Indian Strategic Studies

28 December 2025

Why is Türkiye Interested in South Asia?

Akhilesh Pillalamarri

A painting of the First Battle of Panipat, which was fought between the invading forces of Babur against Ibrahim Khan Lodi, the Sultan of Delhi, in Panipat, north India, on April 21, 1526, shows the use of cannons by Babur’s forces.Credit: Wikipedia/Baburnama

The modern nation-state of Türkiye — and its predecessor, the Ottoman Empire — have long been interested in exerting influence on South Asia. Such interest has become evident again after a few decades of occultation. Türkiye has long seen itself as the patron of Muslim interests in the region, and Muslim states in South Asia have sought closer relations with them throughout the ages.

In the past year alone, there have been several suggestions of an enhanced Turkish role in the affairs of the Indian subcontinent. Indian investigators have suggested that a Turkish handler played a role in coordinating Delhi’s November 10, 2025 Red Fort blast. Meanwhile, Pakistan and Türkiye have grown closer, along with Azerbaijan — these countries comprise an informal defense grouping known as the “three brothers.” Moreover, Türkiye supplied military equipment and intelligence to Pakistan during the May 2025 India-Pakistan clashes.

'The Bangladesh Hindu Genocide': Radical Islam in Bangladesh

Uzay Bulut

It is high time for the Trump Administration officially to designate Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh a Foreign Terrorist Organization and hold Bangladesh's "interim" leader Muhammad Yunus to account.

Under Yunus's interim administration, Bangladesh has suffered a surge in Islamic radicalization and an alarming rise in attacks on minorities, particularly Hindus.

"The recent events in Bangladesh have resulted in radical Islamic fundamentalists launching an all-out attack on minority communities, particularly the Hindus," reported Insight UK. Other outlets have called the attacks "the Bangladesh Hindu Genocide."

The coalition [of Bangladeshis, Americans, Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians] also suggested linking Bangladesh's participation in United Nations peacekeeping missions to the cessation of internal ethnic and religious persecution. The memorandum also proposed a comprehensive Minority Protection Act, officially to recognize minorities and indigenous groups.

Why China, a One-Party State, Is Backing Elections in This Country

Sui-Lee Wee

Sign up for the Tilt newsletter. Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, makes sense of the latest political data.

Five years ago, the United States played a pivotal role in Myanmar’s general election. Washington assisted with voter education programs, supporting civil society in the name of strengthening global democracy and countering China’s influence in the region.

It was one of the few truly contested elections in Myanmar, which has largely been ruled by its military since independence from Britain in 1948. Voters delivered a decisive win for the civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, but within months the generals again seized power, and Washington downgraded diplomatic ties with the nation.

Now election season has returned in Myanmar, as voters start casting ballots on Sunday. The polls, which will not include many politicians opposed to the junta and will only be held in areas controlled by the military, have been called a sham by the United Nations. But they have a surprising backer — China, a one party state.

For Beijing, Myanmar is a crucial link to the Indian Ocean. China has committed funds worth billions of dollars for infrastructure projects in its smaller neighbor, including highways and a deep seaport. But the coup in 2021 and an ensuing civil war that has wracked Myanmar have threatened those plans.

In a remarkable statement last year, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, called on Myanmar to achieve domestic peace with an end to the fighting and “national governance based on the will of the people

China is building the world’s most powerful hydropower system deep in the Himalayas. It remains shrouded in secrecy

Simone McCarthy, Yong Xiong

Hundreds of miles from China’s populous coastline, a sharp bend in a remote Himalayan river is set to become the centerpiece of one of the country’s most ambitious – and controversial – infrastructure projects to date.

There, a $168 billion hydropower system is expected to generate more electricity than any other in the world – a vast boon for China as it hurtles toward a future where electric vehicles dominate its highways and power-hungry AI models race to out-compute international rivals.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping called for the project to be “advanced forcefully, systematically, and effectively” during a rare visit earlier this year to Tibet, a region where Beijing continues to tighten its grip in the name of economic growth and stability.

China: New Quality Combat Forces Underpin Military Modernization

Arran Hope

New Quality Combat Forces Underpin Military Modernization

Executive Summary:“New quality combat forces,” which refers to the integration of emerging technologies with military capabilities, are increasingly important to Chinese military modernization, according to authoritative policy documents and commentaries in Party media.

The concept is important to the Party’s attempts to design a national system that fuses economic progress and military strength into an overarching “national strategic system and capabilities.”

Technological progress is undermined by ongoing issues within the People’s Liberation Army, such as corruption, political unreliability, and governance issues.

The last few months of 2025 have seen a proliferation of authoritative policy documents and commentaries discussing “new quality combat forces” (新质战斗力), a term that refers to the integration of emerging technologies with military capabilities. These include the Central Committee’s “Recommendations” (建议) for the 15th Five-Year Plan, a commentary on the plan by Central Military Commission (CMC) Vice-Chair Zhang Youxia (张又侠), and other articles in authoritative media penned by military theorists and scholars. These pronouncements provide more detailed insight into what the term means, how it relates to other concepts such as “advanced combat forces” (先进战斗力), and its increasing importance to the Party’s notion of systems confrontation. [1] They also warn against over-indexing on technological development as a marker of military modernization, warning that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) still must improve in a number of other areas, such as cultivating personnel who are both technically competent and politically reliable.

Why China Rejects Trump’s ‘G2’

Bryan Burack

In the coming year, President Donald Trump may meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping up to a half dozen times, an intense period of high-level diplomacy amid unprecedented mutual trade and supply chain warfare with China.

The stage was set by the leaders’ Oct. 2025 summit in Korea, which Trump described as a convening of the “G2,” recalling a discarded diplomatic idea that the U.S. and China stand as peers above other countries and groupings like the G7 and G20, and should partner together to govern the world.

However, China has conspicuously declined to join Trump’s revival of the G2 label, even though Xi has sought to establish such global power-sharing arrangements with the United States in the past.

The Tech Review 2025: China sees breakthroughs in AI and robotics

Guo Meiping

The year 2025 has been defined by a wave of transformative advances in China's artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics sectors, marking a decisive shift from laboratory research toward deep industrial integration and real-world application.

The year opened with a major shake-up in the foundational AI model landscape. DeepSeek, a company specializing in large language models, released a next-generation model that emphasized stronger reasoning and coding abilities rather than sheer parameter scale, while sharply reducing its application programming interface (API) costs. Widely described as a "game-changer," the move sparked global developer interest in usability and affordability, accelerating the rise of AI-native applications.

Momentum continued with growing public fascination around embodied AI, where intelligence is embedded in physical form. On January 16, humanoid robots developed by Unitree Robotics performed a highly synchronized dance at the China Media Group Spring Festival Gala. Showcasing dynamic balance, precise control, and swarm coordination, the performance reached hundreds of millions of viewers and became a cultural moment that brought advanced robotics into the public imagination.

Trump's second term marks a significant departure from his first term, analysts say

Franco Ordoñez

From the first days of his second term, it was clear President Trump had an aggressive approach to how he would wield American power abroad. He's used tariffs as a weapon against allies, secured the release of hostages from Gaza, cozied up to Russian President Vladimir Putin and launched a pressure campaign against the Venezuelan government of Nicolas Maduro. NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez has more on Trump's busy year and how he's reshaped U.S. foreign policy.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Ladies and gentlemen, the president-elect of the United States, the Honorable Donald John Trump.

FRANCO ORDOÑEZ, BYLINE: On his first days in office, President Trump threatened to take back control of the Panama Canal, seize Greenland and turn Canada into the 51st state - reflections of his fascination with expansionism and foreshadowing his determination to carve up the world between the three major powers.

The Quiet Omani Port Reshaping India’s Regional Strategy

Fatemeh Aman

Oman’s Duqm port cannot replace India’s dependence on Iran’s Chabahar. But it can help challenge Pakistan in the Indian Ocean.

India’s expanding presence along Oman’s coastline has unfolded without announcements, declarations, or diplomatic spectacle. Indian naval vessels have been making increasingly regular port calls to Oman, framed as routine deployments and professional exchanges rather than strategic statements.

One such long-range training deployment, acknowledged by India’s Ministry of Defence, described Indian Navy ships arriving in Muscat for engagements with the Royal Navy of Oman. The language was deliberately procedural. What matters is not the individual visit, but the accumulation. Naval deployments that once appeared episodic are now predictable, forming a pattern that places Oman firmly within India’s western Indian Ocean operating environment.

This rhythm rests on foundations laid earlier. In 2023, India and Oman signed defense cooperation agreements that expanded military engagement and enabled Indian naval vessels to access Omani ports for logistics and maintenance. At the time, these arrangements were treated as enabling frameworks rather than strategic shifts. What has changed since is not access itself, but normalization. What once required explanation now passes without comment.

How Cash Flights to Kabul Help Iran and the Taliban

Natiq Malikzada

The Taliban seized control of Afghanistan as the United States withdrew its forces under the Doha Agreement, which was initially billed as a framework for a responsible transition of power in Afghanistan. Under the terms of that deal, the Taliban promised to cut ties with global jihadists like Al-Qaeda, allow space for political pluralism, and participate in a state-building process. Four years on, none of these goals have been met. Apparently vindicated by their victory in Afghanistan’s civil war, the group no longer feels bound by the constraints of the Doha Agreement, and has ruled for the past four years through fear, ethnic division, and brutality against disfavored groups—all while steadfastly keeping ties with the terrorist organizations that prompted America’s intervention in the first place.

Yet all is not well for the insurgents-turned-rulers. Deep rifts inside the Taliban’s leadership, centred on Kandahar, have paralysed the basic decision making system, and the group is more divided than it has ever been. Afghanistan’s governing authorities today do not resemble a government so much as a closed armed faction with a flag, creating a hotspot for chaos that feeds every regional crisis around it—including the one now playing out with Pakistan—and creating an opportunity for countries like Iran to bypass international sanctions.

Latin America’s Revolution of the Right

Brian Winter

From virtually the moment he and his band of bearded rebels rode into Havana in 1959 until his death from natural causes in 2016, the most iconic leader in Latin America was Fidel Castro. With his trademark military fatigues, slender Cohiba cigars, and marathon speeches vilifying Uncle Sam, Castro captured the imaginations of aspiring revolutionaries and millions of others around the world. Never content to merely govern Cuba, Castro worked tirelessly to export his ideas. His global network of allies and admirers grew over the decades to include leaders as diverse as Salvador Allende in Chile, Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, and Yasser Arafat, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

El comandante would roll over in his grave if he learned that, today, the two Latin American figures who come closest to matching his global profile both hail from the ideological right. Javier Milei, the self-described “anarcho-capitalist” president of Argentina who has wielded a chainsaw to symbolize his zeal for slashing the size of government, and Nayib Bukele, the bearded millennial leader of El Salvador, have built fervent followings at home and abroad. Instead of the ubiquitous Cuban revolutionary cry, ¡Hasta la victoria, siempre! (“Ever onward to victory!”), Milei’s libertarian catchphrase, ¡Viva la libertad, carajo! (“Long live freedom, damn it!”), is now showing up on T-shirts on some college campuses in the United States and being quoted by politicians as far away as Israel.

The Illiberal International

Nic Cheeseman, Matías Bianchi, and Jennifer Cyr

During the interwar years, support for revolutionary, anticapitalist parties by the Soviet-led Communist International laid the groundwork for the expansion of communism after World War II. Following the end of the Cold War, the U.S.-led international order promoted liberalism and democracy, albeit unevenly, enabling waves of democratic transitions worldwide. Today, political cooperation across borders is advancing autocracy. The momentum lies with a mix of authoritarian and illiberal governments, antisystem parties—typically but not only on the far right—and sympathetic private actors that are coordinating their messaging and lending each other material support.

What links these actors is not where they sit on the political spectrum, but how they relate to democratic institutions and liberal values, including constraints on executive power, safeguards for civil liberties, and the rule of law. From illiberal leaders within historically democratic states, such as U.S. President Donald Trump, to fully established autocrats, such as Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko—often referred to as “Europe’s last dictator”—they share a readiness to personalize power, weaken checks and balances, and deploy disinformation to erode accountability. By hollowing out pluralism and delegitimizing their opponents, these leaders, to varying degrees, roll back political rights and civil liberties. And by pooling resources, amplifying disinformation, and shielding one another diplomatically, they participate in cross-border illiberal networks whose growing capabilities and influence are tilting the global balance in favor of autocracy.

The G20 Agenda Is Shifting from the Global South to America First

Gustavo Romero and Stewart Patrick

Carnegie’s Global Order and Institutions Program identifies promising new multilateral initiatives and frameworks to realize a more peaceful, prosperous, just, and sustainable world. That mission has never been more important, or more challenging. Geopolitical competition, populist nationalism, economic inequality, technological innovation, and a planetary ecological emergency are testing the rules-based international order and complicating collective responses to shared threats. Our mission is to design global solutions to global problems.Learn More

On December 1, the United States assumed the rotating presidency of the Group of 20 (G20). This transition follows an unprecedented sequence of four consecutive Global South–led chairs (Indonesia, India, Brazil, and South Africa), during which the forum’s agenda, as well as membership, evolved and expanded. It also completed the forum’s first full hosting cycle: Since the G20 was elevated from a modest yearly gathering of finance ministers to leader-level summits in response to the global financial crisis in 2007–2008, every member has chaired it at least once. Now, for the first time since 2009, the G20 presidency returns to the United States.

This transition will not be merely procedural. It represents a substantive and normative shift from a more expansive, inclusive, development-centered G20 toward a narrower, more nationalized vision. President Donald Trump’s administration has already signaled its desire to pursue a back-to-basics agenda, which will sharply curtail much of what has been accomplished over the past four years. Such a shift raises fundamental questions about the G20’s purpose, legitimacy, and effectiveness at a moment when multilateralism itself is increasingly under strain.

How the Russia-Ukraine War Shifted in 2025

Stefan Theil

Almost four years since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting have gained momentum. U.S. President Donald Trump, who once promised to end the war within 24 hours, has been putting intense pressure on Kyiv and its European backers to cut a deal with Moscow—even if it comes at Ukraine’s expense. After halting military aid to Kyiv earlier this year, Washington began advocating for Moscow’s territorial goals last month amid reports of White House plans for lucrative business deals with the Kremlin.

On the battlefield, a gruesome stalemate has set in. The 750-mile front is now so saturated with drones that movement is deadly, and Russia’s snail-paced gains have come at an immense human cost. Meanwhile, Russia has ramped up its nightly attacks on civilian targets while Ukraine is increasingly striking energy and military infrastructure deep inside Russia.

Trump Hands 21st Century to China, Reverses Biden's Ban on Selling Advanced Chips

Gordon G. Chang

"Rather than grow dependent, China will take Nvidia chips while they are available, use them to train models to compete with American frontier variants and continue to invest heavily in domestic alternatives like Huawei's Ascend chips. When those are good enough, the firms will drop Nvidia—and quickly." — Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, letter to the Wall Street Journal, December 21, 2025.

Alperovitch believes that America's only advantage in the AI race is its advanced chips. Trump, however, is giving the Chinese better chips than they now have.

"During the height of the Cold War, it was unthinkable for the U.S. to sell supercomputers to the Soviet Union, the equivalent of the GPUs today. We've never won technological competitions by arming our competitors—we've prevailed by preserving a clear and enduring advantage." — Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, referring to Graphics Processing Units, the specialized chips at the core of AI infrastructure, letter to the Wall Street Journal, December 21, 2025.

The C.I.A. lost a nuclear

Jeffrey Gettleman, Hari Kumar, Agnes Chang and Pablo Robles

The mission demanded the utmost secrecy.

A team of American climbers, handpicked by the C.I.A. for their mountaineering skills — and their willingness to keep their mouths shut — were fighting their way up one of the highest mountains in the Himalayas.

Step by step, they trudged up the razor-toothed ridge, the wind slamming their faces, their crampons clinging precariously to the ice. One misplaced foot, one careless slip, and it was a 2,000-foot drop, straight down.

Just below the peak, the Americans and their Indian comrades got everything ready: the antenna, the cables and, most crucially, the SNAP-19C, a portable generator designed in a top-secret lab and powered by radioactive fuel, similar to the ones used for deep sea and outer space exploration.

The art of war is undergoing a technological revolution in Ukraine

Oleg Dunda

Ukraine is currently at the epicenter of radical changes taking place in the way modern wars are fought. However, much of the world is still busy preparing for the wars of yesterday. European armies are only combat-ready on paper, while the invincibility of the United States military is based largely on past victories.

The current state of affairs is far from unprecedented. In early 1940, Polish officers tried to warn their French counterparts about Nazi Germany’s new blitzkrieg tactics but were ignored. France surrendered soon after. There is still time to adapt to the transformations that are now underway, but the clock is ticking.

One of the key lessons from the war in Ukraine is the evolving role of soldiers. People are now the most expensive, vulnerable, and difficult resource to replace on the battlefield. Meanwhile, many of the core weapons systems that dominated military doctrines in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries are becoming less relevant. Tanks, artillery, and other traditional systems are simply too expensive and are unsuited to the challenges created by newer technologies.

Dien Bien Phu: Lessons in Strategic Empathy

Darryl Scarborough

The 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu demonstrates how failures in strategic empathy and cultural understanding can undermine technological superiority, with lessons that remain vital for modern military and policy leaders. This article analyzes the French defeat and its enduring relevance while offering practical recommendations for adapting strategy to asymmetric threats.

The suicide of French artillery commander Colonel Charles Piroth marked the first casualty of a catastrophic failure in strategic empathy, a blindness to enemy capability that would later doom American operations from the Ia Drang Valley to the mountains of Afghanistan. This article argues that the French defeat was rooted in a refusal to conceive of an adversary capable of mobilizing a bicycle-based logistics engine and employing Chinese operational art to strangle a modern air-land fortress. Dien Bien Phu was the dramatic culmination of a decade of political maneuvering and nationalist aspiration, as Việtnam’s anti-colonial struggle was transformed by Cold War tensions.

Why the EU’s Google Antitrust Case Is Misplaced in the AI Era

Joseph V. Coniglio

The EU’s latest antitrust investigation against Google misreads competitive AI markets, risks politicized enforcement, and could heighten transatlantic tensions amid intensifying US–China technological rivalry.

There are few real certainties in life. Two of the most famous are death and taxes. Another, less obvious verity is that every five years, the European Union (EU) opens a major antitrust investigation into Google.

In 2010, the European Commission began scrutinizing Google Search for allegedly favoring its own shopping services, an inquiry that produced a €2.42 billion penalty, as well as ultimately an investigation into Google’s search advertising business, which led to the Commission issuing a second €1.49 billion fine. Then, in 2015, the Commission launched yet another antitrust probe, this time targeting Google’s Android agreements. That case yielded a staggering over €4 billion judgment, the largest antitrust fine the Commission has ever imposed. And in 2021—after a brief delay while the Commission was busy separately reviewing Google’s acquisition of Fitbit—the EU commenced an investigation into Google’s ad tech suite, resulting in a €2.95 billion fine issued this past September

What Pax Silica Reveals About India’s Vulnerability in Global Tech Supply Chains

Venni V Krishna

The launch of a new U.S. alliance called Pax Silica to secure semiconductor manufacturing supply chains for the coming artificial intelligence (AI) era has drawn attention, among other reasons, for its exclusion of India. The initiative came not long after Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, met in Busan, South Korea, to ease tensions between their countries over tariffs and technology controls.

A new phase of techno-geopolitics is unfolding. Trade policies, the resurgence of techno-nationalism and the tightening of export controls — particularly in strategic materials like rare-earth magnets — represent the three defining pillars of the emerging global technology order.

As global trade and technology flows become increasingly securitized and restricted, India faces the urgent task of reducing its technological dependence.

In essence, the Busan truce between Trump and Xi signalled a tactical pause in the U.S.-China contest, during which, as Pax Silica shows, efforts will be made to consolidate supply chains and strengthen technological defenses.

For countries like India, the lessons from this trade war and temporary truce are profound. Strengthening local technological capabilities is no longer optional — it is a prerequisite for maintaining strategic autonomy.

Ukraine’s best hope may lie elsewhere as Russia inches forward on the battlefield

Dan Sabbagh

Adepleted – but far from defeated Ukraine – looks to 2026 with few good military options, even though a critical €90bn (£79bn) loan from the EU has been agreed. The financing will help Kyiv to continue defending at its current intensity until late 2027, but it will not lead to a transformation of its battlefield prospects.

On land, the pattern of the last two years should, in the first instance, continue. Russia has held the initiative since 2024, but only gaining territory incrementally, largely because it constantly throws people into the “meat grinder” of the frontline. During 2025, Russian advances amounted to 176 sq miles a month to the end of November, but at an estimated cost of 382,000 killed and wounded.

The White House has argued, in the latest run of peace negotiations, that Ukraine is fated to lose the remaining 22% of Donetsk province, including the fortress cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. At the current rate of Russian advance that would take at least a year (and arguably more given the predominately urban environment) and another 400,000 or more Russians killed, disabled, or hurt – a cost Kyiv is willing to try to inflict.

Ukraine deploys low-cost drones to counter Russia’s aerial attacks

Ukraine is rapidly deploying inexpensive interceptor drones to counter Russia’s sophisticated aerial attacks on its urban centres and energy infrastructure. These homegrown systems intercept high-altitude suicide drones at a fraction of conventional missile costs, revolutionising modern air defence strategies.

Field technicians swiftly assemble equipment, attaching antennas and sensors to light stands and unpacking monitors and controls from protective cases as they prepare these game-changing weapons for immediate deployment.

The Sting with its thermos-like appearance exemplifies Ukraine’s innovative interceptor fleet. According to a unit commander, these systems neutralise Russia’s evolving suicide drones, which now operate faster and at higher altitudes.

“Every destroyed target is something that did not hit our homes, our families, our power plants,” said the officer, known only by the call sign “Loi” in line with Ukrainian military protocol. “The enemy does not sleep, and neither do we.”

Thailand Shows the West Has Already Lost Southeast Asia

Michael Hollister

It doesn’t begin with tanks. It begins with a fiber-optic cable. With a battery production facility. With a data center in Thailand’s heartland, owned by Chinese interests. While the West talks about “values,” China invests—systematically, irreversibly.

Thailand, long a neutral buffer between competing great powers, is tilting. Not loudly. Not on command. But through infrastructure, through economic logic, through cultural proximity. The country that once served as a bulwark against communism is becoming China’s gateway for trade, logistics, infrastructure, and IT security.

And the West? It’s present—but always a few years too late. Too moralizing. Too slow. Too distant. The United States may still fly joint exercises with Thailand, but China’s influence already runs through the ground, the power grid, the smartphone, the corporate office.

Thailand represents the microcosm of a global shift: a tectonic revolution in Southeast Asia’s center. Anyone seeking to understand why the West has lost influence in the region need only look here.

A Stronger Military Requires a Stronger Economy

Liana Fix

Before Friedrich Merz won Germany’s parliamentary elections in February of this year, the country faced a money dilemma: Germany’s economic stagnation required significant reform and investment to revitalize industry, and the United States demanded more spending on collective defense. The budgetary dispute over how to simultaneously address these conflicting priorities had led to the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government. To avoid the same fate, lawmakers in Merz’s grand coalition, comprising the center-right Christian Democratic Union and the center-left Social Democratic Party, as well as the Greens, agreed to leverage debt to finance its dual obligations. Suddenly, Germany was flush with money.

Seven months in, however, Merz’s government has still been unable to chart a course for economic reform and persuade voters that better days lie ahead. Merz’s bold moves on defense spending have confirmed Germany’s leadership role in Europe but at a cost to his domestic popularity. Merz’s expenditure of significant political capital at international summits to manage U.S. President Donald Trump and defend Ukraine has left him vulnerable to accusations that he is focusing too much on foreign policy and not enough on domestic issues. The right-wing, Russia-friendly Alternative for Germany party (AfD) is channeling economic anxiety to profit in the polls, criticizing Merz’s government for squandering German wealth to build a “war economy.” And although Merz’s efforts on defense have won him praise from the White House, the Trump administration is steadily undermining him by normalizing the AfD and—in the words of the newly released National Security Strategy—other “patriotic European parties.”

AI Use in Terrorist Plots and Attacks Surges in 2025

Clara Broekaert and Lucas Webber for Militant Wire

It has been over three years since OpenAI launched ChatGPT, the large language model (LLM), which is now the fastest consumer application to reach 100 million users and has become synonymous with the term “artificial intelligence” (AI). Since then, a vast array of generative AI tools have entered the market, including chatbots, image, video, and audio generation tools. Much of the research on AI and terrorism has focused on these generative applications, examining how extremist groups might use them to create propaganda, amplify narratives through bot networks, and experiment with personalized “radicalization bots”. While this body of work has illuminated its impact on the digital realm, more attention needs to be paid to how AI tools, including those under the generative umbrella, are concretely used for operational planning and use by terrorists and violent extremists. This article addresses that gap by exploring how terrorists and violent extremists have leveraged AI in the operational planning of attacks and examines what this tells us about the incentives and benefits of AI use as perceived by perpetrators.

The year 2025 has witnessed a notable rise in incidents where terrorists and violent extremists have leveraged AI tools to plan, research, and prepare attacks. Just as terrorists and violent extremists have long relied heavily on internet forums, social media platforms, and messaging applications to acquire operational knowledge and guidance to execute plots, especially among lone wolves and inspired actors, we note an uptick in perpetrators and plotters turning to freely available AI products to optimize their operational toolkit. Specifically, according to our database of plots and attacks in which AI was used for operation planning in 2025, it serves a role in learning (ranging from operational security to the details of composing explosives), visualizing scenarios (e.g., creating images of the planned attack), and refining tactics through conversational, personalized guidance (e.g., step-by-step guidance on how to acquire the necessary chemical precursors for explosives). This trend underscores the urgent need for states, technology companies, and social media platforms to anticipate and adapt to the new realities of digital-enabled extremist activity and implement strategies to disrupt misuse.

27 December 2025

Pakistan’s Army Rocket Force: Strategic Leap or Burdened Gamble?

Tahir Azad

On August 13, 2025, the Prime Minister of Pakistan announced the establishment of a new Army Rocket Force Command (ARFC). This directive would possess contemporary technology and the capability to engage the adversary from all directions. There is no revealed public information regarding the ARFC structure, size, or mission. The official statement just discusses that the focus will be on conventional missile systems rather than nuclear delivery vehicles, which remain under the prime control of the Strategic Plans Division (SPD). Some commentators thought that this announcement of an ARFC was a vital step to deter India, which is growing its missile and hypersonic capabilities. However, this ARFC has raised various questions. What is the need for raising a separate command while Pakistan already has an established strategic forces command structure? Additionally, it is also confronting many domestic challenges, such as its political instability, a suffering economy, and security problems. The discussion regarding the formation of a distinct rocket force in Pakistan, or the evolution of its current Full Spectrum Deterrence (FSD) strategy into an advanced variant known as Full Spectrum Deterrence Plus (FSD+) is pivotal to the changing geopolitical landscape of South Asia.

FSD, a concept that ensures a reaction to threats across all tiers of conflict, has long been integral to Pakistan’s deterrence strategy. Since the early 2010s, this posture has served as a robust barrier against Indian military pressure. However, the May 2025 conflict between India and Pakistan has revealed significant vulnerabilities and gaps. India utilized enhanced models of the BrahMos missile, capable of travelling at nearly supersonic speeds. These missiles successfully penetrated Pakistani defenses and struck vital targets, including those in proximity to the capital Islamabad. The strikes were alarming both symbolically and strategically, as they demonstrated that Pakistan’s air defense systems and conventional deterrent missiles were unable to consistently intercept or neutralize India’s precision-guided threats. India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has successfully conducted a test of the Extended Trajectory Long Duration Hypersonic Cruise Missile (ET-LDHCM), in July 2025, a new hypersonic weapon developed under Project Vishnu. For the first time in decades, Pakistan’s authorities confront the disconcerting prospect that India might execute a limited, rapid strike campaign beneath the nuclear threshold with a significant likelihood of success.

China’s War Clock: ICBMs Deployed, Taiwan Invasion Set for 2027

Rameen Siddiqui

China has likely loaded more than 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) across three silo fields near its Mongolian border and shows no interest in arms control talks, according to a draft Pentagon report highlighting Beijing’s accelerating nuclear expansion. The report revealed China’s nuclear warhead stockpile remains in the low 600s but is on track to exceed 1,000 warheads by 2030, while also warning that Beijing expects to be able to fight and win a war on Taiwan by the end of 2027.

WHAT HAPPENEDPentagon report reveals China loaded over 100 solid-fueled DF-31 ICBMs in silo fields near Mongolia’s border. Beijing shows “no appetite” for arms control discussions despite Trump’s mention of potential denuclearization plans with China and Russia. China’s nuclear warhead stockpile remains in low 600s with slower production rates but is on track to exceed 1,000 by 2030. Pentagon warns China expects to fight and win a Taiwan war by end of 2027, refining options for brute force strikes up to 2,000 nautical miles.

China ‘preparing to fight and defeat Taiwan by 2027’

Susie Coen

Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, pictured with military officers in Beijing this week Credit: Li Gang/Xinhua China expects to be able to fight and win a war on Taiwan by the end of 2027, a US report has found. Beijing is refining its military options to take the territory by “brute force” via tactics that could include launching strikes up to 2,000 nautical miles from China, the Pentagon said. The report into Chinese military ambitions, obtained by Reuters, noted that Beijing has probably loaded more than 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles across its new three silo fields.

The findings will probably raise concerns in Washington after a US government assessment in November found that China would defeat the US military in a war over Taiwan. China, which views Taiwan as its own territory, has never ruled out using force to “reunify” with the island. Beijing has described reports of a military build-up as an effort to “smear and defame China and deliberately mislead the international community”.

The State of China’s Soft Power in 2025

Daniele Carminati

Five years ago, I published an article titled “The State of China’s Soft Power in 2020”. In its opening, I noted that China’s ability to attract was a subject of both frequent discussion and misunderstanding. Since then, despite ongoing challenges in geopolitics and the economy, China has become an even more prominent global presence. This raises an important question: is Chinese soft power still elusive, or is it finally taking shape? This matter is especially relevant given the growing debate about the decline of American soft power after a shift toward coercive hard and economic power – such as ‘peace through strength’ and unilateral tariffs – which reflects a broader weaponization of the world economy. This piece will adhere to the structure of my previous article, utilizing the late Joseph Nye’s triad of soft power resources – culture, political values, and foreign policies – while further developing them through a broader analysis of attractive national features supported by authoritative opinions and relevant data. Back then, quoting my concise overview, “China’s culture still ha[d] limited appeal, its values mostly fail[ed] to reflect the country’s image and reputation abroad, and its foreign policy [was] seen with skepticism at best – and as hegemonic at worst.” What has changed in these five turbulent years in which we experienced a global pandemic, the eruption of two major and still lingering conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine, and a global tariffs shakeup?

'Every Parent's Worst Nightmare': China's TikTok Deal - Great for China, Not for America

Gordon G. Chang

TikTok has posed two national security threats.

First, TikTok and its owner ByteDance have repeatedly made promises about the security of personal data of Americans, but they have not honored pledges and have broken U.S. statutes. The company settled charges that it violated U.S. child privacy laws.

Second, the Chinese regime uses TikTok's curation or recommendation algorithm, which determines the distribution of videos, to propagate its narratives as well as spread hate, sow disinformation, glorify self-harm, and promote illicit drug use. TikTok videos turn Americans against Americans and America itself.

The arrangement.... does not adequately eliminate the algorithm problem. Chew stated in his memorandum that the joint venture will be responsible for "retraining the content recommendation algorithm on U.S. user data to ensure the content feed is free from outside manipulation."

NPR reporting suggests that China will continue to own and control the algorithm — often referred to as TikTok's "secret sauce" — and that the new joint venture will license it. The New York Times reported in September that China would still own the algorithm. Any Chinese involvement in the curation process, especially considering Beijing's past use of the algorithm, is unacceptable.

Europe’s Taiwan Dilemma

TOMASZ SZATKOWSKI, OCTAVIAN MANEA, LUIS SIMÓN AND GIULIA TERCOVICH

CSDS In-Depth Papers provide critical reflections on issues that affect European security and Europe’s partners. The Papers are dedicated to providing analytical insights on specific diplomatic, strategic and security challenges. The Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy (CSDS) seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the key contemporary security and diplomatic challenges of the 21st century – and their impact on Europe – while reaching out to the policy community that will ultimately need to handle such challenges. Our expertise in security studies will seek to establish comprehensive theoretical and policy coverage of strategic competition and its impact on Europe, whilst paying particular attention to the Transatlantic relationship and the wider Indo-Pacific region. Diplomacy as a field of study will be treated broadly and comparatively to encompass traditional statecraft and foreign policy analysis, as well as public, economic and cultural diplomacy

The Arab Spring’s Painful Lessons

Alexander Langlois

Fifteen years after the Middle East’s largest pro-democracy movement, the West still has not learned that supporting autocracy is no longer sustainable.

The Arab Spring carries multiple meanings for the many millions of people across the Middle East and North Africa, let alone the world. The widespread calls for civil liberties and democracy across the region certainly were divisive, with some defining the uprisings as imperialist plots while others viewed them as a long-anticipated moment for freedom fighters and democrats who had long suffered under some of the most autocratic rulers of the 20th century. But what did this moment of national and regional upheaval truly mean for the region, its autocrats, and the people stuck under their boots, and what does that mean for the future?

On December 17, 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi’s act of self-immolation in protest against the brutal Tunisian regime of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali unknowingly kicked off the region’s largest democracy wave since decolonization. Within a series of months, protests spread against autocratic regimes in Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, and Syria, shocking a world long accustomed to and benefitting from repression in that part of the world. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak regime, for example, was long viewed as a bulwark against the Arab street and the forces of Arab and Islamic nationalism that, for many in the West, posed a threat to their regional interests—namely energy flows, Israeli security, and fighting violent extremism.

Exclusive: China likely loaded more than 100 ICBMs in silo fields, Pentagon report says

Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON, Dec 22 (Reuters) - China is likely to have loaded more than 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles across its latest three silo fields and has no desire for arms control talks, according to a draft Pentagon report which highlighted Beijing's growing military ambitions.

China is expanding and modernizing its weapons stockpile faster than any other nuclear-armed power, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a Chicago-based non-profit. Beijing has described reports of a military buildup as efforts to "smear and defame China and deliberately mislead the international community."

Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump said that he may be working on a plan to denuclearize with China and Russia. But the draft Pentagon report, which was seen by Reuters, said Beijing did not appear to be interested.

"We continue to see no appetite from Beijing for pursuing such measures or more comprehensive arms control discussions," the report said.

In particular, the report said that China had likely put in more than 100 solid-fuelled DF-31 ICBMs in silo fields close to China's border with Mongolia - the latest in a series of silo sites. The Pentagon had previously reported the existence of the fields but not the number of missiles loaded.

Civility and Confidence: A Resolution for 2026

H.R. McMaster

In 2026, as Americans commemorate the 250th anniversary of the founding of our Republic we might resolve to do our part to strengthen our nation. Civil discourse about opportunities to build a stronger nation for the next 250 years holds potential for arresting the growing vitriol in politics and strengthening our confidence in our common identities as Americans. The following is from the last few paragraphs of Battlegrounds written six years ago, pp. 443-445:

Partisan vitriol among America’s political leadership gives friends and foes alike the impression that the United States is incapable of competing effectively based on a bipartisan foreign policy. As the late professor and philosopher Richard Rorty observed, “National pride is to countries what self-respect is to individuals: a necessary condition for self-improvement.” If we lack national pride, how can we possess the confidence necessary to fight effectively in war or implement a competitive foreign policy? In the United States, civics education might try to reverse the shift toward micro-identities and the focus on victimhood to foster what political scientist Francis Fukuyama describes as “broader and more integrative identities.”1 Every time Americans talk or tweet about issues that divide them, they might devote at least equal time to what unites them—especially our commitment to the fundamental individual liberties contained in our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and our Bill of Rights.

As warfare is reinvented in Ukraine, and Silicon Valley races to maintain its A.I. lead, China’s battery dominance is raising alarms far beyond the auto industry.

Hiroko TabuchiBrad Plumer and Harry Stevens

Power ︎ Moves

As warfare is reinvented in Ukraine, and Silicon Valley races to maintain its A.I. lead, China’s battery dominance is raising alarms far beyond the auto industry. A data center in Ashburn, Va. Immense batteries are critical to protect sensitive A.I. computer software. In Northern Virginia’s Data Center Alley, windowless buildings the size of aircraft hangars are powering America’s artificial intelligence industry, which is locked in a race against China. Yet, these data centers are increasingly reliant on China, America’s geopolitical rival, for a vital technology: batteries.

These facilities can use as much electricity as a small city, straining local power grids. Even flickers can have cascading effects, corrupting sensitive A.I. computer coding. To cope, tech giants are looking to buy billions of dollars of large lithium-ion batteries, a field in which “China is leading in almost every industrial component,” said Dan Wang, an expert on China’s technology sector at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. “They’re ahead, both technologically and in terms of scale.”

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