Trump’s Deadline For Putin To End War In Ukraine Is Days Away. Here’s How He Says He’ll Punish Moscow

Nik Popli

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President Donald Trump has given Russia until Friday to end its war in Ukraine or face “very severe tariffs” and a new wave of sanctions designed to cripple its oil trade and financial lifelines. Yet, as the deadline looms, there is little sign that Russian President Vladimir Putin is prepared to meet Trump’s demands—and a growing sense among analysts that a breakthrough is unlikely.

In a statement to TIME on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump was “open” to meeting with both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as he seeks a peace agreement between the two leaders. “The Russians expressed their desire to meet with President Trump, and the President is open to meeting with both President Putin and President Zelensky,” Leavitt said. “President Trump wants this brutal war to end.”

Trump’s willingness to meet with Putin comes hours after his special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow for about three hours as part of a last-ditch diplomatic effort to reach a ceasefire. No details of an outcome were announced, though a Russian official described the meeting as “successful” and added that "dialogue will prevail.” Trump praised the meeting, calling it “highly productive” and that “Great progress was made!”

Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies

Journal of Military and Strategic Studies, 2025, v. 24, no. 1 The Melian Dialogue of Donald Trump

A List of Bilateral Civilian Interstate Nuclear Cooperation Agreements

Canadian Tank Film Spring 2025 Manuscript

‘King Makers and the King Breakers’ Perspectives on The Role of Intelligence Services in Shaping Geo-Politics and Power Dynamics at Global Level

Between Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, and Stalin: A Synthetic character of Mao Zedong’s Military Thought

Examining the Transformation of Israel's Military into a Professional Force through the Lens of Huntington's Civil-Military Relations Theory

Cutting Through the Tangled Webs of Civil and Military Aviation Toward a Practical Cybersecurity Framework

Rudra, Bhairav commandos, Shaktiman to drone platoons—how Army is transforming for future wars

Opinion by Lt Gen H S Panag (retd)

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Chief of the Army Staff, General Upendra Dwivedi, announced the transformative restructuring of the Indian Army on 26 July, during Kargil Vijay Diwas commemoration. Rudra brigades will replace the ‘division’, which has been the default combined arms fighting formation for over two centuries.

He also announced the raising of Bhairav Light Commando Battalions— reminiscent of the German Stormtroopers of World War I; Unarmed Aerial Vehicle (UAV)/ counter UAV (C-UAV) based Shaktiman artillery regiments; a composite UAC/C-UAV battery for each standard artillery regiment; and drone platoons for each infantry battalion. These changes are part of the overall restructuring and reorganisation of the Army that began in 2018.

While I welcome the changes announced by the COAS, my grouse is the slow pace of progress. It has taken seven years for the Army to begin executing the transformation of its World War II-era structures and organisations, first conceived in 2018. Most modern armies have already switched to combined arms brigades as the basic fighting formation. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) commenced its reforms in 2015, and by 2020, it had completed the restructuring of divisions into combined arms brigades operating directly under the group army—China’s equivalent of a corps.

Hoover Institution

Strategika, no. 99 The Impact of the Latest Military Technologies on Soldiers in a Potential US China Confrontation

Challenge and Response in War

Turkey, Hard Power Politics, and Drones

Iran’s Dangerous Desperation

Suzanne Maloney

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Rarely in modern history has a military offensive been as loudly and persistently foreshadowed as the June 2025 Israeli and American strikes on Iran’s nuclear program. For more than three decades, leaders in Tel Aviv and Washington have issued stark warnings about the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions and activities, and five American presidents have pledged to prevent Tehran from crossing the threshold of nuclear weapons capability.

Despite this forewarning and the signals of imminent preparations, Israel’s initial attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure—capped by a brief but decisive U.S. intervention—still shocked Tehran and much of the world. The element of surprise helped facilitate the stunning success of the operation, which briskly decapitated Iran’s military leadership, secured Israeli air superiority over Iranian territory, blunted Iran’s ability to retaliate, and inflicted substantial damage on the crown jewels of the country’s nuclear infrastructure.

The virtuoso execution of the operation and the absence of an effective counterattack by Tehran or its once fearsome network of regional proxies led to another surprise: the rapid denouement to the crisis via an American-imposed cease-fire on the conflict’s 12th day. In less than two weeks, the joint U.S.-Israeli effort accomplished what many had thought impossible, delivering an extraordinary setback to Iran’s nuclear program without igniting a wider regional conflagration. Tehran’s retaliatory missile attacks on Israel, as well as a performative strike on the U.S. airbase in Qatar, were showy but ineffectual. For many in Washington, the result seemed to exorcise the ghosts of failed or frustrated American military interventions in the Middle East over the past four decades.

Jamestown Foundation

China Brief, July 11, 2025, v. 25, no. 13 Divergent Implications for Xi’s Power from New Party Regulations

‘Command Innovation’ Model Builds Momentum: Engineering Capital for Strategic Rivalry

Taiwan’s ‘Great Recall’ a Historic Bid to Overturn the Opposition’s Legislative Majority

Inside Taiwan’s Opposition: How the KMT’s Future Could Shape Cross-Strait Stability

PLA Military Aerospace Force: On the Frontier of Innovation and Competition

PRC Seeks Dominance in Submarine Power Cable Infrastructure

PLA Purges Provide Opening for Xi’s Rivals

The Xi–Lee Reset Extends Beijing’s Regional Project—and Tests Seoul’s Commitments

PRC Promotes Iranian Coverage and Showcases Advanced Weapon Systems

National Defense University Press

Joint Force Quarterly (JFQ), 118, ( 3rd Quarter July 2025) Is Mobilization a Major Question?

Rightsizing the PLA Air Force: Revisiting an Analytic Framework

From High Seas to Highlands: Framing U.S. Defense Strategy with Southeast Asia’s Geography

Building Strategic Lethality: Special Operations Models for Joint Force Learning and Leader Development

The Philosophical Foundations of the Civil-Military Relationship

Finding Deepfakes: A Tabletop Exercise About AI, Decisionmaking, and Algorithmic Performance

T-BIRRD: Transforming the Future of Military and Humanitarian Logistics

Increasing Operational Access: A Strategy for the Western Pacific

Revive: Getting Medical Supplies and Expertise Right in Distributed Maritime Operations

A Conditions-Based Look at a Cyber Force

The Long Pivot: The Development of the Joint Warfighting Concept

Intelligence Reform at 20: How Joint Military Intelligence Lost Its Groove and How to Get It Back

Terrorism Monitor, July 15, 2025, v. 23, no. 3 Brief: Iranian Branch of PKK Faces Uncertain Future Amid Regime Crackdown

Brief: Attack on Damascus Church Exposes Fragile Protection for Syria’s Christians

Indonesia’s Deradicalization Program Through the Lens of Umar Patek: From Bomb-Maker to Entrepreneur

Geopolitical and Strategic Implications of the Arakan Army’s Ascension in Myanmar’s Rakhine State

Jihadist Narratives in the Aftermath of India’s Airstrikes on Pakistan

Hegseth’s Headlong Pursuit of Academic Mediocrity

Eliot A. Cohen

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The Trump administration is right about many of the failures of elite universities, particularly when compared with character-oriented institutions such as the United States Army. Consider the case of Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, who was admitted to and graduated from prestigious degree programs at top universities but resigned from the Army National Guard at the lowly rank of major. The Army, unlike Princeton and Harvard, knew a petulant, insecure mediocrity when it saw one.

For whatever reason—perhaps Hegseth had a rough time in freshman calculus or was embarrassed while parsing a difficult passage of Plato—he seems determined to bar academics or anyone who faintly resembles one from contact with the armed forces. He has prohibited officers from attending the Aspen Security Forum, presided over by well-known radicals such as my former boss Condoleezza Rice. He has extended this ban to participation in think-tank events where officers might meet and even get into arguments with retired generals and admirals, not to mention former ambassadors, undersecretaries of defence, retired spies, and, worst of all, people with Ph. D.S who know foreign languages or operations research.

The latest spasm of Pentagon anti-intellectualism has come in the shape of efforts to remould the military educational system. To its shame, and apparently just because Laura Loomer said it should, the Army has meekly fired Jen Easterly from her position on the faculty at West Point, even though she is a graduate, a Rhodes Scholar, a three-tour Afghan War veteran, and a bona fide cybersecurity expert. In this case, at least, Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll seems to have given up on the honour part of West Point’s motto, “Duty, honour, country.”

Redefining strategic victory: How Israel ends the war without losing America

Eric R. Mandel

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After extraordinary tactical successes against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iranian ballistic missile and nuclear targets, Israel faces its most underestimated and enduring adversary in Hamas. Despite the physical devastation in Gaza, Hamas still holds living hostages — and with them, the leverage to shape Israel’s international standing and internal politics.

Former allies, including the UK and France, have shifted their posture so dramatically that they now offer statehood as a reward for terrorism. These governments no longer condition recognition of a Palestinian state on even minimal reforms — such as Hamas disarming, its leaders going into exile, or the Palestinian Authority halting its educational incitement of violence and delegitimization of Israel in schools and state-run media. The moral asymmetry is stark: Hamas’s use of human shields, its indiscriminate targeting of Israeli civilians, and its genocidal charter are routinely ignored by international actors who once claimed to stand against terrorism.

As a Jerusalem Post editorial recently noted, “According to UN data, from May 19 to July 29 of this year, 87 percent of its 2,010 food trucks in Gaza (85 percent by tonnage) were ‘intercepted’ — either peacefully by crowds or forcefully by armed actors. That means only 13 percent of the food meant for hungry Gazans arrived at the proper address.” Yes, Israel shares some responsibility for Gaza’s dire humanitarian crisis. But the world’s insistence on blaming only Israel — while ignoring Hamas’s deliberate strategy of creating chaos at distribution sites — only emboldens terrorists and distorts the moral landscape.

When Cell Phones Kill: Digital Discipline and the Future of SOF Obscurity

avid Cook

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Today’s battlefield is no longer defined solely by geography or terrain — it is defined by visibility in the electromagnetic spectrum. Modern warfare is now hyper-transparent, where a single stray digital signature can mean the difference between life and death. A smartphone ping, a fitness tracker upload, or a social media photo can all become targeting beacons in this new battlespace.

The U.S. military is learning this the hard way. From the real-world deserts of Ukraine to the mock battlefields of Fort Irwin and Fort Johnson, electromagnetic emissions, open-source intelligence (OSINT), and metadata are pinpointing operators with devastating precision. Maj. Gen. Curtis Taylor, who leads the Army’s National Training Centre (NTC), put it bluntly while holding up his phone: “This device…is going to get our soldiers killed”. He’s not exaggerating. In one NTC training incident, an Apache helicopter pilot successfully evaded air defences — until analysts tracked a phone moving at 120 miles per hour, mapping the aircraft’s exact flight route across the desert. Real war has shown similar deadly outcomes: in Ukraine, Russian forces learned that merely turning on phones can be fatal. On New Year’s Day 2023, a Ukrainian HIMARS strike devastated a Russian barracks after soldiers’ unauthorised cell phone use gave away their coordinates.

These harsh lessons have triggered a strategic wake-up call for U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) and the broader military. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, LTG Jonathan Braga warned that we must “change how we think about protecting and projecting our forces”. He stressed that the digital signature of a warfighter — from phone GPS pings and personal social media posts to a spouse’s online photos — can now expose entire units in the field. In Braga’s words, “there is no sanctuary at home or abroad” in the digital age.

Why the Joint Force Isn’t Very Joint

R.D. Hooker, Jr.

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The U.S. Department of Defense makes much of the Joint Force, stressing its overriding importance. Particularly since the advent of the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols legislation, “jointness” became a mantra, amplified by reams of joint doctrine and scores of “joint” organizations. The importance of a truly joint approach to warfighting is, or should be, obvious. In theory, the synergistic employment of all forms of military power across all domains generates effects greater than the sum of the parts, optimizing all military operations. In practice, however, the U.S. military often falls far short.

The evidence is everywhere around us and reaches back at least to the Second World War, if not before. In WWII, interservice rivalry was intense and pervasive. In the Pacific, Army and Navy disputes forced the bifurcation of the region into Army and Navy bailiwicks: MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific theater and Nimitz’s Pacific Ocean Areas theater. Arguments over Pacific strategy forced President Roosevelt to personally intervene by flying to Pearl Harbor in July 1944 to referee. In Europe, tensions between the nearly-independent Army Air Forces and General Eisenhower, the European theater commander, over strategic bombing permeated the campaign, at one point prompting Ike to threaten resignation.

The National Security Act of 1947 and subsequent amendments attempted to smooth over inter-service rivalry by formalizing the Joint Chiefs of Staff organization, establishing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and “unifying” the services under a Department of Defense in place of the War and Navy Departments. In practice, that rivalry if anything intensified, as seen in the 1949 “Revolt of the Admirals,” when senior navy leaders attempted to unseat Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson following the adoption of the B-36 bomber and the cancellation of the “supercarrier” USS United States. In Korea, furious battles over the best use of airpower persisted throughout the war. In Vietnam, controversy over control of airpower again surfaced, leading to bitter disagreements at the highest levels; like Eisenhower, General Westmoreland threatened to resign over the issue.

Why China-Pakistan religious diplomacy should ring alarm for India

Pradip R. Sagar

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India witnessed a deep Pakistan-China collusion during the 100-hour-long military conflict post-Operation Sindoor in May. While Pakistan was fighting India using Chinese fighter jets and missiles, Chinese satellites were providing real-time battlefield inputs to the Pakistani military. Now, the ‘all-weather’ alliance between Beijing and Islamabad is taking a new turn. In the last week of July, a high-profile Pakistani religious delegation visited China’s Xinjiang province, returning with a joint declaration condemning terrorism as a ‘crime against humanity’.

It all seemed like an initiative in interfaith cooperation. The delegation, which had media professionals besides religious leaders, witnessed Xinjiang’s development under China’s Belt and Road Initiative and through the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. It also discussed the potential for cooperation between Pakistan and Xinjiang, particularly in combating extremism. However, observers believe China’s new religious diplomacy with Pakistan is deeply intertwined with the neighbours’ strategic aim to challenge India’s regional influence. They point out that China’s outreach to Pakistan’s religious leadership is more than symbolic—it signals a deeper alignment that poses serious strategic concerns for India.

While the joint declaration condemning terrorism made during the Pakistani religious delegation’s visit, at first glance, appeared to be an exercise in promoting peace and interfaith harmony, it in reality reflected Beijing’s calculated attempt to use religion as a tool of influence in South Asia while masking its alleged human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims, say observers. This convergence of narratives between Islamabad and Beijing carries implications that go far beyond Xinjiang—it directly feeds into the larger strategy of countering India’s regional standing and strengthening anti-India propaganda, particularly in the context of Kashmir.

The Unparalleled Devastation of Gaza

Robert A. Pape

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After nearly 700 days of war, the death toll in Gaza has risen to extraordinary levels. Amid heavy bombardment that has turned the territory into a wasteland of rubble and stringent blockades that have led to mass hunger and even starvation, over 61,000 Palestinians have died and over 145,000 have been seriously wounded, according to Gaza’s Hamas-affiliated health authorities, which do not distinguish between civilians and Hamas fighters.

But the true number of the war’s casualties may far outstrip those figures, which do not include the thousands of bodies that remain under the rubble, the large number of dead that could not arrive at morgues, and the excess deaths from the destruction of infrastructure and the ensuing disease, famine, and lack of medical care. In February, the medical journal The Lancet published an extensive analysis based on a wide variety of sources (including obituaries) and estimated that the official death toll underreported the direct war deaths in Gaza by at least 41 percent and perhaps by as much as 107 percent, while not accounting at all for nontrauma-related deaths resulting from the impact of Israeli military operations on Gaza’s health services, food and water supplies, and sanitation.

In sum, the authors of the study suggested that Israel’s campaign has caused at least an additional 26,000 Palestinian deaths and perhaps as many as over 120,000 additional deaths, with the true death toll possibly upward of 186,000. Taking that into account, as of late July 2025, Israel’s war in Gaza has led to the deaths of between five to ten percent of the prewar population of about 2.2 million. This represents an unprecedented slaughter. Israel’s campaign in Gaza is the most lethal case of a Western democracy using the punishment of civilians as a tactic of war.

OPINION: The Kremlin’s Drone War Has Gone Strategic: Ukraine Must Brace Itself for an Onslaught

Maksym Beznosiuk

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Russia’s drone war has entered a new, dangerous phase, increasingly driven by state funding, foreign supply chains, and long-term battlefield planning. With over 200 drones launched daily and production rising, Ukraine and its Western partners must treat this as a strategic challenge, not just a tactical nuisance. A significant escalation may hit this autumn, and it is crucial to prepare for it.

In 2025, Russia’s drone warfare strategy has shifted into a more coordinated, state-backed campaign that combines battlefield innovation and industrial scaling. The Kremlin’s objective is to apply prolonged pressure on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, degrade national resilience, and psychologically exhaust its population.

This summer is a turning point for the Kremlin, with several recent developments since June indicating that it is preparing for long-term and high-volume drone attacks this autumn and winter. These moves require urgent action from both Ukraine and its Western partners, including steps to boost air defenses and infrastructure, and to expand drone and anti-drone technologies ahead of the next escalation phase.

The End of Mutual Assured Destruction?

Sam Winter-Levy

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The rapid development of artificial intelligence in recent years has led many analysts to suggest that it will upend international politics and the military balance of power. Some have gone so far as to claim, in the words of the technologists Dan Hendrycks, Eric Schmidt, and Alexandr Wang, that advanced AI systems could “establish one state’s complete dominance and control, leaving the fate of rivals subject to its will.”

AI is no doubt a transformative technology, one that will strengthen the economic, political, and military foundations of state power. But the winner of the AI race will not necessarily enjoy unchallenged dominance over its major competitors. The power of nuclear weapons, the most significant invention of the last century, remains a major impediment to the bulldozing change brought by AI. So long as systems of nuclear deterrence remain in place, the economic and military advantages produced by AI will not allow states to fully impose their political preferences on one another. Consider that the U.S. economy is almost 15 times larger than that of Russia, and almost 1,000 times larger than that of North Korea, yet Washington struggles to get Moscow or Pyongyang to do what it wants, in large part because of their nuclear arsenals.

Some analysts have suggested that AI advances could challenge this dynamic. To undermine nuclear deterrence, AI would need to knock down its central pillar: a state’s capacity to respond to a nuclear attack with a devastating nuclear strike of its own, what is known as second-strike capability. AI technology could plausibly make it easier for a state to destroy a rival’s entire nuclear arsenal in one “splendid first strike” by pinpointing the locations of nuclear submarines and mobile launchers. It could also prevent a rival from launching a retaliatory strike by disabling command-and-control networks.

Ukraine Clones Russia’s Low-Cost “Molniya” Drone—Now Even Cheaper and Deadlier

IVAN KHOMENKO

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Ukrainian engineers have reverse-engineered the Russian “Molniya ” loitering munition to produce their own version, now named “Blyskavka .” The development was announced on August 5 by the volunteer group “Ostanniy Kapitalist,” which is currently raising funds to produce and deploy the new drones.

The “Blyskavka” replicates the design and aerodynamic layout of the original Russian model. Constructed using a wooden center section and dual longitudinal tubes in place of a traditional fuselage, the drone features a front-mounted electric motor and a battery positioned directly above the airframe. The wings and tail unit are made of wood with polymer coating.Comparison of Ukraine’s “Blyskavka” and Russia’s “Molniya” drones. (Source: Militarnyi)

According to technical specifications shared by developers, the Blyskavka has a maximum range of 40 kilometers, can reach altitudes of up to 2,000 meters, and carries a payload of up to 8 kilograms. The drone supports both remote and autonomous operation, and is equipped with an onboard camera system. It can be configured to carry different types of munitions, including cumulative charges for armored targets and fragmentation warheads for infantry or unprotected infrastructure.

Trump’s Tariff Gamble Puts America’s Ties With India at Risk

Anupreeta Das

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President Trump has staked enormous political capital on being the one to end the war in Ukraine, even asserting that he could do so “in 24 hours.” In perhaps his biggest gamble yet to achieve that goal, he pledged on Wednesday to punish India with tariffs of 50 percent for buying Russian oil. At stake is the relationship between the United States and an increasingly important strategic partner in Asia. India, the world’s most populous democracy, and the United States, its most powerful one, have an unusual relationship. They are friendly but not close, brought together by mutual interests and shared values, especially in recent decades.

On Wednesday, Mr. Trump seemed ready to ditch that relationship. He doubled already hefty tariffs on Indian exports to the United States for its steadfast refusal to stop buying oil from Russia, in an effort to pressure Russia to end the war. Mr. Trump has accused India of helping Russia finance its war on Ukraine through oil purchases; India has said it needs cheap oil to meet the energy needs of its fast-growing economy.

India called the additional tariffs “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable,” pointing out that it was being punished for doing something — buying Russian oil at a discounted price — that other nations have done, although it didn’t mention names. China is the largest buyer of Russian oil, and Turkey has also deepened its energy links with Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine, without incurring similar penalties.

India has 20 days to avoid 50% Trump tariffs - what are its options?

Nikhil Inamdar

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India has unexpectedly become a key target in Washington's latest push to pressure Russia over the Ukraine war. On Wednesday, Donald Trump doubled US tariffs on India to 50%, up from 25%, penalising Delhi for purchasing Russian oil - a move India called "unfair" and "unjustified". The tariffs aim to cut Russia's oil revenues and force Putin into a ceasefire. The new rate will come into effect in 21 days, so on 27 August.

This makes India the most heavily taxed US trading partner in Asia and places it alongside Brazil, another nation facing steep US tariffs amid tense relations. India insists its imports are driven by market factors and vital to its energy security, but the tariffs threaten to hit Indian exports and growth hard.  

Almost all of India's $86.5bn [£64.7bn] in annual goods exports to the US stand to become commercially unviable if these rates sustain. Most Indian exporters have said they can barely absorb a 10-15% rise, so a combined 50% tariff is far beyond their capacity.If effective, the tariff would be similar to "a trade embargo, and will lead to a sudden stop in affected export products," Japanese brokerage firm Nomura said in a note. The US is India's top export market, making up 18% of exports and 2.2% of GDP. A 25% tariff could cut GDP by 0.2–0.4%, risking growth slipping below 6% this year.

Putting Operation Spider’s Web in Context

Ben Connable 

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On June 1, 2025, the Ukrainian special intelligence services launched Operation Spider’s Web, a remotely triggered drone attack that may have damaged or destroyed over 40 Russian strategic aircraft at four air bases deep inside the Russian Federation’s borders. Spider’s Web was undeniably successful: Russia’s capacity to launch cruise missiles into Ukrainian cities and kill civilians has been sharply curtailed. Part of the Russian nuclear triad may have been reduced by more than 30%. And Russia certainly will have to reallocate some precious combat manpower for internal security missions. I and others who support Ukraine in its war against Russia celebrated these attacks.

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

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

Putin Has Already Lost in Ukraine—The Extent of That Loss Depends on What the West Does Next

Ryan Maness 

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On July 15, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would be sending more weapons to Ukraine, primarily the air defense Patriot missile systems, via purchases from NATO allies. He then gave Moscow 50 days to agree to a peace deal to end its invasion of Ukraine, or else face 100 percent secondary tariffs on countries that buy Russian products, primarily its oil. This could slow the funding of Putin’s war machine for a time, but would it be enough to get the Kremlin to seriously negotiate a long-term ceasefire that would end years of carnage?

Putin has already lost the war in Ukraine. Even as his depleted military slowly inches westward in its unimpressive summer offensive, the casualty rate of Russian troops has reached the staggering one million mark in just over three years. It is estimated that one-fourth of these casualties are battle deaths. In June, his air power was seriously depleted, losing over 40 high value planes, by a surprise and ingenious drone attack by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), dubbed Operation Spider’s Web. Much of his Black Sea Fleet has had to depart Crimea due to the ability of Ukraine’s special operations forces (SSO) to strike his naval vessels with surface or underwater drones. The list goes on, but the once feared Russian military machine has proven to be overhyped and overrated. Failed reform attempts, corruption, and the nature of Putin’s authoritarian state have returned limited gains compared to massive losses and a stalemated war with a much smaller and less powerful neighbor.

For the US, it’s Mountain Pass – or fail – in bid to supplant China’s rare earth supremacy

Alice Li and Kandy Wong

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Rare earths are needed for everything from consumer electronics to electric vehicles, wind turbines and fighter jets – and China controls the supply chain. In the second of a four-part series, we look at how China gradually took a commanding role in the rare earth industry, and how the US is now working to strengthen its sources and production.

Nearly a half-century removed from being the world’s dominant supplier of rare earth elements, California’s Mountain Pass mine is once again being tasked with unearthing a veritable treasure trove of metals and minerals that the United States hopes will help bridge a supply gulf with China in an increasingly critical industry.

Splashing out hundreds of millions of dollars, the US Department of Defence is digging deep into the public coffers to bring back the mine, which has had a rocky history. After being shut down in 2002 due to environmental concerns, Mountain Pass was reawakened during the early days of former President Barack Obama’s administration when the privately held Molycorp Minerals was formed to revive it.

Is the A.I. Boom Turning Into an A.I. Bubble?

John Cassidy

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When Jensen Huang, the chief executive of the chipmaker Nvidia, met with Donald Trump in the White House last week, he had reason to be cheerful. Most of Nvidia’s chips, which are widely used to train generative artificial-intelligence models, are manufactured in Asia. Earlier this year, it pledged to increase production in the United States, and on Wednesday Trump announced that chip companies that promise to build products in the United States would be exempt from some hefty new tariffs on semiconductors that his Administration is preparing to impose. The next day, Nvidia’s stock hit a new all-time high, and its market capitalization reached $4.4 trillion, making it the world’s most valuable company, ahead of Microsoft, which is also heavily involved in A.I.

Welcome to the A.I. boom, or should I say the A.I. bubble? It has been more than a quarter of a century since the bursting of the great dot-com bubble, during which hundreds of unprofitable internet startups issued stock on the Nasdaq, and the share prices of many tech companies rose into the stratosphere. In March and April of 2000, tech stocks plummeted; subsequently many, but by no means all, of the internet startups went out of business. There has been some discussion on Wall Street in the past few months about whether the current surge in tech is following a similar trajectory. In a research paper entitled “25 Years On; Lessons from the Bursting of the Technology Bubble,” which was published in March, a team of investment analysts from Goldman Sachs argued that it wasn’t: “While enthusiasm for technology stocks has risen sharply in recent years, this has not represented a bubble because the price appreciation has been justified by strong profit fundamentals.” The analysts pointed to the earnings power of the so-calle

Nuclear Experts Say Mixing AI and Nuclear Weapons Is Inevitable

Matthew Gault

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Human judgement remains central to the launch of nuclear weapons. But experts say it’s a matter of when, not if, artificial intelligence will get baked into the world’s most dangerous systems. The people who study nuclear war for a living are certain that artificial intelligence will soon power the deadly weapons. None of them are quite sure what, exactly, that means.

In the middle of July, Nobel laureates gathered at the University of Chicago to listen to nuclear war experts talk about the end of the world. In closed sessions over two days, scientists, former government officials, and retired military personnel enlightened the laureates about the most devastating weapons ever created. The goal was to educate some of the most respected people in the world about one of the most horrifying weapons ever made and, at the end of it, have the laureates make policy recommendations to world leaders about how to avoid nuclear war.

AI was on everyone’s mind. “We’re entering a new world of artificial intelligence and emerging technologies influencing our daily life, but also influencing the nuclear world we live in,” Scott Sagan, a Stanford professor known for his research into nuclear disarmament, said during a press conference at the end of the talks. It’s a statement that takes as given the inevitability of governments mixing AI and nuclear weapons—something everyone I spoke with in Chicago believed in.

Orville Schell on China vs Taiwan in the Trump 2.0 era

Dan Drollette Jr 

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Orville Schell is a noted China expert, and director of the Center on US-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York City. A former professor (and dean) at UC-Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in Far Eastern History, and was later an exchange student at National Taiwan University in the 1960s. Schell worked for the Ford Foundation in Indonesia, covered the war in Indochina as a journalist, and has traveled widely in China since the early 70s—when Mao Zedong was still running the country. Schell is the author of many books about Asia, and a contributor to many publications, including The Atlantic Monthly, 

The New Yorker, and the Los Angeles Times, among others. Schell is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the recipient of many prizes and fellowships, including a Guggenheim Fellowship.In 1992, Schell won an Emmy Award for producing a documentary about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre; in 1997, he won a George Peabody Award for his production of the Frontline documentary “Gate of Heavenly Peace.”

Germany’s dilemma over strategic recalibration with China

Max Zenglein Mikko Huotari

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Germany’s economic relationship with China has reached an inflection point. Once marked by mutual benefit and industrial complementarity, ties are now strained by growing asymmetries, intensified competition, and geopolitical pressures. German corporates and the incoming government must face a set of strategic choices with long-term consequences and significant trade-offs. German companies and policymakers alike are being forced to reassess longstanding assumptions as economic engagement faces unprecedented political and structural headwinds.

At the heart of Germany’s China dilemma is a convergence of three complications: First, Chinese companies have accelerated their catch-up on the value chain across a broad range of industries, leading to a relative erosion of German firms’ global competitiveness. Second, China’s broad-based economic slowdown has hurt German economic competitiveness. Third, global geopolitical challenges developments, especially in the transatlantic alliance with the US, pose deep new risks and trade-offs for Germany, Europe’s largest and the world’s third-largest economy in 2024, and a country deeply invested in multilateralism and the rules-based order. It is the last complication that poses perhaps the most vexing questions for the foundations of Germany’s economic engagement with China.

Once marked by mutual benefit and industrial complementarity, Sino-German ties are now strained by growing asymmetries, intensified competition, and geopolitical pressures. The fragmentation of global tech stacks, driven by export controls, investment screening, and supply chain reconfiguration, is forcing German companies to navigate an increasingly bifurcated global economy. Meanwhile, the re-escalation of US-China economic and strategic tensions has revived and intensified the dynamics of economic decoupling.

To defend against malicious AI, the United States needs to build a robust digital immune system

Ali Nouri 

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Share Artificial intelligence is delivering breakthroughs—from life-saving drugs to more efficient industries—but as a dual-use technology, it can also be misused for destructive ends. Policymakers have responded by restricting chip exports to adversaries and urging developers to build safe AI, hoping to slow misuse or enforce better norms. But too often, these efforts treat AI only as a threat to contain, rather than a tool to help solve the very risks it creates.

To confront 21st century threats, society needs to deploy contemporary tools—namely AI itself. Export controls and ethical pledges may slow competitors or promote better behavior, but they can’t keep up with a technology that’s cheap to copy, easy to repurpose, and spreading at internet speed. To stay safe, the United States must add a third pillar to its AI strategy: systems that actively defend against malicious use, specifically AI that can fight back.

Dubbed defensive AI, models built for this purpose can monitor, detect, and respond to anomalies in real time. Trained on vast trove of normal activity as well as attack patterns—like phishing emails, credit‑card fraud, and malicious DNA designs—these models learn what “normal” system behavior looks like, so they can quickly flag deviations and take steps to contain or neutralize threats. Such AI functions like a digital immune system, spotting abnormalities in real time and responding before humans even know something is wrong.

Army negotiating contract for autonomy software for robotic initiative

 Ashley Roque

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SMD 2025 — With the US Army pulling back from its own, internally developed ground autonomy software, it is currently negotiating a deal with a company to integrate commercial solutions into two platoons of ground robots, according to Lt. Gen. Robert Rasch.

“This was a decision to move away from just a government solution for autonomy, and bring in the best of industry to help, because we’re going to need them in the long run,” the three-star general in charge of the service’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO) told Breaking Defence today. “We’re in negotiations right now to award a contract, to bring in some industry partners to help us in the areas of autonomy,” he later added.

The Army has spent years internally developing an autonomy package called the Robotic Technology Kernel (RTK), later rebranded as the Army Robotic Common Software, meant to be the software backbone of an envisioned ground robotic fleet. However, delays and questions mounted regarding its viability for use with programs like the Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV).

So for another initiative, dubbed the Human Machine Integrated Formation (HMIF), Rasch said the Army is looking elsewhere to solve that particularly tricky technical problem. HMIF is a concept designed to explore integrating robots and autonomous systems into Army formations.

The Drone and AI Delusion

Secretary of Defense Rock

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A few days ago, Palmer Luckey, the founder of Anduril Industries and a leading voice in the Silicon Valley defense-tech ecosystem, delivered a speech at National Taiwan University in Taipei. Framed as a call to action for Taiwan’s next generation of engineers and technologists, the speech urged students to apply their talents to national defense and help build a high-tech deterrent against the growing threat from China. But beyond its rhetorical appeal to patriotism and innovation, Luckey’s remarks recycled a familiar set of assumptions that have become gospel among defense-focused venture capital firms and companies spawning in Silicon Valley and making their way east to Washington to sell their products. These firms, flush with cash and influence, consistently misinterpret the nature of military power, how wars are actually won, and why military technology evolves the way it does. Luckey’s speech exemplifies the strategic naïveté that emerges when technologists mistake tactical disruption for strategic transformation.

Over the past year, nearly every major American media outlet has published a long-form article touching on the “drone and AI revolution” in warfare. From cable news segments to longform features in major newspapers, the narrative is remarkably consistent: low-cost drones and autonomous systems are transforming the modern battlefield and heralding a new era of war, one that the United States is aloof from.

Jamestown Foundation

China Brief, February 16, 2024, v. 24, no. 4 Special Issue: Taiwanese Voices On The 2024 Elections

Civil Society Defence Initiatives

Seeds of the Sunflower Movement

KMT Bottom Lines Following The 2024 Election

TikTok: An Expanding Front in Cognitive Warfare

KMT Appeal To The Younger Generation

Analysing Taiwan-PRC Relations in 2024 from the Perspective of PRC Internal Affairs and Xi Jinping’s Mode of Governance

Fortifying Taiwan: Security Challenges in the Indo-Pacific Era

The Marine Corps Americans Want Can’t Be Derailed by a Fake Crisis

Ryan Evans

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Nearly 50 years ago I learned a valuable lesson that began when I opened Chapter 1 of John Keegan’s The Face of Battle and read: “I have not been in a battle; not near one, nor heard one from afar,” yet he was going to inform the reader about battles. At that point I nearly closed the book and moved on, believing no one could tell me about battles who had not been in one, as I had been numerous times. However, I continued reading only to again come close to the decision to walk away from the book when Keegan revealed he had never worn the uniform of a soldier. Fortunately, I pressed on and found my knowledge of battles enhanced by Keegan’s research and the insights he offered. Obviously, this changed my mind about learning from those who have not had military experience. And in the years since I have been well-schooled by those who have not seen war nor wore a military uniform.

Yes, over the years I have learned much from others, especially historians, about engagements, battles, campaigns, and national defense generally, and it has complemented my own years of experience. However, I have also learned when an author is misinformed about things military and offers only thin, bitter gruel. Such was the case when I read a recent article in War on the Rocks by Ryan Evans titled, “The Marine Corps Americans Want Can’t Be Derailed by a Fake Crisis.” There are too many mischaracterizations, errors, and outright falsehoods to address all in a Compass Points comment, so let me describe a few.

Center for Security Studies, Georgetown University

Georgetown Security Studies Review, February 2024, v. 11, no. 2 Of Lice and Men: America Needs to Rethink Its National Security Paradigm

What Made War Inevitable: Great-Power Competition and Civil War in Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War

Arms, Ideology, and Alignment: Analyzing U.S.-Soviet Realignment During the Ogaden War

Reining in the Iranian Nuclear Threat: The Unviability of a JCPOA Revival and the Need for a New Game Plan

The Double-Edged Sword of Diplomatic Immunity: The ICJ and the Case Studies of Germany v. Italy and Mohammed bin Salman

Russian Influence and Disinformation Operations in the Balkans

Malaya to Vietnam: The British Counterinsurgency Model and Its Replication Challenges

Tightening the Screws: Examining the Efficacy of U.S. Sanctions Against Russia Amid the Russo-Ukrainian War

It’s All Connected: The Impact of Russian Sanctions on Global Trade Relationships

Decoding Beijing: Book Review of Susan Shirk’s Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise

A Tale of Two Koreas: How the Diverging Korean Language Will Challenge Future Unification

The Decaying Superpower: A Review of the Russian Navy

Sharing Secrets: Why Do States Publicly Share Intelligence?

Myanmar: Asia’s Forgotten Prize

Jim Webb

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As Myanmar’s military junta fails to regain control of the country, the Trump administration should move toward recognizing the determined opposition. As President Trump finalizes tariff agreements in the world’s most populous and vibrant region, his administration should pursue a historic opportunity to free the people of Myanmar from a repressive regime and to allow the country to take its deserved place in the international community. The administration’s position to date has been the opposite, revealing very little understanding of both Myanmar’s present situation and the potential impact if the United States leads the way toward ending the Southeast Asian country’s ruinous civil war.

An Asia Times article on June 18 entitled “Donald Trump’s Craven War on Myanmar” lamented that Trump “has declared war on the conflict-stricken country with a series of ‘reforms’ that will only benefit the ruling junta,” then criticized an odd presidential proclamation to “fully restrict and limit the entry (into the United States) of nationals from Burma.” In another puzzling turn, the White House demanded that Myanmar “release all unjustly detained prisoners, cease violence against civilians and engage in dialogue with all stakeholders to end the crisis.”

Such demands imply the administration’s belief that Myanmar’s situation over the past four years is simply a “crisis” initiated by a group of misbehaving political activists against an established government: that, naively, the “crisis” could be quelled by freeing prisoners who were “unjustly” detained, ending violence against carefully selected groups of civilians, and bringing together a plethora of “stakeholders,” most of whose unifying goal has consistently been to remove the very junta that took power at the end of a gun in the first place.

Army University Press

Military Review, July- August 2024, v. 104, no. 4 2024–2025 Dubik Fellows: Demonstrating the Pen Is Mightier than the Sword

The NATO Strategic Concept on Its Seventy-Fifth Anniversary

Who in NATO Is Ready for War?

NATO’s Most Vulnerable Flank, but Not for the Reasons We Think

From the Hindu Kush to the Banks of the Dnieper: NATO’s Promise and Peril in a New Reality

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Architects of Training: Assessing How TRADOC Makes Soldiers for the All-Volunteer Force

Marketing Authoritarianism: How Putin and Xi Cultivate Isolationism

What’s the Big Idea?: Major General Fremont and the Foundation of an Operational Approach

The Queen of Battle: A Case for True Light Infantry Capability

Little Spoon [poem]

How the 10th Mountain Division Is Going Back to Its Alpine and Mountain Roots

Hunter Electromagnetic Spectrum: A Model to Both Train and Advance Modernization Efforts

Light Infantry Logistics: Transforming from the Global War on Terrorism

Finnish Joint Air-Ground Integration: Building Allied Partner Capability

Lead Climbers: Noncommissioned Officers Drive Change in the 10th Mountain Division

Army War College Press

Parameters, Autumn 2024, no. 54, no. 3 The Forward Edge of the Fifth US Army War College

Avoiding the Escalatory Trap: Managing Escalation during the Israel-Hamas War

The Challenges of Next-Gen Insurgency

A Long, Hard Year: Russia-Ukraine War Lessons Learned 2023

Why the Afghan and Iraqi Armies Collapsed: An Allied Perspective

Restoring Priority on Cultural Skill Sets for Modern Military Professionals

Operating Successfully within the Bureaucracy Domain of Warfare: Part Two

The Fallacy of Unambiguous Warning

Eisenhower as Supreme Allied Commander: A Reappraisal

Resources Designed to Promote Professional Discourse

The Military and the Election: Thinking through Retired Flag Officer Endorsements

Exploring Strategy in India

‘He is completely upset’: Why Trump scrapped an India trade deal

Daniel Desrochers and Megan Messerly

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An early White House visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi led to months of negotiations. By July, the Indians believed they had struck an agreement and that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer were simply waiting on President Donald Trump’s approval. Instead, Indian goods now face a 50 percent tariff after Trump hit the country with a 25 percent levy on its goods and then followed up with an additional 25 percent to dissuade it from buying Russian oil that was set to kick in later this month, a one-two punch on New Delhi and Moscow. The Russian oil purchases — coupled with Trump’s view that India was not lowering its own import tariffs enough — sank the deal.

The unraveling of what had appeared to be a promising trade dynamic between the U.S. and one of the world’s fastest-rising economies illustrates the precarious nature of crafting an economic partnership with a mercurial Trump administration that has freely used high tariff rates to try to bend the world to its will. “We are in a situation now where he is completely upset with India, and the 25 years of effort to build a relationship seems to be going down in 25 hours,” said Mukesh Aghi, the president and CEO of the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum. “We need to arrest this in some manner… because the relationship is critical for both nations.”

The clash also underscores the challenging position the U.S. is in as its hefty tariffs push countries like India and Brazil closer to Russia and China. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva spoke with Modi on Thursday as the Brazilian leader calls for a joint response to Trump’s tariffs from countries that are part of the so-called BRICS group of emerging economies.

enter for Security Studies, Georgetown University

Georgetown Security Studies Review, February 2024, v. 12, no. 1 The Role of Conventional Counterforce in NATO Strategy: Historical Precedents and Present Opportunities

The Rise of Iran’s Cyber Capabilities and the Threat to U.S. Critical Infrastructure

Constructive Competition: A Strategic Framework for U.S. Engagement and Policy Alternatives to the Belt and Road Initiative

Assessing the Efficacy of U.S. Policy in The Sahel: A Multifaceted Approach

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Islam for Legitimation in the Aftermath of the Second Chechen War

Netanyahu defends Gaza City takeover as UN warns of ‘calamity’ and international condemnation grows

Tal Shalev,Dana Karni,Abeer  Salman

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defended his planned military takeover of Gaza City in the face of growing international condemnation and anger, with United Nations officials warning Sunday the move would lead to “another calamity” in the embattled, starving enclave. In a rare news conference with international media, Netanyahu said the controversial operation to take over what was once Gaza’s largest city, which faces tremendous internal and international opposition, is the fastest way to end the war.

“Contrary to false claims, this is the best way to end the war and the best way to end it speedily,” he said. “This is how we bring the war to an end.” In the early hours of Friday morning, Israel’s security cabinet approved plans to capture Gaza City, claiming it is part of its goals to destroy Hamas and rescue the hostages being held in the enclave. But the move raised fears that further fighting will only endanger captives – and worsen an already dire humanitarian crisis.

Israel faced condemnation at the UN on Sunday, with the United Kingdom, Russia, China and France among others expressing their strong opposition to Netanyahu’s military plan for Gaza that would constitute “further violations of international law.” “If these plans are implemented, they will likely trigger another calamity in Gaza, reverberating across the region and causing further forced displacement, killings, and destruction – compounding the unbearable suffering of the population,” said Miroslav Jenča, the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Europe, Central Asia and the Americas.

Marine Corps University Press

Journal of Advanced Military Studies, Fall 2024, v. 15, no. 2 Maritime Militias: Disrupting Naval Operations in the Pacific Theater and the case for Intermediate Force Capabilities in the Maritime Domain

Rescuing the Unreachable: Personnel Recovery and Resupply in a Contested A2/AD Environment

Land Power in the Littoral: An Australian Army Perspective

Reconnaissance-Strike Tactics, Defeat Mechanisms, and the Future of Amphibious Warfare

Bringing Clarity to Stand-in Forces: How Operational Art and Science Provide the Linkage between Stand-in Forces, Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations, and Reconnaissance/Counterreconnaissance Operations

Houthi Motivations Driving the Red Sea Crisis: Understanding How Ansar Allah’s Strategic Culture Goes Beyond Gaza and Iran

Oceans Are Now Battlefields: How the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps can Counter North Korea’s Navy in an Evolving Age

Fires from the Shore: Supporting the Fight for Sea Control

China’s “Second Battlefield”: Political Warfare in Combat Operations

Selecting San Carlos: The Falklands War, 1982

Debt and Development: The Next Chapter of Chinese Investments in Central Asia

Bruce Pannier

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China has been a major investor and trade partner in Central Asia for some twenty-five years. For the first half of those years, Beijing was focused on oil and natural gas pipelines and roads and railways to bring energy resources and raw materials from Central Asia to China, spending tens of billions of dollars on these projects. When they were completed, Chinese investment in Central Asia tapered off. China remained a leading trade partner and investor for the Central Asian states but most of the projects in which China participated were worth millions, not billions of dollars. In the last two years, China launched a new investment offensive in Central Asia that reaches into a variety of sectors. These are the sorts of projects that do not make headlines but they represent billions of dollars in fresh investment and loans. The aim is not so much supplying goods and materials to China, though there are some projects that do this, as it is providing Chinese companies new opportunities to expand. The Central Asian states are benefitting from these projects, but at the same time, Chinese influence in the region will significantly increase and will be especially important in the coming years.

The Era of Mega Projects

China’s first large project in Central Asia was the construction of an oil pipeline capable of carrying 10 million tons of oil annually running some 1,380 miles from the oil fields of western Kazakhstan to western China. The agreement was signed in 1997, and the pipeline became fully functional in 2009. In 2006, China signed an agreement with Turkmenistan for construction of a network of four pipelines (Central Asia to China) to carry a combined 85 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas more than 1,000 miles from Turkmenistan, through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan (each can supply up to ten bcm of their gas), to China. The first of these pipelines, Line A, started operation at the end of 2009. Chinese companies participated in the construction and repair of new roads and railway lines to better connect Central Asia to China. Some of these roads and railways would later become part of the Belt and Road initiative and give China new routes to Europe, Afghanistan, Iran, and the Middle East.

Army War College Press

Parameters, Spring 2025 no. 55, no. 1 Soldiering and Silences: Witnessing Child Sexual Abuse in Afghanistan

Ukraine’s Not-So-Whole-of-Society at War: Force Generation in Modern Developed Societies

Russian Novel Nuclear Weapons and War-Fighting Capabilities

Measuring Interoperability Within NATO: Adapted Off-the-Shelf or Bespoke Solution?

Adapting US Defence Strategy to Great-Power Competition

Tyranny of the Inbox: Managing the US National Security Agenda

Bridging Sky and Sea: Joint Strategies for Medical Evacuation in the Indo-Pacific

Deploying and Supplying the Joint Force from a Contested Homeland

Civil-Military Relations and Democratic Backsliding

By All Means Available: Memoirs of a Life in Intelligence, Special Operations, and Strategy

Security Cooperation and Special Operations

Colonel (Retired) John E. Chere, Jr.

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This work was cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited. Egyptian, Jordanian, and United States Special Operations Forces complete security checks during military operations in urban terrain training, which was part of Exercise Bright Star 18 at Muhamed Naguib Military Base, September 10, 2018. Exercise Bright Star 18 or BS18 is a multilateral exercise to strengthen relationships with Egyptian partners as well as a forum for addressing relevant regional issues associated with enhancing regional security and cooperation, promoting coalition interoperability in irregular warfare, and improving interoperability throughout the full range of military operations. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Dawn M. Weber)

In the current environment of heightened scrutiny of all foreign assistance programs, it is imperative that practitioners of security cooperation (SC) across all organizations are better educated and equipped to negotiate an already complicated and competitive justification process for increasingly limited resources. Certainly, future program requests will be more deeply scrutinized to ensure all assistance requests are tightly aligned with the nation’s interest and evolving strategies. They must also be framed in precise language, with outcomes showing a high return on any U.S. investment. 

This requires that Special Operations Forces (SOF)-SC practitioners and operators at all levels, including senior-level decision-makers, are armed with unique knowledge, language, and procedures that fall under security assistance (SA) and SC. According to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, SC is defined as “All DoD interactions with foreign defense establishments to build defense relationships that promote specific U.S. security interests, develop allied and friendly military capabilities for self-defense and multinational operations, and provide U.S. forces with peacetime and contingency access to a host nation. Security Assistance is also an element of Security Cooperation, funded and authorized by the Department of State (DoS) to be administered by the Department of Defense (DoD). (1)

Global Taiwan Institute

Global Taiwan Brief 2025, v. 10, no.11 Silent Exercises, Escalating Tactics: How the CCP’s Evolving Strategy Shapes Taiwan’s Public Sentiment

PRC ID Cards and Hybrid Warfare: The Accumulated Impact on Taiwan and Potential Countermeasures

Taiwan’s Enduring Controversies Over Abortion Laws

China’s Undersea Cable Sabotage and Taiwan’s Digital Vulnerabilities

What Taiwan Needs in Pope Leo XIV: A Test of Moral Courage

Foreign governments bet big to lobby Trump on tariffs. Most came up empty.

Caitlin Oprysko, Daniel Desrochers and Ari Hawkins

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Countries across the globe have dropped tens of millions this year on lobbyists with ties to President Donald Trump as they rushed to stave off tariffs that could cripple their economies. In most cases, the spending has gotten them nowhere. As Trump has taken a scattershot approach to setting tariff rates — crafting trade agreements that set a 15 percent tariff on major trading partners while imposing rates that vary between 10 and 41 percent on the rest of the world — traditional lobbying tactics in Washington appear to have had little influence.

At least 30 nations hired new lobbyists with connections to Trump since the election. They include major trading partners like South Korea and Japan as well as smaller countries like Bosnia and Ecuador. But employing those lobbyists appeared to bear little relation to whether the countries were able to avoid the most punishing tariffs. “I think the current leadership in Washington seems to be disrupting the traditional way of doing things. It’s not just about the business part, it’s about diplomacy, it’s about dealing with other nations,” said Mukesh Aghi, the CEO of the U.S. India Strategic Partnership Forum. “I think the whole old model of trying to influence does not seem to work.”

The new model is punishing India. After bringing longtime Trump adviser Jason Miller on board in April, the nation has nonetheless been walloped by Trump over the past two weeks. Tariffs for India are now set to rise to 50 percent, after the country failed to secure a trade agreement and Trump decided to jack up tariffs in response to its purchase of Russian oil.

Henley Putnam University

Journal of Strategic Security, 2025, v. 18, no. 2 Terrorism and Counterterrorism in the Taliban’s Afghanistan

Afghan Generational Radicalization

From Uncertainty to Strategic Failure: U.S. Military Interventions and the Complexity of Nation-Building in Afghanistan

Afghanistan: Consolidation of Power Under the Taliban, Challenges and Sustainability

Learning from Afghanistan: The Futility of Occupation in Nation-Building

From Nation-Building to Collapse: Analyzing Afghanistan’s 2021 Fall and the Geopolitical Entropies of U.S. Withdrawal

Our Knowledge of the Taliban as Guide for US Policy

Taliban 1.0 and 2.0 in Afghanistan: Same Policies, Persistent Vision

Afghanistan: Taliban’s Second Chance and RED Strategy

China-Taliban Security Ties: A Reimagining of South Asia's Security Discourse

Navigating Transit Governance: WTO Rules and UNCLOS with a Focus on Nepal and Afghanistan

U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan and Realignment of Eurasian Rival Powers

Human Security and Afghan Refugee Resettlement in the US: A Case Study of Camp Atterbury

Reliance on Local Contractors and Messy Withdrawals: Lessons from Afghanistan

Afghanistan, Wargaming, and Human Behavior

Xi Looks to Tighten Grip After Scandals Shake China’s Military Elite

Chris Buckley

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Outwardly, China’s military has never been stronger. Its naval ships venture farther across the oceans. Its nuclear force grows by about 100 warheads every year. Its military flights around Taiwan are increasingly frequent and intimidating. Every few months, China unveils new weapons, like a prototype stealth fighter or newfangled landing barges. Internally, though, China’s military is experiencing its most serious leadership disarray in years. Three of the seven seats on the Central Military Commission — the Communist Party council that controls the armed forces — appear to be vacant after members were arrested or simply disappeared.

That internal turbulence is testing the effort by President Xi Jinping, going back more than a decade, to build a military that is loyal, modern, combat-ready and fully under his control. Mr. Xi has set a 2027 target for modernizing the People’s Liberation Army, or P.L.A., and also — according to some U.S. officials — for gaining the ability to invade Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory. The current wave of investigations and removals has reached some commanders handpicked by Mr. Xi, suggesting recurrent problems in a system that he has tried for years to clean up. In the first years after Mr. Xi came to power in 2012, he launched an intense campaign to clean up corruption in the military and impose tighter control, culminating in a big reorganization.

“When Xi Jinping sees his own men making mistakes, he is likely to be especially furious,” Joseph Torigian, an associate professor at American University who has studied Chinese leaders’ relations with the military, said of Mr. Xi. “Control over the military is so existential. It’s inherently explosive. That’s why any sense of stepping out of line has to be crushed.”