Indian Strategic Studies: 10/10/25

10 October 2025

Quad at a Crossroads: Can the Indo-Pacific Grouping Survive Trump 2.0?

Biyon Sony Joseph

When the United States, India, Australia, and Japan embraced the Indo-Pacific concept over a decade ago, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) quickly became a central pillar of their foreign policies. It symbolized a shared vision for a free, open, and rules-based order in the region. Yet today, the grouping faces a period of deep uncertainty.

A more unilateral foreign policy under the Trump 2.0 administration, growing trade tensions between Washington and New Delhi, and reports that President Donald Trump may skip the Quad leaders’ summit later this year all raise questions about its future. Against this backdrop, it is worth examining where the Quad stands today and what lies ahead during and after the current U.S. administration.

The year began on a positive note. Just hours after Trump’s inauguration, the Quad foreign ministers met in Washington to discuss regional priorities, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. The meeting signalled that the administration still saw value in the grouping and reaffirmed the need to counter China’s expanding influence.

In July 2025, another meeting took place in Washington, marking the tenth such ministerial dialogue. The foreign ministers announced the launch of the Quad Critical Minerals Initiative, aimed at strengthening and diversifying supply chains, and reiterated the need for deeper cooperation on maritime security and other key areas.

However, as the Trump administration’s foreign policy direction becomes clearer, concerns about the Quad’s future are growing. The relationship between Washington and New Delhi has deteriorated sharply. The United States recently imposed 50 percent tariffs on Indian goods and accused India of indirectly funding Russia’s war in Ukraine through continued oil purchases. These tensions are testing one of the key bilateral relationships underpinning the Quad and risk weakening the grouping as a whole.

Some argue that Washington no longer shares the “Quad vision” that guided the group during the Biden years. Under former President Joe Biden, the Quad evolved into a more structured and proactive partnership, with regular summits and ministerial meetings. It sought not only to counter China but also to deliver public goods across the Indo-Pacific. These included cooperation on climate change, vaccine production, disaster relief, and infrastructure development. Such initiatives helped the Quad move beyond a purely strategic framework and demonstrated its relevance to regional partners.

UK won't relax visa rules for India, Starmer says

Alex Forsyth

Sir Keir Starmer has said the UK will not relax visa rules for India, speaking before he arrived in the country to tout the benefits of a recent trade agreement.

The prime minister is leading a delegation of more than 100 entrepreneurs, cultural leaders and university vice-chancellors, as he attempts to boost UK investment and improve sluggish economic growth.

Sir Keir said there were "massive opportunities" to improve trade and cultural ties with India.

But he said there were no plans to open up more visa routes to Indian workers or students.

Speaking in India, Sir Keir said no business leaders he had met had "raised with me the question of visas" during his trip.

Instead the visit to India "is about providing the opportunities" for Indian businesses "to take advantage" of the UK-India trade deal, signed in July after years of negotiation.

It will mean UK cars and whisky will be cheaper to export to India, and Indian textiles and jewellery cheaper to export to the UK as part of the multi-billion pound trade boost.

The deal included a three-year exemption on social security paid by Indian employees working in the UK on short-term visas.

But ministers insisted there were no wider changes in immigration policy.

The Labour government is trying to cut levels of immigration into the UK and announced a tough policy on settlement status at the party's conference last week.

Speaking to reporters on the plane on the way to Mumbai, Sir Keir said visas "played no part" in the trade deal with India and that situation had not changed.

Asked whether the UK might consider trying to attract tech entrepreneurs in the wake of President Donald Trump's changes to the H-1B visa in the US, Sir Keir said the UK wanted to attract "top talent" from across the globe to help grow the UK economy, but repeatedly said there were no plans for new visa routes to India.

Trump’s Desire To Seize Bagram Airfield Will End In Disaster – Analysis

James Durso

American President Donald Trump recently demanded that Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban allow the U.S. to take back Bagram Airfield, the military airfield near the capital city, Kabul. He declared, “BAD THINGS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN” if Afghanistan does not return the base to the U.S.

The Taliban promptly rejected Trump’s demand, though it said it seeks political and economic ties with Washington.

Why would Trump want U.S. forces to return to Bagram?

Trump is concerned that China may move into the airfield, and he recognizes it has a useful position for spying on China because, he says, “It’s an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons.”

That is an interesting take, but there is little prospect the U.S. will return to Bagram. To start, how will all those troops and equipment get there?

In the wake of the 9-11 attacks on America by al-Qaeda, the world’s sympathy was with the U.S. and Iran, Russia, the Central Asian republics, and Pakistan cooperated with the U.S. punitive expedition to Afghanistan to seek and destroy al-Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden. But that was 24 years ago, a vanished world.

Today, Russia and Iran have no interest in helping the U.S. into Afghanistan, unless it is to help trap the U.S. in another quagmire. Pakistan often cooperates with the U.S., but it has a Taliban problem of its own, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and helping the Americans will spur more terrorist attacks that are responsible for more than 4,600 deaths of civilian and security personnel since 2021. The Central Asian republics are friendly with Washington (and Kabul) but are unlikely to want to be considered America’s co-belligerent in a renewed campaign in Afghanistan.

The U.S. will have to seize the airfield by force and that would require many troops and aircraft that would have to be secretly staged somewhere in the region. The base occupies 5 square miles (or about 3,200 acres) and would have to be guarded by hundreds of U.S. troops who woul

Pasni port deal would pivot Pakistan from China to US

Imran Khurshid

US President Donald Trump and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif at the White House, September 25, 2025. Picture: The White House

Pakistan’s reported proposal to grant the United States a development and management role at Pasni port, as reported by the Financial Times, marks one of the most consequential geopolitical developments in recent years.

Situated along the Arabian Sea – just 113 kilometers from China-operated Gwadar port, 161 km from Iran and approximately 286.5 km from India’s Chabahar port – Pasni’s geostrategic position places it at the intersection of major regional rivalries involving China, India, Iran, the United States and other key actors such as Saudi Arabia and Gulf investors.

The port’s location also carries implications for Afghanistan, Central Asia and broader maritime security in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean.

This development follows the September 25 meeting between Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Army Chief General Asim Munir and US President Donald Trump, signaling a potential new phase in US-Pakistan geostrategic engagement.

The proposal, which had already been floated and discussed with US officials before the meeting, is part of Islamabad’s broader attempt to diversify its foreign partnerships, reduce reliance on Beijing and attract US, Iranian, and Saudi investments amid deepening economic challenges.

While significant, the plan remains exploratory, with no formal agreement yet confirmed by either Pakistan or the US. However, if realized, it would mark a geopolitical earthquake, reshaping regional power dynamics with implications far beyond.

New Strategic Pivot

The blueprint envisions transforming Pasni — currently a modest fishing town — into a strategic logistics and mineral export hub. The project aims to link the port to Balochistan’s vast mineral reserves, including the Reko Diq copper and gold mines, through a new railway network. Estimated at US$1.2 billion, the project is expected to be financed through a combination of Pakistani federal funds and US-backed development finance.

From Doha to Riyadh: How Israel’s Strike Sparked the Saudi–Pakistan Defense Pact

Ishaal Zehra

On September 9, Israel’s airstrike on Doha jolted the region, violating Qatari sovereignty during ceasefire negotiations with Hamas. While the attack drew widespread condemnation, its deeper consequence may be less about the hostages it endangered and more about the structural shifts it has triggered in Middle Eastern security.

The air strike was more than an act of military aggression against Qatar—it was a wake-up call for the entire Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). For the six monarchies, the attack underscored a sobering reality: if Qatar, host of the US Central Command at al-Udeid Air Base and a designated Major Non-NATO US Ally, could be targeted with apparent impunity, none of them were truly safe anymore.

The attack catalyzed rare Gulf unity. Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed flew to Doha within 24 hours, as the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman condemned Israel’s “brutal aggression” and pledged support for Qatar “without limit.” Leaders from across the Arab and Islamic world soon convened in Doha under the Arab League and the OIC to issue a collective denunciation. What was once a fractured GCC—still healing from the 2017–21 Saudi-Emirati blockade of Qatar—suddenly presented a united front. Just days later, Riyadh announced a historic defense pact with Islamabad—an agreement that could redefine the Gulf’s security architecture.

Pakistan-Saudi Mutual Defense Agreement

The Israeli strike on Qatar became a turning point. Just eight days after, on September 17, Riyadh signed a landmark defense treaty with Pakistan. While the two nations have shared military cooperation since 1967, the new pact represented a significant shift from informal ties to a formal security alliance, fostering a level of trust unique among Gulf partnerships.

The new pact explicitly ensures mutual defense against external threats, ranging from Israeli adventurism to broader foreign interference in Gulf affairs. Observers noted that the agreement offers Riyadh a hedge against both Israel’s imprudence and Washington’s selective engagement. For Islamabad, they believe, the deeper economic and military ties with the Gulf could strengthen its geopolitical profile, reinforcing Pakistan’s relevance beyond South Asia.

China’s Closing Window: Strategic Compression and the Risk of Crisis

Ryan Agee

When Beijing dispatched a relatively unknown rear admiral from its National Defense University to the 2025 Shangri-La Dialogue, bypassing its own defense minister and forfeiting its plenary address, it did more than snub Asia’s premier security forum. It signaled a regime shifting from dialogue to confrontation. China has traditionally used the Singapore gathering to engage regional counterparts and frame its strategic intentions. By refusing the platform at a moment of rising tensions, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) revealed its preference for manufacturing crisis rather than managing competition.

This posture reflects more than diplomatic pique. It is the manifestation of what can be called strategic compression,[1] a condition in which a state’s decision space narrows even as the timeline for action accelerates. For China, compression arises from converging demographic decline, economic stagnation, and political rigidity. These forces produce a closing window in which Beijing perceives a diminishing opportunity to achieve its central project: the “national rejuvenation” with the main marker of absorbing Taiwan.

Washington must recognize both the danger and the opportunity this moment presents. The danger is that compression can drive Beijing toward reckless escalation, gambling that crisis or even conflict will preserve regime legitimacy. The opportunity is that deterrence, strategic friction, and off-ramp architecture can be leveraged to hold China in stasis, denying both a war of choice and a war of necessity.

Strategic Compression: A Closing Window

Compression is the pressure Beijing places upon itself; friction is the pressure others apply upon Beijing. Strategic compression is best understood as the simultaneous narrowing of options and acceleration of timelines that confront states when long-term ambitions collide with structural constraints. The concept is related to the classic “windows of vulnerability” debate in strategic studies. Lebow argued that leaders exploit perceived openings when adversaries are temporarily weak. Later scholars extended the idea: Doeser and Eidenfalk posited that foreign policy change often requires leaders to perceive a fleeting “window of opportunity” as both real and urgent. More recently, Hal Brands has tied these windows directly to great-power competition, warning that compressed states may lunge an advantage before their window of opportunity closes.

How to Deter China

Gary Anderson

When it rolls out its new National Defense Strategy (NDS) and National Military Strategy (NMS), the Pentagon will reportedly de-emphasize China in favor of a more balanced global readiness posture with emphasis on the Western Hemisphere.

Emphasizing emerging global threats and renewed threats to the homeland, the pending NDS exposes a grave miscalculation by the Marine Corps when formulating Force Design 2030 in 2020.

Elbridge Colby’s intent to deter China in the NDS and, then CJCS Gen Dunford’s NMS, never intended for the Marine Corps to shed their global force in readiness capabilities in favor of an anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) force in readiness.

Putting small Marine Corps units armed with obsolete, short-range missiles on sand spits in the South China Sea and China’s first island chain isn’t a deterrent to anyone, let alone a rapidly expanding Chinese military.

While I believe a war with China is unlikely, we need to be prepared for a technologically advanced multi-domain conflict that could occur across the globe, not simply the South China Sea.

The Marine Corps will need a large number of expendable drones, high volumes of munitions, and a sufficient number of ships, perhaps a hybrid amphibious fleet, to survive losses. Today, we lack those capabilities. The current administration is well aware of the evolving global threat environment and taking action to accelerate responses through investments in unmanned systems and military AI.

Although a war with China is unlikely, it is not unthinkable. China’s increasing domestic instability driven by demographic challenges, corruption along with Xi Jinping’s declining stronghold on the CCP could lead him to break from Deng Ziaoping and the proverb “hide your strength, bide your time.” A Chinese invasion of Taiwan could, therefore, be not only possible but probable in the not so distant future.

U.S. Biotech Future Is Now Made in China

Mike Kuiken

This past year, oncologists across the United States faced an agonizing choice: Which cancer patients would receive their full, life-saving chemotherapy regimen and which would face delays or substandard alternatives? Widespread shortages of essential drugs like cisplatin and carboplatin—workhorse medicines that form the backbone of countless cancer treatments—left doctors scrambling and put hundreds of thousands of American patients’ lives at risk.

This crisis was not a natural disaster; it was a self-inflicted wound, the predictable outcome of a decades-long strategic failure. While Washington focuses on areas like semiconductors and AI, we have quietly ceded control over the very foundation of modern medicine to our primary geopolitical rival: China. The American biotech ecosystem, long considered the world's engine of innovation, is now dangerously dependent on China at every level of the supply chain.

When Americans pop an ibuprofen for a headache or take their daily blood pressure medication, they're unwittingly participating in one of the most dangerous dependencies in modern geopolitics. The active pharmaceutical ingredients—the actual medicine that treats your condition—increasingly come solely from China. Beijing didn't stumble into controlling 40 percent of the world's Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) by accident. Through systematic state subsidies and predatory pricing, Chinese manufacturers have methodically destroyed Western competitors, then jacked up prices once the competition was eliminated. The result? When COVID hit and China briefly restricted pharmaceutical exports, American patients faced immediate shortages of a wide variety of drugs, from antibiotics to heart medications. We've essentially handed Beijing a kill switch for American healthcare.

Equally troubling is the dependency on Key Starting Materials and chemical precursors. These foundational chemicals are needed to manufacture both active ingredients and the supposedly "inactive" components that make pills work. Through systematic investment, China has come to dominate the global bulk chemical industry used in the pharmaceutical industry, meaning that even when we think we're buying "American-made" drugs, we are often just assembling components sourced from Chinese precursors.

China’s New Aircraft Carriers Have 1 Big Advantage over the U.S. Navy

Harry Kazianis

Key Points and Summary – China’s biggest edge over U.S. aircraft carriers isn’t its own flight decks; it’s salvo mass.

-The PLA Rocket Force can launch dense waves of ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic missiles—DF-21D, DF-26, DF-17 among them—guided by a maturing kill chain of satellites, radars, aircraft, and drones.

-Geography multiplies the effect: close to home, China can overwhelm limited shipboard magazines and push carrier groups back.

-This missile “bubble” grants Chinese carriers a sheltered lane to matter earlier in a fight. U.S. defenses help but don’t erase the arithmetic—so the answer is range, deception, distribution, and undersea pressure that breaks the kill chain and buys carriers space to operate.

China’s Real Aircraft Carrier Edge: A Sea Of Missiles

If you’re comparing flight decks, catapults, and the choreography of launch-and-recovery cycles, the United States still wears the crown. But suppose you compare what happens before a carrier ever gets within its preferred striking range. In that case, China enjoys a blunt, asymmetric edge the U.S. Navy cannot wish away: massive salvos of land-based ballistic, cruise, and now hypersonic missiles that can flood the air around a carrier strike group, force it to maneuver at the enemy’s tempo, and—above all—push it back. In the Indo-Pacific, where geography favors the defender and airfields ring the battlespace, that sheer volume of fire can matter more than the marquee ship you send to sea.

This isn’t a funeral dirge for American carriers. It’s an honest accounting of salvo math, geography, and time—and how those three variables combine to give the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) the initiative in a war that starts near its shores. The punch line is simple: the advantage isn’t China’s carriers. It’s the missile ecosystem that would shape the sea and sky before their carriers join the fight.

The Advantage Isn’t The Carrier—It’s The Missiles

China proposes global drive to build AI-powered satellite mega network for all

Ling Xin

Chinese researchers have proposed that the world work together on a shared satellite mega constellation to deliver real-time services for everyone on Earth while preventing space from becoming dangerously overcrowded.

Instead of separate projects by companies and governments to build their own constellations, the plan envisions a common infrastructure network of about 48,000 multifunctional, AI-driven satellites, coordinated through a shared orbital cloud system.

According to the team from China’s National University of Defence Technology, this would be sufficient to provide customised internet, communications, navigation and other services for the world’s eight billion people – at a fraction of the satellite numbers currently proposed.

Their study appeared in the latest issue of National Science Review.

The project is led by Yang Jun, a professor of space instrumentation who has long worked on China’s satellite navigation systems. He said the proposed “open and shared sustainable mega constellation”, or OSSMC, could “kill two birds with one stone”.

It would not only ease the sustainability challenge of crowded low Earth orbits, but also promote equitable access to space resources, he said. “It provides a valuable China solution for building a community with a shared future for mankind in space systems.”

Ma Xiaotian, a PhD student and team member, said more than a million satellites had already been filed for launch worldwide, led by projects such as SpaceX’s Starlink, which aims for as many as 42,000.

The OSSMC approach rests on two innovations: a hardware revolution and a service revolution, he told the Beijing-based China Science Daily.

While traditional satellites are like isolated islands, each built for a single purpose such as communications, navigation or imaging, the team suggests breaking them into modular parts – sensors, networks and artificial intelligence (AI) processors. These could be combined and reconfigured “like building a computer”, Ma said.

Here is What the Secretary of War Should Have Said to His General and Flag Officers

Keith Dickson

On October 6, 2025 Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth assembled the senior military leaders and senior enlisted advisors from across the US military at Quantico, Virginia to speak to them about his vision for the department and his expectations of US military personnel.

The Secretary had a good opening (with edits):

“Good morning and welcome to the War Department. . . . From this moment forward, the only mission of the newly restored Department of War is this: warfighting, preparing to win, unrelenting and uncompromising in that pursuit. . . to be strong so that we can prevent war in the first place. . . . [W]e owe our republic a military that will win any war we choose or any war that is thrust upon us. . . .Our warfighters are entitled to be led by the best and most capable leaders.”

What followed, unfortunately, was a pep talk better delivered to Colonels and Captains, not Flag and General officers and Senior Enlisted Advisors, who were crammed cheek-to-jowl in a stuffy auditorium for nearly two hours. What they got was a message intended for the previous two Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs and the appointed DoD civilian leadership of the past eight years.

It’s doubtful that Hegseth’s remarks had much of an effect. The assembled senior military leaders have heard similar talks as they rose through the ranks throughout their careers. Most have even given very similar talks themselves. Everyone in the military—from private to general—knows how to react to such mandatory formations: listen quietly, maintain some level of interest and attention, and wait for the order to be dismissed.

After asserting that warfighters deserve the best and most capable leaders, Hegseth should have addressed the audience as strategic leaders and practitioners of the operational level of war. Here, in my assessment, is what Hegseth should have stated:

The Return of Total War

Eduardo Morciano

Every age had its own kind of war, its own limiting conditions, and its own peculiar preconceptions,” the defense theorist Carl von Clausewitz wrote in the early nineteenth century. There is no doubt that Clausewitz was right. And yet it is surprisingly difficult to characterize war at any given moment in time; doing so becomes easier only with hindsight. Harder still is predicting what kind of war the future might bring. When war changes, the new shape it takes almost always comes as a surprise.

For most of the second half of the twentieth century, American strategic planners faced a

The Civil-Military Crisis Is Here

Tom Nichols

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture.

To capture a democratic nation, authoritarians must control three sources of power: the intelligence agencies, the justice system, and the military. President Donald Trump and his circle of would-be autocrats have made rapid progress toward seizing these institutions and detaching them from the Constitution and rule of law. The intelligence community has effectively been muzzled, and the nation’s top lawyers and cops are being purged and replaced with loyalist hacks.

Only the military remains outside Trump’s grip. Despite the firing of several top officers—and Trump’s threat to fire more—the U.S. armed forces are still led by generals and admirals whose oath is to the Constitution, not the commander in chief. But for how long?

Trump and his valet at the Defense Department, Secretary of Physical Training Pete Hegseth, are now making a dedicated run at turning the men and women of the armed forces into Trump’s personal and partisan army. In his first term, Trump regularly violated the sacred American tradition of the military’s political neutrality, but people around him—including retired and active-duty generals such as James Mattis, John Kelly, and Mark Milley—restrained some of his worst impulses. Now no one is left to stop him: The president learned from his first-term struggles and this time has surrounded himself with a Cabinet of sycophants and ideologues rather than advisers, especially those at the Pentagon. He has declared war on Chicago; called Portland, Oregon, a “war zone”; and referred to his political opponents as “the enemy from within.” Trump clearly wants to use military power to exert more control over the American people, and soon, top U.S.-military commanders may have to decide whether they will refuse such orders from the commander in chief. The greatest crisis of American civil-military relations in modern history is now under way.

Can the U.S. Stop Middle East Terrorism? Newsweek Contributors Debate

Dan Perry and Daniel R. DePetris debate:

Dan Perry:

The world cannot protect all borders, but the case of October 7 was unique: A jihadist terrorist group was allowed to forcibly take over a delicately situated territory, arm itself to the teeth, dig attack tunnels, and oppress the local population for almost 20 years. Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah in Lebanon—the world treated these as acceptable, as the problems of perhaps Israel and Lebanon. But these criminal organizations can create butterfly effects. It’s not too far-fetched to claim the massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023, not only badly backfired against Palestinians, but also helped Donald Trump return to office, and in this way affected, say, Ukraine. These militias must be seen as the enemies of all humanity.

Daniel R. DePetris:

The blunt reality is that terrorism is a problem to be managed, not solved. While this might be a cliche, it’s one that rings true; states can’t win the war on terrorism any more than they can win the war on poverty or the war on drugs. What states can do, however, is limit the degree to which terrorist groups can operate. This includes everything from treating threat assessments from intelligence analysts lower down the chain of command with the seriousness they deserve to working on comprehensive strategies that seek to undermine the narratives and causes these terrorist groups use to gain recruits and resources. Unfortunately for Israel’s political leadership, none of this occurred in the lead-up to the October 7 attack; threats about a Hamas build-up along the Israel-Gaza border were discarded, and political resolutions to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute were left in purgatory.

How Ukraine Turned the Tables on Russia Story

Robert F. Worth

Two Russian soldiers emerged from the woods and walked slowly down a dirt road, seemingly unaware that they were being monitored from the sky. By the time they raised their rifles to fire at a buzzing Ukrainian drone, it was too late: The drone had dropped a bomb that exploded with a bright-orange flash on the ground between them. But as the smoke drifted clear, the soldiers got up and staggered into the trees. The first strike had failed.

I watched all of this on a screen from a Ukrainian command post about 10 miles back from the front line.

“We know the two wounded Russians are in those trees,” said the Ukrainian commander alongside me, a powerfully built man of 39 who goes by the call sign YG. He didn’t look happy. The Russians probe the front line every day in small groups, and his job is to stop them while doing all he can to protect his own, far more limited supply of soldiers. But drones were not his only weapons against these two.

Ukraine is fighting a war of attrition. Any hopes that might have been raised by President Trump’s red-carpet diplomacy with Vladimir Putin have expired, and it is impossible to spend more than a few minutes near the front line without being confronted by Ukraine’s greatest vulnerability: lack of soldiers. Yet I came away from a recent trip to Ukraine believing that the country may actually be able to achieve its military goals.

Despite Russia’s demographic advantage, its efforts to envelop Ukraine’s formidable fortress belt—a string of strategic cities and logistics hubs in the country’s northeast—have had little success. Capturing the belt would take several years of hard fighting, given Ukraine’s recent success in damaging Russia’s oil pipelines and rear bases. Putin tacitly acknowledged Russia’s failure by demanding that Ukraine voluntarily cede the entire region in August, an idea that no one took seriously.

All of the officers I met with, during a week in northeastern Ukraine, told me that the key to keeping the Russians at bay lies in finding better ways to compensate for Ukraine’s desperate shortage of manpower. Part of the answer is drone technology, which has done a great deal to help Ukraine protect itself in an uneven fight. But commanders are now taking a range of other measures to minimize casualties, including more careful use of artillery, more precise troop movements, and better rotation plans. “Our main purpose is to not let direct contact happen, so Ukrainian troops don’t have to engage,” one local commander told me.

AUKUS Anxiety

James Curran

Australia, like many U.S. allies, is struggling to deal with President Donald Trump. At issue is the country’s national security. Although China is by far Australia’s most important trade partner, it is also the country that Australia’s national security establishment perceives as its greatest threat. Australia’s fear of China is more than a century old and runs deep through every defense strategy that Australia has developed since the signing of the Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS) in 1951 and the resolution of its postwar relationship with Japan later that decade. The same fear drives Australia to keep the United States close today, even as tensions rise over the Trump administration’s economic and defense policies.

The glue now holding Australia and the United States together is AUKUS, a security arrangement that also includes the United Kingdom, formed in 2021. Parts of the agreement—including cooperation in quantum computing; artificial intelligence; cyber-, hypersonic, and undersea technology; and more—are moving ahead more or less as planned. But a key component of AUKUS could be in serious trouble. Australia is supposed to begin receiving a small fleet of nuclear-powered submarines from the United States in 2032, and then the three countries are supposed to jointly design and produce a new class of submarine. Practical and strategic concerns, however, have put the submarine purchase and the design project in jeopardy; in June, the Pentagon commissioned a review to determine whether the entire AUKUS arrangement is in line with Trump’s “America first” agenda. Its findings are expected later this October, coinciding with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s visit to Washington for his first substantive meeting with Trump.

At stake is more than the fate of a handful of submarines. AUKUS has become emblematic of the U.S.-Australian alliance as a whole, and it is now at risk of being weighed down by unfulfilled expectations on both sides. Whereas Australia wants constant reassurance from the U.S. administration that the agreement is moving ahead as planned, the United States wants firm pledges that any submarines it transfers to Australia will participate in a potential conflict with China. Neither country may be able to offer the other the confidence it seeks. Even if they choose to honor their original agreement, the uncertainty about the future of AUKUS has revealed a larger discrepancy between U.S. and Australian security strategies that the two allies will have to contend with in the years ahead.

Off The Fence

How Russia Recovered

Dara Massicot

The story of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been one of upset expectations and wild swings in performance. At the start of the war, most of NATO saw Russia as an unstoppable behemoth, poised to quickly defeat Ukraine. Instead, Russia’s forces were halted in their tracks and pushed back. Then, outside observers decided the Russian military was rotten, perhaps one counterattack away from collapse. That also proved incorrect—Ukrainian offensives failed, and Moscow resumed its slow advance. Now, plenty of people look beyond Russia to understand the state of the battlefield, blaming Kyiv’s troubles on insufficient external backing instead.

What many policymakers and strategists have missed is the extent to which Moscow has learned from its failures and adapted its strategy and approach to war, in Ukraine and beyond. Beginning in 2022, Russia launched a systematic effort to examine its combat experience, draw lessons from it, and share those lessons across its armed forces. By early 2023, Moscow had quietly constructed a complex ecosystem of learning that includes the defense manufacturing base, universities, and soldiers up and down the chain of command. Today, the military is institutionalizing its knowledge, realigning its defense manufacturers and research organizations to support wartime needs, and pairing tech startups with state resources.

The result has been new tactics on the battlefield—codified in training programs and combat manuals—and better weapons. Moscow has developed fresh ways of using drones to find and kill Ukrainian soldiers and to destroy Ukrainian assets, turning what was once an area of weakness into an area of strength. It has built better missiles and created more rugged and capable armored systems. It is giving junior commanders more freedom to plan. It has become a military that is capable of both evolving during this war and readying itself for future, high-tech conflicts.

Because of these changes, Ukraine is likely to face even greater destruction in the months ahead. It will have to contend with faster and more numerous Russian drone attacks, resulting in more harm to cities, civilians, and critical infrastructure. Larger numbers of missiles will get through Ukraine’s defenses. The ten miles leading up to the frontlines, already very hazardous, will become even more dangerous and difficult to cross. These changes may not produce any dramatic breakthroughs for Russia, thanks to Ukraine’s defenses and extensive drone and artillery attacks. But they do mean Moscow can keep trading its soldiers’ lives for slow gains in the Donbas while hoping that NATO tires of the conflict.

Ukrainian drone crashes into Russian nuclear plant without causing damage

A Ukrainian serviceman with the Safari Unit of the Liut Brigade launches a reconnaissance drone at the frontline in the Donetsk region, Ukraine. File. | Photo Credit: AP

Russia's state nuclear energy company said on Tuesday (October 7, 2025) that a Ukrainian drone had tried to strike a nuclear plant in Russia's Voronezh region, which borders Ukraine.

In a statement, Rosenergoatom said the drone was "suppressed by technical means" and detonated after crashing into a cooling tower at the Novovoronezh plant.

"There was no damage or injuries; however, the detonation left a dark mark on the cooling tower. The safe operation of the nuclear power plant is ensured," the company said, adding that radiation levels were normal and unchanged.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on the alleged incident, which Rosenergoatom described as "another act of aggression by the Ukrainian armed forces against Russian nuclear power plants".

Moscow has previously accused Kyiv of attacking nuclear power stations in the Kursk and Smolensk regions of western Russia.

Ukraine, in turn, has accused Russia of deliberately creating radiation risks at nuclear power stations on Ukrainian territory.

Ukraine’s Sea Drones Are Now Launching Unjammable Fiber-Optic Drones

David Kirichenko

KYIV, UKRAINE - MAY: The chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine (GUR) Kyrylo Budanov (L) is seen during the presentation of "Magura" sea drones in Kyiv, Ukraine on an undisclosed date on May 2025. "Magura" sea drones used to attack and destroy Russian ships in the Black sea, as well as two helicopters and two SU-30 fighters, that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. These drones are one of the first of its kind in the world and Ukraine is one of the leading countries in the world in terms of development and production of various drones, including sea drones. (Photo by Danylo Antoniuk/Anadolu via Getty Images)... MoreAnadolu via Getty Images

A new kind of Ukrainian sea drone may be accelerating the evolution of naval warfare.

Russian footage from last week’s attacks on the port cities of Tuapse and Novorossiysk appears to show a Ukrainian uncrewed surface vessel, essentially a kamikaze boat, carrying multiple fiber-optic first person view drones in hinged compartments along its hull. These are no ordinary FPVs. The fiber-optic connection allows the drones to fly without radio signals, making them immune to electronic jamming, one of the biggest threats in modern drone combat.

The innovation marks the first reported use of fiber-optic drones launched from the sea. Until now, Ukraine had deployed these unjammable drones mainly on land to strike Russian jammers and fortified positions. Mounting them on naval platforms extends their reach far beyond the coastline and turns each boat into a mobile drone carrier.

In December 2024, Ukraine had already hinted at this capability. The Ukrainian Navy released a video showing naval drone carriers launching strike FPV drones from internal bays fitted into Magura-class unmanned sea vehicles. The modified hulls appeared to use hatches that opened at sea, allowing the FPVs to take off while sheltered from saltwater and weather. Those early experiments foreshadowed what Russian footage now shows – sea drones doubling as motherships for precision FPV strikes.

“Given Ukraine’s manpower-limited navy, it has relied on cheap, unmanned systems built to be effective and disposable,” says Gregory Falco, an autonomous systems expert at Cornell University.

Five Questions: Shira Efron on the Future of Israel, Gaza, and Regional Peace

Two years after the October 7 attacks by Hamas and the start of the war in Gaza, the Middle East stands at a crossroads.

Despite the immense challenges facing the region, RAND's Shira Efron sees reason for hope. “The main obstacle is fear and lack of trust,” she said. “While there are ideologue spoilers on both sides, the majority of Israelis and Palestinians want peace, but don't believe the other side wants the same thing. If we can address that, there's a path forward.”

Efron has spent her career at the intersection of research and policy, advising governments and international organizations on the region's most complex issues. In August, she was named the Distinguished RAND Israel Policy Chair. The chair was established by The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation and The Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation. In this new role, Efron draws on two decades of expertise in Israeli and Middle Eastern affairs to expand RAND's research on the region.

How would you describe the current state of the war in Gaza and the broader situation in the Middle East?

On the positive, when Hamas launched its attack on October 7, its intention was to ignite a multi-front attack on Israel—drawing in Hezbollah, Iran, and others—and thankfully, this vision did not materialize. Instead, thanks largely to Israeli actions, Hezbollah is crippled, the Assad regime in Syria is gone, Iran, as it turns out, is not 10 feet tall, and its network of proxies has substantially weakened. For the first time in decades, Lebanon and Syria have a chance of rebuilding.

In Gaza, there have also been major military achievements, with Hamas no longer being the terror army it once was, nor a governing authority, let alone an actor that can pose an October 7–like threat again. Despite these gains, Israel continues to pursue an elusive objective of “total victory,” with no clear strategy for achieving it. The continuation of the war—which the vast majority of Israelis and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) leaders oppose—jeopardizes these military successes. It pushes Israel further into global isolation, it pushes away Israel's European and Arab partners, and it makes it harder for countries in the region to focus on cross-border challenges and to partner on weakening radical forces.

Total Victory in Gaza Is a Delusion

SHLOMO BEN-AMI

TEL AVIV – October 7, 2023, is a date that will forever haunt Israel. The events of that day were grisly: Hamas carried out a vile attack on Israel, killing some 1,200 Israelis and taking another 251 hostage. But Hamas’s attack soon led to far greater atrocities, with Israel’s retaliation against Hamas devolving into a prolonged war of unimaginable savagery in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu started the war in Gaza without any realistic vision of how to end it. His chief concern was protecting his fragile coalition government – which depends on the support of far-right religious zealots – and shielding himself from being tried on corruption charges. So, while Israeli troops reduced Gaza’s cities to rubble, Netanyahu also launched an all-out assault on Israel’s laws and institutions, all in the name of achieving “total victory” over Hamas – which, from the Netanyahu government’s perspective, appears to be synonymous with Palestine.

Two years later, Israel can hardly be considered victorious. At least 60,000 Palestinians are dead, with even the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) admitting that 53,000 had died as of May, and those who remain in Gaza are enduring a severe and escalating humanitarian crisis, which has drawn increasingly sharp condemnation from a growing share of the international community. Meanwhile, Israeli society is deeply fractured, and the underpinnings of its democracy have been shattered, perhaps irreparably.

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NO STUDENT OF HISTORY

Examining Thresholds in an East-West War

Shawn P. Creamer

The world has not witnessed a great power general war in nearly 80 years, and for most of the last 35 years, the prospect of such a war has been considered remote by most government officials. Today, however, there is a growing unease over the trajectory of global peace and security. A broad consensus is emerging in the United States and among other free world capitals that the revisionist ambitions of autocratic states—China, Russia, North Korea, a weakened but still dangerous Iran, Pakistan, and others—through their armament programs, coercive diplomacy, and aggression, may eventually compel Western powers, including Western-aligned Asian states such as Japan and South Korea, into a large-scale war.

The next National Defense Strategy must acknowledge the existential nature of this threat and commit to the aggressive rearmament of American military power—both qualitatively and quantitatively—to deter, and if necessary, win a multi-theater large-scale war against one or more of the authoritarian powers. This will require more than marginal force adjustments; it demands a systemic shift in U.S. defense posture, planning assumptions, strategic priorities, and allied interoperability.

Reciprocal Limits and the East-West Divide

Time will tell whether the free world’s rhetoric on rearmament and preparedness translates into a resurrection of Western military power. Regardless of how far the West progresses in rearmament and in reestablishing deterrence, the United States and its allies must revisit and modernize their thinking on thresholds in warfare. All wars, even the most violent and brutish, contain some reciprocal firebreaks, limits, or restraints on belligerent behavior. For example, all major powers during World War II refrained from using poison gas on the battlefield, despite its widespread use in World War I.

While some thresholds in warfare are broadly respected, others are unevenly observed or rejected by non-Western states. Examples of such uneven application include differing interpretations of Western-centric international humanitarian law jus ad bellum principles—such as initiating hostilities prior to a formal declaration of war and the employment of proxy forces, or jus in bello principles—including the treatment of prisoners and the subordination of collateral damage concerns in warfare. These inconsistencies are not exclusive to East-West conflicts; however, the divergence between Western values-based thresholds and the belief systems of Eastern powers is a matter of fact.

EU's von der Leyen urges response to hybrid warfare threats

Dmytro Hubenko

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday that Europe must strengthen its defenses to deter "hybrid warfare" following a series of air incursions, cyberattacks, and undersea cable damage.

"These incidents are calculated to linger in the twilight of deniability. This is not random harassment," she said in a speech at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. "It is a coherent and escalating campaign to unsettle our citizens, test our resolve, divide our union, and weaken our support for Ukraine."

The head of the European Commission said the time had come to call this campaign by its name, stating that it is "hybrid warfare."

"Two incidents are coincidence, but three, five, 10 — this is a deliberate and targeted grey zone campaign against Europe, and Europe must respond," von der Leyen stressed.

Although she did not say Russia was responsible for all the incidents, she did say that it was clear Russia's aim was to "sow division" in Europe. Some of the recent incidents have already been attributed to Moscow by European officials.

Russia, Europe and drones — a new hybrid war?

Russian air incursions menace the EU

Poland, Estonia and Romania have recently experienced unsettling Russian air incursions, while unidentified drones have been seen in Denmark, Germany, and Belgium.

Now, the European Union is seeking to hammer out plans for joint projects that the 27-nation bloc could build, including a "wall" of anti-drone defenses. The European Commission is preparing a plan to help Europe confront such challenges by 2030.

At a summit in Brussels later this month, EU leaders will attempt to agree on a "road map" aimed at preparing the bloc to fend off Russian threats in the coming years. EU officials believe Russia could attack another European country within the next three to five years.

I disabled this setting on Windows and my old laptop instantly felt faster

Pankil Shah

I was about ready to give up on my old laptop that I used sparingly. It took ages to start, opening the browser felt like a test of patience, and even typing had a slight delay. Now, there’s no shortage of ways to make old laptops run like new, but if you asked me for the single tweak that made the biggest difference, it’s this one: forcing Windows to prioritize speed over looks.

It sounds simple, almost too simple, but switching off the visual fluff hiding under Windows’ hood instantly gave my old machine a second wind. The menus snapped open, apps launched faster, and the system felt lighter overall. It wasn’t magic; it was just Windows finally focusing on performance instead of appearances.

The hidden setting that slows your PC down

Most people never change this, but it makes a big difference

By default, Windows is configured to prioritize beauty over speed. You may not have realized it, but your Windows PC is full of animations, shadows, and transparency effects that are easy to miss. These include the smooth fade when you minimize or open a window, the subtle blur behind menus, the sliding motion of tooltips, and the drop shadows under desktop icons and text.

These touches make the desktop feel modern and polished, but they come with a small performance cost. Each visual flourish requires your computer to do extra work—rendering transitions, simulating transparency, and managing visual layers that don't really contribute to getting things done. Over time, these small tasks can add up, especially on older or less powerful machines.

The irony is that these effects are meant to make the system feel smoother and more responsive, yet on older hardware, they do the exact opposite. The impact becomes even more obvious on aging laptops and budget desktops. You click the Start menu and wait a half-second for the animation to play. You minimize a window, and there’s a tiny pause before it disappears. Open File Explorer, and you might even notice a faint stutter as the interface glides into view.

Responding to Secretary Hegseth's Speech to Senior Military Leaders

Larry Purdy

To listen to some of the critics of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s September 30, 2025, speech to our military’s senior leadership, it is clear many of these critics willfully ignore or, worse, may have been contributors to the problems Hegseth was addressing. More fundamentally, they misunderstood the breadth of Hegseth’s target audience. As distinguished military historian Victor Davis Hanson observed, Pete Hegseth is “socially [and] culturally . . . trying to associate with the rank-and-file,” i.e., the younger officers and junior enlisted personnel who inevitably will be on the front lines defending our Nation in future conflicts.

Few in today’s military fail to recognize that the Biden administration bequeathed President Trump a U.S. military that (again, to quote Professor Hanson) was “far weaker, suffering from munitions shortages, massive recruitment shortfalls, DEI mandates, and dwindling public confidence.” These destructive outcomes were aided and abetted by far too many senior military personnel who occupied offices in the Pentagon over the past two decades, including several past Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It goes without saying that many of these DEI-obsessed individuals were sitting in the beribboned audience in Quantico on September 30. In fact, it is undeniable that among those present were dozens of senior military personnel who, during the previous Biden administration, had a hand in aggressively promoting DEI and other race and gender-based policies which led directly to the weakened military Trump inherited when he took office in early 2025. In response, President Trump immediately addressed these weaknesses in various Executive Orders. The first, issued on the very first day of the Trump administration, was Executive Order No. 14151. It reads in pertinent part as follows:

Section 1. Purpose and Policy. The Biden Administration forced illegal and immoral discrimination programs, going by the name "diversity, equity, and inclusion" (DEI), into virtually all aspects of the Federal Government, . . . [including in our] military.

This same Executive Order went on to note that this “shameful discrimination . . . ends today.”

In that context, shortly after Secretary Hegseth was confirmed, he issued a Memorandum addressed to Senior Pentagon Leadership as well as to the Commanders of all the Combatant Commands. Included therein are these simple words:

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