossible.  This may be so, but the Protocol is explicit.  If the commander cannot rescue, then under its terms he cannot sink a merchant vessel and should allow it to pass harmless before his periscope.  These orders, then, prove Doenitz is guilty of a violation of the Protocol.”  Had the judgement at that point ended the legal position would have been clear in that having at least tacitly conceded the defense’s point that rescue was no longer practicable in light of the limitations of the submarine and modern technological developments, the use of submarines as commerce destroyers would have been deemed against international law.  However Doenitz’s counsel introduced evidence (including affidavits from Allied admirals) that the USN & Royal Navy had from the outbreak of hostilities also practiced the “unrestricted submarine warfare” of which the Germans were being accused and this was not a classic Tu quoque gambit (in international law, a justification of action based on an assertion that the act with which the accused is charged was also committed by the accusing parties.  It was from the Latin Tū quoque (translated literally as “thou also” and latterly as “you also”; the translation in the vernacular is something like “you did it too”, thus the legal slang “youtooism” & “whataboutyouism”)).  What counsel argued was that in practicing “unrestricted submarine warfare”, all navies were acting in accordance with international law because such law makes sense only if it is cognizant of the prevailing circumstances (ie reality).  The IMT’s judgement in the Doenitz case was difficult to read (it was only later it was revealed to have been written by a judge who voted for his acquittal) but what it said was (1) the defendant had violated the protocols which were the rules of international law as they at the time stood but (2) the nature of total war had so changed the reality of war at sea that those protocols were no longer law, rendered obsolete and thus defunct.  That was as close as the tribunal came to allowing a tu quoque defense.

Unclassified footage released by the Pentagon of one of dozens of strikes on alleged “narco-terrorist” boats by US Southern Command.  The video included a message from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth: “TO ALL NARCO-TERRORISTS WHO THREATEN OUT HOMELAND - IF YOU WANT TO STAY ALIVE, STOP TRAFFICKING DRUGS.”  As far as is known, in all cases of these strikes, all on board the boats were killed.

So, while the US military (and for this purpose that includes the Coast Guard, National Guard etc) have a free hand to attack on the high seas warships of a hostile combatant, does the doctrine of “unrestricted warfare” extend to civilian vessels allegedly being used for unlawful activities?  Legal scholars have explored this novel development (something genuinely new and introduced during the second administration of Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025)) and the consensus seems to be sinking manned civilian vessel with missiles as an instance in peacetime law enforcement is of dubious legality unless strict conditions are met.  The first thing to consider is whether it’s a matter of (1) peacetime law enforcement in international waters (something governed by the UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea)), customary international law and any bilateral interdiction agreements and thus a criminal matter rather than an act of war or (2) armed conflict at sea (and thus coming under the laws of naval warfare) which depends of a “state of armed conflict” existing between sovereign states.

However, whichever is held to be operative, as a general principle, civilian vessels are protected from missile attacks and enjoy freedom of navigation (certainly on the high seas); forces from warships may board, inspect, and arrest, but not arbitrarily destroy and under the UNCLOS there are explicit provisions under which a warship can stop a vessel suspected of statelessness or certain crimes but use of force must be necessary and proportionate.  Conceptionally, the notion of “proportionality” is little different from what is the domestic law of many states concerning matters such as self-defense: (1) there is no reasonable alternative and (2) force must not exceed what is needed to achieve a lawful objective.  Because these are events happening “on the water” there are also “graduations” in the use of force which are unique to the nautical environment including signals and warnings, maneuvering to compel a stop, warning shots (the classic “shot across the bows”) and disabling fire.  When civilian vessels are involved, historically, only in extremis (presenting a clear & present threat) would lethal force be deemed appropriate.  In other words, using missiles, without warning, to sink a civilian vessel would, in the context of law enforcement, be thought “disproportionate” especially if the crew’s lives are put at serious risk (inherent in missile attacks).  That’s all based on the precept that whether on land or at sea, states are expected to respect the right to life under international human rights law.  Because the adoption of this technique was so sudden, legal theorists are still working through the implications but it would appear an extension of the concept of “unrestricted warfare” beyond military targets.

Defiant

Defiant (pronounced dih-fahy-uhnt)

Characterized by defiance or a willingness to defy; boldly resistant or challenging.

1830s: From the French défiant, from the Old French, present participle of the verb défier (to challenge, defy, provoke), the construct thus def(y) + “i” + -ant.  Defy dates from the mid thirteenth century and was from the Middle English defien, from the Old French desfier, from the Vulgar Latin disfidare (renounce one's faith), the construct being dis- (away) + fidus (faithful).  The construct in French was thus des- (in the sense of negation) + fier (to trust), (from the Vulgar Latin fīdāre, from the Classical Latin fīdere (fidelity),  In the fourteenth century, the meaning shifted from “be disloyal” to “challenge”.  The suffix –ant was from the Middle English –ant & -aunt, partly from the Old French -ant, from Latin -āns; and partly (in adjectival derivations) a continuation of the use of the Middle English -ant, a variant of -and, -end, from the Old English -ende ( the present participle ending).  Extensively used in the sciences (especially medicine and pathology), the agent noun was derived from verb.  It was used to create adjectives (1) corresponding to a noun in -ance, having the sense of "exhibiting (the condition or process described by the noun)" and (2) derived from a verb, having the senses of: (2a) "doing (the verbal action)", and/or (2b) "prone/tending to do (the verbal action)".  In English, many of the words to which –ant was appended were not coined in English but borrowed from the Old French, Middle French or Modern French.  The negative adjectival forms are non-defiant & undefiant although there is a kind of middle ground described by quasi-defiant, semi-defiant & half-defiant, the latter three sometimes used in military conflicts where, for whatever reason, it’s been necessary (or at least desirable) for a force to offer a “token resistance” prior to an inevitable defeat.  The adjective over-defiant refers to a resistance or recalcitrance, the extent or duration of which is not justified by the circumstances; in such cases the comparative is “more defiant” and the superlative “most defiant”.  Defiant is a noun & adjective, defiantness is a noun and defiantly is an adverb; the noun plural is defiants.

Defiance in politics: use with caution

The commonly used synonyms include rebellious, direful, truculent, insolent, rebellious, recalcitrant, refractory, contumacious & insubordinate but in diplomacy, such words must be chosen with care because what is one context may be a compliment, in another it may be a slight.  This was in 1993 discovered by Paul Keating (b 1944; Prime Minister of Australia 1991-1996) who labelled Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad (b 1925; prime minister of Malaysia 1981-2003 & 2018-2020) one of the “recalcitrant” when the latter declined to attend a summit meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).  For historic reasons, Dr Mahathir was sensitive to the memories of the imperialist oppressors telling colonized people what to do and interpreted Mr Keating’s phrase as a suggestion he should be more obedient (the most commonly used antonym of defiant, the others including obedient & submissive).  Things could quickly have been resolved (Dr Mahathir of the “forgive but not forget” school of IR (international relations)) but, unfortunately, Mr Keating was brought up in the gut-wrenching “never apologize” tradition of the right-wing of the New South Wales (NSW) Labor Party so what could have been handled as a clumsy linguistic gaffe was allowed to drag on.

Circa 1933 Chinese propaganda poster featuring a portrait of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (Chiang Chung-cheng).  Set in an oval frame below flags alongside stylized Chinese lettering, the generalissimo is depicted wearing his ceremonial full-dress uniform with decorations.

The admission an opponent is being “defiant” must also sometimes be left unsaid.  Ever since Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975; leader of the Republic of China (mainland) 1928-1949 & the renegade province of Taiwan 1949-1975) in 1949 fled mainland China, settling on and assuming control of the island of Taiwan, the status of the place has been contested, most dramatically in the incidents which flare up occasionally in the in the straits between the island and the mainland, remembered as the First (1954–1955), Second (1958) and Third (1995-1996) Taiwan Strait Crises which, although sometimes in retrospect treated as sabre rattling or what Hun Sen (b 1952; prime minister (in one form or another) 1985-2023) might have called “the boys letting off steam”, were at the time serious incidents, each with the potential to escalate into something worse.  Strategically, the first two crises were interesting studies in Cold War politics, the two sides at one stage exchanging information about when and where their shelling would be aimed, permitting troops to be withdrawn from the relevant areas on the day.  Better to facilitate administrative arrangements, each side’s shelling took place on alternate days, satisfying honor on both sides.  The other landmark incident was China’s seat at the United Nations (UN), held by the Republic of China (ROC) (Taiwan) between 1945-1971 and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) (the mainland) since.

Jiefang Taiwan, xiaomie Jiangzei canyu (Liberate Taiwan, and wipe out the remnants of the bandit Chiang) by Yang Keyang (楊可楊) and Zhao Yannian (趙延年). 

A 1954 PRC propaganda poster printed as part of anti-Taiwan campaign during first Taiwan Strait Crisis (1954-1955), Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek depicted as a scarecrow erected on Taiwan by the US government and military. Note the color of the generalissimo’s cracked and disfigured head (tied to a pole) and the similarity to the color of the American also shown.  The artists have included some of the accoutrements often associated with Chiang’s uniforms: white gloves, boots and a ceremonial sword.  The relationship between Chiang and the leaders of PRC who defeated his army, Chairman Mao (Mao Zedong. 1893–1976; paramount leader of PRC 1949-1976) and Zhou Enlai (1898–1976; PRC premier 1949-1976) was interesting.  Even after decades of defiance in his renegade province, Mao and Zhou still referred to him, apparently genuinely, as “our friend”, an expression which surprised both Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) and Henry Kissinger (b 1923; US national security advisor 1969-1973 & secretary of state 1973-1977) who met the chairman and premier during their historic mission to Peking in 1972.

A toast: Comrade Chairman Mao Zedong (left) and  Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (right), celebrating the Japanese surrender, Chongqing, China, September 1945.  After this visit, they would never meet again.

Most people, apparently even within the PRC, casually refer to the place as “Taiwan” but state and non-governmental entities, anxious not to upset Beijing, use a variety of terms including “Chinese Taipei” (the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA, the International Federation of Association Football) & its continental confederations (AFC, CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, OFC and UEFA)), “Taiwan District” (the World Bank) and “Taiwan Province of China” (the International Monetary Fund (IMF)).  Taiwan’s government uses an almost declarative “Republic of China” which is the name adopted for China after the fall of the Qing dynasty and used between 1912-1949 and even “Chinese Taipai” isn’t without controversy, “Taipei” being the Taiwanese spelling whereas Beijing prefers “Taibei,” the spelling used in the mainland’s Pinyin system.  There have been variations on those themes and there’s also the mysterious “Formosa”, use of which persisted in the English-speaking world well into the twentieth century, despite the Republic of Formosa existing on the island of Taiwan for only a few months in 1895.  The origin of the name Formosa lies in the island in 1542 being named Ilha Formosa (beautiful island) by Portuguese sailors who had noticed it didn’t appear on their charts.  From there, most admiralties in Europe and the English-speaking world updated their charts, use of Formosa not fading until the 1970s.

All that history is well-known, if sometimes subject to differing interpretations but some mystery surrounds the term “renegade province”, used in recent years with such frequency that a general perception seems to have formed that it’s Beijing’s official (or at least preferred) description of the recalcitrant island.  That it’s certainly not but in both the popular-press and specialist journals, the phrase “renegade province” is habitually used to describe Beijing’s views of Taiwan.  Given that Beijing actually calls Taiwan the “Taiwan Province” (sometimes styled as “Taiwan District” but there seems no substantive difference in meaning) and has explicitly maintained it reserves the right to reclaim the territory (by use of military invasion if need be), it’s certainly not unreasonable to assume that does reflect the politburo's view but within the PRC, “renegade province” is so rare (in Chinese or English) as to be effectively non-existent, the reason said to be that rather than a renegade, the island is thought of as a province pretending to be independent; delusional rather than defiant.  Researchers have looked into the matter when the phrase “renegade province” was first used in English when describing Taiwan.  There may be older or more obscure material which isn’t indexed or hasn’t been digitized but of that which can be searched, the first reference appears to be in a US literary journal from 1973 (which, it later transpired, received secret funding from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)).  It took a while to catch on but, appearing first in the New York Times in 1982, became a favorite during the administration of Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989) and has been part of the standard language of commentary since.  Diplomats, aware of Beijing's views on the matter, tend to avoid the phrase, maintaining the “delusional rather than defiant” line.

Picture of defiance: Official State Portrait of Vladimir Putin (2002), oil on canvas by Igor Babailov (b 1965).

The idea of a territory being a “renegade province” can be of great political, psychological (and ultimately military) significance.  The core justification used by Mr Putin (Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; b 1952; president or prime minister of Russia since 1999) when explaining why his “special military operation” against Ukraine in 2022 was not an “invasion” or “war of aggression” (he probably concedes it may be a “state of armed conflict”) was that he denied Ukraine was a sovereign, independent state and that Volodymyr Zelenskyy (b 1978, president of Ukraine since 2019) was not a legitimate president.  In other words, Ukraine is merely a region of the modern Russia in something of the way it was once one of the 15 constituent SSRs (Soviet Socialist Republic) of the Soviet Union.  Although the Kremlin doesn’t use the phrase, in Mr Putin’s world view, Ukraine is a renegade province and he likely believes that applies also to the Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania & Estonia) and possibly other former SSRs.  Lake many, the CCP is watching events in Ukraine with great interest and, as recent “exercises” seem to suggest the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have sufficiently honed their techniques to execute either a blockade (which would be an “act of war”) or a “quarantine” (which would not), the attention of Western analysts is now focused on the hardly secret training being undertaken to perfect what’s needed for the triphibious operations demanded by a full-scale invasion.  The US think-tanks which think much about this possibility have suggested “some time” in 2027 as the likely point at which the military high command would assure the CCP’s central committee such a thing is possible.  What will happen will then depend upon (1) the state of things in the PRC and (2) the CCP’s assessment of how the long-term “strategic ambiguity” of Washington would manifest were an attempt made to finish the “unfinished business” of 1949.

Lindsay Lohan, who has lived a life of defiance.

The objectification of women’s body parts has of course been a theme in Western culture since at least Antiquity but rarely can as much attention been devoted to a single fingernail as the one photographed on Lindsay Lohan’s hand in July 2010 (during her “troubled starlet” phase).  The text printed on the fingernail was sufficiently explicit not to need a academic deconstruction of its alleged meaning, given image was taken when she sitting in court listening to a judge sentence her for one of her many transgressions; the consensus was the text was there to send a “defiant message” the internet’s collective conclusion (which wasn’t restricted to entertainment and celebrity sites) presumably reinforced by the nail being on the middle finger.  Ms Lohan admitted to fining this perplexing, tweeting on X (then known as Twitter) it was merely a manicure and had “…nothing to do w/court, it's an airbrush design from a stencil.”  So, rather than digital defiance, it was fashion.  Attributing a motif of defiance to Ms Lohan wasn’t unusual during “troubled starlet” phase, one site assessing a chronological montage of her famous mug shots before concluding with each successive shot, “Lindsay's face becomes more defiant — a young woman hardening herself against a world that had turned her into a punch-line”.

The Bolton-Paul Defiant (1939-1943)

The Parthian shot was a military tactic, used by mounted cavalry and made famous by the Parthians, an ancient people of the Persian lands (the modern-day Islamic Republic of Iran since 1979).  While in real or feigned retreat on horseback, the Parthian archers would, in full gallop, turn their bodies backward to shoot at the pursuing enemy.  This demanded both fine equestrian skills (a soldier’ hands occupied by his bows & arrows) and great confidence in one's mount, something gained only by time spent between man & beast.  To make the achievement more admirable still, the Parthians used neither stirrups nor spurs, relying solely on pressure from their legs to guide and control their galloping mounts and, with varying degrees of success, the tactic was adopted by many mounted military formations of the era including the Scythians, Huns, Turks, Magyars, and Mongols.  The Parthian Empire existed between 247 BC–224 AD.  The Royal Air Force (RAF) tried a variation of the Parthian shot with Bolton-Paul Defiant, a single-engined fighter and Battle of Britain contemporary of the better remembered Spitfire and Hurricane.  Uniquely, the Defiant had no forward-firing armaments, all its firepower being concentrated in four .303 machine guns in a turret behind the pilot.  The theory behind the design dates from the 1930s when the latest multi-engined monoplane bombers were much faster than contemporary single-engined biplane fighters then in service. The RAF considered its new generation of heavily-armed bombers would be able to penetrate enemy airspace and defend themselves without a fighter escort and this of course implied enemy bombers would similarly be able to penetrate British airspace with some degree of impunity.

Bolton-Paul Defiant.

By 1935, the concept of a turret-armed fighter emerged.  The RAF anticipated having to defend the British Isles against massed formations of unescorted enemy bombers and, in theory, turret-armed fighters would be able approach formations from below or from the side and coordinate their fire.  In design terms, it was a return to what often was done early in the World War I (1914-1918), though that had been technologically deterministic, it being then quite an engineering challenge to produce reliable and safe (in the sense of not damaging the craft's own propeller) forward-firing guns.  Deployed not as intended, but as a fighter used against escorted bombers, the Defiant enjoyed considerable early success, essentially because at attack-range, it appeared to be a Hurricane and the German fighter pilots were of course tempted attack from above and behind, the classic hunter's tactic.  They were course met by the the Defiant's formidable battery.  However, the Luftwaffe learned quickly, unlike the RAF which for too long persisted with their pre-war formations which were neat and precise but also excellent targets.  Soon the vulnerability of the Defiant resulted in losses so heavy its deployment was unsustainable and it was withdrawn from front-line combat.  It did though subsequently proved a useful stop-gap as a night-fighter and provided the RAF with an effective means of combating night bombing until aircraft designed for the purpose entered service.

The Trump class "battleships"

In a surprise announcement, the Pentagon announced the impending construction of a “new battleship class” the first of the line (USS Defiant) to be the US Navy’s “largest surface combatant built since World War II [1939-1945]”.  The initial plans call for a pair to be launched with a long-term goal of as many as two dozen with construction to begin in 2030.  Intriguingly, Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) revealed that while the Department of Defense’s (it’s also now the Department of War) naval architects would “lead the design”, he personally would be involved “…because I’m a very aesthetic person.”  That may sound a strange imperative when designing something as starkly functional as a warship but in navies everywhere there’s a long tradition of “the beautiful ship” and the design language still in use, although much modified, is recognizably what it was more than a century earlier.  The Secretary of the Navy certainly stayed on-message, announcing the USS Defiant would be “…the largest, deadliest and most versatile and best-looking warship anywhere on the world’s oceans”, adding that components for the project would “be made in every state.”  It won't however be the widest because quirk of ship design in the US Navy is that warships tend to be limited to a beam (width) of around 33 metres (108 feet) because that’s the limit for vessels able to pass through the Panama Canal.

Depiction of Trump class USS Defiant issued by the US Navy, December, 2025.

By comparison with the existing surface fleet the 35,000 ton Defiant will be impressively large although, by historic standards, the largest (non-carrier) surface combatants now in service are of modest dimensions and displacement.  The largest now afloat are the 15,000-ton Zumwalt class destroyers (which really seem to be cruisers) while the 10,000 ton Ticonderoga class cruisers (which really are destroyers) are more numerous.  So, even the Defiant will seem small compared with the twentieth century Dreadnoughts (which became a generic term for “biggest battleship”), the US Iowa class displacing 60,000 ton at their heaviest while the Japanese Yamato-class weighted-in at 72,000.  Even those behemoths would have been dwarfed by the most ambitious of the H-Class ships in Plan-Z which were on German drawing boards early in World War II.  Before reality bit hard, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) left physics to the engineers and wasn't too bothered by economics.  After being disappointed the proposed successors to the Bismarck-class ships would have the bore of their eight cannons (the main armament) increased only from 380 mm (15 inch) to 405 (16), he ordered OKM (Oberkommando der Marine; the Naval High Command) to design bigger ships.  

That directive emerged as the ambitious Plan Z which would have demanded so much steel, essentially nothing else in the Reich could have been built.  Although not one vessel in Plan Z ever left the slipway (the facilities even to lay down the keels non-existent), such a fleet would have been impressive, the largest (the H-44) fitted with eight 508 mm (20 inch) cannons.  Even more to the Führer’s liking was the concept of the H-45, equipped with eight 800 mm (31.5 inch) Gustav siege guns.  However, although with guns, cars, tanks, buildings and much else, Hitler found it hard to resist gigantism, the bitter experience of war at sea convinced him the battleship was not only obsolete but had become an expensive strategic liability.  After the Bismarck was lost in May 1941, Hitler made his change of view clear to Großadmiral Erich Raeder (1876–1960; head of the German Navy 1928-1943), paraphrased by historians usually as: “I was always a supporter of the big ships but they've had their day, the risk of attack by air is too great.”  That ended the prospect of any more being built but further failures darkened even more the Führer’s view and in 1943 he demanded the Navy scrap the entire surface fleet, devote all construction resources to Unterseeboots (literally “under-sea boat” ie submarine and referred to usually as “U-boat) and re-allocate the crews to ground warfare or the U-boats.  On that, Raeder’s successor persuaded him to relent because merely by inertly existing, the big ships did have a strategic effect of forcing the Royal Navy to keep on stand-by a battle-fleet which could otherwise usefully be deployed.  The decision during the 1930s to build the big ships certainly had a profound effect on the path of the war.  Had U-boat construction been afforded a priority in 1937-1939, the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) could have entered World War II with the ability permanently to have 100 U-boats engaged in high-seas raiding rather than barely the dozen initially possible and the early course of the war might radically have been different.  In was another indication of the way German policy had been directed by the assumption a war with the UK could be avoided or at least long-delayed.  Germany indeed entered the war without a single aircraft carrier (the only one laid down never completed), such was the confidence the need to confront the Royal Navy either would never happen or was years away.

The US Navy in 1940 began construction of six Iowa class battleships but only four were ever launched because it had become clear the age of the aircraft carrier and submarine had arrived and the last battleship launched was the Royal Navy’s HMS Vanguard which entered service in 1946.  Although the admirals remained fond of the fine cut of her silhouette on the horizon, to the Treasury (an institution in the austere, post-war years rapidly asserting its authority over the Admiralty) the thing was a white elephant, something acknowledged even by the romantic, battleship-loving Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) who, when in November, 1953 planning a trip to Bermuda for a summit meeting with Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; US POTUS 1953-1961), opted to fly because “it costs Stg£30,000 if we go by Vanguard, and only £3,000 by air.”  In 1959, Vanguard was sold for scrap and broken up the next year while the last of the Iowa class ships were decommissioned in 1992 after having spent many years of their life in a non-active reserve.  Defiant is of course a most Churchillian word and after World War I, he was asked by a French municipality to devise the wording for its war memorial.  He proposed:

IN WAR: RESOLUTION

IN DEFEAT: DEFIANCE

IN VICTORY: MAGNANIMITY

IN PEACE: GOODWILL

At the time, old Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929; French prime minister 1906-1909 & 1917-1920) wasn’t feeling much magnanimity towards the Germans (he called them: le boche) and nor was he much in the mood to extend any goodwill so Churchill’s suggestion was rejected.  

Depiction of Trump class USS Defiant issued by the US Navy, December, 2025.

The conventional wisdom therefore was the days of the big warships were done and the Soviet Navy’s curious decision in the 1980s to lay down five (four of which were launched) Kirov class battlecruisers seemed to confirm the view.  Although the Kremlin called the ships тяжёлый атомный ракетный крейсер (heavy nuclear-powered guided missile cruisers), admiralties in the West, still nostalgic lot, choose to revive the old name “battlecruiser”.  The battlecruiser (essentially a battleship with less armor) was a brainchild of the naval theorists of the early twentieth century but while the concept was sound (and in practice may have proved so if the theory had been followed at sea) but in service was a disappointment and none were commissioned after 1920 until the Soviets revived the idea.  As recently as 2018, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) sources were sceptical any of the Russian ships would ever return to service but in 2025 the Admiral Nakhimov (ex-Kalinin) emerged from a long and expensive re-fit & modernization to serve as the world’s biggest warship.  Although fast and heavily armed, concern remains about her vulnerability to missiles and torpedoes.

Depiction of Trump class USS Defiant issued by the US Navy, December, 2025.

The US Navy seems confident about the protection afforded by the Trump class’s systems, claiming “the battleship [the Pentagon’s term] will be capable of operating independently, as part of a Carrier Strike Group, or commanding its own Surface Action Group depending on the mission and threat environment.”  In other words, unlike an aircraft carrier, the security of the vessel does not depend on a flotilla of destroyers and other smaller escort vessels.  The first of the Trump class is projected to cost between US$10-15 billion although, on the basis of experience, few will be surprised if this number “blows out”.  The Trump class will be the flagships for the Navy’s “Golden Fleet” initiative (an old naval term dating from days of the Spanish colonial Empire and nothing to do with Mr Trump’s fondness for the metal).  In an age in which small, cheap, UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles, usually referred to as drones) have revolutionized warfare (on land and at sea), the return of the big ships is as interesting as it was unexpected and analysts are already writing their assessments of the prospects of success.

Although the concept wasn’t new, it was late in the nineteenth century naval architects began to apply the word “class” systematically to group ships of the same design, the pioneers the Royal Navy but other powers soon adopted the practice.  It had long been the practice for warships to be constructed on the basis of substantially replicating existing designs and some truly were “identical” to the extent a series would now be called a “class” but before the terminology became (more or less) standardized, warships usually were described by their “Rate” or “Type” (first-rate ship of the line, corvette, frigate etc) but, in the usual military way, there was also much informal slang including phrases such as “the Majestic battleships” or “ships of the Iron Duke type”.  The crystallization of the “class” concept was really a result of technological determinism as the methods developed in factories which emerged during the industrial revolution spread to ship-building; steam power, hulls of iron & steel and the associated complex machinery made design & construction increasingly expensive, thus the need to amortize investment and reduce build times by ordering ships in batches with near-identical specifications.

Navies in the era were also becoming more bureaucratic (a process which never stopped and some believe is accelerating still) and Admiralties became much taken with precise accounting and doctrinal categorisation.  The pragmatic admirals however saw no need to reinvent the wheel, “class” already well-established in engineering and taxonomy, the choice thus an obvious administrative convenience.  The “new” nomenclature wasn’t heralded as a major change or innovations, the term just beginning to appear in the 1870s in Admiralty documents, construction programmes and parliamentary papers in which vessels were listed in groups including Devastation class ironclad turret ships (laid down 1869), Colossus class battleships (laid down 1879) and Admiral class battleships (1880s).  In recent history tests, warships prior to this era sometimes are referred to as “Ship-of-the-line class”, “Three decker class” etc but this use is retrospective.  The French Navy adopted the convention almost simultaneously (with the local spelling classe) with Imperial Germany’s Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) following in the 1890s with Klasse.  The US Navy was comparatively late to formalise the use and although “class” in this context does appear in documents in the 1890s, the standardization wasn’t complete until about 1912.

As a naming convention (“King George V class”, “Iowa class” etc), the rule is the name chosen is either (1) the first ship laid down, or (2) the lead ship commissioned.  According to Admiralty historians, this wasn’t something determined by a committee or the whim of an admiral (both long naval traditions) but was just so obviously practical.  It certainly wasn’t an original idea because the term “class” was by the late nineteenth century well established in industrial production, civil engineering, and military administration; if anything the tradition-bound admirals were late-adopters, sticking to their old classificatory habit long after it had outlived its usefulness.  With ships becoming bigger and more complex, what was needed was a system (which encompassed not only the ships but also components such as guns, torpedoes, engines etc) which grouped objects according to their defined technical specification rather than their vague “type” (which by then had become most elastic) or individual instances; naval architecture had entered the “age of interchangability”.

A docked Boomin' Beaver.

It’s good the US Navy is gaining (appropriately large) “Trump Class” warships (which the president doubtless will call “battleships” although they’re more in the “battlecruiser” tradition).  Within the fleet however there are on the register many smaller vessels and the most compact is the 19BB (Barrier Boat), a specialized class of miniature tugboat used deploy and maintain port security booms surrounding Navy ships and installations in port.  Over the last quarter century there have been a dozen-odd commissioned of which ten remain in active service.  Unlike many of the Pentagon’s good (and expensive) ideas, the Barrier Boats were a re-purposing of an existing design, their original purpose being in the logging industry where they were used to manoeuvre logs floating along inland waterways.  In that role the loggers dubbed them “log broncs” because the stubby little craft would “rear up like a rodeo bronco” when spun around by 180^o.  Sailors of course have their own slang and they (apparently affectionately) call the 19BBs the “Boomin’ Beaver”, the origin of that being uncertain but it may verge on the vulgar.  It’s not known if President Trump is aware of the useful little BB19s but if brought to his attention, he may be tempted to order two of them re-named “USS Joe Biden” and “USS Crooked Hillary” although, unlike those reprobates, the Boomin’ Beavers have done much good work for the nation.

The Arc de Triomphe, Paris (left), Donald Trump with model of his proposed arch, the White House, October, 2025 (centre) and a model of the arch, photographed on the president's Oval Office desk (right).  Details about the arch remain sketchy but it's assumed (1) it will be "big" and (2) there will be some gold, somewhere.

As well as big ships (and the big Donald J Trump Ballroom already under construction where the White House’s East Wing once stood), Mr Trump is also promising a “big arch”.  A part of the president’s MDCBA (Make D.C. Beautiful Again) project, the structure (nicknamed the “Triumphal Arch” and in the style of the Arc de Triomphe which stands in the centre of the Place Charles de Gaulle (formerly the Place de l’Étoile), the western terminus of the avenue des Champs-Élysées) is scheduled to be completed in time to celebrate the nation’s 250^th anniversary on 4 July 2026.  Presumably, on that day, it will be revealed the official name is something like the “Donald J Trump Sestercentennial Arch” which will appear on the structure in large gold letters.  The arch is said to be “privately funded”, using money left over from what was donated to build the ballroom, a financing mechanism which has attracted some comment from those concerned about the “buying of influence”.

Adolf Hitler's (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) sketch of an arch (1926, left) and Hitler, Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) and others examining Speer's model of the arch, presented 20 April, 1939 upon the occasion of the Führer’s 50^th birthday (right; note the pattern in carpet).  As usual, the Führer reviewed the display of gifts, surveying the statutes, paintings and porcelain (both good and kitsch) with interest or amusement but the one to which he kept returning was the four-metre model of the arch and that evening, several times he would return “with visible emotion” to examine the details.

A model of Germania.  To give some indication of the scale, within the dome of the huge meeting hall (at top of image), St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome would have fitted several times over; its diameter of the dome would have been 250 metres (825 feet).

Commissioned to honor those who fought and died for France during the French Revolutionary (1792-1802) and Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), construction of the Arc de Triomphe (officially the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile) absorbed 30-odd years between 1806-1836, as a piece of representational architecture the structure is thought perfectly proportioned for assessment by the human eye and perhaps for this reason it has been admired by many.  As early as 1926, Adolf Hitler sketched his vision of a grand arch for Berlin, while bitter experience taught him the big warships were a bad idea because of their vulnerability to air attack, he never lost his enthusiasm for megalomania in architecture and in Albert Speer he found the ideal architect.  Noting the dimensions in Hitler’s sketch, Speer responded with something in the spirit of their blueprint for Germania.  Hitler’s planned the rebuilding of Berlin to be complete by 1950, less than ten years after the expected victory in a war which would have made him the master of Europe from the French border to the Ural mountains (things didn’t work out well for him).  While the 50 metre (163 feet) tall Arc de Triomphe presented a monumental appearance and provided a majestic terminus for the Champs Elysees, Speer’s arch stood 117 meters (384 feet) in height but even though obviously substantial, it would have been entirely in scale with the rest of Germania, the whole place built in a way to inspire awe simply by virtue of sheer size.