Northeast India Turns Mercenary Corridor In Myanmar Civil War

Subir Bhaumik

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Bertil Lintner’s ” Great Game East ” seems to be unfolding in right earnest on the mountainous borderlands where South Asia links up to the Southeast.

Western mercenaries, possibly supported by US intelligence, are smuggling weapons and sneaking in to train and arm multiple local insurgent groups fighting Myanmar’s China-backed military junta. It has the trappings of the Big Power rivalry involving an aggressive US and a rising China , with both backing rivals in a nagging civil war between Myanmar’s military junta and the country’s many ethnic rebel armies.

Neighbouring countries like India, Bangladesh and Thailand are getting dragged into another forever conflict, which can only unsettle their vulnerable frontier regions.

Seven Foreigners Nabbed

Designating The Muslim Brotherhood: A Game Changer In The Fight Against Terrorism?

Prof. Rohan Gunaratna

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The contemporary wave of Political Islam was influenced and shaped by the Muslim Brotherhood. The foundational ideology of Al Qaeda, Islamic State (ISIS) and other Islamist terrorist groups is inspired, influenced and sourced from the Muslim Brotherhood. Both at its place of birth and nucleus, Egypt has proscribed the Muslim Brotherhood. Nonetheless, the politico-religious movement has spread, surged and sparked violence both in battlefields and off-the-battlefield.

The Muslim Brotherhood promotes exclusivism, extremism, violence and terrorism. An insidious threat, the Muslim Brotherhood can adapt to the operating environment functioning both clandestinely and openly. The most notorious branch of the Muslim Brotherhood is Hamas, the Palestinian group that led the massacre of 1,200 and abduction of 254 Israelis and foreigners on October 7, 2023. (1)

Antelope Reef Could Now Be the Largest Island in the South China Sea

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Media reporting in early 2026 has highlighted new Chinese dredging and landfill activity at Antelope Reef in the Paracel Islands. This is the first significant artificial island-building Beijing has undertaken in the South China Sea since 2017. But the more consequential—and underreported—development may be the projected size of the artificial island. If construction proceeds at the pace seen in satellite imagery, Antelope Reef is set to become China’s largest feature in the Paracels and potentially in the entire South China Sea, equaling or even surpassing the size of Mischief Reef in the Spratlys.

Antelope Reef lies within the Crescent island group in the southwestern part of the Paracels. It is located approximately 162 nautical miles from Sanya Port in China’s Hainan province and 216 nautical miles from Da Nang, Vietnam. Previously one of China’s smallest outposts in the Paracels, Beijing began major dredging at Antelope in October 2025, and in recent weeks has begun preliminary construction on some areas of the reef.

US, Allies Move to Shore up Taiwan Defense

Jens Kastner

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In late February, the Philippine, US and Japanese militaries for the first time moved their joint “Multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activities (MMCA)” military exercises from the South China Sea to the Bashi Channel that separates the Philippines from Taiwan, a shift that serves as a key focal point of strategy for the US and its allies to restrain China’s maritime expansion and deter a potential Taiwan invasion.

The drills’ geographical focus is Mavulis Island, a 2.2 sq. km uninhabited outcrop 142 km from Taiwan and 200 km from the northernmost tip of Luzon. The island is garrisoned by Philippine troops who have constructed a shelter for local fishermen, a water desalination plant, a helipad, lighthouse, and a hilltop flagpole.

How Does Saudi Arabia See the War with Iran?

Michael Ratney

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For Saudi Arabia, the Iran war in its scale, intensity, and potential impact is as unsettling as it is unprecedented. The Saudi leadership finds itself simultaneously trying to protect and prioritize its own economic and societal transformation, to navigate its relationship with an impulsive and unpredictable U.S. president, and to manage the geographic reality of living a drone’s flight away from a country that is likely to remain its principal antagonist for the foreseeable future. Not surprisingly, Saudi views of this war are complicated.

The question of how Saudi Arabia views this war has drawn considerable speculation, misunderstanding, and wishful thinking. The Saudi government communicates principally through official statements, and to the frustration of international journalists, unauthorized leaks are rare. Media reports citing unnamed and ambiguously defined sources with claims about Saudi intentions or their communications with President Donald Trump should be read cautiously. And so, to understand actual Saudi thinking, the best place to start is with what their government is saying publicly.

The Iran War is Causing Energy Chaos in Asia

Joshua Kurlantzick

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The Iran war has clearly upended energy markets around the world. Oil futures closed at $95 yesterday, even as some countries have released reserves in an attempt to prevent the oil price from going even higher. As Agence France Presse (AFP) has reported, strikes on the massive Ras Tanura refinery in Saudi Arabia, Ras Laffan gas processing base in Qatar, and the complex housing the Ruwais refinery in the United Arab Emirates, combined with Iran’s blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, has resulted in a drop of Gulf countries’ oil production by 10 million barrels per day, as compared to March 2025. AFP further reported that the amount of oil passing through the Strait of Hormuz has fallen to less than 10 percent of pre-war levels.

The impact can be felt everywhere, but in Asia – where nearly every country is highly dependent on Middle Eastern oil – the war has caused outright energy panic, with governments scrambling to respond and having few short-term answers. After all, Asia is the most exposed to the effects of the war on oil prices, since it is the region that relies most heavily on oil and gas shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. The level of consumer panic, in particular, is so great in some Asian states that it could soon lead to not only major economic shocks but even violence over limited energy supplies.

How the Iran War Ignited a Geoeconomic Firestorm

Edward Fishman

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The economic consequences of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran are coming into sharper focus as the conflict enters its third week. As the fallout expands beyond the Middle East and ripples through the global economy, markets and supply chains are being increasingly reshaped by the drones and missiles buzzing over the Gulf—and the United States has few options to de-escalate the conflict.

The Strait of Hormuz, which is critical to the oil and gas industry, is at the center of this disruption. But it’s not just energy markets that depend on the strait. Fertilizer and high-tech supply chains are also negatively affected, widening the crisis further. If the war develops into a protracted conflict, these issues could become lasting structural shocks to the world economy.

Defending the skies of the Arab Gulf states

Albert Vidal Ribe

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Since the beginning of the current war in Iran on 28 February, the Arab Gulf states have used hundreds of missile interceptors to counter Iranian missiles and one-way attack uninhabited aerial vehicles (OWA UAVs). They have already consumed a significant portion of their stockpiles of long-range interceptors. These air-defence systems have protected the Arab Gulf states while the United States and Israel prioritised the destruction of Iran’s ballistic-missile launchers and effectively eliminated most of Iran’s launch capabilities, which led to a sharp drop in the rate of Iranian ballistic-missile fire after the first few days of hostilities.

Though Iran’s UAV attacks have also decreased in intensity, drones continue to enter the skies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states by the dozen. Compared with ballistic missiles, these are cheaper systems and easier to launch, and Iran possesses a much larger stockpile of them. In the absence of a durable diplomatic settlement to the conflict – which is unlikely, at least in the short term – Iran is likely to rely on UAVs as a major part of its harassment strategy.

Why a weakened Iran is insisting on prolonging the war

Mostafa Salem

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Iranians attend a joint funeral held for security chief Ali Larijani, paramilitary commander Gholam Soleimani and 84 sailors from the Iranian Navy frigate IRIS Dena on Wednesday in Tehran. Majid Saeedi/Getty Images

Even as Iran confronts the gravest threat to its regime yet, it is signaling a willingness to prolong its conflict with the United States and Israel in a bid to finally reshape the region in its favor.

Iran’s regime has endured devastating losses over the past few weeks, with near daily US-Israeli strikes eliminating entire tiers of its leadership and military command structure. The Iranian population, already worn down by years of economic hardship, sanctions and mismanagement, now faces the added burdens of wartime shortages, infrastructure damage and an increasingly militarized domestic environment.

The Stunning Failure of Iranian Deterrence

Nicole Grajewski and Ankit Panda

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Although it was the United States and Israel that instigated attacks on Iran on February 28, leaders in Tehran deserve some of the blame for failing to effectively deter their adversaries. As the deceased commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, once put it, maintaining deterrence is like riding a bicycle: “You have to keep pedaling all the time, or else the bicycle will fall.” Over the past three years, Iran started to lose its balance; now it has tipped over.

US Air Force special operations seeks kamikaze drones

Michael Peck

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The U.S. Air Force wants small one-way attack drones for its special operations forces, according to an Air Force Request for Information. “Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) and Special Tactics (ST) units currently lack a purpose-built First-Person View (FPV) unmanned capability,” warned the RFI, which is due April 17. “This deficit restricts the force’s ability to employ FPV systems in specialized mission sets and limits the development of standardized Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) essential for modern, high-intensity conflict.”

The service is looking for a drone with a range of at least 10 kilometers, and ideally more than 20 kilometers. It would be armed with a fragmentation warhead of 1.5 to 3 kilograms. Flight time should be 15 to 30 minutes. Guidance would be via GPS, and include the ability to function in GPS-denied environments.

Drone Warfare and the Future of Korean Armor

Ju Hyung Kim

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In 2025, a NATO exercise in Estonia revealed the structural vulnerability that modern mechanized forces can no longer afford to ignore. During the Hedgehog 2025 exercise, a Ukrainian team of roughly ten people acting as the opposing force, using frontline drone tactics, simulated massive destruction—what exercise participants described as two battalions’ worth of armored vehicles—in a single day. The significance of the result does not rest on the number of simulated kills itself, but on what made such an outcome possible: namely, sustained aerial reconnaissance, swift integration of sensor-to-shooter systems, and the absence of effective countermeasures by maneuvering armored units.

For the Korean Peninsula, such a lesson should not be treated as a European anomaly, but as an immediate planning concern. North Korean personnel who have been sent to Europe in order to either participate in or observe combat are unlikely to return without operational insights. Even limited exposure to drone intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), AI-assisted targeting cues, loitering munitions, and cloud-enabled battle management systems could accelerate Pyongyang’s adaptation cycle. If these lessons are properly absorbed and applied by North Koreans, South Korea’s tank-centric defense concept could face a level of vulnerability that has not been experienced since the Cold War. In particular, the risk would drastically amplify in a dual contingency scenario that involves Taiwan. These lessons apply not only to the Republic of Korea Army, but also to US Army armored and mechanized formations deployed in South Korea and elsewhere.

Europe Cannot Be a Military Power

Hugo Bromley

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Since the end of World War II, the countries of western Europe have relied on the United States for their security. Thus safeguarded, these countries were left free to pursue economic integration while maintaining their democratic systems of government. Responsibility was bifurcated, with Washington handling the continent’s security, and Brussels taking on an ever-greater economic role. This division of responsibility is now uncertain. U.S. President Donald Trump has demanded the purchase of Greenland, attacked European leaders, and interfered in European countries’ domestic politics. 

More recently, he has warned that, if NATO allies do not assist in the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, “it will be very bad for the future of NATO.” Trump’s antagonism has spurred leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron to call for “strategic autonomy” from Washington. Analysts writing in Foreign Affairs—including Erik Jones and Matthias Matthijs—have suggested that the European Union must take on a greater role in European security. They argue that this should come as part of a wider push to become a “global power” capable of counterbalancing the Trump administration’s policies.

Deepfakes Are Already Shaping Opinions Around Conflicts

Daniel Byman

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The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is just over 2 weeks old, and already the world is awash in deepfakes. The New York Times reports that a “torrent of fake videos and images generated by artificial intelligence have overrun social networks during the first weeks of the war in Iran.” Deepfakes on X, Facebook, and other platforms, especially TikTok, have garnered millions of views. The fake videos include massive explosions in Tel Aviv, successful missile attacks on U.S. warships, Israelis bemoaning their losses, and other images purporting to show how Iran is delivering pain to its enemies. Many of the videos have a Hollywood feel to them, with massive explosions and sonic booms. Other videos are more muted, such as one showing girls playing just before the U.S. attack that accidentally struck the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school, killing at least 175 people, most of them children. The attack was real, but the video was fake.

According to a recent report by Cyabra, a company that tracks influence campaigns, Iran is behind the deepfake effort. Iran’s efforts are designed to sway audiences at home and abroad, convincing those populations that Iran is striking back while undermining the legitimacy of the U.S. and Israeli operations. The best response involves a coordinated effort between governments and private companies, working together to detect, debunk, and remove deepfakes. Even then, however, deepfakes are likely to spread widely and shape broader perceptions of the war.

Choppy waters in the Strait of Hormuz

Nick Childs

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President Donald Trump is not hiding his frustration that some of the United States’ European allies have been reluctant to heed his call for them to send ships and other forces to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. He reserved particular criticism for the United Kingdom. European leaders in turn have made it clear they do not want to be drawn directly into the current conflict. The UK prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has said that allies are seeking ‘a viable plan’. But what that would look like is far from clear. And recent experiences of trying to put together maritime-security operations in this region, notably to counter the Ansarullah (Houthi) anti-shipping campaign in and around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea, have highlighted the difficulties involved.

A chokepoint like no other

The latest events have been a salutary reminder that not all strategic maritime chokepoints are equal. The Strait of Hormuz may be one of the most critical.

When the Houthis threatened shipping in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait from November 2023, the dire economic consequences that were forecast did not materialise, in part because shippers could reroute around the Cape of Good Hope. There was also sufficient shipping capacity to cope, and markets adapted. The Strait of Hormuz is different. It accounts for 20% of all internationally traded oil, 34% of seaborne oil-trade flows and 30% of liquefied natural gas exports. It is also the only maritime route in and out of the Gulf.

Telegram Outages Spike in Kremlin’s Push for Digital Control

Kassie Corelli

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The Russian government widened restrictions on Telegram in February and March, beginning with slowed speeds. By mid-March, widespread Telegram outages have left the platform intermittently inaccessible across much of the country, suggesting a phased move toward a potential full block.

Over the past year and a half, the Russian government has steadily sought to gain control over the internet, restricting foreign messaging apps and turning off the mobile internet to shut down or restrict internet use in the event of public unrest, as occurred during recent protests in Iran.

The Kremlin’s restrictions on Telegram met with unexpected opposition from Russian war correspondents, deputies, and other government officials. This pushback demonstrates that the security services’ attempts to cut the population off from communications can also damage regime interests.

and Israel aligned on Iran war? Deciphering Trump's post after gas field attacks

Paul Adams

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US President Donald Trump has issued a typically strongly worded statement in the wake of attacks on a major gas field shared by Iran and Qatar on Wednesday. Israel hit Iran's South Pars - part of the world's largest natural gas field – and Tehran retaliated by striking an energy complex in Qatar. The attacks led to a spike in energy prices, and fuelled Trump's wrath.

On his Truth Social media platform, Trump threatened Iran again and said he didn't know about Israel's plans for the attack. So what does the language used by the US president tell us about the course of the war and the extent to which the US and Israel are aligned on its strategy and goals?

With the Pentagon’s FY27 budget request forthcoming, it’s unclear if it will hit $1.5 trillion

Ashley Roque and Valerie Insinna

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WASHINGTON — It’s “pencils down” on options for a $1.5 trillion defense spending request for fiscal 2027, but the Trump administration is still fleshing out just what vehicles it will use to ask for those dollars, according to Jules Hurst who is performing the duties of the Pentagon’s comptroller.

“We’re in the final stages” of cementing the budget, Hurst told Breaking Defense at the McAleese Defense Programs conference Tuesday. “We’ll keep the FY27 budget intact, and then if there’s a supplemental, it would be separate from the budget.”

The budget’s “going to procure many more aircraft during the FYDP [Future Years Defense Program], more ships, tens of thousands of critical munitions,” he added. “It’s going to make sure that we stay dominant in space … and allow us to make the big investments needed in drone dominance,” he said earlier on stage.

Department Leader Says Nuclear Triad Must Be Upgraded to Meet Dual Threat

C. Todd Lopez

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"U.S. strategy is at a critical inflection point," said Robert Kadlec, assistant secretary of war for nuclear deterrence, chemical and biological defense policy and programs, while testifying before the House Armed Services Committee's strategic forces subcommittee.

China's strategic nuclear "breakout," Kadlec said — an unprecedented, major increase in bolstering their nuclear capability — means that the U.S. nuclear arsenal must deter both China and Russia.

Compounding that problem, he said, are the budgetary, industrial and programmatic strains of modernizing all three legs of the nuclear triad at once — land, sea and air. An additional factor is that the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia expired in February. That treaty limited the number of strategic warheads for both the U.S. and Russia.

Drones over base where Rubio, Hegseth live raise security concerns

Isaac Arnsdorf

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Unidentified drones over Fort McNair, where Secretary Rubio and Secretary Hegseth live, triggered heightened security and White House discussions over possible relocation. The incidents come amid broader alerts tied to possible Iranian retaliation, including lockdowns at other U.S. bases and a global warning for American diplomatic posts and personnel.

Fort McNair houses the National Defense University and some of the Pentagon’s most senior military officials. The base has not traditionally housed political leaders, but a growing number of Trump officials, including outgoing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem, have moved onto area bases, citing security concerns.

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.”

Khamenei did not die. Not until two weeks ago, when U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did what nature had not and ended the supreme leader’s 36-year stewardship of the Islamic Republic. Khamenei left a damning legacy. Since his ascension in 1989, the Iranian rial has lost almost all of its value against the dollar. Although rich in natural resources, Iran consistently experiences electricity and water shortages. Over the past year, food prices surged more than 70 percent.

As Putin’s War Comes Home, Russians Ever Less Prepared to Support It

Paul Goble

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has sought to restrict the greatest impact of his war against Ukraine to marginal groups who could make money by serving in the military. The Kremlin realized early on that most Russians were not prepared to sacrifice for its war against Ukraine.

This approach is now failing because combat losses are mounting and the war coming home in the form of drone attacks and government cutbacks to key services to finance Russia’s armies in the field. Polls suggest that these developments are reducing the willingness of Russians to give the war more than lip-service support. Putin is increasingly using repression to prevent protests, an approach costing him support, which could trigger a crisis.

Quantum statecraft: the US, China and Europe

Dongyoun Cho

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Quantum competition is entering an infrastructure phase of technological rivalry. For much of the past decade, discussion centred on laboratory breakthroughs such as qubit counts, coherence times and demonstrations of quantum advantage – but as quantum technologies move closer to operational use in communications, sensing, optimisation and cryptographic resilience, the focus of competition is shifting accordingly.

The key question is no longer simply who invents first, but who can build, govern and scale the infrastructures through which quantum systems will operate. In this new phase, advantage will accrue less to the fastest innovator than to the actor that embeds governance choices into supply chains, standards, procurement systems and security controls.

Why Iran Was Always a Threat to the US

Ahmed Charai

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Today’s Senate Intelligence Committee’s Worldwide Threats demonstrated that in an age of deep polarization and mounting international disorder, the public questioning of intelligence leaders before elected representatives is one of democracy’s highest disciplines. Those in power must explain their actions before the nation.

Specifically, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified before the Senate committee on the Trump administration’s decision to launch strikes on Iran on February 28. Their testimonies mattered not because they satisfied partisan ritual, but because they defined to the public how they assess the threats gathering against the United States, its allies, and the strategic order America sustains.

Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Defence Planning: Case of Japan

Ryo HINATA-YAMAGUCHI

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Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi examines how AI is shaping Japan’s defence planning and operational risk management, focusing on the strategic operationalisation within the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) and its broader regional implications. While AI serves as an essential enabler of defence readiness, it must not become its primary driver. A purely technology-centric approach—lacking integration with structural, procedural, and infrastructural reforms—risks creating a dangerous disconnect in military capabilities. Furthermore, the proliferation of AI-enabled systems across Asia-Pacific countries could exacerbate existing regional tensions. Given that full transparency is unlikely in such sensitive domains, the path forward requires a collaborative framework among regional stakeholders. By establishing shared norms for accountability, oversight, and responsible use, the region can mitigate the risks of inadvertent escalation and pave the way for long-term strategic stability.

About the Author

Ryo HINATA-YAMAGUCHI is an Associate Professor at the Institute for International Strategy, Tokyo International University; Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Atlantic Council Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Indo-Pacific Security Initiative; and Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Pacific Forum. Ryo has presented, published, and consulted on a variety of topics relating to defence and security, and transport governance in the Indo-Pacific. Ryo previously served as a non-commissioned officer in the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (reserve) and also held positions at the University of Tokyo, Pusan National University, and Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang. Ryo received his PhD from the University of New South Wales, MA in Strategic and Defence Studies and BA in Security Analysis from the Australian National University and was also a Korea Foundation Language Training Fellow.