Indian Strategic Studies: 05/31/24

31 May 2024

India's Maritime Dominance

Anshu Meghe

India's Maritime Dominance: Safeguarding Commerce and Stability in the Indian Ocean

Far beyond India's western shores, the Indian Navy (IN) stands as a guardian of global trade in the bustling waters of the Gulf of Aden. Since December 2023, this force has undertaken its largest and most decisive deployment ever. It has rescued over 18 commercial vessels from the clutches of piracy—most notably from those affiliated with the Somali Al Shabab. Operating in the strategic confluence of the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, the Navy's robust presence underscores its growing prowess in projecting power across the vast oceans and solidifying its stature as a principal security provider in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). Amidst the backdrop of an increasingly assertive China, these operations do more than safeguard waters; they signal the maturity of an Indian strategic vision that has been over two decades in the making. With each successful mission, the Indian Navy not only earns global accolades but also cements India's role as a rising major power within the intricate geopolitical tapestry of the Indo-Pacific, offering both a stern warning to its competitors and a promise of stability to its partners.

Combating Piracy in the Western Indian Ocean

Amidst the internal conflicts and civil wars plaguing Yemen and Somalia, these nations have become fertile grounds for non-state actors engaging in piracy in the Gulf of Aden. With the U.S. and UK ground resources preoccupied by the Houthi rebels, who escalated their maritime attacks in response to Israeli operations against Hamas, global shipping routes near Bab el Mandeb in the Red Sea have been significantly disrupted. This has forced major shipping lanes to reroute around the African continent, inflating shipping costs considerably. Capitalizing on the Western naval focus on the Red Sea, Somali pirates have intensified their activities, attempting over 20 hijackings since November and exacerbating the crisis for global shipping by driving up insurance and security costs. This situation has revived piracy by Somali groups, which had seen a decline after 2017.

The sniper with one of the longest kills in Afghanistan has a message for Joe Biden

WILLS ROBINSON

Sergeant Nicholas Ranstad was twenty minutes into a nap when his spotter woke him up.

Four Taliban fighters were 1.28 miles away from the hut where the Army specialist sniper was living in Kunar Province in northeastern Afghanistan.

If the insurgents had looked more carefully, they would have seen white marks on boulders beside them. Ranstad, a 28-year-old Florida native, had been using them for target practice for weeks.

Now, however, his AK-47-wielding target could shoot back while they were surveilling the U.S. traffic checkpoint.

Nick Ranstad set up on top of a Afghanistan Border Patrol (ABP) hut and got into the prone position.

Is Myanmar Teetering On The Verge Of Another Disaster? – OpEd

Dr. Imran Khalid

Myanmar’s military junta is confronting its most formidable challenge since seizing power three years ago. A coalition of ethnic militias and anti-coup groups has disrupted vital trade routes and captured strategic territories and towns. These incursions into former military strongholds mark a historic shift in power dynamics, with resistance forces now commanding control over almost half the country – an achievement unprecedented in Myanmar’s tumultuous history. The junta’s predicament reflects the aggravating complexity of Myanmar’s political landscape, characterized by deep-seated ethnic divisions and a populace weary of military rule.

Data from the Institute for Strategy and Policy – Myanmar reveals a distressing reality. Conflict has engulfed 221 townships in three years, with 141 teetering on the brink of insecurity. Opposition forces have seized at least 35 towns, underscoring the military’s failure to maintain control. This prolonged state of unrest not only exposes the regime’s inability to restore stability but also highlights the resilience of opposition forces. China brokered peace talks between the Tatmadaw and the Brotherhood Alliance on January 10-11, 2024 – resulting in atemporary ceasefire in northern Myanmar. However, the Arakan Army (AA) continued its clashes with the Tatmadaw in Rakhine State, where it now controls several towns. This success has emboldened other opposition groups, including ethnic resistance organizations (EROs) and the People’s Defense Forces (PDFs), which collectively seized at least 35 towns.

Xi Hosts Arab Leaders as China’s ‘Soft Power’ Expands in Mideast

President Xi Jinping will meet Arab leaders this week seeking deeper ties in a region where China does plenty of business — and increasingly diplomacy, too.

Xi will address the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum in Beijing on Thursday with heads of state from Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Tunisia among the attendees. Talks will likely focus on fast-growing trade and investment, and regional security concerns amid the Israel-Hamas war.

As the Biden administration backs Israel in the conflict, China sees eye-to-eye with Arab nations, supporting an immediate cease-fire and recognition of a Palestinian state. That alignment is helping Beijing to extend its political sway in countries that until recently saw China chiefly as an economic partner — and win new allies in its global contest for influence with the US.

Xi’s visit to Saudi Arabia in late 2022 was hailed as a landmark by both countries. Last year, China followed up by brokering a surprise accord between the kingdom and Iran, the Islamic world’s biggest rivals. The détente has held up even amid the strains caused by the Gaza war, and there are signs it’s been followed by an acceleration of investment between China and the Middle East.

China Launches 10th Type 055 Vessel, Increases Production At Dagushan

Alex Luck

Chinese naval builder Dalian Shipbuilding has launched a new Type 055 “large destroyer”, the tenth overall, and commenced construction on a further hull. According to new commercial satellite imagery the builder has also laid down another Type 052D destroyer, the sixth of the latest batch at the yard. Beam figures for the new modules of 18 and 20 metres respectively suggest an effort of parallel construction in a single drydock.

Dalian is one of two principal naval yards together with Jiangnan in Shanghai constructing all recent guided missile destroyers for the PLAN. This most recent construction of new combatants for Dalian is taking place at a secondary yard typically referred to as Dagushan.

The Dagushan-based yard is located to the East across Dalian Bay from the builder’s primary facilities previously performing all DDG-construction. This development may indicate that Dalian Shipbuilding is trying to offload more naval output from their primary facilities in order to free up larger drydocks for commercial construction. Interestingly Dagushan first assembled this new Type 055 on a slipway, similar to Jiangnan. However the yard then used a barge to move the hull into a drydock for further work in late March.

Why Trying to 'Defeat' the Chinese Communist Party Could Backfire

David Santoro

Summary and Key Points: The U.S. faces strategic challenges with China, which aims to reshape the international order. The Biden administration's approach involves managing competition rather than seeking outright victory or confrontation. While some advocate for a more aggressive stance, aiming to defeat the Chinese Communist Party, such a strategy could backfire, strengthening the CCP and increasing conflict risks. The preferred strategy is maintaining U.S. dominance through enhanced focus on the Indo-Pacific, innovation, and alliances, while remaining open to engagement with China.

China dominates the US strategic calculus. It is “the pacing challenge” for the US government and is, warns the Biden administration’s National Security Strategy, “the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it.” The emergence of competition as the defining feature of the US-China relationship, which dates back to the Trump administration, reflects the failure of the longstanding belief that engagement would facilitate China’s transformation and convergence with Western ideals, notably on democratic governance, a market-led economy, and the existing international order.

Is the EU already in a trade war with China?

KOEN VERHELST, JORDYN DAHL, STUART LAU AND CAMILLE GIJS

BRUSSELS — What do vanilla, steel pipes and electric cars have in common?

You guessed it: The European Union is investigating imports of these goods from China to find out whether they are being sold below cost or are being unfairly subsidized by Beijing. China, in return, suspects Europe of dumping premium cognacs on its market — and is dropping heavy hints that European luxury cars and pork meat could soon face restrictions.

The tit-for-tat dynamics suggest that the EU — which last year ran a bilateral trade deficit in goods of nearly €300 billion and now wants to narrow that gap — may soon slide into a trade war with China.

But are they in one already?

We’ll find out soon enough. Here’s POLITICO’s take on how this could play out:

Why is everyone talking about Chinese cars?

Trade nerds in Brussels — and auto industry bosses in Stuttgart, Munich and Wolfsburg — are nervously awaiting the outcome of the EU’s investigation into whether China unfairly subsidizes its electric vehicle industry.

China’s Quixotic Quest to Innovate

George Magnus

By now, the systemic problems that bedevil China’s economy are obvious. The country is suffering from slowing economic growth, stagnating productivity, a malfunctioning property sector, the misallocation and inefficient use of capital, debt-capacity constraints, and weak household income and consumer demand. But it is less clear how Beijing should fix these problems. Many economists outside China, as well as some inside the country, believe that it must recalibrate its development model by making it far more market-oriented and driven by consumer spending. Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP), however, cannot accept the political and institutional changes that such a recalibration would require.

So Xi has chosen a different path: a growth strategy centered on industrial policy, aimed at boosting what he and the CCP call “new productive forces.” In Marx’s thinking, this phrase describes the process whereby major changes in technology clash with the existing economic order, enabling communists to overthrow it. For Xi, these new forces are the sectors now at the vanguard of scientific and technological development, such as clean energy, electric vehicles, and batteries—in which China already leads—as well as industrial machinery, semiconductors and computing, artificial intelligence and robotics, the life sciences industries, and biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. Xi’s ambition is for China to achieve self-sufficiency in all these sectors. Xi believes that by focusing on industrial policy and innovation, he can rescue China’s beleaguered economy, seize geopolitical opportunities to lead the twenty-first century’s new industrial revolution, and end the United States’ dominance in the international system.

Meet the CRANKs: How China, Russia, Iran and North Korea Align Against America

Paul J. Saunders

Adeepening alignment among China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea is drawing considerable attention as the United States and its allies confront new challenges from these four nations, both individually and in various assortments. Yet in addition to the policy problems this cooperation poses, Washington faces another difficulty: what to call them?

Some are eager to brand these American adversaries as a new “Axis of Evil,” reassigning former President George W. Bush’s two-decade-old label for Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. Yet like efforts to define international relations as a semi-apocalyptic struggle between democracies and authoritarian states, the rhetoric of “evil” makes America’s job harder rather than easier. Moralistic rhetoric undermines rather than facilitates opportunities to exploit gaps between U.S adversaries whose interests are not identical. Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, and Pyongyang are each trying to drive wedges between Washington and allied capitals. America would benefit from a greater ability to attempt the same.

Marine Corps Stand-In Forces: A House of Cards

Anthony Zinni & Jerry McAbee

How did the United States Marine Corps transform itself from the world’s premier expeditionary force-in-readiness to a poor parody of the French Maginot Line in just four years? In his Force Design 2030 plan, the 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps radically redesigned and restructured the Marine Corps to operate as a defensively oriented, narrowly specialized regional force under Navy command to attack and sink Chinese warships in the South China Sea. This new mission came at the expense of providing much needed crisis response and global force projection capabilities to all Geographic Combatant and Functional Commands in an increasingly unstable world. The crown jewel of this new warfighting organization are called Stand-in Forces (SIFs), which are small isolated detachments of Marines, armed with anti-ship missiles, persistently spread across islands in the so-called “contested” areas of hostilities: specifically the first island chain.

To fund these largely experimental units, the Marine Corps divested proven capabilities needed to fight and win today anywhere in the world, an unwise and unproven approach termed “divest to invest.” The Corps jettisoned all its tanks and bridging, most of its cannon artillery and assault breaching, and much of its infantry and new, state-of-the art aviation at a time when these certain capabilities are showing to be critical in ongoing conflicts.

F-35 Crashes In New Mexico (Updated)

HOWARD ALTMAN

An F-35 Joint Strike Fighter crashed outside the airfield at the Albuquerque International Sunport which is co-located with Kirkland AFB in New Mexico, according to media reports and video from the crash site. The pilot survived and was transported to a local hospital with serious injuries, fire officials said.

The incident took place shortly before 2 p.m. local time, according to a spokesman Albuquerque Fire Rescue, who added that the pilot was transported to the hospital with serious injuries.

The aircraft was an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, according to imagery of the crash site and a recording of an air traffic control transmission.

The FAA deferred comment to the U.S. Marine Corps. The Marines would not immediately comment. We will update this story with any information provided. It is not clear if this was indeed a USMC F-35 or one that belonged to the Navy. Air Force or a foreign operator.

Bibi’s Problem Is Now Biden’s Problem – OpEd

Peter Isackson

In a highly instructive article teasing out the multiple threads of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current political quandary, former diplomat and Fair Observer board member Gary Grappo describes the growing pressure that directly threatens Bibi’s hold on power. Not only are members of his own team on the cusp of revolt, but even the faltering senior citizen now occupying the White House, known for his patient indulgence in the face of Israel’s most egregious excesses, now appears to be chafing at the bit over Bibi’s failure to reign in his ministers’ enthusiasm for genocidal acts carried out in the name of self-defense.

US President Joe Biden has never ceased aligning the adjectives that proclaim his nation’s unwavering, unbreakable, unreserved, iron-clad support for Israel. Earlier this month, however, he wavered ever so slightly — and only briefly — when he chose to interrupt his regular delivery of the 2,000-pound bombs Israel needs in its quest to establish Greater Israel as a unified ethno-supremacist Jewish state.

In the meantime, the International Criminal Court prosecutor has requested an arrest warrant for Netanyahu as a war criminal. The International Court of Justice followed suit days later when it ordered Israel to halt its military operations on the town of Rafah which the IDF had previously designated as the last safe zone from Israeli bombing.

Wind Farms Are Cheaper Than You Think And Could Have Prevented Fukushima

Offshore wind could have prevented the Fukushima disaster, according to a review of wind energy led by the University of Surrey.

The researchers found that offshore turbines could have averted the 2011 nuclear disaster in Japan by keeping the cooling systems running and avoiding meltdown. The team also found that wind farms are not as vulnerable to earthquakes.

Suby Bhattacharya, Professor of Geomechanics at the University of Surrey’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, said:

“Wind power gives us plentiful clean energy – now we know that it could also make other facilities safer and more reliable. The global review finds that greener really is cheaper – thanks to falling construction costs and new ways to reduce wind turbines’ ecological impact.”

One of the report’s starkest findings was that new wind farms can produce energy over twice as cheaply as new nuclear power stations.

The AUKUS balancing act is not getting easier

Nick Childs

In the last twelve months, the three partners in the Australia–United Kingdom–United States (AUKUS) partnership have made significant strides in their core or Pillar 1 ambition to jointly create a nuclear-powered-submarine capability for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). That ambition includes combining to produce a new SSN-AUKUS submarine, derived from a UK design, that will also serve in the Royal Navy. There is also an increased focus on the so-called Pillar 2 effort to cooperate on a range of other advanced defence technologies. That has included opening the door ever so slightly to the prospects of cooperation with other countries, notably Japan. But, in many ways, all these activities have served only to underscore the scale of the challenges ahead.

Sub-optimal approachAUKUS is in many ways a giant balancing act between risk and strategic reward for all three countries. It is also a balance between seeking to add to Indo-Pacific deterrence and stability and not stoking further tensions. In addition, it is attempting to manage urgent defence and operational needs with long-term capability goals. And the partners need to ensure the huge budgetary demands of AUKUS do not suck up too much funding at the expense of other defence requirements.

Across the Army, units lean into drone experimentation

SAM SKOVE

In speech after speech, Army leaders have made it clear that they want more drones in more units.

“We're going to see robotics inside the formation, on the ground and in the air,” Army Chief of Staff Randy George told Defense One in March.

Now a growing number of Army units, and particularly their junior officers and enlisted soldiers, are engaged in wide-ranging experiments to answer George’s call—and learn to train for, field, and operate their new systems.

“No longer is a drone just a safety net” for soldiers on patrol, said Capt. Adam Johnson, commander of Gainey Company, an experimental unit that serves as a hub for trying new technologies and tactics in the 82nd Airborne. “They have a purpose.”

American Globalism Versus ‘America First’

Francis P. Sempa

Hal Brands, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, has laid out in an essay in Foreign Affairs the key differences between what he rightly calls “American Globalism” and what has been called the “America First” approach to global affairs. Brands clearly is in the “American Globalist” camp, but unlike other supporters of the “liberal international order,” he does not label “America First” as isolationist. Instead, he lauds the global benefits to the post-1945 world order and worries that they will eventually disappear if Donald Trump regains the presidency. Brands doesn’t want the United States to be a “normal” country that only looks after its own national interests. What he fails to appreciate, however, is that the post-1945 world order he supports is already gone.

The geopolitics of 1945-1991 disappeared with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The war in Ukraine, despite the claims of many globalists, has not recreated the Soviet threat to Europe. If Ukraine, or parts of Ukraine, remain under Russian control, U.S. national security will not be endangered. Nor will Europe’s. NATO has doubled in size since 1991. Russia in relative power is considerably weaker than the Soviet Union was throughout the Cold War, and its ruling class no longer has a revolutionary ideology that legitimizes its continued rule and motivates international aggression. Of course, Russian imperialism has not disappeared from Russia’s foreign policy DNA, but the Russian empire of the Czars was never considered to be an existential threat to the United States (although the Monroe Doctrine included Russia in its restrictive warning), even when it occupied Alaska and parts of California in the 19th century. And today’s Russia is having difficulty holding on to the eastern provinces of Ukraine, and has once again sent out feelers for a ceasefire to end the war.

America’s Military Is Not Prepared for War — or Peace

Roger Wicker

Mr. Wicker, a Republican, is the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.

“To be prepared for war,” George Washington said, “is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.” President Ronald Reagan agreed with his forebear’s words, and peace through strength became a theme of his administration. In the past four decades, the American arsenal helped secure that peace, but political neglect has led to its atrophy as other nations’ war machines have kicked into high gear. Most Americans do not realize the specter of great power conflict has risen again.

It is far past time to rebuild America’s military. We can avoid war by preparing for it.

When America’s senior military leaders testify before my colleagues and me on the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee behind closed doors, they have said that we face some of the most dangerous global threat environments since World War II. Then, they darken that already unsettling picture by explaining that our armed forces are at risk of being underequipped and outgunned. We struggle to build and maintain ships, our fighter jet fleet is dangerously small, and our military infrastructure is outdated. Meanwhile, America’s adversaries are growing their militaries and getting more aggressive.

Russia Launches Wave of Mechanized Attacks at Ukraine

Ellie Cook

Russian forces launched four separate assaults with armored vehicles on Ukrainian positions along the eastern front line in recent days as Moscow probes the strength of Kyiv's defenses in the country's Donetsk region, according to a new assessment.

Russian troops attacked east of the strategic town of Chasiv Yar, and to the northwest of the captured former Ukrainian stronghold of Avdiivka between Monday and Tuesday, the U.S.-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), said in its latest assessment of the war in Ukraine.

Moscow also carried out larger mechanized attacks to the southwest of the Russian-controlled regional capital, Donetsk City, and the village of Staromayorske, not far from the Donetsk border with the neighboring Zaporizhzhia region, the think tank said.

Hamas can be defeated by rendering it insignificant in Palestinian arena - opinion

UDI DEKEL

There are those who argue that Hamas cannot be defeated. Indeed, it is difficult to annihilate an organization like Hamas, which relies on its foundation of being a social movement and espouses a rigid, extreme religious-nationalist ideology, in addition to having an armed military wing. But it is possible to greatly reduce Hamas’s influence among the public that it purportedly represents and leads, by denying its power to inflict damage and the veto power that it held and still holds.

This requires six combined efforts:

1. Military effort: The dismantling of Hamas’s military wing should continue for a while, even after the war officially ends, to ensure that the terrorist organization cannot reestablish itself and restore its military power. The purpose of the ongoing military campaign is to prevent Hamas from being able to torpedo the political and civilian measures aimed at stabilizing the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian arena in general after the war.

2. Civilian effort: Wherever it is possible to begin stabilizing and reconstructing the Gaza Strip, an official responsible for civilian control and public order should be appointed, and this measure should be implemented while preventing Hamas’s intervention and involvement.

Israel Is Stuck in Gaza's Mud - Opinion

Daniel R. DePetris

Last weekend, Israel committed a tragic error in the field. According to Israel's own account, a precision munition launched by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) hit a designated Hamas target in the congested Gaza city of Rafah, only to see shrapnel ignite a fuel tank close to a constellation of tents where Palestinian refugees were staying. The result was a bloodbath; 45 people, including women and children, died from the large blaze. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a man loathe to admit fault, had to concede that a "tragic mishap" occurred. The global response was one of anger and disbelief.

This specific incident was a microcosm of the entire war in Gaza, which will enter its eight month in a few weeks. Ultimately, civilians pay the dearest price. The second biggest-loser is Israel, whose international reputation has taken a big hit, even if the war itself was justified after Hamas' barbaric assault on Oct. 7. Even former President Donald Trump, who gave Netanyahu pretty much everything he asked for (recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, for instance) said Israel is losing the public relations battle.

The US unmatched in military force, but has no strategy

Ralph Schoellhammer

The two most important elements a state needs to have at its disposal in the international arena are first, a strategy, and second, the capabilities to execute said strategy.

At the time of writing the world is entering a new phase of great power competition, with the United States and her – sometimes reluctant – European allies on one side and the China-Russia-Iran axis on the other side. Any serious analysis of where this competition might be going must first assess what strategies are pursued by the individual actors and what their actual capabilities truly are.

Before we begin said analysis, however, it has to be said that it is unclear whether the countries involved are themselves aware of the strategy-capability nexus.

The United States, for example, are a nation that is very capable, but lacking a cohesive strategy. It is blessed with almost unlimited energy resources, a dynamic and innovate economy, friendly neighbours to the North and South, while being protected by oceans to the East and West. It commands the only military that is able to apply force anywhere on the globe within 24 hours.

Netanyahu frequently makes claims of antisemitism. Critics say he’s deflecting from his own problems

TIA GOLDENBERG

After the International Criminal Court’s top prosecutor sought arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his defense minister and top Hamas officials, the Israeli leader accused him of being one of “the great antisemites in modern times.”

As protests roiled college campuses across the United States over the Gaza war, Netanyahu said they were awash with “antisemitic mobs.”

These are just two of the many instances during the war in which Netanyahu has accused critics of Israel or his policies of antisemitism, using fiery rhetoric to compare them to the Jewish people’s worst persecutors. But his detractors say he is overusing the label to further his political agenda and try to stifle even legitimate criticism, and that doing so risks diluting the term’s meaning at a time when antisemitism is surging worldwide.

“Not every criticism against Israel is antisemitic,” said Tom Segev, an Israeli historian. “The moment you say it is antisemitic hate ... you take away all legitimacy from the criticism and try to crush the debate.”

The Hamas Chief and the Israeli Who Saved His Life

Jo Becker and Adam Sella

This is how Dr. Yuval Bitton remembers the morning of Oct. 7. Being jolted awake just after sunrise by the insistent ringing of his phone. The frantic voice of his daughter, who was traveling abroad, asking, “Dad, what’s happened in Israel? Turn on the TV.”

News anchors were still piecing together the reports: Palestinian gunmen penetrating Israel’s vaunted defenses, infiltrating more than 20 towns and military bases, killing approximately 1,200 people and dragging more than 240 men, women and children into Gaza as hostages.

Even in that first moment, Dr. Bitton says, he knew with certainty who had masterminded the attack: Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza and Inmate No. 7333335 in the Israeli prison system from 1989 until his release in a prisoner swap in 2011.

How Ukraine Can Do More With Less

Keith L. Carter, Jennifer Spindel, and Matthew McClary

As the war in Ukraine enters its third spring, leaders from Brazil, China, the Vatican, and elsewhere have urged Ukraine to negotiate with Russia. Ukrainian forces are unlikely to break through fortified Russian lines, the argument goes, and Kyiv should recognize the reality of Russia’s territorial annexation. Ukraine has successfully used drones to both surveil and attack Russian targets, but drones alone cannot win the war. And so, hampered by weapon and personnel shortages, Ukraine will not be able to reclaim territory. Russia has successfully turned this fight into an attritional struggle in which Moscow holds several advantages: a larger population, greater defense industrial capacity, and well-prepared defenses in the Donbas, Kherson, and especially Crimea. Given the fatigue among its Western supporters and the inconsistency of their material support, this is a type of war Ukraine simply cannot win.

It is true that going toe-to-toe, shell-for-shell with Russia is no longer a viable strategy for Ukraine. But Kyiv does not need to give up; instead, it needs a new approach. A better strategy would economize on the use of Ukrainian forces and conserve the limited material they receive from the United States and European partners. Ukraine must adjust the way it organizes, equips, and thinks about the war, switching out head-on confrontation with Russian forces for an asymmetric, guerrilla-style approach. Doing so will no doubt prolong the fighting, but a pivot to unconventional warfare offers the best chance for Ukraine to chip away at Russian resolve, both on the frontlines and at home.

Quantum-Enhanced Radars Revolutionise Air and Space Warfare: Dr. Michal Krelina’s Insight

Dr. Michal Krelina from the Czech Technical University in Prague explores the potential of quantum-enhanced radars and electronic warfare in a recent article. Quantum technology, which harnesses properties like superposition and entanglement at the fundamental level of individual quantum systems, has significant potential in military applications. Quantum-enhanced radars could offer improved sensitivity, particularly in detecting targets with minimal radar cross-sections and weak return signals. Quantum clocks could refine GPS accuracy to the picosecond level. Quantum transducers could improve efficiency in complex signal-processing tasks. Companies like Honeywell and British Telecom are already developing and testing these technologies.

Quantum Technologies: Transforming Radars and Electronic Warfare

Quantum Technology (QT) is a rapidly evolving field that leverages quantum properties such as superposition and entanglement at the fundamental level of individual quantum systems, including electrons, ions, and atoms. This article explores the potential of quantum-enhanced radars and electronic warfare, focusing on their near to mid-term operational viability, particularly in the air and space domains.

Quantum-Enhanced Radars: A New Era in Sensing and Imaging

Quantum-enhanced radars harness the power of quantum properties to improve radar capabilities. Two promising technologies in this area are based on Rydberg atoms and Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) centres, both applicable for narrow and wideband RF scanning and reception.

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