The Modi 3.0 coalition government: challenges and priorities

Rahul Roy-Chaudhury

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On 9 June, Narendra Modi was sworn in as India’s prime minister for a third consecutive term, unprecedented in 62 years. A day later, the government’s top four ministers – for defence, home affairs, finance, and external affairs – and the powerful national-security advisor were reappointed to their posts, signalling stability and continuity from the previous government. Modi’s party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), holds 240 seats, a plurality in the lower house of parliament (Lok Sabha). The BJP is in power in 13 of India’s 29 provinces which possess legislative assemblies, with its allies ruling in an additional six provinces.

Yet the new Modi government is weaker than its predecessor, having failed unexpectedly to secure a majority in the Lok Sabha. The BJP lost 63 seats from its previous tally achieved in 2019 (303), falling 32 short of a majority (272 seats). With the support of its coalition partners, which provided an additional 53 seats, it was able to form a coalition government as the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), but it now relies on the support of these partners to govern.

The BJP’s losses were primarily in Uttar Pradesh (29 seats), Maharashtra (14) and West Bengal (six), accounting for a total of 49 seats. These losses were likely the result of multiple local factors rather than any single national issue. The BJP’s loss in Uttar Pradesh in the north can be attributed to voters’ perceptions of the BJP’s arrogance, the party’s failure to address rising unemployment and inflation, and its anti-Muslim rhetoric (employed to seek the Hindu vote by polarising communities). The BJP’s defeat in the Faizabad constituency, home to the recently constructed temple to the Hindu god Ram in Ayodhya, which had long been the locus of sectarian tensions, showed this push-back. There was also concern among the low-caste Dalit voters about the BJP’s perceived intention to roll back affirmative-action policies if it secured a resounding victory.

Chinese armed forces have been upgrading. India must keep up

Anushka Saxena

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As part of the reforms in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) since 2015, China has focussed on preparing for combat keeping conditions of the “Information Age” in mind. It is doing so by integrating its services, arms and systems into a joint, network-centric fighting force. The PLA Western Theater Command (WTC) has played a proactive role in securing China’s southern and southwestern borders, preparing for conventional and non-conventional warfighting, and acclimatising its personnel to the rough terrains and harsh altitudes of Xinjiang and Tibet. India is one of the principal operational directions in which the WTC is mandated to act. India needs to assess the WTC’s operational structure, training mandates and warfighting priorities, especially the theatre’s “multi-domain integrated joint operations” (MDIJO) efforts.

The WTC has focussed on three key factors. These include conducting combat training and preparedness exercises, getting acquainted with WTC’s harsh terrain bordering India; and building air superiority and transportation capabilities.

The WTC invests significantly in combat training and simulation. Accounts of such exercises feature both its successes and failures. In August 2018, an anti-aircraft artillery unit of Xinjiang Military District (MD) conducted a live-fire exercise in the Tian Shan mountains to refine the troops’ integrated combat capabilities. This was a test of the interplay between Command and Control (C2) and ground-based air defence units. The evaluation stage which assessed damage revealed that many anti-aircraft positions were in flames — indicating a failure on the surprise attack test. An assessment like this may give the Indian security apparatus clues as to the WTC’s weaknesses and what it should focus on.

One Year of the INDUS-X: Defense Innovation Between India and the U.S.

Ajay Kumar and Tejas Bharadwaj

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Background

One of the most transformational geopolitical relationships since the beginning of the twenty-first century has been that of India and the United States in defense. Following minimal exchange during the Cold War, the relationship thawed on the back of a strong information technology (IT) outsourcing relationship that developed in the 1990s. In 2002, the two countries signed the General Security of Military Information Agreement to permit the exchange of military intelligence. In 2005, the New Framework for the India-U.S. Defence Relationship was signed which delineated some common areas of interest—defeating terrorism, preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and protecting the free flow of commerce via land, air, and sea. These developments were followed by the landmark Civil Nuclear Cooperation Initiative in 2008 that deepened strategic cooperation between the two countries in energy security and non-proliferation.

In 2011, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed to promote cooperation in cyber security and establish best practices to exchange critical information on cybersecurity and expertise between CERT-In (the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team) and the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (U.S.-CERT). September 2013 saw the release of a Joint Declaration on Defence Cooperation, placing both countries “at the same level as their closest partners.” In 2016, India was recognized as a “Major Defense Partner” of the United States. Both countries followed it up by signing a series of foundational agreements from 2016 to 2023 in military logistics, communications security, and geospatial intelligence, increasing the synergy and interoperability between the two militaries. In 2018, India was granted Strategic Trade Authority-1 (STA-1) status by the United States, permitting it to receive license-free access to advanced dual-use technologies from entities in the United States. The Industry Security Annexe signed in December 2019 was particularly important as it enabled collaboration between private industries of the two countries and offered greater access to defense industrial information.

Who will win a post-heroic war?

Edward Luttwak

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Neither the West not its enemies are prepared to fight. Some 30 years ago, I coined the phrase “post-heroic warfare” to acknowledge a new phenomenon: the very sharp reduction in the tolerance of war casualties. My starting point was President Clinton’s 1993 decision to abandon Somalia after 18 American soldiers were killed in a failed raid. But in truth, post-heroic attitudes had already emerged — and not just in affluent democracies. In 1989, the Soviet Union, whose generals could once lose 15,000 men before breakfast without batting an eyelid, abandoned Afghanistan after 14,453 of its soldiers were killed over almost a decade.

Nor was the post-heroic phenomenon strictly related to the merits, or lack thereof, of any particular act of war. Margaret Thatcher stayed up all night writing personal letters to the families of every one of Britain’s 255 dead in the Falklands. But it did not mollify her critics, who argued that Britain should never have used force, even if it meant that Argentina would be allowed to conquer the islands.

Four decades later, it is even more obvious that we are living in a post-heroic age, to the great benefit of the West — at least for now. In 2022, Ukraine found itself fighting an enemy that could have mobilised its regular army formations, each with its quota of 18-year-old conscripts, and also recalled two million reservists. But Putin did neither, fearing the fury of Russia’s mothers, who even under the restrictions of Soviet rule had successfully pressed for the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

China-Philippines one step closer to armed conflict

RICHARD JAVAD HEYDARIAN

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Barely one month since China imposed new maritime regulations for the South China Sea and yet another major incident involving Philippine and Chinese maritime forces has erupted in the disputed waters.

Manila and Beijing have traded accusations following a collision on Monday (June 17) between their vessels over the Second Thomas Shoal, a feature which hosts a de facto Philippine naval outpost aboard the grounded BRP Sierra Madre vessel.

The Philippines’ interagency task force overseeing the country’s waters in the South China Sea, known by Manila as the “West Philippine Sea”, accused Chinese maritime forces of ramming and towing a Philippine resupply vessel en route to the disputed land feature.

China doesn’t stand a chance against the US in a trade war

GORDON G. CHANG

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Beijing is now telling the United States that it cannot win a trade war with China.

This contention is breathtakingly bold — and unsupportable. In reality, it is China that cannot prevail.

“Why the U.S. Can’t Win the Trade War With China — and Shouldn’t Try,” argues that the relationship between the renminbi and the dollar means that large trade imbalances in China’s favor will persist.

“At the heart of Sino-American trade tensions is the claim that China’s surging exports are a result of Chinese subsidies,” reads the article published on the Project Syndicate site. “But the driving force behind this glut of cheap goods is a significantly undervalued renminbi, a result of high capital outflows caused by both domestic policies and U.S. restrictions on investment in China.”

The Return of Peace Through Strength

Robert C. O’Brien

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Si vis pacem, para bellum is a Latin phrase that emerged in the fourth century that means “If you want peace, prepare for war.” The concept’s origin dates back even further, to the second-century Roman emperor Hadrian, to whom is attributed the axiom, “Peace through strength—or, failing that, peace through threat.”

U.S. President George Washington understood this well. “If we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for war,” he told Congress in 1793. The idea was echoed in President Theodore Roosevelt’s famous dictum: “Speak softly, and carry a big stick.” And as a candidate for president, Ronald Reagan borrowed directly from Hadrian when he promised to achieve “peace through strength”—and later delivered on that promise.

In 2017, President Donald Trump brought this ethos back to the White House after the Obama era, during which the United States had a president who felt it necessary to apologize for the alleged sins of American foreign policy and sapped the strength of the U.S. military. That ended when Trump took office. As he proclaimed to the UN General Assembly in September 2020, the United States was “fulfilling its destiny as peacemaker, but it is peace through strength.”

West Asleep At The Wheel At The Dawn Of ‘Cold War 2’ – Analysis

Nicola Stoev

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The Soviet-China partnership at the beginning of Cold War, and the present quasi-alliance between China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea all have much in common. Their overriding goal is to topple the United States. This means that the U.S. cannot simply withdraw behind its oceans and adopt a posture of isolation or neutrality; the U.S. itself, and its power and wealth, is the target. Donald Trump, the market fundamentalists, and their supporters should understand that.

The mid-2020s are very similar not just to the 1930s (as everyone talks about), but also to the late 1940s and early 1950s, never mind that in the 50s only 24% of the world GDP was coming out of global trade; now that figure is about 60%. In those decades, a third world war almost broke out between the U.S. and the USSR/China. The Korean War happened, China invaded Korea as part of that war, and the USSR almost invaded Yugoslavia. Only strong deterrence by the U.S. and distrust between the USSR and China averted the danger. Now, it seems that we are in another critical period, and much depends on the choices of leaders in China and Russia.

China Is Waging a Proxy War on Israel | Opinion

Pesach Wolicki

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In early November, a letter allegedly written by Osama bin Laden went viral on the social media app TikTok, where American kids were making videos of themselves praising the letter's contents and confessing that it made them rethink their fundamental beliefs. The letter is deeply antisemitic and makes the case for Islamic terrorism against Israel and the West. So vociferous were the accusations against the social media platform for the spread of the letter that TikTok eventually removed all content featuring the video.

Of course, it's not surprising that Osama bin Laden would have gained viral popularity with American teens on TikTok. Tiktok is owned by Bytedance, which is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, and China is committed to the destruction of the United States and its allies—especially Israel.

"The Hamas movement is part of the Palestinian national fabric and China is keen on relations with it," Chinese diplomat Wang Kejian told Hamas during a meeting with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar in March, according to Hamas. It was around this time that a video was widely disseminated on Chinese social media in which a TV presenter bragged that "TikTok has won big for Palestine."

Joe Biden Ignores History In The Middle East

Michael Rubin

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President Jimmy Carter openly projected weakness. “It’s clear that the true problems of our nation are much deeper … than gasoline lines or energy shortages, deeper even than inflation or recession,” he said in his July 15, 1979 “malaise” speech. When Iranian students seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran 45 years ago, they did more than violate diplomatic norms. By holding 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, they humiliated America. In the eyes of its adversaries, America was a paper tiger. Iran, a pillar of American policy for decades, fell. Sixteen days later, an anti-monarchy and religious extremists seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca. For two weeks, Saudi Arabia appeared to teeter. Not long after, the Soviets marched into Afghanistan. Iran-backed insurgents challenged Bahrain, Kuwait, and Lebanon. The Islamist challenge peaked with the October 6, 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat.

American novelist Mark Twain once quipped, “History doesn’t repeat, but it often rhymes.”

Certainly, 2024 increasingly looks like 1979. Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” is on the warpath, putting Suez Canal traffic at risk. Hamas seeks to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Even Ethiopia challenges law and order as it seeks to use water against Egypt, Kenya, and Somalia.

Biden Administration Delays Moving Forward With F-15 Sale to Israel

Jared Malsin & Nancy A. Youssef

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The Biden administration hasn’t moved forward with the sale of a fleet of F-15 jet fighters to Israel, even after congressional leaders agreed to allow the major weapons deal to proceed last month, U.S. officials said.

Two top congressional Democratic leaders on May 22 removed a hold they had placed on the deal over concerns about civilian deaths in the war in Gaza. Releasing the hold would allow the State Department to formally notify lawmakers of the sale—a requirement for a major weapons deal to proceed—but the administration hasn’t yet taken that step, according to administration and congressional officials.

The $18 billion sale of 50 warplanes is one of the largest arms deals with Israel in recent years, and comes as President Biden is facing calls from leaders in his own party to withhold American weapons to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept an end to the Gaza war. The administration also is urging Israel to de-escalate tensions along its northern border with Lebanon.

Drones in Ukraine Get Smarter to Dodge Russia’s Jamming Signals

Alistair MacDonald & Heather Somerville

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The drones now leaving ISR Defence’s factory in Ukraine look exactly like those made there before Russia’s invasion but the components inside have completely changed. It is an exercise the company has gone through repeatedly to keep its drones aloft.

As drones play an increasingly prominent role in the war, both sides are pitched in a constantly evolving battle to down enemy craft and keep their own in the sky. Russia and Ukraine’s ability to wage electronic warfare—disrupting the signals guiding drones and render them mostly useless—has rapidly advanced. And so too have their efforts to stay ahead of that threat.

ISR has updated its exploding drone’s navigation equipment, antenna and video feed in a bid to avoid frequencies that Russia is targeting. Other drone manufacturers are focusing on making their equipment more autonomous, limiting the information they receive from satellites or operators that can be disrupted.

“Russian jamming is a crucial factor when making drones,” said Vadym Yunyk, ISR’s co-founder. A manufacturer now has to be able to make changes to drones without the usual level of research and development, he added.

The Soft Cyber Underbelly of the U.S. Military

Major W. Stone Holden

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Footage beamed live around the world on social media showed paragliders armed with automatic weapons swooping from the sky, terrorists on motorcycles flooding through gaps in a vaunted defensive line, and civilians massacred and dragged from their homes to serve as hostages. A hail of rockets threatened to overwhelm the defensive systems that protect millions of Israelis.1

Not visible were the hackers who eroded the ability of the country’s security organizations to provide warning and took advantage of civilian safety apps to install malware, not to mention the years of reconnaissance they conducted through the personal devices of Israelis. The 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel were notable for many reasons, one of which was their integrated employment of the information environment before, during, and after.2

Hamas’s attacks demonstrate the kinds of asymmetric and nontraditional cyber threats in the information environment that must be addressed to keep U.S. forces secure. While until recently nonstate actors were not generally associated with cyber capabilities, such actors can affect advanced militaries with increasing effectiveness as they gain access to better tools and skills. Furthermore, the integrated attacks illustrate the effects of attacks on individuals within a force unprotected in cyberspace. They demonstrate that the capabilities are a real and growing threat to Marines and sailors operating around the world.

Russia's Azov Sea Oil Refinery Engulfed in Flames after Drone Strikes

Isabel van Brugen

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Videos circulating on social media appear to show oil storage tanks engulfed in flames after a drone attack in the town of Azov in Russia's Rostov region.

Vasily Golubev, governor of the southern Rostov region, said on Telegram that a drone attack caused a blaze. There were no casualties and there was "no risk of the fire spreading to other facilities, or threats to residents," he said.

Several Telegram channels and Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry posted videos of the incident. The ministry said a fuel tank had caught fire and that it had spread across an "area of 5,000 cubic meters."

The Context

Kyiv typically refrains from claiming responsibility for strikes on Russian territory. But beginning this year, Ukraine ramped up attacks on Russia's energy infrastructure, targeting oil refineries and hubs with its drones as part of a campaign to hamper gasoline production, which fuels President Vladimir Putin's war economy.

hat We Know

"Oil product tanks caught fire in Azov as a result of a drone attack. According to preliminary data, there were no casualties," Golubev said on Telegram.

Investing in Science and Technology

Sujai Shivakumar, Charles Wessner, and Thomas Howell

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Introduction

The United States is facing a challenge to its global leadership in science and technology that is more serious than any it has confronted since gaining that position after World War II.

Within the relatively short span of two decades, China has emerged as a formidable rival, mounting a concerted drive to dominate key technology-intensive sectors and increasingly matching or exceeding the United States in resources committed. At the same time, the U.S. congress is bogged down in protracted struggles over public spending and the role of government that have engulfed needed investments in science, research, development, and education- the foundation of U.S. economic strength.

The U.S. private sector remains more innovative than its Chinese competitors, but its efforts are focused on developing consumer-oriented products. Meanwhile, the centralized Chinese system concentrates sustained, long-term government support in technology areas that have direct security-related implications- namely, artificial intelligence (AI), quantum information science, and semiconductors.

Crossing Thresholds: Ukrainian Resistance to Russian Occupation

Jade McGlynn

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Introduction

The most important rule: go unnoticed. You need to blend into the crowd. Dress inconspicuously; don’t swear; walk on the inside of the pavement; prepare an alibi; use public transport during rush hour; be punctual—if someone is two minutes late to meet you, they may have been captured

This is the basic code of conduct for Ukrainian underground fighters, as set out by the National Resistance Center of Ukraine—the Ukrainian government’s online resource to support the patriotic resistance under Russian occupation.1 This partisan movement comprises many thousands of Ukrainians and covers all manner of activities, from distributing yellow ribbons to assassinating Russian secret policemen. Their stories are as harrowing as they are heroic. For instance, in occupied Tokmak, Zaporizhzhia Region, Maksym Makhrinov’s final breath was an explosive statement of resistance.2 Confronted by Russian forces who had uncovered his partisan work for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Makhrinov blew himself up, taking two Russian soldiers with him. But what led Makhrinov to this situation?

The following report is an effort to provide indicative answers to this question. It is based on extensive fieldwork in Ukraine since 2022, largely in the de-occupied territories. It includes 63 interviews, 50 of which are with people who had been under occupation, 17 with individuals involved in violent or nonviolent resistance, and 7 with officials in the security services responsible for handling and helping ongoing resistance. As such, the report makes no claims to be representative; it does, however, also draw from a literature review of relevant sources, such as Ukrainian Telegram channels of resistance networks and offers of support; Ukrainian reports on this topic from organizations such as OPORA, Prometheus, Eastern Variant, Eastern Human Rights Group, and the National Resistance Center; and interviews with experts specializing in this field. For the purposes of safety and anonymization, the names of most interviewees have been changed and locations are kept deliberately vague.

A Threat Like No Other: Russia-North Korea Military Cooperation

Victor Cha

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The summit meeting between Russian president Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presents the greatest threat to U.S. national security since the Korean War. This relationship, deep in history and reinvigorated by the war in Ukraine, undermines the security of Europe, Asia, and the U.S. homeland. Amid front-burner issues like the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the administration relegates this problem to the back burner at its own peril.

What started out as a small arms sale by North Korea to the Wagner Group in November 2022 has recently been acknowledged by Secretary of State Antony Blinken as a “matter of deep concern” over the North’s provision of 5 million rounds of ammunition and scores of ballistic missiles. As the summit suggested, Kim is likely to fuel Russian war stocks indefinitely. Of pressing concern, however, is what Putin is giving in return. It is highly unlikely that Kim would have feted Putin so lavishly only for the promise of food and fuel. That may have been the gift when Kim visited Russia in September 2023, direly needed at the time as his country was just emerging from a three-plus year Covid lockdown. But Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines laid down a significant marker in March 2024 when she said Moscow may be dropping long-held nonproliferation norms in its dealings with North Korea.

GIG WORK AND THE JOINT FORCE: A MODERN SOLUTION TO LEVERAGE RESERVE COMPONENT TALENT

Jim Perkins

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Roughly half of the US military is in the reserve component. Yet the US military in 2024 is organized and manned by a system designed largely in the 1970s and 1980s, with active duty forces as the central focus. In this way, both individuals and units across the armed services’ reserve forces and the National Guard are managed and measured against active component constructs of readiness and force management. Predictably, the level of frustration in the reserve forces is very high—the Army Reserve cannot even fill 100 percent of its battalion command vacancies. People want to serve, but they are tired of the unnecessary complications or unpaid overtime.

Due largely to the Total Force Policy of 1973, National Guard and reserve forces are viewed primarily as elements of strategic mass rather than the source of critical skills and other enablers that they are. This Industrial Age model is no longer adequate in today’s competition for talent (and time). It is time for a modern solution that more effectively empowers the Department of Defense to tap into the full talents of the part-time forces.

Imagine that the Army’s XVIII Airborne Corps needs a unified deployment dashboard that provides real-time updates to force deployments around the world. To create it, the corps mobilizes a Navy Reservist whose day job is supply chain and logistics optimization at Walmart or Amazon to partner with a data scientist from the Air National Guard. Lending their unique expertise, they only need to be mobilized for four weeks to build the dashboard. This is all made possible by a tool that exists today, called GigEagle.

Top Dollar : Why the Dominance of America’s Currency Is Harder Than Ever to Overturn

Eswar Prasad

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The U.S. dollar is the most easily recognized, widely accepted, and ardently desired currency in the world. It is also much reviled for the power it gives the United States over international affairs. Washington wields the dollar as a weapon against its rivals by imposing sanctions and freezing assets. Even U.S. allies chafe at their dependence on the dollar, which exposes their economies and financial systems to the vagaries of U.S. policies. The country’s rivals and allies alike thus want to end the dollar’s dominance. They are eager to promote alternatives, including their own currencies. And the United States is doing all it can to help them.

The U.S. economy is no longer the colossus it once was. Its public debt is gargantuan and rising, and policymaking in Washington is erratic and unpredictable. Persistent threats of debt defaults undercut the perception that U.S. government bonds are safe. Worse still, the bedrock elements of the dollar’s strength—the rule of law, an independent Federal Reserve, a system of checks and balances—have been undermined in recent years by populist politicians who have chipped away at the country’s democratic institutions.

Amid the Fighting in Gaza, the Bitter War Between Netanyahu and Israel's Generals Is Intensifying - |

Anshel Pfeffer

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Sunday's exchange of accusations between Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and unnamed sources in the Israel Defense Forces over who gave the order to allow a "humanitarian pause" in the warfare in the Gaza Strip is just the latest twist in an increasingly acrimonious relationship between the premier and the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces.

There’s No Dodge Button for Disinformation

Joshua Foust

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Can a video game teach you to resist disinformation?

The U.S. government certainly thinks so: In May, the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), the government agency tasked with countering foreign disinformation, released a request for proposal offering $1 million for “an evergreen game in a sandbox platform, with an existing fan base, in which participants play a game that builds cognitive resilience to authoritarianism and promotes democratic norms and values.” The call for a sandbox platform refers to open, multiplayer game spaces such as Minecraft, Roblox, or Fortnite, which allow players to build forts, explore virtual worlds, experience short stories, and share experiences. This request is asking for proposals to use creative mode in Fortnite (or a similar platform) to design a custom game experience—only instead of being fun, it is meant to train people to resist Russian disinformation.

It’s an intriguing way to combat an existential challenge for democracy. Can play undermine lies more effectively than speech does? There is a lot about this idea that is compelling, but there are just as many reasons to be skeptical.

Digital Devolution (Cyber Colonialism Of A Newage Technofeudalism) – Analysis

Prof Anis Bajrektarevic

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Throughout the long and arduous course of human history, both progress and its horizontal transfer were an extremely slow, sporadic and tedious process. Only in the classical period of Alexander the Great and his magnificent Alexandrian library will the speed of transmission of our knowledge change; though modest, analogue, and backward—it still outpaced the snail’s pace of our discovery cycle.

When our occasional revelations finally proved more frequent than the speed of our own infrequent transmissions, it marked the moment of our separation. Simply, our civilizations began to differ significantly from each other in technical-agrarian, military-political, ethno-religious, and ideological aspects, as well as in economic settings. Finally, the so-called the great discoveries are the event that transform wars and famines – from moderate and local – into global, pan-continental phenomena.

Rapid cycles of technological discoveries, patents and knowledge first took place on the Old Continent. This event with all its reorganizing effects reconfigured societies. Ultimately, it marked the birth of powerful European empires and their (liberal) schools, and the overall, lasting triumph of Western civilization. It radically mobilised Europe, weaponized science. (On the very subject of history of ‘weaponisation’ of Europe, I refer the curious reader on my text: Imperialism of Imagination, Geopolitics of Peter Pan.)

What Should India's Critical Technology Policy Look Like?

Saurabh Todi

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Introduction

In the information age, the power of nations is closely tied to their technological advancements. However, certain technologies have the potential to significantly enhance or undermine national security, economic growth, constitutional values and the well-being of citizens 1 . These groundbreaking and disruptive technologies are often considered critical and emerging (CETs). They are considered crucial due to their importance for national security, economic prosperity, and social cohesion. These can include hardware, software, equipment, systems, and infrastructure.

The concept of CET is often used in the context of defence, economic development, and national interest. The classification of what is critical and what is not depends on the country's security environment, so different countries may see different technologies as critical 2 . For example, Australia defines critical technologies as “emerging technologies with the capacity to significantly enhance or pose risk to our national interests, understood broadly as comprising economic prosperity, social cohesion and/or national security.”; Japan defines critical technology as “important technologies in which Japan should maintain superiority and remove vulnerabilities in order to ensure Japan’s security and realize the sound development of the Japanese economy.”; and the U.S. defines critical and emerging technologies as “advanced technologies that are potentially significant to US national security.”

Countries worldwide are developing strategies and bolstering their capabilities to take advantage of the opportunities and mitigate the strategic risks associated with CETs. India needs such a strategy as well.

Government and military officials fair targets of Pegasus spyware in all cases, NSO Group argues

Suzanne Smalley

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The manufacturers of the powerful commercial spyware Pegasus argued in a Friday court filing that it is appropriate for its global clients to target any high-ranking government or military official with the technology because their jobs categorically make them “legitimate intelligence targets.”

The statement is a revelatory admission from the typically tight-lipped Pegasus manufacturer, NSO Group, regarding who it believes can justifiably be targeted with its zero-click and all-seeing surveillance product.

It surfaced in court documents related to a lawsuit WhatsApp has brought against NSO Group for allegedly infecting about 1,400 of its users’ devices with the technology. The hacks were discovered in 2019.

A former United Nations official overseeing the right to free expression said NSO Group’s comments go beyond their prior assertions and are more sweeping in their definition of who can legitimately be targeted by Pegasus.

A Critical And Devastating Gap In Our Leadership Traits, Principles, Evaluations, Ethos, And Culture: The Problem With Solutions

Souce Link

The title, Marine, is synonymous with leadership. Many outside entities study the Marine Corps to understand its leadership traits, principles, values, and ethos. Yet, “the reader should note that there is a difference between a philosophy and a culture. A philosophy is merely words, but a culture is what truly matters since the culture is the unwritten norms and rules of an organization.”1 While we have a good leadership ethos, we must remember that “good is the enemy of great.”2

Jim Collins states that many organizations fail to become great because becoming good is achievable and comfortable.3 Though the Marine Corps is considered by many as an organization in which outsiders should emulate our leadership philosophy, we are missing one critical leadership trait, in which we are limiting our ability to effectively and efficiently achieve mission success, impose our will, develop and empower our subordinates, and sustain the transformation of our Marines. We, the Marine Corps, must recognize that humility is needed: as one of our leadership traits; to be incorporated into our leadership principles; as a metric in our evaluations; in our ethos; and most importantly to be consistently demonstrated and applied in our culture. As stated by Hayes and Comer, “Humility is one of the most important attributes of leadership because it helps connect the leader to followers through their common bond of humanity. Leaders who have humility build trust, and trust is the essence of leadership.”4 Therefore, the purpose of this article is to clearly showcase the importance of humility, and then provide solutions to our Corps’ decision makers on how to incorporate humility officially in our ethos and culture.