Strategic Balances and Fractures: Russia, China, and Iran in Central Asia

Arman Mahmoudian

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As the rise of multipolarity is testing the resilience of the liberal international order, states are rushing to decouple economically from their political competitors. This makes Central Asia a focal point for geopolitical competition, with global and regional powers vying for influence.

Central Asia is a critical region due to its abundant natural resources and geographic position. Rich in oil, gas, and rare minerals, the region also serves as a crucial transit corridor linking the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Europe. These facts elevate Central Asia’s importance for Russian, Iranian, and Chinese strategic calculations.

Due to increased international isolation after its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow is now increasingly relying on Central Asia as a sanction evasion hub and an export and transport route for energy exports. China, whose regional interest was focused on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), is now also aiming to secure cheap energy and raw materials and hedge against Europe’s potential economic decoupling. Tehran aims to leverage its cultural ties to develop strategic transport corridors that bypass its rivals, enhancing its influence and mitigating economic isolation.

The three states’ competing visions for a regional order in Central Asia are giving rise to diverging interests in the security, energy, and trade spheres, which the West could leverage to deepen its engagement with the region.

On paper, Bangladesh was on the rise. Why didn’t progress translate on the ground?

Sara Miller Llana 

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As a new interim government in Bangladesh headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus was sworn in Thursday, many are asking, What just happened?

Over the past 15 years, the story of Bangladesh has been one of unequivocal progress.

Once the third-poorest country in the world, Bangladesh steadily advanced on the right indexes: Textile and garment exports grew, as did access to education, while child poverty and maternal mortality fell. Bangladesh crackled with more widespread electricity. It constructed new roads, and cleaned up its water.

Who defines progress? Bangladesh’s impressive advancements overshadowed a growing discontent, which erupted into weeks of violent protests and upheaval. Some hope the new interim government marks a fresh start.

So the sudden ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina this week, who had led Bangladesh during this entire era of growth, sent shock waves around the world.

For most Bangladeshis, however, it’s no mystery. Underneath macroeconomic success, Bangladesh has been watching inequality grow, even as poor people have grown wealthier, feeding into resentment and testing tolerance for worsening government corruption. And this year, as inflation put everyday goods out of reach for many citizens, that gap became too big to bridge. Indeed, bloody protests over the last month – which left 300 dead and ultimately led to Ms. Hasina’s resignation Monday – revealed a disconnect between outside views of progress and the experiences of regular Bangladeshis.

“There was this rhetoric of Bangladesh as racing on the highway of development, whereas the people were dealing with day-to-day life [amid] price hikes,” says Sharmee Hossain, a senior lecturer at North South University in Dhaka and member of the University Teachers’ Network. “There was a huge disconnect. And I think that’s where the dissatisfaction of the people grew, and the gulf between the government and the general people of Bangladesh started to widen.”

Nurturing and Destroying Democracy: The Two Sides of Bangladesh's Ousted Awami League

Rafiq Dossani

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The word “Awami,” which derives from the Arabic noun “Awam,” means “of the people” in Bangla. The word is found in many languages, including Azerbaijani, Farsi, Hindi, and Urdu. Despite its lofty connotations, its users in many countries live in what have been called “electoral autocracies,” where leaders believe they can rule forever through a vote every four or five years and repression otherwise.

The collapse of Bangladesh's Awami League–led government illustrates the perils of pursing this model. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country Monday amid widespread, violent protests seeking her ouster. The military was reported to be setting up an interim government.

At the turn of this century, the Awami League offered hope that a democratic government of the people could take hold in Bangladesh. To a significant extent, the responsibility for this lay with the ideals of Bangladesh's founder and the Awami League's leader at the time of the country's formation in 1971, Mujibur Rahman (father of Sheikh Hasina). Sheikh Mujib, as he was known, successfully fought Pakistan for control of the country and its governance.

At the turn of this century, the Awami League offered hope that a democratic government of the people could take hold in Bangladesh.Share on Twitter

After a landslide victory in Bangladesh's first parliamentary elections, Sheikh Mujib assumed political control over a country in chaos that was hungry for democracy. To the surprise of his own people, and the world, he abandoned promises of honest and frugal governance, in favor of expensive populist policies and corruption. When populism failed, he chose repression as a means of controlling the inevitable dissent.

In 2001 the Awami League, then led by Sheikh Mujib's daughter, Sheikh Hasina, lost the elections and yielded power its chief rival, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). It appeared at the time that the country's democratic system was in good order despite the brutalities handed out by the Awami League to the BNP over the preceding five years. The impression that democracy was working was furthered in 2008, when the BNP accepted defeat, despite the significant human rights abuses it directed at the Awami League. Both times, brutalities against the opposition were explained away as the short-term costs of a maturing democracy.

China’s Great Wall of Villages

Muyi Xiao and Agnes Chang

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Qionglin New Village sits deep in the Himalayas, just three miles from a region where a heavy military buildup and confrontations between Chinese and Indian troops have brought fears of a border war.

The land was once an empty valley, more than 10,000 feet above the sea, traversed only by local hunters. Then Chinese officials built Qionglin, a village of cookie-cutter homes and finely paved roads, and paid people to move there from other settlements.

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, calls such people “border guardians.” Qionglin’s villagers are essentially sentries on the front line of China’s claim to Arunachal Pradesh, India’s easternmost state, which Beijing insists is part of Chinese-ruled Tibet.

Many villages like Qionglin have sprung up. In China’s west, they give its sovereignty a new, undeniable permanence along boundaries contested by India, Bhutan and Nepal. In its north, the settlements bolster security and promote trade with Central Asia. In the south, they guard against the flow of drugs and crime from Southeast Asia.

China’s Real Economic Crisis

Zongyuan Zoe Liu

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The Chinese economy is stuck. Following Beijing’s decision, in late 2022, to abruptly end its draconian “zero COVID” policy, many observers assumed that China’s growth engine would rapidly reignite. After years of pandemic lockdowns that brought some economic sectors to a virtual halt, reopening the country was supposed to spark a major comeback. Instead, the recovery has faltered, with sluggish GDP performance, sagging consumer confidence, growing clashes with the West, and a collapse in property prices that has caused some of China’s largest companies to default. In July 2024, Chinese official data revealed that GDP growth was falling behind the government’s target of about five percent. The government has finally let the Chinese people leave their homes, but it cannot command the economy to return to its former strength.

To account for this bleak picture, Western observers have put forward a variety of explanations. Among them are China’s sustained real estate crisis, its rapidly aging population, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s tightening grip on the economy and extreme response to the pandemic. But there is a more enduring driver of the present stasis, one that runs deeper than Xi’s growing authoritarianism or the effects of a crashing property market: a decades-old economic strategy that privileges industrial production over all else, an approach that, over time, has resulted in enormous structural overcapacity. For years, Beijing’s industrial policies have led to overinvestment in production facilities in sectors from raw materials to emerging technologies such as batteries and robots, often saddling Chinese cities and firms with huge debt burdens in the process.

Simply put, in many crucial economic sectors, China is producing far more output than it, or foreign markets, can sustainably absorb. As a result, the Chinese economy runs the risk of getting caught in a doom loop of falling prices, insolvency, factory closures, and, ultimately, job losses. Shrinking profits have forced producers to further increase output and more heavily discount their wares in order to generate cash to service their debts. Moreover, as factories are forced to close and industries consolidate, the firms left standing are not necessarily the most efficient or most profitable. Rather, the survivors tend to be those with the best access to government subsidies and cheap financing.

China launches satellites to rival SpaceX’s Starlink in boost for its space ambitions

Simone McCarthy

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China has taken a major step forward in its bid to create a rival to SpaceX’s Starlink this week by launching the first of what it hopes will be a constellation of 14,000 satellites beaming broadband internet coverage from space.

Eighteen satellites were blasted into low Earth orbit (LEO) on Tuesday in the inaugural launch for the government-backed Qianfan, or Spacesail, constellation, state media reported.

The constellation – hailed in domestic media as China’s answer to US-based SpaceX’s Starlink – aims to join a handful of planned or operational large-scale space projects from providers in various countries offering broadband satellite internet services.

Leading that pack is Starlink, which has more than 6,000 satellites in orbit and ambitions to expand to as many as 42,000. It is widely expected to remain the dominant player in years to come, given its head start and advanced launch capabilities.

While most people accessing the internet do so through cables and other ground-based infrastructure, satellite internet connection has emerged as an important service for rural, under-resourced and disaster-hit areas. It’s also seen as key for expanding technologies like autonomous cars and other internet-enabled devices – industries that China wants to lead.

Qianfan, also known as G60 Starlink, is among three planned Chinese mega constellations that could see the country’s firms launching nearly 40,000 satellites into low Earth orbit (defined as no more than 1,200 miles above the planet) in the coming years. So-called mega constellations refer to networks of hundreds or thousands of orbiting satellites.

The launch comes as China ramps up its commercial space sector as part of Beijing’s broader bid to cement its place as a dominant power in outer space. The country has already made tremendous strides in its ambitious national space program, which aims to put astronauts on the moon by 2030, while also launching military-linked satellites for navigation, communication and surveillance.

Saudi Arabia’s Non-Oil Exports Surge As Trade Ties With China Flourish – Analysis

Nirmal Narayanan

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Saudi Arabia exported non-oil goods worth SR2.23 billion ($594 million) in May, representing a rise of 19.25 percent compared to the previous month, official data showed.

According to the General Authority for Statistics, China was the third-largest destination for Saudi Arabia’s non-oil products in May, behind the UAE and China, which received goods worth SR6.06 billion and SR3.62 billion, respectively.

Strengthening the non-oil private sector and exporting those goods to countries like China is crucial for Saudi Arabia, as the Kingdom is steadily pursuing its economic diversification journey by reducing its dependence on oil.

The report revealed that China was also the top destination for Saudi Arabia’s overall exports, with the Kingdom sending outgoing shipments amounting to SR15.91 billion.

In May, oil was the main export from Saudi Arabia to South Korea, with shipments totaling SR13.68 billion.

According to the latest data, Saudi Arabia exported plastics and rubber products worth SR876.9 million to China, followed by chemical products at SR851.8 million.

In May, the Kingdom also exported mineral products totaling SR313.4 million to China, while outgoing shipments of base minerals amounted to SR103.7 million.

China was also Saudi Arabia’s most important import partner in May, with incoming shipments from the Asian nation amounting to SR17.55 billion, representing a rise of 22 percent compared to April.

According to GASTAT, China was followed by the US and the UAE, with the Kingdom importing goods worth SR6.56 billion and SR4.54 billion, respectively, from these nations.

Lebanon Is On Brink Of War: Where Do The Country’s Christians Stand?

CNA

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In a stark departure from the destructive war of 2006, which had political and partly Christian motivations and revealed deep divisions among Christians, Lebanon’s Christian community today stands united as the nation teeters on the brink of war.

With tensions erupting on the southern border, Christian leaders and citizens are presenting a unified front. Despite their varied political allegiances, Christians are collectively refusing to support a war that could further devastate an already struggling country. They recognize the nation’s exhausted state and fear it may not recover from another prolonged conflict.

The potential war between Hezbollah and Israel is viewed as a direct continuation of its Gaza forerunner. Christian leaders grasp the gravity of the situation, while everyday Lebanese citizens — struggling to put food on the table, ensure access to medicine, and secure a few hours of electricity — cannot endure more hardships.

Christians withhold their ‘blessing’

As the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel intensifies, with recent clashes reaching the southern suburbs of Beirut, the commitment to keep Lebanon out of war becomes increasingly evident. The expanding violence, which could potentially involve Iran, disrupts traditional confrontation patterns and heightens the risk of a broader conflict.

Christian opinion staunchly opposes this escalation, advocating for Lebanese neutrality.

In response, Christians have called for the full implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701. Adopted unanimously in 2006, this resolution aims to end hostilities and address the Lebanese-Israeli conflict with the assistance of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

Disinformation Effort Key to Houthi Red Sea Campaign, Says 5th Fleet Commander

Heather Mongilio

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Houthi spokesman claims attack on USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69)

As USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) left the Red Sea, on its way home, the Houthis attacked, sinking the ship. Or at least, that’s what the Yemeni-based group claimed, according to social media posts from the group’s leaders and their supporters.

The Houthis never struck Ike, which arrived home safely in Norfolk, Va., on July 14.

The fake strike on Ike is part of a disinformation campaign the Houthis have used as part of their tactics in the Red Sea, where they are striking commercial ships, Vice Adm. George Wikoff, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, U.S. 5th Fleet and Combined Maritime Forces, said during a Naval Institute and Center for Strategic and International Studies event Wednesday.

The Houthis have been aggressive when it comes to bending their narrative to fit their needs, Wikoff said. It’s been a tactic for about a decade, he added.

The claim of sinking Ike is not the first time the group, considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, claimed to take down the aircraft carrier. The group sent off a number of posts on social media site X with Eisenhower Commanding Officer Capt. Christopher “Chowdah” Hill combatting the rise of disinformation with his own posts about Taco Tuesday or memes, USNI News previously reported.

The Houthi use of propaganda and a calculated narrative evolved as early as the Sa’ada Wars, which began in 2004, between the Houthis and Yemen’s government., according to a report from Yemen-based Sanaa Center, which examined the Houthi’s media strategy.

In 2014, the Houthis took over government channels and newspaper offices and expanded their propaganda, according to the report.

The U.S. Can Do More to Prevent an Israel-Iran Wa

Comfort Ero

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The Middle East faces a moment of peril. Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel responded with a brutal campaign in Gaza, the region has been on edge. The longer the Gaza war rages, the more likely it is to set off a regional war. Following the assassination in Tehran of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader, a potentially calamitous cycle of escalation looms as Iran and its allies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and militias operating under the banner of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq and Syria, prepare to retaliate.

ISIS-K Goes Global

Colin P. Clarke and Lucas Webber

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Over the past few weeks, French authorities have uncovered several terrorist plots targeting the 2024 Olympic Games, which began last week in Paris. In one of them, an 18-year-old Chechen man planned to attack an Olympic soccer match in the French city of Saint-Étienne. He was allegedly in contact with a member of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS). The disrupted plot was just the latest in a spike of terrorist activity linked to ISIS. The group’s affiliate, the South Asian–based Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), is responsible for several successful international terrorist attacks this year alone—at

Full Offensive? Ukraine Is Now Taking the Fight to Russia (As In Inside Russia)

Stavros Atlamazoglou

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Summary and Key Points: The Ukrainian military has launched a significant offensive operation inside Russia, capturing 135 square miles of territory and advancing 15 miles into Kursk Oblast. This marks a shift from a cross-border raid to a full-blown offensive, threatening key Russian logistical lines and potentially even a nuclear facility.

-The move is seen as an alternative strategy to the stalled counteroffensive along the contact line, aiming to force Russia to divert resources.

-Meanwhile, Russian casualties have been heavy, with over 1,140 men reportedly lost in 24 hours. Ukrainian losses are also substantial but include many wounded who return to combat.

Ukraine’s Bold Offensive Inside Russia Seizes Key Territory and Cities

The Ukrainian military continues with its offensive operation inside Russia, making significant advances over the past 48 hours.

What began as a cross-border raid might be developing into a full-blown offensive that captures Russian cities and threatens key logistical functions – even a nuclear facility.

Exclusive: Netanyahu at War

Eric Cortellessa/Jerusalem

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For the past 10 months, Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to apologize for leaving Israel vulnerable to Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack. After the deaths of 1,200 people and the abduction of hundreds more, a traumatized Israeli public heard abject admissions of responsibility from the heads of the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet, the country’s domestic security service, but none from Netanyahu, who had been Prime Minister for almost a year when the attack happened, and had presided over a more than 10-year strategy of tacit acceptance of Hamas rule in Gaza. His only apology was for a social media post blaming his own security chiefs for failing to foil the assault. So, early in a 66-minute conversation with TIME on Aug. 4 in the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem, the question is, Would he make an apology?

“Apologize?” he asks back. “Of course, of course. I am sorry, deeply, that something like this happened. And you always look back and you say, Could we have done things that would have prevented it?”

For Netanyahu, who first occupied the dowdy Kaplan Street offices in 1996, it’s a fraught question. Through a combination of electoral vicissitudes, sweeping regional changes, and his own political gifts, his almost 17-year cumulative tenure is longer than that of anyone else who has led Israel, a country only two years older than he is. Over that span, Netanyahu’s political endurance has been built around one consistent argument: that he’s the only leader who can ensure Israel’s safety.

Putin’s New Agents of Chaos

Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan

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On July 26, on the day of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris, unknown attackers pulled off a coordinated sabotage operation on France’s national railway, leaving millions of passengers stranded. No one initially claimed responsibility for the attack, which is still being investigated; France’s interior minister has suggested that “ultra-left” extremists may have been responsible. Yet intelligence experts have also asked whether Russia might have been involved. “The Russian angle is certainly a strong one,” Javed Ali, a counterterrorism expert and former member of the U.S. National Intelligence Council, told PBS NewsHour after the attack.

Although there has been no clear evidence implicating Russia, there are strong grounds for these suspicions. Over the past few months, the French government has taken a more aggressive stance in its support for Ukraine, and the Russian government holds particular grievances against the International Olympic Committee, which banned Russian athletes from competing in the games this year. What is more, since the early months of this year, European and U.S. intelligence officials have connected a spate of sabotage operations across Europe to Russia’s GRU intelligence service. These attacks have involved arson and other tactics. They have sometimes targeted transport networks. And they have occurred in more than half a dozen European countries, including the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Germany, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

In March 2024, a Ukraine-linked warehouse in Leyton, East London, was set on fire. The British police arrested four people on charges that included planning an arson attack and assisting Russian intelligence. The following month, a facility in South Wales belonging to the British defense, security, and aerospace company BAE was hit by an explosion and caught fire—an attack that has not yet been attributed but which follows the pattern of others. Also in April, German authorities arrested two men with dual German and Russian citizenship on suspicion of plotting sabotage attacks on a military base in Bavaria, accusing one of the suspects of being in contact with Russian intelligence. And in May, Poland detained three men—two of them Belarusian and one a Polish citizen—for carrying out acts of arson and sabotage on behalf of Russia.

Cheap first-person-view drones now hunting larger prey in Ukraine

Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo

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MILAN – Low-cost first-person-view drones are proving increasingly capable of striking larger platforms — such as combat helicopters — in Ukraine, as their pace of development has accelerated to allow them to fly faster and further.

On Aug. 7, the Ukrainian military released footage showing one of its unknown models of FPV drones successfully hitting the tail rotor of a Russian Mi-28 Havoc attack helicopter over the battlefield.

The hit represented one of the first filmed strikes on a manned Russian helicopter, in flight, using a Ukrainian FPV platform. While these variations of drones have been used widely across the battlefield, experts say efforts to use them to bring down larger, expensive aircraft have been previously unsuccessful.

“There were numerous attempts of Ukrainian FPVs trying to chase Russian helicopters before, but all such attacks were near misses,” Sam Bendett, a research analyst at the U.S.-based Center for Naval Analyses, said. “It’s difficult to pilot an FPV drone towards a military helicopter flying at high speeds.”

Although it is not possible from the available recording to certify the overall impact of the hit on the aircraft, Bendett says that the fast-paced evolution of these small drones and the ways they can be used should be watched closely by militaries globally.

“The sky over the [Ukraine] battlefield is now teeming with fast-flying FPVs hunting much larger prey, and assuming one can be piloted to the helicopter’s vulnerable part — like its rear propeller — major damage can be done,” he said.

Helicopters have proven especially vulnerable throughout the war in Ukraine, due in part to the proliferation of ground-based air defenses that have rendered manned flight across the battlefield extremely difficult.

Perception Warfare as Both Threat and Opportunity in Israel’s Post-October 7 Existential War

Dr. Dan Diker

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Hamas’s cognitive war against Israel since the October 7 invasion has been a significant weapon. Perception warfare leaves a lasting impact on the international public and has led to a surge in antisemitism globally.

Under Iran’s guidance, Hamas and other terrorist groups use social and mainstream media to portray themselves as legitimate political entities and “freedom fighters.” This strategy shapes perceptions among various audiences, including Israelis, Palestinians, and U.S. political circles.

After the October 7 attacks, Hamas successfully weaponized classic Palestinian propaganda themes. Their disinformation campaign portrayed their barbaric mass terror assault as noble “resistance,” altering global perceptions and garnering sympathy even from moderate Muslims and the international community.

The global perception shift caused by Hamas propaganda positioned a radical Islamic terror organization against a democratic state.

Israel must enhance its soft power capabilities to influence various audiences, including its enemies. Israel’s enemies must perceive the loss and despair of a long war against Israel.

Learning from historical examples (Soviets, Nazis, Chinese Communist Party, and Iran), Israel should educate its citizens to recognize enemy perception warfare and proactively use civilian soft power to shape foreign opinion.

A Post-American Europe

Justin Logan and Joshua Shifrinson

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For decades, U.S. policy toward Europe stayed the same: Washington anchored itself to the continent via NATO and acted as the region’s main security provider while the European members of NATO accepted U.S. leadership. Today, however, much of the Republican Party has departed from this consensus, opting instead for a policy summed up by Donald Trump’s comments on “delinquent” NATO countries: “If they’re not going to pay, we’re not going to protect.” In other words, the United States may remain committed to Europe, but only if European states pay up. Democrats, for their part, have dug in deeper in response to this shift. President Joe Biden has affirmed the “sacred” Democratic commitment to European defense and trumpeted the admission of Finland and Sweden to NATO as a great achievement of his administration. Kamala Harris has signaled no departure from Biden’s position as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

A debate about the U.S. role in Europe is long overdue, but both sides have wrongly defined the issues and interests at play. In fact, the United States has the same cardinal interest in Europe today that it has had since at least the early 1900s: keeping the continent’s economic and military power divided. In practice, pursuing this goal has meant preventing the emergence of a European hegemon. Unlike the continent in the mid-twentieth century, however, Europe today lacks a candidate for hegemony and, thanks in part to the success of U.S. efforts after 1945 to rebuild and restore prosperity to Western Europe, another hegemonic threat is unlikely to emerge.

The United States should recognize that it has achieved its main goal in Europe. Having successfully ensured that no country can dominate the continent, it should embrace a new approach to the region. Under a revised strategy, the United States would reduce its military presence on the continent, Europeanize NATO, and hand principal responsibility for European security back to its rightful owners: the Europeans.

Can Ukraine Get Back on the Offensive?

Mick Ryan

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Toward the end of 2023, the Russian military was presented with an opportunity to truly transform the war in Ukraine. Kyiv’s ground forces had run out of steam in their southern counteroffensive. Ukraine had blown through large quantities of munitions and air defense interceptors and was struggling to resupply its lines. At the same time, a controversial bill to expand mobilization stalled in Ukraine’s parliament, as the country’s manpower shortages became acute. It only passed parliament in April after months of debate, coming into force in May. And in the United States, support for Ukraine was fracturing along party lines, holding up a $61 billion aid package in Congress.

But over the past six months, Russia has generally failed to capitalize on this convergence of openings. It has launched air and missile attacks against Ukraine’s power grid—dramatically reducing the country’s capacity to generate electricity—and it has terrorized civilians. Yet Russian ground forces have managed to gain only small bits of land. All in all, the amount of territory seized by Russia since January 2024 adds up to around 360 square miles, an area roughly two-thirds the size of New York City. It is hard to describe these gains as a success when they came at the cost of more than 180,000 Russian casualties, according to Western intelligence estimates.

Moscow’s forces are not done with their offensive. They keep attacking across multiple fronts on the ground and bombing Ukrainian infrastructure from the air. But even the largest and most capable military organizations cannot sustain offensives forever, and after losing so many troops, Russia’s window of opportunity may soon close. The soldiers who have died in combat were disproportionately Russia’s best. Its equipment reserves are being slowly run down. Moscow will eventually have no choice but to pause its offensive and regroup.

How Israeli Soldiers on Sensitive Bases Reveal Their Identity and Location

Omer Benjakob

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Soldiers and civilians serving at sensitive security sites continue to reveal sensitive information about army bases and those serving in them due to the use of smartphones and wearable technologies like smartwatches. Although the existence of these bases is no longer a secret, the information being unwittingly leaked by soldiers and officials enables the enemy to identify which of the soldiers serve at bases, collect and collate other information about them and then target them by tracking, spying on and even extorting or harming them.

Russia's Kursk region suffers 'massive' DDoS attack amid Ukraine offensive

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Russia's Kursk region was hit by a “massive” distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on Thursday amid Ukraine’s surprise cross-border incursion, Kursk state officials said in a statement.

The unnamed hackers targeted government and business websites, as well as critical infrastructure services, making some of them temporarily unavailable, state media reported.

Data shared by internet monitoring service NetBlocks shows “sporadic disruptions to internet connectivity in and around Kursk,” likely linked to DDoS attacks targeting local infrastructure.

According to Russia’s digital ministry, Kursk online services were hit with over 100,000 junk requests per second at the peak of the attack. DDoS incidents can involve much larger amounts of traffic, sometimes peaking at millions of requests per second.

The internet protocol (IP) addresses involved in the incident were mainly registered in Germany and the U.K., the agency said. DDoS traffic can originate from multiple sources without signifying the exact origin of the attack.

“The attackers’ goal was to disrupt the provision of socially significant services,” the ministry said in a statement. “However, the hackers failed to damage the e-government infrastructure and gain access to user data. All information is reliably protected, and attacks were quickly repelled.”

It is not clear what hacker group is behind the attack. Well-known Ukrainian hacktivist groups, as well as military intelligence services, have not yet claimed responsibility for the incident.

NATO Can’t Be a One Trick Pony: The Future of Alliance Crisis Prevention and Managemen

Paul Schaffner, Anca Agachi and Jack Lashendock

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Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, NATO has gone back to basics and its raison d’etre of collective defense. That doesn’t mean, however, that the alliance can afford to neglect its commitment to dealing with emerging incidents and crises before they devolve into bloody military conflicts. As Supreme Allied Commander Europe Gen. Chris Cavoli recently told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “NATO is not a one problem alliance.”

Even as its top priority remains deterring and defending against Russian irredentism, failing to maintain its crisis management capabilities presents its own security risks. NATO should seek to bolster its crisis management efforts through targeted prevention, enhanced readiness, and strategic partnerships to address security threats worldwide.

The definition of NATO crisis management has evolved over the years. In the 1990s and 2000s, it was primarily associated with out-of-area peacekeeping and stabilization operations. Today, the need for crisis management operations can arise from a broad range of events— from military aggression to humanitarian disasters to technological disruptions. The lines between Article 5 defense missions and crisis management are becoming blurrier—so-called hybrid warfare that exploits the gray area between peace and war are a case in point—which means NATO cannot be optimally prepared for either mission without being prepared for both.

NATO is trying to adapt for future contingencies. Rather than managing crises as they arise, the NATO 2022 Strategic Concept focuses on preventing and responding to crises that “have the potential to affect Allied security” and the recent 2024 Summit Declaration reiterates this objective. This approach is aimed at ensuring that NATO can better maintain regional stability by preventing adversaries from exploiting minor incidents to promote instability for geopolitical gain.

Why Israel Escalates Risky Assassinations Are a Desperate Bid to Restore Deterrence

Dalia Dassa Kaye

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The ten-month-old war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip long ago escaped its local geography, triggering dangerous military escalations across the Middle East—deadly clashes on the Israeli-Lebanese border, Houthi assaults in the Red Sea and on Tel Aviv, attacks by Iranian-aligned militias against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, and even direct clashes between Israel and Iran. Then, within the space of 24 hours last week, Israel took responsibility for the assassination of Fuad Shukr, a top Hezbollah commander, in Beirut in retaliation for a Hezbollah rocket attack in the Golan Heights, and the country is assumed

Quantum Leap: Breakthrough For Secure Communication With ‘Artificial Atoms’

Eurasia Review

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Conventional encryption methods rely on complex mathematical algorithms and the limits of current computing power. However, with the rise of quantum computers, these methods are becoming increasingly vulnerable, necessitating quantum key distribution (QKD). QKD is a technology that leverages the unique properties of quantum physics to secure data transmission. This method has been continuously optimized over the years, but establishing large networks has been challenging due to the limitations of existing quantum light sources.]

In a new journal cover article published in Light: Science & Application, a team of scientists in Germany, led by Professor Fei Ding from Leibniz University of Hannover (LUH), Professor Stefan Kück from Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Professor Peter Michler from University of Stuttgart and other co-workers have achieved the first intercity QKD experiment with a deterministic single-photon source, revolutionizing how we protect our confidential information from cyber threats.

Semiconductor quantum dots (QDs), referred as the artificial atoms in the quantum world, show great potential for illuminating quantum lights used in quantum information technologies. This breakthrough reveals the feasibility of semiconductor single-photon sources for a secure long-distance quantum internet in real life.

Professor Fei Ding explained “We work with quantum dots, which are tiny structures similar to atoms but tailored to our needs. For the first time, we used these ‘artificial atoms’ in a quantum communication experiment between two different cities. This setup, known as the ‘Niedersachsen Quantum Link,’ connects Hannover and Braunschweig via optical fibre”

What the AI Pessimists Are Missing

MICHAEL R. STRAIN

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WASHINGTON, DC – Pessimism suffuses current discussions about generative artificial intelligence. A YouGov survey in March found that Americans primarily feel “cautious” or “concerned” about AI, whereas only one in five are “hopeful” or “excited.” Around four in ten are very or somewhat concerned that AI could put an end to the human race.

Such fears illustrate the human tendency to focus more on what could be lost than on what could be gained from technological change. Advances in AI will cause disruption. But creative destruction creates as well as destroys, and that process ultimately is beneficial. Often, the problems created by a new technology can also be solved by it. We are already seeing this with AI, and we will see more of it in the coming years.

Recall the panic that swept through schools and universities when OpenAI first demonstrated that its ChatGPT tool can write in natural language. Many educators raised valid concerns that generative AI would help students cheat on assignments and exams, shortchanging their educations. But the same technology that enables this abuse also enables detection and prevention of it.

Moreover, generative AI can help to improve education quality. The longstanding classroom model of education faces serious challenges. Aptitude and preparation vary widely across students within a given classroom, as do styles of learning and levels of engagement, attention, and focus. In addition, the quality of teaching varies across classrooms.

Keep Generational Labels Out of Army Talent Management - Modern War Institute

Allison Abbe

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Use of generational labels is spreading, as the temptation to lump vast numbers of individuals into categories based purely on birth year apparently proves too difficult to resist. The Army is unfortunately not immune. For all its recent progress toward more evidence-based approaches to talent management, defense leaders seem to accept and repeat myths about generations in the workforce. Baby boomers, Generation X, millennials, Generation Z, and now Generation Alpha—all of these allegedly have distinct characteristics associated with a window of birth years, known in scientific literature as cohort effects. Despite having captured the popular imagination since at least the 1960s, generations can be a misleading concept and do not provide a sound basis for shaping military personnel policy. Mismanaging age diversity puts the military services at risk of falling behind in the competition for talent, with recruiting shortfalls consequently creating secondary pressures to promote some young leaders too early. Defense leaders should avoid using generations as a shortcut for thinking about age and instead rely on more data-informed approaches to recruiting and talent management.

Shortfalls in recruiting understandably prompt leaders to look to social science to inform solutions to organizational problems, and generational concepts find a receptive outlet in the limits of human cognition. Although humans’ long-term memory capacity is expansive, working memory capacity is limited. Since cognition can only actively retrieve and operate with a limited set of information at any one time, grouping into categories is helpful. People routinely rely on categories and groupings to process more information, but this is beneficial only if the categories reflect meaningful commonalities in the real world. When the categories do not correspond to real shared characteristics, relying on them for management and decision-making can lead to systematic bias and predictable errors. Generations are one such grouping that serve as a shortcut in communication, even while they mislead and conceal.