Indian Strategic Studies: 06/10/25

10 June 2025

India vs Pakistan: The battle for air superiority

As the dust settles over the India-Pakistan conflict—triggered by India’s missile strikes on nine terrorist hubs in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Punjab province in response to the Islamabad-sponsored terrorist attack in Pahalgam in April—it is time for a reckoning of how the two adversaries fared. Uniquely, over four intense,

dramatic days (May 7-10), the theatre of war was the skies on either side of the Line of Control (LoC) and the international border. Airpower was the key factor, manifested not in the dogfights of yore, but their modern equivalent, comprising precise strikes,

electronic warfare and smart coordination between aircraft, ground radars and airborne early warning and control system (AEW&CS)/ Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft. Drones and missiles were used aplenty by Pakistan, and India’s multi-layered air defence (AD) system rose to the occasion like never before. According to the Indian Army, its air defence units neutralised nearly 800-900 Pakistani drones during Operation Sindoor.

If, early on May 7, the Pakistani air defence had no immediate answer to the loitering munitions/ kamikaze drones, and SCALP/ Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missiles and HAMMER bombs fired from the Rafales of the Indian Air Force (IAF) that destroyed the terrorist camps, the Pakistan Air Force’s (PAF) J-10CEs, F-16s and JF-17 fighter jets did pose a threat. Indeed, Pakistan has claimed—without definitive proof or explicit acknowledgement from India—that several Indian jets were lost. Significantly, wary of each other’s missiles,

particularly those launched beyond visual range (BVR), both forces operated well within their respective air space. However, on May 8 and 10, after Indian missile and drone strikes took out vital Pakistani air defence radars in Lahore and Karachi—one precious PAF AWACS was reportedly lost too—its air defence systems were rendered toothless,

largely driving the PAF from the skies. So, after Pakistan targeted Indian air bases and military installations with drones and missiles on May 9 and 10—almost all of which were intercepted and shot to pieces—it was helpless before India’s retaliatory barrage of SCALP and BrahMos supersonic missiles, fired by aircraft and from the ground on eight Pakistani air bases, including the Nur Khan base near Rawalpindi, the general headquarters of the Pakistan army. Thus chastened, Pakistan is said to have called for a ceasefire.

India-EU deal holds key to a new world trade era

Brabim Karki

India and EU are locked in trade negotiations that could reset the global trade order. Image: X Screengrab

The European Union and India have reached consensus on almost half of the topics to be covered by a trade deal they hope to seal this year, according to a report.

The India-EU trade deal isn’t just about tariffs or trade quotas—it’s a cultural cage match between India’s vibrant, improvisational spirit and Europe’s love for order. And if resolved in a win-win deal, it could rewrite the rules of global trade.

This trade pact is more than a deal on goods; it’s a daring experiment in fusing two wildly different worldviews: India’s adaptive, sometimes chaotic economic approach—rooted in jugaad, the art of making do with what’s at hand—with Europe’s rigid, regulation-heavy ethos.

This tension isn’t necessarily a flaw; it’s the deal’s potential secret sauce. By forcing both sides to confront their blind spots, this agreement could birth a new trade model that values flexibility over cookie-cutter uniformity, giving India a chance to tilt the global economic balance more toward the Global South.

Trade deals sound like dusty policy papers, but they’re the arteries of the global economy, pumping goods, ideas, and power across borders. With world trade fracturing under US tariff threats and China’s constrictive supply chain grip, India and the EU are racing to secure their economic futures.

India, with its 1.4 billion people and roaring growth, is no longer a bit player. The EU, a trade giant, needs new partners as old alliances wobble. Recent reports peg the deal’s deadline for late 2025, but the real story is how this pact could redefine who sets the terms in a world where emerging powers are flexing their muscles.

Afghanistan: A Carrot in U.S. Talks with Russia and Iran

Matthew Mai

Four years ago, the United States ended its war in Afghanistan. Since the U.S. withdrawal, Afghanistan and counterterrorism have rightly been deprioritized as foreign policy issues. However,

amid the Trump administration’s efforts to achieve a modus vivendi with Russia and Iran, cooperation on monitoring terrorist threats from Afghanistan could be another carrot Washington offers to both countries. U.S. security and prosperity are not affected by what happens in South-Central Asia. But unchecked terrorism in Afghanistan has much graver consequences for Russia and Iran.

The tragically executed withdrawal from Afghanistan should not obscure the long-term benefits of terminating U.S. involvement: the war was unwinnable for political and military reasons; a significant drain on U.S. military resources; and a humanitarian disaster for the Afghan people. Despite claims Afghanistan would become a haven for global terrorist organizations, the United States has not faced a serious threat to the homeland from groups operating in South-Central Asia.

By contrast, terrorism is a relevant security challenge for Russia and Iran that won’t be going away any time soon. ISIS-K, a South Asian affiliate of the Islamic State, is based out of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Its ranks include Chechens, Uzbeks,

Tajiks, Afghans, and Pakistanis, many of whom were previously members of other regionally based terrorist groups. ISIS-K’s grievances against Russia and Iran are largely motivated by the former’s wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya and the latter’s adherence to Shia Islam. Both countries also waged long military campaigns against ISIS in Syria (and in Iran’s case, Iraq).

The China Challenge in Critical Minerals: The Case for Asymmetric Resilience

Pascale Massot

China is the dominant player in global critical minerals supply chains, especially in the midstream segments. The country controls, on average, two-thirds of the production or refining of major critical minerals such as lithium, graphite, cobalt, nickel, copper, and rare earth elements and above 90 percent for the latter. In 2022,

the United States was more than 50 percent import dependent on 51 mineral commodities. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), China was the leading supplier for 17 of these and ranked among the top three sources for 24.

The U.S. was caught “sleeping at the wheel” – and it was not alone. Western governments have found themselves staring at the China challenge from the vantage point of decades of open-market-driven minerals procurement policy. Since the last quarter of the 20th century and until very recently, the neoliberal globalization paradigm in the West left to market forces the task of fulfilling critical mineral security objectives.

This led to decades of internationalization, financialization, and global supply chain reconfiguration to align with profit motive and shareholder value maximization. In parallel, labor, environmental, civil society, and indigenous rights considerations continued to improve, a positive development that has also compounded the delocalization incentives of mining and refining industries. [...]

China’s Gray-Zone Infrastructure Strategy on the Tibetan Plateau: Roads, Dams, and Digital Dominati

In the future . . .China’s use of critical infrastructure to control downstream water supply will threaten vital economic activities and life.

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will leverage rail and road networks to strengthen its positions near the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India. China’s military-civilian dual-use infrastructure will continue to encroach on disputed lands while posturing the country’s forces to project coercive power and gain an advantage in the next border clash.

Regional states will no longer harbor Tibetan refugee camps, while also adopting increasingly authoritarian practices made possible by surveillance systems exported by China.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is actively using diplomatic, intelligence, military, and economic tools to influence, deter, and compel countries to act in the PRC’s interest. These tools are derived from a combination of the hybrid strategy and gray-zone tactics that have defined Xi Jinping’s China.

The tactics cover operations ranging from corporate cyber theft to international development infrastructure projects.1 But while U.S. policymakers’ attention is fixed on great power competition, the PRC is also active in periphery zones and even within their own territory. In fact, the infrastructure the PRC seeks to export through Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) development projects emerged from efforts within China’s frontier.2

China is fundamentally redefining infrastructure as a tool of coercion. Under the guise of economic development and increasing connectivity,

the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is constructing a coercive architecture across the Tibetan Plateau. This includes dams that can choke water flow to downstream states, railways that enable rapid military mobilization, and digital networks that are already exporting surveillance and repressing dissent. These projects are not neutral investments. They are latent instruments of state power—dual-use nodes that allow Beijing to pressure neighbors without triggering open conflict. As infrastructure becomes a strategic enabler of compellence and deterrence,

the United States and its partners must reframe how they assess and respond to China’s actions. Failing to do so will leave the region vulnerable to incremental gains that add up to irreversible strategic shifts.

Israel claims laser weapon use in real combat. How do China’s compare on the world stage?

Israel on Wednesday announced that it used a lower-powered version of its laser defence system Iron Beam for the first time last year, intercepting dozens of aerial targets, including unmanned vehicles, that were launched by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

In video footage reportedly taken in October and released by the Israeli defence ministry, what appears to be an Iron Beam laser can be seen targeting flying fixed-wing drones before shooting them from the sky.

It was Israel’s first known use of directed-energy weapons (DEWs) in real combat and the system is expected to enter service later this year.

As cheap unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly challenging existing air defence systems, laser weapons might have an important role to play. They are well suited for anti-drone operations, while their weaknesses are less significant against small, slow and low-flying targets.

Many countries have been working on similar air defence laser weapons. German and British projects have been going on for years, while Russia and the US have deployed laser weapons in Ukraine and Iraq, respectively.

Turkey-made products are known to have operated in Libya, while India announced in April that its ambitious Surya directed-energy weapon would be ready by 2027.

China, a major global drone producer, is equally dedicated to the development of anti-drone weaponry.

While the People’s Liberation Army has not disclosed what systems it has been equipped with, some Chinese-made laser weapons – like Silent Hunter and Shennong Shield – have been seen in action overseas

Taiwan ready to test kamikaze sea drone designed to ‘support coastal assault operations’

Taiwan is planning to test a home-made kamikaze sea drone later this month as it seeks to boost its naval defences in the face of growing pressure from mainland China.

The vessel – developed under the code name “Kuai Chi Project” by the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST), Taiwan’s top weapons developer – will undergo combat capability evaluations later this month before further tests later this year, a military source said on Monday.

“If all goes according to plan, the boat will proceed to live combat testing during a precision missile drill in southern Taiwan this August,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The island’s defence ministry has allocated more than NT$800 million (US$25 million) for the project, commissioning NCSIST to lead development. Lungteh Shipbuilding Company was awarded the contract last year to construct three attack uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) and one target boat.

NCSIST aims to complete all required testing by the end of this year, with mass production expected to begin in 2026. “Under the current plan, the army intends to acquire more than 200 of these vessels to support coastal assault operations,” the source said.

Procurement documents show that the attack vessel will measure under 10 metres (32.8 feet) in length, displace less than four tonnes when fully loaded, and have a draft of less than 0.5 metres.

Another China Is Possible

It has become a trope to lament and lambaste the wishful thinking that shaped U.S. policy toward China in the two decades after the Cold War. That policy rested on a prediction about China’s future:

that with economic growth and ongoing diplomatic, economic, and cultural engagement, both with the United States and the rest of the world, China would become more like the United States—more politically open at home and more accepting of the existing order abroad.

It is hard to deny that this prediction proved wrong. But Rana Mitter, the S. T. Lee Chair in U.S.-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School and one of the great historians of China, reminds readers that predictions about China almost always prove wrong. And as he writes in a new essay in Foreign Affairs,

it would be equally foolish to assume that China must remain on its current trajectory of more confrontation abroad and repression at home. “Another China remains possible,” Mitter argues. And how that China develops will be one of the most important factors in geopolitics for decades to come.

China Can’t Invade Taiwan So Easi

Brent M. Eastwood

Key Points – China’s potential military conquest of Taiwan, a core objective for President Xi Jinping, would involve immense challenges despite Beijing’s growing military might.

An invasion would likely start with a blockade and quarantine, followed by a complex amphibious assault.

However, Taiwan benefits from early warning (satellite detection of Chinese troop/ship movements), limited suitable landing beaches, difficult mountainous terrain favoring defenders, and its own missile/artillery capabilities.

While China could attempt a “shock and awe” bombardment of Taipei, the success of an invasion hinges on unpredictable factors: Taiwan’s will to resist, the effectiveness of its defenses, and crucially, whether the United States intervenes militarily.

Could China Conquer Taiwan?

The reunification of Taiwan is the most pressing geopolitical issue facing China. The Chinese government and its people are obsessed with Taiwan. President Xi Jinping thinks he will be judged by history on how he handles the future of the island nation.

His presidency is in the balance, and failure on the Taiwan issue is not an option. China believes that Taiwan is a renegade province that must be annexed and brought back into the fold. Xi prefers that unification be accomplished by political and diplomatic means, but he has not ruled out annexation by military force.

Blockade and Quarantine Could Come First

This could mean an initial blockade and quarantine to cut off food and energy supplies to Taiwan, followed by an amphibious attack to invade the island. Both moves are risky, especially if the United States decides to intervene. But China has the ships, airplanes, ballistic missiles, and ground forces to bring Taiwan to its knees, especially if the Americans stay out of the fight.

The kings of the drone age Battlefields have a new ruler

It took Ukraine 18 months to plan Operation Spider Web, but just minutes for its swarm of cheap drones to send a $7 billion message to Russia and the world: war is entering a new epoch. An age of asymmetric power has arrived, and it is disordering traditional power dynamics everywhere, from how armies fight to how citizens relate to their rulers.

Last weekend, over 100 first-person view Ukrainian drones whacked four air bases across Russia — the furthest in Siberia — severely diminishing Russia’s offensive air capabilities. Zelensky’s message was clear: we can hit you wherever you are, with technology you can buy for thousands of dollars or less on the internet.

Yet if operation Spider Web was part MacGyver, it was also part le Carré. The Ukrainians had their drones smuggled on lorries well in advance of the strikes. The weapons were hidden in containers disguised as sheds, before being transported into Russia by lorry. These were then parked near the air bases, before Ukraine remotely opened their retractable roofs and launched their cargo to devastating effect.

Drones evoke a simple truth: hoard technology, especially military technology, and you centralise power. Disperse it and watch that power dissipate alongside it.

Historically, war was an intimate affair. For millennia, the only way to kill someone was if you could see them. That remained true even with the invention of gunpowder. Machine guns and howitzers can certainly fire further, but still require proximity. The basic dynamics were always the same: men and machines clashed on the ground. Success depended on outlasting or overpowering the enemy through force, numbers, or strategic positioning.

Who Gets the Guns in Lebanon?

In late February, Nawaf Salam, the Prime Minister of Lebanon, travelled to the country’s south to survey the devastation w

rought by the recent war between Hezbollah and Israel. It was Salam’s second day on the job. He pledged to rebuild the area, which had incurred billions of dollars’ worth of damage. Salam also promised to strengthen the Lebanese Armed Forces, as a means to assert the state’s authority in a place that for years had been under the sway of Hezbollah.

The people of the south had messages for the Prime Minister, too. During a walk through the city of Nabatieh, a man carrying a toddler pushed through Salam’s thick security cordon. “The first word that should be said is ‘thank you’ to the resistance,” he yelled, referring to Hezbollah. Salam had earlier lauded the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL,

the United Nations peacekeeping force stationed along the border with Israel, the man noted approvingly, but not “the blood of the martyrs of the resistance. Are you afraid of America? Afraid that the U.S. Ambassador will be upset with you?” Salam did not respond.

In November, 2024, after thirteen months of war that killed more than four thousand Lebanese and a hundred and twenty Israelis, Hezbollah and Israel reached a ceasefire. (Decades-old hostilities between the two foes had reignited on October 8, 2023, when Hezbollah attacked Israel a day after Hamas’s surprise offensive from Gaza.) But Israeli forces continue to occupy five hilltops in southern Lebanon, in violation of the agreement.

In the border village of Khiam, near Tallet al-Hamames, one of the hilltops, a man in a black baseball cap, standing inches from the Prime Minister, suggested that the state was powerless to recover the territory through negotiations, which “never produce results.” Instead, he said, “we will reclaim our land through resistance.”

Lebanon: Six months after a ceasefire with Israel, a low-intensity war is ongoing

Laure Stephan (Beirut (Lebanon) correspondent)

Lebanon should be in a post-conflict phase, six months after the asymmetric war between Israel and Hezbollah officially ended. Yet that is far from the case, as illustrated by mounting concerns over security for the municipal elections due to be held in the south of the country on Saturday, May 24. On Thursday night, the Israeli army shelled the region, ahead of a vote that Hezbollah hopes will serve to show it has popular support.

The end to hostilities, as provided for by the ceasefire agreement that came into effect on November 27, 2024, has been one-sided: Israel has continued to resort to violence, most often through drone strikes and artillery fire. From Lebanon, only three incidents involving rockets fired at Israel or the disputed Shebaa Farms area have occurred since the truce started. Of those three, Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for one, conducted in December 2024.

The Israeli army's stated strategy has been to destroy the capabilities of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese armed movement. It has continued to eliminate its fighters, after having decapitated its leadership in the recent war. Yet civilians have also been killed or

America’s Electric Vehicle Surrender If Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” passes, the entire supply chain could be ceded to China.

Narayan Subramanian,

The year is 2030 and about half of all cars sold in the world are electric. Thanks to new battery and charging technologies, electric vehicles (EVs) are cheaper than anticipated and the fear of range-anxiety is immaterial. Barring a few competitors in South Korea and Europe, this market belongs entirely to China.

Such a scenario is increasingly a base case. Already in 2025, the majority of Chinese EVs are cheaper than their fossil equivalents and are flooding the world with low-cost exports, including in emerging markets from Ethiopia to Brazil. Alongside producing over 60 percent of the world’s EVs and 80 percent of its batteries, Chinese companies have unveiled new breakthroughs that will solidify their dominance in automobile markets: EVs that charge in five minutes, batteries that don’t require any costly critical minerals, and a luxury EV that can drive for 14 hours on a single charge.

These are tectonic shifts in one of the most politically and economically vital manufacturing sectors across developed nations.

Notably, the United States is missing from the picture—but ongoing negotiations among Republican lawmakers on the heels of the House reconciliation bill passed last month will decide whether this becomes reality. There has been much attention paid on the energy front to the bill’s changes in tax incentives for clean electricity projects. Equally consequential, but receiving far less attention, are the provisions that would disrupt the emerging industrial base for electric vehicles, batteries, and critical minerals.

Narayan Subramanian is an adjunct assistant professor at the Columbia Climate School and a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He previously served as the director for energy transition at the White House National Security Council and as an advisor to the secretary of energy in the Biden administration.

Milo McBride is a fellow in the Sustainability, Climate, and Geopolitics Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was previously an analyst at Eurasia Group and adjunct professor at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering.

Read More On Energy and the Environment | U.S.-China Competition | United States

The Ukrainians’ New Way of War The audacious drone attack deep into Russia’s rear fits a larger pattern of wartime innovation

Christian Caryl,

In the fall of 2022, Kyiv faced a difficult problem. The Russians were bombarding Ukrainian cities with swarms of Iranian Shahed drones. The challenge was spotting them, since their low altitude, small size, and stealthy design made them hard to follow on radar.

A pair of Ukrainian engineers quickly jury-rigged a solution. Today, the country is blanketed with a network of 9,500 microphones mounted on six-foot-tall poles.

The microphones, which are attached to cell phones, track the Shaheds by sound (the propeller-driven drones have loud engines) and send that data to a central system that calculates their courses. That information is then passed on to iPad-wielding soldiers in gun trucks that shoot down the slow-moving drones. Each sensor pole in the network costs less than $500—which makes the entire network, known as Sky Fortress, cheaper than a pair of Patriot missiles.

Book Review | Urban Warfare in the Twenty-First Century (Second Edition)

Amos Fox

As odd as it might seem, a good deal of change has visited international affairs since Anthony King published the first edition of Urban Warfare in the Twenty-First Century in 2021. King, Director of the University of Exeter’s Strategy and Security Institute, has revisited the subject of urban warfare at the most appropriate time. In the period between 2021 and the publication of King’s second edition of Urban Warfare,

the United States ended its 20-year war in Afghanistan, Russia invaded Ukraine, Israel and Hamas went to war in Gaza again, Iran escalated its wars in the Middle East via its proxy networks, Bashar Al-Assad fell from power in Syria, India and Pakistan went to blows, and the list goes on.

Considering these conflicts, King’s original thesis – i.e., that urban warfare is a defining feature of 21st century armed conflict – has been all but confirmed by the conflicts that have unfolded in the interval between 2021 and today. As a result, the publication of King’s second edition of Urban Warfare is both timely and needed. However, and perhaps more importantly, Urban Warfare is foundational reading for anyone interested in – or required to be knowledgeable about – the study of armed conflict, the relationship between force structure and military operations, and the relationship that exists between geography, strategy, and military operations.

Summary

In a reorientation toward the conflicts that have occurred since the publication of Urban Warfare’s first edition, King examines his original thesis against the Russia-Ukraine War’s post-2022 phase and the Israel-Hamas Conflict, among others. In doing so, King provides three primary arguments. First, warfare in urban environments is becoming more frequent and increasingly prevalent in war. During much of the 20th century,

land armies were large and when they fought, they fought across vast fronts in which urban areas were often minor considerations to much grander military operations. King takes the time to highlight several exceptions to this general rule, to include battles like World War II’s Stalingrad or the post-Soviet era battles of Grozny.

The Big Question Over Fighter-Like Drones

Bill Sweetman

The concept of fighter-like drones, called collaborative combat aircraft (CCAs), holds much promise to air forces, notably to the US Air Force as it contemplates war with China. But maintaining CCAs in operation isn’t looking cheap and simple.

Air forces may instead drift towards getting some CCA effects with expendable drones that can be treated much like rounds of ammunition.

The Royal Australian Air Force has been working for more than six years with Boeing on a CCA design, the MQ-28 Ghost Bat, but the US Air Force, having started from behind, is now well on its way to launching large-scale production of similar aircraft.

The test aircraft for Increment 1 of the USAF’s CCA program, the General Atomics YFQ-42A and Anduril YFQ-44A, are starting their ground tests and are expected to fly this summer. From what we know, their principal mission is demonstrating the use of CCAs to carry air-to-air missiles and engage targets that are tracked and identified by pilots in crewed aircraft.

Supporters say simulations and wargames have shown the value of CCAs, which look like small fighters and are faster and more manoeuvrable than other drones. Part of their value is to put more missile shots in the air, from more places and closer to the enemy. They would present the enemy with a denser mass of threats and targets and increase confusion, reducing losses among crewed aircraft.

Speaking at an 8 May Mitchell Institute webinar, USAF Director of Force Design Major General Joe Kunkel said the service planned to buy 1,000 CCAs. ‘We’ll see sizable investment in the 2026 budget and pretty heavy investment in the FYDP,’ the future year defense plan, he said.

The webinar was the launch of a new Mitchell study, based on a tabletop exercise last year that focused on sustainment of a CCA force in the Western Pacific and was premised on the force mixes that emerged from a 2023 wargame.

Brain control warfare: China’s bleeding-edge strategy for winning without firing a shot

Bill Gertz

A version of this story appeared in the daily Threat Status newsletter from The Washington Times. Click here to receive Threat Status delivered directly to your inbox each weekday.

Ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu declared that subduing your enemy without fighting is the acme of skill. China is closer to realizing that goal through new weaponry and capabilities that Beijing calls cognitive warfare.

China’s most recent experience with large-scale war was more than 70 years ago in Korea. Waves of troops were sent into battle against better-armed U.S. and allied forces. The result was a slaughter. The People’s Liberation Army lost 400,000 to 1 million soldiers.

The PLA is no longer planning human wave military attacks. Instead, many of its researchers are working on advanced warfare capabilities that combine high-technology hardware with biotechnology research focused on the human brain.

The goal, driven by the ideology of Chinese-style Marxism-Leninism, is nothing less than world domination and a global populace under the control of China’s communist regime, said analysts and specialists who have studied Beijing’s leaders.

Cognitive warfare experts interviewed for this report cited evidence that China has embraced the development and eventual use of weapons designed to affect the mind. Potential targets range from troops and commanders of adversarial militaries to entire civilian populations.

Most details of the work on Chinese cognitive warfare are closely guarded U.S. government secrets, but clues first surfaced officially in December 2021, when the Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security announced sanctions against the PLA’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences and 11 related Chinese research institutes.

Commerce banned U.S. companies from doing business with the labs, which were working on biotechnology, including “purported brain-control weaponry,” on behalf of the Chinese military.

That unspecified effort triggered national security sanctions.

How Japan—and Other U.S. Allies—Can Work Around America

President Donald Trump’s tariffs have forced a global reckoning. For Japan and many other countries, the vulnerability that comes with relying on U.S. markets has become startlingly clear. First came tariffs on Canada,

China, and Mexico. Then, in February, the administration introduced a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum (this week, it raised those tariffs to 50 percent). In March, it imposed a 25 percent tariff on automobiles and auto parts. And in April, Trump announced so-called reciprocal tariffs that imposed a base tariff of ten percent on imports from all countries plus additional duties on a country-by-country basis. The country-specific tariffs were paused for 90 days,

until July. Along with various tariffs targeting Canada, China, and Mexico, they are now in legal limbo after a U.S. federal court ruled last week that the president had overstepped his authority in imposing them.

For the countries affected by U.S. tariffs, the potential economic harms are far too great to simply hope that an American court will make the problem go away or that the president will change his mind. Japan, in particular, is dangerously exposed to the U.S. market—but as the fourth-largest economy in the world,

with relationships across the globe, Japan also has the resources and opportunity to craft an effective multilateral strategy for coping with Washington’s obstructionist approach to trade.

If all of Trump’s proposed measures enter force, Japan faces a 25 percent tariff on automobiles and auto parts, a 50 percent tariff on steel and aluminum, and a 24 percent tariff on all other goods it exports to the United States. Japan’s economy depends on exports. The United States is its second-largest market, after China (including Hong Kong),

accounting for roughly 20 percent of all exports, and steep tariffs would make many Japanese goods too expensive for American consumers. Tariffs on automobiles and auto parts are especially damaging, as these goods represent more than a third of Japan’s exports to the United States. Japan’s top 1,000 companies expect a seven percent drop in their total profits between April 2025 and March 2026, after making continuous gains since 2020.

America’s Allies Must Save Themselves

Since returning to office, U.S. President Donald Trump has assailed the world order created by the United States after World War II. He has challenged the sovereignty of allies and partners by threatening to acquire Greenland, annex Canada, and seize the Panama Canal. His global trade war is designed to benefit the United States at the expense of all its trading partners. He has withdrawn from the Paris climate accord and the World Health Organization.

In dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Trump administration has abandoned long-standing bipartisan commitments to international development. And his treatment of Ukraine—his attempt to hound the Ukrainians toward a peace deal rather than use American might to compel Russia to the table—humiliated the weaker and wronged party and courted the aggressor.

Trump believes that might makes right. As he posted in April on Truth Social, “THE GOLDEN RULE OF NEGOTIATING AND SUCCESS: HE WHO HAS THE GOLD MAKES THE RULES.”

The world order and the institutions the United States created after World War II were all designed to resist that logic, and to ensure that the strong could not simply do what they can and force the weak to suffer as they must. But Trump has no time for such high-mindedness. Instead, he has vindicated the cynical view that the United States was never the altruistic and idealistic power it claimed to be.

For those who still believe in a principled and generous United States, this is a traumatic moment of cognitive dissonance. The reality of Trump’s administration—the contempt for law both at home and abroad, the bullying, the abrogation of agreements and treaties, the threats against allies, and the cuddling up to tyrants—is plain to see. But it still seems incredible. Some observers search for a benign explanation.

Perhaps, they imagine, Trump is playing four-dimensional chess and his outrageous actions are just part of a shrewd master plan. Others cling to the hope that something will change the course of events, a plot twist to keep things on track before the show goes off the rails.

DoD 3.0: Rebooting the Pentagon for the Next War

Twice in the last century, Congress has rewritten the rules for how America organizes its military. Each overhaul unlocked leaps in US combat power. In 1947, the National Security Act dissolved the War and Navy Departments to create the Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, CIA, and National Security Council. It was the first time America intentionally organized itself to manage a large, globally deployed peacetime military. That was DoD 1.0. (Later, the Defense Reorganization Act of 1958 addressed deficiencies of the previous plan and growing interservice rivalries by empowering the secretary of defense, setting a DoD 1.5.)

American military struggles in Iran and Grenada led to the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act. This ushered in DoD 2.0, with modernized military commands that empowered the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, codified jointness, and established the combatant command structure that still shapes how the US military operates today. This reorganization improved unity of effort across services, making global postures more coherent.

Four decades later, the seams in that system are showing. Global threats no longer fit neatly within geographic boundaries. Adversaries move faster, coordinate better, and exploit exposed institutional gaps. At the same time, more global taskings with less forces and increasingly outdated bureaucratic models are straining force readiness and regional postures. More risk is carried, and yet, the Pentagon is using last century’s tools and policies to compete.

Congress must intervene to enable a third transformation: DoD 3.0. This reform would revolutionize how the legislature equips, organizes, authorizes, and funds the US military to better manage strategic competition, improve deterrence, and fight and win.

Why Change Is Needed

Governments and their militaries are struggling with the information revolution, as they try to break away from industrial age systems and institutions. The digital age is producing significant changes in societies, as well as the ways and means in which warfare is waged. Yet the Pentagon’s structure, authorities, and conceptual tool kit remain frozen in a Cold War mold—built for regional conflicts, linear escalation, conventional force-on-force fights, and prolonged procurement and modernization time horizons. Industrial age warfighting is three decades removed from relevance, and trying to organize, train, and equip a military for that era is like charging horse cavalry against an Abrams tank.

Ukraine’s Operation Spider Web destroyed more than aircraft – it tore apart the old idea that bases far behind the front lines are safe

A series of blasts at airbases deep inside Russia on June 1, 2025, came as a rude awakening to Moscow’s military strategists. The Ukrainian strike at the heart Russia’s strategic bombing capability could also upend the traditional rules of war: It provides smaller military a blueprint for countering a larger nation’s ability to launch airstrikes from deep behind the front lines.

Ukraine’s Operation Spider Web involved 117 remote-controlled drones that were smuggled into Russia over an 18-month period and launched toward parked aircraft by operators miles away.

The raid destroyed or degraded more than 40 Tu-95, Tu-160 and Tu-22 M3 strategic bombers, as well as an A-50 airborne-early-warning jet, according to officials in Kyiv. That would represent roughly one-third of Russia’s long-range strike fleet and about US$7 billion in hardware. Even if satellite imagery ultimately pares back those numbers, the scale of the damage is hard to miss.

The logic behind the strike is even harder to ignore.

Traditional modern military campaigns revolve around depth. Warring nations try to build combat power in relatively safe “rear areas” — logistics hubs that are often hundreds if not thousands of miles from the front line. These are the places where new military units form and long-range bombers, like those destroyed in Ukraine’s June 1 operation, reside.

Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Kremlin has leaned heavily on its deep-rear bomber bases — some over 2,000 miles from the front in Ukraine. It has paired this tactic with launching waves of Iranian-designed Shahed attack drones to keep Ukrainian cities under nightly threat.

Syria’s Islamic State Is Surging

Charles Lister,

When U.S. President Donald Trump’s newly appointed special envoy to Syria, Thomas Barrack, paid his first visit to Damascus on May 29, he flew into the country on U.S. military helicopters from Jordan. He was accompanied by two State Department staff members but was most closely flanked by the U.S. military’s counter-Islamic State coalition leaders—Maj. Gen. Kevin Leahy and Brig. Gen. Michael Brooks.

Those optics were telling. While Barrack has justifiably trumpeted the extraordinary diplomatic and economic openings provided to Syria by the Trump administration in recent weeks, the Islamic State challenge arguably remains the dominant factor still guiding U.S. policy planning around Syria and the United States’ role in its future.

The Murkiness Is the Message

Nathan J. Brown

The Middle East Program in Washington combines in-depth regional knowledge with incisive comparative analysis to provide deeply informed recommendations. With expertise in the Gulf, North Africa, Iran, and Israel/Palestine, we examine crosscutting themes of political, economic, and social change in both English and Arabic.Learn More

The Trump administration’s policy approach toward higher education might be summarized as everything, everywhere, all at once. So its decision to suspend student visas—and to hint that far more restrictive policies are in the offing—likely provoked the same two words in university administration buildings throughout the country: “Now what?” With a series of salvos aiming at the infrastructure for government-funded research, curriculum, and more, the new approach poses a real and profound threat to the U.S. higher education system as it has emerged over the past century.

That threat is perhaps at its most severe at the fiscal level, where the carpet is being pulled out from a set of arrangements that were built with bipartisan support over many decades. The move on student visas is likely less existential in a financial sense for most universities. But a permanent ban for specific institutions and a more general diminution of the flow of students from across the globe would hit a number of institutions very hard. And it is still potentially quite severe in its immediate effects, especially if the temporary bar turns into a long-term set of measures designed to restrict the number and kind of students admitted for study.

Most generally, the move augurs a new era in which what had been seen as a good thing is redefined as a risk to American security and a threat to American values. The attractiveness of U.S. higher education to international students has long been understood as a cornerstone of the country’s most successful and competitive industry and a source of strength, soft power, and revenue. Now it’s suddenly viewed with hostility and suspicion. The 180-degree shift among one pole in the country’s sharply divided political spectrum may not be easy to reverse.

Of course, the suspension of student visas is temporary, and the administration has promised a new policy soon. The effect of this move may be minimal in the short term. But there are two aspects that suggest far broader—if uncertain—implications.

Palantir Is Going on Defense

Palantir, facing mounting public scrutiny for its work with the Trump administration, took an increasingly defensive stance toward journalists and perceived critics this week, both at a defense conference in Washington, DC, and on social media.

On Tuesday, a Palantir employee threatened to call the police on a WIRED journalist who was watching software demonstrations at its booth at AI+ Expo. The conference, which is hosted by the Special Competitive Studies Project, a think tank founded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, is free and open to the public, including journalists.

Later that day, Palantir had conference security remove at least three other journalists—Jack Poulson, writer of the All-Source Intelligence Substack; Max Blumenthal, who writes and publishes The Grayzone; and Jessica Le Masurier, a reporter at France 24—from the conference hall, Poulson says. The reporters were later able to reenter the hall, Poulson adds.

The move came after Palantir spokespeople began publicly condemning a recent New York Times report titled “Trump Taps Palantir to Compile Data on Americans” published on May 30. WIRED previously reported that Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was building a master database to surveil and track immigrants. WIRED has also reported that the company was helping DOGE with an IRS data project, collaborating to build a “mega-API.”

The public criticism from Palantir is unusual, as the company does not typically issue statements pushing back on individual news stories.

Prior to being kicked out of Palantir’s booth, the WIRED journalist, who is also the author of this article, was taking photos, videos, and written notes during software demos of Palantir FedStart partners, which use the company’s cloud systems to get certified for government work. The booth’s walls had phrases like “REAWAKEN THE GIANT” and “DON’T GIVE UP THE SHIP!” printed on the outside. When the reporter briefly stepped away from the booth and attempted to re-enter, she was stopped by Eliano Younes, Palantir’s head of strategic engagement, who said that WIRED was not allowed to be there. The reporter asked why, and Younes repeated himself, adding that if WIRED tried to return, he would call the police.

Trump and Musk trade insults as row erupts in public view

The rift between US President Donald Trump and his former adviser Elon Musk has erupted into the open, with each trading insults after the tech billionaire criticised one of Trump's key domestic policies.

The two billionaires escalated the feud throughout Thursday, lobbing barbs at each other on the social media sites they each own, suggesting a bitter conclusion to their unlikely alliance.

The day began with Trump saying he was "disappointed" with Musk's criticisms of his administration's centrepiece tax and spending bill, musing that it may be the end of their "great relationship".

Musk then accused Trump of "ingratitude", adding: "Without me, Trump would have lost the election."

After hours of sparring, Trump appeared to downplay the situation. "Oh it's okay," he told news site Politico. "It's going very well, never done better." His aides have scheduled a phone call with Musk for Friday, the same news site reported.

Musk also appeared to believe there was a need to patch things up. Late on Thursday, in response to post by Bill Ackman, a prominent Trump backer, which suggested the pair needed to make peace, he wrote: "You're not wrong."Follow updates on the pair's row

Analysis: How bitter feud escalated - and what happens next

Tesla shares tumble after feud erupts

What's in the Trump bill that triggered the row?

The breaking point in the relationship between the president and his one-time ally came after weeks of Musk lobbying against Trump's "big, beautiful" spending bill, which was passed by the US House last month and is awaiting a vote in the Senate.

Defending U.S. Military Bases Against Drones? A Recent Tabletop Exercise Explores How

Paul Lushenko, Russell McGuire

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In 2016, during coalition operations against the Islamic State, defense leaders started characterizing drones, especially small-unmanned aircraft systems, as a threat to U.S. military personnel and installations. Since then, drones have proliferated and increasingly threaten military personnel and bases, both at home and abroad.

In March 2025, more than 100 participants from more than two dozen federal agencies participated in a tabletop exercise exploring aspects of counter-drone operations.

This was the sixth event in a series of tabletop exercises exploring various aspects of counter-drone operations, capabilities, authorities,

and threats. The most recent event was designed to explore a key research question in the homeland—how can the Joint Force and Interagency support Northern Command's synchronization of counter-drone operations to defend military bases in the homeland?

The Joint Counter-Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office (JCO) partnered with RAND in designing hypothetical but realistic drone incursion scenarios that attempted to fulfill stakeholders' interests without priming them to think and respond in certain ways. The scenarios drew insights from recent drone incursions at U.S. military installations. Two different sites, Fort Bliss in Texas and Joint Base Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, informed the tabletop exercise. This allowed the exercise team to vary conditions that, when considered in combination with one another, approximated the complexity of drone incursions at military bases. These included various drones flying at different bearings, altitudes,

and ranges from military bases; multiple modes of transportation, from which participants could adjudicate the merits—and limits—of applying counterpositioning, navigation, and timing capabilities; and, a litany of federal, state, and local authorities, in addition to military units

The Future of Military Deception

For some time, I have been collaborating with Peter Singer to explore deception operations, how deception and surprise have played a role in the Ukraine War, and to ascertain what this might mean for the future of military deception in Ukraine as well as in other military institutions.

Deception, the act of deliberately misleading an adversary so that they will take actions that contribute to your own goals, has a long history and enduring value in war. However, there is a difference between how countries such as China and Russia emphasize deception in all military endeavors, and how Western nations integrate deception into military planning. To compound the challenge for modern military organizations, new technologies and ongoing conflicts are reshaping how military deception is planned and conducted.

Because of these factors, a “deception gap” has opened up between the military institutions of authoritarian powers and the West that must be addressed.

Our report explores existing ideas about military deception, principally through the lens of doctrinal principles of Western military doctrines. It has also investigated the military trends that act as disruptors to force change in the planning, execution, and measurement of military deception operations.

The contents of this report provide foundational knowledge for developing multiple lines of endeavor that could improve the conduct, and outcomes, of future military deception activities. A range of changes and new programs, across the breadth of military endeavors, are examined in the final chapter of the report. These areas for improvement incorporate personnel training, education, and development; doctrinal and tactical evolution; equipment design and procurement; and strategic and policy issues.

The pace of learning and adaptation that is being witnessed now in Ukraine, from both sides, continues to accelerate. Learning cycles for drone operations and technology are now just a couple of weeks. Ukraine and Russia are locked in an adaptation battle on the ground where tactics change every two to three months.