Indian Strategic Studies: 03/26/25

26 March 2025

Situating Mauritius in India’s Broader Oceanic Strategy

Raghvendra Kumar

The recent visit of Indian Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi to Mauritius on 11–12 March 2025 comes at a crucial time when the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region is witnessing heightened instability and conflict. It marks a significant milestone in India’s oceanic outreach, aimed at fostering a stable and prosperous region through holistic maritime security, which serves as an enabler for sustainable development and growth. In this context, Mauritius is central to India’s strategic maritime engagement and remains a key strategic partner, serving as a security hub, trade link, and diplomatic ally in the WIO region. It was in Mauritius that PM Modi first unveiled the maritime vision SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) in 2015, and on its 10th anniversary, the vision has evolved into MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions). This evolution underscores India’s commitment to regional stability and positions Mauritius at the heart of India’s Arc of Security and Growth fostering a holistically secure and prosperous Indian Ocean region.

With around 70% of Mauritians of Indian origin, India enjoys deep historical and cultural ties with the country, transcending geopolitical boundaries. India has consistently supported Mauritius’ claim over the Chagos Archipelago while maintaining friendly relations with both the UK and the USA, underscoring its multi-alignment and strategic autonomy in matters of core national interest. Whereas Mauritius has consistently stood with India at various international and regional forums, reflecting their shared interests, historical ties, and strategic alignment.

OpenAI, Meta in talks with Reliance for AI partnerships, The Information reports

OpenAI and Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab have held separate discussions with India's Reliance Industries (RELI.NS), opens new tab over potential partnerships to expand their artificial intelligence offerings in the country, technology news website The Information reported on Saturday.

A possibility being discussed involved a relationship between Reliance Jio and OpenAI to distribute ChatGPT, according to The Information, which cited two sources familiar with the matter.

OpenAI also discussed with employees cutting the ChatGPT subscription price to as low as several dollars instead of $20 a month, according to the report, which added that it is not clear if OpenAI has discussed the idea of price reduction with Reliance.

Reliance has discussed selling OpenAI's models to its enterprise customers through an application programming interface or API, The Information report added, saying that the Mukesh Ambani-led conglomerate also discussed hosting and running OpenAI models locally, so the data of local customers can be kept within India.

In particular, Reliance has discussed running the Meta and OpenAI models in a three-gigawatt data center that the company is planning to build, which it has said is the largest data center in the world, located in the city of Jamnagar in Gujarat.

A New Asian Bloc in the Making?

George Friedman

Senior officials from China, South Korea and Japan will soon meet in Tokyo to try to establish a more formal relationship, replete with security and economic benefits. Informal talks had already been held between China and Japan, so it appears the two found enough to agree on in principle to proceed to the next level. In practice, it’s unclear what a partnership entails. Japan has said it wants to increase agriculture exports to China and to force North Korea to abandon its nuclear program. Naturally, the latter point brought South Korea into the talks.

Beijing is in a dangerous geopolitical position. The emerging U.S.-Russia entente leaves China in an isolated position at a time when its economy has weakened dramatically. Contrary to appearances, Russia and China have never been truly aligned. Russia has been a threat to China throughout history, and several wars have been fought between them. Not even the commonality of communism could unite them. Under Mao, China was outright hostile to Russia, which it accused of betraying communism during the Khrushchev era.

Geopolitically, Mao worried that a U.S.-Russia detente would preface a joint policy against China. So when Henry Kissinger visited China to open relations in the 1970s, heavy fighting broke out along the Russia-China border – a significant row that lasted several months. Russia meant for the attack to pose as a warning to China about what could happen if its relationship with the U.S. threatened Russian interests. China understood it as such.

Counter-Terrorism and Intellectual Co-Optation in Bangladesh - Opinion

Sazzad Siddiqui

In fragile democracies like Bangladesh, populist regimes arguably manipulate public perception to consolidate power which exemplifies Noam Chomsky’s “manufacturing consent” theory – meaning how public opinion is shaped to serve ruling elites. Among few others, Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule epitomized this tactic that used counter-terrorism campaigns to justify and sustain her authoritarianism mainly through exploiting security crises to suppress opposition and dissent in Bangladesh. The co-optation of intellectuals and academics aligned with the ruling Bangladesh Awami League (AL) was central to this strategy. The government also absorbed individuals from outside its ideological base which reflected the regime’s unique ability to manufacture passive compliance of the dissent intellectuals. This helped broadly to legitimize repressive state actions in the name of countering terrorism and religious extremism mainly exploiting the police and other security organizations. Despite her consolidated power she was ultimately ousted and fled to India on 5 August 2024 amid an unprecedented student-led mass uprising. Now, India is unwilling to extradite her.

Such co-optation can be described as an “intellectual honey trap,” where academics are subtly enticed into endorsing state narratives under the pretext of national security. In Bangladesh, research on extremism was often steered toward validating government policies rather than critically examining their implications. Scholars were encouraged to focus on ideological factors behind radicalization while avoiding systemic critiques, such as the role of state repression or structural inequalities. In Bangladesh, the infamous August 21, 2004, grenade attack on Hasina’s rally became a cornerstone of manufacturing counter-terrorism narrative. The AL flaunted the tragedy to frame the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) as a terrorist organization and religious traders to consolidate political advantage.

PRC Uses Legal Warfare to Support Maritime Blockade Against Taiwan

Masayoshi Dobashi and Rena Sasaki

On February 26, Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense reported that People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fighters and warships had set up a zone 40 miles from the island’s southwestern coast to conduct “live-fire drills” (射击训练) without providing customary notification (Military News Agency, February 26). The following day, a spokesperson for the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) Ministry of National Defense rebuffed this as “pure hype” (纯属炒作) but did not comment on the substance of Taiwan’s reports (MND, February 27). Part of the reason for the alarm was that it followed on the heels of a live-fire drill conducted by a PLA Navy task force in the Tasman Sea, for which the PLA also did not provide appropriate warning (China Brief, March 11). Both instances were legal under international law but constituted unusual and aggressive actions by the PRC. Military pressure on Taiwan has been acute in recent years. In the last twelve months, the PLA conducted “Joint Sword” exercises in May and October and an unprecedented large-scale winter naval training in December (China Brief, July 26, 2024, November 1, 2024, December 20, 2024). These simulated aspects of a blockade suggest that this could be Beijing’s preferred course of action in an operation against Taiwan.

Current Geopolitical Trends and Impact on South Asia

Arvind Gupta

Introduction

International politics is never static. A new geopolitical environment, based on a new balance of power is shaping up. Stresses have been building up in the so-called rule-based order, set up by the victors of the Second World War in 1945, for a considerable time since the Cold War ended. The disintegration of the Soviet Union, 9/11 terrorist attacks, the global financial crisis of 2008 –10, COVID-19, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2014 and 2022, and the disintegration of Yugoslavia in which the West played a key role, were some of the notable seismic events that strained the older world order. The bipolar world order of the Cold War years gave way briefly to unipolarity and then multipolarity with the rise of new powers like China, India and others. The inherently undemocratic UN system of multilateralism has become increasingly dysfunctional. It failed to keep international peace and stability as multiple wars broke out with regular frequency in different parts of the world. The rise of new powers and new regional groupings has also challenged the UN system.

Globalization that began in the 80s became hyper globalization of the late 20th and the 21st century. Globalization created a lot of wealth but also acute inequity. It failed the test of sabka saath, sabka vikas or inclusive growth. Production became decentralized leading to extended supply chains. The problem was that these supply chains were concentrated in a few countries and were highly vulnerable to geopolitical and natural disruptions. This was amply demonstrated during the Covid in 2020 when the global economy almost came to a halt as millions of lives were being lost and after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 when grain and energy markets were severely disrupted. The disturbances caused by geopolitics led to the disruptions of supply chains.

What the Western Media Gets Wrong About Taiwan - Analysis

Clarissa Wei

In September 2022, I was working as a fixer in Taipei for a U.S. news segment about cross-strait tensions, handling local logistics for a visiting producer and cameraman. Fixers are freelance staff whose role is somewhere between journalist and tour guide—they can end up doing everything from arranging interviews to translation to booking hotels. One night, we arrived at an amateur radio meetup in a park, ready to shoot, and found an eccentric crew of local radio fans. One man hunched over a tangled web of equipment at the back of his truck, tapping away in Morse code; another fidgeted with an antenna as he walked around, trying to get a signal. The producer told me that the group was learning how to operate radios in case of war with China.

President Lai holds press conference following high-level national security meeting

On the afternoon of March 13, President Lai Ching-te convened a high-level national security meeting, following which he held a press conference. In remarks, President Lai introduced 17 major strategies to respond to five major national security and united front threats Taiwan now faces: China’s threat to national sovereignty, its threats from infiltration and espionage activities targeting Taiwan’s military, its threats aimed at obscuring the national identity of the people of Taiwan, its threats from united front infiltration into Taiwanese society through cross-strait exchanges, and its threats from using “integrated development” to attract Taiwanese businesspeople and youth.

President Lai emphasized that in the face of increasingly severe threats, the government will not stop doing its utmost to ensure that our national sovereignty is not infringed upon, and expressed hope that all citizens unite in solidarity to resist being divided. The president also expressed hope that citizens work together to increase media literacy, organize and participate in civic education activities, promptly expose concerted united front efforts, and refuse to participate in any activities that sacrifice national interests. As long as every citizen plays their part toward our nation’s goals for prosperity and security, he said, and as long as we work together, nothing can defeat us.

China’s Tech-Industrial Ecosystems: A Web Of Convergence And Ambition - Opinion

Capt MJ Augustine Vinod VSM (Retd)

Imagine a spider weaving its web—not just across a quiet corner of a garden, but across an entire nation, stretching into the skies with drones, burrowing into the Earth with semiconductors, and racing down highways with autonomous vehicles. This isn’t some sci-fi fantasy; it’s China’s tech-industrial ecosystem in 2025, a sprawling, interconnected lattice where companies don’t just specialise but sprawl, where industries don’t just co-exist but converge.

The image you see—a Venn diagram of overlapping blue circles, each labelled with companies like Huawei, Baidu, DJI, and Xiaomi, tells a story of ambition, strategy, and a deliberate push to dominate the future. But it’s more than a diagram; it’s a blueprint for how China is redefining industrial growth, challenging global norms, and leaving the world to wonder: can anyone else build a web this intricate?

This article isn’t just about China’s tech prowess—though that’s impressive enough. It’s about how these ecosystems are growing vertically and horizontally, how Chinese firms are expanding across domains like batteries, electric vehicles (EVs), drones, semiconductors, AI, smartphones, industrial robots, humanoid robots, and autonomous vehicles, and why this convergence might be the key to their dominance.

It’s also a quiet nudge to think about other nations—like India, with its atmanirbhar (self-reliant) aspirations—grappling with similar questions but on a very different scale and speed.

PLA Factions and the Erosion of Xi’s Power Over the Military

Brandon Tran and Gerui Zhang

A year-long anti-corruption campaign has purged major senior personnel from the ranks of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). While graft is endemic to the Chinese military, purges in Leninist regimes also serve a political purpose. Fierce internal power struggles are another feature of such regimes, with control over the military seen as vital to consolidating power. In the Chinese military system, Xi Jinping is not the only person who has power over personnel. Recently, some observers have suggested that his vice chair on the Central Military Commission (CMC), Zhang Youxia (张又侠), may have ordered recent purges in the PLA Navy. If this is true, it could suggest that Xi Jinping’s traditional bases of support in the PLA are weakened and that his authority over the PLA is far from absolute (People’s Report, October 11, 2024; X/@yanmingshiping, November 28, 2024).

Two Purges Have Targeted Two Xi Factions

The current CMC consists of five men besides Xi, according to the Ministry of National Defense website. These individuals are pulled from Xi’s two major bases of support in the PLA, the Shaanxi Gang (陕西帮) and the Fujian Clique (福建系). The former stems from Xi’s family connections as a princeling—both Zhang Youxia and Zhang Shengmin (张升民) hail from Shaanxi Province. Zhang Youxia also has close familial ties to Xi, as the two men’s fathers served in the same unit during the civil war. The latter group is composed of He Weidong (何卫东) and Miao Hua (苗华), who worked with Xi when he was an official in Fujian Province. This leaves Liu Zhenli (刘振立), who is more aligned with the Shaanxi Gang by virtue of his relationship with Zhang Youxia. Both men served in the same campaign during the Sino-Vietnamese War (VOA Chinese, October 24, 2022; MND, accessed March 3). [1]

The US hypocrisy about Israel’s nuclear weapons must stop

Victor Gilinsky & Leonard Weiss

An extraordinary three-part series on Israeli television, The Atom and Me, lays out how the country got its nuclear weapons. It takes for granted what anyone who pays attention has known for years. But the series goes well beyond a general discussion about Israel’s nuclear weapons. It shows the country’s single-minded determination to get the bomb no matter what it took, including stealing nuclear explosives and bomb components from the United States and violating a major nuclear arms control treaty to which Israel is a party—and lying about it.

As the Trump administration is in serious discussion about joining Israel in attacks on Iran to stop it from getting nuclear weapons, it is useful to shed illusions about Israel’s modus operandi.

US officials stay mute. A thread running through the three episodes is a continuing conversation, before he died in 2018, with Benjamin Blumberg, the head of Lakam, the Israeli scientific intelligence agency responsible for the nuclear missions that led to the Israeli bomb, some so secret they were kept from the Mossad. (Mossad is the Israeli agency that handles foreign intelligence collection and covert action.) Blumberg was in failing health and agreed to talk so long as the interview was not aired until after his death.

Hamas’ Delusions and Israeli Strategy

Lawrence J. Haas

In May of 2021, Israel launched Operation Guardian of the Walls, an eleven-day military campaign to weaken Hamas and its terrorist allies in Gaza after they had fired rockets that hit Israeli homes and a school.

It marked the fourth military clash between Israel and Hamas since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but, as with the prior three, Hamas remained in place after it was over to continue ruling Gaza with an iron fist and plotting more terrorism against the Jewish state.

But it was after that clash of 2021 in particular, we now know from captured documents, that Hamas leaders became convinced that Israel could be destroyed. They then developed plans to pursue that goal with other terror members of Iran’s “axis of resistance,” and they discussed those plans with Iran and Hezbollah in the days leading up to Hamas’ slaughter on October 7, 2023.

Now, as Hamas retakes control of Gaza after a two-month ceasefire with Israel and reconstitutes its capacity to resume its terror, classified documents published in recent days by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center highlight Israel’s desperate need to restore a sense of deterrence in the minds of its bitterest enemies.

What if Europe had to fight tonight – without the Americans?

Julian Werner

Introduction

As the possibility of a U.S. withdrawal from NATO increases, Europe faces not just a political crisis but a military emergency. No longer shielded by American power, it may have to stand alone against a weakened, yet aggressive Russia – forced to fight, whether it is ready or not. What would war in Europe look like without the United States? Could Europe still find a way to fight on its own terms? It must – and it can.

Fighting without the tools to win

From British Paratroopers to Poland’s GROM, from Eurofighters to German howitzers, Europe fields some of the finest professional forces and most sophisticated weapon systems; the problem is, they just don’t have enough of them. It is not that Europeans do not know how to fight. The problem is, what do they actually have to fight with? For years, defence budgets and industries have been allowed to wither away. Without the United States, European NATO members face crippling shortfalls in trained personnel, ammunition stocks, and critical military assets. Although this has already impeded European operations in the past, it would prove fatal in a peer-to-peer conflict.

Europe’s Military Spending Spree Shakes Up Arms Market

Europe has sharply increased defense spending in response to Russian aggression and doubt about U.S. credibility. In 2024, European defense budgets rose by 11.7 percent in real terms. A decade ago, only three NATO members met the alliance’s 2 percent of GDP defense spending guideline. By the end of 2024, 23 of 32 members had reached the target, including Germany, which boosted its spending by 23 percent from 2023 to 2024. This shift underscores Europe’s commitment to strengthening its military and reducing reliance on external security guarantees.

Meanwhile, Japan and South Korea have emerged as major arms exporters. Japan’s defense sector is expanding rapidly following Japan’s decision to overturn its decades-old arms export ban in 2014 and further loosen restrictions in late 2023. South Korea’s arms exports hit $14 billion in 2023, securing its place among the world’s top 10 arms suppliers. It aims to break into the top four by 2027.

The transatlantic world will never be the same

Carl Bildt

Once upon a time, the United States saw the contest between democracy and authoritarianism as a singularly defining issue. It was this outlook, forged in the crucible of World War II, that created such strong transatlantic bonds. For many decades, the US-European alliance was not only about security, but ideology and shared values. That is why the relationship endured for 80 years.

But now, thanks to US President Donald Trump, the world of just two months ago has already come to feel like distant history. The very nature of the West is changing at lightning speed before our eyes. So sudden and disorienting is the disruption that many have been left grasping for an anchor. The new reality became apparent when the US joined Russia and a few other outcast authoritarian countries to vote against a UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russia’s aggression against Ukraine on the third anniversary of the full-scale invasion. That was a watershed—a date that will live in infamy.

Obviously, the implications of the new US foreign policy are profound. No one can deny that the transatlantic security alliance is fraying. Political leaders might feel a duty to insist publicly that the old mutual defence commitments remain solid; but they are not fooling anyone—not even themselves. The credibility of the alliance depends on the person in the White House, and that person has no credibility when it comes to matters of transatlantic security.

Europe’s War in Ukraine

Jack Watling

Relations between the United States and its European allies have proved tempestuous during the first two months of the second Trump administration. From his first days back in office, President Donald Trump has emphasized significant disagreements with the European Union, characterizing the bloc as inimical to U.S. interests, while Vice President JD Vance argued at the Munich Security Conference in February that the values of the United States and Europe are diverging. Between the stated ambition of the administration to annex Greenland and the imposition of wide-ranging tariffs, European leaders are bracing for a challenging transatlantic relationship.

The tenor of European concerns, however, changed markedly as the Trump administration began to make its opening forays into an attempt to end Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Following a public confrontation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House in February, Trump temporarily stopped providing Ukraine with military-technical assistance and intelligence, coercing Ukraine into accepting a negotiating strategy that excluded Kyiv and its European partners from much of the direct bargaining with Moscow. Despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rebuffing a U.S. proposed cease-fire, Trump has described his interactions with the Kremlin in the most positive of terms while, so far, applying U.S. leverage against only Kyiv. The administration, meanwhile, has been unequivocal that there will be no long-term U.S. commitment to Ukraine and has called into question whether U.S. commitments in Europe will be honored.

East-West divide over plan to replace US in NATO

Andrew Korybko

The Financial Times (FT) cited four unnamed European officials to report that “European military powers work on 5-10 year plan to replace US in Nato.”

The UK, France, Germany and the Nordic nations are named in the report as wanting to present this proposal to the US during the next NATO Summit in June.

FT also reported that some countries have refused to participate in these talks, either out of fear that this could encourage the US to move faster in this regard or due to their belief that it won’t abandon Europe.

FT is likely referring to Poland, the Baltic States and Romania, the most important countries on NATO’s eastern flank, all of which prefer to remain under the US security umbrella.

Poland’s recent flirtation with France could herald a full-blown pivot if the ruling liberal-globalists win May’s presidential election, but for now, it functions as an attempt to rebalance ties with the US amid uncertainty over its future plans. It can also be seen as a misguided negotiation tactic to keep and expand the US military presence.

Goodbye West: Long Live World Order

Amitav Acharya

The most enduring consequence of Donald Trump’s second coming could be the end of the idea of the West, at least in its contemporary, geopolitical and geo-economic sense, caused by an irrevocable fracture of the relationship of mutual trust and benefit between the US and its closest allies, Canada and the NATO/EU members. From the outset, America’s European allies saw Trump’s return to office with trepidation.

A poll conducted by the European Council for Foreign Relations, asking “Do you think the election of Donald Trump as US president is a good or a bad thing for your country?” showed that of all parts of the world, the EU members that were part of the poll (Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain) dominated the “bad thing” response, with 38 per cent replying bad, 22 per cent good, and 40 per cent “neither” or “don’t know.” Among respondents in the UK, which remains America’s closest ally, the “bad” response was more than 3 and half times the “good.” Only South Koreans were more negative about Trump’s return, with six times more saying Trump is bad for them than good. These responses among America’s friends is in contrast to Russia and China, where “good” outnumbered “bad” by substantial margins; 49 to 8 per cent for Russia and 46 to 18 per cent for China.

The Israel-Hamas Ceasefire Was Never Going to Last

Dahlia Scheindlin

The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas negotiated in mid-January seems to have been written on tissue. It frayed midway through the first of three phases, when Israel declined to negotiate for the second phase. Since then, it was only a countdown until the first hours of Tuesday morning, when the Israel Defense Forces executed a swift and punishing series of airstrikes throughout Gaza.

By Thursday, the IDF’s ground operation got underway with a three-part pincer move, operating in the north of Gaza, in the Strip’s midriff around the Netzarim corridor (from which it had redeployed as part of the deal), and in Rafah in southern Gaza.

At least 400 Gazans were killed on the first day of strikes, in what was one of the deadliest single-day tolls of the war, the Associated Press reported. The toll climbed to as many as 700 by Friday, according to Palestinian health officials. Social media is awash in photos of dead babies. The IDF says it is routing out terror infrastructure and picking off specific Hamas military and political leaders; Palestinians say they are taking down anyone in the vicinity. Hamas and the Houthis have revived rocket fire at Israel.

The End of US Democracy and the Implications for International Relations

Benjamin E. Goldsmith

Over about a decade of teaching a course on “U.S. Politics and Foreign Policy” at the University of Sydney I posed a question each year to my 200+ undergraduate students: What is the ultimate guarantor of U.S. democracy? In other words, what is the single factor that safeguards US democracy from collapsing into authoritarianism? The answer I was fishing for from them was not “the Constitution” or “the Supreme Court” or even “free and fair elections,” it was “political culture” – a political science term for shared political norms, values, and practices that, while they might not be written down as formal rules, potentially play a fundamental role in explaining behavior. In particular, I asked them to consider what might happen if the (power-seeking, fiercely competing) US political elite no longer considered the liberal-democratic system to be normatively important or no longer held basic democratic values themselves. Without a “culture” that values democracy, the system’s essential laws, rules, norms and processes could be corrupted or ignored, as has happened in many other instances of democratic reversal or backsliding. Elites in pursuit of power in the short-term may undermine democratic institutions for the long-term, in the absence of some fundamental beliefs that make this unthinkable, or at least unacceptable.

The Makers of Ruin: Glide Bombs, UMPK, and Their Civilian Cost

INTRODUCTION

In early 2022, the Russian Armed Forces initiated an aggressive military operation against Ukraine. This operation, which was intended to be a short-term campaign against what was perceived as a weak and disorganized Ukrainian military, was unexpectedly halted by a strong Ukrainian defense. Contrary to initial expectations, the Ukrainian military demonstrated significant resilience, which turned the conflict for the Russian Federation from a quick military operation to a prolonged and extensive conflict, the biggest military operation in Europe since World War II.

As the conflict continued, the Russian military needed to adapt its strategy and equipment to address the strong and modern defenses of the Ukrainian forces, which were supported by Western weapon systems. One of the challenges the Russian Air Force faced was the use of outdated, unguided bombs known as FABs, which were ineffective due to the lack of precision and exposing aircrafts using them to Ukrainian anti-aircraft systems due to the limited range from the target from which the aircrafts could launch the bombs.3

To improve their effectiveness, the Russian military adopted a concept similar to one widely used by Western forces: gliding bomb kits. These kits can be attached to traditional free-falling bombs, allowing them to glide several kilometers from the launch point and use Global Positioning System (GPS) for greater precision.5 This innovation, known as the universal planning and correction module (UMPK) (rus. универсальный модуль планирования и коррекции), has been acknowledged as a cost-effective and efficient addition to existing aviation armament.

Putin Sets Additional Preconditions for Ceasefire in Ukraine

Vladimir Socor

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump conferred by telephone on March 18. They determined that Russia and Ukraine should refrain from attacking each other’s energy infrastructure from the air for a 30-day period. Trump was, in effect, speaking on Ukraine’s behalf on this matter in the otherwise wide-ranging call with Putin (Kremlin.ru; X.com/@PressSec, March 18; The White House, March 19).

Trump formulated his request for a 30-day ceasefire on attacks against energy infrastructure without preconditions, a steep climb down from his quest for a comprehensive ceasefire all along the frontline on the ground, in the air, and at sea . Kyiv was skeptical of a ceasefire that entailed neither a monitoring mechanism nor security guarantees for Ukraine, simply “freezing” the frontlines for now and allowing Russia to potentially attack again any time. The Trump White House, however, pressured Ukraine’s Presidential Office into accepting that ceasefire concept at their March 11 bilateral meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (President of Ukraine, March 11). The pressures included suspending U.S. military assistance and intelligence sharing from March 3 through March 11 amid Russian offensive actions along the frontline (Ukrainska Pravda, March 4, 5).

The Kremlin rejected a comprehensive ceasefire without fear of U.S. pressures and proceeded with its war strategy. Putin’s senior adviser, Yurii Ushakov, told U.S. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz by telephone on March 13, “A temporary ceasefire would only provide a breathing spell for the Ukrainian military. We do not need imitations of peaceful measures in the current situation” (TASS, March 13).

The man with a mind-reading chip in his brain - thanks to Elon Musk

Lara Lewington, Liv McMahon & Tom Gerken

Having a chip in your brain that can translate your thoughts into computer commands may sound like science fiction - but it is a reality for Noland Arbaugh.

In January 2024 - eight years after he was paralysed - the 30-year-old became the first person to get such a device from the US neurotechnology firm, Neuralink.

It was not the first such chip - a handful of other companies have also developed and implanted them - but Noland's inevitably attracts more attention because of Neuralink's founder: Elon Musk.

But Noland says the important thing is neither him nor Musk - but the science.

He told the BBC he knew the risks of what he was doing - but "good or bad, whatever may be, I would be helping".

"If everything worked out, then I could help being a participant of Neuralink," he said.

"If something terrible happened, I knew they would learn from it."

'No control, no privacy'

Cyber Wars are the New Battleground of Global Diplomacy

Nazish Mehmood

The world is facing a new kind of warfare, one that doesn’t involve missiles, tanks, or soldiers but is just as dangerous; cyber warfare. Governments, businesses, and individuals are increasingly under attack by hackers who target everything from power grids and banking systems to election processes and military communications. These cyber threats are no longer just the work of criminal groups looking to steal money; they have become powerful weapons in global politics, with nation-states using cyberattacks to weaken rivals, spread misinformation, and gain control over critical infrastructure. As the digital battlefield expands, cyber diplomacy is becoming one of the most important tools to prevent chaos and maintain stability in international relations.

In recent years, cyberattacks have become more frequent and sophisticated, affecting governments and businesses worldwide. According to a 2024 report by NETSCOUT, global cyberattacks increased by 12% in the first half of the year, with politically motivated attacks surging by 25% in regions experiencing geopolitical tensions. The stakes are high. One successful cyberattack can shut down a country’s energy supply, disrupt financial markets, or even trigger a military response. Unlike traditional warfare, cyberattacks can be launched from anywhere, often leaving no clear evidence of who is responsible. This makes it difficult for nations to respond effectively and raises fears that cyber conflicts could spiral out of control.

Cyber defence

Cyberspace as a warfare domain

Cyberspace is considered as the fifth domain of warfare, and is as critical to military operations as land, sea, air, and space. It is a domain encompassing everything from information and telecommunication networks and infrastructure and the data they support, to computer systems, processors and controllers.

Cyberspace has become an increasingly contested strategic domain and a field for strategic competition. Moreover, digital and physical infrastructure are interdependent, meaning that significant cybersecurity incidents can disrupt or damage critical infrastructure – such as energy and transport networks – that armed forces in the EU rely on.

In recent years, state and non-state actors have intensified cyberattacks, espionage and disinformation campaigns targeting the EU and its member states, including the defence sector. Malicious behaviour by these actors has increased exponentially following Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine.

The EU and its member states are working together to protect European citizens, national armed forces and EU civilian and military missions and operations against cyber threats. They are boosting cooperation on and investments in cyber defence and enhancing the EU’s ability to prevent, detect, defend against, recover from, and deter cyberattacks.

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