Indian Strategic Studies: 04/20/26

20 April 2026

CENTCOM using underwater drones to clear mines in the Strait of Hormuz

ANNA AHRONHEIM

As ceasefire talks hit a stalemate in Pakistan, US Central Command (CENTCOM) has announced that it will be sending underwater drones to help clear the Strait of Hormuz.

“Today, we began the process of establishing a new passage, and we will share this safe pathway with the maritime industry soon to encourage the free flow of commerce,” said Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of CENTCOM, as quoted as saying.

The press release added that “The Strait of Hormuz is an international sea passage and an essential trade corridor that supports regional and global economic prosperity. Additional US forces, including underwater drones, will join the clearance effort in the coming days.”

During the war, The New York Times reported that Iran had started laying naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz – effectively closing off the critical waterway to international shipping. About 20% of the world’s oil moves through that important chokepoint, as well as 20% of the world’s liquefied natural gas.

Iran is estimated to have between 2,000 and 6,000 naval mines, and upward of 80-90% of its small boats and mine layers, making it possible to lay hundreds of mines in the waterway. On Saturday, US officials said that Iran reportedly lost track of the locations of mines deployed in the Strait of Hormuz and has no clear idea of where all the mines were placed.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is a sticking point for both the United States and Iran in ceasefire talks. And Centcom, which is overseeing Epic Fury, announced in a press release on Saturday that it sent two US Navy guided-missile destroyers to conduct operations.

US Navy leaning on AI to sweep Iran’s Hormuz mines

John Femiani

US military officials said the Navy has begun the process of clearing mines in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical choke point for global shipping. Iranian forces have deployed a small number of mines in the strait. The move gave the Iranians a means, along with missiles and drones, of threatening ships.

The US Navy recently decommissioned the minesweeping vessels that it had operating in the Persian Gulf region. However, it has other ships and aircraft for finding and destroying mines.

As a computer scientist who researches how to detect mines, I have been researching how artificial intelligence techniques, such as machine learning, can help navies detect modern sea mines. Here’s what I’ve learned about how the mines work and how they can be neutralized.

Types of mines

The mines most people picture, like those seen in films such as “Godzilla Minus One,” are floating spheres tethered to the seabed, with small protrusions called Hertz horns that trigger the mine when it makes contact with a ship. These are called moored mines.

In the film, characters use a small wooden boat to sweep mines without triggering them because the mines responded to a metal-hulled ship’s magnetic field. Detecting magnetic fields is characteristic of influence mines, which respond to a ship’s magnetic, acoustic or pressure signature, as opposed to simple contact mines that detonate when ships run into them.

Trump may have landed on the genius strategy that could win the war in Iran

Bob Seely

We know that Donald Trump is erratic. But if he sticks to his course, and is prepared to accept the level of risk it implies, it could be that closing the Strait of Hormuz to Iran-linked maritime traffic will turn out to be a decisive blow that forces Tehran to bend to his will.

It seems clear that the US and Israel did not expect the Iranian regime to show the level of resilience it has. They also underestimated Iran’s ability to shut the Strait, through which 20 per cent of the world’s oil goes, as well as much of its liquefied natural gas. While the Strait at its narrowest point is nearly 30 nautical miles wide, the navigable part consists of two two-mile-wide channels, separated by a buffer of the same length.

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The US is now blockading the Strait of Hormuz for vessels heading to or from Iranian ports. A dozen US warships are enforcing the blockade, supported by several dozen fighter jets and surveillance aircraft, according to US Central Command (Centcom).

The intended effect will be to squeeze Iran’s economy dry. Oil is the regime’s lifeblood. It has survived military destruction from the skies, but can it survive the inability to pay its soldiers?

Iran’s Shadow Fleet Meets Its Match in U.S. Blockade

Jared Malsin

The White House and U.S. military published a clip of a warning to ships, telling them not to breach the blockade of Iranian ports. Photo: Edgar Su/Reuters

The Rich Starry, a sanctioned Chinese oil and chemical tanker, masked its exact location in the Persian Gulf for more than 10 days before leaving through the Strait of Hormuz this week.

When it emerged into the Gulf of Oman—near where the U.S. Navy is operating to enforce its blockade of Iranian ports—the tanker made an abrupt U-turn. On Wednesday, it anchored off the coast of Iran.

China hits out at ‘dangerous and irresponsible’ US blockade of Iran’s ports

Phoebe Zhang

China has slammed the US blockade of Iranian ports as “dangerous and irresponsible”, calling for an immediate and full ceasefire and for the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened. Foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told reporters at a daily briefing in Beijing on Tuesday that the US action would only “inflame tensions, escalate the situation and undermine an already fragile ceasefire”, and that would further jeopardise the safety of navigation in the strait.

“We urge all parties to abide by the ceasefire arrangement, focus on the broader direction of dialogue and negotiations, take concrete actions to de-escalate the regional situation and restore normal navigation in the strait at an early date,” Guo said.

Putin’s Obsession with Ukraine

Oleksandr Sukhobrus

Putin’s behavior in his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began exactly four years ago – on February 24, 2022, seems irrational and resembles an obsession. Having launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine and suffered an initial setback, Putin has not abandoned a war that is causing enormous human losses, destroys the Russian economy and isolates Russia on the international scene.

For Russia, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine started in 2022 brought numerous material and reputational losses: humiliating defeats for the Russian army and navy in the first phase of the war, huge human losses – already exceeding 1.2 million casualties; the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, Ukrainians’ hatred of Russia for centuries, Prigozhin’s mutiny, which demonstrated the fragile system Putin had created, in which the head of a private military company staffed by pardoned convicts could revolt and take cities without a fight; loss of the Assad regime in Syria; loss of ground in Transcaucasia, a region traditionally under strong Russian influence for centuries; humiliating strikes on Russia’s strategic bombers and oil refineries deep in Russia; humiliating kidnapping of one of its greatest allies, Nicolás Maduro; and seizure of tankers belonging to the shadow fleet flying the Russian flag. All these failures, and especially the inability to achieve a decisive victory in Ukraine, have seriously undermined Russia’s influence on the international stage. Until February 24, 2022, countries in the Global South perceived Russia as a country capable to impose its will to other countries and as a real counterweight to the United States. After over four years of war, Russia has proven itself not incapable of defeating Ukraine, a country whose military few took seriously before Russia’s invasion.

Redefining Readiness: Why US Special Operations Forces Must Be Optimized for Irregular Competition

Emina Umarov

United States Special Operations Forces (SOF) are increasingly evaluated through conventional readiness frameworks that degrade the human capital and relational capabilities essential to irregular competition. This article argues that military leaders must optimize SOF primarily for irregular competition by redefining readiness metrics, decoupling SOF employment from conventional readiness cycles, and institutionalizing disciplined mission selection—even at the cost of reduced preparedness for large-scale conventional conflict.

Introduction

US Special Operations Forces are increasingly fine-tuned for readiness frameworks designed for conventional war, distorting employment incentives and eroding the human capital that makes SOF strategically decisive in irregular competition. As a result, SOF is being asked to prepare for wars it may never fight while continuously conducting operations in conflicts it cannot avoid, often in policy spaces shared with intelligence and civilian agencies where authorities – not capabilities – decide effectiveness. The experience of the Global War on Terror demonstrated that persistent over-employment degrades the human qualities that underpin SOF effectiveness, including judgment, trust, and cultural fluency; yet current approaches attempt to resolve this tension by preparing SOF for both missions simultaneously, a strategy that, in practice, undermines performance in both.

Trump’s $1.5 Trillion Defense Budget Is a Political Gamble

Tanner Nau

“I have determined that, for the Good of our Country, especially in these very troubled and dangerous times, our Military Budget for the year 2027 should not be $1 Trillion Dollars, but rather $1.5 Trillion Dollars.”

So said President Donald Trump, five days after the extraordinary January 3, 2026 arrest of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro—which the president called “one of the most stunning, effective, and powerful displays of American military might and competence in American history.” The raid was proof of concept, in his eyes, of the ends that can be achieved abroad with the United States military, if it were given enough money.

Three months later, the president is putting his money where his mouth is. Last Friday, as the war in Iran continued to rage, Trump made his request official, asking Congress for a record $1.5 trillion defense budget, a

Trump Should Negotiate for Iranian Freedom, Not Just Nuclear Promises

Eli Lake

Pakistan’s effort to revive the Islamabad U.S.-Iran talks that fell apart over the weekend has largely faced a cool reception from the Trump administration. Nonetheless, if those talks resume, Vice President J.D. Vance has made clear that America is focused on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. As he told Fox News this week, America’s redlines in the negotiation flow from the “fundamental premise” that Iran can never possess an atomic bomb.

This goal is understandable. There is still around 1,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium trapped beneath the rubble of what used to be Iranian nuclear facilities. And even though the war has set Iran’s regime back several years from acquiring an apocalyptic arsenal, the stakes are as high as they get. If Iran gains nuclear weapons, the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism will have acquired a nuclear umbrella to protect its armies and many proxies from retaliation.

All that said, President Donald Trump should aim higher than just another nuclear deal that eventually expires. Trump should also demand that Iran’s regime respect the lives and security of its own citizens.

Iran’s nuclear program (with the exception of an unfinished facility known as Pickaxe Mountain) is almost entirely demolished. It’s possible the regime may seek to rebuild, but that will be an expensive and arduous task for a mafia state that is on its back. In other words, there is time to neutralize, either diplomatically or militarily, the Iranian nuclear threat down the road. A more pressing concern is the regime’s survival and whether it will stay in power through another massacre when and if Iranians take to the streets again, as they did three months ago.

A Fragile Ceasefire with Iran and the Price of Ending the War

Federico Manfredi Firmian and Anthony Wanis-St. John

After failing to reach an agreement in the first round of talks in Islamabad, the United States and Iran are set to resume talks in the coming days. Via Pakistani mediation, U.S. and Iranian negotiators have reportedly made progress toward a framework agreement, though significant gaps remain and a deal is far from guaranteed. In the meantime, President Donald Trump has imposed a blockade on Iranian ports, while Israel is pressing ahead with its assault on the Lebanese border town of Bint Jbeil, even as it engages in direct talks with Lebanon in Washington. The two-week ceasefire with Iran is holding, but it remains tenuous.

Unlike what has been negotiated so far, an expertly negotiated ceasefire should be extremely specific about the character of the pause in combat operations, including dates, duration, redeployments, withdrawals, and monitoring mechanisms. The broader strategic issues of Iran’s regional influence and its nuclear program should not even be attempted in the rushed manner they were tackled in Islamabad. Rather, the United States and Iran should agree on a structured process with a clear timetable attached. The administration also needs to do far more to bring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into line on both the ceasefire and wider regional objectives, or he risks becoming a persistent spoiler. It is also time to sideline Special Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, whose negotiation track record has been underwhelming. They should be replaced with experienced State Department negotiators, supported by members of the intelligence community and nuclear experts. High-level political figures like the vice president traditionally appear for summit diplomacy only after the details are worked out.

What the Iran War Means for the “Axis of Resistance”

Hamidreza Azizi

In the final weeks before his death, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei cast the mounting hostility of U.S. President Donald Trump in religious and explicitly Shiite terms. Rejecting calls for capitulation, he invoked the example of Imam Hussein—the third imam, or spiritual leader, of the Shiites—refusing to pledge allegiance to Yazid, the Umayyad ruler widely associated in Shiite memory with tyranny and injustice. Defiance, in this light, was not simply a strategic imperative but a value rooted in history and identity.

That framing did not disappear with Khamenei’s death. Instead,

The Persian Missile Crisis Why Trump’s Hormuz gamble looks less like 1962.

Francis P. Sempa

Historical analogies are never exact, and some can be misleading. With the announcement by President Trump of a naval blockade or quarantine of the Strait of Hormuz, the specter of another Cuban Missile Crisis comes to mind. In October 1962, President John F. Kennedy ordered the U.S. Navy to institute a blockade of Cuba to prevent more offensive weapons from being supplied to the Castro regime in Cuba by the Soviet Union. Kennedy used a blockade instead of air strikes on missile installations in Cuba to give maximum flexibility for diplomacy to end the crisis. Kennedy’s blockade worked, a deal was struck, but it was, to quote the Duke of Wellington about Waterloo, a “close run thing.”

The current war against Iran was launched because President Trump today, like President Kennedy in 1962, was unwilling to countenance a dangerous enemy obtaining the capability to deliver nuclear weapons against our country and our country’s interests. The direct threat to the U.S. in Cuba in 1962 was considerably greater than the threat posed in 2025-2026 by a nuclear-armed Iran, but in some respects, that is because President Trump acted preemptively in June 2025 and March 2026 to dilute the threat, instead of reacting to an established fact as Kennedy did in October 1962. (RELATED: The Return of Realism in American Foreign Policy)

Trump’s preemptive strikes have destroyed Iran’s navy, inflicted significant damage to its ballistic missile inventory, and further degraded Iran’s ability to develop and deliver nuclear weapons. The one “weapon” Iran has in spite of the U.S. and Israeli attacks is its control of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil travels. This explains, more than anything else, Iran’s unwillingness to accept U.S. ceasefire terms. Trump’s announcement of a blockade, however, takes that “weapon” out of Iran’s hands. (RELATED: From Marathon to Hormuz)

Russia’s war on Telegram may ignite the very fire it fears

Anton Ponomarenko

Russia is preparing for another phase of war in Ukraine, but the battlefield that matters most may no longer be in Donbas. It is inside the country’s own information space.

As economic pressure mounts, battlefield gains remain limited and casualties continue to rise, the Kremlin faces a familiar but increasingly dangerous problem: how to mobilize a society that has been carefully insulated from the costs of war without triggering a political backlash.

To manage this risk, Moscow is tightening its grip on the digital environment, with Telegram and other social media platforms coming under renewed pressure. Officially framed as information security, these measures point to a deeper objective: controlling the narratives that would accompany any future wave of mass mobilization for the war.

Yet this strategy carries an inherent contradiction. The more the state restricts information flows, the more it risks eroding the informal social contract that has kept urban Russia politically passive since 2022.

Russian social contract

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s urban population has experienced a dramatic rise in living standards, driven by growing oil and gas revenues, international investment, and state-sponsored capitalism.

Paradoxically — and directly mirroring this income growth — Russia’s democracy index has declined steadily. This balance became the embodiment of the so-called social contract, which offered citizens access to goods and economic prosperity in return for loyalty and political apathy.

It’s Time to Rethink NATO

Steve Cortes

It has been nearly 80 years since the guns fell silent in World War II. In that long arc of peace, the United States helped rebuild a shattered Europe, deter Soviet expansion, and anchor what we now call the transatlantic alliance. Those were noble achievements. They mattered. They still echo in the prosperity and stability of the Western world today.

But history is not a life sentence. And gratitude, while virtuous, is not a strategy.

The question facing America in 2026 is not whether NATO once served our interests—it clearly did. The question is whether it still does.

The answer is increasingly no.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was conceived in a radically different era, when Western Europe lay in ruins, and the Soviet Union posed an existential threat to the free world. Today, Europe is wealthy, technologically advanced, and more than capable of defending itself—at least it should be. Yet decade after decade, the United States continues to shoulder a disproportionate share of the burden for Europe’s security.

Behind the scenes of the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire: Why did Netanyahu, Aoun agree to 10-day truce?

AMICHAI STEIN

US President Donald Trump pressured Israel to agree to a ceasefire in Lebanon after Lebanon’s president clarified to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other senior American officials that such a call would not take place without progress in negotiations between the two countries, according to two sources familiar with the details.

Although the US president posted on Truth Social on Thursday morning that a call between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun would take place, Aoun refused.

“There is only value in such a phone call between leaders when there is significant progress on the ground. Without real negotiations underway, and certainly without a ceasefire, I will not hold a call with Netanyahu at this time,” Aoun said.

He emphasized that he is not ruling out a future call with the prime minister, but that something meaningful must happen first.

These remarks by Aoun on Thursday, including those made to Rubio, led to a conversation between Aoun and Trump, during which the American president promised his Lebanese counterpart that “there will be a ceasefire.”

Lyse Doucet: Under fragile ceasefire, Iranians wonder if US deal can be done

Lyse Doucet

On the plains of northwestern Iran, edged by snow-ribboned ridges, spring nudges almond trees into frothy bloom and a fragile ceasefire brings more traffic onto highways, and more Iranians back to their homeland.

"I stayed with my son in Turkey for a month," a grey-haired banker says as we stand waiting in the departures hall at a Turkish crossing where a late winter's snow has sent temperatures plunging on that side of the border. "In my city in the north the Israeli and American airstrikes mainly hit military targets, not homes and civilian infrastructure," was his personal summary of five weeks of grievous war, paused by a two-week truce whose end falls in a week's time.

The Real Thucydides Trap How Overconfidence Could Draw America and China Into a War

Joshua Rovner

Few issues capture observers’ attention like the rivalry between China and the United States. Analysts scrutinize political trends and profile political leaders in both countries. Economists track indicators of relative financial and commercial strength, pondering the paradox of two economic behemoths that are both incompatible and interdependent. And military experts watch the balance of forces with increasing concern as China’s conventional and nuclear capabilities grow in number and quality.

As captivating as the day-to-day drama is, a look back at history can offer new ways of understanding the trajectory of U.S.-Chinese relations. The political scientist Graham Allison

A Test of Wills in Iran

Nate Swanson

Over the weekend, the United States and Iran failed to come to an agreement in Pakistan to end their war. At first glance, the two sides are miles apart. The United States wants Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz, accept significant restrictions on its nuclear program, limit its missile arsenal, and curtail its support for proxies such as the Lebanese militia Hezbollah. Iran, for its part, wants the ability to monetize its control of the strait, full sanctions relief (including the release of frozen assets), a cease-fire in Lebanon, and, most important, lasting assurances that the United States and Israel will not resume their war against Iran.

The talks took on an extraordinary sense of urgency, in part, because Iran has discovered a new trump card: its ability to effectively close the Strait of Hormuz. In fact, doing so has worked so well in creating leverage that on April 13, Trump began his own blockade, vowing to prevent any ships engaging with Iranian ports from entering or leaving the strait. The success of Trump’s counterblockade will be determined by whether Iran can endure more short-term economic pain than the United States.

Japan Is America’s Indispensable Ally

Jio Kamata

Japan has remained largely immune to what is now the infamous wrath of U.S. President Donald Trump. To be sure, it did not receive special treatment when “Liberation Day” arrived on April 2, 2025 – when Trump imposed a worldwide tariff regime that was later struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in February. Japan also continues to be, like many other allies, criticized by the president for not paying its fair share of the security burden.

However, on trade, Japan turned a potential crisis into an opportunity by holding its line – particularly on automobiles and agricultural products. It has become the only nation to formulate and advance an investment strategy in the United States that appears to offer reciprocal value to Japanese businesses while strengthening Japan’s overall supply chain resilience for critical materials. Japan under Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae is also strengthening its resolve to bear a greater defense burden by increasing defense spending, revising its national security strategy, and demonstrating a willingness to take part in a potential conflict.

The Dead Zone and the Empty Battlefield

Kevin T. Black, Tarik Fulcher and Joshua Ratta

In a letter to his mother, British World War I poet Wilfred Owen described no man’s land, the piece of territory between belligerent trench lines, as “like the face of the moon, chaotic, crater-ridden, uninhabitable, awful, the abode of madness.” His description readily captures the popular imagination of the war’s blood-soaked battlefield and its sea of unending trench networks. However, these popular conceptions fail to capture the temporal and geographic variations that produced significant diversity in the war’s combat experiences.

While Owen could write of the unescapable oppression of the trench in the winter of 1916–17, just two winters previously, the trench had been merely a temporary defensive measure as the armies of both the Entente and the Central Powers sought to adjust to the September 1914 failures of their initial supposed war-winning offensives. Conversely, for fellow English soldiers serving on the Eastern, Middle Eastern, or East African fronts, even the idea of a trench-locked, static battlefield would have seemed ludicrous, given the vast geographical boundaries and lower force densities of those theaters of operation.

Employing the American uncontrolled narrative for national security

David Maxwell

I recently attended the 3d Annual National Center for Narrative intelligence Summit at Ole Miss in Oxford, Miss. These thoughts were inspired by so many outstanding speakers and discussions both formal and informal. I believe we have to outcompete the authoritarian axis of the CRInK--China, Russia, Iran and north Korea by projecting the superior American narrative.

Some will criticize this narrative as naïve wishful thinking and unsupportable in the climate of today's divisive American political environment. That may be so, but I will stand by our American values.

Who Should Control AI’s Most Dangerous Secrets?

Josh Code

When Leopold Aschenbrenner wrote that “we are building machines that can think and reason,” America was still trying to wrap its head around AI. This was back in June 2024; Aschenbrenner had just been fired from the most powerful AI lab in the world—OpenAI—and he wanted to warn people that this technology, which still sounded like science fiction to many Americans, posed the most important national security challenge since the atomic bomb.

“By 2025/26, these machines will outpace many college graduates. By the end of the decade, they will be smarter than you or I,” he wrote. “Along the way, national security forces not seen in half a century will be unleashed.”

Designing Lethal Decisions: AI, Accountability, and the Future of Military Judgment

Michael A. Santoro

As artificial intelligence systems are integrated into military operations, a familiar intuition hardens into an institutional standard: The higher the stakes, the more essential it is to keep humans in the loop. In matters of life and death, machines must not be left to decide on their own.

That intuition is understandable. It is also, in important respects, wrong.

In lower-stakes environments—traffic management, service delivery, even routine policing—human oversight can sometimes function as a backstop. Errors are visible, decisions can be revisited, and the costs of delay are tolerable. In crisis response, human oversight becomes less effective in addressing errors. Decisions must be made quickly, information is incomplete, and the consequences of hesitation grow more severe. Under these conditions, late-stage human intervention becomes less reliable, not more.

In military contexts, where these dynamics are the most consequential, late-stage human-in-the-loop overrides are, in fact, the least trustworthy and effective way to fix errors that arise because of the algorithmic system. In military engagement, errors can be lethal. Time is compressed, uncertainty is pervasive, and decisions are often irreversible. Understandably, the conventional wisdom is that it is precisely here that the case for human-in-the-loop control is strongest. The assumption is that human judgment—especially in identifying targets and avoiding civilian harm—is inherently superior to algorithmic decision-making. However, the conventional wisdom does not hold up under scrutiny.

Cyberwar’s New Frontier

Brianna Rosen and Jam Kraprayoon

In late 2025, the U.S. artificial intelligence company Anthropic announced it had disrupted a Chinese state-sponsored group that had used the company’s own technology to attack roughly 30 Western technology, finance, government, and critical infrastructure targets—all with minimal human supervision. It was the first reported AI-orchestrated espionage campaign. But it will not be the last. Just a few months later, Anthropic revealed that its latest model, Mythos Preview, had autonomously uncovered critical vulnerabilities in every major operating system and web browser. In the hands of criminal networks, terrorist groups, or countries unconstrained by AI safety concerns, virtually any system

Ukraine’s Drones Could Launch a Military Tech Revolution

Aidan G. Stretch

The Iran war is providing the world with the latest demonstration of how quickly drones have transformed modern battle. The Islamic Republic’s regime has gained leverage over the Strait of Hormuz in part through a fleet of cheap, long-range drones, which continue to threaten oil tankers and terrorize cities across the region. Analysts say that the U.S. did not appropriately prepare for this drone threat. That is only partly true.

The Donald Trump administration, and those around it, have spent years looking for lessons in Ukraine, which has developed some of the world’s most sophisticated drone expertise in its war with Russia. The administration saw an opportunity to learn from Ukraine’s lessons, but missed acting on it. Now the U.S. is racing to catch up to the frontier of drone warfare.

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