Yes, India’s defence exports are booming, but guess who’s the biggest importer

Snehesh Alex Philip

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India’s defence exports have surged more than 30 times in the past 10 years, with the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Hamas conflict giving a fillip to more growth as several countries look at beefing up their arsenal.

The country’s growing defence industry now supplies to over 90 countries globally, with the government actively pushing easier licensing systems and approvals and shedding its shyness when it comes to supplying lethal arms.

While the US has emerged as the biggest defence export destination, the government is also focusing on countries in Africa and elsewhere to supply defence goods, with easier lines of credit and a diplomatic push.

Defence ministry data shows that exports jumped by an astronomical 78 percent in the first quarter of 2024-2025. Defence exports in April-June leapt to Rs 6,915 crore from Rs 3,885 crore in the year-ago period.

Defence exports were already on a roll. They hit a record Rs 21,083 crore (approximately $2.63 billion) in 2023-2024, a growth of 32.5 percent over the previous fiscal’s Rs 15,920 crore.

‘Nothing more to life here’: Residents in this Indian village have been consumed by cancer

Ishan Garg & Louisa Tang

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GANGNAULI, India: What looks like any other North Indian village hides a sinister statistic.

Gangnauli, located in Uttar Pradesh state about two hours from the capital New Delhi, is home to a population ravaged by cancer.

Locals estimate that about a third of its roughly 5,000 residents have the disease, although there is no official data to confirm this.

Vipin Rathee, who is among the affected patients, was diagnosed with a malignant tumour in his stomach two years ago. His health has been on a steady decline even after eight rounds of chemotherapy.

His resources have now been exhausted after paying for medical care.

“I’m seeing most of the villagers here facing the same problem. People have spent a lot of money on medical treatments and expenditure continues to this day. There’s really no help here from anyone,” he told CNA.

A report – released earlier this year by Indian multinational healthcare group Apollo Hospitals – dubbed India the cancer capital of the world, projecting that it could record roughly 1.6 million new cancer cases by next year.

According to government data, the country recorded about 1.4 million new cases in 2022.

Afghanistan’s Necessity To Utilize Domestic Facilities And Alternative Trade Routes, Bypassing Pakistan – Analysis

Masom Jan Masomy

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According to recent reports, Pakistan has increased tariff taxes on Afghan fruits from 15,000 to 60,000 PKR per ton, an increase sixfold this time. Meanwhile, in another move, Pakistan has not allowed Afghanistan’s 300 trucks loaded with Afghan fruits and vegetables between Afghanistan-Pakistan ports due to the absence of a temporary permit to enter Pakistan, a document to be issued to Afghan drivers on time by Pakistani consulates based in Afghanistan.

The decision of the Pakistan government comes amid the export season, while watermelon, melon, grapes, pomegranates, and others got ripped in Afghanistan. This move has led to a halt in fresh fruit exports to Pakistani markets, bringing huge losses to Afghanistan’s farmers and traders and impacting Afghanistan’s economy badly.

However, Afghanistan and Pakistan signed the Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA) in 2010 to expand bilateral trade, provide facilities, and remove existing challenges and barriers between the two countries. Still, Pakistan is not entirely interested in helping address relevant issues with the Afghan side without creating problems and obstacles at transit and transport documents, customs, and tariff levels and closing crossing points against Afghan exports and imports each year.

Bangladesh: domestic turmoil and regional insecurity

Rahul Roy-Chaudhury & Viraj Solanki

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A 17-member interim government, led by Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus as its chief advisor, took charge in Bangladesh on 8 August following the shock ouster of its longest-serving leader, 76-year-old Sheikh Hasina. Hasina resigned as prime minister on 5 August following weeks of deadly student-led protests. Her ouster has significant political and security implications for the fourth-largest Muslim-majority country of over 170 million people, as well as for its neighbour India.

The end of Sheikh Hasina’s rule 

Sheikh Hasina’s sudden departure from Dhaka to neighbouring India resulted from months of growing anger in Bangladesh. After the January 2024 general election, perceived as flawed by the West, critics accused Hasina’s government of becoming increasingly arrogant.

The turning point came in June 2024, when Bangladesh’s High Court re-instated a quota reserving 30% of government jobs for relatives of veterans from Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence. With government jobs in high demand due to elevated graduate unemployment, students protested the quota, which they also viewed as favouring supporters of Hasina’s Awami League party. The Supreme Court eventually reduced the quota in late July to 5%.

Vietnam, China Sign 14 Agreements During Top Leader’s Visit To Beijing

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Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam rounded off his three-day visit to China on Tuesday with a visit to the Central Party School, which provides training to Communist Party officials. He also led a Vietnamese delegation to Beijing-headquartered artificial intelligence company Megvii, the Vietnam News Service reported.

Lam’s first foreign trip since being appointed to his country’s top job on Aug. 3 began on Sunday in the southern city of Guangzhou. He later traveled to the Chinese capital for talks with Chinese leaders.

Lam and President Xi Jinping pledged in a meeting on Monday to address territorial conflicts in the South China Sea to “maintain peace and stability,” and to work together to “continue bolstering collaboration in security and defense, boosting economic, trade and investment cooperation,” the Vietnamese government said in a statement.

The two witnessed the signing of 14 cooperation agreements, including one between the Vietnam News Agency and Xinhua News Agency and a memorandum of understanding between health ministries on cooperation.

The B-21 Raider Bomber Is 'Putting China on Warning'

Brent M. Eastwood

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Last year, U.S. Senator Mike Rounds, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, explicitly stated that the new B-21 Raider stealth bomber is being developed primarily as a deterrence weapon against China.

-The B-21, capable of carrying nuclear and conventional weapons, is designed to penetrate advanced air defense systems, ensuring that China and other potential adversaries like Russia, Iran, and North Korea understand its capabilities.

-The bomber's advanced technology and role in the U.S. nuclear triad aim to prevent aggression in the Indo-Pacific and maintain global stability.

B-21 Raider: America's Stealth Weapon to Deter China and Other Adversaries

Last year, a key U.S. senator who sits on the Senate Armed Service Committee has finally articulated what many defense analysts have already speculated on – that the new B-21 Raider bomber is being manufactured to someday take on China.

Biden Approved Secret Nuclear Strategy Refocusing on Chinese Threat

David E. Sanger

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President Biden approved in March a highly classified nuclear strategic plan for the United States that, for the first time, reorients America’s deterrent strategy to focus on China’s rapid expansion in its nuclear arsenal.

The shift comes as the Pentagon believes China’s stockpiles will rival the size and diversity of the United States’ and Russia’s over the next decade.

The White House never announced that Mr. Biden had approved the revised strategy, called the “Nuclear Employment Guidance,” which also newly seeks to prepare the United States for possible coordinated nuclear challenges from China, Russia and North Korea. The document, updated every four years or so, is so highly classified that there are no electronic copies, only a small number of hard copies distributed to a few national security officials and Pentagon commanders.

But in recent speeches, two senior administration officials were allowed to allude to the change — in carefully constrained, single sentences — ahead of a more detailed, unclassified notification to Congress expected before Mr. Biden leaves office.

China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress

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Introduction

Issue for Congress

This report provides background information and issues for Congress on the naval modernization effort of the People’s Republic of China (PRC, or China) and its implications for U.S. Navy capabilities. China’s military modernization effort, including its naval modernization effort, is the top focus of U.S. defense planning and budgeting.1 The issue for Congress is whether to approve, reject, or modify the Biden Administration’s proposed U.S. Navy plans, budgets, and programs for responding to China’s naval modernization effort. Congress’s decisions on this issue could affect U.S. Navy capabilities and funding requirements, and the U.S. defense industrial base.

Sources and Terminology

This report is based on unclassified open-source information, such as the annual Department of Defense (DOD) report to Congress on military and security developments involving China,2 a 2019 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report on China’s military power,3 a 2015 Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) report on China’s navy,4 published reference sources such as IHS Jane’s Fighting Ships,5 and press reports.

China is Winning the Global South

Daniel Runde

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Great Power Competition, sometimes called the Second Cold War, is unfolding on a global scale. The United States is not competing with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in China, nor is the United States competing with Vladimir Putin’s system in Russia. Today, we are competing along a possible “kinetic front” in East Asia (Taiwan and the Nine Dash Line), Ukraine, and Israel. Additionally, there is arguably a “second front” in the realm of technology, encompassing the battle over artificial intelligence, telecommunications, subsea cables, and microchips. Perhaps the most underappreciated yet critical front, a “third front” in this Great Power Competition, is the “Global South,” or the developing world. During the First Cold War, the developing world was a major front, so it is not surprising that the Global South is again a significant theater or—in a scenario where the United States does not end up in a full Great Power War—is the central theater of competition over the next forty years.

The Global South is a notion that comprises many regions, including Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Pacific Island States, South Asia, Central Asia, some post-Soviet countries, and the Middle East. Historically referred to as the “Third World,” this term is now widely considered to be outdated or even offensive. The “Global South” is a term recently popularized by the CCP—which has spent decades attempting to ingratiate itself within this theater—although the term’s appropriateness is debated. Alternative terms such as the “developing world,” “G-77,” or “new non-aligned countries” have been suggested, though none have proven to be completely satisfactory.

Irregular Warfare at Sea: Using Privateers To Seize Chinese Commerce

Christopher Booth

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The ongoing war in Ukraine demonstrates that defense is ascendant in modern warfare. This observation challenges the conventional wisdom that twenty-first century warfare would be sharp, short, decisive, and favor the offense. Instead, it appears increasingly clear that conflict will likely devolve into a long-running war of attrition across multiple fronts – including the maritime domain. In studying the last 200 years of conflict, retired US Marine Corps colonel and strategist T.X. Hammes concluded that most great power conflicts lasted years rather than months. Considering this analysis, he proposed the strategy of maritime trade warfare in the context of a conflict with China—interdicting Chinese imports to starve it into economic exhaustion.

To address its military deficiencies in a potential conflict with China, the United States should consider asymmetric approaches, particularly the revival of privateering—commercial actors deputized by a Letter of Marque (as authorized by the U.S. Constitution) to raid enemy commerce on behalf of the United States government.

How Qatar’s Mediation Diplomacy Elevated The Taliban To The Seat At Kabul – Analysis

Anant Mishra and Prof. Dr. Christian Kaunert

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As the Taliban celebrated three years of its reign in power, many scholars still ponder on how the group rose to take the seat at Kabul; some still jittered from the memories of evacuation on the dawn of 15 August 2021. The group undoubtedly had favourable factors behind their successful takeover, but the significance of Qatar cannot simply be ignored or limited to the state’s role as an honest mediator.

Right from the days of the insurgency, the state stood firmly behind the Taliban, accompanying the group (some scholars even consider it to have laid the foundation for Hibatullah Akhundzada’s rise within the Rahbari Shura) to the corridors of Kabul, a relationship which appears to have strengthened today. It was not a meagre coincidence that Al Jazeera (Qatar-owned/financially supported) was the first news agency to relay live coverage of Taliban fighters entering the Presidential Palace on August 15. It is also not a coincidence that Mullah Baradar the Acting Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, watched his motivated mujahids enter the palace on Al Jazeera, from the comforts of a luxurious hotel in Doha.

Putin is no longer Russia’s saviourThe president appears as impotent as Boris Yeltsin

Ian Garner

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At the start of this month, Kyiv’s exhausted forces seemed at last overwhelmed by their opponents’ superiority in manpower and firepower. But once again, they have defied expectations. The Ukrainian Armed Forces’ mass incursion into Russian territory has unfolded at lightning speed and with unexpected success. More than 1,000 troops now occupy a swathe of the Russian Federation's territory, which Moscow is struggling to recover.

Ukraine has launched occasional smash-and-grab raids on Russia over the last two and a half years, but this attack is on another scale entirely - it is a bona fide invasion. Ukrainians are justifiably cock-a-hoop. Putin's three-day war to conquer their country has resulted in what many commentators have claimed is the first invasion of Russia since the Second World War. The mood in ruling Russian circles could, meanwhile, hardly be bleaker.

The Ukrainian August 2024 offensive: Some initial thoughts

Martin N Stanton, COL, USA (ret)

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Introduction:

In recent weeks the Ukrainians have sustained a division (-) sized offensive deep into Russian territory southeast of Kursk traveling over the same ground that saw some of the largest tank battles in WW2. This offensive surprised the Russians and they have not been very effective in countering it. It is the most significant development in the Ukraine war in over a year. Below are some of my initial thoughts on this.

Some observations of the Ukrainian August offensive:

• The Ukrainians practiced good OPSEC – The offensive came as surprise to many observers in the West (including myself) and that’s good. The fact that they were able to mask the preparations for an attack of this size is impressive. It speaks well of their ability to hide important movements not only from the Russians but from friendly Western elements… that frequently leak like sieves (I would be fascinated to learn how much US representatives in Ukraine were told about it before the attack kicked off – I suspect not much). The ability to mass forces without drawing enemy attention in this drone / ISR intensive war is impressive. We need to go to school on how they did it and what kind of Russian reconnaissance threat they were facing.
• The Ukrainians had good Intelligence – The Ukrainians knew where the Russians were weak and penetrated there. They also appear to have had sufficient knowledge of Russian reserves and reinforcement capability to not get bogged down fighting on the first defensive belt and instead penetrate deeper – again, an unusual event in a war that has been relatively static in the manner of WW1 trench warfare for over a year. It will be interesting in the future to find out how much intelligence was provided by outside friends and how much was developed with indigenous ISR capabilities. How ever they obtained their knowledge of the Russians dispositions and capabilities in the critical sector, they made good use of it.

The Return of Hamiltonian Statecraft A Grand Strategy for a Turbulent World

Walter Russell Mead

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The twenty-first century has seen the return to prominence of U.S. foreign policy traditions once largely considered relics of an outmoded past. Jacksonian national populism, once dismissed as an immature sentiment that an enlightened nation had left behind, returned with a fury after 9/11. With the George W. Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, Jeffersonian isolationism—the belief that U.S. intervention abroad leads only to endless war, the enrichment of corporate elites, and the erosion of American democracy—also reemerged as a potent force on both the right and the left.

These two schools returned to prominence as the post–Cold War foreign policy consensus broke up. After 1990, a broadly liberal and globalist consensus defined the boundaries within which mostly Democratic liberal internationalists competed against mostly Republican neoconservatives. President Barack Obama’s retreat from humanitarian intervention following the disastrous campaign in Libya in 2011 illustrated the waning hold of liberal internationalism among Democrats. So did his restrained response to Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014. Likewise, Donald Trump’s shock victory in the 2016 Republican presidential primary contest signaled the collapse of neoconservatism as a significant electoral force among the Republican base. In both parties, restraint eclipsed intervention as the dominant mode of foreign policy, and a commitment to free trade gave way to various forms of protectionism and industrial policy.

Israel Is Winning But Lasting Victory Against Hamas Will Require Installing New Leadership in Gaza

John Spencer

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Reading the news today often leaves the impression that Israel is struggling in its war against Hamas. The fighting in the Gaza Strip has carried on for more than ten months, a peace deal remains elusive, and the threat of regional escalation looms. More than 100 hostages taken on October 7 have yet to be released, with dozens of them presumed dead. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have died, and Gaza faces a dire humanitarian crisis. Critics of Israel’s military strategy have argued that the devastation it has caused has increased support for Hamas and left the group stronger. According to this common perspective, Israel’s prosecution of the war has served only to lock in a cycle of deadly violence.

In the flurry of commentary, however, it is easy to lose sight of what it means to win the war Israel is fighting. War is the pursuit of political objectives through force. A war has a start and a finish, so its progress can be assessed based on how close each side has come to meeting its political objectives. By this measure, it is Israel, not Hamas, that now holds the advantage.

Ukraine war cements decline of the West - Opinion

Jan Krikke

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In June of this year, the German daily Handelsblatt revealed that German leader Olaf Scholtz, while serving as finance minister in 2020, tried to make a secret deal with the Trump administration to avoid US sanctions on the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline.

Two years later, in early February 2022, a few weeks before the outbreak of the Ukraine war, Scholtz, as German Chancellor, visited the White House for talks with US President Joe Biden on the growing crisis.

During a live press conference following their talks, Biden was asked about his view of Nord Stream, the pipeline system that delivers Russian gas to Europe. The US president responded by saying, “If Russia invades Ukraine, there will be no longer Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”

Scholtz, standing next to the US president, was asked for a response. The German leader affirmed that the US and Germany were on the same page regarding Ukraine. Without mentioning Nord Stream, he implicitly endorsed its destruction.

Great power politics is an illusion Liberal internationalism still rules the day

Travis Aaroe

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Everyone of a certain age who passed through British secondary education will have spent a few months learning about the League of Nations, which, to my knowledge, is not a subject of academic study anywhere else. Created by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, the League was a global quasi-government with an expansive brief to abolish war and poverty worldwide. To read about its history is to follow it from one bruising failure to the next as it sought, inter alia, to outlaw the weapons of offensive war, set international standards of safety in the workplace, and constrain Mussolini on the world stage.

Here was the essential problem: even with the best will in the world, the League had no power to enforce any of its edicts. For this it had to rely on Britain and France, who were notorious flakes. The United States never even joined. And so it went on. The General Secretariat would pronounce, the Permanent Court of International Justice would rule, the levers would be pulled, nothing would happen. None of their high ideals were able to survive first contact with reality — that is to say, state expediency and national egoism. Whenever it counted the powers would look to their own alliances, their own security. Mussolini was left to annex Abyssinia in 1936 despite the League’s protests, because Britain and France were trying to court him as an ally; Japan was allowed to overrun Manchuria for similar reasons. It all seemed to carry a brute lesson: whatever the merits of internationalism and international law, the facts of life ran against them.

Why does English schooling fixate so much on the League, this odd sideshow? A corrective to teen idealism, maybe. These events, as told, seemed to be a mini fable in how the high ideas can’t compete against ordinary selfishness. It certainly had its appeal for teenage me: a smirker, an online troll.

If Kamala Harris Was the Czar of Anything, It Would Be AI

Bhaskar Chakravorti

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Let’s get one thing clear: the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, was never the border czar, despite her political opponents’ attempts to label her as such. If Harris has ever had a Biden administration czarship—not with an official title but with broad authority to coordinate and direct multiple agencies, organizations, and departments on a multi-faceted policy priority—it was in artificial intelligence (AI). Strangely, this doesn’t seem to have come up a lot in the 2024 presidential contest, despite the presence of AI everywhere else these days. In fact, this role doesn’t even merit a passing mention on the “Meet Vice President Kamala Harris” page of her website even as she prepares to formally become the party’s presidential candidate at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Climate Change’s Latest Deadly Threat: Lightning Strikes

Monika Mondal

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Through local papers and word of mouth, volunteer Daya Shankar keeps track of a very specific cause of death. As soon as he receives news of someone being struck by lightning around his neighborhood in Jharkhand, East India, he picks up his motorcycle and heads to the destination. Sometimes he travels alone, other times with a team of five or six from the organization he volunteers for, the Lightning Resilient India Campaign. It’s a task he is undertaking increasingly often.

Last month, he rode to meet the Manjhi family, who lost an 8-year-old boy, Viresh, and his mother, Subodhra, after a tea stall they were sheltering under was struck during a storm. A lightning bolt can generate temperatures three times hotter than the surface of the sun, with a voltage millions of times higher than a household socket. If it connects with a human, it can stop the heart and respiratory system, damage the brain and nervous system, leave major burns, and cause blunt trauma if victims are flung by the force of being struck. On the day the Manjhis died, lightning also killed another person in the village and injured five others.

Each year, an estimated 24,000 people worldwide are killed by lightning. While a significant number, deaths per head of population have fallen sharply over the past two centuries, thanks largely due to urbanization, the protection of more substantial housing, and improved weather forecasting. But India’s large rural population remains badly affected. Between 2,000 and 3,000 Indians die annually by lightning, most of them working class people aged 10 to 50. Fatalities have risen by more than 50 percent since the turn of the century, outstripping population growth. Compare that to the US, where fatalities have been gradually falling and number around 20 a year. India can experience more than that number of deaths in a day.

Chris Williams and Marc Berkowitz, National Security Decisions for the Next President, Issue No. 597, August 19, 2024

Chris Williams & Marc Berkowitz

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The next President of the United States will face an extraordinarily complex and dangerous international security environment which could rapidly deteriorate. America now confronts an unprecedented array of national, functional, and transnational threats. In particular, the United States is engaged in a geostrategic contest with a new entente of Axis powers. Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are led by autocratic regimes with revisionist or irredentist political aims to change the international system at the expense of U.S. interests.

Within days of being sworn-in, the next President will be forced to make decisions that will determine the future direction of U.S. national security policy. Whether prepared or not, America could face multiple, potentially concurrent, crises or conflicts around the world involving vital or extremely important U.S. interests.[1] It would be imprudent to expect that the U.S. homeland will be a sanctuary in the event of a conflict. Indeed, it may be a prime target for attacks by America’s enemies.

The next President will also inherit a mismatch among the national security objectives (ends), ongoing courses of action (ways), and allocated resources (means) to protect and advance U.S. interests, including support commitments to allies and partners. This article examines key national security decisions that await the next President.

Ex-Trump adviser warns Hezbollah could strike on U.S. soil, Biden has lost ability to deter attacks

Charlotte Hazard

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Robert Greenway, a retired intelligence officer who advised former President Donald Trump, warned Tuesday the Biden administration is losing the ability to deter future attacks by Iran and that a strike on U.S.soil by the Tehran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah "is a very real possibility."

Greenway criticized President Joe Biden's failed efforts to secure an elusive nuclear deal with Iran as "appeasement," noting the administration had freed billions of dollars in oil sales and sanctions relief for Tehran only to see Iran ramp up its worldwide terrorist activities through proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis.

“The access to resources completely predicates how much malignant behavior they’re going to engage in and we’re seeing this in full display and in real time,” he told Just the News. "...Deterrence has been dismantled by the Biden administration in order to pursue appeasement."

Energy Companies Pressure Landowners Into Fracking

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Energy companies use persistent and personalized pressure to get landowners to give permission for hydraulic fracturing (fracking), and even when landowners decline, companies use legalized compulsion to conduct fracking anyway, according to a new study led by researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York and UNLV.

“Hydraulic fracturing is a controversial issue, but a lot of the controversy has been focused on the big-picture consequences, for the climate and the economy,” said Benjamin Farrer, lead author and former PhD student at Binghamton University. “One of our hopes for this paper is that it will encourage policymakers to pay more attention to the individual experiences of the people who are closest to the issue.”

Because many fossil field reservoirs in the United States lie under private land, energy companies often have to negotiate with private landowners, offering compensation in exchange for access to the minerals under their land. Since a well is only economically viable if you can drain a large spatial area from a single well, drilling companies have to pool multiple mineral claims into a single working contract before drilling. But landowners often hold out from such deals for various reasons – they might be wary of the potential health risks, holding out for more money, or they simply might be unreachable.

Ukraine’s Guns of August

Stephen Blank

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One week into Ukraine’s Kursk operation we still have no idea as to what its objectives are. This fact actually underscores the brilliance of the operation because our ignorance reveals the quality of Ukrainian operational security (OPSEC) and intelligence preparation of this battlefield (IPB). Indeed, the success of this operation to date, like any successful operation, now creates many more potential objectives than might have been previously imagined by Ukrainian planners.

Undoubtedly this action strengthens Kyiv’s hands if a negotiation comes about, and it certainly puts the lie to an unending stream of media reports claiming that Ukraine is steadily being ground down through Russian attrition. That outlook, after all represents Putin’s articulated theory of victory, perhaps the only open left to him to validate his ongoing aggression against Ukraine. Thus, this operation flips the script of Russian superiority even as it shows just how resourcefully Ukraine is defending its territory against Russian aggression. Indeed, perhaps the most telling outcome of this operation is that it strips away the brutal façade of Russia’s aggression. As of this writing Ukraine has liberated about 1000sqKM of Russian territory, hundreds if not thousands of Russian forces have surrendered, Ukraine now controls 74 settlements, and 133,00 people have been evacuated from these territories and no credible military response is yet in sight.

Mark Cuban Says 'Everybody's Chasing Power, And Nothing Will Give You More Power Than Military And AI'

Adrian Volenik

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Mark Cuban, the billionaire entrepreneur, had many insights during his recent appearance on The Daily Show. Although he discussed many topics, what stood out were his views on power, the military, and artificial intelligence (AI).

Cuban pointed out that in today’s world, everyone is increasingly focused on gaining and maintaining power, “and nothing will give you more power than military and AI,” he exclaimed.

Cuban worries about how technology, particularly AI, is being developed and used. He sees AI as something with a lot of potential but also as something hard to predict: “I’ve been in technology for a long time, and you can always look at a new tech, PCs, networks, the internet, streaming, whatever, and say, OK, in five years, this is what’s going to happen, right, and have a good sense.”

“With AI, you can’t do that,” he said, describing the difficulty in knowing exactly where AI will lead us.

Even though there’s a lot we don’t know about AI, Cuban is sure that the U.S. is at the forefront of developing it. He believes this is important, not just for business but also for national security. “We are, without question, the leader,” he said, stressing how crucial it is for the U.S. to keep that lead.