'Alienated India, only country to balance China…': Fareed Zakaria on why Trump's Beijing woes are unending

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'Alienated India, only country to balance China…': Fareed Zakaria on why Trump's Beijing woes are unending

The Gaza ceasefire, constructed by US President Donald Trump, was an undisputed success, but China is a different ball-game altogether. Where pressure yields in the Middle East, patience triumphs with China, where flattery paves the way for the Middle East, strategy builds the foundation for China, said geostrategist and columnist, Fareed Zakaria. As such, one of the key cards to be played is India.

In his show, GPS, Zakaria said that as the Middle East grew quieter the Chinese front grew more discordant. “In this arena Trump has lurched from threat to retreat to confusion,” said Zakaria.

“The problem is Trump's diplomatic playbook, effective in the Middle East, fits poorly in the longer, larger struggle with China. Trump’s approach works where America has overwhelming leverage. In the Middle East, Washington holds the purse strings, the weapon systems, the security umbrella, cutting edge technology and the UN veto. The region’s leaders – Netanyahu, Sisi, Erdogan, Mohammad bin Salman – are strongmen who respond to presidential pressure and transactional incentives. Trump loves this world. He can call a leader, threaten, flatter and then make a deal. The Hamas-Israel ceasefire was just that kind of performance – personal, visible and theatrical,” explained Zakaria.

He added: “The contest with China by contrast is of structure – a rivalry between two great powers bound by mutual dependence. Here Trump's instincts misfired. He prefers bluffing to planning, pressure to partnership but Beijing has the strength to call his bluffs.”

Zakaria explained that Washington has leverage on Beijing as China depends on the US and its allies for advanced chip design, aerospace technology, and access to western markets but then America also depends on China for about 70 per cent of its rare earth imports, more than 70 per cent lithium-ion battery imports, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. Moreover, China is a power to reckon with when it comes to manufacturing.

China–India Rapprochement and Its Strategic Implications for Afghanistan

Imran Zakeria & Scott N. Romaniuk & László Csicsmann

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Afghanistan’s history reads as a catalogue of great power competition. From the 19th-century rivalry between Tsarist Russia and Great Britain to the Cold War confrontation between the United States (U.S.) and the Soviet Union, the country’s strategic location has repeatedly drawn external actors into its domestic affairs. Its terrain and position have made it both a prize and a battleground, where the ambitions of powerful neighbors have often eclipsed the needs of its own people.

These rivalries not only hindered meaningful reconstruction but actively eroded Afghanistan’s existing infrastructure, underscoring how external competition repeatedly translated into internal devastation. Following the US military intervention at the start of the 21st century, Afghanistan witnessed modest economic growth and partial infrastructure reconstruction, but these outcomes came at an extraordinary cost. External powers once again turned the country into a battleground for their geopolitical rivalries, prioritizing strategic interests over Afghan stability and welfare. Ordinary citizens endured the heaviest burden, facing daily casualties and profound human suffering.

While Afghanistan’s strategic geography has made it a target of foreign rivalries, the persistence of its problems cannot be explained by external factors alone. The absence of effective strategic vision among Afghan rulers, coupled with their inability to manage the country’s geopolitical position within regional and international frameworks, has perpetuated instability and limited opportunities for national resilience. Domestic political challenges—including factional divisions within the Islamic Emirate, governance capacity limitations, and local power dynamics—further shape decision-making and influence Afghanistan’s ability to leverage regional partnerships. Without stronger internal legitimacy and administrative effectiveness, even well-intentioned foreign engagement faces significant constraints.

Afghanistan–Pakistan Relations and Regional Frictions

During the period of US military presence, relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan were characterized by persistent tension and mistrust. Since the return of the Islamic Emirate in 2021, these frictions have not only continued but intensified, reflecting enduring disputes over border security, militancy, and mutual accusations of interference.

Economic and Security Implications of Pakistan’s Cryptocurrency Push

Shobhankita Reddy, Anupam Manur

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This paper finds that Pakistan’s recent push to adopt cryptocurrency is a net negative for its economy and India’s national security if implemented beyond mere announcements and experiments. Given the structural vulnerabilities in Pakistan’s economy, making crypto a legal tender or allocating a portion of the country’s strategic reserves in crypto is only likely to expose the country to new economic risks rather than mitigating existing ones. However, it could benefit from the potential of crypto for evading sanctions, funding cross-border terrorism and emerging as a hub for money laundering.

Further, the findings suggest that Pakistan becoming a thriving crypto hub and the potential takeover of the country’s crypto assets by its Military-Jihadi Complex (MJC) is the worst-case scenario for India’s interests.

The paper concludes that Pakistan’s move to adopt crypto is helping cultivate favour with the Trump administration in the immediate term. India must monitor Pakistan’s domestic developments in crypto integration and respond appropriately if they directly impinge on its interests.

The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude to Anisree Suresh and Anushka Saxena for their valuable feedback and research guidance.

1. Introduction

For years, Pakistan’s stance on cryptocurrency has been mired in contradictions. While Pakistan’s central bank, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), continued to classify digital currencies as illegal, government committees intermittently explored their potential for applications in financial inclusion. At the same time, Pakistani citizens adopted cryptocurrency with great enthusiasm, making the country a thriving hub for its usage.

While data for cryptocurrency adoption varies, it does appear that by 2022, crypto was popular in Pakistan with the country ranking in the top ten in several global adoption indices. Pakistan is currently estimated to have 2 crore users, a number significantly higher than the 4.2 lakh people who invest in the country’s capital markets.1 Separately, Pakistan has an estimated 4 crore operational crypto wallets.2

The West’s Perception of the Lashkar-e-Taiba as a South Asian Problem Is Deeply Flawed

Aishwaria Sonavane and Anand Arni

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The arrest of a Pakistani national linked to the U.N. proscribed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in Itaewon, a district in Seoul, by South Korean police in August underscores the spread of the terror group’s global tentacles — both in terms of its ambitions and operations. The LeT has been generally viewed through the prism of its anti-India militancy in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). However, the group’s ideological architecture also embodies a pan-Islamist and anti-Western worldview that has occasionally spilled into transnational plots.

The Pakistani national was arrested under the Counter-Terrorism Act and the Immigration Act. He reportedly joined the LeT in 2020 and received training in arms and infiltration tactics in Pakistan. While he has not been accused of plotting terrorist attacks in South Korea, his alleged affiliation is reflective of the LeT’s expansive network beyond Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Kashmir Valley.

From its inception, the LeT articulated an expansive vision stemming from the Ahl-e-Hadith sect. It sought both regional influence and relevance within the jihadist landscape. The group’s transnational intentions are not merely theoretical, but have manifested in networks across Asia, Europe, and North America, and in attacks and propaganda campaigns designed to target Western and Jewish targets as much as Indians.

Trump Is Losing the Trade War to China. Will He Lose Taiwan Next?

Brandon J. Weichert

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The United States’ loss in its trade war with China should be a dire warning to Taiwan that the Americans are rethinking their commitments.

A strange thing has happened. President Donald Trump appears to have stood down in the trade war he initiated with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Why? Unfortunately, it appears to have been because the Americans were losing.

Recently, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made the comment that China is either entering a massive recession or a major depression—and Xi Jinping is trying to take the whole world economy down with them. That very well may be true. Irrespective of this, the fact remains that China has the Americans right where they want them on trade.

Donald Trump’s Trade War Was Folly

By playing their ace in the hole—China’s overwhelming dominance in the global rare earth mineral market, Beijing has effectively cut the Americans off at the knees when it comes to escalating the trade war. Already, China has extracted serious concessions from Washington in the form of Trump’s recent authorization allowing for NVIDIA to sell advanced computer chips to Chinese tech firms—though Trump continues to deny China access to NVIDIA’s most cutting-edge chips.

It gets better for Beijing, though. Recently, the Trump administration opted to deny Taiwan a previously negotiated $400 million weapons deal. These weapons would be crucial for any defense of the embattled island. It is no secret that the Trump White House nixed this deal as part of its larger attempt to end the trade war with the Chinese. Yet the Chinese are not budging on their intransigent position on rare earths.

There remains a real chance that Trump will get some semblance of a deal with China. But America’s inauspicious showing in the trade war—which apparently came as a shock to the White House—is a wakeup call for what the future portends in terms of US-China relations. And it certainly doesn’t bode well for Taiwan, which now finds itself as little more than a sacrificial lamb in the trade war between Beijing and Washington.

The United States Might Not Be Willing to Defend Taiwan

Trump Orders Two US Carriers to Waters Near China

Maya Carlin

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As the world’s leading “floating airport” design, the Nimitz carriers can carry around 60 airframes.

As tensions between Beijing and Washington continue to mount, the Trump administration has dispatched two of the Navy’s aircraft carriers near China. Both the Nimitz and George Washington Carrier Strike Groups (CSG) are currently operating in the Western Pacific. A US Seventh Fleet spokesperson said that the two Nimitz-class boats were carrying out “routine operations” within the fleet’s area of operations.

However, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has recently showcased improvements being made to its upcoming Fujian carrier. In September, Beijing released imagery depicting the Fujian’s ability to launch and recover aircraft from its flight deck, making the carrier the first-ever catapult-equipped warship in the fleet. While the United States still greatly outpowers and outnumbers China’s aircraft carrier contingent, the PLAN is continuing to expand and advance, posing a threat to American interests globally.

Both USS Nimitz and USS George Washington represent the first and sixth carriers in the Nimitz-class. The Nimitz was initially dispatched to the Middle East to join the Carl Vinson CSG when the carrier set sail on its scheduled deployment over the summer. However, the ongoing ceasefire between Israel and Hamas may have freed up the Navy’s carrier positioning strategy. The USS George Washington is homeported in Japan and often rotates its Pacific operations with its West Coast-based Nimitz-class sister ships. In total, 10 Nimitz carriers are in service today. Up until the introduction of the USS Gerald R. Ford in 2017, the Nimitz carriers were the largest warships ever built and in service.

America’s Mighty Nimitz-class Carrier

How China Views AI Risks and What to do About Them

Matt Sheehan and Scott Singer

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The Asia Program in Washington studies disruptive security, governance, and technological risks that threaten peace, growth, and opportunity in the Asia-Pacific region, including a focus on China, Japan, and the Korean peninsula.Learn More

The Technology and International Affairs Program develops insights to address the governance challenges and large-scale risks of new technologies. Our experts identify actionable best practices and incentives for industry and government leaders on artificial intelligence, cyber threats, cloud security, countering influence operations, reducing the risk of biotechnologies, and ensuring global digital inclusion.Learn More

China’s most influential AI standards body released a comprehensive articulation of how technical experts and policy advisers in China understand AI risks and how to mitigate them.

The AI Safety Governance Framework 2.0,1 released in September, builds on an earlier version of the framework released a year prior. Alongside the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) unwavering focus on “information content risks” from AI, Framework 2.0 responds to the advances of AI over the past year, such as the global proliferation of open-source models and the advent of reasoning models. It represents a significant evolution in risks covered, including those tied to labor market impacts and chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapon misuse. And it introduces more sophisticated risk mitigation measures, establishing a rubric to categorize and grade AI risks that sector-specific regulators should adapt to their domain.

The framework is not a binding regulatory document. But it offers a useful datapoint on how China’s AI policy community is thinking about AI risks. It could also preview what technical AI standards—and possibly regulations—are around the corner. Given China’s massive footprint in AI development, the impact of those standards will ripple out across the world, affecting the trajectory of the technology itself.

Who’s Behind the Framework?

Former NATO Chief Stoltenberg Says Alliance Let Ukraine Down, Washington Was ‘Defeatist’

Ray Furlong

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Former NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg says the alliance “was letting Ukraine down” by failing to deliver enough support during 2023-24, describing a “defeatist” mood in Washington and European nations failing to make promised arms deliveries.

Stoltenberg, who was head of the western military alliance from October 2014 until October 2024, makes the criticisms in a new book, On My Watch, Leading NATO In A Time Of War, to be released on October 23.

The book covers his entire period in office, including NATO’s “defeat” in Afghanistan in 2021 and Russia’s initial aggression in Ukraine in 2014. It also ponders the future of the alliance following the election of Donald Trump as US president in 2024.

“The tone among the allies is sometimes sharp,” Stoltenberg, who is currently Norway’s finance minister and a former prime minister of the Nordic nation, writes.

“However, the [US] administration’s views on security policy and NATO cooperation are recognizable. China continues to be considered the United States’ most important challenger and strategic competitor; the pivot towards the Indo-Pacific region is ongoing and intensifying. Demands that Europe and Canada spend more on their defense are far from new.”

But Stoltenberg’s recollections of meetings with senior officials ahead of and during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 offer some of the most revealing insights.

Prelude To War

His account of the run-up to the attack details Russia’s lack of interest in genuine talks, in particular a meeting in New York in September 2021 in which Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was constantly interrupting him while his spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, “groaned and rolled her eyes” whenever Stoltenberg spoke.

In mid-October 2021, he writes, a NATO intelligence officer told him that Russia intended “to invade.” The reason, he believes, was fear of the “political threat” posed by a “democratic and ever more West-facing Ukraine.”

It’s Not Easy Being Green: Breaking Europe’s Climate Spending Deadlock – Analysis

Mats Engström

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The sun shines in a blue sky over Gliwice in south-western Poland as the technical university’s head of development explains research plans for low-carbon technologies. Close by, in Rybnik, a new centre for renewable energy and hydrogen is being built. It will help transform a region that has been heavily dependent on coal for decades.

Meanwhile, in the far north of Sweden, steel companies SSAB and Stegra are investing in low-carbon processes, bringing change to one of the most polluting industrial sectors. And in Cluj-Napoca, the manager of the Cluj IT cluster explains how innovative Romanian companies are using information technology to modernise and green the economy, for example by making industrial processes less carbon-intensive.

These are just some of the hundreds of European green industry initiatives. But while the sector is growing, long-term success is far from guaranteed. Global competition is getting tougher. Even if the United States has changed course under President Donald Trump, companies in China and other parts of the world are quickly transitioning to a low-carbon economy. To remain among the leaders, the EU needs to do more.

To this end, the European Commission proposed a Clean Industrial Dealin February 2025, which is now under debate by member states. Yet investment remains too low to decarbonise European industry, and much of the funding depends on the NextGenerationEU programme, which expires in 2026.

This leaves it mostly up to the next EU “multiannual financial framework” for 2028-2034, the MFF. But since the commission put forward its proposal for the budget in July this year, member states have been divided by competing demands for funding. The main antagonists are the “frugal states” and the “friends of cohesion”. The frugal four include Austria, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden, while Germany also takes a broadly restrictive position on spending. The “friends of cohesion”, on the other hand, want more money for agriculture and regional development. This includes Portugal, Spain and most central and eastern European countries. All member states agree that defence needs more funds. In other words, spending on the green industrial transition—especially through the budget’s proposed Competitiveness Fund which is designed to boost clean-technology investment and Europe’s industrial base—is under pressure from all sides.

The Pentagon Needs to Rethink How It Buys Munitions

John Ferrari

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American munitions today are optimized for performance—at the expense of time and scale. In preparing for a future conflict, the Department of Defense must ruthlessly correct course.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg did the right thing a few weeks ago. He hauled America’s major defense contractors into a room and demanded more munitions, yesterday. That attention from such a senior official within the Pentagon is remarkable. It is also necessary, but it is far from sufficient. If the Department of Defense thinks louder directives and bigger purchase orders will fix a production model built on bespoke engineering and single-source chokepoints, it is deluding itself. The Trump Administration cannot simply change the department’s name and expect different results. On a fundamental level, it must change what it buys.

The hard truth is blunt: some of the weapons the Pentagon still tries to buy are fundamentally unmanufacturable at scale. This could mean catastrophic defeat in the next war. It needs to make preventive, rather than reactive, changes by letting go of the artifacts of an earlier industrial era and by building a new, elastic munition ecosystem.

Too many of the United States’ weapons systems have been optimized for one metric—performance—at the expense of time and scale. The result are munitions that require months of hand-assembly, exotic materials, and airplane-like certification processes for components that should roll off of production lines like commodity parts. It’s no wonder the supply chain is not responsive. If we want surge capacity that endures, we must buy weapons that can be manufactured at scale, dump the systems that cannot, and bring new firms into the game to design and build scalable munitions.

Think about cloud computing. Hundreds of billions dollars have been invested to create services that scale elastically across the globe. Need more computing power? Providers spin it up by using standardized components, modular architectures, automation, and guaranteed marketplace demand. The magic is not only money, although that plays a role: it is standardization, modularity, and economic certainty. That blueprint maps directly to munitions, too: standardize, modularize, industrialize, and create market signals that make surge production rational.

Why France Can’t Face Its Economic Problems

Milton Ezrati

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Pity French president Emmanuel Macron—and France, too. The nation suffers from an unsustainable economic model, and the president’s government in Paris seems unable even to discuss the matter, much less do anything about it. It might be hard, in light of France’s present difficulties, to remember, but not too long ago, the country was taking steps to relieve its economic and fiscal problems. Sadly, that moment has passed. Prospects accordingly look grim.

When Macron first took office as France’s president in 2017, he carried with him an agenda of needed economic and fiscal reform. His first steps made changes in labor and tax law. He promised that once those reforms allowed for a healthier economy, he would take additional steps to put the nation’s fiscal house in order and thereby put the nation’s political economy onto a sounder footing. At the time, he seemed to have a mandate to pursue these goals.

Immediately upon taking office, Macron hammered through several historic reforms. To encourage innovation and investment and so revitalize the economy, his government replaced a burdensome and excessively complex tax code with a flat 30 percent tax on investment income. He abolished France’s special tax on non-real-estate wealth. On the labor front, new laws allowed small- and medium-sized firms greater flexibility by permitting them to negotiate with local instead of national union leadership. He also opened employment opportunities by giving firms greater latitude in hiring and firing decisions.

Because the previous law had made it all but impossible for firms to fire employees, even for cause, French employers had long been reluctant to hire people on a full-time basis. Firm managers, rather than run the risk of being stuck with unwanted people on the payroll, skipped expansion opportunities or relied increasingly on short-term labor contracts to fulfill their labor needs, a practice that discouraged worker training and hence hindered productivity improvements.

Despite mass protests from the Left, unions, and well-positioned workers, the reforms were passed into law and seemed to benefit the French economy. Economic growth accelerated from 0.8 percent in 2016 to 2 percent in 2019, following the implementation of these reforms. France’s employment picture also improved.

Is the US Headed for Revolution?

Mathew Burrows

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Economic and demographic trends in the United States mirror those of other pre-revolutionary societies in the past.

The Red Cell series is published in collaboration with the Stimson Center. Drawing upon the legacy of the CIA’s Red Cell—established following the September 11 attacks to avoid similar analytic failures in the future—the project works to challenge assumptions, misperceptions, and groupthink with a view to encouraging alternative approaches to America’s foreign and national security policy challenges. For more information about the Stimson Center’s Red Cell Project, see here.

Red Cell

Charlie Kirk’s killing last month has sparked fears that the United States is headed to an all-out second civil war or revolution. According to a YouGov survey earlier this year, “more Americans than not believe it is likely that the United States will see a civil war over the next decade,” while several hundred political scientists and historians in an April 2025 survey saw the United States slipping into authoritarianism with Trump’s second term. Trump’s deployment of military and National Guard forces at home, combined with his vow to suppress “the enemy within” while his domestic advisor, Stephen Miller, labels the Democratic Party a “domestic extremist organization,” can easily be seen as setting the stage for an authoritarian takeover. Revolutions don’t come out of nowhere. Yet, the how and the when often come as surprises.

Political Violence Exploding

Even before the Kirk killing, the number of assassinations was climbing, according to the academic Peter Turchin’s US Political Violence Database (USPVDB). The five years from 2020 to 2024 saw seven assassinations, higher than the previous peak during the 1960s, although only half as large as that of the late 1860s.

Violent threats against lawmakers hit a record high last year. Since the 2020 election, state and local election officials have become targets of violent threats and harassment, as have federal judges, prosecutors, and other court officials. As of April, there have been more than 170 incidents of threats and harassment targeting local officials across nearly 40 states this year, according to data gathered for the Bridging Divides Initiative at Princeton University.

Improving U.S. Cooperation with Allies and Partners

Daniel Byman, Alexander Palmer, Audrey Aldisert, Henry H. Carroll, Cynthia R. Cook, Chris H. Park, and Seth G. Jones

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The national security of the United States has long benefited from the vast and unrivaled global network of U.S. allies and partners. As strategic competition with China in the Indo-Pacific emerges as the primary driver of U.S. policy, this network will become even more important. Yet, for all the benefits the United States and its friends receive from cooperation, these relationships are often fraught and do not achieve their full potential.

Problems with allies and partners show up in different ways in three key areas: intelligence sharing, coalition planning, and arms sales. This report brings together insights from four other publications in the CSIS Allies and Partners project to offer a deep dive into the problems that the United States has, or is likely to have, with allies and partners when they plan jointly, share intelligence, purchase weapons, or otherwise work together. The report offers detailed recommendations to help U.S. policymakers more effectively work with the allies and partners that will be central to U.S. strategy in Europe and especially in the Indo-Pacific in the coming decades.

This research was made possible by the support of the Smith Richardson Foundation.

Will the Tomahawks Save Ukraine?

Mark F. Cancian and Chris H. Park

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Tomahawk missiles have emerged as the key discussion topic surrounding Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s third visit to the White House today. U.S. President Donald Trump has floated the idea of sending the missiles to Ukraine: “If this war doesn’t get settled, I may send Tomahawks.” He had previously said that Ukraine is in a “position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form” with the commitment to “continue to supply [U.S.] weapons to NATO.”

About a thousand Tomahawk missiles are available for transfer to Ukraine in the U.S. stockpile today. Their deployment could have a major impact on the war, but they would need to arrive in Ukraine quickly if they are to give President Trump the leverage he needs to get Russia back to the negotiating table.

Ukraine, however, competes with U.S. requirements in the Pacific, which the administration sees as a higher priority. Further, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned against the transfer in his recent phone call with President Trump and likely will do so again in the prospective summit in Budapest.

Even if President Trump defers a decision about Tomahawks, Ukraine and its supporters can raise the issue in the future.

Q1: What is the Tomahawk missile?

A1: As described by the Navy, “The Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) is an all-weather, long-range, subsonic cruise missile used for deep land attack warfare, launched from U. S. Navy surface ships and U.S. Navy and United Kingdom Royal Navy submarines.” The missile has been around for a long time, with production beginning in 1980. Over time, there have been many versions, called “blocks,” and several special designs—including one developed to target the Iraqi electric grid.

The current version is Block V. Block IV is in the fleet and is being upgraded. Block III was withdrawn from service over the last few years, while earlier versions have long been retired. The recently procured missiles have all been conventional. The nuclear-armed version, TLAM-N, was procured in the 1980s and retired in 2013.

What Goes Around Comes Around and Other Cliches

William Alan Reinsch

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Those of you unlucky enough to be bored by one of my speeches know that I frequently point out that there is no World Trade Organization rule against hypocrisy. In fact, it appears there is no rule anywhere against hypocrisy, and certainly not in the Trump administration. Conveniently, proof of my hypothesis has recently emerged.

For the past week we have been treated to cries of outrage from both political parties over China’s imposition of stricter export controls on rare earths and port fees for U.S.-built or -owned ships. This has been deemed a hostile act, and Trump has responded by threatening an additional 100 percent tariff on Chinese goods effective November 1. That date comes immediately after the potential Trump–Xi Jinping summit meeting in South Korea at the end of October. The obvious conclusion is that both sides are playing a leverage game in the run-up to the meeting, and attacking each other’s good faith is as much a part of that as the actual substance of what the two governments are doing to each other. The Trump administration appears to have been surprised by China’s action, which itself is a surprise because China always retaliates. This should have been expected. The charitable explanation was that the two sides interpreted the most recent ceasefire agreement differently, with China believing it was a commitment not to take any additional actions, and the United States seeing it as a simple export controls for magnets deal that did not prevent other steps.

But this column is not about the tactics or wisdom of either side. Instead, it is about the failure of anybody on the U.S. side to acknowledge that China is doing pretty much the same thing the United States just did to them. A few weeks earlier, the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security imposed stricter export controls on U.S. chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and on October 14, previously announced fees on Chinese-flagged or -built ships landing at U.S. ports went into effect.

China’s response was directed at rare earths rather than chips, which is its point of leverage against the United States (and the rest of the world), but in imposing stricter controls, China also adopted its own version of the U.S. foreign direct product rule (FDPR) by claiming Chinese jurisdiction over products that contained even a tiny amount of their rare earths. Sound familiar? The U.S. FDPR takes a similar approach in claiming U.S. jurisdiction over products manufactured with U.S. equipment or based on U.S. designs, even if there is no other U.S. content.

When a Trade War Becomes a Food Fight

Philip Luck, Hugh Grant-Chapman, and Duc Minh Nguyet (Moon) Nguyen

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The U.S. agricultural sector is once again caught in the crossfire of the U.S.-China trade war. For decades, China’s immense agricultural market has been a top destination for U.S. exports. Now, as Washington and Beijing escalate tariffs and other retaliatory measures, U.S. farmers are scrambling to find new buyers just as Chinese consumers turn to alternative suppliers. Unlike the 2018 trade war, which was estimated to have slashed U.S. agricultural exports by more than $27 billion, the current dispute is compounded by rising input costs and labor shortages at home. The result is not merely a short-term disruption; it could signal a sweeping reconfiguration of global agricultural trade stretching from Latin America to Europe and Australia.

U.S. Agricultural Exports to China Have Plummeted

In response to mounting economic pressure from Washington, Beijing launched a salvo of tariffs and other retaliatory measures against U.S. agricultural exporters. Chinese tariffs on many U.S. agricultural imports rose by 10–15 percentage points in the spring of 2025. These increased tariffs have rendered many U.S. products uncompetitive, prompting Chinese buyers to pivot to other suppliers. U.S. exporters are also facing new nontariff trade barriers that create regulatory hurdles to selling into Chinese markets. On top of these challenges, U.S. farmers are facing rising input costs that squeeze their bottom lines and drive prices upward, further eroding their competitiveness in global markets.

Together, these trends are taking a heavy toll on the U.S. agricultural sector. U.S. agricultural exports to China have dropped by over $6.8 billion since January 2025, a staggering decline of over 73 percent, according to Trade Data Monitor data and CSIS calculations. These losses are felt most acutely in the U.S. South and Midwest, given the outsized role of soybeans, cotton, and grains in these states’ economies. Yet the West Coast, the Mountain West, and the Northeast have all borne shares of the shortfalls, through industries like tree nuts and meat products.

Trump Is Taking Aim at the Midterms

RICHARD K. SHERWIN

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NEW YORK – A little over a year from now, Americans will vote to determine which political party will control the two houses of Congress. President Donald Trump’s Republican Party currently controls both, but its majorities are narrow (53-47 in the Senate and 219-213 in the House of Representatives). There is no modern precedent for a president’s party to avoid midterm election losses in the House unless the president’s popular approval is well above 50%, and in Trump’s case, an unweighted average of recent polls shows his approval at 45.3%, with 51.9% (a net of -6.6) of voters disapproving. 

Under normal circumstances, the president would seek to improve his party’s electoral standing. Yet Trump is doubling down on some of his most unpopular policies. For example, his latest statements suggest that he is committed to sending more National Guard troops to Democratic Party-controlled cities, even though 58% of Americans oppose such deployments. While the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 forbids the use of federal troops for domestic policing, the Insurrection Act of 1807 provides an exception for responding to violent uprisings against the state, and Trump is already threatening to invoke it.

That is why Trump and his advisers are increasingly using terms like “terrorist” and “insurrection” to describe anyone who opposes their agenda. Trump recently claimed, falsely, that Portland, Oregon, has been taken over by left-wing “domestic terrorists” (adding, preposterously, that the city doesn’t “even have stores anymore”). Similarly, Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff who increasingly appears to be running things, has called federal judges who have ruled against the Trump administration “terrorists” and “insurrectionists.” He has also said that the Democrats are not a political party, but a “domestic extremist organization.”

Such labels matter, because Trump himself has explicitly described how he thinks extremists should be handled. If “radical left lunatics” cause trouble on Election Day, he told Fox News last October, the problem “should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.” That allusion to Election Day is no accident. Moreover, the vagueness surrounding the enemy’s precise identity serves Trump’s purpose. It is enough, as he recently told an audience of 800 top military leaders, to say that America faces an “invasion from within … No different than a foreign enemy.”

The Cracks in Russia’s War Economy

Alexandra Prokopenko

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To sustain its war against Ukraine, Russia militarized its economy. Although—contrary to popular belief abroad—the Russian economy is not on a full wartime footing, the Kremlin has both splurged on weapons factories and begun trading more with China to evade Western sanctions. Over the past three years, the Russian economy has outperformed most forecasts thanks to extravagant government spending, high prices for commodities that Russia exports, and skilled economic management.

There are now two views of Russia’s economy. One, touted by Russian President Vladimir Putin, is that the Russian economy has proved

The Guardian view on Ukraine peace talks: Europe must ensure Zelenskyy can resist Trump’s bullying

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It wasn’t quite the calamity of February, when Volodymyr Zelenskyy was publicly humiliated in the Oval Office by Donald Trump and his vice-president, JD Vance. But the Ukrainian president’s latest visit to the White House on Friday was, by all accounts, a disquieting experience. Mr Trump’s public musings before the meeting suggested that his stance had hardened towards Vladimir Putin, to the strategically significant extent of being willing to sell long-range Tomahawk missiles to Kyiv. But by the time Mr Zelenskyy arrived in Washington, the US president had changed his mind, instead lecturing his guest on the need to make territorial concessions to Russia.

So far, so familiar. Since being re-elected, Mr Trump has repeatedly resiled from following up tough talk on Russia with meaningful action. Faux deadlines for Mr Putin to make substantive steps towards peace have come and gone, treated with indifference by the Kremlin. Last week, the US secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, stated that Washington was ready to “impose costs” if Russia continued the conflict. But a two-hour phone call at Mr Putin’s request was enough to defuse that threat, and for Mr Trump to once again position himself as a neutral arbitrator between two warring parties.

The return of that insidious and amoral framing signifies a moment of diplomatic peril for Mr Zelenskyy. In language that is more suitable for describing a contested real-estate deal than an illegal invasion costing hundreds of thousands of lives, Mr Trump told Fox News that Mr Putin was “going to take something … he’s won certain property”. Should a planned meeting in Budapest take place between the US and Russian presidents – to be hosted by Hungary’s Putin-friendly leader, Viktor Orbán – discussion of a potential carve-up will dominate the agenda, as it did in the failed Alaska head-to-head.

That prospect should concentrate minds ahead of a EU leaders’ summit later this week in Brussels. In the wake of the signing of the Gaza peace agreement – in relation to which Mr Putin was careful to offer fulsome congratulations – Mr Trump has taken to describing himself as “the mediator president”. In grimly paradoxical fashion, there is every possibility that he will try to bully Mr Zelenskyy into an unacceptable deal that rewards Russia’s aggression, in order to burnish his supposed credentials as a supreme peacemaker.

How Trump can apply his Middle East success to ending Russia’s war in Ukraine

John E. Herbst

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As the cease-fire his administration brokered between Israel and Hamas went into effect last week, US President Donald Trump told the Israeli Knesset that next he wanted “to get Russia done.”

The Israel-Hamas war and the Russia-Ukraine war are obviously different in many important ways. Having served as a US diplomat both in Israel and Ukraine, I know the regions where these conflicts take place have much that makes them distinct. Nonetheless, there are several important lessons from Trump’s recent triumph in the Middle East that might apply to ending the war in Europe.

What worked in the Middle East

Specifically, Trump’s engineering of a deal between Israel and Hamas was a tour de force achieved through military and diplomatic pressure. The US president utilized both brilliantly.

The military pressure came mainly from Israel but also from the United States. Israel’s full-bore assault on Gaza after the horrors of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack immediately put Hamas on the defensive. But as often happens when Israel responds to a Palestinian attack with major force, this led to major international pressure on Israel to ease up. The Trump administration largely—but not entirely—worked to shield Israel from that pressure, which meant that Israel kept the heat on Hamas.

Israel further strengthened its position with its ingenious operations against the leadership and soldiers of Hezbollah, dealing a near-fatal blow to Iran’s principal instrument of influence in Lebanon. US and Israeli strikes against the Houthis also weakened Iran’s surrogate in Yemen. Finally, the Israeli and US strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities in June significantly set back its nuclear program. As a result of these operations, Israel and the United States greatly weakened Iran, Hamas’s major sponsor and principal source of arms.

But that was not Hamas’s only problem. Trump’s diplomacy applied additional pressure on the group. He leveraged the close relationships he has cultivated with Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt to push Hamas to accept his terms for peace, something they were more willing to do because Trump’s twenty-point peace proposal left open the prospect of an independent Palestinian state. Trump also applied diplomatic pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept the terms, despite the plan’s deep unpopularity with the far-right members of his coalition.

Trump’s hopes for quick second summit with Putin have stalled out

Kristen Holmes, Jennifer Hansler, Kylie Atwood

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President Donald Trump’s hopes for a quick meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin have stalled out, with an administration official telling CNN on Tuesday there were “no plans” for a summit between the two “in the immediate future.”

The change in posture comes after Trump said the leaders would meet “within two weeks or so, pretty quick” following a Thursday phone call. Now, it appears, that timeline is unlikely.

Trump said Tuesday he didn’t want the meeting to be “a waste of time.” He may still meet with the Russian leader, he implied, but he indicated it was no longer a top priority. “We’ll be notifying you over the next two days as to what we’re doing,” the president told reporters.

Trump said after the Thursday call that the US and Russia had “agreed that there will be a meeting of our High Level Advisors, next week,” and officials had expected Secretary of State Marco Rubio would meet with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, to lay the groundwork for the Trump-Putin summit.

But multiple officials told CNN that diplomatic engagement, too, was no longer happening — at least for the time being — and one source said Rubio and Lavrov had divergent expectations about a possible end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Rubio and Lavrov spoke by phone Monday.

“Secretary Rubio and Foreign Minister Lavrov had a productive call. Therefore, an additional in-person meeting between the Secretary and Foreign Minister is not necessary, and there are no plans for President Trump to meet with President Putin in the immediate future,” the administration official said Tuesday.

Although the US described the call as “productive,” a source familiar with the matter told CNN that officials felt afterward that the Russian position had not evolved enough beyond its maximalist stance, and there was a sense that Rubio was not likely to recommend moving forward on a Putin-Trump meeting next week. The source said Monday that Rubio and Lavrov could speak again this week.

On Tuesday, Lavrov rejected the notion of freezing the conflict — an idea put forward by Trump after a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week and backed by Kyiv and Europe as part of negotiations toward an end to the war.

Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae Takes Charge

Sheila A. Smith

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October 21, 2025, marked a historic first for Japan. The Japanese Diet elected Takaichi Sanae, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), to the country’s highest office. As Japan’s first female prime minister, Takaichi brings a fresh face to a country that has struggled with gender equality, especially in politics. But as prime minister, Takaichi will take on a complex agenda. By the end of next week, she will meet the leaders of the United States, China, South Korea, and others at a round of Asian multilateral gatherings.

But the bigger task may still be managing the politics at home. Takaichi leads a party that has slipped severely in popularity, and new younger parties have risen to pose a serious challenge to the idea that only the LDP can generate good ideas for governing Japan. Serious losses in both Lower House and Upper House elections this past year forced the LDP to form its government from the minority. A long-standing coalition with the Komeitō helped, but this fell apart when Komeitō president, Saitō Tetsuo, failed to gain Takaichi’s agreement to limit corporate funding of political parties. Takaichi apologized for losing Komeitō but worked quickly to craft a new coalition with the Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party). This secured support for her bid to become prime minister, but the coalition document released on Monday suggests that work still needs to be done to clarify shared goals. Ishin’s leaders, Fujita Fumitake and Osaka Governor Yoshimura Hirofumi, told their members on Sunday that they will wait and see how the LDP fulfills its promises. Takaichi will need to manage this new relationship carefully to keep this new partner on side.

Within her party, Japan’s new prime minister also has some bridges to build. Three out of four competitors for the LDP leadership are included in her new cabinet. The fourth, Kobayashi Takayuki, became head of the influential LDP policy research council. But the larger issue of the party’s identity may take time to resolve. A series of money-in-politics (seji to kane) scandals, growing differences over policy priorities, and lingering personal rivalries still plague the conservatives. The demand for new fundraising rules for political parties comes from opposition parties but also from within her own party. Economic challenges will undoubtedly be at the top of her priority list, given cost-of-living concerns expressed by Japanese voters, but there is no consensus within the LDP on how to fund short-term aid to households while crafting a longer-term growth strategy. When the LDP ruled from the legislative majority, either on its own or in coalition with Komeitō, these differences could be managed in-house. But now Takaichi will need to craft agreements with opposition parties to pass the government budget and legislate new policy initiatives while keeping her own party and her new coalition partner aligned.

Book Review | On Character: Choices That Define a Life

Jan Gleiman 

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When Stanley McChrystal commanded my battalion and later our regiment, he set a standard of discipline, focus, training, and leadership that shaped my early years as an officer. Like many who served under him, I felt anger and disappointment when his public career seemed to end abruptly in 2010. Yet the years that followed revealed something more enduring than position or power. McChrystal’s steadiness, humility, and intellect remained intact, and even strengthened by his reputation and example he set. His latest book, On Character: Choices That Define a Life (New York: Penguin Press, 2025. ISBN 978-0-593-655-120), feels like the culmination of that long process of reflection.

BACKGROUND

The project began as private essays written to clarify his own thinking, but the result reads as a public meditation on what it means to live with integrity in a restless age. McChrystal presents a simple formula. Character = Convictions × Discipline. But that formula is anything but simplistic and as the book goes on, it feels incomplete. He argues that convictions are the deeply held beliefs that give direction to one’s life, while discipline is the daily act of living according to them. When united, they form character, which he calls “the only metric that matters.” The book is not a memoir (though his personal stories are key) or a manual. It is closer to a modern Meditations as a collection of concise reflections that challenge the reader to measure belief against behavior.

REVIEW

It is difficult to read On Character without recalling the ancient Stoics whom McChrystal frequently cites. Like Marcus Aurelius, he writes not to impress but to remind himself what right conduct requires. His voice is quiet, but ultimately his challenge is not. He asks whether our actions reflect the principles we claim to hold, if we can be circumspect and disciplined in testing those convictions, and whether we have the courage to live by them when the cost is high. For readers of Small Wars Journal, this is not an abstract question. As a journal that speaks both from and to practitioners of irregular warfare, strategy, and the human dimensions of war and conflict, it is one that reaches to the heart of service and command, where the burdens of leadership are moral before they are strategic.

AI for All

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming societies and economies worldwide, becoming a pivotal driver of innovation, growth, and competitiveness. As AI continues to shape our collective future, countries and companies are developing AI at different rates and under fragmented regulatory schemes. Amid trends of fragmentation globally, international efforts are, however, emerging to harmonize AI governance frameworks and ensure that AI systems contribute to sustainable development for all. At the recently concluded 80th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Member States agreed to establish the United Nations International Scientific Panel on AI and the Global Dialogue on AI Governance. These mechanisms build on and operationalize the Global Digital Compact, a comprehensive framework on digital cooperation and governance of artificial intelligence, a year after it was adopted in September 2024.

Against this backdrop and on the sidelines of UNGA80, Foreign Policy, in partnership with Lenovo, convened a high-level, closed-door roundtable, AI for All: Building Global Capacity to Unlock AI Innovation, bringing together policymakers, academic experts, industry, and civil society leaders to explore practical approaches to fostering AI innovations while ensuring all countries reap the range of potential benefits AI offers. The key takeaways from this roundtable align with the thematic focus and agenda of the forthcoming Global Dialogue on AI Governance, offering insights into the challenges and opportunities to close disparities in AI access and capacity, particularly affecting low-and middle-income countries.

The roundtable brought together a diverse group of participants from governments, multilateral institutions, the private sector, and civil society.

Discussion Topics

Stakeholder coordination and collaborationHow can policymakers and industry stakeholders collaborate on establishing global norms and governance frameworks as AI development continues to accelerate?

What practical models of collaboration among governments, industry, civil society, and academia can accelerate AI adoption while avoiding duplication of efforts?

Army brings AI into selection boards for more efficient, transparent process

ROSE L. THAYER STARS AND STRIPES

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Army Human Resources Command has introduced artificial intelligence into noncommissioned officer boards to help more quickly evaluate who has the qualifications to be considered for promotion. (Jermaine Branch/U.S. Army) Army Human Resources Command has introduced artificial intelligence into noncommissioned officer boards to help more quickly evaluate who has the qualifications to be considered for promotion. The driving force behind the Army’s Comprehensive Board Reform and Analysis program is to make boards more efficient, smarter and ultimately more transparent, Col. Tom Malejko, chief talent analytics officer at Army Human Resources Command, said last week during the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting in Washington. “The first thing to understand is that we are not using it to replace humans,” he said. “We’re using it very broadly to augment their decision-making.” The command created a “naive” AI system that does not look at names, branches or ranks, but instead can screen out people who haven’t reached a certain command level or attended a specific school. “Can we screen out individuals that are not really competitive for the process upfront … helping our board members to focus their valuable time and resources on those individuals that are then most competitive for that selection?” 

Malejko said. Maj. Gen. Hope Rampy, commander of Human Resources Command, said this could help in the sergeant first class evaluation boards, when every NCO of that rank is being evaluated. Some are not competitive for the promotion yet but must get a merit list score. Before acting on AI decisions, Malejko said a team of people reviews every step the AI model considered to ensure there is no bias. “Our approach is to work our way through our noncommissioned officer boards first, learn from them and then pilot from those,” he said. “Based on what we’ve learned, go back to Congress and ask for additional authorities so we can actually execute them within our officer boards, since Congress ultimately controls those responsibilities.” The Army has, however, used an AI-like algorithm for the past four years to determine which officers should be invited to a selection board, Rampy said. Each year their post-evaluation has helped programmers refine the algorithm to be more effective. In the beginning, more than 30 officers were overlooked by the system and had to be manually included, Rampy said. Now that’s down to about three to five. “Because you can retrain it, it got better every year,” she said. The command is now looking to make a similar program to search the Army’s personnel and pay system for specific skills for a specific mission or job. Because soldiers can add skills, such as languages or hobbies, to their talent profile, this could include skills outside the scope of their job in the Army.