The Saudi-Pakistan Nuclear Agreement. The Same But Very Different

Tim Willasey-Wilsey CMG

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The Saudi-Pakistan Mutual Defence Pact is more complicated than it appears at first sight.

Israel’s attack on a Hamas building in Doha on 9 September has provided Saudi Arabia and Pakistan with the perfect cover for bringing their previously secret nuclear deal out into the open. By casting it as a response to Israeli aggression the Saudis have neatly side-stepped Pakistan’s previous anxieties about alienating Iran. Meanwhile Pakistan, still reeling from the implications of the final stage of India’s Operation Sindoor in May, has secured an agreement which will oblige India to think twice about future missile strikes. But there are good reasons why neither party should place too much reliance on the pact.

On 17 September Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed a mutual defence pact between their two countries. The pact represents a revival of an older secret agreement, but with very different motivations for both sides.

The story goes back to the late 1990s when Nawaz Sharif, as Prime Minister of Pakistan, hosted a visit by Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz, then Defence Minister of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia had helped fund Pakistan’s nuclear programme since the early 1970s, and Pakistan had reciprocated by providing troops to defend the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. The latter role was hugely popular in the Pakistan army because salary and allowances were paid in US dollars.

It was therefore not a huge leap when the Saudis asked Nawaz Sharif (whose brother, Shehbaz, is the current Prime Minister) for use of the weapons in the case of need. The Saudis have always been careful to express their requirement in terms of the threat from Israel rather than their primary fear; that of a nuclear armed Iran.

The details of the agreement were always opaque. A brief insight came to the author in 2010 when he was informed that two nuclear-armed aircraft (probably Mirage IIIs at the time) with Pakistani air and ground crews would be placed at the disposal of the Saudis at moments of crisis. Various versions of this story have circulated since, including Mark Urban’s fascinating article for the BBC website in November 2013 which broadly rings true.

Renewable Energy In Sri Lanka: Is China Set To Return? – Analysis

A. Jathindra

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Fresh tenders are expected to be called for the two renewable energy projects that were previously offered to India’s Adani Group. In the Sri Lankan context, it is not surprising that projects with Indian funding in the north-east often face opposition under the banner of environmental concerns, while Chinese investments rarely encounter the same level of scrutiny.

For example, the Indian-funded coal power plant planned for Sampur, Trincomalee, in the Eastern Province was abandoned due to environmental objections. India, respecting public sentiment, pivoted to a solar alternative. In contrast, the Chinese-backed coal power plant in Nuraisoali was completed without major resistance.

This disparity has raised questions about the authenticity of environmental concerns cited against Indian investment projects in Sri Lanka’s north and east. With the government unable to advance the wind power project, Adani Green Energy announced its withdrawal in February 2025. The project involved a US$442 million investment to generate 484 megawatts of power under a 20-year power purchase agreement in Mannar and Puneri—making it the largest investment in the Northern Province since the end of the civil war. Originally, the project was tabled under the Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration in 2022, and on 7 March 2022, the Cabinet approved entering into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Adani Green Energy Limited of India.

The project’s implementation faced setbacks, officially attributed to environmental and unit cost concerns, and became mired in controversy during Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s tenure. When the project idea emerged as a political flashpoint in 2022, M.M.C. Ferdinando, Chairman of the Sri Lanka Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), alleged before a parliamentary panel that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had “pressured” then-President Rajapaksa to award the project to Adani. President Rajapaksa, however, categorically denied the chairman’s statement. Amid this controversy, several petitioners also challenged the project’s approval in the Sri Lankan Supreme Court.

Such claims underscored the perception that the project was primarily intended to serve India’s interests. Subsequently, President Ranil Wickremesinghe attempted to revive the initiative. However, the situation shifted after Anura Kumara Dissanayake, leader of the JVP, won the presidential election. During his campaign, Anura Kumara pledged to halt the project if elected. It was in this context that the Adani Group withdrew from the wind farm project—a setback for Sri Lanka’s economic prospects.

As China’s leaders chart the next 5-year plan, they hear echoes from long ago

Growing geopolitical challenges of today resemble those faced in the 1950s as Beijing seeks to navigate a complex new security landscape

Meredith Chen

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As China’s leadership meets this week to chart a policy course for the 15th five-year plan – China’s development blueprint for the rest of the decade – events that unfolded more than 70 years ago are echoing again.

The growing external challenges of today have similarities to those the country faced in the 1950s – export controls, restricted access to technology and a complex security environment. Amid elevated US-China tensions, Beijing is facing another moment of reckoning at a crossroads between pressure and transformation.

On Monday, China’s ruling Communist Party kicked off its fourth plenum of the Central Committee, a key four-day conclave that will map out its next five-year plan from 2026 to 2030, a period seen as crucial for Beijing to gain a stronger foothold in its growing rivalry with the United States.

On Monday morning, Xinhua published an article stating that over the past five years, China had “navigated shifting circumstances amid storms and challenges to forge new paths”.

The current global geopolitical landscape mirrors the Cold War era, with the former US-Soviet rivalry largely replaced by the escalating US-China competition, with historical parallels particularly visible in economic and security dynamics.

When Beijing launched its first five-year plan amid US sanctions during the Korean war, trade embargoes and isolation forced China to adopt state economic planning to industrialise in defiance of containment, and the country faced mounting concerns over regional security threats.

Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily published an editorial in 1953 announcing the country’s first five-year plan to transform China from an agricultural economy into an industrial powerhouse. Photo: Handout

On January 1, 1953, People’s Daily announced the country’s first five-year plan in an editorial titled “Embracing the Great Tasks of 1953”, outlining the goal of transforming China from a backward agricultural economy into an industrial powerhouse. China began practising and evolving its distinctive state-led economic model, remaking itself into the world’s second-largest economy with a growing presence in hi-tech sectors.

China’s strategic imperative to accelerate its national self-reliance and technological advancement across key sectors has taken on renewed significance as the US has sought to restrict Beijing’s access to critical industries, notably semiconductors and artificial intelligence (AI), with the administration of US President Donald Trump publicly musing about higher tariffs.

How China Raced Ahead of the U.S. on Nuclear Power

Brad Plumer and Harry Stevens

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In 2013, construction began on the first two new U.S. nuclear reactors in a generation. Atomic energy was back. Or was it?

Seven years late and $17 billion over budget, the reactors became two of the costliest ever built. Once again, nuclear power seemed hopeless, at least in the U.S.

Yet over the same period, China built 13 similar reactors, with 33 more underway. And Beijing’s nuclear ambitions are global.

China is quickly becoming the global leader in nuclear power, with nearly as many reactors under construction as the rest of the world combined. While its dominance of solar panels and electric vehicles is well known, China is also building nuclear plants at an extraordinary pace. By 2030, China’s nuclear capacity is set to surpass that of the United States, the first country to split atoms to make electricity.

Many of China’s reactors are derived from American and French designs, yet China has overcome the construction delays and cost overruns that have bogged down Western efforts to expand nuclear power.

At the same time, China is pushing the envelope, making breakthroughs in next-generation nuclear technologies that have eluded the West. The country is also investing heavily in fusion, a potentially limitless source of clean power if anyone can figure out how to tame it.

Beijing’s ultimate objective is to become a supplier of nuclear power to the world, joining the rare few nations — including the United States, Russia, France and South Korea — that can design and export some of the most sophisticated machines ever invented.

A dome being placed on the Unit 1 reactor building of the Zhejiang San’ao nuclear power plant on Zhejiang Province, China, in 2022.

Visual China Group, via Getty Images

“The Chinese are moving very, very fast,” said Mark Hibbs, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace who has written a book on China’s nuclear program. “They are very keen to show the world that their program is unstoppable.”

As the United States and China compete for global supremacy, energy has become a geopolitical battleground. The United States, particularly under President Trump, has positioned itself as the leading supplier of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal. China, by contrast, dominates the manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines and batteries, seeing renewable power as the multi-trillion-dollar market of the future.

Nuclear power is enjoying a resurgence of global interest, especially as concerns about climate change mount. That’s because nuclear reactors don’t spew planet-warming emissions, unlike coal and gas plants, and can produce electricity around the clock, unlike wind and solar power.

The Trump administration wants to quadruple U.S. nuclear power capacity by 2050, even as it ignores global warming, and it hopes to develop a new generation of reactor technology to power data centers at home and sell to energy-hungry countries overseas. Officials fear that if China dominates the nuclear export market, it could expand its global influence, since building nuclear plants abroad creates deep, decades-long relationships between countries.

Yet in the race for atomic energy, China has one clear advantage: It has figured out how to produce reactors relatively quickly and cheaply. The country now assembles reactors in just five to six years, twice as fast as Western nations.

While U.S. nuclear construction costs skyrocketed after the 1960s, they fell by half in China during the 2000s and have since stabilized, according to data published recently in Nature. (The only two U.S. reactors built this century, at the Vogtle nuclear plant in Waynesboro, Ga., took 11 years and cost $35 billion.)

Trump-Xi summit, if not canceled like Trump-Putin, will be tepid - Asia Times

Expectations cannot be high, but it would be a significant achievement to limit escalation of Cold War II

Francesco Sisci 

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The summit between American President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping could be a meeting between two good, decent people.

Those who know him describe Xi as a kind man who is always attentive to the needs of those around him. Trump himself should be a good man, given all the effort he puts into appearing bad. Evil men usually don’t do that; they want to look good.

However, individual goodness won’t alter the nature of the meeting or the direction it might take.

Two heavy shadows loom over the gathering: the sudden cancellation of the planned meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the very fresh flurry of trade disputes and threats between the US and China.

Trump already questioned the meeting with Xi, then reaffirmed it. But nothing is certain at this point.

The two presidents, in fact, represent two countries with fundamentally and clearly opposing needs. China needs to sustain and even expand its trade surplus, which is currently the primary driver of growth in its otherwise struggling domestic economy.

Conversely, America needs to curb and eliminate China’s trade surplus because it is unsustainable for its finances. For both nations, their conflicting needs are vital, and each believes it has the advantage over the other.

Xi represents 1.4 billion Chinese. Trump speaks for 350 million Americans and, indirectly, the interests of about six billion people worldwide who live within the American socio-economic system.

The needs of the Chinese, if they succeed, could reshape the global structure by reducing or removing American centrality. Some countries might support or even welcome this shift, although a world led by China remains uncertain and unclear. Others may view a Sino-centric world with dread or suspicion.

Furthermore, China and the United States do not place much trust in each other – apart from any good personal rapport between the two leaders. It remains unclear how this lack of confidence, deeply rooted in both systems and beyond personal communication, can be addressed.

Beijing has long relied on American billionaires friendly to China to smooth over issues. However, they no longer hold much weight in Washington or Beijing.

What remains is essential but not existential for either of them. It would be best to have more short-term flexibility.

The US relies heavily on Chinese rare earth elements, so it can only ask for them and offer promises in return. However, in the long run (exact timeframe unknown), the US aims to become independent of Chinese rare earths. This shift would leave China with no leverage, effectively leaving it at the mercy of the US, its primary export market and

Vance Says International Security Force Will Take Lead on Disarming Hamas

Vice President JD Vance spoke from Israel, as he wrapped up a visit aimed at shoring up a fragile cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

BEIJING: Purges and a promotion

Lee Gim Siong

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BEIJING: Purges and a promotion - China’s shake-up of its military top brass at a key Communist Party gathering underscores President Xi Jinping’s drive to reinforce loyalty and control over the armed forces as the country marches towards a series of political milestones, say analysts.

The expulsion of senior generals and the elevation of long-time graft-buster Zhang Shengmin to vice chair of the Central Military Commission (CMC) are targeted moves to steady confidence in a military unsettled by corruption probes, they note.

The shake-up also effectively marks the squeezing out of the so-called Fujian clique - a network of senior commanders who once dominated the Eastern Theater Command, the unit responsible for operations around Taiwan.

Xi is familiar with many of these figures, having spent more than a decade rising through the political ranks in Fujian before moving on to other provinces and later national leadership.

Analysts say their removal not only signals Xi’s tightening grip over the strategically crucial command but also underscores his willingness to dismantle even factions once seen as loyal to him.

While analysts expect the Chinese supremo’s sweeping corruption crackdown to continue and possibly intensify following the reshuffle, they do not believe it will undermine the armed forces’ operational performance or modernisation goals.

TRUST AS A COMMODITY

The personnel changes were confirmed on Thursday (Oct 23) in a communique issued after the close of the fourth plenum, a four-day gathering of the Central Committee that also endorsed the country’s next five-year development blueprint.

The Central Committee sits below the Politburo and its apex standing committee, comprising about 200 full and 170 alternate members drawn from the party elite.

"The plenary session decided to endorse Zhang Shengmin as vice chairman of the Central Military Commission," the communique tersely stated.

Zhang Shengmin, the top anti-graft enforcer in China's armed forces, has been named the new vice chair of the Central Military Commission. (File photo: Reuters/Florence Lo)

Zhang Shengmin, 67, is a veteran political officer who has been secretary of the CMC’s Discipline Inspection Commission since 2017, serving as a key enforcer of Xi’s sweeping military clean-up.

He succeeds He Weidong, the former vice chair who, along with ex-CMC Political Work Department chief Miao Hua, was expelled from both the military and the party.

Taiwan in the Shadow of War

Charlie Campbell

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This is how the war will start.

During a highly charged presidential campaign, a bomb explodes, unleashing panic and a wave of recriminations. Then a Chinese Y-8 reconnaissance aircraft vanishes in Taiwan’s eastern waters. Under the guise of search and rescue, Beijing deploys a massive air and naval force that quarantines the island. Reeling from forced sequestration, Taiwanese society suffers a deluge of propaganda and misinformation, pitting husband against wife, father against son. Political and financial interests foment infighting. By the time the first People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops arrive, the island has defeated itself.

On Aug. 2, people across Taiwan tuned into this dystopian vision, which debuted on Taiwanese TV as the acclaimed drama Zero Day Attack, courtesy of showrunner Cheng Hsin-Mei. Over ten hour-long episodes, Zero Day Attack offers a forensic exploration of how a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could manifest, from the political and religious intrigue to media infiltration and economic manipulation. And while speculative fiction, Zero Day Attack is rooted in events already unfolding.

“If you go to the front lines, you can really feel the tension,” Cheng says in her central Taipei office. “China is getting ready to do something.”

Taiwan politically split from the mainland following China’s 1945-49 civil war and its “reunification” has been dubbed a “historical inevitability” by Chinese strongman Xi Jinping. The PLA regularly dispatches scores of warplanes close to the self-ruling island of 24 million, including a record 153 aircraft in a 25-hour period last October, in what Adm. Sam Paparo, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, told Congress were “dress rehearsals for forced unification.”

“It is becoming more and more difficult to predict the possibility of the PLA turning an exercise into a real invasion,” Taiwan Defense Minister Wellington Koo tells TIME. “This is the threat and challenge Taiwan faces.”

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te inspects a live-fire exercise featuring US Made M1A2T tanks, in Taiwan on July 10, 2025. Taiwan Defense Ministry/Handout/Anadolu/Getty Images

The specter of war is difficult to reconcile with the carefree bustle of downtown Taipei, where on a cool June evening bickering families and doe-eyed couples throng the city’s night markets as ever before. But the return of Donald Trump to the White House has injected an extra degree of anxiety over the island’s future.

Few places are scrutinizing Trump’s flip flops over U.S. backing for Ukraine with greater apprehension than Taiwan, whose autonomy and cherished democracy have been underwritten by informal American backing. While the U.S. switched diplomatic recognition to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1979, Washington maintains a bevy of ties with Taiwan and is obliged by act of Congress to supply weapons needed for its defense. But Taiwan fears that the combination of Trump's diffidence toward alliances and global acclaim as a war-ending “man of peace” may embolden Xi into finally completing the revolution started by the only leader who’s wielded similarly unchecked power, Mao Zedong.

Iran nuclear negotiations snap back to the past

Alexander K. Bollfrass

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France, Germany and the UK have recently triggered the snapback mechanism of the JCPOA, designed to curb Iran’s nuclear programme. Examining the history of Iran’s nuclear negotiations raises questions about the success of such sanctions and a future of Iranian non-compliance.

Following over two decades of international diplomatic wrangling over, and targeted sabotage of, Iran’s nuclear programme, Israel and the United States struck key components of the country’s nuclear and missile infrastructure in June 2025. In late August 2025, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom (collectively referred to as the European three: E3) triggered the 'snapback' mechanism, reinstating the sanctions in late September 2025 that had been lifted under the terms of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Following these events and the further deterioration of Iran–Israel relations, what are the prospects for a diplomatic resolution to the dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme?

Negotiations before the 12-day war

Prior to the 12-day war and the reinstatement of sanctions, negotiations between Iran and the international community were characterised by periods of cooperation and of non-compliance.

In August 2002, Iran’s secret uranium-enrichment facilities at Natanz and a heavy-water production facility at Arak were revealed as part of what is widely believed to have been a covert nuclear-weapons programme. The E3 led the initial international negotiations following the revelations, resulting in a 2004 agreement in which Iran suspended enrichment.

However, Iran resumed enrichment in 2005, ending the E3-led negotiations. In February 2006, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) referred Iran to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), leading to a decade of escalating sanctions on Tehran, while the country continued to build its nuclear infrastructure.

The continuing growth of Iran’s nuclear programme included covert efforts, such as the Fordow enrichment site, which was revealed in 2009. Under then-president Barack Obama, US policy increased pressure on Iran through sanctions and a reportedly joint cyber attack with the Israelis on Iranian centrifuges. However, the US became more flexible on the enrichment issue during negotiations with the five permanent members of the UNSC – China, France, Russia, the UK and the US – and Germany (P5+1).

These culminated in the JCPOA, which exchanged time-bound limits on enrichment and intrusive verification for phased nuclear-specific sanctions relief. The agreement faced vigorous criticism within the US and internationally from Israel and the Gulf states. Iran complied with the JCPOA’s terms and cooperated with IAEA inspections.

A key point in US–Iran relations came in President Donald Trump’s first term (2017–21). The US withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, returning to the ‘zero enrichment’ demands of former president George W. Bush’s administration. The E3 attempted to shield Iran from the resulting sanctions, to little practical effect. In 2019, Iran initiated a multi-year approach of incremental non-compliance: expanding enriched uranium stockpiles, installing advanced centrifuges, and curtailing cooperation with IAEA inspections.

The imperial past of Indian geopolitics

Ved Shinde

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From diplomacy in the Middle East to security ties with the Persian Gulf, the key to understanding India’s expanding role on the international stage lies in the strategic vision and geopolitical thinking of the British Raj.India and the Campaigns of the Middle East'. Map by the Gresham Publishing Company Ltd, London, c. 1920. Credit: The Print Collector

‘Every nerve a man may strain, every energy he may put forward, cannot be devoted to a nobler purpose than keeping tight the cords that hold India to ourselves,’ argued Lord Curzon, one of the few British viceroys in India to develop a lasting emotional attachment to the country. Curzon possessed a perceptive grasp of history and geography. It was geopolitics, for Curzon, that held the key to keeping India under British control.

In particular, having travelled across the larger Middle East in his formative years, Curzon understood the importance of the Persian Gulf for India’s westward security. Following in the footsteps of the Portuguese general Albuquerque, Curzon believed that a permanent British base in the Gulf could serve as a bridgehead to Bombay. The Persian Gulf is landlocked in all directions except the southeast. Mastery over the Gulf of Oman and the larger western Arabian Sea translated into control of the Persian Gulf. Geographically, Muscat is closer to Mumbai than Kolkata. If British ships could control the waterways of the Gulf, a seamless maritime highway would connect London’s interests in the larger Middle East to the Indian subcontinent. After all, other European powers had penetrated the East through the oceans. By the early twentieth century, when Curzon served in India as the Queen’s viceroy, Pax Britannica was writ large over the Persian Gulf. The cords of commerce connected the destinies of the Gulf sheikhdoms with the Indian subcontinent.

While contemporary India is no sea-spanning empire with extractive tendencies, implicit echoes of British policy inform India’s policy towards the Gulf. Delhi’s strategy radiates a strategic legacy of the Raj – a geopolitical imperative that informed the seasoned hands of the British Indian Foreign Office. Clinical calculation is back. In a departure from its post-independence past, Delhi now refers to the Gulf as its ‘extended neighbourhood’.

The Fetish of Force: Why Weapons Are Not Just “Instruments” of War

Julien Pomarède

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The wars in Ukraine and Gaza have reignited intense global debates over the role and use of weapons on the battlefield. The articulation between the ‘classic’ (airpower, artillery) and ‘new’ (drones, AI) technologies of war is a central dimension of these discussions. In a recent report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), War and the Modern Battlefield: Insights from Ukraine and the Middle East, the chapter on airpower evolution notes that “the tools and tactics used to perform these functions [of air power superiority] are constantly changing, having experienced a particularly rapid evolution on the battlefield in Ukraine” (p. 92). Such statement exemplifies this larger, dominant, and yet largely unquestioned, instrumental conception of weapons in strategic and military discourse, where armaments are routinely framed as ‘tools’ or ‘instruments’ used to achieve political objectives. This framing, rooted in classical strategic thought, especially Clausewitzian theory, treats war as a rational extension of politics by other means. Weapons are the means through which political will is enforced when diplomacy fails. Nevertheless, to call weapons ‘tools’ or even ‘instruments’ is to obscure their unique and irreversible effects. Military weapons are not neutral entities in the hands of rational decision-makers, nor do they passively submit to human will. The capacity of weapons to override human intent arises from a property intrinsic to their design and function: they are designed to kill, to destroy, to terrorize at an industrial scale. A hammer or a wrench does not provoke cycles of retaliation. But missile strikes, artillery rounds, air bombings, automatic fire form machine gun do. Their use does not just ‘serve’ political ends. Weapons generate mass death and destruction, and with it, a cascade of (un)expected consequences that no other ‘tool’ can produce: the hardening of political positions, the rise of vengeance, the escalation of violence.

This is precisely why the ‘instrument’ metaphor is flawed and ideologically biased. More than a metaphor, it embodies a dominant vision of what weapons are. It perpetuates the notion that the ethical and political implications of weapons’ violence structurally depend on how they are used. By continually reaffirming the possibility of control, the ‘tool’ metaphor legitimizes the expansion of military technologies and infrastructures under the guise of strategic necessity. As Elke Schwarz shows in Death Machines (2018, chapter 4), this core-concept of control in strategic thinking naturalizes the presence of weapons in political life and sustains the belief that more advanced tools will yield better outcomes. In doing so, it contributes to the normalization, and even the eternalization, of militarization, embedding violence deeper into the structures of governance and technological development.

But if weapons are not simply strategic tools, then what are they? Addressing this question requires moving beyond the conventional frameworks of strategic analysis, which tend to seeing weapons in terms of their intended functions or their operational effectiveness. To engage with the social nature of weapons, we must begin not with what they are designed to achieve, but with what they consistently produce: large-scale destruction. From this perspective, my point is that the reality of weapons in modern warfare is shaped less by coherent strategic reasoning than by a pervasive technological fetishism. More precisely, by a political-military mystification of destruction that the technological power of weapons induces. Contemporary scholarship on war and armaments should more seriously engage with the proposition that the development and deployment of weapons are often driven not by rational strategic calculus, but by a more elemental belief in the inherent value of technologically enhanced violence. This belief manifests as a conviction that increased lethality and destructive capacity are synonymous with military progress and the promise of victory. In this context, brute force is more than a tactical preference, or a perverse effect of some conflictual configurations like attrition, but a foundational ideology of modern warfare, that conflates technological advancement with strategic efficacy, regardless of its actual political utility.

Thinking Globally about the Iran-Israel Twelve-Day War

Shabnam Holliday

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In the early hours of 13 June 2025, Iranians woke up to the Israeli Air Force targeting air defences, ballistic missile bases, and nuclear programme sites. As the war continued, it also disrupted the daily lives of millions of civilians and ‘resulted in at least 5,665 casualties, including 1,190 killed and 4,475 injured, both military and civilian’. (HRANA 2025, 4). This piece seeks to position this war in the context of the global turn in International Relations (IR). Amitav Acharya’s (2014) Global IR has gained momentum in debates regarding how to challenge Eurocentrism in IR. Pinar Bilgin and Karen Smith’s (2024) proposal builds on this and calls for us to ‘think globally about politics’. Drawing from such debates, I argue that an analysis of the Iran-Israel Twelve-Day War that is in the spirit of these two projects requires three approaches.

First, there needs to be a better understanding of those actors that are often constructed as the ‘other’ in both foreign policy and academia by establishing them at the centre of the analysis (Holliday 2020, 5). Second, there should be a multi-scalar analysis rooted in historical contexts (Powel 2020) that appreciates the interconnectivity between domestic and international politics both in the past and the present (Go and Lawson 2017). Third, we need to highlight the agency of those on the periphery of global politics (Bilgin 2021). Together, these approaches highlight complexity.

So, what does such an approach look like when reflecting on the Twelve-Day War? Iran was firmly positioned as the ‘other’. This was not only apparent in the very idea of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Operation Rising Lion, but also in the G7’s reaction. Their Joint Statement firmly favoured Israel: “We reiterate our commitment to peace and stability in the Middle East. In this context, we reaffirm that Israel has a right to defend itself. We reiterate our support for the security of Israel” (G7 2025). In such a situation, reconstructing the ‘other’ as the ‘self’ involves being Iran-centric as the starting point for analysis instead of simply being Israel-centric, or indeed US-centric.

Global Growth Forecast: Not Too Bad

Firms have adapted fairly well to geopolitical disruptions and protectionist policies.

Geopolitical Futures

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The International Monetary Fund’s latest global economic data reflect cautious optimism. In its 2025 Global Growth Forecast, the IMF raised its projection for the second time this year, revising growth upward by 0.2 percentage points to 3.2 percent from 3 percent in July. The improvement suggests modest momentum in global economic activity, supported by gradual adjustment to trade tensions and private-sector resilience. Firms have adapted more quickly to geopolitical disruptions and protectionist policies, particularly in supply chains and trade flows.

Yet, the IMF’s outlook remains restrained. Inflation expectations are unchanged, and medium-term global GDP growth is still weak. Persistent risks overshadow the near-term optimism. China faces difficult choices about reviving growth and possibly overhauling its economic model, while the United States is weighing new measures to stimulate its economy. Meanwhile, the Russia-Ukraine war continues to sap economic energy from all parties involved, deepening uncertainty and constraining global momentum.

Warships, fighter jets and the CIA - what is Trump's endgame in Venezuela?

Ione Wells,South America correspondent and

Joshua Cheetham

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For two months, the US military has been building up a force of warships, fighter jets, bombers, marines, drones and spy planes in the Caribbean Sea. It is the largest deployment there for decades.

Long-range bomber planes, B-52s, have carried out "bomber attack demonstrations" off the coast of Venezuela. Trump has authorised the deployment of the CIA to Venezuela and the world's largest aircraft carrier is being sent to the region.

The US says it has killed dozens of people in strikes on small vessels from Venezuela which it alleges carry "narcotics" and "narco-terrorists", without providing evidence or details about those on board.

The strikes have drawn condemnation in the region and experts have questioned their legality. They are being sold by the US as a war on drug trafficking but all the signs suggest this is really an intimidation campaign that seeks to remove Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro from power.

"This is about regime change. They're probably not going to invade, the hope is this is about signalling," says Dr Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at the Chatham House think tank.

He argues the military build-up is a show of strength intended to "strike fear" in the hearts of the Venezuelan military and Maduro's inner circle so that they move against him.

BBC Verify has been monitoring publicly available tracking information from US ships and planes in the region - along with satellite imagery and images on social media - to try to build a picture of where Trump's forces are located.

The deployment has been changing, so we have been monitoring the region regularly for updates.

As of 23 October, we identified 10 US military ships in the region, including guided missile destroyers, amphibious assault

Is the U.S. Ready for War With China?

U.S. military planners are caught in an impossible dilemma.

By Franz-Stefan Gady, an associate fellow for cyber power and future conflict at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.Four camouflage military vehicles with missiles perched on their surfaces are seen from above on a lined concrete lot.Intermediate-range ballistic missile launchers are seen at a military parade in Beijing on Sept. 3, 2015. Xinhua/Cha Chunming via Getty Images

Is the U.S. Ready for War With China?

U.S. military planners are caught in an impossible dilemma.

Franz-Stefan Gady,

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an associate fellow for cyber power and future conflict at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.Four camouflage military vehicles with missiles perched on their surfaces are seen from above on a lined concrete lot.Intermediate-range ballistic missile launchers are seen at a military parade in Beijing on Sept. 3, 2015. Xinhua/Cha Chunming via Getty Images

Imagine China launching an invasion of Taiwan, and the United States decides to come to the island’s defense. Following the Pentagon’s doctrine and operational concepts for fighting such a war, the U.S. Navy and Air Force launch thousands of long-range missiles against Chinese ships, command centers, and logistics hubs. In the opening strikes alone, more than 33,000 precision-guided munitions target over 8,500 locations. Cyberattacks decimate Chinese military networks and paralyze the leadership. Beijing is forced to retreat or face defeat in what appears to be a swift, decisive U.S. success. Few U.S. lives are lost in this rapid, technology-driven triumph.

If this seems like the ideal scenario to you, you’d be wrong. For as precision strikes destroy Chinese missile launchers, command centers, and communications networks, Beijing’s military leaders face cascading military failures even as they are isolated by degraded communications. In a moment of panic about the rapid success of their adversary, the Chinese leadership may well consider vertical escalation—the use of nuclear weapons—before its remaining capabilities are eliminated. Beijing might authorize a demonstration nuclear strike over open waters as a signal of resolve and as an attempt to halt U.S. operations. It is then unclear whether Washington will interpret such a demonstration as justification for preemptive nuclear strikes against remaining Chinese capabilities.

Imagine China launching an invasion of Taiwan, and the United States decides to come to the island’s defense. Following the Pentagon’s doctrine and operational concepts for fighting such a war, the U.S. Navy and Air Force launch thousands of long-range missiles against Chinese ships, command centers, and logistics hubs. In the opening strikes alone, more than 33,000 precision-guided munitions target over 8,500 locations. Cyberattacks decimate Chinese military networks and paralyze the leadership. Beijing is forced to retreat or face defeat in what appears to be a swift, decisive U.S. success. Few U.S. lives are lost in this rapid, technology-driven triumph.

If this seems like the ideal scenario to you, you’d be wrong. For as precision strikes destroy Chinese missile launchers, command centers, and communications networks, Beijing’s military leaders face cascading military failures even as they are isolated by degraded communications. In a moment of panic about the rapid success of their adversary, the Chinese leadership may well consider vertical escalation—the use of nuclear weapons—before its remaining capabilities are eliminated. Beijing might authorize a demonstration nuclear strike over open waters as a signal of resolve and as an attempt to halt U.S. operations. It is then unclear whether Washington will interpret such a demonstration as justification for preemptive nuclear strikes against remaining Chinese capabilities.

What ‘Day After’ for Gaza?

Sara Roy

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The most influential plans for rebuilding Gaza start from the premise that Palestinians have no right to determine their future.

The Sheikh Radwan rainwater basin, Gaza City, 

On Friday, October 10, when Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire in Gaza, I heard from a Palestinian friend in the Strip. Gaza had been celebrating since the news broke, but grief was never far away. “Our feelings are mixed,” he wrote:

Yes, we are relieved that the genocide has stopped, even though we remain uncertain about what lies ahead…. I think of the families whose children are still buried under the rubble. I think of the mother who doesn’t know where her son is, the father who hasn’t yet been able to even see his children’s bodies. It will take us a long time to tell the untold stories.

By then conditions had deteriorated to a point “beyond human imagination,” as another friend in Gaza put it to me near the end of June. The bombing had hardly let up for months; food had run out or was outrageously unaffordable; prices for transit were soaring. Many Palestinians in the Strip were risking their lives to secure aid from the notorious distribution centers run by the American-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. In early October Gaza’s Ministry of Health reported that Israeli forces had killed over 2,500 aid seekers and injured nearly 19,000 in barely more than four months. “They tell us that there is aid today, and when [people] arrive, they are shot,” said the friend who wrote me this summer. “And so every day, massacre after massacre…. If they could take the air away from us, they would.”

Since the start of Israel’s devastating campaign, according to the health ministry, over 68,000 men, women, and children in the Strip have been killed and over 170,000 injured. As of May 2025 that death toll included more than 2,180 families that have been entirely annihilated, erased from Gaza’s civil registry; more than 5,070 have only one surviving member. Those are the official statistics, which include only reported deaths compiled by hospitals and morgues and caused by Israeli military action. They are, without question, gross underestimates. Between ten and fifteen thousand additional people are presumed buried under the rubble of their homes—also considered a dramatic undercount, both because wartime conditions impede data collection and because the killing of so many entire families has left no one to report. The spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Olga Cherevko, said in a September briefing that “the unmistakable smell of death is everywhere—a grisly reminder that the ruins lining the streets hide the remains of mothers, fathers, and children…their lives cut short by the war’s killing machines, many to never be found again.” Legal experts, not to mention the testimony of our own eyes, tell us that this can only be termed a genocide.

‘Irregular warfare is not going away, however much we’d like it to’

Inaugural lecture 

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The fight against insurgents, guerrillas and resistance movements is an ‘incredibly unpopular’ topic with experts and military personnel, says Professor by Special Appointment of Military History Thijs Brocades Zaalberg in his inaugural lecture. He warns that ignoring these forms of irregular warfare is a mistake.

In recent years, NATO countries have, logically, focused on large-scale, conventional interstate wars, such as the war in Ukraine, and defending NATO territory. But, says Brocades Zaalberg, this regular warfare is nothing new and difficult to separate from irregular warfare. ‘In reality, they are intertwined. In Iraq, it started with an invasion but soon turned into a bloody guerrilla war. Wars are often hybrid, be they the Eighty Years' War, the Napoleonic Wars, the American Civil War or the Vietnam War. But there is a strong tendency to compartmentalise the two forms.’

The distinction between regular and irregular warfare is mainly made out of analytical convenience and wishful thinking, he says. ‘In reality, wars are fluid. Successful conquests often result in occupations, and failing occupations lead to uprisings and resistance. This triangle of regular, irregular and occupation often determines how wars develop.’

Lessons from the past

What can we learn from the long history of irregular warfare? ‘Applied history and recipe books aren’t my thing. What I have noted is that armed forces tend to engage in selective learning, often driven by military-cultural or political preferences. So they either see an offensive “decapitation strategy” as the key to rapid success or a “population-focused approach” with “winning hearts and minds” as the magic solution. That goes back to the colonial wars around 1900. Unpopular wars in distant lands had to be sold to the public at home as a socioeconomic reconstruction project. It’s often glossed over that control, force and extreme violence often prevail.’

Can America's soft power be saved? - Asia Times

Reviving global trust will take more than just new policies—it will require restoring institutions that won’t easily be rebuilt

Seongeun Lee 

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The United States has long been regarded as the world’s leading soft power. During the Cold War, the global appeal of American popular culture served as powerful tools of influence and propaganda.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, American democracy and capitalism emerged as the dominant political and economic models, further legitimizing Washington’s global influence.

Today, Hollywood blockbusters fill theaters worldwide, American music resonates across borders and US universities attract top students from around the globe. Yet this once-unquestioned dominance now shows signs of erosion.

Recent indicators reveal a sharp decline in global favorability toward the United States, and the very institutions that once underpinned its soft power are beginning to weaken.

Soft power refers to a nation’s ability to influence others without relying on military force or economic coercion. Whereas coercion and payment seek to alter behavior through force or incentives, soft power works by shaping the preferences of others.

For the United States, its economic prosperity, cultural appeal and world-class universities have long drawn admiration worldwide. Equally important are the democratic values and human rights it promotes, as well as its foreign assistance programs that reinforce America’s moral authority.

Together, these elements have formed the foundation of US leadership, providing legitimacy to its influence on the global stage.

American soft power, however, has never been static. Although the United States has generally maintained strong influence, its soft power has fluctuated in response to shifts in foreign policy. In particular, when US actions were perceived by the international community as unilateral or illegitimate, America’s soft power suffered.

The Vietnam War was widely condemned and undermined America’s moral authority. The 2003 invasion of Iraq, launched without broad international support, damaged US legitimacy abroad.

More recently, the US withdrawal from multilateral agreements such as the Paris Agreement eroded trust in Washington’s reliability. In each of these cases, however, American soft power eventually rebounded as policies changed and perceptions evolved.

The present moment, however, poses a different kind of challenge. The scale of disruption under President Trump’s second term is unprecedented. He began by freezing foreign aid for 90 days before dismantling the US Agency for International Development (USAID), cutting off programs that had long symbolized America’s commitment to global development.

He slashed budgets for US-funded media outlets, including the Voice of America, weakening platforms that projected Washington’s perspective abroad. He imposed steep tariffs on imports from both allies and rivals, straining relationships critical to global cooperation

Speaking from Israel, Vice President JD Vance addressed the delicate issues of disarming Hamas and the Israeli Knesset’s recent symbolic vote to annex the West Bank.CreditCredit...Nathan Howard for The New York Times

By Liam Stack and Tyler Pager

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Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that an international security force that has yet to be formed would take the lead on disarming Hamas, which has been one of the thorniest issues when it comes to reaching a lasting peace in Gaza.

The vice president spoke from Israel, at the end of a visit aimed at shoring up a fragile cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. In remarks to reporters, Mr. Vance cautioned that the task of disarming Hamas — which the militant group has long opposed — was “going to take some time and it’s going to depend a lot on the composition of that force.”

The cease-fire deal that came into effect earlier this month was based on a proposal outlined in September by president Trump, which includes a stipulation that a “temporary International Stabilization Force” be deployed in Gaza. But several countries have hesitated to commit troops to such a force because its exact mission in the devastated Palestinian enclave was unclear. The possibility that such a force might be drawn into direct conflict with Hamas fighters has also been a worry.

While Mr. Vance did not address that concern in his brief remarks on Thursday, he reiterated that there would be “no American troops on the ground” in Gaza. Instead, he said, American personnel would be “supervising and mediating the peace.”

The 20-point peace proposal did not specify that the security force would be tasked with disarming Hamas, and a timeline for doing so has not been laid out. The force was originally envisioned as a way to secure areas of Gaza where Israeli troops have withdrawn, prevent munitions from entering the territory, facilitate the distribution of aid and train a Palestinian police force.

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The deal has come under strain from a recent flare-up of violence in Gaza, and lingering tensions over the exchange of deceased Israelis and Palestinians.

Several countries have been skittish about the idea of contributing troops to a Gaza security force because its exact mission in the devastated Palestinian enclave is unclear.Credit...Saher Alghorra for The New York Times

It faced fresh challenges this week from Israeli lawmakers, who approved a preliminary measure for the annexation of the Israeli-occupied West Bank — a move that is explicitly prohibited under the terms of Mr. Trump’s peace plan.

Mr. Vance said Thursday that the vote was “weird” and leveled sharp criticism at those lawmakers.

“If it was a political stunt, it was a very stupid political stunt, and I personally take some insult to it,” he said. “The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel. The policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel.”

The Only Security Guarantee Ukraine Can Trust

Andriy Zagorodnyuk

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Ukrainian soldiers near Kharkiv, Ukraine, September 2025 Reuters

ANDRIY ZAGORODNYUK is Chair of the Centre for Defence Strategies and a Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council and Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. From 2019 to 2020, he served as Ukraine’s Defense Minister.

Ever since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to the White House, officials across Europe have scrambled to craft a peace deal that could work for Ukraine. They know by now that, at the moment, Russian President Vladimir Putin is not interested in stopping his offensives, and they fear that shifting American priorities may leave Ukraine without a critical source of support. As a result, they are racing to find a way to provide Kyiv with security guarantees that could deter Russia and allow for an armistice.

In conversations about security guarantees, officials have tended to focus on a handful of measures: placing a small number of European troops in Ukraine to shore up the country’s defense (so-called reassurance forces), levying additional sanctions against Russia, and providing Ukraine with more weapons, including conventional ones. They have also mused about committing themselves, on paper, to Ukraine’s defense. Two of these actions—more weapons and sanctions—could take place before any cease-fire. The rest would go into effect only after the fighting ends.

These proposals have certain virtues. But by themselves, they are not enough to guarantee Ukraine’s security. Since the start of Russia’s invasion in 2022, Putin has been transparent about his objective—the destruction of Ukraine as an independent nation—and has subjected many people to almost unimaginable suffering in order to achieve it. He will not be deterred by words, a smattering of NATO troops, or by more agony (including if it affects Russians). In fact, he will not stop the war unless Russian troops literally cannot advance any further.

Right now, some U.S. and European analysts are pessimistic that Ukraine can completely halt Russia’s aggression, and understandably so. NATO countries, after all, have been arming Kyiv for years, and Moscow keeps making incremental gains. But Ukraine need not destroy every element of the Russian military to achieve strategic neutralization—stripping away the enemy of its ability to achieve its objectives. And the conflict has recently changed in ways that have made it easier to freeze. Today, the war is being fought less with traditional military equipment and more with newer, cheaper technologies that Ukraine helped pioneer. In fact, Ukraine has already done a great deal of what’s needed to deter Russia for good. But Europe must stop focusing on which traditional capabilities it should provide to Ukraine or on establishing written security guarantees. Instead, the continent should get serious about investing more in Ukraine’s war effort by flooding the country with more advanced technologies. It needs to invest heavily in the country’s sophisticated defense industry. It must cooperate more directly with Kyiv on matters of military manufacturing and on air defenses. Such measures will indeed be daunting, but not any more than NATO’s original effort to help Ukraine. And ultimately, Europe has little choice. They are the only way to bring peace.

CIA playing ‘most important part’ in US strikes in the Caribbean, sources say

Exclusive: Sources say the agency is providing real-time intelligence collected by satellites and signal intercepts Ecuador releases survivor of US strike on alleged drug-trafficking submarine

The Guardian · Aram Roston 

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The Central Intelligence Agency is providing the bulk of the intelligence used to carry out the controversial lethal air strikes by the Trump administration against small, fast-going boats in the Caribbean Sea suspected of carrying drugs from Venezuela, according to three sources familiar with the operations. Experts say the agency’s central role means much of the evidence used to select which alleged smugglers to kill on the open sea will almost certainly remain secret.

The agency’s central role in the boat strikes has not previously been disclosed. Donald Trump confirmed last Wednesday that he had authorized covert CIA action in Venezuela, but not what the agency would be doing.

The sources say the CIA is providing real-time intelligence collected by satellites and signal intercepts to detect which boats it believes are loaded with drugs, tracking their routes and making the recommendations about which vessels should be hit by missiles.

“They are the most important part of it,” said one of the sources. Two sources said that the drones or other aircraft actually launching the missiles used to sink the boats belong to the US military, not the CIA.

CIA historian Tim Weiner: ‘Trump has put national security in the hands of crackpots and fools’

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Information the agency gathers against any of the alleged smugglers – dead or alive – is likely to remain classified and out of public view. That is in spite of the worldwide public interest and debate over the killing of civilians.

The agency’s intelligence, unlike information gathered by the DEA or the Coast Guard, which used to handle maritime interdiction operations against smugglers, is not designed as legal evidence.

The U.S. and China Are One Misstep Away From War

Eric Rosenbach and Chris Li

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Mr. Rosenbach served as an assistant secretary of defense and as chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Defense. Mr. Li is a fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School.

On May 26, 2023, a U.S. Air Force plane was on a routine reconnaissance mission over the South China Sea when a Chinese fighter jet banked dangerously close to it. Several months earlier over the same waters, a U.S. military plane was forced to take evasive action when a Chinese fighter came within 20 feet.

Risky intercepts and unsafe encounters like these between air and naval forces of China and the United States and its allies have spiked in recent years, and there appears to be no letup. In August, China released footage of what it claimed was a near miss between Chinese and U.S. helicopters in the Taiwan Strait. Territorial confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels have become routine in the South China Sea, and this week Australia said a Chinese fighter jet had released flares dangerously close to an Australian Air Force plane.

The danger of one of these incidents tipping into an actual conflict has never been higher. Yet in sharp contrast to the era of U.S.-Soviet confrontation, there are virtually no reliable systems of real-time communication between American and Chinese military forces to defuse an inadvertent crisis.

President Trump, who plans to meet President Xi Jinping of China next week on the sidelines of a regional summit in South Korea, has made clear that his priority with China is a trade deal.

But trade depends on peace and stability. By working to lay the foundation for durable crisis management systems with China, Mr. Trump can secure his legacy as the president who pulled the two powers back from the brink of World War III.

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History has shown how superpower confrontation can quickly spiral toward nuclear Armageddon. The 1962 Cuban missile crisis is perhaps the most chilling example.

The United States and China have also come dangerously close to blows.

In 2001, a U.S. Navy spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet in the South China Sea. The Chinese pilot was killed, and the American aircraft made an emergency landing on China’s Hainan Island, where the crew was captured. The ensuing 10-day standoff was resolved only after delicate diplomacy that reached the highest levels of the Chinese and U.S. governments.

Whether that kind of crisis resolution can be replicated today is uncertain. China is far more assertive and militarily powerful than it was in 2001, and tensions with the United States are more combustible, amplified by nationalistic pressures on both sides.

The situation between the United States and the Soviet Union was different. Although sworn ideological adversaries, they had the wisdom to put reliable checks and balances in place. They notified each other before missile launches, agreed to a range of transparency requirements so that each side could tell that the other’s activities were exercises, not attacks, and followed safety protocols designed to reduce the chance of run-ins. These safeguards remained functional even when tensions spiked.

The importance of open lines of contact cannot be overestimated.

In 2015 Russia dramatically increased its military presence in Syria. One of the writers of this essay assisted Ash Carter, then the U.S. secretary of defense, and Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in reopening military communication channels with the Russians that had been severed a year earlier after Russia invaded Crimea. We took measures to avoid accidental clashes in Syria, and no such run-ins occurred.

Fall of the 'Fujian clique' - what China's military shake-up signals for Xi's grip on the armed forces