Indian Strategic Studies: 06/08/25

8 June 2025

Key Questions about the India-Pakistan Aerial Clashes

There is a risk of drawing the wrong conclusions about Chinese and Western air capabilities from the recent clashes if Indian fighter losses are looked at without close examination of the wider operational picture.

The aerial clashes during the recent fighting between India and Pakistan have drawn significant interest from air forces and air power analysts around the world, as well as a barrage of claims and counterclaims from both combatant nations’ governments, militaries and media.

The highly polarised and nationalistic nature of the information space on such topics in both countries means that few official statements can be relied on at face value, and disinformation has been used to flood social media on both sides. It is only in recent days that Indian officials have publicly acknowledged the loss of fighter aircraft, and no explanations have yet been offered for what went wrong.

However, based on analysis of geolocated wreckage, and discussions with officials and military personnel in numerous countries since the clashes occurred, there a few things that can be stated at this stage, albeit with caveats that they represent analysis based on fragmentary initial data-points.

Initial Outcomes

The first is that during the engagements, Pakistani forces fired a significant number of PL-15 air-to-air missiles from either J-10CE and/or potentially JF-17 fighters, as well as a number of HQ-9 long range surface-to-air missiles.

The second is that the Indian Air Force suffered several fighter losses, including one Dassault Rafale, one Mig-29 and likely a Su-30MKI among one or two additional losses for which no definitive wreckage has been seen in open source.

Third, the Indian Air Force was consistently able to penetrate Pakistani air defences with air-launched standoff munitions to strike a range of terrorist-linked and military sites, despite heavy and well-coordinated defences.

How China and Pakistan Work Against India

Harsh V. Pant, Rahul Rawat

The China-Pakistan military partnership, driven primarily by shared competition with India, has found renewed geostrategic logic since August 2019. India’s recent Operation Sindoor and Pakistan’s military response reflect the depth and quality of its bilateral exchanges with China. These ties are maturing and could soon prove decisive. New Delhi’s window to escape from this trap is closing.

Following the logic of legendary Indian strategist Kautilya and his Mandala theory, China and Pakistan have emerged as natural strategic partners, seeking to counterbalance India. This alignment was visibly reinforced during Operation Sindoor. On May 6–7, 2025, the Indian military targeted terrorist infrastructure in response to a likely Pakistan-backed terrorist attack in the Pahalgam region of Jammu and Kashmir.

In retaliation, the Pakistani military launched Operation Bunyan-un-Marsoos to target India. During the crisis episode, the employment of Chinese-origin fighter jets, Chinese PL-15 missiles, and drones highlighted a significant level of convergence in operational capabilities.

Concurrently, the presence of the Chinese survey vessel Da Yang Yi Hao, equipped with advanced sensors in the Indian Ocean, signals a larger strategic coordination. Besides the use of Chinese military technology, Chinese air defense, and satellite-based ISR support in response to Operation Sindoor, the DG ISPR briefings highlight Pakistan’s efforts to emulate the multi-domain warfare of the Chinese military. The episode underscores the real-time materialization of the emergent China-Pakistan two-front military threat. The geostrategic alignment is rapidly translating into a functional military synergy with serious implications for India’s national security.

China-Pakistan geopolitical convergence and military cooperation date back to the 1960s, with the Sino-Indian conflict of 1962 serving as an inflection point for the China-Pakistan partnership. In 1963, Pakistan signed a border agreement with China, ceding 5,180 square kilometers of Indian territory in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK) to China, symbolizing mutual alignment for future cooperation. At present, India’s decades-old territorial conflicts with China and Pakistan—marked by protracted disputes and later exacerbated by the nuclear environment—highlight the structural condition of the two-front challenge.

Distinguishing Friend from Foe in Afghanistan

Natalie Gonnella-Platts, and Jessica Ludwig

Many of the Afghans who sought refuge in the United States fled the country because working with the United States and the international community in pursuit of a peaceful and prosperous future for all made them a direct target for Taliban retribution. Forcing them to return to their homeland would place Afghans at risk of losing their freedom—and possibly even their lives.

And yet a growing chorus of influencers dismisses these concerns. This includes arguments that Afghan refugees in the United States under Temporary Protected Status (TPS) have no reason to fear returning to Afghanistan, completely ignoring the harsh daily realities faced by most Afghan citizens living under the Taliban. Most of these arguments also omit any mention of the Taliban’s past and present ties with other terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network, responsible for the deaths of approximately 2,000 U.S. servicemembers, let alone the fact that the United States has designated the Taliban itself as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.

As we have documented in a series of reports published by the George W. Bush Institute, the Taliban’s claims to have reduced violence and corruption are regularly proven false by their direct actions. In reality, they have relied on mafia-like behavior to consolidate power and control over the Afghan population. The resulting corruption and kleptocracy have imposed severe human costs—including child labor, starvation, and lack of healthcare—with significant consequences for regional and global security.

If the Taliban have evolved in any way over the past three decades, it is only that they have become savvier and more sophisticated in their propaganda and abuse of power. From travel bloggers and social media personalities to government officials and policy experts, those who endorse their claims and behavior are apathetic to the widespread atrocities committed against the Afghan people by the Taliban. In many ways, they are also directly complicit in the legitimization of the Taliban and acceptance of extremism, autocracy, and institutionalized misogyny.

Apple’s Supply Chain: Economic and Geopolitical Implications

Chris Miller

Key Points Over the past decade, many electronics firms have talked about diversifying their supply chains. An analysis of Apple—America’s biggest consumer electronics firm—illustrates that most of their manufacturing supply chain remains in China, though there have been limited increases in Southeast Asia and India.

China’s role for Apple has grown substantially. Ten years ago, Apple relied on China primarily for final assembly, while today Apple not only assembles devices in China, it also sources many components from the country.

However, Chinese-owned firms generally only play a role in lower-value segments of the supply chain. Many of the higher-value components—even those made in China—are produced in factories owned by Japanese, Taiwanese, or US firms.

Introduction

“Designed in California, assembled in China,” reads the text etched on the back of most iPhones. For over a decade, the iPhone has exemplified China’s central role in producing the world’s electronics and solidified the country’s status as the world’s leading manufacturer.

Today, electronics constitute around a quarter of China’s exports; China counted for nearly a third of the entire world’s electronics exports. Apple— the world’s most valuable manufacturer of consumer electronics—stands at the center of this manufacturing base, having played a major role in helping build China’s capabilities.1

China's trade war gambit puts Trump on defense

If international trade is a game of chess, China has the U.S. in check — with few good options for the next move.

Why it matters: The trade war has exposed just how deeply the U.S. economy is at the mercy of an accident of geology — China's supply of the rare earth minerals that power our modern high-tech society.

The big picture: China's control of the global rare earths supply has left the U.S. playing defense in a trade war of its own design.China loosening up on rare earths exports was a key part of the trade truce the two countries struck in mid-May. But its slow-walking of those exports is now at the heart of another breakdown in the relationship.

Between the lines: President Trump says he and China's President Xi Jinping spent 90 minutes on the phone Thursday discussing trade."There should no longer be any questions respecting the complexity of Rare Earth products," Trump said — though what that means for exports, as a practical matter, wasn't immediately clear.

Whatever leverage the Trump administration thought it had going into a spree of "90 deals in 90 days" has thus far not delivered much, and now courts are threatening to stand in the president's way.

State of play: The U.S. economy has been resilient thus far, defying predictions of immediate tariff chaos. But new signs suggest private-sector hiring is weakening, and supply chains are breaking down.Consumer prices are starting to rise, manufacturers' profits are being squeezed, and the specter of inflation looms larger by the day.

Factories are beginning to shut down because they can't get the necessary components, and some companies are reportedly considering the extraordinary step of shipping their unfinished products to China to add the components there.

None of that was the point of the trade war; most of it is the exact opposite.

Trump’s Student Visa Crackdown Could Be a Boon for China

ChristinaLu,

a reporter at Foreign Policy.A student waits during the Huazhong University of Science and Technology graduation ceremony in a sports stadium in Wuhan,

China.A student waits during the Huazhong University of Science and Technology graduation ceremony in a sports stadium in Wuhan, China, on June 20, 2017. STR/AFP via Getty Images

June 3, 2025, 4:47 PM

The Trump administration’s pledge to revoke the student visas of Chinese students in the United States could inadvertently be a boon for China, which has long been eager to woo back top talent to advance its tech and AI sectors.

In its crusade against American universities, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced last week that the Trump administration would “aggressively revoke” the visas of Chinese international students, including “those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] or studying in critical fields.”

The administration will also intensify scrutiny of all future visa applications from China and Hong Kong, Rubio said.

China Pressuring Two Major Myanmar Armed Groups to Halt Offensives

Sebastian Strangio

The Irrawaddy River near Bhamo, in Kachin State, Myanmar.Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Colegota

China’s special envoy to Myanmar has reportedly urged two major ethnic armed groups to halt their military offensives in Kachin and Rakhine states, where Beijing has initiated important infrastructure projects.

In a report published yesterday, The Irrawaddy reported that during meetings in late May, envoy Deng Xijun requested that the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and Arakan Army (AA) put down their weapons, “offering improved ties with China in return.” The report, which cited sources close to the KIA and AA, added that China’s purpose was to stabilize the military junta and secure the conditions necessary for large-scale Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure projects to proceed.

In particular, the report mentioned the China-backed deep-sea port at Kyaukphyu in Rakhine State, the starting point of the 973-kilometer overland pipelines supplying gas and crude oil to China’s Yunnan province, and the city of Bhamo, a “key cargo hub for the BRI” on the Irrawaddy River around 65 kilometers from the Chinese border.

Both of these locations have been threatened by the steady advance of the AA and KIA. The AA is a member of the Three Brotherhood Alliance of ethnic armed groups, which launched a coordinated offensive in October 2023 (“Operation 1027”) that inflicted a series of serious defeats on the military junta in late 2023 and 2024. The AA now has primary control of 14 of Rakhine State’s 17 townships, as well as Paletwa township in neighboring Chin State, and has hemmed the Myanmar military into a few pockets in Sittwe, Kyaukphyu, and Manaung townships.

How Chinese drones could defeat America

Let me tell you a story about World War 2. In 1940, before the entry of the U.S. and the USSR into the war, Britain was fighting alone against Germany and Italy. Despite being massively outnumbered and outgunned, the British managed to pull off a spectacular naval victory, using innovative new technology. They sent the HMS Illustrious, an aircraft carrier, to attack the Italian fleet in its harbor at Taranto.

The British aircraft disabled three Italian battleships and several other ships, without the Italian navy even seeing their opponents’ ships, much less having a chance to fight back.

But that’s just the prelude to my story, which is not about a British victory, but a British defeat. Just a little over a year after the Battle of Taranto, Winston Churchill sent the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse to deter Japan from attacking Singapore. Despite their own crushing victory at Taranto,

the British military leadership was skeptical that battleships moving under their own power at sea could be taken down by air attack alone. They placed their faith in the power of zigzag movement and anti-aircraft guns to deter attacking planes.

This was foolish. Japanese torpedo bombers found and sank the Prince of Wales and the Repulse quite easily. Here is an aerial photo of the British warships, taken from the cockpit of a Japanese plane, desperately trying to evade their doom:

Russia’s Battlefield Woes in Ukra

Russian military forces have failed to effectively advance along multiple axes in Ukraine, seized limited territory, lost substantial quantities of equipment relative to Ukraine, and suffered remarkably high rates of fatalities and casualties since January 2024, according to new CSIS data. While some policymakers and experts argue that Russia holds “all the cards” in the Ukraine war, the data suggests that the Russian military has performed relatively poorly on the battlefield.

There has been a growing chorus of policymakers and analysts who argue that the Russian military holds the initiative in the war in Ukraine and will likely triumph. As one U.S. academic contended, “the United States and the West more generally and Ukraine have lost in the war over Ukraine,” and “the Russians are going to win.”1 Dmytro Kuleba, a former Ukrainian foreign minister,

remarked that unless the current trajectory changes, “we will lose this war.”2 In addition, some U.S. policymakers have concluded that Russia has “all the cards.”3

Not surprisingly, Russian President Vladimir Putin has boasted that Russia is decisively winning on the battlefield: “Overall, we can clearly see what is happening right now. Our troops have the strategic initiative along the entire contact line.” He continued that “we have reason to believe that we are set to finish them off.

I think that people in Ukraine need to realize what is going on.”4 Andrei Kartapolov, head of the defense committee in the Duma, Russia’s lower legislative chamber, followed Putin’s comments with threats that if Ukraine did not accede to Russia’s maximalist demands in peace negotiations, Ukrainian leaders would be forced to listen to “the language of the Russian bayonet.”5

America and Israel Follow the Same Old Script

In recent weeks, an air of crisis has enveloped the United States’ relationship with Israel—Washington’s closest ally and client state in the Middle East. When U.S. President Donald Trump made his first trip to the region in May,

he notably bypassed Jerusalem on his way to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. The snubbing of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was coupled with dramatic twists and turns in American regional diplomacy. Against Israel’s wishes,

Trump is negotiating directly with the Jewish state’s worst enemies: Iran and Hamas. His team reached out to the Yemeni Houthis,

who keep firing missiles deep into Israel and continue to block its marine traffic. He even met with Syria’s ex-jihadist leader, whom he praised as “tough” and “attractive.”

To Netanyahu’s critics at home and abroad, Trump’s behavior is a breath of fresh air. For years, the Israeli leader has boasted about his close relationship with this U.S. president, arguing that their bond is a reason to keep him in power. During Trump’s first term,

after all, the United States gave Israel and Netanyahu almost everything they asked for. But this time, Trump is bucking the prime minister, and Netanyahu and his supporters have had only feeble excuses as to why their efforts are failing.

Yet historically speaking, Trump’s diplomatic overtures to Israel’s adversaries are not new. Since Israel’s establishment, in 1948, U.S. administrations have generally followed Washington’s own geopolitical interests in the Middle East, even when those interests conflict with Israel’s.

Judged by these standards, Trump’s first term—with its near-unequivocal support for Israel’s regional ambitions—was an aberration. His second, by contrast, is more of a regression to the mean.

Ukrainian Commander’s Exclusive Insights On Brutal Drone Warfare On The Frontline

Last October, the First Corps Azov Brigade of the Ukrainian National Guard saw the need to increase the number of drones it had and people to operate them. So it created the 12th Special Forces Brigade Azov of the Ukrainian National Guard’s Unmanned Systems Battalion. It now has several hundred troops and tens of thousands of drones ranging from first-person view (FPV) variants to heavy ‘bomber’ types. They are fighting in and around Toretsk,

a now-destroyed city in Donetsk Oblast where some of the war’s fiercest battles are taking place. In a deeper dive into our nearly two-hour exclusive interview, the commander of this battalion, callsign “Yas,” shared new details about the ever-evolving use of drones in combat.

Yas addressed a huge range of issues. He told us about what is working and what is not, Russia’s new battlefield tactics, the problem with ‘dragon drones,’ how they are putting their new fixed-wing SETH drones to use,

how combat is morphing to war between robots, and why he is wary of operating unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) that are equipped with the ability to kill. The questions and answers have been slightly edited for clarity.

You can catch up with his insights on the pros and cons of fiber-optic controlled FPV drones in our recent piece linked here.

Strategic Snapshot: Assessing Threats & Challenges to NATO’s Eastern Fla

Russia’s strategy for challenging the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has evolved into a sophisticated hybrid-warfare doctrine that combines conventional military maneuvers in Ukraine with covert, disruptive operations across Europe’s frontlines. Moscow seeks to probe defenses, exploit ambiguity, and sow discord among allies. These campaigns encompass espionage, sabotage, cyber-warfare,

and information operations, including concerted efforts to dominate digital spaces and foment Eurosceptic, disruptive politics. Most strikingly, Russia has waged an undercover war on European communications infrastructure, from cyber-terrorism to physical sabotage of undersea fiber-optic cables in the Baltic and Arctic.

In the Arctic, Russia’s twenty-first-century geopolitical maneuvering poses a formidable challenge to NATO containment. Its Project 22220 nuclear icebreakers and expansive logistics network,

bolstered by deepening collaboration with the People’s Republic of China (PRC)—self-styled as a “near-Arctic power”—aim to secure control over the emerging Northern Sea Route—a critical artery for global trade and strategic mobility.

On the European mainland, Moscow’s influence-peddling and political subversion have achieved worrying, if uneven, success in pulling NATO members or aspirant states away from the West. Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party continues to steer the country away from the West into Russia’s orbit, particularly after the highly controversial parliamentary elections in October 2024 and the suspension of discussions on EU accession.

Romania and Moldova narrowly resisted similar pressures during their most recent elections. Meanwhile, Russia’s sway over Hungary, Slovakia, and Serbia remains firmly entrenched.

Russian Drones Pose Growing Danger

Russia is increasing the production and use of Shahed-type kamikaze drones against Ukraine, constantly improving their effectiveness and ability to break through air defenses.

In addition to simpler drones, Moscow is developing and testing more sophisticated unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) featuring artificial intelligence (AI) for auto-targeting and computer vision.

The Kremlin may transfer weapon technologies and tactics to allies such as the People’s Republic of China or Iran in exchange for resources and weapons.

Over the weekend of May 24, Russia conducted one of its largest air attacks against Ukraine. Russia used a record 653 Shahed-type kamikaze attack drones and their imitations in addition to 78 cruise, ballistic, and aircraft missiles. Ukraine shot down 372 weapons and utilized radar and other forms of electronic warfare to suppress 182 others (Facebook/Air Force Command of Ukrainian Armed Forces, May 25, May 26).

This attack is a clear demonstration of Russia’s ever-growing combat and production capabilities despite the high percentage of drones destroyed. According to Ukrainian intelligence, the Kremlin plans to increase the production of Shaheds, also known as Geran (Geran’, Геран), meaning “Geranium” in English), to 500 per day and launch up to 1,000 per attack (The Economist; Ukrainian National News, May 25; C4ADS, May 29). In April,

Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, stated that Russia has increased production and is using swarm tactics, expanding its number of crews and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) (Telegram/@akovalenko1989, April 22). Given their relatively low cost and simple design, Moscow can produce huge numbers of drones. Russia’s large quantity of drones and their constantly changing tactics mean they can break through even a complex echelon air defense system.

Russia Details Preconditions to Ukraine For Ceasefire and Political Settlement: Political Terms

Russia has released an embryonic Treaty of final settlement with Ukraine following their June 2 bilateral meeting in Istanbul. The territorial clauses require Ukraine to recognize Russia’s de jure annexations of Crimea and four Ukrainian mainland provinces to the full extent of their pre-2014 administrative boundaries.

Security clauses demand Ukraine give up all its previously existing forms of cooperation with Western powers in any framework. Under its expansive interpretation of neutrality, Russia could also claim the right to vet or even veto cooperation agreements between Ukraine and the European Union. Ukraine’s renunciation of war reparations could shift the post-war reconstruction costs on the EU.

Cultural and political clauses would introduce official Russian-Ukrainian language parallelism and language contest in Ukraine; could ban legitimate expressions of Ukrainian nationalism through conflation with “Nazism;” and initiate a process of re-russification in Ukraine.

On June 2, in Istanbul, Russian negotiators presented their Ukrainian counterparts with military and political preconditions for a ceasefire agreement and an eventual settlement of what Russia describes as “the Ukraine crisis.” Moscow eschews the terms “war” and “peace” (see EDM, June .

The set of Russian documents includes two ceasefire options (both in Chapter II), a framework for a final settlement, and a roadmap toward that settlement (Chapters I and III, respectively) (TASS, June 2, released in Russian only).

Brave New Techno-Nationalist World The Trump administration is rapidly reshaping the global digital order.

Tobias Feakin

The global digital order is being rapidly reshaped under U.S. President Donald Trump. What had previously been an uneasy but functioning framework of cooperation, built on multilateral tech diplomacy, coordinated artificial intelligence safety efforts,

and collective export controls, is now unravelling. In its place, the United States is embracing a more unilateral and aggressive technology strategy, prioritizing technological dominance over multilateral cooperation.

As the January announcement about the establishment of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology put it, “it is a national security imperative for the United States to achieve and maintain unquestioned and unchallenged global technological dominance.” The new doctrine is simple: “America First,” in digital form.

Because of this strategy, the global technological landscape is entering a period of heightened competition, fragmentation, and uncertainty. There will be a surge in techno-nationalism and a more dangerous digital landscape.

The United States may achieve short-term technological gains, but it will be unable to sustain long-term leadership without a broad coalition of allies and partners. Fragmentation will slow the global pace of innovation while also catalyzing the emergence of new models of governance as states seek more control over their technological future.

What Is the Impact of Ukraine’s Raid on Russia’s Air Force?

Franz-Stefan Gady,

An image from a video released by a source in the Ukrainian Security Service shows a Ukrainian drone striking a Russian aircraft deep in Russian territory on June 1.An image from a video released by a source in the Ukrainian Security Service shows a Ukrainian drone striking a Russian aircraft deep in Russian territory on June 1. Ukrainian Security Service via AP

June 4, 2025, 1:35 PM

During the night of June 1, Ukraine launched an audacious, long-planned drone operation deep in Russian territory, targeting Moscow’s strategic bomber fleet at multiple bases. Ukraine said the mission—codenamed “Spiderweb”—hit 41 bombers, with at least 13 fully destroyed. Reports suggest that Tu-95 and Tu-22M bombers were hit.

Notably, Ukraine apparently chose not to target Russia’s most modern, nuclear-capable Tu-160 bombers, focusing instead on the Tu-95 and Tu-22M, which have been used extensively in conventional cruise missile attacks on Ukrainian cities.

The US Grid Attack Looming on the Horizon

When the lights went out across the Iberian Peninsula in April, everything ground to a halt. Scores of people were trapped in Madrid’s underground metro system. Hospitals in Lisbon had to switch to emergency generators. Internet service as far away as Greenland and Morocco went down.

While the cause remains unclear, the actual damage to the Iberian power grid—and the people it serves—was relatively minor. Less than 24 hours after the outage began, the region’s electricity operators managed to get the grid back online.

Even if things could have been much worse, the outage was both an unnerving reminder of how suddenly things can go offline.

For years, cybersecurity professionals, watchdogs, and government agencies have warned that a malicious cyberattack on the US power grid could be devastating. With ample evidence that state-sponsored hacking groups are eyeing the decentralized and deeply vulnerable power grid, the risk is more acute than ever.

Case in point: Hackers, believed to be linked to the Chinese government, spent years exploiting vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure across the mainland United States and Guam to obtain access to their systems. The operations, dubbed Volt Typhoon, could have used this access to shut down or disconnect parts of the American power grid—throwing millions into the dark. The effort was, luckily, disrupted and the vulnerabilities patched. Still, it is an unnerving illustration of just how vulnerable the electric system truly is.

We know what such a hack could look like. In 2015, Ukraine experienced the world’s first large-scale cyberattack on an electrical grid. A Russian military intelligence unit known as Sandworm disconnected various substations from the central grid and knocked hundreds of thousands of people offline.

Ukrainian drone strikes show up Australia’s out-of-date defences

Over the weekend, Ukraine provided a demonstration of something that has been largely misinterpreted by the many “pop-up” war experts that have emerged here and elsewhere in the past three years. What the audacious Ukrainian strikes showed was not a new way of war nor new drone capabilities. Both have been on display for more than three years – for those who have noticed.

Ukrainian troops prepare to launch a Kazhan heavy drone in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine.CREDIT:AP

What the Ukrainians actually provided on the weekend was a lesson that has two sides: On one side, they showed what can be done when politicians and military leaders take risk and free up their people to exercise creativity. The other side of the lesson is that Ukraine showed what happens to those who do not pay sufficient attention to the lessons of war, and whose learning and adaptation culture and systems are inadequate.

Unfortunately, the Australian defence department and its part-time minister have shown no indication they have learned the first lesson but have demonstrated a full measure of the second.

Australia’s defence force is slowly but surely being degraded in size and capacity by being denied funding, due to a focus on submarines that will arrive too late to deter China’s rapid military build-up and aggression. The 2 per cent of GDP being spent on defence has been recognised by every credible defence expert in this country as insufficient for normal defence needs, let along running a defence force and paying down the nuclear submarines as well as paying the exorbitant salaries of the hundreds of AUKUS bureaucrats who are travelling the world, writing briefs and producing nothing.

The Ukrainian drone strikes on the weekend are another “foot-stomp” moment for Australia. They demonstrated that taking risks and being innovative can result in the development of a long-range strike capability that does not just have to build on the small number of exquisite and expensive systems Australia is procuring. And unlike these big expensive systems, which once lost are gone forever, drones can be produced in mass quantities by Australian industry in case we are involved in a sustained war.

Could Chinese AI scientists threaten US tech dominance? Study of DeepSeek team gives clues

China’s home-grown artificial intelligence talent may be a threat to the United States’ tech dominance, according to a study of DeepSeek by the Hoover Institution, an American think tank.

China had cultivated a robust domestic AI talent pipeline, as seen in DeepSeek’s research team, whose members were mainly educated and trained within the country, the report said.

While around a quarter of DeepSeek researchers gained experience in the US, most returned to China, resulting in a one-way knowledge transfer that strengthened China’s AI ecosystem, it found.

“These talent patterns represent a fundamental challenge to US technological leadership that export controls and computing investments alone cannot address,” it said.

“DeepSeek is an early-warning indicator about the essential role that human capital – not just hardware or algorithms – plays in geopolitics, and how America’s talent advantage is eroding.

Israel’s Dangerous Escalation in Gaza

Over the past few weeks, Israel’s 20-month-old military campaign in the Gaza Strip has reached another crux point. On March 18, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) restarted the offensive, with ambitious new goals, which included targeting Hamas’s remaining civil bureaucracy as well as its fighters, and ratcheting up pressure on the organization by halting the entrance of humanitarian aid—which Hamas has weaponized to control the Gazan population and rebuild its military. Then, on May 4,

the Israeli cabinet approved a more far-reaching plan, called Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which envisions not only the total defeat of Hamas but also seizing and holding the entire strip in what could amount to indefinite military control.

Although this recent operation has only begun, it has already highlighted the dangers of the war’s relentless expansion. Of the 255 hostages seized by Hamas on October 7, 2023, 58 still remain, of whom 20 are believed to be still alive. Yet as of early June, despite a concerted U.S. push for another cease-fire deal, it remains doubtful whether negotiations for the release of the remaining hostages, let alone an end to the war, would bear fruit. Meanwhile,

the offensive has put Israel under extraordinary political, social, economic, and moral pressure. At home, the State of Israel faces looming challenges in manpower and resources; internationally, it confronts mounting criticism and condemnation, including from close allies.

From a strategic vantage point, the larger problem for Israel is the growing tension between its core security goals for the war and the government’s evolving designs for achieving them. At the heart of its stated war aims are the removal of the Hamas threat and the release of the hostages. But the protracted military campaign has been increasingly shaped by the ideological goals of the radical right parties in the cabinet, which include a permanent Israeli occupation, the rebuilding of Jewish settlements, and the establishment of full Israeli sovereignty in Gaza.

Putin’s Pressure Point

Anew U.S. president enters office vowing to reach out a hand to a bitter enemy. He pledges to resolve a long-burning crisis through diplomacy, despite widespread skepticism that it’s possible. When his early efforts stall, Congress—including members of the president’s own party—loses patience and advances sweeping sanctions to break the impasse. European allies also grow frustrated and impose new penalties.

This is the story of the opening months of Donald Trump’s second term on Russia. After refusing to accept a cease-fire and intensifying attacks on Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has shown that he’s not interested in peace. Meanwhile, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, has secured over 80 votes for a bill to impose “bone-crushing sanctions” on Russia—enough for a veto-proof majority. The EU is preparing new sanctions, too.

But it’s also the story of the opening year of Barack Obama’s presidency on Iran. During George W. Bush’s second term, the United States steadily escalated sanctions on Iran. When Obama entered office, he pivoted to diplomacy, proposing an arrangement in which Tehran would part with its stockpile of enriched uranium in exchange for nuclear fuel. In late 2009,

however, Iran rejected the proposal. Congress responded with wave after wave of sanctions, culminating in measures that devastated Iran’s oil revenues. European countries also stepped up and imposed an oil embargo. The combined pressure drove Iran’s economy into freefall, creating the conditions that ultimately brought Iran to the negotiating table.

With Trump’s Russia policy at a dead end, his administration would do well to learn from Obama’s Iran experience. A particularly important lesson is that congressional initiative—while almost always unwelcome by the executive branch—can be an essential ingredient to a successful economic pressure strategy. If Trump is serious about ending the war in Ukraine, his administration should work with Graham and other hawks on Capitol Hill rather than oppose them.

The Ukraine-U.S. Minerals Deal: Impossible Choice for a Nation at War

The newly signed Ukraine-U.S. Agreement on the Establishment of a U.S.-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund (the Framework Agreement) has been widely regarded as a breakthrough in Ukraine-U.S. relations. Still, the media has paid little attention to the Ukrainian leadership’s difficult tradeoffs in its effort to create commercial incentives for the United States to continue providing military assistance to Ukraine, which is critical in its defense against Russia.

The White House touted the agreement as strengthening the U.S.-Ukraine strategic partnership for Ukraine’s “long-term reconstruction and modernization,” signaling to Russia that the United States has “skin in the game.” President Trump also stressed that the primary reason for the deal is to ensure a return on the U.S. investment in Ukraine’s defense since 2022, which, in his view, may ultimately exceed $350 billion. Ukrainian

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted that the agreement is “truly equal” and mutually beneficial for the parties. Among other things, the Ukrainian government celebrated the absence of repayment obligations for previous U.S. military assistance, the preservation of Ukraine’s control over its natural resources, and the potential to attract American investments in Ukraine.

However, members of the Ukrainian parliament, who ratified the Framework Agreement on May 8, were not all that cheerful—including some from Zelenskyy’s party. Besides the lack of explicit security components in the agreement, the parliament did not have access to a limited partnership agreement (the LP Agreement), and related instruments which contain key commercial terms, including those related to partnership management, the parties’ contributions, and revenue sharing. Indeed,

the extent of Ukraine’s concessions depends on the undisclosed commercial agreements. And, language in the Framework Agreement and information available in Ukrainian media suggest some of these concessions may be troublesome.

Elon Musk’s “Big, Beautiful” Falling Out with Donald Trump

Jacob Heilbrunn

Elon Musk has strong feelings about President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. On Tuesday, he uttered an inconvenient truth, calling it a “disgusting abomination” on X. Musk noted that, far from decreasing the federal budget deficit, it will add several trillion and “burden American citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt.”

The White House purports to be unfazed by Musk’s heresy. “Look the president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. “It doesn’t change the President’s opinion. This is one big, beautiful bill, and he’s sticking to it.”

Musk does not arrive at the increasingly testy debate over the bill with clean hands. He is widely acknowledged to have bungled the DOGE effort to put the federal government on the fiscal equivalent of a SlimFast diet. The Economist has a new editorial simply titled, “Elon Musk’s failure in government.” It notes that his failure will ensure that future reform efforts are even more difficult to enact.

But that failure does not mean that Musk’s salty comments about Trump’s bill are misplaced. On the contrary, they form part of a growing chorus of skeptics. Take Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). In a post on X, Greene stated that she had been unaware of a specific provision in the bill that affected the ability of individual states to regulate AI:

Full transparency, I did not know about this section on pages 278-279 of the OBBB that strips states of the right to make laws or regulate AI for 10 years. I am adamantly OPPOSED to this and it is a violation of state rights and I would have voted NO if I had known this was in there. We have no idea what AI will be capable of in the next 10 years and giving it free rein and tying states hands is potentially dangerous.

This needs to be stripped out in the Senate. When the OBBB comes back to the House for approval after Senate changes, I will not vote for it with this in it. We should be reducing federal power and preserving state power. Not the other way around. Especially with rapidly developing AI that even the experts warn they have no idea what it may be capable of.

A GPS Blackout Would Shut Down the World

Matt Burgess

Around 12,500 miles above our heads, the satellites that make up the Global Positioning System (GPS) quietly keep the world running. A blackout would result in almost instantaneous chaos.

“You would see traffic jams, a lot more traffic accidents, because transportation is going to see the first most immediate impact,” says Dana Goward, the founder of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, a charity which works to strengthen GPS.

Thousands of planes in the air, which use GPS among other systems for navigation and precision landing, would face a wave of uncertainty. Then other critical parts of society—from financial transactions to energy production systems—which have come to rely upon the precision positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) provided by the US-owned constellation of 31 GPS satellites may start to stutter. The ripples would be felt around the world.

“If it was a catastrophic moment that happened at a blink of an eye and we lost GPS entirely, you would see this global seizure of everything that moves, every piece of data that moves, every human that moves. All of that would shut down,” says Erik Daehler, the vice president of defense, satellites, and spacecraft systems at Sierra Space. The timing signals included in GPS would be one of the most impactful losses. Cell phone connections would likely collapse. Billions would quickly be wiped from stock markets amid the disruption.

A GPS outage could be particularly ruinous to the United States, which has a heavy reliance on its sovereign space system and has dragged its feet in building backups that can provide the required resilience needed to keep the country running. The US has fallen behind, the National Space-based PNT Advisory Board warned last year. In contrast, China has reinforced its own more modern satellite navigation system—BeiDou—with a sprawling network of fiber-optic cables and terrestrial radio signals.

You’re Not Ready Quantum Cracking

It is likely, if not inevitable, that quantum computers will soon be able to break the encryption methods that secure your passwords, your data, and anything else kept under digital lock and key.

That’s because, while classic computers fundamentally operate on 1s and 0s, quantum machines play by different rules. They use “quantum bits,” or qubits, that transcend binaries. They can exist as a 1 or a 0 or something else entirely. That flexibility will likely allow future quantum computers to quickly solve certain types of problems—like cracking cryptographic codes—that traditional computers simply can’t.

How big is the gap? It’s a tough question to answer precisely, because the quantum computers that could pull this off don’t exist yet—at least, as far as anyone knows. But we’ve put together a little demonstration, purely for illustrative purposes, to give a better sense of the orders of magnitude we’re dealing with.

In a 2021 research paper, Google engineer Craig Gidney and his coauthor suggested that it would take eight hours for a quantum computer with 20-million noisy qubits to factor RSA-2048 encryption. We’re years away from a device of that magnitude, but we’ll go with it. (Gidney recently claimed that you could also do it in a week with a more reasonable 1 million noisy qubits.) For our classic computer, our own back-of-the-napkin math suggests that the Frontier supercomputer would take 149 million years to achieve the same result.

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