Indian Strategic Studies: 06/05/25

5 June 2025

Opinion – Sliding the Security Zip Line: An Igniting of the India–Pakistan Crisis?

Ido Gadi Raz

On April 22, 2025, Rishi Bhatt, an Indian tourist in the Baisaran Valley in Kashmir, slid down a zipline, smiling at his phone camera. He was enjoying the sunny afternoon while capturing dozens of picnickers below him in the green valley. Suddenly, as Bhatt made his way down, gunshots and shouts were heard. As he later realized, one of the deadliest terrorist attacks India had witnessed in recent years had just taken place. What Bhatt did not know was that the terror attack by the Resistance Front group, which claimed the lives of 26 people, would trigger a security zipline in the region, leading to a violent conflict between the two South Asian nuclear powers. This would have grave implications for the security of India, Pakistan, and beyond. As the threshold for war between states decreases, terrorist organizations may exploit this momentum to amplify chaos within and between these countries.

The collective shock in India was immediate. The documented scenes of tourists being killed by Islamists for being non-Muslims were unusual and therefore pushed New Delhi to take unprecedented steps. Militant attacks had occurred before in the areas of Jammu and Kashmir, primarily coordinated by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), an Islamic Salafist militant group with links to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) that was responsible for several attacks on Indian security forces. However, civilian casualties were rare in an area with a Muslim majority. Thus, the Baisaran Valley attack was also viewed as an anti-Hindu assault, further inflaming religious tensions in the subcontinent.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—known for its Hindu nationalist agenda and for using rhetoric portraying Muslims as a threat—responded immediately. After publicly accusing Pakistan of orchestrating the attack, India suspended the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) with Pakistan, a move that could lead to a significant water shortage for millions of Pakistanis. Additionally, India began preparing a military response, though the scale of this operation remained unclear at the time. In response, Pakistan denied any involvement in the attack. However, after learning of New Delhi’s actions concerning the IWT, it warned that suspending the treaty would constitute an act of war. Eventually, on May 7, India launched Operation Sindoor, targeting nine sites identified as “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan and issuing a clear warning that any Pakistani response would be met with retaliation.

Can India Finally Grab Its Trade Moment?

Sanjay Kathuria

On April 2, President Donald Trump announced sweeping and unprecedented tariffs on U.S. trading partners, intensifying global economic uncertainty and triggering a sharp stock market decline in the United States and elsewhere. At the same time, China continues to face headwinds from the global “China+1” strategy, as countries seek to diversify their supply chains and reduce dependence on Chinese manufacturing—a concern that has grown with the escalation of U.S.-China trade tensions. India should seize this moment to set a bold new ambition: to become a more reliable trading partner to the world than either China or the United States. Its size and long-term potential lend credibility to such a vision. Realizing it, though, will require a fundamental rethinking and overhaul of India’s trade policy approach.

Trump has frequently called out India as the world’s “tariff king,” and this is not far from the truth. India is a tariff outlier. If the renewed debate on protectionism helps India understand that its trade policies are self-defeating, Trump might end up doing India, and the world, a huge favor.

The return of the nuclear threat

Joshua Keating

Humanity has lived with nuclear weapons for so long — 80 years, this year — without destroying itself, that we sometimes take them for granted. But there’s no guarantee that our run of luck will continue. In fact, the risks are growing and transforming.

The recent round of fighting between India and Pakistan, the most serious violence between the two nuclear rivals in decades, is a reminder that the risks of nuclear escalation have not disappeared. But that doesn’t mean the risks are exactly the same as they used to be.

The “nuclear age,” can be divided into three parts: The first, from the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945 until the end of the Cold War, was characterized by arms buildups and the ever-present threat of nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Union. The second, a roughly 30-year period after the end of the Cold War, was marked by arms control agreements, a reduction in the threat of nuclear war, and new concerns like nuclear terrorism and proliferation to rogue regimes like North Korea.

The third age is just beginning. In his new book, The New Nuclear Age: At the Precipice of Armageddon, leading nuclear security analyst Ankit Panda introduces readers to a new era that began in roughly the mid-2020s. This new era is characterized by renewed tensions between the world’s superpowers, the emergence of China as a third major nuclear power, the collapse of Cold War-era arms control treaties, and new and potentially destabilizing technological developments like cyberwar and artificial intelligence. The war in Ukraine, the largest conventional war in decades and one that nuclear threats have loomed over from the start, was the most vivid illustration yet of the dynamics of this new era.

In an interview with Vox, Panda, the Stanton senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a widely cited authority on all things nuclear, discussed the dynamics of our new nuclear world and how President Donald Trump’s return to the White House could raise nuclear risks. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Why is China deep in US networks? 'They're preparing for war,' HR McMaster tells lawmakers

Jessica Lyons

Chinese government spies burrowed deep into American telecommunications systems and critical infrastructure networks for one reason, according to retired US Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster.

"Why is China on our systems? Because I think they're preparing for war," McMaster told lawmakers during the US House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security field hearing.

McMaster served as national security advisor to President Donald Trump from February 2017 to April 2018 and is now a senior fellow at Stanford's policy think tank, the Hoover Institution. He, alongside tech execs from Google and Palo Alto Networks, testified before the committee on Wednesday night during the offsite hearing at Stanford.

"The Chinese Communist Party is preparing for war in a number of ways," McMaster said, citing a 44-fold increase in China's defense spending since 2000 and its ongoing weapons-systems development.

"We can connect what we've seen with Volt Typhoon to a broader range of threats, including the massive buildup of their nuclear forces, about a 400 percent increase," McMaster added. "I know it may seem extreme to say this, but I believe that China is developing a first-strike nuclear capability against us, because why else would you want to cripple all of [America's] critical infrastructure, including communications infrastructure."

Also to this point: McMaster cited the Chinese spy balloons used for high-altitude surveillance, and described this as part of Beijing's "pattern of intelligence collection."

"The balloon intelligence collection was really aimed at communications intelligence that could only be picked up at that altitude, and that was communications intelligence associated with our strategic forces," he said.

Historic breakthrough: IDF reveals Iron Beam-like laser defense shot down dozens of aerial threats

YONAH JEREMY BOB

Following the IDF's announcement of a historic breakthrough on Wednesday that an unnamed laser defense system similar to the much celebrated Iron Beam laser system has shot down dozens of aerial threats during the war, the military on Thursday clarified that the exact number was 35 Hezbollah drones.

Further, the IDF said that this was part of wider efforts which shot down close to 1,000 drones when taking into account all of the various fronts from which hostile actors have tried to attack Israel, including: Lebanon, Gaza, Iran, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq.

Already in fall 2024, The Jerusalem Post had learned that the IDF had used laser defense systems in operational situations but was barred from reporting on that at the time.

According to the Defense Ministry, the Iron Beam and a related family of laser defense systems, produced by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, are the most advanced and operational lasers in the world, though England, the US, and others also have relatively advanced laser platforms.

Sources have told the Post that what makes the Iron Beam the most advanced is its reliability in different kinds of weather, variable range, adaptability to different kinds of aerial threats, and the ability to place it in different contexts.

Originally, other sources told the Post that they could not reveal the name of the sister-laser system to the Iron Beam whose progress was being publicly revealed on Wednesday, but later they clarified that the system was the Lite Beam.

Other sources said that they could not reveal the name of the sister-laser system to the Iron Beam, whose progress was being publicly revealed on Wednesday.

Opinion – The Case for a New Armenian Armed Forces Doctrine

Jack Dulgarian

Survival has remained the most fundamental principle in the minds of Armenians. Despite genocide, ethnic cleansing, and geopolitical location in the crossroads of hostile neighbors, Armenian civilization’s survival for over two thousand years is tremendously impressive. There have been many questions since at least the 2016 Four-Day War regarding Yerevan’s national security strategy, military preparedness, and arms procurement. In a 2022 academic article for the U.S. Army War College, Armenian Colonel Zhirayr Amirkhanyan wrote that, “the root cause for the defeat of the Armenian forces in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War (2020) was flawed military doctrine inherited from the Soviet Union.”

Colonel Amirkhanyan, who is the current Assistant to the Chief of the General Staff for the Armenian Ministry of Defense, articulated three crucial arguments. First, he analyzed how Azerbaijan was able to defeat his country’s armed forces. Second, he criticized Soviet Doctrine as a viable method of warfighting for Armenia, and third, he outlined several lessons Yerevan did not learn in the 30-year period from the First Nagorno-Karabakh War through the end of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. This analysis will bulwark Colonel Amirkhanyan’s criticism on Armenia’s reliance to the Soviet method of warfighting. It will offer new considerations for Yerevan to focus on maneuver and survival.

Soviet Attrition Warfare Works for Some, But Not for Armenia

Soviet military doctrine was unique in its strict top-down hierarchical system to levy overwhelming mass to outmatch and exhaust the enemy through long periods of attritional warfighting. “Attrition” means to grind the opposition down through sustained attack and pressure to force the enemy to expend resources. If one side cannot (or is unwilling to) exert necessary manpower, firepower, and/or economy, among other methods of state power, the losing side will be compelled to cede most or all of its authority to the winning side. The Soviet attritional model has been heavily used by each side in the Russia-Ukraine War. Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff and one of most important modern Russian military strategists, has praised Soviet military doctrine forefather Aleksandr Andreevich Svechin and others. Through attrition doctrine, Moscow has utilized a similar attritional method of warfighting which may prove to succeed in Ukraine despite taking more casualties. Yet, Russia can employ Soviet warfighting whereas Armenia cannot.

The UK Brings Cyberwarfare Out of the Closet

Kevin Townsend

The UK’s 2025 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) details a plan to integrate its military defensive and offensive capabilities through increased use of cyber, AI, and digital warfighting.

Like the US, the UK is known, but not publicly proven, to engage in offensive cyber operations, even against allies. Among Snowden’s leaks was information about Operation Socialist, which ran from 2010 to 2013. GCHQ successfully used a Quantum Insert attack against Belgacom (Belgium’s largest telecoms provider).

Despite this, the UK has generally insisted that it does not engage in cyberwarfare – until now. The new SDR (PDF), published June 2, 2025, concentrates on integrating the UK’s offensive and defensive military capabilities on land, sea, and air – and in cyber.

This is a military review, but naturally includes real time collaboration with “the UK Intelligence Community [MI5, MI6, and GCHQ], to achieve maximum effect in response to national security challenges.” A major part of the review is the full and open acceptance of the role of cyber and the electromagnetic spectrum (CyberEM), together with increased use of AI in both defensive and offensive posture; and the need to integrate these capabilities.

“To maximize the benefits of cutting‑edge technology and of the common digital architecture, Defence must also make a concerted effort to develop the necessary digital, AI, cyber, and electromagnetic warfare skills that are central to modern warfighting.”

CyberEM is described as the heart of modern warfare. “It is the only domain contested by adversaries every day,” says the report. For example, the UK’s military networks reportedly received 90,000 ‘gray zone’ attacks over the last two years. (A gray zone attack is designed to disturb or weaken adversaries without triggering a full-scale military response.) Different UK forces already operate in the CyberEM domain,

but independently. These operations are both offensive and defensive, including the UK’s own gray zone activities against the networks or technologies used by adversaries.

Secretary Hegseth’s First Shangri-La Dialogue Speech: Why It Matters—and What to Watch For

Chris Estep

For years, the main stage at the Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD) has given US defense secretaries an annual opportunity to describe US strategy in the Indo-Pacific, highlight important initiatives with allies and partners, and call out emerging challenges to regional stability—and all before an audience of senior defense and military officials convened by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore.

This Saturday’s speech by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth—his first appearance at the SLD since being confirmed—will be unusually important for two primary reasons.

First, Hegseth’s remarks will likely survey the Department of Defense’s latest, most comprehensive public laydown of US defense priorities in the region, and for the first time since the second Trump administration took office.

In March, the Washington Post claimed that the secretary has issued interim strategic guidance for the Pentagon. While that document reportedly discussed US defense priorities in the Indo-Pacific, an unclassified version has not been released publicly. That same month, Hegseth traveled to the Indo-Pacific for the first time as secretary of defense, but his public remarks primarily affirmed the US alliance with each host country. Finally, earlier this month, the Pentagon announced that Hegseth has directed the development of a new National Defense Strategy that, among other priorities, should emphasize “deterring China in the Indo-Pacific” and “increasing burden-sharing with allies and partners around the world.” However, Hegseth established August 31 as the department’s deadline for providing him with a final draft.

As a result, Hegseth’s remarks should give observers their clearest window yet into how the Pentagon under his leadership is thinking about the Indo-Pacific.

More importantly, Hegseth’s plenary speech in Singapore will also probably clock in as the longest public pronouncement so far by any cabinet official in the second Trump administration about US objectives in the Indo-Pacific.

The Guardian view on a new Syria: nurturing fragile hope amid the rubble

The startled joy that greeted Bashar al-Assad’s fall less than six months ago was always shadowed by the fear of what might follow. Hundreds of thousands of the six million Syrians who fled abroad during 14 years of war have returned. Yet the mood has inevitably grown more sober, and last week Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, warned that the fractured country could be weeks away from “potential collapse and a full-scale civil war of epic proportions”.

Mr Rubio was defending Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to lift sanctions after meeting the country’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa – a former al-Qaida fighter who until months ago had a $10m US bounty on his head, but who is also, in Mr Trump’s considered view, a “young, attractive guy. Tough guy”. Whatever the trigger, the suspension of some sanctions by the US, and the lifting of some EU and UK measures, was essential to allow a country devastated by civil war to recover. It may also reduce opportunities somewhat for Russia and Iran to reassert their influence.

Turkey is a longtime backer of Mr Sharaa, who came to power as leader of the Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which led the military operation to oust Mr Assad. Other governments are less keen, but may be concerned that they cannot afford for him to fail, after watching Syria being torn apart – and dealing with the fallout. Israel ignored that lesson, launching hundreds of attacks on Syria, but has dialled them down since Mr Trump’s embrace of the new leader. It should also withdraw from the territory it has seized.

Many Syrians too have concluded that while Mr Sharaa is not the leader they would have chosen, he is the one they have – backing him for fear of the alternative. The government has only limited control of the country. Violence remains rife. Minority communities are understandably terrified after atrocities in March. The Syrian government had called for reinforcements as Assad loyalists ambushed security forces, but fighters who converged on Latakia province slaughtered hundreds of mainly Alawite civilians. Mr Sharaa blamed “individual actions”. Islamic State, thriving since Mr Assad’s fall, has seized upon Mr Sharaa’s rapprochement with the US as a recruitment tool, hoping to persuade foreign fighters and others that they will be sold out.

Why MBS Is Keeping the Pressure on Iran | Opinion

Talal Mohammad

Though Tehran and Riyadh appear to be getting closer, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) is quietly boxing in Iran—replacing confrontation with containment through diplomacy, economic leverage, and nuclear pressure.

When Saudi Arabia and Iran restored relations in 2023, the move was widely seen as a turning point. But behind the optics of smiles and handshakes, their core rivalry continued. MBS simply changed the game: masking the iron fist with a velvet glove. It may look like a thaw, but in reality, it's a recalibrated contest for influence. MBS is boxing Iran in Syria, Lebanon, and nuclear diplomacy.

Once on opposite sides of Syria's civil war, Riyadh and Damascus are now forging a strategic bond. Saudi Arabia is using investment to edge out Iran. In May 2025, MBS arranged a private meeting between President Donald Trump and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa—positioning Riyadh, not Tehran, as Syria's international diplomatic guarantor.

In Lebanon, the 2023–24 Israel–Hezbollah war devastated Iran's top proxy. Israeli strikes killed much of Hezbollah's leadership, including Hassan Nasrallah, and crippled its infrastructure. With Tehran financially constrained, Saudi Arabia stepped in.

Riyadh now plays a gatekeeping role in Lebanon's reconstruction, with foreign aid increasingly tied to Gulf approval. The rise of pro-Gulf leaders such as Army Chief Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, a former ICJ judge, signals a political pivot.

Iran's "Shiite Crescent," once central to Tehran's power projection across Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, is giving way to a "Saudi Full Moon"—a widening sphere of influence built on investment, diplomacy, and institutional leadership.

The Delusions of Peacemaking in Ukraine

Dmytro Kuleba

Ever since the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump in January, the world has been hypnotized by the prospect of a cease-fire in Ukraine. It is easy to see why. The election of an American president who wanted to act as a Ukraine broker rather than a Ukraine backer was seen as an opportunity to disrupt the status quo and stop the bloodshed.

But effective wartime diplomacy requires applying the right amount of leverage—sticks and carrots—on the right parties, under time pressure. Trump introduced the final factor by promising a swift outcome, and when that proved impossible, unsuccessfully threatening to walk away from negotiations altogether. But he failed when it came to rewards and punishments, wielding all the sticks against the country that was attacked while reserving all the carrots for the attacker. He railed against Ukraine, blaming it for the war, and at one point suspended assistance to its military. Meanwhile, he praised Russian President Vladimir Putin.

As a result, the world is no closer to meaningful negotiations now than it was when Trump won the U.S. presidential election in November. Countries have heard and seen a lot—Moscow’s pro-Trump messaging, Kyiv’s embrace of talks, Europe’s American outreach, and all the shuttle diplomacy. But these were less bridges to peace than attempts to flatter the U.S. president: the goal was not to end the war, but to bring Trump closer to one side and prevent him from sliding to the other.

Trump’s quest, however, was always going to be difficult. The stark reality is that neither Russia nor Ukraine has much of an incentive to stop the fighting. Moscow has built a wartime economy that allows it to keep fighting—and makes it hard to stop doing so. Ukraine is in no mood to compromise on its sovereignty, and its military remains strong enough to keep mounting an effective defense. As a result, for now, a cease-fire in Ukraine is impossible.

Russian Opposition and Russian Resistance: The Landscape Before the Battle for Power

Ilya Ponomarev

Russian Opposition and Russian Resistance: The Landscape Before the Battle for Power, by Ilya Ponomarev, the Chairman of the Congress of People’s Deputies of the Russian Republic, is the first article in a series of analyses as part of “Promethean Liberation: Russia’s Emerging National and Regional Movements,” a new project from Jamestown Senior Fellow Janusz Bugajski.

The Russian opposition is currently fractured, dominated by ideologically diverse groups that lack a coherent strategy, shared goals, or political legitimacy. Many function more as protest movements than viable alternatives to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime.

Several different organizations lead the opposition, including the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF), the Anti-War Committee (AWC), the Free Russia Forum (FRF), and the Congress of People’s Deputies (CPD), as well as moderate urbanist reformers, each pursuing distinct strategies.

A new resistance movement has emerged, involving over 10,000 people—including fighters on Ukraine’s frontlines and guerrillas within Russia—who are actively challenging Putin’s regime through direct engagement, offering a new model of sacrifice for change.

Initiatives, such as the CPD, are proactively crafting constitutional reforms and legislative frameworks to ensure that a democratic, decentralized, and rights-respecting Russia is prepared following a regime change.

Western powers hesitate to support armed opposition groups, favoring moderate exiles, but embracing the full spectrum of the Russian opposition, especially those risking their lives in active resistance, would facilitate unity and democratic transition.

Many people consider the “Russian opposition” to be impotent, and few believe that it can defeat Russian President Vladimir Putin and ultimately transform the country. It has reached the point where representatives of the armed part of the Russian opposition are beginning to say, “Do not call us the Russian opposition; we now are the Russian resistance.” This resistance exists and is growing, and already involves more than ten thousand people who are both on the frontlines of Russia’s war against Ukraine and are conducting guerrilla operations on the home front, behind the lines of Putin’s army.

What Would Russia Like From a New Iran Nuclear Deal?

Nikita Smagin

Carnegie Politika is a digital publication that features unmatched analysis and insight on Russia, Ukraine and the wider region. For nearly a decade, Carnegie Politika has published contributions from members of Carnegie’s global network of scholars and well-known outside contributors and has helped drive important strategic conversations and policy debates.

U.S. President Donald Trump may have torn up the previous nuclear deal between the United States and Iran during his first term in office, but he now seems serious about signing a new one. Washington has not only held several rounds of talks with the Iranians, but also dropped many of its demands.

That confronts Russia—which, united by a shared conflict with the West, has grown closer to Iran—with a dilemma: sabotage the negotiations in order to keep its ally isolated by sanctions, or try to become an important mediator in the agreement, as it was in the previous deal.

Back in 2017, Trump not only withdrew unilaterally from the agreement and imposed a slew of sanctions on Iran, but also made maximalist demands for a return to negotiations. The Iranians were asked to abandon both their nuclear enrichment and their missile program, and to cease all support for their proxy forces in the region. In the end, Tehran did not even make it to the negotiating table, despite the damage to the economy caused by the return of intensified sanctions.

However, that policy of putting maximum pressure on Iran failed, and now Trump is adopting a completely different position. Nothing if not extremely pragmatic, the U.S. president is trying to conclude as many deals as possible in the shortest space of time. That has already led to Washington entering into agreements with the Houthis in Yemen, and to unexpected steps to normalize relations with the new Syrian government. Another consequence of this pragmatism was the cooling of Trump’s relations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Compared with the previous demands, Trump’s present requirements vis-à-vis Iran are far more modest. According to leaks, the current talks are focused exclusively on the nuclear program, with no attempts to incorporate other regional security issues. Ideally, the deal should ensure that Iran will never be able to possess nuclear weapons, and in exchange, the United States will lift sanctions, which is theoretically possible given the Republican majority in both houses of Congress.

As Musk Leaves DOGE, What Comes Next After the Billionaire’s Government Experiment?

Nik Popli

Elon Musk came to Washington with a chainsaw in hand, promising to slash trillions in government waste as a member of the Trump Administration. Three months later, he’s leaving behind a complicated legacy that includes unmet expectations and uneasy questions about his leadership.

On Friday, as Musk’s brief stint in government formally came to an end, the billionaire entrepreneur stood beside President Donald Trump in the Oval Office for a final farewell. Wearing a black “DOGE” baseball cap and a T-shirt emblazoned with the word “Dogefather,” Musk said he hoped to continue to be a “friend and adviser to the President” and expressed confidence that the cost-cutting effort he started would eventually find the $1 trillion in savings he had promised.

“The DOGE team will only grow stronger over time,” he said, referring to the Department of Government Efficiency, a network of engineers he led who were tasked with rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse from the federal government.

Musk’s role as a special government employee working for Trump was always intended to be temporary, and he had recently expressed interest in returning his focus to his businesses, as Tesla in particular suffered from plunging sales. But his departure, announced earlier this week, marks a striking turning point for the federal government’s ambitious cost-cutting agency he helped define.

Tactical Developments During the Third Year of the Russo–Ukrainian War

Jack Watling and Nick Reynolds

If a side does not achieve victory within the opening phases of a conflict, protracted warfare necessitates a continuous process of adaptation and counter-adaptation between the parties. The Russo–Ukrainian War has been consistent with this trend, such that the fighting in the first, second and third years of the war saw substantial changes in the composition of forces, equipment, tactics and relative competitive advantages of the combatants. The first year of the war was characterised by comparatively small groupings of well-equipped forces resulting in a mobile conflict. The second year saw the consolidation of areas of control and deliberate attempts to breach the line of contact, first by Russia and then by Ukraine. The third year was highly attritional, with the focus of both parties being the infliction of maximum damage on one another, rather than breakthrough.

The available technology with which the war has been waged has also evolved over this period. The authors of this paper have worked in Ukraine throughout the conflict, and documented the character of the fighting at intervals, noting tactical developments and their operational implications for Ukraine, for support provided by Ukraine’s international partners, and for training and equipment programmes among NATO forces. This report builds on this work, providing an overview of tactical developments as they stand in February 2025 as the war enters its fourth year. The purpose of this paper is to describe the systems of fighting employed by Russian and Ukrainian forces and to identify where changes in how the forces fight reflect peculiarities of the current situation and where they suggest significant changes that will endure. This is not an academic study.

This paper constitutes research notes from fieldwork conducted in November 2024 and January 2025. As this work was written in Ukraine and under conditions consistent with operational security, it does not engage with wider commentaries on the current character of the war. That does not suggest any inadequacy in other studies, and the conclusions and observations in this paper should be read in parallel with similar work carried out by a range of esteemed colleagues. Please also note that this paper provides a discussion of tactics and not an assessment as to the likely outcome of engagements by sector. It does not set out to make predictions.

Armed Forces know cyber is key to unlocking success on battlefield of the future

Simon Newton

Ukraine has taught Western militaries many lessons - and one of the biggest is the huge and growing importance of cyber.

This involves harnessing AI and new software to develop a digital targeting web, a system designed to speed up the flow of battlefield information and enable commanders to target any threats far more quickly.

Cyber expert Rob Black told BFBS Forces News: "I would imagine that there's a lot of sensors already out there and a lot of information already out there, and this web is about how we process it.

"So I'd imagine it's a combination of capabilities – a fusion of data sources, collecting that information at speed, at scale, without even needing to be a technical wizard.

"You can imagine the challenge of getting information from a ship sitting off the coast of Ukraine. There's processing information over the battlefield that is currently in Ukraine and Donetsk.

"For example, can that information be processed by a ship, sending it back to an operational headquarters, sharing it with a targeting team or an artillery team or whatever team it might be?

"You could just imagine how challenging that is to keep the consistency of the understanding of that information and keep that appreciation, that collective sense-making across all the different teams.

"So this is a challenge – and a critical operational challenge – for any military capability."

Trump’s Reciprocal Tariffs: Impact on the Market and Key Currencies

Markets have experienced choppy, two-way price action in response to US President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs imposed on Canada, Mexico and China. These are potentially bigger in speed, scope and breadth than expected and initially saw the dollar strengthen and the yen outperform on safe haven demand. Risk markets sold off, including stocks and growth-sensitive currencies like AUD and NZD.

Volatility was heightened and “headline havoc” was in full effect with an agreement struck later in the day for a one-month delay to Mexican tariffs and after the US close, to Canadian tariffs too. Souring sentiment and concerns over the impact on global growth have driven markets, with retaliatory measures sparking the initial moves. Markets are now alert for any other signs of agreement on more delays to tariff implementation, as well as other possible new tariff announcements.

UK to deliver pioneering battlefield system and bolster cyber warfare capabilities under Strategic Defence Review

Defence Secretary John Healey personnel at MoD Corsham. MoD Crown Copyright.

More than £1 billion to be invested in pioneering ‘Digital Targeting Web’ to spearhead battlefield engagements, applying lessons learnt from Ukraine to the UK Armed Forces.

New Cyber and Electromagnetic Command will oversee cyber operations for Defence as careers pathway accelerated.

Innovation delivers on the Government’s Plan for Change by bolstering national security and creating skilled jobs.

Pinpointing and eliminating enemy targets will take place faster than ever before, as the Government invests more than £1 billion to equip the UK Armed Forces with a pioneering battlefield system.

A new Cyber and Electromagnetic Command will also be established to put the UK at the forefront of cyber operations as part of the Strategic Defence Review (SDR). The announcements were made by Defence Secretary, John Healey MP on a visit to MOD Corsham, the UK military’s cyber HQ.

The Ministry of Defence will develop a new Digital Targeting Web to better connect Armed Forces weapons systems and allow battlefield decisions for targeting enemy threats to be made and executed faster.

This pioneering digital capability will give the UK a decisive advantage through greater integration across domains, new AI and software, and better communication between our Armed Forces. As an example, a threat could be identified by a sensor on a ship or in space before being disabled by an F-35 aircraft, drone, or offensive cyber operation.

The terrifying new weapon changing the war in Ukraine

Yogita Limaye

An acrid smell hangs over the town of Rodynske. A couple of minutes after we drive into the city we see where it's coming from.

A 250kg glide bomb has ripped through the town's main administrative building, and taken down three residential blocks. We're visiting a day after the bomb struck, but parts of the wreckage are still smoking. From the edges of the town we hear the sound of artillery fire, and of gunshots – Ukrainian soldiers shooting down drones.

Rodynske is about 15km (9 miles) north of the embattled city of Pokrovsk. Russia has been trying to capture it from the south since the autumn of last year, but Ukrainian forces have so far managed to stop Russian soldiers from marching in.

So Russia has changed tactics, moving instead to encircle the city, cutting off supply routes.

In the past two weeks, as hectic diplomatic efforts to bring about a ceasefire in Ukraine have failed, Russia has intensified its push, making its most significant advances since January.

We find proof of that in Rodynske.

Within minutes of us arriving in town, we hear a Russian drone above us. Our team runs to the closest cover available – a tree.

We press up against it so the drone won't see us. Then there's the sound of a loud explosion – it's a second drone making impact nearby. The drone above us is still hovering. For a few more minutes, we hear the terrifying whirring sound of what's become the deadliest weapon of this war.

When we can't hear it any more we take the chance to run to hard cover in an abandoned building 100ft away.

From the shelter, we hear the drone again. It's possible it returned after seeing our movement.

Trump’s Tariffs Aren’t Over, But They Face a Major Challenge

Inu Manak

In a major blow to President Donald Trump’s trade agenda, the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) ruled on Wednesday that the sweeping tariffs imposed by his administration are illegal. The decision by the New York-based court follows a series of lawsuits that argued that Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs exceed his presidential authority.

The CIT’s ruling affects the tariffs that Trump imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which gives the president some power to regulate commerce after declaring a national emergency. It does not affect other, more specific tariffs he has imposed on commodities such as steel.

While this derails some of the Trump administration’s trade plans, it does not necessarily mean the end of its trade wars. On Thursday, a federal appeals court granted the administration’s request to pause the decision while it reviews the case, keeping the tariffs in place until at least June 9. The White House has also indicated its intention to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

Much can happen while this legal drama unfolds. In the meantime, here are some of the major implications caused by the court’s ruling.

What immediate effect will this ruling have?

The CIT ordered the Trump administration to stop collecting tariffs imposed under IEEPA within ten days. Those tariffs include levies on Canada, China, and Mexico to allegedly curb illegal fentanyl trafficking, as well as Trump’s April 2 “Liberation Day” tariffs that imposed a baseline 10 percent rate on virtually all U.S. trading partners.

Whatever Happened to Arms Control?

Lawrence Freedman

‘Bertie sustained simultaneously a pair of opinions ludicrously incompatible. He held that in fact human affairs were carried on after a most irrational fashion, but that the remedy was quite simply and easy since all we had to do was carry them on rationally. A discussion of practical affairs on these lines was really very boring.’

To Bertrand Russell, already a pacifist and later a leading light in the campaign for nuclear disarmament, war was the ultimate irrationality. Once nuclear weapons entered the picture it was the ultimate insanity. Seventy years ago, in July 1955, he issued a manifesto jointly with Albert Einstein for discussion at a scientific Congress:

‘In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them.’

The arrival of thermonuclear weapons had added urgency to demands for the abolition of war. The manifesto warned that however important renunciation of such weapons might be as a ‘first step,’ showing political goodwill, it would not be enough. As soon as a war broke out they could return.

‘Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful, and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race: or shall mankind renounce war?’

The renunciation war was not a new idea. Indeed it had already been proclaimed by the major powers. In Paris in 1928, a ‘General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy’, put together by the US Secretary of State Frank Kellogg and the French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand, was signed by most of the major powers of the time. It was short and sweet:

"Parallel Evolution" to move DoD to Maneuver Warfare and Mission Command

Donald Vandergriff

In the last article we defined what Parallel Evolution is from my books Path to Victory: America’s Army and the Revolution in Human Affairs (Presidio Press May 2002 and 2nd edition in Create Space 2013), also located in my 2005 study to reform ROTC called Raising the Bar ( ), as well as the books Raising the Bar: Creating and Nurturing Adaptability to Deal with the Changing Face of War, (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 2nd edition, August 26, 2012) and Manning the Future Legions of the United States: Finding and Developing Tomorrow's Centurions, (Praeger, October 30, 2008).

What are the outcomes that define the course of action direction to move DoD from the Industrial age to Maneuver Warfare and Mission Command?

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We will start with the foundation of our reform what are Maneuver Warfare and Mission Command, and what leadership traits must exist to operate under the culture of Maneuver Warfare (Mission Command is a subset). Then, we will define the necessary outcomes to begin the evolution from where our Defense Department is today to where it needs to be tomorrow and in the future.

Foundational Terms and Definitions

What is Maneuver Warfare? Maneuver warfare is a military culture that emphasizes rapid, flexible, and decentralized movements to outpace and outsmart the enemy, rather than relying solely on overwhelming force or attrition. It focuses on exploiting an adversary's weaknesses, disrupting their decision-making, and targeting critical vulnerabilities through speed, surprise, and adaptability. By prioritizing agility and initiative, maneuver warfare seeks to create and capitalize on opportunities to achieve decisive results with minimal resources, often using indirect approaches to disorient and defeat opponents.

Selective Openness: America's Path to Technological Dominance

Jags Kandasamy

As Congress debates the American Innovation and R&D Act of 2025, the United States is facing an existential test: how to maintain its technological supremacy in a world marked by increasingly intense global rivalries, especially with China. This isn’t just a competition of money; it's about national security. China’s version of America’s GPT-4 model, the DeepSeek AI model, has already shrunk America’s lead in artificial intelligence to months and underscored how our defense innovation ecosystem is still broken.

The act is directed at STEM education, semiconductor manufacture, and secure supply chains. It is a significant plus-up to help us retain U.S. leadership in AI, quantum computing, and 5G — the technologies underpinning our future military capabilities. Lawmakers must act urgently to balance open innovation and strategic defense, or risk watching adversaries exploit that balance on the battlefield and beyond.

Without question, America has maintained technological dominance for decades by sharing technology among open-source contributors. From Silicon Valley start-ups to America’s most prominent defense companies, the Pentagon has emerged as arguably the driver of a staggering array of technologies, like artificial intelligence and cloud computing, now promising to transform how we live and fight. But untrammeled transparency today threatens to destroy the edge we still have. China's deployment of open-source AI models powered by its great digital wall, such as the models DeepSeek relies on, is part of an ongoing process refining the country's AI military, including systems for autonomous drones and cyber warfare and at the same time, denying Americans and the rest of the world access to its ingenuity.

We offer a more nuanced and balanced solution to this dilemma—one that carefully demarcates the technologies that should remain open to international collaboration and those critical innovations we must guard more zealously.

First, broad openness ought to prevail for technologies that create vast opportunities for economic growth and positive societal application but carry little military risk. Examples like healthcare AI, general-purpose machine learning frameworks, and technologies aimed at the public good should be collaborative, global efforts.

UK military to establish new Cyber and Electromagnetic Command

The United Kingdom announced on Thursday its intention to create a new military formation focused specifically on digital and electronic warfare, as a result of the country’s strategic defense review.

Cyber and Electromagnetic Command will sit under Strategic Command — already responsible for the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) offensive and defensive cyber capabilities, alongside the country’s special forces — and is intended to “lead defensive cyber operations and coordinate offensive cyber capabilities with the National Cyber Force,” according to the MoD.

It comes as the government prepares to publish a strategic defense review launched shortly after the Labour Party was elected. It will establish the priorities for military spending over the coming years and focus on how to address “the threats Britain faces, the capabilities needed to meet them, the state of UK armed forces and the resources available.”

“Ways of warfare are rapidly changing,” said Britain’s defense secretary, John Healey, in a statement. “The hard-fought lessons from Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine leave us under no illusions that future conflicts will be won through forces that are better connected, better equipped and innovating faster than their adversaries.

“We will give our Armed Forces the ability to act at speeds never seen before - connecting ships, aircraft, tanks and operators so they can share vital information instantly and strike further and faster.”

The review is expected to be published on June 2 and to highlight “how daily cyber-attacks are threatening the foundations of the economy and daily life” according to the MoD.

Efforts to deal with this challenge involve encouraging direct recruitment into specialist cyber roles. A new accelerated pipeline announced in February will see cyberwarriors do only an abridged form of basic training — only four weeks instead of the normal 10 — before spending three months learning military cyber skills.

The Dangers of AI Hype

Ilan Manor

According to Dan Kotliar, technological advancements are accompanied by a certain degree of hype, or hyperbolic discourse. The internet, for example, was accompanied by a democratization hype with scholars and pundits arguing that the internet would enable new forms of democratic participation. Social media was associated with a revolutionary hype which suggested that it would help topple tyrants, despots and dictators who could no longer exert total control over public opinion. The Arab Spring protests help boost this. Over the past two years, the world has been in the grips of an “AI hype”. Journalists, tech moguls and academics have all stated that AI will radically change daily life, impacting numerous professions while altering how knowledge is produced, how art is created, how citizens are policed, how policy is formulated and how human relationships are formed. AI doctors will replace physicians, AI bots will displace psychologists, AI coders will replace tech employees, while AI agents will replace lawyers and legislators. These predictions all suggest that AI is fundamentally different from previous technological advancements. The “AI moment” is an evolutionary one as humanity is about to evolve into a new state of AI-enhanced existence.

Hypes can be both positive and negative. The advent of the internet was also accompanied by concerns of disparities between rich and poor, or between those that could afford an internet connection and those that would be left out of the new digital town square. This is also true of AI with some warning that AIs could become so advanced that they “go rogue”, ignore their programming and unleash unparalleled catastrophes such as nuclear wars. What is most noteworthy about technological hypes is that they shape state policies. Hypes are visions of the future. They are cognitive roadmaps that define a set of possible futures. Yet these visions of the future are limiting as they prevent policy makers from using their imagination or leveraging new technologies in new and original ways. Instead, policy makers come to view technologies through the narrow prism of several dominant hypes. Presently, states and policy makers seem to view AI through four dominant hypes: Bloom, Boom, Gloom and Doom.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang finally nails it, warns that every job will be affected by AI — and soon

Nvidia CEO warns AI is replacing workers fast—will your job survive the shift?- The conversation around AI and jobs just got real. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang didn’t sugarcoat things at this year’s Milken Institute Global Conference. He says AI is reshaping the job market immediately, not in the distant future—and if you’re not using it, you could be left behind.

“Every job will be affected, and immediately. It is unquestionable,” said Huang. “You’re not going to lose your job to an AI, but you’re going to lose your job to someone who uses AI.”

Is AI replacing workers or helping them get back to work?Huang, the 62-year-old billionaire at the helm of Nvidia, says we shouldn’t just fear AI—we should learn how to use it. According to him, AI could bring 30 to 40 million people back into the workforce, helping to close the talent gap that’s been growing globally.

He argues that AI tools like generative models will boost productivity, fuel global GDP, and open up new roles across industries. In his words, “I would recommend 100% of everybody take advantage of AI. Don’t be that person who ignores this technology and as a result, loses your job.”

The bottom line? It’s not AI that replaces you—it’s a person using AI smarter and faster than you.

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