How Kaveri Engine's 39-Year Failure Exposes Deep Institutional Voids in DRDO and HAL, Paralyzing India’s AMCA and TEDBF Programmes

RonitBisht

Source Link

In a scathing The Print column published on 10 December 2025, Admiral Arun Prakash (Retd), the former Chief of Naval Staff and a distinguished strategic thinker, has delivered a stark indictment of India’s aviation establishment.

His assessment is grim: despite ambitious rhetoric surrounding the fifth-generation Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) and the Twin-Engine Deck-Based Fighter (TEDBF), both programmes remain effectively grounded.

The cause is not a lack of funding or desire, but a 39-year-old failure that continues to haunt the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO): the inability to produce a functional indigenous jet engine.

The Kaveri Stagnation: Four Decades of Missed Deadlines​The heart of the crisis lies with the GTX-35VS Kaveri programme. Initiated by the DRDO's Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE) in 1986—and formally sanctioned in 1989—the project was intended to power India’s Light Combat Aircraft (Tejas). Instead, it has become a case study in institutional inertia.

What Trump’s New National Security Strategy Means for India

Akhilesh Pillalamarri

Source Link

The National Security Strategy (NSS) of the second Trump administration, released on December 4, signals a significant shift in American foreign policy thinking and prominently reflects the distinct foreign policy views of President Donald J. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance.

The overall tenor of the NSS reflects a geopolitical vision characterized by realism and traditional great power politics and is marked by hostility toward liberal internationalism and global institutions. The document, whose spirit will inform American grand strategy for the rest of the Trump term, highlights its belief in the primacy of nations, sovereignty, and the balance of power, stating that “the outsized influence of larger, richer, and stronger nations is a timeless truth of international relations.”

Overall, Trump’s NSS aligns with the foreign policy vision of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and is favorable toward India and its role in the world. However, it envisions a less direct role for the U.S. in the Asian security sphere, which could be a challenge for India vis-à-vis its dynamic with China. Furthermore, the Trump administration’s single-minded pursuit of American national interests has often adversely affected Indian national interests on issues such as trade, manufacturing, and the Indian purchase of oil from Russia.

US Weapons Left Behind in Afghanistan Are Fueling Militancy in Pakistan

Umair Jamal

Source Link

A recent report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), a U.S. government watchdog, has revealed that billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and military equipment that the Americans abandoned in Afghanistan in 2021 are now the main strength behind the Taliban’s security forces.

Set up in 2008, SIGAR is an independent U.S. agency that monitors how American taxpayer money was spent in Afghanistan.

The latest report was released last week. The 137-page-document reviewed the United States’ 20-year mission to rebuild Afghanistan and train its armed forces. According to SIGAR, the U.S. poured roughly $145 billion into Afghanistan’s reconstruction between 2002 and 2021. Much of this money was meant to create a stable, modern security force and support a peaceful democratic government. The report concluded that these massive efforts failed to deliver lasting peace or true democracy in Afghanistan.

Mapping China's Borderlands: Dashboard

Source Link

The Mapping China’s Strategic Space: Borderlands research project investigates how China invests in, engages with, and deepens its presence within its land and maritime border neighbors in an attempt to reshape its immediate periphery. This research effort constitutes the second phase of NBR’s Mapping China’s Strategic Space project. The first phase defined strategic space as a realm vital to the pursuit of China’s national economic and security objectives and to the enduring survival of the Chinese state. Beijing aspires to freely wield its influence and assert its leadership over this realm. This dashboard was compiled in collaboration between NBR and AidData to identify thirteen indicators across 28 countries sharing maritime or land borders (or close proximity to) the People’s Republic China.

The borderland areas surrounding China’s national territory are a critical component of its strategic space. Whereas China’s geopolitical horizons stretch globally, its capacity to exercise control and effectively exert its transformative power over the full extent of its desired strategic space is still uncertain. By contrast, the country’s contiguous regions, situated in its immediate reach, present opportunities for making use of power and wealth asymmetries—testing out methods that may become trademarks of a future globally dominant China, and laying the ground for an entirely reconfigured Asia. In addition, shaping a cooperative neighborhood appears as the necessary preliminary step toward ensuring that Beijing’s global ambitions can eventually come to pass.

Why China Can’t Win the AI-Led Industrial Revolution

DI GUO and CHENGGANG XU

Source Link

History has consistently shown that industrial revolutions require free institutions and robust demand to support ongoing entrepreneurship and the commercialization of new, productivity-enhancing products and services. With its system of totalitarian party-state rule, China checks none of these boxes.

STANFORD – AI is widely recognized as the core technology in an emerging industrial revolution that will probably transform every facet of the global economy. UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimates – conservatively – that the global AI market will reach $5 trillion by 2033, thanks to average annual growth of about 31%. The International Monetary Fund predicts that the technology could boost global GDP by 4% over the next decade, with the United States gaining as much as 5.4%. AI’s impact on science, innovation, the military, and geopolitics is already significant, reinforcing the sense that the race for AI dominance is also a race for global dominance.

China and America Must Get Serious About AI Risk

JAKE SULLIVAN

Source Link

CAMBRIDGE – In November 2024, US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping made their first substantive joint statement about the national-security risks posed by AI. Specifically, they noted that both the United States and China believe in “the need to maintain human control over the decision to use nuclear weapons.”

That may sound like diplomatic low-hanging fruit, since it would be hard to find a reasonable person willing to argue that we should hand control over nuclear weapons to AI. But with the Chinese government, there is no such thing as low-hanging fruit, especially on weighty security matters. The Chinese are inherently skeptical of US risk-reduction proposals, and Russia had opposed similar language in multilateral bodies. Because bilateral talks with the US on AI and nuclear security would open daylight between Russia and China, progress on this front was not a foregone conclusion.

China Bets on Unmanned Stealth Bombers

Olli Pekka Suorsa

Source Link

This image, shared on Chinese social media platform Weibo, shows the aircraft dubbed “GJ-X” by PLA watchers.Credit: Sina Weibo

China recently unveiled two large unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), which have been unofficially designated as the “WZ-X” and “GJ-X” by China military watchers. The UAVs’ intended roles could include strategic reconnaissance and strike, offering Beijing unprecedented options in the coming decade.

China has accelerated development and testing of a growing number of advanced tailless flying wing-type UAVs, such as the Hongdu GJ-11 and its naval version, the GJ-21, as well as CASC CH-7. This trend is instructive of Chinese industry’s advances in autonomy and aeronautical design. More than that, it offers critical insights into the People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s (PLAAF) vision of its future airpower strategy.

China has worked on a next-generation manned bomber, known as the H-20, to replace the venerable H-6 fleet for a long time. Despite occasional rumors surfacing about the type’s imminent release over the years, no official or leaked (real) images of the actual design have emerged to date. Most recently, a video showing an alleged first flight of the H-20 made the rounds in social media but was quickly proven fake.

China Just Moved a Naval Task Force into the Second Island Chain

Brandon J. Weichert

Source LInk

Australia is understandably concerned about Chinese adventurism in the Indo-Pacific’s Second Island Chain—but there is little that it can do to stop it.

China has reached the stage of its economic and industrial development where it is pouring gobs of cash into a massive military modernization program. As a result of this push, it now has the world’s largest navy in numbers of ships, though not yet in overall tonnage. Beijing has been advancing in the naval domain at a breakneck pace.

Recently, China lashed out at their Japanese neighbors after the government of the new Japanese prime minister insinuated that her country would militarily defend Taiwan against any potential Chinese attack. This began a very nasty war of words and historical recriminations of epic proportions between the two Asian states. Threats were bandied about. Beijing circulated maps of Japan with missile targets on them.

China’s AI Use for Cyber Espionage Shifts Cyber Focus From Detection To Trust

Gil Baram

Source Link

The question facing security and technology leaders is no longer whether adversaries will deploy AI agents against their environment. Now, those leaders must ask whether their trust architecture, access models and identity systems are ready for a world where breakout time—the time taken for an attacker to move from initial access to lateral movement through a digital system—has vanished, and machine-speed attackers are the default assumption.

Anthropic’s 13 November report marked a significant turning point in cybersecurity. Their investigation into the GTG-1002 campaign—assessed with high confidence as a Chinese state-sponsored operation—confirmed that AI-driven espionage is no longer hypothetical or in development. It is active and already targeting large technology firms, financial institutions, chemical manufacturers and government agencies worldwide. Anthropic describes it as the first documented case of a large-scale cyberattack carried out with minimal human involvement. The finding is important, but it should not come as a surprise.

China’s plan to quarantine Taiwan while avoiding war

Peter Olive

Source Link

Concerns regarding a potential quarantine or embargo of Taiwan by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have been growing since 2024.

While an amphibious invasion remains the most dangerous scenario, most analysts agree it poses a range of challenges for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), despite rapid expansion and increasingly complex mission rehearsals.

These include the logistical hurdles associated with the most ambitious amphibious invasion ever attempted in history, the risk of becoming bogged down on arrival and of triggering an outside intervention and escalation.

Given these challenges, focus has shifted to how the PRC might instead seek to cut off Taiwan’s maritime supplies of energy, food, medicines and other key commodities. The purpose would not be territorial conquest but rather to pressure Taiwan’s society, potentially forcing its government to negotiate on the future of cross-Strait relations on terms favorable to Beijing.

Trump leaves complacent Europe most vulnerable since 1939

Antony Beevor

Source Link

President Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy is 33 pages long. Considering the fatuous self-praise it contains, heaped upon the president himself, it was released in an unusually low-key way. Much of it is a so-called ‘Trump corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. It also contains an echo of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Although Roosevelt claimed that the United States would be a ‘good neighbour’ to Latin America, he rather gave the game away when he privately admitted that Anastasio Somoza, the dictator of Nicaragua, was ‘a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch’. This is a very Trumpian way of thinking, but it is also a fantasy.

Trump thinks he can get dictators in his pocket and yet he seems to have no idea when they are playing him. He has utterly misjudged Vladimir Putin, who clearly despises him. Putin kept his negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, waiting for three hours, then showed quite clearly that he had no intention of compromising on any of the 28 points that he himself appears to have dictated to the White House as a basis for discussion.

Filling America’s Shoes

AMITAV ACHARYA, ADEKEYE ADEBAJO, KATHRYN HOCHSTETLER, TANA JOHNSON, SUERIE MOON, CARLA NORRLÖF, and YU JIE

Source Link

With the United States cutting aid, scrapping international agreements, and waging war on rules-based systems and arrangements that it built, questions about the future of the global order have gained new urgency. Though America may be replaceable in some areas, others may become a new Wild West.

PS Quarterly regularly features short responses from experts on topics of global concern, and this time we examine the implications of US President Donald Trump’s foreign policy. Although America’s role as the custodian of the international rules-based order was never as straightforward as its proponents believe, it at least represented an ideal against which to set expectations and measure successes and failures in global governance. But since Trump’s return, that ideal – like so many others – has been cast aside, lending new urgency to long-simmering questions.

Trump and the End of American Hegemony

JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ

Source Link

In 2025, Donald Trump's erratic, unlawful policies upended the postwar era of globalization and set in motion a process that will culminate in America's loss of global primacy. Not only are the sources of US economic strength being destroyed, but all other countries are de-risking from America as fast as they can.

NEW YORK – It has become almost routine to end each year with talk of the “polycrisis,” and to acknowledge the difficulty of anticipating a future that seems pregnant with the risk of new wars, pandemics, financial crises, and climate-driven devastation. Yet 2025 added a uniquely toxic ingredient to this mix: the return to the White House of Donald Trump, whose erratic, unlawful policies have already upended the postwar era of globalization. Faced with so much chaos and uncertainty, can we say anything with confidence about where the US and global economies are heading?

Israel Unbound

VALI NASR

Source Link

While the United States and its allies finally led a push to end the Gaza war in 2025, it is not clear how regional stability will be restored, or what shape a new regional order will assume. For the foreseeable future, the Middle East will be bracing for a prolonged conflict as Israel pursues military supremacy.

WASHINGTON, DC – Since Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the Middle East has faced its most severe and consequential crisis in decades. Hamas’s egregious action demonstrated that it still posed a serious threat to Israel’s security, and the Israeli government’s reaction triggered a series of conflicts that has rattled the region.

Is Crypto an Opportunity or a Threat?

JEAN TIROLE

Source Link

Innovation should enhance economic fundamentals, not erode them. With enthusiasm for crypto remaining strong, speculative unbacked tokens and lightly regulated stablecoins must be contained before they threaten financial stability and become part of the shadow banking sector.

TOULOUSE – The fascination with cryptocurrencies shows no sign of fading. With the passage of the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act in July 2025, US lawmakers added to the sense that crypto is here to stay. But look beyond the hype and an uncomfortable issue remains unresolved: Are cryptocurrencies a genuine innovation capable of serving the common good, or a speculative threat to financial and social stability?

Will Nepal’s September Uprising Transform the Ballot?

Meena Bhatta

Source Link

Nepal is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections in less than three months. These polls are taking place under extraordinary circumstances. A nationwide uprising led by Gen Z toppled the sitting coalition government, led to the dissolution of the parliament, and set parts of the nation’s public infrastructure and administrative offices ablaze – literally. The uprising has demanded a new kind of political participation, a break from the way politics has long been practiced in Nepal.

The upcoming polls therefore are far more than a periodic democratic exercise. For many Nepalis these elections are a chance to renegotiate the terms of political engagement. The ambition is to redesign the existing political system, which has widely remained unresponsive, corrupt, and dominated by entrenched elites who have traded power among themselves for decades.

The interim government led by Sushila Karki has intensified preparation for the polls and is hopeful of conducting credible elections. Political parties have re-registered with the Election Commission (EC) and the EC has finalized the election calendar. Voter registration has been completed, electoral reforms are in the pipeline, and security for the elections is being coordinated across the nation. Political parties are gearing up for their general conventions before the polls.

Emerging economies and the future of global digital governance: Digital Public Infrastructure

Wakana Asano

Source Link

Global debates on digital governance are often portrayed as a contest among the United States, China and the European Union. While the two great powers compete over the cloud, artificial intelligence (AI), data and telecommunications, the EU projects regulatory power through the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the 2024 EU Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act. This framing, however, overlooks a quieter transformation taking place elsewhere. Emerging economies, especially middle-income countries with large populations and consequently with increasing economic weight, are no longer passive adopters of rules, but are developing unique governance frameworks of their own with both commonalities and differences from other countries. These frameworks are cementing digital policy as part of sovereignty, inclusion and developmental priorities. Cyber geopolitics, from data localisation and critical-infrastructure projection to information warfare, now shapes how emerging economies design and secure their national interests.

Four cases, India, Brazil, Nigeria and South Africa, illustrate this shift. With large populations and economies, each country is a significant regional player, shaping trends in technology adoption and its associated norms. Their experience illustrates a broader trend in which emerging economies are increasingly influencing the future of global digital governance. This article is the first of a two-part series examining how emerging economies are shaping global digital governance.

The race for renewables in the Middle East and North Africa

Ellen Clarke

Source Link

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is finally waking up to the imperative of renewable energy. Although the region has lagged behind the rest of the world in developing its infrastructure, surging investments in renewables will see over four times the existing capacity installed in the MENA by 2030. Nevertheless, not all countries are equally equipped to diversify and secure their energy supply to meet the soaring demand driven by rising temperatures. While Saudi Arabia has set itself the target of adding 20 gigawatts (GW) of renewable-energy capacity annually and of reaching 130 GW by 2030, other countries beset by conflict, political instability, or corruption are struggling to keep pace and adapt to climate pressures.

The economic incentives behind renewable-energy strategies

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has increased its forecast for renewable-capacity growth in the MENA by 25% over the next five years, the largest regional upgrade globally. But the year-to-year uptick in projects reflects incentives for diversification that go beyond carbon-emission concerns. The effects of climate change on MENA soil and water systems pose an acute threat to the region’s agriculture, food security, and, therefore, economies. In this context, renewables are better seen as an adaptation tool to provide the additional energy security needed to maintain agricultural production and water supplies, rather than as a system-wide energy transition away from polluting fuels.

Why Turkey Cannot Be Trusted in Gaza

Blaise Misztal, and Jonah Brody

Source Link

“We want to believe that our allies will prefer to side with us, not with a terrorist organization.” That was Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan objecting to the 2017 US decision to arm Syrian Kurdish fighters, whom he considered terrorists, against the Islamic State. Today, Turkey should be held to its own standard as it demands to play a role in Gaza reconstruction: Turkey’s past support for Hamas should exclude it, permanently, from any role in securing Gaza; and, so long as Turkey sides with a terrorist organization over its allies, it can have no role there whatsoever.

For nearly two decades, Turkey has hosted Hamas leaders, pledged hundreds of millions in funding, and allowed front companies tied to the group to manage much of its $500 million in overseas assets. US sanctions have repeatedly targeted these networks, yet many still operate freely as Turkey refuses to join its US and European allies in designating Hamas a terrorist group.

Since Hamas’s brutal October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Erdoğan has been the group’s loudest defender and Israel’s most vehement critic. Turkey has refused to condemn the October 7 massacre. Not content to declare that “Hamas is not a terrorist organization,” Erdoğan has called Hamas militants “freedom fighters.” His government coordinated with Hamas leaders, sent aid convoys, and treated Hamas operatives in Turkish hospitals. Erdoğan accused Israel of “surpassing Hitler in barbarism,” and has even threatened to “enter” Israel militarily, as Turkey did in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh.

Drone Dominance in Contact: sUAS Challenges and Adaptations at the Brigade Level

Daniel Temme,Clayton Cooper, Matthew Levengood

Source Link

In accordance with the Secretary of War’s drone dominance policy, 2nd Brigade Combat Team (2BCT), 10th Mountain Division, is aggressively pursuing Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) employment within both collective and pre-deployment training. To account for the loss of organic reconnaissance capabilities as a result of the recent deactivation of cavalry squadrons and Military Intelligence companies across the Army, 2BCT stood up a Multifunctional Reconnaissance Company (MFRC) to provide 2BCT with modernized organic reconnaissance capabilities. As the only subordinate unit with trained UAS operators and maintainers, the MFRC incubated the brigade’s sUAS program before training sUAS operators in light infantry units across the brigade.

Throughout this process, 2BCT identified multiple obstacles that hinder the Army’s ability to rapidly integrate sUAS at scale. The focus of this field report is to articulate the challenges that cannot be solved at the brigade level. 2BCT identified four key obstacles and proposed solutions to the challenge of achieving drone dominance:Formalizing sUAS supply chains and maintenance processes to keep non-Program of Record systems airworthy; ensuring airframes can keep pace with operational demands in both garrison and deployed environments.

Washington's Deterrence Problem

Lucas de Gamboa

Source Link

When American leaders think about deterrence, they usually cite the strength of the military. “Our number one job, ” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently told a gathering of generals, “is to be strong so we can prevent war.” This philosophy, echoed by Republicans and Democrats alike, holds that, when the military is at its most capable, adversaries will not test us.

The logic of this view is sound, but it misses a fundamental aspect of deterrence: credibility. We may have the strongest military, but having a strong military does not mean adversaries believe it will be used. In other words, military strength alone does not prevent aggression; credible threats demonstrating America’s willingness to use force, and its resolve to see the task done, are just as important.

For a variety of reasons, America today faces a credibility problem in its deterrence strategy. Starting in the 2000s, the American public became disillusioned with intervention abroad. That reluctance, tied explicitly to misguided nation-building in regions of secondary concern, has extended to other commitments in areas more vital to American interests. This aversion to “forever wars,” though understandable, has thereby eroded Washington’s credibility and may tempt an adversary to test it abroad. To achieve peace through strength, then, Washington must urgently work to calibrate its messaging to adversaries and further encourage its allies to spend more on defense.

As Europe roars against Russia, India doubles down on Moscow

Konstantinos Bogdanos

Source Link

Vladimir Putin lands in Delhi. Narendra Modi greets him with full honours. Last week, the 23rd India-Russia Annual Summit unfolded not as a relic of Cold War nostalgia, but as a blueprint for the post-Western order. And if Washington feels that it can afford to strain its relationship with India so as to apply pressure for an end to the war in Ukraine, Brussels has an opportunity here.

Sixteen agreements have just been signed: Defence pacts, trade corridors, critical minerals supply chains, pharmaceuticals, joint ventures in AI and space, a fast-tracked free trade deal with the Eurasian Economic Union. Moscow’s oil flows unchecked to Indian refineries. And beneath it all, a “special and privileged strategic partnership” has been reaffirmed – which is another way of describing India’s quiet defiance of American sanctions.

While Trump bashes the EU, other leaders want to join it

Ishaan Tharoor

Source Link

It’s getting harder to overstate the strain in transatlantic ties. A week ago, the White House publicized a national security document that claimed Europe’s leadership was leading the continent toward “civilizational erasure,” scoffed at Europe’s “unrealistic” expectations to repel Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and espoused a strategy of undermining the European Union as a political entity while allying with the Euroskeptic far right. The perceived attack on the E.U. was reinforced by various statements from Trump officials and allies, furious over an E.U. fine slapped on tech billionaire Elon Musk’s X for failure to comply with E.U. digital regulations.

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau railed against a bloc whose member states “pursue all sorts of agendas that are often utterly adverse to U.S. interests and security.” Musk himself called for the outright abolition of the European Union. President Donald Trump, in an interview with Politico last week, said Europe’s political leaders are “weak,” “politically correct” and “don’t know what to do.”

The reaction in Europe was gloomy. The latest cover in German newsweekly Der Spiegel depicted Trump standing behind a knife-wielding Russian President Vladimir Putin as the latter carved into a map of Europe. “Two rogues, one goal,” the tagline read. Kremlin officials had told reporters that Trump’s national security strategy “aligned” with their vision.

Manipulating Minds

Elina Treyger, Joseph Matveyenko, Lynsay Ayer

Source Link

Reports of artificial intelligence–induced psychosis (AIP) suggest that large language models (LLMs) and future artificial general intelligence (AGI) systems might be capable of inducing or amplifying delusions or psychotic episodes in human users. To date, AIP has been discussed primarily as a public or mental health concern.

In this report, the authors examine the scope of this phenomenon and whether and how LLMs—and, eventually, AGI—could create significant national security threats. Can this capability be weaponized to induce psychosis at scale or in target groups? What kind of damage might that cause? The authors assess which targets might be most vulnerable, the potential scope of harm, and how adversaries might exploit this capability against key individuals, groups, or populations.

Updates to The 3 Core Tools For Literature Search

Source Link

If you have been following me for a while, you might have heard of the "AI search loop." Given a question, this method is a thorough yet rapid way to find relevant scientific literature. Today's newsletter covers recent updates to all involved tools. Most interestingly, Google Scholar is now becoming an alternative to pricy AI tools. (See below what it means for the big picture.)

Here's how the search loop works: Based on a plain-text question, you use Consensus or the new Google Scholar Labs AI feature to find a few seed papers. These results are highly targeted, but typically yield only 2-3 relevant papers. This is why in the next step, you use Litmaps or ResearchRabbit to dig into the references of these first few papers to find additional literature based on the reference network (i.e. who cites whom). The combination of AI and reference network is what makes it so powerful. Here is a schematic:

How Kaveri Engine's 39-Year Failure Exposes Deep Institutional Voids in DRDO and HAL, Paralyzing India’s AMCA and TEDBF Programmes

RonitBisht

Source Link

In a scathing The Print column published on 10 December 2025, Admiral Arun Prakash (Retd), the former Chief of Naval Staff and a distinguished strategic thinker, has delivered a stark indictment of India’s aviation establishment.

His assessment is grim: despite ambitious rhetoric surrounding the fifth-generation Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) and the Twin-Engine Deck-Based Fighter (TEDBF), both programmes remain effectively grounded.

The cause is not a lack of funding or desire, but a 39-year-old failure that continues to haunt the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO): the inability to produce a functional indigenous jet engine.

The Kaveri Stagnation: Four Decades of Missed Deadlines​The heart of the crisis lies with the GTX-35VS Kaveri programme. Initiated by the DRDO's Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE) in 1986—and formally sanctioned in 1989—the project was intended to power India’s Light Combat Aircraft (Tejas). Instead, it has become a case study in institutional inertia.

Admiral Prakash points out that after nearly four decades and the expenditure of billions of rupees, the Kaveri remains unfit for combat application.

Although first bench-tested in 1996, the engine has suffered from persistent technical setbacks, including thrust deficits, overheating turbine blades, and unreliable digital control systems. Every technical failure has been met not with a solution, but with a revised timeline that quietly shifts targets into the next decade.

The War That Happened Only Online: How Pakistan Used AI To Fight A War It Never Fought At Sea

Rahul Sinha

Source Link

During and after India’s Operation Sindoor, a very unusual pattern emerged in South Asia’s information space. Instead of showing new warships, missiles or real battlefield results, Pakistan-linked networks began pushing something else entirely--AI-generated audio, manipulated videos, and fully synthetic clips designed to confuse audiences and distort the story of the conflict.

Indian fact-checking agencies—including PIB Fact Check, BOOM, Newschecker and Vishvas News—documented a large surge in artificial, altered or completely fabricated media circulating online. Much of this content targeted Indian military leaders, misrepresented Indian operations or pretended to show dramatic events that never happened. The scale and speed of these deepfakes marked a major shift in Pakistan’s approach to psychological warfare. The message was clear. Pakistan’s “new weapons” did not come from its navy or missile programme. They came from its digital propaganda ecosystem.

20,000 Myanmar soldiers and 200 officials deserted, says former Army officer who sought refuge in India

Kallol Bhattacherjee

Source Link

Around 20,000 soldiers and 200 military officials have deserted the Myanmar military, which is engaged in combating Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs), said a military officer who deserted his post in Sagaing region bordering India’s Northeast after the junta started a crackdown following the February 2021 coup.

In an exclusive chat with The Hindu held here this week, Capt. Kaung Thu Win, who left the military in 2021, said the Myanmar military “indiscriminately killed civilians and confiscated private property and indulged in human rights abuses” that requires a solution that will not emerge from the three-phase election that Myanmar will undergo from December 28.

“Many military personnel are unwilling to participate in the killings and property grab that are going on in Myanmar. Around 20,000 soldiers and 200 military officers who have deserted the Tatmadaw (Myanmar military) are staying in Myanmar’s border areas with India and Thailand and in the “liberated zones” inside Myanmar,” Captain Kaung Thu Win said during a rare visit to New Delhi this week.

Pakistan’s 27th Amendment Upends Its Nuclear Command

Haleema Saadia

Source Link

At its core, the amendment is a move to constitutionally enshrine the army’s supremacy under the guise of modernization. Since Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party solidified its power via a 2024 election that was widely viewed as fixed, their government has leaned on the military establishment for support and, in turn, shown a great willingness to reinforce the army’s institutional dominance.

Haleema Saadia is a doctoral researcher at the National University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan and a former official at Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division. She specializes in nuclear strategy and arms control. 

Ali Mustafa is a visiting scholar with the South Asian Program at the Stimson Center and teaches nuclear politics and strategic issues, with more than a decade of experience in academia, policy, and consulting. 

People in the West say they must avoid a new Cold War without realizing that they are already in one – and China is winning.

Qin Hui and Perry Link

Source Link

Qin Hui, professor emeritus of history and economics at Tsinghua University and a pre-eminent Chinese public intellectual, who now lives and writes abroad, in April of this year published a book on China’s “low-human-rights advantage.” For years, people in the West marveled at the economic “miracle” in China and expected that the growth of a Chinese middle class would lead to political liberalization. But Qin Hui never thought he was observing a miracle.

What he saw was hundreds of millions of low-paid laborers working long hours in an environment that had no free press, no indigenous labor unions and no independent courts – but a very efficient police force. Unmiraculously, these hard workers produced immense wealth that went largely to the Chinese state, to elite families connected to it, and to foreign corporations. Qin could see that dictatorship, its generally bad reputation notwithstanding, under certain conditions could sharply accelerate economic growth.

What follows is an adaptation and translation of the preface to Qin’s new book, “Save Mr. Democracy” (拯救民主) by Perry Link, a distinguished professor in Comparative Literature and Chinese at UC Riverside and the author of numerous books on Chinese literature, society, and politics.

Dual-Use Shijian Satellite Program Ramps up in 2025

Arran Hope

Source Link

The year 2025 has been a successful one for the Shijian (实践) satellite program. Things kicked off on January 6 with the launch of the Shijian-25 satellite, which state media hailed as a “bright start to China’s space program in 2025” (国航天2025年开门红) (Xinhua, January 7). Since then, a Shijian-26 satellite was sent into orbit in late May, followed by three Shijian-30 satellites in mid-November, and a final Shijian-28 satellite on November 30 (Xinhua, May 29, November 19, November 30). These six launches mark an uptick in cadence for the program, with just one launch in each of the two previous years and none in 2022. A total of 50 Shijian-series satellites have been launched since the program began in 1971, of which 38 remain operational (Wikipedia/实践系列卫星, accessed December 5). [1]

The Shijian series is just one among as many as 100 satellite programs in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) today (Hello Space, April 18). What makes it unusual is that it is used to “put into practice” or “establish best practices for”—the literal meanings of shijian (实践)—novel satellite technologies (CASI, March 28, 2022). It also stands out because of the paucity of publicly available data about its goals and activities compared to other programs. The coverage of Shijian satellites that does exist indicates that they are primarily used for scientific exploration and technological verification and testing. But omissions from the PRC side, coupled with observations and reporting from analysts in the United States and elsewhere, suggest that they likely are involved in much more sensitive operations.

Price tag for ‘T-Dome’ estimated at NT$400bn

Source Link

President William Lai’s (賴清德) “T-Dome” initiative to build a multilayered air defense network would cost an estimated NT$400 billion (US$12.8 billion), or about one-third of the proposed NT$1.25 trillion special defense budget, according to a senior official.

Commenting on condition of anonymity, the source said that Taiwan would need to buy new arms and equipment to supplement the nation’s existing air defense systems to achieve the advanced capabilities envisioned for the initiative.

This means procurements for an array of domestic and foreign systems, including at least two Chiang Kung (強弓, “Strong Bow”) systems and 128 missiles for NT$36.6 billion, they said.

The Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology-developed air defense system with a maximum interception height of 70km — an offshoot of the Tien Kung III (天弓, “Sky Bow”) missile’s design — would become Taiwan’s primary high-altitude defense missile, the official said.

Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement systems (PAC-3 MSE), with an interception height of 45km to 60km, would fill the medium-altitude defense role, they said.

What Trump’s National Security Strategy Gets Right

Rebeccah Heinrichs

Source Link

The Trump administration’s 2025 National Security Strategy is, in many ways, unlike any in U.S. history. Most strategy documents of this kind articulate the threats that the United States’ adversaries pose to Washington and its allies, and they explain how officials can respond to these challenges. But this one seems kinder to the United States’ foes than to its friends. It rebukes Europe in an astonishingly blunt fashion, arguing that some of the continent’s domestic policies are damaging democracy and risking “civilizational erasure.” It says remarkably little, by contrast, about the threats posed by China, Russia, Iran, or

Israel Issues Chilling Cyber Warfare Warning After Iran Attacks

Zak Doffman

Source Link

Iran versus Israel is the cyber front line.getty

We have heard this before. The threat of cyber armageddon in a world where Chinese technology powers energy, telecoms and transportation infrastructure, with its finger on some kind of virtual red button, and where Russia splinternets itself off from the west.

But there’s a much sharper cutting edge to the cyber threat in the Middle East. That means Israel versus Iran, two of the world’s leading offensive cyber states battling each other continually and quietly, while headlines focus more on the real-world battlefront.

The ‘Trump Corollary’ in the US security strategy brings a new focus on Latin America – but it is a disordered plan

Source Link

The new US National Security Strategy (NSS), unveiled on 5 December, has been influenced by various interest groups and personalities, from those in Washington who prioritize containing China and Russia, to those who want to expand Make America Great Again (MAGA) to Europe – and those who wish to dominate the Western Hemisphere.

On the latter, ‘sovereigntists’ have gained ground in the NSS – a trend that, according to Jennifer Mittelstadt, ‘asserts liberty from international agreements and institutions that threaten to limit the sovereign jurisdiction and governance of the US’.

The strategy states that the Western Hemisphere must be controlled by the US politically, economically, commercially, and militarily. It is the ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine – an 1823 policy which established that European powers should not intervene in Latin America. This paved the way for US pre-eminence in the region until well into the 20th century. However, Washington neglected it in the last three decades.

According to the Trump Corollary, the US has the right to resuscitate the Monroe Doctrine. To that end, it will readjust its military presence in the region, increase naval forces to control migrant routes and illicit trafficking, and carry out deployments at borders. In addition, it will use ‘the military system superior to any other country in the world’ to gain access to energy and mineral resources in the region.

A velvet reset: Trump’s new strategy hands China breathing space

Imran Khalid

Source Link

For years, Washington framed China as the defining adversary of the American century. The National Security Strategy released on December 4 has quietly abandoned that posture. At just 33 pages, the document mentions China sparingly and never as an existential threat. Instead, it treats Beijing as a major power with which the United States must reach “reciprocity and fairness” in trade.

The shift is deliberate and, from a Chinese perspective, long overdue. After a decade of being cast as the villain in successive Pentagon papers and Biden-era strategies that labelled China a “pacing challenge” and “systemic rival,” Beijing now finds itself described in language that prioritizes economic rebalancing over ideological confrontation.

This is not weakness on Washington’s part; it is realism born of exhaustion with endless confrontation and recognition that tariffs and technology bans have hurt American farmers, manufacturers and consumers as much as Chinese exporters. Beijing would be wise to pocket the concession and widen the opening before domestic politics in either capital reverses course.

The NSS is likely to offer China short-term relief – but cause for long-term concern.

Ngo Di Lan

Source Link

Since Trump’s return to power in 2025, China-U.S. relations have oscillated between confrontation and signs of rapprochement, driven by unprecedented tit-for-tat tariffs, tighter technology controls, and inconsistent diplomatic signals. Against this uncertain backdrop, the newly released 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) is likely to offer Chinese leaders short-term relief: it tempers ideological language, clarifies U.S. priorities, and suggests a more predictable basis for managing competition.

However, the NSS also lays foundations that could, in the long run, complicate China’s external environment and strengthen the forces arrayed against it.

Grounds for Optimism

For Beijing, the strongest basis for near-term optimism is the 2025 NSS’s striking departure from earlier U.S. conceptions of strategic competition. In Trump’s first term, the 2017 NSS cast China as a “revisionist power” bent on reshaping the international system, while the Biden administration’s 2022 NSS elevated the rivalry into a global contest between “democracies and autocracies.”

The Scramble for the Seafloor

Rebecca Egan McCarthy

Source Link

Since 1779 photosynthesis has been the standard-issue explanation for the continuation of life on earth: plants absorb sunlight, which fuels their metabolism, and create oxygen as waste. This is such basic, grade-school science that it normally wouldn’t bear mentioning, but in July 2024 a team led by Andrew Sweetman at the Scottish Association for Marine Science reported a startling finding in Nature. On the deep seafloor—where light never penetrates—oxygen is apparently being produced by rocks.

These rocks are known as polymetallic nodules, which form over the course of millions of years when small debris like sharks’ teeth attract trace metals from the surrounding seawater. The seafloor is covered in a viscous ooze, composed of the compressed skeletons of dead marine life, and the nodules lie strewn atop it, packed closely together. Sweetman and his team were investigating the microbial life in this deep-sea environment by lowering custom-designed chambers into the depths, creating a seal around seafloor sediment. Generally, the oxygen within the chambers decreases as various organisms consume it. In the nodule fields, against all odds, oxygen levels were rising.

Improving Japan’s Cyber Power

Source Link

Japan faces serious threats in cyberspace. It is largely supine, continually vulnerable, and subject to persistent cyber threats from China and, at times, North Korea. Japanese cyberspace defenses struggle to keep up with the reality that Japan’s intellectual property (IP) is being stolen, its economy is being extorted to fuel North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, and its civilian infrastructure is being infected with foreign code designed to deny its function during times of crisis and conflict or to intimidate the Japanese Government.

The delays Japan is currently experiencing in developing a strong cyber strategy mirror those that hindered US cyberspace policy in the early days of the domain. Defending against and deterring the daily violations of US sovereignty, loss of IP, and adversary preparation of the environment (the emplacement of adversary cyberspace capabilities inside US civilian infrastructure) required a straightforward admission of what was happening and how similar—with some crucial differences—cyberspace is to the other domains.

Cyberspace is a mess. Over the last few years, cyberspace attacks in the United States have doubled in frequency, reaching upwards of 801,000 reports in 2022. Worldwide, this trend is increasing at a slightly slower but still alarming rate of 30 percent year after year. Cybercrime, in general, can now be considered the third largest economy in the world, after that of the United States and China. Grossing $8 trillion in 2023, the financial damage of cyberattacks is expected to triple by 2027. North Korea uses cybercrime to fund its nuclear weapon and ballistic missile program. China uses cyber espionage to steal IP, such as chip, quantum, and artificial intelligence technology. Worse, China is embedding cyber capabilities within Japanese infrastructure to be used in a crisis or conflict to shut off essential infrastructure to extort and intimidate Japanese political leadership.

Germany accuses Russia of air traffic control cyber-attack

George Wrightand, Bethany Bell,Berlin

Source Link

Germany has accused Russia of a cyber-attack on air traffic control and attempted electoral interference, and summoned the Russian ambassador.

A foreign ministry spokesman said Russian military intelligence was behind a "cyber-attack against German air traffic control in August 2024". The spokesman also accused Russia of seeking to influence and destabilise the country's federal election in February this year.

The latest accusations come amid heightened concern in Europe over suspected Russian cyber-attacks since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Russia has "categorically rejected" the claims, saying their alleged involvement in such incidents was "absurd".

"The accusations of Russian state structures' involvement in these incidents and in the activities of hacker groups in general are baseless, unfounded and absurd," Russia's embassy in Berlin said in a statement to AFP news agency.

The foreign ministry in Germany said that Berlin - in close co-ordination with its European partners - would respond with counter-measures to make Russia "pay a price for its hybrid actions".

In the last year, both the UK and Romania have accused Russia of meddling in their domestic affairs, including targeting organisations that deliver foreign assistance to Ukraine and presidential elections.

Trump leaves complacent Europe most vulnerable since 1939

Antony Beevor

Source Link

President Trump's new National Security Strategy is incoherent and egotistical. Yet Europe's elites must bear responsibility for leaving their continent in a state of vulnerability comparable to the late 1930s.

Donald Trump salutes a Navy Honour Guard aboard the USS Harry S. Truman on 5 October, 2025. Credit: Blueee / Alamy

President Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy is 33 pages long. Considering the fatuous self-praise it contains, heaped upon the president himself, it was released in an unusually low-key way. Much of it is a so-called ‘Trump corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. It also contains an echo of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Although Roosevelt claimed that the United States would be a ‘good neighbour’ to Latin America, he rather gave the game away when he privately admitted that Anastasio Somoza, the dictator of Nicaragua, was ‘a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch’. This is a very Trumpian way of thinking, but it is also a fantasy.

Trump thinks he can get dictators in his pocket and yet he seems to have no idea when they are playing him. He has utterly misjudged Vladimir Putin, who clearly despises him. Putin kept his negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, waiting for three hours, then showed quite clearly that he had no intention of compromising on any of the 28 points that he himself appears to have dictated to the White House as a basis for discussion.

How Gaza Shattered the West’s Mythology

Pankaj Mishra

Source Link

On April 19, 1943, a few hundred young Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto took up whatever arms they could find and struck back at their Nazi persecutors. Most Jews in the ghetto had already been deported to extermination camps. The fighters were, as one of their leaders Marek Edelman recalled, seeking to salvage some dignity: “All it was about, finally, was our not letting them slaughter us when our turn came. It was only a choice as to the manner of dying.”

After a few desperate weeks, the resisters were overwhelmed. Most of them were killed. Some of those still alive on the last day of the uprising committed suicide in the command bunker as the Nazis pumped gas into it; only a few managed to escape through sewer pipes. German soldiers then burned the ghetto, block by block, using flamethrowers to smoke out the survivors.

Silicon Valley Has China Envy, and That Reveals a Lot About America

Li Yuan

Source Link

In social media posts, podcasts, interviews and newsletters, the elites of the American tech sector are marveling at China’s speed in building infrastructure, its manufacturing might and the ingenuity of the A.I. company DeepSeek. At the same time, they are lamenting aging infrastructure and cumbersome regulations in the United States, and an economy that can’t seem to make screws or drones, or the machines that manufacture them.

Some have called for an American DeepSeek project, published industrial manifestoes full of references to China and even adopted China Tech’s grueling “996” work culture, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week.

“As China races forward, moving goods, people and information at machine speed, we risk being stuck in the past,” a recent blog post from the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz warned.

Among Silicon Valley leaders and policy-minded Democrats, there is a fascination with China. It’s a mix of curiosity, anxiety and envy. Long-held assumptions about China are being re-evaluated.

Suddenly, Chinese firms once dismissed as copycats are being studied for lessons on efficiency and scale. China’s top-down, state-led system is being reframed not as a political liability but as a model of efficiency and execution.