Trump refuses to be outdone by Europe, signing his own U.S.-India trade deal

Holly Ellyatt

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement Monday that he has agreed a trade deal with India comes hot on the heels of Europe’s own trade agreement with New Delhi, signaling Washington is not willing to be outdone by its global competitors. The U.S. deal comes after global trading partners like the European Union and India, and China and Canada, have signed their own trade pacts since the new year, leaving America — which has been trigger-happy when it comes to imposing punitive tariffs on trading partners — looking ostracized.

Analysts had said those deals, and particularly the EU-India pact, could “light a fire” under the U.S. to get its own stalled trade agreement with India done and dusted, but it has come quicker than most expected. Trump announced Monday on the Truth Social media platform that the U.S. would cut the main tariff on India from 25% to 18%. He said Washington would also remove an additional 25% tariff it had imposed on New Delhi last summer in retaliation for its Russian oil purchases.

OPINION | Economic Survey highlights a new vision for tech sovereignty in India

Meghna Bal

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The Economic Survey’s observations on compute and AI portend potentially significant developments in the upcoming Budget. First, it flags concerns raised by the Financial Times about off-balance-sheet leverage in global AI investments, alongside skepticism expressed by IBM’s CEO regarding the financial viability of large-scale data center expansion. Second, it highlights that the demands data centers place on water, energy, and finance may be difficult to reconcile with India’s economic and existential realities, where steady access to these basic amenities is still not universal. Taken together, these signals suggest that Budget 2026 is unlikely to offer subsidies or major outlays for data centers. This presents a unique opportunity for India to reimagine its conception of technological sovereignty.

Concerns Over AI Investments. In a digital economy typified by cross-border and multi-directional data flows, technological sovereignty need not hinge on physical localisation, but on predictability. Until now, the idea of technological sovereignty in India has largely meant building as much as possible domestically, and forcing localization where it was not. Ratcheting up the number of home-grown data centers fed into this vision.

India–Europe At A Geopolitical Crossroads – Analysis

Ramesh Jaura

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When India and the European Union finally inked their long-anticipated Free Trade Agreement on January 27, 2026, the fanfare barely masked the unease that had driven both sides to the table. Leaders hailed a “historic milestone,” a “new chapter,” and a “shared vision for prosperity.” Yet beneath the triumphant rhetoric, a deeper reality surfaced: this treaty was born not from a resurgence of faith in globalisation, but from its unravelling. It was shaped less by confidence than by uncertainty, less by plenty than by the fear of becoming dependent.

The agreement was signed during the State Visit of António Costa, President of the European Council, and Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, who were invited as Chief Guests for India’s Republic Day celebrations. This invitation alone carried strategic meaning. India rarely accords such honour to leaders of a regional bloc, having done so only once before with ASEAN in 2022. The spectacle of the two European leaders riding with President Droupadi Murmu down Kartavya Path and being received by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was carefully choreographed to signal that Europe had re-entered India’s strategic imagination not merely as a trading partner but as a geopolitical interlocutor.

Sodium Supply Chain Emerges to Support Lithium Alternatives

Lea Thome

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The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has emerged as the world’s largest producers of electric vehicles (EVs). In becoming the dominant global player, it has had to grapple with the high cost and low supply of raw lithium materials—critical inputs for the batteries that fuel most new energy vehicles. A lack of lithium deposits at home have led Chinese investors and mining companies to set up shop in countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Australia, and Zimbabwe, to extract and process the silvery metal. But as supply chains have become increasingly volatile due to tariffs, export bans, and host country legislation, Chinese policymakers and companies have started exploring alternatives to support the growth of the new energy storage industry.

One solution is sodium. In recent years, Chinese engineers have been testing sodium-based new-type energy storage technologies. In 2025, they deployed them for the first time. Chinese firms have also begun to focus their attention on the country’s salt lake industry, which is rich in sodium products but also offers opportunities to extract lithium and other materials.

Xi the Destroyer

Jonathan A. Czin and John Culver

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The January 24 purge of Zhang Youxia, China’s top general, was a Shakespearean moment in Chinese politics. Even after a decade of high drama in the People’s Liberation Army, the decision by Chinese leader Xi Jinping to remove Zhang from the PLA’s top governing body, the Central Military Commission (CMC), suggests a new level of intrigue. Xi and Zhang have known each other for decades: Xi’s father and Zhang’s father were comrades-in-arms during China’s ferocious civil war, and Zhang was widely seen as Xi’s closest ally in the army’s high command. As recently as 2022, after a flurry of purges of other senior leaders, Xi not only allowed Zhang to stay in office past the unofficial retirement age but also promoted him to the top position for a military officer. A relationship that long and deep is valuable in any setting, but especially in the vicious, low-trust world of Chinese politics.

Zhang’s dismissal is thus the ultimate illustration of just how little trust Xi has in the PLA. As we argued in Foreign Affairs last August, “Xi wants to ensure he can employ violence with confidence, but Xi’s confidence seems to be the rarest and most precious commodity for an otherwise well-resourced military.” But Zhang’s unceremonious dismissal also illustrates the depths of Xi’s ruthlessness in managing the PLA. It is one thing for a leader to show no mercy to his enemies; it is quite another for him to be so pitiless with his friends.

The Islamic Republic’s Founding Myth

Azadeh Moaveni

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The Islamic Republic’s already lengthy catalogue of fears has ballooned of late: alongside the possibility of being overthrown by its own citizens, it is haunted by the prospect of a full accounting of the massacres it has carried out; by the tenuous loyalty of its army, and its empty coffers; and by the shadow of Israeli spies and Islamic State militants. What terrifies Iran’s theocrats the most, the fear that eclipses all their fears, is the ability of the people at large to clearly see the essential realities of the present regime.

While Iranians have heroically demanded a great many things in recent weeks—change, new rulers, democratic freedoms—they are fundamentally insisting on dismantling the meticulously curated edifice of deceit and falsehoods sustaining the state as it has been constructed since 1979. For the first time ever, by explicitly chanting the name of a specific, alternative leader in the streets, Iranians have emphasized the true problem: the biggest, the most unsustainable lie of all, they are collectively saying, is the system itself.

The Paradox of Wartime Commerce

Mariya Grinberg

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The Trump administration’s policy toward China remains difficult to parse, but calls to “de-risk” the U.S. economy or even to completely decouple from China still dominate Washington’s strategic debates. Advocates for decoupling urge the United States to revive domestic industries and make them resilient to external shocks, to “friend shore” key supply chains to allies and other well-disposed countries, and to secure reliable access to critical resources. Without such measures, analysts warn, China could strangle the U.S. economy in a crisis. 

Already, Beijing’s decision in 2025 to block the export of certain rare-earth metals to the United States set alarm bells ringing in Washington. Analysts bemoan the possibility of “weaponized interdependence” and point to the vulnerabilities caused by the entanglement of the American and Chinese economies through globalization. This dynamic can have extreme implications. If a crisis between the United States and China were to somehow escalate to war, China could withhold important materials and components necessary for the defense industrial base, but it could also withhold other critical exports, such as pharmaceuticals.

In an Age of Superpowers, Geography Is Still Destiny

Hal Brands

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The world is a battleground again. The post–Cold War moment of great-power peace and borderless globalization has ended. Fracture, rivalry and disorder are defining themes of our age. In recent years, ghastly wars have upended crucial regions. Freedom of the seas and the sanctity of borders are under assault. Aggressive autocracies are challenging the US and its democratic allies. America’s commitment to leading a prosperous, stable international system is itself in doubt.

Meanwhile, economic warfare intensifies, as tariffs, sanctions and other trade controls proliferate. Technological breakthroughs, from artificial intelligence to synthetic biology, promise revolutionary progress — and threaten terrible new forms of destruction. The decades ahead will feature ugly, grinding cold wars — or perhaps even devastating, great-power hot wars. Transiting this volatile, uncertain era will require reacquainting ourselves with the strategic logic of geography, that most enduring, unforgiving force in world affairs.

The Predatory Hegemon: How Trump Wields American Power

Stephen M. Walt

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Ever since Donald Trump first became U.S. president, in 2017, commentators have searched for an adequate label to describe his approach to U.S. foreign relations. Writing in these pages, the political scientist Barry Posen suggested in 2018 that Trump’s grand strategy was “illiberal hegemony,” and the analyst Oren Cass argued last fall that its defining essence was a demand for “reciprocity.” Trump has been called a realist, a nationalist, an old-fashioned mercantilist, an imperialist, and an isolationist. Each of these terms captures some aspects of his approach, but the grand strategy of his second presidential term is perhaps best described as “predatory hegemony.” Its central aim is to use Washington’s privileged position to extract concessions, tribute, and displays of deference from both allies and adversaries, pursuing short-term gains in what it sees as a purely zero-sum world.

Given the United States’ still considerable assets and geographic advantages, predatory hegemony may work for a time. In the long run, however, it is doomed to fail. It is ill suited for a world of several competing great powers—especially one in which China is an economic and military peer—because multipolarity gives other states ways to reduce their dependence on the United States. If it continues to define American strategy in the coming years, predatory hegemony will weaken the United States and its allies alike, generate growing global resentment, create tempting opportunities for Washington’s main rivals, and leave Americans less secure, less prosperous, and less influential.

Nuclear deterrence is dying. And hardly anyone notices

Alex Kolbin

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For decades, nuclear weapons have been treated as the ultimate arbiter of international politics. They were supposed to deter great-power war, impose caution on leaders, and anchor what strategists liked to call strategic stability. Today, that framework is eroding in plain sight. Yet the reaction from policymakers and much of the expert community remains oddly muted. Put simply, nuclear weapons are no longer functioning as a decisive factor in global security.

For almost four years, Russia—the world’s largest nuclear power—has been subjected to missile strikes carried out with systems supplied by several other nuclear-armed states. The United Kingdom now openly speaks of developing new tactical ballistic missiles for Kyiv and of placing “leading-edge weapons” directly into the hands of Ukrainians. Russia itself employs nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic Oreshnik missiles as if they were any other conventional weapon system for punishing Ukrainian infrastructure. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump casually commented on New START—the last remaining bilateral nuclear arms control treaty between Washington and Moscow, which expires on February 5—“If it expires, it expires.” And former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, currently serving as a Deputy Chief of the Russian Security Council, stated, “No START-4 is better than a treaty that only masks mutual distrust and provokes an arms race in other countries,” referring to what may come next after New START expires.

‘Energy Truce’ Could be Preamble to Ukraine Peace Deal

Pavel K. Baev

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The Arctic vortex covering Moscow and Kyiv has given new momentum to talks on the final parameters of a peace deal. It was not difficult for Russian President Vladimir Putin to consent to U.S. President Donald Trump’s request for a pause on Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure because the Russian bombing campaign had already inflicted catastrophic damage on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure (Radio Svoboda, January 30). In the middle of this “energy truce,” Ukraine suffered a major blackout caused by the breakdown of its severely degraded electricity grid (Novaya Gazeta, January 31). The so-called “energy truce” fits the pattern of Russian strikes, in which a massive combined missile and drone attack is followed by five to six days of lower intensity drone assaults (RIA Novosti, January 30). Putin’s readiness to continue the pause into the first week of February, when temperatures are predicted to hit new lows, will reveal his true intentions.

This small episode in Russia’s protracted war of attrition against Ukraine appears to be a possible step forward in the peace-making process, as it was negotiated under a new diplomatic format. This format brings together the top teams of negotiators from the United States and Ukraine with a new, and apparently lower-level, Russian delegation led by Admiral Igor Kostyikov, the Director of the Main Intelligence Directorate and deputy to Army General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff (Vedomosti, January 29; Novaya Gazeta Europe, February 1). Mainstream Russian media were cautiously optimistic about the proceedings in Abu Dhabi and skeptical about the prospect of an “energy truce” until Putin granted it his approval (Izvestiya; Nezavisimaya Gazeta, January 26). The talks are set to continue later this week, albeit without the U.S. team, which returned to Miami for a meeting with Putin’s special envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, who is keen to discuss possible joint economic projects with Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy for peace missions (RBC, January 31).

Poland Increases Engagement with Baltic and Nordic Countries

Jakub Bornio

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On February 2, at the Oslo Security Conference, Deputy Prime Minister of Poland Radosław Sikorski stated that Poland wants to deepen strategic cooperation with Northern Europe. Sikorski discussed challenges that Northern Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are facing amid Russia’s war against Ukraine (Government of Poland, February 2). This is just one of the recent steps Poland has taken in its engagement with Northern Europe.

Poland has not historically focused its foreign relations to the north despite its access to the Baltic Sea and its extensive coastline. Polish engagement with the Baltic and Nordic countries has been limited and has clearly ranked below other strategic directions, including eastern policy, Atlantic policy, and regional policy concentrated on Central and Eastern Europe (Nowak-Jeziorański, 2013; Kowal; Juchnowski, 2018). Marginalization of the northern/Baltic dimension was historically and culturally conditioned. For centuries, a land-based culture dominated Poland, and the Polish nobility despised maritime affairs, navigation, and merchants (Tazbir, 1977).

Takeaways from the millions of newly released Epstein files

Sakshi Venkatramanand, Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu

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Millions of new files relating to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have been released by the US Department of Justice (DOJ), the largest number of documents shared by the government since a law mandated their release last year.

Three million pages, 180,000 images and 2,000 videos were posted publicly on Friday.

The release came six weeks after the department missed a deadline signed into law by US President Donald Trump that mandated all Epstein-related documents be shared with the public.

"Today's release marks the end of a very comprehensive document identification and review process to ensure transparency to the American people and compliance," Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said.

Fighting with Live Data: XVIII Airborne Corps’ Experience with Its Operational Data Teams

Col. Andrew J. Forney, PhD, Maj. Ryan C. Herrmann, Capt. Haley A. Steele, 

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Victory in modern warfare requires commanders to make better decisions faster than their adversaries. The news drives this home every day, whether it be from Ukraine, the Red Sea, Gaza, Iraq, or Syria. We exist in an age where accelerated data and platform development are integral to our warfighting capabilities. Achieving Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2)—the Department of War’s (DOW) current mission command approach for achieving decision dominance—requires adapting new technologies and synchronizing systems to provide, exploit, and visualize the right data rapidly.1 Critical to enabling CJADC2 is the ability to manipulate and utilize a variety of data sources to develop tools that support the commander’s data-driven decision cycle.2 The importance of this effort only grows as DOW establishes a foundation upon which to build future artificial intelligence/machine learning tools.

Even given this imperative, the Army has struggled with how best to leverage access to live datasets; new and emerging data-centric platforms; and a growing talent base of officers, warrant officers, noncommissioned officers, and soldiers to solve its most challenging operational problems. Current efforts associated with “transformation in contact” and the Army transformation initiative will not just rely on the integration of new technologies and data streams but will ultimately require a data-centric foundation to enable true continuous transformation.3 Understanding how best to build an enduring data-development capability within our formations while sustaining the unique manpower and skills required to employ this capability will remain one of the Army’s chief concerns over the next decade.

Strategy??

Kevin Benson

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Tactics without strategy is noise before defeat. At present, the American people are observing allegedly successful tactics in the monitoring and destruction of alleged drug running boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. The Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard are intercepting oil tankers of the so-called Russian “Shadow Fleet” while conducting a selective blockade of Venezuela. We also witnessed a remarkably successful operation to track and capture Nicolas Maduro. We are unsure if the purpose of these operations – discrete strikes against fleeting target – is the protection of the American people from the scourge of illegal narcotics or, as others opine, the removal of Maduro from the regime in Venezuela and access to Venezuelan oil. There are a series of questions we should be asking our government leaders, our military leaders, and our diplomats as we consider this situation. 

The answers to these questions will serve as a starting point for the continuous analysis that must accompany the execution of such operations. We all know the truth of the adage: no plan can look with certainty beyond initial contact with the enemy main body. We must figure out; what is the problem we are (or this plan is) trying to solve? We must determine if it is the correct problem. We must determine that if we do this, what are we choosing not to do?

The 2025 National Security Strategy and the 2026 National Defense Strategy Through the Eyes of a Special Forces Soldier

David Maxwell

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Special Forces operators in team rooms around the world are talking about the new NSS and NDS. They are trying to judge what it means for their regions. They are trying to see what it means for their teams and the missions they will be told to execute. I miss those arguments. I miss the map on the table, the coffee gone cold, and the hard questions that follow.

I view the strategies through the two SOF trinities: the missions – irregular warfare, unconventional warfare, and support to political warfare and the comparative advantages of SOF – influence, governance, and support to indigenous forces and populations. They do not use any of these words. Yet these concepts support the strategies.

I read strategy the way I read a village after dark. I look for what is protected, what is ignored, and what is feared. The 2025 National Security Strategy tells me what the administration wants. The 2026 National Defense Strategy tells me what it thinks it must do first, and what it plans to do less of.

Purchasing power – Venezuela’s defence spending struggles to keep pace

Karl Dewey

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The capture of Nicolás Maduro and his subsequent indictment on narcoterrorism charges by the US has focused attention on Venezuela's military capability. This has been negatively affected by the country’s economic woes, particularly its parlous defence spending, which is in long-term decline and increasingly reliant on opaque off-budget funding.

The apparent ease with which the United States was able to capture Nicolás Maduro in its 3 January raid on Caracas has led to speculation over the type of military assets employed by the US, questions over the effectiveness of Venezuela’s air-defence systems, and the potential involvement of senior political and military actors within Venzuela. One overlooked factor is the marked decline in defence spending in Venezuela, which has also had a negative impact on its military readiness and ability to thwart such an operation.

A Defense Budget Increase Is Due, but Reforms Must Occur for Durable Deterrence

R. Clarke Cooper

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Securing a meaningful defense topline for FY‑2027 is not an act of militarism; it is an act of prudence. The strategic environment is more dangerous and more interconnected than most Americans appreciate. Credible deterrence requires ready forces, modern capabilities and an industrial base that can surge. President Trump’s anticipated budget request of $1.5 trillion alone will not deliver security. To turn dollars into durable deterrence, the White House and Congress must continue to move in parallel to reform Foreign Military Sales (FMS), harden supply chains for critical technologies, and accelerate onshoring of advanced manufacturing—while using the budget to catalyze allied burden‑sharing and interoperability.

Deterrence is arithmetic. It demands platforms, munitions, sensors, and the logistics to sustain them. It also demands speed: partners must be able to field interoperable systems quickly when crises arise. Our principal Cold War legacy tool for equipping allies and partners, the FMS process, has often functioned like a paper mill rather than a strategic instrument. Lengthy case processing, opaque timelines, and fragmented authorities risk push U.S. partners toward alternative suppliers and slow coalition readiness. The Trump administration could issue time‑bound directives to shorten FMS case processing and expand delegated authorities to expedite routine transfers. Congress could codify predictable timelines for licensing decisions and provide resources to modernize case management. Faster, more predictable FMS will let allies and partners confidently buy U.S. systems with the “total package approach” my former colleagues and I advocated, as well as make coalition logistics simpler and cheaper.

War Games: Thriving on Strategic Turbulence

Henry Yep

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That perspective can help explain a feature of current U.S. statecraft that is often debated in moral terms, but it also merits analysis as a competitive method. Washington is increasingly willing to treat strategic turbulence as an instrument. In wargames, disruption matters less for its own sake than for what it does to the other side’s decision cycle — pushing humans and systems past their capacity to interpret, decide, and adapt. The same logic applies in the real world.

Confusion and shifting norms are conditions that states can leverage, not anomalies to eliminate. The goal is to shape the environment so rivals and partners are forced to reveal what they will support, tolerate, or contest, rather than remain passive observers. In practice, this preserves the initiator’s freedom of action while raising the costs others must pay to pursue their objectives, including time, money, and political capital. Military professionals use similar logic when confronting complex problems in war. U.S. military doctrine is explicit that operational art relies on creative thinking and that commanders should develop innovative, adaptive alternatives when conditions are uncertain and fluid. Competitive statecraft can reward the same mentality.

Data Defeat: What if the Army’s New Command-and-Control Tools Overwhelm Company Commanders at the Tactical Edge?

C. Wayne Culbreth

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On the approaches to Pokrovsk in late 2025, the battlefield looked nothing like the doctrinal diagrams in most command-post exercises. Reuters described stretches of eastern Ukraine as a “drone-infested” twenty-kilometer kill zone, where small Russian assault groups creep forward under constant observation from Ukrainian quadcopters and first-person-view strike drones, and any movement risks immediate detection and fire. Inside Pokrovsk itself, Ukrainian defenders told reporters that drones alone could not hold the city: They could see Russian forces infiltrating block by block, but still lacked the infantry and the command bandwidth to turn that visibility into coherent, timely action.

That is the world US Army company commanders are preparing for. At the same time, Army formations, like the 4th Infantry Division through its Ivy Sting exercises, are fielding the Army’s Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) prototype—a unified data and software ecosystem that ties together fires, intelligence, movement and maneuver, logistics, and airspace management. NGC2 and related efforts like TITAN, data fabrics, and division-wide kill webs are doing exactly what they are supposed to do at the enterprise level: collapsing sensor-to-shooter timelines and giving commanders access to more data than ever before.

The UN’s Crisis Of Nonpayment

Simon Hutagalung

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The United Nations faces a severe financial crisis because Secretary-General António Guterres has warned that the organisation faces mounting risks to its operational abilities. Member states failed to fulfil their financial duties, which resulted in peacekeeping operations being halted, while humanitarian support decreased, and international law lost its effectiveness. The United Nations will continue to serve as a worldwide dialogue platform which solves global challenges only when member states meet their financial obligations to the organisation.

The main problem at present involves the growing number of outstanding debts. The United States stands as the biggest donor, which has not made its payments, thus creating financial problems that affect all parts of the organisation. The organisation faces financial problems because its limited budget needs to support multiple responsibilities. The UN becomes unable to act during critical times because essential member states do not meet their obligations, which prevents the organisation from taking swift action against global crises.

How Trump Took Up the ‘Christian Genocide’ Cause in Nigeria

Dionne Searcey, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Ruth Maclean and Eric Schmitt

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Top advisers from the Trump Administration sat at the head of a giant wooden table in an office near the White House in late October listening as religious activists described attacks on Christian churches and pastors in Nigeria. The activists wanted President Trump to do something about it. Three days later, the president threatened to enter Nigeria “guns-a-blazing” to avenge what he has called a “Christian genocide.” Then, on Christmas Day, Mr. Trump launched Tomahawk missiles at “terrorist scum” he said were responsible for killing Nigerian Christians.

The strike was the explosive outcome of an intense, yearslong push led by Christian activists, Republican lawmakers and American celebrities seeking U.S. intervention in a long-simmering security crisis in Nigeria.Thousands are killed annually in Nigeria, and the victims include large numbers of both Christians and Muslims. The violence involves battles over land, kidnappings for ransom, sectarian tensions and terrorism, but the activists wanted Mr. Trump to see the conflict through a single lens: the persecution of Christians.

Elon Musk Merges SpaceX With His A.I. Start-Up xAI

Ryan Mac, Kate Conger, Maureen Farrell and Rob Copeland

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SpaceX, the rocket and satellite maker led by Elon Musk, said on Monday it had acquired xAI, the artificial intelligence company controlled by Mr. Musk, a sweeping move to consolidate his business empire as it faces questions about the cost of its A.I. ambitions. The exact financial details of the deal were not disclosed, but the acquisition cements SpaceX’s standing as the most valuable private company in the world, and creates a company worth more than $1 trillion.

The combined company, with a portfolio including rockets, an A.I. chatbot and the social media platform X, will probably move forward with an initial public offering around June, said two people familiar with the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details weren’t public. Mr. Musk hopes to raise about $50 billion with the offering, they added.

Warfare of Position: When the Decisive Struggle Precedes the First Shot

Douglas S. Wilbur

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Years before the advent of violence during the 1948 communist insurgency in the British colony of Malaya, the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) had already transformed the political landscape through a deliberate information warfare campaign. The MCP set up a secret parallel government by infiltrating civil society groups like village associations. They radicalized people by indoctrinating them through propaganda that manufactured compelling political narratives. The MCP used these networks to establish a de facto parallel administration that collected taxes, operated courts, distributed food, enforced discipline and mobilized labor. 

All while promoting propaganda that increasingly portrayed the British as illegitimate and incapable of governing rural communities.[1] These activities were not peripheral political agitation; they systematically reshaped how key communities interpreted the established government’s legitimacy. By the time armed conflict began, many rural populations already viewed MCP cadres as defenders of local interests and the British administration as distant, coercive, or predatory. This resulted in a serious disadvantage for the colonial administration once the violent phase of the revolution began.[2]

AI Command and Staff—Operational Evidence and Insights from Wargaming

Aaron Blair Wilcox,  Chase Metcalf 

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The following vignette, although fictional, does present a likely and not distant future. For the past several years, the U.S. Army, in partnership with the private sector, has experimented with Generative AI (GenAI) solutions within planning events and command and control exercises. These largely language-based, probabilistic, pattern-matching algorithms present the appearance of intelligence, but their true impact on human cognition and decision making is unexplored. The narrative that follows frames a future many in the military are pursuing, potentially without recognizing the impacts on military strategy and the utility of force.

The air in the V Corps (Victory) Forward Command Post was a toxic cocktail of stale coffee, ozone from the servers, and week-old tension. For Lieutenant Colonel Rostova, it was the sound that wore her down the most—the incessant, low hum of the AI, a constant reminder of the machine mind that now co-piloted this potential war. It had been two weeks since tensions flared in the NORTHCOM area of operations (AO). For seven days, the AI-mind, codenamed ARGUS, had been their savior. It had predicted cyber-attacks on the U.S. power grid with milliseconds to spare and guided Navy destroyers to intercept submarine-launched drone swarms before they breached the horizon. ARGUS was fast, exquisite, and so far, seemingly flawless. It had earned their trust. Now, it was demanding it.

What We Know About the India-U.S. Trade Deal

Rishi Iyengar

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India and the United States have reached a trade agreement after months of negotiations, according to social media posts from U.S. President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday.

Trump first announced the deal on Truth Social with a flurry of provisions, including that India had agreed to “stop buying Russian Oil, and to buy much more from the United States and, potentially, Venezuela.” India’s continued purchases of Russian oil after the beginning of the war in Ukraine have long been a sore point for Washington and for Trump in particular, with the U.S. president slapping an additional 25 percent tariff on Indian goods over those oil purchases. Since encountering pressure from the White House in recent months, New Delhi had already been reducing its purchases of Russian crude. Trump’s push for India to buy more from Venezuela reflects not only his desire to tap into the South American country’s oil market—after he ordered the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro—but also to ensure global crude prices stay relatively low.

India-EU FTA: Some Challenges Ahead, but Strategic Signal Is Clear

Rushali Saha

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On January 27, India and the European Union concluded free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations. Both European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and India’s Trade Minister Piyush Goyal have described it as the “mother of all deals,” highlighting its significance. This is the largest trade agreement that both the EU and India have ever concluded.

As part of the agreement, the EU will eliminate tariffs on over 90 percent of tariff lines and 91 percent in terms of value. Both sides agreed to partially liberalize a significant additional number of lines, effectively bringing the overall coverage of trade liberalization to 96.6 percent for India and 99.3 percent for the EU. It is expected to double EU exports to India by 2032. India, on its part, has secured preferential access to the European markets across 97 percent of tariff lines, covering 99.5 percent of trade value.

Bangladesh’s Stalled Student Revolution

Cyrus Naji

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When she was sentenced to death by a court in Dhaka last November, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, the ousted prime minister of Bangladesh, was typically defiant. From the New Delhi bungalow allotted to her by the government of India, she said she was “very proud” of her “record on human rights and development.” But as Bangladeshis took to the streets to celebrate the verdict, which after all was symbolic, they remembered a very different legacy.

Hasina first served as prime minister from 1996 to 2001, then came to power again in 2009. Over the subsequent fifteen years, according to the Bangladeshi human rights organization Ain o Salish Kendra, her security forces carried out two thousand extrajudicial killings. They abducted more than 1,800 people and detained them in a network of secret sites known as Aynaghor, or the House of Mirrors. (A commission investigating these disappearances believes that the real figure may be two to three times greater.) Relying on brute force and a pliant judiciary, Hasina launched an assault on the country’s main opposition parties, the center-right Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the hard-line religious Jamaat-e-Islami. She brought more than two million court cases against these political opponents, who proved unable to organize any effective opposition. Few public figures dared to criticize her openly; people of all classes and backgrounds had been disappeared for less.

China’s Emerging Two Front Problem

Mengzhen Liu

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Months after the Japan-Philippines Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) entered into force on September 11, 2025, Tokyo and Manila signed a new logistical agreement on January 15, 2026. The Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) sets forth a bilateral framework for reciprocal provision of supplies and services between the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (SDF) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

According to the newly inked defense pact, the SDF and AFP may provide food, water, billeting, transportation (including airlift), petroleum, oils and lubricants, clothing, communication/storage/repair and maintenance/airport and seaport services, as well as ammunition, among others, to the other party upon request. The supplies can be provided during activities including joint exercises and training, United Nations peacekeeping missions, overseas evacuation of the two countries’ citizens, or communication and coordination of other routine activities.

Understanding China’s Quest for Quantum Advancement

Hideki Tomoshige and Phillip Singerman

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In the rapidly evolving landscape of quantum technology, every nation and major player has opportunities to lead in distinct areas and secure a share of the immense benefits expected over the next decade. Such opportunities would present major benefits for the economies and national security of the dozens of countries currently investing strategically in quantum information science and technology (QIST) research and development (R&D). The coming years will determine not just who leads in the quantum field but also who shapes the standards, markets, and security architectures of the QIST era.

In this technological race, theoretical breakthroughs and advances in research will be just as crucial as practical, applied technical knowledge for countries and companies. In this technological race, theoretical breakthroughs and advances in research will be just as crucial as practical, applied technical knowledge for countries and companies. A comprehensive quantum ecosystem that balances deep scientific discoveries with the accumulation of practical technical know-how is required.

A Misreading of the Iranian Opposition

Ali Safavi

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A recent article gets the measure of one of Iran’s resistance groups all wrong. As Iran’s streets fill with blood and fire, an essay recently published in The National Interest, titled “What’s Wrong with Iran’s Opposition?” appeared amid one of the most sustained uprisings in the Islamic Republic’s history. For more than three weeks, protests swept over 400 cities and towns. Thousands of protesters were killed, tens of thousands wounded, and as many as 50,000 detained as the regime deployed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Special anti-riot units, the Basij paramilitary, and plainclothes militias against unarmed civilians. Any serious assessment of Iran’s political future must begin with this reality.

Yet, the article’s core message is unmistakable: that no credible alternative to the ruling system exists, and that realism therefore requires looking inward, to factions within the same theocratic structure, for change. These claims warrant scrutiny because serious analysis requires distinguishing historical evidence from inherited accusations. By that standard, the article offers less a reassessment than a recycling of narratives shaped by earlier policy assumptions—many of them rooted in failed strategies of engagement with Tehran.

Risks to Gulf Energy Assets From an Iran Strike Will Be Much Higher

Greg Priddy

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The risks of an Iranian strike on Gulf energy assets have frequently been dismissed as “crying wolf.” Is the wolf finally at the door? With President Donald Trump apparently again facing a near-term decision point on whether to launch military strikes on Iran, the world oil market has taken notice, with global benchmark Brent crude oil settling at over $70 per barrel, the highest since July. This came amid a rather bearish consensus expectation of excess supply and building inventories this year. That reaction, which is still up only about 10 percent on concerns about Iran, seems justified, as there are plenty of reasons to see the risk of an actual supply disruption taking place as being significantly higher than in June, when Israel and Iran traded strikes for 12 days. The United States joined in on the last night of the campaign to hit hardened nuclear sites, which required bombs larger than what Israel could deliver.

The History of Supply Risk and Oil Prices. The relationship between perceptions of security-driven supply risk and oil prices has changed a bit since the shale boom began in the United States in the late 2000s. During the long price run-up on perceived scarcity in the mid-2000s, concerns related to Iran, pipeline bombings in Iraq, and outages in the Niger Delta in Nigeria frequently made substantial waves in the market. There were long periods when crude markets clearly carried a “risk premium” relative to where they would have been without those perceived risks, even if they had not yet materialized.

Where Are America’s Aircraft Carriers Now?

Peter Suciu

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Although the US Navy has 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in active service, only around half are deployed at any given time—with the rest in port or undergoing maintenance. The United States Navy operates the largest fleet of nuclear-powered supercarriers in the world. With 11 in active service, the US Navy has more aircraft carriers than the navies of China, the UK, India, France, Italy, and Spain—combined!

Yet, the status and actual “availability” of the 10 Nimitz-class and one Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers are not as cut-and-dry as they seem. Rarely are more than five or six deployed at a time.

Here is the current status of the US Navy’s aircraft carriers: USS Nimitz (CVN-68)Commissioned: May 3, 1975

Current Status: In Port (Bremerton, Washington); preparing for decommissioningThe US Navy aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN-68) underway in the Red Sea in 2013. The Nimitz Carrier Strike Group was deployed to the US 5th Fleet area of responsibility conducting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts. (Wikimedia Commons)

What Is an Illegal Military Order?

Michael O’Hanlon

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Lost in the controversy last year between the six Democratic members of Congress and President Donald Trump over whether American troops should obey the president unconditionally is a key question: what exactly constitutes an illegal military order, and how can we expect uniformed military personnel to distinguish between legal and illegal orders?

For context, it may be helpful to begin with a story from President Trump’s first term. During the summer and fall of 2017, US-North Korea relations deteriorated badly after a series of North Korean missile and nuclear tests. At one point, Trump and the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-Un, exchanged nuclear threats, with Trump famously pointing out that his nuclear button was the larger of the two. The United States sent additional munitions and other supplies to the Korean peninsula and sent three aircraft carriers to the region.

Maintaining the Space Edge: Strategic Reforms for U.S. Dominance in Low Earth Orbit

Taylar Rajic, Lauryn Williams, and Matt Pearl

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In recent years, technological innovation has supplanted traditional factors, such as the size of military forces and regional hegemony, as the foundational element of national power—and therefore as the key determinant of great power competition. The emergence of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), advanced robotics, and quantum computing has made technology a driver of economic growth and security, as well as a transformational element in the national security environment and the modern battlefield. It is no longer enough to lead in one of these technologies individually; rather, the United States, along with its allies and partners, needs a full stack—a complete set of technologies needed to build and deploy critical systems—that integrates and leverages multiple technologies together.

However, the United States cannot adequately leverage a full technology stack unless it has advanced, secure, and resilient digital infrastructure—the modern networks and computing facilities on which AI applications and other data ride. These networks underpin the modern financial system, economic growth, social services, access to information, education, public safety, and national security. In the United States and across many of its allies and partners, the private sector owns and controls most of this infrastructure. Leveraging industry is the right approach, as companies are in a better position than government to build, operate, and innovate quickly on digital infrastructure. For their part, policymakers must prioritize digital infrastructure innovation and engage on critical policy and regulatory issues to ensure that the United States and its allies and partners have a robust, dynamic, competitive, trusted, and secure digital ecosystem.