Indian Strategic Studies: 05/08/26

8 May 2026

Why the Next India-Pakistan War Will Escalate

Elizabeth Threlkeld

In his 2026 State of the Union address, U.S. President Donald Trump repeated a familiar refrain celebrating his role in ending the May 2025 conflict between India and Pakistan—the deal he has said he is most proud of. He declared that but for U.S. efforts to pull both sides back from the brink, the conflict “would have been a nuclear war.”

Trump’s claims rankled New Delhi, which has long insisted that its disputes with Pakistan are purely bilateral and don’t require the mediation or intervention of outside powers. But the president had a point. The May 2025 crisis, in which the neighbors exchanged intense cross-border fire for four days, was the most serious fighting between two nuclear powers in decades.

Watching Beijing Watching Moscow: Takeaways for a Taiwan Conflict

Sunny Cheung

This week, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its fourth year. What began as a European war has transformed into a live-fire laboratory for how major-power conflict unfolds across domains. The war’s protraction is instructive. The persistence of kinetic operations and operational pressures are demonstrating that contemporary interstate conflict can endure alongside tactical and institutional adaptation—and that such adaptation can enable its endurance.

Beijing has been closely studying Russia’s evolving approach to the conflict, conducted under sanction, surveillance, and constant drone threat. Across the People’s Republic of China (PRC), researchers and analysts are extracting lessons on how to fight, endure, and prevail in a conflict against a U.S.-led coalition characterized by deep intelligence, technological, and financial leverage.

China and America Are Courting Nuclear Catastrophe

Tong Zhao

Over the past decade, China has been steadily reshaping the global nuclear order. According to U.S. government assessments, Beijing has almost tripled its stockpile of nuclear warheads since 2019. It has rapidly increased its nuclear capabilities on land, in the air, and at sea. It has significantly expanded its infrastructure for the research, development, and assembly of nuclear warheads. And Beijing shows no intention of slowing down. In mid-March, the country announced that it would “strengthen and enlarge” its strategic deterrence capabilities, reaffirming its commitment to qualitatively and quantitatively enhance its nuclear arsenal.

American officials have certainly taken notice. They worry that the bipolar nuclear world—where almost all the globe’s warheads are controlled by either Moscow or Washington—is being replaced by a tripolar one. In response, they are trying to strengthen Washington’s own nuclear stockpile while attempting to negotiate with Beijing. In February, for example, the United States chose not to renew the New START treaty, a nuclear arms reduction agreement between Russia and the United States, because it did not want to be bound by restrictions that excluded China. But despite increasing U.S. pressure, China has consistently refused to conduct nuclear arms control negotiations. It seems to have no interest in constraining its capabilities.

Xi’s Forever Purge The Real Goal Behind China’s “Self-Revolution”

Neil Thomas

Since becoming China’s leader in 2012, Xi Jinping has carried out stunning assaults on both the Chinese Communist Party and its People’s Liberation Army, purging millions of cadres and even senior leaders who were once thought untouchable. Rooting out corruption was an early focus of Xi’s tenure, but he has intensified the effort in recent years: in 2025, the CCP’s “discipline inspection” authorities filed more than one million cases, an almost sevenfold increase from the year Xi took office. In January, Xi abruptly removed top generals Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, which hollowed out a Central Military Commission already depleted by years of investigations. And in early April, Ma Xingrui, the former party secretary of Xinjiang Province, was placed under investigation. It was the first time since the aftermath of the tumultuous Mao Zedong era that three Politburo members had fallen during the same five-year term.

The standard explanation for these purges is that Xi, China’s most powerful ruler in generations, seeks to sideline rivals and consolidate power. There is much truth in that. The takedown of crooked senior leaders tied to his predecessors Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao helped Xi win public support and centralize decision-making, eventually setting him up to rule for life.

Why Trump Might Come to Regret the Iran War

Aaron David Miller and Daniel C. Kurtzer

The U.S.-Israeli war against Iran is now entering its third month. The average length of an interstate conflict in the past 200 years is three to four months, though many wars last far longer. This one shows little sign of abating.

But the war may be entering a new phase where prospects for a transformational change on the battlefield or at the negotiating table are receding. We need to adjust our frame of reference accordingly. Instead of looking for a determinative ending, a final resolution, or a negotiated agreement, this war may end up as just another round in an ongoing, half-century confrontation between the United States and Iran. Five politically inconvenient realities now define where we are.

Iran is Not a Monolith: The Case for Exploiting the Country’s Internal Fractures

Ed Husain

Since 1979, Islamist clerics have imposed on Iran a revolutionary Shiite creed of “Guardianship of the Jurist” (Wilayat al Faqih) that seeks to use clerical power to form an “axis of resistance” against Arabs, Sunni Muslims, Americans, and Israelis. This ruling theology has since isolated the country from its neighbors and the world.

It has also led many, like Henry Kissinger, to ask whether Iran is a country or a cause. It is clearly a cause, but the United States is striking a country and failing to tackle its ideology and identity. Therefore, the current conflict’s bombs and blockades have not provided a long-term answer that is much needed. By attacking its Arab neighbors with almost ten thousand drones and missiles in recent weeks, Iran has crossed a red line. The old order no longer holds.

HAYI: Iranian Proxy Targeting Jewish And Israeli Sites in Europe

Jacob Zenn

Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (HAYI) is a newly emerged militant group, strongly suspected of being an Iranian proxy operating under the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Since March, HAYI has claimed over 15 non-lethal attacks across Europe against Jewish and Israeli targets, including synagogues and schools, aiming to instill fear without attracting a terrorist designation.

These coordinated attacks coincide with recent U.S.–Israeli military operations against Iran, raising concerns that HAYI could escalate its tactics to utilize lethal force against broader U.S. and Israeli interests.

Mythos, Not the Iran War, Is the Most Significant Geopolitical Warning of Our Time

Frederick Kempe

With the world fixated on Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, and Donald Trump’s peripatetic presidency, it’s worth a reminder that the geopolitics of artificial intelligence (AI) will almost certainly have far more lasting consequences than any of that.

We are living through a transformation of similar magnitude to the Second Industrial Revolution of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. That said, the AI Revolution is moving far faster with far less time for global leaders to adapt, so the perils are greater—notwithstanding AI’s considerable promise.

The Industrial Revolution rewired history. It shifted power from agriculture to industry, from landed aristocracies to barons of manufacturing, and from empires to nation-states that could produce, mobilize, and innovate at scale. Out of that upheaval rose capitalism and communism, mass politics and mass warfare, and eventually the cataclysms of two world wars.

The Combustion Mandate

On the morning of February 28, 2026, the official story began: the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran, assassinating Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, targeting nuclear sit…

The Significance of the Trump-Putin Talks

George Friedman

Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin held a 90-minute telephone conversation on April 29 – notably, at Putin’s behest. Past conversations of this kind tended to be initiated by Trump, who was more eager to speak to Putin than Putin was to speak to him. That doesn’t mean he didn’t want to talk to Trump; it just means he likely didn’t want to come off as enthusiastic.

Many news agencies have since reported that the presidents discussed the situation in Iran and a resolution to the war in Ukraine. Putin offered – and Trump accepted – a temporary ceasefire that is slated to take place around May 9, though they agreed to no lasting resolution. This is important, of course, but they discussed Ukraine many times before to no avail.

The Cement Cartel

Thirty Years on the Rack: Pakistan’s Cement Cartel, the CCP, the Khaki Conglomerate, and the High Cost of Collusion.

Over roughly three decades, Pakistan’s cement industry has moved from nationalized shortage to private surplus, but its defining constant has been cartelization: coordinated price-fixing, quota-setti…

China fights back against US pressure on Iran

Micah McCartney

Beijing has ordered Chinese companies to defy U.S. sanctions over refineries linked to Iranian oil, in a challenge to U.S. efforts to extract further concessions from Iran in negotiations for a lasting ceasefire. The unprecedented move sets the stage for a potential showdown just days before President Donald Trump’s highly anticipated state visit to Beijing.

China has regularly condemned unilateral sanctions by the U.S. and others, criticizing them as a form of “long-arm jurisdiction” used to enforce domestic laws extraterritorially. However, the Ministry of Commerce’s Saturday announcement marked the first time Beijing has explicitly directed its firms to defy such measures.

How to escape Russia’s army: Soldiers serving in Ukraine seek a way out

Mansur Mirovalev

To secure the job, with a salary of 200,000 rubles ($2,660), he took a train in December from Moscow to a conscription office in the city of Ryazan, 200 kilometres (125 miles) southeast. He knew the job was being arranged through the army, but did not imagine having to serve on the frontlines.

He arrived at the office on a gloomy evening, sleepy and with a splitting headache.

And he then signed away his civilian life “in a hurry, without reading, without comprehending, and that was it”, he told Al Jazeera. The officer who handed him the contract at 11pm had asked Oleg to sign an “appendix” that turned out to be an agreement to become a drone pilot, he said.

The plateauing of Russia’s military strategy in Ukraine

Mykola Bielieskov

Another bloody campaign is expected in the ongoing Ukraine–Russia conflict. However, the efficiency of Russia’s current battlefield military strategy seems to have plateaued. If nothing changes radically in Russia’s approach to force constitution and application, the Kremlin cannot expect progress on the battlefield in 2026 to radically strengthen its negotiation position. It is critical to highlight this, given the ongoing contest for perception among wider audiences.

As 2026 unfolds, the Ukraine–Russia war still revolves around Russian attempts to fully capture the Donetsk region, anchor its front around the Oskil River and advance as far as possible into the Zaporizhia region. While Russia has held the battlefield initiative since mid-autumn 2023, it has proved unable to orchestrate a rapid breakthrough. In 2025, Russia tried to build a picture of omnipotence through attempts to advance on all fronts to strengthen its negotiation position. As a result, while Russia occupied almost 5000 km2, it barely managed to push Ukraine out of Pokrovsk-Myrnograd, and while it exploited Ukrainian shortcomings around Hulyaipole and Syversk to score some local successes, it could not break Ukraine’s will to fight.

Trump Says U.S. Navy ‘Like Pirates’ in Enforcing Sea Blockade of Iran

Richard Hall

In this handout photo provided by U.S. Central Command, U.S. forces patrol the Arabian Sea near M/V Touska on April 20, 2026, after firing upon the Iranian-flagged vessel that the U.S. accused of attempting to violate the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports near the Strait of Hormuz.Handout Photo by the U.S. Navy via Getty Images

President Donald Trump compared the U.S. Navy to pirates when describing how it was carrying out his orders to blockade Iranian ports. "We took over the ship, we took over the cargo, we took over the oil. It's a very ⁠profitable business," Trump said on ⁠Friday evening, recounting a seizure of an Iranian ship. "We're sort of like pirates, but we are not playing games."

The End of the Axis of Abraham The Arab Gulf and Israel Have Different Visions for a New Middle East

H. A. Hellye

In spring 2024, Iran directly attacked Israeli territory for the first time, launching more than 300 drones and missiles at its adversary. U.S., British, French, and Jordanian forces rapidly intercepted them. The message was hard to miss in Gulf capitals: when Iran attacks Israel, the U.S.-led response will be immediate and collective. But there was an uncomfortable, unspoken question left lingering: What would happen if Iran attacked the Gulf?

That question has now been answered. When the United States and Israel began their war on Iran on February 28—a war that Gulf governments had lobbied against—Iran retaliated by striking Gulf Arab states’ airports, seaports, oil installations, and desalination plants. Although U.S. forces helped intercept some attacks on the Gulf Arab states, damage was done to the region’s reputation as a safe haven for global business—which, no doubt, was the Iranian regime’s intention.

The Real Meaning of the UAE’s OPEC Exit

Amir Handjani

When the United Arab Emirates exits OPEC on May 1, it will not be abandoning a club so much as declaring that the club no longer serves its interests. That distinction matters. Abu Dhabi’s departure is not a reaction to a single grievance but the convergence of three forces: the Iran war, a deepening rivalry with Saudi Arabia, and a strategic realignment with Washington that has been years in the making.

The U.S.-Israel war on Iran has made the UAE a front-line state in ways it did not fully expect. Iran justified targeting Emirati territory by citing Abu Dhabi’s decades-long strategic alignment with Washington, a designation formalized when the United States named the UAE a “major defense partner” in 2024. Iranian strikes hit Fujairah’s industrial zone, rattled Jebel Ali’s port, and sent smoke over Dubai’s skyline. The UAE has absorbed this punishment largely alone. Its Gulf Cooperation Council partners offered solidarity, but, as Emirati presidential advisor Anwar Gargash pointedly noted at the Gulf Influencers forum on Monday, their political and military response was “the weakest historically.”

Lessons from Chernobyl, 40 Years Later

James Holmes

Macabre as it may sound, some catastrophes are useful. Exhibit A: this April marked the 40th anniversary of the cataclysm at the Soviet nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, not far from Kyiv in northern Ukraine. In a supreme irony, the plant’s Reactor No. 4 detonated on April 26, 1986, while the facility staff was testing its emergency water-cooling system. To put it mildly, it failed the test. The reactor overheated; steam blew the roof off the building housing it, before a secondary explosion detonated seconds later.

The blasts claimed two lives in an instant before belching a radioactive plume high into the atmosphere. For a time, the cloud drifted toward the Soviet capital of Moscow. It irradiated downwind swathes of the Soviet republics of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Radioactive effects impinged on daily life as far away as Western Europe—including West Germany, where I was then an undergraduate at the University of Regensburg.

Discover more from Missile Matters — with Fabian Hoffmann

Fabian Hoffmann

Throughout the war in Ukraine, reports have periodically emerged suggesting that Ukrainian electronic warfare systems have successfully jammed Russian ballistic missiles, causing them to miss their intended targets.

Most recently, the Kyiv Independent reported that one electronic warfare project claimed to have downed 58 out of 59 Kh-47M2 Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missiles. “Downed” is somewhat of a misnomer here, but likely refers to an electronic warfare system degrading the missiles’ navigation sufficiently to render them militarily ineffective. This post discusses what an electronic warfare system designed to defeat incoming ballistic missiles might look like, the technical and operational challenges of deploying such a system, and the implications for the ongoing war.

The significance of US military bases in Germany

Thomas Latschan

US President Donald Trump didn't like Chancellor Friedrich Merz's latest statements on the Iran war, that much was clear from Trump's recent rant on Truth Social, where he claimed the German leader "doesn't know what he's talking about!" So what happened? On Monday, Merz said the US "clearly have no strategy" in dealing with Tehran, saying "an entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership."

The German leader's words did not go down well with Trump, who quickly threatened to reduce the US troop presence in Germany. By Friday, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered the withdrawal of around 5,000 American troops over the next six to 12 months.

What Does Landpower Bring to an Air and Naval Fight?

John Spencer

Operation Epic Fury has objectively been a remarkable display of deep strike, naval control, and the rapid suppression of Iranian capabilities with airstrikes and sea-launched weapons. It is no surprise that the public narrative defines it as an air and maritime campaign. That view is incomplete.

The campaign demonstrates something more important about modern war: Even in a fight centered on airpower and naval dominance, the joint force cannot succeed without landpower. For two decades after 9/11, air and naval forces played a supporting but indispensable role in land-centric wars. In Operation Epic Fury, the roles have shifted, but the reality has not. From the operation’s beginning, Army capabilities were not additive or symbolic. They were essential to protecting the force, enabling joint operations, and delivering effects that air and naval power alone could not achieve. Examining how landpower made the joint campaign possible is vital for understanding how ground forces and their unique capabilities will contribute in other theaters where airpower and seapower will be central—like the Indo-Pacific.

UK Army Unveils Robot Assisted Warfare With Challenger Tanks, Drones And Autonomous Systems

The British Army has demonstrated how it intends to fight future high-intensity wars by integrating tanks, robotic systems, drones, and digital networks into a single combat force. This shift matters because it increases battlefield speed and lethality by enabling units to detect, decide, and strike faster than an adversary.

The live demonstration combined heavy armour with uncrewed reconnaissance, autonomous breaching systems, and networked command to show a force designed for continuous, multi-domain operations. It highlights a move toward layered, technology-driven warfare where survivability, tempo, and coordinated firepower outweigh reliance on individual platforms.

Tech has broken our entire world model, but we are in denial

Gabriel Elefteriu

Geopolitics is in flux, history has “returned”, there is war, political upheaval and technological disruption everywhere: These matters command an overwhelming share of global attention and public intellectual discourse. Yet the most important transformation for the collective destiny of mankind, the redefinition of the individual, is unfolding and deepening in relative quiet and with comparatively little debate.

We are not simply living through yet another Industrial Revolution – the fourth one, as technologists claim – or through just another great historical rearrangement of world order, as geopoliticians observe. However large their scope, these are true but not sufficient descriptions of our current moment.

What It Takes to Mobilize for War

Todd Harrison

Recent wars have exposed a reality that peacetime defense planning often understates: Stockpiles are finite, production does not surge overnight, and success in a protracted conflict depends as much on the ability to regenerate combat power as on the ability to win early battles. This report argues that mobilization readiness—the nation’s ability to convert resources into military power at speed and scale—is a central but underappreciated dimension of military readiness. Mobilization readiness rests on four foundations: economic strength, workforce capacity, industrial capacity, and political will.

The United States retains major advantages in each of these areas, but it also faces serious constraints, including mounting fiscal and debt pressures, limited industrial depth, accelerating technological complexity, and a fractured political environment. The core policy question is no longer whether mobilization matters, but whether the United States can mobilize credibly and at sufficient speed and scale to deter and, if necessary, prevail in a large-scale, protracted war.

What IBM's Quantum Computer Thinks About the Iran War

The processor was unambiguous. Iran de-escalates at ninety-eight per cent of measurement shots. Israel and the United States escalate at ninety-five. Saudi Arabia and the UAE de-escalate at ninety-six and ninety-seven. Hezbollah escalates at seventy-three. The Houthis split. Russia and China — encoded together as a composite Eastern bloc — lean into Iranian oil purchases at sixty-three per cent.

At the same time I ran a different question on the same chip. Thirty-two of the world’s most plurilaterally active economies. The G20 plus twelve middle-power architects of the post-WTO trade order. Same instrument. Same processor in Poughkeepsie. Different couplings.

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