Afghanistan’s Road to Nowhere, and the Central Asian Way Around It

The National Interest | Amel Metjahic

In October 2026, the Afghan Taliban completed a 365 million afghani ($5.5 million), 121-kilometer gravel road through the Wakhan Corridor to establish direct trade with China. Beijing remains hesitant to open its border crossing due to security threats, unviable banking arrangements, and Kabul's escalating military conflict with Pakistan.

Although Chinese officials cite the severe climate of the 4,923-meter Wakhjir Pass, China's year-round operation of the nearby 4,733-meter Khunjerab Pass proves institutional and security risks are the real obstacles. Unreliable commercial contracts continue to deter foreign capital. Consequently, Central Asian nations are stepping in as financial intermediaries, with Kazakh-Afghan trade reaching $581.1 million by July 2026 alongside Uzbekistan's establishment of exchange-based escrow systems. By backing regional infrastructure projects like the Turgundi-Herat railway toward Pakistani ports, Central Asian states can secure new trade routes into South Asia while reducing their strategic economic reliance on Russia.

Peace by Decree, Minerals by Design

Brief.pk

Pakistan's federal government enacted a direct takeover of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, dispatching Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi to Peshawar for joint proceedings with Governor Faisal Karim Kundi at Governor's House on October 18, 2026. Naqvi publicly announced that the region remained largely peaceful during the initial twenty-four hours following federal intervention, while Kundi asserted local citizens celebrated the administrative transition by distributing sweets.

This federal intervention establishes direct central authority over the strategic northwestern border province amidst broader legislative and executive restructuring. Central control was declared seamlessly. The administrative consolidation aligns executive authority with mineral resource governance under central decree, signaling a significant shift in provincial autonomy dynamics. By centralizing security and administration in Peshawar, Islamabad aims to stabilize local security architecture while securing key regional assets. However, whether federal control can deliver durable stability across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa without provoking persistent local political resistance or institutional friction across federal-provincial lines remains a critical unresolved strategic question.

AI Will Deepen Divide Between the PRC’s Two Economies

The Jamestown Foundation | George Magnus

China’s 15th Five-Year Plan places artificial intelligence at the core of the nation's industrial ecosystem, referencing technology 52 times as Beijing seeks a revolutionary productivity leap. General Secretary Xi Jinping aims to transform the country from a global assembly platform into an integrated leader controlling advanced manufacturing and supply chains via the "AI+" initiative.

This technological drive exacerbates structural fractures across China's dualistic economy. The state-guided technology sector accounts for 13 percent of gross domestic product, while the remaining economy grapples with excessive debt, weak consumption, and persistent unemployment. AI creates a major positive supply shock alongside a negative demand shock. This dynamic deepens systemic oversupply. At the 2026 Inclusion Conference on the Bund in Shanghai, Chinese economists highlighted growing risks around model governance and algorithmic security. Despite buoyant capital spending in electronics, AI integration fails to resolve broader macroeconomic stagnation or demographic labor contraction across non-priority industrial sectors.

The Iran War Has Changed the World Forever

Foreign Policy | Kenneth M. Pollack

Persian Gulf states are aggressively acquiring and manufacturing offensive drone and missile arsenals in response to the ongoing Israeli-American war with Iran. While Western-supplied air and missile defenses intercept roughly 90 percent of incoming Iranian munitions, the remaining 10 percent has inflicted catastrophic psychological and physical damage on Gulf economies, shattering their foundational status as peaceful commercial havens.

The conflict demonstrates that defensive interceptors are economically unsustainable against cheap Iranian production lines, leaving regional capitals unable to rely solely on external U.S. or Israeli deterrence. Consequently, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait are procuring systems from Turkey, Israel, China, and Ukraine while partnering with U.S. firms to establish domestic manufacturing. Unlike the nuclear balance of the Cold War, this conventional proliferation lacks absolute deterrent clarity, driving an escalatory spiral where hard-line leaders in Tehran seek to prove their higher tolerance for punishment.

Japan’s drone wall: Ukraine’s war comes to Okinawa’s doorstep

Defence Connect | Alan Callow

Japan’s Defense Ministry allocated 100 billion yen in its fiscal 2026 budget to develop SHIELD, a layered network of aerial, surface, and underwater drones designed to protect the south-western Nansei chain. Adopted in August 2026, Japan's defense white paper cited Ukrainian battlefield tactics as the primary driver behind this rapid operational shift near Taiwan.

The platform network will deploy across island garrisons on Yonaguni, Ishigaki, and Miyako from fiscal 2027. Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi aims to transform the Self-Defense Forces into the world's leading operational drone user. Tokyo plans to expand annual production from 1,000 to 80,000 units by 2030. Beijing condemned the shift. Joint ventures with Ukrainian partners like Terra Drone and Amazing Drones are already facilitating direct technology transfers. However, severe typhoon weather and local Okinawan opposition over electronic warfare deployments introduce significant operational friction for the forward island strategy.

The Old World Order Is Over. This Is What Could Come Next.

The New York Times | Serge Schmemann

China has emerged as a greater economic and military rival to the United States than the Soviet Union ever was, while Russia's re-emergence as a police state has reignited European war. President Trump and potential successors like Marco Rubio or JD Vance challenge the postwar order through expanded executive power, grievance politics, and courting autocrats.

The liberal, rules-based order built after World War II faces permanent structural change following nearly four decades of post-Berlin Wall developments. Mass migration, inequality, cybercrime, and polarization now reveal the dark side of globalization. Fast-evolving technology undertakes tasks once reserved for human intellect. History lacks a reboot mechanism. The binary stability of the last century cannot be restored through political illusions like Make America Great Again. As the United States steps aside, democratic allies and autocratic competitors navigate an international system marked by systemic retreats from global democratic values and human rights.

U.S. Army Outlines Plans for Intense War with China in First Island Chain

Military Watch Magazine

The U.S. Army has published its How the Army Fights guidance document, detailing plans to pre-position strike systems and hardened stockpiles across the First Island Chain to sustain immediate, high-intensity conflict against China. By deploying Mid-Range Capability launchers utilizing SM-6 and Tomahawk missiles, American commanders aim to project land-based anti-ship and precision fire into the Western Pacific on day one of a war.

This operational pivot reflects growing concern over the People's Liberation Army's extensive anti-access/area-denial networks, which threaten long-distance reinforcements from the continental United States. Pre-positioned forward stocks limit transport vulnerabilities. Consequently, the strategy redefines the Second Island Chain—including hubs in Japan, Singapore, and Guam—as critical logistical depth for dispersing fuel and ammunition. Multi-domain task forces will integrate long-range fires with cyber and electronic warfare to disrupt Chinese operations. Maintaining these exposed island positions under sustained Chinese missile strikes remains a formidable logistical and operational challenge.

Heartland vs. Sea Power: Why the Rimland Will Shape the Future of World Order

E-International Relations | Anu Anwar

Nicholas Spykman’s Rimland Theory establishes the coastal periphery of Eurasia as the primary arena of 21st-century great power competition between US-led maritime forces and a land-power coalition of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. This strategic realignment shifts the global center of gravity away from Halford Mackinder’s Heartland and Alfred Thayer Mahan’s classic sea power doctrines.

The Rimland encompasses essential maritime chokepoints—including the Strait of Malacca, the Suez Canal, and Bab-el-Mandeb—where land power directly intersects with sea lanes carrying over 90% of global commerce. Direct major-power war remains unlikely. Instead, nuclear deterrence and deep economic ties concentrate strategic competition into proxy engagements across non-nuclear littoral zones. This dynamic forces regional middle powers into delicate balancing acts between Western financial networks and Chinese trade infrastructure. Furthermore, land-based anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) missile systems, hypersonic weapons, and uncrewed platforms increasingly erode traditional Western naval supremacy throughout strategic maritime chokepoints.

China’s AI Cognitive Warfare: Manipulating Taiwan’s Reality? | CONNECTED Power and Principles

Small Wars Journal

China uses artificial intelligence to expand cognitive warfare operations against Taiwan's digital information ecosystem, targeting social media platforms to alter public perception and erode social cohesion ahead of a potential conflict. This non-kinetic strategy complements the Irregular Warfare Center research study China’s Way of Occupation led by Dr.

Ken Gleiman, which examines how Beijing employs narrative control, surveillance, coercion, political organisation, and societal fragmentation to establish authority before launching military action. In response, Taiwan deploys civil society networks and automated verification tools to counter computational disinformation. Organisations including Doublethink Lab, Forward Alliance, and the Taiwan Digital Diplomacy Association coordinate fact-checking infrastructure, while authorities restricted Chinese applications such as Xiaohongshu to limit algorithmic influence. Research from figures like Mariah Thornton and Samuel Straw indicates that TikTok and RedNote serve as operational vectors for algorithmic manipulation. Chinese campaigns adapt constantly. Taipei maintains that active information defense forms a critical operational domain alongside traditional physical deterrence.

The Prince Who Swallowed the State

FrameTheGlobeNews

Houthi drones and ballistic missiles struck King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh in October 2026, killing at least 12 people and wounding over 300 as Saudi Arabia faced compounding security crises. This strike followed a September Iraqi drone attack disabling the East-West pipeline, driving Saudi oil production to a thirty-year low following Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The strategic vulnerability stems from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman centralizing state power since 2015 while dismantling traditional security checks across the military and intelligence services. Depleted interceptor inventories forced Riyadh to request air defense assets from France, Britain, Pakistan, and Egypt. Saudi defense capabilities are depleted. An eleven-year Yemen campaign involving 25,000 airstrikes failed to dislodge Houthi forces from Sana'a or secure the Bab el-Mandeb. Domestic purges and the 2017 Ritz-Carlton detentions consolidated $106 billion for state funds, but stripped security agencies of independent operational leadership.

Operational Readiness Redefined in the Era of the Drone

Small Wars Journal | Jaber AlSabah

Kuwait deployed a $1.98 billion AI-powered counter-drone architecture following a June 2026 drone attack on Kuwait International Airport that killed one person and suspended flights. This multi-layered defense integrated directly with existing radar and early-warning networks to counter low-cost unmanned aerial vehicles targeting critical energy and transport infrastructure.

During Iran’s 2026 saturation strikes, this integrated sensor network enabled Gulf air defense forces to intercept between 93% and 95% of incoming Iranian missiles and drones. Layered integration restored critical operational readiness. The operational mechanism functions through a synchronized detect, classify, and defeat sequence, using artificial intelligence to fuse data across multiple overlapping sensor types into a unified command picture. By pairing soft-kill electronic jammers against radio-controlled platforms with hard-kill interceptors for autonomous threats, the system prevents cheap strike munitions from bankrupting high-value Patriot missile inventories. Consequently, Gulf states are abandoning standalone air defense batteries to build resilient, networked counter-drone architectures capable of sustaining regional security and oil production.

Recap: Autonomy dominates the US Army’s 2026 conference in Washington

Military Times

The Association of the United States Army convened its annual conference in Washington from October 12-14, 2026, where automation and unmanned systems dominated displays amid rapid technological shifts in modern warfare. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the Pentagon is requesting roughly $50 billion in reconciliation funding to scale autonomous systems from thousands to millions of units.

The U.S. Army ordered the creation of the U.S. Army Futures and Autonomous Systems Command, establishing a four-star command for unmanned warfare alongside new acquisition reforms. The service also expanded its rapid drone marketplace to 33 nations following $800 million in prior transactions. Concurrently, the Army released a new 46-page guide titled How The Army Fights, structured around four pillars: disrupt, strike, assault, and endure. Officials also targeted early 2028 for the initial fielding of the Enduring-High Energy Laser counter-drone system following a $464.8 million contract awarded to AeroVironment.

What would special operations forces do in a really big war?

Task & Purpose | Matt White

U.S. Army Special Operations Command is adapting its 22,000-person force for potential large-scale, high-intensity conflicts against peer adversaries like China or Russia. Command leadership, including Lt. Gen. Lawrence "Gil" Ferguson and Brig. Gen. Joseph Wortham, outlined an operational transition during the annual Association of the United States Army conference.

After two decades dominated by counter-insurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, special units are recalibrating toward supporting division- and corps-level conventional formations. USASOC integrates direct-action assets like the 75th Ranger Regiment and 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment alongside specialized Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations units. Green Beret detachments will focus heavily on long-range sensing, deep-battlefield deception, and leveraging established host-nation relationships. Small teams provide critical battlefield influence. Civil Affairs units are slated to manage local governance and the post-combat consolidation of gains, freeing conventional corps commanders to sustain forward operational momentum in theater.

A Better “America First”

Foreign Affairs | Charles Kupchan

U.S. President Donald Trump's "America first" foreign policy exposed fundamental fractures in Washington's global strategic posture by highlighting the operational friction between expansive overseas security commitments and domestic economic stability. Critics across the political spectrum condemn Trump for alienating traditional allies, appeasing great-power rivals, launching a failed Middle East war, and escalating trade conflicts that exacerbated domestic affordability crises.

Yet, total rejection of this doctrine risks ignoring structural overextension. The core strategic trade-off requires balancing forward power projection against national economic endurance. Washington overextended its military and financial resources. High tariffs and unilateral military actions created self-inflicted economic strains without securing enduring strategic advantages against major peer competitors. Rebalancing requires recalibrating alliance obligations while safeguarding domestic prosperity against inflationary trade disputes. Consequently, future American foreign policy strategists must reconcile international security obligations with long-term domestic economic viability without creating dangerous power vacuums across critical operational theaters.

Why Is France Perpetually Rioting?

Foreign Policy | Emile Chabal

France experiences approximately 20 protests daily according to Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, driven by a deeply rooted political culture of revolutionary insurrection and the structural weakness of intermediary bodies like political parties and trade unions. Protesting spans the entire political spectrum, evidenced by major past demonstrations such as the 1984 private schooling reform rallies and the 2013 same-sex marriage marches.

A top-heavy, technocratic state established under the Fifth Republic in 1958 fosters an environment where street demonstrations remain one of the few viable avenues for citizens to influence governance outside the ballot box. French authorities frequently respond with aggressive policing tactics reminiscent of the 1871 suppression of the Paris Commune, which routinely hardens public resolve and escalates civil unrest. Despite diminished global power, France retains its status as a primary exporter of radical political symbolism, generating enduring influence across both global left and right movements.

Katya Adler: France's government under pressure after weekend of widespread violence

BBC News | Katya Adler

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu convened a crisis cabinet meeting on Monday following nationwide civil unrest that saw over 500,000 demonstrators protest against rising living costs and declining public services. Violent clashes involving masked activists resulted in approximately 1,500 looted businesses, widespread arson, and injuries to nearly 1,000 police officers across major cities.

Overwhelmed riot police deployed tear gas. The spiralling internal security crisis prompted Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez to offer his resignation, which President Emmanuel Macron rejected while demanding actionable law enforcement solutions. Crucially, the administration faces severe governance limitations, as a deeply divided parliament and investor pressure over spiralling public debt constrain potential welfare concessions. Furthermore, official plans to compensate damaged businesses and secure future demonstrations remain entirely unarticulated. With presidential elections approaching in six months, broad trade union coalitions and the gilets jaunes movement have already called for renewed nationwide protests on 5 November.

Russian Diesel Deal and Energy Ceasefire Expose Moscow’s Limits

The Jamestown Foundation | Pavel K. Baev

Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to supply diesel to global markets following an October 9 announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump, but delivery increases remained very limited while U.S. diesel prices registered no drop. Moscow plans to restore exports to 10 percent of the global market by the end of the year, though degradation of the Russian oil industry from Ukrainian refinery strikes casts doubt on feasibility.

Meanwhile, an uncoordinated energy ceasefire announced by Trump on October 11 failed to halt strikes, as Ukrainian forces hit the Ryazan refinery on October 15 and Borisoglebsk airbase on October 14–15, destroying four Su-34 fighter-bombers. Concurrently, Ukrainian missile strikes between October 7 and October 14 disabled four major Yandex and Sberbank data centers, disrupting half of Yandex's online infrastructure and exposing severe centralization vulnerabilities. Economic strains from commercial recruitment and mounting casualties further undercut offensive sustainability despite official claims of capturing 1,800 square kilometers since September 1.

Stanford Internet Observatory

Journal of Online Trust and Safety, 2026, v. 3, no. 4 

• Regulating the “Unregulatable”: Why Policymakers Are in Paralysis When Regulating AI
• Abuse Is Not Love: Failure to Recognize Technology-Facilitated Intimate Partner Violence
• Mandating Data Interoperability as a Tool for Improving Youth Wellbeing on Social Media
• The Far-Reaching Implications of Brazil’s Supreme Court Decision for Platform Governance
• Beyond Content-Based Enforcement
• Trust and Safety of Human- and AI-Powered Visual Description: A Case Study of Be My Eyes
• AI and Agency: Benefiting Users by Understanding and Serving Explicit Aspirations
• The Backbone of Abuse: How Infrastructure Providers Enable the Proliferation of AI-Generated Non-Consensual Intimate Imagery
• “It Doesn’t Violate Our Community Standards”: Examining Social Media Platforms’ Moderation Practices for User-Reported Rule-Breaking Tobacco Content

How the Ukraine War Ends

19FortyFive | Dr James Jay Carafano

The Ukraine war may end not with a comprehensive peace agreement but with a partial ceasefire and another frozen conflict. Dr James Jay Carafano argues that Donald Trump's approach combines pressure on Moscow, support for Ukraine and repeated attempts to negotiate an end to the fighting. He draws a comparison with Ronald Reagan's strategy of strength alongside diplomacy.

The article maintains that Trump's changing initiatives reflect tactical experimentation rather than a fundamental shift in strategic objectives. It highlights NATO's defence efforts and continued military support for Kyiv as factors shaping Russia's calculations. Carafano nevertheless considers a comprehensive settlement elusive. He identifies a ceasefire affecting energy and food exports, followed by reduced fighting, as a plausible path towards a prolonged frozen conflict. He also expects Russian political and hybrid activities against Ukraine and NATO to continue. These remain forecasts rather than confirmed outcomes. The central argument is that diplomatic flexibility and military strength can operate together, although neither guarantees an agreement. The durability of any ceasefire would depend on the parties' willingness to accept limits, maintain compliance and address the unresolved territorial and security disputes that underpin the war.

Documents Show How Israel Steered Qatari Payments to Gaza

TIME | Eric Cortellessa

Qatar’s financial assistance to Gaza became a policy instrument shaped by Israeli security calculations, humanitarian concerns and regional diplomacy. TIME reports that documents and official correspondence show successive Israeli governments helped facilitate and oversee aid transfers, including fuel payments and cash assistance for Palestinian households. The arrangement aimed to ease civilian hardship while preserving leverage over Hamas.

The report traces the programme’s evolution from informal transfers to mechanisms involving Israel, Qatar and international organisations. It also records criticism that the system left both Israeli authorities and Hamas with influence over aid delivery, while Netanyahu has argued that assistance prevented humanitarian collapse. The documents, as described by TIME, sharpen questions about oversight, recipient screening and the risks of using civilian relief to manage an adversary. They do not, by themselves, establish that aid directly enabled the 7 October 2023 attack or prove a deliberate policy to strengthen Hamas. The case illustrates the difficulty of separating humanitarian relief from security strategy in a conflict zone.

Trump Leaves Ukraine Without Advance Missile Warnings and Restricts Starshield as Russia Escalates Deadly Attacks

Olgalautman | Olga Lautman

United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order waiving new sanctions against Russia under the Lindsey Graham Act just two days before implementation. Following this concession, Russian forces launched sixteen ballistic missiles at Kyiv and surrounding regions, leaving 550,000 households without power and killing civilians without advance warning from partners.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that Washington briefly resumed ballistic missile intelligence sharing after cutting access over Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries, though warnings remained absent during active attacks. Meanwhile, the White House delayed deliveries of Patriot interceptors funded by European allies and ordered restrictions on SpaceX Starshield communications. These throttling measures disrupted Ukrainian military operations and drone intercepts by severing data connections at speeds between 130 and 161 kilometers per hour. Several congressional Republicans threatened to block Pentagon funding requests over the shift in policy.

U.S. Space-Based Ballistic Missile Early Warning and Ukraine

Missile Matters | Fabian Hoffmann

Reports on 12 October indicated that the United States suspended sharing space-based missile early-warning intelligence with Ukraine, leaving Ukrainian urban centres exposed to undetected ballistic missile strikes. This interruption directly threatens civilian infrastructure and military assets across targeted cities. Early warning remains critical. The Space-Based Infrared System currently provides primary infrared detection capabilities for incoming missile launches.

Without access to these space-based sensors, Ukrainian air defence networks lose vital reaction time needed to intercept incoming threats. European allies currently lack sovereign space-based early warning architectures capable of filling this critical intelligence gap. European capability developments will not reach operational maturity before the 2030s. Consequently, European defence posture remains heavily dependent on American orbital intelligence sharing during high-intensity conflict. The situation demonstrates how technical intelligence sharing functions as a pivotal mechanism of strategic leverage within modern security partnerships. Future operational security in Europe hinges on resolving these critical space-layer dependencies.

The Pentagon’s Quantum Race Needs a Warfighter’s Scorecard

RealClear Defense | Burak Oktenli

The Pentagon’s quantum ambitions face a practical test: whether emerging computing technologies and post-quantum cryptography deliver measurable military value. An article by Burak Oktenli argues that research milestones and migration percentages can create false confidence unless they are tied to operational requirements, independently validated evidence and the ability of critical services to keep functioning under real-world conditions.

The article distinguishes quantum computing research, including possible materials-science applications, from the separate task of protecting sensitive networks against future quantum-enabled attacks. It calls for validated results, comparison with classical computing and credible routes to manufacturing. For cryptographic migration, it recommends mapping dependencies across mission services rather than relying on asset counts. Shared trust services, stale revocation information or restored legacy configurations could undermine security despite reassuring dashboards. Oktenli proposes controlled tests and comparison with existing assurance methods. His central argument is that neither technical breakthroughs nor completed migrations prove readiness unless evidence shows that the intended military mission remains supportable.

AI Goes to War: Verifying the call at machine speed

Federal News Network | Alex Witt

Andrew Moore, CEO of Lovelace AI and former adviser to U.S. Central Command, warned that rapid artificial intelligence capabilities must buy military operators decision time rather than replace human judgment. While automated sensor processing detects emerging theater threats hours faster than legacy methods, command structures face competing realities: AI accelerates intelligence synthesis, but operator fatigue risks converting tactical decision-support systems into unverified decision-making platforms.

A Taiwan Strait trial demonstrated this friction when one algorithmic system flagged a massive vessel surge as an impending military offensive, whereas a second system correctly attributed the movement to local commercial fishing schedules. Human operators face severe cognitive fatigue. Consequently, defense practitioners advocate multi-agent cross-verification architectures that enforce strict chain-of-reasoning transparency and 100-to-1 evidence-weighting thresholds prior to kinetic execution. Systematically forcing algorithms to submit corroborating intelligence ensures that machine-speed synthesis preserves operational oversight across high-stakes combat command networks.

How one hacker used AI agents and a few thousand dollars to break into scores of sites

Reuters | Raphael Satter

Chinese-speaking hackers deployed autonomous artificial intelligence agents to breach more than 100 corporate websites in a low-cost campaign tracked by cybersecurity researcher Snorre Fagerland. The intruder used the open-source platform Cairn, directing AI tools with fewer than 100 characters of instructions to execute sprawling intrusions against e-commerce networks in the US, Canada, Australia, and Japan.

Approximately 1,200 total targets faced probing over a multi-week span, with successful penetrations taking around 23 hours and consuming roughly $5,000 in computing tokens. NorForge threat researchers observed the agents independently mapping secondary corporate infrastructure and exploiting control panels without human oversight. Deere, SharkNinja, and Cummins were among the corporate victims identified by independent analysis of Cairn activity logs. Commercial token economics now allow single operators to scale cyber operations at roughly $50 per successful breach.

How photography helped physicist Bibha Chowdhuri see the invisible in the 1930s

Scroll.in | Kamayani Sharma

In 1938, Indian physicist Bibha Chowdhuri and D.M. Bose exposed samarium-soaked photographic plates at high altitudes in Sandakphu and Darjeeling to detect cosmic radiation and map subatomic nuclear disintegrations. Their experimental emulsion technique recorded 30 star-like tracks left by charged particles, establishing light-sensitive photographic plates as viable detectors of subatomic events.

She isolated cosmic particle trajectories. This methodology directly enabled scientists to differentiate heavy particles, including protons and mesotrons, based on track scattering patterns across varying elevations up to 14,500 feet at Pharijong. However, wartime supply disruptions during the Second World War severed access to specialized Ilford halftone plates from England, halting further cosmic ray experiments at the Bose Institute in Kolkata. While Nobel laureate Cecil Powell subsequently collaborated with Ilford Ltd in Bristol to refine these nuclear emulsions, Chowdhuri's pioneering research provided the essential empirical proof for photographic particle detection techniques.

Spoil of War: How Conflict Shapes Myanmar’s Gold Supply Chain

Iiss | Ben Dunant

Myanmar gold mining has expanded significantly since the 2021 military coup, funding armed opposition groups and generating informal taxation revenue for the ruling military regime amidst a conflict that has caused over 100,000 fatalities. Domestic bullion sales have surged due to the devaluation of the national currency, the kyat, and foreign currency rationing, prompting price controls and increased smuggling into neighbouring countries such as India.

This unregulated economic surge relies on small-scale extraction methods using toxic mercury and excessive river dredging, which severely degrade local ecosystems and divide communities. Downstream, these environmental and social harms persist across conflict lines and can endure even under ceasefires if the underlying political drivers of violence remain unaddressed. Illicit flows from these operations ultimately cross South and Southeast Asian transit routes, potentially entering global supply networks.

Ports, power, and presence: How to defend Batanes from China

Atlantic Council | Alvin Camba and Kevin M. Wheeler

Chinese scholars at Jinan University recently asserted that Batanes, the northernmost province of the Philippines, constitutes a natural extension of Taiwan, triggering calls in Chinese state media for regular Chinese Coast Guard patrols in the Bashi Channel. Manila swiftly rejected the claims, which mirror previous Chinese grey-zone efforts targeting Japan’s Ryukyu Islands.

Grounding local resilience requires urgent allied civilian infrastructure investments in power generation, cold storage, and port expansion for the province’s 18,937 residents. Batanes occupies critical maritime terrain. Beyond protecting local livelihoods, hard infrastructure upgrades generate a vital second-order consequence by providing essential logistical sustainment for joint operations across the Luzon Strait. Armed Forces of the Philippines detachments on Mavulis Island and US Marine deployments of the NMESIS anti-ship missile system during Balikatan exercises already underscore the area’s military significance. Expanding dual-use infrastructure ensures long-term allied operational flexibility while denying Beijing an entry point for economic coercion.

Under the New Logic of Drone Warfare, Is Unmanned No Longer a Key Capability?

Small Wars Journal | David Sterman

Myanmar’s military junta conducted over 1,600 aerial strikes using light manned recreational aircraft and paramotors between 2025 and late 2026, marking a pivotal turn in low-cost aerial warfare. This operational shift reflects a broader evolution in aerial combat since the United States launched its first drone strike in Afghanistan in October 2001.

While early American operations prioritised casualty aversion, recent conflicts in Ukraine, Ethiopia, and Sudan redefined unmanned aerial systems as tools for cheap, massed firepower. In Myanmar, low-altitude air defense gaps allowed the military government to discard the unmanned requirement entirely to maximize weapon delivery against civilian and insurgent targets. That transition altered combat economics. Manned ultralights now outnumber the 1,459 drone strikes and 7,500 conventional air strikes recorded by the National Unity Government. Light aircraft proved particularly effective across flat terrain in the Sagaing and Mandalay regions. This trajectory highlights how low-cost combat logic can paradoxically drive armies away from automated platforms.

America Is Risking Its Biggest Asset

The New York Times | Michael Froman

Economic interdependence is increasingly becoming a source of strategic leverage. Governments can exploit concentrated supply chains, critical maritime routes and financial networks to impose costs on rivals. China’s dominance in rare-earth processing gives Beijing influence over industries that depend on specialised minerals, while Iran’s position near the Strait of Hormuz creates risks for international energy transport.

These vulnerabilities are encouraging governments to diversify supply routes, expand domestic production and build alternative sources of critical materials. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have invested in infrastructure that can move some oil exports without transiting the Strait of Hormuz. The United States has also pursued policies intended to strengthen domestic critical-mineral supply chains and reduce dependence on Chinese processing.