Russia and India Formalize Arctic Partnership

John C. K. Daly

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During Russian President Vladimir Putin’s December 2025 visit to New Delhi, Russia formalized Indian military access to Arctic naval ports, training in polar operations, and logistics support under a five-year agreement, deepening Russia–India military cooperation in the Arctic.

The two countries also committed to developing key transport routes, including the Northern Sea Route, the International North–South Transport Corridor, and the Chennai–Vladivostok Eastern Maritime Corridor, aiming to shorten shipping distances between Europe and Asia.

Canada’s China Gambit: Strategic Fantasy Meets Geopolitical Reality

Stephen Nagy

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Here’s the reality: diversifying economic relationships is prudent policy, but the notion Canada could meaningfully balance American pressure through Chinese partnership is strategically questionable and empirically unsound. In fact, Canada’s relationship with its southern neighbor runs far too deep, China presents an unreliable alternative, and Canada’s capacity for broader global engagement is limited.

A Relationship Greater than any Single Government

The scale and depth of the Canada-US bilateral relationship defy comparison. Over $900 billion in annual trade flows across the world’s longest undefended border. Integrated continental defense architecture—formalized through NORAD and deepened through decades of intelligence sharing—forged irreplicable institutional bonds. What’s more, hundreds of thousands of informal connections between businesses, universities, civil society organizations, and families transcend any single government’s policy preferences.

Managed Rivalry or Strategic Reset Between China and the U.S.?

James Durso

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In December 2025, Wu Xinbo, Dean, Institute of International Studies, Fudan University and advisor to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, used the pages of Foreign Affairs, to propose a “grand bargain” between China and America.

Wu argues that U.S.–China relations have reached a pivotal moment that requires a comprehensive reset to prevent long?term confrontation. He proposes starting with economic cooperation—easing U.S. technology restrictions and increasing Chinese market access—while managing geopolitical tensions in Asia and exercising mutual restraint over Taiwan. He believes both countries must clarify their roles in the international order and accept coexistence to stabilize the relationship.

PLA Justice Mission 2025 Further Rehearses Taiwan Invasion Operations

K. Tristan Tang

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The PLA launched another military exercise in late December 2025, with force scale and deployment locations broadly similar to previous drills.

The exercise nonetheless signaled an effort by the Eastern Theater Command to sustain year-round readiness, likely in response to Xi Jinping’s directive to achieve the capability to conduct operations against Taiwan by 2027.

Compared with earlier exercises, this drill advanced invasion-related rehearsals, including scenarios involving the seizure of the Penghu Islands and parts of eastern Taiwan.

Xi Projects Confidence in Shorter New Year’s Speech

Arran Hope

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Exuding confidence, Xi’s new year’s eve speech heralded the start of a new five-year plan, praised advances in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, and declared that the country’s comprehensive national power had reached a new stage.

Military matters were unusually prominent in the speech, with the September 2025 military parade in Beijing eulogized near the beginning of his remarks. He also used this section to praise the establishment of “Taiwan Retrocession Memorial Day.”

The Iranian Regime Could Fall But a U.S. Strike Would Prop It Up

Jamsheed K. Choksy and Carol E. B. Choksy

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Many thousands of Iranians are again risking their lives to protest their authoritarian, theocratic regime. And as it has done during previous protests, the regime is responding by cutting off the country’s Internet access, unleashing violence on its citizens, and blaming foreign scapegoats. The protests’ death toll is rising: Iran Human Rights, a Norway-based nongovernmental organization, estimates that over 600 demonstrators have been killed nationwide since late December.

Perhaps emboldened by his recent ouster of Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan leader, U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to launch military strikes if Tehran continues to repress protest. The United States “will start shooting too,” he warned on January 6, if Iranian protesters keep getting killed. Tehran’s heavily armed troops and militias have brutally suppressed previous demonstrations, and there is a genuine need to prevent a larger massacre. Moreover, the Islamic Republic appears more fragile than ever after last June’s 12-day war. The regime seems incapable of addressing the root causes of the economic crisis that has driven its people to the streets; protests have spread from Tehran to every corner of the country, revealing Iranians’ widespread lack of faith that their current leaders can set the country on a better course.

Navigating with StarLink-Signals in GPS-Denied Environments: Part 1

Benjamin Cook

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These days, for weirdos like me, it’s really hard to figure out where to look as first. In Ukraine, the Russians have secured Sviatohirsk and are meanwhile infiltrating towards the last ‘big’ and ‘constructed’ Ukrainian defence line south of Zaporizhzhya (those who meanwhile understand how this war ‘works’, know of what ‘importance’ are such ‘field fortifications’).

In Iran… or around it: the king/majesty Dumpf of the USA seems to be setting up ‘help’ for protesters AFTER these have been massacred en masse by the IRGC-regime - to the degree where the protesting all but ceased - while at the same time ICE-ing protesters at home. And Israel is so horny to prompt him into an all-out attack on Iran - in order to distract from its continued genocide on Palestinians - that Netanyahu can’t care less if Dumpf is regularly dinning with Holocaust-deniers, and his aides are already openly considering a similar ‘turkey shot’ like when Israel has bombed all of Syria AFTER the fall of the Assadist regime.

War Spending Accelerating Russian Infrastructure Collapse

Paul Goble

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Most of the Russian Federation is situated in the Far North—permafrost underlies 60 percent of its territory. Cold weather during winters puts a strain on infrastructure, including flight and road delays and breakdowns in the delivery of heat, electricity, and even water to many homes, schools, hospitals, and other facilities. Russians have learned to expect this, although in the past they sometimes have bitterly joked that it is hard to believe the Kremlin’s promises that it is ready to cope with a nuclear war, something that has never happened, when it cannot deal with winter, something that occurs every year (Window on Eurasia, January 7). This year, these problems have become much more serious as a result of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine. 

Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian targets have destroyed key portions of Russian infrastructure (Sibir.Realii, January 6). Moscow has diverted most of the funding it had provided to reinforce and repair Russian infrastructure to its war efforts (The Moscow Times, January 4; Govorit Nemoskva, January 10). As a result, developments this year have become a political issue, sparking small but widespread protests by those most immediately affected (see EDM, December 22, 2025). Commentators and even Duma politicians have criticized the Kremlin, warning that because of the war and Putin’s policies, Russia faces not only temporary problems but is on the way to an infrastructure collapse that will likely take decades to recover (see EDM, October 16, 2025; The Saratoga Foundation, January 1; Dialog.ua; Charter97, January 6).

Moscow Uses Oreshnik for Psychological Pressure

Yuri Lapaiev

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On the night of January 8–9, the Russian army launched a strike on a critical infrastructure facility in Ukraine’s Lviv oblast. The target was located around 70 kilometers (43.5 miles) away from the Polish border (Radio Svoboda, January 9). Later, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) was able to locate and identify fragments of the missile used in the attack. 

According to preliminary investigation data, it was an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), Oreshnik, which Russia had already used once to strike Ukraine in 2024 (see EDM, November 21, 2024; SBU, January 9). The Russian Ministry of Defense officially confirmed the strike, stating that the Russian Armed Forces had launched the Oreshnik medium-range mobile ground missile system against critical targets in Ukraine. The Ministry of Defense emphasized that this was a response to the alleged “terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime on the President of the Russian Federation [Vladimir Putin’s] residence in Novgorod oblast, carried out on the night of December 29, 2025” (Telegram/@mod_russia, January 9).

The Greenland Expedition

Mick Ryan

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The following is a fictional narrative about an American expedition to Greenland in the coming year. It is written from the first-person perspectives of a military officer and civilian policy official in the Pentagon.

Eschewing the style of think tank papers, I have instead sought to provide a readable and more accessible account of what a very worst-case scenario for an American takeover of Greenland might look like. Indeed, any kind of military action should be considered worst case.

Like most others, I hope and expect that this troubling situation will be resolved in the coming months well short of military operations. But the world is an uncertain place, and there is no guarantee of that.

Will the U.S. Strike Iran? The Factors Shaping Trump’s Decision

Nik Popli

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As nationwide protests shake Iran and security forces respond with lethal force, U.S. President Donald Trump has raised the prospect of American intervention, reviving a familiar question in Washington: what, exactly, would U.S. action in Iran look like—and to what end?

Publicly, the Administration has kept its options deliberately broad. The White House says that Trump has been briefed on military and nonmilitary alternatives, from cyber operations to targeted strikes, but has not yet reached a decision.

Yet on Tuesday, Trump signaled that he may soon authorize U.S. military strikes against the country’s leadership, calling on Iranians to keep protesting and promising that “help is on its way.”

Israel nearly struck Iran twice in recent weeks, former IDF intelligence chief claims

SHIR PERETS

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Israel came close to striking Iran twice in recent weeks due to mutual miscalculations and fears of a surprise Israeli operation, former Military Intelligence Directorate chief Tamir Hayman said in an interview with 103FM on Monday.

According to Hayman, Iran’s preparations created a “coordination imperative” between Israel and Washington. He said recent near-escalations were the result of miscalculation risks, which in turn strengthened military cooperation between the IDF and US forces.

CNA Explains: What a US intervention in Iran could look like as Trump considers options

Chelsea Ong

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As Iran's deadly crackdown on anti-government protests continues, US President Donald Trump faces a delicate moment as he weighs how best to respond.

The US military is considering "very strong options" against Iran, Trump said on Sunday (Jan 11), adding that it "looks like" Tehran had crossed his previously stated red line of protesters being killed.

More than 600 people have been killed, according to a rights group on Jan 12.

The mass protests in all of Iran's 31 provinces, triggered by an economic collapse, pose the biggest threat to the rulers of the Islamic Republic in decades.

Would Trump’s threatened strikes help Iran’s protesters or boost the regime?

Bilal Y. Saab

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Donald Trump has once again threatened to attack Iran if it continues to use lethal force against the protest movement, which is growing by the day. ‘I tell the Iranian leaders: You better not start shooting, because we’ll start shooting, too,’ the US president said at a recent meeting with oil executives. On Sunday the president warned the US was considering ‘very strong options’ and claimed that Iran was seeking negotiations.

Already, Trump’s close national security aides are debating the merits of the use of military force, with one US official saying that ‘many think major kinetic action at this stage would undermine the protests’. Senior US military officials are also cautioning the president that more time is needed to prepare for such strikes.

Tariffs Have Hurt, Not Helped, the U.S. Economy And they will likely play an even bigger role in 2026.

Keith Johnson

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The U.S. economy, after a tumultuous year of tariffs and trade wars, appears to have performed better than feared earlier in the year, with annual GDP growth through the third quarter of about 2 percent, including a surprisingly healthy bump in the last reported quarter.

But that, contrary to what U.S. President Donald Trump says, is not because of tariffs but in spite of them. And 2026 looks set to be an even rockier year on the trade front, with further negative implications for U.S. economic performance.

Fading, forgotten Europe has been dropped from the world order

Kevin Myers

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Metaphors mislead. What is going on in the world in the first month of the second quarter of the 21st century is unlike anything that has occurred before. This is not “a shifting of tectonic plates” or “the Titanic sinking”. We have entered a new quaternary, which is itself a metaphor, but one that is sufficiently large and abstract not to be too misleading.

Europe, which effectively invented the world order, has, equally effectively, now rudely withdrawn from it. European leaders born after the Second World War – and that includes all British prime ministers since Margaret Thatcher – have turned their half of the Eurasian landmass into a smug, welfarist, immigrationist ruin, incapable of defending itself or projecting its power even into its own skies or seas.

One Big Downside of Trump’s Military Successes

W. James Antle III

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When the United States went to war with Iraq for the first time in 1990, there weren’t many protest songs. At most, some of the songs that were supportive of the troops expressed ambivalence about the mission. The supergroup pop hit “Voices That Care,” a sort of “We Are the World” of the Persian Gulf War era, featured Will Smith rapping: “Right or wrong / We’re all praying you remain strong / That’s why we’re all here and singing along.”

One surprising exception was the singer-songwriter James Taylor, who in 1991 released an uncharacteristic rockabilly tune titled “Slap Leather.” The man may have seen fire and rain, but on the day he wrote this song, he was seeing red:

Get all worked up and we can go to war / We’d find something worth a killin’ for / Tie a yellow ribbon around your eyes / Big mac, falafel and a side of fries, yeah / Big Mac falafel / Stormin’ Norman / I just love a parade.

Iran's battered IRGC faces moment of truth amid protests

Tom O'Connor

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As Iran‘s government moves to quell some of the largest protests the nation has faced in years without triggering U.S. intervention, the spotlight is on the elite and influential Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Having established since the Islamic Revolution as both a powerful war-fighting force as well as a tool of suppressing internal dissent, particularly through its Basij paramilitary arm, the IRGC has traditionally been deployed as one of the most potent forces in both restoring order and combating foreign infiltration.

But the IRGC finds itself still reeling from major blows suffered during a 12-day war with Israel in June, when scores of key commanders and personnel were killed. A number of other members and leading allies were slain in other theaters of the broader conflict surrounding the war in Gaza, particularly in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, leaving the Axis of Resistance coalition built by the IRGC over the course of decades now in a moment of crisis.

Why Putin Still Prefers War

Andrei Kolesnikov

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During the Cold War, few senior Soviet officials understood the dynamics of Soviet relations with the West as well as Valentin Falin. A diplomat and adviser to several Soviet leaders, Falin was instrumental in improving relations between the Soviets and West Germany in the early 1970s. It was part of the détente that culminated in the Helsinki Accords, the breakthrough agreement that finally, 30 years after the end of World War II, stabilized relations between the Western alliance and the Soviet bloc. Looking back on his experiences, Falin wrote that “confrontation is not fate, but choice.” 

As he saw it, in the global face-off between superpowers, confrontation happened because one or both sides chose to fight; détente happened because they chose not to fight. In every case, he felt, what happened resulted from an absolutely conscious decision on the part of the respective leaders.

‘I don’t need international law’: Trump’s Wild West doctrine freezes European brains

Tim Ross

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The snow fell heavily over Brussels this week, as officials from embassies and European institutions returned from their holiday slumbers to a shocking new world.

Like an icy slap of Arctic air, Donald Trump’s operation to remove Nicolás Maduro from the Venezuelan presidency stunned the EU’s top officials — and froze them into silence. Then he questioned NATO, threatened Cuba and Iran, and declared he needed to own Greenland for the purposes of national security, whether or not the U.S. allies who currently control it agree.

Trump goes rogue against Venezuela and lays out his imperialistic goals

François Diaz-Maurin

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On Wednesday, President Donald Trump issued a memorandum directing his Secretary of State Marco Rubio to take immediate steps for the effective withdrawal of the United States from over 60 international organizations, including many UN offices. This decision comes after a first year during which the Trump administration worked hard to assault moral, legal, and scientific norms that took decades of effort to constitute. It also follows the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in the most audacious military operation the United States has taken since the Panama invasion in 1989.

The flurry of executive orders and decisions on a wide range of regulatory and economic issues has made it difficult to discern and keep track of the administration’s overarching goals. But one common thread seems to emerge: The Trump administration is trying to lay the groundwork for an imperialist America.

A Guide to Maduro’s Capture and Venezuela’s Uncertain Future

Mariel Ferragamo

Source Linik

An early-morning U.S. operation in Venezuela on January 3 led to the capture of the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro. Two days later, Maduro appeared before a U.S. federal court in New York City, where he pleaded not guilty to drug, weapons, and narco-terrorism charges.

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He now faces a possible life sentence while his country contends with an uncertain future. In the meantime, Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, has been sworn in as interim president. Most Venezuelans have celebrated Maduro’s removal, but onlookers worldwide have had mixed reactions about the U.S. operation that led to his capture. The prospect for regime change, however, is bleak, experts said.

A Networked Leapfrog Strategy to Recapture Technology Leadership

Michael J. Mazarr

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It is now widely agreed that the contest for leadership in frontier scientific and technological progress is one of the foremost elements — if not the centerpiece — of the U.S.-China rivalry. China's leadership appears to believe that science and technology offer the primary engines of development and innovation that will realize its goals of national rejuvenation and is investing massively across many areas. After years of taking a largely hands-off approach to this contest, at least from a government standpoint, the United States now appreciates the significance of the contest for leadership in science and technology as foundational to the economic and national security aspects of the rivalry and has begun responding to the Chinese effort with investments, policies, and export controls of its own.

The author proposes a bold strategy for the United States to regain competitive advantage: large-scale, high-risk experiments targeting transformative technological breakthroughs. Rather than competing head-on with China's incremental innovations, the strategy advocates for leapfrogging current-generation technologies to create entirely new paradigms in such areas as semiconductors, renewable energy, advanced manufacturing, and health care diagnostics. It emphasizes multilateral collaboration with other leading industrial democracies to pool resources, talent, and influence, fostering a shared ecosystem of innovation.

Google VP: “The only way to win cyberwarfare is to let defenders fix vulnerabilities as fast as attackers exploit them”

Omer Kabir

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Chatbots that allow you to harvest knowledge and produce code, and autonomous agents that can detect hacks and counter them - Google’s approach to defending against cyberattacks is to use the same AI tools that hackers themselves use. “The new models can identify scams and block them, or find vulnerabilities and fix them,” says Royal Hansen, a vice president at Google who leads the technology giant’s cybersecurity, privacy, and safety efforts. “The beauty is that Gemini does it naturally. We just tell it: ‘Now check for these types of problems.’”

Hansen has been involved in artificial intelligence since the late 20th century, and for seven years before joining Google he worked primarily at financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs and American Express. In his current role, he focuses on the engineering and technical side of cybersecurity in the AI era, while also working with policymakers, governments, and clients to promote appropriate solutions and policies.

Algorithms of misperception: Managing nuclear risk in an AI world

Héloise Fayet

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It’s July 2025. After a week of building tensions between Russia and the United States, following what seems to be a failed meeting between Trump and Putin in Anchorage, Donald Trump posts an oddly worded message[1] on his social network, Truth Social: He plans to “position” US nuclear submarines in the “appropriate regions,” in a clear reference to Russia. This post comes after a not-so-subtle reference by former Russian President Dimitri Medvedev on X (the social media site formerly known as Twitter) to the so-called “Dead Hand” mechanism, a method initiated in the Soviet Union era, of automatically ensuring a nuclear response if an attack eliminated all the officials in the country’s usual line of command.

This indirect exchange generated some surprise in the strategic community and the public: Many articles were suddenly written on the Dead Hand tool, and some speculation arose about these two additional subs supposedly stationed nearer to Russia: Were they nuclear missile-carrying submarines or attack submarines that carry only conventional weapons? Were they already on patrol or were these submarines ordered to leave port?