Inside the fall of India’s ‘Maoist capital’: How policing, politics and a secret letter ended a 45-year insurgency

Shubhranshu Choudhary

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I just returned from Kutul, the undeclared capital of the Maoists in the Abujhmad region of the Dandakaranya forests in Central India. Though places like this have recently been declared free of Maoist domination, it is important to note that Maoists controlled more than 20,000 square kilometres for over 45 years from 1980, which they referred to as a “liberated area”.

I wanted to see the change. I had gone to Kutul around 15 years ago, and we had to walk. The trip had taken more than a month. This time our four-wheeler could go up to Kutul, though the road is still under construction. Kutul got mobile connectivity last January. The weekly market was brimming with people. Along with imli and mahua, images of Jesus were also on sale.

India and a Changing Global Order: Foreign Policy in the Trump 2.0 Era

Milan Vaishnav

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Donald Trump’s return to the White House has once again altered the contours of international politics. The second Trump administration has adopted a more assertive and unpredictable approach to U.S. foreign policy—deploying tariffs and other economic tools against both rivals and partners, expressing open hostility toward multilateral institutions, and pursuing a highly transactional, personalized style of diplomacy. These developments have unfolded amid intensifying geopolitical competition and the weakening of the post-Cold War international order, contributing to a more fluid and uncertain global landscape.

For India, this evolving context raises several important questions about the viability of its foreign policy approach. Over the past three decades, Indian foreign policy has been increasingly organized around a strategy of diversification—deepening cooperation with the United States and the West while also cultivating relationships across a wide range of regions and non-U.S.-aligned institutions. This approach, often described as “multi-alignment,” aims to secure the benefits of close ties with the West without incurring the costs of estrangement from other important partners, thereby preserving India’s strategic autonomy. The return of Trump brings into focus a fundamental question: To what extent is Trump 2.0 disrupting the foundations of India’s approach to the world, and where is it instead reinforcing longer-term trends that were already underway?

Repairing the Breach

Lisa Curtis, Keerthi Martyn and Sitara Gupta

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U.S.-India relations stumbled badly during the second half of 2025. Differences between U.S. and Indian officials over how a ceasefire was reached between New Delhi and Islamabad on May 10, 2025, created a breach of trust, while President Donald Trump’s imposition of 50 percent tariffs on Indian exports in August 2025 led to a crisis in the relationship.

The February 6, 2026, announcement of the U.S.-India framework for an interim trade deal provides an opportunity for the two nations to get the relationship back on track.1 This is important because India will play a key role in shaping the future of the Indo-Pacific region and has both the ambition and political will to help the United States compete more effectively against a rising China. The reduction in U.S.-India trade tensions will help unlock progress in other areas, such as energy, defense, technology, and maritime security, on which much groundwork has already been laid. However, reestablishing Indian trust in the relationship will take time, especially given the second Trump administration’s overtures to India’s archrival, Pakistan.

China imports US oil for Asian fuel markets amid Hormuz crisis

Jeff Pao

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China is moving to resume large-scale purchases of United States liquefied natural gas (LNG) and crude oil, as supply disruptions in the Middle East and tightening fuel markets across Asia force Beijing to recalibrate its energy strategy. Some observers view the move as a significant concession by Beijing, or even a strategic reward to Washington, after China halted US LNG imports in early 2025 when trade tensions escalated under US President Donald Trump’s tariff measures.

In return, China will have sufficient fuel supply to resume gasoline exports to Asian countries, helping it maintain market share and increase political influence in the region amid tightening fuel supplies. On March 11, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) ordered a halt to exports of gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel.

Telling China's Story Well: The PRC's Strategic Narrative as an Instrument of National Power

Jo Lam

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‘Chinamaxxing’ is a 2026 viral trend where non-Chinese social media users are sharing videos of themselves “learning to be Chinese” by adopting Chinese lifestyle and wellness behaviors. This trend is a recent example of the PRC’s growing soft power and influence around the world. As the U.S.’ soft power declines, China is swiftly catching up, narrowing its gap to only 1.5 points according to BrandFinance’s 2026 Global Soft Power Index.

China’s influence has been growing due to a long-term, concerted effort to “tell the story of China well” (讲好中国古事), a phase which President Xi introduced in 2013, elevating strategic narrative to a core priority of Chinese statecraft. In 2021, he elaborated on this directive, instructing Party members to "work hard to cultivate a trustworthy, loveable, and respectable image of China" (努力塑造可信、可爱、可敬的中国形象) in order to “expand China’s circle of friends”.

As Iran War Rages, Trump’s Gutting of Voice of America Undermines U.S. Influence

Markos Kounalakis

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As American and Israeli forces attack Iran, a critical weapon in our arsenal ​is badly broken​​.​ An enemy missile or a cyberattack did not destroy it; it was dismantled from within, a victim of Donald Trump’s shortsightedness.

The gutting of America’s international broadcasting and public-diplomacy tools—specifically the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), and the Voice of America’s (VOA) Persian service—amounts to unilateral disarmament in the information war. It is a mammoth strategic blunder, the consequences of which are coming into relief. Just as the administration has spurned allies and is now begging for their help to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, it has taken a hatchet to these public diplomacy tools and is hastily trying to rebuild them.

Exclusive: US intelligence assesses Iran maintains significant missile launching capability,

Haley Britzky, Natasha Bertrand,And Jim Sciutto

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Roughly half of Iran’s missile launchers are still intact and thousands of one-way attack drones remain in Iran’s arsenal despite the daily pounding by US and Israeli strikes against military targets over the past five weeks, according to recent US intelligence assessments, three sources familiar with the intel told CNN.

“They are still very much poised to wreak absolute havoc throughout the entire region,” one of the sources said of Iran. The US intelligence assessment total may include launchers that are currently inaccessible, such as those buried underground by strikes but not destroyed.

PRC Supply Chain Ecosystem Behind Iran’s Drone Campaign

Christopher Nye And Charles Sun

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The ongoing conflict in the Persian Gulf has been characterized by massive Iranian drone deployments. When questioned specifically about these strikes in mid-March, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) officially expressed its concern, condemning indiscriminate attacks and urging all parties to return to dialogue (MFA, March 13). Beneath this diplomatic posture, the PRC’s role in Iran’s drone supply chain has been a structural one. The transfer of critical technologies, manufacturing equipment, and components has occurred through private capital acquisition, reverse engineering of foreign technologies, and the systematic exploitation of dual-use trade ambiguities. Beijing’s consistent non-enforcement against known proliferators constitutes a form of strategic permissiveness that is itself a policy choice.

A complex, decentralized ecosystem of Chinese enterprises is currently working to support Iran’s war effort against the United States and Israel. Using open-source enterprise registration data from the platform Tianyancha (天眼查) and cross-referencing it with U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designation documents, it is possible to profile sanctioned PRC entities and reveal their functional roles within this supply chain. [1][1]All enterprise registration data cited in this article—including employee headcounts, registered capital figures, business scope classifications, and registration/deregistration records—is drawn from... Together, they constitute what this article terms a manufacturing plain: a decentralized landscape of interchangeable micro-enterprises that operates differently from the identifiable defense contractors traditional sanctions are designed to target. This topographical analogy highlights a vulnerability in current Western export control enforcement mechanisms. Like radar, these mechanisms are designed to strike highly visible objects, whereas this decentralized PRC network operates entirely beneath the regulatory line of sight.

Iran Can’t Hit America—but It Can Bomb American Companies in the Middle East

Peter Suciu

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Iran has hinted it will broaden the ongoing war by striking at American commercial targets across the Gulf, rather than purely military ones. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) threatened on Wednesday to carry out attacks on more than a dozen American tech firms if the United States continued to conduct attacks on the Islamic Republic. “In the name of Allah, the Merciful, so whoever attacked you, attack him as he attacked you,” the IRGC wrote in a statement published by Iran’s state-run Tasnim news agency.

“Warning to the aggressive American ruling body and its affiliated spy companies! You ignored our repeated warnings about the need to stop terrorist operations, and today, a number of Iranian citizens were martyred in both your and your Israeli allies’ terrorist attacks; since the main element in designing and tracking terror targets are American ICT and AI companies, in response to these terrorist operations, from now on, the main institutions effective in terrorist operations will be our legitimate targets,” the IRGC statement read.

Trump Gambled by Easing Oil Sanctions on Iran and Russia. Will It Pay Off?

Roxanna Vigil

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Roxanna Vigil is an international affairs fellow in national security at the Council on Foreign Relations, sponsored by Janine and J. Tomilson Hill. Most recently, Vigil served as a senior sanctions policy advisor at the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

President Donald Trump’s war on Iran has triggered the largest oil supply disruption in history. Around twenty million barrels of oil normally flow through the Strait of Hormuz each day—about 20 percent of global oil supply—but this critical waterway is now effectively closed. As a result, Brent crude prices have soared from around $70 to over $120 per barrel. Additionally, Gulf producers have cut production by approximately ten million barrels of oil per day as they’ve run out of storage capacity, according to the International Energy Agency.

Tehran’s Escalation Doctrine: Why Iran Is Now Targeting the Entire Middle East

Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury

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Iran’s latest missile and drone strikes across the Gulf signal a dangerous strategic shift. What once appeared to be a confrontation primarily between Tehran, Israel, and the United States is rapidly transforming into a wider regional conflict. By conducting military assaults on Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, the Islamic Republic has effectively widened the battlefield and placed the stability of the entire Middle East at risk.

On March 7, 2026, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian publicly apologized to Iran’s Gulf neighbors after Iranian missile and drone strikes triggered air defense alerts in those states. In a televised statement, he expressed regret for the attacks and claimed that Tehran would halt strikes on neighboring countries unless attacks against Iran originated from their territory. But even as he spoke, air defense sirens and missile interceptions were continuing across the Gulf region.

Inside the push to ‘subdue the enemy without fighting’: Pentagon readying for cognitive war

Bill Gertz

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A version of this story appeared in the daily Threat Status newsletter from The Washington Times. Click here to receive Threat Status delivered directly to your inbox each weekday. The Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office is launching an initiative to wage cognitive warfare — nonkinetic military operations short of major destructive conflict. Sam Gray, chief technology officer in charge of autonomy and artificial intelligence at the office, said the goal is to “disrupt the cognition and the thinking ability of an adversary or person and influence” adversaries’ perceptions, senses and actions.

Mr. Gray discussed the activity at a recent conference hosted by the National Defense Industrial Association in Honolulu, which was first reported by National Defense Magazine. The initiative will produce new cognitive warfare capabilities within three to five years to confront high-priority challenges, he said. In the past, influence operations were “physically observable,” such as the use of inflatable tanks to fool German military leaders in World War II.

Trump doesn’t need an Iran deal

Marc A. Thiessen

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President Donald Trump pauses during his speech about the Iran war from the White House on Wednesday. (Alex Brandon/Reuters)

In his address to the nation Wednesday night, President Donald Trump said that if there is no deal with Iran’s surviving leaders in the next two to three weeks, he will “bring them back to the stone ages.” Good. Trump does not need a deal to end Operation Epic Fury. In fact, he is much better off without one.

Hegseth’s ‘paranoia’ of being replaced explains purge of top general — as ally emerges for Army secretary’s role

Steven Nelson

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WASHINGTON — Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s “paranoia” about Army Secretary Dan Driscoll taking his job fueled the firing of the Army’s top general, current and former administration officials tell The Post — as a top contender emerges to replace Driscoll if he’s canned next. Hegseth on Thursday demanded the resignation of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George — Driscoll’s top aide — in the middle of the Iran war for reasons that were not publicly stated.

“This is all driven by the insecurity and paranoia that Pete has developed since Signalgate. Unfortunately, it is stoked by some of his closest aides who should be trying to calm the waters,” an official said, referring to Hegseth’s March 2025 group chat with national security officials that inadvertently included a reporter.

America’s War Machine Runs on Tungsten—and It Could Run Out

Christina Lu

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The barrage of munitions that U.S. forces have fired into Iran have laid bare just how reliant the U.S. war machine is on a powerful metal that you’ve likely never heard of: tungsten.

The silvery metal is known for its exceptional density and for having the highest melting point of all pure metals. Those qualities have made it essential for the U.S. defense industry, powering everything from armor-piercing munitions to rocket nozzles.

America is irreplaceable. Europe better start acting like it

Mark Sedwill

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Trump hosts European leaders including Ursula von der Leyen, Friedrich Merz and Emmanuel Macron in the Oval Office last summer Watching Donald Trump’s address about Iran while travelling in the Gulf this week, two aphorisms from another era of superpower and ideological rivalry came to mind.

The first, usually attributed to Napoleon, is: “Never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake.” The second is ascribed to Lord Melbourne, Queen Victoria’s first Prime Minister: “What I want is men who will support me when I’m in the wrong. Any fool can support me when I’m in the right.”

Both feel uncomfortably relevant.

Start with Napoleon. The principal beneficiaries of Operation Epic Fury so far are not America, not Israel, not the Gulf states and certainly not Europe, but Russia and China. Even though Iran’s conventional military is being decimated and regional proxies defanged, both are providing intelligence for Iran’s missile and drone attacks.

Russia’s Drone Line Experiment

Rob Lee and Dmytro Putiata

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During 2025, the Russian military continued to experiment with improving its employment of uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) in support of its maneuver forces. The Russian military actively records statistics on the effectiveness and success of different types of UAS in its units and develops recommendations for improving their efficiency. One of these initiatives was titled “Drone Line” by Russia’s 2nd Combined Arms Army (2 CAA), which began last summer. It was developed in response to the rapidly expanding role of UAS in the war and to Ukraine’s own Drone Line initiative, which was scaled at the end of 2024 and beginning of 2025. 

However, these two initiatives differed despite the same title. Ukraine’s Drone Line involved the establishment of five UAS regiments and brigades, which were intended to reinforce the maneuver brigades holding the front line. These units were initially assigned to the Ukrainian Ground Forces but were later transferred to the newly formed Unmanned Systems Forces. These Drone Line units were supposed to operate further past the forward line of enemy troops (FLET) than the UAS units within a regular maneuver brigade. The goal was to extend the “kill zone” from 10 kilometers beyond the FLET to 15 kilometers.

Europe’s Untapped Arsenal Ukraine Has Forged the Defense Industry the Continent Desperately Needs

Elina Ribakova and Lucas Risinger

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Immediately after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in February 2022, Ukrainian leaders pleaded with their American and European partners to help protect the skies over their territory. NATO’s air defense systems could protect Ukraine’s civilians, troops, and infrastructure from Russian missiles, albeit with a hefty price tag and a risk of escalation. Western leaders declined.

Today, it is Ukraine’s military assistance that is in demand. In response to a joint attack by the United States and Israel in late February, Iran began firing hundreds of missiles and drones at U.S. partners across the Middle East. The

Sharpening Neptune’s Trident: How the Navy Can Navigate the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Colonel Pat Garrett

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The U.S. Navy is facing enormous changes in the strategic environment, including competition from a rising China, resource constraints, and a fragile industrial base. This combination makes closing the gap between the nation’s security needs and fleet capacity profoundly difficult.1 Externally, the future strategic environment potentially includes a wave of game-changing technologies, from AI and quantum computing to directed-energy and hypersonic weapons, unmanned systems, and biotechnology.2 Internally, the Navy faces critical questions as it evaluates the roles and limits of robotic and autonomous systems (RASs).3 Together, these technologies and challenges generate significant risks for the Navy, and the most critical lie in how it seeks to incorporate and adapt to disruptive technologies.

Fortunately, the Navy is no stranger to fielding advanced technology, having been an early innovator in aviation, submarines, nuclear power, ballistic missiles, and missile defense. As Trent Hone has noted, the U.S. Navy proved adept at examining and integrating advanced technology into the fleet in the interwar period.Today’s Navy will have to continue this impressive tradition if it is to prevail in any contest, long or short, with peer competitors. To assist naval leaders charting the path of technological change spawned by the ongoing Fourth Industrial Revolution, the following historical lessons are offered. As David McCullough has observed, “History is an aid to navigation in perilous times.”4

America Doesn’t Have a Good Answer to Iran’s MANPADS Threat

Harrison Kass

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Last week, a US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet was nearly hit by an Iranian MANPADS near the coastal city of Chabahar. The missile detonated near the F/A-18’s tail during a low-level strafing run. The aircraft survived the incident—but the incident highlighted the vulnerability of advanced aircraft to cheap, shoulder-fired missiles at low levels, highlighting how valuable relatively primitive portable air defense systems can be even in high-tech wars.

What Exactly Is a “MANPADS” System?

MANPADS is an abbreviation for “Man-Portable Air Defense System.” There are many different MANPADS systems in existence, but each is essentially a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile.

The first MANPADS were developed in the 1950s and 1960s, but were initially constrained by their rudimentary targeting systems. As time went on, both Western and Soviet designers improved the missiles in their arsenals, leading to deadlier and deadlier systems. Perhaps the MANPADS’ most infamous hour came during the Soviet-Afghan War of the 1980s, in which the United States illicitly supplied thousands of FIM-92 Stinger MANPADS launchers to the Afghan mujahideen rebels, leading to the destruction of hundreds of Soviet helicopters and aircraft.

Year After ‘Liberation Day,’ Experts Review the Costs of Trump’s Tariffs

Inu Manak

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President Donald Trump declared a national emergency on foreign trade on April 2, 2025. Calling it “Liberation Day,” he announced unprecedented tariff rates for every U.S. trading partner at a level not seen since 1909. The ultimate goal was to reduce the U.S. trade deficit by forcing countries to the negotiating table.

But the Trump administration has sealed an underwhelming amount of trade deals in the ensuing year, and Americans have often borne the knock-on effects. Although the U.S. Supreme Court struck down some of Trump’s tariffs in late February, it appears that the White House is gearing up to get their tariff agenda back on track by other means. Five CFR experts break down how Trump’s tariff agenda has increased geopolitical and economic uncertainty over the past year and what implications it has for Americans.

Will Operation Epic Fury Affect the Midterm Elections?

James M. Lindsay

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The midterms are now seven months away. The election basics remain the same as a month ago. Democrats look poised to retake control of the House of Representatives, while Republicans are favored to retain their majority in the Senate. The one big change since last month was the start of Operation Epic Fury. Could it scramble the conventional wisdom on what will happen in November?

The answer to that question depends on how long the fighting lasts and how it ends. As things stand now, a majority of Americans opposes Operation Epic Fury. Should the war end in two to three weeks with gas prices quickly falling to pre-war levels, as President Donald Trump predicted in his address to the nation Wednesday night, then Operation Epic Fury will likely be quickly forgotten by most voters. They care far more about what happens at home than about what happens overseas. As George H.W. Bush discovered firsthand with the Gulf War, even a decisive U.S. victory would not alter that dynamic.

The Epic after the Fury: Analyzing Alternative Futures

Col. (res.) Shay Shabtai

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The achievements of the joint American-Israeli Operation Epic Fury/Roaring Lion are already fundamentally changing Iran’s strategic posture. However, several key variables are in question and can affect the operation’s results, and therefore it is appropriate to think about the future the using the methodology of Alternative Futures, and derive some understandings. This paper analyzes Alternative futures for possible evolving scenarios, for the characteristics of a continuation of the existing regime and for a different regime in Iran. 

The main conclusions from the analysis: Preparations should be made now for the post-war period including plans for enforcement by force and creating the conditions required for another round (‘Rising Lion 3’). The international community should demand a real agreement – a ‘CNOHMP Deal’ that addresses the Chemical, Nuclear, Hormuz, Missile and Proxy issues. Efforts should be increased to find leaders who can run Iran with a different approach: a “Gorbachev” in the existing regime and/or a “King” in another.

The proliferation of AI-enabled military technology in the Middle East

Noor Hammad

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Militaries’ investments in artificial intelligence-enabled military technology highlight a requirement for further regulation to maintain the strength of international-humanitarian law and protect civilians, and the inability of existing governance frameworks to manage commercial providers.

The Israel–Hamas war of May 2021 was described in the Israeli press as ‘the world’s first AI war’, integrating a number of new artificial intelligence (AI) systems into military technologies, from new target-identification processes to enhanced weaponry. Since then, the integration of AI into military technologies has progressed in leaps and bounds, with countries across the region seeking to make AI a part of their military architecture. Much of this has involved partnerships with commercial entities, from Israeli start-ups to big-tech corporations including Amazon, Google and Microsoft. As these entities have shown a tendency to circumvent their self-professed human-rights commitments and due-diligence obligations, greater regulation will be required to protect civilian lives and infrastructure during armed conflict.

Golden Dome, out-years and lots of missiles: Details of Trump’s $1.5T defense budget request

Ashley Roque, Valerie Insinna, Theresa Hitchens, Michael Marrow, Diana Stancy and Carley Welch 

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WASHINGTON — While the Trump administration is requesting $1.5 trillion in defense spending for fiscal 2027, that number will likely to trend downwards in the coming years based on projections revealed today by the Office of Management and Budget.

As part of the Trump administration’s broader FY27 budget request roll out, OMB broadly laid out plans to hike defense spending by budgeting $1.15 trillion in the base budget request and an additional $350 billion from a forthcoming reconciliation bill. This is the first time that base budget defense spending has hit the $1 trillion mark.

However, that $1.5 trillion figure could drop to $1.28 trillion in 2028, only rising to $1.35 trillion in 2031, if no additional reconciliation or supplemental dollars are approved, according to an OMB chart. Given that mid-term elections are coming up later this year and Democrats could reclaim one chamber, prospects of future reconciliation bills are dim, meaning that FY27 could simply be a one-year surge in funding.