Indian Strategic Studies: 06/15/25

15 June 2025

Justice, Jets, and Geopolitics: India Acts, America Trades

Shashank Shukla

On 7th May 2025, the Indian Air Force launched “Operation Sindoor”, a calibrated and resolute military offensive targeting terror infrastructure entrenched within Pakistani territory. This decisive act came in response to the heart-wrenching Pahalgam massacre on 22nd April, in which 26 Hindu men were brutally killed in front of their families, singled out by their religion. This was not merely an act of terror; it was a deliberate and barbaric display of religious persecution. In what Indian officials described as a "surgical missile campaign," the operation dismantled prominent terror outfits such as Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Among those neutralized was Abdul Rauf Azhar, a senior commander of JeM and the brother of Masood Azhar, a UN-designated terrorist. Abdul Rauf's involvement in the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814 and his alleged link to the horrific beheading of Daniel Pearl, a Jewish-American journalist, was a grim reminder of the price humanity continues to pay for unchecked extremism. In the aftermath of this strike, Daniel Pearl’s father, along with members of the global Jewish lobby, publicly thanked India, stating that justice for Daniel had finally been served. For India, this was not just retribution rather it was a reaffirmation of its commitment to counterterrorism, rooted in sovereignty and justice.

However, rather than acknowledging India's legitimate and necessary response, Pakistan retaliated with its own operation, dubbed “Bunyan-un-Marsoos” which is an escalation that included cyber warfare and strikes on Indian military bases. In return, India broadened the scope of Operation Sindoor to encompass Pakistani military establishments, systematically targeting 11 airbases, including Nur Khan and Sargodha. While India’s indigenously developed air defense systems successfully intercepted thousands of drones, Pakistan’s Chinese-origin defenses like HQ-16 and FM-90 were unable to withstand India’s aerial superiority. As per Austrian air warfare historian Tom Cooper, India emerged as a “clear-cut victor,” possessing undeniable aerial dominance. John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute, lauded India for showcasing offensive and defensive prowess without external support. A testimony to India’s matured strategic doctrine and technological capabilities.

‘We Have Changed as a Country’

Rishi Iyengar

Delegations from India and Pakistan spent last week in Washington, D.C., meeting lawmakers, officials, and members of their respective diasporas to communicate dueling messages that seem as intractable and incompatible as their decades-long conflict over the disputed region of Kashmir.

The Indian delegation, led by opposition lawmaker Shashi Tharoor, has said dialogue between India and Pakistan cannot take place unless the Pakistani government dismantles the terror groups emanating from its soil. The Pakistani delegation, led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, said Pakistan cannot effectively combat terrorism without dialogue and cooperation with India.

Signs of a Shift in Canada-India Relations

Sudha Ramachandran

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s invitation to his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, to participate in the G-7 Summit and outreach sessions being held in Alberta, Canada, on June 15-17, and the Indian prime minister’s confirmation of his participation in the event, are seen as marking a shift in their bilateral relationship.

The question of India’s exclusion from the summit had been causing embarrassment to the Modi government, even as it put the Canadian government in a spot. Although it is not a member of the G-7, India has been a regular attendee at its summits. India has participated in 11 G-7 summits so far, with Modi attending five of them.

The upcoming G-7 meeting will be Modi’s sixth. It almost didn’t happen, given the troubled ties between India and Canada.

Invites to other G-7 members and non-members had already gone out, and as late as June 5, there was no official word about Canada inviting India.

This caused major embarrassment to Modi at home. While analysts drew attention to the Canadian “snub,” political rivals mocked him for not being invited and interpreted the non-invitation as evidence of his foreign policy blunders. For Modi, who takes great pride in his global image, this was a major blow.

Meanwhile, in Canada, Canadian-Sikh groups and Liberal Party politicians opposed Carney’s invitation of Modi to the country. Yet Carney was under pressure to invite India to the summit; all the other G-7 members were reportedly keen on India’s participation. Canada itself, especially amid deteriorating relations with the U.S., is looking to deepen economic cooperation with countries like India. Carney said it didn’t make “sense” to exclude India, the world’s fifth-largest economy, which is “at the heart” of global supply chains, from the G-7 summit.

Pakistan’s Military Won’t Loosen Its Gri

Husain Haqqani

Last Saturday, former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan joined a long list of elected leaders in the country to be jailed on corruption charges after removal from office. Khan’s conviction for failing to declare income from selling gifts he received as prime minister disqualifies him from leading his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and from contesting national elections expected by November. Khan’s cult-like supporters regard him as a figure who can save Pakistan from corrupt, dynastic politics. With their leader in prison, they will step up their protest campaign against the former prime minister’s opponents, as well as the powerful military.

The military establishment now seems likely to prevail. Pakistan has never been a full democracy; the military ruled directly for decades and has retained a say in policymaking with a civilian government in power. Intelligence officials have influenced political parties and judges and manipulated elections. But a recent crackdown, which began after some of Khan’s supporters attacked military facilities after his initial arrest on May 9, has muzzled critics and left even less room for civil liberties. Dozens of opposition activists have been detained; PTI claims that the arrests number in the thousands.

US-China: what’s really at stake in London

Nigel Green

A high-stakes showdown is unfolding this week in London—far from the manufacturing plants of Shenzhen or the trading floors of Wall Street, yet central to the global economic order.

Senior US and Chinese officials will hold a second day of talks today (Tuesday) aimed at de-escalating the most consequential economic rivalry of our time.

After Monday’s first day of talks, US President Donald Trump said, “We are doing well with China. China’s not easy…I’m only getting good reports.” China is negotiating for looser US tech controls while the US wants China to ease limits on rare earth mineral exports.

But for investors watching from Singapore to Silicon Valley, these meetings aren’t just about tariffs. They’re about who writes the rules of the 21st-century global economy.

Both sides are seeking to revive the Geneva framework established last month—an agreement that temporarily eased a volatile tariff standoff by rolling back US import duties on Chinese goods from 145% to 30%, and slashing Chinese tariffs from 125% to 10%.

The compromise was a ceasefire, not a peace treaty. Since then, fiery accusations of non-compliance have resumed.

Washington says Beijing is dragging its feet on critical mineral exports. Beijing accuses the US of doubling down on tech restrictions, particularly on semiconductors and AI.

The talks in London are significant because the stakes have never been higher. China and the US are no longer just competing powers—they are operating two fundamentally divergent systems, each trying to shape the global economic architecture in its own image.

This is a full-spectrum competition that spans data flows, digital currencies, energy policy, national security, and ideology. Investors ignore this at their peril.

To understand the gravity of this week’s negotiations, you have to look beyond the tariff tables and see the wider trajectory.

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.

Ukraine and Taiwan: Why Learning the Right Lessons Matters

Zenel Garcia and John Nagl

As the world watches the war in Ukraine reshape the global order, the United States and its allies are seizing the moment to extract hard-earned lessons on the art of managing great power rivalry, crisis, and conflict. Arguably, the United States has adeptly employed its diplomatic, informational, military, and economic instruments of national power to keep its population safe and out of the conflict, while helping Ukraine impose severe costs on Russia. Diplomatically, it has built a coalition of partners to simultaneously seek a peaceful solution and cast opprobrium on Russian actions through international institutions like the United Nations. Informationally, it took the unprecedented step of releasing intelligence on Russian activities to deprive Moscow the element of surprise or the means to conduct false flag operations. It has also promoted an effective discourse portraying Russia’s action as threatening to the international order. Militarily, it has delivered one of the few recent successes in training and equipping a foreign military. Finally, economically, it has led the organization and implementation of severely damaging sanctions on Russia.

The apparent success of these efforts has generated much discussion about lessons to be learned. However, overly optimistic analyses risk obscuring the applicability of these policies to future conflicts. This is particularly important as the foreign policy community draws parallels between Ukraine and a potential conflict over Taiwan. It will be difficult, if not impossible, for the United States to apply its instruments of power in a similar fashion in a Taiwan contingency, specifically because China is not Russia, and Taiwan is not Ukraine. Nevertheless, the war in Ukraine offers lessons across the elements of national power for the prospects and likely consequences of a Chinese attempt to invade Taiwan. For both military and economic reasons, China is unlikely to follow Russia’s example of an overt invasion; instead, it will likely rely on diplomatic and informational power to accomplish its objectives.

Amphibious Invasion Complexities: Military Challenges for China

The principal lesson that President Xi Jinping is likely to have learned from watching Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for the past three years is disarmingly simple: Invasions are hard.

Rare earths: China's trump card in trade war with US

BEIJING: China is counting on one crucial advantage as it seeks to grind out a deal to ease its high-stakes trade war with the United States – dominance in rare earths.

Used in electric vehicles, hard drives, wind turbines and missiles, rare earth elements are essential to the modern economy and national defence.

AFP takes a look at how rare earths have become a key sticking point in talks between the US and China.

"The Middle East has oil. China has rare earths," Deng Xiaoping, the late Chinese leader whose pro-market reforms set the country on its path to becoming an economic powerhouse, said in 1992.

This service is not intended for persons residing in the E.U. By clicking subscribe, I agree to receive news updates and promotional material from Mediacorp and Mediacorp’s partners.

Since then, Beijing's heavy investment in state-owned mining firms and lax environmental regulations compared to other industry players have turned China into the world's top supplier.

The country now accounts for 92 per cent of global refined output, according to the International Energy Agency.

But the flow of rare earths from China to manufacturers around the world has slowed after Beijing in early April began requiring domestic exporters to apply for a licence, widely seen as a response to US tariffs.

Under the new requirements, which industry groups have said are complex and slow-moving, seven key elements and related magnets require Beijing's approval to be shipped to foreign buyers.

The International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC): What Lies Ahead? – Analysis

Rupakjyoti Borah

Russia and India have been collaborating in a wide range of fields. One important area of cooperation between the two nations is in the field of connectivity. A big connectivity project between the two nations is the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) which runs from St. Petersburg to Mumbai via Iran. It is worth mentioning here that both India and Russia have good relations with Iran and India has already invested in a big fashion in the Chabahar port in Iran.

In the aftermath of Western sanctions on Russia after the start of the Ukraine-Russia war, India has become one of the most important purchasers of Russian oil, thereby helping shoring up the Russian economy too.

What Is The INSTC?

The INTSC is a 7,200-km (4500 mile) long multi-modal network of ship, rail, and road routes for freight between India, Iran, Azerbaijan, Russia, Central Asia and Europe. The objective of the INSTC is to increase trade connectivity between major cities like Mumbai, Moscow, Tehran, Baku, Bandar Abbas, Astrakhan, Bandar Anzali, etc. To test the effectiveness of the INSTC, dry runs of two routes were conducted back in the year 2014. While the first route tried out was between Mumbai to Baku via Bandar Abbas, the second was Mumbai to Astrakhan via Bandar Abbas, Tehran and Bandar Anzali.

What is worth noting here is that the results showed transportation costs were reduced by “$2,500 per 15 tons of cargo” by the use of the INTSC. The INSTC will also be complementary to the Ashgabat agreement, a multimodal transport agreement signed by India (2018), Oman (2011), Iran (2011), Turkmenistan (2011), Uzbekistan, (2011) Kazakhstan (2015) for creating an international transport and transit corridor. In the past, agreements had been reached for the TAPI(Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India) pipeline, though there has been no noticeable progress in the same because of a whole lot of factors.

What Are The Major Challenges For INSTC?

How Global Governance Can Survive

Victor Cha, John Hamre, and G. John Ikenberry

The last time U.S. President Donald Trump attended a Group of Seven (G-7) leaders’ summit in Canada, in 2018, he treated it like a reality TV show. “Trump Blows Up G7 Agenda,” read the headline in Politico. Trump arrived late; called for Russia’s readmission to the group (a nonstarter with the other members); described the host, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as “very dishonest and weak”; and refused at the last minute to endorse the joint statement at the end of the meeting.

This month, as leaders of the advanced industrialized democracies that make up the G-7—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States—prepare for their annual summit, Canada is hosting once again. With Trump’s tariff war in full swing and targeting the other countries in attendance, this meeting could be even more contentious than his last visit.

But it doesn’t have to be. The G-7 has the potential to play a meaningful role in global governance: taking on a position the Trump administration does not want for the United States and addressing the problems of burden sharing that appear to lie at the root of many of Trump’s concerns about U.S. global leadership. In previous meetings, G-7 members have made clear their interest in addressing technological advancements, public health, major wars, and other issues beyond the group’s traditional mandate. With many international institutions today paralyzed by geopolitical rivalries, the world needs concerted action now more than ever.

Yet to truly turn the G-7 into a body that can sustain the rules-based order, its members need to bolster their ranks, streamline their procedures, and strengthen the group’s legitimacy in the eyes of the world. Pulling off this reinvention would position the G-7 for leadership—and could even be the kind of sweeping project that appeals to Trump.

Apple’s Supply Chain: Economic and Geopolitical Implications

Chris Miller, Vishnu Venugopalan

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

Analysts who track Apple’s supply chain have demonstrated how Apple not only assembles many of its devices in China but also has over time sourced more components from China. Economist Yuqing Xing has calculated that iPhones manufactured in 2009 sourced nearly all their components from outside China with only the final assembly (costing $6.50 per iPhone) happening in China.2 In contrast, by 2018, many components were sourced from China, totaling $104 per iPhone. Journalist Patrick McGee has reported how Apple spent billions of dollars buying equipment to place in Chinese factories, enabling them to produce more components.3

Ukrainian attack on Russian bombers shows how cheap drones could upset global security

Julien de Troullioud de Lanversin

A screenshot from a video footage of the June 1 drone attack on Russian airfields released by Ukraine's Security Service. Satellite imagery confirmed that several strategic bombers were destroyed in at least two airfields, Belaya Airbase in Russia's far East and Olenya Airbase near Finland. (Credit: SBU)

On Sunday, social media started broadcasting videos of airfields shrouded with columns of smoke and parked airplanes on fire. These were not common airplanes but Russian strategic bombers capable of delivering nuclear weapons virtually anywhere on the globe. Behind these attacks were small drones, like those used to capture scenic social media videos, remotely operated by Ukrainian pilots.

The day after, some Russian media and influential figures called for retaliation with nuclear strikes. On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly said in a phone call with President Donald Trump that he planned to retaliate against Ukraine for its surprise attack. According to a reading of the Russian nuclear doctrine, the Ukrainian attacks could technically prompt a nuclear retaliation by Russia.

This military operation is the latest illustration of how cheap, accessible drones are changing modern warfare. It also exposed another reality: Drones will wreak havoc on global stability if nobody controls their proliferation.

A turning point. Last week’s drone operation, which the Ukrainian military called “Operation Spider’s Web” and which was 18 months in the making, looked like it came straight out of a James Bond movie: More than a hundred first-person view drones were secretly shipped inside containers on commercial trucks sent toward locations deep inside Russian territory, nearby highly sensitive military airfields. With just a click from operators based in Ukraine, all containers’ roofs simultaneously opened, and drones navigated to their targets to unleash destruction. The number of aircraft damaged or destroyed is still unclear. (Ukrainian authorities claim 41 aircraft were destroyed.) What is certain, however, is that several of Russia’s most critical and advanced strategic nuclear-capable bombers were damaged.

The Right Path to Better Deterrence

Peter Huessy

Is the West in increasing danger of being attacked with nuclear weapons, whether from a nuclear armed state or a terrorist organization? And if the nuclear threat has accelerated, is the current U.S. deterrent strategy adequate and cost-effective to prevent any such attack? And does an alternative strategy seeking abolition make sense?

Nuclear dangers have indeed increased. And nuclear weapons have become key elements of state strategy particularly with respect to Russia, China, North Korea and potentially Iran. Most importantly has been the adoption of an “escalate to win” options where nuclear weapons are introduced into a conventional conflict.

To counter these threats, U.S. deterrence strategy is in transition along multiple paths. Legacy deterrent forces represented by the U.S. nuclear Triad are being both significantly upgraded and replaced. The Administration and Congress understand the country is lacking in theater nuclear forces and is seeking to remedy that shortfall with the development of such technologies as nuclear capable sea and air-based medium range cruise missiles. The nation’s nuclear command, control, and communication (NC3) is also being upgraded to overcome cyber and other threats. And the nation’s nuclear legacy warheads are being replaced as service life extensions have run their course.

This effort has been moving forward since roughly the middle of the Bush ‘43’ and beginning of the Obama administrations, but lacked the urgency required to move forward quickly. The good news is that the current administration has repeatedly made the case that such modernization is of the highest national priority and will be accelerated.

Most importantly, the U.S. is not initiating any kind of arms race. Far from it. The U.S. program of record including upgrading the entirety of the U.S. nuclear TRIAD is consistent with the 2010 New START arms control agreement, even though it expires within the next year. The modernized force as currently planned is even smaller than the current legacy force---two fewer submarines (12 vs 14) and 48 fewer (192 vs 240) sea-launched ballistic missiles.

Ukraine and Taiwan: Why Learning the Right Lessons Matter

Zenel Garcia and John Nagl

As the world watches the war in Ukraine reshape the global order, the United States and its allies are seizing the moment to extract hard-earned lessons on the art of managing great power rivalry, crisis, and conflict. Arguably, the United States has adeptly employed its diplomatic, informational, military, and economic instruments of national power to keep its population safe and out of the conflict, while helping Ukraine impose severe costs on Russia. Diplomatically, it has built a coalition of partners to simultaneously seek a peaceful solution and cast opprobrium on Russian actions through international institutions like the United Nations. Informationally, it took the unprecedented step of releasing intelligence on Russian activities to deprive Moscow the element of surprise or the means to conduct false flag operations. It has also promoted an effective discourse portraying Russia’s action as threatening to the international order. Militarily, it has delivered one of the few recent successes in training and equipping a foreign military. Finally, economically, it has led the organization and implementation of severely damaging sanctions on Russia.

The apparent success of these efforts has generated much discussion about lessons to be learned. However, overly optimistic analyses risk obscuring the applicability of these policies to future conflicts. This is particularly important as the foreign policy community draws parallels between Ukraine and a potential conflict over Taiwan. It will be difficult, if not impossible, for the United States to apply its instruments of power in a similar fashion in a Taiwan contingency, specifically because China is not Russia, and Taiwan is not Ukraine. Nevertheless, the war in Ukraine offers lessons across the elements of national power for the prospects and likely consequences of a Chinese attempt to invade Taiwan. For both military and economic reasons, China is unlikely to follow Russia’s example of an overt invasion; instead, it will likely rely on diplomatic and informational power to accomplish its objectives.

Amphibious Invasion Complexities: Military Challenges for China

The principal lesson that President Xi Jinping is likely to have learned from watching Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for the past three years is disarmingly simple: Invasions are hard.

The military must remain nonpartisan. America depends on it

HEIDI A. URBEN

Scholars of civil-military relations endlessly debate the durability of professional norms and the degree to which they reinforce the principle of civilian control of the armed forces. The most important norm that ensures the military upholds its oath to the Constitution and is subordinate to civilian authority is its norm of nonpartisanship—the commitment to keeping the military out of partisan politics. On June 10, that norm was dealt a setback at Fort Bragg.

Mounting a stage at the North Carolina base, the president and secretary of defense delivered partisan speeches before a large audience of uniformed soldiers. Others can judge the propriety of their remarks in such a setting, but it was the troops’ response that made the moment so troubling.

On cue, they roared their approval to partisan language about ridding the military of “woke garbage” and “political correctness.” They booed allusions to the previous president, the governor of California, and the mayor of Los Angeles. They applauded the president’s plan to revert yet more military bases to Confederate-derived names. In these and other ways, they behaved not as professional American service members, but as partisans at any other political rally.

Some observers are outraged because they believe the moment revealed an active-duty military that is fully aligned with the MAGA movement, perhaps a worrying thought as the president expands the use of the military on American soil. This is misguided for several reasons. First, the U.S. military is a diverse force that reflects the American public—for good or for worse—which means it also reflects America’s political divisions. The crowd at Fort Bragg may or may not be representative of the entire military, but that is beside the point. The personal politics of individual service members, no matter in which direction they lean, are unimportant as long as they are kept private.

Why the Right Hates the National Security State

Michael Singh

Since assuming office, U.S. President Donald Trump has overseen an unprecedented assault on the federal government. Initially, his agent in this campaign was the tech mogul Elon Musk, who was running the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Musk described DOGE’s mission as reducing the United States’ $36 trillion in federal debt and ending the “tyranny of bureaucracy.” After a very public rift between the billionaires last week, Musk is on the outs with Trump, but the goal of downsizing the federal bureaucracy remains deeply ingrained in the administration. At the end of May, for instance, in a move not apparently initiated by Musk or his staff, the Trump administration cut dozens of staff from the National Security Council, which advises the president on international affairs and coordinates the interagency policymaking process. This move, according to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also replaced Mike Waltz to lead the NSC, is intended to make the NSC hew more closely to “its original purpose and the President’s vision.” But, according to Axios, an anonymous official put it more bluntly: “The NSC is the ultimate Deep State. . . . We’re gutting the Deep State.”

Critics argue that such drastic cuts to the federal government will ultimately diminish U.S. influence in the world. Yet it is worth remembering that debates over the size and scope of the NSC and other parts of the national security bureaucracy fit squarely in a long-standing American political tradition. Indeed, the recent attacks on bureaucracy—and especially the national security bureaucracy—are reminiscent of the immediate aftermath of World War II.

With the U.S. victory in 1945, the shattering of the international order that preceded it, and the emergence of the Soviet Union as a military and ideological rival, midcentury American political and intellectual circles broadly accepted that there could be no return to Washington’s pre-war military readiness or its foreign policy of relative aloofness from global affairs. But precisely what a “new normal” should look like was hotly debated. Internationalists believed the United States should maintain a robust overseas role, while conservatives were skeptical of international intervention. From those debates emerged the U.S. national security state—the collection of government agencies and organizations that focus on protecting citizens from external threats.

Why Bamboozled Putin Is Struggling to Avenge Ukraine’s Sneak Attack

Marcel Plichta

Ever since Ukraine’s devastating drone attack on Russian strategic bombers, the Kremlin has been trying to figure out a fitting response.

Ukraine initially claimed 41 Russian aircraft were hit in the sneak June 1 attack on deep-lying airbases, though subsequent satellite imagery suggests fewer airframes may have been damaged or destroyed than initially thought.

Nevertheless, the blow is significant enough to Russia’s bomber fleet that President Vladimir Putin has to respond to save face. But while Russia has stepped up nightly drone and missile attacks at Ukrainian cities—framed as “revenge”—Putin has not been able to ease the sting of Russia’s lost aircraft.Russia has stepped up its nightly strikes on towns and cities across Eastern Ukraine since the sneak attack.Global Images Ukraine/Global Images Ukraine via Getty

“Operation Spider’s Web,” as the secret Ukrainian operation was dubbed, was a big enough deal to feature in a lengthy call between Putin and President Donald Trump, who blithely claimed that Putin “will have to respond” to the attacks.

Trump himself reportedly thought the Ukrainian operation—using drones assembled in Russia itself and hidden in trucks—was “bad-ss,” then later suggested Ukraine’s precision strike on military aircraft justified subsequent Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians. Trump’s view is firmly rooted in the idea that both sides are at fault, like a messy schoolyard brawl, even though Russia clearly started the conflict with its invasion of Ukraine.

Trump’s comments aside, Russia’s major problem is one of optics: Ukraine’s attack was focused solely on Russian military targets; Russia’s attacks, both before and after Spider’s Web, are more often than not aimed at civilian targets like apartment buildings. The difference in approach reflects a major feature of the war: that Ukraine is fighting off the Russian military, while Russia is fighting against the Ukrainian people.

Ukraine’s Battlefield Drone Innovations are Influencing Europe’s Militaries

David Kirichenko

As the world order continues to take a new shape, Europe has realized it no longer has the luxury of relying solely on the United States for protection. As a result, European countries are moving quickly to help build out Ukraine’s defense industry to also strengthen Europe’s own security for the future. At the center of this shift is Ukraine’s battlefield drone innovations—including its ability to produce them cheaply at scale, which is now reshaping how Europe prepares for a future confrontation with Russia.

Facing uncertainty over U.S. support, Ukraine has focused on expanding its domestically produced drone program, aiming to compensate for potential gaps in Western arms shipments by building a network of drone regiments along the front. Across Ukraine, volunteers and small workshops are fueling a grassroots drone-building movement that supplies frontline troops with cheap, highly effective First-Person View (FPV) attack drones.

Strategic Agility or Abundance?

The strategy of employing cheap drone mass, already credited with stalling Russia’s winter offensive, focuses on saturating Russian lines with low-cost, high-impact drones to limit Russian advances while preserving Ukraine’s soldiers. General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief, speaking at the Ukraine–United Kingdom Defense Technology Forum organized by RUSI, stated that a 10–15 kilometer-wide “zone of continuous death” has formed ahead of the front line – and that this deadly zone is steadily expanding, along with the likelihood of destruction within it.

As Ukraine’s battlefield innovations outpace traditional U.S. defense contractors, American companies and Silicon Valley are increasingly turning to Ukrainian drone makers for their frontline expertise, recognizing that “no U.S. company is keeping up with Ukraine.” Zaluzhnyi added that “Victory on the battlefield now depends entirely on the ability to outpace the enemy in technological development.”

Ukraine in turn, is building a massive drone arsenal on a budget. Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi noted that Ukrainian drones struck and destroyed more than 83,000 Russian targets in April, which was almost a 10% increase from March. Likewise, in November 2024, U.S. Army Chief Gen. Randy George, said, “Ukraine has demonstrated the value of small, attritable drones on the battlefield.”

Coming Soon? U.S. Cyber Command in Domestic Network

Jason Healey

Sometime soon, President Trump might order military forces to conduct offensive cyber operations on U.S. domestic networks against those he has declared enemies. If this were to happen, he would face few legal or procedural roadblocks.

The legal analysis is neither straightforward nor simple, but the ultimate consequence will be one of the following: Either the currently understood limits on deploying troops within the United States constrain domestic military activity or they don’t.

If it is legal to deploy the 10th Mountain Division to the border to deal with an “invasion” or “insurrection”—or the 82nd Airborne to the streets of Washington, D.C., as nearly happened in 2020—there are few barriers to ordering U.S. Cyber Command to spy on or disrupt domestic networks against whatever domestic enemies a president might declare.

The Pentagon has already confirmed it is using offensive cyber operations against drug traffickers and human smugglers at the southern U.S. border. According to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s chief cyber adviser, the Pentagon is “actively working to disrupt these networks, intercept their communications and dismantle their digital infrastructure.” To help stop this presidentially declared “invasion,” it would not be a major legal or operational step to order further military Title 10 cyber operations to disrupt the communications of those criminal organizations operating on the U.S. side of the border, or nongovernmental organizations or individuals harboring immigrants within the United States. Such digital effects are less publicly visible and thus less likely to generate protest than paratroopers marching through the streets in riot gear.

Pundits and legal experts will rightly detail all sorts of legal complexities. Little of that may matter. The administration has repeatedly shown it does not care about legal quibbles, and commanders who decide to not follow orders and wait for legal clarity would do so with the clear expectation of being fired for second-guessing the commander in chief.

Walking Into Spiderwebs: Unpacking the Ukraine Drone Attack

Nicholas Weaver

In the rapidly evolving landscape of modern warfare, technological innovations have contributed to some particularly stunning moments on the battlefield. Few compare, however, to the feat the Ukrainians pulled off on June 1, in an audacious and historically significant attack on Russian military infrastructure. The attack, codenamed “Operation Spiderweb,” was a massive special operation carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) to target multiple Russian air bases, with a particular aim of destroying Russian bomber aviation fleets. The Ukrainian SBU claims that they struck 41 aircraft, although independent assessments have currently identified only about a dozen targets.

Operation Spiderweb was uniquely clever. Taking a page from the Greeks, the Ukrainians built their own Trojan horses—dummy modular wooden houses, containing special drone carriers inside the “roofs.” These unsuspecting, faux homes were then transported within a few kilometers of the targets, allowing the Ukrainians to penetrate deep inside Russia. Moments before the attack, the roofs were remotely opened and the attacking drones were released, which the Ukrainians operated under long-range control.

Operation Spiderweb has effects that will continue to inflict remarkable damage long after June 1. Russia now has to consider any ISO container a potential Ukrainian aircraft carrier, necessitating significant economic investment and carrying consequences for national morale. The Ukrainian attack is unlikely to be the last, as technological innovations make the possibility of a fully autonomous strike increasingly probable—with implications extending beyond the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Unpacking the Operation

Diversifying Europe’s Gas Supply: The Geopolitical Stakes Of The Trans-Caspian Pipeline – Analysis

Ebrahim Rezaei Rad

In the contemporary era, energy has become one of the primary drivers shaping international politics and power relations among nations. The Eurasian region, with its vast reserves of natural gas in Central Asia and Europe’s growing demand for secure energy supplies, has transformed into a significant geopolitical battleground.

As numerous authors have already stated in their writings on the topic for the International Institute IFIMES, energy transit projects such as pipelines hold a central strategic position. Among these, the Trans-Caspian Pipeline project stands out as a strategic initiative aiming to meet this demand and create a new route for transferring energy from Turkmenistan to Europe.

Background: The Trans-Caspian Pipeline

The Trans-Caspian Pipeline is – as the numerous IFIMES authors have earlier noted, and professor Anis H. Bajrektarevic elaborated in his 2020 book ‘Caspian’ – a proposed project designed to transport natural gas from Turkmenistan, across the Caspian Sea seabed, to Azerbaijan, and from there to European markets. This pipeline is expected to span approximately 300 kilometers, originating from the Turkmenbashi field on the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea.

After crossing the seabed, it would connect to Azerbaijan’s gas transmission network and deliver gas to Europe via existing pipelines such as the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). This route serves as an alternative to transporting gas through Russian territory and, if implemented, could significantly alter the balance of energy power in the region.

The Southern Gas Corridor: A Modern Energy Artery

When Grok is wrong: The risks of AI chatbots spreading misinformation in a crisis

Kjølv Egeland

In recent months, there have been surges of speculation online that seismic events in Asia were caused by clandestine nuclear tests or military exchanges involving nuclear arms. An earthquake in Iran last October and a series of seismic events in Pakistan in April and May stimulated frantic theory-crafting by social media users and sensationalist news organizations. Both waves of speculation took place against a backdrop of intense conflicts in the regions concerned.

The spread of hearsay about nuclear or other strategic weapons tests is not new. During the Cold War, speculation about atomic tests, secret superweapons, and exotic arms experiments flourished in print magazines and popular culture. But novel digital technologies have added a new layer of complexity to the grapevine, boosted by ever-pervasive and invasive social media platforms.

Social media and AI-powered large language models certainly offer valuable sources of information. But they also risk facilitating the spread of misinformation more widely—and faster—than traditional modes of communication.

Worse, large language models could also end up validating false information.

‘Grok’ was lucky this time. Following a seismic event in Pakistan on May 12, numerous users of Elon Musk’s social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) resorted to asking its AI chatbot “Grok” whether the event might have been produced by an underground nuclear test. X’s chatbot Grok adds to a growing list of other chatbots, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini, and China’s DeepSeek.

Grok’s answer to X users curious about the May 12 event was that the quake was due to natural causes. To support its answer, Grok used as evidence the fact that the event had taken place at a depth of 10 kilometers—too deep for a nuclear test.

Marine Corps Loitering Munitions: Ten Tenets for Future Employment Modeling Infantry Organic Precision Fires

Sean Harper

Over the past few years, loitering munitions have moved from the margins of conflict to the center of modern warfare. Anyone watching the evening news has seen them disrupt armored columns, deny key terrain, and redefine what it means to shape the battlespace—all at the tactical edge. With the upcoming delivery of Organic Precision Fires, the Marine Corps is joining the trend.

Integrating loitering munitions into the Marine Corps is not just about buying the right drone or writing the right CONOPS. It’s about rethinking how we generate combat power, organize for distributed operations, and equip Marines who fight in every clime and place.

The Corps faces several critical questions:

Should every squad carry a loitering munition? How many?

Who controls fires from above—platoon or battalion?

How do we sustain these systems forward, in a fight, with contested logistics?

And how do we ensure that loitering munitions enable the rifleman in the chaos of combat instead of distracting him?

These are not just immediate tactical questions. They’re larger questions of doctrine, force design, and leadership.

This article proposes ten core principles developed through experimentation, analysis, and operational feedback. These tenets are meant to guide discussion on how the Marine Corps develops, employs, and adapts loitering munitions to its operations. Some will challenge traditional assumptions. Others will reinforce enduring truths. Together, they offer a vision for integrating this capability not as a bolt-on novelty, but as a core component of 21st-century Marine Corps warfighting.

Quantum Compass? Leidos Aims to Outmaneuver GPS Jamming

Magnetic navigation paired with quantum physics might just be the solution to GPS jamming. And Leidos is betting on it.

The defense tech firm is developing an alternative navigation system that uses the Earth’s magnetic field as a stable reference, pairing it with quantum sensing to steer through environments where GPS signals can’t.

Called magnetic navigation (MagNav), the approach taps into quantum mechanics to measure minute magnetic variations. It relies on particles that exist in multiple states at once, a trait that makes the system both precise and resistant to interference.

Unlike conventional systems that can drift when jammed or spoofed, MagNav is based on physics constants, not relative measurements. That makes it less vulnerable, a potentially game-changing feature for contested or GPS-denied zones.

A military physicist shows an atom interferometer used to measure motion for navigational purposes. Photo: Jonathan Steffen/US Navy

Leidos is positioning MagNav as a way to close one of the biggest gaps in modern navigation. The project is being developed with Frequency Electronics and MIT Lincoln Laboratory, under subcontract to Leidos.

Understanding How it Works

Aaron Canciani, Leidos’ Transition of Quantum Sensing Manager and a former US Air Force scientist, explained that MagNav’s precision comes from quantum magnetometers.

“Nitrogen vacancy-diamond magnetometers use the crystal structure of a diamond to define a sensing axis in which quantum measurements of the complete vector field can be known to exquisite accuracies,” he said.

Golden Dome's Digital Brain

Mike Casey

In my last post, we examined the vast, multi-layered sensor network behind America’s “Golden Dome” initiative, exploring the satellites and radars designed to detect and track hypersonic threats. But finding the needle in the haystack is only the first part of the problem. How does the U.S. military take that sensor data, make sense of it, and guide an interceptor to a target moving at over a mile per second?

This is where the command and control (C2) and data fusion systems come in—the digital “brains” of the operation that pull everything together. Let’s try to unpack that C2 architecture. We will explore the immense requirements, the key technologies and systems like the Army’s IBCS, and how they are being tested in practice.

U.S. Army soldiers in an Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) command post manage a successful missile intercept during a test at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. (image: defensenews.com).

First a recap of the operational and technical requirements for hypersonic missile defense: The entire C2 architecture for Golden Dome is shaped by the brutal reality of time. Unlike traditional ballistic missiles, which follow predictable parabolic arcs and allow defenders tens of minutes to react, hypersonic glide vehicles fly lower, faster, and maneuver unpredictably. This compresses the engagement timeline from detection to interception to mere tens of seconds.

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)