Indian Strategic Studies: 12/03/25

3 December 2025

The Great Energy Transformation in China

Ligang Song, Yixiao Zhou

In 2020, China started the drive to commence a reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2060, setting in motion a transition to a green, sustainable and clean economy. China has ambitiously developed clean energy alternatives to coal. This transformation encompasses multifaceted strategies ranging from investment in renewable energy and the development of low-emission technologies to more stringent policy regulations on emissions. Renewable energy sources like hydroelectric power, wind, solar and biomass have received substantial attention and investment, with China emerging as a global leader in renewable energy capacity.

In the technology space, China’s transitioning to electric vehicles (EVs) has catalysed the development of a robust EV market, fostering innovation in battery technology and charging infrastructure. China has now become the largest exporter of EVs in the world market. These developments have the potential to materially help curb the world’s carbon footprint and mitigate environmental degradation.

Don't Fight the Whites

Anushka Saxena

Source Link

The State Council has unveiled a new White Paper on China’s vision for arms control, disarmament, non-proliferation, and global security as a whole. I have taken to a broad translation into English for the brief breakdown that follows.

To start off, there are new and interesting articulations of China’s views and perspectives on the world today. In the past, Chinese documents have often argued that the world is undergoing “profound changes unseen in a century.” That is missing from this White Paper. The change in said view and perception is now being articulated as:

Two things are essential to note here: a) that China unequivocally advocates for a multilateral world order, and b) it believes itself to be a power nearing equivalence with the US, and would very much so like to be one of the powers in pole position (metaphorically, and also literally, if you’re an F1 fan!).

In that sense, China obviously sees itself as playing a central role in the new world order being constructed, moving from being a mere “participant” in international arms control to a would-be “architect” of new global norms. For this reason, one can concur that the central thesis of the White Paper is as follows: The current international order is being eroded by “hegemonism” (by the US) and “small yards with high fences” (i.e. technological containment and self-reliance). China hence proposes an alternative order based on the “Global Security Initiative” (GSI) and a “Community of Shared Future,” framing access to technology as a “development right” that supersedes Western non-proliferation concerns.

A Fresh Chinese JF-17 Fighter Jet Export Deal, Signed In The Desert Heat

Guy D. McCardle

China’s bargain bin JF-17 is less about dogfights than deals, binding cash strapped air forces to Beijing with cut rate firepower, easy credit, and long term political leverage.A Pakistan Air Force JF-17 Thunder cuts across clear blue sky, the export fighter at the center of Islamabad and Beijing’s growing global pitch. Image Credit: Simple Flying

In Dubai this month, while India’s Tejas fighter cartwheeled into the sand in front of cameras and would-be buyers, Pakistan quietly walked into the chalet row and walked out with a new export memorandum of understanding for the JF-17 Block III fighter jet. The announcement came from Islamabad’s Inter-Services Public Relations and named the customer only as a “friendly nation,” but it marks the latest win for a jet China helped design, build, and market as an export workhorse for the developing world.

The numbers from earlier this year show why that matters. Azerbaijan has already signed a contract for 40 JF-17 Block III fighters at around 4.6 billion dollars, tied to a broader package worth billions more, making Baku the largest foreign operator and giving Pakistan its biggest defense export in history. Iraq has inked its own deal for a dozen aircraft, while Myanmar and Nigeria formed the first export club for the type.

Has China’s Power Peaked in Asia?

Bilahari Kausikan

By virtue of its size, contiguity, economic weight, and crucial role in the world economy, China will always enjoy considerable influence in Asia, particularly Southeast Asia. But for those same reasons, China will also always arouse anxieties in Asia and indeed the world. Deng Xiaoping’s approach of hiding China’s power and biding time stems from his awareness of this paradox. Big countries need to reassure small countries on their periphery. Deng recognized this and acted on it.

But by the end of the Hu Jintao era, Deng’s wisdom was either forgotten or ignored, perhaps because Beijing over-read the implications of the 2008 global financial crisis and, just as the United States had over-read the end of the Cold War, invested it with a universal significance as heralding Karl Marx’s long-predicted decline and eventual collapse of the West, specifically the United States.

What is Hezbollah and why has it been fighting Israel in Lebanon?

Hezbollah is a Shia Muslim political and military group in Lebanon which has been involved in a series of violent conflicts with Israel.

It has strong backing from Iran and opposes Israel's right to exist. The group is considered a terrorist organisation by Israel and many other nations, including the UK and US.

The latest Hezbollah-Israel conflict erupted in October 2023, when Hezbollah began firing rockets over the frontier after the start of the Gaza war, in solidarity with its ally Hamas. Israel responded with strikes.

The conflict escalated further in September 2024, when Israel said it wanted tens of thousands of people forced from their homes by Hezbollah rocket attacks to be able to safely return. It began a campaign of wide-ranging air strikes against Hezbollah, followed by a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.

Criminal Drone Evolution: Cartel Weaponization of Aerial IEDs

Robert J. Bunker and John P. Sullivan, Editors

This Small Wars Journal-El Centro Anthology contains a preface on criminal drone use by journalist David Hambling followed by a foreword describing drones within criminal orders-of battle (OOB) by Lisa J. Campbell. After and introduction by the editors , the text contains 22 chapters documenting the evolution of drone use in Mexico’s competitive narco-conflict ecology. It closes with a conclusion by the editors, an afterword by Conrad ‘Andy’ Dreby and Scott Crino on UAS potentials, a postscript by James T. Torrance on future unmanned systems threats, and five appendices.

Criminal Drone Evolution is the companion to the earlier curated collection Illicit Tactical Progress: Mexican Cartel Tactical Notes 2013-2020 , also edited by SWJ-El Centro Senior Fellows Robert J. Bunker and John P. Sullivan. Together these two works provide valuable insight into the development of criminal armed groups and the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) they employ.

How Trump's 28-point plan for Ukraine shocked the world

Barak Ravid,

President Volodymyr Zelensky listened on speakerphone one week ago as President Trump's advisers Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner read, line by line, from a 28-point plan to end the war in Ukraine.

Why it matters: The existence of the plan would emerge two days later on Axios. By Friday, Zelensky was warning the Ukrainian people that Trump's plan — and the pressure he faced to sign it — had plunged Ukraine into one of the most difficult moments of its existence.

Zelensky's participation by phone in the meeting last weekend between his national security adviser, Rustem Umerov, and Trump's team has not previously been reported, and offers more clarity on when he was brought into the talks.

The process that led to that dramatic meeting, and to the 28-point plan, began around a month earlier on a flight back to Miami from the Middle East.

This account is based on interviews with six U.S. officials, two Ukrainian officials and another source with knowledge, most of whom were directly involved in talks on the plan.

Deeper, Strategic Collaboration in the Securities Sector

Sonia Khosa

In an era of globalised finance and increasing cross-border activity, regulatory cooperation has become essential for market integrity and development. This book examines the potential for strategic collaboration between India and Australia in the securities sector—two nations with distinct but complementary economic and legal frameworks. Through a comparative analysis of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), it evaluates alignment with International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) principles, focusing on supervisory powers, enforcement mechanisms and compliance effectiveness. The analysis identifies shared regulatory goals and governance principles, highlighting opportunities for bilateral cooperation.

Offering a roadmap for capital market integration and regulatory innovation, the book makes a timely contribution to international financial scholarship. It delivers practical insights for policymakers, legal scholars and regulators interested in forging resilient cross-border partnerships—both within the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

I Went to an Anti-Vaccine Conference. Medicine Is in Trouble.

Rachael Bedard

Peter Hildebrand choked back tears as he told the crowd about his daughter, Daisy. She was 8 years old when she died in April, one of the two unvaccinated children lost in the measles outbreak that tore through West Texas. “She was very loving,” he told the audience.

It was Day 2 of the annual conference of Children’s Health Defense, the organization of vaccine critics previously led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is now the U.S. health secretary. Mr. Hildebrand had been asked to speak on a panel titled “Breaking the Mainstream Media Measles Narrative” at the conference, which brought 1,000 people to an event center in Austin, Texas, this month.

Mr. Hildebrand spoke about mistrusting Daisy’s hospital doctor, who he said talked to his wife about measles when he was out of the room. “You know, just whenever I wasn’t around, he would sit there and be political about it,” Mr. Hildebrand said.

Shorter Days, Signs of Fatigue: Trump Faces Realities of Aging in Office

Katie Rogers and Dylan Freedman

Katie Rogers is a White House correspondent who has covered both of President Trump’s terms. Dylan Freedman analyzed Mr. Trump’s public schedules and social media posts.Nov. 25, 2025

The day before Halloween, President Trump landed at Joint Base Andrews after spending nearly a week in Japan and South Korea. He was then whisked to the White House, where he passed out candy to trick-or-treaters. Allies crowed over the president’s stamina: “This man has been nonstop for DAYS!” one wrote online.

A week later, Mr. Trump appeared to doze off during an event in the Oval Office.

With headline-grabbing posts on social media, combative interactions with reporters and speeches full of partisan red meat, Mr. Trump can project round-the-clock energy, virility and physical stamina. Now at the end of his eighth decade, Mr. Trump and the people around him still talk about him as if he is the Energizer Bunny of presidential politics.

The reality is more complicated: Mr. Trump, 79, is the oldest person to be elected to the presidency, and he is aging. To pre-empt any criticism about his age, he often compares himself to President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who at 82 was the oldest person to hold the office, and whose aides took measures to shield his growing frailty from the public, including by tightly managing his appearances.

From Kabul to Kyiv, Trump’s

Mick Ryan

The past week’s events surrounding the new Russian-American plan to end the war in Ukraine provide an opportunity for America’s friends, allies and adversaries to reflect and learn about how much the US view of its role in the world has changed. The dedication of previous American administrations to preserving a world where the strong did not prey on the weak, and where changing borders by force was deterred by democracies with the Leader of the Free World at the forefront, is in its twilight.

During the first Trump administration, the United States conducted secret talks with the Taliban to end the Afghanistan war. The deal was negotiated without input from the Afghan government at the time. The final deal, known as the Doha Accord, had its ultimate manifestation in the humiliating, chaotic and tragic evacuation of troops and civilians in late August 2021. While blame was laid at the feet of the Biden administration, the foundations were cast by Trump.

Now, with the Russian-American 28-point peace plan for Ukraine, there is a similar demonstration of perfidious behaviour by Trump’s representatives to secretly negotiate a war termination deal with an enemy behind the backs of friends and allies. The demonstrated behaviour of Trump in two different administrations towards two different wars provides insights into how the Trump administration thinks about its relationships with foreign nations.

No, Germany is not getting the Bomb. Why should it?

Philipp Rombach

A quarter century ago, German political scientist Harald Müller observed that “the very basic question of whether … Germany should rethink its renunciation of nuclear weapons has a very odd circumstance [attached] to it, namely that it tends to be posed mostly outside Germany and almost never within the German debate.”

Germany hasn’t had an indigenous nuclear weapons program since 1945. In Berlin, nobody is asking for a German bomb. Not the government, not the public. Still, the idea of an independent German nuclear weapons program refuses to die in US policy circles. In recent months, scholars and analysts have warned that Germany was “now thinking about acquiring” nuclear weapons and that “states such as Germany and Finland” were discreetly debating the need for their own nuclear weapons. A common feature of this narrative is that countries like Japan, South Korea, and Germany are lumped in with a revisionist Iran. The total plausibility of Germany pursuing a domestic nuclear weapons program—no questions asked!—has made it into closed high-level policy workshops and was even recently advocated for in Foreign Affairs.

A.I. and the Trillion-Dollar Question

Katrin Bennhold

An A.I. boom or bubble?

In 2014, I read “The Second Machine Age,” a book by two M.I.T. economists. The authors offered a sort of utopian vision of A.I.: The technology would lead to an age of hyper-productivity and plenty, where the only question was how to distribute its gains fairly.

We could still get there, but it seems fair to say the road to utopia, if that is our destination, won’t be smooth. Current anxieties around whether A.I. has become too dominant in the global economy — what happens if it’s not all it’s cracked up to be? — sit alongside competing ones: What happens if A.I. is all it’s cracked up to be, and can replace all those humans after all? Would that really be a good outcome?

I spoke to my colleague Cade Metz, who writes about artificial intelligence. He told me every technological revolution has created anxiety during the transition from the old to the new, when jobs are destroyed, money is lost and companies go bust. The question is what emerges on the other side.

France Creates Voluntary Military Service as Europe Faces Russian Threat

Ségolène Le Stradic

France on Thursday announced the creation of a paid, voluntary military service for young adults, becoming the latest European country to beef up its armed forces in the face of perceived threats from Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The move sharpened a growing debate in France, which has enjoyed decades of stability since the end of World War II, about how to prepare a population no longer accustomed to war for a new era of increased military peril.

The announcement by France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, came days after the French Army chief set off a national uproar for saying that the country must accept the possible loss of its children in a potential future conflict.

Japan's high-stakes gamble to turn island of flowers into global chip hub

Suranjana Tewari

The island of Hokkaido has long been an agricultural powerhouse – now Japan is investing billions to turn it into a global hub for advanced semiconductors.

More than half of Japan's dairy produce comes from Hokkaido, the northernmost of its main islands. In winter, it's a wonderland of ski resorts and ice-sculpture festivals; in summer, fields bloom with bands of lavender, poppies and sunflowers.

These days, cranes are popping up across the island – building factories, research centres and universities focused on technology. It's part of Japan's boldest industrial push in a generation: an attempt to reboot the country's chip-making capabilities and reshape its economic future.

Locals say that beyond the cattle and tourism, Hokkaido has long lacked other industries. There's even a saying that those who go there do so only to leave.

But if the government succeeds in turning Hokkaido into Japan's answer to Silicon Valley - or "Hokkaido Valley", as some have begun to call it - the country could become a new contender in the $600bn (£458bn) race to supply the world's computer chips.

In Ukraine's 'kill-zone', robots are a lifeline to troops trapped on perilous eastern front

Abdujalil AbdurasulovIn

In the dead of night, he and his partner move quickly to roll out their cargo from a van. Speed is crucial as they are within the range of deadly Russian drones. The fifth brigade's new "toy" is an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), a robot that provides a lifeline for Ukrainian troops at the front in Pokrovsk and Myrnograd, a strategic hub in eastern Ukraine.

Russian forces are relentlessly trying to cut off Ukraine's supply routes in the area. Without fresh food and ammunition, Ukraine's frontline soldiers would face a choice of either surrender or a costly retreat. Kyiv has sent special forces, elite assault units and drone groups to reinforce its troops in and around Pokrovsk, but Russia's grip on routes into the city means going in with armoured vehicles would bring almost certain death. Transporting heavy supplies on foot would be just as dangerous. This is where the robot, also known as a land drone, comes in place of traditional troop deployments.

America’s Multi- Domain Operations at 250: A Strategy, Concept or Mirage?

Ms Khyati Singh

The United States (US)Army marks its 250th year in 2025, and places Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) as the vision for warfighting in the future. Despite this, MDO remains more of a concept than a concrete strategy, filled with aspirations but enmeshed with institutional constraints and the abstraction of doctrines. Hence, unless the Military grounds MDO in strategic clarity, joint operational design, and realistic resources, it risks repeating the mistakes of earlier doctrinal overreaches that weighed form over function.

General Mark Milley heralded the US Army’s conceptual pivot toward the MDO with his remarks that the future conflict will be “fundamentally different” because of the convergence of informational, cognitive, and physical domains.[1] The doctrine of MDO was officially codified in the US Army Training and Doctrine Command’s documents in 2018, and aims to address the loopholes in the existing legacy concepts like Air-Land Battle and the counterinsurgency-centric doctrine.[2] With the Army celebrating its 250th anniversary, MDO reflects a mix of strategic anxiety and institutional ambition, namely the hope of remaining relevant in an era of great power competition, hybrid threats, and technological upheaval. However, despite its elaborate, conceptual promise, it falls short of structural and operational merit, raising speculations about its viability.

America’s Quasi Alliances

Rebecca Lissner

During his successful 2024 U.S. presidential campaign, Donald Trump assured voters that he would end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, perhaps even before taking office. But both conflicts dragged on at great human cost, and diplomacy proceeded only in fits and starts. Nine months into his presidency, Trump finally brokered a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas—but only after presiding over the breakdown of the truce he inherited from President Joe Biden and an escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The war in Ukraine, meanwhile, continues unabated.

A Grand Bargain With Venezuela

Francisco Rodríguez

President Donald Trump, it seems, has it out for Venezuela. Over the summer, his administration began massing naval power in the Caribbean, largely near the country’s coast, and striking ships soon after they exit its territorial waters. In October, he authorized the CIA to carry out operations within Venezuela’s borders. And Trump has repeatedly railed against President Nicolás Maduro, accusing him of emptying Venezuelan prisons into the United States and saying that his days in office are numbered. This week, Washington moved an aircraft carrier group to the Caribbean, and Trump was briefed on possible military options,

Things were already grim for US farmers, then China tensions worsened – again

Khushboo Razdan

Randal Shelby planned carefully and waited years to ditch a career spent in hospitals and medical centres to chase a dream in which he traded antiseptic hallways full of sick patients for the great outdoors.

His new life started six years ago, after he secured about US$1.3 million in financing for a Case combine and other equipment, fertilisers, seed and labour needed to produce soybeans and rice, staples that enjoyed strong demand overseas, primarily from China.

High fuel costs, rising interest rates, falling crop prices and depressed Chinese demand amid geopolitical tensions had already eroded farm profits during the previous Joe Biden administration.

Then came a seismic shift in US politics that brought a tariff-loving president back to the White House, further rattling an industry still struggling to recover from market convulsions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the surge in fertiliser prices triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Today, Shelby faces the possibility of returning to a life he thought he had left behind, just to make ends meet.

Drone Warfare in Ukraine: The Interplay of High- and Low-Tech Solutions

Olena Kryzhanivska

Since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war, the role of unmanned systems in land, air, and naval operations has grown significantly. While drones have not yet produced a decisive military breakthrough—such as the achievement of a war aim or outright victory by either side—they have been essential to Ukraine’s primary objective of national survival. At the same time, they have become a force multiplier on the battlefield, substituting for such traditional capabilities as artillery and reducing the direct exposure of soldiers to frontline combat.

The use of unmanned systems made the frontline deadlier. It has expanded the kill zone along the frontline to 20 km, with both sides now specifically targeting drone teams of the enemy.

Despite expectations that drone warfare would quickly progress toward more advanced solutions, increasingly integrating technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), developments in both Russia and Ukraine demonstrate that this transition has been slower than anticipated. While several innovations have emerged in both countries, as of summer 2025, neither has achieved mass production of such advanced systems.

Winning the Tactical Reconnaissance-Strike Fight: Lessons from Centaur Squadron

George Pavlakis and Randall Towles

Picture kilometer-long columns of destroyed tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. Drones fly overhead while electromagnetic sensors silently parse through frantic radio transmissions. Thousands of soldiers are massed for an attack, only to stall under pummeling indirect fires. This scene could easily describe contemporary combat as warfare’s changing character makes reconnaissance and strike platforms available to any potential US adversary. But rather than an anecdote from a distant conflict, this scenario is what the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment “Blackhorse”—the National Training Center’s (NTC) resident opposing force unit—has begun to inflict on rotational training units (RTUs). At NTC, the realities of reconnaissance-strike battle are painfully present, posing a challenge for RTUs that can prepare them to face the real threat on future battlefields.

Centaur Squadron, Blackhorse’s purpose-built reconnaissance-strike complex, organically combines wheeled antitank and armored transport vehicles, scouts, unmanned aircraft system (UAS) operators, and electronic warfare (EW) assets. These platforms offer a combination of high tactical mobility, long-range observation, and dense firepower that feeds directly into the regimental targeting and integration cell to complete the kill chain. Centaur can also expand depending on mission variables to include light infantry, mortar carriers, and engineers.

Iskander: An Improved Russian Missile Tests Ukraine’s Air Defence

Sam Cranny-Evans and Dr Sidharth Kaushal

Recently, there have been a series of reports that Ukraine’s ability to intercept the Russian 9M723 Iskander-M ballistic missile with Patriot interceptors is deteriorating. Given the sensitivities around the subject, precise reasons have not been provided although several reports have alluded to software upgrades which have allowed the Iskander to manoeuvre more effectively in its terminal phase, thus evading Patriot interceptors. This article seeks to evaluate the plausibility of both this and other competing hypotheses regarding the seeming increase in the performance of the 9M723. It does not provide conclusive answers but rather an assessment of the relative weight which researchers might attach to competing explanations.

It is worth beginning by noting that one should be cautious in interpreting data regarding intercept rates. The use of percentages predisposes readers to assume that there is, all other things being equal, a given likelihood of any missile being intercepted by a particular defensive system. In reality the data is marked by discontinuities and largely driven by specific high impact events.

There Is Only One AI Company. Welcome to the Blob

Seven levy

It all began, as many things do, with Elon Musk. In the early 2010s he realized that AI was on a track to become perhaps the most powerful technology of all time. But he had deep suspicion that if it were to fall under the control of powerful profit-driven forces, humanity would suffer. Musk had been an early investor in DeepMind, the UK-based lab that was ahead of the pack in pursuing artificial general intelligence. After Google bought DeepMind in 2014, Musk cut ties with the research organization. He felt it was essential to create a counterforce incentivized by human benefit, not profits. So he helped create OpenAI. When I interviewed Musk and Sam Altman at the company’s unveiling in 2015, they were adamant that shareholder profit would not be a factor in their decisions.

Do anti-personnel mines still have military utility in modern warfare?

Erik Tollefsen

Five States Parties to the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention have recently submitted instruments of withdrawal, citing national security and military necessity, while at least one other has taken steps to “suspend” the Convention. These developments raise important questions about whether anti-personnel mines retain any meaningful military utility in contemporary conflict.

In this post, Erik Tollefsen, Head of the ICRC Weapon Contamination Unit and Pete Evans, Head of the ICRC Unit for Arms Carriers and Prevention examine this question from an operational perspective. They argue that advances in technology and the realities of modern warfare have significantly reduced the military relevance of anti-personnel mines, while their humanitarian consequences remain severe. They outline why some of the most frequently cited justifications – border security, the supposed benefits of “smart” mines, or perceived low cost – no longer withstand scrutiny, and why renewed interest in these weapons risks reversing decades of progress. The authors call on states to base decisions on rigorous, transparent assessments of current military relevance weighed against humanitarian and legal obligations. In a security environment defined by rapid innovation, they conclude that, now as at the Convention’s adoption 30 years ago, anti-personnel mines have no place on the modern battlefield – and that reaffirming the norm against their use is more urgent than ever.