Indian Strategic Studies: 08/21/25

21 August 2025

India’s strategic pillars are crumbling. Complacency is not an option Opinion

Gen MM Naravane (Retd)

The global order is once again in a state of flux, overtaken by multiple crises that have shattered old convictions and exposed new vulnerabilities. In this altered landscape, India must urgently recalibrate its national security policy and defence architecture to meet the demands of a more volatile, multipolar world.

The wars in Gaza and Ukraine rage on with no clear end in sight, each serving as a proxy battlefield for deeper geopolitical rivalries, with the last round of Putin-Trump talks on Ukraine, held at Anchorage, Alaska, not making any significant breakthrough. Meanwhile, the US, the self-appointed global policeman, has turned inward and belligerent, unleashing a tariff war that has upended global trading norms and strained relations with erstwhile allies. India, caught squarely in the crosshairs of these upheavals, finds itself in a precarious position. Its principal adversary, China, has deepened its strategic partnership with Pakistan. The US, under the Trump administration, has grown openly hostile, with Pakistan Army Chief Asim Munir even issuing nuclear threats from American soil.

Compounding these challenges is the deterioration in US-India relations. President Trump’s tariff blitzkrieg of imposing duties of up to 50 per cent on Indian goods, has been vaguely justified on the grounds of India’s continued trade with Russia, particularly in oil and defence. However, there is a softening of the US stance on secondary sanctions related to oil imports after the talks at Anchorage. The irony is that the same administration which once hailed India as a counterweight to China now penalises it for pursuing strategic autonomy. The optics of Munir being hosted at the White House and issuing threats from Florida have not gone unnoticed by the strategic community in India, driving home a stark message that we can no longer rely on the US as a consistent strategic partner.

America Needs a ‘China Tech Power Report’ to Fight the New Cold War

Yuichiro Kakutani

Published on August 18, 2025 – 3:19 PM EDT – Key Points and Summary: The U.S.-China technology competition is being hindered by a lack of agreed-upon facts, leading to a fractured and ineffective policy debate.

-To solve this, Congress should mandate an annual “China Tech Power” report, mirroring the Pentagon’s influential “China Military Power” report.

-This unclassified document, supported by declassified intelligence, would provide a trusted, public baseline on China’s technological capabilities in areas like AI and semiconductors, the effectiveness of U.S. export controls, and the extent of Beijing’s military-civil fusion.

-Such a report is critical for aligning government and private sector strategies in this new Cold War.

The U.S. Needs A “China Tech Power Report”

The U.S.-China technology competition is heating up, but increasingly, policy discussions are playing out on a split screen. Take recent debates over technology export controls.

On one side, critics argue that export controls have failed to meaningfully delay Chinese tech development, pointing to impressive achievements of Chinese AI tools such as DeepSeek. On the other side, proponents claim that export controls have stalled Beijing’s progress in critical sectors and are essential for maintaining U.S. technological supremacy.

Vibrant debate on the U.S.-China tech competition is welcome. But sometimes it seems as though stakeholders are operating on completely different sets of facts.

For example, Jensen Hwang, CEO of U.S. technology firm NVIDIA, recently claimed that the Chinese military is not using chips produced by his company. Yet open-source researchers disagree, pointing to NVIDIA chips discovered in People’s Liberation Army (PLA) contracts.

Trump says no imminent plans to penalise China for buying Russian oil

WASHINGTON: United States President Donald Trump said on Friday (Aug 15) he did not immediately need to consider retaliatory tariffs on countries such as China for buying Russian oil but might have to "in two or three weeks".

Trump has threatened sanctions on Moscow and secondary sanctions on countries that buy its oil if no moves are made to end the war in Ukraine. China and India are the top two buyers of Russian oil.

The president last week imposed an additional 25 per cent tariff on Indian goods, citing its continued imports of Russian oil.

However, Trump has not taken similar action against China.

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He was asked by Fox News' Sean Hannity if he was now considering such action against Beijing after he and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to produce an agreement to resolve or pause Moscow's war in Ukraine.

"Well, because of what happened today, I think I don't have to think about that," Trump said after his summit with Putin in Alaska.

"Now, I may have to think about it in two weeks or three weeks or something, but we don't have to think about that right now. I think, you know, the meeting went very well."

Chinese President Xi Jinping's slowing economy will suffer if Trump follows through on a promise to ramp up Russia-related sanctions and tariffs.

Xi and Trump are working on a trade deal that could lower tensions - and import taxes - between the world's two biggest economies. But China could be the biggest remaining target, outside of Russia, if Trump ramps up punitive measures.

Trump relaxed restrictions on a key AI chip for China. Beijing isn’t saying thank you

John Liu

In a surprising reversal of the United States’ years-long technology restrictions on China, President Donald Trump last month allowed Nvidia to resume sales of a key AI chip designed specifically for the Chinese market.

Yet rather than celebrating, Beijing’s response has been noticeably lukewarm, despite having long urged Washington to ease the stringent export controls. In the weeks since the policy U-turn, Beijing has called the chip a security risk, summoned Nvidia for explanations and discouraged its companies from using it.

The less-than-welcoming sentiment reflects Beijing’s drive to build a self-sufficient semiconductor supply chain – and its confidence in the progress its rapidly advancing chip industry has made.

But the cold shoulder may also represent some political posturing. Despite significant advances in its semiconductor sector, China still needs America’s chips and technology. Experts said China’s national champion Huawei has developed chips with performance comparable to — and in some cases surpassing — the newly approved Nvidia chip. However, China still wants the more advanced AI processors that remain blocked under US export controls.

In the years since Trump first imposed tech restrictions on Huawei during his first term, China’s chip technology has made significant strides, spurred by the frustration that mounted as Washington piled on export controls, said Xiang Ligang, director-general of a Beijing-based technology industry group and an advisor to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

“We have this capability, it’s not as they imagine – that if China is blocked, China won’t be able to function, or that China will be finished,” he said.

To him, the policy about-face only reflects the importance of having a wholly homegrown chip supply chain.

Russia’s missile salvoes stretch US defenses from Kyiv to Taipei

Gabriel Honrada

Russia’s missiles are outpacing Ukraine’s defenses—and the implications reach well beyond Europe. From South Korea to Taiwan, the US and its allies face the same looming test: intercepting smarter, faster salvos before magazines run dry.

That picture is already visible in Ukraine, where the US Special Inspector General’s latest quarterly report says Kyiv is struggling to stop Russian ballistic missiles because Moscow has adapted its missile tactics in ways that strain Western-supplied air defense systems.

The Special Inspector General’s report notes that Russia has incorporated trajectory-shifting capabilities and mid-course maneuvering into its missiles, preventing them from flying along traditional, predictable arcs that systems like the US-made Patriot are designed to intercept.

Those adaptations have coincided with sharply worse outcomes. In a June 28 attack, Ukrainian forces shot down only one of seven incoming ballistic missiles, while during a massed July 9 strike—the largest since the war began—Ukraine managed to down or suppress just seven of 13 ballistic missiles, according to the same Inspector General report.

The battlefield math is compounded by saturation tactics: hundreds of drones and missiles launched in overlapping waves, forcing Ukraine to spread already limited interceptors thin. Ukrainian defenses, though bolstered by Western deliveries, remain insufficient in scale, and pauses in US assistance have further weakened readiness.

The inability to consistently intercept maneuvering ballistic missiles carries broader consequences. Those lessons resonate in the Indo-Pacific, where North Korea and China are integrating similar technologies into their arsenals, suggesting that Ukraine’s struggles foreshadow what US allies such as South Korea, Japan or Taiwan might face in a barrage.

White House Meeting Ends With Few Signs of Progress on Ukraine

Maggie Haberman David E. Sanger and Jim Tankersley

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, visiting the White House on Monday with an extraordinary delegation of European leaders, used a genial meeting with President Trump to defend his nation’s interests as Mr. Trump presses for a quick peace agreement with Russia.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky huddled for several hours with the group of European leaders, who had rushed to Washington to support the Ukrainian president and emerged from the day in a publicly upbeat mood. Much of the discussion centered on how to put in place security guarantees for Ukraine in an end to the war, while Mr. Trump pushed for a trilateral meeting with Mr. Zelensky and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

But there were few tangible signs of progress made public, or specific details worked out — and any movement toward an end to the war would require follow-through from Mr. Trump, sweeping concessions from Mr. Zelensky and a willingness to stop attacking Ukraine from Mr. Putin. Two European leaders — Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France — pointedly said while reporters were in the room as the meeting started that moving forward would require a cease-fire, something Mr. Putin did not want.

After the meetings, Mr. Trump called Mr. Putin, with whom he met in Alaska on Friday, while Mr. Zelensky and the other European leaders were still at the White House, two people briefed on the call said. The Europeans rejoined Mr. Trump in the Oval Office after the call was finished, according to a White House official who spoke anonymously because the person was not authorized to discuss the meeting publicly.

The European leaders were expected to stay for dinner, but abruptly dispersed shortly before 7 p.m. Eastern time.

Who Are the Green Berets Supposed to Be? Revisiting the Special Forces Identity Crisis

Greg E. Metzgar, U.S. Army (Retired)

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy, or position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, United States Special Operations Command, or the Joint Special Operations University.

This work was cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited.

Introduction

The U.S. Army Special Forces (SF)—better known as the Green Berets—stand at a crossroads. After more than two decades of continuous conflict and evolving mission sets, Special Forces Branch faces a profound question: Who are the Green Berets supposed to be?

Colonel Edward C. Croot's "identity crisis" and the rebuttal by Sergeant Major (Retired) David Shell are not a superficial branding issue. It should be encouraging to Special Forces Branch to see two of its members debating a timely topic rather than allowing outside pundits to examine and attempt to hypothesize critically about the SF Branch. This debate, however, is fraught with risk, as it provides an inside-the-team room perspective that highlights the challenges rooted in shifting doctrine, operational demands, and the very nature of unconventional warfare (UW) as the nation transitions into strategic competition.

To comprehend what is at stake, we must account for several factors; we must examine the historical evolution of UW. These emerging, competing visions for the future of SF must not be shaped by our cognitive biases. We simply cannot close our eyes to the implications that these debates have for the Army, SF, and the nation. Let's acknowledge up front that those willing to take a stand and lay it out in writing are putting service before self while risking detaching themselves from those who safely sit on the sidelines.

Putin Sees Ukraine Through a Lens of Grievance Over Lost Glory

Andrew Higgins

After all of the pre-summit talk of land swaps and the technicalities of a possible cease-fire in Ukraine, President Vladimir V. Putin made clear after his meeting in Alaska with President Trump that his deepest concern was not an end to three and a half years of bloodshed. Rather, it was with what he called the “situation around Ukraine,” code for his standard litany of grievances over Russia’s lost glory.

Returning to grudges he first aired angrily in 2007 at a security conference in Munich, and revived in February 2022 to announce and justify his full scale-invasion of Ukraine, Mr. Putin in his post-summit remarks in Alaska demanded that “a fair balance in the security sphere in Europe and the world as whole must be restored.”

Only this, he said, would remove “the root causes of the crisis” in Ukraine — Kremlin shorthand for Russia’s diminished status since it lost the Cold War with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the end of Moscow’s hegemony over Eastern Europe.

How Putin Could Lose Another 1,900,000 Soldiers in Ukraine War

Reuben Johnson

FORT MOORE , Ga. Maneuver Center of Excellence hosts the 2024 Armor Week media day on Harmony Church Mar. 14, 2024. The event featured live-fire demonstrations with the M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank, and an opportunity to get up close and hands-on with M1 Abrams and M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Armor Week, April 29 to May 3, and the 2024 Sullivan Cup competition requires mastery of individual tasks, technical and tactical competence, and the ability to demonstrate an array of maneuver, sustainment, and gunnery skills. The competition focuses primarily on the performance of the Soldiers functioning as a crew. (U.S. Army photo by Patrick A. Albright)

-According to a UK intelligence report, this move is a deliberate ploy to frame Kyiv as the obstacle to peace when it inevitably rejects the impossible terms.

-With over a million Russian casualties, analysts believe Putin cannot afford to end the war without a significant territorial victory to justify the immense losses, a victory his military has been unable to achieve on the battlefield.

Putin’s Nightmare: 1 Million Casualties and Nothing to Show For It

WARSAW, POLAND – A UK Ministry of Defense intelligence briefing on Aug. 15 reported Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his war aims on the eve of his summit with U.S. President Donald Trump.

His statement could sink the summit between the two in Anchorage, Alaska, regardless of what happens there.

According to the UK Defense Intelligence Service, on the eve of his meeting with the U.S. president, Putin “reiterated longstanding maximalist demands regarding Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, including for the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the four internationally-recognized Ukrainian oblasts of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson.”

Why Putin Must Be Thrilled With the Result of the Alaska Summit

Simon Shuster

Vladimir Putin wanted a lot of things from his visit to Alaska. A ceasefire in Ukraine was not one of them.

Throughout the summer, his troops have been grinding out advances along the frontline, and they achieved a sudden breakthrough in the days before the Alaska summit. Putin’s main objective was to buy time for his troops to continue those advances, all while avoiding the “very severe consequences” that President Donald Trump promised to impose on the Russians if they refused to call a ceasefire.

It appears Putin succeeded on both counts. In his public statements on Friday night, Trump made clear he no longer plans to impose any economic pain on Russia. “Because of what happened today, I think I don’t have to think about that,” he told Fox News after the summit. “I may have to think about it in two weeks or three weeks or something, but we don't have to think about that right now.”

In Trump’s understanding, two or three weeks is a malleable term, as the New York Times recently noted, “not a measurement of time so much as a placeholder.”

On the battlefield, however, it could mean the difference between holding off the Russians and allowing them to seize another region of Ukraine. The epicenter of the fighting in recent weeks has been the region of Donetsk, where Ukrainian troops were able to stop the latest Russian breakthrough.

The latest maps of the fighting indicate that the Kremlin remains determined to seize that region. Another few weeks of Russian infantry assaults could achieve that goal, allowing Putin to negotiate with the U.S. and Ukraine from a position of greater advantage. “Things at the front are going well for them,” a senior Ukrainian military officer tells TIME. “Slow but steady.”

These gains helped Putin negotiate in Alaska from a position of strength. Ahead of their talks, Trump indicated that he wants the warring sides to “swap” territories, with Ukraine giving away its own land in exchange for areas Russia has occupied. “They’ve occupied some very prime territory,” Trump said a few days before his summit with Putin. “We’re going to try and get some of that territory back for Ukraine.”

“Prioritized Deterrence”: A Roadmap for US Foreign Policy

Riley Moore

President Trump’s recent strike on Iran provides a model for America’s future military engagement around the world—balancing strategic interests with industrial capacity and political will.

On June 22nd, the United States Air Force and Navy conducted “Operation Midnight Hammer” against three Iranian nuclear facilities: Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.

President Donald Trump’s bold and successful strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities put America First foreign policy on full display—defending against a specific threat to American national security with precision and restraint. This strike is also a potentially doctrinal defining moment. Indeed, President Trump may have inaugurated a new era in American grand strategy, one characterized by what I am calling “Prioritized Deterrence.”

The strike on Iran was not about nation-building or human rights. It was specific, targeted, time delimited, and dependent on unique American technical capabilities. The result was denying Iran the ability to threaten America and our allies with nuclear weapons, while opening the door to a more stable future for the region. All of these reflect elements of Prioritized Deterrence.

What Is “Prioritized Deterrence”?

So, what is Prioritized Deterrence? Like realism, Prioritized Deterrence is girded by restraint and guided by quantifiable and inherent constraints placed on the nation, its resources, and our people. Acknowledging these realities forces decision makers to prioritize threats and challenges based on urgency and severity. Decision makers then match questions of time and interest to arenas of American technical dominance. America should strike where and when it can deploy overwhelming force, but only at the highest priority targets and without open-ended commitments in terms of time and resources—commitments we cannot afford given the existential threat posed to America by the Chinese Communist Party.

Exploring War Termination in the Russo-Ukraine War

Jerry Landrum

During his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised that, if elected, he would end the Russo-Ukraine War within 24 hours by meeting personally with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky. Six months into his term, however, the war persists. This gap between political rhetoric and reality reflects not a deficiency in negotiation skills but the deeper dynamics that H.E. Goemans’ theory of war termination reveals about how battlefield outcomes reshape war aims, exacerbate commitment problems, and interact with domestic political constraints to prevent peace. Applying Goemans’ framework to the Russo-Ukraine War reveals why even sustained US pressure has failed to produce a settlement and why similar dynamics recur in protracted conflicts. Any future peace negotiations over the Russo-Ukraine War must successfully navigate the challenges highlighted within this theoretical framework.

Variance in War Aims

Goemans argues that bargaining space for war termination opens only when neither side demands more than the other can accept. Yet war aims vary based on battlefield outcomes. For Russia, the Kremlin’s illegal annexation of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia in the fall of 2022 marked a pivot from an early focus on capturing Kyiv to securing territorial control in the east and south. Putin’s rhetoric, however, continues to invoke a vision of a culturally unified Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia, suggesting that if conditions allowed, the Kremlin would once again pursue control over all of Ukraine. At the 2025 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin reiterated that he considers “Ukraine and Russia peoples to be one people. In this sense, all of Ukraine is ours. We have a rule. Wherever a Russian soldier sets foot is ours.”

For Ukraine, the central objective remains the preservation of genuine independence. Zelensky has declared that surrendering territory is “legally” impossible, yet he has hinted that a settlement involving concessions might be conceivable if backed by Western guarantees. This ambiguity reflects the weaker side’s adaptive strategy of balancing maximalist goals with pragmatic assessments of Western commitment, battlefield innovation (such as cost-effective drone strikes on Russian strategic assets), and the resilience of its population.

SOME PERILS OF TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE AND HOW TO AVOID THEM

Tom Galvin

As was the case following the end of the Cold War, the Army is pursuing transformation to reorient its capabilities in preparation for the future multi-domain battlefield.

Like culture change, transformational change is hard. Both involve an important human dimension. Typically, culture change involves correcting attitudes and behaviors to reinforce existing norms, values, warfighting ethos, and attitudes. But transformation involves something else, a deliberate breakage from the past to instill a new normal–one that promises greater capability and success in the battlefield.

In 2025, transformation is a must. As was the case following the end of the Cold War, the Army is pursuing transformation to reorient its capabilities in preparation for the future multi-domain battlefield. Chief of Staff of the Army General Randy George describes this as “transformation in contact,” because the Army must simultaneously transform while still engaged in current operations. Army Futures Command Commanding General Jim Rainey describes today’s transformation in contact as but one phase as the Army must also simultaneously exercise “deliberate transformation” to ensure longer-term development of leap-ahead weapons systems remain feasible and affordable.

However, what to break in order to make such transformations happen? And what does this breakage do to the psyche of the soldiers in the units whose capabilities are to be cast aside? It is these questions I recently confronted in contributing to transformational efforts in two different army commands. Each resulted in a general challenge, or peril, that transformational efforts face that might not always be salient to the leaders pushing for change. I will include a third peril at the end.

My experiences came in the form of two recent multi-day workshops, each related to large organizations undergoing transformational change at their level simultaneously with the on-going army transformation. In both cases, the efforts to deliberately break from the past produced some deep concerns and anxiety over what the transformation would accomplish. There was no disagreement that the transformations were necessary, and most welcomed it. But the process of crossing the line of departure was very uncomfortable. Below I will share themes relating to this experience that I believe are sufficiently common so as to warrant broader attention. For obvious reasons, I must obscure the details of these experiences.

How the Trump-Putin Summit Signals a Return to Imperial Thinking

Damien Cave

When President Trump chose Alaska for Friday’s summit meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to discuss the war in Ukraine, his supporters suggested that the location offered a nod to savvy deal making. The United States had purchased the territory from Russia in 1867 for about 2 cents an acre.

But with Ukraine being excluded — as was the case for Indigenous Alaskans when their land was transferred — the summit has already revived discussion of what some scholars say Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump seem in some ways to share: an imperial mind-set.

The term was first popularized by Gerard Libaridian, an Armenian-American historian, who used it in a 2014 speech in England to refer to former empires like Iran, Turkey and Russia, as they sought to influence post-Soviet states they had once controlled. In his view, it describes an approach that lingers in many a national psyche, fusing a simplistic nostalgia for greatness to strong beliefs about the right to keep dominating smaller nations and neighbors.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the idea has gained momentum, usually in reference to Putin’s Russia. And Mr. Trump’s assertive second term — with his threats to seize Greenland and the Panama Canal, make Canada the 51st state and send American troops into Mexico — has spurred new accusations from historians and world leaders that his demands for deference reflect an imperial mentality.

Mr. Trump has hardly been consistent. He has often condemned foreign intervention and “stupid wars,” while bombing Iran and expressing ambivalence about U.S. alliances and the defense of vulnerable democracies like Taiwan.

Still, there’s perhaps something imperial — or at least a version of great power behavior with some additional traits — in his talk of “land swaps” to bring peace in Ukraine over the country’s own objections.

America's Bet on AI

The rise of artificial intelligence is the single most important trend of our time. The changes it will wreak on human life eclipse not only all other contemporary technological developments, but also any since the Industrial Revolution. The new pope recognizes its salience, choosing as his regnal name “Leo XIV,” because just as Leo XIII was confronted with the social change from the Industrial Revolution, he seeks to confront the even more dramatic change from AI.

Breakthroughs happen monthly now. OpenAI’s o3 model recently scored higher than 99.8 percent of competitive programmers—while the same lab’s Sora engine, launched in February and now being integrated into ChatGPT, can already generate minute-long, high-definition video from text. In July, frontier models from both Google DeepMind and OpenAI sat the International Mathematical Olympiad under the same four-and-a-half-hour rules given to the world’s brightest teens, solved five of the six problems, and earned gold medals. In April, a University at Buffalo team unveiled Semantic Clinical AI (SCAI), an architecture that grafts formal medical knowledge onto a large language model. SCAI scored as high as 95 percent on Step 3 of the US Medical Licensing Examination—better than most practicing physicians and ahead of every previous AI benchmark—showing that well-structured retrieval can turn AI into a skilled general diagnostician.

AI’s new methodological phase is the emergence of AI agents, systems that autonomously execute sequences of tasks in pursuit of a goal. This phase is called agentic AI, which builds on Large Language Models (LLMs) that have dominated AI in the last few years. Those LLMs are neural networks that understand the relation of words in text and can use that understanding to generate competent, even expert, answers on every subject.

Agentic AI marries the predictive eloquence of LLM to an institutional framework of memory, goal-seeking, and tool use. No longer confined to completing sentences, the system can now formulate a purpose, decompose it into ordered tasks, engage external software, monitor its own performance, and revise its course when it makes mistakes. In short, where the LLM offers fluent speech, the agentic overlay supplies the infrastructure necessary for transforming mere words into coordinated action. One way of measuring progress in agentic AI is the uninterrupted duration of its competent autonomy at human tasks.

Will America abandon Israel?The old consensus is crumbling

Christopher Caldwell

Reports of starvation from occupied Gaza seem to have shaken the American public’s unconditional support for Israel: 53% hold a negative view of the Jewish state, according to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, which surveyed 24 countries. The United States used to head the list of countries in Israel’s corner. Today, that list is just three countries long: only in Kenya, Nigeria and India did those with a positive view of Israel outnumber its critics. The United States may be coming into line with European countries, in all of which public opinion on Israel is negative.

In the days after Hamas’s grisly assaults of October 7, 2023, which left almost 1,200 dead, including over 800 civilians, Americans backed Israel’s muscular counterattack by 50% to 45%. But Israel’s ceaseless bombardment of Gaza has left at least 50,000 dead — most of them civilians, including 12,000 children under 12. Precise numbers are hard to come by, and Israel does not permit reporters to enter the war zone. A late-July Gallup poll found that Americans now oppose Israel’s military operation by almost two-to-one.

What is most interesting about this is the partisan skew. Whereas Republican support for the Israeli war effort has remained steady at 71%, Democratic support has collapsed, from 36% to just 8%. This matters: the Democratic Party wins about 70% of the votes of American Jews, and has been their political home since they began arriving as immigrants in the 19th century. It is under pressure to become an anti-Israel party. Under the influence of Donald Trump, the party is moving Left. And opposition to Israel has been a winner for Left parties in the West. La France Insoumise, the continent’s most anti-Israel major party, won the most seats in France’s legislative elections last year. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the party’s leader, is France’s most uncompromising critic of Israel. Jeremy Corbyn, who occupies a similar spot on the British political landscape, came within a handful of seats of becoming prime minister in 2017, and now appears to be enjoying a revival.

America's Missile Gap has gone from Problem to Liability

Benjamin Cook

In reaction to Israel’s aggression on Iran, the latter has launched more than 1,400 projectiles — according to Israeli statistics: roughly 550 ballistic missiles and over 1,000 drones — in the course of 12 days. Israel and allies intercepted most of them with layered defenses, the United States played a critical role, deploying two of its army’s seven THAAD batteries and supplying roughly 80 SM-3 interceptors from warships of the US Navy. The cost to replenish those systems is expected to top $2 billion, with delivery timelines stretching years.

This was just a preview.

The Iranian missile strikes have forced U.S. stockpiles to contract in real time, revealing the uncomfortable truth that even a moderate regional crisis—against a single ally, over less than two weeks—was enough to trigger resource strain. Meanwhile, Ukraine faces similar challenges daily and on a larger scale. The United States has committed itself to helping both, but without major changes to its industrial posture, it may soon be unable to help either, or itself.

It may be time to bring in Raytheon and Lockheed Martin and have a direct conversation about nationalization. If they can’t meet cost and delivery targets that align with U.S. magazine depth requirements, the government has both the authority and the responsibility to act. The risk is no longer theoretical. If a modest regional conflict requires this level of depletion, a larger one could expose the United States as incapable of defending itself and its allies.

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The Era of Peacetime Production Is Over

America’s adversaries have spent years reorganizing their economies to support military goals. Russia has raised defense spending above 6% of GDP and moved to 24/7 munitions production. China has expanded military spending steadily for two decades, integrating dual-use infrastructure and technology into every level of state policy. Iran and North Korea continue to develop long-range strike capabilities and deploy them via proxies and regional threats.

What the Trump-Putin Summit Means for Ukraine, Europe, and Peace

Fabian Hoffmann

On 15 August, U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Alaska for a high-profile Trump-Putin summit to discuss the ongoing war in Ukraine, prospects for a lasting peace agreement, and the future of European security.

The Trump-Putin meeting left behind an uneasy mix of relief and apprehension. Relief, because the encounter could have produced a much deeper alignment between Washington and Moscow at the expense of Ukraine and Europe. Apprehension, because Trump’s remarks still left open the possibility of a settlement framework shaped on Russian terms, with Europe and Ukraine reduced to secondary roles.

This post examines both the implications of the Trump-Putin meeting and discusses the conditions required to pursue a realistic path toward a just and durable peace.

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Bad, but it could have been worse. That is how I would summarize the Trump-Putin summit episode.

On the positive side, Trump does not appear to have been fully swayed by Putin’s ‘great power concert’ diplomacy, which seeks to sideline Ukraine and Europe and settle the war and Europe’s future directly between the United States and Russia.

Listening to Trump afterward, he seems to envision some role for Ukraine and its European partners, though it remains unclear what exactly that might be. In the worst case, Trump could simply expect Ukraine to accept whatever understanding he and Putin reached (the word “deal” that was printed in international media afterwards appears to be a translation error) and for European states to follow along. Much will depend on the expected meeting between Zelensky and Trump in the coming days.

Decision-Making Paralysis & Trust Erosion: From Psychological Warfare to an AI-Led “Information War”

Hozint

Information Warfare is no longer confined to the battlefield; it permeates every layer of society. From institutional decision-making and intelligence analysis to everyday users seeking trustworthy news, we are all operating in an environment shaped by increasingly sophisticated disinformation tactics. What was once a secondary concern in OSINT operations is now a primary threat: the credibility of sources and content is under continuous attack.

While not a new phenomenon, Information Warfare has evolved into one of the most complex hybrid threats, especially with the rise of Generative AI. As highlighted by organisations like NATO, EDMO, and the Joint Research Centre, AI-powered deepfakes, doctored footage, and manipulated texts are now weaponised to distort perception, paralyse decision-making, and undermine public trust.

This article examines the evolving strategies of disinformation and AI-driven manipulation, and their implications for situational awareness in an era of digital deception. We also briefly discuss potential approaches to enhance the detection and mitigation of disinformation.

Challenges in Source Reliability and Content Credibility

Malicious actors employ a wide range of strategies to manipulate information. These are compounded by unintentional actions, such as the widespread resharing of unverified content, which also contribute significantly to the spread of disinformation. As previously highlighted, these hybrid threats are multimodal and increasingly realistic, often triggering what is known as the Liar’s Dividend: a phenomenon where the sheer volume of manipulated content leads people to distrust even accurate information.

When highly convincing visual content is combined with sophisticated textual or audio manipulation, it becomes increasingly difficult to escape the credibility trap they create. Moreover, disinformation is no longer limited to emotional language or overtly biased narratives. Today’s manipulation strategies are far more subtle and complex, making even text-based distortions harder to detect and more dangerous in their ability to shape perceptions.

Directed Energy in Air Base Defense Can Save the Arsenal

Alex Alaniz

The aerial battles of the 21st century have ushered in a dilemma that defense planners can no longer afford to ignore: adversaries are flooding the skies with cheap unmanned aerial systems and missiles, while we continue to expend million-dollar interceptors to stop them in hotspots such as the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea.

The result is a losing proposition, but a solution is emerging with revolutionary capabilities: directed energy. Lasers and high-power electromagnetic systems offer reusable, deep magazine defense at pennies per shot. After decades of investment across the military branches in research and development, the value proposition is finally shifting in the technology’s favor.

Recent events highlight the urgency to deploy these systems. Between March and June of 2024, Russia launched more than 400 missiles at Ukraine. That April and again in October of the same year, Iran unleashed massive drone and missile salvos at Israel. Each attack forced Israel, the United States and allies to respond with a dense web of interceptors, from

Patriot missiles costing $3 million to $5 million each, to SM-3 rounds ranging from $10 million to $30 million apiece, to SM-6 rounds priced at around $4 million per shot. Total defense costs for Israel and allies during the April 2024 strike likely exceeded $1 billion, experts estimated.

That burn rate is not sustainable — not from an economics standpoint, and certainly not from a manufacturing standpoint. The logic is simple: an adversary can quickly bankrupt us by forcing us to trade interceptors for cheap munitions.

Directed energy offers a new path — one that does not replace expensive kinetic defensive systems but rather complements them with a reusable layer capable of defeating many types of threats before they reach their targets.

INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE: Weather Key to Gaining Tactical Edge In Changing Battlespaces

J.R. Cottingham

From ancient omens to advanced satellite forecasting, commanders have long recognized that weather can profoundly influence the outcome of battle, just like any other human decision.

Weather affects every dimension of military operations, including fire and maneuver, logistics, training, mobility, communication and safety.

History offers dramatic proof. Napoleon’s advance at Waterloo was halted by a night of rain that bogged down his artillery. The success of the D-Day invasion hinged on correctly predicting a brief break in severe weather. In Iraq in 2003, a sandstorm stalled the U.S.-led advance on Baghdad for days.

These real-world moments remind us that weather is not a background variable; it is a force to be reckoned with.

Today, satellites, Doppler radar, sensors and AI-enhanced models offer forecast accuracy that previous generations could only have dreamed of. Despite these technological leaps, a critical gap remains: real-time, macro-aware yet sometimes hyperlocal and context-rich weather intelligence for the tactical edge.

What matters most to a platoon in motion, a fighter squadron en route or a naval task force entering hostile waters is not next week’s weather; it’s what will happen in the next hours, in their precise location and under potentially degraded connectivity.

Tactical weather awareness is increasingly vital in a battlespace shaped by climate volatility. As weather events can be severe and impactful, the likelihood of a disruption to operations increases, along with the opportunity for those best prepared to gain an advantage.

Breaking NATO’s Cult of the Urban Offense

John Spencer, Stuart Lyle and Jayson Geroux

In doctrine, dogma dies hard. Nowhere is this more evident than in NATO’s enduring obsession with the offense, particularly in the terrain of the urban environment. Despite being a fundamentally defensive alliance, most NATO exercises, training courses, and operational plans focus on seizing ground, breaching defenses, and clearing strongpoints. The result is a dangerous conceptual imbalance: armies that are prepared to attack in cities but not to defend them. In reality, they will likely have to do the latter before they ever do the former.

This is not an abstract concern. If conflict erupts in NATO’s sphere of interest, the first units to make contact will almost certainly be defending, not attacking. An adversary is likely to have the important first-mover advantage, seizing the initiative by making the opening moves. Initial objectives in such conflicts will undoubtedly include those large urban areas that straddle the main transportation infrastructure leading farther toward the adversary’s objectives. Potential adversaries know this in advance. They will plan to mass fires, integrate uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) with thermobaric payloads, and conduct urban shaping operations before launching a combined arms assault. They will not wait for NATO to organize a counterattack. War will come to the defenders.

Why, then, are NATO militaries still preparing to assault someone else’s trenches instead of holding their own?

The Cult of the Urban Offense

The roots of this imbalance lie in what can only be described as a cult of the urban offense. It is baked into NATO doctrine, into training centers, and into the very language of tactical education. Urban warfare is taught almost exclusively through the narrow lens of clearing buildings, breaching doors, assaulting intersections, and suppressing enemy strongpoints. The imagery is kinetic, aggressive, and built around a World War II model of urban combat that focuses almost entirely on the tactical level.

The Secret to Success in Professional Military Education

Ken Segelhorst

Author’s Note: I first published this article in 2022 on West Point’s Center for Junior Officers (CJO) website. After retiring in 2024, I published multiple articles for other publications exposing systemic issues at West Point and the other service academies. These included “Gen Z Goes to West Point” (2025), “Cheating Without Consequences” (2025), and “Army-Navy Game: Celebrating Tradition While Concealing a Crisis” (2024). Consequently, CJO removed this piece along with “The Commissioning Ceremony: Planning a Meaningful and Memorable Event” from its website and social media. Despite repeated requests, neither CJO nor the Academy has provided any explanation. I’m republishing “How to Succeed in Professional Military Education” with SOFREP so it can once again serve as a resource for members of the profession.

It Started With a Question. It was a conversation I had several times as an assistant professor at the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point. First-class cadets, mere months or even weeks from graduating, would approach me with questions on how to succeed at the Basic Officer Leader Course (BOLC). These cadets, having read my instructor biography, knew that I had performed well in my professional military education (PME) and wanted to know my “secret to success” for such courses.

Unfortunately, I was never able to provide these cadets with a comprehensive answer. The fact is that I never went into one of these courses with the intent of graduating at the head of the class, let alone with a plan to do so. Rather, in most cases, I simply hoped to graduate alongside my classmates.

As my time at West Point came to an end, I finally found the time to look back and deliberately reflect on what made me successful in my PME courses. Through that reflection, I was able to identify several common characteristics, some conceptual and some more practical, that I believe contributed to my success. I share these now in hopes that all officers – commissioned, warrant, and noncommissioned – can apply them to succeed in their PME, both for themselves and the young men and women they will lead throughout their careers.

The Enlightened Warrior: Applying Reason and Critical Thinking in Special Forces

David Maxwell

Enlightenment values of reason and critical thinking are essential for Special Forces operators to effectively analyze complex situations and make sound decisions in the field.

In an era marked by complexity, ambiguity, and persistent threats in the gray zone of conflict, the modern Special Forces operator must be more than a warrior, he must be an Enlightened Warrior. Drawing from the philosophical legacy of the Enlightenment and thinkers such as Locke, Kant, and Camus, the Special Forces soldier embodies a rare fusion of tactician, strategist, philosopher, and statesman. This essay argues that Enlightenment values, especially reason, critical thinking, and the pursuit of human dignity, are not only relevant but essential to the modern Special Forces (SF) practitioner, particularly within the realms of irregular warfare, unconventional warfare, and political warfare.

The Enlightenment and the Warrior Ethos

The Enlightenment, often called the Age of Reason, championed the capacity of human beings to think for themselves. Immanuel Kant famously described it as “man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity,” which he defined as “the inability to use one’s understanding without the guidance of another.” For the Special Forces soldier, this ethos of independent thinking is fundamental. Operating in austere environments, often with incomplete information and high political stakes, SF personnel must rely on their capacity for reasoned judgment and moral clarity.

The SF soldier is “a Locke-ian liberal, a Burke-ian conservative, and a Stoic pragmatist,” reflecting a nuanced blend of tradition and critical inquiry. Enlightenment values provide the intellectual framework for this synthesis. The ability to question assumptions, challenge dominant narratives, and think dialectically is not just a philosophical luxury; it is a tactical and strategic necessity.

The Philosophical Warrior: Locke and Kant in the Field

The Secret to Success in Professional Military Education

Ken Segelhorst

Author’s Note: I first published this article in 2022 on West Point’s Center for Junior Officers (CJO) website. After retiring in 2024, I published multiple articles for other publications exposing systemic issues at West Point and the other service academies. These included “Gen Z Goes to West Point” (2025), “Cheating Without Consequences” (2025), and “Army-Navy Game: Celebrating Tradition While Concealing a Crisis” (2024). Consequently, CJO removed this piece along with “The Commissioning Ceremony: Planning a Meaningful and Memorable Event” from its website and social media. Despite repeated requests, neither CJO nor the Academy has provided any explanation. I’m republishing “How to Succeed in Professional Military Education” with SOFREP so it can once again serve as a resource for members of the profession.

It Started With a Question. It was a conversation I had several times as an assistant professor at the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point. First-class cadets, mere months or even weeks from graduating, would approach me with questions on how to succeed at the Basic Officer Leader Course (BOLC). These cadets, having read my instructor biography, knew that I had performed well in my professional military education (PME) and wanted to know my “secret to success” for such courses.

Unfortunately, I was never able to provide these cadets with a comprehensive answer. The fact is that I never went into one of these courses with the intent of graduating at the head of the class, let alone with a plan to do so. Rather, in most cases, I simply hoped to graduate alongside my classmates.

As my time at West Point came to an end, I finally found the time to look back and deliberately reflect on what made me successful in my PME courses. Through that reflection, I was able to identify several common characteristics, some conceptual and some more practical, that I believe contributed to my success. I share these now in hopes that all officers – commissioned, warrant, and noncommissioned – can apply them to succeed in their PME, both for themselves and the young men and women they will lead throughout their careers.

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