What Trump's National Security AI Memo Gets Right—and Leaves Unresolved

Council on Foreign Relations  |  Vinh X. Nguyen, Michael C. Horowitz

President Donald Trump signed National Security Presidential Memorandum 11 (NSPM-11) on June 5, directing U.S. national security agencies to accelerate artificial intelligence (AI) adoption and revoking Biden-era restrictions. This memo aims to accelerate U.S. AI development, roll back oversight, and maintain technological dominance over China. NSPM-11 notably requires agencies to terminate contracts with AI companies limiting government use, updates the Defense Department's autonomous weapons policy, and vests AI accountability within the military chain of command.

Xi’s Calculated Return To North Korea – Analysis

Eurasia Review  |  Patrick M. Cronin

Xi Jinping’s visit to Pyongyang this week signals a recalibration of Northeast Asia’s power balance, marking his first return since 2019. Xi leverages his political capital as North Korea gains influence from its advancing nuclear program and a nascent partnership with Moscow. For Kim Jong Un, this high-level attention from Beijing, North Korea’s principal economic lifeline, is crucial for projecting itself as a nuclear great power.

Japan’s Security Focus Shift

The Diplomat  |  KAWASHIMA Shin

China's expanding operational reach, now extending significantly beyond the First Island Chain, is compelling a fundamental shift in Japan's strategic security focus. This development indicates a heightened level of Chinese power projection into the broader Pacific, challenging established regional security paradigms and necessitating a comprehensive re-evaluation of defense priorities by Tokyo.

The 3 Geopolitical Shocks That Boosted the Middle Corridor

The Diplomat

The Middle Corridor, a multimodal trade and transit route stretching across the Eurasian landmass from China to Europe, is experiencing renewed interest amid catastrophic disruptions to maritime trade. This modern version aims to capitalize on tumultuous contemporary geopolitics to resurrect an ancient pathway, reminiscent of the historical Silk Road that once positioned Central Asia as a global trade center.

U.S. Power Is Wrung Out

Foreign Policy  |  Hal Brands

The war in the Persian Gulf has generated global shock waves, disrupting the world economy, unsettling U.S. alliances, causing epic disruptions to freedom of navigation, and pushing the nuclear nonproliferation order to a tipping point. This conflict has starkly revealed U.S. strategic insolvency, despite impressive tactical feats by the United States and Israel, including the killing of dozens of high-ranking Iranian officials.

The Glass Backbone: Why the Army’s Logistics Will Break in the Next War

Modern War Institute  |  Jonathan Buckland

The United States Army's current sustainment model, optimized for permissive environments, is a significant liability for future large-scale combat operations. This efficiency-driven approach, relying on uncontested supply lines, will fail under persistent attack in strategic competition. Historical examples like Operation Barbarossa, where German forces rapidly outran their logistics network, and contemporary lessons from the war in Ukraine demonstrate that logistical failures, not tactical defeats, culminate campaigns.

Trump’s Revamped Food for Peace Bypasses the Countries Closest to Famine

Council on Foreign Relations  |  Sam Vigersky

The United States' oldest emergency food aid program, Food for Peace, was transferred to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in December 2025 after the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) dismantled USAID. This move placed the $1.2 billion program in an agency lacking crisis-response expertise, leading to USDA seeking an instruction manual and shutting out experienced State Department staff.

A Liberal Vision For Europe

Persuasion  |  Francis Fukuyama

Francis Fukuyama delivered the Erhard Busek Memorial Lecture, arguing that Europe's common identity must be based on Enlightenment values rather than a purely Christian civilization, especially given current challenges and the evolving U.S. political landscape. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio's assertion of a "Western Civilization" rooted in "Christian faith" highlights a division between populists and liberals.

Russian Battle Tank Attrition Completely Reversed - Top Western Analysts

Simplicius76  |  Simplicius

A leading pro-Ukrainian analyst, Jompy, has concluded that Russia's current tank fleet is larger than its pre-war force due to new domestic production and refurbishment, despite a sharp drop in overall vehicle quality. Russian tank losses have significantly decreased from nearly 4 per day in 2022 to 1.4 per day in 2025, and reportedly 0.4 per day or less in 2026, with only 10 tanks destroyed in April 2026 according to WarSpotting.

Lebanon Is No Longer About Lebanon

Foreign Policy  |  Ali Hashem

The latest Israeli strike on a building in Beirut’s southern suburb on June 7 killed two people, marking a repetition of previous attacks and signaling Israel's intent to contain the Lebanese front within Lebanese geography. This strike, following two Hezbollah rockets launched toward northern Israel, suggests Israel aims to impose an equation where attacks on Lebanon do not automatically escalate to the Iranian file.

The Next Caribbean Crisis? Assessing U.S. Military Options Toward Cuba

Center for Strategic and International Studies  |  Christopher Hernández-Roy, Mark F. Cancian, Henry Ziemer

The United States is examining a range of potential military scenarios against Cuba, including a pressure campaign, intervention following internal collapse, leadership decapitation, limited air offensive, and runaway escalation, as its policy objective remains unclear. The current U.S. policy, initiated in January 2026, employs oil import restrictions as leverage, an attritional strategy militarily easy to execute given Cuba's weak navy and limited external support.

AI, the Box, and the Black

Lieber Institute  |  William H. Boothby

The U.S. Cyber Command Legal Conference in April 2026 highlighted critical legal and ethical questions regarding artificial intelligence (AI) employment in cyber warfare, particularly concerning "black box" un-explainability. A central concern is whether AI processes whose outcomes cannot be explained can be deemed discriminating, violating Additional Protocol I, Article 51(4) on indiscriminate attacks or the proportionality rule.

Fighting Air Defense Capabilities in Multidomain Operations

Army University Press  |  Glenn A. Henke

The U.S. Army must adjust its air defense doctrine to counter adversaries' advancing aerial arsenals, as evidenced by the Russo-Ukrainian and Iran Wars. Commanders need to visualize airspace as maneuver space and employ multidomain engagement-area development as the primary organizing construct for air defense capabilities. This requires 3D visualization tools and a dynamic approach to planning.

Warification and the Illusion of Precision: AI, Targeting, and Increasing Civilian Harm

Lieber Institute for Law & Land Warfare | Jessica Dorsey, Luke Moffett

Recent developments in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for targeting in Iran and the wider Middle East illustrate "warification," a process where activities, spaces, and technologies not traditionally associated with armed conflict are reconstituted as legitimate components of warfare. This linguistic and operational drift, exemplified by doctrines of maximum lethality and systems like Palantir’s Maven Smart System and Anthropic’s large-language models, expands the boundaries of war.

Data Center Warfare: Defending the Key Terrain of AI Infrastructure

Modern War Institute  |  Jason Vogt, Nina A. Kollars

The rapid expansion of AI-driven data centers is creating new strategic high-value targets globally, fundamentally altering critical infrastructure. Following the United States' and Israel's February attack on Iran, Iran retaliated with missile and drone strikes, hitting three Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers in the UAE and Bahrain, disrupting digital services, and later an Oracle data center in Dubai.

NATO’s Turkey Paradox

 |  Ali Mammadov

NATO leaders will gather in Ankara in July 2026, highlighting Turkey's enduring paradox as a strategically vital yet politically contested member. Turkey possesses NATO's second-largest army and a critical geographic position at the intersection of the Black Sea, eastern Mediterranean, Middle East, and Caucasus. However, its independent foreign policy, disputes with Greece and Cyprus, opposition to US support for Syrian Democratic Forces, acquisition of the Russian S-400 system, and frequent clashes with European governments make it a challenging ally.

NATO’s Digital Back End Could Fall Apart Without Change

Foreign Policy  |  David Eaves

Operation Epic Fury, the United States’ war against Iran in February, revealed that cloud services are a core component of military operations, not merely back-office IT. During this campaign, one Pentagon AI targeting system experienced a 4,425 percent increase in peak daily usage, prompting the Pentagon’s chief digital and AI officer, Cameron Stanley, to voice significant concern about the ability to sustain such demands.

CAN AI PASS THE U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE COMPREHENSIVE EXAM?

U.S. Army War College War Room  |  Kevin Boyce, John Nagl, Thomas W. Spahr

U.S. Army War College faculty conducted a groundbreaking experiment in February 2026, administering rigorous oral comprehensive exams to four prominent AI models—ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and xAI’s Grok—instead of students. While all models passed, researchers Kevin Boyce and John Nagl discovered a critical flaw: these digital "students" degraded during extended questioning due to technical computing limits, producing repetitive and lazy responses.

As Warfare Evolves Virtual Wargaming Opens Up New Avenues For Militaries

Eurasia Review  |  Kjeld Neubert

Lockheed Martin recently demonstrated ACES, a virtual wargaming platform designed to rapidly test battlefield decisions in a risk-free environment, contrasting with traditional, time-consuming physical exercises. This simulation technology, utilizing Unreal Engine, allows military planners to assess outcomes and refine tactics, as shown in a scenario where Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM) and improved sensing capabilities successfully defeated an amphibious assault.

AXIOMATIC INTELLIGENCE: NOT YOUR ORDINARY AI

U.S. Army War College  |  Timothy A. Price, Jason A. Murray, Dallen R. Arny, Daniel K. Bourke, Zachary T. Ramsey, Jonathan D. McElhaney, William Barry

The U.S. Army faces a growing data overload problem, hindering decision-making on modern battlefields where commanders must absorb and act on torrents of information faster than adversaries. Traditional AI tools, particularly large language models (LLMs), are deemed too unpredictable and unreliable for military planning due to their tendency to generate fabrications, blend doctrine with commentary, and evolve unpredictably.

From Imagery to Targeting: Commercial Satellite Support in War

Lieber Institute for Law & Land Warfare | Raoul Cardellini Leipertz

Commercial Earth Observation (EO) and geospatial intelligence firms now provide near-real-time imagery and analysis during active hostilities, exemplified by MizarVision's dissemination of U.S. force movement imagery in the Iran conflict. The application of international humanitarian law (IHL) to commercial satellite support in modern targeting cycles remains unsettled, prompting firms like Planet and Vantor to implement conflict-specific imagery delays and managed-distribution models.

Escalation by Algorithm, Restraint by Architecture: Pakistan’s Military AI Divergence

Journal of Strategic Security  |  Sajjad Ahmed, Ahmad Nizar Yaakub, Asma Javed

Debates on military artificial intelligence (AI) often focus on great power dynamics, overlooking how middle powers like Pakistan embed restraint into their organizational and technical practices. This article introduces Systems Restrained Realism (SRR), a framework extending defensive realism into the machine age by theorizing restraint as a deliberate doctrinal posture.

Pakistan: The Unfinished War Against Kharjeeyat – OpEd

Eurasia Review  |  Hamza Khan

Pakistan's counter-terrorism efforts, traditionally focused on security operations and kinetic force, face a persistent challenge from "Kharjeeyat," an extremist ideology that fuels violence even after terrorist networks are dismantled. This worldview, akin to the historical Khawarij, justifies violence against the state, society, and other Muslims, a rationale shared by groups like TTP and ISKP in modern South Asia.

Airpower Under the Nuclear Shadow: Lessons from Operation Sindoor for Limited War Doctrine

Small Wars Journal | Muhammad Waqas Haider

The four-day air war between India and Pakistan in May 2025, triggered by India’s May 7 missile strikes on Pakistani territory, represented the most intense air combat between nuclear-armed states in history. Pakistan’s Operation Bunyanum Marsoos demonstrated a sophisticated, integrated Chinese-origin defense architecture, achieving decisive tactical results against advanced Western platforms despite India’s numerical superiority.

How the Dreams and Aspirations of Bangladeshi Students Have Been Crushed

The Diplomat  |  Sangita Gazi

Bangladesh's political climate has significantly impacted the aspirations of its students, particularly concerning their affiliation with the Chhatra League, the student wing of the Awami League. Before October 2024, such affiliations were not considered an offense, and the author argues they should not be treated as one now, implying a retrospective application of new rules.

China and AI-Military Integration: Perspectives, Opportunities, and Challenges

Asia-Pacific Leadership Network  |  Jingdong Yuan

China is strategically pivoting towards military "intelligentisation" (智能化), integrating AI into the PLA to gain a decisive edge against the United States. Driven by mandates from the 20th National Congress of the CPC, Beijing is aggressively modernizing its military from information-guided and network-centric warfare to AI and automation-driven systems.

China Expands Undersea Mapping To Gain Strategic Advantage And Secure Critical Resources – Analysis

Eurasia Review  |  Guillermo Saavedra

China is undertaking an expansive effort to strengthen its position across global oceans through underwater mapping and surveillance, driven by strategic military interests and the search for critical seabed resources. Beijing has deployed a broad network of activities spanning the Pacific, Indian, and Arctic oceans, collecting detailed information on seabed conditions, terrain, and oceanographic patterns.

2028: Two scenarios for global AI leadership

Anthropic

The United States and its allies must secure a lead in AI development over authoritarian governments like the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to prevent unprecedented repression and shifts in global power. Access to advanced computer chips ("compute") is paramount, where American companies currently hold an advantage, maintained by export controls.

The Episodic War

FrameTheGlobeNews 

On June 8, 2026, Israel's air force struck Iran's Karoon Petrochemical Complex, targeting ballistic missile infrastructure, prompting immediate Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps retaliation against Haifa's industrial facilities. This exemplifies an "episodic war," characterized by repeating high-intensity kinetic strikes and fragile pauses, where conflict shifts to economic blockades and proxy attrition.

The Cognitive Dissonance of Donald J Trump

Comment is Freed  |  Lawrence Freedman

Donald Trump, despite his self-proclaimed mastery of deal-making and crisis management, appears "paralysed by indecision" in the ongoing confrontation with Iran. The article contrasts his image as a tough leader, ready to face down villains, with his struggle to conclude a deal, which he perceives as a defeat for himself and the United States.

Ron Paul: We Should Not ‘Integrate’ Our Military With Any Foreign Nation – OpEd

Eurasia Review  |  Ron Paul

Section 224 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) proposes a controversial "United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative" to integrate the Israeli military with the US military, fusing technology, production, and intelligence-sharing across various defense tech areas including AI, quantum, and cyber. This provision would allow US military data to become Israeli military data.

Moscow Tells Baltics NATO Will Not Come to Their Rescue

The Jamestown Foundation  |  Paul Goble

Russian President Vladimir Putin's government is actively propagating a narrative that NATO will not come to the aid of Baltic countries if Moscow attacks them, despite Article 5 commitments. Senior Russian officials, including UN Permanent Representative Vasiliy Nebenza, publicly declare that Baltic support for Ukraine makes them aggressors, nullifying NATO protection.

Israel and Iran flare-up could strengthen Tehran's negotiating hand

BBC  |  Tom Bateman

Israel's tit-for-tat strikes with Iran over the weekend, despite US President Donald Trump's call for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold fire, threatened to thrust the Middle East into another direct confrontation. Israel bombed sites in Iran for the first time since April, after Iran fired missiles at Israel in retaliation for Israeli strikes on Beirut.

Iran Declares End To Strikes On Israel In Credibility Operation – Analysis

Eurasia Review  |  Kian Sharifi

Iran’s military central command announced a halt to its strikes against Israel on June 8, declaring a “painful response” to Israeli strikes on Beirut’s Dahiyeh district. This move, framed as a completed operation with conditions, aimed to preserve Iran's credibility after publicly threatening retaliation for attacks on its Lebanese ally.

Ukraine’s Intermediate-Range Strike Campaign and New Mechanized Attacks Herald the Start of a New Phase of the War

Institute for the Study of War | George Barros

Ukraine is actively challenging the positional character of the war that has dominated the battlefield since late 2023, reintroducing limited elements of mechanized maneuver and achieving an overall drone advantage. This shift, marked by Ukraine's intermediate-range strike campaign and new mechanized attacks, heralds a new phase of the conflict.