India supplying Philippines the missiles it needs to fend off China

Nguyen Thanh Long

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The Philippines points its India-supplied BrahMos missiles at China. Image: X Screengrab

The Re-Horizon 3 Program, approved in 2024 with a nearly 2-trillion-peso (US$34.5 billion) budget, focuses on strengthening the Philippines’ archipelagic defense system. Its acquisition list includes submarines, fighter aircraft, patrol vessels, destroyers, corvettes and, crucially, missile systems.

While the US, South Korea, Japan and France are arguably at the forefront of supplying submarines, patrol vessels and aircraft, Manila is turning to India for modern missiles, aimed chiefly at deterring China in the South China Sea.

In early August 2025, India and the Philippines elevated their bilateral ties to “strategic partnership.” The move is part of Manila’s broader strategy to avoid overreliance on the United States and to diversify its security partnerships.

Closer defense ties with India will allow the Philippines to enhance its limited defense capabilities through Indian advanced weapons, reduce dependence on any single supplier and build a lasting engagement with New Delhi as a trusted and supportive partner.

General Romeo Brawner Jr, chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), has publicly stated that the Philippines plans to acquire more weapons from India, noting that Indian arms are of “high quality but not expensive” as those from other suppliers.

India’s willingness to offer soft loans for Manila’s defense procurements adds to its appeal. India is also well-positioned to support the Philippines’ indigenous defense industry’s development through experience-sharing and potential technology transfers.

“It Could Drown a Continent”: China Approves World’s Largest Hydroelectric Dam in Tibet (and India Is Sounding the Alarm)

Eirwen Williams

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China’s ambitious venture into renewable energy has reached a significant milestone with the approval of the world’s largest hydroelectric dam complex. This project, located on the Yarlung Zangbo River in Tibet, promises to surpass the capacity of the current record-holder, the Three Gorges Dam. With an estimated cost of $137 billion, the dam is part of China’s 14th “Five-Year Plan,” which aims to accelerate renewable energy production and combat pollution. The proposed site’s unique geography could enable the generation of up to 300 billion kilowatt-hours annually, potentially serving 300 million people. However, this massive project raises concerns both locally and internationally.

Understanding the Scale of the Project

The proposed Yarlung Tsangpo Hydroelectric Project is set to outpace existing hydroelectric capacities significantly. The current world leader, the Three Gorges Dam, generates between 95 and 112 terawatt-hours (TWh) annually. In stark contrast, the new Tibetan dam aims for a staggering 300 TWh, nearly tripling the output of its predecessor. To put this into perspective, the largest hydroelectric facility in the United States, the Grand Coulee Dam, produces about 20 TWh per year. Meanwhile, the iconic Hoover Dam generates a mere 4.2 TWh. This new project exemplifies China’s commitment to scaling up its renewable energy resources to unprecedented levels.

The Yarlung Zangbo River, pivotal to the project, is one of the highest rivers globally, originating from the Angsi Glacier in Tibet. This river’s steep descent makes it an ideal candidate for generating immense hydropower. The region’s dramatic drop, especially near the Namcha Barwa mountain, presents a promising opportunity for constructing a hydroelectric power station. Despite the technical challenges, the potential energy output justifies the ambitious scale of this endeavor.

Hezbollah’s Information Warfare in the Post-October 7 Era

Pierre-Yves Baillet 

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In southern Lebanon, amid escalating tensions since the October 7 Hamas attack and Israel’s subsequent “Northern Arrow” military operation, Hezbollah has urgently reshaped its information warfare doctrine. Formerly a dominant political actor in Lebanon, the Shiite organization has seen its digital capabilities crippled and its propaganda networks disrupted as its political influence and combat power have waned. Now facing pressure on multiple fronts, including an intensive psychological and cyber campaign from Israel, Hezbollah’s cyber-combatants are pursuing a determined effort to modernize: leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI), foreign alliances, and digital influence campaigns to regain control of the narrative in a war that is increasingly fought online as much as on the battlefield.

Hezbollah’s Pre-October 7 Strategy

In the years prior to the October 7 attacks, Hezbollah developed a sophisticated information strategy based on several pillars, including mastery of traditional media, extensive use of social networks, and psychological warfare. This was illustrated by testimonial from one information fighter of the party, who explained:

“We had a strategy, more precisely: a work plan and guidelines. Our main mission was to monitor different social media platforms and wage war against any account opposing the resistance, regardless of who operated it or where it was based.”

Before October 7, the Shiite organization could rightly boast of being the leading cyber power in Lebanon, with a primary tactic of spreading false information on social media. “Our main target has always been platforms like X (Twitter) and Facebook,” said one operative. Indeed, Hezbollah uses social media platforms as part of its communication and propaganda strategy. The group has also employed Facebook to support operations: Hezbollah operatives posed as women on the platform to lure targets into installing malicious applications, thereby enabling surveillance or control of their devices. The same fighter added that “We had numerous software tools and thousands of accounts allowing us to dominate counter-propaganda against the resistance and maintain control over X […]. We also had software that enabled us to hack vulnerable accounts on Facebook and X.”

Fierce Fighting, High Number Of Casualties Reported Along Pakistan-Afghanistan Border

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Fierce fighting broke out in several locations on the Afghan-Pakistani border overnight, killing and wounding a large number of soldiers from both sides and prompting Islamabad to close two major border crossings, officials in the two countries said on October 12.

The Pakistani military claimed that its forces killed more than 200 Afghan soldiers, adding that the number of wounded from the Afghan side was “much higher.”

The military said in a statement that 23 Pakistani soldiers were killed, and 29 others were wounded in the latest flare-up of violence between the two countries.

In Kabul, Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesperson for the Taliban-led government, claimed that at least 58 Pakistani soldiers were killed and about 30 others were wounded in the exchange of fire.

Mujahid said in a press conference that nine Afghan soldiers were also killed and about 18 others injured in the clashes that erupted late on October 11.

Both sides accused each other of stirring violence, while describing their own operations as retaliatory actions.

The Pakistani army statement said the “Afghan Taliban” launched an “unprovoked attack on Pakistan,” prompting Islamabad to “repel the assault” to defend itself.

The army claimed that groups sponsored by India, Pakistan’s regional rival, supported the Taliban forces in the clashes.

The military said Pakistan has “noted with concern” that the latest violence coincided with a trip to New Delhi by Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi starting on October 9. Muttaqi is expected to be in India for a week of talks.

Pakistani army said several Taliban border posts had been destroyed inside Afghanistan during its attacks. The Taliban said it captured more than 20 Pakistani military posts. The claims cannot be independently verified.

The sudden risk of a broader South Asian war

Mazhar Siddique Khan

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Afghanistan and Pakistan are engaged in a border war. Image: YouTube screengrab

When Afghan Taliban forces opened unprovoked fire across Pakistan’s western border this weekend—from Angoor Adda to Chitral and Baramcha—it was not an isolated act of frontier aggression.

It was a geopolitical tremor, one that could reshape the delicate balance of power across South Asia. Pakistan’s military said 23 of its soldiers were killed by Afghan forces, while at least 29 were injured. An Associated Press report put that figure higher, with an Afghan spokesman claiming 58 Pakistani soldiers were killed in the exchanges.

Pakistan said “credible intelligence estimates and damage assessment” showed its military killed more than 200 members of the Afghan Taliban regime and militants. The armed border exchanges came days after Kabul accused Islamabad of launching airstrikes inside Afghan territory.

For Pakistan, the skirmish was not merely a border violation; it was a strategic message from a volatile neighbor whose ideological proximity has not translated into political restraint.

The timing of the assault could hardly be more telling. It came as Afghanistan’s acting foreign minister was visiting India, underscoring the suspicions in Islamabad that Kabul’s latest belligerence may be part of a broader recalibration.

For Pakistan, which has spent decades advocating an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process, this betrayal is as strategic as it is symbolic. The Taliban, once viewed by many in Pakistan as a manageable neighbor, now appear determined to assert their autonomy—by force if necessary.

New geopolitical reality

This attack has thrust South Asia into a dangerous new phase. The Taliban’s actions signal a willingness to test Pakistan’s resolve, perhaps as a bid to consolidate internal legitimacy amid economic collapse and international isolation. But the broader implications extend far beyond Kabul and Islamabad.

Chinese hackers are targeting WFH employees

Michael Read

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Chinese hackers are exploiting the rise of remote work by hijacking employees’ home routers and smart devices to breach corporate systems and create a sprawling network of infected gadgets.

The Australian Signals Directorate on Tuesday warned that state-sponsored cyber actors posed a serious threat to the nation, as it revealed the average loss per cybercrime against big business more than tripled to $202,700 in 2024-25.

State-sponsored Chinese hackers who compromise home Wi-Fi routers can then get inside other devices and potentially infiltrate corporate networks. Tim Beor

“State-sponsored cyber actors have also compromised home devices connected to the internet, such as home routers, to create botnets that support further targeting around the globe,” ASD said in its annual cyber threat report for 2024-25.

ASD’s Australian Cyber Security Centre responded to 1200 incidents in 2024-25. The figure was an 11 per cent increase from the previous year and included two attacks classified as an extensive compromise of either an unnamed federal government agency or a piece of critical infrastructure.

ASD warned that Chinese-linked hackers were increasingly targeting so-called “edge devices” like home internet routers, VPNs and firewalls to gain access to other connected devices like smart appliances, phones, consoles and computers.

Edge devices connect to a private network, such as at home or work, through an untrusted network like the internet.

“Edge devices are attractive targets for malicious cyber actors because internet-facing vulnerabilities in edge devices are common, and they are often difficult for network owners to monitor or configure securely,” ASD said.

“These vulnerabilities provide malicious cyber actors with a great chance of successfully compromising a network.

How China waged an infowar against U.S. interests in the Philippines

Poppy McPherson and Karen Lema

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MANILA, Oct 6 (Reuters) - As Chinese ships fired water cannons at Philippine vessels in the South China Sea in November 2021, Beijing's then-ambassador to Manila asked Filipinos on Facebook to share their favorite things about China.

Among the hundreds of gushing responses were three from a young man named “Vince Dimaano.”

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His comments - like many responding to the Chinese embassy’s posts - weren’t genuine. They came from fake accounts paid for by the diplomatic mission, according to internal documents from a Manila-based marketing agency.

The firm, InfinitUs Marketing Solutions, waged a cyber campaign paid for by China to weaken support for Philippine government policy and to sow discord over Manila’s security alliance with the United States, according to a review of the documents and the fake Facebook (META.O), opens new tab accounts, as well as interviews with two former company employees and two Philippine officials.

The Chinese-owned company also used the fake profiles to amplify anti-American content created by Filipino writers, including some who had received money from Beijing, Reuters found.

InfinitUs and its owner Paul Li did not respond to questions. The company has previously denied any involvement with “illicit digital activity.”

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told Reuters that Beijing doesn’t interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. Allegations of Chinese influence campaigns made by some Filipino politicians “have failed and instead have backfired,” the spokesperson said.

The explosion of social media has turbocharged influence operations in the Philippines , according to Jonathan Malaya, until recently a senior official with the Philippine National Security Council. Manila is of increasing strategic importance to Washington and Beijing due to its proximity to Taiwan. China’s leaders have asked their military to be ready to seize the democratically governed island by 2027.

China issues bounty for Taiwan PsyOps unit for 'separatism'

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BEIJING/TAIPEI, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Chinese police on Saturday offered rewards of $1,400 for information about 18 people it said were Taiwanese military psychological operations officers spreading "separatist" messages, a day after Taiwan pledged to boost its defences.

China views democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory, over the strong objections of the government in Taipei, and has increased its military and political pressure against the island.

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The public security bureau in the Chinese city of Xiamen, which sits opposite Taiwan on the other side of the Taiwan Strait, said the 18 were core members of Taiwan military's "psychological warfare unit", and published their pictures, names and Taiwan identity card numbers.

The unit handles tasks such as disinformation, intelligence gathering, psychological warfare and the broadcast of propaganda, the security bureau said in a statement.

"For a long time they plotted to incite separatist activities," the bureau said, adding there would be rewards of up to 10,000 yuan ($1,401.74) for tips leading to their arrest.

They launched websites for smear campaigns, created seditious games to incite secession, produced fake video content to mislead people, operated illegal radios for "infiltration", and manipulated public opinion with resources from "external forces", the state Xinhua news agency said in a separate report.

Taiwan's defence ministry said the accusations reflected the "despotic and pig-headed thinking of an authoritarian regime ... trying to divide our people, belittle our government, and conduct cognitive warfare."

China has repeatedly issued such reports that "exploit the free flow of information in our democratic society to piece together and fabricate personal data," the ministry said.

Beijing blames US for raising trade tensions, defends rare earth curbs

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BEIJING: China called US President Donald Trump's latest tariffs on Chinese goods hypocritical on Sunday (Oct 12) and defended its curbs on exports of rare earth elements and equipment, but stopped short of imposing new levies on US products.

Trump on Friday responded to Beijing's most recent export controls by imposing additional tariffs of 100 per cent on China's US-bound exports, along with new export controls on critical software by Nov 1.

The revived trade tensions have rattled Wall Street, sending Big Tech shares tumbling, worried foreign companies dependent on China's production of processed rare earths and rare earth magnets, and could derail a summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping tentatively scheduled for later this month.

RESPONDING TO TRUMP

The Chinese commerce ministry's statement on Sunday was Beijing's first direct response to Trump's lengthy Truth Social post on Friday, where he accused Beijing of suddenly raising trade tensions after an uneasy truce was reached six months ago between the world's two largest economies, allowing them to trade goods without sky-high tariff rates.

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"Our relationship with China over the past six months has been a very good one, thereby making this move on Trade an even more surprising one," Trump said.

The commerce ministry said in an equally lengthy statement that its export controls on rare-earth elements followed a series of US measures since bilateral trade talks in Madrid last month.

Beijing cited the addition of Chinese companies to a US trade blacklist and Washington's imposition of port fees on China-linked ships as examples.

China honing abilities for a possible future attack, Taiwan defence report warns

Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard

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TAIPEI, Oct 9 (Reuters) - China is increasing military activities near Taiwan and honing its ability to stage a surprise attack, as well as seeking to undermine trust in the government with "hybrid" online warfare tactics, the island's defence ministry said on Thursday.

Democratically-governed Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, has faced increased military pressure from Beijing over the past five years, including at least seven rounds of major war games around the island since 2022.

"The Chinese communists have adopted routine grey zone harassment tactics, combined with joint combat readiness patrols, targeted military exercises and cognitive warfare, posing a comprehensive threat to us," the defence ministry said in a report released every two years.

Grey zone refers to non-combat operations designed to put pressure on Taiwan such as coast guard patrols, damage to undersea cables and flying balloons.

China's coast guard is expanding its activities around Taiwan and may in future take "aggressive containment measures" in concert with the military while rehearsing attack scenarios, the report said.

SHIFTING A DRILL TO AN ATTACK

Beijing is also using "hybrid warfare" to weaken people's trust in the government and support for defence spending, and using artificial intelligence tools to weaken Taiwan's cybersecurity and to scan for weak points in critical infrastructure, it added.

"Through both conventional and unconventional military actions, it aims to test its capabilities for attacking Taiwan and confronting foreign forces," the ministry said.

China's defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment. China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control.

The Sneaky Reason China Wants a Big Fleet of Aircraft Carriers

Andrew Latham

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Key Points and Summary – U.S. and Chinese aircraft carriers are evolving for fundamentally different roles, not as mirror images.

-China’s carriers are “mobile nodes” designed to operate under the protective “umbrella” of their land-based missile and sensor networks, thickening their anti-access bubble in their near seas.

Pacific Ocean, July 25, 2005 – USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) performs a high speed run during operations in the Pacifc Ocean. Ronald Reagan and Carrier Air Wing One Four (CVW-14) are currently underway conducting Tailored Ships Training Availability (TSTA). Official US Navy Photo by Photographers Mate 1st Class James Thierry. (RELEASED)

-In contrast, America’s Ford-class carriers are becoming “roaming nerve centers” for distributed warfare.

-Operating from safer distances, their air wings act as quarterbacks, finding targets and cueing strikes from other ships, submarines, and allies, thereby managing a theater-wide battle network.

China and the U.S. Are Building Aircraft Carriers for Two Completely Different Wars

With hypersonic and ballistic anti-ship missiles, persistent multi-sensor nets, subsurface and undersea threats, and electronic disruption saturating the maritime battlespace, both China and the United States are reassessing the role of the aircraft carrier in their naval strategies.

China has adjusted to this new ecosystem by turning its flattops into floating nodes in an anti-access umbrella rather than self-contained mobile strike platforms.

The United States is adapting by reimagining carriers as roaming nerve centers of distributed kill chains at range: emphasizing endurance, hard-to-target networking, deception and magazine management while cueing third-party shooters and keeping big decks outside the densest threat rings until the fight can be shaped.

Ukraine Is Hitting Russia Where It Hurts: Its Oil Refineries

Keith Johnson

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Since August, Ukraine has gone after Russian oil facilities with a vengeance. Kyiv has been sporadically targeting refineries and depots for the better part of two years, but thanks to the proliferation of small, cheap drones, and some bigger ones, and perhaps even a homegrown cruise missile, Ukraine is now absolutely hammering Russia’s far-flung oil installations.

Encouraging Signs on the Strategic Minerals Front

Grant Anderson

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The Department of Interior has recently released their 2025 draft list of minerals deemed most vital to American national interests, the economy, and our defense. The list is accompanied with a report containing a new methodological model determining how mineral supply chain complications affect our national interests and thus, why the selected minerals are on the list. Minerals include everything from gold, aluminum and antimony to germanium, tin, and zinc. In addition, potash, silicon, copper, silver, rhenium, and lead have all been recommended for the 2025 update.

Upon the draft list’s release, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum stated that, “President Trump has made clear that strengthening America’s economic and national security means securing the resources that fuel our way of life. This draft List of Critical Minerals provides a clear, science-based roadmap to reduce our dependence on foreign adversaries, expand domestic production and unleash American innovation.”

Sarah Ryker, acting director of the U.S. Geological Survey added that, “Minerals-based industries contributed over $4 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2024, and with this methodology we can pinpoint which industries may feel the greatest impacts of supply disruptions and understand where strategic domestic investments or international trade relationships may help mitigate risk to individual supply chains. This is a next generation, forward-looking, risk assessment that can be used to prioritize securing the nation’s mineral supply chains.”

This release follows on other recent moves by the Trump Administration focused on the value of key minerals. In July, it was announced that the Dept. of Defense had entered a public-private partnership with Rare Earth Element (REE) processor MP Materials – the only U.S. domestic rare earth element mining company currently in operation. This particular deal was established with the aim of assuring an accessible, ready, and home-based supply of REEs, which are becoming increasingly important to our national security and defense requirements. With growing concerns about our ability to source REEs from competitor nations like China or dicey parts of the world (this is an issue that I’ve commented on in the past) the imperative to rebuild our own production capability is beyond clear.

How Europe Can Defend Itself with Less America

Max Bergmann and Otto Svendsen

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With the war in Ukraine and a potential reduction of U.S. military presence in Europe on the horizon, there is a renewed imperative for European leaders to strengthen and integrate their defense capabilities. How Europe Can Defend Itself with Less America examines the military gaps that would be created by a significant reduction of the U.S. military footprint in Europe. The report outlines five key tasks Europeans should undertake to address these gaps and deter further Russian aggression: creating a pan-European force, integrating weapons procurement, expanding stockpiles, mitigating dependence on U.S. enablers, and building redundancy in command structures.

The Existential Heroism of the Israeli Hostages

Franklin Foer

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In Eli Sharabi’s first hours of freedom earlier this year, a social worker led him to a room stocked with shampoo, toothpaste, and soap. In Gaza’s tunnels, he had gone months without bathing; now he could scrub off the grime of captivity. He had sustained himself through his 491 days as a hostage by picturing the moment when he would rush into the arms of his wife and daughters. But the tunnels had sealed him off from the world. Standing in daylight, he learned that Hamas had murdered his loved ones in their home’s safe room on October 7. The social worker hovered as he showered and changed, to protect Sharabi from himself.

Today, the last of the living Israeli hostages were liberated after more than two years—and their release has liberated the Israeli psyche from its fretful obsession with their fate. Having invested themselves so deeply in the hostages’ story, Israelis greeted the moment as an ecstatic conclusion that helps justify the terrible toll of their nation’s longest war.

The hostages’ release is, indeed, an epochal moment, one that may not end the war in Gaza but will certainly redirect its course. I, however, find myself thinking more about the intimate details of what the hostages have experienced. I filter the possibilities not just through Sharabi’s recollections, which ultimately tell a story of extreme perseverance, but also through what I know about my own grandfather, who escaped death during the Holocaust by hiding in barns and forests. Although he tasted the sweet fruits of survival—marriage, children, a new life on a new continent—his mind always doubled back to what he lost. The Nazis murdered his first wife and daughter. Survival was torment, and he ultimately lost the will to live. He killed himself in the grocery store that he owned in Washington, D.C.

How does a human being survive two years of torment? And how do they make sense of their life once they resume? Within months of his release, Eli Sharabi summoned the courage to ask these questions of himself in a short book, Hostage. The manager of a kibbutz roughly two miles from Gaza, Sharabi was dragged from his home, away from his English-born wife and his daughters, ages 16 and 13. “A sea of people who start thumping my head, screaming, trying to rip me limb from limb,” he remembers.

Arriving in Gaza, his captors first confined him to a home belonging to a family, where children did homework and women cooked as Hamas operatives watched over him and a Thai worker, also kidnapped on October 7. During this initial chapter, they were fed well and sometimes even able to feel the Mediterranean breeze through an open window.

Putin Is Losing the Ukraine War: Escalation Is Coming

Reuben Johnson

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Key Points and Summary – Vladimir Putin is losing the war in Ukraine; the West must prepare for escalation. Russia’s recent summer offensive failed militarily, resulting in massive casualties for little gain.

-More critically, Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes are crippling Russia’s economy by taking a huge portion of its oil refining capacity offline, leading to domestic fuel rationing and falling revenues.

-With Putin’s back against the wall, the only way to force a negotiation is for the West to demonstrate unwavering military and financial support for Ukraine, making the war unwinnable for Moscow.

The Ukraine War Could Soon Go From Bad to Worse

WARSAW, POLAND – A combination of falling oil prices and Ukraine’s increasingly technological advantages in conducting long-range strikes on Russia’s oil industry has become the greatest threat to the continued rule of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The former KGB Lt. Col. “has his back against the wall. He is losing the economic war faster than he is gaining any military advantage in Ukraine,” writes long-time foreign policy analyst Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Friday’s edition of the London Daily Telegraph.

“Putin is losing the war, so prepare for escalation”, reads the title of his most recent assessment. The summer offensive that Moscow was sure would result in a dramatic change in the situation on the battlefield did not achieve the Kremlin’s outcome. Putin’s military suffered some 800 casualties a day and ended up with little on the ground to show for it.

Russia also failed in its primary strategic objective: to break Ukraine’s fortress belt—a chain of well-defended cities and fortifications in the Donetsk region of the Donbas. The attempt to turn the tide of the war in Moscow’s direction fell well short of expectations.

“Russians are still harassing us and hunting civilians with drones, which is a horrible practice, but they are not achieving any strategic goal,” said Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Ukraine’s former defense minister, in an address to the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London.

Why Gradualism Can Help in Gaza

Amr Hamzawy

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As Western and international leaders take stock of the cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas that was signed in Egypt on October 9, many have raised doubts about the deal’s phased structure. According to the 20-point plan announced by U.S. President Donald Trump, the initial stage that is now unfolding calls only for a partial or limited Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas. The deeper issues, including questions over the postwar governance of Gaza and the stabilization force that will provide security in the territory, have been relegated to subsequent phases. To critics, the fact that these crucial issues have not been fully addressed at the outset suggests that the plan is bound to fail.

But the Trump plan’s gradualism is hardly novel in the context of crisis diplomacy in the Middle East. On the contrary, a phased approach, addressing the challenges of both immediate de-escalation and long-term transitional management, has for decades been the most viable strategy to ending conflicts in the region. Indeed, for more than 75 years, many of the most crucial peace agreements, including the armistice that ended the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty of 1979, have depended on such a structure. In both of these cases, preliminary agreements were followed by implementation phases, which required international or regional sponsorship to mobilize the political and technical tools needed to ensure compliance.

A close study of these historical examples shows that under the right conditions, phased agreements can not only withstand difficult challenges but also provide the incremental trust building and opportunities for negotiation that are necessary for more durable arrangements to take hold. The real challenge for the Trump plan, then, is not its phased structure. Rather, the overriding question is whether Washington and its international and regional partners can ensure that the necessary mechanisms, incentives, and penalties are in place to allow the subsequent steps the plan calls for to succeed.

LIMITED AIMS, GREATER DURABILITY

Backpack drones with lasers are taking a critical job from multimillion-dollar aircraft and protecting pilots in the process

Sinéad Baker 

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A US drone maker demonstrated using its drone with lasers to guide an F-35's munitions.

PDW said using its C100, which can fit in a backpack, keeps soldiers and aircraft safer.

Using the drone means an F-35 can stay higher and safer, and needs fewer supporting aircraft.

A US drone maker says it's found a way to make front-line soldiers and fighter jets safer. It's letting backpack-sized drones do the dangerous job of painting targets with lasers.

Performance Drone Works, or PDW, demonstrated to the Pentagon in July that its compact C100 drone can mark targets for strike fighters, doing a task traditionally done by exposed troops or multimillion-dollar aircraft.

A senior company official told Business Insider that the military, which is already buying the C100, can "buy down risk" to aircraft, soldiers, and missions. PDW has received multiple contracts from the Army for its C100 drones and multi-mission payloads.

"In the past, it was the soldier relying on the Air Force to use laser target designation, or much larger drones like the MQ-9 Reaper, to do literally the same thing," Raymond DePouli, PDW's director of strategic accounts, said. In other cases, troops on the ground might have to execute the task.

Soldiers can pull the drone out of their rucksack and have it operational in under five minutes, and the benefit of using a drone over a human being is that it can be flown from a concealed position far from the target to limit exposure and risk.

Systems like expensive aircraft "are going to be put in harm's way," DePouli said. The goal is to "reduce risk to the user so they can achieve their objectives."

Using small drones equipped with lasers to designate targets for other weapons, including aircraft, is something Ukraine is doing as it battles Russia, and it is something the US military has been experimenting with as it prepares for future fights.

Saving expensive aircraft

A Test Now for Israel: Can It Repair Its Ties to Americans?

David M. Halbfinger

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The war in Gaza may finally be ending, after two years of bloodshed and destruction. But among the damage that has been done is a series of devastating blows to Israel’s relationship with the citizens of its most important and most stalwart ally, the United States.

Israel’s reputation in the United States is in tatters, and not only on college campuses or among progressives. For the first time since it began asking Americans about their sympathies in 1998, a New York Times poll last month found that slightly more voters sided with the Palestinians than with Israelis.

American Jews, long Israel’s strongest domestic backers, have turned sharply critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government over the Gaza conflict. A majority believe Israel has committed war crimes as it has killed tens of thousands of civilians and restricted food aid, and four in 10 believe it is guilty of genocide, a new Washington Post survey found — a charge Israel denies. The shift has created new incentives for even moderate Democrats in Congress to get tough on Israel, including by curtailing U.S. military aid.

The damage is also increasingly bipartisan. Despite Republican efforts to identify their party with Israel and to tag Democrats as providing aid and comfort to its enemies, younger evangelical Christians are breaking with their parents on the issue, seeing Israel as an oppressor rather than as a victim. And the breakup extends beyond evangelicals.

“Everybody under 30 is against Israel,” the conservative commentator Megyn Kelly offhandedly told Tucker Carlson on his podcast last month.

The question is whether those younger Americans will be lost to Israel long-term — and what Israel’s advocates will do to try to reverse that.

The Laws of Armed Conflict: A Norm and Standard US Armed Forces Must Follow

JURIST Staff

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The author, a former UN war crimes prosecutor and current professor of US National Security Law, argues that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's call to "unleash overwhelming and punishing violence" without "politically correct rules of engagement" represents a dangerous abandonment of the Laws of Armed Conflict that could expose American service members to war crimes prosecution, undermine troop morale, alienate allies, and ultimately lead to long-term strategic failure despite any short-term tactical gains...

“We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, the military will “kill people and break things for a living.”

-Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense*

In a world where the nature of warfare is increasingly complex, the words of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth provoke both concern and reflection. His declaration that the military will “unleash overwhelming and punishing violence” and “kill people and break things for a living” signals a stark departure from established norms governing warfare, particularly those enshrined in the Laws of Armed Conflict (LOAC). As tempting as it may be to simplify combat to brute force, doing so undermines not only the moral fabric of our military strategy, but also the very principles that protect our servicemen and women, as well as innocent civilians caught in harm’s way.

With these words the Secretary of Defense sent a dangerous signal to senior commanders that they aren’t bound by the rules of war. It must be noted that the Secretary of Defense is part of the National Command Authority and is liable for any and all violations of the LOAC committed by US Armed Forces as well as by President Trump as Commander in Chief. Individual criminal responsibility attaches to the chain of command of units who violate international law to include the President and his Secretary of Defense.

Ignoring the LOAC can have dire consequences, not just for global stability but also for the individuals who serve in our armed forces. One of the most immediate dangers is that such an approach opens the door to allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The principles of the LOAC—military necessity, unnecessary suffering, discrimination, and proportionality—exist to protect not only the rights of affected populations but also the integrity of those who engage in armed conflict. When these principles are cast aside, the implications for US Armed Forces are profound.

Down but Not Out? Russia’s Future Military Capacity in the Shadow of its War on Ukraine

Diego Ruiz Palmer

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Key issuesRussia’s failures are real but not final and while its army is battered, it is still able to mass-produce weapons and endure losses;

A dangerous mix persists, as Russia’s weakness in conventional performance coexists with nuclear, cyber and disinformation threats;

NATO’s priority is speed of response, and it must be prepared to win the first battle of any hypothetical conflict with Russia before Moscow can turn conquest or devastation into victory.

Introduction

The war against Ukraine reached this past August a three-and-a-half-year milestone. Despite a deepening mobilisation of resources, Russia has been unable to conquer or defeat Ukraine, or prevent Western military assistance to Ukraine, while its action triggered the largest Western rearmament and economic decoupling effort from Russia since the late 1970s. At the same time, the extent of the devastation wrought upon Ukraine, and the scale of the battlefield losses incurred by Russia, bear witness, tragically, to its capacity to endure adversity, as well as to its determination to dominate Ukraine and bring to heel other former Soviet republics: Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Kazakhstan. Russia’s persistence holds a warning for them, and for the West, that, if it fails to conquer a foreign country, it can and will devastate it.

Against this sombre backdrop, reliably estimating future Russian military capabilities, and Russia’s capacity to regenerate a more capable force, could not be higher in terms of both helping Ukraine resist Russian aggression and strengthening the credibility and effectiveness of NATO’s deterrence and defence posture. Such an estimating exercise must start from the current baseline of a battered army, other Russian military components that are in a better condition and a war economy operating at nearly full strength. Today, Russia mass-produces hundreds of tanks and missiles and thousands of drones a month. At the same time, having the kit alone does not guarantee battlefield success, and the Russian economy is afflicted with several weaknesses: an ageing industrial base; an over-reliance on energy exports; manpower and skill shortfalls; and a growing vulnerability to international sanctions and macro-economic imbalances.

America's Scale Problem

Mohammed Soliman

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Bottom LineAmerica’s military is built for the wrong kind of war. The United States has optimized its defense industry for short, high-tech conflicts using precision weapons, but current global wars require sustained, large-scale production of conventional munitions. This has resulted in a dangerous industrial shortfall where America cannot produce enough basic ammunition like artillery shells and missiles to meet the demands of even two simultaneous regional wars.

Technological superiority can’t replace techno-industrial capacity. The United States has dangerously over-relied on the assumption that its advanced technology can substitute for material superiority. Recent wars demonstrate that even the most advanced weapons are useless without the techno-industrial capacity to produce them in massive quantities, which is a lesson history has repeatedly taught, as seen with Germany’s defeat in World War II due to an inability to match Allied production.

Solving the problem will take time and a shift in thinking. The United States is starting to address its techno-industrial shortcomings by increasing funding and production goals, but rebuilding supply chains, reopening factories, and training a new workforce will take years, not months. Truly fixing the issue requires a fundamental change in military philosophy, moving beyond a focus on cutting-edge, low-volume systems to embrace the strategic importance of mass production and stockpiling conventional munitions.

There is a peculiar irony in watching the world’s most technologically advanced military struggle with something as basic as making enough bullets. Yet this is precisely where America finds itself as it attempts to be able to supply two major conflicts simultaneously. The United States, which revolutionized warfare through precision and technological supremacy, has discovered that modern wars still hinge on an ancient principle: The side with more ammunition often wins.

The revelation is both stark and measurable. Ukraine consumes artillery shells at rates that would have seemed fantastical to Pentagon planners just four years ago. A single Ukrainian battery can fire more 155mm rounds in a day than some American units used in months during the Iraq War. Meanwhile, Israel’s sophisticated air defense networks devour interceptor missiles by the dozen during each Iranian strike, each costing millions and taking months to replace.

Cognitive and Ethical Implications of the Drone as an Agential Actor in War

Zayd Riaz

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This content was originally written for an undergraduate or Master's program. It is published as part of our mission to showcase peer-leading papers written by students during their studies. This work can be used for background reading and research, but should not be cited as an expert source or used in place of scholarly articles/books.

This paper aims to provide an alternative metaphysical paradigm that emerges from the post-humanist literature. The analysis aims to re-formulate the ontology of the drone and give it its proper due within the constellation of warfare. I argue that traditional metaphysics, which structures our representations of the world including existing international relations scholarship, is insufficient for understanding the drone’s formative effects on shaping our ethical reasoning, legal frameworks, and military practices. Using this new metaphysical structure, I aim to showcase the inadequacies of traditional Just War Theory as an ethical concept and the subsequent academic debate that uses it as a framework to investigate the legality and morality of drone warfare. The current interpretation of Just War principles is deeply anthropocentric, hindering our understanding of agency possessed by technological artefacts. The current interpretation fails to understand the role of matter/technology in the co-constitution of the subjectivity of man. Weapons are “agentic” entities with an essence of their own, capable of forming significant relationships with humans. Both the weapon and the individual exist in a mutually effective, mutually constitutive condition where neither component is wholly dominating.[1] Both shape the other, most significantly in the domain of moral and ethical action.

I argue that Just War Theory governs a particular conception of what man is and their relationship to the world and abstracts from there a moral framework that seeks to govern their military conduct. Thus, how moral responsibility, ethical violations, moral judgment, and the relationship between the man and his weapon are determined all stem from this particular anthropocentric metaphysical structure. This paper will show how the drone reshapes the moral, legal, and cognitive frameworks that structure a drone pilots actions, impacting what is deemed ethical. This analysis greatly challenges axiomatic jus in bello principles that judge a soldier’s capacity for autonomous rational judgment and their ability to follow such maxims. The current academic literature has paid scant attention to the capacity of the drone to shape moral and ethical frameworks, including its formative roles within the broader assemblage of 5th-generation warfare.[2] However, this is due to their current ontological conceptions of what a drone is and how it relates to other components within the War Assemblage. This results from the metaphysical framework that structures the ontological imagery of the reality they believe to be enveloped within. I argue that this metaphysical structure grossly misleads the academic debate in its aim to understand the ethical and legal implications of drone warfare. This leads to inaccurate analyses, as they take the drone, the pilot and the moral Law governing them as ontologically separate, pre-existing entities within a hierarchical structure. However, they fail to consider or fathom that the pilot, the drone, and the law governing them all interact within an assemblage and produce the actions labelled as ethical violations. Ethical conduct is not the result of one component, it is the product of relations between the components. This paper argues that since the introduction of the drone into the war assemblage, new relationships have formed, creating new ethical norms instilled with new meaning. Hence new actions are produced. This paper investigates the unique relationship between machine and man, matter, and discourse. Only from there can we abstract a more encompassing and better ethical frameworks to govern this new War Assemblage and the new practices that have emerged.

Opinion – Europe’s Risky Quest for Technological Autonomy

Riccardo Bosticco

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Control over key technologies and supply chains has become the strategic mantra of our time. But if national security logics keep crowding out economic ones, the promises of resilience will end up in economic loss. To reconcile security and economic competitiveness, asking the right questions is crucial: what role do economic interdependences still play in today’s global economy, and how can we expect them to evolve? The European Union (EU) has still to confront these questions. The global competition over technology––fueled above all by the transformative power of artificial intelligence (AI)––has spurred a frenzy of policy initiatives in the pursuit of the Union’s strategic autonomy and digital sovereignty. As of 2024, the EU imported 80% of its digital products, services, and infrastructure. The vast majority of chips used in the EU are designed in the United States (US) and manufactured in Korea, Taiwan, or China. The EU, alongside Japan, retains advantages in materials and equipment, but when it comes to AI more specifically, it is almost entirely dependent on American-designed hardware and cloud platforms.

Despite the future of technological relations with Beijing remaining unclear, Washington has been explicit: technological supremacy is a national security imperative, and the US must be the ruler of the emerging AI world. China, meanwhile, leveraging a maturing innovation ecosystem, can count on a vast domestic market and control over the global supply of critical raw materials. Additionally, China takes advantages in the prolongation of Russia’s war on Ukraine and the tests that it poses to the unity of the West. The EU sits uneasily amid great powers and their attempts to reconfigure the international system: still unprepared to take care of its own defence, it is fractured inside – and when it comes to digital technology, it is indispensable in certain niches but lacks the scale to compete.

Should Europe attempt to replicate global supply chains at home? Leaders have not yet answered this question. But the real problem is that this option would lie on a shaky assumption. In particular, that building digital sovereignty would be cheap and fast enough to make Europe withstand imminent external threats and internal fractures. Yet, building autonomy would require enormous economic resources – nearly €300 billion – that could conflict with overlapping challenges the EU faces, from military spending to ensuring climate resilience. Moreover, it will probably take too much time for Europe to replicate the equivalent of 80% of its digital imports. Estimates indicate nearly 10 years would be required. According to the European Court of Auditors, the EU is not even on pace to achieve the objective, included in the Chips Act, to produce 20% of global microchip by 2030.

The Quantum Race: How Emerging Technologies Reshape Global Security Governance

Elena Zancanaro

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Technological shifts have always reshaped international relations. The nuclear revolution redefined the global order after 1945, splitting the world into deterrence-based camps and spurring the creation of arms control treaties. The digital revolution of the late twentieth century brought both the promise of connectivity and the peril of cyber vulnerabilities, forcing states to rethink sovereignty in cyberspace. Artificial intelligence today raises questions of ethics, surveillance, and competitive advantage, pressing policymakers to create frameworks that balance innovation and restraint. Now, a new frontier is opening: the second quantum revolution.

Quantum technologies, computing, communication, and sensing are no longer confined to experimental physics labs. They are being branded as strategic assets, pursued with intensity by the United States, China, the European Union, India, Japan, and others. Their potential is staggering. Quantum computers could simulate chemical interactions with unprecedented accuracy, accelerating drug discovery and green energy solutions. Quantum sensors could map underground resources or detect submarines with levels of precision beyond classical devices. Quantum communications promise theoretically unbreakable cryptography, relying on the fundamental properties of entanglement. Yet alongside these breakthroughs lie equally disruptive risks. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could undermine the cryptographic backbone of modern digital life, threatening banking systems, secure communications, and military command structures (Mosca 2018).

The stakes are therefore not simply scientific but geopolitical. Governments see quantum not just as a new tool of innovation but as a lever of power. The metaphor of a ‘quantum race’ has entered policy discussions, evoking Cold War imagery of nuclear competition. But unlike nuclear weapons, which exploded into international consciousness in 1945 with devastating clarity, quantum technologies are developing incrementally, in laboratories and corporate research centres, with uneven visibility and uncertain timelines. This ambiguity creates both danger and opportunity. The danger is that mistrust and secrecy could accelerate an arms race dynamic, where states hoard breakthroughs and fear adversaries’ hidden progress. The opportunity is that, because quantum remains at an early stage, there is still time to craft governance frameworks before its most destabilising impacts unfold (Just Security 2024).