Indian Strategic Studies

11 February 2026

U.S.-India and EU-India Trade Agreements: Who Won?

William Alan Reinsch

Credit for this week’s column idea goes to John Magnus of TradeWins LLC, a long-time trade consultant with an impressive ability to think outside the box. He reminded me that the virtual back-to-back announcements of the European Union–India and the United States–India trade agreements present an unusual opportunity to compare the two and draw conclusions about how well each party did and what that says about their respective strategies.

Of course, the now usual caveats apply. The full facts on both agreements are not yet available. The U.S.-India agreement will change depending on Trump’s feelings about India from week to week, as we have seen happen with other agreements like those with the United Kingdom, European Union, and South Korea. Finally, there is the all-important implementation question. How much of what has been agreed to will be done; how much will be ignored; and how much will be slow-rolled?

Afghanistan: Unending Desolation – Analysis

Sanchita Bhattacharya

Afghanistan remains trapped in a deep and layered crisis, marked by persistent armed resistance, extremist violence, political fragility, the collapse of law and order, and systematic institutional repression. Nearly four years after the Taliban re-captured Kabul on August 15, 2021, their military victory has failed to translate into legitimacy, recovery, or social stability.

On July 8, 2025, the Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued warrants of arrest against Taliban Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani. The warrants relate to the crime against humanity of persecution under Article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute, specifically on gender grounds against women, girls, and other affected persons. The Taliban, however, rejected the move outright, declaring that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) does not recognize the ICC and dismissing the warrants as baseless.

Why Xi Jinping has been purging China’s military leadership, and what may come next

Dean Cheng

Since 2023, the senior leadership of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been decimated. The most recent casualty is Zhang Youxia, one of the two vice chairmen of the PLA’s Central Military Commission (CMC), and therefore one of the two most senior uniformed members of the Chinese security establishment.

Zhang’s removal follows the relief of Gen. Li Yuchao of the PLA Rocket Force in 2023, defense minister (Li Shangfu) in 2024, the other vice chairman (He Weidong) and the head of the Political Work Department (Miao Hua) in 2025, and the head of the Joint Staff Department (Liu Zhenli) alongside Zhang in the current cycle. Those roles have yet to be formally filled, leaving only two official members of the CMC: Xi Jinping, as chairman, and Gen. Zhang Shengmin, head of the CMC Commission for Discipline Inspection (CMCCDI) who has also been promoted to vice chairman.

CHINA'S UNDERWATER DATA CENTER IS DOING A LOT MORE THAN JUST COMPUTING

EMMA STREET

The high water demand of data centers causes significant problems. Large volumes of often potable, drinking-quality water are used for cooling, putting pressure on local water supplies and competing with households and agriculture. One way around this is to do what China has done — place data centers in a location where they're literally surrounded by non-potable water — the ocean. There have been several experimental underwater projects — like Microsoft's Project Natick, which concluded in 2020 — but currently, the only operational, commercial underwater data center in the world is in Hainan Province in China.

Over the past few months, this data center has begun operating as a large-scale artificial-intelligence computing facility, like DC's "AI Alley". Sealed inside steel capsules placed on the seabed near Lingshui, rows of servers now perform the same kinds of tasks as those in conventional data centers — processing data, running cloud services, and training AI systems — but are cooled naturally by surrounding seawater rather than by energy-intensive air-conditioning. This recent shift toward high-density AI computing marks the most advanced stage of a project that aims to combine computing power with lower energy use and a smaller land footprint.

Beijing’s Growth Model Is Still Broken

Dinny McMahon

When China’s property market collapsed in 2021, its leaders scrambled to find a new driver of economic growth to replace housing construction. More investment in infrastructure, which had powered much of the country’s boom for decades, wasn’t an option: the population was peaking, and a collapse in land sales meant that local authorities lacked the funds to spend on new airports and eight-lane highways. Nor could Beijing rely on more exports. China was already the world’s biggest exporter, and with labor and land costs rising the world’s factory no longer had as significant a cost advantage for cheap goods.

That left consumption. Economists have long noted that household consumption in China contributes relatively little to economic activity compared with other countries. In 2024, according to World Bank data, consumption was only 40 percent of China’s GDP, about 20 percentage points below the global average. A policy focused on lifting household spending to the level of South Korea (48 percent) or Japan (55 percent in 2022) could drive growth for decades.

Is China Really Changing Its Approach to the Yellow Sea?

Sang Hun Seok

One of the notable achievements of South Korea President Lee Jae Myung’s state visit to Beijing in January 2026 was an understanding reached regarding Chinese maritime platforms in the Yellow Sea. Lee revealed that an understanding had been reached to relocate the Atlantic Amsterdam, a massive management platform located within the Provisional Measures Zone (PMZ), a maritime area jointly managed by China and South Korea pending future boundary delimitation under a 2001 agreement. Less than a month after the summit in Beijing, the platform was confirmed to have been relocated to Weihai, a major port in Shandong province.

This is obviously a diplomatic gesture meant to signal the continuing thaw between Seoul and Beijing. Yet, while the South Korean presidential office welcomed it as “meaningful progress,” the relocation may be less a conclusion than a recalibration of the current status quo. Playing devil’s advocate, we must consider the potential strategic calculations that might have influenced Beijing’s calculus.

Inside China’s Rerouted Supply Chains

Hannah Pedone

Morale was low in a WeChat group of roughly 250 Chinese manufacturers and e-commerce sellers late last April, when combined tariffs on Chinese imports to the United States sat at 145 percent. “This is it. The U.S.-China relationship is over,” said one member in the Chinese messaging app. “If only Kissinger were alive,” said another.

By September 2025, exporters in the group were feeling the effects of the highest statutory tariff rates on U.S. imports in over 100 years. The share of U.S. imports originating from China had plunged from a 2017 high of 22 percent to just 9 percent by July 2025, a low not seen since China’s accession year to the World Trade Organization a quarter of a century earlier.

Iran’s Nuclear Program And UN Sanctions Reimposition – Analysis

Paul K. Kerr

UN Security Council Resolution 2231 (2015), which the council adopted on July 20, 2015, implements the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and contains other provisions concerning Iran’s nuclear program, Tehran’s development of missiles, and arms transfers to and from Iran. In August 2020, the United States invoked the resolution’s “snapback” mechanism, which requires the Security Council to reimpose UN sanctions lifted pursuant to Resolution 2231 and the JCPOA. (See CRS Report R40094, Iran’s Nuclear Program: Tehran’s Compliance with International Obligations, by Paul K. Kerr.) Although that effort failed, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom (UK) (collectively known as the “E3”) on August 28, 2025, invoked the snapback mechanism, which resulted in the sanctions’ reimposition on September 27, 2025.

Resolution 2231 stipulates that the council, which has been seized of the “Iranian nuclear issue” since 2006, was to end its consideration of the matter on October 18, 2025. The resolution’s snapback mechanism would then have ceased to be operational. The 2025 invocation of snapback not only reimposes previously terminated sanctions but also extends them, and Iran’s nuclear program as a subject of Security Council consideration, indefinitely.

Europe Needs an Army

Max Bergmann

The transatlantic alliance is on the ropes. Since the end of World War II, American power has underwritten European unification and integration—arguably Washington’s greatest foreign policy accomplishment. But the Trump administration has made clear that the United States is no longer interested in acting as Europe’s security guarantor. It has threatened to seize the territory of a NATO member, reduced funding to Ukraine, aggressively imposed tariffs on European allies, and, in its 2025 National Security Strategy, called for “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory.” The message could not be clearer: the continent can no longer rely on the United States to defend it. For the first time in eight decades, Europe stands alone.

European states now find themselves vulnerable to Russian aggression. Should Moscow turn its attention beyond Ukraine and rebuild its war machine, it could quickly threaten eastern Europe. Such a danger should spur European leaders to embark on a bold new course of action to solidify their defenses. But there has been no such revolution in European military affairs.

Ukraine Seeks a War Plan Beyond Killing as Many Russian Soldiers as Possible

Anastasiia Malenko and Marcus Walker

NOVOMYKOLAIVKA, Ukraine—In this corner of southeast Ukraine, Russian forces are pummeling rear areas with drone attacks, seeking to sap the strength of Ukrainian defenders by cutting their supply lines. Snow-covered roads are littered with burned-out pickup trucks. As the conflict nears the four-year mark, Russia’s increasingly effective use of drones is helping its forces maintain a grinding, slow-motion advance. It is weakening Ukraine’s hand at the negotiating table, where it is under pressure to cede strategically vital territory. Russia’s battlefield drone strategy is focused on a medium range of about 12 to 50 miles. Priority targets include Ukrainian drone operators as well as logistics.

In contrast, Ukraine’s approach is still largely about inflicting maximum casualties on Russian infantry when they enter a kill zone beginning about 12 miles from the front line. Ukraine is betting on doing more of the same this year. The goal is to kill 50,000 Russian soldiers a month, up from 35,000 in December, new Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said recently.

Africa: Next Frontline In The Global Drug Trade? – Analysis

Cherkaoui Roudani

Over President Donald Trump’s second term, the United States has embarked on an unprecedented tightening of its counter-narcotics policy, elevating it into a central instrument of diplomatic, legal and coercive pressure. This doctrinal shift now goes well beyond domestic security concerns and is embedded within a broader framework of strategic protection tied directly to US national security. The Presidential Determination on Major Drug Transit or Major Illicit Drug Producing Countries for Fiscal Year 2026, published in September 2025, represents the most explicit expression of this approach. By identifying twenty-three states considered major hubs of drug production or transit threatening US security, Washington has placed counter-narcotics and anti-money-laundering efforts among its top strategic priorities.

Beyond the Western Hemisphere countries traditionally associated with the drug trade, notably Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela, the document expands its focus to include several nations in Central America and the Caribbean, as well as extra-regional actors in Asia. This expansion reflects a strategic reading of transnational criminal ecosystems structured around major organizations and cartels such as the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Clan del Golfo and the Tren de Aragua, whose operational reach extends far beyond national and regional boundaries.

Global economy must move past GDP to avoid planetary disaster, warns UN chief

Matthew Taylor

The global economy must be radically transformed to stop it rewarding pollution and waste, UN secretary general António Guterres has warned. Speaking to the Guardian after the UN hosted a meeting of leading global economists, Guterres said humanity’s future required the urgent overhaul of the world’s “existing accounting systems” he said were driving the planet to the brink of disaster.

“We must place true value on the environment and go beyond gross domestic product as a measure of human progress and wellbeing. Let us not forget that when we destroy a forest, we are creating GDP. When we overfish, we are creating GDP.” For decades, politicians and policymakers have prioritised growth – as measured by GDP – as the overarching economic goal.

Four Takeaways from Donald Trump’s National Defense Strategy

James Holmes

The latest in a family of documents detailing the Donald Trump administration’s foreign-policy vision dropped late last month. And it is a doozy. The 2026 National Defense Strategy echoes the macro themes from its parent directive, the 2025 National Security Strategy. Where the National Security Strategy spells out basic principles guiding foreign policy and strategy, the National Defense Strategy explains in more concrete terms how the U.S. military apparatus intends to help put the administration’s vision into practice.

Doubtless some readers will find the strategy’s blunt tone jarring. It reflects the style favored by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and by the commander-in-chief himself. It even gave me, a practitioner of softly, softly diplomacy, pause. But the substance is solid, if arguable, the document is refreshingly short, and the writing gallops along. Read the whole thing. It repays the effort.

How Israel’s War in Gaza (Partially) Rehabilitated Counterinsurgency Theory

Raphael S. Cohen

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in late summer of 2021 brought more than just the collapse of a country and diminished American prestige. It discredited an idea that was part of U.S. military strategy for the better part of two decades—population-centric counterinsurgency. Premised on Mao Tse-tung ’s famed analogy likening guerrillas needing popular support to fish needing the sea, the theory posited that by winning over the population through a series of economic and political inducements, a government could starve an insurgency of its lifeblood. Advocates pointed to lessons from Cold War insurgencies like the Malayan Emergency and Vietnam to argue that this approach held the key to winning the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

America’s fascination with population-centric counterinsurgency proved short-lived. For a time, the adoption of this strategy during the 2006 Iraq “surge” seemed to vindicate this theory. But a similar “surge” in forces and shift in tactics failed to yield comparable success in Afghanistan in 2009 and 2010. And while Iraq remained relatively stable for a period, eventually the Islamic State came roaring back in 2013. And so by the time the United States ceded Afghanistan back to the Taliban in 2021, many analysts viewed population-centric counterinsurgency theory as an ill-conceived recipe for costly, bloody defeat.

EU seeks self-reliance as US, China dominate defense sector

Gianna-Carina Grün

When world leaders meet at the 2026 Munich Security Conference starting Friday, interconnected topics of trans-Atlantic security policy and EU defense will be high on the agenda. Over the past year, the European Union has pushed toward its goal of establishing a more self-reliant defense strategy and creating a stronger, more independent EU defense industry. The conduct of the Trump administration in geopolitical affairs ranging from ceasefire negotiations between Russia and Ukraine to tensions over Greenland has repeatedly reinforced the urgency of that goal.

European leaders have not said as much officially, but a more independent EU implies one that is less dependent on the United States. DW analyzed arms trade data collected by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Since 1950, SIPRI has tracked military expenditures and the trade of what it calls "major conventional arms" such as aircraft, air-defense systems, armored vehicles, artillery, ships, satellites and sensors.

Why Missile Defense Now Raises the Risk of War

Azriel Bermant

As the United States deploys anti-missile batteries to the Middle East as part of its force buildup in the region, the idea that these systems are a purely defensive means to shield against attacks—and thereby deter an adversary from attacking in the first place—is looking increasingly unconvincing. Instead, the current round of conflict in the Middle East suggests the opposite: A reliable anti-missile shield could just as well create an incentive for escalation. If policymakers believe that their state is secure behind the shield, they may calculate that their own offensive military actions carry significantly lower risk.

The purely defensive and de-escalatory case for anti-missile systems is easily made. Exhibit A is Ukraine, where the the Kremlin’s perceptions of Ukraine’s vulnerability—including its lack of missile defense—incentivized Russia to attack in 2022. Between February and May that year, Moscow fired more than 2,000 cruise and ballistic missiles at Ukrainian military installations, infrastructure, and population centers in an attempt to clear the way for taking over the country. Had Ukraine been able to deploy large numbers of sophisticated anti-missile systems, the Russian leadership may have calculated the risks of an invasion very differently.

The Great Rebalancing: How Europe Chose Dependence Over Resilience

Javier Benegas

For years, we were told that the unease spreading across Western societies had more to do with perception than reality. Nostalgia, resistance to change, a failure to adapt to a more complex world. Public services were not deteriorating, we were simply more demanding. Industry was not vanishing, it was ‘evolving.’ We were not poorer, just living differently.

That explanation becomes harder to sustain once discontent turns into daily experience: wages that no longer cover basic costs, housing drifting out of reach, energy prices that never quite come back down, infrastructure that quietly ages, and an increasing reliance on external suppliers for things that once seemed trivial. At that point, the problem looks less psychological and far more political, in the broadest sense of the term.

A growing number of observers now concede as much. What we are facing is not a temporary downturn, but a deeper rebalancing of the economic and geopolitical order that took shape after the Cold War. The sense that ‘everything feels like it’s breaking’ is not a collective hallucination. It is what a system under strain looks like when it is forced to redistribute costs, power and opportunity in a harsher, more fragmented environment.

The AI Divide: How U.S.-Chinese Competition Could Leave Most Countries Behind

Sam Winter-Levy, Anton Leicht

The future of artificial intelligence will be controlled by the United States and China. The two countries employ 70 percent of the world’s top machine learning researchers, command 90 percent of global computing power, and attract the vast majority of AI investment—more than twice the combined total of every other state combined. In past technological revolutions, powers that were not at the frontier could gradually adopt new capabilities and catch up. But the AI revolution will be different, locking those countries into a strategic trap that could consign much of the world to technological vassalage.

This trap particularly affects what might be called the AI middle powers: countries such as France, India, and the United Kingdom, which have substantial state capacity and economic resources but lack the scale, capital, energy, and computing power to build frontier AI systems on their own. These powers face three principal challenges. First, their access to frontier AI capabilities is subject to the whims of policymakers in Washington and Beijing. Second, they remain exposed to AI’s disruptive effects—including job losses, social upheaval, and the expansion of AI-enhanced cybercrime—whether or not they share in its benefits. Third, they lack the leverage and the policy tools necessary to shape AI’s development or manage its consequences.

China and the US Want Africa’s Critical Minerals. Will African Countries Actually Benefit?

Juliet Onyino and Weilu Jiang

As 2026 begins, competition over critical minerals has become a defining feature of global geopolitics. Last month, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) sent Washington a shortlist of state-owned mining assets available for American investment – a clear signal that African countries are increasingly using their mineral endowments as strategic bargaining tools in great power competition.

Africa holds approximately 30 percent of global mineral reserves, including dominant shares of cobalt, manganese, platinum group metals, and graphite. Despite this, the continent captures only about 10 percent of the value generated from its mineral exports, largely due to continued reliance on raw material exports and limited domestic processing capacity. This is a result of structures that positioned Africa as a raw material supplier. Limited infrastructure, inadequate investment in processing, and unfavorable trade policies have reinforced this pattern.

What Is Greenland’s Role in China’s Arctic Strategy?

In January 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump began making increasingly brazen demands that Denmark had to hand over control of Greenland. That included vague threats that the United States might use military force to make that happen. “We have to have it,” he told reporters. “We are going to do something on Greenland whether they like it or not.”

Why does the U.S. “have to have” Greenland? Because of China, of course.

Later, Trump posted on his Truth Social account: “The United States needs Greenland for the purpose of National Security. It is vital for the Golden Dome that we are building. NATO should be leading the way for us to get it. IF WE DON’T, RUSSIA OR CHINA WILL, AND THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!”

“Trumphobia” and the Genocide Claim in Nigeria

Justine Dyikuk

The Christmas Day deadly strike on Islamic State terrorists in Sokoto state (which borders Niger to the north) by the United States’ Africa Command in coordination with Nigerian authorities led to the death of “multiple ISIS terrorists,” who, President Donald Trump said, were “targeting and viciously killing, primarily innocent Christians”. This incident has once again brought to the fore the plight of Christians in Nigeria. The US Department of State’s designation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) over claims of Christian genocide has sparked widespread debate. Social media is filled with distressing images of burnt Churches and mass burial sites linked to attacks by Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa (ISWAP), and Fulani militants. Trump’s signature comment, “guns a-blazing,” unsettled the Nigerian government amid these alarming issues.

Understanding what really constitutes genocide is essential for critically examining this controversy. Under international law, genocide is characterized by two main elements: the mental element of specific intent (dolus specialis in legal terms) and the physical component of committing one of five prohibited acts against a protected group. The mental aspect involves the intent “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group,” often expressed through specific policies or propaganda.

Swarmbotics Wins US Army Contract for Swarming Ground Robots

Jodesz Gavilan

Swarmbotics AI has won a US Army contract to build swarming, attritable small unmanned ground vehicles (sUGVs) for the 1st Cavalry Division. The award stems from Swarmbotics’ performance at last year’s xTechOverwatch competition, where its autonomous ground robotics technology competed against dozens of innovative small business teams.

Designed to operate as swarms, the sUGVs aim to create multiple dilemmas for adversaries at lower cost than traditional manned platforms, reflecting army interest in scalable force multiplication. Soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division assessed autonomous capabilities across ground and airborne systems as part of the evaluation, which was facilitated by the US Army’s

Accelerating Decision-Making: Integrating Artificial Intelligence into the Modern Wargame

Thad D. Weist, Skyler G. Kepley, Braxton C. Musgrove

The character of warfare is in a state of perpetual evolution, demanding that our Army not only keep pace but also actively seek a decisive edge through technological superiority. The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the Military Decision Making Process (MDMP) represents the next frontier in this pursuit. While the concept may seem abstract, recent practical applications at the Command and General Staff College (CGSC) have provided a concrete blueprint for how Large Language Models (LLMs) can revolutionize staff wargaming. This article outlines the key findings and lessons learned from an experiment that leveraged AI to enhance the speed, depth, and rigor of Course of Action (COA) analysis, offering a model for the wider force.

Our exploration demonstrated that when properly resourced and guided, AI can serve as a powerful cognitive partner for a staff. However, its successful integration is not a simple matter of “plug-and-play.” It requires a deliberate methodology centered on three pillars: building a robust analytical framework, executing a human-centric wargame, and embracing an iterative learning process.

Army moves to link a full division with its next-gen C2 prototype

MEGHANN MYERS

The 4th Infantry Division is working to scale testing of the Army’s next-generation command-and-control system from a battalion to division level by this summer, the division’s commander told reporters on Thursday.

The Colorado-based unit is coming off of more than two weeks in the field for its latest Ivy Sting exercise, Maj. Gen. Pat Ellis said, the fifth since the series began in September. This time, they increased from the ability to shoot from one networked artillery system to six, among other incremental advancements.

“So the joke I like to make is we are no longer fighting with the network. We are now fighting using the network,” Ellis said, alluding to previous iterations of Army command-and-control that kept data on multiple systems and devices that prevented commanders on the battlefield from seeing a full picture all at once.

When Strategy Outruns Supply

James Deitch

Russian performance in its war against Ukraine has often been framed as a strategic miscalculation, poor intelligence, or political overreach. Yet beneath those layers lies a more prosaic but decisive failure: logistics. From the opening weeks of the invasion in February 2022, the Russian Armed Forces struggled not only to maneuver and fight but also to feed, fuel, arm, and rotate the forces they had committed. Those failures were not incidental. They flowed from structural weaknesses in Russian military logistics, compounded by human resource deficiencies and a mismatch between operational ambition and sustainment capacity. Ukraine, by contrast, recognized these vulnerabilities early and systematically targeted Russian logistical infrastructure, supply routes, and depots. The result was a campaign in which logistics repeatedly constrained Russian operational art, blunted offensive action, and forced Moscow into a grinding war of attrition it was ill-prepared to sustain.[1]

Russian military doctrine has long emphasized logistics, but in practice, the system entering the 2022 war bore the imprint of a Soviet legacy only partially modernized and poorly adapted to expeditionary conflict. Analysts have noted that Russian reforms after 2008 emphasized brigade- and battalion tactical group (BTG) structures intended for rapid, high-intensity operations, yet did not fully reconfigure the logistical apparatus to support dispersed, maneuver-heavy warfare over extended lines of communication.[2] The Russian system remained heavily reliant on rail transport, centralized depots, and a relatively inflexible supply chain architecture optimized for operations near Russian territory and along prepared routes.[3] When the Kremlin chose to invade a vast neighboring state on multiple axes, with the expectation of rapid regime change, it imposed on this system a set of demands it was never truly designed to meet.

10 February 2026

New Nexus among Bangladesh, Pakistan and Türkiye: India’s New Headache?

Tapas Das

A healthy bilateral relationship between any two countries is essentially underscored by ‘mutual sensitivity’, a foundational value glaringly absent from the current India-Bangladesh ties. Sheikh Hasina had played an undeniable role in bringing Dhaka closer to Delhi. Since the fall of her government, Muhammad Yunus-led Bangladesh is redrawing the political map, one where Dhaka is growing closer to Islamabad and further from Delhi (Halder, Majumder, and Khokon 2025, 157).

Besides allowing Islamists a free rein in the country and acquiescing to their sectarian and anti-India agenda, the Yunus administration has also effected a deep reset in Bangladesh’s foreign policy by forging very close links of especially military and strategic nature, with both Pakistan and Türkiye. The piece will try to address how and why India will be affected by a deepening military tie with Turkiye, what this means for the subcontinent, and how these changes could affect the region.

Islamabad: The Blood That Screams in Silence The Tarlai Imambargah Massacre and the Unequal Cost of Violence

On February 6, 2026, 32 men were slaughtered while praying in a working-class neighborhood on Islamabad’s margins. No cabinet ministers died that day. No generals. No industrialists or feudal landlords. No one whose death would necessitate a state funeral or international condolences. Just working people in Tarlai Kalan, a densely packed suburb where the capital’s carefully manicured facade crumbles into the reality most Pakistanis inhabit.

The Khadijatul Kubra Imambargah sits in a neighborhood the powerful drive through but never stop in. Its congregants were men who work with their hands, who count their rupees, who ride public buses and know the weight of economic precarity. University students from COMSATS Institute trying to study their way out of poverty. A 52-year-old from Gilgit-Baltistan who had migrated seeking survival. Mosque caretakers. Daily wage laborers. Small shopkeepers. The kind of Pakistanis whose names appear in casualty lists but rarely in history books. Tarlai Kalan exists in the shadow geography of Pakistani power. It sprawls on Islamabad’s southeastern periphery where the planned city dissolves into informal settlements housing migrants from Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. These are families of four to eight children crammed into modest dwellings, sustained by irregular employment, small-scale commerce, and the perpetual hustle required when the state offers nothing resembling a safety net.

The Use of Uncrewed Aerial Systems by Non-State Armed Groups: Exploring Trends in Myanmar

Joshua Angelo E. Bata, Barbara Morais Figueiredo

The use of uncrewed aerial systems (UASs) by non-State armed groups (NSAGs) has become a defining feature of Myanmar’s conflict landscape. Since the February 2021 military coup, Myanmar has recorded one of the highest global rates of UAS use by NSAGs, with these systems playing an increasingly significant role in shaping conflict dynamics across the country.

This report analyses key trends in the use of UASs by NSAGs in Myanmar, with a particular focus on post-coup developments. It aims to provide researchers, policymakers and practitioners with an overview of how these systems have been adopted and employed by various groups across the country, and of their implications for evolving conflict dynamics. It examines the types of NSAGs deploying UASs, the geographical distribution of incidents, as well as the primary targets and impacts of their operations. The report also explores trends in the craft-production, modification and weaponization of these systems, identifying the key factors enabling the rapid adoption and diffusion of UAS capabilities among NSAGs, including the widespread availability of commercial components, access to open-source knowledge, decentralized knowledge-sharing networks and improvised production practices.

Why American Military Power No Longer Produces Security

Richard W. Coughlin

The New York Times has recently published a series of editorials on the weaknesses of the U.S. military (here and here). Their critique centers on the deep-seated pathologies of the military–industrial complex: the production of over-engineered weapons systems that are fragile, exorbitantly expensive, and perpetually scarce. This complex is the swamp that is never drained — indeed, never named. Its pulse is sustained by the convergent interests of defense contractors, members of Congress, and senior military officers. The F-35 is the paradigmatic expression of this dysfunction.

So too is the Navy’s determination to build yet another fleet of aircraft carriers despite their growing vulnerability to hypersonic missiles. A recurring theme in the Times pieces is that U.S. military power is increasingly exposed to cheaper, lower-tech systems — especially drones — that can disable or destroy its most expensive platforms. These vulnerabilities extend beyond the battlefield to cyberwarfare, including the capacity to disrupt power grids and command-and-control systems: capabilities that may already be embedded in Chinese information infrastructures such as 5G networks. Despite its immense military expenditures, the United States now confronts a future — perhaps even a present — in which it is overmatched by Chinese military power in a conflict over Taiwan.

PLA Assessments on the Centrality of Space Power in Ukraine

Sunny Cheung

Across People’s Liberation Army units, defense universities, and defense state-owned enterprises, Russia’s war in Ukraine has reinforced calls for the Chinese military to develop indigenous LEO satellite networks, resilient positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) architectures, and integrated space–cyber–electromagnetic countermeasures tailored to high-intensity, information-transparent conflicts.

Researchers at military institutions describe the decisive advantage that satellite systems have provided Ukraine as “asymmetric transparency” (不对称透明), in which Ukraine is able to continuously observe Russian forces, while Russia does not have an equivalent capability.

How China’s Crypto Seizures Are Quietly Powering Its Digital Asset Reserves

Hugh Harsono

China’s increasing growth of its strategic digital asset reserves via law enforcement seizures is enabling it to yield more direct influence over the global digital asset ecosystem beyond just mining and holding cryptocurrencies. Despite an existing ban on cryptocurrency activities, China maintains its status as the world’s largest crypto miner, while in parallel, Chinese citizens comprise a significant portion of global crypto users.

In many cases, these seized digital assets originate from illicit activities, whether this be from criminal networks or from unlicensed financial platforms. While the concept of keeping seized assets to build a country’s own reserve is not unprecedented, the continued custody of digital assets to establish a sovereign digital asset treasury is a relatively new notion, with countries like the U.S. typically preferring to sell off seized cryptocurrencies. Therefore, countries like Kazakhstan and the United States are newer in their crypto stockpile efforts, in contrast to China’s relatively quieter and earlier accumulation of assets. With this in mind, China has a clear head start in growing its influence in shaping the global digital asset economy.

Late Stalinism in Beijing

Matthew Johnson

General Secretary Xi Jinping appears to have prevailed in the latest round of military purges in the Central Military Commission (CMC), but only by further dismantling the institutional safeguards that once stabilized elite politics—deepening, rather than resolving, long-term regime fragility.

The removal of generals Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli marks the elimination of the last residual chain of military authority not fully subsumed under the “CMC chairman responsibility system,” meaning that military command now begins and ends with Xi personally.

This consolidation does not alter near-term timelines on Taiwan, but it accelerates political drift in the People’s Republic of China toward a late Stalinist disequilibrium in which Xi’s personal control is maximized at the cost of orderly succession management, professional and expertise-based authority—exemplified by figures like Zhang Youxia—and tolerance for dissenting or corrective views within the leadership.

Venezuela After Maduro: Q&A with RAND Experts

Tahina Montoya, Marie Jones, Kelly Piazza

Today marks one month since the dramatic U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Nicolás Maduro, the country’s president, and brought him to New York City to face federal drug trafficking charges.

While many details about the operation are clearer now than they were in the immediate aftermath, it remains uncertain how the sudden change in Venezuela might shape long-term political, economic, and institutional dynamics—both within the country and across the region.

To better understand this uncertainty and identify trends to watch moving forward, we asked three RAND experts to discuss why Venezuela remains critical for Latin America, how regional players are responding to change in Caracas, the nature of the U.S.-Venezuela relationship, and more.

Trump’s Venezuela Policy Isn’t Any Clearer a Month After Maduro’s Capture

Roxanna Vigil

It has been more than a month since Operation Absolute Resolve led to the capture of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, but neither President Donald Trump nor his administration have clearly outlined next steps for the country—or the United States’ involvement there. The president has only consistently stated his intention to control Venezuela’s vast oil resources. To do so, he appears comfortable working cooperatively with the current Venezuelan government under interim President Delcy Rodríguez, a longtime Chavista and Maduro’s vice president.

Trump did meet with opposition leader María Corina Machado (and accepted her Nobel Peace Prize) on January 16 and vaguely indicated he was considering getting her involved in the country’s future somehow. However, he also dismissed Machado, claiming she did not have sufficient support to lead in Venezuela despite the opposition’s victory in the most recent election. Both Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress balked at this treatment of Machado, but Trump did not address these concerns by committing to a timeline for elections or democratic transition process in Venezuela.

J.D. Vance is Booed at the Winter Olympics as a New Poll Shows How Europe Has Turned Against U.S.

Rebecca Schneid

Olympic opening ceremonies are traditionally unifying, non-political events—a chance for athletes from around the world to introduce their national teams before the competition begins.

But when Vice President J.D. Vance appeared on the stadium’s big screen during the kickoff of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Games on Friday, the unmistakable sound of boos and jeers broke out among the crowd of 65,000 people.

While President Donald Trump seemed to brush off the reaction, telling reporters on Air Force One, “That’s surprising because people like him…He doesn’t get booed in this country,” recent polls suggest that it’s not just Vance who has a problem in Europe.

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