Regional Defence Conference in Islamabad and US participation: Are Pakistan and Central Asia Seeking Alternative Military Partners?

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Pakistan’s hosting of a high-level regional defence chiefs conference brought together senior military officials from the United States, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The meeting concentrated on strengthening counterterrorism collaboration, joint training exercises, and military diplomacy in response to increasing regional security threats. The conference was strategically important given the shifting landscape of great power competition, including Russia’s military presence in Central Asia and China’s growing economic and security influence through projects like the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Pakistan’s internal political instability and economic vulnerabilities affect its ability to exert regional leadership. Central Asian republics, modernising their militaries and pursuing varied security partnerships, are also key players in shaping the region. Despite reduced diplomatic and economic involvement, the United States maintains influence through selective defence engagements. Key: The conference highlights Pakistan’s ambition to lead regional security cooperation, all while maintaining its economic relationship with China and addressing internal instability. 

Central Asian states seek to diversify their defence partnerships, balancing Russian military influence with growing interest in US cooperation. Washington maintains a selective presence through defence and intelligence channels, leveraging regional security concerns to sustain influence amid geopolitical competition. Background Information On July 26, 2025, Islamabad hosted a conference that gathered top military officials from Pakistan, the United States, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

The central theme, “Strengthening Bonds, Securing Peace,” emphasised tackling transnational threats like terrorism, cyber insecurity, and violent extremism. The discussions focused on sharing crisis response methods and promoting military cooperation. Pakistan’s military leadership emphasised its commitment to regional stability and defence diplomacy. Central Asian countries, traditionally reliant on Russian security frameworks, are now modernising and broadening their military partnerships. Even after reducing its overall diplomatic and economic presence following the Afghanistan withdrawal, the United States remains involved in the defence sector, viewing it as a chance to counter Chinese and Russian influence in the area.

The Taiwan scenarios 4: The catastrophe

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The notion of Taiwan giving up without a fight is improbable to anyone who understands the history of its people. Escalating coercion against Taiwan carries risks that are not easy to assess for China. For major Indo-Pacific economies, such as Australia, Japan and the United States, the clear imperative must be to ensure none of these scenarios ever eventuates—through deterrence, collective effort and early action.

This is the last of four articles reporting the results of ASPI wargaming of the scenarios. The earlier articles described the scenarios, likely warning signs and the initial events we could expect.The lowest-intensity scenario, subversion, may appear surgical, designed to avoid open conflict. But the strategy could unravel even within the first week, especially as the international community challenged what would be Beijing’s obviously bogus story.

China would say it had to deploy a peacekeeping force for stabilisation; this would be framed as a police action rather than aggression. At first glance, this scenario is Beijing’s most plausible play: engineer unrest, install a puppet regime under the guise of a ‘Taiwan Autonomous Emergency Authority’ or some such, and claim peaceful unification without firing a shot. But even in this softest of scenarios, China is assured of blowback. Taiwan would resist Chinese military moves to seize airports, ports and government leadership. 

The next possible scenario is quarantine—a grey-zone tactic in which China would restrict Taiwan’s imports and exports under the pretence of law enforcement or customs checks. It’s not declared war, but it could lead to some minor military event that could lead to war. Within the first week, regional shipping routes would be disrupted, leading to longer transit times, increased costs and shipping delays. Airlines would not fly near the Taiwan Strait, insurance premiums would spike, and economies with deep exposure to China and Taiwan—such as those in Southeast Asia.

The Taiwan scenarios 3: Day zero

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If China decides to dramatically accelerate unification with Taiwan—whether through subversion, quarantine, blockade or full-scale invasion—the first 24 hours will be pivotal. But they will hardly be the end. Taiwan will fight back. Whatever course China takes, it won’t be settling a dispute but creating an on-going crisis in the Indo-Pacific. These are among the conclusions from ASPI wargaming of the scenarios in June. Two earlier articles in this daily series described the scenarios and the likely warning signs of impending Chinese action. The next will cover the longer-term results that could be expected.

Taiwan would not just collapse, capitulate or hand itself over. While it has been outpaced by the scale of China’s military developments, it is more capable than many assume. From cyber defences and special forces to citizen resilience and political resolve, Taiwan’s initial response capacity would be significant. And it is precisely this preparedness, sharpened by decades of existential threat, that makes any Chinese escalation a high-risk gamble. Each of China’s four main options to force unification carries a different tempo, level of visibility and escalation risk. But a common thread of Taiwanese response runs through all four: 

tailored resilience, surprising readiness and firm refusal to surrender. Subversion In the subversion scenario, China’s armed forces and intelligence operatives would attempt to disable Taiwan from within—crippling infrastructure, spreading disinformation, activating sleeper cells and launching false-flag attacks. The goal would be to create a pretext for a so-called peacekeeping intervention under the guise of restoring order. Yet this silent war would not catch Taiwan unaware. In the first 24 hours, its security services would almost certainly move quickly to arrest suspected saboteurs, harden critical sites, such as power stations and data centres, and activate cyber incident response teams. 

Special operations forces are trained to counter unconventional threats and would be deployed to protect strategic locations. Military units would shift to alert status quietly but decisively and national leaders would take to the airwaves and internet to reassure the public and demonstrate control.Public resilience in such a scenario is often underestimated. Years of civic mobilisation, digital literacy campaigns and drills have prepared Taiwan’s people to recognise disinformation, report anomalies and trust democratic institutions. Any expectation that chaos would break public morale instantly is wishful thinking in Beijing. The first day of China’s operation to subvert Taiwan would not be easy for the Taiwanese—but the campaign would not be lost.

The Taiwan scenarios 2: Warning signs

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That will be the case whether China tried any of the four main choices it has for attempting to subjugate Taiwan—subversion, a quarantine, blockade or full-scale invasion. ASPI wargamed each on 10 June, with the findings outlined in this series of daily articles, including a description of the scenarios in the first. The next two will examine opening events and longer-term results.Some indicators and warnings would be observable before China fully launched its operation. Subtle shifts in its political messaging, military deployments, cyber activity, disinformation campaigns and overseas influence operations might all signal intent to act.

In all scenarios, the opening signs will likely include new rhetoric, possibly portraying Taiwan as having crossed a red line. A spike in cyberattacks and information operations, including information operations within China, designed to project and amplify those claims, would also be a likely sign common to all scenarios. Beijing may then stage what appears to be a routine, large-scale exercise around the island, but with forces venturing beyond their usual training zones. Meanwhile, logistics elements. 

such as transport convoys, field hospitals, fuel depots and ammunition stores, would quietly amass near embarkation points, and reserve units may mobilise under cover of night. When these indicators appear together, the risk that Beijing is preparing to act against Taiwan increases significantly. Warning signs will then differ depending on what type of action Beijing is planning to take. In a subversion scenario, we may notice a sudden surge in disruptive incidents against Taiwan’s critical infrastructure—such as failures in electricity supply, rail services, water treatment and air traffic control. 

Behind the scenes, China’s covert operatives would be orchestrating these attacks, while its information campaigns would seek to undermine public confidence in Taipei. Social-media accounts might amplify rumours of governmental collapse or even mass defections among senior leaders. Any visible redeployment of Chinese military assets could be presented as humanitarian readiness, plausible cover for forces positioned to exploit the resulting chaos.

Quarantine

China’s military warns US containerised launcher ‘poses threats to regional security’

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China’s military has warned that America’s new containerised missile and rocket launch system could “seriously undermine regional strategic stability”. A commentary in PLA Daily on Thursday noted that the launcher – hidden inside a shipping container – had appeared in recent footage from the US Army’s Fort Bragg base in North Carolina.The People’s Liberation Army mouthpiece said the launcher could fire a range of missiles and rockets including those used for the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) and the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (Himars).

The containerised system was among the artillery seen in footage from US President Donald Trump’s June visit to Fort Bragg, the US Army’s special operations hub. The roof of the container was open to one side, revealing two ammunition launchers used on the MLRS and Himars. According to the PLA Daily commentary, the system enabled “any truck that can carry a standard container” to be used as a platform to launch long-range guided rockets and missiles. It comes after a Ukrainian attack that destroyed Russian aircraft in June – dubbed Operation Spiderweb – in which short-range drones were smuggled into Russia. 

The drones were hidden in modified shipping containers with detachable roofs which were loaded onto trucks and moved into position before the strikes were carried out on strategic and high-value targets. The commentary said the launch system could be “mixed in with ordinary containers, camouflaged with civilian paint and maritime freight, and delivered to a designated launch location in secret”.This high concealment not only improves the survivability of the system but also enables the US military to achieve tactical surprise when necessary … allowing them to quickly deploy and launch attacks simultaneously at multiple dispersed locations,” it said.

In addition, it said the US military had already fielded the Mk70 containerised vertical launch system that can fire Standard air defence missiles and Tomahawk land-attack missiles with a range of up to 1,600km (990 miles). It said the US Army’s Typhon medium-range missile system – deployed in 2024 to Luzon Island in the north of the Philippines, from where it could reach all of the South China Sea and Taiwan – was a version of the Mk70. The US military’s development and deployment of containerised weapon systems – while framed as equipment upgrades – represents strategic preparation for high-end warfare, which undoubtedly poses potential threats to regional security,” the commentary said.

The Taiwan scenarios 1: Subversion, quarantine, blockade, invasion

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ASPI has wargamed President Xi Jinping’s options for subjugating Taiwan. We tried four scenarios, the details of which will be presented in this and three more daily articles this week. Xi likely favours a path to unification in which Taiwan is gradually worn down by sustained and intensifying Chinese coercion. However, if he sought to accelerate this process, he would likely favour actions that remained below the threshold of war but still compelled Taiwan to cede aspects of its sovereignty. 

This could include the China Coast Guard enforcing a quarantine of Taiwan—asserting a right to block certain imports and exports— or covert acts of subversion intended to trigger a broader crisis and increase pressure on Taipei. While more overt options, such as a full-scale invasion or naval blockade, remain possible, they carry significant risks that could threaten the Chinese Communist Party’s hold on power. As long as Xi views these risks as credible, actions that could rapidly escalate to war are unlikely to be his preferred course.

Xi has made his intentions regarding Taiwan clear. At the 20th Party Congress, he reiterated that, while peaceful unification was his preferred approach, China still reserved the right to use force if necessary. Although he has set no specific deadline, he warned in 2013 that the Taiwan issue ‘should not be passed down generation after generation.’ In his recent speeches, Xi continues to assert that unification is inevitable, signaling his determination to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s control sooner rather than later.

Later articles in this series discuss warning signs of a crisis, the initial events and later consequences. In this article we begin with outlines of the four scenarios we wargamed: Subversion—The shadow war During the Spanish Civil War, Nationalist forces advancing on cities such as Madrid relied on what was called a fifth column, a covert network of sympathisers within Republican-held territory who worked to undermine the government from within. Could a similar scenario unfold in Taiwan? According to a former Taiwanese military intelligence director, more than 5,000 people are operating in Taiwan on behalf of the Chinese government.

Everything You Wanted to Know About China’s Auto Industry Takeover

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What is the future of cars? For one thing, after substantial government support and the poaching of top Western talent, China’s car industry is about to dominate globally with charging rates, ranges, luxury design, technology, and sheer volumes. Moreover, it’s no longer content with serving its own enormous market as Chinese brands make serious inroads across Australia and Europe. In May, it was reported that, for the first time, Chinese automaker BYD sold more cars in Europe than Tesla in the previous month. Meanwhile in the US, the affordable car is about to go extinct. With President Donald Trump’s back-and-forth tariffs, it may well be time to say goodbye to the sub-$30,000 car.

WIRED senior editor and auto obsessive Jeremy White hosted a Reddit AMA earlier this month to directly answer your questions about the future of cars and EVs as the global market dramatically shifts. Here’s what you need to know. Yes, I do think Tesla has a future—it was only last year that they lost the top slot of the biggest-selling car in the world (to Toyota). So let’s keep in mind that Tesla still sells a lot of cars. That said, Tesla has an aging fleet, it has a CEO with his attention diverted very much elsewhere, and, most of all, right now it has a brand and reputation problem. 

Musk’s DOGE antics have directly hit the company—even their finance chief Vaibhav Taneja was forced to admit so on its April earnings call, saying “unwarranted hostility towards our brand and our people had an impact in certain markets.” Tesla desperately needs a win. It needs a new cheap electric car, and no amount of dressing up the Model Y in new clothes is going to cut it. It also needs to look at its autonomous tech, because Chinese brands all favoring lidar are beating it there too.

Let’s face it, the Chinese brands have learned a great deal from Tesla and are now coming for Elon’s lunch—and, right now, Tesla is not really in a position to compete. How long can this go on? How long can the board put up with these dismal sales figures? We shall see. But one thing is for sure: It cannot carry on like this. Will China really be able to make inroads into the European market given the combination of tariffs and European consumer preference for their own homegrown brands?

Lights Out? Wargaming a Chinese Blockade of Taiwan | CSIS

Mark F. Cancian

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Since 2022, China has conducted numerous military drills and exercises simulating blockades of the island of Taiwan, a democracy of 23 million that sits astride one of the world’s maritime chokepoints. What would happen if China initiated a blockade of Taiwan in the coming years? To understand the military challenges in countering a blockade, CSIS ran 26 wargames using a wide variety of scenarios.

Although China could inflict serious hardships, particularly by targeting Taiwan’s energy sector, this wouldn’t be a low-risk, low-cost option for Beijing. Any blockade creates escalatory pressures that are difficult to contain and could lead to a large-scale war. Building on existing preparations, Taiwan and the United States could strengthen deterrence by demonstrating that a blockade is not feasible.

The year is 2028. Xi Jinping decides, whether because of a long-held plan, internal pressures, or some provocative act by Taiwan, that China needs to apply coercive leverage against Taiwan to change the status quo. He turns to his advisers for options. There are purely economic measures, such as sanctions, but their effects are unreliable and work slowly. In the military sphere, the most dangerous course of action would be invasion: It promises a decisive resolution but risks dramatic defeat.

Another alternative, which Xi ultimately decides on, is a blockade in which China attempts to stop shipping headed for Taiwan. Xi orders the China Coast Guard and People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia to positions around Taiwan, claiming that this is an internal law enforcement matter. After China boards and seizes several ships, commercial traffic to Taiwan ceases. The action disrupts international trade and the world economy. Taiwan rejects China’s legal arguments and decides to resist.

Do the Suwayda Clashes in Syria Signal Future Clashes Between the Kurds and the New Syrian Regime?

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The Syrian government’s attempted offensive on Suwayda appears to have been aimed at taking advantage of skirmishes between Bedouin tribal militias and Druze factions to dismantle local autonomy under the pretense of halting intercommunal violence. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) views the Suwayda assault as a model the central regime may employ against its own autonomous region in northeast Syria. These concerns are exacerbated by the collapse of integration talks between the SDF and the Syrian Interim Government in July.

Experts warn that unless Damascus abandons its agenda of centralization, Syria risks renewed conflict between the state and its autonomous regions. In particular, the Kurds are unlikely to reintegrate into the new Syrian army unless meaningful guarantees of their autonomy and security within the new state are provided. On July 12, intense clashes broke out between Druze and Bedouin armed groups in Suwayda, Syria. This occurred after an informal Bedouin checkpoint kidnapped a Druze vegetable truck driver, resulting in a series of escalating kidnappings and killings between the two groups (Alhurra, July 16). 

Suwayda is a province in southwestern Syria that contains significant Druze, Christian, and Sunni Arab populations. The main players in the region adopted a position of neutrality during the Syrian Civil War, maintaining limited autonomy from Damascus while becoming a refuge for those fleeing the al-Assad regime, including individuals fleeing conscription (Etana, February 22, 2024). In April 2023, anti-regime protests erupted in Suwayda; by December, the Druze joined the fight against the al-Assad regime.

opening up another front in the final days of the war from the south (Anadolu Ajansı, August 17, 2024; CNN, December 6, 2024). Among the leaders of Suwayda’s Druze is Hikmat al-Hijri—a former al-Assad supporter who came to endorse the new regime when Suwayda’s autonomy was put in danger. Now, the Druze fear that the new Syrian government will encroach on their autonomy. This is an especially poignant threat in light of the latter’s Islamism and failure to protect minorities, most notably the Alawites, more than 1000 of whom were killed in March.

NISAR Soars While India-U.S. Tariff Tensions Simmer

Tejas Bharadwaj

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On July 30, 2025, the United States announced 25 percent tariffs on Indian goods, noting India’s purchase of oil and arms from Russia. While diplomatic tensions simmered on the trade front, a cosmic calm prevailed at the Sriharikota launch range. Officials from NASA and ISRO were preparing to launch an engineering marvel into space—the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), marking a significant milestone in the India-U.S. bilateral partnership. Space cooperation has often moved forward in the past despite broader geopolitical tensions. 

a multilateral space program that involved Russia and U.S.-led allies, was launched a few years after the Cold War ended. Despite geopolitical rivalries, cooperation in space endured. Strategic partners like the U.S. and India have had their fair share of highs and lows in space cooperation. After the U.S. supported India’s first sounding rocket launch in 1963, the space relationship between the two countries entered a hiatus until the late 1990s, owing to the U.S.’ dual-use concerns on India’s rising space program. Reinvigorated by the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership initiative in 2004 and the creation of a Joint Working Group on Civil Space Cooperation in 2005.

Bilateral space collaboration flourished and scientific breakthroughs followed. The Chandrayaan-1, which hosted NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper, detected water molecules on the moon for the first time. The NISAR satellite’s launch is not the usual tech transfer story involving defense primes and public sector undertakings, but, as remarked, “a 50-50 effort,” indicating an acknowledgement of mutual tech prowess. For the first time, both countries equally co-developed a satellite with the most advanced imaging dual-use radar that can map the slightest changes to the Earth’s surface. While NASA developed the long-range L-band radar system, ISRO developed the short-range S-band radar, solar arrays, satellite bus, and launch. 

The satellite will orbit the Earth fourteen times a day to observe ice and land surfaces twice every twelve days, and can see through clouds, even during the night. The data extracted will be publicly available and is expected to help predict, understand, and manage natural disasters and the impact of climate change. The two countries have conducted workshops for their respective ecosystem on leveraging the datasets. Notably, this is a program that is expected to last for several decades, beyond administrative changes.

Foreign Investment in Latin America

Geopolitical Futures

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Foreign direct investment in Latin America and the Caribbean grew steadily in 2024, but the trend may slow this year. Much of the region’s FDI comes from transnational firms already operating there. New investments are included in these equity inflows, so a slowdown could signal declining investor interest. The top three sources of regional FDI are the United States (38 percent), the European Union (15 percent) and Latin America and the Caribbean itself (12 percent). China and Hong Kong together account for just 2 percent.

Two technology-related sectors could drive FDI in the near and long term. The first is metals and minerals. Latin America and the Caribbean have significant critical mineral reserves, which are in high demand. The countries poised to benefit most include Chile (copper, lithium), Argentina (lithium), Peru (copper) and Brazil (graphite, rare earth elements). A key challenge will be moving away from exporting raw materials toward producing higher value-added goods made from these resources.

The second promising area is communications infrastructure, particularly technologies that support artificial intelligence, such as cloud storage, data centers and high-speed networks. Data from the past five years suggests that Mexico and Brazil will continue to be leading destinations for FDI in this sector. Colombia and Chile also show strong potential to expand these capabilities.

Russian Cyber Threat Group Uses AI-Guided Malware

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Hackers are now using AI to guide attacks in real time. In a statement that initially attracted little attention among Western analysts, Ukraine’s national cybersecurity agency warned on July 17 that a Russian cyber threat group, known as APT28, is using AI in a novel way as part of its cyberattacks. Once the hackers gain access to their target, the AI instructs the malware how to move through the network and disrupt, destroy, or steal information. This more adaptive methodology makes it harder for defenders to detect and thwart attacks.

AI Is Reshaping the Cyber Threat Landscape

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) warned that during operation in mid-July, the Russian hackers configured their malware to query AI in real time on what it should do next once inside Ukrainian networks. Instead of following static, pre-coded instructions, the malware asked the model for new actions based on its environment, allowing it to adapt on the fly.

Cybercriminals have been increasingly leveraging AI to scale operations. At the February 2025 Munich Security Conference, Western and Ukrainian officials warned that Russian hackers are relying on AI to process large volumes of stolen data and improve attack precision. An April 2025 threat report by cloud security company Zscaler confirmed that adversaries now use generative AI to bypass security systems and craft more convincing phishing scams. One emerging cybercriminal group, FunkSec, uses generative AI to develop advanced malware for less experienced hackers, making cybercrime more accessible than ever.

Public large language model (LLM) hubs have accelerated this shift. These platforms, originally intended to promote research and innovation, now offer easy access to downloadable models that hackers can repurpose for attacks. Dark web forums are compounding this problem by promoting low-cost tools like FraudGPT and ChaosGPT, which help attackers generate malicious code and execute advanced scams.

Microsoft caught in crossfire of U.S.-China cyber war

Noor Bazmi

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On Friday, China’s Cyber Security Association said the U.S. used a flaw in Microsoft’s messaging service to steal military intelligence and hit its defense industry. The group functions as a part of China’s Cyberspace Administration. It said in a Bloomberg report that American operators launched two significant cyberattacks against defense-related enterprises in China. While withholding the firms’ identities, it added that the intruders exploited bugs in Microsoft’s Exchange platform to access the email infrastructure of a principal defense supplier for close to twelve months.

Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, has often blamed Chinese government-backed groups for similar attacks. Back in 2021, what was believed to be a Chinese-led effort breached thousands of its Exchange servers. By 2023, a separate purported Chinese initiative had seized control of email accounts used by high-ranking U.S. government personnel. A later government assessment criticized Microsoft, stating the 2023 incident revealed a “cascade of security failures.”

In the previous month, Microsoft disclosed that hacking groups tied to China’s government had taken advantage of weaknesses in its SharePoint sharing service. Every nation state in the world carries out offensive cybersecurity campaigns against others,” said Jon Clay, vice president of threat intelligence at Trend Micro. “I’m assuming at this point, because of the recent SharePoint vulnerability which was also reported by Cryptopolitan, that Microsoft attributed to China, they are coming out and saying, hey, the U.S. has been targeting us with exploits.”

Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing had not offered an immediate response when contacted China is using public hacking claims to pressure Taiwan In a recent analysis, Wiz.io’s strategic threat intelligence director, Ben Read, observed that Beijing has more frequently used open accusations of hacking to pressure Taiwan and influence global talks on cybersecurity. At the start of the year, the Chinese government claimed that groups based in Taiwan launched multiple attacks, despite the island’s autonomous governance.

Israel’s Squandered Victory

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During the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel achieved stunning military success against what seemed to be formidable adversaries. Yet Israel didn’t translate its military success into active diplomacy; if it had, the region and Israel’s position in it might look very different today. Israel may not have thought it had a choice to make back then: it didn’t believe it had viable Arab partners for peace, and its military dominance was far from assured, as demonstrated just six years later when Egypt launched a surprise attack and started the Yom Kippur War.

The situation is different today. After its 12-day war with Iran in June, Israel is in a far superior military and regional position than it was in 1967. It has neutered its most serious regional threats, and it has been decades since an Arab state fought a war with Israel. It has steadily degraded its nonstate adversaries, scoring surprising military and intelligence wins against Hezbollah in Lebanon last summer and continuing its decapitation of Hamas’s leadership in Gaza. Its attack against Iran achieved undeniable military success in damaging Iran’s nuclear and missile facilities.

Israel’s wins are not without limits, of course. Experts have questioned the full extent of damage to Iran’s nuclear program, and the strikes may have only strengthened the Iranian leadership and increased its motivation to cross the nuclear threshold. Houthi missile and drone attacks against Israel have also continued, suggesting that the diminishment of Iran’s proxy network is a work in progress. The Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, acknowledged in remarks in late July that “Iran and its axis remain in our sights; the campaign against Iran isn’t over.” Still.

despite these remaining challenges, the overriding Israeli perception is that the regional balance sheet is working in its favor. This is arguably Israel’s moment to leverage this favorable strategic landscape and convert its military success into diplomatic capital, restarting talks with the Palestinians that could create long-term stability and encourage more of Israel’s Arab neighbors to normalize relations. After the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat used his military achievements to advance a strategic decision to make peace.

US going all in on sea drones to deter Taiwan war

Gabriel Honrada

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The US is betting on swarming unmanned surface vessels (USVs) to harass China and delay a Taiwan or South China Sea conflict, wagering that drones and allied self‑defense can deter Beijing without triggering a war. By all accounts, the US Navy is moving fast in that direction. Breaking Defense reported in July 2025 that the service has issued a formal call for industry proposals to rapidly prototype modular USVs, following an industry day earlier this summer.

Led by the US Navy’s unmanned maritime systems office, the solicitation seeks designs that can carry containerized payloads, integrate with existing naval assets and be fielded within 18 months of contract award. It identifies three vessel concepts, prioritizing one capable of carrying two 40‑foot containers—each weighing 36.3 metric tons and drawing 75 kilowatts—over 2,500 nautical miles at 25 knots in NATO Sea State 4.

The US Navy emphasizes affordability and scalability, favoring commercial‑standard, non‑exquisite designs to enable construction across multiple shipyards. Though no award timeline has been specified, the service plans to use Other Transaction Authorities (OTAs) to accelerate the contracting process. Rear Admiral William Daly has highlighted the need for a simplified, mass‑producible USV, moving away from earlier bespoke Medium and Large USV programs. The shift underscores the US Navy’s urgency to operationalize distributed lethality and containerized modular warfare on affordable, scalable platforms.

US planners see USVs as tools to delay or disrupt Chinese operations in a Taiwan contingency. Admiral Samuel Paparo told The Washington Post in June 2024 that the US has adopted a “hellscape” US strategy that aims to saturate the Taiwan Strait with thousands of unmanned systems—submarines, surface vessels, and aerial drones— the moment China’s invasion fleet mobilizes. Paparo said this mass deployment is designed to harass and paralyze People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces for about a month, creating a window for US, Taiwanese and allied forces to mobilize a full defense and deny Beijing a rapid “fait accompli.”

How American Power Should Be Deployed

Garry Kasparov

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How should American power be deployed in the world? Since the Cold War, America’s role as a global leader has been up for debate. Host Garry Kasparov and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton dissect the state of the neoconservative geopolitical worldview. They consider what the latest iteration of the “America First” foreign-policy rationale signals for democracy worldwide and analyze what it means that the new American right sometimes sounds like the old American left.

Enjoy a year of unlimited access to The Atlantic—including every story on our site and app, subscriber newsletters, and more.Become a Subscriber Garry Kasparov: I would like to begin this episode with two quotes from American presidents. You might try to guess which presidents they are from. Kasparov: The first: “Good leaders do not threaten to quit if things go wrong. They expect cooperation, of course, and they expect everyone to do his share, but they do not stop to measure sacrifices with a teaspoon while the fight is on. We cannot lead the forces of freedom from behind.”

And the second presidential quote, “We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations—acting individually or in concert—will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.” The first, with the memorable line about not measuring sacrifice with a teaspoon while the fight is on, was spoken by my namesake, President Harry S Truman, in a 1951 address in Philadelphia at the dedication of the Chapel of the Four Chaplains. 

He had brought American troops into combat in Korea: a controversial decision to stand up to Communist aggression, only six years after the end of World War II. The second presidential quote, about nations being morally justified to use force, is more surprising. It was spoken on stage in Oslo, Norway, in 2009, during Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.

Inside the Summit Where China Pitched Its AI Agenda to the World

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Three days after the Trump administration published its much-anticipated AI action plan, the Chinese government put out its own AI policy blueprint. Was the timing a coincidence? I doubt it. China’s “Global AI Governance Action Plan” was released on July 26, the first day of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), the largest annual AI event in China. Geoffrey Hinton and Eric Schmidt were among the many Western tech industry figures who attended the festivities in Shanghai. Our WIRED colleague Will Knight was also on the scene.

The vibe at WAIC was the polar opposite of Trump’s America-first, regulation-light vision for AI, Will tells me. In his opening speech, Chinese Premier Li Qiang made a sobering case for the importance of global cooperation on AI. He was followed by a series of prominent Chinese AI researchers, who gave technical talks highlighting urgent questions the Trump administration appears to be largely brushing off. Zhou Bowen, leader of the Shanghai AI Lab, one of China’s top AI research institutions, touted his team’s work on AI safety at WAIC. He also suggested the government could play a role in monitoring commercial AI models for vulnerabilities.

In an interview with WIRED, Yi Zeng, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and one of the country’s leading voices on AI, said that he hopes AI safety organizations from around the world find ways to collaborate. “It would be best if the UK, US, China, Singapore, and other institutes come together,” he said. The conference also included closed-door meetings about AI safety policy issues. Speaking after he attended one such confab, Paul Triolo, a partner at the advisory firm DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group, told WIRED that the discussions had been productive, despite the noticeable absence of American leadership.

With the US out of the picture, “a coalition of major AI safety players, co-led by China, Singapore, the UK, and the EU, will now drive efforts to construct guardrails around frontier AI model development,” Triolo told WIRED. He added that it wasn’t just the US government that was missing: Of all the major US AI labs, only Elon Musk’s xAI sent employees to attend the WAIC forum. Many Western visitors were surprised to learn how much of the conversation about AI in China revolves around safety regulations. “You could literally attend AI safety events nonstop in the last seven days. 

Mobilising for the moment

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Every responsible national government must achieve a balance of national prosperity and security. As Robert Bates notes in The Development Dilemma, ‘to achieve development, a society must be both prosperous and secure.’ In the wake of the Cold War, this appeared to be a simpler balancing act as the threat of nuclear and large-scale conventional war receded, and military budgets could be significantly reduced. However, in the past decade, the rise of Chinese and Russian power and the growing instability in the global security environment has meant that governments must now turn their attention to achieving a different balance of prosperity and security for the 21st century.

Defence and intelligence budgets must inevitably rise to counter the threat of military, economic and information operations being conducted by an axis of authoritarians. Achieving this new balancing act will require more than just reapportioning government budgets. Mobilisation involves the deliberate, planned use of a society’s resources to achieve national objectives in time of war, crisis, or disaster. It will demand a more holistic approach to mobilising national capacity to ensure not only that national sovereignty is preserved, but that democracy itself survives into the 22nd century. 

Perhaps most importantly, it will demandthat governments have honest and sustained conversations with their citizens. Mobilisation in the 21st century must be national in character and requires a social licence from citizens. The aim of this essay is to explore why mobilisation is a vital concept in deterring war. Key elements and implications of national mobilisation will be explored through the lens of what I describe as the Mobilisation Trinity: people, industry, and ideas.

Deterrence is the practice of discouraging or restraining a nation-state or non-state entity from taking unwanted actions. It has several key features. First, the desired effect is a psychological one, aiming to affect a potential aggressor’s decision process. Second, the effect is achieved through the ‘use’ of force in the form of a threat. Third, the psychological effect is fear of possible undesirable consequences. And finally, the undesirable consequences for a potential aggressor are failure or that costs will exceed possible gains.

The merits of a wartime mentality

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The commentary surrounding the release of the UK’s latest Strategic Defence Review (SDR) concentrated on its least interesting feature. The review is written on the assumption that during the next Parliament the share of GDP devoted to defence will rise to three per cent. The British government has endorsed this target without quite promising that it will be reached, because they can’t be sure of the state of the economy in five years time, or for that matter the international situation. We should in fact be interrogating the most important recommendations in the review, all of which require prompt implementation. 

The strong impression it conveyed is that in two key and linked respects the Ministry of Defence is not fit for purpose. The first is that it has a peacetime mentality, as if it allows itself to take any amount of time to decide awkward issues, and that, second, this problem is most evident when it comes to procurement. The independent reviewers responsible for the report, Lord George Robertson, General Richard Barrons, and Dr Fiona Hill, insist that the challenge posed by the continuing Russo-Ukrainian war and the readiness of Moscow to think and act as if it is already in a wider conflict with the West mean a wartime mentality is needed right now.

Even taking a relaxed view of the Russian threat, the advantage of a wartime mentality lies in the sense of urgency it introduces, and the readiness it encourages to push aside unnecessary bureaucratic barriers. The work already conducted with the Ukrainian armed forces has demonstrated the benefits. This requires a more risk-taking approach from both government and industry: much of the report is about how this can be encouraged. One only needs to look at the number of iterations of drone warfare over the course of the Russo-Ukraine War, now used by both sides with more range, accuracy, and stealth than ever before, and in huge numbers. 

If the normal processes had been followed by the time the initial requirements for a new system were generated, contracts agreed and then manufacturing allowed, real-time operational experience would have moved on out of all recognition. One feature of Ukraine’s fighting is its increasing digitisation. That leads to a proposal in the SDR for the early introduction of a ‘digital targeting web’ that will connect ‘sensors’, ‘deciders’, and ‘effectors’ to maximise their impact. This is part of a general push for a much more integrated force, moving beyond the current ‘jointery’ that allows the Royal Navy, the Army and the Royal Air Force to keep their strong separate identities while encouraging closer cooperation.

The PLA Navy’s Evolving Posture Beyond the First Island Chain

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The concurrent deployment of the Liaoning and Shandong aircraft carriers beyond the First Island Chain represents a significant strategic milestone, highlighting the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) improved capability to coordinate complex naval operations and signaling a shift towards more sophisticated Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD) operations between the first and second island chains.

Formation of an operational dual-carrier fleet requires extensive coordination beyond numerical strength, involving integration of escort ships, logistical support, submarines, and carrier-based aviation. The PLA Navy’s recent dual-carrier operations demonstrate a capability previously only fully realized by the United States, positioning the PLAN as a more assertive challenger to U.S. naval dominance.

Operational differences between the PLAN’s two active carriers reveal distinct strategic roles. The Liaoning, constrained by its limited fighter jet capacity and reliance on substantial escort support, is strategically optimized for surface and ground attack missions. In contrast, the Shandong’s superior fighter jet capacity allows for greater flexibility and sortie frequency, underscoring an evolving naval doctrine toward a model combining Soviet-era missile-cruiser strike tactics with modern carrier air operations.

A dual-carrier drill conducted by the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) in June, likely part of mid-year long-distance maritime training, showcased the Chinese military’s growing maritime power. It also signaled a direct challenge to U.S. naval supremacy (PLA Daily, July 1; China Brief, July 25). While not explicitly targeted at Taiwan, this maneuver may have aimed at initial force concentration through distant naval patrols, simulating anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) operations against potential U.S. interventions.

The Subaquatic Frontier of Drug Trafficking: Technological Evolution, Asymmetric Warfare, and the Unmanned Paradigm Shift

Roberto Uchôa 

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In July 2025, in the waters of the Caribbean Sea, the Colombian Navy intercepted a vessel that, although empty, carried immense symbolic weight for global security: the first unmanned and remotely guided narco-submarine.[1] This event was not just another seizure in the long and arduous conflict against drug trafficking; it was the materialization of a new era, in which cutting-edge technology, once the almost exclusive domain of state actors, is now fully operationalized by transnational criminal organizations (TCOs). This development signals a paradigm shift, where technological innovation is no longer a mere facilitator but the very core of criminal strategy. This article analyzes the evolutionary trajectory of narco-submarines.

It is argued that the arrival of unmanned systems eliminates the main vulnerability of drug trafficking, the human factor, and inaugurates a future of asymmetric challenges that demand a fundamental reassessment of interdiction and international security strategies. This study proposes that the transition from manned to unmanned vessels represents a fundamental change in the drug trafficking paradigm, neutralizing the main intelligence asset of security forces (the captured crew) and requiring a corresponding evolution in state strategies to combat drug trafficking. The response must transcend physical interdiction and evolve into a more complex, intelligence-driven, and technologically sophisticated approach.

To develop this argument, the article is structured into five main sections. The first examines the genesis and initial evolution of narco-submarines. The second analyzes the strategic pivot to the Atlantic and the focus on the European market. The third dissects the unmanned paradigm shift and its technological and strategic implications. The fourth explores the asymmetrical nature of the battlefield and the ongoing challenges of detection. Finally, the fifth section projects the future trajectories of narco-technology and presents strategic recommendations for an effective state response.

The narco-submarine is not a sudden invention but the product of an iterative process of innovation and adaptation that spans decades, driven by the dynamic of pressure and response between TCOs and state security forces. This dynamic is often described as a co-evolutionary process, a perpetual “cat and mouse game between interdiction and evasion that can be understood as the symbiotic relationship that creates the conditions for innovation, generating a constant arms race between drug traffickers and state agencies.

Networked Sensors, Pervasive Surveillance, and AI-Powered Analytics: Urban Warfare in the Age of Smart Cities

Anna M. Gielas

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Cities are becoming smart. Over the past two decades, urban environments worldwide have integrated digital technologies into nearly every aspect of daily life—from energy grids and transportation systems to public administration and civic engagement. By 2023, over one thousand active smart city projects were underway worldwide, with roughly one hundred new smart cities added every year. The increasing adoption of data-driven urban technologies reshapes how cities operate—but this ongoing transformation is still commonly overlooked in US doctrine and training. Military experts note that the modern city constitutes “the least understood of potential conflict environments.

Where individual smart city technologies are taken into consideration, they usually are presented as potential advantages for US and allied forces. This suggests a one-sided and potentially overly optimistic perception—one that may obscure an underappreciated threat landscape for the US armed forces. As urban conflict becomes more frequent, overlooking this evolving threat environment risks leaving forces underprepared—or unprepared—for the operational realities of emerging urban battlefields. The number of conflicts in cities is expected to further increase in the years to come—particularly in the Global South.

City governments and private investors across Africa, Asia, and Latin America are accelerating their deployments of smart city technologies. Some Latin American cities are outperforming Western smart city initiatives. As of 2025, Santiago, Chile, for example, is home to the largest smart fleet of electric buses outside of China. Similarly, India’s national Smart Cities Mission has funded 8,067 projects across one hundred designated cities. African countries—including Kenya, Rwanda, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Morocco, and Mauritius—also initiated smart city programs. Together, these developments underscore the worldwide trend toward reconfiguring urban agglomerates into data-driven ecosystems.

Traditionally, urban terrain has been assessed based on physical features like buildings, infrastructure, and chokepoints. According to retired Lieutenant Colonel Louis DiMarco “The nature of how armies conduct operations in cities is a function of city design and weapons technology.” However, in the hyperconnected smart city, networked sensors, pervasive data collection, and AI-powered analytics create a persistent surveillance overlay. This environment, encompassing devices from public CCTV cameras to traffic sensors, offers unprecedented situational awareness to the controlling force. 

AI Beyond the OODA Loop: Matrix Operations and the Future of Special Operations

Duc Duclos 

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The tactical victory that is reshaping modern views on artificial intelligence in warfare didn’t happen in a sterile lab but in the contested airspace over Ukraine and far behind enemy lines deep in Russian territory. In June 2025, a swarm of 117 commercially available drones, each costing about $600–$1,000 and equipped with AI navigation, successfully breached Russian airfield defenses. They damaged over 40 strategic aircraft, including Tu-95 bombers valued at billions. This operation, costing less than $120,000, achieved a cost-exchange ratio of over 1:1,000, fundamentally challenging traditional military economics and the use of AI.

This tactical success, named Operation “Spider Web” for its coordinated multi-vector approach, marks a significant step forward in the evolution of AI use by enhancing existing tactical functions through intelligence integration. However, this application only scratches the surface of AI’s transformative potential. The real change isn’t just about making current military tasks more efficient, but about enabling entirely new ways of operational thinking that surpass the cognitive limits that have constrained human warfare for thousands of years.

Since Colonel John Boyd introduced the Observe-Orient-Decide-Act (OODA) loop in the 1960s, military decision-making has been fundamentally sequential. Human cognition requires processing information, developing situational awareness, formulating decisions, and executing actions in a linear framework. Artificial intelligence, however, operates under no such constraint. While humans think in sequential loops, AI can engage in what this paper terms “Matrix Operations” and “Matrix Thinking:” simultaneous optimization across multiple domains, functions, and objectives in real-time.

This represents not merely an incremental improvement, but a fundamental paradigm shift comparable to the introduction of gunpowder or precision-guided munitions. The implications are particularly profound for Special Operations Forces (SOF), irregular warfare, and resistance operations, where small groups historically overcome asymmetric disadvantages through superior tactics and innovative technology. Matrix Operations promise to democratize capabilities previously exclusive to large military organizations, while enabling new forms of coordination that even major powers have not fully realized.

Google’s Newest AI Model Acts Like a Satellite to Track Climate Change

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Google’s newestAI model is going to scour the Earth and, ideally, help it out. That's the plan, anyway. The mission is to find out once and for all, in fine detail, what we are doing to our planet. Crucially, once the model has supposedly done this it will also, apparently, explain where we might be able to best put things in place to help our world. AlphaEarth Foundations, an offshoot of Google’s DeepMind AI model, aims to leverage machine learning and all the gobs and gobs of data that Google has absorbed about our planet over the last two decades, in order to understand how specific areas are changing over time.

The model uses a system called “embeddings” that takes terabytes of data collected from satellites every day, analyzes it, and compresses it down to save storage space. The result is a model of different filters overlaid over maps that are color coded to indicate material properties, vegetation types, groundwater sources, and human constructions such as buildings and farms. Google says the system will act as a sort of “virtual satellite,” letting users call up on demand detailed information about any given spot on the planet.

The goal, Google says, is for users of the service to be able to better understand how specific ecosystems on the planet work, including how air quality, sunlight, groundwater, and even human construction projects vary and change across a landscape. Ultimately, the company wants the model to help answer questions from paying governments and corporations that wish to know, for example, which ecosystems may have more access to sunlight or groundwater that can help determine the best spots to grow a certain crop. 

Alternatively, it may aid in identifying areas to plop down solar panels with maximum payoff. or build structures in more climate-resilient locations. Chris Brown, a research engineer at Google DeepMind, says that historically, there have been two main problems for making reliable information about the planet more accessible: Getting overloaded with too much data; and that information being inconsistent. “Before, the challenge was getting a look at it all,” Brown said in a press briefing. “Now, the challenge is to unify all the ways that we have to observe and model our planet and get a complete picture.”

The Value of Joint Professional Military Education

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For years, joint professional military education (JPME) has been an easy punching bag. In 2018, Secretary of Defense James Mattis famously claimed professional military education had stagnated. His statement drew a great deal of attention, with some JPME programs responding in frustration that the ever-evolving nature of their curricula was being ignored. Others who have criticized JPME misunderstand its purpose and miss the real adaptations JPME has continually made for the joint force and the nation. It is time to put an end to the notion that JPME is stagnant. We aim to set the record straight.

Opinions on how JPME should change come from both inside and outside the schools, often because critics misunderstand its purpose.1 Some students dislike writing academic papers and reading academic publications, arguing they will not do this in their next assignment. Others think going to school is a year off from the military and a chance to pursue a hobby or focus on transitioning from the military. Some blame JPME for the military’s failure to manage procurement, prevent ethical missteps, or translate tactical and operational successes into strategic victory.

Others complain war colleges do not focus enough on war, recalling the 1930s, when wargaming at the Naval War College (NWC) was critical to preparing the Navy for war and developing plans such as War Plan Orange.2 Today, such plans are developed by combatant commands with significant direction from the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and the Joint Staff, none of which existed in the years leading up to World War II. Given these changes, war colleges have less influence in planning wars and instead educate leaders who do the planning at OSD, the Joint Staff, and the combatant commands. In other words, the shift away from war planning was driven by changes in law and organization, not college-level decisions.

Panelists discuss the People’s Liberation Army Navy at the U.S. Naval War College’s 14th biennial China Maritime Studies Institute Conference. In 2017, the Naval War College integrated China studies across the ten-month resident JPME curriculum. All students now receive the functional equivalent of an additional course on China. U.S. Navy (Kristopher Burris) In the past several years, criticism of JPME has sometimes been more pronounced, given that the 2018 National Defense Strategy included Mattis’s widely cited statement that “PME has stagnated, focused more on the accomplishment of mandatory credit at the expense of lethality and ingenuity.”3 This provoked strong reactions.