Indian Strategic Studies: 03/31/25

31 March 2025

Can Geopolitical Alignment Seal the India-EU FTA?

Mohan Kumar

Introduction

Despite significant differences in the status of their economic development, it is fair to say that the European Union (EU) and India are often considered “middle powers” by geopolitical pundits.1 This is admittedly less fair to the EU than it is to India. By the same token, it is argued by many that the EU and India have the potential to occupy independent poles in an emerging multipolar world. The fact that they are not yet poles is due to interesting and varying reasons. While the EU is incontestably an economic giant, it lacks commensurate geopolitical influence. As for India, while it may find itself in a geopolitical sweet spot, it has miles to go before acquiring serious economic heft.

Notwithstanding the above, there is a significant amount of strategic convergence between the EU and India. For starters, the notion of autonomy and independent foreign policy underpins strategic thinking in both the EU and India. It is easy enough to understand this for India. After all, the country was a leader of the nonaligned movement and is now a serious claimant to the leadership of the Global South. It is less easy to associate this with the EU. After all, the EU benefited enormously from the Marshall Plan and has the formal status of being the transatlantic ally of the United States, though at the time of writing, this allyship is under tremendous strain. Nonetheless, the EU has not always agreed with the United States on issues of war and peace, an example of which is the latter’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. With President Donald Trump having assumed office in the United States and having revealed his cards on Ukraine, the EU has been left astounded.

China Not A Foe: Chinese Investment Indispensible To Fortify India’s Resilience To Trump’s Tariff War – Analysis

Subrata Majumder

Amidst the world deepening into geopolitical tensions and increasing uncertainty with regard to trade policies, India-China relations are inching towards a thaw. Both are now at the drawing boards to mitigate the wide trade balances between the two countries and give a new look to Chinese investment in India. Currently, Chinese investment in India is restrictive and barred from automatic approval, owing to security concerns, despite being the second largest trade partner for India.

Burying the hatchet over boundary disputes, India made a volta-face to Chinese investment. According to the Economic Survey 2023-24, India focused on a relook to Chinese investment and its significance to refurbish Make in India.

At present, the USA is the prime driving force for India’s external economic growth. It is the biggest trading partner, including the prime trigger for India’s exports. Additionally, it is one of the top three foreign investors and the biggest employer of Indian IT talents abroad, pushing India’s service exports.

But, with Trumponomics invoking tariff weaponization to make America First, India’s over-dependence on the USA signals a major threat to its external economic growth. At present, the USA accounts for 17 percent of India’s exports and 54 percent of India’s IT exports.

The Limits of Trump’s Deal-making in Afghanistan

Shanthie Mariet D’Souza

It was a quick and productive deal.

On March 20, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Response Adam Boehler and former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad dashed to Kabul and held talks with Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban’s acting foreign minister. This was the first visit by a high-ranking U.S. diplomat to the Afghan capital since the Taliban seized power in 2021.

The talks appear to have focused on the release of George Glezmann, an American citizen who had been detained in Afghanistan for more than two years. A day later, Glezmann was released, hurried into a plane to Doha, and then returned to the United States. Days later, the Trump administration returned the favor: It lifted $20 million in bounties on three prominent members of the Haqqani Network, including the Taliban Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani.

Glezmann was the third American to be released by the Taliban this year.

Not long ago, in January 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had threatened Taliban leadership with a “very big” bounty over American hostages. It now appears that concessions, not intimidation, has helped achieve results.

Afghanistan Must Prepare For A Peaceful Movement For Change – OpEd

Dr. Ajmal Shams

It has been almost three and a half years since the fall of the republic in Afghanistan. A lot has changed since then both in the country and in the global political landscape. What remains unchanged, though, is the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan. The doors of schools, colleges, universities and other educational institutions are permanently closed for them, as if they are being punished for some heinous crime. The same goes for places of work for women.

When questioned, Taliban officials argue that the development of relevant procedures, revised curricula and a framework for Afghan girls and women’s education is underway. These efforts are supposedly to align the education system with Islamic Sharia. It is a dilemma that the Taliban are arbitrarily recreating Islamic principles and redefining the foundations of Afghan values for which they have neither the political legitimacy nor the religious credibility. While on the face of it they might be justifying this based on their own narrow and ultraconservative interpretation of Islam, in reality it is aimed at serving their political interests. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans have left the county for neighboring Pakistan, Iran and the countries of Central Asia.

Bangladesh to Seal Deal with Musk’s Starlink

Mubashar Hasan

On March 25, the Chief Advisor of Bangladesh’s interim government Mohammad Yunus announced that a commercial deal with Elon Musk’s SpaceX-owned satellite internet network Starlink is expected to be reached within 90 days to provide internet services to Bangladesh.

According to Shafiqul Alam, Yunus’ press secretary, economic reasons underlie the decision to seal the deal. The creation of jobs and providing uninterrupted support to the global digital outsourcing industry, which provides livelihoods to many Bangladeshi freelancers, is a priority of the interim government.

“Last year, during the student-led people’s uprising, the then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina imposed an internet blackout for 11 days in Bangladesh., and thousands of Bangladeshi freelancers were hurt as they could not work,” Shafiqul told The Diplomat.

The interim government “does not want a repeat of that type of situation,” he said.

“We will make sure that through Starlink a freelancer even from a village in Bangladesh can benefit from the uninterrupted internet.”

The Future Development Trends Of AI In China – Analysis

Xia Ri

In late 2022, ChatGPT made its appearance, signaling the start of a global acceleration in AI development. By the end of 2024, the number of large-scale AI models worldwide had surpassed 1,300, with China and the United States collectively holding 80% of the market share.

The U.S., capitalizing on its technological strength and innovative capacity, remains at the forefront of large AI model development. In contrast, China has swiftly emerged as a formidable competitor, driven by its vast market and proactive government support, with more than 300 domestically developed large AI models—second only to the U.S. What, then, is the future trajectory of AI development in China? Drawing on extensive long-term research, a senior analyst at ANBOUND offered a multi-dimensional analysis of the emerging trends in China’s AI landscape.

1. A series of “small AI” models similar to DeepSeek will continue to emerge. According to ANBOUND’s definitions, “large AI” refers to general-purpose large models, while “small AI” refers to smaller models designed for specific application scenarios. Currently, the development of “large AI” in China faces significant challenges, including enormous costs related to computing power, energy, and finances, as well as security concerns such as data leaks. In contrast, China holds local advantages in developing “small AI” models: certain industries and sectors have a strong market foundation and application scenarios, there are considerable strengths in engineering implementation capabilities, and the policy environment is highly supportive in this. Given the difficulties facing “large AI” development and the advantages of “small AI”, a wave of “small AI” models, like DeepSeek, will continue to emerge, becoming new competitors.

Russia-China-North Korea Relations: Obstacles to a Trilateral Axis

Elizabeth Wishnick

Introduction

Russia and China have had diplomatic relations with North Korea and each other for more than 75 years, but Russian and Chinese relations with North Korea could not be more different. North Korea is China’s sole military ally, but—as PRC historian Shen Zhihua has cautioned—since the normalization of ties between Beijing and Seoul, the PRC-North Korea alliance was really just a “scrap of paper.”[1] By contrast, Sino-Russian military ties have been deepening; however, both countries claim they are uninterested in replicating Cold War era alliances and have committed instead to a priority partnership “for the new era.”[2] In June 2024, Russia and North Korea signed a strategic partnership agreement with a mutual defense clause. China’s 1961 treaty with North Korea (renewed most recently in 2021) also contains a mutual defense clause, raising questions about the existence of a trilateral axis.

Claims about the existence of such an axis also point to the anti-Western positions these states share and their potential to undertake coordinated action directed against Western interests.[3] Critics of this view argue that there is scant evidence for the existence of such an axis beyond the current (albeit very different) assistance by China and North Korea (plus Iran) for the Russian full-scale war in Ukraine.[4] They also contend that trilateralism will not endure beyond this war.[5] Others argue that such an axis would not be in Chinese interests.[6] What is lacking in this discussion is an understanding of the indicators of a China-Russia-North Korea axis. How do we know if they are choosing to form an axis? Or not?

China Sees Opportunity in Trump’s Upheaval

Jude Blanchette

In 2018, Chinese leader Xi Jinping argued that the world was undergoing “profound changes unseen in a century,” a concept that has since become central to Beijing’s geopolitical worldview. The phrase evoked parallels to the dramatic global shifts that followed World War I, including the collapse of European empires and the reordering of international politics. Today, Beijing perceives a similar seismic transformation, this time driven by accelerating technological breakthroughs—in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and quantum computing—coupled with the growing volatility in U.S. and European domestic politics, and a pronounced economic shift toward the Asia-Pacific region, largely driven by China’s own rapid development.

In 2018, Xi’s analysis might have looked premature. Today, his vision seems increasingly accurate. The Trump administration has launched trade wars with its key economic partners. Europe’s largest conflict since World War II continues in Ukraine, with the prospect of a lasting peace fragile and uncertain. The transatlantic alliance is straining under the weight of U.S. President Donald Trump’s explicit disdain for the European Union. Developments in AI and other emerging technologies, meanwhile, threaten to upend economies, societies, and geopolitical power structures in unprecedented and irreversible ways.

The survivability of nuclear command-and-control capabilities

James M. Acton

A perennial feature of life as a nuclear-armed state is worry for the survivability of its nuclear forces. China and Russia, for example, worry that the United States is developing capabilities that would allow it to conduct ‘disarming strikes’.Footnote1 While U.S. concerns are less acute, Washington nonetheless worries about technological ‘breakthroughs that would render U.S. nuclear forces … highly vulnerable to attack’.Footnote2 Many analysts believe these fears are well-placed. Keir Lieber and Daryl Press, for example, argue that technological developments are ‘making nuclear arsenals around the world far more vulnerable’ to the point that states may plausibly acquire ‘disarming strike capabilities’.Footnote3

Survivable nuclear forces are necessary – but not sufficient – for a nuclear-armed state to retaliate against an attempted disarming strike. It also requires a survivable nuclear command, control, communications, and intelligence (C3I) system. Depending on the state’s doctrine, that system must be capable of initiating a nuclear strike either before its nuclear forces are destroyed by an incoming attack or after absorbing the full weight of that attack – or, perhaps, both.

Attacks on nuclear forces and attacks on their C3I system would be synergistic. A state that sought to disarm another would almost certainly try to enhance the effectiveness of strikes against its adversary’s nuclear forces by simultaneously trying to undermine that adversary’s ability to wield those forces. In fact, any decision to attempt a disarming strike would likely be based on the would-be attacker’s assessment of the combined effects of counterforce operations (that is, strikes against nuclear forces) and counter-nuclear C3I operations.Footnote4

Attacking Iran's Nuclear Program: The Complex Calculus of Preventive Action

Michael Eisenstadt

Iran’s nuclear program is one of the most pressing foreign policy challenges facing the Trump administration. While the president has expressed his preference for a diplomatic solution to the crisis, many Israeli officials believe that Iran’s current weakness provides a unique opportunity to destroy or at least set back its nuclear program through a military strike. Should a negotiated deal prove elusive, policymakers will need to weigh the pros and cons of military action and answer several questions, including: How does one define a successful strike? What challenges need to be addressed in planning a campaign to destroy or degrade Iran’s nuclear weapons program? How sustainable is a strategy of prevention? And how might Iran respond to such a campaign? ABOUT THE AUTHORS Michael Eisenstadt (/experts/michael-eisenstadt) Michael Eisenstadt is the Kahn Senior Fellow and director of The Washington Institute's Military and Security Studies Program. Should a negotiated deal prove elusive, policymakers will need to consider how to define a successful strike, Iran’s potential responses, and whether a strategy of prevention can be sustained.

In this Policy Note, military expert Michael Eisenstadt explains that a preventive attack likely won’t be a one-off but rather the opening round of a lengthy campaign employing military strikes, covert action, and other elements of national power. Such a campaign, he writes, could presage either a more stable order for the region or a new, danger‐ ous phase in one of its most volatile conflicts.

The Group Chat from Hell

One story has dominated Washington this week. On Monday, Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor in chief, revealed that he had been part of a group chat on the encrypted app Signal with senior Trump administration officials discussing strikes in Yemen against Houthi militants. That’s the Iranian proxy group that has spent the last two years using missiles to effectively shut down the easiest passage between Europe and the Indian Ocean, and repeatedly firing ballistic missiles at Israel—and which the Trump administration struck hard, on March 15, as they celebrated in the chat.

Once the shock over such a stunning unforced error subsided, the focus was on the behind-the-scenes look at foreign policy thinking in the administration: In the group, Vice President J.D. Vance voiced his reservations about the strikes the president had ordered; everyone seemed to have complete disdain for “freeloading” Europeans. Then the question was who Trump might fire because of the breach. But then the administration circled the wagons and took aim at Goldberg for the leak.

Goldberg did not sneak his way into this group chat, which also included the likes of Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA director John Ratcliffe, and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. He appears to have been mistakenly added to it by Waltz.

The real scandal: Those chatty Trump officials’ loathing of U.S. allies

Max Boot

The “Signal scandal” — the fact that top Trump administration officials planned military strikes using the Signal messaging app and included the editor in chief of the Atlantic in their supposedly secret discussions — shows what happens when a president selects senior officials for personal loyalty rather than competence or experience. Thus, you have Cabinet-level appointees and the vice president engaging in shocking “op sec” (operational security) breaches that, if committed by a lower-ranking official, likely would result in immediate dismissal and possible criminal charges.

It is no coincidence that the defense secretary (Pete Hegseth) is a former Fox News weekend host and junior army officer, or that the vice president (JD Vance) is a former junior senator from Ohio and Marine Corps corporal. They are simply not used to engaging in such top-level national security decision-making, and it shows. Presidential envoy Steve Witkoff — a wealthy property developer who has never previously served in government — denies accessing the text traffic while he was in Moscow negotiating with President Vladimir Putin, writing on X that he did not take his “personal devices” with him to Russia. That still suggests, however, that he was involved in highly sensitive government communications on “personal devices” when not in Russia.

Reinforcement and redistribution: evolving US posture the Indo-Pacific

Rupert Schulenburg

The Trump administration, as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth put it, is ‘prioritizing deterring war with China in the Pacific’. A factor in this effort is the United States’ regional force posture. The Trump administration inherited an Indo-Pacific posture that was shaped by its predecessor’s efforts to reinforce, reform and redistribute forces to make them more lethal and survivable. The Biden administration pursued a range of initiatives, leading then assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, Ely Ratner, to boast that 2023 was the ‘most transformative year in a generation’ for US force posture.

While progress has been made to bolster US presence, forces in the region still face vulnerabilities. The extent to which the Trump administration will uphold or emulate its predecessor’s posture decisions remains to be seen.

Responding to the threat environment

The continuing modernisation of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) across all domains has altered the military balance and priorities in the region. The PLA is capable of threatening US power-projection infrastructure and capabilities in the region, such as air bases, ports, and carrier strike groups, as well as important enablers like airborne early warning aircraft and aerial tankers. The PLA has enhanced its long-range strike capabilities, with notable increases in the PLA Rocket Force’s inventory of the DF-26 (CH-SS-18) intermediate-range ballistic missile – which can target Guam – and an extension in the engagement range of the PLA Air Force’s J-16 Flanker N aircraft through the PL-17 (CH-AA-12) air-to-air missile.

Israel’s Deep State Is Worse Than America’s

Moshe Cohen-Eliya

The Israeli government’s decision to dismiss Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar against the warnings of its attorney general arguably marks the most dangerous inflection point yet in Israel’s long-simmering constitutional crisis. On Sunday the Israeli government unanimously passed a vote of no confidence in Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara herself, a first step toward dismissing her. The Supreme Court, which last year struck down a constitutional amendment to overhaul the Israeli judicial system, has now intervened to block Bar’s dismissal—a ruling the government says it intends to defy. So the question is no longer whether Israel has a judicial problem. The question is: Who actually governs the country?

Outside observers, particularly in the West, often describe Israel’s legal crisis as a power grab by a radical right-wing government. The truth is the opposite. For years, unelected officials in Israel’s judiciary, security services, and legal bureaucracy have amassed extraordinary powers to override elected decision-makers. Israel has become the only Western constitutional democracy in which judges have veto power over judicial appointments, the attorney general controls the government’s legal voice, and intelligence chiefs act as constitutional guardians. The result is a crisis of legitimacy—and a growing confrontation between the institutions of popular sovereignty and what can only be described as a deep state.

Nowhere is this confrontation more acute than in the relationship between Israel’s judiciary and its security establishment.

What Is Happening to Social Security Under the Trump Administration and Should You Be Concerned About Yours?

Rebecca Schneid

Since President Donald Trump has returned to the White House, a core focus of his presidency has been to eliminate waste in the federal government, an effort spearheaded by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), under the watchful eye of Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Several departments and agencies have been subjected to major funding cuts and mass layoffs. Meanwhile, the Department of Education faces the potential of being dismantled entirely.

However, one agency that has been the subject of mixed messages from the Trump Administration is Social Security—a program which sends retirement and disability benefits to over 70 million people through the Social Security Administration (SSA). In the fiscal year of 2024, over 20% of the federal budget was spent on Social Security, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).

From a messaging standpoint, Trump has maintained that he will not touch Social Security—while some cabinet members have cast doubt on whether or not those who receive Social Security benefits should be concerned. At the same time, reports of planned DOGE-driven cuts and office closures at the agency have led experts to wonder whether the SSA will have the staff required to ensure the checks are counted and delivered on time.

What Is Signal, the Messaging App Used by Trump Officials, and Is It Safe?

Andrew R. Chow

The Trump administration is facing heavy blowback for using Signal, a messaging app, to discuss sensitive military plans. On March 24, officials’ usage of the app was revealed after The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg published a story titled "The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans," in which Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, among others, discussed upcoming military strikes on Yemen.

The U.S. government previously discouraged federal employees from using the app for official business. Some experts have speculated that sharing sensitive national security details over Signal could be illegal, and Democratic lawmakers have demanded an investigation. “If our nation's military secrets are being peddled around over unsecure text chains, we need to know that at once,” New York Democrat Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor.

Signal is one of the most secure and private messaging platforms that exists for general public use. But cybersecurity experts argue that the app should not have been used for this level of sensitive communication. “Signal is a very robust app: a lot of cybersecurity professionals use it for our communications that we want to protect,” says Michael Daniel, president and CEO of the Cyber Threat Alliance and a cybersecurity coordinator under President Obama. “But it’s not as secure as government communications channels. And the use of these kinds of channels increases the risk that something is going to go wrong.”

Poland gears up for war

Wojciech Kość

Since Poland unveiled its goal to train every adult male for war, being a Polish passport-holder has taken on a different character.

Hollywood A-lister status is no exception.

“There’s really nothing to be afraid of!” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk teased U.S. actor Jesse Eisenberg in a social media video. The 41-year-old Eisenberg was awarded Polish citizenship earlier this month for his role in a "A Real Pain," an Oscar-nominated drama about estranged Jewish cousins reuniting for a Holocaust tour through the country.

Days after Eisenberg became a citizen, Tusk revealed plans for a dramatic military expansion.

“We’ll give you such a training that the new James Bond role? It’s yours!” Tusk said. The Polish PM underlined that the training is voluntary.

Poland spent almost two centuries as a colony of Moscow and retains a deep-seated wariness of the country. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has kicked that worry into overdrive.

Warsaw is now NATO’s biggest defense spender at 4.7 percent of GDP, has the EU's largest army, and is spending billions of euros on jets, rockets, tanks, artillery and more.

‘Enough war’: Why Gazans are protesting Hamas now

Ibrahim Dahman and Nadeen Ebrahim

Belal Abu Zaid, a Palestinian from northern Gaza, took to the streets alongside hundreds of others on Tuesday to protest against Israel’s war and the Palestinian militant group Hamas – both of which he blames for bringing destruction to the enclave.

Israel, he says, is primarily to blame for Gaza’s misery, but Hamas – which controls Gaza – also carries responsibility.

“We are oppressed by the occupation army (Israel) and we are oppressed by Hamas,” Abu Zaid told CNN. “Hamas launched the October 7 operation, and today we are paying the price,” he said, referring to the militant group’s 2023 attacks on Israel that led to the war.

Palestinians demonstrated against Hamas in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, on Tuesday, in what appeared to be the largest protest against the militant group since the October 7 attacks. A second day of protests took place Wednesday, with demonstrations in both Beit Lahia and Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza.

Tracking mobile missiles

Thomas MacDonald

Ground-launched mobile missiles underpin the survivable second-strike capabilities of the United States’ two primary nuclear-armed adversaries: Russia and China. If the United States could use persistent overhead imagery to hunt and destroy these missiles, the nuclear deterrents of those countries would be fatally undermined. Continuous advances in remote sensing, signal processing, and artificial intelligence technologies, as well as in weapon accuracy, have led many analysts to conclude that a serious erosion of survivability is underway that will be difficult for the United States’ adversaries to adapt to.

There is a broad consensus that the consequences of the United States’ attaining the capability to eliminate an adversary’s nuclear arsenal would be far-reaching, even if there is disagreement about whether those consequences would contribute to or detract from U.S. security. Some authors have argued that a first-strike or damage limitation capability, that is, the ability to preemptively disarm or degrade an adversary’s ability to retaliate to an acceptably low level in a nuclear exchange, would strengthen deterrence and improve the United States’ bargaining position in conflicts and that is it likely to be technically feasible in the near future.Footnote1 Conversely, some authors have emphasized the potential costs of developing such a capability, creating incentives for arms racing and pressures for states to go first in a nuclear war, driving crisis instability, and that damage limitation capability is difficult to achieve.Footnote

Jamestown FoundationChina Brief, March 15, 2025, v. 25, no. 5

The Increasing Insignificance of the Two Sessions

The Increasing Insignificance of the Two Sessions

Xi Struggles to Keep Military Construction Reform on Course at Two Sessions

Fujian Unveils Incentives for Militia Training for a Cross-Strait Campaign

PRC Uses Legal Warfare to Support Maritime Blockade Against Taiwan

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

Signal leak sparks new calls for modernized messaging options from defense officials

Brandi Vincent

Officials are calling for accountability, clearer policies, and more access to modern platforms that military and government insiders can trust for real-time communications about classified activities, after some of the Trump administration’s top national security leaders shared high-stakes military operational plans in a group chat with an American reporter.

In interviews this week, DefenseScoop spoke to current and former defense officials — many who requested anonymity to speak freely — about the incident revealed by the Atlantic magazine’s editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who was included in a message chain earlier this month on the encrypted but unclassified messaging app Signal, where some of the president’s closest advisers discussed forthcoming strikes targeting Houthi militants in Yemen.

“This, of course, is a political hot potato — because both sides are going after each other. But I want to move beyond the politics and say, let’s acknowledge the gravity of this,” a former senior defense official said in reference to the implications of classified plans being shared on Signal.

New ‘Space Warfighting Framework’ coming to codify Space Force concepts, terms

Theresa Hitchens

The Space Force is readying a new “Space Warfighting” framework to explain service concepts and terms — such as “space superiority” and “orbital warfare” — both internally to its own operational planners and externally to Joint Force planners, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said today.

“[W]hat it allows us to do is is lay down a common vocabulary, common terms of reference,” he told the Mitchell Institute in an online interview. “This is what really has to happen in order for us to achieve space superiority.”

The interview signaled a rapprochement between Saltzman and the institute, following his Feb. 20 ban on engagement with Mitchell by Space Force personnel — which came hard on the heels of the Feb. 19 release of a new Mitchell report calling on the Defense Department, and the Space Force itself to more clearly define the service’s role in warfighting.

“I just want to kind of clear the air right out of the gate. I did have some concerns recently over a report that was issued by Mitchell Institute, but I want to be clear: it was really about the circumstances,” Saltzman said.

AN INTRODUCTION TO MILITARY QUANTUM TECHNOLOGY FOR POLICYMAKERS

Michal Krelina

Quantum technology has quickly become a topic of keen interest for governments, military institutions and private industry. After more than a century of research into quantum mechanics, a ‘second quantum revolution’ is taking place that focuses on controlling the quantum properties of individual particles—such as electrons and photons. This shift from merely understanding quantum systems to deliberately engineering them has opened up new frontiers in computing, communications, sensing and more that could be applied in ways that disrupt international security. For policymakers, the stakes are high: quantum innovations offer major advantages for defence and security—from secure communications to advanced sensing—but they also pose significant risks if adversaries achieve a technological edge.1

This background paper aims to provide a clear, concise overview of military-relevant quantum technology. It begins (in section I) by explaining what quantum technology is and why it differs so much from conventional approaches. It does this by classifying the field into three main categories— quantum computing, quantum communications and quantum sensing—highlighting how each area is advancing and what that might mean for defence. It then (in section II) discusses key military applications that are currently the most advanced or strategically significant—such as secure quantum networks and advanced sensing devices—before turning (in section III) to the broader international security picture. By the conclusions (in section IV), military and security policymakers should understand why quantum technology is strategically important, how it may reshape military capabilities and defence planning, and what steps might be necessary to navigate its rapid development and proliferation. I. What is quantum technology?

Governing the impact of emerging technologies: Actors, technologies, and regulation

Ulrich Kühn

With the dawn of the nuclear age, the domestic and international governance of technology gained special attention.Footnote1 Both in terms of cooperation and competition, regulating the horizontal spread of nuclear technology resulted in very different strategies, from friendly assistance for peaceful as well as military programmes,Footnote2 to policies of inhibition,Footnote3 and the establishment of a global non-proliferation regime.Footnote4 In parallel, restricting non-nuclear technology transfers, from missile technologies to increasingly powerful computing machines, became a centrepiece of Western strategy throughout the Cold War.Footnote5 Together, the governance of strategic technologies was driven by the interacting effects of systemic bloc confrontation, an economically increasingly connected globe, and technological innovation.

Today, many of the same or similar patterns are observable. Great power rivalry in the triangle between the United States, Russia, and China fuels strategies of investment, proliferation, and restriction to compete technologically. The U.S.-China dyad in particular has elevated technological competition, be it on novel missile technologies, computer chips, or semiconductors. Globalization, though increasingly overshadowed by great power rivalry, has given rise to powerful private tech giants, operating on a global scale. Technological innovation, spurred by rapid advances in computing power, has resulted in a new generation of dual-use technologies, such as large language models like ChatGPT, employed in generative artificial intelligence (AI). Some of these technologies threaten to disrupt traditional economies and international stability alike. Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine highlights some of these effects, with novel drone and counter-drone warfare, partly enabled by corporate satellite networks, peaking on a highly digitized battlefield.

What Is The Difference Between ChatGPT, Grok, Perplexity AI And DeepSeek?

Diksha Modi

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer a distant concept – it has become an integral part of our daily lives. In the blink of an eye, AI-powered tools have taken over our digital interactions, offering answers, solutions, and even creative assistance. Among the most popular AI models today are ChatGPT, Grok, Perplexity AI, and DeepSeek, each carving its niche in the AI landscape. But what sets them apart? Let’s delve into their unique characteristics and how they operate.

ChatGPT: The Conversational Virtuoso

ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, is a sophisticated virtual assistant designed for text-based interactions. It assists users in answering queries, drafting emails, creating content, and even generating images and data charts. Built on the Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) architecture, ChatGPT thrives on contextual understanding, offering detailed and structured responses. Its ability to mimic human-like conversations has made it a popular choice for content creation and communication tasks. A free version is also available, making it widely accessible.

Grok: The Unfiltered Maverick

Grok, the brainchild of Elon Musk’s AI venture xAI, is tailored for the social media platform X (formerly Twitter). What makes Grok stand out is its informal and often humourous tone. Unlike other AI tools that maintain a neutral or restrained style, Grok injects wit and frankness into its responses, sometimes courting controversy. It harnesses real-time data, enabling it to react swiftly to unfolding events. However, its candid nature has sparked debates on ethical AI usage, particularly in India, where regulatory scrutiny has increased.

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