Does India have low-cost killer kamikaze drones like Iran's Shahed?

Anand Singh

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In Iran's war with the US and Israel, low-cost drones have given Tehran unprecedented leverage. Iran's Shahed-136 drone has been the inspiration for indigenous models, costing between $20,000 and $50,000 per unit. In fact, the US's Low-cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System, aka LUCAS drone, is based on the same design as Shahed. India, too, is ramping up its firepower capability with indigenous long-range strike drones.

Before proving its mettle in the current war, Iran's Shahed-136 drone made its mark in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, forcing Kyiv to spend millions in intercepting them. That Iran, a country without an effective air force, could hit deep inside countries, reveals the power of its drones and missiles. The US's low-cost LUCAS drones look very similar to Iran's Shahed-136.

What’s wrong with a G2? Wang Yi lays out China’s case against great-power rivalry

Shi Jiangtao

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China’s top diplomat has cast his country as “an irreplaceable mainstay” amid global upheaval, rejecting any suggestion of a US-China G2 duopoly for global co-leadership as a replay of disastrous great-power rivalries.

Instead, against the backdrop of the escalating Iran conflict and Washington’s renewed trade wars, Wang Yi renewed Beijing’s call for a post-hegemonic order anchored in the United Nations, advocating an “equal and orderly multipolar world” that transcended bloc confrontation and spheres of influence.

Throughout the 90-minute meticulously choreographed press conference on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress, Wang presented China as a stabilising counterweight to the US amid accelerating “changes unseen in a century” – changes in which transformation and instability intertwined with ongoing conflicts.

Will China Overplay Its Hand?

Thomas J. Christensen

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At the end of this month, U.S. President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit China for a major summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the first of what may be as many as four meetings between the two leaders in 2026. The planned three-day summit comes on the heels of discussions the leaders held in October 2025 on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Busan, South Korea, where they reached a fragile truce to calm the rising economic tensions in the U.S.-Chinese relationship. 

Trump and Xi agreed to forgo, for one year, many of the draconian measures their countries had imposed or threatened to impose on each other in the preceding months. The United States backed down from the threat of sky-high tariffs and suspended a large expansion of the roster of Chinese companies on the U.S. Commerce Department’s Entity List, which limits their access to American business on national security or foreign policy grounds. China, for its part, reversed its refusal to purchase U.S. agricultural products and dropped sweeping restrictions on exports of critical minerals on which the United States and many other industrial economies depend. The agreement left the two countries fairly close to where they started before the economic conflict began earlier in 2025.

The People's Liberation Army's Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence Highlighting Integration as Key to "Intelligentization" Goals

Austin Horng-En Wang, Emily Lathrop, Michael S. Chase, William Marcellino

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For China's People's Liberation Army (PLA), the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into its military operations and strategy has become increasingly central to "intelligentization," a top priority of the Chinese Communist Party's General Secretary and Central Military Commission Chairman, Xi Jinping. The PLA views this initiative as essential to its short-, medium-, and long-term goals, the most ambitious of which is matching or exceeding the U.S. military's capabilities by mid-century.

To analyze the PLA's perspectives about working and planning toward this goal, the authors reviewed more than 100 articles from 16 academic journals and newspapers related to the PLA, as well as public statements by senior PLA officers.

From Docs & Laws To Foreign Policy Flaws

Anushka Saxena

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As the ongoing ‘Two Sessions’ in China unravel and reach their mid-way mark today, some really important documents and interesting discussions are making headlines. There’s the 15th Five-Year Plan, of course, the draft for which is now being finalised into a binding document, there’s Li Qiang’s Government Work Report, which doesn’t just talk about the strides and headwinds of the last year, but of the 14th FYP period as a whole, and of course, there are the Local Budgets and the National Economic & Social Development Plans.

Firstly, the 15th FYP draft discusses the key pillars that are likely to underpin China’s military modernisation trajectory till 2030. What are these? Specifically, Section XV, on national defence and military modernisation, features two chapters: Chapter 55: Achieving the Centenary Goal of Building the Military on Schedule and Advancing the Modernisation of National Defence and the Armed Forces with High Quality; and Chapter 56: Consolidating and Enhancing the Integrated National Strategic System and Capabilities.

China’s Iran Strategy: A Proxy Laboratory for War with America

Dr.Nadia Helmy

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Following the US-Israeli military attacks on Iran, China is attempting to implement a “regime destruction strategy” in Iran. This strategy relies on understanding US and Israeli military technologies through field data obtained from all the US and Israeli missiles, drones, and fighter jets that participated in directing and launching military operations against Iranian targets. Intelligence, military, defense, and security think tanks in Beijing aim to study the performance of all these Israeli, Western, and American weapons in other conflicts, such as Ukraine, to develop their own defense systems and integrate artificial intelligence into them. 

This is intended to defend their sovereignty and national security in Taiwan, the South China Sea, and their areas of direct influence. This vision reflects a fundamental shift in the nature of the military and technological alliance between Beijing and Tehran, where cooperation is no longer limited to commercial deals but has transformed into a comprehensive field laboratory on the actual battlefield.

Why China is watching the US-Iran drone and missile war so closely

Jessica Sier

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Despite China’s broad energy, trade and investment alliance with Iran, there is little evidence that Beijing is supplying Tehran with the drones and missiles at the centre of its counterattack against the US and Israel.

Reports that China is shipping air defence systems and missile propellant ingredients to Iran have been around since late last year, though neither side has commented.

After US President Donald Trump’s latest strike at the weekend, China’s Foreign Ministry dismissed a separate account that Beijing was poised to arm Iran with supersonic anti-ship missiles as “not true”.

Oil Prices Top $100 A Barrel, Trump Says It’s a Short-Term Blip

Miranda Jeyaretnam

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President Donald Trump says surging gasoline prices are a “very small price to pay” as the Iran war roils global energy markets, sending crude oil prices surging above $100 a barrel for the first time since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The conflict has severely disrupted oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, a key global trade route, increasing prices at the U.S. gas pump and threatening to undercut Trump’s economic agenda ahead of the November midterms.

The President on Sunday dismissed concerns over rising crude prices as a temporary blip.

“Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace,” President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social on Sunday evening. “ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!”

How Russia Emerged as an Early Winner of the Iran War

Rebecca Schneid

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The war in Iran has killed hundreds of civilians, displaced hundreds of thousands more, sent global oil prices skyrocketing, created a political crisis for President Donald Trump and shaken the stability of the Gulf. But for one nation at least, the chaos has created opportunity.

Russia has emerged from the first week of the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran as an early winner, seemingly able to profit from the secondary economic and geopolitical effects of the war while others bear the costs. Russia is one of the few nations that has maintained a friendly relationship with Tehran. Moscow condemned the U.S. and Israel’s attack on Iran on February 28, calling it a “pre-planned and unprovoked act of armed aggression against a sovereign and independent U.N. member state,” in a statement from Russia's Foreign Affairs Ministry posted to Telegram. Vladimir Putin similarly criticized the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as a “cynical murder.”

The Hormuz Trap: Oil, Insurance and the Global Economic Shock

Navroop Singh and Himja Parekh

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History has a way of repeating itself through different actors but eerily similar circumstances. In 1956, the Suez Crisis exposed the limits of British imperial power when financial pressure from Washington forced London to retreat despite battlefield success. Nearly seven decades later, a similar drama appears to be unfolding around the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical energy chokepoint. The America-Israel war with Iran and blockade from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have begun disrupting tanker traffic through the Gulf, triggering a crisis not just of military security but of maritime insurance and financial risk. 

With insurers linked to Lloyd’s of London reluctant to underwrite war-risk premiums and shipping companies refusing to sail without coverage, the strait faces the prospect of a de-facto financial blockade. The United States has stepped in with sovereign insurance guarantees of 20 billion $ by U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and the U.S. Treasury and naval assurances, but the risks remain high. As oil exports stall and Gulf producers begin cutting output due to storage limits, the Hormuz confrontation increasingly echoes the historical lesson of Suez: great powers may command fleets and armies, but control over financial systems and maritime trade can ultimately decide the outcome of geopolitical crises.

Oil Prices Spike to Over $110 a Barrel, Highest Since Pandemic

Rebecca F. Elliott and Joe Rennison

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Oil prices surged on Monday in a sign of growing concern that the war in the Middle East will continue to take a toll on energy supplies, raising gas prices for American consumers and weighing on the stock market.

Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, rose above $100 a barrel for the first time in roughly four years, before settling just below that level. That left oil up around 37 percent since the United States and Israel began attacking Iran on Feb. 28.

In Asia, where economies are heavily dependent on imported oil from the Middle East, stocks tumbled broadly. South Korea’s Kospi index fell almost 6 percent. Japan’s Nikkei 225 benchmark fell 5.2 percent.

(Early) Lessons from Iran

Louise Boucher

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When Israel scrambles 200 fighter jets and the UAE intercepts >90% of incoming threats, it is tempting to conclude that the old model still works: Western-built shields performed.

But the operation also demonstrated that the rules of aerial warfare have changed. Two signals stand out: 1) the economics of drone swarms have broken the logic of traditional missile-based defence, and 2) hypersonic weapons have crossed a price and manoeuvrability threshold that changes who can field them.

€25,000 Shaheds were used extensively to saturate air defences over Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Iran launched them in packs of 5 to 10 — not necessarily to hit high-value targets, but to force the use of Patriot interceptors at $4 million a shot. This cleared the way for the hypersonic missiles that followed.

Daily Ship Traffic in Strait of Hormuz Plummets From 138 to Just 2

Irina Slav

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Vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has dropped from an average of 138 ships a day to just two in the 24 hours to Thursday, the Joint Maritime Information Center has reported.

The center noted that neither of the two vessels that passed the strait were tankers.

“This represents a near-total temporary pause in routine commercial traffic, resulting from ongoing regional conflict dynamics involving Iran, including warnings against transits by U.S., Israeli, European, and allied vessels,” the JMIC noted in its report.

The agency has estimated the regional maritime risk environment as critical, extending this assessment over the next 48 hours, “with no confirmed indicators of de-escalation.” Noting that there has been no formal declaration for the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the environment is fraught with so many threats, traffic has slowed to a trickle.

Iran attack a ‘wake-up call’ for China on electronic warfare and intelligence

Seong Hyeon Choi and Yuanyue Dang

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The US and Israel’s air strikes against Iran, supported by electronic and cyber capabilities, serve as a “wake-up call” for China’s intelligence strategy and its military’s approach to deploying advanced technologies in modern warfare, analysts say.

In weekend air strikes against Iran that killed its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the US struck over 1,000 targets with an array of advanced weaponry, including Tomahawk cruise missiles, stealth fighters and bombers.

And for the first time in combat, it deployed low-cost one-way attack drones modelled after Iranian designs.

U.S. Military Strength

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The Heritage Foundation’s 2026 Index of U.S. Military Strength assesses the condition of the United States military with respect to America’s vital national security interests, the threats to those interests, and the context within which the U.S. might have to use military force to protect them. Employing a standardized, consistent set of criteria accessible to policymakers and the American public, the Index gauges the capacity, capability, and readiness of the U.S. military, evaluates the global operating environment, and analyzes the capabilities and intent of America’s major adversaries.

Using the two-war force as its benchmark, the 2026 Index measures whether the U.S. military is able to deter and, if necessary, succeed in two major conflicts simultaneously. By providing a single-source reference on force capacity, modern equipment, readiness, and regional challenges, the Index equips policymakers and citizens with a clear understanding of whether America’s military is up to the task of defending our national interests.

Gen Z-Backed Rapper Is on Course to Lead Nepal With Landslide Win

Hannah Beech

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In a resounding affirmation of Gen Z’s power to overthrow the political old guard, Nepali voters have handed a commanding majority to a party headlined by a 35-year-old ex-rapper.

Partial results of the election released on Sunday gave the party of Balendra Shah, the onetime rap artist and former mayor of the country’s capital, Kathmandu, 100 out of 165 directly elected parliamentary seats. It is shaping up to be the biggest landslide in Nepal’s modern electoral history.

The election on Thursday was the first since a youth-led uprising last year toppled a government that was seen as corrupt and untouchable. In September, security forces killed 19 people who were protesting political impunity and a social media ban. Hours later, Nepal descended into chaos, with dozens more dying and thousands of buildings burned nationwide in a campaign of mass arson. K.P. Sharma Oli, the prime minister, was ousted. Gen Z claimed its first political revolution.

Selective Belligerence and Unconditional Surrender

Mick Ryan

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There is a phrase that has circulated in American military organisations for a long time, which I became acquainted with during my time at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College over two decades ago: you want it bad, you get it bad. It is a phrase that speaks to the danger of letting short-term emotion or political convenience override strategic clarity.

As the United States and Israel begin their second week of military operations in Operation Epic Fury, it is worth pausing the tactical scorecard — the destroyed missile launchers, intercepted missiles and drones, the sunken Iranian naval vessels, and the growing reduction in Iran’s drone and missile attacks — and asking a tough question. What signal is this war, and the political decision-making surrounding it, sending to the leaders of the authoritarian regimes – China and Russia - that truly matter?

US officials increase security over fear of attack by Iran amid US-Israel bombing

Eric Berger

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Government officials across the US have taken new security measures because of fears that Iran, or its supporters, may launch attacks on targets in America to retaliate for the US and Israel’s bombing of the country.

Federal and local public officials have announced that they have taken steps such as increasing law enforcement patrols to prevent any attack, which could come directly from the Iranian regime or a lone actor, security experts said.

“If there were ever a time when Iran would want to put into place all the different capabilities it’s built up over these years as off-the-shelf operational planning … now would be it,” said Matthew Levitt, director of the counter-terrorism program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

America is the oil king of the world. So why is the Iran war sending gas prices higher?

Chris Isidore, Matt Egan

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The United States is producing more oil than any country in the history of the planet. Yet the war with Iran has sent gas prices up 20 cents a gallon, or 7% in just a few days.

Why?

No matter how much crude the United States produces domestically, oil is traded in a global market – one that President Donald Trump just upended. Without all of the United States’ substantial crude production, Americans could already be paying $4 or even $5 a gallon for gasoline. But the United States exports nearly a third of the oil it produces, and it imports nearly a third of the oil it consumes, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Hacked traffic cams and hijacked TVs: How cyber operations supported the war against Iran

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai

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On Saturday, U.S. and Israeli jets began a bombing campaign against Iran, killing its supreme leader Ali Khamenei and several senior government officials. The attacks also hit military and civilian targets all across the country, including a girls’ school, where at least 168 children and adults were killed.

After a few days of conflict, multiple reports, as well as statements from government officials, suggest that cyber operations played a significant role in the beginning of the war. This shows that in current times, hacking can be an important component of real-world conflicts and war, supporting kinetic strikes and providing intelligence from surveillance activities, as well as being used as part of psychological operations, or psyops.

How Israel's cyber chief is navigating through the dystopian cyber-AI period

YONAH JEREMY BOB

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One of Yossi Karadi’s predecessors as the chief of the Israel National Cyber Directorate (INCD), Yigal Unna, warned in 2020 that “cyber winter is coming.”

According to the standards of 2020, cyber winter has arrived and run roughshod over the civilized world, including Israel, leading to broader global economic losses of $10.5 trillion in 2025 alone, with direct losses to hacked companies in the hundreds of billions. In recent years, two quadrillion bytes of Israeli data have been hacked.

Karadi emerged from IDF intelligence into this cyber artificial intelligence dystopia in March 2025 to take over the INCD’s reins. Shortly before Operation Roaring Lion, he sat down for an exclusive interview with The Jerusalem Post.

How Anthropic's Claude AI Helped US Bomb Iran

Parmy Olson

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The same artificial-intelligence model that can help you draft a marketing email or a quick dinner recipe has also been used to attack Iran. US Central Command used Anthropic's Claude AI for "intelligence assessments, target identification and simulating battle scenarios" during the strikes on the country, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

Hours earlier, US President Donald Trump had ordered federal agencies to stop using Claude after a dispute with its maker, but the tool was so deeply baked into the Pentagon's systems that it would take months to untangle in favor of a more compliant rival. It was used, too, in the January operation that led to the capture of Nicolas Maduro.

From Bandung to BRICS+?

Seifudein Adem

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Across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, there is a tendency for states to increasingly reject the muscular transactionalism of great powers. Many in the Global South tend to hedge rather than align, resist rather than submit, diversify markets, reroute finance, and preserve their strategic options. Power today is seen not simply as the capacity to dominate, but as the capacity to try to choose—and to revise those choices without forfeiting autonomy. The task is complex and challenging yet widely viewed as worthwhile. 

The modern political relationship between Africa and Asia — or Afrasia (Mazrui and Adem 2013) — is conventionally traced to the 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia. Co-sponsored by Burma, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, Bandung brought together nearly two dozen Asian and African countries at a moment when much of Africa remained under colonial rule. Six African states — Egypt, Ghana, Sudan, Ethiopia, Libya, and Liberia — were represented, symbolizing Africa’s emerging political agency and its determination to engage Asia as an equal partner in shaping a postcolonial international order. Never before had Asia and Africa met in this way on the same stage.

Where Is the Iran War Headed?

Robin Wright

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Since 1979, Iran’s revolutionary regime has been the nemesis of eight American Presidents. None could tame its political furies; its covert operations, which killed more than a thousand Americans in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan; or its expansion, through the creation of like-minded extremist movements, across the Middle East. The Islamic Republic considered its mini-realm a defensive buffer against U.S. and Israeli intervention. The U.S. and Israel viewed Iran as the most persistent threat in the world’s most volatile region. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have now set out to destroy the regime, militarily and politically, in a reckless war of choice with no visible or thoughtful endgame—and, in Trump’s case, no advance approval by Congress or warning to American taxpayers.

For Operation Epic Fury, the Trump Administration has so far deployed nearly half the United States’ air power and roughly a third of its naval assets. The cost is nearly nine hundred million dollars a day, the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated. Much like the initial “shock and awe” campaign during Operation Iraqi Freedom, in 2003, the first week of the war was militarily stunning. The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and dozens of senior officials were killed. Iran’s arsenal of ballistic missiles was seriously depleted and its strategic installations left in rubble. Its navy was devastated; a U.S. submarine torpedoed an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean, the first such strike since the Second World War. Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, boasted, “More and larger waves are coming. We are just getting started.” Iran’s capabilities, he added, are “evaporating.”

Why the Liberal Rule-Based Order Failed

Dov H. Levin

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The post-Cold War liberal rule-based international order is now increasingly acknowledged to be either dead or in a coma. Some Trump Administration officials claim that a calculated plan to destroy the old order lies behind the administration’s seemingly chaotic approach to foreign affairs. Naturally, the question arises as to what has led to the liberal order’s death or near-death experience at such a young age, well before making it to 40. 

One would have expected a somewhat longer life from an international order that was supposed to come after the “End of History”. A variety of explanations for this early demise have been offered, blaming, for example, the coming to power of Trump, as well as the rise of China, the 2008 global financial crisis and the “forever wars”. However, the problem with the liberal order was that its’ own design was fatally flawed from the start. It was liberal by flowery pronouncement and occasional policy, but not in its own structure.

Why Cybersecurity Threats Are Growing

Don Aviv and Sabrina Tan

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Cybersecurity threats move at an overwhelming pace—and often go unnoticed. The fact that these are invisible threats that are easily overshadowed by actual physical dangers makes them even more insidious. Fueled by complacency and our tendency to stick with familiar routines, these threats are becoming more dangerous every day.

Despite several high-profile breaches over the past year, many organizations still treat cybersecurity as a compliance requirement rather than an operational imperative. But this approach can be costly. Worldwide, the average cost of a single data breach is aproximately $4.44 million. In the United States alone, cyberattacks cost companies more than $10 million between March 2024 and February 2025.

India’s AI Summit: Optics, Scope and Global Diplomacy

Tusharika Deka

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India recently hosted the AI Summit from 16 to 20 February 2026. This was the fourth and the largest in a series of AI summits that began in the United Kingdom in 2023. The inaugural summit in the United Kingdom in 2023, followed by the second summit in Seoul, South Korea, in 2024, primarily focused on AI safety. The third summit, held in Paris, France, in 2025, centred on innovation, while the 2026 summit in India emphasised impact and a human-centric approach towards AI. Based on the principles of People, Planet, and Progress, the summit brought together over 250,000 registered attendees, representatives of over 100 countries, and world leaders like Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Emmanuel Macron of France and Pedro Sánchez of Spain. 

 It also convened prominent figures from the technology sector, including Sundar Pichai of Google, Dario Amodei of Anthropic and Sam Altman of OpenAI, reflecting an optic to position India at the intersection of global governance, technological development and market-driven innovation. Amidst criticism coming from technology experts about the summit being more of a spectacle than any significant promises, and chaotic event management. The event appeared to offer limited concrete commitments in terms of research breakthroughs, regulatory clarity, or technological infrastructure. Even though the summit delivered too little in terms of immediate innovation outcomes, it showed significant strategic strength in three main areas – demographic scale, market expansion and status symbolisation.

The Chicken or the Egg: Securitization of AI or AI-fication of Security?

Sina Hoch

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What was once portrayed only in dystopian movies about killer robots, seems increasingly realistic on today’s battlefields: disruptive technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), have started to alter the nature of warfare significantly. As Henna Virkkunen, EU Commissioner for Digital and Frontier Technologies and Commission Vice-President, put it at the adoption of the EU defence package in November 2025: “The war in Ukraine clearly demonstrates how fast defence technologies evolve and how frontier technologies provide rapid tactical change on the battlefield. The EU needs a fundamental change of mindset at all levels.” Agility, speed, collaboration, and risk-taking, she argued, must become the new normal in European defence capability development.

Long cast as a normative power whose legal competences stopped short of hard security and defence, the EU increasingly presents itself as a geopolitical actor pursuing strategic autonomy and technological sovereignty. While these concepts remain vague in their definition, they have become tightly bound to defence readiness and military innovation.

‘It means missile defence on datacentres’: drone strikes raise doubts over Gulf as AI superpower

Daniel Boffey

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It is believed to be a first: the deliberate targeting of a commercial datacentre by the armed forces of a country at war. At 4.30am on Sunday morning, what is thought to have been an Iranian Shahed 136 drone struck an Amazon Web Services datacentre in the United Arab Emirates, setting off a devastating fire and forcing a shutdown of the power supply. Further damage was inflicted as attempts were made to suppress the flames with water.

Soon after, a second data centre owned by the US tech company was hit. Then a third was said to be in trouble, this time in Bahrain, after an Iranian drone turned to fireball on striking land nearby

Responsible Procurement of Military Artificial Intelligence

Netta Goussac and Dr Vincent Boulanin

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This report examines the intersection of military procurement and responsible military artificial intelligence (AI). The primary function of military procurement is to bridge a military’s strategic needs and its operational capabilities. In practice, however, procurement is also a mechanism by which states implement political commitments and legal obligations. For that reason, procurement can serve as a mechanism for implementing responsible military AI, but only if deliberately structured to do so.

The report investigates why and how states are adapting their procurement processes to accelerate military AI adoption, and why and how states should seize these opportunities to give effect to their legal obligations and high-level political commitments related to responsible military AI.

A Prolonged Gulf Crisis: Implications For India’s Economic Security

Amitendu Palit

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The political uncertainty in the Gulf has generated new economic challenges for India. Global oil prices are rising fast following the attacks by the United States (US) and Israel on Iran, and retaliatory strikes by Iran on US energy assets in the Middle East. The developments occur at a time when global energy supplies outstrip demand. Nevertheless, oil prices are rising from deep ruptures in energy supply chains.

The foremost underlying cause behind the rupture is lack of security for energy traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. The narrow waterway between Iran and Oman is the main conduit for the export of oil and gas from the Gulf to the rest of the world. Traffic in the Strait of Hormuz has ground to a halt with tankers fearing attack. Qatar has stopped supplying liquified natural gas (LNG) through the Strait of Hormuz. For India, the challenge of tackling rising crude oil prices is amplified by lack of LNG imports from Qatar that has implications for a substantial number of vehicles running on compressed natural gas.

Can India Exercise Strategic Autonomy When The US And Israel Give No Room For It?

P. K. Balachandran

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Within the space of a year, India has had to relinquish its bid to exercise strategic autonomy based on its own power and influence and become a junior partner in a US-led alliance. This is a far cry from the era of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, when India was nonaligned and yet had a significant moral/political influence in the world. It condemned unlawful actions by the big powers, especially the Western powers, and led peace efforts in various theatres of conflict.

It was able to secure the cooperation of the Soviets as well as the US and the West for its economic development. India’s non-alignment was touted as a path to peace. This is in sharp contrast to the way that India, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been touting its policy of “strategic autonomy”. It smacks of the arrogance of a parvenu, which has triggered the animosity of the established powers and apprehensions among small powers, especially the neighbours.

Why the Karachi Siege Shatters the Pakistan-Iran Bargain

Albert Wolf|

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Karachi – The durability of a diplomatic “buffer state” is rarely tested by its successes, but by its ability to absorb shocks that its domestic population finds intolerable. For the Pakistani civilian and military establishments, that ability vanished on Sunday afternoon on Karachi’s Mai Kolachi Road. With at least 22 reported fatalities following a breach of the U.S. Consulate, the crisis is being framed by international observers as a predictable spasm of religious fury over the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader. This assessment is dangerously shallow.

To the casual observer, the 560-mile frontier dividing the Balochi nation is a site of constant friction. But realists know that Islamabad and Tehran have long maintained a sophisticated “live and let live” arrangement. It is a pact born of mutual strategic necessity that does not bear any of the formal obligations of an alliance. Both nations are heavily invested in sensitive nuclear and ballistic programs; both recognize that a “hot” western border would invite the kind of international intervention and scrutiny that threatens their respective survival.

Why Are the Afghan Taliban and Pakistan in an ‘Open War’?

Clara Fong

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On February 26, Afghanistan’s Taliban government launched an attack on Pakistan’s military bases near their disputed shared border. The regime claims this was in retaliation for Pakistan’s strikes on Afghan military bases several days before. Within hours, Pakistan responded by bombing several Afghan border provinces and the capital, Kabul—the first time Pakistan has conducted an attack on Afghanistan’s urban areas. Pakistan’s defense minister later described the situation as one of “open war” with Afghanistan. The cross-border attacks mark the latest and most significant escalation between the two countries since they agreed to a fragile ceasefire in October 2025 after a previous border conflict that lasted over a week.

As of March 2, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan has recorded at least 146 civilian casualties in Afghanistan, including 42 dead and 104 injured, though these figures are preliminary. The Afghan Taliban has said that it is willing to negotiate with Pakistan, but there are growing concerns that the conflict could continue to escalate, further destabilizing a region already grappling with the rippling fallout from joint U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran.

Will China Overplay Its Hand?

Thomas J. Christensen

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At the end of this month, U.S. President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit China for a major summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the first of what may be as many as four meetings between the two leaders in 2026. The planned three-day summit comes on the heels of discussions the leaders held in October 2025 on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Busan, South Korea, where they reached a fragile truce to calm the rising economic tensions in the U.S.-Chinese relationship. Trump and Xi agreed to forgo, for one year, many of the draconian measures their countries had imposed or threatened to impose on each other in the preceding months. The United States backed down from the threat of sky-high tariffs and suspended a large expansion of the roster of Chinese companies on the U.S. Commerce Department’s Entity List, which limits their access to American business on national security or foreign policy grounds. China, for its part, reversed its refusal to purchase U.S. agricultural products and dropped sweeping restrictions on exports of critical minerals on which the United States and many other industrial economies depend. The agreement left the two countries fairly close to where they started before the economic conflict began earlier in 2025.