Why India’s Growth Momentum Is Losing Steam

Biswajit Dhar

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India’s growth momentum seems to be losing steam.

After registering 8.2 percent growth in 2023-24, the Indian economy grew by 5.4 percent in the second quarter of the current fiscal year (July-September 2024). This was the slowest growth in six quarters, almost 3 percentage points slower than the corresponding period of the previous fiscal year.

The slowdown of the Indian economy was confirmed by the National Statistics Office (NSO) when its recently unveiled advance estimates of GDP for the 2024-25 fiscal year showed that the economy could grow by 6.4 percent, nearly 2 points slower than the previous year.

International institutions saw a slowing of the Indian economy early last year. In its assessment of global economic developments in April 2024, the IMF had predicted a drop in India’s growth rate from 7.8 percent in 2023 to 6.8 percent in 2024, and a tad down to 6.5 percent in 2025.

Although most economies would consider a growth rate above 6 percent “aspirational,” in India’s case this level of economic expansion must be considered inadequate given the present government has set the target of making the country a developed nation by 2047. Less than 7 percent growth can cast a shadow over the realization of this target.

Invitation to Visit India Eludes Nepali Prime Minister Oli

Birat Anupam

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Although it is seven months since K. P. Sharma Oli took over the reins as Nepal’s prime minister, he has yet to visit India, the country’s powerful southern neighbor. An invitation from New Delhi remains elusive.

A new government in Nepal has usually been followed by a Nepali prime ministerial visit to New Delhi in response to an Indian invitation. That has long been the tradition in India-Nepal relations. This was the case in Oli’s previous prime ministerial terms as well. He visited India early in his tenure in 2016 and 2018.

That has not happened so far, and it has triggered much speculation in Kathmandu. Many in Nepal believe that New Delhi is displeased with several of Oli’s moves in previous prime ministerial terms.

During his first term as prime minister, Oli strongly criticized the Indian blockade of 2015. In 2020, his government published a new political map of Nepal that included the disputed territories of Lipulekh, Kalapani, and Limpiyadhura, which are under Indian control at present. These are being cited as some of the visible and invisible irritants underlying India’s displeasure.

Domestically, India’s disapproval of Oli and his repeated provocations of India have boosted his Nepali nationalist credentials. It has won him support in Nepal. In the 2022 general election, although his Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) was relegated to the second position under the first-past-the-post system, it won the largest number of popular votes under the proportional representation system.

The Growing Ambitions of the Pakistani Taliban

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

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On January 16, Pakistan’s military leadership, led by Army Chief Gen. Asim Munir, held a meeting with all of the major political parties in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s provincial capital, Peshawar. While the meeting’s political undertones – most notably a meeting with the senior leadership of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) with regards to the future of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan – attracted the most media attention, security dominated the Peshawar discussion.

The Diplomat has learned that the political leadership has been informed of a forthcoming increase in the intensity of military operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, especially in the merged districts of the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). In recent months, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, have been increasing their presence in the former FATA, their old haven.

Sources have informed The Diplomat that the high-level security meeting in Peshawar also featured a critique of the army’s past policies. “The army chief acknowledged that TTP terrorists should not have been released [in 2021], and admitted that the ‘Good Taliban Bad Taliban’ policy has caused Pakistan a lot of harm,” a provincial opposition party member told The Diplomat.

Why DeepSeek Is Sparking Debates Over National Security, Just Like TikTok

Andrew R. Chow

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The fast-rising Chinese AI lab DeepSeek is sparking national security concerns in the U.S., over fears that its AI models could be used by the Chinese government to spy on American civilians, learn proprietary secrets, and wage influence campaigns. In her first press briefing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the National Security Council was "looking into" the potential security implications of DeepSeek. This comes amid news that the U.S. Navy has banned use of DeepSeek among its ranks due to “potential security and ethical concerns.”

DeepSeek, which currently tops the Apple App Store in the U.S., marks a major inflection point in the AI arms race between the U.S. and China. For the last couple years, many leading technologists and political leaders have argued that whichever country developed AI the fastest will have a huge economic and military advantage over its rivals. DeepSeek shows that China’s AI has developed much faster than many had believed, despite efforts from American policymakers to slow its progress.

However, other privacy experts argue that DeepSeek’s data collection policies are no worse than those of its American competitors—and worry that the company’s rise will be used as an excuse by those firms to call for deregulation. In this way, the rhetorical battle over the dangers of DeepSeek is playing out on similar lines as the in-limbo TikTok ban, which has deeply divided the American public.

Setting the Stage: An Overview of Chinese and Russian Interests and Influence in the Indo-Pacific

Robert E. Hamilton

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Introduction

In late September, a US HC-103J Super Hercules spotted four foreign vessels operating about 440 miles southwest of St. Lawrence Island, Alaska. Upon closer inspection, the patrol turned out to be Russian Border Guard and Chinese Coast Guard ships. While this marked the northernmost location at which the US military has spotted Chinese ships operating, the presence of the joint Chinese-Russian patrol fit an increasingly common pattern. This sighting was the third time in three months that the US has spotted either Chinese or Russian ships close to Alaska. In both 2022 and 2023, the US Navy sent assets to shadow joint Chinese-Russian naval patrols operating in the Aleutian Islands region.[1]

The Chinese and Russian navies have also been operating together near US partners and allies closer to their own shores, especially in the Indo-Pacific region. In 2021, a Chinese-Russian patrol circumnavigated Japan’s main island. China’s official description of the event claimed the flotilla was focused on “maintaining international and regional strategic stability,” while Russia’s Defense Ministry said its goal was to “maintain peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.” In an understatement that certainly masked some alarm, Japan merely characterized the patrol as “unusual.”[2] Since then, the pace of Chinese-Russian naval patrols and exercises in the region has increased, with several in 2024 alone. One of these, Ocean 2024, involved some 90,000 troops and more than 500 ships and aircraft, according to the Kremlin, and was the largest of such exercises in 30 years. Ocean 2024 came on the heels of another joint naval patrol in the northern Pacific and another set of drills in the waters off Japan.[3]

Why DeepSeek Is a Gift to the American People

Alex Rampell

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On October 4, 1957, the USSR launched Sputnik, a 184-pound satellite, into Earth’s orbit. The satellite didn’t do much—it just “beeped” over radio waves. But those beeps sounded a wake-up call for the United States.

Fearful of falling behind its Cold War strategic rival, the federal government launched an expensive crash program to spur technological development. The U.S. went from a laggard in the space race to unified, fast-moving behemoth. By 1969, we had landed men on the moon, a feat the Soviets never accomplished. And more than that: The Sputnik moment began decades of across-the-board American dominance in science and engineering.

Now comes what many are calling a new Sputnik moment: the release of DeepSeek, a low cost, high-performing Chinese-created artificial intelligence (AI) model. The analogy is a bit imprecise though—and probably understates the significance of last week’s event.

Rockets are bounded by the laws of physics and the scarcity and movement of materials—which is why we say that hardware is hard. The only constraint on software development is the human imagination. Small, far-flung teams can accomplish extraordinary things. If a rocket explodes, it takes 12 months to get the next one built. Software can instantly be replicated 7 billion times into every human’s pocket. And updated seamlessly.

The State of the South China Sea: Coercion at Sea, Slow Progress on a Code of Conduct

Carl Thayer

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Four major developments shaped the security environment in the South China Sea in 2024: (1) increased Chinese coercion against Philippine naval vessels and aircraft; (2) adoption of a new maritime defense strategy by the Philippines; (3) Vietnam’s stepped-up construction activities in the Spratly Islands; and (4) slow progress in negotiations on a Code of Conduct (COC).

Chinese Coercion

In 2024, China markedly stepped up its intimidation, harassment, and coercion against Philippine Navy, Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), and civilian vessels and aircraft operating legally in the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). China also perfected the art of surging large numbers of People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), China Coast Guard (CCG), China Maritime Militia (CMM) vessels into the West Philippine Sea (the name in the Philippines for the parts of the South China Sea within Manila’s EEZ). The highest surge totaled 207 Chinese vessels of all types on September 10, following the confrontation at Sabina Shoal discussed below.

In addition, China resorted to lawfare in passing legislation, such as the Provisions on Administrative Enforcement Procedures for Coast Guard Agencies (enacted May 15), to give it ostensible legal cover to detain foreign vessels in “waters under Chinese jurisdiction.” In November, China issued the coordinates for baselines around Huangyan Dao (the Chinese name for Scarborough Shoal) and deposited a copy with the United Nations.

DeepSeek: What We Know And What We Don’t Know

Gregory J. Moore

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Don’t take all of the claims about China’s new AI model at face value.

Following the release of DeepSeek (China’s new AI model), Wall Street experienced an unprecedented sell-off of AI-related tech stocks on Monday. This included the single largest loss by one company in one day, the nearly $600 billion lost by Nvidia, maker of the advanced chips that have spurred the race to AI supremacy of late.

The reason for the sell-offs and losses? The reigning narrative seems to be based on two things. First, DeepSeek is reported to have achieved top-ten AI model status by only spending a self-reported $6 million, much less than what is being spent by the world’s leading firms. Second, DeepSeek did it with limited access to state-of-the-art chips that its competitors have been relying on to build their own AI models.

Yet, how do we know that it took only $6 million to build DeepSeek? Chinese companies and the CCP are known for misrepresenting such numbers and for lack of transparency. Are we sure that is all they spent? Companies like Nvidia are losing value because of the statement that DeepSeak only spent $6 million to develop its model, implying that Nvidia and other leading AI development companies have been foolish, wrong-headed, or possibly even profiteering. Yet, we don’t really know how much it cost to build DeepSeek’s model.

What DeepSeek r1 Means—and What It Doesn’t

Dean W. Ball

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On Jan. 20, the Chinese AI company DeepSeek released a language model called r1, and the AI community (as measured by X, at least) has talked about little else since. The model is the first to publicly match the performance of OpenAI’s frontier “reasoning” model, o1—beating frontier labs Anthropic, Google’s DeepMind, and Meta to the punch. The model matches, or comes close to matching, o1 on benchmarks like GPQA (graduate-level science and math questions), AIME (an advanced math competition), and Codeforces (a coding competition).

What’s more, DeepSeek released the “weights” of the model (though not the data used to train it) and released a detailed technical paper showing much of the methodology needed to produce a model of this caliber—a practice of open science that has largely ceased among American frontier labs (with the notable exception of Meta). As of Jan. 26, the DeepSeek app had risen to number one on the Apple App Store’s list of most downloaded apps, just ahead of ChatGPT and far ahead of competitor apps like Gemini and Claude.

Alongside the main r1 model, DeepSeek released smaller versions (“distillations”) that can be run locally on reasonably well-configured consumer laptops (rather than in a large data center). And even for the versions of DeepSeek that run in the cloud, the cost for the largest model is 27 times lower than the cost of OpenAI’s competitor, o1.

The future of U.S.-China policy

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China is often viewed as an all-encompassing challenger to American interests and values. Such expansive framing of the China challenge often does more to conceal than clarify what interests America must prioritize. This project seeks to generate more granular analysis of what vital interests the United States must protect in specific areas of the bilateral relationship and what strategies and specific tools would be most effective for doing so. The purpose of the project is to develop actionable policy recommendations for the incoming U.S. presidential administration. In the seven months leading up to the new administration, interdisciplinary teams of experts convened in each of the following functional areas to define the specific problems or challenges that China’s actions and ambitions pose for American interests, narrow in on America’s objectives in each domain, and identify strategies and tools for protecting the objectives.

Rebalancing Trade with China Requires a More Diverse Electronics Supply Chain

Chris Miller

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As the incoming Trump administration devises its strategy to rebalance trade with China, electronics—the computers, phones, and servers that define the digital world—will be at the center. China is the largest manufacturer and assembler of electronics, while the United States is the world’s biggest designer and buyer of them. A quarter of the goods that China exports to the United States are electronics. China produces a large share— perhaps dangerously so—of the world’s electronics, exporting 63 percent of the world’s smartphones and 72 percent of computers.

Despite multiple rounds of tariffs and export controls, in recent years, China’s position has in many ways strengthened. The West has criticized Beijing’s industrial policies like Made in China 2025, but these tactics have helped China gain market share in many segments.

Export controls on advanced chips have slowed China’s progress in that sphere, but China is gaining market share and technological aptitude in nearly every other segment of the electronics supply chain. Simpler semiconductors, substrate materials, display screens, printed circuit boards (PCBs), and assembly capabilities have attracted far less attention from policymakers. Yet electronic devices from smartphones to servers require many other components beyond advanced chips to function.

China is applying the same playbook it has deployed in semiconductors—including vast, market-distorting subsidies for government-linked firms—to shift the balance of influence in these sectors too. The US and other Western countries risk becoming overdependent on China-based manufacturing for some types of electronic components.

What to Expect from Africa-China Relations in 2025

Paul Nantulya

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Africa-China relations in 2025 kicked off with a trip to the continent by China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi from January 5-11. Since 1991, China’s foreign minister has visited multiple African countries at the start of each year to mark the beginning of China’s Africa diplomatic calendar. The trip marks Wang’s 57th visit to Africa since 2013.

Wang will be visiting Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Namibia, and Nigeria. Chad plays a key role in China’s effort to secure global supply chains of critical minerals in the high-tech and clean energy sectors. Congo-Brazzaville is the incoming African co-chair of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). Namibia is China’s major maritime partner on Africa’s Atlantic seaboard, where the largest concentration of China’s port developments are located. Nigeria represents Chinese expanded engagements in the Economic Community of West African States, which will inaugurate its new Chinese-built and financed headquarters in February 2025.

The tour follows the ninth FOCAC Summit in September 2024 and reinforces policy measures announced in June at China’s regular closed-door conclave or plenum that sets policy targets. China’s medium-term plan extending to 2029 seeks to expand what it calls “major country diplomacy,” a term China uses to describe its self-perceived status as a Great Power. It also seeks to boost China’s global supply chains and complete ongoing military modernization, among other priorities. African countries are central to accomplishing these targets.

Bashar al-Assad and the Oversimplified Myth of Autocracies’ Inherent Fragility

Julian G. Waller

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Dictatorship is not going anywhere anytime soon, contrary to the hopes and dreams of policymakers in the West. Yet the shocking collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria has become the latest temptation to make analytic leaps about the impending collapse of authoritarian regimes worldwide. Indeed, the fall of the Syrian regime has sparked a new round of discussion over the stability and fragility of authoritarian regimes writ large. As Assad’s military, his coterie of repressive security forces, and its bevy of pro-regime militias melted into thin air and the dictator himself fled to Moscow, some have suggested that this course was a reminder of an ever-present “autocratic fragility.” And more importantly, that such events could quickly transpire in other wartime dictatorships—not least of all, in Russia.

As a particularly public example, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy connected the two regimes directly, rhetorically asking where Putin will “run away” to when his time came. Others have made similar claims for Iran’s imminent demise. And one CNN article stated baldly: “Assad’s fall is huge blow for Putin, highlighting fragility of his own rule.” But is that true?

The presumed pervasiveness of autocratic fragility should not be the primary takeaway from the surprising Syrian case, although it is a reasonable stretch for observers who conceive of all authoritarian regimes as one single type of polity. When autocracies collapse in succession, they sometimes do so in grand waves undergirded by shared, permissive conditions of regime delegitimation, government indecision, mass elite defection, and ideological optimism for alternatives. This gives us an understandable feeling that autocratic collapse is just around the corner for every single adversary regime in the world.

What to Know About the Passenger Jet, Army Helicopter Collision Near Washington, D.C.

Chad de Guzman and Rebecca Schneid

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A total of 67 people are presumed dead after a regional American Airlines operated by PSA Airlines, collided with an Army helicopter in midair on Wednesday night when it was about to land at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

President Donald Trump said Thursday that there are no survivors, and hundreds of responders had been deployed to the nearby Potomac River, where the crash occurred, for recovery efforts. “We are now at a point where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation,” John Donnelly, chief of D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services, said in a briefing Thursday.

In a follow-up news briefing on Friday morning, Donnelly said 42 sets of remains have been recovered so far, and the recovery team is continuing their work on recovering the rest. The commercial jet had 64 people aboard, while the Army helicopter had three people on board, District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser earlier confirmed.

The collision happened in one of the most monitored airspaces in the U.S., with its proximity to the White House, the U.S. Capitol, and other government buildings. The cause of the collision remains unknown, but the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which leads the investigation, has since recovered the commercial jet’s “black boxes”—the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder—for analysis, according to Todd Inman, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board. Inman told ABC News that the helicopter’s black box was also recovered.

The Heart of Strategic Influence: Aristotle’s Contribution to Addressing Dis-Information

Ajit Maan

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Aristotle argued that there is a sense in which poetry has greater truth value than history. He meant that while history refers to specifics, poetry refers to the nature of the topic (or, as Plato said, its Form). Where history refers to the details of a war, poetry refers to the nature of War. While history may reference the details and consequences of a particular love affair, poetry refers to the nature of Love itself. While history may trace the impacts of a major decision, poetry addresses the universal human experience of approaching a fork in the road.

History is about particular things while poetry is about the nature of particular things. Poetry speaks to larger truths. It is in the Aristotelean sense that what philosophers call the “truth value” of poetry is greater than that of history.

A correlative claim that can be made of the Aristotelean distinction is that one can claim that a history is inaccurate or false, but one cannot make a sensible similar accusation about a poem. A poem may fall flat. It may not resonate. But to claim that it is non-factual is to misunderstand the nature of poetry itself. It is to misunderstand its power.

Poetry does not strive for factual coherence; it strives to touch the deep meaning of human experience. Its target is the heart, not the mind.

Israel, Trump, and the Gaza Deal

Amos Harel

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In the days since the January 19 cease-fire in Gaza, many Israelis have found themselves in an emotional storm almost as powerful as the shock of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre. The difference, of course, is that this time the storm is driven not by sorrow and unspeakable horror but by joy and—for the first time in more than 15 months—the possibility of hope. Already, the fragile deal has come under considerable stress, and it could collapse in the weeks to come. Yet for the time being, the fighting has stopped in both Gaza and Lebanon, and hostages have begun to come home. As shown by the outpouring of reactions on social media and in the Israeli press, the vast majority of Israelis have greeted the deal as a cause for celebration—even those who opposed it for strategic or ideological reasons.

But the overwhelming response is not primarily about peace. Far more, it is about what the deal means for Israel’s embattled identity. The core issue for Israelis, which may not be fully grasped by outside observers, is that ever since the establishment of Israel in 1948, three years after the end of the Holocaust, the country has defined itself by its status as a safe haven for Jews. For more than 70 years, despite major wars and frequent challenges, it was able to maintain this foundational ideal. With the October 7 attacks, however, that status was ruptured. The belief that the army and other security agencies would always arrive in time to save Jews in distress was completely shattered. And for many Israelis, this failure persisted throughout more than 15 months of war, as the government proved unable to rescue or return a large number of the 251 hostages—Israelis and foreigners—that had been taken to Gaza.

The Components of Russia’s Undeclared War Against the West

Oleksandr V Danylyuk

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At the end of the third year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Western politicians are increasingly expressing their opinion on certain conditions for its conclusion. This is undoubtedly facilitated by the election of US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly promised that he will stop the war immediately after taking office. At the same time, the Russian side is increasingly emphasising that it sees no prerequisites even for a ceasefire, and continues to increase the size of its Armed Forces and weapons production. In addition, the number and audacity of Russian operations carried out against Western countries themselves is increasing. All these indicators point to the intensification of Russian efforts not only to militarily seize Ukraine, but also to destabilise and capture the West. Western leaders are stubbornly trying not to notice this, to some extent imitating the behaviour of their Ukrainian colleagues on the eve of the Russian invasion. However, an analysis of Russia’s intentions and investments in acquiring the capabilities necessary to overthrow the West leaves no room for disagreement. Russia is waging an undeclared war against the West and is enjoying significant success in this war.

US sending Patriot missiles from Israel to Ukraine, Axios reports

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The United States transferred some 90 Patriot air defense interceptors from Israel to Poland this week to then deliver them to Ukraine, Axios reported on Tuesday, citing three sources with knowledge of the operation.

"We have seen the reports but have nothing to provide at this time," a Pentagon spokesperson said in response to the report.

A spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office confirmed to Axios that a Patriot system had been returned to the U.S., adding "it is not known to us whether it was delivered to Ukraine."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday he had spoken with Netanyahu. They discussed the Middle East, bilateral ties and U.S. President Donald Trump, who took office last week, Zelenskiy said on social media. The post made no mention of the missiles.

Yi Fuxian Says More…

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For decades, mainstream analysts unanimously predicted that China’s economy would surpass that of the United States. The Economist projected in 2010 that this would happen in 2019. Goldman Sachs forecast in 2011 that this point would be reached in 2026. The Centre for Economics and Business Research, a British think tank, predicted that 2028 would be the year. Chinese government economist Justin Yifu Lin was even bolder, arguing in 2011 that, by 2030, China’s economy would be twice the size of America’s.

The Chinese authorities were initially wary of economists’ rosy projections, but began to embrace them in 2014, touting China’s institutional advantage. In 2016, the government added “culture” to its “confidence doctrine,” which already included the “path,” “theory,” and “system” of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” But these “four confidences” – and the lofty projections of mainstream analysts – neglected a crucial factor: the legacy of China’s one-child policy.

External Wealth of Nations complete update, 2023

Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti

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Global cross-border assets and liabilities rose between the end of 2022 and the end of 2023 in nominal U.S. dollar terms and as a share of global GDP. Figure 1 shows this increase for global cross-border assets, dividing countries into three groups: financial centers, advanced economies, and emerging and developing economies. Financial centers are economies for which international financial intermediation (as opposed to end-use of funds) is the main cross-border financial activity. They include large economies such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Ireland, as well as smaller financial centers such as Luxembourg, Bermuda, and the Cayman Islands.

The main factor driving the aggregate increase was the rebound in global stock prices, after their sharp fall in 2022. The stock market rally boosted the valuation of global portfolio equity assets, more than offsetting the persistent weakness in global financial flows, which weighed on the nominal increase in cross-border holdings, and above-trend global inflation, which raised global nominal GDP.

Petrodollar to Digital Yuan

Diana Choyleva

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Executive Summary

A quiet revolution is reshaping the foundations of global finance. The Petrodollar system, which has underpinned the international oil trade and U.S. financial power for half a century, faces unprecedented challenges.

While headlines focus on geopolitical tensions between the United States and China and the increased use of U.S. sanctions following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a fundamental transformation is unfolding through technological innovation, shifting trade patterns, and the Gulf states' ambitious economic reinvention.

Three powerful forces are converging to drive this change: China's strategic push to reduce its dollar vulnerability as the world's largest oil importer, the Gulf states' pressing need for economic transformation through massive investment in technology and infrastructure, and breakthrough innovations in digital payment technologies initiated by China that make alternatives to the dollar-led global payments not just possible but potentially more efficient than traditional systems.

This report argues that these intertwining forces could accelerate changes to the dollar-based financial system in addition to the geopolitical shifts alone. While complete de-dollarization of the oil trade is highly unlikely over the next five years, expect gradual erosion of the dollar’s use in oil trade settlement and the global recycling of oil revenues.

The Stakes

National Defense University PressJoint Force Quarterly (JFQ), 116, (1st Quarter January 2025)

Risk: A Weak Element in U.S. Strategy Formulation

Preparing for Adversary Employment of Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons: Tactical Effects, Operational Impacts, Strategic Implications

Adopting a Data-Centric Mindset for Operational Planning

The Art of Campaigning: Joint Planners Working at the Intersections of Everything

Being Believed: Persuasion and the Narrative in Military Operations

The Urgency of Warfighting Renewal: Five Principles for Today’s Professional Military Education

Celtic Security in the Atlantic: How Does Ireland Secure Europe’s Western Flank?

Is the PLA Overestimating the Potential of Artificial Intelligence?

Determining Political Objectives

Updating the TACS/AAGS for Large-Scale Combat Operations

Bullets, Bandages, and Fairy Dust: Improving DMO Health Services Support with Wargaming

I

t’s the Chain That Broke It: The Strategic Supply Chains Underpinning National Security

Polybian Warfare: The First Punic War as a Case Study in Strategic Competition and Joint Warfighting

The Future of Stealth Military Doctrine

Research Report Exploring Factors for U.S.-Russia Crisis Stability in Space

CHEYENNE TRETTER

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Introduction: Trends in Russia’s Risk Tolerance and Strategy in Space

Advances in Western and adversary capabilities in space raise questions about the prospects for maintaining crisis stability in space. This project defines stability as the avoidance of unintended escalation.1 The swiftly evolving dynamics of the space domain could give rise to unstable competition that raises the risk of rapid—and perhaps unintended—military escalation during a crisis. Identifying potential threats to crisis stability in space is important for policymakers to better understand the requirements for establishing and maintaining control of crises in the space domain. In this report, the author explores the prospects for crisis stability in space between the United States and Russia and seeks to better understand Russia’s perspectives on space by identifying key trends in Russian doctrine, military thinking, and threat perception. The author provides key implications of Russian thinking for U.S. officials tasked with managing crisis stability in space.

Theorizing the prospects for crisis stability in space between the United States and Russia requires an examination of Russia’s goals and threat perception in space, deterrence and escalation management strategy, and experience using space in conflict. 

De Gaulle’s Gamble

Robert O. Paxton

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Charles de Gaulle saved France twice. The first time was in June 1940, when the World War I hero Marshal Philippe Pétain signed an armistice with Hitler after France’s defeat by the Germans and set up a new collaborationist and authoritarian French state at Vichy, since Paris was occupied. De Gaulle, a relatively unknown brigadier general, gathered a few dissidents in London to form what became known as Free France. He gambled rashly but correctly that by contributing, however marginally, to the war against the Axis he was assuring a French presence on the ultimately victorious Allied side.

He saved France again in May 1958, when the faltering Fourth Republic faced a revolt by army leaders in Algeria who were frustrated by its failure to suppress the Algerian independence movement. As civil war threatened, de Gaulle assumed power without being elected but with the relieved assent of President René Coty and Prime Minister Pierre Pflimlin. On June 1, 1958, his authority was legitimated by a vote of 329–224 in the National Assembly. Seizing the moment, de Gaulle quickly commissioned a new constitution that replaced the unloved parliamentary republic with a strong presidential system. That constitution, which created the Fifth Republic, was approved by a referendum on September 28, 1958, and signed into law on October 4. On December 21 de Gaulle was elected the first president of the Fifth Republic. In a further referendum on October 28, 1962, the constitution was amended to provide for direct election of the president. De Gaulle was then reelected in 1965. The Fifth Republic’s powerful presidency, now solidly established, is his lasting monument.

When Companies Fail to Learn, They Learn to Fail

RICARDO HAUSMANN

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Investing in electric-vehicle battery production may seem like a sure thing. And at first glance, Northvolt – the Swedish EV battery developer and manufacturer that filed for bankruptcy protection in November – appeared to have all the advantages and capabilities needed to succeed.

For starters, the market fundamentals are undeniably strong. EV production is projected to grow exponentially: Tesla is trading at more than 100 times its earnings, whereas Toyota – the world’s largest manufacturer of gasoline-powered cars – has a price-to-earnings ratio of ten. Supporting these optimistic market projections, Northvolt had already secured $50 billion in sales orders, and raising capital proved remarkably easy. Northvolt attracted a star-studded roster of investors, bringing in an unprecedented $15 billion in startup funding, with Goldman Sachs and Volkswagen leading the charge.

Expertise was another major strength. Northvolt’s founders, Peter Carlsson and Paolo Cerruti, were former Tesla executives with deep experience managing global supply chains. Battery production seemed like a logical extension of their expertise. Northvolt also established partnerships with leading suppliers from Japan, South Korea, and China, bringing seasoned professionals to its facilities and enabling technology transfers.

 100 countries, including experts from South Korea and China.

India-US Relations: Washington Is Not Going To Be Benign Anymore – Analysis

P. K. Balachandran

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In the light of apprehensions about the Donald Trump Presidency in the United States, his first interaction with Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the phone earlier this week, was pleasant enough to mollify Modi’s constituency in India.

However, Trump’s tough policies may force India to change its Third World ways and be more efficient and competitive. The US is not going to be benign anymore.

Trump was characteristically business-like, spelling out his concerns without mincing words. A terse statement released by the White House said that the President emphasised the importance of India “increasing its procurement of American-made security equipment and moving toward a fair bilateral trading relationship.”

But to his credit, Trump personally ventured to soften the impact when he told the media that Modi will visit Washington in February. That laid to rest speculation that Indo-US ties have weakened because Trump did not invite Modi for his inauguration when he had invited the Chinese President Xi Jinping.

BRICS+ And G20: Competing Or Collaborating For Global South – Analysis

Kester Kenn Klomegah

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South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa heads G20, an intergovernmental forum comprising 19 sovereign countries, the European Union, and the African Union, while Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva chairs BRICS+, an association made of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa with four new members and 13 partner states in a category mostly from developing countries. At a quick glance, the G20 and BRICS+ are respectively chaired this year 2025 by South Africa and Brazil, both BRICS+ members, which makes it distinctively important development for the changing geopolitical world. In 2025, G20 and BRICS+ agenda features a pivotal role and pledge to continue making concerted strides, either in keen competition for economic revitalization or in close collaboration as development players, in the Global South.

Historically, G20 was created back in 1999 as a group of twenty of the world’s largest economies to deal primarily with multifaceted aspects of existing global economic, trade, health, climate change and political issues. Dissatisfied with the global dominance of the United States and the stack failure of leaders of developing countries, especially in Africa, to raise their economic status to an appreciable levels and improve standards of living for the largely impoverished population, BRIC appeared in 2009, in city of Yekaterinburg, Russia. South Africa ascended in 2010, transforming it into BRICS. As popularly now referred to as BRICS+, its key objective aspiration is to support building a better economic architecture for the Global South. In addition, BRICS+, as a non-western association, operates against western hegemony and uni-polar, rules-based system. Its key priority aims at shaping a more equitable and a more balanced global order while collaborating with developing countries in raising their economic status in the Global South.

Supporting Burma’s Democratic Transition: A Strategic Imperative For America’s Security, Strength, And Prosperity – OpEd

James Shwe

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In a Press Statement issued on January 26, 2025, regarding the implementation of the President’s Executive Order on Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid, Secretary of State Marco Rubio articulated a clear directive for U.S. foreign policy. He emphasized, “Every dollar expended, every program funded, and every policy pursued must be justified by answering three fundamental questions: Does it enhance America’s security? Does it bolster America’s strength? Does it augment America’s prosperity?”

From the perspective of a Burmese American advocate for freedom and democracy in Burma, supporting the country’s democratic transition unequivocally satisfies all three criteria. This policy not only aligns seamlessly with America’s core values but also addresses a critical strategic oversight in Southeast Asia—one that carries profound implications for regional stability, economic growth, and the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific theater. By championing Burma’s democratic aspirations, the United States stands to fortify its position in a region of escalating geopolitical significance.

Why Burma Matters: The Strategic Blind Spot

Burma (Myanmar) occupies a pivotal position in Southeast Asia, bridging South and Southeast Asia while providing China direct access to the Indian Ocean. Its strategic importance has grown exponentially as China has expanded its influence through projects like the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) and critical oil and gas pipelines. Yet, Burma has often been overlooked in U.S. foreign policy, creating what analysts call a “strategic blind spot.”

A shocking Chinese AI advancement called DeepSeek is sending US stocks plunging

David Goldman and Matt Egan

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US stocks dropped sharply Monday — and chipmaker Nvidia lost nearly $600 billion in market value — after a surprise advancement from a Chinese artificial intelligence company, DeepSeek, threatened the aura of invincibility surrounding America’s technology industry.

DeepSeek, a one-year-old startup, revealed a stunning capability last week: It presented a ChatGPT-like AI model called R1, which has all the familiar abilities, operating at a fraction of the cost of OpenAI’s, Google’s or Meta’s popular AI models. The company said it had spent just $5.6 million on computing power for its base model, compared with the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars US companies spend on their AI technologies.

That sent shockwaves through markets, in particular the tech sector, on Monday.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq plunged by 3.1% and the broader S&P 500 fell 1.5%. The Dow, boosted by health care and consumer companies that could be hurt by AI, was up 289 points, or about 0.7% higher. Stock market losses were far deeper at the beginning of the day.

Meta last week said it would spend upward of $65 billion this year on AI development. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, last year said the AI industry would need trillions of dollars in investment to support the development of in-demand chips needed to power the electricity-hungry data centers that run the sector’s complex models.

Big Tech has a big DeepSeek problem

Britney Nguyen

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Big Tech’s multi-billion dollar spending on artificial intelligence will be under investor scrutiny this week — even more so after China’s DeepSeek sent shockwaves through Wall Street and Silicon Valley with a cheap yet competitive AI model.

Ahead of earnings results from Microsoft, Meta, and Apple, the AI-driven stock rally lost $1 trillion in value after the Hangzhou-based AI startup demonstrated AI reasoning models on par with OpenAI and Anthropic. Last week’s release of DeepSeek-R1 sparked a global sell-off of tech stocks, with Nasdaq, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and S&P500 futures all falling Monday morning. Nvidia (NVDA) stock plunged 17%, wiping out nearly $600 billion in value — a record loss for a U.S. company.

Investors were spooked by DeepSeek, which in December released DeepSeek-V3, a model it said cost just $5.6 million to train and develop on Nvidia’s reduced-capability H800 chips.

According to the technical paper, DeepSeek said it used a cluster of just under 2,050 graphics processing units (GPUs) from Nvidia for training — much less than the tens of thousands of chips U.S. firms are using to train similarly-sized models. Meta (META), for example, used 16,000 of Nvidia’s more powerful H100s to train its Llama 3 405B model.

The Rise Of The Immortal Dictator: What Will AI Mean For Freedom And Government? – OpEd

John and Nisha Whitehead

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The Deep State is about to go turbocharged.

While the news media fixates on the extent to which Project 2025 may be the Trump Administration’s playbook for locking down the nation, there is a more subversive power play taking place under cover of Trump’s unique brand of circus politics.

Take a closer look at what’s unfolding, and you will find that all appearances to the contrary, Trump isn’t planning to do away with the Deep State. Rather, he was hired by the Deep State to usher in the golden age of AI.

Get ready for Surveillance State 2.0.

To achieve this turbocharged surveillance state, the government is turning to its most powerful weapon yet: artificial intelligence. AI, with its ability to learn, adapt, and operate at speeds unimaginable to humans, is poised to become the engine of this new world order.

Over the course of 70 years, the technology has developed so rapidly that it has gone from early computers exhibiting a primitive form of artificial intelligence to machine learning (AI systems that learn from historic data) to deep learning (machine learning that mimics the human brain) to generative AI, which can create original content, i.e., it appears able to think for itself.

China’s DeepSeek Has Close Ties To Beijing

Alice Yam and Ha Syut

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Rising AI star DeepSeek has close ties to the Chinese government that could explain its rapid progress from a 1 million yuan (US$138,000) startup in 2023 to a major global challenger in the industry, according to a recent investigation by RFA Cantonese.

The open-source artificial intelligence model founded by 40-year-old Liang Wenfeng knocked a US$1 trillion-sized hole in an AI-fueled rally on global stock markets on Monday when it topped app charts ahead of ChatGPT, in what many saw as a challenge to American dominance in the sector.

DeepSeek’s popularity roiled tech shares around the world, knocking US$1 trillion off their value, while near-monopoly holder Nvidia lost nearly US$600bn in market capitalization after its shares plummeted 17% on Monday.

U.S. President Donald Trump said DeepSeek should serve as a “wake-up call” to the U.S. industry, which needed to be “laser-focused on competing to win.”

Trump last week announced the launch of a US$500 billion AI initiative led by OpenAI, which is behind the generative AI service ChatGPT, Texas-based Oracle and Japan’s SoftBank.

US tech stocks steady after DeepSeek AI app shock

Peter Hoskins & Charlotte Edwards

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US tech stocks were steady on Tuesday after they slumped on Monday following the sudden rise of Chinese-made artificial intelligence (AI) app DeepSeek.

Shares in chip giant Nvidia rose by 8.8%, having slumped on Monday, as experts said the AI selloff may have been an over-reaction.

The market hit came as investors rapidly adjusted bets on AI, after DeepSeek's claim that its model was made at a fraction of the cost of those of its rivals.

Analysts said the development raised questions about the future of America's AI dominance and the scale of investments US firms are planning.

US President Donald Trump described the moment as "a wake-up call" for the US tech industry, while also suggesting that it could ultimately prove " a positive" for the US.

"If you could do it cheaper, if you could do it [for] less [and] get to the same end result. I think that's a good thing for us," he told reporters on board Air Force One.

What to Know About DeepSeek, the Chinese AI Company Causing Stock Market Chaos

Billy Perrigo and Tharin Pillay

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A new Chinese AI model, created by the Hangzhou-based startup DeepSeek, has stunned the American AI industry by outperforming some of OpenAI’s leading models, displacing ChatGPT at the top of the iOS app store, and usurping Meta as the leading purveyor of so-called open source AI tools. All of which has raised a critical question: despite American sanctions on Beijing’s ability to access advanced semiconductors, is China catching up with the U.S. in the global AI race?

At a supposed cost of just $6 million to train, DeepSeek’s new R1 model, released last week, was able to match the performance on several math and reasoning metrics by OpenAI’s o1 model – the outcome of tens of billions of dollars in investment by OpenAI and its patron Microsoft.

The Chinese model is also cheaper for users. Access to its most powerful versions costs some 95% less than OpenAI and its competitors. The upshot: the U.S. tech industry is suddenly faced with a potentially cheaper and more powerful challenger, unnerving investors, who sold off American tech stocks on Monday morning.

DeepSeek hit with ‘large-scale’ cyber-attack after AI chatbot tops app stores

Dara Kerr

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DeepSeek said its newly popular app was hit with a cyber-attack on Monday, which forced the Chinese company to temporarily limit registrations. The attack came after the DeepSeek AI assistant app soared to the top of Apple’s App Store, becoming the highest rated free app in the US, and climbed high in Google’s Play Store.

On its status page, DeepSeek said it started to investigate the issue late Monday night Beijing time. After about two hours of monitoring, the company said it was the victim of a “large-scale malicious attack”. While DeepSeek limited registrations, existing users were still able to log on as usual. The app is now allowing registrations again.

DeepSeek’s app is an AI assistant similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot. The news of the app’s ascendency in the US – and ability to edge out American rivals for a fraction of the cost – sent technology stocks tumbling on Monday. Nvidia, the AI chip maker and most valuable US company, saw its stocks plummet by 13.6% in early trading, wiping out some $500bn in market capitalization.

Some tech investors were impressed at how quickly DeepSeek was able to create an AI assistant that nearly equals Google’s and OpenAI’s for roughly $5m while other AI companies spend billions for the same results, particularly with China under strict chip export controls that limit DeepSeek’s access to computational power. The model’s low-budget success could threaten the US’s lead in the AI market.

Elon Musk Is Running the Twitter Playbook on the Federal Government

Zoe Schiffer

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Elon Musk is only one week into his role in President Donald Trump’s new administration, but the US federal government is already rolling out the Twitter playbook to manage its spending and personnel. Just like Musk did when he took over the social media platform, Trump’s team is attempting to drastically reduce the number of government staffers and ensure those who remain are loyal to the president’s agenda.

On Tuesday, federal employees received an email that mirrors the “Fork in the Road” missive sent to Twitter (now X) staff shortly after Musk bought the company in 2022. The email asks federal workers to resign by February 6 if they do not wish to return to the office five days a week and commit to a culture of excellence. Those who choose to resign will continue to get pay and benefits until September, according to the memo.

“The federal workforce should be comprised of employees who are reliable, loyal, trustworthy, and who strive for excellence in their daily work,” reads the email, which was later published on the US Office of Personnel Management website. “Employees will be subject to enhanced standards of suitability and conduct as we move forward.”

The news comes as Musk’s minions take over the US Office of Personnel Management, which acts as a human resources department for the federal workforce. Elon Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment from WIRED. The Office of Personnel Management also did not respond to a request for comment.

Israel Isn’t Serious About the Gaza Cease-Fire. Nor Is Trump.

H.A. Hellyer

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On Jan. 19, the first phase of the Israel-Hamas cease-fire agreement began. After 15 months, Israel’s war in Gaza is, presumably, on pause. It’s all thanks to a deal that was reportedly on the table since December 2023, but was finally signed last week after Donald Trump intervened, just before his inauguration. The question is: Is this really a cease-fire, or is it simply a truce that will fall apart in the next few weeks?

A cease-fire is usually envisaged to be permanent, with the clear and stated intention of not returning to hostilities. A truce is quite the opposite.

Future of DeepSeek, Like TikTok, May Come Down to Trump’s Whims

Philip Elliott

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This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: a tech tool owned by a foreign adversary is thrusting its tentacles into the devices in tens of millions of Americans’ pockets, giving its owners the chance to harvest vast amounts of data about them while shaping how they interpret the world around them, either real or imagined. Pretty bold, huh?

That was, in essence, why the U.S. Supreme Court just this month unanimously upheld a law effectively banning TikTok—because Congress saw it as a national security risk that stood to benefit China. Given the challenges coming from Beijing, justices said Washington was within its power to deny it one of its strongest toeholds out of concern that it could be used to surveil Americans, steal their secrets, and feed them a stream of propaganda useful to China’s big-picture goals. (For its part, the China-based parent company ByteDance has rejected U.S. fears about nefarious uses for its TikTok.) So Congress told tech companies like Apple and Google they would run afoul of U.S. law if they kept providing Americans’ access to the app and its updates if TikTok remained under Chinese ownership.

The Biden Administration Left Space Vulnerable to Cyberattack - OPINION

Annie Fixler & Mariam Davlashelidze

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Space systems are as vital as electricity to our everyday lives, but their cybersecurity is not similarly prioritized by the federal government. President Joe Biden’s final cybersecurity executive order, issued January 16 — a directive President Donald Trump appears likely to maintain — noted that space systems play a “pivotal role… in global critical infrastructure and communications resilience,” but stopped short of designating space as a critical infrastructure in itself. In so doing, the White House missed yet another opportunity to adequately prioritize the security and resilience of these essential systems.

Space Systems Are Vital to Everyday Life

In addition to satellite communications, other critical infrastructure, including energy, water, and finance, rely on space-based systems. The global positioning system (GPS), for example, provides precise timing of industrial control systems and financial trades. When Moscow disabled the operations of the American satellite company Viasat in February 2022 as Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv’s military communications were degraded. Thousands of customers across Europe lost internet access, and the operations of thousands of wind turbines in Central Europe were hampered.

A World Economic Forum report from April 2024 projected that the global space economy will triple to $1.8 trillion by 2035. The report contends that this growth will be the result not just of increased reliance on space-based assets for communication and national defense, but also of consumer activities like ride-sharing apps and food delivery. “Space will play an increasingly crucial role in mitigating world challenges, ranging from disaster warning and climate monitoring, to improved humanitarian response and more widespread prosperity,” the report projects.