“Sabotaging” S-400 & Su-35 Deals, Russia Accuses The U.S. Of Hurting Its Arms Exports To India & Beyond

Sakshi Tiwari

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The Main Intelligence Department of the Russian Ministry of Defense (RuMoD) has claimed that the United States is actively working to scuttle Russian arms exports to countries in the Asia-Pacific, a theatre where Washington is expanding its own influence to counter China’s rise.

Speaking at the Moscow Conference on International Security, Igor Kostyukov, the chief of the Main Intelligence Department of the Russian Defense Ministry, claimed that the US is blackmailing Asia-Pacific nations to prevent them from fulfilling their arms deals with Russia, as reported by the Russian Interfax news agency.

“By blackmailing countries of the Asia Pacific region with the threat of sanctions, Washington is obstructing the implementation of Russian contracts for delivering S-400 air defense missile systems to India, Sukhoi Su-35 fighter aircraft and Mil Mi-17 helicopters to Indonesia, and Mi-171 helicopters to the Philippines.

It is also seeking to disrupt planned military-technical cooperation between Russia and Vietnam,” Kostyukov said.

Kostyukov singled out the issue of S-400 delivery to India, without elaborating much. The intelligence chief did not say if New Delhi had been called upon by Washington to shelve the acquisition of the Russian air defense system.

However, the allegations correspond with Donald Trump taking a hostile approach towards India for buying Russian energy and arms, and fuelling the Russian war against Ukraine. Trump, who was until recently calling India a friend, went so far as to call India a “dead economy” and imposed an additional 25% tariff as a punitive measure.

The US had earlier exempted India from sanctions under the CAATSA (Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) over its acquisition of S-400 in 2018. However, a lot has changed since then, and Trump has expressed his frustration with the unending Ukraine War on multiple occasions in recent months.

Conference Proceedings on U.S.-Indian Security and Defense Industrial Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific

John V. Parachini, Vivek Mishra, Rafiq Dossani, Pratnashree Basu, Bruce Held, Amoha Basrur, Prateek Tripathi, Randall Steeb, Abhishek Sharma

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In September 2024, RAND and the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) convened an in-person Track II dialogue at ORF’s office in New Delhi. ORF is a nonpartisan think tank based in India focusing on security, strategy, economy, development, energy, and global governance. The purpose of the dialogue, which was sponsored by the U.S. government, was to discuss three topics: (1) Indian and U.S. security relations with South and Southeast Asian countries and the prospects for arms sales to them by India and the United States, (2) lessons from Indian and U.S. experiences of joint production of weapon systems, and (3) combat vehicles’ mission capabilities and the future of warfare. For each topic, there was a presentation by ORF participants and a presentation by RAND participants.

In this volume, RAND and ORF authors reflect on findings from the presentations and exchange of views at the meeting, as well as follow-up research.

Is Ukraine the Future of Asia?

C. Raja Mohan

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When Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, then-Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida warned that the war and its outcome would be a harbinger of Asia’s future. His message was clear: Just as Europe faced Russian territorial expansionism, Asia was confronting the challenge of China’s growing assertiveness—each with potentially profound consequences for the respective continent.

Three years later, Kishida’s warning has acquired a more ominous meaning. U.S. President Donald Trump is pressing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to cede territory in exchange for peace of an uncertain duration, while demanding that European allies fall in line. For Asia, Trump’s high-handed diplomacy raises troubling questions about whether America will remain a reliable security guarantor in the Indo-Pacific.

An illustration shows a missile shooting through the ear of a silhouetted person against a static-y backdrop of the Russian flag.

China's Xi touts unity and development in surprise Tibet visit

Laura Bicker

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President Xi Jinping urged unity on a surprise visit to Tibet, appearing before 20,000 people to mark 60 years since China created the autonomous region after annexing it.

In what is only his second presidential visit to the tightly-controlled region, Xi praised the local government for "engaging in a thorough struggle against separatism" - a reference to decades-old Tibetan resistance to Beijing.

The visit to Lhasa, which sits at an altitude that could pose health problems for the 72-year-old, suggests a desire to stamp his authority over the region.

His published comments did not mention the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader who has been living in exile in India since he fled in 1959.

"To govern, stabilise and develop Tibet, the first thing is to maintain political stability, social stability, ethnic unity and religious harmony," Xi said, according to an official summary of his speech.

His visit on Wednesday comes just two months after the Dalai Lama announced that his office, not China, would choose his successor. China's leaders, however, claim that only they have the power to oversee that decision.

The 90-year-old has always advocated a "middle way" to resolve the status of Tibet - genuine self-rule within China - but Beijing regards him as a separatist.

China has long maintained that Tibetans are free to practice their faith, but that faith is also the source of a centuries-old identity which human rights groups say Beijing is slowly eroding.

When the BBC visited a Tibetan monastery in Sichuan province in June, monks claimed Tibetans were being denied human rights and that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continued to "oppress and persecute" them.

Beijing says the standard of living of people in Tibet has greatly improved under its rule and denies suppressing their human rights and freedom of expression.

Incentives for U.S.-China Conflict, Competition, and Cooperation Across Artificial General Intelligence’s Five Hard National Security Problems

Michael S. Chase, William Marcellino

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In a relationship marked by strategic rivalry and mutual suspicion, the prospect of either the United States or the People’s Republic of China (PRC)—or both—achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI) is likely to heighten tensions and could even increase the risk of competition spiraling into conflict.[1] This is unsurprising, as AGI could reshape the global balance of power or yield “wonder weapons” capable of overwhelming intelligence systems, information ecosystems, and cyber defenses (Mitre and Predd, 2025).

Yet the emergence of AGI could also create incentives for risk reduction and cooperation. We argue that both will not only be possible but essential. The United States and China will both want to avoid miscalculation and misunderstandings that could lead to an unwanted war. Neither will be able to manage alone the risks of AGI misuse—whether from rogue actors developing novel weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), autonomous agents triggering crises, or cascading disruptions that exceed state capacity. But such progress on risk reduction or on cooperation will not emerge organically. It will require a deliberate and carefully calibrated diplomatic effort to make it viable. In this paper, we offer some ideas for where to start, building on existing yet underdeveloped platforms and avenues for dialogue.

The PRC’s choices will be a principal factor in shaping the risks and opportunities that U.S. policymakers will face on the path to AGI, and, likewise, Chinese officials will likely view the United States as the most consequential external actor shaping AGI outcomes. At first glance, it might seem that the intensifying friction between Washington and Beijing over security, economic, and technology issues, along with each side’s extremely negative views of the other’s intentions, will drive relations between them in areas related to AGI.

However, the potential for the two countries to cooperate to reduce AI-related risks is illustrated by a November 2024 leader-level agreement that humans, not AI, should make decisions about using nuclear weapons (U.S. Embassy and Consulates in China, 2024). That agreement, though modest in scope, could serve as a foundation for future discussions about potential areas of mutual restraint related to the development and employment of AGI or other advanced AI capabilities. And so, the reality is likely to be much more complex, with choices between conflict, competition, and cooperation possible across this spectrum.

Smart Device Empire: Beijing’s Expansion Through Everyday Digital Infrastructure

Matthew Johnson

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Executive Summary:The PRC is exporting an integrated system of smart devices, data infrastructure, and governance standards. Through industrial policy, state-backed overproduction, and strategic data asymmetry, Beijing is building a global IoT architecture designed to embed PRC standards, influence, and governance into the connected environments of other countries.

By dominating core components like cellular IoT modules and steering global standards through initiatives like China Standards 2035, Beijing is creating long-term supply chain dependencies and rewriting the rules of digital interoperability.

Devices manufactured by PRC firms often carry embedded risks: unpatched vulnerabilities, mandated government access under China’s Data Security Law, and use in cyber operations like Volt Typhoon and LapDogs.

Expansion into emerging markets is fueled by Digital Silk Road diplomacy, subsidized financing, and turnkey infrastructure deals—seen in Huawei’s smart city platforms and Haier’s bundled appliance systems deployed across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Looking ahead, the global spread of China’s IoT platforms signals a deeper push to shape the foundations of digital infrastructure—where influence over connected devices gradually extends to norms, data flows, and governance models.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) dominates the smart home technologies sector, serving as a powerful illustration of its broader strategy to dominate the global Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. Smart home devices—ranging from voice-activated assistants and connected appliances to security cameras and thermostats—have flooded international markets in recent years. Chinese manufacturers like Haier, TCL, and Hisense capturing significant market shares through aggressive pricing and rapid innovation (Telecom Review, April 12, 2024; ITIF, September 16, 2024). By the end of 2025, the PRC’s smart home market is projected to reach approximately $37 billion in value domestically, with an expected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11 percent through 2030 (Statista, 2025 [accessed July 21]). Meanwhile, exports from PRC firms may account for 20–30 percent of global shipments within the next three years (Omdia, November 18, 2024). This export surge is part trade phenomenon, part strategic maneuver, as domestic overproduction—fueled by subsidies—creates excess capacity that undercuts competitors abroad, raising concerns of dumping in markets like the United States and Europe (MERICS, April 1).

Embodied Intelligence: The PRC’s Whole-of-Nation Push into Robotics

Sunny Cheung

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Executive Summary:Since 2015, Beijing has pursued a whole-of-nation strategy to dominate intelligent robotics, combining vertical integration, policy coordination, rapid deployment, and local experimentation. This approach has already achieved several of its core objectives.

Policy documents articulate an official focus on core trends and technologies like humanoid robotics, sensors, actuators, and motion control. Local governments are also diversifying applications into fields ranging from eldercare to logistics and manufacturing.

Massive state subsidies and loans underwrite these programs, with provinces and cities engaging in a de facto “subsidy race,” each vying to foster the next national robotics champion within their jurisdiction.

“Industrial migration” is another emerging trend, in which a growing number of electric vehicle and tech giants are entering the humanoid robotics sector due to technological and supply chain overlaps. Their scale, engineering capacity, and vertical integration allow them to lower costs, accelerate R&D, and compete aggressively in a nascent industry.

Editor’s note: This article is the first in a series analyzing the trajectory of the PRC’s robotics industry, from ecosystem formation to supply chain control to military implications. This first instalment maps previously undisclosed trends, drawing on recent policy papers, investment announcements, and discussions among industry players to decode the Beijing’s approach to this increasingly important sector.

Beijing is mounting a coordinated campaign to get ahead in next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) hardware through a nationwide surge in robotics. While companies in the West like Tesla and Boston Dynamics introduced physical AI to global audiences years ago, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is now rapidly assembling an impressive array of competitors, marshalling industrial, academic, and financial resources to scale up its new national champions. The race is well underway.

PLA System of Systems Operations: Enabling Joint Operations

Kevin McCauley

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The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is undergoing a broad and deep transformation based on their analysis of the information technology-driven revolution in military affairs. The military reforms announced in November 2013 are intended to accelerate the long-term military modernization program that has been slowed by institutional inertia and obstruction. The current reforms specifically target operationalizing a joint operations doctrine through a joint command system, enhancing joint officer development, and improving joint training. The theoretical development of integrated joint operations and system of systems operations represent two of the most important developments in the PLA. The foundation enabling integrated joint operations is what the PLA describes as a “system of systems” operational capability (体系作战能力). This capability will be based on an integrated C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) structure, that will link systems and forces to facilitate jointness and information sharing among the heretofore stove piped services. Successful implementation of these twin theories can significantly increase the PLA’s warfighting capabilities, and are driving many of the PLA’s modernization requirements. This report represents the most comprehensive study of the PLA’s System of Systems operations and should lay the ground work for additional research as China attempts to build a networked, joint fighting force.

China’s De-dollarisation Initiatives: Strategies and Constraints

Zongyuan Zoe Liu

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A decade ago, renminbi internationalisation was a hot topic; today, it’s part of a broader, more strategic push toward de-dollarisation – accelerated by Western sanctions on Russia. While China’s efforts to globalise its currency began earlier, the risk of financial exclusion has intensified its urgency. Beijing’s approach is pragmatic and multi-pronged: it is deepening engagement with regional and non-Western partners developing renminbi-based infrastructure for cross-border payments, and leveraging its dominance in clean energy supply chains to promote renminbi pricing in key commodities. These strategies aim to enhance the renminbi’s role in trade and settlement while persistent structural factors – shallow capital markets and limited investor confidence – remain stumbling blocks for China’s currency becoming a global store of value. That may just be fine with Beijing, at least in the near to medium term. No evidence suggests China plans to dethrone the US dollar or replace the US dollar with the renminbi as the global dominant currency. China’s immediate goal is to insulate itself from financial sanctions in the dollar-based system. In a world where access to American banks and US dollar can be weaponised, China regards a functional alternative for cross-border settlement as a strategic necessity. With a trade-dependent economy and a leadership wary of volatility, China’s priority is currency stability, not supremacy.

Palestinians flee Gaza City districts as Israel says first stages of offensive have begun

David Gritten & Gabriela Pomeroy

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Palestinians are fleeing parts of Gaza City after the Israeli military began the first stages of a planned ground offensive, officials in the city say.

Israel's troops have established a foothold on the outskirts of the city - which is home to more than a million Palestinians - after days of intense bombing and artillery fire.

It has prompted UN Secretary General António Guterres to renew calls for an immediate ceasefire "to avoid the death and destruction" an assault would "inevitably cause".

Israel wants to signal that it is pressing ahead with its plan to capture all of Gaza City despite international criticism.

Hundreds of Palestinians in the Zeitoun and Sabra neighbourhoods of Gaza City have left towards the north-western part of the city.

Gaza City residents described relentless bombardments overnight into Thursday.

"The house shakes with us all night long -- the sound of explosions, artillery, warplanes, ambulances, and cries for help is killing us," Ahmad al-Shanti told news agency AFP.

"The sound is getting closer, but where would we go?"

Amal Abdel-Aal was displaced from her home in Sabra a week ago and said she watched strikes hit the area.

"No one in Gaza has slept, not last night, not for a week. The artillery and air strikes in the east never stop. The sky flashes all night long," she said.

An Israeli military spokesman said on Wednesday that troops were already operating in the Zeitoun and Jabalia areas to lay the groundwork for the offensive, which Defence Minister Israel Katz approved on Tuesday and which will be put to the security cabinet later this week.

Strategic Snapshot: Implications of Peace Between Armenia and Azerbaijan

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Three decades of conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan have consumed most of their attention on both domestic initiatives and international relations. The unfolding peace process, therefore, has the potential to dramatically change political developments in the South Caucasus. Direct talks over the past two years have produced a draft peace treaty that addresses border delimitation, the disposition of refugees, and the long-contested issue of cross-border transit routes. Each incremental breakthrough reduces the likelihood of renewed large-scale hostilities and reshapes the security architecture of the entire South Caucasus.

Achieving peace remains fragile, as a few crucial challenges remain unresolved. Armenia seeks iron-clad guarantees against future aggression, while Azerbaijan insists on unfettered access to its Nakhchivan exclave and a change to parts of Armenia’s constitution that contain territorial claims “against Azerbaijan.” Domestic politics in both countries further complicate matters. Armenia’s opposition frames any concession as capitulation, whereas Azerbaijan’s leaders face pressure to capitalize fully on its 2023 military victory.

The renewed efforts since 2023 toward a genuine peace treaty have come without Russian mediation. Russia has long used the presence of its peacekeepers to cast itself as the sole guarantor of regional security and interfere in any peace process. Russia’s unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine, economic isolation, and failure to prevent or mediate hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2023 have led to Armenia seeking a full withdrawal from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and public rebukes of Russia by Azerbaijan.

Russia’s weakening influence in the South Caucasus has allowed Armenia and Azerbaijan to explore more multi-vector foreign policies and created new opportunities for bilateral engagement. Armenia has signaled plans to pursue EU membership, and Azerbaijan continues to advance infrastructure plans that would use the South Caucasus to link Central Asia and Europe. The August 8 summit at the White House with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan produced declarations of peace by both leaders, and a pledge for a U.S. presence in future regional transport routes. The summit demonstrated the commitment both countries have toward a final agreement, but the path to full peace will likely take at least one year.

Samuel Huntington’s Prussian Paradox

Clausewitz, Military Professionalism, and the Myth of a “Apolitical” Military

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No major proposal required for war can be worked out in ignorance of political factors; and when people talk, as they often do, about harmful political influence on the management of war, they are not really saying what they mean. Their quarrel should be with the policy itself, not with its influence. If the policy is right-that is, successful-any intentional effect it has on the conduct of the war can only be to the good. If it has the opposite effect the policy itself is wrong. - Carl von Clausewitz, On War1

Since its publication in 1957, Samuel Huntington’s The Soldier and the State has largely stood as the “normative framework” for thinking about civil–military relations in the United States.2 Generations of American military officers have been educated in its core premise of “objective civilian control,” the notion that a highly professional, apolitical military can coexist with “civilian supremacy” through a strict division of labor: the armed forces manage the “means” of war while elected leaders determine the “ends.”3 Those views are so strong that the former commandant of West Point and the U.S. Army War College, Major General William Rapp wrote, “Huntington’s 1957 The Soldier and the State has defined civil-military relations for generations of military professionals. Soldiers have been raised on Huntingtonian logic and the separation of spheres of influence since their time as junior lieutenants.”4 To partly illustrate this ideal, Huntington turned to nineteenth-century Prussia, portraying its reformed officer corps as the origin and apex of military professionalism. Yet this historical foundation was far less stable than Huntington’s narrative suggests. In practice, the professionalization of the Prussian army often amplified, rather than diminished, its political power, thus enabling senior officers to act as autonomous agents in shaping state policy.

How Much of Ukraine Does Russia Control?

John Haltiwanger

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday alongside a large cohort of European leaders. This comes after Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday as part of an ongoing push for a deal to end the war in Ukraine.

7 Lingering Questions After the Trump Ukraine Summit

Keith Johnson

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After a strange, made-for-television summit in Washington on Monday meant to bring Russia’s escalating war on Ukraine closer to the conclusion that U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to achieve even before taking office, nearly all the big questions remain unanswered. Here are just a few of the major issues that the United States, Ukraine, its European backers, and Russia will be grappling with in days and weeks to come.

1. What security guarantees is Trump actually offering Ukraine?

On the campaign trail in 2024, Trump pledged not to commit U.S. troops to Ukraine. But during his Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday, Trump twice declined to rule out sending in U.S. troops to ensure Ukraine’s security as part of a final peace deal, raising hopes that he had perhaps changed his mind.

Is the U.S. Ready for the Next War?

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As new ways of fighting are being invented in Ukraine, Israel, and Silicon Valley, the Pentagon is trying to remake itself. “We’re not moving fast enough,” one expert says.Photo illustration by Timo Lenzen

Late this spring, I was led into a car in Kyiv, blindfolded, and driven to a secret factory in western Ukraine. The facility belongs to TAF Drones, founded three years ago by Oleksandr Yakovenko, a young Ukrainian businessman who wanted to help fend off the Russian invasion. When the war started, Yakovenko was busy running a logistics company in Odesa, but his country needed all the help it could get. Ukraine was overmatched—fighting a larger, wealthier adversary with a bigger army and more sophisticated weapons. “The government said to me, ‘We need you to make drones,’ ” Yakovenko told me. “So I said to my guys, ‘You have four hours to make up your minds. Leave or stay—and, if you stay, promise me that you’ll do your best to help our military.’ ”

Russian Drone Innovations are Likely Achieving Effects of Battlefield Air Interdiction in Ukraine

Kateryna Stepanenko

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The Russian integration of combined unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) attack tactics and adaptations is giving Russian forces important advantages on the battlefield in Ukraine and facilitating Russian advances on key Ukrainian towns. Russian UAV adaptations are likely achieving some effects of battlefield air interdiction (BAI): The use of airpower to strike targets in the near rear of the frontline to impact battlefield operations in the near term.[1] Neither Ukraine nor Russia has been able to conduct BAI using manned aircraft or UAVs due to the density and sophistication of adversary air defenses and electronic warfare (EW) over the past three years, but Russian forces are now achieving partial BAI effects in support of their offensives.[2] Russia’s allies, especially the People's Republic of China (PRC), have enabled Russia to develop and scale the production of UAVs that are more resistant to EW interference and capable of operating at longer distances, higher speeds, and in challenging environments. Ukraine and its partners must invest urgently in kinetic anti-drone systems that are not reliant on EW to secure near-rear areas and, ultimately, frontline positions as well.

Russian forces are actively achieving some effects of battlefield air interdiction (BAI) of Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) with tactical unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), enabling Russian advances in eastern Ukraine. BAI is the use of air power to strike targets in the near rear of the frontline to impact battlefield operations in the near term.[3] These operationally significant targets include roads, railways, and bridges (infrastructure that supports GLOCs); command posts; ammunition depots; assembly areas; and training grounds. In simple terms, BAI aims to deny the adversary the use of crucial logistics lines and facilities necessary to sustain battlefield operations. Ukrainian servicemen and analysts reported that Russian forces began to systematically target Ukrainian GLOCs and other operationally significant targets with tactical first-person-view (FPV) UAVs and loitering munitions across the entire frontline as early as Winter and Spring 2025, effectively using these UAVs to interdict Ukrainian logistics ahead of the Russian Summer 2025 offensive.[4] Ukrainian sources noted that Russian forces previously only operated tactical UAVs on the battlefield, but that they have adapted these UAVs to strike Ukraine's near rear areas.[5] Russian forces recently made notable advances in the Lyman, Siversk, Kostyantynivka, Pokrovsk, and Novopavlivka directions, likely after achieving limited BAI effects with new FPV drone and loitering munitions adaptations.

Learning to Love the Bomb? Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons and Limited Nuclear War

Leo Keay and Robert Peters

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Limited nuclear war is a possibility grounded in strategic logic and a probability accentuated by the current geopolitical and military context. Planning for limited nuclear war is necessary not only to buttress the credibility of non-strategic nuclear deterrence but also to ensure adequate preparation for a real contingency. The fact that a limited nuclear war has never been fought renders any conclusions about it inevitably provisional. Analytic wargaming and artificial intelligence offer new possibilities for plugging this methodological gap. Tabletop exercises (TTXs) can create an indicative dataset for understanding decision-making dynamics in a hypothetical limited nuclear war. Moreover, computer-enabled large language models trained on the dataset from the TTX could rerun scenarios hundreds of times and adjust the variables to explore alternative outcomes.

Cyberwarfare created a dangerous battlefield where nobody wins

Pascal Geenens

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COMMENTARY: Of all the forms of warfare humans have invented, there’s nothing stranger and more unsettling than modern cyberwarfare. We’re habituated to think of war as a state of conflict with a defined beginning (outbreak), middle (mutual struggle) and end (victory or defeat).

Several decades after the term was first used, we can now say with some certainty that cyberwarfare doesn’t work like this. So, what are cyberwarfare’s distinctive characteristics?

[SC Media Perspectives columns are written by a trusted community of SC Media cybersecurity subject matter experts. Read more Perspectives here.]

Cyberwarfare in the 21st Century feels more epochal, something closer to a permanent state of conflict from which we might never emerge. Cyberwarfare must have started in the 1980s as computer networks expanded their influence but it's not clear that it will ever end in any conventional sense. For geo-politics and human society, this represents a profound change, the effects of which are still underestimated even as negative effects already have manifested.

A dynamic trend in recent kinetic wars is the way hacktivists now flock to digital wars almost as fast as the humans in the firing line are running in the other direction. The ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia offers a good illustration. Wars are traditionally fought with appointed combatants. Hacktivism shows us that anyone with the right skills can be involved in a cyberwar, which potentially creates dangerous instability. Armies take orders and have defined chains of command. Hacktivism lacks this discipline and can pick their targets with minimal accountability.

Contrary to popular opinion, Ukraine v. Russia didn’t start in 2022 – it dates to the early 2000s when Russia started investing in digital warfare capabilities to destabilize its geo-political opponents, including the nascent Ukrainian democracy movement. Analysts were aware of this new capability – a widely discussed example being the cyberattacks on Estonia in 2007 – but believed it was secondary to kinetic war. However, these Russian campaigns were harbingers of a deepening enmity. This pattern has repeated across other geo-political conflicts.

Space is the new battlefield with hijacked satellites and orbiting weapons

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WASHINGTON (AP) — As Russia held its Victory Day parade this year, hackers backing the Kremlin hijacked an orbiting satellite that provides television service to Ukraine.

Instead of normal programing, Ukrainian viewers saw parade footage beamed in from Moscow: waves of tanks, soldiers and weaponry. The message was meant to intimidate and was an illustration that 21st-century war is waged not just on land, sea and air but also in cyberspace and the reaches of outer space.

Disabling a satellite could deal a devastating blow without one bullet, and it can be done by targeting the satellite’s security software or disrupting its ability to send or receive signals from Earth.

“If you can impede a satellite’s ability to communicate, you can cause a significant disruption,” said Tom Pace, CEO of NetRise, a cybersecurity firm focused on protecting supply chains.

“Think about GPS,” said Pace, who served in the Marines before working on cyber issues at the Department of Energy. “Imagine if a population lost that and the confusion it would cause.”

Satellites are the short-term challenge

More than 12,000 operating satellites now orbit the planet, playing a critical role not just in broadcast communications but also in military operations, navigation systems like GPS, intelligence gathering and economic supply chains. They are also key to early launch-detection efforts, which can warn of approaching missiles.

That makes them a significant national security vulnerability, and a prime target for anyone looking to undermine an adversary’s economy or military readiness — or deliver a psychological blow like the hackers supporting Russia did when they hijacked television signals to Ukraine.

Fiber Optic FPV Drones Featured In Navy Electronic Warfare Exercise

Joseph Trevithick

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Afirst-person view (FPV) type quadcopter drone controlled via a fiber optic cable was among the participants in a U.S. Navy-led exercise earlier this year focused on exploring new distributed electronic warfare capabilities. Fiber optic kamikaze FPVs, which Russia first began using in Ukraine last year and have now become a fixture on both sides of that conflict, are notably immune to jamming and many other forms of electronic warfare.

The Michigan National Guard released pictures yesterday of the fiber optic FPV and other uncrewed systems that took part in Exercise Silent Swarm 25. The event itself took place back in July at the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center (CRTC) in Alpena, Michigan. The Navy’s Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division (NSWC Crane) has been holding Silent Swarm events annually at the Alpena CRTC in cooperation with the Michigan National Guard and other elements of the U.S. military since 2022.

“During the series of technology experiments, private companies, academic institutions, and military organizations used swarms of unmanned systems to ‘attack’ and ‘defend’ locations in Thunder Bay, off the coast of Alpena in Lake Huron,” according to a press release on the exercise the Michigan National Guard put out today. “As the two forces conducted their operations, all parties collected data on which technologies offered the greatest advantages.”

“The hypothesis for Silent Swarm is to identify those systems that can outmatch and have an impact in the most challenging environments,” Rob Gamberg, project lead for Silent Swarm at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division (NSWC Crane), also said in a statement. “We are learning from each other with every iteration, which is exactly what we hope to see.”

Rethinking Cyber Deterrence in a Multipolar World

Louise Marie Hurel and Dr Gareth Mott

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Geopolitical tensions in cyberspace are escalating. There is an urgent need to reassess how the cyber domain can support broader deterrence strategies. However, the effectiveness of deterrence in cyberspace remains contested among scholars and practitioners. While malicious cyber activity targeting critical national infrastructure (CNI) continues to mount – posing increasing risks to the national security of Western states – it remains unclear whether deterrence measures have meaningfully reduced the frequency, scale and severity of these incidents.

Although there has been no ‘catastrophic nationwide cyber attack’, persistent low-level activity – particularly from Russia and China – has targeted a range of CNIs and sectors in the West. This trend risks being obscured by ‘unrealised and unspecific scaremongering’, leaving policymakers ill-prepared to respond to evolving threats.

This paper balances existing prevailing scepticism about the feasibility of cyber deterrence against the growing political imperative to impose consequences – both cyber and non-cyber – on malicious actors. It explores the question: if a state cyber operation led to a Category 1 cyber incident – described by the National Cyber Security Centre as ‘a cyber attack that causes sustained disruption of essential services or affects national security’ – with sustained threat to life, how could the UK and its allies deter an actor from attempting another breach?

This paper argues that cyber deterrence must be part of an integrated, cross-domain strategy. Deterrence should be understood as a continuum of prevention and response measures – cumulative, iterative, tailored and grey-zone oriented – drawing from lessons across multiple case studies. It particularly considers the implications of cyber operations ‘pre-positioning’ for disruptive or destructive attacks.

Assessing the Value of a CERN-Like Multinational Research Organization for AI

Matthew Sargent, Mary Lee, Dennis Murphy, Sabahat Zafar

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Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities have the potential to be some of the most transformative — and disruptive — developments of the 21st century. As the AI community struggles with questions of how to manage potential issues, policymakers and researchers often turn to analogies and metaphors to describe the futures they envision.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has emerged as a model for collaborative, multinational research that could help enable future AI research. Inspired by perceived parallels between the fields, there is growing interest among researchers and policymakers in establishing a similar organization dedicated to AI research — a CERN for AI.

In this paper, the authors frame the question of what a CERN for AI might be. There are numerous overlapping and competing descriptions of what functions a CERN for AI might serve. The authors review the history of CERN to provide a conceptual grounding for the term and identify five concepts for a CERN for AI that capture different dimensions of the visions that other scholars have articulated.

Smart Device Empire, Part 2: Policy Underpins PRC’s Global IoT Ambitions

Matthew Johnson

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Executive Summary:Beijing views control over the platforms, standards, and data flows of the Internet of Things (IoT) era as a source of lasting structural leverage, and has spent more than a decade positioning itself at the center of this emerging system.

The PRC’s share of global smart home device shipments is projected to reach 20–30 percent by 2028, driven by a domestic environment of sustained policy support, coordinated investment, and state-managed access to capital.

Massive state-led investment in broadband, 5G, and next-generation network infrastructure—deployed by major state-owned telecom operators—has given PRC firms a decisive first-mover advantage in developing, refining, and exporting advanced IoT technologies.

Beijing’s active role in shaping international standards signals that its ambitions extend beyond manufacturing scale, aiming to embed Chinese technical protocols, governance norms, and data practices into the global connected-device ecosystem.

Looking ahead, the spread of PRC IoT platforms points toward a fully integrated digital environment in which everyday devices are linked to AI, cloud, and edge systems under Chinese influence—raising long-term risks of technological dependence, data capture, and reduced autonomy for foreign governments and industries.

Beijing is positioning the full spectrum of state policy tools behind its Internet of Things (IoT) ambitions—aligning telecom infrastructure, protected domestic markets, and tightly managed technical standards to consolidate its influence at home and extend it abroad. This expansion goes beyond selling connected devices: by dominating core components like cellular IoT modules and driving global rule-making through initiatives such as China Standards 2035, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is creating long-term supply chain dependencies and reshaping the rules of digital interoperability (China Brief, July 25).

How to write a defense strategy that sticks

QUENTIN E. HODGSON

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Defense strategy has become a booming enterprise, yet its core themes often boil down to a single word—or just a few. Donald Rumsfeld’s tenure in the Pentagon was defined by “transformation,” while Lloyd Austin’s strategy emphasized “campaigning” and “integrated deterrence.” Robert Gates captured his focus succinctly when he warned that the Defense Department was plagued by “next-war-itis”: prioritizing future conflicts over the wars it was already fighting. In the first Trump administration’s defense strategy, Jim Mattis emphasized increasing lethality in the U.S. military, and the return of long-term strategic competition with Russia and China, which came to be known as “great power competition”—or GPC for short—from a single mention in the 2017 National Security Strategy. The 2018 defense strategy does not use the term at all in its unclassified summary.

Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon is gearing up to develop its own defense strategy after issuing a classified interim strategic guidance document this spring. The word or phrase that will come to characterize the new defense strategy will emerge soon enough. Crafting good strategy, however, is about more than catchy labels or bumper stickers. It requires carefully written strategic guidance that leaves little room for ambiguity. A good defense strategy provides clear direction to the department’s many components, including the military services, the combatant commands, and myriad agencies.

Some labels tend to take over while simultaneously losing their meaning. In the early 2000s, it seemed just about every program had a “transformation” label slapped on it to align with Rumsfeld’s vision. The Army called its Crusader self-propelled artillery program transformational, even though at a projected 70 tons, the civilian leadership of the Pentagon saw it as more of a legacy program. Integrated deterrence under Secretary Austin suffered from a lack of focus and definition, leading to jokes that briefings on the 2022 National Defense Strategy should have included “stay tuned for more details” as placeholder slides. These examples highlight how quickly a defense strategy’s key term can move from a rallying cry to an ineffectual catch phrase.

The People's Liberation Army's Approach to Manned-Unmanned Teaming

Shanshan Mei

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As the Department of the Air Force (DAF) accelerates its testing of manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) concepts and further integrates the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program into operations against highly capable adversaries, it is critical for U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and DAF planners, strategists, and analysts to better understand Chinese perspectives and similar lines of effort to integrate autonomous systems into air operations. Additionally, understanding China's approach to MUM-T can help the DAF anticipate and counter adversarial tactics, ensuring that U.S. forces maintain a strategic advantage in the foreseeable future.

The analysis presented in this report is intended to improve the DAF's understanding of the People's Liberation Army's (PLA's) perceptions regarding MUM-T and the PLA's efforts to integrate autonomous systems into air operations. These insights into China's MUM-T capabilities can inform the DAF's operational planning, enhance interoperability with allied forces, and guide investment in relevant technologies.

Key Findings

The PLA assesses that MUM-T will be a defining feature of future combat activities involving intelligent systems and is in the nascent stages of developing operational concepts to integrate MUM-T into its existing doctrine.

Since 2015, the PLA has monitored developments in U.S. MUM-T concepts and technologies to identify U.S. vulnerabilities and develop countermeasures.

As of early 2025, the PLA appears to be taking a different approach to MUM-T than the U.S. Air Force, focusing more on enhancing software and algorithms to enable unmanned systems to support and augment manned platforms. While both militaries prioritize cost-effective CCA-type capabilities, the PLA emphasizes augmentation over advanced teaming, which demands greater autonomy for unmanned systems.

The PLA is in the nascent stages of developing operational concepts to integrate MUM-T.

PLA writings emphasize the importance of reinforcing the wartime party committee's role under manned-unmanned collaborative combat conditions. Finding the right balance between autonomation and political control likely will remain a challenge in the near future.