Indian Strategic Studies

26 February 2026

India is building AI, not just using it: Sam Altman at Express Adda, key takeaways

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, on Friday, February 20, painted a vivid picture of artificial intelligence (AI) and its implications for India and the world. The CEO sat down with Anant Goenka, Executive Director of The Indian Express Group, at Express Adda in New Delhi. In the hour-long interaction, the OpenAI executive touched upon a wide range of topics surrounding AI, from intensifying competition to talent wars to massive infrastructure investments to gargantuan levels of compute deemed necessary for frontier models.

Altman also expressed his views on India. He sees the fourth-largest economy as a rapidly emerging AI powerhouse with remarkable builder energy and the fastest-growing Codex market globally. He believes India should develop the complete AI stack vertically and democratise AI technology. Even though optimistic about India's potential to lead, he acknowledged job displacement challenges that require rapid adaptation.

Attacks on Indians Compromise Moscow’s Ability to Attract New Migrants

Paul Goble

Moscow wants to replace departing migrant workers from Central Asia and the Caucasus with new ones from India. Attacks on Indians studying in Russia, however, make that an unlikely prospect, as Indian workers will hardly want to face such xenophobia. If Moscow cannot attract new migrants, however, many jobs that such workers now perform will go unfilled, adding to popular anger when streets are not cleaned or packages are not delivered and undermining the prospects for economic recovery even further.

This spread of Russian xenophobic attacks on Central Asians to Indians almost certainly presages more xenophobic attacks by Russians on the non-Russian quarter of the population, threatening Russia’s stability and even territorial integrity.

Tech Is the Bright Spot in India-U.S. Relations

Rudra Chaudhuri

On Feb. 2, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X that after speaking with his “dear friend President Trump,” Indian goods imported by the United States would now enjoy a reduced tariff of 18 percent. U.S. President Donald Trump was similarly warm in his follow-up social media post, writing, “Out of friendship and respect for Prime Minister Modi and, as per his request, effective immediately, we agreed to a Trade Deal between the United States and India.” The president added that Modi was one of his “greatest friends.”

The broad contours of a deal were discussed on a phone call between the two leaders on Jan. 27. A joint statement was published on Feb. 6. A White House fact sheet authored by the Trump administration alone was published a few days later. Even now, the terms of the “deal” are being debated within India. Details are still being clarified; naysayers argue that the United States has essentially arm-twisted India into deprioritizing its relations with Russia.

The Quiet Collapse of Sovereignty How Pakistan’s Foreign Policy and Domestic Crisis Are Converging

Frank Genovese

Today, many critics argue that the country stands at the edge of a different reality. A reality where foreign alignment is no longer strategic cooperation but structural dependence. A reality where participation in global platforms branded as peace initiatives is seen not as diplomacy but as normalization of power politics. And most dangerously, a reality where domestic democratic outcomes appear increasingly entangled with external expectations.

This shift has not happened overnight. It has unfolded quietly through economic vulnerability, security partnerships, and institutional pressure.

Tajikistan Becomes Latest Victim of Cross-border Attacks from Afghanistan

Syed Fazl-e-Haider

In late 2025, Tajikistan faced deadly cross-border attacks from Afghanistan, including November drone strikes killing five Chinese miners and a December 24 clash killing two Tajik officers. Militant groups, potentially including Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP), operate from Afghan safe havens. This regional threat has prompted neighboring states to take a firmer stance against the Taliban and demand the eradication of terrorism. Consequently, Tajikistan is heavily fortifying its border by building numerous new security checkpoints in response to the danger stemming from Afghanistan.

On December 24, 2025, five people—including two Tajik officers—were killed in an armed clash between Tajikistan’s security forces and three militants, who were trying to enter Tajikistan through the 870-mile-long border with Afghanistan (Radio Ozodi, December 24, 2025). Tajik authorities claimed it was the third militant act, or illegal border crossing, from Afghanistan into Tajikistan in December alone. The State Committee for National Security called for the Taliban to apologize over repeated cross-border attacks and criticized the Afghan government’s repeated irresponsibility in fulfilling its international commitments to ensure security and stability along the Tajik–Afghan border (Afghanistan International, December 25, 2025).

The Afghan Taliban’s ‘Digital War’ Against Pakistan

Rahim Nasar

On October 9, 2025, Pakistan allegedly carried out airstrikes on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, to target key leaders of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), particularly its head Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud (Hash e Subha, October 11, 2025). Pakistan repeatedly requested the Taliban authorities to refrain from harboring the TTP leadership inside Afghan territory (The News, September 17, 2025). The airstrikes were unofficially termed as an “act of compulsion” to defend Pakistani territory against militants and to undermine their hideouts. In response, the Taliban have launched a digital anti-Pakistan campaign.

Websites and social media are playing a leading role in strengthening the Afghan Taliban’s political and security narratives and anti-Pakistan rhetoric (Alemarah, March 14, 2025). Platforms such as Al-mirsaad, Omid Radio, the Kabul Times, Hewad, Anis daily, and YouTube channels including Yad and Maihan are actively promoting the Taliban’s core policy visions and marginalizing dissent (CPJ, August 13, 2025). The sophisticated media strategies and propaganda networks of the Taliban demonstrate the new Afghan government’s preparedness for digital media warfare in the age of communication.

Waste, Informality, And Circular Economy: Sustainability In Myanmar

Pyae Phyoe Mon

Myanmar is increasingly dealing with environmental challenges as a result of urbanisation, a poorly functioning government, and an inadequate waste management system. However, an informal community of garbage collectors and junk shop operators offers minimal support for Myanmar’s recycling sector. In this context, the article takes a look at informal garbage collectors in Myanmar in terms of the circular economy concepts they have already adopted, the obstacles they confront, and how they may be integrated into a country’s sustainability strategy. This is a call for an inclusive circular economy that balances sustainability and social equality.

Energy Dominance With Chinese Characteristics

Carolyn Kissane

Over the past two decades, China has transformed from a strategically weak energy power, dependent on imports of oil and gas, into the world leader in clean energy. Today, China produces the most wind turbines and solar panels, controls nearly every stage of global battery supply chains, exports electric vehicles at prices Western automakers struggle to match, and builds nuclear reactors at a breakneck pace. Even though none of these technologies were discovered in China and none of these industries originated there, the country has become the market maker and dominant player for each one. In other words, by commanding

Sen. Warner: The Idea That Trump Is Going To Launch A War With Just Israel Is Not In The Best Interest Of The U.S.

Tyler Stone

KATY TUR, MS NOW HOST: And the Iranians are—by the way, we can put up some of the social media messages from the Ayatollah. The Iranians are saying, you know, they're making their own threats. It doesn't sound like we're in the middle of negotiations, frankly.

They're threatening their own force and sinking our warships and putting them at the bottom of the ocean. But I'm just hoping you can give this to me a little bit straighter, because you have a good relationship with Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State. You say you want to see plans for what's happening, so it sounds like you haven't seen anything much from this administration.

But how actually concerned are you that there are currently plans for a military operation in Iran? And do you believe that those plans are just, you know, pie-in-the-sky plans, or are they actual actionable plans that the administration is ready to use?

Qatar is not our friend Islamists in Doha are buying influence in the West on an almost unprecedented scale.

Joel Kotkin

The key to the Qatari approach lies in embracing the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategy of infiltrating Western institutions, including through the electoral process. But this does not translate into adapting to Western values, notes scholar Mark Menaldo. Instead, it advances an ideology developed by the Muslim Brotherhood’s intellectual founder, Sayyid Qutb, that ‘cannot accommodate democratic principles such as legal pluralism’ outside Islamic practice.

America was the main object of Qutb’s anger. He saw America, where he lived for a short time, as a society that was sick and obsessed with sex and materialism. Americans, he suggested more than half a century ago, were already at ‘a point of no return when it comes to moral redemption’. The Muslim Brotherhood calls not just for the destruction of Israel, but also for the replacement of corrupt, infidel Western democracy with an Islamic world order.

Exclusive: Douglas Macgregor on The Coming Air and Missile War with Iran Should the war come, the Trump White House may need an off-ramp...

Douglas Macgregor

President Trump has assembled the largest concentration of U.S. Air and Naval power in the Middle East since Iraq was attacked in 2003. Dan Grazier, a retired Marine officer and senior fellow at the Stimson Center notes that there are now nearly 100 aerial refuelers in the Middle East in addition to the carrier strike groups and fighter aircraft suggesting a much larger operation of longer duration.

To experienced eyes, the composition of the attacking force suggests one strategic purpose: A level of destruction designed to induce the disintegration of the Iranian State and its society. Is “disintegration” with the use of standoff attack an attainable political military objective? Will Iran fall to pieces like a “House of Cards” under the crushing weight of U.S. and Israeli air and missile attack? The answers are unclear, but the political and military leaders who start air and missile wars are usually convinced that the application of massive firepower from a distance will be stunningly effective.

Donald Trump’s Iran Trap

Michael Doran

For years, Donald Trump defined himself against the architects of the Iraq War. He cast Middle Eastern interventions as moral vanity projects paid for in American blood and treasure. He promised no more regime change. No more endless wars.

Yet as nuclear talks with Iran falter, American warships mass off Iran’s shores and bombers move into range. The president who rose by denouncing George W. Bush now finds himself reviving the logic of Bush’s Middle East policy.

How did we get here? More importantly: What does this moment reveal about American power—about what truly changes, and what never does?

The Tragedy of Great-Power Foreign Policy

Stacie E. Goddard

For almost 30 years after the Cold War ended, American foreign policy elites argued that the United States should use its unmatched military and economic power as a force for transformation. For some, this meant working to expand the role of multilateral institutions such as NATO, promoting unfettered free trade, and protecting human rights worldwide, even by using military force. Others believed that the United States should wield its military power as democracy’s spear by subduing violent terrorists, overthrowing tyrannical regimes, and deterring potential revisionist powers. These views, however, were two sides of the same coin: underlying both was a belief that the United States must maintain its dominant position in the world and, when necessary, wield its might to defend liberal rights.

But after the failures of U.S. interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the rise of rival great powers, and the weakening of American democracy at home, this era of relative bipartisan consensus has ended. U.S. foreign policy is in disarray, with no obvious vision for what should come next. For Emma Ashford, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, the path forward lies in what she calls “realist internationalism.” Grounded in a long tradition of realist thought, this strategy places the national interest—not ideology—at the center of foreign-policy making and views the pursuit of democratization abroad as unnecessary, even foolish.

China’s Afghan Gold Rush Is Turning Deadly

Sarah Godek

Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, China has dominated Afghanistan’s mining industry. But the mines, primarily located along both sides of the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border, are now turning into a lethal minefield. Chinese nationals have been increasingly targeted by militants, with the most recent incidents resulting in the death of five Chinese miners and workers in Tajikistan in cross-border attacks from northern Afghanistan. Chinese mining is spurring resentment from locals, while the miners are also caught in the crosshairs of both anti-Taliban feeling and border tensions.

Since the Taliban takeover, Chinese nationals have been in a gold rush in northern Afghanistan due to record high gold prices. Some of the efforts are legal, with both the Chinese government and Taliban leadership’s support, but many are ad hoc arrangements, at best informally sanctioned by local Taliban leaders. The influx of inexperienced investors has resulted in a sense of lawlessness, with local Afghans clashing with both Taliban and Chinese miners in the area mostly over mining rights.

The Erosion of Swiss Banking Reliability

Frank Salvato

For more than a century, wealthy families did not simply deposit funds with Swiss banks—they sought a sanctuary. Switzerland offered what few jurisdictions could promise: neutrality in turbulent times, stability amid political swings, and a near-sacred respect for private capital and secrecy.

Switzerland’s standing as a financial sanctuary has floundered. Political gamesmanship and an increasingly aggressive compliance regime have combined to reshape the country’s once-unassailable brand. For global family offices and ultra-high-net-worth individuals who require discretion and predictability, Switzerland is no longer a viable choice.

The most dramatic rupture came in March 2023, when Credit Suisse collapsed and was forced into an emergency takeover.

Why Economic Pain Won’t Stop Russia’s War

Dr Richard Connolly

One of the enduring beliefs of liberal internationalism is that economic pressure can substitute for military force. Sanctions, trade restrictions and financial isolation are supposed to raise the costs of aggression to such an extent that governments eventually revise their aims. This faith has been widely applied to Russia’s war against Ukraine. As Russia’s economy shows signs of strain – slowing growth, persistent inflation, high interest rates and deteriorating investment prospects – hopes periodically re-emerge that economic pain will compel Moscow to change course.

History, however, offers limited comfort for this view. Wars are rarely abandoned because they become expensive. They are more often terminated when states are defeated militarily, when ruling coalitions fracture, or when regimes themselves collapse. Economic pressure, where it matters, tends to operate through these channels rather than through persuasion alone. The experience of Russia today fits this broader pattern. Its economy is under strain, but that strain is unlikely to prove decisive.

Syrskyi's flawed, unfinished corps system key for Ukraine's front-line stability

Francis Farrell

Whether or not this apparent Chinese proverb is authentic, it applies for the Ukrainian military's corps reform as much as it does for trees. The Ukrainian leadership's announcement in February 2025 that its Armed Forces and National Guard would transition to a corps-based command system sparked a glimmer of hope that the chronic command issues plaguing the country's defense could be alleviated, if not solved.

The changes meant that instead of holding Ukraine's 1,000+ km-long front line in an overstretched and chaotic string, brigades would unite in command groups of around 3-6 brigades, under a new corps leadership structure that would be directly responsible for their units.

Date set for US President Donald Trump’s trip to China

Frank Chen, Josephine Ma

US President Donald Trump will travel to China from March 31 to ⁠April 2 for talks with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, the White House has announced.

The summit between Trump and Xi, the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies, will be watched closely, particularly in the aftermath of the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Trump’s sweeping tariffs.

Observers noted that the court’s decision could leave Trump with less leverage against China during negotiations and might give a fresh lift to trade.

The trip will be Trump’s first visit to China since coming to office for a second time – his previous trip to the country was in November 2017 during his first term.

The Long Telegram and the Long Cold War

Francis P. Sempa

Eighty years ago this month, the Cold War was emerging into U.S. and Western consciousness, despite the work of those within our government and society who consciously or unconsciously advanced communist goals. Just five months after celebrating V-J Day and the end of the Second World War with our Soviet “allies,” George F. Kennan, then a relatively unknown American diplomat assigned to our Moscow embassy, wrote a Long Telegram to his superiors in the State Department about the nature of the Soviet communist threat to the West. The classified telegram arrived in Washington on February 22, 1946. A few weeks later, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered a commencement address at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, and announced to President Harry S. Truman (who was in attendance) and the world that the Soviet Union had erected an “iron curtain” across central and eastern Europe.

Harnessing the People: Mapping Overseas United Front Work in Democratic States

Cheryl Yu’s Harnessing the People: Mapping Overseas United Front Work in Democratic States presents a systematic examination of how the Chinese Communist Party operationalizes its united front system across four major democracies. By drawing on open-source research, the report identifies more than 2,000 organizations in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany that maintain direct or indirect connections to the CCP’s united front apparatus. These organizations constitute a distributed political infrastructure that can be mobilized in support of Party objectives, including national rejuvenation, global influence expansion, and unification with Taiwan.

The report traces the evolution of overseas united front work from Deng Xiaoping’s post–Cultural Revolution reopening to Xi Jinping’s consolidation of a globally oriented influence architecture. Party doctrine defines united front work as a strategic instrument for consolidating allies, neutralizing opposition, and shaping the external environment. Over time, target groups expanded from overseas Chinese elites and business figures to include students, professionals, religious leaders, private-sector actors, and broad categories of diaspora communities. Xi has reinforced the imperative of “uniting Chinese descendants at home and abroad,” integrating diaspora mobilization into China’s broader global governance ambitions.

Could The Russia-Ukraine War End Within This Year?

Nurlan Umudov

As we enter the fourth year of the devastating Russia-Ukraine war, the conflict continues to claim tens of thousands of lives with no immediate end in sight. Russia’s persistent territorial ambitions and diplomatic intransigence remain the primary obstacles to restoring peace and stability in the region. This relentless war, devoid of any humanitarian benefit, has resulted in nothing but widespread destruction and human suffering.

While the global community yearns for a return to peace and stability, the current situation on the ground remains complex. However, despite the ongoing hostilities, several emerging geopolitical factors suggest that the conflict could reach a decisive turning point-and potentially a conclusion-within 2026. To understand this potential shift, it is essential to first analyze the evolving positions of the primary actors involved in this global crisis.

Four Years Of The Ukraine Invasion: Has Russia’s Military Learned To Fight A Better War?

Mick Eckel

Prior to Ukraine, the last time Russia all-out invaded another sovereign country was Georgia. Moscow was victorious after the 16-day conflict in 2008, but it was messy and showed that Russia’s armed forces needed a major upgrade.

Four years ago, a semi-reformed Russian military was again put to the test, when hundreds of thousands of troops poured into Ukraine. Judging by the eyewatering casualties — more than 1.2 million killed and wounded and counting — it’s been even messier. And Moscow still is not victorious.

But Russia’s armed forces are learning. The question is how much they’ve learned since February 24, 2022.

“They’re adapting to the battlefield conditions, but the more permanent changes to the force in terms of strategy and operations will come after,” Dara Massicot, a longtime expert on Russia’s armed forces and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told RFE/RL.

The Army's new drone competition is really a talent hunt. It's scouting out what makes a top drone pilot.

Chris Panella

The US Army used its first Best Drone Warfighter competition not just to test skills, officials say, but to identify what makes a top drone operator — and who in the force is best suited for the job.

Rather than training every soldier to fly drones, the Army is using competition to identify the skill sets of top drone operators and whether there are specific roles within units that would make the most sense for working with uncrewed aerial systems.

The effort reflects a broader shift from treating drone flying as something for all soldiers to approaching it as a specialized skill set that requires the right aptitude, training, and sustained practice.

Military AI Contracts and the Leverage Problem Who Controls the Kill Chain?

Edge Narrator

When Anthropic’s internal safety team flagged concerns about Claude’s deployment in certain defense contexts earlier this year, the dispute drew unusual attention inside the Pentagon’s contracting apparatus. Not because of the ethics debate. Because of the dependency question.

The U.S. military had already embedded commercial large language model infrastructure into operational planning workflows. The conflict exposed something procurement officers had not fully modeled: what happens when a private AI company decides a particular use case violates its terms? What recourse does the national security apparatus have when the capability it has built its operations around is held by a company with its own governance structure, its own ethics board, and its own legal exposure? The Venezuela operation provides a useful frame. But Venezuela is one node in a much larger network.

The AI Infrastructure Wars How Two Empires Are Redefining Global Control Through Competing Models of AI Dominance

FrameTheGlobe and The Ren Way

This investigation examines how two fundamentally different strategies for AI dominance are reshaping the global order. The United States pursues frontier artificial intelligence capability while maintaining control through federal gatekeeping, export restrictions on semiconductors, and contractor-mediated deployment. China pursues sufficiency in capability while saturating the world with accessible, affordable, integrated AI infrastructure that makes dependence on Chinese systems a matter of practical necessity rather than political choice.

By February 2026, the outcomes of these competing strategies were becoming visible. But Western media coverage remained fixated on benchmark scores and model comparisons, missing the more consequential question: whose infrastructure will the world’s developing economies actually depend on? The answer to that question is being determined now, through decisions made in countries across Africa, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. Once locked in, those decisions will shape the boundaries of technological sovereignty for decades.

How commercial drones make the Pentagon’s ‘Blue UAS Select’ list

Daniel Terrill

The Defense Department this week began testing for the initial phase of its Drone Dominance Program, an effort to expand the use of commercial drones across the military.

Dubbed “the Gauntlet,” military operators will fly and evaluate uncrewed aerial systems, or UASs, at Fort Benning, Georgia, to determine which of the 25 competing vendors will advance to the next phase of the program.

However, ahead of the testing, DOD curated a list of commercial drones that meet baseline performance and compliance standards. With the list, officials aim to streamline procurement and encourage military leaders to begin buying and fielding approved systems sooner rather than later.

AI is the future of warfare and US is in the lead

Stephen Bryen

While many experts have focused on the significance of drones in the new reality of warfare, the AI revolution is a much bigger deal. AI now enables drones to be far more impactful, helps select and prioritize battle targets, designs tactical operations and assesses results that go beyond iterative evaluations.

While AI is changing the battlefield space and the US has massive advantages, there are also significant risks that AI systems could be compromised by US adversaries and perhaps even by “friends.”

Recently AI has played an important role in several conflicts: the Gaza war (Operation Gideon’s Chariots); US-Israel operations against Iran (Operation Rising Lion); the capture of Nicolas Maduro and his wife in Venezuela (Operation Absolute Resolve); operations to locate and stop “rogue” oil tankers; and the Ukraine war, where AI is playing a major role.

When it comes to drones, the Pentagon should mind the experience gap

Sara Willett

As US and allied partners push to develop, produce and field military technologies for the modern battlefield, they are leaning into lessons learned from Ukraine and other recent global conflicts. Unmanned and autonomous systems are a major focus, and to have lasting impact must fit seamlessly into how wars are fought and sustained.

When it comes to unmanned systems, the US military does not have a technology problem — there are dozens of viable options in existence that would improve our capabilities to deter and wage wars. Rather, we have a technology adoption problem. The challenge lies in how these technologies fit into the ways our military operates and wages war, and trust by human operators in both the technology and the application must be created if those technologies are to be successfully accepted, produced and fielded in appreciable quantities.

Surveying Duality in Space - Volume III

Karen Schwindt, Amanda Kerrigan, Jeffrey W. Hornung, Kristina Novakovic

In early 2025, RAND launched a three-year effort to examine dual-use space systems—those capable of performing both civilian and military operations. The project began with a baseline report analyzing national approaches to developing, deploying, and governing these systems, followed by three regional workshops in the Americas, Europe-Eurasia, and the Indo-Pacific to fill gaps and further contextualize findings. These proceedings focus solely on the Indo-Pacific workshop, which was held virtually on July 7, 2025, and convened 13 participants from India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Singapore across government, private, and research sectors, in addition to two Chinese academics interviewed after the workshop.

These proceedings articulate key themes summarizing participant insights, emphasizing the lack of shared definitions; factors underpinning system development and use; and regional preferences for minilateral initiatives, trust-building measures, and increased Southeast Asian, commercial, and public engagement. Findings from the baseline report and workshops will inform recommendations to the international community for establishing a global governance regime for dual-use space systems.

The Battlefield Moved, Humans Didn’t: Why a 1930s Historian Still Understands Modern War Better Than We Do

David T. Cloft

Nearly a hundred years ago, Sir Herbert Butterfield sat down and committed the unforgivable sin of telling historians, strategists, and polite academics something they still hate hearing today: war is not a clean system. It is not a spreadsheet problem. It is not solved by better charts, prettier maps, or a PowerPoint deck with the right color palette. War—every war—boils down to frightened human beings trying to reconcile self-preservation, honor, faith, and meaning while other frightened human beings try to kill them.

This was an inconvenient truth in the 1930s. It is downright heretical in the age of fifth-generation warfare.

Butterfield wrote before drones, social media, cyber operations, influence campaigns, and armies of anonymous experts explaining conflict through think-tank jargon. Yet he understood something that entire modern bureaucracies still manage to miss: the further war drifts from formal battlefields, the more decisive the human soul becomes—and the worse technocrats perform.

25 February 2026

India Must Architect Sectoral Plurilateral Blocs to Overcome Geopolitical Coercion

Lokendra Sharma,

Abhishek Kadiyala

, Arindam Goswami, Ashwin Prasad, Nitin Pai

India’s current multialignment strategy is buckling under the pressure of a volatile, transactional US and a structurally aggressive China. This paper argues that while India should continue engaging with the US and China, it should also pursue a strategy of sectoral plurilateralism. Plurilateral blocs are capability-driven groupings of countries (excluding major powers) that function as geopolitical backstops.

We recommend that India pursue twelve such blocs in a phased manner, beginning with three priority pilot blocs — space, digital public infrastructure and AI — and then expand into supply chain, finance, scientific, technological, social, and security groupings.

Operationally, India must shift from broad multilateral arrangements and instead focus on narrow, deep arrangements built for functional sovereignty. These blocs have the potential to increase economic integration and create geopolitical leverage for all bloc members.

Hope and Disappointment in India

KAUSHIK BASU

India’s promise is undeniable, yet political dysfunction and empty rhetoric continue to undermine its long-term prospects. The absence of reliable statistics, lagging innovation, and worsening air quality all point to institutional decay that only sustained, coordinated national action can reverse.

Last month, I traveled across India, listening, observing, and taking stock. While the journey was energizing and often inspiring, it left me with an open question: Where is the world’s most populous country headed?

Is this a 'very Chinese time in your life'? The trend boosting China's soft power

Koh Ewe

Ni hao, we're all Chinese now.

Or at least that's what they claim on TikTok, where a trend called "Chinamaxxing" has taken off in the West.

Chinese wellness practices, once associated with the tacky and geriatric, have suddenly found themselves in vogue, largely among Americans.

From warm apple-boiled water to indoor slippers and longevity exercises, people are sharing videos of themselves "learning to be Chinese". Many come with the Fight Club-inspired caption "you met me at a very Chinese time in my life", or the hashtag #newlychinese.

As Donald Trump shakes up the world order, the Chinese Communist Party has welcomed this boost to the country's image.

How Would a US Strike on Iran Play Out?

Harrison Kass

US carrier strike groups (CSGs) have surged into the Middle East as tensions with Iran increase. As Washington threatens action over Iranian internal repressions, the question becomes: what would a carrier-led strike against Iran actually look like?

A carrier campaign against Iran would likely be limited, precision-focused, and integrated with long-range assets—not a full-scale invasion, but a calibrated coercive strike roughly akin to the mission that captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro in early January.

The US Has Been Fighting Wars Off of Aircraft Carriers for Decades

US carrier operations in the Middle East have precedent. Operation Praying Mantis in 1988 featured naval and air strikes against Iranian assets in retaliation for the mining of US warships. During the Iraq War, carrier air wings provided sustained strike tempo. And during the campaign against ISIS, carriers operated in the Persian Gulf, launching sorties daily. The historical takeaway is that carriers can serve as mobile, sovereign airbases, reducing dependence on regional bases and providing persistent strike capability.

Iranian Minister: Here’s How Iran Sees the U.S.

Ahmad Meidari

Robert Reich’s recent Guardian essay, titled “Donald Trump poses a threat to civilization,” raises an alarm that deserves to be heard well beyond the borders of the United States. His argument is not narrowly partisan; it is civilizational. At its core lies a question confronting all societies today: whether power will continue to abandon moral restraint, or whether humanity can still arrest the slide toward "de-civilization.”

On this point, I find myself in deep agreement with Mr. Reich.

In our ethical and religious tradition, defending the oppressed against the oppressor is not a slogan but a duty. An old maxim, familiar to many Iranians, captures this plainly: Be a pillar of support for the downtrodden. Civilizations are not judged by the reach of their power, but by how that power is exercised.

Subscribe to: Comments (Atom)