Reinforcements for the cyber frontline

N Nagaraj

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When Indian forces launched Operation Sindoor, a series of targeted strikes against terrorist infrastructure across the border, in May this year, Indian cyber networks began to flicker with unusual activity. Government servers, defence communications and even civilian systems were hit by a wave of phishing emails and malware attacks.

A recent research paper from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, titled ‘Cyber warfare during Operation Sindoor: Malware campaign analysis and detection framework’, provides the first detailed reconstruction of these cyber attacks. Authored by Prakhar Paliwal, Atul Kabra and Manjesh Kumar Hanawal, the study documents how Pakistan-based ‘advanced persistent threat’ (APT) groups launched targeted cyber intrusions in parallel with the physical conflict, marking one of the most sophisticated instances of hybrid warfare in South Asia.

The masterminds

The attacks were traced to APT36, also known as Transparent Tribe, a Pakistan-based cyber espionage group that has been active since 2013. Believed to operate in alignment with Pakistani State interests, APT36 has a long history of targeting Indian military, diplomatic and government networks.

It typically relies on spear-phishing, using malicious Office documents and fake domains to lure victims into opening infected attachments.

During Operation Sindoor, the group’s tactics were similar, but marked by unprecedented precision and timing.

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

Shruti Mittal and Konark Bhandari

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This program focuses on five sets of imperatives: data, strategic technologies, emerging technologies, digital public infrastructure, and strategic partnerships.Learn More

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.

IIT Bombay researchers develop GPS-free control scheme for autonomous drone swarms

Purnima Sah

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Novel scheme by IIT Bombay researchers to control drones can enable complex formation flying using only camera data, without GPS or inter-drone communication.

A new control scheme developed by Professor Dwaipayan Mukherjee and research scholar Chinmay Garanayak at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay enables unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to fly in coordinated swarms without relying on GPS, inter-drone communication, or centralised control systems. The method uses bearing-only measurements obtained through onboard cameras to determine relative positions and maintain formation.

The researchers applied the scheme to Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) UAVs, which can lift off without a runway and hover mid-air. These drones are suitable for operations in confined spaces such as surveillance and monitoring. “Autonomy in a swarm is a critical task,” Mr. Mukherjee said. “This means that vehicles in a swarm should be able to decide their ‘actions’ based on variables they can measure with their on-board sensors, instead of having to rely on some global information being fed to them or some human/centralised computer deciding what their action ought to be. This is where our paradigm differs from usual ones,” he added.

The proposed ‘bearing-only’ control scheme allows each drone to use its onboard camera to observe its immediate neighbours and calculate bearing information. “In bearing-only control, the goal is to achieve formation control using only interagent bearing measurements,” Mr. Garanayak said. The system does not require GPS or communication with other drones or a central computer.

Camera-based measurements are less prone to noise than conventional distance sensors, simplifying the drone’s sensor system and reducing battery requirements and overall weight. The scheme is designed to work in areas where GPS is unavailable, or communication could be jammed, making it suitable for stealth-mode operations such as covert military missions.

How War in Taiwan Ends

Zack Cooper

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In recent years, many in Washington have focused on deterring China from invading Taiwan. Before taking office earlier this year, Elbridge Colby, the U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, asserted that Taiwan should be “laser focusing on implementing a denial defense against invasion.” Indeed, an array of small, inexpensive weapon systems holds great promise for repelling a Chinese amphibious landing. The Trump administration’s new National Defense Strategy is therefore correct to embrace a strategy of denial for stopping an invasion of Taiwan.

But rebuffing an invasion might not end the war. Joel Wuthnow, an expert on the Chinese military, has warned, “There is no scenario in which China, following an unsuccessful invasion, accepts responsibility, acknowledges that military solutions are impractical, or pivots to a fundamentally different set of political objectives toward Taiwan.” In the wake of a failed invasion, Chinese leader Xi Jinping (or his successor) would be unlikely to simply pack up and go home. Instead, Chinese leaders might reason that they have less to lose by continuing the fight.

This is why the political scientist Michael Beckley has argued that “war over Taiwan likely would become protracted, as nearly all great power wars have since the Industrial Revolution.” World War II ended only when Allied forces captured Germany’s capital and the United States dropped nuclear weapons on Japan. Neither option seems advisable in the context of a U.S.-Chinese war; Washington needs to find other ways to end it. And so, in the years to come, the United States must prepare two forces: one to stop a Chinese invasion and another to end the conflict. Preventing a war from starting in the first place will rely to some extent on the innovative forms of deterrence by denial on which the Trump administration and others have focused. But denial capabilities on their own will not be enough. Ending a war that churns on even after a failed invasion will also require old-fashioned power projection.

IN DENIAL

In the twentieth century, the United States perfected the art of projecting power around the globe. A combination of forward bases and aircraft carriers allowed U.S. forces to operate worldwide. With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the U.S. military’s dominance also meant that one set of forces could employ two distinct forms of deterrence simultaneously: denial and punishment.

The Pacific Islands Challenge

Michael Kovrig

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As the strategic rivalry between China and the United States intensifies across the Indo-Pacific, the Taiwan Strait is often seen as the key flash point. Yet whether the regional balance holds or tips into conflict will also be shaped by choices made in, by, and about the Pacific Islands—the 12 sovereign states and several territories whose archipelagos stretch across the vast ocean between the Philippines and Hawaii.

Since the first decade of this century, China has steadily expanded its presence across the region. Most Pacific governments have leaned in to Beijing’s offerings—seeking infrastructure and investment, as well

China tweets satellite photos of Taiwan's critical Hsinchu chip hub in pressure-ratcheting political stunt — 'where all the world’s advanced foundry IP is created,' highest concentration of chipmaking facilities in the world

Luke James 

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On Friday night, China’s embassy in Washington posted a familiar message to X: “There is but one China in the world.” But this time, the predictable rhetoric from China came with a glossy photo carousel that included a sweeping aerial shot of Hsinchu Science Park, the epicenter of the world’s most advanced semiconductor manufacturing.

As analyst Patrick Moorhead highlighted in a response to the embassy’s post, Hsinchu includes TSMC’s Fabs 12A, 12B, 20, 3, 5, 8, 2 and the Advanced Backend Fab 1, all crammed into the park’s core, along with the company’s Global R&D Center, “where all the world’s advanced foundry IP is created,” he wrote, pointing out that chips for Nvidia, AMD, Apple, Qualcomm, and even Intel depends on this small square of land.

While the post didn’t mention chips directly, it didn’t have to. Hsinchu is home to TSMC’s original fabs, the headquarters of MediaTek and UMC, and key government agencies that oversee Taiwan’s space and chip strategy. There is no other place on Earth with the same concentration of cutting-edge logic process nodes. This is where the GPUs that train AI models begin, where desktop and server CPUs are etched, and where bleeding-edge silicon IP is designed. Expand the embedded tweet below to see the images.

This isn’t the first time that Beijing has tried to remind the world of Taiwan’s vulnerability. In recent months, Chinese naval forces have staged simulated blockades in the Taiwan Strait, inspecting commercial cargo ships and raising fears of a chokepoint disruption. The Trans-Pacific Express Cable System, which directly connects Taiwan to the U.S. East Coast, Japan, South Korea, and China, was damaged by a Cameroon-flagged freighter, Shunxing39, earlier this year, prompting Taiwan to increase legal penalties for damaging undersea cables.

According to a recent special report from Reuters, U.S. officials have begun modeling worst-case scenarios for the Bashi Channel, a key shipping lane essential to Taiwanese exports like advanced wafers and electronics, in response to recent incursions.

In September, the US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called Taiwan’s chip sector the “single greatest point of failure for the world economy” because 99% of high-performance chips are manufactured there, and back in June 2021, a White House review warned that even a temporary hit to TSMC output could ripple through everything from datacenters to defense.

Taiwan Concludes Huge New Military Exercise

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Since Defense Minister Wellington Koo took office, Taiwan’s military has undergone numerous reforms and restructuring. This is all part of efforts to turn Taiwan into a modern fighting force, centered on asymmetric warfare, and able to conduct a defense in depth.

This week, we got to see a new exercise showcasing what I think is the most modern and advanced military exercise Taiwan has ever carried out.

For 7 days, 6 nights, Taiwan’s Army has been conducting force-on-force exercises in Northern Taiwan. It was the Armored 542nd Brigade (Team A) vs. the 234th Mechanized Infantry (Team B). Each side was supported by one Army Aviation division (601st & 602nd), consisting of AH-64E Apache and AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopters as well as special forces. By in large, this was one of the biggest and most realistic joint and combined arms exercises, with both sides travelling more than 200km or 125 mi. Blank rounds and smoke grenades were used.

This year, the military used a new “firepower value” (火力值) system to keep track of how effective each side was. When two forces engage, reference data like distance, force size, and equipment are computed to judge how lethal an attack would be. The “firepower value” is being compared to a batting average or ERA in various Taiwanese news reports. For example, if a military vehicle suffers a malfunction and its forces do not repair it within a certain timeframe, that vehicle is considered a loss.

For the first time, Taiwan’s military also used Tactical Awareness Systems (TAK) to monitor simulated injuries, casualties, and movements from both sides.

Taiwan’s Army pointed out that the Lu-Sheng exercise is organized into phases: The drills start with a tactical concentration of forces, maneuvers into the battlefield, various encounter battles, offense-defense battles, and finally shifting between offensive/defensive advantage.

Below is a map produced by my team at Taiwan Security Monitor that shows some of the major movements seen during the exercises. The map was pulled together using open-source materials such as news articles and photos from official sources.

Xi-Trump meeting ‘a historic moment’ that will help avoid missteps, China’s top envoy says

Vanessa Cai

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China’s top diplomat has called the summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump “a historic moment” that will help reduce misunderstanding and prevent major fluctuations in their countries’ ties.

According to a Chinese foreign ministry statement on Sunday, Foreign Minister Wang Yi also noted that Shenzhen in southern China was getting ready to host next year’s Apec summit, a key diplomatic event for Beijing, noting that the tech hub would “present a spectacular event to the world”.

Xi and Trump held talks on Thursday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in South Korea, their first in-person meeting since Trump’s return to the White House in January.

The meeting highlighted the personal connection between the two leaders and struck a conciliatory tone for long-term ties. Beijing and Washington reached a truce on thorny issues ranging from soybeans and rare earths to fentanyl.

‘We have a deal’: Trump claims breakthrough after ‘12 out of 10’ talks with Xi Jinping

Wang said observers widely welcomed the summit, “viewing it as highly significant and a positive signal that helps ease tensions”.

“Many believe the meeting marks the start of a more stable and manageable period in bilateral relations. The return of China-US economic and trade dialogue has also boosted global market confidence,” Wang was quoted as saying.

“The leaders’ meeting is seen as irreplaceably important for reducing misunderstandings and misjudgments between the two sides and avoiding major fluctuations in the relationship.”

Wang noted that the summit in Busan was “a historic moment” in bilateral ties and “a landmark event” in international affairs.

That Time When China’s Leader Joked About Espionage

Yan Zhuang

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It’s an open secret that countries spy on each other. That’s probably why world leaders almost never talk about espionage in public.

But over the weekend, it was the punchline of a joke between China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, and President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea.

The joke revolved around two cellphones Mr. Xi gave Mr. Lee — one for him, one for his wife — during their meeting in the South Korean city of Gyeongju on Saturday. The phones were manufactured by the Chinese company Xiaomi, with Korean-made displays, a spokesman for Mr. Xi said as the two leaders inspected them with news cameras rolling.

Mr. Lee picked up one of the phones, still in its box, and admired it. Then he asked how good the security was.

Mr. Xi laughed. “You can check if there’s a backdoor,” he said, referring to preinstalled software that allows a third party to monitor a cellphone. That prompted Mr. Lee to laugh and clap his hands in apparent delight.

The exchange was notable in part because Mr. Xi is rarely seen speaking off the cuff in public. It also deviated from a “sort of old-fashioned gentlemen’s agreement” in which world leaders typically pretend that covert activities aren’t happening, said John Delury, a historian of China based in Seoul.

How China and Taiwan are Preparing for War

Micah McCartney

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With China appearing to be planning for a possible invasion of Taiwan, and the self-ruled island girding itself in response, Newsweek has spoken to analysts about the state of preparations on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

U.S. defense and intelligence officials have warned Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered the People's Liberation Army to be at least capable of moving against Taiwan by 2027. Admiral Samuel Paparo, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, has said Beijing’s increasingly sophisticated military exercises, including simulated blockades, are "dress rehearsals.”

The government in Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, has controlled the island since 1949, after losing the mainland to communist forces. Today it functions as a self-governing democracy with its own military and foreign relations.

The gap between the two militaries is enormous and widening. China spends roughly 10 times more on defense than Taiwan and now operates the world’s largest navy, backed by an expanding missile arsenal and about 600 nuclear warheads. Xi has vowed to build a “world-class military” by mid-century, a goal widely seen as meaning one capable of rivaling the U.S.

Newsweek reached out to the Chinese Embassy and Taiwan's de facto embassy in the U.S. via emailed requests for comment.

Washington has long urged Taipei to invest less in heavy weapons—like tanks and large warships—and more in asymmetric systems such as drones, mobile rocket launchers, and coastal missiles that can slow a far larger invasion force.

The Coming US-China Thaw

JAMES K. GALBRAITH

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AUSTIN – Last year, Texas banned professional contact by state employees (including university professors) with mainland China, to “harden” itself against the influence of the Communist Party of China – an entity that has governed the country since 1949, and whose then-leader, Deng Xiaoping, attended a Texas rodeo in 1979.

Defending the policy, the new provost of the University of Texas, my colleague Will Inboden, writes in National Affairs that “the US government estimates that the CPC has purloined up to $600 billion worth of American technology each year – some of it from American companies but much of it from American universities.” US GDP is currently around $30 trillion, so $600 billion would represent 2% of that sum, or roughly 70% of the US defense budget ($880 billion). It also amounts to about one-third of all spending ($1.8 trillion) by all US colleges and universities, on all subjects and activities, every year. Make that 30 cents of every tuition dollar and a third of every federal research grant.

Moreover, it seems the Chinese made better use of the purloined knowledge than we would have. Compare their growth rate to America’s, or look at Chinese cities, their high-speed railroads, and advanced industries. Then there’s the elimination of mass poverty and the 3.5 million engineers and scientists the country mints every year. Such theft must be akin to stealing emeralds from the Louvre – a zero-sum game. Not only did the Chinese get the good stuff, but they somehow prevented America from using it. How very diabolical.

Of course, the figure that Inboden cites is absurd, though I don’t doubt that the US government said it somewhere. Such claims about China (and not only China) have become routine in recent years. The tactic is straightforward. By saturating the information space with far-fetched assertions too numerous and too pervasive to rebut, disagreement, let alone dissent, becomes tantamount to disloyalty, even treason.

Yet universities obviously cannot be the secret laboratories of a national-security state. We are, by our nature, open. To the extent that we produce useful knowledge or new technologies, these naturally become the common property of the whole world. That is what “publication” is about. As for American companies, they went to China to make money. Many succeeded. That China got something out of it – at the expense of American workers, we can admit – was part of the deal. It’s called capitalism.

The Pacific Islands Challenge

Michael Kovrig

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As the strategic rivalry between China and the United States intensifies across the Indo-Pacific, the Taiwan Strait is often seen as the key flash point. Yet whether the regional balance holds or tips into conflict will also be shaped by choices made in, by, and about the Pacific Islands—the 12 sovereign states and several territories whose archipelagos stretch across the vast ocean between the Philippines and Hawaii.

Since the first decade of this century, China has steadily expanded its presence across the region. Most Pacific governments have leaned in to Beijing’s offerings—seeking infrastructure and investment, as well

Russia’s Latest Nuclear Saber-Rattling: Nuclear Testing?

Heather Williams and Lachlan MacKenzie

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In a November 5 meeting of the Security Council of Russia, President Vladimir Putin directed his military and political leaders to “submit coordinated proposals on the possible first steps focusing on preparations for nuclear weapons tests.” Putin’s comments come a week after President Trump posted on social media that he had “instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.” On the one hand, Putin’s comments fit a wider pattern of nuclear saber-rattling tied to the ongoing war in Ukraine. On the other hand, these statements continue to ratchet up nuclear risks and undermine the existing nuclear order. Approximately six hours prior to Putin’s statements, the United States conducted a test of its Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

We are at risk of escalation by testing. The best way to prevent Russia from resuming explosive nuclear testing is not only for the United States and other nuclear possessors to continue to observe the testing moratorium, but also for the wider international community to hold Russia and China accountable for their suspected low-yield testing in violation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The majority of signatories to the treaty agree with the U.S. interpretation that it obligates states to observe a “zero-yield” ban on nuclear testing. Trump’s recent comments, along with reports from the intelligence community, indicate Russia and China have not been meeting these terms. This rhetorical spat could either escalate to a return to nuclear testing or be an opportunity for strengthening the non-testing norm and highlighting Moscow and Beijing’s ongoing nuclear antagonism.

Q1: What did Putin say about nuclear testing?

A1: At the November 5 meeting, Putin called for “proposals on the possible first steps . . . on preparations” for tests. Effectively, he requested suggestions for potential initial preparations for nuclear testing. Importantly, he did not order Russia’s Ministry of Defense to actively begin preparing for resumed testing. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov subsequently reinforced this point, explaining that “the president did not give instructions to begin preparations for testing . . .The president instructed that the advisability of beginning preparations for such tests be considered.” The Kremlin does not frequently publish transcripts of Security Council meetings, and the choreographed nature of the conversation indicates that Putin intended it as a signal.

Europe Must Create Its Own Future

Dalibor Rohac

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This article is brought to you by American Purpose, the magazine and community founded by Francis Fukuyama in 2020, which is proudly part of the Persuasion family.

It is too easy to succumb to despair about Europe’s future, as the Ukraine war continues and the continent faces two unfriendly global superpowers, China and the United States. The EU, built in more idealistic times, is adapting at a glacial pace to the new reality. Besides the bloc’s notorious incrementalism, European governments face a myriad of internal challenges, including slow economic growth, poor demographics, and increasingly unhinged domestic politics.

Yet there are green shoots of optimism—particularly in the EU’s continued commitment to Ukraine. At its recent meeting, the European Council adopted its 19th package of sanctions against Russia, targeting Russia’s shadow fleet, several Chinese companies involved in oil trade with Russia, as well as companies helping Russia circumvent the sanctions. Just the night before, the U.S. Treasury surprised some with its own sanctions imposed on Rosneft and Lukoil—the first update to U.S. sanctions policy against Russia since Donald Trump’s arrival in the Oval Office.

This is not the first seemingly big swing in U.S.-Ukraine policy. In late September, Trump claimed Ukraine could retake its full territory and hinted at transferring Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. The White House meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in mid-October, which Ukrainians hoped would finalize the deal, saw the plan scrapped. Of course, the encounter came just a day after a lengthy call between Trump and Vladimir Putin, following which preparations began for the now-aborted summit between Trump and Putin in Budapest, Hungary.

Throughout this wild cycle, Europeans stayed the course. The coalescing of European leaders behind Ukraine after the meeting in the Oval Office was instantaneous, accompanied by a 12-point peace plan endorsed by Zelenskyy. With an administration that seems internally divided on how to deal with the war, a united European front remains the best strategy to demand some putative bargain with the Kremlin that would then be imposed by Trump on Ukrainians and Europeans.

Too big to fail? Saving Ukraine would cost Europe almost $400 billion

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In the history of ideas around war and strategic confrontation, there are strokes of genius, grave mistakes, and everything in between. And then, in a category of its own, there is The Economist’s cover story of 30 October, purporting to explain “Why funding Ukraine is a giant opportunity for Europe”. The argument is a breathtaking window into the final bankruptcy of elite thinking on the big issues of statecraft confronting the continent. In a turn to the positively absurd, the liberal paper – a flagship of the “sophisticated” globalist intelligentsia – urges the Continent’s capitals to commit some $390 billion over the next four years to sustain Kyiv’s beleaguered war effort. The paper admits this is “a lot, but still excellent value” for the European taxpayer.

This marks a nadir in the liberal transatlantic discourse on Ukraine, with the last flickers of realism yielding to a kind of messianic arithmetic. The article frames this prodigious outlay not as a burden, but as a kind of historic bargain in which we get to “corner” (not even defeat) Putin and build out Europe’s “financial and industrial muscle” while boosting its military power and thus reducing the dependency on the US.

It is effectively the old trick of presenting bad debt as prosperity-boosting investment. How bad? Just note that much of the money would be poured directly into the bottomless pit of Ukraine’s budget deficit, with negligible benefits to Europe’s economy. And what’s not sent in cash straight into Kyiv’s coffers would be used to buy European weapons that would then be gifted to Ukraine; this is the “defence investment” bit. It will certainly expand Europe’s defence-industrial base, but defence is one of the least efficient areas for investment: low-productivity, capital-intensive, and prone to low spill overs.

Before considering the enormity of The Economist’s proposed sum, it is worth noting the moral hazard involved in the mere principle of it. This is a concept from economics that points to the risk that someone will take more risks because they don’t have to face the full consequences of those risks. Moral hazard arises when one party is insulated from potential losses and can afford to behave recklessly because someone else is bearing the cost. For example, this could a company or industry receiving subsidies from the state, or a bank deemed too big to fail and which can thus count on the state to bail it out. We had an unforgettable experience of this through the 2008 financial crisis.

The Fantasy of a New Middle East

Marc Lynch

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The regional order of the Middle East is rapidly evolving, but not in the way many Israeli and U.S. officials assume it is. U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to end the war in Gaza delivered the release of all the surviving Israeli hostages and a respite from the relentless killing and destruction that has so scarred the territory. That breakthrough raised hopes of a broader regional transformation, even if what comes after the initial cease-fire remains hugely uncertain. Trump himself speaks of the dawn of peace in the Middle East. If his deal prevents the expulsion of

The Regime Change Temptation in Venezuela

Alexander B. Downes and Lindsey A. O’Rourke

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What began in early September as a series of American airstrikes on boats in the Caribbean—which U.S. officials alleged were trafficking drugs from Venezuela—now seems to have morphed into a campaign to overthrow Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. Over the course of two months, President Donald Trump’s administration has deployed 10,000 U.S. troops to the region, amassed at least eight U.S. Navy surface vessels and a submarine around South America’s northern coast, directed B-52 and B-1 bombers to fly near the Venezuelan coastline, and ordered the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group—which the

No, Recent Drone Sightings are Not Examples of Hybrid Warfare

Andreas Foerster 

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There has been a lot of talk in the headlines the past weeks about drone sightings across Europe, and how these are apparently examples of “hybrid warfare.” Normally, common sense would dictate that in order to call something a “war,” there has to be an actual war going on. Or, for something to be an “attack,” something has to actually be attacked. Clearly, clarification is needed. In reality, these events are yet another case of hybrid warfare being confused with gray zone activities, with potentially dire consequences. In this short article, the difference between the two will be explained, and why it matters.

What is a “war”?

What is a state of war? That is a difficult question, and one that is still being forcefully debated by scholars, philosophers and policymakers. Still, there is enough in the literature to determine when some situations are clearly not indicative of a state of war. Clausewitz stated that “War is an act of violence intended to compel an enemy to submit to one’s will.”, and that “war is a continuation of politics by other means.” This firstly means that war is an organized act of violence with a clear target. The threat of violence is not enough to constitute war, being only deterrence or coercion through power projection. Secondly, it means that war is the end of primarily peaceful diplomatic action and the resorting to primarily violent diplomatic action. The end goal remains the same, achieving the state’s political objectives. However, the means have changed, entering into a state of deadly combat. And critically, the primacy of the equation of elements of national power has changed, as the focus shifts from nonviolent to violent action.

Obviously, not all action in war involves violence, but for any conflict to be called a war, it must be primarily a violent affair. If these drones are all Russian, then they are part of a reconnaissance, surveillance and intimidation strategy, not any kind of coordinated kinetic strike against European military and/or civilian targets. Without that essential aspect, it is not only wrong to throw around words like “war,” but extremely dangerous. Make no mistake, this may very well be the latest in a long line of reckless and aggressive actions perpetrated by Russia against Europe. However, if one wishes to avoid worsening the current tensions, one must be careful about the language deployed in international relations.

Welcome to the Western Hemisphere

Michael L. Burgoyne

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Perhaps you were preparing for another round of operations in the Red Sea, or flying multinational patrols over Poland, or training with partners in the Philippines. Maybe you were a strategist who had been running wargames on defending Taiwan or Estonia. That doesn’t matter now, because the Trump Administration is now all-in on the Western Hemisphere and you have orders to US Southern Command! A few months ago in Small Wars Journal, I provided some recommendations to commanders and staff being assigned to Joint Task Force Southern Border. Now, it seems appropriate to facilitate a larger regional understanding. As of this writing, the United States has deployed an Amphibious Ready Group, a Carrier Strike Group, F-35s, and multiple other assets into the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility. These forces have engaged in lethal strikes against more than 10 alleged drug boats resulting in more than 50 deaths. Effective strategy requires a detailed understanding of the operating environment. In this brief guide, I will lay out some key characteristics of the hemisphere, provide some critical homework to better understand the region, and deliver some advice to improve your chances of success.

Historical Context

As with any region, the Americas has its own distinctive opportunities and challenges. From a defense and security perspective, the development of a long-standing asymmetrical alliance and conflict management system is the region’s most vital but underappreciated characteristic. The United States has benefited immensely from its largely calm and friendly neighborhood. Realists like John Mearsheimer have pointed out the importance of maintaining an uncontested Western Hemisphere so that the United States is free to address threats globally. Certainly, the region faces issues like drug trafficking and irregular migration, but interstate conflict has been rare, and the United States has not been confronted by hostile regional powers.

Unfortunately, there is no concise history of defense relations in the region. However, there are three books that together provide a comprehensive understanding. First, L Lloyd Mecham’s The United States and Inter-American Security 1889-1960, provides an excellent survey of early regional security challenges and the structures that were created to alleviate them. Second, John Child’s Unequal alliance: The Inter-American Military System, 1938–1978 extends the narrative further and provides a more in-depth look at World War II and the formation of a hemispheric alliance and conflict management system. If you only plan on reading one of these three, Unequal Alliance is the most useful and succinct. Unfortunately, Child’s book is out of print, but his dissertation is available online. Rounding out the trilogy, Latin America’s Cold War by Hal Brands outlines the threats and responses posed by the US – Soviet rivalry in the hemisphere.

An Unreliable America Means More Countries Want the Bomb

Debak Das, Rachel A. Epstein

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An undated picture released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on Sept. 16, 2017 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un inspecting a launch of the medium-and-long range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 at an undisclosed location.An undated picture released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on Sept. 16, 2017 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un inspecting a launch of the medium-and-long range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 at an undisclosed location.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent foreign-policy moves have alienated the country’s traditional allies in Europe while stirring glee in Moscow. While it’s a catastrophic development for Ukrainian security and democracy, this paradigmatic shift portends much larger risks for global security. The most pressing is the threat of rampant nuclear proliferation that the Trump administration’s actions will elicit.

While on the surface it might seem as though a warmer relationship between two of the world’s largest nuclear powers could reduce the risk of nuclear war, the opposite is true. We are on the precipice of a global turn toward nuclear instability, in which many countries will be newly incentivized to build their own arsenals, increasing the risk of nuclear use, terrorist subversion, and accidental launch. Countries like South Korea, Japan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are all so-called nuclear latent states that could potentially build nuclear weapons quickly—as are Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands.

Electronic Weapons: Russian Cyber War Against Germany

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November 2, 2025: Earlier this year, Russia hired or simply encouraged German based criminal hackers to engage in activities that hampered or just discouraged German support for Ukraine in its battles against Russian invaders. NATO officially and financially supports Ukraine. The German military/Bundeswehr was unable to detect who was responsible.

Western intelligence agencies believe Russia recently tried, and failed to take control of Romanian security cameras. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, its Cyber War unit 26165 has been hard at work all over Europe. NATO investigators have discovered more than 10,000 hacked internet addresses. The goal was to tap into surveillance cameras so that NATO movement of troops and supplies could be monitored. Romania has a 650 kilometers border with Ukraine and its ports use Chinese surveillance cameras. These have been banned by the U.S and European countries because of security concerns. The Romanian government pointed out that it played no role in the deployment of such security cameras. Nevertheless, the Romanians are checking into this.

Western nations have had similar problems for over a decade. In 2014 a new team of hackers was identified. This one had been concentrating on finding and taking political, diplomatic and military data from NATO nations involved in opposing Russian aggression in Ukraine. This group, called APT28, was identified as Russian by numerous patterns in their code, some of which was left behind or otherwise captured. This made it clear that the creators were Russian speakers, were working somewhere in the same time zone as Moscow and using software techniques known to come from Russia. That means hacker tools that are for sale on the black market. Moreover the data being sought would mainly benefit the Russian government. This sort of attack was showing up with increasing frequency and accuracy.

Over the last decade Internet security firms, especially Kaspersky Labs, FireEye and Symantec have developed better tools for identifying the hacker organizations responsible for some of the large-scale hacker attacks on business and government networks. For example in 2013 there was a group from China identified called Hidden Lynx. This group appeared to contain 50-100 hackers, each identified by their coding style and other clues. This group was believed largely responsible for a large-scale espionage campaign called Operation Aurora that was still active. The APT28 campaign, on the other hand, was quite recent and coincided with Western efforts to halt Russian attacks on Ukraine.

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.

President Trump Deserves Better Advice

Eric S. Edelman & Franklin C. Miller

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Despite his well know aversion to using the other “N” word and discussing the issues connected with nuclear deterrence and nuclear sabre rattling by America’s adversaries the President, during his trip to Asia this week, dropped a bit of a bombshell of his own. On October 29, President Trump posted a brief statement on Truth Social about nuclear weapons testing, which contained the following key points:“The United States has more nuclear weapons than any other country”

“In my first term in office” the U.S. “accomplished a complete update and renovation of existing [U.S. nuclear] weapons.

“because of other countries testing programs I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis”

The process of testing our nuclear weapons “will begin immediately.”

Sadly, whoever provided the President with the background information for each of his statements is manifestly unaware of the easily ascertainable facts, and so the President is being extremely poorly served by his own staff.

First, the Russian Federation has more nuclear weapons than any other nation. Its stockpile of nuclear weapons available to the Russian military is about 5200 while its overall stockpile is about 5600. The numbers for the U.S. are about 3700 and 4400. This information is easily available in public sources like the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Yearbook or the annual assessments published by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

Second, during the President’s first term progress was made on the “Strategic Modernization Program” initiated in 2010, but no new platforms (submarine-launched ballistic missiles, bombers or land-based missiles) were deployed between 2017 and 2021; we rely today instead on aging systems which are decades old. Very importantly a small number of modified low yield submarine launched warheads were produced and placed in service, and development work began on other new air force nuclear warheads, but none were deployed.

Assessing Israel’s Intelligence Failure

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Ever since the horrifying Hamas terror attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Western reporting on the roots of that attack and the Israeli government’s response to it has suffered from serious misunderstandings. In While Israel Slept—borrowing from John F. Kennedy’s first book, Why England Slept, and, more directly, from Winston Churchill’s 1938 collection of speeches, While England Slept—two prominent Israeli journalists, Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot, set out to correct those misunderstandings. While their opening chapters focus on the immediate context of Hamas’s surprise attack, later chapters explore the deeper roots of that unpreparedness, going back over two decades before. Katz and Bohbot provide the closest thing to a definitive account of the events of 2023 and its causes—even if some prescriptions in their conclusion are debatable.

The biggest error in much of the reporting on Israeli policies over the years leading up to the attack portrays the Israeli government, usually under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as excessively warlike and unsympathetic to the needs of Gaza residents. To the contrary, the authors demonstrate, Netanyahu and his fellow ministers erred by turning a blind eye to the preparations Hamas leaders had been making for war against Israel for at least a decade, accumulating billions of dollars in cash and shipments of materials to construct an elaborate network of tunnels along with an ample supply of drones, rockets, and other weaponry.

Desperate to avoid major conflict, Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu (and for less than two years the ostensibly “right-wing” Naftali Bennett and his “centrist-liberal” successor Yair Lapid), engaged in what political analysts during the Cold War called “mirror imaging.” That is, just as Cold War “doves” like Jimmy Carter’s secretary of state, Cyrus Vance, allowed themselves to believe that Soviet leaders, just like their American counterparts, aimed above all at peace and prosperity, successive Israeli political and military leaders supposed that Hamas leaders, too, wanted prosperity and stability. Accordingly, Israeli leaders believed major financial aid and even “dual-use” tunnel-building equipment would divert Hamas from any aggressive intentions, allowing them to focus instead (as the Israelis did) on advancing their people’s economic well-being.

Google Chrome vs ChatGPT Atlas and Perplexity Comet: The browser wars are back, this time it is personal (AI)

Saurabh Singh

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For the better part of a decade, Google Chrome has dominated the web browser market. Whether it be use cases or conversations around them, not to mention the countless memes that have followed, Chrome is part of internet culture. Not that there has not been any competition. Rather, there's been tons of it. But everyone, from Microsoft Edge to Opera and others, has largely lived and worked around its influence – never outright beating Google at its game. Something that has forced many to sue Google, time and time again, with the jury still out on whether to call it a monopoly or not. If that wasn't enough, some have even offered to buy Chrome. In other words, Google Chrome is a big deal, and you better believe it.

However, the rapid rise of generative AI has disrupted this status quo. Or at least that's the impression you get when hearing some of the conversations that have been going on off late. At the centre of most of these conversations are two companies – relatively new compared to Google – OpenAI and Perplexity. OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, have launched Atlas while Perplexity, with Indian-origin CEO Aravind Srinivas at the helm, has come up with Comet. Both are standalone browsers built to challenge Chrome's dominance and redefine the way users interact with the web. This they are doing, by literally flipping the script that web browsers have been following since the dawn of time. It's a massive change, in a way, marking a make-or-break moment for search and the internet.

What makes this new browser war notable is its fundamentally different focus. Instead of speed or extensions, the competition now centres on smarter, AI-powered co-pilots for navigating daily online life. Both ChatGPT Atlas and Perplexity Comet are built on Chromium, the open-source platform that underpins Chrome, meaning Google's own foundation is being used against it. This is something that the internet also reminded the Perplexity CEO when he tweeted, "Internet is too important to be left in Google's hands." Interestingly, Srinivas had also thrown his hat into the ring to acquire Chrome recently. But we digress.

The core idea behind Comet or even Atlas is straightforward: traditional browsers are considered outdated, with AI-native browsers aspiring to become active assistants capable of reading, understanding, summarising, and acting on behalf of users.