Indian Strategic Studies: 10/22/25

22 October 2025

Why Pakistan and Afghanistan Turned on Each Other

Mohammed Ayoob

Afghanistan’s embrace of India over Pakistan is a return to the geopolitical norm.

The rapid downturn in the Afghanistan–Pakistan relationship may have caught many observers off guard. This may appear especially jarring since the Pakistani military, the real power center in the country, was the midwife of the Taliban movement in the 1990s and supported its rise to power. It also clandestinely supported the Taliban in the first two decades of this century when it was at war with the US-supported government in Kabul. Islamabad openly rejoiced at the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021.

At that time, Islamabad had assumed that the Taliban would act as its vassals in Afghanistan, providing it the defense in depth it needed to continue its confrontation with India. A friendly government in Kabul would also neutralize the danger of a two-front conflict if Islamabad were embroiled in a shooting war with New Delhi. Afghanistan also acted as the training ground for Pakistan-supported terrorist groups that could infiltrate Indian-administered Kashmir.

Unfortunately for Pakistan, this turned out to be a colossal miscalculation. The Taliban, resentful of their dependence on Pakistan and its highhanded ways, has turned against its mentors. This became very clear earlier this month in the clashes on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border that left dozens dead on both sides. These clashes followed Pakistani aerial attacks in Kabul and Paktia province.

The Pakistani government implied that these attacks were aimed at Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) targets. The TTP has been engaged in fighting the Pakistan army for years in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, which is populated by the same Pashtun ethnic group that forms the backbone of the Afghan Taliban. The two formations are ideological twins.

The Taliban added insult to Pakistan’s injury since the clashes coincided with Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi’s visit to New Delhi, where he issued dire warnings to Islamabad. Furthermore, in the joint statement issued at the end of his visit, Muttaqi condemned the terrorist attacks on Pahalgam in Kashmir attributed to Pakistan-backed groups, and both sides unequivocally supported the territorial integrity of each other, which, according to Indian interpretation, implicitly includes Kashmir.

China’s Rare Earth Restrictions Could Backfire on Xi. Here’s How

Hugh Cameron

Newsweek is a Trust Project member

Beijing’s latest rare earth restrictions, intended to consolidate an already dominant position and boost its leverage amid ongoing trade negotiations, may be an ill-judged gambit that could see China cede control over what is shaping up to be the 21st century’s most critical supply chain.

Under the new rules—unveiled by China’s Ministry of Commerce last week and set to take effect in December—foreign firms will be required to secure government approval before exporting magnets and certain semiconductor materials that contain even trace elements of Chinese-source rare earths.

“China’s move fits squarely within the broader U.S.–China strategic rivalry, where both powers are waging political and economic warfare beneath the threshold of open conflict,” said Ryan Kiggins, political science professor at the University of Central Oklahoma and nonresident fellow at the Armed Services Institute. “Rare earths sit at the heart of this contest: they underpin advanced weapons systems, EVs, and the energy transition—sectors that define 21st-century power.”

Why India Is Embracing the Taliban

Happymon Jacob

Contributor

Jacob is a visiting professor at Shiv Nadar University, the founder of the Council for Strategic and Defense Research, and editor of India’s World magazine.

Anand Prakash (left), an Indian official at the Ministry of External Affairs with Afghanistan's Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi (center) at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) in New Delhi on Oct. 13, 2025.Anushree Fadnavis—Reuters

Trump suggests military strikes in Venezuela may come soon, Democrats accuse Kristi Noem of violating the Hatch Act, and moreThe Taliban evokes bitter memories in India. The Islamists were seen as complicit in India’s worst plane hijack in 1999 and the 2008 attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul, which killed several Indian citizens, including two senior diplomats. It is for these and other reasons that the Afghan Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi’s trip to Delhi is so remarkable.

Muttaqi, who is still on the U.N. sanctions list, had to get a travel exemption to arrive in India last Thursday for a week-long visit. India referred to him as the Afghan foreign minister, allowed him to hold press conferences at the Afghan embassy premises in Delhi that are still manned by officers of the previous Western-backed government, and had its foreign minister S. Jaishankar share the stage with him. Delhi also plans to reopen its embassy in Kabul soon.

But as Muttaqi went about a public relations blitz in India and held talks with Indian officials, deadly clashes erupted along the Durand Line border between Pakistan and Afghanistan in recent days. The timing alongside Muttaqi’s visit to India—Pakistan’s arch-rival—underscores the complex India-Afghanistan-Pakistan geopolitics at play.

Why is Delhi reaching out to Kabul?

India has maintained relations with the Taliban ever since it seized power in Kabul four years ago. But a series of regional developments has led to the unprecedented change in India’s policy toward the Taliban we are seeing today. The military conflict between India and Pakistan earlier this year, China’s active and growing support for Pakistan, Russia’s lukewarm response to that war despite its historical defense ties to India, and Washington’s recent embrace of Pakistan have created a sense of unease and claustrophobia in Delhi.

Anything Could Happen in Iran

Arash Azizi and Graeme Wood

Four months ago, Israel bombed Iran for 12 days, in a campaign whose grand finale was the apparent destruction of three Iranian nuclear facilities in strikes by the United States. Last week, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany decided that bombing was not enough. They triggered the United Nations’ crippling “snapback” sanctions, as American hawks had been demanding for years. Iranian officials had tried to avert these sanctions. When sanctions came anyway, those officials minimized their effect by saying that Iran had survived sanctions before. But these are bringing new kinds of pain. Japan has already suspended dozens of Iranian assets. Even Turkey, traditionally a close economic partner, is complying. The Iranian rial has sunk to a historic low.

The combination punch of berubblement and economic devastation is making Iran desperate. Although it still has options, all of them are bad.

Iran’s previous nuclear strategy was slow-and-steady enrichment of uranium, paired with languorous and protracted negotiation with the United States. It struck a nuclear deal with the Obama administration in 2015, then watched the Trump administration withdraw in 2018. The strategy of negotiation has failed Iran and left it with no bomb, humiliated in battle, and facing immiseration.

Hamas Is Not Done Fighting

Matthew Levitt

Palestinian militants standing guard in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, October 2025Ramadan Abed / Reuters

Matthew Levitt is Fromer-Wexler Senior Fellow and Director of the Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He is the author of Hamas: Politics, Charity and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad.More by Matthew Levitt

The first phase of the U.S.-brokered cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas is a tremendous achievement, securing the release of hostages held by Hamas for over two years and the end to a devastating war in Gaza in a 20-point plan. But the second phase of the plan will confront a set of thorny issues, including the disarmament of Hamas and the future of Palestinian governance. If past is precedent, Hamas will fight tooth and nail to preserve its political and military standing in Gaza and its commitment to violently oppose prospects for peace.

How Is Russia Overwhelming Ukraine With Drones? The Answer Is China

Reuben Johnson

Russian Artillery. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Key Points and Summary – A new report reveals China is “materially helping” Russia’s war in Ukraine by massively increasing exports of critical drone components.

-While Beijing claims neutrality by reducing exports of fully-assembled drones, a surge in shipments of fiber-optic cables and lithium-ion batteries to Russia tells a different story.

Lancet Drone. Image Credit: Russian State Media.

Lancet Drone from Russia. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

-This flood of components has allowed Moscow to dramatically scale up its domestic production of jamming-resistant drones.

-As a result, Russia is now overwhelming Ukrainian defenses and logistics behind the front lines, seizing the advantage in the crucial drone war and costing “uncountable” Ukrainian lives.

China is Supplying the Drone Tech Russia Uses to Kill Ukrainians

After proving that it was achieving technological superiority in drone warfare, Ukraine began losing the edge against the Russian military. It did not happen because Ukraine suddenly slowed down its industrial effort or because Russian industry achieved some game-changing breakthrough.

It occurred due to an overnight surge in support from Russia’s long-time allies in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

“China has materially helped Russia gain a key battlefield advantage in its grinding war against Ukraine, dramatically increasing exports over the summer of key components needed to make the fiber-optic drones that have enabled Moscow to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses on the front lines,” reads a report today in the Washington Post.

American Missiles and Russian Dachas

Aaron Stein , Sam Laird

U.S. Navy

Tomahawk and the Future of Stability and Deterrence in Europe

The Tomahawk cruise missile is a near perfect machine. Its development followed advances in guidance and turbofan engine technology in the 1970s. It has been tested for decades. And it has been upgraded and augmented for the same amount of time. The missile’s accuracy has always been a source of concern in Moscow, where its deployment in Europe in a ground-launched variant in the 1980s helped spur agreement on the elimination of this class of weapons, only for the erosion of arms control to once again be deployed within ground launch range of Russian targets.

A former Soviet Premier put it best in the days before the Cuban Missile Crisis. In response to the deployment of Jupiter missiles in Turkey, Nikita Khrushchev complained on a trip to the Black Sea that “[He] could see U.S. missiles in Turkey aimed at [his] dacha.”

Soviet and then Russian fears about American encirclement are as old as the missile age. The major concern, as Khrushchev so elegantly put it, is that the United States can put a missile through the window of a Russian dacha in 10 minutes or less. These concerns were first centered on fears of a nuclear first strike, but with changes to both U.S. doctrine and technology over the past 40-years, are now centered on American conventional overmatch: the idea that a U.S. first strike could be aimed at the Russian leadership and, with continued advances in missile defense and precision strike, could eventually be used to negate Russia’s nuclear deterrent.

What Does the New Reality in the Middle East Mean for Russia?

Nikita Smagin

Carnegie Politika is a digital publication that features unmatched analysis and insight on Russia, Ukraine and the wider region. For nearly a decade, Carnegie Politika has published contributions from members of Carnegie’s global network of scholars and well-known outside contributors and has helped drive important strategic conversations and policy debates.Learn More

This week’s summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh looks like nothing short of a triumph for the United States in the Middle East. U.S. President Donald Trump met with representatives of thirty countries, and the declaration signed there to end the war in Gaza stands in stark contrast with the Kremlin’s failed attempts to hold its own summit with Arab states in Moscow at around the same time.

Yet behind this picture of Russia’s apparent failure and the Trump administration’s success in the Middle East lies a more complex reality. In the last two years, the Middle East has undergone a profound transformation that has created uncertainty and fault lines that Moscow will try to use to its advantage.

One watershed moment came in late 2024 with the collapse of Syria’s Assad dynasty, which had ruled the country for over half a century. The new authorities in Damascus are pro-Turkish, making Ankara one of the key powers in the region.An equally significant change is a radical decline in Iran’s influence in the region, brought about by Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, the strikes against the Houthis in Yemen, the defeat of Hezbollah’s military wing in Lebanon, and the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, not to mention Israel’s bombing of Iran itself this summer.

The Middle East is also changing under the influence of Israel’s new, far more militant course, upon which it embarked following the terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has become determined to eliminate the enemies that surround it, eliciting major concerns in most of the region’s states. Those concerns reached a new level after the Israeli strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar in September, which was unanimously condemned by the Gulf states.

The reverberations from these changes in the Middle East have altered Western perceptions of the region. Criticism of Israel’s actions has led to a wave of leading EU countries officially recognizing Palestine and even to the imposition of targeted European sanctions against Israeli individuals. As a result, the Israeli leadership is beginning to assume that the country will not be on good terms with much of the West for a long time to come. Even if the Gaza peace agreement is fully implemented, Israel will continue to fight in Lebanon and Syria, and with Iran.

What’s the U.S. Endgame in Venezuela?

Geoff Ramsey,

A senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.U.S. Marines unload from a V-22 Osprey aircraft at José Aponte de la Torre Airport in Ceiba, Puerto Rico.U.S. Marines unload from a V-22 Osprey aircraft at José Aponte de la Torre Airport in Ceiba, Puerto Rico, on Sept. 13. Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/AFP via Getty Images

On Friday, Venezuelans opposed to President Nicolás Maduro awoke to unusually hopeful news: Opposition leader María Corina Machado had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee recognized her tireless work to advance Venezuela’s return to democracy in the face of Maduro’s authoritarianism.

In a way, the prize honors not only Machado, but also the millions of Venezuelans eager for change who mobilized around her ahead of the 2024 presidential campaign. Her leadership contributed to the opposition’s overwhelming victory in that election, according to verified independent counts—and galvanized resistance when Maduro blatantly stole it.

What We Can Learn From Trump’s Success in Gaza

In diplomacy, style now matters just as much as substance.

Suzanne Nossel,

The Lester Crown senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy and international order at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.Trump holds up a finger as he speaks to the press, with microphones pointed at him.U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with the media aboard Air Force One as he flies from Washington to Israel on Oct. 12. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

The deal between Israel and Hamas to end two years of war is a triumph for U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump thrust himself to the center of one of the world’s bloodiest conflicts and brokered a cease-fire at a moment of great geopolitical uncertainty. Although Trump’s startling bombast often evokes head-shaking from diplomats and policy wonks trained to eschew self-aggrandizement, the deal shows that his flair for high-wire, personality-driven diplomacy can be remarkably potent.

Trump understands that politics is in large part about performance. In his second term, unconstrained by more traditional and cautious advisors, he has turned diplomacy into must-see reality TV that lets viewers tune into unscripted Oval Office meetings, rambling speeches, and off-the-cuff Truth Social posts. Like Larry David or Jerry Seinfeld, he plays an exaggerated version of himself in public, mugging to a crowd that revels in his antics. He is auteur, leading man, and

As the War in Gaza Winds Down, the West Bank Is a Flash Point

If Trump wants peace, he must block Israel’s annexationist policies.

Daniel C. Kurtzer,

A former U.S. ambassador to Egypt and Israel, and Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich displays a map of an area near the settlement of Maale Adumim, a land corridor known as E1, outside Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank.Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich displays a map of an area near the settlement of Maale Adumim, a land corridor known as E1, outside Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank, on Aug. 14. Photo by Menahem Kahana / AFP

Celebrations are surely in order as a cease-fire goes into effect in Gaza, the hostages are returned, and humanitarian relief gets delivered to the Palestinian civilian population. U.S. President Donald Trump and his envoys deserve kudos for producing a deal that was on the table for more than a year but which eluded the parties. Palestinians and Israelis deserve a chance to breathe.

It would be an opportunity wasted, however, to fall back into diplomatic self-satisfaction and lose momentum. Even if this phase of the Gaza deal is implemented properly—and that is not a given, in view of the deep suspicions harbored by the parties—dangers elsewhere are growing. Indeed, without a firmer Trump administration hand to slow Israel’s annexationist policies there, hopes of broadening a Gaza agreement into anything close to regional peace could easily die.

Gita Gopinath on the crash that could torch $35trn of wealth

The world has become dangerously dependent on American stocks, writes the former IMF chief economist

Dan Williams

THE AMERICAN stockmarket has see-sawed lately amid a flare-up in trade tensions, but remains near its all-time high. The surge, fuelled by enthusiasm around artificial intelligence, has drawn comparisons to the exuberance of the late 1990s that culminated in the dotcom crash of 2000. Though technological innovation is undeniably reshaping industries and increasing productivity, investors have good reasons to worry that the current rally may be setting the stage for another painful market correction. The consequences of such a crash, however, could be far more severe and global in scope than those felt a quarter of a century ago.

Ukraine War: Pace of Russian Advances Halves, Intelligence Shows

Shane Croucher and John Feng

Russia seized significantly less territory from Ukraine in September than in August, the British Ministry of Defense said in an intelligence update shared on Thursday. The slowdown of the overall Russian advance is "highly likely" due to the redeployment of troops elsewhere in Ukraine, according to the update.

"It is likely that Russian Ground Forces (RGF) seized approximately 250 sq km of Ukrainian territory in September 2025, a notable decrease from the approximately 465 sq km taken in August 2025," said the update. "This follows moderate month on month decreases in ground taken from June 2025 to August 2025."

The intelligence update continued that this is "highly likely due to the RGF focus on relocating multiple Russian divisions along the front line, notably Airborne (VDV) divisions, from Sumy oblast to Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts."

Trump Seeks to Pressure Russia, Mulls Tomahawks for Ukraine

It comes as U.S. President Donald Trump mulls how best to increase the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the ongoing war after months of diplomatic engagement failed to yield peace.

Gaza Update: Donald Trump Issues Fiery New Warning to Hamas

Peter Aitken

Politics Weekend Editor

President Donald Trump on Thursday issued a new warning to Hamas amid accusations from Israel the organization has already reneged on its ceasefire obligations.

in a message posted to Truth Social on Thursday, Trump wrote that if Hamas "continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the Deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them."

Newsweek reached out to the White House by email on Thursday afternoon for additional comment and clarification.

Why It Matters

The past few days have already tested Trump's ceasefire agreement, which has ended warfare in Gaza.

Hamas allegedly did not return all of the hostages within the originally mandated timeframe, leading Trump on Wednesday to say he would authorize Israeli forces to return to the streets of Gaza if Hamas did not release all of the hostages, living and deceased.

Hamas is also required to disarm and cede control of the territory as one of the key points in the ceasefire deal.

How to Build an Economic and Security Order That Works for America

Ricardo Tomás

The United States has pursued two grand strategies in the 80 years since World War II. One was an extraordinary success: the policy of “containment” that guided American economic investments, foreign relations, and military deployments during the Cold War, which led to the defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the United States as the world’s lone superpower.

The same cannot be said, unfortunately, about the strategy adopted at the Cold War’s conclusion: an attempt to leverage superpower status to establish a “liberal world order” that Washington would secure and dominate. That strategy went by names including “enlargement,” as defined by President Bill Clinton’s first national security adviser, Anthony Lake, and “benevolent hegemony,” in the words of the neoconservative thinkers William Kristol and Robert Kagan, writing in these pages. This vision promised an enduring Pax Americana in which no other country could or would challenge U.S. supremacy, all evolved inevitably toward liberal democracy, and the global free market’s warm embrace rendered borders irrelevant while spreading prosperity worldwide.

By some measures, the strategy worked. U.S. GDP and stock prices steadily rose. Technology and trade stitched the world closer together. World War III did not start. But a clear-eyed appraisal of the post–Cold War era reveals a less rosy reality. Far from producing a utopia of shared prosperity and stable peace, American strategy in the past three decades has instead yielded a global economic order that allows other countries to exploit Washington’s largess, an ascendant authoritarian adversary in China, and simmering conflicts around the globe in which expectations of American commitment far outstrip the reality of American capacity—all of which have contributed to economic and social decay in the United States.

Blame game erupts in Europe as Ukraine strategy falters

Eldar Mamedov

Angela Merkel, the eternal pragmatist, has chosen her moment. In a recent interview to Hungarian media, the former German chancellor pointed a finger at Baltic and Polish leaders for their alleged role in “undermining” a potential EU-Russia dialogue before the war.

Whatever one thinks of her legacy, Merkel has an unmatched sense of political timing. Her statement is not a historical aside; it is the opening salvo in Europe’s looming blame game for the impending defeat in Ukraine.

Her comments land at the precise moment the foundational assumptions of Europe’s Ukraine policy are collapsing. On the battlefield, Russian forces are now grinding out slow, but steady gains. In the United States, Donald Trump keeps insisting that this is “Biden’s war,” not his, and that it should end.

While Trump no longer appears to be cajoling Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky into accepting some of Russia Vladimir Putin’s terms, his current position — selling arms to Ukraine funded by Europe — does not satisfy the Europeans as they face increasing economic and fiscal difficulties. Europe finds itself holding a bill it cannot pay and for a war it cannot win — and a war whose strategic direction is being dictated from Washington, not Brussels.

This transatlantic shift is starkly evident in the recent flurry of activity between Trump and Zelensky. Their key topic is the potential provision of U.S. "Tomahawk" cruise missiles to Ukraine. This is a quintessential Trumpian gambit — escalation as a tool for deal-making — but Trump himself does not appear to have decided on the deliveries as he acknowledges this would represent a major escalation. Europe, meanwhile, is left entirely to lobby Trump to make “Biden’s war” his own which highlights the ultimate failure of its own policies.

Vandergriff preface to "President Trump Recognizes Fourth Generation War

Donald Vandergriff

In the annals of military thought, few frameworks have proven as prescient and enduring as William S. Lind’s theory of the Generations of Modern War. Coined in the late 1980s amid the fading echoes of Cold War predictability, this paradigm—first articulated in the pages of the Marine Corps Gazette—dismantled the illusions of linear progression in warfare, revealing instead a series of cultural and doctrinal evolutions: from the rigid lines of First Generation attrition, to the industrialized firepower of Second Generation mass armies, the fluid maneuver of Third Generation operations, and the shadowy, legitimacy-eroding chaos of Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW).

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Lind’s work, which I have long championed in my own writings on military reform—from Path to Victory to Raising the Bar—strikes at the heart of why our armed forces have repeatedly stumbled in asymmetric conflicts. It is not merely a tactical lens but a cultural diagnosis, insisting that true adaptation demands a profound shift in institutional mindset, away from the bureaucratic rigidity of 2GW and toward the decentralized initiative of 3GW, all while preparing to navigate the non-state threats of 4GW.

What elevates Lind’s latest dispatch, “President Trump Recognizes Fourth Generation War,” to a clarion call is its timeliness in an era where these generations collide not just on distant battlefields but in the very fabric of American society. Here, Lind applauds President Trump’s decisive strikes against narco-traffickers’ vessels and his fortifications against unchecked migration—actions that tacitly acknowledge 4GW’s core reality: war waged by entities unbound by state sovereignty, eroding our national cohesion through poison, infiltration, and cultural subversion.

The Lessons U.S. Army Aviation Is Learning From The War In Ukraine

Howard Altman

(U.S. Army photo by Spc. Justin Yarborough)

While both Ukraine and Russia have sustained large amounts of helicopter losses due to dense traditional frontline air defenses, in some cases, drones, and attacks on bases, the U.S. Army is taking a measured approach in applying lessons learned to the future of its own rotary-wing fleet, a top commander told us. Maj. Gen. Clair Gill, commanding general of the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence, is adamant that not everything that happens in Ukraine applies to the U.S. Army and it’s absolutely critical that only the right lessons should be heeded.

“When we talk about Ukraine, there are a lot of lessons to be learned,” Gill told us on the sidelines of the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) annual conference in Washington, D.C. “We focus on the right lessons to be learned.”

“There are some differences between positional warfare with drones – they’re doing World War One with drones right now in Ukraine – and the way that the United States Army fights, particularly as a member of the combined arms team and as a member of the joint force,” he added. “So, there are a lot of things that we should pay attention to there, but they’re not flying at night. They don’t plan like we plan. They don’t bring all the collective elements that we could bring to bear when we execute our operations.”Paratroopers assigned to “Cavemen” Bravo Company, 2-82 Aviation Regiment, 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division prepare and take off for a night flight on April 24, 2024. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Vincent Levelev) Staff Sgt. Vincent Levelev

Ukraine and Russia are likely using deception as part of their operations, “but…using the night, using the terrain, using the degraded visual environment, we’ve got some pretty exquisite capabilities, and some well-trained folks, as do the Ukrainians,” Gill noted.

Russia’s War in Ukraine Is Starting to Show Cracks

By Georgia Gilholy

Key Points and Summary – Russia’s offensive in Ukraine is losing momentum, with new UK intelligence showing territorial gains in September were the slowest of the year.

-This slowdown comes at a staggering cost, as a leaked Russian document suggests over 281,000 casualties in 2025 alone.

Putin Speaking in 2025. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

-With monthly losses now exceeding the 31,000 new recruits Russia can sign up, the Kremlin is bleeding manpower for minimal progress.

-A grim wounded-to-killed ratio of 1.3-to-1 further highlights poor battlefield medical care, painting a picture of a grinding war of attrition that Moscow is struggling to sustain.

Russian Land Gains Slump as Casualties Soar in Ukraine

Russia’s push across Ukraine looks to be losing momentum.

New intelligence from the United Kingdom shows Moscow’s forces are advancing more slowly than at any time this year, even as the Kremlin suffers enormous casualties for minimal territorial gains.

The British Ministry of Defense said Thursday that Russian troops captured about 250 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in September, compared with around 465 square kilometers in August.

The Welfare and Warfare State

In 2022, then-President Joseph Biden invoked the Defense Production Act, a 1950 law that gives the president the authority to direct domestic industry in the name of national defense, to increase the supply of baby formula available to Americans. Three years later, President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities, and associated products in the name of America’s national security. How did baby formula and kitchen cabinets come to be considered as crucial parts of America’s security? Andrew Preston’s important book, Total Defense, provides an answer to this question.

The origins of the US national security state are typically traced to World War II and the Cold War. In this telling, the National Security Act of 1947, which established the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, and later the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was a pivotal event, establishing the core institutions of the national security apparatus. Moreover, instead of demobilizing following World War II, US government leaders decided to maintain a permanent war economy to prepare for future wars. This was justified by the Cold War, an open-ended global conflict against the Soviet Union requiring nonstop preparation to ensure the security of both America and the world.

Preston does not deny the importance of these events, but argues that this widely accepted origin story starts too late. The US national security state, he argues, was not born with World War II or the Cold War, but rather during Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. He convincingly shows that Roosevelt’s policies fused domestic economic management with international security issues. The result was an expansive vision of “total defense,” which included not just domestic economic security, but also security against international threats. Importantly, the Roosevelt administration and its supporters effectively redefined “threats” to include not just the possibility of immediate military invasion, which was minimal, but also a broad range of non-military cultural, economic, and social issues. The result was a broad menu of potential government interventions, as decided by those in power, undertaken in the name of the security of the American people.

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment,

US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone on October 16. Trump stated that the two leaders had a “very productive” call and that the two largely discussed potential bilateral economic prospects to pursue after a resolution to the war in Ukraine.[1] Trump stated that the two agreed that there will be a high-level advisor meeting at an unspecified date next week (between October 19 and 25) and an unspecified location with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio leading the US delegation. Trump stated that he and Putin will then meet in Budapest to discuss a resolution to the war. Trump noted that he will discuss the contents of his October 16 phone call with Putin with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during Zelensky’s visit to Washington on October 17. Trump told reporters on October 16 that he will be meeting with Putin in “two weeks or so” and that Rubio will be meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “pretty soon.”[2] Trump suggested that he, Zelensky, and Putin may coordinate “separate but equal” meetings.[3] Trump stated that Putin “really did not like the idea” of the United States sending “a couple thousand Tomahawks” to Ukraine when Trump raised the question.[4]

Russian Presidential Aide Yuriy Ushakov attempted to obfuscate Russia’s deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in his statement on the October 16 Trump-Putin call. Ushakov claimed that the Trump-Putin call discussed how Ukrainian forces are allegedly using “terrorist methods” to strike civilian and energy infrastructure in Russia since Russia maintains the strategic initiative on the battlefield.[5] Ushakov claimed that the Ukrainian strikes are “forcing” Russia to respond “accordingly.” Ukraine’s recent long-range strike campaign is targeting Russia’s energy sector in order to degrade Russia’s capacity to fund its war against Ukraine and to fuel its fighting forces.[6] Russian forces, in contrast, have been deliberately targeting Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure, including by conducting first-person view (FPV) drone strikes systematically targeting civilians in Kherson Oblast since late 2023, long predating Ukraine’s recent long-range strike campaign against Russian energy.[7] Open-source investigative outlet Tochnyi reported on September 28 that Russian drone strikes have resulted in 2,877 Ukrainian civilian casualties in Kherson City alone since 2023.[8]

Russia’s Oil Earnings May Get Clobbered by OPEC

Big supply increases this year threaten a global oil glut that could knock the Kremlin’s budget out of whack.

By Keith Johnson, a staff writer at Foreign Policy covering geoeconomics and energy.

Men in suits and ties and one man in a brown, gold, and white dishdashah sit in an audience.OPEC Secretary-General Haitham al-Ghais (center) attends the Russian Energy Week International Forum in Moscow on Oct. 16. Alexander Kazakov/AFP via Getty Images

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Europe, Britain, and even the United States, after a fashion, have all stepped up their pressure on Russia’s energy revenues in recent weeks, aiming to bankrupt the Russian war machine.

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But the biggest threat on the horizon for an already reeling Russian economy may be its former OPEC pals, who in recent months have opened the taps on a flood of new oil production, helping to drive crude prices to a five-month low.

Armenia Balances Between the TRIPP and Zangezur Corridor

Onnik James Krikorian

The U.S.-brokered Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), which would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave through Armenia, has accelerated Armenia–Azerbaijan normalization but triggered domestic backlash in Armenia and concern from Iran and Russia.

TRIPP sovereignty concerns and uncertainty over implementation threaten Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s domestic political standing, with parliamentary elections set for June 2026.Pashinyan continues to assert that the U.S.-managed TRIPP preserves full Armenian sovereignty, though border arrangements remain unclear following a public dispute with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev about the route’s semantics during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

Armenian skepticism about the TRIPP is high, as some fear that a route to Nakhchivan could allow Azerbaijan or Russia to control Armenia’s strategic border with Iran or provide a pretext for further Azerbaijani aggression.

Following the August 8 summit between the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders at the White House, momentum toward normalizing relations between Baku and Yerevan continues (see EDM, August 13). Despite some media reports suggesting that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan established peace during the meeting, the leaders only signed a seven-point declaration, confirming their intention to pursue peace. The Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers initialed the prospective peace treaty, the 17-point Agreement On the Establishment of Peace and Interstate Relations between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan, which the two states finalized in March, committing to work toward formalizing the text (see EDM, March 24, August 12).

The progress made during the August 8 summit was enough for the leaders, especially Pashinyan, to trumpet that peace has been effectively established (Civil Net, August 28). Formal peace, however, remains contingent on Yerevan changing its constitution to remove what Azerbaijan and Türkiye perceive as territorial claims against them—Pashinyan says he will hold a referendum on constitutional reforms soon after the June 2026 parliamentary elections (see EDM, June 25; Azatutyun, September 22).

Russian Opposition Lacks Unified Strategy

Vadim Shtepa

Late-Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, calls for Europe to develop a united, long-term strategy toward Russia while preserving the country’s territorial integrity.

The Russian opposition remains fragmented, divided between Moscow-centric reformists such as Navalnaya’s camp and ethno-national or regionalist forces advocating de-imperialization. This lack of consensus undermines the opposition’s ability to present a cohesive alternative to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime.

This disunity hampers engagement with European institutions, such as the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s Platform for Dialogue with Russian Democratic Forces, and undermines prospects for coherent democratic reform.

Late-Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, who considers herself a successor to her late husband’s policies, published a column in The Economist on September 24 arguing that Europe should have a united, long-term strategy toward Russia (The Economist, September 24). The Russian opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime itself, however, lacks a unified approach (see Promethean Liberation, May 30). Some oppositionists not only offer incompatible ideas about how to accomplish their goals but, at times, have also accused each other of working for the Kremlin (DW, September 12, 2024). It is often challenging for foreign observers to determine which movements can be considered genuine representatives of the opposition.

In her article, Navalnaya advocates the principle of a united Russia while rejecting the policies of the ruling party of the same name. She has advised Western politicians not to threaten to divide Russia into many parts, as Putin has long accused his opponents of having such plans, in order to discredit those opposed to him and consolidate Russian society around his leadership (The Moscow Times, September 6, 2024). By this logic, if Putin accuses someone of something, the accused is guilty (The Moscow Times, September 30). It is difficult to imagine any Western politician or political scientist speaking in the language of “threats of Russia’s division.” For example, Jamestown Senior Fellow Janusz Bugajski’s anthology of articles on Russian de-imperialization, published in 2025, is not a threat, as the Kremlin perceives other initiatives similar to this, but rather a free discussion about a possible future (Free Nations, New States, accessed October 15). In Russia itself, such discussions are prohibited under real threat of criminal prosecution for calls to violate territorial integrity (President of Russia, July 22, 2014).

6G Isn’t About Speed. It’s About Sovereignty

Jason Van der Schyff

The race to 6G isn’t just about bandwidth. It’s about control over spectrum, standards, supply chains and the values underpinning tomorrow’s infrastructure. If 5G taught us anything, trust and interoperability need to be built in from the start.

The Indo-Pacific is already the world’s most contested connectivity environment. Through submarine cables, cloud platforms and national 5G rollouts, governments are already making decisions that will shape how their citizens communicate, how their economies function and who sets the rules. The shift to 6G only sharpens that contest.

Reporting from the Financial Times makes clear that China is moving fast. Beijing is systematically excluding European vendors from its domestic telecommunications networks. Ericsson and Nokia, already reduced to a 4 percent market share, now face opaque security reviews that stretch for months. The message is that foreign firms aren’t welcome, while domestic vendors are being positioned as the only trusted suppliers for national infrastructure. They are backed by policy, shielded from competition and expected to dominate the market at home and abroad.

Beijing has framed these moves as a national security measure. So, it’s fair to ask, is the Indo-Pacific applying the same standard of care?

Australia’s decision to exclude Huawei from 5G was never just about one vendor. It reflected a broader understanding that infrastructure choices carry long-term strategic weight. That same principle should guide how we engage with 6G.

We are not starting from scratch. As I wrote recently, Australia’s trusted-tech positioning in the Pacific is being reinforced through investments in subsea cables, digital resilience and shared cyber capacity. That playbook, built on transparency, partnerships and presence, should now be applied to 6G. The decisions being made today will shape how the region connects for decades.

The Winning Economics of Cybersecurity in an Age of Advanced Artificial Intelligence

Chad Heitzenrater

An ongoing debate in the study of cyber warfare is the relative balance between the attacker and the defender in cyberspace. In this paper, the author advances the hypothesis that, with the right investments in people, process, and technology, proliferated and advanced artificial intelligence (AI) could ultimately advantage cyber defense. He explores how advanced AI is likely to fundamentally reshape the economics of cybersecurity and examines what it will take to realize the promise of a defense-dominant cyber environment. He further hypothesizes that advanced and proliferated AI will disrupt the economics of cyber in a profound way that advantages the defender—but only if action is taken to do so.

This work was independently initiated and conducted within the Technology and Security Policy Center of RAND Global and Emerging Risks using income from operations and gifts from philanthropic supporters. A complete list of donors and funders is available at www.rand.org/TASP.

This publication is part of the RAND expert insights series. The expert insights series presents perspectives on timely policy issues.

This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited; linking directly to this product page is encouraged. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial purposes. For information on reprint and reuse permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.

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The Seriousness of Unrestricted Warfare

Peter Huessy

As former Representative Mike Gallagher writes October 7th in the Wall Street Journal, America must better understand our enemies. The U.S. cannot bribe them to be our friends. North Korea will starve and imprison its people while spending billions on nuclear arms. The Iranian mullahs will similarly murder and imprison their own people while maintaining a multibillion dollar terror network. Détente provided the Soviets billions in liberalized trade benefits even while Moscow “doubled down” on global revolution in El Salvador, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, and Indochina.

Similarly, the U.S. and its allies gave market access to China thinking this would normalize the CCP.

But all we have done is use American consumption to deliver trillions in intellectual property, technology, and capital to the CCP with which to make “unrestricted warfare” on us.

Now Gallagher concludes that deterrence may yet keep China at bay but as the former head of the House committee examining the Chinese threat explains China is preparing for war, across the board. The U.S. needs to take this threat seriously.

Critical to this threat is the buildup of Chinese nuclear arms. For decades China watchers on the left reassured us that China’s economic growth was nothing more than a “peaceful rise” and its nuclear plans were benign. When three years ago the then commander of the United States Strategic Command laid out the “breath taking” Chinese nuclear expansion, the critics claimed the Admiral was exaggerating to justify building a more modern U.S. nuclear force.

Many on the right spend their day funding the Chinese expansion through raising trillions in investment capital from the United States and pocketing millions in fees.

But in return, the CCP facilitates the massive export of fentanyl and illicit drugs into the U.S. with its criminal Triads in American cities nationwide.

The CCP has what are termed “police stations” in the United States to muscle Chinese nationals, including tens of thousands of military age men who were admitted across our southern border with no vetting.

Infantry brigades shift to mobile brigades in Army transformation

Todd South

Soldiers load into an Infantry Squad Vehicle during a live fire exercise in Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany. (Kevin Sterling Payne/U.S. Army)

Over the next two years, the U.S. Army will convert 25 Infantry Brigade Combat Teams into new formations known as Mobile Brigade Combat Teams as part of the service’s “Transforming in Contact” initiative, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George said at a media roundtable in September.

As part of the service’s initiative to rapidly deliver new capabilities to operational units, three brigades are already undergoing the MBCT transition and their leaders recently discussed some of the changes at the Maneuver Warfighter Conference at Fort Benning, Georgia, in September.

Key overhauls to the brigades include the addition of a multifunctional reconnaissance company and a multipurpose company to bring fires and strike capability down to lower tactical levels.

That’s in part because experimentation with loitering munitions and drones at lower echelons is paying off in destroying targets.

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