The long tail of the dragon: India's never-ending China problem

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Rain or shine, India's China problem is a perennial challenge. As China sank into its economic and geopolitical morass in recent years, India emerged as an alternative for global companies under the China Plus One trend. At the same time, Chinese overcapacity became a challenge for the world as well as India. India's border situation with China post Galwan clashes has fluctuated, never seeming to find a resolution despite long negotiations between the two countries. Now, China's hard stimulus is likely to pull foreign money from India which is threatening India's bull market. A large neighbour with an outsized influence on the global economy remains a thorn in India's side. Below are some of the major challenges India faces from China:

Why China's stimulus could be a worry for India

China’s policymakers recently introduced stimulus measures aimed at bolstering demand as keeping the world’s second-largest economy grapples with a prolonged property sector debt crisis, continued deflationary pressure and high youth unemployment.

The People’s Bank of China slashed interest rates on one-year loans and eased rules on purchases of second homes. The government also issued cash handouts and floated new subsidies for some jobless graduates, while the Politburo vowed to boost fiscal spending to arrest a decline in property prices. The move will inject around a trillion yuan ($141.7 billion) in long-term liquidity into the financial market, as per central bank chief Pan Gongsheng.

How Soon Will the U.S. Return to Afghanistan?

James Durso

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Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban just announced the country will re-open its embassy in Muscat, Oman.

This follows the United Arab Emirates’ acceptance of the credentials of the Afghan ambassador in August. And in January, Chinese leader Xi Jinping personally accepted the credentials of the Afghan ambassador to Beijing. (China’s new ambassador to Afghanistan was officially received in September 2023.)

And in July, the Taliban government withdrew recognition from the embassies established by the ousted Islamic Republic, shuttering outposts in several European countries, and bringing the number of embassies and consulates they control to 39.

The countries bordering Afghanistan have taken a different approach than the U.S. and Europe and have maintained embassies in Kabul and actively engaged the government, though none have officially recognized the new government.

Bangladesh Turmoil Proving A Nightmare For Ahmadiyya Muslims

Emran Hossain

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Alim Ahmed Siam, a ninth-grader, has been having frequent panic attacks since an Islamist mob attacked Ahmadnagar, a village in northern Bangladesh’s Panchagarh district on Aug. 5.

The attackers beat up the men and took their time looting every single house before setting them on fire — reducing to ashes 117 properties including homes, shops, and a mosque.

For over a month, many of the village’s 400 Ahmadiyya people sought refuge inside a religious complex nearby while some had to pitch tents under the open sky.

A dozen families, including Siam’s, continue to live on the Ahmadiyya mosque premises. They are too poor to rebuild temporary shelters and have even lost their livelihoods.

But Siam’s father, Shamim Ahmed, is more worried about his son’s health.

“The panic attacks are accompanied by severe vomiting and the need to visit the toilet frequently,” he told UCA News.

Foreign Firms Confront Escalating Challenges in China Market

Nicola Stoev

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China remains a critical market for multinational firms. It is the world’s second-largest economy and the largest manufacturing and trading state. China is also among the world’s greatest beneficiaries of foreign direct investment (FDI). As of the mid-2010s, approximately a third of China’s GDP could be traced to foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs), their supply chains, and the consumer spending of related employees. However, shifting policies, slower economic growth, changing consumer behavior, and geopolitical tensions are now prompting a rethink of China strategy among many foreign companies.

A Shifting Policy Environment Elbows Out Foreign Firms

Foreign firms have always regarded China’s policy environment as challenging. China reserves a substantial portion of its economy for the state or state-owned enterprises (SOEs) through a Negative List for Market Access. Beijing further restricts the access of foreign companies through its Special Administrative Measures (Negative List) for Foreign Investment Access, while the financial sector has its own additional restrictions. And while the number of sectors from which foreign firms are excluded has been substantially reduced over time, China is still among the most restrictive of the world’s largest economies.

Chinese Army Upgrades Artillery Howitzers with Anti-Drone Measures Inspired by Ukrainian War Experience.

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Recent social media pictures have unveiled that China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) is proactively upgrading its artillery units with anti-drone protections. During a live-fire exercise conducted by the 76th Artillery Brigade of the 76th Group Army, Western Theater Command, in the expansive Northwest Gobi Desert, several PLZ-05 self-propelled howitzers were observed equipped with various anti-drone and First-Person View (FPV) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) countermeasures.

Chinese PLZ-05 self-propelled howitzer equipped with wire cage armor, designed to enhance protection against drone attacks, inspired by modern battlefield tactics.(Picture source: Chinese army TV)

The photographs reveal that these artillery pieces have been fitted with additional protective structures and technologies designed to mitigate threats from small drones and FPV UAVs. These enhancements appear to be a direct response to evolving combat tactics witnessed in recent global conflicts, particularly the extensive use of drones in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

New Chinese nuclear attack submarine sank during construction, US defense official say

TARA COPP AND JON GAMBRELL

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Satellite imagery showed that China’s newest nuclear-powered attack submarine sank alongside a pier while under construction, a senior U.S. defense official said Thursday.

The sinking of China’s first Zhou-class submarine represents a setback for Beijing as it continues to build out the world’s largest navy. Beijing has become increasingly assertive in pursuing its claim to virtually the entire South China Sea, which is crucial to international trade.

Meanwhile, China faces longtime territorial disputes involving others in the region including Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. The United States has sought to strengthen ties to its allies in the region and regularly sails through those waters in operations it says maintains the freedom of navigation for vessels there, angering Beijing.

The submarine likely sank between May and June, when satellite images showed cranes that would be necessary to lift it off the bottom of the river, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details about the submarine loss.

Israel has a history of failed invasions of Lebanon

Amin Saikal

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Following a massive bombardment of Lebanon, Israel has begun a land invasion of its northern neighbor.

Troops have entered southern Lebanon in a bid to push Hezbollah back beyond the Litani River, 29 kilometers from the Israeli border. The stated goal is to facilitate the return of some 60,000 displaced Israelis to their homes in northern Israel.

By killing Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah and several of his commanders over the weekend, Israel has already struck a serious blow to the group.

This has boosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s profile, despite a majority of Israelis wanting to see his departure. Israel is now set to repeat its Gaza operations in Lebanon, with a view to reordering the Middle East in its own interests. But has it bitten off more than it can chew?

Unsuccessful track record

Israel has been here before. It invaded Lebanon as far as the capital Beirut in 1982, in an attempt to eliminate the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). It was trying to extinguish the Palestinian resistance to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem that had existed since the 1967 Israeli–Arab War.

Why Hezbollah miscalculated – and Israel attacked

Jonathan Spyer

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In the early hours of Tuesday morning, the IDF spokesman’s office issued a laconic statement, according to which Israeli forces have commenced ‘raids… based on precise intelligence against Hezbollah terrorist targets and infrastructure in southern Lebanon. These targets are located in villages close to the border and pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel.’

With this terse announcement, Israel signalled that its 18-year policy of restraint and reaction on its northern border was definitively over, and that the door has been opened to something new.

How did we reach this point? The last war between Israel and the Iran-supported Shia Islamist Hezbollah organisation came to an official end on August 14, 2006. UN Resolution 1701, which ended the war, forbade Hezbollah from any armed presence south of the Litani river.

For most of the intervening years, Israel pursued a cautious, even hesitant policy on the border. It made no serious attempt to intervene as Hezbollah rapidly brushed aside the terms of 1701 and the UN force detailed with implementing it, and began to construct a fearsome, open military capacity extending down to the Blue Line of withdrawal and the border fence.

Lebanon Is Not a Solution for Gaza

Gershom Gorenberg

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Despite the thunder of the bombs in Lebanon; despite the stunning assassination of Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah; despite the suddenly renewed image of omniscient Israeli intelligence and a boost in domestic popularity for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the war in Gaza has not ended. Hamas still holds 101 Israeli hostages, dead or barely alive. Gaza is devastated—nine out of 10 of its people displaced, by one estimate. Netanyahu’s government still has no announced plan for who will rule Gaza on the day after the fighting ends, or for how it will end. Fighting the war that you prepared for is not a solution for the war you refused to see coming.

After Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah, which was widely regarded as a debacle, Israel stepped up its espionage efforts with both human and electronic sources. According to a Financial Times report, Hezbollah expanded its numbers to fight on the side of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in the Syrian civil war and checked its recruits less carefully. That allowed Israel to plant spies and recruit Hezbollah members as sources. Unit 8200 of Israeli military intelligence, responsible for electronic spying, reportedly processed information from hacked cellphones, Lebanese security cameras, and home electronics. That long-running effort made Hezbollah stunningly vulnerable.

America Needs a New Strategy to Avert Even Greater Catastrophe in the Middle East

Andrew P. Miller

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Nearly a year after Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack, the Israeli government’s ongoing escalation of its conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon has put the Middle East on the precipice of a regional war—one that could all too easily draw in the United States. Although Israeli leaders believe that intensified military action will cause the militant group to back down, this sort of “escalate to de-escalate” strategy seldom achieves the desired results. Hezbollah has consistently tied the cessation of its attacks on Israel to a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, and that remains unlikely to change in the wake of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s death in an Israeli airstrike on Friday. Even if a 21-day cease-fire were declared between Israel and Hezbollah, as U.S. President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron have called for, it would not alter the underlying reality: the best way to prevent a larger regional conflagration is a cease-fire in Gaza.

Unfortunately, negotiations between Israel and Hamas over their war in Gaza appear to be at an impasse over three months after Biden outlined a framework for a cease-fire and deal on the return of Israeli hostages. Both parties have moved the goalposts, adding new conditions or demanding new concessions. After weeks of projecting optimism, Biden administration officials reportedly now concede that “no deal is imminent.” And the window for reaching a deal is rapidly closing ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November, at which point Biden’s lame-duck status will diminish his international influence.

The Nasrallah Killing Is a Crushing Blow to Hezbollah

Bruce Hoffman

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How much of a setback to Hezbollah is the Nasrallah killing?

It is a huge, potential game-changer. Nasrallah’s death is a crushing blow: one that follows on the heels of the systematic elimination by Israel of most of Hezbollah’s military leadership. In recent weeks, Israel has killed Fuad Shukr, head of Hezbollah’s strategic division and the movement’s most senior military authority; Ibrahim Aqil, the group’s operational chief who was responsible for Hezbollah’s elite Radwan unit as well as that unit’s commander, Wissam al-Tawil; and over a dozen other senior commanders. Yet another senior commander, Ali Karaki, responsible for the group’s southern front adjoining Israel, was reportedly killed along with Nasrallah. Coupled with Israel’s sabotage detonation of thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah for the communication of orders and important instructions, the group has likely been rendered operationally inert—at least for the foreseeable future.

Indeed, there are no clear successors to Nasrallah given his unique and unrivalled stature at the top of the movement. Sayed Naim Qassem, Nasrallah’s long-serving deputy, is a less well known outside of Lebanon and is arguably best known within Hezbollah for once having headed its religious education department. Qassem therefore arguably lacks Nasrallah’s military and strategic acumen and his political savvy. The only senior Hezbollah officers of any standing still alive is the mostly unknown Abu Ali Rida, the commander of its elite Bader unit.

A Decimated Hezbollah Is a Serious Blow to Iran

Aryn Baker

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The death of the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike has dramatically weakened a key Iranian deterrent against its archenemy, Israel.

Iran has long sought to have the proxies it supports in the region — including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and forces in Syria, Yemen and Iraq — serve as the front line in its long-running fight with Israel. But if its most important military asset, Hezbollah, has been decimated, it may have no choice but to respond, experts said Saturday.

The decisions it makes will have a significant impact on the next stage of a growing conflict that now threatens to engulf the region.

“Iran’s choices really range from ugly to unpalatable,” said Ali Vaez, the director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group, a conflict prevention organization.

Israel should hit Iran where it hurts Choking its oil revenue could topple the regim

Edward Luttwak

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Through its early history — but not for the last four decades and more — the main threats to Israel’s security came from its Arab neighbours. That resulted in several wars against Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq. But except for Jordan, Israel’s Arab enemies were in effect proxies for a far more potent threat: the Soviet Union. To displace American power in the Middle East, Moscow supplied thousands of tanks and hundreds of jets to Cairo, Damascus and Baghdad. Thousands of soviet technicians and training officers came too, even as Arab officers were trained in soviet academies.

This was a formidable threat to Israel's survival in its first decades. But nobody there even considered the possibility of striking directly at the Soviet Union itself. Aside from the certainty of a massive retaliatory response, there were simply no relevant targets that Israel could strike, even if its small airforce managed to penetrate Soviet airspace.

America’s Strategy of Renewal

Antony J. Blinken

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Afierce competition is underway to define a new age in international affairs. A small number of countries—principally Russia, with the partnership of Iran and North Korea, as well as China—are determined to alter the foundational principles of the international system. While their forms of governance, ideologies, interests, and capabilities differ, these revisionist powers all want to entrench autocratic rule at home and assert spheres of influence abroad. They all wish to resolve territorial disputes by coercion or force and weaponize other countries’ economic and energy dependence. And they all seek to erode the foundations of the United States’ strength: its military and technological superiority, its dominant currency, and its unmatched network of alliances and partnerships. While these countries are not an axis, and the administration has been clear that it does not seek bloc confrontation, choices these revisionist powers are making mean we need to act decisively to prevent that outcome.

When President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris came into office, these revisionist powers were already aggressively challenging U.S. interests. These countries believed that the United States was in irreversible decline at home and divided from its friends abroad. They saw an American public that had lost its faith in government, an American democracy that was polarized and paralyzed, and an American foreign policy that was undermining the very alliances, international institutions, and norms that Washington had built and championed.

Rethinking the “Thucydides Trap”

Jeffrey E. Schulman

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Geopolitical tension looms over American politics, as was evident in last month’s debate when Kamala Harris claimed her rival “sold us out” to China. Though election rhetoric has heightened these tensions, headlines suggest the risk of war with China has been growing for years.

In 2022, the Chinese military launched missiles over Taiwan. Just this June, the Chinese coast guard injured a Filipino sailor going to resupply an outpost off the Philippines’ coast; on August 26, a Chinese military plane violated Japanese airspace for the first time, forcing Japan’s Self-Defense Forces to scramble aircraft. The numerous points of tension sometimes make war seem inevitable, leading experts like Harvard’s Graham Allison to wonder if the United States and China have fallen into a “Thucydides Trap.” The term refers to the tendency of a rising power to come into conflict with an established one. The term originates with the ancient Greek historian Thucydides’ claim that the rise of his native Athens made war with the longstanding might of Sparta inevitable.

While empires old and new have collided many times since Thucydides wrote in the fifth century B.C., his History of the Peloponnesian War remains compelling because of how closely the tensions between fiercely democratic Athens and authoritarian Sparta resemble contemporary circumstances. In fact, today’s situation differs from Thucydides’ more than generally appreciated. However, reading his history of the war between Athens and Sparta (431–404 B.C.) closely, one can see that it nevertheless provides a compelling warning about the importance of political stability.

Zelenskyy’s Changing Leadership Style

Andreas Umland & Julia Kazdobina

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In April 2019, the entrepreneur, actor, and showman Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected the sixth President of Ukraine with just under 75 percent of the vote. When he took office on May 20, 2019, he did so with the largest share of the vote that a Ukrainian presidential candidate had ever received in elections. At the age of forty-one, Zelenskyy was also by far the youngest head of state in Ukraine’s history—a decisive factor in his electoral success.

In the fall of 2024, Zelenskyy looks much older. His facial expressions and gestures have lost their former lightness. Unlike before 2022, the president hardly makes any jokes. His smile has become harder. Zelenskyy, like all Ukrainians, is suffering from the ongoing war with Russia.

The former showman also bears the burden of leading a nation facing an existential threat. Since 2022, Russia’s spokespeople have repeatedly made it clear that they reject Ukrainian claims of constituting an independent cultural community and nation-state. The enormous resources of the largest territorial state in the world have been mobilized for two and a half years to realize this prejudice. To save his country, Zelenskyy has to make morally difficult and often unpopular decisions every week. His main task today is to convince Ukraine’s allies not to abandon Ukraine and to provide it with sufficient weapons and money.

Israel Acts Alone

Bernard-Henri Lévy

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We know Lenin’s quote, apocryphal but so true: “There are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks where decades happen.”

Well this is exactly what has happened, and is still happening, in the Middle East and beyond, with the booby-trapped pagers of Sept. 17, the defeat, in Lebanon, on Sept. 29, of Hezbollah and one day later, with the advancement of Israeli ground troops into southern Lebanon.

A terrorist army, more powerful than al-Qaida and ISIS combined, is permanently diminished and, for now, decapitated.

The Iranian regime, for which Hezbollah was the avant-garde, the jewel in the crown, or to continue the Bolshevik metaphor, its most precious capital, is weakened by a defeat that comes on the heels of the bombing of its embassy complex in Syria, the execution of Ismael Haniyeh, head of Hamas, in the heart of Tehran, and the failure of its general offensive, April 17, against Israel. And it seems that, for the first time in nearly a half-century, the regime is finally on the defensive, fragile and flailing …

Russia installed Starlink kit on kamikaze drones: but why

Vilius Petkauskas

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The drone was shot down on the night of September 25th, after Russia launched 32 drones to hit targets across Ukraine. According to Euromaidanpress and Defense Express, photos of debris from at least one of the drones launched that night have a Starlink logo and product serial number on it, making it the first time Shahed drones were equipped with Elon Musk’s technology.

After Iran started supplying Russia with Shahed drones, Moscow localized their manufacturing. The Loitering munition craft Shahed 136 is called Geran-2 in Russia. The devices’ primary objective is to deliver explosives to selected targets, earning them the moniker “kamikaze drone.”

The Starlink dish comes in handy when the drone’s operators want to transmit high volumes of data from its cameras. Since Starlink boasts an average connection of between 25 and 220 Mbps, operators can maneuver the craft in real-time.

Defense Express, a Ukrainian military news outlet, claims that the use of Starlink could empower Russia to use Shahed platforms for more precise attacks. Since the Shahed’s range can reach up to 2,000 kilometers (1,550 miles), ubiquitous fast-speed internet greatly improves the performance of the craft.

A Blast in Central Beirut Damages a Building

Mike Ives

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Emergency crews in Beirut were working early Monday in an area of the city where an apparent Israeli strike damaged a residential building, The Associated Press reported.

If Israel is confirmed to be behind the attack, it would be the first known Israeli strike within Beirut since Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah, a militia backed by Iran. Israel has been stepping up its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon over the past two weeks, killing its leader and striking targets nearly daily.

The A.P. released videos from the Lebanese capital on Monday that showed people and emergency workers gathering below a damaged multistory building in the largely Sunni Muslim neighborhood of Cola. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

A militant group based in Lebanon and Gaza, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said that three of its members had been killed in the blast in Cola. That claim by the group, which is mostly known for a string of airline hijackings and bombings decades ago, could not be independently verified.

U.S. to Send Thousands of Extra Troops to Middle East

Michael D. Carroll AND Amir Daftari

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The U.S. is sending an additional "few thousand" troops to the Middle East to bolster security and to be prepared to defend Israel if necessary, the Pentagon said Monday.

The increased presence support multiple fighter jet squadrons, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters during a press briefing.

It follows recent strikes in Lebanon and the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, a significant escalation in the war in the Middle East, this time between Israel and Hezbollah. There are fears Israel could launch a ground invasion of Lebanon, significantly escalating the conflict.

The additional deployment includes squadrons of F-15E Strike Eagle, F-16, A-10, and F-22 fighter jets, along with the personnel needed to support them. The jets were originally scheduled to rotate in and replace the squadrons already stationed there. Instead, both the existing and new squadrons will remain in place to double the airpower on hand, enhancing U.S. military capabilities in the region.

Russia’s War in Ukraine: Artificial Intelligence in Defence of Ukraine

Vitaliy Goncharuk

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In 2019, Ukraine set up the Ministry of Digital Transformation to promote automation and digitisation in the public sector and in 2020 established within it the Expert Committee on the Development of Artificial Intelligence.[1] In 2021, it released a strategy for integrating AI into its military-industrial complex.[2] International companies such as Amazon, Lyft, Google, Samsung, and Grammarly have recognised Ukraine as a leading country for AI research and development (R&D) and established local R&D offices. However, Ukraine’s reputation for bureaucratic inefficiency, corruption, and political interference has discouraged IT leaders from collaborating with the state-owned firms that dominate the defence sector.[3]

Ukraine has been at war for over ten years. Its strong civil society, and the use of military drones and AI are not recent developments. For example, volunteer organisations have long used AI to combat sustained information warfare by debunking fake media, exposing bot networks, and pushing back against narratives that target Ukraine’s reputation.[4] They have, since 2014-15, developed valuable tools such as Kropyva, a situational awareness system, and the GIS Arta app, dubbed ‘artillery Uber,’ that speed up and help synchronise artillery targeting and are deployed at scale today to great effect.[5]

The Two Musketeers? Russia’s Worrying Alliance with North Korea

Lake Dodson

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China and Russia pose different threats to international security and stability. In fact, I would go so far as to say that China’s Belt and Road Initiative and its committed investments in Africa and elsewhere come from a national policy that really does desire peace – and to foster a positive image for Beijing. Of course, those efforts do not fit within international organizations or current norms.

But the greatest threat to peace is Russia under the Putin regime. This state is not afraid to go against the grain of what is socially acceptable. Even its seemingly impenetrable alliance with China has wavered in light of Russia’s poor performance in its war on Ukraine. The desperation to achieve victory has emaciated the Russian Federation and left it starving for a reliable alliance in a world that has formed a strong bloc against Moscow’s attempts to swallow a former Soviet Socialist Republic. Moscow has therefore stooped to a new and dangerous low by building an alliance with North Korea.

The Mutual Defense Pact between the two countries signed in June this year shocked the world. A nation at the helm of the United Nations Security Council now trades weapons and technology with the nuclear-armed Hermit Kingdom. This makes a mockery of the intentions and charter of the United Nations: to promote a universal standard of human rights, diplomatic cooperation, and inclusion, and to be an open forum that serves as a bastion against violence.

Inside Two Years of Turmoil at Big Tech's Anti-Terrorism Group

Paresh Dave

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Vice presidents from Meta, YouTube, Twitter, and Microsoft gathered over Zoom in March 2023 to discuss whether to allow TikTok, one of their companies’ most fearsome competitors, into their exclusive club.

The four executives comprised the board of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT)—where companies share tips intended to prevent their platforms from becoming hotbeds for terrorists—and they knew that TikTok needed help keeping extremist propaganda off its platform. TikTok had passed a training program they required and had addressed their questions about its ties to China. But people briefed on the discussions say the board still worried about the possibility of TikTok abusing its membership in some way that benefited the Chinese government and undermined free expression. On top of that, at the time US lawmakers were considering a ban of the app, and more content moderation mishaps for TikTok likely would add to the heat. The board ultimately didn’t approve TikTok.

A WIRED investigation into GIFCT reveals that TikTok’s bid to join the consortium failed because two of the four executives on the board abstained from voting on its application. A week later, on the fourth anniversary of a deadly terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, researchers blasted TikTok for hosting footage celebrating the rampage. These were the very videos that would have been easily flagged and removed had TikTok’s rivals granted it access to their group’s threat-spotting technology.

Tesla’s Cybertruck Goes, Inevitably, to War

Jared Keller

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The Greeks had their chariots. Patton had his tanks. Now, a handful of soldiers are riding into combat in one of the most unusual-looking vehicles in the history of warfare: an armed Cybertruck.

In a video posted to messaging platform Telegram last week, Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Russia’s Chechnya region, showed off a pair of Tesla’s distinctive boxy electric pickup trucks painted forest green and armed with what appear to be Soviet-era DShK 12.7 x 108 mm heavy machine guns—vehicles he claimed had been sent to fight alongside Russian forces taking part in the country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

The footage shows the vehicles patrolling down a dirt road as part of a four-vehicle platoon, with several soldiers manning their weapons mounted on their truck beds and blasting airborne targets out of the sky.

“Mobility, convenience, maneuverability: such qualities of an electric vehicle are in great demand here,” Kadyrov wrote on Telegram.

The Rise and Recession of Military Design Thinking

Jeremiah Monk

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INTRODUCTION

The military design thinking movement represented a novel and adaptive approach to strategic problem-solving that rose to prominence in the 2010s as Western militaries grappled with the complexities of global counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations. Design thinking promised to revolutionize how military organizations approached complex, dynamic, and uncertain environments, helping them become more agile and effective. However, despite its early successes, the military design movement within the United States military has lost momentum as conventional warfare paradigms have reasserted dominance, especially following the war in Ukraine in the 2020s. As a result, strategic opportunities that might have been realized through a more design-centric lens are now routinely missed by the US Department of Defense. This article traces the rapid rise and decline of military design thinking in the United States and examines how the contemporary focus on conventional warfighting has caused military organizations to sideline the design movement at the expense of strategic flexibility.

The Emergence of Military Design Thinking

The roots of military design thinking can be traced to the broader movement of design thinking within civilian sectors, where it was employed as an approach to solving complex, ill-defined problems. Military design adapted this thinking to its own specific needs, particularly in the realm of strategy, operational planning, and decision-making, and connected design to the concept of Operational Art. The military version of design thinking, as it emerged in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, borrowed from several fields, including systems theory, organizational learning, and creative problem-solving frameworks.