Tensions Escalate After Pakistan Pounds Afghanistan With Airstrikes

Zia ur-Rehman

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Airstrikes by Pakistani warplanes inside Afghanistan have intensified tensions in recent days in an already volatile region. Once-close ties between Pakistan’s leaders and the Afghan Taliban have frayed, and violent cross-border exchanges have become alarmingly frequent.

Officially, the Pakistani government has been tight-lipped about the strikes in Afghanistan on Dec. 24. But security officials privately said that the Pakistani military had targeted hide-outs of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, a militant group also known as the T.T.P. or the Pakistani Taliban that has carried out a series of terrorist attacks inside Pakistan.

The security officials said that several top militants from the Pakistani Taliban had died in the airstrikes, which came days after 16 Pakistani military personnel were ambushed and killed in a border district.

The Taliban regime in Afghanistan said that dozens of civilians had died in the strikes, including Pakistani refugee families. The group condemned the strikes as a blatant violation of Afghan sovereignty, and said it had retaliated by conducting attacks on “several points” inside Pakistan.

Don’t Repeat in Syria the Mistakes of Afghanistan

Delaney Simon, Graeme Smith & Jerome Drevon

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Syria’s new leaders have few models to follow in their quest to win international recognition. No guidebooks exist on how to run a government for groups operating under terrorist designations—and there is no clear set of rules for foreign governments on how to bring a former al Qaeda affiliate in from the cold. But Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the group that dislodged Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in early December, and outside governments alike can learn from a cautionary precedent: the Taliban’s 2021 return to power in Afghanistan.

After the Taliban seized Kabul, Afghanistan staggered under the weight of sanctions and other kinds of economic and diplomatic isolation. Other governments failed to act with sufficient speed and boldness to ease the country’s poverty crisis, and they left in place economic punishments that had no moderating effect on the Taliban but pushed Afghans closer to famine. Most countries declined to negotiate with the Taliban in a way that might have promoted women’s rights and other international norms, choosing instead to wait and see whether Afghanistan’s new leaders would do so on their own. That reluctance to engage with the Taliban dealt a blow to the movement’s pragmatic wing, empowering hard-liners during the regime’s precarious first months.

International officials have engaged more deeply with HTS in the past month than they did with the Taliban after the fall of Kabul. HTS encouraged that outreach by foreign officials by demonstrating a political and ideological flexibility that distinguishes the group from the Taliban. Yet unfortunately, outside actors seem poised to repeat many of the same mistakes they made in Afghanistan after the Taliban’s takeover.

The Forgotten Opposition: Bangladesh’s Left in the Shadow of Major Parties

Saqlain Rizve

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On December 14, 2023, Shahriar Shihab was returning home through the University of Dhaka after paying tribute to the martyred intellectuals killed by the Pakistani military on the same date in 1971 during the Liberation War. Suddenly a group of 20-25 young men surrounded Shihab and began to assault him.

“At one point, they grabbed my beard and accused me of being a member of Bangladesh Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (JI). Then they slapped me. It was absurd,” said Shihab, the organizing secretary of the Bangladesh Students’ Union, Private University Unit, and a student at Prime University in Dhaka.

“I’m a leftist activist involved in leftist student politics. However, as a practicing Muslim, I keep beards, and they tagged me as a Shibir member,” he told The Diplomat.

It was one example among many of how Bangladesh’s leftists are often conflated with larger political forces. In Shihab’s case, his activism demanding accountability from Bangladesh’s then-government saw him wrongly labeled an Islamist.

China Will Hunt U.S. Navy Nuclear Submarines From the Sky

Michael Peck

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Should China invade Taiwan, Taiwan’s best defense may be the U.S. Navy’s nuclear submarines.

Quiet, hard to detect, and armed with cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles and torpedoes, U.S. attack submarines could wreak havoc with a Chinese amphibious fleet.

“The greatest threat to the PLA Navy is not US aircraft carriers, but U.S. nuclear submarines,” warned China’s iFeng news site. “These submarines are difficult to detect, and their advanced performance presents a significant challenge to the PLA in the South China Sea.”

Until recently, neither China’s submarines – nor its anti-submarine warfare (ASW) systems – appeared especially capable. But mindful of the threat posed by American submarines, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is beefing up its sub-killing systems.

Aircraft have long been important – perhaps the most important – anti-submarine platforms in Western navies. Now, China is beginning to emphasize ASW aircraft and helicopters for sub-hunting. For example, China’s new Type 075 amphibious assault ship is equipped with 30 helicopters: while most are for transporting troops, the Z-8 and Z-9 models are multirole platforms that can serve as gunships and armed sub-hunters.

Xi Jinping has much to worry about in 2025

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SOON AFTER he took power in 2012, Xi Jinping urged caution about China’s prospects. “The further our cause advances,” he told fellow leaders, “the more new situations and problems will arise, the more risks and challenges we will face and the more unforeseen events we will encounter.” As China’s economy flounders and social tensions increase—and with Donald Trump about to enter the White House—the coming year will be full of the kind of difficulties Mr Xi feared.As ever, the country’s murky politics may throw up surprises, too.

The possibility of Trump-induced tumult in the relationship between the world’s two strongest powers is a big and immediate worry. Decisions made by America’s next president and his mostly China-hawkish team will affect matters that Mr Xi regards as critically linked to the Communist Party’s grip on power. First is the economy. Mr Trump has threatened to impose a 60% tariff on imports from China, on top of an immediate 10% hike should China fail to curb exports to America of fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid that kills tens of thousands of Americans annually. Some analysts say these increases could knock more than two percentage points off China’s economic growth.

There is much uncertainty about how fast the tariffs will be raised and whether Mr Trump is really determined to push them so high. But if imposed as advertised, they could deal a hefty blow to China at a time when the country is struggling to revive the badly battered confidence of households and businesses amid a property-market slump and scarcity of jobs.

The new scramble for the Middle East

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In the summer of 2023, Syria and the wider Middle East seemed more stable than at any point in recent memory. It was telling that, in May of that year, the Arab League, a regional organisation of Arab states, welcomed Bashar al-Assad’s war-torn Syria back into the fold after over a decade of isolation. Four months later, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan memorably declared that the Middle East ‘is quieter today than it has been in two decades’.

Fast forward to the end of this year, and Sullivan’s judgement looks more than a little hasty. The long-standing shadow war between Israel and Iran has since erupted into open conflict, with Israel carrying out high-profile assassinations in Damascus, Tehran and Beirut, and Iran launching massive missile and drone barrages at Israel on at least two occasions. And right at the end of this year, Assad’s brutal, yet seemingly stable, Syrian regime fell to a militia headed up by an ex-member of al-Qaeda. As we head into 2025, the Middle East has rarely sounded quite as noisy as it does right now.

The conflict between Israel and Iran and the fall of Assad are directly related. On the eve of Hamas’s barbaric attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, Iran was in a position of relative strength. Through political alliances and a network of militias known as the ‘axis of resistance’ (including Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and assorted Shia groups in Iraq), it exerted considerable power throughout the region. And nowhere more so than in Syria, where Iranian proxies, with help from Russia, were effectively propping up Assad’s dictatorship.

Syria's U.S.-trained opposition fighters wait to learn of their role in a new Syria

Jane Arraf

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When Salim Turki al-Anteri took his opposition forces into battle against regime troops in southern Syria this month, it was against his own former tank unit.

Drawing on his past U.S. military training and his hopes for a united Syria, the commander ordered his forces to fire artillery warning shots, intended to persuade regime soldiers to abandon their tanks and leave the battlefield.

"We didn't want to kill any soldiers," he says of the battle on Dec. 7, a day before Damascus fell.

"We aimed to the left and to the right, and then closer to them," he says. "We didn't follow them because we knew that if we followed them, we would have to kill them."

Unlike many military commanders who were regime loyalists, most ordinary soldiers were conscripts who'd been given no choice but to fight for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, he says.

Musk and Ramaswamy defend foreign worker visas, sparking MAGA backlash

Aaron Pellish

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Social media posts by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy arguing in favor of expanding the visa program for highly skilled workers have set off a debate among supporters of President-elect Donald Trump over how the program should fit into the incoming administration’s aggressive immigration agenda.

Musk and Ramaswamy, whom Trump has tapped to lead his Department of Government Efficiency, defended companies who use workers on H-1B visas, arguing tech companies — including those owned by Musk — depend on foreign workers to operate. But their message rankled some of Trump’s most loyal defenders who expect his administration to crack down on immigration and promote American labor.

Trump restricted access to foreign worker visas during his first term and has targeted the H-1B program in past remarks. But during the 2024 campaign, Trump signaled openness to giving some foreign-born workers legal status if they graduated from a US university.

In a social media post on Wednesday, Musk said US tech companies need “double” the amount of engineers working in America today and compared the benefits of the program to a professional sports team recruiting the best talent from around the world.

What We’re Watching Around the Globe in 2025

Michael Froman

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This year saw no shortage of tectonic geopolitical developments: the entry of long-neutral Sweden into NATO, Ukrainian forces’ incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, Israeli strikes in Iran and Lebanon, the election of Donald Trump, the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, and the impeachment of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol soon after he declared martial law.

The year also saw the continuation of longer-term trends that were no less consequential, from ever-improving AI to the increasing division of the world into blocs to the growing threat of climate change (with 2024 ranking as the hottest year on record).

As the saying goes, predictions are hard, especially about the future. But to gain some insight into the year ahead, I sat down this week with a group of CFR’s fellows to ask them what they would be looking out for in 2025.

From Musk to Gaza: Issues We’re Watching in 2025

Edward Alden, Elisabeth Braw, Steven A. Cook, James Crabtree, Agathe Demarais, Zongyuan Zoe Liu, and C. Raja Mohan

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At the start of each year, Foreign Policy asks some of our columnists for the one key issue they’ll be watching in the year ahead.

This year, it goes without saying that most of us here at FP will be watching the return of Donald Trump to the White House—and the profound impact his policies are likely to have on many parts of the world, from Ukraine to the Middle East.

What does Trump mean for Canadian-American relations?

Joel Mathis

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The United States and Canada have the longest undefended border in the world. Relations between the two countries are usually placid. A second Donald Trump presidency could change that.

Trump "appears interested in adding a 51st star to the American flag," Alexandra Sharp said at Foreign Policy. The president-elect has veered between threatening massive tariffs on Canadian imports to speculating — some would say trolling — about the possibility of absorbing Canada into the United States. "I think it is a great idea. 51st State!!!" Trump said on Truth Social. "The revolutionary nature of these threats is hard to overstate, even by Trump's own audacious standards," said Foreign Policy columnist Edward Alden.

Trump's provocations have created a "near-existential moment" in Canadian politics, said The New York Times. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was already in "serious trouble" before Trump's election, but now there's a new element of chaos. Chrystia Freeland, Canada's finance minister, resigned in mid-December, suggesting that Trudeau was failing at the task of "pushing back at 'America First' economic nationalism" in the form of tariffs. Trudeau's future is murky. What's clear: Trump "will continue to loom large over Canadian politics," said the Times.

Hold Ukraine Accountable For Corruption, Misspent Aid – OpEd

James Durso

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The shame of American military assistance in Iraq and Afghanistan is that while our troops and their local allies were fighting bravely, the leaders of our so-called allies were getting rich. We have seen something even worse in Ukraine: While Ukrainian military personnel and civilians fight valiantly in a fierce contest for independence, Ukrainian leaders have gotten fabulously wealthy.

The American shame is that the U.S. heedlessly expanded NATO to the borders of Russia, and then, after Russia pushed back, enabled and funded the cynical maladministration by the Zelensky government, which will go down in history as one of the greatest examples of waste and theft of Western aid.

What’s more, Ukraine’s casualties have permanently altered the country’s demography and will limit its prospects for economic recovery, leaving the country “wrecked” and the scene of a future “frozen conflict,” per Professor John Mearsheimer.

The sheer scale of waste and fraud will only be revealed by independent investigations after the war’s end. The Zelensky government uses the war to quash media stories that dare to question Ukrainian spending of our taxpayer dollars. Still, many brave Ukrainian journalists and officers have exposed scandals of overpricing, shoddy equipment and embezzlement at the highest levels of Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration. They have risked being labeled as Russian saboteurs or sent to certain death at the front lines for reporting the truth.

New Mekong Dam Project Sparks Concern In Laos And Thailand

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Plans to proceed with a benefits-and-risks review of a proposed hydropower dam on the Mekong River have sparked concern in both Laos and Thailand about the impact on communities and the ecosystem.

The U.S. $2 billion, 12-turbine Sanakham hydropower dam will be built about 155 kilometers (100 miles) west of the Lao capital of Vientiane, and 25 km (15 miles) upstream from Sanakham district of Vientiane province, near the Thai-Lao border.

More than 62,500 people in Thailand and Laos will be forced to relocate due to rising waters, according to submitted documents.

Lao residents say they have hardly had a chance to give feedback on the project.

“I’m so concerned that we’ll have to move to another village,” a Sanakham district resident told Radio Free Asia. “They [the government] did not clearly explain it to us at all.”

Dozens of hydropower dams have already been built on the Mekong and its tributaries, and there are plans to build scores more in the coming years. The Lao government wants to harness their power generation to boost the economy, which has been battered by soaring inflation and a weakening currency.

The endgame in Ukraine: How the war could come to a close in 2025

Paul Adams

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In eastern Ukraine, Moscow's war machine is gradually churning mile by mile through the wide open fields of the Donbas, enveloping and overwhelming villages and towns.

Some civilians are fleeing before the war reaches them. Others wait until the shells start exploding all around them before packing what belongings they can carry and boarding trains and buses to safety further west.

Russia is gaining ground more quickly than at any time since it launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, despite Kyiv's impressive record of well-publicised asymmetric attacks against its powerful neighbour.

As the invasion reaches the end of its third year, at an estimated cost of a million people, killed or wounded, Ukraine appears to be losing.

In distant Washington, meanwhile, the unpredictable Donald Trump, not famous for his love of Ukraine or its leader, is about to take over in the White House.

It feels like an inflection point. But could 2025 really be the year when this devastating European conflict finally comes to a close - and if so what could the endgame look like?

Israel's multi-front war: What will happen in 2025? – analysis

SETH J. FRANTZMAN

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One of the main challenges for Israel in 2024 was the multi-front war it was fighting.

Hamas launched the October 7 massacre in 2023, but the multi-front war became the major challenge in 2024. In November and December 2023, Israel initially focused on fighting Hamas, the most intense months of fighting in Gaza.

After Hamas launched its attack, Hezbollah joined in, launching thousands of rockets at Israel. By this past August, the terrorist group had launched around 7,500 rockets and 200 drone attacks.

The Houthis began attacking next, launching missiles and drones at Israel and then at international ships in the Red Sea. Next came the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq that began targeting Israel with drones. By the end of the year, around 200 missiles and 170 drones had been launched by the Houthis.

Iran also attacked Israel twice, once in April with hundreds of drones and missiles and again in October with 180 ballistic missiles, totaling an estimated 500 projectiles overall.

Russia’s Imperial Mindset: Understanding the Roots of the Ukraine War

Andrew A. Michta

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As the second Trump administration prepares to take charge of US foreign and security policy, there is intense debate in Washington about what the end state in Ukraine should be, what kind of a peace deal can be negotiated with Putin, and what long-term prospects there might be for reaching a modus vivendi with Russia.

Much of the discussion is tied up in American domestic politics, as it trails the last presidential election. Indeed, this war should have never happened, and whatever “Russia explainers” might say going forward, there should be no doubt that the horrendous cost in Ukrainian and Russian lives is squarely on Vladimir Putin and his enablers in the Kremlin.

What Putin Wants in Ukraine

But taking a principled stance will not move the needle toward a durable armistice. In fact, by all indications, Moscow is not interested in anything short of an all-out surrender by Kyiv, including the foreclosure of any prospects for Ukraine’s membership in NATO, the de facto disbandment of the Ukrainian armed forces, and consigning Ukraine into the Russian sphere of influence. Putin has no real incentive to negotiate in good faith because he believes that at this stage, he is winning, and unfortunately, he is right.

The Budapest Memo holds keys to ending the Ukraine war

Zachary Paikin & Mark Episkopos

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As the incoming Trump administration prepares to launch negotiations aimed at ending the current phase of hostilities between Russia and Ukraine, the question of security guarantees is certain to feature prominently in talks.

Talk of security guarantees is nothing new — indeed, it has underscored much of the drama that has unfolded since Russia’s initial military buildup in 2021. Moscow insisted that the United States and NATO undertake legally binding obligations in its two “draft treaties,” published on the eve of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, aimed at guaranteeing Ukraine’s neutrality and rolling back NATO forces in Central and Eastern Europe to where they were prior to the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act. Kyiv, for its part, naturally wants ironclad measures that can ensure it will not fall victim to another war of aggression in the years ahead.

To some extent, however, this is all déjà vu. Thirty years ago last month, the Budapest Memorandum was signed.

Aimed at providing security assurances to Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan in exchange for their entry into the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Budapest Memorandum committed Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom to abstain from military and economic coercion against these three newly independent post-Soviet states. Its lessons offer important clues for how to bring peace to what has tragically become a war-torn region.

For Peace in Ukraine, Stop NATO Expansion

Doug Bandow

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After nearly three years of an ever more brutal proxy war against Moscow, American and European officials are finally discussing the possibility of peace negotiations. Even Ukraine’s Zelensky government, which early in the conflict banned any talks with Russia, is acknowledging the obvious.

Nevertheless, Washington’s bipartisan War Party, which shares blame with Vladimir Putin for the Russo–Ukrainian war, seems determined to drag America into any future conflict even though Americans have shown no desire to fight for Kiev. If President-elect Donald Trump wants to end the war, he should begin by rejecting U.S. and NATO involvement in this or a future conflict involving Ukraine.

The clash between Moscow and Kiev was tragically unnecessary. Although the decision to invade was Vladimir Putin’s alone, the allies recklessly created the circumstances leading to war. The Clinton administration decided to treat the Yeltsin government as a defeated power and ignored a string of assurances that the transatlantic alliance would not advance to Russia’s border. In time the Russian Bear recovered its strength, leading to repeated warnings of future consequences, including from then-U.S. Ambassador (and now CIA Director) William Burns. Before Moscow’s attack the allies curtly rejected Putin’s demand for negotiations over Ukrainian NATO membership, detailed by the alliance's then-Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Had the allies abandoned plans to militarize Russia’s lengthy border with Ukraine, there would have been no invasion. They, too, are drenched in blood.

US Treasury Is Latest Victim of Most ‘Persistent’ Hacking Threat

Jake Bleiberg

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A growing roster of political figures, US government agencies and companies that provide critical services have one thing in common: They have allegedly been hacked by China.

The latest victim is the US Treasury Department, which disclosed on Monday that Chinese state-sponsored hackers had breached its network via a third-party provider, accessing some unclassified documents.

While details of the hack remain scant, cybersecurity experts say it confirms what US intelligence officials warned earlier this year, that China is the “most active and persistent cyber threat to US government, private-sector and critical infrastructure networks.”

“The Russians get a lot of attention because of the use of disruptive cyberattacks,” said Adam Segal, director of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program, referring to Russia-linked hacks on the largest fuel pipeline in the US and a satellite network in Ukraine. “But the Chinese are the longer-term threat because of their technology and the scope and scale of their operations.”

Chinese officials have long denied US allegations of state-sponsored cyberattacks, and a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson called the claims that it’s behind the Treasury hack “unwarranted and groundless.”

How to respond to Russia’s hybrid war on the West? Hybrid counterattack - Opinion

Max Boo

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On Christmas Day, a cable carrying electricity from Finland to Estonia was severed in the Baltic Sea, while four other submarine cables carrying data were damaged. Finnish authorities found an anchor drag mark on the seabed and seized a tanker that is believed to be part of the “shadow fleet” that Russia uses to export oil and gas in violation of Western sanctions.

This is only the latest act of sabotage in Europe attributed to the Kremlin. Just a month ago, a Chinese ship was believed to have cut two other data cables in Swedish waters at Moscow’s behest. In the past year, Russian operatives are also suspected of trying to plant incendiary devices on a cargo plane in Germany; plotting to kill the head of a major German company manufacturing weapons for Ukraine; committing arson attacks in Poland, Britain and Germany; and interfering in elections in Romania and Moldova, among other countries.

Russia is conducting “an intensifying campaign of hybrid attacks across our allied territories, interfering directly in our democracies, sabotaging industry and committing violence,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in November. But what exactly is a “hybrid war,” and what should the West do about it?

Israel’s Spike Firefly Drone is a Master of Urban Warfare

Brandon J. Weichert

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Surprised and bloodied, the Israelis found themselves significantly on the backfoot following Hamas’ terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023. The Israel Defense Force (IDF) was tasked with hitting back against the terrorists—hard. Its responses were brutal but effective.

While the Israelis failed to get back most of the hostages that Hamas took on that fateful day, they sapped Hamas’ capacity to wage war.

A key reason why the IDF was so brutally effective in breaking the martial prowess of Hamas was due to the deployment of radical, dare I say even exotic, technologies. One of those rare weapons the IDF used with such effectiveness was the Israeli Maoz (aka, Spike Firefly) kamikaze unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

A Sky Monster

This sky monster is described as a “coaxial rotor loitering munition drone” that was specifically designed for urban warfare. If I saw this thing at night or sundown, it might be easy to believe that little gray men from Zeta Reticuli were attacking rather than the IDF—that’s how bizarre this vertical, twin-bladed sky machine looks.

Finland seizes a tanker, getting tough on hybrid warfare

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Finland’s seizure on December 26th of the Eagle S, a Russian-linked sanctions-busting “dark fleet” tanker, could mark a turning-point in Europe’s response to the Kremlin’s hybrid-warfare campaign. The ship had been dragging its anchor along the seabed, trying to damage the 170km (106-mile) Estlink 2 power cable, which links Finland and Estonia. The shutdown of the cable led to a sudden drop in electricity supply to Estonia. Suspecting sabotage, the Finns sent coastguards to board the almost 20-year-old vessel, registered in the Cook Islands, and sailed it to Finnish waters for investigation.

A few days later Finland’s Bureau of Investigation confirmed that the dragging track was “dozens of kilometres” in length. The anchor has not been found. The damage to Estlink 2 will take months to repair. It is the first time a government has impounded a commercial ship for undersea-cable damage. There have been at least two similar incidents in recent months. Finland’s move represents a growing mood in favour of a tougher approach.

Finland’s seizure of a tanker shows how to fight Russian sabotage

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Grey-zone operations, hybrid warfare, slicing the salami: there are many terms for Russia’s use of covert attacks that leave opponents unsure how to respond. The latest theatre seems to be the Baltic Sea. Twice in the past two months, commercial ships with Russian links have been accused of damaging cables by dragging their anchors.

In November, after telecoms cables to Scandinavia were cut, the Danish navy detained the Yi Peng 3, a Chinese freighter coming from a Russian port, for a month. But China refused to co-operate, and the ship eventually sailed on. Then, on Christmas Day, an electric cable between Finland and Estonia was severed, allegedly by the Eagle S, a tanker shipping Russian oil under a Cook Islands flag. Finland took a stronger approach: coastguards boarded the ship and took it to a Finnish harbour. A vast array of Russian spy gear was found on board. Finnish prosecutors are preparing criminal charges.

Underwater infrastructure makes an attractive target for grey-zone attacks, partly because much of it sits, literally, in a legal grey zone. Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), countries have full jurisdiction only within 12 nautical miles (22km) of their coasts.

The Dogs of (Urban) War: Lessons from Oketz, the Israel Defense Forces’ Specialized Canine Unit

John Spencer

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In the middle of the night on a street in one of northern Gaza’s endless urban mazes, an IDF commander faced a dilemma. His unit’s progress was held up by a determined Hamas defense along a single block. The unit had discovered the entrance to a tunnel that appeared to be key to the stubborn delaying defense. Sending his soldiers down the tunnel presented a risk he was unwilling to take. But he had one important advantage—a team from a specialized IDF canine unit was integrated with his soldiers, and he was able to call on a dog and its handler that had been specially trained for underground warfare.

The IDF’s canine unit, the Oketz, has demonstrated how a highly specialized and well-integrated canine force can enhance operational effectiveness, safeguard human lives, and support soldier welfare in high-intensity combat. By examining the way that the IDF has employed this unit in Gaza—from remote canine operations to group deployment to mitigate psychological stress to integration of innovative, dog-specific equipment—the US military can adapt these insights to its own urban warfare capabilities.

Dogs in the IDF

The IDF’s military dog program was heavily shaped by the guiding influence of Professor Rudolphina Menzel, a pioneer in canine psychology. By the 1980s, the program became formally institutionalized as Oketz (“sting,” in Hebrew). Since then, the unit has played pivotal roles in every major conflict involving the IDF, from the 2006 Lebanon War to ongoing operations in Gaza.

Elon Musk has done it: iPhones and Android smartphones can now use his satellites to make calls anywhere on Earth

Smith Noah

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Starlink’s Direct-to-Cell service: what it means

Starlink, a division of SpaceX, has announced its plans to introduce Direct-to-Cell, a groundbreaking feature that uses its vast satellite network to allow voice calls on regular smartphones. What sets this apart is its simplicity—there’s no need for modifications to your device. As long as your phone is LTE-compatible, you’re ready to connect.

This innovation could fundamentally change how we think about mobile communication. Imagine being able to make calls from the remotest corners of the Earth—whether you’re deep in a rainforest, sailing in the middle of the ocean, or trekking across deserts—with no cell towers in sight. Starlink’s satellite system makes this scenario entirely possible.

Which smartphones are compatible?

According to a letter sent by SpaceX to the FCC, the service has already proven successful with devices from major brands like Apple, Samsung, and Google. Tests confirmed smooth communication using the PCS G Block spectrum, across urban and rural areas, indoors and outdoors, and even under tree cover or clear skies.

Crucially, SpaceX emphasizes that any LTE-enabled smartphone will work with this technology—no hardware upgrades required. Even slightly older models like the iPhone 13 or iPhone 14 can benefit from this satellite connectivity, proving that cutting-edge communication doesn’t have to leave older devices behind.

Narrative Intelligence in Internet-Based Military

Troy C. Troublefield, DBA, PhD

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Introduction

The rapid proliferation of the internet and social media has transformed the landscape of information warfare, presenting new challenges and opportunities for MISO. In this digital age, misinformation has emerged as a significant threat, undermining the integrity of information and eroding trust in institutions. As irregular warfare (IW) increasingly moves into the cyber domain, the need for effective strategies to counter misinformation has become paramount. Therefore, the conceptualization of narrative intelligence as a critical tool in internet-based MISO will be explored by drawing upon the principles of cyberpsychology to inform narrative strategies (1). Information warfare, broadly defined, is the use and management of information to gain a competitive advantage over an adversary. It differs from traditional warfare, which primarily involves physical confrontation, by focusing on the cognitive and psychological aspects of conflict (2). Unlike hybrid warfare, which blends conventional and unconventional methods, information warfare in the context of IW emphasizes the manipulation of information flows and perceptions to achieve strategic objectives (3). This approach is particularly relevant in the digital age, where the battlespace extends beyond physical territories into the realm of social media, online communities, and digital platforms. In this context, narrative intelligence emerges as a crucial capability for navigating the complex information environment and effectively countering adversarial narratives (4).