Indian Strategic Studies: 2026

8 February 2026

On track: India’s rail-based Agni-Prime

Karl Dewey

On 24 September 2025, India launched a medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) designated Agni-Prime (Agni-P) from the Integrated Test Range missile-testing facility on Abdul Kalam Island, Odisha State. Though the choice of a rail-based mobile launcher may seem anachronistic compared to more modern road-mobile systems, rail is well suited to India’s mountainous terrain and the variable quality of the country’s road network. In turn, this increased mobility aids dispersal, ambiguity and, ultimately, survivability at relatively low costs. Given these apparent benefits, rail-based concepts have at times also attracted attention in China, North Korea and Russia over the last decade, each for their own set of convergent reasons.

Already in service, the road-mobile variant of Agni-P is set to replace the decades-old short-ranged Agni-I. In its rail-mobile configuration, Agni-P will also likely replace the medium-ranged Agni-II, which, like the intermediate-ranged Agni-III, is rail-based. The September launch was the first known test of Agni-P in its rail-mobile configuration, and the first time Indian authorities have publicly revealed its rail launcher, which is designed to look like a regular commercial freight wagon. Satellite imagery of the Abdul Kalam Island test site from 20 September shows this approximately 17 metre-long launcher in the same position before the test. With India’s rail network fast approaching full electrification, a short stretch of simulated overhead cable had been fitted to this section of track. The released imagery indicates the launcher had a device fitted to move these cables aside for launch.

What the US-India trade deal really means

Saroj Kumar Rath

Although United States-India cooperation remains a fundamentally positive-sum enterprise, advancing both economic and strategic interests, the manner of the new bilateral trade deal’s announcement was as striking as its substance. President Donald Trump framed the deal as a decisive reset of a year-long tariff standoff, unveiling it through social media posts following a direct call with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who reciprocated with his own public message.

While the precise contours of the agreement remain indistinct and its legal architecture has yet to be formally articulated, the exchange nonetheless carried an unmistakable assertion of sovereignty: two elected leaders of major powers publicly affirming a shared decision in full global view. In this sense, the announcement functioned less as a concluded treaty than as a performative act of statecraft, in which political authority preceded bureaucratic finality and symbolism momentarily eclipsed procedure without diminishing the strategic significance of the moment.

India’s Strategic Recalibration: Managing US Volatility and China’s Opportunism

Anna Maria Treifeldt

However, Trump’s tariffs, lack of progress in Quad (India, Australia, Japan, and the US) initiatives, and ambiguous signals on Pakistan have made the existing approach untenable. In response, India has lowered its immediate exposure by reopening limited diplomatic channels with China, highlighting that New Delhi prefers strategic hedging. These actions undermine assumptions in both Europe and the US about India’s reliability as a consistent counterweight to China.

The Trump Shock. The 2025 US National Security Strategy specifically called for bolstering commercial and security ties with India, and for “continued quadrilateral cooperation” to uphold a free and open Indo-Pacific. Yet Washington’s trade threats and transactional framing of partnership under Trump have translated into early actions that have altered key elements of India’s strategic environment.[1]

From Dependence To Diversification: Afghanistan’s Ban On Pakistani Medicines And Its Regional Impact – OpEd

Zahid Khalili

On November 12, 2025, the Taliban government in Afghanistan (the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan) announced a ban on the import of medicines from Pakistan. During a meeting with Afghan traders, Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar Akhund described Pakistani medicines as low-quality and gave Afghan pharmaceutical importers a three-month deadline to settle their financial accounts in Pakistan. After the expiration of this period, Afghan traders would no longer be allowed to import Pakistani medicines into the country.

Recently, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Finance reiterated this decision and emphasized that, based on the directive of the Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, no Pakistani medicines would be cleared at customs after February 9. The ministry once again urged Afghan pharmaceutical companies to finalize their accounts in Pakistan.

Five years on: Myanmar under military rule

On 1 February 2021, the country descended into a world of conflict following the military’s overthrow of the democratically elected government. Since then, civilians have continued to face daily threats of violence, with their safety at risk. This reality has been documented across many of Myanmar Witness’s investigations. Military tactics have evolved, with the number of airstrikes rising, and the use of paramotors, landmines and other aerial operations hitting areas meant to provide safety in times of violence, such as schools and religious sites.

To mark this sombre milestone and the intensified human rights crisis, Myanmar Witness has produced a video showing the lasting impacts of military rule. The video offers a glimpse into the challenges faced by communities that continue to navigate fear, displacement, and limited access to essential services. For 1,800 days, Myanmar Witness has been collecting, analysing and verifying data on unprecedented human rights abuses and violence across the country. Now in its fifth year, the project continues to provide verified information to media, advocacy organisations, and civil society, whilst also supporting justice and accountability mechanisms aimed at holding perpetrators to account.

Xi Jinping’s Military Purges Leave Him Increasingly Powerful but Isolated

Daniel Shats, Alison O’Neil
Source Link

Key Takeaway: Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping has expanded his military purges to include two of the seniormost officers in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Xi may have purged them because he saw them as undermining his leadership and military objectives. The continued purges have reduced the Central Military Commission (CMC) since 2023 from seven members to two members, including Xi, transforming the body into an extension of Xi’s will rather than a major military decision-making forum. The CMC purges consolidate Xi’s control over the military but risk isolating him or surrounding him with sycophants, which in turn risks military miscalculations.

CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping has expanded his military purges to include two of the most senior officers in the PLA. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) National Defense Ministry announced investigations into Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli on January 25, stating that they were “suspected of serious violations of discipline and law.”[1] Zhang and Liu were members of the CMC—the seniormost PRC military decision-making body—at the time of the announcement. Zhang had been a CMC vice chairman since October 2017, serving directly under Xi, who is the CMC chairman in addition to CCP general secretary.[2] Xi promoted Zhang to CMC senior vice chairman in October 2022 and exempted him from the required PLA retirement age, demonstrating Xi’s trust in him.[3] Liu had been the CMC Joint Staff Department chief of staff since September 2022, making him one of the top commanders overseeing PLA operations. Zhang and Liu were among the few senior PLA officers with combat experience, which they gained from conflicts with Vietnam in 1979 and the 1980s.[4] The publicly announced investigations strongly suggest that the CCP will expel Zheng and Liu and possibly impose legal consequences.

Missile barrages and cyber operations: Iran outlines multi-front war plan against US

SHIR PERETS

The concept echoes recent years of proxy warfare across Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and the Red Sea, where Houthi maritime attacks disrupted shipping and drew international responses. Iran has published a detailed concept for war with the United States, describing missile barrages, proxy escalation, cyber operations, and threats to global oil flows, according to the IRGC-linked Tasnim news agency.

The war scenario published by Tasnim begins with US strikes on nuclear and military sites in densely populated areas, followed by a rapid Iranian counter-barrage aimed at US regional bases. The document touts hardened underground infrastructure and redundant command networks designed to survive an initial blow and enable sustained retaliation.

Bombs And Backlash: How U.S. Strikes Could Strengthen Iran’s Regime – Analysis

Shaunak Nath

Reports that the United States is repositioning military units for a potential strike on Iran have coincided with a sharp escalation at sea. A U.S. fighter recently shot down an Iranian drone that approached an American aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea, marking one of the most direct military encounters between the two sides in years. At the same time, officials on both sides have signalled openness to indirect talks, reportedly through regional intermediaries.

This combination of military pressure and diplomatic signalling has revived a familiar but unresolved question: could US strikes weaken or even topple the Iranian regime, especially at a moment of visible domestic unrest? Or would military action instead consolidate power in Tehran and undermine the political movements challenging the system from within?

America in the Crosshairs: The Emergence of Destabilization as Global Strategy

The Ren Way

In early 2026, as new Jeffrey Epstein related documents began surfacing in courts and in newsrooms on both sides of the Atlantic, the familiar outlines of a scandal suddenly looked stranger. The headlines were predictable enough: more transcripts, more names, more sickening detail about trafficking, abuse, and impunity. But buried alongside the salacious material were clues that pointed somewhere else.

There were repeated references to Russia. There were discussions of visas and meetings in Moscow. There were notes implying that Epstein had offered analysis and “insight” on US politics to officials connected to the Kremlin. At the same time, older threads about Epstein’s proximity to Israeli political and intelligence figures resurfaced. His investments in surveillance technology firms with roots in Israeli military intelligence. His longstanding friendship with a former Israeli prime minister who once ran the country’s military intelligence branch. The shadow of Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, Robert Maxwell, long suspected of juggling relationships with multiple intelligence services.

Russian general shot several times in Moscow

Paul Kirby

A high-profile general in Russia's military has been shot several times and wounded in Moscow. Lt Gen Vladimir Alexeyev, 64, was taken to hospital after the attack in a residential block of flats in the north-western outskirts of the capital, and is believed to be in a serious condition. The attacker fled the scene. Alexeyev is number two in the main directorate of Russia's GRU military intelligence and the latest high-ranking military figure to have been targeted in or near Moscow since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

No-one has so far claimed the attack, but senior Russian officials immediately blamed Ukraine, saying it was trying to derail negotiations to end the war. "The victim has been taken to one of the city's hospitals," said Svetlana Petrenko of Russia's Investigations Committee (SK), which said it opened a criminal case for attempted murder.

The Transition to Phase II in the Gaza Strip—An Unprecedented Challenge for Israel

Yohanan Tzoreff

President Trump and his envoy Steve Witkoff announced on January 14 and 15 the start of Phase II of the 20-point plan for stabilizing and rehabilitating the Gaza Strip, initiated by the president in October 2025 and approved as UN Security Council Resolution 2803 in November. They also declared the establishment of the international “Board of Peace” (BoP), the appointment of the general who will head the ISF—the force responsible for security stability in the Strip—and released the names of the board’s members. The BoP, which is an international body with broad responsibility, apparently beyond the Gaza Strip alone, is composed of two bodies: (1) a general executive board chaired by Trump himself, with seven members, most of them Americans close to the president, with the exception of Britain’s Tony Blair, or senior officials in the administration; and (2) under it, an executive board for the Gaza Strip with 11 members, including representatives from Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and the UAE and an Israeli businessman. Some members serve on both boards. In addition, Nickolay Mladenov, a former UN envoy to the peace process, was appointed commissioner of the board for the Gaza Strip.

In the announcement marking the formal start of Phase II, Witkoff said that a transition would begin from a ceasefire to the demilitarization of the Strip, technocratic governance, and reconstruction. He stated that the technocratic committee would be responsible for Gaza’s demilitarization, its rehabilitation, and confiscation of weapons from anyone not authorized to carry them. According to Witkoff and President Trump, the United States expects Hamas to fulfill all its commitments, including the immediate return of the body of the last hostage, Ron Gvili, and warned that failure to do so could have serious consequences. This is the time, Trump added, to end the suffering of Gaza’s residents.

What Comes Next for Gaza and Trump’s Board of Peace

Robert Barron

Trump Advances Gaza Peace Plan. In mid-January 2026, the Trump administration advanced its peace plan for Gaza from phrase one to phase two — “from ceasefire to demilitarization, technocratic governance, and reconstruction.” In a White House press statement issued on Jan. 16, President Donald Trump outlined the structure of these next steps:

A National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) will consist of 15 Palestinian technocrats tasked with leading the “restoration of core public services, the rebuilding of civil institutions, and the stabilization of daily life in Gaza, while laying the foundation for long-term, self-sustaining governance.”
A “founding Executive Board,” operating under the Board of Peace to advance President Trump’s peace plan, will include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, former Senior Advisor to the President Jared Kushner, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, former U.N. diplomat Nickolay Mladenov, businessman Marc Rowan, World Bank President Ajay Banga, and Assistant to the President for Policy Robert Gabriel. Each board member is slated to oversee “a defined portfolio critical to Gaza’s stabilization and long-term success, including, but not limited to, governance capacity-building, regional relations, reconstruction, investment attraction, large-scale funding, and capital mobilization.”

What to Expect from Africa-China Relations in 2026

Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo Member Wang Yi’s annual inaugural visit to Africa in January sets the tone for Africa-China relations each year. A diplomatic tradition observed since 1991, the trip is Wang’s 63rd visit to Africa since 2013. He has advanced a five-point agenda:

Accelerating implementation of the 2024-2027 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Action Plan ahead of the 2027 FOCAC summit in the Republic of the Congo
Consolidating critical mineral supply chains
Deepening political party-to-party and government-to-government ties
Expanding security cooperation and military modernization
Securing African diplomatic support for China’s broader geostrategic initiatives at the global level

These priorities underscore a Chinese approach that seeks to align its economic, security, and diplomatic interests in Africa. African countries’ collective policy objectives, by contrast, remain less clearly articulated. To help unpack African perspectives and strategic trade-offs, the Africa Center for Strategic Studies spoke with Ambassador Fred Ngoga, who coordinates external partnerships for the African Union (AU), including relations with China.

Jamestown FoundationChina Brief

China Brief

January 10, 2025, v. 26, no. 1

Xi Projects Confidence in Shorter New Year’s Speech
PLA Justice Mission 2025 Further Rehearses Taiwan Invasion Operations
Beijing Accelerates Clearance of ‘Naked Officials’ from Top Ranks
Near-Seas Force Locking Reshapes Gulf of Aden Naval Missions
CNP Part III: Growing CNP Drove Foreign Policy Shift

January 24, 2025, v. 26, no. 2

Sodium Supply Chain Emerges to Support Lithium Alternatives
EMP Weapons Expose PRC Military Vulnerability
Pickleball Diplomacy Links U.S. Students to CCP
Purges, Training Reform Affected Pressure on Taiwan in 2025

Strength Over Peace: Venezuela, Iran, and the Dicey Politics of Military Intervention

Jeffrey A. Friedman

American President Donald Trump wants to be known as the U.S. leader who ends wars—the “president of peace,” as he puts it. He campaigned in 2016 as someone who would put a stop to endless overseas entanglements and, in 2020 and 2024, as one of the few modern American leaders who didn’t start a conflict. But Trump’s behavior over the last year has been remarkably hawkish. Within just the last two months, he has bombed two countries and sunk multiple ships in the Caribbean. He is now massing American naval forces near Iran, which he attacked in June. And on January 3, he had American troops fly into Caracas in the dead of night, grab Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, and take them to New York City to face criminal charges.

The domestic political consequences of Trump’s hawkish pivot are not yet clear. His actions in Venezuela, for instance, have drawn condemnations from Democrats and also some Republicans who embraced Trump’s promise to forgo foreign wars. Polls taken shortly before and after the attack on Venezuela show that fewer than 40 percent of Americans thought the move was a good idea.

The Limits of Russian Power: Why Putin Isn’t Thriving in Trump’s Anarchic World

Michael Kimmage and Hanna Notte

On the eve of invading Ukraine in 2022, Russia enjoyed a decent global position. It had a strong partnership with China; extensive economic ties with Europe; a working relationship, however fraught, with the United States; and an informal network of partners with which to do business. Russia dominated few countries (other than Belarus) but also had few real enemies and could exercise influence beyond its neighborhood. More than a rising or declining power, Russia was a protean power.

Then Russia invaded Ukraine. In response, Europe and the United States immediately became Moscow’s adversaries. The Kremlin, having lost much of its diplomatic influence in Europe, became much more reliant on China. The war, meanwhile, has absorbed Russia’s attention and virtually all of its military capacity, making it hard for Moscow to steer events farther afield.

Cost constraints on the US–Russia strategic nuclear balance after New START

Alexander K. Bollfrass

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, New START, the last legally binding bilateral treaty limiting the United States’ and Russia’s strategic nuclear forces, expired on 5 February 2026. Under its central limits, each side was restricted to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads and 700 deployed delivery systems.

Despite both countries’ leaders expressing interest in maintaining New START’s ceilings as recently as late 2025, no new agreement was reached. As a result, the bilateral strategic nuclear balance is now unregulated for the first time since 1972, leaving both sides without a formal mechanism to discuss a range of issues on their respective agendas. While each is modernising its strategic forces, cost constraints and numerical parity between the two suggest a major build-up in warhead numbers is unlikely in the short term.

2026 - 2036: A Defining Decade

Jack Gardner

In 2036, daily life will look and feel very different. We are in a period of profound disruption driven by rapid technological advances, heightened international tension, and turbulent internal politics across much of the Western world. It is one of those rare historic inflection points in which nearly every aspect of everyday life is ultimately affected.

While much is unpredictable, the United States remains uniquely positioned to shape the next decade for the better. In many ways this can be a defining era for our nation. But achieving this will be an uphill battle - we face a number of challenges that require action, and our internal politics are so chaotic that our attention is constantly diverted from one issue to another. To ensure we come through this decisive period in a stronger position we must look past the chaos and turbulence and sustain a coherent focus on three core priorities.

The steel porcupine: How Ukraine plans to defend itself after the war

Veronika Melkozerova

KYIV — Ukraine fears it can’t rely on security guarantees from its allies in any potential peace deal, and so must be ready to stand alone as a “steel porcupine” to ensure that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin won’t return for another attack. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last year exhorted Kyiv to turn the country "into a steel porcupine, indigestible for present and future aggressors." That means a permanent massive army, heavy investment in the latest drone and missile technology, and domestic arms production.

“Ukraine has undergone a fundamental rethinking of what security guarantees mean and what they should be based on," Alyona Getmanchuk, head of Ukraine's mission to NATO, told POLITICO. "Previously, the vision was primarily centered on protection commitments provided by partners. Today, however, there is a clear understanding that the core of any security guarantees must be Ukraine’s army and its defense industries.”

'Still lethal': As Tehran tests US resolve, Iranian drones pose a deadly threat, experts say

DANIELLE GREYMAN-KENNARD

Iran's drones are slow, but present a significant threat due to their numbers as part of Iran's attempts to oversaturate Western air defense systems. The Iranian Shahed-139 drone launch toward the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea on Tuesday was part of Tehran’s message to US President Donald Trump, an expert told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.

The Islamic regime is “trying to make good on its threat that, if there is another war, it will be a region-wide war,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, the Iran Program Senior Director and Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank in Washington, toldthe Post. Recounting how Iranian officials, most recently among them Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have threatened regional stability as a consequence of an attack, Taleblu said that Tehran was showing the “Persian Gulf stands to become a theater of conflict.”

From Defence to Offence: How Anti-Drone Technologies Are Empowering Militants in a New Era of Coordinated Drone Warfare

Imtiaz Baloch and Esham Farooq

In 2025, Pakistani security forces witnessed at least 405 quadcopter attacks by Islamists Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) and Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen (IMP) in parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province. Concurrently, TTP and IMP acquired anti-drone technology to ward off aerial attacks and disrupt the surveillance and monitoring capabilities of police and security forces. This could signify a potential arms race between militant groups to accelerate drone attacks and adopt technologies to evade counter-terrorism efforts.

Attacks by TTP and IMP are aimed at achieving strategic leverage in geographic areas that are otherwise beyond their usual physical reach. The convergence of defensive measures (anti-drone systems) with offensive tactics (drone attacks) reflects a significant shift in the militant operational landscape. While displaying their anti-drone capabilities, these groups have simultaneously launched coordinated drone attacks, an emerging tactic that marks a new phase in militant warfare in Pakistan. Such coordination demonstrates increasing sophistication in planning, communication, and technological adaptation. This trend highlights not only the normalisation of drone-based technologies in the region but also the militants’ parallel emphasis on protecting their operational spaces through disrupting surveillance measures.

The Tech Policy Toolkit | Data Tools for Economic Statecraft and National Security

Technology policy now sits at the center of economic and national security decision-making. Policymakers need tools that translate abstract strategy into concrete analysis and action. The sources below function as applied tools for technology policy and economic statecraft. Analysts use them to scope authorities, assess leverage, track outcomes, and inform real-world policy choices.

CSET Core Tool Stack. The Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University provides data-driven frameworks and analytic tools that policymakers use to assess strategic technologies, global competition, and policy tradeoffs across the full technology lifecycle.

Night Vision at a Crossroads: When Technology Outpaces the Neurobiology of Close Combat

Alan Kearney

A few months ago, during a closed-door seminar involving senior officials in the United States defense community, I raised a concern about the direction of night-vision modernization. I argued that fusion-driven visual systems and digital awareness ecosystems may be advancing faster than the human brain can reliably use them in moments of extreme danger. What followed was instructive. Several officials noted that they were already hearing similar concerns from elite special operations forces and combat aviators: These systems perform exceptionally well in deliberate, low-stress conditions, but become harder to use at the edge of consciousness, when life-threatening decisions must be made instantly.

The issue is not that the technology is poor. On the contrary, it is extraordinarily sophisticated. The problem is that it is increasingly misaligned with how the human brain functions under the stress of lethal environments. This is not a marginal technical critique. It is a structural challenge emerging at the intersection of human physiology, combat psychology, and defense modernization. Unless the trajectory changes, Western militaries risk fielding systems that excel in demonstrations and controlled testing, yet underperform in close combat—not because they fail technically, but because they do not align with human biology when it matters most.

Bombs, Bots, and the Principle of Distinction: The Law of Armed Conflict and Contemporary Warfare

Nathan G. Wood

Militaries around the world are developing increasingly autonomous weapons systems. These efforts, however, have been met with staunch opposition from a number of groups.1 Critics object that “autonomous weapons would face great, if not insurmountable, difficulties in reliably distinguishing between lawful and unlawful targets as required by international humanitarian law.”2 One part of this objection argues that autonomous weapons system(s) (AWS) cannot recognize the subtle cues that can distinguish civilians from combatants, active combatants from those attempting to surrender, or active combatants from those who are out of action due to unconsciousness, wounds, or sickness (hors de combat).3 A second concern is that autonomous weapons may have certain features that render them unpredictable, making their use inherently indiscriminate.4 As a result, opponents charge, such weapons would be in breach of international humanitarian law (IHL) and the principle of distinction.5

These objections fundamentally mistake what is required under the principle of distinction, rely on inaccurate depictions of AWS, and misunderstand what IHL demands with regard to the use of these weapons. The core of the principle of distinction is not concerned with regulating weapons, but rather uses of weapons. Precautions in attack and the principle of proportionality both affect distinction in war, and the relevant question is not about the technology per se, but the conditions under which commanders are required to exercise greater care. The principle of distinction will indeed set bounds on how AWS may be used, and on when, where, and under what limitations they may be deployed, but it cannot underpin any blanket prohibitions for existing or near-future autonomous weapons.6 Autonomous weapons do create legitimate ethical and legal worries, but we must identify actual problems rather than chasing phantom concerns rooted in misunderstandings about technology and military operations

The Changing Face of War | Texas National Security Review

The Changing Face of War (Winter 2026) issue of the Texas National Security Review is a standout, featuring a slate of compelling articles that tackle “the world’s hardest problems.” In their opening article, TNSR directors Adam Klein and Joseph Maguire connect that ambition to the moment, writing that the post–Cold War order is “being battered by several concurrent trends,” and that “wise guidance should come from America’s great universities.” They argue that universities must honor their “social contract with American society” and remember that they are “quite literally, public trusts.” They frame TNSR as “an investment by the University of Texas” in fulfilling that public trust by elevating rigorous, accessible thinking on today’s pressing security challenges.

7 February 2026

Bangladesh And Sri Lanka Foil Indian Tycoon Adani’s Bid To Foist Unequal Deals – Analysis

Shiamak Ali

Bangladesh is home to the world’s 8th largest population– composing around 175 million people pressed into one of South Asia’s most dynamic developmental arcs. Meeting the power needs of such scale is not a peripheral challenge; it is resoundingly structural. Presently, Bangladesh ranks 32nd globally in total electricity consumption, yet that ranking obscures more than it reveals: since 2000, total electricity use in the country has expanded by roughly 550%, an almost unparalleled jump in demand and industrialization.

This surge is not a historical footnote. Rather, it reflects a nation still early in its economic ascent, with a rapidly growing population and abundant room to climb within the global developmental hierarchy. Far from plateauing, Bangladesh’s electricity demand appears set to accelerate, driven not by excess but by sheer necessity– as households urbanize, factories proliferate, and the power grid struggles to keep pace with ambitions that outstrip capacity.

The Long Game:Pakistan’s Military and the Collapse of the Hybrid Pretense

The story of how Pakistan’s army, with the tacit and often explicit support of imperial patrons in Washington, engineered this slow-motion coup spans generations. It involves billions in military aid funneled through cooperative dictators, systematic destruction of political alternatives, and the construction of an economic empire that dwarfs the official defense budget. And at the center of this moment in history stands one man whose refusal to play by the old rules has exposed the entire architecture of control: Imran Khan, languishing in Adiala Jail not for crimes committed but for the unforgivable sin of seeing through the establishment’s machinations and refusing to be their frontman.

This analysis draws on decades of observable patterns, connecting dots that reveal a consistent strategy. Khan came to power despite establishment resistance that deliberately weakened his mandate, but what the generals fatally miscalculated was that they were dealing with someone who actually believed in the reform agenda he campaigned on. They thought his charisma and popularity could provide perfect cover for business as usual if kept weak enough to control. Instead, they got a leader who recognized their game and chose resistance over complicity. And at the center of the current arrangement sits what can only be described as Pakistan Democratic Movement 2.0, a recycled coalition of the same old faces serving as little more than pencil pushers and rubber stamps for decisions made in GHQ.

Taiwan: Defense And Military Issues – Analysis

Caitlin Campbell

Taiwan (which formally calls itself the Republic of China, or ROC) is a self-governing democracy of 23.3 million people located across the Taiwan Strait from mainland China. The People’s Republic of China (PRC, or China) claims but has never controlled Taiwan. PRC leaders have stated their preference to unify peacefully with Taiwan, but have insisted on the right to use force to bring Taiwan under PRC control.

U.S. policy toward Taiwan has prioritized maintaining peace and stability across the Strait. For more than 75 years, the U.S. government has sought to strengthen Taiwan’s and its own ability to deter PRC military aggression. The PRC, for its part, has claimed the United States uses Taiwan as a “pawn” to “contain” China. Congress has long championed U.S.-Taiwan defense ties, and has authorized new programs and appropriated additional funds to support Taiwan’s defense since 2022. For more information on cross-Strait relations and U.S. policy toward Taiwan, see CRS In Focus IF10275, Taiwan: Background and U.S. Relations, by Susan V. Lawrence.

China’s Cheap Oil Strategy Is Becoming a Geopolitical Liability

Nik Foster

The U.S government’s removal of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro last month is upending broader geopolitics as we know it. Informed by the second Trump administration’s focus on the Western Hemisphere, and codified in the November 2025 National Security Strategy, which calls for direct action against regimes Washington deems destabilizing or hostile to U.S. interests, the action signals that Venezuela’s future will likely be tied closely to the whims of Washington, D.C.

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves, as well as an abundance of gold, diamonds, and other natural resources. As Western sanctions on Venezuela have dramatically curtailed its oil exports to the United States and Europe, the country has found a reliable buyer for its crude oil in China, which has purchased up to 80 percent of Venezuela’s oil exports in recent years at discount rates.

Ruptures in China’s Leadership Could Be Due to Paranoia and Power Plays

Edward Wong and Julian E. Barnes

Since taking the reins of the world’s most populous superpower nearly 14 years ago, Xi Jinping has ravaged the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party. He has taken down ruling officials, security chiefs and children of the party’s “red aristocracy.” But even by those standards, his latest purge was remarkable. The Chinese defense ministry’s announcement on Jan. 24 that the country’s top military leader, Gen. Zhang Youxia, and an associate, Gen. Liu Zhenli, were under investigation for “grave violations” startled officials and analysts in Washington. General Zhang is a venerated war veteran long believed to be loyal to Mr. Xi.

U.S. officials have been trying to sift through the murky waters of elite politics in Beijing to figure out why China’s leader took such a dramatic step. They say it is critical for the U.S. government to get a handle on Mr. Xi’s state of mind because his policies, like those of President Trump, affect everything from the global economy to the operations of one of the world’s most powerful militaries. But current and former U.S. officials say that no obvious reason has emerged behind Mr. Xi’s latest actions. The Chinese leader could be acting out of paranoia, defending himself against a real political challenge, or genuinely attempting to address high-level corruption in the People’s Liberation Army, they say.

As a parade of US allies rattled by Trump visit China, Beijing claims a win for its new world order

Simone McCarthy

As US President Donald Trump takes a sledgehammer to longstanding alliances with a volatile foreign policy that’s included threats to take control of Greenland and a spiraling feud with Canada, he’s also creating a significant opening for China. Look no further than the revolving door of Western leaders hosted by Xi Jinping in recent weeks aiming to reset relations or deepen cooperation with the world’s second-largest economy.

That procession includes the leaders of some of the US’ closest traditional allies: Britain’s Keir Starmer and Canada’s Mark Carney last month, as well as NATO ally Finland’s Petteri Orpo. French President Emmanuel Macron made a visit in December, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is expected soon. Viewed from Beijing, that list is a powerful sign that an era of talking about economic separation from China is waning, and Western leaders are finally seeing China as a reliable partner – in contrast to the US under Trump.

China’s Redlines Aren’t Where You Think They Are | USNI Proceedings

In China’s Redlines Aren’t Where You Think They Are, Lt. Col. Brian Kerg argues that U.S. planners consistently misread the sources of escalation risk in the Taiwan Strait. Drawing on the First, Second, and Third Taiwan Strait Crises, he shows that Chinese escalation has been driven by perceived threats to political narratives and objectives rather than by the mere presence or use of U.S. military power.

The article challenges assumptions that restraint preserves stability and instead identifies substantial maneuver space for U.S. naval and amphibious forces to deter aggression without crossing Beijing’s true redlines. Kerg concludes that stability depends on avoiding political challenges to the status quo while making any attack on Taiwan carry an unmistakable risk of war with the United States.

Machines in the Alleyways: China’s Bet on Autonomous Urban Warfare

Michael C. Loftus

Much of the public discussion on China’s development of autonomous weapons systems thus far has centered on the sea and air domains but have not grappled with how the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could deploy these systems for urban warfare. This analysis of Chinese efforts to automate anti-submarine warfare, enable long-range missile targeting of U.S. carrier strike groups through satellite-based radar, and the Center of Naval Analyses’ recent report on drone swarms’ role in China’s counter-intervention strategy is absolutely essential. However, for any invasion of Taiwan to succeed, the PLA must win not just on solitary stretches of sea, but amid the clamor of crowded civilian streets.

Home to 23 million civilians, Taiwan is one of the most urbanized places on earth. In the north, nearly 10 million people live in the metropolitan belt stretching from Taipei through New Taipei City and Taoyuan. In the south, Kaohsiung anchors another dense urban sprawl. While there is no general consensus whether a PLA invasion would concentrate on either point, both strategies would require daunting urban warfare.

How might a functional ‘M12’ grouping of middle powers look like?

Gabriel Elefteriu

As world order frays and old alliances falter, the search is on for new solutions to stabilise the international system while preserving at least some of the principles and aspects of the outgoing dispensation that have served Western powers well since the Second World War. The problem facing statesmen today is not simply practical – that is, related to the changing balance of power, especially in military terms, and the emergence of Tripolarity. An additional and perhaps more important challenge is the intellectual, or even philosophical, foundations which should underlie the next iteration of a global political architecture for peace and security.

In the modern world, at least, any such “system” requires some legitimising and organising principle at its core, in order to be viable for any significant period of time. The post-Napoleonic Vienna system was grounded in the idea of sovereign equality and restoration or preservation of traditional monarchies. After the First World War “collective security” combined with national self-determination to provide a new basis for world order, which failed. The post-1945 world introduced the UN system as a source of legitimacy, with the special authority of the veto-wielding “permanent five” members of the UN Security Council. Of course, in practical terms stability derived not from P5 consensus but from containment and nuclear deterrence – but the UN and the “international community” were a crucial factor in the political and strategic calculations of the two superpowers in an age of acute ideological confrontation.

The new right: Anatomy of a global political revolution

Mark Leonard

“[Europe’s] economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure”, proclaimed the United States’ new National Security Strategy (NSS), published on December 4th 2025. “Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognisable in 20 years or less,” the document added. “As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies”.

It was quite unlike any past NSS—even the one published by Donald Trump’s first administration in 2017. Gone were the establishment American homilies to shared transatlantic values and interests, and the sanctity of the relationship with European allies. In their place was a brutal assault on the politics and culture of today’s Europe that implied that continued US investment in the continent’s security could be conditional on reversing this “civilisational erasure”. It also asserted that the second Trump administration would embrace “the growing influence of patriotic European parties”—seemingly a reference to the rise of the nationalist forces in much of Europe.

The future of world order

Francis J. Gavin

The contemporary world order is poorly suited to today's dynamic, changing international system, a disparity that lies at the heart of our current sense of crisis. What will the state of world order be 10, 15, 20 years from now? Any analysis of world order and its future is only as good as the underlying assumptions it is based upon. I offer five.

The first assumption involves defining terms clearly. ‘World order’ does not mean the same thing as the ‘international system’, though these terms are often used interchangeably. Nor is world order the same as ‘theories of international relations’. The international system describes how the world works: what are its features and characteristics, principal drivers, dangers, constraints, actors and opportunities that shape global affairs. Some suggest it is shaped by unchanging, structural and material forces, whereas others believe the international system shifts over time and can be altered through political interventions.

PLA Assessments on the Centrality of Space Power in Ukraine

Sunny Cheung

In December 2025, Beijing submitted its largest-ever coordinated filings for satellite spectrum and orbital slots to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Covering 203,000 satellites, the filings indicate plans to build extensive non-geostationary satellite constellations (Science and Technology Daily, January 11). The move came shortly after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee elevated commercial space to the status of a “strategic emerging industry” (战略性新兴产业) in its recommendations for the upcoming five-year plan. This designation will trigger a new wave of state support and private investment (Xinhua, October 28, 2025; China Brief, December 6, 2025).

Satellite constellations, like many space technologies, are dual-use. Researchers with ties to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) are studying how such satellite systems have reshaped the battlefield during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (RAND, March 24, 2025; China Brief, April 11, 2025). Chinese military and defense-technology writers have treated the war as a stress test of modern space-enabled warfare, especially the fusion of military space assets with commercial satellites. Across dozens of Chinese-language analyses, a consistent picture emerges. Satellites are no longer a niche enabler sitting behind air, land, and maritime operations. They are increasingly framed as the “foundation” (底座) of combat power, supporting command and control (C2), precision strike, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), battlefield connectivity, and even the public information environment.

The Clash of Civilizations at 30

Graham McAleer

Huntington was right to highlight the West's civilizational achievement. About Samuel Huntington’s “seminal book,” Zbigniew Brzezinski says, “the sheer size of [the] book’s global readership testifies that it satisfied the widespread craving for a comprehensive understanding of our currently turbulent historical reality.” Published after the ideological wars of the twentieth century, Huntington’s 1996 The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order argued that moving forward, the central and most dangerous phenomenon in global affairs would be “conflict between groups from differing civilizations.” Despite the best-seller numbers, commentators from the left and the right reacted negatively. In The Nation, Edward Said rebuked “this belligerent kind of thought.” John Gray pointed out that history shows war happens more within civilizations than between them, citing the catastrophes of WW1, WW2, and the Cold War as examples.

Huntington is well able to blunt Said’s point, for his conflict claim had a corollary, that “an international order based on civilizations is the surest safeguard against world war.” In fairness, Huntington, who died in 2008, was more interested in order than in war. Gray contends that the great twentieth century conflicts were resource wars, not disputes between value orders. Yet hierarchies of worth promoted by civilizations must shape how peoples value land. Huntington identified Sinic, Japanese, Orthodox, Christian West, Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist, African, and Latin civilizations. The list is obviously unstable, with all manner of overlaps, yet some such classification of order rings true, and this is why “big picture” philosophies of history work along these lines.

The US Is Not Built For War Or Peace

Jesse R. Humpal, Ph.D., Jahara “FRANKY” Matisek, Ph.D.

A minor power outage in San Francisco offered a quiet preview of a strategic vulnerability hiding in plain sight. As traffic signals went dark, dozens of autonomous Waymo vehicles stalled, unable to read the roadway. With hazard lights blinking, they gridlocked intersections and slowed large parts of the city to a crawl until tow trucks arrived.

That episode is a stark warning for military logistics. The same cascading failure that paralyzed civilian mobility could halt the movement of forces from fort to port. Friction emerges not from a single event, but from interdependent systems degrading in unison. Yet, American policymakers assume the industrial base is resilient, when it is actually brittle, optimized for just-in-time supply chains and just-enough capacity. When shocks hit (e.g., pandemics, wars, political instability, cyber incidents, or weaponized supply chains), Washington responds with emergency authorities and surge funding, confusing endurance with readiness. A system that merely limps through disruption is optimized for continuity, not crisis.

The devil you know is better than the one you don’t: Proponents still fail to detail benefits of Beijing-led order

Stephen Kuper

As the United States continues to emphasise locking down the western hemisphere, Beijing continues to expand its reach across the Indo-Pacific, with some claiming a Chinese-led region is preferable to a pseudo-imperial US-led order, but what does that look like?

Since the end of the Second World War, Australia’s economic, political and strategic outlook has been shaped above all by two external relationships: its longstanding alliance with the United States and its increasingly consequential and complex relationship with the People’s Republic of China. Together, these relationships have underpinned Australia’s prosperity and security while also generating the central strategic tensions confronting the country today.

The Australia–United States relationship emerged directly from the experience of the Pacific War. The fall of Singapore and Britain’s inability to defend Australia decisively ended any lingering reliance on the United Kingdom as Australia’s principal security guarantor. In its place, Australia turned to the United States, a shift formalised in the 1951 ANZUS Treaty. Throughout the Cold War, this alliance was reinforced by shared democratic values, deepening intelligence cooperation, and Australia’s participation alongside the US in major conflicts, including Korea and Vietnam.

A New World Order? Careful What You Wish For

Shivshankar Menon

The old world is dying, the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.

— Antonio Gramsci, at the end of WWI

What explains the persistent attraction of the idea of world order, even before technology and globalization made a truly global order possible in the late nineteenth century, and even now, when signs of its absence proliferate?

I speak here of a world order in both senses: as an attempt to order the known world, and as an ordering of international affairs on a global scale. The dictionary definition of world order is even more ambitious: “a system controlling events in the world, especially a set of arrangements established internationally for preserving global political stability.” A less lofty and more practical definition of the international order would be: the interconnected set of rules, norms, and institutions established by the great powers for managing conflict and cooperation.1 When that definition applies to the entire known world, such an order becomes a world order.

Red Sea To East Africa: China’s Infrastructure Power And The New Maritime Statecraft – Analysis

Akshan Ranjan and Khushnuma Alam

The Indian Ocean and Red Sea is subject to witness increasing intensified rivalry and owing to this Africa’s maritime topography has assumed increased strategic importance. The recent Chinese investments in ports across key nations of East Africa such as Tanzania, Kenya and Djibouti are often depicted as precursors to military installations abroad or covert power projection.

However, these concerns are justified but they risk neglecting a more consequential reality. Comparatively, a more subdued form of maritime statecraft is reflected by China’s outlook to African ports. Instead of depending totally upon the overt coercive forces China assembles its influence via integration of logistics, commercial connectivity and the development of the infrastructure. Countries of East Africa present an interesting case of China gaining strategic benefits that function below the threshold of formal securitisation process by integrating itself into Africa’s political economy of transportation and commerce, ultimately affecting and reshaping the larger maritime order.

Elizabeth Saunders’ “The Insiders’ Game”

Mara Karlin

Elizabeth Saunders’s The Insiders’ Game offers a rich perspective regarding how legislators, military leaders, and high-ranking civilian officials shape national security decision-making. Elizabeth Saunders’s recent book, The Insiders’ Game, offers a positive contribution to the literature on war-making. By exploring the role of democratic elites in shaping major decisions regarding war and peace—including the approach, the parameters, and the length of a conflict—Saunders underscores that more people are at the decision-making table than readers may have previously considered. She focuses on three groups—legislators, military leaders, and high-ranking civilian officials—and the book is particularly useful in outlining how and in what ways these cohorts shape decision-making by imposing resource or informational costs on leaders. Although Saunders’s book provides a broad and rich view of multiple cases, her book is particularly illuminating in how it treats these dynamics during the formation of US policy toward Lebanon in the 1980s, and in comparing different administrations’ approaches to strategy during America’s post-9/11 wars.1

How Insiders Shaped a Fuzzy Mission in Lebanon. The calamitous national security decision-making that characterized President Ronald Reagan’s approach to Lebanon in 1982–84 has been well recounted. Saunders’s book provides clarity about the impact of this dysfunctional process; as she compellingly argues, the elite debates in Reagan’s administration ultimately constrained the US mission in Lebanon.

Ukraine hails 'real results' after Musk restricts Russian Starlink use

Laura Gozzi

Elon Musk's efforts to stop Russia from using Starlink satellites for drone attacks have "delivered real results", a Ukrainian official said. Praising the SpaceX founder as "a true champion of freedom and a true friend of the Ukrainian people", defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov said Musk had swiftly responded when he was told Russian drones with Starlink connectivity were operating in the country. The drones have been linked to a number of recent deadly attacks by Russia on Ukraine, including one on a moving passenger train which left six people dead.

"Looks like the steps we took to stop the unauthorised use of Starlink by Russia have worked," Musk wrote on X. "Let us know if more needs to be done." Starlink satellites operated by SpaceX provide high-speed internet around the world. It has worked in Ukraine since the first days of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022.

What the West Got Wrong About Russian “Hybrid Warfare”: Understanding Russian Unconventional Activities Will Determine Future Strategies and the Resilience of Europe

Dr. Sascha Hach, Austin Wright

Alongside Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, non-military operations across Europe have also been on the rise, blending methods of espionage, disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks and sabotage with other unconventional means of attack. These events have given new impetus to analyses on how to address the issue of ‘hybrid warfare’. The ongoing negotiations on a ceasefire and an end to the war have also raised the question of how Moscow’s employment of hybrid warfare can be curbed, or whether we must prepare for it to continue even after the fighting ends. In this context, it is important to understand the evolution of Russia’s unconventional methods of international interference and the conceptual reasoning behind them.

The Conceptual Rediscovery of Unconventional Warfare.During the Cold War the Soviet Union used “active measures” to pursue its political objectives: covert operations involving everything from disinformation and propaganda to agents of influence, subversion and sabotage, even kidnapping and assassinations. These actions, which coincided with an uptick in internal conflict across the globe, compelled Western strategists to grapple with the blurring of lines between military and civilian entities. Eventually, strategic theorist and defense analyst Frank Hoffman coined the term ‘hybrid warfare’, arguing that nations, not just rebel or terrorist groups, can combine irregular tactics and covert operations to achieve their goals both on and off the battlefield. While not the first to do so, Hoffman conceptually linked unconventional means with conventional practices of warfare in a way that came to dominate Western security conversations. This was especially the case during the War on Terror, when Hoffman’s model seemed to address the fluidity and interweaving of warfighting techniques that characterized political conflict the modern era. Consequently, this framework has been used to contextualize and interrogate Russia’s behavior towards the West with little consideration for Moscow’s own understanding of what can be achieved through covert measures below the threshold of war.

Assessing Developments in Anti-Technological Extremism with AI Data Centers

Jordyn Abrams

As AI develops, anti-technology extremism is evolving—making AI data centers symbolic, high-risk targets for ideologically diverse actors.

Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, may be seeing a resurgence in his ideology. However, this also may mean a resurgence in the violent methods he used to garner attention for his ideology. Kaczynski had an extremist, anti-technology ideology, solidified through his manifesto “Industrial Society and Its Future,” which was published in The Washington Post and The New York Times after he had threatened to continue his bombing campaign. The manifesto laid out Kaczynski’s ideology, in which he perceived technology as a “disaster for the human race” due to its psychological effects and its compulsion to lead an unfulfilling life. With artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly being integrated into all aspects of society, similar sentiments to Kaczynski’s concerns, ranging from increasing loneliness to job loss, are echoed. Fueled by some of these fears, threats to physically damage AI infrastructure have proliferated online in the past year. Tech infrastructure has been targeted before, for example, when an anti-government extremist with hopes to “kill off about 70 percent of the internet” plotted to bomb an Amazon data center in Virginia in 2021. Similarly, in January 2026, a far-left group in Germany claimed responsibility for a suspected arson attack near a Tesla factory with broader goals related to the environment. In the latest evolution of anti-technological extremism, aligned with multiple political narratives, AI data centers may become the new targets for attacks.