Indian Strategic Studies

16 February 2026

The Afghan Taliban’s ‘Digital War’ Against Pakistan

Rahim Nasar

On October 9, 2025, Pakistan allegedly carried out airstrikes on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, to target key leaders of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), particularly its head Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud (Hash e Subha, October 11, 2025). Pakistan repeatedly requested the Taliban authorities to refrain from harboring the TTP leadership inside Afghan territory (The News, September 17, 2025). The airstrikes were unofficially termed as an “act of compulsion” to defend Pakistani territory against militants and to undermine their hideouts. In response, the Taliban have launched a digital anti-Pakistan campaign.

Websites and social media are playing a leading role in strengthening the Afghan Taliban’s political and security narratives and anti-Pakistan rhetoric (Alemarah, March 14, 2025). Platforms such as Al-mirsaad, Omid Radio, the Kabul Times, Hewad, Anis daily, and YouTube channels including Yad and Maihan are actively promoting the Taliban’s core policy visions and marginalizing dissent (CPJ, August 13, 2025). The sophisticated media strategies and propaganda networks of the Taliban demonstrate the new Afghan government’s preparedness for digital media warfare in the age of communication.

Elite Fragmentation and Anxiety in the PLA

Zi Yang

The military high command in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is not in good shape. Two weeks after the purge of generals Zhang Youxia (张又侠) and Liu Zhenli (刘振立), the composition of the Central Military Commission (CMC) and its Joint Staff Department (JSD) remains uncertain. There have been no signs of new appointments to the CMC, and the position of JSD chief of staff remains vacant (Lianhe Zaobao, February 7).

This situation, in which it is unclear who is managing the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on a day-to-day basis or advising CMC Chairman Xi Jinping on military affairs, is abnormal for any modern military. Yet it may persist until the next Party plenum later this year, which allows for new promotions, although acting members could be appointed in the interim. When Xi does move to repopulate the CMC, he is likely to elevate politically loyal officers who pose no threat. Even after that point, the negative impact of the current saga on elite officers will continue, as low morale and high mistrust are set to endure.

Is China Leading the Robotics Revolution?

Hugh Grant-Chapman, Leon Li, Brian Hart, Bonny Lin, Truly Tinsley, Feifei Hung

In the mountain metropolis of Chongqing, China, a dimly lit factory assembles a new car every 60 seconds. Its secret? Robots. The sprawling Chang’An Automobile Digital Intelligence Factory is home to over 2000 robots and autonomous vehicles operating in tandem with surgical precision. When it opened in 2024, the facility claimed the title of Asia’s largest “dark factory,” so called because it is so thoroughly automated that it can theoretically operate in the dark without any human labor. More impressive still is that through this automation technology, the factory can produce cars at 20 percent less cost than traditional methods.

The Chang’An Auto factory is emblematic of a wave of robotics-fueled automation that is transforming China’s industrial landscape. This and other recent achievements are the latest strides in a decade-long push to boost robotics adoption throughout China’s economy, particularly its manufacturing sector. Advanced automation has helped Chinese manufacturers cut costs, climb global value chains, and outcompete foreign competitors. Now, China’s robotics leaders are pioneering new robotics innovations and eyeing new markets. If this trajectory continues, manufacturing rivals around the world will face tough decisions as they scramble to remain competitive.

Testing the Takaichi Doctrine: PRC Strategy in the First Island Chain

Prime Minister Takaichi’s landslide election victory on February 8 provides an overwhelming mandate for her to reshape Japan’s national priorities. One of the critical issues she will face will be rising regional tensions with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), following her November 2025 remarks characterizing a Taiwan contingency as a “situation threatening Japan’s survival.” From past historical experience, Japan should be prepared for the prospect that Beijing may escalate a sophisticated campaign of economic and diplomatic coercion, including diplomatic sanctions, supply-chain disruptions via export controls, and further targeted trade pressure designed to deter further Japanese policy alignment with Taiwan.

The current crisis represents the latest evolution in the PRC’s strategy to isolate Japan, including to weaken its links to a democratic “tech stack,” and reinforce a permissive environment for PRC regional hegemony. Beijing’s maneuvers should not be viewed as retaliation for specific remarks; rather, they are strategic moves to test the resilience of Japan’s democratic alliances, and implicitly the foundations of America’s post-WWII security architecture in East Asia, as well as Japan’s tech industrial base. Now endowed with a record LDP supermajority in the National Diet’s lower house, Tokyo must navigate Beijing’s diplomatic and economic pressures in the first island chain.

Iran Turns to Digital Surveillance Tools to Track Down Protesters

Adam Satariano, Paul Mozur and Farnaz Fassihi

When Iranians began protesting their government in late December, an ominous text message landed in some of their phones.

Their “presence at illegal gatherings” had been noted and they were under “intelligence monitoring,” the Iranian authorities texted them. “It is advised that you refrain from attending such illegal gatherings, which are desired by the enemy.”

Iran’s government most likely tracked the protesters through location data emitting from their phones, researchers later concluded. The move was part of a new phase by the authorities to combat opposition by tapping a vast digital surveillance infrastructure to track down dissenters who participated in the recent antigovernment demonstrations, according to human rights groups, researchers and documents.

Western countries see World War III coming

Tim Ross

BRUSSELS — Western countries increasingly believe the world is heading toward a global war, according to results from The POLITICO Poll that detail mounting public alarm about the risk and cost of a new era of conflict.

Across all five countries polled — the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France and Germany — the vast majority of respondents think the world is becoming more dangerous. The outbreak of World War 3 is seen as more likely than not within the next five years by American, Canadian, French and British respondents.

The share of voters predicting a new global conflict has risen sharply since independent pollsters Public First asked the question in March 2025. “The changed attitudes of the Western public in under a year reflect a dramatic move to a more insecure world, where war is seen as likely and alliances are unstable,” said Seb Wride, head of polling at Public First.

America the Fearful

Michael Singh

Shortly after U.S. special forces raided Caracas and captured the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in early January, Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, offered a blunt justification for the Trump administration’s actions. “You can talk all you want about international niceties,” he said, “but we live in a world, in the real world… that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.” Miller’s comments painted the United States as a strong country, anxious about threats in a disordered world, acting aggressively and preemptively to ensure its own security.

This ethos increasingly appears to characterize President Donald Trump’s broader foreign policy, which threatens or even employs force wherever and whenever the president, unconstrained by norms or alliances, so chooses. Moved by the news of protesters being killed in Iran, Trump threatened military strikes in the country. Seized by a desire to possess the Danish territory of Greenland, he brandished the possibility of tariffs and military force again, but this time made NATO allies the targets of his threats. On the surface, the United States under Trump seems the very picture of a confident and capricious hegemon, tapping its unrivaled power to deter and coerce.

In Munich, Europe’s Leaders Wonder if They Can Ever Trust America Again

Steven Erlanger and Jim Tankersley

When Vice President JD Vance told the Munich Security Conference last year that America’s European allies were destroying themselves with immigration and unfairly barring the far-right from power, it was a shock to the trans-Atlantic alliance.

There was much more to come.

In the year that followed, President Trump imposed tariffs on European goods. He pushed to end the war in Ukraine on terms largely favorable to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and threatened to pry Greenland from Denmark by any means necessary. He mocked European leaders in a bullying speech in Switzerland, declaring Europe would be nothing without the United States.

Military AI Adoption Is Outpacing Global Cooperation

Michael C. Horowitz

The dramatic shift in global politics over the past year has begun to shape the conversation around the responsible military use of artificial intelligence. The global leaders in AI, the United States and China, appear increasingly detached from one of the major international dialogues on its military applications—at least for the moment.

This was apparent last week in A Coruña, Spain, when state delegations and representatives from the AI industry, academia, and civil society convened the third multistakeholder summit on Responsible Artificial Intelligence in the Military Domain (REAIM), which aims to direct the future of international cooperation in the field. The previous two summits have produced “outcome documents” that were largely backed by the delegations in attendance. Both the 2023 “Call to Action” and the 2024 “Blueprint for Action” [PDF] were endorsed by about sixty countries. This year, only thirty-five nations—neither the United States nor China among them—endorsed the outcomes document, “Pathways to Action” [PDF].

Europe Is Getting Ready to Pivot to Putin

Anchal Vohra

European officials came to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January thinking they would find time to discuss with their counterparts from the United States the state of Ukrainian peace talks, a senior European official told Foreign Policy. Instead, they were obliged to focus on avoiding a military conflict with their fellow NATO member over Greenland.

Now, in the aftermath, there are murmurs in Europe of the need for a Plan B. French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni have both called for direct talks with Russia as the bloc tries to slowly but surely reduce dependence on the United States, especially in matters essential to its security.

Can Ukraine Kill Its Way to Victory?

Sam Skove

Ukraine’s newly appointed defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, has a new, grim strategy for winning against Russia’s onslaught: Kill more Russian troops than the Kremlin can send.

It’s a goal that could strain Russia at a moment when it is seeking major gains. It could also give leverage to Ukraine in peace negotiations with Russia, which the United States is currently brokering.

What War With Iran Would Look Like

Arash Reisinezhad, and Arsham Reisinezhad

Washington and Tehran may be closer to military confrontation than at any point in memory, but they are not on the brink of war in any conventional sense. The most plausible outcome of the current standoff is not a U.S. invasion of Iran or a full-scale regional war. It is a limited, carefully calibrated strike designed to reshape bargaining dynamics rather than end them.

In recent weeks, the paradox has become impossible to ignore. The United States has dramatically reinforced its military posture in the Middle East, while Iranian officials insist that they will not capitulate under pressure. Yet both sides continue to speak, often simultaneously, about negotiations. This apparent contradiction is not a sign of confusion. It reflects a familiar logic in international politics: war, or the threat of it, as an instrument of bargaining.

Welcome to 2036: What the world could look like in ten years, according to nearly 450 experts

Mary Kate Aylward, Peter Engelke, Uri Friedman, and Paul Kielstra

China eclipses the United States economically. A diminished Russia’s war in Ukraine becomes a frozen one, while conflict over Taiwan turns hot and threatens world war. More countries acquire nuclear weapons. A democratic depression coincides with the decline of today’s multilateral system. Cryptocurrencies challenge the dollar. Artificial intelligence matches or even surpasses human capabilities. NATO endures, but fundamentally changes.

These are just some of the future scenarios that geostrategists and foresight practitioners pointed to when the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security surveyed them in November and December 2025 on how they expect the world to change over the next ten years.

The Dispersion Paradox: When Sound Tactics Become a Death Sentence

Branko Ruzic

December 2025. Russian casualties reached approximately 1,200 personnel per day — killed and wounded — according to the Ukrainian General Staff reporting. This wasn’t the result of Russian tactical incompetence. It came despite systematic Russian adaptation to drone warfare throughout 2025: radical dispersion to 4-6 soldier assault groups, spider hole tactics, thermal camouflage, nocturnal movement bounds, and extensive electronic warfare screens.

The Russian General Staff implemented precisely the adaptations that Western tactical manuals would endorse. Every force protection principle suggested that dispersion would reduce vulnerability. Instead, casualties stayed catastrophically high: Ukrainian reporting put Russian losses at approximately 1,200 personnel daily in late December 2025, with drones causing an estimated 70% of casualties. UK Defence Intelligence confirmed rates exceeding 1,000 daily throughout late 2025. The mathematics of force protection appeared to have inverted: dispersed assault teams that should have been harder to detect and engage were dying in record numbers.

This pattern suggests the dispersion paradox: in environments of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled persistent surveillance, the doctrinal benefit of spreading forces may invert — isolation and extended exposure can create more lethal targeting opportunities than concentration. If true, established Western force-protection assumptions require rapid empirical testing and doctrinal revision. The alternative is discovering the answer through operational casualties rather than controlled experimentation.

Ukraine is rewriting the world’s only playbook for stopping 800 drones a night

Igor Kossov

Ukraine will be restructuring how its air defense is organized, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a statement on 11 February.

Russia’s ongoing air terror campaign is causing prolonged and repeated energy crises throughout the country, during one of the coldest winters in recent years. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s interception rate of Russian drones and missiles has declined throughout 2025.

No country has ever had to defend its cities against hundreds of attack drones launched night after night for years on end. Russia has already sent as many as 810 drones in a single night, and analysts say nightly barrages could soon reach 1,000.

While Ukraine's interception rate has not fallen below 80%, the drones and missiles that get through wreak havoc on civilian infrastructure. Kyiv is looking to improve and stay ahead of the growing threat.

How to Supercharge the US Military’s Arsenal

Morgan Bazilian, and Jahara Matisek

The 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS) finally admits what has become painfully obvious: the American defense industrial base (DIB) is broken, and industrial power is once again at the forefront of great power competition. The NDS correctly frames production capacity, supply chain resilience, and manufacturing speed as central to deterring adversaries. In that sense, the NDS reflects a long-overdue shift from a post-Cold War mindset of efficiency to a great-power mindset of endurance, calling for a “once-in-a-century revival of American industry” through reshoring strategic capabilities and supercharging the DIB.

While the diagnosis is accurate, the treatment plan is insufficient. The NDS comes across as overly aspirational, with exhortations to empower innovators, adopt artificial intelligence, clear outdated bureaucratic hurdles, and leverage allied production. It’s the right thinking, but it is not commensurate with the scale of the structural problem facing the US military. For instance, the United States has invested $4.9 billion in new munitions production lines since the Ukraine conflict began. Yet it fell short of its 2025 goal of producing 100,000 155mm artillery shells per month, achieving only around 40,000.

Project Hecate: The Space Force’s quiet effort to keep GPS survivable after 2040

Theresa Hitchens

WASHINGTON — Alarmed by the ever-growing vulnerability of the venerable Global Positioning System (GPS) constellation to adversary attack, the Space Force has quietly been working to shape a future where US and allied troops have other options for navigating the battlefield and targeting the enemy, according to service sources.

Under a study called Project Hecate, the Space Warfighting Analysis Center (SWAC) is analyzing how to create a multi-orbit network of space-based capabilities to ensure US military forces have access to position, navigation and timing (PNT) data in the post-2040 timeframe, officials said. That study is expected to conclude in the fall, and the findings are likely to impact future budget requests for the service.

The SWAC, officially activated in 2021, is charged with crafting so-called “force designs” that flesh out the Space Force’s desired future force structure over the next five to 15 years and serve as the foundational blueprints for budgetary investments in new capabilities and kit.

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

Brennan Deveraux

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.

AI Command and Staff—Operational Evidence and Insights from Wargaming

Aaron Blair Wilcox, Chase Metcalf

The following vignette, although fictional, does present a likely and not distant future. For the past several years, the U.S. Army, in partnership with the private sector, has experimented with Generative AI (GenAI) solutions within planning events and command and control exercises. These largely language-based, probabilistic, pattern-matching algorithms present the appearance of intelligence, but their true impact on human cognition and decision making is unexplored. The narrative that follows frames a future many in the military are pursuing, potentially without recognizing the impacts on military strategy and the utility of force.

The air in the V Corps (Victory) Forward Command Post was a toxic cocktail of stale coffee, ozone from the servers, and week-old tension. For Lieutenant Colonel Rostova, it was the sound that wore her down the most—the incessant, low hum of the AI, a constant reminder of the machine mind that now co-piloted this potential war.

It had been two weeks since tensions flared in the NORTHCOM area of operations (AO). For seven days, the AI-mind, codenamed ARGUS, had been their savior. It had predicted cyber-attacks on the U.S. power grid with milliseconds to spare and guided Navy destroyers to intercept submarine-launched drone swarms before they breached the horizon. ARGUS was fast, exquisite, and so far, seemingly flawless. It had earned their trust. Now, it was demanding it.

OpenAI‘s Proposed Framework for AI and International Security

Today, OpenAI released a whitepaper titled “AI and International Security Pathways of Impact and Key Uncertainties.” The paper represents an important evolution in how a frontier AI lab is engaging with the international security implications of its own technology. Drawing on interviews with senior national security leaders—including SCSP’s Senior Advisor for Intelligence William Usher, and several external SCSP advisors—the authors lay out a framework for understanding how AI will reshape the balance-of-power between nations.

The paper’s central argument is straightforward: AI is emerging as a distinct domain of geopolitical contestation, comparable to air, land, sea, outer space, and cyberspace. The authors examine three pathways through which AI will affect international security: changes in deterrence and the projection of force; shifts in the resources needed for national power; and transformations in how states understand their competitive

Four Governance Approaches to Securing Advanced AI

Ian Mitch, Matthew J. Malone

Growing concerns about the societal risks posed by advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems have prompted debate over whether and how the U.S. government should promote stronger security practices among private-sector developers. Although some companies have made voluntary commitments to protect their systems, competitive pressures and inconsistent approaches raise questions about the adequacy of self-regulation. At the same time, government intervention carries risks: Overly stringent security requirements could limit innovation, create barriers for small firms, and harm U.S. competitiveness.

To help the U.S. government and AI industry navigate these challenges, RAND researchers identified four distinct governance approaches to strengthen security practices among developers of advanced AI systems:

AI futures: Planning for transformative scenarios before they hit

Era Dabla-Norris and Anton Korinek

What if the next five years reshape the global economy more than the last fifty? The answer depends on whom you ask.

Traditional economists and policymakers in Washington see artificial intelligence (AI) as a general-purpose technology akin to electricity or the internet, with benefits unfolding gradually. Productivity gains, in this view, depend on complementary investments in skills, infrastructure, and institutions. History is the guide: Past innovations took decades to diffuse and deliver broad-based growth. Let us call this the Washington Consensus on AI.

The San Francisco Consensus on AI sees it differently: Scaled-up models and data and improving algorithms will soon deliver transformative AI, possibly even superintelligence, capable of remaking economies and societies on a much shorter timeline. In this view, breakthroughs will arrive soon, rapidly and recursively, making the coming years potentially among the most consequential in centuries. This is not science fiction. AI systems have already become remarkably capable at programming—for example, Anthropic's Claude Code, an AI coding assistant, was used to build Claude Cowork, a desktop automation tool, demonstrating that AI can now substantially contribute to the creation of new AI products. Such developments raise the real possibility of recursive self-improvement, in which AI systems accelerate their own advancement and significantly increase growth.

Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have renewed interest from policy makers and the public about the implications of AI for jobs and workers.

AI technology is at an inflection point: a surge of technological progress has driven the rapid development and adoption of generative AI systems, such as ChatGPT, which are capable of generating text, images, or other content based on user requests.

This technical progress is likely to continue in coming years, with the potential to complement or replace human labor in certain tasks and reshape job markets. However, it is difficult to predict exactly which new AI capabilities might emerge, and when these advances might occur.

This National Academies’ report evaluates recent advances in AI technology and their implications for economic productivity, job stability, and income inequality, identifying research opportunities and data needs to equip workers and policymakers to flexibly respond to AI developments.

Ubiquitous Technical Surveillance and the Renewal of Irregular Warfare

Christopher Moede

This article examines ubiquitous technical surveillance (UTS) as the operationalized manifestation of unrestricted warfare in contemporary strategic competition, arguing that it collapses normative assumptions of access, attribution, and initiative. It contends that the renewal of irregular warfare lies in signature reduction as a counteroffensive gray zone doctrine that preserves freedom of maneuver by centering human operational judgment under pervasive surveillance conditions.

“[Unrestricted warfare] means that all means will be in readiness, that information will be omnipresent, and the battlefield will be everywhere. It means that all weapons and technology can be superimposed at will… the boundaries lying between the two worlds of war and non-war, of military and non-military, will be totally destroyed…”

— Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare

These prescient words were not speculative theorizing from two senior People’s Liberation Army Air Force colonels, but rather a declaration of the operational reality of strategic competition. This reality – the very operationalized manifestation of Chinese unrestricted warfare – we call ubiquitous technical surveillance (UTS). This condition has increasingly preoccupied policymakers and practitioners. The Central Intelligence Agency and its partner label UTS an “existential threat” that is persistent, pervasive, and increasingly automated across all domains. It has collapsed the crucial boundaries between war and non-war, and our traditional assumptions of access, attribution, and operational initiative along with it.

Oops: The U.S. Military Can’t Build A Military Anymore

Kris Osborn

Synopsis: As of February 2026, the Pentagon faces a systemic acquisition crisis defined by “requirements creep” and industrial fragility.

-Major programs like the M10 Booker and M1 Abrams SEPv4 have been sidelined or scrapped due to excessive weight and aging architectures.

-While the USS Zumwalt has found a new purpose as a hypersonic strike platform, the broader shift is moving toward “Attritable” systems—mass-produced, low-cost drones.

-The challenge remains: the U.S. defense base is currently optimized for a Cold War pace, while the 2026 battlefield demands software-driven adaptability and rapid iteration.

15 February 2026

Taiwan at a Techno-Geopolitical Nexus: Challenges and Opportunities across Critical Technologies

Alayna Bone

As geopolitical competition intensifies and technology becomes increasingly central to national power, Taiwan finds itself at the nexus of economic indispensability and strategic vulnerability. Its global leadership in semiconductors and information and communications technologies has long underpinned both its prosperity and security, yet mounting pressure from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), shifting U.S. industrial policy, and rapid technological change are forcing Taipei to rethink how it sustains this position.

This Asia Policy roundtable series brings together a diverse set of essays that examine Taiwan’s evolving technology and industrial strategies across emerging and established domains from frontier technologies enabling artificial intelligence (AI) to drones, satellites, energy systems, and trusted supply chains. Taken together, this roundtable explores how government policy, international partnerships, and domestic capacity-building intersect as Taiwan seeks to remain a reliable partner to democratic economies while safeguarding its autonomy. At stake is not only Taiwan’s competitiveness, but its ability to translate technological strength into long-term resilience in an era of techno-geopolitical uncertainty.

Sanae Takaichi has the power to change Japan

Ian Bremmer

When Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called snap elections last month, it was a big gamble. Holding a winter election just four months into her tenure with no real policy record to run on? Staking her sky-high approval ratings – then hovering around 70% – on an untested bet that personal popularity would translate into seats? The conventional wisdom said she was overreaching. The conventional wisdom got torched.

Takaichi walked away from the Feb. 8 vote with a historic landslide, securing a rare two-thirds supermajority in the lower house for her Liberal Democratic Party. The LDP went into the day with 198 seats in the 465-seat chamber and walked out with 316. That's the largest mandate in Japan's postwar history, bigger even than any won by Shinzo Abe, Takaichi's late mentor. The LDP can now override vetoes from the upper house, where it lacks a majority. After cycling through revolving-door prime ministers for years, Japan has elected its most powerful leader since World War II.

Orbital geopolitics: China's dual-use space internet

Altynay Junusova, Rebecca Arcesati

Satellite internet has become a commercial and geopolitical focal point. Satellite communications promise to deliver connectivity to underserved areas, while bypassing the limitations of terrestrial networks. Concerns about the vulnerability of these critical networks have intensified since the recent sabotage of subsea cables in the Baltic Sea and the waters around Taiwan, for example.1 Satellite internet requires minimal ground infrastructure, thus offering a more resilient, reliable, and widely available option. This explains why this dual-use infrastructure is not just vital for civilian communications but increasingly also for militaries worldwide. While Russia’s war on Ukraine has exposed the pitfalls of relying on commercial providers,2 US-based SpaceX’s Starlink network of satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) offers unparalleled speed, affordability, and redundancy.

Starlink’s effectiveness and its use in Ukraine have spurred China’s military to closely study LEO as a strategic subdomain of space.3 Beijing is investing massive resources in building an independent and complete space-based internet, encompassing low, medium, and high orbits and integrating technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT). The state-led projects Qianfan (literally “Thousand Sails,” 千帆星座, also known as SpaceSail) and Guowang (“National Network,” 国网) together aim to place 27,992 broadband satellites into LEO – 15,000 and 12,992 by 2030, respectively. Additional private sector-led constellations, if successfully deployed, would bring the number to over 50,000 satellites.

Harnessing the People: Mapping Overseas United Front Work in Democratic States

Cheryl Yu

Today, over 2,000 groups are helping the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) achieve its goals across the United States, Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom.[1] These are part of a global network that likely numbers in the tens of thousands, according to some CCP sources.[2] Their efforts help shape a global environment that is more hospitable to CCP interests. The United Front Work Department (中共中央统一战线工作部), a functional department under the Party’s Central Committee, directs these efforts.[3] Internationally, it coordinates and carries out work in power centers outside the Party’s direct purview, including by mobilizing groups to further the Party’s ambitions. Foremost among these ambitions is “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” (中华民族伟大复兴).

According to the Party, achieving national rejuvenation includes replacing the United States as the dominant global power. In the words of a 2021 People’s Daily editorial, “the key to national rejuvenation lies in winning the initiative in the competition for comprehensive national power” (在综合国力的竞争中赢得先机是民族复兴的关键).[4] This sentiment has been echoed by other academics and political advisors in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).[5] National rejuvenation also entails securing the CCP’s territorial claims by annexing Taiwan.[6]

China’s demographic crisis has moved from theory to fact

Ronny P Sasmita

China’s demographic crisis is no longer a distant projection buried in academic journals or UN forecasts. It has become an observable fact, confirmed by official statistics and increasingly felt across Chinese society.

In January 2026, China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported that the country recorded its lowest birth rate since 1949. Fewer than eight million babies were born in 2025, a figure once unimaginable for a nation long associated with demographic abundance.

The decline is not marginal. With roughly 5.6 births per 1,000 people, China now ranks among the world’s lowest-fertility societies, closer to aging European economies than to the image of a rising Asian power.

Tumbler Ridge mass shooting: What we know so far

Jaroslav Lukiv

Canadian police say eight people have been killed in a mass shooting at a school and home in the remote rural community of Tumbler Ridge in the western province of British Columbia.

Six people were killed and at least 25 others were injured at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School. The suspect, 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, was found dead at that scene from a self-inflicted gunshot injury, police said.

Two others - the suspect's mother, 39, and step-brother, 11 - were also found dead at a nearby home.

This is what we know so far about one of the deadliest gun attacks in Canada's history.

Trump revokes landmark ruling that greenhouse gases endanger public health

Matt McGrath

Trump announces rollback of Obama-era greenhouse gas ruling

US President Donald Trump has reversed a key Obama-era scientific ruling that underpins all federal actions on curbing planet-warming gases.

The so-called 2009 "endangerment finding" concluded that a range of greenhouse gases were a threat to public health. It's become the legal bedrock of federal efforts to rein in emissions, especially in vehicles.

The White House called the reversal the "largest deregulation in American history", saying it would make cars cheaper, bringing down costs for automakers by $2,400 per vehicle.

Environmental groups say the move is by far the most significant rollback on climate change yet attempted and are set to challenge it in the courts.

How far will Trump push Cuba?

Dr Christopher Sabatini

The US’s 64-year embargo on Cuba is about to get a lot tougher. The Trump administration has cut off the estimated 27,000 to 35,000-barrel-per-day deliveries of cheap Venezuelan oil to the island and is threatening tariffs on countries that may think about trying to fill the void.

The end of that oil lifeline comes as Cuba is already suffering its worst economic crisis since the 1959 revolution – one that has brought rolling electrical blackouts, declining hard currency reserves, and food and fuel shortages.

President Donald Trump has said that he’s offered a deal to the Cuban government, headed by Miguel Díaz-Canel, and that the two governments are having discussions. The Communist Cuban regime faces an impossible choice: concede to White House demands that will threaten its power – for instance, to release political prisoners and hold elections – or try to use repression to cling on through a looming humanitarian crisis that could erupt into chaos and/or massive outmigration.

Trump turns to military leaders for high-stakes diplomacy

Filip Timotija

President Trump is increasingly turning to military leaders for some of his toughest diplomatic assignments, sending top brass to help negotiate the end of the Russia-Ukraine war, a potential new nuclear deal with Iran and forge closer ties with countries in the Western Hemisphere.

Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, an Iraq War veteran and ally of Vice President Vance, has become a key negotiator as the U.S. seeks to broker peace with Russia. Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of the U.S. Central Command (Centcom), joined talks in Oman last week for the first round of nuclear negotiations with Iranian officials. And Gen. Dan Caine, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, traveled to Puerto Rico and Trinidad and Tobago in lead-up to the U.S. forces’ raid on Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

“Normally, people who work in diplomacy work in diplomacy a long time because it requires a certain amount of skill, tact, patience,” Larry Haas, a senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the American Foreign Policy Council, said Tuesday in an interview with The Hill.

The Coming War in America

Christopher A. Williams

As overseas threats to U.S. national interests intensify, America’s enemies can be expected to carry the fight to the U.S. homeland. The reason for this is clear: The U.S. homeland is a ripe target for such attacks. America has significant systemic societal vulnerabilities, limited defensive capabilities, and exploitable gaps and seams between various organizations responsible for identifying threats and defending the homeland.

Today America is under attack by adversary nations, terrorist groups, transnational criminal organizations, violent illegal immigrants, and radicalized or disgruntled U.S. citizens. News stories and official Government reports provide ample evidence of attacks on U.S. critical infrastructures, plots to assassinate current and former government officials, illicit penetrations of key U.S. government facilities including military bases, attacks on U.S. lawmakers, and more.

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