From Alexander using Jhelum River in 326 BC to dams and flooding in modern world: How rivers have been weaponised to win wars and gain tactical advantage

Anurag

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It was 326 BC. Alexander stood on the banks of the Jhelum River, known as Hydaspes at that time, and plotted a masterstroke against King Porus of Punjab. Porus was confident that the swollen river would shield him from attack as he waited on the opposite shore with war elephants.

However, under the cover of darkness and storm, Alexander’s troops moved upstream and forded the raging waters. Alexender kept sending troops slowly every night while projecting as if he was waiting for the river to cool down. They caught Porus’s army in a deadly fight at dawn one day. The young Macedonian conqueror snatched victory from Porus’s hands by turning the river into an unexpected ally and wrote his name into history. This little lesson of history shows that rivers have been weaponised to win wars and gain tactical advantages — and today’s times are no different.

The Indus Waters Treaty – Water as leverage in South Asia

Fast forward over two millennia, and the strategic use of rivers is still very much alive. In April 2025, India announced that it would suspend the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) with Pakistan. It is a 63-year-old water-sharing pact which, interestingly, survived multiple wars between the arch-enemies, India and Pakistan.

After Pahalgam, India Faces Tough Security and Diplomatic Choices

Aishwaria Sonavane

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The tranquility of the meadows of Baisaran in Pahalgam, an exemplar of Kashmir’s touristic revival, was violently disrupted on April 22, when militants, in a targeted attack on tourists, killed at least 26 people, including foreign nationals, and wounded many others.

According to reports in the media, The Resistance Front (TRF), a shadow outfit of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) headed by Hafiz Saeed, claimed responsibility for the attack. However, in a statement issued on April 25, TRF denied responsibility.

According to eyewitness accounts, at least four operatives, dressed in camouflage uniforms, targeted Hindu men and shot them dead. U.S.-made M4 carbines and AK-47 assault rifles were used in the attack.

In the days following the attack, business communities and religious organizations called for a Kashmir Bandh (shutdown), reflecting both despair and anger. The attack will have a devastating impact on Kashmir’s economy. Tourism is a crucial economic lifeline for the Kashmir valley, especially during summer. Reports suggest widespread cancellations of tourism bookings.

New Turmoil in Regulating Deep Seabed Mining on the High Seas

Tom LaTourrette and Douglas C. Ligor

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The still potential-but-perhaps-soon-to-be-real world of seabed mining took an interesting turn in the past month. The announcement from The Metals Company that it “has formally initiated a process…to apply for exploration licenses and commercial recovery permits under existing U.S. legislation, the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act of 1980 (DSHMRA)” came just prior to the White House's issuance of a new executive order authorizing this approach. These announcements mark major course changes. The Metals Company is essentially giving up on the existing international framework to govern and regulate seabed mining in areas beyond national jurisdiction (the high seas), and the United States, which to date has been a largely passive observer of efforts to develop seabed mining, may be about to thrust itself into the center of the action.

Since 1994, the International Seabed Authority (ISA), an independent organization created by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), has overseen the management of seabed mineral resources in the high seas. With 169 out of 193 nations plus the European Union as members, the ISA is recognized internationally as the only entity with jurisdiction over the high seas.

Conspicuously absent from the ISA membership list is the United States, the only developed economy that has not ratified UNCLOS. The U.S. Senate has steadfastly opposed UNCLOS and the ISA, primarily out of concerns over sovereignty. For decades, this was viewed by many as a handicap, as it sidelined the United States in ISA negotiations to develop seabed mining regulations and made the United States ineligible to conduct mining operations through the ISA process. In this position, the United States has been a relatively minor player in the world of seabed mining—no U.S.-based companies have ISA exploration contracts, and the U.S. government has taken a cautious, wait-and-see approach.

China Is Determined to Hold Firm Against Trump’s Pressure

Rick Waters and Sheena Chestnut Greitens

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Under President Donald Trump, U.S.-China relations have deteriorated more quickly than many anticipated. Early on, Trump’s positive comments toward Chinese President Xi Jinping, modest opening moves on tariffs, and conflicting signals on investment suggested that bilateral frictions could be kept within bounds. But since Trump’s so-called Liberation Day announcement on April 2, the situation has shifted, and the contours of Chinese thinking and approach are coming into shape.

First, both the United States and China see leader-level diplomacy as critical for resolving the current trade war impasse, but Washington and Beijing have diametrically opposed approaches to getting there. The U.S. administration believes that engagement between Trump and Xi should be spontaneous and direct, but Beijing believes it must be carefully prepared by working-level contacts in advance.

Trump’s early engagements with Mexico, Canada, and Ukraine intensified China’s always cautious approach to top-level diplomacy. One Chinese official privately noted, “We hope for an early leader engagement, but we will not rush to Mar-a-Lago like [Canadian former prime minister Justin] Trudeau. A meeting must be carefully prepared.” Chinese interlocutors recognize that leader-level diplomacy is essential, but they also see it as high-risk and want to use lower-level channels to try to manage that risk prior to a Trump-Xi conversation.

The Programmable State: The e-CNY and China’s Quest for Smarter Surveillance

Yaya J. Fanusie & Emily Jin

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Introduction

The Chinese party-state views data and the internet as integral to its control, partic- ularly in the ways they enable social surveillance.1 The electronic Chinese yuan (e- CNY)2 is a new financial infrastructure that aligns with this technological approach. Since the inception of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) central bank digital currency (CBDC) project in 2014, the e-CNY has evolved from academic research to systematic, nationwide piloting.3 The e-CNY pilots are gradually rolling out new func- tions for the currency. Although current adoption is relatively small compared to China’s economy, the pilots point toward a major shift in the Chinese financial tech- nology (fintech) ecosystem. The e-CNY architecture is innovating on China’s payment system by enabling software wallets with smart contracts by which transactions can operate according to predetermined conditions and parameters. This money “program-  mability” can benefit users by allowing individuals and companies to manage and mon- itor economic transactions more easily.

But the programmability of the e-CNY also imbues the party-state with powerful new capacities. The Chinese government is strategically inserting its digital renminbi into a variety of domestic activities to make its economy more intelligible to and con- trollable by the Chinese party-state.4 In this context, the party-state and media that report on its policies use the term intelligible to mean that complex financial phenomena can be understood via quantifiable metrics from an increasingly information-ripe, dig- itized, and data-rich environment. While the party-state has used intelligentization in its military doctrine since 2016 to describe its strategy of integrating advanced technolo- gies into its military, the term has been extended to the process of integrating and lev- eraging data within China’s national development strategy.5 Terms like digitized and in- telligentized are not mere jargon but, rather, precise expressions of the party state’s tech- nocratic vision for the country. The party-state wants to fully harness financial infor- mation in its economy, and the e-CNY is one of the many tools to accomplish that goal. For Chinese authorities, collecting troves of financial data is key to realizing their vision of a more manageable, more monitorable, wholly digital China

Azerbaijan-Armenia-Georgia Trilateral Format May be Platform for Regional Decision-Making

Emil Avdaliani

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On April 17, Tbilisi hosted a closed trilateral meeting between Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. The main goal of the meeting was to share the common interests and views of the three countries that will contribute to the strengthening of mutually beneficial cooperation and geopolitical stability of the South Caucasus (Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, April 17). Additionally, the summit aimed to build a new format for regional cooperation on top of the already existing web of partnerships and alliances spanning the region.

In attendance were the Deputy Foreign Minister of Georgia, Lasha Darsalia, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, Elnur Mammadov, and the Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia, Vahan Kostanyan, and members of their delegations (1tv.ge, April 17). According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, the meeting was opened by Georgia’s Foreign Minister Maka Bochorishvili, who spoke about the strategic role of the South Caucasus, its potential, and the room for cooperation formats (Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, April 17). Bochorishvili argued that Georgia sincerely desires to contribute to the development of regional cooperation in the South Caucasus, which still needs to fully realize its geopolitical role.

After the summit, the foreign ministers issued a joint statement explaining that the “meeting served as an open exchange of views and presentation of visions on potential areas for collaboration” (Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, April 17). The summit is considered the first trust-building step between Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan for the “eventual advancement” of future, higher-level dialogue.

An Attack on America’s Universities Is an Attack on American Power

Sarah Kreps

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In the spring of 1943, Hans Bethe, a theoretical physicist and professor at Cornell University, left Ithaca, New York, for a classified government site in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Once there, he led the theoretical division of the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb. Bethe was just one of dozens of academics pulled from elite American research universities into wartime service, applying their intellectual training to solve critical national security challenges. When the war ended, Bethe returned to Cornell, where he helped transform the university into a hub of Cold War–era research, working to invent—among other innovations—the synchrotron, one of the world’s first particle accelerators. That development, in turn, paved the way for the creation of advanced radar systems and semiconductors.

Bethe’s career path epitomized the long-lasting and mutually beneficial partnership between U.S. universities and the government. Before 1940, U.S. federal support for scientific research was minimal and mainly limited to agriculture and public health. But during World War II, the government turbocharged its funding for research and development and boosted it again during the Cold War. The government extended grants to a kaleidoscopic variety of academic efforts that included conducting basic physics experiments, developing materials to enable hypersonic flight, and inventing artificial intelligence algorithms. This funding often constituted the only reliable support for long-term high-risk projects that private industry, focused on near-term profits, typically neglects.

How China Armed Itself for the Trade War

Zongyuan Zoe Liu

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How did the world’s two largest economies stumble toward a trade war that neither truly seeks and which the rest of the world can’t afford? Following U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” ceremony on April 2, during which he unveiled tariffs of varying levels on all of Washington’s trade partners, the United States and China have engaged in several rounds of tit-for-tat escalation, driving tariffs between the two countries to prohibitively high levels. By April 11, tariffs on Chinese goods entering the United States had reached 145 percent, while U.S. goods entering China reached 125 percent. Unless the two countries carve out broad exemptions, the $700 billion in annual bilateral trade between them could shrink by as much as 80 percent over the next two years. Markets have responded negatively to the looming trade war, and many economists and analysts have struggled to explain what the Trump administration is trying to achieve.

The best way to understand the current standoff with China is as the product of faulty assumptions and missteps on both sides. Within Trump’s orbit, powerful players and factions misjudged the resilience of China’s economy and wrongly assumed that Chinese leader Xi Jinping would rush to make a deal in order to avoid a domestic backlash. As a result, China hawks in Washington failed to anticipate how resolutely Beijing would react to Trump’s tariffs.

Annexing Greenland: Six Questions

Barry Scott Zellen

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Question 1: Could America Rule Greenland?

Yes. What was floated in 2019 as an out-of-the-box Presidential policy idea but not pursued (due in part to competing demands of presidential attention, such as ending the war in Afghanistan and battling the Covid-19 pandemic), has reemerged in Trump 2.0 as part of a grand strategy to reframe American defense and security through a hemispheric, “America First” lens that departs from over 75 years of a trans-Atlantic, alliance-centric security concept. This now places the “Greenland purchase” concept at the top, and not periphery, of American defense, security, and foreign policy from the start of the new administration. But it does not necessarily mean that the U.S. would become the formal sovereign, or official leader, over Greenland, even if the policy is presently perceived and described that way. Much depends on the response by Greenland and Denmark, as well as the NATO alliance, and in addition of Canada, if a Greenland expansion/annexation is accompanied by an American expansion to/annexation of part or all of Canada.

Could America become the leader of, and sovereign power ruling over, Greenland at the end of the day? Yes. And could Greenland become a 51st state, or a new island territory comparable to our island territories in the Caribbean and Pacific? Yes. Statehood usually follows a period of political and economic maturation and modernization as a territory, as we saw with Alaska and Hawaii. But sometimes it leads to a permanent territorial status, federally governed but without full state powers (as we see in Guam, Samoa, etc.). In other cases, it leads to quasi-independence under a Compact of Free Association (COFA), as we see in Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau. (The COFA structure is not entirely unlike what Greenland has incrementally achieved through Home-Rule (1979) and later Self Rule (2009) with Denmark, though presumably Greenland would gain even more power, and more investment and financial support, to switch from Copenhagen to Washington.)

Donald Trump Is Crushing His To-Do List

Niall Ferguson

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It always shocks me when people say they are shocked by Donald Trump. The president told us exactly what he was going to do. All you had to do was look.

By my count, there were 37 short but tightly scripted videos, recorded between December 2022 and December 2023, in which the then-candidate previewed just about every move he has made since his inauguration 100 days ago.

Because Kamala Harris had no policy ideas of her own, her campaign made almost no reference to these videos, which may be why so few people watched them.

But I did, because I thought Trump would win—and because I wanted to know what he would do. Here’s a representative sample:

• “Protecting Students from the Radical Left and Marxist Maniacs Infecting Educational Institutions”
• “Cementing Fair and Reciprocal Trade with the Trump Reciprocal Trade Act”
• “Using Impoundment to Cut Waste, Stop Inflation, and Crush the Deep State”
• “Ending Citizenship for Children of Illegals and Outlawing Birth Tourism”
• “Reverse Biden’s [Executive Order] Embedding Marxism in the Federal Government”
• “Slashing Biden’s Disastrous Trade Deficits”
• “New Trade Plan to Protect American Workers”
• “Protecting Americans from Radical Leftist [Environmental, Social, and Governance] Investments”
• “Protect Children from Left-Wing Gender Insanity”
• “Stop China from Owning America”

One day, historians will refer to this as the most consequential to-do list in American history. And, in his first 100 days back in the White House, Donald Trump has crushed that list.

The Kellogg Framework Is A Disaster For Trump – OpEd

Alastair Crooke

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Political warfare in Washington is endemic. But the body count at the Pentagon has started to rise precipitously. Three of Secretary of Defence Hegseth’s top advisors were placed on leave, and then fired. The war continues, with the Secretary now in the firing line.

Why this matters is that the Hegseth attrition comes amid fierce internal debates in the Trump administration about Iran policy. Hawks want an definitive elimination of all Iran’s nuclear and weapons capabilities, whilst many ‘restrainers’ warn against military escalation; Hegseth reportedly was amongst those warning against an intervention in Iran.

The recent Pentagon dismissals have all been identified as restrainers. One of the latter, Dan Caldwell, formerly Hegseth’s Top Adviser and an army veteran, wrote a post slamming the ‘Iran Hawks’ – and subsequently was fired. He was later interviewed by Tucker Carlson. Notably, Caldwell describes in scathing terms America’s wars in Iraq and Syria (“criminal”). This adverse sentiment concerning America’s earlier wars is a rising theme, it seems, amongst U.S. Vets today.

The three Pentagon staffers essentially were fired, not as ‘leakers’, but for talking Hegseth out of supporting war on Iran, it would appear; the Israeli-Firsters, have not given up on that war.

How data wrecked American warfare Robert McNamara remade the military

Stephen Pimentel

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Standing before the White House press corps 60 years ago this weekend, Robert S. McNamara articulated a vision of victory in Vietnam, speaking not of jungles, villages, or human lives, but of body counts, kill ratios, and sortie statistics. For McNamara, success was quantifiable, shaped by metrics suitable for spreadsheets. Moulded by the techniques of Harvard Business School and the logistics of the Second World War, he believed that, with the right data, any problem could be solved.

As Secretary of Defense between 1961 and 1968, McNamara introduced systems analysis into decision-making, asserting that war could be rationalised and won through quantitative management that would later shape much of the activity of the American government. Vietnam became his proving ground, with progress measured by tons of bombs dropped, roads cleared, or Viet Cong killed. If the numbers looked good, so too would the future.

Yet the press conference betrayed the fragility of his vision, which mistook legibility for understanding. Beneath the seductive statistics lay deeper truths that were resistant to data’s neat columns. The jungle might be penetrated by special forces or removed by Agent Orange, but the culture and politics that flowed through it remained elusive. America’s failure to quell these currents would ultimately cost it the war.

Political Warfare against Intervention Forces

Prof. Kerry K. Gershaneck and Eric Chan

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Political warfare is the art of achieving strategic objectives through influence, subversion, and coercion. George Kennan, in a 1948 policy memorandum for the US Department of State, defined it as “the employment of all the means at a nation’s command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives.”1 His warning was aimed at Soviet operations, which he called “the most refined and effective of any in history.” But even as Kennan wrote this memo, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was proving that his definition was incomplete. The Party secured victory in the Chinese Civil War through battlefield successes empowered by political warfare, including the use of ideological subversion, propaganda, and coercion.2

With the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and the subsequent dismantling of America’s own political warfare capabilities, Beijing has refined and expanded its political warfare strategies and tactics, securing strategic gains with little resistance. The militarization of the South China Sea is a textbook case. Declaring sovereignty over vast swaths of international waters, constructing artificial islands, and turning them into forward military bases—all accomplished without provoking a meaningful global response.3 Former US Assistant Secretary of Defense Wallace C. Gregson described it as “a feckless global response,” a verdict reinforced when the Obama administration failed to act after Xi Jinping publicly reneged on his 2015 pledge not to militarize the region.4 Beijing’s island-building campaign sent an unmistakable message: the United States was unwilling to confront the PRC in the South China Sea. The artificial islands, now fortified military outposts, serve a dual purpose: complicating US and allied access to the region while advancing the CCP’s broader objective of pushing the United States out of the Western Pacific.

‘I Run the Country and the World’

Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer

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Before we begin, a primer on the science of arranging an interview with a sitting American president:

In ordinary times, reporters seeking an on-the-record encounter with the commander in chief first write an elaborate proposal. The proposal details the goals of the interview, the broad areas of concern, and the many reasons the president must, for his own good, talk to these particular reporters and not other, perfectly adequate but still lesser reporters. This pitch is then sent to White House officials. If the universe bends favorably, negotiations ensue. If the staff feel reasonably confident that the interview will somehow help their cause, they will ask the president—with trepidation, at times—to sit for the interview. Sometimes, the president will agree.

Such is what happened recently to us. We went through this process in the course of reporting the story you are reading. We made our pitch, which went like this: President Donald Trump, by virtue of winning a second term and so dramatically reshaping the country and the world, can now be considered the most consequential American leader of the 21st century, and we want to describe, in detail, how this came to be. Just four years ago, after the violent insurrection he fomented, Trump appeared to be finished. Social-media companies had banned or suspended him, and he had been repudiated by corporate donors. Republicans had denounced him, and the country was moving on to the fresh start of Joe Biden’s presidency. Then came further blows—the indictments, the civil judgments, and the endless disavowals by people who once worked for him.

Beyond Collection: Building Publicly Available Information Systems for Strategic Effect

Iain Cruickshank & Michael Schwille

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The U.S. Army recently published a new Information doctrine. For an organization that is often resistant to change, publishing a doctrine on information is a monumental change. However, it is also a necessary change; recent conflicts show that information has become a critical aspect of all modern warfare. This dimension encompasses content and data, and analytical and technical processes used to exchange information across operational environments. Just as each operational environment is multifaceted and complex, so too is the information dimension. A particularly complex, yet important component of the information dimension of the operational environment is Publicly Available Information (PAI), or open-source information.[1]

PAI is an increasingly critical source of information for military operations. While exact numbers are not known, significant amounts of classified intelligence used to drive operations come from PAI. Furthermore, PAI is the most important medium for information warfare and controlling narratives. PAI is an essential source of battlefield intelligence and operational assessment. And, as battlefields become increasingly digitized, the importance of PAI to military operations is likely to grow.

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Is a recession coming? Here's what JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and other banks and economists say

Catherine Arnst

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Like the gyrations in the stock market, economists have gone back and forth on recession predictions. A year or so ago there was a broad consensus among experts that there would be a recession in 2024 — but it never materialized. By this year, amid strong a strong job market and cooling inflation, such talk had died down.

Then President Donald Trump ignited a trade war, and the recession talk roared back, louder than ever. Ever since Trump first announced earlier this month that he would raise tariffs on almost every country in the world, more and more expert voices have joined the recession chorus.

Morgan Stanley (MS) places the odds of a recession this year at 40%, Goldman Sachs (GS) thinks the likelihood is 45%, and the cautious International Monetary Fund puts the chance of a U.S. recession at 40%, up from 25% last October.

There’s more. JPMorgan Chase (JPM) has said the chance of a recession this year is 65%, renowned Wall Street economist David Rosenberg thinks the odds are as high as 85%, and Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management (APO), calculates the chances of what he calls a “voluntary trade reset recession” at an almost certain 90%. Ray Dalio, the billionaire hedge fund manager of Bridgewater Associates, said recently that he’s worried about “something worse than a recession” because of the trade war.

Spain and Portugal power outage: what caused it, and was there a cyber-attack?

Jasper Jolly

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Spain, Portugal and some of south-west France suffered a massive power cut on Monday, with major cities including Madrid, Barcelona and Lisbon among those affected.

Houses, offices, trains, traffic lights and even the Madrid Open tennis tournament were all hit, causing chaos for millions of people and prompting a scramble by the Spanish and Portuguese governments and network operators to understand the problem and race to fix it.

What happened?

Red Eléctrica de España (REE), Spain’s electric network, said Spain and Portugal were hit by “el cero” – the zero. Its Portuguese counterpart, Redes Energéticas Nacionais (REN), said the outage started at 11.33am western European summer time.

By mid-afternoon the Spanish operator, which is partly state-owned, said it had started to recover voltage in the north, south and west of the Iberian peninsula. The recovery process could only be carried out gradually, to avoid overloading parts of the grid as each generator connects.

Endesa, Spain’s largest energy utility with 10 million customers, and Iberdrola, the second largest provider, said they were working with REE in accordance with established protocols.

The Rise of a New Axis: Great Power Struggle and the Future of Conflict

Dr. Peppino DeBiaso

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Introduction

The Trump Administration has taken office during a period of perilous transformation that presages a new era in international security. This new era is unlike anything the United States has encountered since perhaps the period leading up to the Second World War. Its most prominent feature is the growing collaboration and coordination among revisionist and belligerent autocratic nations. They are building more lethal militaries while fueling crises and conflicts across Europe, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific. To a large degree, these regimes are aligned in their opposition to the United States and the post-World War II security order established in the wake of American leadership.

China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran are pursuing concerted actions to further a common strategic aim, namely, strengthening each countries’ military capabilities as a means, in the near term, to shift the balance of power in their respective regions, while in the longer term, altering the conditions under which future conflict with the United States and its allies would be waged. If this challenge is to be effectively countered, American political leaders must be clear on the nature of the strategic competition that is underway. While today’s adversaries have varying individual regional interests and goals, they recognize the struggle to forge an alternative order of power can likely be achieved only through an entente that erodes American military preeminence, which is at the core of its freedom of action to deter aggression and prevail in conflict with acceptable risks and costs.

Amid Uncertainty About U.S. Support, Ukraine Pins Its Hopes on Innovation

Andrew E. Kramer

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The Ukrainian soldiers rose in the predawn, stretching, rubbing their eyes and rolling up sleeping bags in a basement hide-out near the front line in the country’s east. Their day would not take them far afield. Most stayed in the basement, working with keyboards and joysticks controlling drones.

At a precarious moment for Ukraine, as the country wobbles between hopes that President Trump’s cease-fire talks will end the war and fears that the United States will withdraw military support, the soldiers were taking part in a Ukrainian Army initiative that Kyiv hopes will allow it to stay in the fight absent American weapons.

Should the peace talks fail, or the United States discontinue arms shipments, the Ukrainian drone initiative is likely to take on more importance. The program doubles down on unmanned systems that are assembled in Ukraine, mostly small exploding drones flown from basement shelters.

On Monday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia added to the many uncertainties in the war by ordering a three-day cease-fire in Ukraine next month, though it is unclear if such a pause would hold, or even start. That announcement followed a week of unabated warfare in Ukraine, including the deadliest attack on Kyiv, the capital, in nearly a year, and of conflicting signals about what would come next from the Trump administration.

BYD is coming for Tesla's lunch

Jackie Snow

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As Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced plans last week to scale back his government work, the relief among investors was palpable. Tesla’s stock jumped despite weak revenue and declining deliveries. But this momentary reprieve masks a deeper existential threat facing Tesla and other American automakers: China’s BYD is coming for their lunch — and showing few signs of slowing down.

While American automakers struggle, BYD is aggressively expanding beyond China with superior technology and impressive sales growth. The Chinese automaker has developed a breakthrough “Super e-Platform” that enables adding 250 miles of range in just five minutes of charging, roughly four times faster than Tesla’s capabilities.

While the sales aren’t quite four times higher, BYD’s growth rate far outpaces Tesla’s. It sold more than 400,000 electric cars, keeping it ahead of Tesla as the world’s top EV brand. The company’s latest financial results are striking: First-quarter revenue jumped 36.35% year-over-year to $23.5 billion, while net profit doubled, increasing by 100.38% to $1.26 billion.

Digital Public Infrastructure Could Make a Better Internet - Analysis

Akash Kapur

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Artificial intelligence may be technology’s hottest topic—more important than electricity or fire, according to Google CEO Sundar Pichai—but another has a plausible claim to second. Digital public infrastructure, or DPI, does not loom as large as AI in the public or policymakers’ consciousness. Yet its recent adoption and impact—quieter, stealthier—are arguably as significant. According to Bill Gates, “DPI is revolutionizing the way entire nations serve their people, respond to crises, and grow their economies.” The United Nations Development Programme describes it as “a potential game-changer.”

Last October, a Global DPI Summit, the first of its kind, attracted more than 700 participants to the outskirts of Cairo; many were developing-world policymakers and entrepreneurs. They were drawn by a technology that has seen rapid uptake in countries as varied as Brazil, India, Ethiopia, Morocco, the Philippines, and Zambia. The spread of DPI has been especially noteworthy in the global south, where there are fears that the advent of AI could leave the region further behind the West in the realm of digital tech. Coming after a long litany of false promises and misapplied technology in the developing world, DPI may represent one of the first successful large-scale interventions to ease poverty, transform government services, and unleash innovation.

What is a cyberattack, and why can they take out power grids?

Maite Knorr-Evans

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Millions of people across France, Portugal, and Spain experienced power outages and mobile service disruptions this morning. The authorities in therestored, although the exact timing for all communities tose countries are seeking to maintain public calm, as such events can lead to widespread panic, especially when it is unclear how long the power or internet will be out.

Luckily, in parts of the Iberian Peninsula and France, electricity is being restored, although the exact timing for all communities to receive power is unknown. The leaders of these countries are expected to provide more details in the coming hours.

What a cyberattack on a power grid looks like

The source of the massive outage is under investigation, with speculation rising that it could have been the result of a cyberattack. If a hacker gains access to the controls of the power grid, they may be able to manipulate it. Any power grid connected to the internet is vulnerable to this type of attack, as a hacker can penetrate the system and remotely control all or part of it. Until the owner of the grid can reestablish control, the hackers can sow chaos by keeping the lights turned off.

Antenna Technology Promotes National Security

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Issue/Challenge

Ships, satellites, aircraft, and ground systems use a variety of critical capabilities—from radar to communications—to adapt to evolving missions and threats. Many emerging platforms are size-constrained, yet require more and more computing capacity. This places greater emphasis on size, weight, power, and cost.

Motivated to protect U.S. interests and best serve the warfighter, MITRE invested our R&D to prototype the technology for a new class of wideband phased array antennas. The Frequency-scaled Ultra-wide Spectrum Element’s (FUSE) lightweight, compact design is ideal for platforms where space and weight are at a premium—without compromising performance or reliability. 

Impact

Today, the FUSE antenna can be found on communication and sensing platforms in the national security community and commercial sector. This patented, R&D World 100 Award-winning technology has become a force multiplier in the spectrum space, with different next-generation technologies being layered under FUSE to deliver even broader impact for the warfighter.

MITRE’s Solution

FUSE, which was co-invented with the Naval Research Laboratory, meets challenging electronic system requirements for military and civilian use at a lower cost. One FUSE phased array can replace multiple individual antennas, enabling multi-band and multi-function systems—including communications, radar, and electronic warfare. The novel antenna aperture design can be 3D-printed, or additively manufactured, making it more cost efficient.

GPS disruption and satellite maneuvers now hallmarks of modern warfare

Sandra Erwin

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Interference with Global Positioning System satellite signals has become a routine feature of military conflict across the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and parts of Asia, according to a new report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The findings signal rising risks for both commercial and military actors in orbit.

CSIS on April 25 released its latest Space Threat Assessment report, outlining trends in so-called “counterspace” activity — efforts by nations to disrupt, degrade or destroy satellites. It identifies Russia and Israel as primary actors in widespread GPS spoofing campaigns tied to ongoing military operations in Ukraine and Gaza.

“The past year mostly witnessed a continuation of the worrisome trends discussed in prior reports,” CSIS said, including sophisticated jamming and spoofing, more advanced satellite maneuvering, and mounting threats to commercial space systems used by governments.

GPS spoofing — where false signals are broadcast to mislead navigation systems — has been widely reported in areas near conflict zones, disrupting civilian and military operations alike. The tactic, once rare, is now a normalized tool of hybrid warfare.

Understanding Hybrid Warfare: Great Power Competition and Conflict in the New Era

Tony Balasevicius

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INTRODUCTION TO PART 1

Continuing events and increasing instability in the world seem to indicate that the established international order is in transition, if not under attack. Russian military operations in Ukraine, as well as its gray zone operations in Europe and Scandinavia; Chinese operations in the South China Sea, Taiwan and around the globe; Iran and its proxy forces’ actions in the Middle East; North Korean troops fighting on behalf of the Russians are all examples of a disintegrating global order of things. Quite simply, the strategic environment is shifting from the unipolar system based on American dominance, to a multi-polar world where peer and near-peer adversaries are asserting their influence and attempting to challenge the existing rules-based international order in the pursuit of their own national interest.

Not only are these nations becoming increasingly assertive on the world stage, they are beginning to display capabilities and performance levels that have the potential to undermine Western military and technological superiority. Moreover, they have shown abilities to limit or prevent short term access to important emerging capabilities such as space, cyberspace, and the electromagnetic spectrum.1