Pivot to Europe: India’s back-up plan in Trump’s world

James Crabtree 

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Trump’s attacks on India have prompted New Delhi to reassess its diplomatic strategy, leading to more hedging and an emphasis on what it calls “multi-alignment”.

Tensions with the US will push India to pursue fence-mending measures with Beijing, but the underlying competitive dynamics in China-India relations are unlikely to change.

It would be a serious mistake for India’s growing tensions with the US to push it to abandon Western ties completely; Europe offers a promising alternative to balance risks without the same geopolitical constraints as the US or Russia.

Europe’s shift toward a more geopolitically serious and defence-oriented stance has positioned it as a more credible partner in India’s eyes, capable of delivering tangible security benefits and a broader range of technological cooperation.

While Europeans remain concerned about India’s longstanding partnership with Russia, New Delhi has largely acknowledged that Russia’s strategic value is limited.

Between a coercive US and a threatening China

Since the early 2000s, India’s approach to geopolitics has been akin to a cautious gambler: slowly putting more chips on America while also avoiding full commitment or forsaking entirely its earlier principle of non-alignment. This strategy has paid off: it brought robust economic investment from the US, as well as defence cooperation and technological exchange. Driven by the threat of a rising China, New Delhi expected this trajectory to accelerate under Donald Trump’s second term as US president—not least given the apparent chemistry between him and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.

However, a series of recent developments have prompted India to reassess its American gamble. Trump’s intervention during border clashes with Pakistan—claiming to have broken a ceasefire, which India denied—irked Delhi’s diplomatic circles. Unexpected high tariffs as well as additional penalties for purchases of Russian oil have badly strained what was a flourishing relationship. At the same time, the China challenge has grown even more acute. After a period of tentative cooperation, including via the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in the 2010s, ties took a sharp downturn, notably following deadly border clashes in 2020. China’s expanding influence in South Asia—particularly through defence ties with Pakistan—has transformed the relationship from cautious engagement to outright competition.

The EU-India Strategic Relationship in Times of Geopolitical Turmoil

Jan Luykx

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After an eventful geopolitical summer, the India-EU relationship has been pushed completely to the political background.

The waves created by President Trump have unbalanced both India and the EU. While this seems to have pushed the EU-India relationship into the background, it has the potential of opening up opportunities for working together more closely in several significant areas.

It is up to the EU and India to take up this challenge and to carry forward their stated intention of strengthening their strategic relationship.

While developing this strategic relationship, New Delhi and Brussels will both be forced to consider the reality of their respective relationships with Washington, Beijing and Moscow, in a context of shifting geopolitical dynamics.

Will Saudi involve itself if India, Pak go to war again? What the deal means

Abhishek De

Sourec Link

Imagine, another conflict breaks out between India and Pakistan. Pakistan is down in the dumps and then the Royal Saudi Air Force sends its F-15s and Eurofighter Typhoons to aid Islamabad. Pakistan may dream of it on the back of its newly signed defence agreement with Saudi Arabia. But, Pakistan's fantasies may not match Saudi Arabia's priorities (and ground realities), with analysts calling the pact nothing but posturing and more targeted towards Israel than India.

The 'Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement' signed between Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan on Wednesday has raised eyebrows over its wording. "Any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both," the agreement states, without naming any country.

The Nato-style defence pact and the wording of "attack on one = attack on both" will be viewed in Islamabad as a major diplomatic victory. It will likely see the pact as a strategic deterrence against India.

While Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have had an informal defence relationship stretching back decades, the latest pact is a significant step towards formalising security cooperation between the Islamic nations. It also marks a reset of Saudi-Pakistan ties after years of a frosty relationship.

WHAT THE DEAL MEANS FOR INDIA?

However, experts and geopolitical analysts have said the agreement doesn't mean that Saudi Arabia would go to war with India for Pakistan. The reality on the ground is quite different, and so is the timing of the announcement.

Wary of the optics surrounding the pact, Saudi Arabia was quick to delink it from its ties with India, which it said was "more robust than it has ever been".

"The agreement is not a response to specific countries or specific events... Our relationship with India is more robust than it has ever been. We will continue to grow this relationship and seek to contribute to regional peace in whichever way we can," a senior Saudi official told Reuters.

India’s Reckoning With Its Dangerous Neighborhood

Nirupama Rao

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While the recent eruption of unrest in Nepal is not uncommon for a region that remains in perpetual crisis, it does represent a dangerous new trend. For India, the challenge is not only to maintain strategic autonomy, but to promote its vision of a more inclusive, rules-based, and connected South and Southeast Asia.

NEW DELHI – Although instability is endemic to South and Southeast Asia, it is becoming increasingly dangerous both for India’s neighbors and India itself. This was reflected most recently in the violent unrest in Nepal. But that crisis is hardly an isolated case. In Bangladesh, directly to India’s east, the same tensions that led to the overthrow of the government in 2024 remain unresolved. And to the southeast, Thailand is reeling from the court-ordered removal of its prime minister and a series of recent border clashes with Cambodia.

India Edges Closer to Europe, Pushing Iran Deeper Into China’s Orbit

Fatemeh Aman

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Partially as a result of the US trade war, India is close to achieving a breakthrough on India-EU trade relations.

When the United States imposed sweeping new tariffs on Indian exports this summer, it did more than rattle trade statistics. The shift compelled New Delhi to reassess its foreign policy and economic directions.

Over the years, India has managed a delicate balance in its ties with Washington, Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran. At the same time, it has worked to establish itself as a competitive manufacturing base and a central link in regional networks, from transport corridors and energy pipelines to digital trade routes, that connect South Asia with Central Asia, the Middle East, and beyond. The United States’ decision to double tariffs, some now as high as 50 percent, dealt a sharp blow to India’s export sectors, highlighting the risks of over-reliance on American markets.

In response, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has scrambled to diversify. Two tracks have emerged. First, India is moving quickly to finalize a free trade agreement with the European Union. After years of stalled talks, negotiations are finally gaining momentum, with Germany and France at the forefront of the push. India will still need to navigate tough compromises on issues like environmental rules, auto exports, and dairy products. Even so, the European Union offers a stable, rules-based market and is thus a far more dependable partner than the often-unpredictable United States.

Second, India is exploring a limited thaw with China. Relations between the two powers remain fraught, particularly after years of deadly border clashes, but there have been recent signs of quiet de-escalation. Limited commercial channels are reopening, and both governments have signaled a desire to prevent new crises. Even a modest détente reduces supply chain risks and frees India to focus on trade diversification and domestic economic reforms.

This new balancing act has direct consequences for Iran, particularly for the fate of the Chabahar Port, a key port in the southern Iranian city of Chabahar. For more than a decade, Chabahar has been India’s answer to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port, part of China’s flagship China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. While Gwadar is a massive project anchoring China’s presence in Pakistan, Chabahar is far smaller in scale but provides India with a vital route to Afghanistan, Central Asia, and potentially Russia, bypassing Pakistan altogether. It has been a central piece of India’s strategy to connect with Eurasian markets while countering Chinese influence in the region.

What Are China and Central Asia’s Shared Interests in Afghanistan?

Muhammad Murad

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Afghanistan is often referred to as the “Heart of Asia” because of its strategic location at the crossroads of Central and South Asia. This position has historically linked various civilizations and regions. Additionally, Afghanistan is connected to China via the narrow Wakhan Corridor. When Afghanistan experiences security challenges, these issues can have repercussions for its neighboring countries. Therefore, it is essential for these countries to collaborate in addressing these challenges or, at the very least, to mitigate their impact on their internal security.

China and Uzbekistan recently held discussions in Tashkent regarding the current situation in Afghanistan, focusing on international efforts to address the ongoing challenges under the Taliban regime. The discussions between Yue Xiaoyong, China’s special envoy for Afghanistan, and his Uzbek counterpart, Ismatulla Irgashev, also concerned upcoming high-level events regarding Afghanistan.

According to Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the special envoys from both countries met to not only analyze the latest developments in Afghanistan but also to emphasize the importance of practical cooperation between Tashkent and Beijing concerning the situation in Afghanistan. The ministry stated, “The sides discussed the state of regional and international efforts to resolve the situation in Afghanistan and upcoming high-level events related to Afghanistan. The meeting was held in a constructive spirit and confirmed the mutual interest in further developing practical dialogue between Tashkent and Beijing.”

Neither China nor Uzbekistan formally recognizes the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, but both have maintained political as well as economic contacts with the de facto regime.

Before the bilateral meeting between China and Uzbekistan on Afghanistan last week, on August 26, Uzbekistan hosted a historic first meeting of the special representatives from the Central Asian republics on the situation in Afghanistan. It was an initiative of Uzbekistan in which representatives from other Central Asian states – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan – also participated. As per Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the meeting was held in order to develop regional cooperation and exchange viewpoints on crucial issues concerning Afghanistan. All participating countries jointly noted that it was of utmost importance to develop an effective approach to the Afghanistan issue, as the country is geographically close to them and they have cultural, historical, as well as economic ties with Afghanistan. The representatives also showed their commitment to developing a realistic and balanced approach to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan.

South Asia’s shield war

Kirti Singh

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The military conflict in May and the subsequent developments in the Indian subcontinent highlight the growing relevance of air power and air defence mechanisms in the South Asian strategic rivalry. On the eve of Pakistan’s Independence Day, its Prime Minister announced the formation of the Army Rocket Force Command to bolster the country’s ability to conduct conventional missile strikes deep into Indian territory.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi followed suit in his Independence Day speech by announcing the launch of the Sudarshan Chakra project—the indigenous version of the Iron Dome air defence system—intended to protect important strategic and civilian areas by 2035. Almost a week later, the Defence Research and Development Organisation, India’s leading missile development agency, successfully tested its Integrated Air Defence Weapon System (IADWS). The IADWS combines the Quick Reaction Surface-to-Air Missile (QRSAM), Very Short Range Air Defence System (VSHORADS), and laser-based Directed Energy Weapon (DEW) to provide multi-layered protection against a range of incoming aerial threats.

New Delhi’s focus on indigenous air defence systems stems from the recognition of the changing nature of war and its own recent experience of military skirmishes. During Operation Sindoor, its Integrated Air Command and Control System (IACCS) performed relatively well in intercepting the Pakistani missile and drone attacks. However, coupled with China’s frenetic military modernisation, Pakistan’s collusive arms build-up is likely to keep Indian planners on their toes.

Nepal: Shock Insurrection – Analysis

Ajit Kumar Singh

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On September 8, 2025, student-led “Gen Z” protests broke out in Kathmandu after the government imposed a ban on multiple social media platforms. Protesters carried placards reading “Shut down corruption, not social media,” “Unban social media,” and “Youths against corruption,” making it clear that their anger was directed as much at corruption and misrule as at the ban itself. As the day progressed, demonstrators – most of them young – forced their way into the Parliament complex, breaking through barricades, setting fire to an ambulance, and hurling objects at riot police. By evening, Nepal had witnessed one of the deadliest crackdowns of its republican era: at least 19 people were killed and more than 300 injured.

In an effort to calm the situation, the government lifted the social media ban that night, and Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak resigned during an emergency Cabinet meeting. But these concessions failed to placate the demonstrators.

On September 9, protests spread across Kathmandu and other cities. Defying restrictions on public gatherings, students and youth returned to the streets chanting slogans such as “Don’t kill students,” “KP Chor, Desh Chhod” (Prime Minister K. P. Oli is a thief, quit the country), and “Take action against corrupt leaders.” Violence quickly escalated. Protesters set fire to government buildings, seized automatic rifles, and attacked the headquarters of the Nepali Congress Party, the residence of former Prime Minister (PM) Sher Bahadur Deuba, and the homes of several other senior politicians. The Parliament building itself was set ablaze. Ministers had to be evacuated by Army helicopters from their residences in Bhaisepati, as mobs torched officials’ homes, including that of a Cabinet Minister. The Army Chief, General Ashok Raj Sigdel, eventually advised Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli to resign, warning that the military could only stabilize the country if he stepped down. Within hours, Oli quit. But the violence continued.

By September 12, police reported that at least 51 people had died in the unrest, including 21 protesters, three police officers, nine prisoners, and 18 civilians. More than 1,000 prisoners who had escaped from jail during the chaos were recaptured, but over 12,500 remained on the run. The Army imposed a nationwide curfew (later lifted on September 13) and took over law-and-order duties.

From Scam Centers to Scam State: The Road to Myanmar’s Scam Election

Tun Aung Shwe

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Since the 2021 coup, Myanmar has entered a new phase of civil war marked by unprecedented territorial losses for the Myanmar military council and visible strains on manpower and institutional cohesion. In this weaker position, the military has leaned more heavily on allied militias – most prominently the Border Guard Force (BGF) (rebranded locally as the Karen National Army, KNA) and the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA) in Karen State and, in other theaters, the Pa-O National Army (PNA), Shanni Nationalities Army (SNA), and Pyusawhti auxiliaries.

The political economy that follows from these partnerships has coincided with Myanmar overtaking regional peers as the principal hub for industrial-scale scam centers.

A newly released report indicates that since 2021, clusters of compounds along the Thai-Myanmar frontier, particularly near Myawaddy in Karen State, have more than doubled in number, with their footprint expanding at an estimated rate of 13.5 acres per month. Highly securitized complexes such as KK Park and Shwe Kokko function as “company towns,” with fenced perimeters, guard posts, dormitories, and on-site logistics, supported by river crossings, warehousing on the Thai side, generators, and broad adoption of satellite internet.

Prior to the coup, the center of gravity sat on the China-Myanmar border under the Myanmar military-aligned Kokang Border Guard Force. The Operation 1027 offensives and subsequent Chinese pressure disrupted that northern ecosystem in late 2023, pushing syndicates and militia partners south rather than shutting them down. In short, pressure displaced the model, but did not dismantle it.

Three dynamics explain the expansion. The first is fragmented security and protection rents. In areas where the state lacks territorial depth, allied militias broker “order” locally. Operators obtain access to land, power, and connectivity; militias monetize protection via rents, taxation, and service provision. This gives scam operations the ability to flee crackdowns in one district by relocating to another.

China’s Climate Commitments and the Tibetan Paradox: An Argument for Accountability under the UNFCCC

Richard Ghiasy and Jagannath Panda

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China today is the second-largest economy and the single largest emitter of greenhouse gases. It plays a pivotal role in any global climate resolution. Yet its internal environmental practices, especially in the ecologically critical region of Tibet, have raised questions about the consistency of its international commitments with its local governance models. Its classification as a “developing country” within the UNFCCC structure also does not reflect its economic and geopolitical stature.

Additionally, China’s efforts to attain global climate leadership are undermined by a lack of full transparency. This opacity not only impedes verification of China’s progress toward its climate pledges but also affects regional ecological understanding. Due to its elevation and geographical significance, Tibet plays a vital role in regulating regional monsoons and global weather patterns.

A useful precedent might be the Antarctic Treaty System, which demilitarized the continent and promoted scientific cooperation. While Tibet is inhabited and geopolitically complex, the Antarctic Treaty System may function as a thought experiment illustrating how ecological cooperation frameworks could be imagined, and a multilateral environmental accord focusing on the Himalayan region could be negotiated. International institutions, including the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), should prioritize the region in their assessments and reporting. Dedicated climate missions to the Tibetan Plateau can fill the current data gap and improve early warning systems for disasters.

The UNFCCC should institutionalize a stronger civil society presence, including representation from marginalized territories. Mechanisms such as observer status, independent reporting rights, and stakeholder consultations can democratize the climate dialogue. It should further endeavor to:Establish regional environmental monitoring mechanisms under trusted multilateral platforms such as UNEP, with data-sharing protocols that include the Tibetan Plateau.

China Plans to Dominate a Key Semiconductor Material

Alex Rubin

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Polysilicon is often described as one of the purest materials on Earth. It is used as the substrate material for a range of products, most importantly chips and solar panels.

Beijing has provided significant support to its domestic polysilicon industry to establish Chinese firms as the dominant global suppliers of solar-grade polysilicon and is seeking to push its firms to expand their share of semiconductor-grade polysilicon.

Chinese overproduction of polysilicon and silicon carbide is causing the global price for these materials to crater, undermining the short- and long-term financial viability of leading firms in the United States and allied countries.

Forced labor has already been linked to China’s critical minerals sector, in particular rare earth mining and refining, increasing the likelihood that forced labor is integrated into China’s polysilicon supply chain.

The Commerce Department has launched a Section 232 investigation into polysilicon and derivative products, providing a unique opportunity to ensure that critical infrastructure supply chains do not become dependent on Chinese inputs.

The administration should prohibit imports of Chinese-origin or -linked polysilicon or derivative products, and require products containing Chinese-origin or -linked polysilicon to document that no forced labor was used in their production.

The departments of Commerce, Defense, and Treasury should support U.S.-based expansion of polysilicon and silicon-carbide production capacity.

Introduction

The Chinese government is positioning Chinese firms to dominate the global market for polysilicon—a key material used in chip manufacturing. Polysilicon is the main substrate material used to manufacture wafers used in nearly every semiconductor fabrication facility (fab) around the world.

From Vouchers to Visas: China’s Innovative Plan for AI Dominance

Shannon Vaughn

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While international attention often centers on China’s latest foundation models or its constrained access to high-end artificial intelligence (AI) chips, these headlines obscure the broader architecture of China’s AI strategy. China is pursuing a dual-track approach that combines frontier model development with a coordinated effort to promote widespread diffusion (人工智能扩散) of AI technologies across sectors.

This strategy operates at two levels. Nationally, Beijing has launched top-down initiatives to embed AI into education, industrial planning, and public governance. Simultaneously, provincial and municipal governments are deploying bottom-up, localized incentives, to include compute vouchers, model subsidies, and talent attraction policies, to accelerate adoption and build out regional ecosystems.

Rather than focusing merely on technological breakthroughs, China’s approach emphasizes integration: ensuring that AI capabilities are not only developed, but also deployed across the real economy. Understanding this policy model and the mechanisms that support it is essential to evaluating China’s long-term trajectory in global AI competition.

Bottom-Up: The Provincial Race to Build an AI Ecosystem

Local governments across China, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, have begun issuing computing power vouchers, which subsidize the cost of renting computing time for AI startups. Voucher and are typically worth around US$140,000 to $200,000 but can go higher: Zhejiang (the home province of Deepseek) has offered to cover costs up to ¥8 million RMB (around US$1.1 million). Companies can redeem these vouchers for time in data centers to train or run new AI models, which helps lower the upfront costs for smaller AI startups.

Although compute vouchers are issued locally, their adoption was first encouraged at the national level. After a December 2023 meeting, the National Development and Reform Commission included computing power vouchers in its implementation guidance for the national Eastern Data, Western Computing (EDWC, 东数西算) initiative, which is constructing massive computing clusters across energy-abundant western China. EDWC primarily targets the supply side (building large pools of compute and greener power), while compute vouchers operate on the demand side by subsidizing firms’ ability to access those resources.

How to Stop China’s AI Chip Smuggling

Jam Kraprayoon, Shaun Ee, and Erich Grunewald

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Over the past two years, Chinese actors have used a gray market network of buyers, sellers, and brokers in Southeast Asia to circumvent U.S. restrictions on cutting-edge chips used for artificial intelligence and other high performance computing applications. Donald Trump laid the groundwork for controls on specialized AI chips in 2020, with restrictions seeking to prevent China from using Western technology for military advantage. But while the Biden administration substantially expanded the scope of these controls, it struggled to stop the rise of AI chip smuggling, with multiple cases over the past year involving bulk shipments worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Trump has the chance to seal the deal on the AI chip controls that he introduced, pushing Southeast Asian countries toward stronger enforcement using bargaining tactics like what he considers the “most beautiful word in the dictionary”: tariffs. Both improved corporate due diligence and local export enforcement programs in Southeast Asia would help counter Chinese AI chip smuggling, but these are backburner issues for most regional AI chip resellers and customs agencies. There is ample room for dealmaking here, and Trump’s willingness to recently let Nvidia and AMD continue exporting some cutting-edge AI chips to China with a 15 percent tax shows that he is open to unconventional arrangements mixing trade measures with export controls.

We now know who the new owners of TikTok will be - if Trump gets his deal done with Xi

Alayna Treene, David Goldman

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A proposal to save TikTok from going dark in the United States would involve investments from a number of US-based venture capital firms, private equity funds and tech companies. Together, the investors would create a new US-based company that will operate the app domestically, sources familiar with the framework told CNN.

The framework of the agreement, which was hammered out by US and Chinese negotiators in Madrid this week, largely mirrors the deal presented to the President Donald Trump in April, before the president announced steep tariffs on China that scrambled talks with Beijing over the popular social media app.

Among the investors, which are expected to own a roughly 80% stake in TikTok, with Chinese shareholders holding the rest, are Oracle, Andreessen Horowitz and Silver Lake, the sources said. The new consortium would also be operated by a majority-US board, including a member appointed by the Trump administration.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on details of the framework discussed in Madrid. The sources cautioned that the framework is still under discussion and could change before Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are slated to speak by phone on Friday, during which the leaders are expected to formally strike the deal on TikTok.

“Any details of the TikTok framework are pure speculation unless they are announced by this administration,” a senior White House official told CNN.

Oracle executive chairman Larry Ellison, who last week briefly became the world’s richest person, has widely been rumored to be involved in discussions to buy TikTok’s US assets. Trump in January had said he would champion Ellison, a Trump supporter, buying the app’s US assets.

Ellison’s company already has a relationship with TikTok: Oracle in 2020 began hosting TikTok’s US data, and it briefly reached a deal with the first Trump administration that year to buy TikTok, before that deal was ultimately blocked.

Calm Realism, Not Cold War: Europe’s China Reset

Stefan Messingschlager

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From left to right: António Costa (president of the European Council), Xi Jinping (president of the People’s Republic of China), and Ursula von der Leyen (president of the European Commission) at the China-EU Summit in Beijing, July 24, 2025.Credit: European Council

Europe’s China debate has moved from abstractions to leverage. In the space of a year, Brussels imposed steep countervailing duties on subsidized Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) while Beijing tightened export controls on the minerals that make those cars move. What once passed for risk-free globalization now looks like a contest over chokepoints, standards, and time. The premise that commerce would pacify politics has given way to a sharper reality: interdependence is power, and it can be used. That shift is unmistakable in the EV case and in the curbs on gallium, germanium, and graphite that roiled supply chains across clean tech and chips.

This feature makes a simple claim. Western – especially European – China policy faltered less because engagement was wrong than because it was pursued with naïve assumptions, short horizons, and fragmented execution, while Beijing played a long, sovereignty-first game. The cure is not decoupling or moral grandstanding, but managed interdependence: map and reduce single-point vulnerabilities, protect a narrow slice of dual-use technology with allies, and keep doors open where global goods require cooperation. The European Union has already adjusted its vocabulary – from the 2019 Strategic Outlook that labeled China a partner, competitor, and systemic rival to the 2023 line of “de-risking, not decoupling.” The question now is whether Europe can turn words into habits.

When Trade Became Leverage

For years, the relationship was narrated as mutual gain: lower prices, larger markets, faster diffusion of clean technologies. The past two years punctured that comfort. The European Union moved from warnings to weapons, imposing definitive duties on Chinese-built electric vehicles after finding pervasive state support. Beijing did not leave the signal unanswered. It opened investigations into emblematic European exports, levied duties in politically salient sectors, and kept WTO avenues warm. The result was less a rupture than a stress test: interdependence, when asymmetric, becomes leverage.

Jamestown Foundation China Brief,

September 2, 2025, v. 25, no. 16 

SCO Summit Focuses on Shaping Emerging Frontiers

PRC Conceptions of Comprehensive National Power: Part 1

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

Criminal Organizations as Vectors of Influence in Taiwan

Poland Investigating Whether Its F-16’s AIM-120 Missile Destroyed A Home

Howard Altman

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Poland’s President Karol Nawrocki demanded to know whether an air-to-air missile fired by one of its F-16 fighters during last week’s Russian drone incursion destroyed a house. The calls for an investigation follow a Polish media report that an AIM-120C-7 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) fired at a drone, went off course and caused the damage.

Regardless of what happened, Russia is ultimately to blame for the destruction because it launched the drones, Poland’s prime minister proclaimed.

Nawrocki “expects the government to promptly clarify the incident in the town of Wyry,” the Polish National Security Bureau (BBN) stated on X . “It is within the Government’s purview to utilize all tools and institutions to resolve this matter as quickly as possible.”

Shortly after the drone incursion became public, Polish officials showed pictures of a house in Wyry that had been destroyed during the wave of about 19 drones.

“It was an AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile from our F-16, which experienced a guidance system malfunction during flight and failed to fire,” the Polish RMF24 news outlet reported on Tuesday, citing an anonymous state security agency source. “Fortunately, it did not arm or explode because the fuse safety devices were activated.”

The publication said a former Polish military intelligence officer emphasized that the damage to the house was caused by kinetic impact.

“There was no explosion, no detonation, as can be seen in the photos of the destroyed house,” Lt. Col. Maciej Korowaj explained.

The AIM-120 has about a 40-pound blast fragmentation warhead.

An AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM). (Raytheon)

Moscow Using Svalbard to Test NATO’s Readiness and Resolve

Paul Goble

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Moscow is using drone incursions in Romania and Poland to test the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO’s) readiness and resolve, seeking to highlight divisions over how to respond to this new form of aggression.

Moscow’s simultaneous moves in Svalbard (Spitzbergen), a Norwegian archipelago with special status under the terms of a 1920 treaty granting Russia and more than 40 other countries economic rights, show that Moscow is engaged in a broader strategy against NATO.

This broader strategy does not mean that Putin is about to send bombers or tanks into NATO countries, but suggests the Kremlin leader is seeking to sow doubts about NATO mutual defense commitments, weakening Western diplomatic cohesion and military support for Ukraine.

Moscow’s drone incursions into Poland and Romania on September 9 and 13 have attracted enormous attention and concern. Exactly as Russian President Vladimir Putin intends, it has highlighted and exacerbated divisions within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) about how to respond to this new form of aggression featuring a degree of plausible deniability for Putin. The Kremlin leader’s moves in Svalbard (Spitzbergen), a strategically important Norwegian archipelago in the North Atlantic, however, make it clear that the drone incursions are part of a larger Russian move against NATO. Moscow’s actions in Svalbard have been largely ignored in the West outside of Norway because, under the terms of a 1920 treaty giving them to Oslo, Russia and more than 40 other countries have the right to engage in economic and research activities there, and the Norwegian government has limited rights to respond. As a result, many assume that Russia has a legitimate right to its controversial moves on Svalbard and Norway must respond with extreme restraint (see EDM, May 30, 2024, March 31). Moscow is the only treaty signatory aside from Norway that utilizes its commercial rights on Svalbard and is now aggressively pushing the boundaries of its rights there. Neither Russia’s moves against Poland and Romania nor its actions in Svalbard mean that Russia is about to send troops or tanks into any of these places, but they are evidence of a common Russian strategy meant to test mutual defense commitments and weaken diplomatic cohesion among the alliance.

The Meaning of Russia’s Drone Incursion Into Poland

Antonia Colibasanu and Andrew Davidson

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On Sept. 9, Russian drones crossed into Polish airspace during a wider strike on Ukraine, forcing Warsaw to close airports, scramble defenses and shoot down multiple intruding aircraft. NATO assisted in the defense. Polish authorities reportedly clocked nearly 20 drones, some of which allegedly entered from Belarus. Though debris from the intercepted drones caused some property damage, no major casualties were reported.

This is not the first time Russian drones have brushed up against the territory of a NATO member state. On several occasions, drones were used against Ukrainian cities near the mouth of the Danube River and thus close to the Romanian border. (In response, the government in Bucharest enacted a law in early 2025 that permits its military to shoot down drones in Romanian airspace.) But this is the first time a NATO member has engaged Russian drones directly within its own borders.

Poland later invoked Article 4 of the NATO treaty, which calls for urgent consultations with the North Atlantic Council if a member believes its territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened. It doesn’t trigger collective defense (that’s Article 5), but it essentially serves as an alarm bell for potential action by mobilizing coordinated political and military responses, up to and including deployments and posture changes. Poland’s invocation of Article 4 matters because it shows how thin the difference is between marginal spillover and alliance-wide escalation, and it demands debate not just about defending Ukraine but also about protecting the integrity of NATO itself.

The first matter of debate is whether it was an intentional attack. Moscow insists that it did not target Poland deliberately, but the breadth and depth of the incursions suggest Russia could have avoided the border if it wanted to. Indeed, the number of drones tracked and the fact that debris was scattered across several disparate locations make it unlikely they all simply drifted off course due to electronic interference or navigational drift. Moreover, many of the drones are thought to have been decoys – cheaper airframes without explosive payloads that are designed to draw the attention of air defenses and exploit gaps in Ukraine’s coverage. Polish reports even circulated images of Chinese-made “Gerbera” drones among the wreckage. Still, the fact that these are unmanned vehicles gives plausible deniability.

Israel Risks Ties With Egypt at Its Peri

Michael Harari

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Hamas’s surprise attack on Oct. 7, 2023, ushered in a new era of instability for Israel’s regional relationships. While international attention has understandably focused on Gaza itself, the aftershocks have extended far beyond its borders. This is particularly true for Egypt, Israel’s most important Arab neighbor and a critical partner since the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1978-1979.

In the nearly two years since the Israel-Hamas war began, Israeli decisions have strained bilateral ties with Cairo. This growing friction not only jeopardizes a pillar of Israel’s regional security but also undermines its broader strategic position in the Middle East. On the eve of its anticipated military operation in Gaza City, Israel must recalibrate its approach to Egypt before it causes permanent damage to a cold but functional peace.

How Trump Could Ensure His Legacy as a Peacemaker

DAVID GROSS, DANIEL HOLZ, JUAN MANUEL SANTOS, and BRIAN SCHMIDT

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SANTA BARBARA – US President Donald Trump’s recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska was the first encounter between the leaders of the world’s two largest nuclear powers since 2021. Now, if Trump truly wants to put America first and establish a legacy as a peacemaker, he should put nuclear-arms control high on his agenda.

Trump himself has already hinted at what needs to be done. One month into his second term, he sought to persuade Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping to scale back their nuclear spending. “There’s no reason for us to be building brand-new nuclear weapons,” he argued. “We already have so many.” Yet in July, he approved a sharp increase in the US Defense Department’s funding for its nuclear forces; and just a few weeks later, in response to Russian nuclear saber-rattling, he announced that he was sending US nuclear submarines to the “appropriate regions.”

Trump is right to fear a new arms race. As he himself noted, building more warheads will not secure America’s future. Of course, conflicts can always reignite, and arsenals can always be rebuilt. But we cannot bomb our way to peace. We need to chart a course that does not stake humanity’s survival on the knife’s edge of chance. Whoever can do that will have secured his place in history.

There are pragmatic, achievable steps that Trump can take right now to begin building such a legacy. In July, dozens of Nobel laureates and nuclear experts convened in Chicago to identify measures to reduce the risk of nuclear conflict while preserving national security. The resulting declaration, endorsed by 129 Nobel laureates, calls for immediate action to strengthen safeguards, prevent miscalculation, and halt the slide toward a new arms race. On the anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the declaration was presented to the Pope along with a symbolic gift of pencil leads crafted from graphite bricks used in the world’s first controlled nuclear chain reaction. However, implementing our recommendations requires not just American involvement, but American leadership.

Geopolitical Fracture And The Rewiring Of Global Trade – OpEd

Manoranjana Gupta

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When Washington tried to strong-arm New Delhi with punitive tariffs, India did not bend. Instead, it doubled down on self-reliance, diversified its markets beyond the United States, and emerged as a far larger export power than its critics had imagined. Today, the Ministry of Commerce’s export tables, the Ministry of Finance’s fiscal surveys, and global assessments from consultancies and think tanks converge on a single story: the fracture of global trade is not India’s loss, but India’s opportunity.

In fact, I had argued in my own Eurasia Review column a few months ago that America’s attempt to squeeze India with tariffs would end up creating the opposite effect. By trying to bully New Delhi, Washington would push India toward a harder embrace of self-reliance. That defiance, I wrote then, would not be a setback but a springboard: an opportunity for India to diversify markets, scale exports, and claim a firmer place in the world’s trading system. Today, the data pouring in from the Commerce and Finance Ministries bears that prediction out.

The rupture in trade flows that defines this decade did not begin in Delhi or Hanoi, but in Washington. As the United States widened its tariff arsenal — first against China, and then against India’s steel, aluminium, and technology services — it expected compliance. Instead, the Modi government drew a line. There would be no capitulation. The Ministry of Commerce’s 2024 report showed how India responded: by expanding bilateral exports with ASEAN, Africa, the Gulf, and Europe. Far from wilting, India’s export base reached an unprecedented $820 billion in goods and services in FY 2024–25, according to the Ministry of Finance. This was muscular diversification, not fragile growth. McKinsey, PwC, and NITI Aayog now note that India’s breadth of export partners has expanded faster than any other G20 nation.

When I spoke recently with a senior official in the Ministry of Finance, he underlined that the $820 billion export figure was not just a number on paper. It represented new shipping lanes to Africa, contracts inked in Gulf ports, and hundreds of smaller exporters filing returns for the first time. The Commerce Ministry’s own resources show that between 2019 and 2025, the number of active exporters has risen by nearly 40 percent — a statistic rarely highlighted in headlines.

Can NATO Countries Stop Buying Russian Oil, As Trump Demands? – Analysis

Ray Furlong and RFE/RL’s Hungarian Service

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US President Donald Trump has said NATO countries should stop buying Russian oil if they want Washington to tighten sanctions on Moscow — but achieving this could be time consuming and challenging.

Only three NATO nations currently import Russian crude: Hungary, Slovakia, and Turkey. Of the three, Turkey is the big one.

“According to our data, (Turkey) is the third largest Russian oil importer globally,” Petras Kanitas, a Vilnius-based analyst at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), told RFE/RL on September 15.

“Turkey buys Russian oil mainly because it’s heavily discounted,” he added. “They also benefit by refining Russian crude oil and selling fuel products to Europe.”

Trump has for some time spoken of secondary tariffsagainst countries that import Russian oil and has already announced them on India. In a September 13 Truth Socialpost, he called on “all NATO nations” to stop such imports.

“Trump’s threats so far have largely been directed at India and to an extent China. Turkey was never kind of in the mix. So, this is an interesting new development,” said Benjamin Hilgenstock, senior economist at the Kyiv-based KSE Institute, a think tank.

The idea is to hit the Russian economy by cutting off one of its key exports, forcing the Kremlin into substantial negotiations on ending the full-scale war it launched against Ukraine in 2022.

Hilgenstock, who is also an Associate Fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, said losing Turkish exports would be a big problem for Moscow.

“It would probably mean that they have to give higher discounts to other buyers in order to redirect this volume,” he told RFE/RL.

Israel’s Attack On Qatar Could Be A Watershed For The Israel-Gaza Conflict – Analysis

James M. Dorsey

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Israel’s risky strike against Qatar was neither an unmitigated success in Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s terms nor a complete failure, even if it’s too early for a definitive cost-benefit analysis of what could prove to be a watershed.

Hamas was quick to declare that its top leaders had survived the attack on a villa in a lofty Doha neighborhood. Six people were reported killed in the attack. The Hamas statement left open whether any of the leaders were wounded in the attack.

None of the leaders has been seen in public since the attack except for Political Bureau member Suhail al-Hindi, who appeared in an Al-Jazeera interview. Mr. Al-Hindi said the Hamas leadership was “safe and secure,” but added that their “blood was no different from that of any Palestinian man, woman, or child.” It was unclear whether Mr. Al-Hindi attended the Hamas meeting called to discuss the latest Israel-endorsed US proposal for an end to the Gaza war.

What is certain is that the attack, at least for now, has disrupted efforts to achieve a Gaza ceasefire and likely persuaded Qatar to pause its mediation effort, allowing Israel to move forward with its planned occupation of Gaza City.

Mr. Al-Hindi said the Hamas leadership was discussing the latest ceasefire proposal with a “positive outlook” when Israel attacked. He left unsaid what that positive outlook entailed. Even so, the gap between the positions of the United States, Israel and Hamas remained wide.

Ceasefire proposals and sticking points

In the last six weeks, Hamas has largely agreed to proposals put forward by the mediators, Qatar, Egypt and the United States. The latest proposal called for a 60-day ceasefire, the release of the remaining 48 hostages immediately after the ceasefire takes effect, the disarmament of Hamas, whose Gaza-based leaders would go into exile and the installation of a post-war administration of the Strip. The proposal further called for the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, but did not address the quantity of aid, who would distribute it or what types of goods would be allowed in.

Securing data in the AI supply chain

Justin Sherman

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Underpinning AI technologies is a complex supply chain—organizations, people, activities, information, and resources that enable AI research, development, deployment, and more. The AI supply chain includes human talent, compute, and institutional and individual stakeholders. This report focuses on another element of the AI supply chain: data.

While a diversity of data types, structures, sources, and use cases exist in the AI supply chain, policymakers can easily fall into the trap of focusing on one AI data component at one moment (e.g., training data circa 2017), then switching focus to another AI data component next (e.g., model weights in current times), risking a lopsided policy that fails to take account of all the AI data components that are important for AI research and development (R&D). For example, overconfidence about which data element or attribute will most drive AI R&D can lead researchers and policymakers to skip past important, open questions (e.g., what factors might matter, in what combinations, and to what end), wrongly treating them as resolved. Put simply, a “one-size-fits-all” approach to AI-related data runs the risk of creating a regulatory, technological, or governance framework that overfocuses on one element of the data in the AI supply chain while leaving other critical parts and questions unaddressed.

Managing the risks to the data components of the AI supply chain—from errors to data leakage to intentional model exploitation and theft—will require a set of different, tailored approaches aimed at achieving a comprehensive reduction in risk. As conceptualized in this report, the data in the AI supply chain includes the data describing an AI model’s properties and behavior, as well as the data associated with building and using a model. It also includes AI models themselves and the different digital systems that facilitate the movement of data into and out of models. The report, therefore, spells out a framework to visualize the seven data components in the AI supply chain: training data, testing data, models (themselves), model architectures, model weights, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), and Software Development Kits (SDKs).

It then uses the framework to map data components of the AI supply chain to three different ways that policymakers, technologists, and other stakeholders can potentially think about data risk: data at rest vs. in motion vs. in processing (focus on a data component within the supply chain and its current state); threat actor risk (focus on threat actors and risks to a data component within the supply chain); and supply chain due diligence and risk management (focus on a data component supplier or source within the supply chain and related actors).