Indian Strategic Studies

28 January 2026

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

Garima Mohan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Remarks by NATO Secretary General at World Economic Forum, Davos

Listen, NATO since 1949 is the Transatlantic Alliance, and I think we have to be very careful in considering the fact that the US and Canada are not only in NATO to prevent the historic mistake the US made, in their own view, after the First World War, which was retreating from the world stage and then the long arm of history reaching out to the US again in the Second World War, not wanting to repeat that mistake.

They are in NATO because NATO is crucial, not only for the defence of Europe, but also for the defence of the United States. For the United States to stay safe, you need a safe Arctic, a safe Atlantic, and a safe Europe. And all the military, all the politicians, and you guys know this, and we really have to be mindful of this. So when the question is, is Europe safe? Yes, Europe is safe because of what Europe is doing itself within NATO, but also because we have that strong transatlantic relationship.

Article See new posts Conversation Josh Wolfe @wolfejosh The Arctic Smokescreen

Josh Wolfe

The most dangerous mistake about "Greenland is believing it is about Greenland. We are told this is a diplomatic spat, a real estate obsession, a chaotic throwback to 19th-century imperialism. The press treats it as spectacle. Commentators debate whether the administration is serious or simply trolling. Europeans express outrage at the affront to sovereignty. The whole affair is framed as noise: eccentric, embarrassing, ultimately inconsequential.

This framing is comfortable. And almost surely wrong. The conventional reading of the Greenland saga is diplomatic incompetence in real time. The administration threatens force, gets rebuffed, escalates, gets rebuffed again, then retreats to the language of a purchase. Commentators shake their heads. Europeans express bewilderment. What looks like flailing is a classic Trump-style negotiation sequence. You open with an outrageous demand precisely so your real demand seems reasonable by comparison.

High stakes but low expectations for Ukraine talks with Russia and US

Sarah Rainsford

Negotiators from Russia, Ukraine and the US have been meeting in Abu Dhabi for their first trilateral talks since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But whilst the talks take a new format, the core differences remain the same. The stakes are high, but expectations are limited.

Donald Trump is pushing hard for a peace deal in Ukraine – the one he promised but hasn't yet delivered – and he said this week that the two sides would be "stupid" if they couldn't agree. But despite some intense shuttle diplomacy by his own envoys, they are hosting the first trilateral talks involving Ukrainian and Russian negotiators with some major issues still unresolved. Ukraine is engaging with the process because it wants peace more than anyone, but also because it needs to keep the US onside. It learned that lesson the hard way last year, when Donald Trump briefly suspended intelligence sharing and military aid.

How “Drone Kill Zones” Could Save Ukraine

Stavros Atlamazoglou

The situations in Venezuela, Iran, and Greenland have drawn the attention of the international community. However, fighting in Ukraine continues with an unrelenting pace as both combatants adjust to the realities of war and seek ways to gain an advantage.

Russia’s Offensive Continues, with Diminishing Returns. The Russian military still maintains the strategic and operational advantage on the battlefield. The Kremlin relies on long-range fires attacks on Ukrainian urban centers and critical infrastructure to increase pressure on the Ukrainian government and force a peace agreement on Russia’s terms. Moreover, the Russian forces are pushing hard on the ground to capture more territory. Despite holding the initiative on the battlefield, the Russian forces are nowhere close to achieving the Kremlin’s goals. The Ukrainian military has largely foiled them at each turn. Indeed, despite troop and ammunition shortages, the Ukrainians are inventing new concepts to kill Russian troops.

Ukraine’s Drone Kill Zones Have Stopped the Russians in Their Tracks. The Ukrainian military is using one-way attack unmanned aerial systems to deny territory to the Russian forces. For example, near the town of Kupiansk in the eastern part of the country, the Ukrainian forces have established a drone kill zone that has destroyed an estimated 90 percent of Russian units before they even get to the Ukrainian fortified positions. “Ukrainian forces reportedly created a tactical kill zone that denies Russian forces from using vehicles within 20 to 25 kilometers of the front line or using infantry within one kilometer of the front line near Kupyansk—a capability that Ukraine should deepen and expand across the entire theater,” the Institute for the Study of War assessed in its latest operational update on the conflict.

U.S.-China Competition for Artificial Intelligence Markets

Austin Horng-En Wang, Kyle Siler-Evans

The authors analyze global large language model (LLM) adoption patterns, with a focus on the competitive dynamics between the United States and China. Using website traffic data across 135 countries from April 2024 through May 2025, they tracked site visits to major U.S. and Chinese LLM platforms to assess market penetration, identify geographic adoption patterns, and examine the impact of the January 2025 DeepSeek R1 launch. The authors explore three key drivers of international LLM adoption: pricing strategies, multilingual capabilities, and government-led artificial intelligence (AI) diplomacy initiatives. The authors aim to provide insights to policymakers, technology leaders, and industry observers who seek to understand the evolving U.S.-China competition for AI supremacy.

Artificial Intelligence and a Reconfiguration of Military Power

Elise Annett and Dr. James Giordano

Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering Emil Michael has emphasized that the Department of War (DoW) has historically under-deployed artificial intelligence (AI) and that the current moment demands rapid, enterprise-wide integration of AI capabilities across the DoW workforce to better support both efficiency and warfighting functions. Recent developments such as the Department of War’s 2026 Artificial Intelligence Strategy and the planned integration of commercial large-language models like Grok across classified and unclassified DoW networks, reflect Under Secretary Michael’s incentivization, and illustrate ongoing commitments to rapid AI adoption and technological primacy.

We believe that this initiative, announced by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth at SpaceX, signifies a reconfiguration of decision-making authority, informational control, and strategic agency within the conduct of war. AI is becoming a constitutive element through which operational knowledge is acquired, filtered, and acted upon. As such, AI reshapes both how force is applied and how tactical engagement and strategic judgment are structured and enacted.

China’s J-20S Fighter Jet Is Now a Carrier Killer

Brandon J. Weichert

China’s J-20S—a two-seat upgrade of the J-20 “Mighty Dragon” fighter—has been designed for one, and only one purpose: to hunt down US aircraft carriers in the Pacific. China has been touting their Chengdu J-20 Mighty Dragon fifth-generation air superiority as a counterweight to the US-made F-22 Raptor fifth-generation air superiority fighter. Indeed, Beijing has claimed that the J-20 system is already superior—though doubts abound.

Beijing’s “Mighty Dragon” vs. America’s Aircraft Carriers. Not only is China touting their J-20 as the better version of the Raptor, but it is also showcasing its two-seater, navalized variant, the J-20S. Beijing has given the J-20S a pivotal role in its regional anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) strategy, which is specifically tailored for stunting the power projection of the United States Armed Forces into the First Island Chain.

China’s Drone War in Ukraine

Vita Golod and Dmytro Burtsev

One of the most striking features of the Russia-Ukraine war is how quickly it has transformed into a war of drones. What began as a conventional land invasion has evolved into a conflict in which low-cost unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – not tanks, aircraft, or missiles – shape daily battlefield outcomes. Drones now guide artillery, conduct surveillance, deliver precision strikes, and saturate air defenses. In this environment, adaptability and scale matter more than traditional military platforms.

And running quietly through this entire ecosystem is one country that has not fired a single shot – China. Beijing’s role in the war is not as visible as Iran’s Shahed drones or Western-supplied artillery systems. Instead, China’s influence is embedded in the technology itself – from finished civilian drones to the components that keep thousands of UAVs airborne each day. Amid the war, China’s dominance of global drone supply chains has become strategically indispensable to both Russia and Ukraine, revealing a new form of power rooted in civilian technology rather than military intervention.

Critical infrastructures face major threat from Chinese cyberattacks, nominee warns

Bill Gertz

China has conducted aggressive cyberattacks on U.S. critical infrastructures, and the U.S. needs to step up efforts to block the planting of malicious software in control networks, the general slated to be the next commander of Cyber Command told Congress. Army Lt. Gen. Joshua M. Rudd, who is also nominated to be director of the National Security Agency, disclosed new details about cyberattack threats to infrastructure in recent congressional testimony.

Gen. Rudd, currently the deputy commander of the Indo-Pacific Command, said other adversaries also are threatening critical infrastructure, but less than the dangers from communist China. “The United States faces a complex and multilayered cyber threat landscape, but there is no ambiguity about our primary threat: China is the most serious and sophisticated threat we face in cyberspace,” Gen. Rudd told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

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

Secretary of the U.S. Army Daniel P. Driscoll

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.

In September, Hegseth stated, “Standards must be uniform, gender-neutral, and high. If not, they’re not standards — they’re just suggestions, suggestions that get our sons and daughters killed.” That has been the Army’s lodestar over the past year, but also since our founding, over 250 years ago: prepare our soldiers to dominate the battlefield, raise their quality of life while they’re home and remove any obstacles to achieving that goal. Giving our soldiers anything less, then sending them to war, is unconscionable.

The Evolution of Russian and Chinese Air Power Threats

Justin Bronk

In 2020, RUSI published papers on the potential threats posed to Western forces by Russian and Chinese combat air capabilities and ground-based air defence (GBAD) systems. Since these studies were published, both Russian and Chinese air power capabilities have evolved significantly.

The aim of this Insights Paper is not to present a comprehensive analysis of the various types, weapons systems and tactics operated by the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) and People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF). Instead, it provides a succinct outline of the ways in which the threat posed to Western air power capabilities by Russian and Chinese forces respectively has changed over the five years since 2020. As a starting point, readers are invited to read the two RUSI papers from 2020, mentioned in the paragraph above, for an overview of the primary aircraft types and GBAD systems operated by each nation. This Insights Paper demonstrates that in 2025, Chinese air power in particular poses a fundamentally different level of threat to traditional US dominance in the air domain than it did in 2020. Russian air power has evolved in a different way and to a lesser extent – its evolution is driven largely by the pressures of Russia’s long war against Ukraine. However, Russian air power still represents a greater threat to Western air power capabilities in Europe than it did prior to the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The Emotionally Intelligent Leader: Applying the R.E.A.D. Technique in Military Leadership

Jordan Alexander,John Cabra

In this occasional paper, John F. Cabra and Jordan Alexander introduce the Recognize, Evaluate, Acknowledge, and Direct (R.E.A.D.) framework as a practical method for applying emotional intelligence in military leadership. Joint doctrine emphasizes empathy and emotional competence, and presented empirical evidence links emotional intelligence to improved performance, resilience, and retention. However, there is currently no actionable guidance for leaders to operationalize their skills. Cabra and Alexander propose the R.E.A.D. Technique as a viable solution to fill this gap. By transforming abstract concepts into tactical steps, the approach helps leaders prevent misinterpretations that undermine trust and mission success, ultimately bridging a critical gap in leadership development.

A Long, Hard Year: Russia-Ukraine War Lessons Learned 2023

John A. Nagl, Michael T. Hackett

Following the 2024 A Call to Action: Lessons from Ukraine for the Future Force, which explored military lessons learned from the first year of the Russia-Ukraine War, this book examines the changing character of war as the second year of the war unfolded. This year’s authors explore the conflict from four different angles: information advantage (intelligence, information operations, and cyber); landpower operations (fires, maneuver, force protection, mission command, and mercenaries); multi-domain operations (air and maritime); and crosscutting themes (diplomacy, sustainment, and innovation and adaptation). The second year witnessed the innovative approaches to combat of the first year—drones, unmanned aerial systems, and electronic-warfare offensive and defensive capabilities—combined with entrenched warfare not seen at the current scale in Europe since World War I. The use of mercenary private military companies like the Wagner Group generated moments of high suspense (with a failed mutiny in July 2023) and led to changes in Russian force structure and tactics. Delays in continued allied support tested the resolve and operational capabilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which nevertheless kept up the fight and held Russia back. Through it all, the conflict offers a compelling picture of the war of the future, along with lessons for the US Army Training and Doctrine Command to prepare the Joint Force to meet the challenges of the large-scale combat operations of tomorrow.

The 2024 Carlisle Conference on the PLA: Protracted War Against the PRC

Joshua Arostegui

The US Army War College’s 2024 Carlisle Conference on the People’s Liberation Army was held on October 16 and 17 at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. The conference featured keynote speakers from the US Department of Defense and the think-tank community, and panels focused on assessing the People’s Republic of China’s understanding of and capability to carry out a protracted war in the Indo-Pacific. The conference brought together over 100 participants from government, military, US Intelligence Community, academic, and think-tank organizations.

The conference papers were authored by expert speakers and panelists and were designed to provide insight into key People’s Republic of China and People’s Liberation Army advances that could enable Chinese forces in a future protracted war against a US-led coalition. The papers were also crafted to enable in-depth seminar discussions following each panel, allowing the authors to garner feedback to improve their analyses.

The Future of War – When States No Longer Own The Means of War

George Dagnall

It’s hard to shake the feeling that conflict no longer behaves the way we expect it to. Wars don’t end cleanly, responsibility is always blurred, and decisions with real consequences seem to be made everywhere and nowhere at once. We sense that something has changed, but rarely have the space to stop and ask why. This isn’t an attempt to predict the next war or sound the alarm. It’s an effort to make sense of why power, violence and accountability no longer behave the way we assume they do, and what that could mean for states and societies that still expect to manage them.

Modern conflict is no longer defined by the Western conception of war as a discrete event led by states, fought by armies, and concluded by treaties. It has become a fluid spectrum shaped by states, private actors, technologies, algorithms, and societies that no longer share a common centre of gravity. The result is a geopolitical environment where the means of violence are distributed, authority is conditional, and conflict increasingly persists rather than resolves. That shift is hard to miss for anyone paying even casual attention to current events.

27 January 2026

How Pakistan Conquered the US – While India Lost Trump

In February 2025, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was warmly welcomed to the White House. He was the second foreign leader to be hosted by newly inaugurated President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s prime minister hadn’t even gotten a phone call. The Pakistan-U.S. relationship had been on ice since Trump’s first term, when he famously said Pakistan had given the U.S. “nothing but lies and deceit.”

Then, in 2025, the impossible happened. India, Washington’s “indispensable” partner, was hit with a brutal 50 percent tariff and snubbed for a presidential visit. And Pakistan is being celebrated at the White House as America’s new favorite ally. It all started when New Delhi humiliated Trump by publicly rejecting his claim to have mediated an end to the May 2025 conflict with Pakistan. Since then, the India-U.S. relationship has entered a deep freeze. There’s been no Quad summit, no Trump visit to India, and no trade deal to give India respite from astronomical tariffs. High-level dialogue has totally collapsed.

Indian-Israeli Relations at the End of the Unipolar Order

Raphael Harkham

The post–Cold War unipolar order – with the United States as the unquestioned, unchallenged hegemon – is over. While the great power rivalry between the U.S. and China is still in its formative stages, another state will exert disproportionate influence on how that competition ultimately unfolds.

India – the world’s most populous state – is a democracy that shares a 2,100-mile border with China. Having experienced Beijing’s expansionist ambitions firsthand, India views China as both a strategic competitor and a direct threat. With vast but still underdeveloped industrial capacity, India offers the most credible counterweight to China in the region, if not globally. It also presents an increasingly attractive economic alternative for countries and investors seeking growth and diversified supply chains. Yet strategic centrality does not automatically translate into strategic capability, and India is still widely understood to be decades away from great-power status.

The Case for US Engagement with Afghanistan

Touqir Hussain

Historically, Afghanistan has shrewdly exploited foreign powers’ interests in the country, whether during the Anglo-Russian Great Game or the Cold War, by playing opposing powers off against each other. The strategy ensured the security and financial viability of a country whose many political faultlines (ethnic, tribal, regional, sectarian, ideological) and landlocked status make it difficult to function as a stable modern state. In the first three quarters of the 20th century, a Pashtun-dominated, elitist ruling establishment that shared power with regional strongmen provided an uneasy stability and a measure of functional statehood. But it unraveled following the overthrow of the monarchy in 1973, plunging the country into four decades of war, regional isolation, and domestic ideological and ethnic strife.

The country that the Taliban took over in August 2021 was neither pacified nor stabilized. Lacking legitimacy at home and recognition abroad, a factionalized Taliban now presides over a divided population, an unravelling economy, and a worsening humanitarian crisis. To secure economic and political support from countries in the region, the Islamic Emirate is following the same old Afghan strategy of leveraging one relationship against another. In the present case, India against Pakistan, Iran against Pakistan, India against China, and China against the United States.

A Perfect Storm for Taiwan in 2026?

Yun Sun

In 2021, U.S. Navy Admiral Philip Davidson, then the commander 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.

China Has Beaten America’s Trade Warriors. Here’s the Proof.

Brandon J. Weichert

Is China Collapsing? Not Exactly

Most assessments claim that the surplus was derived from emerging markets—the Global South—where Beijing has spent an inordinate amount of time cultivating relationships and expanding its presence via trade and geoeconomic policies. Yes, Chinese leaders spent years deftly cultivating their tight relations with the Global South. It helped them prepare for when they expected President Donald Trump to initiate the next phase of his onerous trade war. Remember, in Trump’s first nonconsecutive term, Beijing was caught off-guard by Trump’s brute force approach to trade warfare.

That was then. China spent the intervening years making its system less susceptible to the kind of aggressive trade policies that future American administrations might enact—realizing that Trump’s hawkishness during his first term was most likely going to be a trend that future American leaders followed, rather than an anomaly. So, when Trump returned to office and initiated his trade war against China, Beijing simply prioritized the Global South. To be clear, the notion of utilizing tariffs and other protectionist barriers to restore America’s industrial infrastructure and make China play fairer in the global trade game were justified, and perhaps necessary, moves by the Trump administration. Yet the way in which Trump has haphazardly enacted these policies, and the failure to account the kind of countermoves the Chinese would make in retaliation, have led America to disaster.

China’s Great Waiting Game in Afghanistan

Aaron Glasserman and Ramin Mansoori

Afghanistan is one of China’s thorniest security and foreign policy problems today. Rich in natural resources and strategically situated at the nexus of South, Central, and West Asia, the country is a natural target for Chinese investment and influence. For decades, however, Afghanistan’s domestic instability and proximity to China’s own restive Xinjiang region have inhibited economic cooperation and led Beijing to treat its neighbor primarily as a source of security threats, including terrorism as well as drugs and migration. In the 2010s, China voiced support for stronger economic and security ties with the U.S.-backed government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, but it remained wary of the perceived risks of greater involvement and therefore did not deliver on many of its commitments. The complete withdrawal of U.S. forces and return of Taliban control in August 2021 have exacerbated China’s long-standing challenges in Afghanistan and produced some new ones as well.

As the Islamist government in Kabul contends with crippling sanctions, international isolation, and weak state capacity, Beijing’s priority is to mitigate the threat posed by Uighur militants and other armed groups based in Afghanistan against China and Chinese assets in the region. Its approach to Afghanistan under the Taliban involves three elements. The first is eschewing sticks: China is unwilling to take on the security role previously performed by the United States and indeed juxtaposes its conduct in the international arena against U.S. interventionism. The second element is dangling carrots: China is offering the Taliban valuable economic support but making it contingent on cooperation in neutralizing the threat from Uighur fighters and other China-designated terrorist groups. The third is building fences: China is tightening security along its border with Afghanistan and working with other countries in the region to contain any “spillover.”

The Big Winner: China

Robert Kuttner

Trump’s bizarre threats to take Greenland by military force, now rescinded, added one more signal to America’s usual allies that the U.S. could no longer be trusted. One ironic result is closer economic relations between the rest of the world and China. This is far more consequential than whatever deterrent effect on China that might be achieved by more U.S. bases in Greenland.

Europe, especially Germany, was already moving in the direction of closer economic ties with China. In the wake of the Greenland debacle, there will be more trade deals and more investment, both by Europe in China and by China in Europe, increasing Europe’s dependence on Beijing.

Crossing The Red Line: What Is Trump’s Ultimate Strategy In Iran? – OpEd

Tim Donner

Massive demonstrations continue unabated across Iran, as untold thousands demand an end to the terror-ridden Islamist regime that has driven the once-prosperous country into the ditch. Ayatollah Khameini and the ruling mullahs have responded by imprisoning and murdering thousands in cold blood and shutting down access to the outside world. Khameini has reportedly retreated to a bunker, reminiscent of Adolf Hitler in his final days.

But through it all, the world’s number one sponsor of terrorism remains in place, at least for now. After protests rocked Iran in late December and were met with a violent crackdown by the regime, President Donald Trump said the United States is “locked and loaded,” promising Iranians that “HELP IS ON ITS WAY” and encouraging Iranians to “TAKE OVER” regime institutions. He stated that the United States would “come to their rescue” and later vowed that “if they start killing people like they have in the past, we will get involved. We’ll be hitting them very hard where it hurts.”

Oil, not cocaine, is Venezuela’s most dangerous drug

William S. Becker

So, the U.S. has seized Venezuela’s oil reserves. It looks like President Trump’s biggest deal ever — a hostile takeover. But should we celebrate it? Trump frames the takeover as an enormous opportunity for America’s oil companies, the American people and Venezuelans. In reality, he has doubled down on a dead-end energy policy fraught with profound and dangerous problems.

First, not all oil is black gold, and not all oil fields are bonanzas. Venezuela’s reserves are the world’s largest, but also some of the dirtiest. Their petroleum is tar-like and full of sulfur. It’s more difficult and expensive to extract and refine. Some would be processed on the U.S. Gulf Coast, where refineries are equipped to handle heavy oil. But oil refining is the 10th most toxic industry in the U.S. Refineries emit 188 types of harmful pollutants, some linked with cancer, pulmonary and heart diseases, and neurological, reproductive, developmental and immunological damage. Part of the Coast is already known as a sacrifice area called “cancer alley.”

Trump at Davos marked start of a new world era

Robert Dover

Donald Trump’s concern about the strategic positioning of Greenland is rational. But the way the US president has approached the issue is not – and could still rupture NATO and cause enduring harm to North Atlantic political and economic relations. The question for those attending the World Economic Forum in Davos all week has been how to respond to Trump’s ambition for the US to own Greenland by hook or by crook.

His speech on January 21 – which appeared to concede that the US will not take Greenland by force – and his subsequent claim of having negotiated what he referred to as a “framework agreement” with the Nato secretary-general, Mark Rutte, have at least given the assembled heads of state something to work with. But America’s allies are faced with a series of options. They could try to wait out the 1,093 days left in Trump’s term in the hope that nothing drastic happens. They could appease Trump by conceding to some of his demands.

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