India's Cautious Stance toward the Securitization of the Quad

Rohan Mukherjee

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Even as the Quad has gained increasing strategic significance in the Indo-Pacific, India remains hesitant to embrace it for greater security cooperation. Are there discrepancies between India’s vision for an open, stable, and prosperous Indo-Pacific and that of its Quad counterparts. If so, what is driving these differences?

Much depends on what we mean by “security cooperation.” If this means a treaty alliance, then India is unlikely to embrace it. If we mean more robust cooperation on security issues, then India has supported this vision of the Quad since at least 2020, when the border standoff between India and China began in Ladakh. How firmly New Delhi pursues such cooperation is probably where the difference lies between India, on the one hand, and the United States and its treaty allies, Japan and Australia, on the other. It is noticeable that India became more active in the Quad and supportive of its security objectives after relations with China soured in 2020. Now that diplomacy between Beijing and New Delhi has yielded some agreement on a disengagement process, there will be less incentive for India to aggressively counter China, especially given the importance of bilateral trade.

Crises May Now Drive Japan’s Relations With China

Sheila A. Smith

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Crises are not new to the Japan-China relationship, but their impact only grows. There is little reason to hope for a quick resolution to the current one. The last crisis was long-lasting, begun by a drunken fishing trawler captain and ended with an awkward handshake between Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzō and Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2014. There is much to fear in that today’s crisis will escalate further. This crisis pits Japan’s security goals against China’s longstanding desire to reclaim full control over Taiwan. Finding an exit from these tensions will, at the very least, take time.

Diplomatic crises often change the stakes for each, and for the Japanese, the consequences of this crisis are multifaceted. Japan’s new prime minister, Takaichi Sanae, was the initial focal point. As the Washington Post editorial board aptly noted, she said the “quiet part out loud” when she responded to an opposition party lawmaker’s question in the Diet, acknowledging that China’s use of force against Taiwan could be seen to threaten Japan’s survival. In official Japanese government speak, that means that Japan might have to order its Self-Defense Forces to respond with others.

Foreign Aid With Chinese Characteristics

Alicia R. Chen

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Earlier this year, after U.S. President Donald Trump effectively shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, the world’s largest bilateral aid program, many observers raised fears that China would step in to fill the geopolitical vacuum. USAID, after all, had served as a key tool of U.S. diplomacy for more than six decades, and the American retreat has created an opportunity for China to expand its economic statecraft and win influence in many parts of the world.

Pressure points: Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait

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Pressure Points part 2 explores Beijing’s growing use of military coercion against Taiwan, detailing events around Asia’s most volatile flashpoint. The analysis draws on open-source data, satellite imagery, military imagery, governmental reporting and other resources to deliver an accurate and comprehensive picture of China’s approach.

It examines how Beijing frames its claim to Taiwan, the coercive and military tools it increasingly wields to enforce that claim, how Taipei is responding to mounting pressure, and how other governments are managing the growing risk of confrontation. It also details potential scenarios that President Xi may pursue to forcibly unify Taiwan. The result is a concise and interactive account of one of the Indo-Pacific’s most consequential strategic landscapes.

The project also provides policy recommendations for governments, especially regional militaries and likeminded nations. These recommendations center on improving transparency of operations, enhancing multi-national coordination among like-minded states, strengthening resilience (military and civilian) in Taiwan, and maintaining sustained commitment in the face of persistent Chinese pressure.

Views of China across the Global South: The Rule and the Exceptions

Ken Ishii

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From the colonial “scramble for Africa” to Cold War coups and proxy conflicts backed by the United States and Soviet Union, the developing world was frequently an arena for competition among rival great powers in the 20th century. In today’s world of geopolitical flux, however, many countries in Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America hold greater agency, increased state capacity, growing populations, and generally positive economic prospects. In a context of sharpening geopolitical divides, the societies of the Global South are likely to significantly influence the outcome of the current strategic competition. The emerging views regarding China in the Global South are relevant to understanding many countries’ foreign policies, investment regimes, trade policies, soft power initiatives, and approaches to educational or cultural exchanges.

It is not news that China is more popular in the Global South than in the West. But contrary to common assumptions — and previous research — Global Public Opinion on China’s (GPOC’s) data show the world is by no means neatly divided along North-South lines. As the previous paper in this series noted, on a population basis, the negative-leaning views of India’s 1.4 billion people offset the strongly positive views that prevail in more than 50 countries in Africa. Which regions and countries drive the overall positive view of China, and which cut against the general tendency? What have been the trends over time? How has the COVID pandemic’s legacy played out in the developing world? This GPOC brief offers a closer look at the significant variations in views of China across the Global South.

Trump reveals what he wants for the world

Nahal Toosi

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President Donald Trump intends for the U.S. to keep a bigger military presence in the Western Hemisphere going forward to battle migration, drugs and the rise of adversarial powers in the region, according to his new National Security Strategy.

The 33-page document is a rare formal explanation of Trump’s foreign policy worldview by his administration. Such strategies, which presidents typically release once each term, can help shape how parts of the U.S. government allocate budgets and set policy priorities.

The Trump National Security Strategy, which the White House quietly released Thursday, has some brutal words for Europe, suggesting it is in civilizational decline, and pays relatively little attention to the Middle East and Africa.

It has an unusually heavy focus on the Western Hemisphere that it casts as largely about protecting the U.S. homeland. It says “border security is the primary element of national security” and makes veiled references to China’s efforts to gain footholds in America’s backyard.

“The United States must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity — a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently where and when we need to in the region,” the document states. “The terms of our alliances, and the terms upon which we provide any kind of aid, must be contingent on winding down adversarial outside influence — from control of military installations, ports, and key infrastructure to the purchase of strategic assets broadly defined.”

The awful arithmetic of our wars

Peter W. Singer

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At the lowest point of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln characterized the core factor between victory and defeat as finding a general who understood the “awful arithmetic” of war. War is a contest of blood and treasure; each can, and must, ultimately be counted and measured. It has been the same for every conflict before and after.

Yet this arithmetic is constantly changing, and never faster than right now. If the United States cannot update its calculations to properly reflect our new era, our failure will not just cost us blood and treasure, but will drive us toward defeat.

Cost imposition has long been a tenet of U.S. strategy. During the Cold War, the U.S. launched expensive programs such as stealth and Star Wars not just for their tactical value, but to send a strategic signal to the Kremlin: neither your economy nor your war machine can keep up. Gorbachev, persuaded, gave up the decades-long competition with the U.S.

The very same concept of cost imposition was also elemental to the most celebrated operations of the past year. In Operation Spider’s Web, Ukraine used inexpensive drones, reportedly costing less than $500 each, to damage strategic bombers worth many millions of dollars, degrading Russia’s long-range strike capabilities for years to come. Similarly, in Operation Rising Lion, cheap Israeli drones took out Iranian surface-to-air missiles and radars, paving the way for the destruction of command and nuclear facilities worth tens of billions of dollars. In each, the tactical became the strategic through new operational concepts that leveraged the new math of new technologies.

Opinion | Trump’s closure of Voice of America is coming back to bite him

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President Donald Trump has said he won’t rule out anything when it comes to removing Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro from power. Yet he is missing an important tool from the arsenal: the Voice of America.

Since Trump’s March executive order dismantling the news agency, most of VOA’s 1,300 staff members and contractors have been fired or placed on administrative leave, its website has been frozen and the 83-year-old broadcaster has gone dark for the first time since its founding during World War II.

Before being shuttered, VOA’s weekly Spanish-language audience in Latin America was more than 100 million people, according to an audience survey released in January by the U.S. Agency for Global Media. That’s especially important in Venezuela, where the regime of Nicolás Maduro has closed most independent media outlets and continues to harass journalists. Around eight journalists are in prison. Many more have fled.

Until Trump’s edict, the broadcaster focused on communicating U.S. foreign policy to Venezuelans, including letting audiences hear unfiltered news conferences, briefings and congressional hearings focused on Maduro’s political repression, corruption, economic mismanagement and, yes, Maduro’s drug trafficking ties

Trump to Close Voice of America’s Overseas Offices and Radio Stations

Minho Kim 

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The Trump administration last week told lawmakers that it would further shrink the broadcasting capacity of Voice of America despite a judge’s order to maintain robust news operations at the federally funded news group, which provides independent reporting to countries with limited press freedoms.

Kari Lake, a Trump ally who leads the broadcaster’s parent agency, wrote in a Nov. 25 notice to Congress reviewed by The New York Times that the administration intended to close its six overseas news bureaus and four overseas marketing offices, including in Jakarta, Indonesia; Islamabad, Pakistan; Nairobi, Kenya; and Prague, Czech Republic.

The plans are part of the Trump administration’s broader, monthslong effort to shutter federally funded news groups. President Trump first moved to shut down Voice of America in March, and has also targeted other broadcasters, such as Radio Free Asia.

The campaign has met resistance from courts and even from some Republican members of Congress, who believe V.O.A.’s reporting helps counter misinformation and propaganda campaigns from American adversaries like China and Russia.

The expected closures appear to contradict a federal judge’s order from April, which required Trump officials to resume operations at V.O.A. so that it would “fulfill its statutory mandate” to serve “as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news.”

Does Europe Finally Realize It’s Alone?

Nathalie Tocci

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Europeans lulled themselves into the belief that U.S. President Donald Trump is unpredictable and inconsistent but ultimately manageable. This is strangely reassuring, but wrong. From U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance’s speech denigrating Europe at the Munich Security Conference in February to the new U.S. National Security Strategy that was released on Dec. 4, the Trump administration has long had a clear and consistent vision for Europe: one that prioritizes U.S.-Russia ties and seeks to divide and conquer the continent, with much of the dirty work carried out by nationalist, far-right European forces that now enjoy backing from both Moscow and Washington. It is long past time for Europe to realize that, when it comes to the Russia-Ukraine war and the continent’s security, it is, at best, alone. At worst, it now faces two adversaries: Russia in the east and Trump’s United States in the west.

Every time Trump or members of his administration have lashed out at Europe, including Ukraine, Europeans have absorbed the blow with a forced smile and bent over backwards to flatter the White House. They believe this is a clever ploy, playing on Trump’s perceived incoherence and vanity to bring him back into the transatlantic fold. Yet each time Trump has turned his narrow attention to the Ukraine war, he has sided with Russia—from the Oval Office trap set for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February, to the red carpet laid out for Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska in August, to the 28-point “peace plan” that was likely written in Moscow. On every occasion, Europeans have taken the hit, busying themselves with keeping Washington engaged and salvaging what remains of the transatlantic bond. Europeans have turned so many cheeks to Trump that one wonders if they have any left at all.

The Army's $15 Billion Turnover Crisis: Why Half Our Captains Quit

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The U.S. Army invests between $600,000 and $1 million to produce an experienced captain. Then 54% separate before making major.

That's not a retention problem. That's a replacement crisis. We're spending $10 billion annually not to retain talent but to constantly churn out replacements for officers who leave the moment their service obligations end.

Of the 13,000 officers commissioned each year, only 46% stay long enough to be considered for promotion to O-4. The other 54% serve their initial commitment and walk. West Point graduates who cost $500,000 to produce serve an average of 11.8 years and leave. ROTC officers who cost $168,000 serve 12.6 years and leave. Neither group sticks around.

This isn't about money alone. It's about a lieutenant who spent $500,000 of taxpayer investment at West Point, led soldiers in combat, and discovers his battalion commander is toxic. It's about a cyber officer who took three years and $500,000 to train, then got forced into a command track that ignores her technical expertise. It's about a captain who got branched Infantry when he wanted Signal, served his five years exactly, and left for Google.

We know why they're leaving. We've known for years. Leadership quality matters more than anything else, but we don't hold commanders accountable for driving out talent. Branch assignments ignore preferences and talents, creating resentment from day one. Technical experts get forced into command tracks. And junior officers have zero control over their careers, their assignments, or their futures.

Are We at War with Russia? How Warden’s Rings Map Russia’s Hybrid Strategy

Calvin Bailey 

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Russia’s hybrid campaign against Europe since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine shows that war in the 2020s is not defined by the moment tanks cross borders. Conflict today is a continuum, one in which hostile states use non-kinetic, unattributable means to degrade the ability of an adversary to function long before conventional forces engage. The West still tends to treat these actions as ‘pre-war’, or something separate from conflict itself. They are not. They are part of an escalatory strategy aimed at undermining and degrading our deterrence logic. This makes it difficult to ascertain where Europe is on the ‘spectrum of conflict’ with Russia. We may not be exchanging fire, but our infrastructure, airspace and people are still subject to Russian aggression.

To understand where we are, we must understand who Russia targets and why. Revisiting a model developed for an earlier era is helpful: John Warden’s ‘Five Rings’, first outlined in The Enemy as a System. Originally conceived for air campaigns against industrial states, Warden’s framework argued that a state could be paralysed by striking at the system that sustains it: leadership, organic essentials, infrastructure, population and, lastly, its fielded forces. Warden proposed delivering this effect through long-range precision strike, bypassing armies to attack the core. This doctrine has been central to how the US has waged war through its overwhelming airpower advantage.

In major restructure, Army stands up new Western Hemisphere Command

Patty Nieberg

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In a major shake-up of how the Army divides up the world, the service announced Friday the activation of the Western Hemisphere Command, shuffling three commands under a single four-star general.

Gen. Joseph Ryan will be the first commander of the Army Western Hemisphere Command, which the Army is referring to as USAWHC. Ryan will take over from his role as the Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, Plans, and Training at the Pentagon.

USAWHC will be tasked with the defense of U.S. territory, supporting humanitarian assistance and relief missions for natural disasters like wildfires, hurricanes in both the continental U.S., its neighbors and countries in South America.

“This reform modernizes the Army’s command structure, reduces overhead, eliminates duplication, and puts more soldiers in operational formations where they can directly contribute to warfighting readiness. It’s based on threat, strategy, and the need to prioritize the homeland and the need to treat the homeland as a priority theater,” said Col. Mike Burns, a spokesperson for the USAWHC.

Technology and Partner Capacity in Irregular Warfare

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For nearly seventy years, U.S. Army Special Forces have thrived at the intersection of people, ideas, and technology. From the OSS agents operating behind enemy lines in World War II to the Green Berets riding with Afghan horsemen in 2001, Special Forces have always fused the technical with the human. Radios, air controllers, and precision munitions have been tools—but never the center of gravity. The decisive factor has always been the credibility that comes from empowering others to fight for themselves.

In the era of strategic competition, that balance must be rediscovered. The Army’s Special Forces Regiment faces a defining challenge: how to harness emerging technologies not simply to make Operational Detachments–Alpha (ODAs) more lethal and survivable, but to make partners more capable, confident, and credible. The purpose of integrating new technology is not modernization for its own sake; it is to give partners the means to resist coercion, to act independently, and to operate alongside U.S. forces when deterrence fails. In this, the measure of success is not how much capability the ODA can wield, but how much capability it can transfer—and how enduring that capability becomes when the team leaves.

The Regiment must therefore view technology through two complementary lenses. The first is internal: ensuring ODAs retain the agility, mobility, and survivability to operate effectively in the gray zone and in potential large-scale combat operations (LSCO). The second—and increasingly decisive—is external: using technology as an instrument of credibility and influence. The ODA’s ability to identify, deliver, and sustain the right technologies for the right partners—those that are employable, maintainable, and tailored to specific environments—is what will distinguish Special Forces from all other instruments of national power in the decades to come.

Russia Builds Coercive State Apparatus in Ukraine’s Occupied Territories

Maksym Beznosiuk

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In October 2025, the Russian government finalized the full integration of all occupied Ukrainian regional administrations into its federal digital monitoring platform—the Governor’s Dashboard. This system allows the Kremlin to track budgets, personnel performance, construction progress, and administrative compliance in real time (Government of Russia, October 31). This recent move places the occupied Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts under the same performance metrics used across the Russian Federation. They are increasingly under the Kremlin’s tightened, authoritarian grip, which is supported by administrative personnel imported from Russia since 2022 (Radio Svoboda, September 29, 2022).

The Kremlin-led digital transition coincides with broader efforts to institutionalize Russian governance across Ukraine’s occupied territories. Since the outset of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has pursued an administrative annexation of occupied Ukrainian territories. In 2023, Russian authorities announced a transition period until January 2026 to fully incorporate the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), as well as the occupied parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, into Russia’s legal and governance system (TASS, September 29, 2023). To this end, they have introduced a series of regulatory and institutional changes to replicate the Russian state across these regions. Specifically, the Kremlin has deployed courts, prosecutors, the Federal Security Service (FSB), Rosgvardiya units, tax offices, migration structures, property registries, and social funds throughout the occupied regions.

How Israel’s Victory Strengthens America’s Hand

Zineb Riboua

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“From diplomacy to soccer, Israel is becoming a pariah on the global stage.” Thus a September headline from an article on the CNN website, which went on to detail how Israel is “increasingly isolated” due to the war in Gaza, and faces “backlash seeping into economic, cultural, and sporting arenas.” The article had much to say about condemnations from European governments and human-rights organizations, votes in the UN General Assembly, and a possible boycott from the Eurovision song contest. Such analyses have become something like conventional wisdom throughout the West. Typically, they have little to say about strategy or security.

Arthur Herman, in his masterful analysis of Israel’s war and its diplomatic consequences, takes a different approach, arguing that military success has left the Jewish state anything but isolated. While this approach may seem counterintuitive to those who get their news from English-language sources, it’s very much in keeping with the perception of the war in the Middle East. In the West, analysts tend to focus on symbolism, reputational harm, and shifting public moods, none of which informs how governments in the region make decisions. The calculations of Middle Eastern regimes turn on more concrete questions: who commands intelligence superiority, who can blunt Iranian power, and who remains anchored in the American security system. By those measures, Israel has become indispensable. Its performance on the battlefield and its record in covert operations have only reinforced its value to governments that prioritize their own survival and long-term modernization.

What happened to the Gaza peace plan?

Lawrence Freedman

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As Donald Trump struggles to make good on his campaign promise to end the Russo-Ukraine War his main foreign policy achievement – ending the war in Gaza - is coming under increasing strain. For a supposed ceasefire there has been no shortage of violence. Last week, two Hamas fighters emerged from a tunnel shaft in Rafah and launched a rocked propelled grenade at an Israeli armoured personnel carrier. Four soldiers were wounded, one seriously. Soldiers returned fire and killed one of the fighters. Following this the Israeli Defence forces (IDF) targeted a senior Hamas commander with an air strike. Six Palestinians, including two children, were killed.

Despite this ‘problem’, as it was described by Trump, the President still insists that he is determined to move soon to the second stage of his peace plan. The UN Security Council resolution backing his plan was passed on 17 November. It agreed that there should be an International Stabilisation Force (ISF) with a mandate to ‘demilitarize’ the Gaza Strip, secure its borders, and protect civilians and aid operations. The other key element will be a Committee of Palestinian technocrats to provide governance, with a complex oversight structure involving a management committee and then a Board of Peace.

Are Palestinians Ready to Shed Hamas?

Mohamed Elgohari

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The fragile cease-fire between Israel and Hamas has offered the first real opening to end the two-year war in Gaza. The outlines of a peace process have broad buy-in, with the UN Security Council approving U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed plan on November 17, but many political questions remain unresolved. And the thorniest among them—who will govern Gaza, whether and how Hamas will be disarmed and involved in politics thereafter, and what to do about Israel’s ongoing occupation—cannot be answered by international decree. In no small part, the outcome of any peace process will be shaped.

America’s Magical Thinking About Ukraine

Sergey Radchenko

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In August, U.S. President Donald Trump was disappointed when a meeting in Alaska with Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to produce a breakthrough in ending the war in Ukraine. “We didn’t get there,” Trump acknowledged at the time. Putin had evinced little interest in ceding ground on his maximalist demands, making a peace deal look remote, but the entirely predictable failure of the Alaska misadventure evidently did not deter Trump from trying again. In November, a 28-point peace plan—which media reports suggest was put together by both Russian and American officials—sent Kyiv and Ukraine’s European allies into conniptions because it largely reflected Russian positions on territory and Ukraine’s future. In tough negotiations with the United States, the Ukrainians successfully pushed back against many of these Russian-leaning positions, arriving at a new plan that Putin has yet to agree to.

Amid this pageantry of proposal and negotiation, Trump remains committed to chasing a fantasy. The U.S. president is seemingly unwilling to accept that his Russian counterpart does not want to end the war without securing Ukraine’s complete surrender. Trump continues to believe that, if only provided with sufficient inducements or threatened with new sanctions, Putin will trade his long-term goals for a reasonable settlement that will preserve a truncated but basically independent Ukraine, one able to defend itself against further Russian encroachment

Building the digital front line: Understanding big tech decision-making in Ukraine

Emma Schroeder

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The war in Ukraine has seen Russia launch and sustain a full-scale invasion across the information and physical domains against a country that has embraced technological development and increased technological and geopolitical connections to the United States, Canada, and Europe. Private technology companies have provided essential and often irreplaceable support to Ukraine following Russia’s invasion in 2022 and—especially in the early months of the conflict—did so largely without a request from an allied state or payment from Ukraine.

However, more than three years on, although the private sector’s assistance in Ukraine has been well-documented, the policymaking community at large is still largely unaware of how companies decided whether and how to provide technological support to and in Ukraine. Through open research as well as interviews and roundtable discussions with various private sector and government representatives, this report posits that companies were primarily motivated by a complex combination of factors in tandem, which pulled them toward or pushed them away from support. The factors pulling companies toward cooperation were the moral clarity of the conflict, and alignment with existing business opportunities. At the same time however, among factors pushing companies away from involvement in Ukraine was the difficulty of coordinating assistance in-country, as well as the risk of Russian retaliation. Meanwhile, both sets of factors were either enhanced—or mitigated—due to various actions taken by Ukraine, allied states, and international bodies. This includes Ukrainian tech diplomacy; the development of Ukraine’s technical capabilities; aid facilitations and coordination efforts by both various groups and entities; and risk mitigation efforts undertaken by both states and private companies.

The Critical-Minerals Race Is Putting the Planet at Risk

JOHANNA SYDOW and NSAMA CHIKWANKA

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BERLIN – The environmental and human toll of mineral extraction is becoming clearer – and more alarming – by the day. Roughly 60% of Ghana’s waterways are now heavily polluted due to gold mining along riverbanks. In Peru, many communities have lost access to safe drinking water after environmental protections were weakened and regulatory controls were suspended to facilitate new mining projects, contaminating even the Rímac River, which supplies water to the capital, Lima.

These environmental crises are exacerbated by deepening inequality and social divides in many mining-dependent countries. The Global Atlas of Envirnsama-chikwankaonmental Justice has documented more than 900 mining-related conflicts around the world, about 85% of which involve the use or pollution of rivers, lakes, and groundwater.

The rise of the disinformation-for-hire industry

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A quiet revolution has taken place in the world of propaganda. Operations that used to be run by authoritarian governments and intelligence agencies are now outsourced to private firms that sell disinformation and deception as a service. From fake social-media armies to AI-driven smear campaigns, disinformation and Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) have become a global business, giving authoritarian regimes new ways to influence others – and to deny everything.

From state propaganda to disinformation for hire

For decades, information operations were tightly controlled by states. The Soviet Union perfected the craft of dezinformatsiya; later, Russia institutionalised it through modern digital operations such as the Internet Research Agency (IRA)(opens in a new tab).

But over the past decade, this model has commercialised. Disinformation and deception have become a for-profit service offered by companies with intelligence, military, or marketing backgrounds. These firms, operating around the world, sell complete FIMI campaign packages that include fake social-media campaigns, hacking, data leaks, and ‘narrative management’ in order to spread false and manipulated content in democratic countries.

(Artificial) Intelligence saturation and the future of work

Konrad Kording and Ioana Marinescu

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Macroeconomic models typically treat AI as just another form of capital and predict a slowly evolving world, while computer science scaling laws applied to the whole economy predict explosive growth and the potential for a singularity-like event. Both views gloss over the asymmetric reality that intelligence capital or AI scales at computer-science speeds, whereas physical capital and labor do not. What’s missing is a unified, parameter-driven framework that can nest assumptions from both economics and computer science to generate meaningful predictions of AI’s wage and output impacts.

Here we use a constant elasticity of substitution (CES) production function framework that separates physical and intelligence sectors. Whereas physical capabilities let us affect the world, intelligence capabilities let us do this as well: The two are complementary. Given complementarity between the two sectors, the marginal returns to intelligence saturate, no matter how fast AI scales. Because the price of AI capital is falling much faster than that of physical capital, intelligence tasks are automated first, pushing human labor toward the physical sector. The impact of automation on wages is theoretically ambiguous and can be non-monotonic in the degree of automation. A necessary condition for automation to decrease wages is that the share of employment in the intelligence sector decreases; this condition is not sufficient because automation can raise output enough to offset negative reallocation effects.

SOF, AI, and Changing Western Conceptions of War

Scott Douglas

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AI is an emerging technology that will impact every sector and field across the globe. Militaries have a particularly hard challenge ahead, as mistakes in AI implementation cost lives. More importantly, there will be dramatic implications for the world order if Western adversaries can outmaneuver the U.S. and its allies. For the U.S military, the key to implementing AI will be Special Operations Forces (SOF). SOF has a unique skill set and ability to implement AI quickly and effectively and provide tangible real-world feedback on its performance. In this paper, I assess how AI will impact SOF operators and change Western conceptions of war. My research is informed by interviews with three retired SOF veterans: David Cook, who served in the 4th Psychological Operations Group of 1st Special Forces Command; Pete Chenko, a retired Marine Raider who remains active on the reserve force; and David Maxwell, a retired U.S Army Special Forces Colonel. Through my interviews, I gained an understanding of how AI will be used and how it will impact SOF operations. I focus on training, intelligence gathering/analysis, the role of SOF in the next generation of conflict, proposed uses for AI in combat, and the impact of AI on the levels of war. Ultimately, AI is the fulcrum of a seesaw; the East on one side, and the West the other. How America implements and operationalizes AI will determine which side of the seesaw goes up, and which side goes down. 

Enabling Decision Dominance through Human-Machine Teaming

Edward Olson,  John Yanikov 

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Modern conflicts such as the ongoing war in Ukraine demonstrate the enduring necessity of technical adaptation Regional conflicts like Nagorno-Karabakh and Sudan provide contemporary examples of how quickly crisis can escalate into war with regional and global implications. Strategic leaders rely on officers across the Joint Force whose professional military education and operational experience enable them to inform commanders’ decisions. The pace of modern conflict demands the ability to provide “decision dominance” or “providing commanders the ability to assess the battlefield, make decisions, and apply lethal capabilities …[and] do it quicker than the enemy can do it.” To increase the speed of decision making, the US Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, is expanding its digital toolbox with systems that offer opportunities for faster analysis, plans development, and automated execution processes through artificial intelligence (AI) and improved collaboration capabilities. In 2025, the Secretary of the Army directed the integration of AI into Command and Control nodes to accelerate decision making, reinforcing the educational modernization at CGSC.

As the Army’s “School for War” the Command and General Staff School (CGSS) is a school for applied warfighting and organizational leader development. It prepares field grade warfighters to plan, synchronize, and execute operations to win at the Joint and Combined Task Force, Corps, and Division levels through a curriculum that integrates data analytics, AI, and “system” thinking. CGSC provides its students with access to modern AI and collaborative tools in recognition of the need for adaptive officers to enable the planning process and provide commanders creative, data enabled solutions to complex challenges. In enabling its graduates, leading warfighters Day 1 at their next role, educational efforts through augmentation by teaming human capability, experience, creativity, and ethics, with machine capacity, the school provides experiences in keeping with its mission to educate and develop graduates who are.

Hybridization of the Terror Threat in India

Rueben Dass

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India suffered two terrorist incidents in a span of a few days, one of which was successful and the other thwarted in time. On November 10, a car packed with explosives was detonated by a suicide bomber near the Red Fort in Delhi during the evening rush hour. The blast killed 15 and injured 28 people.

The attack was perpetrated by a cell of medical doctors dubbed the “white collar terror module,” allegedly linked to Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, a group affiliated with al-Qaida. The suicide bomber was identified as Umar un-Nabi, a doctor working at Al-Falah University in Faridabad. Other co-conspirators include Nabi’s colleagues at the university, namely Muzammil Shakeel Ganai, Adeel Ahmed Rather, Muzaffar Ahmed Rather, and Dr. Shaheen Shahid, the alleged financier of the Delhi cell and senior member of JeM’s women’s wing.

A day before the Delhi blasts, Gujarat counterterrorism officials arrested another medical doctor identified as Dr. Ahmed Mohiyuddin Saiyed from Telangana and two other individuals who were allegedly plotting to carry out a bio-terror attack using ricin. The cell was uncovered during a routine stop of Saiyed’s car, in which police found a cache of firearms, ammunition, and castor bean cake, a precursor for the manufacture of ricin.

Modi Courts Putin With An Eye On Trump’s Disapproval

Dr. Shanthie Mariet D Souza

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It may be no more than an annual ritual: the Indian Prime Minister and the Russian President meeting each other alternately in either country. However, the current geopolitical churn creates a special interest in Vladimir Putin’s impending visit to India, tentatively planned for the first week of December 2025, to attend the 23rd India-Russia Summit.

He is expected to devote a large part of his meeting with Narendra Modi to finding ways to keep the strategic relationship alive amid New Delhi’s continuing attempts to arrive at a compromise trade deal with Donald Trump’s America.

Unlike Putin’s India visit in 2021, which was a quieter affair, New Delhi is now laying out the trappings to greet the Russian President. Although the visit may not witness the grand optics mostly reserved for US leaders, a slew of preparatory visits by senior officials from either side are underway to make Putin’s official trip appear out of the ordinary.

Pakistan Might Be on the Brink of a Civil War

Brandon J. Weichert

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Imran Khan is a lightning-rod figure in Pakistani politics. A celebrity-turned-politician, he rode a populist wave to power in 2018, only to lose power four years later in a very Pakistani fashion—a putsch by a coalition of his opponents, including both civilian and military leaders. Today, one of Khan’s leading opponents, Shehbaz Sharif, leads the government as prime minister, with the all-important backing of the Pakistan Army and its Svengali-esque chief of staff Asim Munir.

After the coup, Khan was arrested and imprisoned, and his ultimate fate has been a constant question on the minds not only of his supporters but also on the minds of concerned observers the world over. Because of Khan’s personal celebrity as a successful cricketer playing for the Pakistani national team, he has legions of supporters around the world. And even non-cricketers can see that Pakistani politics today resembles an elaborate morality play, in which the jailed former leader has the support of the people and a shadowy cabal of his enemies is working to exclude him and his allies from power.

Where Is The Working Class In 24’s Movement And Its Transition In Bangladesh?

Dr. N N Tarun Chakravorty

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Much has been said about the events of August 5, 2024. Some describe it as a revolution, while others call it a people’s uprising. Regardless of how it is labeled, the aftermath saw the emergence of a new military-backed government, formed by the protestors and their chosen representatives, aiming to implement profound changes in the state machinery.

A revolution is not merely about reforming the state; it is about completely transforming its very structure. True revolution seeks to build a political system where the working class— who are often marginalized in comparison to the wealthy, influential, and elite families— holds power at the center.

While reforms can bring changes in the state’s laws, they cannot alone sustain lasting progress. Without a genuine transformation in people’s mindsets, the old system is bound to return. Only through a deep, collective shift in attitudes and values can society permanently reject corrupt politics and establish a just order

Five Months to Save the First Island Chain from China

Ryan Fedasiuk, and Kareem Rifai

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President Donald Trump must take decisive steps toward bolstering US alliances in the Indo-Pacific before talks with Xi Jinping in April.

China is testing the Trump administration’s resolve in the Indo-Pacific, probing for cracks in America’s alliance architecture while calibrating how far it can push before Trump’s state visit next April. The administration’s efforts to build a more stable relationship with China have created tactical space for diplomacy on core American interests—but recent weeks have seen Beijing interpret American restraint as permission to escalate grey-zone coercion against Tokyo and Taipei.

The coming months present a narrow window to shore up alliance credibility, signal clear limits to Chinese adventurism, and proceed with US-China diplomacy from a position of alliance cohesion and American strength.

Tokyo’s increasingly explicit warnings that a Taiwan contingency threatens Japanese survival are an accurate accounting of its security environment. Prime Minister Takaichi’s November 7 statement—that PLA use of force against Taiwan could qualify as a “situation threatening Japan’s survival” under the 2015 Peace and Security Legislation—constitutes the most direct Japanese commitment to Taiwan’s defense in modern history.

The Real Problem with Cozying Up to the Saudis

Benjamin H. Friedman and Rosemary Kelanic

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The U.S.-Saudi romance is back. That’s at least the story in most reports about the visit of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) to the White House, and the one the White House is selling: where Trump set aside concerns about Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, especially the murder of Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi, and put U.S. interests first to get a series of lucrative cooperative deals with the Saudis.

But the new deal with Saudi Arabia is essentially the old one, and MBS is a sideshow. The new initiatives are mostly press releases lacking substance. They reinforce the old, bipartisan set-up with the Saudis—one resting on a myth that U.S. energy security requires buying Saudi goodwill. The U.S. should distance itself from the Saudis instead of cozying up, not because MBS is a thug but because it’s in our interest to do so.

Trump’s Ukraine Peace Plan Means More War

NINA L. KHRUSHCHEVA

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When US President Donald Trump shared his 28-point peace plan last month, he immediately began putting pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to “sign by Thanksgiving.” Basing the timeline on a US holiday, which has no resonance in either Ukraine or Russia, was telling: the plan was always and exclusively about Trump.

As the New School’s Nina L. Khrushcheva observes, Trump has little interest in “ensuring a durable peace.” He merely wants to distract the US electorate from his “association with the convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein,” with a “quick foreign-policy ‘victory.’” The idea was that he would secure Russia’s agreement by offering a plan “skewed heavily” in its favor, while using a high-level corruption scandal within Zelensky’s government to “force unacceptable peace terms on Ukrainians.”

Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy Takes Aim at Europe

Marek Magierowski

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President Donald Trump, undeniably, has a soft spot for strong leaders. Oftentimes, one gets the impression this is the sole yardstick he applies to foreign heads of state when evaluating their political status and their usefulness to America’s key international goals, regardless of actual clout or diplomatic skills of a particular interlocutor.

Thus, Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele get special treatment from the White House. The US president gets along well with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. Likewise, Benjamin Netanyahu and Viktor Orbán can also bank on Donald Trump’s sympathy and understanding. Ahmed al-Shara, the new Syrian ruler and a former terrorist, was received in the White House a few weeks ago, heaped with praise and characterized as a “tough guy.” Even Kim Jong-un, the North Korean tyrant, was rewarded with some warm comments from Trump himself: “I had a very good relationship with Kim.”

Let’s move the spotlight to Europe now: any strongmen, tough leaders, apart from the above-mentioned prime minister of Hungary? Ursula von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas certainly do not meet the criteria. Does France’s Emmanuel Macron? Well, he is just a “nice guy.” Does chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany? Not necessarily. The Italian premier Giorgia Meloni is closest to this perception, however, probably not authoritarian enough for Trump’s taste. The Finnish president Alexander Stubb has been in the headlines lately as the only European politician who has the command of the US president’s psyche. Still, he is just “another nice guy,” and, additionally, a fine golfer.

The Escalating Stakes of Proxy Wars

Maj. Juan J. Quiroz

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Although the United States is competing and preparing for conflict against near-peer adversaries, proxy wars will be the most likely venue for great powers to advance their interests without incurring the costs of direct conflict against each other.1 However, future proxy wars will also look vastly different from their Cold War antecedents, resembling the destructive conventional wars that great powers previously sought to avoid.2 The Russo-Ukrainian war is emblematic of this new dynamic, with sponsors overtly supporting their favored belligerent and the escalating use of high-end weaponry.3 In other conflicts as well, sponsors are forgoing deniability in favor of achieving objectives by fighting side-by-side with proxies or deploying conventional forces like Saudi Arabia in Yemen.4

This trend toward escalation is driven by strategic factors that favor direct conflict on the part of sponsors.5 Identifying these factors is crucial for U.S. Army leaders because the Army is responsible for shaping operational environments to the United States’ advantage, preventing conflict through credible deterrence, prevailing in large-scale ground combat when deterrence fails, and consolidating gains to make operational successes enduring.6 As the global order continues to fragment, proxy wars will abound. The Army will be charged with deterring revisionist states from escalating proxy wars into conventional interstate conflicts that would be even more destabilizing and costly to U.S. interests. This will require adaptations in information sharing and employment of forward-stationed forces, such as Army special operations forces (ARSOF) and security force assistance brigades (SFABs), and theater armies that manage force tailoring and command the Army component during the initial stages of crises that include escalation from low-level proxy wars into direct conflict.7

The Common-Sense Realism of the National Security Strategy

Greg R. Lawson

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The Trump administration has rightly reoriented US foreign policy toward domestic renewal, more balanced alliances, and hemispheric protection.

For nearly a decade, a small but growing group of analysts has argued that American foreign policy needs a massive course correction. With the unveiling of President Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy yesterday, that broad-based course correction is at hand and clearly articulated.

While the United States cannot, and should not, retreat into isolationism, it has desperately needed a reorientation toward the world as it actually is. For too long, Western intellectuals, policy wonks, and political leaders bought into the “End of History” and “Unipolar Moment” framing of how the world would operate after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Instead of continuing to act as if the United States could perennially play the role of Atlas holding up the world, a consistent theme emerged in realist policy analysis: the United States could no longer afford a foreign policy driven by ideological aspiration, institutional inertia, or the comforting illusions of unipolarity. The United States needed a realism fit for a new competitive age—not the caricature of realism that pretends America can withdraw behind its oceans, but a realism grounded in material strength, strategic triage, and an unsentimental view of how great-power politics actually works.

Only Europe can save Ukraine from Putin and Trump – but will it?

Timothy Garton Ash

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Europe, you have been warned. President Vladimir Putin has waged a full-scale war against Ukraine for nearly four years and this week threatened that Russia was “ready right now” for war with Europe if need be. President Donald Trump has demonstrated that the US is ready to sell out Ukraine for the sake of a dirty deal with Putin’s Russia. His new US National Security Strategy prescribes “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations”. How much more clarity do you need?

Now it’s up to us Europeans to enable Ukraine to survive armed assault from Moscow and diplomatic betrayal from Washington. In doing so, we also defend ourselves. For a year now, people have been telling me that Trump will eventually get tough on Russia. It’s been the geopolitical version of Waiting for Godot. Then his personal real-estate emissaries come up with a 28-point “peace plan” that is a Russian-American imperial and commercial deal at the expense of both Ukraine and Europe.

The Common-Sense Realism of the National Security Strategy

Greg R. Lawson

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The Trump administration has rightly reoriented US foreign policy toward domestic renewal, more balanced alliances, and hemispheric protection.

For nearly a decade, a small but growing group of analysts has argued that American foreign policy needs a massive course correction. With the unveiling of President Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy yesterday, that broad-based course correction is at hand and clearly articulated.

While the United States cannot, and should not, retreat into isolationism, it has desperately needed a reorientation toward the world as it actually is. For too long, Western intellectuals, policy wonks, and political leaders bought into the “End of History” and “Unipolar Moment” framing of how the world would operate after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Instead of continuing to act as if the United States could perennially play the role of Atlas holding up the world, a consistent theme emerged in realist policy analysis: the United States could no longer afford a foreign policy driven by ideological aspiration, institutional inertia, or the comforting illusions of unipolarity. The United States needed a realism fit for a new competitive age—not the caricature of realism that pretends America can withdraw behind its oceans, but a realism grounded in material strength, strategic triage, and an unsentimental view of how great-power politics actually works.

National Security Strategy of the United States of America

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But here is my initial assessment comparing the two:

The Gold Standard: NSDD 32 is a concise top secret directive that tells the system what to do. It states global and regional objectives, identifies threats, lays out roles for allies, sets priorities among theaters, and directs force development, nuclear policy, general purpose forces, security assistance, and mobilization. It is written to guide planning, programming, and operations across the instruments of power.

2025 NSS: The 2025 strategy is a long public narrative. It devotes heavy space to critique of post Cold War elites, defines what “we want,” lists American strengths, lays out principles, and then describes regional approaches, especially for the Western Hemisphere and Asia-Indo-Pacific.

Reagan issues a short operational directive. POTUS issues a long political manifesto that contains strategy.

Comparison: NSDD 32 is tighter as an executable strategy. The 2025 document is richer on philosophy and domestic agenda but looser as guidance for campaign plans (always my focus).

Reagan defines clear global objectives. Deterring and defeating Soviet attack. Containing and reversing Soviet expansion and military presence. Increasing the costs of Soviet support to proxy, terrorist, and subversive forces. Neutralizing Soviet use of diplomacy, arms transfers, economic pressure, political action, propaganda, and disinformation. Limiting Soviet capabilities through US military strength, arms control, and denial of key technology. Ensuring access to markets, energy, minerals, sea and space. Supporting Third World development and a well functioning international economic system.

The New US National Security Strategy

Phillips P. OBrien

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In case you missed it, the US government has just released its new National Security Strategy. Here is a link so you can download a copy for yourself. As such I wanted to write a few words about what is said in it specifically about Europe—as these are the most fascinating and frightening parts.

One thing that stands out (and we can see it in other recent moves such as the Trump administration weakening its already pathetic sanctions on Russia, cozying up to China, sandbagging Ukraine and Europe, and weakening its commitment to NATO) is that the administration is being more and more open about its intentions. This new strategy is a return to JD Vance’s speech in Munich which was delivered not long after the administration came to power. This speech, if you remember, caused consternation amongst some Europeans who had not yet grasped what the administration believed. You can watch the whole speech here if you really want to.

In Munich, Trump called for more support for the populist right in Europe—think Viktor Orban in Hungary, the AFD in Germany, National Front in France and Reform in the UK. And in the new National Security Strategy, the US is has come right back to pushing for exactly this. The major point is that European culture is under threat (the continent is becoming “non-European” and as such, even NATO is as always with Trump being questioned as a viable institution.

Ukraine Military Situation: Russian Military Intensifies Offensive Pressure, Making Meaningful Battlefield Gains

Hudson Institute, Can Kasapoğlu

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Fighting raged at a high operational tempo across the Ukrainian battle space last week, with some days seeing between two and three hundred tactical engagements.

This pronounced increase in combat activity highlights the mounting pressure Russian forces are placing on Ukraine. Some sources report that Russia seized about 90 percent more Ukrainian territory in November than in October. In a worrying trend for Kyiv, Russian formations are now targeting the anti-drone infrastructure Ukraine has built along critical logistical routes.

The Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka fronts bore the brunt of Moscow’s assault. The Russian Ministry of Defense announced that its forces had successfully captured Pokrovsk. While Kyiv has not officially confirmed the city’s fall, the situation there appears all but irreversible. Heavy fog and harsh winter conditions have allowed Russian small-infantry assault teams to penetrate Ukrainian defenses. Russian units have also surrounded the nearby city of Myrnohrad, which may soon fall as well.

Other flashpoints also bear monitoring. In recent weeks the Russian military has been pushing hard and gaining ground in Zaporizhzhia and in the direction of Lyman. In Kupiansk, where this report detected prior Russian infiltrations, the Ukrainian General Staff has focused on detecting breaching Russian assault groups as it sweeps the city and its outskirts.

U.S. Army Adaptivity and Agility

Dean G. Popps

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Earlier this month, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth took on an issue that has long evaded Pentagon officials in both Democratic and Republican Administrations: acquisition reform. Secretary Hegseth laid out a bold strategy for addressing the development, procurement, and fielding of defense assets, with a much-needed focus on “speed to capability.”

The move should be fully embraced by policymakers, the acquisition community, and private sector contractors, alike.

Secretary Hegseth’s vision rightly reflects that the myriad threats facing the U.S. homeland and forward-deployed resources demand a rejection of the “business as usual” approach at the Pentagon. Given the urgent priorities outlined by the Trump Administration – be it Golden Dome or the defense of Guam – there is no better time to focus on both increased flexibility and efficiency.

The U.S. Army will be front and center during this effort, particularly in its integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) portfolio. Lt. Gen. Sean A. Gainey, Commanding General of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, has said, “The U.S. Army AMD force is undergoing the most significant modernization in our history.”

This initiative is far from a luxury in 2025. As the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have demonstrated over the last couple of years, air and missile defenses are essential if we are to protect our troops and allies abroad.

Ukraine Is Fighting NATO’s War

Reuben Johnson

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A French air force Dassault Rafale refuels from a U.S. Air Force KC-10 Extender from the 908th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron before conducting an aerial refuel during a Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve mission March 20, 2017. The KC-10 provides aerial refueling capabilities for U.S. and coalition aircraft as they support Iraqi Security Forces and partnered forces as they work to liberate territory under the control of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Joshua A. Hoskins)

Key Points and Summary – NATO must stop treating Ukraine’s struggle as someone else’s war and support Kyiv as a de facto future member until it formally joins the alliance.

-Ukrainian accession once seemed inevitable, only to be derailed by Vladimir Putin’s hard turn at the 2007 Munich Security Conference and Europe’s fear of escalation.

-What is needed is sustained weapons flows via NATO mechanisms, solving financing for major air buys, and closing political rifts inside the alliance—and echoes Garry Kasparov’s warning: NATO must return to its core mission of deterring Russian aggression, or face endless war.

Can NATO Support Ukraine Until the Day It Becomes an Alliance Member?

What should the United States and NATO do about Ukraine? This question is a sore subject for those of us who lived in the country, lost everything when the Russians invaded, and had to leave as war refugees.