Indian Strategic Studies: 05/24/25

24 May 2025

BRICS Democracies Are Losing Leverage

Oliver Stuenkel

In 2003, India, Brazil, and South Africa established what they called the IBSA Dialogue Forum. The trilateral initiative aimed to promote south-south cooperation, reform global governance structures, and amplify the three democracies’ voices on the international stage. In the years that followed, the leaders of IBSA countries organized regular summits to facilitate collaboration across various sectors.

However, as the BRICS bloc—which initially included Brazil, Russia, India, and China—gained prominence and added South Africa as a member in 2010, IBSA’s activities waned. Though IBSA foreign ministers still organize a yearly meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, where they regularly call for U.N. Security Council reform, the group’s relevance has plummeted.

'Major concern for India': Brahma Chellaney warns of Chinese-assisted Bangladesh airbase near Siliguri

Brahma Chellaney, noted geostrategist and author, has raised alarm over Bangladesh's move to revive the British-era Lalmonirhat airbase near the Indian border with Chinese assistance. In a sharp warning, Chellaney stated, "After seeking to move the nearly $1 billion Teesta River project from India to China, Bangladesh reportedly is planning to revive with Chinese assistance the old British-era airbase at Lalmonirhat. Both projects, located near the Indian border, carry significant implications for India's security."

The airbase, situated barely 20 km from the Indian border, lies close to the Siliguri Corridor — India's narrow, 22-km-wide land bridge that connects the Northeast to the mainland. "An active Lalmonirhat airbase would greatly enhance China's ability to conduct aerial surveillance and reconnaissance on Indian military installations, troop movements and critical infrastructure, including in India's strategically vital Siliguri Corridor (Chicken's Neck),” Chellaney cautioned.

India's security agencies have been closely tracking the developments since Bangladesh unveiled plans in March this year to revive the dormant World War II-era airfield with Chinese support. Originally built in 1931 by the British and used extensively during the Burma Campaign, the Lalmonirhat base lost relevance after 1947 and has remained largely inactive since Bangladesh's independence.

However, recent developments have reignited Indian concerns. The airfield currently hosts a Bangladesh Air Force (BAF) care and maintenance unit, and Indian agencies are reportedly assessing whether it could be used for future aircraft deployments or training missions. "We need to see if Bangladesh will allow other countries like China and Pakistan to use it. Bangladesh has the right to develop air fields for their security reasons, but that should not be used against India," defence sources told The Assam Tribune.

The revival project comes amid deepening military ties between China and Bangladesh under chief advisor Muhammad Yunus. Beijing is Dhaka's largest arms supplier — providing fighter jets, artillery, missile systems, and naval vessels — and is also a key infrastructure partner involved in roads, railways, bridges, and airports. The two nations regularly conduct joint military drills, further reinforcing China's strategic footprint in the region.

Uzbekistan Seeks Stronger Cooperation with Afghanistan

Syed Fazl-e-Haider

Tashkent is positioning itself as a mediator between Taliban-led Afghanistan and the international community, advocating for integration rather than isolation since the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in 2021.

Uzbekistan aims to turn Afghanistan into a strategic trade hub, offering access to South Asian markets and ports while promoting economic integration through infrastructure, transit routes, and trade expansion.

Afghanistan and Uzbekistan have signed numerous agreements to grow bilateral trade to $3 billion, expand electricity cooperation, and establish a joint market and free economic zone, reinforcing interdependence and economic stability.

On April 1, President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev stated in an interview that he is willing to cooperate with the European Union and other international partners in a way that supports Afghanistan’s development “to overcome the current crises” (President of Uzbekistan, April 1). He added, “I am convinced that stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan and its reconstruction are in the common interests of the Central Asian countries and the European Union” (Tolo News, April 2). On April 2, the Taliban government in Kabul welcomed the statement. Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesperson for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, said, “[Mirziyoyev’s] comments reflect truths that must be acknowledged. The two nations, in a spirit of sincere neighborliness and shared interests of their peoples, are moving forward with their policies” (Tolo News, April 2).

Since the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in 2021, following the withdrawal of the U.S. and European troops from Afghanistan, Uzbekistan has demonstrated increasing interest in facilitating Afghanistan’s integration into international institutions. Uzbekistan’s primary interests in this are rooted in geostrategic benefits afforded to both Uzbekistan and its Central Asian neighbors. Tashkent’s Afghan policy is set to transform Afghanistan into a transit country for Uzbekistan to South Asia, opening the window for its new regional partnerships. Afghanistan additionally has the potential to become a market and transit country for Uzbekistan’s products and value-added goods. Uzbekistan’s deepening partnership with Afghanistan could turn its southern neighbor into a key economic and political partner in the region (see EDM, December 13, 2017).

Is the U.S. Drifting Toward a Taiwan War with China?

Ramon Marks

If Washington wants to deter China from absorbing Taiwan it should look to Congress, not the presidency.

Taiwan is finally getting more serious about its defense, extending the draft to a year and increasing its defense budget to purchase new military capabilities, including drones and anti-ship missiles. It is shifting from a long-time emphasis on heavy weapons and conventional warfare approaches to more asymmetric, porcupine defense strategies.

Whether all this comes in time remains to be seen. Military analysts fear that China could invade Taiwan as early as 2027. If war comes, Taiwan’s hope and expectation is that the United States will enter the fray. Wargames point to costly fighting and losses if that happens, including the specter of potential escalation to nuclear war.

The big question is whether the United States will defend Taiwan or not. Foreign policy experts call for the United States to defend Taiwan, a contingency for which INDOPACOM trains, complying with the requirements of the Taiwan Relations Act, which requires such contingency planning.

President Biden publicly stated several times that the United States would defend the island if attacked by China. Under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, the president does possess the authority as commander-in-chief to order the use of military force, particularly in response to an attack. That executive power is insufficient, however, to confer upon the president the unilateral power to declare a Taiwan defense alliance without further congressional participation as required not only by the Constitution but also by the War Powers Act.

The United States has no military treaty with Taiwan. Neither the Taiwan Relations Act nor any other federal statute commits the United States to its defense. The Taiwan Relations Act goes only as far as binding the United States to “maintain the capacity to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or social or economic system, of the people of Taiwan.”

Xi Establishes ‘Strategic Endurance’ Priorities for the PRC’s Next Five-Year Plan

Matthew Johnson

Xi Jinping’s April 30 remarks preview a fundamental shift in the Party’s upcoming 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030), signaling that national security—not growth—is now the central organizing principle of economic planning. A new “security pattern” will be directly integrated with the “development pattern,” embedding resilience, tech sovereignty, and risk mitigation into national long-term strategy.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is transitioning from growth-maximization to strategic endurance—pursuing survivable 4–5 percent GDP growth and concentrating state resources in high-tech sectors such as semiconductors, AI, aerospace, and energy. This pivot aims to harden the economy against systemic risks from U.S.-led decoupling and domestic vulnerabilities.

In effect, Beijing is creating a two-tier planned economy: mobilizing high-tech sectors for long-term resilience while trying to stabilize the remaining “ballast” enough to prevent stagnation and unemployment. But here lies the tension: a highly targeted sectoral approach threatens to undercut broader recovery goals.

An April 30 economic symposium chaired by People’s Republic of China (PRC) president Xi Jinping in Shanghai offers the most authoritative early insight into the Party’s priorities for the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) (People’s Daily, May 1). The readout indicates that Beijing is preparing for a prolonged period of both external and internal pressure by embedding national security, technological self-reliance, and domestic resilience (both economic and social) into its next development blueprint. Many details are yet to be specified, but the outline aligns with pillars of Xi’s long-term vision for national modernization and rejuvenation.

These priorities are increasingly framed not as growth objectives but as strategic preconditions for enduring what Beijing sees as a multi-decade contest with the United States. For the remainder of 2025, the outlook points to policy continuity: eschewing large-scale stimulus in favor of steady implementation of existing stabilization tools, unless economic shocks escalate.

China isn’t getting rid of its controls over rare earths, despite trade truce with US

Nectar Gan

Despite a 90-day truce in its trade war with the United States, China appears to be maintaining tight control over its rare earth exports – preserving a key source of leverage in future negotiations amid intensifying strategic rivalry with Washington.

As part of last week’s trade agreement in Geneva to temporarily roll back tariffs, China pledged to suspend or remove the “non-tariff” countermeasures it imposed on the US since April 2.

That has left businesses scrambling to find out whether that promise applies to China’s export controls on seven rare earth minerals and associated products, which were imposed on April 4 as part of its retaliation against US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs on Chinese goods.

Magnets made of these heavy rare earth elements are an essential part of everything from iPhones and electric vehicles to big-ticket weapons like F-35 fighter jets and missile systems. Yet their supply is completely dominated by China.

Fresh off the plane from the trade talks in Geneva last week, US trade representative Jamieson Greer sought to ease concerns surrounding this potential vulnerability. In a Fox News interview, he answered affirmatively when asked whether China had agreed to lift its export restrictions on rare earths as part of the truce.

“Yep, the Chinese have agreed to remove those countermeasures,” Greer said. “If they don’t do those things, we’re going to be back in a different situation. But I expect they’ll remove them.”

However, there’s little sign to suggest China is removing its newly imposed rare earth export control regime. If anything, according to experts and industry insiders, Chinese authorities appear to be strengthening implementation and ramping up oversight.

What If Our Assumptions About a War with China Are Wrong?

Tyler Hacker

From the rout of Union forces at Bull Run to two decades of counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, history tells us that our assumptions about future war are often incorrect. Looking to today, consider this view of a potential US-China conflict:

Any confrontation between the United States and China would be short and intense, decisively determining the war’s outcome in a matter of days or weeks.

How often has this assumption informed past discussions in the Pentagon and Washington’s think tanks? Three years of attritional war in Ukraine and stubbornly persistent security challenges in the Red Sea call this sentiment into question, causing defense commentators to reexamine the possibility that despite both nations being nuclear armed, a US-China war may not end in days or weeks, but could protract for months or even years. This raises the question: How many other assumptions about great power war are due for reexamination?

At the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, we have conducted dozens of exercises on the strategic choices facing political and military leaders regarding the revitalization of the US military for great power war. These exercises often highlight how fighting a prolonged war calls for a different approach than shorter campaigns, such as choosing to expand defense production over relying on existing stockpiles. Regardless of the participant, some form of industrial mobilization is frequently considered the key for unlocking greater production in long wars.

Admittedly, no one can know the exact character of a future war between the United States and China, but recent CSBA research on US mobilization planning during the interwar period gives reason to question some oft repeated assumptions. Comparing current planning assumptions to those of the interwar period reveals several instances where our expectations may fall short of the realities of war, protraction, and mobilization. Today’s security environment, economic circumstances, and military forces may be a world apart from those of the 1930s, but planning to wage war in the American system is fundamentally the same in many ways. For this reason, the US experience in World War II should inform our thinking regarding a future US-China conflict. Five frequently recurring and often implicit assumptions about protracted war stand out, and the American historical experience suggests they may be due for reconsideration.

China Expanding Haifa Port, Endangering Israeli and American Security | Opinion

Gordon G. Chang

"Israel must halt this expansion, reassess the Haifa arrangement, and align itself once again with the values and interests it claims to share with the United States," Gadeer Kamal-Mreeh, a former member of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, wrote in a recent op-ed. "Anything less is a betrayal of our shared security—and of the American trust we rely on."

In March, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued permission to China's state-owned Shanghai International Port Group (SIPG) to double the capacity of its Bay Port in Haifa. The controversial decision entrenches China in one of Israel's most strategic locations and reflects the continuing ambivalence of countries toward the Chinese Communist Party.

Israeli security professionals in 2015 were alarmed when Israel Ports Co., without adequate interagency review, selected SIPG to run the Haifa port for 25 years.

The threat was obvious. Haifa Bay Port is close to Haifa's airport and is a mere 1.8 kilometers away from the Israeli navy's main base. Haifa, in the northern part of the country, has the Jewish state's largest port.

"Israel's seaports are critical strategic infrastructure," Shaul Chorev, a retired Israeli Navy rear admiral and now a director at the Haifa-based Institute for Maritime Policy and Strategy, told Newsweek. The Haifa Bay Port, he pointed out, "is considered to be amongst the country's most important strategic assets."

"To operate the facility, Shanghai International Port Group will have to connect to all the internet systems of both the harbor and the Ministry of Transportation, exposing them to manipulation, data mining and cyber warfare in the service of Chinese government interests," states the September 2019 report by the University of Haifa-Hudson Institute Consortium on the Eastern Mediterranean, co-chaired by Rear Admiral Chorev. "Given the military and intelligence ties among China, Russia and Iran, the Haifa port arrangements create the risk that China might, under some circumstances, obtain sensitive Israeli naval, merchant shipping and maritime infrastructure information and provide it to Iran."

Asia without America, part 3: liberal Taiwan in a realist world

Han Feizi

Mornin’ will come, and I’ll do what’s right

Just give me till then to give up this fight

And I will give up this fight

– Bonnie Raitt

Liberalism – in the Wilsonian international relations sense – has had a few very lousy decades. History has been unkind to Francis Fukuyama, and yet liberalism, with major exceptions, still maintains a vice grip on democracies across the world. Taiwan is not one of those exceptions.

Frequently, regularly and obligatorily referred to as a “vibrant” democracy by the mainstream Western media (it has got to be some kind of conspiracy), Taiwan has become the Asian darling of global liberal elites who wax lyrical over every bit of island culture.

Returning the regard, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) swallowed wholesale the entire woke progressive agenda. In 2019, Taiwan became the first Asian country to recognize same-sex marriage, despite public referendums in opposition. The DPP has since embraced LGBT… QIA2S+ even more enthusiastically.

Local talent Nymphia Wind celebrated his/her win in RuPaul’s Drag Race 2024 by performing a burlesque show for outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen at her official offices, right beneath a bust of Chiang Kai-shek, longtime leader of the Republic of China and the Kuomintang (KMT) party, who was surely turning over in his mausoleum.

As Israel starves and destroys Gaza, it’s turning into a global pariah

Ishaan Tharoor

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After more than 19 months of brutal war, the patience of some of Israel’s Western allies appears to be running out. The renewed offensive on the Gaza Strip launched by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has provoked widespread anger and revulsion, as governments and humanitarian organizations point to the desperate conditions in the embattled territory. Dozens of Gazans have been killed by Israeli bombardments in recent days, while tens of thousands have been yet again forced to flee within a besieged enclave bereft of shelter and basic infrastructure.

Since the collapse of a brief ceasefire, Israel has impeded the passage of food and humanitarian goods into the territory. The unrelenting blockade has put more than 2 million people at critical risk of famine, my colleagues report.

In Brussels, the European Union announced it would begin a formal review of its trade accord with Israel, a move backed by what Kaja Kallas, the E.U.’s top diplomat, said was a “huge majority” of the 27-member bloc’s foreign ministers. Britain, too, suspended ongoing free trade talks with Israel and levied sanctions on a number of figures associated with Israel’s pro-settler far right.

On Monday, a joint statement from the leaders of Britain, France and Canada said “the level of human suffering in Gaza is intolerable” and threatened Israel with punitive measures if it didn’t relent from its campaign against the remnants of militant group Hamas. Israel’s war — triggered by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel and abduction of hundreds of hostages — has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the local Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children.

Putin’s growing anxiety mirrors Russia’s failures on the battlefield

David Kirichenko

A common talking point from President Trump is that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “has no cards.” This is not only untrue, but there are clear signs that Ukraine is growing stronger technologically.

This is also why, since the start of negotiations, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been fixated on the demilitarization of the Ukrainian army. As the war shifts into a high-intensity, technology-driven phase, the cost of Russian offensives will only grow.

In over three years of war, Russia has lost nearly 1 million men who have been killed or injured in its attempts to conquer Ukraine. With time running out for Putin, now in his 70s, he is likely to grow even more desperate in his attempts to revive the dying Russian empire.

Even when Congress blocked aid and Trump shut off the flow of weapons, Ukraine adapted, relying on drones to hold the line. It was costly for Ukraine at times in places like Avidivka. But Ukraine is now building a drone wall — creating a deadly no-man’s land that dramatically raises the cost of every Russian assault.

Meanwhile, Putin is also losing control over the war narrative. This became particularly clear in August 2024, when he was forced to explain a Ukrainian offensive inside Russia itself, after Ukrainian forces seized nearly 1,200 square kilometers of Kursk Oblast. Ukrainian forces continue to fight in both the Belgorod and Kursk Oblasts within Russia.

Despite U.S. weapons restrictions that have been forcing Ukraine to fight with one hand tied behind its back throughout the war, Ukraine has built a formidable arsenal of long-range drones and missiles. In recent months, Ukrainian drones have struck deeper into Russia, targeting the oil refineries, airfields and infrastructure sustaining Russia’s war effort.

Ukraine demonstrated its growing strike capabilities in March by launching hundreds of drones at Moscow, in what the city’s mayor called the “largest drone attack” of the war. Russia’s air defenses are struggling to adapt to this new threat.

Azerbaijan-Russia Relations Remain Stuck in Airplane Crash Crisis

Vasif Huseynov

On May 7, Azerbaijan announced that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev would not attend Moscow’s May 9 Victory Day parade commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany.

Azerbaijani media attributed the visit cancellation to a series of negative developments in Russia-Azerbaijan relations since an Azerbaijani airplane crash in December 2024 likely caused by unintentional Russian military fire.

Unless Russia takes meaningful steps to address Azerbaijan’s grievances and rebuild mutual trust, the bilateral relationship is likely to remain stalled, characterized by cautious engagement and growing rupture.

On May 7, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov announced that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev would not travel to Moscow to attend the May 9 Victory Day parade commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War (Interfax, May 7). According to Ushakov, Azerbaijan claimed that Aliyev “ha[d] to participate in internal events dedicated to [former president and Aliyev’s father] Heydar Aliyev.”

Earlier that day, Russian media reported—citing Ushakov—that Aliyev was among the world leaders expected to attend the Moscow Victory Day celebrations (TASS, May 7). In the end, Aliyev was the only leader from the post-Soviet region with otherwise cordial diplomatic relations with Russia who did not participate in the May 9 celebrations. The leaders of all five Central Asian republics, as well as those of Armenia and Belarus, were present. Aliyev’s absence raised several questions about the state of Russia-Azerbaijan relations in the wake of the December 25, 2024 airplane crash (see EDM, January 15).

Central Asian Migrants a Problem for Their Homelands Now and When They Return

Paul Goble

Central Asian governments have traditionally viewed outmigration as a way to reduce unemployment and provide additional cash flow for the population and government through payments sent home, but the problems this outmigration has led to in Central Asia are gaining more attention.

These problems have become more obvious in recent years, as the social structure in Central Asia and the ways in which people are socialized in these countries has been changing.

Without systematic reforms in the drivers of outmigration, including the economy, the loss of young men to migrant labor, and the separate problems created by their eventual return, will threaten the region’s stability.

The problems Central Asian migrant workers pose for Russia have long caused many in Russia to want them to leave, but the challenges these same people represent for their own countries have not drawn the same attention. Many assume that payments sent home by migrant workers and the positive effects of emigration on Central Asian overpopulation and unemployment make migrant work overwhelmingly positive for Central Asians and their governments (see EDM, May 15, 2024). Even though migrant labor has real mutual benefits for both Russia and Central Asian governments, outmigration also causes serious problems in Central Asia. The loss of large numbers of young men in Central Asia removes fathers and socializers of the younger generation (see EDM, May 9, 2024. As a significant share of these young men return home, in large part due to rising xenophobia in Russia, they will be faced with a changed social landscape and lower incomes (Window on Eurasia, April 3, 2024; see EDM, May 15, 2024). What began as a pressure valve for overpopulation and unemployment in Central Asia may trigger social unrest as migrants return home.

How to Gauge Whether Trump’s AI Chip Deals With Gulf Countries Are Any Good

Alasdair Phillips-Robins and Sam Winter-Levy

The Technology and International Affairs Program develops insights to address the governance challenges and large-scale risks of new technologies. Our experts identify actionable best practices and incentives for industry and government leaders on artificial intelligence, cyber threats, cloud security, countering influence operations, reducing the risk of biotechnologies, and ensuring global digital inclusion.Learn More

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has signed multiple agreements giving Middle Eastern countries greater access to cutting-edge U.S. semiconductors and allowing them to build state-of-the-art AI data centers in the region. Bringing these countries closer to the U.S. technology ecosystem has been a long-standing goal of U.S. foreign policy, and access to chips gives Washington leverage to make it happen. Smart deals have the potential to protect U.S. technology, expand foreign markets for U.S. companies, and build economic and political partnerships with geopolitical swing states.

But there are also significant risks to these deals if they’re rushed through. Ill-judged agreements that offer up huge quantities of chips could offshore a growing U.S. industry and hand control over a strategic technology to countries whose interests only partially align with those of the United States. The administration needs to promote U.S. industry without giving away control over frontier AI development or enabling technology diversion to China.

So, what should observers look for to assess the merits of an AI deal? Many of the specifics will likely not be disclosed, but deals—good or bad—will carry key indicators. Some of these will likely be revealed by public reporting, while others will be available to those in Congress and the executive branch. Some may even be left undecided in initial deals and left to later implementation decisions. Important indicators include chip numbers, key beneficiaries, security measures, and concessions.

Unpacking Russia’s cyber nesting doll

Justin Sherman

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 challenged much of the common Western understanding of Russia. How can the world better understand Russia? What are the steps forward for Western policy? The Eurasia Center’s new “Russia Tomorrow” series seeks to reevaluate conceptions of Russia today and better prepare for its future tomorrow.

When the Russian government launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, many Western observers braced for digital impact—expecting Russian military and security forces to unleash all-out cyberattacks on Ukraine. Weeks before Moscow’s full-scale war began, Politico wrote that the “Russian invasion of Ukraine could redefine cyber warfare.” The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) worried that past Russian malware deployments, such as NotPetya and WannaCry, could find themselves mirrored in new wartime operations—where the impacts would spill quickly and globally across companies and infrastructure. Many other headlines and stories asked questions about how, exactly, Russia would use cyber operations in modern warfare to wreak havoc on Ukraine. Some of these questions were fair, others clearly leaned into the hype, and all were circulated online, in the press, and in the DC policy bubble ahead of that fateful February 24 invasion.

As the Putin regime’s illegal war unfolded, however, it quickly belied these hypotheses and collapsed many Western assumptions about Russia’s cyber power. Russia didn’t deliver the expected cyber “kill strike” (instantly plummeting Ukraine into darkness). Ukrainian and NATO defenses (insofar as NATO has spent considerable time and energy to support Ukraine on cyber defense over the years) were sufficient to (mainly) withstand the most disruptive Russian cyber operations, compared at least to pre-February 2022 expectations. And Moscow showed serious incompetencies in coordinating cyber activities with battlefield kinetic operations. Flurries of operational activity, nonetheless, continue to this day from all parties involved in the war—as Russia remains a persistent and serious cyber threat to the United States, Ukraine, and the West. Russia’s continued cyber activity and major gaps between wartime cyber expectations and reality demand a Western rethink of years-old assumptions about Russia and cyber power—and of outdated ways of confronting the threats ahead.

Congressional panel warns US losing ground in cyber war against foreign adversaries

The U.S. House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation held a hearing last week to assess the Department of Defense’s cyberwarfare capabilities, its overall cyber defense posture, and the readiness of the Cyber Mission Force and its broader support ecosystem.

Testifying at the hearing, Laurie Buckhout, performing the duties of assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy, and Army Lt. Gen. William Hartman, acting commander of U.S. Cyber Command, called for sharper strategic focus, advanced technological innovation, and a top-tier cyber workforce to confront increasingly sophisticated threats.

Representative Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska and chairman of the Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation Subcommittee, wrote in his opening statement that the U.S. is at war in the cyber domain. “In just the last two years, the United States has been directly and deliberately attacked by the People’s Republic of China and other nation-states in the cyber domain.

Highlighting the Volt Typhoon, Salt Typhoon, Flax Typhoon, and countless other cyberattacks aimed at U.S. transportation, energy, water, telecommunications, and other critical infrastructure, Bacon noted that it’s time to stop talking about preparing for conflict because ‘we are already in one.’

“I, for one, believe it’s time we start acting like we’re truly at war in the cyber domain,” Bacon said. “But recent actions by this administration make me question whether they actually believe it themselves.”

First, he noted that there is the issue of leadership. Just weeks ago, the commander of U.S. Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency (NSA), two of the most critical cyber roles in government, was abruptly removed without explanation. General Haugh was the most cyber-experienced officer ever to hold the position, respected by allies, trusted by his teams, and feared by adversaries.

Trump unveils plans for 'Golden Dome' defence system

Bernd Debusmann Jr

The US has selected a design for the futuristic "Golden Dome" missile defence system, says President Donald Trump, adding that it will be operational by the end of his time in office.

Just days after returning to the White House in January, Trump unveiled his intentions for the system, aimed at countering "next-generation" aerial threats to the US, including ballistic and cruise missiles.

An initial sum of $25bn (£18.7bn) has been earmarked in a new budget bill - although the government has estimated it could end up costing 20 times that over decades.

There are also doubts about whether the US will be able to deliver a comprehensive defence system for such a huge land mass.

Officials warn that existing systems have not kept pace with increasingly sophisticated weapons possessed by potential adversaries.

A briefing document recently released by the Defense Intelligence Agency noted that missile threats "will expand in scale and sophistication", with China and Russia actively designing systems "to exploit gaps" in US defences.

Seven days into his second administration, Trump ordered the defence department to submit plans for a system that would deter and defend against aerial attacks, which the White House said remain "the most catastrophic threat" facing the US.

Speaking in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump said the system would consist of "next-generation" technologies across land, sea and space, including space-based sensors and interceptors.

What to Know About Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ and Concerns About It

Chad de Guzman

Donald Trump is moving forward with an ambitious and expensive national missile defense system, saying Tuesday that he aims to get it up and running before the end of his term.

Alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Space Force Vice Chief of Operations Gen. Michael Guetlein, the President announced the so-called “Golden Dome”—a defense system of missiles, satellites, and sensors named after his favorite color and akin to Israel’s “Iron Dome,” which the U.S. has in large part funded. Trump tasked Guetlein with spearheading the new project.

If completed as planned, the “Golden Dome” would mark the first time the U.S. puts weapons in space.

Trump, who promised an Iron Dome for America on the campaign trail, is not the first President to propose such a defense system. Ronald Reagan proposed a space-centric Strategic Defense Initiative (nicknamed “Star Wars”) in 1983, though it never materialized due to financial, political, and technological constraints.

“Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world, and even if they're launched from space,” Trump said. “We will truly be completing the job that President Reagan started 40 years ago, forever ending the missile threat to the American homeland.”

Ukraine and Australia: A contrast in military learning

Mick Ryan

The battlefields of Ukraine have seen the return of large-scale, high tempo operations. This has been accompanied by higher casualties, higher use of munitions, and greater destruction of military equipment and civil infrastructure than at any time since the Second World War.

Ukrainian industry representatives spend time at the front to collect insights direct from soldiers.

The war has had a profound impact on how both sides learn and adapt their warfighting concepts, how they train and organise forces, and how they mobilise national resources. Learning and adaptation started slowly but has gained pace, with many peacetime military organisations and government officials finding it difficult to grasp, let alone replicate.

This accelerating learning and adaptation cycle may be the most transformative development to emerge from the war. While individual technologies such as drones are changing the character of warfare, the implications of new and proliferating ways of learning and adapting have global application.

There are several notable developments in Ukrainian adaptation in the past year. Tech companies and military frontline units can now communicate directly with each other to speed up the implementation of lessons into new generations of equipment and munitions. The counter-drone battle is accelerating with the development of Ukraine’s “Drone Wall”, which incorporates sophisticated new drone interceptors that are cheaper to produce than the Russian drones they destroy. We have also seen the deployment of next-generation drone warfare, featuring drones carrying other drones.

Russian military capacity to learn and adapt has improved significantly during the war. It has “learned to learn” and has sped up its adaptation cycle across many aspects of military affairs. The Russians are close observers of Ukrainian operations, and they quickly copy Ukrainian methods that they believe work. Recent Russian adaptations include improvements to their drone attack tactics and technology, and improved infiltration tactics on the ground. First-Person View drones and next-generation drone jammers are now in widespread use in the Russian army, and it has also adapted its strategic force generation and personnel recruitment processes.

The New Price of Statehood

Ryan D. Griffiths and Seva Gunitsky

Statehood is a precious commodity. After a burst of creation following the Soviet Union’s collapse, only three new countries have been recognized in the last 30 years—East Timor, in 2002, Montenegro, in 2006, and South Sudan, in 2011. There have been plenty of other attempts in that interval. But most have been stymied by the principle of territorial integrity, which prioritizes fixed borders even in cases of state failure and makes the path to legal independence long and uncertain.

But in the last few years, this norm has grown weaker. In February 2022, Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine designed to wipe the country off the map. Initially met with shock and horror, the idea of the Russian conquest of Ukraine has since been normalized by U.S. President Donald Trump, who has called for letting Moscow keep some of this land. Trump has also threatened to annex Canada, as well as Greenland, which is an autonomous region of Denmark. Just how serious he is remains to be seen. But the upshot is clear: the United States, the most powerful country in the world, no longer views territorial integrity as an important element of the global order.

For some secessionist groups, this is certainly good news. Independence movements no longer must prove that their cause is just or essential. Instead, they may simply need to align with powerful countries, especially in strategically important areas. Trump’s preference for personal diplomacy could also help separatists, provided that they have charismatic leaders who can sidestep cumbersome institutional diplomacy and court the American president himself.

Yet Trump’s rejection of international norms is a double-edged sword. These norms constrain separatists and deter governmental repression. They also give secessionists a way to make their claims. Independence movements typically justify their existence using the language of human rights and self-determination, which Trump disregards. Rather, this U.S. president favors strong, brutal rulers over fledgling upstarts. He has aligned himself with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who have used killings and other kinds of violence to suppress Kurdish and Chechen secessionists, respectively. Trump does not care about impoverished separatists if they cannot provide him with immediate rewards.

The Taiwan Tightrope Deterrence Is a Balancing Act, and America Is Starting to Slip

Oriana Skylar Mastro and Brandon Yoder

As tensions rise across the Taiwan Strait, the policy debate in Washington remains fractured. U.S. strategy broadly revolves around deterring China from attacking Taiwan, and for the past three presidential administrations, it has consisted of three central components: increasing the ability of the United States and Taiwan to defend the island militarily; using diplomacy to signal U.S. resolve to protect Taiwan while also reassuring China that Washington does not support Taiwanese independence; and using economic pressure to slow China’s military modernization efforts.

But there is little consensus on the right balance among these three components—and that balance determines to some degree how deterrence looks in practice. Some contend that diplomatic pressure—along with military restraint, to avoid antagonizing China—will keep Beijing at bay. Others warn that unless Washington significantly strengthens its military posture in Asia, deterrence will collapse. And a third approach, outlined recently in Foreign Affairs by Jennifer Kavanagh and Stephen Wertheim, emphasizes that bolstering Taiwan’s self-defense and enabling offshore U.S. support is the best route to sustaining deterrence while also mitigating the risk of escalation.

These prescriptions have merit but fall short of grappling with the paradox at the heart of U.S. strategy: deterrence can fail in two ways. Do too little, and Beijing may gamble it can seize Taiwan before Washington is able to respond. Do too much, and Chinese leaders may conclude that force is the only remaining path to unification. Navigating this dilemma requires more than a stronger military or bolder diplomacy. It requires a calibrated strategy of rearmament, reassurance, and restraint that threads the needle between weakness and recklessness. Combined properly, forward-deployed capabilities, diplomatic restraint, and selective economic interdependence can reinforce one another to maintain credible deterrence while avoiding provocation.

So far, however, the Trump administration’s approach to Taiwan has veered between harsh transactionalism, such as the imposition of a 32 percent tariff on most Taiwanese goods last month, and quiet reaffirmations of support for Taipei through bipartisan visits and a pause on the highest tariffs. The administration still has time to settle on a coherent strategy, but the window of opportunity is closing.

Can Sam Altman Be Trusted with the Future?

In 2017, soon after Google researchers invented a new kind of neural network called a transformer, a young OpenAI engineer named Alec Radford began experimenting with it. What made the transformer architecture different from that of existing A.I. systems was that it could ingest and make connections among larger volumes of text, and Radford decided to train his model on a database of seven thousand unpublished English-language books—romance, adventure, speculative tales, the full range of human fantasy and invention. Then, instead of asking the network to translate text, as Google’s researchers had done, he prompted it to predict the most probable next word in a sentence.

The next wars will be silent—fought with semiconductors, software, invisible lines of code

Ajai Chowdhry

Atarrified-world is forcing economies to rethink strategies, allies, arsenal, next moves, and new deals. Simultaneously, geopolitical contests and technological disruption are changing the nature of warfare. Are wars limited to boots on the ground or missiles in the air? Far from it. The bigger threat is the grey-zone that typically lies between peace and full-scale war—a murky space where adversaries use coercive actions that are aggressive and destabilising, but fall short of open warfare. Grey-zone operations include cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, economic pressure, political manipulation, and proxy conflicts. These actions are often deniable, non-attributable, and below the threshold that would trigger a traditional military response.

The next wars will be silent—fought through semiconductors, software, and invisible lines of code. Quantum computing and cyber warfare will become central to national security. As American Senator Ben Sasse once remarked, the next wars will be fought with semiconductors. The warning is real. The global battlefield is shifting from terrain to terabytes, and the world must prepare now.

Think tank RAND Corporation’s study, The Future of Warfare 2030, outlines how information warfare, AI, and automation will define conflicts ahead. Grey-zone operations are already intensifying, especially by nations such as China, Russia, and Iran that have mastered subversion without provocation. The report warns that the US must recalibrate its information capabilities. India must do that too.

How to protect your data after a cyber-attack

Rupert Jones

Another cyber-attack has hit the headlines – this one involving the personal data of hundreds of thousands of legal aid applicants in England and Wales.

It comes hard on the heels of recent cyber-attacks that caused huge disruption at Marks & Spencer and the Co-op, and has prompted fresh reminders for people to be extra-vigilant for any suspicious activity.

If you’re worried your data may have fallen into the wrong hands somehow, here are some tips for protecting yourself.

Change your password – and make sure it’s up to scratch

Always make sure you have strong passwords, and don’t use the same one on more than one account.

If you have had any dealings with a company or organisation that has suffered a cyber-attack, change the password that you use for that website or app immediately.

“Consider using a password manager to generate and store strong, unique passwords,” says online security firm NordVPN.

Two-factor authentication (2FA) is something you can set up for your email and other important online accounts to add an extra layer of security. It involves you providing something that only you can access – for example, a code sent to you by text message. You should turn 2FA on for every service that offers it.

Be very wary of unsolicited emails, phone calls or messages

In particular, don’t click on a link or attachment in an email, text message or social media post unless you are absolutely sure it is legitimate. It could take you to a fake website or contain malware designed to steal your personal information.

Cyber-attack threat keeps me awake at night, bank boss says

Graham Fraser & Kevin Peachey

Ian Stuart said the HSBC banking group is spending hundreds of millions of pounds on its IT systems

The boss of one of the UK's biggest banks has said the threat of cyber-attacks "keeps me awake at night".

Ian Stuart, the CEO of HSBC UK, said cyber-security was "top of the agenda" for his banking group, and dealing with IT vulnerabilities was an "enormous" expense for the sector as a whole.

He said: "It does worry me - we can be attacked and we are being attacked all the time."

Mr Stuart and other bank bosses have been speaking to the Commons Treasury Committee which has been taking evidence on a range of issues affecting the industry, including how vulnerable it is to outages and cyber-attacks.

In March, it emerged nine major banks and building societies operating in the UK accumulated at least 803 hours - the equivalent of 33 days - of tech outages in the past two years.

In recent weeks, retailers Co-op and Marks & Spencer have experienced severe disruption after being targeted by hackers.

Lisa Forte, of the cyber-security company Red Goat, told BBC News that Mr Stuart had made "an incredibly important point".

"Cyber-attacks are increasing in both number and severity," she said.

"Criminals are monetising attacks more efficiently, and we are at a point now where it very much is when not if businesses will experience an attack."

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