Indian Strategic Studies

20 August 2025

How a New Indian Taxi Service Plans to Push Back Uber, Ola, and Empower Drivers

Satyendra Pandey and Pratik Modi

The service, registered as the Multi-State Sahakari Taxi Cooperative Ltd, is backed by the National Cooperative Development Corporation as well as seven other leading Indian cooperative institutions: Amul, NDDB, NABARD, IFFCO, KRIBHCO, NAFED, and the National Cooperative Export Limited. These institutions have jointly committed $9 million, out of an authorized capital of $34 million. The cooperative’s area of operation will span Gujarat, Maharashtra, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, and 200 drivers across four states have been onboarded.

The taxi service – it will reportedly be launched under the brand “Bharat” – marks an important development in how the gig economy might evolve and participate in India’s growth story. It represents a rare attempt to build a digital platform where the drivers are not just service providers but also co-owners of the business.

India’s ride-hailing industry has grown rapidly over the past decade. Taxi services are expected to grow from $20.5 billion in 2024 to over $61.5 billion by 2033, offering urban consumers convenience and affordable transport.

But for the drivers who have onboarded these platforms, and are often referred to as partners, the reality has been marked by different challenges: rising platform commissions, opaque algorithmic rules, earnings uncertainty and limited access to social protections.

More Power to Drivers

The premise of this initiative is simple yet significant – drivers become shareholding members, with governance rights and a direct claim to future surpluses. This ownership model stands in stark contrast to the dominant ride-hailing platforms, where workers are partners in name only. They bear operational costs even as they have little to no voice in how the platform is run.

What sets Bharat taxi apart is its decision to apply cooperative governance to a tech-enabled service model. Under the cooperative structure, every member has a vote, and key decisions are made transparently and collectively. The interim board already includes representatives from all seven promoting institutions, providing both domain expertise and operational stewardship.

Can India Survive the Trade War?

Eleanor Hume and Kyle Rutter

New Delhi has been blindsided by U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent tariff temper tantrums. While Indian policymakers anticipated some trade tensions with the United States during Trump’s second term, they hoped that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s strong rapport with Trump, along with the geostrategic importance of the India-U.S. partnership, would spare them from the worst of Washington’s protectionist impulses.

Indeed, until recently, India-U.S. trade ties seemed to be heading in a positive direction. Trump and Modi agreed to increase bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030 during their meeting in February. Earlier this summer, India and the United States seemed on the verge of clinching a trade deal.

In a dizzying reversal, on August 7, India found itself with a 25 percent tariff on most products it sells to the U.S., its largest export market. This tariff rate is set to increase by an additional 25 percent on August 27, a punishment for India’s purchases of Russian oil and gas. India also faces the looming threats of indirect tariffs, including steep tariffs on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors and a 10 percent tariff on goods from countries that are members of the “anti-American” BRICS organization.

Trump’s tariff onslaught has forced India into a precarious position, and New Delhi is employing three strategies in tandem to get out of it.

First, New Delhi is confronted with the daunting task of securing a deal with Washington, without violating any key redlines that would jeopardize Modi’s domestic support. India is also attempting to delicately manage its geoeconomic relationship with China, cooling tensions with Beijing without ignoring preexisting military and economic security concerns. While hedging between the two great powers, India is also seeking to advance its geopolitical ambitions of assuming great power status by diversifying its economy to alternative partners.

Managing Trump’s Tariff Pressures

War of IAF, PAF doctrines: As Pakistan obsesses over numbers, India embraces risk, wins Opinion

Shekhar Gupta

Now that both the Indian Air Force and Pakistan Air Force have made formal claims of the other’s aircraft they shot down in the 87-hour predominantly aerial conflagration in May, we can explore some deeper issues. These are not so much to do with the withheld veracity of the rivals’ claims, as with the larger issue. Do these numbers really matter? What do these count for?

I can begin this with a trick question: if in a war, one side lost 13 aircraft to combat and the other 5, who won?

All of the active India-Pakistan wars and conflicts have been short, 22 days in 1965 being the longest. Op Sindoor was just over three days. Whenever a conclusive outcome like a capitulation and mass surrender is missing, there’s scope for both sides to claim victory.

There is clarity in some situations, however. We Indians believe we won every war or skirmish, but accept that we lost 1962 to China. Similarly, the Pakistanis concede defeat in 1971. Their capitulation in the eastern sector was total, topped with the surrender of 93,000 taken POW.

Pakistan's Lt Gen AAK Niazi signing Instrument of Surrender on 16 December 1971; sitting next to him is India's Lt Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora | Commons

Pakistan’s Lt Gen AAK Niazi signing Instrument of Surrender on 16 December 1971; sitting next to him is India’s Lt Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora | Commons

So, which air force lost how many aircraft to combat in 1971, just in the eastern sector?

The numbers, established even by rival historians, with tail numbers and pilot names, are: India 13, Pakistan 5. These are losses in combat, not to accidents or the 11 Sabres the PAF pilots abandoned on Day 5 of the war before making a daring escape to Burma in commandeered civilian transport.

Trump's AI plan is a bulwark against the rising threat from China

Sen. Cynthia Lummis

'Blue Collar Cash' author and former construction worker Ken Rusk on the importance of trades in an AI-dominated world and the surge of blue-collar jobs under the Trump administration.

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

In July, some of the brightest minds in American technology descended on Washington to celebrate a major milestone: the launch of President Donald Trump's bold initiative to ensure the United States remains the world's unrivaled leader in artificial intelligence (AI).

Let me be blunt: the AI arms race is no longer theoretical. It's here. And we cannot afford to come in second place.

In business, if you don't constantly adapt and innovate, you lose. Nations are no different. If we fail to lead in AI, we risk surrendering our economic and national security edge to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — a regime that seeks to challenge American technological supremacy and reshape the global order in its authoritarian image.

Trump understands this. That's why his vision for American renewal is laser-focused on innovation, particularly in AI and emerging technologies that will shape our economy and define the nature of future conflict.

The U.S. needs to fend off the threat from China if it's to stay competitive in the field of artificial intelligence. (Getty images)

We have to stop being complacent with a slow, outdated and reactive government. The future demands urgency, ambition and a commitment to putting America first at every turn. This is about building a trusted AI ecosystem that is private-sector led, American-built, and decisive in its capacity to defend freedom.

Taiwan and the limits of American power

Leon Hadar

As tensions escalate in the Taiwan Strait and Washington’s bipartisan consensus coalesces around defending the self-ruling island’s democracy, it’s worth stepping back from the emotional rhetoric about freedom versus authoritarianism to examine whether America’s evolving Taiwan policy serves genuine US national interests—or represents another costly overextension of American power.

The current trajectory of US policy toward Taiwan reflects the same strategic hubris that has characterized American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War: the belief that the United States can and should reshape the global order according to its preferences, regardless of the costs or the balance of power realities on the ground.

Strategic reality

Let’s begin with some uncomfortable truths that Washington’s foreign policy establishment prefers to ignore. Taiwan sits 100 miles (161 kilometers) off China’s coast and 7,000 miles (11,265 kilometers) from the continental United States.

For Beijing, Taiwan represents what strategists call a “core interest”—territory it views as integral to its sovereignty and historical identity. For Washington, Taiwan is what we might generously call a “peripheral interest”—important perhaps, but hardly vital to America’s survival or prosperity.

This geographical and strategic asymmetry matters enormously. China can bring overwhelming conventional force to bear in any Taiwan contingency, while the United States would be fighting at the end of extremely long supply lines, with bases in Japan and Guam potentially vulnerable to Chinese missile strikes.

Military analysts who engage in honest assessments—rather than Pentagon wish-thinking—increasingly conclude that China would likely prevail in a conventional conflict over Taiwan, especially as Beijing’s military modernization continues to narrow the capability gap with US forces.

China is working on reusable rockets—and a strategic leap in space power

PETER W. SINGER and ALEX NOVA

On May 29, the Yuanxingzhe-1 suborbital rocket took off from a platform in the Yellow Sea, carrying with it not just the hopes of its maker—a Chinese commercial launch firm called Space Epoch—but also the prospects for China’s next phase in its space power.

The 64-meter rocket came to a hover about 2.5 km up, then landed vertically at the Oriental Spaceport in Haiyang, Shandong, marking the first known successful maritime vertical takeoff and vertical landing by a Chinese rocket company.

The test flight drew far less international coverage than, say, the pioneering SpaceX flights that preceded it. But it underscores China’s rapidly accelerating efforts to master reusable rocket technology. According to the company, the test verified guidance control, engine throttling, and sea-based recovery procedures for future reusable launch missions.

It also signals a strategic shift: Beijing is not only expanding its domestic space launch capacity, but also preparing a logistics backbone to support resilient, low-cost access to orbit that could reshape both commercial and military space operations.

China’s reusable-rocket objectives have expanded rapidly over the last five years, driven by both state-owned and private-sector space firms. Besides Space Epoch, there is Landscape, a 10-year-old, Beijing-based company whose Zhuque-2 became the world’s first methane-liquid oxygen rocket to reach space in 2023.

Its follow-on Zhuque-3 is designed for full-stage reusability. In September, the slender stainless-steel rocket launched from a remote expanse of China’s Gobi Desert, hovered in mid-air, and then descended vertically back to Earth, settling gently on its landing legs. With a 21.3-ton payload capacity and planned for the second half of 2025 and stage recovery targeted for 2026, Landspace is laying the foundation for a parallel architecture of low-cost, high-frequency launches that could transform both commercial and military space operations.

China Is Enjoying Trump 2.0

Yun Sun

In the wake of Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election in 2024, Chinese policymakers and intellectual elites feared the worst for relations between China and the United States. The bitterness and trauma of the first Trump administration’s trade war lingered in Beijing. And with an already sluggish economy and glaring vulnerabilities from trade interdependence, China’s leaders braced for what experts privately called an “unprecedented storm” that could doom bilateral relations.

Six months into Trump’s second term, however, the outlook in Beijing has improved markedly. The storm came and went—and left Chinese policymakers feeling that they have far more power and leverage over the United States on trade than they had previously imagined. And for now, at least, Beijing views the trade-deficit-obsessed Trump as a more pragmatic and adaptable partner to work with than the China hawks that called the shots during Trump’s first term.

China’s leaders now believe they can broker a trade deal with Trump to reduce tensions. They are eager to host a summit between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping this fall to establish a more positive tone for the relationship between Washington and Beijing. The newfound optimism does not mean that Beijing thinks it has found a permanent solution to U.S.-Chinese relations, however; the overwhelming feeling in elite circles in China remains that the two countries are entangled in long-term strategic competition. But China’s leaders want to use their trade leverage to craft a deal that will buy them time to mitigate their political and security vulnerabilities. In dealing with a second Trump administration, China’s leaders believe they may have found an opportunity to achieve their goals without a war with the United States.

THE TABLES HAVE TURNED

When Trump was inaugurated for a second time on January 20, 2025, Beijing expected that he would resume bilateral relations where he had left them four years earlier. That meant revamped efforts by his administration to address the trade imbalance between the United States and China, likely through aggressive punitive tariffs. Beijing also braced itself for U.S. criticism of China’s political regime, including its treatment of minority groups and dissidents, and worried about enhanced U.S. support for Taiwan.

China’s Fast-Shrinking Central Military Commission: Implications for the PLA

Zi Yang

Since taking power, China’s paramount leader Xi Jinping has made purges under the anti-corruption pretext a hallmark of his tenure. As the chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), Xi executed similar purges in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), first targeting officers from rival factions before turning on military leaders that he had promoted himself. The second round of the PLA anti-corruption campaign, launched in 2023, has destabilized the military’s high command, leading to the downfall of several sitting CMC members.

Defense Minister and CMC member Li Shangfu was the first to fall, disappearing after August 2023. His case was referred for criminal prosecution in June 2024, but there has been no news regarding the verdict. In November 2024, the Director of the CMC Political Work Department Miao Hua also fell from grace. Then, in April 2025, the Financial Times reported that CMC Vice Chairman He Weidong had been removed from power, making him the first incumbent CMC vice chairman to be purged since 1967. He has not appeared in public since.

These atypical removals have reduced CMC membership from seven to four. As China’s supreme defense decision-making organ, the CMC is responsible for managing some 3 million PLA personnel and 500,000 People’s Armed Police. The downsizing of the CMC under extraordinary circumstances is bound to have profound consequences for the PLA’s ability to function as a modern warfighting organization.

The CMC as the Brain of the PLA

The CMC is an organ of the Chinese Communist Party. Following the principle of “the party directs the gun,” orders from the CMC shape decisions on all military matters – such as C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) systems, officer promotions, war plans development, reform initiatives, research and development programs, procurement, military diplomacy, and reasserting the CCP’s control over the armed forces.

Partners in Deterrence: China and Russia’s Deepening Military-Technical Ties

Daniel Balazs

In early May, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Moscow to meet with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and to participate in the Victory Day parade commemorating the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. The two leaders issued a joint statement, expressing their opposition to U.S. defense initiatives such as the Golden Dome and AUKUS, which they deem threats to global strategic stability. They also committed “to enhancing the coordination of their approaches and to deepening the practical cooperation on maintaining and strengthening global strategic stability.”

The leaders did not specify the exact ways of this practical cooperation. A scrutiny of Sino-Russian military cooperation in recent years, however, reveals that there are several military-technical cooperation channels and projects – trade of arms and dual-use items, missile defense, submarine and helicopter development – that could be strengthened following their proclaimed effort to deepen cooperation. Advances in these areas have the potential to significantly alter the balance of capabilities in the China-Russia-U.S. strategic triangle.

Sino-Russian Military-Technical Cooperation: An Elusive Framework

AI experts return from China stunned: The U.S. grid is so weak, the race may already be over

Eva Roytburg

“Everywhere we went, people treated energy availability as a given,” Rui Ma wrote on X after returning from a recent tour of China’s AI hubs.

For American AI researchers, that’s almost unimaginable. In the U.S., surging AI demand is colliding with a fragile power grid, the kind of extreme bottleneck that Goldman Sachs warns could severely choke the industry’s growth.

In China, Ma continued, it’s considered a “solved problem.”

Ma, a renowned expert in Chinese technology and founder of the media company Tech Buzz China, took her team on the road to get a firsthand look at the country’s AI advancements. She told Fortune that while she isn’t an energy expert, she attended enough meetings and talked to enough insiders to come away with a conclusion that should send chills down the spine of Silicon Valley: In China, building enough power for data centers is no longer up for debate.

“This is a stark contrast to the U.S., where AI growth is increasingly tied to debates over data center power consumption and grid limitations,” she wrote on X.

The stakes are difficult to overstate. Data center building is the foundation of AI advancement, and spending on new centers now displaces consumer spending in terms of impact to U.S. GDP. That’s concerning since consumer spending is generally two-thirds of the pie. McKinsey projects that between 2025 and 2030, companies worldwide will need to invest $6.7 trillion into new data center capacity to keep up with AI’s strain.

In a recent research note, Stifel Nicolaus warned of a looming correction to the S&P 500, since it forecasts this data center capital expenditures boom to be a one-off build-out of infrastructure, while consumer spending is clearly on the wane.

While we built work plans, terror mastered technology implementation - opinion

Israeli defense innovation is considered among the most advanced in the world. From prepositioned technologies – such as the beeper project, which demonstrated exceptional technological control – to the sophisticated Israeli multilayer air-defense system – including Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and the Arrow, which have set a global standard for air defense – Israel has repeatedly proven its ability to develop groundbreaking security solutions.

The principle is clear: Whoever controls technological innovation controls the battlefield.

The many actors in Israel’s defense ecosystem The IDF and Defense Ministry development units, established defense industries, and young start-ups drive defense innovation. While processes accelerate during wartime, and bureaucratic barriers fall, peacetime reality is entirely different: The pace of innovation implementation in the IDF is far from optimal.

The tragic example of the suicide drones that attacked Israeli civilians and military bases during Operation Swords of Iron illustrates this most clearly. Israel suffered casualties that could have been prevented. The technology to counter this threat existed, but it wasn’t matured in time and was implemented only after the losses occurred.

The structural problem: Western militaries, including the IDF, develop their capabilities through a hierarchical top-down approach.

First, they formulate a systemic concept of operation (CONOPS) at the general staff level, then they translate it into required technological capabilities. Only then do they decide what can be implemented in the field according to resources and the maturity of the technology.

IDF activity in Gaza (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON UNIT)This process, despite being orderly and systematic, involves heavy bureaucracy. Considering the enormous investments required, military systems are planned for a decade or even two decades ahead.

The result? Years pass from the moment a decision is made to develop a system until it reaches the field. The large defense industries that lead the process with the military services and are responsible for the backbone of military systems and core infrastructure – communications, command, and control – are based on hundreds of persons and years of experience and engineering.

Russia improved its missiles. Now, Ukraine's Patriots are struggling to consistently shoot them down, defense intel says.

Jake Epstein

Russia has upgraded its ballistic missiles with more maneuverability, the US said this week.

The improvements have made the missiles more challenging for Ukraine's inventory of Patriot systems.

The American-made Patriot has long been Ukraine's best defense against Russian ballistic missiles.

Russia has been upgrading its ballistic missiles, giving them more maneuverability and creating new challenges for Ukraine's vaunted American-made Patriot air defense systems, according to a US defense intelligence assessment.

A special report published this week by the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General said that the Ukrainian Air Force has struggled to consistently use its Patriot systems to intercept Russian ballistic missiles due to recent "tactical improvements" that Moscow made to the weapons.

These improvements to the weapons include "enhancements that enable their missiles to change trajectory and perform maneuvers rather than flying in a traditional ballistic trajectory," said the report, which covers US assistance to Ukraine during the spring and early summer and was first reported by The War Zone.

The special report, which relied on information provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency, noted two Russian attacks: one on June 28, during which Russia launched seven ballistic missiles and Ukraine shot down one; and another on July 9, when Kyiv intercepted seven of 13 missiles.

Ukraine has previously acknowledged improvements that Russia has made to increase the maneuverability of its ballistic missiles, but the report marks a concerning assessment for the Patriot air defenses that the US and many of its allies and partners also rely on for missile defense.

Why Ukraine and Russia still need infantry (and us, too)

Logan Nye

Ukrainian troops train during an exercise in 2018. (Ministry of Defence of Ukraine) Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, CC BY-SA 2.0

There’s a running dialogue just under the surface of the Russo-Ukrainian War. In a war where each side has achieved a stunning amount with drones, why are there still infantry soldiers being forced into a meat grinder on the frontlines?

What are the Russians/What are the Ukrainians? Stupid?

No. Neither side is fully stupid. Even though Russia seemed to be trying to prove itself that way for most of 2022. Each side has figured out how to do amazing things with their drones. And the Russo-Ukrainian War will almost certainly go down in the annals of history as the moment when drone warfare fundamentally changed. However, there are still some things that drones cannot do, but infantry can, just as there are things drones can’t do that artillery or manned aircraft can.

Infantry’s long history as essential workers

So, what does an infantryman do on a battlefield where the drones fly so thick that fiber-optic cables are as dense as the grass that grows beneath them?

Well, the same thing they do everywhere else, they just do it much, much more carefully.

Infantry’s primary role is to close with and destroy the enemy. That’s it, in a nutshell. How that has worked has changed a lot over the last few thousand years. And yes, infantry as a concept, though not always named as such, is older than Greece.

‘Economic Defense Unit’: How the U.S. Military Wins in the ‘Gray Zone’

Mackenzie Eaglen

Seven F-35 Lightning II aircraft wait to take off for a U.S. Air Force Weapons School training mission at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, Jan. 31, 2024. The U.S. Air Force Weapons School teaches graduate-level instructor courses that provide advanced training in weapons and tactics employment to officers and enlisted specialists of the combat and mobility air forces. (U.S. Air Force photo by William R. Lewis)

Economic Defense Unit: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

It is the Department of Defense’s job to think about war. It is also the Pentagon’s job to think about war avoidance. Military leaders use terms such as “the gray zone” to describe a state of operations that sits somewhere between peace and war.

Uncle Sam defines gray zone activities as “coercive or subversive actions to achieve objectives at the expense of others in contravention or in the absence of international norms.” These nefarious actions are undertaken by adversaries to strike at U.S. interests while avoiding direct conflict. Methods can include lawfare, political warfare, information and disinformation operations, debt trap diplomacy, sanctions evasion, economic coercion, cyber and space challenges, and support for proxy forces.

Congress has been worried about gray zone activities and competition for years—especially economic coercion by China against states, entities, and companies. One example of economic coercion, cited by the Council on Foreign Relations, took place when South Korea accepted the U.S.-made Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) antiballistic missile system after various North Korean ballistic missiles launches and nuclear weapons tests in 2016–17. With THAAD too close for comfort, Beijing retaliated by forcing a major South Korean department store chain, Lotte, “which had provided some land for THAAD, to sell its stores in China for a fraction of its investment.”

Another example of China’s deeply damaging retaliation occurred after Lithuania allowed the Taiwanese representative office in Vilnius to call itself Taiwan, rather than Chinese Taipei, in 2021. According to CFR, Beijing “stranded shipments of Lithuanian goods to China and then publicly pressured global multinationals not to do business with Lithuania.” The result was an 80 percent drop in Lithuanian exports to China that year.

London is in trouble and there’s no point denying it

Brendan O'Neill

A new high-status opinion just dropped: London is fine. From their converted Edwardian houses in the leafy suburbs where you won’t get a burger for less than 15 quid, London’s preening opinion-shapers have taken to X to say all is well in the capital. Ignore the ‘Trumpist’ talking points about London going down the swanny, they cry between glugs of pinot noir – life’s never been better! One envisions the grimaces of people on the other side of town when they see such hot takes pop up on their mobile phones that they cling to for dear life lest some wanker on a stolen Lime bike should snatch them.

The internet is fizzing with this big question: ‘Is London a shithole?’ What’s funny is that proper Londoners have this discussion all the time. Sometimes we say it is, if we’ve had a rotten day, and other times we’ll be squaring up to any funny-accented outsider who talks shit about our city. But now the London question, like everything else, has fallen into the doom-loop churn of the culture war. It’s become fodder for digital posturing. ‘It’s a crime-ridden hellhole’, says the Very Online right. ‘It’s fine’, say rich liberals in airy flats. Not for the first time, both are wrong.

The most wrong – or certainly the most annoying – are the ‘London is fine’ lot. There’s a Marie Antoinette vibe to their digital missives. ‘Let them eat sourdough bread!’, they might as well cry. It’s typified by Lewis Goodall of The News Agents, the podcast for rich, glum liberals still not over Brexit. London, he said, is being falsely talked down as a dreadful place where ‘crime is completely out of control… fare evasion is completely rampant… [and] the Tube is looking like Gotham City’. It’s all ‘exaggerated’, he says.

I’m going to put my neck on the line and propose that Mr Goodall’s London life is rather more plush and cossested than most others’. A couple of years back he told the Evening Standard he lives in Norbury, a very middle-class and – sorry, Lewis – soulless suburb in the south-east where crime is low and deprivation virtually non-existent. Apparently he feasts on ‘Gallic fare at Pique-Nique’ – no, me neither – and loves tucking into ‘pelmeni’ in Soho with his equally starry media pals. Thankfully, for thickos like me, the Standard explained what pelmeni is: Russian dumplings.

Taiwan and the limits of American power

Leon Hadar

As tensions escalate in the Taiwan Strait and Washington’s bipartisan consensus coalesces around defending the self-ruling island’s democracy, it’s worth stepping back from the emotional rhetoric about freedom versus authoritarianism to examine whether America’s evolving Taiwan policy serves genuine US national interests—or represents another costly overextension of American power.

The current trajectory of US policy toward Taiwan reflects the same strategic hubris that has characterized American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War: the belief that the United States can and should reshape the global order according to its preferences, regardless of the costs or the balance of power realities on the ground.

Strategic reality

Let’s begin with some uncomfortable truths that Washington’s foreign policy establishment prefers to ignore. Taiwan sits 100 miles (161 kilometers) off China’s coast and 7,000 miles (11,265 kilometers) from the continental United States.

For Beijing, Taiwan represents what strategists call a “core interest”—territory it views as integral to its sovereignty and historical identity. For Washington, Taiwan is what we might generously call a “peripheral interest”—important perhaps, but hardly vital to America’s survival or prosperity.

This geographical and strategic asymmetry matters enormously. China can bring overwhelming conventional force to bear in any Taiwan contingency, while the United States would be fighting at the end of extremely long supply lines, with bases in Japan and Guam potentially vulnerable to Chinese missile strikes.

Military analysts who engage in honest assessments—rather than Pentagon wish-thinking—increasingly conclude that China would likely prevail in a conventional conflict over Taiwan, especially as Beijing’s military modernization continues to narrow the capability gap with US forces.

Trump Joins Putin in Calling for Final Deal to End Ukraine War Following Summit

Rebecca Schneid

U.S. President Donald Trump (R) greets Russian President Vladimir Putin as he arrives at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson on August 15, 2025 in Anchorage, Alaska. The two leaders are meeting for peace talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.Andrew Harnik—Getty Images

President Donald Trump has called for talks aimed at achieving a full peace agreement to end the war in Ukraine, rather than a ceasefire, in a major shift that puts him at odds with U.S. allies in Europe and Kyiv.

"It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up," Trump posted on Truth Social following a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.

Trump’s position on negotiations over the war now aligns more closely with the Kremlin, which has been pushing for a comprehensive agreement instead of a ceasefire. Ukraine and European leaders have insisted that peace talks cannot take place without a ceasefire agreement first being agreed upon.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that he had spoken to Trump following the summit and emphasized the need for a ceasefire, but did not outright counter Trump’s desire for a full peace deal:

“A real peace must be achieved, one that will be lasting, not just another pause between Russian invasions,” Zelensky wrote on X, though he continued. “Killings must stop as soon as possible, the fire must cease both on the battlefield and in the sky, as well as against our port infrastructure.”

Speaking alongside Zelensky at a press conference on Wednesday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also emphasized the “right sequence” for negotiations: “We want a ceasefire at the very beginning, and then a framework agreement must be drawn up.”

Half-Baked Alaska

Lawrence Freedman

It is fair to say that the Alaska summit was not burdened by high expectations. Its origins gave ample grounds for anxiety. The US had been on course to punish Russian intransigence with new sanctions. Instead Putin was rewarded by a high-profile summit. As I wrote in my previous post the Trump administration bamboozled itself into thinking that a breakthrough was on the cards. This was because amateur negotiator Steve Witkoff had misunderstood what was on offer from Moscow. Trump spoke enthusiastically about land swaps as a way forward, although Putin had never suggested any interest in such a deal.

Those gloomiest about the likely outcome worried that Putin would persuade Trump to agree a one-sided deal which he would then impose on Zelenskyy. That did not happen. Trump said there had been progress but no deal. In addition he spoke to Zelenskyy after the summit, with European leaders, and the Ukrainian leader spoke positively about the conversation afterwards. He will now be visiting Trump in Washington.

That was the glass half full aspect of the summit. The glass half empty aspect was Putin’s red carpet treatment, the imagery that allowed the Russian media to claim that Putin had been rescued from international isolation, and the fact that he was allowed to frame the results as soon as the meeting concluded, speaking before Trump. He presented the conversation, which was shorter than anticipated and did not even reach lunch, as a great success and a boost to US-Russian friendship, and presented himself as a seeker after peace, repeating his standard formulation:

The Quad in an ‘America First’ World

Aparna Pande

The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or the Quad, is the centerpiece of U.S. Indo-Pacific diplomacy, but contrary to the desire of American strategic planners, it is far from being the lynchpin of regional security. The Quad brings together three Asian democracies – Australia, India, and Japan – and the resident external power, the United States. It is an ad hoc nonsecurity grouping that has retained attention even though the second Trump administration views multilateralism, multilateral institutions, and security alliances with suspicion.

The United States is recalibrating its global involvement based on selective hard power considerations. The Quad, however, is not yet a hard power actor. In his confirmation hearing in January 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio delineated the second Trump administration's policymaking priorities based on three questions: “Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? And does it make America more prosperous?”

The Quad has, so far, not made the U.S. safer, stronger, or more prosperous. But the administration continues to see it as important, primarily because of its potential in containing China’s rising power and influence. The Quad countries encompass over 2 billion people and together account for one-third of global gross GDP; their combined efforts would go a long way toward countering China.

Quad’s Origins

The Quad was first forged, informally, in the wake of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami when Australia, India, Japan, and the United States coordinated to mobilize humanitarian assistance and disaster relief across the region. Three years later, in 2007, the idea of the Quad as a standing group was conceived, with late Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo pitching the concept of these four democracies working together to strengthen regional stability based on shared norms and interests.

"Next Time in Moscow!": Initial Assessment of the Alaska Summit

Mick Ryan

There is no deal until there is a deal. I will call President Zelenskyy. It is ultimately up to them. President Trump

The much-anticipated Alaska Summit between the US president and the leader of Russia has just concluded with a press conference. No questions were taken after the leader statements, which indicates there were no major decisions taken.

Putin is no longer an isolated leader and got a free ride in the U.S. president’s limo.

Below is a quick summary of the press conference which just concluded, and my initial assessment of the comments by Putin and Trump.

The Press Conference

Putin: "Good afternoon, dear neighbour..."

Putin also provided a history lesson from Putin on the close relationship between Russia and America in WW2 to achieve a common victory.

Putin: “Sooner or later we need to move on from the present situation.”

Putin: “Me and Mr Trump have a good relationship”.

Putin: "Ukraine is a brotherly nation...we need to remove all the primary causes of the conflict."

This didn’t fill me with confidence that Putin has shifted from his key objective for the war - destruction of Ukraine as a sovereign state.

Putin said that he agrees that the security of Ukraine should be ensured.

Exploring War Termination in the Russo-Ukraine War

Jerry Landrum

During his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised that, if elected, he would end the Russo-Ukraine War within 24 hours by meeting personally with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky. Six months into his term, however, the war persists. This gap between political rhetoric and reality reflects not a deficiency in negotiation skills but the deeper dynamics that H.E. Goemans’ theory of war termination reveals about how battlefield outcomes reshape war aims, exacerbate commitment problems, and interact with domestic political constraints to prevent peace. Applying Goemans’ framework to the Russo-Ukraine War reveals why even sustained US pressure has failed to produce a settlement and why similar dynamics recur in protracted conflicts. Any future peace negotiations over the Russo-Ukraine War must successfully navigate the challenges highlighted within this theoretical framework.

Variance in War Aims

Goemans argues that bargaining space for war termination opens only when neither side demands more than the other can accept. Yet war aims vary based on battlefield outcomes. For Russia, the Kremlin’s illegal annexation of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia in the fall of 2022 marked a pivot from an early focus on capturing Kyiv to securing territorial control in the east and south. Putin’s rhetoric, however, continues to invoke a vision of a culturally unified Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia, suggesting that if conditions allowed, the Kremlin would once again pursue control over all of Ukraine. At the 2025 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin reiterated that he considers “Ukraine and Russia peoples to be one people. In this sense, all of Ukraine is ours. We have a rule. Wherever a Russian soldier sets foot is ours.”

For Ukraine, the central objective remains the preservation of genuine independence. Zelensky has declared that surrendering territory is “legally” impossible, yet he has hinted that a settlement involving concessions might be conceivable if backed by Western guarantees. This ambiguity reflects the weaker side’s adaptive strategy of balancing maximalist goals with pragmatic assessments of Western commitment, battlefield innovation (such as cost-effective drone strikes on Russian strategic assets), and the resilience of its population.

Both sides continually reassess their war aims based on questions of capability, endurance, and external support. These shifting assessments prevent convergence on mutually acceptable terms.

Russia's long-range bombers kept up attack tempo, showing fleet's 'resilience' despite Ukraine's Spiderweb attack: UK MOD

Matthew Loh

A TU-95MS strategic bomber and an Ilyushin IL-78 fly over the Kremlin during a Victory Day parade in 2021. Anadolu/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Russia's bombers are still attacking Ukraine steadily despite Operation Spiderweb, the UK MOD said.

It observed over 70 cruise missiles fired in July, saying it shows the "resilience" of Russia's fleet.

Still, Ukrainian media previously reported that Russia is having to cram missiles on its bombers.

Russia's long-range bombers are still assailing Ukraine at a steady pace despite June's daring drone attack against the fleet, the UK's defense ministry said in a recent assessment.

In an intelligence update on Wednesday, the British ministry wrote that it had observed seven long-range attack packages launched against Ukraine in July, involving at least 70 "premier munitions" — powerful cruise missiles.

"Russian Long Range Aviation bombers have maintained their offensive tempo, continuing to demonstrate the resilience and retained capability of the fleet following Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb on June 1, 2025," the ministry wrote.

IBM, Google claim quantum computers are almost here after major breakthroughs: ‘It doesn’t feel like a dream anymore’

Ariel Zilber

The decades-long quest to create a practical quantum computer is accelerating as major tech companies say they are closing in on designs that could scale from small lab experiments to full working systems within just a few years.

IBM laid out a detailed plan for a large-scale machine in June, filling in gaps from earlier concepts and declaring it was on track to build one by the end of the decade.

“It doesn’t feel like a dream anymore,” Jay Gambetta, head of IBM’s quantum initiative, told Financial Times.

IBM’s Quantum System Two, part of its push to build a million-qubit machine by the end of the decade.AFP via Getty Images

“I really do feel like we’ve cracked the code and we’ll be able to build this machine by the end of the decade.”

Google, which cleared one of the toughest technical obstacles late last year, says it is also confident it can produce an industrial-scale system within that time frame, while Amazon Web Services cautions that it could still take 15 to 30 years before such machines are truly useful.

Quantum computing is a new kind of computing that doesn’t just think in 0s and 1s like today’s computers.

Instead, it uses qubits — tiny quantum bits — that can be 0, 1, or both at the same time.

This lets quantum computers explore many possibilities at once and find answers to certain complex problems much faster than normal computers.

Space Force launches satellite to explore new GPS technology

Courtney Albon

The Space Force and United Launch Alliance launched an experimental satellite today, kick-starting a year of demonstrations that could bring new technology to the GPS mission and the broader positioning, navigation and timing enterprise.

The National Technology Satellite-3 spacecraft, or NTS-3, launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida and was the first national security flight for United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket.

Built by L3Harris as part of an Air Force Research Lab and Space Systems Command project, NTS-3 was designed to experiment with new positioning, navigation and timing, or PNT, signals and payloads that could be installed on future GPS satellites and shape future capabilities and operational concepts for spacecraft, ground systems and user equipment.

The satellite was supposed to launch in 2022, but delays to Vulcan — its long-scheduled ride to geosynchronous orbit — kept it grounded for years.

Joanna Hinks, a senior aerospace engineer in AFRL’s Space Vehicles Directorate, told reporters ahead of today’s launch her team is ready to finally see the NTS-3 satellite take flight, adding that the lab is “overdue” for a PNT experiment.

The Space Force is weighing its options for how to proceed with integrating NTS-3 technology into upcoming GPS production lines.

AFRL’s last major PNT demonstration flew in 1977 and demonstrated technology that is now integral to today’s GPS satellites.

Army sees 3D printing taking off ‘very, very soon’

Flavia Camargos Pereira

GVSETS 2025 — The US Army intends to accelerate and scale the use of 3D printing, several officials said at a ground vehicles conference this week, as they’ve become increasingly aware of the advantages 3D printing capacities can provide to logistics and sustainment.

“Just like everything else with technology, it is kind of a crawl, walk, run. I would say [with additive manufacturing] we are in the walking stage, but we are going to be running very, very soon,” Randl Besse, commodity manager at the Rock Island Arsenal (RAI) Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center (JMTC), said during a session at the GVSETS Conference.

Already at least 1,500 different individual components for multiple Army in-service platforms and systems have been printed at RIA, Besse said.

Also speaking on the panel, Jason Duncan, maintenance integration division chief at the Integrated Logistics Support Center (ILSC) of the Tank-Automotive & Armaments Command (TACOM), said that another goal is moving 3D printing from battle damage repair fabrication to a fully qualified approach.

“We have been coordinating to be able to move faster and make sure we have a good process. That cutting-edge technology allows us to kind of move at the pace of change,” Duncan said.

The Army is not just looking to additive manufacturing in support of land vehicles. As militaries the world over race to stock up on attritable unmanned aerial systems, Besse said the Army is using 3D printing to join in the race.

“We started looking at new, higher volume types of equipment that would get us to be able to produce at much larger scales, talking in the scale of 10,000 drone bodies per month,” he said.

19 August 2025

Where India Fits Into New US Strategies

Kamran Bokhari

In its 2025 annual forecast, GPF wrote that the world no longer has an anchor around which to organize itself. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the downturn in U.S.-India relations. New Delhi assumed that its relationship with Washington was immune to the shifts in America’s global strategy, but that has not been the case. The Trump administration’s efforts to manage its two biggest adversaries, China and Russia, have revealed the limits of its decadeslong alignment with India. India still boasts the world’s fastest-growing economy, so it will remain a key U.S. partner, but it is unlikely to retain its special status as the U.S.-China competition heats up.

On Aug. 6, U.S. President Donald Trump slapped an additional 25 percent tariff on Indian goods in response to India’s continued purchase of Russian oil. The move brought overall tariffs on the world’s most populous nation (and close American ally) to 50 percent – among the steepest faced by any U.S. trading partner. Also on Aug. 6, Indian media reported that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to China on Aug. 31 – his first trip to the country since the border clashes of June 2020 – to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit. Elsewhere, Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval is leaving for a trip to Moscow ahead of another visit to the Kremlin by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar.

These developments constitute a dramatic turn of events. Until recently, the United States saw India as a strategic ally, especially with regard to its foreign policy objective to contain China. This has been the case for every U.S. administration, including Trump’s first one, since the early 2000s. Central to that view is that over the past two decades, India’s has become the world’s fourth-largest economy, in terms of nominal gross domestic product, overtaking Russia’s, Italy’s, France’s, the United Kingdom’s and Japan’s. It also has the world’s fourth-largest military.

For these reasons, Washington has cultivated New Delhi as a critical partner on the military and economic fronts. In 2017, it revived the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and combined the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean basins into a single command known as INDOPACOM, making it easier to integrate India into its strategic plans for countering China. It also hoped India would be able to become an alternative industrial destination to help reduce global exposure to Chinese manufacturing.

Winning in India: 5 approaches to business success

With its deep talent pool, large consumer market, and improving infrastructure, India is rapidly emerging as a global business hub. But success in this complex, fast-evolving environment isn’t guaranteed. Organizations looking to establish or expand operations in India must navigate unique challenges, including complex regulations, labor strikes, and red tape. Our analysis of the most successful companies reveals that they tend to share the following five approaches to business:Taking a long-term view

“In the best case, India will not simply be a new location for manufacturing but a source of innovation and new product development,” write McKinsey’s Bob Sternfels, Rajat Dhawan, and coauthors. “Companies that establish or expand their presence in India could create a new growth engine.” Dive into each of the five approaches, then explore our insights to learn more about business in India.

"Make in India" relies on "Made in China"

Akhil Ramesh

The overlap between trade and national security has become more acute over the last decade, leading to a resurgence in industrial policies globally. In India, New Delhi is increasingly realizing that a pivot towards manufacturing requires increased economic linkages with nations that have mastered it. While the country negotiates closer trade ties with the US, it is simultaneously nurturing a robust and growing economic relationship with China.

In 2014, Modi launched the "Make in India" initiative with the ambitious aim to transform India into a global manufacturing hub. The government envisioned that targeted industrial policies, along with streamlined regulations and reduced red tape, would create a conducive environment for investment. New Delhi set the goal of raising manufacturing’s share in India’s GDP from 15% in 2014 to 25% by 2025. In his second term, Modi’s administration identified 14 key sectors and introduced sector-specific industrial policies known as the Production Linked Incentive scheme (PLI). PLI had a two-pronged, zealous agenda: increase the share of manufacturing in India’s GDP, and reduce reliance on China in key sectors.

Fast forward to a decade later, while the value of electronics exports has increased, neither the share of manufacturing in India’s GDP has increased nor has India wholly reduced its dependence on China in key sectors. The dependence on China has only shifted from downstream goods to upstream goods. In fact, as of 2025, manufacturing’s share of India’s GDP has dropped to under 14% — lower than in 2014 when the Make in India initiative was formally announced.

With an outlay of 1.9 trillion Indian rupees (US$26 billion), the PLI scheme produced mixed results. In semiconductors and defense, manufacturing plants have sprung up in Gujarat in the west of India and Assam in the east through partnerships with American and Taiwanese companies. The telecommunications sector has achieved a 60% import substitution in critical components. In less than two years from 2023, imports of PV cells and modules from China dropped to 56% for PV cells and 66% for modules from more than 90% as a share of India’s PV imports. Unimaginable a decade ago, Apple is now producing 20% of its iPhones in India – one of the most talked-about success stories out of the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan, or Self-Reliant India campaign.

Kabul braces for a waterless future

Rafi Schwartz

For the past half-century, the city of Kabul has endured more than its fair share of hardship and tragedy. As Afghanistan's capital works to move past its violent history, a new challenge has emerged to threaten Kabul's future in a way no occupying army or theocratic regime ever could. The city faces a "severe and multi-faceted water crisis" which, if not addressed immediately, "will soon pose an existential threat" to Kabul's six million residents, said a new study by the nonprofit Mercy Corps. If allowed to continue, the crisis will earn Kabul the ignominious distinction of becoming the first major capital in modern history to fully exhaust its subterranean water supply.

How much water does Kabul have?

Kabul's underground aquifers have "plummeted 25-30 meters in the past decade" with usage "exceeding natural recharge by a staggering 44 million cubic meters annually," said Mercy Corps. The "vast majority" of Kabul's subterranean water comes from "melting snow and ice in the Hindu Kush mountains," which feed the city's three main aquifers, with only some 20% of households connected to "piped running water from centralized sources."

At the same time, nearly half the city's boreholes are dry, while the remaining wells are "functioning at only 60% efficiency," the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in 2023. According to Mercy Corps, 90% of Kabul residents rely on "water pumped from borewells to supply their daily needs."

Intel, funding and military support: CIA eyes return to Pakistan as US pledges 'counterterrorism' support

In a move that raises questions about Pakistan’s reliance on external powers, the United States and Pakistan have agreed to bolster counter-terrorism cooperation in a recent high-level meeting. The US has pledged full support to Pakistan in its fight against terror groups, despite Islamabad’s long-standing failures to rein in terrorism on its soil.

The talks, held between US and Pakistani officials, laid out a series of commitments that appear to signal a deepening of ties, particularly in intelligence-sharing, military assistance, and cross-border operations -- areas where Pakistan has repeatedly shown vulnerability.

Diplomatic sources in Islamabad told CNN-News18 that the United States “pledged to provide vital support to Pakistan’s ongoing efforts to combat terrorism, particularly from groups like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), and the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA).”

The commitment comes as Pakistan continues to face escalating threats from militant groups along its borders, particularly in the volatile regions of the Pak-Afghan and Pak-Iran frontiers -- a problem of Islamabad’s own making.

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