Indian Strategic Studies: 12/27/25

27 December 2025

Pakistan’s Army Rocket Force: Strategic Leap or Burdened Gamble?

Tahir Azad

On August 13, 2025, the Prime Minister of Pakistan announced the establishment of a new Army Rocket Force Command (ARFC). This directive would possess contemporary technology and the capability to engage the adversary from all directions. There is no revealed public information regarding the ARFC structure, size, or mission. The official statement just discusses that the focus will be on conventional missile systems rather than nuclear delivery vehicles, which remain under the prime control of the Strategic Plans Division (SPD). Some commentators thought that this announcement of an ARFC was a vital step to deter India, which is growing its missile and hypersonic capabilities. However, this ARFC has raised various questions. What is the need for raising a separate command while Pakistan already has an established strategic forces command structure? Additionally, it is also confronting many domestic challenges, such as its political instability, a suffering economy, and security problems. The discussion regarding the formation of a distinct rocket force in Pakistan, or the evolution of its current Full Spectrum Deterrence (FSD) strategy into an advanced variant known as Full Spectrum Deterrence Plus (FSD+) is pivotal to the changing geopolitical landscape of South Asia.

FSD, a concept that ensures a reaction to threats across all tiers of conflict, has long been integral to Pakistan’s deterrence strategy. Since the early 2010s, this posture has served as a robust barrier against Indian military pressure. However, the May 2025 conflict between India and Pakistan has revealed significant vulnerabilities and gaps. India utilized enhanced models of the BrahMos missile, capable of travelling at nearly supersonic speeds. These missiles successfully penetrated Pakistani defenses and struck vital targets, including those in proximity to the capital Islamabad. The strikes were alarming both symbolically and strategically, as they demonstrated that Pakistan’s air defense systems and conventional deterrent missiles were unable to consistently intercept or neutralize India’s precision-guided threats. India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has successfully conducted a test of the Extended Trajectory Long Duration Hypersonic Cruise Missile (ET-LDHCM), in July 2025, a new hypersonic weapon developed under Project Vishnu. For the first time in decades, Pakistan’s authorities confront the disconcerting prospect that India might execute a limited, rapid strike campaign beneath the nuclear threshold with a significant likelihood of success.

China’s War Clock: ICBMs Deployed, Taiwan Invasion Set for 2027

Rameen Siddiqui

China has likely loaded more than 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) across three silo fields near its Mongolian border and shows no interest in arms control talks, according to a draft Pentagon report highlighting Beijing’s accelerating nuclear expansion. The report revealed China’s nuclear warhead stockpile remains in the low 600s but is on track to exceed 1,000 warheads by 2030, while also warning that Beijing expects to be able to fight and win a war on Taiwan by the end of 2027.

WHAT HAPPENEDPentagon report reveals China loaded over 100 solid-fueled DF-31 ICBMs in silo fields near Mongolia’s border. Beijing shows “no appetite” for arms control discussions despite Trump’s mention of potential denuclearization plans with China and Russia. China’s nuclear warhead stockpile remains in low 600s with slower production rates but is on track to exceed 1,000 by 2030. Pentagon warns China expects to fight and win a Taiwan war by end of 2027, refining options for brute force strikes up to 2,000 nautical miles.

China ‘preparing to fight and defeat Taiwan by 2027’

Susie Coen

Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, pictured with military officers in Beijing this week Credit: Li Gang/Xinhua China expects to be able to fight and win a war on Taiwan by the end of 2027, a US report has found. Beijing is refining its military options to take the territory by “brute force” via tactics that could include launching strikes up to 2,000 nautical miles from China, the Pentagon said. The report into Chinese military ambitions, obtained by Reuters, noted that Beijing has probably loaded more than 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles across its new three silo fields.

The findings will probably raise concerns in Washington after a US government assessment in November found that China would defeat the US military in a war over Taiwan. China, which views Taiwan as its own territory, has never ruled out using force to “reunify” with the island. Beijing has described reports of a military build-up as an effort to “smear and defame China and deliberately mislead the international community”.

The State of China’s Soft Power in 2025

Daniele Carminati

Five years ago, I published an article titled “The State of China’s Soft Power in 2020”. In its opening, I noted that China’s ability to attract was a subject of both frequent discussion and misunderstanding. Since then, despite ongoing challenges in geopolitics and the economy, China has become an even more prominent global presence. This raises an important question: is Chinese soft power still elusive, or is it finally taking shape? This matter is especially relevant given the growing debate about the decline of American soft power after a shift toward coercive hard and economic power – such as ‘peace through strength’ and unilateral tariffs – which reflects a broader weaponization of the world economy. This piece will adhere to the structure of my previous article, utilizing the late Joseph Nye’s triad of soft power resources – culture, political values, and foreign policies – while further developing them through a broader analysis of attractive national features supported by authoritative opinions and relevant data. Back then, quoting my concise overview, “China’s culture still ha[d] limited appeal, its values mostly fail[ed] to reflect the country’s image and reputation abroad, and its foreign policy [was] seen with skepticism at best – and as hegemonic at worst.” What has changed in these five turbulent years in which we experienced a global pandemic, the eruption of two major and still lingering conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine, and a global tariffs shakeup?

'Every Parent's Worst Nightmare': China's TikTok Deal - Great for China, Not for America

Gordon G. Chang

TikTok has posed two national security threats.

First, TikTok and its owner ByteDance have repeatedly made promises about the security of personal data of Americans, but they have not honored pledges and have broken U.S. statutes. The company settled charges that it violated U.S. child privacy laws.

Second, the Chinese regime uses TikTok's curation or recommendation algorithm, which determines the distribution of videos, to propagate its narratives as well as spread hate, sow disinformation, glorify self-harm, and promote illicit drug use. TikTok videos turn Americans against Americans and America itself.

The arrangement.... does not adequately eliminate the algorithm problem. Chew stated in his memorandum that the joint venture will be responsible for "retraining the content recommendation algorithm on U.S. user data to ensure the content feed is free from outside manipulation."

NPR reporting suggests that China will continue to own and control the algorithm — often referred to as TikTok's "secret sauce" — and that the new joint venture will license it. The New York Times reported in September that China would still own the algorithm. Any Chinese involvement in the curation process, especially considering Beijing's past use of the algorithm, is unacceptable.

Europe’s Taiwan Dilemma

TOMASZ SZATKOWSKI, OCTAVIAN MANEA, LUIS SIMÓN AND GIULIA TERCOVICH

CSDS In-Depth Papers provide critical reflections on issues that affect European security and Europe’s partners. The Papers are dedicated to providing analytical insights on specific diplomatic, strategic and security challenges. The Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy (CSDS) seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the key contemporary security and diplomatic challenges of the 21st century – and their impact on Europe – while reaching out to the policy community that will ultimately need to handle such challenges. Our expertise in security studies will seek to establish comprehensive theoretical and policy coverage of strategic competition and its impact on Europe, whilst paying particular attention to the Transatlantic relationship and the wider Indo-Pacific region. Diplomacy as a field of study will be treated broadly and comparatively to encompass traditional statecraft and foreign policy analysis, as well as public, economic and cultural diplomacy

The Arab Spring’s Painful Lessons

Alexander Langlois

Fifteen years after the Middle East’s largest pro-democracy movement, the West still has not learned that supporting autocracy is no longer sustainable.

The Arab Spring carries multiple meanings for the many millions of people across the Middle East and North Africa, let alone the world. The widespread calls for civil liberties and democracy across the region certainly were divisive, with some defining the uprisings as imperialist plots while others viewed them as a long-anticipated moment for freedom fighters and democrats who had long suffered under some of the most autocratic rulers of the 20th century. But what did this moment of national and regional upheaval truly mean for the region, its autocrats, and the people stuck under their boots, and what does that mean for the future?

On December 17, 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi’s act of self-immolation in protest against the brutal Tunisian regime of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali unknowingly kicked off the region’s largest democracy wave since decolonization. Within a series of months, protests spread against autocratic regimes in Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, and Syria, shocking a world long accustomed to and benefitting from repression in that part of the world. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak regime, for example, was long viewed as a bulwark against the Arab street and the forces of Arab and Islamic nationalism that, for many in the West, posed a threat to their regional interests—namely energy flows, Israeli security, and fighting violent extremism.

Exclusive: China likely loaded more than 100 ICBMs in silo fields, Pentagon report says

Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON, Dec 22 (Reuters) - China is likely to have loaded more than 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles across its latest three silo fields and has no desire for arms control talks, according to a draft Pentagon report which highlighted Beijing's growing military ambitions.

China is expanding and modernizing its weapons stockpile faster than any other nuclear-armed power, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a Chicago-based non-profit. Beijing has described reports of a military buildup as efforts to "smear and defame China and deliberately mislead the international community."

Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump said that he may be working on a plan to denuclearize with China and Russia. But the draft Pentagon report, which was seen by Reuters, said Beijing did not appear to be interested.

"We continue to see no appetite from Beijing for pursuing such measures or more comprehensive arms control discussions," the report said.

In particular, the report said that China had likely put in more than 100 solid-fuelled DF-31 ICBMs in silo fields close to China's border with Mongolia - the latest in a series of silo sites. The Pentagon had previously reported the existence of the fields but not the number of missiles loaded.

Civility and Confidence: A Resolution for 2026

H.R. McMaster

In 2026, as Americans commemorate the 250th anniversary of the founding of our Republic we might resolve to do our part to strengthen our nation. Civil discourse about opportunities to build a stronger nation for the next 250 years holds potential for arresting the growing vitriol in politics and strengthening our confidence in our common identities as Americans. The following is from the last few paragraphs of Battlegrounds written six years ago, pp. 443-445:

Partisan vitriol among America’s political leadership gives friends and foes alike the impression that the United States is incapable of competing effectively based on a bipartisan foreign policy. As the late professor and philosopher Richard Rorty observed, “National pride is to countries what self-respect is to individuals: a necessary condition for self-improvement.” If we lack national pride, how can we possess the confidence necessary to fight effectively in war or implement a competitive foreign policy? In the United States, civics education might try to reverse the shift toward micro-identities and the focus on victimhood to foster what political scientist Francis Fukuyama describes as “broader and more integrative identities.”1 Every time Americans talk or tweet about issues that divide them, they might devote at least equal time to what unites them—especially our commitment to the fundamental individual liberties contained in our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and our Bill of Rights.

As warfare is reinvented in Ukraine, and Silicon Valley races to maintain its A.I. lead, China’s battery dominance is raising alarms far beyond the auto industry.

Hiroko TabuchiBrad Plumer and Harry Stevens

Power ︎ Moves

As warfare is reinvented in Ukraine, and Silicon Valley races to maintain its A.I. lead, China’s battery dominance is raising alarms far beyond the auto industry. A data center in Ashburn, Va. Immense batteries are critical to protect sensitive A.I. computer software. In Northern Virginia’s Data Center Alley, windowless buildings the size of aircraft hangars are powering America’s artificial intelligence industry, which is locked in a race against China. Yet, these data centers are increasingly reliant on China, America’s geopolitical rival, for a vital technology: batteries.

These facilities can use as much electricity as a small city, straining local power grids. Even flickers can have cascading effects, corrupting sensitive A.I. computer coding. To cope, tech giants are looking to buy billions of dollars of large lithium-ion batteries, a field in which “China is leading in almost every industrial component,” said Dan Wang, an expert on China’s technology sector at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. “They’re ahead, both technologically and in terms of scale.”

Ukraine at the Negotiation Crossroads: Strategic Takeaways from Five Conflicts

Olga Usenko

How large-scale interstate wars end has profound implications for political order, territorial control, and long-term stability. This article addresses: What pathways of war termination are plausible in the current phase of the Russia — Ukraine war, and what strategic risks or opportunities do they generate for Ukraine and the wider European security architecture? To answer this, the article develops a comparative, historically grounded framework that synthesizes five war-termination models — burnout, armistice, Finlandization, recurring crisis dynamics, and hybrid occupation, drawn from well-documented historical cases of protracted conflict. Using structured focused comparison, each model is analyzed in terms of its termination mechanisms, territorial outcomes, post-war security architecture, and equilibrium stability, then mapped onto a two-dimensional spectrum (territorial change vs. stability).

The analysis demonstrates that these models produce qualitatively different strategic trajectories, ranging from sovereignty-preserving equilibria to outcomes that institutionalize instability or external influence. A central finding is that most endgames pose significant risks for Ukraine unless anchored in strong and enduring Western security guarantees. The article contributes to war-termination scholarship by adapting classical models to hybrid interstate conflict and offering a framework for evaluating negotiation outcomes in real time.

Elections as Spectacle: Myanmar’s Manufactured Legitimacy

Federica Cidale

More than four years after seizing power in the February 2021 coup, Myanmar’s military junta set 28 December 2025 as the date for a nationwide general election: less a commitment to democratic transition than an attempt to manufacture legitimacy. After nearly half a century of military dictatorship, the National League for Democracy (NLD) won consecutive landslide victories in the 2015 and 2020 elections. In response to the 2020 general election results, the military baselessly claimed voter fraud as justification for its coup, with junta leader Min Aung Hlaing asserting that “there was terrible fraud in the voter list during the democratic general election.” However, the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) affirmed that the 2020 results reflected the genuine will of the people and found no evidence of widespread fraud. Although Min Aung Hlaing pledged to ‘restore democracy’, in July 2023 the junta once again postponed the elections, extending the state of emergency and claiming it needed more time to prepare. Although the junta did not announce the long-awaited election date until August 2025, the repeated delay was unsurprising given its deteriorating control over Myanmar.

Russians Protesting Mounting Problems, but Not Yet Against Putin

Paul Goble

Residents of the Russian Federation are facing a growing tide of problems, and some are now taking to the streets to protest. There were more such actions over the last 12 months than in any of the previous four years. Those protests have occurred east of the Urals, take place only with permission from local officials, and avoid attacking Russian President Vladimir Putin, giving the Kremlin another way to gauge popular attitudes and control regional leaders.

There are few signs that these protests will grow into a movement that might threaten the Kremlin leader or even lay the groundwork for solving Russia’s problems and radical change once he departs the scene.

The dimensions of the problems confronting Russians are so daunting that many assessments assume that they will sooner or later rise against the regime responsible and force radical change. Observers both inside Russia and abroad have been encouraged by the growing number of protests that have taken place, with the number of popular actions in the Russian Federation over the last 12 months exceeding the figures for any of the previous four years, and with this increase especially marked in the last three months (Novaya Gazeta, December 16). The potential effects of these protests, however, should not be overstated. Most are small and take place only when local officials give their approval and set the terms of their behavior. Moreover, most are not linked to others focusing on the same issues, and nearly all take place far from Moscow, most often east of the Urals.

The Books FP’s Contributors Loved This Year

Chloe Hadavas

In 2025, Foreign Policy contributors leaned on their unique areas of expertise to weigh in on the buzziest books of the year. Whether it was geostrategist Zbigniew Brzezinski’s onetime research assistant reviewing a biography of his boss or celebrated novelists recommending their favorite climate fiction, the reviews below shed new light on titles that are driving ongoing conversations around history, strategy, and foreign affairs.

2025 Was Uniquely Bad for Poor Countries

Belinda Luscombe

The arc of history, wise people have assured us, bends towards justice. But this year it has taken a very circuitous route according to many of the global aid agencies. Rich nations have cut off financial aid to poor nations. Wars have lasted longer and killed more people. Those who break international laws have suffered no consequences. Stable and resource-filled countries have turned inward, and escapees from dysfunction and chaos have flooded into already beleaguered regions. One agency, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which looks after refugees, calls the current situation “a new world disorder.”

In 2024, according to the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), there were 61 wars taking place across 36 countries, the highest number since World War II. “This is not just a spike–it’s a structural shift,” a PRIO researcher said at the time. Indeed in 2025, most of these conflicts dragged on and their effects were exacerbated. Waging war is expensive and the longer conflicts last, and the more desperate each side gets, aid workers say, the more likely opportunistic factions are to take advantage of the discord by trading weapons or cash for access to extractive resources or land at bargain prices. These outside agents then have a motive for obstructing peace efforts.

Gaza’s New Normal Persistent Limited Conflict Is More Likely Than Peace

Daniel Byman

Gaza has reached a new equilibrium. Unsurprisingly, it is an ugly one. The good news is that the intense fighting is over and humanitarian relief is steadily entering the strip. Since the cease-fire began on October 10, Israel has released almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, and Hamas has returned all living hostages as well as most of the bodies of those killed, in keeping with the Trump administration’s 20-point peace plan. Israel has reopened the Kerem Shalom, Kissufim, and Zikim border crossings and promised to allow 600 trucks per day into Gaza, carrying both aid and commercial goods for sale, which it has begun. The Israel Defense Forces has also withdrawn to a “yellow line” that limits its presence to around 53 percent of the strip, although several of the specific boundaries are disputed.

Plans for a more extensive resolution, however, are stalled, and the relations between Hamas and Israel today are characterized by limited but persistent conflict, not progress toward peace. Israel’s policies, Hamas’s refusal to lose more power, and the Trump administration’s poor attention span are likely to foil the peace proposal’s more ambitious plans for Gaza’s rehabilitation. Fundamentally, further progress depends on the creation of an International Stabilization Force to police Gaza, disarm Hamas, and eventually train a new, vetted, non-Hamas Palestinian police force that would assume control over Gaza. The IDF would then withdraw to 40 percent of the strip and eventually to 15 percent, as local security conditions improved. At the same time, a technocratic and apolitical Palestinian government would emerge to govern Gaza, reporting to what U.S. President Donald Trump has called a “Board of Peace,” which would be officially headed by Trump and run on a day-to-day basis by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, is supposed to undertake major reforms while preparing to eventually take on a major role in governing the strip.

CYBERCOM celebrated its 15th anniversary with no commander: 2025 review

Mark Pomerleau

US Cyber Command turned 15 in May this year. It was also the year in which the organization saw the longest stretch without a permanent leader in its history.

In early April, the Trump administration fired Gen. Timothy Haugh, the CYBERCOM commander and director of the National Security Agency. To date, no reason has been given for the surprise firing.

The top spot will remain empty into its ninth month, something which experts and lawmakers have previously described as “heartbreaking” and an obstacle to the overall preparedness of the organization and its forces. However, there is hope that the seat will finally be filled come the new year in the form of Lt. Gen. Joshua Rudd, amid recent indications he’s in line for the post.

Rules of Engagement and Command Decisions

Gary Anderson

When U.S. forces conducted a second strike on the survivors of an alleged drug smuggling boat destroyed off Venezuela last September, the resulting controversy regarding the incident caused me to rethink an incident I was involved in back in 1993. At the time, I was a temporary loan officer serving as the military advisor to the U.S. ambassador running the U.S. Liaison Office (USLNO) to the United Nations Mission in Somalia (UNISOM).

The mission was headed by the ambassador who has acted as the senior senior U.S. official in that failed nation-state. I was on loan to the mission from the Marine Corps University teaching a class on Operations Other Than War. The school was on summer break and I sought permission to do a case study on the ongoing UN humanitarian mission in Somalia. The ambassador said that he didn’t need another “colonel in sunglasses” wandering around Mogadishu, but if I was willing to do some real work, I was was welcome to come.

3D Printing Sends Broken F-15 Back to Action Within Hours

Ethan M. Encarnacion

US Air Force and Marine Corps repair teams have joined forces to send a damaged F-15 back to flight status in just a few hours, far ahead of the original several-month timeline.

The 18th Maintenance Group (18 MXG) at Kadena Air Base in Japan reached out to Marine Aircraft Logistics Squadron 36 (MALS-36) to leverage its on-site additive manufacturing equipment in repairing a malfunctioning cooling duct.

Within 12 hours, the teams printed, delivered, and installed two prototypes that restored the duct to operational condition, beating engineers’ original four-month repair estimate.

An Air Force pilot flying an F-15 aircraft. Image: NAVAIR

Further inspections led to an improved design that reduced printing time by two hours, an innovation that could speed future repairs even more.

“Here was a situation where a multi-million dollar aircraft was going to be sidelined for months due to the lack of a part in the supply system,” Naval Air Systems Command Additive Manufacturing Program Manager Theodore Gronda said.

War Books: The Marine Corps Commandant’s 2026 Reading List

John Amble

Editor’s note: Welcome to another installment of our War Books series! Each installment typically presents a themed list of books by an expert contributor. This edition departs from that model and instead presents highlights from the 2026 professional reading list published by the commandant of the US Marine Corps. As always, the aim of War Books is to provide a resource for MWI readers who want to learn more about important subjects related to modern war and are looking for books to add to their reading lists.

This week, the commandant of the Marine Corps, General Eric M. Smith, released a 2026 list of recommended books as part of the Marine Corps Professional Reading Program. This is a long-standing tradition among the US armed services, but one that has become increasingly rare recently. Of course, this is partly a reflection of the evolving media landscape: Where books were once the principal source of learning, military professional now have short-form articles, podcasts, and even social media channels to choose from. And indeed, while the US Army has not released a chief of staff of the Army’s professional reading list for several years, Army University Press publishes a monthly list of articles selected and recommended by the chief of staff.

Counteroffensive Irregular Warfare: A Doctrine of Signature Reduction for Strategic Competition

Christopher Moede

Abstract: This article argues that U.S. Special Operations Forces have experienced an atrophy in counteroffensive irregular warfare capacity amid the shift to strategic competition, leaving Western interests vulnerable to adversarial gray-zone strategies. It advances signature reduction—the deliberate management of physical and digital detectability—as a human-centered doctrine capable of restoring freedom of maneuver, renewing Special Operations Forces (SOF) heritage competencies, and providing a scalable counteroffensive IW framework below the threshold of armed conflict. The author contends that institutionalizing signature reduction within IW doctrine and training is essential to preserving human primacy in an era of asymmetric technological competition.

The Strategic Imperative for Irregular Warfare

The world has gone digital. When wearable Strava fitness trackers exposed the location of previously undisclosed U.S. special operations forces operating locations in Syria in 2018, policies were quickly put in place to ban the devices. Operations continued with little risk to the mission or force. A mere four years later, when Russian surveillance equipment observed a small number of mobile devices registered in the UK on Ukrainian networks at a military base near the Polish border, 30 Russian cruise missiles tore into the facility where British volunteer fighters had been, killing 35. The technology-fueled contrast between these operational vignettes starkly exposes the hidden costs of attribution in strategic competition – tech which poses exponential risk to both mission and force beyond that which has previously been visible in the past three decades of warfare. Irregular warfare finds itself most authentically in the dynamic heart of this contrast, not as an ancillary auxiliary but rather a central character.

Ukraine at the Negotiation Crossroads: Strategic Takeaways from Five Conflicts

Olga Usenko

How large-scale interstate wars end has profound implications for political order, territorial control, and long-term stability. This article addresses: What pathways of war termination are plausible in the current phase of the Russia — Ukraine war, and what strategic risks or opportunities do they generate for Ukraine and the wider European security architecture? To answer this, the article develops a comparative, historically grounded framework that synthesizes five war-termination models — burnout, armistice, Finlandization, recurring crisis dynamics, and hybrid occupation, drawn from well-documented historical cases of protracted conflict. Using structured focused comparison, each model is analyzed in terms of its termination mechanisms, territorial outcomes, post-war security architecture, and equilibrium stability, then mapped onto a two-dimensional spectrum (territorial change vs. stability).

The analysis demonstrates that these models produce qualitatively different strategic trajectories, ranging from sovereignty-preserving equilibria to outcomes that institutionalize instability or external influence. A central finding is that most endgames pose significant risks for Ukraine unless anchored in strong and enduring Western security guarantees. The article contributes to war-termination scholarship by adapting classical models to hybrid interstate conflict and offering a framework for evaluating negotiation outcomes in real time.

The Pentagon wants a common network for its counter-drone systems

Meghann Myers

All of the different military installations running cUAS systems in one region, for example, need to be able to share data, the leader of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 told reporters on Friday, but the licenses for shared software are expensive.

“That new capability has got to plug in immediately to a common C2 framework, and so I'm excited about that. We plan to do that in the next 90 days,” said Brig. Gen. Matt Ross. “That's a huge lift, if you look at an enterprise-wide license—that usually takes over a year—but it will make a big difference for all of our installation commanders and for our services.”

Since the task force stood up in August, Ross and his team have been focused and testing and evaluating cUAS system components that can then go onto the marketplace, as well as standardizing training on the systems that will be used across the Defense Department, the Homeland Security Department and the FBI.

AI Companions and the Threat of Weaponized Synthetic Intimacy

Ilan Manor

The emergence of AI companions represents a profound shift in how people relate to technology. Originally designed to answer queries, provide information, and assist with daily tasks, AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are now being customized by users and transformed into AI companions that serve as romantic partners, mentors, confidants, and mental health supporters. New platforms that offer access to “AI companions” have already amassed a global audience. The American platform Character.ai attracts roughly 20 million monthly users, many of whom spend thousands of hours consulting the platform’s “Psychologist” companion about depression, angst, and marital problems. China’s Maoxiang companion app also boasts a mass following, while major AI companies, such as OpenAI, are reportedly creating more personable and emotionally expressive AIs. Already now popular AIs like ChatGPT or Gemini can mimic human emotions such as empathy. This may be why a recent survey of American high school students showed that many labelled an AI as a “friend” in the past year.

Before There Was a Third Offset, There Was Harold Brown

Frank A. Rose & Carl Rhodes

In today’s Pentagon, the buzzwords are “innovation,” “replicator,” and “deterrence by denial.” Defense leaders speak of creating thanks to advances in AI, autonomy, hypersonic and quantum technologies, an approach that was previously termed the “Third Offset Strategy.” But before that term existed, there was Harold Brown — a physicist, strategist, and Secretary of Defense who quietly pioneered the art of combining advanced technology with new concepts of military operations to bolster deterrence.

Brown’s tenure under President Jimmy Carter (1977–1981) offers vital lessons for an era once again defined by rapid technological change, great-power competition, and a public wary of long wars in distant locations. As the United States seeks to deter an increasingly capable China, there is much to learn from how Brown rebuilt America’s military and technological edge at a time of limited budgets and strategic doubt.

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