Indian Strategic Studies

10 February 2026

New Nexus among Bangladesh, Pakistan and Türkiye: India’s New Headache?

Tapas Das

A healthy bilateral relationship between any two countries is essentially underscored by ‘mutual sensitivity’, a foundational value glaringly absent from the current India-Bangladesh ties. Sheikh Hasina had played an undeniable role in bringing Dhaka closer to Delhi. Since the fall of her government, Muhammad Yunus-led Bangladesh is redrawing the political map, one where Dhaka is growing closer to Islamabad and further from Delhi (Halder, Majumder, and Khokon 2025, 157).

Besides allowing Islamists a free rein in the country and acquiescing to their sectarian and anti-India agenda, the Yunus administration has also effected a deep reset in Bangladesh’s foreign policy by forging very close links of especially military and strategic nature, with both Pakistan and Türkiye. The piece will try to address how and why India will be affected by a deepening military tie with Turkiye, what this means for the subcontinent, and how these changes could affect the region.

Islamabad: The Blood That Screams in Silence The Tarlai Imambargah Massacre and the Unequal Cost of Violence

On February 6, 2026, 32 men were slaughtered while praying in a working-class neighborhood on Islamabad’s margins. No cabinet ministers died that day. No generals. No industrialists or feudal landlords. No one whose death would necessitate a state funeral or international condolences. Just working people in Tarlai Kalan, a densely packed suburb where the capital’s carefully manicured facade crumbles into the reality most Pakistanis inhabit.

The Khadijatul Kubra Imambargah sits in a neighborhood the powerful drive through but never stop in. Its congregants were men who work with their hands, who count their rupees, who ride public buses and know the weight of economic precarity. University students from COMSATS Institute trying to study their way out of poverty. A 52-year-old from Gilgit-Baltistan who had migrated seeking survival. Mosque caretakers. Daily wage laborers. Small shopkeepers. The kind of Pakistanis whose names appear in casualty lists but rarely in history books. Tarlai Kalan exists in the shadow geography of Pakistani power. It sprawls on Islamabad’s southeastern periphery where the planned city dissolves into informal settlements housing migrants from Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. These are families of four to eight children crammed into modest dwellings, sustained by irregular employment, small-scale commerce, and the perpetual hustle required when the state offers nothing resembling a safety net.

The Use of Uncrewed Aerial Systems by Non-State Armed Groups: Exploring Trends in Myanmar

Joshua Angelo E. Bata, Barbara Morais Figueiredo

The use of uncrewed aerial systems (UASs) by non-State armed groups (NSAGs) has become a defining feature of Myanmar’s conflict landscape. Since the February 2021 military coup, Myanmar has recorded one of the highest global rates of UAS use by NSAGs, with these systems playing an increasingly significant role in shaping conflict dynamics across the country.

This report analyses key trends in the use of UASs by NSAGs in Myanmar, with a particular focus on post-coup developments. It aims to provide researchers, policymakers and practitioners with an overview of how these systems have been adopted and employed by various groups across the country, and of their implications for evolving conflict dynamics. It examines the types of NSAGs deploying UASs, the geographical distribution of incidents, as well as the primary targets and impacts of their operations. The report also explores trends in the craft-production, modification and weaponization of these systems, identifying the key factors enabling the rapid adoption and diffusion of UAS capabilities among NSAGs, including the widespread availability of commercial components, access to open-source knowledge, decentralized knowledge-sharing networks and improvised production practices.

Why American Military Power No Longer Produces Security

Richard W. Coughlin

The New York Times has recently published a series of editorials on the weaknesses of the U.S. military (here and here). Their critique centers on the deep-seated pathologies of the military–industrial complex: the production of over-engineered weapons systems that are fragile, exorbitantly expensive, and perpetually scarce. This complex is the swamp that is never drained — indeed, never named. Its pulse is sustained by the convergent interests of defense contractors, members of Congress, and senior military officers. The F-35 is the paradigmatic expression of this dysfunction.

So too is the Navy’s determination to build yet another fleet of aircraft carriers despite their growing vulnerability to hypersonic missiles. A recurring theme in the Times pieces is that U.S. military power is increasingly exposed to cheaper, lower-tech systems — especially drones — that can disable or destroy its most expensive platforms. These vulnerabilities extend beyond the battlefield to cyberwarfare, including the capacity to disrupt power grids and command-and-control systems: capabilities that may already be embedded in Chinese information infrastructures such as 5G networks. Despite its immense military expenditures, the United States now confronts a future — perhaps even a present — in which it is overmatched by Chinese military power in a conflict over Taiwan.

PLA Assessments on the Centrality of Space Power in Ukraine

Sunny Cheung

Across People’s Liberation Army units, defense universities, and defense state-owned enterprises, Russia’s war in Ukraine has reinforced calls for the Chinese military to develop indigenous LEO satellite networks, resilient positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) architectures, and integrated space–cyber–electromagnetic countermeasures tailored to high-intensity, information-transparent conflicts.

Researchers at military institutions describe the decisive advantage that satellite systems have provided Ukraine as “asymmetric transparency” (不对称透明), in which Ukraine is able to continuously observe Russian forces, while Russia does not have an equivalent capability.

How China’s Crypto Seizures Are Quietly Powering Its Digital Asset Reserves

Hugh Harsono

China’s increasing growth of its strategic digital asset reserves via law enforcement seizures is enabling it to yield more direct influence over the global digital asset ecosystem beyond just mining and holding cryptocurrencies. Despite an existing ban on cryptocurrency activities, China maintains its status as the world’s largest crypto miner, while in parallel, Chinese citizens comprise a significant portion of global crypto users.

In many cases, these seized digital assets originate from illicit activities, whether this be from criminal networks or from unlicensed financial platforms. While the concept of keeping seized assets to build a country’s own reserve is not unprecedented, the continued custody of digital assets to establish a sovereign digital asset treasury is a relatively new notion, with countries like the U.S. typically preferring to sell off seized cryptocurrencies. Therefore, countries like Kazakhstan and the United States are newer in their crypto stockpile efforts, in contrast to China’s relatively quieter and earlier accumulation of assets. With this in mind, China has a clear head start in growing its influence in shaping the global digital asset economy.

Late Stalinism in Beijing

Matthew Johnson

General Secretary Xi Jinping appears to have prevailed in the latest round of military purges in the Central Military Commission (CMC), but only by further dismantling the institutional safeguards that once stabilized elite politics—deepening, rather than resolving, long-term regime fragility.

The removal of generals Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli marks the elimination of the last residual chain of military authority not fully subsumed under the “CMC chairman responsibility system,” meaning that military command now begins and ends with Xi personally.

This consolidation does not alter near-term timelines on Taiwan, but it accelerates political drift in the People’s Republic of China toward a late Stalinist disequilibrium in which Xi’s personal control is maximized at the cost of orderly succession management, professional and expertise-based authority—exemplified by figures like Zhang Youxia—and tolerance for dissenting or corrective views within the leadership.

Venezuela After Maduro: Q&A with RAND Experts

Tahina Montoya, Marie Jones, Kelly Piazza

Today marks one month since the dramatic U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Nicolás Maduro, the country’s president, and brought him to New York City to face federal drug trafficking charges.

While many details about the operation are clearer now than they were in the immediate aftermath, it remains uncertain how the sudden change in Venezuela might shape long-term political, economic, and institutional dynamics—both within the country and across the region.

To better understand this uncertainty and identify trends to watch moving forward, we asked three RAND experts to discuss why Venezuela remains critical for Latin America, how regional players are responding to change in Caracas, the nature of the U.S.-Venezuela relationship, and more.

Trump’s Venezuela Policy Isn’t Any Clearer a Month After Maduro’s Capture

Roxanna Vigil

It has been more than a month since Operation Absolute Resolve led to the capture of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, but neither President Donald Trump nor his administration have clearly outlined next steps for the country—or the United States’ involvement there. The president has only consistently stated his intention to control Venezuela’s vast oil resources. To do so, he appears comfortable working cooperatively with the current Venezuelan government under interim President Delcy Rodríguez, a longtime Chavista and Maduro’s vice president.

Trump did meet with opposition leader María Corina Machado (and accepted her Nobel Peace Prize) on January 16 and vaguely indicated he was considering getting her involved in the country’s future somehow. However, he also dismissed Machado, claiming she did not have sufficient support to lead in Venezuela despite the opposition’s victory in the most recent election. Both Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress balked at this treatment of Machado, but Trump did not address these concerns by committing to a timeline for elections or democratic transition process in Venezuela.

J.D. Vance is Booed at the Winter Olympics as a New Poll Shows How Europe Has Turned Against U.S.

Rebecca Schneid

Olympic opening ceremonies are traditionally unifying, non-political events—a chance for athletes from around the world to introduce their national teams before the competition begins.

But when Vice President J.D. Vance appeared on the stadium’s big screen during the kickoff of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Games on Friday, the unmistakable sound of boos and jeers broke out among the crowd of 65,000 people.

While President Donald Trump seemed to brush off the reaction, telling reporters on Air Force One, “That’s surprising because people like him…He doesn’t get booed in this country,” recent polls suggest that it’s not just Vance who has a problem in Europe.

Attacking Russia’s Center of Gravity: A Clausewitzian Answer

Antulio J. Echevarria II

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has prompted wide-ranging speculations about Russia’s center of gravity and how Ukraine might attack it.[1] Some analysts rightly consider Putin himself to be Russia’s center of gravity.[2] Others argue Putin’s power comes from his control over the Russian armed forces and his tacit social pact to protect the Russian people in return for tolerating his rule; therefore, they claim these are Russia’s true centers of gravity.[3] Still others have asserted Russia’s centers of gravity are its major wartime objectives, namely, (a) capturing Ukraine’s major cities, thereby forcing its population to evacuate or become subservient, or (b) seizing the coastline along the Black Sea, which would boost Moscow’s maritime strength in its strategic competition with the West.[4] The range of these answers—encompassing individual, material, sociocultural, and geographic perspectives—underscores just how difficult it can be to discern a party’s center of gravity. This article returns to the original concept as developed by the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz and argues Russia’s center of gravity is, indeed, Putin.[5] The best way to attack him, moreover, is by means of a multi-faceted strategy of denial aimed at preventing him from taking Ukraine while also increasing the risks to his political survival as long as the war continues.

Logistics Left of Boom: Understanding Adversary Threats to the Defense Industrial Base Ahead of Conflict

Macdonald Amoah

The piece argues that “contested logistics” is being framed too narrowly as wartime distribution, when the decisive contest often happens earlier in a “prelogistics” phase inside mines, refineries, and factories. It warns that wargames and analyses highlight ports, bases, and routes under fire but often assume industrial capacity is waiting to be activated, which creates a strategic blind spot. Recent US experience with pandemic disruptions and Chinese export controls illustrates upstream choke points. The article claims China can nonkinetically constrain US surge production by dominating midstream processing of critical materials, creating delays and caps on output long before a crisis.

Comment:

Let's apply the new executive order on arms transfer to this (this piece was obviously written before the executive order came out). If China can win by delay and constraint, then the first shots may be paperwork, export controls, and processing bottlenecks, and we will call it “logistics” only after it is too late. If "prelogistic" is the real fight, then deterrence is partly a bet on permitting, capital, and qualification timelines that move slow and break late.

Dynamic Space Operations

Space is now a warfighting domain, with growing threats to and increasing operational demands on U.S. space capabilities. New systems and operational concepts that increase the resilience and effectiveness of the U.S. military space architecture are needed. Approaches that increase the flexibility and maneuverability of space capabilities can satisfy both objectives.

Space operations must move away from a construct optimized for static mission sets and energy-saving

orbits and embrace dynamic space operations (DSO) in which satellite operators can frequently and rapidly change parameters to achieve mission effects. While “dynamic space operations” typically refers to repositioning satellites without regret for the fuel each maneuver expends, true dynamic space operations will require changes and practices associated with all segments of the U.S. space architecture. This encompasses orbital, terrestrial, link, and launch segments and will require new logistics infrastructure and concepts of operations as a foundation for future DSO. This broader application of DSO will increase the overall flexibility of the U.S. space architecture, thereby accelerating a greater application of long-standing principles of warfare, such as maneuver and surprise, which will in turn increase resilience and mission effectiveness. Furthermore, it will facilitate the employment of new missions and novel approaches to help U.S. forces maintain the initiative and create compounding problems for potential adversaries—ultimately strengthening the deterrent posture of the United States.

Putin Cannot Afford a Peace Deal Now.

Mick Ryan

It has been another fascinating week to be an observer of international and military affairs.

Ukraine has agreed to an energy truce, which sees them holding off on attacking Russian energy infrastructure. But this has not halted Russian attacks on other civilian infrastructure including a civil train service in Kharkiv. Concurrently, peace negotiations are occurring, although they show little progress.

In the Pacific, China continues its campaign of aggression against Taiwan in the skies, at sea and in the information domain. At the same time, Taiwan launched its first indigenous submarine and announced changes to its integration of professional and conscripted soldiers. In my Ukraine update this week, I have opted for a single, longer op-ed that is focused on why Putin is unlikely to agree to a peace deal in the short term, and therefore why the current round of talks are unlikely to gain much traction. I hope it proves informative.

Anduril founder says U.S. can spend billions less on defense: We ‘spend too much money on the wrong thing’

Monica Pitrell

Defense spending has been the talk of Singapore’s Airshow this week but that’s not an accurate way to measure military strength, Palmer Luckey, founder of defense tech firm Anduril Industries, said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” Wednesday.

That comes after U.S. President Donald Trump in January expressed interest in raising the U.S military budget to $1.5 trillion in 2027, which he said would allow Washington to build a “Dream Military.” “Too many people measure the success of the defense base in terms of dollars,” Luckey said.

Rather, military strength should be measured by output, or what countries actually receive from their spending, he said. This is part of the reason why American defense companies aren’t incentivized to produce military products that cost less, Luckey added.

How Europe could lose the war over Greenland

Eliza Gkritsi

Donald Trump has aborted his threat to take Greenland by force but online the war is just getting started. The United States president in January shocked Europe with threats of tariffs to support his right to own Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Danish kingdom.

While the intensity of those threats has subsided for now, Danish and European officials say the small island remains vulnerable to the power wielded by the U.S. administration online. With a population of under 60,000, the tiniest drop of misinformation can spread quickly and significantly affect public opinion — especially when the false narrative is coming not from anonymous Russian troll farms but from the most powerful politician in the Western world.

An MDO Approach to NATO’s Counter-IADS Strategy

Lieutenant Colonel

Russia’s war in Ukraine has shattered long-held assumptions about air superiority. Events of the past four years have shown that even modern air forces may struggle to dominate contested skies as unmanned aerial systems (UAS) proliferate and aircraft losses increase on both sides.1 While the claims of air superiority’s demise are overstated, one lesson is clear: advanced Integrated Air Defence Systems (IADS) now underpin adversary Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) strategies and pose a direct challenge to how airpower is employed and sustained in future conflicts.2

NATO’s ability to deter and defend against a modern, IADS-equipped adversary requires a multi-domain suppression campaign that is continuous, adaptive, and resilient. Future suppression of enemy air defences (SEAD) missions cannot rely solely on the traditional air-domain-centric model of airborne SEAD platforms – such as dedicated electronic attack aircraft, Wild Weasel units, and fifth-generation strike fighters- that focus primarily on individual surface-to-air threats. SEAD must evolve to employ all available assets and effects capable of neutralising a sophisticated IADS.3 Persistent electronic attack (EA), cross-domain cyber operations (CO), and precision kinetic effects must be synchronised to create and exploit windows of opportunity at scale. NATO therefore needs a framework that enables these effects to be sustained, which is central to maintaining deterrence, freedom of action, and credibility in collective defence.4

Google Calls on Governments And Industry to Prepare Now For Quantum-Era Cybersecurity

Matt Swayne

One of the global leaders in quantum computing is urging governments, companies and critical infrastructure operators to accelerate preparations for the quantum computing era, warning that today’s encryption systems could be broken sooner than many expect and outlining the company’s own commitments to post-quantum security.

The call to action comes in a new Google blog post by Kent Walker, president of global affairs at Google and Alphabet, and Hartmut Neven, founder and lead of Google Quantum AI. The executives write that quantum computing as both a transformative scientific tool and a looming cybersecurity risk. According to the authors, the same machines expected to drive advances in drug discovery, materials science and energy could also undermine the public-key cryptography that protects financial transactions, private communications and classified data.

The mosaic of war: how Mosaic Warfare transforms stealth and dilutes enemy defenses

The era of stealth warfare is evolving. The Mosaic Warfare doctrine proposes replacing strictly material stealth—based on signature reduction—with distributed and dynamic stealth, where multiple and varied forces saturate, disorient, and dilute enemy defenses. The principle is simple: multiply platforms (people, drones, sensors, decoys) so that the enemy cannot effectively detect or engage all threats. This translates into concepts such as dilution (too many targets to track), decentralization (no single decision-making center), the use of electronic and cyber warfare, the use of tactical decoys, and the autonomy of interconnected agents. In response, defense systems must evolve toward distributed sensors, multi-source fusion, and multi-layered engagement. Superiority will no longer depend solely on costly platforms, but on the resilience of command and control (C2) in a cluttered and information-saturated environment.

The transformation of stealth: from platform to system

Traditional stealth focuses on reducing the radar, infrared, or acoustic signatures of a platform, such as an aircraft or missile. This approach has dominated strategy in recent decades. But against modern defense systems—radar networks, integrated air defense, electronic sensors—this “platform” stealth is increasingly being challenged.

As Promised, War Department Moving Out Fast on Drone Dominance

C. Todd Lopez

Those companies will compete in the first phase, or "gauntlet," that makes up the department's Drone Dominance Program — an acquisition reform effort designed to rapidly field low-cost, unmanned one-way attack drones at scale.

This first gauntlet begins Feb. 18 when program participants will bring unmanned aircraft system prototypes to Fort Benning, Georgia. There, participants will teach military personnel how to use those prototypes, and then military operators will use them to complete various mission scenarios, including an evaluation on their ability to find, lock on and destroy a target. By the end of the first gauntlet, vendors will be scored on the systems, and up to 12 of the 25 vendors will be invited to produce their drones, at scale, for the department.

As War Goes Digital, Navy Pushes for Faster Software Integration

Laura Heckmann

ARLINGTON, Virginia — War is becoming increasingly defined by software, and keeping up is as much about how fast and effectively it can be integrated as the technology itself, according to Navy officials.

“Software-defined warfare doesn’t mean that we’re pushing code and that bits supersede atoms,” said Lt. Artem Sherbinin, chief technology officer for Naval Surface Forces. “At the end of the day, you still need to put physical metal rounds downrange. But what it does mean is that the rate of change in the character of war is much faster now.”

Historically, revolutions in military affairs meant waiting a generation for a big technological leap to change the fight, Sherbinin said during a panel at the recent Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium. Eventually, he said, tanks supplanted horses, aircraft carriers supplanted battleships, and “what we’re seeing is cycles in iteration that are measured in hours.”

Who Consolidates Gains? The Enduring Requirement for Manpower in Army Formations

Amos Fox

The late Colin Gray offers prophetic advice to those thinking about innovation, technology, and the future of war. In Gray’s Strategy for Chaos, his research “Shows clearly the limited value of advanced technology as a source of strategic effectiveness…Military advantages and disadvantages will tend to even out over a period, and leave the contest to be decided by the issue of quantity rather than quality.”

When developing war-fighting concepts and military doctrine, Robert Citino also provides prudent counsel. Citino posits that, “There is something incomplete about a way of war that relies on the shock value of small, highly mobile forces and airpower, that stresses rapid victory over all, and that then has a difficult time putting the country it has conquered back together again.” Considering both Gray and Citino’s caution, it is important to examine the U.S. Army’s move to transform most of its Infantry Brigade Combat Teams (IBCTs) into Mobile Brigade Combat Teams, or MBCTs.

“Cognitive warfare”: why the human brain should not become a battlefield

Pierrick Devidal

For some military commentators, “cognitive warfare” is “the ultimate domain of military confrontation between major powers” and “the game changer of the 21st century”. Some predict that “the human mind is becoming the battlefield of tomorrow, and this means that every person is a potential target”. Others see “cognitive warfare” as another buzzword repackaging old concepts for strategic purposes. Either way, technological innovation and advances in neuro-, bio-, information and cognitive (NBIC) sciences are enabling new military capabilities that are gaining significant attention among governments.

This shift is occurring in the context of broader changes in contemporary warfare. Instilling uncertainty and mistrust in the data and information that have become critical to multidomain military coordination, sometimes described as “mosaic warfare”, is now a highly valued strategic capability. “Cognitive warfare” seeks to strengthen that capability through technological convergence.

VIEWPOINT: Acquisition Transformation Requires Some Fundamental Changes

Timothy W. Cooke

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s recent “Arsenal of Freedom” speech promised sweeping reforms — portfolio acquisition executives with incentive pay, commercial-first contracting, four-year program manager appointments instead of revolving-door leadership.

None of it will matter if the nearly 200,000 military contracting officers, program managers and acquisition specialists charged with executing these plans don’t fundamentally change how they think and behave.

The real problem isn’t with the regulations. It’s with the personnel following them.

Consider a typical scenario — a contracting officer knows a faster, cheaper artificial intelligence solution exists from a Silicon Valley startup. The regulations explicitly allow “best value” and encourage innovation. Yet, the officer chooses the slower, more expensive option from an established contractor. Why? Because the innovative choice, while technically compliant, requires justification. Justification means scrutiny. Scrutiny means career risk.

The hidden risk in the Army’s new ‘speed to capability’ doctrine

Nic Coppings

Most defense executives are reviewing pipelines and capture strategies in response to the Army's PAE transformation. Almost none are reviewing their delivery teams. That's the gap. The Army is consolidating 12 Program Executive Offices into six Portfolio Acquisition Executives under the new Warfighting Acquisition System. The mandate: deliver 85% solutions now, improve them in the field. Speed over perfection.

Most executives understand the technical changes. Almost no one sees the people risk.

When the government buys speed, it buys risk. When customers buy risk, technical excellence alone stops winning. Trust under pressure and the ability to manage uncertainty become the differentiator. Your program managers will either become your competitive advantage or a single point of failure.

9 February 2026

The Trump-Modi Trade Deal Won’t Magically Restore U.S.-India Trust

Evan A. Feigenbaum

On Monday, after six months of rancor and wrangling, the United States and India at last announced an initial agreement on a trade deal. The agreement came just one week after India and the European Union sealed a formal free trade agreement that had been under negotiation for well over a decade.

The contrast is important in two respects. First, the EU’s deal is a genuine trade agreement, while Washington’s, in keeping with the pattern of negotiations under President Donald Trump, is a trade “deal”—with all the flexibility and potential for reversal that the latter implies. Bluntly put, the United States hasn’t done true bilateral or plurilateral agreements since what feels like the Jurassic period, so we should temper our enthusiasm by recognizing that one of these things is not like the other.

The Other India-EU Deal: The trade pact may be getting all the attention, but the pair also inked a landmark defense agreement.

Sumit Ganguly

On Jan. 27, after two decades of intense negotiations, India concluded a major free trade pact with the European Union that will end tariffs on nearly all traded goods. Much media commentary, understandably, has focused on the economic significance of this accord.

However, another deal signed the same day has been almost completely eclipsed in the process: the Security and Defence Partnership. Under this agreement, the EU and India will enhance cooperation in the areas of maritime security, counterterrorism, and cyberdefense.

After the “Golden Era”: Getting Bangladesh-India Ties Back on Track

What’s new? The demise of Sheikh Hasina’s government in Bangladesh has led to a deterioration in relations between Dhaka and New Delhi. There have been disputes over the border, tit-for-tat trade restrictions and a rise in inflammatory rhetoric. Bangladesh’s forthcoming elections offer an opportunity for a reset.

Why does it matter? New Delhi’s support for Sheikh Hasina fanned longstanding anti-India feeling in Bangladesh, contributing to her ouster. Poorer relations could spell violence, further destabilisation of the border and hindered economic development. Violent protests surged in Bangladesh in mid-December after the killing of a young activist critical of India, underscoring the risks.

What should be done? Bangladeshi political parties should refrain from stoking anti-India sentiment, while New Delhi should avoid further inflaming tensions and undermining potential partners in Bangladesh. After the elections, New Delhi should extend good-will gestures to the new government in Dhaka, which in turn will need to respect Indian security concerns.

Xi, Trump and why their talks are stoking unease in Taiwan

Lawrence Chung

Talks between the US and Chinese presidents on Taiwan and arms sales have fanned fears on the island that it is slipping down the ladder of Washington’s strategic priorities in an era of great-power bargaining. The concern compounded unease raised by the release last month of the US’ National Defence Strategy, which made no mention of Taiwan.

In a phone call on Wednesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping told his American counterpart Donald Trump that Taiwan was the “most important” question in China-US relations. He stressed that Taiwan was Chinese territory and that Beijing would never allow it to be separated.

Modernizing a giant: assessing the impact of military-civil fusion on innovation in China’s defence-technological industry

Alexandre Dupont-Sinhsattanak

China’s third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, has carried out several sea trials since May 2024. Arguably, its technological level is higher than the two previous ones. It uses electromagnetic aircraft launch systems, similar to the US Navy Ford-class carriers (Suciu Citation2024). This development reflects China’s ambitious efforts to modernize its military capabilities, with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aiming to achieve complete military modernization and seeking to be a world-class military by 2049 (Bitzinger and Raska Citation2022). While the Fujian demonstrates China’s progress in indigenous innovation, it also highlights ongoing challenges. China’s historical reliance on foreign technologies underscoresthe crucial need for sustained indigenous innovation to meet these ambitious goals. The transition from imitation to pioneering technological breakthroughs remains a significant challenge, as shown by Fujian’s lack of truly disruptive innovations.

Not only is the issue of indigenous innovation important for China’s military modernization, but it is also a central question for the expansion of its arms exports. As the technological value of its products remains limited, international customers find themselves forced to find other sellers for advanced weapon systems. If China is not able to generate an efficient innovation system, it risks lacking behind the military capabilities of the West and losing market opportunities in the international market.

High Politics in China: Assessing Politburo Meetings and Study Sessions in 2025

Manoj Kewalramani, Kumari Krishna

The Politburo of the Communist Party of China (CPC) is a decisive centre of power, and its meetings and study sessions form a critical component of intra-party deliberation. Based on publicly available information, a standard Politburo meeting, generally held monthly, discusses policy proposals, new initiatives, and progress toward previously set milestones. The periodic collective study sessions of the Politburo engage experts on specific policy issues. Their aim is to obtain inputs, refine thinking and align the party’s posture on cutting-edge topics.

A careful study of these meetings is essential, as they clarify the authoritative policy and party line on priority issues, which is then transmitted downward through policy framing and implementation. This Issue Brief summarises key themes and ideas emerging from ten such meetings in 2025.

How China’s Crypto Seizures Are Quietly Powering Its Digital Asset Reserves

Hugh Harsono

China’s increasing growth of its strategic digital asset reserves via law enforcement seizures is enabling it to yield more direct influence over the global digital asset ecosystem beyond just mining and holding cryptocurrencies. Despite an existing ban on cryptocurrency activities, China maintains its status as the world’s largest crypto miner, while in parallel, Chinese citizens comprise a significant portion of global crypto users.

In many cases, these seized digital assets originate from illicit activities, whether this be from criminal networks or from unlicensed financial platforms. While the concept of keeping seized assets to build a country’s own reserve is not unprecedented, the continued custody of digital assets to establish a sovereign digital asset treasury is a relatively new notion, with countries like the U.S. typically preferring to sell off seized cryptocurrencies. Therefore, countries like Kazakhstan and the United States are newer in their crypto stockpile efforts, in contrast to China’s relatively quieter and earlier accumulation of assets. With this in mind, China has a clear head start in growing its influence in shaping the global digital asset economy.

Tracking China’s Increased Military Activities in the Indo-Pacific in 2025

Bonny Lin, Brian Hart, Leon Li, Truly Tinsley

China is rapidly modernizing and building up its military and paramilitary forces, providing Beijing with greater capacity to challenge and intimidate its neighbors. This report leverages open-source data to analyze observable trends in People’s Liberation Army (PLA) activities in 2025 with a focus on key developments in the Indo-Pacific region.

In 2025, four key trends emerged in the PLA’s activities around Taiwan. First, there was more activity across the board in the air and maritime domains. Second, the PLA maintained a higher baseline of activity than before. Third, there was a slight year-over-year decrease in PLA activity in the latter part of the year from May to December 2025. Finally, the PLA continued the precedents set in recent years by conducting two large, named military exercises around Taiwan.

Pivoting in plain sight: China’s stealthier geoeconomics

Vladimir Shopov

When Chinese leader Xi Jinping tabled his proposal for a “dual circulation” policy in 2020, many saw this economic strategy as export-led isolationism. The policy bore fruit: by 2025 China had a $1.2trn trade surplus and included visible, loan‑fuelled megaprojects such as the Belt and Road Initiative. However, Beijing’s approach is now subtly changing. It is moving towards a more diffuse, company‑centred strategy that quietly embeds Chinese firms and value chains across sectors in other countries. That can create new long‑term leverage for China that the EU is currently ill‑equipped to handle.

Old model meets resistance

Up until now, China has focused on acquiring stakes in foreign companies and handing out easy loans, with very few obvious conditions attached, to gain footholds overseas. The plan was successful but it began to cause concern, especially in Europe. For example, when the Chinese company Midea bought the German robotics firm Kuka in 2016, it raised alarm in Berlin and subsequent German governments tightened the rules for foreign investment. The expansion of Chinese loan programmes also attracted attention. One high-profile example was Sri Lanka, which was forced to lease a key seaport to Beijing because it could not service its debts. These kinds of cases fuelled fears that China was using “debt‑trap diplomacy”—offering attractive loans that later leave countries so indebted they have to give up strategic assets or political leverage. As a result, many countries scaled back or reconsidered Chinese loans and commitments.

Trump Told Iranian Protesters Help Was on the Way. What Happened?

Eli Lake

It’s been five weeks since President Donald Trump first drew his redline on the Iranian uprising. On January 2, he posted on Truth Social that if Iran shot the protesters flooding the streets of its cities and towns, “we are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

The warning did not prevent a bloodbath. A week later, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s goons massacred protesters in the most violent crackdown since the regime took power. Today human rights groups who have monitored the state-backed carnage estimate the dead could number more than 30,000. But no U.S. strike followed. Now, the president’s top envoys will meet their Iranian interlocutors in Oman on Friday. The talks are not about the terms of Khamenei’s surrender or the fate of Iranian demonstrators. Rather, the negotiations are about the regime’s nuclear program and support for terror in the Middle East.

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