Indian Strategic Studies: 10/26/24

26 October 2024

The India-South Korea-US Triad’s Emerging Roles in the Indo-Pacific

SeungHwan (Shane) Kim and Shubhankar Agarwal

The United States and India inaugurated the U.S.-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) in January 2023. That was followed by the U.S.-South Korea Next Generation Critical and Emerging Technology Dialogue in December 2023. As a follow-up initiative, all three nations held their first inaugural trilateral technology dialogue in Seoul in March 2024. India, South Korea, and the United States were able to solidify their trilateral cooperation in various areas, including economic security, supply chain resiliency, and emerging technologies in the broader Indo-Pacific region.

There are various opportunities for this triangular dynamic that can foster innovation, enhance strategic alliances and partnerships, and benefit each of the three nations, even as certain challenges exist.

Military Cooperation

Trilateral defense cooperation between India, South Korea, and the U.S. aligns with strategic objectives in the Indo-Pacific to enhance collaboration among like-minded regional actors. In February 2022, the United States released its Indo-Pacific Strategy, highlighting the importance of strengthening security and upholding a free and open Indo-Pacific region. To achieve this, the U.S. supports a “strong India” and South Korea as key partners and allies in realizing this regional vision. Similarly, India advocates for a free, open, and rules-based Indo-Pacific through its vision of Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR), and South Korea reiterates a free, peaceful, and prosperous Indo-Pacific through its Indo-Pacific Strategy.

China Undermines Its Interests By Boosting Support For Myanmar’s Faltering Junta – Analysis

Zachary Abuza

China borders 14 countries, tied with Russia for the most in the world, and Beijing takes great pains to ensure the security of its interests and defend against conflicts from spilling over. Despite that, China’s Myanmar policy is based on faulty assumptions and is undermining its own interests.

China’s policy since the February 2021 coup – which Beijing simply labeled a change in government – has never been good. Nonetheless, it refrained from offering initial support for the State Administrative Council (SAC), as the junta formally calls itself, and put pressure on them not to ban the National League for Democracy, which they ultimately did in March 2023.

For the first two years, Beijing clearly hedged their bets. But since then, the Chinese have doubled down on the junta.

China continues to sell weapons, and there is evidence that Chinese technicians are working in Myanmar’s defense industries. There is clearly some technology sharing. A new shell designed for drone warfare is a copy of a Chinese-produced munition.

ASEAN Must Reform Or Face Decay – Analysis

Collins Chong Yew Keat

ASEAN has a long and rich history, but its main tenets and essence of its self-induced mantra of principles have many times failed to spark new confidence in bracing for the tough challenges to come.

The recently concluded ASEAN Summit and Related Summits in Vientiane have also portrayed the same old trappings within the entity and beyond exposing the deep lying structural and systemic loopholes and internal weaknesses that have over the decades slowed progress and frustrated many within and without, over the road not taken.

The division within ASEAN has weakened unity and collective resolve, giving other powers the advantage of dealing with member states individually rather than with ASEAN as a whole. Previous mechanisms, such as the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties (DoC) and efforts to accelerate the Code of Conduct (CoC) process, are seen as only preventive frameworks that establish guardrails and norms of behavior in the South China Sea. These mechanisms do not directly address the resolution of disputes but merely ensure that behaviours in the contested zones adheres to an agreed code of ethics and procedures, relying on the goodwill of involved states to follow norms and exercise self-restraint.

The CCP’s Two-Track Approach to AI Training

Joshua Levine

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has made clear its intention to become a world leader in developing and deploying artificial intelligence (AI) models. For now, the United States and American companies are still leaders in developing cutting-edge hardware and software to deliver ever-more-powerful AI models. Access to data, however, is an increasing concern for American AI developers, as lawsuits allege that analyzing copyrighted data as a part of model training infringes on copyright holder’s rights. In order to have competitive AI models and provide an alternative to China’s authoritarian vision, access to data and the freedom to train and further improve models within the United States will be paramount.

The Chinese government is taking a two-track approach to AI governance: aggressively regulate and control input data and outputs as it relates to public-facing generative models while imposing few, if any, restrictions on the development and deployment of models in enterprise, research, and military contexts.

The CCP’s approach to regulating AI training illustrates the dangers of letting China overtake the United States in AI development. In 2023, the Cybersecurity Administration of China (CAC) issued guidance outlining certain restrictions and rules for training generative AI models and providing them to the Chinese public, including guidance on the types of data that can be used to train a model, such as copyrighted information. The CCP’s National Information Security Standardization Technical Committee (NISSTC) recently released new draft regulations governing the development and use of generative AI. The updated regulations impose additional requirements on data used by model providers, such as requiring express consent for using copyrighted information, ensuring model outputs do not undermine core socialist values, and removing any data that includes obscenities or violence.

How Israel decimated Hamas and Hezbollah leadership in three months

Barak Ravid

One by one, Israel has tracked, targeted and eliminated the leadership of its greatest regional enemies in a sprawling decapitation operation with little precedent in modern history.

Why it matters: The killing of Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar this past week capped an astonishing three-month streak in which a succession of top Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, as well as several Iranian generals, were taken out by Israel.

The series of killings, a year after the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks, has dealt a crippling blow to the so-called "axis of resistance" Iran has been building, arming and funding for years.

While the death of Sinwar marked the most important symbolic victory, it was distinct in that it was not a targeted assassination — and not the product of a sophisticated operation or pinpoint secret intelligence.

Driving the news: One of Israel's top goals since the start of the war has been to kill the leaders of Hamas and any militants involved in the Oct. 7 attacks.

A special unit inside Israel's domestic intelligence service, the Shin Bet, was formed to do exactly that.
U.S. intelligence services and special operation units worked with the Israelis for months to hunt down Sinwar and his deputies, investing a huge amount of intelligence and operational resources.
Time and time again, the forces got close to Sinwar inside the Hamas tunnels in southern Gaza — but time and time again, he managed to evade them.

Israel will attack Iran – likely before October 31st, 2024.

Ken Robinson

There have been extreme rising tensions between Israel and Iran in October 2024, particularly over Iran's recent missile attacks against Israel.

Israel has long viewed Iran's nuclear ambitions as an existential threat and has considered striking key nuclear sites like the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and other strategic locations across Iran.

Following the series of missile attacks by Iran earlier in the month, Israel is weighing significant retaliatory actions, and might see this as their best "Just Cause” opportunity to attack the heart of Iran’s nuclear ambitions versus a proportional retaliatory strike against Iranian strategic infrastructure.

The US has recently delivered special munitions to Israel, while the world holds its breath.

Israel has the ability to attack Iran, but do they have the ability to achieve their strategic objective to cripple Iran? Likely not, without further US involvement in the Air Campaign - with days to go before a Presidential election.

Despite concerns about the wider regional consequences of such a strike, reports suggest Israel might still target nuclear-related sites in response to the escalating conflict.

Sinwar Is Dead. Hamas Is Very Much Alive.

Steven A. Cook

In 1948, Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmoud Fahmi al-Nuqrashi took the dramatic step of banning the Muslim Brotherhood, believing that if the group were dissolved, stability would return to his country. In the three years prior to that move, the Brotherhood had taken a leading role in fomenting riots, strikes, and violence, including the assassinations of a prime minister and a former finance minister.

Yet the ban on the Brotherhood produced more violence. Unmoored from their leader—Hassan al-Banna—armed cadres of Muslim Brothers took matters into their own hands in a vengeful spasm of violence, culminating in the assassination of Nuqrashi. The government responded by locking up thousands of Muslim Brothers, and in February 1949, Banna was assassinated in what was widely believed to be a government-sanctioned killing. Almost 76 years later, the Egyptian government is still trying to repress the group.

It has become cliche to say, “You cannot kill an idea.” Fair enough, but there is a finer point to this story: It is hard to kill your way out of the problem posed by a resistance movement. The committed do not get the message; they just redouble their efforts.

Lebanon feels it is being punished for a decision Hizbollah made - Opinion

KIM GHATTAS

A month after the start of Israel’s multipronged shock and awe military campaign against Hizbollah and Lebanon, the Lebanese are barely coming to grips with the enormity of what has befallen their country.

A quarter of Lebanon is now under Israeli evacuation orders. Almost a quarter of the population is on the move, sleeping in schools, on the street, in rented houses or hotel rooms — whatever they can find or afford. After two weeks of intense shelling of the densely populated southern suburbs of Beirut, there were a few quiet nights. But drones buzz loudly, incessantly over the city. The war rages on in the south and the Bekaa Valley. More than 2,300 people are dead, many of them women and children.

Whole towns have been razed to the ground. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to turn Lebanon into another Gaza and demanded that UN peacekeepers deployed in the south get out of the way. Meanwhile, the man who exerted a chokehold on Lebanon’s politics for two decades, adulated and hated in equal measures, Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hizbollah, is dead.

In this maelstrom, Lebanon faces multiple challenges. First, the social pressures are tremendous. The displacement of more than a million people from areas targeted by Israeli strikes has squished people against each other in different parts of the capital.

The ‘How’ over the ‘What:’ Israel’s dilemma beyond target selection in Iran

Janatan Sayeh

Israel’s war cabinet has reportedly agreed on what Iranian targets to strike in response to Iran’s October 1 missile attack. So, the question now is what method Israel will employ to carry out the attacks to effectively deter Tehran without escalating this battle into a full-scale war. In doing so, Israel has two choices: either publicly demean the regime or launch a series of covert attacks, and the latter is less likely to provoke Tehran’s retaliation.

After a series of meetings with US officials, Israel has reportedly reassured Washington that its upcoming response to the Islamic Republic will target the regime’s “military and intelligence” infrastructure. In contrast, an attack on Iranian oil facilities would have major repercussions for the global economy, a concern shared by both the United States and Iran’s Gulf Arab neighbors. Fearing the possibility of an all-out war, the Biden administration also allegedly discouraged Israel from targeting Iranian nuclear infrastructure. Washington and Jerusalem seemed to have reached a compromise where Israel’s response would avoid striking nuclear and oil sites while the US supplies Israel with the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile system.

Iran’s Ballistic Missile Gift to Russia—And Vice Versa

Behnam Ben Taleblu

After two years of warnings that Iran was planning to supply missiles to Russia, the other shoe has dropped. Tehran has finally provided Moscow with Fath-360 close-range ballistic missiles (CRBMs), marking the Islamic Republic’s first-ever proliferation of missiles to the European continent. While the Fath-360 does not give Russia much in the way of new capability, it does pad Moscow’s missile stocks and complement Russia’s existing capabilities. The missile deal is also a harbinger of tighter Russo-Iranian ties, whose ramifications may extend well beyond Europe.

Missile Delivery

On September 10, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the U.S. Treasury Department confirmed that Iran had provided Fath-360 CRBMs to Russia. “Dozens of Russian military personnel have been trained in Iran” to operate the Fath-360 system, Blinken said. According to the Treasury, the training occurred in the summer of 2024 pursuant to a contract signed in “late 2023” for the delivery of “hundreds of missiles,” and the first shipment had arrived “as of early September.” Various media outlets, citing unnamed Ukrainian officials, reported that Russia received more than 200 Fath-360 missiles.

The Army’s ‘most challenging’ unmanned threat? Group 3 drones

Michael Marrow

As drone warfare proliferates in conflicts like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Army official tasked with forging plans to fend off drone attacks on troops sees mid-side uncrewed platforms as perhaps the biggest threat.

“Group 3 remains one of the most challenging threats we have in terms of the capabilities and then the payload that you’re talking about, as well as the reach,” Maj. Gen. David Stewart, the director of the Joint Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office, said during a Monday panel at the AUSA conference here in Washington. (The Pentagon categorizes drones as belonging to five different classes, with Group 1 being the smallest and Group 5 being the largest.)

Displaying a chart that mapped out the spectrum of unmanned threats ranging from Group 1 to Group 5 drones, Stewart explained that smaller drones fall under “protection tasks,” or a problem that “everyone is responsible for.” Essentially, since less sophisticated defensive systems are more appropriate for targeting smaller Group 1 and 2 drones, units should generally have their own capabilities on hand to defend against them.

Trump, Harris, Zelenskiy: Nobody’s Plan Will End the Ukraine War

Hal Brands

The war in Ukraine is going badly for the good guys. Ukraine is slowly losing on the eastern front. Its forces are plagued by a dearth of manpower and ammunition. A summer incursion into Russia made headlines but didn’t change the overall trajectory of the fighting. A deep-strike missile campaign into Russia is potentially promising but has been constrained by Western ambivalence. Ukraine’s much-touted “Victory Plan” — which includes a push for North Atlantic Treaty Organization membership — hasn’t gotten much US support.

As the outlook in Ukraine darkens, there is growing pressure in Washington for a negotiated settlement. The challenge is that no one has figured out how to turn a deteriorating battlefield situation into a decent peace.

Former President Donald Trump’s plan is the simplest: Get Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy together as soon as possible and threaten them both with dire consequences if the war doesn’t end. Trump could tell Zelenskiy that he risks losing US aid if he doesn’t cut a deal; he might tell Putin that the US will increase that aid, or hit Moscow with harsher sanctions, if Russia resists.

The strategy suits Trump’s tough-guy image. A cutoff of US assistance would quickly bring Ukraine to its knees. Unfortunately, it’s less clear why the threat of more US aid to Ukraine would frighten Putin, given that Trump has spent years complaining about how much the existing aid costs.

Conspiracy Theories and Their Dangerous Impact on America’s Military

Monte Erfourth

Introduction

Conspiracy theories have become a significant challenge for American society, shaping political discourse and health decisions and even threatening the fabric of democratic institutions. While belief in conspiracies is not exclusive to the U.S., certain demographic factors and political leanings have amplified this phenomenon. The widespread belief in conspiracies presents a unique threat to the military, potentially undermining national security and operational integrity. Understanding why individuals are drawn to conspiracy theories and how the military can address this issue is crucial for safeguarding the future of American defense.

The Psychological Appeal of Conspiracy Theories

Conspiracy theories are often rooted in emotional, psychological, and social factors, appealing to those who feel alienated, distrustful, or marginalized. According to research, conspiracy theories offer simplified explanations for complex events and fulfill psychological needs like the desire for control, certainty, and security.¹ They often frame events in a "good versus evil" narrative, attributing malevolent intent to unseen forces.²

One primary reason people fall for conspiracy theories is motivated reasoning, which tends to favor information that supports pre-existing beliefs while rejecting evidence that contradicts them.³ This cognitive bias allows individuals to maintain their worldview even when faced with disconfirming evidence.⁴

US investigates whether TSMC has really cut ties with Huawei

Jeff Pao

The United States Commerce Department has reportedly started an investigation into whether Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has violated US export rules to make chips for the sanctioned Huawei Technologies.

The Commerce Department contacted TSMC to ask whether it is directly or indirectly supplying Huawei with smartphone and artificial intelligence (AI) chips, The Information reported on Friday.

A key focus of the investigation is the Kirin 9000S chips found inside Huawei’s Mate60 smartphones, which were launched in late August 2023 during US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s China trip. The question is whether these chips were made by TSMC, and whether they were shipped after a 2020 deadline for halting shipments to Huawei.

Democracy in the Crosshairs Five Key Trends Driving Foreign Interference in Democracies

Vassilis Ntousas & David Salvo

Introduction

Combating foreign interference in democracies, once a fringe policy issue on both sides of the Atlantic, has become one of the key policy and societal challenges of our time. It was not long ago when this set of issues would be buried in official communiqués in sections labeled “hybrid threats” and walled off to be studied by specialists in nascent institutions, if not virtually ignored, across the transatlantic space.

Russia’s comprehensive interference operation in the 2016 US presidential election changed that calculus, as did high-profile interference cases targeting European countries in the subsequent years. Since that time, adversaries have grown in numbers, appetite, and sophistication, launching increasingly disruptive campaigns that take direct aim at the democratic fabric of the transatlantic community. In response, most national governments and multilateral institutions like the EU and NATO have ramped up their attempts to defend against and respond to foreign interference.

Yet the threat of foreign interference has evolved rapidly, in some cases outpacing efforts to address it. This is not just due to slow or sclerotic bureaucracies having to adapt quickly—and, unfortunately, not always successfully—to the challenge at hand. Foreign interference threats have targeted all sectors of democratic society and aggressively exploited technological innovations to make their offensives more complex and far more demanding to tackle in real time for governments, private industry, and civil society alike.

This is how a Russian disinformation campaign starts.

Brandy Zadrozny

The fake whistleblower videos started popping up last fall, the work of a small but prolific Russian group that researchers call Storm-1516.

Much remains unknown about Storm-1516 — one prong of Russia’s propaganda operation — but it has produced some of the country’s most far-reaching and influential disinformation.

The Storm-1516 campaigns rely on faked primary sources — audio, video, photos, documents — presented as evidence of the claims’ veracity. They are then laundered through international news sources and influencers to reach their ultimate target: a mainstream Western audience.

At least 50 false narratives have been launched this way since last fall, according to a count NBC News assembled with researchers. The narratives aim to diminish Western support for military aid in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, a contentious issue in Congress. The videos also back the re-election of Donald Trump, who has pledged to halt military aid to Ukraine, while painting the former president as a victim of a “deep state.” And they attack Vice President Kamala Harris.

Selling Out Ukraine Casts Shame on the West

Max Hastings

Ukraine will soon be sold out. If that statement sounds too brutal and conclusive, consider the evidence: The Russians occupy one-fifth of its territory, and the Ukrainians’ best efforts have failed to expel these invaders. Vladimir Putin’s army is acquiring ever-more sophisticated weapons, while the Ukrainians struggle to sustain their own forces.

More serious, European nations facing economic and energy woes are desperate to see an end to the struggle on any terms short of Ukraine’s absolute surrender. If Donald Trump wins the US election, it is widely assumed that, given his declared enthusiasm for Putin, the Ukrainians are toast. Even if Kamala Harris reaches the White House, it is likely she will pursue a deal to end the war because Washington sees no scenario for Ukrainian victory, despite the dispatch of $175 billion in US aid.

US investigating leak of classified documents on Israel’s attack plans: Reports

Aude van den Hove

A leak of two classified U.S. intelligence documents assessing Israel’s plans to attack Iran is being investigated by officials in Washington, according to media reports.

The documents, which are marked top secret, appeared on a Telegram channel on Friday, according to the reports by the New York Times, CNN and others. The documents, dated Oct. 15 and 16, describe satellite images of Israeli preparations for a potential military strike on Iran, according to the reports.

U.S. officials have not commented publicly on the documents.

The documents are attributed to the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, the reports say.

The investigation by U.S. officials will assess who had access to the documents, and whether it was an intentional leak or if they were hacked, according to the reports.

One of the documents says the Israeli air force is continuing to prepare for a strike on Iran, and conducted “a second large-force employment exercise,” according to the reports. The air force is “likely to practice air-to-air refueling and combat search and rescue operations with a large number of aircraft,” the reports cite the document as saying.

Is Southern Lebanon the Next Gaza?

Anchal Vohra

Flattened villages, burned fields, homes pockmarked with bullet fire, and smoke billowing out of freshly bombed infrastructure: Southern Lebanon is beginning to look like war-torn Gaza.

In Lebanon, as in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military has been unleashed without any coherent strategic vision or clear war aim. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu first said that the goal was to push out Hezbollah beyond the Litani River in the hopes of enabling more than 80,000 Israelis to return to northern Israel. But in the following weeks, he unveiled a more sweeping goal, as he threatened the Lebanese people to either oust Hezbollah or face levels of “destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza.”

It’s not clear whether Israel will make good on that threat of rendering southern Lebanon a second Gaza. But to some extent, Netanyahu has already shown that he is willing to try—or at least, to make it seem as if he is.

According to Emily Tripp, the director of Airwars—a United Kingdom-based conflict monitor—southern Lebanon has undergone the world’s “most intense” aerial bombing campaign of the past 20 years, aside from Gaza. On Sept. 23 alone, to cite just one date, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it used 2,000 munitions on 1,500 targets.

How the Biden Team Plans to Build Peace From Sinwar’s Death - Opinion

Thomas L. Friedman

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the death of the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. It creates the possibility not only of ending the Gaza war, returning Israeli hostages and bringing relief to the people of Gaza. It creates the possibility for the biggest step toward a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians since Oslo, as well as normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia — which means pretty much the entire Muslim world.

It’s that big.

But, but, but.

The death of Sinwar alone is not the sufficient condition to end this Gaza war and put Israelis and Palestinians on a pathway to a better future. Yes, Sinwar and Hamas always rejected a two-state solution and were committed to the violent destruction of the Jewish state. No one paid a bigger price for that than the Palestinians of Gaza. But while his death was necessary for a next step to be possible, it was never going to be everything.

The sufficient condition is that Israel have a leader and a governing coalition ready to step up to the opportunity Sinwar’s death has created. To put it bluntly, can Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel live up to his Churchillian self-image and go along with something that he has previously rejected? That is the participation of a reformed West Bank Palestinian Authority in an international peacekeeping force that would take over Gaza in the place of the Sinwar-led Hamas.

Banning Books Isn’t Just Morally Wrong. It’s Also Unhealthy

Dr. Sayantani DasGupta

When I was in practice as a pediatrician, I wrote daily prescriptions for reading. I had an actual notepad to help me prescribe books to families of young infants and toddlers. On that pad, I would write things like "read to your baby for 20 minutes," and along with that prescription I'd give that family an age- and language-appropriate book to read together. I did this because I knew, as pediatricians and family practitioners who continue this practice across the country know, that stories are good medicine.

Reading aloud, or being read to, bonds families together—it promotes attachment. Children who are read to produce and understand language better and become better readers later in life. Reading to young children can also help them develop attention, deal with difficult emotions, and control behavior like aggression. But more than that, books help build young people's imagination—in fact, they help build radical imagination. Think about it: in children's and YA fiction, mice talk and fight with swords, little girls have big red dogs as best friends, witches and wizards fly on brooms, and young people overthrow corrupt and unjust governments through grit and wit and a belief in themselves and each other. So in a sense, children's and YA fiction are roadmaps to the future, they are blueprints for tomorrow, because it is in their pages that young people get the tools and the imaginative practice to envision what they want their world to look like.

Widening The War: The US Sends Troops To Israel – OpEd

Binoy Kampmark

The dangers should be plastered on every wall in every office occupied by a military and political advisor. Israel’s attempt to reshape the Middle East, far from giving it enduring security, will merely serve to make it more vulnerable and unstable than ever. In that mix and mess will be its greatest sponsor and guardian, the United States, a giant of almost blind antiquity in all matters concerning the Jewish state.

In a measure that should have garnered bold headlines, the Biden administration has announced the deployment of some 100 US soldiers to Israel who will be responsible for operating the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. They are being sent to a conflict that resembles a train travelling at high speed, with no risk of stopping. As Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant promised in the aftermath of Iran’s October 1 missile assault on his country, “Our strike will be powerful, precise, and above all – surprising.” It would be of such a nature that “They will not understand what happened and how it happened.”

In an October 16 meeting between the Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Gallant, the deployment of a mobile THAAD battery was seen “as an operational example of the United States’ ironclad support to the defense of Israel.” Largely meaningless bits of advice were offered to Gallant: that Israel “continue taking steps to address the dire humanitarian situation” and take “all necessary measures to ensure the safety and security” of UN peacekeepers operating in Lebanon’s south.

Revolutionizing Military Wargaming with Artificial Intelligence: The Future of Defense Strategy

Jeremiah Monk

Introduction

As the nature of warfare continues to evolve, military strategists are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to transform how defense organizations plan and execute military operations. AI-driven military wargaming is poised to revolutionize strategic decision-making by addressing the growing complexities of modern warfare, including multi-domain operations (MDO) and rapidly advancing technologies like cyber warfare and autonomous systems. By enhancing the adaptability, speed, and scope of military simulations, AI is reshaping how defense organizations prepare for future conflicts.

The Limitations of Traditional Military Wargaming

For decades, military wargaming has relied on linear, pre-scripted models driven by human expertise. These conventional wargames, influenced by the Jominian school of thought, are structured around predefined scenarios with a limited set of actions and outcomes. Antoine-Henri Jomini's military theories emphasized geometric precision and decisive points, but this linear approach often overlooks the unpredictability of modern warfare.

In contrast, Carl von Clausewitz, the famed Prussian military theorist, highlighted the chaotic nature of war, introducing the concept of "friction"—the unexpected events that disrupt even the best-laid plans. Traditional wargames struggle to account for this chaos and are limited in their ability to simulate real-world conditions where factors like cyberattacks, misinformation, and geopolitical tensions play critical roles. AI seeks to address these limitations by providing a more dynamic, data-driven approach to wargaming.

Microsoft: Daily Cyberattacks Surge to 600 Million

Ashish Khaitan

Microsoft has revealed that its customers are subjected to over 600 million cybercriminals and nation-state cyberattacks daily. These threats encompass a broad spectrum of malicious activities, from ransomware and phishing to identity theft.

The recent findings in the fifth annual Microsoft Digital Defense Report highlight a troubling trend: nation-state actors are collaborating with cybercriminals, utilizing their tools and methods for various cyber operations, including espionage and influence campaigns.

The Rise of Nation-State Cyberattacks

Between July 2023 and June 2024, the report highlights how state-affiliated threat actors are leveraging cybercriminal networks for their own objectives. This collaboration is particularly evident in operations targeting Ukraine, where Russian actors have reportedly outsourced cyberespionage efforts to criminal groups. In June 2024, a cybercrime syndicate used widely available malware to infiltrate at least 50 Ukrainian military devices, showcasing the direct impact of nation-state cyberattacks on military security.

Making The Most Of EU Catch-All Control On Cyber-Surveillance Exports – Analysis

Dr Mark Bromley and Giovanna Maletta

In 2021 the European Union (EU) adopted a new iteration of the EU Dual-use Regulation, which sets common standards for EU member states’ controls on exports of dual-use items. Among other new features, Regulation (EU) 2021/821 introduces a new ‘catch-all control’ for cyber-surveillance items. This requires exporters to seek approval for exports of cyber-surveillance items when they become aware that the items are likely to be used in connection with human rights violations, even if those items are not specifically covered by existing export controls. It therefore gives EU member states the power to control such transfers.

Although the proliferation and misuse of spyware and other cyber-surveillance tools are growing concerns, the use of the new catch-all control has been limited to date. One likely reason is that exporters appear to be unclear about how to apply it. This week, the EU published a new set of guidelines intended to help exporters to comply with the catch-all control. This backgrounder examines the catch-all control and the new guidelines, highlighting their main features and limitations. It also suggests steps that could be taken by the newly elected European Parliament and others to improve the guidelines and support consistent, effective application of both the new catch-all control and restrictions on the trade in cyber-surveillance items more broadly.

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