India: The Red Fort Blast A Singular Shock

Ajit Kumar Singh

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On November 10, 2025, at least 10 civilians were killed and another 32 injured when a slow-moving car exploded near the iconic Red Fort in Delhi at around 6:52 pm [IST]. Two days later, on November 12, the Government officially termed the suicide blast a “terror attack”.

In a press release, the Government stated, “The country has witnessed a heinous terror incident, perpetrated by anti-national forces, through a car explosion near the Red Fort on the evening of 10 November 2025. The explosion resulted in multiple fatalities, and caused injuries to several others… The Cabinet directs that the investigation into the incident be pursued with the utmost urgency and professionalism so that the perpetrators, their collaborators, and their sponsors are identified and brought to justice without delay.”

In a related incident on November 14, 2025, at around 11 pm [IST], a blast occurred at the Nowgam Police Station in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), while authorities were extracting samples from a large cache of explosives confiscated from Faridabad, Haryana, in connection with an inter-State terrorist module suspected to be linked to the Delhi blast.

Why Pakistan’s New Chinese-Made Submarines Should Terrify India

Brandon J. Weichert

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The first Hangor-class submarine was launched in China in April 2024. The second was launched in March of this year, with a third, PNS Mangro, floated out in August. The submarines have not been commissioned into the Pakistan Navy yet, but according to its leadership, the first batch is expected to enter service in 2026.

Naval News, a trade publication, assesses that the Hangor-class sub uses a Stirling-based air-independent propulsion (AIP) system, which lets it remain submerged longer without surfacing. Army Recognition claims that it is using Chinese CHG620 diesel engines. Earlier plans reportedly involved German engines, but this had to be changed as there were export restrictions imposed upon those German engines going to China.

Pakistan’s new Chinese-made subs have high-strength hull steel and modular construction. These boats are designed with low acoustic signatures to enhance stealth. Six 533mm torpedo tubes are on each Hangor-class. Naval Today believes that these submarines can launch anti-ship cruise missiles.

It is likely that Pakistani Babur-3 submarine-launched cruise missiles (SLCMs) are compatible with these submarines. The Babur-3 would give each Hangor-class a deep strike potential—enhancing the reach and capabilities of Pakistan’s Navy.

China’s Approach to AI Development and Governance

Ren Xiao

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is a new technological frontier that has wide-ranging economic, political, and military implications that could lead to changes in the global balance of power. The People’s Republic of China has embraced AI and enthusiastically attempted to advance it as part of the country’s drive to become a self-strengthening scientific and technological power. As a result, China is in many areas at or near the forefront of AI development and application. However, as global AI governance becomes a higher priority in the international community, China, like others, is grappling with the question of how to govern AI and its advancement, both domestically and internationally.

China’s Embrace of AI

In May 2015, China released the Made in China 2025 plan, which provided a blueprint for the next decade to establish the country as an advanced manufacturing powerhouse. The plan identifies nine strategic tasks and key areas, including enhancing manufacturing innovation, promoting integration of information technology and industry, strengthening the country’s industrial base, and building quality and brand development. Almost all of these priorities are directly related to or impacted by the development of AI. Thus, AI has become the core technology indispensable for future intelligent manufacturing and China’s economic plans in this space. The Made in China 2025 plan, together with the subsequent “Robotics Industry Development Plan (2016–2020),” released in April 2016, and the “‘Internet Plus’ Artificial Intelligence Three-Year Action and Implementation Plan,” released in May 2016, demonstrated that China has elevated developing AI technology to a level of national strategy.

Russia and China in the Gray Zone

Ariane Tabatabai

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A number of European nations, including Poland, Estonia, Denmark, and Norway, have experienced Russian manned and unmanned aircraft incursions into their airspaces. NATO allies responded with immediate defensive measures such as shooting down the Russian unmanned assets and have also reportedly started to revisit and refine their own approach and rules of engagement in the face of such incursions. They are doing so to telegraph their resolve and showcase their combined capabilities to Russia in the face of what Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has characterized as “the closest we have been to open conflict since World War Two.”

Though Russia has a long history of gradually pushing the envelope to achieve its aims, its recent activities are similar to the recent Chinese playbook on incrementally increasing pressure on Taiwan. To be sure, these two campaigns have significant differences (for example, while Moscow’s most recent activities have thus far been limited to air incursions, Beijing’s have also spanned the maritime domain). Russia’s recent activities have also been more ad hoc, and limited in their breadth and depth, while China’s have been sustained for several years, and gradually grown in scope, intensity, occurrence, and complexity. More fundamentally, China’s campaign should be understood in the context of its wish to reunify with Taiwan, which is not the case with Russia’s activities against NATO. But they share a number of similarities and are occurring against the backdrop of increased cooperation between the two countries in their “gray-zone campaigns,” a term used by the intelligence community to describe the “deliberate use of coercive or subversive instruments of power by, or on behalf of, a state to achieve its political or security goals at the expense of others, in ways that exceed or exploit gaps in international norms but are intended to remain below the perceived threshold for direct armed conflict.” Such cooperation has implications for NATO in Europe as well as U.S. allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region. This is especially true as Beijing seeks to attain readiness to militarily seize Taiwan by 2027 even as its preference likely remains to do so without the use of force.

China’s carrier capabilities – Fujian adds a new boost

Nick Childs

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The commissioning on 5 November of China’s new aircraft carrier, the Fujian (Type-003), is a milestone for the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and its maturing carrier force. But while the ship brings with it new capabilities, more work lies ahead for the PLAN in learning how to operate it. Lessons learned will undoubtedly feed into the further development of China’s carrier capability.

Catapulting capability

This third Chinese aircraft carrier represents a considerable step up in potential performance from the previous two vessels, owing to its greater size and electromagnetic catapults and arrester gear, as opposed to a ‘ski-jump’ and arrester wires. This will allow it to operate a wider range of aircraft and more of them, as well as enabling those aircraft to operate at longer range and with greater payload.

Shenyang J-15 Flanker K and J-35 combat aircraft, and the Xi’an KJ-600 airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft have been observed taking off from and landing on the carrier. But these basic trials are still a far cry from these aircraft operating as an effective and integrated air group. The greater potential for carrier operations provided by the combination of catapults and arrester gear also adds to operational complexity. Hence, the new ship’s extensive pre-commissioning trials programme.

Has China Weaponized Geosynchronous Orbit?

Brandon J. Weichert

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China is committed to competing with the United States for dominance in space—notably in the strategic orbits around the Earth. Not only are these orbits required for successful satellite operations (which can be used to enhance a nation’s power projection on the Earth below), but they are key for controlling the entire Earth-Moon strategic system.

In this case, China operates the Tongxin Jishu Shiyan (TJS) constellation of satellites. This system comprises China’s mystery fleet in geostationary orbit (GEO), which is the highest orbit around the Earth.

What Is the TJS Satellite Constellation?

This network of Chinese satellites in GEO is giving the Americans real heartburn as they cannot confirm what, precisely, the Chinese are utilizing these satellites for.

Officially, Beijing describes their JTS constellation as merely being “communications satellites.” But, China has long ago mastered the art of “Military-Civil Fusion” (MCF). What can be used in civilian times as a communications satellite could easily be fashioned into a weapon of war during a period of conflict on Earth. What’s more, China has led the world in developing co-orbital satellites—satellite-killing satellites—under the guise of normal civilian satellite development.

Iran: Surrounded By Water With Nothing To Drink

A.J. Caschetta

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“Water water, every where, Nor any drop to drink,” from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, is a suitable motto for the Islamic Republic of Iran. With the Persian Gulf in the Southwest, the Sea of Oman in the South, and the Caspian Sea (an inland brackish water lake) in the North, Iran is surrounded by water, yet there is very little to drink. Iran’s experts, of course, blame Israel and the U.S, for manipulating the weather and causing a drought so severe that the Islamic Republic’s president says he may “have to evacuate Tehran.”

If only Khomeini, Khamenei, and the many Mullahs had spent their money on desalination plants instead of nuclear facilities, the people of Iran would not be facing death from dehydration.

According to a new report by the Middle East Forum, Iran is at the precipice of “water bankruptcy” stemming from “the regime’s profound failure to adapt in a region where other arid states have successfully implemented sustainable water management strategies.” Whereas its neighbors have long planned for the absence of rainy days, investing in the infrastructure to provide water for its subjects, the Islamic Republic has wasted all its resources foolishly pursuing nuclear weapons.

Looking Back At More Than 80 Years Of Saudi-US Economic Cooperation

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Saudi Arabia and the US have seen steadily growing economic ties throughout a relationship spanning more than 80 years, beginning with oil and expanding to defense and technology in recent years.What began as a reliance on oil and gas has expanded to more diverse economic collaboration built on Vision 2030 initiatives.Economic cooperation between the two nations was solidified in the early 1930s when King Abdulaziz granted the right of oil exploration to the American company Standard Oil through a 66-year contract. This led to the formation of the Arabian-American Oil Company, better known as Aramco.Saudi Arabia and the US signed an interim diplomatic trade agreement in 1932, establishing an initial framework for trade, according to the Saudi Press Agency.

Aramco’s Dammam Well No. 7 struck commercial quantities of oil in 1938, ushering in a new age in the Kingdom’s development.In the early 1970s the two countries deepened their trading relationship. In 1972, the value of the Kingdom’s imported goods and materials from the US was $314 million, and the Kingdom’s exports were $194 million.Economic relations between the two countries were underlined in June 1974 through the formation of the US-Saudi Arabian Joint Commission on Economic Cooperation, which provided US expertise to develop infrastructure to advance Saudi Arabia’s non-oil economic development.

Rising Threats to Critical Infrastructure in the U.S

Dan Cronin

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Modern conflict is evolving faster than our preparations. Today’s emerging battlefields are digital, silent, and without borders – where cyber warfare can be waged with a single keystroke from virtually anywhere. The next battle may not begin with explosions, but with a silent strike: a data breach, a blackout, or a system compromise. If we continue to train solely for yesterday’s wars, we risk being blindsided by tomorrow’s threats.

Leaders in AI and Defense understand the danger of uninvited access and surveillance by adversaries. The most potent weapons now travel through fiber-optic networks and cloud systems—advanced cyber tools engineered to disrupt and destabilize critical infrastructure, with devastating ripple effects on the public. Here’s a closer look at the new realities shaping modern infrastructure security.

AI: The New Front in Infrastructure Security

America’s July 2025 AI Action Plan casts AI as the next great strategic terrain—“a race to achieve global dominance in artificial intelligence,” where the nation that builds the largest AI ecosystem will set the technical, economic, and military rules of the road. To win, the White House has introduced a roadmap for industry, government, and allies built on three pillars: Innovation, Infrastructure, and International AI Diplomacy & Security.

In Washington, MBS Is Focused on Normalization—but Not With Israel

Aaron David Miller

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In February 1945, an ailing President Franklin Roosevelt returning from the Yalta Conference went out of his way to meet with Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, founder of the modern kingdom of Saudi Arabia, at the Great Bitter Lake along the Suez Canal. FDR may have been the first U.S. president to be enamored by Saudi royalty, compelled by its oil reserves or taken with its purported leadership in the Arab world—but he wouldn’t be the last. Six of his successors would host Saudi kings in Washington. But perhaps no president’s relationship with a Saudi leader would be more consequential or worrisome than Donald Trump’s with Mohammed bin Salman, the forty-year-old crown prince who Trump will host in Washington this week for economic and security discussions, including a bilateral security pact and normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Like his predecessors, Trump is besotted by Saudi Arabia. But he also is comfortable with its authoritarians, oblivious to its terrible human rights record, compelled by the financial opportunities there, and driven by the desire for an Israeli-Saudi deal that could offer him a chance at the Nobel Peace Prize. During the Washington meetings, Trump won’t press MBS on human rights nor expect too much on normalization. Trump should understand that for MBS, this visit isn’t about normalization with Israel; it’s about normalizing his reputation as a serious international leader and valued U.S. partner.

This is how the Marine Corps storms a beach

Kyle Gunn

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The Marines’ first amphibious landing happened in March 1776, just a few short months after Capt. Samuel Nichols recruited the first two battalions of Marines at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in late 1775. The Continental Army needed gunpowder badly, having just 728 pounds in December 1775. So, the Marines raided New Providence in the Bahamas, seizing two British forts and 200 barrels of gunpowder.

Following the disastrous landings at Gallipoli by the Allies in 1915, where 250,000 men became casualties, large-scale beach assaults were thought to be a thing of the past due to the advent of machine guns and rapid-fire artillery. As many know, Marines don’t really listen to anybody, and in 1934, they published the first modern manual on amphibious assaults. Fun fact: In 1921, another Marine published a manual that would eventually become the Corps’ doctrine for the Pacific theater of World War II.

By World War II, amphibious operations had become a cornerstone of U.S. strategy in the Pacific. Entire divisions hit the beach under cover of naval gunfire and carrier air strikes, often suffering staggering casualties to seize tiny islands that gave the U.S. leverage over Japanese supply lines and forward bases to launch bombing campaigns on mainland Japan.

Taiwan’s Lexington Without Concord: Sovereignty, Resilience, and the Price of War

Tang Meng Kit 

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History shows that revolutions rarely start with clarity. When the Second Continental Congress convened in 1774, the American colonies were split – loyalists hoped of compromise with Britain while the patriots demanded for self-rule. The Olive Branch Petition of 1775 was aimed at a final peace offering, but King George III outrightly dismissed it. With diplomacy rebuffed and compromised shut out, the colonies stumbled into war. The violence at Lexington and Concord marked the start of a war that would claim 25,000 American lives.

The events following Lexington are as significant as the battle itself. Faced with the reality of war, the Continental Congress quickly united the colonies by forming the Continental Army in June 1775 and appointing George Washington as its leader. They began reaching out to France for diplomatic and material aid and tightened their boycotts to weaken Britain’s economic grip.

Amid chaos, a strategy of internal unity coupled with external outreach emerged. That mix transformed scattered resistance into collective defiance. This strategy echoes Taiwan’s 2025 challenge, where internal divisions threaten resilience against Beijing’s pressures. The parallel is clear but limited: unlike the colonies’ gradual unification, Taiwan’s compressed timeline demands swifter consensus to counter gray-zone threats.

Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Kuomintang (KMT) mirror the Loyalist–Patriot split, clashing over identity and strategy. The DPP, led by President Lai Ching-te, asserts Taiwan’s non-subordination to China, a view backed by 80% of Taiwanese opposing unification. Yet, disputes over defense budgets expose fractures that weaken Taiwan’s stance.

The Illiberal World Order Is Here

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Now that Donald Trump's administration has explicitly rejected the international rules-based institutions and arrangements that America created after World War II, the very idea of an international order is no longer relevant. The world now belongs to illiberal regimes intent on pursuing their own interests.

STOCKHOLM – It was once common to speak of a “liberal international order.” Even if the accompanying institutional arrangements were not always entirely liberal, international, or orderly, the label had its uses. After all, the purpose of an ideal is not to describe reality, but to guide behavior, and for many decades, most countries aspired to be part of the liberal order and to contribute to its development (even if some preferred to free ride or game the system).

Sri Lanka’s Interest-Rate Trap

ARJUN JAYADEV, AHILAN KADIRGAMAR, and J.W. MASON

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BANGALORE – Sri Lanka is experiencing its worst economic crisis since gaining independence in 1948. After defaulting on its external debt in 2022, the government was forced to impose severe austerity measures in exchange for a loan from the International Monetary Fund. As a result, the poverty rate remains alarmingly high, reaching 24.5% in 2024, up from 11.3% in 2019, while real per capita GDP is not expected to return to its 2018 level until 2026. The country is losing a generation to malnutrition, high youth unemployment, and educational losses as school-dropout rates climb.

The Sri Lankan economy is grappling with a paradoxical combination of punishing interest rates, sustained disinflationary forces, and continuing debt problems. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka’s August 2025 Monetary Policy Report recognized the extent of disinflation, with the headline inflation rate falling below policymakers’ 5% target for three consecutive quarters. The most recent data suggest that inflation moved from negative territory in the first two quarters of this year to slightly above zero in the third quarter, yet the benchmark interest rate remains at 7.75%.

Was Covid Always A CIA Plot?

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According to newly released emails, the United States Intelligence Community, led by the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, held regular meetings with Dr. Ralph Baric, one of America’s leading coronavirus experts, since at least 2015.

Senator Rand Paul’s office has worked for years to obtain the documents.

Baric has been accused of engineering the Covid-19 virus in his lab at the University of North Carolina, but he has never had to testify about his role in the pandemic despite his well-documentedcollaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The newly released emails reveal that the CIA hoped to discuss “Coronavirus evolution and possible natural human adaptation with Baric” and that Baric held quarterly meetings with members of the Intelligence Community.

These emails are just the latest additions to the suspicious amalgamation of facts implicating the US Intelligence Community’s role in the origins of the pandemic, as discussed in The Covid Response at Five Years.

A very brief overview of the timeline suggests that the CIA and the Intelligence Community are implicated in the creation of the virus, a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and censorship to evade any public scrutiny for their role in the pandemic.

Is The EU Edging Closer To A ‘Military Schengen’?

Rikard Jozwiak

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Europe is ramping up defense spending. But one issue has largely been neglected — how to move military equipment from one country to another as quickly as possible in the case of conflict.

A “military Schengen,” an area in which arms and troops can freely move around the bloc’s passport-free zone as easily as civilians do, has been talked about for years. But so far it has remained elusive for both the EU and NATO, despite increased security concerns brought about by the war in Ukraine.

On November 19, the European Commission will present its latest attempt to achieve this by the end of the decade.

An advanced copy, seen by RFE/RL, points out two ways to achieve this: firstly, splashing cash on hundreds of “choke points” around the continent such as rail tracks, ports, and bridges, including in EU candidates Ukraine and Moldova, which the paper considers crucial to integrate into the EU’s military transport structures.

And secondly, cutting red tape to stop disparate national laws and bureaucracy from hindering any efforts to quickly and easily move military assets from one EU country to the next.

What Will It Take for Europe to Defend Itself?

Benjamin Giltner

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At the end of last month, the Romanian defense ministry announced that roughly 700 US troops would be withdrawn from its borders. Though some American senators expressed alarm over this withdrawal, the number of troops is negligible in the balance of forces between NATO and Russia on the European continent. Nevertheless, even if the United States were to withdraw all its ground forces from Europe, European countries have sufficient capabilities to deter a Russian ground invasion.

And they should. Europe is rediscovering the reality of international politics that effective statecraft will require its own efforts to deter Russian aggression.

The question is, what should they do to deter Russia? Though the war in Ukraine has proven Russia’s weaknesses, history is littered with cases of defeated armies learning from their mistakes and reconstituting themselves to become more formidable fighting forces.

First and foremost, European nations must define their military objectives. These objectives should include deterring Russia from attacking NATO territory and minimizing escalation should Russia decide to do so.

The Legal Case for Caribbean Boat Strikes Makes No Sense

Paul R. Pillar

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The Trump administration’s lethal airstrikes on small boats off the coast of South America are highly irregular on multiple grounds. The administration has presented almost no evidence to support its contention that the people killed on the boats were running drugs into the United States. President Donald Trump has cited deaths of Americans from drugs as the principal rationale for the lethal action, while greatly exaggerating the number of drug overdoses in the United States. But most of the drug deaths involve fentanyl coming from Mexico rather than cocaine from South America. Venezuela—the origin of the boats hit in the earliest strikes—does not even play a major role in the cocaine trade.

The administration has made no attempt to argue that the usual method of dealing with drug trafficking—non-lethal interdiction, with arrests of the people and seizure of the drugs—was infeasible. The attacks have amounted to summary executions of individuals, with no due process and no right to mount a defense in a court of law. The executions are for purported crimes that, under US law, do not involve a death penalty.

The administration’s statements have fostered confusion about whether it is combating mainly state action or the independent work of nonstate actors. Trump has tried to tie anything bad coming out of Venezuela, including drug trafficking, to the regime of Nicolás Maduro. Trump asserts that the gang known as Tren de Aragua is “operating under the control of” Maduro, an assertion that an assessment by the US intelligence community contradicts.

War Unfolding in Slow Motion: Russia vs. NATO

Harry Readhead

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The American writer and thinker Michael Lind thinks we ought to stop invoking the two world wars. For him, pointing to the appeasement of Hitler, or the stoutheartedness of Churchill or the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact – what Christopher Hitchens called the “midnight of the century” – just muddies the water. Our present conditions are different, says Lind. The upshot of making such comparisons is bad foreign policy.

He may well be on to something.

A client tells me that on his latest trip to Ukraine, he saw “a drone, entirely autonomous, flying around with an AK-47, hunting Russians.” We did not see that in 1914 or 1939. Though tanks and bombs and bullets might still exist, war on the whole looks very different – so different, in fact, that we might not even see it as such. Hence, why one might make a disquieting suggestion: That we – NATO, perhaps the West – are already at war.

Some are more sure of themselves. In June, the British government’s defense advisor Fiona Hill gave an interview in which she flatly said that Britain, and by extension our NATO allies, are at war with Russia, adding “that we’re in pretty big trouble.” Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5, said in September that she broadly agreed, even if it was “a different sort of war.”

Japan Edges Towards Hosting Nuclear Weapons

Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan

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It looks like Japan will finally cast aside its ban on hosting nuclear weapons—specifically, those of the United States.

Moving towards action she called for last year, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is reviewing the three principles that have kept Japan at arm’s length from nuclear weapons since 1967. The ban is the third of those principles, the other two holding that Japan must neither own nor produce nuclear weapons.

Japan is responding to what it perceives as worsening security dynamics in the region, surrounded as it is by three nuclear powers—China, Russia and North Korea—all of which are engaging in aggressive behaviour.

A 14 November Kyodo news report citing government sources noted that any changes in the three principles would constitute a major shift in Japan’s security policy in line with the ‘tough security environment.’ According to the report, the Japanese government sees the ban on placement of nuclear weapons within its territory as ‘weakening the effectiveness of the nuclear deterrence provided by its ally, the United States.’ This is particularly relevant as U.S. considers developing a nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile, known as SLCM-N, to strengthened deterrence against China.

Law and Obedience to Orders

Kevin Eyer

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On October 12, Admiral Alvin Holsey confirmed that not only was he was stepping down from his position as Commander, U.S. Southern Command, but that he intended to retire from the naval service. Within a few days, the online publication “The Hill” was suggesting that Holsey was leaving his post because of legal objections he might have to the Trump Administration’s actions directed at Venezuelan, narco-terrorism, and specifically the destruction of purported drug boats. Across a broad spectrum, the media began to actively suggest that Holsey personally determined that the administration’s activities were illegal, and that he had determined that he would not be the command face of those activities.

Is this true?

The answer is that we simply do not know exactly why Admiral Holsey, a mere one year into a three-year tour, decided to step down from SOUTHCOM. The media gleefully and repetitively suggests that Holsey made a righteous stand, while offering no evidence in support of that contention. They were and are, it seems, projecting their wishes upon Holsey. As for the Navy, it is reported in retired flag-officer circles that while Holsey has discussed the matter with at least one retired four-star admiral, the content of that conversation is strictly guarded. Further, it appears that Holsey’s staff remains in the dark as to what led to the admiral’s decision.

Ukraine’s high-flying air power plans face turbulence

Laura Kayali and Veronika Melkozerova

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On Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron signed a letter of intent for the purchase of up to 100 Dassault-made twin-engine Rafale fighter jets over the next decade. The announcement came only a few weeks after Kyiv signed a cooperation agreement with Sweden that includes the procurement of 100 to 150 single-engine Gripen E fighter jets, manufactured by Saab.

While the deals — which are not yet contracts — send a positive signal about Ukraine’s future air force and Europe’s backing as Kyiv fights off continued Russian attacks in the east of the country, there are financial, logistical and industrial hurdles ahead.

The Ukrainian air force is still largely dependent on Soviet-era aircraft like the MiG-29, the Su-25 and the Su-27, but also operates Lockheed Martin F-16s as well as a limited number of French Mirage 2000-5 jet fighters.

If Kyiv succeeds in building a modern air force with more than 200 new Western warplanes, it would wind up operating a mixed fighter jet fleet — something some Western countries are reluctant to do because of the logistical difficulties, as well as issues with training pilots and mechanics.

Ukraine’s kill zone: How drones ended trench warfare

Veronika Melkozerova

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KYIV — The fighting in Ukraine no longer resembles the trench warfare of World War I — instead, drones have erased the solid front line by creating a killing zone.

The skies over battlefields are now blackened by drones. Some carry cameras and thermal detectors, others are equipped with bombs and guns; some merely lie on the ground beside paths and roads until stirred to life by a passing soldier or vehicle. They use electronic signals or are steered by impossible-to-jam fiber-optic cables. Counter-drones aim to block them while also hunting for the drone pilots hunkered down dozens of kilometers from the front.

The result is a gray area of chaos stretching some 20 kilometers from the front, where drones hunt for soldiers, the wounded are left to die because it's so difficult to evacuate them, and supplies of ammunition, food and water are almost impossible to move up to the fighting troops.

“We have now switched to a drone-versus-drone war," Col. Pavlo Palisa, deputy head of the President’s Office of Ukraine and a former battlefield commander, told POLITICO. "Drones are now able to sit in ambush, intercept enemy logistics and disrupt supplies. They have also made it more difficult to maintain positions: If you are detected, every weapon in the area will immediately rush to destroy you.”

Amazon vs Perplexity: the AI agent war has arrived

Blake Montgomery

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Amazon has sued Perplexity AI, a prominent artificial intelligence startup, over a shopping feature in that company’s browser that allows it to automate placing orders for users. Amazon accused Perplexity AI of covertly accessing customer accounts and disguising AI activity as human browsing.

The clash highlights an emerging debate over regulation of the growing use of AI agents, autonomous digital secretaries powered by AI, and their interaction with websites. Perplexity makes a browser called Comet, which includes an AI agent. Amazon does not want to allow Comet to shop for its users. The rejection has foundation in fact: Microsoft has found in research simulations that AI agents are quite susceptible to manipulation while shopping.

The suit raises a host of questions. Is Perplexity’s agent a rogue buyer with unacceptable security risks, or is Amazon bullying an insurgent competitor out of the game? Whose interests does a semi-autonomous AI agent represent, the customer or the agent’s maker, and who is liable for its misconduct? The next iteration of AI may hang in the balance of the suit.

AI Hacks AI: Cybercriminals Unleash An AI-Powered, Self-Replicating Botnet

Thomas Brewster,

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Hackers have started using large language models to code up attacks on AI systems, researchers have warned. They’re then using those hacked AI systems to target other AI machines.

Marking another milestone on the road to a cyber world where AI constantly fights AI, Israel-based Oligo Security found evidence of mass exploitation of software designed to help developers manage and assign power to AI projects, called Ray.

The Oligo researchers were able to find over 230,000 Ray servers that were online despite the company's warning, potentially leaving them open to cyberattacks, according to Oligo’s AI security researcher Avi Lumelsky. Lumelsky said he was “very certain” large language models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude, were used to generate code to order the hacked servers to mine crypto, though he couldn’t specify which models. He said there were identifiable “hallmarks” when LLMs had been used to produce malicious code, including needless repetition of certain comments and strings in the code.

The Ray servers were also used to autonomously scout out further targets, turning their operation into a self-propagating botnet, showing “AI infrastructure can be hijacked to attack itself,” said Gal Elbaz, CTO and cofounder of Oligo. Oligo has dubbed the attack ShadowRay 2.0, an update to hacks it detected last year.