Indian Strategic Studies

2 April 2026

Africa Could Emerge As The Biggest Winner In Iran War

Alex Kimani

The ongoing Middle East conflict has upended global energy markets, cutting off supplies of approximately 8 million barrels of crude per day and 20% of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Brent crude has surged more than 50% to around $110/bbl since the conflict erupted in late February, while the U.S. stock market has lost nearly $4 trillion. Previously, we reported that Russia has emerged as the biggest winner of the war, with the conflict providing a strategic "economic lifeline" to Moscow by elevating oil prices, distracting Western allies from the war in Ukraine and strengthening its diplomatic standing among nations in the Global South. The Trump administration has even eased sanctions on Russian and Iranian oil, albeit temporarily, drawing bipartisan backlash.

However, Africa’s energy giants could ultimately emerge as the long-term winners of this conflict. The ongoing disruption has handed African energy producers a distinctive structural advantage, thanks to being largely insulated from the conflict's geography. Leading energy giants in Africa, including Nigeria, Libya, Angola, Gabon, Mozambique, Namibia, and Tanzania, are increasingly viewed as lower-risk alternatives to Middle Eastern suppliers. European and Asian buyers now favor African volumes due to lower insurance premiums and more predictable delivery times compared to volumes passing through high-risk routes such as the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea.

Iran: A land war illusion

Mick Ryan

America is weighing the deployment of land forces onto Iranian territory – a move that would dramatically escalate the war and risk drawing it into a prolonged conflict. While this conflict is not Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam or any number of previous wars, history offers a guide on employing ground forces. They can be extraordinarily decisive when used at scale, for the right mission and with a clear political objective. But, without these things, land operations can result in tactical catastrophe, the death of soldiers and marines, and overall political failure in war.

All strategies start with a diagnosis of the problem to be solved. Any consideration of land force operations in Iran – and in any war – must begin with the following question: “What problem will land forces solve?”

The political objectives of employing land forces are several. First, the American president will want Iran to see US troops on the ground as a profound statement about US will. He will want them to know that he is not giving up and walking away from the war. Second, Trump will use land forces as a statement of commitment to regional allies: America is not abandoning you. And finally, the commitment of land forces will aim to solve an ongoing political quandary for Trump: how to bring the Iranians to the table, quickly, for diplomatic negotiations that can end the war.

Turkey and Syria’s Iran crisis

Hannah Lucinda Smith

In the war between the US and Iran, the leaders of both Turkey and Syria face the challenge of maintaining close relations with President Trump, concerns about overt alignment with Israel, and fears of stoking the flames of Kurdish militancy.

This year, Turkey’s President Erdoğan chose the war in Iran as the subject of his message to mark Eid, the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Calling for the Islamic world to unite, he vowed to ‘overcome the challenges in our geography’. He is no stranger to utilising religion and regional crises for political aims. Since the outbreak of the Arab Spring protests in late 2010, Erdoğan has aligned himself with Islamist movements, presenting himself as a protector of Muslims and a bulwark against Islamophobia in the West – a tactic that plays well with his conservative electoral base.

The Strait of Hormuz is not just an oil chokepoint

Mohammed Al-Hashemi

The Strait of Hormuz is the only major commercial artery on earth named after a god. The name derives from Hormoz, the Middle Persian rendering of Ahura Mazda – the Zoroastrian deity of wisdom, light, and cosmic order. This is not poetic licence; it is an etymological fact. The ancient Persians did not simply build a trade route here. They consecrated it.

A place named after the god of order has become the single point where global order faces its greatest vulnerability. Through these waters – 167km (104 miles) long, 39km (24 miles) wide at their narrowest point – pass an estimated 30,000 vessels per year. They carry not only a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil and liquified natural gas but also the urea needed for the fertilisers that grow its food, the aluminium that constructs its infrastructure, the helium that cools its semiconductors, and the petrochemicals that sustain its pharmaceutical and manufacturing base.

Fighting the last war

Jeremy Black

War. If the modern age is a revenge on those naive commentators who thought war could be banished by law, humanitarianism, or technology controlled by a superpower, then its frequency and apparently incipient spread ensure that we need to study it—which of course is not the pattern in universities, where the preference is for identity politics, as attested by trendy titles such as “ ‘So Manly and Ornamental’: Shoe Buckles and Britain’s Eighteenth Century,” in the June 2023 issue of The English Historical Review.

Fortunately, there are some readily accessible ways to keep up with current studies, and thus to short-circuit both the wasteland of much of current academe as well as the facile repetition of all too much popular work, notably, but not only, regarding World War II. In America, the excellent Journal of Military History has been recently joined by the War Studies Journal, while the Rivista di Studi Militari and the Nuova Antologia Militare both come free, online, and mostly in English despite being based in Italy.

First Ukraine, Now Iran: A New Era of Drone Warfare Takes Hold

Michael C. Horowitz

Operation Epic Fury and Iran’s response to ongoing U.S. and Israeli attacks represent clear evidence that we are now in the era of precise mass in war, the high-volume use of low-cost, increasingly autonomous systems with high-accuracy guidance. In other words, there are a lot more drones on battlefields today, but not the ones you remember from the global war on terrorism. This shows that the lessons learned from the war in Ukraine, which has now dragged on for more than four years, are shaping the behavior of the United States, Iran, and Israel. The world is seeing the spread of a new form of warfare.

The United States is not the passenger it once was in this new format. The first wave of U.S. attacks as part of Operation Epic Fury marked the initial operational deployment of the LUCAS (low-cost unmanned combat attack system). Reverse-engineered from the Iranian Shahed-136 drone, the long-range, one-way attack loitering munition was sped through the Pentagon’s acquisition pipeline in just eighteen months, and it was only recently embedded in U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) in December 2025.

Epic Fury as It Is: A Look Inside

Pavel Kuliuk

The preconditions for Epic Fury were laid long before 2026. Decades ago, the U.S. government established military bases in the oil-producing monarchies of the Persian Gulf. (1) The main purpose of this action was not the military personnel and equipment. The main purpose was the conditions under which these bases were used.

Based on Operation Epic Fury,(2) American bases can be used to attack other states, even if those states do not attack first Arab countries where American bases are located. This means that American bases are infrastructure for attack, not just defense. The attack capability provided by the conditions for the deployment of military bases was a major geopolitical victory for the United States and a major geopolitical defeat for the oil-producing monarchies of the Persian Gulf. For the Arabs, a geopolitical victory would have been the conditions under which American bases could only be used for defense against external aggression. However, the Arabs were unable or unwilling to achieve such conditions. And this was their mistake. Because by allowing the Americans to attack first, the Arabs lost their neutrality. If the Americans attack any country, the Arabs become participants in the war on the American side.

Safeguarding cryptocurrency by disclosing quantum vulnerabilities responsibly

Ryan Babbush

Google has led the responsible transition to post-quantum cryptography since 2016. In a new whitepaper, we show that future quantum computers may break the elliptic curve cryptography that protects cryptocurrency and other systems with fewer qubits and gates than previously realized. We want to raise awareness on this issue and are providing the cryptocurrency community with recommendations to improve security and stability before this is possible, including transitioning blockchains to post-quantum cryptography (PQC), which is resistant to quantum attacks.

To share this research responsibly, we engaged with the U.S. government and developed a new method to describe these vulnerabilities via a zero-knowledge proof, so they can be verified without providing a roadmap for bad actors. We urge other research teams to do the same to keep people safe. We look forward to continuing our work across the industry following our 2029 timeline alongside others working on responsible approaches, like Coinbase, the Stanford Institute for Blockchain Research, and the Ethereum Foundation.

Is the US dollar really winning the Iran war?

Kashif Hasan Khan

Nearly a month after coordinated US and Israeli strikes on Iran, the human toll continues to rise. Yet beyond the battlefield, a more consequential struggle is unfolding — one that could reshape the global economic order. At the heart of this conflict lies energy. Iran’s disruption of supply chains — particularly through pressure on the Strait of Hormuz and attacks on Gulf infrastructure — has revived fears of a global slowdown.

Oil prices have surged, shipping risks have intensified and uncertainty has returned to markets already strained by geopolitical fragmentation. For an interconnected global economy still navigating post-pandemic shocks, the stakes are considerable. In the short term, the answer to who benefits appears straightforward: the US dollar. As energy prices rise and risks intensify, countries require more dollars to secure imports, reinforcing the US currency’s dominance.

Who Owns America’s Tech Future?

Elly Rostoum

US policymakers warn of “countries of concern,” blacklist Chinese firms, and debate restrictions on artificial intelligence exports. Yet a far larger — and quieter — development is unfolding in plain sight: an unprecedented influx of foreign capital.

Since 2025, the US has welcomed a staggering $10.5 trillion in investment commitments spanning semiconductor manufacturing, energy infrastructure and cloud computing. While some of these commitments may not materialize, the investments are celebrated as evidence of renewed American industrial vitality, even though their sheer scale should prompt scrutiny. Close attention is warranted to the source of the capital and its potential security risks.

Foreign government investors account for 51% of the pledge investment at $5.3 trillion. The United Arab Emirates and Qatar alone have promised $1.4 trillion and $1.2 trillion respectively, followed by Japan with roughly $1 trillion, Saudi Arabia with $600 billion, and India approaching $500 billion. By comparison, cumulative private European investment pledges into American tech total roughly $802.8 billion.

Why Cheap Energy Costs a Fortune

Frank Salvato

In 2024, Texas oil and gas executive Jeremy Paul warned that global energy markets were being suppressed due to policy decisions that ignored economic and geopolitical realities. Paul, CEO of Eagle Natural Resources, argued that oil prices needed to reach a natural equilibrium, ideally between $90 and $150 a barrel, with a realistic sweet spot around $130 to $140. Only at these price levels would exploration be incentivized, production be sustained, and broader economic stability be maintained. He warned that suppressing prices could ultimately lead to "the price of war."

The structural imbalances that Mr. Paul identified have solidified into a harsh market reality and geopolitical danger. The suppression of honest price signals not only distorted investment; it also rendered the global energy system fragile, underfunded, and dangerously vulnerable to the shocks that policymakers claimed to prevent.

Putin’s War Calculus Keeps Oscillating as Spring Offensive Stumbles

Pavel K. Baev

The effect of the ongoing conflict in the Persian Gulf on Russia’s war against Ukraine grows more complex as the parties of both conflicts experience attrition of various kinds. Russian commentators tend to exaggerate Iran’s capacity to withstand air assaults, but also suggest that the U.S. leadership cannot accept anything less than a convincing victory (Rossiiskaya gazeta, March 24; TopWar.ru, March 28). Such an outcome can only be secured by a high-risk land operation, while some pundits speculate about the possibility of an Israeli nuclear strike (Nezavisimaya gazeta, March 24; RIAC, March 27). Russia’s ability to benefit from the reduction in U.S. pressure on Moscow’s deadlocked and destructive war against Ukraine makes a peace deal is far from certain.

The spike in oil prices grants the most obvious benefit for Russia. The volume of additional revenues, however, cannot be calculated by simply multiplying an increase in exports by the new benchmark price (Carnegie Politika, March 27). For once, Russia’s oil and gas production cannot be increased measurably because the industry is severely affected by sanctions and underinvestment (Neftegaz.ru, March 25). Some sanctions relaxation could generate additional profits, provided Russia’s “shadow fleet” tankers operate without restrictions (Riddle, March 24). Ukraine, however, is firmly set to deny Moscow any windfall of petro-revenues and delivered a series of airstrikes at the end of March on the Primorsk and Ust-Luga oil terminals in the Gulf of Finland (The Insider, March 27; Fontanka.ru, March 29).

Trump, Iran, and the Shadow of Suez

Ishaan Tharoor

Israel moves fast, launching a bold military operation against a weaker Middle Eastern neighbor. It frames the campaign as a preëmptive effort to neutralize a regional threat. Israel’s Western allies join in, bombing the country in what looks like an attempt to oust its government. But things soon go awry. The embattled regime holds on, and closes off a critical shipping lane, disrupting global trade. Politically embarrassed, and economically exposed, Israel’s main Western partner in the campaign becomes overextended; they lack both wider international support and a coherent plan. Early military gains give way to a larger strategic mess.

This could describe the past month of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. But it’s also what happened nearly seven decades ago, when Britain, France, and Israel invaded Egypt, provoking the Egyptian government to close the Suez Canal for what ended up being a period of five months. The confrontation was set off in July of 1956, when Egypt’s ruler, Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, a charismatic populist, nationalized the Anglo-French company that had operated the canal since its creation in 1869, during the colonial era. Britain and France were furious—the canal carried oil and other goods that were vital to European economies—and determined to take back control. Israel, meanwhile, saw Nasser’s rising influence across the Arab world as a danger, and wanted an excuse to cut him down, and to target Palestinian fedayeen militants who were operating in Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula, which were both controlled by Egypt at the time. While the U.S. and United Nations spent months trying to negotiate a settlement over the canal’s management, the top leaders of the British, French, and Israeli governments were secretly plotting a military intervention.

Iran and America’s long war

Ibrahim Al-Marashi and Tanya Goudsouzian

In 2020, Palestinian historian Rashid Khalidi published The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017, arguing that Zionist aspirations to rule historic Palestine served as an instrument of British and American imperialism and amounted to a century-long war on the Palestinian people. As of 2026, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues. But the United States and Israel are also engaged in another war that has already spanned nearly half a century and may yet run for decades to come.

It may be easy to view the US-Israel war against Iran as a sudden watershed moment, but, in reality, this conflict is merely the latest chapter in a struggle that has unfolded for nearly 50 years. The sectarian, ideological and geopolitical currents driving the tensions were set in motion 47 years ago. Like the French and Russian revolutions before it, the 1979 Iranian Revolution – described by French historian and philosopher Michel Foucault as ‘the most modern and most insane’ – irrevocably altered global dynamics and challenged assumptions about modernity. Today’s drone wars and its ripple effects are not the final act but the latest turn in a figurative ‘Fifty Years War’, whose underlying political and ideological contests will continue long after the missiles stop flying. Indeed, the current crisis risks exacerbating pre-existing grievances and leaving them unresolved; it threatens to turn the US-Iran antagonism into a century-long confrontation akin to the conflict in Palestine that began with the Balfour Declaration in 1917.

Analysis: Iran likely transferred highly enriched uranium to Isfahan before the June strikes

François Diaz-Maurin

Working with a team of visual investigators that included the Bulletin, the French newspaper Le Monde has analyzed a previously unreported satellite image of the Iranian nuclear site at Isfahan, showing a large truck loaded with containers. In a Le Monde article published Saturday, experts said they could not be certain what the containers held. But the timing of the image, the type of load, and other indirect evidence suggest that Iran may have placed a significant quantity of highly enriched uranium—possibly all of its inventory—at the facility ahead of the June 2025 strikes by Israel and the United States against Iranian nuclear sites.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has mentioned the possible presence of highly enriched uranium at the Isfahan nuclear complex several times—a presence implicitly acknowledged by Iran’s own recent declarations. The IAEA has made multiple requests but was unable to access the underground tunnel complex at Isfahan, which was spared during Israeli and American military strikes in June. The satellite image could be the first publicly available evidence of the presence of highly enriched uranium at Isfahan.

America must adopt a Sixth Domain of warfare doctrine

Epirus

Over the past 15 years, America’s military services and foremost military thinkers have recognized that modern domains of warfare have expanded — from land, sea and air — to space and the virtual realm of cyber. As valuable as this expanded concept of warfighting is, it is no longer enough. The past 12 months of global armed conflicts have demonstrated clearly that America must adopt a new Sixth Domain way of thinking if it is to successfully defend itself and its interests in the immediate and long-term future.

The Sixth Domain is not defined by geography. It’s a new kind of conflict in which autonomy and networked systems allow thousand-dollar consumer electronics to destroy multi-million-dollar conventional weapons systems. Defenses built for one-to-one conflict are ineffective in The Sixth Domain.

Meta’s data center in Newton County, Ga., is 1,000 feet from the home of Jeff and Beverly Morris.

Eli Tan

After Meta broke ground on a $750 million data center on the edge of Newton County, Ga., the water taps in Beverly and Jeff Morris’s home went dry. The couple’s house, which uses well water, is 1,000 feet from Meta’s new data center. Months after construction began in 2018, the Morrises’ dishwasher, ice maker, washing machine and toilet all stopped working, said Beverly Morris, now 71. Within a year, the water pressure had slowed to a trickle. Soon, nothing came out of the bathroom and kitchen taps.

Jeff Morris, 67, eventually traced the issues to the buildup of sediment in the water. He said he suspected the cause was Meta’s construction, which could have added sediment to the groundwater and affected their well. The couple replaced most of their appliances in 2019, and then again in 2021 and 2024. Residue now gathers at the bottom of their backyard pool. The taps in one of their two bathrooms still do not work.

As the US Navy just demonstrated, war at sea is global

Sean Andrews

The sinking by submarine attack of the Iranian frigate Dena in the Indian Ocean on 4 March is a blunt reminder that maritime war does not respect the tidy geographic boundaries favoured in policy frameworks. It also exposes a deeper problem for Australia: a navy built around a handful of exquisite ships and submarines is not structured for sustained attrition in a conflict that will not remain neatly contained.

Legally, the strike also sits squarely within contemporary law‑of‑naval‑warfare doctrine. Enemy warships are lawful military objectives by their nature, location and use. Their targetability does not depend on proximity to a declared theatre of operations, nor on whether they are engaged in immediate combat. Dena’s presence in international waters inside Sri Lanka’s exclusive economic zone didn’t diminish its status as a lawful target. Even the reported issuance of warnings, unnecessary when attacking warships, did not alter the fundamentally orthodox character of the engagement.

The German Military Tightens Its Social Media Rules

Christopher F. Schuetze and Tatiana Firsova

The German military badly needed new recruits. So it did what one would expect nowadays: It harnessed the power of social media to persuade young people to enlist. On official channels, officers were explaining jobs, equipment and training missions. Soldiers were showing off uniforms, gear and housing, or explaining how to properly apply camouflage makeup.

Then there were the more organic social media posts, usually by young recruits. These showed soldiers in workout videos, dance routines, with guns and in front of heavy military machinery. That social media outreach, showing what life can be like in the military and what opportunities and adventures it can bring, appears to have helped in attracting Gen Z recruits.

How Russia's threat has seen Germany become Europe's most important army

General Carsten Breuer is a man in a hurry. As head of Germany's armed forces he's the most powerful, and arguably the most important, soldier in Europe. He's been tasked with the rapid expansion of Germany's armed might, turning its army into the continent's most powerful fighting force. For he believes Russia's ongoing attempts to bolster its military through increased recruitment and investment in weaponry will leave it strong enough to launch an attack on a Nato territory by 2029.

"I've never experienced a situation which is as dangerous, as urgent, as it is today," he told me at a military base in Munster, near the Dutch border. "So what we are seeing, what we are facing, is a threat from Russia. We can clearly see that Russia is building up its military to a strength which is nearly double the size of what they had before the war against Ukraine… In 2029 it will be possible for Russia to conduct a major war against Nato. And as a soldier I have to say 'okay, we have to be prepared for this'."

The First AI War: How The Iran Conflict Is Reshaping Warfare

Michael Brown

In late February 2026, the United States and Israel launched coordinated military operations—code named Epic Fury and Roaring Lion—against Iran, marking the largest U.S. military operation since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Over the course of the conflict so far, U.S. Central Command struck more than 11,000 targets, while Iran responded with over 500 ballistic missiles and 2,000 drones. Supreme Leader Khamenei was killed in the opening strikes. But the statistics alone do not capture what made this conflict historic: this was the first U.S. war in which artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and commercial technology were not supporting actors—they were the main event.

When I became the Director of the Defense Innovation Unit at the Pentagon in 2018, Project Maven was already underway. Long before LLMs, DIU was supporting Project Maven with several vendors to improve computer vision, an AI capability to distinguish among objects in satellite imagery to save analysts studying pixels. Project Maven, formally the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team, was established by Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work in 2017 to accelerate the adoption of machine learning in ISR and geospatial intelligence. Air Force Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan and Marine Corps Col. Drew Cukor initially led Maven describing it as a pathfinder to “kindle the flame” of AI across the Department of Defense.

What can biosecurity learn from cybersecurity? A lot

Filippa Lentzos, Tim Stevens

Consider the past few years. A global pandemic revealed how quickly a biological threat can spread through tightly coupled economies and fragile health systems. At the same time, ransomware attacks—in which data is encrypted and access restored only upon payment of a ransom—repeatedly disrupted hospitals, pipelines, and public services, demonstrating how small groups operating in the digital domain can impose widespread disruption. These crises did not occur in isolation. They exposed a deeper reality: The infrastructures that sustain modern life are simultaneously vulnerable to biological risk and digital exploitation.

Yet biosecurity measures meant to prevent or mitigate human-made biological risks remain largely anchored in conceptual frameworks inherited from the nuclear era, like arms control agreements and export controls. These frames focus on threats and risks that are imagined as episodic, visible, and bounded—something to be deterred or prohibited. That framing has helped sustain a powerful taboo against biological weapons. But it is increasingly misaligned with the kinds of challenges emerging from rapid advances in biotechnology and the broader technological environment.

How AI use in scholarly publishing threatens research integrity, lessens trust, and invites misinformation

Andrew Gray

Scientific research underpins the things we do. Huge investments are made capitalizing on technological developments; governments declare that their policies will be based on academic evidence; doctors decide what treatments to use for their patients. And beneath all that is the idea that, ultimately, we can trust that published research fairly reflects the realities of the world: that it is true, that it is balanced, and that it has been produced and reviewed by expert researchers. But that foundation is starting to wobble.

Shortly after ChatGPT was released, it became clear that it was beginning to affect scholarly research. Published papers became much more likely to meticulously delve into intricate questions, and to do so with great enthusiasm, in ways they never had before (Stokel-Walker 2024). Distinctive quirks of large language model (LLM) writing such as these began to explode in popular usage, first in certain fields such as computer science or engineering, before spreading to other disciplines. Some researchers estimate that in 2024, 13.5 percent of all papers in PubMed indexed journals had been processed using LLMs, representing around 200,000 articles that year (Kobak 2025). In preprints—papers posted online as unreviewed drafts—the rates increased even faster, with more than 20 percent of computer science preprints showing signs of LLM involvement by late 2024 (Liang 2025).

1 April 2026

After Op Sindoor Losses, How Pakistan Reworking Its Asymmetric Aerial Doctrine To Counter India’s S-400 Air Defence Shield

RonitBisht

Following the intense aerial clashes of Operation Sindoor in May 2025, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has initiated a sweeping transformation of its combat strategy. Prompted by the reported destruction of multiple fighter jets and a critical Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) aircraft, Islamabad is abandoning its historical reliance on conventional fighter-to-fighter engagements. Instead, the military is pivoting towards asymmetric tactics, stand-off strikes, and network disruption, aimed squarely at bypassing India’s formidable S-400 Triumf long-range air defence shield.

The Rear-Tier Buffer ZoneWhile Islamabad has officially dismissed reports of heavy aircraft losses as exaggerated, its recent military deployments suggest a more cautious reality. Crucial, high-value platforms—specifically refuelling tankers and AEW&C surveillance planes—have been relocated far from the Indian border. By shifting these assets deep inland to military facilities like Pasni and Jacobabad, the PAF intends to keep them safely out of the S-400's lethal engagement range.

Were Foreign Nationals and Myanmar Rebel Groups Plotting an Attack Against India?

Rajeev Bhattacharyya

A morning drill at the military headquarters of Chin National Front (Camp Victoria) in Myanmar’s Chin State.Credit: Rajeev Bhattacharyya

The arrest of six Ukrainian nationals and a U.S. citizen in India for entering the northeastern state of Mizoram without permission and engaging with rebel groups in Myanmar has put the spotlight on the covert entry and activities of foreign nationals to restricted zones in the country and their journeys to neighboring Myanmar.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA), the anti-terror agency handling the case, has alleged that the group was making efforts to train some ethnic armed organizations (EAO) linked to insurgent outfits in India’s Northeast, as well as supplying the EAOs with weapons from Europe, including drones. All the accused have been booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

Why Africa Is Key To New Delhi’s Strategic Autonomy – Analysis

Raghvendra Kumar

(FPRI) — The ongoing military conflict involving Iran, Israel, and the United States has once again exposed that war and conflict not only carry significant human costs but also reveal deep structural vulnerabilities in the global economic and energy systems. The conflict has raised concerns about further escalation amidst the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint, triggering volatility in oil and natural gas markets. As a result, major oil and gas producing states in the Gulf region have declared force majeure due to the lack of export pathways.

While the objective of the US and Israeli-led “Operation Epic Fury” remains clear—that is, to limit Iran’s ability to project military power beyond its borders—the tactical approach adopted to achieve this has been to paralyze Iran’s command and control structure, particularly among its top political and military leadership. The early, coordinated, and targeted strikes appear to have functioned as “decapitation strikes,” aimed at disrupting decision-making and reducing Iran’s ability to coordinate a response, thereby weakening its ability to conduct retaliatory attacks against the United States, Israel, and their allies.

Caught Between Pakistan and the Iran War: What Comes Next for Afghanistan?

Mustafa Saqib

In the rugged geography of the Hindu Kush, isolation has long been a tool of survival. But for the Taliban-led administration in early 2026, that isolation has become a trap. Afghanistan currently finds itself physically and economically squeezed by two volatile fronts. To the east, a long-simmering border dispute with Pakistan has boiled over into what Islamabad officially declared an “open war” on February 27.

To the west, a high-intensity conflict involving Iran, Israel, and the United States has turned Afghanistan’s primary alternative trade route into a high-risk combat zone. The conflict in Iran, triggered by massive Israeli-U.S. strikes on February 28, has escalated into a sustained naval and aerial campaign. With U.S. carrier strike groups enforcing a partial blockade on Iranian ports to neutralize drone launch sites, maritime trade in the Gulf of Oman has effectively stalled.

War, Shipping, And Bangladesh As A Risk-Absorbing Maritime Node

Jianbo Wu

When risk rises along the artery through which a significant share of the world’s energy flows, the first-order effects are familiar: insurance premiums climb, routes are reconsidered, and freight rates begin to move. But beneath these adjustments lies a quieter disruption — one that exposes a structural weakness in the global maritime system. The issue is not simply whether goods can move. It is whether the system can replace capacity fast enough when it is strained.

For decades, global shipbuilding has been organized around efficiency and scale. The world’s largest yards — clustered in China, South Korea, and, to a lesser extent, Japan — have steadily moved up the value chain, concentrating on technologically complex, capital-intensive vessels. China alone now accounts for more than half of global shipbuilding output, with order books stretching years into the future. Capacity has never been more advanced. It has also rarely been less flexible.

China deploys 42 ships and hundreds of oceanic sensors to prepare for submarine warfare against the US Navy.

China deployed a network of 42 research vessels and hundreds of oceanic sensors to map subsea environments across the Pacific, Indian, and Arctic oceans, building a detailed operational dataset to support submarine warfare against the U.S. Navy.

The multi-year campaign combines seabed mapping and real-time environmental monitoring to enhance underwater navigation, concealment, and sonar performance in strategically contested maritime zones. Spanning across key chokepoints and naval corridors near Taiwan, Guam, and the Malacca Strait, this new capability directly strengthens China’s anti-submarine warfare and operational framework by enabling precise prediction of sonar conditions and optimized submarine operations in regions used by US and allied naval forces.

Beijing tightens drone rules, citing ‘low-altitude security’ concerns

Liu Zhen

Citing security concerns, Beijing will significantly restrict drone sales, storage and transport after tightening regulation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the Chinese capital’s airspace, according to state media.

Beijing has banned the sale or lease of UAVs and 17 designated “core components” to any person or organisation unless granted public security approval, according to the regulation approved by the municipal legislative body on Friday.

Bringing new drones or core components into Beijing’s administrative area would also be forbidden, state news agency Xinhua reported. It noted there would be an exception for drones that had already undergone real-name registration and were being carried by verified owners.

China’s 15th Five-Year Plan

Erik Green

On 12 March 2026, China concluded its annual ‘Two Sessions’ – a large political meeting of delegates from China’s legislative body, the National People’s Congress, and its advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. At this year’s gathering, delegates approved China’s 15th Five-Year Plan (FYP), which outlines the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) developmental objectives for 2026–30. This was President Xi Jinping’s third FYP as leader, delivered at a time of slowing economic growth, internal instability following last year’s widespread anti-corruption campaign and global uncertainty due to the ongoing war in Iran.

The 15th FYP highlights several points of continuity in the CCP’s strategic ambitions – namely its aim to achieve technological supremacy and self-reliance. More importantly, however, the FYP also emphasises a growing concern regarding internal and external risks that may threaten these ambitions and outlines how the CCP plans to mitigate them. As the CCP faces an increasingly unpredictable external environment as well as continued challenges at home, it is investing in enhanced early-warning and risk-monitoring systems. To achieve these ambitions and coordinate risk assessments, improvements in centre–local party relations and information flows will be key.

Winning in Iran Requires More Than Military Success

Craig Wonson

Over the past several weeks, coverage of the conflict with Iran has followed a consistent pattern. Media reports have focused primarily on airstrikes, missile sites destroyed, drones intercepted, and other visible measures of military activity. While this coverage captures viewers’ attention and offers a snapshot of events, it risks reinforcing the perception that tactical military success equates to "winning," even as the strategic outcome remains unclear.

No military strategy can succeed without success at the tactical level. Tactical actions are complex, demanding, and often conducted at great risk, requiring a high degree of competence and professionalism. Yet the issue is not whether such actions matter. It is how they align with broader objectives that contribute to a desired political endstate.

Iran War Weekly Update – 28 Mar 2026

During the past week of Operation Epic Fury, U.S. and Israeli military operations continued to degrade Iranian military capability while strategic challenges became more pronounced. The United States and its partners maintained a high operational tempo, targeting missile infrastructure, naval assets, and military production facilities. However, Iran’s leadership structure has demonstrated resilience, and Tehran continues to leverage its geographic control of the Strait of Hormuz to exert pressure on global energy markets. Diplomatic activity increased, with competing ceasefire proposals reflecting widening gaps between Washington and Tehran over acceptable end-state conditions. Meanwhile, regional escalation risks remain elevated as proxy activity persists in Lebanon and Iranian missile and drone attacks continue against Gulf state infrastructure.

At the operational level, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) reports significant degradation of Iranian naval and missile capabilities. However, strategic objectives remain less clearly defined, raising questions regarding the long-term trajectory of the conflict. Economic effects, alliance cohesion challenges, and growing munitions expenditure pressures suggest that the conflict may be entering a transitional phase where political outcomes increasingly shape military decision-making.

Exclusive: U.S. can only confirm about a third of Iran's missile arsenal destroyed, sources say

Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali, Jonathan Landay and Erin Banco

One of the sources said the intelligence was similar for Iran's drone capability, saying there was some degree of certainty about a third having been destroyed.

The assessment, which has not been previously reported, shows that while most of Iran's missiles are either destroyed or inaccessible, Tehran still has a significant missile inventory and may be able to recover some buried or damaged missiles once fighting stops.

The intelligence stands in contrast to President Donald Trump's public remarks on Thursday that Iran had "very few rockets left". He also appeared to acknowledge the threat from remaining Iranian missiles and drones to any future U.S. operations to safeguard the economically vital Strait of Hormuz.

Reuters first reported that he is weighing whether to escalate the conflict by deploying U.S. troops to Iranian shores along the Strait.

"The problem with the straits is this: let's say we do a great job. We say we got 99% (of their ⁠missiles). 1% is unacceptable, because 1% is a missile going into the hull of a ship that cost a billion dollars," Trump said at a televised Cabinet meeting on Thursday.

How risky would a US assault on Iran’s Kharg Island be — and why might Trump consider it

Billy Stockwell

Even as US President Donald Trump has declared the “war has been won” with Iran, amphibious warships, landing craft and thousands of Marines and sailors are being deployed to the region. The deployment has caused speculation to swirl over whether the US plans to capture Kharg Island, a coral outcrop off Iran’s coast and an economic lifeline for Tehran that handles roughly 90% of the country’s crude oil exports.

Even if Washington successfully took the tiny but strategic island, experts have questioned whether this would give the US enough leverage to force Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz amid a spiraling global energy crisis.

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