Indian Strategic Studies: 06/29/25

29 June 2025

India’s defence story: Real boom or bubble waiting to burst?

Manvi Aggarwa

The defence sector has been getting serious attention for some time now, from domestic investors, global funds and even retail punters.

And if you think about it, it all adds up.

After all, how often do you find a sector with order books swelling at record pace, earnings visibility bright as day and government policy tailwinds blowing strong?

The stars do seem to be aligning. From Hindustan Aeronautics’ record order book to Bharat Electronics’ steady execution pipeline and the growing swagger of private players like Data Patterns and Bharat Forge, the market suddenly can’t get enough of defence stocks. The government’s aggressive push for self-reliance under ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ has only added fuel to this fire. It has ensured that large contracts stay within the country and critical technology know-how gets built here over time.

Fixing the Pentagon’s Broken Innovation Pipeline

Michael Horowitz, and Lauren Kahn

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In a world of rapid technological change and rising Chinese military power — as well as actors like Ukraine, the Houthis, and Iran gaining precision mass capabilities that can impose significant costs on the US military — there is broad agreement that the Pentagon must become far more agile in acquiring new military capabilities. What connects Ukraine’s recent daring strike inside Russia with Israel’s initial attack in Iran is the use of inexpensive, AI-enabled drones, a capability that warfighters, Silicon Valley innovators, and armchair strategists alike believe the Pentagon must urgently adopt and scale for the US military. So why hasn’t it happened yet?

Congressional Budget Dynamics Slow the Adoption of New Capabilities

Most discussions about the Pentagon’s need to move faster tend to focus on the role of senior leadership in advocating for and aggressively pursuing transformational capabilities. That’s true, but what’s less understood is Congress’s role. The relationship between the Pentagon and its congressional budget overseers, the appropriations committees, within the Planning, Programming, Budget, and Execution (PPBE) process often turns innovation adoption into a long, grinding battle even in the best of times. These committees line-edit the Department of Defense’s $850 billion budget down to the thousand-dollar level and tend to favor legacy capabilities, further stacking the deck against change.

Today’s Threats Demand Urgent Reform of the PPBE Process

While these challenges are well known, the urgent too often crowds out the important, leaving systemic reform of the Pentagon’s budget process perpetually sidelined, even as it continues to undermine efforts to adopt emerging technologies. But today could be different. Rapid technological change, the rising threat from China, and the arrival of a new Trump administration have created a rare window of opportunity to modernize how the Pentagon budgets for and acquires capabilities suited to today’s world.

PLA Purges Provide Opening for Xi’s Rivals

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New evidence suggests that a faction within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aligned with former president Hu Jintao and former premier Wen Jiabao could be exerting influence on the direction of the Party.

Three party elders—all of whom were Hu Jintao allies—reportedly criticized General Secretary Xi Jinping at Beidaihe in August 2023, while subsequent purges have eroded Xi’s base of support in the military.

More recently, signs that Xi’s erstwhile successor Hu Chunhua is regaining prominence following a demotion from the Politburo in 2022 could indicate that this “Tuanpai” faction is gaining ground. These signs include Hu leading an overseas delegation and visiting the Vietnamese embassy to convey his condolences for the passing of its former president—a role usually reserved for a politburo member.

Xi also recently made a speech referring to “scientific, democratic, and law-based policymaking,” a key phrase associated with his predecessor, Hu Jintao. This could be interpreted as a concession to the Tuanpai faction.

New evidence suggests that a faction within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aligned with former president Hu Jintao (胡锦涛) and former premier Wen Jiabao (温家宝) could be exerting influence on the direction of the Party. Earlier this year, we speculated that CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping’s power was being curtailed following purges that eroded his bases of support in the military (China Brief, March 15). Now, the return to prominence of Hu Chunhua (胡春华), alongside reporting about events that took place at the leadership’s summer retreat in Beidaihe in August 2023, could indicate that the “Hu-Wen faction” is resisting Xi Jinping to some degree.

China learned a valuable lesson in US trade talks: the value of its leverage

Simone McCarthy,

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US President Donald Trump may have touted the latest trade deal between the US and China as a win for America. But it’s Chinese leaders who have walked away with an extra spring in their step.

While full details of the agreement, reached by negotiators in London last week, remain under wraps, it appears largely to restore an earlier arrangement sealed in May, which had rapidly deteriorated as mistrust and tension between the two sides spiraled.

This time around, China has learned a key lesson: the power of its leverage over the US — and how it can use that to its advantage in the months ahead.

“China feels it has more bargaining power than it originally expected,” said Liu Dongshu, an assistant professor focusing on Chinese politics at the City University of Hong Kong. And over recent months of trade tussles, Beijing has realized: “Trump is not as tough as he appeared to be.”

China’s official statements on the latest agreement have been much more muted than Trump’s, who wrote on social media in all caps that the “deal with China is done” and described how the US would get access to China’ rare earth minerals, while maintaining elevated tariffs.

Iran’s S-400: What Happened to Air Defenses Built to Fight B-2 Bombers?

Reuben Johnson

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Iran’s S-400: What Happened to Air Defenses Built to Fight B-2 Bombers?© A B-2 Spirit makes a low pass flyover during the 2024 Warriors Over the Wasatch Open House and Air Show June 29, 2024, at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. The B-2 Spirit, the predecessor to the new B-21 Raider, has been the U.S. Air Force's premiere stealth bomber for more than 20 years. (U.S. Air Force photo by Cynthia Griggs)

Key Points and Summary: Despite Iran reportedly taking delivery of advanced Russian S-400 air defense systems in August 2024, the batteries have been conspicuously ineffective during Israel's recent massive air assault.

-The Israeli Air Force has flown with virtual impunity over Iran, striking key targets without any confirmed losses to the S-400, a system touted by Moscow as a world-beater.

-This failure, following significant losses of S-400s and other advanced systems in Ukraine, is reportedly causing alarm in Moscow, with Russian military officials and commentators now openly questioning the reliability of their own air defense technology against sophisticated Western electronic warfare, stealth, and suppression capabilities.
What Happened With Russia’s “All-Powerful” S-400 in Iran?

L’aéroporte Le Bourget, Paris - America has hit Iran's nuclear facilities with B-2 Spirit stealth bombers. And yet, Iran seemed to have a solution to this, courtesy of Russia. Experts ask: Where are the famous Russian-made Almaz-Antei S-400 air defense batteries? Should they not have been downing Israeli warplanes left and right by now and taking on those B-2 bombers?
o go on the offensive with an attack on the Jewish state.

Top lawmaker wants more progress on EW capabilities across services

Mark Pomerleau

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There aren’t enough electronic warfare tools resident within the U.S. military services currently, according to a top lawmaker.

At the end of the Cold War, many of the services divested of their capability within the electromagnetic spectrum. Now, these technologies are at a premium and in high demand for jamming enemy communications, navigation and missiles while protecting against the same. Adversaries have invested heavily in this area following U.S. divestment, forcing a sprint to reinvigorate American EW prowess.

“We’ve made some progress this year [but] here’s my concern: there’s a lot of studies and there’s a lot of paper, but paper doesn’t jam and paper doesn’t hit missiles,” Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said Tuesday during an event hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “We need to have more capability output, and I’m just not seeing enough of it right now.”

Bacon chairs the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies and Information Systems and is a retired one-star Air Force general who specialized in electronic warfare.

He observed that what’s been learned from military history is that when nations feel dominant, they walk away from electromagnetic spectrum capabilities — thinking they might not be necessary — as was seen at the end of the Cold War when the United States was the sole superpower.

“If you’re very dominant, EW is an unnecessary expense. But if you think you’re going to be in a very tough fight, electronic warfare is critical to saving lives,” he said, adding: “We walked away from [it] in the ’90s and we put very little emphasis” on it. As a result, those capabilities atrophied.

Go BIG on Iran

Martin A. Perryman

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The tit-for-tat strikes between Israel and Iran that led to the massive strike by the U.S. on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities scuttled diplomatic efforts by the U.S. to limit Iran’s nuclear program. There is no discernable strategic objective. This back and forth of retaliation will most likely go on for several weeks or months with much destruction and loss of life, but little forward progress. It is unlikely to devolve into a major war. Any negotiation to address Iran’s nuclear program will produce an agreement eerily like the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), popularly called the Iran Nuclear Deal.

Since the U.S. withdrew from that agreement in 2018, Iran has exploited disengagement to accelerate processing. Sources estimate that Iran has a 400 kg stockpile of enriched uranium at 60%. For context, civilian uses, like medical or reactors, need an enrichment level of under 5% while weapons grade uranium is 90%. With further enrichment, that 400 kg would have been sufficient to produce about 10 bombs. Even with the recent strike, much of that uranium and the processing equipment are likely to be recovered eventually. In the worst case, a determined effort could still produce a handful of nuclear weapons in less than a year.

This illustrates the futility of myopically focus on only the nuclear issue and settling for some variation of a return to the pre-2018 status quo. As a ratifier of the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran has every legal right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. Likewise, any state, determined to gain a nuclear capability, will not be thwarted. Any agreement that only addresses nuclear weapons will not hold up in the long term.

The only way to effectively deter Iranian nuclear ambitions is to alter the dynamic. World events offer an opportunity for a grand bargain that creates a path for rehabilitating Iran, removes their need for nuclear weapons, increases stability in the Middle East, improves the security paradigm for Israel, and reduces the ability of other bad actors like Russia and North Korea to evade international sanctions.

Since deposing the Shah in 1979, the government, run by Shia Clerics, has rejected western economic and cultural influence and cast themselves in opposition to their regional neighbors. As a result, Iran has been the most sanctioned nation on earth for several decades, only giving up the number one position to Russia following their invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The Spiderweb and the Lion: Subversive Infiltration and U.S. National Security

Evelinn Idenfors

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Over a decade ago, when I was working on force protection issues for Navy air logistics missions, the threat of drone attacks was just beginning to be seriously discussed. We kicked around contingencies and “what ifs,” but those discussions were largely in the background of mission planning. Over the course of the past ten years however, that threat has exploded to the forefront of the military operational planning world and has presented something altogether new in modern warfare.

In the early hours of June 1, 2025, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) executed Operation Spiderweb, an audacious drone assault on Russian airfields that destroyed or damaged a number of Russia's most prized aircraft, including possibly two A-50 early-warning planes and as many as a dozen strategic bombers. Drones,

smuggled into Russia over 18 months and concealed in remote-controlled containers, were launched from within Russian territory, catching Moscow’s defenses off guard. Just days later, on June 13, 2025, Israel’s Mossad orchestrated a similarly bold strike, dubbed Rising Lion,

targeting Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. Mossad agents, operating covertly within Iran, established drone bases near Tehran and smuggled precision weapons to dismantle air defenses and eliminate key figures, including Revolutionary Guards commanders and at least one senior nuclear scientist. Allow me to emphasize, the drone attacks came from within Russia and from within Iran.

These operations quite possibly signal a new era of warfare: patient, subversive infiltration by committed adversaries willing to play the long game. The United States—due to years of lax borders and insufficient oversight of foreign land purchases—is alarmingly vulnerable to such tactics, especially from a strategic rival like China, whose land acquisitions near U.S. military bases pose a clear risk.

Asymmetric Warfare Redefined?

Top lawmaker wants more progress on EW capabilities across services

Mark Pomerleau

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There aren’t enough electronic warfare tools resident within the U.S. military services currently, according to a top lawmaker.

Bacon chairs the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies and Information Systems and is a retired one-star Air Force general who specialized in electronic warfare.

The electromagnetic spectrum should have the same importance placed on it as the other domains of warfare, he suggested, despite not being considered a domain itself.

Amazon’s Schmidt talks China, cyber traps and the battle in the cloud

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Steve Schmidt is the chief security officer at Amazon. He’s in charge of safeguarding everything from classified government contracts to your Amazon orders. Among his secret weapons? A sprawling network of decoy systems — thousands of digital traps that lure hackers into revealing themselves. It’s called MadPot, and it recently helped expose one of the most sophisticated cyber operations ever linked to China: Volt Typhoon.

The Click Here podcast spoke with Schmidt about honeypots, AI’s role in cyberdefense, and why he believes the biggest vulnerability isn’t in the code. It’s in the people. The interview has been edited for clarity.

CLICK HERE: Can you talk a little bit about MadPot, what is it and how does it work?

STEVE SCHMIDT: MadPot is a honeypot network. A honeypot is a computer system that's been specifically built to be attacked. So it's designed to attract adversaries by presenting the image that it's a vulnerable computer system. Adversaries then probe for it. They find it. They interact with it and they often deploy their tools to it in an effort to exploit the system. It's a super important part of our overall intelligence apparatus because it allows us to identify what our adversaries are interested in, the tools that they're using, the techniques that they use, and even down to which one of our customers might they be going after.

CH: How often do adversaries actually interact with these honeypots?

SS: It is absolutely constant. So to give you some relatively scary numbers, we operate some 10,000 of these things around the internet right now. It takes about 90 seconds for one of these honeypots to be probed by an adversary — from when it goes online, within three minutes adversaries are trying to exploit it. So whenever I hear anybody saying, "Oh, I'm gonna put something on the internet, but nobody will know it's there and it'll be safe because it's innocuous" — you’ve actually got 90 seconds before someone knows.

Russia Future Watch – II. Decolonization for Security: Ukraine’s Strategic Policy Toward Indigenous Peoples Colonized by Russia

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Decolonization for Security: Ukraine’s Strategic Policy Toward Indigenous Peoples Colonized by Russia, by Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, Deputy Chair, Temporary Special Commission on the Development of State Policy Toward the Indigenous Peoples of the Russian Federation, Ukrainian Parliament, is the second article in a series of analyses as part of “Promethean Liberation: Russia’s Emerging National and Regional Movements,” a new project from Jamestown Senior Fellow Janusz Bugajski.

Russia’s full-scale invasion against Ukraine has revealed that the Russian Federation is not a true federation but an empire sustained by repression, colonization, and the systemic denial of national self-determination.

Dozens of native peoples representing indigenous nations with their own languages, history, culture, and political background and aspirations live within Russia. Their identities and rights have been comprehensively suppressed.

These nations are not Russians. They are Tatars, Chechens, Circassians, Ingush, Buryats, Kalmyks, and many others. Their fight for self-identification is not new, and today it intersects with Ukraine’s own existential struggle.

In response to this long-term challenge, in 2023, the Ukrainian parliament established the Temporary Special Commission on the Development of State Policy Toward the Indigenous Peoples of the Russian Federation (TSC).

The commission’s mission is to develop the legal, political, and international strategy for Ukraine to collaborate with national liberation movements within the Russian Federation and to establish these partnerships as a cornerstone of Ukraine’s long-term security and foreign policy.

The Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 marked the beginning of the largest war in Europe since World War II. It was also a turning point in how the international community perceived the nature of the Russian state. No longer could Russia be viewed as merely a geopolitical adversary, but as a modern form of empire that was built on centuries of colonial expansion, violent assimilation, and the suppression of indigenous peoples.

Report: Iranian hackers are trying to create a psychological war in cyberspace

David DiMolfetta,

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As tensions between Iran and Israel hit a boiling point in the past week, officials warned Americans to brace for cyberattacks from Tehran-aligned hackers. U.S. agencies and other experts focused their warnings on cyber-physical threats, basing their views off of years of past Iranian cyber incursions around the world that have sought to sabotage and degrade critical infrastructure platforms.

But one Iran-linked unit, according to research out Tuesday, has been taking a different approach that’s gone largely under the radar. The CyberAv3ngers, which made waves in late 2023 for defacing numerous water system displays in the U.S., has increasingly shifted its operations from technical intrusions to psychological manipulation, according to threat intelligence firm DomainTools.

The dynamic reflects a growing emphasis within Iran’s national cyber strategy to shape online narratives as much as it tries to disrupt infrastructure. One of the CyberAv3ngers group’s most publicized campaigns — a purported intrusion into Israel’s Dorad power station in October 2023 — never happened, DomainTools determined. The scheme fooled some media outlets and lit up threat monitoring forums, according to the firm, which provides cybersecurity threat intelligence by analyzing website domains and internet metadata.

But the deception was the goal. By staging breaches and creating spectacle, the group transformed into an operator hellbent on backing the Iranian regime as both a digital saboteur and propagandist.

Many cyber-enabled influence campaigns are coordinated across known Iranian threat groups, though the DomainTools analysis of recent CyberAv3ngers activity suggests a tighter integration between psychological operations and technical targeting.

What Bombs Can’t Do in Iran

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Donald Trump’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities is a once-in-a-generation event that could transform the Middle East, U.S. foreign policy, the effort to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons and potentially the global order. While its full impact will take decades to understand, it raises a more immediate question today: Will this extraordinary act of war strengthen Tehran’s authoritarians or hasten their demise?

The direct origins of the U.S.-Iran conflict date back to the 1979 revolution that replaced Iran’s U.S.-allied monarchy with an anti-American theocracy. Since then the Islamic Republic of Iran has vowed to end U.S. imperialism and eradicate Israel. Now, the United States and Israel are waging a military campaign inside Iran with a stated goal of destroying its nuclear capability — though the regime’s collapse, while not the declared objective, would be a welcome outcome for both nations. But while military strikes may expose an authoritarian regime’s weaknesses, they rarely create the conditions necessary for lasting democratic change.

Long before Israel’s invasion and Mr. Trump’s strikes, the Islamic republic resembled a zombie regime, ideologically dead but still repressive, much like the late-stage Soviet Union. Despite the country’s vast human capital and resources, Tehran’s theocrats preside over an economically isolated, socially repressive police state — elbow-deep in corruption and repression, yet ruling from the moral pedestal of an Islamist theocracy. The regime’s enduring slogans, “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” — never “long live Iran” — have long made clear that its priority has always been opposing others, not uplifting its own people.

Given its refusal to countenance meaningful political reform, the chasm between Iran’s static regime and its dynamic population has arguably become among the widest of any society in the world. The regime’s ideological rigidity and nuclear ambitions resemble those of North Korea; the aspirations of its people for modernity and prosperity align it more with South Korea. The only way the government has been able to remain in power has been through relentless physical and digital repression.

Global Shipping Is Staying Calm About the Strait of Hormuz

Elisabeth Braw,

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A tugboat is seen attached to a massive shipping barge across a stretch of open water. On the other side of the ships is the shore, with mountains rising up against the horizon.A tugboat tows a barge off the coast of Khasab, on Oman’s Musandam Peninsula, overlooking the Strait of Hormuz on June 24. Giuseppe Cacace/AFP via Getty Images

After U.S. bombers hit three key Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend, the world immediately began worrying about shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. The shipping industry, though, reacted more calmly than the commentariat, and the ships kept sailing. Whether or not the Israeli-Iranian cease-fire declared by U.S. President Donald Trump holds, the shipping industry’s storm-weathered managers offer an example of how to keep calm in a crisis.

On June 22—just hours after U.S. bombers struck Fordo, Natanz, and Esfahan—the Majlis (Iran’s parliament) declared that Iran should close the Strait of Hormuz. But that doesn’t mean that it’s actually going to happen. Iranian politics and military command are deeply divided and messy, and such decision would be made by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, not the Majlis.

Oil Prices Crash After Iran Strikes U.S. Bases

Shahriar Sheikhlar

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Just hours after the U.S. launched attacks on Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities, the Iranian parliament expressed support for shutting down the Strait of Hormuz—one of the world’s most critical routes for fossil fuel transportation, particularly oil and LNG. The Middle East conflict, which began on June 13, 2025, following Israeli airstrikes targeting Iranian military bases and commanders,

has now entered its tenth day. The situation escalated dramatically with the U.S. joining Israel in directly bombing Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites—a move that had previously been expected to be carried out solely by American military power.

On Monday afternoon, U.S. Eastern time, Iran launched six missiles at U.S. military bases in Qatar, with explosions reported over Doha, according to Axios. In response, Qatar had closed its airspace "until further notice", and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has also shut its airspace.

Despite the attacks, oil prices are down more than seven percent, with WTI crude falling below $70 per barrel. According to Bloomberg's Javier Blas, the market views Iran’s missile strike as a “perfunctory counterattack”. The Strait of Hormuz remains open and oil is still flowing—including from Iran’s Kharg Island.

The initial impact of the conflict on oil and gas markets remained relatively limited, with Brent crude prices gradually climbing to around USD 79 per barrel—only USD 9 higher than the day before the conflict began. Despite the escalating tensions and President Trump’s two-week warning, prices fell to USD 75 by the end of last week. This contrasts sharply with the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022,

when oil prices surged by about 17%, reaching over USD 110 per barrel in the first week. The modest rise seen in the current conflict was largely due to increased shipping expenses, including higher tanker rates and vessel insurance premiums

Trump takes Middle East ceasefire to trade war strategy

Ben Lefebvre, Phelim Kine, Megan Messerly and Daniel Desrochers

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Trump took to his Truth Social account Tuesday to sell a tentative ceasefire between Israel and Iran as a boon not just for stability in the region but also for China amid ongoing trade talks with the country. The post highlights Trump’s desire for a more even trade balance with China and his belief that the U.S.’s role as a world peacekeeper merits compensation, a point he has emphasized to allies across the globe.

“China can now continue to purchase Oil from Iran,” Trump wrote. “Hopefully, they will be purchasing plenty from the U.S., also. It was my Great Honor to make this happen!”

Trump’s post underscores the expansive view that the president has taken of trade negotiations that are underway with dozens of trading partners ahead of a July 8 self-imposed deadline. China faces a separate, later deadline in August after the two countries agreed to lower trade tensions last month.

The president has, among other things, used the talks to push for increased defense spending by Japan and shelving antitrust legislation in South Korea that could target U.S. tech companies. And he continues to fixate on China upping its purchases of American products, after a deal with Beijing in his first term yielded little progress.

Trump’s post implicitly referenced the threat by Iran’s parliament Sunday to close the Strait of Hormuz in response to the U.S. attacks on Tehran’s nuclear sites over the weekend. Hormuz is key to the global economy, with more than 20 percent of the world’s oil supply and much of its liquified gas from countries including Iran, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates passing through the strait.

Still, even if a ceasefire between Israel and Iran holds, and negotiations between the United States and China continue, industry experts are skeptical that it will persuade China to increase its purchases of American oil or show any overt gratitude toward the president for brokering a fragile ceasefire.

Wars are won on the factory floor

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As recent events in Iran have so aptly demonstrated, technological progress married to industrial might produces the most tangible form of power. In the recent conflict in the Middle East, this meant that a second-tier power like Iran was clearly outmatched – first by Israel, then by America.

The West needs to learn this lesson and apply it to its rivalry with a far more formidable foe: China. Unlike the theocrats of Tehran, China’s ambitions are distinctly material. And, until recently, China has made tremendous headway facing relatively little, and largely ineffective, Western opposition.

Fortunately, in America at least, there is an emerging industrial renaissance, led by a wave of new firms investing in key technologies, such as drones, satellites, fuel-efficient jet engines and robotic drilling. These and similar companies remain the West’s best hope of slowing China’s bid for global pre-eminence – a campaign that now extends into space and advanced military systems.

China, the most important ally of Tehran’s beleaguered mullahs, cannot be easily dismissed. Since its accession to the World Trade Organisation in 2000, China has grown to the point where it boasts as many factory exports as the US, Japan and Germany combined. In 2023, the Middle Kingdom forged roughly half the world’s steel and became the world’s largest automobile market – including for electric vehicles, whose batteries are linked to an industrial economy that’s highly dependent on coal-burning power stations. It also accounts for more than half of all shipbuilding.

The impact has been devastating on the West. Europe’s industrial sector continues to decline, shedding one million manufacturing jobs between 2019 and 2023. In the US, a study by the Economic Policy Institute found that China’s export surge alone cost up to 3.7million American jobs since 2000. Between 2004 and 2017, America’s share of global manufacturing fell from 15 per cent to 10 per cent, even as its reliance on Chinese inputs doubled, while those from Japan’s and Germany’s fell.

Exclusive: Early US intel assessment suggests strikes on Iran did not destroy nuclear sites, sources say

Natasha Bertrand, Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen, CNN

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The US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities last weekend did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to an early US intelligence assessment that was described by seven people briefed on it.

The assessment, which has not been previously reported, was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm. It is based on a battle damage assessment conducted by US Central Command in the aftermath of the US strikes, one of the sources said.

The analysis of the damage to the sites and the impact of the strikes on Iran’s nuclear ambitions is ongoing, and could change as more intelligence becomes available. But the early findings are at odds with President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the strikes “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also said on Sunday that Iran’s nuclear ambitions “have been obliterated.”

Two of the people familiar with the assessment said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed. One of the people said the centrifuges are largely “intact.” Another source said that the intelligence assessed enriched uranium was moved out of the sites prior to the US strikes.

“So the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops,” this person added.

The White House acknowledged the existence of the assessment but said they disagreed with it.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN in a statement: “This alleged assessment is flat-out wrong and was classified as ‘top secret’ but was still leaked to CNN by an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community. The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump, and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran’s nuclear program. Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.”

History Restarted The radical right and the problem of "successful" autocracies

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Anyone who’s read Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History and the Last Man” knows it’s far more prophetic than its pop culture representation. Published in 1992, in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse, his argument was not that liberal democracy would be immediately victorious everywhere and permanently, but that there was no alternative system that could work as well.

He anticipated backsliding against democracy and gave a good description of what was likely to cause it, correctly anticipating it would be driven by right-wingers. That’s why the full book title includes a reference to Nietzsche’s “last man” – an archetype of liberal passivity, seeking mere materialistic comfort, that the German philosopher saw as a slave mentality.

Fukuyama understood that the great challenge for liberal democracies was that they require people to accept universal recognition of all citizens and, in doing so, reject a belief in their superiority to others. For Nietzsche, by contrast, it was that very desire for superiority and dominance that drove human progress.

This need for superiority is core to the philosophy of the modern radical right, for whom Nietzsche is a regular reference point (at least for those who like to consider themselves intellectuals and spend a lot of time online). Techbro and Musk ally, Marc Andreessen, in his “tech-optimist manifesto”, that I’ve written about before, is explicit about this: “Our enemy is Friedrich Nietzsche’s Last Man”.

Their obsessive war against DEI is all about pushing back against liberals’ insistence on universal recognition, for e.g. minorities and women, because they believe it’s a hindrance to economic progress.

Fukuyama also spotted a related, but even more profound, potential flaw in his own argument. He was confident that no country could thrive for long without capitalism, but less so that it needed democracy – so perhaps there was a plausible alternative to liberalism. There were, he noted, countries in East Asia, particularly Singapore and China, that were running apparently successful capitalist economies but without the messiness of democracy:

Armed by America: how Europe’s militaries depend on the US – a visual analysis

Alex Clark

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European leaders will meet with Donald Trump at a Nato summit on Tuesday, as the alliance prepares to approve a significant boost to defence spending.

A new target for every member to spend 5% of GDP – more than double Nato’s current benchmark – marks a major win for the US president, who has long railed against America footing the bill for Europe’s security.

That concern is now increasingly mutual. European governments are pursuing an unprecedented push for military independence, amid fears the US is no longer a reliable ally.

“Don’t ask America what it can do for our security. Ask yourselves what we can do for our own security,” said the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, in an address to EU lawmakers in January.

But when it comes to raw firepower, the bloc has a long way to go.

Europe’s militaries still overwhelmingly rely on US-made weapons and equipment, according to Guardian analysis of stockpile data that raises doubts about ambitions for European-led rearmament.

Close to half of the fighter jets in active service across European air forces originate from the US, while American – rather than European – missile defence systems remain the most widely deployed on the continent.

Dispensable Nation

Kori Schake

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President Donald Trump’s rise to power and enduring political appeal have been fueled in part by his depiction of the United States as a failure: exhausted, weak, and ruined. In a characteristic act of self-contradiction, however, his foreign policy is based on a significant overestimation of American power. Trump and his advisers seem to believe that, despite the country’s allegedly parlous condition, unilateral action on Washington’s part can still force others to capitulate and submit to American terms.

But since the end of World War II, American power has been rooted mostly in cooperation, not coercion. The Trump team ignores that history, takes for granted all the benefits that a cooperative approach has yielded, and cannot envision a future in which other countries opt out of the existing U.S.-led international order or construct a new one that would be antagonistic to American interests. Yet those are precisely the outcomes the Trump administration is hastening.

The political scientist Michael Beckley has argued in Foreign Affairs that the United States is becoming “a rogue superpower, neither internationalist nor isolationist but aggressive, powerful, and increasingly out for itself.” That portrait is accurate but incomplete, since it does not fully capture the extent to which American dominance can be undercut or constricted by others. In the Trump era, many have speculated about whether or to what degree the United States will withdraw from its leading role in the world. But a more pressing question might be, what if the rest of the world beats Washington to the punch, withdrawing from the cooperative U.S.-led order that has been the bedrock of American power?

Some may counter that even if U.S. allies and neutral countries don’t like the way Trump exercises American power, they have little choice but to go along with it now and will accommodate themselves to it in the longer term, placating the United States as much as possible and hedging only when absolutely necessary. After all, they might come to loathe and distrust the United States, but not as much as they already loathe and distrust China, Russia, and other American rivals. In this view, the United States that Trump wants to create would be the worst possible hegemon—except for all the other possible candidates. Besides, even if other countries wanted to opt out of the U.S.-led order or work around Washington, they don’t have the ability to do so, individually or collectively. They might yearn for the days when a more internationalist, open, cooperative United States shaped the world order. But they’ll learn to live with a more nationalist, closed, and demanding United States.

Commentary: Asian leaders sidelined at G7 summit amid global turmoil

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OTTAWA, Canada: The G7 summit in Kananaskis, Canada, opened amid multidimensional crises. The summit epitomised the fragmentation and uncertainty that have come to characterise our age.

Host, Canada, along with most of the other G7 members and Asian invitees, were looking to forge a baseline consensus on stabilising trade and the global order, while accommodating US concerns for a more robust and self-reliant defence and security posture.

But events intervened. In the early hours of Jun 13, just prior to the summit’s opening, Israel began its anticipated and feared assault on Iran’s nuclear and security infrastructure. US President Donald Trump abruptly left the summit in the evening after its first day.

The anticipated one-on-one meetings with many of the participants (including those between Indian Prime Minister Modi and Australian Prime Minister Albanese and President Trump) never took place. Trump appeared pleased that the agenda was set around his tariff threats, viewing the other participants as mere supplicants.

Unable to meet up with Trump, Modi was deprived of an opportunity to represent the Global South in navigating shifts in global power dynamics. His participation was instead more important for restoring bilateral ties with Canada, which had been badly strained since the state-sponsored assassination of Khalistan separatists on Canadian soil.

In the end, there was very little opportunity to forge a common consensus, especially as the host and other participants were wary of confronting – and fearful of provoking – the US president.

Russia’s Rogue Warriors: A Paramilitary Legacy

Stephen T. Satkiewicz

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The attention of the world was gripped by a rather puzzling and dramatic event occurring within an already tumultuous on-going conflict in Ukraine when the prominent Russian private military company (PMC) Wagner Group and its leader enigmatic leader Yevgeny Prigozhin embarked on a major mutiny on June 23, 2023 that sparked international fears of a possible civil war in Russia. It is best to situate it within a larger context that sometimes gets neglected by scholars and analysts.

One element of the current situation of the war in Ukraine that is often overlooked is the activities of other lesser-known paramilitary and irregular forces by the Russians. Furthermore, there is a more long-term historical legacy of the so-called “wild 90s” that Russia experienced in the immediate post-Soviet period. In this period, a paramilitary culture of varying kinds thrived and helped lay the foundations for these irregular forces of the Russian war effort. This occurred as a result of two closely related processes: the disintegration of the official militarism of the Soviet state along with the rise of radical ultranationalism as an ideological alternative to Communist ideology. What is certain from a historical vantage point is that such groups do not arise out of nowhere, but rather do so when there is a vacuum of necessary military force.

Before the dust had settled on the Wagner Group mutiny, scholars and analysts were seeking to find suitable historical parallels to the recent events in Russia. The actions of the Wagner Group have also raised the issue of the reliability of Private Military Contractors (PMCs) and other irregular paramilitary forces around the world. The dangers of PMCs going rogue on their host states have long been a matter of debate among analysts and scholars. Even Niccolò Machiavelli in his Art of War (1520) warned against the use of mercenaries due to the uncertainty of their loyalty, declaring “War makes thieves, and peace hangs them.”

Paramilitarism Defined

The theoretical questions over the exact nature of paramilitarism should be outlined to assist in better understanding the nature of the phenomenon under investigation in this study. Max Weber (1864-1920) famously argued in “Politics as a Vocation“ that the state is the power that “lays claim to the monopoly use of legitimate physical violence within a particular territory … ” This includes both the professional military as well as police and other security forces employed by the state. Thus, paramilitary forces are often defined as those that operated outside this monopoly, most often against the interests of the state.

Loyalty in Crisis: Civil-Military Tensions in the Second Trump Presidency

Lt. Col. (Ret.) Robert Bruce Adolph, Lt. Col. (Ret.) Benjamin Ray Lawton |

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This article examines the growing tensions between constitutional loyalty and presidential authority in the second administration of Donald J. Trump, particularly as they relate to the U.S. military. Drawing from our military experience and comparative political observation, the authors raise urgent questions about the boundaries of lawful obedience and institutional loyalty in an era marked by executive disregard for legal norms. With military judge advocates general dismissed, intelligence leaders purged, the deployment of the California National Guard, the activation of the U.S. Marines,

and constitutional violations mounting, this piece argues that senior military leaders must confront a central dilemma: what loyalty is owed to a president who fails to honor his oath of office?

Introduction

Throughout our military careers, we were proud to serve under the authority of civilian leadership. That leadership, however, was always understood to be subordinate to the Constitution, not above it. Our oaths made that distinction clear to us. Today, we are gravely concerned.

The return of former President Donald J. Trump to office, following his conviction on 34 felony counts, has introduced an era of extraordinary constitutional uncertainty. The implications for the military, and particularly for senior leaders, are profound.

The Oath: Not to a Man, but to the Constitution

American military personnel swear an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” This oath intentionally avoids reference to any individual, including the president. Civil-military theorists such as Samuel Huntington and Peter D. Feaver have long emphasized the necessity of constitutional loyalty in preserving democratic civil-military balance. However, under the second Trump administration,

personal loyalty has increasingly replaced institutional accountability as the perceived measure of allegiance to democratic norms. Several recent events suggest this shift toward loyalty to the individual rather than to the constitutional system:The dismissal of Department of Justice lawyers investigating the president’s role in the January 6th

Air Force PT revisions taking shape amid effort to ‘revive warrior ethos’ in service

ZADE VADNAIS

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The Air Force is preparing major changes to its physical fitness assessments, according to its top enlisted member. An internal message posted on social media Monday from Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force David Flosi says the service is “likely going to” implement biannual testing for all airmen, bring back waist measurements to assess body composition and replace the 1.5-mile run with a 2-mile version. The authenticity of the message was confirmed by a Flosi representative, but officials declined to say whether the specific changes it mentions will in fact be implemented.

The service is finalizing updates to its physical training policies as part of efforts to “revive warrior ethos,” an Air Force spokesperson said in response to questions.

The current fitness assessment includes a cardiovascular component — either a 1.5-mile run or a 20-meter shuttle run introduced in 2022 — along with pushups and situps or approved alternatives. Airmen who score 90 or higher out of a possible 100 points are currently allowed to test just once per year, a policy introduced in 2010 as an incentive for high performers. That exemption is expected to be eliminated under the new guidance.

The updates also aim to correct pandemic-era policies that did not adequately prepare airmen for operational demands, according to the spokesperson. An airman measures his waist in Sioux City,

Iowa, on Jan. 11, 2024. Reintroduction of the waist measurement component is one of the likely changes to the Air Force's physical training standards listed in a leaked memo from Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force David Flosi. (Tylon Chapman/U.S. Air Force) In 2020, amid COVID-19 restrictions, the Air Force removed waist circumference as a scored component of the fitness test and moved it to a standalone body composition program. At the time, officials said the change was permanent. Since then, airmen have been required to schedule a separate waist measurement during their birth month in addition to completing their fitness assessments.

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29 June 2025