Happy Birthday, T-90S: India Celebrates 25 Years with Iconic Russian Tank

Peter Suciu

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The Indian-specific variant, the T-90S “Bhisma,” was initially built in Russia, with the first indigenously-produced tank completed in 2009. Today, more than 1,100 Bhisma tanks are in service with the Indian Army. Beyond enhancing the capabilities of the Indian military, the adoption of the MBTs was described as a “lifesaver for Russian tank manufacturing,” which had struggled throughout the 1990s and early 2000s amid a broader economic downturn.

“Rosoboronexport’s contract for the supply of T-90S tanks to India has become a lifesaver for the Russian tank industry, which in 2001 had a domestic order for only three vehicles. Furthermore, it has provided a major boost to the development of the country’s entire machine-building industry, which today employs over three million people,” Rosoboronexport, a subsidiary of Rostec, the Russian state-owned military-industrial conglomerate, said in a statement to Russian state news agency TASS on Friday.

Singapore: Rootkits, Zero-Day Used in Chinese Attack on Major Telecom Firms

Ionut Arghire

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All four major telecommunications providers in Singapore were targeted last year by a Chinese APT, according to Singapore’s cybersecurity agency CSA and its development agency IMDA.

The attack, initially disclosed in July, was attributed to UNC3886, a cyberespionage group active since at least 2021, which is known for targeting vulnerabilities in Ivanti, Juniper, and VMware products.

“UNC3886 launched a deliberate, targeted, and well-planned campaign against Singapore’s telecommunications sector. All four of Singapore’s major telecommunications operators – M1, SIMBA Telecom, Singtel and StarHub – have been the target of attacks,” CSA says.

As part of the campaign, the agency notes, the APT deployed advanced tools, including a zero-day exploit in a firewall, to access a telco’s network and obtain a small amount of technical data.

UNC3886 was also seen deploying rootkits to evade detection and maintain persistent access to the compromised environments.

Tracking China’s Increased Military Activities in the Indo-Pacific in 2025

Bonny Lin, Brian Hart, Leon Li, Truly Tinsley

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Overall: In 2025, China’s military activity increased in the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea, near Japan, and beyond the First Island Chain, reflecting an overall rise in operational tempo and geographic reach. Of the areas surveyed in this report, the only one to show a decrease in operational tempo is the China-Russia joint exercises. 

Taiwan Strait: In 2025, the PLA conducted a record-breaking level of air and maritime activity around Taiwan, sustaining the higher operational tempo of PLA activities that began following William Lai’s inauguration as Taiwan’s president in May 2024. This led to a marked increase in both average monthly PLA activities as well as a higher baseline of PLA activity. However, there was a minor year-over-year decrease in PLA activities in the latter portions of 2025, likely reflecting a temporary, tactical adjustment on China’s end. In 2025, China also conducted two large-scale military exercises around Taiwan, named Strait Thunder-2025A and Justice Mission 2025. 

The Objective Should Be a Secular and Moderate Iran

Frank Schell

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The Islamic Republic of Iran has been wounded. And now, something has got to give.

President Trump has a historic opportunity to reverse decades of enmity toward “The Great Satan,” and end the exportation of terrorism to Europe, the United States, and Israel through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — known to have provided weapons and training to the defeated Hamas and Hezbollah, and to other proxies in Syria.

Iran has been militarily and politically weakened. Some of Iran’s Russian and indigenously made air defense systems were destroyed by the Israeli Air Force last June, and later that month, American B-2 aircraft successfully struck and destroyed Iranian nuclear infrastructure in Natanz, Fordo, and Isfahan. Iran’s traditional allies, Russia, China, and North Korea, were observers on the sidelines. Moreover, the Islamist regime is afraid of its own people, having recently killed at least 30,000 demonstrators according to estimates appearing in The Guardian and Time, both quoting local health sources. (RELATED: US–Iran Talks Only Lead to Uncertainty)

Bombs, Bad Bunny, & The Biathlon

Richard Haass

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Welcome to Home & Away. Some weeks there is one big thing to write about, others several smaller things. This week falls into the second category. So be prepared for a mezze rather than a main course.

Bomb Bomb Iran?

Israel’s Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu visited the White House this week for his seventh meeting with President Trump since he took office just over a year ago. Netanyahu’s goal this time was reportedly to underscore Israeli concerns with Iran’s ballistic missile program—and to persuade President Trump to do something about it.

It is not clear Trump is on the same page. After the meeting, Trump posted, “There was nothing definitive reached other than I insisted that negotiations with Iran continue to see whether or not a Deal can be consummated.”

The Clash of Civilizations Was an Inside Job

Josef Joffe

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Samuel P. Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order turns 30 this year. The book was a worldwide hit in the late 1990s and has been published in some 30 translations, including in Arabic, Chinese, and Bengali. After 9/11, the first part of the title practically became a household phrase. Huntington had been an eminent political scientist at Harvard, but his 1996 book made him a global celebrity. (I first met him when I was a Ph.D. student at Harvard, and we later became friends.)

The gist of Huntington’s argument: The end of the Cold War did not mark the “end of history,” as the political theorist Francis Fukuyama had argued in a widely discussed article and subsequent book imagining that the collapse of the Soviet empire would virtually end the strife among states of millennia past and that liberal democracy and market economics would now rule.

The Age of Defensive Democracy

Nicholas Bequelin

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Is the world condemned to autocracy?

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s famous justification for asking Congress to declare war on Germany in 1917—“the world must be made safe for democracy”—has long been criticized as having pushed the United States down the slippery slope of internationalism and a century of ill-advised foreign interventions.

Is the world condemned to autocracy?

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s famous justification for asking Congress to declare war on Germany in 1917—“the world must be made safe for democracy”—has long been criticized as having pushed the United States down the slippery slope of internationalism and a century of ill-advised foreign interventions.

Kari Lake is making Trump’s job harder in Iran

Marc A. Thiessen

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She has gutted America’s ability to get good information to the Iranian people in a conflict.

February 13, 2026 Kari Lake, senior adviser for the U.S. Agency for Global Media, leaves a House committee hearing on Capitol Hill on Feb. 10.

If President Donald Trump takes military action in Iran, he will need help from the Iranian people. The U.S. military can decapitate the regime from the air. But what happens on the ground will be up to Iranians, who bravely took to the streets this winter to demand their freedom — and are now waiting for the bombing to return and finish the job.

Pentagon's use of Claude during Maduro raid sparks Anthropic feud

Dave Lawler, Maria Curi

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The U.S. military used Anthropic's Claude AI model during the operation to capture Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro, two sources with knowledge of the situation told Axios.Now, the blowback may threaten the company's business with the Pentagon. The latest: After reports on the use of Claude in the raid, a senior administration official told Axios that the Pentagon would be reevaluating its partnership with Anthropic.

"Anthropic asked whether their software was used for the raid to capture Maduro, which caused real concerns across the Department of War indicating that they might not approve if it was," the official said.

"Any company that would jeopardize the operational success of our warfighters in the field is one we need to reevaluate our partnership with going forward."

An Anthropic spokesperson denied that: "Anthropic has not discussed the use of Claude for specific operations with the Department of War. We have also not discussed this with any industry partners, including Palantir, outside of routine discussions on strictly technical matters."

World's rules-based order 'no longer exists', Germany's Merz warns

Jaroslav Lukiv

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The rules-based world order "no longer exists", the German Chancellor has warned at a major security summit. Opening the annual Munich Security Conference, Friedrich Merz told other world leaders that "our freedom is not guaranteed" in an era of big power politics, and that Europeans must be ready to make "sacrifice".

He also admitted that "a deep divide has opened between Europe and the United States".

The conference is taking place on the backdrop of US President Donald Trump threatening Denmark's sovereignty over Greenland by pledging to annex the Arctic territory and his tariffs on imports from European nations. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was listening to Merz and will deliver his own speech on Saturday, earlier spoke of a "new era in geopolitics".

Trump takes victory lap after biggest climate rollback yet

Daniel Bush

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US President Donald Trump framed his sweeping rollback of federal climate change policy on Thursday as a political win over the Democratic Party's "radical" environmental agenda, reprising a message Republicans have used in past elections and could turn to once again ahead of November's crucial midterms. His announcement at the White House was one of the most significant moves of his second term in office. The president said he was revoking an Obama-era "endangerment finding" from 2009 which held that pollution harms public health and the environment.

For almost 17 years, the US has used that scientific finding as the legal basis to establish policies to reduce emissions from cars, power plants and other sources of planet-warming gases. "This radical rule became the legal foundation for the Green New Scam," Trump said, using a term popular with Republicans for describing Democratic environmental and climate policies.

Could the US win a war with a near-peer adversary today?

Dennis Laich

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“One should never assert a power that he cannot exert,” said British statesman and wordsmith Winston Churchill. My hometown football coach expressed a similar thought: “The man with an alligator mouth and a hummingbird ass” would get more than his share of whippings.

The U.S. military today has a hummingbird’s ass. Despite decades of sky-high military spending, our force is incapable of defeating a peer or near-peer adversary in today’s complex, dangerous world. If we continue on our alligator-mouth-sized trajectory, the consequences will be catastrophic.

The gap is apparent in three critical requirements to win a war: manpower, material, and money. We cannot generate sufficient forces or replace material losses at scale, and we are $38 trillion in debt, with $1 trillion annual budget deficits projected ad infinitum.

Putin’s next move? Five Russian attack scenarios Europe must prepare for

Richard D. Hooker, Jr.

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The accession of Sweden and Finland as NATO’s newest members has fundamentally altered Russia’s security calculations in the Baltic and Nordic region. Should the war in Ukraine evolve into a prolonged frozen conflict, Russia will rearm its military in pursuit of Vladimir Putin’s imperial ambitions. He will seek opportunities to rebuild Russian prestige and recover former or disputed territories, improve Russia’s strategic posture, and test NATO’s resolve in Article 5 scenarios in which he assesses the chance of a robust Alliance response is low, or the chances of success at acceptable cost are high. As one expert notes, “Russia wants to expand its military and political opportunities in the face of the West and considers a direct clash with the West highly probable, if not unavoidable.”1

The potential rewards for continued and successful Russian aggression in Europe include enhanced prestige for Putin’s regime, an improved geostrategic position along Russia’s periphery, delivery of a damaging and perhaps fatal blow to NATO, and the severing of the transatlantic link—all of which are powerful incentives. To deter future Russian aggression, NATO should identify and address these challenges now with concrete solutions. If Putin succeeds in such tests the lack of an effective response could well fracture NATO, fundamentally altering the transatlantic security environment.2

Future of China-US ties rests on Washington’s will, Wang Yi says in Munich

Fan Chen

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Wang said China sought to find the right way for the two major countries to get along well through dialogue and consultation, and would continue on this path in the interest “of our own peoples” and in line with the expectations of the international community.

“But whether we can achieve that goal ultimately depends on the United States,” he said.

What are Trump’s motivations for wanting the US to take over Greenland?

What are Trump’s motivations for wanting the US to take over Greenland?

He said China was encouraged that US President Donald Trump had shown respect for President Xi Jinping and the Chinese people. “He has stressed that the US and China working together can get a lot of great things done, and the two presidents can make the fantastic relationship between the United States and China even better,” Wang said.

The technology to safely stop drones already exists. The U.S. government is buying it from us.

Jon Gruen

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The troubling episode involving the skies over El Paso is what happens when you use the wrong tools for the job. Last week, the FAA shut down airspace over El Paso for seven hours after a high-energy laser system designed for combat environments was fired at what were believed to be cartel drones near a commercial airport. The targets were later reported to be party balloons.

That detail isn’t a punchline – it’s a symptom. The operators couldn’t tell the difference between a threat and a party decoration because they were likely using the wrong detection tools. And when they decided to act, they reached for the wrong mitigation tool – a directed-energy weapon designed for battlefields, not civilian airspace. There is a better way to defend against drone threats in environments like this. The technology to safely stop small drones already exists, and the federal government is buying it from us.

Rubio’s speech to European allies takes a softer tone but sticks to Trump’s firm stance

MATTHEW LEE, EMMA BURROWS AND GEIR MOULSON

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MUNICH (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a reassuring message to America’s allies on Saturday, striking a less aggressive but still firm tone about the administration’s intent to reshape the trans-Atlantic alliance and push its priorities after more than a year of President Donald Trump’s often-hostile rhetoric toward traditional allies.

Reminding his audience at the annual Munich Security Conference about America’s centuries-long roots in Europe, Rubio said the United States would remain forever tied to the continent even as it pushes for changes in the relationship and the institutions that have been the bulwark of the post-World War II world order.

Rubio addressed the conference a year after Vice President JD Vance stunned the same audience with a harsh critique of European values. A series of Trump administration statements and moves targeting allies followed, including Trump’s short-lived threat last month to impose new tariffs on several European countries in a bid to secure U.S. control of Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark.

Harnessing the People: Mapping Overseas United Front Work in Democratic States

Cheryl Yu

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Executive Summary: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has created a global network of individuals and organizations as part of its united front system. In four democratic states—the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany—this network includes more than 2,000 organizations. These constitute latent capacity that the Party can mobilize to advance the Party’s agenda.

Beijing’s network is the product of protracted co-optation of existing civil society organizations overseas and the global expansion of domestic united front elements. The Party has spent decades assiduously cultivating overseas Chinese community organizations, co-opting local leaders and institutions to embed its preferences within civil society. Even groups that previously spent decades supporting the Republic of China (Taiwan) now fly the flag of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

No time to lose: Liberal democracies can win the cognitive and hybrid war against authoritarians

Sasha Havlicek, David Salvo and Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven

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Authoritarian regimes’ use of hybrid warfare has increased precipitously over the past decade. A recent ISD report reveals the range of hybrid attacks experienced across all 27 member states of the EU since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022 – from cyber and information operations to political and societal subversion, to kinetic operations like sabotage, arson and targeted killings.

While government response remains largely reactive and siloed across different departments and ministries, the overarching purpose of these seemingly isolated hybrid attacks is unified. The ultimate aim – the design of every drone incursion, ransomware attack or deepfake – is to prey on citizens’ psyches bit by bit. This contributes to the broader strategy of undermining trust in democratic institutions, political parties and governance, dividing liberal societies and weakening the international institutions undergirding the post-Cold War international order (EU, NATO etc.).

Atlantic Chokepoint, Cognitive Front: Russian Influence Operations and the GIUK Gap

Rachel Butler

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Russia is increasingly deploying information influence operations to target independence movements in Greenland and Scotland as part of a broader effort to weaken NATO’s strategic posture in the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) gap. These multi-layered operations are characterized by their adaptability and deniability, making them both difficult to detect and combat. Their covert nature allows Russia to plausibly deny involvement, making it a persistent challenge to establish direct links to official Russian institutions, which allows for continued interference without clear accountability. Evaluating these operations offers policy and decision‑makers actionable insights for confronting Russia’s information influence campaigns and developing strategies to safeguard national security, build population resilience, and ensure nuclear stability.

“Zone of Peace”

In 1987, Mikhail Gorbachev described the Arctic as a “zone of peace,” underscoring the region’s spirit of cooperation amid global power competition. Challenges such as climate change and the harsh Arctic environment have promoted a collaborative spirit, exemplified by the Arctic Council. Established in 1996, the Council places special emphasis on protecting the Arctic environment and promoting sustainable development. The Council’s role in fostering cooperation between Russia and NATO countries is particularly noteworthy, given the Cold War tensions and recent military buildup in the region.

US withdraws newly updated list of firms allegedly aiding China's military

Michael Martina and Alexandra Alper

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WASHINGTON, Feb 13 (Reuters) - The United States withdrew an updated list of Chinese firms allegedly aiding Beijing's military shortly after it was posted on Friday with the addition of some of China's biggest tech companies, including Alibaba (9988.HK), opens new tab and Baidu .

The document, which was posted for about an hour, also had removed China's top memory chipmakers CXMT and YMTC from the list, drawing fire from China hawks in Washington who fear the growing chipmaking expertise of these companies could help supercharge China's military.

"We would like to remove this notice from public inspection and withdraw the notice from publication in the Federal Register," a Pentagon letter to the Federal Register, the official journal of the U.S. government, said without specifying a reason.

The Pentagon and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"Hopefully, (the Pentagon) pulled the document because removing CXMT and YMTC was an error," said Chris McGuire, a former White House National Security Council official under President Joe Biden, who said that would only make sense, given the addition to the list of many other companies critical to the Chinese AI stack, like Alibaba and Baidu.

What We Lost When We Lost U.S.A.I.D.

Jeremy Konyndyk

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Last February, Elon Musk boasted of “feeding USAID into the woodchipper” as President Trump kicked off his second term with an unanticipated assault on the agency. A year later, the brutal fallout is coming into focus. Humanitarian aid last year reached 25 million fewer people than in 2024, despite rising global need. More than 2,000 health clinics have closed in crisis zones around the world. Global food aid funding dropped by 40 percent from 2024 to 2025. Millions of people have lost access to critical H.I.V. treatment and testing.

This damage is severe on its own merits. But it also previewed something larger about America’s engagement with the world under an “America first” foreign policy. An administration that began its tenure by abandoning aid recipients has proceeded to alienate treaty allies over Greenland and launch legally dubious military strikes. In retrospect, U.S.A.I.D.’s early demise looks like a canary in the geopolitical coal mine, heralding a dark shift in America’s values.

Elon Musk’s $1.25 Trillion Mirage

YANIS VAROUFAKIS

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ATHENS – The recent merger of SpaceX and xAI, a financial spectacle greeted with celebratory yelps from the usual quarters, is a sight for sore eyes. More accurately, it is a sight for eyes still sore from what they witnessed 25 or so years ago, when Wall Street’s perfection of the dark art of corporate mergers sent phoney valuations into the stratosphere, before they crashed back to Earth. As Elon Musk cashes in, we are left staring at a perennial flaw of modern capitalism: a market forever eager to buy its own illusions.

Like all large-scale swindles, this one comes complete with a pseudo-scientific cloak: the touching faith that a company’s share price is the best indicator of its underlying value – a rational predictor of its future wealth, health, and profitability. The fact that the creative calculus behind the $1.25 trillion valuation of SpaceX-xAI went unchallenged can be explained in two words: motivated irrationality.

Why Wargaming Matters In An Age Of Hybrid Conflict And Artificial Intelligence

Mohammed Hassai

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States define and pursue their national interests. Inevitably, these interests collide with those of competing states, generating economic, political, and social tensions that can escalate into direct or indirect military confrontation through alliances and proxy arrangements.

Strategic management of national interests therefore requires a framework capable of producing sound courses of action under uncertainty. At the core of such a framework lies wargaming. It should not be confined to military simulation alone.

War is a multidimensional phenomenon that affects political systems, economic stability, social cohesion, and technological development. Consequently, serious national strategy demands multidimensional wargaming capable of refining decision cycles and increasing the probability of strategic success.

Are lasers the future of anti-drone warfare?

Tom Cassauwers

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A drone appears on the grainy, gray-scaled image of the thermal camera. This is the type of drone used by groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and the Yemeni Houthis. Suddenly, a blinding whiteness overtakes the image. Seconds later, the wing of the drone snaps off, sending it tumbling down, exploding when it hits the ground.

This is a video shared by the Israeli Ministry of Defence and arms producer Rafael, a hint towards the future of anti-drone warfare. In it, they are demonstrating one of their new weapons: a high-energy laser designed to take down aerial threats such as drones, but also rockets and even artillery shells. It’s called Iron Beam. Israel claims they have shot down several enemy drones with it already.

AI on the battlefield: US used Anthropic's Claude in Maduro operation

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AI on the battlefield: US used Anthropic's Claude in Maduro operation

There are moments when technology quietly crosses a line. This appears to be one of them. Anthropic's artificial intelligence model, Claude, a system largely known for drafting emails, analysing documents and answering questions, was used in a US military operation aimed at capturing former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, according to people familiar with the matter. The mission, carried out last month, involved bombing several sites in Caracas and targeted Maduro and his wife.

The details of how Claude was used remain unclear. Neither operational specifics nor the exact role played by the AI system have been disclosed. But the mere fact that a commercial AI model found its way into a live military operation marks a shift that is hard to ignore.

What Bangladesh’s New Leader Tarique Rahman Means for South Asia and the World

Charlie Campbell

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Tarique Rahman had spent 17 years in exile before returning to Bangladesh on Christmas Day. Just seven weeks later, he looks set to become the South Asian nation’s new Prime Minister.

Polling indicates that Rahman’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is set to win an outright majority of around 185 seats in the 300-member legislature in Thursday’s general election, which is the first since the ouster of autocratic former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Aug. 5, 2024.

TIME sat down with Rahman in early January as he laid out his plans for rebooting South Asia’s second biggest economy and healing social divisions. Asked what his first priorities would be, Rahman replied: “ensuring rule of law. The second one is to bring back financial discipline. The third will be to try to unify the country. Whatever political programs we have, whatever policies we take, if we cannot unify the country, it won’t be possible to take the country forward.”

From safety to impact: what India’s AI summit signals about global governance

Dongyoun Cho

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The India AI Impact Summit on 16–20 February 2026 marks a turning point in the global debate on artificial intelligence (AI) governance. This is not simply because it elevates India to a more central role in global AI governance, but because it crystallises a strategic choice the country is making. Rather than advancing another set of high-level principles on AI safety or ethics, India is prioritising deployment, diffusion and measurable impact as central questions of AI governance.

AI has major implications for productivity growth, labour markets, energy demand and state capacity. Governance frameworks that mature more slowly than deployment risk becoming irrelevant, regardless of their normative ambition. What is increasingly decisive, as India’s approach makes explicit, is whether states possess the institutional capacity to absorb AI into civilian and public systems before technological diffusion outpaces regulatory adaptation.

The Sino-India Relationship and the Future of Asia: A European Perspective

Jan Luykx

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In the context of the recent global geopolitical flux, it would be useful to give a European perspective on the evolving relationship between India and China and its broader implications for Asia’s future. Drawing from recent developments and historical context, this policy brief explores the complexities of their bilateral ties, regional dynamics, and the roles of external actors, including the European Union.

Current State of the Sino-Indian Relationship

Although India and China in 2005, declared that they established a strategic relationship, it is definitely a misnomer to describe their ties as such. Of course, the early 21st century witnessed a surge in strategic partnerships globally—such as the EU-India and EU-China relationships—fuelled by an optimistic era of globalization. The 2005 agreement was a culmination of a process initiated in 1988 with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to Beijing, following decades of strained relations since the 1962 war. Subsequent bilateral agreements, particularly in the 1990s, aimed, inter alia, to ensure that border issues would not hinder broader cooperation in other domains. This resulted, amongst others, in significant growth in bilateral trade.

Infrastructure of Insecurity: Deterring Maritime Incidents in the Malacca Straits

Azifah Astrina

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The Straits of Malacca and Singapore (SOMS) are among the world’s most intensively monitored maritime corridors, yet low-level maritime crime persists. Despite sustained investment in patrols, surveillance systems and regional cooperation, incidents of piracy and armed robbery continue to cluster around specific choke points, anchorages and traffic separation schemes. This report focuses on criminality at sea rather than strategic competition between states, recognising that each operates according to distinct logics and policy tools.

Deterrence in the SOMS is spatially uneven and highly localised. Maritime security infrastructure is deliberately concentrated in high-risk, high-value corridors, producing overlapping zones where enforcement presence and criminal opportunity coexist. Incident clustering near security posts does not indicate deterrence failure, but reflects choke-point geography, infrastructure placement and offender adaptation.

Xi Jinping Is Losing Control of China’s Military

Gordon G. Chang

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“The fact that Xi Jinping has been able to cashier so many [People's Liberation Army] elites since he assumed power...is a clear sign his position in the regime is unassailable,” James Char of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore told CNN last month, just after Xi’s removal of two senior generals from important command posts. The news outlet summarized the almost unanimous view of analysts: “Xi Has Absolute Control Over China’s Military.”

But the narrative that Xi controls the military is almost certainly wrong. The purges, taken by almost all as proof of Xi’s power, in fact show the opposite.

On the 24th of last month, China’s Ministry of National Defense, in a 30-second video, announced that two generals sitting on the Communist Party's Central Military Commission, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, were placed under investigation.

Why Iran is Building a Digital Cage It Can’t Afford

Calla O'Neil

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Summary and Key Points: The January 2026 internet blackout in Iran, following protests that erupted on December 28, has exposed the deep failures of the National Information Network (NIN).

-Despite two decades of development, the NIN remains only 60% operational, forcing the regime to cut all global connectivity for 92 million citizens to suppress dissent.

-This digital isolation carries a staggering daily cost of $36 million, crippling e-commerce and banking.

-Meanwhile, Tehran is escalating its war on Starlink with military-grade jammers, proving that internal “intranets” cannot replace global access.

-The strategy emphasizes a regime prioritizing total control over economic survival.

Iran’s Divided Opposition

Sanam Vakil and Alex Vatanka

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Whenever Iran is shaken by nationwide protests, as it was just last month, analysts and activists are consumed by the same two questions: Will the country’s regime finally fall, and what will come next if it does? Answers abound. Some analysts think that the country’s leadership is surprisingly secure and that the regime can withstand more demonstrations. Some believe it will collapse, only to be followed by another dictatorship under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the most politically powerful branch of the country’s armed forces. Others are more optimistic, arguing that the entire system will go down

Deathonomics: The Social, Political, and Economic Costs of War in Russia

Vladislav INOZEMTSEV

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The rise of deathonomics has led to some profound changes in both the Russian economy and society. The prospect of enormous earnings attracted to the army ranks, en masse, residents of underdeveloped regions, those lacking permanent employment, indebted people, as well as criminal and pauperized elements, who were also attracted by the promise of having their criminal records expunged. As a result, the Kremlin has started to purchase the lives of Russians who possessed virtually no economic value—paying more than these people might expect to earn right up to their prospective retirement. In addition to injecting considerable funds into the economy, this policy led to a sharp rise in wages in most sectors, supporting consumer demand. The enormous number of deaths, resulting from individuals’ free choice, failed to provoke a public outcry, allowing the authorities to portray a readiness to die at the call of the state as an important social value inherent in Russians. This trend has reinforced the glorification of militarism and entrenched the Kremlin’s new cult of sacrifice.

Deathonomics is depicted not only as an important element of the new Russian economic system that has emerged since the start of the war, but also as a tool legitimizing the arbitrary use of legal norms inherent to Putin’s regime and a means of incorporating numerous elements of criminal culture into a broader social and political fabric. The “monetization of life”, which serves as its core principle, expands the standards of acceptable behavior and almost certainly will significantly affect Russians’ lifestyle and worldview for many years to come. The report places particular emphasis on assessing the quantitative impact of deathonomics on economic developments in Russia, and also offers answers to questions about whether such a practice can support Russian militarism and retain its significance even after Putin’s aggressive war in Ukraine terminates.

After Erdogan: Who Will Control Turkey?

Sinan Ciddi

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It’s the strongman’s dilemma. When one leaves power — one way or another — does one pave the way for a successor? With an aging leader, Turkey may have to face that question sooner rather than later.

There is no official confirmation, but sources allege that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 71, is in poor health. This is now common knowledge. Pro-government media and official “counter-disinformation agencies” have nevertheless branded the reports of poor health as “insults” to the president. And in Erdogan’s Turkey, insults are punished with jail time.1

This is not the first time Turkish media have called attention to the longtime leader’s well-being. During the hotly contested 2023 presidential campaign, Erdogan fell ill during a live-broadcast interview and later missed several planned public appearances due to what he deemed “serious stomach flu.”2 Rumors swirled about more serious conditions.

One battle after another: Factional struggles and the making of Trump’s foreign policy

Majda Ruge

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It seems winning the inaugural FIFA peace prize was not enough for Donald Trump. Having kicked off this world cup year with a regime decapitation in Venezuela, the US president swiftly refocused on his old goal to “acquire” Greenland. He also found the time to threaten Iran’s leaders with the “Maduro treatment”, and he did not spare America’s world cup co-hosts either: Canada was treated to tariff threats and Mexico those of the military variety. In early February, the boss of global football’s governing body, Gianni Infantino, was asked whether, in hindsight, his peace prize might not have gone to the right person. His response was, “objectively, he deserves it.”

January left European leaders reeling. They had spent the first year of Trump’s second term belatedly coming to terms with the prospect of “defending Europe with less America”. Now, they were confronted with an imperialist US and the possibility of defending Europe against America. The days of Trump’s campaign promises to put “America First” with a “president of peace” at the helm seem like a lifetime ago. The purging and sidelining of the traditional Republican foreign policy hawks (“primacists”) from the second term cabinet does not seem to have had much impact on its ideological direction. “Restrainers”, who want US policy to focus on the homeland, have not prevailed in their stead; nor have “prioritisers”, who think the focus should be the Indo-Pacific. The much-delayed publication of America’s national security strategy in December and national defence strategy in January only added to the confusion.