Silk Cage-II Webinar Report on “Corridor, Client, or Catalyst? CPEC and Beijing’s Strategic Leverage from Pakistan to the Indian Ocean”

Sevil Khikmatova, Anne Weiler and Jagannath Panda

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This report is the outcome of the second webinar in the Silk Cage series, held on February 19, 2026. This webinar addressed debates surrounding the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) with a central question: is CPEC primarily an economic development initiative, or does it function as a strategic instrument through which Beijing reshapes security alignments from South Asia to the Indian Ocean? While framed as a growth corridor vital to Pakistan’s development, CPEC is increasingly viewed as a mechanism that embeds long-term strategic leverage, linking continental access to maritime reach. This tension between development and security anchored the discussion. A recording of the webinar is available on YouTube. Read the full report here.

The Evolution of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP): Ideology, Strategy, and Aspirations

Mohammad Waqas Sajjad, Ahmed Jawad

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The re-emergence of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Pakistan has caught the state off guard. This research note details the evolution of the threat posed by TTP given the shift in the terrorist organisation’s ideology, strategy, and modus operandi, and highlights the differences between the present and previous waves of terrorism in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. In doing so, it also brings to fore the much less explored role women often play in financing, facilitating, and – at times – carrying out terrorist activities. The new TTP leadership under Noor Wali Mehsud, as well as a different political context with the Afghan Taliban in power in Afghanistan since August 2021, once more make it imperative to focus on the twin subjects of extremism and terrorism in Pakistan. In its new iteration, the revitalised TTP needs to be reviewed in a different light. In this research note, these shifts are explored in detail, including its connection with the Afghan Taliban, a new leadership and the subsequent changes

in ideology, tactical evolution, willingness to form new alliances, involvement of women, and an enhanced administrative structure make the current wave of TTP extremely dangerous.

Afghanistan-Pakistan: The Overlooked War at the Margins of the Middle East Conflict

SAINT-MEZARD

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Pakistan has historically maintained the closest ties to the Taliban movement and initially viewed its return to power in Afghanistan in the summer of 2021 with considerable optimism. The bilateral relationship has since deteriorated, and the two neighbors have been caught in a cycle of escalation since last fall. In October 2025, Pakistan launched its first airstrikes on Kabul. For three weeks in February–March 2026, Afghanistan intensified ground assaults on the Pakistani side of the border as well as drone attacks on Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Pakistan, for its part, has intensified airstrikes on Afghan border areas, as well as on Kabul and Kandahar. Given the dynamics at play at the bilateral and regional levels, the prospects for a sustained return to stability appear limited.

The intensification of terrorist attacks by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)-a movement opposed to the federal government-on Pakistani territory is the primary driver of the escalating tensions between Islamabad and the Taliban regime. The TTP is a terrorist group composed of Pakistani Pashtuns from the tribal areas who have historically been close to the Afghan Taliban. In addition to ethnic ties, their proximity to the Afghan Taliban is ideological and is reflected in their strict interpretation of Islam (Deobandi school), though they are more susceptible to international jihadism as embodied by Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The TTP’s objective is to establish an Islamic emirate in Pakistan modeled on the Afghan Taliban regime.

China-Iran Fact Sheet: A Short Primer on the Relationship

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year the Commission identified the relationship between China and Iran as part of an informal “Axis of Autocracy.” China helps Iran evade U.S. sanctions and maintain its destabilizing activities in the Middle East. Iran supplies China with relatively low-cost oil and is a partner in China’s efforts to undermine the U.S.-led global order, including through alternative multilateral organizations such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Although Tehran has sought deeper strategic alignment, China has avoided formal defense commitments to Iran and is not likely to take significant action to support Iran beyond providing diplomatic support and dual-use supplies. China and Iran bilateral defense engagements have been limited in recent years, while both participate in joint exercises in trilateral (with Russia) and multilateral settings (including the SCO). Reports indicate that after U.S. strikes began, China allowed two state-owned Iranian vessels in a Chinese port to be loaded with sodium perchlorate, which is used in solid rocket fuel for missiles.

Why does the US have Iran's Kharg Island in its sights?

Robert Greenall,

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US President Donald Trump has warned of possible further American action against a small island off the coast of Iran - home to a major oil terminal that is considered the country's economic lifeline. In an interview with the Financial Times on Sunday, Trump said he wants to "take" Iran's oil and was considering seizing Kharg Island. But he added an operation "would mean we had to be there for a while".

The US has already targeted the island earlier in the war. On 13 March, the US launched airstrikes on Kharg, with Trump saying US forces had "totally obliterated" every military target there. But it held off targeting the island's oil infrastructure.

Iran ceasefire deal gives Trump a way out of war - but at a high cost

Anthony Zurcher

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At 18:32 Washington time, President Donald Trump posted on his social media website that the US and Iran were "very far along" with a "definitive" peace agreement and that he had agreed to a two-week ceasefire to allow negotiations to proceed. It wasn't exactly the last minute, but with Trump's looming 20:00 EDT (01:00 BST on Wednesday) deadline to reach a deal or the US would launch massive strikes against Iranian energy and transportation infrastructure, it came pretty close.

All of this is contingent on Iran also suspending hostilities and fully opening the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping traffic, which the regime says it will do, while insisting it still exerts "dominion" over the waterway. The deal allowed Trump to extricate himself from what was shaping up to be a treacherous choice – either escalating with his promise that a "whole civilisation will die tonight" or backing down and undermining his credibility. The US president may have only bought himself a temporary reprieve, however.

Iran’s Escalation Strategy Won’t Work

Raphael S. Cohen

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The Iranian regime’s military strategy has always involved an underlying bet that it could control escalation. For the better part of half a century, this gamble mostly paid off. Whether it was taking hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, bombing U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut and Air Force housing in Saudi Arabia, or funding proxies from Afghanistan to Gaza to Iraq, Iran’s actions have, until very recently, never triggered serious blowback.

This month, Iran placed its biggest bet yet on its ability to control escalation. But this time, it appears headed toward calamity.

Europe Cannot Sit Out the Iran War

Sophia Besch

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The United States has gone to war with Iran without consulting Europe. Yet President Donald Trump and his administration have sought to deflect blame for a faltering campaign by lashing out at NATO and accusing European leaders of shirking their alliance responsibilities by refusing to offer support. The charge does not hold. NATO imposes no obligation to back a war of choice, and Europe lacks any realistic means of reopening the Strait of Hormuz by force while hostilities continue.

At the same time, Europe cannot afford to stand aside. The war is already reshaping its security and economic outlook. Within days of the U.S.-Israeli strikes, an Iranian drone hit a UK Royal Air Force base in Cyprus, prompting coordinated European deployments; NATO intercepted missiles over Turkey, while European officials warned of rising terrorism risks and renewed refugee pressures. Disruptions to the Strait of Hormuz have raised the prospect of fuel shortages and rising costs across sectors from agriculture to aviation. Inflation has climbed to 2.5 percent, growth forecasts are being revised downward across Europe, and interest rates might be driven up. Slower growth, higher prices, and mounting migration pressures together risk fueling political instability across the continent.

Military Options for Reopening the Strait of Hormuz: Limitations and Imperatives

Michael Eisenstadt, Assaf Orion

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After attacking more than twenty ships in or near the Strait of Hormuz since the war began, Iran has established a selective passage regime through the Persian Gulf chokepoint, exporting its own oil and natural gas while permitting safe passage to countries that “pay a toll” and denying transit to all others. Tehran’s terms to end the war include a “new legal regime for the Strait of Hormuz,” which is a clear challenge to U.S., global, and regional interests. On March 21, President Trump issued an ultimatum that Iran’s power plants would be obliterated unless it fully opens the strait. The Iranian military countered by threatening to target all U.S. and Israeli-related energy, information technology, and water desalination infrastructure in the region. Earlier today, the president postponed any strikes against power plants for five days to allow ongoing discussions with Iran.

Given the resultant jeopardy to the global economy, Trump has stated that the U.S. Navy will reopen the strait and has called on other countries to help. On March 19, the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement expressing “readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage” through Hormuz. Twenty-two nations have now signed the statement. Meanwhile, U.S. forces have destroyed over 130 Iranian naval vessels and 44 minelayers and attacked dozens of military targets along Iran’s coast and inside the Gulf, including storage sites for mines and missiles. The United States has also dispatched the 31st and 11th Marine Expeditionary Units and the USS Tripoli and Boxer Amphibious Ready Groups to the Middle East to provide additional options.

How Trump Took the U.S. to War With Iran

Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman

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The black S.U.V. carrying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at the White House just before 11 a.m. on Feb. 11. The Israeli leader, who had been pressing for months for the United States to agree to a major assault on Iran, was whisked inside with little ceremony, out of view of reporters, primed for one of the most high-stakes moments in his long career.

U.S. and Israeli officials gathered first in the Cabinet Room, adjacent to the Oval Office. Then Mr. Netanyahu headed downstairs for the main event: a highly classified presentation on Iran for President Trump and his team in the White House Situation Room, which was rarely used for in-person meetings with foreign leaders.

Mr. Trump sat down, but not in his usual position at the head of the room’s mahogany conference table. Instead, the president took a seat on one side, facing the large screens mounted along the wall. Mr. Netanyahu sat on the other side, directly opposite the president.

Will Obliterating Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Ignite Nuclear Ambitions Elsewhere? – Analysis

Dr. Manpreet Sethi

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The Israeli Air Force claimed that it had dropped over 12,000 bombs in 8,500 strikes on Iranian targets in the first 18 days of the ongoing war. Another three weeks have passed since then, with a lot more damage. The US used advanced ‘bunker buster’ ordnance to hit hardened Iranian nuclear and missile infrastructure.

The collective ordnance dropped on Iran is known to have destroyed its military assets and political leaders, damaged the country’s energy infrastructure and gas fields, and severely impacted its economy, besides killing nearly 1,500 and injuring nearly 18,000. Projectiles have also been reported to have struck near Bushehr, the operational nuclear power plant, though no damage was reportedly caused to the reactor.

Introduction: Disinformation as a multiplier of existential threat

Dan Drollette Jr

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Long before the current era (BCE), the ancient Greeks used deceptive tactics against their enemies during the Trojan War, when they constructed a gigantic, hollow wooden statue of a horse with a small, select team of soldiers hidden inside. Sometime in the 12th or 13th century BCE, they left the horse—with its hidden cargo—immediately outside the gates of Troy, their enemy’s capital city, and pretended to sail away. The city’s defenders then hauled the horse inside the city walls as a victory trophy—and later that night, the hidden soldiers crept out of the horse and opened the gates of the city to the rest of the Greek army (which had returned under the cover of night), allowing them to enter and utterly destroy the city.

They were so successful, in fact, that the phrase “Trojan horse” entered the lexicon, to describe any strategy that tricks a target into letting an enemy enter a protected inner sanctum.

The Feasibility Trap

SAMI MAHROUM

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It seems increasingly obvious that the behavior of each actor in the Iran war follows directly from what its technology allows it to do. The result is a dynamic in which military decisions are driven less by strategic calculation than by the operational possibilities created by intelligence and innovation.

DUBAI – The US-Israeli war with Iran is a striking illustration of an all-too-common phenomenon: feasibility bias. The tendency to favor actions primarily because they are technically or operationally possible, rather than because they are strategically optimal, can lead to decidedly suboptimal outcomes.

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.

Why Seizing Kharg Island Would Be a Catastrophic Mistake

Christopher Preble

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A truly terrible idea has been circulating in national security policy circles over the last few days, helped along by the New York Times and Bret Stephens (who knows a lot about terrible ideas). According to Stephens, “American control” of Iran’s Kharg Island “would give the [Trump] administration the whip hand over most of the regime’s remaining revenues, including its ability to pay salaries for soldiers and civil servants alike.”

This idea deserves to be shut down with extreme prejudice.

Roughly 90% of Iran’s oil exports flow through this small limestone plateau sitting about 15 miles off Iran’s southwestern coast. When tankers need to be loaded with Iranian crude, they go to Kharg. It is, by any measure, the jugular vein of the Iranian economy — which is precisely why hawks find it so attractive as a target, and precisely why hitting it carries consequences that extend far beyond any military operation.

Tracking recent US-Israeli strikes on Iranian infrastructure

Matt Murphy, Thomas Spencer,

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President Donald Trump has pledged to target infrastructure across Iran unless the country reaches an "acceptable" deal to end the war with the US and Israel by Tuesday night. Promising to bomb the country "back to the Stone Ages", Trump said US forces would target bridges and power plants across Iran. He also posted to social media on Tuesday that a "whole civilization will die tonight" if an agreement is not struck.

There has been a spate of attacks on infrastructure critical to ordinary Iranians since the conflict began, with schools and hospitals damaged. BBC Verify has confirmed that US and Israeli strikes have targeted at least two steel plants, three bridges and a pharmaceutical plant over the past two weeks. Some senior Democrats in the US Congress and UN officials have warned that strikes like these could amount to war crimes. But in a news conference on Monday Trump dismissed those concerns.

The Mispricing of War

ANTARA HALDAR

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The US-Israeli campaign against Iran is reminding everyone that war is one of the most globally subsidized of human activities. Those who initiate it rarely bear the full costs, which tend to be displaced across borders, markets, and time, making decisions to initiate hostilities more likely.

CAMBRIDGE—In the space of just a few weeks, the throttling of shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has revealed the true nature of the US-Israeli war with Iran. This is no regional conflict, because the entire world is being invoiced. While the size of the bill remains to be determined, it is already obvious that the belligerents won’t be the only ones paying the tab.

The Isfahan Debacle: Inside the Failed Raid That Shook Washington

Navroop Singh and Himja Parekh

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The sequence of events that unfolded between April 2nd and April 5th, 2026, over central Iran represents one of the most complex and controversial military episodes in recent memory. What initially appeared as a straightforward Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) mission following the loss of a United States Air Force aircraft has, upon closer inspection, revealed layers of operational depth, conflicting narratives, and strategic implications that extend far beyond the recovery of two aircrew members. By integrating publicly available geospatial data, imagery, timelines, and field-level observations, a far more intricate picture emerges one that challenges the official explanation and suggests the possibility of a much larger, premeditated operation centred around the Isfahan region.

The chain of events began on the evening of April 2nd, when the Iranian military released footage claiming the shootdown of a USAF aircraft. Initial reports placed the incident over the Persian Gulf, but subsequent geolocation and wreckage analysis indicated that the crash occurred near the city of Isfahan, deep within Iranian territory. By the morning of April 3rd, debris consistent with an F-15E Strike Eagle belonging to the 494th Fighter Squadron, based out of RAF Lakenheath in the United Kingdom, had been identified south of Isfahan. The crash site, located in a barren and geologically sparse region, made precise geolocation difficult, but the visual characteristics of the wreckage including panel structure and debris spread aligned with known F-15E configurations.

'Donald Trump is unwittingly, but significantly, advancing the energy transition'

Patrice Geoffron

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Donald Trump, a champion of the fossil fuel world and a fierce critic of climate action and the 2015 Paris Agreement, has unwittingly, but significantly, given momentum to the energy transition. This has happened less out of conviction than by accident. Since his return to the White House in January 2025, his "policy" has methodically transformed oil and gas markets into zones of chronic instability, starkly highlighting the protection offered by decarbonized technologies in the face of chaos.

Since the start of 2025, oil and gas markets have been under intense geopolitical pressure. The reimposition of sanctions against Iran, pressure on Venezuela, repeated demands on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to increase production – while threatening trade reprisals against countries that do not comply – tariff threats to push more liquefied natural gas (LNG) toward Europe, and, more recently, critical tensions resulting from the conflict in the Middle East: every month brings a new batch of unprecedented or even bizarre disruptions.

The War Will End With a Hormuz Toll Booth

Amir Handjani  

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When the Iran war ends, the United States and Israel will declare victory and move on. Iran will likely do the same. It will frame the airstrikes on Kharg Island, the destruction of Iranian naval assets, and the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as the price it paid for standing up to U.S.-Israeli aggression. But airstrikes and destroyed naval assets will not address the economic damage Iran has absorbed. Tehran will be left with shattered infrastructure, an economy in freefall, and a political class that needs to show its population that it has extracted something tangible from the war.

Most of Tehran’s demands to end the war are maximalist, as are Washington’s right now. One of Iran’s demands may be achievable if structured correctly: the right to operate the Strait of Hormuz as a tolled waterway, in formal partnership with Oman.

Sam Altman and Vinod Khosla agree: AI will break the economy. Their fix is no income tax for most Americans

Nick Lichtenberg

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When Vinod Khosla sat down with Fortune editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell in March and floated the idea of wiping out federal income taxes for the roughly 100-million-plus Americans earning less than $100,000 a year, it sounded like the kind of provocation only a billionaire with nothing left to prove could get away with. “I can’t be fired. I’ve never worried about a career. I don’t need more money at age 71,” Khosla said.

A month later, OpenAI has made it clear that Khosla’s thinking may be the emerging consensus of Silicon Valley’s most powerful voices on how to prevent artificial intelligence from tearing the social fabric apart.

On Monday, OpenAI released a 13-page policy paper titled Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age: Ideas to Keep People First, in which Sam Altman’s company laid out a sweeping blueprint for economic reform on a scale it compared to the Progressive Era of the early 1900s and Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s. The central thrust: As AI systems approach superintelligence—defined as capabilities that surpass the smartest humans—the existing tax code, labor market, and social safety net are all dangerously unprepared for what’s coming.

What the US military could do if Iran fails to meet Trump's ultimatum

Daniel Bush

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The clock is ticking on President Donald Trump's threat to wipe out much of Iran's civilian infrastructure if the country doesn't strike a deal by Tuesday evening in the US. But Trump has backed himself into a corner with threats that the US military can't feasibly carry out in one fell swoop, military experts and analysts told the BBC. And they warn that a new round of attacks, no matter how large, is unlikely to force the Iranian regime to quickly agree to a ceasefire.

Trump vowed on Monday to destroy "every bridge" and power station in Iran in just four hours if a deal isn't reached by 20:00 EST (00:00 GMT Wednesday). He escalated even further on Tuesday morning, warning that "a whole civilisation will die" if Iran doesn't agree to a deal by his deadline. Taken together, the warnings amounted to an unprecedented threat from a US president. Targeting civilian infrastructure could constitute a war crime, according to experts on international law, some of whom said that Trump's threat to wipe out an entire civilization could be construed as inciting genocide. But Trump dismissed such concerns at a press conference on Monday.

Trump and the Myth of American Oil Independence

Joseph J. Schatz

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When President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he’s winding down the U.S. war on Iran and washing his hands of the embattled Strait of Hormuz, he invoked what he likes to call America’s “energy dominance”: The United States has become the biggest oil producer in the world, and no longer needs to secure the Persian Gulf by force.

“The United States imports almost no oil through the Hormuz Strait and won’t be taking any in the future,” he declared. “We don’t need it.”

That’s news to the oil and gas industry. Trump is right: The flow of oil from the Persian Gulf to the U.S. is far less than it used to be. But no matter what he says, the industry is keenly aware of how important that oil still is. That’s why CEOs have been pleading with Trump for weeks to end Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait, which remains vital to the global market in which they operate.

The Global Water Crisis: Stress, Scarcity, and Conflict

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More than two billion people across the world lack adequate access to one of the essential elements of life: clean water. Although governments and aid groups have helped many living in water-stressed regions gain access in recent years, the problem is projected to worsen as the global population grows and climate change intensifies. Yet insufficient international coordination on water security has slowed the search for solutions. In a January 2026 flagship report, UN researchers warned that the world is in a state of “water bankruptcy,” in which human demand and depletion of natural water systems exceed replenishment rates. This threatens global energy and food security and potentially causes irreversible ecological degradation.

Water stress can differ dramatically from one place to another, in some cases causing wide-reaching damage, including to public health, economic development, and global trade. It can also drive mass migrations and spark conflict. As regions, particularly the Middle East and North Africa, become increasingly water-stressed, pressure is mounting on countries to implement more sustainable and innovative practices and to improve global water management cooperation. Experts say impacted countries must also account for the potential that watersheds—areas of land that channel rainfall, snowmelt, and runoff into a common body of water—may never return to their historical baselines, making sustained collaboration essential to meeting every country’s water needs.

AI in the information ecosystem and its impact on nuclear escalation

Herbert Lin

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In recent years, analysts and scholars have noted that corruption or dysfunction in the global information ecosystem could have the effect of increasing nuclear risk.[1] In these works, corruption and dysfunction are interpreted broadly to include mis- and dis- information but also other information-related phenomena such as provocative or intemperate content, true-but-misleading information, or attentional diversions.

Now, the recent explosion in the capabilities of artificial intelligence—specifically, large language models (LLMs)—has led to the automated generation of novel text in enormous volumes and, increasingly, images and videos. For those interested in the creation of content to corrupt the information environment, there may be no better tool than a large language model. LLMs put former approaches to generating such content to shame. Also, LLM tools require far less expertise to produce and use, making the capabilities they afford much more broadly accessible and therefore expanding the number of possible threat actors as promoters of information dysfunction.