Indian Strategic Studies: 04/27/26

27 April 2026

Setback for forces as NaVIC goes down to 3 sats; ex-IAF chief calls desi navigation system a 'failure'

Surendra Singh

NEW DELHI: India’s regional navigation system NaVIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation system), costing upwards of over Rs 3,200 crore, is now hanging by a thread as the number of fully functional navigation satellites in space has dropped to three satellites. NavIC is designed to run effectively with a constellation of seven satellites, though a minimum of four satellites is required for accurate 3D position, navigation, and timing (PNT) services.

Tired of too many ads?go ad free nowWith Isro failing to launch two navigation satellites (IRNSS-1H in 2017 and NVS-02 in 2025) in recent years due to different reasons like rocket failure, India’s regional system is facing a failure as the satellite numbers have dipped to three — IRNSS-1B, IRNSS-1L, and second-generation NVS-01 — below the minimum requirement of 4 satellites. A major setback occurred after the last atomic clock, which is the heart of a navigation satellite, on board navigation satellite IRNSS-1F stopped functioning on March 10, leaving only three satellites of India’s NaVIC constellation in function.

The Durand Line Dispute: British Colonial Boundaries, Contested Legitimacy, And The Persistent Afghanistan–Pakistan Conflict – Analysis

Zarif Aminyar

The Durand Line Agreement remains one of the most enduring and controversial boundary issues in South Asian geopolitics. Established in 1893 between Mortimer Durand and Abdur Rahman Khan, the line was originally intended to define spheres of influence between British India and Afghanistan during a period of intense imperial rivalry known as the “Great Game.” Over time, however, it evolved into the de facto border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, despite Afghanistan’s consistent refusal to formally recognize it since 1947.

Unlike many international boundaries, the Durand Line is not simply a geographic division but a product of British colonial strategy, shaped by geopolitical considerations rather than mutual agreement between equal states. As a result, it continues to generate political tension and legal debate. While international law often prioritizes the stability of borders through doctrines such as state succession and territorial continuity, the Durand Line presents a unique case where historical context, legal interpretation, and political reality remain deeply contested. In this article I explore the Durand Line through a critical Afghan perspective, examining the historical circumstances of its creation and the legal arguments surrounding its status.

The Kafala Death Ledger

Abdul Wali Skandar Khan was twenty-five years old. He was a civil engineer and the father of two children. On December 28, 2023, a guardrail collapsed at the NEOM construction site in Saudi Arabia. He fell. He was working for China Comserve, a contractor on the project. Saudi authorities did not conduct an investigation. The company did not organise repatriation of his body. His brother, who holds dual British-Pakistani citizenship, flew to Saudi Arabia at his own expense and spent weeks negotiating with hospitals, police, and the employer to retrieve the body. China Comserve had promised him both compensation and access to CCTV footage of the incident. Neither arrived.

US and Iran in blockade standoff as Pakistan pushes for talks

Paul Adams

Courtesy of last night's Truth Social post from US President Donald Trump, the ceasefire between Iran, the US and Israel which was due to expire on Wednesday does at least persist. Instead of fighting, we have a "war of blockades" over the Strait of Hormuz, with both sides using force to intercept and seize commercial vessels.

The mood out in one of the world's most important waterways is combustible. It would be unwise to bet against events spiralling out of control. In the meantime, Islamabad still waits for Iranian and American representatives to arrive for peace talks.

The Dalai Lama’s Succession Battle: The Stakes for Tibetans and Beijing

Saransh Sehgal

As the 14th Dalai Lama enters the later years of his life – he turns 91 in July – the question of succession is no longer a distant concern. It is an unfolding reality that will shape the future of Tibetan Buddhism, the trajectory of regional politics, and the global conversation on the balance between spiritual authority and state control of Tibet.

For over six decades, Tenzin Gyatso, the exiled 14th Dalai Lama, has anchored the Tibetan cause, using his global stature as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate to transform what began as a Himalayan territorial dispute into a worldwide movement.

Helping Iran, China Is a Party in the War

Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan

China may claim neutrality and call for peace in the Middle East, but it is heavily invested in the Iran conflict. Perhaps because of its dependence on Iran for energy security, it is transferring dual-use technologies as well as military items, as has been reported in the media.

China has an arms-supply relationship with Iran that goes back decades and includes evasion of UN sanctions, including getting oil in return for weapons. And, along with Russia and Iran, it has a broader strategic interest in undermining the United States and the US-led international order. This motivation makes China’s actions even more concerning.

China weathered Trump's tariffs - but the Iran war is taking a toll

Laura Bicker

It's a sombre gathering in the backstreets of one of China's biggest manufacturing hubs, where workers are smoking under a tree in front of storefronts advertising temporary factory jobs.

"No-one understands what our life is like," says one man who is unwilling to be named.

"We work and work and have no life. Please help us," another adds - a rare, risky plea to a foreign journalist. They seem desperate, struggling to earn enough to send money home, as they cope with the massive shifts in Chinese manufacturing, from cheap, mass-produced goods to automated advanced tech.

The Significance And Influence Of China’s ChiNext Reform – Analysis

Wei Hongxu

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has issued a directive on the reform of the ChiNext market, a stock exchange market designed to help high-growth startups and small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs). The reform encompasses eight key reform measures. These initiatives involve the upgrade across various dimensions, which include board positioning, listing standards, review mechanisms, financing and M&A, investment-side reforms, and full-process supervision, signaling that a new round of deep-seated, comprehensive capital market reforms is moving into a more profound stage.

It is noteworthy that this reform was launched following the issuance of the nine key guidelines for the development and regulation of the country’s capital market, serving as a further extension of the ongoing stock market transformation. This context differs significantly from the environment surrounding the establishment of the Science and Technology Innovation Board (STAR Market) and the Beijing Stock Exchange. First, focusing on technology and encouraging innovation has now become the prevailing trend in the market. Second, the overall market environment has undergone a significant shift, marked by a visible rise across various indices.

Iran's uncomfortable position, between fragile ceasefire and blockade standoff

Ghazal Golshiri

US President Donald Trump's announcement on Tuesday, April 21, that he would extend the ceasefire until Iran presents a proposal to end the conflict is not good news for Tehran. It leaves it in a kind of limbo between war and peace, a situation its leaders have historically sought to avoid, with the American naval blockade still in place and the prospect of renewed hostilities hanging over Iran, further strangling an already heavily weakened economy.

"Economic pressure through blockade, strategic uncertainty, and continued low-intensity confrontation – this scenario is seen as gradually eroding Iran's remaining strategic capacity," explained Hamidreza Azizi, a researcher at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik think tank in Berlin, on X. "Trump's extension of the ceasefire is not interpreted as a face-saving exit from the conflict, but rather as a recalibration of the war's form and shape, which lowers costs for the United States while increasing them for Iran," the researcher continued.

Outlook for Minority Rebel and Separatist Militants in Iran

Andrew McGregor

Iran’s marginalized ethnic minorities, who often endure state suppression, may view current U.S. and Israeli military operations as an opportunity to seize greater autonomy. Four minority groups—the Kurds, Balochs, Lurs, and Ahwazi Arabs—maintain armed factions. Additionally, the exiled Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) aggressively pursues violent regime change, losing 100 fighters in a clash with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on February 25.

Armed factions are most likely to hesitate before any action due to unclear American objectives, fears of brutal regime retaliation if abandoned, and the fact that ethnic Persian opposition figures often share the regime’s hostile view of these minority groups as separatist threats.

Iraq Turns to Risky Overland Routes as Oil Exports Collapse

Alex Kimani

Iraq has been facing a critical oil export crisis since tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz largely seized up. About a month ago, Iraq reached a temporary agreement with Iran to allow its ships to sail through the waterway; however, additional war risk premiums for Persian Gulf transits have increased dramatically, rendering transport through the route uneconomical.

Unlike Iran, which relies heavily on a shadow fleet of tankers to transport its oil, Iraq lacks a large national fleet, forcing it to rely on third parties. Lack of shipping forced Iraq’s oil production to collapse by 80% to roughly 1.2 to 1.3 million barrels per day, turning into an existential crisis for a country that relies on oil for up to 95% of federal budget revenue. But now Iraq can breathe a sigh of relief after a key border crossing opened after remaining shut for more than a decade. The Rabia-Yarubiyah border crossing between Iraq and Syria has been reopened after remaining closed for 13 years, offering Iraq a potential alternative to the Strait of Hormuz. The border was initially closed in 2011 due to the Syrian civil war and was later seized by the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014 before being retaken by Iraqi Kurdish forces.

The Iran Talks Are Making India Feel Small

Vaibhav Vats

Pakistan is having a diplomatic moment, and India’s political elites are not enjoying it.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spent the past decade promoting the notion that India is the leader of the global South and, as such, is indispensable to world affairs. Now a conflict in the Middle East has thrown the global economy, and, with it, India’s, into crisis. On top of that, Islamabad, not New Delhi, has hosted at least one round of talks between the United States and Iran and is preparing to mediate others, leaving the Indian government to ponder its irrelevance.

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar first dismissed Pakistan’s role in the U.S.-Iran talks, using a pejorative Hindi word for a kind of unsavory middleman. But in Indian political circles, particularly after the April 8 cease-fire was announced, criticism has been trained on the Modi government.

The Strait of Hormuz in 8 Charts

Matthew P. Funaiole, Harrison Prétat, Aidan Powers-Riggs, and Jasper Verschuur

Access to the Strait of Hormuz, which carries roughly a quarter of global oil flows, remains contested. The waterway has been effectively closed since March 2, following U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. Although Tehran declared the strait open on April 17, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps reversed course and announced it shut just one day later. The United States has since moved to enforce its own presence, including by seizing an Iranian-flagged cargo vessel on April 19. Vessel tracking and maritime trade data offer key insights into the ongoing dispute.

Since the conflict in Iran began, hundreds of tankers have been stranded in the Persian Gulf. After Iran’s foreign minister announced the reopening on April 17, dozens of vessels surged toward the Strait of Hormuz, trying to exit. Automatic identification system (AIS) data from Starboard Maritime Intelligence shows that most quickly reversed course and remain stuck in the Persian Gulf, but at least 13 tankers made it through.

The Ghost of Saigon in Tehran: Why Ships and Planes Won’t Break a Holy War

Stephen D. Cook

As a retired Green Beret with 25 years in the U.S. Army, I have spent much of my life in the dust of Iraq and Afghanistan. I have seen, firsthand, what happens when a superpower tries to trade blood for progress. Today, as I watch the escalating tension with Iran and the new U.S. naval blockade now choking the Strait of Hormuz, I don’t see a “surgical” strategic solution. I see a hauntingly familiar pattern of over-reliance on technical superiority to solve a human problem.

We are making the Vietnam mistake all over again. Just as Washington once believed that a massive aerial bombing campaign—Operation Rolling Thunder—would break Hanoi’s will and end the war from the air without a messy ground commitment, we are again betting that ships, precision strikes, and economic pressure alone will force the regime to fold.

The Iran War’s Five Lessons for Europe

Peter Doran, and Mark Montgomery

A universal lesson of military strategy is never to get caught preparing for the last war. It is, however, possible to learn a great deal from it. European NATO has had a front-row seat to the Ukraine and Iran wars, two conflicts that combine the old and new aspects of the modern battlefield. America’s allies should take note. Applying lessons from these conflicts will be the best way to build up their forces and prevent an unwanted crisis with their most dangerous neighbor, Russia. Here’s how.

1. Bombs win battles. Allies win wars. The United States was significantly more effective in Operation Epic Fury thanks to Israel’s “near-peer” capabilities and exceptional interoperability with US forces. As Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth noted, we often settle for “willing but not capable” allies. Instead, Israel has demonstrated the value of going to war with a friend that can hit just as hard as the United States, is properly equipped with well-integrated systems and munitions, and has the willingness to fight. It is a model that European capitals must apply right now.

Why Israel has fallen out of favor with Americans

Joel Mathis

The United States has backed Israel since its founding as a modern state in 1948. That alliance is looking fragile these days, with recent polls suggesting American public support for its longtime ally has cratered amid deadly wars in Gaza, Iran and across the Middle East.

The number of Americans who now hold a “very or somewhat unfavorable view of Israel” is 60%, said Pew Research Center. That’s up seven points since last year, and “nearly 20 points since 2022.” There was once bipartisan support for Israel among U.S. voters, but 80% of Democrats now disapprove while 58% of Republicans approve. There has also been a departure from 25 years of polling, which long reported that “Israelis consistently held double-digit leads in Americans’ Middle East sympathies,” said Gallup. Americans now view Palestinians more sympathetically than Israel, by a margin of 41 to 36%.

US military developing plans to target Iran’s Strait of Hormuz defenses if ceasefire fails

Zachary Cohen

US military officials are developing new plans to target Iran’s capabilities in the Strait of Hormuz in the event the current ceasefire with Iran falls apart, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

The options, among several sets of target types under consideration, include strikes with a particular focus on “dynamic targeting” of Iran’s capabilities around the Strait of Hormuz, southern Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, the sources said, describing potential attacks against small fast attack boats, minelaying vessels and other asymmetric assets that have helped Tehran effectively shut down those key waterways and use them as leverage over the US.

What Recent Wars Mean for US-India Defense Cooperation

Kriti Upadhyaya

US and Israeli forces conducted nearly 900 strikes against Iranian targets in the first 12 hours of Operation Epic Fury. Russia, meanwhile, has begun launching over 4,000 Iranian-made Shahed drones per month against Ukraine, up from roughly 800 per month just a year earlier. In May 2025, Pakistan fired over 600 drones at India during the four-day conflict between the two countries last year. Within the three conflicts over three theaters, one pattern emerges: the importance of volume.

For 30 years, Western defense establishments operated on a particular logic: the future of warfare belonged to precision, stealth, and network dominance. Massed firepower was passé. Artillery was a relic of the past world wars. The “Revolution in Military Affairs,” validated by the Gulf War’s surgical air campaigns, had rendered volume irrelevant. Stealth and precision would rule the future.

Russia’s Nuclear Weapons: Arsenal, Strategy, And Global Implications – Analysis

Anya L. Fink

According to the Pentagon’s 2026 National Defense Strategy, Russia “possesses the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, which it continues to modernize and diversify, as well as undersea, space, and cyber capabilities that it could employ against the U.S. Homeland.”

Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has invoked Russia’s nuclear weapons in an apparent attempt to deter Western military intervention against Russia in Ukraine and stated that Russia has deployed nonstrategic nuclear weapons to its ally Belarus. The 2010 New START Treaty that limited U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear forces expired in February 2026, though Russian officials then stated that Russia would continue to abide by the treaty’s central limits—1,550 warheads on 700 deployed strategic nuclear delivery vehicles and a total of 800 deployed and nondeployed strategic nuclear delivery vehicles—as long as the United States did so. Congress may choose to examine U.S. deterrence and risk reduction policy toward Russia, including whether or not to support future arms control.

Magyar wants to put the Austro-Hungarian Empire back on the map

Nette Nöstlinger

Prime Minister-elect Péter Magyar says he will deepen ties with neighboring states, especially Austria, building on strong economic links and a shared history rooted in the Austro-Hungarian Empire of the late nineteenth century.

“We used to share a country, and Austria is a key economic partner of Hungary,” Magyar said after his victory over Viktor Orbán in the Hungarian election earlier this month. “I would like to strengthen the relationship between Hungary and Austria for historical but also for cultural and economic reasons.”

The Guardian view on the true cost of the Iran war: bombs kill – but so does the economic fallout

More than 3,300 Iranians, including 383 children, have been killed since the US and Israel launched their illegal war, authorities said this week. Asked about Wednesday’s ceasefire deadline, Donald Trump first said that he expected to resume bombing, then unilaterally announced that he was extending the truce “until discussions are concluded”. Whatever happens – or doesn’t – with the US-Iranian peace talks due to take place in Islamabad, the costs of this disastrous conflict will keep growing. The only thing that the sides have in common is that each needs peace, but thinks that it can force the other into significant concessions.

Iran has deployed its drones and missiles to punishing effect, but knows that its chief weapon is the economic pain it can inflict, primarily through control of the strait of Hormuz. The International Monetary Fund warned last week that a further escalation could trigger a global recession. Its head, Kristalina Georgieva, had already said that the crisis would remain a threat to the global economy even if it ended overnight. The costs mount over time. But while the pain is widely spread, it is far from evenly shared. The combination of higher energy, food and fertiliser costs will increasingly hammer poorer and heavily import-reliant nations.

Rules for a digital republic: Why India needs modernized and robust IT laws

Lt. Gen. M. U. Nair

In a digital republic, accountability is not a constraint on freedom. It is what makes freedom sustainable.India’s digital transformation is among the most consequential economic and governance shifts of the 21st century. In less than a decade, the country has built a Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) of unprecedented scale, enabling real time payments, direct benefit transfers, digital identity, and seamless access to public services.

This transformation has not only improved efficiency, it has reshaped the relationship between the state and the citizen. Financial inclusion has expanded, leakages in welfare delivery have reduced, and a new generation of digital first enterprises has emerged.

AI policy is built for oversight, not crisis. That needs to change

Juhyun Nam

Many attribute the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 to the Exxon Valdez oil spill. But the legislation had been drafted and debated for more than a decade—public pressure simply shifted theory into execution. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the US government passed 32 security-related laws in rapid succession. Almost none were new ideas, though. They drew upon existing frameworks that had been sitting in committee, waiting for the political moment to arrive.

These are textbook examples of what American political scientist John W. Kingdon, in an influential 1984 book, coined a “policy window”—a brief, unflinching moment after a crisis when political will, public attention, and existing proposals converge. But what happens when there is no framework ready to go?

AI has crossed a threshold – what Claude Mythos means for the future of cybersecurity

The limit of what artificial intelligence can achieve, known as frontier AI, has crossed another threshold. AI can now plan and execute sophisticated cyber operations with minimal guidance at speeds far beyond human capability.

That, at least, is the evidence from an independent test of Claude Mythos Preview, the latest and most advanced model in the Claude family of AI systems, developed by US tech firm Anthropic. Similar to ChatGPT, these can understand and generate human-like text, analyse information, and solve complex problems.

The New Trade Order Restoring Balance to a Broken Global Economy

Robert E. Lighthizer

At the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos this past January, dozens of senior officials from around the world sat alongside multinational CEOs, fresh off their private jets, and applauded Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney for what they saw as speaking truth to power. Carney gave an address inspired by a 1978 essay by Vaclav Havel, who was then a Czech poet and Soviet dissident and later served as his country’s first president in the postcommunist era. The essay, titled “The Power of the Powerless,” sought to explain how the communist system survived.

In it, Havel imagined a greengrocer who, like all the shopkeepers around him, places a sign in his window that reads “Workers of the World, Unite!”—even though none of them believe in the communist system. Havel called this “living within a lie” and argued that the Soviet dystopia could come to an end when that archetypal shopkeeper decided he could no longer play along and took the sign down.

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