Air Pollution Is Choking South Asia

Bibek Bhandari

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The Hindu festival of Diwali is traditionally a time for families to get together, but for the past seven years, Vamika Grover, 32, has fled her home in Delhi as firecrackers send the city’s air quality spiraling into hazardous levels. Even a week later, she returns home to the lingering taste and smell of acrid air.

“I’ve been feeling a sense of breathlessness these past few years, and I would feel my lungs would have to do a lot of heavy lifting,” said Grover, a Hodgkin lymphoma cancer survivor. “Before, I felt the firecrackers during Diwali worsened the air quality, but it’s polluted throughout the year now, and it’s creating health issues for everyone.”

Despite the Thaw, Anti-Indian Sentiment Is on the Rise in China

Zhenlin Cui

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After nearly five years of tension, China-India relations have improved, with increased interactions between the two sides in 2025. As a gesture of goodwill, the Chinese government lifted visa restrictions on Indian citizens in March and eased visa rules, which have facilitated Indian citizens’ visits to China.

However, this has sparked a huge uproar on Chinese social media. Videos depicting Indian tourists in a negative light – such as eating with their hands on the subway and bathing in tourist attractions in China – were posted on social media and triggered a barrage of criticism and even racist remarks targeting Indians. Some comments even advocated that China should refuse entry to all Indian travelers and expel all Indians living in China.

This anti-Indian sentiment quickly became extreme, making it difficult to find calm and neutral comments among the thousands of posts under the videos.

This sentiment can be attributed to widespread stereotypes about Indians. On social media platforms like Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok), Indians are often portrayed as unhygienic and morally deficient. Furthermore, reports of a surge in Indian immigrants “occupying” countries like Canada and Australia – despite being untrue – have led Chinese netizens to believe that China is a potential target for Indian emigration.

China’s Chip War Strategy Is Fixed. Here’s Why America’s Should Be, Too

Jianli Yang

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China’s chip strategy is focused on self-reliance. The United States should reconsider its decision to allow Nvidia to export H200 chips and instead enact a total export ban.

US President Donald Trump’s recent announcement to permit Nvidia to export its high-end H200 chips to China has triggered another round of heated debate on its implications for national security as well as overall strategies of competing and winning the artificial intelligence (AI) race with China. The controversy is familiar and almost ritualistic. Supporters warn that restricting exports undermines American firms and accelerates China’s domestic substitution; critics argue that any relaxation strengthens China’s AI capabilities and erodes US technological leadership.

Yet what is striking about the debate is not its intensity, but its dated premises. The core assumption on both sides—that US export controls can meaningfully shape China’s strategic trajectory—has become increasingly detached from reality. The H200 decision matters at the margin, but the larger direction of China’s policy no longer hinges on whether Washington tightens or loosens restrictions. The debate persists, but the strategic ground beneath it has shifted.

China Is Feeling Strong and Senses an American Retreat

Li Yuan 

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When the world’s tallest bridge opened in China’s Guizhou Province in September, a state-run political talk show filmed an episode from its summit to showcase what it called “the remarkable story of China’s path to modernization.”

A Canadian influencer on the panel marveled, “You have projects like this the West could only dream of.”

CNN and NBC broadcast segments of their own about the bridge, which stands roughly 200 stories above a river. So did Matt Walsh, a right-wing commentator. “Why aren’t we building stuff like this any more?” he asked on his show on YouTube. He lamented that America had “lost the will and desire to do great things.”

It would be a mistake to brush off the story of the Guizhou bridge as simply a victory of Chinese propaganda. The reactions to the bridge point to something deeper than admiration for Chinese infrastructure: a widening imbalance between the self-images of the world’s two largest powers.

China’s Long Economic War

Zongyuan Zoe Liu

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For much of the past year, China’s response to trade tensions has continually surprised hawks in Washington. In December 2024, when the Biden administration imposed new export restrictions on advanced chips, Beijing immediately answered by banning exports of several metallic elements to the United States. In April 2025, after the Trump administration threatened huge tariffs on China, Beijing dug in, imposing strict export controls on seven rare-earth minerals vital to defense and clean energy manufacturing. In May, China stopped buying U.S. soybeans, the largest U.S. export to China by value. And in October, after the United States extended existing export restrictions on Chinese companies to all of their majority-owned subsidiaries, China added five more rare earths and a broad array of advanced processing technologies to its own export controls. These increasingly bold measures not only posed a major threat to U.S. and global supply chains but would also have significant domestic consequences. The message was unmistakable: China is prepared to absorb pain to put real pressure on the United States.

If the approach was bold, however, it was not reckless. By opting for calibrated retaliation, Beijing preserved negotiating space and kept off-ramps open. After U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met in South Korea in late October, China agreed to postpone many of the restrictions. Yet calibration should not be mistaken for weakness. Alongside its announced moves, China has developed a potent arsenal of nontariff barriers and legal instruments that it can draw on when needed. Discarding the strategic restraint that had previously characterized its approach to the United States, China has shown it is ready to weaponize its supply chain dominance.

Russia’s Chinese-Enabled Drone Supply Network Is Remaking Warfare

Anton Ponomarenko

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In almost four years of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it has become evident that Moscow’s technological alliances have reshaped not only the future of the battlefield but also the foundations of international security. The threats no longer lie in the number of tanks or missiles that a given army has. As the war in Ukraine has shown, technological advances in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and advanced radar jamming technologies have allowed for asymmetric application of such technologies, often rendering classical concepts of deterrence, defense, and security architecture obsolete.

At the center of this shift stands a China-enabled drone supply network that is rapidly transforming Russia’s capacity for sustained, cost-effective, and scalable warfare. What makes this transformation strategically dangerous for the United States and its allies is not only what it means for Ukraine today but what it signals for future conflicts across NATO’s eastern flank and the Asia-Pacific.

Chinese-supplied components in Shahed-type and now Geran drones enable longer-range, more cost-effective, and precise strikes. The result is an increasing asymmetric threat to the European continent and beyond. Even more alarming are reverse technological transfers to Moscow’s other Asian allies, such as North Korea, which has been rumored to receive both technology and manufacturing training for the Shahed/Geran drones.

Southeast Asia Can’t Hedge on the US-China Rivalry Forever

David A. Merkel

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The political and economic formula that once ensured Southeast Asia’s stability and prosperity between the United States and China is breaking down.

For more than two decades, the nations of Southeast Asia have perfected the art of “hedging.” The 11 nations of the region cultivated China as an indispensable economic partner while relying on the United States as their ultimate security guarantor. This balancing act has allowed them to extract dividends from both relationships: Chinese trade and investment for prosperity and the American military presence for stability.

But as US-China competition hardens into a strategic rivalry, that equilibrium is fraying. The space between Washington and Beijing, once wide enough for ASEAN states to maneuver, is narrowing fast. Hedging bets is getting harder, and the consequences of leaning too far to either side are growing sharper.

Beijing’s maritime assertiveness and its use of economic leverage are forcing governments to clarify where they stand. At the same time, Washington presses partners to deepen security cooperation under its Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy.

How to Build Ukraine’s Military Edge Against Russia

Maksym Skrypchenko

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In 2022, a new gadget could survive a season before the enemy adapted. By mid-2025, that cycle shrank to a period of weeks. The side that innovates fastest and produces at the lowest cost holds the advantage. Forces that wait years for perfect systems find them outdated when they finally arrive on the frontlines.

Ukraine now faces a dual task. It must produce affordable weapons at scale today and build a lasting qualitative edge for the years ahead. Both are essential for survival and for long-term deterrence.

Drones dominate the front. Swarms of reconnaissance and strike systems have turned large parts of the line into kill zones where movement is perilous. Fiber-optic-guided drones, largely immune to jamming, reach far behind enemy lines. Analysts estimate that small drones account for most of Russia’s visually confirmed equipment losses. Traditional air defenses, built around expensive missiles, struggle to keep pace with this pace and volume. The cost curve favors whoever can build, adapt, and replace quickly.

Europe’s Taiwan Dilemma: Lessons from a Tabletop Exercise

Tomasz Szatkowski, Octavian Manea, Luis Simón and Giulia Tercovich

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This CSDS In-Depth Paper presents findings from a CSDS tabletop exercise conducted in November 2025, examining European decision-making during a simulated Taiwan Strait crisis compounded by Russian coercion in Europe. Unlike most Taiwan-focused exercises, the simulation centred on Europe’s strategic constraints: limited military capacity, economic exposure to China, institutional fragmentation and reliance on US extended deterrence. Across three phases (2028–2029), the exercise demonstrated that a Taiwan contingency rapidly becomes a two-front dilemma for Europe, as US forces prioritise the Indo-Pacific while Europe must deter Russian opportunism. The exercise revealed a dynamic of progressive European entanglement, shifting from initial caution to structural involvement through industrial mobilisation, logistics, sanctions and sustainment. Its central insight is that Europe’s primary contribution to a Taiwan war lies not in expeditionary combat power, but in contributing to the industrial and logistical supply lines of a US-led coalition, binding the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific theatres into an interdependent strategic system.

This CSDS In-Depth Paper is part of a broader “Taiwan Strait Update” series focusing on European perspectives on Taiwan and China’s strategic adjustment in Europe.

Handbook on the role of non-state actors in Russian hybrid threats

Eginhards Volāns, Vladimir Rauta, Magda Long, Andis Kudors, Agata Kleczkowska, Eliza Lockhart

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Russia’s employment of non-state actors is a staple of its approach to hybrid threat operations, whether through attacks on German military and industrial facilities by individuals, sabotage of French rail infrastructure by loosely co-ordinated groups, disinformation campaigns run by private companies, or cyber operations by hacktivist collectives.

This handbook provides an overarching assessment of Russia’s approach to working with and through various NSAs across different operational domains, mapping both the empirical depth and breadth of the phenomenon. It establishes a much-needed baseline for understanding the logic behind Russia’s use of NSAs and lays the groundwork for determining appropriate measures and countermeasures at a time when operations below and above the threshold of war are on the rise.

Civil Affairs, AI, and the Future of Army Readiness

Maj. Justin Zwick

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U.S. Army Soldier assigned to 96th Civil Affairs Battalion (Special Operations) (Airborne) takes notes during briefing about Artificial Intelligence training during a tabletop exercise as part of Atlas Lion at Fort Bragg, N.C. Oct. 27, 2025. The Atlas Lion Table-Top Exercise is an AI supported simulation designed to validate Civil Affairs Company’s core competencies in a digital training environment, ensuring readiness for real-world operations by validating their ability to effectively support civilian populations and local governance. (U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Natalia Hernandez) (Photo Credit: Pfc. Kristina Randall) VIEW ORIGINAL

Fort Bragg, N.C. – Soldiers from the 91st Civil Affairs Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group, executed a team-level validation exercise conducted October 20 – 24 2025. This annual training event enhances unit readiness and prepares Soldiers for complex missions worldwide. Following months of individual and collective training, Civil Affairs teams validated their skills in a realistic training scenario, designed to test Soldiers’ skills in a complex and dynamic environment.

Army Special Operations Forces Civil Affairs (ARSOF CA), is a branch of Soldiers specially trained to understand and influence the civil component of the operational environment. Civil Affairs professionals serve as an integral component in providing Commanders with key information about a region’s civilian population, enabling commanders to maintain operational tempo, preserve combat power, and consolidate gains. Capable of operating within the full spectrum of operations, ARSOF CA teams integrate with key populations and organizations to best understand civil networks to support national and theater-level objectives.

Finding the Signal within the Noise: What Information Warriors Need to Know About Human Pattern Recognition.

Douglas Wilbur

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In 2022, Russian state media launched a coordinated narrative campaign portraying Ukraine’s government as “neo-Nazi” and its citizens as victims of Western manipulation. The “neo-Nazi” narrative worked unusually well because it activated deep cultural memories from Russia’s World War II mythology, where defeating fascism is central to national identity. This signal’s Russia tried to construct was simple but powerful: Russia is morally righteous, Ukraine is inherently dangerous, and military action is not just justified but necessary. Within days, thousands of automated social-media accounts began repeating the same story frame across Telegram, VKontakte, Twitter, and YouTube. The repetition created a sense of coherence that transcended evidence. Users were not persuaded by facts. They were reassured by familiar patterns, heroes, villains, and moral redemption, that felt intuitively true. Analysts at RAND later described this “firehose of falsehood” approach as a system that overwhelms critical thinking through volume and repetition rather than logic. These operations succeed because they weaponize the way human beings naturally seek order in chaos. Cognitive research shows that when people face missing or confusing information, the brain automatically fills in the blanks to create a complete picture. If part of an image, story, or message is unclear, the mind supplies the missing detail from memory or expectation to make it feel whole. This process reduces uncertainty and creates a sense of order, even when the available data are incomplete or misleading. This bias toward pattern completion makes intuitive judgments feel accurate even when they are wrong. When adversaries shape those patterns, they shape belief.

The Quantum Arms Race

Paul Schneider

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In this futuristic tale, Dr. Paul Schneider tells his daughter how the world fell under the influence of Omnes Corporation—a front for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) that secretly unlocked the first super-AI with quantum integration. Nations, eager for profit and comfort, welcomed these tools without understanding their darker side. As Omnes Corporation expanded its reach, it used quantum sensing, mind-altering energy, and digital manipulation to guide governments, media, and public opinion. A “world of peace” took shape, but it was an illusion built on control.

Meanwhile, Paul, his wife April, and a quiet circle of scientists created a hidden quantum-secure bunker—the QSCIF—designed to resist the rise of a company like Omnes. When Omnes finally launched biological and digital attacks that seized nearly all global systems, Paul and April made their last stand deep underground. In their QSCIF, they set out to activate a secret network of Electric Magnetic Pulse (EMP) satellites that had been built years earlier. In the silence after they flip the switch on the EMPs, they contemplate whether they have succeeded or failed. Has humanity lost its machines and comforts but regained its freedom? This tale of fiction with all-too-real possibilities in the latest arms race leaves room for reflection: powerful new tools can uplift societies, but when left unchecked, they can also erase what makes us human.

If War Returns to Gaza, Israel Should Try Counterinsurgency

Craig Koerner

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The long-awaited Gaza cease-fire represents great hope but has left Hamas armed, rejecting disarmament, and engaging in a low-intensity civil war which it appears to be winning. If Hamas does not agree to disarm and exit Gazan politics – something Hamas has rejected repeatedly – Israel may renew its war to eliminate Hamas. To date, Israel’s military campaign has failed to destroy Hamas; they have simply regrouped in the power vacuum left by Israel’s clearing operations. Counterinsurgency – when conducted as interminable search-and-destroy without creating any governing body in cleared areas – is guaranteed to fail; Hamas is living proof of this.

If the war resumes, the formula for eliminating Hamas and bringing peace to Gaza is found in point 17 of the 20-Point Peace Plan for Gaza: “In the event Hamas delays or rejects this proposal, the above [i.e., the first 16 points], including the scaled-up aid operation, will proceed in the terror-free areas handed over from the IDF to the ISF.” [Emphasis added.] By proposing that the International Stabilization Force (ISF) secure the cleared areas during conflict, the diplomats have reinvented the “Oil Spot” or “Ink Spot” Strategy of counterinsurgency. Given Hamas’ unpopularity both before the war and today, the inferior miliary strength of the competing factions, and above all the ISF task of governing unarmed or disarmed people in cleared areas, this strategy is likely to succeed. Under the protection of the ISF, the desired indigenous, technocratic, non-Hamas government can flourish in Gaza before Hamas disarms—voluntarily or otherwise. This is counterinsurgency.

America’s Drone Delusion

Justin Bronk

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After nearly four years of fighting, few aspects of Russia’s war in Ukraine have gained as much attention among Western militaries as the rapid expansion of drone warfare. Since 2023, both sides have deployed millions of cheap quadcopter-type drones across the battlefield. In some parts of the front, these small drones now account for up to 70 percent of battlefield casualties. Meanwhile, Russia is using thousands of Geran-2 and Geran-3 propeller-powered one-way attack drones in almost nightly long-range strikes on Ukrainian cities, and Ukraine has been using a wide array of its own one-way attack drones for regular strikes on Russian

How cryptocurrency is changing politics

Alex Kerr

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“Bitcoin has proven to be one of the best-performing assets in modern history,” said Al Jazeera. With the value of cryptocurrency increasing “some 1,000 times” over the last decade, it was only a matter of time before governments and banks wanted in.

After being launched following the 2008 global financial crisis, bitcoin was widely dismissed as a “speculative asset with no intrinsic value”. But it has been taken increasingly seriously “by governments, financial institutions and investors alike”, with far-reaching implications for politics, the economy and the way we live.

‘Big bets’

“A number of countries have made big bets” on crypto in the last few years. El Salvador holds more than “$600 million worth of bitcoin reserves”, accepting the asset “as legal tender” from 2021 to 2025.

The State and the Soldier How should the US military react to a "unprincipled principal"?

Lawrence Freedman

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Kori Schake has worked at senior levels in the US Defense and State Departments and also on the National Security Council staff. She was the senior foreign policy adviser to John McCain during this 2008 presidential election campaign.

She now leads the foreign and defence policy team at the American Enterprise Institute. With US civil-military relations at a particularly tense stage I was pleased to be able to talk to Kori about her important new book “The State and the Soldier: A History of Civil-Military Relations in the United States” published by Polity.

Fighting in the shadows

Kimberly Kagan

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The United States, still the dominant military power in the world, is immersed in a new era of warfare that it has not yet recognised as endemic and enduring. America is losing its wars to less powerful but more adaptable adversaries, while preparing inadequately for future inter-state conflicts. The international order that keeps the West prosperous and free is being rapidly undermined by a confluence of adversaries and enemies – from Russia and Iran to Isis and al-Qaeda – that share changing the world order as an interim objective, even as they differ on other long-term goals.

This new era of warfare and geopolitics has evolved rather than suddenly emerging. Discussions of the changing international order and new forms of conflict have been taking place since the Cold War. Scholars and practitioners alike have been wrestling with the ideas of failing and fragile states, the rise of non-state and sub-state actors and the emergence of hybrid warfare.

Instacart to pay $60 million to settle FTC claims it deceived shoppers

Jody Godoy

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"The FTC is focused on monitoring online delivery services to ensure that competitors are transparently competing on price and delivery terms," said Christopher Mufarrige, who leads the FTC's consumer protection work.

An Instacart spokesperson said the company flatly denies any allegations of wrongdoing, but that the settlement allows the company to focus on shoppers and retailers.

"We provide straightforward marketing, transparent pricing and fees, clear terms, easy cancellation, and generous refund policies – all in full compliance with the law and exceeding industry norms," the spokesperson said.

The shopping platform is under scrutiny over a recent study by nonprofit groups where individual shoppers simultaneously received different prices for the same items at the same stores. The FTC is investigating the company and has demanded information about Instacart's Eversight pricing tool, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

Instacart has said that retailers are responsible for setting prices, and that pricing tests run through Eversight are random and not based on user data.

Russian defense firms targeted by hackers using AI, other tactics

A.J. Vicens

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The campaign, not previously reported, is likely the work of a group tracked as either "Paper Werewolf" or GOFFEE, Fishbein said, a hacking group active since 2022 that is widely thought to be pro-Ukrainian and has focused nearly all of its efforts on Russian targets.

The hack also suggests just how aggressively Ukraine and its allies are pursuing a military advantage in the war, which has included drone attacks on defense supply chain entities in recent months. And it has come to light as delicate negotiations play out over a potential end to Russia's war in Ukraine, with Moscow threatening to take more land by force if Kyiv and its European allies do not engage with U.S. proposals for peace.

The hacking campaign targeted several Russian companies, according to suspected AI-generated decoy documents discovered by Fishbein, who is the lead author of an analysis prepared by Intezer, opens new tab.

The Russian and Ukrainian embassies in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.

Inquiry ongoing after UK government hacked, says minister

Sam Francis

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Cyber security officials have confirmed they are aiding an investigation after a minister said the UK government had been hacked. Trade Minister Sir Chris Bryant said earlier that investigations were "ongoing" after an attack in October. It is understood a Chinese affiliated group is suspected of being behind the attack. The UK government has not named who it thinks is responsible, with a spokesperson saying it has been "working to investigate" the incident.

The UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said it is "working with government partners to fully understand the impact" after Home Office systems, operated by the Foreign Office, were accessed. Speaking earlier on BBC Breakfast, Sir Chris said the security gap was "closed pretty quickly" and "we think that it is a fairly low-risk that individuals will have been compromised or affected". Speaking to Times Radio, he said: "I'm not able to say whether it is directly related to Chinese operatives, or indeed the Chinese state".

Will Trump Order an Attack on Venezuela?

Ravi Agrawal

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The United States hasn’t yet declared war on Venezuela—but it’s getting closer. This week, U.S. President Donald Trump issued a blockade on sanctioned ships in and out of Venezuela ports, a decision that led authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro to order his navy to escort other ships in the Caribbean. With a massive U.S. Navy presence nearby, it’s not difficult to imagine an unintended escalation.

What does the White House actually want in Venezuela? What could a war look like? And were Maduro to magically agree to leave the scene, what happens next? On the latest episode of FP Live, I spoke with James Story, a former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela under both the Trump and Biden administrations. Subscribers can watch the full discussion on the video box atop this page or follow the FP Live podcast. What follows here is a lightly edited transcript.

U.S. Strategists Keep Getting France’s Defeat Wrong

Alan Allport

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The United States, according to the New York Times, has a Maginot Line problem. In the first in a series of articles castigating the 21st century U.S. military for allegedly failing to adapt to modern military technology, the editorial board raises the specter of Monsieur Maginot’s infamous namesake fortification.

“It is an ancient and familiar pattern,” the editorial board laments. The French in 1940, ensconced safely—so they thought—behind their elaborate frontier wall, utterly failed, unlike the Germans, to pay attention to the new verities of armored warfare and airpower and paid the penalty in a catastrophic six-week defeat. The image of overconfident security is easy to grasp. The problem is that it has little to do with what really happened in 1940.

Alan Allport is a professor of history at Syracuse University in New York. His latest book is Advance Britannia: The Epic Story of the Second World War, 1942-1945 (Knopf, 2025).

Read More On France | History | United States | War | World War II

Will machines make strategy?

Kenneth Payne

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On the streets of San Francisco recently, Waymo’s ubiquitous autonomous cars hit a snag. By gently placing a traffic cone on a car’s bonnet, protestors discovered a way to confuse Waymo’s algorithm, stranding its cars in the middle of the street.

It was a beautiful illustration of a more general problem. Intelligent machines, as we know them now, are brilliant in structured worlds, where there is a clearly defined problem to solve, such as playing chess or working out the shortest route on a satnav. They are also increasingly adept at complex control problems, such as those facing robotic surgeons, or machines that speedily handle packages in warehouses. Navigating unpredictable human minds, on the other hand, is much harder.

That is a problem in all sorts of fields where enthusiasts hope that AI might bring gains – like healthcare or education. Understanding minds matters here, too, just as it does in warfare. Today, AI drones can find targets and drop bombs as though a game of Space Invaders had been transposed into the real world. These, though, are merely tactical control problems – ethically unsettling, certainly, but basically computable. The larger challenge in war is to think strategically about aims and ways – both our own and those of our adversaries. To date that has been much too difficult for AI.

The cyberwarfare landscape is changing — here’s how to prepare

Tom Marlow,

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To date, damaging cyberattacks have largely focused on financial gain or network access, resulting in major business impacts and some disruption to daily life, rather than life-threatening consequences.

Even incidents like the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, which showed us how the cyber world and our physical lives intersect, stopped far short of societal disruption. Recovery was relatively quick once Colonial Pipeline paid its ransom.

However, the threat of cyberwar has been building, influenced by advancements in AI and increased presence of actors in U.S. systems and telecommunication networks. A military conflict could escalate these attacks to scale, crippling critical infrastructure and public safety systems like power grids, transportation networks and emergency response, even disrupting military communications and undermining response.

When used as cyberwarfare, attackers are unlikely to offer an option to pay a ransom and resume normal operations without gaining a strategic advantage. And even more alarming—the barrier to entry is low and getting lower as AI allows cybercriminals to scale.

In Search of a China Strategy

Ryan Fedasiuk

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The world exhaled when President Trump and Xi Jinping struck their tactical détente in South Korea in October, slashing tariffs, pausing restrictions on exports, and reopening diplomatic channels. For the sixth time in as many months, Washington and Beijing both claimed victory, markets rallied, and pundits lauded efforts to “stabilize” the relationship.

Yet no amount of diplomatic choreography can substitute for an answer to the most essential question: What does the United States want from China?

It is the defining question of 21st-century geopolitics. Every other alliance, market, and security calculus orbits around it. The Biden administration maintained that US-China competition “is simply not going to resolve in a neat and decisive end state.” Trump has offered no clearer answer, oscillating between provocation and accommodation as different factions within his administration temporarily seize the reins of American foreign policy.

Friends are stepping up for Taiwan. Its opposition is signalling retreat

Thijs Stegeman

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As Japan weathers pressure from China after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said last month that an attack on Taiwan would constitute a ‘survival-threatening situation’, Taiwan’s own opposition parties risk undermining that support.

Two weeks after Takaichi’s comments, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te proposed a T$1.25 trillion (US$40 billion), eight-year supplemental package that would raise defence spending to 3.3 percent of GDP. The money would accelerate the military’s transition towards a porcupine force centred on small, mobile and easily hidden equipment.

Yet opposition lawmakers blocked the plan. Cheng Li-wun, who was elected leader of Taiwan’s largest opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), in October, dismissed the proposal as ‘too high and too fast’.

This is despite the plan leaving out the large, expensive equipment that the opposition has long said would provoke China. The KMT had previously pledged to support higher defence spending.

History Shows How India Can Catch Up With China

Kishore Mahbubani

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If the 19th century was defined by European power, and the 20th century by the rise of the US, the 21st century is increasingly understood to be the “Asian Century” — one in which the global enter of gravity is shifting yet again. And if you accept that assertion, the next logical question is: Who will lead the Asian Century? The two natural candidates are the region’s historical powers, China and India, which were the world’s largest economies from 1 A.D. to 1820, before the rise of the industrial west. They are once again among the planet’s preeminent economies.

By most measures, China is currently outperforming India. Its $18.5 trillion GDP is more than four times larger than India’s, and it accounted for $6.64 trillion in global trade in 2023 — 11% of the global share, to India’s 2.7% ($1.64 trillion). Its military is mightier, and it has greater influence in international affairs. In 2013, China launched the Belt and Road Initiative, an attempt to revive the ancient web of trade routes, known as the Silk Road, that connected the Middle Kingdom to all parts west.

The Arab Spring’s Painful Lessons

Alexander Langlois

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The Arab Spring carries multiple meanings for the many millions of people across the Middle East and North Africa, let alone the world. The widespread calls for civil liberties and democracy across the region certainly were divisive, with some defining the uprisings as imperialist plots while others viewed them as a long-anticipated moment for freedom fighters and democrats who had long suffered under some of the most autocratic rulers of the 20th century. But what did this moment of national and regional upheaval truly mean for the region, its autocrats, and the people stuck under their boots, and what does that mean for the future?

On December 17, 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi’s act of self-immolation in protest against the brutal Tunisian regime of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali unknowingly kicked off the region’s largest democracy wave since decolonization. Within a series of months, protests spread against autocratic regimes in Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, and Syria, shocking a world long accustomed to and benefitting from repression in that part of the world. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak regime, for example, was long viewed as a bulwark against the Arab street and the forces of Arab and Islamic nationalism that, for many in the West, posed a threat to their regional interestsnamely energy flows, Israeli security, and fighting violent extremism.

China’s AI has hacked the West

 keysby Geoffrey Cain

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The future that science fiction writers once warned about — autonomous systems deployed against the U.S. — arrived overnight. China has proven it can use artificial intelligence to hack into American companies and government agencies with the machine almost entirely in charge.

In November, Anthropic disrupted a Chinese espionage campaign. The difference this time: It used AI with little human oversight for 80 to 90 percent of the hacking. The 30 targets included technology corporations, banks, chemical companies and government agencies across multiple countries.

Anthropic called it “the first documented case of a cyberattack largely executed without human intervention at scale.” The AI stole credentials and siphoned data faster than any team of human hackers could.

This is the bill coming due. The West handed China the advantage, and now we will suffer.

1st Air-To-Air Kill For Russian Interceptor Drone? Analyzing If Geran-2 Really Shot Down Ukraine’s Mi-24 Chopper

Vijainder K Thakur

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A Russian Geran-2 drone may have scored its first air-to-air kill; however, the supporting evidence is largely circumstantial so far.

A Ukrainian Mi-24 helicopter from the 12th Separate Army Aviation Brigade was lost in combat on December 17, 2025.

The specific location or area of operation has not been publicly disclosed. However, in recent months, Ukrainian combat helicopters have not been operating near the front, so the loss cannot be attributed to a ground-launched missile.

In fact, Ukrainian combat helicopters have been largely co-opted for counter-drone operations, making it more likely that the loss occurred during such operations.

Official Ukrainian sources admit the downing as a combat loss. While it is possible that the helicopter was brought down by a Geran-2 drone, either by ramming or by an air-to-air missile, other possibilities include controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) while positioning for an attack on a drone.

Russia Transitions to Nuclear Intimidation

Arseny Sivitsky and Alexander Taranov

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On November 5, during a special session of the Russian Security Council, Defense Minister Andrei Belousov justified preparations for potential nuclear tests, citing Moscow’s view that U.S. actions undermine strategic stability. The Kremlin emphasizes the need to maintain the ability to inflict “unacceptable damage” on adversaries under any conditions (President of Russia, November 5). Russian intelligence and military officials argue that uncertainty over U.S. intentions—reinforced by statements on potential U.S. nuclear tests—necessitates readiness for nuclear testing at Novaya Zemlyato preserve credible deterrence. The Kremlin blames the U.S. withdrawal from arms control agreements, the modernization of nuclear forces—Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), Columbia-class SSBNs, B-21 Raider bombers, Trident II missiles—the expansion of missile defenses, and the development of intermediate-range systems, such as the hypersonic “Dark Eagle,” planned for deployment in Europe. Regular U.S. strategic exercises reportedly include preemptive nuclear strike scenarios. Combined with forward deployment of tactical nuclear weapons and strategic offensive systems in Belarus and doctrinal revisions lowering the nuclear-use threshold, preparations for nuclear testing indicate Russia’s transition to offensive nuclear deterrence or nuclear intimidation.

The Gaza War: The Lament of the Foreign Journalists and Why Hamas Suddenly Wants Them There

Bassam Tawil

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Foreign journalists in Israel are upset. Israel has prevented them from entering the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war, which began with the Hamas-led invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023. A spokesman for the Foreign Press Association in Israel recently urged authorities to "lift restrictions without delay, allowing all journalists to work securely and without fear or hesitation" in the Gaza Strip.

Before the war, the journalists now complaining that Israel is not allowing them to enter Gaza were able to visit there anytime they liked.

Mostly, however, the foreign journalists chose not to go there. Perhaps they did not think they could come back with an "interesting story," meaning one that could criticize Israel. Reminder: Israel fully withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

Trump’s approach to Venezuela repeats the mistakes of the past

Austin Sarat

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Donald Trump seems determined to have a military confrontation with Venezuela. He has deployed a massive military arsenal in and around the Caribbean Sea and taken a series of provocative actions off the Venezuelan coast, justifying it as necessary to stem the flow of drugs into the United States.

The Council on Foreign Relations says that deployment includes an “aircraft carrier, destroyers, cruisers, amphibious assault ships, and a special forces support ship. A variety of aircraft have also been active in the region, including bombers, fighters, drones, patrol planes, and support aircraft.” This is the largest display of American military might in the western hemisphere since we invaded Panama in 1989.

The president has refused to rule out a ground invasion of Venezuela. But so far, the administration has used its military assets to target boats allegedly carrying drugs, sought to close Venezuelan airspace, and, on 10 December, seized an oil tanker. How the seizure of an oil tanker helps stem the flow of drugs into the US is not obvious.

America Can’t Escape the Multipolar Order

Emma Ashford

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In the last decade, American foreign policymakers have been forced to reckon with a shifting global balance of power. Theorists have long argued over the shape of international order. But such questions now occupy practitioners, as well, as they grapple with the end of the unipolar moment that followed the Cold War and struggle to shape new strategies that account for new geopolitical realities.

Emma Ashford is a leading proponent of a more restrained U.S. foreign policy. In an essay for Foreign Affairs, as well as in her new book First Among Equals, she argues that American policymakers must, above all, get comfortable with the fact of a multipolar world. “Instead of artificially cleaving the world in two,” she writes, “the United States should choose to embrace multipolarity and craft strategy accordingly.”

US National Security Strategy: Africa Debuts as a Global Player

Cherkaoui Roudani

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Without doubt, the publication of the 2025 US National Security Strategy signals more than a policy shift; it marks a profound reorientation in Washington’s doctrine of power for the twenty-first century. Security is no longer understood through the lens of military predominance alone. It is increasingly defined by the ability to govern strategic flows, from logistics corridors, and maritime chokepoints to critical minerals, digital infrastructures, and resilient industrial ecosystems. The grammar of power has therefore changed, moving from territorial control to the mastery of circulation.

This new understanding reflects a contemporary reading of Hamiltonian industrialism, which roots national strength in productive capacity and infrastructural depth, and it draws inspiration from a renewed Monroe logic that insists on the stabilization of one’s strategic environment against disruptive external pressures. In this emerging doctrinal landscape, the international system is shaped less by physical expansion than by the sovereignty of value chains and the connective architectures that sustain them. Within this transformed horizon, Africa no longer appears as a peripheral frontier. It assumes the position of an essential center of gravity in global geoeconomics and a decisive arena where the future balance of power will be organized.

The Sydney Hanukkah Attack Didn’t Come out of Nowhere

Aviva Klompas

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It was inevitable. The warning signs were unmistakable. The Jewish families who gathered at Bondi Beach in Sydney to celebrate Hanukkah were targeted for doing exactly what the holiday represents: showing up openly as Jews.

To be clear, they were not caught in a geopolitical dispute. This was not the result of a policy disagreement or a misunderstanding about Israel. It was the endpoint of a worldview that denies Jewish legitimacy, strips Jews of moral standing and treats Jewish presence itself as provocation.

Members of the public lay flowers at a memorial at Bondi Pavilion in the wake of a mass shooting at Bondi Beach, on December 15, 2025 in Sydney, Austr...Read More

The attack was also not sudden or inexplicable. It was the foreseeable result of a sustained failure to take antisemitism seriously before it turned lethal.

For years, Jewish communities in Australia and across the West warned that antisemitism was no longer confined to the fringes. They pointed to rhetoric calling for “intifada” and “resistance,” to protests outside synagogues, to vandalism and arson, to harassment of Jewish students on campus and to marches through Jewish neighborhoods. These were not isolated incidents, but a pattern of escalation.

Ghost Busters: Options for Breaking Russia’s Shadow Fleet

Benjamin Jensen and Jose M. Macias III

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Victory in Ukraine will prove elusive without finding ways to counter Russia’s use of illicit maritime trade to sustain its war economy. That is, Ukraine and its Western backers need to resurrect the idea of commerce raiding and broad-based economic war to bust the ghost fleet and impose costs on Putin’s war machine. In the twenty-first century, states can conduct commerce raiding without ever firing a shot, effectively using open-source intelligence to support diplomacy, lawfare, and sanctions designed to attack a rival state’s economy. By finding ways to aggregate open-source data, the United States can support broader international efforts to restrict Russian illicit maritime trade.

Ghost Ships: How Putin Finances His War

Since sanctions limited oil exports in late 2022, Russia has purchased an illicit fleet estimated to range from 155 tankers and 435 total vessels, when support ships are included, to as high as 591 ships. This shadow fleet—or ghost fleet, as it is colloquially known—transports an estimated 3.7 million barrels per day, representing 65 percent of Russia’s seaborne oil trade, and generates an estimated $87 to $100 billion in revenue per year. To put that in perspective, revenue from this illicit trade network has matched, if not exceeded, the total value of economic and military assistance provided to Ukraine since the start of the war.

Why Taiwan’s Status Can’t Stay “Undetermined”

Paul Heer

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The recent escalation of tensions between Japan and China has revived and intensified a perennial debate on the international legal status of Taiwan. Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi drew a vociferous response from Beijing when she said publicly in early November that a Chinese use of force against Taiwan could be deemed “a situation that threatens Japan’s survival,” implying that it might lead to Japanese military intervention.

The Chinese have since demanded that she retract her statements, insisting that the Taiwan issue is an internal Chinese affair in which no foreign country can interfere, and that Takaichi has violated prior Japanese acceptance of the idea that Taiwan is part of China. Chinese president Xi Jinping, in a subsequent conversation with President Donald Trump—no doubt aimed at getting Trump to press Takaichi to retreat—stated that “Taiwan’s return to China [after the defeat of Japan in World War II] is an integral part of the post-war international order.”

The Russia-North Korea Alliance Might Be Destined to Fade

Robert E. Kelly

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Key Points and Summary – Russia’s reliance on North Korea is one of the clearest side-stories of the Ukraine war—and it will matter as President Donald Trump pushes for an endgame.

-Facing high artillery burn rates and political limits on mass mobilization, Vladimir Putin needed ammunition and manpower without risking backlash at home.

North Korea Soldiers. Image Credit: KCNA/North Korean State Media.

-Kim Jong Un could supply both, selling shells and exporting soldiers for hard currency.

-In return, Pyongyang likely sought food, banking access to blunt sanctions, and discreet help improving missile testing, guidance, and re-entry.

-Yet this partnership looks transactional rather than durable and may fade as the war’s pressure eases for both sides.

Washington Is Betting on Syria Again

Islomkhon Gafarov & Jamoliddin Rozimurodov

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On December 5, the White House released the new US National Security Strategy, which marked a serious shift in Washington’s foreign policy priorities and principles. One of the key principles declared in the document is the concept of “flexible realism.” According to this approach, the United States intends to pursue a more pragmatic policy, abandoning the previous practice of forcibly imposing democracy and ideological projects.

The strategy explicitly states the intention to support constructive relations with various countries “without imposing on them democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions and histories.” Basically, Washington acknowledges the civilizational diversity of the modern world and signals its willingness to accept countries as they are, even if their political system or values differ from Western standards. This shift signifies a rejection of the neoconservative approach of past decades, when the spread of democracy was regarded as a justification for intervention. Now the strategy places US national interests and stability at the forefront, proclaiming a “predisposition to non-intervention” in the internal affairs of other countries.

Trump’s Gaza peace plan is ambition without strategy

Leon Hadar

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President Trump’s twenty-point Gaza peace plan deserves credit for what it has achieved: halting active hostilities after two devastating years of war and securing the return of hostages. These are not trivial accomplishments.

But as Washington prepares to move the agreement into its second phase, we must ask whether this represents genuine strategic realism or merely another exercise in Middle Eastern magical thinking.

The plan’s architecture is comprehensive on paper—immediate ceasefire, demilitarization of Gaza, deployment of an international stabilization force, transitional governance by Palestinian technocrats, large-scale reconstruction and a conditional pathway toward Palestinian statehood.

It checks all the boxes that peace plans are supposed to check. The problem is that checking boxes is not the same as having a coherent strategy for implementation.

US sees Europe as a continent that opposes everything they hold dear

Henry Olsen

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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently declared that the “Pax Americana” in which the United States guaranteed European security is over. He’s right, but he’s wrong to declare that it’s possible for Europe to defend its own interests because there is no European political entity capable of doing so.

The “Pax Americana” that Merz rightly says will not return arose for two reasons: America’s economic dominance and a combination of shared interests and values between it and the rest of the world. Neither fact still applies.

America once stood alone at the top of global GDP table. In 1960, for example, its GDP was as large as the next seven nations combined. This supremacy lasted throughout the Cold War. Even as late as 1980, the US -produced more than or roughly as much as the next two nations combined even on a PPP basis.

A New Kind of War Has Come for NATO—And Russia Has the Upper Hand

Tom O'Connor

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While peace in Ukraine remains an elusive prospect, signs of progress from the White House's diplomatic initiatives already have officials discussing what a postwar security landscape may look like when the guns quiet in Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II.

Far from ushering in a new era of stability and calm, however, the next chapter for the continent is likely to be dominated by a new kind of battle already taking place on several unconventional fronts, from unmarked drones and hard-to-trace cyberattacks piercing through NATO defensive lines to rising popularity of political parties sympathetic to Moscow, driven in part by discontent over mass migration, some of it emanating from the border with Belarus.

In each case, European leaders have identified a concerted campaign by Russia and its allies to pressure the trans-Atlantic bloc from within. Yet experts with ties to NATO and the European Union also argue that, in each theater of the emerging bout, NATO's collective defense, rooted in Article 5, has demonstrated major vulnerabilities that may only incentivize rather than deter enemy action.

Silicon Valley Wants Disaster Bunkers. Norway Wants ‘Preparedness Friends.’

Elisabeth Braw

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These days, we’re all worried about various crises, from a collapsing climate to the fear of an emergent Skynet. In the United States, tech billionaires have concluded that building bunkers and saving themselves is the way to go. In Norway, by contrast, the government is encouraging people to make “preparedness friends.” Would you rather face war, climate disaster, intelligent robots in an underground fortress, or be supported by fellow human beings? Plan accordingly.

The United States has a long tradition of doomsday preppers, usually right-wingers who believe the apocalypse is around the corner and that only those with a sufficient supply of guns, gold, and canned food will survive. During the Cold War, the fear was of nuclear war. Today, many American billionaires have convinced themselves that artificial general intelligence (AGI) is around the corner and that humanity might not survive.

Germany Loves to Hate Friedrich Merz

John Kampfner

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Watching Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, and Friedrich Merz in London on another mercy mission to shore up Ukraine from the pincer attack of Moscow and Washington, it was intriguing to watch their body language for answers to the following question: Between the British prime minister, French president, and German chancellor, which one is in the gravest danger? Or, to put it another way: Whose country is in a worse state?

Many Germans have no doubt—Merz has been in office for seven months, but the “Berlin bubble” wrote him off long ago. Indeed, almost nobody that I talk to has ever had a good word to say about him and are delighted that their dismissiveness has become self-fulfilling. Here, after all, was a man who initially couldn’t even get the endorsement of parliament that had previously been considered a foregone conclusion.

U.S. Strategists Keep Getting France’s Defeat Wrong

Alan Allport

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The United States, according to the New York Times, has a Maginot Line problem. In the first in a series of articles castigating the 21st century U.S. military for allegedly failing to adapt to modern military technology, the editorial board raises the specter of Monsieur Maginot’s infamous namesake fortification.

“It is an ancient and familiar pattern,” the editorial board laments. The French in 1940, ensconced safely—so they thought—behind their elaborate frontier wall, utterly failed, unlike the Germans, to pay attention to the new verities of armored warfare and airpower and paid the penalty in a catastrophic six-week defeat. The image of overconfident security is easy to grasp. The problem is that it has little to do with what really happened in 1940.

Trump’s AI Mineral Hunt Goes Global

Christina Lu

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In its hunt for critical minerals, the Trump administration is increasingly looking abroad to shore up supply chain security for the raw materials underpinning many of the world’s most powerful technologies.

From China to Ukraine to Greenland, key chapters of the Trump administration’s foreign policy in recent months have revolved around critical minerals—a set of 60 or so minerals that the U.S. Geological Survey has deemed essential to U.S. national and economic security. They include rare earths, 17 metallic elements that are not actually that rare but have been at the forefront of Washington’s trade war with Beijing.

Ten Pivotal Cases for Global Democracy

Thomas Carothers and McKenzie Carrier

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The Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program is a leading source of independent policy research, writing, and outreach on global democracy, conflict, and governance. It analyzes and seeks to improve international efforts to reduce democratic backsliding, mitigate conflict and violence, overcome political polarization, promote gender equality, and advance pro-democratic uses of new technologies.Learn More

During the past several years, the trajectory of global democracy has been hovering uncertainly between two paths. On one side, many countries continue to backslide. At the same time, a small but growing number appear to have started on paths of potential democratic recovery and renewal.

Looking at the world in late 2025, we see this uneasy dualism embodied in ten pivotal cases. In the first group, five democracies are facing serious new pressures, including political tremors and troubling signs of erosion. The five countries in the second group have recently experienced or are in the thick of significant anti-authoritarian or pro-democratic ferment—some of which has led to meaningful political openings, and some resulting in a political standoff between the contending sides but where opposition continues to grow against anti-democratic leadership.