Chinese military simulated battles near Mexico, Cuba and Taiwan, CCTV report shows

Liu Zhen

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The Chinese military has simulated battles near Mexico and Cuba during a wargaming exercise – a rare insight revealed in a report on state television.

Cuba, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, along with the Sea of Okhotsk and Taiwan, were among the locations of conflict scenarios visible on screens in a CCTV report on Friday showing People’s Liberation Army wargaming exercises.

Despite closer economic ties with countries in the region, China has a minimal military presence in Latin America. But the fact that the PLA is modelling potential conflicts there suggests a shift in the Chinese military’s global ambitions.

One screen in the report showed red and blue opposing unit “indicators” – represented by aircraft and ships – manoeuvring near the coasts of Cuba and Mexico. Some of the blue side congregated near Houston, Texas, and headed southeast into the Gulf of Mexico, while the red side was seen in the Caribbean Sea.

In a typical PLA drill, the red side usually represents the Chinese military while the blue side is the enemy.

China may see full attack as best unification option: Pentagon

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Washington, Dec. 24 (CNA) Beijing could eventually see a full amphibious invasion of Taiwan as the only "prudent" way to bring about unification, the United States Department of Defense said in a newly released annual report to Congress.

The Pentagon's "Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2025," was in many ways similar to the 2024 report but reorganized the analysis of the options China has to take over Taiwan.

Generally, according to the report, Chinese leaders view the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) capabilities for a Taiwan campaign as improving, but they remain uncertain about its readiness to successfully seize the island while countering potential U.S. involvement.

The report said Beijing is busy refining several military options to force unification with Taiwan, ranging from coercive actions short of war to a full-scale joint island landing campaign (JILC).

A landing campaign involving a large-scale amphibious invasion of Taiwan would be the most decisive and riskiest option, the report said.

It would require highly complex, coordinated operations to "break through Taiwan's shore defenses and establish a beachhead that allowed the PLA to build up enough combat power to seize key targets or territory to force unification," the report said.

Analysis: China Adapts Russia-Ukraine War Lessons to Shape Taiwan Invasion Planning.

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A December 2025 U.S. Department of War assessment concludes that China’s military now expects a prolonged, high-intensity conflict over Taiwan rather than a rapid invasion. The shift reflects lessons drawn from Russia’s struggles in Ukraine, reshaping PLA planning around joint operations, logistics, and urban warfare while seeking to delay U.S. intervention.

China has drawn key lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war that it now applies to a potential Taiwan conflict, according to a December 2025 report by the U.S. Department of War. After analyzing Russia’s failures in logistics, joint operations, and urban combat, the PLA has shifted from expecting a quick invasion to preparing for a prolonged, high-intensity campaign focused on sustained logistics, joint force integration, and information warfare. Based on this, Army Recognition assesses that a likely Chinese invasion would begin with cyber and missile strikes to paralyze Taiwan’s defenses, followed by amphibious and airborne assaults, and end with intense urban combat to seize key population centers.

China: An Ally Waiting for Russia’s Defeat?

Sergey E. Ivashchenko

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From the first months of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia tried to present China as a strategic partner, capable of supporting it on the international arena. However, Beijing chose a more cautious line of behavior. Chinese statements about the necessity of negotiations and peaceful settlement sound regularly, but they remain declarative. Beijing is careful to avoid concrete steps that could turn it into a full-fledged mediator.

The reasons for such caution are obvious. First, China strives to preserve the image of a global power, capable of influencing conflicts, but does not want to take upon itself responsibility for their outcome. Second, direct interference in the negotiation process would put Beijing in an uncomfortable position: it would have to openly designate whose side it stands on and take upon itself quite concrete, and not declarative, commitments. In conditions when China simultaneously develops economic ties with Russia and supports trade relations with the West, such clarity is disadvantageous.

Air Force abandons sweeping reoptimization as Army, Marines push forward with transformation efforts

Anastasia Obi

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Months after pausing its sweeping reoptimization initiative launched under former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, the service announced earlier this month that it would abandon more than half of its sweeping efforts. The proposed changes under the previous leadership were enormous in scope, spanning acquisition, recruiting, training and the management processes that deliver support services.

When Kendall announced the changes in 2023, he said it had “become clear to the entire senior leadership team” that the service was not well positioned for great power competition after spending more than two decades supporting post-9/11 conflicts and demands.

Meanwhile, Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said some of the most sweeping reorganization efforts would be too disruptive.

For example, the Air Force announced it would create a new Air Base Wing organizational model under the sweeping reoptimization effort. The idea was to establish separate Air Base Wings with their own command structures to allow Combat Wings to focus solely on training and warfighting.

Here’s What Is in the 20-Point Peace Plan for Ukraine

Constant Méheut

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A revised draft peace plan, unveiled this week by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine after negotiations with the United States, has been portrayed by Kyiv as its best effort to end the war with Russia.

The 20 points included in the plan — which Mr. Zelensky said on Friday was “90 percent ready” — cover a broad range of issues, from the security guarantees Kyiv wants to prevent future Russian aggression to commitments to rebuild the war-ravaged nation. Mr. Zelensky acknowledged that Ukraine and the United States had yet to reach full agreement on territorial questions that have been the biggest sticking point in peace talks.

“Our goal is to bring everything to 100 percent,” he told reporters after announcing plans to travel to Florida for a meeting this weekend with President Trump. “That is not easy.”

Mr. Zelensky had said earlier in the week that the new draft was being presented by the United States to Russia. On Friday, he said Ukraine had no information on how proposed compromises offered by Ukraine were received by Moscow, which has shown little indication that it is willing to end the war.

Trump’s Claims About Nigeria Strike Belie a Complex Situation on the Ground

Ruth Maclean Saikou Jammeh and Ismail Auwal

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President Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., on Monday. He said that the targets of Thursday’s strike on Sokoto State in Nigeria were members of the Islamic State.Credit...Eric Lee for The New York Times

Ruth Maclean and Saikou Jammeh cover West and Central Africa. Ismail Auwal writes about northern Nigeria and reported from Jos, Nigeria.

After the U.S. military launched airstrikes on sites in northwestern Nigeria on Thursday, President Trump said the targets were Islamic State terrorists “who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians.”

But analysts say that the situation on the ground is more complicated.

Sokoto State, which was hit by more than 12 Tomahawk missiles Thursday night, is populated overwhelmingly by Muslims, who bear the brunt of terrorist attacks there, according to analysts and groups that monitor conflict. Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of Sokoto said recently that the area does “not have a problem with persecution” of Christians.

Editors’ picks for 2025: ‘Ukraine’s air force has survived. Taiwan’s almost certainly couldn’t’

David Axe

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The Ukrainian air force went to war against invading Russian forces in February 2022 with just 125 combat aircraft concentrated at around a dozen large bases. Given Russia’s overwhelming deep-strike advantage—hundreds of deployed warplanes and thousands of cruise and ballistic missiles—few observers expected the Ukrainian brigades to survive the first hours of the war.

But they did survive. And 38 months later, they’re still surviving—and flying daily air-defence and strike sorties.

It has been an incredible feat. Can the equally outgunned Taiwanese air force duplicate it?

Almost certainly not. Geography, and the scale of the Chinese threat, will be harder on Taiwan’s air force and its 400 fighters.

The Ukrainian air force escaped the initial Russian bombardment because, tipped off by Ukrainian and allied intelligence agencies, it had dispersed its people, planes and munitions away from the big air bases. It spread forces across potentially scores of smaller civilian airfields and even stretches of highway. ‘The targets of each strike had moved by the time the missiles hit their designated aiming points,’ analysts Justin Bronk, Nick Reynolds and Jack Watling wrote in a 2022 study for the Royal United Services Institute in London.

Israel’s multi-front war, lasers and unmanned systems: 2025 review

Seth J. Frantzman

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Israel entered 2025 looking to a new US administration to be a gamechanger for Jerusalem’s multi-front war.

Much of 2024 had been spent fighting in Gaza and also in Lebanon, with mixed results. While Israel’s conduct drew international condemnation, the Gaza conflict also became a proving ground for many new Israeli technologies, from making old vehicular platforms such as M113s and D-9s into autonomous unmanned robots, to pushing AI and other technologies to the front.

Meanwhile, the Israeli defense industry looked abroad for new customers for its battle-proven tech. Here are some key stories from my coverage from inside Israel in 2025.

How to Secure the Sky

Theodore Bunzel and Tom Donilon

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On June 1, Ukraine’s security services launched a covert strike on five air bases across Russia. More than 100 attack drones smuggled into Russia in plywood cabins on trucks driven by unsuspecting Russians destroyed bombers sitting on tarmacs as far away as the Belaya air base in Siberia, around 3,000 miles from Kyiv. According to Ukrainian government sources, the strikes took out about one-third of Russia’s long-range bomber force and cost Moscow roughly $7 billion. Dubbed Operation Spiderweb, it was one of the most spectacular and daring attacks to date of the war in Ukraine. It was also a dramatic warning of a growing threat to American soil.

In an essay in Foreign Affairs in January 2022, one of us (Donilon) warned of this threat. Back then, America’s vulnerability to this possibility seemed to be a “failure of imagination,” echoing the 9/11 Commission’s famous conclusion about the United States’ failure to anticipate the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. Today, the drone threat is no longer difficult to imagine. States can use them to sow economic disruption or to spy on sensitive sites, lone-wolf actors can use them for political violence, and hobbyists can accidentally crash them into critical infrastructure.

How China Carved Up Myanmar

Amara Thiha

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Nearly five years after a military coup in 2021 unseated its civilian government, Myanmar has become extremely fragmented. A civil war flared after the coup, killing thousands and leaving upward of 18 million people in need of humanitarian aid. Today, the central government under the military junta effectively controls less than half of the country’s territory. A variety of ethnic armed organizations and other rebel groups jostle for land, resources, and sway, running large regions of the country on their own terms.

Such a fractured political landscape could produce endless instability that might threaten investments in Myanmar or even spill beyond the country’s borders. But China, Myanmar’s most powerful and influential neighbor, no longer fears this fragmentation. Instead, Beijing believes this turmoil is here to stay—and that it can manage the chaos. For much of the civil war, Beijing reluctantly worked with both the military junta and local armed groups near its border while holding out hope for the junta to emerge dominant and unify the country, which would stabilize Myanmar and make it easier for China to operate there. Now, Beijing seeks to actively maintain its influence by simultaneously providing the junta with conditional economic and humanitarian aid and pressuring ethnic armed organizations on its border into compliance. China is using its massive economic leverage to force rival groups to the negotiating table on its terms.

Japan Accelerates Defense Buildup With Record Budget and Expanded Unmanned Capabilities

Takahashi Kosuke

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Japan is accelerating its defense buildup amid rising geopolitical tensions, driven by mounting military pressure from three nuclear-armed neighbors — China, North Korea, and Russia — and calls from the United States for higher defense spending.

On December 26, the cabinet of Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae approved a draft defense budget for fiscal year 2026 totaling 9.04 trillion yen ($58 billion), including expenditures related to the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan. The nation’s fiscal year begins in April.

The budget represents a 3.8 percent increase from the previous year, marking the first time Japan’s defense spending has exceeded 9 trillion yen and extending its record-high trajectory to a 12th consecutive year. Compared with the initial budget request submitted in August, which stood at 8.85 trillion yen, the total was increased by about 190 billion yen. The move underscores the Takaichi administration’s policy emphasis on accelerating Japan’s defense buildup.

The Geopolitical Logic for Latin American Intervention

George Friedman

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Open as PDFThe U.S. National Security Strategy released earlier this month contained a couple of related priorities that have informed recent U.S. actions abroad: reducing U.S. exposure to the Eastern Hemisphere and focusing on its strategy for the Western Hemisphere. Since the U.S. cannot fully disengage from the Eastern Hemisphere, it must end or at least improve hostile relationships that have drawn Washington into several costly and failed wars there – all while maintaining critical economic relations. Efforts toward that end are underway but far from final.

As important, the new strategy tacitly demands more active engagement in the Western Hemisphere, the point of which is to assert U.S. security dominance and dramatically enhance the economic capabilities of Latin America so that the U.S. can disengage from the Eastern Hemisphere. For that to happen, Latin American nations must become more politically stable and economically productive.

Trump’s military restraint on Venezuela: power play with eye on China or weakness?

Shi Jiangtao

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President Donald Trump’s reluctance to authorise direct military intervention in Venezuela underscored the US dilemma of how to reassert dominance in its traditional sphere while managing escalation risks in multipolar rivalry with China and Russia, observers said.

But they cautioned against seeing US hesitation as weakness, noting intensified sanctions, naval blockades and diplomatic pressure from Washington, alongside a recalibrated strategy to sustain influence without overcommitment against China’s growing economic footprint in Latin America.

The Trump administration has pursued a “maximum pressure” campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro under “Operation Southern Spear”, framed as a crackdown on drug trafficking and what Washington has labelled a “foreign terrorist organisation regime”.

More than a dozen US warships and some 15,000 troops have been deployed across the Caribbean. While the White House insisted military options remained on the table, its primary focus had been sanctions “to the maximum extent” to deprive Maduro of resources, US ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told the Security Council on Tuesday.

According to Reuters, US forces have been ordered to enforce a “quarantine” on Venezuelan oil for at least the next two months, targeting all sanctioned tankers entering or leaving the country. Trump said on Monday that it would be “smart” for Maduro to step down.

A short review of something you don't need to read

Matt Armstrong

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Below is an abbreviated review of a recent article titled, “Why the US is Losing the Cognitive Competition.” In the general genre of “cognitive warfare” and related literature, it’s not terrible, provided you don’t read too closely or possess any historical knowledge of the subject. Bottom line: the article lacked substance. This brief review is published solely because the piece served as a prompt for a broader discussion on “cognitive warfare” in a separate post.

Typical of the genre—whether labeled “cognitive warfare,” “information warfare,” or “bring back USIA”—this article offers reactive, tactical prescriptions while neglecting the broader strategic picture. By failing to engage with the full socio-political and economic spectrum our adversaries target, the author effectively surrenders the initiative. This oversight grants the enemy a strategic monopoly, leaving their primary avenues of approach entirely uncontested.

The Geopolitical Logic for Latin American Intervention

George Friedman

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The U.S. National Security Strategy released earlier this month contained a couple of related priorities that have informed recent U.S. actions abroad: reducing U.S. exposure to the Eastern Hemisphere and focusing on its strategy for the Western Hemisphere. Since the U.S. cannot fully disengage from the Eastern Hemisphere, it must end or at least improve hostile relationships that have drawn Washington into several costly and failed wars there – all while maintaining critical economic relations. Efforts toward that end are underway but far from final.

As important, the new strategy tacitly demands more active engagement in the Western Hemisphere, the point of which is to assert U.S. security dominance and dramatically enhance the economic capabilities of Latin America so that the U.S. can disengage from the Eastern Hemisphere. For that to happen, Latin American nations must become more politically stable and economically productive.

Will China come to Venezuela’s rescue?

Yang Xiaotong

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As Venezuela and the United States teeter on the brink of war, China has been vocal in condemning US actions. In Beijing’s view, Washington’s escalation – which includes seizing Venezuelan oil tankers, striking alleged drug-smuggling boats and imposing a blockade off the Venezuelan coast – is a textbook example of American unilateralism, infringing on another country’s sovereignty and violating the United Nations Charter.

During a December 17 call with his Venezuelan counterpart, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi voiced opposition to US “unilateral bullying” and expressed his support for Venezuela’s right to “defend its sovereignty and national dignity”.

Thailand Shows the West Has Already Lost Southeast Asia

Michael Hollister

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It doesn’t begin with tanks. It begins with a fiber-optic cable. With a battery production facility. With a data center in Thailand’s heartland, owned by Chinese interests. While the West talks about “values,” China invests—systematically, irreversibly.

Thailand, long a neutral buffer between competing great powers, is tilting. Not loudly. Not on command. But through infrastructure, through economic logic, through cultural proximity. The country that once served as a bulwark against communism is becoming China’s gateway for trade, logistics, infrastructure, and IT security.

And the West? It’s present—but always a few years too late. Too moralizing. Too slow. Too distant. The United States may still fly joint exercises with Thailand, but China’s influence already runs through the ground, the power grid, the smartphone, the corporate office.

Thailand represents the microcosm of a global shift: a tectonic revolution in Southeast Asia’s center. Anyone seeking to understand why the West has lost influence in the region need only look here.

Few on the 'Far Right' Turn Against the Jews

Pierre Rehov

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It's back. Not the left's usual anti-Israel vitriol — but a creeping, winking strain of anti-Jewish hostility rising inside corners of the American "right." This chill is often dressed up as "anti-globalism" or "just asking questions" -- about Israel. There is nothing new about recycling century-old tropes, flirting with blood libels, or mainstreaming a Holocaust denier because he brings clicks. The American right — at its best — defends the Judeo-Christian foundations of the West, honors facts, allies, and moral clarity. This heritage means standing with Israel and against antisemites, even when they pretend to be on the side of all that is "good."

Start with Candace Owens. Sometime during 2023–2024 she crossed line after line — defending Kanye West ("Ye") after his antisemitic rants, insinuating medieval slanders, and taunting Jews who objected — until the Daily Wire website publicly ended its relationship with her in March 2024. It was not about "free speech," it was about a pattern of tolerating intolerance that would not have been accepted if it had been aimed at any ethnic group other than Jews.

All hail the Panama Canal, a frontline in the US-China trade war

Urban C. Lehner

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To a farmer in Nebraska or a retailer in New York, the Panama Canal is like air – noticed mainly when missing. Farmers noticed it in 2023.

Drought lowered water levels in the canal. Ships carrying American ag exports couldn’t use it. By some estimates, 25% to 30% of United States grain exports normally pass through the canal. During the drought almost none did. Shipping costs soared, farm-gate prices slipped.

Eventually the rains returned, the waters rose and ships resumed transiting. The canal went back to being taken for granted.

That’s too bad – and not just because the canal confers so many economic benefits. What’s especially under-appreciated is the herculean effort it took to build it. The canal is, without doubt, one of the greatest engineering and construction feats of all times.

Erdogan’s Imperial Illusions

Asli Aydintasbas

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When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan walked into the White House in late September, he needed to come out of the visit with a win. Erdogan had presented the Turkish public a grand vision of Turkey’s leadership in the Middle East, but that vision was increasingly clouded by doubts. Domestic dissent and economic woes required Erdogan’s constant attention and risked tarnishing his legacy after 23 years in power. The success of Turkish-backed opposition forces in toppling Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria last December appeared to offer a golden opportunity to expand Turkey’s influence, but it became clear that the monumental task of rebuilding Syria would be beyond Turkey’s ability to do alone.

It seemed that engaging U.S. President Donald Trump could provide the boost Erdogan needed. Although Ankara and Washington have had their disagreements recently, including over Turkey’s purchase of Russian missile systems and repeated incursions into Syria, Trump saw in Erdogan a partner to help stabilize the Middle East. Turkey had leverage over Hamas, which could come in handy during the U.S.-led cease-fire negotiations with Israel, and Turkey could support peacekeeping and reconstruction efforts in Gaza and Ukraine. Trump, unlike his predecessors, seemed to admire Erdogan’s brand of illiberalism and his skillful geopolitical balancing, repeatedly calling him “a friend” and “a very strong leader.” Turkish officials, for their part, hoped that a rebooted partnership with the transactional Trump could help Turkey elevate its profile in the Middle East.

Europe Must Defend Europe

Jason D. Greenblatt

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European security officials are now issuing a message that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago: prepare for war. As The Wall Street Journal recently reported, governments across Europe are warning citizens to brace for the possibility of conflict with Russia. The moment is sobering, but long overdue. It exposes a hard truth Europe spent years avoiding: The continent’s vulnerability is not simply the result of the war in Ukraine. It is the consequence of strategic complacency, fiscal misallocation and the reckless assumption that the United States would always pick up the tab.

Europe’s security must first and foremost be Europe’s responsibility.

President Donald Trump forced that reality into the open. He has pressed NATO allies to honor commitments long made in theory but ignored in practice—serious defense spending. Under sustained pressure, NATO members finally began moving toward higher outlays beyond the long-neglected 2 percent-of-GDP benchmark. Trump’s blunt insistence compelled Europe to confront what genuine burden-sharing means. As reported in The Washington Post, senior Pentagon officials are preparing a plan to downgrade several of the U.S. military’s major headquarters, including U.S. European Command. This move aligns with President Trump's national security strategy which declared that the “days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over.”

5 Biggest Military Mistakes Donald Trump Could Make in 2026

Andrew Latham

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Key Points and Summary – In 2026, the United States will still field unmatched military power—but with almost no margin for error. A second Trump administration is far more likely to overreach than to hold back, and the real danger lies in five avoidable mistakes.

-Escalating too hard in the South China Sea could trap Washington on an escalation ladder with Beijing. Ignoring gray-zone pressure, mishandling alliance burden-sharing, and confusing volatility with strength would steadily erode deterrence.

A U.S. Air Force 5th Bomb Wing B-52 Stratofortress approaches a U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker, assigned to the 909th Air Refueling Squadron, to perform aerial refueling over the Pacific Ocean, Oct. 27, 2022. Aerial refueling allows friendly aircraft to continue their mission without needing to return to the base for fuel. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman Alexis Redin).

-Treating Venezuela as a military problem to “solve” would drain resources and legitimacy. Power, this piece argues, is spent by impatience—and preserved by disciplined restraint.

When the AI bubble bursts, humans will finally have their chance to take back control

Rafael Behr

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If AI did not change your life in 2025, next year it will. That is one of few forecasts that can be made with confidence in unpredictable times. This is not an invitation to believe the hype about what the technology can do today, or may one day achieve. The hype doesn’t need your credence. It is puffed up enough on Silicon Valley finance to distort the global economy and fuel geopolitical rivalries, shaping your world regardless of whether the most fanciful claims about AI capability are ever realised.

ChatGPT was launched just over three years ago and became the fastest-growing consumer app in history. Now it has about 800m weekly users. Its parent company, OpenAI, is valued at about $500bn. Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, has negotiated an intricate and, to some eyes, suspiciously opaque network of deals with other players in the sector to build the infrastructure required for the US’s AI-powered future. The value of these commitments is about $1.5tn. This is not real cash, but bear in mind that a person spending $1 every second would need 31,700 years to get through a trillion-dollar stash.

'Spectacular' progress has been made towards useful quantum computers

Karmela Padavic-Callaghan

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Fully practical quantum computers haven’t arrived yet, but the quantum computing industry is ending the year on an optimistic note. At the Q2B Silicon Valley conference in December, which brings together quantum business and science experts, the consensus seemed to be that the future of quantum computing is only getting brighter.

“On balance, we think it is more likely than not that someone, or maybe multiple someones, are going to be able to make a really industrially useful quantum computer, which is not something I thought I’d be concluding at the end of 2025,” said Joe Altepeter, programme manager for the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI) at a presentation during the conference. The goal of QBI is to determine which of the several currently competing approaches for building quantum computers can produce a useful device, which would also have to correct its own errors, or be fault-tolerant.

Back in Play: U.S.-India Nuclear Partnership Finds a New Opening

Gaurav Sansanwal

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India’s new nuclear energy law is New Delhi’s most significant step to unlock the promise of nuclear power and finally fulfill the promise of U.S.-India civil nuclear cooperation. The Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Act opens India’s tightly controlled nuclear power market to private players, while reforming India’s liability regime to bring it closer to global norms—as part of a broader national strategy to attract greater investment from key trade partners, and install 100 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear energy by 2047.

Given that prices for renewables plus storage continue to beat new nuclear in most cases, this may not be the nuclear “renaissance” India hopes for. Still, the reform creates some tangible openings for U.S. firms. With supplier liability removed, U.S. companies can now compete in India’s market for reactors, fuel services, and R&D partnerships for advanced technologies like small modular reactors—without the liability exposure that previously made India's market untenable.

The Golden Fleet’s Battleship Will Never Sail

Mark F. Cancian

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On December 22, President Trump announced a new class of “battleships” that will be 100 times more powerful than previous battleships and larger than any other surface combatant on the oceans. The ship’s purported characteristics are so extraordinary that the announcement will surely spark immense discussion. However, there is little need for said discussion because this ship will never sail. It will take years to design, cost $9 billion each to build, and contravene the Navy’s new concept of operations, which envisions distributed firepower. A future administration will cancel the program before the first ship hits the water.

Design: The ship’s design will take many years. At the “30,000 to 40,000” tons cited by the president, the ship is much larger than anything the United States has built in the last 80 years, other than aircraft carriers. The truncated DDG-1000 class (only three built) displaced 15,000 tons but still took 11 years from program initiation (2005) to commissioning of the first ship (2016). The battleship will be more than twice as large and more complicated—nuclear-capable with directed-energy weapons. The first ship, USS Defiant (BBG-1), is likely to commission in the early- to mid-2030s, assuming it is built at all.

Ghost Busters: Options for Breaking Russia’s Shadow Fleet

Benjamin Jensen and Jose M. Macias III

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Victory in Ukraine will prove elusive without finding ways to counter Russia’s use of illicit maritime trade to sustain its war economy. That is, Ukraine and its Western backers need to resurrect the idea of commerce raiding and broad-based economic war to bust the ghost fleet and impose costs on Putin’s war machine. In the twenty-first century, states can conduct commerce raiding without ever firing a shot, effectively using open-source intelligence to support diplomacy, lawfare, and sanctions designed to attack a rival state’s economy. By finding ways to aggregate open-source data, the United States can support broader international efforts to restrict Russian illicit maritime trade.

Since sanctions limited oil exports in late 2022, Russia has purchased an illicit fleet estimated to range from 155 tankers and 435 total vessels, when support ships are included, to as high as 591 ships. This shadow fleet—or ghost fleet, as it is colloquially known—transports an estimated 3.7 million barrels per day, representing 65 percent of Russia’s seaborne oil trade, and generates an estimated $87 to $100 billion in revenue per year. To put that in perspective, revenue from this illicit trade network has matched, if not exceeded, the total value of economic and military assistance provided to Ukraine since the start of the war.

The White House Transformed Asia in 2025: Expect Much More in 2026

Joshua Kurlantzick

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In the days following the January 2025 inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, many Asian governments believed Trump’s second term would bring benefits for the region.

The White House promised a tough line against China, which had been menacing other states in regional waters and also pledged to combat Beijing’s supposedly illegal trade actions. Washington had already started discussing tariffs and a more transactional trade approach, but most Asian governments were accustomed to dealing with such transactionalism. In the first Trump administration, Asian leaders like former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe were among the most effective in dealing with the U.S. president, and many politicians in the region felt ready to handle a second Trump presidency.

What Is the Extent of Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis?

Mariel Ferragamo and Diana Roy

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Sudan has been engulfed in civil war since fighting erupted on April 15, 2023, between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The violence shattered a short-lived peace that formed on the heels of recent coups and two civil wars, worsening an already precarious humanitarian situation.

More From Our Experts

As the war rages on, Sudan is enduring the world’s largest and fastest-growing internal displacement crisis, with several rights groups and the United States describing the violence—particularly in Darfur—as genocide. Most recently, the RSF’s capture of El Fasher, the last major government-held city in Darfur, marked an end to an eighteen-month siege but raised the risk of a de facto partition of the country.

Operation Southern Spear: The U.S. Military Campaign Targeting Venezuela

Diana Roy

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Since early September 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump has authorized more than twenty lethal strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea. The strikes are part of an escalating pressure campaign against Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, whom U.S. officials accuse of being the leader of a drug cartel that the State Department designated a foreign terrorist organization in November. In recent weeks, Washington significantly increased its air and naval presence in the region as part of Operation Southern Spear, a U.S. military campaign that it says targets drug trafficking in the Caribbean.

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The Trump administration has framed the operation as necessary to curb the flow of drugs from Latin America to the United States, but some experts say the campaign’s scope and intensity go beyond counternarcotics objectives, possibly reflecting a broader effort to force regime change in Venezuela. Meanwhile, heightened U.S. pressure on Venezuela—including a naval blockade on all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving the country, which followed expanded sanctions against several Venezuelan oil shipping companies—has raised concerns about escalation toward war and broader regional instability.

What is Operation South

Conflicts to Watch in 2026

Paul B. Stares

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The logic of this exercise is straightforward: U.S. policymakers often find themselves blindsided by conflict-related crises that divert attention and resources away from other priorities and even lead to major military interventions that cost American lives. Those involved frequently lament afterward that officials should have done more to avert or prepare for these crises. Thus, the purpose of the Preventive Priorities Survey (PPS) is not just to alert busy U.S. policymakers to incipient sources of instability over the next twelve months but also to help them decide which are most pressing.

The need for U.S. policymakers to look ahead and actively lessen conflict-related risks grows every year. The world has undeniably become more violent and disorderly. Indeed, the number of armed conflicts is now at its highest since the end of World War II. An increasing proportion of those, moreover, are interstate conflicts, reversing a post–Cold War trend. The United States is uniquely exposed to the growing risk of armed conflict, as no other power has as many allies and security commitments.

Ten Most Significant World Events in 2025

James M. Lindsay

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Anyone hoping that 2025 would provide a break from what was an exhausting 2024 on the world stage came away disappointed. The past twelve months have been a trying time for international cooperation, as the forces of conflict and contention grew stronger and the end of the American led world order more clearly came into view. Unlike 2024, when the pageantry of the Summer Olympics and beauty of the host city Paris reminded everyone of what cooperation and collaboration can accomplish, 2025 provided few instances of inspiration. One can only hope that 2026 will surprise us in a good way. But before we jump to the new year, here are my top ten most significant world events in 2025. You may want to read what follows closely. Many of these stories will continue to make news in 2026. 

Three Shocks that Shook the World in 2025

YANIS VAROUFAKIS

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A new, harder, colder world order was erected on the grave of European ambition in 2025. The year’s enduring lesson is that in an age of existential contests, strategic dependency is the prelude to irrelevance.

ATHENS – This was the year that the remaining pillars of the late-20th-century order were shattered, exposing the hollow core of what passed for a global system. Three blows sufficed.

Gen Z Is Making Politics Hopeful Again

NGAIRE WOODS

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OXFORD – Grim as the final month of 2025 has been – with headlines dominated by mass shootings, crises, and polarization – one positive development offers a glimmer of hope for the coming year. Across the developing world, younger people are demanding jobs, affordable food and fuel, economic opportunity, and action to slow climate change. From South Asia to Latin America, they are presenting political leaders with a stark choice: listen and respond, or step aside and be replaced.

Nepal is a prime example. In September, the government banned 26 major social-media platforms that had been used to expose the lavish lifestyles of politicians’ children, triggering protests over corruption, nepotism, and the lack of opportunities for young people. The 73-year-old prime minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, then inflamed tensions further by mocking the thousands of teenagers who took to the streets. When security forces fired on crowds, killing at least 19 people and injuring hundreds more, demonstrators set fire to parliament and ransacked Oli’s private residence. He resigned the following day.