Arambai Tenggol: The Meitei Militia Threatening India’s Manipur State

Sudha Ramachandran

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On January 24, the Manipur state government in India publically capitulated to a radical ethnic Meitei militia, the Arambai Tenggol. While elected representatives succumbing to the pressure of militias and armed separatists in India’s insurgency-wracked northeastern states is hardly a recent phenomenon, this event was unprecedented. Four days earlier, the Arambai Tenggol summoned all legislators of the Meitei ethnic majority to the Kangla Fort in Manipur’s capital, Imphal, warning that anyone who did not participate would be treated as “an enemy of the Meitei community” (Sangai Express, January 20). This event highlights the importance of understanding the Arambai Tenggol, from its evolution to the factors behind its spectacular rise.

Manipur’s Capitulation

As many as 37 members of the Manipur state legislative assembly and two members of the state’s representation in the national parliament showed up for the event. In the presence of Korounganba Khuman, leader of the Arambai Tenggol, and scores of his commanders, the lawmakers proceeded to sign a six-point pledge in support of the militia’s key demands. Manipur Chief Minister Biren Singh of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) did not attend the event, but nevertheless eventually signed on to the militia’s demands (Indian Express, January 25; Imphal Free Press, January 26).

Taliban Enact Law That Silences Afghan Women In Public, Curbs Their Freedom

Ayaz Gul

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Taliban leaders in Afghanistan have ordered fresh limitations on women, forbidding them from singing, reciting poetry or speaking aloud in public and mandating them to keep their faces and bodies covered at all times.

The restrictions are part of a new so-called Vice and Virtue decree published by the Taliban’s Justice Ministry on Wednesday after approval from their reclusive supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, said a ministry spokesman in a video message.

The 35-article document is the first formal declaration of the vice and virtue laws under the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law since they regained power in Afghanistan three years ago.

The decree greatly restricts personal freedoms and religious practices, covering aspects of everyday life such as transportation, music, shaving, celebrations, and women’s behavior and appearance in public.

The rules targeting female members of the Afghan society explained that a woman’s voice is deemed intimate and should not be heard singing, reciting poetry or reading aloud in public. Women also are not allowed to look at men they are not related to by blood or marriage and vice versa.

Why the next trade war with China may look very different from the last one

Mrugank Bhusari

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In 2018, the United States initiated a series of tariffs against Chinese goods over a trade deficit and trade practices that it believed unfairly disadvantaged US industries. Nevertheless, according to Chinese data, the US deficit has only increased in the intervening years, and the aggregate global goods deficit with China has doubled from $420 billion in 2017 to $822 billion in 2023. As Beijing now prioritizes manufacturing products requiring more complex processes with a higher value added such as batteries, electric vehicles, and solar panels, more tariffs are likely regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election.

The 2018 US tariffs primarily targeted Chinese intermediate inputs and capital equipment. In 2025, far more countries will share concerns over the impact of an expansion of Chinese exports. This time, however, they are likely to target final consumer goods to shield domestic industries and avoid imposing costs on their own supply chains.

In 2023, 150 countries had a goods trade deficit with China. As the chart below shows, bilateral goods trade deficits for economies across the world and income levels have widened in 2023 as compared to 2017.

China Tightens Its Grip on Yet Another Critical Mineral - Analysis

Christina Lu

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More than a year after China rattled the West by imposing export controls on gallium and germanium, two powerful chipmaking inputs, Beijing flexed its muscles again this month by announcing curbs on another key, yet often overlooked, metal: antimony.

Iran Will Hit Israel, Ball Is In US-Israeli Court – OpEd

M.K. Bhadrakumar

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There is a Zen proverb — ‘If you want to climb a mountain, begin at the top.’ All the show of contrived enthusiasm by the US President Joe Biden and CIA Director William Burns over a Israel-Hamas deal on Gaza war cannot obfuscate the grim reality that unless and until Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu greenlights it, this is a road to nowhere.

But what did Netanyahu do? On the eve of the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s arrival in Tel Aviv on Sunday to press the flesh and cajole Netanyahu to cooperate, the latter disdainfully ordered yet another air strike in in the central town of Deir Al-Balah in Gaza, killing “at least” 21 people, including six children. Biden had emphasised only the previous day that all parties involved in the Gaza ceasefire negotiations should desist from jeopardising the US-led diplomatic efforts to halt the war and secure a deal to return hostages and achieve a ceasefire to end the bloodshed.

And this was even after a ‘senior administration official’ who has been actively involved as negotiator — presumably, Burns himself — laboured to convey in a special briefing from Doha that the negotiations had reached an inflection point. The crux of the matter is that the western leaders have a maximum pressure strategy toward Iran to exercise restraint while they don’t have the moral or political courage to tackle Netanyahu, who is invidiously undermining the Doha process because he is simply not interested in a ceasefire deal that may lead to his removal from power, investigation to pin responsibility for October 7 attacks, revival of court cases against him and possible jail sentence if convicted.

Geopolitics looms large as Pacific Islands leaders prepare to gather in Tonga

Parker Novak

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From August 26 to 30, Pacific Islands leaders are gathering for the annual Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Leaders Meeting, taking place in Tonga’s capital, Nuku’alofa. Several pressing issues will be up for discussion: climate change, debanking, and the New Caledonia crisis, among others. In keeping with the “Pacific Way,” member states are entering the summit with the intent of coming to a consensus on how to best tackle these challenges.

Multilateral fora such as PIF—and the high-level meetings that come along with them—are part and parcel of regional affairs, as they create mechanisms through which Pacific Islands countries band together to increase their influence in international politics. This is especially important when considering the small scale of many countries in the region, which limits their ability to gain traction individually. By coming together, they find strength in numbers.

Geopolitics is looming large as this year’s confab approaches. In recent years, outside powers’ interest in this vast maritime region has markedly increased, mainly due to its geographic relevance to the growing geopolitical rivalry in the Indo-Pacific between the United States and China. The interests of their respective allies and partners have grown, too. And while other issues may be no less important, geopolitics has garnered the headlines.

Invasion? What invasion? Putin is downplaying Ukraine’s Kursk offensive

Peter Dickinson

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In the space of just two weeks, Ukraine has claimed more Russian land than Putin’s army managed to seize in Ukraine since the start of 2024. Kyiv’s bold summer offensive caught the Kremlin completely off-guard and has transformed perceptions of a war that many believed was moving slowly but surely toward an inevitable Russian victory. Rarely in the history of modern warfare has any military succeeded in pulling off such a stunning surprise.

Since Ukraine’s invasion of Russia first began on August 6, it has dominated the international headlines and has been one of the top news stories around the world. Everywhere, that is, except Russia itself. While the global press has been reporting breathlessly on the first invasion of Russia since World War II, the Kremlin-controlled Russian media has been instructed to minimize the significance of Ukraine’s offensive and convince domestic audiences that the presence of Ukrainian troops inside Russia’s borders is the “new normal.”

This strategy has been all too evident on Russia’s federal TV channels throughout the past fortnight, with comparatively little coverage of Ukraine’s cross-border operation. Any mentions have typically been accompanied by euphemistic references to “the situation” or “events in Kursk region.” The Kremlin’s intense discomfort was perhaps most immediately obvious on last weekend’s episode of Russia’s flagship current affairs TV show, Sunday Evening with Vladimir Solovyov, with Russian MP and studio guest Andrey Gurulyov declaring, “the most important thing is for everyone to shut up.”

Islamic State Increasingly Targeted and Threatened Western Sporting Events in Advance of the Paris Olympic

Lucas Webber

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Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) and pro-Islamic State (IS) propagandists have ramped up efforts to direct external operations against the West in 2024 (x/@lucasadwebber, February 11). They have exploited sentiments fueled by the Israel–Hamas war since October 7, 2023, and leveraged momentum from the March 22 assault on Crocus City Hall in Moscow (see Eurasia Daily Monitor, March 28). During this period, IS has increased the volume of its propaganda output calling for attacks against Israel, Jews, and the West. However, IS rhetoric has more recently targeted sporting events, especially the Paris Olympics, which ran from July 26 to August 11.

This surge in IS media has coincided with several attacks, foiled plots, and arrests in the West. Consequently, several Western countries have raised terrorism alert levels, and the threat of officially directed IS attacks is increasing (EurActiv, March 20). While a major attack was fortunately avoided at the Olympics and a recent soccer championship, IS may continue to target sporting venues and areas where fans congregate, in an attempt to capitalize on high-density soft targets.

Kamala Harris’s 21st-Century Foreign Policy - Analysis

Michael Hirsh

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Kamala Harris, by most accounts, has learned a great deal by serving as vice president to U.S. President Joe Biden, who is the most experienced U.S. leader on foreign policy since President George H.W. Bush.

Think the American century is over? Think again.

Joseph S. Nye Jr.

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In this contentious election year, one of the most significant questions is whether we are witnessing the end of an age in which the United States has been the dominant power. In my new memoir, A Life in the American Century, I make a case for optimism.

I have lived through eight decades of an American era that included World War II, Hiroshima, and wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The Cold War ended without the nuclear catastrophe that hung over our heads, but it was replaced by a period of hubris as the United States became the world’s sole superpower. That unipolar moment was soon replaced by fears of transnational terrorism and cyber wars. Analysts today speak about a new cold war with a rising China and fear of nuclear escalation following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Our mental maps of the world have changed dramatically over my lifetime.

For those eight decades, we have lived in what TIME publisher Henry Luce, in March 1941, baptized “the American Century.” In the nineteenth century, the global balance of power was centered in Europe, which sent its imperial tentacles around the world. The United States was a bit player with a military not much larger than that of Chile. As the twentieth century began, the United States became the world’s largest industrial power, and accounted for nearly a quarter of the world economy (as it still does today).

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive: big stakes, big risks for both sides

Ben Barry

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Ukraine’s attack into Russia’s Kursk oblast has implications both in terms of lessons from the war and for Russian military strategy. Much is still not known about how Kyiv achieved its advance that has so embarrassed Moscow and surprised the rest of the world. However, what is known suggests that Ukraine’s success raises questions about some of the conventional wisdom that has built up amongst many Western commentators, military officials and the defence industry.

Challenging assumptions

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has led to a growing assumption that defence is stronger than attack and that the ubiquity of uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAVs) means that the battlefield has become transparent. This has caused much scepticism that conventional combined-arms ground manoeuvre is achievable anymore, both in the Ukraine conflict and more widely.

Can Israel Really Deter Hezbollah? - Analysi

Anchal Vohra

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The Blue Line that separates Israel and Lebanon is one of the most volatile borders in the world. Whenever the rhetoric between Israel and Iran escalates, or even when shepherds on either side cross over, anxieties of another conflict between Israel and Lebanon heighten. Conventional wisdom dictates that the mildest of confrontations on the border could provoke an all-out war.

When War Came to Their Country, They Built a Map

Charlie Metcalfe

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Roman Pohorilyi was 22 when he started tracking Russian troop movements near Ukraine’s border. It was the fall of 2021, and he and a childhood friend, Ruslan Mykula, had been sharing news about foreign affairs to an audience of about 200 subscribers on a Telegram channel. It was just a hobby for them. Neither imagined that a year later their country would be in a state of absolute war with Russia, and that their hobby, which they called Deep State, would be tracking every aspect of it.

Although Deep State started as a news channel, it has become most famous for its open access map that charts the shifting front line of Russia’s invasion, and which has become a crucial tool for Ukrainians to keep track of the conflict that once threatened to overrun their country. On some days in late 2022, Deep State’s map received as many as 3 million views. Mykula showed WIRED a screenshot from the website’s dashboard that recorded more than 482 million views between June 2023 and June 2024.

Mykula and Pohorilyi created the map on the first day of the war, after recognizing a demand from their Telegram subscribers for frequent updates about what was happening. Pohorilyi was in the penultimate year of a law degree, and Mykula was working in marketing. But both had been learning open source intelligence skills to help verify videos of military activity that actors on all sides were publishing online.

Who gives 'Three Cheers for the Military-Industrial Complex'?

William Hartung

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America’s commitment to arm Israel and Ukraine while attempting to stockpile large quantities of weapons for a potential war with China is putting strains on America’s weapons manufacturing base, leading many influential policy makers and corporate officials to suggest measures that would super-size this nation’s already enormous military-industrial complex.

This argument is taken to the extreme in a new piece in The National Interest by Arthur Herman of the arms contractor-funded Hudson Institute, entitled “Three Cheers for the Military-Industrial Complex.” The article repeats many of the stock arguments of current advocates of higher Pentagon spending while throwing around misleading statistics and dubious assumptions along the way.

Myth number one routinely put forward by today’s proponents of throwing more money at the Pentagon is that the U.S. military has somehow been neglected over the past few decades, and that therefore we need to inject hundreds of billions of dollars in additional spending into the arms sector to restore our defenses to an acceptable level. This argument has appeared in a recent report by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) on the need for a renewed policy of “peace through strength,” as well as in an analysis from a congressional commission charged with assessing the state of America’s defenses.

Has Palestinians' perception of Hamas changed?

Tania Krämer

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Abeer, who asked to be identified only by her first name, is currently sheltering in the Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. Ten months into the war, with new cease-fire talks underway in Doha and Cairo, it is hard for Palestinians like her to know who or what to believe anymore.

"People are just very tired, exhausted and fed up with this reality. They are just hoping that the war will end and that they will announce a cease-fire," she said.

Qatari, Egyptian and US mediators are currently working on a three-phase cease-fire agreement that would include the release of some of the Israeli hostages.

The daily bombardment by the Israeli military and the almost constant search for a safe place amidst widespread destruction and constant displacement, leaves little time to think ahead. But Abeer is also angry with the militant Islamist group Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the US, Germany, the EU and others, which has ruled Gaza since 2007.

Israel’s Policy of Escalation Dominance

Harry Bennett

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Years from now, the final week of July 2024 will be marked by historians as a moment of significant escalation in the on-going conflict in the Middle East.

On the 30th July, Israel assassinated senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in the south suburbs of the Lebanese capital, Beirut. The attack was a direct retaliation for the killing of twelve young people in the Israeli-administered Golan Heights region. According to the UN, the Golan Heights is recognized as part of Syria and has been under Israeli occupation since 1967 when it was annexed following the Six-Day War. Regardless, the attack was viewed by Israel as a violation, directly attributable to the Shia Iran proxy group Hezbollah.

Soon thereafter, Israel launched a second successful assassination, terminating Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh. Significantly, Haniyeh was killed in Tehran – marking not only an attack on Hamas, but also, in the eyes of the Iranian state, as an attack on Iran. Haniyeh’s death has been met with public mourning in the streets of the Tehran and Iranian officials have vowed to revenge the killing with a “harsh punishment.”

Putin has not taken the bait: will Kursk offensive backfire on Ukraine?

Konstantinos Bogdanos

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Ukraine has surprised the world with an impressive offensive into the Kursk oblast. Its armed forces clearly caught the Russian army off guard and have so far achieved a victory nobody expected. But could this backfire for Ukraine in the near future?

Rather than another border skirmish, this time Ukraine planned and executed a full-scale invasion into Russian territory. It even took the Russians a good couple of days before they realised what was going on.

At the moment Ukraine has captured and controls about 500 km² of Russian land. On the tactical level, Ukraine’s assault has performed brilliantly. But what is the strategic objective of such a bold and daring move?

First of all, military analysts suggest, Ukraine aimed at relieving stress off the conflict’s southern front where Russians have been steadily advancing during the last months.

Ukrainian generals had most probably expected that the Russian high command would order troops fighting in the southern provinces of Donbass to move to Kursk so as to avoid loss of Russian soil. This did not happen.

Then, as the BBC has suggested, Zelensky may have wanted to lure Vladimir Putin into a disproportionate reaction, possibly involving the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

Ukraine's Attack on Kursk Is a Huge Gamble and Won't Bring Peace | Opinion

Sergey G. Maidukov

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Russian media outlets and military bloggers assert that Ukrainian forces are suffering significant casualties along the Kursk front. They claim that Russia has deployed additional troops and heavy artillery to effectively counter the offensive. They claim that Russian missiles, drones, and airstrikes are resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers each day. If true, this would pose a severe challenge for the relatively small Ukrainian military contingent.

At the same time, the information landscape in Ukraine is replete with triumphant announcements. There are claims that Ukrainian forces have seized numerous Russian settlements and nearly 400 square miles of territory in the Kursk region, prompting Moscow to evacuate at least 200,000 people. Ukraine has ample justification for its pride. This offensive is the most significant incursion on Russian territory since the onset of the conflict.

Positional Warfare

Mr. Harry B. Halem

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Three years into the Ukraine War, it is worth recalling the breathless American and European estimates of Ukrainian collapse, including from then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley and President Joseph Biden.1 Germany and France reacted with a combination of disbelief and wish-casting. Germany wholly discounted the prospects of an invasion.2 This explains the volte-face that characterised Olaf Scholz’s Zeitenwende speech on 27 February, when per American estimates, Russian troops should have been in Kyiv.3 A serious French intelligence failure did occur, but France clearly viewed Russian aggression as a political opportunity, hence Emmanuel Macron’s high-speed dashes to Moscow.4 It is a testament to Macron’s political instincts that Macron ultimately transformed France’s strategic position, making it a crucial rhetorical supporter of Kyiv’s independence and European alignment.5 American intelligence failure was more explicable in one respect: the Russian campaign plan did very nearly succeed.6 Russia’s multi-axis assault, intelligence preparation, and country-wide air campaign were designed to overwhelm Ukrainian decision making, allowing Russian paratroopers to hold Hostomel Airport and Russian armored forces to enter Kyiv by 25 February. 

Global threats don’t happen in silos. They shouldn’t be managed separately, either.

Rumtin Sepasspour

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Every day, countries face a range of major threats that could cause grave harm. To deal with these threats, governments need to develop strategies, allocate budgets, assign resourcing, agree on priorities and policies, and build a risk culture and capability. But policymakers often don’t care about this nuts and bolts of governing risks that could be catastrophic. Even if they do care on some level, they tend to focus on short-term and domestic priorities and are regularly distracted by the latest twist in the media cycle or internal party shenanigans.

As a result, governments either don’t take on the task of dealing with potentially catastrophic risks or do so poorly.

Unfortunately, an inadequate system of risk governance can have severe consequences. The COVID-19 pandemic was a perfect example of how governments failed to warn or communicate about, prevent, prepare for, respond to, or recover from a known hazard.

Lack of attention is the most important driver of global catastrophic risk—the potential for mass human suffering or death at a global scale. The risk can result from conflict between nuclear powers, highly contagious diseases that could be deadly for humans and animals, climate disruptions and tipping points, and the emerging technologies that empower weapons of mass destruction and undermine democratic institutions.

Military briefing: Kursk incursion heaps pressure on Ukraine’s east

Roula Khalaf

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Kyiv’s forces have in two weeks seized more land in Russia than Moscow has in Ukraine all year — transforming perceptions about their capabilities and boosting morale among Ukrainians.

But that stunning operational success has yet to deliver one crucial objective: diverting Russia’s manpower and easing pressure in the hottest battlefields in eastern Ukraine, where Moscow is steadily advancing.

Russian soldiers are still grinding their way through Ukrainian defences, capturing villages and towns and bringing Moscow closer to its stated goal of complete control of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.

On Monday, Russian troops appeared to have captured nearly all of the town of Niu-York, entered nearby Toretsk and were encroaching on the logistical hub of Pokrovsk.

One Ukrainian artillery brigade commander in eastern Ukraine told the Financial Times that part of the reason for the Russian advance was Kyiv moving its scarce resources north.

His troops were back to rationing shells for their canons — the first time since US aid to Ukraine was held up by Congress — because ammunition had been reallocated for the incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.

The New Bioweapons How Synthetic Biology Could Destabilize the World

Roger Brent, T. Greg McKelvey, Jr., and Jason Matheny

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In cybersecurity, a penetration test is a simulated attack on a computer system’s defenses that uses the tools and techniques an adversary would employ. Such tests are used by all kinds of governments and companies. Banks, for example, regularly hire computer experts to break into their systems and transfer money to unauthorized accounts, often by phishing for login credentials from employees. After the testers succeed, they present their findings to the institutions and make recommendations about how to improve security.

The Geopolitics of Cyber Espionage Goes Far Beyond Sensitive Information Theft

Emilio Iasiello

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Beijing has been using its media to counter U.S. and foreign government accusations over its cyber spying for several years, typically issuing denials and pointing at the United States’ own alleged cyber malfeasance. It has been a standard method of operations – a government will accuse China of hacking, often publishing a report or issuing public proclamations with limited evidence to justify the accusation in either instance, and Beijing will promptly retort. Recently, the U.S. Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation testified before Congress, highlighting an alleged Chinese state-sponsored cyber espionage campaign dubbed “Volt Typhoon” that he said was purposefully embedding itself into U.S. critical infrastructure, waiting “for just the right moment to deal a devastating blow.” Unsurprisingly, China responded via its Embassy in the United States and refuted the claim tying Volt Typhoon to the work of cybercriminals, not Chinese state actors.

The U.S. government is not the only ones comfortable tying this activity to China. Both Microsoft and Google have come to the same conclusion and have shared their analysis and findings publicly. And while both have extensive pieces about the nature of the activity, and how it operates, when it comes to providing evidence of attribution, both are noticeably light. Volt Typhoon activity was first observed in mid-2021, conducting cyber intrusions into high-value targets like critical infrastructure organizations in countries around the world for the purposes of gaining and maintaining access without being detected. If true, this is consistent with what a state actor would do with respect to cyber espionage, and prepositioning itself to be able to leverage surreptitious accesses to execute more disruptive attacks later on should it feel necessary to do so.

We finally have a definition for open-source AI

Rhiannon Williams & James O'Donnell

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Open-source AI is everywhere right now. The problem is, no one agrees on what it actually is. Now we may finally have an answer. The Open Source Initiative (OSI), the self-appointed arbiters of what it means to be open source, has released a new definition, which it hopes will help lawmakers develop regulations to protect consumers from AI risks.

Though OSI has published much about what constitutes open-source technology in other fields, this marks its first attempt to define the term for AI models. It asked a 70-person group of researchers, lawyers, policymakers, and activists, as well as representatives from big tech companies like Meta, Google, and Amazon, to come up with the working definition.

According to the group, an open-source AI system can be used for any purpose without securing permission, and researchers should be able to inspect its components and study how the system works.

It should also be possible to modify the system for any purpose—including to change its output—and to share it with others to use, with or without modifications, for any purpose. In addition, the standard attempts to define a level of transparency for a given model’s training data, source code, and weights.

SMALL DRONES FOR BIG MILITARIES: THE WAY AHEA

Kerry Chávez , Ori Swed 

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We urge the militaries of the United States and other democratic states to prepare to both counter drones and harness them during future conflict.

The Russia-Ukraine and Gaza wars have illustrated that simple drones are no longer a nuisance from terrorists that can be ignored or even easily countered. It has become a weapon of choice for standing armies, with Ukraine, Russia, and Israel extensively incorporating tactical drones into their military arsenals. Because international security challenges are increasing in quantity—stemming from more, diverse actors operating from the gray zone to total war—and modern warfare is changing in quality—becoming more transparent, lethal, fast-paced, and multi-domain—more states will emulate the use of tactical drones in Ukraine. We urge the militaries of the United States and other democratic nations to prepare to both counter drones and harness them during future conflict.

Yet what branch of service should take the lead in preparing the military to contend with these burgeoning challenges and opportunities? For operations in the air littoral, it has been hazy whether this should fall to air or land forces. Although many people associate unmanned aerial systems (UAS) with air forces, ground forces have been the most exposed to small drones and are the most likely to benefit from their use in battle theaters. Consequently, armies are currently the most incentivized and poised to develop atactical drone fleet that would neither replace nor compete with strategic models.