Bangladesh struggling to muster dollars to pay Indian power debts, sources say

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Bangladesh's efforts to clear debts of more than $1 billion owed to Indian power companies are being hampered by its inability to access the dollars it requires to pay them, documents showed and sources familiar with the matter said.

The country has been struggling to pay its bills due to costly fuel and goods imports since the 2022 war in Ukraine, while political turmoil which led to the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in August has added to its troubles.

Bangladesh is urgently seeking $5 billion in financial aid from international lenders to stabilise its dwindling foreign exchange reserves and its central bank has raised key interest rates to tame soaring inflation. Last year, it sought a $4.7 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund.

"Efforts are on to clear the outstanding payments, but the current dollar crisis is complicating the process significantly," an official at the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) told Reuters on Friday.

Of the more than $1 billion owed to India's power companies, some $800 million is to Adani Power, he added.

Can India counter Pakistan's proxy play with Baloch card? - Opinion

Michael Rubin

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India is not only the world’s largest democracy and most populous country, but it is an industrial powerhouse soon to overtake both Japan and Germany to become the world’s third largest economy. India’s success highlights Pakistan’s failure.

Rather than pull Pakistan up, generations of Pakistani leaders instead chose to try to tear India down. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency promoted separatism in Kashmir and sponsored terror groups that used Kashmir as an excuse to target Indians far beyond Kashmir’s borders.

Pakistan’s strategy failed. It has now been more than five years since the Government of India revoked Kashmir’s special status granted under Article 370. Pakistan was furious, many Western human rights groups sputtered, and Western diplomats wrung their hands, but Kashmiris thrived. Integration disempowered feudal lords who suppressed the population. Security improved. Subsequent months showed the Islamists to lack the legitimacy they once claimed and too many Western diplomats assumed. Cinemas opened, national universities opened local branches, girls competed in sports, women entered politics, and Kashmiris resumed their rightful place in India. That Kashmiris thrive in India but remain impoverished under Pakistani occupation haemorrhages Islamabad’s pretence to speak on their behalf.

Cooperation, Coexistence, and Contestation in India’s and China’s Overlapping Strategic Spaces

Tanvi Madan

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By dint of their geographies, partnerships, development imperatives, and broader objectives, China and India have had overlapping strategic spaces since India became independent in 1947 and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) came into being in 1949. As their interests and capabilities—and thus reach—have grown, the theater of their strategic interaction has expanded to encompass a wider geography and multiple domains. It has evolved from primarily the bilateral space and a focus on their borderlands to include regional and global spaces, as well as the diplomatic, geopolitical, economic, technological, and ideological spheres.

There has been some Sino-Indian cooperation in these spaces, but more often there has been competition—and it has become more intense over time. The phases of cooperation and contestation have been sequential, with both elements present but one dominant. This essay outlines these periods of early competition and collaboration, of coexistence and cooperation, and then a return to contestation.

Cooperation or coexistence has dominated when China and India have seen the other, on balance, as enabling their broader interests. That was the case in the 1950s and the 2000s. These were periods when there was a sense, as reflected in a 2010 joint statement, that there was “enough space in the world for the development of both India and China and indeed, enough areas for India and China to cooperate.”1 But when Beijing or New Delhi has seen the other as constraining its diplomatic, geopolitical, or economic space—bilaterally, regionally or globally—this has led to contestation and even collision. That is the phase the countries are in today, and indeed have been in for the last decade and a half. There is not just one site of divergence (e.g., their border). Instead, the differences are about a sense of their own place and strategic space—and each country’s view that the other will impinge on rather than increase it.

Trouble In Afghanistan’s Opium Fields: The Taliban War On Drugs

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What’s new? 

The Taliban have launched a campaign against the country’s illegal narcotics industry, rounding up drug users, destroying opium poppy and cannabis fields, and arresting some traders. Driven by religious ideology, their initiative strikes at the backbone of Afghanistan’s informal economy and the livelihoods of the rural poor.

Why does it matter? 

The ban has drastically reduced cultivation, but Afghan-produced drugs are still hitting the global market as dealers continue selling stockpiles and some farmers resist the ban. The Taliban’s crackdown has devastated the economic outlook for farmers and rural labourers with few other employment options. Women have been particularly affected.

What should be done? 

The Taliban should be lenient with the poorest farmers as it implements the ban. The anti-drug initiative is in many foreign actors’ interest, creating opportunities for donors to support Afghanistan’s economic stabilisation. Licit crops will not offer sufficient employment, so the focus should be on job creation in non-farm industries.

How Bangladeshi Frankenstein may hurt its American, Chinese masters - Opinion

Jajati K Pattnaik & Chandan K Panda

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Frankenstein is a failed scientific experiment. It disobeys the master. China and the US have experimented with Bangladesh. They create a Frankenstein, destabilising the status quo. India is their primary target. It does not align with either of them because of the chequered history it shares with them.

The Sino-Indian War of 1962, China’s hegemonic instincts, territorial appetite, and unreliability, and the US' pro-Pakistan proclivities and diplomatic ambiguity are not dusted in history for India. It is pretty fresh in its memory. To forget history is to repeat its mistakes. It is difficult for India to cling to either of them. It does trade and do business with them with remarkable commitment, but to belong to either of the camps will not be its conscious decision.

India is a civilisational state. It has an identity of its own and a global stature as a leader of the Global South. It believes in the philosophy of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world is one family) that emphasises mutual cooperation, shared responsibility, and a better future without exercising hegemony. It does not wish to be anyone's B team or an affiliate. This resolve and courage send no good signal to the two competing powers of the Indo-Pacific geopolitical space. Therefore, they foist Bangladesh on India.

China's Ambiguous Meddling in Myanmar's Complex Conflicts

David Scott Mathieson

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China’s role in Myanmar, given the regime’s bloody and brutal campaign to quell a rebellion against its February 2021 coup against a democratically elected government, is the region’s most pivotal, as a significant arms supplier and the great power neighbor with major economic and strategic interests. Yet Beijing’s Myanmar policy is in no way clear cut, rational or measurable, let alone predictable.

It is not accurate to claim China has ‘changed sides’ from the rebel Three Brotherhood Alliance (3BA to the junta’s State Administration Council. These complex relations are too deeply opaque for a simplistic formula. There is what China officially states and then what it does on the ground, often in contradiction, and these are almost always confounding to outsiders, confusing for Myanmar actors, and in constant collision between long-term strategic interests and short-term dynamics.

Nearly a year ago, China appeared to give significant support for Operation 1027, a stunning military operation spearheaded by the 3BA, which is made up of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), the Ta-ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), and the Arakan Army (AA). That the operation also targeted scam centers along the border, which China had called for, made this ‘support’ transactional, not ideological. Following more than two months of intensive fighting and significant territorial losses for the Myanmar military, Chinese officials called Myanmar officials and representatives of the 3BA to Yunnan and brokered a peace deal called the ‘Hiageng Agreement’ in January. Fighting may have reduced, but it didn’t fully subside, and the military’s State Administration Council forces breached the agreement on an almost daily basis.

China’s Evolving Risk Tolerance and Gray-Zone Operations: From the East China Sea to the South Pacific

Brent Sadler and Elizabeth Lapporte

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Recent developments in China’s military operations necessitate a reevaluation of how the United States and its allies handle Beijing’s increasingly provocative behavior. China conducted its Joint Sword-2024A exercise just days after the inauguration of Taiwan’s new president in May 2024. This drill underscores China’s readiness to execute short-notice major military operations.1 As of this writing, that exercise remains the highest recorded activity of People’s Liberation Army Air Force aircraft near Taiwan this year. Specifically, of 62 detected aircraft, 47 crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait—a highly provocative move. For historical context, between 1954 and 2020, only four Chinese aircraft had crossed the median line; now it is a routine occurrence. This Joint Sword exercise reflects a broader pattern observed since 2022: increased military activity that has normalized heightened Chinese provocative operations.2  This activity will persist to deadly conclusion if the U.S. and its allies do not respond soon.

Such activities have a purpose: to lull neighbors into apathy toward a military that is ready for rapid mobilization to execute aggression. Taiwan’s absorption into the Chinese mainland is an often-stated Chinese Communist Party (CCP) core national interest. China’s increasing military activities overall should therefore be viewed with Taiwan and a potential showdown with the U.S. in mind.

Rubio Releases Report: “The World China Made: ‘Made in China 2025’ Nine Years Later”

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U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) released a report titled “The World China Made: ‘Made in China 2025’ Nine Years Later,” which reviews the successes and failures of Communist China’s “Made in China 2025” industrial policy. It is the sequel to Rubio’s 2019 report titled “‘Made in China 2025’ and the Future of American Industry.”

• “The Chinese Communist Party controls the largest industrial base in the world. Through theft, market distorting subsidies, and strategic planning, Beijing now leads in many of the industries that will determine geopolitical supremacy in the 21st century. This report should serve as a wakeup call to lawmakers, CEOs, and investors. We need a whole-of-society effort to rebuild our country, overcome the China challenge, and keep the torch of freedom lit for generations to come.” – Senator Rubio

This report finds Beijing has succeeded in conquering four of the 10 high-value, high-technology sectors it targeted in “Made in China 2025”:

• Electric Vehicles. China exports more electric vehicles (and internal-combustion vehicles) than any other country.
• Energy and Power Generation. China is the technology leader in nuclear reactors and controls over 80 percent of the global solar power supply chain.
• High-Speed Rail. China’s infrastructure development efforts have produced a remarkable 28,000 miles of high-speed track.
• Shipbuilding. China’s shipbuilding capacity now exceeds the United States’ by a factor of 200. It also bests that of other shipbuilding powerhouses.

The most moral attack: Taking out terrorists and almost no one else

Scott Kahn

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The calculus is very simple.

A ceasefire was in place on October 6th.

Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th, killing some 1,200 people and kidnapping 251. They broke the ceasefire.

Hezbollah started firing rockets, missiles, and drones towards northern Israel on October 8th to express solidarity with Hamas’s murderous attacks. They broke the ceasefire.

The Houthi-controlled government in Yemen began launching drones and missiles at Israel on October 19th, and attacked naval and shipping vessels in the Red Sea, in order to protest Israel’s response to the murder of Israeli citizens. They broke the ceasefire.

On September 17th, 2,750 Hezbollah terrorists were injured in Lebanon and 12 (as of this publication) were killed when their pagers detonated simultaneously around 3:30 p.m. Whoever did this — Israel has confirmed nothing, though Hezbollah, Lebanon, and Iran assert that Israel is to blame — performed an almost unimaginably successful feat of espionage and undercover warfare.

Lebanon rocked by deadly walkie-talkie and pager attacks

Kathleen Magramo, Antoinette Radford, Adrienne Vogt, Elise Hammond, Aditi Sangal and Matt Meyer

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Former President Donald Trump said Thursday that “the Jewish people” would be partially to blame if he loses in November, escalating his persistent campaign trail criticism of Jewish voters and insisting that Democrats hold a “curse” over them.

“I’m not going to call this as a prediction, but in my opinion, the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss if I’m at 40%” support in the polls, Trump told Republicans in Washington at an event billed as opposing antisemitism. “If I’m at 40, think of it, that means 60% are voting for Kamala (Harris), who, in particular, is a bad Democrat. The Democrats are bad to Israel, very bad.”

The former president did not cite any specific polling.

Trump has frequently questioned why Jewish Americans would consider voting for his opponent, repeatedly saying that Jewish Democratic voters “should have their head examined.”

‘New era’ of war beginning, Israel says, as more Hezbollah devices explode across Lebanon

Rob Picheta, Tamara Qiblawi, Christian Edwards and Mick Krever

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Israel said a “new era” of war was beginning Wednesday, tacitly acknowledging its role in shock twin attacks targeting Hezbollah that have pushed the Middle East back to the brink of wider conflict.

Almost exactly 24 hours after explosions targeting the pagers of Hezbollah members killed multiple people, including children, and injured more than 2,800, Lebanon was rocked by more deadly blasts as walkie-talkies detonated in Beirut and the south of the country.

At least 20 people were killed and more than 450 injured in Wednesday’s explosions, Lebanon’s health ministry said.

After declining to comment on Tuesday’s blasts, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant appeared to reference the attacks during a visit Wednesday to the Ramat-David Air Force base in northern Israel.

“We are at the beginning of a new era in this war and we need to adapt ourselves,” Gallant said. He praised the “excellent achievements” of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), together with the country’s security agency, the Shin Bet, and its intelligence agency Mossad.

The Beeper Balance Sheet

Daniel Byman

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The stunning Israeli operations that led to the near-simultaneous explosions of pagers belong to thousands of Hezbollah members on Tuesday and then, a day later, walkie-talkies are remarkable for their sophistication and planning. They demonstrate, once again, the extraordinary skill of Israeli intelligence. Yet for all their tactical brilliance, will these operations help Israel defeat Hezbollah?

6 Questions About the Deadly Exploding Pager Attacks in Lebanon, Answered

Yasmeen Serhan

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When thousands of pagers and other wireless devices simultaneously exploded across Lebanon and parts of Syria this week, killing at least 15 people and injuring thousands more, it exposed what one Hezbollah official described as the “biggest security breach” the Iran-backed militant group has experienced in nearly a year of war with Israel. In a period replete with violent attacks across the region—from Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip to the targeted assassinations of militant leaders in Iran and Lebanon—this was perhaps the most sophisticated and daring one yet.

Hezbollah confirmed that eight of its fighters were killed in the blasts taking place on Tuesday, according to the BBC. Further such explosions, this time involving two-way radios, were reported on Wednesday. Civilians haven’t been spared from the onslaught. At least two children were killed in Tuesday’s blasts, according to the country’s health minister, and thousands of others were wounded by them, some critically. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon lost an eye as a result of one of the blasts, according to the New York Times.

Gaza Ceasefire Deal Isn't Coming Any Time Soon | Opinion

Daniel R. DePetris

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When asked on September 2 what made him believe a deal to end the war in Gaza would be successful, President Joe Biden answered in a way that revealed just how desperate the U.S.-led mediation effort has become: "Hope springs eternal."

How Biden can find even a morsel of hope at this point is difficult to grasp. CIA Director Bill Burns was far more level-headed about the endgame in Gaza, stressing that Israel and Hamas will need to come to difficult political compromises if talks are to work out. So far that hasn't happened. Even the efforts of the most dedicated mediators can fall flat if the main protagonists have no intention of moving from their core positions.

The United States is learning in real time what it should have known already: What the mediators want is largely irrelevant if the combatants are content with staring each other down and waiting for the other to blink.

America’s Crisis of Deterrence

Carter Malkasian

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The United States and its allies are facing a crisis of deterrence. China is menacing Philippine vessels in the South China Sea and possibly readying its military for an invasion of Taiwan. Russia shows no sign of giving up its war in Ukraine. In the Middle East, Iran is threatening retaliation against Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Hezbollah is ramping up its rocket strikes into Israel, and the Houthis continue to attack—and occasionally sink—commercial ships in the Red Sea. The compounding risks of Iranian missiles killing U.S. military personnel, of a

How Israel Built a Modern-Day Trojan Horse: Exploding Pagers

Sheera FrenkelRonen Bergman and Hwaida Saad

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The pagers began beeping just after 3:30 in the afternoon in Lebanon on Tuesday, alerting Hezbollah operatives to a message from their leadership in a chorus of chimes, melodies, and buzzes.

But it wasn’t the militants’ leaders. The pagers had been sent by Hezbollah’s archenemy, and within seconds the alerts were followed by the sounds of explosions and cries of pain and panic in streets, shops and homes across Lebanon.

Powered by just a few ounces of an explosive compound concealed within the devices, the blasts sent grown men flying off motorcycles and slamming into walls, according to witnesses and video footage. People out shopping fell to the ground, writhing in agony, smoke snaking from their pockets.

Mohammed Awada, 52, and his son were driving by one man whose pager exploded, he said. “My son went crazy and started to scream when he saw the man’s hand flying away from him,” he said.

Israel’s Strategic Win

Eliot A. Cohen

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From a purely technical view, the rippling blasts of thousands of exploding pagers in the hands of Hezbollah represented an extraordinary piece of sabotage—one of the most remarkable in the history of the dark arts. For Israel—if that’s who was behind the attacks—to have so penetrated the Iranian and Hezbollah supply chain, on such a large scale, and with such violent effect, is simply astonishing.

The question, as always, is: To what strategic effect? How will this act of violence, however spectacular, shape the ongoing war between Israel, Hezbollah, and Iran? It might very well lead to the cataclysmic battle that many have warned against, as Hezbollah rains down tens of thousands of rockets on Israeli cities while Israeli armored divisions plunge into Lebanon, causing hundreds of thousands, or even millions, to flee northward. The ensuing destruction and the civilian death toll might be immense.

Or it might not.

It has long been clear that neither Hezbollah nor Iran are currently spoiling for such an apocalyptic fight—after all, they could have chosen to have it at any time in the past few years. If Hezbollah is battered the way Hamas has been, Iran stands to lose its most effective ally against Israel and, by extension, the United States. And to seek open war, Hezbollah would have to be willing to sacrifice the population of Lebanese Shia from which it has emerged, as well as its own cadres of fighters. Both Iran and Hezbollah have to know that Israel now believes itself to be fighting an existential fight, with a different set of rules.

Zangezur Transit Now at Center of Conflicts in South Caucasus

Paul Goble

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The Armenian-Azerbaijani dispute has always been about more than Karabakh. It has also been about transit routes. Now that Baku has succeeded in restoring control over Karabakh, it is now focusing on the Armenian region between the two non-contiguous parts of Azerbaijan, which Armenians call Syunik oblast and the Azerbaijanis and many others call Zangezur. Addressing this problem is far more difficult than dealing with Karabakh because it involves not just Baku and Yerevan but all outside powers—including Russia, Iran, Türkiye, China, and the West—whose agendas are generally at odds in the region and many of whom are internally conflicted as well. As a result, achieving any peace agreement between Baku and Yerevan remains problematic. This was underscored in early August when the two sides agreed to try to sign such an accord but only by agreeing not to address the central issue of transit corridors in the agreement (TRT Russian, August 8). Unless solutions on such routes are reached, Azerbaijan may well decide to force its goals given the success in Karabakh and the normalization of war as a result of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s expanded invasion of Ukraine (see EDM, October 3, 2023). Türkiye would almost certainly support such an attempt. It would likely prompt Russia and Iran, however, to react by sending their forces to the region—an intervention that could trigger a broader war.

How Ukraine Overcame the Transparent Battlefield to Achieve Operational Surprise in Kursk

Dorsel Boyer and ISC Robert K. Becker

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After 18 days of fighting, Ukrainian forces had occupied 490 square miles of Russian territory and continued to gain ground each day.i

The proliferation of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) in the Ukraine-Russia war has created a transparent battlefield marked by near-persistent surveillance, making operational surprise difficult to achieve. Several factors contribute to battlefield transparency in Ukraine, including the proliferation of small commercial UAS, which create near-persistent surveillance, preventing Ukraine and Russia from gathering sufficient mass to conduct combined arms maneuvers. Without the ability to maneuver, conditions along the front have devolved into grinding positional fighting. Russian forces have relied on small groups of assault infantry to wear down Ukrainian defenders in static attritional warfare. These prevailing conditions caused many observers to believe that opportunities to achieve operational surprise and resume maneuver warfare are limited in contemporary conflict.

Factors Driving the Ukrainian Offensive in Kursk

Ukraine launched the offensive with several political and military objectives in mind. The primary political objective was to increase Kyiv’s diplomatic position in future negotiations. The attack also allowed Ukraine to capture Russian soldiers to facilitate prisoner-of-war exchanges. Operationally, Ukrainian commanders sought to enable deep targeting of Russian airfields that launch glide bombs into Ukraine and hoped to force Russian commanders to move forces from the ongoing fight near Pokrovsk to reinforce in Kursk. Ukraine also sought to challenge Russia’s logistics networks supporting ongoing operations in the Kharkiv oblast.

The Crumbling Nuclear Order

Doreen Horschig and Heather Williams

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The risk of nuclear war is the highest it has been since the end of the Cold War. The cause lies primarily with Russia’s ongoing nuclear threats and drills amid the conflict in Ukraine, but not with Russia alone. Tensions in the Middle East may spur Iran to speed up its suspected pursuit of a nuclear weapons program. North Korea continues to modernize and expand its nuclear arsenal. And if Donald Trump wins a second term, the United States could return to nuclear testing as well, as Trump’s former national security adviser Robert O’Brien suggested in Foreign Affairs this summer.

Together, these developments represent a challenge to the institutions, rules, and taboos that have prevented the use of nuclear weapons since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. But the erosion of this nuclear order is not happening in isolation. Autocratic leaders––primarily in China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia––often work in concert as part of a quest to undermine the existing international order, challenging norms related to human rights, international borders, and, increasingly, nuclear weapons. Despite the success of global diplomatic efforts to establish norms around the use of nuclear weapons, the world can no longer assume that nuclear weapons will not be used in a conventional conflict.

NUCLEAR BREAKDOWN

Norms are essentially rules of the road. They can be embodied by institutions, such as the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and the 1997 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in the case of nuclear weapons. But as a “standard of appropriate behavior,” norms are not always concrete. In the nuclear order, norms can prevent states from using nuclear weapons through constraining mechanisms; the so-called nuclear taboo relies on the widespread moral and political rejection of nuclear weapons to discourage their use. Norms can also compel states to abide by their treaty commitments through prescriptive mechanisms.

Artillery in Present and Future High-Intensity Operations

Elio Calcagno, Bryan Clark, Sam Cranny-Evans, Alessandro Marrone, Nicolò Murgia & Eugenio Po

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Artillery in land warfare, between doctrine and practice

The status of artillery capabilities in NATO militaries, particularly European ones, has been deeply influenced, and in many ways hindered, by the protracted absence of an immediate threat of conflict with a peer-level adversary, at least until the Russian occupation of Crimea. Indeed, for decades since the end of the Cold War, most Western armed forces have focused their planning on expeditionary deployments such as counterinsurgency (COIN), counter-terrorism, crisis management, peacekeeping and stability operations against technically inferior adversaries, where air supremacy was almost always a given where artillery could not reach. In fact, such was the level of air dominance achieved, that in many cases artillery was not even deployed.

On the modern battlefield, the ability to effectively deliver artillery-based firepower in offensive and defensive operations alike is of the utmost importance. In such a context, “traditional”, barrelled artillery such as field guns, howitzers and mortars play a massive role, as demonstrated in the Ukraine conflict. Yet this instrument cannot fulfil its true potential without being inserted into a wider array of capabilities which includes longer range systems generally known as long-range fires (LRF). Such systems, which can include longer-range guided rockets as well as cruise and ballistic missiles, can have a significant advantage relative to traditional artillery weapons in terms of range and precision. While LRFs should not be seen as merely a more advanced solution to the same requirements that are set for gun artillery capabilities, they add a crucial layer to an army’s fire potential and work best in concert with solid artillery capabilities.

Every War Must End: And it is Time to End Western Strategic Magical Thinking in Ukraine

M.L.R. Smith & Samir Puri 

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The idea of a ‘war without end’ is a common figure of speech, yet, as Fred Iklé’s renowned work states, Every War Must End.[i] War, as Carl von Clausewitz emphasised, is a means to achieve political objectives. For these objectives to be meaningful, they must be attainable within a finite timeframe and pursued at a cost proportional to the desired outcome. Wars may end through outright victory or defeat, with one side surrendering. Alternatively, combatants may come to the rational conclusion that, in the absence of a clear path to victory, it is better to end the conflict.

Nearly three years into the war between Russia and Ukraine, with staggering military and civilian casualties likely numbering in the hundreds of thousands on both sides, it is fair to ask: what is the plan to end this war? While it is not our place as observers to dictate whether Ukrainians should continue their fight for independence, the immense human, material and financial toll justifies Western powers—who have sustained Ukraine’s resistance—raising the question: what is the strategy to end the war on terms that align with Western interests, and benefit Ukraine as well? Is there a plan beyond simply prolonging the war indefinitely, or fighting to the last Ukrainian?

Strengthen the Army with debate

Adam Scher

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In 1947, Colonel George Lincoln, head of the Department of Social Sciences at the United States Military Academy at West Point organized and hosted the first National Debate Tournament. The modern version of intercollegiate debate remained at USMA for 20 years, before the tournament began to rotate through different schools. The Army Debate Team still resides within the Department of Social Sciences and continues to win tournaments across the nation. I competed on the Army Debate Team from 2000 to 2004 and coached the Army Debate Team from 2013 to 2016. The lessons I learned through debate continue to serve me today.

Based on my experience I learned debating, I see the opportunity within our Army’s centers of excellence to strengthen the profession by growing and developing junior leaders through the vehicle of debate.

The Value of Debate

Debate supports strengthening the profession in two ways: at the individual leader level and at the institutional decision-making level. Increasingly, junior leaders are required to be excellent communicators—thinking, speaking, and writing coherently, cogently, and effectively. Our platoon leaders must write orders and deliver presentations, and also talk to their soldiers about everything from tactical missions to ethics.

ChatGPT Cheat Sheet: A Complete Guide for 2024

Megan Crouse

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The business world has embraced ChatGPT over the last year and found uses for the writing and image generation AI throughout many industries. This cheat sheet includes answers to the most common questions about ChatGPT and its competitors.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot product developed by OpenAI and built on the structure of GPT-4. GPT stands for generative pre-trained transformer; this indicates it is a large language model that checks for the probability of what words might come next in sequence. A large language model is a deep learning algorithm — a type of transformer model in which a neural network learns context about any language pattern. That might be a spoken language or a computer programming language.

OpenAI continues to update ChatGPT with faster, more capable AI models. In September, the company showed its next-generation model o1, which is optimized for complex reasoning in math and science. While o1 actually takes more time to process information than GPT-4o does, that slow and steady approach can produce more complicated code or mathematical processes. OpenAI o1 is available in preview to ChatGPT Plus and Team users.

Do You Need an Antivirus Program on Windows?

David Nield

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Once upon a time, an antivirus program would be the one of the first pieces of software you would install on a new Windows PC. Now, that’s much less common. Many users instead now rely on the Windows Security tool that’s built into Microsoft’s operating system to keep them protected against viruses and malware.

And yet, there are still plenty of antivirus and anti-malware security solutions for Windows. So should you be installing one of these packages? The answer, as you might expect, is that it depends.

The Windows Security Suite

We won't take you through the entire history of Microsoft Windows and its security features, but it's helpful to go back to September 2009: This was when a new program called Microsoft Security Essentials got added to the operating system. In the years since, that program has evolved and changed to become the Windows Security application you'll find preinstalled on your system today.

To find it, open the Start menu and look for “windows security.” You'll see all the various components that make up the program on the Home tab, and they’re all things that used to be handled by third-party programs: virus and malware threat protection, a firewall for locking down the network, and browser controls for stopping potentially dangerous downloads, for example.