Indian Strategic Studies: 09/11/25

11 September 2025

Weaponizing Ambiguity: China’s Militarization of Low Earth Orbit and the Breakdown of Space Deterrence

Vivaan Mukherjee

China’s current militarization of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) reflects more than a pursuit of technological equivalence with the United States. Rather, it illustrates a calculated strategy to exploit ambiguity in space governance through dual-use satellite programs and unregulated rendezvous proximity operations (RPOs). By incorporating military capabilities within civilian platforms and utilizing its belief in civil-military fusion, China has developed space infrastructure that deliberately undermines the traditional mechanisms of deterrence. This paper investigates China’s approach through the perspective of deterrence theory and hybrid conflict, using case studies such as the Shijian-6 (SJ-6) constellation and the expansive StarNet project. The argument proposed is that China’s space strategy prioritizes coercive flexibility over stability, exploiting regulatory oversights and legal ambiguity in order to challenge international norms. Drawing on multiple sources, this paper critiques the limitations of current global governance frameworks and proposes policy measures aimed at rebuilding transparency and establishing clarity in governance of space operations.

Introduction

The accelerated growth of China’s presence in LEO has often been seen as a natural response to U.S. technological dominance in space. However, this framing oversimplifies the underlying strategic logic. Rather than merely seeking equality, China seems motivated to reshape the rules of orbital activity by exploiting legal ambiguities. This shift reflects broader trends in hybrid warfare, a deliberate policy of mixing civilian and military functions, which was only made possible by Beijing’s civil-military fusion doctrine.

Under this framework, space assets serve dual purposes: while marketed for civilian use—like environmental monitoring or telecommunications—they are tied to primarily military objectives. As a result, traditional distinctions between commercial and military satellites have become practically meaningless, therefore complicating efforts to assess China’s motivations. This ambiguity is essential to China’s approach, allowing them to maneuver in LEO without causing direct confrontations with other political actors or breaching any formal treaties. The argument proposed in this paper rests on three core claims: (1) China’s dual-use satellite systems represent a coercive strategy grounded mainly in ambiguity; (2) the absence of regulatory frameworks governing RPOs has allowed for an arms race in precision orbital maneuver satellites; (3) international responses remain inadequate and out of sync with new realities in space.

Afghanistan’s Qosh Tepa Canal Could Trigger a Central Asian Water Crisis

Galiya Ibragimova

Carnegie Politika is a digital publication that features unmatched analysis and insight on Russia, Ukraine and the wider region. For nearly a decade, Carnegie Politika has published contributions from members of Carnegie’s global network of scholars and well-known outside contributors and has helped drive important strategic conversations and policy debates.

Water shortages have long been a serious problem in Central Asia. They will become even worse when Afghanistan completes a canal diverting significant volumes of water from the Amu Darya River for irrigation purposes. The lack of a water use agreement with the countries of Central Asia—particularly Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan—could end up increasing regional tensions.

The Taliban government in Afghanistan began work on the Qosh Tepa Canal, one of its most ambitious infrastructure projects, immediately upon regaining power in 2021. Construction has progressed remarkably quickly since then, with almost half the planned 285 kilometers complete. The canal is due to be fully operational by 2028, when it will take as much as 10 cubic kilometers of water every year from the Amu Darya—about a third of its flow.

The Taliban hope the canal will help rejuvenate the country’s drought-stricken agriculture sector, which employs about 90 percent of Afghans. At present, Afghanistan is obliged to import food (including wheat, vegetables, fruits, and legumes) that it could grow itself. Taliban officials are also counting on the canal helping to reduce the economy’s dependence on the illegal drug trade, which in 2021 accounted for about 15 percent of the country’s GDP. One reason that poppy cultivation is so profitable for farmers is that poppies require far less water than other crops. The extent of poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has fallen since the Taliban returned to power, but developing the country’s irrigation system should help convince farmers to switch to other crops.

Afghanistan suffers from particularly severe water shortages. In some areas there is not only not enough water for irrigation, but even for drinking. In 2023, an argument over the flow of the southern Helmand River led to an armed confrontation between locals and Iranian border guards. Shortages are even more severe in Afghanistan’s northern provinces—particularly Balkh, Faryab, and Jowzjan—where about a third of the country’s 40 million inhabitants live. People there have to buy water for household needs.

Meet the J-10C: China’s Combat-Proven, Dassault Rafale-Killing Fighter Plane

Jack Buckby

Key Points and Summary – China’s J-10C fighter is emerging as a “turnkey” solution for arming nations outside the Western orbit.

-The jet’s watershed moment came in May 2025, when Pakistani J-10Cs successfully shot down multiple Indian, French-made Rafale fighters

-This combat success proved that Chinese hardware can defeat advanced Western technology, making it a highly attractive export.

Now, after showcasing the jet at its recent Victory Day parade to potential clients from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Beijing is in renewed talks to sell the J-10C to Iran, signaling China’s growing role as an arsenal for the anti-Western world.

J-10C: Beijing’s “Turnkey” Solution for Arming America’s Adversaries

China’s Chengdu J-10 fighter is truly a milestone in Beijing’s long road towards achieving aerospace self-sufficiency.

It’s the country’s first truly indigenous multirole fighter and a decisive break from decades of reliance on foreign technology – particularly the Soviet-derived designs that had long defined earlier Chinese jets.

Its development has compelled the Chinese aerospace industry to master advanced systems, including fly-by-wire controls, composite materials, and modern avionics integration.

That work in itself has proven valuable in terms of simply producing the J-10.

Still, it also paved the way for later projects like the stealth J-20 – as well as the completely unmanned stealth drone, known only as Type B, that was seen at the September 3 Victory Day parade in Beijing.

Why the J-10C Matters

AI-powered radar cannot be jammed, China’s landmark test flight result suggests

Stephen Chen

China has successfully flight-tested what could be the world’s first artificial intelligence-powered radar system for a military aircraft.

According to the limited data disclosed, an AI-enhanced radar system aboard an unidentified aircraft achieved near-perfect target tracking performance despite facing advanced, sophisticated jamming.

In the test, when conventional radar systems failed to maintain consistent contact, losing the target in around one-quarter of engagement time, the AI boosted the detection rate to near perfection.

“Radar target tracking continuity has improved from the original 70 per cent-80 per cent to over 99 per cent,” wrote project lead scientist Zhang Jie with the China Electronics Technology Group Corporation’s 14th Research Institute in a peer-reviewed paper published in the Chinese journal Informatisation Research last month.

“A paradigm shift in radar design philosophy is on the horizon.”

The Nanjing-based institute is China’s premier radar development hub and the cradle of its military radar industry.

The advance addresses a long-standing challenge for China’s aerial forces. While the PLA Navy has made strides in deploying AI-assisted radar on surface vessels – systems that helped maintain tracking during aggressive electromagnetic suppression by the US military – the constraints of airborne platforms have slowed progress.

Space, power and processing limitations in fighter jets made on-board AI integration far more difficult than in larger, ship-based systems. But this trial suggests those barriers have now been overcome.

A big factor in modern warfare is what military theorists call “electromagnetic fog” – a dense, ever-shifting barrage of signals, jamming pulses, stealth platforms and decoys that makes traditional radars increasingly obsolete.

The big threat left out of Xi’s parade: China’s weaponized AI startups

PATRICK TUCKER

China’s massive military parade this week featured a who’s who of well-dressed dictators, a fleet of laser-armed trucks, new hypersonic weapons, beach landing craft and, of course, thousands of uniformed troops marching in intricately coordinated unison. But it left out what might be China’s most important new military asset: a growing ecosystem of small and nimble dual-use AI companies working with the Chinese military.

A new report from the Center for Security and Emerging Technology draws attention to China’s growing appetite for AI-related tech, not just from a handful of big, surveillable state-backed enterprises but from a growing cadre of relatively young outfits emerging from universities and private labs. Those partnerships make it harder for the United States to track what new weapons China is developing and prevent U.S. investors or technology collaborators from helping them.

A significant portion of the technology, like software for piloting drone swarms or advanced navigation systems, have both a civilian and military purpose—much like Chinese flagged fishing and “research” vessels, non-military ships that many U.S. military and national security leaders describe as China’s “maritime militia.”

Much of the technology listed in the report has clear applications for potentially improving the military value of a non-military ship. This includes contracts for semantic modeling software, which uses sensed data and AI to help ships understand where they are without having to rely on GPS. The capability is of limited value to commercial vessels, but high value to ships engaged in military operations.

A company called Beijing SOUVI Information Technology received contracts for drone control systems and intelligent sensing software that could allow a single operator with little training to steer a swarm of drones. It could also allow a Chinese navy operator to operate merchant vessels performing a coordinated operation with the Chinese military.

China’s Military Is Now Leading

Sam Roggeveen

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.

Pentagon plan prioritizes homeland over China threat

Paul McLeary and Daniel Lippman

Pentagon officials are proposing the department prioritize protecting the homeland and Western Hemisphere, a striking reversal from the military’s yearslong mandate to focus on the threat from China.

A draft of the newest National Defense Strategy, which landed on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s desk last week, places domestic and regional missions above countering adversaries such as Beijing and Moscow, according to three people briefed on early versions of the report.

The move would mark a major shift from recent Democrat and Republican administrations, including President Donald Trump’s first term in office, when he referred to Beijing as America’s greatest rival. And it would likely inflame China hawks in both parties who view the country’s leadership as a danger to U.S. security.

“This is going to be a major shift for the U.S. and its allies on multiple continents,” said one of the people briefed on the draft document. “The old, trusted U.S. promises are being questioned.”

The report usually comes out at the start of each administration, and Hegseth could still make changes to the plan. But in many ways, the shift is already occurring. The Pentagon has activated thousands of National Guard troops to support law enforcement in Los Angeles and Washington, and dispatched multiple warships and F-35 fighter planes to the Caribbean to interdict the flow of drugs to the U.S.

A U.S. military strike this week allegedly killed 11 suspected members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang in international waters, a major step in using the military to kill noncombatants.

The Pentagon also has established a militarized zone across the southern border with Mexico that allows troops to detain civilians, a job normally reserved for law enforcement.

The Tianjin Axis: China Operationalizes its Alternative World Order

The 25th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit wasn't just a meeting; it was the unveiling of a strategy. Hosted by Xi Jinping, the summit served as a calculated demonstration of Sino-Russian convening power. More importantly, it marked a concrete effort to operationalize an alternative, multipolar system designed explicitly to bypass Western economic and technological architectures.

We just witnessed a significant inflection point in the global strategic competition. The rhetoric in Tianjin was overtly adversarial, with Xi Jinping denouncing "bullying behavior" and a "Cold War mentality." But beyond the rhetoric, the summit launched China's Global Governance Initiative (GGI), formalized commitments to building parallel financial infrastructure, and featured a strategically significant—and complex—détente between China and India.

To break down the implications of this pivotal gathering, SCSP’s President and CEO Ylli Bajraktari sat down with colleagues David Lin (China/East Asia/Tech), Joe Wang (Russia/Europe), and Sameer Lalwani (U.S.-India Defense) for an immediate assessment.

The Propaganda Coup and Autocratic Convening Power

The immediate takeaway from the summit was the sheer spectacle. Xi positioned himself at the center of the largest gathering in the organization’s history, flanked by Vladimir Putin and, significantly, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The timing was deliberate. As David Lin noted, it was a "big week for Xi." The SCO meeting was strategically sandwiched between the first-ever public meeting of Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Xi, and a massive World War II anniversary parade in Beijing featuring thousands of troops and military hardware.

"It's a huge propaganda win for Beijing," Lin observed. "It gives Xi an opportunity to promote itself as being this global convener," while simultaneously pushing a tech-focused agenda.

For Vladimir Putin, the summit was essential for mitigating diplomatic isolation and promoting the SCO as an alternative to NATO.

Next Steps for DoD to End U.S. Reliance on China for Rare Earth Elements

Jeffrey Jeb Nadaner

In becoming a majority shareholder of MP Materials, the Trump administration demonstrated the salutary thought that no radical free-market orthodoxy should prevent the United States from taking decisive action, including direct investment of taxpayer dollars, to secure domestic sources of industrial materials vital to our national defense. It is encouraging that Apple, long known for its Chinese assembly operations, followed up with a $100 billion investment in U.S.-based supply chains, including a significant expansion of MP Materials to furnish magnets for Apple production.

These public-private actions are beginning to remedy a glaring weakness in American industrial infrastructure. MP Materials operates what had been the only significant U.S. mine and processing center for rare earth elements. These are the seventeen indispensable critical minerals essential to multiple major U.S. military weapons systems, plus manufacturing, medicine, infrastructure, and other essential functions of modern American life.

Consistent with being America’s first true “builder” commander-in-chief, President Trump can further reduce America’s rare earth vulnerability by using his executive authorities to grow a finished rare earth element stockpile and begin the construction of processing plants within the United States.

America received its wake-up call on rare earths in April, when China imposed restrictions on the export of several rare earths. China accounts for more than 60 percent of rare earth production and, most alarmingly, over 90 percent of the rare earth processing — the indispensable phase of the mineral supply chain that turns mined raw materials into usable and essential industrial products.

Without rare earth magnets used in brakes, steering, and fuel injectors, U.S. automobile production would stall in a scenario far more damaging than the relatively brief COVID-era semiconductor shortages. Neither the civilian nor military sectors can function without access to the seventeen rare earth elements on the periodic chart – from Cerium (Number 58) to Ytrium (Number 70).

Inflatable tanks and flat-pack guns - inside Ukraine's decoy war

Vitaly Shevchenko

From the air, these look just like an M777 Howitzer, a Himars missile launcher and a Humvee vehicle used by Ukraine

In June 2023, a video started spreading on pro-war Russian social media channels, apparently showing a drone destroying a Ukrainian tank in a massive explosion.

But not everything is what it seems in the Russia-Ukraine war.

That video was followed by Ukrainian footage showing a laughing soldier pointing at the burning wreckage and exclaiming: "They've hit my wooden tank!"

The tank in question appears to be a plywood decoy used by the Ukrainian forces to deceive the Russians.

It is one of many thousands of full-scale models of military equipment used by both Ukraine and Russia to trick the enemy into wasting valuable ammunition, time and effort.

Almost anything seen on the frontline - from small radars and grenade launchers to jeeps, trucks, tanks and actual soldiers - may be fake.

These imitations can come in flat-packs, be inflatable, 2D or create a radar illusion of a tank by reflecting radio waves in a special way.

In the case of some weapon types deployed in Ukraine, at least half of them are actually decoy imitations.

Flat-pack artillery

Among the most popular decoys used by the Ukrainian army are models of the British-made M777 howitzers. Western allies are understood to have supplied Kyiv with more than 150 of these highly manoeuvrable and accurate artillery pieces, nicknamed "Three Axes" by Ukrainian soldiers.

Trump Is Crossing a Line That Dates Back to the Revolution

Nancy A. Youssef, Missy Ryan, Jonathan Lemire, and Shane Harris

The black-and-white video President Donald Trump released yesterday was, in some respects, familiar. The grainy clip, only 30 seconds long and taken from a U.S. aircraft, shows a small boat skipping across the waves, bracketed by crosshairs. The crosshairs move in closer. Seconds later, a missile explodes, engulfing the boat in fire and destroying everything and everyone on board. That missile, Trump said, killed 11 “narco-terrorists” on an illicit smuggling mission that threatened American lives.

In the near-quarter-century since the 9/11 attacks, four presidents have launched strikes against suspected terrorists in at least seven nations, including Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, and Pakistan. But with this week’s air strike in international waters in the southern Caribbean, Trump expanded the counterterrorism campaign’s mission to a new part of the world, against a different kind of threat. And in doing so, he drew the military even deeper into crime fighting, work that has traditionally been outside its scope.

Both domestically and internationally, the U.S. armed forces are tackling threats once assigned to police officers, Drug Enforcement Administration agents, Coast Guardsmen, and other law-enforcement personnel. They are escorting immigration officers as they arrest undocumented immigrants in American cities, combatting crime with their presence in the U.S. capital, and stopping drugs at the southern border. Off the shores of Venezuela, U.S. ships are massing in a show of force against drug traffickers, a threat long addressed through interdiction at U.S. points of entry or in international or U.S. waters—not through lethal strikes.

“Instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders, we blew it up—and it’ll happen again,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters today. “Maybe it’s happening right now.”

The new tactics represent a shift away from the vision, dating back to the colonial revolt against an overbearing superpower, that U.S. armed forces should defend the country from external threats but not be used to routinely enforce the law.

Elon Musk Could Become the World’s First Trillionaire in the Next Decade. Here’s How

Connor Greene

Elon Musk could stand to become the world’s first trillionaire under a new pay plan Tesla released on Friday, if he manages to meet lofty corporate goals.

Musk’s compensation under the plan would come in the form of Tesla shares. In order to achieve that unprecedented thirteen-digit net worth, the Tesla CEO would need to massively increase the company’s market value over the next decade, according to the proxy statement released by Tesla. He would also have to stay at the company for ten more years in order to earn the full amount laid out in the package.

“Retaining and incentivizing Elon is fundamental to Tesla achieving these goals and becoming the most valuable company in history,” stated a letter from Robyn Denholm and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson, members of the Tesla board, to shareholders.

The proposal must still be approved by shareholders. A vote is likely to be held at an annual shareholders meeting on Nov. 6.

The plan could face some pushback. In the past, Tesla shareholders have been reported as being critical of Musk’s political involvement and what they saw as the billionaire straying from his responsibilities as CEO. In 2018, the company’s shareholders approved a similar compensation package for Musk, although one shareholder objected to the package and filed a lawsuit against the company.

Legal challenges to the newly proposed package are also possible. In 2024, a Delaware judge shut down for the second time the 2018 compensation package for Musk, which could have seen the Tesla CEO receive more than $50 billion. Like the proposal released on Friday, the 2018 package was a 10-year performance-based incentive for Musk.

And raising the company’s market value is easier said than done. Over the last year, as Musk faced controversy over his ties to Trump and brief tenure overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency in the President’s second Administration, Tesla’s sales have decreased. The company’s stock value has also seen dips in recent months, affecting the overall value of Musk’s shares.

Major US Brands Sound Alarm Over Rising Anti-American Sentiment

Hugh Cameron

Anumber of companies, including many of the country's most quintessentially American brands, have warned that growing anti-Americanism as a result of President Donald Trump's tariffs could end up hurting their success overseas.

Experts believe that the trend, if it translates into a broad-based shift in consumer behavior, could prove to be a significant headwind for the companies while taking a significant toll on the broader U.S. economy.

Why It Matters

Anti-Americanism has been on the rise globally, driven largely by the trade policies of the current administration that impacted countries' views as a critical threat to their exports and international trade more generally.

Calls to boycott the American economy have gained traction in Canada since early this year—also sparked by Trump's "51st state" remarks—and have already impacted tourism to the U.S. and the sale of American products. These have recently spread to India as a result of the 50 percent duties placed on its goods, with lawmakers and activists urging less dependence on American multinationals and a greater emphasis on economic self-sufficiency.

What To Know

According to business intelligence firm Morning Consult, Trump's tariff announcements in early April coincided with a "staggering upswing" in global anti-American sentiment, which it said had already resulted in "steep drops in purchasing consideration" for some U.S. companies overseas, "suggesting that worsening views of America are rapidly taking a toll on some brands' health."

In July, ahead of the reimposition of Trump's "reciprocal" tariffs, it said that "anti-Americanism" could pose a significant risk to brands given the combination of potential price impacts and "sharply negative sentiment toward the United States" on consumer shopping habits.

America Surrenders in the Global Information Wars

Anne Applebaum

Every day, some 2 billion people around the world use privacy-protection tools supported by the Open Technology Fund. When people in China escape their government’s firewalls and censorship software—now so dense that the system has been called the “locknet”—or when users in Cuba or Myanmar evade cruder internet blocks, they can access material written in their own languages and read stories they would otherwise never see. Both the access and some of the information are available because the U.S. government has for decades backed a constellation of programs—the technology fund, independent foreign-language broadcasters, counterpropaganda campaigns—designed to give people in repressive countries access to evidence-based news.

The information that people in the autocratic world receive from this network is wide ranging, based on reporting, and very different from what they are told by state media in their own country. If they live in Iran, for example, they might have learned from Radio Farda (backed by U.S. funding, broadcast in Persian) that their government did not, as it had claimed, capture an Israeli pilot during June’s bombing campaign, and they might even have heard, in their own language, American explanations of the campaign instead. If they live in Siberia, they could hear from Radio Liberty (U.S.-backed, staffed by Russian-speaking journalists) precise information about the poor condition of their local roads, including one highway that is 89 miles long but so muddy and full of potholes that traversing it takes 36 hours. If they are Uyghurs living in China, they could have heard, at least before the end of May, reporting in Uyghur from Radio Free Asia (also U.S.-backed, producing reports in nine languages), the broadcaster that originally informed the world about internment camps for members of the persecuted minority.

Kremlin Works to Erase Ukrainian Identity and Militarize Occupied Regions

Maksym Beznosiuk

The Kremlin is systematically erasing Ukrainian identity in occupied regions to solidify long-term submission and control by banning Ukrainian in schools, rewriting history, and indoctrinating children.

In the occupied territories, the Kremlin is linking Russian citizenship to access to healthcare, SIM cards, and basic services, coercing Ukrainians into seeking Russian passports and turning survival into a lever for loyalty.

Forced mobilization of Ukrainians, including abducted children reaching adulthood, indicates how occupation policies feed directly into Russia’s war machine and amount to demographic warfare.

On July 17, the Russian State Duma approved a law that expands the grounds for revoking naturalized citizenship, adding 17 more offenses to the current 64 articles of the Criminal Code. The law, however, will not apply to Russian citizens living in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics,” the occupied parts of Ukraine’s Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, or Crimea (Glavcom; Meduza, July 17). This signals the Kremlin’s willingness to increase administrative and legal pressure in its attempts to control and subdue Ukrainians in the occupied territories.

This development showcases how the Kremlin is weaponizing citizenship as a coercive tool that goes beyond administration, serving as part of a broader strategy to erase Ukrainian identity, impose pro-Russian loyalty, and militarize the occupied population. This is a continuation of the deliberate strategy of enforcing citizenship on Ukrainians, which started following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Throughout 2024, the Kremlin pressured Ukrainians residing in occupied territories to obtain Russian citizenship to access medical care and other social benefits in the Russian-occupied regions of Zaporizhzhia and Luhansk oblasts (Kyiv Independent, January 22, 2024; REACH, January 2). The Kremlin has also restricted access to mobile communications, making it impossible to obtain a SIM card from local mobile operators without a Russian passport (DW, April 10).

It’s past time to start protecting US nuclear power reactors from drones

Henry Sokolski

Earlier this year, in a one-page memo recommending one nuclear policy the new administration should adopt, I proposed that President Trump follow through on his 2021 executive order, which focused on the vulnerability of US critical infrastructure to drone strikes. This included our electrical supply system and nuclear power plants.

Since then, four drones have been sighted operating near the Prairie Island Nuclear Plant in Minnesota. This sighting came on the heels of some 26-odd drone overflights of US reactors in 2024.

Fortunately, the House Armed Services Committee has been keeping score. In its draft National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2026, the committee proposed that the Energy Secretary finally be given authority to defend Energy Department-operated nuclear facilities. Under the proposed legislation, the Energy Department can disable, damage, or destroy any unmanned aircraft system that overflies its nuclear facilities. This bill is expected to be debated on the floor the week of September 8th. Meanwhile, the Senate will have to consider which of the hundreds of amendments it will adopt in its legislation. With any luck, it will adopt the House provisions regarding drones.

This authority is overdue. In December, drones overflew a number of US power reactors as well as US military bases. Governors of New Jersey and Louisiana pleaded that President Biden take action. What followed, in both the Biden and Trump administrations, were bizarre word salads of dismissals. One claim was that the drones (some of which were the size of small airplanes) were flown by “hobbyists.” Another was that they were research planes authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration.

None of this was terribly convincing. In two separate 60 Minutes programs, a variety of senior military officials, including the former Commander of NORTHCOM, expressed concern and were blunt. They had no idea what these things were or where they were coming from, and they were worried: The military lacked the authority to shoot the drones down or any reliable means to detect and disable them.

Interview: Harvard’s Graham Allison on the second Trump administration and the international security order

John Mecklin

When I first started thinking about an issue of the Bulletin focused on the changes the second Trump administration has wrought on the international order, the first expert who came to mind as a table-setter for the discussion was Graham Allison. He’s long been recognized as a top analyst of international security policy, advising or serving in the US Defense Department, State Department, and CIA, and leading and teaching at the Harvard Kennedy School for more than 40 years. His widely acclaimed book, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?, has helped shape thinking about the confrontation of the world’s two leading powers since its publication in 2017. And his understanding of when history can and cannot be useful in crafting policy for the present and future is, to my way of thinking, unparalleled.

He and I spoke in July, when the vicissitudes of the Trump administration’s approach to international trade and security seemed to be approaching a zenith of unpredictability.

John Mecklin: I’m going to start with a general question, and then we’ll go into specifics. It’s just my assumption, from looking from the outside, that most people would think Donald Trump in this term has actually changed the world order—how the major powers relate to one another—in some fairly significant ways. But how do you see it? I mean, that’s the popular view, but maybe you don’t agree.

Graham T. Allison: I would say mainly “yes,” but with a reservation. The question of the state of the international security order and the future of the international security order is one that was of great concern before Trump—and then Trump adds to the picture. But you need to kind of start with the big picture. To make this vivid, consider 80, 80, and 9. If you can identify the questions to which each of these numbers is the answer, you’ll have the big picture about the international security order during the whole of the lifetime of almost all Americans today.

Introduction: How the Trump administration has upended international relations and increased existential risk

Dan Drollette Jr

Proposed tariffs that are the highest in a century. Threatened annexations of other countries. Pulling out of the Paris agreements to fight climate change. Slashes to the funding of public health research. Attacks on higher education (and indeed, any outside source of expertise), along with threats to deport any foreign students or immigrants who don’t toe the line. Cozying up to dictators at the expense of long-time Western allies.

The role of the United States in international affairs is changing dramatically, as the Trump administration imposes a new order upon the planet. It may not be as coherent and coordinated as, say, the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II, but the 80-year-old post-war order is clearly morphing into something else, for better or worse.

To help make sense of the thinking behind this new state of affairs, this issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists includes expert viewpoints from disparate fields—including a top analyst of international security policy, historians, a climate scientist, a college president, a former presidential science adviser, and a Nobel Prize-winning economist. Each examines a different facet of the new new world order that Donald Trump has wrought in his second presidential term.

As Harvard University strategist Graham Allison notes, the current US president enjoys violating rules. Indeed, Allison says, “he [Trump] sees rules and norms as invitations to violation—if by violating the rules he can outrage his audience. In his book The Art of the Deal he explains how if by violating a rule or norm, he can outrage his target audience, they will be less comfortable and thus more willing to give him a better deal than he could get otherwise.”

It’s a strategy that keeps observers on the back foot, constantly wondering which Trump pronouncement is aimed only at stoking outrage and which is a trial balloon for an outrageous plan that could become real—such as annexation. In “Will the Trump administration attempt to annex Greenland, Canada, or somewhere else,” historian Daniel Immerwahr—author of How to Hide an Empire—notes that an observer can err in both directions: “It’s possible to chase after something that was never really serious in the first place, and it’s also possible to not take something seriously that turns out to be a reality.” He also points out that some of Trump’s proposals, such as making Canada a 51st state, are not new, but tap into a deep historical urge for empire-building—something which has been simmering below the surface in America since the country’s founding.

Russian Foreign Ministry Journal Views Baltic as Irreversible Center of Military Conflict

Paul Goble

The Russian Foreign Ministry’s premier journal, International Life, says the Baltic Sea region has become “a potential theater of military conflict,” one where there is no chance that regimes more amenable to Moscow will arise in the absence of a radical shift in the balance of power.

According to the article, the Western alignment of the Baltic region is a serious and growing threat to Russian interests, a challenge Moscow must respond to lest the West use its position there to threaten Russia and its interests.

The article’s zero-sum approach, in which all Western gains are Russian losses and vice versa, suggests that the Russian Foreign Ministry is coming into line with the Russian Defense Ministry, rather than acting as a constraint on its excesses.

Until Russian President Vladimir Putin decides on an action, it is often difficult to predict how Moscow will approach key foreign policy questions. This opacity partially reflects real policy debates in the Kremlin. It is also a form of maskirovka (disguise, маскировка), an effort to keep Russia’s opponents off balance and thus less able to respond effectively. The difficulty in predicting Putin’s next moves can be beneficial to the Kremlin, but it often makes it challenging for key Russian elites to prepare to assist Putin. Fortunately, for Russian elites, some media outlets in the foreign policy realm are more authoritative than others and reflect a degree of insider Kremlin knowledge. These key outlets merit the closest possible attention by those in the West who want to know where Putin is heading and thus how best to respond.

International Life (Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn, Международная жизнь), the Russian Foreign Ministry’s leading journal, typically reflects the emerging Kremlin worldview and the types of actions they believe would advance Moscow’s interests (Novaya Gazeta, August 21). Nikolay Mezhevich, a senior scholar at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, recently released a telling article in the journal. Mezhevich argues that the region around the Baltic Sea has become “a potential theater of military operations” because the West is now using the Baltic countries to threaten Russia (International Life, August 18). He asserts that Moscow has no choice but to take more serious steps lest the situation in that region deteriorate further, a view that puts the Russian Foreign Ministry in line with Russian defense commentators rather than acting as a constraint on them as it has sometimes done in the past (see EDM, May 23, 2024; Novaya Gazeta, August 21).

Older Russian Men and Ethnic Minorities Disproportionately Dying in Kremlin’s War Against Ukraine

Richard Arnold

Russian fatality estimates in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine vary widely, but analysis of open-source data suggests they exceed 175,000 between February 2022 and July 2025.

Older Russian men and ethnic minorities are disproportionately dying in the war—many deaths come from regions such as Buryatia, Bashkiria, and Tatarstan, while Moscow and St. Petersburg contribute relatively fewer fatalities.

Ahiska Turks are estimated to be overrepresented by approximately 800 percent in fatality data, while Cossack mobilization structures increase the proportion of losses in certain regions, showing how Russia’s war strains vulnerable and semi-organized groups.

Nowhere is the well-worn saying that “truth is the first casualty of war” more applicable than in casualty estimates for Russia’s war against Ukraine. U.K. intelligence estimates Russia has passed one million casualties since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with more than 260,000 casualties in 2025 so far (The New Voice of Ukraine, August 5). Russian sources such as Defense Minister Andrei Belousov claim Ukraine has suffered over one million casualties, with 560,000 in 2024 alone (RTVI, December 16, 2024). The term “casualties” encompasses both those who have died and those who are injured so badly they cannot return to the front, so casualty counts are vague on this point alone.

Efforts to identify the number of dead using open-source intelligence continue. Projects that distinguish fatalities from casualties highlight the sorest aspect of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine for Russians. When fathers, brothers, and sons do not return home from war, relatives might be expected to hold the authorities accountable. Three primary organizations are tracking Russian deaths in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine. These organizations use open-source materials to count deaths, which often results in incomplete information and may lead to undercounting of fatalities. The most prominent attempt to count Russian fatalities comes from Mediazona, which works with the BBC Russian Service and a team of volunteers (Mediazona, accessed August 5). The PoterNET site also counts deaths (Poter.NET, accessed August 5). The final source is an X account, “Mancer,” which has tracked Russian deaths since Putin’s 2014 invasion of Crimea rather than just since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 (X/@666_mancer, accessed August 5). While all three sources represent the best available data on Russian fatalities in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine, this article primarily uses the Mancer data since its spreadsheet format makes data analysis more straightforward (Google Sheets/Gruz 200, accessed August 28).

Putin Pivots Kremlin’s Stance Following Rosatom’s Requests on Cooperation with the United States and Ukraine

Anna J. Davis, Panorama

Russian President Vladimir Putin has seemingly reversed the Kremlin’s position toward cooperation with the United States and Ukraine at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (NPP) on September 2 on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit.

The Kremlin, until now, has been claiming that cooperation is not possible and the status of the plant is non-negotiable. Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, in the meantime, has been requesting cooperation with the United States since at least 2023 and has been waiting for Moscow to make the “political decision.”

While Putin’s new alignment with Rosatom may be a tactical move to strengthen Moscow’s position ahead of any potential talks or negotiations, Rosatom may have been influential in changing Putin’s mind, a possible indication of new influence on Russian nuclear foreign policy.

In a reversal of previous Kremlin rhetoric, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested on September 2 the possibility of working together with the United States and Ukraine at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in Ukraine. While visiting the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for its Victory Day Parade on September 3 and for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit on August 31–September 1, Putin said at a meeting with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico:

We can cooperate with American partners at the Zaporizhzhia NPP … We have also indirectly discussed these issues with them in principle. The same … applies to the Ukrainian side. And if favorable circumstances arise, we discussed this with our American colleagues, the three of us could even work at the Zaporizhzhia NPP (President of Russia, September 2).

General MacArthur, maker of postwar Japan

Iain MacGregor

When General Douglas MacArthur’s C-54 transport landed at Atsugi Military Aerodrome near Tokyo on 30 August 1945, the scene before him was almost without precedent in modern history. Japan’s industrial output had collapsed to just 27.6 per cent of its prewar capacity, and the country teetered on the brink of famine. Tokyo was, like dozens of cities across the Home Islands, a smoking ruin; in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, twisted steel and scorched earth stretched as far as the eye could see. Entire neighbourhoods had been erased, their residents either dead or displaced. Food production lagged far behind demand, forcing millions to live on rations often providing fewer than 1,500 calories a day. Typhus, dysentery, and tuberculosis stalked the population. For the Allies, the situation posed a monumental challenge: restore order, prevent starvation, dismantle the machinery of war, and replace it with the architecture of peace.

MacArthur moved swiftly, proceeding to Yokohama to set up his headquarters as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP). He would oversee a transformation of the country as he set about enforcing the terms of surrender, but also to work with the existing Japanese government to demilitarise, democratise, rebuild the shattered economy and save the population from potential starvation. In rural Japan, he orchestrated a land reform that, in both scope and speed, rivalled the most radical agrarian revolutions of the 20th century.

Within three years, six million acres – about one third of Japan’s farmland – was expropriated from 2.3 million landlords and sold to 4.7 million tenant-farmers at prices so low that inflation often made payments symbolic. By 1950, tenancy had plummeted from nearly half of all cultivated land to just ten per cent. Villages administered their own redistribution through committees dominated by tenants, shifting the balance of power from landlord to farmer. British sociologist Ronald Dore later wrote: ‘In place of the old paternalist order… I detected a sense of empowerment’, as those who had laboured in dependency learned self-government. This was not just an economic shift – it was a social and political earthquake, creating a class of independent smallholders with a vested interest in stability.

Ground Robots to Proliferate on Ukraine Battlefields Following Success of Drones

Stew Magnuson

WIESBADEN, Germany — Artem Moroz — a representative of Ukraine’s Brave1 tech incubator — scrolled through a screen of ground robots at the organization’s booth at a recent trade show.

The screen had 20 different models capable of performing a variety of tasks, and the government agency’s head of investor relations had four more screens worth, for a total of 100 Ukrainian-made unmanned ground vehicles — all currently available for operations.

“Most of these companies received [Brave1] grants when they were smaller. We helped them early on, and now they are managing to scale up and get government contracts,” Moroz said.

The use of first-person drones in Ukraine is well known and has already goaded ground forces throughout the world to rethink their tactics, techniques and procedures. The country’s unmanned surface vessels have damaged or scuttled Russian ships on the Black Sea.

However, the employment of ground robots in the Ukraine-Russia war is not as well known. That is about to change.

As the war continues in its fourth year, ground robots are set to proliferate in Ukraine, performing just about all the tasks human soldiers carry out, said Moroz and other sources at the Association of the United States Army’s LandEuro conference held in July in Wiesbaden, Germany.

“Last year was the first year that we experimented with the tactics. What are they capable of doing? But this year, we are scaling up. The government is about to procure at least 15,000 systems,” Moroz said.

There were no Ukrainian companies involved in the ground robot business at the outset of the 2022 full-scale Russian invasion. There are now more than 100, according to Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation statistics. Moroz put that number closer to 150.

Air Force’s Network of the Future: Fast, Commercial, and Virtual

Greg Hadley

When Airmen and Guardians need data or connectivity, they don’t much care whether it comes via wires, fiber optic cable or a satellite—and the Department of the Air Force wants its networks to match.

A new “Network of the Future” strategy released Sept. 3 by the department’s Chief Information Officer and Chief Technology Officer says IT networks must be adaptive and secure, “ensuring that real-time data, secure communications, and adaptive responses are available wherever and whenever the mission demands.”

Software-Defined Wide Area Networks, or SD-WANs are the underlying enabling technology for the new strategy. Conventional network technology uses switching hardware to route messaging through fiber optic cables, 5G towers, or satellites uplinks and downlinks. Software-defined networks use virtual switching to route traffic and adapt, on the fly, when network nodes fail. If a cyberattack or power failure cuts off one route, the system automatically reconfigures to send data via another.

“SD-WAN is designed to be easily scalable and can integrate across multiple connection types with end-to-end encryption and unified security policies across all locations to simplify security management,” the strategy states.

The Air Force strategy envisions a “unified control pane” allowing IT professionals to monitor and manage the entire network without having to toggle between systems.

The Space Force already has an SD-WAN program called meshONE-Terrestrial. Launched in 2021, it contributes to the Pentagon’s wider Joint All-Domain Command and Control efforts and expanded in 2024 to support more locations.

Another objective in the document calls for the Air Force to invest in a wide range of IT infrastructure, including 5G, fiber optics, traditional internet, and even satellite communications. Each comes with distinct advantages and challenges, which the strategy notes, but taken together, they “enhance flexibility for warfighters by allowing seamless movement of high-performance data.”

The New Math of Quantum Cryptography

Several years ago, researchers found a radically new approach to encryption that lacks this potential weak spot. The approach exploits the peculiar features of quantum physics. But unlike earlier quantum encryption schemes, which only work for a few special tasks, the new approach can accomplish a much wider range of tasks. And it could work even if all the problems at the heart of ordinary “classical” cryptography turn out to be easily solvable.

But this striking discovery relied on unrealistic assumptions. The result was “more of a proof of concept,” said Fermi Ma, a cryptography researcher at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing in Berkeley, California. “It is not a statement about the real world.”

Now, a new paper by two cryptographers has laid out a path to quantum cryptography without those outlandish assumptions. “This paper is saying that if certain other conjectures are true, then quantum cryptography must exist,” Ma said.

Castle in the Sky

You can think of modern cryptography as a tower with three essential parts. The first part is the bedrock deep beneath the tower, which is made of hard mathematical problems. The tower itself is the second part—there you can find specific cryptographic protocols that let you send private messages, sign digital documents, cast secret ballots, and more.

In between, securing those day-to-day applications to mathematical bedrock, is a foundation made of building blocks called one-way functions. They’re responsible for the asymmetry inherent in any encryption scheme. “It’s one-way because you can encrypt messages, but you can’t decrypt them,” said Mark Zhandry, a cryptographer at NTT Research.

In the 1980s, researchers proved that cryptography built atop one-way functions would ensure security for many different tasks. But decades later, they still aren’t certain that the bedrock is strong enough to support it. The trouble is that the bedrock is made of special hard problems—technically known as NP problems—whose defining feature is that it’s easy to check whether any candidate solution is correct. (For example, breaking a number into its prime factors is an NP problem: hard to do for large numbers, but easy to check.)

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