India’s Partnership with ASEAN

Shristi Pukhrem

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On July 26, 2024, in Vientiane, Laos, the foreign ministers from the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and India will meet, marking a significant landmark in their relationship. This gathering highlights the increasing significance of their partnership and emphasizes India’s role in enhancing its connections with ASEAN countries while maintaining ASEAN centrality in the Indo-Pacific region.

The relationship between India and ASEAN is not new. Both regions have interacted for centuries. These relations have been well established and upgraded in the last few decades. The ASEAN-India Strategic Partnership is setting the course for integration in trade, security, and investment and establishing educational and cultural exchanges.

The year 2024 has seen a major transformation in the Indo-Pacific region’s geopolitics. China’s rise in the region and its assertive behavior in the South China Sea have triggered regional tensions, underlining the imperative for a rule-based order. In light of this, the ASEAN centrality cannot be dismissed since it is the primary driver for regional dialogue and cooperation.

Forget the bear hug: India’s gradual turn from Russia, towards the West

James Crabtree

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Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Russia was greeted with predictable disappointment in European capitals. The trip marked the Indian prime minister’s first international foray following his re-election in June, and his first to Moscow in nearly a decade. The sight of Modi in a bear hug with Vladimir Putin rekindled old worries about India’s enduring Russian ties and the sincerity of more recent pledges to build new partnerships in the West. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was especially blunt, describing Modi’s choice of destination as “a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts.”

European and north American leaders should not draw the wrong conclusions about India’s long-term trajectory, however. Modi’s move is a reminder of his unwillingness to abandon Russia. But he is also trying to strike a delicate balance of managing India’s historic links with Moscow while not obviously deepening them. In fact, embracing the world’s advanced industrial democracies is now a greater Indian strategic priority – and one that presents geopolitical opportunities for Europe.

Moscow ended up on Modi’s itinerary for three broad reasons. Political priorities were one, providing a high-profile and domestically popular international platform following a relatively disappointing election result for Modi. Second were more regular and practical issues relating to the energy and weapons that Russia supplies to India. Finally, and most importantly, were ever-growing worries about China, which Indian security leaders now view as the country’s primary security threat.

India-China warming pops US pipe dream

Spengler

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India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on July 25 endorsed her economic advisor’s proposal to open the country to direct investment from China, effectively frozen since the Sino-Indian border clashes of 2020.

Earlier this week, Reuters reported, “India’s Chief Economic Adviser V Anantha Nageswaran said…that to boost its global exports New Delhi can either integrate into China’s supply chain or promote foreign direct investment (FDI) from China.

“Among these choices, focusing on FDI from China seems more promising for boosting India’s exports to the US, similar to how East Asian economies did in the past,’” Nageswaran said according to Reuters.

The proposed opening to China—a rebuke to American diplomacy in the region—followed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to New Delhi earlier this month.

Asia Times’ newsletter Global Risk-Reward Monitor reported exclusively July 11, “Modi asked Putin to help India resolve its longstanding border dispute with China. This is the most important military conflict in Asia, limited as it is, because it puts the region’s two largest countries at odds. Russian mediation, however informal, would entail a diplomatic revolution, and make a mockery of America’s hope of rallying Asian countries against China.”

India's Maritime Imperative | Opinion

Shivani Sharma

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The results from India's massive, multi-month election are in, and the verdict is a somewhat-constricted mandate for sitting Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Despite this electoral uncertainty, one thing remains indisputable—New Delhi's view of its primary security threat. Across the political spectrum, Indian voters have made clear that they see China as posing a growing challenge in political, economic, and strategic terms.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the maritime domain, where New Delhi and Beijing are locked in a contest for dominance—one with profound regional and global implications.

In recent months, the Indian Navy has distinguished itself through anti-piracy operations in the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Gulf of Aden, taking the lead against regional threats like resurgent Somali piracy. This stepped-up activism isn't simply a reflection of India's strategic ambition. It also represents a crucial component of a larger geostrategic puzzle, because a stronger Indian Navy is directly aligned with U.S. national security interests, providing a bulwark against China's assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific.

Can India Rise Without South Asia?

Chietigj Bajpaee

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Much of the discussion surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Russia was about its implications for India’s relations with the West, given the optics of Modi hugging Vladimir Putin as Moscow conducted airstrikes on Ukraine and Western leaders were meeting in Washington, D.C. for the NATO Summit. However, overlooked in this discussion is the fact that Modi stepped away from the standard practice of Indian leaders making their first overseas state visits to a neighboring country.

The first overseas visits of Modi’s first two terms in 2014 and 2019 were to Bhutan, and Maldives and then Sri Lanka, respectively. In 2024, following the start of Modi’s third term, he paid a visit first to Italy in June for the G-7 Summit and then, in July, traveled to Russia.

This alludes to an emerging facet of Indian foreign policy: As the country continues its rise as an increasingly consequential global power, its regional role is being eclipsed. This is a far cry from Modi’s initial commitment to the neighborhood when he assumed power in 2014 by inviting the leaders of all South Asian countries to his inauguration and his government announcing a “Neighborhood First” policy. Modi’s surprise visit to Pakistan in December 2015 to meet then-counterpart Nawaz Sharif on his birthday also raised hopes of a rapprochement in the perennially difficult India-Pakistan relationship.

India Must Embrace Security Coalitions – Analysis

Rahul Jaybhay

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June 15, 2024 marks the fourth year since China’s deadly escalation at the Galwan Valley. Since they began in 2020, negotiations and dialogue are yet to deliver any resolution to the border dispute. As such, India’s multi-alignment strategy, precisely implemented to ‘manage’ China, has run its course and requires recalibration.

The multi-alignment strategy is conceptually synonymous with the non-alignment approach that India followed post-independence. India avoided alliance entanglements, renounced bloc politics and raised collective consciousness in post-colonial independent nations.

In the same vein, the multi-alignment strategy stipulates maintaining ties with all the great powers without commitment to any of them, straddling multiple global institutions and pushing the voices of the Global South foreward.

Both non-alignment and multi-alignment embrace employing India’s defence capabilities to push back against powers that encroach on India’s sovereignty. But both approaches also shy away from prescribing security coalitions or alliances to manage India’s security relations with a more powerful revisionist actor — China.

New Extremist Groups — At Least In Name — Enter Pakistan’s Militant Scene – Analysis

Daud Khattak

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Suicide bombers and gunmen penetrated a military base in northwestern Pakistan last week, killing eight soldiers.

It was just the latest in a string of deadly attacks to hit the South Asian country, where militant violence has surged in recent years.

But what was significant about the July 15 attack in the city of Bannu was the group that claimed responsibility — Jaish Fursan-e Muhammad (JFM) — a previously unknown militant outfit.

JFM is among several new militant groups that have announced their arrival on the crowded militant scene in Pakistan in recent months.

But experts believe the new actors are in fact fronts for existing groups, including the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the most lethal militant organization waging war against Islamabad.

The Intensifying Impacts of Upstream Dams on the Mekong

Nguyen Minh Quang, Nguyen Phuong Nguyen, Le Minh Hieu, and James Borton

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This year marked another record-setting dry season for the Mekong basin. Mekong Environment Forum, an NGO based in Can Tho City, has assisted the Mekong Dam Monitor project team in translating weekly updates on the operation of hydropower dams observed in the upstream Mekong over the last few years. We synthesized the updates in the first half of 2024 to map and provide insights into the updated impacts of dam operations on the downstream hydro- and eco-systems.

The evidence supports our understanding on the likelihood of a double water crisis when upstream dams’ operations intersect with downstream climate change effects. These findings reaffirm recent experts and public concerns over the transboundary impacts of overinvestment in damming the Mekong.

We call for cross-border collaboration and coordination to promote responsible, transparent, and sustainable use of the shared water resources in the Mekong basin. As a downstream victim, the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, like many Cambodian riverine communities and wetlands, stands to be most in danger in the time of accelerating climate change and hydropower impacts.

Risk to resilience: China’s economic security strategy

Wenjing Wang

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In 2014, at the inaugural meeting of the National Security Commission, China officially introduced the concept of “comprehensive national security,” framing economic security as its basis.

Safeguarding economic security, under this framework, entails improving China’s economic strength while controlling financial risks and fostering economic resilience. However, the unforeseen Covid-19 pandemic exposed China’s economic vulnerabilities, leading to a post-pandemic recovery more sluggish than many observers had anticipated.

With challenges from the external environment, theories such as “peak China” predict a pessimistic future for the Chinese economy and warn of a more aggressive Beijing if it loses its legitimacy rooted in decades of remarkable economic growth.

Domestically, China faces challenges on two fronts: demographic shift and financial risks concentrated in the property sector and local governments (LGs). The long-term effects of the one-child policy (1979-2015) and increasing life expectancy are straining China’s shrinking labor force and fragile social safety net.

Integrated Deterrence and China's Strategic Insights: Lessons from Ukraine & Asian Pacific Deterrence

Monte Erfourth

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Introduction

The United States' inability to deter Russia from invading Ukraine in 2022 can be attributed to a series of historical errors, insufficient signaling of consequences, and a lack of consistent and credible deterrence measures across multiple administrations. From President George W. Bush’s weak response to the 2008 invasion of Georgia to the Biden administration’s hesitant gestures of support for Ukraine, U.S. policies created the impression that the United States was not willing to make an assault on Ukraine painful for Russia. The result was a tremendously costly war that could have been avoided.

The failures of U.S. deterrence leading up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine highlight a series of historical missteps, inconsistent policies, and insufficient signaling of consequences. Over multiple administrations, the U.S. demonstrated a pattern of weak responses to Russian aggression, from the Bush administration’s limited reaction to the 2008 invasion of Georgia to the Obama administration’s reluctance to provide lethal aid during the 2014 Crimea crisis and Trump’s mixed messages regarding NATO commitments. The botched withdrawal from Afghanistan further contributed to the perception of U.S. weakness and war-weariness, undermining its deterrence credibility. This cumulative display of indecision and limited action failed to create a credible deterrent effect, ultimately emboldening Russia to invade Ukraine in 2022.

Will Gaza Ceasefire End Hezbollah Attacks? – OpEd

Neville Teller

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The possibility of full-scale conflict in northern Israel hangs like a dark cloud over the nation. If, as Shakespeare has it, the dogs of war are indeed let slip, the armory of sophisticated Iranian-supplied weapons held by Hezbollah could inflict massive damage across the country. Equally, if forced into war, the IDF could decimate Hezbollah’s armed forces while Lebanon and its people, already enduring privation and distress, would inevitably suffer further unnecessary misery.

There are, however, reasons to believe that Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, does not want a full-scale war with Israel. The country’s economy and its people are under extraordinary pressure. A nationwide poll conducted by Arab Barometer between February and April 2024 showed that around 80% of citizens find accessing food supplies, to say nothing of its cost, a problem. Many run out of food before they can afford to buy more. The provision of water, internet access and health care are patchy, while 92% of respondents to the poll reported constant electricity outages.

Two further findings from the Arab Barometer survey explain reluctance on Nasrallah’s part for a new all-out war with Israel.

Ukraine Military Situation: Russia Secures Advances On Multiple Fronts, But Incurres High Casualties – Analysis

Can Kasapoğlu

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1. Battlefield Assessment

Last week, Russia maintained its strong push on the Kharkiv front. The Kremlin continued to incur rising casualties in that effort: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that at least 20,000 Russian servicemen have been killed or injured since the large-scale Kharkiv campaign began in May 2024. Meanwhile, Russian forces launched an aerial strike apparently intending to destroy a crossing over the Oskil River.

Intense fighting and air strikes continued in eastern and southern Ukraine, particularly around Toretsk, Robotyne, Vovchansk, Chasiv Yar, and the Ukrainian bridgehead over the Dnipro River near Krynky. Russian ground warfare formations advanced toward a chemical plant in Toretsk that hosts Ukrainian defenses, while the Russian Aerospace Forces (VDV) pounded Ukraine’s defensive supply routes. Russian combat formations also continued their offensive in areas adjacent to the occupied city of Avdiivka, while several flashpoints near Pokrovsk saw heavy combat action.

Something WICKED This Way Comes: The Future Singularity of Asymmetric Warfare Innovations

Robert J. Bunker

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The modern world and dominance of conventional (symmetric) warfighting systems operated by human combatants—main battle tanks, capital warships, fighters and strategic bombers—is rapidly approaching its twilight. This ‘gold standard’ of military innovation and technology is completing its functional weapons systems life cycle as it transitions from institutionalized to ritualized usage on the more advanced mid-21st century battlefield. This battlefield has disparate elements now readily recognizable and the mosaic forming portends a form of conflict inherently alien to our modern comprehension of state-on-state warfighting.

Asymmetric Warfare Innovations

While asymmetric warfare is typically viewed as unorthodox and even insurgent in approach—leveraging weakness against a superior force using innovative applications of technology and tactics—it also possesses an advanced warfighting component. This is the circumstance behind the contemporary suite of asymmetric warfare innovations, derived from a synthesis of technology and CONOPS (concepts of operations), now forming. However, the disruptive innovation taking place is a level of magnitude above that of 1920s-1930s revolution in military affairs (RMA) perceptions. That level of operational change, resulting in blitzkrieg tactics, carrier operations, et al., existed within the modern paradigm of warfare. The level of disruptive change we are now witnessing is out-of-paradigm change equivalent to the shift from the Classical to Medieval or Medieval to Modern epochs of Western civilization. These shifts have been characterized respectively as ‘The Dark Ages’ and ‘The Renaissance’ in their societal, state institutional, and military impacts. We are within a post-Modern shift that will witness modern (legacy) nation-state mass industrial force structures becoming ineffective on the battlefield as asymmetric warfare innovations mature and are increasingly fielded by states and non-state entities.

Tech and talent are the keys to defense modernization

Michael Bloomberg

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The world we know today would not exist without the close ties that bound the Defense Department, academia, and industry throughout the Cold War. The Internet and GPS grew out of those public-private partnerships and became part of the foundation for U.S. leadership in the global economy.

Now the same kinds of partnerships can again help make the Defense Department more innovative and effective — and Americans safer. Military leaders recognize the imperative of forming these partnerships, but clearing away the bureaucratic roadblocks is far easier said than done.

The Pentagon established the Defense Innovation Board, which I have the honor of chairing, to help the department build its relationships outside of government and beyond the existing defense industry. Our role is to conduct independent research and interviews, and then offer recommendations for change to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and other senior leaders. In many cases, the capabilities that the department needs already exist. The difficulty lies in adopting and scaling them.

Pentagon to test whether counter-drone systems can operate effectively under electronic attack

Jon Harper

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The Defense Department wants to see whether industry’s drone killers can get the job done while operating in a contested electromagnetic environment.

The technical demonstration, slated to be conducted early next year, will be overseen by the Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office (JCO), according to a new sources-sought notice.

The event is being planned as concerns grow about the threats posed by enemy drones and electronic warfare arsenals. While the U.S. military has its own EW weapons and other tools to defeat adversaries’ uncrewed aerial platforms, it also recognizes that American defensive systems could also be jammed.

“The JCO is interested to understand industry’s C-sUAS capabilities that can operate in a contested electromagnetic environment,” per the RFI.

The Forgotten War in Congo

Jason K. Stearns

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Last year, the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo turned 30. It is a grim milestone, and one that received almost no global attention. The silence isn’t a surprise. Since its inception, the war in Congo has excelled at evading international recognition. Few people noticed when the M23 Movement, the region’s biggest militia, rounded up and executed 171 civilians, in November 2022. The world was quiet when Doctors Without Borders declared that they had treated 25,000 survivors of sexual violence in Congo last year. 

Armenia and Azerbaijan Hold Peace Talks

Mark Temnycky

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Following a tense spring, it appears that Armenian and Azerbaijani officials are making progress on a peace agreement. Earlier this month, foreign ministers from both countries gathered in Washington to discuss the peace process in further detail. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts, where he stated that “both countries are very close to being able to reach a final agreement.”

Two weeks later, Reuters reported that Azerbaijan had proposed a document to Armenia that highlighted “basic principles of a future peace treaty as an interim measure.” The U.S. Department of State then announced that the two countries had made further progress in their quest for a peace agreement. The United States has also provided aid assistance to the region throughout the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Meanwhile, the European Union (EU) has also increased its efforts to try and help with the situation. Earlier this year, the European body “pledged to give €12 million in humanitarian aid to Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh.” This assistance will help refugees impacted by the brutal attack on the region last year. It may also help them assimilate in their new areas of residence as they recover from the Azerbaijani incursion last year.

Hezbollah Doesn’t Want a War With Israel

Mohanad Hage Ali

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Over the past few weeks, an all-out conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has begun to appear more likely. In May, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant suggested that the country might use expanded “military means” to quash Hezbollah, and according to media reports, the Israeli military has drawn up plans for a limited ground assault to enforce a buffer zone at its northern border with Lebanon. Both Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, have openly called for an invasion of Lebanon. Outside leaders and analysts tend to focus on Israel as the actor whose policies provoke or avoid war. But given Washington’s limited success in influencing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy in the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, those seeking a route to de-escalation must look more closely at Hezbollah’s calculations.

The organization faces a dilemma that limits its choices. On the one hand, it must restore its ability to deter Israel. It lost some of that capacity in the months following Hamas’s October 7 attack. Soon after the offensive, Hezbollah lobbed missiles at Israel in a restrained show of support for Hamas, and Israel responded with an assassination campaign across Lebanon, including in the organization’s stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Owing to Lebanon’s fragility, however, Hezbollah still wants to avoid a full-blown conflict with Israel.

Do Europeans Support NATO?

James Holmes

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Do Europeans support NATO? They certainly fret a lot about the future of the Atlantic Alliance. To hear them tell it, a return of Donald Trump to the White House next January would augur cataclysm. “The anxiety is massive” according to a typical statement from European elites relayed by The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins. They fear the United States, the dominant member of the alliance, might throttle back its support for European security—retreating into isolationism, enacting soft-on-Russia policies, shifting military resources and policy energy to the Indo-Pacific to confront a domineering China, or some alloy of these. And Trump would almost certainly resume lambasting allies for free-riding on American-supplied defense. He would hector them publicly, early, and often to spend more—much as he did during his last tenure as president.

Europe stands to be the biggest loser from this fall’s U.S. elections.

But rather than concentrate on what Trump says, or what Europeans say about what he might do, why don’t we look at what Europe—and for that matter Canada, another laggard—does in the defense sphere. Communiques and public statements out of the recent 75th-anniversary summit in Washington DC put the accent on the positive. Quoth the official statement from allied capitals: “We welcome that more than two-thirds of Allies have fulfilled their commitment of at least 2% of GDP annual defence spending and commend those Allies who have exceeded it.” Flip that upbeat statement around. It means that a substantial minority of allies still are not spending 2 percent or more of GDP on their armed forces a decade after allied leaders resolved that all members would meet that standard within a decade.

Europe Is in Danger of Regulating Its Tech Market Out of Existence

Jeremiah Johnson

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In June, Apple announced a new product called Apple Intelligence. It’s being sold as a new suite of features for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac that will use artificial intelligence to help you write and edit emails, create new pictures and emojis, and generally accomplish all kinds of tasks. There’s just one problem if you’re a European user eager to get your hands on it: Apple won’t be releasing it in Europe.

Ukraine’s Other Problem: Spiraling Debt

Cameron Abadi

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Ukraine owes billions of dollars to private creditors, and the bill for some of those debts will come due on Aug. 1, when a two-year suspension of Ukraine’s debt payments is scheduled to expire. Even after a restructuring deal was agreed to this week, Ukraine could still find itself in default, adding significant legal and economic troubles at a time of war.

The Kamala Harris Doctrine

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Now that U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris has seemingly all but locked up the Democratic nomination for the 2024 presidential race, one of the biggest questions swirling around Washington and foreign capitals is what a Harris foreign-policy doctrine would look like if she is elected in November.

Iran Orchestrating Online Campaign of Threats Against Israeli Olympic Athletes

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The Israel National Cyber Directorate announced on July 25 that Iran was behind an online intimidation campaign targeting Israeli athletes competing in the Paris Olympics. Hackers posing as the French far-right student organization Groupe Union Défense sent threatening messages and created online channels to disseminate personal information about the athletes. One such message, sent to Israeli swimmer Meiron Amir Cheruti, read: “You are welcome to attend the funeral of Meiron Amir Cheruti, born on October 19, 1997, died on July 27, 2024.” Another message sent to athletes warned: “The fate of the Zionists will be like that of the Palestinians in Gaza if the Zionists continue to terrorize everyone.”

For its part, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach expressed his “full confidence” in the French authorities’ ability to ensure the safety of Israeli athletes. Bach noted that the IOC is working closely with “180 other international intelligence agencies collecting all information” to create a safe and secure environment for the games, which formally opened on July 26. In the hours immediately prior to the opening ceremony, unidentified saboteurs carried out arson attacks at five separate junctions of the French national railway network, causing severe delays. “Everything points us to these fires being deliberate — the timing, the vans that have been recovered after people have fled, the incendiary agents found on the scene,” Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete commented.

Steve Jobs Knew the Moment the Future Had Arrived. It's Calling Again

Steven Levy

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Steve Jobs is 28 years old, and seems a little nervous as he starts his speech to a group of designers gathered under a large tent in Aspen, Colorado. He fiddles with his bow tie and soon removes his suit jacket, dropping it to the floor when he finds no other place to set it down. It is 1983, and he’s about to ask designers for their help in improving the look of the coming wave of personal computers. But first he will tell them that those computers will shatter the lives they have led to date.

“How many of you are 36 years … older than 36?” he asks. That’s how old the computer is, he says. But even the younger people in the room, including himself, are sort of “precomputer,” members of the television generation. A distinct new generation, he says, is emerging: “In their lifetimes, the computer will be the predominant medium of communication.”

Quite a statement at the time, considering that very few of the audience, according to Jobs’ impromptu polling, owns a personal computer or has even seen one. Jobs tells the designers that they not only will soon use one, but it will be indispensable, and deeply woven into the fabric of their lives.

The Perils of 'Open Source' AI, According to Experts

Monica Sager

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The debate over whether increasingly advanced software code should be treated as a trade secret or openly available to anyone who wants it took a turn this week when Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, called for an open-source approach to artificial intelligence development — then put his money where his mouth is by launching an open-sourced AI app that the company claims can compete with the best closed AI models, like OpenAI's ChatGPT.

"It's a fundamentally different move than the companies who are taking responsibility for how they're using their models and are making sure their models are do certain things and won't do other certain things," Anthony Aguirre, the executive director of the nonprofit Future of Life Institute, told Newsweek.

"Safety regulation is just not compatible with open release of those models."

SKP’s Latest Campaign: Expanded Propaganda and External Operations

Dr. Colin Clarke, Lucas Webber and Peter Smith

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Introduction

The Islamic State Khurasan Province’s (ISKP) capabilities and intent to carry out attacks outside of its nucleus in Pakistan and Afghanistan are increasing. After a recent flurry of activity, ISKP has conducted several successful operations, including a bombing in Iran that took the lives of nearly 100 people in early January and a sophisticated attack in Moscow that claimed the lives of 145 people while injuring another 551.

The threat was underscored yet again, most recently with the May 31 arrest of an 18-year-old Chechen man — who was communicating with ISKP — in France’s Saint-Etienne region for an alleged plot to attack spectators and security staff during the upcoming Paris Olympics. This follows months of propaganda specifically calling for terrorism against sporting events in Germany, France, Spain, the United States and more.

Most branches of the Islamic State (IS) are focused on their specific region or Wilayah, while ISKP is setting its sights beyond its borders as it works to expand its external operations attack network, not just in South and Central Asia but also in the West and beyond. There has been a notable surge in ISKP’s external activities since mid-December. In addition to the attacks in Iran and Russia, ISKP was involved in an attack in Turkey and reportedly Tajikistan, alongside plots foiled in Austria, Germany, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia.

US, Taiwan, China race to improve military drone technology

Katherine Michaelson

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This week, as Taiwan was preparing for the start of its Han Kuang military exercises, its air defense system detected a Chinese drone circling the island. This was the sixth time that China had sent a drone to operate around Taiwan since 2023.

Drones like the one that flew around Taiwan, which are tasked with dual-pronged missions of reconnaissance and intimidation, are just a small part of a broader trend that is making headlines from Ukraine to the Middle East to the Taiwan Strait and is changing the face of warfare.

The increasing role that unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, play and rising concern about a Chinese invasion of democratically ruled Taiwan is pushing Washington, Beijing and Taipei to improve the sophistication, adaptability and cost of drone technology.

'Hellscape' strategy

Last August, the Pentagon launched a $1 billion Replicator Initiative to create air, sea and land drones in the "multiple thousands," according to the Defense Department's Innovation Unit. The Pentagon aims to build that force of drones by August 2025.

An Arab Spring for Bangladesh?

M. Niaz Asadullah

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In recent weeks, the Bangladeshi government has cracked down violently on students demanding equitable access to coveted government jobs amid an unemployment crisis. To contain the protests, authorities have shut down all educational institutions, imposed a strict curfew, and cut off internet access. Thousands of police officers and paramilitaries have been patrolling the streets, and more than 170 people have died.

Such unrest in one of Asia’s most populous and promising emerging economies, which has made remarkable progress on development and political stability in the half-century or so since it gained independence, did not come out of nowhere. Bangladesh’s youth uprising, with its echoes of the Arab Spring, illustrates how corruption, cronyism, and inequality tend to accompany GDP growth, especially under an increasingly authoritarian regime.

Since taking power in 2009, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League has largely failed to deliver on promises of job creation. To be sure, Bangladesh’s public-sector workforce has expanded over the past two decades, and civil servants have received steady raises and improved benefits. But access to these jobs is now a matter of politics. The implicit social contract, whereby the youth population remains compliant as long as the government provides jobs and keeps the cost of living down, has been broken.

Myanmar Is Running Out of Gas. What Happens Next?

Guillaume de Langre

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Myanmar’s domestic gas production is plummeting. The country’s biggest gas field, called Yadana, is nearing the end of its lifetime. According to Thai energy data, Thai imports of Yadana gas have dropped 47 percent since the military takeover of February 2021, which has plunged the country into conflict. Less gas production also means less electricity for Myanmar: generation capacity has dropped 35 percent since the coup. The depletion of Yadana has been expected for a long time, and there were plans to develop new gas reserves and renewable sources of energy to make up for it. What wasn’t expected was that the Myanmar military would seize power – a move that has broken the country’s fragile energy system. So what happens next, and how could we fix it?

First, let’s be clear: Myanmar’s energy crisis is a direct result of its political crisis. There is no energy solution without a political change. Foreign investors and local companies pulled out of the country’s energy sector because they lost confidence in the State Administration Council (SAC)’s ability to govern responsibly. This is reflected in the exchange rate: as assets were pulled out of the country, the kyat has dropped from 1,330 to the U.S. dollar on the eve of the coup to around 4,500 to the dollar today. One of the consequences for the energy sector is that importing gas from abroad to generate more electricity would now be prohibitively expensive. At this stage of the conflict, the success of any energy policy depends on a political solution.

Beijing Can Take the South China Sea Without Firing a Shot - OPINION

Oriana Skylar Mastro

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Over the past 15 years, China has expanded its once-minimal military presence in the South China Sea into a significant one.

Beijing has laid claim to nearly all of the strategic waterway, a vital shipping lifeline for the global economy that is rich in energy and fishery resources. China has used nonmilitary assets such as its Coast Guard, fishing vessels and maritime militia to bully its neighbors, blockade their ships and build Chinese military bases on disputed islands.

America is partly to blame. It has condemned China’s behavior, but, eager to avoid escalation, has consistently refrained from standing up militarily, which has only further emboldened Beijing. A new approach is needed. The United States must take real action to strengthen alliances and confront China before it eventually takes control of this hugely important body of water without firing a shot.

Like any unchallenged bully, China has become increasingly aggressive. Last month, Chinese Coast Guard personnel attacked a Philippine supply vessel with axes and other crude weapons — Manila says a Filipino sailor and several others were injured — in one of the worst acts of violence between China and its rivals in the South China Sea in years. The incident took place near the Sierra Madre, a rusting World War II-era ship that the Philippines had beached 25 years ago at Second Thomas Shoal to assert its territorial claim. The shoal lies about 120 miles off the Philippine island of Palawan and is well within the nation’s exclusive economic zone.

China Casts Itself as Peacemaker in First High-Level Talks With Ukraine Since Russia’s Invasion

Isabel Coles and Austin Ramzy

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Ukraine’s top diplomat met with his Chinese counterpart Wednesday for hours of talks in his first such high-level visit to the country since Russia’s full-scale invasion, as Kyiv seeks Beijing’s support to end the war on “just” terms.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reiterated Beijing’s calls for a diplomatic solution to the war during the meeting in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, who said his country would negotiate when Moscow was ready to engage “in good faith.”

“No such readiness is currently observed on the Russian side,” Kuleba said, according to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. A Kremlin spokesman said in response that Moscow “has always maintained its openness to the negotiation process.”

Efforts to kick-start dialogue between Russia and Ukraine have faltered during a war that has upended European security and triggered commodity price shocks worldwide. Several countries have attempted to broker peace talks, beginning with Turkey in the weeks after Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

Beijing’s Long Game: Gray Zone Tactics in the Pacific

Brandon Tran

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The expulsion of former Chinese defense ministers Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on June 27, 2024, is the latest development in a months-long series of personnel purges in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). As President Xi Jinping continuously reforms the PLA to make it a “world-class military” capable of achieving the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) national security objectives, these purges illustrate an underlying tension that stems from competing priorities. Because the PLA is the armed wing of the CCP, Xi Jinping must make tradeoffs in balancing regime loyalty and military competence when selecting PLA officers for senior positions. As a result of this and similar compromises, the PLA remains unprepared for direct confrontation with near-peer adversaries. To address this gap, China will continue leveraging irregular warfare activities to incrementally accomplish its strategic objectives while buying time to achieve the level of conventional force development it desires. This article will evaluate how China’s use of irregular warfare sets the stage for its conventional force development, given the context of the competing requirements for senior PLA officer promotion, the PLA’s guiding principles, and the role of the new defense minister, Dong Jun.

The Populist Revolt Against Climate Policy

Edoardo Campanella and Robert Z. Lawrence

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Few analysts studying the West’s political landscape saw a populist earthquake coming a decade ago. But then, with the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom in 2016 and the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States later that year, the earthquake hit. Observers were quick to see the rise of a new “silent majority” in the West, one bent on repudiating an out-of-touch elite that was either oblivious to the suffering their policies had caused or entirely indifferent to it. The effects of globalization, deindustrialization, and the financial crisis fueled the discontent at the heart of the populist wave. But other forces drove upheaval in particular countries, including concerns relating to immigrants, tax increases, budget cuts, regulatory excesses, and the general view that government programs unfairly favored the ruling class.

Now, a new populist front is opening in Western politics. Anti-establishment leaders are singling out for scorn efforts to avert global warming. Attempts to curb climate change make an almost perfect target for populist rhetoric and conspiracy theories because policies to forcibly reduce carbon emissions rely on expert knowledge, raise costs for ordinary people, require multilateral cooperation, and rest on the hard-to-prove counterfactual that such policies would stave off disasters that would otherwise happen.

Funding A Rival: When the United States and Europe Invest in Chinese Tech

Mathilde Velliet

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Outbound investments into rival powers are receiving increasing political attention on both sides of the Atlantic, as competition between the United States and China intensifies. The concern lies with American and European investments in certain Chinese technologies - such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, semiconductors, or quantum computing - which could enable China to enhance its military capabilities and thus may pose risks to national and international security.

n recent years, the United States and the European Union (EU) have stepped up their controls on inbound foreign investment to guard against the risks it poses to sovereignty and the protection of intellectual property. Now, the focus has been extended to outward investment from the U.S. and Europe to certain "foreign countries of concern" - primarily China.

In the U.S., President Biden signed an executive order on August 9, 2023, targeting American investments in certain Chinese technologies. This order imposes notification requirements and prohibitions that are set to take effect in 2024. In light of these U.S. initiatives and encouragement, the EU has also been examining, over the past few months, whether additional control tools are necessary. The EU Commission published its first White Paper on Outbound Investments in January 2024. Unlike the Biden administration, the Commission does not explicitly target China.

Chinese Communist Party Plans To Raise Retirement Age To Deal With Aging Population

Hsia Hsiao-hwa

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The ruling Chinese Communist Party has announced plans to raise the retirement age as part of its response to falling births and a rapidly aging population.

Party leader Xi Jinping called on party and government at a recent top-level meeting in Beijing to “advance reform to gradually raise the statutory retirement age in a prudent and orderly manner in line with the principle of promoting voluntary participation while allowing appropriate flexibility.”

Xi also called for moves to “improve the systems for supporting population development and providing related services, refine the policy system and incentive mechanisms for boosting the birth rate, and refine the policies and mechanisms for developing elderly care programs and industries.”

China has one of the lowest statutory retirement ages in the world, currently set at 60 for men, at 55 for female officials and at 50 for female workers.

Retired teacher Gu Guoping, who currently lives in Shanghai, said the authorities are likely to change the mandatory retirement age to 65 for men and 55 for women, which is likely to be unpopular.

Sudan’s Forever War

Ronan Wordsworth

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As Sudan’s civil war enters its 15th month, peace seems as distant as ever. The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) both lack international legitimacy and have been credibly accused of committing atrocities. Millions of Sudanese civilians have fled north into Egypt or west into Chad, neither of which is well-equipped to support so many refugees. Meanwhile, what started as a war for national control has grown into a proxy conflict among Middle Eastern and Eurasian powers.

Dreaming of a naval base on Sudan’s Red Sea coast, Iran and Russia are supplying advanced drones, missiles and other weapons to the SAF, which controls the coastline and much of the Nile River basin. The SAF’s Islamist fundamentalism appeals to Tehran, while Moscow has been working to revive a seven-year-old agreement it reached with Sudan’s former president for a permanent naval and logistics base, even at the risk of its multibillion-dollar gold mining operation. On the other side, the RSF’s greatest support comes from the United Arab Emirates, a staunch opponent of the spread of Iranian influence via violent Islamic extremist groups. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are determined to block Iran from securing a base on the Red Sea from which it could further threaten their territory and economic interests. Similar fears are prevalent in Europe and the United States, which worry at least as much about the prospect of a Russian base on the Red Sea, but they have been unable to develop a unified strategy.

Where Have All the Jihadists Gone?

Wolfram Lacher

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Issues and Conclusions

As in other Arab Spring countries, militant Islamist movements flourished in Libya in the first few years following the fall of the regime. After Muammar al‑Gaddafi’s rule ended in 2011, they were popular among many young Libyans and they benefited from an escalation in violent conflicts, which made them allies of other armed groups. But from 2016 onwards, these movements dramatically lost importance and appeal – as occurred in other regional countries at around the same time. There were obvious reasons for this: first and foremost the military defeats of militant Islamist groups and the demonisation of all Islamists by Libyan and regional media.

Nevertheless, the sudden fall of militant Islamists in Libya is puzzling. It is difficult to reconcile with the two leading explanations for jihadist mobilisation. One school of thought emphasises the role of ideological radicalisation in the spread of militant Islamist groups. It sees this radicalisation as the reason for the tenacity of such groups – a tenacity they apparently lacked in Libya. Moreover, the ques­tion arises as to why Islamist ideology suddenly lost its appeal. Another approach stresses that militant Islamists benefit from conflicts and grievances, which help them to gain followers who pursue non-ideo­logical objectives. In Libya, however, political divi­sions and armed conflicts persisted after 2016, even while militant Islamists became increasingly irrel­evant. When a third civil war erupted in 2019, it was widely expected that this would lead to a renewed mobilisation of jihadist groups. Nothing of the sort happened.

This study explores the question of how to explain the abrupt change of fortune of militant Islamists in Libya – and what it teaches us about the driving forces behind Islamist mobilisation. The approach chosen here is based on interviews with members and allies of militant Islamist groups, as well as with actors who observed these groups in their immediate social environment. Recurring patterns in these inter­views reveal three types of mechanisms at work in the rise and fall of militant Islamist movements in Libya.

Ukraine War Maps Reveal Russian Land Grabs Across Eastern Frontline

Brendan Cole

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Russian forces have made marginal gains in recent days in Ukraine's east, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), whose latest maps depict the state of play on the front line.

The Washington, D.C.-based think tank reported Wednesday that Russian forces had advanced north of Kharkiv City and continued fighting in the north of the region.

One of its maps marked Moscow's claims that it had captured the village of Hlyboke on Tuesday near the border and showed other reported Russian advances in the town of Starytsa, around 20 miles further east three days earlier.

Another map depicted Russian claims of gains in the Donetsk region, such as the seizure of the towns of Nevelske and Yurivka on July 21. Citing geolocated footage, the graph also marks Russian advances on July 22 toward Niu York, Maksymilianivka and, two days later, Kostiantynivka.

However, Ukrainian forces have boasted of their own successes. Soldiers from the 79th Tavrian Air Assault Brigade said they had repelled one of the largest Russian assaults since the start of the war, in the Kurakhove sector in Donetsk where Russia is trying to break through.

The Right Way to Quickly End the War in Ukraine

Jakub Grygiel

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The United States has hit a wall in Ukraine. President Joe Biden’s incrementalist approach is not working. Instead, it has led to a long and tragic war of attrition. Ukraine’s faltering performance in the past year has raised the grim prospect of a Russian victory, which would see Kyiv fall under Moscow’s imperial dominion.

Former President Donald Trump has promised to change the U.S. approach if he wins reelection in November, insisting he could end the war “in 24 hours.” And Trump’s running mate, U.S. Senator J. D. Vance, has written that Ukraine should limit itself to a “defensive strategy” to “preserve its precious military manpower, stop the bleeding and provide time for negotiations to commence.” The solution both Trump and Vance seem to favor is a negotiated settlement that would allow Washington to focus its attention and resources elsewhere.

The war does need to end—and end quickly. The answer is not to cut off all U.S. aid or rush into a lopsided deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The United States can still get out of an untenable situation and also avoid handing Russia a win. To halt open-ended U.S. expenditures and preserve Ukraine’s independence and security, the United States and its allies need to give Kyiv one last serious chance at victory—defined not as a return to Ukraine’s 2013 borders (as Kyiv would prefer) but as a sustainable restoration of roughly its 2021 borders.

Europe Is Pumping Billions Into New Military Tech

LUCA ZORLONI

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From €142 million to €1 billion ($1.1 billion) a year. The European Commission is pressing the accelerator on investment in weapons and defense technologies. From a total €590 million invested between 2017 and 2020, Brussels has moved to a €7.3 billion ($7.9 billion) package for the 2021 to 2027 period. This year alone, the European Defense Fund (EDF) has put €1.1 billion on the plate, divided into 34 calls for as many military-related research topics. From developing new drone models to sensors to increase radar capabilities. From systems to counter hypersonic missile attacks to enhancements in the analysis of images collected by satellites. From “smart weapons” to advanced communication technologies. The bidding process opened in late June, and there is time until November 5 to share a slice of the pie—and then a year to deliver the project.

The project for a common defense has distant origins and was formalized in 2015, but it was Russia's invasion of Ukraine that accelerated the European Commission's march to spend on arms, ammunition, and military technology. One only has to scroll through the list of projects vying for 2024 funding to get an idea of what Brussels is looking for. On the plate is €100 million to develop a new long-range, medium-altitude drone equipped with advanced intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and recognition systems (or Istar) and piloted remotely. On a similar project, the European Union has already invested, allocating €98 million of the total €290 million needed to develop a similar aircraft, dubbed Eurodrone, to a consortium consisting of France's Airbus and Dassault Aviation plus Italy's Leonardo. Another €11 million from the EDF goes to the prototype of a small, autonomously guided aerial drone.

The Financial Case for Ukraine

Jeremiah Monk

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Several politicians have recently claimed that the billions of dollars the US has given to support Ukraine are wasteful. Since the Russian invasion in February 2022, the US has contributed approximately $175 billion dollars to the defense of Ukraine.[i] $175 billion is a lot of money to just give away, especially at the expense of all the domestic needs that will go unfunded.

In defense spending terms, however, $175 may actually be a strategic bargain. For comparison note that the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, cost $13 billion to build, and has a total program price tag of $120 billion.[ii] Including the air wing the carrier will support, the Ford makes for a suitable yardstick for a rough comparison.

One can argue production and maintenance of the Ford equates to American jobs and is therefore an investment back into America. This is true. But the same goes for the vast majority of US investment in Ukraine. HIMARS missiles are built in Camden, Arkansas. 105mm shells are produced in Scranton, Pennsylvania and F-16s are made in Greenville, South Carolina. Of the nearly $70 billion of hardware given to Ukraine, approximately 90% actually goes to American companies and American jobs.[iii]

Biden’s Legacy: Major Accomplishments but Unfinished Business

Charles A. Kupchan

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President Joe Biden has faced a uniquely vexing task: navigating a fractured United States through a fractured world. Against this backdrop, his presidency has been one of remarkable accomplishment. Abroad, Biden restored the United States as the anchor of the free world while leading the successful effort to help Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression. At home, he healed an economy that had been distressed by the pandemic and put the nation on a path of sustainable growth.

Yet as made clear by the divisiveness of the 2024 presidential race, Biden fell short of achieving his most ambitious objective: winning “the battle for the soul of this nation.” He came into office focused on the home front, determined to build back the middle class and ease the partisan divide. To this end, he successfully guided through a divided legislature major domestic investments aimed at promoting economic growth and getting working Americans back on their feet. But his efforts to get even more resources into the economic bloodstream were blocked by a recalcitrant Congress. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine then distracted him from his domestic agenda. Biden wanted four more years to finish the job of healing the nation. But that task now falls on the shoulders of the new Democratic nominee— most likely, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Leader of Alliances

Biden reestablished the United States’ credentials as the world’s leading democracy and reclaimed the nation’s commitment to upholding a liberal international order. The United States’ image abroad, particularly among allies and partners, sharply rebounded almost overnight. Biden set about repairing relations with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies, an effort that paid off handsomely after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Even before Russia launched its attack, he was laying the groundwork for the flow of military and economic assistance that enabled Ukraine to rebuff Russian efforts to subjugate the country. A stalemate has settled in, with Kyiv still in control of some 80 percent of the country’s territory—a remarkable feat given Russia’s numerical superiority.