India and EU announce 'mother of all trade deals'

Abhishek Dey, Arunoday Mukharji, and Jessica Parker

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The European Union and India have announced a landmark trade deal after nearly two decades of on-off talks, as both sides aim to deepen ties amid tensions with the US. "We did it, we delivered the mother of all deals," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at a media briefing in Delhi. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the pact "historic".

It will allow free trade of goods between the bloc of 27 European states and the world's most populous country, which together make up nearly 25% of global gross domestic product and a market of two billion people. The deal will see a number of huge tariff cuts across a range of goods and services, and a joint security partnership.

Pakistan: Balochistan Bleeds

Tushar Ranjan Mohanty

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On January 25, 2026, Security Forces (SFs) killed three terrorists during an intelligence-based operation (IBO) in Panjgur District of Balochistan. According to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), “On January 25 (Sunday), security forces conducted an intelligence-based operation in Panjgur District of Balochistan, on [the] reported presence of terrorists belonging to Indian proxy, Fitna al Hindustan.” However, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed that 12 SFs personnel were killed and six others injured during clashes in the area.

On January 19, 2026, five terrorists were killed in an intelligence based operation (IBO) by the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) in the Dasht area of Mastung District in Balochistan. According to a CTD spokesperson, around seven other terrorists managed to escape, taking advantage of darkness and the nearby mountainous terrain.

That Isn’t Signaling. China’s Military Is Seriously Rehearsing Around Taiwan

Nathan Attrill

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Analysing China’s military activity around Taiwan often invites a simple question: what triggered it? Analysts tend to assume that spikes in aircraft sorties, naval deployments or coast guard operations must be a reaction to something political in Taiwan, U.S. actions in the region or other international events. But a close examination of 2025 data complicates this assumption. Domestic rhythms inside China—holiday cycles, political security priorities, command availability—shape operational tempo more reliably than events in Taipei or Washington.

Put simply, the scale and persistence of Chinese military activity around Taiwan look less like signalling and more like systematic preparation for the use of force, conducted on Beijing’s own timetable. A review of military coercion data compiled throughout 2025 for ASPI’s State of the Strait—a weekly newsletter tracking Beijing’s coercion of Taiwan—highlights several striking patterns. First, true absences of Chinese military activity around Taiwan are vanishingly rare. Across the entire year, there were only two days—12 and 13 November—when no Chinese military air or maritime assets were detected around Taiwan. This underscores how deeply normalised Chinese military presence has become. Activity levels may rise or fall, but presence itself is now continuous.

A Perfect Storm for Taiwan in 2026?

Yun Sun

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In 2021, U.S. Navy Admiral Philip Davidson, then the head of the Indo-Pacific Command, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services that Beijing had set a serious goal of controlling Taiwan before 2027. “Taiwan is clearly one of their ambitions before then,” he warned. “And I think the threat is manifest during this decade, in fact, in the next six years.”

This prediction, which gained so much attention in Washington that it came to be known as the Davidson Window, quickly spurred action. Within the year, Congress authorized $7.1 billion for the newly created Pacific Deterrence Initiative, designed to boost the United States’ capability to deter Chinese military adventurism, and the policy community scrambled to develop strategies to counter Chinese military threats. The U.S. government offered so much diplomatic, political, economic, and security support to Taiwan that some veteran Taiwan watchers began to remind U.S. policymakers of the importance of reassuring China that the United States doesn’t support Taiwan independence.

As Generals Fall, Xi Jinping’s Anti-Corruption Campaign Is Eating Itself

Deng Yuwen

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Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, two of the most powerful military leaders in China, are now officially in custody. Rumors have buzzed in the Chinese diaspora for days, but the speed still comes as a shock; usually there’s a far longer gap between the detention of leaders and the official announcement of their fate.

The crux of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) political language is not what it says, but when it says it—and to whom. People’s Liberation Army (PLA) mouthpieces have accused Zhang and Liu of having “seriously trampled on and undermined the system of ultimate responsibility resting with the [Central Military Commission] CMC chairman” and threatening “the Party’s absolute leadership over the armed forces.” These charges have little directly to do with corruption in the conventional sense, nor are they just about the military. They are political accusations, virtually identical to those leveled at former CMC Vice Chair He Weidong, who was purged last year.

ALLFARE: CHINA’S WHOLE-OF-NATION STRATEGY

Michael Margolius 

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Current paradigms of understanding the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) actions against the West typically use the DIME framework or even the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP)’s own “Three Warfares.” However, these frameworks that bin actions into discrete categories fail to encapsulate the totality of the PRCs activities targeting the west. While the United States hesitates to admit its “competition” with the PRC is conflict, the PRC appears to leverage all forms of warfare short of kinetic operations in daily affairs. To analyze how states exert their influence, scholars often compartmentalize actions into rigid analytical frameworks, which obscures the holistic scope of the challenge. By decomposing actions and analyzing them through the common frameworks, analysts fail to appreciate the interconnectedness across all elements of national power, particularly clandestine and sub-state illicit activities. These disadvantages call for a new model of analysis.

Adopting the concept of “allfare,” which captures every potential vector of malign action, provides a better appreciation for the strategic scope of PRC activities. Allfare encourages perceptions of linkages and cross-organizational intentions across the entire network, including official party and state instruments, proxies, and even seemingly disparate criminal actors. This last element, the illicit actors that ultimately advance CCP interests are entirely absent from traditional analytical frameworks. These activities are, at minimum, accepted by the party, and are very probably intentionally exploited. Since 2015, U.S. national security strategies have identified a rising Communist China as a threat to the liberal international order and continued American influence, yet policymakers still fail to grasp the broader whole-of-society grey-zone warfare the CCP conducts against the United States. Though they call for countering Chinese actions, the PRC continues their malign actions with no symmetrical or discernable asymmetrical response.. Allfare provides that aperture to see and then effectively defend against these multifaceted threat vectors. Through both planned and opportunistic actions, the CCP is waging Allfare against the West. Some examples include saber-rattling and confronting ships in the international waters of the South China Sea, inciting anti-Western sentiment through pervasive presence in citizen’s social and digital lives, confounding Western initiatives through vetoes and legal maneuvering in international organizations, cyber-attacks, tolerance of narcotics production for distribution to the West, and positioning for irregular warfare.

Who is more advanced in cyber warfare: US cyber units vs Iranian hackers?

Ilma Athar Ali

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The Power Imbalance. The United States is widely considered a 'Tier One' cyber power, possessing global reach and vast resources that few nations can match. In contrast, Iran operates as a 'Tier Two' power, using aggressive and unpredictable tactics to level the playing field. This creates a classic conflict of conventional superiority versus asymmetric guerrilla warfare in the digital domain.

US Financial Dominance. The US Department of Defence allocates billions annually to cyber operations, with the FY2024 budget requesting over $13.5 billion for cyberspace activities alone. This massive funding allows for cutting-edge research, custom tool development, and the recruitment of elite talent. Iran’s military budget is a fraction of this, necessitating a low-cost, high-impact approach to its operations.

Niall Ferguson: How Trump Won Davos

Niall Ferguson

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That was one of the better jokes made at the president’s expense this week. And it aligns with a rapidly forming narrative in the European and liberal media that the Europeans “won Davos”: primarily by getting Trump to “de-escalate” his demand that the United States acquire Greenland from Denmark.

On Thursday, Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen thanked her British counterpart Keir Starmer for his “very strong support to the Kingdom of Denmark.” It had, she said, “been quite a difficult time for us.” But she was grateful “to know that [we] have good friends, strong allies, and that Europeans stand together, don’t get divided, and stick to our, as you said, our common values.” Starmer cooed back in that strangulated voice of his: “We’ve got through the last few days with a mix of British pragmatism, common sense, but also that British sense of sticking to our values and our principles.”

Dispatch From Davos: The Geopolitics of the New Realism

Michael Froman

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Greetings from beautiful Davos, Switzerland—the Mecca of globalism—where the 2026 World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting is just wrapping up. This year’s Davos theme was “The Spirit of Dialogue,” but in retrospect, it might have been better described as “The Reality of Monologue.” President Donald Trump didn’t just steal the show; he was the show.

Every year, commentators try to assess the zeitgeist of Davos. My take is that people were on edge most of the week. The anxiety leading up to Trump’s speech on Wednesday was palpable, though his remarks produced a collective, if cautious, sigh of relief, particularly among the Europeans. And there were glimmers of optimism, particularly around artificial intelligence (AI). Witness the humanoid and canine-like robots walking along the Promenade. But unlike prior years when the focus was very much on the opportunity of technology, there was at least as much attention this year on geopolitical risk.

IMF Prepares For Global Run On US Dollar

Thomas Moller-Nielsen

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(EurActiv) — The International Monetary Fund is preparing for the possibility of a rapid sell-off of US dollar-denominated assets, its managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, said on Monday. “At the Fund, one muscle that we are building is our ability to hypothetically present scenarios of unthinkable events and then figure out what to do,” Georgieva said at an event hosted by Bruegel, a Brussels-based think-tank.

Asked whether the scenarios include a potential run on dollar assets, Georgieva said the Fund runs “all kinds of scenarios” and that it was examining the issue as part of its ongoing analysis. Her comments come as Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs and attacks on the Federal Reserve’s independence and the rule of law have sparked deep investor unease about the status of the dollar, which has dominated global finance since the end of the Second World War.

Likelihood Of US Strikes On Iran ‘Very High’ Amid Military Buildup, Drills

Kian Sharifi

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The United States is deploying jet fighters, air defenses, and an air carrier with thousands of troops to the Middle East, in a move that has heightened tensions with Iran and increased the likelihood of military action, experts say.

US President Donald Trump threatened military strikes against Iran after the authorities killed thousands of people in a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests. Trump recently backed away, although he has not ruled out an attack on the Islamic republic.

Experts say the military buildup along with planned US naval exercises in the region increases the pressure on Iran and provides more offensive military options if Washington chooses to attack Iran.

Ore And Order: Russia’s Rare-Earth Strategy For The Ukraine Talk

Kirill Shamiev

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In May 2025, when US and Ukraine discussed the “minerals-for-aid” deal, Moscow pointed out the obvious: Russia’s rare-earth reserves dwarf Ukraine’s. By December, elements of that argument had crept into US president Donald Trump’s peace plan, which included major American investments in Russia’s rare-earth and energy sectors. With Europe signalling a possible thaw in talks with Russia—Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni recently joined French president Emmanuel Macron’s call to reopen diplomacy with Vladimir Putin—Moscow smells an opening to press the same leverage.

At the heart of the strategy is Russia’s Angara–Yenisei Valley, a planned $9.2bn Siberian processing hub overseen by Sergei Shoigu, the secretary of the Russian Security Council, former minister of defence and a figure close to Putin. With this project, Russia hopes to raise its global supply share of rare earths from 1.3% today to 10% by 2030.

2026 U.S. National Defense Strategy

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President Trump in his first term and since reentering office in January 2025 has rebuilt the American military to be the world’s absolute best—its most formidable fighting force. But it is essential to emphasize how much of an achievement this has been.

The fact is that President Trump took office in January 2025 to one of the most dangerous security environments in our nation’s history. At home, America’s borders were overrun, narcoterrorists and other enemies grew more powerful throughout the Western Hemisphere, and U.S. access to key terrain like the Panama Canal and Greenland was increasingly in doubt. Meanwhile in Europe, where President Trump had previously led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies to begin taking their defenses seriously, the last administration effectively encouraged them to free-ride, leaving the Alliance unable to deter or respond effectively to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the Middle East, Israel showed that it was able and willing to defend itself after the barbaric attacks of October 7th—in short, that it is a model ally. Yet rather than empower Israel, the last administration tied its hands. All the while, China and its military grew more powerful in the Indo-Pacific region, the world’s largest and most dynamic market area, with significant implications for Americans’ own security, freedom, and prosperity.

Why the US Army must focus on winning the first battle of the next war

Daniel P. Driscoll

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Cold, calculating, and ruthless adversaries do not hesitate. Hot, searing shrapnel and bullets do not discriminate. War is the most ruthless, utilitarian endeavor in humanity: either you are ready, or you aren’t. Either you come home, or you don’t. That is the ultimate measure of readiness, and that is why our soldiers train so hard.

Our president and secretary of war understand that wars are won before they are fought. The first battle of the next war began last April when President Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth unleashed sweeping reforms to modernize our military. The Army heard that order loud and clear, and we’ve been battling complacency, calcification and decades of contorted decision-making ever since.

Drones caused 3 out of every 4 Ukraine war casualties, Latvian spies say

Eva Hartog

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Drones are responsible for between 70 and 80 percent of those injured or killed on both sides of the war in Ukraine, according to a new report by a key Latvian intelligence service.

“This makes the war more dynamic at the tactical level, but reduces the chance of either side making a strategic breakthrough,” reads the report by Latvia’s Constitution Protection Bureau (SAB), published Monday. As a result, the decisive factors in determining the outcome of the war are Western military and political support, the authors concluded.

The Case for Upending World Trade

Peter E. Harrell

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Over the course of a year, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has become the most disruptive force in global trade since the 1930s. But the destruction of the post–Cold War trade order—a rules-based international trading system that sought to set economic principles for participating governments—provides a necessary opportunity to correct an overly rigid attitude toward trade.

Between the end of World War II and the early 1990s, U.S. presidents generally supported free trade and encouraged other countries to lower trade barriers with initiatives such as the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which encouraged countries mostly outside the Soviet bloc to mutually reduce their tariffs. But U.S. administrations balanced this preference with pragmatism, taking a flexible approach to policy that considered distinct challenges discretely. When necessary, U.S. presidents were willing to use tools such as tariffs, sector-specific deals for politically-sensitive products such as textiles, and hard-nosed negotiations to tackle discrete trade tensions. The idea that strictly governing international trade with a set of universal rules would deliver economic and geopolitical benefits to all countries is historically abnormal.

The Trump Administration Is Publishing a Stream of Nazi Propaganda

Ali Breland

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The U.S. Labor Department is embracing Nazi slogans and tropes, the Pentagon’s research office is deploying neo-Nazi graphic elements in its social-media feeds, and the Department of Homeland Security recently posted lyrics mimicking a popular song by a band with ties to an ethno-nationalist social club.

The official social-media channels of the Trump administration have become unrelenting streams of xenophobic and Nazi-coded messages and imagery. The leaders of these departments so far refuse to answer questions about their social-media strategies, but the trend is impossible to miss: Across the federal government, officials are advocating for a radical new understanding of the American idea, one rooted not in the vision of the Founders, but in the ideologies of European fascists.

The Great Divorce

Eliot A. Cohen

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Initially it was a rescue, and then a romance. But then Sam seemed to undergo a personality change. He became abusive when Europa ignored his demands and even threatened violence. After 80 years, Europa had had enough. They would keep the marriage together for form’s sake, but it was effectively over. At least she got to keep Greenland.

This is more or less the story one hears in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s disgraceful, absurd, and failed attempt to grab Greenland by economic coercion and the menace of lethal force. There may have been grains of truth in his complaints—Denmark’s neglect of the island, America’s long-standing interest in acquiring it, the implications of new sea lanes as its ice melts, the rising importance of security in the Arctic—but nothing excuses Trump’s behavior or language. Nor that of his lieutenants, including the normally buttoned-down Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who have been almost as loutish as their boss.

Frigid Kyiv Kindles a High-Tech Plan to Keep Russia at Bay

David Ignatius

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KYIV—It’s a bitterly cold Saturday night here, the temperature 10 degrees Fahrenheit and falling, and a few pedestrians are skittering down the icy sidewalks to get inside before the midnight curfew. Because the heat is out in some homes in the wake of savage Russian bombing of power facilities this month, they may have to visit one of the hundreds of warming centers in the city to get through the night.

This grim winter scene is a snapshot of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal strategy for victory. By pounding Ukraine’s sources of power and heat, he hopes to freeze the country into submission. President Donald Trump sometimes talks as if he agrees with Putin that Russian victory in this bloodbath is inevitable—and that Kyiv must give up territory in a peace deal.

Can China Replace an Absent America in the Climate Fight?

Kelly Sims Gallagher

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When U.S. President Donald Trump decided in 2025 to withdraw, again, from the Paris Agreement on climate change, it was not a surprise to anyone. What’s more surprising is China’s decision to stay in when it has every excuse to walk away. After all, the United States is the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases and remains the second-largest emitter today after China. In the alternate history in which China had withdrawn, members of Congress would certainly have called for the United States to do the same.

So why does China stay in? And could it step up, even, now that the United States has abdicated global leadership on reducing carbon emissions?

The Hamas-Israel War: An Early Assessment

Robert Satloff

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Three months after Israel and Hamas agreed to a U.S.-brokered ceasefire, the strategic outcome of the war remains uncertain. Both sides can point to meaningful achievements, but neither can claim decisive victory. Whereas Israel gained the release of its remaining hostages and a Gaza buffer zone to prevent future attacks, Hamas still controls nearly half the territory while its longtime patrons, Qatar and Turkey, have attained unprecedented standing in Washington. Uncertainty now looms as President Trump prepares to announce the transition to “phase two” of the ceasefire, which will see a raft of hopeful initiatives crash into the reality of a Gaza divided between Israeli and Hamas zones of control, without any agreed path toward disarming the terrorist group—the necessary precondition for any real progress toward full implementation of the ceasefire.

In this timely and provocative Policy Note, Washington Institute Executive Director Robert Satloff explains that several factors could shake up the status quo in Gaza. These include President Trump’s impatience for results, discontent from the Qatari and Turkish ceasefire guarantors, and Israeli unease at its enemy’s stubborn survival. While outlining the potential for a total breakdown of the ceasefire and return to full-scale hostilities, Satloff also argues that Jerusalem has a powerful interest in preventing a situation in which the White House is forced to choose between Israel and the ceasefire’s guarantors—and offers ways to avoid that deeply problematic scenario.

The World Is Hedging Its Bets

Hal Brands

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There are moments when you can feel the geopolitical tectonics shifting below your feet. Such a moment is upon us as the second year of Donald Trump’s presidency begins. The world Trump inherited was based, to a remarkable degree, on US commitment and power. That power surely persists one year later. But as we’ve seen at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week, global confidence in US leadership is ebbing at an increasing rate. 

In November, I wrote about the “great global hedge” that was happening as countries pursued new capabilities and combinations to protect themselves. In 2026, that process will accelerate, as countries race to reduce reliance on a seemingly out-of-control America — and even US allies search for ways of deterring US power.

The Arctic is a Strategic Distraction

T.X. Hammes

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Over the past five years, numerous articles have called for increased U.S. defense resources focused on the Arctic. This is a strategic mistake, a distraction. This article will outline the reasons proponents feel the high north has increased value, examine the actual strategic value of each, and show that none is sufficient to divert scarce resources from higher value theaters. Strategy should serve as an appetite suppressant to keep the nation from committing to peripheral missions at the expense of critical ones.1

The 2024 Department of Defense (DOD) Arctic Strategy was justifiably “prudent and measured,” limiting DOD actions to enhancing domain awareness, communications, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. It planned to work with Allies and partners to uphold deterrence and homeland defense.2 The 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy did not mention the Arctic.3 In contrast, proponents agitate for the United States to dedicate increased defense assets to maintain access to its vast natural resources, exploit the increased economic and shipping opportunities, and provide for national defense.

The US AI Acceleration Plan Vs China’s Diffusion Model

Shannon Vaughn

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The latest US Artificial Intelligence Strategy is a meaningful policy shift and should not be treated as just another vision document. It is an attempt to rewire how the Department of War builds, plans, tests, accredits, and scales capability around a single premise: in the AI era, the side that learns and fields the fastest wins.

From the perspective of US-China competition, the significance is not simply that Washington wants more AI. It is that the department is now treating AI adoption as an operational race in which the decisive variable is diffusion—how quickly a promising capability moves from experiment to trusted, fielded use across the services, commands, and enabling enterprise that actually fights.

A Human-Centric Framework: Employment Principles for Lethal Autonomous Weapons

Brennan Deveraux

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This monograph challenges the Department of War to reframe the conversation about humans’ involvement in lethal autonomous weapons systems by codifying a human-centric framework built on the employment pillars of certification, authority, restriction, and accountability. Although an ample body of literature discusses lethal autonomous weapon systems, this monograph takes a novel approach by proposing a theoretical framework and applying it to historical and hypothetical practical scenarios involving weapons with autonomous characteristics. In terms of methodology, the monograph relies heavily on primary sources, including UN documents and Department of War publications, which are augmented by secondary sources from experts in the field and creative speculation about the characteristics of future warfare. The study’s conclusions will help US military and policy practitioners manage and integrate lethal autonomous weapon systems. This study is designed to spark a necessary and likely uncomfortable conversation about when relying on lethal machines is appropriate. The monograph provides tangible recommendations to help shape future policy decisions about developing and employing lethal autonomous weapon systems.

A Long Time Coming: Europe and India have discovered a strategic partnership.

Garima Mohan

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The relationship between Europe and India is on the cusp of change. Later this month, in a historic first, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will serve as guest of honor, a position reserved for India’s top partners, at the country’s Republic Day ceremony. At the subsequent EU-India summit, the two sides are likely to sign a long-elusive free trade agreement (FTA) and an expansive security and defense partnership. They are also expected to announce initiatives designed to boost skilled migration, and to foster cooperation between European and Indian industry to enhance economic security.

There are several other positive developments. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz just undertook his first official visit to India, also his first to a non-NATO ally. Accompanied by a substantial business delegation, he secured many agreements on defense industrial cooperation, semiconductors, and critical minerals. Recent German governments have made a point of sending top leadership to India before official visits to China, and Merz’s visit continues that convention. French President Emmanuel Macron is due to follow in February to cement his own country’s ties with New Delhi on emerging technologies, thereby broadening an already substantial and critical strategic partnership. India’s foreign minister, in a breakthrough for India’s small-group diplomacy in Europe, just joined a Weimar Format meeting for the first time. Lastly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to visit the continent in spring for the next India-Nordic summit.

Between insurgency and terrorism: the escalating operational sophistication of the Balochistan Liberation Army, 2005–2025

Cynthia I. Ugwu

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The distinction between insurgency and terrorism has long occupied scholars of political violence, with taxonomies often emphasising differences in target selection, political objectives, and relationship to civilian populations. However, contemporary non-state armed groups increasingly defy such neat categorisations, adopting hybrid approaches that strategically combine elements of both modes of violence. The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) exemplifies this phenomenon, having undergone a remarkable evolution in its operational approach while maintaining consistent political objectives centred on Baloch ethno-nationalism.

The BLA emerged in 2000 as a separatist organisation representing Baloch ethno-nationalist interests in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan. However, some argue it is a revival of the 1970s Baloch movements. The 2006 killing of Baloch leader Akbar Bugti by Pakistan’s military sparked renewed violence. Since then, the government and separatists have indulged in a violent tussle for political and economic authority in Balochistan. The BLA’s ideology centres on Baloch nationalism and separatism, advocating for an independent Balochistan state comprising Baloch-majority areas in Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan, which they claim have always been part of Balochistan. The BLA, primarily composed of the Bugti and Marri tribes, attributes their resentment to the Pakistani government’s exploitation of Balochistan’s resources while denying locals economic opportunities.

Limits of China-Pakistan Military Interoperability

Aishwaria Sonavane

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The China-Pakistan defence partnership rests on a series of agreements and military cooperation projects rather than a formal alliance. The foundation of this relationship is largely anchored in regional dynamics, including concerns around India’s regional role, Chinese concerns around terrorism, security threats to Chinese nationals and projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and Beijing’s broader global ambitions.

Beijing maintains its position as Pakistan’s primary defence supplier, and advances bilateral military cooperation through regular joint exercises and technology transfer. However, persistent gaps exist in operational doctrines and technological capabilities. These factors have limited the countries’ ability to achieve full operational interoperability. Furthermore, China and Pakistan have opted for strategic ambiguity rather than formalising a defence pact, likely reflecting Beijing’s policy preference of avoiding binding treaties. The China-Pakistan relationship is described as a “threshold alliance,” 1 which aims to share the burden of countering India’s military and regional influence. This approach enables Islamabad to hedge its bets, managing its increasing reliance on Beijing while avoiding alienation of the US and Western financial institutions, which remain crucial to its economic stability. Ultimately, the China-Pakistan defence relationship can be understood as a dynamic, interest-driven alignment. It enhances Pakistan’s capabilities and provides China with strategic depth in the Indian subcontinent, but falls short of a fully-integrated military alliance.

China’s Cyber Forces Are Impressive, and Growing

David Vallance

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China’s military modernisation since the start of the twenty-first century has been nothing short of astonishing. In little over three decades, it has built thousands of modern combat aircraft, created a fearsome arsenal of missiles, and fielded the world’s largest navy, radically changing Australia’s strategic circumstances. But amid all the discussion of air power, rocketry, and maritime power, there is a more silent but nonetheless critical element of its modernisation: China’s cyberwarfare capabilities.

In a networked world where everything from banking to missile telemetry is supported by cyberspace, capability in this domain is a critical enabler for all other kinds of national power. Moreover, cyber operations are the only kinds of attacks from which Australia’s geography provides no natural defence. China’s cyber capabilities are sophisticated and bolstered by an interesting combination of state-employed hackers and civilian researchers. The former are contracted by the government. The latter openly participate in international “bug bounty” programs (which reward ethical hackers for finding and reporting security vulnerabilities in an organisation's systems) and identify “zero-day vulnerabilities” for foreign companies including Google and Microsoft.

If China Attacks Taiwan

Sheena Chestnut Greitens , Zack Cooper, Jake Rinaldi, Charlie Vest, Logan Wright, J Wuthnow

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Research on the possibility and likely outcome of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait has expanded rapidly in recent years. Studies have focused on a broad range of questions related to deterrence, potential conflict dynamics, and possible conflict outcomes. Tabletop exercises have been used to identify gaps in the capabilities of the United States, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and Taiwan to assess potential escalation pathways and to better understand war termination strategies.1 Comparatively less attention has been devoted to the potential impact of cross-Strait conflict on the PRC itself and how that impact could shape President Xi Jinping’s risk calculus and decision-making about use of force against Taiwan.

Xi’s risk calculus is crucial to understanding if and under what circumstances Beijing might take aggressive actions against Taiwan because any such decision would carry profound political, economic, and strategic consequences for the PRC and for him personally. Xi has tied his legitimacy to putting the PRC on an irreversible path toward the “China Dream” of national rejuvenation by 2049 and unifying Taiwan with the motherland is deemed essential to that goal. Yet a military conflict over Taiwan would risk massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions, all of which could turn his dream into a nightmare and undermine his political authority. Xi’s calculus must therefore weigh the perceived benefits of using force to achieve unification against the potential costs.

When Faith and Geopolitics Collide

Henrietta Levin and Alison Bartel

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How the Dalai Lama’s succession unfolds will have major implications for millions of Tibetans, but also for the risk of conflict at contested Himalayan borders, for the future of U.S.-China competition, and for the viability of China’s efforts to establish an alternative regional and international order. Beijing views Tibet as a “core interest,” and control over Tibetans and their culture is central to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s vision of national rejuvenation. In preparation for the Dalai Lama’s passing, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is accelerating efforts to suppress Tibetan identity, consolidate CCP control over religious life and the selection of Tibetan reincarnations, and perfect its high-tech surveillance apparatus in Tibet.

Most other governments have not begun to seriously grapple with the far-reaching consequences of a Dalai Lama succession. Tibet is often framed solely as a human rights issue, leading policymakers to downgrade its importance. The Chinese government often warns against supposed “interference” in Tibet issues, convincing some governments to uncritically echo Beijing’s position or avoid the issue entirely.

The Chinese Military Is Built for Politics, Not Fighting Wars

Timothy R. Heath

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Can China’s military defeat the U.S. military? Think tanks have warned that China’s military forces could prevail against U.S. forces. War games, which claim to simulate how such a conflict could unfold, have generally concluded that Chinese forces could either defeat U.S. forces or inflict such crippling losses that the United States would win (at most) a pyrrhic victory. The finding that China’s military could beat the U.S. military has been replicated so often that it has become conventional wisdom. Senior U.S. military officials, echoing the accepted wisdom, have repeatedly warned that China’s military can beat the U.S. military.

These claims deserve closer scrutiny. In almost every single study, war game, and warning, the hypothetical conflict in question is the same: a clash in the Taiwan Strait. These sources also unanimously regard the quantity and quality of Chinese armaments as the decisive factor. In particular, China’s advanced surface-to-air and anti-ship missiles, with a modest contribution from its aircraft and ships, threaten to obliterate U.S. military ships and aircraft that operate within their range.

Trump, Uncertainty, and China’s Anti-Alliance Strategy

Olivia Cheung, Luis Simón, and Giulia Tercovich

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President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has revived a familiar anxiety across Europe and Taiwan: How reliable is the United States when its partners’ core interests are at stake? Trump’s governing style is marked by transactional diplomacy, hostility toward multilateral institutions, tariff-driven economic statecraft, and a willingness to publicly berate allies. Taken individually, none of these features is unprecedented. Together, they create a narrative environment that China is learning how to exploit.

Beijing’s opportunity does not lie simply in Trump’s abrasive style or his penchant for provoking allies. It lies in the uncertainty this behavior generates about American intentions, priorities, and staying power. Across allied capitals, Trump’s conduct has reopened questions that many had hoped were settled: whether U.S. commitments are conditional, whether alliances are valued intrinsically or instrumentally, and whether Washington still views long-term strategic competition with China as a shared project rather than a negotiable choice. Recent U.S. actions — including Trump’s intervention in Venezuela and his renewed interest in Greenland — have only sharpened allied concerns about American volatility and strategic unpredictability.

What Iran’s Digital Blackout Reveals About Cyber Power

Reut Yamen , and Zineb Riboua

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Recent protests in Iran illustrate how control over digital infrastructure can be converted directly into control over society, and how this lesson is being closely observed by America’s adversaries. Since January 8, amid nationwide protests driven by economic collapse, inflation, and open calls for regime change, Iranian authorities have imposed one of the longest internet blackouts in the country’s history. Now entering its third week, the shutdown has plunged more than 92 million people into informational darkness, crippling communication, reporting, and basic services while concealing a violent crackdown that has killed thousands. By extinguishing visibility, the regime has shown how dominance over communications infrastructure can neutralize coordination and insulate repression from scrutiny. The blackout functions less as censorship than as an operational enabler, transforming digital control into a mechanism for managing society itself.

Digital Control as an Instrument of Regime Survival. The implications extend far beyond Iran. America’s adversaries are absorbing an important lesson: in modern conflicts between state and population, mastery of communications infrastructure can be as decisive as material force. Digital isolation compresses timelines and allows coercion to outpace accountability. Applied more broadly, this logic points toward the systematic use of advanced cyber and surveillance capabilities to penetrate encrypted channels, map opposition networks, and suppress resistance before it becomes politically visible, offering a replicable model for regime survival in an era of mass connectivity. At the same time, it would be strategically reckless to ignore the indispensable role these same capabilities play for the United States and its partners when used for security rather than control.

We Are Witnessing the Self-Immolation of a Superpower

Garrett M. Graff
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Imagine you were Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping and you woke up a year ago having magically been given command of puppet strings that control the White House. Your explicit geopolitical goal is to undermine trust in the United States on the world stage. You want to destroy the Western rules-based order that has preserved peace and security for 80 years, which allowed the US to triumph as an economic superpower and beacon of hope and innovation for the world. What exactly would you do differently with your marionette other than enact the ever more reckless agenda that Donald Trump has pursued since he became president last year?

In fact, the split-screen juxtaposition of three events this week—Trump’s own nearly two-hour commemoration of his one-year anniversary as president; the gathering of defiant, rattled global elites in snowy Davos; and the spectacle of Denmark and its European allies building up a military force in Greenland with the express purpose of deterring a US military takeover—might someday be seen as heralding the official end of the grand experiment in a rules-based international order that has kept watch since World War II.