Fuel Shortages Raise Stability Risks in Myanmar

Andrew Nachemson

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Last week, a Thai cargo ship ran aground near Iran’s Qeshm Island, two weeks after Iranian forces bombed the vessel as it tried to cross the Strait of Hormuz. Twenty sailors were rescued on the day of the attack as the Mayuree Naree drifted through an active war zone with a damaged engine, but three people remain unaccounted for.

The sailors were among many Southeast Asians caught up—in this case, literally—in the current Middle East conflict as it threatens to destabilize fuel supplies and derail economies. Around 20 percent of the world’s oil and natural gas transits the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has declared that no ships can transit the strait without its approval, aiming to jolt the global economy in retaliation for ongoing U.S. and Israeli attacks.

The end of Trumpism is nigh

Christopher Caldwell

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Having Donald Trump as your president probably resembles being a heroin addict: you undergo regular episodes of sweating terror and mortal danger, the end result of which is to get you – at best – back to normal. A year ago, the Liberation Day tariffs nearly caused the American economy to seize up, before China mercifully let the matter drop. Then came the even more reckless decision to join Israel in bombing Iran’s Fordow nuclear installation; Iran agreed to halt hostilities just as it was figuring out how to penetrate Israeli airspace with its missiles.

But now the President has pressed his luck. He has joined Israel in a campaign of aerial assassination and bombardment against Iran – this time of an almost incredible violence – and has wound up trapped. American air power proved sufficient to kill Iran’s 86-year-old leader and dozens of schoolgirls, flatten apartment blocks and blow up much of the country’s navy, but not to neutralise Iran’s missiles, which have been able to rain destruction on America’s bases and Tel Aviv’s neighbourhoods.

Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 per cent of the world’s oil passes. The reversal has not brought out the President’s dignified side. He now boasts about the comprehensiveness of his glorious victory, while imploring America’s hitherto unconsulted allies to join him in a naval campaign to get the strait back open. The message seems to be: ‘Help! Help! We’re kicking ass!’

Trump has escaped other predicaments of his own making, but there is something different about this one. The attack on Iran is so wildly inconsistent with the wishes of his own base, so diametrically opposed to their reading of the national interest, that it is likely to mark the end of Trumpism as a project. Those with a claim to speak for Trumpism – Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly – have reacted to the invasion with incredulity. Trump may entertain himself with the presidency for the next three years (barring impeachment), but the mutual respect between him and his movement has been ruptured, and his revolution is essentially over.

The Xi Doctrine Zeros in on “High-Quality Development” for China’s Economic Future

Damien Ma

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While the Strait of Hormuz crisis roiled the global economy, Chinese President Xi Jinping was putting his imprimatur on China’s economic and social blueprint. On March 12, the National People’s Congress approved China’s fifteenth Five-Year Plan, which covers this year through 2030. Central to the plan—Xi’s third as president—is the elevation of “high quality” development that approximates a “Xi doctrine” on the economy. The term is pervasive in the latest plan, appearing at least 50 percent more than in the previous iteration. It has clearly become an organizing principle associated with Xi himself, making its significance as much political as it is economic.

In many ways like a large corporation, China operates on five-year planning cycles that also overlap with its five-year political cycles. The plans are painstakingly put together across multiple government agencies over at least two years and reflect the top leadership’s political mandate. Once the plan is out, China aims to stick with it and marshals the entire bureaucracy and provinces to execute, with the intent of minimizing major corrections within the timeframe. Though the plan is sufficiently flexible to allow for adaptation to local conditions, every level of government is expected to execute within the parameters of the plan—their performance and political prospects depend on it.

Xi has attempted to reset the Chinese economy for years now with mixed success. First, he took the controversial step to water down the importance of the GDP target in the fourteenth Five-Year Plan, then he forced a rapid correction in the property market a couple years later that surprised many. Shortly after, he followed with a crackdown on China’s big tech companies that spooked investors. Throughout his tenure so far, Xi has repeatedly withheld major stimulus—to the frustration of markets.

Of course, resetting the Chinese economy isn’t simply a matter of having optimal policies. China has plenty of policies that are diligently read and analyzed by many. But the gap between what’s in a plan (what Beijing says) and what actually gets realized (what the rest of China does) is a political economy problem, not a policy one.

Why Russia and China Aren’t Helping Iran

Justin Mitchell

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Both Moscow and Beijing stand to benefit from a prolonged war between the United States and Iran.

Iran is isolated, fighting a war for its survival. Yet China and Russia, Iran’s supposed partners, are conspicuously absent. Both countries condemned the attacks on Iran and called for an end to hostilities, but both stopped short of sending significant military aid. Meanwhile, the United States deploys additional personnel to the Middle East, including Marines and the 82nd Airborne Division, in preparation for a potential ground invasion.

Analysts comment that China’s lack of action is“the clearest sign of Beijing’s disorientation” and that Russia’s inability to aid a “key ally is undoubtedly embarrassing.”

Rather than indifference or neglect, however, both countries have more disciplined definitions of their national interests that restrain them from direct involvement. Additionally, both powers are likely to gain strategic advantages the longer the United States is involved in the war.

China regards Asia and its immediate neighbors as the central focus of its foreign policy and military strategy. While the Middle East is important to China’s energy and trade, Beijing has never viewed it as more critical than Taiwan, Japan, or Europe. Throughout its modern history, China avoided formal alliances. The only security treaty China has is with North Korea, dating to 1961, and the strength of that commitment is questionable.

While China has delivered arms to Iran over the years, its security relationship pales in comparison to China’s security ties with Russia or North Korea. Iran is neither a deep security partner nor located in China’s priority theater, giving Beijing little reason to intervene on its behalf.

Energy is the primary driver of China’s relations with Iran. In 2025 alone, China purchased over 80 percent of Iran’s oil exports, representing 13.4 percent of its overall oil imports. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which would cut off most oil exports from Iran and the other Gulf states, will affect China’s energy portfolio.

The Price of Strategic Incoherence in Iran

Richard K. Betts and Stephen Biddle

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Contrary to the Trump administration’s callous public relations campaign early in the onslaught against Iran, war is not a movie or a video game. Starting a war is a decision to kill real people, destroy property, and divert limited resources from other priorities. For such moral and material costs to be acceptable, they have to be for a good purpose. No purpose will be good enough, however, unless it is accompanied by a strategy that can achieve that purpose at an acceptable price. Strategy simply means a plan by which military power will produce the desired political result. The

Five Scenarios for a U.S. Ground War on Iran

Arash Reisinezhad

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Several uniformed soldiers in desert camouflage gear move in a line under a clear blue sky. They are wearing helmets, goggles, and tactical vests while carrying large rifles.U.S. soldiers train near the Iraqi border in Kuwait on Jan. 13, 2003. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

For decades, a U.S. ground invasion of Iran was treated as the outer limit of escalation, too costly to launch and too destabilizing to sustain. That assumption is now eroding. As the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran intensifies, what once seemed unthinkable has become increasingly plausible. The question is no longer simply whether a ground invasion is possible, but where it could begin and whether it could achieve strategic results.

At first glance, Iran’s periphery seems to offer multiple entry points, from the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman to the western borderlands. But this is the central illusion. The same geography that makes invasion conceivable also makes it strategically self-defeating. Iran’s military geography channels outside forces into a narrow set of coastal choke points, energy hubs, and border corridors that are less pathways to success than triggers of wider escalation. What appears to be a menu of options is, in reality, a map of consequences.

Does Iran’s Future Look Like Cuba, Syria, or North Korea?

H.A. Hellyer

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As the war in Iran grinds on, the tension between the Israeli and Gulf approaches has sharpened. Iran’s strikes on Gulf territory mean there will be no return to business as usual. Arab Gulf states are increasingly leaning toward effectively quarantining Iran until it becomes something akin to Cuba: diminished and rigid but contained. Israel, by contrast, is perfectly content to smash the country—degrade the Islamic Republic militarily until it is like civil-war era Syria: fractured, with the regime broken and its regional capacity destroyed.

Aside from some divergences, Gulf states want to degrade Iran’s power without pushing it to collapse. With this in mind, Qatar, Oman, and Kuwait have quietly pushed for a swift end to the war; Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain have signaled their readiness to absorb further escalation if it produces durable constraints on Iran’s military capabilities. Officials in Abu Dhabi have argued for a “conclusive outcome,” while Oman and Qatar have emphasized coexistence and negotiation. But despite these differences, there is a consensus on wanting to see Iran weakened.

A Mission for Lebanon’s Army

Michael Young

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For months, detractors of Lebanon’s government and army have accused both, perhaps unfairly, of pussyfooting on Hezbollah’s disarmament. It’s now apparent that the party had many more weapons and resources than initially believed, and its combatants continued to receive salary payments from Iran. In other words, had the armed forces tried to forcibly seize the party’s arsenal, it would have faced major resistance, made insurmountable had the Shiite community rallied to Hezbollah’s side, which would certainly have been the case.

As Israel advances toward the Litani River, it’s only a matter of time before Hezbollah will be forced to regroup in the area between the Litani and the Awwali River at the entrance of Sidon. The Lebanese army, which understandably has sought to avoid armed clashes with Hezbollah in the past, will have no excuse if it fails to act in a proactive way to secure this area first. The armed forces’ commander, Rudolph Haykal, who to his credit is someone risk averse, should not let this quality mutate into fatal passivity. There is much the army can do, while avoiding a head-on battle with Hezbollah.

Some Arab diplomats believe the war in Lebanon will go on for another two months, lasting a month longer than the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran. They also argue that within this timeframe, Hezbollah will gradually run down its supplies of weapons, which the party cannot adequately replace because its resupply line through Syria has been significantly reduced. If that assessment is correct, we can see that Hezbollah’s primary purpose in this war is to buy Iran time to secure a satisfactory outcome for itself.

It’s no secret that Haykal and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam did not see eye to eye when the government took the decision almost a month ago to declare Hezbollah’s military and security activities illegal. The army commander allegedly told the president that he did not have the means to implement the decision because, among other things, his units were underpaid and the state could not financially support the families of dead servicemen. A blunter reason is that the army cannot militarily defeat Hezbollah, and if it tried to do so, it would cause tremendous damage to itself.

The Spectacle of War and the Struggle to Protest

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Afew days into the war in Iran, I found myself in a long text exchange with a friend, taking note of which public figures had come out strongly against the U.S. invasion, and which had not. The list included some politicians, but we were mostly focussed on the pundits of the short-form-video class: Tucker Carlson, the military commentator Shawn Ryan, and so on. For those following news about the war on social media, this affinity network—all these different figures with their own little tribes—has been quickly replacing images of the war with commentary on it. Instead of seeing yet another bombed-out building, we were seeing these faces and listening to incendiary thirty-second clips from their respective shows. My friend and I were just idly chatting, really, but as I thought about all this coverage I was struck by how social it felt. It was like talking about sports.

Iran Conflict Derails Eurasian Transport Development

John C. K. Daly

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The conflict in and around Iran has disrupted emerging Eurasian transport networks, undermining reliance on Iranian corridors. Rapid infrastructure growth and rising transit volumes through Iran are jeopardized by U.S.–Israeli air strikes and regional instability.

Iran had become a critical hub in the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative and the Russia-led International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC).

Attacks on key Iranian ports such as Chabahar and Bandar Abbas have stalled connectivity projects, forcing regional states to reconsider alternatives, such as the Middle Corridor that bypasses Iran.

The effect of the conflict in Iran has widened beyond the combatants to Central Asia and the South Caucasus. For years, these countries have been pursuing overland transport links with Iran. Iran has been intensifying its transport diplomacy with Central Asia for more than a decade to mitigate international sanctions and strengthen cooperation, given the growing importance of east–west and north–south transit corridors, both of which pass through Iran.

Iran has been promoting east–west transport routes that connect the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to southeastern Europe. Goods start in the PRC and traverse various routes across Central Asia, Iran, the South Caucasus, and Türkiye before reaching Europe overland or via the Black Sea. In February 2016, the inaugural freight train from the PRC arrived in Tehran, completing a 6,462-mile journey from Zhejiang via Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in 14 days (Iran.ru, February 15, 2016). This route aligns with the PRC’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative, of which Iran is a member (see China Brief, September 26, 2019, March 16, 2020; Belt and Road Portal, accessed March 31). Central Asia and the South Caucasus remained economically and logistically bound to Russia for decades after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Railways, pipelines, and ports built during the Soviet era kept their economies dependent upon Moscow. While allowing some access to global markets, Russia retained regional influence over transportation and trade, which it periodically used to enforce its political influence. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and increasingly harsh Western sanctions undermined this arrangement.

The Iran Conflict Is Becoming a Russia-Ukraine Proxy War

Max Boot

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It has become common for major conflicts to become proxy wars, with outside powers intervening to help their friends and hurt their foes. The Soviet Union, for example, supplied North Korea and North Vietnam in wars against the United States. The United States returned the favor by supplying the Afghan mujahideen during the 1980s in their war against the Red Army.

Russia has a long-standing alliance with Iran, so it is natural that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been aiding the Islamic Republic by reportedly providing it with satellite imagery and drones. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on social media that, according to Ukrainian intelligence, Russian satellites had “imaged,” among other sites, the joint U.S.-United Kingdom military base on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, Kuwait International Airport, Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, and Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar—the largest U.S. military installation in the Middle East. If Zelenskyy’s claim is accurate, it is surely no coincidence that Iran has targeted many of these same facilities.

An Iranian attack on March 27 against Prince Sultan Air Base damaged several U.S. aircraft on the ground. A valuable E-3 Sentry AWACS command and control plane was destroyed on the tarmac. Other Iranian strikes have hit at least ten early warning radars used by the United States and countries in the Persian Gulf to defend against Iranian drone and missile strikes. The Iranian attacks have been so extensive that, according to the New York Times, “Many of the thirteen military bases in the region used by American troops are all but uninhabitable.”

It is hard to see how Iran, which lacks satellites of its own, could have struck so many of these targets so accurately were it not for Russian, and possibly Chinese, assistance.

In the past, Russia has been a recipient of Iranian military largesse—Iran provided the Shahed drones that are now being used en masse by Russia to attack Ukraine. But Russia has been manufacturing its own versions of the Shahed drones, including one that is equipped with a jet engine rather than a turboprop. There are widespread reports that the supply chain is now running the other way, with Russia sending its drones to Iran.

If the United States Storms Kharg Island: Why Amphibious Superiority Could Fail in the Persian Gulf

Eluvio Detritus

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The question attracting the most attention right now is whether the United States will truly go all in and launch a direct assault on Kharg Island.

On the surface, the U.S. military appears to enjoy almost textbook-level advantages in joint amphibious warfare: aircraft carriers, amphibious assault ships, V-22 Ospreys, CH-53Ks, LCAC hovercraft, nuclear submarines, long-range cruise missiles, plus airborne early warning, electronic warfare, and layered air defense. Any one of these elements, taken in isolation, would be enough to intimidate most regional militaries.

The problem is that the Persian Gulf is not a neutral battlespace. Its geography, climate, hydrography, channel width, density of coastal fires, and supply distances all compress the space in which U.S. advantages can be brought to bear. Capabilities that are highly lethal in blue water or open-ocean operations may become cumbersome and reactive in the Gulf, where maneuver room is limited, supply chains are stretched, and the operational window is far narrower.

Iran, by contrast, is the side fighting from a position of prepared defense. It can rely on coastal fortifications, underground facilities on the island, short logistics lines, and pre-designated fire zones. More importantly, judging from the past several weeks of combat behavior, Iran does not look like an actor improvising under pressure. It looks more like a state that has long war-gamed typical U.S. methods of war and developed a fairly sophisticated understanding of American strengths, rhythms, vulnerabilities, and political limits.

If the United States really intends to seize Kharg Island, the most likely concept of operations would be a combination of vertical envelopment and surface assault: on the one hand, using rotorcraft such as the V-22 and CH-53K to conduct vertical insertion from the west or south; on the other, using carriers and destroyers to provide cover while LCACs race in from amphibious ships positioned roughly fifty nautical miles out, unloading M1A2 tanks, breach-and-obstacle-clearing engineering equipment, and follow-on assault forces.

The Third Gulf War Follows Directly From the Last Two

Seva Gunitsky

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Time has a way of compressing history. The Hundred Years’ War was a series of three separate wars that must have felt as distinct to its contemporaries as the World Wars feel to us now. But those three wars were a long time ago, so we lump them together into one conflict. Besides, we are wise. We have seen the direction of History and know they were all fought over the unresolved question of England’s rivalry with France.

I suspect future historians will apply the same compression to the three Gulf Wars of the unipolar era. While 1991, 2003, and 2026 are distinct in many ways, they all revolve around repeated attempts by the hegemon to impose its order on a region that it appears to understand less and less each time.

Together, the three wars trace the arc of America’s unipolar moment, from its triumphant emergence in 1991 to its hubristic peak in 2003 to its current retreat. Each phase of the campaign is defined by deepening contempt for the rest of the world and increasing disconnect from its own national interest. In 1991, the United States had a reason to fight; in 2003 it manufactured one; in 2026 it didn’t bother. Maybe this time the bombing was “out of habit,” Trump explained recently, which, he added, is “not a good thing to do.”

The First Gulf War was the coronation of the new arrangement: a 34-nation coalition, UN authorization, Arab states fighting alongside NATO allies. The USSR stood by meekly, Gorbachev hoping for more loans for his tottering regime. The coalition liberated Kuwait and stopped. A miracle, the hegemon actually working within the rules it claimed to uphold. But Saddam remained in power, and the sanctions regime that followed was corrosive to American credibility. The first war’s restraint preserved the legitimacy of American primacy but also left unfinished business.

Trump’s Propaganda Machine Is Flailing on Iran

Ross Barkan

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Watch enough Pentagon press conferences and a running theme emerges: Pete Hegseth whining about media coverage of the war in Iran. “You’re either informing American people of the truth or you’re not,” the Defense secretary and former Fox News pundit fumed recently. “Behind every headline you write, there’s a helicopter crew in the air, and behind every news banner you write, there’s a battalion on the move. And behind every fake news story, there’s an F-35 pilot executing a dangerous mission. My message to the media is get it right.”

The media, of course, is getting it right. Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s war has been an abject disaster. It’s a victory for the West that the murderous Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is now dead, but little has otherwise changed: Khamenei’s son is in charge, and the theocratic, autocratic regime remains functional. Israel’s apparent belief that the Iranian people would successfully overthrow the regime if a bombing campaign commenced was entirely mistaken. Netanyahu doesn’t seem to care much either way since he has moved on to immiserating Lebanon, but it’s now clear the war has offered little for the world but needless bloodshed and chaos. A decade ago, Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran was a peaceful, clearheaded attempt to head off further disaster. Diplomacy had a chance. Now, the Middle East is on fire, thousands of civilians are dead, and the U.S. troop death toll threatens to skyrocket if Trump launches any sort of ground invasion as he has indicated he might. The Strait of Hormuz remains throttled; a global energy crisis is already here and, with it, far higher prices at American gas pumps.

Trump Faces a Decision on Whether to Start a Ground War in Iran

David E. Sanger and Tyler Pager

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David E. Sanger has covered five American presidents and frequently writes about the revival of superpower conflict. Tyler Pager has covered President Trump’s political campaigns and his military action against Venezuela and Iran.March 31, 2026

Leer en español As the war in Iran has entered its second month with no negotiations yet scheduled between the major combatants, President Trump is facing several interlocking decisions that will determine how long American forces will stay engaged in the battle, and with what kind of risks.

The most pressing choice seems to be whether he should narrow his war aims in hopes of pushing through a negotiated settlement with a new crop of Iranian leaders. Talking to reporters on Sunday night aboard Air Force One, Mr. Trump called the Iranian leadership “a whole different group of people” who have “been very reasonable.” (His secretary of state, Marco Rubio, was significantly more skeptical.) Deal-making, as Mr. Trump knows, requires give-and-take — although he generally dislikes being seen as giving an inch.

Trump sees 'America First' opportunity in Nasa mission to Moon

Bernd Debusmann Jr

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The first journey to deep space since 1972 comes at a crucial time in Donald Trump's presidency.

The US is bitterly divided on topics ranging from the ongoing US strikes in Iran to immigration and the economy.

So a successful Artemis mission, sending four astronauts to the Moon on Wednesday, could give Trump's administration a boost. The potential benefits are huge - a competitive edge with China, the possibility of a lunar gold rush, and a rare moment of national unity.

Officially, the mission - which will take the crew further into space than anyone has ever been before - is a stepping stone, Nasa says, towards a permanent lunar base and eventually, Mars.

'Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars'

While US interest in returning to the Moon pre-dates his entry into politics, Trump directly created what became Artemis in his first term, vowing to "launch American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars". He also saw military opportunities and launched a new arm of the Pentagon, Space Force.

In his second term, however, Trump's goal has shifted to the Moon. In December last year, he signed an executive order calling for a US return to the Moon by 2028 and the establishment of a permanent outpost there by 2030. The order said that US superiority in space was a measure of national vision and willpower, contributing to the nation's strength, security and prosperity.

Not mentioned in the executive order was lunar competition from China - a factor that Nasa administrator Jared Isaacman has laid out explicitly.

"We find ourselves with a real geopolitical rival, challenging American leadership in the high ground of space," Isaacman said at a Nasa event on 24 March. "This time, the goal is not flags and footprints," he added. "This time, the goal is to stay. America will never again give up the Moon."

Pentagon Gives New Details on Cyber Command Personnel Reform

Shaun Waterman

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Assistant Secretary of War for Cyber Policy Katherine Sutton this week pledged to follow new hiring practices for cybersecurity jobs under the CyberCom 2.0 initiative. (Image: Shutterstock)

For the private sector, the cyber talent gap is an HR issue - at most a security problem. But for the U.S. military, it's a looming strategic crisis, the Pentagon's top cyber official said this week.

"We cannot rely on our legacy model for building [cyber] talent," Assistant Secretary of War for Cyber Policy Katherine Sutton told the AFCEA Cyber Workforce Summit. "It's too slow, too fragmented, and hinders our ability to adapt at speed and scale."

"We cannot afford to continue this way," she concluded.

The Pentagon currently treats cyberspace much like a geographical area. Just as U.S. Central Command marshals forces from all of the military services to wage U.S. wars in the Middle East, U.S. Cyber Command, or CyberCom, has trained and equipped personnel, organized into military units, by the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, to conduct cyber operations.

But, as Sutton acknowledged, there's been growing dissatisfaction at the Pentagon with that way of recruiting, training and equipping cyber troops - what the military calls "force generation."

"Our current force generation approach, while effective for conventional forces, has been inadequate for the unique requirements of building the deep, specialized technical skills we need in cyberspace," she said.

The absence of dedicated cyber career paths "has led to the bleeding of talent, where we lose our most skilled people right when they become most valuable," Sutton said.

The risks of kinetic counter-proliferation

Daniel Salisbury

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The threat posed by Tehran’s nuclear programme has featured in US and Israeli efforts to justify their military operations against Iran. However, the use of force to counter nuclear proliferation seldom provides a solution to complex problems.

Iran’s nuclear programme has featured repeatedly in stated rationales from the United States for recent US–Israel-led military operations against the country. Beginning in late February 2026, the US military has repeatedly struck Iranian targets, killing the country’s political leadership as well as destroying Iran’s missile capability, navy and other military forces.

The latest campaign takes place after the Twelve-Day War in 2025, in which Israel struck military and nuclear targets, and the US struck three key nuclear sites – Natanz, Fordow and Esfahan – in Operation Midnight Hammer. The following eight months saw limited Iranian efforts to reconstitute its programme, suggesting some degree of military success in rolling back Iran’s capabilities.

However, the use of force to counter nuclear proliferation is not a new phenomenon. History shows a range of risks in kinetic approaches and suggests that the Iranian nuclear question will likely remain unresolved in the longer term.

The counter-proliferation mission

As US and Israeli military operations enter their fourth week, stopping Tehran’s pursuit of nuclear technology has featured among both states’ evolving explanations for their use of force. As the US military initiated major combat operations in Iran on 28 February 2026, US President Donald Trump stated the strikes would ‘ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon’.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated similar objectives, noting, ‘this murderous terrorist regime must not be allowed to arm itself with nuclear weapons that would enable it to threaten all of humanity’.

Advancing European Military Capacity in Space

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European countries are investing at least USD109 billion in space capabilities by 2030. At a minimum, sharing the defence burden in space with the United States requires an additional USD10bn, and full autonomy another USD25bn.

European governments have announced ambitions to significantly build up their military space assets in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine and Europe’s overdependence on the United States in the space domain. This report examines how European allies could strengthen their ability to operate in, through and from space in a European-theatre contingency.

Any major Russian military operation against one or more NATO allies would unfold in a contested space domain. Russian counterspace capabilities – including direct-ascent anti-satellite systems, jamming, cyber operations and on-orbit proximity activities – are already operational. European governments, armed forces and societies are dependent on space-enabled services, including satellite communications; positioning, navigation and timing through systems such as the Global Positioning System and Galileo; and Earth observation. These systems and their associated ground segments constitute critical assets and would be priority targets in a high-intensity conflict.

However, European allies remain significantly dependent on the US for several high-end space enablers. The most acute dependencies lie in launch; space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR); missile early warning; and high-end space situational awareness (SSA). While transatlantic cooperation remains central to European security, shifts in US strategic priorities and burden-sharing expectations underscore the need for its European allies to invest in their own military space capabilities.

How Geopolitics Overran Globalization

Eswar Prasad

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Not too long ago, globalization was seen by academics and policymakers as a powerful force bringing the world closer together and promoting economic prosperity and stability. The open flow of goods, services, money, natural resources, and people would benefit all countries and make it possible to transfer knowledge, ideas, and technology across national borders. Globalization promised to bridge divides between advanced and developing economies, binding them together in a mesh of shared interests. It seemed reasonable to assume that this would even foster geopolitical stability, as collective prosperity would incentivize countries to tamp down conflicts that could disrupt their economic

In Ukraine, ground robots are increasingly going on the offensive

David Kirichenko

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Throughout the war, Ukraine has relied on technology to offset Russia’s greater numbers in personnel and materiel. Aerial drones became the backbone of that effort, helping blunt assaults, guide artillery and strike deep behind the front. Now the same logic is moving onto the ground.

As the kill zone expands, Kyiv is increasingly turning to unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) to carry supplies, evacuate the wounded, and, in some cases, go on the offensive. This shift is being driven by necessity. Ukraine now has 280 companies developing UGVs.

On large stretches of the front, the most dangerous task is simply getting in and out. Ukrainian UGVs now regularly destroy Russian drones waiting in ambush along these routes, helping protect human vehicle drivers and wounded soldiers, also being evacuated by UGVs.

One machine-gun-equipped UGV reportedly held a position for about 45 days.

The 3rd Assault Brigade reportedly transported more than 200 tonnes of goods in one month alone using UGVs, the equivalent of 10,000 soldiers each carrying 20 kilograms to frontline positions. Colonel Anatolii Kulykivskyi has said that ground drones now handle 70% of the brigade’s frontline logistics. One Ukrainian soldier added that, in a single month, his unit used one Termit UGV for 18 sorties, spending a total of 88.5 hours on the move to provide logistical support to frontline positions. Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has said Ukrainian forces carried out more than 7,000 UGV missions in a single month.

Brigadier General Andriy Biletskyi, commander of Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps, has argued that units that actively integrate UGVs could reduce frontline infantry requirements by up to 30% by the end of 2026, which could reach up to 80% in the future.

Warfare Revolution: How The Military Uses AI

John Miley

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Artificial intelligence holds huge promise for the U.S. military for both offensive measures and deterrence. That's why the Pentagon is racing to put AI in the battlefield and the office. With a yearly budget nearing $1 trillion, it's a massive tech shift.

The AI arms race

The global AI arms race leverages an unprecedented commercial AI boom. Large language models powering top AI tech are ideal for the military, since they are a general-purpose technology that can process vast amounts of data, reason and generate usable insights. Users interact with the AI in plain English, making adoption far easier. And vast U.S. tech spending has powered AI advances. The most cutting-edge models are being built by Anthropic, Google and OpenAI.

Technological Surprise and Normalization Through Use: The Tactical and Discursive Effects of New Precision-Strike Weapons in the Russo-Ukrainian War

Cameron L. Tracy

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On Optimism About New Military Technologies

Herbert S. Lin

Expectations of the performance of military technologies are marked by hopes that one’s own systems perform well while those of adversaries perform poorly, and fears of the inverse. These expectations shape states’ preparation for war and their conduct in war. But expectations frequently misalign with performance, such that the battlefield debut of novel or upgraded weapons technologies offers an opportunity for reassessment. In this article, I argue that the initial use of such weapons commonly drives a discursive process of normalization, wherein systems previously considered revolutionary or archaic are incorporated into existing modes of warfighting and accepted as normal components of those practices. I analyze the debut of several Russian long-range precision-strike weapons in the Russo-Ukrainian War, tracing the reassessment and normalization of hypersonic missiles, theater ballistic missiles, and glide bombs. This analysis shows that analysts would do well to moderate their expectations when forecasting the implications of weapons technologies.

Military strategists, policymakers, and scholars of security studies exhibit deep concern about the development of new weapons technologies and their security implications.1 Following patterns of popular thinking about technology more broadly, analysts appear preoccupied with what Marita Sturken and Douglas Thomas term “visions of technology as life-transforming, in both transcendent and threatening ways.”2 Forecasts of the security implications of technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), quantum sensors, and hypersonic missiles frequently warn of imminent disruptions to the character of war. These narratives of technological revolution can be utopian, when one hopes that their polity can harness these technologies to decisive effect. For instance, Jamie McKeown identifies a pervasive belief among US intelligence communities in technological fixes to future geopolitical threats.3 These narratives can also be dystopian, when one fears that adversaries will capitalize on technological opportunities first.4 As Henry Kissinger wrote: “Every country lives with the nightmare that . . . its survival may be jeopardized by a technological breakthrough on the part of its opponent.”5 Scholars thus invoke the dire need for anticipatory analysis of new weapons technologies as a step toward adoption, adaptation, or mitigation.6

Hybrid Warfare 2026: When Cyber Operations and Kinetic Attacks Converge

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In 2026, hybrid warfare blends cyberattacks and physical strikes, disrupting infrastructure and shaping global security dynamics.

In 2026, hybrid warfare is no longer a theoretical construct discussed in policy circles; it is shaping geopolitical conflict in real time. The convergence of cyber warfare and kinetic attacks has transformed how nations project power, blending missiles, malware, and misinformation into unified campaigns. What distinguishes modern hybrid warfare from earlier conflicts is not just the presence of digital operations, but their synchronization with physical strikes to produce layered, systemic disruption.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Middle East, where escalating tensions have turned the region into a proving ground for cyber-physical warfare. Governments, energy systems, financial networks, and communication infrastructures are being targeted simultaneously, exposing vulnerabilities that extend far beyond national borders. The result is a battlespace where the frontlines are both physical and invisible, and where disruption can ripple globally within hours.

From Conflict to Convergence: The Rise of Cyber Physical Warfare

The turning point came on February 28, 2026, when coordinated military and cyber campaigns marked a new phase in hybrid war strategy. Joint operations combined airstrikes with cyberattacks, information warfare, and psychological operations, targeting nuclear facilities, military assets, and digital infrastructure in parallel. Internet connectivity in targeted regions dropped to as low as 1–4% of normal levels during the initial assault, demonstrating the effectiveness of integrated cyber warfare and kinetic attacks.

These operations were not designed for immediate destruction alone. Instead, they aimed to disorient command structures, disrupt civilian communication, and weaken public trust. Digital interference extended to media channels and widely used mobile applications, some of which were compromised to spread false information and induce panic.