Indian Strategic Studies: 09/13/25

13 September 2025

The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor: Connectivity in an era of geopolitical uncertainty

Afaq Hussain and Nicholas Shafer

Launched at the 2023 Group of Twenty (G20) summit in New Delhi, the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) features three pillars that integrate existing and future infrastructure: a transportation pillar—the corridor’s backbone—integrating rail and maritime networks, an energy pillar with interconnected energy and electricity infrastructure across continents, and a digital pillar providing new fiber-optic cables and cross-border digital infrastructure.

The corridor is well placed to be a consequential regional integration and infrastructure initiative in the coming decades, reinforcing supply chain security and aligning Eurasian policy around open, rules-based connectivity, supported by market-driven, locally funded investment from a diverse set of countries. IMEC also provides an alternative to existing corridors dominated by a single government, particularly the Belt and Road Initiative.

The transportation corridor plan has a financing gap of approximately $5 billion to become minimally operational, linking Gulf ports to Haifa, Israel. Most of the unmet costs are in Jordan, Israel, and logistics hubs likely at Haradh, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (linking KSA-United Arab Emirates); al-Haditha, KSA (KSA-Jordan); Mafraq, the Jordan logistics hub, and near Beit She’an in Israel (Jordan-Israel).

The corridor would have the capacity to move about forty-six trains daily carrying 1.5 million storage containers (TEUs) annually on single-stack cargo rail, with the ability to scale up to 3 million TEUs in the future, with both double-stack cargo rail and the additional integration of Ashdod Port enabling greater throughput into the Eastern Mediterranean. The upper ceiling of trade volume carried on IMEC could reach even higher, as it is only constrained by the laying of additional rail lines and port capacity, which could be expanded both by additional rail investments and integrating additional countries into IMEC.

Transshipment times via the transportation corridor could be reduced by about 40 percent (to twelve-plus days) relative to maritime routes, generating approximately $5.4 billion in annual savings on Asia-Europe trade traveling the route. The corridor also would provide stronger access to international markets for countries along the route and increase export competitiveness. For India alone, IMEC could generate an overall increase of between 5 percent and 8 percent in Indian export valuation, returning $21.85 billion of additional Indian exports annually.

A ‘STRATEGIC PIVOT FOR CHINESE WEAPONRY?’ PRC MEDIA RESPONSES TO PAKISTANI J-10’S COMBAT SUCCESS

Matthew Bruzzese, Devon Johanneson, BluePath Labs

On 9 May 2025, a Reuters report claimed that at least one Indian Air Force Rafale combat aircraft was shot down by a Pakistani pilot flying an export variant of the Chinese J-10 fighter.1 The defeat of a leading Western combat aircraft by a People’s Republic of China (PRC) indigenously-produced fighter has garnered significant attention globally from both military analysts and governments, with implications ranging from potential arms sales to the viability of PRC military equipment in a future conflict. This article examines initial reactions to the incident from official PRC state media and influential commenters.

The response of PRC state media in the weeks immediately following the shoot down has been muted, likely in an effort to preserve the PRC’s official stance as a relatively neutral third party.2 Direct discussion of the event has been limited. The incident was first reported in a China Central Television (CCTV) report on 17 May, more than a week after the initial Reuters report.3 Notably, official military and Ministry of National Defense (MND) sources have been almost completely silent. An MND spokesperson was asked directly about the shoot down on 29 May but declined to answer the question, instead expressing a general desire for regional peace and stability.4 Despite this muted response, PRC media has subtly celebrated the event. Official sources have taken a quietly triumphalist tone, praising the capabilities of the J-10 aircraft and PRC military technology more broadly, likely with an eye toward both domestic propaganda and boosting international exports.

The initial report from CCTV offers an example of this tone, saying, “Recently, our country's export-oriented J-10CE fighter achieved actual-combat results for the first time. In air combat, it shot down multiple fighter jets in one fell swoop and suffered no losses.”5 In the days following the shoot down, CCTV also posted videos lauding the capabilities of both the J-10 and the PRC-made PL-15 missile allegedly used in the shoot down.6 The latter included the hashtag, “Why Pakistan’s Air Force is so fierce.”

China-Russia Relations Since the Start of the War in Ukraine

Pierre Andrieu

In the 19th century, like Western powers and Japan, Russia participated in the “Scramble for China”; however, unlike the others, it never returned the vast territories it annexed. After a long and turbulent history of Sino-Russian relations, Mikhail Gorbachev launched the Soviet “turn to Asia” policy in July 1986 with his Vladivostok speech. Addressing the Chinese directly, he declared: “I would like to dwell on the most important issue in our relations. These relations are extremely important for several reasons, starting from the fact that we are neighbors, that we share the world’s longest land border, and that we, our children, and grandchildren are destined to live near each other ‘forever and ever.’”1

This policy was reaffirmed by President Vladimir Putin after he came to power in 2000, reinforced during the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and further intensified following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. That year, China and Russia signed lengthy and grandiloquent declarations celebrating their “no-limits friendship,” prominently showcased during commemorations in Moscow marking the 80th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany. Yet this no-limits friendship, while rhetorically expansive, has never been formalized and contains several clear limitations — limitations the current U.S. administration has unsuccessfully attempted to exploit.

This paper examines the China-Russia relationship and its often-contradictory evolution. The strategic dynamic between these two Eurasian powers has produced a partnership further solidified by Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, despite Beijing’s attempts to mediate the conflict. While the strength of this partnership may make it appear unbreakable, it should not preclude continued dialogue between China and the West — particularly the European Union and its member states. The EU–China summit held in Beijing on July 24, however, did not yield the expected results in this regard.

Historical Context

To understand today’s Sino-Russian relationship, it is necessary to review key historical milestones. Separated for centuries by harsh deserts, dense forests, and imposing mountains, early Chinese and Russian entities had minimal direct interaction — primarily through commerce — before the 16th century. In the 13th century, the Golden Horde,2 a Mongol khanate led by Genghis Khan’s grandson Batu, conquered the Russian principalities.3 Around the same time, another grandson, Kublai Khan, subjugated China and established the Yuan dynasty. The Pax Mongolica that followed only partially bridged the vast cultural and civilizational gap between the two regions.

Closing the Deterrence Gap in the Taiwan Strait

Jared McKinney and Robert S. Hinck

“Experts” insist that the risk of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is low, while “Catastrophizers” warn of imminent conflict. These conflicting assessments result in contrasting recommendations. Whereas Experts recommend Taiwan focus on long-term resilience, Catastrophizers propose radical political solutions—such as the United States adopting a policy of “strategic clarity,” upending more than half a century of history. This book explores the tension between these viewpoints, arguing that while Experts underestimate the risk of conflict, Catastrophizers propose solutions that are imprudent. To be strategic, responses to the threat of invasion must weigh resources, risks, and time. History and wargaming show that a series of modest adaptations—in Taiwan and the United States—can bolster deterrence and reduce the growing risk of conflict. This book features contributions from more than two dozen military officers showing how this can be done.

New Trends in Russo-Chinese Relations

Stephen Blank

China is opening its bond market to Russian energy companies, e.g., Gazprom. This report is noteworthy for several reasons going beyond Russo-Chinese relations. First, China has hitherto refused to provide this open access to its bond market lest Washington impose sanctions upon it. Therefore this decision, coming after China and Russia have both faced the Trump Administration down, evidently reflects China’s belief that it can challenge the U.S. with minimal risk. Moreover, it is clear to both parties that Washington will not desist from trying to pressure them even if it does so without any true strategy. So, they probably feel that they have nothing to lose by proceeding in this fashion.

Second, although many will feel that this is a victory for Putin that he has now gained ac access to capital, albeit Chinese rather than Western funding. But in fact this decision represents another Chinese victory and signified Russia’s growing dependence upon it. This agreement, like the Memorandum of Intent to build the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline reflect Russia’s dependence on China as its main energy customer.

Although China is exposing itself to greater reliance on Russian gas in fact it is Russia who loses here. A pipeline to one customer as will be the case here, gives that customer enormous leverage over the seller, i.e., Russia, regarding price and the terms of the contract. Likewise, now that China will be the bondholder for companies like Gazprom which is a notoriously corrupt company and has been an obstacle to and competitor with China in its bilateral negotiations with Russia, China will gain great leverage over Gazprom and other companies’ operations. Third, these energy giants as well as Russian businesses are increasingly reliant if not dependent upon the Renminbi, China’s currency. And this deal will increase the presence and thus the power of China’s currency in and over Russia.

Thus, these energy policies extend China’s influence over the Russian economy to the point of being able to guide major Russian energy firms’ policies by virtue of its status as bondholders. But the political significance of these decisions is potentially even greater.

These energy decisions on the pipeline and on opening the bond market go far to ensnare Russia in a Chinese-led Renminbi bloc that would challenge the dollar for primacy in global economics and politics. Creation of such a bloc is a long-standing Chinese objective, but it is difficult to see how Russia benefits from it.

PRC Conceptions of Comprehensive National Power

Erik R. Quam

Executive Summary:Comprehensive national power (CNP) is a central framework through which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) measures its progress toward key strategic objectives. The ends the CCP is pursuing through building its CNP is a dominant position in a reshaped international order in which it has prevailed in an ideological competition with the West.

The effort to establish a theoretical framework to understand CNP began in the 1980s under Deng Xiaoping, Considerable attention and resources were devoted to developing CNP theory from 1990–2015, especially under leading scholars such as Huang Shuofeng and Wu Chunqiu. This work initially took place outside of government, at the National Defense University and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, but today official measurements are likely conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics.

Influenced by cybernetics and systems-of-systems engineering, PRC CNP theory frames CNP as a complex system with a large number of measurable indices. To this day, the Party-state appears to make precise calculations of CNP, including ranking the CNP of different countries.

Over two days in late August 2025, the National Committee of the 14th Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference held a meeting to discuss the 15th Five-Year Plan that is currently under development. Politburo standing committee member and state vice premier Ding Xuexiang (丁薛祥) delivered a report to an audience that included a number of top-level officials. [1] Praising the country’s development over the last four and a half years, he declared that the economic power, science and technology power, and comprehensive national power of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) “have all leapt to a new stage” (跃上了新台阶) (People’s Daily, August 26).

American Security Systems are Compromised by China

Russ Walker & Chet Love

Home and business security systems are supposed to keep Americans safe. Yet very often our cameras, routers, drones, smart locks, and more are compromised, opening the door to surveillance and security risks—often without consumers being any the wiser.

The biggest security threat comes from China. Millions of U.S. homes and businesses rely on electronics and security systems manufactured by companies with direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Many of these products are cheap, widely available, and deeply integrated into our daily lives. But the cost we save at checkout comes due later when our personal information and national infrastructure are at risk.

Take Hikvision and Dahua, two Chinese surveillance giants blacklisted by the U.S. government. Their products—used in schools, homes, and even municipal buildings—are capable of sending video data to foreign servers. DJI drones, popular with hobbyists and law enforcement alike, have been flagged by the Department of Defense for transmitting user data back to China. Meanwhile, Wi-Fi routers from Huawei and TP-Link have documented firmware vulnerabilities that make it easy for hackers to steal data, monitor activity, or disable connected security systems.

These vulnerabilities risk more than privacy —they’re a threat to national security. China’s “military-civil fusion” strategy explicitly encourages companies to aid the state in acquiring foreign technology and intelligence. Meanwhile, security systems installed in government offices, power grids, and defense facilities could be exploited to surveil sensitive operations or disrupt vital systems. As 5G and Internet of Things (IoT) devices proliferate, the scope of this threat only grows. Firms like Huawei, ZTE, and DJI don’t just make gadgets—they serve the geopolitical interests of an adversarial regime.

Compounding these risks is the inadequacy of domestic American data storage. You wouldn’t keep your car unlocked on a busy street. Nor would you leave your wallet on a counter in an airport. But Americans regularly—and often unknowingly—have their data housed in less secure overseas facilities unprotected by U.S. oversight.

China’s grand global plan on full display at SCO Summit

Brian YS Wong and Sebastian Contin Trillo-Figueroa

The 2025 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin was by no means a game-changer, but it was a useful bellwether for close observers of China’s shifting foreign policy strategy.

Over the past decade, Beijing’s understanding and interaction with the so-called “global order” has undergone a significant transformation — from a historically deferential approach rooted in compliance with Western-led institutions, to now tentatively attempting to convene a coalition of the “aggrieved.”

For many SCO members, abstention costs more than participation. Central Asian states treat it as insurance against great power rivalry, while India stays engaged to prevent China from monopolizing regional leadership.

Belarus joined in 2024 less for benefits than to avoid isolation. Iran uses membership to counter diplomatic marginalization despite crippling sanctions. Whatever their motives, most members conclude that exclusion means forfeiting influence over conversations that will happen with or without them.

The recent summit confirmed this pattern across multiple domains. On security, the new Universal Center for Countering Security Challenges and Threats will not reconcile India and Pakistan, but it will extend the SCO’s reach.

On economics, Chinese President Xi Jinping highlighted trade with SCO members that has surpassed US$500 billion and recast selective bilateral deals as signs of multilateral progress. Even the Belt and Road Initiative, still contested by India, folds easily into SCO bilateral discussions – giving Chinese projects Eurasian branding.

On governance, Beijing advanced its Global Governance Initiative, rejecting bloc politics and “Cold War mentality” while affirming loyalty to the UN and WTO – signaling opposition to US dominance without naming it. None of these commitments is enforceable, but their repetition may subtly shape, and eventually foster, new conceptions of legitimacy.

All the world’s a stage

With Putin in Charge, Russia’s Vassalage to China Will Only Deepen

Alexander Gabuev

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.Learn More

“Biden did something that was unthinkable. He drove China and Russia together. It's the one thing you didn't want to do because they're basically natural enemies,” U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox News after his Alaska meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. This week’s summit in China, where Putin was Xi Jinping’s guest of honor, does not support that characterization. Fueled by resentment toward the U.S., the China-Russia relationship is only set to deepen – increasingly on Beijing’s terms. America’s chances of reversing this trend remain elusive, and recent tariffs against India may only push Putin closer into Xi’s embrace.

In Trump’s telling, the partnership between China and Russia is unnatural, which may enable the U.S. to drive a wedge between the two. A key source of distrust is supposedly demography. “Russia has tremendous amounts of land. China has tremendous amounts of people, and China needs Russian land,” Trump told Fox News. The asymmetry between the vast and empty Russian Far East, home to just 7.9 million people, and China’s 1.4 billion population, is indeed hard to miss. Historically it has caused a lot of alarm in the Kremlin. But as China’s population has started to shrink, those fears have now been mostly alleviated.

Still, Trump is not wrong when he talks about “natural friction” between China and Russia. Its root is not demography, but growing economic and technological asymmetry. While China has emerged as a manufacturing and technological powerhouse of the 21st century, Putin’s Russia is a pale shadow of its former self. And by setting itself on a course of deepening isolation from the West, Russia has provided China with more leverage.

SCO Summit Focuses on Shaping Emerging Frontiers

Arran Hope

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is an increasingly important vehicle through which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) seeks to drive changes to the international system. This year’s summit focused on seizing the current moment to shape rules and standards in emerging frontiers, such as artificial intelligence (AI), cyberspace, and outer space.

CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping used the summit to unveil the Global Governance Initiative—the fourth such initiative he has announced in recent years. While currently short on substance, it is symbolic as a statement of intent for shaping an international order in the Party’s own image.

The SCO claims that it is not an anti-Western organization that seeks reform, not revision, of the international system. The Tianjin Declaration’s explicit and implicit criticisms of the United States, as well as SCO member states’ ongoing violations of international law in ways that undermine the current system, suggests that such claims are largely rhetorical.

“Profound changes in international relations have taken place.” “In a spirit of partnership, the Parties shall strive to promote the multipolarization of the world and the establishment of a new international order.” These are quotes not from last week, but from 1997. They can be found in the “Russian-Chinese Joint Declaration on a Multipolar World and the Establishment of a New International Order,” a foundational document of what later became the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) (UN Digital Library, May 20, 1997). In the nearly three decades since, the leadership in both countries has remained remarkably consistent on this assessment, and in their commitment to bringing this new order into existence. By the time presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping arrived in the Kazakhstan for last year’s SCO summit, they felt comfortable declaring that the multipolar world “has become a reality” (Kremlin.ru, July 4, 2024).

Massive Leak Shows How a Chinese Company Is Exporting the Great Firewall to the World

Zeyi Yang

A leak of more than 100,000 documents shows that a little-known Chinese company has been quietly selling censorship systems seemingly modeled on the Great Firewall to governments around the world.

Geedge Networks, a company founded in 2018 that counts the “father” of China’s massive censorship infrastructure as one of its investors, styles itself as a network-monitoring provider, offering business-grade cybersecurity tools to “gain comprehensive visibility and minimize security risks” for its customers, the documents show. In fact, researchers found that it has been operating a sophisticated system that allows users to monitor online information, block certain websites and VPN tools, and spy on specific individuals.

Researchers who reviewed the leaked material found that the company is able to package advanced surveillance capabilities into what amounts to a commercialized version of the Great Firewall—a wholesale solution with both hardware that can be installed in any telecom data center and software operated by local government officers. The documents also discuss desired functions that the company is working on, such as cyberattack-for-hire and geofencing certain users.

According to the leaked documents, Geedge has already entered operation in Kazakhstan, Ethiopia, Pakistan, and Myanmar, as well as another unidentified country. A public job posting shows that Geedge is also looking for engineers who can travel to other countries for engineering work, including to several countries not named in the leaked documents, WIRED has found.

The files, including Jira and Confluence entries, source code, and correspondence with a Chinese academic institution, mostly involve internal technical documentation, operation logs, and communications to solve issues and add functionalities. Provided through an anonymous leak, the files were studied by a consortium of human rights and media organizations including Amnesty International, InterSecLab, Justice For Myanmar, Paper Trail Media, The Globe and Mail, the Tor Project, the Austrian newspaper Der Standard, and Follow The Money.

The limits of Xi and Putin’s ‘no-limits’ partnership

Much has changed since Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin last stood together atop Tiananmen Square in 2015. When they did so again this week, it was supposedly as equal partners. Of course, the reality is far more complex.

The conventional wisdom is that China has cemented its position as the dominant partner, especially since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. After all, it is now Russia’s biggest trading partner, accounting for more than half of Russian imports in 2023, whereas Russia does not even make China’s top five. While Russia relies on China to buy roughly half of its crude oil exports, these purchases account for only 17.5 percent of China’s total oil imports. Simply put, Russia needs China to keep its own economy going.

Yet for all this dependence, China is not dictating outcomes, and the Kremlin is not acting like a junior partner. Consider the war in Ukraine. While it has some significant upsides for China — not least by diverting US resources from the Pacific theater — there is no doubt that Putin is calling the shots on the timing, scope and endgame.

On paper, China might have the leverage to influence Russia’s policy, but it is hard to imagine a scenario in which Ukraine could compel China to use it. Doing so would not only jeopardize China’s relations with a key partner, but also contravene its own core foreign-policy principle of “non-interference.” Putin knows that better than anyone.

Although China has consistently pitched itself as a “peacemaker,” that role has been filled by other countries, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia; and now, US President Donald Trump and Putin have proved capable of engaging each other without a broker.

The limits of Chinese influence are even more striking around its own borders, where Russia’s deepening partnership with North Korea is raising alarms. China might welcome Russian meddling in Europe, but potentially destabilizing the Korean Peninsula is quite another matter.

If China is unwilling to influence outcomes in Ukraine and unable to deter potential instability in its own neighborhood, that suggests there is more to China-Russia relations than a simple junior-senior partnership. Although the economic relationship might have changed, the politics have yet to catch up.

Securing the U.S. Industrial Base in Semiconductors: Investing in a National Champion

Sujai Shivakumar, Charles Wessner, and Chris Borges

The Trump administration’s decision to support Intel as a national champion in chipmaking is a recognition of an economic security reality: Industrial policy has become the norm across advanced economies. Around the world, governments provide extensive support—through subsidies, tax incentives, and direct investment—to ensure their firms can meet the immense technical and financial challenges of producing advanced semiconductors. Intel, now at a critical juncture in its push to manufacture leading-edge semiconductors domestically, requires an infusion of capital to remain competitive.

Given the critical role of semiconductors in the modern economy, supporting Intel today is not about protecting one company for its own sake. It is about securing the industrial base necessary for national security in an era of geopolitical competition. The alternative—a U.S. future dependent on foreign sources for the most advanced chips—is strategically untenable.

The specific terms of support will matter. What governance rights will accompany federal funding? How much autonomy will Intel retain in commercial decisions? Will this set a precedent for future grants? Yet the strategic point remains: If the United States relies solely on market forces, it risks ceding leadership in one of the world’s most important industries. The United States needs Intel, and Intel needs U.S. support.

Can a Single Company Play a Strategic Role?

The short answer is yes. Intel should be thought of as part of the infrastructure that underpins U.S. technological leadership. Over the course of decades, Intel has developed a deep network of knowledge, resources, and relationships that underpin its ability to produce extremely complex and sensitive technologies crucial to many aspects of the U.S. economy, as well as U.S. national defense. This complex network with a capable U.S. firm at its core took many years to grow and is of major strategic value. Especially given its scale, Intel plays a key role in sustaining the industrial commons that anchor the activities of other semiconductor companies in the United States.

The Russia Oil Surcharge: Anticipating the Benefits and Challenges

Clayton Seigle

This Commentary builds on the previously proposed surcharge mechanism designed to drive Russian oil revenues lower. In short, the U.S. government would impose a fee on Russia’s oil customers, like India, in exchange for waiving strong new secondary tariffs.

This approach is designed to isolate Moscow’s revenues in isolation: without trying to sink global oil prices (bad for U.S. industry economics) and without removing large Russian volumes from the market that would risk a price spike (bad for the fight against inflation).

This analysis addresses three key considerations arising from our proposal to maximize U.S. leverage to end the war in Ukraine.

Consideration 1: Eroding Russia’s Spending Power to Pressure Putin

With 7.3 million barrels per day (mb/d) of oil exports and prices around $64 per barrel, Russia earned about $467 million per day, or $14 billion from its oil sales during the month of July. How much of a revenue reduction is needed to change behaviors in Moscow?

A new shortfall of $40–50 billion will apply significant stress to Russia’s remaining financial sources and erode its current account surplus. An initial $20 per barrel surcharge that effectively caps Russian revenues around $45 could achieve this target. Here’s how:

Russia faces a mushrooming budget deficit—during the first seven months of 2025, it had already reached $61.1 billion, exceeding the full-year budget by a quarter, as wartime spending continues apace and oil revenues have come in below expectations. Western policymakers should target a further revenue cut of about $50 billion to further widen the deficit and apply stress to Moscow’s financial coping mechanisms.

Russia’s budget has two important lifelines to supplement oil and gas revenues: the National Welfare Fund (NWF) and debt issuance. Faced with low oil revenues, Moscow has resorted to both sources to preserve adequate war funding. The more Washington and its allies can reduce Russia’s oil revenues, the more Moscow will be forced to drain the NWF and increase indebtedness to perpetuate military spending—and these lifelines are not without limits.

US Air Force eyes atomic clocks to keep drone swarms flying in jammed skies

Kapil Kajal

The US Air Force is turning to atomic clock technology to help coordinate swarms of small drones in environments where traditional satellite navigation is jammed or spoofed, according to a new request for information (RFI) released by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).

The initiative seeks to develop advanced position, navigation, and timing (PNT) systems that allow unmanned aircraft to operate and maneuver collectively without relying on the Global Positioning System (GPS), which has become increasingly vulnerable to electronic warfare.

Next-generation timing for drone swarms

At the center of AFRL’s plan is a ruggedized testbed called the Joint Multi-INT Precision Reference (JMPR).

The system integrates a Next Generation Atomic Clock (NGAC) to achieve single-digit picosecond stability and sub-nanosecond accuracy.

By maintaining such extreme precision, drone swarms could synchronize movements and share data seamlessly, even without GPS.

“The ability to achieve extremely high timing coherency between UAS in the swarm is critical,” the RFI stated.

“This enables coordination, communication, and collective maneuvering in contested environments.”

Traditional navigation systems are built around satellite-based timing signals. But in conflicts such as the war in Ukraine, Russian forces have extensively used GPS jamming and spoofing to disrupt operations.

China is reported to be pursuing similar capabilities. These developments have underscored the Pentagon’s need for alternatives.

Decentralized, resilient architecture

How to End Ukraine War: A ‘Total Collapse’ of the Russian Economy?

Stephen Silver

Key Points and Summary – Following Russia’s massive weekend drone attack, the U.S. and European Union are coordinating on a potential new, tougher round of sanctions.

-President Trump threatened a “second phase,” while the Treasury Secretary called for a joint effort to “collapse” the Russian economy.

-An EU delegation is in Washington this week to discuss its 19th sanctions package, which could target Russian banks, energy companies, and payment systems.

-Crucially, the EU may also use its “anti-circumvention tool” against third countries like Kazakhstan that help Moscow evade restrictions, signaling a significant tightening of economic pressure.

Time to Collapse the Russian Economy?

Approached on his way to the U.S. Open on Sunday, President Donald Trump said he’s ready to move to a “second phase” of sanctions against Russia.

Per Reuters, Trump has made that threat before, but backed down as he has pursued peace talks, aimed at ending the war after more than three years. Trump did place secondary tariffs on India, a major importer of Russian energy.

“That cost hundreds of billions of dollars to Russia,” Trump said last week of the India tariffs. “You call that no action? And I haven’t done phase two yet or phase three.”

Russia has responded to the threat, once again making clear that it will not back down due to sanctions.

“Sanctions are the agenda supported by the Kyiv regime and European countries. They are doing everything to bring Washington into their orbit and impose these sanctions,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in a Telegram interview this week.

The Return of War as a Tool of Statecraft

Kurt Cobb

We have the ancient Roman writer Vegetius to thank for the phrase: "If you want peace, prepare for war." The phrase itself was adapted from one found in Vegetius' book on Roman military strategy, De Re Militari (circa 450 AD), the only complete work on the topic to survive to the modern era. The phrase translated literally reads, "Therefore let him who desires peace prepare for war."

Whether that is good advice seems less relevant than whether those who prepare for war actually desire peace. I am thinking of something Madeleine Albright, secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, said to Colin Powell, the then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to wit: "What's the point of having this superb military that you're always talking about if we can't use it?"

Which brings us to today: a world decidedly more under the sway of Albright than Vegetius, a world in which everyone seems to be preparing for war, but with little intention of preserving the peace.

I'll start with the recent attack on the alleged drug-smuggling boat blown to smithereens by the U.S. Navy in the Caribbean Sea. The United States is now conflating two failed wars into one: the war on drugs and the war on terror. The word "narco-terrorist" is ready-made for the occasion.

The Trump administration claims the boat was from Venezuela and operated by a notorious Venezuelan gang. But it offers no proof. The navy could have stopped the boat, searched it, and, if warranted, arrested the passengers. But that would involve actually mounting a legal case for which the U.S. might not have the necessary evidence.

The destruction of the boat, even though American sailors and ships were not at risk, is now being called "an act of war." But that was almost certainly the point. The Trump administration is trying to goad Venezuela into an attack on U.S. forces (or arrange a false flag incident) that will justify a full-on war with Venezuela. Importantly, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth did not rule out regime change in Venezuela as a goal of American military operations in the Caribbean.

Peace in South Caucasus Closer After the Washington Summit, but Uncertainties Loom

Vasif Huseynov

The August 8 summit between the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders in Washington, D.C., with mediation by U.S. President Donald Trump, reached a deal on the Zangezur Corridor, envisioning an “unimpeded” transit route through Armenia to Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan exclave.

Domestic opposition in Armenia has fiercely criticized the deal, and with upcoming parliamentary elections in 2026, there is uncertainty about Armenia’s future position.

Challenges from Russia and Iran, both of which oppose external involvement in the corridor, add further complexity, with Russia insisting on maintaining the previous agreements it reached with Armenia and Azerbaijan.

On August 28, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that his country will start substantive talks next month with the United States and Azerbaijan on the practical arrangements for opening a transit route to Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan exclave via the territory of Armenia (Armenpress.am, August 28). The agreement on this route (hereafter the Zangezur Corridor) was reached on August 8 during a trilateral meeting between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Prime Minister Pashinyan, mediated by U.S. President Donald Trump (see EDM, August 12).

According to the trilateral agreement, the route (renamed as the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, or TRIPP) would serve as an “unimpeded” passage and be managed through what Trump called an “exclusive partnership” between Armenia and the United States for 99 years (President of Azerbaijan, August 9). According to Pashinyan, this implies the deployment of an “Armenia-United States company” which “will carry out the business management” (Armenpress.am, August 21). He underscored that the company “will not control that road but manage it,” refuting the domestic criticism about the loss of Armenian sovereignty over the route and the sublease of the territory to the United States.

A New Platform Offers Privacy Tools to Millions of Public Servants

Dell Cameron

A first-of-its-kind marketplace rolled out on Tuesday offering free and discounted privacy and security services to America’s 23 million current and former public servants. The marketplace is offered by Public Service Alliance (PSA), a private company that says it formed in response to an unprecedented rise in threats against government workers across the United States.

Open to anyone who is serving or has served in government—federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial—the platform debuts amid heightened concern over the safety of public officials and their families, especially in the wake of the June killing of Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband and the attempted assassination of state senator John Hoffman and his wife.

“Threats to public servants and their families have surged over the past decade, with no scalable support for those at risk. This is a broken business model for effective government and undermines everything America stands for,” PSA founder and CEO Isabella Ulloa says in a statement.

The group says its marketplace is designed to connect public servants—from veterans and judges to first responders and lawmakers—with resources spanning four areas: privacy and security, legal and communications risk, career support, and personal well-being. The services, which anyone can browse for free, include online data removal, legal counsel, threat monitoring, job coaching, and stress management tools.

After creating a free account and attesting to their government service, users will receive codes that unlock reduced rates from vetted vendors: data-privacy firms like Optery and Atlas, which help remove personal information from the web and keep it from reappearing; Alethea, a security firm that monitors for online harassment and physical threats; and Lifemart, which offers discounted lifestyle and wellness products. Additionally, while it does not itself provide legal advice, PSA says it can connect users to a network of attorneys that provide low-cost legal consultations.

Cheap Drones, Priceless Targets: Fortifying America’s Bomber Fleet

Daniel Allen, Marco Volpitta

In June of 2025, Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb proved that 117 cheap drones were sufficient to cripple a third of Russia’s bomber fleet overnight. Ukraine’s massive operational success underlined a simple fact: the logic of previous aircraft basing no longer holds. Remoteness is no longer as effective a shield as once thought, and threats towards high-value assets can come in the form of small drones and large, expensive missiles. What was once efficiency is now complacency, and the U.S. Air Force needs to learn from the mistakes of our adversary to minimize the risk of a strike that could cause irreparable damage to the U.S. bomber fleet. Solutions to this problem exist, and if implemented by the United States, can provide increased resiliency to our strategic assets in the 21st century.

Irreplaceable and Concentrated

Much like Russia’s far interior, the United States bomber fleet has benefited from its relative isolation from the rest of the world. Two oceans separate the continental United States (CONUS) from its major adversaries, and the north and southern borders present no significant threats to some of the U.S.’s most valuable strategic air assets. As a result, the U.S. bomber fleet’s footprint since 1988 has been consolidated to bring all U.S. bombers to just five home bases across three time zones: Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri; Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana; Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota; Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota; and Dyess Air Force Base, Texas. There are a few bombers stationed at any given time at Edwards Air Force Base, California, for flight testing, and others are deployed abroad. However, the overall picture is clear: a successful attack on just a handful of American airbases using small, cheap drones could cripple the U.S. ability to use bomber assets for the foreseeable future.

Long life cycles of modern bomber aircraft mean that the United States has no immediate capacity to produce legacy aircraft beyond maintenance and upgrades. Much like the Russians, our current crop of bombers went out of production long ago. With the exception of the B-21 Raider — itself still early in its production cycle — any bombers destroyed or significantly damaged could not be replaced on the shortened timescale an attack on the U.S. homeland would require.

Russia’s New Fear Factor

Andrei Kolesnikov

In the 1920s, the Bolshevik economic theorist and Communist Party darling Nikolai Bukharin was one of Stalin’s closest allies. But as Stalin became entrenched in power, Bukharin found that he was no less vulnerable to the dictator’s wrath than anyone else. Accused of conspiracy in 1937, Bukharin was executed the following year. Bukharin is credited with a grim joke: “We may have two parties—one in power, the other in prison.” He might have added, “or dead.” By the time of Bukharin’s arrest, Stalin was systematically replacing the people who had secured his ascent to power with a new generation of young and ambitious politicians and officials for whom total loyalty to the leader would be everything.

Among elites in Russia today, something like Bukharin’s story is happening once again. On July 7, Roman Starovoit, the minister of transport, killed himself with a firearm a few hours after being sacked by Russian President Vladimir Putin. A few days earlier, Andrei Badalov, the vice president of the oil transportation company Transneft, fell from the window of an apartment building. Badalov was only the latest of a series of top officials in the oil and gas sector who have been purged or died mysteriously since Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine began in 2022. According to Novaya Gazeta, the independent Russian newspaper, there have been 56 deaths of successful businesspeople and officials under strange circumstances since February 2022. Many of them have fallen out of windows. More and more, people who have loyally served Putin’s system are being persecuted, mainly on the grounds of corruption.

In 2024, the Ministry of Defense was hit with a sweeping corruption crackdown. In May of that year, Sergei Shoigu, the longtime defense minister known for his proximity to Putin, was sacked, and appointed to the primarily ceremonial position of chair of the Security Council. Shoigu’s deputy Timur Ivanov was less fortunate: he was arrested on large-scale corruption charges and, in July, sentenced to 13 years in prison—one of the longest sentences for any current or former high-ranking Russian official since the end of the Cold War. Since then, there have been many more arrests—especially of regional functionaries at various levels. As the Putin regime turns on its own people, it, too, has begun to replace them with a new breed of loyalists, people whose primary qualifications are their apparent fealty to the leader, and sometimes their participation in the war. Still, Putin prefers experienced and talented technocrats for the most responsible positions, such as governors and ministers.

Army Rangers are testing out drones as anti-tank weapons

Jeff Schogol

The Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment has tested whether first-person-view drones with an explosive payload can be used against enemy tanks. Army photo by Spc. Luke Sullivan.

The Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment has tested using First Person View, or FPV, one-way attack drones to destroy enemy tanks, drawing heavily from tactics that have become commonplace in the Russia-Ukraine war.

These experiments are one example of how the U.S. military is racing against time to ramp up production of small drones, as both Ukraine and Israel have used the unmanned aerial systems to launch devastating attacks against their adversaries.

The 75th Ranger Regiment demonstrated to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth how FPVs laden with explosives can be used to destroy targets when Hegseth visited Fort Benning in Georgia last week.

These types of drones are cheap to replace and, “The cost per kill is hugely elevated when we have FPVs killing $5-6 million tanks,” said Master Sgt. Andrew Heater, the regiment’s technology and mobility division chief.

Over the past 18 months, the regiment has conducted a series of experiments with FPVs that have included fitting small drones with explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, a type of anti-tank weapon that Shiite militias in Iraq used against U.S. troops, Heater told reporters during Hegseth’s visit to Benning.

“I would comfortably say that, yes, we’ve played with stuff that can penetrate armor, depending on the thickness,” Heater said.

Transforming Our Army Values for the Modern Force

Colonel Chaveso “Chevy” Cook, PhD

In BriefToday’s Soldiers operate in morally gray zones—in cyberspace, through proxy conflicts and under the watchful eye of constant global visibility—and society’s expectations for ethical leadership have become sharper and more public.

As the Army “transforms in contact” to lethally meet the next threat, it needs values that leaders can purposefully enact to morally, ethically and intellectually keep pace with the unprecedented technological and societal advancements of modern conflict.

A reinvention of the Army values as loyalty, empathy, adaptability and discipline (LEAD) will address the potential gaps in our post–Cold War value set to invoke the mindset shift required to morally and ethically make the hard, strategic calls on tomorrow’s battlefield.

“The battlefield is changing as fast as the technology in your pocket, and we know we have to change.

– General Randy George, Army Chief of Staff [1]

Introduction

For decades, the U.S. Army has centered its moral and ethical identity on the seven core values enshrined in the tidy initialism LDRSHIP: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage. First grouped together in 1995, these values were part of a post–Cold War push to professionalize the force and rebuild public trust. But today, three decades later, the strategic and societal landscape has changed dramatically. As technology makes warfare more complex, it also becomes more ambiguous. The difference between skilled and unskilled armies is quickly becoming more and more pronounced, both on the technical and tactical edge.

It’s time to ask a hard question: Do the current seven Army values still serve our force—and the nation—as well as they should? This is not to speak heresy or spark controversy. It’s a matter of enabling optimal leadership for what will undoubtedly be a continually intricate future.

Where LDRSHIP Came From—and Why It May Be Stuck in the Past

A Professor and a Soldier Walk into a Room: New Perspectives on Future Urban Conflict

Dr. Russell W. Glenn and Dr. Louis A. DiMarco

History has firmly established the difficulty of urban combat and urban operations more broadly. Undertakings in Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, Syria, Gaza and elsewhere in the 21st century only reinforce observations from more distant historical experiences in this regard.

Urban three-dimensionality is a notable factor in the extent of these challenges. No other environment so ubiquitously melds above-, below- and on-ground complexities that at once offer both opportunities and hindrances to maneuver, command and control, logistics, survivability—in short, to virtually every principle of war and battlefield operating system.

This Land Warfare Paper contemplates what the future—both immediately and farther afield—offers in the way of exacerbating these challenges and meeting those extant and others yet to present themselves.

Ukraine has seen dramatic advances in offensive weaponry (e.g., unmanned aerial, maritime and ground vehicles) and setbacks in soldier, equipment and infrastructure survivability. At the same time, Ukraine is taking active steps toward its recovery from war even as its conflict continues, arguably to an extent never before seen.

A less recognized field of competition inherent in the rise of unmanned systems’ employment is that seeking to disrupt their control. We posit that system autonomy will be key to gaining the upper hand in this competition—autonomy that, when fully realized, will allow these capabilities to refuel, rearm and otherwise perform with no human interaction.

To these evolving challenges we add recognition of the difficulty of conducting urban operations while minimizing loss of innocents’ lives: those who live and work in today’s villages, towns and cities. Often relegated to consideration only in terms of rules of engagement, the time has arguably come to contemplate giving noncombatant survival and post-conflict welfare priority when planning and conducting urban combat operations.

Transformation in Context: Transformation in Contact and the Aspects of Military Innovation

Christopher Jordan

America is “competing with determined adversaries during a period of unprecedented technological change. To guarantee our security, we must recognize change and adapt faster than any army in the world.” In order to fight and win the next war, the Army began a comprehensive plan to modernize and transform the force.

Simultaneous to ongoing, long-term developments, the Army is focused on what it calls “Transformation in Contact” or TIC: rapid developments and changes to existing formations in the near term. Transformation in contact is a new term for an old idea: rapid military innovation. Like previous attempts at innovation, TIC’s success or failure will depend on how the Army integrates key aspects of military innovation and how it understands the effects of the current international system.

There are many components that influence military innovation, but three key aspects drive effective innovation. These elements are technological advancements, new doctrinal applications of technology, and an adaptable organization that accepts the changes provided by the former two aspects. These elements converge and “cluster together to produce a major change in the way people live – or, in the case of the military, the way they die.” Whether the U.S. is at war or peace as well as the international balance of power further shape innovation. Peace and the balance of power alter the dynamics of innovation, shifting both the drivers of innovation, the focus of a nation’s efforts, and the nation’s cost-benefit analysis.

Keys Aspects to Military Innovation

The first key element of military innovation is the most obvious: technology. Technology acts as a catalyst, creating the opportunity for novel solutions to the challenges of a battlefield. As we develop new technologies, existing constraints no longer apply. For example, the development of the steam engine and advancements such as the telegraph enabled effective power projection, invalidating previous planning assumptions based on wind and extended delays in information dissemination. The new technology enabled new possibilities.

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