Is Trump Pushing India Into China’s Arms?

Ravi Agrawal

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Former U.S. President Barack Obama once predicted that India and the United States would form a defining partnership of the 21st century. Recent events show he may have gotten this one wrong. The White House has imposed one of its highest levies on imports from India—a 50 percent tariff—and U.S. President Donald Trump has hurt a proud nation’s sentiments by saying it has a dead economy.

Trump’s moves threaten to reverse a decades-long trajectory of closer relations between the world’s two biggest democracies. It is likely no coincidence that amid shakier ties with Washington, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently attended a summit in Tianjin, China, and was seen embracing Russian President Vladimir Putin and hobnobbing warmly with Chinese President Xi Jinping. On this week’s FP Live, I spoke with Nirupama Rao, a former Indian foreign secretary who also served as ambassador to China and to the United States. Subscribers can watch the full interview on the video box atop this page or listen to the FP Live podcast. What follows here is a condensed and lightly edited transcript.

We Still Live by Lies About Afghanistan

CDR Salamander

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We owe HM3 Maxton W. Soviak, USN, the thousands who died the two decades before he did, and their families the truth. The uncomfortable, blunt, clear truth. Frankness. Directness. The respect that comes with honesty, honesty to the man who was in diapers when the first US forces crossed into Afghanistan, and with 12 others wound up as one of the last to die there during our retreat.

We’re still not coming to terms with our defeat.

Fear, shame, and humility—these are strong gods of a superior military. With each passing year, this becomes clearer and clearer to me. As all three were drained from our military, we increasingly relied on the weak gods of false-bravery (wearing combat utilities for daily use in CONUS) and easy-honor (NORK levels of awards and badges) that always lead to arrogance. With arrogance comes eventual defeat.

Fear and the desire to not bring shame on yourself, your family, your service, and your nation bring humility. Humility stops you from thinking you have all the answers.

…and so we come to the issue of the Afghanistan war again. I have a little shorthand that will allow me to move along on to the subject of the day. It is something I will remind everyone of who refuses to speak clearly and directly on the topic of our national disgrace.

The Afghan army and government the Soviet Union left behind lasted over 3 years.

The Afghan army and government the USA left behind lasted barely 1 month.

The old Cold Warrior in me doesn’t like to say that the Soviets were better than we were, but at least in Afghanistan, they were.

I didn’t think that my re-post on August, 17th was going to be my last Afghanistan quote for awhile; I knew I would revisit it. It is that time of the year.

Modi, Lee, and Trump’s Nobel Prize Obsession

C. Raja Mohan

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Although there are striking similarities between the geopolitics of the Indian subcontinent and the Korean Peninsula, the international relations community rarely pays attention to their parallel trajectories. Recent events provide a useful starting point for a comparison: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s troubled dealings with U.S. President Donald Trump contrast sharply with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung’s smoother handling of the White House’s real and imagined peace diplomacy during his visit to Washington last month. Modi’s difficulties and Lee’s successes also offer insights into the prospects for Trump’s peace initiatives in Asia.

Who is winning in AI—China or America?

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IN 1995, DURING a golden age for globalisation, a business professor from Berkeley coined a cheering term: “the California effect”. When companies in wealthy markets face new competition from foreign rivals, argued David Vogel in his book “Trading Up: Consumer and Environmental Regulation in a Global Economy”, they do not invariably lower standards, as gloomsters might predict. Instead, strict rules in a competitive market can trigger a race to the top, including in neighbouring jurisdictions. A case in point involves strict engine-emissions standards imposed by the state of California, America’s most important car market. Rather than make different engines for different states, to take advantage of those with looser regulations, many firms chose to make all their cars to comply with Californian standards.

Xi’s Pablum and Powe

Sergey Radchenko

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Splendidly dressed dancers moved about the stage swiftly in a colorful performance as nearly 30 world leaders looked gravely on. Gathered in Tianjin for the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), these assembled dignitaries were also taking part in Beijing’s carefully choreographed pageantry. Their presence was meant to proclaim China’s glory as the center of the non-Western world.

The SCO, founded in 2001, was formerly written off as the dictators’ club. While its summits have always attracted some interest on the part of China and Russia watchers, particularly those with interest in Central Asia, they have never received as much international media attention as the recent summit in Tianjin.

China’s Military Is Now Leading

Sam Roggeveen

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Large vehicles with cone-shaped missiles atop them roll through a square. A large crowd of soldiers and a military band standing in neatly organized rows are seen in the distance.China’s Dongfeng-5C intercontinental ballistic missiles pass through Tiananmen Square during the military parade in Beijing on Sept. 3. Sheng Jiapeng/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images

It is now widely accepted that the story Western countries once told themselves about China’s technological development—it is a mere imitator of Western technology; it steals intellectual property; its successes result from wasteful public subsidies—is inadequate. This story still has some elements of truth, but it is much less true than it used to be. China is today an innovator and technological leader in robotics, electric vehicles, nuclear reactors, solar energy, drones, high-speed rail, and AI.

If confirmation were needed, the Sept. 3 military parade through Beijing confirms that we must add military technology to this list. It is no longer enough to say that China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is catching up or that it is copying foreign military equipment designs. China is now innovating, and it is leading. In the process, the regional military balance that has for decades favored the United States and its partners is being irrevocably changed.

China’s Military Parade Is a Powerful Diplomatic Display

Deng Yuwen

Sourec Link

China’s Sept. 3 military parade, held to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan, will be the fourth such event since President Xi Jinping came to power. Yet the context today is strikingly different. At home, the country faces economic headwinds, but its military strength continues to grow. Abroad, ties with the West—particularly the United States—are increasingly tense, while the postwar international order is being reshaped under the pressure of the Russia-Ukraine war.

This year’s parade, therefore, is not simply a ceremonial display of troops and weaponry. It is a carefully orchestrated act of strategic communication, weaving together messages of military strength, diplomatic positioning, and historical narratives, directed at audiences both at home and abroad.

Rigging the Game: PRC Oil Structures Encroach on Taiwan’s Pratas Island

Andrew S. Erickson, Jason Wang, Pei-Jhen Wu, Marvin Bernardo

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Beijing’s relentless pressure on Taiwan now includes oil rigs: twelve permanent or semi-permanent structures and dozens of associated ships. The structures, which are owned by state-owned firm CNOOC, include seven rig structures, three floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels, and two semi-submersible oil platforms. All are located within Taiwan’s claimed exclusive economic zone (EEZ) near Pratas/Dongsha Island.

Intruding rigs that exploit natural resources without permission typify maritime gray zone operations conducted by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). They are designed to advance territorial claims, establish creeping jurisdictional presence in contested spaces, and shape the operational environment in Beijing’s favor without open conflict—often under the guise of commercial activity.

CNOOC’s structures could facilitate a full range of coercion, blockade, bombardment, and/or invasion scenarios against Pratas or Taiwan more generally, particularly by enhancing end-to-end “kill chain” (C5ISRT) capabilities if outfitted with sensors.

Starting in July, CNOOC maneuvered the semi-submersible rig NanHaiErHao deep into Taiwan’s claimed EEZ. It is now only around 30 miles from Pratas’s restricted waters, although CNOOC rigs previously have come as close as 770 yards.

By operating rigs in a neighbor’s claimed EEZ, Beijing already has succeeded with Taiwan where it failed repeatedly with Vietnam. Persistent Vietnamese protest made the difference on those previous occasions. Failure to protest today risks normalizing sovereignty shaving and encourages further encroachment.

Oil rigs now constitute part of Beijing’s multidimensional campaign to undermine Taiwan’s sovereignty, which also includes cognitive, legal, and economic warfare. Taipei requires explicit permission to undertake “construction, use, modification, or dismantlement of artificial islands, installations, or structures” in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) or on its continental shelf (U.S. State Department, November 15, 2005). By proceeding without permission, Beijing is rejecting Taiwan’s jurisdiction. This newest line of effort involves 12 permanent or semi-permanent structures, as well as dozens of associated support ships. All were operating within Taiwan’s EEZ near Pratas Island (a.k.a. Dongsha Islands; 東沙群島) between July 1 and August 18. Table 1 at the end of this article details these structures.

Putin Seeks People’s Republic of China’s Support For War-to-Victory Stance

Pavel K. Baev

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Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin on August 31 and September 1, and the Victory Day military parade on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on September 3.

Putin likely needed to take measure of PRC President Xi Jinping’s opinions on the decision to sustain offensive operations in Ukraine, as the Russian war machine is heavily dependent upon supplies from the PRC.

It appears that the PRC has made it clear that it does not want Russia to lose the war, but the social impacts of attrition cannot be estimated with certainty, and Xi likely does not want to see a crisis for Putin’s regime.

On Wednesday, September 3, there will be a massive and impeccably choreographed parade in Beijing, the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Russian President Vladimir Putin will be in attendance and will likely compare it to his own pompous show for the 80th anniversary of Victory Day on May 9 (RBC, August 29). Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping appears as keen as Putin to make history into a justification of high political ambitions (Kommersant, August 30). The PRC is marking the 80th anniversary not only of the defeat of Japanese aggression during World War II, but also the end of the long century of perceived humiliation by various imperialist powers—one of which was, in fact, Russia. The parade on Red Square in Moscow on May 9 was supposed to draw a direct parallel between the victory over Nazi Germany and the resolve to bring the “special military operation” against Ukraine to a triumphant conclusion, which currently remains unattainable (see EDM, May 6, 8, 12).

The Future Is Being Delivered by Chinese Drones

Maximilian K. Bremer, Kelly A. Grieco

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Last month, China hosted its first International Advanced Air Mobility Expo, showcasing its ambitions to dominate what Beijing calls the “low-altitude economy,” a fast-growing sector in the airspace below 3,000 meters (about 9,840 feet) that includes drone deliveries, electric air taxis, and other uncrewed aerial services. The event featured cutting-edge technologies such as the world’s first seven-seat, three-ton electric vertical takeoff-and-landing aircraft; hydrogen-powered drones; and large fixed-wing cargo drones.

The takeaway is clear: While the United States is playing catch-up with the first drone revolution, China is racing ahead to lead the next one.

Quick Assessment: The Big Beijing Parade

Mick Ryan

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In the wake of the Beijing military parade today, I posted a quick assessment with my initial impressions of the parade on social media. For those who are not on Twitter / X, I thought I would share that assessment here.

My initial assessment of the PLA parade that has just finished in Beijing.

Overall, no major surprises although there was some new equipment. The structure and content of the parade was pretty standard. Five key themes stood out for me, however.

Theme 1. Most of the weapons and platforms were not brand new, but generally, every land, air and sea platform was more modern than that in the inventories of western military organisations. Newer does not always mean better, however. While most western military equipment has been tested in Iraq, Ukraine and elsewhere, none of China's new kit has.

Theme 2. The new weapons and platforms were interesting and demonstrate the ongoing, advanced military R&D eco-system that China now has. The Large Underwater Uncrewed Vessels, the uncrewed rotary wing aircraft and the HHQ-16C, DF-61 and DF-31BJ missiles as well as the laser defence systems were new reveals by the PLA. I thought the UAV on the back of the Infantry Fighting Vehicle was interesting.

Long gone are the days where China was reliant on Russia or other foreign systems. This level of indigenous capacity infers high levels of sustainability in any future conflict.

Theme 3. Parades are not indictors of warfighting effectiveness. Notwithstanding the impressive orchestration of the parade, and highly synchronised music and marching, these have almost zero impact on the measurement of military effectiveness. While there have been large reforms of the past decade, particularly in the creation of joint theatre commands and strategic support institutions (space, cyber, etc), we need to watch exercises and activities such as Joint Swords / Strait Thunder around Taiwan and elsewhere to gain additional insights into real PLA capability.

China Is Winning the AI Race With America’s Own Manhattan Project Lessons

Jack Burnham, and Annie Fixler

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China is applying the real lessons of the Manhattan Project to AI—talent and steady research funding—while America risks forgetting its own blueprint.

As both China and the United States commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the close of the Second World War, the echoes of its end reverberate on both sides of the Pacific. While the United States was behind the Manhattan Project, it is China that is applying the lessons learned from building the bomb, using them in the race for ever-more advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems that will revolutionize warfare.

Misreading the Manhattan Project

Applying the logic behind the Manhattan Project to the development of AI is appealing—a mad, government-sponsored dash towards unleashing a novel science will set the stage for the future of combat. The current administration is enamored of the analogy; Energy Secretary Chris Wright has drawn explicit parallels between the 1945 initiative and AI, while administration allies have called for a series of initiatives for AI based on the bomb’s construction.

But it’s a comparison based on a misunderstanding. The Manhattan Project was not the culmination of three years of work, but the result of decades of cultural development. It demonstrates the success of America’s long-term approach to science as an endless frontier that can only be nurtured by government spending in basic science and a culture of scientific openness shared among America’s closest allies—especially Britain in the case of the nuclear bomb. It is those tenets that offer a roadmap for pursuing powerful AI.

America’s Scientific Magnetism

Beyond Moore’s Law: China’s Resilience and the Next Fronts in the Chip War

Jonathan Chin

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US export controls keep China behind in the chip war, yet advanced packaging and post–Moore’s Law innovations offer new paths forward.

US chip-making giant Nvidia announced in July that it would resume sales of its H20 artificial intelligence chips to China, having obtained the go-ahead from the Trump administration after an effective export ban was imposed in April. For China, the move marked a rare reprieve from the onslaught of increasingly stringent controls by the United States to constrain the Chinese chipmaking industry since the first set of export controls was launched in October 2022. In response, Beijing has urged domestic firms to avoid using the H20 chip over alleged security and reliability concerns.

However, Chinese firms clearly prefer foreign chips over domestic alternatives. In 2024, Chinese firms bought around one million Nvidia H20 chips, far exceeding an estimated shipment of 450,000 Huawei 910B chips. Earlier this year, Alibaba, ByteDance, and Tencent rushed to stockpile $16 billion in H20 chips in anticipation of the US ban. So while some argue that trying to deny China access to cutting-edge chips has accelerated Chinese innovation, at least for now, US export controls appear to be keeping China behind industry frontrunners.

What Makes a Chip Advanced?

But what does it mean to be ahead or behind in semiconductors? To understand why these controls matter, it is worth stepping back to examine what makes a chip advanced in the first place. At the core lies transistor density—the number of transistors that can be packed onto a single chip. Transistors are essentially the building blocks of chips, acting as microscopic switches to perform computations. The greater the density, the greater the power and efficiency of a chip. For decades, the process of shrinking transistors to make ever-tinier semiconductors has fueled leaps in computing power—powering required for everything from smartphones to ChatGPT—while also steadily driving down the cost of computing. Today, the most advanced node sizes measure just two to three nanometers (nm)—about the width of a single strand of human DNA.

The Rise and Fall of Moore’s Law

Beijing’s Dangerous Game in Tibet

Tenzin Dorjee and Gyal Lo

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In early July, thousands of Tibetans, Buddhists, and other well-wishers gathered in the northern Indian hill town of Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibetan government in exile, to mark the 90th birthday of Tenzin Gyatso—better known as the 14th Dalai Lama. The de facto pope of Tibetan Buddhism announced that, when he passes away, Tibetan Buddhists will start the traditional process of finding and anointing a reincarnated successor, ensuring that the centuries-old institution of the Dalai Lama will continue. Just months earlier, in a new memoir, the Dalai Lama made clear that any search for a successor must take place in the “free world”—that is, outside China.

These landmark statements made Beijing bristle. The Chinese Communist Party opposes Tibetans choosing their own Dalai Lama and considers the matter an affront to the sovereignty of Beijing, which has ruled Tibet since 1950. Since 2011, the last time the Dalai Lama issued a major statement on the question of succession and reaffirmed his authority to determine whether he will be reincarnated, Beijing has repeatedly publicized its intentions to install a rival Dalai Lama when the current one dies. Before his July birthday announcement, Beijing’s interference had even prompted speculation that the Dalai Lama might consider terminating his lineage to prevent China from hijacking the institution and making it bow to the CCP’s will.

Devotees of the current Dalai Lama celebrated his recent decision. Chinese leaders, as expected, rejected the announcement and insisted that Beijing holds the power to choose and approve who will be Tibet’s next spiritual leader. The CCP assumes that the Dalai Lama’s passing will end the Tibetan resistance—or that “the Tibet issue,” as Chinese leaders often phrase it, will be forever resolved in Beijing’s favor. The government’s logic is simple. For more than six decades, the Dalai Lama—a charismatic and widely revered Nobel laureate—has unified the Tibetan exile community and boosted the Tibetan cause around the world. It is unlikely that future Tibetan leaders will be able to bring the same level of global credibility and internal cohesiveness.

Support AUKUS: It’s China’s Worst Nightmare

Joe Courtney

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The Department of Defense should continue to embrace AUKUS as a bulwark of Indo-Pacific security.

On June 11, 2025, the news broke that US Under Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby would lead a Pentagon review of the Australia-United Kingdom-United States security agreement (AUKUS). The Department of Defense has since articulated that this effort will be “an empirical and clear-eyed assessment of the initiative.” If that standard is applied, the assessment must conclude, as a similar 2025 review in London did, that AUKUS is the strongest, most effective plan for the United States to deter China’s malign behavior in the Indo-Pacific.

China certainly knows that AUKUS’ promise to accelerate the deployment of advanced defense technology by the three participating nations, including the sale of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, will counter the growing strength of its PLA Navy and missile forces in the Indo-Pacific.

China has repeatedly complained about AUKUS in public and in private diplomatic channels, which should speak volumes about its value to Under Secretary Colby as he conducts his investigation. AUKUS, in a nutshell, will blunt China’s regional advantage that threatens the 80-year success of the free and open Pacific.

Much of the AUKUS skepticism in the United States is premised on the misguided notion that the technology being shared and sold among the three allies will create an unacceptable drain on the US military. Since AUKUS is not a binding treaty that commits Australia and the UK to every imaginable conflict in which the United States could be engaged, skeptics argue that the cost and risks of sharing too much are unacceptable.

Under Secretary Colby himself publicly questioned the planned sale of three Virginia-class submarines to Australia last year, before re-entering the Pentagon in 2024, citing concerns that the US Navy cannot afford it. This part of the plan, developed in 2022–23 by the leadership of all three countries as part of the AUKUS “Optimal Pathway,” is essential.

The Path to a Good-Enough Iran Deal

Robert J. Einhorn

Source LInk

It is not clear whether the recent Israeli and U.S. military strikes have decreased or increased the likelihood of a nuclear-armed Iran. The attacks have certainly inflicted major damage to the country’s nuclear program. But they have not extinguished the Islamic Republic’s interest in nuclear weapons. They have amplified uncertainty about the quantity, location, and current condition of critical elements of Iran’s nuclear program. And they have failed to block Iran’s pathways to building a bomb, including by using its surviving equipment, materials, and expertise in a small, covert operation.

Singapore’s Real Lesson for Britain and Europe

Sumantra Maitra

Sourec Link

Ilove Singapore. It’s a favorite city of mine, and on those mornings when I am feeling too cosmopolitan, I can imagine myself living there again. I was there for a few weeks a decade back, and it is a paradise compared to most western cities. What’s not to like? It is clean, orderly, modern, and civilized: a perfect city-state. And in an era of resentment and social upheavals across the west, it is a bastion of old-school, conservative political stability.

As recently reported by my colleague Spencer Neale, Singapore saw “its first Singaporean parliamentary election since the election of Prime Minister Lawrence Wong in 2024, the People’s Action Party (PAP) won a decisive victory Saturday, capturing 87 seats in the city-state’s 97-seat Parliament.” PAP’s landslide victory gives Singapore’s ruling party a clear mandate heading into the future. Of the nearly 3 million people registered to vote on the island, more than 65 percent of voters selected PAP, giving the ruling party its 14th consecutive win for PAP since independence. Unusually consistent for our times.

It seems odd to start a column about a febrile mood in Britain and Europe with a paean to Lee Kuan Yew (LKY) and Singapore. But for those who are not afflicted with myopia, they are connected. There are a few types of slop available on social media. One particular genre consists of cherry-picked and unoriginal quotes from LKY, Singapore’s legendary founding father and Anglophile ruler who transformed a backwater port city-state to a modern nation. Singapore itself is an actually existing multiracial society, with three main groups: the Singaporean Chinese with around 75 percent of the population, the Malays with around 15 percent, followed by the Indians around 9 percent of the total. The rest are Europeans, other Asians, and Pacific Islanders. And yet there is no racial reaction, nor much crime, nor civil discontent.

But LKY can at most be considered a classical liberal—a fact that might chagrin the dissident right is that he was hugely admired by none other than Tony Blair. Blair visited Lee in Singapore, and the former prime minister has reportedly said that Lee is the smartest leader he ever met.

There’s Only One Way to Deal with Russia

Andrew Michta

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Key Points and Summary – For over three decades since the Cold War, the United States has lacked a coherent strategy for Russia, lurching from one failed “reset” to another.

-This stands in stark contrast to the clear, successful Cold War doctrine of containment.

-Successive administrations have failed to grasp Russia’s true nature and objectives, allowing Moscow to rearm and pursue its imperial ambitions.

How to Deal with Russia – Hard Power: Washington must abandon its preoccupation with resets and normative language and urgently articulate a new grand strategy grounded in hard-power deterrence to counter a resilient and expansionist Russia in Europe and beyond.

The 30-Year Failure of U.S.-Russia Policy

Much ink has been spilled since the Anchorage meeting between President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin—the American President has been both praised for his effort to end the carnage in Ukraine and criticized for giving the Russian leader the red-carpet treatment while failing to achieve his declared goal of compelling Putin to commit to an armistice.

And while such commentary is likely to continue for some time, one aspect of the Anchorage summit has yet to register in the public domain, namely that it underscored yet again that the United States still lacks a Russia strategy that would extend beyond efforts to reset the relationship and improve bilateral relations, while accounting fully for the nature of Russian power and its objectives.

Reset on Russia Strategy

Simply put, it has been over three decades since the Cold War ended, and the community of Washington experts, for the most part, still does not grasp what drives Russian policy and continues to be manipulated by Moscow’s propaganda and its information operations. And so, we continue to talk about another reset, while we should be talking about deterrence.

Despite Losses at Home and Abroad, Moscow Patriarchate Helps Kremlin Expand Influence

Paul Goble

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The Moscow Patriarchate is taking steps to increase its usefulness to Russian President Vladimir Putin in Russia and abroad to offset its declining power and influence across the former Soviet space.

The Moscow Patriarchate is aiding the Kremlin in promoting traditional values and making Orthodoxy a more central part of Russian identity while also expanding Russian influence in Africa and beyond.

The church’s achievements mean that the Kremlin will likely overlook its failures in Ukraine and elsewhere and keep Patriarch Kirill as its head, at least in the short term.

For the past decade, the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (ROC MP) has been shrinking. The Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) achieved official autocephaly in 2019, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) distanced itself from the ROC in 2022, and many other post-Soviet national branches of Orthodox churches are taking steps to separate from Moscow (see EDM, February 13, 2024). At home, fewer Russians follow the ROC MP’s precepts or attend its services (The Moscow Times, August 1). These losses have been so large that the Moscow Patriarchate risks becoming a small national church subject to competition from other Orthodox and Christian denominations within Russia (Vazhnie Istorii, January 12, 2024; see EDM, February 13, 2024). The decline the ROC MP’s influence has fueled speculation that Russian President Vladimir Putin might seek the replacement of the current head of the church, Patriarch Kirill, with someone who might prove more effective, most likely Metropolitan Tikhon, a figure widely known as Putin’s “favorite priest” (Window on Eurasia, October 15, 31, 2023, December 31, 2024). Patriarch Kirill and his church have stepped up their efforts to make themselves useful to the Kremlin in response, promoting Kremlin-favored traditional values and pushing Orthodoxy as a more central part of Russian identity than at any time since 1917 while helping the Kremlin expand Russian influence abroad (see EDM, February 3, 2022, April 10, 2024).

How to Understand Trump’s Russia Strategy

A. Wess Mitchell

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Diplomacy with Russia is not capitulation, and talking to Vladimir Putin is not a reward for good behavior.

The recent hardening of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s position on Ukraine has led some critics to claim that the Trump meeting in Anchorage was a waste of time. A few have gone further and alleged that Trump effectively capitulated to Putin in the meeting, drawing the obligatory comparisons to Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Adolf Hitler at Munich in 1938.

This is bad history and poor analysis. In fact, Trump’s diplomacy with Putin was a potentially game-altering move that could pay significant strategic dividends down the road. By focusing on immediate outcomes for Ukraine, critics are missing both the underlying logic of Trump’s moves and their potential benefits for US national interests and international stability.

First, talking to Russia helps alleviate the number one danger facing America, which is the possibility of a war on multiple fronts beyond our immediate ability to win. The reason we are in this predicament is that the United States and Europe didn’t use the last four years to surge defense production while the Russians (and Chinese) did.

The Pentagon estimates that it will take between three and eighteen years to replenish the key munitions that have been sent to Ukraine. The quickest way to strengthen deterrence in East Asia is to engineer a denouement in Eastern Europe. Even if that doesn’t transpire quickly, the fact that the United States is spearheading a peace process and dragooning parties to the table means the Chinese have to assume we will have greater bandwidth in Asia than we did previously.

Second, Anchorage has to be viewed in the context of Trump’s overall strategy, which is constraining Putin’s geopolitical field of maneuver. Before the two men even sat down at Anchorage, Trump’s team had used strategic diplomacy to persuade the Arabs to keep global oil supplies up (thereby depressing Russian state revenues), persuade the Europeans to launch the biggest defense spending hike in modern history (from a goal of 2 percent to a goal of 5 percent), and persuade Armenia and Azerbaijan to make peace (eroding Russia’s influence in its own backyard).

Jaguar Land Rover production severely hit by cyber-attack

Chris Vallance

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A cyber-attack has "severely disrupted" Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) vehicle production, including at its two main UK plants.

The company, which is owned by India's Tata Motors, said it took immediate action to lessen the impact of the hack and is working quickly to restart operations.

JLR's retail business has also been badly hit at a traditionally a popular time for consumers to take delivery of a new vehicle - but there is no evidence any customer data had been stolen, it said.

The attack began on Sunday as the latest batch of new registration plates became available on Monday, 1 September.

The BBC understands that the attack was detected while in progress, and the company shut down its IT systems in an effort to minimise any damage.

Workers at the company's Halewood plant in Merseyside were told by email early on Monday morning not to come into work while others were sent home, as first reported by the Liverpool Echo.

The BBC understands the attack has also hit JLR's other main UK manufacturing plant at Solihull, with staff there also sent home.

The company said: "We took immediate action to mitigate its impact by proactively shutting down our systems. We are now working at pace to restart our global applications in a controlled manner."

It added: "At this stage there is no evidence any customer data has been stolen but our retail and production activities have been severely disrupted."

It is not yet known who is responsible for the hack, but it follows crippling attacks on prominent UK retail businesses including Marks & Spencer and the Co-op.

The Coming Ecological Cold War

Nils Gilman

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Four years ago, the International Energy Agency (IEA) published a landmark report, “Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector,” that proposed a technical blueprint for a global green energy transition by the middle of this century. The report focused on the economic and technological dimensions of this energy transition. It was an admirable effort that calls for careful study.

But the report was also marked by the flaws of its technocratic conception. Crucially, the broader stakes of the global energy transition went ignored. This is a mistake in urgent need of correction. The decarbonization agenda is not simply about reordering markets or industrial policies, but in fact represents the crucible for a new geopolitical order.

How VCs are fueling innovation in defense tech

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The ongoing shift from big, expensive military assets like battleships and fighter jets to smaller, more agile and less costly ones positions Anduril and other venture-backed companies to win more government and commercial contracts and draw more capital from investors. The escalation of geopolitical conflicts in recent years, such as Russia’s war on Ukraine, has raised the profile of defense technology for many venture capital investors. Enticed by the returns they’re hearing of from leading defense-oriented companies such as Anduril Industries and post-IPO performance of companies like Palantir, some VCs are expanding their defense bets, while others that previously had no exposure are making their first investments. 

“Never before has the door been open as wide as it is for outsiders and non-traditional voices to have an opportunity in making a difference, finding purpose and getting involved with defense and national security customers,” says Van Espahbodi, a founding partner at Generational Partners. Anduril’s lucrative contracts with the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and other government agencies have made it the darling of the industry. It raised a $2.5 billion Series G round in June that put its post-valuation at $30.5 billion. The Californian company uses virtual and augmented reality, computer vision and automation to enhance surveillance and threat detection in confronting national security challenges. 

It secured its first Department of Defense contract in 2017 shortly after its founding. Defense tech comprises a broad spectrum of use cases, far beyond traditional weapons systems (known as kinetics within the defense ecosystem). The category includes everything from satellites and hypersonic missiles to cybersecurity solutions, advanced materials, or renewable energy generation and storage, or, for instance, autonomous navigation and communication platforms designed for GPS-denied environments. David Bogoslaw - 1 day ago VC firms worldwide had invested $11.9 billion in 161 defense tech companies as of July 28, matching the full-year record of $11.8 billion invested in 252 companies in 2022, data from CB Insights notes.

Germany’s Army Is Rebuilding. What Could Go Wrong?

Jessica Bateman

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BERLIN — It was a beating hot summer day and Gregor was dressed in the formal uniform of the German army: a sky-blue shirt and navy trousers, which he had received that week, the fabric still stiff. The 39-year-old office manager had never been patriotic, and like many liberal-leaning Germans his feelings toward the military for most of his life had been ambivalent at best. When he was 18 he’d even turned down the option of doing a year of military service, believing it was a waste of time.

Now, two decades later, life had taken an unexpected turn. As a steel band played, he marched in time alongside 17 others dressed in the same freshly pressed outfits into an open square at Germany’s Ministry of Defense, a towering grey neoclassical building in western Berlin, following the commands they had learned just a few days earlier.

They were all there to do the same thing: take the oath required of all new recruits to the German armed forces. Afterward, they would begin their official training as reserve officers, learning the basic skills needed to defend against a military invasion.

New recruits to the Bundeswehr reserves conclude a day of basic training at the Heuberg barracks in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, on June 20, 2025.

Everything had changed for Gregor on Feb. 24, 2022, when news broke that Russia had invaded Ukraine. Suddenly, the peace he had always taken for granted in Europe didn’t seem so guaranteed. “I was watching videos of Ukrainian civilians joining soldiers to fight off Russian tanks as they rolled toward their towns,” he said. “I thought to myself: ‘If something like that happened here, I wouldn’t have any practical skills to help.’”

Army axes promotion boards that weighed opinions of peers, subordinates for commanders

Patty Nieberg

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An Army program that used peer and subordinate feedback to select leaders for command is being discontinued.

The Command Assessment Program, CAP, was created as a pilot program in 2019 to evaluate sergeants major, lieutenant colonels, and full-bird colonels for command assignment in battalion and brigade-level units using peer and subordinate feedback. Each year, nearly 2,000 candidates are evaluated under CAP for Army leadership positions.

The Army will now revert to its previous review system for command selection that used reviews by superiors, a system that one former officer told Task & Purpose was so superficial that it was akin to choosing leaders based on “the equivalent of two tweets.”

Former Army Secretary Christine Wormuth formally established CAP in January in the final week of the Biden administration. But her successor in the Trump administration, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, downgraded CAP from a formal program and placed it under review last month, with officials saying the pause was a way to make changes to the program. Officials also had recently announced a renaming of the program to the Army Warrior Leader Certification.

Army officials told Task & Purpose that CAP was officially ended and that the service would revert back to the boards used in the Centralized Selection List process.

The Centralized Selection Board/List, CSL, process has officers review evaluation reports for command candidates written by both a rater and a senior rater to determine whether soldiers are suitable for leadership positions. Maj. Travis Shaw, an Army spokesperson said the officers who sit on CSL boards evaluate officers’ past assignments, performance and “demonstrated potential” to produce an order of merit list.

“Previous CAP results will not factor into the process,” Shaw said.