Indian Strategic Studies: 08/04/25

4 August 2025

India caught in middle as Trump tests out new Russia policy

With friends like these! President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced a new 25% tariff on India, one of the US’s closest allies in Asia. Although India is a “friend”, Trump said, the country’s notoriously high trade barriers had prevented more commerce with the US. The new measures will go into effect on Saturday.The move comes smack in the middle of rocky, ongoing trade talks between the US and India. Trump wants to crack open India’s vast market for American firms, while India is keen to protect certain domestic industries – particularly pharmaceuticals, auto parts, and agriculture – as well as the access of Indian students and high-skilled workers to the US.

India is in a tough spot – as Trump carries on talks with various countries at once, PM Narendra Modi doesn’t want to get stuck with a higher US tariff rate than other export-oriented Asian competitors who are all jockeying for access to the massive US market. But Trump has put Modi in another, even trickier bind. He said India will pay a “fine” for its purchase of Russian oil. While details have yet to emerge, this looks like the first instance of Trump using so-called “secondary sanctions” to pressure Vladimir Putin, who has serially ignored Trump’s ongoing demands to end the war in Ukraine.

Earlier this month Trump threatened a tariff of 100% on any countries that trade with Russia unless the Kremlin stops the war within 50 days. This week he cut the deadline to “10 or 12 days.” India is one of those countries, big league. Delhi purchases roughly 2 million barrels of oil daily from Russia, accounting for 40% of India’s total oil imports. That amount reflects a huge boost in Russian imports after 2022, when European sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine made Russian crude way cheaper for non-European buyers.

Analysts say that India could certainly go back to its traditional suppliers in the Middle East and Africa, but it would have to accept significantly higher costs compared to the blackballed Russian crude it’s gotten used to.The dragon in the room. Still, if Trump is serious about landing a blow on Russia’s oil-dependent economy, he’ll sooner or later have to look towards the other billion-person Asian power that gulps down Kremlin crude. China imports more than 2 million barrels of the stuff a day, about a fifth of its total imports. Together with India, the two countries buy more than 80% of Russia’s oil exports, accounting for about 5% of overall global crude demand.

Indian Election Commission Caught In A Cleft Stick Between Supreme Court And Government On Electoral Roll – Analysis

P. K. Balachandran

The Election Commission of India (ECI) is caught in a cleft stick between the Supreme Court and the government on the issue of exclusion from the voters’ list ahead of the November 2025 elections to the Bihar State Assembly.The government may insist that the ECI adheres to the parameters set for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll. But the Supreme Court had asked the ECI to consider including the Aadhaar and Voter Identity Cards for determining eligibility for inclusion in the voters’ list, documents which the government and ECI consider insufficient for proving citizenship.

With petitioners in the court estimating that about 940,000 voters in Bihar will be facing disenfranchisement as a result of the SIR, the Supreme Court had warned the ECI that it would “step in if mass exclusion takes place”. The court said on Tuesday that the ECI is a constitutional body that has to abide by the law.The Supreme Court bench, comprising Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi, asked the petitioners to file their written submissions by August 8 and stated that hearings will take place on August 12 and August 13.

Earlier on Monday, the court reiterated its demand that the ECI accept the Aadhaar and Voter Identity Cards as admissible documents. But the ECI argued that the Aaadhar, Voter ID and Ration Cards could not be proof of “citizenship” a basic condition for voting. The court’s answer to this was that while Ration Cards could be forged easily, Aadhaar and Voter ID Cards had “some sanctity” and had the presumption of genuineness.

“You continue accepting these documents,” the court added. 940,000 Could Face Exclusion According to one of the petitioners, Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), about 940,000 out of the 76 million electorate in Bihar are likely to lose their right to vote as they had not been counted in the SIR either due to their absence from Bihar or because they had not submitted any of the 11 documents needed to be given as proof of eligibility.

Air Force Modernisation in Southeast Asia: Deterrence or Danger?

Rahman Yaacob

Southeast Asia is in the midst of a sweeping wave of air force modernisation, signalling a profound transformation in the region’s defence posture. From Indonesia and Malaysia to the Philippines and Thailand, governments are investing heavily in new combat aircraft. The region's air force modernisation push comes after decades of underinvestment and reliance on ageing platforms. Many Southeast Asian countries still operate legacy systems such as Vietnam’s Su-22s (transferred by the former Soviet Union in the 1980s), Indonesia’s F-16s (several were acquired in the late 1980s), and Malaysia’s Hawks (acquired from the UK in 1990).

These combat aircraft are increasingly obsolete in the face of high-speed, complex military operations that rely on information technology and networked communications to improve decision-making and combat effectiveness. In response, governments are now seeking more modern fighters to replace their outdated fleets. For example, Indonesia is undertaking the most expansive overhaul of its fleet, with plans to operate 64 Rafale fighters from France as well as buying dozens more jets from South Korea, Türkiye and the United States.

Malaysia also plans to upgrade its fleet with jets from South Korea and second-hand US aircraft from Kuwait, while Singapore plans to acquire more F-35s, including the vertical take-off/landing variety. Acquiring combat aircraft from sources other than Russia and the United States seems to be the trend in Southeast Asia. South Korea appears to be a favourite destination for Southeast Asian states looking to upgrade their air forces. The Philippines, with its territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea escalating, is acquiring an additional 12 South Korean FA-50s, doubling its fleet of the aircraft.

European suppliers are not left behind, with Thailand adding another 12 Swedish-built Gripen fighter jets to its inventory, while Czechia is supplying 12 L-39NG aircraft to Vietnam. A Filipino Air Force soldier gets into the cockpit of a Swedish-made Saab JAS 39 Gripen multirole fighter jet during the 2024 Asian Defence and Security Exhibition in Manila (Daniel Ceng/Anadolu). These acquisition plans demonstrate the efforts of Southeast Asian states to modernise their air forces while also avoiding reliance on the US as a primary supplier.

Vandergriff Analysis of "What Would War with China Look Like—in the US Homeland?" Sandor Fabian | 07.15.25, Modern War Institute, USMA.

The article by Dr. Sandor Fabian (LTC Hungarian Special Forces, ret.), published on July 15, 2025, explores the potential for irregular warfare conducted by China against the US homeland during a conflict, primarily in the Indo-Pacific. It argues that while kinetic battles would occur abroad, China could employ indirect, deniable tactics—such as physical sabotage, proxy-driven protests, unmanned systems (drones), cyberattacks, weaponized immigration, and social media manipulation—to disrupt US decision-making, erode public trust, overwhelm services, and deepen societal divisions.

Fabian emphasizes that these actions would avoid crossing nuclear thresholds while targeting the US's vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure, social polarization, and digital dependence. He calls for a "total defense" approach, investing in counter-irregular warfare capabilities beyond traditional military structures. This analysis examines the article's scenarios through two key frameworks: the military reform ideas of Donald E. Vandergriff, which focus on adaptive leadership and mission command, and the concepts of fourth-generation warfare (4GW), which describe decentralized, asymmetric conflicts blurring traditional boundaries.

Fourth-generation warfare, as conceptualized by William S. Lind, COL (USMC Ret) GI Wilson, Dr. Martin van Creveld and others in the 1980s, represents a shift from state-centric, industrialized warfare to decentralized, culturally driven conflicts where non-state actors—or states employing irregular methods—erode an adversary's will, legitimacy, and societal cohesion without direct, large-scale confrontations. Unlike earlier generations—first (line-and-column tactics), second (attrition through firepower), and third (maneuver and infiltration)—4GW blurs distinctions between war and peace, combatants and civilians, and military and non-military domains.

It often involves violent non-state actors but can be adapted by states in asymmetric scenarios, using tools like insurgency, terrorism, psychological operations, economic disruption, and information warfare to create disorder and force the enemy to overextend resources. Key characteristics include dispersed operations, moral and mental attacks over physical ones, exploitation of cultural vulnerabilities, and the use of media or proxies to delegitimize the state. Fabian's article vividly illustrates a 4GW scenario in a state-vs.-state context, where China, as a peer competitor, could leverage irregular tactics to target the US homeland without provoking nuclear escalation.

ASEAN’s Watershed Moment on the Thai-Cambodian Frontier

Kurniawan Arif Maspul

As the thunder of artillery and the roar of F-16 engines echoed across the Dangrek Mountains in late July 2025, Southeast Asia’s century-old experiment in regional peace hung by a thread. Thailand and Cambodia—once the twin heirs of Angkor and Ayutthaya—turned their border into a battlefield, inflicting civilian casualties, displacing over 300,000 people, and damaging the sacred Preah Vihear complex in the worst clashes since 2011.

On 28 July, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim—backed by ASEAN’s collective will—secured an immediate ceasefire between Thailand and Cambodia, halting weeks of artillery exchanges and mass displacement. Yet this pause only highlights the unfinished business: without permanent monitoring, heritage protection protocols, and community reconciliation, the same fault lines will reignite. The ceasefire is a vital pause—but not a solution.

ASEAN’s familiar scripts of ‘quiet diplomacy’ and ‘non-interference’ have thus far yielded only statements of concern, while an urgent recalibration of policy is desperately needed to prevent a slide from intermittent skirmish to full-scale war. The roots of recent Thailand-Cambodia border tensions lie in colonial carve-ups and nationalist mythmaking. The 1904 and 1907 Franco-Siamese treaties left the Preah Vihear precinct ambiguously demarcated, a fault line Europe bequeathed to two emerging nation-states.

Cambodia’s 1962 ICJ victory finally cemented sovereignty over the temple, but successive Thai governments, stung by nationalist politics, have repeatedly reopened the wound—most recently by constructing an unauthorized replica of Angkor Wat in Buri Ram Province, provoking Phnom Penh’s ire under UNESCO rules. Cultural kinship—shared Theravāda Buddhist rituals, intertwined scripts, and common folklore—has thus been perverted into a totem of grievance rather than a bridge of reconciliation.

Going Soft on China Could Be a Hard Lesson

Hal Brands

In his first term as president, Donald Trump made the new cold war consensus on China — the broad bipartisan agreement that Beijing is America’s most dangerous competitor and must be dealt with as such. He seems bent on breaking it in his second. Trump is barreling toward a bad bargain with Beijing. He’s weakening the US position in the fight for global primacy. And he’s using his dominance of the Republican Party to mute opposition to this dangerous course. China policy was perhaps the most historic achievement of Trump’s first term. For a quarter-century, US officials had argued that Beijing could be made a responsible stakeholder in the American-led order.

Trump and his aides overturned that shopworn assumption, recognizing that an increasingly autocratic, assertive China sought to “shape a world antithetical to US values and interests.” They enacted policies — chip curbs on Huawei, increased arms sales to Taiwan, and the revival of the Quad and investment in other US partnerships — that laid the foundation for President Joe Biden’s subsequent approach to Beijing.

Yet Trump himself was an ambivalent cold warrior, principally because of his transactional ethos and his desire to get along personally with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. So Trump oscillated, from 2017 to early 2020, between waging great-power competition and chasing a Sino-American bargain. Only with Covid, the presidency-killing pandemic for which Trump blamed Beijing, did the China hawks in his administration conclusively gain the upper hand.

Trump’s second term started promisingly, with the appointment of “super hawks” like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. It has been bad news ever since.Trump overplayed his hand, in April, by imposing tariffs that spiraled into a de facto trade embargo. He then got walloped by punishing Chinese restrictions on the export of rare earth elements and fears of an economic apocalypse. Now, his administration is in retreat. Gone are the super hawks: Trump removed Waltz, as well as a key National Security Council official overseeing the technology portfolio. Rubio has distinguished himself with his utter fealty to Trump.

The New Salvo War

The IssueRussia has normalized massive, mixed drone‑missile salvos: The average wave size has risen from about 100 munitions in 2022 to nearly 300 in 2025, while intervals between major strikes have compressed from roughly a month to as few as two days. The salvo campaign now leans heavily on Shahed swarms to saturate Ukraine’s air defenses in line with the increasing Russian low-cost drone manufacturing capability. These salvos reflect an attritional punishment strategy—victory through volume, persistence, and psychological strain Ukraine must counter with layered, cost‑efficient defences: rapidly field high‑energy lasers and HPMs, expand cross‑domain early‑warning networks.

On the night of July 9, 2025, Russia launched the largest combined drone and missile attack of the Russia-Ukraine war, saturating Ukraine’s defenses with 728 kamikaze drones and 13 missiles, most aimed at Kyiv. The scale was staggering. And it was not an isolated incident. In the days that followed, two more salvos hit Ukraine—416 weapons in one wave, 625 in another—each exceeding the daily averages seen in prior months. These attacks were more than mere upticks in Russian activity. They demarcate a deeper, deliberate shift in operational tempo and a signal to Ukraine and its backers: Russia is prepared to escalate, overwhelm, and exhaust Ukraine.

What was once the exception has become routine. Large-scale salvo attacks now make up roughly 10 per cent of all Russian aerial operations (see Appendix Table A-1). Since September 2022, the CSIS Futures Lab has tracked 157 of these coordinated waves—combinations of missiles, drones, and ballistic projectiles—deliberately sequenced to test and stress Ukrainian defences. Early in the conflict, salvos averaged around 100 weapons per wave. By 2025, that number has tripled to nearly 300, reflecting not only expanded production but an increasingly aggressive aerial campaign.

By mid-2025, the gap between salvos has shrunk to just eight days (see Figure 1). What were once peak events are now baseline activity in a campaign defined by sustained pressure and operational tempo. The tempo keeps climbing. In the past two months, the shortest interval between major salvos has dropped to just two days. What were once outlier events—occasional spikes in intensity—have become standing features of Russia’s aerial campaign. Each wave piles pressure on Ukraine’s air defences, saturating systems already strained by months of attritional combat and forcing difficult choices about what to protect.

Russia, Not China, Is America’s Greatest Strategic Threat

Colin Cleary

It is a long-cherished shibboleth in Washington that China is America’s gravest strategic threat. This line of thought is shared across both political parties, and it guides strategic thinking at the Department of State, the Pentagon, and in the White House. The House of Representatives has established a committee to study the malign activities of the Chinese Communist Party. President Donald Trump regularly criticizes Chinese trade practices and vows tariffs in retaliation. One of the most notable issues of the 2024 United States presidential election was the suspicious Chinese purchase of American farmland near sensitive military facilities, and the ways in which this could be stopped.

China is no paragon of virtue in global affairs, and it must be held to account. But to bring the preponderance of America’s resources to bear on Beijing is to miss the activities of a different member of the United Nations Security Council, whose leaders and state propagandists channels routinely threaten nuclear war against the United States and its European allies; whose dictator has invaded and fraudulently annexed the territory of another internationally recognized state at will; and whose military launches calculated missile and drone strikes on civilian targets every day.

To be clear, China is the only peer competitor of the United States across all domains: military, economic, cultural, and technological. But China’s poor behavior on the international stage cannot hold a candle to Russia’s, whose leaders have openly embraced nuclear blackmail. In one telling exchange, former President and current Vice Chair of Russia’s National Security Council Dmitri Medvedev on July 28 called President Trump’s setting of a 10- to-12-day deadline for Russia to end the conflict in Ukraine a “threat and a step toward war,” and threatened nuclear retaliation in response.

Russia, rather than China, thus represents the most pressing danger to the security of the United States. Deterring and containing Putin’s regime must be President Donald Trump’s top priority. US national security strategy, under Biden as well as Trump, has gotten it wrong by placing China first. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 came as a shock to the West, but it probably should not have. The Russian leader has long held—as his 2021 article “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” makes clear—that Ukraine in its entirety rightfully belongs to Russia, and its independence was a historic mistake that he is intent on correcting.

What Will Syria Do with Its Foreign Militants?

Rany Ballout

The United States has now lifted all sanctions on Syria, except on some individuals and entities associated with the former Assad regime. Additionally, the United States has revoked the foreign terrorist organization designation for Syria’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). This comes after Washington approved the Syrian leadership’s plan to incorporate thousands of foreign jihadists into the new Syrian army, dropping its longstanding demand that the new leadership deport or detain foreign fighters.

Yet, the issue of foreign fighters—excluding the thousands of ISIS affiliates currently detained in Syria—has since stirred significant debate both domestically and internationally, with speculations over many prospects from the potential resurging global jihadism to weakening Syria’s national unity with limited representation of its diverse communities to undermining Syria’s fragile process of rebuilding government institutions.

What explains this marked shift in US policy? When asked about the decision, US Envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, cited “transparency” in the integration process as a key condition for the decision, referencing Washington’s understanding of Syria’s new dynamics. On June 26, Barrack said that US policy in Syria is focused on fighting ISIS and countering Iran-backed militias. Under the Syrian plan, some 3,500 foreign fighters, mainly Muslim Uyghurs from China and neighbouring countries, would be integrated into a newly formed unit.

Notably, in December 2024, an official decree by the HTS-led government announced the promotion of 49 officers, six of whom were foreign fighters, to high-ranking military positions. Syria’s Interim President, Ahmed al-Shara (formerly known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani based on his former membership in Al Qaeda), justified these promotions as a recognition of their battlefield sacrifices.

Russia’s summer offensive is turning into an escalating crisis for Ukraine

Dmytro is yet to receive any patients at his tiny two-bed field hospital near Pokrovsk, and that is not a good outcome any more. Dawn begins to break – the twilight in which evacuation of the wounded from the front lines is safest – but still none arrive, and the enemy drones swirl incessantly above. We have a very difficult situation with evacuation,” said Dmytro. “Many of the injured have to wait days. For Russian drone pilots, it is an honor for them when they kill medics and the injured.”

This night, the frontline wounded do not arrive. The saturation of Moscow’s drone in the skies above – already palpable at this stabilization point 12 kilometers (7 miles) from the Russians – has likely made it impossible for even armored vehicles to safely extract the injured. Up the road, the fight rages for the key town of Pokrovsk – in the Kremlin’s crosshairs for months, but now at risk of encirclement. Across eastern Ukraine, Russia’s tiny gains are adding up. It is capitalizing on a series of small advances and throwing significant resources into an emerging summer offensive, one that risks reshaping control over the front lines.

Over four days reporting in the villages behind Kostiantynivka and Pokrovsk – two of the most embattled Ukrainian towns in Donetsk region – CNN witnessed the swift change in control of territory. Russian drones were able to penetrate deep into areas Kyiv’s forces once relied upon as oases of calm, and troops struggled to find the personnel and resources to halt a persistent enemy advance. A Ukrainian artilleryman carries a shell as he prepares to fire a self-propelled howitzer towards Russian troops near the city of Kostiantynivka, in Ukraine's Donetsk region, on July 5. Viacheslav Ratynsky/Reuters

The Russian momentum comes as US President Donald Trump radically shortened his deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin to make peace from 50 to up to 12 days. Trump expressed said he was ”very disappointed” in Putin and suggested the Kremlin head had already decided not to entertain the ceasefire the US and its European allies have demanded for months. The reduced timeframe was welcomed by Kyiv and may provide a greater sense of urgency in Western capitals over diplomatic or military support for Ukraine. But it seems unlikely to alter Moscow’s course, where its superior manpower, tolerance for casualties, and vast military production line is beginning to reap dividends.

The Limits of Russian Influence

Lucas de Gamboa

On June 23rd, 2025, Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. For Araghchi, the stakes were high. Just a week before, Israel launched a devastating air attack against Iran’s nuclear program and its military command. Dozens of Iranian military commanders and nuclear scientists were killed, as Israeli air and intelligence assets could strike at the very heart of the regime–– seemingly with impunity. Topping that off, just a day before Araghchi’s trip to Moscow, the U.S. military launched a decisive attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, all without any American casualties.

Against this bleak backdrop, Iran turned to its northern neighbour for help. Given Tehran’s sustained support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, Moscow’s assistance might have seemed assured. Russia, after all, had earlier pledged to provide greater military assistance to the regime. Strong statements of support notwithstanding, Araghchi left Moscow with few tangible means of Russian aid. The Kremlin was standing aside. This episode was the latest in a series of events that demonstrate the limited extent of Russian influence. During the hour of need of one of its most important partners, the Kremlin’s support was notable for its practical absence.

As such, this dynamic should serve as a sobering reminder of the broader limits of Russian. Seven years earlier, its military intervention in South Ossetia and Abkhazia had effectively blocked Georgia’s path to NATO. Then in 2014, following the Maidan Revolution, Russia annexed Crimea and backed separatists in the Donbas, forcing Kyiv to defer its European aspirations under the Minsk I and II agreements. Later, Moscow’s decisive intervention in the Syrian Civil War saved the Assad regime, enabling Russia to secure a permanent military foothold in the Middle East.

The result was a perception of strategic momentum. The Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO)––Russia’s closest equivalent to NATO––looked more cohesive, Russian influence in Central Asia deepened, and ties with China and Iran steadily advanced. Though the economy remained sluggish, it had recovered from the malaise of the 1990s. By the mid-2010s, then, Moscow’s geopolitical star seemed to be on the rise.

From Georgia to Ukraine: Seventeen Years of Russian Cyber Capabilities at War

In August 2008, as Russian tanks rolled into Georgia’s Tskhinvali Region, not self-proclaimed South Ossetia, Georgian government websites were under cyber siege. Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, defaced portals, and data theft disrupted communications as Georgian officials tried to urgently reach Western leaders, some on vacation, others attending the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony.

For the first time in history, a state had unleashed coordinated cyberattacks along with military operations. In post-Soviet, developing Georgia, with limited digital infrastructure and nascent social media, the attacks received little public attention and had minimal impact on combat operations. Seventeen years later, however, technological advancement and growing digital dependency have dramatically amplified the scale of cyber threats. The ongoing war in Ukraine illustrates this trend.

In the weeks leading up to the Russo-Georgian War, Russian hackers attacked Georgia’s digital ecosystem to sow chaos within the Georgian government and society as Russian troops were amassing along the northern border. This marked the dawn of modern hybrid or gray zone warfare, which blends conventional military force with unconventional tactics, such as cyberattacks. In July 2008, millions of DDoS requests overwhelmed Georgian websites in an attempt to disable both government and civilian servers.

Close to the invasion, hackers began using techniques such as SQL injections, a more advanced assault, which enables attackers to bypass website protections and directly penetrate servers with malicious queries. Numerous websites were defaced, and some even used photo manipulations to compare Georgia’s then president Mikheil Saakashvili to Adolf Hitler. Hackers targeted key political, governmental, and financial platforms, including the websites of the Georgian president, the National Bank of Georgia, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The ethical minefield of Big Tech in the US military

In June 2025, the US Army created Detachment 201, known as the Pentagon’s Executive Innovation Corps, to “fuse cutting-edge tech expertise with military innovation.” The initiative comes as part of the Trump administration’s push to integrate Silicon Valley, specifically AI companies, into military affairs, to both boost technological adoption in the Army and develop the Army’s entrepreneurial spirit. The corps selected a range of AI company executives to serve in its inaugural group of Army Reserve Colonels, including executives from Palantir, Meta, OpenAI, and Thinking Machines Labs.

These officers will reportedly not be asked to complete the Army Fitness Test or the military’s six-week Direct Commission Course. While not ubiquitous, military adoption of technology and the wider military-industrial complex have been a constant in military doctrine for centuries. Integration of Big Tech into military affairs has been less widespread. Stipulations over ethics and consumer-facing products have hindered significant development in the relationship between the US Army and Silicon Valley, with the latter considering it “anathema to work on projects with military applications”, according to The Wall Street Journal.

However, contracts such as the Project Maven contract with Palantir, established during Donald Trump’s first term as president, as well as a more tech-friendly president in Washington, have substantially improved this relationship. The recent announcement that several prominent technology executives will be inducted into the US Army has ignited a firestorm of ethical questions, transparency concerns, and fears about the accelerating militarisation of the tech sector.

This move, effectively granting defense-adjacent authority, access, and prestige to corporate leaders from Silicon Valley, raises concerns about civilian control of the military, AI ethics on the battlefield, and conflicts of interest that cannot be ignored. Integrating Big Tech into the chain of command is highly likely to lead to an increase in the use of AI in combat scenarios. AI is used to improve lethality on battlefields, usually through automated targeting using biometric analysis databases, which can then be developed into surveillance databases.

The Missing Piece of Golden Dome

Paul Ostrowski

The Ukrainian drone strikes during Operation Spider’s Web, reaching deep into Russian territory and destroying $7 billion worth of aircraft, and Mossad’s covert use of pre-positioned explosive drones to disable Iranian air defenses ahead of Israel’s Operation Rising Lion strike are the latest examples of how drones are being used to destroy military targets and critical infrastructure once thought safe from enemy attack. This escalating reality, underscored by recent panic around drone activity near sensitive sites in New Jersey, Air Force Plant 42, and Langley AFB, should serve as a wake-up call.

the United States must prioritise and invest in domestic defence systems that go beyond traditional missile interception. As the U.S. defence industry rallies behind the Trump Administration’s ambitious Golden Dome program, intended to create a comprehensive air defence shield across the United States, drone threats must be holistically addressed. Golden Dome’s success will depend on its ability to counter all forms of aerial threats, including the growing danger posed by drones.

To stay ahead of this evolving threat landscape, the Department of Defense must adopt a holistic approach to Golden Dome that reflects the realities of modern warfare. While interceptors on the ground and in space, along with the launch detection and tracking satellites that guide them, are essential for stopping intercontinental ballistic missiles, Golden Dome will fall short if it cannot also defend city centers, missile batteries, critical infrastructure, and sensitive military installations from drone incursions.

The Trump Administration seems to be aligned on this as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth emphasized that an effective Golden Dome must “protect the homeland from cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, hypersonic missiles, [and] drones,” and in June, President Trump signed an executive order specifically noting drones as a growing threat. Now, we need to make sure it happens. It is time to bring the conversation back to Earth and make counter-drone technologies, particularly high-power microwave (HPM) systems, a central layer in this national defense architecture.

Iran’s New Internet Crackdown Bill Reveals Regime’s Terror Of Restive Society And Organized Resistance – OpEd

Sadegh Pashm-Foroush

The government of Masoud Pezeshkian, who branded himself as a moderate, has fast-tracked a draconian new bill aimed at crushing the free flow of information online. The bill, ironically titled “Countering the Spread of False Content in Cyberspace,” was rushed to the regime’s Majlis (parliament) and approved with “double urgency” on July 27.

This legislation is not a good-faith effort to combat misinformation. It is a desperate act by a clerical regime besieged by social, economic, and political crises, and terrified of a populace that uses the internet to expose its corruption and organize dissent. This bill is a panicked confession that the regime sees the truth as its greatest enemy.

A regime fractures under the weight of its own repression

The bill has triggered such profound fear of a public backlash that it has caused unprecedented infighting within the regime’s own ranks. In a stunning display of disarray, 19 members of the same parliament that fast-tracked the bill wrote a letter to Pezeshkian demanding he “withdraw the bill as soon as possible.” They warned that “censorship and restriction are not tools of explanation, nor do they guarantee security,” calling the bill a “strategic error” that will only intensify public distrust.

The alarm bells are ringing across the political spectrum. Abbas Akhoundi, a former minister, warned Pezeshkian not to let the “bonds between you and society be broken one after another.” A Communications Ministry advisor bluntly called the bill a “threat to the security of the system.” Even the state-run newspaper Etemad pleaded, “Withdraw this bill; do not burden the system with its cost.” This internal panic exposes a ruling class terrified of the consequences of its own oppressive measures The true target: The PMOI and the voice of a rebellious youth

The Russia-Ukraine War Belongs to Russia and Ukraine

After barely six months in office, President Donald Trump has gone from peacemaker to warmonger. He attacked Iran and is threatening more strikes, bombarded Yemen’s Ansar Allah militants on behalf of Israel and Europe, is encouraging the former to conquer Gaza, and is increasing U.S. involvement in the Russia-Ukraine cataclysm. War with Russia is the most immediate danger. Its invasion of its neighbor was a tragedy, but requires U.S. avoidance, not involvement. Throughout most of America’s history, Ukraine has been ruled from Moscow.

The Ukrainian people have long suffered under that relationship, but Washington never considered going to war on Kiev’s behalf. Ukraine matters far more to Europe than America, and, as Trump has admitted, the current conflict was fueled by Washington’s multiple broken promises not to expand NATO to Russia’s borders. U.S. interests would be best served by cutting off fuel for the conflict, with its dangerous potential of escalating into a nuclear confrontation.

Trump has offered no compelling explanation for his stunning volte-face, with his plan to further empty American military arsenals for Kiev and impose additional economic sanctions on Moscow. He has advanced neither the impossible case that American security is at risk nor the implausible claim that Moscow plans to conquer the rest of Europe. What else could justify incurring nuclear risks that he long warned against? One of his chief hawkish critics, former National Security Council staffer Fiona Hill, has inadvertently detailed how little is at stake for America.

She complained that Trump believes the conflict is “just about real estate, about trade and who gets what, be it minerals, land or rare earths” and doesn’t understand that Russian President Vladimir Putin “doesn’t want a ceasefire. [He] wants a neutered Ukraine, not one that is able to withstand military pressure. Everybody sees this, apart from Trump.” That is obviously terrible for Ukrainians, but they are not the first people to live in a bad neighborhood, restrained by powerful neighbors. The situation is not particularly threatening for Europeans who enjoy a far larger combined economy, population, and military budget than Russia, and matters very little militarily, politically, or economically to the U.S.

Russia and Iran are on a collision course with Trump

Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin continue to reject President Donald Trump’s 50-day — now shortened to 10 or 12 day — ultimatum. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated that Russia will continue its war against Ukraine in order to protect Russia’s interests, despite Trump’s shorter deadline.The situation with Russia is coming to a head. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News’ Lara Trump over the weekend that Trump is “losing his patience” with Russia over the war in Ukraine. Adding, “the time has come for some action.”

The U.S. has already renewed military assistance, reaching a deal with NATO to provide weapons and Patriot missiles to Ukraine. And now the Russian economy is in Trump’s crosshairs. “Sanctions and maybe tariffs, secondary tariffs” are still in play, he says. On Wednesday, the White House fired a warning shot about imposing a 25 percent tariff against India, in large part due to its military and energy purchases from Moscow.

Iran, seeing a window of opportunity, is becoming defiant as well, openly pushing back as the Russia ultimatum plays out.The Trump administration likely does not want to take any more calls from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concerning the Iranian nuclear threat. The ceasefire was supposed to put the 12-day war on ice. But Tehran did not get the message and is back to business as usual.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Fox News’ Bret Baier that Iran would continue to maintain its support for Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. And before meeting European leaders last week, he said it was important for them “to understand that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s position remains unshakable, and that our uranium enrichment will continue.”

In conversation with Elisabeth Kendall on what the Houthis really want

Few analysts or commentators have a more intimate knowledge of Yemen and the Middle East than Elisabeth Kendall. The distinguished academic – whose expertise includes militant jihadist movements, Arabic poetry, and Yemen’s civil war – has previously worked with the Office of the United Nations Envoy to Yemen, and has advised parts of NATO, the British Army, and the United States military. She is currently Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge, and chairs a grassroots NGO in east Yemen.

Elisabeth Kendall (EK) – Some really major things have changed in the region since 7 October. But would I say that it has been fundamentally reshaped? I think that is less clear just now, because there are so many persistent, intractable issues that haven’t changed. But let’s start first with what has changed. I think that one of the big ones is the tumbling of Iran’s longest-standing proxies. This is a really big deal. For years, everyone has been focused on what the Iranian regime might do if one were to go in hard against it, via its proxies.

And now, look: Iran has been significantly degraded militarily and reputationally, indeed humiliated, and at the same time its most immediate retaliatory levers have been all but incapacitated. We’ve witnessed the decapitation of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the decapitation of Hamas in Gaza, the weakening of the Shia militias in Iraq, and, of course, we’ve seen the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. Although this last one wasn’t necessarily a direct consequence of Israel’s actions, the toppling of that regime weakens Iran massively, not just because Assad was a useful ally, but because it takes away Iran’s window on the Mediterranean; it takes away key smuggling routes.

This means that it is going to be much more difficult for the Islamic Republic to rebuild or re-arm either Hezbollah or Hamas. Of course, we’ve also got new governments in both Lebanon and in Syria – they are quite fragile, but taking root. These are all really big changes. On the other hand, we have these really big fundamental problems that persist and that haven’t changed. We could probably boil those down to four things. First would be Iran, which, although weakened, remains an enemy of the United States and Israel and still has nuclear know-how.

Why Brazil Might End Up With Higher Tariffs Than Any Other Nation

Oliver Stuenkel

Brazilians are bracing for impact. Unless a last-minute negotiated solution is reached, the 50 percent tariff imposed by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump on Brazilian imports is set to take effect on Friday, Aug. 1. If implemented, the import duties would be the highest imposed on any other nation—a remarkable development considering Brazil had gotten off lightly on Trump’s “Liberation Day.

in April with a mere 10 percent tariff and had attracted little attention from the White House until recently. Thus far, Brazilian efforts to negotiate with the U.S. government have yielded no meaningful outcomes. A bipartisan coalition of Brazilian senators recently travelled to Washington, D.C., to make their case to the Trump administration, but the chances of a compromise are growing slimmer.

Irrespective of whether the tariffs will come into effect, this episode is set to fundamentally reshape the U.S.-Brazil bilateral relationship. It suggests that Brasília has lost influence in Washington to Brazilian opposition figures like Eduardo Bolsonaro, who contributed to a deep-seated hostility in the U.S. administration vis-à-vis the Brazilian government.

Furthermore, Trump’s battering of Brazil proves that he has no isolationist convictions—in fact, it is the clearest example so far of autocracy promotion. Finally, Trump’s explicit interference in Brazil will drive the public and private sectors to reduce dependence on Washington. Even if Brazil ends up making concessions, Trump’s strategy shattered U.S. predictability and reliability in Brazilians’ eyes and is bound to reduce U.S. influence in the country—and South America, if its neighbors are paying close attention.

As Israeli mainstream TV ignores Gazans’ suffering, these outlets expose surveillance, brutality and war crimes

Since 2022, Israel has plunged from 86th to 112th on RSF’s Press Freedom Index score. Since Hamas’ attacks on 7 October 2023, almost 200 journalists have been killed in Gaza by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and the country is seeing increased media censorship, government boycotts and restrictions of editorial independence.As this project from our Journalist Fellow Davide Lerner thoroughly documented, jingoism has dominated Israeli TV and Palestinian suffering has often been ignored. Smaller publications have covered the war more critically, but their impact is often limited and don’t reach the massive audiences TV channels command.

Despite the global backlash against the thousands of casualties caused by Israel’s bombing campaign, most Israelis seem to be fine with news coverage of the conflict. A recent poll by the aChord Center of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem suggested that 64% of Israelis said domestic media coverage on Gaza was balanced and did not require broader reporting on the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.

I wanted to understand how Israeli mainstream media are reporting on Gaza, what kind of media coverage most audiences are exposed to, and how smaller outlets work to fill the gaps left by major news brands. So I reached out to six journalists who work for global and domestic publications to learn more about their work, the work of their colleagues and Israel’s media landscape more broadly.

According to the journalists I spoke to, Israelis are very interested in current affairs. A survey from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics suggests almost half of Israelis get their news via television, which makes it their primary news source.Recent articles from international outlets like the Guardian and El País have described a news ecosystem driven by aggressive nationalism and official narratives which, with a few exceptions, fails to report on the suffering of Gazans and Palestinians in the West Bank. Even former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert laid it explicitly to our former Fellow Davide Lerner: “Israeli TV and media don’t show anything from Gaza.

Israel Has Responsibility in Starving Gaza

Assad Raza

This week, during a meeting in Scotland with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, U.S. President Donald Trump acknowledged what many in the international community have been warning for months: there is “real starvation” in Gaza. His statement, though brief, reflects a growing recognition, even among staunch allies of Israel, that a humanitarian crisis is happening in Gaza.

Also, this week, two Israeli human rights organizations, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights–Israel, issued a joint declaration accusing their own government of committing genocide in Gaza. The two reports they provided outline the systemic dismantling of food supplies, the restriction of humanitarian aid, and the ongoing conflict that has disrupted Gaza’s access to clean water, fuel for electricity, and other life-sustaining essentials.

While these statements underscore the severity of the situation, the debate over starvation in Gaza continues to be severely polarized. On the one hand, numerous international organizations, including the United Nations, the World Health Organization (WHO), and UNICEF, have documented a severe and worsening food crisis. On the other hand, Israeli officials and their supporters argue that such claims are exaggerated, politically motivated, or entirely false.

The objective facts, however, are difficult to ignore. According to a March 2024 report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), famine was imminent in northern Gaza, and at least half the population was experiencing catastrophic food insecurity at that time. Similarly, the WHO last year warned of an “explosion of preventable child deaths” if access to humanitarian assistance did not improve immediately. More recently, UNICEF has confirmed the deaths of dozens of children due to severe malnutrition, noting that these deaths “could have been prevented.”

In trade as in defence, the US is strong and the EU is weak

The new US-EU trade deal has spawned a legion of critics who allege European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen cravenly capitulated in the face of American pressure. They would have known this was the likely outcome had they simply understood the teachings of an ancient Greek historian.Thucydides was an Athenian nobleman writing in the late 5th Century BC. His landmark history of the Peloponnesian War between that era’s two great powers, Athens and Sparta, remains one of the greatest documents that golden era produced.

It gains its enduring reputation from its unerring insight into power politics and human psychology. Thucydides grasped as perhaps no writer before Machiavelli how human beings behave when faced with the temptations and perils of geopolitics.His famous description of the Athenian destruction of the island city state of Melos is the description par excellence of a ruthless power pursuing its aims without regard to justice.

Thucydides explains that the Athenians, hard pressed by the Spartans, arrive on the island with a simple demand: Join our side in the war or be destroyed. Melos is tiny compared with great Athens and stands no rational chance of survival, but nonetheless seeks to persuade the attackers that they – an independent, sovereign city-state – be permitted to remain neutral.

Athens rejects this, contending that what we would today call the law of nature dictates that powers rule what they are able to and that the security of their empire demands that they follow that law regardless of whether such action might be considered just. They succinctly describe their doctrine with one phrase: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

The Russian Community Casts a Menacing Shadow Over Putin’s Russia

On July 20, the nationalist Russian Community (Russkaya obshchina, Русская община) posted a video of black-clad men harassing migrant merchants in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk (Telegram/RusObshinaNSK, July 20; Al-Jazeera, July 26). Such “patrols” by the paramilitary group have become more commonplace in recent months. The Russian Community has grown in popularity over the past few years in its mission to fight for ethnic Russians in Russia.

The transformation of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine into a protracted war of attrition has triggered the spread of both paramilitarization and radicalization in Russian society (see EDM, January 29, March 20, 27, 2024; see Jamestown Perspectives, February 3). The Kremlin’s cult of militarism mixed with raging ethnic hatred has rapidly transformed into pervasive xenophobia that has only skyrocketed following the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack in March 2024 (see EDM, March 26, 28, 2024).

The heated environment has resulted in the further growth and development of Russia’s paramilitary and private military landscape. Alongside traditional formations such as the Wagner Group, the paramilitary space has become “enriched” with groups that propel virulent ideas of ethnic and racial hatred to a new level. Such formations include the Española nationalist group, which grew out of soccer hooliganism; the Russian Imperial Movement; and the “Rusich” neo-Nazi formation (see EDM, March 20, 27, 2024).

Menacing as they may appear, none of these groups seems to have any real potential to outgrow their current status (i.e., marginal militants) and transform into self-sufficient actors capable of gaining mass public support. The Russian Community, however, has flown under the radar until recent months. Depending on the trajectory of Moscow’s war and future internal conditions, the Russian Community presents quite promising potential for more widespread support and militancy that may further threaten the Kremlin’s monopoly over violence (see EDM, May 27).

U.S. Role in Armenia-Azerbaijan Transit Corridor Sparks Controversy

Tensions linger between Armenia and Azerbaijan over a proposed transit route, better known to many as the Zangezur Corridor, through Armenia that would restore a Soviet-era connection between Azerbaijan and its exclave of Nakhchivan.Reports alleging that the United States had proposed that an American commercial company could manage the Armenian part of the route at first sparked denials from both sides before raising technical and political concerns within the region.For Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the route through Armenia’s territory is already politically sensitive ahead of next year’s elections.

Almost five years following the November 2020 trilateral ceasefire statement that ended the 44-day war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the two sides remain at odds over outstanding issues. This includes disagreement over the restoration of regional transportation, as outlined in the ninth part of the Russian-brokered agreement (President of Russia, November 10, 2020). Central to this is the proposed, but still unrealized, Zangezur Corridor, a transit route that would connect mainland Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave through Armenia’s southernmost Syunik region.

The corridor was initially considered a way to introduce economic interdependency into the post-war environment (Modern Diplomacy, January 2024). It has since become a geopolitical flashpoint, reflecting not only competing national interests but also shifting power dynamics in the region (see EDM, November 3, 2023, January 24, 25, 2024). Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russia hold fundamentally different views on the matter, as do the European Union and the United States (see EDM, July 17, 23, 29).

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has been adamant that the restoration of this Soviet-era road and rail transit link must be unimpeded, as stipulated in the 2020 agreement, which Baku interprets as free from Armenian checkpoints (see EDM, March 7, 2023). With the construction of the necessary infrastructure on its side of the border expected to be completed by the end of this year, moreover, Baku has also signaled growing frustration with Yerevan’s failure to agree to those terms (see EDM, February 24).

The trillion-dollar AI arms race is here

Tech companies are fighting to claim the title of having the world’s most advanced AI. The goal is to supercharge their bottom line and keep investors and Wall Street happy. But developing the world’s most advanced AI means spending billions on data centers and other physical infrastructure to house and power the supercomputers needed for AI. It also means a drain on natural resources and the grid in the areas surrounding data centers worldwide.

Still, last week’s earnings reports made clear that tech firms are forging ahead. Google announced it was planning to spend $85bn on building out its AI and cloud infrastructure just in 2025 – $10bn more than it initially predicted. And the company expects that spending to increase again in 2026. For context, Google reported $94bn in revenue in the second quarter of this year. Chief executive Sundar Pichai said Google is in a “tight supply environment” when it comes to the infrastructure needed to support AI processing and compute. The results of this increased spending would still take years to be realized, he said.

Google isn’t alone. Amazon has said it plans to spend $100bn in 2025 – the “vast majority” of which will go to powering the AI capabilities of its cloud division. As a point of comparison, Amazon spent just under $80bn in 2024.Sometimes people make the assumption that if you’re able to decrease the cost of any type of technology component … that somehow it leads to less total spend in technology,” said Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy during an earnings call in February. “We’ve never seen that to be the case.”

Meta, too, has upped the amount it plans to spend on AI infrastructure. In June, Mark Zuckerberg said the company planned to spend “hundreds of billions” of dollars on building out a network of massive data centers across the US including one that the firm expects to be up and running in 2026. Originally, executives said the firm was projected to spend $65bn in 2025 but adjusted that to anywhere between $64bn and $72bn.

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