Indian Strategic Studies

23 February 2026

A U.S.-India Trade Deal Can’t Restore Lost Trust

Sumit Ganguly

India and the United States reached an interim trade agreement earlier this month—after months of public wrangling and various intemperate statements on the part of some U.S. officials, ranging from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to trade advisor Peter Navarro.

In the wake of the announcement, key members of India’s principal opposition party, the Indian National Congress, have predictably attacked elements of the deal, arguing that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government has conceded too much to the United States and received little in return. Some have even characterized the accord as a “surrender” to U.S. demands.

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.

Partnerships for Self-Reliance: Internationalising India’s Critical Minerals Sector

Anindita Sinh & Constantino Xavier

As India advances its ambitious climate and development goals, access to critical minerals has become a strategic imperative. Minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and rare earth elements underpin the country’s plans for green transition, advanced manufacturing, and national security. Yet India faces acute vulnerabilities: limited domestic reserves, high import dependence (particularly on China, which supplies over half of India’s imports), and an underdeveloped processing and refining sector. These constraints expose the country to geopolitical risks, market volatility, and technological dependence at a moment when global competition for minerals is intensifying.

To address these challenges, India launched the National Critical Minerals Mission (NCMM) in 2025, a seven-year framework backed by significant State resources. This study focuses on the NCMM’s international dimension, examining how India can secure resilient access by: a) leveraging external partnerships and b) enhancing policymaking structures to integrate domestic and external levels of operation. It asks four guiding questions: (1) What is the utility of international partnerships on critical minerals? (2) Which engagement models—bilateral, multilateral, or minilateral—are most effective? (3) What role should the Indian government play in balancing State-led and market-led approaches while engaging abroad? and (4) What institutional design is most suitable for coordinating domestic and international interests?

THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF EXPLOITATION: How Intelligence Networks, Gates Foundation Capital, and Humanitarian Programs Weaponized Pakistan’s Vulnerability

Edge Narrator, Jinnah's Writer

The Epstein Files released by the US Department of Justice in January 2026 sparked immediate analysis focused on flight logs, Mar-a-Lago visits, celebrity associations. This narrative is incomplete and misleading.

The substantive architecture documented across millions of pages concerns something far more threatening to Pakistan: the design and operation of surveillance and intelligence infrastructure in the country’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, explicitly built with polio eradication as operational cover. A convicted sex trafficker sat at the center of this system. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation financed it. International institutions legitimized it. Vulnerable populations in Pakistan’s tribal areas became its targets.

The In-Q-Tel Pipeline

FrameTheGlobe and The Ren Way

In-Q-Tel is not what the public thinks it is. The CIA’s investment arm is not a quirky government venture fund making bets on promising startups. It is a mechanism for converting public intelligence budgets into private profits while simultaneously creating institutional dependencies that lock government agencies into proprietary surveillance systems. The mechanism is elegant. The results are invisible. But the implications reshape how power operates across both Silicon Valley and emerging markets.

The Mechanism: Making Taxpayers Fund Private Equity

In-Q-Tel receives CIA funding through the intelligence budget. From 2017 to 2021, total government contributions to In-Q-Tel amounted to nearly $500 million. The fund currently holds assets exceeding $1 billion. In theory, In-Q-Tel operates as a nonprofit venture capital firm. In practice, it functions as a subsidy program where government money finds companies, government evaluates companies, and then government becomes the primary customer for those companies’ products.

PRC and India vie for Influence on Rebel Militias in Myanmar

Khandakar Tahmid Rejwan

Ethnic rebel groups in Myanmar’s Shan and Kachin states—which control most of the country’s rare-earth element (REE) mining sites—have become increasingly dependent on revenues generated from leasing and facilitating Chinese rare-earth imports.

Beijing weaponizes the rebel groups’ economic dependence on REEs to dominate the global supply chain and enforce political compliance along its border.

India is beginning to engage the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) to secure independent rare earth supplies, though Beijing’s entrenched influence over Myanmar’s militias severely limits New Delhi’s prospects for success.

If We Can’t Name China’s Cyberattacks, We Lose Trust in Ourselves

Justin Bassi

In the space of just a few days, two big U.S. tech companies took different approaches to China’s cyberattacks. Palo Alto Networks generically referred to a global cyber espionage operation by unnamed actors while Google specifically named China as the globe’s leading cyber security threat.

That inconsistency hurts everyone but China.

A refusal to name and shame China incentivises Beijing to carry on, leaves our public underinformed, and places little pressure on governments to tackle the problem.

The West won Cold War competition against the Soviet Union through the combined power of government policy and private sector innovation. Today, China has taken the upper hand because we do not have that same alignment.

China’s biggest TV event had a clear star: the robot

Simone McCarthy

Back-flipping, nunchuck-weilding humanoid robots delighted and amazed viewers at China’s annual televised new-year extravaganza with their kung-fu choreography. But they – and their rivals who took to the stage Monday night – also carried a message about just how rapidly Chinese androids are advancing.

The fluid movements, agility and fault recovery of Chinese firm Unitree Robotics’ bots, which kicked and flipped on-stage alongside young, human martial artists during the broadcast, were leaps ahead of the staid handkerchief-twirling and shuffling footwork of the Unitree models that performed last year to much fanfare. And it wasn’t just Unitree. Across state broadcaster CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala this year, China’s growing tech capabilities – and the fierce competition within its high-tech sector – were on full display.

U.S. Military Moves Into Place for Possible Strikes in Iran

Helene Cooper, Eric Schmitt and Ronen Bergman

The rapid buildup of U.S. forces in the Middle East has progressed to the point that President Trump has the option to take military action against Iran as soon as this weekend, administration and Pentagon officials said, leaving the White House with high-stakes choices about pursuing diplomacy or war.

Mr. Trump has given no indication that he has made a decision about how to proceed. But the drive to assemble a military force capable of striking Iran’s nuclear program, its ballistic missiles and accompanying launch sites has continued this week despite indirect talks between the two nations on Tuesday, with Iran seeking two weeks to come back with fleshed out proposals for a diplomatic resolution.

What War With Iran Would Look Like

Arash Reisinezhad

Washington and Tehran may be closer to military confrontation than at any point in memory, but they are not on the brink of war in any conventional sense. The most plausible outcome of the current standoff is not a U.S. invasion of Iran or a full-scale regional war. It is a limited, carefully calibrated strike designed to reshape bargaining dynamics rather than end them.

In recent weeks, the paradox has become impossible to ignore. The United States has dramatically reinforced its military posture in the Middle East, while Iranian officials insist that they will not capitulate under pressure. Yet both sides continue to speak, often simultaneously, about negotiations. This apparent contradiction is not a sign of confusion. It reflects a familiar logic in international politics: war, or the threat of it, as an instrument of bargaining.

The Algorithm of Power: When Western Democracies Bet Their Constitutions on AI Warfare

Tanveer Bokhari

The paradox is as sharp as it is unsettling. In February 2026, the world learned that the United States Department of Defense had used Claude, an AI model developed by Anthropic — a company that built its brand on “AI safety” — to help plan and execute a high-stakes military operation to capture a foreign head of state. The same week, reports emerged that the Pentagon, frustrated by Anthropic’s ethical guardrails, was considering terminating its contracts with the company altogether.

This is not merely a contractual dispute between a vendor and its largest client. It is a defining moment for the Western alliance. It forces a reckoning with a fundamental question: Can democracies maintain their constitutional soul while racing to build the world’s most lethal autonomous machines?

A Year Inside Kash Patel’s F.B.I.

Emily Bazelon and Rachel Poser

When he returned to office last year, President Trump called the F.B.I. a “corrupt” agency in need of overhaul. He had by then been the subject of three F.B.I. investigations: Agents examined his 2016 campaign’s alleged ties to Russia, his retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after leaving office and his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Though all three inquiries took place in part or entirely under Christopher Wray, the F.B.I. director Trump appointed, he repeatedly accused the bureau of mounting a partisan attack against him.

To replace Wray, Trump chose Kash Patel, a former public defender and intelligence official who had never worked for the F.B.I. and had spun conspiracy theories about the bureau. Since Patel’s confirmation last February, the F.B.I. has undergone a transformation that has upended its nonpartisan rules and norms, deeply rattling many of its 38,000 employees.

Europe must be ready to fight, PM tells Munich Security Conference

Fiona Nimoni

Europe must be ready to fight to protect its people, values, and way of life, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer told world leaders on Saturday.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Starmer also called for deeper links and cooperation, including economic ties, between the UK and EU.

The PM stressed the continent must "stand on its own two feet" when it comes to defence commitments.

During his speech, Starmer also said the UK would deploy its carrier strike group to the Arctic and High North as part of efforts to bolster security against Russian threats.

He Did PR for Zuckerberg, Musk, and Google. Now He Says He ‘Only Told Half the Story’

Billy Perrigo

Thirty thousand feet in the air, Mark Zuckerberg turned to his speechwriter. The duo were flying in Zuckerberg’s jet to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where the Facebook boss was scheduled to address world leaders. Zuckerberg had a question for his companion.

“Wait, what exactly is the UN?”

Dex Hunter-Torricke had to hide his surprise. Zuckerberg was, by this point in 2015, the head of a company that was reshaping politics and societies around the world, with 1.5 billion users and counting. Yet according to his speechwriter, he appeared to be fuzzy about key elements of the global order. “It was astonishing,” Hunter-Torricke recalls.

Signs of a white-collar recession are everywhere

Catherine Baab

Slowing wage growth. Declining job openings. Unemployed workers giving away their LinkedIn passwords and forking over thousands of dollars per month for a shot at that elusive thing: a lucrative corporate job. Or just a job, period.

Beneath the headline employment numbers in BLS reports, the signs of a white-collar recession are mounting. Here's what to know.

Contracting white-collar growth

Last week’s jobs report showed key trends. According to the BLS, the economy added more than 130,000 jobs total, including 82,000 jobs added in health care and a further 42,000 in related care work — think nursing home staff, home health aides, and childcare workers.

Europe to America: ‘We Are Looking for New Partners’

Ravi Agrawal

One year ago at the Munich Security Conference, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance stunned Europe’s leaders with a public scolding that scarred the continent into thinking about a future without Washington’s embrace. On the latest episode of FP Live, I spoke with a group of leaders on the main stage at this year’s Munich summit to check the pulse of the trans-Atlantic relationship. Our session was titled “Tariff-fying Times”—an obvious play on the White House’s economic coercion—and guests included World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, German Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, and U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis.

'Difficult' Russia-Ukraine peace talks end without breakthrough

Laura Gozzi

Russian, American and Ukrainian representatives met in Geneva on Tuesday and Wednesday Talks between Russia, Ukraine and the US aimed at ending Moscow's war in Ukraine have concluded without a breakthrough. The trilateral meetings, held in Geneva, went on late on Tuesday but only lasted two hours on Wednesday. Although US envoy Steve Witkoff had expressed optimism over the talks, both the chief Russian negotiator and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky indicated they had been "difficult".

After the main talks concluded, Kremlin negotiator Vladimir Medinsky returned to the venue and held a closed-door meeting with the Ukrainian side for about an hour and a half. No details from that meeting have emerged. Some progress was made on "military issues", including the location of the front line and ceasefire monitoring, according to a Ukrainian diplomatic source. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said later on Wednesday that "there was meaningful progress" made on both sides, and an agreement to "continue to work towards a peace deal together".

The Carney Doctrine Can Be More Than a Davos Speech

Michael Kovrig

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last month, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a strategic emancipation proclamation. The international order is rupturing, he candidly assessed, forcing small and midsize countries to make hard and undignified choices as they struggle to survive in a world of bullying great powers. The imagined community sustained by universal rules, international law, and multilateral institutions never fully constrained these giants, but now even the pretense that it can is in tatters.

“The world has changed. Washington has changed. There is almost nothing normal now in the United States,” Carney told Canada’s House of Commons at the end of a particularly stormy January.

Tipping the Cyber Balance: How AI Benchmarks Could Make Software Safer

Gopal Sarma and Kathleen Fisher

In February 2024, a ransomware attack on Change Healthcare disrupted medical claims processing for nearly half of all U.S. health care transactions. The breach cost UnitedHealth Group over $2.8 billion, exposed the personal data of 190 million Americans, and forced hospitals nationwide to delay patient care. The cause? A remote access portal without multi-factor authentication. As one senator put it: “This hack could have been stopped with cybersecurity 101.”

This attack illustrates a broader pattern. Critical infrastructure depends on complex systems with sprawling attack surfaces—misconfigurations, excessive privileges, inadequate monitoring, and software vulnerabilities—and attackers are exploiting these weaknesses faster than defenders can address them. Artificial intelligence is accelerating this dynamic: The same technology that helps developers build applications faster also enables attackers to find and exploit flaws more quickly. According to Google’s Mandiant Threat Intelligence, the average time-to-exploit for vulnerabilities dropped from 63 days in 2018–2019 to just five days in 2023. Some claim that AI systems can now generate working exploits as quickly as 15 minutes following a Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) disclosure, a standardized public announcement of a specific software vulnerability.

Cyber threats emerge as leading risks confronting G7 nations says Munich Security Conference 2026

Naveen Goud

Munich Security Conference 2026 has identified cyber threats as the most significant risk facing the world’s leading advanced economies, placing digital security at the forefront of global policy discussions for 2025. According to findings presented at the high-level gathering in Germany, cyber risks now rank above economic instability and disinformation campaigns among the Group of Seven (G7) nations.

The conclusions are drawn from the Munich Security Index 2026, an annual assessment that tracks how citizens in major economies perceive global threats. The 2026 edition underscores that online dangers—from state-sponsored hacking and ransomware attacks to infrastructure sabotage and cyber espionage—are viewed as more immediate and disruptive than traditional geopolitical or military risks. Notably, this marks the second consecutive year that cyber threats have topped the index for G7 countries, highlighting a sustained and growing anxiety around digital vulnerabilities.

Europe Looks to Israeli Tech to Defend Tanks

Justin Leopold-Cohen & Bradley Bowman

Drones and ground-launched munitions have decimated Russian and Ukrainian tank fleets, and U.S. allies are looking to Israeli technology to ensure their tanks aren’t next.

EuroTrophy GmbH signed a contract in January for approximately $380 million to outfit Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks ordered by Lithuania, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Croatia with the Trophy Active Protection System (APS). EuroTrophy GmbH is the German subsidiary of Israeli defense manufacturer Rafael and a joint venture of General Dynamics European Land Systems and KNDS Deutschland.

This purchase is just the latest example in which Israeli technology is helping increase European defense capabilities and advance U.S. and transatlantic interests. In December 2025, Germany deployed the Arrow 3 ballistic missile defense system, Israel’s largest single defense export to date.

How Rising Geopolitical Tensions Trigger War in Cyber Space

Rithula Nisha Ebrahim

Recorded Future's State of Security Report 2026 shows increasing state-sponsored espionage, as nations resort to covert cyber operations during conflicts Cybersecurity is not just about ransom or data loss or reputational damage – it is now a matter of national security. The shaking up of the geopolitical order under US President Donald Trump and the power struggle that ensued forced nations with lesser military ammunition to draw from their cyber war chest.

The news of relentless cyber attacks and state-backed cyber operations aimed at espionage should be proof enough, but the 2026 State of Security Report released by Recorded Future more than validates these concerns. The 2026 State of Security Report dives into geopolitical fragmentation and ensuing cyber conflicts | Credit: Recorded Future “Uncertainty is no longer episodic – it’s the operating environment,” says Levi Gundert, Chief Security & Intelligence Officer at Recorded Future.

America Isn’t Ready for What AI Will Do to Jobs

Josh Tyrangiel

The Second Industrial Revolution was belching its way through New England, teaching mill and factory owners a lesson most M.B.A. students now learn in their first semester: that efficiency gains tend to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is usually somebody else. The new machines weren’t just spinning cotton or shaping steel. They were operating at speeds that the human body—an elegant piece of engineering designed over millions of years for entirely different purposes—simply wasn’t built to match. The owners knew this, just as they knew that there’s a limit to how much misery people are willing to tolerate before they start setting fire to things.

So Massachusetts created the nation’s first Bureau of Statistics of Labor, hoping that data might accomplish what conscience could not. By measuring work hours, conditions, wages, and what economists now call “negative externalities” but were then called “children’s arms torn off,” policy makers figured they might be able to produce reasonably fair outcomes for everyone. Or, if you’re a bit more cynical, a sustainable level of exploitation. A few years later, with federal troops shooting at striking railroad workers and wealthy citizens funding private armories—leading indicators that things in your society aren’t going great—Congress decided that this idea might be worth trying at scale and created the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Bolduc Brief: Concerns Over Political Motivations in Military Promotions

Donald Bolduc

The recent decision by the Secretary of Defense to remove an officer from the promotion list slated for advancement to the rank of Brigadier General raises troubling questions about the integrity of the military promotion process. This action appears to stem from political motivations and personal biases rather than an objective evaluation of the officer’s qualifications, capabilities, and leadership potential. Such developments threaten to undermine the meritocratic principles that are essential for selecting senior leaders in our armed forces.

Promotions within the military should be determined solely based on an individual’s performance, accomplishments, and leadership qualities. When political motivations and personal dislikes come into play, the selection process becomes compromised, leading to the promotion of individuals who may not possess the requisite abilities to lead effectively. This practice not only creates a culture of favoritism but also engenders an atmosphere of skepticism among service members regarding the decision-making processes affecting their careers and the future direction of their units.

“The Forgotten Indian Prisoners of World War II: Surrender, Loyalty, Betrayal and Hell”

Francis P Sempa

World War II birthed the anti-colonial Indian National Army (INA), a force composed of former imperial troops and civilian recruits that fought with Japan against the British and helped to accelerate India’s independence from Great Britain. Like most aspects of World War II, these developments were messy, complicated, and filled with tragedy. Gautam Hazarika, a former banker turned World War II historian, tells the story of one of the war’s lesser-known tragedies—the fate of Indian prisoners of war in the aftermath of Japan’s conquest of Malaya and Singapore.

This is Hazarika’s first book. It is a well-sourced and highly-detailed account of “surrender, loyalty, betrayal, and hell”. Approximately 67,000 Indian soldiers helped the British defend Malaya and Singapore, to no avail. Hazarika notes that the well-planned Japanese offensive caught the British by surprise and led to an ignominious retreat and defeat. Britain even lost two of its warships—the Prince of Wales and Repulse—which resulted in Japan controlling the sea, air, and land in and around Singapore.

22 February 2026

India and Pakistan’s Water Politics Is Starting to Boil

Safina Nabi

CHENAB VALLEY, Jammu and Kashmir—Shama Begum, wearing a traditional shalwar kameez and a pink scarf draped over her head, sits in her kitchen in Dungduro village, her back pressed against a cracked wall. Now in her late 40s, she grew up in Sewarbatti, not far from Kishtwar district, about a 155-mile journey by car from the city of Jammu.

Her whole life has revolved around the Chenab River. Her family looked after the springs that fed their fields, herded cattle along the riverbanks, and fished the smaller streams, just as their parents and grandparents did. “I spent summers out in the fields, growing beans, rice, maize, fruit,” Shama said. “We used to rest under the trees. But now, we’ve lost our land and cattle.”

Cage The Tigers, Cast A Net For Their Cubs

Anushka Saxena

On February 4, 2026, the Standing Committee of the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) convened in Beijing for an unusual, ‘Emergency’ session. In it, the NPCSC announced the immediate removal of three deputies from the legislature, who also happen to be pivotal leaders in China’s defence industry – Zhou Xinmin, former Chairman of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC); Luo Qi, Chief Engineer of the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC); and Liu Cangli, former Director of the China Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP).

The emergency session to dismiss Zhou, Luo and Liu was definitely unique in that this is the second such session of the 14th NPC – the first having been called on July 25, 2023, to remove Qin Gang from the post of Foreign Minister. Likely, the hasty removal could be because of a few reasons – the harm these leads have brought about in their domains (aerospace and nuclear) was causing major national security issues and decisive action had to be taken; their arrest was imminent and some announcement to remove them was essential; or it’s just Xi Jinping bringing down his house of cards to re-build it as soon as possible.

China’s Fragile Future

Andrew J. Nathan

For many years, predicting the downfall of the Chinese Communist Party was something of a sport among China watchers. But few serious observers today suggest that China looks unstable. Despite facing numerous challenges, including the implosion of the country’s real estate sector since 2021 and high debt loads that have bogged down local government finances, China’s political system appears strong. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has a firm hold on all the levers of power, and the country is proving to be competitive, or even dominant, in a growing number of twenty-first-century technologies, such as electric vehicles and biotechnology.

Trump moves closer to a major war with Iran

Barak Ravid

The Trump administration is closer to a major war in the Middle East than most Americans realize. It could begin very soon. Why it matters: A U.S. military operation in Iran would likely be a massive, weeks-long campaign that would look more like full-fledged war than last month's pinpoint operation in Venezuela, sources say.

The sources noted it would likely be a joint U.S.-Israeli campaign that's much broader in scope — and more existential for the regime — than the Israeli-led 12-day war last June, which the U.S. eventually joined to take out Iran's underground nuclear facilities.

Such a war would have a dramatic influence on the entire region and major implications for the remaining three years of the Trump presidency.

With the attention of Congress and the public otherwise occupied, there is little public debate about what could be the most consequential U.S. military intervention in the Middle East in at least a decade.

Asia After America How U.S. Strategy Failed—and Ceded the Advantage to China

Zack Cooper

The pivot to Asia has failed. A decade and a half ago, in 2011, President Barack Obama committed to rebalancing U.S. strategy and resources to focus on the Asia-Pacific. “Let there be no doubt,” he pledged on a visit to Australia, “The United States of America is all in.” Although the phrasing changed and policymakers and politicians argued about the tactical details, Obama’s successors affirmed the logic behind the pivot, which soon became the core bipartisan assumption of American strategy. In speech after speech, U.S. officials emphasized that the only way to prevent China from dominating Asia was for the United States and its allies and partners to make a major investment in the region’s political, economic, and military stability.

Yet nearly 15 years later, U.S. leaders have still not matched their words with action. American promises to foster greater prosperity and better governance now elicit eye rolls throughout Asia. A perpetually distracted United States neglects much of Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Pacific Islands. Few today are asking when the pivot will come. Instead, the question in regional capitals is how far the United States will pull back.

A War Against Iran Could Open Up a Pandora’s Box That Won’t Be Easy To Close

Andrew Latham

A U.S. Air Force pilots assigned to the 393rd Bomb Squadron prepare a B-2 Spirit aircraft for hot-pit refueling at Pease Air National Guard Base, New Hampshire, Sept. 20, 2025. The aircraft is the first operated by the 509th Bomb Wing to land at Pease ANGB, formerly Pease Air Force Base, since the 509 BW, formerly 509th Bombardment Wing, was stationed at Pease AFB and the active-duty base closed nearly 35 years ago. The lineage of the 509th BW traces back to the World War II Era when the 509th Composite Group dropped the atomic bombs on Japan. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Joshua Hastings)

-The deeper issue is what comes after. Physical destruction would likely buy time, not resolution, while strengthening Tehran’s incentive to sprint toward an overt nuclear deterrent. -Retaliation would surge through Iran’s proxy ecosystem, widening the battlespace and forcing sustained U.S. presence across air defense, maritime security, and regional reassurance. -Energy shocks from Hormuz risks would ripple globally. The net effect: a militarily feasible operation that drains strategic bandwidth and tightens force-allocation pressure in higher-priority theaters.

Pentagon's use of Claude during Maduro raid sparks Anthropic feud

Dave Lawler, Maria Curi

The U.S. military used Anthropic's Claude AI model during the operation to capture Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro, two sources with knowledge of the situation told Axios.Now, the blowback may threaten the company's business with the Pentagon. The latest: After reports on the use of Claude in the raid, a senior administration official told Axios that the Pentagon would be reevaluating its partnership with Anthropic.

"Anthropic asked whether their software was used for the raid to capture Maduro, which caused real concerns across the Department of War indicating that they might not approve if it was," the official said. Any company that would jeopardize the operational success of our warfighters in the field is one we need to reevaluate our partnership with going forward."

An Anthropic spokesperson denied that: "Anthropic has not discussed the use of Claude for specific operations with the Department of War. We have also not discussed this with any industry partners, including Palantir, outside of routine discussions on strictly technical matters."

How Russia Turns Gamers into Fighters

Galen Lamphere-Englund and Petra Regeni

Russia’s active weaponization of video games has become ingrained in its doctrine of hybrid warfare, resulting in loss of lives across continents. Recent revelations from Bloomberg demonstrate how foreign nationals are recruited online via popular military-simulation (milsim) games and Discord chats to fight for Russia in Ukraine. These attempts fit neatly within broader influence operations and cognitive warfare tactics leveraging video games. From propaganda mods and in-game recruitment campaigns, to creating Russian-only sovereign gaming platforms, these tactics speak to the political and cultural reality of online games as contested information spaces. As previously assessed by RUSI, the immersive, interactive and transnational nature of modern gaming builds tight-knit social spaces with less moderation than conventional social media. Despite being perceived as apolitical, gaming ecosystems offer Moscow ample room to exercise hybrid tactics against audiences abroad. In effect, platforms designed for entertainment are converted into battlefields for influence and recruitment.

Atlantic Chokepoint, Cognitive Front: Russian Influence Operations and the GIUK Gap

Rachel Butler

Russia is increasingly deploying information influence operations to target independence movements in Greenland and Scotland as part of a broader effort to weaken NATO’s strategic posture in the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) gap. These multi-layered operations are characterized by their adaptability and deniability, making them both difficult to detect and combat.

Their covert nature allows Russia to plausibly deny involvement, making it a persistent challenge to establish direct links to official Russian institutions, which allows for continued interference without clear accountability. Evaluating these operations offers policy and decision‑makers actionable insights for confronting Russia’s information influence campaigns and developing strategies to safeguard national security, build population resilience, and ensure nuclear stability.

Starlink Shutdown: Musk Throws Russian Forces Into Chaos

David Hambling

Russian use of Starlink terminals has now been halted, causing chaos among frontline units.SpaceX The Russian invasion force is in disarray following the deactivation of its Starlink satellite communications. Meanwhile Ukrainians are rushing to get their terminals whitelisted to maintain the service.

Both sides have made extensive use of the commercial Starlink service, which provides long-range, jam-resistant communication. Now the service operated by SpaceX is being denied to the Russians, and only terminals officially registered in Ukraine will work. “The Starlink terminals added to the ‘whitelist’ are working.

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