Indian Strategic Studies: 05/19/25

19 May 2025

Strategic Folly? Why India and Pakistan Should Not Go to War

Arsalan Bilal

India and Pakistan have little strategic incentive to go to war, while the cost of going to war is overwhelmingly high for each side.

India and Pakistan have de-escalated a near-war crisis after their militaries struck each other for days. As I previously explained in an article published on Small Wars Journal, the crisis unfolded with India targeting multiple sites inside Pakistan, following a Kashmir attack that New Delhi blamed on Islamabad. Pakistan responded fiercely by targeting Indian military installations, bringing the two countries close to a nuclear catastrophe. A ceasefire announced by U.S. President Trump has averted a full-scale war for now, but the risks of committing strategic folly in the future loom large.

India and Pakistan, considered arch-rivals in the South Asian region, have fought four wars since their independence in 1947. They have frequently experienced crises marked by bilateral tensions flaring up to the point where war seemed a stone’s throw away. But are there concrete reasons for India and Pakistan to go to war? I contend not. The dramatic de-escalation following the latest military confrontation underlines an idea often forgotten amid jingoism and tactical brinkmanship: India and Pakistan have little strategic incentive to go to war, while the cost of going to war is overwhelmingly high for each side.

I will explain in this article that the risks of a catastrophe are too high for a war to be fought between the two sides, primarily because of nuclear weapons and security dilemmas that heighten the chances of their use. Such a catastrophe will not be confined to one state. A full-scale war will be costly for both and can potentially destroy them. As the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation indicates, even a small nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan could kill 20 million people within a week. The total casualties are likely to be much higher, with 50 to 125 million potentially dying and millions getting injured, as another study estimates. A nuclear winter could be created, due to which around two billion people could die of starvation. One can assume that in case nuclear weapons are used, the devastation will not be local but also regional and even global.

India-Pakistan Cease-Fire Cements a Dangerous Baseline

Sushant Singh

In the summer of 1999, Indian and Pakistani troops clashed in the heights of Kargil district in Indian-administered Kashmir. After Pakistani forces occupied Indian positions across the contested border, known as the Line of Control (LoC), India launched military operations to reclaim the posts—leading to two months of intense fighting in which more than 520 Indian soldiers and an estimated 2,000 to 4,000 Pakistani soldiers died.

U.S. President Bill Clinton ultimately brokered a tense withdrawal that restored a fragile calm along the LoC. For more than two decades, that uneasy peace was punctuated by sporadic skirmishes, but India and Pakistan have avoided outright war.

How Modi and Trump Treat Billionaires Differently

James Crabtree

An illustration shows Indian currency with Narendra Modi at center and billionaires Mukesh Ambani (left) and Gautam Adani (right).

In April 2024, Elon Musk was scheduled to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India and announce a multibillion-dollar Tesla factory investment. Instead, he canceled at the last minute and flew to China. Musk’s switch earned him a barrage of aggrieved Indian headlines. But even before his emergence as a force in Donald Trump’s second administration, the incident also served to underline Musk’s unusual role as a prized ambassador to the emerging industrial giants of Asia.

Musk embodies much of what India wants from its ties with the United States: the prospect of major investment, valuable technology transfer, and now a direct back channel to the White House. But viewed in a different way, India, with its system of close connections between billionaire industrialists and political power brokers, offers a means to understand an emerging U.S. economic model, in which tycoons such as Musk act as handmaidens of industrial policy but also conduits of political power.

How China–India relations will shape Asia and the global order

Dr Chietigj Bajpaee

The China–US relationship is widely regarded as the defining geopolitical issue of the 21st century. But relations between China and India arguably hold greater long-term significance for the future of Asia and the global order.

These two nations are the world’s most populous, together accounting for almost 40 per cent of the global population. China is the world’s second largest economy, with India currently the fifth largest – and soon to be the third largest. Yet, despite their rise having important consequences for the future of global governance, China–India relations are poorly understood outside of those countries.

Tensions over a long-standing and unresolved territorial dispute play a significant role in the relationship. But this border dispute is merely a symptom of a much broader and deeper geopolitical rivalry. Both China and India view themselves as civilizational states and their growing prominence is introducing new areas of competition, from geo-economics to differing positions on global issues such as the green energy transition.

As Western policymakers increasingly see a rising India as a counterweight to China, a clearer understanding of the two countries and their interactions is essential. This research paper explores the main factors behind the relationship between China and India, and challenges several misconceptions about its nature.

Kashmir: the new rallying point for global Islamism

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

India and Pakistan launched a series of lethal missile attacks against one another last week. Fighting broke out after New Delhi blamed Islamabad for a jihadist assault in Kashmir last month, in which 26 non-Muslim tourists were killed. A ceasefire was announced by US president Donald Trump this week, which was welcome news after reports the administration received ‘alarming intelligence’ regarding a possible escalation in the conflict.

When the ceasefire was declared, both sides were able to celebrate a victory from the skirmishes – India for eliminating scores of terrorist camps, and Pakistan for downing Indian jets and defending its territory. The world celebrated the ceasefire, too. What could have been a catastrophic war between two nuclear powers has been, at least temporarily, averted. Yet even as fighting has subsided, one certain outcome of these clashes is that the world will pay more attention to the troubled region of Kashmir.

Kashmir, which is claimed by both India and Pakistan, was the battleground for much of last week. Early reports suggest that as many as 50 Kashmiri civilians died as a result of shelling across the line of control, which was established after the 1971 India-Pakistan war. Since 1947, the Muslim-majority region has been the casus belli of four wars (excluding last week’s clashes). The dispute has caused countless suffering and lives lost.

Last month’s attack on non-Muslim tourists was an eerie reenactment of the violence that plagued Kashmir in the early 1990s, when Islamist attacks caused the mass exodus of the region’s Hindu population. India has always held Pakistan responsible for the bloodshed, claiming that Islamic groups are harboured, or at least ignored, by Pakistan’s powerful military.

Kashmir has since become one of the most heavily militarised regions on Earth, with as many as an estimated 750,000 Indian troops alone regularly deployed there at any one time. Indian forces have been accused of serious human-rights violations, from the use of excessive force against protesters to enforced disappearances.

How America Can Keep the Peace Between India and Pakistan

Lisa Curtis

When U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted, on May 10, that India and Pakistan had agreed to a cease-fire, the world breathed a sigh of relief. The two nuclear-armed neighbors had teetered perilously close to all-out war as they fired missiles and drone strikes at each other’s military installations and religious sites over the previous three days. The stakes grew especially high after the Indian military hit Pakistan’s Nur Khan air base, close to the country’s nuclear command forces. It was an attack that could have provoked uncontrolled escalation—and that pushed Washington to intervene even after senior

CCP Aggression Against Taiwan

In the last 6 months, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has increased its aggressive actions targeting Taiwan. These include military provocations, infiltration operations, and gray zone activities. In his 2024 New Year’s Eve address, PRC President Xi Jinping reiterated the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ambitions for national unification, saying, “As compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family, no one can sever our bloodline affinity, and no one can block the historical momentum of the unification of the motherland.”

The PRC is taking a full-spectrum approach to intimidate Taiwan. On the military front, there have been increased incursions across the median line and a series of full-scale drills. Espionage activities include infiltrating Taiwanese media outlets, attempting to influence Taiwanese public opinion using united front activities, and stealing intellectual property to break Taiwan’s “silicon shield.” The PRC hopes these activities weaken Taiwanese citizens’ and government officials’ confidence in its national security apparatus, creating vulnerabilities to make a forceful reunification attempt easier.

Taiwan is bolstering its whole-of-society resilience drills in response. In March 2025, Taiwan’s president Lai Ching-te gave a speech in which he introduced a 17-point national security initiative to address the CCP infiltration methods, raise public awareness, and tell the world that Taiwan will counter the PRC’s influence operations. Shortly thereafterafter, Taiwan conducted its first resilience drill, involving 1,500 participants and testing evacuations, emergency responses, and civilian coordination. Readiness remains an ongoing struggle, however, in the face of steadily increasing PRC coercion.

Another South China Sea? Beijing’s Yellow Sea Tactics Make South Korea Nervous

Michael Peck

China’s Encroachment In the Yellow Sea Is Making South Korea Nervous: As if tensions aren’t already running high between China and its neighbors, Beijing is provoking yet another crisis. China is building structures in the middle of the Yellow Sea, in a bid to assert sovereignty over waters that are also claimed by South Korea.

South China Sea 2.0 in the Yellow Sea?

Now South Korea may respond in kind by building its own structures in the Yellow Sea. Seoul fears that China will use these structures as springboards to claim control over surrounding waters. China has been accused of using this tactic in the South China Sea to claim Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines. Though Scarborough has not escalated into armed conflict, China’s coast guard has repeatedly harassed a Philippine garrison there.

Located between China to the west, and North and South Korea to the east, the Yellow Sea offers rich fishing grounds at a time when nations are sensitive to food security. It also has oil and gas deposits valuable for energy-hungry China and South Korea.

Despite South Korean protests, China has built three steel structures in the Yellow Sea in 2024, with the latest being spotted by South Korean spy satellites in December. The newest structure is a “mobile steel framework exceeding 50 meters [164 feet] in diameter and height,” according to South Korean media.

China also appears to have emplaced an old oil rig in the Yellow Sea in 2022, South Korean intelligence believes. The rig has been converted into a floating hotel with a helipad as well as accommodations for 70 people.

“China has reportedly described the structures as ‘fishing support facilities,’ dismissing concerns,” South Korea’s Chosun Daily newspaper noted in January 2025. “However, experts warn that continued installations could enable Beijing to assert territorial claims over the area. South Korean officials believe China plans to install up to 12 such structures.”

Designed in US, made in China: Why Apple is stuck

Annabelle Liang

To leave or not to leave? China, home to more than a billion consumers, is Apple's second-largest market

Every iPhone comes with a label which tells you it was designed in California.

While the sleek rectangle that runs many of our lives is indeed designed in the United States, it is likely to have come to life thousands of miles away in China: the country hit hardest by US President Donald Trump's tariffs, now rising to 245% on some Chinese imports.

Apple sells more than 220 million iPhones a year and by most estimates, nine in 10 are made in China. From the glossy screens to the battery packs, it's here that many of the components in an Apple product are made, sourced and assembled into iPhones, iPads or Macbooks. Most are shipped to the US, Apple's largest market.

But the comfort is short-lived.

The president has since suggested that more tariffs are coming: "NOBODY is getting 'off the hook'," he wrote on Truth Social, as his administration investigated "semiconductors and the WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN".

The global supply chain that Apple has touted as a strength is now a vulnerability.

The US and China, the world's two biggest economies, are interdependent and Trump's staggering tariffs have upended that relationship overnight, leading to an inevitable question: who is the more dependent of the two?

The Risk of War in the Taiwan Strait Is High—and Getting Higher

Bonny Lin, John Culver, and Brian Hart

Tensions in the Taiwan Strait are growing. Even before Taiwan elected William Lai as its president, in January 2024, China voiced strong opposition to him, calling him a “separatist” and an “instigator of war.” In recent months, Beijing has ramped up its broadsides: in mid-March, the spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office labeled Lai a “destroyer of cross-Straits peace” and accused him of pushing Taiwan toward “the perilous brink of war.” Two weeks later, as Beijing launched a large-scale military exercise around Taiwan, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) circulated cartoon images that portrayed Lai as an insect. One image depicted a pair of chopsticks picking the “parasite” Lai out of a burning Taiwan.

This effort to dehumanize Lai reflects Beijing’s deep anxiety about the trajectory of cross-strait relations, particularly what China views as Lai’s desire to push Taiwan toward independence. Compared with his predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen, Lai has taken a stronger and more defiant stance in the face of growing Chinese threats to the island, as evident in his rhetoric and new policy measures. This March, Lai characterized Beijing as a “hostile foreign force” and announced a plan to implement 17 wide-ranging strategies to defend the island from Chinese infiltration.

China’s vilification of Lai echoes Beijing’s denunciations, roughly two decades ago, of Chen Shui-bian, then president of Taiwan. Beijing labeled Chen a “die-hard separatist” and “a troublemaker” who “is riding near the edge of the cliff, and there is no sign that he is going to rein in his horse.” Beijing escalated external pressure against Chen and worked with opposition parties within Taiwan to frustrate his political agenda. China did come dangerously close to using military force against the island in 2008 and might have gone through with it if Chen had been more successful in winning Taiwan’s public support for his referendum.

Turkish vs. Israeli Jets Over Syria: The Middle East Has A New Crisis Brewing

Ted Galen Carpenter

Turkey and Israel Collide in Syria: Both Turkey and Israel have been on a short list of Washington’s closest allies for decades.

With Washington’s enthusiastic support, NATO made Turkey a member in 1952. US leaders regarded the country as the essential guardian of the Alliance’s southeastern flank during both the Cold War and post-Cold War eras. The United States and Israel have had a “special relationship” since the latter’s creation in 1948, and their foreign policy objectives have become ever closer over the decades. Washington has given Israel access to many of the most sophisticated weapons in the US arsenal.

Tensions Among Allies

However, tensions between America’s two close allies are rising, especially as they pursue directly conflicting objectives in Syria. In December 2024, a primarily Islamist rebel coalition led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) toppled Bashar al-Assad, whose family had ruled Syria for five decades.

Writing in Foreign Affairs, Middle East scholars David Makovsky and Simone Sandmehr note that HTS’s leader, Ahmed al-Shara, has taken charge of Syria, and foreign powers hope to steer his behavior. “Two of the country’s neighbors, Israel and Turkey, have taken advantage of the power vacuum by establishing a presence there—and have already begun to butt heads.” Makovsky and Sandmehr said, “Turkey has emerged as the dominant military power in Syria. Since 2019, HTS has held Idlib in Syria’s northwest, and for years, Ankara indirectly assisted it by operating a buffer zone in northern Syria that protected the group from Assad’s forces. Now Turkey wants even more influence in Syria.”

Unfortunately, Israel also wants more influence in Syria and does not trust that Ankara won’t exploit the power vacuum to support a new wave of Islamic militants under Ankara’s control. Makovsky and Sandmehr conclude that “Israeli leaders viewed Assad’s ouster as a strategic windfall and are racing to take advantage of his removal by establishing buffer zones and informal spheres of influence in southern Syria. Israel is particularly concerned by Turkey’s presence in the country because it fears that Ankara will encourage Syria to harbor anti-Israeli militants.”

PRC and Russia Operationalize Strategic Partnership

Matthew Johnson

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Russia advanced operational bloc-building at their May 2025 summit, issuing dense agreements and three joint statements that laid out a shared strategic vision across defense, technology, law, and multilateral governance. The summit marked a shift from symbolic reaffirmation to functional coordination, particularly in sectors under U.S. scrutiny, including artificial intelligence, energy, cross-border payments, and legal standards for international order.

The joint statements portrayed the PRC-Russia partnership as a normative response to U.S. hegemony, invoking World War II memory, defending sovereign development rights, and opposing Western-led institutions and coercive measures. While framed as defensive, the alignment reflects a deeper ideological and structural commitment to constructing parallel systems in trade, security, and information governance.

This strategy will be tested in the months ahead, with Beijing expected to use the BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summits to deepen bloc architecture, promote renminbi-based financial integration, and push regional security initiatives.

Underlying asymmetries, geopolitical caution, and competing interests—particularly in Central Asia and the Arctic—may constrain how far this convergence extends beyond coordinated rhetoric.

The May 8 summit in Moscow between People’s Republic of China (PRC) President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin marked a forward step in strategic convergence between their two countries. The meeting produced a detailed joint statement and over 20 new cooperation agreements across the energy, finance, and digital infrastructure sectors, as well as on multilateral coordination. Framed around World War II commemorations, the summit outlined practical mechanisms for tighter alignment, particularly in high-impact sectors subject to U.S. scrutiny, such as artificial intelligence (AI), biosecurity, and cross-border payments.

Kazakhstan Faces Oil Export Challenges Amid Russia’s War Against Ukraine

John C. K. Daly

Ukraine has escalated its campaign against Russian energy targets, striking the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s (CPC) Kropotkinskaia oil pumping station (OPS) in February.

The CPC pipeline is Kazakhstan’s primary export route, handling 80 percent of its crude oil, and the strike on the Kropotkinskaia OPS and shutdowns of key moorings reduced export capacity by half

The risks to Kazakhstan’s oil exports have led Astana to intensify its search for alternative oil export routes, such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, to reduce reliance on Russian infrastructure.

In response to Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, Kyiv has broadened its counterattacks to hit Russian energy facilities, including one involving U.S. and European investments—the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC). On February 17, Ukraine launched a seven-drone attack on the CPC’s Kropotkinskaia oil pumping station (OPS) in Iuzhnaia Ozereevka, Krasnodar Krai, near Novorossiisk (Kommersant, February 17; CPC, February 18). According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, its air defense systems repelled a second Ukrainian drone strike intended for the Kropotkinskaia OPS on March 24 (Kuban 24, March 24). This is not the first time the CPC was hit, with a marine terminal in Novorosiisk having been targeted in August 2023 (see EDM, August 18, September 14, 2023).

The 1,511-kilometer (940-mile) CPC pipeline between Tengiz and Novorossiisk transports oil from Kazakhstan’s Caspian offshore Kashagan and onshore Karachaganak field in northwest Kazakhstan and Russian crude to the maritime terminal in Novorossiisk. The system is the main export route for Kazakh oil. In 2024, over 63 million tons of oil were pumped through the Kropotkinskaia OPS, about 90 percent of which came from Kazakhstan (CPC, February 18).

Trump’s Brain Drain Will Be Europe’s Gain

Daniel B. Baer

French President Emmanuel Macron hosted a conference at Sorbonne University in early May aimed at attracting U.S. scientists to France. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gave him an assist, announcing a two-year, 500 million euro ($556 million) effort to support U.S. scientists moving to Europe. It’s a smart start, but Europe should go bigger—much bigger—to take advantage of the Trump administration’s monumental own goal of attacking the U.S. scientific, technical, and broader academic research communities just as global competition around cutting-edge innovation accelerates.

While cozying up to Russia, starting a global trade war, and threatening to annex the United States’ closest neighbor have gotten more attention, among U.S. President Donald Trump’s most consequential actions for the United States’ long term international power has been the assault on science at home. By slashing federal funding for basic research, mounting attacks against universities, and sowing chaos in the visa system for foreign students, Trump has undermined one of the United States’ most important strategic advantages: the best basic research ecosystem in the world, one that drives U.S. commercial innovation and competitive success.

Trump’s Mistaken Belief That What Happens Elsewhere Isn’t Washington’s Concern

Stewart Patrick

Carnegie’s Global Order and Institutions Program identifies promising new multilateral initiatives and frameworks to realize a more peaceful, prosperous, just, and sustainable world. That mission has never been more important, or more challenging. Geopolitical competition, populist nationalism, economic inequality, technological innovation, and a planetary ecological emergency are testing the rules-based international order and complicating collective responses to shared threats. Our mission is to design global solutions to global problems.Learn More

Since World War II, U.S. presidents have believed that the interests and welfare of the United States and its citizens are linked with those of other nations and people. The United States has an abiding interest, as well as a moral obligation, to support international institutions that can advance collective security, promote shared prosperity, address common challenges, and further human dignity worldwide.

President Donald Trump and his supporters dismiss such interdependence as unpatriotic “globalism.” Repudiating any concept of U.S. international leadership of—much less responsibility for—world order, his administration has adopted a nationalist, transactional, and hyper-sovereigntist orientation.

This mindset accounts for two provocative administrative initiatives. The first was a sweeping executive order on February 4 directing Secretary of State Marco Rubio to review all international treaties to which the United States is a party and international organizations of which it is a member and to report back within 180 days with recommendations for withdrawal. The second was the administration’s budget for the 2026 fiscal year, submitted to Congress on May 2. It would slash federal funding for international affairs by almost 84 percent—from $58.7 billion to just $9.6 billion. It does this through massive cuts to U.S. foreign aid and support for international organizations, the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the overhaul of the U.S. Department of State, and the recission of previously appropriated funds.

The thread weaving these twin initiatives together is a mistaken belief that what happens elsewhere is of little concern—and a misplaced confidence that the country has ample national tools and diplomatic leverage to address all transnational threats on its own, or bilaterally.

Strategic Snapshot: Global Competition in Critical Minerals and Rare Earth Elements

On May 1, Ukraine and the United States signed a long-anticipated minerals deal providing the United States with preferential rights to mineral extraction in Ukraine. The agreement creates a U.S.-controlled, jointly-managed investment fund that will receive revenues from new projects in critical minerals, oil, and natural gas. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy explains that the new deal allows “both Ukraine and the United States, which supports us in our defense, to make money in partnership” as Ukraine continues to defend itself against Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The agreement comes as the global critical minerals market remains highly competitive, with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Russia currently leading in mineral processing infrastructure and capabilities. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that by 2030, nearly 50 percent of the market value from critical minerals refining will be concentrated in the PRC. IEA further assesses that by 2030, over 90 percent of battery-grade graphite and 77 percent of refined rare earths will originate from the PRC. In 2022, Russia was the source of 40 percent of global uranium enrichment. In 2024, approximately 35 percent of U.S. uranium imports (used for nuclear fuel) came from Russia.

Jamestown analysts have been assessing international competition and capabilities in critical minerals and rare earth elements for years. Our experts provide open-source analysis grounded in local language sources to help Americans understand their adversaries and allies in their own words and in their own terms.

Executive Summary:Kazakhstan is positioning itself as a strategic hub for critical minerals, leveraging its vast reserves of copper, zinc, lead, and nickel to attract foreign investment and diversify economic partnerships amid growing global demand and geopolitical competition.

Deepening cooperation with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is bringing Kazakhstan technical and economic benefits, including job creation, technology transfer, and new export channels.

Cooperation with the PRC in Kazakhstan’s critical mineral industry is raising concerns over economic dependency and limited control over strategic resources.

Kazakhstan aims to balance PRC involvement by actively pursuing partnerships with the United States, European Union, and Japan, while incorporating local content and knowledge transfer into future agreements.

The Congo, the Cold War, and Capitol Hill

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele

From Cold War dynamics to legislative debates, U.S. foreign policy toward Africa has been shaped by complex historical, political, and institutional factors. In his memoir From the Congo to Capitol Hill, Steve Weissman recounts his experiences as a young professor in the Congo and later as a congressional staffer engaged in foreign policy and human rights advocacy.

In this episode, Mvemba is joined by Steve Weissman, longtime foreign policy and campaign finance analyst. Together, they examine how Cold War dynamics shaped U.S.-Africa relations, the challenges of holding authoritarian regimes accountable, and the role of Congress in crafting principled foreign policy.

Putin’s New Hermit Kingdom

Andrei Yakovlev, Vladimir Dubrovskiy and Yuri Danilov

Since he returned to office in January, U.S. President Donald Trump’s aggressive outreach to Russia has marked a stark shift in U.S. foreign policy. Ending years of isolation of the Kremlin, the Trump administration has offered numerous concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin, raising hopes among some Western observers that the United States might be able to bring about an end to the war in Ukraine after more than three years of fighting. So far, although Russia has shown an interest in engaging with Trump, there is little indication that it is prepared to wind down

Understanding Trump: a new doctrine for foreign policy without nuisance

Ralph Schoellhammer

For over a hundred days, every pundit and columnist has tried to decipher Donald Trump’s foreign policy strategy.

After sifting through the reports and the presidential social media posts, I think I have finally figured it out.

Hs presidency is less the no-nonsense approach his supporters hoped for and his critics feared–but an entirely new approach, one I would call the “no-nuisance doctrine”.

Contrary to past leaders, Donald Trump is not a dedicated ideologue who has chained himself to a specific worldview. “Make America Great Again” is both short and substantive — making the deals that benefit the US, while ensuring that the rest of the world does not get in the way.

Even his opposition to China is not really ideologically motivated. His administration views Beijing as the main cause of the decline in US manufacturing and the hollowing out of the country’s manufacturing base.

That observation is not entirely without merit: According to the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, China accounted for 6 per cent of all manufactured goods in the year 2000. But by 2030, that figure is projected to rise to 45 per cent.

Washington does not want to see this trend continue. But Trump would nonetheless be willing to cut a deal with the Chinese, if it ensures more production in the United States.

UK needs more nuclear to power AI, says Amazon boss

Simon Jack

Matt Garman says nuclear power is a "great solution" to data centres' energy needs

The UK needs more nuclear energy to power the data centres needed for artificial intelligence (AI), the boss of the world's largest cloud computing company has said.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), which is part of the retail giant Amazon, plans to spend £8bn on new data centres in the UK over the next four years.

A data centre is a warehouse filled with computers that remotely power services such as AI, data processing, and streaming, but a single one can use the same amount of energy as a small town.

Matt Garman, chief executive of AWS, told the BBC nuclear is a "great solution" to data centres' energy needs as "an excellent source of zero carbon, 24/7 power".

AWS is the single largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world and has funded more than 40 renewable solar and wind farm projects in the UK.

The UK's 500 data centres currently consume 2.5% of all electricity in the UK, while Ireland's 80 hoover up 21% of the country's total power, with those numbers projected to hit 6% and 30% respectively by 2030.

The body that runs the UK's power grid estimates that by 2050 data centres alone will use nearly as much energy as all industrial users consume today.

In an exclusive interview with the BBC, Matt Garman said that future energy needs were central to AWS planning process.

How the Houthis Outlasted America

April Longley Alley

After seven and a half weeks of heavy airstrikes on more than 1,000 separate targets, the Trump administration’s bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen ended as abruptly as it began. On May 6, in an Oval Office meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, President Donald Trump simply announced that the Iranian-backed Houthis “don’t want to fight any more” and that the United States would “accept their word” and “stop the bombings.” Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad al Busaidi confirmed on X that his country had brokered a cease-fire agreement between Washington and the Houthis, in which

The Technopolar Paradox

Ian Bremmer

In February 2022, as Russian forces advanced on Kyiv, Ukraine’s government faced a critical vulnerability: with its Internet and communication networks under attack, its troops and leaders would soon be in the dark. Elon Musk—the de facto head of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), xAI, the Boring Company, and Neuralink—stepped in. Within days, SpaceX had deployed thousands of Starlink terminals to Ukraine and activated satellite Internet service at no cost. Having kept the country online, Musk was hailed as a hero.

But the centibillionaire’s personal intervention—and Kyiv’s reliance on it—came with risks. Months later,

Dominating Conflict’s Leading Edge: Five Principles for an Assertive Irregular Warfare Doctrine

Brandon Kirch

Over the course of one week in late October, North Korean troops appeared in Ukraine, Israel launched retaliatory air strikes against Iran, and news broke that Russia provided targeting data to the Houthis in support of their effort to disrupt global shipping. These events occurred less than a month after Israel invaded Lebanon, and only two weeks before a US presidential election. More recently, Syria’s Assad Regime collapsed entirely and was replaced by a new government rife with terrorist affiliations. As a tepid ceasefire in Lebanon approaches its expiration date, the time and space between international escalation cycles is decreasing. The Trump administration has taken office amidst a volatile geopolitical environment that will likely demand a majority of their bandwidth for the term’s first 100 days, if not longer. A layered irregular warfare strategy will be essential if the US wishes to avoid further destabilization and reverse the ever-increasing risk of direct involvement in a broader war. Though specifics will depend on the events which unfold during the term, here are five principles that should be applied to develop an irregular warfare (IW) strategy to manage the gray zone’s current challenges.

1) Accept Risk

The cult of de-escalation has demonstrated itself to be unfounded, particularly since the outbreak of conflict in Ukraine and Israel. Likewise, it is not escalatory to match activity an adversary is already conducting. If effective deterrence requires capability and credibility, then concerns about escalation or “triggering World War III,” even when dealing with proxy forces, have so far only served to undermine the “credibility” half of that formula. Ongoing Houthi harassment of global shipping lanes and attacks against Israel, for example, warrant an offensive response targeting leadership and command and control, as opposed to reactive strikes against replaceable weapon systems. As nefarious geopolitical actors move with increasing boldness in the gray zone, the US must be able to counter with even stouter strategic momentum.

Managing AI's Economic Future

Tobias Sytsma

How can policymakers effectively manage automation policy to maintain or accelerate economic growth while mitigating wealth distribution inequality in an era characterized by rapidly advancing artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities? This question takes on heightened urgency within the context of global technological competition, particularly between the United States and China, in which competitive dynamics may precipitate rapid AI deployment throughout the economy before coherent policies can be formulated.

In this report, the author confronts AI's economic uncertainty through robust decisionmaking analysis of thousands of potential futures. An economic model is developed that distinguishes between horizontal automation (displacing human labor) and vertical automation (enhancing existing automated processes) while endogenizing policy choices through variable automation incentives.

The methodology simulates outcomes across thousands of scenarios for 81 unique policy packages of automation incentives and disincentives, systematically varying key uncertain parameters, including automation rates, productivity improvements, and the degree of complementarity between tasks in production. By exploring this extensive parameter space, the analysis identifies which policy approaches perform robustly across a wide variety of potential futures rather than optimizing for a single forecast.

Policy performance is evaluated through multiple complementary metrics, including compound annual growth rates of income and inequality, policy regret (measuring opportunity costs relative to optimal choices), and robustness (the probability of achieving desired outcomes across scenarios). Threshold effects and critical parameter values that determine policy success under different objectives are identified.

Weaponizing the Electromagnetic Spectrum: The PRC’s High-powered Microwave Warfare Ambitions

Tin Pak and Yu-cheng Chen

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is rapidly expanding its arsenal of high-power microwave (HPM) weapons as part of its broader strategy to achieve dominance in the electromagnetic spectrum. Recent breakthroughs—including the deployment of mobile-platform HPM systems—signal the PLA’s intent to integrate these capabilities into its asymmetric warfare toolkit, enabling disruption of adversary electronic systems.

HPM development in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is closely linked to its evolving doctrine of “cyber-electromagnetic space” warfare. The PLA’s emphasis on informatized warfare highlights HPM weapons as a bridge between kinetic and non-kinetic operations, targeting adversaries’ command, control, and communication infrastructure.

Strategic lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war and the PLA’s own military modernization agenda suggest that HPM capabilities could play a decisive role in future conflicts, including a Taiwan contingency. The PLA is likely to synchronize HPM strikes with cyberattacks to paralyze critical infrastructure, enabling rapid battlefield advantage. This trajectory poses new challenges for the U.S. and its regional allies seeking to protect their C4ISR networks against electronic disruption.

The PRC broke new ground in its high-powered microwave (HPM) technology this past year. At the Zhuhai Air Show in November 2024—a biennial expo that is a major platform for showcasing advances in the aerospace industry–the PLA showcased at least three novel HPM ground-based weapons. These reportedly included the newly designed anti-drone Hurricane 2000 and Hurricane 3000 model HPMs (Foreign Military Studies Office, February 26). The third HPM system was the FK-4000, an anti-drone platform capable of precision single-point attacks and intercepting drone swarms, according to its designer, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) (CASC, November 12, 2024). These new weapon systems build upon rapid improvements in HPM industrial-programming software and the development of mobile-platform HPM systems.