What Did Europe Gain from Engaging the Taliban?

National Interest | Eldar Mamedov

Five years after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the European Union is struggling to formulate a coherent Afghanistan policy as domestic political concerns drive ad-hoc engagement with the Taliban. In June 2026, a Belgian-hosted delegation led by Abdul Qahar Balkhi visited Brussels to discuss migrant returns, raising concerns among human rights advocates over potential diplomatic normalization.

Meanwhile, the Taliban has made zero progress on EU benchmarks regarding counter-terrorism and human rights, with United Nations assessments documenting over 20 terrorist organizations operating from Afghan soil. Groups such as the TTP, ISIS-Khorasan, and Al Qaeda use Afghanistan as a staging area, leading to cross-border attacks and thousands of casualties in neighboring Pakistan and Tajikistan. Furthermore, the regime bars more than 2.6 million Afghan girls from secondary education and enforces severe sectarian discrimination against Shia Hazaras, while Pashtuns hold roughly 90 percent of senior leadership positions under supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada. Unconditional European engagement grants the regime undue leverage while extracting nothing in return, threatening a slow diplomatic normalization.

How Gen Z Protests Are Reshaping Politics In Asia

Eurasia Review | Ruhi Bhasin

Gen Z-led protests organized via social media in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh exposed deep-seated economic distress, corruption, and elite capture while toppling or shaking entrenched administrations. In India, student demonstrations forced Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to resign in July 2026 after recurring paper leaks disrupted the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test.

Similar youth uprisings forced Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli out of office in Nepal in September 2025 and ended Sheikh Hasina's 15-year rule in Bangladesh in August 2024 through violent clashes that killed nearly 1,400 people. Political outcomes diverged sharply across the region as Nepal's March 2026 election brought Balendra Shah's Rastriya Swatantra Party to power, whereas Bangladesh saw the Bangladesh Nationalist Party under Tarique Rahman form a government by February 2026. Lasting institutional reform depends on organizational continuity and structured party building rather than street mobilization alone.

The US needs its own grey-zone tactics in the South China Sea

The Strategist | William Price

Beijing maintains maritime dominance in the South China Sea through unchecked coercive tactics while Washington relies on passive deterrence measures. The United States military can counter this by adapting the F3EAD targeting framework into an F2RED cycle focused on non-kinetic responses, intelligence sharing, and regional partner coordination. Operating alongside partner forces, the US Navy and Coast Guard can apply soft-kill measures, electronic jamming against surveillance drones, and targeted cyber operations to impose concrete costs on Chinese maritime militia and coast guard entities.

Furthermore, Treasury financial sanctions mirroring 2022 penalties against distant-water fishing fleets can restrict illicit operations. Expanded intelligence dissemination will empower nations like the Philippines to enforce sovereign exclusive economic zones lawfully. Proactive cost-imposition challenges Beijing more effectively than passivity and reassures fence-sitting regional states.

Bangladesh Teen Gangs: Beyond The Street

Eurasia Review | Shivangi Sharma

Bangladeshi police launched a multi-district crackdown on teenage gangs from late September 2026, detaining more than 2,000 people in Comilla alone across five phases and hundreds more in Chittagong, Noakhali and neighbouring districts, though most minors were quickly released to guardians. The campaign followed the killing of a 13-year-old in Comilla and has highlighted at least a dozen local gangs, social-media recruitment via TikTok, and alleged links to BNP and former Awami League figures who treat juveniles as hired muscle for extortion and land grabs.

Experts and police note that poverty, weak family oversight and adult handlers have turned the problem into a wider law-and-order issue, complicated by the Children Act 2013 and the longer-term risk that vulnerable youths could be drawn into more serious extremism. The nationwide expansion of the 2026 crackdown reflects the authorities recognition that teenage gangs have become a significant security concern in Bangladesh.

China is Not Just Claiming the South China Sea. It is Learning to Govern It

RUSI | Charles Pearson

China Coast Guard vessels intercepted a Philippine resupply mission 60 nautical miles from Second Thomas Shoal on 24 September 2026, asserting administrative authority over disputed waters within Manila's exclusive economic zone. Beijing defended the interception by claiming Manila failed to secure prior Chinese authorization, signaling a strategic shift from asserting territorial sovereignty to enforcing operational governance.

This administrative control relies on incremental regulatory measures, including seasonal fishing bans, nature reserves, and the 2021 Coast Guard Law. Routine compliance gradually codifies Chinese authority without active conflict. Although the 2016 arbitral award invalidated Beijing's historic claims under UNCLOS, Beijing expanded artificial island bases and coast guard patrols to enforce compliance on the water. Neither American Freedom of Navigation Operations nor AUKUS deterrence prevent these daily grey-zone disruptions. Consequently, Manila and its partners must actively reject Chinese permit regimes, expand maritime domain awareness, and preserve assertive transparency to prevent Beijing from establishing permanent jurisdiction.

Will Taiwan issue derail Washington and Beijing’s latest reset? Analysts are sceptical

South China Morning Post | Amber Wang

On October 10, 2026, Taiwan's former leader Tsai Ing-wen began a seven-day visit to the United States, during which she met former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in California and Taiwanese Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung opened a new Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Phoenix, Arizona. This series of diplomatic activities takes place at the same time as Taiwan receiving two F-16V fighter jets as a result of a deal valued at NT$247.2 billion (US$7.8 billion) that was approved in August 2019.

The tension still centres on the US$14 billion arms package from Washington which is awaiting approval by the executive branch. The Chinese academics Zhu Feng and Shi Yinhong believe that Beijing sees Tsai as a political figure who has retired, thus reducing the likelihood of immediate diplomatic conflict. High-level diplomatic channels between the two countries are still operating. US Ambassador David Perdue stood by Washington's position, stating that the United States is sticking to its policy of non-coercion while at the same time opposing any form of Taiwanese independence. The current diplomatic situation will come under pressure before the November Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, at which President Xi Jinping and Donald Trump are expected to meet.

The Cyber Gap

Council on Foreign Relations | Matthew Ferren

China has built a sophisticated hacking apparatus to penetrate American water systems, energy grids, telecommunications networks, and transportation systems over the past decade. The United States has failed to meet this threat due to poorly secured hardware and software, chronic underinvestment, and unsteady government policy. Countering this asymmetry requires a new strategy based on shared visibility into campaigns, imposed costs through offensive operations, enhanced network resilience, and rebuilt federal capacity.

Artificial intelligence models with advanced coding capabilities have injected new urgency into this competition by exploiting vulnerabilities faster than defenders can patch them. China's practice of pre-positioning malware inside civilian infrastructure leaves the United States vulnerable to severe disruption during future conflicts. Sustained efforts can make American networks costlier targets and deny Beijing strategic leverage over Washington.

Steel Traps: America’s Fraught Quest for Maritime Dominance

Iiss | Jonathan Caverley, Peter Dombrowski

United States officials are pursuing an ambitious maritime-industrial policy to restore domestic shipbuilding and naval dominance through massive subsidies, regulatory policy changes, and trade leverage. The Trump administration has proposed a Golden Fleet featuring a new class of battleship alongside a Maritime Action Plan that includes the extension of the Finland Model for foreign naval vessel procurement.

These initiatives seek to replicate historical mercantilist trade theories and the rapid industrial growth models of mid-twentieth-century Asian developmental states. However, structural disadvantages such as high domestic steel costs and elevated manufacturing wages hinder American competitiveness. The overstretched domestic maritime sector faces severe maintenance backlogs and depleted munitions inventories following recent regional conflicts. Consequently, heavy investments in outdated surface combatants and commercial ship subsidies risk imposing substantial opportunity costs on overall naval capability while further entrenching Chinese market power.

Xi’s Purge and the War Over Taiwan

The Jamestown Foundation | Jiang Lin, Baosheng Guo

Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia was expelled from the Chinese Communist Party following a political purge driven by Xi Jinping. Xi grew dissatisfied with senior military officers who expressed professional caution regarding a potential cross-Strait operation against Taiwan. Officers from the Fujian-based leadership, the Rocket Force, and the Equipment Development Department warned of Taiwan's defensive advantages and long supply lines, urging a slower timeline toward the 2027 military readiness goal.

Xi interpreted these technical assessments as cowardice and resistance to his primary political objective. Zhang supported these cautious evaluations and publicly pointed to 2035 as the true benchmark for all-domain operational capabilities. The removal of these senior commanders replaces professional military caution with political compliance. While conflict may be delayed while new officers assume command, the consolidation of a submissive high command increases the long-term probability of war.

Kurt Campbell on US deterrence, the Quad, Aukus and Taiwan after Xi-Trump summit

South China Morning Post | Shi Jiangtao, William Zheng

Veteran US diplomat Kurt Campbell stated that containing China is impossible while urging Washington to strengthen its regional partnerships in the wake of the 2026 Xi-Trump summits. The high-level assessment underscores shifting strategic realities across the Indo-Pacific regarding US deterrence, minilateral security architecture, and cross-strait stability. Washington must navigate complex diplomatic friction points without relying on outright containment frameworks.

Regional security architectures including the Quad and the Aukus security pact remain central to maintaining a stable balance of power against Beijing's expanding military capabilities. Diplomatic engagement between Washington and Beijing persists alongside intensified alliance-building across partner nations. Strategic planners anticipate continued friction over Taiwan and maritime territorial disputes in the South China Sea. US leadership confronts the challenge of maintaining robust regional deterrence while managing great-power competition effectively.

Admiral McRaven: Public Execution Is Shameless and Ignoble

The Atlantic | William H. McRaven

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced plans to livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan, the Army officer convicted of the 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas. Former Navy Admiral William H. McRaven condemns the decision as a shameless spectacle that aligns American policy with authoritarian regimes like Iran and Afghanistan, which carried out public executions in 2025.

Publicizing the execution fails to deter extremists and instead risks inciting further violence while eroding international trust in American values. When Osama bin Laden was killed, the Obama administration withheld graphic photographs to preserve national honor and distinguish state authority from coercive cruelty. National values and a sense of propriety remain essential for sustaining alliances, public trust, and military morale. McRaven argues that current leadership mistakenly equates crude theatrics and the performance of cruel power with true national greatness, ultimately undermining the enduring character of the United States.

Thymos and American Foreign Policy

Persuasion | Francis Fukuyama

Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered an address at the Pnyx in Athens on October 7, invoking the ancient Greek concept of thymos as the foundational driver of Western civilization. Francis Fukuyama argues that while this speech references his 1992 work, The End of History and the Last Man, Rubio misinterprets the dual nature of thymos by ignoring its destructive capacity.

The philosopher outlines how thymos divides into isothymia, the demand for equal recognition that underpins modern democratic rights, and megalothymia, the pursuit of superiority that powers both great achievements and tyranny. While Rubio celebrates competitive ambition, he glosses over how unconstrained megalothymia manifests in figures like Donald Trump, who admires autocrats rather than democratic statesmen. Fukuyama concludes that celebrating strength without anchoring it to universal human equality contradicts the foundational principles of American foreign policy.

Trump Defends Russian Diesel Deal Despite Backlash

Eurasia Review | Alex Raufoglu

Donald Trump insisted that Ukraine and Russia agreed to an immediate energy cease-fire, despite Moscow withholding confirmation, Volodymyr Zelenskyy calling the proposal news, and Russian drones striking Ukrainian energy sites hours later. The US administration also defended a temporary waiver allowing Russian diesel imports through April 7, 2027, framing the measure as a domestic relief valve for fuel prices ahead of the November 3 midterm elections.

Bipartisan senators and energy analysts questioned the wisdom of easing sanctions without reciprocal concessions or verifiable halts to infrastructure attacks. General License 135 authorized the initial 300,000-metric-ton shipment, an amount Mark Temnycky noted equals roughly half a day of domestic consumption. Ariel Cohen argued that any truce must encompass Ukrainian power grids alongside Russian refineries. William Taylor observed that no evidence exists showing Vladimir Putin agreed to halt strikes.

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, October 10, 2026

Understanding War | Christian Peasley, Kateryna Shymkiv

On the day of 9 October, Russian President Vladimir Putin falsely accused Ukraine of slowing down the progress of peace negotiations in a phone call with US President Donald Trump; he asserted that the Ukrainian airstrikes during the September 2026 Russian State Duma elections had hindered the talks, while at the same time holding out maximalist demands for Ukrainian submission.

At the same time, the Russian Ministry of Defence released highly exaggerated accounts of tactical achievements on the domestic Max messaging platform in order to influence local perceptions. When US President Donald Trump announced on October 9 a deal for the export of diesel to Russia, the Ukrainian delegates who were meeting with American and European officials in Miami were caught off guard. On October 9 Ukrainian forces carried out drone attacks on railway and oil infrastructure in the Rostov and Bryansk regions and also made progress in the Borova area while countering infiltration operations in the northern part of Kharkiv Oblast. After the unexpected economic announcement, Kyiv's negotiation team ended their diplomatic visit to the United States.

Trump’s Diesel Deal Is Already Paying Off for Putin

Newsweek | David Averre

Donald Trump announced an agreement with Vladimir Putin to provide sanctions relief in exchange for Russian diesel, drawing immediate bipartisan criticism in Washington and condemnation from Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump subsequently urged Ukraine to replace its leadership, claiming the incumbent president opposed ending the war. Moscow capitalized on the friction by rejecting a proposed 60-day ceasefire while offering a one-day halt to strikes during any future election.

The diplomatic friction coincided with ongoing violations of a purported energy infrastructure truce, as Russian missile strikes hit a power plant and civilian facilities in Kharkiv. Meanwhile, bipartisan legislation including the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act had previously sought to tighten economic pressure on Moscow. Seven U.S. senators challenged the legality of the diesel arrangement under the 2022 Ending Importation of Russian Oil Act.

With or without Hamas

Al Jazeera | Lorenzo Kamel

The fourth year of the war in Gaza brings intensified calls for Hamas to surrender administrative authority and evacuate the Strip. Charting a meaningful recovery is impossible without addressing the historical realities that gave rise to the group. The conflict predates Hamas, rooted in the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

Founders like Ibrahim al-Yazouri, Abdulaziz al-Rantisi, and Ahmed Yassin experienced displacement firsthand during these events. The group remains a symptom of a century of oppression rather than an isolated phenomenon. Western framing of Palestinian self-determination as a reward for Hamas ignores international law and demographic realities, where nearly 50 percent of Gaza's population is under 18. An Arab Barometer survey from late September to early October 2023 showed only 29 percent of Gaza respondents trusted the Hamas-led government, with a majority supporting a two-state solution. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has viewed Hamas as useful to maintain that no moderate partner exists, aligning with Bezalel Smotrich's 2017 Subjugation Plan. Meanwhile, diplomatic negotiations remain deadlocked by demands for complete disarmament, perpetuating a status quo.

Ukraine Disrupts Russia’s Donetsk Offensive

Understanding War | Jennie Olmsted

Ukrainian forces have decisively disrupted the 2026 Russian campaign to seize Donetsk Oblast through an operational counteroffensive named Operation Vivaldi in the Lyman direction. This Ukrainian success collapsed the northern Russian pincer, thwarting plans for a deep encirclement of the fortified urban belt from Lyman in the north and Dobropillya in the southwest.

Operation Vivaldi effectively nullified two secondary Russian efforts supporting the wider envelopment and a direct assault on Slovyansk from the northeast. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military restructured its command arrangements in September 2026, establishing the Azov and Center Groups of Forces to optimize command and control across the theater. Although Russian forces maintain pressure around Dobropillya and Kostyantynivka, their overarching campaign design faces severe operational friction and recovery delays.

Made In ‘Europe’

Eurasiareview | Mark Nayler

The EU Industrial Accelerator Act aims to channel €2.6 trillion in annual public procurement and state subsidies into strategic domestic manufacturing sectors. Brussels seeks to raise manufacturing from 14% to 20% of the bloc GDP by 2035 to compete with China. Negotiations remain deadlocked over conflicting definitions of origin rules.

France demands production within continental Europe while excluding the United Kingdom. Germany and the Commission favor a broader group including free-trade partners like Canada. Critics warn that strict local content requirements risk exceeding domestic capacity and inflating costs across multinational supply chains. Spain has proposed a three-tier compromise structure to bridge the divide among member states.

Who stands behind the words?

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists | Deb Roy

Large language models generate fluent, personalized text at scale, eroding the civic accountability traditionally anchored by human speakers. Artificial intelligence systems can participate in institutional processes like public dockets or surveys without bearing responsibility for their output, unlike human agents who face sanctions, shame, or demands for repair.

This proliferation of unanchored speech hollowing out public trust requires institutional redesign to preserve human responsibility alongside automated tools. Delegation succeeds when a human sets purpose and retains responsibility, but fails when synthetic text enters consequential processes without adoption. While technical alignment ensures systems behave as designed, it cannot confer democratic legitimacy or substitute for enduring social relationships built on verifiable accountability. Without chains of responsibility linking words to accountable persons, the architecture of civic trust collapses.

What I Learned from Geolocating 1,000 Satellite Images

E-International Relations | William Goodhind

William Goodhind cataloged 1,000 satellite images of armed conflict between 2020 and 2024 to build a chronological open-source research archive called The Vault. High-resolution commercial imagery remains financially restricted for independent researchers, forcing reliance on scattered media releases and public reports. Mainstream news outlets routinely publish these visual snapshots primarily as illustrative commodities to drive readership through depictions of war damage.

Open-source intelligence investigators instead deploy this spatial data within methodical frameworks to establish ground truth, verify claims, and track military losses. The curation process revealed significant discrepancies in data provenance, forcing analysts to filter out content farms and syndicated aggregators that frequently strip timestamps and mislabel locations. Reliable verification depends heavily on tracing imagery back to primary providers such as Maxar Technologies and Planet Labs.

Beyond A Legacy Of War: Integrating Mine Action Into Climate Security

Eurasia Review | Hana Manjušak, Barbara Magalhães Teixeira

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and Poland withdrew from the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention between late 2025 and 2026, while civilian landmine casualties reached a recent high of at least 6279 in 2024. These withdrawals reverse decades of compliance that destroyed over 55 million stockpiled mines across 30 states.

Environmental shifts such as floods and erosion continuously relocate buried ordnance, complicating clearance operations in conflict zones like Ukraine, Tajikistan, and South Sudan. In South Sudan specifically, landmines affect 661 livelihood sites while only 4 per cent of the national territory remains arable. Climate hazards shorten operational windows for demining teams while contamination simultaneously restricts disaster response and ecological management. Joint planning initiatives, such as Colombia pairing demining with native tree reforestation, demonstrate how shared data can mitigate intersecting risks.

Why an Autonomous Combatant Command Hinders Lethality

Real Clear Defense | Stephen D. Cook

War Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a plan to reduce four-star generals by twenty percent and flag officers by ten percent to eliminate bureaucratic bloat. Paradoxically, the Department of War memorandum initiating Project Agincourt establishes the Autonomous Warfare Command, a new four-star functional combatant command slated for activation by October 1, 2027.

This initiative confounds operational command with developmental responsibility by attempting to centralize autonomous systems that require wildly divergent engineering across military branches. The resulting headquarters will drain technical talent from the tactical edge and siphon specialized funding away from ongoing Service-level developments. The primary barrier to rapid technological fielding is not a lack of general officers, but rather the restrictive parameters of Department of Defense Directive 3000.09. Empowering decentralized experts directly within Service program executive offices will eliminate procurement bottlenecks more effectively than creating another sprawling administrative command.

Why Data Centers Should Be Able to Defend Themselves

National Interest | Lora Karch

Commercial data centers in Bahrain and the UAE operated by Amazon were destroyed by IRGC drone and missile strikes in March and April. The United States faces a widening security gap as drones target private cloud infrastructure relied upon by the military, while existing legislation like the Safer Skies Act excludes commercial entities from counter-UAS authorities.

Senator Tom Cotton introduced the Critical Infrastructure Airspace Defense Act to authorize designated facilities to defend themselves against aerial threats. The Iran War demonstrates that commercial assets are now frontline targets in regional conflicts. As American technology firms secure major defense contracts with agencies like the Pentagon, policymakers confront pressure to permit corporate self-defense capabilities without monopolizing national security resources or risking escalation.

The World’s First Military Drones Are Older Than You Think

National Interest | Harrison Kass

United States Army Air Forces launched Operation Aphrodite in 1944 to convert B-17 Flying Fortress bombers into radio-controlled flying bombs loaded with 20,000 pounds of explosives against German targets. The initiative predated modern one-way attack drones by decades, seeking to breach heavily fortified enemy structures without exposing standard aircrews to target-area flak.

Primitive radio guidance and fuzzy television cameras made remote targeting unreliable, causing missions to fail consistently across 15 operational sorties. A two-man volunteer crew handled takeoff before parachuting out, a dangerous procedure that killed pilots Joseph Kennedy Jr. and Wilford Willy in an August 12, 1944, premature detonation over England. The USAAF suspended the troubled project in January 1945 due to its persistent technical failures. Despite its wartime shortcomings, the program anticipated the tactical logic of modern autonomous loitering munitions.

Three signs that America is on the run

The Hill | Harlan Ullman

Twelve U.S. B-1 bombers were rapidly relocated from Royal Air Force Fairford in England to safer locations amid fears of Iranian drone strikes modeled after Ukraine's Operation Spider’s Web. This deployment shift coincides with mounting force vulnerabilities, as a Congressional Research Service report details the loss of 81 U.S. aircraft totaling $3.3 billion during Operation Epic Fury, alongside separate Houthi missile strikes on the King Khalid airport in Riyadh that killed 12 people.

These mounting vulnerabilities occur as the Trump administration pressures European allies to assume greater defense burdens, risking the withdrawal of American forces and potential downgrading of European Command structures. Such strategic retrenchment threatens to sever critical nuclear deterrence links with NATO, potentially granting Russian President Vladimir Putin expanded opportunities to exploit alliance divisions. Washington faces fundamental questions regarding its long-term security commitments as regional infrastructure vulnerabilities multiply across multiple operational theaters.