Indian Strategic Studies: 06/23/25

23 June 2025

How India and Pakistan’s Digital Authoritarianism Sows the Seeds of War

Shumaila Hussain Shahani and Disha Verma

As tensions between India and Pakistan escalated following a terrorist attack in India-administered Kashmir on April 22, 2025, misinformation ran rife on broadcast and online spaces on both sides of the border. Social media was flooded with unverified claims of drone attacks, explosions, captures, mock drills, and more. A combination of television broadcasters rampantly misreporting events with impunity and social media platforms brimming with new, unverified updates by the second created an unprecedented information environment of dread, anxiety, and paralyzing fear for close to two weeks.

In desperate attempts to streamline this feral flow of information, both governments invoked sweeping legislative powers to censor, block, and stifle online speech – except the attempts were demonstratively partisan, excessive, and chilling, even for actors who had no active role in this misinformation war. This episode is the most recent of many examples of how a technology once hailed for democratizing knowledge has increasingly become a leash in the hands of states. Online spaces are now fertile grounds for unbridled control, giving rise to the concept of “digital authoritarianism.” This problem is not unique to India and Pakistan by any means, but both governments – long flagged by human rights groups as digital authoritarian regimes – flexed that muscle in full public view during the April-May escalations.

In India, the result was mass censorship at an unprecedented scale. Over 8,000 accounts belonging to media houses, journalists, and individual users – homed largely in Pakistan but also in India, China, Turkiye, and Bangladesh – were withheld on X, Pakistani creators and news channels on YouTube and Spotify were geoblocked, and websites of independent Indian news publications suspended without reason. After X reported having received requests from the Indian government to suspend the 8,000+ accounts, the official X account itself was briefly withheld and then restored in mere hours – marking a unique and bizarre instance of platforms geoblocking themselves.

Chinese satellite achieves 5 times Starlink speed with 2-watt laser from 36,000km orbit

Imagine beaming a HD movie from Shanghai to Los Angeles – crossing three Pacific widths – in less than five seconds using just a night light.

This may sound like fantasy because Starlink, operating just hundreds of kilometres above Earth, maxes out at a couple of Mbps.

But from a secret satellite parked in stationary orbit more than 60 times higher, a team of Chinese scientists has used a 2-watt laser – dim as a candle – to push data through turbulent skies to Earth at 1Gbps, five times faster than Starlink.

Satellite laser downlinks are fast but they face a foe: atmospheric turbulence. It scatters light into extremely weak and fuzzy patches hundreds of metres wide by ground arrival.

Previous attempts by researchers from around the world have used adaptive optics (AO) to sharpen distorted light or mode diversity reception (MDR) to capture scattered signals – but neither sufficed alone under strong turbulence.

Network and satellite data exchange over planet earth in space 3D rendering elements of this image furnished by NASA. Photo: Shutterstock

Led by Wu Jian, a professor from Peking University of Posts and Telecommunications, and Liu Chao from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the team proposed what they called a “groundbreaking” solution: AO-MDR synergy.

“This method effectively prevents communication quality degradation caused by extremely low signal power,” wrote Wu and Liu’s team in a peer-reviewed paper published in the Chinese-language journal Acta Optica Sinica on June 3.

Trust Issues: The Push for AI Sovereignty

Averill Campion

A willingness to be vulnerable is central to building trust. Yet for nations competing in the AI ecosystem, a key tension has emerged: how to manage reliance on US and Chinese infrastructure while upholding local norms and values. This challenge has pushed decision-makers to design risk management strategies that avoid compromising domestic ideals—especially amid legal conflicts like those between the EU’s GDPR and the US CLOUD Act.

In practice, full AI sovereignty is unrealistic due to the deep interdependencies within the global AI ecosystem. Still, efforts to assert sovereignty reflect underlying trust concerns, national security interests, and a desire for innovation-led prestige. For its part, the US should acknowledge that its allies may seek autonomy in targeted AI domains to achieve national wins without severing ties to the broader ecosystem.

Meanwhile, US hyperscalers must confront persistent skepticism about data privacy, particularly given the US government’s legal authority to access data stored by American service providers. Recognizing this limitation can foster a more honest dialogue and mutual understanding. Choosing local infrastructure, in this light, is often less about rejecting global collaboration and more about aligning AI development with national security priorities and cultural values. That, too, is a form of sovereignty.

Nations Weigh Competition Against Norms and Risk

Three main approaches to sovereign AI are emerging. The first seeks to eliminate as much external influence as possible, aiming for full national control. The second favors a more open model based on strategic autonomy—balancing collaboration with independence. The third focuses on leveraging local norms and regulations to shape the behavior of external hyperscalers, even amid unresolved data privacy concerns. More broadly, the idea of sovereign technology spans multiple domains, including cybersecurity, digital infrastructure, data governance, and AI.

What did not happen at the G7 Summit in Canada (and why it matters)

Atlantic Council experts

What didn’t happen sometimes matters more than what did. On Tuesday afternoon, the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Alberta, Canada, concluded, but US President Donald Trump had left the day before, jetting back to Washington as the war between Israel and Iran intensified. Trump’s attendance for the full two-day summit was not the only thing that didn’t go as planned—several expected meetings and outcomes were canceled as well. Below, Atlantic Council experts examine four things that did not happen and what each nonevent reveals about the relevant issue.

1. The G7 did not release a joint communiqué

The absence of a joint communiqué at this week’s G7 summit starkly illustrates the deepening policy divisions among leaders of the world’s most powerful economies. While policymakers debate what the G7 can accomplish amid growing US-European tensions, a more fundamental question has emerged: Is the G7 itself equipped to address today’s complex geopolitical landscape?

The summit exposed significant rifts between G7 members and the United States on critical international issues. Trump’s assertion that ejecting Russia from the former Group of Eight (G8) was a strategic mistake amplified tensions over Russia’s war in Ukraine. While the G7 did endorse a statement calling for “de-escalation of hostilities, including a ceasefire in Gaza,” watered down statements like this underscore the challenges in achieving consensus. These parallel conflicts reveal not only internal G7 divisions but also the growing disconnect between G7 positions and broader global sentiment, especially when it comes to Israel and Gaza.

The lead-up to the Kananaskis summit highlighted another critical question: Can the G7 remain relevant while excluding major global players? Pressure from G7 leaders ultimately compelled Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to extend an invitation to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, despite ongoing diplomatic tensions over last year’s killing of a Khalistani separatist in British Columbia. This last-minute inclusion underscores an emerging reality—as one of the world’s largest economies, a crucial node in global supply chains, and a key player in Indo-Pacific security, India’s absence from major G7 discussions would render many outcomes meaningless.

Will Iran Actually Close the Strait of Hormuz? Eni CEO Weighs In

Charles Kennedy

The Strait of Hormuz may be one of the most strategically sensitive energy corridors in the world, but the oil market isn’t blinking, yet, with Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi predicting Iran will not be able to afford this option.

Brent’s muted response at around $77 per barrel on Wednesday, signals that traders see the odds of an actual closure as remote, despite intensifying hostilities between Iran and Israel.

“It would be very difficult to stop the Strait of Hormuz, because everybody would be affected, including Iran,” Descalzi told Reuters on the sidelines of an industry event. “I think they are more rational than that.”

It’s a risky bet. Roughly 20% of the world’s oil and LNG pass through this narrow maritime bottleneck. Iran has rattled sabers before, but never followed through. Descalzi argues it would be self-defeating: Tehran’s own exports would suffer, and the U.S. would not sit idly by.

Still, market complacency is being tested. Freight rates for tankers surged 40% in five days, showing risk premiums are creeping in. That’s no surprise: a single incident could roil flows overnight.

Some analysts warn prices could spike $30 in a worst-case scenario, with Asian refiners hit hardest. That includes China and India, who consume the lion’s share of Gulf exports. They’re quietly reshuffling trade routes and eyeing West African barrels and longer-haul contracts.

For Eni, the Middle East instability lands as it tries to reshape itself. The company is pushing a €2 billion capital raise by selling part of its Plenitude renewables unit, redirecting cash toward biofuels and low-carbon hydrogen.

Descalzi’s warning underscores how markets are pricing in rational restraint, but regional buyers aren’t taking chances. Indian refiners have already ramped up purchases from Russia and the U.S. for June to offset potential Gulf disruptions.

A Last Chance at Middle East Peace

The Middle East is teetering on the edge of a broad regional war. On June 12, Israel began a sustained bombing campaign against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, regime leadership, and oil and gas depots in an effort to—in the words of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu— “degrade,

destroy and remove [the] threat” of potential Iranian nuclear weaponization. Iran has responded with a barrage of ballistic missiles and by pulling out of nuclear negotiations with Washington. The Arab states have been worried about being dragged into a war between Iran and Israel ever since the two countries began sparring indirectly a year and a half ago. But as the fighting expands, and with missiles routinely traveling over the entire Gulf region, neighboring states are now asking not if, but when, the conflict will come to them.

There is still a narrow window to avoid an all-out war. But with Washington having seemingly cooled to diplomacy, it is up to countries in the region to stop the conflict. Only the Arab states and Turkey, after all, have good working relations with Israel, Iran, and the United States. Now, these countries must come up with de-escalation proposals. They need to set up a regionally run mediation initiative that allows them to speak with and act as a broker between the warring parties. They will still have to involve Washington. But they cannot depend on it.

Should the Arab countries and Turkey fail, the war will regionalize. They could well face attacks on their infrastructure by Iran. And fear and uncertainty will spread among their peoples.

CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE

For years, Arab governments have regarded both Iran and Israel as troublesome countries. Iran’s ideological expansionism, advancing nuclear program, and support for proxy militias in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen, as well as Bashar al-Assad’s former regime in Syria, have long made it a threat to its neighbors. In 2019, the Arab world watched with alarm as Iran, according to UN, U.S., and Saudi investigators, attacked Saudi oil facilities. (Iran denied involvement but cheered the strikes.) They were distressed when Tehran turned the Houthis, once a localized Yemeni insurgency, into a long-range threat that in 2022 struck a construction site and an oil facility in Abu Dhabi.

Can Israel End Iran’s Nuclear Program?

The United States is the only country in the world with the ability to destroy the Fordow nuclear facility quickly from the air, something we could accomplish by dropping a couple 15-ton Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs on the most important and heavily protected piece of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Such a strike would potentially reset the entirety of international arms control.

Since the early 1970s, the world has depended on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the U.N. Security Council to maintain a global system that regulates the spread and development of nuclear weapons technology, placing American adversaries like China and Russia at the apex of the arms control system and creating layers of bureaucracy and diplomacy that would-be proliferators have learned to exploit. Pakistan, India, and North Korea have all built nuclear arsenals in defiance of the NPT. Until this week, Iran was very close to joining them.

The global arms control regime never considered Fordow—or, for that matter, Yongbyon, the site of North Korea’s nuclear breakthroughs in the mid-’90s—to be sufficiently serious a threat to global peace to warrant military action. Interestingly enough, the three most recent instances of a country using force to stop an in-progress nuclear program—namely, the Israeli attacks on Iraq, Syria, and Iran—were launched by a state that isn’t a signatory to the NPT. So far the United States has declined to attack North Korean and Iranian nuclear sites. If Donald Trump were to reverse course and bomb Fordow, he would reorient all of global nonproliferation around American strategic judgment and leadership. A successful U.S. attack on Fordow would establish a precedent that a would-be atomic scofflaw couldn’t ignore, with Washington acting as the final bulwark against the spread of nuclear weapons in cases where the NPT regime failed.

But what if Trump decides stanching the tide of nuclear weapons is a job better left to the Chinas and Russias of the world? What if the Israelis are really on their own here? One of the big unknowns of Operation Rising Lion is the extent of the damage Israel has been able to inflict on the Iranian nuclear program so far. Clarifying the issue requires both scientific expertise and deep knowledge of the entire Iranian nuclear-industrial complex.

Khamenei may be fed false data about war, could lead to IDF blunders, longer war - exclusive

Hearing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei give his proud, bombastic, and threatening speech on Wednesday, many global listeners might have had a double take about how the "supreme leader" could try to sound like he is an equal to Israel militarily, and possibly even to the US, and as if nothing has changed in the world since Jerusalem started tearing apart his military power base on Friday of last week.

And maybe before Israel destroyed large portions of his nuclear program, his ballistic missile program, drone program, killed nine of his top 13 military officials, dozens more senior and medium level officials, his entire anti aircraft defense network of over 70 platforms, such a threatening speech would have made sense and truly scared much of the world, including Jerusalem and Washington DC.

But after Tehran's military power had taken the beating the IDF had given it, his speech came off as bizarre.

Most viewers' first instinct would likely to be to assume that he is playing a complex game in which he knows how badly Iran is losing this war, but is trying to present a brave face in public, both to maintain morale for fighting as long as he deems necessary, to hope to keep the US out of the war as long as possible, and to try to achieve the best possible post-war terms.

Can the U.S. Liberate Iraq From Iran?

James Durso

In May 2025, U.S. Congressmen Joe Wilson (R-SC) and Greg Steube (R-FL) sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressing concern about the “complete subjugation” of Iraq to Iran.

The congressmen asked Secretary Rubio to expand sanctions on Iranian-backed militias, sanction Iraq’s importation of Iranian natural gas, sanction Iraq’s financial institutions supporting Iran, sanction Iran’s facilitators in Iraq, dismantle Iran’s smuggling networks in Iraq, and condition U.S. aid to Iraq on ending Iranian influence.

(In April 2025, Wilson introduced the Free Iraq From Iran Act, “To require an interagency strategy to free Iraq from Iran, and for other purposes.”)

admitting that in 2025 Iraqis need to “reclaim their sovereignty,” Wilson and Steube admit the Iraq Liberation Act, economic sanctions on the Saddam Hussein regime, Operation Desert Storm, Operation Southern Watch, Operation Desert Fox, Operation Iraqi Freedom, the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), $50 billion for post-war relief and reconstruction, over 4,400 dead American servicemen, over 300,000 dead Iraqis, over $2 trillion dollars for the Iraq wars, and whatever the CIA was up to, were all for nothing; Mission Not Accomplished.

The congressmen want the U.S. to designate the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) a terrorist organization, overlooking that the PMF isn’t a gang but was recognized in Iraqi law in 2016, reports to the commander of the armed forces, and is subject to all military laws and regulations. In March 2025, Iraq’s parliament tabled a bill to update the 2016 legislation, place the PMF under direct control of the prime minister, and prohibit political activity by PMF members, curious behavior if Iran really controls Iraq.

Iran ‘Sleepwalked’ Into a War with Israel It Can’t Win

Seth Frantzman

Key Points – The Iranian regime’s “extreme hubris,” born from decades of surviving revolution, a grueling war with Iraq, and successfully sponsoring regional proxies, led it to fatally miscalculate the strategic situation prior to Israel’s devastating June 13th strike.

-Confident in its missile and drone capabilities, Tehran failed to recognize that its strategic position had severely weakened in late 2024 after its key allies, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Assad regime in Syria, were neutralized.

-Believing it could continue to act with impunity, Iran sleepwalked into a direct conflict with a technologically superior Israel, leaving its complacent military leadership and vulnerable infrastructure exposed.

How Iranian ‘Hubris’ Led to a Devastating War with Israel (Op-Ed)

In January 2024, Iran was riding high. Its proxies and allies in the region were fighting a multi-front war against Israel. Hamas in Gaza had carried out the worst mass terror attack against Israel in history just three months prior. Hezbollah was targeting Israel daily from Lebanon. The Houthis in Yemen were attacking ships and threatening to cut off Israel from the Red Sea. They were also attacking Israel with drones and missiles.

Iraqi militias, backed by Iran, were also targeting Israel with long-range drones. A year and a half later, Iran is reeling from Israel’s June 13 surprise attack. Iran’s air defenses have crumbled. Its ballistic missiles appear to be running out. How did it fail so badly to understand the changing situation?

Iran in History

How War with Iran Would Undercut US China Strategy

Adam Gallagher

There are many reasons why the Trump administration should refrain from further entangling the United States in Israel’s war on Iran. Iran is a relatively weak country halfway around the world and poses no serious threat to core US interests. If you liked the failed forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, you’d love the quagmire of a war in Iran—a country of 90 million people with a significantly stronger military than those two countries.

But Israel appears intent on drawing the United States into this destabilizing war of choice. Because Israel can’t totally eliminate Iran’s nuclear program alone, it has urged the United States to intervene directly.

A joint US-Israeli war in Iran harms American interests and would threaten American lives while draining resources and diverting strategic attention from pressing priorities. Indeed, one of the most crucial reasons why Washington needs to stay out of the war is that it serves as a distraction from more critical strategic challenges. Chief among those is managing tensions with China.

Since the October 7 attacks, the United States has surged ships, personnel, and other materiel to the region to protect Israel and deter Iran and its “Axis of Resistance” allies. In some cases, these military assets have been repositioned from the Indo-Pacific, where they are stationed in large part to deal with potential Chinese threats.

Before the Trump administration reached a ceasefire with Yemen’s Houthis in May, US commanders expressed concern that the military would have to move long-range precision weapons stockpiles from the Indo-Pacific region to the Middle East. The US military expended massive amounts of munitions to fight a militia that couldn’t even take over one of the poorest countries in the world. What kind of resources would it have to marshal—and from where—to prosecute a war against a state like Iran with serious military capabilities?

Israel-Tied Predatory Sparrow Hackers Are Waging Cyberwar on Iran’s Financial System

The Israel-linked hacker group known as Predatory Sparrow has carried out some of the most disruptive and destructive cyberattacks in history, twice disabling thousands of gas station payment systems across Iran and once even setting a steel mill in the country on fire. Now, in the midst of a new war unfolding between the two countries, they appear to be bent on burning Iran's financial system.

Predatory Sparrow, which often goes by its Farsi name, Gonjeshke Darande, in an effort to appear as a homegrown hacktivist organization, announced in a post on on its X account Wednesday that it had targeted the Iranian crypto exchange Nobitex, accusing the exchange of enabling sanctions violations and terrorist financing on behalf of the Iranian regime. According to cryptocurrency tracing firm Elliptic, the hackers destroyed more than $90 million in Nobitex holdings, a rare instance of hackers burning crypto assets rather than stealing them.

“These cyberattacks are the result of Nobitex being a key regime tool for financing terrorism and violating sanctions,” the hackers posted to X. “Associating with regime terror financing and sanction violation infrastructure puts your assets at risk.”

The incident follows another Predatory Sparrow attack on Iran's finance system on Wednesday, in which the same group targeted Iran's Sepah bank, claiming to have destroyed “all” the bank's data in retaliation for its associations with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and posting documents that appeared to show agreements between the bank and the Iranian military. “Caution: Associating with the regime's instruments for evading sanctions and financing its ballistic missiles and nuclear program is bad for your long-term financial health,” the hackers wrote. “Who's next?”

Sepah Bank's website was offline yesterday but appeared to be working again today. The bank didn't respond to WIRED's request for comment. Nobitex's website was offline today and the company couldn't be reached for comment.

Ukraine counters Russia’s drone strategy with technology

Russia’s growing use of Shahed drones will be met with quality countermeasures, Ukraine's disinformation chief Andriy Kovalenko said on Telegram on June 18, disputing claims the drones could level Ukraine.

The head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation countered apocalyptic projections made by military blogger Serhii Flash, who warned Russia would “flatten all of Ukraine” using the Iranian-made UAVs.

“They’ve scaled up production and plan to scale further,” Flash wrote on Telegram earlier, urging mass production of drone interceptors and nationwide training of operators.

“If we don’t act now, our infrastructure, manufacturing, and defense facilities are doomed.”

According to him, the main focus should be on the mass production of interceptor drones and training the military across the country in their use.

"We are running out of time," the expert claimed.

Kovalenko pushed back, saying the quantiy of Russian drones would ultimately be neutralized by Ukraine’s investment in quality.

He emphasized that in the future, technology will continue to evolve, including artificial intelligence algorithms that will allow drones and weapons to avoid interception. At the same time, the systems that will counteract these drones will be improved. This is a large-scale technological competition between China and Western countries.

Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb could trigger new era of hybrid warfare, experts say

Waad Barakat

A satellite view shows military aircraft, some sitting destroyed, at the Belaya air base, near Stepnoy, Irkutsk region, Russia, on June 4, after Ukraine launched a drone attack, dubbed 'Operation Spider's Web.' Photo Reuters file

Ukraine’s recent drone campaign deep into Russian territory, known as Operation Spiderweb, is seen by analysts as a tactical development that could reshape the nature of modern warfare and trigger broader geopolitical consequences.

The June 2 operation targeted strategic Russian military aircraft at the Morozovsk air base and other sites using domestically produced drones enhanced with artificial intelligence. It reportedly damaged long-range bombers and surveillance assets inside Russia.

International experts said the operation could prompt a shift in Western military policy. “One major consequence will likely be that the Europeans and Americans agree to lift range restrictions on Ukrainian strikes against Russian targets,” said Samuel Ramani, Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and CEO of Pangea Geopolitical Risk.

“It’s going to help Ukraine strike not just strategic bombers, but also ammunition depots, artillery shell storage sites, and Russian personnel before they manage to launch attacks.”

He also noted that the use of AI-powered drones in the operation could influence how other nations prepare for future conflicts. “This is something that the Taiwanese are also hoping to develop potentially in the event of a broader conflict against China,” Ramani said. “So it's something that will be inspirational for many, many other countries.”

Weaponizing Commercial Airspace Disruption: An Emergent Strategy for Iran and the Houthis

Chelsi Mueller, Brianne Bernhardt |

On May 4, 2025, the Houthis launched a missile from Yemen—built with Iranian-supplied components—that evaded Israeli and American air defenses and struck within the perimeter of Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport. The strike triggered a cascade of flight suspensions that grounded many non-Israeli airlines, left Israelis stranded abroad, and discouraged tourism and business travel to Israel. Between 2015 and 2022, during the US-supported, Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen, Saudi Arabia faced a similar threat when nearly 1,000 missile and 350 drone attacks—executed by the Iran-backed Houthis—targeted critical infrastructure, particularly airports, resulting in repeated disruptions to civil air traffic. Most notably, al-Abha International Airport in southwestern Saudi Arabia was hit twice in June 2019.

The outbreak of war between Israel and Iran on June 13, following Israel’s preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear weapons program, has opened a new frontier for this warfare model. Iran’s initial aerial retaliation targeted Israel’s defense headquarters in Tel Aviv, but its subsequent aerial retaliations focused on civilian population centers—a shift that underscores its evolving tactical priorities, given its diminishing missile arsenal. How might Iran adapt its strategy in response to the reopening of Israel’s airspace to commercial traffic? This analysis explores how the intentional targeting of commercial air traffic has become a potent instrument of asymmetric warfare for Iran and the Houthis.

Missile Strike at Ben Gurion International Airport

Despite Israel’s robust air defense system successfully intercepting dozens of missiles launched from Yemen in prior attacks, on May 4, 2025, a single missile evaded interception and landed within the grounds of Ben Gurion International Airport. At 9:18 am Israel time, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) detected a launch and promptly relayed a warning to air traffic controllers who then activated their prearranged response protocols and airborne aircraft were diverted away from potential interception zones. One aircraft on final approach was permitted to land at 9:21 am. Air raid sirens sounded at 9:22 am across central Israel, including the airport’s vicinity. At 9:24 am a missile struck a field near an access road leading to an airport parking lot. According to Israel’s Civil Aviation Authority, “Following approximately thirty minutes of runway inspections, landing operations resumed.”

Streamlining US Army Security Cooperation: Why Coordination is Key to Global Influence

Anthony Messenger, Cary Hyde

Coordination can mean the difference between success and failure in any military operation. Operation Eagle Claw, the ill-fated 1980 hostage rescue mission in Iran, famously exposed the dangers of disjointed efforts between military services—leading to major reforms in how US special operations forces and the larger joint force operate together today. A similar problem is unfolding in Army Security Cooperation efforts right now across advisory with both conventional and irregular partner nation forces.

Despite having three complementary organizations (Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFABs), Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF), and the National Guard Bureau’s State Partnership Program (SPP)), these units often operate independently and miss opportunities to operate more efficiently and draw on their unique strengths. Imagine a situation where an SFAB team unknowingly conducted the same training in the same city as a State Partnership Program, while just across the border, an ARSOF detachment struggled with a logistics challenge the SFAB could have helped solve. This is not fiction, but one of many repetitive scenarios that both authors have observed in 50 years of experience across multiple combatant commands. If only this multitude of Security Cooperation efforts had been coordinated in advance across time, space, and purpose.

Centralized Security Cooperation coordination ideally occurs within the combatant commands’ campaign plan management construct, but this mechanism is often ineffective and lacks transparency between the Army service component commands (ASCC), theater special operations commands (TSOC), and National Guard SPP. This coordination deficiency prevents unified action to generate, employ, and sustain foreign security forces, thus inhibiting Army effectiveness towards achieving US national security objectives. The US Army must streamline its command and control structure and more efficiently synchronize activities within its different areas of operations. This article explores solutions to better integrate these efforts—because when it comes to building partnerships and strengthening deterrence, the Army can no longer afford to let its left hand operate without knowing what the right is doing.

Why Attacks On Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Have Placed Israel’s Own Secret Arsenal In The Spotlight – Analysis

Jonathan Gornall

To this day, Israel maintains a policy of deliberate ambiguity in regard to its nuclear capabilities, but it is a fact accepted by experts worldwide that Israel has had the bomb since just before the Six Day War in 1967.

And not just one bomb. Recent estimates by the independent Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which has kept tabs on the world’s nuclear weapons and the states that possess them since 1966, suggest Israel has at least 90 nuclear warheads.

SIPRI believes that these warheads are capable of being delivered anywhere within a maximum radius of 4,500 km by its F-15, F-161, and F-35I “Adir” aircraft, its 50 land-based Jericho II and III missiles, and by about 20 Popeye Turbo cruise missiles, launched from submarines.

While Iran is a signatory to the international nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Israel is not, which begs the question: while Israel is wreaking havoc in Iran, with the declared aim of crippling a nuclear development program, which the International Atomic Energy Authority says is about energy, not weaponry, why is the international community not questioning Israel’s?

In March, during a meeting of the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Jassim Yacoub Al-Hammadi, Qatar’s ambassador to Austria, announced that Qatar was calling for “intensified international efforts” to bring all Israeli nuclear facilities “under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency and for Israel to join the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons as a non-nuclear state.”

Israel refuses to sign up to the NPT or cooperate with the IAEA. Furthermore, it is a little remembered fact that since 1981 Israel has been in breach of UN Resolution 487.

This was prompted by an attack on a nuclear research facility in Iraq by Israel on June 7, 1981, which was condemned by the UN Security Council as a “clear violation of the Charter of the UN and the norms of international conduct.”

Iraq, as the Security Council pointed out, had been a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty since it came into force in 1970.

Will Russia’s Political Warfare Operations In The Balkans Fuel Its Next War? – Analysis

Ivana Stradner and Peter LaBelle

(FPRI) — Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia’s involvement in Eastern Europe has garnered greater attention. Unlike the brutal territorial conquest and destruction seen in Ukraine, Russia’s methods in southeastern Europe are more subtle, using information and psychological warfare techniques rather than traditional military power. In the western Balkans, Russia has cultivated an alliance with the authoritarian president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, aimed at destabilizing the region’s fragile states and embarrassing or distracting NATO and the West.

Provocative actions by Serbia, Russia’s main ally in the region, have affected countries across the Balkans. Serbia has repeatedly moved soldiers to the borders of Kosovo, causing multiple war scares. All this has helped escalate ethnic tensions within Kosovo, where ethnic Serbs have boycotted local elections and rioted against ethnic Albanian mayors. Riots by ethnic Serbs in Kosovo also injured more than 90 NATO peacekeepers in 2023. Russia has contributed to heightening tensions over Kosovo, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov threatening that the West was to blame for “a major explosive situation … brewing in the heart of Europe.”

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serb leader Milorad Dodik has made moves to secede from the fragile federal state that has maintained peace since the brutal Yugoslav wars of the early 1990s. The country has two autonomous entities – the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska – as well as the Brcko District, that has its own local government. They also established a presidency which is held in rotation. The whole system is overseen by a high representative appointed by an international peacekeeping body, who has broad discretion to enforce the terms of the peace,

including by vetoing legislation and dismissing government officials. In 2024, a report from the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence warned of an increased risk of inter-ethnic violence in the western Balkans. The warning highlighted Dodik’s “provocative steps to neutralize international oversight in Bosnia and secure de-facto secession for his Republika Srpska.” This, the report noted, “could prompt leaders of the Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) population to bolster their own capacity to protect their interests and possibly lead to violent conflicts that could overwhelm peacekeeping forces.”

Iran’s Ballistic Missile Programs: Background And Context – Analysis

CRS. Daniel M. Gettinger and Clayton Thomas

Iran’s ballistic missile programs have long been subjects of congressional attention and legislative action in view of concerns about Iran’s nuclear program and its support for terrorist groups. International agreements and diplomatic discussions over Iran’s nuclear program have sometimes addressed Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities.

Congress has authorized extensive sanctions on Iran’s missile programs and mandated executive branch reporting on Iran’s missile capabilities. In airstrikes beginning on June 13, 2025, Israel targeted Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Iran subsequently launched missile strikes on Israel.

Iran’s Missile Capabilities

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in a March 2025 congressionally mandated annual threat assessment, stated, “Iran continues to bolster the lethality and precision of its domestically produced missile and [unmanned aerial vehicle] systems, and it has the largest stockpiles of these systems in the region.”

The U.S. National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC), in a 2020 report, catalogued at least 14 Iranian ballistic missile variants. Iran’s inventory of ballistic missiles has comprised both solid-fueled missiles, which offer advantages in maintenance and longevity, and liquid-fueled missiles that have greater thrust and power than solid propellants.

Short-Range Ballistic Missiles

Iran’s inventory of short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs)—missiles with a range of under 1,000 kilometers (621 miles)—has included both liquid- and solid-fueled missiles. According to a 2019 report by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Iran’s liquid-fueled Shahab-1, Shahab-2, and Qiam-1 SRBMs are based on technology from Soviet-era Scud missiles.

In the early 2000s, Iran began testing the first iteration of the Fateh family of SRBMs, the Fateh-110. The Fateh-110 and its successor, the Fateh-313, are solid-fueled SRBMs with estimated ranges of up to 300 and 500 kilometers, respectively, according to the 2020 NASIC report. Iran has displayed several variants of the Fateh series of missiles that may feature improved range and guidance systems, including the Zolfaghar and the Khalij Fars, an anti-ship ballistic missile.

Amid Middle East Conflict, The Strait Of Hormuz Remains Critical Oil Chokepoint – Analysis

EIA

The Strait of Hormuz, located between Oman and Iran, connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. The strait is deep enough and wide enough to handle the world’s largest crude oil tankers, and it is one of the world’s most important oil chokepoints.

Large volumes of oil flow through the strait, and very few alternative options exist to move oil out of the strait if it is closed. In 2024, oil flow through the strait averaged 20 million barrels per day (b/d), or the equivalent of about 20% of global petroleum liquids consumption. In the first quarter of 2025, total oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz remained relatively flat compared with 2024.

Although we have not seen maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz blocked following recent tensions in the region, the price of Brent crude oil (a global benchmark) increased from $69 per barrel (b) on June 12 to $74/b on June 13. This piece highlights the importance of the strait to global oil supplies.

Chokepoints are narrow channels along widely used global sea routes that are critical to global energy security. The inability of oil to transit a major chokepoint, even temporarily, can create substantial supply delays and raise shipping costs, potentially increasing world energy prices. Although most chokepoints can be circumvented by using other routes—often adding significantly to transit time—some chokepoints have no practical alternatives. Most volumes that transit the strait have no alternative means of exiting the region, although there are some pipeline alternatives that can avoid the Strait of Hormuz.

Turkey Is the Biggest Winner of the Israel-Iran War

Brandon J. Weichert

With the advent of open warfare between Israel and Iran, seismic changes are underway in the Middle East. The entire world seems to be drawn into this conflict—not only the United States, Russia, and China, but other middle powers as well. Everyone in the region, from Saudi Arabia and Jordan to even India and Pakistan, is now involved in one capacity or another.

The one exception to this rule has been Turkey, which has remained deafeningly silent following the outbreak of war in neighboring Iran. Why?

Does Erdogan Support Iran or Israel?

In spite of their religious differences—Iran representing Shi’a Islam and Turkey Sunni Islam—Ankara and Tehran have long enjoyed amicable relations. Indeed, back in 2013, an “oil-for-gold” scandal erupted in which Turkey was implicated in helping Iran to circumvent Western sanctions on Iranian oil in exchange for gold.

There have been a smattering of unconfirmed reports, too, that Bashar al-Assad’s former military bases in Syria—taken over by Turkish military units allied to the Turkish-backed Syrian government since the fall of Assad’s regime—have electronically interfered with the operations of Israeli warplanes flying overhead on their way to strike targets in Iran.

Still, it would be too simple to say that Turkey and Israel were overt enemies. Confoundingly, the Turks have also allowed for Israel’s primary airline—El Al—to base their civilian jets at the international airport in Turkish-controlled Northern Cyprus. Even more strangely, this comes as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vows to wipe out Israel and “liberate” the Palestinian Arabs from Israeli “oppression.” Strange bedfellows indeed!

Why peacebuilding fails and what to do about it

As the world becomes geopolitically more fragmented, conflicts are increasing in complexity and number – up by almost three-quarters since the 2000s. In this shifting order, conflict is being internationalized in new ways as states,

armed groups and other actors cultivate adaptive alliances with multiple partners across the political and ideological spectrum. Many of these relationships are motivated by economic survival or pragmatism, entrenching profit-driven dynamics that are often impervious to external policy intervention. Internationally led stabilization and peacebuilding policies must adapt accordingly.

This report, the culmination of a five-year project, considers the pressing question of how to respond more effectively to such challenges in an era in which traditional rigid geopolitical spheres of influence are dissolving. To trace this,

we explore geo-economic fronts in this shifting global power order via three case studies: the transnational trade of Sudan’s gold; the adaptive supply chains around oil of Iranian origin; and the networks for transporting migrants via Libya to Europe.

In each regional case study, we illustrate how the ‘multi-alignment’ of actors demands a new strategic paradigm to stabilization and peacebuilding.

The report offers a range of recommendations for international policymakers, including adopting a transnational approach to conflict analysis, strategically leveraging economic power, brokering influence through pragmatic and multi-aligned engagement, improving bureaucratic coordination, and developing accountability mechanisms in collaboration with civil society.

This AI Model Never Stops Learning

Business

Modern large language models (LLMs) might write beautiful sonnets and elegant code, but they lack even a rudimentary ability to learn from experience.

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have now devised a way for LLMs to keep improving by tweaking their own parameters in response to useful new information.

The work is a step toward building artificial intelligence models that learn continually—a long-standing goal of the field and something that will be crucial if machines are to ever more faithfully mimic human intelligence. In the meantime, it could give us chatbots and other AI tools that are better able to incorporate new information including a user’s interests and preferences.

The MIT scheme, called Self Adapting Language Models (SEAL), involves having an LLM learn to generate its own synthetic training data and update procedure based on the input it receives.

“The initial idea was to explore if tokens [units of text fed to LLMs and generated by them] could cause a powerful update to a model,” says Jyothish Pari, a PhD student at MIT involved with developing SEAL. Pari says the idea was to see if a model’s output could be used to train it.

Adam Zweiger, an MIT undergraduate researcher involved with building SEAL, adds that although newer models can “reason” their way to better solutions by performing more complex inference, the model itself does not benefit from this reasoning over the long term.

SEAL, by contrast, generates new insights and then folds it into its own weights or parameters. Given a statement about the challenges faced by the Apollo space program, for instance, the model generated new passages that try to describe the implications of the statement. The researchers compared this to the way a human student writes and reviews notes in order to aid their learning.

How Much Energy Does AI Use? The People Who Know Aren’t Saying

“People are often curious about how much energy a ChatGPT query uses,” Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, wrote in an aside in a long blog post last week. The average query, Altman wrote, uses 0.34 watt-hours of energy: “About what an oven would use in a little over one second, or a high-efficiency lightbulb would use in a couple of minutes.”

For a company with 800 million weekly active users (and growing), the question of how much energy all these searches are using is becoming an increasingly pressing one. But experts say Altman’s figure doesn’t mean much without much more public context from OpenAI about how it arrived at this calculation—including the definition of what an “average” query is, whether or not it includes image generation, and whether or not Altman is including additional energy use, like from training AI models and cooling OpenAI’s servers.

As a result, Sasha Luccioni, the climate lead at AI company Hugging Face, doesn’t put too much stock in Altman’s number. “He could have pulled that out of his ass,” she says. (OpenAI did not respond to a request for more information about how it arrived at this number.)

Featured Video

As AI takes over our lives, it’s also promising to transform our energy systems, supercharging carbon emissions right as we’re trying to fight climate change. Now, a new and growing body of research is attempting to put hard numbers on just how much carbon we’re actually emitting with all of our AI use.

This effort is complicated by the fact that major players like OpenAI disclose little environmental information. An analysis submitted for peer review this week by Luccioni and three other authors looks at the need for more environmental transparency in AI models. In Luccioni’s new analysis, she and her colleagues use data from OpenRouter, a leaderboard of large language model (LLM) traffic, to find that 84 percent of LLM use in May 2025 was for models with zero environmental disclosure. That means that consumers are overwhelmingly choosing models with completely unknown environmental impacts.

Why AI Companies Are ‘Modern-Day Empires’

Mercy A. Kuo

Trans-Pacific View author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into U.S. Asia policy. This conversation with Karen Hao – award-winning journalist covering the impacts of artificial intelligence on society and author of newly published “Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI” (Penguin Press 2025) – is the 465th in “The Trans-Pacific View Insight Series.” This conversation has been edited and summarized for length and clarity.

What was the impetus behind your decision to write “Empire of AI”?

I’ve been covering AI since 2018 and OpenAI since 2019. When everyone had their ChatGPT moment, there was a sudden reset in the public conversation around the technology and the company. It was as if AI were being introduced for the first time, and the predominant narratives about it were coming mainly from OpenAI. There was a lack of context regarding where AI came from and from whom it came, so I wanted to give that history and provide context of AI’s evolution.

The primary message of my book is that the particular direction of AI today is deeply concerning. This direction is not inevitable. It’s the product of human decisions. We as a society can shape the direction of AI development in the future.

“OpenAI is now leading our acceleration toward this modern-day colonial world order.” Please explain this statement.

I call the book “Empire of AI” because these AI companies, such as OpenAI, should be thought of as modern-day empires. These companies check off all the features of empires. First, they lay claim to resources that are not their own, yet act like they are. Companies will take the data of billions of users who never consented to give personal data to be used in AI, then treat this information as fair game and impose their rules on data acquisition.

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