Indian Strategic Studies: 04/27/25

27 April 2025

Pakistan’s Trillion-Dollar Treasure: The Promise And Peril Of Rare Earth Minerals – OpEd

Altaf Moti

Whispers of vast mineral wealth have long echoed through the rugged terrains of Pakistan, and recent geological surveys have amplified these murmurs into a potentially transformative roar.

The assertion that Pakistan harbors significant deposits of rare earth elements (REEs), estimated to be worth trillions of dollars, has captured the imagination of policymakers, investors, and the public alike. These elements, a group of 17 chemically similar metallic elements, are critical components in a wide array of high-tech applications, ranging from smartphones and electric vehicles to wind turbines and defense systems. In an increasingly technology-driven world, access to and control over REEs have become matters of strategic and economic importance.

While the precise valuation of Pakistan’s REE reserves remains a subject of ongoing exploration and assessment, the evidence strongly suggests the presence of substantial quantities. Geological studies conducted by both domestic and international organizations have identified promising sites, particularly in regions like Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and Gilgit-Baltistan. These initial findings point towards the existence of various REE-bearing minerals, including bastnäsite, monazite, and xenotime. However, it is crucial to distinguish between identified resources and proven, economically viable reserves. While the potential is immense, extensive exploration, drilling, and analysis are required to accurately quantify the extractable amounts and their economic value.

Breaking Up American Tech Gives China the Lead

Robert C. O’Brien

Joe Biden’s legacy Federal trade Commission (FTC) has commenced its antitrust trial against Meta. Now, the specter of a company breakup, specifically the forced sale of Instagram and WhatsApp, looms large. While its stated goal is to curb monopolistic practices and foster competition, the FTC’s approach risks undermining America’s national security, economic strength, and technological leadership on the global stage.

At a time when the United States is locked in a fierce rivalry with China for tech supremacy, dismantling one of our most successful homegrown innovators would hand a strategic victory to Beijing. Moreover, such a move would run counter to President Donald Trump’s trade agenda, which prioritizes American economic resilience. The FTC must reconsider its strategy before it inflicts lasting damage on America.

Meta, which owns an ecosystem of apps like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is one of America’s great innovators. These platforms collectively serve billions of users worldwide, providing unparalleled communication, commerce, and cultural influence. Instagram, acquired in 2012 for $1 billion, and WhatsApp, purchased in 2014 for $19 billion, have flourished under Meta’s stewardship.

Rare Earth Minerals as a Lever in the Trade War: Is Beijing Overplaying Its Hand?

Thomas Kolbe

China has intensified its trade war with the United States by imposing a sweeping ban on rare earth exports and disrupting global supply chains critical for electric vehicles, wind turbines, and military technology. These minerals are the lifeblood of modern innovation, and Beijing’s decision to weaponize its dominance aims to pressure Washington into concessions. Yet this high-stakes move raises a critical question: Is China overestimating its economic resilience?

The ban risks destabilizing its own economy, which relies heavily on exports, and could provoke a broader backlash from Western powers. As the trade war escalates, the global balance of power hangs in the balance, with both sides testing each other’s endurance.

The U.S.-China trade conflict is at a fever pitch. American tariffs on Chinese imports have soared to 145%, a formidable barrier designed to curb Beijing’s economic influence and protect domestic industries. In response, China’s export restriction, implemented on April 4, has drastically reduced rare earth shipments, posing a threat to global industries. This escalation could prove self-destructive for China, where exports account for nineteen percent of GDP and sustain over 150 million jobs, directly or indirectly. This economic engine, fueled by a mercantilist strategy of currency manipulation, capital controls, and intellectual property theft, generates a $1 trillion annual trade surplus—equivalent to one percent of global economic output. By jeopardizing this lifeline, Beijing is gambling with its economic stability and global standing.

Want to Understand the New Cold War? Look to Huawei.

Brett Christophers

America’s political and economic elites were once unruffled by the rise of China. Yes, Chinese GDP was growing fast, and yes, China’s share of global trade was growing equally rapidly. But this did not—or, at least, did not seem to—challenge America’s ongoing economic dominance. After all, the dollar was still king. The size and depth of China’s stock market continued to be dwarfed by the United States’. GDP per capita still weighed heavily in America’s favor. And the acknowledged global heavyweights of Big Tech—Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft—were American companies one and all. The basic posture vis-à-vis China was the following: You keep producing all that cheap stuff, we’ll keep on buying it, and you keep on financing the deficits that we accrue in the process.

Books in review

House of Huawei: The Secret History of China’s Most Powerful Companyby Eva DouBuy this book

Over the last decade, all of this has unraveled. During his first term in the White House, Donald Trump introduced a series of tariffs on Chinese imports, which sparked retaliatory measures from China and growing talk of a “trade war.” Under Joe Biden, the inflammatory language of the Trump 1.0 era became less conspicuous. Rather, in a break with the hegemony of neoliberalism, the Biden White House hailed a renaissance in “industrial policy”; his flacks talked about no longer being able to rely on market mechanisms to guide investment. But even if the tone had changed, the policy content was not much different: China was in the crosshairs. If anything, Biden’s China tariffs were more severe than those he inherited. In mid-2024, tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum were raised to 25 percent, on solar cells and panels to 50 percent, on electric vehicles to 100 percent; and in a parting gift to his successor, in January 2025, just as Biden was leaving office, a 50 percent tariff on Chinese semiconductors went into effect.

China cracks another quantum code barrier. For how much longer is our data safe?

Zhang Tong

While the battle for high ground in artificial intelligence (AI) dominates global headlines, a team of Chinese researchers has announced a major advance in the field of quantum cryptology – a race in which the stakes could be even higher.

Professor Wang Chao, of Shanghai University, has successfully factored a 90-bit RSA integer using a D-Wave Advantage quantum computer – an achievement that not long ago was thought to be impossible.

Quantum cryptology studies the art of writing or solving codes by exploiting the principles of quantum mechanics in the subatomic world. In this realm, AI and quantum computing are combined to usher in a “fourth industrial revolution”, where such technology could one day be used to crack any code.

This pursuit has raised many concerns about risk. For instance, advances in the field, according to some experts, are taking the world closer to Q-Day – a hypothetical point in the future when quantum computers become powerful enough to decipher even the most secure encryption – which would pose a serious threat to personal privacy and data security.

To stay ahead of this looming threat, scientists around the world have been racing to develop quantum technologies – or countermeasures – that include post-quantum cryptography. A breakthrough by Chinese quantum researchers has just added new momentum to this global debate.

China Can’t Go It Alone

Henry Gao

On April 2, President Donald J. Trump announced sweeping reciprocal tariffs on nearly every country, ranging from 10 to 49 percent. Just a week later, the tariffs were suspended for all but one country: China. Beijing has responded in kind, matching each U.S. tariff hike step for step. After the initial 34 percent U.S. tariff, China imposed an equivalent countermeasure, prompting Trump to raise the rate to 84 percent, which Beijing matched once again. This tit-for-tat exchange culminated in the United States raising tariffs to 125 percent on April 10, with China immediately mirroring the increase the following day. When combined with existing tariffs, Chinese imports now face potential duties as high as 170 percent.

China is eager to broadcast its resolve to stand firm against U.S. pressure. To that end, it has launched a coordinated propaganda campaign emphasizing that it holds the stronger hand in the trade war. A prominent example is an editorial in People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party. Titled “Focus on Doing Your Own Things,” the piece acknowledges that America’s “abusive tariffs” could hurt exports and add pressure to the economy in the short term—but insists that “the sky can’t collapse.”

EU is no match for China or US, Europe can only play for time

Ralph Schoellhammer

In hindsight, what makes the 1990s appear to be worthy of nostalgia is the fact that almost everything ran on autopilot. European integration hummed along with Austria, Sweden, and Finland joining the European Union in 1995, turning a club of 12 into a club of 15. The former countries of the Warsaw Pact were cleaning up what remained of their communist legacy and embarked on a period of economic growth, refuting all the nay-sayers who claimed that it would take decades for Poland, Hungary, et al. to successfully evolve into capitalist-democratic systems. The President of Russia was the amiable Boris Yeltsin (from 1991 to 1999) and Moscow seemed poised to become a member of the European family of nations once again, correcting the horrible mistake of 1917. Germany was reunified, but instead of a much dreaded “fourth Reich” the Germans were more interested in Lebensfreude — the “joy of life” — than Lebensraum, and they did not send tanks to the East but tourists to the West (Spain) and South (Italy). German engineering, Finnish cell phones (Nokia), French Art, Austrian Energy Drinks (Red Bull) – only doom-mongers would claim that the EU was on a path of decline.

The dominant ideology of the time was embodied by the Washington Consensus and neoclassical economics, with the latter being the academic justification of the former: All that was needed for peace and prosperity were open markets and capital inflows, with everything else taking care of itself. The guarantor of this simple-yet-beautiful new order were the United States of America, who intervened with mixed results from the Balkans to the Middle East to put out smaller fires on the fringes of the map. Great Power Politics was a relic of the past, and that new powers can emerge peacefully was shown by China, with the former communist country becoming the poster boy for capitalism. The crown of this development was Beijing’s membership in the World Trade Organization, symbolising the idea that free trade and economic prosperity can bring the world together, regardless of existing cultural differences.

Eyes That See A Thousand Miles

Anushka Saxena

April 22, 2025, marks 75 years since the establishment of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force Radar Troops (空军雷达兵). As noted in a 2020 Xinhua commentary, the Air Force Radar Troops are “The Republic’s ‘Eyes That See a Thousand Miles’.” This edition does a short debrief of some of the reportage surrounding their role and relevance in the PLA over the past few years.

On April 22, 1950, the first radar battalion of the Chinese military was established in Nanjing. Since then, the radar forces have been trained at the Friendship Pass radar station on China’s southwest border (one of the world’s largest and most high-tech border crossings, between China and Vietnam – also known as the Youyiguan Radar Station). As the above-cited Xinhua article recites, every new recruit’s first lesson is held beside a “rusted and battle-scarred radar shelter at the mountaintop outpost.” In this symbolic setting, recruits are taught to carry on the immortal “soul of the soldier” — “If the soldier is here, the post is here; if the soldier is here, the antenna turns; if the soldier is here, the intelligence flows” (point is, soldiers at the radar station get work done and train subsequent generations of radar troops).

US Considering Nuclear Power For Saudi Arabia In Grand Bargain – OpEd

Ivan Eland

The Trump administration is reportedly pursuing a deal with Saudi Arabia that would be a pathway to developing a commercial nuclear power industry in the desert kingdom and maybe even lead to the enrichment of uranium on Saudi soil.

U.S. pursuit of this deal should be scrapped because the United States would bear all the increased commitments, costs, and risks with very little in return.

In the Abraham Accords of 2020 and early 2021, the first Trump administration brokered bilateral agreements between Israel and the Middle Eastern countries of Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Sudan to normalize diplomatic relations. The administration also attempted to get Saudi Arabia to recognize Israel as a sovereign state and open similar relations, to no avail.

The Biden administration carried the torch in this regard but it became even more difficult to get Riyadh on board after the 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel and ensuing war in Gaza. The rising civilian death toll and humanitarian crisis led to an elevation of the Palestinian cause and engendered region-wide animosity toward Israel. The Saudis demanded at that point that Israel commit to meaningful steps toward the creation of an independent Palestinian state before any normalization would occur.

The Iranian Negotiating Tactic the Trump Administration Doesn’t Get - Opinion

Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh

Across the political spectrum in Tehran — from surly Revolutionary Guards to the regime’s more moderate diplomats and technocrats — the first round of nuclear talks in Oman between the United States and the Islamic Republic has been greeted with a measure of optimism. Iran’s savvy and smug foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, professed himself satisfied. The supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has blessed a second meeting with President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, scheduled in Rome this weekend.

In other words, far from being a supplicant, the Islamic Republic is exuding confidence.

For too long, U.S. officials have fooled themselves about the nuclear-deterrent capacity of economic sanctions. Now that the Trump administration has decided to reopen negotiations, it’s important that they understand their adversary better, particularly the limits of sanctions to affect Iran’s behavior.

To be sure, sanctions (along with chronic mismanagement and systemic corruption) have depleted Iran’s treasury and spurred inflation and unemployment. The regime can barely keep the lights on and periodically has to shutter government offices and schools in order to conserve energy. But for regime leaders who claim to know the mind of God, those economic troubles are a small price to pay for making Iranians better Muslims. The Islamic Republic’s affection for proxy wars, terrorism and antisemitic conspiracies display a mindset fundamentally different from our own. Sanctions may cause such believers pain. They deprive them of resources. But they haven’t in the slightest obliged them to forsake their faith and their missions.

Trump and Ukraine's Zelenskiy have 'very productive' meeting in Rome, says US official

Steve Holland and Angelo Amante

U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy had a "very productive" meeting on Saturday in Rome, a White House official said, as both leaders attended the funeral of Pope Francis.

A spokesman for Zelenskiy's office said the two leaders, in an encounter in St. Peter's Basilica that lasted about 15 minutes, had agreed to have a second meeting later on Saturday, and that their teams were working on arrangements for that.

The meeting at the Vatican, their first since an angry encounter in the Oval Office in Washington in February, comes at a critical time in negotiations aimed at bringing an end to fighting between Ukraine and Russia.

"President Trump and President Zelenskyy met privately today and had a very productive discussion. More details about the meeting will follow," said Steven Cheung, White House communications director.

Zelenskiy's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, described the meeting as "constructive" in a post on social media.

Zelenskiy's office released photographs of the Rome meeting. In one, the Ukrainian and U.S. leaders sat opposite each other in a large marble-lined hall, around two feet apart, and were leaning in towards each other in conversation. No aides could be seen in the image.

If You Want to Keep War Irregular and ‘Over There’ — Who You Gonna Call?

Timothy Furnish

It’s been almost a quarter-century since the United States last fought a conventional war. That was when we invaded Iraq in 2003.

Since then, American military operations have been dominated by “low-intensity conflict” (LIC), which is “political-military confrontation between contending states or groups below conventional war and above the routine, peaceful competition among states.” LIC more often than not involves “irregular warfare,” which is “a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations.” (This excludes aircraft and drone strikes, which this millennium the US has conducted well over 14,000 times.)

Which units engage in such operations? Army Green Berets, Delta Force, and Rangers; Navy SEALs; MARSOC (Marine Corps Special Operations Command); Air Force Pararescue Jumpers; and several others, totaling about 70,000 personnel.

So when the DoD officials who command these Special Operations Forces (SOF) — the ones tasked with engaging in LIC — testify before Congress, we should take note.

Five Points of Pentagon Reform?

CDR Salamander

Everyone has their ideas about where they would like the new administration and its Secretary of Defense—and here at CDR Salamander our Secretary of the Navy too—to focus on reforming our military.

Regulars here, especially those who were readers at the OG Blog, and listeners to the Midrats Podcast have a good fix on my ideas, so let’s take today to look at another person’s ideas.

Over at The American Spectator last week, retired USMC Colonel Gary Anderson put out an article, Real Military Reform Begins: Will Pete Hegseth be able to reverse our military’s decline?

It’s not a long article, and as the balance of it aligns with positions we’ve argued here for years, I found myself nodding my head for much of it.

Though he states four, I found it best to break his recommendations into five areas:

Shipbuilding/Maintenance
Re-reform the USMC
Goldwater-Nichols
Learn from the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022
Chinese soft power is eating our lunch

US Blind Spot in the Drone War: Why Ukraine Holds the Key to America’s AI Supremacy - OPINION

Bill Cole

To use a great American sport as an analogy, baseball, the United States is playing tee-ball when it comes to drones, while Ukraine and Russia are the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees battling it out in the World Series of drone warfare.

Washington is sleepwalking through the most significant military transformation of our generation. Ukraine is not just defending its territory; it is rewriting the rules of combat in real time. This is not theory. It is raw, adaptive, high-stakes drone innovation playing out daily over Sumy, Kherson, and Kharkiv. Over the past two and a half years, I have been on the ground in Ukraine, cutting my teeth by studying and understanding battlefield technology firsthand and forming close relationships with those serving at the front. These experiences have fundamentally reshaped my understanding of modern warfare and the pivotal role drones now play.

After returning from key meetings on Capitol Hill earlier this month, where I presented the Peace Through Strength Plan: Win for Ukraine, Defend America at Home, I launched the Peace Through Strength Institute to help fill the policy vacuum in Washington. One of our most urgent findings is this: drone warfare is not a footnote, it is the main event, and the United States is dangerously unprepared to compete unless we begin learning directly from the Ukrainian front.

Ukraine’s Drone Forces Are Ready for Russia’s Spring Offensive

David Kirichenko

Russia’s fresh spring offensive against Ukraine “has already begun,” Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi stated in a recent interview.

With few tangible gains in recent months, the Kremlin is under domestic pressure to demonstrate progress on the battlefield. That pressure will be answered in the only way it knows how: through relentless assaults, sacrificing waves of Russian troops to attrition warfare.

However, Russia is increasingly colliding with Ukraine’s expanding drone wall, which is carving out a deadly no man’s land across the front.

The Russian Spring Offensive: Throwing People at the Problem

In November 2024, Russian casualties reportedly reached around 1,500 per day, a grim reflection of the Kremlin’s ruthless calculus. Yet despite the staggering losses, Russia’s strategy remains unchanged. Its forces continue to rely on relentless, attrition-heavy meatgrinder tactics.

Military analysts within Russia warn that the Kremlin elite appears dangerously out of touch with the scale of the army’s losses and the bleak reality on the ground.

Trump’s Opportunity to Finish What he Started on Defense Electronics

Richard Cappetto & James Will

It has been two years since Pres. Joe Biden issued Presidential Determination 2023-06, which invoked the Defense Production Act (DPA) to stimulate U.S. investment in the manufacture of printed circuit boards (PCBs) and related technologies. The policy identified a critical technology shortfall that, if left unaddressed, would “severely impair national defense” and undermine the American warfighter.

In issuing the determination, Biden built upon the comprehensive assessment of the defense industrial base initiated by Pres. Donald Trump under Executive Order 13806. That report singled out the domestic PCB industrial base as “aging, shrinking, and failing to maintain the state of the art,” noting that “some advanced high-density interconnect products [are] simply not producible in the U.S.”

Unfortunately, too little has changed since the Biden declaration. The United States continues to marginalize investments in the PCB industry and related technologies that are crucial to U.S. military superiority and mission-critical functions carried out by warfighters. The lack of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) participation in a sector that is vital to national security means the vulnerabilities that have plagued defense electronics for many years still persist today.

Indeed, the U.S. PCB industry continues to struggle for survival, creating alarming vulnerabilities for the defense industrial base.

The Trump-Putin Negotiations

George Friedman

I normally avoid personalizing geopolitical events, since I regard nations, not leaders, to be the agents of history. But there are moments when the focus must be on leaders, especially in the course of international conflicts in which neither side can claim a decisive victory. The negotiations to end the war in Ukraine are one such moment.

In some ways, the talks are similar to the Paris Peace Accords, which ended the war in Vietnam. The U.S. had not been defeated militarily, but in not winning the war, it effectively lost. The Viet Cong won by not being defeated. A war in which no one is victorious is the most difficult type of conflict to end. Dealing with Japan and Germany after World War II was simple in that both were soundly defeated. The Paris peace talks were much more complicated. But the outcome was inevitable: Each side would maneuver for internal political reasons to preserve its national reputation. The U.S. position was that it was prepared to continue the war if a reasonable settlement was not reached. The Viet Cong position was the same. The difference was that the Viet Cong were much more interested in the outcome than Washington was. They had fought to conquer their own nation. The U.S. had fought as a show of will and demonstration of national power. North Vietnam would be shattered by making great concessions. The U.S. would not. Yet each side was weary and wary of the other, so the inevitable conclusion of the talks pivoted not on results but on appearances: pride and international standing.

The Greenhouse Effect

The world is getting hotter. Heat waves are more intense. Ice caps are melting faster. Wildfires rage across landscapes once known for their cooler climates. But what’s driving that relentless rise in temperatures? The answer lies in a process that has shifted from a natural balance to an alarming trend—the greenhouse effect.

How does the greenhouse effect work?

The greenhouse effect is named after actual greenhouses—buildings designed to provide a warm, supportive environment for plants to grow during colder months. Greenhouses are generally made of clear materials that allow sunlight to enter. The sunlight warms the air inside while providing a barrier that stops the heat from leaving. That ensures the temperature inside remains hospitable.

The earth’s atmosphere functions in a similar way. Most of it (99.5 percent) is made of nitrogen, oxygen, and argon. The sun’s energy passes through those gases, bounces off the earth’s surface, and goes back into space.

Greenhouse gases—such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides, and water vapor—are different. When the sun’s energy reflects off the earth’s surface, it is converted into heat, which those gases absorb and keep in the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases, despite accounting for just a tiny percentage of the atmosphere, are the reason the planet is warm enough for humans to live on. Without those gases, Earth’s average temperature would be -4°F (-20°C), compared to the 57°F (14°C) average temperature the planet has had since the 1880s.

Central Asian Countries Suffer Massive Brain Drain, Putting Their Futures at Risk

Paul Goble

Since gaining independence in 1991, the five Central Asian countries—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—have suffered a new brain drain problem. A large share of their best scholars and advanced students are moving not to Russian centers, as had been the case in Soviet times, but to universities and research centers in the West and the countries of the Pacific Rim (Commonwealth of Independent States, March 7, 2023; Bugin.info, April 16). This new flow has been eclipsed in numbers and attention by the movement of the vastly larger numbers of worker migrants from Central Asia to Russia and other countries, on whose remittances home the Central Asian countries currently rely (Checkpoint, June 30, 2022; Bugin.info, April 15). The impact of the outflow of students, scientists, and other scholars, however, is increasingly worrying the region’s governments. These countries are already suffering losses because of the departure of students, scientists, and other scholars, and fear that without such people, their countries’ development will be hobbled. Such fears have only been intensified by World Bank reports and by Russian commentaries suggesting that this brain drain is a Western plot to wean the Central Asian countries away from Moscow (The World Bank, October 31, 2024; RITM Eurasia, April 4; Bugin.info, April 14).

All five countries are committed to addressing this problem. All invest far less in education and research, however, than the average of the world’s countries, most by more than an order of magnitude. Money shortages have limited their ability to hold, let alone attract back, researchers, as Kazakh scholar Gulnash Askhat and others point out (The Diplomat, August 14, 2024; Zakon.kz, April 14). Now, some in Moscow are seeking to take advantage of this situation by calling for the formation of a joint Russian-Central Asian foundation to support this effort, promising both money and restrictions on the length of time Central Asians can spend in Russia (Bugin.info, April 16). Whether Moscow can create such a structure is very much an open question given its past actions and increasingly xenophobic attitudes toward Central Asians (see EDM, May 9, October 22, November 21, 2024). Still, this new proposal by itself will exacerbate geopolitical competition in the region.

Moscow Confuses U.S. Reductions of Key Russia-Watching Organizations as Signs of Weakness Rather Than Readiness for Genuine Dialogue

Alexander Neuman

Russian state media and political elites have mistaken U.S. signaling that Washington is ready for genuine dialogue by rolling back major Russia, Europe, and Eurasia-focused analytical and broadcasting outlets. While combating “genuine enemy propaganda” remains a priority, the U.S. has signaled that it will do so “with the fundamental truth that America is a great and just country whose people are generous and whose leaders now prioritize Americans’ core interests while respecting the rights and interests of other nations” (U.S. Department of State, January 22) Instead of interpreting these signals as signs of respect for Russia’s rights and interests, the rollbacks are being portrayed in Russian media as signs of weakness.

On March 14, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order reducing the “statutory functions and associated personnel” of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), Voice of America (VOA), and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) (White House, March 14; RFE/RL, March 15). These actions were aligned with the “America First Policy Directive to the Secretary of State” and a “a foreign policy centered in [U.S.] national interest” (U.S. Department of State, January 15; The White House, January 20). These actions imply an easing of pressure on Russia as the Trump Administration edges toward negotiating a peace agreement between Moscow and Kyiv. Similar actions to this end have been the suspension of several U.S. national security agencies’ work on offensive cyberoperations against Russia (AP, March 3). Russian media, however, have not interpreted Washington’s withdrawal from Russia’s information space as the administration’s pursuit of peace, and instead are portraying these actions as signs of U.S. weakness.

Putin Weighs Risks of U.S. Readiness to Move on From Stalled Peace Efforts in Ukraine

Pavel K. Baev

The Kremlin has used delays and distractions to gain all the time and concessions available to it before seriously engaging in peace talks, or at least a genuine pause, in its war against Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin will soon be compelled to admit that procrastination works fine until it does not. Putin cannot fail to recognize the essential final warning by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio about readiness to move on to other priorities if the efforts at making a peace deal remain deadlocked (Forbes.ru, April 18). U.S. President Donald Trump has confirmed that the United States will abandon efforts to make a peace deal without setting a specific deadline (Kommersant, April 18).

Putin’s surprise announcement of the 32-hour ceasefire over the Easter weekend was clearly an attempt to demonstrate flexibility and openness to compromises in response to the U.S. administration’s readiness to abandon peace talk efforts. Putin’s announcement of the so-called “humanitarian” initiative was abrupt after a week of brutal missile attacks, including a strike by three Iskander-M on Kharkiv last Friday, and a testimony of his cruel hypocrisy (RBC-Ukraine, April 18; Izvestiya, April 19). Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported that throughout Easter Sunday, Russia violated its own ceasefire promises 2,935 times (X/@ZelenskyyUa, April 20). Many minor clashes inevitably punctured the truce, but the appeal of Zelenskyy to extend it for 30 days was in vain (RBC, April 19). After weeks of posturing and asserting demands for Ukraine’s subjugation, Putin finds his space for political maneuvering restricted by too many declarations of intent for achieving a clear victory (Novaya Gazeta Europe, April 18; Kommersant, April 19). He also struggles to comprehend how exactly the pivotal counterpart, the United States, plans to move on, and in what direction.

AI economic gains likely to outweigh emissions cost, says IMF

Economic gains from artificial intelligence will boost global output by around 0.5% a year between 2025 and 2030, outweighing the costs of rising carbon emissions by the data centres needed to run AI models, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday.

An IMF report released at its annual spring meeting in Washington nonetheless noted that those output gains would not be shared equally across the world, and called on policymakers and businesses to minimise costs to broader society.

"Despite challenges related to higher electricity prices and greenhouse gas emissions, the gains to global GDP from AI are likely to outweigh the cost of the additional emissions," it said.

"The social cost of these extra emissions is minor compared with the expected economic gains from AI, yet it still adds to the worrisome buildup of emissions," it said in the report titled "Power Hungry: How AI Will Drive Energy Demand".

Takeup of AI is seen driving a surge in demand for energy-intensive data processing power in coming years, even as the world struggles to keep promises on reducing carbon emissions.

The IMF report noted that the space dedicated to server-filled warehouses in northern Virginia, which has the world's largest concentration of data centres, was already roughly equivalent to the floor space of eight Empire State Buildings.

Musk to reduce Doge role after Tesla profits plunge

Lily Jamali

Tesla boss Elon Musk has pledged to "significantly" cut back his role in the US government after the electric car firm reported a huge drop in profit and sales for the start of this year.

Musk has led the newly created advisory body - the Department for Government Efficiency (Doge) - since last year, putting the world's richest man at the heart of cutting US spending and jobs.

But Musk said his "time allocation to Doge" would "drop significantly" from next month, adding he would spend only one to two days per week on it after accusations he has taken his focus off Tesla.

His political involvement has sparked protests and boycotts of Tesla cars around the world.

Temporary government employees, such as Musk, are normally limited to working 130 days a year which, if counted from the day of President Donald Trump's inauguration, is set to expire late next month.

But it is unclear when Musk, who contributed more than a quarter of a billion dollars to Trump's re-election, will step down completely.

Trump said earlier this month he would keep Musk "as long as I could keep him".

Command from the Commander’s Perspective: Essential Case Studies in Civ-Mil Relations

Nathan Scherry

Lawrence Freedman’s Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine, comprehensively explores civil-military relations. Freedman, a prolific writer on international relations and strategy, is regarded as the “dean of British strategic studies” for his immense contributions to the field. Command, however, significantly differs from his earlier work. Instead of examining the concept of strategy through a historical lens, as he did in Strategy: A History, Freedman provides a broader and more concrete analysis of post-World War II military operations. Similar to Eliot Cohen’s Supreme Command, Freedman employs case studies to investigate the complex nature of civil-military relations. In each of Freedman’s fifteen examples, he details the tensions between military and civilian leaders, illustrating the complexity and intricacy of their relationship during conflict. Rather than emphasizing heads of state, as Cohen does, Freedman focuses on military commanders, revealing the decision-making process from their perspective. More importantly, he dismantles the notion that military officers must operate independently and remain non-political, offers valuable insights into military culture, and demonstrates that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to command.

Army could be moving to eliminate radios at the tactical edge

Mark Pomerleau

The Army’s vision for its future network architecture likely won’t include radios for communication and data at the tactical level, according to top officials.

Next Generation Command and Control — the state of the Army’s future network and the service’s number one priority for modernization — has been billed as an entirely new way of doing business with a clean-slate approach rather than continuing to either bolt on or work within the confines of existing systems and processes. NGC2 aims to provide commanders and units a new approach to information, data and command and control through agile and software-based architectures.

A prototype of the system was recently tested at Project Convergence at Fort Irwin, California, in March.

As part of that updated network architecture and approach, service leaders are envisioning the elimination of single- and two-channel radios for troops on the ground. In their place will be what the Army calls end user devices, which are Android devices that are strapped to soldiers’ chests and have typically been reserved for team leaders.