Indian Strategic Studies: 02/15/25

15 February 2025

The Paradox of Pakistan’s Dependence on China

Sriparna Pathak and Rakshith Shetty

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari’s five-day state visit to China, beginning on February 4, underscores the deepening yet fraught dynamics of the relationship. While the visit is framed around reinforcing economic collaboration and security under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), it occurs against a backdrop of escalating debt stress, stalled infrastructure projects, and persistent threats to Chinese nationals in Pakistan. This moment demands a clear-eyed assessment of whether the partnership can evolve beyond its current transactional inertia to address structural challenges.

Pakistan’s economic reliance on China has reached precarious levels. According to AidData, Pakistan’s external debt to China stood at $68.91 billion as of November 2023, accounting for 22 percent of its total external debt. With total public debt at 74.3 percent of GDP, Islamabad’s fiscal sovereignty is increasingly mortgaged to Beijing. Recent negotiations to reprofile $16 billion in energy sector debt and extend a $4 billion cash loan facility highlight Pakistan’s desperate balancing act: sustaining Chinese investments while avoiding default.

CPEC, once hailed as a game-changer, now exemplifies these contradictions. Launched in 2015, the corridor’s first phase focused on energy and infrastructure. However, delayed projects, cost overruns, and allegations of opaque contracts have eroded its viability. For instance, Pakistan owes $7.5 billion in project debt to CPEC-linked power plants and $2 billion in unpaid bills to Chinese energy firms. As economist Ali Hasanain noted, CPEC’s “original sin” was its reliance on foreign-currency obligations that clash with Pakistan’s domestic fiscal policies, narrowing Islamabad’s economic maneuvering space.

Could China Fill the US Aid Vacuum in Afghanistan?

David O’Brien and Besmillah Taban

The decision by the Trump administration to cut billions of dollars in aid to the world’s poorest regions will have far-reaching consequences. In Afghanistan, it may lead to increased Taliban repression of the population, while China stands poised to increase its influence in the country.

President Donald Trump justified his decision by claiming that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was run by “radical lunatics.” Elon Musk, who leads the government’s cost-cutting program, called it a “criminal organization.”

Despite the Taliban’s dominance, U.S. aid has played a vital role in Afghanistan, with $21 billion in humanitarian aid sent to the country through various agencies since the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 2021. The relative stability of Afghanistan’s economy largely depended on the continuation of these aid flows.

Although the Taliban repeatedly denied their dependence on and connection with the United States and its financial assistance, the immediate impact of this decision became apparent when Afghan government employees were informed that their salaries had been suspended for the next three months due to “technical” reasons.

To make up for the shortfall, the Taliban government is likely to increase Zakat and Usher religious taxes, hugely increasing pressure on the already struggling Afghan population.

After the Monsoon Revolution, Bangladesh’s economy and government need major reforms

Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak

Evolution of freedom

Movements in the Freedom Index suggest that the institutional environment of Bangladesh has experienced substantial volatility since the 1990s. After the democratic revolution of the early 1990s, the country had a period of credible elections with relatively peaceful alternation of power between the two main Bangladeshi political parties, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Awami League. The Index shows a clear institutional deterioration during the 2000–08 period, coinciding with governance approaches by both major parties that appeared to intensify unhealthy political competition. In an environment with escalating corruption, the leadership and allies of both parties intensely focused on holding onto power at all costs, leading to increased political tensions. Widespread corruption by those in power became the norm, and both parties became increasingly eager to hold on to power by any means necessary. The main political tool employed by a marginalized opposition was to impede the functions of government. In particular, calling general strikes with increasing frequency (and of longer duration) became the political weapon of choice for the opposition, to signal their street-level organizational capabilities to the government and to citizens. The strategy was deployed to erode the dominance of the party in government, but it came at the expense of the citizenry because it disrupted economic activity and the freedom of movement. An extreme example was to call general strikes to coincide with important visits by foreign investors exploring investment opportunities. This was designed to weaken the government and undermine its ability to attract investment, and it came at a high cost to the country’s economic prospects.

How Not To Get Seduced By Foreign Spies: China’s Spy Agency

Qian Lang

Since China’s secretive spy agency — the Ministry of State Security — got itself a WeChat account, it has been churning out cautionary tales about spies as warnings to an unsuspecting public.

The account, set up in July 2023, was quiet at first, only publishing four warnings in all of last year. But it has stepped up activity in recent weeks, cranking out five warnings in January alone under the slogan “National Security is Everyone’s Responsibility.”

Recently, it warned people:

– not to get seduced by “tall, beautiful people”

– not to gossip carelessly when they travel home for Lunar New Year

– be aware that “foreign spies” could be reading their online comments and lurking on social media

“Foreign espionage agencies may actively connect with key target groups by disguising themselves as rich and beautiful, or tall, rich and handsome individuals,” the agency warned in a Jan. 16 post to its official WeChat account.

Trump’s Fossil Fuel Agenda Hands the Future of Energy—and U.S. Competitiveness—to Beijing

William Matthews

On the same day President Donald Trump pledged to “drill, baby, drill” in his inaugural address, China’s EAST fusion reactor achieved an unprecedented breakthrough, maintaining a stable state for over 1,000 seconds and strengthening China’s position in the race for limitless energy. China leads the world in solar, wind, and commercial nuclear energy. If Washington throws its lot in with fossil fuels and neglects the energy technologies of the future, any short-term economic gain will be of little consequence. The United States will lose out on global influence and risk irreversibly falling behind China economically and technologically in the twenty-first century in the way that the coal-powered United Kingdom fell behind the oil-driven United States in the twentieth.

Trump has already signed orders to repeal Biden’s bar on offshore drilling, suspend new leasing for offshore wind, freeze funds for EV infrastructure and scrap EV targets, and withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement for a second time. His focus is on exploiting the U.S.’s huge fossil fuel reserves and reinvigorating the country’s automotive sector, which is at risk from competition from Chinese EVs.

This may prove successful in the short- to medium term in providing cheap energy and fueling the U.S. economy, but in the long run, it presents a serious risk to U.S. competitiveness unless it is combined with massive investment in nuclear, including research into the development of fusion power. While Trump’s pick for Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, has spoken in favor of nuclear power, it is unclear how willing Trump himself is to invest.

Managing the Risks of China’s Access to U.S. Data and Control of Software and Connected Technology

Peter Harrell

Introduction

On January 20, 2025, the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump sought to delay enforcement of a 2024 law that banned distribution of the popular Chinese-owned social media app TikTok. The intent of this delay was for his administration to work out a deal by which TikTok’s Chinese parent, ByteDance, could divest the app. Regardless of the ultimate resolution of the TikTok case, restrictions on Chinese communications technologies, software, and internet-connected devices are becoming a major pillar of U.S. economic and technology policy toward Beijing, alongside tariffs and export controls. Over just the past twelve months, the United States cited potential electronic espionage as the basis for restricting the use of new Chinese cargo terminal cranes at U.S. ports, passed legislation and issued a new executive order limiting certain data transfers to China, imposed draft “Know Your Customer” (KYC) requirements on U.S. cloud services providers, published a draft rule to ban Chinese autonomous cars being sold or used on American roads, and launched a process to restrict the use of Chinese-made commercial and hobbyist drones—by far the world’s most popular—in the United States. Indeed, while public attention in January focused on Trump’s actions toward TikTok, a trade-related executive order that Trump signed his first day in office appeared to tee up an expansion of these sorts of restrictions on Chinese technologies.

Over the past decade, the United States quietly has built an increasingly extensive set of regulatory tools to regulate U.S. data flows to China and the operation of Chinese software and connected technologies in the United States. Although individual actions generally are tailored to address a specific risk, the growing sweep of regulatory authorities has the potential to dramatically change America’s economic relationship with China, restricting not only a growing array of internet-connected devices and consumer products made in China but also products made by Chinese companies in third countries. Beijing, meanwhile, is intensifying its mirror-image campaign against products made by U.S. firms, with the Chinese government imposing new security restrictions on U.S. semiconductors, computers, and other connected tech.1

Can America Win the AI War with China?

Bari Weiss

Two weeks ago, America thought it was leading the AI race. Then, out of nowhere, a totally unknown Chinese start-up turned that assumption—and the American stock market—on its head.

DeepSeek, a Chinese company founded less than two years ago, released a free AI chatbot that rivals the most advanced available OpenAI products.

Chinese Spy Balloon Was Packed With American Tech

Didi Kirsten Tatlow

AChinese spy balloon that crossed over the United States in 2023 was packed with American technology that could have enabled it to spy on Americans, according to two sources with direct knowledge of a technical analysis conducted by the U.S. military.

The discovery of a satellite communication module, sensors and other tech from at least five American firms underlines the failure of U.S. efforts to restrict exports of technology that could have military uses to main adversary China as well as to countries such as Russia and Iran. It also raises questions over the role of private companies that sell their equipment globally in keeping control over the ultimate users of dual-use technology that can have defense applications as well as civilian uses.

A Chinese patent reviewed by Newsweek describes a communications system for exactly such a balloon as the one that crossed America, based on using a satellite transceiver from a U.S. company that the balloon's controllers in China would use to communicate with it and that would send data back, and that is easily available online.

China Is Not Seeking To Remake World Order

Paul Heer

As the Trump administration gets underway, key aspects of how it will approach China remain unclear. It’s especially uncertain what consensus will emerge among Trump’s team on the nature and scope of the threat that China poses. During his confirmation hearing, Secretary of State Marco Rubio asserted that the People’s Republic of China is “the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted.” Along similar lines, Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz has stated that “we are, I believe, in a cold war” with China because its goal is “replacing the American Dream and American leadership around the world with the Chinese Dream and Chinese leadership.”

Does Trump himself share this view of the China threat? He rarely, if ever, talks about it in such strategic or ideological terms. His approach is often described as more “transactional,” focused on the opportunities provided by the relationship he has (or thinks he has) with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Contrary to the prevailing view of Xi as a brutal dictator—and the view among many in GOP circles that diplomatic engagement with Beijing is futile or dangerous—Trump said publicly last month that “I like President Xi very much. I’ve always liked him. We always had a very good relationship.” And “it is my expectation that we will solve many problems together.” Whether Trump’s approach will be consistent with the principles of his national security team—or the interests of the United States—remains to be seen. The meager results of his personal diplomacy during his first term with Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, not to mention Xi himself, should be examined for clues and lessons.

Suggestions for US success in the Middle East

Ed Husain

To Secretary of State Marco Rubio,

Soon, you will be traveling to the Middle East — a region where U.S. interests in energy, trade, security, artificial intelligence and countering China all converge. And your recent success in Panama sets expectations of more gains.

Today, President Donald Trump is widely respected among most Arabs, Israelis, Kurds and Turks — but not in Iran. And you will be charged with the difficult tasks of possibly making peace with Iran, between Israel and Palestine, and more.

You are also inheriting a State Department in desperate need of leadership and strength. When Arab leaders asked your predecessor Antony Blinken to get a grip on the Gaza conflict and end his tenure by banging heads together, he simply replied: “You know that’s not my style.” I even sat in a meeting where he referred to Hamas’ terror leader as “Mr. Sinwar.” But being nice and wanting to be liked has resulted in Gaza’s demolition, and in President Trump’s opening gambit, proposing to relocate its entire population.

After being sworn in, you spoke openly about faith, family and flag. During your confirmation hearing and time in the U.S. Senate, you showed mastery on the topic of Iran. These traits will win you more friends in the Middle East, but you must avoid the regional traps being laid for you. Your term is limited — your enemies can wait you out in Tehran, Gaza, Damascus, Yemen and elsewhere.

Iran’s Nuclear Threat – OpEd

Neville Teller

A significant topic of discussion at this year’s Davos meeting was Iran’s nuclear program. The World Economic Forum, founded in 1971, is an international organization with its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Its annual meeting in Davos brings together world leaders from business, politics, academia, and other sectors to discuss pressing global issues. The 2025 meeting took place from January 20 to 24.

On January 22 Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told reporters in Davos that Iran is “pressing the gas pedal” on its enrichment of uranium to near weapons grade. Previously, said Grossi, Iran was producing each month about 7 kg of uranium enriched to 60%. “Now it’s above 30 kg, or more than that. So I think this is a clear indication of an acceleration.”

According to the IAEA, about 42 kg of uranium enriched to 60%, if further enriched to 90% is enough in principle for one nuclear bomb. Grossi said Iran currently had about 200 kg of uranium enriched to up to 60%.

He said that although it would take time to install and bring online the extra uranium-enriching centrifuges necessary to produce weapons-grade material, nevertheless the acceleration was starting to happen.

Will US Export Restrictions Work?

BARRY EICHENGREEN

Starting in October 2022, the late, lamented (by some) administration of President Joe Biden implemented restrictions on US exports of advanced semiconductors to China. A classic “dual use” technology, these chips power generative AI and supercomputers used in weapons systems, cyberattacks, and surveillance. Equally, they can enhance the ability of companies to compete internationally – in this case the ability of China’s high-tech firms to compete with their American rivals.

In its final months, the Biden administration doubled down on these restrictions, adding high-bandwidth memory chips and chipmaking tools to the list of prohibited items. Donald Trump’s administration, dominated by China hawks, is poised to ramp up these measures still further.

China has retaliated with export controls on rare earths and related materials used by American producers. But the more serious threat is that China will accelerate the development of its own capacity to design chips and build chipmaking equipment. If China closes the technology gap faster than it otherwise would have, then US export controls will have proven ineffectual or even counterproductive.

It’s hard to predict the success or failure of China’s efforts. But it may be informative to look to the past, where some of the most relevant history comes from, of all places, France in the 1960s.

Renewed Ukrainian Offensive In Kursk – Analysis

Luke Coffey

While most of the fighting between Ukraine and Russia has occurred on the former’s land, significant military operations have also taken place in Russian territory.

In August last year, Ukraine surprised the world by launching a military offensive targeting Russia’s Kursk Oblast, a region located across the border from the sizable city of Sumy in northeastern Ukraine. Thousands of Ukrainian troops crossed into Kursk and caught Russian forces off guard. At the peak of their control, the Ukrainian forces held about 1,000 sq. km of Russian territory.

This week marks the six-month anniversary of the operation in Kursk. It is reported that Ukraine has launched another military operation there this week and has already made minor gains. The importance of the timing of such an operation cannot be overstated. As President Donald Trump settles into the White House and begins strategizing how he might bring Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table, officials in Kyiv will undoubtedly want to approach any talks from a position of strength.

Many Western commentators were skeptical of Ukraine’s bold move into Kursk last year. The prevailing wisdom at the time suggested the troops and armored vehicles could have been better utilized along critical front lines inside Ukraine, where Russian forces continued to occupy Ukrainian territory.

Dilemmas In The Policy Debate On Autonomous Weapon Systems – Analysis

Dr Alexander Blanchard, Dr Vincent Boulanin, Laura Bruun and Netta Goussac

It is more than 10 years since the first multilateral policy debate took place on whether and how to regulate autonomous weapon systems (AWS). And for most of the past decade, formal discussions on AWS have been limited to groups of experts under the auspices of the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW).

However, a growing number of stakeholders have voiced dissatisfaction with the CCW process. There has been pressure from various sides for the policy debate on AWS to be diversified—both in terms of where it should take place (many argue that taking the debate to alternative multilateral forums could accelerate progress towards an international regulatory instrument) and of what the debate should focus on, given technological and geostrategic developments since 2014.

However, diversifying the policy process implies several trade-offs. This essay highlights some of those trade-offs and helps policymakers consider their potential implications for international efforts to regulate AWS.

Nuclear Power and the Future of American Digital Dominance

Anna Broughel

America’s digital supremacy rests on a precarious foundation: the ability to power its data centers. As national security experts and policymakers have increasingly recognized, this seemingly domestic energy challenge has profound implications for U.S. strategic interests and global influence.

The geopolitical stakes could not be higher. As Russia and China aggressively export their nuclear technology and expertise, they are not just selling power plants – they are building long-term diplomatic and economic relationships that could reshape global alliances. Meanwhile, American tech giants like Meta, Google, and Microsoft are racing to secure clean, reliable energy for their expanding data center operations, which form the backbone of American digital dominance and, by extension, its global influence.

Many companies are already moving to secure their energy supply, signing power purchase agreements (PPAs) and memorandums of understanding (MOUs) to purchase nuclear power. They recognize that maintaining U.S. technological leadership depends on so-called “clean firm” power – electricity that is both environmentally friendly and available twenty-four/seven, regardless of weather conditions. This requirement puts nuclear power at the center of both energy security and national security discussions. In fact, the first secretarial order issued by Chris Wright, the newly confirmed U.S. Secretary of Energy, makes “unleashing commercial nuclear power in the United States” one of his top priorities.

The Houthis Have Paused Attacks—For Now

Emily Milliken

While the international community may be taking a collective sigh of relief that the Houthis have paused their thirteen-month campaign against maritime traffic in the Red Sea, the group’s domestic operations are heating up.

Shortly after Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire, the Houthis signaled an end to their attacks on trading vessels—first in an email to international shipping companies and later in a public statement by the group’s leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi. The group did, however, clarify that they reserved the right to target Israel-affiliated ships and warned that they could resume their assaults if necessary. The announcement is significant as Houthi maritime operations in the region were a major blow to international shipping, forcing shipping companies to choose between three expensive options: travel around the Horn of Africa to avoid the Bab el-Mandeb Strait altogether, pay tariffs to the Houthis, or transfer their goods onto smaller boats to mitigate attack risks.

Although it remains uncertain whether the Yemeni rebels will resume lobbing drones and missiles at ships, their focus has visibly shifted to domestic operations against the Yemeni government and its affiliates. In the days following their announced ceasefire—and with the new Donald Trump administration re-designating the group as a foreign terrorist organization—the Houthis have made several alarming steps to consolidate control over Yemeni territory.

Adverse Consequences of US Threats to Retake the Panama Canal

David A. Gantz

Introduction

President Donald Trump’s comments threatening to resume United States control of the Panama Canal, reiterated in his inaugural address on Jan. 20, could have significant political consequences for U.S. influence in the region. [1]

The dangers go well beyond assertions that Panama is charging unreasonable tolls for ships transiting the Canal, even though there appears to be a valid basis for Trump’s assertions that rates are excessive, as discussed more fully below. [2] Similarly, Hong Kong/Chinese port management companies that have been operating in Panama for almost 30 years are not currently a threat to the neutrality of the canal, although an increased Chinese presence could be considered a risk in the future. The Trump administration’s concerns also reflect the fact that some 70% of canal traffic consists of shipments to or from the United States as well as an awareness of significant Chinese influence in the areas near the canal.

This threat, like the reiteration of Trump’s desire to take over Greenland, seems to be anything but a joke, designed in significant part to make clear that “decades of U.S. commerce financing China’s growth and strategic footprint in the Americas is over,” according to a senior Trump official. [3]

With Gaza war on hold, Hamas lets the world know it has not been defeated

Laura King

This past weekend, as Hamas paraded a trio of emaciated Israeli hostages who were about to be freed following more than a year of captivity in the Gaza Strip, the militant group seized the chance to direct a personal gibe at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

With news cameras in southern Gaza lingering on a knot of masked fighters, a Hebrew-language banner was clearly visible behind them, superimposed with the prime minister’s face.

“Total victory,” it read — mocking the refrain often invoked by the Israeli leader during nearly 16 months of brutal warfare in the coastal enclave, now paused by a truce.

Embarking on a round of highly charged new talks over the next phase of the cease-fire, both Hamas and Israel are trying to paint themselves as victors, even as Gaza lies in ruins.

While Hamas sustained heavy blows in a withering campaign of Israeli bombardment coupled with a months-long ground offensive, some observers believe the group is scoring significant propaganda points — because it can point to its mere survival as a triumph.

Gazans Need the Freedom to Leave | Opinion

Joseph Epstein

As the world reels from President Donald Trump's announcement that the United States will "take over" Gaza, resettling its residents in some undetermined country, it's still unclear whether he's being serious or setting the stage for negotiations.

Arab nations, to no surprise, have immediately rejected the idea.

Jordan and Egypt joined Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in writing to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, opposing plans to relocate Gazans. Other U.S. allies, including France, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and Germany also came out against the initiative.

But whether Trump is bluffing or serious, he's making some good points. Most importantly, Palestinians who want to leave the demolished Gaza Strip should have the right to do so. Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians have been trapped in a war zone where they're now faced with trying to live in bombed out buildings or buildings set to explode. Giving them another choice would not only be humane but may prevent future rounds of conflict.

Donald Trump’s Mission Impossible: Making Europe Pay for Their Own Defense

Doug Bandow

President Donald Trump wants European governments to spend five percent of GDP on their militaries. However, of those increasing their defense outlays, only Poland comes anywhere close to that much in Europe. Worse, important laggards, such as Italy and Spain, remain. And as the political center collapses across the continent, the issue has become increasingly divisive in important states like France and Germany.

Faced with increasingly urgent cries from Europe’s born-again hawks, the public remains largely unmoved. Explained The Economist: “With politicians bickering about pensions and social spending, and loth to raise taxes, the reality is of a continent unwilling to inconvenience itself for something so trifling as fending off a potential invader. Europeans want more military spending, sure; some churn out ludicrous soundbites about building a ‘war economy.’ But God forbid that anyone make voters endure the cost of it.”

Until Trump’s election in 2016, the Europeans were getting along just fine, including with Washington. The United States did the tough jobs, most importantly, defending the free world from communism and related threats. The Europeans focused on fun, creating bountiful welfare states at home and providing generous foreign aid to assorted Third World governments. Everyone was happy, more or less.

What will Trump 2.0 mean for the global world order? - Opinion

Stephen Wertheim

Many assumed that Donald Trump’s second term as president of the United States would turn out like his first. But this time looks to be different. In his opening weeks, the US president has taken a flurry of actions he never attempted before, wielding sweeping tariffs against the US’s neighbors, upending portions of the federal workforce, and attempting to change constitutionally enshrined citizenship laws through executive order.

The early signs on foreign policy are no exception. In his inaugural address, Trump said next to nothing about the issues that have dominated US foreign policy for decades – matters of war and peace in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Instead, he spoke of expanding US territory in the western hemisphere (and going to Mars), harking back explicitly to the 19th-century tradition of manifest destiny. Astoundingly, Trump mentioned China solely for the purpose of accusing it, inaccurately, of operating the Panama canal. When he turned beyond the Americas, Trump’s most telling line signaled restraint: “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end – and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.”

The New Cold War Mindset

William McHenry

The geopolitical landscape has undergone a seismic shift since the Cold War. The world, once divided into two ideological blocs, has navigated a complex tapestry of alliances and rivalries in the post-Cold War era with the U.S. as the dominant presence. Over the last decade, emerging out of the post-Cold War confusion, like storm clouds rising over the horizon, Russia, China, North Korea and Iran have banded together to threaten Western Democracy. However, it’s not just the geopolitical dynamics that have changed since the end of the Cold War; the pace of technological advancement has accelerated exponentially. The new alliance of authoritarian regimes focused on expansion, combined with the rapid evolution of technology necessitates a new mindset and a fundamental shift in how the U.S. Government and Military plan, operate, and acquire effective tools and enablers. Reliance on experience and a process focus mentality must give way to adaptability, agility, and a relentless focus on outcomes if we are to combat emerging threats and protect U.S. interests at home and abroad.

From Process to Outcomes

In the Cold War and post-Cold War era, government planning, execution and procurement were based on long-term, deliberate processes. Organizations have grown accustomed to meticulous planning, detailed execution, and a focus on adherence to established procedures. This process-oriented approach, while effective in a more stable non-competitive environment, is ill-suited to the high threat, adversarial, and unpredictable world of today.

Reimagining the American War Machine - Opinio

Maximilian K. Bremer and Kelly A. Grieco

Not long after Elon Musk was tapped by Donald Trump to help lead a “Department of Government Efficiency,” he set his sights on a prime target: what the Pentagon spends its money on. In posts on his platform X in December, Mr. Musk, the chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla, declared that “America needs a large quantity of long-range drones (air, surface water and submarine) and hypersonic missiles.” He warned, “Anything manned will die very fast in a drone war.”

In some ways, Mr. Musk’s call is not new. Experts have been warning for years that we have entered a new age of autonomous warfare, and the Pentagon needs to keep up. The Trump administration is unusually open to remaking the U.S. war machine: Weeks before his inauguration, Mr. Trump began preparing to stack his Pentagon with executives from start-ups and tech investors like Stephen Feinberg, his nominee for deputy secretary of defense.

But for the Trump administration to bring meaningful reform, it will need to do more than buy drones and change the type of weapons the Pentagon buys. It will also need to change how our weapons are built and the speed at which they are acquired and introduced into U.S. forces.

The Hawley Act Threatens AI Innovation

Ritwik Gupta & Andrew Reddie

“What protection teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war.” —Henry George

On Jan. 29, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced the Decoupling America’s Artificial Intelligence Capabilities from China Act of 2025 (DAAICCA) as a sweeping attempt to sever U.S. artificial intelligence (AI) development from Chinese influence.

The bill, following hard on the heels of Chinese advances in AI and accusations of impropriety from U.S. technology companies, argues that stringent restrictions on the import, export, and collaboration of AI technologies between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are necessary for both national security and America’s economic independence. However, the bill’s rigid structure fails to take into account the globalized nature of software, hardware, and talent supply chains that benefit U.S. firms aiming to develop AI technologies. Ultimately, the DAAICCA will disrupt the open-source development of new tools and methods and create significant enforcement challenges.

Taken together, the limitations of the bill, as currently drafted, will stifle American AI progress.

The World According to Generative Artificial Intelligence

Sinan Ülgen

The Information Age has ushered in a new relationship between humanity and technology. With an unprecedented rate of globalization, accessing people, jobs, and cultures in different parts of the world has never been easier. This era has also radically changed people’s behavior toward the news. Humans have become increasingly reliant on the internet—and the digital world at large—for accessing information. Notoriously, the rise of social and digital media has discouraged attention on detailed analysis while encouraging the immediate extraction of information.

Over the past decade, huge leaps in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and large language models (LLMs) have had direct implications for the way humanity obtains information. Generative AI (GenAI), with its capacity to write sophisticated text that is indistinguishable from that produced by humans, has massive practical applications. Able to generate anything from analyses, commentaries, and essays to poems, images, and puns, GenAI models are skillful writers. With their embedded AI architecture, LLMs can aggregate the overwhelming volume of information available online and generate detailed summaries.

However, the danger lies in the impressive self-assuredness of these models’ output, much of which may be misinformed, fabricated, or biased. As humans’ interactions with such models inevitably become more frequent, the policy community should consider several areas of urgent action, including greater transparency in GenAI training, an LLM digital literacy program, and techniques to better understand the inherent biases of GenAI tools.

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