The Young and the Westless

Samir Puri

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

The Big Numbers India Needs to Hit 2047 Target

Mandar P. Oak

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

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

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

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

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

A New Bangladesh Is Emerging But It Needs India Too

Muqtedar Khan and Umme Salma Tarin

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

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

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

Indo-Chinese Relations: On a Collision Course

Herbert Wulf

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Introduction

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

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

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

America Surrendered in Afghanistan

John J. Waters

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President Biden said he ended the war in Afghanistan.

In truth he abandoned it.

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

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

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

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

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

Ahammad Foyez

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

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

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

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

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

Howard W. French

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

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

Liron Libman

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

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

The Fundamental Rule and Its Exception

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

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

Libya's eastern government says all oilfields to close

Ayman Werfali

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Houthis have defeated the US Navy

Tom Sharpe

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

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

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

Ukraine Has Found a Path to Victor

Michael Bohnert

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

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

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

Mahshid Abir

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

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

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

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

The World Bank Is Failing and Needs a Restart

Paul Collier

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

The Geopolitical Fallout of Telegram Founder Pavel Durov’s Arres

Rishi Iyengar

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

How the Russian Establishment Really Sees the War Ending

Anatol Lieven

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

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

Thibault Spirlet

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

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

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

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

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

Pavel Polityuk, Tom Balmforth and Yuliia Dysa

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

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

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

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

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

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

Roland Kobia & Marnix Middelburg

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Introduction

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

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

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

Al Maggard

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INTRODUCTION

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

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

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

A New World Order Is Coming – OpEd

Lim Teck Ghee

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

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

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

Breaking the Chain

Eric J. Uribe

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

Oil and Gas: Russia's stranglehold on Europe

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

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

Amin Saikal

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

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

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

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

AI Could One Day Engineer a Pandemic, Experts War

Tharin Pillay and Harry Booth

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

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

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

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

Jakub Growiec, Julia Jabłońska, and Aleksandra Parteka

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Introduction

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

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

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

DIU wants to buy generative AI tech for Thunderforge initiative

Jon Harper

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

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

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

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