Pakistan's governance of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) since 1947 has been marked by structural failure and neglect, despite the region's population having acceded to Pakistan voluntarily on November 1, 1947, by ending Dogra rule. India, however, claims GB as its territory, viewing it as illegally occupied and strategically vital for disrupting the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and altering regional balance.
Sri Lanka's emerging leaders face the complex task of addressing domestic challenges amidst rising international pressure from U.S.-China competition. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, elected in September 2024 on a reform platform, and his National People’s Power (NPP) government are becoming unpopular due to renewed shortages and corruption scandals, threatening a return to street protests similar to the 2022 Aragalaya movement.
James Holmes, a Naval War College strategy professor, challenges the notion that the United States and China are destined for war due to the Thucydides Trap, emphasizing that historical outcomes are determined by leaders' decisions, not inevitability. He critiques the misapplication of historical lessons, citing Barbara Tuchman’s _The Guns of August_ and the origins of World War I, where political choices, not external forces, drove conflict.
Collaborating with China on space sector research presents significant risks, often yielding asymmetric outcomes where financing is conditional on Chinese vendors and intellectual property rights, export rights, and data-access provisions favor Chinese entities. Telemetry, tracking, and command or data processing may be routed through Chinese state-operated facilities, increasing risks of espionage, technology theft, financial debt, and manipulation of space systems.
China's maritime coercion in the South China Sea, characterized by water cannons and rammings by its coast guard and maritime militia, follows a rational, incremental logic that avoids triggering the U.S.–Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty. This pattern, which imposes costs on the Philippines and erodes its control, creates an equilibrium favoring Beijing.
The U.S. Tech PATH Act highlights the urgent need for the United States and its allies to establish trusted digital infrastructure before Chinese technology defaults, especially their AI model ecosystems, become entrenched. Artificial intelligence increasingly interfaces people and data, shaping critical decision environments. Chinese-governed systems, even subtly, can implicitly frame how institutions interpret their own data, becoming trusted ground truth without overt user awareness.
The CSIS Commission on U.S. Cyber Force Generation convened senior defense, technology, and national security experts over 10 months to ex
A new report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies proposes an independent U.S. Cyber Force staffed exclusively by commissioned and warrant officers. This blueprint, published Wednesday, aims to develop highly technical skillsets for digital conflict and avoid issues encountered during the Space Force's 2019 launch.
The United States risks Cuba's current crisis escalating into a regional problem without a clear strategy. CIA Director John Ratcliffe's May 14 visit to Havana was followed by a Justice Department indictment on May 20, charging former Cuban President Raúl Castro and five co-defendants for the 1996 shootdown of two civilian aircraft.
The "Nakhba" or "catastrophe" narrative, coupled with its settler colonial corollary, dominates frameworks attacking Israel, aiming to demonize it and undermine its legitimacy as a sovereign Jewish state. This narrative, the author argues, selectively and incorrectly uses Jewish history, hindering conflict resolution. Historically, Jews have an unbroken 3,000-year record in the Middle East, with the majority residing there for over 95% of Jewish history.
Israel's international isolation is rapidly intensifying, evidenced by protests and boycotts from Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands, Iceland, and Slovenia at Eurovision, and an ICC arrest warrant sought for Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. France and Poland also barred National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. This deepening isolation is reflected in polls, social media, and a global perception of Israel linked to occupation and Palestinian suffering, eroding traditional bipartisan support in Washington and cordial European relations.
Ukraine opened an online portal in March 2026, providing allied governments and defense companies direct access to over two million hours of combat drone footage, equivalent to 228 years, with more than five terabytes added daily. Kyiv's motivation is to share this extensive data with allies to help them develop superior autonomous weapons, thereby receiving smarter, faster AI tools for its front lines against Russia.
The United Arab Emirates' (UAE) decision to exit the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) reflects years of escalating tensions, structural shifts in the oil market, and diverging political and commercial interests among members. This withdrawal, though initially surprising, was foreshadowed by the UAE's growing dissatisfaction with production quotas and its rapidly expanding output capability, driven by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) investments.
Anthropic is expanding its exclusive Mythos AI programme to over 15 countries, including India, alongside a wider rollout of Project Glasswing, granting selected organizations access to powerful AI tools for cybersecurity. This move marks the first major push beyond the US and UK, adding approximately 150 new organizations to the program, totaling around 200 participants across sectors like financial services, technology, and critical infrastructure.
On March 1, three Amazon Web Services data centers in the Gulf were targeted by drone strikes amid Middle East hostilities, marking the first documented military targeting of commercial data centers. This event underscores the critical role of data centers and computing power in enabling AI-driven military capabilities and the growing responsibility of private technology actors in modern warfare.
The U.S. military's war with Iran, initiated by President Donald Trump, has unexpectedly become a protracted conflict of attrition, defying initial predictions of a quick victory. This "marathon" has exposed critical vulnerabilities, including severe munitions shortages, particularly for precision-strike missiles and THAAD interceptors, which will take years to replenish.
The Pentagon is developing autonomous systems like drones and uncrewed vessels on a cryptographic foundation vulnerable to future quantum computers, posing an immediate "harvest now, decrypt later" threat where adversaries can store encrypted data today for retroactive decryption by the 2030s. This is particularly critical for autonomous weapons, as compromised cryptography not only exposes secrets but also dissolves the chain of authority, potentially allowing adversaries to forge authentication and issue orders to hijacked systems.
The Russian war against Ukraine demonstrates that tactical effectiveness, even when sustained, does not automatically translate into operational or strategic advantage, highlighting the critical need for operational-level maneuver. Contemporary battlefields, characterized by advanced defensive systems like mines, sensors, electronic warfare, integrated air defenses, precision fires, AI, and UAVs, favor attrition and negate traditional offensive advantages.
The United States is facing a new intelligence challenge where commercially available data, when aggregated and processed at scale, generates intelligence effects traditionally associated with classified collection. This shift means adversaries can assemble targeting pictures without accessing classified systems, using commercial satellite imagery, aircraft tracking, and maritime feeds.
The proliferation of conflicts since 2022, notably in Ukraine, Gaza, and the Red Sea, has accelerated the emergence of hyperwarfare, integrating AI and digital platforms. Cognitive warfare, a new strategic frontier, extends traditional information operations by targeting perceptions, emotions, beliefs, and political judgment to shape conflict interpretation. Amplified by generative AI and social networks, it transforms public opinion into battlegrounds, using fabricated content and algorithmic manipulation to create influential cognitive environments.
In April 2026, U.S. actions targeting vessels linked to Iranian ports disrupted flows through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical energy chokepoint for one-fifth of global oil supply. This disruption, despite lacking full blockade or decisive military victory, immediately triggered global responses, including European warnings of aviation fuel shortages and India's accelerated efforts for alternative supplies.
The Trump administration's war with Iran, initiated with strikes in June 2025 and February 2026, has largely failed to achieve its stated objectives, exposing the limits of military force. Iran's nuclear program remains broadly unchanged, its leverage over the Strait of Hormuz has grown, and its missile arsenal is largely intact, with U.S.
The modern AI race between the United States and China is the most dangerous arms race in history, according to Niall Ferguson, mirroring the nuclear brinkmanship of the 20th century and lacking necessary strategic doctrine and arms control. This rapid, largely unregulated growth of artificial intelligence carries profound geopolitical risks, despite promises of medical breakthroughs and unprecedented economic growth.
Iran's rulers rejected a US-brokered ceasefire extension on June 3, 2026, which had been granted April 8 in exchange for free transit through the Strait of Hormuz, a promise they immediately broke. Citing Israeli strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran also threatened to resume Houthi attacks on ships in the Bab el-Mandeb.
President Trump has maneuvered the United States into a classic security dilemma regarding Iran, with a proposed interim Memorandum of Understanding set to end blockades and open the Strait of Hormuz. While this temporary agreement aims to reduce fuel prices and address mid-term election concerns, its finalization in its current form is deemed a colossal strategic mistake.
Pakistan-facilitated narcotics trafficking into India constitutes a deliberate grey-zone strategy, blending profit with subversion and demanding greater US attention. Drug proceeds fund anti-India Salafi-Jihadist groups, erode social stability, and sustain transnational networks, undermining Indo-US strategic convergence. India's Narcotics Control Bureau reported drone-related trafficking cases along the India-Pakistan border skyrocketed from three in 2021 to 179 in 2024, with 163 incidents in Punjab.
Bangladesh experienced a political vacuum following Sheikh Hasina’s government fall on August 5, 2024, due to a mass student uprising, which Jamaat-e-Islami swiftly filled. The previously banned party re-emerged, immediately attacking the nation's constitutional secularism. The interim government's Constitution Reform Commission recommended removing secularism, socialism, and nationalism, proposing "equality, human dignity, social justice and pluralism" instead, with Jamaat pushing for further dilution.
China is pursuing its interests in the Indo-Pacific through a long-term strategy of gradually shifting the regional status quo, rather than immediate displacement of the United States. This approach involves naval modernisation, grey-zone tactics, and a multi-force coercion toolkit to normalize its presence. Beijing's campaign includes increased military activity, frequent resupply and medical visits to regional ports, regular presence of surveillance ships, and integrating naval functions into dual-use logistics facilities, alongside a larger role for the China Coast Guard.
China's military analysts, observing America's decisive Desert Storm victory, concluded they could not compete directly, instead developing a "systems confrontation" strategy to exploit U.S. warfighting vulnerabilities. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) views an army as a living network, targeting its seams across contested littorals, orbital space, information environments, public opinion, and legal domains.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers warned that adversaries' ability to use commercial smartphone location data to find and target U.S. troops in the Middle East constitutes a “five-alarm fire” demanding immediate action. In a letter to Defense Department CIO Kirsten A. Davies, 14 members of Congress urged the DoD to address “ubiquitous technical surveillance” (UTS), or “digital exhaust,” which includes location data easily purchased from data brokers.
The CSIS Commission on U.S. Cyber Force Generation convened senior defense, technology, and national security experts over 10 months to examine how the United States can best organize and sustain a dedicated cyber service. Facing increasing cyber threats in scale and sophistication, the commission evaluated critical structural, operational, and workforce challenges within the current cyber ecosystem, specifically addressing talent shortages, fragmented authorities, and barriers to readiness.
Armenia, following two military defeats and the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023, is pursuing a peace agreement with Azerbaijan and diversifying its foreign policy beyond Russia. This aims to normalize relations for the first time since the Soviet Union's collapse, transforming the South Caucasus into a transit hub.
Russian intelligence services are actively leveraging dating applications, including Tinder, as operational terrain to recruit assets, gather information, and spread propaganda against Ukrainian and Western military personnel since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. These platforms provide hostile actors with target profiles, location data, and direct access to emotionally vulnerable individuals, facilitating recruitment through fake profiles, impersonation, and subsequent blackmail or tasking for sabotage, as documented by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence and SBU.
Israel faces a profoundly weak strategic position, being only 9 to 71 miles wide, which denies it defensive depth and time to recover from attacks. This geographical vulnerability necessitates a military doctrine focused on pre-emptive combat and early defeat of enemies, requiring the Israel Defense Forces to maintain significant power superiority.
Vladimir Putin remains uncompromising on Ukraine, asserting Russia's war aims are being met despite the conflict entering its fifth year as a bloody war of attrition. Russia continues massive missile and drone strikes, demanding Ukraine cede the entire Donbas region, and escalating attacks in response to challenges like a growing budget deficit and economic stagnation.