Indian Strategic Studies: 2025

14 April 2025

How India Should Respond to Trump’s Tariff Threat

Mohsin Raza Khan

When U.S. President Donald Trump announced double-digit tariffs on countries around the world, what he dubbed a “Liberation Day” for U.S. trade, it roiled global markets. While Trump has since announced a “pause” on the tariffs, the final resolution of the tariff threat will hinge on “bespoke” negotiations between the White House and each targeted country.

India faced a 26 percent tariff rate under the original announcement, which has now been cut to 10 percent amid the 90-day pause. India needs some innovative solutions to turn this into an opportunity rather than sticking to the usual bureaucratic ways of negotiating, which could cause a severe setback to its growth trajectory. Any potential retaliation is out of the question, since the United States has escalation dominance due to its 10 times larger GDP and consumer market. Instead, India should drop all non-agricultural tariffs on U.S. imports to zero.

There are multiple benefits of such an approach. First, there would be little change to India’s import bill due to the high costs of U.S. manufactured goods; even without tariffs, they will remain uncompetitive. However, dropping tariffs would help India’s exports and manufacturing even if the United States eventually scraps its “Liberation Day” threat, since India’s leading economists have long believed a reduction in tariffs is necessary to boost exports. Finally, such an offer to Trump could save India from a potential economic downturn given the size of Trump’s tariffs – even the lowered 10 percent rate is concerning – and safeguard India’s future growth and employment trajectory, which is highly U.S. dependent. This is an offer Vietnam and Cambodia have already made to Donald Trump, and he is looking at it positively and willing to cut deals.

Can Washington and Beijing Walk Back Their Trade War? - Analysis

Lili Pike and Christina Lu

In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump paused the global trade war he launched last week, giving nearly every country a 90-day reprieve on the new, higher U.S. tariffs that had gone into effect just hours earlier. But one country was left out.

China, Trump said, would see its tariff rate shoot up to 125 percent, due to the “lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets,” while all other countries received an amended 10 percent tariff rate. The new tariff hike on China is the third round in less than a week—a rapid escalation that experts say may take much longer to reverse.a

Trump and Xi Are in a Tariff Trap - Analysis

Craig Singleton

The U.S.-China trade war has erupted into a full-scale tariff spiral, with triple-digit levies on Chinese products going into effect today and Washington showing no signs of slowing its assault. Confronted with this economic barrage, Beijing would ordinarily search for a quiet path back to détente through dialogue. But that path has all but vanished.

The reason is simple. For U.S. President Donald Trump, his pressure campaign isn’t a prelude to any negotiation—it is the strategy itself. Each tariff taunt feeds the next, leaving China with fewer options at every turn. Worse, Beijing’s political rigidity, deep insecurities, and defensive overreaction to Trump’s tariff announcements have seemingly slammed shut the very doors it quietly needs to reopen.

How China Should Handle Trump’s Tariffs - Analysis

Lizzi C. Lee

China fired back at the Trump administration’s tariff hike, raising duties on U.S. goods to 84 percent—a dramatic increase from the previous 34 percent. The move came just hours after the U.S. imposed its own sweeping increases, bringing total tariffs on Chinese imports to over 100 percent, and was followed with a declaration by U.S. President Donald Trump of 125 percent tariffs today. For Beijing, the political message is unambiguous: The United States is weaponizing trade beyond the realm of economic rationality.

China’s knee-jerk response has been to meet Trump’s threats with resounding resolve and retaliatory tariffs: Official statements and state media editorials insist that the country possesses “sufficient tools” and “full confidence” to respond. But that instinct—while emotionally satisfying—is a strategic misstep.

The Challenges Of Decoupling Manufacturing From China – Analysis

Murray Hunter

Back in the late 1980s, the relocation of American manufacturing to China, labelled the ‘factory of the world’ became the latest trend in strategic management. As environmental laws tightened around industry, governments implicitly encouraged American industry to pack up and leave.

From the corporation perspective, relocating manufacturing to China made good sense. This led to bumper profits of corporate America, due to the dramatic cut in manufacturing overheads. Additional flexibility in production allowed corporations to focus almost totally upon marketing, sales and logistical operations.

As corporation profits soared, the towns and cities that once supported these corporation’s factories became desolate wastelands. America is full of ‘almost’ ghost-towns that have become ghettos for the unemployed. Total micro-economic eco-systems were destroyed, that no longer shared in the well-being of once manufacturing-based corporations.

However, on the aggregate US front, consumers benefitted from the super-low prices of garments, footwear, home appliances, and other miscellaneous merchandise.

No Such Thing as Disorder: A Review of States of Disorder, Ecosystems of Governance

Sarah Cope

Adam Day advances a nearly unthinkable contention with his book States of Disorder, Ecosystems of Governance: failing states are not actually in disorder. Instead, he argues that failing states demonstrate a different kind of self-organization and that persistent instability is, in fact, the success of system organization—just a system oriented toward instability instead of stability. In his deft, 178-page argument, Day asks, “Why does state building fail, so often and so comprehensively, to achieve its objectives of stable, liberal modes of governance?” Through a thoughtful analysis, he concludes that the United Nations “failed to grasp reality, becoming swept up in the system itself, often unintentionally strengthening some of the predatory, violent tendencies [it is] trying to transform”. The focus of his analysis is on UN state-building efforts in South Sudan through the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), and the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO).

Day is no hapless critic––he is a long-term member of the UN elite and the current Head of the Geneva Office of the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research. His resume includes positions such as Senior Political Advisor to MONUSCO and roles with the UN Special Coordinator’s Office for Lebanon, UNMIS, and UNAMID. He spent time on the ground in both of the book’s case study nations and is intimately invested in UN state-building efforts.

Made in Yemen? Assessing the Houthis’ arms-production capacity

Fabian Hinz

On 15 March, the United States returned to launching significant airstrikes aimed at degrading the Houthis’ military capabilities and bolstering freedom of navigation through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. President Donald Trump, in comments on social media, identified Iran as continuing to enable Houthi attacks.

Trump’s comments play into a long-standing debate on the extent to which the Houthis operate as an instrument of Iranian policy. While some describe the group as a mere proxy, reliant on Iranian weapons transfers, others emphasise its political autonomy and capacity for local arms production. Houthi command and decision-making structures remain opaque, making it difficult to assess the degree of political and operational influence Iran exerts. However, the relatively well-documented nature of the Houthi missile and uninhabited-aerial-vehicle (UAV) arsenal, employed in attacks against Israel and in the anti-shipping campaign in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, offers insight into the material dimension of the relationship.

Going ballisticIran has a long-standing pattern of transferring complete missile and rocket systems to non-state partners and also of enabling localised production among these groups. Since at least the late 2000s, Tehran has supported domestic manufacturing by designing systems tailored for local assembly and providing technical training, production machinery, and key components such as guidance kits and specialised parts. These have been documented in Gaza, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria.

What Should the US Do About Salt Typhoon?

Alexander Culafi

Of the countless threat actors, state-sponsored and otherwise, that target the US private and public sectors, few have gained the wide cultural relevance of Salt Typhoon, the Chinese state-sponsored threat actor that has targeted major telecommunications providers in a far-reaching, ongoing espionage campaign.

Discovered last fall, Salt Typhoon has hacked into telecom giants in the US and abroad — including Verizon, AT&T, Lumen Technologies, and others — in a successful effort to access the "lawful intercept" systems law enforcement agencies use for court-authorized wiretapping. In its apparently months-long campaign, Salt Typhoon accessed sensitive data belonging to the Republican and Democratic 2024 presidential campaigns as well as that of other politicians.

Salt Typhoon's activities have continued into the new year and around the world. Although Chinese state-backed espionage against the US is well-established, the telecom-focused attacks reported last fall are a high-profile reminder of how these activities are escalating. The question is, What can the US do about it?

Trump had five tariff goals - has he achieved any of them?

Anthony Zurcher

Donald Trump announced a massive tariff plan last week that would have upended the global economic order as well as long-established trading relationships with America's allies.

But that plan - or at least a significant part of it - is on ice after the president suspended higher tariffs on most countries for 90 days while leaning into a trade war with China.

So with this partial reversal, is Trump any closer to realising his goals on trade? Here's a quick look at five of his key ambitions and where they now stand.

1) Better trade deals

WHAT TRUMP SAID: For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike

Trump's original trade plan packed a big punch that landed around the world, with a flat 10% baseline tariff on everyone (including some uninhabited islands) and additional "reciprocal" tariffs on the 60 countries that he said were the worst offenders.

It sent allies and adversaries scrambling, as they stared down the prospect of a debilitating blow to their economies.

Israel’s tactics have changed and so have its objectives.

David E. Rosenberg

When Israeli jets struck Beit Lahia, Rafah, Nuseirat, and al-Mawasi last month, killing some 400 Palestinians in the process, the assault seemed like the resumption of the war being fought in Gaza since the Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked Israel and killed 1,200 people. The two sides had struck a cease-fire agreement in January that included the release of some Israeli hostages—but the truce fell apart in just weeks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu framed the new assault as a means of forcing Hamas to release the remaining hostages. “From now on, negotiations will be conducted only under fire,” he said in a televised address on March 18.

But three weeks into the fighting, it has become clear that Israel is now waging a different war, with different goals and tactics—sufficiently different that it might be useful to think of January as the end of the first Israeli war in Gaza triggered by Oct. 7 and the March assault as the beginning of a second one. Netanyahu suggested as much recently when he said that “this is only the beginning,” the implication being that this wasn’t a war to rack up tactical gains before resuming talks but rather something bigger.

Europe’s Democrats Must Forge a Will to Fight

WOJCIECH PRZYBYLSKI and GORAN BULDIOSKI

With America’s commitment to upholding its European allies’ security in serious doubt, and revisionist powers like China and Russia increasingly emboldened, the European Union is scrambling to strengthen its capacity to defend itself. But this effort could be thwarted by a fundamental paradox: while Europeans cherish peace, they largely lack the resolve to fight for it.

A recent report highlights the scale of this disconnect. Though half of young people in France, Germany, and Spain, as well as the United Kingdom, expect armed conflict within a decade, only one-third would fight to defend their countries. Across the EU, only 32% of adults say they would be willing to take up arms, including just 23% of Germans and 14% of Italians.

The problem is not simply that Europeans have embraced pacifism. Rather, the EU is beset by a dangerous complacency: decades of reliance on the United States have fostered a widespread belief that security is guaranteed, not earned. But Donald Trump’s administration has made it clear that Europe can no longer count on the US to defend it. With security threats proliferating – exemplified by Russia’s war in Ukraine and China’s saber-rattling in the Indo-Pacific – Europe must cultivate a collective will to fight.

Governments Are Not Startups

MARIANA MAZZUCATO and RAINER KATTEL

Around the world, governments are trying to reinvent themselves in the image of business. Elon Musk’s DOGE crusade in the United States is quite explicit on this point, as is Argentina’s chainsaw-wielding president, Javier Milei. But one also hears similar rhetoric in the United Kingdom, where Cabinet Office Minister Pat McFadden wants the government to foster a “test-and-learn” culture and move toward performance-based management.

'The Economist' editor unpacks the 'biggest trade policy shock' of Trump's tariffs

Terry Gross

President Trump's sweeping "Liberation Day" tariffs have upended the global economy, sending stock markets into turmoil.

"This is, without a doubt, the biggest trade policy shock, I think, in history," Zanny Minton Beddoes, the editor-in-chief of The Economist, says.

Trump last week ordered a minimum 10% tax on nearly everything the U.S. buys from other countries. He's also ordered much higher levies on things the country buys from China, Japan and the European Union. However, a lot of those tariffs are in flux, because almost each day the president has either increased some tariffs or paused others.

"Presidents from Reagan to President Biden have increased tariffs on individual goods or individual sectors, but nothing like this. So this is off the charts in terms of scale, ... speed and uncertainty," says Minton Beddoes, who is a former economist for the International Monetary Fund.

While the motivation behind the tariffs remains unclear, she says that the Trump administration could be seeking to "radically remake the rules of global security, geopolitics, economics."

Safe-Haven Currency Choices Under Tariff Policies – Analysis

Chen Li

The global trade system is currently undergoing the most severe shock since World War II. On April 2, the “reciprocal tariff” policy led by the Trump administration officially took effect, immediately triggering a chain reaction in global markets. On April 3, the S&P 500 index plunged nearly 5%, marking its worst single-day performance since June 2020, with a loss of over USD 2.4 trillion in market value in just one day. The Nasdaq index also fell by 4% on April 4, officially entering a bear market, while the European STOXX 600 index dropped 2.7% on the same day.

The sharp fluctuations in the stock market reflect investors’ panic, and in response to the uncertainty caused by tariff policies, many investors fled from high-risk assets such as stocks and shifted towards assets considered “safe havens.” However, amid the turmoil in the stock market, funds are flowing into the bond market, and the yields on sovereign bonds in some countries are falling, reflecting the increased demand for risk aversion as uncertainty rises. After a significant depreciation, the U.S. dollar index rebounded to around 103, while the Swiss franc and Japanese yen showed strong performance. On April 7, the Japanese yen rose by 1% against the U.S. dollar, and the Swiss franc gained 0.7%. These changes indicate that investors are seeking lower-risk assets, with safe-haven currencies becoming refuges in times of turmoil due to their stability, low risk, and ability to preserve value during crises.

Principled, Enforceable, And Strategically Sound: A Just Peace For Ukraine – Analysis

Luke Coffey

Executive Summary

President Donald Trump has made ending the war in Ukraine a central pillar of his foreign policy. While his desire to broker peace appears sincere, any resolution needs to preserve Ukrainian sovereignty and the long-term security interests of the United States and its allies. A ceasefire that allows Russia to regroup and rearm would only delay a larger conflict. The war’s outcome will shape Ukraine’s future as well as the future of transatlantic security.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukrainians have demonstrated remarkable resilience and courage, reclaiming nearly half of the land Russia initially occupied. The Ukrainians want the war to end, but they do not want to surrender. Instead, they seek a just peace, which should be rooted in four essential principles:

Formal non-recognition of Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory.Occupied areas should never be legitimized as part of the Russian Federation. The 1940 Welles Declaration, wherein the US refused to recognize Soviet control of the Baltic states, is a useful precedent for how such a policy can uphold international law.
Meaningful reconstruction assistance. Western governments and institutions should help fund Ukraine’s recovery with a combination of frozen Russian assets, private investment, and direct aid, ensuring the country’s economic resilience and long-term stability. Major ports such as Mykolaiv and Kherson should be reopened.
Return of prisoners of war, political detainees, and abducted Ukrainian children. Tens of thousands remain in Russian custody, including over 19,000 children forcibly taken from their families. Repatriation should be a moral and legal priority in any settlement.
Full preservation of Ukrainian sovereignty. Ukraine needs the right to shape its own government, conduct elections, join alliances, and build its military free from Russian interference.

The Trump Administration’s Pursuit Of A Sino-Russian Schism – Analysis

Garrett Campbell

The pro-Russian tack taken by the Trump administration seems puzzling and even counterproductive to most Americans, to say nothing of our NATO allies and global partners. Recent polling shows a majority of Americans do not trust Putin, that there remains majority support among Americans for Ukraine, and that Americans reject the idea of abandoning NATO or our leadership position among our alliances and partnerships. Why, then, is the Trump administration’s messaging disconnected from domestic and international audiences?

It is not so puzzling when one considers it in the context of the first Trump administration’s major foreign policy goal of driving a wedge between Russia and China. While there may be dismay at Trump’s pro-Putin turn, pursuing a Sino-Russian schism is on par with what he and other Republican presidential candidatessaid they were going to do. Trump was explicit in his intent to return to this policy. The current Trump administration faces a growing dilemma beyond the failures of the first administration’s policy efforts that sought to create a schism but only solidified the strategic partnership in ways not seen throughout history. None of the conditions to effect such a division existed then, nor do they exist today. The two strategic partners spent nearly two decades ensuring they were aligned to prevent such a schism, so pursuing an ill-informed initiative made failure virtually inevitable. The factors that bind them now exist in spades, making another effort to divide the Sino-Russian strategic partnership even more likely doomed to failure. Worse, in zealously reimplementing a failed policy, it is clear Trump’s team has done so without evaluating and assessing why it failed in the first place. Seemingly obtuse to the realities of the relationship, they have decided to court Putin at the expense of our alliances and partnerships. This has committed the US to a potentially self-destructive geopolitical road to failure.

Trump’s ‘Fair Trade’ Offal – OpEd

James Bovard

“For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike,” President Trump declared last week when he proclaimed a national emergency and imposed the highest tariffs since the Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930. US stock markets lost more than $6 trillion in value and fierce controversies are raging over whether Trump is rescuing or ruining the economy.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Trump’s penalty tariffs are “the reordering of fair trade.” Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent declared, “For the first time in decades — probably since I was a college student — we’re going to see fair trade.”

Last week, the US Trade Representative (USTR) released its 377-page annual report on Foreign Trade Barriers, exhaustively recapping abuses by each nation cheating America. Luckily for the Trump administration, media fact checkers almost completely ignored the wildly-slanted report.

But one of the most high-profile cases illustrates the absurdity of Trump’s latest fair trade definitions.

US Strikes Mineral Deals With Uzbekistan – Tashkent Report

It appears that the Trump administration’s single-minded pursuit of critical minerals is starting to bear fruit in Central Asia.

According to an Uzbek government statement April 9, meetings in Washington involving Uzbek Investment Ministry officials and US business executives yielded several agreements covering the exploration, extraction and processing of minerals in the Central Asian state. The deals also reportedly cover the provision of innovative US technologies to Tashkent, and the training of Uzbek specialists.

“The agreements were formalized by contracts,” the statement adds. “A manager was assigned to each project.”

Neither US nor Uzbek officials to date have revealed the value of the contracts signed, or the entities involved.

The announcement occurred amid a flurry of diplomatic contacts in Washington between the United States and Uzbekistan, including an April 9 meeting between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Uzbek counterpart, Bakhtiyor Saidov. In summarizing the discussions, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce lauded bilateral cooperation in the “critical minerals and other sectors,” adding that the US will also work with Tashkent “on the modernization of safe nuclear technologies.”

Trump Was Right to Fire Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield

Brandon J. Weichert

United States Navy Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield, who had been serving as the U.S. military representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), blazed a remarkable trail for herself.

Chatfield’s military credentials are indisputable. From serving as a helicopter pilot—flying the SH-3, CH-46D, and MH-60S—she went on to command the Helicopter Combat Support Squadron (HC-5) and Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC-25).

Chatfield then led a joint reconstruction team in Farah Province, Afghanistan, in 2008. She was also the first woman to hold the position of president of the prestigious Naval War College.

The Firing Heard ‘Round the World

Yet, according to Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell on Tuesday, “Secretary [Pete] Hegseth has removed U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield from her position as U.S. representative to NATO’s military committee due to a loss of confidence in her ability to lead.”

That announcement quickly led to a media firestorm—and predictable criticism from Democratic lawmakers, who insist that the firing was a result of chauvinism and accuse President Donald Trump of dismissing capable officers in favor of political cronies. For their part, Republicans have fired back that Chatfield was the public face of the dreaded DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) craze that has gripped the minds of America’s military leaders for far too long.

Acting CYBERCOM chief says dual-hat NSA role key to ‘speed’ in cyberspace

Carley Welch

The newly elevated acting head of US Cyber Command, Lt. Gen. William Hartman, appeared to defend a continuation of the dual-hatted role for the position in which he serves, also leading the National Security Agency, telling lawmakers it allows more “speed and agility” to take on adversaries in cyberspace.

“I’ve continued to see this partnership evolve and our ability to execute increasingly more precise operations is fundamentally because the dual hat allows me, in my current capacity, to move with the speed and agility and unity of effort that is required,” Hartman told a hearing of the Senate Armed Services’s Subcommittee on Cybersecurity Wednesday. “It also forces leaders across the organization to collaborate, to do the hard work and to provide the best options for the national security of the country.”

The three star added that the partnership between CYBERCOM and the NSA allows the US to achieve two key objectives: to “see and understand” what adversaries are doing, and to enable CYBERCOM and “other elements of the US government” to be able to defend US critical infrastructure and the Department of Defense’s Information Network, or DoDIN.

Hartman took over for Lt. Gen.Timothy Haugh last week after Haugh was controversially ousted by the Trump administration along with his NSA deputy Wendy Noble. Hartman previously served as the deputy commander of CYBERCOM.

AI is Supercharging Cyberwarfare

Armis, a leading cyber exposure management and security company, recently unveiled their third annual Cyberwarfare Report - Warfare Without Borders: AI’s Role in The New Age of Cyberwarfare. Their findings carry a warning that AI-powered attacks are becoming "a supercharged cyber weapon", which calls for organizations to be more proactive as attacks increase.

New data shows that threats have increased in the past year, with 73 percent of IT decision-makers expressing concern about nation-state actors using AI to develop more sophisticated and targeted cyberattacks. “AI is enabling nation-state actors to stealthily evolve their tactics to commit acts of cyberwarfare at any given moment,” said Nadir Izrael, CTO and Co-Founder of Armis. “At the same time, threats are emerging at overwhelming rates from smaller nations and non-state actors leveraging AI to elevate to near-peer cyber threats."

Armis also states that market consolidation, complex regulatory landscapes and gaps in legacy security tool stacks have challenged organizations’ abilities to stay ahead of threats. While many wish to implement AI-driven cybersecurity tools in a proactive manner, half of IT decision-makers surveyed acknowledge their teams lack the necessary expertise to implement and manage the technology.

The Shifting Geopolitics of AI

Ravi Agrawal

The artificial intelligence revolution is deeply linked with geopolitics. It’s well known that a small handful of countries and companies control the manufacturing of the highest-end semiconductors. But when you add in the scramble for the critical minerals that are needed to manufacture those chips; the data centers that house them; the land, energy, and cooling required to run those data centers; and the subsea cables that channel data and power, one realizes how the infrastructure that powers the AI economy crisscrosses the entire globe.

On this week’s episode of FP Live, I spoke with Jared Cohen about the shifting geopolitics of AI. Cohen has written about the topic extensively in FP. He’s a co-head of the Goldman Sachs Global Institute and previously worked at Jigsaw, Google, and as a member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff. We spoke on the morning of Tuesday, April 8: Certain references to tariffs at the time may be overtaken by events. The full discussion is available on the video box atop this page or on the FP Live podcast. What follows here is a lightly edited and condensed transcript.

Understanding the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology Report

Julie Heng

The comprehensive report from the bipartisan National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB) delivers a “sobering, even frightening,” conclusion: that China is quickly ascending to biotechnology dominance, having made biotechnology a strategic priority for 20 years. To remain competitive, the report asserts, the United States must take swift action in the next three years. “Otherwise, we risk falling behind, a setback from which we may never recover.”

Established by Congress in the FY 2022 Defense Authorization Act, the NSCEB was tasked with examining biotechnology’s role in national security and recommending strategies to bolster U.S. leadership. Chaired by Senator Todd Young, the NSCEB report draws on over 1,800 consultations with stakeholders, reviews of classified and unclassified materials, site visits across the United States, and discussions with domestic and international government and technology leaders. In the 18 months following the report’s release, the commission will continue to push to implement its recommendations, including seeking new legislation and collaborating with regulatory agencies.

This topic is deeply important, and this commentary breaks down the report’s key findings and recommendations.

The Future of Military Power Is Space Power

Clayton Swope

Released on April 4, 2025, the Space Force Doctrine Document 1 (SFDD-1) articulates the raison d’etre and establishes a common lexicon for U.S. military space power. It spells out the what, when, where, why, and how of the Space Force and its role in the joint force today. But there is also a need to look well beyond the present, using as much imagination as possible. The military use of space is evolving quickly, necessitating not only new capabilities but also creating entirely new missions. The Space Force will have to figure out how to identify and integrate new space missions into the U.S. war machine. To do that, it will have to shatter outdated paradigms and policies, while securing greater funding. Doing so is critically important, as new space missions, with the potential to vastly increase the military’s lethality, should be central to Pentagon efforts to rebuild the force to match threats and use that force for deterrence.

New Military Space Missions, Not Just New Capabilities

In his 1949 book War in Three Dimensions, Australian fighter ace and Royal Air Force Air Vice-Marshal Edgar James Kingston-McCloughry wrote that “there has perhaps never in the history of warfare existed a comparable state of ignorance about the potentialities of available weapons.” Though he was referring to military use of the air, his observation applies equally to space today. As with air power, rapid technological advancements and operational experience using the domain are key drivers of change. Another reason is the threat environment, largely shaped by China and Russia, which are diligently working to develop and field new military capabilities using space and aspiring to challenge U.S. military strength in other domains. Enhancing U.S. military space power is about developing new capabilities, but even more than new capabilities, it’s about identifying new space missions. But how the U.S. military uses space is still constrained, an issue recognized by the chief of space operations (CSO), who noted in April 2025 that “overly restrictive space policy and outdated ways of thinking” are holding back U.S. military space power.

Do Total Defense Strategies Increase State Resiliency?

Robert Burrell & John Collison

Total defense encompasses a government’s strategy and related policies which combine and extend the concepts of military and civilian defense. The concept entails developing a high level of readiness for the state and its society to secure a nation in case of war or to prepare the population for a crisis or natural disaster. Some have argued that total defense can also deter external aggression by opponents. This whole of society endeavor “is united by a shared threat perception and willingness to do what is needed.”

Since at least the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, total defense strategies have become increasingly relevant and urgent for smaller states concerned about aggression from larger, often neighboring, states. Although academic literature on the efficacy of total defense strategies remains limited, several small states with historic or recent experience offer case studies regarding the impact of total defense on national resilience. Put simply, resilience, in the context of a government and society, is the ability to withstand and recover from internal or external threats, including coercion, aggression, natural disasters, and biological events, while maintaining essential functions. Utilizing available datasets and polling data, this essay examines a set of countries that adopted or reimplemented total defense strategies between 2013 and 2024 to evaluate the impact of these strategies on governmental and societal resilience.

13 April 2025

ASEAN must act as Myanmar’s junta weaponizes quake disaster - Opinion

Samady Ou

The earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28 was not just a natural disaster; it has become yet another weapon in the military junta’s brutal campaign to consolidate power.

Instead of facilitating aid and relief for those affected, the country’s ruling military junta has reportedly used the chaos to target resistance-controlled areas, bombing opposition strongholds and blocking humanitarian assistance.

This blatant exploitation of the disaster underscores the regime’s sustained repression over the past three years and the urgent need for a decisive regional response.

At next month’s 46th ASEAN Summit, the bloc faces a defining moment in its handling of the situation in Myanmar. Malaysia, the current chair, has the opportunity to lead a meaningful response, but doubts remain over its ability or willingness to do so.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s choice of advisors – Cambodia’s former Prime Minister Hun Sen and Thailand’s ex-leader Thaksin Shinawatra – suggest that democracy and human rights may not be the priority they should be in addressing the crisis.

Since 2021, Myanmar has been embroiled in a bloody civil war, following a decision by the military to cancel election results won resoundingly by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy and abandon the country’s tentative steps towards democratization.

Would Trump defend Taiwan?

Gabriel Elefteriu

President Trump’s tariff bombshell is more than simply a historic economic decision with geopolitical consequences on the side, as second-order effects. “Liberation Day” is best understood, first and foremost, as the fullest and cleanest expression of a certain geopolitical vision, with trade and economics only in a supporting role as instruments for realising it in practice. Trump is not just out to fix trade imbalances or re-industrialise the US: he wants to reshape the world and America’s place in it.

The approach seems to be that of taking a completely fresh look at America’s existing international alliance commitments and relationships – military, diplomatic and economic – and reviewing these “entanglements” from first principles to see what still makes sense from an America First point of view. This is a de facto reset of the geopolitical board, where the pre-Trump status of being a “friend and ally of the US” carries little weight with the current president, especially on tariffs. Such an approach is shocking to allied sensibilities, but only because most of our political and policy elites still cling to a world that is rapidly disappearing.

US-China trade war is on: Could it turn violent, and when?

Jake Werner

Today Trump suspended his global trade war with all countries except China. This confirms that, even as all eyes were on the chaos in the financial markets, the far bigger threat from Trump’s “liberation day” was a sharp escalation in the US–China conflict that could now plausibly turn violent within the next couple years.

Prior to Trump’s “liberation day” the two countries had an unhealthy relationship with steadily building pressures toward conflict. The Biden administration not only retained almost all of the first Trump administration’s antagonistic measures against China but expanded and intensified them. Though it eventually revived the diplomatic exchanges that the first Trump administration shut down, Biden declined to work with China to mitigate the zero-sum forces pushing the two countries against each other.

The new Trump administration quickly imposed a sharp increase on China’s already high tariffs. Yet both sides were initially willing to seek an agreement that could have at least reduced tensions. After the election, Beijing sent a series of delegations to Washington in hopes of understanding what kind of concessions Trump was seeking and how to get talks started. It informally suggested a range of issues on which it could give ground, ranging from currency valuations to guarantees on dollar centrality to industrial investment in the United States.

Underestimating China

Kurt M. Campbell and Rush Doshi

Success in great-power competition requires rigorous and unsentimental net assessment. Yet the American estimation of China has lurched from one extreme to the other. For decades, Americans registered blistering economic growth, dominance of international trade, and growing geopolitical ambition, and anticipated the day when China might overtake a strategically distracted and politically paralyzed United States; after the 2008 financial crisis, and then especially at the height of the COVID pandemic, many observers believed that day had come. But the pendulum swung to the other extreme only a few years later as China’s abandonment of “zero COVID” failed to restore growth. Beijing was beset by ominous demographics, once unthinkable youth unemployment, and deepening stagnation while the United States was strengthening alliances, boasting breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and other technologies, and enjoying a booming economy with record low unemployment and record high stock markets.

A new consensus took hold: that an aging, slowing, and increasingly less nimble China would not overtake an ascendant United States. Washington shifted from pessimism to overconfidence. Yet just as past bouts of defeatism were misguided, so is today’s triumphalism, which risks dangerously underestimating both the latent and actual power of the only competitor in a century whose GDP has surpassed 70 percent of that of the United States. On critical metrics, China has already outmatched the United States. Economically, it boasts twice the manufacturing capacity. Technologically, it dominates everything from electric vehicles to fourth-generation nuclear reactors and now produces more active patents and top-cited scientific publications annually. Militarily, it features the world’s largest navy, bolstered by shipbuilding capacity 200 times as large as that of the United States; vastly greater missile stocks; and the world’s most advanced hypersonic capabilities—all results of the fastest military modernization in history. Even if China’s growth slows and its system falters, it will remain formidable strategically.

U.S. Forces in the Middle East: Mapping the Military Presence

Jonathan Masters and Will Merrow

The United States maintains a considerable military presence in the Middle East, with forces in more than a dozen countries and on ships throughout the region’s waters. That presence expanded in 2024 as the United States focused on deterring and defeating threats from Iran and its network of armed affiliates in the region, including Hamas (Gaza Strip), Hezbollah (Lebanon), the Houthis (Yemen), and several Iraq- and Syria-based militant groups. In March 2025, U.S. Central Command forces launched an offensive air strike on Houthi-controlled territories in Yemen from war ships stationed in the Red Sea.

Since the October 2023 outbreak of war between Hamas and Israel, a U.S. ally and defense partner, U.S. forces in the Middle East have been increasingly targeted by some of these groups—and have regularly responded with counterstrikes. Meanwhile, U.S. and coalition ships have been protecting merchant shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, defending against near-daily Houthi drone and missile attacks.

The Pentagon has also responded as hostilities between Israel and Iran as well as Israel and Hezbollah have flared in recent months. In April 2024, U.S. warplanes and ships successfully intercepted dozens of drones and missiles fired at Israel in an unprecedented direct attack by Iran. In October of the same year, the United States announced it sent dozens of additional aircraft (four squadrons) to the region. The move came as Israel commenced a ground incursion against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iran launched another, larger barrage of missile strikes against Israel. U.S. naval forces reportedly shot a dozen interceptors at the Iranian missiles. In March 2025, B-2 stealth bombers were also reportedly being deployed from their home base in Missouri to the joint U.S.-United Kingdom military base in Diego Garcia, an island part of the British Indian Ocean Territory that is within striking range of Houthi territory and Iran.

Eight Commandants, One Message

CDR Salamander

Yes, you could dismiss this as parochial on their and my part—but that would be a mistake.

There remains to this day no better way to project power ashore on a global scale than the self-contained capabilities that only the United States has…and we are on the knife’s edge on having enough of it to allow this comparative advantage to be there when the nation needs it.

Every Commandant of the Marine Corps since 1995 signed a letter posted over at RealClearDefense that is worth your time as it covers an unbroken three decades of professional experience at the very highest levels.

Of all the services, one could safely argue that the Marines have done better than most in their choices of top leadership. Not perfect, but on average, superb. They stick together on the important things.

As such, when they all get together to make a point, you should pause and give it a listen.

Winning the Next War Will Require an Intel-Logistics Partnership

Lieutenant Colonel Christian Palmer, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve

During the 2009 Afghanistan troop surge, a group of Marines at Camp Bastion passed the time waiting for a flight by playing spades with a “most wanted” deck from a previous deployment to Iraq. This was a deck of cards produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency labeled with high-value enemy targets ranked by their importance. Saddam Hussein was the ace of spades, for example. The Marines began discussing what a deck might look like for their own regiment.

They concluded that the most senior personnel, such as the regimental commander, battalion commanders, and primary staff, might not be the aces. These positions were so critical that the table of organization is designed to make them instantly replaceable by executive officers and deputies. They debated who might be the real aces—the critical losses from which the regiment could not easily recover. They soon found themselves talking about low-density subject-matter experts in support functions—in short, logisticians and key maintenance personnel.

This realization points to the concepts of counter-logistics targeting and assured-logistics analysis: The examination of enemy and friendly support, respectively, to find subtle but critical vulnerabilities to either exploit or protect. Counter-logistics also includes predatory logistics—the seizure and use of enemy assets.

For Africa's Stability, All-Inclusive Dialogue Is the Only Way Forward | Opinion

William Ruto

As the conflict in Sudan enters its third year, we must grasp its impact on the people of Sudan, neighboring states—including Kenya—and the broader region. There should be no doubt that the risks of protracted conflict and humanitarian disaster compel us to pursue a comprehensive peace. This peace must end the suffering of the Sudanese, restore the country to a path of realizing its immense potential, and reinforce stability in our shared neighborhood.

First, it is critical to recognize that the Sudanese conflict has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe of alarming severity, scale, and duration. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost, and millions of livelihoods have vanished. Over 10 million Sudanese—20 percent of the population—are currently displaced from their homes. Many of these displaced people have sought refuge in Kenya and other nearby countries. This influx puts intense pressure on fragile states such as Chad, South Sudan, and Libya, all of which must now contend with significant resource constraints and vulnerabilities.

Trump is taking the Monroe Doctrine global

Brahma Chellaney

President Trump’s second term is proving even more disruptive than his first, especially for the world order.

In under 100 days, he has upended international norms, challenged key alliances and reasserted American power with blunt confidence. The emerging pattern reveals something deeper: a revival and global extension of the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine.

First declared in 1823 by President James Monroe, the Monroe Doctrine sought to prevent European powers from meddling in the Americas. Its premise was simple: The Western Hemisphere was a U.S. sphere of influence.

Under Trump, this idea is being reinterpreted, expanded and aggressively enforced — not just in the Americas but across the broader Western world.

Ten Tariff Questions Never Asked

Victor Davis Hanson

1.Trump’s So-Called “Trade War.”

Many call the American effort to obtain either tariff parity or a reduction in the roughly $1 trillion trade deficit and fifty years of consecutive trade deficits “a trade war.” But then what do they call the policies of the past half-century by Europe, Asia, China, and others to ensure asymmetrical tariffs, pseudo-health and security trade restrictions, and large surpluses?

A trade peace? Trade fairness?

2. Do Nations Prefer Surpluses or Deficits?

Why do most nations prefer trade surpluses and protective tariffs?

Are Europe, Asia, China, and others stupid? Are they suicidal in continuing their trade surpluses and protective or asymmetrical tariffs?

Is the United States uniquely brilliant in maintaining a half-century of cumulative trade deficits? Do Americans alone discover the advantages of a $1 trillion annual trade deficit and small or nonexistent tariffs?

Why Are Israelis So Happy?

Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy

The numbers are in: Israel is a happy place. Despite constantly facing vicious enemies and enduring a year and a half of sustained fighting and funerals, Israel ranks in the top 10 countries with the highest levels of happiness, according to the newly released 2025 World Happiness Report. At No. 8, Israel contrasts sharply with other war-torn countries that are quite reasonably miserable: Ukraine sits at 111, and Lebanon, which opened a second front against Israel in October 2023, is third from the bottom, at 145. Even advanced Western nations such as Great Britain and the United States, in 23rd and 24th place, respectively, have a glee gap with Israel. How come?

An illuminating if perhaps counterintuitive datapoint is that, since Oct. 7, 2023, Israelis have rushed ahead with making babies. Baby booms often occur postwar, not in the middle of one. But Israelis have continued to affirm life even while mourning more than 1,700 dead. At almost three babies per woman, Israel already has the leading birth rate among member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)—a forum of 37 democracies with market-based economies—and in the final months of 2024, it witnessed an estimated 10 percent increase in births.

Europe’s path to global influence

Peter Rough and Abram Shulsky

Apparently, the U.S. administration’s overtures to Russia and its suspension of military assistance to Ukraine reminded the continent’s leaders of the cynical adage that one is either at the table or on the menu.

“There is only one thing that counts, and that is speed,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in February, announcing a 70 percent increase in military spending. Meanwhile, in neighboring Germany, Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz is reportedly finalizing a special fund for the Bundeswehr worth hundreds of billions of euros. And the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas even argued that “it’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge” of leading the free world.

But is Europe really on the cusp of transforming into a geopolitical power?

In terms of population, technological development, and economic size and strength, Europe could easily qualify as a great power. However, the continent’s future will depend on more than its nations’ ability to convert their economic might into defense capabilities.

To truly become the great power some aspire it to be, Europe will need a political structure that enables it to exercise the leadership long provided by the U.S. And its outlook for forging such a structure faces significant hurdles.

How to Make Putin Laugh….Keep Trump Waiting

Monte Erfourth

The Laughter Heard Around the World

When Russian President Vladimir Putin was informed he was running late for his scheduled call with U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday, his response was telling: a smile, followed by laughter shared with those around him at the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs congress in Moscow. The moment, captured on video and widely circulated on social media, spoke volumes about the curious dynamics of the Trump-Putin relationship. As noted by Pekka Kallioniemi, a nonresident research fellow at the International Centre for Defense and Security, "They're literally making fun of Trump and his convoy."[1]

This was not an isolated incident. Putin has a history of keeping American officials waiting, including Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who reportedly waited eight hours while Putin met with Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko.2 Though the Trump administration denied these reports, the pattern reveals something significant about how Putin views his American counterpart – not as an equal to be respected, but as someone to be managed.

The March 2025 phone call, initially scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. ET but delayed by an hour, was ostensibly to discuss a potential ceasefire in Ukraine after three years of devastating conflict. What emerged instead was a stark reminder of the imbalance in what Trump has characterized as a potentially productive relationship.

Map Shows US Military Commands Targeted for DOGE Cuts

Ellie Cook and John Feng

Senior Republicans have said they are "very concerned" about reported Pentagon discussions on widespread changes to the U.S. military structure and footprint abroad, as extensive government cuts start to reach the Department of Defense.

Why It Matters

The U.S. has the West's most powerful military, and a global footprint to both support its allies and to deter its adversaries in different regions.

But the Trump administration has turned away from Europe, where the U.S. military has tens of thousands of personnel stationed, and looked toward how it will contend with the challenge posed by an ascendant China.

There are also growing concerns among current and former military figures and experts about how senior White House officials have thawed relations with Russia and purged several of the highest-ranking U.S. military figures, including the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Charles Q. Brown Jr.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last month that the Pentagon would be leaning heavily on tech billionaire-turned-presidential aide Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to "find fraud, waste and abuse in the largest discretionary budget in the federal government."

Is This Game Over for the Houthis? - Analysis

Burcu Ozcelik and Baraa Shiban

While the fighting power and military arsenal of other Iran-backed proxies in the so-called axis of resistance, Hamas and Hezbollah, have been eroded significantly since the attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the Houthi movement has survived relatively unscathed. Since the cease-fire and hostage deal was announced between Israel and Hamas in January, the Houthis have been on standby as the de facto enforcers of the agreement, retaining the leverage to resume violence at a time of their own choosing. On March 11, the Houthis announced that the group will resume its attacks in the Red Sea as a response to Israel blocking humanitarian aid entering Gaza. This balance of asymmetrical power is what the United States seems to be targeting in a series of intense airstrikes that could extend into the coming weeks.

The shift in U.S. policy under the Trump administration, from targeted strikes to a broader, more aggressive campaign, marks a significant escalation. This change reflects a hardening stance against the Houthis, moving beyond containment to active disruption of their capabilities. The decision to target political leadership alongside military assets suggests a desire to dismantle the Houthis’ organizational structure, not just degrade the immediate military threat they pose.