The Young and the Westless

Samir Puri

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They came from different sides of the world and were meeting for the first time. For everyone’s sake, we hoped they’d be on speaking terms by the time they arrived at our event. Because if their countries ever truly fell out, this incongruous pair could end up taking us closer to World War III.

The Big Numbers India Needs to Hit 2047 Target

Mandar P. Oak

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When India’s prime minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation on Independence Day, August 15, he outlined an ambitious vision of “Viksit Bharat“ meaning “developed India.” The deadline for this is 2047, the 100th anniversary of independence.

The target may be taken as a real per capita income of $20,000 in current dollar terms. If it gets there, India will find itself in the company of modestly rich European nations, such as Greece.

India’s current per capita income is $2,500, so the nation would need to achieve an eightfold increase in just 23 years. This is akin to chasing a 400-plus score in a one-day international cricket match, on a deteriorating wicket.

For India to reach this target will require bold strategies, Slow-and-steady, incremental policy making won’t be enough. The “asking rate” is 9.4 percent growth in real terms year after year for the next 23 years.

There have been a few such phenomenal chases in history. Some East Asian economies such as South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan grew from the mid-1960s to the early 1990s at an impressive pace of 8 percent. This is widely known as the East Asian Miracle. After its 1978 reforms, China also achieved its miracle, a nearly 10 percent growth rate over a sustained period.

A New Bangladesh Is Emerging But It Needs India Too

Muqtedar Khan and Umme Salma Tarin

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The overthrow of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina by a sustained student-led protest has plunged Bangladesh into violent chaos. But there is a promise that a more democratic and more economically equal Bangladesh could emerge from this chaos, labeled by some as the “Second Revolution.”

While there are far-reaching domestic political and economic consequences of this uprising, we focus on one of the key geopolitical issues, Bangladesh-India relations, that will have both short-term and long-term impact on what will eventually be “new” in the new Bangladesh.

Sheikh Hasina’s rule was mixed; it produced economic growth and development, but her government eventually also became increasingly more authoritarian and undemocratic, even at times downright oppressive. It was also perceived as corrupt, and the benefits of the economic development seemed to accrue only to those who were aligned with her party. The resentment among those left behind eventually overflowed and overthrew Hasina, just months after her fourth electoral victory in January 2024.

Indo-Chinese Relations: On a Collision Course

Herbert Wulf

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Introduction

Asia’s superpowers, China and India, are vying for an intensified global role. This, along with other controversial relationships, is putting them increasingly on a collision course. Is there even a threat of war? After fighting in the Himalayan border region in 2020, the world’s two largest nuclear-armed forces stood face to face for months. Communication between the two leaders was at a freezing point. Since the end of the colonial era, three disputed border areas in the Himalayas have been at the heart of the military conflicts. While neither government wants to start a war, Indo–Chinese relations are marked by conflict, competition, lack of co-operation and, increasingly, a collision course. They increasingly see each other as rivals.

Despite decades of efforts to find a diplomatic, internationally binding solution to the border disputes, including several meetings between Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi as well as former heads of government, no solution has so far been found. Both sides insist on their irreconcilable positions regarding the course of the common border. There is not even agreement on the length of the border. India speaks of a border of about 3,500 km, China of 2,000 km (International Crisis Group, 2023, p. 1). Recently, the positions have become even more entrenched.

Today, both governments are pursuing nationalist policies that are domestically oriented towards the recognition of their global role and “intimately connected to sovereign assertiveness and power projection abroad” (International Crisis Group, 2023, p. I). Both countries are investing heavily in military capabilities—quantitatively in the number of soldiers and weapons and qualitatively through the constant modernisation of their armed forces. They are demonstrating their military presence, which increases the risk of a large-scale collision that might not be limited to the disputed areas in the Himalayas but could affect the entire region and beyond.

America Surrendered in Afghanistan

John J. Waters

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President Biden said he ended the war in Afghanistan.

In truth he abandoned it.

Over 20 years, 800,000 young Americans did their duty to country by serving in Afghanistan. Of those, 20,000 were wounded, and more than 2,000 were killed.

Our mission was twofold: defeat the Taliban on the ground; and build a new military, a democratic government, a new Afghanistan.

The first part of the mission was clear, and when we killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011, there was a feeling among many in the armed forces that we had finished the harder task.

The mission’s second objective, however, proved to be the more difficult. If building a nation sounds ambitious, complex, even foolhardy, it was all those things. For conventional troops, it was often unclear whether we were fighting a war, investigating a crime, or participating in a massive public works project to build a modern nation-state brick-by-brick, road-by-road.

Bangladesh’s Interim Govt Struggles To Stem Nation’s Long-Held Grievances – Analysis

Ahammad Foyez

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In the three weeks since Sheikh Hasina fled Bangladesh, prompting euphoria in the student-led movement that ousted her, the country appears to be tipping toward anarchy, with the daunting task of mapping a return to democracy stymied by ongoing protests and score-settling.

Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel laureate appointed to lead an interim government on Aug. 8, has asked Bangladeshis to rein in their frustrations and give him time to address their grievances, amid an unsettling deterioration of law and order.

“You have accumulated many sorrows and troubles over the last 16 years. We understand that. But if you don’t let us work, we cannot heal your sorrows,” he said in an address to the nation on Sunday.

Government offices, police stations, courtrooms, and universities – institutions deeply politicized during Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year tenure – are scenes of near-daily mayhem in the nation’s capital.

The U.S. and China Should Consider Partnering in Space

Howard W. French

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As the U.S. presidential campaign barrels toward its big, traditional fall push, both contestants have found ways to emphasize the centrality of Washington’s competition with Beijing to the country’s future.

Does Haniyeh’s Death Give Iran the Right to Attack Israel?

Liron Libman

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Following the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on July 31 by an explosion in his Tehran guesthouse, Iran’s supreme leader and other senior regime officials have repeatedly threatened to strike Israel, believing them responsible for the attack. Alarmed by the possibility of further escalation, world leaders from the United States to Russia have urged Iran to moderate its response—with little success.

The danger of an increase in hostilities has raised questions about the role of international law in restraining, or permitting, such an attack. While Iran claims self-defense, precedent—and the UN Charter itself—casts significant doubt on the validity of such a justification.

The Fundamental Rule and Its Exception

Arguably the central rule of the UN Charter, Article 2(4) prohibits a state from threatening or using force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any other state. Notably, a state need not carry out the attack for it to be in violation of the charter—the threat itself could constitute a breach.

The significant exception to this provision is found in Article 51 of the UN Charter, which states that “nothing in the Charter shall impair the inherent right” of a state to self-defense if an armed attack occurs against it. Iran has invoked Article 51 to justify its threats following the death of Haniyeh: Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeed Sirvani, claimed that “[t]he Islamic Republic of Iran will not hesitate to exercise its inherent right to self-defense, as enshrined in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter to respond decisively and promptly.”

Libya's eastern government says all oilfields to close

Ayman Werfali

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Oilfields in eastern Libya that account for almost all the country's production will be closed and production and exports halted, the eastern-based administration said on Monday, after a flare-up in tension over the leadership of the central bank.

There was no confirmation from the country's internationally recognised government in Tripoli or from the National Oil Corp (NOC), which controls the country's oil resources.

NOC subsidiary Waha Oil Company, however, said it planned to gradually reduce output and warned of a complete halt to Libya's production, citing unspecified "protests and pressures".

Another subsidiary Sirte Oil Company also said it would cut output, calling on authorities to "intervene to maintain production levels".

Nearly all of Libya's oilfields are in the east, which is under the control of Khalifa Haftar who leads the Libyan National Army (LNA).

If eastern production is halted, El Feel in southwestern Libya would be the only functioning oilfield, with a capacity of 130,000 bpd.

The Houthis have defeated the US Navy

Tom Sharpe

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Operation Prosperity Guardian (OPG) was set up in December 2023 in response to the Houthi attacks on commercial shipping passing through the southern Red Sea. The aim was to provide a unified international front that would both deter the Houthis from further attacks and reassure the shipping companies who due to reasons of risk and associated insurance costs were already starting to take the long route round the Cape of Good Hope.

The problem was, it didn’t work. The Houthis were not deterred and continued taking pot shots at anyone and everything from ships with the most tenuous links to Israel, to Iranian grain carriers to Russian dark fleet oilers. For relatively little effort and money, they achieved their desired end states of ‘improved local influence’ and ‘challenging international shipping’ almost immediately. Their line that they would stop if there was a ceasefire in Gaza convinced only a few.

This led to Operation Poseidon Archer starting in January 2024, with US and UK counterstrikes on Houthi targets. But as Saudi Arabia proved between 2015 and 2023 (and repeatedly told us) trying to disable the Houthis by kinetic strikes is like punching smoke, and so it proved.

Ukraine Has Found a Path to Victor

Michael Bohnert

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Make no mistake: recent Ukrainian operations in the Kursk Oblast of Russia have the potential to significantly stretch Russian forces not just in that region, but everywhere. I say this as someone whose job it is to monitor them and other matters in the industrial-military sphere. Ukraine has pulled off an operation that could buy much needed time for Western aid to arrive and allow replenishment of Ukrainian forces. Furthermore, in an aspect little discussed, the incursion puts in doubt Russia's ability to launch any major offensives for the remainder of the year.

Russia, lest we forget, has devoted its entire force into Ukraine, and especially the Donbas. I believe it will be forced to choose between securing the Kursk Oblast and continuing offensives in the Donbas. Prior to the Kursk incursion, Russia was absorbing roughly 1,000 casualties a day, with corresponding equipment losses. Meanwhile, Russia's recruitment efforts at 20,000 to 30,000 a month and vehicle production were roughly matching losses. This fact has left Russia with few reserve units capable of countering manoeuvring Ukrainian armour in Kursk and Belgorod.

Bolstering the Role of Emergency Departments as Part of the Nation's Critical Infrastructur

Mahshid Abir

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New resources should be devoted to the lifesaving work of local emergency departments—especially those in locations at high risk for man-made or natural events—if they are to maintain their role as part of America's health care critical infrastructure.

Emergency departments are on the front line of the nation's response to mass-casualty incidents, disasters, and public health emergencies. They respond to unanticipated events, such as terrorist attacks and mass shootings; weather-related events, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and heat waves, that may occur with some advance notice; and more protracted incidents, such as epidemics and pandemics.

As demonstrated by an ongoing RAND study focused on identifying strategies to sustain emergency care in the United States, emergency department providers often view response to mass-casualty incidents and disasters as something they “just do”—recognizing that this function is often conducted without sustained funding and resources.

Yet, in order to sustain their role as part of America's critical infrastructure, emergency departments need adequate resources, they need to be systematically incorporated into local, state, and regional disaster networks, and they need to be treated as key partners in disaster planning alongside emergency management, law enforcement, and national security entities at all levels of government.

The World Bank Is Failing and Needs a Restart

Paul Collier

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Created in 1944 to finance post-World War II reconstruction and development, the World Bank is by far the largest international public agency. By 1973, when the need for reconstruction had receded and many newly independent countries had become members, the bank’s revised goals were spelled out by its president, Robert McNamara. The World Bank was “to accelerate economic growth and reduce absolute poverty.” At the bank’s Washington headquarters, this purpose is emblazoned on the wall of the entrance lobby for all to see: “Our dream is a world free of poverty.”

The Geopolitical Fallout of Telegram Founder Pavel Durov’s Arres

Rishi Iyengar

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Authorities in France arrested Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of the messaging app Telegram, on Saturday, sparking a public controversy over online speech, encryption, and digital rights as well as a potential diplomatic fallout in Europe.

How the Russian Establishment Really Sees the War Ending

Anatol Lieven

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Discussions have been happening for some time among Western policymakers, experts, and the wider public about how the war in Ukraine ought to end. I can confirm that the same type of conversations are happening in Russia.

NATO must learn lessons from Ukraine to keep its air superiority, US general says

Thibault Spirlet

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Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the swift proliferation of drones have transformed what air superiority looks like, according to the top US Air Force general in Europe.

NATO must draw lessons from it if it wants to maintain its own aerial supremacy, Gen. James Hecker, commander of US Air Forces in Europe, said in a paper published in the Æther Journal last month.

"Russia's war in Ukraine reaffirms that air superiority remains job number one," he said, not only because it allows forces to conduct successful air operations but also because it prevents air stalemate like the one seen in Ukraine.

So far in the two-and-a-half war, neither Russia nor Ukraine has achieved sustained or substantial air superiority.

Russia strikes Ukraine's power grid in 'most massive' attack of war

Pavel Polityuk, Tom Balmforth and Yuliia Dysa

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Russia attacked Ukraine with more than 200 missiles and drones on Monday, killing seven people and striking energy facilities nationwide, Kyiv said, while neighbouring NATO member Poland reported a drone had probably entered its airspace.

Power cuts and water supply outages were reported in many areas, including parts of Kyiv, as officials said the attack - 2-1/2 years since the full-scale invasion - targeted power or other critical infrastructure across the country.

Russia stepped up its strikes on the Ukrainian power grid in March in what Kyiv has said looked like a concerted effort to degrade the system ahead of next winter when people need electricity and heating most.

The air force downed 102 out of 127 incoming missiles and 99 out of 109 drones, Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk said on Telegram, describing the attack from the air, ground and sea as "the most massive" of the war.

According to Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, 15 regions sustained damage. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said there was "a lot of damage in the energy sector".

The ‘Graveyard of Umpires’? The Hard-Learned Lessons that Afghanistan Taught EU Mediators and Negotiators

Roland Kobia & Marnix Middelburg

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Introduction

As we commemorate its third anniversary, the withdrawal of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) from Afghanistan in August 2021 has been one of the defining moments of 21st century geopolitics to date, both in what it meant politically and for the dramatic optical way in which it happened, aired live on TV channels around the globe. Just like the moment when the Twin Towers in New York collapsed on 11 September 2001, many people remember their day when Kabul suddenly fell 20 years later, on 15 August 2021, with daunting images and the immediate realization that the aftermath of 9/11 was there again to haunt us. More widely, this was accompanied by a feeling that something fundamental was changing in the world, well beyond South Asia. As it ended in a much less resolute way than the NATO mission’s new name as from 2015 – Resolute Support Mission – had initially heralded, those most versed into geopolitics immediately understood that the ‘Thucydides trap’1 was widening before their eyes.

This paper will delve into the lessons and strategic maxims that can be distilled from the interaction of the European Union (EU) with allies, opponents, and its own political philosophy in the case of Afghanistan. With both an insider’s and a more academic outsider’s perspectives, this paper will candidly shed some light on what happened behind the scenes of the highly intricate negotiations and delicate political stakes, through the subjective prism of a front-line actor to the Afghanistan process between 2017 and 2021. Critical personal reflections will aim at offering ideas to avoid repeating the same mistakes. Just like the Chinese meaning of ‘crisis’ (Wei-Ji) brings together the notions of danger and opportunity, when events teach hard-learned lessons, they must be taken as an occasion to reflect and improve. This is especially urgent given that the increasingly destabilizing geopolitical landscape requires the EU to step up its posture internationally, and that negotiators and mediators should be prepared to handle cases just as complex as the Afghanistan file

War Machine The Networks Supplying & Sustaining the Russian Precision Machine Tool Arsenal

Al Maggard

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INTRODUCTION

How can Kyiv’s allies hinder both continued military operations against Ukraine and potential future military operations against Russia’s neighbors? This is perhaps the single most pressing national security question facing Ukraine and its allies today. After two years of large-scale conflict, the Russian war machine has proven more resilient in waging long-term war in Ukraine than many U.S. policymakers anticipated, despite the tremendous amount of damage to its military force, arsenal, and war economy.2

The answer is complex. Since the years of the Soviet Union, Russia has been one of the world’s largest conventional arms producers and has enormous resources to mobilize. However, this defense industrial base is not entirely self-sufficient, and years of corruption and lethargy have further weakened it. In key sectors, the Russian defense industry now relies on foreign goods and services in ways that it cannot easily replicate domestically, which creates distinct vulnerabilities in its wartime supply chains.

Few other items better represent this vulnerability than Russia’s reliance on foreign-manufactured machine tools. Machine tools—a type of industrial equipment used to process metal and other rigid materials into specific shapes—are an important pillar of modern industrial engineering, lending a degree of precision that would otherwise be impossible to achieve by the human hand alone. Today, defense industries around the world routinely employ machine tools automated by computer numeric control (CNC) technology to manufacture components for military hardware ranging from mortar shells to cruise missiles. Russia lags far behind many of Ukraine’s allies when it comes to producing CNC machine tools and has historically had to source as much as 90% of its machine tools through imports in the mid-2010s.

A New World Order Is Coming – OpEd

Lim Teck Ghee

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Current media attention on the US presidential election is missing out examining the unprecedented turbulence affecting key players in geopolitics and the current world order dominated by the United States.

The Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies forum, which has been functioning as a handmaiden of the US economic and foreign policy agenda, is now in disarray. Italy has a newly elected president from the radical rightwing and its nationalist conservatism wave, anti incumbency, anti immigrant sentiments, and electoral volatility have had aftershocks reverberating across the continent.

Today, France and Germany, the leading European nations, are having the grip of long running parties not just challenged but also loosened. Emmanuel Macron is virtually a lame duck President during the next 3 years with diluted powers in domestic and foreign policy. A similar fate awaits Olaf Scholz. He is in charge of a coalition government which has turned further right and splintered more during the recent European Parliament election.

Breaking the Chain

Eric J. Uribe

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As the invasion of Ukraine stretches into a third year of large-scale, modern combat, the evolving character of the war with battlefield innovations and subsequent counters, is drawing the attention of countries on the sidelines. This has created excited chatter in the American military about the need to develop countermeasures to drones, prioritizing hypersonic missile development to gain parity with Russian Zircons, and even reworking combined arms strategy to account for lessons learned. The war in Ukraine has certainly exposed technical challenges for the United States. However, the most significant threat the U.S. military faces in future conventional operations in Europe is not emerging battlefield technology or tactics but continued reliance on Russian oil. Overreliance on local oil, which still mainly originates from Russia, to sustain military operations, leaves U.S. forces and infrastructure vulnerable to Russian grey-zone warfare and Strategic Operations for the Destruction of Critically Important Targets (SODCIT), while constraining the United States's freedom of maneuver when developing military response options.

Oil and Gas: Russia's stranglehold on Europe

Petroleum, Oil, and Lubricants (POL) are the lifeblood of today's advanced, mechanized armies and are the primary means for modern armies to sustain operations. This thirst for oil and its distillates causes a conundrum for the United State and NATO. Prior to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Europe was literally and figuratively tied to Russia via four pipelines. These arteries provided nearly 40% of Europe's natural gas, with some nations, such as Latvia and Germany, depending on Russia for 80% and 60% of their oil supply, respectively. These levels dropped dramatically in the wake of February 2022 as European countries scrambled to sever dependence on Russian oil and gas, with many countries reducing reliance on Russian fuels down to single-digit numbers. However, these efforts only addressed Russia’s historically marginal 4-5% stake in European Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) imports. But Russian crude oil and petroleum distillates continue their grip on Europe. As of 2023, the EU remains the number three importer of Russian crude oil, while Turkey is the number one purchaser of Russian oil products, much of which they resell to EU and NATO countries.

The conflict goes on, but no party desires an all-out Middle East war

Amin Saikal

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Another round of Israel-Hezbollah tit-for-tat attacks is over for now, but the danger of an all-out war continues to haunt the Middle East. Both sides have said that despite their reluctance to escalate, they are prepared for it.

It is nearly 11 months since Hamas’s declaration of war on Israel on 7 October 2023. With no end in sight to that war, the Middle East has been teetering on the edge of a regional conflict whose scope and intensity could be more devastating than any since the 1967 and 1973 Israeli-Arab wars.

In a new war, Israel is set to be confronted not by Arab state armies, but by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its regional network of affiliates, the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Syrian regime and the Yemeni Houthis in particular. With the United States acting as Israel’s security guarantor, and its global adversaries in China and Russia as well as North Korea supporting Iran, there is little chance of confining the impact of the war to the regional antagonists alone.

All parties in the current conflict are aware of the magnitude of such a scenario, and this has so far deterred them from allowing the conflict to expand into a regional confrontation. Yet, the situation is unsustainable in the medium to long run.

AI Could One Day Engineer a Pandemic, Experts War

Tharin Pillay and Harry Booth

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Chatbots are not the only AI models to have advanced in recent years. Specialized models trained on biological data have similarly leapt forward, and could help to accelerate vaccine development, cure diseases, and engineer drought-resistant crops. But the same qualities that make these models beneficial introduce potential dangers. For a model to be able to design a vaccine that is safe, for instance, it must first know what is harmful.

That is why experts are calling for governments to introduce mandatory oversight and guardrails for advanced biological models in a new policy paper published Aug. 22 in the peer-reviewed journal Science. While today’s AI models probably do not “substantially contribute” to biological risk, the authors write, future systems could help to engineer new pandemic-capable pathogens.

“The essential ingredients to create highly concerning advanced biological models may already exist or soon will," write the authors, who are public health and legal professionals from Stanford School of Medicine, Fordham University, and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “Establishment of effective governance systems now is warranted.”

Hardware and software: A new perspective on the past and future of economic growth

Jakub Growiec, Julia Jabłońska, and Aleksandra Parteka

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Introduction

In any conceivable technological process, output is generated through physical action requiring energy. It is a local reduction of entropy, and as such it does not occur by chance but is purposefully initiated. In other words, producing output requires both some physical action and some code, a set of instructions describing and purposefully initiating the action. Therefore, at the highest level of aggregation the two essential and complementary factors of production are physical hardware (“brawn”), performing the action, and disembodied software (“brains”), providing information on what should be done and how

This basic observation has profound consequences. It underscores that the fundamental complementarity between factors of production, derived from first principles of physics, is cross cutting the conventional divide between capital and labor. From the physical perspective, it matters whether it’s energy or information, not if it’s human or machine (Figure 1). For any task at hand, physical capital and human physical labor are fundamentally substitutable inputs, contributing to hardware: they are both means of performing physical action. Analogously, human cognitive work and digital software are also substitutes, making up the software factor: they are alternative sources of instructions for the performed action. It is hardware and software, not capital and labor, that are fundamentally essential and mutually complementary

Based on this observation the current paper develops a new macroeconomic framework for modelling aggregate production and long-run economic growth. We then demonstrate how it squares with historical data for the U.S. in 1968–2019 and what predictions it provides for the future.

DIU wants to buy generative AI tech for Thunderforge initiative

Jon Harper

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The Defense Innovation Unit is on the hunt for generative artificial intelligence tools to help the U.S. military with joint planning and wargaming.

DIU issued a solicitation to industry Friday via its commercial solutions opening contracting mechanism to support an effort called Thunderforge.

“The joint planning process is complex, time-consuming, and resource-intensive. Planners and other staff members must synthesize large amounts of information from diverse sources, consider multiple courses of action (COA), and produce detailed operational plans and orders – often under significant time pressure. As the operational environment becomes more complex and dynamic, there is a need to accelerate and enhance joint planning capabilities while maintaining rigor and human judgment,” the document states.

To get at that problem, officials are looking to gen AI systems “to augment human planners and command staff by rapidly processing information, producing draft planning products, and ultimately aiding in generating options.”

India needs to correctly understand the geopolitical lesson of the Bangladesh coup

Lucas Leiroz

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The recent regime change in Bangladesh has started a new focus of tensions in Asia. Since the fall of the country’s legitimate government, Islamic radicals have publicly promoted a massacre against the Hindu minority, killing worshipers and destroying temples. Obviously, this causes concerns for the Indian government, which is seeing its people being massacred in a neighboring country, creating an atmosphere of instability that could lead to conflict in the future.

The situation in Bangladesh cannot be viewed in isolation. What is happening there is due to a series of complex geopolitical factors, not simply a change in local government. The situation of widespread chaos serves the interests of some international actors who seek to destabilize emerging countries and create social polarization to avoid peace and development. In the specific case of Bangladesh, the objectives, however, are far beyond the intentions for the country, having great relevance in the international context.

Bangladesh is under the Indian sphere of influence, despite the different cultural and religious differences between both countries. Peace in Bangladesh directly serves Indian strategic interests, since, without regional conflicts, India now has sufficient resources to invest in economic, technological and social development programs. Unfortunately, however, there appears to be a certain naivety among Indian strategists — especially amid the current global scenario of conflicts and tensions.

How Radicals Unseated Bangladesh PM through Street Power and Violence

Dipanjan Roy Chaudhury

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The upheaval in South Asia’s second fastest growing economy—Bangladesh—that led to dramatic incidents forcing a 3 term Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to step down and take refuge in India is not merely a result of economic crisis and lack of space for the Opposition but an attempt by radical and extremists to capture power through street protests and violence. Such instances are rare in South Asia with the exception of Nepal where protests led to abolition of hugely unpopular monarchy. However, the political protests in Nepal were different in character as it did not lead to collapse of law and order as is being currently witnessed in Bangladesh. Rather the movement mainstreamed the once dreaded Maoists.

While the students who hit the streets of Dhaka had genuine grievances and represented voices who were feeling heat from lack of jobs, corruption and inflation, what followed within hours of Sheikh Hasina’s exit from Bangladesh was anything but civil. Murals of founding father of Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and symbols representing him were destroyed in what appears to be a well-planned strategy to erase edifice of creation of Bangladesh. It became increasingly clear that the anti-liberation and hardline forces have once again come to forefront to target progressive and secular forces of Bangladesh. Indian cultural centre in Dhaka which had helped to nurture local talent was burnt down in one of the bizarre moves.

Peacemaker vs Peacemaker: India and China’s Diplomatic Duel Over Ukraine

Amey Velangi

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Kyiv, following his diplomatic engagement in Moscow last month, marked a significant step in India’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict. This visit, occurring against the backdrop of prolonged hostilities, suggests a deeper strategic intent.

With both India and China increasingly positioning themselves as key players in global diplomacy, the Ukraine war has become an arena for showcasing their peacemaking capabilities. As China’s efforts to mediate the conflict have faced challenges, India’s engagement hints at a new dimension in the quest for global influence. For both India and China, positioning themselves as successful peacemakers is not just about resolving the Ukraine crisis; it’s also about enhancing their global credibility as new emergent powers, capable of resolving realpolitik issues.

For China, asserting itself as a mediator bolsters its image as a responsible global power capable of challenging U.S. dominance and extending its influence beyond Asia. For India, demonstrating diplomatic leadership in such a high-stakes conflict supports its aspirations to be a major player in global governance and a voice of reason in global affairs. The evolving roles of these two Asian giants not only reflect their ambitions on the world stage but also underscore the complex interplay of strategic interests and operational realities in the quest for peace in Ukraine.

Defeating Deception: Outthinking Chinese Deception in a Taiwan Invasion

Major Thomas L. Haydock, PhD, U.S. Army

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Introduction

How could China use deception at the strategic and operational levels of war to support an amphibious invasion of Taiwan, and what are the indicators that the United States should look for to not fall victim to the deception? This paper aims to answer these questions, which requires three things. First, it requires an understanding of the problem of how monstrously hard an invasion would be (chapter 1). Second, it needs insight into how experts believe an invasion would occur, i.e., potential Chinese solutions to the invasion problem (chapter 2). Third, it needs an overview of deception history, theory and doctrine, with an emphasis on Chinese deception (chapter 3). Armed with this three-pronged understanding, we can then develop an operational approach (OA) for how China might employ deception to gain strategic and operational level advantages (chapter 4). Finally, in the Conclusion, we will analyze the indicators to distinguish potential Chinese approaches so that the United States does not fall victim.

Although predictions and wargame results are publicly available, this paper is necessary because those thought experiments do not account for particularly Chinese deception—and so those wargames miss one of the most dangerous elements in virtually every major operation.1 From Normandy’s 1944 D-Day landings to China’s 1950 Korean War intervention, and in Desert Storm in 1991, deception has provided incredible advantages. For example, the masterful Trojan Horse deception overcame what years of war could not. At almost no cost, and with minor risk, the Greeks triumphed by hiding their infiltration force inside a “gifted” wooden horse that the Trojans triumphantly brought into the city. At night, the infiltration force enabled the Greek assault force to enter unopposed and seize Troy. From its antiquity and current doctrine, it is clear that China also views deception as integral and highly valued and will almost certainly use it in any invasion.2

China steps up armed patrols on border as Myanmar conflict deepen

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China’s military has stepped up army and police patrols along its western border with Myanmar amid deepening conflict between the military regime and armed groups opposed to its coup.

The patrols, which also involve air surveillance, will focus on the towns of Ruili, Zhenkang and other front-line areas, the military said in a statement on Monday.

Ruili, in China’s southwestern province of Yunnan, is a main route for people and goods heading to and from Myanmar, but China has reported artillery shells injuring residents and damaging structures in its territory amid rising conflict across the border in Myanmar’s Shan State.

Fighting has escalated there since late year when ethnic armed groups formed an alliance to push the military from the area.

A Beijing-brokered truce in January broke down in late June and the armed groups say they have overrun multiple Myanmar military posts and taken control of key towns in a renewed, and expanded, offensive.

US–China Tensions: A Year of Posturing in the Pacific

Jonathan Jordan

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Chinese and American forces in the Pacific have had a busy year, with the great power rivalry flaring up again recently in the skies off Alaska. Yet this was only the latest episode in a long-running saga of moves and countermoves playing out in warmer seas to the south. The plodding US–PRC checkers game of the past has become a high-stakes chess match of oceanic geopolitics. Beijing and Washington both favor a strategic ambiguity that obscures their plans, objectives, and outcomes as the military escalation builds.

What follows is a list of notable events in the US-China rivalry over the calendar year. Taken together, they illustrate an overall trend of deteriorating bilateral relations and ever more active posturing for worse conflicts to come:

Hostile Bombers Approach Alaska. In a historical first, two nuclear-capable Chinese Xian H-6K bombers and two Russian Tu-95MS Bear bombers crossed into the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) on July 24. The bombers were rapidly shooed away by American F-16s and F-35s and Canadian CF-18 fighter jets. Yet this single joint flight marked three ominous firsts: all four bombers were nuclear capable, all four took off from the same Russian air base, and together with Russian fighter jets they entered skies a mere 200 miles from the Alaskan coastline. The bold move illustrated Russia and China’s budding new “no limits” friendship declared in 2022, a pact preoccupied with testing US military power in the Pacific. This was the eighth joint Chinese-Russian bomber flight since 2019. Earlier flight paths overflew the Sea of Japan, East China Sea, and Western Pacific, and meandered into both Japanese and South Korean Air Defense Identification Zones. Russian and PRC naval forces have also increased their joint maritime patrols in Indo-Pacific waters.

The Geopolitics Behind a Normal Meeting

George Friedman

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Small things can reveal much larger geopolitical truths. Such is the case of a recent meeting of the U.S.-China financial working group. The group, which consists of representatives from each country’s central bank and government agencies, convened last week in China to do what it was designed to do: coordinate changes in their respective banking systems. These meetings happen fairly regularly, so the important thing here is to understand what is being coordinated and to what extent it affects each country’s economy.

On the surface, the U.S.-China relationship appears strained. Each side places weapons systems in positions that alarm the other. Each has close relations with nations that are hostile to the financial working group’s interest. There are “flare-ups” seemingly all the time. Only a few weeks ago, two Russian bombers joined two Chinese bombers to probe the airspace near Alaska, only to be closed in on by U.S. and Canadian interceptors. Then this week, a Chinese surveillance plane became the first Chinese military aircraft to violate the airspace of America’s ally Japan. The U.S. also has a close relationship with the Philippines, which is regularly challenged by China. And the U.S. continually undermines China’s interests by its stalwart support for Taiwan. The list goes on.

No, the world isn’t heading toward a new Cold War

David Ekbladh

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The past decade and a half has seen upheaval across the globe. The 2008 financial crisis and its fallout, the Covid-19 pandemic and major regional conflicts in Sudan, the Middle East, Ukraine and elsewhere have left residual uncertainty. Added to this is a tense, growing rivalry between the US and its perceived opponents, particularly China.

In response to these jarring times, commentators have often reached for the easy analogy of the post-1945 era to explain geopolitics. The world is, we are told repeatedly, entering a “new Cold War.”

But as a historian of the US’s place in the world, these references to a conflict that pitted the West in a decades-long ideological battle with the Soviet Union and its allies – and the ripples the Cold War had around the globe – are a flawed lens to view today’s events. To a critical eye, the world looks less like the structured competition of that Cold War and more like the grinding collapse of world order that took place during the 1930s.

The ‘low dishonest decade’

In 1939, the poet W H Auden referred to the previous 10 years as the “low dishonest decade” – a time that bred uncertainty and conflict.

From the vantage of almost a century of hindsight, the period from the Wall Street Crash of 1929 to the onset of World War II can be distorted by loaded terms like “isolationism” or “appeasement.” The decade is cast as a morality play about the rise of figures like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and simple tales of aggression appeased.

Talk of peace deals in the Levant, Ukraine is for the birds

Jamie Dettmer

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The late American diplomat Richard Holbrooke, broker of the 1995 Dayton Accords ending the Bosnian War, used to say that warring parties will only strike a peace deal when both are exhausted and really want one.

In short, it’s all in the timing. Unfortunately, both of the wars raging now — in Ukraine and in the Levant — run afoul of Holbrooke’s rule.

Let’s take the Middle East first, and spare a thought for the indefatigable U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who’s had the thankless task of trying to broker a cease-fire between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

So far, Blinken’s dashes to Israel and flurry of meetings across the region have been exercises in hope over experience — as well as jet-lag endurance. Except for a brief truce last November, his efforts to silence the guns of war have come to naught, underscoring the complexity and scale of the crisis. And after this weekend’s massive Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon and Hezbollah’s drone and rocket attack on Israel, peace prospects look even dimmer.

The outrageous arrest of Telegram’s Pavel Durov

Fraser Myers

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In 2013, the Russian authorities searched the home and offices of social-media magnate Pavel Durov. He was alleged to have caused a traffic accident, although the raid was widely believed to be in retaliation for his platform’s persistent refusal to censor critics of the government. VK, Durov’s Russian-language competitor to Facebook, had consistently rejected the Kremlin’s demands to block the accounts of Putin’s domestic opponents and to hand over data belonging to protesters in Ukraine. In 2014, he sold his stake in VK, resigned as CEO, and fled his home country. Durov, a self-described libertarian, says he was not prepared to do the state’s bidding. Since he left, VK is now more or less controlled by the Kremlin.

More than a decade later and Durov is in trouble with the law again. His newer app, Telegram, is in the firing line this time. He was arrested and detained on Saturday and charged with 12 crimes, seemingly all in connection with Telegram’s failure to comply with the authorities’ requests to remove certain content. But Durov was not arrested in Russia this time. He was apprehended as his private jet touched down in France.

The 12 charges include ‘complicity’ in alleged crimes as diverse as child exploitation, fraud, drug trafficking, money laundering and terrorism. As despicable as such crimes may be, it is unprecedented for the authorities in a Western liberal democracy to hold a social-media platform and its founder criminally liable for content shared by others. The closest the authorities have come to doing this was in 2016 in Brazil, when a senior Facebook executive was arrested and briefly jailed after the company refused to hand over private WhatsApp data to assist in a drug-trafficking case. Back then, the decision to make the arrest was described by a judge as ‘hurried’, ‘unlawful’ and ‘extreme’, and was quickly overturned.

Ukraine & the West are crossing red lines. Why isn't Russia reacting?

Mark Episkopos

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The world of Cold War-era espionage was famously described by former CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton as a wilderness of mirrors, one of those rare coinages that so beautifully captures its subject matter as to require little by way of elaboration.

The wilderness of mirrors is itself a rather brilliant literary appropriation from T.S. Eliot's 1920 poem Gerontion, a hauntingly foreboding portrait of interwar abjection that gripped a generation of Europeans hurtling at breakneck speed toward another, even greater calamity lurking just around the corner.

Angleton plucked this phrase from its original, admittedly vastly different context to capture the grasping in the dark — or, as Eliot put it, braving life’s many “cunning passages” and “contrived corridors” only to arrive at a distant echo of the truth — that is part and parcel of intelligence and counterintelligence work.

But these problems of perception are no less salient in the peripheral world of statecraft, where leaders must deter adversaries and uphold international commitments not, for the most part, by their actions but by the signals they transmit to their counterparts. The structure of the international system is held aloft by these signals and the vast array of policies, institutions, and arrangements underpinning them.

Anticipating War Through 2025, Ukraine Is Standing Up New Mechanized Brigades

David Axe

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The Ukrainian army is standing up new mechanized brigades. It’s a sign Ukraine’s leaders don’t expect Russia’s wider war on Ukraine to end anytime soon. It could be months before the first of the new 2,000-person brigades has filled all its billets—and months longer before the brigades are ready for combat.

Militaryland, which closely tracks Ukrainian military force structure, obtained photos purporting to depict trainees belonging to the new 160th Mechanized Brigade. According to Militaryland, the new mechanized brigades—all of them with designations in the 160s—will train in foreign countries and draw many of their recruits from Ukrainians living in those same countries.

The 160th Mechanized Brigade is reportedly training in Poland.

The creation of new brigades is contingent on two things: the successful mobilization of perhaps 10,000 or more new recruits and continuing foreign support for Ukraine’s war effort. The mobilization is the source of the new brigades’ manpower; foreign allies will probably provide the bulk of their heavy weaponry.

Small Aircraft, Sizeable Threats

Dr Carl Rhodes

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Introduction

United States Air Force (USAF) Predator operations in the Balkans during the late 1990s demonstrated that uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) have great utility on the modern battlefield. The MQ-1 Predator was a remotely piloted vehicle that was initially used solely in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) operations but was equipped from 2001 with Hellfire missiles which allowed it to fly armed hunter-killer missions. Over the next decade, Predator and its successor, the MQ-9 Reaper, became essential tools in a range of US military operations including counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. Indeed this capability would log a total of 2 million combat flight hours by 2013.[i] The public’s imagination was captured by full-motion videos of successful strikes carried out and recorded by Predators, and this publicity brought uncrewed aircraft into wider social discourse.

While many people were unfamiliar with UAS prior to the Predator’s introduction, the employment of UAS in combat can be traced all the way back to 1849 with Austria’s use of uncrewed balloons to deliver explosives against Venice.[ii] In terms of powered flight, uncrewed target aircraft and cruise missiles were developed during the First World War[iii] and the USAF made significant use of UAS (over 3,500 combat sorties) in reconnaissance missions during the Vietnam War.[iv] One important early purpose served by uncrewed aircraft was to act as a drone target as part of training and technology development. For example, Australia’s series of Jindivik jet-propelled target planes were first employed in 1952 as part of guided missile tests.[v]

Army Aviation and Decisiveness in the Air-Ground Littoral

Lieutenant Colonel Amos C. Fox, USA, Ret., PhD

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Introduction

The air-ground littoral, or AGL, is a concept in military operations that has improved in value since the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War; operations in the AGL are increasingly becoming the prime currency in warfare. During that war, Azeri unmanned aerial systems (UAS) took the front seat in military operations, while their traditional weapon systems, such as tanks, infantry and other land-based systems, took the back seat. Azeri UAS, flying at relatively low altitudes, were able to slice through Armenian land forces in a matter of weeks and deliver one of the 21st century’s first decisive wars.1

Whereas Nagorno-Karabakh sparked curiosity in the AGL, Russia’s reinvasion of Ukraine in February 2022 stoked the flames of interest due to the commanding position that small UAS (sUAS) have taken during the conflict. While larger medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) UAS played an important role for Ukrainian forces during the opening days of the conflict, they quickly became easy prey for Russian counter-UAS (C-UAS).2 MALE UAS, being larger than sUAS, are easier to identify with conventional air defense systems.3 Military analyst Michael Kofman notes that easier targetability was the primary cause for the disappearance of the Ukrainian Bayraktar, and other high-altitude UAS on both sides of the conflict, after the first few weeks of the Russo-Ukrainian War.4 Moreover, as military analyst Franz-Stefan Gady correctly illustrates, the detectability of larger, higher-flying UAS has caused both Ukraine and Russia to invest in small, cheaper, harder-to-identify UAS, thereby infesting the AGL with a panoply of unmanned rotary-wing weapons and reconnaissance and surveillance systems.5

Ukraine and the Problem of Restoring Maneuver in Contemporary War

Frederick W. Kagan, Kimberly Kagan, Mason Clark, Karolina Hird, Nataliya Bugayova, Kateryna Stepanenko, Riley Bailey & George Barros

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The war in Ukraine is transforming the character of warfare in ways that will affect all future conflicts. This paper primarily aims to offer a new framework for Ukrainian forces and their Western backers to break the current positional warfare and restore maneuver to the battlefield. It also establishes a basis for discussions within the United States, NATO, and allied Pacific militaries about the implications of the current conflict for contemporary and future warfare.

Ukraine’s Kursk Campaign—a pivotal moment in the war with the potential to change its trajectory—underscores several critical battlefield aspects that the paper discusses. Ukraine has achieved operational surprise against significant odds, exploiting Russia’s lack of readiness in its border areas. This campaign showed that surprise is still possible even on a partially transparent battlefield where the adversary can observe force concentrations but cannot reliably discern the intent behind those concentrations.

The paper also argues that surprise can result from the exploitation of temporary advantages provided by deploying technological innovation at key moments coordinated with ground operations. It argues that Ukraine can take advantage of opportunities that come from its superior innovation cycle. Ukraine can also benefit from the fact that Russian forces have been attacking along nearly the entire front line for months rather than building extensive fortifications in depth. It concludes that Ukraine can restore operational maneuver by planning and conducting a series of smaller successive counteroffensive operations rather than attempting a single decisive blow.

Satellites in the Russia-Ukraine War

Ron Gurantz

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Satellites play a major role in US military operations and have significantly enhanced the United States’ military effectiveness. The United States uses satellites for observation, communication, and navigation. Satellites support nuclear operations and are a critical source of intelligence. They have become deeply integrated into conventional warfare, where they enable precision strikes, drone operations, missile warnings, and more. But space-enabled conventional warfare is no longer exclusive to the United States. China, Russia, and others have incorporated satellites into their military operations. States may also disrupt the use of satellites in future conflicts, as they have developed methods for disabling or destroying satellites and their associated systems.

The Russia-Ukraine War provides an opportunity to evaluate these developments and their implications. No war has seen both sides of a conflict use space and counterspace systems to such an extent.1 In this monograph, I examine lessons that can be drawn from the war about the military use of satellites. First, I analyze how satellites and anti-satellite systems have influenced war fighting in Ukraine. Much of this analysis draws on observations and insights that are already being discussed and influencing national security decisions. Second, I analyze the limits that governments and private firms have adhered to when using satellites and anti-satellite systems. These limits have not been widely discussed, but they are arguably just as important for future conflicts.