Can India and China Turn the Corner? - Analysis

Fahad Shah

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This year, India and China will mark the 75th anniversary of their diplomatic relationship, which is characterized by a mix of collaboration and disputes. Since the 1962 Sino-Indian war, New Delhi and Beijing have developed a sense of mistrust that has worsened in recent years.

In 2019, tensions deepened after India revoked the special autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir, including the Ladakh region, which borders China in the east; Beijing sharply objected. In 2020, military clashes along the countries’ disputed border in the Galwan Valley resulted in the deaths of more than 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers. As border skirmishes continued that year, India responded by restricting Chinese investments; banning several Chinese mobile apps, including TikTok; and preventing the resumption of passenger flights to China following COVID-19 pandemic pauses.

The Mixed Results of Made in China 2025 - Opinion

Farhad Gojayev

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Ten years ago, in 2015, China introduced the “Made in China 2025” (MIC25) plan, an ambitious industrial strategy to transform its manufacturing base and rise as a world leader in high technology – taking the German Industry 4.0 model as a reference. MIC25 not only aimed at technological self-sufficiency in sectors such as robotics, semiconductors, and electric vehicles, but also became a point of controversy and realignment in international relations. Over the past decade, the plan has redefined global competitiveness, sparked trade wars, and pushed other countries to reformulate their technological and economic policies. With companies such as Huawei, BYD and DJI, China has marked its presence, but has faced significant challenges from the United States and the European Union, who have responded with measures to protect their industries and counter China’s technological ascendancy.

While MIC25 has enabled China to advance in renewable energy technologies and electric vehicles, establishing itself as a leader, restricted access to advanced technologies, especially in semiconductors, shows geopolitical constraints. The expansion of 5G infrastructure by Huawei and ZTE has raised tensions with the West, leading to trade restrictions and strategic alliances such as the “Chip 4 Alliance” to reduce China’s technological dependence. Robotics and artificial intelligence, while growing, reveal the need for international collaboration to overcome technological barriers. In the electric vehicle sector, the success of BYD and NIO has led to global competition for the necessary resources, affecting international trade dynamics.

Chinese Critiques of Large Language Models

William Hannas, Huey-Meei Chang, Maximilian Riesenhuber, and Daniel Chou

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Introduction: Generative AI and General AI

Achieving general artificial intelligence or GAI—defined as AI that replicates or exceeds most human cognitive skills across a wide range of tasks, such as image/video understanding, continual learning, planning, reasoning, skill transfer, and creativity1—is a key strategic goal of intense research efforts both in China and the United States.2 There is vigorous debate in the international scientific community regarding which path will lead to GAI most quickly and which paths may be false starts. In the United States, LLMs have dominated the discussion, yet questions remain about their ability to achieve GAI. Since choosing the wrong path can position the United States at a strategic disadvantage, this raises the urgency of examining alternative approaches that other countries may be pursuing.

In the United States, many experts believe the transformative step to GAI will occur with the rollout of new versions of LLMs such as OpenAI’s o1, Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and Meta’s Llama.3 Others argue, pointing to persistent problems such as LLM hallucinations, that no amount of compute, feedback, or multimodal data sources will allow LLMs to achieve GAI.4 Still other AI scientists see roles for LLMs in GAI platforms but not as the only, or even main, component.

China Dominates Global Manufacturing

Brian Hart, Hugh Grant-Chapman, and Leon Li

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China’s manufacturing boom has fueled decades of export-oriented economic growth, undercutting foreign competitors and contributing to a growing appetite for tariffs in the United States and Europe.

1. China’s economic rise has been undergirded by its large manufacturing sector and high volumes of manufactured exports. Thanks to abundant, low-cost labor, large economies of scale, and significant state support, Chinese net exports of manufactured goods grew more than 25-fold over the last two decades.
2. In the United States and many other developed economies, consumers have enjoyed cheaper products as a result—but their manufacturers have struggled to compete. The subsequent political backlash has contributed to a growing appetite for tariffs and industrial policies in many advanced economies as they attempt to make their own manufacturing sectors more competitive in global markets.
3. In the face of these mounting geopolitical tensions, Chinese leader Xi Jinping is doubling down, with repeated calls for China to become a “manufacturing power” and dominate global markets for advanced high-tech goods.

As Jordan’s King Abdullah meets Trump, can he resist US pressure on Gaza?

Justin Salhani

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Jordan’s King Abdullah II is set to meet with United States President Donald Trump in Washington, DC, amid the latter’s repeated insistence that the monarch accept Palestinians he would like to expel from Gaza so the US can take control of the enclave.

The idea came up in Trump’s comments – made alongside a smiling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week – that Palestinians should be “removed” from the devastated Gaza Strip. Trump has emphasised that, to his mind, the Palestinians would not return, making his ideas ethnic cleansing.

Jordan rejects the idea.

Trump’s comments were condemned not only by Jordan but also Egypt, which Trump also said should “take” Palestinians from Gaza, as well as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

However, Trump said US financial support for Jordan and Egypt would force their hand.

“If they don’t agree, I would conceivably withhold aid,” Trump said on Monday, the day before meeting King Abdullah.

The Evolving Russia-Iran Relationship

Julian G. Waller, Elizabeth Wishnick, Margaret Sparling and Michael Connell

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INTRODUCTION

The Russia-Iran relationship has changed significantly over the course of the past decade, with considerable dynamism evident across several dimensions of cooperation—especially since the onset of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022. To date, however, a full characterization of the changes and current state of the relationship has not been developed.

Considering this need, and at the request of US European Command’s Russian Strategic Initiative, this report examines the Russia-Iran relationship’s temporal and thematic dimensions.1 To do so, the report identifies and then measures a variety of indicators that characterize trends in political, military, and economic cooperation. This method allows the research team to track developments over time. It uses a variety of qualitative and quantitative indicators to measure the health and depth of the bilateral relationship. Our framework takes cues from the general diplomatic, informational, military, economic (DIME) framework, which is widely used in political-military and strategic analysis to delineate the core set of “instruments” or dimensions of “national power” available to states.2 For the purposes of this report, a tripartite political-militaryeconomic division is used to structure the overall characterization of the relationship.

Restoring the U.S. Advantage in Satellite Navigation

Marc J. Berkowitz

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The United States has ceded its leadership position in space-based positioning, navigation and timing (PNT), with stark ramifications for most all U.S. critical infrastructures and the U.S. military.

The Global Positioning System (GPS), which is owned and operated by the U.S. government, is vital to America’s well-being, prosperity and security in an increasingly competitive and dangerous world. The majority of the current satellite constellation is comprised of old space vehicles, with the oldest launched in the 1990s. Of the 31 satellites in the current GPS constellation, only seven are the more advanced GPS IIIs with better accuracy and the civilian L1C signal, which enables interoperability between GPS and international satellite navigation systems.

China’s Beidou and Europe’s Galileo satellite systems not only have surpassed GPS, but GPS is vulnerable to a variety of threats such as jamming and spoofing –sending false signals to receivers in place of valid ones.

Art of the Deal Meets Art of Tariffs: Donald Trump’s Economic Game Plan

James Jay Carafano

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The new United States President, Donald J. Trump, channels his inner Alexander Hamilton, employing tariffs as an integral instrument of American foreign and economic policy. The sooner everyone starts focusing on the framework the President has been employing and less on the rhetoric, the quicker they can make sense of Trump’s tariffs.

Past Really is Prologue

Alexander Hamilton’s 1791 Report on Manufactures outlined a specific tariff policy. This report is relevant to Trump’s time. Hamilton’s analysis was rooted in prescribing a US foreign economic policy rooted in national interests—precisely how the President looks at economic policy.

Hamilton argued there were three valid reasons for tariffs—raise revenue, national security, and address market imbalances that hurt US manufacturers. To be fair, neither the Congress of the time nor subsequent presidents and legislatures followed his prescription to the letter. Historically, Republicans and Democrats have alternatively defended and decried tariffs. Tariffs have never been an issue of the orthodoxy of major American political parties.

That trend continues today where the parties stood and reflected on their geographical base and business interests. While Trump is attacked for his addiction to tariffs, the Biden administration implemented more duties than President Trump did in his first term.

Orbán & Russia: It’s the Geopolitical Realities, Stupid

Gergely Varga

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The recent last-minute conditional support by Hungary for extending EU sanctions against Russia was just the latest example of a long history of disputes between Brussels and Budapest about policy towards Moscow. Ever since Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán came to power in 2010, much of Europe has been accusing his subsequent governments of cosying up to Moscow. Some critics trace the Hungarian leader’s supposedly friendly approach to Russia to a 15-minute-long meeting between Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán in St. Petersburg in November 2009.

For many of Orbán’s opponents, the meeting still holds an almost mystical significance, as if the previously staunchly anti-Russian Hungarian political leader had suddenly and inexplicably undergone a Pauline conversion. On the contrary, the change in the Hungarian right-wing leader’s foreign policy perspective was not the result of a fifteen-minute conversation with Putin, but of international developments over the previous fifteen months. The roots of the change in Orbán’s outlook should be sought not in Moscow or St. Petersburg, but in the capitals of Hungary’s Western allies.

Trump the 'peacemaker' faces many obstacles

Benjamin H. Friedman & Jennifer Kavanagh

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“My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier,” President Donald Trump promised the American public in his inaugural address on January 20, 2025. About three weeks later, it’s safe to say that no one will remember Trump as a unifier, but he still has a chance to claim the peacemaker title.

Of course, Trump is not talking much like a dove these days. He’s already threatened several U.S. neighbors in service of territorial aggrandizement, mused about making war on Mexican cartels, and proposed occupying the Gaza strip with U.S. troops after its residents are ejected. But at the same time, he’s still pushing for peace talks in Ukraine, signaling openness to a new nuclear deal with Iran, and has mentioned reopening talks with North Korea.

Ultimately, whether Trump can be a peacemaker will largely come down to the president himself, specifically his ability to keep his administration focused and his willingness to persevere through arduous talks and criticism, rather than giving up and reverting to belligerent posturing. Pessimism seems warranted.

History’s Revenge: America Faces the New Eurasian Threat

Hal Brands

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The post-Cold War era wasn’t supposed to end like this. The pay­off from the free world’s victory in the superpower struggle was an imbal­ance of power more marked than anything since the Pax Romana. America’s goal, for the next quarter-century, was to make that moment last.

The end of the Cold War transformed the international landscape: subtracting one superpower from a two-superpower system left a sin­gle, hyper-dominant coalition. America and its treaty allies accounted for roughly 70 percent of global GDP and 75 percent of world military spending. Serious competitors were nowhere to be found. China was just rising to its feet, while post-Soviet Russia was flat on its back. When another would-be challenger, Saddam Hussein, sought to master the Middle East by invading Kuwait in 1990, the resulting “mother of all battles” turned into the mother of all beat-downs, which showed how outrageously superior America’s information-age military was. The ide­ological mismatch was also severe; democracy, having vanquished com­munism, enjoyed a dearth of rivals and a surfeit of prestige.

America’s first decision, in this environment, was not to throw it all away. Neo-isolationists argued that the end of the Cold War should mean the end of US globalism; America, wrote one erstwhile hawk, could become “a normal country in a normal time.” Yet most US offi­cials in the 1990s and later understood that America’s postwar project hadn’t been solely about containing communism. It had also involved suppressing the strategic anarchy that had ravaged Eurasia twice before. That responsibility endured, even if the Soviet Union didn’t. “Either we take hold of history,” said James Baker, “or history will take hold of us.”

ALL HANDS: An Introduction to Trump’s National Security Approach & Team

Monte Erfourth 

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Introduction

The second Trump administration has brought about a significant change in U.S. foreign policy and national security priorities. Unlike previous administrations that favored multilateralism and institutional diplomacy, Trump's national security team operates based on a framework of economic nationalism, strategic deterrence, and transactional alliances. This article examines the fundamental principles of Trump's foreign policy theory and explores how it differs from traditional U.S. approaches. It will also introduce and assess the roles and priorities of key national security officials, including National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Although brief, an analysis of the internal tensions within Trump’s team are outlined. Ideological differences could affect the administration’s ability to implement a cohesive strategy. If his first Administration is any indication, Trump will likely pit his national security leads against each other to see who holds the strongest argument aligning with his views. How well foreign policy functions in this scenario remains difficult to determine.

Trump’s Foreign Policy Theory and Its Departure from Traditional U.S. Strategy

Donald Trump’s foreign policy significantly departs from the post-World War II framework, emphasizing alliances, free trade, and collective security. Instead, his approach prioritizes economic nationalism, military deterrence, and unilateralism over multilateral institutions, fundamentally altering how the United States competes globally.

Applying Just War Theory to the Russo-Ukrainian War

Nazar Syvak

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The ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war has sparked global debates about what a just peace might entail. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasizes a ‘just peace’ that includes the restoration of Ukraine’s sovereignty and reparations from Russia. Other proposals—ranging from freezing battle lines to territorial concessions—reflect competing visions of resolution. But what does justice require after such a conflict? Jus post bellum, a Just War theory concept that deals with the morality of ending wars, establishes a framework for building peace that addresses both immediate needs and long-term stability. This article will review the application of jus post bellum to the Russo-Ukrainian war and outline the ideal-case peace to end it justly.

The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace, but it does not mean restoring the prewar status quo. As Michael Walzer explains in his chapter in Ethics Beyond War’s End, those were the exact conditions that brought the conflict and allowed the aggressor to wage war. Thus, a more secure and just state of affairs is needed than the one that existed prior to the war. Ukraine is fighting a just defensive war respecting the jus in bello principles, while Russia violated international law by invading Ukraine with its military committing war crimes against Ukrainians, making any Russia-proposed peace not only unjust but also false, setting the ground for further aggression.

How Gaza Shattered the West’s Mythology

Pankaj Mishra

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

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

The Post-Neoliberal Delusion

Jason Furman

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Although there are many explanations for Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, voters’ views of the U.S. economy may have been decisive. In polling shortly before the election, more than 60 percent of voters in swing states agreed with the idea that the economy was on the wrong track, and even higher numbers registered concern about the cost of living. In exit polls, 75 percent of voters agreed that inflation was a “hardship.”

These views may seem surprising given various economic indicators at the time of the election. After all, unemployment was low, inflation had come down, GDP growth was strong, and wages were rising faster than prices. But these figures largely missed the lasting effects that dramatic price increases had on many Americans, which made it harder for them to pay for groceries, pay off credit cards, and buy homes. Not entirely unreasonably, they blamed that squarely on the Biden administration.

Biden arrived in office in 2021 with what he understood as an economic mandate to “Build Back Better.” The United States had not yet fully reopened after nearly a year of restrictions necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which had suppressed activity in the service sector. Biden set out to restructure the country’s post-pandemic economy based on a muscular new approach to governing. Since the 1990s, Democratic economic policy had largely been shaped by a technocratic approach, derided by its critics as “neoliberalism,” that included respect for markets, enthusiasm for trade liberalization and expanded social welfare protections, and an aversion to industrial policy. By contrast, the Biden team expressed much more ambition: to spend more, to do more to reshape particular industries, and to rely less on market mechanisms to deal with problems such as climate change. Thus, the administration set out to bring back vigorous government involvement across the economy, including in such areas as public investment, antitrust enforcement, and worker protections; revive large-scale industrial policy; and support enormous injections of direct economic stimulus, even if it entailed unprecedented deficits. The administration eventually came to dub this approach “Bidenomics.”

Elon Musk Leads $97.4 Billion Bid to Control OpenAI

Mike Isaac, Cade Metz and David A. Fahrenthold

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A group of investors led by Elon Musk has made a $97.4 billion bid to buy the assets of the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, according to two people familiar with the bid, escalating a yearslong, deeply personal tussle for the future of artificial intelligence between Mr. Musk and OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman.

The consortium includes Vy Capital and Xai, Mr. Musk’s artificial intelligence company, as well as the Hollywood power broker Ari Emanuel and other investors, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions are ongoing.

The Wall Street Journal earlier reported news of the offer.

The bid for OpenAI is Mr. Musk’s latest and perhaps most audacious attack on an organization that he helped create almost 10 years ago. It faces long odds: OpenAI’s board of directors is closely allied with Mr. Altman, and the chief executive quickly mocked Mr. Musk’s bid.

“No thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want,” Mr. Altman said on X, referring to the old name for Mr. Musk’s social media platform.

Will a Time Magazine Cover Drive a Wedge Between Trump and Musk?

Shawn McCreesh

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The president did not look amused. He was meeting the Japanese prime minister for the first time on Friday when a reporter shouted out to ask if he had a “reaction” to the new cover of Time magazine. The cover, the reporter told Mr. Trump, depicts “Elon Musk sitting behind your Resolute Desk.”

“No,” Mr. Trump answered pointedly. He looked down at the floor. The next few seconds stretched like an eternity as a translator related the exchange to the prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, in Japanese.

Just in case any of the sauciness of the moment had been lost in translation, Mr. Trump waited until the interpreter had finished and then cracked: “Is Time magazine still in business? I didn’t even know that.” Everyone around him laughed gamely, if a bit nervously.

It is unlikely that Mr. Trump didn’t know whether Time magazine was still in business. His own face had, after all, stared out from its cover only two months ago, when the magazine anointed him its “Person of the Year.” As part of the rollout of that issue, Mr. Trump rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange in front of a blown-up version of the cover.

The Manned-Unmanned Warfare of Tomorrow

Wannes Verstraete

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The deployment of unmanned systems in recent years has changed the nature of warfare in multiple ways. Subsequently, considering Belgium’s budgetary context, the personnel constraints that the armed forces face, the limitations of the traditional defence industry, and the turbulent geopolitical situation, it may be advantageous to look for innovative, asymmetric, and disruptive solutions such as unmanned systems. While drones should not be considered ‘super weapons’ and fully autonomous, unmanned warfare may not be for the near future, the Belgian armed forces should embrace manned-unmanned cooperation to be ready for tomorrow’s battlefield. Nevertheless, the Belgian parliamentary debate on arming unmanned aerial systems has not yet been settled. As a result, the next government will need to decide to arm unmanned systems and start exploring the possibilities these systems can provide.

Types of Unmanned Systems

Drones or unmanned systems come in a variety of types. A first distinction can be made based on the warfighting domain, such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USV) and Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUV), Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV), and Unmanned Space Vehicles (USV). A second distinction is the difference between unmanned systems that are used on the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. This distinction entails often a third difference in range as smaller drones cannot conduct long-range missions. FPV (First Person View) drones, for example, have usually a short range. Some of the smallest drones are called nano- or micro-UAVs. Bigger drones can be categorised as medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) UAVs or high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) UAVs (similar variances based on range can also be found in other warfighting domains).

Trump says he wants to negotiate about Ukraine. It’s not clear if Putin really does

EMMA BURROWS

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Nearly three years after President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, his troops are making steady progress on the battlefield. Kyiv is grappling with shortages of men and weapons. And the new U.S. president could soon halt Ukraine’s massive supply of military aid.

Putin is closer than ever to achieving his objectives in the battle-weary country, with little incentive to come to the negotiating table, no matter how much U.S. President Donald Trump might cajole or threaten him, according to Russian and Western experts interviewed by The Associated Press.

Both are signaling discussions on Ukraine -– by phone or in person -– using flattery and threats.

Putin said Trump was “clever and pragmatic,” and even parroted his false claims of having won the 2020 election. Trump’s opening gambit was to call Putin “smart” and to threaten Russia with tariffs and oil price cuts, which the Kremlin brushed off.

Trump boasted during the campaign he could end the war in 24 hours, which later became six months. He’s indicated the U.S. is talking to Russia about Ukraine without Kyiv’s input, saying his administration already had “very serious” discussions.

What Ukraine Can Teach the World About Resilience and Civil Engineering

Jonas Christensen,  Andriy Tymoshenko & Daniel Armanios

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When Russian airstrikes cut off water to 80% of Kyiv at the end of October 2022, utility workers were able to restore the flow within 24 hours. Against a steady barrage of missiles, drones, artillery, and cyberattacks, the country’s infrastructure has proven remarkably resilient. Real-time monitoring shows that the Ukrainian rail system had, as of August 2023, experienced only one complete shutdown since the start of the war, lasting just two hours. Early on, the country’s ability to rapidly adapt—for example, using commercial drones on the battlefield and modified jet skis for sea attacks—helped it handle military strikes and shifting front lines. A war that was expected to end with Ukraine’s defeat in only three days is, as of this writing, entering its twentieth month.

There is no denying the physical devastation. As of April 2023, the Kyiv School of Economics estimated $150 billion in infrastructure damage in Ukraine, with damage to or destruction of about 170,000 residential buildings (including almost 20,000 apartment buildings), plus over 1,300 schools that have also been destroyed, according to UNICEF. This makes the resilience of the nation’s services and utilities even more remarkable.

Our point here is not to minimize the pain, damage, and trauma the war has wrought. In fact, what we find remarkable is the opposite: how Ukraine prevented the toll from being far worse. Two of us (Christensen and Tymoshenko) are management and development consultants working in Ukraine who focus on reconstruction planning, energy infrastructure, and managing large portfolios of development projects. Several months ago, we got in touch with Armanios, who studies how organizational sociology applies to large-scale engineering systems. We were all looking to explore how under-recognized mechanisms of resilience might be applied to rebuilding Ukraine. Here is our synthesis of many months of discussions.

Combat losses and manpower challenges underscore the importance of ‘mass’ in Ukraine

Yurri Clavilier & Michael Gjerstad

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While 2024 was a difficult year for Ukraine on the battlefield, its armed forces have managed to limit Russian territorial advances and inflict significant losses. These outcomes, achieved despite Ukraine’s acute shortage of ammunition in the first half of 2024 and manpower difficulties, show that Russia’s successes on the battlefield are certainly not decisive.

Equipped but not staffed: Ukraine’s challenge for 2025Ukraine’s armed forces are not currently facing a critical situation with regards to equipment; however, they will likely need significantly more weapons, especially modern Western-made systems, to reliably stop Russian assaults. Launching offensives and liberating occupied territory would require considerably more materiel. If the West were to reduce or halt its support, the situation would seriously degrade in the medium term.

Three years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the first results of joint ventures, partner programmes and larger contracts between Ukraine and various defence companies and governments in the West are progressively bearing fruit. These will likely pick up steam throughout 2025. Furthermore, Ukraine’s own defence industry has been able to adapt, producing some key equipment at scale, such as the 2S22 Bohdana self-propelled artillery system at a reported production rate of 16 per month. This can be seen from the diverse range of units across the Ground Forces, National Guard and Marines equipped with the 2S22.

'We are not for sale,' ChatGPT boss says after Musk bid

Michael Race & Imran Rahman-Jones

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The chief executive of ChatGPT-owner OpenAI says it is "not for sale" after a $97.4bn (£78.4bn) takeover bid from a consortium of investors led by Elon Musk.

Sam Altman, who co-founded OpenAI with Musk before a public falling out led to Musk's departure, was speaking at the AI Action Summit in Paris.

"We are an unusual organisation and we have this mission of making AGI (artificial general intelligence) benefit all of humanity, and we are here to do that," Altman said in an on-stage interview.

When asked to define AGI, Altman said "most people use it to mean, like, really strong, powerful AI systems".

Musk's attorney, Marc Toberoff, confirmed he had submitted the bid for all OpenAI's assets to its board on Monday.

Earlier, in response to the move, Altman posted on Musk's social media platform X: "no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want".

The United Arab Emirates’ AI Ambitions

Gregory C. Allen, Georgia Adamson, Lennart Heim, and Sam Winter-Levy

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Introduction

In late 2024, a delegation of U.S. technology policy and national security scholars traveled to the UAE to better understand the country’s AI ambitions, its position amidst U.S.-China competition, and Microsoft’s deal with G42. Prior to the trip, CSIS experts identified stakeholders and arranged meetings with help and independently from the UAE embassy in Washington, D.C., and solicited input from the other delegation members. The UAE embassy also suggested government and private sector stakeholders that may be of interest for the delegation to meet, which the delegation was at liberty to accept or reject.

This paper presents the authors’ key judgments from the trip based on private interviews with top-level UAE government officials, senior Microsoft and G42 executives, a site visit to a G42/Microsoft data center, and conversations with U.S. and allied government officials. The paper concludes by presenting two strategic questions (point eight) to U.S. policymakers about engaging with the UAE’s AI ambitions in the future.

Mercenaries of Peace: The Role of Private Military Contractors in Conflict

Parth Piyush Prasad

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Modern conflicts have evolved far beyond traditional inter-state violence. This evolution has integrated social and economic stakeholders directly into the battlefield, significantly expanding their roles. The presence of non-state actors and increasing distances between relevant battlefields due to globally relevant conflicts further complexify the position state-operated armies hold in modern warfare. Peacebuilding and post-conflict recovery in contemporary conflict zones are an integral part of ensuring long-term peace. Post-conflict recovery requires extensive efforts to foster participatory governance and developing amicable and harmonious relations between the afflicted societies. Traditionally, these efforts were led by state actors, international organisations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), or indigenous leaders from the conflict zones. Yet privatisation of security services across the globe has led to increased presence of private military contractors (PMCs) in all aspects of conflict and recovery. This research essay aims to establish the position of PMCs in conflict and post-conflict recovery practices through empirical analysis. Utilising Collier and Hoeffler’s ‘greed vs grievance’ model and by addressing the practical and ethical challenges to the presence of PMCs, this essay argues that PMCs are ineffectual tools for post-conflict reconstruction, and require stringent regulation to disincentivise their presence in fragile states.

Through a Glass, Darkly: Transparency and Military AI Systems

Branka Marijan

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Introduction

In international discussions on responsible military use of AI, transparency is frequently emphasized. Transparency is also a central concern across AI ethical principles in civilian contexts (Jobin, Ienca and Vayena 2019). However, the conceptualization of transparency varies considerably. For some governments, transparency entails some disclosure of information regarding the testing, evaluation and functioning of various systems by states. For others, it means that military AI systems must be sufficiently transparent to their own militaries and ensure that commanders understand their operations and can intervene when these systems produce errors or unpredictable outputs. In this way, the understanding of transparency is generally one of “the understandability and predictability of systems” (Endsley, Bolte and Jones 2003, 146; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2022). However, the challenge remains that these varying interpretations of transparency will become even more significant as states begin operationalizing responsible AI principles. These principles will be especially important for ensuring the responsible use of AI and autonomous systems by military forces.

Already in practice in contemporary conflict zones such as Ukraine and Gaza, commitments to having military commanders understand AI systems are being challenged due to the nature of the technology, the use of off-the-shelf technologies and the lack of clear guidelines regarding the extent to which such understanding is required. There is also a broader lack of disclosure about the types and sophistication of AI-enabled systems being used and how they function. Notably, the AI target generation and decision support systems used by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Gaza have raised concerns as investigative reports publicized their use, leading to more questions about their function (Abraham 2024; Davies, McKernan and Sabbagh 2023).