Rosneft, Reliance agree biggest ever India-Russia oil supply deal, sources say

Nidhi Verma

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Russia's state oil firm Rosneft (ROSN.MM), opens new tab has agreed to supply nearly 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude to Indian private refiner Reliance (RELI.NS), opens new tab in the biggest ever energy deal between the two countries, three sources familiar with the deal said.

The 10-year agreement amounts to 0.5% of global supply and is worth roughly $13 billion a year at today's prices. It would further cement energy relations between India and Russia, which is under heavy Western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine.

India Will Carve Its Own Path

Manjari Chatterjee Miller

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For more than a decade, the United States’ Asia policy has been consumed with one issue: the rise of China. President Joe Biden’s views did not fully align with those of President Barack Obama, and both men had many differences with Donald Trump. But all three fretted about what China, as a great power, might do to its region and to the world. They have, accordingly, oriented Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy around partnerships and policies that can constrain Beijing.

But China is not the only rising power in Asia. The continent is also home to India: another nuclear-armed country with a huge population, army, and economy. And like China, India has a regional reputation for hegemonic behavior. Yet the United States hardly considers the possibility that India might pose a challenge of its own. Instead, American officials have reached out to India as a partner and encouraged its rise, hoping New Delhi will amass enough power to counterbalance Beijing. They seem to want India to become a regional power, perhaps even something akin to a “third pole” in the global order.

American officials should consider a more complex strategy. New Delhi is a valuable partner in many domains, including the competition with Beijing. But India is notoriously intransigent in world politics. Its behavior on the global stage sometimes worries even those countries that want or need to develop friendly relations with it. Should India acquire the heft to become, as U.S. officials hope, a true counterbalance to China, it will likely also consider itself a counterbalance to the United States. In short, a tripolar world, with India as the third pole, will not strengthen Washington’s or Beijing’s hand. Instead, it will produce a more unstable global dynamic.

Interim Afghan Government’s Intransigence Towards Pakistan On The TTP Question – OpEd

Dr. Hamza Khan

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Since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, Pakistan has seen a significant increase in terrorist activities, primarily driven by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) operating from Afghan soil. Despite longstanding historical, cultural, and religious ties between the two nations, the Interim Afghan Government has taken a complex and seemingly contradictory approach towards Pakistan. This stance is particularly puzzling given significant diplomatic, political and economic dividends available for the bilateral relations, which offer more strategic benefits to Afghanistan than to Pakistan itself.

Ideally, both the nations should have enhanced their bilateral relations by leaps and bounds since 2021. Unfortunately, that has not materialized so far. A primary factor driving the resurgence of violence in Pakistan is the safe havens of TTP (declared as Khawarij by Pakistan) within Afghanistan. These sanctuaries not only allow the TTP to operate with relative impunity but also serve as logistical and operational bases from which the group plan and execute attacks across the border. Terrorist sanctuaries inside Afghanistan have been affirmed by UNSC committee on Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team; highlighting that that Al-Qaeda, ISIK, TTP, and ETIM are growing in Afghanistan. These reports have further emphasized that TTP operates with support of elements within TTA inside Afghanistan. These are alarming developments and raises alarm bell for the international community. This also creates doubts on the credibility of Taliban Regime regarding fulfillment of its commitments, made in the Doha Accord.

Ukraine Caught In The Middle As US-China Trade Hostilities Target Drones – Analysis

Reid Standish

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Escalating trade hostilities between China and the United States are putting drone supplies critical to Ukraine’s war effort in the crosshairs.

U.S. media reports suggest Chinese manufacturers are limiting the sale of vital drone components to companies in the United States and the European Union that supply the parts to Ukraine.

The Chinese restrictions could hinder Ukraine on the battlefield, where drones have played a pivotal role. Kyiv’s arsenal of cheap but effective drones is used for reconnaissance, dropping explosives on targets, and defending against Russian attacks.

Beijing’s move is seen as a response to Washington’s decision in December to restrict the sale of high-bandwidth memory chips and additional semiconductor equipment to China. In reaction, Beijing has already banned the sale of dual-use items to the American military and several materials with high-tech and military applications to U.S. companies.

But cutting supplies to drone components that form a key part of Ukraine’s war effort against Russia marks a new element of the escalating trade tensions.

How China Hopes To Kickstart Its Flagging Economy – Analysis

Kitty Wang

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China has announced it will loosen its monetary policy to boost the economy, in a move that echoes steps taken in 2009 in the wake of the financial crisis.

The People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, will use a slew of different policy tools to boost the money supply — a move often criticized as “printing money” — including government debt and changes to interest rates and the amount of reserves it requires banks to hold.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party’s Politburo announced the move on Tuesday following a top-level economic meeting on Monday, state news agency Xinhua reported.

“After more than 10 years, the monetary policy orientation has been changed to ‘moderately loose’ again … sending a positive signal that will effectively boost the confidence of all parties and help China’s economy recover and improve,” it quoted the meeting as saying.

It said “moderately loose” means a “reasonable money supply, low interest rates, and a relatively loose monetary and credit environment” to boost investment and consumption.

Top U.S. Cybersecurity Official: China Attacks on American Infrastructure ‘Tip of the Iceberg

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A top U.S. cybersecurity official said Wednesday that as she prepares to leave office, China-backed attacks on American infrastructure pose the gravest cyber threat to the country. And she believes they will get worse.

Jen Easterly, the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, called recent Chinese cyber intrusions the “tip of the iceberg,” and warned of dire consequences for U.S. critical infrastructure in the event of a U.S.-China conflict.

“This is a world where a war in Asia could see very real impacts to the lives of Americans across our nation, with attacks against pipelines, against water facilities, against transportation nodes, against communications, all to induce societal panic,” Easterly said during the Winter Summit of the Cyber Initiatives Group Wednesday.

Cyber attacks have increasingly targeted U.S. critical infrastructure — whether the attackers are seeking ransomware or aiming to do damage at the behest of America’s adversaries.

Hackers tied to Iran, Russia and particularly China have been accused recently of seeking to breach cyber defenses in the transportation, communications and water sectors — for a variety of reasons and with a range of success. And as experts often tell us, these elements of the nation’s critical infrastructure are only as safe as the weakest links in a complicated system that sits primarily in private sector hands.

US Sanctions Member of China's Cyber Hacker Army

Micah McCartney

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AChinese national has been indicted and a cybersecurity company has been sanctioned over their alleged involvement in a state-affiliated hacking ring that targeted networks worldwide.

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana has issued an arrest warrant for Guan Tianfeng, 30, charging him with conspiracy to commit computer fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Guan is accused of working with co-conspirators to exploit vulnerabilities in firewalls sold by U.K.-based security software and hardware company Sophos.

According to the indictment, Guan helped develop and test malware that exploited a zero-day vulnerability—a flaw unknown to developers or security teams, making it vulnerable to immediate attack. The group allegedly disguised their activity by registering domains designed to look like they belonged to Sophos.

Sophos detected the breach and patched the affected firewalls within two days, prompting the hackers to modify their malware so any attempt to remove it would trigger ransomware, which locks users out of their systems until a ransom is paid.

While the ransomware encryption failed, the Justice Department noted "the conspirators' disregard for the harm that they would cause to victims."

Why is China targeting Nvidia? (And why is the AI giant so important?)

Joel Mathis

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China just escalated its so-called "chip war" with the United States: Beijing is launching an antitrust investigation of Nvidia, the American chipmaker whose products are powering the AI revolution.

The new investigation "may be seen as a retaliation" against recent U.S. moves to limit the sale of AI technology to China, said Axios. China has a "long history" of using antitrust investigations to retaliate against American regulations. One wrinkle: The U.S. government is "also reportedly investigating Nvidia" for possible antitrust violations, Axios said.

Still, the China investigation is being regarded as a "major escalation" of the chip war, said CNN. Both China and the United States see "AI dominance" as "crucial for national security." (The chips are crucial in "artificial intelligence, cyber warfare, military equipment" and other warfighting applications, said The Wall Street Journal.) Nvidia, meanwhile, is "the face of the AI tech revolution." Undermining the company could "harm the American company's ambitions" to continue its worldwide dominance of AI chipmaking. The two countries were already engaged in a series of tit-for-tat restrictions of chips and chip-making materials, CNN said. "The Nvidia investigation ups the ante."

Interview with Andrea Kendall-Taylor

Octavian Manea

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Octavian Manea: The center of gravity of the “axis of upheaval” is really about the Russia-China strategic partnership. How should we understand today the strategic relationship between China and Russia? Is it temporary or long term? Is it something contingent on the personalities of the two leaders of each nation? What brings and keeps the two countries together?

Dr Kendall-Taylor: The Russia-China relationship is something that has been deepening for quite some time, but was accelerated by Russia’s invasions of Ukraine, both in 2014 as well as the full-scale invasion in 2022. We did see Russia-China relations warming in the waning days of the Cold War. But that first invasion of Ukraine in 2014 was a really important accelerant of their partnership because Russia realized it did not have viable options in the West. In that context, Moscow pivoted and turned much more eagerly towards deepening relations with Beijing.

The two countries are united in their shared desire to weaken the United States and US power and to revise the international order that Russia and China both believe disadvantages them. It remains very much a top-down relationship. Putin and Xi have very close personal ties. I think they are the two leaders who have spent the most time together out of any other pair of international leaders. But it is increasingly an institutionalized relationship. We are seeing more and more that there are working groups within government at lower levels in the bureaucracy. It is this kind of repeated interaction that creates the foundation for a durable and lasting partnership.

Why Armies Crumble

Stuart A. Reid

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By 2017, after six years of civil war, Bashar al-Assad’s Syria had settled into a new normal. It wasn’t the placid, pre-Arab Spring normal the Assad family had enjoyed ever since cracking down on an Islamist insurgency in the 1980s, but it was something. With help from Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah—and, in a strange way, the United States, which was attacking ISIS—Assad’s forces had succeeded in beating back the rebels. As the years went on, his regime came to control roughly two-thirds of Syria.

Secure in power, Assad started traveling abroad, visiting Moscow, Beijing, Abu Dhabi, and Tehran. Everyone seemed to begrudgingly accept that the brutal strongman was here to stay, with “normalization” the watchword not only among Middle Eastern diplomats but also even some Western ones. In September, after a thirteen-year diplomatic freeze, Italy appointed its first ambassador to Syria.

But then, on Saturday, after a ten-day-long surprise offensive by the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, that stability vanished. The Syrian Arab Army melted away, with soldiers abandoning their posts and stripping off their uniforms. The rebels took Damascus without a fight, and Assad was spirited away to Moscow. Even the opposition was surprised by how easy it all was.

How To Secure Syria’s Weapons Of Mass Destruction – Analysis

Can Kasapoğlu

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The Ongoing Threat from Assad’s Weapons of Mass Destruction

This weekend, a joint offensive of various armed opposition groups toppled the dictatorship of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad, ending his clan’s 53-year rule. But while the Assad regime is gone, its WMD program remains an urgent problem for the international community.

Assad, who is believed to have fled to Russia, leaves a legacy marked by the pursuit and use of WMDs. In 2013, when Syria joined the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and agreed to disarm its chemical weapons program, the Assad regime reportedly declared 1,300 tons of chemical warfare agents and precursors and 1,230 unfilled WMD-delivery munitions across 41 facilities at 23 different locations. But declassified Cold War–era data and recent military intelligence assessments suggest that Syria’s chemical warfare efforts run even deeper than those figures suggest.

Just last week, Izumi Nakamitsu, the United Nations under secretary general and high representative for disarmament affairs, warned the UN Security Council that unresolved issues surrounding Syria’s elimination of its chemical weapons program are “extremely worrying.” In its 2023 special report, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) also noted that the Assad regime may possess undeclared stockpiles of chemical weapons.

Planning A Post-Assad Syria

Alexander Langlois

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Over a shocking week, the brutal regime of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has collapsed in Syria after nearly fourteen years of civil war. Yet while the fall of the Damascus government certainly marks a generational flashpoint for the region—the likes of which will reshape West Asia in unpredictable and likely unprecedented ways—the crisis itself is far from over.

Indeed, as Syria enters a new phase, international actors should cast aside geopolitical rivalries and grand visions of micromanaged state-building and let the Syrian people lead the way. The country’s revitalization should be a Syrian-owned, Syrian-led effort rather than an extension of the unhelpful policies that have prolonged the fighting.

The Fall of the Lion

Assad fled Damascus for political asylum in Moscow as opposition forces reached the gates of the city from the north and south, and every governorate erupted into a state of revolt. His flight decisively ended one of the oldest authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and North Africa—an outcome most analysts believed was completely out of the picture mere weeks ago.

Israel pulls itself together; Iran’s axis falls apart

David Horovitz

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One hundred hostages are still held in Gaza. Tens of thousands of Israelis are only just beginning to hope that stability has been restored to the north. Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis are still capable of launching rockets and drones. Soldiers are still losing their lives in Gaza and in south Lebanon.

But 14 months after Hamas invaded, on the worst day in modern Israeli history, it is the Iranian “Axis of Resistance” that is falling apart, and the State of Israel that is pulling itself together.

After the unfathomable failure to defend against Hamas’s overt preparations for invasion and slaughter in the south, and a subsequent slow and protracted military campaign in Gaza, Israeli intel, ground and air forces over the past three months devastated Hezbollah — Hamas’s far more powerful terrorist army across the northern border — and in so doing rendered Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria vulnerable to a jihadist overthrow.

This would not have happened if Netanyahu had been prepared to end the war in Gaza in order to secure a deal for the hostages. It could have happened earlier if the Gaza war had been less ponderous and the IDF had been freed up more quickly to effectively tackle Hezbollah.

Syrians Figure Out What's Next, but Foreign Powers Aren't Waiting | Opinion

Daniel R. DePetris

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Four days after the fall of the Assad dynasty in Syria, the foreign powers that have carved the Arab-majority country up into competing fiefdoms are still trying to come to terms with a dizzying situation. The Syrian people are in the same boat. While nobody is mourning the fall of Bashar al-Assad—even Iran, Assad's most prolific backer, was getting tired of his intransigence—there are fears about what a post-Assad Syria might have in store.

Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), is saying all the right things. Instead of dismissing Assad regime bureaucrats wholesale, he's ordering them back to work. Syria's minority communities are being reassured that they have nothing to fear. Conscripted Syrian soldiers have been granted amnesty, both to maintain security in Syria's major cities and to nip any potential armed opposition in the bud.

At the same time, it's lost on no one that Jolani still has a $10 million FBI bounty on his head. HTS, which ruled Idlib with an iron fist, remains designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States and United Nations. Although the Biden administration is debating whether to de-list HTS, U.S. officials are also cognizant that Jolani's words of inclusiveness don't mean anything until they're backed up by action.

The Key Players to Know to Understand What’s Happening in Syria

Chad de Guzman

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Few saw it coming. The sudden and dramatic fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria came on Sunday after over a decade of brutal conflict.

“It took 12 days for the Syrian regime to collapse after 13 years of war,” Timour Azhari, the Iraq bureau chief at Reuters, wrote on X.

The Assad family had ruled Syria for over half a century that was marked by atrocities, mass incarceration against regime critics, and other grave human rights violations.

Rebel fighters declared Damascus liberated on Sunday and Assad fled to Russia. Many Syrians are jubilant about the news and hopeful about the country’s future. But there are deep concerns about what lies ahead after years of conflict that has left at least 500,000 dead and displaced almost 7 million within the country and sent millions more seeking refuge abroad.

It’s a complex situation, with numerous factions on the ground and several foreign actors involved. To better understand what’s happening, here’s a brief background on the key players.

The Assad regime

Assad, the longtime President of Syria and commander of the Syrian Armed Forces, is a trained ophthalmologist who succeeded his father Hafez in an unopposed election after the elder’s death in 2000.

Biden Takes Credit for Syria Regime Change He Tried to Prevent

Daniel Greenfield

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There are lots of mostly bad things that President Joe Biden can justly take credit for, but the fall of Syria is not one of them. The only real reason this happened is because Israel threw off the shackles and decided to go after Hezbollah after a year of terror. And Biden did everything to prevent that.

At the very end, he used an arms embargo to force Israel into a fake "ceasefire" with Hezbollah. But by then Israel had done enough damage to Hezbollah that Turkey's Jihadists were able to just roll into Syria, and Iran decided to sell them out and pull back.

But now Biden is trying to take credit.

Biden delivered a mumbling teleprompter speech that looked like an Arab Spring leftover, calling it "a moment of historic opportunity for the long-suffering people of Syria to build a better future for their proud country," and promised that "the United States will work with our partners and the stakeholders in Syria to help them seize an opportunity to manage the risk."

Israel’s Wars Repeat The 1980s On Steroids – Analysis

James M. Dorsey

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Appalled by Israel’s carpet bombing of Beirut during the 1982 Lebanon war, United States President Ronald Reagan didn’t mince words with then-Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin.

“I was angry. I told him it had to stop, or our entire future relationship was endangered. I used the word holocaust deliberately & said the symbol of his war was becoming a picture of a 7-month-old baby with its arms blown off,” Reagan noted in his diary.

The August 1982 phone call between Reagan and Begin provides a template for the US’s ability to twist Israel’s arm and the limits of the Western giant’s influence.

Begin wasted no time in halting his saturation bombing of the Lebanese capital in response to Reagan’s threat. Yet, he rejected the president’s demand that he allow an international force to enter Beirut to protect the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees in the Israeli-besieged city. His refusal had dire consequences.

A month later, at least 800 Palestinians, many of them women and children, were massacred in their homes in Sabra and Shatila in West Beirut by Lebanese Christian gunmen under the watchful eyes of the Israeli military. Public outrage in Israel forced Begin to resign, ending his career.

How France’s political crisis threatens military expenditures

Laura Kayali

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The collapse of the French government is undermining the country’s defense plans as the military budget won’t increase until the political crisis is resolved.

On Wednesday, the Council of Ministers adopted a so-called special law that allows France to continue the 2024 budget into 2025 — a tool designed to avoid a U.S.-style government shutdown. The text will go through parliament but lawmakers cannot amend it.

That means a €3.3 billion defense spending boost that was part of a seven-year military planning law is off the cards for now. It also imposes a freeze of sorts on the armed forces ministry, which will not be able to hire new people or launch new programs until a proper 2025 budget is approved by parliament.

“The military is worried, and that’s normal, everyone is in a bit of a wait-and-see mode,” Hélène Conway-Mouret, a Socialist senator who co-drafted a report on France’s 2025 defense budget, told POLITICO.

“We need to make sure the political consensus that emerged in 2024 to increase defense spending continues,” she said, adding that “even with the €3.3 billion boost, the seven-year military planning law is not ambitious enough.”

How Trump Can End the War in Ukraine

Michael McFaul

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At a CNN town hall in May 2023, Donald Trump promised that if elected, he would end the war in Ukraine in a single day. That bullish pledge has now become a familiar refrain, with the president-elect insisting that he uniquely has the nous to bring Russia and Ukraine to the table and force a truce. His imminent return to the White House has stirred a great deal of speculation on both sides of the Atlantic about the prospects for a peace deal. Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, Kyiv and its backers have been wary of signaling an interest in negotiations, fearful that doing so would be seen as weakness. Trump’s reelection now gives Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky greater freedom to engage in talks: he can argue that he has no choice. In late November, in an interview with Sky News, he suggested that he was indeed ready to negotiate.

Conditions on the ground, however, are not conducive to a deal. Wars usually end in two ways: one side wins, or there is a stalemate. In Ukraine, neither side seems near victory, but the war has not yet ground to a standstill. Russian President Vladimir Putin thinks he is winning. If Trump threatens to cut aid to Ukraine, Putin will be even more emboldened to keep fighting, not end his invasion; advancing armies rarely stop fighting when their opponent is about to become weaker. If Putin senses that Trump and his new team are trying to appease the Kremlin, he will become more aggressive, not less.

The Eight Great Powers of 2025

Robert Farley

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Since the emergence of the modern nation-state and the slow, steady disappearance of its competitors, questions of influence and primacy have preoccupied international politics. Much of modern international relations theory (mostly in the Realist school but also in its competitors) focuses on how great powers structure and manage the international political environment for their security, prosperity, and advantage.

This has naturally produced a great deal of discussion of what precisely constitutes “great power status.” Most agree that economic heft and dynamism should count, as should social and political influence, political stability, and, of course, raw military power.

Ranked: The Eight Great Powers of 2025

Here, I offer one account of the state of the world’s great powers at the close of 2024. Emphasis on different characteristics of power might result in a different list, although it would be hard to argue that most of these countries deserve some position near the top.

Israel’s tech paradox: Despite war, tech exits surge 78%, led by cyber and AI deals

Sharon Wrobel

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This year Israel has been facing one of the longest and most intense wars in its history, levels of geopolitical uncertainty have been off the charts, and yet the local tech market for “exits” — mergers and acquisitions or initial public offerings of shares – is on track for one of the best years over the past decade.

The value of Israeli tech exits, including M&As and IPOs, this year jumped 78 percent to $13.4 billion, up from $7.5 billion in 2023, according to the 2024 exit report by consultants PwC Israel released on Wednesday. Despite the large increase in the value of transactions, there was a modest increase in the number of deals executed this year – 53 compared to 45 transactions completed in 2023.

From the outset, the data looks encouraging, but a closer look shows that almost half of the transactions were middle-of-the-road deals, in the $100 to 500 million range, involving more established startups and companies mostly developing cybersecurity and artificial intelligence technologies. Overall, average deal size surged by 51%, to $252 million compared to $167 million in the previous year.

“Against the backdrop of the war and amid internal and global challenges, the Israeli high-tech industry demonstrates recovery signs in 2024, showing significant upward trends in both average deal size and total transaction values,” said Yaron Weizenbluth, partner at PwC Israel. “However, it’s important to note that alongside this growth, the market remains characterized by unprecedented levels of uncertainty this year.”

Trump’s and Biden’s Advisers Had the Same Problem: a Stubborn Candidate

Philip Elliott

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At times, the conversation sounded an awful lot like hostages recounting their monthslong trauma. Their opinions were unlikely to be heeded, and rarely solicited. There was little they could do to change the conditions, so they made the best of the moment. It sounded like a day-by-day strategy of survival, one borne of necessity and endured with unenviable grit.

The people recounting their months of powerless standing were the very top aides to the current President, and his predecessor, who is soon to also be his successor. And, with an unnerving consistency, it sounded at times as if they were all completely overtaken by two aged nominees who had zero interest in hearing from the very operatives tasked with running their billion-dollar campaigns. These were some of the sharpest taskmasters in the business who seemed sidelined by circumstance. It was in many ways the distillation of a campaign cycle that left even the most plugged-in politico feeling deflated.

Listening this month at Harvard to the top aides to these two temperamentally distinct Presidents recount their experiences —part of the Kennedy School of Government’s tradition of oral histories for those in the rooms where decisions are made—it struck me: maybe these two insular, self-confident men are in some ways mirrored images of each other. That professed confidence in each’s own instincts and indifference to most dissident opinions is how both led the country and made some pretty colossal missteps. Another trait they may also share? A deep insecurity that masks itself with action.

Donald Trump 2024 TIME Person of the Year

Eric Cortellessa

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Mar-a-Lago was quiet three days before Thanksgiving. Donald Trump’s Moorish palace seemed all but deserted late that morning, the seaside estate’s cavernous living room traversed intermittently by a junior staffer or silent aide. Totems to Trump were displayed everywhere. Framed magazines with him on the cover hung by the front door. On a table near the fireplace sat a cast-bronze eagle awarded him by the singer Lee Greenwood. In the men’s lavatory, a picture of him with Arnold Palmer hung near the urinals. Adorning a wall in the library bar, a painting titled The Visionary depicted Trump in a tennis sweater, trim and youthful. The empty rooms felt less like a millionaire members’ club than a museum.

By midafternoon, the President-elect’s imminent arrival had stirred signs of life. Discreetly placed speakers offered up selections from Trump’s personally curated 2,000-song playlist. A handful of transition honchos and soon-to-be Administration officials arrived, perching on overstuffed sofas and huddling in corners. Incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles conferred with Trump’s designated National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz. Vice President–elect J.D. Vance strode in with a retinue of staffers. An aide posted up near a window overlooking the patio, setting down Trump’s personal cell phone, which lit up occasionally with calls and texts from favored media personalities and Cabinet picks. You could sense Trump before you could see him, the small group of senior aides rising to their feet in anticipation.

Wargaming the Future of Climate Change

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Bryan Rooney needed some way to convey the enormous risks and uncertainties of climate change. His audience was military: planners and leaders trying to anticipate how dangerous the world will be 20 years from now. His choice was clear. He went with a card game.

Rooney is part of a legacy at RAND that reaches back almost to its founding. He designs and directs wargames. Military leaders have used games like his to think through everything from nuclear escalation to pandemic disease to the dangers of artificial intelligence. Players in these games might face any number of calamities with every turn—but, until recently, climate change was not one of them.

That has changed. The Pentagon has freed up millions of dollars to better incorporate climate change into its wargames. Researchers at RAND now routinely work climate disasters into their game scenarios, from rising sea levels that put bases underwater to blistering heat waves that make it dangerous to operate outside. The card game that Rooney developed shows just how serious games can be for communicating the science of climate change.

“People sometimes think climate change is going to progress in a natural order,” Rooney said. “That's not right. It's going to be different levels of bad, in different places, at different times. That is going to have real social, political, and military impacts. If you don't have climate-informed games, then you're not really understanding the physical environment. And you're going to miss a lot of what's coming.”

The Pentagon must build weapons differently to mobilize for the information age - Opinion

Bryan Clark and Dan Patt

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The Pentagon’s depleted weapons magazines don’t look like those of a military preparing to fight China in two years. Facing shortages for training and future contingencies, Washington has constrained weapons shipments to Ukraine. At home, industry is unable to keep up with demand and the changes needed to counter GPS jamming. But the uncomfortable truth is this—today’s scarcity is self-imposed.

With their custom components and bespoke integration, the DoD’s preferred munitions are more like the artisan products featured on Etsy than the mass-produced weapons that came off assembly lines during World War II.

The Arsenal of Democracy turned auto plants into aircraft and bomb factories by designing—or redesigning—military hardware for producibility. To prepare for protracted conflict, the DoD needs to think like a manufacturer and pursue weapons that leverage existing parts and elastic production facilities.