How China made electric vehicles mainstream

Source Link

"I drive an electric vehicle because I am poor," says Lu Yunfeng, a private hire driver, who is at a charging station on the outskirts of Guangzhou in the south of China.

Standing nearby, Sun Jingguo agrees. "The cost of driving a petrol car is too expensive. I save money driving an electric vehicle," he says.

"Also, it protects the environment," he adds, leaning against his white Beijing U7 model.

It's the kind of conversation climate campaigners dream of hearing. In many countries, electric vehicles (EVs) are considered luxury purchases.

But here in China - where almost half of all cars sold last year were electric - it's a banal reality.

At the beginning of the century, China's leadership laid out plans to dominate the technologies of the future. Once a nation of bicycles China is now the world's leader in EVs.

For Guangzhou's more than 18 million people, the roar of the rush hour has become a hum.

"When it comes to EVs, China is 10 years ahead and 10 times better than any other country," says auto sector analyst Michael Dunne.

Chinese EV makers are looking to sell more cars overseas

China's BYD now leads the global EV market, after overtaking US rival Tesla earlier this year.

BYD's sales have been helped by a vast domestic market of more than 1.4 billion people and it is now looking to sell more cars overseas. So too are a raft of other Chinese start-ups that make affordable EVs for the mass market.

Japan’s new quantum breakthrough cuts qubit needs and boosts speed by 30x

Source Link

Quantum computers promise to revolutionize everything from drug discovery to climate modeling. By processing information in quantum bits, or qubits, these machines could one day outperform even the most powerful supercomputers.

But building them remains a monumental challenge. The biggest hurdle: quantum systems are fragile. They are prone to errors from even the tiniest disturbances, making accurate, large-scale computing nearly impossible without error correction.

Now, a team of researchers in Japan has unveiled a major step forward. Scientists from the University of Osaka have developed a powerful new approach to a long-standing problem of preparing the ultra-pure quantum states essential for error-resistant computation.

Their method drastically reduces the resources required, bringing us closer to building reliable, large-scale quantum machines.

The study introduces a process called “zero-level” magic state distillation. It prepares high-fidelity quantum states with far fewer qubits and much lower computational cost than traditional techniques.

The researchers say this advance could significantly shrink the time and scale needed to develop fully fault-tolerant quantum computers.

Xi Jinping’s Iran Dilemma

Trevor Filseth

Source Link

On Tuesday, June 17, Xi Jinping made his first official statement regarding Israel’s ongoing war with Iran on the sidelines of the “China-Central Asia Summit” in Astana, Kazakhstan. The Chinese leader decried the outbreak of violence, claiming that Beijing “oppose[d] any act that infringes upon the sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity of other countries,” and stressing that escalation was “not in the common interest of the international community.”

Xi’s statement was notable not so much for its content—the language used was unremarkable—as for its timing. The statement came five days after Israel’s initial series of airstrikes on Iran, killing a series of high-ranking IRGC officers and nuclear scientists and seemingly knocking the Natanz nuclear enrichment plant out of action. China’s initial reaction to the crisis was anodyne and inoffensive, 

vaguely condemning the escalation in violence and urging a peaceful resolution to the Israel-Iran dispute. Many countries issue similar statements in the opening hours of a crisis, to be supplanted by more substantive ones once the country’s leadership determines what its position should be. But more than a week later—and as other countries in the region and around the world have been far more vocal in their criticisms of Israel—Beijing has seemingly remained indecisive.

The call between Xi and Russian leader Vladimir Putin to discuss the war on Thursday is also instructive in this regard. As the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s readout observes, Putin fiercely condemned the Israeli decision to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, claiming that the attack had been “very dangerous” and insisting on its immediate resolution. 

Conversely, Xi “expounded China’s principled position and said that the current situation in the Middle East is very critical, which once again confirms that the world has entered a new period of turbulence and change.” The difference in tone could hardly be more remarkable. Though Xi did also emphasize the importance of a ceasefire—and singled out Israel for starting the conflict—the Chinese leader’s remarks seem to indicate a tacit acceptance of the war.

Drones, Missiles, and a Battle of Chinese and European Fighter Jets: Lessons on the Future of War from the Indian Subcontinent’s Skies

Arsalan Bilal

Source Link

When Indian and Pakistani jets took to the skies last month, the world witnessed one of the largest and technologically most complex air confrontations in recent history. For four days, both sides unleashed precision strikes, drones, and long-range missiles in an engagement that, while brief, could reshape thinking about modern warfare in the region and beyond.

Although the fighting de-escalated as a ceasefire was brokered amid risks of a nuclear confrontation, the battle—its tactics, technologies, and consequences—offers rich insights for militaries, defense planners, and experts worldwide. With confirmed losses, unverified claims, and evolving doctrine, the air war between India and Pakistan in 2025 underscores that future conflicts may be won or lost far from the battlefield—in the invisible domains of sensors, algorithms, and contested airspace.

The Spark: A Strike and a Race to the Skies

The latest India-Pakistan crisis was triggered on April 22, when twenty-five innocent tourists and a local guide were killed in a terrorist attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir. India blamed Pakistan-based militants for the attack and responded by launching precision airstrikes on May 7 against multiple sites, which New Delhi called terrorist camps, across Pakistani cities and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. Pakistan retaliated by scrambling its jets and targeting the Indian fleet.

What followed was not a conventional border skirmish, but a complex, beyond-visual-range (BVR) aerial confrontation involving more than one hundred combat aircraft. Interestingly, neither side penetrated the other’s airspace. The missile exchanges between the adversaries took place at distances of up to one hundred miles. Among the aircraft used in the confrontation were some of the most advanced jets, including 4.5-generation fighters. The Indian Air Force is reported to have deployed, inter alia, French-built Rafale fighters armed with Meteor missiles, while Pakistan scrambled Chinese-made J-10s carrying PL-15 missiles.

Chinese engineers bring artillery-launched drones from concept to life

Source Link

After 12 years of technical hurdles and scepticism, China has successfully tested artillery-launched drones capable of surviving the crushing load in a 155mm (6 inches) cannon shell.

Five live-fire trials at a western test base confirmed the drones endured launch forces exceeding 3,000 times their own weight – comparable to 35 adult African elephants on a person.

The advance centres on a pyrotechnic ejection mechanism co-developed by the Shaanxi Applied Physics and Chemistry Research Institute, the Chinese air force, and defence contractor Norinco.

This highly reliable but low-cost system orchestrates a sequence of precisely timed detonations to separate the drone from its artillery shell mid-flight while shielding it from aerodynamic damage – all without electronic controls.

These drones can “reach distances exceeding 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) in seconds, multiply flight range, significantly save power consumption and extend loiter time,” the team, led by senior engineer Huang Yunluan, wrote.

Israel-Iran conflict unleashes wave of AI disinformation

Source Link

A wave of disinformation has been unleashed online since Israel began strikes on Iran last week, with dozens of posts reviewed by BBC Verify seeking to amplify the effectiveness of Tehran's response.

Our analysis found a number of videos - created using artificial intelligence - boasting of Iran's military capabilities, alongside fake clips showing the aftermath of strikes on Israeli targets. The three most viewed fake videos BBC Verify found have collectively amassed over 100 million views across multiple platforms.

Pro-Israeli accounts have also shared disinformation online, mainly by recirculating old clips of protests and gatherings in Iran, falsely claiming that they show mounting dissent against the government and support among Iranians for Israel's military campaign.

Israel launched strikes in Iran on 13 June, leading to several rounds of Iranian missile and drone attacks on Israel.

One organisation that analyses open-source imagery described the volume of disinformation online as "astonishing" and accused some "engagement farmers" of seeking to profit from the conflict by sharing misleading content designed to attract attention online.

"We are seeing everything from unrelated footage from Pakistan, to recycled videos from the October 2024 strikes—some of which have amassed over 20 million views—as well as game clips and AI-generated content being passed off as real events," Geoconfirmed, the online verification group, wrote on X.

Certain accounts have become "super-spreaders" of disinformation, being rewarded with significant growth in their follower count. One pro-Iranian account with no obvious ties to authorities in Tehran - Daily Iran Military - has seen its followers on X grow from just over 700,000 on 13 June to 1.4m by 19 June, a 100% increase in under a week.

America’s War With Iran

Source Link

The United States has attacked Iran. Just days after suggesting he might delay any American military action for weeks, U.S. President Donald Trump announced on June 21 that U.S. aircraft had struck three Iranian nuclear sites, 

including the deeply buried facility at Fordow. Iranian officials confirmed that the strikes had taken place. Although Trump insisted that the sites had been “obliterated,” it remains unclear what damage the attacks have done.

It is clear, however, that with this U.S. intervention, the war Israel launched against Iran over a week ago has entered a new phase. Events could turn in several directions. The American attack could indeed lead to Iranian capitulation on terms friendly to Israel and the United States. But it is equally or even more likely to draw the United States deeper into the war with profoundly negative consequences. 

Iran will almost certainly seek some manner of retribution, perhaps by attacking nearby U.S. bases and potentially killing U.S. soldiers. That could lead to ever widening escalation, with devastating effects for the region and American entanglement in a war that few Americans want.

How Cyber Warfare Changes the Face of Geopolitical Conflict

Source Link

When Israeli hackers deleted data from Iran's state-owned Bank Sepah, disrupting financial services, the act represented another escalation of the use of cyberattacks during geopolitical conflicts, the largest since Russia downed the Viasat communications system during its initial invasion of Ukraine.

The Israeli cyberattackers did not stop there: A second compromise, this time of Iran-based cryptocurrency exchange Nobitex, resulted in nearly $82 million in lost digital assets, according to a post on X by the hacktivist group Gonjeske Darande, or "Predatory Sparrow." For its part, more than 35 Iran-aligned hacktivists and state-sponsored actors had launched a coordinated attack against Israel's infrastructure, including distributed denial-of-service attacks and defacements.

The major role that hacktivists are playing in geopolitical conflicts highlights the growing importance of cyber-augmented warfare and the blurring of lines in citizen participation, says Adrien Ogée, chief operating officer of the CyberPeace Institute, a nonprofit that studies cyber-conflict and provides cybersecurity services to humanitarian organizations.

"That's likely where we're headed — more blurred boundaries, more civilian spillover, and growing demand for cyber volunteerism that's structured, legal, and ethical," he says, adding: "Cyber may not always lead the fight, but it's part of almost every modern conflict now — and civilians are often on the front lines, whether they want to be or not."

A militarily degraded Iran may turn to asymmetrical warfare – raising risk of proxy and cyber attacks

Source Link

Israel’s air assault on Iran has focused largely on degrading the Islamic Republic’s military and would-be nuclear capabilities.

In the space of several days, Israel has totally or partially destroyed at least two nuclear sites, destroyed numerous air defense capabilities in a number of cities and killed at least 14 nuclear scientists and several senior leaders of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The Israeli operation has compromised how Iran can wage conventional warfare – through the use of military hardware, missiles, drones and aircraft. It has also likely curtailed any progress Iranian scientists had made in enriching uranium to a weapons-level grade, at least in the short-term.

But conventional military weapons are only one tool in Tehran’s arsenal. As a researcher who studies how Iran partners with militant groups, I know Iran still has the means to target its enemies. Despite the degradation of its military capabilities, Iran can leverage proxies, criminal organizations abroad, and cyberattacks to hit Israeli, and possibly U.S., targets.

Forward deterrence doctrine

The Islamic Republic is well suited for asymmetric warfare, or conflict between two countries that have different conventional capabilities and that is below the threshold of conventional war.

It fits a central tenet of Iran’s forward deterrence policy. In short, the doctrine holds that Iran should target its adversaries before their threat reaches the country’s borders. As Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in 2019, Iran “must not limit ourselves within our own borders. It is our duty to recognize and confront threats that lie beyond our walls.”

Understand how AI is changing societyGet our newsletter

The Perils of Middle East Triumphalism

Source Link

To many outside the Middle East, the American and Israeli war with Iran reads like a linear narrative: the two allies’ formidable militaries and intelligence agencies arrayed against their adversary, poised to prevail, on the cusp of indisputable, decisive triumph. The fight and its expected outcome are viewed through the prism of familiar antecedents: Hitler’s Germany overwhelmed, defeated, willing to acquiesce to the victor’s demands; 

Japan following suit. When proponents of this war speak of one side’s surrender and of the other being on the right side of history, it is on such clear-cut notions of progress and finality that they rely. History, to them, advances in a straight line, swiftly heading to safe shores, and one had better choose the correct side or be left adrift.

To those who know the Middle East, such thoughts make little sense. They are hogwash.

The region has its own favored antecedents. As early as the 1970s, Jordan’s crushing of Palestinian guerrillas prompted the emergence of the Black September organization and the Munich Olympic massacre of Israeli athletes. Israel invaded South Lebanon in 1982 and forced the Palestine Liberation Organization’s exile to Tunisia. The result: the ascent of an energized Hezbollah and, in time, the movement of banished Palestinians closer to Israel, in Gaza and the West Bank. In the 1980s, 

Washington’s support for Afghan mujahideen helped drive out Soviet forces. It also led to the rise of the Taliban and a generation of jihadist groups, including al-Qaeda, for whom Americans were the chief villains. After Washington’s victory in the 1990-91 Gulf War, Osama bin Laden and his followers made the United States their primary target. After they carried out the 9/11 attacks, the George W. Bush administration invaded Afghanistan, 

routing the Taliban, and later toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. Twenty years later, the Taliban returned to power. In Iraq, the Islamic State rose from the rubble, and pro-Iranian militias played a dominant role in the country.

Retaliate now, later or never: What Iran's next move could be

Source Link

Iran has responded furiously to the overnight US airstrikes on three of its nuclear sites, vowing what it calls "everlasting consequences".

But beyond the words, there will be feverish discussions taking place at the highest level inside Iran's security and intelligence establishment.

Should they escalate the conflict through retaliation against US interests, or, as US President Donald Trump has called on them to do, negotiate, which in practice means giving up all nuclear enrichment inside Iran?

This internal debate will be taking place at a time when many senior Iranian commanders will be looking over their shoulders, wondering if they are about to be the next target of an Israeli precision airstrike or whether someone in the room has already betrayed them to Mossad, Israel's overseas spy agency.

Broadly speaking, there are three different strategic courses of action now open to Iran. None of them are risk free, and uppermost in the minds of those taking the decisions will be the survival of the Islamic Republic regime.

Retaliate hard and soon

Many will be baying for blood. Iran has been humiliated, first by Israel, now by what it has often in the past called 'the Great Satan', its term for the US.

Iran's ongoing exchange of fire with Israel continues into its tenth day but retaliating against the US brings a whole new level of risk, not just for Iran but for the whole region.

Critics Demand Pakistan ‘Revokes’ Decision to Nominate Trump for Nobel Peace Prize After U.S. Strikes on Iran

Rebecca Schneid

Source Link

Just a day before the U.S. launched strikes on Iran, Pakistan had stated its intention to “formally recommend” U.S. President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. The country expressed its desire to recognize Trump’s role in helping India and Pakistan reach a cease-fire after conflict between the two long-time rivals resurged earlier this year.

Previous Nobel Prize recipients include former TIME100 Women of the Year honoree Malala Yousafzai, and previous TIME Person of the Year recipients Martin Luther King Jr., and former President Barack Obama.

“At a moment of heightened regional turbulence, President Trump demonstrated great strategic foresight and stellar statesmanship through robust diplomatic engagement with both Islamabad and New Delhi, which de-escalated a rapidly deteriorating situation, ultimately securing a cease-fire and averting a broader conflict between the two nuclear states that would have had catastrophic consequences for millions of people in the region and beyond,” the Government of Pakistan said in its announcement via social media. “This intervention stands as a testament to his role as a genuine peacemaker and his commitment to conflict resolution through dialogue.”

The Pakistani government went on to say that Trump’s “leadership during the 2025 Pakistan-India crisis manifestly showcases the continuation of his legacy of pragmatic diplomacy and effective peace-building.”

Read More: India and Pakistan Cease-Fire Appears to Hold Despite Accusations of Violations

When Trump announced the cease-fire between India and Pakistan on May 10, he said the agreement had been reached after “a long night of talks mediated by the United States.” He later went on to thank Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for their efforts.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif took to social media to express gratitude to Trump at the time, saying: "We thank President Trump for his leadership and proactive role for peace in the region. Pakistan appreciates the United States for facilitating this outcome, which we have accepted in the interest of regional peace and stability.”

Ramifications of the Death of Iran’s (Former) President Ebrahim Raisi

Masoud Kazemzadeh 

Source Link

May 19, 2025, was the first anniversary of the death of Ebrahim Raisi. His death would not have mattered greatly if Raisi were merely the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). This article argues that the death of Ebrahim Raisi, widely believed to be Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s designated successor, has upended Iran’s succession trajectory, which will increase the elite factionalism and internal conflict in the aftermath of Ayatollah Khamenei’s death.

According to a 2023 report by Aman, the Military Intelligence of the Israel Defense Forces, the current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, was preparing the path for Raisi to succeed him in this position. It adds that other Western intelligence agencies also shared that assessment. The report further states that Khamenei not only orchestrated the 2021 presidential election to pave the path for Raisi to become president but also dismissed IRGC Gen. Ali Shamkhani (who was killed by Israel on June 13, 2025) from his position as the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council in order to increase President Raisi’s power.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was born in 1939 and is 86 years old. The fundamentalist constitution grants extensive executive, legislative, and judicial powers to the Supreme Leader. According to the fundamentalist constitution, the Assembly of Experts, a body of 88 fundamentalist Shia clerics, chooses the Supreme Leader.

Khamenei had invested at least 10 years in preparing the path for Raisi to assume that position. This includes not only appointing Raisi as the Head of the Judicial Branch but also manipulating the 2021 elections for the presidency and the 2024 elections for the Assembly of Experts. Raisi was the sole candidate allowed to run for the seat from his district for the Assembly of Experts. Raisi’s father-in-law, Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda, is a powerful hardline member of the fundamentalist oligarchy and a powerful member of the Assembly of Experts. Finding another suitable candidate for Supreme Leader will not be easy. Raisi checked all the boxes.

Striking Iran Will Not Change the Long-term Strategic Picture—America Should Still Do It

James Diddams

Source Link

The great theme of international affairs in the 21st century (so far) has been America’s failure to appreciate the implacable, ideological hostility of Russia, China, and Iran to the American-led world order. The “Russia reset” was laughable in retrospect, China’s admittance to the WTO, among other forms of international integration, did not moderate the CCP, and the JCPOA was never going to stop Iran from developing a nuke or otherwise being a sower of chaos across the Near East.

The common thread across different theaters has been an inability to recognize and appreciate the distinctly non-Western, non-liberal values according to which our adversaries operate. That Iran’s theocratic regime desires not peace with the West but perpetual conflict to legitimize itself should always have precluded the possibility of a nuclear deal except under the most stringent conditions. 

The Iranian regime’s unique combination of apocalyptic Shi’a theocracy, postcolonial Marxist anti-imperialism, and fascist-style authoritarianism necessitates a constant struggle against the Great Satan (America) and the Little Satan (Israel). Though many Westerners believe peace to be possible because governments such as Iran’s, despite violent rhetoric, must ultimately be concerned with matters like public health and economic growth, this epicly misses that the Islamic regime’s interests are far removed from that of the general population because the mullahs’ raison d’être is conflict with a decadent, capitalist, liberal-democratic West.

Bearing in mind that the mullahs’ aversion to normalized relations with America and Israel is structural rather than incidental, the United States faces a set of unpalatable options when it comes to Iran’s nuclear ambitions: (1) full-scale regime change that could entail the deployment of Americans to Iran, (2) attempts at another détente, likely to reproduce the present crisis in a few years, or (3) a policy of maximum pressure and, if necessary, targeted strikes to delay Iran’s acquisition of the bomb indefinitely. Only the third option is viable, yet it demands endurance for long-term, low-intensity conflict that the American public has never possessed.

The Unintended Consequences of War

Francis P. Sempa

Source Link

In 1990-91, the United States sent a large military force to Saudi Arabia and subsequently to Kuwait and Iraq to defeat Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait. Two years later, Islamists reacted to our “desecration” of their land by setting off a bomb at the World Trade Center in New York.

Ten years later, Islamists hijacked airplanes in the United States and used them as weapons to destroy the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York killing more than 2,000 people, attacking and damaging the Pentagon, killing more Americans, and attempting to destroy either the Capitol or the White House in Washington — an attempt foiled by the courageous passengers of Flight 93. 

Those Islamist attacks on September 11, 2001, resulted in the futile, endless, and costly wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the Global War on Terror.

As the Trump administration ponders joining Israel’s war with Iran, it should factor in its consideration such unintended consequences of war.

The lead-up to the first Gulf War involved extensive debate in Congress, which passed a resolution authorizing the president to use whatever force was necessary to evict Iraq from Kuwait. The United Nations passed a similar resolution. But there was no congressional declaration of war. (RELATED: Why Democrats Are Dodging the Iran Debate)

Similarly, prior to the Afghan and Iraq wars, Congress passed resolutions authorizing the president to wage war but refrained from actually declaring war against Iraq and our terrorist enemies. In the current Israel–Iran War, there has been no formal debate by Congress on whether this country should join Israel in going to war against Iran. 

Congress once again has abandoned its constitutional responsibility to determine whether this nation should go to war. (RELATED: When American Power Meets Jewish Survival)

Why Ukraine’s AI Drones Aren’t a Breakthrough Yet

David Kirichenko

Source Link

Despite early hopes, machine vision has not yet become a game-changing feature of Ukraine’s battlefield drones. But its time will come.

The technology, a form of AI, allows drones to identify and strike targets autonomously. They can’t be jammed, aren’t restrained by the length of optical-fibre cables and don’t need continuous monitoring by operators.

But performance has been limited, according to Stacie Pettyjohn, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. The Institute for the Study of War wrote, ‘Promises of an immediate AI … drone revolution are premature as of June 2025.’

Problems include poor camera quality, difficulty hitting moving targets and inconsistent software performance. Ukrainian army units often prefer more reliable alternatives such as optical-fibre drones.

Nonetheless, Ukrainian developers continue refining AI-controlled drones. More than 100 companies in the country are working on such guidance systems. Some are already testing drone swarms, which would overwhelm even strong defences.

‘Swarms of drones are an advanced technology that will allow the military to stay not one, but several steps ahead of the enemy,’ Herman Smetanin, Ukraine’s minister of strategic industries, said last year.

Ukrainian soldiers tell me that AI-targeting struggles in certain terrain, such as hills and forests, and works best on flat, open ground. Cost is also an obstacle.

US Sends World's Largest Military Aircraft Near Iran's Border

James Bickerton

Source Link

The United States Air Force has sent the largest military aircraft in the world to Saudi Arabia, close to Iran's border, according to flight tracking data.

A C-5m Super Galaxy travelled from Aviano Air Base in Italy to Saudi Arabia on Thursday, according to Flightradar24, which tracks aircraft around the world.

At 10:26 p.m. ET on Thursday, the aircraft was recorded approaching Riyadh, the Saudi capital.

When contacted by Newsweek, the U.S. Department of Defense declined to comment on the flight.

Stock image. A U.S. Air Force C-5m Super Galaxy military aircraft flew to Saudi Arabia on Thursday. U.S. Department of Defense

Why It Matters

President Donald Trump has been mulling whether to join Israeli strikes targeting Iran's nuclear facilities, many of which are a short flight from Saudi Arabia.

The White House announced on Thursday that Trump had set a two-week deadline to decide whether the U.S. would strike Iran.

"Based on the fact that there is a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place in the near future, I will make my decision of whether or not to go within the next two weeks," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

What To Know

The U.S. is increasing its military presence in the Middle East, including deploying more F-16, F-22 and F-35 aircraft, officials told Reuters earlier this month.

The C-5m Super Galaxy is a transportation aircraft that has been in service with the U.S. Air Force since 1970.

The Guardian view on Trump and Iran: Netanyahu’s war has no visible exit

Source Link

The maxim that wars are easy to start and hard to end does not appear to be troubling Benjamin Netanyahu. For the Israeli prime minister, conflict is an end as much as a means, extending his political survival. Under international pressure – however belated and insufficient – over the slaughter in Gaza, he launched the attack on Iran. Initially presented as essential to prevent Tehran from the imminent acquisition of a nuclear bomb, a claim running counter to US intelligence, it is increasingly discussed as the path to bringing down the regime. The defence minister, Israel Katz, has said that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, “can no longer be allowed to exist”.

Donald Trump has generally seen armed conflict as a trap rather than an escape route. He said that the US would “measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end – and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into”. Yet his failure to achieve the Nobel-worthy peace deals he wants, and Mr Netanyahu’s manoeuvring, appear to have made him keener on US intervention.

 Israel wants US bunker-busters to attack the underground nuclear facility at Fordow. There is no guarantee that those would succeed. Israel’s regime-ending aspirations further undermine its claim to offer what might be called, in the term infamously used of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a cakewalk. There isn’t a bad plan for the day after; there is no plan.

What Mr Trump and Mr Netanyahu have in common is that they consistently subsume their nations’ best interests to their personal political imperatives,

 and that neither cares about 90 million Iranians. The brutal theocratic regime is repugnant to many, but hundreds of civilians have already died as Israel offers to bomb them to freedom, and the horrors of Gaza suggest that far worse could come. Many Iranians lived through the unforeseen and unwanted consequences of toppling a hated ruler in 1979, and more watched those spawned by the US invasion of Iraq. Meanwhile, Israeli civilians now face Iranian retaliation.

Close NATO’s Door to Ukraine

Source Link

President Donald Trump returned to the White House promising to end the war in Ukraine “in 24 hours.” Since then, his administration has badly mishandled diplomatic efforts to bring about a cease-fire. 

Trump underestimated Russian President Vladimir Putin’s determination to subjugate Ukraine and has consequently failed to confront the Kremlin with the coercive pressure needed to stop its ongoing aggression.

But amid its bungled Ukraine diplomacy, the Trump administration has gotten one important strategic issue right: it is time to take NATO membership for Ukraine off the table. After years of promises to bring Ukraine into the alliance, Washington is

Putting Operation Spider’s Web in Context

Source Link

On June 1, 2025, the Ukrainian special intelligence services launched Operation Spider’s Web, a remotely triggered drone attack that may have damaged or destroyed over 40 Russian strategic aircraft at four air bases deep inside the Russian Federation’s borders. Spider’s Web was undeniably successful: 

Russia’s capacity to launch cruise missiles into Ukrainian cities and kill civilians has been sharply curtailed. Part of the Russian nuclear triad may have been reduced by more than 30%. And Russia certainly will have to reallocate some precious combat manpower for internal security missions. I and others who support Ukraine in its war against Russia celebrated these attacks.

But nothing about Operation Spider’s Web changes either the nature or character of warfare, however those overused terms might be defined. Nor is this special intelligence operation indicative of any broader change in war that might already have been underway. Drones have been a feature of warfare since World War II and have been in regular use in conflict since the early 1980s. Irregular operations like Spider’s Web have long been a consistent feature of even large-scale conventional war. Moreover, successful deep penetration airfield raids have routinely occurred since they were first mastered by special operations forces in the early 1940s.

So why is there so much inclination to bite on the idea that a novel integration of an old technology with an old tactic indicates a change in the very nature of war itself? I argue in my book Ground Combat: Puncturing the Myths of Modern War, that a yawning gap in modern military historical analysis has made it difficult to put emerging events in context. Ahistoricism, a disregard or lack of concern for historical context, makes us more prone to buy into the idea that the very nature of war is in constant, uncontrollable flux.

War is not in constant or high-amplitude flux. Instead, it evolves in form and remains far more steady in function. But this overreaction to Operation Spider’s Web—and more broadly to the use of drones and AI in some modern wars—provides an excellent opportunity to help put exciting irregular operations like these in historical context.

Airfield Raids in World War II

Management Prototypes to Bolster Integrated Defense in Guam

Source Link

The US Department of Defense has issued a request to industry partners to build prototypes to streamline American defense capabilities in Guam.

The project aims to develop the Joint Integrated Battle Manager (JIBM), a command and control system that will be designed to unify existing tactical and agency components in the region in response to threats posed by China, North Korea, Iran, and other “violent extremist organizations.”

Selected companies will collaborate with the Guam Defense System Joint Program Office (GDS JPO), which is responsible for planning and transferring tasks related to military assets across the US territory.

A Harpoon missile launches from the missile deck of the littoral combat ship USS Coronado (LCS 4) off the coast of Guam, August 22, 2017. Image: US Navy/Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kaleb R. Staples

Once the JIBM is fielded, GDS JPO will oversee “long-term operation and sustainment, managing the integrated system’s cost, schedule, performance, and risk posture.”

Contracting of the prototype is led by the US Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.

The work for this initiative will run until 2026, with a test planned for the year’s third quarter and a final prototype delivery in the fourth quarter.

Other Projects Expected

In addition to the JIBM task, GDS JPO will lead other projects in support of the Pentagon’s broader objective to bolster Guam’s security, particularly its air and missile defense.

The program office has been accepting funding since November 2024 to employ subject matter experts and increase its workforce, which is currently at 45 percent.

The Pentagon knows its cyber force model is broken. Here’s how to fix it

Erica Lonergan and Jiwon Ma

Source Link

The U.S. military has tried almost everything to fix its cyber readiness issues except the one solution that would work: standing up a dedicated cyber service.

At a congressional hearing in May, senior defense officials publicly acknowledged that CYBERCOM 2.0 — an initiative launched by U.S Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) to overhaul how it builds and manages cyber forces — fell short of the Pentagon’s expectations. The effort was loosely modeled on Special Operations Command, but even under this model, CYBERCOM still lacks the authority to enforce common standards for the services,

 tailor recruitment to the unique dynamics of cyberspace operations, or control initial training. “We think it needs even more work,” said Laurie Buckhout, the acting assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy.

There have been attempts to address structural shortfalls in the past. Most recently, Congress granted CYBERCOM enhanced budgetary control in fiscal year 2024, giving the command oversight of roughly $2 billion in acquisitions for cyber tools, systems, and training. But the services still control the vast majority of cyber acquisition funds.

More than two decades after declaring cyberspace a warfighting domain, the U.S. military relies on an inefficient and ineffective solution to generate the capabilities needed to defend it. CYBERCOM holds the primary responsibility for operating in and through cyberspace,

but it relies on personnel drawn from five different military services to do so. There are no common standards for recruiting, initial training, or career progression across the services, and none treats cyberspace as a core mission. The result is chronic readiness gaps, inconsistent quality, and top talent regularly lost to the private sector.

How Big Tech learned to love America's military

Jackie Snow

Source Link

Since Donald Trump's presidential election victory, major tech companies have abandoned years of policies restricting military work and sought out lucrative defense contracts and deeper connections with the Pentagon.

Executives from Meta, OpenAI, and Palantir will be sworn in Friday as Army Reserve officers. OpenAI signed a $200 million defense contract this week. Meta is partnering with defense startup Anduril to build AI-powered combat goggles for soldiers.

All while Trump is pushing a $1 trillion defense budget — the largest in U.S. history.

The companies that build Americans' everyday digital tools are now getting into the business of war. Tech giants are adapting consumer AI systems for battlefield use, meaning every ChatGPT query and Instagram scroll now potentially trains military targeting algorithms. Meanwhile, safety guardrails are being dismantled just as these dual-use technologies become central to warfare.

A reversal for Silicon Valley

The relationship between Silicon Valley and the military isn't new. DARPA funding helped create the internet, GPS, and even Siri. For decades, military research has flowed into civilian applications: The Pentagon has developed the technology, and companies have commercialized it for everyday use.

Western democracies are actually pretty good at war

Noah SmithJune 

Source Link

The democracy vs autocracy in war-fighting debate is heating up as world teeters toward a major conflict. Image: Wikimedia

“They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too.” — William T. Sherman

I am not a military analyst or expert. Usually, I look at the world through the lens of economics, which I actually have some training in. But if you want to get a good holistic picture of the world, you need to understand at least a little bit about war and conflict.

I think most pundits intuitively understand this, which is why you see them weighing in on things like the usefulness of military aid to Ukraine, or the cost-effectiveness of the F-35, or the need to establish military deterrence against China. And so I do the same, while being careful to remember that I’m not any kind of expert in the field.

One of the most persistent and annoying tropes I see, in discussions about war, is the idea that autocracies are inherently tough and martial, and that democracies — especially Western democracies — are irresolute, decadent, flaccid, and generally not very good at fighting.

You see this when rightists praise Russian military ads where soldiers do a bunch of push-ups, and decry the state of America’s “they/them army” in comparison. You can see it when leftists declare that America loses every war it fights (which is obviously false).

The idea is ingrained in our deep history — Thucydides lamented that “a democracy is incapable of empire”, and plenty of modern people will cite autocratic Sparta’s victory over democratic Athens in the Peloponnesian War.1

In fact, if you just looked at the results of the last two decades, you might be forgiven for buying the authoritarian hype. America was pushed out of Afghanistan, and its proxies quickly collapsed under the Taliban assault. Most people also say the US lost the Iraq War.2

The Obsolete Divide: We Need a New Rank System for the Future Fight

Mike Cartier

Source Link

When the French Army went to war against Imperial Germany in August 1914, it did so with a military absolutely convinced of the superiority of its military traditions on the modern battlefield, of which the traditional red trousers worn by its soldiers were the most literally and figuratively obvious. Despite evidence that more inconspicuous uniforms were necessary, any proposals to change something viewed as foundational to the French Army’s legacy and heritage were fiercely opposed, despite the obvious need for a change. 

It was only after hundreds of thousands of casualties at the Battle of the Marne—at least some of which were attributed to the ease with which Germans could spot French infantry—that the French Army finally retired its red trousers from the battlefield. The reluctance to abandon practices borne of tradition is a strong one across military establishments, which often resist change until the realities of war force it upon them. In an era of increasingly rapid military innovation and adaptation, and renewed rivalry between the great powers, members of the American defense community should ask: What is our pantalon rouge?

As then Air Force chief of staff (and subsequent chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) General Charles Q. Brown described in 2020, 

the US military faces an imperative to “accelerate, change, or lose” the coming fight. This clarion call underscored the need for the Department of Defense to embrace bold, transformative thinking in its approach to innovation. Our service chiefs have since initiated significant reforms to force employment concepts, organizational structure, and the incorporation of new technologies, reflecting a bold yet disciplined embrace of progress that seeks genuine improvement over change for its own sake. While each service reconsiders its doctrine, organization, 

and technological capabilities to better confront emerging threats, one orthodoxy remains sacrosanct: the joint force’s anachronistic officer-enlisted divide. If it wants to remain the world’s premier military force, the Department of Defense must expand the aperture of its innovative reforms to unlock the full leadership potential of the modern force, establishing a unified military hierarchy and rank system,