Gas on the line: will the Iran war squeeze India's piped gas next?

Soutik Biswas

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Now another energy artery is under scrutiny: the country's rapidly expanding network of piped natural gas (PNG) - gas delivered by pipeline to homes and businesses. Demand for this natural gas comes from fertiliser plants, industry and gas-fired power, as well as city gas networks - which supply PNG to households and CNG (compressed natural gas) to vehicles.

Of these, city gas to homes is the standout grower, expanding steadily as the network spreads across urban India. That push is mirrored on the ground: India now has more than 15 million PNG connections, a number rising fast as policymakers nudge households to swap cylinders for gas on tap.

Quadcopter Drones Reshaping Pakistan’s Militant Landscape (Part One)

Rahim Nasar

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Militant organizations, particularly the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan (IMP), have begun using commercially available quadcopter drones for offensive operations, shifting the warfare modes beyond Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and suicide bombings.

The doctrinal shift has exacerbated casualties of security personnel, as Pakistan’s anti-drone systems were unprepared for this shift, while minimizing the operational risks posed to the militant groups’ fighters.The resurging intensity and technical complexity of the quadcopter drone campaign by the militants predict a new and sophisticated era of hybrid warfare and militancy, which, if not properly tackled, can pose serious threats to Pakistan’s security landscape.

Opinion‘Two sessions’ signals China-US tech contest is entering a new era

Denis Simon

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With the conclusion of China’s annual parliamentary “two sessions” meetings, emerging policy priorities suggest its relationship with the United States is entering a new technological era.

This year’s government work report set an economic growth target of 4.5 to 5 per cent and announced increased fiscal support for science and technology, including a 10 per cent funding rise for research and development and over 16 per cent for basic research. More than routine budget adjustments, these figures signal China’s determination to anchor its next development phase in scientific capability, technological innovation and advanced manufacturing.

The China-US relationship is likely to be defined by intensified competition in key strategic industries, with a smaller but still meaningful space for cooperation in global science and innovation.

Strategic Snapshot: U.S.–PRC Tech Competition

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Under General Secretary Xi Jinping, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has made technology competition the focus of its long-term struggle against the West. The 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) has codified the fusion of national planning, security strategy, and technological control under Xi’s direct command. The plan, whose early chapters are dedicated to building a modern industrial system, accelerating tech self-reliance and cultivating new productive forces, and deepening informatization and intelligentization, highlights a range of priority high-tech sectors. These include artificial intelligence (AI), quantum, biotechnology, connected devices and the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, and open-source technologies, among others. The Party believes that seizing the “commanding heights” in these areas is critical to ensuring long-term dominance (Xinhua, March 5).

Xi has directed the Party-state system to advance a whole-of-nation approach to promoting strategic sectors. This is seen in the mechanisms embedded in the Party’s seven national development strategies, of which the military–civil fusion development strategy the most important, coordinating the system to diffuse innovation throughout the pillars of the Party’s power. It also involves boosting competitiveness through securing supply chains, promoting innovation, and ensuring that critical technologies remain in reliable hands. “Reverse constrainment,” or the selective weaponization of trade, has emerged as one tactic to adapt to the competitive international environment; but the Party deploys a variety of other tools in pursuit of supply chain sovereignty, technological dominance, and ultimately victory in international technological competition.

IDF 9900 intel official: We destroyed Iran's base for attacking satellites to keep space supremacy

YONAH JEREMY BOBCH 

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In an extremely rare public statement, an IDF Unit 9900 intelligence official said on Monday that Israel has destroyed an Iranian base which was focused on building technologies to shoot down Israeli satellites and other adversaries' satellites.

According to the officer from the IDF's clandestine satellite intelligence division, the goal of the attack was to maintain Israel's supremacy in space, especially regarding satellite surveillance. "We are leading many efforts to preserve the IDF's freedom of action in the arena of space, and to harm the capabilities of Iran to act and to build such forces," said the Unit 9900 official.

Who wants what from the Iran war?

Frank Gardner

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President Donald Trump's war aims have been somewhat opaque, appearing to vacillate between a simple curtailment of Iran's nuclear programme, to capitulation to all US and Israeli demands, to the total collapse of the Islamic Republic regime. So far, Iran has neither capitulated nor collapsed. But its military has been severely weakened by 16 days of relentless precision bombing.

Indirect talks between the US and Iran in Geneva in February, mediated by Oman, were making progress on the nuclear file. The Omanis say Iran was prepared to make major concessions that offered significant reassurance Tehran was not pursuing a nuclear weapon. What Iran was not prepared to discuss was curtailing or cancelling its ballistic missile programme nor its support for proxy groups around the region, like the Houthis in Yemen or Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The Chokepoint We Missed: Sulfur, Hormuz, and the Threats to Military Readiness

Morgan Bazilian, Macdonald Amoah and Jahara Matisek

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The cascading effects of disrupted maritime chokepoints are no longer the subject of simulations; they are an active crisis. As the US-Israeli military operation against Iran and Tehran’s regional military response continue, missile attacks, drone swarms, airstrikes, and maritime threats complicate commercial shipping across the region. The ongoing disruption in the Strait of Hormuz affects about 20 percent of global petroleum and 20 percent of liquid natural gas transits. It is also the subject of decades of wargaming for just this occurrence. But a lesser-known chemical also is being halted: 41 percent of global sulfur is exported. 

While the United States produces significant sulfur domestically, the near-total disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which accounts for approximately 50 percent of global seaborne sulfur trade flows, has compounded an already tight market. US sulfur prices have increased 165 percent year-over-year to over $650 per metric ton; and now the price has surged by 25 percent just since the Iran war began. This makes domestic procurement fiercely competitive, while also threatening the import of specific ultra-high-purity grades required for advanced manufacturing. It is squeezing one of the most consequential inputs to modern industrial power.

The Gulf states’ offensive options against Iran

Dr Hasan Alhasan

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Despite previously pledging neutrality and trying to avoid war, the Gulf states are bearing the brunt of Iran’s retaliation against American and Israeli aggression. Iran has fired at least 1,946 missiles and uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAVs) against the United Arab Emirates alone, far surpassing the number of projectiles fired against Israel. In addition to targeting American military bases and facilities in the region, Iran is striking a wide range of civilian targets in the Gulf states, including hotels, airports, ports, and oil and gas facilities, imposing a growing human and economic toll on its neighbours.

Emirati diplomatic adviser Dr Anwar Gargash has stated that the Arab Gulf states can ‘no longer sit idle and absorb [Iranian] attacks against their facilities’, while Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Dr Majed al-Ansari has said that Iran’s attacks ‘cannot go unanswered’ and a ‘price must be paid’. The United States has been coaxing and sometimes pressuring the Gulf states to join the war, largely to signal broader regional support for the US–Israeli campaign. US President Donald Trump has claimed, without evidence, that the Gulf states are ‘aggressively fighting’ and ‘insist on being involved’, although they have repeatedly denied this. Trump ally US Senator Lindsey Graham has warned that ‘consequences will follow’ if the states fail to ‘get more involved’ in the war.

How Iraq Is the New Frontline of the Iran War

Seth J. Frantzman

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Iran is seeking to inflame Iraq and drag it into an ever-widening conflict in the Middle East. In the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran on February 28, there have been numerous attacks in Iraq by Iran and Iranian-backed militias. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani on March 9 and “condemned terrorist attacks by Iran and Iran-aligned terrorist militia groups in Iraq, including in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region.”

In the wake of the call, the attacks have increased. Kurdish media outlet Rudaw estimates that there have been more than 270 drone and missile attacks on the autonomous Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq. These attacks have targeted US forces as well as other members of the anti-ISIS Coalition. In addition, they have targeted bases of Kurdish Iranian opposition groups. Italy said on March 12 that it believes an attack on its forces in Iraq was deliberate.

Signifying Absolutely Nothing

Fintan O’Toole

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In Donald Trump’s war on Iran, everything is meta except the bombs. At the point of impact, where buildings shatter and flesh is shredded, the war inhabits the material world of awful human consequences. But up to that point, as it exists in Trump’s mind, it seems to be a crazy historical pageant in which disconnected scenes from past American imperial misadventures are randomly reenacted.

It is apt that Trump’s declaration of war was disembodied: a prerecorded video message announcing a major combat operation that had yet to begin. Time in that video is completely distorted; events that are about to happen are referred to in the past tense. Throughout it gives the feeling of being in a time warp: Trump cited as a casus belli “the marine barracks bombing in Beirut that killed 241 American military personnel” in 1983. The forty-three-year gap between provocation and retaliation is a void between cause and effect into which all temporal logic vanishes.

How America’s War on Iran Backfired

Nate Swanson

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Seventeen years ago, while serving as an Iran desk officer in the U.S. State Department, I asked a more veteran colleague about the latest inflammatory statement by Mahmood Ahmadinejad, then the Iranian president. My colleague responded: “Stop paying attention to Ahmadinejad. Only focus on Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. He makes the important decisions.” He added: “But don’t worry. Change is coming. Khamenei”—who was then 69 and widely believed to have cancer—“could die at any moment.”

us

Khamenei did not die. Not until two weeks ago, when U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

How History Keeps the U.S. and Iran on a Collision Course

James Durso

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The United States and Iran are fighting not just because of their differences, but also because of their similarities. Both countries see themselves as exceptional civilizations shaped by religion and sustained by a sense of victimhood. Each believes it has been repeatedly wronged by the other and is therefore acting defensively. This mutual narrative has become one of the most powerful forces shaping U.S.–Iran relations.

Both nations interpret the relationship through different historical starting points. Because their memories of the conflict begin at different moments, each country tells a story in which it is primarily the victim and the other the aggressor.

Cascade of A.I. Fakes About War With Iran Causes Chaos Online

Stuart A. Thompson and Alexander Cardia

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A torrent of fake videos and images generated by artificial intelligence have overrun social networks during the first weeks of the war in Iran. The videos — showing huge explosions that never happened, decimated city streets that were never attacked or troops protesting the war who do not exist — have added a chaotic and confusing layer to the conflict online.

The New York Times identified over 110 unique A.I.-generated images and videos from the past two weeks about the war in the Middle East. The fakes covered every aspect of the fighting: They falsely depicted screaming Israelis cowering as explosions ripped through Tel Aviv, Iranians mourning their dead and American military vessels bombarded with missiles and torpedoes.

Strategy for a new nuclear age

Michael Albertson, Paul Amato, Henry "Trey" Obering, Ankit Panda, Kingston Reif, Amy Woolf

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For much of the post–Cold War era, nuclear strategy receded from daily headlines. That era is over now. In the last several years alone, Russia routinely threatened nuclear use to limit Western support to Ukraine and tested new delivery systems capable of carrying nuclear weapons. China rapidly and opaquely expanded its nuclear arsenal, built new missile silos, diversified its delivery systems, and may have conducted a low-yield nuclear explosive test in June 2020. The reliability, survivability, and accuracy of North Korea’s nuclear-capable missiles incrementally improved. In May 2025, during the most serious military crisis between India and Pakistan in decades, Pakistan’s prime minister called a meeting of the National Command Authority, the body that oversees Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. The following month, and again beginning in February 2026, the United States and Israel conducted military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites with the aim of destroying Iran’s nuclear program.

Taken together, these developments force the United States to confront the most complex strategic environment since the advent of nuclear weapons—one defined by simultaneous nuclear challenges across geographies and domains. The February 2026 expiration of the New START Treaty further complicated the landscape by removing the last remaining constraints on US and Russian strategic forces, which raises urgent questions about force sizing, modernization timelines, and the future of arms control. US policymakers must now grapple with whether existing nuclear posture remains sufficient, as well as how best to balance deterrence requirements with fiscal realities and alliance commitments.

Trump, Iran, and Israel: The Wars Behind the War

Cédric Debernard

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Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been living under a logic that its Western observers struggle to fully grasp: that of a state which knows, with clinical precision, that several of its neighbors and their backers are organized around a single objective, its disappearance. This is not paranoia. It is written on the walls, literally. In the north, Hezbollah — armed, financed and directed by Tehran — spent two decades building an arsenal of over 150,000 rockets pointed south. To the northeast, in Tehran, a countdown clock installed in 2020 displays the date by which the Islamic Republic has promised Israel will cease to exist. To the southwest, in Gaza, Hamas carried out the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. And further south still, from Yemen, Houthi missiles reach Tel Aviv. The geography of threat is total.

How should a state respond to this? That question — deceptively simple — is where international relations theory stops being abstract and becomes existential. Two schools of thought have long shaped the debate: liberalism and realism. In most capitals, they are competing frameworks. In Israel, they are competing survival strategies. And the gap between them has never been wider.

More US Marines and warships being moved to Middle East, reports say

James Chater

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More US Marines and warships are being deployed to the Middle East, two officials confirmed to CBS News, the BBC's US partner. The officials said the reinforcements were to come from an amphibious ready group and its Marine expeditionary unit, with one official adding that the group would be led by the Japan-based USS Tripoli, an amphibious assault ship.

The unit headed by the USS Tripoli typically consists of around 5,000 sailors and Marines distributed across several warships. The development comes as President Donald Trump said US forces had "totally obliterated" Iranian military infrastructure on Kharg Island in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for global oil shipping.

Iran’s Hormuz blockade is its most powerful card against Trump and Israel. It won’t back down easily

Jack Watling

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The US and Israeli decision to attack Iran has sent economic shockwaves around the world. About 20% of global oil supplies have been effectively blocked from transiting the strait of Hormuz since Iran began attacking ships, resulting in a huge jump in oil prices. Militarily, while the United States has the firepower to significantly reduce Iran’s capacity to strike ships in the strait, it is unlikely to be able to eliminate the threat entirely.

Reopening the strait, therefore, is not only a question of military capabilities but of diplomacy, and to negotiate it is necessary to understand what each party to the conflict is trying to achieve.

For the Iranian government, the purpose of its arsenal of ballistic missiles was to deter any direct aggression, allowing the country to subvert its adversaries through violent proxies without incurring retaliation. That deterrent has failed. The idea that Iran can be attacked whenever its actions displease its opponents is clearly unacceptable, and so the Iranian government wishes to re-establish deterrence by imposing such a cost on the global economy that further attacks are not contemplated. The mechanism for doing this is the closure of the strait of Hormuz.

Europe’s hollow Iran war outrage

Leon Hadar

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Watching European capitals scramble to calibrate their response to the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran, one is reminded of a recurring scene in a very bad play — one that has run, with minor variations, since Suez. Europe blusters. Europe convenes. Europe issues a communique. And then Europe does nothing.

The pattern is so familiar by now that it barely warrants analysis. And yet the current crisis deserves closer scrutiny, not because Europe has surprised observers, but because the depth of its strategic irrelevance has been so thoroughly exposed — and so thoroughly obscured by the fog of its own rhetoric. Let us be clear about what has happened. Washington, in close coordination with Jerusalem, undertook a major military operation against Iranian nuclear and military infrastructure.

The US-Israeli strategy against Iran is working. Here is why

Muhanad Seloom

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Two weeks into Operation Epic Fury, the dominant narrative has settled into a comfortable groove: The United States and Israel stumbled into a war without a plan. Iran is retaliating across the region. Oil prices are surging, and the world is facing another Middle Eastern quagmire. US senators have called it a blunder. Cable news has tallied the crises. Commentators have warned of a long war.

The chorus is loud and, in some respects, understandable. War is ugly, and this one has imposed real costs on millions of people across the Middle East, including the city I live in. But this narrative is wrong. Not because the costs are imaginary, but because the critics are measuring the wrong things. They are cataloguing the price of the campaign while ignoring the strategic ledger.

Washington’s War in Iran Will Encourage Nuclear Proliferation

Alex Madajian

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The recent US-Israeli attacks against Iran have proven something to the world: Either you get the bomb, or you bow before someone who has the bomb. That wouldn’t be so grim if the stakes weren’t so high. But the issue with nuclear bombs is it only takes one to go off before apocalyptic concerns rear their head. To small and great powers alike, the current war in Iran proves the only guarantee of deterring a nuclear-armed adversary in this era is if you actually have a nuclear weapon of your own.

Oceans of ink have been spilled over who should or should not get a nuclear weapon, but given the recent events, several countries are doing more than just talking about becoming nuclear powers. Poland, Finland, Japan, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia are a few of the countries which reportedly are eyeing getting their own nuclear deterrent. Undoubtedly others are secretly scrambling to see if they can acquire nuclear capabilities themselves.

‘Bit of treachery’: US attack on IRIS Dena undermines Indian security ties

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The distress call came in to Sri Lanka’s maritime rescue coordination centre just after 5am. The ship in trouble, they determined, was well within Sri Lanka’s obligation for rescue, being just over 19 nautical miles off the coast of the southern city of Galle.

The navy swiftly mobilised and, by 6am, the first search and rescue boat was on its way, another soon close behind. It was hard to see through the thick morning mist but officers onboard kept their eyes peeled for a ship in the distance. Instead they found a spooling slick of oil on the sea’s surface. Dozens of survivors held on to life rafts and bodies bobbed in the waves, but the vessel was nowhere to be seen. IRIS Dena, an Iranian warship on its way to a friendly port call in Sri Lanka, already sat on the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

Surge in US gas prices deepens political peril for Trump over Iran

Anthony Zurcher

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In the third week of the joint US-Israeli war against Iran, Donald Trump faces decisions that could define the rest of his presidency. But if the American commander-in-chief is grappling with a war of choice that seems in danger of spiralling in ways he can't control, those concerns are not playing out in public.

In more than an hour of public remarks at the White House on Monday, he discussed his thinking on the state of the war effort - and also on Kennedy Center renovations, White House ballroom construction plans, this year's World Cup tournament, the health of a Republican congressman and a host of other unrelated topics. It was classic Trump, as unscripted and wide-ranging as ever. This past weekend, he played golf at his Florida resort. And on his Truth Social website, he devoted nearly as much time to railing about the Supreme Court as he did to discussing the Iran War.

Trump’s Cyber Strategy Falls Short on China, Iran, and the Threats That Matter Most

Matthew Ferren

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The White House’s recently released cyber strategy is strikingly short, with just four pages of substance—roughly one-seventh the length of the Biden administration’s 2023 strategy. National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross has described it as a high-level statement of intent, with action items to come. But the brevity also reflects a fraying cyber apparatus that is, at best, still finding its footing and, at worst, suffering from institutional neglect.

This strategy arrives at a precarious moment. The United States faces longstanding and intensifying cyber threats—from Chinese espionage and pre-positioning on critical infrastructure to ransomware campaigns that disrupt essential services—that demand sustained attention and investment. The president’s war of choice with Iran adds new urgency. Tehran-linked groups are already threatening cyberattacks on U.S. networks, and the White House’s ability to coordinate national cyber defenses will face an immediate test.

Cheap drones transform global battlefield

Zachary Basu

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Cheap, mass-produced drones have permanently changed the face of warfare.Without them, Russia's overwhelming manpower and firepower advantage would grind Ukraine into dust.

Without them, the Houthis are a ragtag militia in Yemen — not a force that brought global shipping to its knees.

Why it matters: Size no longer guarantees victory. Any nation, any proxy, any rebel group with access to cash and commercial components can now bleed a superpower slowly, expensively and without a clean answer. Driving the news: Iran's Shahed drone — said to cost between $20,000 and $50,000 — has been the regime's great equalizer, forcing the U.S. and its allies to respond in some cases with interceptor missiles costing millions of dollars each.

The AI Antagonist

Brian Miller

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There is a moment in almost every AI adoption effort where the room gives itself away. A leader asks, “What platform should we buy?” Someone answers with a vendor name. Another person says, “We need an enterprise foundation.” A slide appears with the phrase “AI transformation.” Heads nod. A contract strategy starts to form.

Near the end of the meeting, someone asks the question that should have been first: “What problems are we actually trying to solve?” By then, the decision energy has moved. The capability is already being acquired. The use cases will be figured out later.

This is not a villainous plot. It is a reflex, the capabilities-first acquisition reflex. It is the single biggest obstacle to AI adoption in defense, and why top-down urgency doesn’t reliably translate into bottom-up adoption. The timing matters. Secretary Hegseth recently told the Department of War to become AI-first, push capabilities into operators’ hands in days, and measure success by usage and mission impact, not PowerPoint. That kind of demand signal raises the pressure, but it doesn’t remove the capabilities-first reflex that turns pressure into misguided procurement.