Indian Strategic Studies

12 March 2026

Emerging economies and the future of global digital governance: data, AI and transnational cooperation

Wakana Asano

In the first article of this two-part series examining how emerging economies are shaping global digital governance, analysis of specific major economies – India, Brazil, Nigeria and South Africa – illustrated how emerging countries are creating their sovereign Digital Public Infrastructures (DPIs). This second article in the series examines two other dimensions of the approaches to digital governance taken by India, Brazil, Nigeria and South Africa: their country-first regulations regarding data, artificial intelligence (AI) and commerce; and the steps they have taken towards transnational cooperation.

The international tech order is becoming increasingly disparate. Different systems for data, AI and commerce are being promoted by countries and regional organisations alike – from the European Union, the African Union (AU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to initiatives led by China, Singapore and the United States. Emerging economies must navigate an increasingly varied landscape of digital regulations. This combination of existing and emerging digital-governance frameworks brings with it an escalating risk of fragmentation driven by different principles, domestic politics, and economic and diplomatic ties. Growing fragmentation also has implications for emerging economies in terms of prospective collaboration on digital governance.

U.S.–India AI and Emerging Technology Compact

The global race for leadership in artificial intelligence and emerging technologies is accelerating—and the choices democratic nations make now will shape the future technology order. At a pivotal moment for bilateral cooperation, the United States and India are moving from alignment in principle to coordination in practice.

This new report, produced by the Special Competitive Studies Project in partnership with ORF America, examines how the two countries can translate shared strategic interests into durable advantage. Drawing on insights from two Track 1.5 dialogues convened in Washington, D.C. and New Delhi, the report brings together perspectives from more than 150 leaders across government, industry, academia, and civil society.

China’s Expanding Global Intelligence Footprint In The Digital Age

Tahir Azad

Espionage is not an unusual affair in international politics; it is one of the system’s most common habits. Since strategic surprises are expensive and uncertainty is dangerous, states have always tried to find out what their competitors are planning, what technologies they have, what their goals are, and how can they respond. The United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union all built robust intelligence enterprises in the 20th century that included human sources, signals intelligence, and covert action programs. Espionage has not gone away in the 21st century; instead, with the help of technology, it has gotten bigger, faster, and more powerful. The methods changed in the intelligence competition, and so did the major players.

China has become a rising power with global ambitions, and its intelligence apparatus abroad reflects this ambition. For some observers, China is “spying everywhere”; for others, it is acting like any other major power, but with unique advantages stemming from its industrial capacity, digital ecosystems, and extensive state-market coordination. Understanding the scope and logic of China’s expanding intelligence footprint is essential for policymakers, businesses, and researchers navigating an era where technology and security are deeply intertwined. This article aims to clarify how China’s intelligence model operates, why it matters for global power competition, and what its rise means for the balance of international strategic influence.

Pentagon acknowledges tough quest to counter Iranian drones

Tanya Noury

Trump administration officials conceded during a private briefing on Capitol Hill this week that Iran’s Shahed-136 drone is proving more disruptive on the battlefield than the Pentagon had anticipated, two people familiar with the matter told Military Times.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine led the group of senior military leaders who warned lawmakers that gaps in counter-drone technology could leave U.S. forces and assets increasingly vulnerable.

“They were ill-prepared,” one person inside the briefing said, referring to U.S. defense plans in the Middle East.

Iran After Khamenei’s Death

Masoud Kazemzadeh

The joint efforts by the United States and Israel to identify Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s location and kill him on February 28, 2026, were brilliant. These great intelligence and military successes must be transformed into political success. No one leader or group has enough capability or support to take power in Iran and establish a legitimate and stable political system – and both the U.S. and Israeli governments appear to be fully aware of this. This brilliant success could easily turn into disaster if the U.S. and or Israel pursue certain policies. In this article, I argue that there are policies that have a good likelihood of producing a legitimate and stable democracy in Iran.

Scenario 1. Déjà vu

If the U.S. and Israel stop the military campaign too soon, the remnants of the regime could easily reconstitute the system. It is not clear whether the fundamentalist successors would return to the fundamentalist regime’s policies as soon as they believe it would be safe to do so, or make a fundamental change in their foreign or domestic policies.

Why Has Saudi Arabia Suffered Less Iranian Attacks Than Gulf Neighbours?

Willy Fautré

Every picture tells a story. This one is quite clear. In the now region-wide war between the US-Israel and Iran, Saudi Arabia has been let off the hook. The question is, why has Iran aimed only a fraction of its assault at what was once its biggest rival in the region?

Iran is sparing Riyadh the worst not because it lacks the capability but because it now has more to gain from holding back. The fragile détente brokered by China between the countries in 2023—in which they agreed to reopen diplomatic relations and stop actively sabotaging each other’s core interests, has offered benefits to both sides. Iran, fighting on multiple fronts with a constrained drone and missile industrial base, and needing to prioritise where to spend scarce hardware and political capital, is able to conserve kinetic energy. Bludgeoning Saudi Arabia would risk blowing up a working arrangement that currently serves both sides better than open confrontation.

‘The mother of all commando raids’: US forces may need to secure uranium in Iran

JOHN VANDIVER STARS AND STRIPES

U.S. special operations forces may be needed to secure Iran’s uranium stockpiles, analysts say, as uncertainty over missing nuclear material persists amid American airstrikes on Iranian military targets. Thousands of U.S. and Israeli attacks have destroyed warships, missile launchers, facilities and weaponry. But questions about the fate of canisters containing enriched uranium could trigger action on the ground.

In June, the U.S. carried out bunker-busting attacks on Iran’s nuclear program that were believed to set the program back years. Still, nuclear proliferation experts warn that nearly 1,000 pounds of uranium could be weaponized if centrifuges remain operational. “It would take the mother of all commando raids — plus heavy equipment — to retrieve the canisters,” Barbara Slavin, an expert on Iran with the Stimson Center think tank, wrote in response to a question from Stars and Stripes.

The US Strikes on Iran Are a Reminder to China: Power Is Power

Daniel Herszberg and Jonathan Topaz

On February 28, the leader of China’s closest Middle East ally was killed in Donald Trump’s Operation Epic Fury. Beijing’s response: a press release. As the Israeli-U.S. strikes sparked a broader regional conflict, China reiterated on March 5 that it is “gravely concerned over the tense situation in the Middle East.”

After initially calling for an immediate ceasefire, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has repeatedly shared how they are “highly concerned” – language nearly identical to its claim of being “deeply worried” during last June’s 12-Day War, as American B-2s pummeled Natanz and Fordow.

Having tracked China’s regional partnerships over the last decade, we have found that Beijing’s influence consistently peaks at signing ceremonies and fades when security risks arise. Beijing has built a Middle East strategy centered on influence without military presence.

Japan, France, Canada work on alternatives to US-led trade bloc for rare earth supplies

Divya Rajagopal

TORONTO, March 6 (Reuters) - Group of Seven members Japan, France and Canada are working on alternatives to a U.S.-led trade bloc to secure critical minerals and reduce reliance on China, according ‌to three senior officials from these countries.

Some options include import quotas on certain rare earths, subsidies for mining companies to diversify the supply chain on critical minerals, and a buyers' club,a Canada-led G7 initiative that aims to develop a reliable supply chain of critical minerals outside of China and break that country's monopoly on these metals.

In February, U.S. Vice President JD Vance unveiled plans to marshal allies into a preferential trade bloc for critical minerals. But a month after that announcement, some countries are making different plans, an example of Canadian ⁠Prime Minister Mark Carney's appeal for middle powers to band together as U.S. President Donald Trump has alienated allies.

Trump's new cyber strategy calls for tougher responses to threats

EDWARD GRAHAM

The White House's new national cybersecurity strategy calls for responding more directly to threats and securing critical U.S. technologies.

As described in a seven-page document released on Friday afternoon, the strategy has six pillars: shape adversary behavior; promote common-sense regulation; modernize and secure federal government networks; secure critical infrastructure; sustain superiority in critical and emerging technologies; and build cyber talent and capacity.

In a signed introduction to the document, President Donald Trump wrote that his strategy “calls for unprecedented coordination across government and the private sector to invest in the best technologies and continue world-class innovation, and to make the most of America’s cyber capabilities for both offensive and defensive missions.”

Book Review | Modern Hybrid Warfare: Russia Versus the West

Ciprian Clipa

Ryan C. Maness and Brandon Valeriano’s Modern Hybrid Warfare offers a rigorous empirical assessment of Russia’s hybrid warfare strategy against Ukraine and the West. The authors argue that while hybrid operations, such as cyberattacks, information warfare, and economic statecraft, particularly energy coercion, remain permanent features of modern conflict, they have failed as decisive strategic instruments. Contrary to widespread assumptions that advanced technologies – such as AI, unmanned systems, electronic warfare, and space assets – will revolutionize warfare, Maness and Valeriano argue that the Russo-Ukrainian War demonstrates that warfare’s fundamental nature remains unchanged: brutal, bloody, and highly dependent on adaptation and coordination rather than technological silver bullets. At a time when policymakers and military planners deal with questions about the future of conflict, this book provides essential analysis grounded in evidence rather than speculation.

Both authors bring substantial expertise to the subject. Ryan C. Maness is an Associate Professor in the Defense Analysis Department at the Naval Postgraduate School, researching cyber and information strategy, U.S. national security, Russian foreign and military policy, political warfare, and hybrid strategies.

Text Without Context is Pretext – Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow?

Dawn Hersey, Wendy MacKenzie Pease

“Ukraine today; Taiwan tomorrow”. “Taiwan 2027”. We hear the parallels and implications of a Russian-esque invasion of Taiwan repeatedly, and the textual statement makes sense. But how legitimate is the parallel when context is provided? There is some level of justification to highlight an advertised interest in the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) acquiring the island of Taiwan, also called Formosa from Portuguese, more formally known as the Republic of China (ROC). Both Ukraine and Taiwan experienced social revolutions in 2014. Both Ukraine and Taiwan have strong ties to larger states in governance and culture. And both states, while they do have populations closely tied to the larger state, have large swaths of the population with unique cultural heritages and social values.

Without nuanced context, our perception of the parallel between Russia invading Ukraine and China invading Taiwan is merely pretext. This overview is a summary of key points of a complex and much broader understanding: there are many details omitted or bypassed for space and time. History and identity have carried into both situations’ narratives. Just listen to the current Russian president pontificate about how his interpretation of history justifies irridentism to understand that understanding context is imperative to understanding that contest.

U.S. Military Operations Against Iran’s Missile And Nuclear Programs

Paul K. Kerr and Daniel M. Gettinger

On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched military operations against Iran. The same day, President Donald J. Trump listed among the operation’s objectives preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, destroying Iran’s missiles, and “[razing] their missile industry to the ground.”

Some Members of Congress have questioned the U.S. military operations in Iran given President Trump’s previous comments that, as a result of the June 2025 U.S.-Israeli strikes, “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.” Other Members have supported the President’s action, citing Iran’s efforts to reconstitute its nuclear program and its ballistic missile capabilities.

US Makes India Perform In A Circus Tent

M.K. Bhadrakumar

A well-honed tool in the United States’ diplomatic box is to rub the nose of its vassal states in the dust occasionally to remind them they are a lower form of life, while also proclaiming to the world at large that once a vassal state, always a vassal state. The sabotage of Germany’s Nord Stream gas pipeline in September 2022 is a brazen example. More recently, India is also being subjected by the US to similar harsh treatment.

Exceptionally rude statements and remarks poured out of Trump administration officials demanding that India should fall in line with the American diktat to terminate its oil imports from Russia. The alibi was that India’s oil trade generated additional income for Russia, which helped finance the Kremlin’s ongoing war in Ukraine.

Mass Drones to Save Missiles: A High–Low Mix for the Pacific

Connor Keating

The future of conflict in the Western Pacific will hinge on sustaining firepower over vast distances with finite magazines and vulnerable logistics. The Russia‑Ukraine war and much of history show that victory has never relied on a small inventory of exquisite, high‑cost weapons.1 Instead, success increasingly rests on combining massed, affordable drones with a more limited stock of precision‑guided munitions—a munitions‑centric high–low mix. To deter and, if necessary, defeat aggression, the U.S. should build a mix of long‑range, payload-modular drones. This approach is about designing an economically favorable, attrition‑resilient strike architecture that forces an adversary into unfavorable cost‑exchange ratios.

Originally a Cold War concept that paired high‑ and low‑end manned platforms against the Soviet Union, the high–low mix has re-emerged in a new form centered on munitions rather than platforms. A munitions‑centric high–low mix forces adversaries to choose between defending against slow, numerous drones or conserving interceptors for higher‑end threats, thereby creating gaps in their air defenses.2 In a theater defined by extended supply lines and constrained magazines, such a mix will be essential to sustaining combat power and imposing escalating costs on the People’s Liberation Army.

From Hedgerows to Kill Webs: The Soldier Leads Army Transformation

James Mingus and Dwayne Steppe

In the summer of 1944, the Allied advance in Normandy had stalled. Centuries-old hedgerows, dense earthen walls topped with impenetrable brush, turned every field into a fortified ambush site. Tanks bogged down, infantry took murderous fire, and breakout seemed impossible. Then, Sergeant Curtis G. Culin III, a young tanker from Chicago, welded scrap metal from discarded German beach obstacles onto the front of a Sherman tank. The tanks equipped with his improvisation, dubbed “Rhino tanks,” were able to rip through the hedgerows like paper. Within weeks, thousands of tanks were retrofitted, Allied troops poured through the breach, and the road to Paris was opened.

One sergeant’s battlefield solution, born of necessity and executed with his cutting torch, changed the course of the campaign. That same spirit of frontline initiative remains the most powerful force in today’s Army. The individual soldier and the squad are the true engines of Army transformation. You, not headquarters or acquisition bureaucracies, drive technological innovation, tactical adaptation, and the cultural change required to win future wars.

Grand Strategy for a New Century

Gregory I. Jones

The leading state sponsor of terrorism decapitated. A Latin American dictator moonlighting as a drug dealer incarcerated in Manhattan. What do these events have in common with tariffs, Greenland, AI, frank discussions with European Allies, and destroying drug running boats in the Caribbean?

For one, the news cycle churns at a dizzying pace under Trump 47. Yesterday’s “bombshell” story fades into distant memory, avoiding placement into a coherent framework. The next headline emerges, and the media scrambles to cover it all. But here’s a stab at explaining all these seemingly disparate events. America has finally crafted a workable grand strategy for the first time in nearly four decades. All the hubbub represents the marshaling of our national resources to secure America’s most important interests. As Secretary Rubio elegantly laid out in Munich a few weeks ago, America has adopted a strategy suited for the century we are in. Not the one we just left.

Attacking Iran’s nuclear programme could drive it towards a bomb, experts warn

Julian Borger

The US-Israeli onslaught against Iran is intended to resolve a 24-year standoff over Tehran’s nuclear programme, but it runs the risk of backfiring and driving the regime towards making a secret bomb, proliferation experts have warned. The regime in Tehran has long insisted that the programme is for civilian purposes and it has no intention of making a nuclear weapon. However, since two undeclared sites, for uranium enrichment and heavy water plutonium production, were discovered in 2002, the programme has been treated with intense suspicion.

A nuclear deal in 2015 imposed severe limits and thorough inspections on Iran but when Donald Trump walked out of the agreement in 2018, triggering its collapse, Iran ramped up its work on enrichment and other aspects of the programme.

An expert’s point of view on a current event.

David Petraeus

Recent U.S. and Israeli operations against Iran and the latter’s retaliatory strikes have once again demonstrated the mathematics of modern air defense. Waves of Iranian-designed Shahed-136 drones—crude, slow, and estimated to cost as little as $20,000 apiece—have in a number of exchanges forced the United States and several Gulf partners to expend Patriot and SM-6 interceptors that cost millions of dollars each.

Interception rates have been impressive. A successful shoot-down that requires a high-end interceptor, however, can be a Pyrrhic victory. The defender burns through scarce and expensive munitions while the attacker draws from comparatively large stockpiles of low-cost systems. This is the drone attrition trap. And it is not new.

The Abiding Question of the Iranian Bomb America Needs a Plan for Tehran’s Nuclear Program

Richard Nephew

On February 28, U.S. President Donald Trump authorized a massive military campaign against Iran. Working in concert with the Israel Defense Forces, the U.S. military undertook strikes that first targeted the regime leadership, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and others, and then expanded to a broader assault on Iranian security forces. In the last few days, strikes have been launched against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Iranian missile program, the Iranian navy, and even local police buildings.

One asset, however, has been curiously absent from the target list published by U.S. Central Command: the Iranian nuclear program. As of this writing, Iran’s major nuclear facilities—at least those not destroyed by U.S. and Israeli strikes last June—have not been featured in any description of recent U.S. or Israeli military accomplishments. There have been reports of strikes on targets that are possibly related to Iran’s weapons research infrastructure and of some in the vicinity of significant facilities, but little of apparent consequence in comparison to June. This omission is especially surprising given that the nuclear program was allegedly one of the reasons behind the Trump administration’s turn to force.

The United States Could Lose the Gulf

Marc Lynch

Iran’s bombardment of its Gulf neighbors has inexorably dragged them into a war that they had desperately hoped to avoid. The potential entry of the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia into direct war alongside Israel and the United States represents the first full-scale manifestation of America’s ambitions for the Middle Eastern order it has overseen for decades. Washington has always dreamed of Arab-Israeli cooperation against Iran without resolving the Palestinian issue. Here it is. It would be no small irony if America’s Middle East reached its apotheosis just as the entire region collapsed into the abyss. But that day may be coming. The Gulf states can no longer believe that the United States can or will protect them from existential threats. And even as they are forced to openly cooperate with Israel in its war, they will increasingly view it as a threat rather than a potential ally.

Iran’s targeting of the Gulf states in the face of the U.S.-Israeli attack shattered the hard-won regional rapprochement that had taken hold over the last three years. Saudi Arabia and the UAE had long been aligned with Israel on the need for a confrontational strategy toward Iran. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, early in his de facto reign, had fulminated against the Islamic Republic and signaled a readiness for military action. Gulf leaders were reliable voices for more aggressive policies toward Iran and vocal skeptics of nuclear diplomacy, as their allies and proxies did battle with Iran across a broad swath of the Levant, Iraq, and Yemen.

AI in Chinese, Indian and US Nuclear Postures, Norms and Systems

Dr Lora Saalman

This report presents a systematic survey of the extent to which China, India and the United States have integrated artificial intelligence (AI) into their respective nuclear postures, norms and systems. It finds that while China and India have released limited official information on their nuclear command, control and communications structure, the USA has historically issued prolific government documents.

Despite these differences, all three possess numerous official releases relating to AI and even its military applications. Moreover, China and the USA have jointly advocated ‘human control’ over the decision to use nuclear weapons. Yet these seeming points of convergence are in flux. There are increasing signs that China and the USA are integrating AI into nuclear and nuclear-related systems, while India’s AI officials and frameworks avoid nuclear-related transparency. This survey is intended to serve as a baseline for future engagement with and among China, India and the USA on AI and nuclear confidence-building measures.

In War’s First Week, a Punishing Military Campaign With No Coherent Endgame

Mark Mazzetti, Tyler PagerRonen

The volley of Israeli missiles that slammed into a government compound in central Tehran last Saturday morning was by any military standard a successful opening strike by the United States and Israel as they went to war with Iran. The blasts killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as a cadre of other senior military and intelligence officials. The war’s first salvo left Iran without many of its top commanders to lead the response.

The reckoning, it turned out, was more complicated. The Israeli strike also killed another group of Iranian officials who had been meeting in a different part of the compound. Among them were people the White House had identified as more willing to negotiate than their bosses, and who might help bring a swift end to the conflict, according to American officials.

11 March 2026

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

Anand Singh

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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