India must rethink strategy as Bangladesh’s anti-India rhetoric, electoral chaos escalate, says former envoy

Pradeep Tripathi

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As Bangladesh hurtles toward a critical election, concerns are mounting in New Delhi over rising anti-India rhetoric, the growing influence of Jamaat-e-Islami, and the country’s increasingly unstable political landscape. Former Indian diplomat Veena Sikri warns that without inclusive polls and a fair electoral process, India could face serious security challenges along its eastern borders and North-East, while Bangladesh risks deeper internal unrest and minority-targeted violence.

Anti-India rhetoric ‘weaponised’ for political gain

Sikri told Moneycontrol that anti-India narratives in Bangladesh are being deliberately “weaponised” by political actors for internal purposes.  “The anti-India rhetoric is only part of the political discourse in Bangladesh that has been done by Jamaat-e-Islami ever since they did the regime change operation… Even in the run-up to the regime change operation, they stepped up the anti-India rhetoric and it’s been there at that pitch,” she said.

China’s Aspirations to Weaponize Data

Jessica Lewis McFate

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It sounds like a headline ripped from the pages of a Marvel comic series. Super Soldiers

The data was allegedly collected through FocusCalm neuro feedback headbands, which athletes use to improve focus and performance. FocusCalm is developed by BrainCo, a Harvard-founded startup that later moved operations to China and received funding from organizations tie to China’s military-industrial complex.

It’s a potent example of how China’s military ambitions are moving beyond traditional espionage into the systematic exploitation of biometrics, commercial data, and other forms of intellectual property, and it helps explain why the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Foreign Ownership, Control, or Influence (FOCI) office considers China, as well as Russia, North Korea, and Iran, to be of great FOCI risk.

It also is among the reasons why the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that is now making its way through the U.S. Congress introduces some of the most far-reaching vendor-vetting requirements in recent history. Chief among them is the Ernst amendment, which mandates stronger safeguards to stop secret spending and by preventing vendors with undisclosed ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and other foreign adversaries from entering the federal supply chain. Provisions of the act call for agencies and contractors to establish validated, end-to-end screening processes or face compliance and mission risks.

Washington Should Reassess Its Alliance with Pakistan — and Its Potential Role in Gaza — Amid Tehran Ties

Anna Mahjar-Barducci

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Pakistan has repeatedly demonstrated its unreliability as a strategic partner.

Pakistan's leadership unfortunately prefers Iran to the United States — not to mention Israel. Unfortunately, the US cannot trust Pakistan — especially in Gaza.

Pakistan has, to this day, never recognized Israel. Pakistan was also the first country to recognize the Islamic Republic of Iran after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini established it in 1979. Iran had been the first country to recognize Pakistan upon its founding in 1947.

The most recent example of Pakistan's close alliance with Iran emerged during the June 2025 Twelve-Day War — a direct armed conflict between Iran and a coalition of Israel and the United States. Throughout the hostilities, Pakistan aligned firmly with Iran, publicly expressing unqualified solidarity with Tehran.

China's BYD overtakes Tesla as world's top EV seller

Osmond Chia

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China's BYD has overtaken Elon Musk's Tesla as the world's biggest seller of electric vehicles (EVs), marking the first time it has outpaced its American rival in annual sales.

Tesla car sales dropped by nearly 9% in 2025 to 1.64 million vehicles sold worldwide, the carmaker said on Friday - its second consecutive year of falling car deliveries.

Those figures placed Tesla behind BYD, which said on Thursday that sales of its battery-powered cars rose last year by almost 28% to more than 2.25 million.

The US firm has faced a tough year with a mixed reception to new offerings, unease over Musk's political activities and intensifying competition from Chinese rivals.

Tesla's car sales fell 16% during the last three months of 2025. The drop was partly due to the repeal of a government subsidy that had helped knock as much as $7,500 (£5,570) off the price of certain battery electric, plug-in hybrid or fuel cell vehicles.

Greenland Is Europe’s Strategic Blind Spot—and Its Responsibility

Justina Budginaite-Froehly
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WASHINGTON—The Trump administration’s resolute handling of Venezuela—framed unapologetically in terms of strategic necessity—has once again revived an idea many Europeans hoped had been buried: that the United States should “take” Greenland.

European capitals reacted, again, in a familiar way: with statements of concern and invocations of international law. That reflex may be understandable. But it is also revealing. Because if Europe’s response to US power politics is limited to declaring what is not allowed, it should not be surprised when its voice carries little weight in the new era of transactional power politics.

The Price of American Authoritarianism

Steven Levitsky, Lucan A. Way, and Daniel Ziblatt

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When Donald Trump won reelection in November 2024, much of the American establishment responded with a shrug. After all, Trump had been democratically elected, even winning the popular vote. And democracy had survived the chaos of his first term, including the shocking events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Surely, then, it would survive a second Trump presidency.

That was not the case. In Trump’s second term, the United States has descended into competitive authoritarianism—a system in which parties compete in elections but incumbents routinely abuse their power to punish critics and tilt the playing field against their opposition. Competitive

Trump's Slow, Faltering 'Peace' Plan Enabling Hamas to Torture and Murder Palestinians

Khaled Abu Toameh

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Trump's plan may have ended the Israeli-Hamas war, but it has not stopped Hamas from waging its own brutal campaign against its own people. Since the ceasefire went into effect, Hamas has turned hospitals in the Gaza Strip from terrorist command centers into terrorist interrogation and detention centers.

"Hamas has turned all of Gaza's hospitals into MAJOR police, intelligence, and security headquarters, a flagrant criminal violation of international law and humanitarian law and basic decency." — Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, Palestinian political analyst and former resident of the Gaza Strip, x.com, January 1, 2026. "Hamas isn't hiding its brutality. The hospitals of Al-Shifa, Al-Aqsa and Nasser are not simply medical centers. Hamas has repurposed Gaza's main hospitals as interrogation sites, cages, gulags for perceived 'dissidents.'" -- Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, x.com, January 6, 2026.

War in the Arctic?

James Gray
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It used to be thought that somehow or another the Arctic was unlike anywhere else. It was a haven for scientific research, the eight Arctic Nations (including both Russia and the United States) peacefully cooperating. All of that has been destroyed in recent years by the fast retreating Arctic ice, the opening up of all sorts of commercial activities as a result; by the Russian invasion of Ukraine; and by increasing Chinese interest in the ‘Polar Silk Road’.

The further opening up of the Northern Sea Route, allowing commercial vessels to transit the shortest route from the Pacific to the Atlantic, looks likely to be a reality within a decade. Half of the world’s oil and gas reserves are under the Arctic; as are a good percentage of those rare earths and critical minerals which are integral parts of every computer, every mobile phone, every battery-operated car.

Why Is the Kremlin Quiet on Venezuela?

Andrew C. Kuchins, and Chris Monday

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As 2026 begins, the Trump administration has jolted the global order yet again with Operation Absolute Resolve, the lightning-fast capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. While reactions in the West have ranged from outright condemnation to tepid approval, the most telling reaction might be Moscow’s. Rather than the expected fire-and-fury rhetoric, Russian state media remained strikingly circumspect, which has fueled yet more rumors of a “New Yalta” establishing spheres of influence from Caracas to Kyiv.

How much truth is there behind the speculation? In 2019, Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council (NSC) director for Russia, testified before Congress that Russian officials had floated a “very strange swap arrangement between Venezuela and Ukraine.” As the moderate Russian voice Sergey Brilyov now leads coverage of the Venezuela strikes on state media, observers can only wonder if the rapport established during the Trump-Putin Alaska summit in 2025 has finally yielded a backstage deal.

It’s Not About Drugs—Or Even Venezuela: Signaling and Strategic Competition

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.

Despite being the primary transit point for US-bound flows, Mexico is managed through bilateral frameworks, not overt military signaling. This divergence between the US relationships with Mexico City and Caracas is illustrative of the more subtle realities of modern statecraft. Where economic interdependence and cooperative mechanisms exist (e.g., integration under USMCA), Washington pursues risk-managed engagement; where they do not, signaling and coercive presence become the de facto tools. This distinction reinforces conclusions that Venezuela’s importance may be less about mainstream narcotics talking points than its utility within global competition shaped by access, influence, and great-power posturing throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

‘Overwatch’ from space, cyber ops foundational to Maduro mission

Theresa Hitchens and Carley Welch 

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WASHINGTON — Just as it is for all Joint Force missions, space support was essential to the success of the US military’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, according to US Space Command (SPACECOM).

“Spacepower not only underpins the military’s ability to shoot, move, and communicate as designed, but delivers layered effects as overwatch which, as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. [Dan] Caine mentioned on January 3rd, ensured the Joint Force’s freedom of maneuver during Operation Absolute Resolve,” a command spokesperson told Breaking Defense Tuesday.

Why and how Trump wants Greenland

Anthony J. Constantini
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Based on recent statements from European leaders, you could be forgiven for forgetting that the United States just captured the incumbent leader of Venezuela. That’s because their attention has, overwhelmingly, been focused elsewhere: To the north, on Greenland.

Europe’s leadership, always stuck in the second half of the 20th century, seems perplexed with Trump’s dogged determination to bring the island of Greenland under American control. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said it made “absolutely no sense to talk about the need for the United States to take over Greenland,” given America’s relationship with Denmark which, in her telling, “gives the United States wide access to Greenland.” Similar statements were released by even close Trump allies, such as Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, who signed onto a statement highlighting that the United States already has a “defence agreement” with Denmark, and by extension, with Greenland.

America built the global order. Now it's tearing it down.

Ian Bremmer

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2026 is a tipping point year. The biggest source of global instability won’t be China, Russia, Iran, or the ~60 conflicts burning across the planet – the most since World War II. It will be the United States. That’s the throughline of Eurasia Group’s Top Risks 2026 report: the world’s most powerful country, the same one that built and led the postwar global order, is now itself actively unwinding it, led by a president more committed to and more capable of reshaping America's role in the world than any in modern history.

Last weekend offered a preview. After months of escalating pressure – sanctions, a massive naval deployment, a full oil blockade – US special forces captured Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro in Caracas and flew him to New York City to face criminal charges. A dictator removed and brought to justice with no American casualties, it was President Donald Trump's cleanest military win on the global stage.

5 Unanswered Questions About Trump’s Venezuela Plan

Ravi Agrawal

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After the White House’s audacious mission to snatch Nicolás Maduro and his wife from Caracas, there are more questions than answers about Venezuela’s future. It is also unclear what lessons U.S. President Donald Trump will draw from successfully toppling a brutal dictator, and how that might impact his foreign policy more broadly.

Here are five major questions policymakers and journalists will puzzle over in the coming days—with some context for how to think about them.

European leaders rally behind Greenland as US ramps up threats

Miranda Bryant 

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European leaders have dramatically rallied together in support of Denmark and Greenland after one of Donald Trump’s leading aides suggested the US may be willing to seize control of the Arctic territory by force.

Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, declared that Greenland – a semi-autonomous territory of the kingdom of Denmark – “belongs to its people”, in a rare European rebuke to the White House.

“It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland,” the three leaders said in a statement on Tuesday, made jointly with the prime ministers of Denmark, Italy, Poland and Spain.

The Cost of Europe’s Weak Venezuela Response

Rosa Balfour

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The United States violated both international and domestic law with the abduction of Venezuela’s authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro. The operation, following months of bombardments against small vessels in the Caribbean Sea, starkly shows that the erosion of democracy at home and the rules-based order are two sides of the same coin.

International law has always been fragile, selectively applied, and reflective of power and interests, not just norms and ideals. Even an imperfect application of these principles requires the support of democratic states and international institutions. Yet most European responses to U.S. action have failed to offer that necessary defense.

Who’s Running Venezuela After the Fall of Maduro?

Jonathan Blitzer

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On Saturday, hours after U.S. troops seized Nicolás Maduro, the authoritarian leader of Venezuela, from a military compound in Caracas, Donald Trump delivered a press conference at Mar-a-Lago. Before it began, a former American official, who had served in the first Trump White House, told me there was a chance that Trump would simply “declare victory and go home.”

Such a move, at once cynical and dangerous, would be typical of Trump. Maduro’s regime could easily survive without him; if it didn’t, a power vacuum among armed factions of the military, vigilante groups known as colectivos, and Colombian guerrillas operating along the border could unleash untold chaos and violence. “Trump didn’t promise anything,” the former official told me. “He just delivered on a huge win and a total embarrassment for Venezuela, and an important message to others. This victory gives the Administration an opportunity to disengage.”

Maduro’s capture is a blow to China. But on Chinese social media it’s being hailed as a blueprint for Taiwan

John Liu and Steven Jiang

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As US special forces were in the final stages of planning a daring nighttime operation into the heart of the Venezuelan capital, President Nicolás Maduro was posing for photographs with China’s top envoy to Latin America and lavishing praise on Beijing’s leadership.

“I thank President Xi Jinping for his continued brotherhood, like an older brother,” Maduro told Chinese diplomat Qiu Xiaoqi, as laughter echoed through the exchange at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas.

Hours later, Maduro was snatched from his bedroom by elite Delta Force commandos from the US Army and China was staring at the stark reality it had just lost one of its staunchest partners in Latin America.

We Grow Strategists Too Late: Why Army Leaders Must Fail Early

Matthew Revels

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Despite a robust architecture of strategic documents, planning processes, and professional staff, the US Army and its strategic leadership have struggled to consistently develop and implement a strategy aligned with the threats it faces. Many explanations exist for this persistent shortcoming, but one critical factor is often overlooked: the Army attempts to develop strategists far too late in an officer’s career. Most officers do not receive formal instruction in strategy development until attending a senior service college—long after they have internalized tactical habits, service-specific norms, and cognitive biases that constrain strategic thought. By delaying strategic education until the later stages of an officer’s career, the Army forfeits the opportunity to cultivate adaptive thinkers capable of pursuing innovative, asymmetric solutions to its most complex challenges.

Over the past decade, scholars and practitioners have written extensively about the value of strategic education and wargaming within the US military. So why is it pertinent to raise this issue once again? The answer lies in America’s increasingly precarious strategic position. As the international order progressively features competition among at least two great powers, a growing cohort of middle powers exerts greater regional influence, complicating the military balance of power. In this changing system, the United States’ adversaries appear to be increasingly capable of challenging the American military’s regional dominance. In addition to their individual capabilities, the burgeoning “axis of autocracy” threatens coordinated action to overwhelm the dispersed capabilities of the United States and its allies. With this backdrop in mind, the Army needs to develop senior leaders with genuine strategic expertise, which can only be developed through continuous education and experience.

Air Force says AI tools outperform human planners in ‘battle management’ experiment

Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. 

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WASHINGTON — It’s not Skynet, yet, but in an Air Force experiment artificial intelligence tools managed to out-perform human professionals in a key piece of planning military operations, service officials recently revealed.

In the service’s latest “DASH” experiment this past fall, the Air Force pitted AI tools from half a dozen companies against military personnel from the US, Canada and UK and asked each to solve hypothetical “battle management” problems, from standard Air Force tasks like planning an airstrike or rerouting aircraft whose home base had been damaged, to more obscure scenarios like gathering intelligence on an anomalous electromagnetic signal or protecting a disabled and drifting Navy vessel.

Venezuela attack seen as reminder for China to boost air defence, counter-intelligence

Amber Wang

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The US operation to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro serves as a reminder for China to bolster its air defences and counter-intelligence protections, observers say.

Analysts in China described Venezuela’s air defences – which rely largely on Russian technology – as “full of flaws and slow to react” amid the modern surveillance, cyber, and electronic warfare displayed by US forces in Saturday’s operation in Caracas.

The operation could serve as a further case study for China, which has been a long-time observer of US military operations, particularly since the 1991 Gulf war.

However, some Chinese analysts argued that the US targeted a much weaker adversary, making the operation less of a direct warning for major powers.

Will the Trump administration attempt to annex Greenland, Canada, or somewhere else? A prominent historian’s take

Dan Drollette Jr

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Donald J. Trump, the president of the United States of America, has been expressing a desire to annex the territory of other countries—including that of some allies, such as Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark. (He has also repeatedly talked of making Canada, one of the United States’ oldest and closest friends, into a 51st state.) Trump declared in his State of the Union address to Congress that he intends to gain control of Greenland “one way or the other”—and even sent Vice President J.D. Vance there in late March, to make a pitch for Greenland to consider US leadership by claiming that Denmark is “failing” at securing the Arctic island.

It seems that Greenland is still in the minds of the Trump Administration, though in a more low-key way that has not dominated the news cycle as much lately. According to the Greenland newspaper High North News,[1] the administration has been doing small, subtle, low-key activities like moving Greenland to US Northern Command for all US military operations, for what the Pentagon claims is “part of US homeland defense.” (The map was previously drawn so that Greenland was under “US-European Command.”)

Why reviving Venezuela’s oil industry will prove to be a tall order for Trump

Jake Bittle

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Shortly after launching a dramatic raid in which US forces abducted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro on Saturday, President Donald Trump justified the action with a promise to revive Venezuela’s moribund oil industry. The country has by far the largest claimed reserves of crude oil in the world, accounting for almost a fifth of the planet’s remaining known crude oil, but its production has plummeted under Maduro, who has ruled the country since 2013.

“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” Trump said during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago in which he announced Maduro’s capture.

Significant Cyber Threats of 2026: A Comprehensive Outlook

Naveen Goud

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As we move forward deep into 2026, the cyber threat landscape has never been more complex, driven by rapid advancements in technology, geopolitical tensions, and evolving attacker tactics. Organizations and individuals alike must brace for a year defined by AI-driven exploits, identity-centric attacks, and systemic vulnerabilities that challenge traditional defense models.

1. AI-Powered Attacks and Autonomous Threat Agents

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer just a defensive tool — it’s become a core weapon in the cybercriminal arsenal. Attackers are now deploying AI-driven autonomous threat agents that can autonomously scan systems, probe vulnerabilities, generate exploit code, and adapt tactics on the fly without human supervision. These AI agents represent a step change in attack sophistication, enabling faster and more evasive campaigns that outpace traditional human-controlled cybercrime methods.

How to Survive in a Multialigned World

Tanvi Madan

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As the United States reevaluates its global commitments and questions the existing international order, longtime American allies and partners are seeking alternatives to foreign policy strategies that rely heavily on Washington. Canada, South Korea, and the European Union have all talked about building ties with a wider range of countries. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates are hedging against U.S. unpredictability by cementing other partnerships; the Saudis, for instance, recently concluded a security deal with Pakistan. Such efforts aim to make countries less vulnerable to sudden changes in any