The India-Pakistan Clashes of 2025: Why Things Are Different (And More Dangerous) This Time

Ankit Panda and Catherine Putz

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The Diplomat’s Asia Geopolitics podcast hosts Ankit Panda (@nktpnd) and Katie Putz (@LadyPutz) discuss the outbreak of violence between India and Pakistan and the scope for escalation in South Asia.

If you’re an iOS or Mac user, you can also subscribe to The Diplomat’s Asia Geopolitics podcast on iTunes here; if you use Windows or Android, you can subscribe on Google Play here, or on Spotify here.

If you like the podcast and have suggestions for content, please leave a review and rating on iTunes and TuneIn. You can contact the host, Ankit Panda, here.

US Narratives Versus Reality on Taiwan

Zhehao Du

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As Sino-US relations deteriorate, the Taiwan question has become an increasingly dangerous flashpoint—one that some analysts believe could even spark a third world war. The dominant, US-led, Western narrative casts the “Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis” as the product of mainland China’s expanding military power and alleged “authoritarian turn,” illustrated by its handling of Hong Kong and its purportedly coercive posture toward Taiwan. Within this frame, a mainland “invasion” is treated as the logical, almost inevitable outcome of Sino-US rivalry. Conversely, Taiwan is depicted as a lone democracy bravely resisting authoritarian menace, its own cross-Strait policy largely ignored; Taipei appears merely a passive target. Paradoxically, although Western discourse often presents Taiwan as an “independent state,” it simultaneously strips Taiwan of agency—even though Taipei’s policy choices decisively shape cross-Strait stability.

Before analysing the triangular dynamics among the United States, mainland China, and Taiwan, the historical character of the dispute must be clarified. Contrary to the prevailing US portrayal of a major power seeking to invade a small, independent neighbour, post-war instruments—the Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Declaration and the Hirohito surrender broadcast—restored sovereignty over Taiwan to China. After Japan’s defeat, the Chinese Civil War resumed; the Kuomintang-led Republic of China retreated to Taiwan following its defeat by the Chinese Communist Party. Because no peace treaty has ever been signed, the two sides remain, de jure, in a state of civil war.

Regarding Taiwan’s legal status, both the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People’s Republic of China constitutions claim sovereignty over the whole of China, encompassing both Taiwan and the mainland. The United Nations designates Taiwan as “a province of China,” and the 2016 South China Sea arbitral award referred to its administration as the “Taiwan Authority of China Taiwan Authority of China.” Globally, 180 states maintain diplomatic relations with the PRC: some accept the One-China Principle (explicitly recognising PRC sovereignty over Taiwan), while others, notably the United States, adopt a more ambiguous One-China Policy—acknowledging Beijing’s claim without formally recognising it and opposing formal Taiwanese independence.

As China targets Taiwan's undersea cables, some locals fear 'grey zone' warfare

Kathleen Calderwood, Xin-yun Wu, Fletcher Yeung and Jonah Khu on Penghu Island

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At the Port of Anping in Tainan, Taiwan's ancient capital, a large cargo ship named Hong Tai 58 sits decaying and riddled with rust.

Once ruled by a pirate warlord named Koxinga, who drove out Dutch colonists in the 1662 siege of Fort Zeelandia, Tainan is now where this crumbling vessel and its captain have been detained since February.

One of the ship's anchors is missing, likely left lying on the seabed about 10 kilometres west.

There, it's alleged the captain instructed his sailors to zigzag over the top of Taiwan-Penghu No. 3 communications cable, which connects the 100,000 residents of the outlying Penghu Islands to the rest of Taiwan and the world.

There are 24 of these vital arteries which connect Taiwan to the beating heart of the modern world — the internet — and China has been accused of sabotaging several, including two just this year.

Even though the Chinese Communist Party has never ruled Taiwan, Beijing has labelled what it calls "reunification" as essential to the full rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Chairman Xi Jinping has been increasingly strident in his statements, refusing to rule out the use of force to seize Taiwan.

In 2023, the severing of two cables connecting the Matsu Islands, which sit close to the Chinese coast, saw their 14,000 residents nearly completely disconnected from the internet for more than a month.

US prepares for long war with China that might hit its bases, homeland: Peter Apps

Peter Apps

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LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - Earlier this month, U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Doug Wickert summoned nearby civic leaders to Edwards Air Force Base in California to warn them that if China attacks Taiwan in the coming years, they should be prepared for their immediate region to suffer potentially massive disruption from the very start.

In a remarkable briefing shared by the base on social media and promoted in a press release, Wickert - one of America's most experienced test pilots now commanding the 412th Test Wing - outlined China's rapid military growth and preparations to fight a major war.

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Cutting-edge U.S. aircraft manufactured in California’s nearby “Aerospace Valley”, particularly the B-21 “Raider” now replacing the 1990s B-2 stealth bomber, were key to keeping Beijing deterred, he said. However, if deterrence failed that meant China’s would likely strike the U.S. including nearby Northrop Grumman factories where those planes were built.

"If this war happens, it's going to happen here," Wickert told them, suggesting attacks could include a cyber offensive that included long-term disruption to power supplies and other national infrastructure. "It's going to come to us. That is why we are having this conversation... The more ready we are, the more likely to change Chairman Xi’s calculus."

Senior U.S. officials have repeatedly briefed that they believe Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered his military to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027, although they say no direct decision appears to have been made yet to order that attack.

As Washington and Beijing square up for that potential fight, their military preparations - now taking place on an industrial scale on both sides in a manner not seen in decades - are themselves becoming a form of posturing and messaging.

US prepares for long war with China that might hit its bases, homeland: Peter Apps

Peter Apps

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LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - Earlier this month, U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Doug Wickert summoned nearby civic leaders to Edwards Air Force Base in California to warn them that if China attacks Taiwan in the coming years, they should be prepared for their immediate region to suffer potentially massive disruption from the very start.

In a remarkable briefing shared by the base on social media and promoted in a press release, Wickert - one of America's most experienced test pilots now commanding the 412th Test Wing - outlined China's rapid military growth and preparations to fight a major war.

The Reuters Tariff Watch newsletter is your daily guide to the latest global trade and tariff news. Sign up here.

Cutting-edge U.S. aircraft manufactured in California’s nearby “Aerospace Valley”, particularly the B-21 “Raider” now replacing the 1990s B-2 stealth bomber, were key to keeping Beijing deterred, he said. However, if deterrence failed that meant China’s would likely strike the U.S. including nearby Northrop Grumman factories where those planes were built.

"If this war happens, it's going to happen here," Wickert told them, suggesting attacks could include a cyber offensive that included long-term disruption to power supplies and other national infrastructure. "It's going to come to us. That is why we are having this conversation... The more ready we are, the more likely to change Chairman Xi’s calculus."

Senior U.S. officials have repeatedly briefed that they believe Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered his military to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027, although they say no direct decision appears to have been made yet to order that attack.

As Washington and Beijing square up for that potential fight, their military preparations - now taking place on an industrial scale on both sides in a manner not seen in decades - are themselves becoming a form of posturing and messaging.

Chinese officials deny they are working on a tight specific timeline. However, Beijing has become increasingly assertive in its sovereignty claims over the island where Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek set up his government in exile after losing the Chinese Civil War in 1949.

The Beiping model: How China could absorb Taiwan without a war

Vincent So

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Much of the current discourse on Taiwan centres around one scenario: war. The prevailing imagery involves amphibious landings, missile strikes, and an Indo-Pacific showdown with global ramifications. Yet the most plausible outcome may be the one least discussed: China could secure Taiwan without firing a shot.

The goal is not to convince Taiwan that reunification is just. It is to persuade it that reunification is unavoidable.

Beijing may already be applying a template that resembles its 1949 takeover of what was then called Peiping (Beijing). Known as the Beiping model, it involved General Fu Zuoyi, commander of the city’s Nationalist forces, negotiating a peaceful surrender to avoid destruction. The Chinese Communist Party took the city intact, quickly cementing its political and symbolic victory. No battle was fought but the war was effectively lost.

This model is increasingly relevant to Taiwan today. It suggests that victory can be achieved not through kinetic escalation but through the slow erosion of political cohesion, economic independence, and societal confidence, all without triggering a Western military response. The signs are already visible.

Political pressure without military escalation

China’s use of grey-zone tactics against Taiwan is well documented. Airspace incursions, cyber attacks, disinformation campaigns, and economic coercion are routine. But their purpose is not purely to destabilise. It is to desensitise, normalise pressure, fragment decision-making, and encourage a sense of inevitability about unification.

What makes this strategy potent is its gradualism. It does not provoke a clear moment of retaliation. There is no single provocation to rally against. Instead, Beijing’s actions invite compromise, delay, and adaptation by Taiwanese elites and international observers. Over time, resistance is not crushed, it is absorbed.

The Trend Shift In China From ‘Exporting’ To ‘Re-Exporting’ – Analysis

Yang Xite

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According to a senior researcher at ANBOUND, China’s foreign trade is currently shifting from an ” export-oriented ” strategy to a ” re-export ” one. This change is driven by the pressure of high U.S. tariffs and the temporary 90-day tariff exemption the U.S. has granted to 75 other countries, before the U.S.-China trade talks in Geneva.

On May 9, China’s General Administration of Customs announced that in April, exports grew by 8.1% year-on-year, down from 12.4% in the previous month. Meanwhile, imports fell by 0.2%, compared to a 4.3% decline previously. The trade surplus stood at USD 96.18 billion, down from USD 102.64 billion. Additionally, China’s direct exports to the U.S. in April plunged 21% year-on-year, with their share dropping to a historic low of 10.5%. In contrast, exports through intermediary markets such as ASEAN and Latin America surged significantly. Notably, exports to ASEAN rose by 20.8% year-on-year to a record high of USD 60.4 billion, accounting for 19.1% of total exports. Re-exports to the U.S. via key hubs like Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia also soared. In terms of maritime shipping, as of the end of April, the number of container ships sailing directly from China to the U.S. had dropped by 33.8% compared to April 9, when reciprocal tariffs were implemented. At the same time, China’s overall exports remained relatively stable. Although both the deadweight tonnage of departing ships from the 20 major ports and the cargo throughput at key monitored ports initially declined after the tariffs took effect, they quickly rebounded, reaching levels higher than before the tariffs were implemented. These data points collectively indicate that Chinese enterprises have clearly engaged in short-term “re-export” activities to mitigate the impact of the tariffs.

Re-export trade is an important form of international trade and a key link in the operation of the global trade system. It plays a unique role in optimizing resource allocation and promoting the process of economic globalization. Re-export trade refers to a situation where the trade contract for goods is not directly signed between the producing country and the consuming country. Instead, it is signed separately by the producing country and the consuming country with a transit country, and the delivery is completed in the transit country. In other words, the trade process involves a “transit” in the transit country.

China’s 2025 National Security White Paper: ‘Holistic Security’ Amid Rising Global Tensions

Sanoop Sajan Koshy

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On May 12, China’s State Council Information Office released a white paper on “National Security in the New Era” – an extensive document that outlines China’s evolving security policy in a world the government characterizes as unstable and volatile. It’s not hard to understand why, given the heightened global uncertainty in the Asia-Pacific region, marked by changing power equations, technological competition, and ongoing flashpoints from the Taiwan Strait to the South China Sea.

The white paper presents the idea of a “holistic security” approach to national security that includes politics, economy, military, science and technology, and societal domains under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Even though the document seeks to present China as a source of stability in the Asia-Pacific, the sections on sovereignty, ideological resilience, and systemic risk management raise important questions about the implications for regional trust, global governance, and domestic freedom.

The “holistic” approach to national security is a framework first articulated by Xi Jinping. It expands the traditional idea of security to cover nontraditional security threats emerging from cyberspace, artificial intelligence, biosecurity, public health, etc. This approach declares the “people’s security” as the final aim, in order to approve citizens’ sense of “fulfilment, happiness and security.” But it strongly prioritizes “political security as the fundamental task” – referring to upholding the CCP’s absolute leadership and the socialist system – and national interests as the guiding principle.

This emphasis on political security is accompanied by an appeal for China to modernize its legal and institutional structures. The white paper highlights the recent laws introduced, covering cybersecurity, data protection, counterterrorism, etc., as part of its efforts to build a strong security shield against “black swan” (unpredictable) and “grey rhino” (high-probability) risks that could disrupt China’s modernization. It also prioritizes technological self-reliance, calling for investment in key infrastructure and indigenous innovation to minimize exposure to foreign sanctions or supply chain disruption.

OPINION: Drone Wall in Action, Blasts and Bombs, Dead Deals, Estonia and Some Humor

Stefan Korshak

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I know it looks like the main thing in the war is all these peace talks and all this shameless US pressure on Ukraine to capitulate to Russia. Some of you will have noticed the Russians fired off another big drone/missile attack against Kyiv.

I have sections on that below, but, for us here in Ukraine, honestly, this looks like one of those weeks when the Ukrainians took it to the Russians more than usual. But a war week. Image of a 43rd Brigade soldier being calm and smoking a pipe.

Still, the last few days have, as in the past, attested, pretty convincingly, of lethal Ukrainian defense capacity becoming more lethal. Maybe, in recent days, we’ve seen a growing Ukrainian ability to hit targets inside Russia, but it’s also possible the Ukrainians are just about done worrying about what the Americans are worrying about and have decided to hit Russia when it suits them.

The big Russian spring offensive is getting smashed by a Ukrainian drone wall

The early days of last week saw the continuation and intensification of Russian attempts to gain ground using combined arms assaults. There were at least two very substantial attacks and several smaller ones. I’ll focus on four – they are a pretty good indicator of how the fighting seems to be going, but they are not all the fighting that’s been taking place.

“Mass political repression in the USSR, especially in the period of the ‘Great Terror’ (1937-1938) have become one of the most tragic pages of the history of Ukraine,” Ministry of Culture remembers.

Battle 1: April 20, village of Kamianske, Zaporizhzhia region – A mixed unit of tanks, BMPs (Soviet / post-Soviet infantry fighting vehicles) and Mad Max-rigged trucks attacked along dirt roads, probably in an attempt to get infantry into the village ruins.

All the vehicles were heavily upgraded and rigged with anti-drone armor panels, jammers, and netting. Ukrainians later estimated the force at 300 men, 40 armored vehicles – including three tanks, and lighter vehicles – including 10 buggies.

Trump, Iran, and the Power of Seeing Things as They Are

Siamak Naficy 

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Another round of U.S.–Iran nuclear talks came and went in April 2025, this time in Oman. As usual, pundits dusted off their familiar lines about “progress” and “remaining gaps,” while critics lined up to remind us why no deal with Iran is ever worth signing. These critics tend to sound less like analysts and more like ghostwriters for John Bolton, repeating the same stale argument: that Iran is so steeped in ideological hatred of the West that it simply cannot be trusted. For them, the lesson of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not that diplomacy once worked—it’s that it never could have, and never will.

But this argument doesn’t just oversimplify Iran. It misunderstands diplomacy itself. It also misreads the past.

The 2015 JCPOA was not a hallucination. It was a verifiable, functioning agreement that significantly curtailed Iran’s nuclear activity for years, with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) repeatedly affirming Iran’s compliance. The collapse of the deal did not result from Tehran’s duplicity but from Washington’s own unilateral withdrawal in 2018. The U.S. broke the deal—not because Iran violated its terms, but because the first Trump administration decided that no amount of Iranian compliance could offset its continued defiance of American expectations.

This is why U.S. President Trump—if he approaches the problem not as a culture war but as a strategic negotiation—could very well make a deal. In fact, he already did. The 2018 withdrawal from the JCPOA wasn’t a rejection of Iran’s behavior as much as it was a repudiation of Obama-era diplomacy. But Trump has always prided himself on the “art of the deal,” and if he chose to engage Iran not as a moral adversary but as a state with interests, constraints, and leverage, there is no reason he couldn’t negotiate a new agreement. The president’s decision to fire National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, due to his coordination with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in pushing to attack Iran ahead of the talks, is surely welcome news for those seeking to avoid further unnecessary conflict.

Isolationism Won’t Make Anyone Great Again

Raghuram G. Rajan

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Donald Trump’s reelection as U.S. president is sending shockwaves around the world, but his victory is just the latest episode in a continuing saga. The old Western consensus in favor of globalization started breaking down in the 1990s and early 2000s as emerging markets began realizing its benefits. It accelerated with the global financial crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and growing geopolitical tensions. Now, with Trump’s promises to increase import tariffs across the board, the richest, most powerful country in the world is turning against the global order it built, and it is not alone in doing so. The world is fragmenting, slowly but surely—global trade as a fraction of GDP has been flat since the financial crisis, and foreign direct investment has fallen. Meanwhile, the number of trade restrictions that countries have imposed annually has grown more than tenfold since 2010.

Why is the United States rejecting the system it created, and why is this pattern emerging across the industrialized world? Some reasons are well known, but they need to be knitted together. And as global challenges that require cooperation, such as climate change and migration, mount, countries will eventually want to draw together again.

Russia, Ukraine Prepare For Peace By Getting Ready For War – OpEd

M.K. Bhadrakumar

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May 16 will stand out as a turning point, for good or bad, in the Ukraine conflict. The main thing is, Russia-Ukraine ‘peace talks’ have resumed in Istanbul and will hopefully carry forward the threads of the draft agreement negotiated in March 2022. But caveats must be added. The fact that it took Turkish President Recep Erdogan three hours to persuade Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to green light the negotiations speaks for itself.

On the other hand, Zelensky showed remarkable flexibility by violating his own presidential decree banning any such negotiations on the part of Ukrainian officials other than himself with Russian officials. Turkey showed again that it remains a significant influencer in the Ukraine conflict.

The result was an extraordinary spectacle. Reports mention that the Russian delegation had not one but three meetings, in fact — with a Turkish-American team followed by a Turkish-American-Ukrainian team and culminating in an exclusive huddle with the Ukrainian team.

The ‘bilateral’ Russian-Ukrainian negotiations reportedly touched on the topics of ceasefire options in the Ukraine conflict; a major prisoner exchange; a potential meeting between Zelensky and Russian president Vladimir Putin; an agreement in principle to hold a follow-up meeting and so on.

The Ukrainian media reported that the Russian side repeated their demands for Kiev’s forces to vacate the remaining parts of the four eastern and southern regions that Moscow has annexed. Ukraine of course rejected the demand. Indeed, these talking points at the Istanbul meeting would have been a plateful for a meeting that lasted only for an hour and forty minutes.

Turkiye has joined as a stakeholder, as the pacemaking in Ukraine provides an opportunity for it to work closely with the US, which could have positive fallouts for the two main discords that put strains on it in the recent years — Syria and the Kurdish problem. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has taken a historic decision on May 12 to give up armed struggle and dissolve itself, which opens the possibility to end decades of political violence in Turkiye. The ‘peacemaker president’ in the White House can help Ankara to mediate a Kurdish settlement.

U.S. Allies Rally to Support Democracy and Come to Terms With a New U.S. Foreign Policy

Linda Robinson

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Two things emerged clearly from this week’s Copenhagen Democracy Summit, the eighth annual gathering convened by former Danish Prime Minister and former Secretary General of NATO Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The disruptive foreign policy of U.S. President Donald Trump has jolted many countries into the stark realization that they must do more, quickly, to shoulder the burden of protecting and advancing democracy, in the face of massive, unprecedented reductions in U.S. spending assistance and defense commitments that have anchored global security since the end of World War II. Second, as their initial shock has worn off, many leaders have become increasingly vocal in rejecting the Trump administration’s apparent embrace of what Rasmussen called “might makes right” as an operating principle.

There was universal condemnation of the idea, floated by President Trump, of formally recognizing Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian territory as part of a deal to end Russia’s aggression. “We will never recognize territorial acquisition,” Croatia’s Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said, noting that his Balkan nation had been subject to just such a playbook three decades ago, in that case by Serbia. Rasmussen minced no words in challenging Trump’s benign view of Putin, saying that the Russian leader’s objective is to roll back NATO forces from Eastern and Central Europe, as he demanded in 2021.

Even greater outrage was voiced over Trump’s explicit and repeated suggestions that he might seize territory from some of the oldest and most loyal U.S. allies, including Denmark, the host country, which President Trump has suggested relieving of Greenland. Greenland’s former prime minister, Múte Bourup Egede, who is currently the deputy PM, flatly stated that “We are not a property,” and that the country “belongs to the Greenlandic people.” Mark Garneau, a former Canadian foreign minister from the Liberal Party, similarly rejected the idea that Canada would become the fifty-first U.S. state, as Trump has repeatedly suggested. Former UK Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader David Cameron bluntly noted that the U.S. administration is friendlier to its enemies than its allies.

How To Ensure Trump’s Golden Dome Effort Succeeds

Mark Montgomery & Bradley Bowman

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Every President since the 9/11 attack on the United States has said defense of the homeland is the number one national security priority, yet the only U.S. airspace defended from cruise missile threats is a small portion of Washington, DC, and the entire country is increasingly vulnerable to conventional missile threats from China and Russia. That puts Americans at risk and increases the chances of adversary aggression abroad.

The good news is that President Donald Trump has initiated an effort to build a broad defense against these threats — nicknamed “Golden Dome” — and many in Congress are seeking to support his vision with significant “one-time” funding. But this ambitious missile defense effort will not succeed unless Congress and the Pentagon take additional steps. Congress needs to appropriate sufficient base defense discretionary funding, and the Department of Defense (DoD) must task the right leaders to design the architecture and ensure that the new effort prioritizes and integrates space-based capabilities as well as innovative solutions closer to Earth, including those involving dirigibles and unmanned aerial vehicles.

Russia and China are sprinting to build long-range cruise and hypersonic weapons that can strike anywhere in the United States with conventional warheads. That’s a problem because the United States would struggle even to detect an inbound cruise missile attack in most cases. Indeed, we can expect Americans would first learn of the cruise missile attack when the explosions start.

Many Americans might be surprised to learn our homeland is so vulnerable, but the 2023 embarrassment associated with the Chinese spy balloon exposed unacceptable vulnerabilities in the ability of the U.S. military to detect threats operating at unusual altitudes and speeds. These challenges are exacerbated when one considers the difficulty in detecting low-flying cruise missiles.

So, how did we get to this point?

America Is Locked in a New Class Wa

Adam Tooze

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An illustration shows three tiers of classes, working class on the lowest with a bike messenger, a construction worker, a hotel worker, and a waiter; the second tier shows the professional-managerial class with a doctor, a graduate, and a man with a briefcase; the top layer shows two men golfing. Between them is a Donald Trump in a champagne coupe.Álvaro Bernis illustration for Foreign Policy

Exit polls from the U.S. presidential election indicated an approximate 15-point swing toward Donald Trump among voters earning less than $50,000 a year, the poorest block of voters in the United States. For the first time since the 1960s, a majority of Americans in that low-income bracket voted Republican. At the other end of the scale, the most affluent voters shifted to the Democrats. According to voter surveys and exit polls, Vice President Kamala Harris scored a majority of votes from those making above $100,000 a year—the top third of the income distribution.

One might wonder whether this means that the materialist class analysis of the classic kind has been turned on its head. Are we witnessing a fundamental realignment? Or is it even helpful to think in terms of “classes” voting? As the historian Tim Barker has remarked about last year’s election, “Perhaps the safest thing to say is that the working class, as a class, didn’t do anything. The vote is evidence of dealignment, not realignment: voters below $100,000 split basically down the middle.”

A New Multilateralism How the United States can rejuvenate the global institutions it created.

Gordon Brown

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An illustration shows the Statue of Liberty holding a torch with other hands alongside hers as she lifts the flame, also resembling laurel, into place on the edge of the United Nations laurel logo.Alex Nabaum illustration for Foreign Policy

“America is back.” That was the message from U.S. President Joe Biden, the most internationalist of recent U.S. presidents, speaking at the Munich Security Conference in February 2021. There is a “dire need to coordinate multilateral action,” he declared. But his administration’s fixation on bilateral and regional agreements—at the expense of globally coordinated action—is underplaying the potential of our international institutions, all while undermining any possibility of a stable and managed globalization. Without a new multilateralism, a decade of global disorder seems inevitable.

Heisenberg’s Uncertainty and Strategic Defence Analysis: Of Biases, (Ir)rational Actors and Other Animal

Beatrice Heuser

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In security policy- and strategy-making, as in all decision-making, decisions can be tainted by false assumptions about an adversary’s (ir)rationality or (il)logic, and equally false delusions about our own rationality and logic. Beatrice Heuser reflects on the biases and pitfalls of public policymaking, and offers some considerations for positive change.

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All policymaking follows–or should follow–an initial insightful and comprehensive analysis of a situation that requires decisions to be made. These are often marred by false assumptions about a situation, causality or the reasoning of other actors. Even the best analysts cannot help but perceive a situation, an action or events as they unfold through the prism of their own assumptions and biases. In the context of security policy- and strategy-making, these often include false assumptions about an adversary’s (ir)rationality or (il)logic. We also tend to see ourselves as completely rational and logical. Yet our own irrational biases also get in the way of good analysis, and then of good decision-making. While some biases may not be noxious, what we are considering in this essay are biases preventing good foreign- and security-policy analysis by skewing our view of what is happening and/or what options are available to react appropriately.Footnote1 Especially when it comes to identifying what is happening in another government, numerous biases keep us from seeing clearly what is going on, leaving aside what that government tries to hide. Taking cues from psychologists, there is a list of such noxious biases that can be found in public policymaking.

Chickens, Turkeys and Swans

Picturesquely, some biases have been illustrated by references to animals. One may be the unwarranted optimism that something that has not gone wrong for many years will continue to not go wrong in the future. Analysts may suffer from excessive optimism, like the new settlers in that fertile slope that turns out to be the side of a volcano or the green valley that is in fact the flood plain of a river prone to burst its banks in a wet year. Disaster may or may not strike within analysts’ time in a particular job, but in other contexts, such a wager will be even more dangerous. British philosopher Bertrand Russell warned against the fallacy that a good pattern will hold forever by invoking a chicken that believes its farmer-owner to be benevolent as he has fed it regularly over the months, a metaphor translated by Nassim Nicholas Taleb into that of a trusting turkey.Footnote2 But the day of slaughter will come, and in some circumstances, its timing can be predicted–in the case of the Thanksgiving or Christmas slaughter of poultry, with considerable accuracy.

Ukraine and Russia far apart in direct talks, but prisoner swap agreed

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More than three years into Europe's deadliest war since 1945, there was a small step forward for diplomacy on Friday.

Delegations from Ukraine and Russia came face-to-face for talks for the first time since March 2022 – one month after Moscow's full-scale invasion of its neighbour. The setting was an Ottoman- era palace on the shores of the Bosphorus in Istanbul.

Pressure and encouragement from Turkey and the US helped get the warring parties there.

There were no handshakes, and half the Ukrainian delegation wore camouflage military fatigues – a reminder that their nation is under attack.

The room was decked with Ukrainian, Turkish and Russian flags – two of each – and a large flower arrangement – a world away from the shattered cities and swollen graveyards of Ukraine.

Turkey's Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidan, told the delegations there were two paths ahead – one road leading to peace, and the other leading to more death and destruction.

The talks lasted less than two hours and sharp divisions soon emerged. The Kremlin made "new and unacceptable demands", according to a Ukrainian official. That included insisting Kyiv withdraw its troops from large parts of its own territory, he said, in exchange for a ceasefire.

While there was no breakthrough on the crucial issue of a truce – as expected - there is news of one tangible result.

Each side will return 1,000 prisoners of war to the other.

Trump Sends a Message: The Gulf Is No Longer China’s Playground

Zineb Riboua

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President Donald Trump’s arrival in Riyadh at the outset of his broader Gulf tour signals a calculated attempt to reassert American power in a region where the United States’ retrenchment has reduced its influence. Over the past decade, China has exploited this political and strategic vacuum to expand its presence across the Middle East. By enmeshing itself into the Gulf’s infrastructural, financial, and technological development, Beijing has steadily tilted the regional balance in its favor. Trump’s visit is the first direct attempt to halt China’s momentum and reestablish the United States as the principal outside power shaping the future of the Gulf.

The stakes of Trump’s visit are high. While the US narrowed its military footprint and deprioritized the region in its diplomatic strategy, Beijing quietly deepened its Gulf relationships. For example, it brokered the normalization of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March 2023. China is investing heavily in the Middle East because Beijing sees the region as an integral—not secondary—theater in its strategy for displacing US influence and reshaping global power dynamics. In particular, the region gives Beijing different options for challenging American dominance. Five factors drive this calculus.

First, the Gulf could provide the energy China needs to sustain its industrial economy. Producers in the region supply nearly half of China’s crude imports, and Beijing views long-term energy security as essential to regime stability.

Second, the Middle East serves as a geopolitical corridor linking East Asia to Europe and Africa. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has prioritized ports, logistics corridors, and commercial access points throughout the Gulf, which give Beijing leverage over key maritime and overland trade routes. More importantly, the Digital Silk Road, the technology pillar of the BRI, is projected to contribute up to $255 billion to the gross domestic product of Gulf Cooperation Council countries and generate 600,000 tech-sector jobs by 2030.

The Future of American Soft Power

JOSEPH S. NYE, JR.

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CAMBRIDGE – Power is the ability to get others to do what you want. That can be accomplished by coercion (“sticks”), payment (“carrots”), and attraction (“honey”). The first two methods are forms of hard power, whereas attraction is soft power. Soft power grows out of a country’s culture, its political values, and its foreign policies. In the short term, hard power usually trumps soft power. But over the long term, soft power often prevails. Joseph Stalin once mockingly asked, “How many divisions does the Pope have?” But the papacy continues today, while Stalin’s Soviet Union is long gone.

When you are attractive, you can economize on carrots and sticks. If allies see you as benign and trustworthy, they are more likely to be open to persuasion and follow your lead. If they see you as an unreliable bully, they are more likely to drag their feet and reduce their interdependence when they can. Cold War Europe is a good example. A Norwegian historian described Europe as divided into a Soviet and an American empire. But there was a crucial difference: the American side was “an empire by invitation.” That became clear when the Soviets had to deploy troops to Budapest in 1956, and to Prague in 1968. In contrast, NATO has not only survived but voluntarily increased its membership.

A proper understanding of power must include both its hard and soft aspects. Machiavelli said it was better for a prince to be feared than to be loved. But it is best to be both. Because soft power is rarely sufficient by itself, and because its effects take longer to realize, political leaders are often tempted to resort to the hard power of coercion or payment. When wielded alone, however, hard power can involve higher costs than when it is combined with the soft power of attraction. The Berlin Wall did not succumb to an artillery barrage; it was felled by hammers and bulldozers wielded by people who had lost faith in Communism and were drawn to Western values.

After World War II, the United States was by far the most powerful country, and it attempted to enshrine its values in what became known as “the liberal international order” – a framework comprising the United Nations, the Bretton Woods economic institutions, and other multilateral bodies. Of course, the US did not always live up to its liberal values, and Cold War bipolarity limited this order to only half the world’s people. But the postwar system would have looked very different if the Axis powers had won WWII and imposed their values.

Why Did the Houthis Agree to Peace with America?

James Holmes

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In a narrow, partial sense, air power unaccompanied by a ground offensive may have nudged Houthi calculations toward an outcome agreeable to Washington.

In light of the Houthis’ much-touted agreement to stop assailing shipping traversing the Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and Gulf of Aden, an aviator friend writes to ask whether air power proved decisive in the irregular naval war against the Yemeni rebels.

To which I boldly say: maybe.

Prompting this exchange, of course, was my late March TNI column siding with Admiral J. C. Wylie, who proclaimed that air power and other “cumulative,” scattershot forms of warfare never decide armed strife on their own. Wylie opines that control—generally speaking, control of key terrain or something on the Earth’s surface—is the purpose of military strategy. Bombarding something from the air is not the same as controlling it. Ground forces, on the other hand, can impose permanent, suffocating control. Ergo, air and missile forces are the “supporting” arm of ground might in any campaign. They’re an enabler, not an end in themselves.

Wylie’s proverbial “man on the scene with a gun”—a soldier or Marine bestriding terra firma while toting heavy firepower—is the “supported” arm. The soldier is the agent of physical control, and thus the final arbiter of martial success. In other words, air power is important, but insufficient to yield victory and enforce the postwar peace. No land power, no durable results.

The Houthi Ceasefire Is Not Peace

Two points. First, to gauge whether some operation or campaign was decisive, it’s helpful to define what decisive means. As with so many terms in the realm of warlike affairs, there is no universally agreed-upon definition of the word. The definition we commonly use in the hallowed halls of Newport comes from Carl von Clausewitz, the military sage of nineteenth-century Prussia. Reading between the lines a tad, Clausewitz defines a strategic attack that leads “directly to peace” as a decisive undertaking.

Defending Europe Without the United States: Costs and Consequence

Ben Barry

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The IISS has conducted an independent, open-source assessment of the financial costs and defence industrial requirements for NATO-Europe to defend against a future Russian threat without the United States. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, its hybrid war against European states, and demands by the Trump administration for European defence autonomy make it imperative for European decision-makers to consider the military, financial and defence industrial investments needed to reduce dependencies on the US and, in extremis, to prepare for a NATO without any US role.

The objective of the study is to inform European policymakers’ thinking about the military, financial and defence industrial implications of closing key military gaps.

To inform the European defence policy debate, the study assumes that by mid-2025 the war in Ukraine has ended with a ceasefire agreement and that the US government has indicated that it will begin the process of withdrawing from NATO. Declaring its need to prioritise the Indo-Pacific theatre, the US also commences to remove equipment, stocks, supplies and military personnel from Europe. The IISS does not assume this scenario to be inevitable, but it is a helpful construct to clarify policy and capability decisions for European governments today.

Against this background, the study first assesses Russia’s ability to reconstitute its forces after the fighting in Ukraine ends. Our assessment is that challenges notwithstanding, Russia could be in a position to pose a significant military challenge to NATO allies, particularly the Baltic states, as early as 2027. By then, Russia’s ground forces could mirror its February 2022 active equipment holdings through a combination of refurbishment and the production of new systems. Moreover, its air and maritime forces have been largely unaffected by the war.

Consequently, were US forces to disengage from the European theatre from mid-2025, Europe’s window of vulnerability would open quickly. Not only would European allies need to replace major US military platforms and manpower – the latter estimated at 128,000 troops – but also address shortfalls in space and all-domain intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets. They would also need to replace the significant US contribution to NATO’s command and control arrangements and fill many senior military positions in NATO organisations currently occupied by US personnel.

DoD working on cyber ‘warfighter scorecards’ for COCOMs’ weapons systems

Carley Welch

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WASHINGTON — The Department of Defense is working on creating cybersecurity assessment tools, or “scorecards,” to determine the cyber posture of weapons systems within the combatant commands, a defense official said.

David McKeown, who is performing the duties of the DoD’s deputy chief information officer for cyber and chief information security officer, said the “warfighter scorecards” will help servicemembers better understand where their weapons systems fall vulnerable — something they are not fully adept at yet, he said. Right now such assessments exist, but are not as comprehensive as a scorecard would be.

“They [the COCOMs] need to know the risks that they’re incurring across all of those systems. We do an analysis of a weapons system, and we publish it, but I don’t think the combatant commands really understand the impacts of their mission. So we’re going to try to drive in more mission impact analysis,” McKeown said Thursday during the Potomac Officer’s Club Cyber Summit.

In addition to the current assessments lacking mission impact analysis, the department also does not properly communicate the severity of risk that a lack of cybersecurity can pose to weapon systems down to the warfighter, McKeown said.

“We have a variety of governance across the department, lots of good work being done through the Strategic Cybersecurity Program, looking at critical infrastructure, understanding where the systems are vulnerable. We don’t do a good job of exposing that to the warfighter though,” he told Breaking Defense on the sidelines of the event. “We do all this work, but we don’t scrape off the important risk information and present it to the warfighter.”

AI is the future of war

Leslie Alan Horvitz

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In the 1983 film War Games, a supercomputer known as WOPR (for War Operation Plan Response) is about to provoke a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union, but because of the ingenuity of a teenager (played by Matthew Broderick), catastrophe is averted.

In the first Terminator film, which was released a year later, a supercomputer called “Skynet” decides to exterminate humanity because it’s perceived as a threat to its existence rather than to protect American nuclear weapons.

Although these films offered audiences grim scenarios of intelligent machines running amok, they were also prophetic. Artificial intelligence (AI) is so commonplace that it’s routinely applied during a simple Google search. That it is also being integrated into military strategies is hardly any surprise.

It’s just that we have little understanding of the capacity of these high-tech weapons (those that are now ready for use and those in development). Nor are we prepared for systems that have the capacity to transform warfare forever.

Throughout history, it is human intelligence that uses the technology, not the technology itself, which has won or lost wars. That may change in the future when human intelligence is focused instead on creating systems that are more capable on the battlefield than those of the adversary.

“Exponential, insurmountable surprise”

Artificial intelligence isn’t a technology that can be easily detected, monitored, or banned, as Amir Husain, the founder and CEO of an AI company, SparkCognition, pointed out in an essay for Media News.

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

Brandon Kirch 

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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.