Indian Strategic Studies: 02/24/26

24 February 2026

Can India Power the AI Dream?

Manoj Pant and M Rahul

India is hosting a massive global AI Impact Summit between February 16-20, with over 20 heads of state, 60 ministers, and around 500 global technology leaders attending. There is huge optimism, driven by the government, about India being at the forefront of the defining technology of this century. Many view artificial intelligence (AI) as the 21st century’s equivalent of the steamship or the airplane in the 20th. However, it is worth examining what AI actually entails and the less visible costs associated with it.

Early last year, the southern states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh competed to host global technology giant Google’s AI processing center. The $15 billion project eventually went to Andhra. Telangana soon entered the race after Microsoft committed $17.5 billion to establish a similar center in Hyderabad. These investment promises quickly became political talking points. At the national level, the Union government announced a major push for artificial intelligence through its IndiaAI Mission in 2024.

Financing the Global South’s Infrastructure Boom

RAKESH MOHAN and DIVYA SRINIVASAN

NEW DELHI – With infrastructure now seen as the leading engine of growth across the Global South, governments are under pressure to build – and fast. But for most, fiscal space is limited; development aid is thinning; and long-promised climate financing remains elusive. As a result, countries are turning to private capital and reviving an old idea with renewed urgency: public-private partnerships (PPPs).

According to the World Bank, in 2024, low- and middle-income countries received $100 billion in private participation in infrastructure (PPI) investment, an impressive 20% increase from the five-year (2019-23) annual average of $83.7 billion. Yet history recommends caution. While the logic of mobilizing private finance is often compelling, the record is mixed. Too often, emerging markets have relied on models proselytized by global development finance institutions without paying adequate attention to local institutional constraints.

Pakistan’s Engagement Is Unlikely To Fundamentally Redirect Dhaka’s Long-Standing Cooperation With India

A. Jathindra

Zillur Rahman is the President of the Center for Governance Studies in Bangladesh. Zillur a leading journalist, broadcaster and media consultant is considered to be one of the most successful television program anchors of the country. He is a definite “trend setter” in the history of television channel programs in Bangladesh. He is the founder, director and host of the widely popular daily television talk show “Tritiyo Matra” (The 3rd Dimension) for which he has produced more than 8000 episodes, over the last 23 years since July 2003.

With Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League out of power, the BNP-led coalition has claimed a historic victory, while Jamaat-e-Islami has emerged as the main opposition with 68 seats. How do you interpret this outcome for Bangladesh’s political future?

The election marks a historic moment in Bangladesh’s political trajectory. The BNP-led coalition’s landslide, coupled with Jamaat-e-Islami’s emergence as a strong parliamentary opposition, signals both continuity and change. On one hand, it reflects a decisive shift in voter sentiment and a desire for new leadership. On the other, it highlights that opposition forces remain significant players in shaping parliamentary debate and public discourse.

China’s consumption problem

Erik Green

The Chinese Communist Party has made increasing domestic consumption a priority to ensure economic growth. Ahead of the next Five-Year Plan being announced in March, the Party’s current macroeconomic strategy is likely to significantly limit the effectiveness of their policy solutions however.

As China’s rate of economic growth slows, the country’s leaders have become increasingly concerned that the economy remains overly dependent on investment- and export-driven growth. Since then-premier Wen Jiabao said in 2007 that China needs to ‘adjust the balance between investment and consumption’, policymakers have repeatedly emphasised the need to boost consumption to fix this imbalance. In December 2025, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) theoretical journal Qiushi published a compilation of remarks made by President Xi Jinping since 2015 on the importance of consumption to China’s economy. The piece declared ‘expanding domestic demand is a strategic move’ and emphasised a decision at last December’s Central Economic Work Conference (CEWC) to make boosting consumption the number one economic priority for 2026. Doing so will support the overall objective of increasing domestic demand.

US thwarted near-catastrophic prison break of 6,000 ISIS fighters in Syria

Efrat Lachter , Trey Yingst

EXCLUSIVE: This was the kind of prison break officials say could have changed the region, and perhaps even the world, overnight. Nearly 6,000 ISIS detainees, described by a senior U.S. intelligence official as "the worst of the worst," were being held in northern Syria as clashes and instability threatened the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, the guards responsible for keeping the militants locked away and preventing a feared ISIS resurgence. U.S. officials believed that if the prisons collapsed in the chaos, the consequences would have been immediate.

"If these 6,000 or so got out and returned to the battlefield, that would basically be the instant reconstitution of ISIS," the senior intelligence official told Fox News Digital. In an exclusive interview, the official walked Fox News Digital step by step through the behind-the-scenes operation that moved thousands of ISIS detainees out of Syria and into Iraqi custody, describing a multi-agency scramble that unfolded over weeks, with intelligence warnings, rapid diplomacy and a swift military lift.

Why Iran Isn’t Supporting ISIS-K

Ali Rizk

In a recent article published in The National Interest, Joseph Epstein suggests that Iran may be using ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K) as a proxy to destabilise Azerbaijan. Epstein refers to the arrest last month of three individuals accused of plotting an attack on the Israeli embassy in Baku, after which it was revealed that the would-be perpetrators had conspired with ISIS-K to carry out the attack.

The Islamic Republic, the author argues, has good reason to support such acts of terrorism in Azerbaijan, owing to Baku’s close ties with Israel and the United States. While there is no denying the fact that ties between Tehran and Baku hit rock bottom over Iranian suspicions of Israel using Azeri airspace during the 12-Day War, Epstein omits some important facts that seriously undermine his case.

Why Venezuela, Iran, and the Digital Battlefield May Be Reframing Global Statecraft

Emilio Iasiello

In early January 2026, the United States carried out Operation Absolute Resolve, combining combined elite airborne forces, covert intelligence, and, reportedly, cyber effects that plunged portions of Venezuela’s capital into darkness. President Donald Trump’s comments suggested that “certain expertise” had been used to disrupt Venezuelan infrastructure during the raid, fueling speculation about the deployment of offensive cyber capabilities alongside traditional military tools. This event was not just an example of integrated cyber operations, or even a cyber warfare event unfolding in the public spotlight. What was witnessed in Venezuela was cyber-enabled statecraft in action, a fusion of digital effects, kinetic force, and strategic signaling. Perhaps more importantly, it raised a significant question for modern diplomacy: Has the use of cyber strikes matured enough to be a viable tool of diplomacy rather than just conflict?

One thing is clear: cyber effects are not longer a shadow domain. Long considered a tool for espionage and technical disruption, cyber capabilities have ripened into full-spectrum instruments of state power. The clandestine Operation Olympic Games, which deployed Stuxnet against Iran’s uranium enrichment infrastructure more than a decade ago, signaled the first era of purposeful state-driven digital disruption. At the time, it was aimed at slowing Tehran’s nuclear drive without triggering open war.

Russia's hybrid warfare rattles Poland and NATO

Rob Schmitz MIKA and WARSAW,

The hike to the site of what local authorities believe to be Russia's latest act of rail sabotage on Polish soil leads police officer Piotr Pokorski trudging through a couple of feet of snow across a stark white farm field, through a thatch of dead cattails and across a frozen creek before he pauses underneath an embankment.

"The explosion happened here," he says, pointing to a small section of railroad track that catches the frozen sunlight, reflecting a bronze-colored sheen from a recent repair. "And this section of track was damaged. A train engineer noticed it just in time to stop his train, and then he reported it to us. Fortunately, nobody was injured."

Tokyo’s strategic US investment surge puts China on edge

Jeff Pao

Japan has begun deploying the first tranche of what is expected to become a sweeping investment wave into the United States following the landslide election victory last week of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party.

The initial batch, worth about US$36 billion, is widely seen as the opening move in a much larger commitment that could eventually reach $550 billion, an amount Japan promised last July in exchange for Washington’s lowering of its “reciprocal” tariffs for Japanese goods from 25% to 15% last September. “Our massive trade deal with Japan has just launched! Japan is now officially, and financially, moving forward with the first set of investments under its $550 billion commitment to invest in the United States of America,” US President Donald Trump says in a social media post.

The Perils of Militarizing Law Enforcement

Gustavo Flores-Macías

In August 2025, residents of Washington, D.C., awoke to a sight familiar in much of Latin America but rare in the United States: uniformed military troops patrolling city streets as part of a federally directed campaign against crime. Although violent crime in the country’s capital had fallen that January to its lowest point in over 30 years, on August 11 President Donald Trump signed an executive order that declared a “crime emergency” in the city, arguing that extraordinary measures were necessary to restore control.

US military prepared to strike Iran as early as this weekend, but Trump has yet to make a final call, sources say

Kristen Holmes, Kevin Liptak

The US military is prepared to strike Iran as early as this weekend, though President Donald Trump has yet to make a final decision on whether he’ll authorize such actions, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.

The White House has been briefed that the military could be ready for an attack by the weekend, after a significant buildup in recent days of air and naval assets in the Middle East, the sources said. But one source cautioned that Trump has privately argued both for and against military action and polled advisers and allies on what the best course of action is. It was not clear if he would make a decision by the weekend.

The Gathering Storm: U.S. and Israeli Military Posturing and the Coming Reckoning with Iran

Joe Funderburke

Less than nine months after the United States and Israel conducted joint strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities during Operation Midnight Hammer and Operation Rising Lion, both nations are again assembling substantial military force in the Middle East. As of February 2026, a dual-carrier strike group deployment is underway, F-22 Raptors are transiting to forward bases, and Western intelligence sources describe a posture that goes far beyond deterrence. This article examines the military buildup, analyzes the national interests and political calculus driving it, explores the strategic objectives of both Washington and Jerusalem, and assesses the consequences of success or failure across four critical domains: American domestic politics, the international world order, global oil markets, and regional stability. The situation validates the central thesis of this author’s prior work: that strategic restraint at the top of the escalation ladder does not produce peace, it produces more small wars.

The Buildup: What the Reporting Shows

The current U.S. military posture in the Middle East is not a routine rotation. It is an orchestrated escalation, confirmed across multiple credible reporting streams and corroborated by open-source intelligence tracking.

CFR Poll Shows Americans Across Party Lines Tie Tariffs to Affordability

Rebecca Patterson, Allison J. Smith and Ishaan Thakker

That was the conclusion from a Council on Foreign Relations opinion poll conducted in January 2026 in partnership with Morning Consult. More than 65 percent of the 2,203 respondents said tariffs had made a range of everyday items less affordable, including food and groceries, health care, housing, and transportation. Importantly, that sentiment was expressed by a plurality of people identifying themselves as Democrats and Republicans.

The challenge is that the cost of those goods is shaped by numerous factors—tariffs are just one piece of the puzzle. Still, the poll suggests that the high-profile nature of tariffs since President Donald Trump returned to the White House has made them top of mind, and that perception is as much an issue as reality. As a result, other steps to tackle affordability, such as proposed caps on credit card fees and limits on large-scale institutional purchases of homes, may not help sentiment, at least in the near-term, as much as rolling back tariffs on items Americans say they care about the most.

If Trump Strikes Iran: Mapping the Oil Disruption Scenarios

Clayton Seigle

Crude oil prices have fluctuated in recent days along with headlines about potential military strikes against Iran, as a second round of indirect talks between U.S. and Iranian representatives concluded on February 17 without resolving underlying disputes. While international benchmark Brent crude prices fell toward $67 on February 17, markets are still showing increased risk against the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s predicted $58 Brent average for 2026.

President Donald Trump has hinted at potential military strikes unless Iran agrees to fully abandon nuclear enrichment, accept strict limits on missile capabilities, and halt support for regional proxy groups. This analysis assesses the risk of oil supply disruptions that could result from a new conflagration in the Middle East Gulf region.

Why the Goldwater-Nichols Act Matters

Michael O’Hanlon

In today’s partisan debate over whether to implement major reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security, Republicans would do well to remember the precedent of the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols reforms of the Department of Defense. These streamlined military command and control strengthened the advisory role of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as the regional commanders at places like Central Command, and paved the way for much greater collaboration between the military services.

Then, as now, a powerful Republican president and much of his administration took proposed reforms as an affront to their track record and a challenge to their power. But then, as now, change made sense. It ultimately served the administration and the relevant government department. Republicans in Congress should think about the issue less in terms of partisan politics and more as a proper exertion of independent action by the legislative branch of government, as specified in Article I of the US Constitution.

Trump's military options as Iran war feared: Four scenarios

Tom O'Connor

There’s been no slowdown to the U.S. military buildup around Iran despite both sides engaging in nuclear talks this week. President Donald Trump has threatened the Islamic Republic with direct action if diplomacy doesn’t produce the desired results. And with a second aircraft carrier group headed to the Gulf, Trump’s warnings that an attack on Iran would go beyond last summer’s bombings on nuclear facilities leave a range of options open to the president.

There could be new rounds of targeted strikes, assassinations of top leaders or a more sustained military campaign that could resemble something closer to a Third Gulf War. Trump has throughout the escalation voiced his preference for a diplomatic solution. He wants a nuclear deal that would go beyond the 2015 agreement that limited Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

Ukraine's drone war showed the West it needs to view small drones less like prized gear and more like expendable ammo

Sinéad Baker

A NATO veteran who volunteered to fight in Ukraine said they must be seen as expendable.

Officials from the US and UK armies said they are increasingly training with that in mind. Ukraine's large-scale drone war is pushing Western militaries to treat small drones less as high-end equipment and more as expendable ammunition that isn't meant to come back.

US Army and British Army officials, as well as a NATO veteran who volunteered to fight in Ukraine, told Business Insider that effective drone warfare requires sending large numbers forward — and accepting many will be lost as a routine cost. Maj. Rachel Martin, the director of the US Army's new drone lethality course, told Business Insider that the conflict shows that "if you're going to flood the zone with drones," especially in a combat situation where electronic warfare is heavy, "you're going to lose a lot of drones."

British troops were wiped out by Ukrainian drones in exercises. Defence spending must rise

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon

At a moment when Europe faces the prospect of a major war, when UK and US forces may soon be in action in the Middle East, and when nuclear-armed strongmen are rattling their sabres in our direction, it beggars belief that we are still debating whether to increase defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP in the near future, rather than in some comfortable era that may never arrive.

The results of Nato’s Exercise Hedgehog 2025 in Eastern Europe, only now quietly circulated from nearly a year ago, should have settled the argument. In that simulation, a British brigade was effectively destroyed by Ukrainian drone operators. That was not an indictment of our soldiers. It was a warning about the nature of modern warfare. If a British brigade goes into action against a Russian formation on Nato’s eastern flank, we must ensure it does not suffer the same fate.

Trump's new world order has become real and Europe is having to adjust fast

Katya Adler

Downtown Munich is best-known for chic shops and flashy fast cars but right now its streets are bedecked with posters advertising next generation drones.

"Europe's security under construction" boasts the slogan on an eye-catching set of sleek black-and-white photographs, festooned across a scaffolding-clad church on one of this town's best known pedestrian boulevards.

Such an unapologetic public display of military muscle would have been unimaginable here just a few years ago, but the world outside Germany is changing fast, and taking this country with it.

The southern region of Bavaria has become Germany's leading defence technology hub, focusing on AI, drones and aerospace.

Europe Is Squandering Its Leverage Over China

DALIA MARIN

Requiring Chinese companies that want to sell high-tech products in Europe to form joint ventures with local firms would go a long way toward strengthening the competitiveness of European industry. With its market having become a lifeline for China, the EU needs to recognize the strength of its bargaining position.

As German Chancellor Friedrich Merz prepares to visit China, evidence of the growing imbalance between the two countries is piling up. Germany, Europe’s largest economy, reports that its GDP grew just 0.2% in 2025, whereas China recorded a record-high trade surplus of $1.19 trillion. These data are not unrelated: Goldman Sachs estimates that, were it not for Chinese competition, German growth would have reached 0.5%.

AI Will Transform Business, Not Just Jobs

DIANE COYLE

Debates about the impact of AI have centered on potential job losses, with far less attention paid to its implications for the business landscape. But corporate leaders should be thinking about how the technology can enhance their organizational capabilities and, in turn, increase economy-wide productivity.

Many people fear that AI could cause a “job-pocalypse.” This year’s Davos gathering sounded the alarm over the technology’s implications for employment, while recent announcements about job cuts in white-collar industries are widely viewed as straws in the wind.

Are We at an AI Precipice?

A viral X essay ricocheted around the tech world last week. Written by a young tech founder named Matt Shumer and titled “Something Big Is Happening,” it told readers that “this might be the most important year of your career.” Shumer argued that AI was about to bring the world of work a disruption as sudden and dislocating as the shutdown at the onset of Covid—but even more comprehensive. And it would be permanent. The essay received more than 80 million views.

We are on the edge of a precipice, Shumer claimed, urging that anybody who wasn’t fully taking advantage of AI in their work needed to start doing so immediately—and that everyone should get their finances in order to prepare for the upheaval that is very quickly coming. His argument hinged not just on predictions of what was coming, but on the power that AI has already attained. If you’re not maximizing the use of AI, you will soon be obsolete. Or so Shumer says.

Understanding India’s technology ambitions

Antoine Levesques

Nine months on from a military conflict with Pakistan which it says showcased the achievements of its defence-technology sector, India is hosting a global summit on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI). It has recently announced a draft defence-procurement policy that prioritises the mobilisation of its domestic technology and industrial base. A year after the country unveiled its first indigenous chip, designed for space, semiconductor ambitions have been upgraded and four Indian companies are expected to begin commercial manufacturing in 2026. Meanwhile, defence-technology co-development and co-production are at the heart of ongoing talks between India and several countries, including Israel.

Both in the civilian and military domains, understanding India’s ambitions in the field of advanced technology is an essential first step for foreign governments and businesses competing to partner with the country. But despite an unprecedented degree of whole-of-nation policy coordination, India’s formulation of those ambitions is still dispersed across a multitude of policy and business statements. Understanding India’s strategy for advanced technology acquisition and resilience requires gaining an overview of these statements as a whole. What are the factors shaping India’s technology ambitions? Four separate strands stand out.

Regular or Unleaded? Differentiating Irregular Warfare

Chad Machiela

Department of Defense Instruction 3000.07 defines Irregular Warfare with ambiguous criteria, including indirect approaches and asymmetric activities, which are also characteristic of conventional warfare. This lack of differentiating criteria complicates planning and approval processes. To provide a clearer distinction, this article proposes adding a complementary criterion, the level of state stewardship (state authority, entitlement, and responsibility), to differentiate state, or conventional, forces from irregular forces such as private militias, criminals, and disenfranchised groups. This model also proposes a model for visualizing and categorizing operations and activities within the spectrum of irregular and conventional warfare. Recognizing the presence of irregular forces in a contest will allow commanders to better apply the specific laws, authorities, and doctrines for supporting or targeting non-state forces.

Department of Defense Instruction 3000.07, Irregular Warfare (2025), provides commanders with definitions and policy guidance to conduct irregular warfare as a complement to other joint force activities, operations, and investments in competition and conflict. This instruction describes Irregular Warfare (IW) strategies and tactics as involving force or the threat of force for purposes other than physical domination over an adversary, and states, “IW is a form of warfare where states and non-state actors campaign to assure or coerce states or other groups through indirect, non-attributable, or asymmetric activities.”

Real Innovation for the Marine Corps

Gary Anderson

In 1989, a group of Marine Corps officers and civilian military theorists wrote several professional military journal articles describing a new wave of conflict that they dubbed Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW), defined by non-state actors, terrorists, armed militias, cyber actors, and even corporate entities engaged in conflict with established governments.

The first three generations of warfare were evolutions of conventional warfare marked largely by advancements in military technology. 4GW is still a contested concept of warfare, defined as: “Unlike traditional warfare, which focuses on defeating a military's capabilities, 4GW aims to undermine an adversary's societal cohesion and political will through asymmetric tactics, often targeting civilian populations and infrastructure.”