The Real Reason China and Russia Won’t Try a Maduro-Style Raid

Decker Eveleth

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In the wake of the United States’ capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, some observers and U.S. officials have warned that this may have given Moscow and Beijing a green light to pursue similar operations in Ukraine and Taiwan.

Just as the United States does not recognize the legitimacy of Maduro’s rule in Venezuela, Russia and China do not recognize the legitimacy of Ukraine’s and Taiwan’s respective independence. If China, for instance, were to seize Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, or if Russia were to capture Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, on what grounds could the United States reasonably object?

Overcapacity Is China’s Biggest AI Advantage

ANGELA HUYUE ZHANG

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The global AI race will be won not by the power of models and chips, but by how effectively systems can be deployed and improved across the economy. China’s chronic excess capacity, long seen as its greatest weakness, has reduced costs and accelerated adoption, providing the country's AI sector with a decisive edge.

LOS ANGELES – While debates over the AI race between the United States and China tend to fixate on which country has the most powerful frontier models and the most advanced semiconductors, that framing is becoming outdated. As AI moves from our screens into the physical world, the question is no longer whose models hit technical benchmarks, but who can build and sustain an ecosystem that embeds AI into everyday products and services.

Efforts By India And Bangladesh To Patch Up Differences Suffers Setback

P. K. Balachandran

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India and Bangladesh were at odds for more than a year since the overthrow of the pro-India government led by Sheikh Hasina in August 2024. However, in December 2025, the two countries seemed to be on the way to patching up. New Delhi offered a hand of friendship to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), an emerging force in Bangladesh, using the passing away of its respected leader, Khaleda Zia, as an occasion to do so.

But the patch-up bid was short lived.

Come January 2026, the two countries have fallen out again because of events in each other’s domestic sphere. Both New Delhi and Dhaka have had to respond to pressures from domestic groups to take tough lines on certain issues. Though the two governments have not gone after each other in the same way as their populations did, there is tension in the air and further moves to strengthen ties have been put on hold.

Afghanistan’s Post Opium Drug Trade – Another Challenge for Pakistan?

Qurat-UL-Ain Shabbir

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The Pakistan Navy ship Yarmook seized two dhow sailing boats in the Arabian Sea on 27 October, carrying for about 2.5 tons of crystal methamphetamine, also known as Ice, and 50 kg of cocaine. It was one of the largest drug seizures in maritime history, with the haul estimated to be valued at a staggering 972 million dollars. Besides the sheer magnitude of these numbers, there is an underlying reality that is more disturbing: a booming regional drug economy that is becoming increasingly rooted in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has long been the center of the international drug trade. Its drug economy generates billions of dollars every year which are then used to fuel terrorism, transnational organized crime and cross border militancy. Afghanistan was producing about 80-90% of the world’s opium, making it the largest producer globally before 2022. Over time, Afghanistan’s southern and eastern regions, long known as hotbeds of militancy and centers of opium cultivation, have also emerged as significant producers of methamphetamine. The ephedra plant is used for meth production and is found in abundance in the Afghan mountains. As per a UNODC report a surge in methamphetamine trafficking has been noted in recent years from Afghanistan to neighboring countries.

How to Save the Fight for Women’s Rights

Saskia Brechenmacher

Source Linik

Three decades after the Beijing Platform for Action, the groundbreaking UN declaration that affirmed that women’s rights are human rights, the global movement for gender equality and women’s empowerment is under strain. Adopted in 1995 and signed by 189 governments, the ambitious framework spurred a generation of legal reforms, gains in political representation, and consolidation of norms around gender equality. Today, however, that momentum is faltering. Although some countries continue to make steady progress, a UN report released in March 2025 found that one in four countries is experiencing a backlash against gender equality. Around the world, 270 million women lack access to modern contraception, one in three women experiences gender-based violence, and women are systematically underrepresented in countries’ political and economic leadership.

It is tempting to blame the current impasse on specific leaders. U.S. President Donald Trump and his cabinet are openly hostile to domestic and international gender equality commitments, dismissing efforts to promote gender equity as “woke” overreach. Hungarian President Viktor Orban, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Russian President Vladimir Putin have all built their strongman images by dismissing feminism as radical and corrosive.

The Ways Trump Could Try to Take Greenland

Miranda Jeyaretnam

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President Donald Trump has long mused about the U.S. taking over Greenland, a suggestion that European leaders and Greenlanders have both bristled and scoffed at. But after the U.S. raided Venezuela over the weekend, Trump’s arctic bluster appears more serious than ever.

A day after the attack on Venezuela, which killed dozens of people and deposed its leader Nicolás Maduro, Katie Miller, the wife of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, posted on X a map of Greenland with the American flag superimposed on it. “SOON,” she wrote in the caption. Stephen Miller told CNN on Monday that “the formal position of the U.S. [is] that Greenland should be part of the U.S.”

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

Casey Michel

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With U.S. President Donald Trump’s operations in Venezuela appearing, at least in the administration’s eyes, to be a success, the White House appears eager to build upon its foreign-policy momentum. And while there are plenty of opportunities the administration may turn to next, there is one geopolitical project that stands in the immediate offing: annexing Greenland.

Trump himself said as much over the weekend. “We do need Greenland, absolutely,” Trump told the Atlantic on Sunday. “We need it for defense.” If anyone missed the message, administration surrogate Katie Miller—perhaps best known as the wife of White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s domestic and immigration policy—tweeted a photo of Greenland covered in an American flag, with the text, “SOON.”

Trump's Cabinet of main characters

Dave Lawler, Colin Demarest, Brittany Gibson

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Several members of President Trump's national security team have taken on unusually large public profiles — with frequent on-camera appearances, dramatic pronouncements and even eyebrow-raising wardrobe choices. Why it matters: It's no secret that Trump prefers his appointees to appear straight out of "central casting." But in national security roles, showmanship can quickly become a liability.

FBI director Kash Patel, for example, has seized the spotlight far more than his predecessors — often for all the wrong reasons. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seems to be merging his old job as a media personality with his new one running America's military. And Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has cast herself as the star of a well-funded media campaign — often pictured in tactical gear despite her bureaucratic role. What they're saying: Pentagon spokesperson Kingsley Wilson told Axios it's no accident that Hegseth has become "the most public-facing" secretary ever.

Chris Mason: UK grapples with new era of US unpredictability

Chris Mason

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The UK and its European neighbours confront two case studies, simultaneously, in how the continent is attempting, with varying degrees of success, to bind the United States into its future. Firstly, there is Ukraine and then there is Greenland. And all this at a time of deep scepticism in Washington about Europe: its importance, its outlook and its willingness to pull its weight to defend itself.

The futures of Ukraine and Greenland, both in the headlines at the same time, are the latest example of the mesmerising, head-spinning unpredictability of President Trump. rivately, senior figures in London have a knowing look when the wild uncertainty of the White House crops up in conversation. Every day is a rollercoaster, with little sense of where tomorrow or next week's twist might take them, take us.

The painful questions for Nato and the EU as Trump threatens Greenland

Katya Adler

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On Tuesday, the so-called Coalition of the Willing, largely made up of European leaders, met in Paris with envoys of US President Donald Trump, to try to make further progress on a sustainable peace deal for Ukraine. With Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky insisting a plan to end the war with Russia is "90% of the way there", no-one in that room wanted to jeopardise keeping the Americans onboard.

But there was an immense Greenland-shaped elephant in that grand and glittering Paris meeting. Greenland is the world's biggest island - it's six times the size of Germany. It lies in the Arctic but it is an autonomous territory of Denmark. And Donald Trump insists he wants it; needs it for US national security. Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Federiksen was at the Paris meeting. She's a key EU ally of many of the leaders attending; a key Nato ally of the United Kingdom.

After the fall: what Maduro’s capture means for criminal geopolitics

Irene Mia

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The dramatic military-law enforcement operation carried out by the United States in the early hours of 3 January 2026, culminating in the capture and forced transfer of Venezuela’s then-president Nicolás Maduro and his wife to the US to face charges on narcoterrorism, drug trafficking and weapons offences, marked a new high point in President Donald Trump’s vision of US hegemony in the Western Hemisphere – one in which energy and resource security, coercion, and transactional deal-making often take precedence over democratic principles, sovereignty, and international law.

Although the operation is reminiscent of the motivations and modus operandi of the 1989 US invasion of Panama, its repercussions are likely to be significantly more far-reaching, given the complicated backdrop against which it unfolded, marked by intensified great-power rivalry, the re-emergence of spheres-of-influence thinking in US foreign policy, the erosion of the rules-based international order, and the expanding reach of transnational criminal networks. While much attention will focus on how developments in Venezuela reshape regional geopolitics, US–Latin American relations, and Venezuela’s own future, the operation may also have important effects on criminal dynamics both domestically and internationally. These effects could ultimately threaten regional security and undermine the very ‘war on drugs’ that the Trump administration cited as the primary justification for the intervention.

The Transactional Trap

Michael Brenes

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The post–World War II order is dead. In its place, countries are fast adopting a values-neutral, transactional approach toward foreign policy. China was the progenitor of this approach to international relations: for over a decade, Beijing has pursued quid pro quo arrangements with countries around the world to create new markets and enhance its economic reach, generating diplomatic ties with both autocratic and democratic states. It has established itself as a great power through a model of state-capitalist economic development that eschews universal human rights or concerns about its trading partners’ system of government. Its lending practices may be predatory, but the recipients of Chinese loans and infrastructure projects have willingly, if sometimes begrudgingly, participated in its model.

The United States has, in recent months, pursued its own version of a transactional foreign policy. During his second term, President Donald Trump has rejected the framework of great-power competition. Washington has punished allies, partners, and enemies alike with exorbitant tariffs in order to gain diplomatic leverage, extract resources, and win concessions on trade. And he has pursued deals with countries as varied as Argentina, China, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea, without regard to those countries’ regime form, and relentlessly attacked the institutions (such as NATO) that undergirded the rules-based order. Most recently, after capturing and extraditing the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, he appears eager to secure deals with Maduro’s successor to benefit U.S. oil companies.

It’s Not About Drugs—Or Even Venezuela: Signaling and Strategic Competition - Modern War Institute

Ibrahima Diallo

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Recent rhetoric surrounding the Venezuelan regime of Nicolás Maduro has framed US policy primarily through the lens of counternarcotics. This framing and the emphasis on Venezuela, however, risks obscuring a more consequential development vis-a-vis China’s expansion and growing influence across vital maritime and logistical corridors around the world.

If reinvigorating the war on drugs was the principal objective, Venezuela would be a suboptimal focal point. It is a secondary transit node, not a production hub. Cocaine is produced primarily in Colombia while the majority of US-bound flows transit through Mexico rather than the Caribbean. The scale of Venezuelan flows alone is out of proportion with the level of military activity seen in recent months. This discrepancy suggests that drugs are a tactical concern nested within a broader context.

Pentagon will begin review of 'effectiveness' of women in ground combat positions

Tom Bowman

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Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel Anthony Tata wrote in a memo last month that the effort is to determine the "operational effectiveness of ground combat units 10 years after the Department lifted all remaining restrictions on women serving in combat roles."

Tata requested Army and Marine leaders to provide data on the readiness, training, performance, casualties and command climate of ground combat units and personnel. The services are to provide points of contact no later than January 15th to the Institute for Defense Analyses, a non-profit corporation that assists the government on national security issues. The memo says the data should include "all available metrics describing that individual's readiness and ability to deploy (including physical, medical, and other measures of ability to deploy.)"

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After US raid on Venezuela, analysts weigh lessons about Russian air defenses - Breaking Defense

Lee Ferran 

Source Linik

WASHINGTON — Ostensibly speaking about the US industrial base, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth took a short detour on Monday to take a victory lap regarding the surprise US military operation to snatch Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in a daring nighttime raid over the weekend.

“And then we saw three nights ago in downtown Caracas in Venezuela, as nearly 200 of our greatest Americans went downtown in Caracas. Seems those Russian air defenses didn’t quite work so well, did they?” Hegseth said to some applause during a visit to shipbuilders at Newport News. That Venezuela was guarded by Russian-provided tech was well known; Maduro himself boasted in October that he had 5,000 Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles at “key air defense positions.”

Venezuela issues 90-day order to ARREST anyone backing US attack as armed motorcycle gangs hunt down Trump supporters in Caracas

STEPHEN M. LEPORE

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Gangs of armed men on motorcycles are patrolling the streets of Caracas, looking for supporters of Donald Trump and his military operation in Venezuela with the support of at least one key government official. The Colectivos are a group of paramilitary militias that still support deposed leader Nicolas Maduro and have been searching vehicles at checkpoints. The bikers, many of them masked and armed with Kalashnikovs, have searched phones and cars looking for evidence of people backing Trump's action in Caracas as an unofficial tool of the state.

In the wake of Maduro's arrest, a 90-day state of emergency put in place by the Venezuelan government orders police to 'immediately begin the national search and capture of everyone involved in the promotion or support for the armed attack by the United States.' They have already arrested 14 journalists, 11 of whom come from out of the country, while others remain missing, The Telegraph reported.

How the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ Reinforces Xi’s Vision of Power in Asia

David Pierson 

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Just hours before American commandos seized President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela in a daring raid, a senior Chinese official had met the Venezuelan leader at the presidential palace, a show of support for one of Beijing’s closest partners in the Western Hemisphere.

The speed with which U.S. forces acted afterward to capture Mr. Maduro sent a blunt message to Beijing about the limits of its influence in a region that Washington treats as its own. China now risks losing ground in Venezuela after Saturday’s assault in Caracas, despite decades of investment and billions of dollars in loans.

But the assault also reinforces a broader logic that ultimately favors President Xi Jinping’s vision of China and its status in Asia: when powerful countries impose their will close to home, others tend to step back.

What the Venezuela Attack Means for China

James Palmer

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The highlights this week: China reacts to the U.S. attack on Venezuela, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a New Year’s Eve address, and China announces new export restrictions amid its standoff with Japan.

China Reacts to U.S. Strike on Venezuela

Last Friday, hours before he was seized by U.S. forces, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro met with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s special envoy to Latin America. While Qiu Xiaoqi’s visit was not unusual, its proximity to the U.S. attack may put Xi on edge.

According to Venezuela, the visit reaffirmed the “unbreakable nature of the brotherhood” between the two countries. In 2023, China upgraded its relationship with Venezuela to an “all-weather” partnership, a distinction typically reserved for allies such as Pakistan.

Operation Absolute Resolve: Anatomy of a Modern Decapitation Strike

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This article by Josh Luberisse provides a detailed operational analysis of “Operation Absolute Resolve,” the U.S. military operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026. The mission involved Delta Force operators inserted by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment into Caracas, successfully extracting Maduro in under three hours with minimal casualties. Luberisse examines the operation through the lens of asymmetric warfare, highlighting the five-month intelligence preparation by CIA ground teams, the comprehensive suppression of Venezuelan air defenses using over 150 aircraft, and the precision coordination that enabled special operations forces to achieve complete surprise despite conducting the raid during a full moon.

The author frames the operation as a masterclass in modern joint military capabilities, demonstrating how the integration of human intelligence, stealth surveillance, electronic warfare, and special operations forces has compressed decision spaces for targets lacking peer-level defensive capabilities.

Field Observation: Where the United States Tests Against Chinese Military Technology

Erika Lafrennie

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Back in September, I wrote about where Beijing was most likely to test new military technologies, identifying peripheral theaters where operational learning could occur without triggering direct confrontation with the United States.

Recent events suggest a useful mirror question:

Where is the United States most likely to test its ability to fight against Chinese military technology without fighting China directly?

The answer may be Venezuela.

For months, the US military buildup in the Caribbean appeared excessive if evaluated narrowly through the lens of counternarcotics, Venezuela-specific regime pressure, or regional deterrence. The scale, composition, and duration of forces deployed exceeded what those missions alone would seem to require.

Operation Absolute Resolve: A Rendition Revival?

Jim Crotty

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The extraordinary mission to capture Venezuelan President Nicholás Maduro marks a return to an old vision of American power and interventionism in the Western Hemisphere. It’s too soon to know what Maduro’s ouster will mean for the future of Venezuela and the broader implications for American foreign policy. However, one thing is clear: the operation was an unprecedented display of America’s military prowess that is sure to reverberate far beyond Caracas.

Few military operations are as bold and decisive as “Operation Absolute Resolve.” That a joint team of special operations forces and law enforcement personnel could infiltrate a hostile country and capture the sitting president with no loss of life or equipment is an incredible feat of “professionalism and precision.” Hollywood producers must be tripping all over themselves to buy the movie rights.

All The Pretty Airplanes Lined Up In A Row - Will America Get Serious About Force Protection From Drones Before It's Too Late?

L Todd Wood

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As a member of the Pentagon Press Corps, we have raised this issue with USAF management and look forward to their response on measures taken to address this serious threat.

If I was a domestic airbase commander, or overseas theater commander, this would give me nightmares -- an 18-wheeler pulls up a click from an airbase, the top opens, and scores of armed drones fly out, targeting your aircraft lined up on the ramp. Think billions in American force projection capability destroyed in a few minutes...at home, or abroad...irreplaceable.

Operation Spider Web by Ukraine* (aided by the West obviously) against the Russian Federation last year destroyed 30% of Russia's strategic airpower in minutes.

Trump's New Doctrine of Precision Deterrence

Garrison Moratto

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On January 3rd, 2020, President Donald Trump eliminated Iran’s Qassam Soleimani. On January 3rd, 2026, Trump seized Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro. These two divergent events, separated by exactly six years, reveal a new dynamic in American foreign and defense policy. With his 2020 strike on Soleimani, President Trump established an approach that has become clearer in his second term with the bombing of Fordow (Operation Midnight Hammer) and the remarkable raid to seize Nicolas Maduro (Operation Absolute Resolve). I call it Precision Deterrence: a dramatic level of force typically reserved for large scale operations, unconventionally constrained to limited aims.

While previous administrations have utilized precision strikes for limited objectives, the small scope was typically intended to restrict collateral damage, avoid large commitments, and was assumed to yield correspondingly limited benefits. The tradeoff was accepted as a means of avoiding war. Yet Trump’s activities on the other hand, are shaped with the severity and express intent to impose an asymmetric, psychological impact on foreign rivals, heightening the perception of unpredictability from America and at the same time amplifying perceptions of vulnerability in the victim. It is a sudden, shocking escalation that ends as soon as it begins. Precision Deterrence bears echoes of Richard Nixon’s famed “Madman Theory,” but with a bravado only made possible by 21st century military technology. Nixon’s theory frequently took the form of bluff, in a sense, it was the applied use of brinkmanship. Trump’s theory becomes readily kinetic, something more akin to a fait accompli.

The Cyber Wars That Weren’t

Derek Ray

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At the onset of the Israel-Iran conflict, news websites warned the public of the possible collateral damage the Israel-Iran fight could generate in cyberspace. The ominous warnings about the hacktivists flocking to both sides of the conflict were remarkably similar to those issued at the onset during the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas conflicts. Yet, despite the participants of these conflicts standing as some of the most cyber-capable states in the world, activities in cyberspace failed to translate into a meaningful battlefield effect, drawing into question the military utility of offensive cyber operations. This article analyzes the use of offensive cyber operations across the Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Hamas, and Israel-Iran conflicts and outlines lessons learned for how offensive cyber operations can factor into future conflicts.

Jumping the Gun? Timing Cyber & Kinetic Attacks

The onset of hostilities in all three conflicts included a flurry of cyber activity seemingly in tandem with attacks in the physical domain. Yet, there are meaningful differences regarding the nuanced timing of these cyberattacks that are indicative of two distinctly different offensive cyber strategies.

The Fog of AI What the Technology Means for Deterrence and War

Brett V. Benson and Brett J. Goldstein

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Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming indispensable to national security decision-making. Militaries around the world already depend on AI models to sift through satellite imagery, assess adversaries’ capabilities, and generate recommendations for when, where, and how force should be deployed. As these systems advance, they promise to reshape how states respond to threats. But advanced AI platforms also threaten to undermine deterrence, which has long provided the overall basis for U.S. security strategy.

Effective deterrence depends on a country being credibly able and willing to impose unacceptable harm on an adversary. AI strengthens some of the foundations of that credibility. Better intelligence, faster assessments, and more consistent decision-making can reinforce deterrence by more clearly communicating to adversaries a country’s defense capabilities as well as its apparent resolve to use them. Yet adversaries can also exploit AI to undermine these goals: they can poison the training data of models on which countries rely, thereby altering their output, or launch AI-enabled influence operations to sway the behavior of key officials. In a high-stakes crisis, such manipulation could limit a state’s ability to maintain credible deterrence and distort or even paralyze its leaders’ decision-making.