The Taliban in Afghanistan

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The Taliban are a predominantly Pashtun, Islamic fundamentalist group that returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021 after waging a twenty-year insurgency. Following the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the original regime in 2001, the Taliban regrouped across the border in Pakistan and began taking back territory less than ten years after their ouster. By August 2021, the Taliban had swept back into power. Their swift offensive came as the United States withdrew its remaining troops from Afghanistan as outlined in a 2020 peace agreement with the group.

Since their return to rule, the Taliban have imposed a harsh interpretation of Islamic law—as they did when they first came to power in the 1990s—despite pledges to respect the rights of women and religious and ethnic minorities. But as they have transitioned from an insurgent group to a functional government, the Taliban have struggled to provide Afghans with adequate food supplies and economic opportunities.

Pakistan: Responding to the Militant Surge on the Afghan Border

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Militant attacks in Pakistan’s western borderlands are surging, killing hundreds of civilians, police and soldiers, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province next to Afghanistan. The jihadist Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, or Pakistani Taliban) and its affiliates are responsible for most of the mayhem. Islamabad holds Kabul responsible, accusing the Afghan Taliban of refusing to act against the Pakistani militants based in Afghan territory. Kabul retorts that the TTP insurgency is a homegrown problem. Rising tensions led to clashes between Pakistani and Afghan Taliban forces in October 2025, and another flare-up looms unless Kabul does far more to prevent cross-border incursions. Friendly countries should work to restart dialogue. Meanwhile, Islamabad should ease economic pressures on Kabul by resuming trade. An effective counter-insurgency effort in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will also require addressing local concerns and improving collaboration between the military and provincial police, including by building the latter’s capacity to counter militancy.

As militant attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa spike, the Pakistani government accuses the Afghan Taliban of actively supporting the Pakistani Taliban, with whom they share ethnic and ideological bonds. Noting the warmer relations between the Afghan Taliban and its arch-rival India, Islamabad says Kabul is in cahoots with New Delhi in this endeavour. Rejecting Islamabad’s allegations, the Afghan Taliban insist that Pakistan alone bears responsibility for reining in the TTP, as the group’s grievances are with the Pakistani state. Publicly, they deny that TTP fighters are present on Afghan soil.

Why Are China and Russia Not Rushing to Help Iran?

Alexander Gabuev and Temur Umarov

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Carnegie Politika is a digital publication that features unmatched analysis and insight on Russia, Ukraine and the wider region. For nearly a decade, Carnegie Politika has published contributions from members of Carnegie’s global network of scholars and well-known outside contributors and has helped drive important strategic conversations and policy debates. The regime in Tehran has been brought to the brink of collapse by just a few days of attacks by the United States and Israel. In this period, Iran would have benefitted immensely from help from its allies: particularly those from the authoritarian “CRINK” axis (China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea) that opposes the democratic world order.

However, neither Moscow nor Beijing has offered any tangible support, limiting themselves to public criticism of the United States and Israel. While Russia’s passivity can be explained by its preoccupation with the war in Ukraine, the expectation that China might prop up Tehran militarily has always been flawed. China is not the “new America,” and it has very different ideas of how to act effectively in the modern world.

Strait of Hormuz explained: Why the Iran war threatens global energy flows

Alex Abraham

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The war triggered by US-Israeli strikes on Iran has pushed one of the world’s most critical maritime chokepoints — the Strait of Hormuz — to the centre of a rapidly escalating global energy crisis. Tanker traffic through the narrow passageway has plunged as shipping companies suspend operations and insurers withdraw coverage, sending oil prices soaring and forcing Gulf producers to cut exports.

Shipping activity through the strait has fallen by as much as 90 per cent, according to shipping analytics firm Kpler, as shipowners grow reluctant to risk vessels in waters increasingly threatened by missiles, drones and naval confrontation. Oil prices surged above $100 per barrel and briefly approached $120, reflecting fears that a prolonged disruption could choke off a major share of the world’s energy supply.

The end of Iran’s strategic patience

Jonathan Whittall

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Since October 7, 2023, the United States and Israel believed that sustained diplomatic and military pressure on Iran would deter and degrade its capacity to fight. In the process, they degraded something else entirely: Iran’s willingness to remain constrained. The missiles and drones now striking across the Gulf show that Iran is no longer holding back.

For years, Iran operated under a doctrine of “strategic patience”. This was a deliberate, calculated form of restraint that guided how Tehran and its network of allies delt with Washington and Tel Aviv. Rather than confrontation, Iran built and leveraged a web of deterrence: Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, and the Popular Mobilisation Forces in Iraq were its allies surrounding Israel, and helped to apply brakes on any major Israeli aggression.

Conflict in Iran Creating New Winners and Losers Across Former Soviet Space

Paul Goble

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The military conflict in Iran is having a major impact on the countries of the former Soviet space, creating new winners and losers and thereby transforming the relationships these states have with each other and with the rest of the world.

This transformation is not because of direct attacks on these countries or other military moves but because the conflict has closed Iran as a transit corridor, boosted oil prices, and forced these countries to take sides. Some of these consequences will end when the conflict does, and others are likely to continue long into the future. As a result, many of the countries in the former Soviet space are currently discussing how they can continue to benefit from the conflict or mitigate their losses.

The Middle East Enters Its First Great War: A New Order Could Emerge

Ibrahim al-Marashi and Tanya Goudsouzian

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From Riyadh to Abu Dhabi, from Baghdad to Beirut, previously contained disputes now collide, creating a sprawling theatre of war that threatens to envelop the entire region. For the first time, the Gulf states are fully drawn in and this conflagration, ignited by US and Israeli strikes on Iran and Tehran’s sweeping retaliatory campaigns, could become the Middle East’s own Great War in which multiple conflicts converge and the regional order is irreversibly reconfigured.

To understand how unprecedented this is, it helps to look back. The region’s conflicts in the 20th century, though brutal, were far more conventional. The Arab-Israeli wars between 1948 and 1973 saw Egypt, Jordan and Syria facing off against Israel in largely state-on-state combat, with clear frontlines and armies. The Iran-Iraq War (1980-88) unfolded as a gruelling, attritional struggle, marked by trench warfare, mass casualties and prolonged stalemate, emerging as the longest conventional war in the 20thcentury. Iran’s then newly formed Islamic Republic fought that war alone, with no international allies, while the USSR, the US and France, along with all the Gulf states aided Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Later, the Gulf Wars of 1991 and 2003 pitted Iraq against the US-led coalitions, relying on firepower and technologically advanced militaries. These conflicts were primarily battles between nation-states with defined combatants.

When the Cloud Becomes a Target: The Future of War Is Your Internet

Macdonald Amoah, Morgan Bazilian, and Jahara Matisek

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For most of the digital age, data centers were treated as background infrastructure, the quiet commercial machinery behind the abstraction called “the cloud.” They hosted financial systems, communications networks, logistics software, and, increasingly, the computing power behind artificial intelligence (AI). Hackers, ransomware, and cyber breaches were the primary threats to these systems. Now, those have become old problems. The cloud was never some weightless digital mist. It was always a physical system built from land, concrete, transformers, cooling systems, cables, and electricity. This means the cloud is still vulnerable to the old logic of war.

As governments, corporations, and militaries grow more dependent on concentrated cloud infrastructure, the facilities housing that computing power are now strategic infrastructure. Data centers are no longer just anonymous commercial properties tucked behind the digital economy. They are becoming part of the strategic rear: fixed, valuable, energy-hungry infrastructure whose disruption can impose immediate economic and operational costs. With states focused on building digital capacity and AI, including the Pentagon using an AI tool for the Iran War, the data centers built to enable economic productivity and warfighting abilities mean this infrastructure is a newly fixed target that is difficult to harden and protect.

What Does the Iran War Mean for Global Energy Markets?

Joseph Majkut, Kevin Book

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The sudden eruption of war in the Mideast Gulf has created dramatic new risks for global energy security. Iranian attacks have damaged oil and gas facilities in the Gulf region, and threats against shipping though the Strait of Hormuz have brought maritime traffic to a near standstill, halting oil and liquified natural gas (LNG) exports. As the crisis continues, announcements of closing production fields and LNG export facilities are beginning to mount. On Friday, March 6, international Brent oil prices surpassed $92 per barrel, up 28 percent since last Friday’s market close. Prolonged disruptions to shipping and/or significant damage to export facilities could cause lasting and larger price increases.

This week, President Donald Trump announced several measures to reduce potential energy price shocks. He said that the United States would guarantee shipping through the strait using both naval escorts and insurance products backed by the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, and that it would loosen energy sanctions on Russian oil imports into India.

Iran war is already bolstering Russia in Ukraine

James Horncastle

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The American and Israeli attacks on Iran and the confusion within the United States over the war’s objectives are making headlines. The attacks, and Iran’s counter-tactics of targeting American military bases and allies in the region, is having geopolitical ramifications beyond Iran’s borders. The surge in oil prices is just one way the war is affecting people around the world.

The war is also having a significant impact on other conflicts globally — especially the Russia-Ukraine war. The assault on Iran is helping advance Russian interests as it prepares for a spring offensive against Ukraine. The current phase of the Russia-Ukraine war is entering its fifth year, with the cost of the conflict in terms of resources and human casualties mounting on both sides.

What Is the Endgame in Iran?

Colin H. Kahl

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The fog of war is thick in Iran, but two things are already crystal clear. No one can question the unrivaled military prowess displayed by the United States and Israel. Since February 28, U.S. and Israeli forces have killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, struck thousands of military targets across Iran, and significantly degraded the country’s missile launchers, drone stockpiles, and naval assets. Nor should anyone doubt the cruelty of the Iranian regime they are targeting, which has spent decades killing Americans, brutalizing its own people, threatening its neighbors with missiles and terrorist proxies, and racing to build up its nuclear program.

But so much else about this war of choice remains unclear, and the biggest questions have gone unanswered by the Trump administration. In particular, how will this war end? And what will be the ultimate strategic implications of the Iran gamble? The history of American military intervention offers a consistent lesson: wars begun without clear political objectives rarely end well. When political goals are undefined or contested, the war lacks a logical stopping point. Tactical successes raise questions of what comes next, while tactical setbacks become justification for doing more. The mission expands, the timeline stretches, and the original rationale fades into the background as the war gains its own momentum. The nineteenth-century Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz famously argued that war is politics by other means. But the corollary is equally important: without a clear political purpose, war becomes an end in itself.

The Iran War Is Jeopardizing the Entire Global Economy

Esfandyar Batmanghelidj

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On Sunday, a fire broke out at a data center in Dubai belonging to Amazon Web Services. The facility was stuck by an object, likely shrapnel from an Iranian drone intercepted by the United Arab Emirates’ air defenses. The incident, which may mark the first time in history that a major company’s cloud data center was damaged in a war, is emblematic of the unprecedented nature of the conflict now unfolding in the Middle East. Far from just another war in the Persian Gulf, this is the first conflict since the Second World War to directly impact cities and facilities that serve as hubs in the globalized economy.

When U.S. and Israeli leaders launched military operations against Iran last week, they expected a forceful response. But Iran quickly moved beyond retaliation against U.S. and Israeli forces and opted to externalize the pain of the war by hitting civilian targets across all six of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states.

The Curse of Middle-Sized Wars In Iran, Trump Risks Falling Into a Familiar Trap

Robert D. Kaplan

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In 1988, the military historian James Stokesbury observed that democracies are best at fighting either little wars, which are reserved for “professionals” and don’t involve ordinary citizens, or really big wars that mobilize all of society. Those democracies, he continued, have “very real problems trying to fight a middle-sized war, where some go and some stay home.”

Middle-sized wars are big enough to cause immense destruction and bloodshed but small enough that they do not engage the full home front. They should not be confused with what the military theorist Carl von Clausewitz called a limited war, in which the

War in Iran: Q&A with RAND Experts

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The U.S.-Israeli military strikes on Iran that began February 28 have sent shockwaves across the region and beyond. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of senior Iranian officials are dead, throwing the country into political uncertainty. The fighting has spilled over into other parts of the Middle East, rattling the region. And airspace closures and threats to key shipping lanes have raised concerns about broader economic fallout.

To help put these developments into context, we asked nine RAND experts to discuss the dynamics within Iran, regional and global implications, the prospects for diplomacy, and more.

Who Is Mojtaba Khamenei?

Hamid Enayat

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On March 8, 2026, the Assembly of Experts — the body responsible under the Constitution of the Islamic Republic for appointing the Supreme Leader — announced the nomination of Mojtaba Khamenei as the successor to Ali Khamenei, the country’s highest authority. That same evening, state media went far beyond simply publishing a biography. In effect, they staged a kind of “media coronation,” formally presenting him with the title of “Ayatollah” in order to create and consolidate the religious legitimacy needed for such a transfer of power.

Life and Background of Mojtaba Khamenei

Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei was born on September 8, 1969, in Mashhad, as the second son of Ali Khamenei. He studied in religious schools and institutions reserved for the clerical elite. In the official narrative promoted by state media, Mojtaba is portrayed as a figure prepared for leadership: a senior instructor in religious studies, someone familiar with major issues of national policy, and a personality capable of leading both the state and the religious seminary establishment.

Security Of Weapons Of Mass Destruction-Related Materials In The Iran Conflict

Mary Beth D. Nikitin

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As U.S. military operations in Iran continue, Congress may examine how U.S. and partner forces plan to address potential loss of control by Iranian authorities of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)-related—or chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN)—materials and related facilities.

CBRN materials in conflict zones may be at increased risk of proliferation to non-state actors, terrorist groups, or states. Regional instability could create opportunities for illicit trafficking networks to move sensitive materials across borders. Some WMD-related facilities in Iran have reportedly been targeted in U.S. or Israeli airstrikes. Ongoing military operations in Iran may complicate onsite damage assessments and efforts to secure CBRN.

In Nepal, Gen Z Gets a Victory – and the Country May Too

Joshua Kurlantzick

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As I have noted in many prior articles, despite the wave of Gen Z protests that have swept through Asia in recent years and carried over to other parts of the globe (from Togo to Madagascar to the Caribbean), in the past year most of the youth protests led to minimal results at the ballot box, at least in Asia.

Since the beginning of the year, voters in Thailand chose a conservative, pro-military party to lead the new ruling coalition, while the progressive People’s Party, the party most aligned with the Gen Z demonstrators that rocked Bangkok several years ago, underperformed its predicted results. In Japan, recent elections resulted in a massive victory for the Liberal Democratic Party, the ultimate establishment party. And in February in Bangladesh, where in June and July 2024 student-led protests had ousted Sheikh Hasina and her increasingly authoritarian Awami League government, the leading Gen Z party won six seats in national elections. Meanwhile, the Awami League’s establishment counterpart, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, dominated voting and controls parliament.

First Ukraine, Now Iran: A New Era of Drone Warfare Takes Hold

Michael C. Horowitz

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Operation Epic Fury and Iran’s response to ongoing U.S. and Israeli attacks represent clear evidence that we are now in the era of precise mass in war, the high-volume use of low-cost, increasingly autonomous systems with high-accuracy guidance. In other words, there are a lot more drones on battlefields today, but not the ones you remember from the global war on terrorism. This shows that the lessons learned from the war in Ukraine, which has now dragged on for more than four years, are shaping the behavior of the United States, Iran, and Israel. The world is seeing the spread of a new form of warfare.

The United States is not the passenger it once was in this new format. The first wave of U.S. attacks as part of Operation Epic Fury marked the initial operational deployment of the LUCAS (low-cost unmanned combat attack system). Reverse-engineered from the Iranian Shahed-136 drone, the long-range, one-way attack loitering munition was sped through the Pentagon’s acquisition pipeline in just eighteen months, and it was only recently embedded in U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) in December 2025.

Pioneering Quantum-Supercomputing Integration: U.S. Leadership in the Next Computing Era

Hideki Tomoshige and Shruti Sharma

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Integrating quantum computers into U.S. world-class supercomputers is now a strategic imperative for U.S. technological leadership in the next era of computing. Hybrid systems will synergize classical and quantum computing and deliver breakthroughs faster in optimization, simulation, and scientific discovery.

While the United States leads in supercomputing and quantum computing, it lags behind Europe and Japan in developing hybrid quantum-supercomputing systems. Increased federal investment in testbeds, open-source software stacks, and workforce development can position the United States to shape and maintain competitiveness in quantum-supercomputing systems and capitalize on quantum breakthroughs when practical quantum advantages emerge.

Networked for War: Lessons from Ukraine’s Ground Robots

Jorge Rivero

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Although footage of aerial drones skimming over Ukraine’s front lines dominate widespread depictions of the ongoing war in the country, the use of unmanned ground vehicles crawling through mud and snow has increased significantly. In the past two years, Kyiv has moved from one-off battlefield experiments to fielding thousands of these vehicles, which perform logistics, engineering, and infantry support tasks. Some even drive explosives into Russian positions as kamikaze robots. Ukraine’s front lines are no longer just a contest of soldiers, armor, artillery, and first-person-view drone pilots; they have become a test range for unmanned ground vehicles operating in challenging terrain under constant fire.

In Ukraine’s emerging operational concept, the goal is not to replace soldiers but to keep them out of kill zones whenever possible. The Ukrainian General Staff reports that robotic platforms have reduced personnel casualties by up to 30 percent—a metric that, if sustained, translates directly into more infantry available for offensive operations and a slower rate of force degradation over time. Unmanned systems sit at the center of that approach, and for unmanned ground vehicles, or UGVs, in particular, the metrics that matter are critical: which platforms accomplish the mission and make it back to Ukrainian lines, how many soldiers each one requires for operation and maintenance, and whether they plug into the same drones, jammers, and supply lines that already keep infantry alive.

Trump Threatens Military Response 'At a Level Never Seen Before' If Iran Deploys Mines in Strait of Hormuz

Callum Sutherland and Connor Greene

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President Donald Trump threatened Iran with “military consequences” at “a level never seen before” if the country failed to immediately remove any mines it might have deployed in the Strait of Hormuz.

In a post on Truth Social Tuesday afternoon, Trump said that his Administration had “no reports” of Iran having placed mines in the strait––a narrow passage between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman through which around a fifth of global oil production flows––but demanded that if it had, “we want them removed, IMMEDIATELY!”

“If for any reason mines were placed, and they are not removed forthwith, the Military consequences to Iran will be at a level never seen before,” the President continued. “If, on the other hand, they remove what may have been placed, it will be a giant step in the right direction!”

Mixed messages from Trump leave more questions than answers over war's end

Anthony Zurchert

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President Donald Trump and his administration have so far offered mixed messages and contradictory explanations on the joint US-Israeli military campaign against Iran. And Monday - the 10th day of an operation that has rattled allies and shaken markets - typified this confusion around the war's timeline and ultimate goals.

After a tumultuous morning during which US shares indices dropped and oil prices surged, the American president began speed-dialling reporters in an apparent effort to soothe nerves. His comments, however, were lacking in clarity even when he was pushed for more detail. "I have a plan for everything, OK?" he told a reporter from the New York Post when asked about spiking oil prices. "I have a plan for everything. You'll be very happy."

To What End? When Technology and Media Seduce Politicians Into Taking Military Action

Matthew Ford

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Over the last few months we have seen how hyperconnected the contemporary battlefield has become. Civilian technologies, media platforms, and data infrastructures are now deeply entangled with military operations. This is reshaping the conduct of war, seducing us into focusing on media spectacle and in the process revealing something about strategy making in digitally integrated contexts.

On Friday (6 March 2026), the White House defined victory against Iran as the moment when the President “determines Iran no longer poses a threat to the US”. Victory didn’t involve a formal surrender. It was to be decided by the President himself. By Monday (9 March 2026), with oil prices surging, voters getting worried and threats to the economy mounting, the President declared that “I think the war is very complete, pretty much” before stepping back and saying, “we haven’t won enough”.

Enter Europe’s Cyber Deterrence

Alexander Klimburg

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Europe has entered a gray zone between peace and war. Russian hybrid warfare campaigns dominate the environment, leveraging cyber and information mechanisms to erode European cohesion and capacity without triggering a conventional military response. The implicit EU digital deterrence strategy—countering cyberattacks and information warfare through norms, entanglement, and resilience—does not sufficiently inhibit Russian hybrid campaigns. Moreover, the ability of the NATO to deter aggression by promising overwhelming retaliation largely based on U.S. capabilities aligns poorly with the scope of the Russian threat.

Instead, Europe must adopt a posture of compellence and independent deterrence, embracing cyber and information capabilities as a central instrument of statecraft. Neither the European Union nor NATO is structurally equipped to deliver the two necessary pillars of European cyber deterrence: (1) strategic operations in wartime and (2) gray zone compellence to counter hybrid warfare activities. Additionally, Europe remains highly dependent on U.S. cyber capabilities, creating strategic risk as U.S. involvement in European security declines.

What Does the New Cyber Strategy Really Mean?

Emily Harding

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The Trump administration dropped its long-awaited cybersecurity strategy late on Friday, March 6. Its tone is largely commendable—it is a declaration of a more robust, more aggressive, and more proactive cyber policy. It is marked by its brevity, clocking in at four pages, plus a cover letter. However, it is more a statement of goals than a strategy. It is remarkable for what it lacks: a conversation about matching resources to these goals. Still, there are more details to come, including some executive orders reportedly in the pipeline and a robust implementation plan that remains embargoed.

In many ways, it is a statement whose time is overdue. The recently published CSIS Intelligence, National Security, and Technology Program report, A Playbook for Winning the Cyber War, called for just such a declaration to adversaries. The administration’s document is a version of the Playbook’s recommendation to put adversaries on notice that the United States will no longer view cyberattacks as one-offs, or the cost of doing business, but for what they are: a critical national security threat. It is past time to restore deterrence in this vital domain.