Revisiting the Usage of Refurbished Equipment in India’s Semiconductor Ecosystem

Shruti Mittal and Konark Bhandari

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At Semicon India 2025, the India Semiconductor Mission’s (ISM) annual flagship conference, Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the first “made-in-India” chip, the Vikram 32 microprocessor. The chip was jointly developed by the Semiconductor Laboratory (SCL) at Mohali, in collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) for use in the operation of space launch vehicles. Amid uncertainty about whether this was India’s first “manufactured” chip or the first packaged chip made in India, the news came at a time when the SCL was looking to upgrade its production facilities. Accordingly, this article looks at the progress of the SCL fab modernization plan based on publicly available documents, and potential learnings for future upgrades to government-owned fabs and for India’s larger semiconductor ecosystem, especially regarding the use of refurbished equipment.

Background

The plan to upgrade the SCL was first announced in 2022. The SCL is currently the only integrated device manufacturer (IDM) semiconductor facility in India, meaning it operates everything from assembly, testing, and packaging (ATP) and design labs to foundries. It has long served India’s space program and its chips have even powered ISRO’s Mars Mission. With the stated intent to “support the replacement and upgrades of existing equipment and the addition of new equipment,” a tender for its upgrade was formally floated in February 2025. The purpose of the upgrade was to augment the capacity of the fab from the current 500–600 wafer starts per month (WSPM) to 1,500 WSPM and add Gallium Nitride on silicon technology to its suite of capabilities. This upgrade will be to the 200 mm wafer line at the SCL.

The SCL modernization plan is allocated ₹10,000 crore (approximately $1.2 billion) out of the total ₹76,000 crore (approximately $9.2 billion) earmarked for the ISM. This substantial investment underscores the significance attached to the SCL foundry’s modernization by the Indian government, as it serves mission-critical projects in both the ISRO and the Defence Research and Development Organization.

The key players for the SCL modernization bid were shortlisted in June 2025 after a technical evaluation. What remains now is the conclusion of the financial bid assessment, following which, the Indian government will decide on the letter of award for the SCL modernization. However, in its response to certain bidders’ queries, the SCL made clear that all plants and systems being procured must be new and if refurbished, it must have at least 80 percent residual life left. The next few sections of this article examine the rationale behind this stipulation and suggest areas for flexibility regarding sourcing equipment and systems for fabs, as evidenced by India’s other policies in the larger semiconductor and electronics sector.

New Equipment Versus Refurbished Equipment

Ex-CIA Officer John Kiriakou Reveals How Osama Bin Laden Escaped Tora Bora Disguised As A Woman (Video

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New Delhi: In a key revelation, former CIA Officer John Kiriakou has said that Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, who was the most wanted terrorist for the United States after terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, had escaped from Tora Bora hills in the guise of a woman.

In an exclusive interview with ANI, Kiriakou, who was in the CIA for 15 years and was the chief of CIA counterterrorism operations in Pakistan, also said they did not know that the translator for the commander of Central Command was actually an "Al Qaeda operative who had infiltrated the US military".

"First, the United States was reactive at the time rather than proactive. You remember, we waited for more than a month before we started bombing Afghanistan. We were trying to be deliberate. We were trying to not let emotion cloud our judgment. And we waited a month until we had proper buildup in the region. And then we began attacking known Al-Qaeda sites. Again, mostly in the Pashto areas of southern and eastern Afghanistan. We believed in October of 2001 that we had Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership cornered at Tora Bora," he said.

"We did not know that the translator for the commander of Central Command was actually an al-Qaeda operative who had infiltrated the US military. And so we knew we had bin Laden cornered. We told him to come down the mountain. And he said through the translator, can you just give us until dawn? We want to evacuate the women and children and then we'll come down and give up. The translator convinced General Franks to approve this idea. What ended up happening was bin Laden dressed as a woman and he escaped under the cover of darkness in the back of a pickup truck into Pakistan," he added.

What’s Behind the Global Gen Z Revolution?

Robert A. Manning

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The rise of youth-led political movements in the Global South point to structural inequalities in the global system.

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

Gen Z, stifled by internet censors, corrupt governments, and a deficit of job opportunities, is wreaking havoc on governments across Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. One after another, youth-led protests have spread across Bangladesh, Kenya, Nepal, Indonesia, Morocco, and Madagascar, becoming a major political force. Demonstrations of this type have toppled governments in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Madagascar, and led other states like Kenya and Morocco to reverse unpopular policies.

In South and Southeast Asia, roughly one-third of the population is under 25. In Africa, some 890 million are in the youth cohort, with a median age of 19.3. In sum, Gen Z in Asia and Africa totals around 1.8 billion. Youth-centric demographics are a double-edged sword. They can enable nations in the Global South to climb the development ladder with the right mix of education, economic policies, and adequate governance, or they can be a source of instability and internal conflict. For better or worse, Gen Z is driving political change, and the outcome of this process will ripple through the global economic and political order.

The era of “polycrises”—a cascade of multiple interacting crises—adds another layer to the challenge that governments in these youthful nations face. Many of these states are trying to navigate their demographic challenges amid the entropy of an uncertain world order, coercive great powers, deep debt, shrinking aid and investment, and climate change. The World Bank lists 39 “fragile and conflict-affected states.” Less-developed countries have become the “losers” in a fragmenting world of growing North-South, South-South, and middle-income-versus-poorer divides.

The world is headed for re-globalization not de-globalization, as ‘coalitions of the willing’ emerge, Mastercard chair and former USTR official says

Jason Ma

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Amid massive disruptions to global trade, the world is realigning itself as countries look to integrate more regionally, according to Mastercard chair Merit Janow.

At the Fortune Global Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Monday, she said trade has actually remained resilient, even as the world muddles through a period of fragmentation and heightened uncertainty.

“Deregulation, re-globalization rather than massive de-globalization, I think, is what’s happening,” said Janow, who is also a former U.S. Trade Representative official. “So you’re seeing more regional concentrations of trade, and I think you’re seeing new experiments being born in this environment.”

That’s because President Donald Trump’s trade war is hitting countries around the world with aggressive tariffs as he seeks to bring more production back to the U.S. and shrink the gap between imports and exports.

While he has backed off on some of his earlier sky-high rates and reached deals with major economies, the average effective tariff rate remains the highest in nearly a century.

As a result, countries that relied on the U.S. for decades as a top export market must now rethink their strategies and turn to other partners.

“I’m paying attention to what is happening under the rubric of coalitions of the willing because there are a lot of restrictions that are being introduced by governments around the world, and some of them in the name of economic security, sometimes in the name of economic growth,” Janow told Fortune’s Diane Brady.

For example, countries in Asia and the Middle East are seeking closer integration, she added, meaning corporate leaders need to work with governments more frequently, too.

At the same time, Western democracies must reinvent themselves to stay competitive, particularly in Europe, where political processes have slowed critical decisions, according to JLL CEO Christian Ulbrich.

Trump, Xi and the politics of tactical peace

M A Hossain

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US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are seemingly on the cusp of a tactical trade deal. Image: X Screengrab

Diplomacy, when stripped of ceremony and handshakes, is really about leverage. And this week in Kuala Lumpur, Donald Trump appears to have rediscovered the old craft of using pressure to invite cooperation. The US President, now again playing the role of negotiator-in-chief, began his week-long diplomacy tour with ASEAN nations amid high expectations — and low trust.

Trump’s advisers are eager to claim victory. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant declared that the mere threat of 100% tariffs “brought China back to the negotiating table.” It’s classic Trumpian strategy: escalate, intimidate, then negotiate. The logic is familiar — you shake the tree until the apples fall.

But history reminds us that coercion has a shelf life. America’s reliance on Chinese rare earth minerals — the stuff that powers everything from fighter jets to smartphones — is not a secret. Roughly 70% of the global supply chain runs through China.

That gives Beijing enormous leverage, especially since 78% of the US military-industrial complex depends on those imports. When Trump threatened to double tariffs, Beijing countered by threatening export restrictions. In that high-stakes standoff, both sides blinked.

The result? A tentative one-year deferral of China’s planned export controls. The United States, in turn, will roll back parts of its tariff escalation and extend the current trade truce. No one’s calling it peace — not yet — but it’s a meaningful pause.

Rare earths, real vulnerabilities

If there’s one thing Washington doesn’t like to admit, it’s dependency. For all the talk about decoupling, the American economy remains deeply tied to Chinese manufacturing. Rare earth minerals are a case in point. The irony is painful: the Pentagon’s most sophisticated missile guidance systems rely on materials refined in China’s industrial heartland.

To counter China, Trump’s Asia trip to shore up maritime alliances with Japan, South Korea

Carol Yang

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With US President Donald Trump having kicked off his visit to Asia, new collaborations in shipbuilding with Japan and South Korea are set to advance amid ongoing port-fee disputes with China, as Washington seeks to counter Beijing’s dominance in the maritime sector.

The US government has committed to reviving its nearly defunct shipbuilding industry through strategic partnerships, with key allies Japan and South Korea – major shipbuilding countries – welcoming the initiative with open arms.

During Trump’s three-day state visit to Japan, which started on Monday, the countries plan to sign a memorandum aimed at jointly enhancing their shipbuilding capabilities, including the formation of a working group, The Japan News reported.

The agreement recognises “that a strong and innovative shipbuilding industry is vital to the economic security, strength and competitiveness of the maritime sector and the industrial resilience of both nations”, the report said, quoting the memorandum draft.

The plans include collaborating on shipyard investment, standardising vessel designs and components, advancing technology and enhancing personnel recruitment and training.

How China could use DeepSeek and AI for an era of war

Eduardo Baptista and Fanny Potkin

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PLA entities research using AI for autonomous target recognition and battlefield decision support, documents show

Chinese military appears to favor Deepseek AI models

PLA seems to be increasing deployment of Huawei AI chips-Jamestown analyst

PLA continues to look for and use Nvidia chips, though documents don't show when they were exported to China

BEIJING/SINGAPORE, Oct 27 (Reuters) - China's state-owned defense giant Norinco in February unveiled a military vehicle capable of autonomously conducting combat-support operations at 50 kilometres per hour. It was powered by DeepSeek, the company whose artificial intelligence model is the pride of China's tech sector.

The Norinco P60’s release was touted by Communist Party officials in press statements as an early showcase of how Beijing is using DeepSeek and AI to catch up in its arms race with the United States, at a time when leaders in both countries have urged their militaries to prepare for conflict., opens new tab

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A Reuters review of hundreds of research papers, patents and procurement records gives a snapshot of the systematic effort by Beijing to harness AI for military advantage.

Specifics of how the systems behind China's next-generation weapons work and the extent to which it has deployed them are a state secret, but procurement records and patents offer clues into Beijing's progress toward capabilities like autonomous target recognition and real-time battlefield decision support in a way that mirrors U.S. efforts.

Reuters couldn't establish if all the products had been built and patents don't necessarily indicate operational technology.

Biggest-ever PLA purge: Do anti-Xi coup plots or fears explain it?

Francesco Sisci

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The most notable development from this week’s Party Plenum is the large-scale purge of the People’s Liberation Army. Here’s a brief overview of the key facts:

— The new PLA vice chairman, Zhang Weisheng, is the investigator behind the purge. He comes from the Second Artillery and is from Shaanxi, like President Xi Jinping. He is even closer to Xi than He Weidong, the purged vice chairman who met Xi during his time in Fujian.

— No new PLA members have been promoted to the Central Committee. This indicates that the PLA has been demoted. The entire PLA seems to be under suspicion.

— The fate of Zhang Youxia, the first PLA vice chairman, remains uncertain. It’s difficult to oust him now because he is a Politburo member, making the process more complicated than removing Central Committee members. The Congress might be needed, but he has most likely been effectively moved aside.

The Taiwan agenda has been officially emphasized, but it’s unclear whether the PLA can be totally in charge of it after this reshuffling. The strategy may be to regain control of the island through alternatives to direct military action, possibly by winning a democratic election.

The beginning

It all started in February 2023. As Covid was tapering off, the Chinese balloon incident erupted. A Chinese weather/spy balloon drifted over a sensitive military site in the US, sparking panic. Xi supposedly wasn’t aware of it and ordered an investigation into the PLA. Many top officials were scrutinized and punished.

Then, between late 2024 and 2025, a second shake-up started. It’s unclear if it’s linked to the first.

China has replaced its last two defense ministers, Wei Fenghe in October 2023 and Li Shangfu in June 2024. Subsequently, Miao Hua, the PLA political commissar, was removed in June 2025. Now, in October, it’s He Weidong and everyone else.

Turkish Transport Projects Reshape South Caucasus Connectivity

Emil Avdaliani

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Türkiye is advancing the $1.615 billion Eastern Türkiye Railway Infrastructure Development Project (ETMIC), which will modernize the Divrigi–Kars–Georgia line with electrification, signaling, and advanced traffic management to boost freight and regional growth.

Ankara is also planning the Samsun–Trabzon–Sarpi high-speed line linking central Türkiye with Georgia, and Georgia is constructing a new Batumi–Türkiye highway—jointly strengthening the Middle Corridor trade route.

These projects deepen Türkiye’s regional connectivity ambitions, potentially aligning with Russian interests in reopening the Abkhazian railway, which could one day link Turkish and Russian rail systems through the South Caucasus.

Ankara plans to attract funds for the Eastern Türkiye Railway Infrastructure Development Project (ETMIC), which would renovate and electrify the Divrigi–Kars–Georgian border railway line. This was outlined in a document called “Request for Participation in Early Market Engagement for Procurement of: Eastern Türkiye Middle Corridor Railway Development Project (ETMIC) and Istanbul North Rail Crossing Project (INRAIL),” published by the Turkish Government and World Bank on September 25 (Government of Türkiye, September 25). The estimated cost of the ETMIC, including value-added tax (VAT), is $1.615 billion (BPN, October 10). The ETMIC would also construct bridges, tunnels, culverts, and retaining walls, and expand stations. The modern traffic management system includes substations, 154-kilovolt transmission lines, signaling and telecommunications equipment, a centralized traffic control system (CTC), and a 320-kilometer-long (199-mile-long) distributed acoustic monitoring system (DAS). The project will contribute to increased rail freight traffic, more active domestic passenger train traffic, and the economic development of the eastern parts of Türkiye (Report.az, October 4). Türkiye aims to position itself as a leading architect of connectivity in the region by implementing new regional projects.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced plans to build a new railway to the border with Georgia on January 5. The Samsun–Trabzon–Sarpi high-speed train line will provide rail transportation between the Turkish capital of Ankara, the Black Sea region, and Georgia (Republic of Türkiye Directorate of Communications; 1tv.ge, January 5). The new railway will connect the Turkish cities of Ordu, Giresun, Trabzon, Rize, and Artvin via a line starting in Samsun. The project is part of the Ankara–Kırıkkale–Çorum–Samsun high-speed line, which will facilitate traffic from the heart of the Anatolian peninsula to the Black Sea (Railmarket, June 19).

The CRINK: Inside the new bloc supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine

Angela Stent

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Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 challenged much of the common Western understanding of Russia. How can the world better understand Russia? What are the steps forward for Western policy? The Eurasia Center’s new “Russia Tomorrow” series seeks to reevaluate conceptions of Russia today and better prepare for its future tomorrow.

Russia’s war against Ukraine has brought it a new set of partners. While this group is sometimes referred to as an axis, in reality it is a set of intensifying bilateral ties with countries—China, Iran and North Korea—that are essential for Russia’s continued prosecution of the war. The presence of these countries’ leaders at the military parade in Beijing to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the end of World War II in Asia—and their fulsome commitment to a new world order that the United States no longer dominates—suggests that these countries increasingly constitute an anti-US bloc, united not by shared values but by shared grievances.

These three authoritarian states are essential allies not only in the war on Ukraine, but also in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plan for a “post-West” global order. In Putin’s vision, this would be a multipolar world in which the United States has lost its “hegemonic” role and is only one of several great powers setting the global agenda. As Putin noted at the 2024 Valdai International Discussion Club, “What is at stake is the West’s monopoly, which emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union and was held temporarily at the end of the twentieth century. But let me reiterate, as those gathered here understand: any monopoly, as history teaches us, eventually comes to an end.”

What is the nature of Russia’s relationship with these three revisionist powers? To what extent do they coordinate their policies? How durable are these new sets of relationships and how might they evolve once the war is over? This report will address these questions and suggest how the West might deal with “the CRINK”—China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea—collectively and individually going forward.

Does the US military need a Cyber Force?

David Roza

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The U.S. military is hemorrhaging talent in cyber warfare, which national security experts warn could lead to America being outgunned and outsmarted by adversaries such as China, Russia, or Iran, who could use cyber weapons to wreak havoc on American military and civilian infrastructure.

The only way to fix it may be to start a seventh branch of the military: a Cyber Force.

There are currently about 225,000 service members, civilians, and contractors who work in cyber fields across the Defense Department. Most of them build, operate, patch, maintain, and do routine security for the 4 million computers and 34 billion IP addresses that make up the larger Department of Defense Information Network.

Each of the military services manages its own information networks and defends them against run-of–the-mill cybersecurity threats. They also recruit and train cyber troops and present them to U.S. Cyber Command, a combatant command that provides cyber support to troops conducting real-world operations.

There is some overlap here between what Cyber Command, or CYBERCOM, does and what the services do, but generally, if it’s offensive operations, or if the threat being defended against is really heavy-duty, that is usually CYBERCOM’s business.

But the services have not coordinated how they train cyber troops. That means service members come to CYBERCOM with different training for the same job, using different terms to refer to the same thing, and bringing their service-specific approaches to cyberspace.

That’s bad because CYBERCOM’s Cyber Mission Force — the 6,000 or so people who actually perform cyberspace operations — is designed to be modular, where teams from different services can swap in and do the same job. That’s according to Aden Magee, a retired Army cyber officer who wrote about this for War on the Rocks in September.

CYBERCOM is often compared with U.S. Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, which oversees real-world special operations and is the only other combatant command also charged with guiding how the services train units for it.

Is the U.S. Losing in Vietnam? Russia, North Korea and China Are Gaining.

Damien Cave

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American officials believed nearly two years ago that Vietnam was about to buy C-130 military transport planes from the United States. In interviews, they said the sale would be a powerful blow to Russia, Hanoi’s main military partner, and a clear sign that geopolitical swing states like Vietnam were tilting toward Washington, not Moscow or Beijing.

At Vietnam’s defense expo last December, the country’s prime minister even climbed aboard a visiting C-130, inspecting the cockpit as U.S. commanders watched. A YouTube video seemed to capture a Vietnamese deputy defense minister telling colleagues that three (or maybe 13) planes had been ordered. But then nothing happened.

Instead, Vietnam has stepped up purchases of Russian military equipment, routing around U.S. sanctions meant to cut off business with Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Leaked documents and interviews with Vietnamese and Western officials all point to a reinvigorated relationship — a return to distrusting America and relying on Russia, with a surge of high-level meetings and previously undisclosed purchases and partnerships.

The evidence reviewed by The New York Times includes records of Vietnam ordering dozens of complex air-defense systems, and high-tech upgrades for submarines, while seeking fleets of new aircraft. Russia and Vietnam have also continued to expand military-technical cooperation through joint ventures. At least one company in Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital, was added to U.S. and European sanctions and export-control lists in 2024 and 2025, suggesting the business was contributing to Russia’s fight against Ukraine.

Most of the transactions and collaborations with Russia have avoided sanctions enforcement, partly with payment systems hidden in other companies, and because the United States let a lot go, believing it was Vietnam’s partner of choice. But Moscow is getting bolder. While many of the secret purchases began during the Biden administration, they appear to be accelerating with President Trump in power — as are public displays of close relations.

Putin Is Slowly Losing Control of the Ukraine War

David Kirichenko

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Key Points and Summary – Ukraine has shifted strategy from the front to Russia’s rear, using long-range drones and missiles to hit refineries, depots, and industry—2,000 km deep in some cases.

-The campaign is generating fuel shortages, airport shutdowns, rolling blackouts, and rising costs that rattle Russian citizens and elites.

-As defenses stretch to protect refineries and cities, Russia faces shrinking oil income, tax hikes, and a tightening budget.

-With Ukraine scaling domestic strike systems and navigation that beats GPS jamming, the pressure inside Moscow will grow—and the Kremlin can’t ignore it.

Ukraine Is Bringing the War Home to Moscow

The last thing Vladimir Putin expected from his bunker in Moscow in early 2022 was that his army would be ground down fighting for mere inches of territory more than three and a half years into the full-scale invasion. Now, Ukrainian drones buzz across Russia, as Kyiv strikes oil refineries, including one 2,000 kilometers away on Putin’s birthday. For the past two years, Kyiv has increasingly brought the war home to Moscow’s elites.

Ukraine On the March

In the days leading up to May’s Victory Day parade, Ukrainian drones were already buzzing near Moscow. Kyiv said China asked Ukraine not to strike the Kremlin while Xi Jinping was in attendance, likely because it doubted Moscow’s ability to protect him.

For years, both Russian and foreign observers saw Putin as a shrewd, calculating statesman—a leader whose luck and timing always seemed to favor him, until his army met the Ukrainians on the battlefield.

Putin’s rise to power in the early 2000s coincided with a surge in global gas prices that filled Russia’s coffers. Throughout his presidency, a social contract has existed: Putin could pursue his imperial ambitions, as long as ordinary Russians didn’t suffer too extensively, and as long as the rent-seeking elites could pillage the country’s resources. Putin thought it all too easy after his 2014 invasion of Crimea, when the West was too scared to act.

Trump’s Domestic Pressures for a Potential War in Venezuela

Javier Corrales

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The Trump Administration is escalating war threats in Venezuela. Officials claim that the goal is to curb the drug trade. Critics contend that the real aim is regime change. These may be secondary aims. A more noble aim might be to promote democracy in Venezuela. However, the most likely impact of President Donald Trump’s approach to a potential war in Venezuela will be consolidated power, and Republican coalition management, at home.

A key part of Trump’s electoral coalition is fraying. Mass deportations are causing buyers’ remorse among Florida Cubans and Venezuelans who voted for Trump. While popular across his MAGA movement, mass deportations have shocked many Latino Trump voters; they likely never thought deportations would be so massive.

The drumbeat of war in Venezuela could appeal to Latinos who voted for Trump, at least in part, because they thought President Joe Biden was too soft toward Latin America’s leftist regimes.

Ironically, Trump’s initial approach toward Venezuela’s leftist dictatorship in the first half of 2025 was even softer than Biden’s. Guided by a pro-oil coalition, Trump’s initial approach to Venezuela was to pact with the dictator: Return a few prisoners, accept deportees, let U.S. oil firms gain more access to Venezuelan oil, and the U.S government would tolerate the regime.

Maduro signed on to this deal. But many Cubans and Venezuelans living in Florida hated it.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio emerged as the strongest advocate on behalf of this disaffected Florida constituency. He persuaded Trump—ever the change-his-mind president—to change his mind about Venezuela. By the end of summer, Trump abandoned his truce approach in favor of war talk.

To be sure, Maduro is one of the world's leading autocratizers—and one of the meanest. He inherited from Hugo Chávez a mixed regime that had plenty of autocratic elements but also democratic traces. In less than one electoral cycle, Maduro eliminated all democratic traces and turned the system into one of the most repressive, poverty-producing, and corrupt machines in the world.

Venezuela Says It Captured ‘Mercenaries’ Working With CIA

Ellie Cook

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Venezuela said it has captured mercenaries "with direct information" relating to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as Caracas accused neighboring Trinidad and Tobago of a "military provocation" by carrying out joint drills with the U.S.

Why It Matters

The Trump administration has launched multiple lethal strikes on alleged drug boats close to Venezuela and Colombia as part of what officials paint as a crackdown on narcotics trafficking into the U.S. that has strained American relations with Colombia, a longtime ally, and worsened tensions with Venezuela. The U.S. moved significant military assets to the southern Caribbean, bolstered by the announcement last week that the U.S. Navy's newest and largest aircraft carrier would join fighter jets, a submarine and multiple warships already in the region.

The White House has little love for Venezuela's authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, and has doubled the reward for information leading to his arrest on drug-related and corruption charges to $50 million. Venezuela said it is ready to respond and released an appeal in English from Maduro, calling for peace.

The USS Gravely destroyer arrives to dock for military exercises in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, on October 26, 2025. | AP Photo/Robert Taylor

What To Know

Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez did not give further details about the "mercenary group" she said was linked to the CIA in a statement published on Sunday but said it intended to carry out what she termed a "false flag" operation. The term refers to a plan that makes another party look responsible for an operation or action. Rodríguez said the operation was setting the stage for a "full military confrontation with our country."

When Commanders Play Judge and Jury

Theresa Carpenter & Eric Gilmet

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The Crisis Destroying Military Justice

Imagine facing criminal charges where your commanding officer—not evidence, not law—determines your fate. For thousands of service members, this isn't a hypothetical nightmare. It's the reality of America's military justice system, where unlawful command influence (UCI) has metastasized into a crisis that mocks the Constitution our troops swear to defend.

The Promise and Failure of Military Justice

The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) was born from noble intentions. Established after World War II to replace the archaic Articles of War, it promised fair trials and due process for those who wear the uniform. Over decades, Congress refined it to mirror civilian justice reforms. Today's UCMJ contains 146 Articles, with Article 37 explicitly prohibiting UCI—the improper use of superior authority to interfere with court-martial proceedings.

Yet Article 37 has become a paper tiger. The pattern repeats with numbing regularity: commanders interfere with trials, lives are shattered, convictions collapse on appeal—and the officers who poisoned justice face zero consequences. Three cases expose this systemic corruption, where the powerful escape accountability for violations that would destroy any junior service member.

Case One: A Conflicted Commander Who Caved to Political Pressure

In 2014, Navy SEAL Senior Chief Keith Barry was convicted of sexual assault and sentenced to three years in prison. He lost his rank, received a dishonorable discharge, and was branded a sex offender for life. The verdict seemed final—until Rear Admiral Patrick Lorge made a stunning confession. In a sworn affidavit, Lorge admitted he harbored serious doubts about Barry's guilt and wanted to overturn the conviction. But senior officials, including Vice Admiral James Crawford III, a top Navy lawyer, pressured him to uphold it anyway saying “Don’t put a target on your back.” Lorge's testimony revealed the ugly truth: "the political climate regarding sexual assault in the military was such that a decision to disapprove findings, regardless of merit, would bring hate and discontent on the Navy from the President, as well as senators including Senator Kirsten Gillibrand."

UN slams Israel after attack on peacekeepers in Lebanon

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UN spokesman says incident involved a drone dropping a grenade near a patrol, and a tank opening fire on peacekeepers.

The United Nations and France have condemned an Israeli attack that hit UN peacekeeping troops in southern Lebanon.

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Monday that the previous day’s attack on UNIFIL troops, which he said involved an Israeli drone dropping a grenade in the vicinity of a patrol, as well as a tank opening fire on peacekeepers near the border town of Kfar Kila, was “very, very dangerous”.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) works with the Lebanese army to enforce a ceasefire struck last year between Israel and the Lebanese armed groupd Hezbollah. Israel has violated the truce on a near-daily basis.

France’s Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs also condemned “the Israeli fire that targeted a UNIFIL detachment” and noted that the incidents followed similar attacks on October 1, 2 and 11.

Dujarric said: “It’s not the first time that we feel we’ve been targeted in different ways by the [Israeli army, including] pointing lasers or warning shots. He said his colleagues at UNIFIL were in touch with the Israeli military to “protest vehemently” against the attacks.

On Sunday, UNIFIL reported an Israeli drone flying over its patrol in an “aggressive manner”, saying its peacekeepers “applied necessary defensive countermeasures to neutralise the drone”. No injuries or damage were reported.

Israel still occupies five positions in southern Lebanon and has been launching near-daily attacks in defiance of the ceasefire. At least two brothers were killed in a strike on the village of al-Bayyad in the Tyre district on Monday.

Europe Is at Donald Trump’s Mercy. It Has Itself to Blame. Story by

Harrison Stetler

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How much more can Europe give to appease Trump? Despite months of concessions on everything from trade, defense and tech regulations, ties between the United States and its traditional allies remain as unstable as ever.

In mid-October, they appeared to be taking another turn for the worse when the White House announced that the U.S. president would hold a new round of in-person talks with Vladimir Putin, this time under the auspices of Hungarian strong man Victor Orbán. The Budapest summit was quickly cancelled, and Washington moved to impose sanctions on major Russian energy companies. Yet once again, Brussel’s charm diplomatic offensive was revealed for what is: a teetering house of cards that could come crashing down.

In late July, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen acceded to a deeply unbalanced trade deal with Washington designed to avert an open US-EU trade war. Signed at a Trump-owned golf course in Scotland, many hoped that the agreement, which fixed a 15-percent surcharge on exports to the United States without EU retaliation, would mark the beginning of a durable thaw in transatlantic relations.

Even that didn’t satisfy US President’s insatiable desire to keep Europe under his heel. In another recent ask, the White House has demanded that Brussels exempt American corporations from the bloc’s environmental rules and due diligence standards, which it deemed “serious and unwarranted regulatory overreach” in a position paper recently submitted to EU officials. “We are not rolling back on any of our laws,” a commission spokesperson said on October 9. In another sign of retreat, EU executives are reportedly preparing a “checklist” to underline how the bloc’s ongoing de-regulatory push can satisfy Trump’s demands.

Then there’s the ever-thorny question of Europe’s modest tech regulations. Trump blasted the early September decision by the European Commission—the EU’s executive arm—to impose a nearly 3 billion euros fine on Google for anti-competitive practices in the web advertising market. “My Administration will NOT allow these discriminatory actions to stand,” the US president wrote on Truth Social, aligning himself with a US tech sector up in arms at Brussels’ modest attempts to regulate Silicon Valley.

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

Ione Wells

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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.

Putin Returns to Brinksmanship After New U.S. Sanctions

Pavel K. Baev

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U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly canceled a planned summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest and imposed sanctions on Russia for the first time since taking office, reportedly due to Putin’s rejection of a ceasefire in Ukraine.

The U.S. sanctions target energy giants Rosneft and Lukoil, causing their market values to drop, as the measures threaten export revenues since key partners, such as India and Türkiye, will have more leverage when purchasing Russian oil.

With hopes for a personal rapport with Trump fading, Putin has returned to nuclear brinkmanship. On October 26, he announced that the nuclear-propelled Burevestnik cruise missile was ready for deployment.

Expectations in Russia were soaring about the planned meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump in Budapest. The Moscow stock exchange registered a strong rally, and even jingoist pundits started to speculate about the prospects of a peace deal that would seal Ukraine’s defeat (TopWar.ru, October 24). Trump’s decision to cancel the summit, describing it as a “waste of time,” and to impose new sanctions on Russia was extremely shocking to many in Moscow (RBC, October 23). Mainstream commentators who were eager to praise Trump’s readiness to listen to Putin’s long harangue on Russia’s grievances and Ukraine’s insignificance now refer to the mercurial character of decision-making in Washington, D.C. (Kommersant, October 23). Russian commentators ascribe the turnaround in the U.S. policy to the malign influence of the war-mongering Europeans, but rarely mention the incompatibility between Trump’s stated desire for a ceasefire and Putin’s explicit rejection of any pause in combat operations (Forbes.ru, October 24).

The abrupt breakdown of the high-level dialogue came as an unpleasant surprise to Putin. He had hoped to strengthen the positive momentum from the telephone conversation with Trump by meeting in person in Russia-friendly Budapest (Nezavisimaya gazeta; see EDM, October 20). He sought to downplay the effect of Trump’s decision and was cautious not to disparage the new sanctions, but instead claimed they would have limited influence on Russia’s economic situation (Kommersant, October 23). He also dispatched the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Kirill Dmitriev, to Washington, D.C., who Putin likely expects to have a better rapport with U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff than Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio (The Moscow Times, October 25). Dmitriev announced Russia’s desire to conclude the so-called “special military operation,” but the economic incentive he tried to invent does not overcome the obstacle of Russia’s continued rejection of a ceasefire (RBC, October 25).

Losing the Swing States

Richard Fontaine and Gibbs McKinley

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In the battle to shape the global order, the BRICS—a ten-country group, which is named for its first five members (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa)—has become increasingly important. The bloc represents roughly a third of global GDP and nearly half the world’s population. It exists to give countries that belong to the so-called global South more sway on the world stage.

That might make the BRICS seem like an inherently anti-Western group. It was, after all, founded in part by Beijing and Moscow. But for most of its 16-year history, the BRICS has not positioned

Russia says it tested nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile

Volodymyr Ivanyshyn

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Russia has tested its newly developed nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed Burevestnik cruise missile, Russian Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov said in a televised meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Oct. 26.

"I have a report from the industrial bodies, and in general, I am familiar with the estimates provided by the Defense Ministry. It's a unique product that no one else in the world possesses," Putin claimed, according to Russian state media.

Russia was ready to test the low-flying nuclear missile ahead of Putin's summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Alaska on Aug. 15, Reuters previously reported. Satellite imagery revealed extensive activity at the Pankovo test site on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Arctic Ocean.

"We have launched a multi-hour flight of a nuclear-powered missile and it covered a 14,000-kilometer (8,700-mile) distance, which is not the limit," Gerasimov said, adding that the test launch lasted for 15 hours.

Trump said the announcement was "not appropriate," urging Putin to seek an end to the war in Ukraine instead of "testing missiles." He also noted that Moscow is aware the U.S. has a nuclear submarine deployed "right off their shore."

"They're not playing games with us; we're not playing games with them either," Trump told journalists on Air Force One on Oct. 27.

U.S.-based researchers previously identified a possible deployment site for Russia's Burevestnik missile. The site is adjacent to a nuclear warhead storage facility known as Vologda-20 or Chebsara, located about 475 kilometers (295 miles) north of Moscow.

Norway's military intelligence told Reuters that the cruise missile was launched from Novaya Zemlya, an Arctic archipelago in the Barents Sea.

What Does Trump Think He’s Doing with Venezuela

Christopher Caldwell

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What are United States forces doing in the Caribbean? The 6,000 American sailors and Marines who have been waiting off the coast of Venezuela since the middle of this month do not seem like a big enough force to launch an outright war. A ground invasion of that country would take 50,000 troops at a minimum. But since September the U.S. has attacked at least 10 South American speedboats, killing 43 people, alleging many of them were trafficking drugs with the connivance of the Venezuelan government. Add to that the deployment of new weaponry into the theater—B-52s a week ago, B-1 stealth bombers on Thursday, the advanced aircraft carrier the USS Gerald R. Ford a day later—and President Donald Trump’s announcement that “we are certainly looking at land now” brings a ring of menace, not to mention a sense of déjà vu.

Trump, the mocker of neoconservatism, humanitarian invasion, and democracy promotion ever since his appearance on the national political stage, seems about to launch one of those wars of choice that tainted the good name of the Bush family, and he is making a broad coalition of supporters and detractors correspondingly nervous. What does Trump think he’s doing?

Profit Over Protection: The U.S. Intelligence Community’s Over-Reliance on Private Contractors

Aneree Amin 

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The United States government has increasingly relied on private contractors to support intelligence operations, a practice that expanded significantly following the September 11, 2001 (9/11) attacks. Before the rise of private contracting, intelligence agencies, such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), primarily employed government personnel to conduct surveillance, analysis, and covert operations.

However, the government urgently needed to rapidly expand intelligence and counterterrorism capabilities after the attacks. These efforts required expertise in areas such as cybersecurity, signals intelligence, and drone surveillance, among other technical skills. Since the traditional governmental hiring process was often slow due to security clearances and bureaucratic hurdles, intelligence agencies turned to private contractors who could be hired and deployed immediately. Companies specializing in defense and intelligence, including Booz Allen Hamilton, CACI International, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, SAIC, and Palantir Technologies, secured large contracts to fill these critical gaps efficiently. These firms have been instrumental in various operations, such as tracking Osama bin Laden, developing cyber intelligence programs, and supporting targeted drone strikes.

Initially, this model was a practical solution, as it allowed the intelligence community (IC) to expand its capabilities without being hindered by bureaucratic challenges and the difficulties of training government employees. Ultimately, the ability to deploy and offer specialized expertise made private contractors a compelling solution for intelligence agencies facing new and evolving threats.

That said, the United States government has demonstrated its inability to design and manage contracts effectively. Specifically, vague contract parameters, unclear performance metrics, and a lack of accountability have generated a harmful system that encourages inefficiency and exploitation to maximize private profit. In other words, while contractors don’t outwardly break the rules, the current system has allowed contractors to prioritize profit over mission effectiveness, increasing costs while delivering little results.

The Cognitive Warfare Concept

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Cognitive warfare is now seen as its own domain in modern warfare. Alongside the four military domains defined by their environment (land, maritime, air and space) and the cyber domain that connects them all, recent events that upset the geopolitical balance of power have shown how this new warfare domain has emerged and been put to use. It operates on a global stage, since humankind as a whole is now digitally connected. It uses information technology and the tools, machines, networks and systems that come with it. Its target is clear: our intelligence, to be considered both individually and as a group. 

Attacks are defined, structured and organized to alter or mislead the thoughts of leaders and operators, of members of entire social or professional classes, of the men and women in an army, or on a larger scale, of an entire population in a given region, country or group of countries. Cognitive aggression is boundless. It can have a variety of objectives and will adapt itself to other strategies being used: territorial conquest (a bordering region, peninsula or group of islands for instance), influence (elections,stirring up popular unrest),service interruptions (national or local administrations, hospitals, emergency services, and sanitation, water or energy supplies) or transportation (airspaces, maritime chokepoints…), information theft (through involuntary disclosure or the sharing of passwords…) etc.