Indian Strategic Studies

18 January 2026

The Iranian Regime Could Fall But a U.S. Strike Would Prop It Up

Jamsheed K. Choksy and Carol E. B. Choksy

Many thousands of Iranians are again risking their lives to protest their authoritarian, theocratic regime. And as it has done during previous protests, the regime is responding by cutting off the country’s Internet access, unleashing violence on its citizens, and blaming foreign scapegoats. The protests’ death toll is rising: Iran Human Rights, a Norway-based nongovernmental organization, estimates that over 600 demonstrators have been killed nationwide since late December.

Perhaps emboldened by his recent ouster of Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan leader, U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to launch military strikes if Tehran continues to repress protest. The United States “will start shooting too,” he warned on January 6, if Iranian protesters keep getting killed. Tehran’s heavily armed troops and militias have brutally suppressed previous demonstrations, and there is a genuine need to prevent a larger massacre. Moreover, the Islamic Republic appears more fragile than ever after last June’s 12-day war. The regime seems incapable of addressing the root causes of the economic crisis that has driven its people to the streets; protests have spread from Tehran to every corner of the country, revealing Iranians’ widespread lack of faith that their current leaders can set the country on a better course.

Navigating with StarLink-Signals in GPS-Denied Environments: Part 1

Benjamin Cook

These days, for weirdos like me, it’s really hard to figure out where to look as first. In Ukraine, the Russians have secured Sviatohirsk and are meanwhile infiltrating towards the last ‘big’ and ‘constructed’ Ukrainian defence line south of Zaporizhzhya (those who meanwhile understand how this war ‘works’, know of what ‘importance’ are such ‘field fortifications’).

In Iran… or around it: the king/majesty Dumpf of the USA seems to be setting up ‘help’ for protesters AFTER these have been massacred en masse by the IRGC-regime - to the degree where the protesting all but ceased - while at the same time ICE-ing protesters at home. And Israel is so horny to prompt him into an all-out attack on Iran - in order to distract from its continued genocide on Palestinians - that Netanyahu can’t care less if Dumpf is regularly dinning with Holocaust-deniers, and his aides are already openly considering a similar ‘turkey shot’ like when Israel has bombed all of Syria AFTER the fall of the Assadist regime.

War Spending Accelerating Russian Infrastructure Collapse

Paul Goble

Most of the Russian Federation is situated in the Far North—permafrost underlies 60 percent of its territory. Cold weather during winters puts a strain on infrastructure, including flight and road delays and breakdowns in the delivery of heat, electricity, and even water to many homes, schools, hospitals, and other facilities. Russians have learned to expect this, although in the past they sometimes have bitterly joked that it is hard to believe the Kremlin’s promises that it is ready to cope with a nuclear war, something that has never happened, when it cannot deal with winter, something that occurs every year (Window on Eurasia, January 7). This year, these problems have become much more serious as a result of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine.

Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian targets have destroyed key portions of Russian infrastructure (Sibir.Realii, January 6). Moscow has diverted most of the funding it had provided to reinforce and repair Russian infrastructure to its war efforts (The Moscow Times, January 4; Govorit Nemoskva, January 10). As a result, developments this year have become a political issue, sparking small but widespread protests by those most immediately affected (see EDM, December 22, 2025). Commentators and even Duma politicians have criticized the Kremlin, warning that because of the war and Putin’s policies, Russia faces not only temporary problems but is on the way to an infrastructure collapse that will likely take decades to recover (see EDM, October 16, 2025; The Saratoga Foundation, January 1; Dialog.ua; Charter97, January 6).

Moscow Uses Oreshnik for Psychological Pressure

Yuri Lapaiev

On the night of January 8–9, the Russian army launched a strike on a critical infrastructure facility in Ukraine’s Lviv oblast. The target was located around 70 kilometers (43.5 miles) away from the Polish border (Radio Svoboda, January 9). Later, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) was able to locate and identify fragments of the missile used in the attack.

According to preliminary investigation data, it was an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), Oreshnik, which Russia had already used once to strike Ukraine in 2024 (see EDM, November 21, 2024; SBU, January 9). The Russian Ministry of Defense officially confirmed the strike, stating that the Russian Armed Forces had launched the Oreshnik medium-range mobile ground missile system against critical targets in Ukraine. The Ministry of Defense emphasized that this was a response to the alleged “terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime on the President of the Russian Federation [Vladimir Putin’s] residence in Novgorod oblast, carried out on the night of December 29, 2025” (Telegram/@mod_russia, January 9).

The Greenland Expedition

Mick Ryan

The following is a fictional narrative about an American expedition to Greenland in the coming year. It is written from the first-person perspectives of a military officer and civilian policy official in the Pentagon.

Eschewing the style of think tank papers, I have instead sought to provide a readable and more accessible account of what a very worst-case scenario for an American takeover of Greenland might look like. Indeed, any kind of military action should be considered worst case.

Like most others, I hope and expect that this troubling situation will be resolved in the coming months well short of military operations. But the world is an uncertain place, and there is no guarantee of that.

Will the U.S. Strike Iran? The Factors Shaping Trump’s Decision

Nik Popli

As nationwide protests shake Iran and security forces respond with lethal force, U.S. President Donald Trump has raised the prospect of American intervention, reviving a familiar question in Washington: what, exactly, would U.S. action in Iran look like—and to what end?

Publicly, the Administration has kept its options deliberately broad. The White House says that Trump has been briefed on military and nonmilitary alternatives, from cyber operations to targeted strikes, but has not yet reached a decision.

Yet on Tuesday, Trump signaled that he may soon authorize U.S. military strikes against the country’s leadership, calling on Iranians to keep protesting and promising that “help is on its way.”

Israel nearly struck Iran twice in recent weeks, former IDF intelligence chief claims

SHIR PERETS

Israel came close to striking Iran twice in recent weeks due to mutual miscalculations and fears of a surprise Israeli operation, former Military Intelligence Directorate chief Tamir Hayman said in an interview with 103FM on Monday.

According to Hayman, Iran’s preparations created a “coordination imperative” between Israel and Washington. He said recent near-escalations were the result of miscalculation risks, which in turn strengthened military cooperation between the IDF and US forces.

CNA Explains: What a US intervention in Iran could look like as Trump considers options

Chelsea Ong

As Iran's deadly crackdown on anti-government protests continues, US President Donald Trump faces a delicate moment as he weighs how best to respond.

The US military is considering "very strong options" against Iran, Trump said on Sunday (Jan 11), adding that it "looks like" Tehran had crossed his previously stated red line of protesters being killed.

More than 600 people have been killed, according to a rights group on Jan 12.

The mass protests in all of Iran's 31 provinces, triggered by an economic collapse, pose the biggest threat to the rulers of the Islamic Republic in decades.

Would Trump’s threatened strikes help Iran’s protesters or boost the regime?

Bilal Y. Saab

Donald Trump has once again threatened to attack Iran if it continues to use lethal force against the protest movement, which is growing by the day. ‘I tell the Iranian leaders: You better not start shooting, because we’ll start shooting, too,’ the US president said at a recent meeting with oil executives. On Sunday the president warned the US was considering ‘very strong options’ and claimed that Iran was seeking negotiations.

Already, Trump’s close national security aides are debating the merits of the use of military force, with one US official saying that ‘many think major kinetic action at this stage would undermine the protests’. Senior US military officials are also cautioning the president that more time is needed to prepare for such strikes.

Tariffs Have Hurt, Not Helped, the U.S. Economy And they will likely play an even bigger role in 2026.

Keith Johnson

The U.S. economy, after a tumultuous year of tariffs and trade wars, appears to have performed better than feared earlier in the year, with annual GDP growth through the third quarter of about 2 percent, including a surprisingly healthy bump in the last reported quarter.

But that, contrary to what U.S. President Donald Trump says, is not because of tariffs but in spite of them. And 2026 looks set to be an even rockier year on the trade front, with further negative implications for U.S. economic performance.

Fading, forgotten Europe has been dropped from the world order

Kevin Myers

Metaphors mislead. What is going on in the world in the first month of the second quarter of the 21st century is unlike anything that has occurred before. This is not “a shifting of tectonic plates” or “the Titanic sinking”. We have entered a new quaternary, which is itself a metaphor, but one that is sufficiently large and abstract not to be too misleading.

Europe, which effectively invented the world order, has, equally effectively, now rudely withdrawn from it. European leaders born after the Second World War – and that includes all British prime ministers since Margaret Thatcher – have turned their half of the Eurasian landmass into a smug, welfarist, immigrationist ruin, incapable of defending itself or projecting its power even into its own skies or seas.

One Big Downside of Trump’s Military Successes

W. James Antle III

When the United States went to war with Iraq for the first time in 1990, there weren’t many protest songs. At most, some of the songs that were supportive of the troops expressed ambivalence about the mission. The supergroup pop hit “Voices That Care,” a sort of “We Are the World” of the Persian Gulf War era, featured Will Smith rapping: “Right or wrong / We’re all praying you remain strong / That’s why we’re all here and singing along.”

One surprising exception was the singer-songwriter James Taylor, who in 1991 released an uncharacteristic rockabilly tune titled “Slap Leather.” The man may have seen fire and rain, but on the day he wrote this song, he was seeing red:

Get all worked up and we can go to war / We’d find something worth a killin’ for / Tie a yellow ribbon around your eyes / Big mac, falafel and a side of fries, yeah / Big Mac falafel / Stormin’ Norman / I just love a parade.

Iran's battered IRGC faces moment of truth amid protests

Tom O'Connor

As Iran‘s government moves to quell some of the largest protests the nation has faced in years without triggering U.S. intervention, the spotlight is on the elite and influential Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Having established since the Islamic Revolution as both a powerful war-fighting force as well as a tool of suppressing internal dissent, particularly through its Basij paramilitary arm, the IRGC has traditionally been deployed as one of the most potent forces in both restoring order and combating foreign infiltration.

But the IRGC finds itself still reeling from major blows suffered during a 12-day war with Israel in June, when scores of key commanders and personnel were killed. A number of other members and leading allies were slain in other theaters of the broader conflict surrounding the war in Gaza, particularly in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, leaving the Axis of Resistance coalition built by the IRGC over the course of decades now in a moment of crisis.

Why Putin Still Prefers War

Andrei Kolesnikov

During the Cold War, few senior Soviet officials understood the dynamics of Soviet relations with the West as well as Valentin Falin. A diplomat and adviser to several Soviet leaders, Falin was instrumental in improving relations between the Soviets and West Germany in the early 1970s. It was part of the détente that culminated in the Helsinki Accords, the breakthrough agreement that finally, 30 years after the end of World War II, stabilized relations between the Western alliance and the Soviet bloc. Looking back on his experiences, Falin wrote that “confrontation is not fate, but choice.”

As he saw it, in the global face-off between superpowers, confrontation happened because one or both sides chose to fight; détente happened because they chose not to fight. In every case, he felt, what happened resulted from an absolutely conscious decision on the part of the respective leaders.

‘I don’t need international law’: Trump’s Wild West doctrine freezes European brains

Tim Ross

The snow fell heavily over Brussels this week, as officials from embassies and European institutions returned from their holiday slumbers to a shocking new world.

Like an icy slap of Arctic air, Donald Trump’s operation to remove Nicolás Maduro from the Venezuelan presidency stunned the EU’s top officials — and froze them into silence. Then he questioned NATO, threatened Cuba and Iran, and declared he needed to own Greenland for the purposes of national security, whether or not the U.S. allies who currently control it agree.

Trump goes rogue against Venezuela and lays out his imperialistic goals

François Diaz-Maurin

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump issued a memorandum directing his Secretary of State Marco Rubio to take immediate steps for the effective withdrawal of the United States from over 60 international organizations, including many UN offices. This decision comes after a first year during which the Trump administration worked hard to assault moral, legal, and scientific norms that took decades of effort to constitute. It also follows the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in the most audacious military operation the United States has taken since the Panama invasion in 1989.

The flurry of executive orders and decisions on a wide range of regulatory and economic issues has made it difficult to discern and keep track of the administration’s overarching goals. But one common thread seems to emerge: The Trump administration is trying to lay the groundwork for an imperialist America.

A Guide to Maduro’s Capture and Venezuela’s Uncertain Future

Mariel Ferragamo

An early-morning U.S. operation in Venezuela on January 3 led to the capture of the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro. Two days later, Maduro appeared before a U.S. federal court in New York City, where he pleaded not guilty to drug, weapons, and narco-terrorism charges.

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He now faces a possible life sentence while his country contends with an uncertain future. In the meantime, Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, has been sworn in as interim president. Most Venezuelans have celebrated Maduro’s removal, but onlookers worldwide have had mixed reactions about the U.S. operation that led to his capture. The prospect for regime change, however, is bleak, experts said.

A Networked Leapfrog Strategy to Recapture Technology Leadership

Michael J. Mazarr

It is now widely agreed that the contest for leadership in frontier scientific and technological progress is one of the foremost elements — if not the centerpiece — of the U.S.-China rivalry. China's leadership appears to believe that science and technology offer the primary engines of development and innovation that will realize its goals of national rejuvenation and is investing massively across many areas. After years of taking a largely hands-off approach to this contest, at least from a government standpoint, the United States now appreciates the significance of the contest for leadership in science and technology as foundational to the economic and national security aspects of the rivalry and has begun responding to the Chinese effort with investments, policies, and export controls of its own.

The author proposes a bold strategy for the United States to regain competitive advantage: large-scale, high-risk experiments targeting transformative technological breakthroughs. Rather than competing head-on with China's incremental innovations, the strategy advocates for leapfrogging current-generation technologies to create entirely new paradigms in such areas as semiconductors, renewable energy, advanced manufacturing, and health care diagnostics. It emphasizes multilateral collaboration with other leading industrial democracies to pool resources, talent, and influence, fostering a shared ecosystem of innovation.

Google VP: “The only way to win cyberwarfare is to let defenders fix vulnerabilities as fast as attackers exploit them”

Omer Kabir

Chatbots that allow you to harvest knowledge and produce code, and autonomous agents that can detect hacks and counter them - Google’s approach to defending against cyberattacks is to use the same AI tools that hackers themselves use. “The new models can identify scams and block them, or find vulnerabilities and fix them,” says Royal Hansen, a vice president at Google who leads the technology giant’s cybersecurity, privacy, and safety efforts. “The beauty is that Gemini does it naturally. We just tell it: ‘Now check for these types of problems.’”

Hansen has been involved in artificial intelligence since the late 20th century, and for seven years before joining Google he worked primarily at financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs and American Express. In his current role, he focuses on the engineering and technical side of cybersecurity in the AI era, while also working with policymakers, governments, and clients to promote appropriate solutions and policies.

Algorithms of misperception: Managing nuclear risk in an AI world

Héloise Fayet

It’s July 2025. After a week of building tensions between Russia and the United States, following what seems to be a failed meeting between Trump and Putin in Anchorage, Donald Trump posts an oddly worded message[1] on his social network, Truth Social: He plans to “position” US nuclear submarines in the “appropriate regions,” in a clear reference to Russia. This post comes after a not-so-subtle reference by former Russian President Dimitri Medvedev on X (the social media site formerly known as Twitter) to the so-called “Dead Hand” mechanism, a method initiated in the Soviet Union era, of automatically ensuring a nuclear response if an attack eliminated all the officials in the country’s usual line of command.

This indirect exchange generated some surprise in the strategic community and the public: Many articles were suddenly written on the Dead Hand tool, and some speculation arose about these two additional subs supposedly stationed nearer to Russia: Were they nuclear missile-carrying submarines or attack submarines that carry only conventional weapons? Were they already on patrol or were these submarines ordered to leave port?

17 January 2026

Assessing Venezuela’s Future After Nicolás Maduro’s Bold Capture

Shannon K. O'Neil, Elliott Abrams, Max Boot, and Roxanna Vigil

President Donald Trump sitting next to CIA Director John Ratcliffe and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio as they watch the U.S. military operation in Venezuela from Trump's Mar a Lago resort, in Palm Beach, Florida, on January 3, 2026. @realDonaldTrump/Reuters

U.S. forces captured Nicolás Maduro and his wife after weeks of mounting military pressure on Venezuela. The regime leader has been removed from Venezuela, and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said he would face drug and weapons charges in the Southern District of New York.

Why the West Is Split Over Political Islam

Pierre Rehov

Trump's executive order represents the most serious American effort in decades to confront Islamist political networks that, in Washington, had long been considered merely political differences rather than lethal security threats.

Across the Atlantic... in the European Union and many of its major capitals, political Islam — often embodied by Muslim Brotherhood-linked organizations — remains part of an approach for a larger "dialogue with Islamists". Can you imagine a "dialogue with Bolsheviks" or a "dialogue with the Third Reich"?

Analysis: Coal power drops in China and India for first time in 52 years after clean-energy records

Lauri Myllyvirta.

Coal power generation fell in both China and India in 2025, the first simultaneous drop in half a century, after each nation added record amounts of clean energy.

The new analysis for Carbon Brief shows that electricity generation from coal in India fell by 3.0% year-on-year (57 terawatt hours, TWh) and in China by 1.6% (58TWh).

The last time both countries registered a drop in coal power output was in 1973.

The fall in 2025 is a sign of things to come, as both countries added a record amount of new clean-power generation last year, which was more than sufficient to meet rising demand.

Could China execute a special forces operation like the US precision Maduro abduction?

Liu ZhenandZhao Ziwen

The extreme precision of the US in its Venezuelan operation shows why nations must be able to execute a complex special surgical strike, according to analysts who said China had long pursued the capability but had yet to master it.

In a complex joint endeavour integrating its air force, navy, intelligence agencies and space and cyber units, the US military’s elite Delta Force special mission unit completed its precision raid in Caracas – from infiltration to exfiltration – in less than three hours, abducting Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife and taking them to the US.

As Trump threatens Iran strikes, China denounces use of force in Middle East Beijing calls for ‘peace and stability’ in the region amid escalating protests in Iran

Dewey Sim

China has voiced opposition to the use of force in the Middle East as US President Donald Trump threatened to strike Iran over escalating protests there. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning on Monday said Beijing hoped Iran’s government and its people would overcome “current difficulties” and uphold stability in the country. “We always oppose interference in other countries’ internal affairs,” she said at a press conference, responding to a question about Trump’s threats to attack Iran.

“The sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries should be respected and [we] oppose the use or threat of force in international relations. We call on parties to act in ways conducive to peace and stability in the Middle East.” Hundreds of protesters and security officers dead as Iran steps up efforts to quell unrest

Iran’s Protests and the Internet Blackout That Followed

Mariel Ferragamo

After nationwide protests broke out in December against the Iranian government, the regime decided it would try to quash the turmoil by leaving Iranians—quite literally—in the dark.

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Iran’s authoritarian regime cut internet and phone services in response to nearly two weeks of antigovernment demonstrations that have overtaken the country. The blackout left Iranians without the ability to obtain vital information, such as safety warnings and the whereabouts of their family members. It also attempted to obscure the picture inside Iran from global onlookers.

Lyse Doucet: Iran's rulers face biggest challenge since 1979 revolution

Lyse Doucet

Iran's rulers are confronting their most serious challenge since their own 1979 revolution.

They're now countering on an unprecedented scale - a ferocious security crackdown and near total internet shutdown has been unleashed on a scale unseen in previous crises. Some of the streets once engulfed by a roar of anger against the regime are now starting to go silent.

"On Friday it was extremely crowded - the crowd was unbelievable - and there was a lot of shooting. Then Saturday night it became much, much quieter," a resident of Tehran told BBC Persian. "You would have to have a death wish to go out now," one Iranian journalist reflected. This time, an internal upheaval is also compounded by an external threat, with President Trump's repeated warnings of military action coming seven months after the US carried out strikes on key nuclear facilities during a 12-day war between Iran and Israel, which left the regime weakened.

Increasing Venezuela’s Oil Output Will Take Several Years—and Billions of Dollars

Brad W. Setser

In the days since U.S. President Donald Trump’s operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, his administration has made clear it wants to control the South American country’s oil production.

Venezuela’s oil production has long been hampered by both Venezuela’s mismanagement of its oil fields and U.S. sanctions. With Maduro in U.S. custody and his vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, acting as interim president, Trump’s team has said that they aim to revitalize the country’s oil sector. Following the Saturday raid on Caracas, Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced that the United States intends to oversee Venezuelan oil sales “indefinitely,” and Trump said U.S. oil firms are “ready” to reenter the country. In the meantime, Venezuela’s government has said it will transfer between 30 and 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil to the United States.

G7, other allies discuss ways to reduce dependence on Chinese rare earths

Maria Martinez and Kanishka Singh

Item 1 of 2 U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks during a press conference to unveil the official Trump Accounts website, at the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C., U.S., December 17, 2025. REUTERS/Aaron Schwartz

[1/2]U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks during a press conference to unveil the official Trump Accounts website, at the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C., U.S., December 17, 2025. REUTERS/Aaron Schwartz Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

Summary

G7, Australia, Mexico, South Korea, India meet on rare earths in Washington

Finance chiefs see 'broad agreement' to cut reliance on Chinese critical minerals

Price floor for rare earths, new supply partnerships discussed at U.S. Treasury

WASHINGTON, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Finance ministers from the G7 and other major economies met in Washington on Monday to discuss ways to reduce dependence on rare earths from China, including setting a price floor and new partnerships to build up alternative supplies, ministers said.

Pentagon bought device through undercover operation some investigators suspect is linked to Havana Syndrome

Katie Bo Lillis, Natasha Bertrand, Priscilla Alvarez, Jim Sciutto, Zachary Cohen

The US flag flutters at the Pentagon on September 19, 2025. Daniel Becerril/Reuters/File

The Defense Department has spent more than a year testing a device purchased in an undercover operation that some investigators think could be the cause of a series of mysterious ailments impacting US spies, diplomats and troops that are colloquially known as Havana Syndrome, according to four sources briefed on the matter.

A division of the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations, purchased the device for millions of dollars in the waning days of the Biden administration, using funding provided by the Defense Department, according to two of the sources. Officials paid “eight figures” for the device, these people said, declining to offer a more specific number.

Strategic Snapshot: Russia–PRC Technology and Hybrid Operations

Strategic Snapshot: Russia–PRC Technology and Hybrid Operations

Technological innovation is reshaping the modern battlefield. Russia and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are combining conventional warfare with electromagnetic disruption, cyber attacks, digital influence campaigns, and unmanned and autonomous systems to target U.S. partners and allies. The frontline states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are under mounting pressure from these new technological threats. Russian violations of Polish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Romanian airspace, as well as GPS spoofing and sabotage of critical undersea infrastructure, particularly fiber-optic cables, in the Baltic and Arctic regions, illustrate the expanding scope of targeting technology and its use for subversive means. These activities reflect a broader shift toward multi-domain warfare, where ambiguity and deniability are key assets.

Drone warfare is now a central feature of this evolving technological domain. Ukraine has become a world-leading drone producer and pioneer of maritime and autonomous systems since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022. The PRC has also recently unveiled new unmanned systems capabilities for use in a Taiwan contingency, signaling its intent to operationalize lessons from Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Trump and the Fed Are Now at War

Keith Johnson

The skirmishing between U.S. President Donald Trump and the U.S. Federal Reserve has broken into outright war, with potentially huge implications for the independence of the world’s most important central bank, the U.S. dollar, and America’s financial credibility in the future.

On Friday, the U.S. Justice Department issued subpoenas to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, a Trump appointee who has spent much of his term under fire for not acquiescing to the president’s desire to turbocharge the economy through loose monetary policy.

How to get people believing in the state again

Sam Freedman

I broke my shoulder after slipping on ice last week, so this is my first attempt at writing an article via dictation and editing (don’t worry it’s not another piece about my A&E experiences). It’s quite a different mental process but hopefully the end product is fairly similar.

Have you tried getting a passport or driving licence renewed recently? It’s incredibly easy and nearly always arrives in a few days. This is a relatively new phenomenon. In 2022 the passport office was in crisis, and all over the front pages, as it was overwhelmed by post-covid applications. But with the implementation of a new digital process it now works so well that it’s being copied by multiple other countries.

How Greenland Falls

Jeremy Shapiro

What follows is a work of speculative fiction. Any resemblances to actual future events are purely coincidental. This scenario is plausible, but certainly not inevitable. It is offered in the modest hope that it will inspire and inform efforts to prevent the disastrous outcome described here.

It is January 2028. Looking back, the Americans did not “take” Greenland—not in any concrete sense. There was no invasion, no purchase, not even a plebiscite. But in the shadowy corridors of Arctic politics, Washington moved deliberately to confound its opponents. The Americanization of Greenland transcended brute imperial force in the Russian mold.

Cognitive Warfare and the Indo-Pacific

Jon Reisher

Editor’s Note: This article was submitted as part of the Irregular Warfare Initiative’s 2025 Writing Contest, in which authors were invited to explore how the United States and its partners can use irregular warfare to strengthen security cooperation, build trust, and enhance resilience among Indo-Pacific nations. This article stood out for its innovative framing of cognitive warfare as a tool of deterrence and alliance-building, and for its practical recommendations on how small Indo-Pacific nations can leverage information operations to uphold international norms. We have edited the piece after its selection.

“Psychologically, the PRC is trying to cause mental disarray and confusion, in order to weaken fighting will and determination to defend ourselves.”

The balance of the modern global information environment has become algorithmically biased, with social media platforms tailoring content to users’ preferences and reinforcing their pre-existing beliefs. By isolating users in personalized filter bubbles, these algorithms amplify confirmation bias and cultivate increasingly polarized online echo chambers, distorting users’ perceptions of reality and fueling societal division—conditions the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has learned to weaponize.

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