Indian Strategic Studies: 12/23/25

23 December 2025

A new EU–India calculus

Laraveys Mahmoudi

For the first time, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa are set to be chief guests at India’s 2026 Republic Day celebrations in New Delhi on 26 January. Building on the February 2025 milestone visit of the College of Commissioners to India, the European Union and India launched a Joint Communication outlining a ‘New Strategic EU–India Agenda’ in September 2025. This new agenda aims to render engagement more cohesive and actionable and elevate cooperation to a more strategic level than had previously been achieved. Although this reflects recognition of India as a strategic partner, the EU must decide whether to leverage its own concerns more assertively and push for closer alignment on values and foreign policy or to consolidate practical cooperation by remaining quiet on areas of contention amidst India facing sustained pressure from the United States.

India’s relations with the EU, including its earlier iterations, date back to the early 1960s, culminating in the launch of a formal Strategic Partnership at their fifth bilateral summit in 2004. This framework, later refined through the 2005 Joint Action Plan, was built on democratic rhetoric and an ambition to enhance cooperation across trade, investment and institutional dialogue. However, many of these aspirations remained unrealised throughout the 2010s, and the partnership frequently fell short of its stated potential. Trade negotiations highlight this uneven trajectory. Discussions on a free-trade agreement (FTA) began in 2007 but stalled in 2013, only regaining momentum nearly a decade later. Revival of negotiations in 2022 coincided with India’s growing emphasis on economic liberalisation and the EU’s pursuit of resilient supply chains and expanded market access. Since then, negotiations have proceeded in parallel with discussions on an Investment Protection Agreement, aimed at securing fair conditions for investors, and a Geographical Indications Agreement, focused on intellectual property protection of distinctive regional goods, both of which have yet to be concluded.

South Asian States Seek Cooperation—Without India

Sumit Ganguly

On a visit this month to Dhaka, Bangladesh, Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar reiterated his government’s interest in forging a new regional organization that included Bangladesh, China, and Pakistan. The idea was first discussed during a trilateral meeting in Kunming, China, in June. If it materialized, the proposed grouping would sidestep the all-but-moribund South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

The brainchild of former Bangladeshi President Ziaur Rahman, SAARC was created in Dhaka in 1985 with the aim of fostering regional cooperation. The organization was partly styled after the successful Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Its original members were Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka; Afghanistan joined in 2007.

Pakistan’s IMF Program is Buying Time. Markets Want To Know What Comes Next.

Amer Kayani

Pakistan has just cleared another International Monetary Fund (IMF) review, and on paper the news looks good. Growth is back, inflation has come down from painful highs, and the country has even posted its first current account surplus in 14 years. But for ordinary Pakistanis and a global audience, the real question is not “Is the crisis over?” but “Can this fragile stability last, and will it ever translate into better lives?”

Over the past few years, Pakistan has lurched from one near‑crisis to another. Foreign exchange reserves fell to dangerously low levels, inflation surged, and there were real fears of default. The latest IMF report marks a turning point of sorts. It says the economy grew by about 3 percent in the last fiscal year, with a slightly higher rate expected next year if current policies continue. Inflation, which had been near 30 percent, has dropped sharply, even though recent floods have pushed food prices up again.

What Happens to China’s Surplus Men?

Drew Gorman

When you’ve had no luck in the dating department, a makeover is an easy place to start. The trouble is, you don’t always know what needs to change. For Chinese bachelors Zhou, Wu, and Li, dating coach Hao has a blunt answer: everything.

Violet Du Feng’s documentary The Dating Game, now in theaters in New York City, follows these men’s attempts to reboot their dating lives in the wake of China’s former one-child policy. A long-standing preference for sons created one of the world’s starkest gender imbalances. “We have no women,” Hao says. Indeed, in 2015, the year the policy ended, about 116 boys were born for every 100 girls in China—likely condemning almost one in five boys to a lifetime of singledom.

An expert’s point of view on a current event.

Yu Jie

When historians look back on the early 21st century, they may conclude that the United States taught China more by example than through lectures about trade practices or political systems.

In October, the Chinese leadership released its recommendations for the country’s 15th Five-Year Plan, which will cover 2026 to 2030. The document outlined not just where the leadership intends to steer the world’s second-largest economy, but also how it wants to project China’s power globally. Without explicitly mentioning the United States, Beijing’s political blueprint reveals the leadership’s intense focus on addressing technological chokepoints and its concerns about the extent of the country’s dependence on overseas suppliers for high-end technologies.

China Bets on Unmanned Stealth Bombers

Olli Pekka Suorsa

China recently unveiled two large unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), which have been unofficially designated as the “WZ-X” and “GJ-X” by China military watchers. The UAVs’ intended roles could include strategic reconnaissance and strike, offering Beijing unprecedented options in the coming decade.

China has accelerated development and testing of a growing number of advanced tailless flying wing-type UAVs, such as the Hongdu GJ-11 and its naval version, the GJ-21, as well as CASC CH-7. This trend is instructive of Chinese industry’s advances in autonomy and aeronautical design. More than that, it offers critical insights into the People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s (PLAAF) vision of its future airpower strategy.

An expert’s point of view on a current event.

Nathalie Tocci

Europeans lulled themselves into the belief that U.S. President Donald Trump is unpredictable and inconsistent but ultimately manageable. This is strangely reassuring, but wrong. From U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance’s speech denigrating Europe at the Munich Security Conference in February to the new U.S. National Security Strategy that was released on Dec. 4, the Trump administration has long had a clear and consistent vision for Europe: one that prioritizes U.S.-Russia ties and seeks to divide and conquer the continent, with much of the dirty work carried out by nationalist, far-right European forces that now enjoy backing from both Moscow and Washington. It is long past time for Europe to realize that, when it comes to the Russia-Ukraine war and the continent’s security, it is, at best, alone. At worst, it now faces two adversaries: Russia in the east and Trump’s United States in the west.

Every time Trump or members of his administration have lashed out at Europe, including Ukraine, Europeans have absorbed the blow with a forced smile and bent over backwards to flatter the White House. They believe this is a clever ploy, playing on Trump’s perceived incoherence and vanity to bring him back into the transatlantic fold. Yet each time Trump has turned his narrow attention to the Ukraine war, he has sided with Russia—from the Oval Office trap set for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February, to the red carpet laid out for Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska in August, to the 28-point “peace plan” that was likely written in Moscow. On every occasion, Europeans have taken the hit, busying themselves with keeping Washington engaged and salvaging what remains of the transatlantic bond. Europeans have turned so many cheeks to Trump that one wonders if they have any left at all.

Putin Has Already Won

Michael Hirsh

For a guy who’s lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers and barely moved his front lines forward in a war that’s already lasted longer than U.S. involvement in World War II, Vladimir Putin is looking pretty smug and self-satisfied these days.

It has become commonplace for Western strategists to say that, no matter what he tries now, the Russian dictator will come out of his Ukraine adventure a loser. In nearly four years of horrific bloodshed, Putin has captured barely 20 percent of Ukrainian territory and failed completely in his goal of denying Ukrainians the right to statehood. Meanwhile, NATO has grown, bulking up its defenses and adding Finland and Sweden to its formidable front line.

Michael Hirsh is a columnist for Foreign Policy. He is the author of two books: Capital Offense: How Washington’s Wise Men Turned America’s Future Over to Wall Street and At War With Ourselves: Why America Is Squandering Its Chance to Build a Better World. X: @michaelphirsh

Read More On Geopolitics | Russia | Ukraine

What Trump’s National Security Strategy Gets Right

Rebeccah Heinrichs

The Trump administration’s 2025 National Security Strategy is, in many ways, unlike any in U.S. history. Most strategy documents of this kind articulate the threats that the United States’ adversaries pose to Washington and its allies, and they explain how officials can respond to these challenges. But this one seems kinder to the United States’ foes than to its friends. It rebukes Europe in an astonishingly blunt fashion, arguing that some of the continent’s domestic policies are damaging democracy and risking “civilizational erasure.” It says remarkably little, by contrast, about the threats posed by China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea. As a result, the response to the NSS among Washington’s traditional foreign policy elite has been overwhelmingly angry—and panicked.

But anxious analysts should take a breath. Dig a little deeper, and the new document, almost certainly written by many hands, is more complex than it appears at first glance. In fact, it reflects more continuity with the last several strategies than its most attention-grabbing passages suggest. The strategy does not call for the United States to abandon Europe or its other traditional allies. It does not open the door to Chinese expansionism. And it does not indicate that Washington is preparing to withdraw from much of the world. Quite the contrary: it suggests that the United States still has globe-spanning shared interests with its historical allies, and that the country is planning to expand its geographical interests.

What are the 'ghost ships' Venezuela is using to evade oil sanctions?

In a further escalation of tension between the United States and Venezuela, President Donald Trump has ordered a naval blockade to stop sanctioned oil tankers from entering and leaving the South American country. Venezuela - which has the world's largest proven oil reserves - is highly dependent on revenues from its oil exports to finance its government spending.

But US sanctions targeting Venezuela's state-run oil company PDVSA have made exporting oil difficult for the Venezuelan government, leading them to resort to a fleet of "ghost ships". So what do we know about these vessels and how they operate?

'Total and complete blockade'

As of last week, more than 30 of the 80 ships in Venezuelan waters or approaching the country were under US sanctions, according to data compiled by TankerTrackers.com. It is these vessels President Trump is targeting with the "total and complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going into, and out of, Venezuela" he announced on his Truth Social account on 16 December. The post came less than a week after the US seized an oil tanker believed to be part of the "ghost fleet" off the coast of Venezuela, which used various strategies to conceal its work.

This Is the Future of U.S. Foreign Aid Under Trump

Derek Grossman

During his recent visit to Hanoi, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth inked a new pact with Vietnam to reaffirm U.S. cooperation on sensitive war legacy issues. The memorandum of understanding covered several key issues from the Vietnam War era, including Agent Orange decontamination, unexploded ordnance removal, and better information exchange to determine the whereabouts of killed or missing soldiers from both countries.

Washington should handle these war legacy issues not only because it’s the morally right thing to do, but also because it makes for smarter strategy. Such programs reduce the Vietnamese perception that Washington is exclusively engaging Hanoi in order to counter China—an approach that has sometimes worried Vietnamese leaders, who strenuously seek to avoid aligning with either side of the great-power competition that is intensifying across Southeast Asia. Additionally, the people-to-people ties that such projects usually entail will further instill trust in the United States for future generations of Vietnamese, some of whom will rise to leadership positions in the Communist Party and state structure. These connections will fuel U.S.-Vietnam relations in a positive direction for decades to come.

Maritime allies are America’s superpower

Marc Levinson

Imagine a country where the maritime industry is an ancient tradition. Its long coastline shelters many harbours. Its citizens own a larger share of the world’s commercial fleet than those of any other country. Its financial institutions have a prominent role in ship financing, and its labour force includes an unequaled percentage of seafarers. It has long been a maritime power – yet it has little influence over military alliances, trade agreements, or the direction of the world economy. When it comes to geopolitics, its maritime prowess does not make Greece a major player.

This is worth keeping in mind amid the intensifying friction over maritime matters between the United States, its European and Asian allies, and China. President Donald Trump’s administration, like that of Joe Biden before it, has identified China’s expansive maritime presence as a threat to US security; the title of an executive order Trump signed last April, ‘Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance‘, makes that clear. China, meanwhile, continues to expand in almost every aspect of ocean shipping. Both governments deem the maritime industry and its supplier base essential if they are to project power and maintain prosperity. But if large shipping and shipbuilding industries were basic elements of global influence, countries such as Greece would be global powers. ‘Maritime dominance’, however that phrase may be defined, does not offer a path to peace or prosperity, military clout or economic strength. The very phrase is a relic of an earlier era.

Five Things That Changed the Media in 2025

Jay Caspian Kang

Media is a famously myopic and sclerotic industry. The big changes that take place within it often go unnoticed, at first, by the people who are paid to set its future course. Sometimes, the stuff that we in the industry miss out on is obvious to the rest of the world. We were not the first to notice, for example, that features and news stories were being cannibalized by social media, slowly at first, and then thoroughly. Many other changes start small before quickly catching fire—until suddenly you’re looking around and everyone you’ve ever met is working on a nine-episode narrative true-crime podcast.

Beginning in mid-November, shortly before Thanksgiving, the journalist Ryan Lizza turned his Substack newsletter, “Telos,” into a tell-all account of his messy relationship with his former fiancée Olivia Nuzzi, who was about to publish a memoir. He began with the story of Nuzzi’s alleged affair with the former Presidential candidate Mark Sanford before getting to her relationship with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and he presented everything in serialized form, with a series of cliffhangers that promised big revelations for anyone who was willing to pay ten dollars for a subscription. (A lawyer for Nuzzi has stated that the relationship with Robert F. Kennedy she describes in her memoir marks the “only instance in her long career as a journalist in which she had an improper relationship with someone she was covering.”) The series eventually ran out of steam, as Lizza seemingly exhausted his supply of venom and scandalous divulgences. (“Part 6: Bobby was behind the whole thing” appeared yesterday.) But the experiment—a serialized newsletter that asked its reader to wait patiently by their inbox for the next installment—more or less worked. I cannot remember the last time such a large group of people (in this case, mostly gossipy media professionals) were waiting around impatiently for a journalist to publish the next part of a written story. Lizza, who previously wrote for The New Yorker, turned the messiness of his personal life into something like a sporting event that needed to be followed in real time, with a crowd.

CFR Task Force Report: U.S. Economic Security—Winning the Race for Tomorrow's Technologies

Jonathan E. Hillman

In its important new report, U.S. Economic Security: Winning the Race for Tomorrow’s Technologies, the CFR Task Force on Economic Security finds that strategic competition over the world’s next generation of foundational technologies is underway, and U.S. advantages in artificial intelligence, quantum, and biotechnology are increasingly contested. The high-level, bipartisan Task Force warns that economic security risks, especially overconcentration of critical supply chains in China and underinvestment in strategically important areas at home, threaten American leadership in these three crucial sectors of the future. The Task Force report provides a comprehensive view of vulnerabilities that the United States must address and offers practical recommendations for mobilizing the resources needed to prevail.

FROMAN: Well, good afternoon, everybody. Welcome. It’s great to see so many people here. In addition to this standing room-only crowd here in Washington I’m told we have over 300 people registered online as well. Thank you for joining us for the launch of our latest task force report, “U.S. Economic Security: Winning the Race for Tomorrow’s Technologies.” You can pick up your copy outside.

France’s Failure in Mali Threatens the World

Bobby Ghosh

U.S. President Donald Trump has a habit of exaggerating threats where they barely exist while ignoring genuine catastrophes unfolding in plain sight. His recent claims that Christians are existentially threatened in Nigeria are wildly overblown—the reality in Africa’s most populous nation is complex, with violence afflicting Muslims and Christians alike. But while Trump fixates on a phantom problem, a very real calamity is reaching its crescendo in Mali, where al Qaeda-affiliated militants are strangling the capital as the country teeters on the brink of becoming the first nation governed by Osama bin Laden’s heirs.

This ought to seize the president’s attention. Not just because Mali’s collapse would send shockwaves across the Sahel and beyond, destabilizing an already volatile region and creating new sanctuaries for terrorist groups. But also because a main culprit for this disaster is someone whom Trump loves to invoke with contempt: French President Emmanuel Macron.

What Comes After the Axis of Resistance?

Maria Fantappie and Vali Nasr

It has become conventional wisdom that the strikes launched on Iran this year by Israel and the United States, and the shattering of Tehran’s allies and proxy militias in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, have decisively curbed Iran’s influence in the Middle East. But this view misunderstands the nature of Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance”—and Tehran’s potential ability to reconstitute it.

After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iran capitalized on the turmoil to build a transnational ideological network of Shiite communities, governments, and militias from Iran to Iraq to Lebanon, Yemen, and the Palestinian

What we know about the Bondi attack

Lydia Khalil

A horrific terrorist attack at Sydney’s Bondi Beach targeting Jewish Australians at a public Hannukah celebration has left at least 16 people dead and many others injured, some critically. This is the deadliest incident of gun violence in Australia since the Port Arthur massacre and the worst terrorist attack in Australian history. There is still a lot we do not know, including the shooters’ motives, how it was planned, if the attackers acted on their own accord or by the directives of a broader organisation or state sponsor.

But we do know this:

This attack has come amid a tide of rising antisemitism and a sharp uptick in attacks against Jewish people and targets, not only in Australia but globally. Anti-hate and Jewish interest groups have reported an exponential increase in harassment and intimidation against Jewish communities since the deadly 7 October 2023 attacks and the Israel-Hamas conflict. Law enforcement assessments have counted almost 50 major incidents against Jewish targets worldwide since. There have been multiple warnings that without a more robust response, smaller incidents would lead to major violence. The Bondi attack is precisely what was feared would happen.

'Collective Security’ Is on Life Support

Stephen M. Walt

Given our fragile global order, it’s impossible not to wonder whether the concept of “collective security” has died. The answer depends on what we mean by the term. If collective security means a system in which the world’s major powers renounce using force to alter the status quo and agree to unite to stop any country that violates this pledge, then it is not dead for one simple reason: It was never alive.

The traditional version of collective security—best illustrated by the League of Nations founded after World War I—seeks to transcend power politics by committing states to settle their differences peacefully and to work together to stop any country that violates this principle. Unfortunately, this assumes that dangerous aggressors will be easy to identify and that all the other states will agree on who they are. It further assumes that all the major powers will be willing to act together to stop a powerful aggressor—which is costly and dangerous—even when their own interests are not directly involved. Inevitably, some will be tempted to stand aside and let others deal with the problem. This vision of collective security depends, in short, on a level of trust and selflessness that is rare to non-existent in world politics.

How Workers Will Adapt in the AI Era

Lareina Yee and Anu Madgavkar

Based on task-level analysis of over 800 occupations, a deep dive look at 6,800 skills, and expert surveys, our research team at the McKinsey Global Institute estimate that the tasks which fill more than half of all U.S. work hours can, in theory, be automated with technologies that already exist. The silver lining is that AI cannot—and will not—completely replace the jobs of the people who complete those tasks for a living. Instead, work will change, and workers will adapt.

More than 70% of the skills employers seek today are relevant in both automatable and non-automatable work. This means most human abilities will remain useful, but how and where they are applied will evolve. As AI takes on routine tasks—especially digital ones like data entry and information processing—people will focus more on what only humans can do: asking better questions, interpreting results, guiding machines, and exercising judgment. The speed of technological change will make adaptability the ultimate human superpower.

After ISIS Is Linked to High-Profile Attacks in Australia and Syria, Is the Group Making a Comeback?

Solcyré Burga

Nearly seven years after ISIS lost the last piece of its territory following a years-long battle, two high-profile terror attacks inspired by the group within the space of a weekend have demonstrated its resilience.

On Saturday, two United States Army soldiers and an American civilian interpreter were killed in an attack near Palmyra, Syria, that U.S. officials and the Syrian government have blamed on an ISIS-linked infiltrator.

The next day, two men killed at least 15 people and injured dozens more in an attack on a Hanukkah event at Bondi Beach, which Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese later said appeared to have been inspired by ISIS.

"It would appear that there is evidence that this was inspired by a terrorist organization, by ISIS," Albanese said at a Tuesday press conference. "Some of the evidence which is being procured, including the presence of Islamic State flags in the vehicle that has been seized, are a part of that."

The Worsening Geopolitics of Water in the Middle East

SHLOMO BEN-AMI

Countries across the Middle East are facing acute water shortages, owing to poor resource management, accelerating climate change, and regional power politics. In the absence of concerted diplomacy, water will soon be another flash point in a chronically unstable region.

TEL AVIV – In early November, as Iran’s years-long drought reached an intensity “unprecedented in modern times,” crowds of worshippers gathered at a mosque in Tehran and tilted their faces upward, pleading for rain. But no amount of prayer – in Iran or anywhere else – can offset an entrenched culture of water mismanagement against a backdrop of accelerating climate change.

Iran has a long history of irresponsible dam-building practices, ineffective urban planning, excessive subsidies, and resistance to technological upgrading. Add to that desertification resulting from drought, deforestation, and unsustainable agricultural practices, and it is no wonder that water has emerged as a major risk factor for the country.

Six consecutive years of severe drought have now turned Iran’s water vulnerability into an acute crisis. The reservoirs on which Tehran depends have reached critically low levels, creating a crisis so severe that President Masoud Pezeshkian has warned that the metropolitan area’s 15 million residents may need to evacuate. And it is not just Tehran: about 10% of Iran’s dams have run dry.

The Pentagon’s Operational Technology Problem

Jim Dempsey, Andrew J. Grotto

Secretary Pete Hegseth has consistently said that his defining priority is to ensure the lethality of America’s warfighters. This obviously depends on their having the most advanced and effective tanks, drones, missiles, and warships. The military doesn’t produce these things itself. Instead, it relies on private contractors to supply the tools of war. Faced with massive dysfunctionality in the procurement process, Hegseth recently directed a major reform of military acquisitions, “to accelerate fielding of urgently needed capabilities to our warriors” and “maximize their combat readiness.”

Lethality, however, also depends on some pretty mundane things, like electricity, oil and gas, water, telecommunications, and rail transit. An interruption in any one of them could disrupt and delay force projection.

For almost all of these critical services, military installations in the U.S. are dependent on private contractors. That’s because most critical infrastructure in the United States is owned and operated by the private sector. (Much of what isn’t owned privately is owned by municipalities, counties, and rural cooperatives, which also contract with the Pentagon.) Those contractors are, in turn, dependent on operational technology (OT): sensors, regulators, switches, valves, and other devices that monitor and control physical processes. That OT—like the information technology (IT) that has long been the focus of national cybersecurity policy—is vulnerable to cyberattack. The evidence is clear: F oreign adversaries have targeted, and have succeeded in gaining access to, the OT of critical infrastructure.

A Political Earthquake in Ukraine

Anastasiia Lapatina

Almost three weeks have passed since Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky sacked his controversial chief of staff, Andriy Yermak. Even though his successor remains a mystery, it’s hard to overstate the profound effects the firing is bound to have on the Ukrainian government.

Despite the relative institutional unimportance of the office of the president, Yermak turned it into the single most powerful body of the Ukrainian government. Ever since he became the chief of staff in 2020, Yermak had amassed unprecedented influence over the country’s domestic and foreign policy. He was effectively a co-president, despite not being the country’s prime minister—who is supposed to share the country’s executive power—and despite the growing allegations of his corruption and nepotism, allegations that have come from civil society, from journalists, and from Zelensky’s political opposition.

Zelensky ignored the critics for years, until anti-corruption detectives burst into Yermak’s apartment in central Kyiv on the morning of Nov. 28. They came with a search warrant related to a sprawling corruption case that had already implicated a number of Zelensky’s other close friends. Hours later, Zelensky gave a speech announcing a reset of the president’s office.

How the New National Security Strategy Misses the Mark on Cybersecurity

Mark Montgomery

To combat China and Russia’s cyber capabilities, the Trump administration must stop eliminating cybersecurity professionals and invest in federal programs that protect domestic critical infrastructure.

While there will be heated disagreements on how President Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategy characterizes America’s relationship with both China and Europe, few will disagree with the clear sentiment to defend the homeland. More than any strategy document released since the September 11 attacks, this one emphasizes defending the homeland or, more specifically, “the continued survival and safety of the United States” as the top national security priority.

When Trump took office earlier this year, it must have been clear to him that the homeland has never been less secure, with challenges extending well beyond the border issues, which he tried to address in his first Presidency, to now include imminent missile and cyber threats to the homeland.

AI’s Dirty Secret: Why Diesel Still Powers the Digital Age

Morgan Bazilian, and Brandon N. Owens

AI’s demand for data centers relies on diesel generators because outdated permitting and reliability rules make cleaner backup power too slow to deploy.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) may be the most advanced computing frontier in decades, but the infrastructure keeping it online is running on technology invented in the 19th century. In the race to build data centers fast enough to satisfy demand for AI training clusters, the diesel generator has quietly become an indispensable component of modern digital infrastructure. It is not because diesel is innovative or clean. It is because diesel is, in 2025, the only backup power option that fits the speed, risk tolerance, and regulatory structure of the AI buildout.

Diesel as the Path of Least Resistance for Powering AI

Developers can commission an AI data center in 18 to 24 months; they cannot build a new gas plant because of turbine supply chain delays, let alone an advanced energy system using nuclear or geothermal. Additionally, in many places, transmission interconnection queues are backed up for years. Even simple natural-gas hookups can require lengthy capacity studies and pipeline reviews.

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