Indian Strategic Studies: 10/05/25

5 October 2025

Theatre command: How India is looking to integrate Air Force, Navy and Army operations under a new strategy

Yogada Sharma

India is actively progressing towards establishing theatre commands to integrate its armed forces for unified operational control, a major reform that was first highlighted by PM Modi in 2019. This initiative, driven by past coordination gaps, involves significant steps like standardising equipment and training.

TIL CreativesThe theatreisation plan seeks to integrate the Army, Navy and Air Force, and their resources, into specific ‘theatre’ commands, for deployment under a single, unified command structure.

Back in his 2019 Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had highlighted the need for the three arms of the forces -- Air Force, Navy and Army -- to work together in a seamless manner when the situation called for it, igniting discussions regarding theatre commands.

In the same year, the Union Cabinet approved the creation of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) post with the rank of a four-star general, making provisions for the CDS to also serve as the secretary of the newly established Department of Military Affairs (DMA) under the Defence Ministry.

The theatreisation plan seeks to integrate the Army, Navy and Air Force, and their resources, into specific ‘theatre’ commands, for deployment under a single, unified command structure. Each command will be assigned a specific geographical region, combining the resources of the three services for operational roles.

The latest big push towards this end came when crucial rules under the Inter-Services Organisations (Command, Control and Discipline) Act, 2023, were notified. These provisions empowered commanders of tri-service organisations -- and future theatre commands -- with full authority over Army, Navy and Air Force personnel, ensuring coordinated action during the recent military clashes with Pakistan.

However, it is not limited to just the recent operation.

Defense pact with Saudi Arabia positions Pakistan as a key player in Trump's postwar plan

ARSHAD MEHMOOD

According to a press release from Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs late Tuesday night, the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Egypt welcomed Trump’s leadership and his sincere efforts to end the war in Gaza, expressing confidence in his ability to find a path to peace.

The ministers reaffirmed their commitment to work with the United States to end the war in Gaza through a comprehensive deal ensuring humanitarian aid, preventing displacement, securing the release of hostages, and paving the way for a two-state solution and lasting regional peace.

The statement was signed by Qatar, which has played a central role in mediation, and by Saudi Arabia, whose eventual normalization with Israel remains a key objective for both Trump and Netanyahu.

Meanwhile, Pakistan, the only nuclear power in the Islamic world, has seen a significant rise in its stature among Muslim countries following the recent Saudi-Pakistan joint defense pact.

Trump noted that his talks with Netanyahu touched on Iran, the Abraham Accords, and prospects for ending the war. “After extensive consultations with our friends and partners in the region, we have formally released the principles for peace,” he announced.

He added his appreciation for international involvement, saying, “I want to thank the leaders of many Arab and Muslim countries who actively contributed to preparing this plan, as well as our European allies.”

During the joint press conference, Trump notably praised Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir.

Don’t Restart the Afghanistan War

Doug Bandow

No one ever accused President Donald Trump of being a systematic thinker. Were not the potential consequences so great, the obvious response to his demand on Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban to “return” Bagram air base would be uproarious laughter.

It’s been more than four years since the Biden administration withdrew U.S. forces from the central Asian state. The departure, just a few weeks shy of the 20-year anniversary of the arrival of American forces, made Washington’s 1975 exit from Saigon look orderly. However, the U.S. military’s retreat was long overdue and completed the accord negotiated by Trump during his first term. Some of the insurgents had been fighting since the Taliban first emerged in 1994, and even before, against Soviet occupiers. Demanding that the victors accept a permanent U.S. military presence would have killed any agreement, turning Afghanistan into a truly forever war.

Since then, the people of Afghanistan have suffered under the Taliban’s oppressive, theocratic rule. However, for many the end of the war was still a relief. While Americans like to view themselves as liberators, many Afghans saw them as anything but that. Explained interpreter Baktash Ahadi:

Virtually the only contact most Afghans had with the West came via heavily armed and armored combat troops. Americans thus mistook the Afghan countryside for a mere theater of war, rather than as a place where people actually lived. U.S. forces turned villages into battlegrounds, pulverizing mud homes and destroying livelihoods.

Unsurprisingly, Ahadi continued, “any sympathy for the West evaporated in bursts of gunfire.” Compared to the distant, corrupt, and incompetent Kabul government and its American ally, the Taliban became the lesser of two evils.

Even critics of the latter welcomed peace. After visiting the country shortly after the insurgents’ victory, journalist Anand Gopal observed that “the biggest thing I noticed on the ground is just how tired people were of fighting.” Most Americans had no idea. Added Gopal:

Nepal’s Fragile Daw

Biswas Baral

This festive season, a mix of hope and unease has taken hold of Nepal.

Following the ouster of the K.P. Sharma Oli government in the wake of the Gen Z uprising, a new interim government has been formed under former Chief Justice Sushila Karki. Few regret the fall of the unpopular Oli or the rise of a clean figure like Karki. But lack of clarity on the road ahead also adds to people’s anxiety.

The new government has the singular mandate of holding nationwide elections on March 5, 2026. Ensuring the participation of a broad range of political actors in the elections would be the biggest challenge to ending the post-revolt transition.

As unpopular as their top leaders are, the established political parties – the Nepali Congress, the Communist Party Nepal–Unified Marxist-Leninist (CPN-UML) and the CPN Maoist Center – are still major stakeholders in Nepali politics. The involvement of – and thus the endorsement of – these three biggest parties in the outgoing Parliament will be vital for the legitimacy of elections.

But the parties are yet to welcome the new regime under the ex-chief justice. Instead, they have called for a reversal of the unconstitutional dissolution of Parliament. There is no provision in the national charter for someone from outside Parliament to be prime minister – much less to dissolve the house.

The old parties face a dilemma. Their aging and unpopular leaders remain in place. It will be hard for these parties to choose new leaders in time for elections only six months away. Even if they somehow pick new leaders, will these parties be ready to contest elections so soon after the uprising – at a time when the public sentiment is firmly against them?

The three forces have alternately led the government since the promulgation of the new constitution in 2015. Before Karki came to power, eight governments had been formed since 2015 – all of them led by either Sher Bahadur Deuba (head of the Congress), K.P. Oli (the CPN-UML) or Pushpa Kamal Dahal (the Maoist Center). All these regimes were notorious for their odious promotion of corruption and nepotism.

Silicon Valley’s new defense tech ‘neoprimes’ are pulling billions in funding to challenge legacy giants

Ernestine Siu

A wave of defense tech startups in Silicon Valley is drawing billions in funding and reshaping America’s national security.

Anduril Industries, recently valued at $30.5 billion following its latest funding round, is among the so-called “neoprimes” — companies challenging the dominance of legacy contractors, dubbed “primes,” such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics, and RTX (formerly Raytheon).

“There’s more money than ever going to what we call the ‘neoprimes’” Jameson Darby, co-founder and director of autonomy at investment syndicate MilVet Angels, or MVA, told CNBC. “It’s still a fraction of the overall budget, but the trend is all positive.”

Other examples of defense tech startups challenging the incumbents include SpaceX and Palantir Technologies, said Darby, who is also a founding member of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit.

Unlike the primes, these startups are faster, leaner and software-first — with many of them building things that can help close “critical technology gaps that are really important to national security,” said Ernestine Fu Mak, co-founder of MVA and founder of Brave Capital, a venture capital firm.

Venture funding for U.S.-based defense tech startups totaled about $38 billion through the first half of 2025, and could exceed its 2021 peak if the pace remains constant for the rest of the year, according to JPMorgan.

‘The battlefield is changing’

As the global war landscape changed over the past decades, the U.S. Department of Defense has identified several technologies that are critical to national security, including hypersonics, energy resilience, space technology, integrated sensing and cyber.

“In a post-9/11 world, the entire Department of Defense effectively focused on ... the global war on terrorism. It was our military versus insurgents, guerrillas, asymmetric warfare, relatively low-tech fighters in most cases,” said Darby.

China Becomes Pakistan’s Biggest Investor With $120 Million FDI Boost – OpEd

Professor Naila

Pakistan’s foreign investment numbers have picked up some momentum, and China is leading the charge. In just the first two months of the fiscal year, Pakistan pulled in about $364.3 million in foreign direct investment (FDI), and a big chunk of that $120 million came from China. That’s roughly a third of the total, making China the single largest investor during this period.

In August alone, Chinese inflows hit $68.6 million, almost half of what Pakistan received that month. It’s another sign that the economic relationship between the two countries is tightening, moving beyond symbolic projects and turning into sustained, high-value investments.

Why China’s Money Matters Right Now

For years, Pakistan’s economy has been walking a fine line. Foreign reserves are fragile, power shortages keep biting, and local industries often struggle to scale. Having China step in with consistent FDI isn’t just about big numbers on a spreadsheet. It keeps the lights on literally, in many cases and signals to other investors that Pakistan’s economy is still worth betting on.

Most of this money is still flowing into the power sector, which pulled in $156.9 million in the first two months. That’s not surprising given Pakistan’s chronic electricity issues. Chinese-backed hydro, solar, and coal projects under the broader China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) continue to fill gaps, and newer renewable projects suggest Beijing’s looking long-term.

It’s Not Just About Energy

What’s interesting is that Chinese interest is spreading out. Beyond power, they’ve been putting money into financial services, electrical machinery, and electronics. For Pakistan, that’s a big deal. Energy projects keep things running, but investment in banks, fintech, and manufacturing can drive real economic diversification.

UK Think Tank Says Leaked Documents Show Russia Is Helping China Prepare To Seize Taiwan

Reid Standish

A recently released 800-page cache of contracts and correspondence shows that Russia is helping China prepare its military for a potential invasion of Taiwan, according to an independent think tank that received the files and had them independently verified.

Oleksandr V. Danylyuk, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), who obtained the leaked files along with his co-author, Jack Watling, spoke to RFE/RL about what the findings mean for future China-Russia military cooperation and why Russia may be in favor of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the self-governing island of 23 million people that Beijing claims as its territory.

According to RUSI, the documents indicate that Moscow agreed in 2023 to sell a suite of military equipment to China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), including assault vehicles, anti-tank guns, and airborne armored personnel carriers. The armored vehicles would be equipped with Chinese specifications, and Russia would train a battalion of special Chinese paratroopers to use them.

he contracts also state that Russia would transfer technologies to China that will allow it to make similar weapons.

Such an agreement would bolster China’s air maneuver capabilities, one of the few areas where Moscow’s military still has an edge over the PLA, and intensify concerns that Beijing could seize infrastructure inland even as it storms ports and beaches along the coast as part of a potential invasion.

The approximately 800 pages of contracts and collateral materials “appear genuine” and details from within the documents have been independently verified, RUSI said. However, there is also the possibility that parts of the documents have been altered or omitted, it added.

Moscow has not commented on the leaked documents.

The interview below has been condensed and edited for clarity.

How Chinese Weapons Transformed a War Between Two Neighbors

Sui-Lee Wee

The Chinese military planes touched down in Cambodia over three days in June, weeks before a simmering border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand exploded into war.

The aircraft were Y-20s, known as Chubby Girls in China for their wide body and ability to carry heavy cargo. They made six flights to the southwestern city of Sihanoukville, bringing rockets, artillery shells and mortars, according to Thai intelligence documents reviewed by The New York Times, a shipment that has not been previously reported.

The Chinese weapons were packed into 42 containers and stored at the nearby Ream Naval Base, the documents said. Days later, Chinese-made ammunition was moved from the base hundreds of miles to the north, to Cambodia’s contested border with Thailand, according to the documents.

Asked for comment on the Thai intelligence reports, a senior Cambodian official did not deny many of the basic details about the shipment.

Thailand and Cambodia blamed one another for starting the war, which lasted for five days in late July. Before the conflict began, the movement of arms to the border was a crucial part of Cambodia’s buildup. For months, Cambodia had been entrenching its forces along the boundary, near an ancient temple claimed by both Cambodia and Thailand. It laid new roads and constructed a military base; all those structures were visible in satellite images.

With this buildup, analysts said, Cambodia entered the standoff with a much more provocative posture toward Thailand than that it had previously taken. But both sides relied heavily on arms from the same place: China, which has cultivated close strategic and economic ties with the two Southeast Asian states.

The accounts of independent monitors generally support the conclusions of the Thai intelligence assessment, especially about the origin of some of the weapons used by Cambodia. According to Fortify Rights, a human rights group, the rockets that Cambodia used against four Thai provinces were mostly of Chinese origin. On the first day, Thai authorities said, Cambodia struck a gas station, a hospital and civilians’ homes, killing at least 13 civilians.

China and Russia are winning the ‘hybrid’ war. Sadly, the West hasn’t noticed

Peter Hartcher

Lenin was supposed to have been speaking about clearing landmines when he said: “Probe with bayonets. If you encounter mush, proceed; if you encounter steel, withdraw.”

He might never have spoken those words, but no matter. It’s an excellent metaphor for the strategy that Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are applying to the democratic West.

Both Moscow and Beijing are probing with the bayonet of “hybrid” or unconventional war – using flexible combinations of military and non-military methods, overt and covert, to test, destabilise and weaken rivals.

It’s aggressive, but the individual actions usually fall beneath the conventional definition of armed combat. This allows democracies to pretend that it’s not war, so let’s not worry. That’s called the “mush” response, and that’s why it works so well.

“This has been something they’ve been engaging in against the West – including Australia – for two decades,” observes Mick Ryan, the prominent strategist and retired Australian Army major general. He includes North Korea and Iran as practitioners.

The current showcase is Europe. On the weekend, Denmark reported that unidentified drones had appeared in the air above its major military bases. It announced a ban on all drone use this week, fearing risks to the two major summits it’s due to host.

It was Denmark’s third drone alarm in a week, and it was one of only five European countries in a month to suffer incursions from either the Russian air force or drones strongly suspected of Russian origin. The headline in The Economist magazine on the weekend summed it up: “Russia is violating Europe’s skies with impunity”.

This is no coincidence. As a report by the Institute for International Strategic Studies reported last month, quite separately to the air incursions: “Russian sabotage operations in Europe have increased their range of targets and severity of attacks. The number of attacks almost quadrupled from 2023 to 2024.”

AI-Driven Disinformation Campaigns on Twitter (X) in the Russia-Ukraine War

Tayyaba Rehan

In the Russia-Ukraine war, sectors like the digital and psychological ones were added to the conflict, and AI-driven fake news on Twitter (X) played a major part. Propaganda was disseminated to large numbers by operatives who used automated tools powered by artificial intelligence. They applied data mining and AI techniques to read through large data sets, find out what people felt about certain situations, and then send messages that mattered to specific groups. People were exposed to AI-created content, which included articles, images, and deepfakes, all aimed at copying the look of trustworthy sources, tricking users, and harming what people think about Ukraine’s leadership and help from the West.

Introduction

The Russia-Ukraine conflict, which reached its peak in February 2022, has fought a massive struggle of information dissemination in addition to its existing military hostilities. Current media organizations work to provide reports about the situation, but people turn primarily to Twitter (X) platforms to share news and opinions with disinformation. Twitter (X)’s network features, including instant posting and tagging patterns, enable users to distribute content widely, thus creating an effective means of influencing public opinion. Artificial intelligence (AI) stands as an essential tool for people who wish to control and shape information during this particular time. Artificial intelligence enables the production and dissemination of false information on Twitter (X), which produces major changes in how audiences think about the conflict. The analysis of disinformation campaign mechanisms on Twitter (X) enables people to understand the effects these techniques have on their perceptions and perspectives. During the Russia-Ukraine war, Twitter (X) and AI have enabled multiple disinformation methods that altered global public perception and war narrative formation. AI bots, together with AI-backed accounts, generate artificial propaganda that opposes alternate perspectives and advocates opposing viewpoints.

The level of complexity with which AI handles disinformation campaigns on Twitter (X) continues to advance. It utilizes machine learning algorithms to evaluate big datasets from the platform, which helps them detect patterns and user attitudes alongside population statistics. AI analytics produce targeted disinformation programs that speak directly to various audiences through content that appeals to them. Comprehensively detailed messages take advantage of people’s existing viewpoints, therefore becoming more convincing in their delivery and difficult to detect AI-generated content.

The Role of Twitter (X) in Information Warfare

U.S. Moves to Purchase Ukrainian Battlefield Drones

William Lawson

Ukrainian operations have revealed the ubiquitous nature of cheap drones and their effectiveness in modern warfare.

United States military representatives recently welcomed a delegation from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and the National Security and Defense Council to discuss a long-term deal for procuring Ukrainian battlefield drone systems. Specifically, the Ukrainian delegation presented system capabilities, procurement possibilities, and integration into American structures and operations.

The American delegation included representatives from each branch of the armed services. They looked at specific drone models, their operational capabilities and effectiveness, and potential battlefield applications. Ukrainian systems support for US military needs was also discussed.

America Is Playing Catch-Up on Drones

The meeting comes as the United States rushes to address its deficiencies in drone warfare and counter-drone defensive systems. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth last summer announced a major initiative to address those deficiencies in a memorandum titled “Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance,” which was based on President Donald Trump’s executive order of the same name.

The memorandum emphasizes a far-reaching approach, involving private industry as well as allied nations, to jump-start American drone capabilities for the modern battle space. Ukraine has necessarily become one of the world’s leading experts on drone warfare as it combats the ongoing Russian invasion. US drone initiatives are in progress, but outsourcing to Ukraine for proven systems, as well as the doctrine and operational expertise for their use, makes sense.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense described the meeting as a preparatory step toward a broader deal. That broader proposed deal would be for the United States to purchase Ukrainian-built drones while implementing joint production of some models. Dubbed the “Drone Deal” by Ukraine, the agreement would span five years. Initial plans go beyond procurement and deployment and envision technical cooperation, integrating Ukrainian technology into American and allied systems and establishing production scales to meet changing operational requirements.

How the US and Ukraine Can Redefine Drone Deterrence

Ivan Sascha Sheehan

The Ukrainian UAV sector’s baptism by fire will make it a strategic asset for NATO defense in the years to come.

Although the Russia-Ukraine war is the most drone-intensive conflict of the twenty-first century, the implications of this reality have only recently spilled beyond its borders. In August, Polish officials confirmed that Russian drones had crossed into their airspace before being shot down near the frontier. Around the same time, Danish and Norwegian airports were reportedly targeted by suspected drone disruptions, which local analysts described as highly likely to be Kremlin-backed.

These incidents are not isolated provocations; they function as stress tests—probing NATO’s defenses against a rapidly evolving form of warfare. With Western military leaders increasingly alarmed about how fast the drone battlefield is changing, the alliance faces a clear imperative: it must integrate Ukraine’s wartime innovations into its own defense planning and production cycles.

Russia’s invasion has triggered a transformation in drone warfare so profound that even the United States—with its vast defense industry and cutting-edge military—has struggled to adapt. Washington excels at building advanced fighter jets, tanks, and precision-guided missiles. However, when it comes to mass-producing inexpensive, expendable systems at a rapid pace, America lags behind. US troops also lack the combat experience in drone operations that Ukrainian soldiers have been forced to acquire.

The Pentagon has acknowledged the gap. In July, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth disseminated a memo to senior officers outlining a plan to accelerate the US military’s adoption of drones. Since then, US troops have begun experimenting with 3D-printed drones and training on simulators. These are important steps, but they also underscore a sobering reality: America is racing to catch up.

In contrast, Ukraine has fostered a dynamic ecosystem of drone development that is both resilient and rapidly evolving. According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, more than 95 percent of the drones deployed on the front line are domestically manufactured. What makes these systems particularly effective is the rapid cycle of innovation.

Peace In Ukraine Threatens Putin More Than War

Albert Wolf

The Personal Wars: Why Putin’s Political Survival Prevents Peace

Russia is not any closer to ending the fighting in Ukraine. The costs of this war, in terms of lives, treasure, and stability, are staggering. A deal should have been reached long ago.

Since 2022, Russia has failed to achieve its primary aim of destroying the Ukrainian nation. It has faced embarrassing reversals on land, at sea, and in the air.

Vladimir Putin and his Generals have been carrying out a multi-domain equivalent of Verdun over the past three years with no end in sign.

When combatants reach a situation that reveals the proper balance of power, they are expected to cut their losses and negotiate a deal.

Yet, the war in Ukraine has continued to grind on because of the personal fate of the leader in charge. For Putin, peace poses a greater threat to his survival than continued war.

Traditional accounts of how wars end often treat states as monolithic actors, overlooking the complex dynamics of domestic politics and the personal risks faced by individual leaders.

However, where a leader is fighting a losing or protracted war, they calculate not only the likelihood of losing power but also what will happen to them after they have lost it.

When leaders face the prospect of imprisonment, exile, or execution, they are likely to “roll the dice” on the battlefield, hoping for a change in fortune rather than accepting a defeat that would seal their doom.

Once again, Netanyahu has outplayed Trump

Mohamad Bazzi

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump claimed he would quickly end the war in Gaza. Eight months after taking office, Trump finally decided to exert some US pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, announcing a 20-point peace plan at the White House on Monday.

But the deal that the US president struck with Netanyahu – after Trump dithered for months, allowing Israel to continue its genocidal war with US weapons and unwavering political support – is less a ceasefire proposal than an ultimatum for Hamas to surrender.

After nearly two years of prolonging the war and obstructing ceasefire negotiations, Netanyahu got almost everything he wanted, thanks to Trump. The US plan calls on Hamas to lay down its weapons and release the Israeli hostages remaining in Gaza, but it allows Israeli troops to occupy parts of Gaza for the foreseeable future. It’s close to the “total victory” over Hamas that Netanyahu has consistently promised the Israeli public, but failed to deliver on the battlefield.

What if Hamas rejects this deal that was drafted without its input, or that of any other Palestinian faction? Trump made clear he would enable Netanyahu to sow even more death and destruction in Gaza. “Israel would have my full backing to finish the job of destroying the threat of Hamas,” he said at the White House. On Tuesday, Trump added he would give Hamas officials “three or four days” to respond – and warned that the group would “pay in hell” if it turns down the agreement. In past negotiations, Hamas had rejected Israeli proposals that forced the group to disarm and pushed it out of any future role governing Gaza.

Once again, Netanyahu has outplayed Trump, who considers himself a master deal-maker. But he’s been regularly outmaneuvered by strongmen like Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin.

When Trump took office in January, he had the upper hand over the Israeli leader, having pushed Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza that went into effect a day before the president’s inauguration on 20 January. But Netanyahu, who worried that his rightwing government would collapse if he agreed to a permanent truce with Hamas, imposed a new siege on Gaza in early March. With Trump’s blessing, Israel deprived Palestinians of food, medicine and other necessities. Netanyahu then refused to continue negotiations with Hamas, and broke the ceasefire after two months.

The Middle East That Israel Has Made

Galip Dalay and Sanam Vakil

The countries of the Middle East increasingly see Israel as their new shared threat. Israel’s war in Gaza, its expansionist military policies, and its revisionist posture are reshaping the region in ways that few anticipated. Its September strike on Hamas’s political leaders in Qatar—the seventh country hit by Israel since the October 7, 2023, attacks, in addition to the Palestinian territories—has shaken Gulf states and cast doubt on the credibility of the U.S. security umbrella. In the last two years, Israeli leaders have hailed their evisceration of Hezbollah’s leadership in Lebanon, their repeated strikes on targets in Yemen, and their battering of Iran. But rather than consolidate Israeli power or improve relations with Arab states that have long been wary of Iran and its proxies, these actions are backfiring. States that once regarded Israel as a potential partner, including the Gulf monarchies, now perceive it as a dangerous and unpredictable actor.

This week, U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a new 20-point “peace plan,” celebrating the framework as a major breakthrough and a way to return stability to the region. But its prospects are dim as long as Israel continues to behave aggressively and ignores the legitimate demands and concerns of Palestinians. Although a raft of leaders in the region have welcomed the announcement, the plan seems unlikely to reverse the damage of two years of war. Before the October 2023 attacks, Israel, with strong American backing, had hoped to remake the region to its advantage, casting itself as a partner for Arab governments while sidelining rivals, notably Iran. Now, Israel has only isolated itself, made Arab states reluctant to stomach the reputational and political costs of working with it, and turned former partners into wary adversaries.

Many countries in the region are responding to Israeli aggression by diversifying their security partnerships, investing in their own autonomy, and moving away from normalization with Israel. A welter of projects that sought to bind Israel closer to Arab countries—principally with the help of the United States, but also with Indian and European support—will likely fall by the wayside. That is bad news not just for Israel but also for the United States. Unstinting American support for Israel is undermining Washington’s standing in the region. Where once the threat of Iran could encourage states in the region to hew close to the U.S. line, the specter of a bristling Israel now pushes them away from the United States.

Veterans react to Hegseth’s ‘insulting’ address to generals and admirals

George Chidi

Naveed Shah, a veteran and activist who served as an enlisted public affairs specialist – an army journalist – uncharacteristically found himself searching for words to describe the address of the newly styled secretary of war to flag officers on Tuesday.

“A lot of the words that are coming to me aren’t fit to print,” said Shah, policy director for Common Defense, a veterans advocacy organization. “The people in that room who have served for 20, 30-plus years in uniform do not need Pete Hegseth to tell them about warrior ethos.”

Hegseth’s hour-long Ted talk-style address touching on physical fitness, the doctrine of lethality and the perils of DEI certainly drew more attention than a policy memo might have, and perhaps more than Donald Trump’s rambling, politically charged hour-long speech that followed.

But the attention came at the cost of respect, said Dana Pittard, a retired army general who commanded soldiers in Iraq and co-author of Hunting the Caliphate.

“I thought it was insulting,” Pittard said of the address, rejecting Hegseth’s assertion that senior officers of color – like himself – had benefitted from a non-existent quota system for promotions.

Online chatter in military groups ahead of the unprecedented, secrecy-shrouded meeting of 800 generals and admirals called to Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia had revolved around a demand for some loyalty oath to the administration, or public firings or a declaration of war. Some described it as karmic revenge for decades of mandatory hour-long safety briefings held by unit commanders before dismissing troops for the weekend. Many also wondered if the expensive challenge to security could have been an email.

“Certainly, addressing the troops could be useful or beneficial, but to call 800-plus generals and senior enlisted advisers from around the world into this room just before a government shutdown? It’s not just bad optics or strategy,” Shah said. “A bad cold could have threatened our entire chain of command.”

The race is on to build the next superweapon. The winner will decide Ukraine’s fate

Roland Oliphant

The war in Ukraine is stuck in stalemate. Russian forces are making incremental advances at horrific cost. The Ukrainians are being forced back inch by inch. But neither is about to be defeated.

The cause of the deadlock is simple: drone war.

As Valery Zaluzhny, the former commander of Ukraine’s armed forces and its current ambassador to London, wrote last week, drones account for about 80 per cent of casualties and have created a “kill zone” 20km wide where soldiers are vulnerable to deadly attack.

This drone-patrolled “No Man’s Land” has brought Great War-style stasis to the frontline.

So the race is on to find a weapon that can punch through it. The prize could be victory itself. Ukraine, says Zaluzhny, must “escape the positional cul-de-sac before our adversaries do”.

In the First World War, barbed wire, machine guns and massed artillery made operational manoeuvre – the breakthrough and defeat of an enemy – almost impossible. The answer in 1916 was the tank, a mechanised, armoured vehicle that at least provided soldiers with the means to cross the kill zone and engage the enemy.

The new machines were not a silver bullet. When they first lumbered into action on the Somme, many broke down. (Indeed, they really came into their own only two decades later, when armies worked out how to use them alongside attack aircraft and radio.) But today, it is almost impossible to think of wars being fought without them.

And in Ukraine, commanders from both sides are asking what an equivalent breakthrough technology might look like today. Has it even been imagined yet? And who will build it first? As in the First World War, the primary problem is one of protection: in today’s case, defeating the overhead drone threat so forces can mass together and safely cross No Man’s Land.

The Worst Way to Fight—Except All the Others

James R. Holmes

Alliances are worthless. Don’t believe me? Then take it from General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who choreographed the Allied offensive against Nazi Germany more than 80 years ago and knew firsthand the frustrations and misadventures that come with leading polyglot armies, navies, and air forces. Opined the supreme commander in his memoir, Crusade in Europe:

History testifies to the ineptitude of coalitions in waging war. Allied failures have been so numerous and their inexcusable blunders so common that professional soldiers have long discounted the possibility of effective allied action. Even Napoleon’s reputation as a great military leader suffered when students in staff colleges came to realize that he always fought against coalitions—and therefore against divided counsels and diverse political, economic, and military interests.1

His critique rings true. An army cannot act in unison if its political masters cannot agree on political aims, strategy, or operational design. It loses cohesion under duress—and a fighting force without cohesion ceases to be a fighting force. It fractures. Coalition after coalition broke against Napoleonic armies—simplifying the military problem for France’s little emperor. Only after decades of war, when Napoleon made it obvious that France posed a deadly and lasting threat to all European states, did a final coalition band together and endure long enough to prevail.

Deprecating Napoleon’s feats of arms was salty talk coming from Eisenhower, arguably the United States’ foremost soldier-diplomat—and alliance overseer—of the 20th century.

Two Types of Alliances

But. . . . Immediately after scourging alliance warfare as a futile if not self-defeating mode of war-making, the general pivoted to strike down the straw man he had set up. He maintained, in effect, that fighting alongside allies is the worst way to fight—except for all the others.

It is important to note that Ike was referring to a particular type of alliance management grounded in negotiation among peer allies.

Trump, Hegseth lecture military leaders in rare, politically charged summit

Dan Lamothe, Tara Copp and Alex Horton

Hundreds of the U.S. military’s top leaders listened in silence to highly partisan addresses from President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday, with each harshly criticizing their predecessors and hyping their political objectives during an extraordinary exhibition of both men’s grievances.

Trump and Hegseth’s backward-facing message to the generals

President Donald Trump speaks to senior military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia on Tuesday. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Here’s the scariest part about Tuesday’s military pep rally: President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — in their focus on grooming, fitness standards and “the enemy within” — seem oblivious to the reality that 21st-century combat will be dominated by drones and artificial intelligence, plus commanders who understand these high-tech weapons.

America’s generals and admirals sat stone-faced as they listened to Trump and Hegseth. They had been summoned to Washington at a moment when they’re struggling to adapt America’s military to dizzying changes in combat systems and doctrine. What they got was a lecture from Hegseth about the threat of facial hair, “fat generals” and lax training — along with a meandering speech from Trump bashing his political enemies.

Trump’s and Hegseth’s speeches were an exercise in military nostalgia. Trump talked about bringing back battleships, a Navy fighting platform that was already outmoded during World War II. Hegseth urged military leaders to apply “the 1990 test” — meaning any standard that had changed since then was suspect. He celebrated generals of the last century — George Patton and Norman Schwarzkopf — who shared his flair for showmanship.

Watching this political theater, the audience of senior military leaders was properly silent. They applauded, politely, at the end. But what must they have thought about the directives they received from a defense secretary whose views were shaped as a National Guard officer in Iraq 20 years ago and a commander in chief who avoided service because of a medical exemption?

The implicit message of Tuesday’s “key leaders all-call,” as it was officially termed, was to get on board with Team Trump or get out. “If the words I’m speaking today are making your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign,” said Hegseth. Hopefully, those gathered at Marine Corps Base Quantico will ignore that guidance. It would be a national disaster to lose the battle-tested leaders who understand the military’s true challenges in the decades ahead.

An Inflection Point for Information Operations Officers

Peter Wilcox

In the 1990s, Andrew Grove introduced the phrase strategic inflection point to describe a decisive juncture in an organization’s life, when subtle yet cumulative shifts in the environment converge that demand transformation. Institutions must either adapt to these emerging realities or risk drifting toward irrelevance. The most capable of leaders accept the risks required to guide the organization toward renewal, while those who resist change often preside over stagnation and decline. Grove’s concept finds parallel in Carl von Clausewitz’s coup d’œil—that intuitive “glance” which cuts through the fog of war. For Clausewitz, “resolution, presence of mind, and the lessons of history” were indispensable for any commander striving for clarity amid the most difficult circumstances. Likewise, institutions at inflection points require this type of discernment.

The Problem

Today, the Army’s information dominance community stands at a strategic inflection point—a moment demanding a reexamination of how it defines the role for Information Operations (IO) officers. Since Field Manual 100-6’s publication in 1996, each doctrinal revision—including Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 3-13, Information—has cast IO officers chiefly as “synchronizers” and “integrators” (S&I) of information capabilities and organizations, subordinated to the lethal arc of combat power while neglecting the non-lethal. The result, even after five iterations, is a doctrine still groping for coherence. As U.S. Army Colonel Sarah White observes:

The service has cycled and recycled through numerous attempts at doctrinal codification, and yet it seems to be in much the same place in 2023 [and I would argue 2025] as it was in the early 1990s: aware that the information revolution means something for warfare, yet unsure of what that something is, what it should be called, and what is the appropriate doctrinal response.

This essay contends that the Army should reconceive IO officers primarily as a unit’s chief military deception officer (CMDO)—responsible for deception at the core, while secondarily supporting lethal operations. Such a shift would restore military deception (MILDEC) to its rightful place as a significant combat power enabler in large-scale, joint, and multi-domain operations. It would also bring much-needed clarity as to what exactly the task and purpose of Army IO officers are.

Combat Power and Information’s Perceived Role in Warfare

Information Inoculation: Preparing US Warfighters for Cognitive War

Robert “Jake” Bebber

Sophisticated non-kinetic threats, such as Chinese cognitive domain operations (CDO) and Russian active measures operations, define the contemporary global security landscape and pose significant challenges to national security policymakers in the United States. These adversarial capabilities transcend traditional military engagement, targeting the cognitive processes, beliefs, and unit cohesion of an opponent to achieve military objectives, often as a precursor to the onset of hostilities. By targeting the brain itself, adversaries can potentially alter US service members’ decision-making or behavior, having a detrimental impact on their will to fight. Current understanding of brain sciences, the ubiquity of surveillance technology and big data, and algorithm-based evolving business and marketing models that condition human behavior are converging to shape global power competition in ways that may undermine the efficacy of assumptions about American power. As a result, foreign adversaries could subject the American population to a persistent state of cognitive manipulation and control. To prepare service members for this rapidly evolving environment, the Department of War (DoW), needs to adopt strategies to build critical thinking and individual resistance to persuasive cognitive attacks. This paper proposes a military training program that begins in recruit training and continues as part of regular professional military education based on information inoculation theory, a critical-thinking strategy analogous to medical immunization.

Background

During the Korean War, American social psychologist William McGuire expressed concerns about reports that Communist forces were brainwashing American service members. He suggested that because Americans lacked mental defenses against sophisticated ideological attacks, they would be more susceptible to persuasion. To counter these psychological tactics, McGuire argued for a form of cognitive inoculation that would work much like a vaccine. Conceptually, one may trace information inoculation back to Aristotle’s refutational enthymemes, the idea of preempting an argument beforehand to make one’s case. Just as a body builds resistance to viruses through previous exposure, beliefs can be made resistant to persuasive threats through pre-exposure to weakened forms of persuasion. “Cognitive vaccines” expose individuals to weakened counterarguments or manipulation strategies, prompting them to generate their own supporting arguments. Psychological inoculation can offer broad protection, especially when supplemented with “booster shots” over time, to develop a form of herd immunity.

How Cyber Escalation Is Changing Conflict

Andrew Davidson

On Sept. 19-20, coordinated cyberattacks disabled airport check-in systems across Europe, stranding passengers and forcing airports onto manual backups. It was the most visible case in a rising tempo of disruptions targeting European infrastructure last month.

Cyber operations are often considered to occupy a “lower rung” on the so-called escalation ladder, but this is an oversimplification. Escalation is defined not by the method of attack but by how much the attack alters or degrades an adversary’s capacity to act. The events in Europe over the past month highlight that escalation can arrive digitally, producing paralysis and pressure without a shot being fired.

Modern societies operate on fragile systems of communication and navigation. When those networks are disabled, society grinds to a halt, in the same way that a modern military force deprived of ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance), GPS navigation, communications and targeting sensors loses the ability to see, coordinate and strike effectively. Nowhere is this vulnerability clearer than in the United States – physically secure behind oceans and layered defenses, yet critically dependent on digital infrastructure that is globally connected and therefore globally exposed. A strike on this information backbone can have the same operational effect as destroying a physical installation – and indeed can destroy infrastructure in certain cases – often at far lower cost and with greater deniability.

This reframing matters because it alters how to measure risk and intent. A missile strike on a radar site and malware that blinds the same radar produce equivalent outcomes: loss of coverage, degraded tempo and hesitation at the command level. For societies already weary of conflict, repeated digital disruptions to energy and water may be enough to pressure leaders into restraint. Cyber is therefore not merely harassment; it is a parallel form of coercion that contests the very advantages modern militaries rely on to fight. Cyber escalation collapses distance and erases the line between front and rear, degrading militaries at the point of attack while pulling civilians oceans away into a digitally contested front line.

Strategic Context

Hybrid air denial: The new gray zone battleground raging above Europe

Maximilian K. Bremer and Kelly A. Grieco

Adversaries are leveraging drones to challenge national airspace and disrupt civilian and military air operations without triggering full-scale conflict, the authors of this op-ed argue. Here, a Polish soldier tests a drone software and simulator during Iron Defender 25 on Sept. 18 in Poland.

This week, Denmark imposed a nationwide ban on all civilian drone flights as European leaders gather in Copenhagen for the European Union Summit. The move follows repeated drone incursions in recent weeks, which Danish authorities have labeled “hybrid attacks,” after sightings of unidentified drones forced airport closures and threatened military sites.

Denmark is far from alone. In recent weeks, NATO fighters scrambled over Poland to intercept 19 Russian drones while another Russian drone loitered in Romanian airspace for nearly an hour. Debris washed ashore in Bulgaria and Latvia, and unidentified drones have also been reported over Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein region, Norway’s main airport, and near a Swedish naval base.

Far from isolated incidents, these incursions reveal a coordinated pattern in a new type of gray zone warfare — what we term “hybrid air denial” — that blurs the lines between peace and war. In this approach, adversaries use low-cost drones to access and deny commercial activity in the air littoral, producing outsized effects on security, the economy and public confidence.

Air denial has long been a wartime strategy, relying on fighter patrols, surface-to-air missiles or no-fly zones to contest control of the skies and prevent adversary air forces from operating freely over the battlefield. Recent conflicts, from Ukraine to Armenia-Azerbaijan and Gaza, show that drones, including low-cost systems operating in the air littoral, can extend this strategy to lower altitudes. Now, this approach is increasingly moving into the gray zone, with adversaries leveraging drones to challenge national airspace, test sovereignty and disrupt both civilian and military air operations without triggering full-scale conflict.

What makes drones especially effective for hybrid air denial is their combination of easy access, low cost and minimal perceived risk.

Drones target German ports, hospitals and oil refineries in latest hybrid attack

Joe Barnes

Germany is investigating Russia’s involvement in a mysterious swarm of drones spying on a power plant, hospital and military shipyard.

A fuel refinery and a regional parliament were also targeted in what could be the latest example of Moscow’s hybrid war against Nato.

The unmanned aerial vehicles were spotted flying over the facilities in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany’s northernmost province, late last week.

An internal government memo, cited by Der Spiegel, the influential German news magazine, claims the critical infrastructure was being measured for size up by the drones’ operators.

Nato allies have come under increasing pressure from Russian-linked hybrid attacks in recent weeks.

This comes on top of accusations of “reckless” violations of the military alliance’s airspace by Russian fighter jets and drones, as tensions escalate between the West and Moscow.

In the latest incident, drones were spotted flying above a military shipyard belonging to Thyssenkrupp, the warship maker, in the port city of Kiel late last Thursday evening.

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