Indian Strategic Studies

27 October 2024

Forging New Alliances: India’s BRICS Summit Diplomacy in Russia

Vivek N.D.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Kazan, Russia for the 16th annual BRICS summit from October 22 to 24 holds significant political, economic and cultural implications, especially amid ongoing global challenges. The summit, themed “Strengthening Multilateralism for Just Global Development and Security,” is critical for India’s foreign policy as it seeks to deepen strategic ties with Russia, engage with China, and contribute to global governance reforms.

Politics and Security: Navigating Complex Alliances

During Modi’s bilateral talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, scheduled for October 22, efforts to resolve the ongoing conflict in Ukraine will be high on the agenda. India’s delicate position as a non-aligned power, maintaining friendly relations with both Russia and the West, gives it a potential mediatory role.

Modi’s visit comes at a time when global powers are reassessing alliances considering Russia’s prolonged conflict with Ukraine. The emphasis on diplomacy and open dialogue during this summit will underscore India’s growing importance as a voice of moderation, particularly in advocating for a peaceful resolution to the stalemate. Modi’s diplomatic balancing act will aim to navigate India’s economic and security ties with Russia while ensuring that its broader geopolitical interests, especially with the West, remain intact.

India and China Reach Breakthrough Agreement on Border Tensions

Sudha Ramachandran

Almost four-and-half years after Indian and Chinese troops clashed violently at Galwan Valley in Ladakh, resulting in the first fatal confrontation between the two countries along their disputed border since 1975, the India-China standoff in the Himalayas appears to be reaching an end.

“Agreement has been arrived at on patrolling arrangements along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the India-China border areas, leading to disengagement and a resolution of the issues that had arisen in these areas in 2020,” India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri told journalists in New Delhi on Monday. Misri was briefing the media on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s upcoming visit to Kazan, Russia for the BRICS summit on October 22 and 23.

The timing of the announcement is significant.

It came just a day before the Indian prime minister leaves for Russia to attend the BRICS meeting, which will be attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping, among others.

Misri didn’t confirm if a meeting between Modi and Xi on the sidelines of the BRICS summit was in the cards. But he didn’t rule out the possibility of such a meeting either. Although the BRICS summit is “a multilateral event,” he said, “there is always a provision for bilateral meetings on the sidelines.” There have been “a number of requests for bilateral meetings,” he said, without elaborating if a meeting with Xi figured among these.

Starlink’s Tie Up With US Armed Forces Worries Security Experts – Analysis

P. K. Balachandran

Starlink’s satellite-based internet service is set to enter India and Sri Lanka

Experts have warned countries about the security risks associated with the Starlink satellite-based internet service given its close links with the US military.

Starlink is to set up shop in India and Sri Lanka soon. While it is in the process of getting the required clearances in India, the deal with Sri Lanka is through. Starlink has got a Sri Lankan license to provide Satellite Broadband Services across the country, effective from August 12, 2024.

India has decided to assign spectrum on the basis of an “administrative decision” and not an “auction”. India’s decision came shortly after the Starlink owner, Elon Musk, criticised the auction route proposed by Mukesh Ambani, owner of the rival Indian telecom company, Reliance Jio.

Musk had argued that it is international practice (as per the International Telecommunication Union regulations) to award the spectrum administratively rather than by auction. Reliance Jio’s Ambani argued in favour of auction to ensure a level playing field.

Decoding Jammu And Kashmir Poll Results: Exploring National Conference’s Victory, End Of Emotional Politics And Emerging Political Trends

Dr. Adfer Shah

The results of the Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections held on October 8, 2024, not only delineates the victors and vanquished but also unveil notable political trends warranting rigorous academic analysis. This commentary examines the divergent voting patterns between the two divisions—Jammu and Kashmir—where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured a substantial mandate in Jammu (29), while the National Conference garnered significant support in the Kashmir Valley (42).

The decline of smaller parties, the resounding defeats of leaders utilizing emotional and victimhood narratives, and the collapse of the turncoats and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Jamaat-e-Islami, alongside similarly labeled factions, underscore a transformative political landscape. This paper employs a sociological lens to interpret these developments, exploring the substantial shifts in electoral behavior, the implications for governance and representation of Jammu, and the future of parties like Jamaat. Additionally, it addresses the challenges of bridging the political divide between Jammu and Kashmir, alongside the factors contributing to Congress’s significant drubbing in Jammu.

Indian nuclear weapons, 2024

Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, Eliana Johns & Mackenzie Knight

India continues to modernize its nuclear weapons arsenal and operationalize its nascent triad. We estimate that India currently operates eight different nuclear-capable systems: two aircraft, five land-based ballistic missiles, and one sea-based ballistic missile. At least five more systems are in development, most of which are thought to be nearing completion and to be fielded with the armed forces soon.

Research methodology and confidence

The Indian government does not publish numbers about the size of its nuclear weapon stockpile. The analyses and estimates made in the Nuclear Notebook are therefore derived from a combination of open sources: (1) state-originating data (e.g. government statements, declassified documents, budgetary information, military parades, and treaty disclosure data); (2) non-state-originating data (e.g. media reports, think tank analyses, and industry publications); and (3) commercial satellite imagery. Because each of these sources provides different and limited information that is subject to varying degrees of uncertainty, we crosscheck each data point by using multiple sources and supplementing them with private conversations with officials whenever possible.

China Faces a Long Road to De-dollarization

Ronny P. Sasmita

The role of the US dollar will still be quite significant in the future, even though several countries and trading blocs are starting to abandon it as a means of payment for exports and imports (cross border payments). As this process continues to play out, the dominance of the dollar as a means of payment will certainly decrease; however, the role of the dollar as a “medium of exchange,” “unit of account,” and “store of value” will continue to dominate for quite a long time.

This is due to the fact that the US dollar will still be used as a means of payment for trade in many regions, mainly because of the practicality of the abundance of dollar liquidity on the one hand and the dollar’s role as an “anchor” of global trade on the other.

In other words, the US dollar will still be used in many locations as the unit of account that has been recognized for more than 70 years, and as a hedging instrument considered to be stable ever since the dollar was separated from gold in 1971 by Richard Nixon, ending the Bretton Wood era. The difficulties of de-dollarization are compounded by the technical difficulties inherent in calculating value, difficulties that have long been avoided by weighing such calculations against the dollar.

China’s Nuclear Submarine Bases: A Stocktaking – Analysis

Rear Admiral Monty Khanna (Retired)

China’s nuclear submarine building programme is running on overdrive.[1] If China maintains its current pace of construction of 4.5 to six nuclear submarines per year for the next couple of decades, the number of nuclear boats in the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) inventory is set to swell substantially.

Nuclear submarines are amongst the most complex and maintenance-heavy platforms ever made globally. They require capable bases with robust repair and maintenance facilities to ensure that they are combat-capable throughout their commissioned lives. While existing Chinese bases have evolved and grown over the years, they will fall short in their ability to home-port this rapidly expanding fleet unless augmented substantially. This report examines existing Chinese nuclear submarine bases and makes a prognosis on how the capacity shortfall is likely to be mitigated in the coming years.

Existing Chinese Nuclear Submarine Bases

a. First Submarine Base – Jianggezhuang (Northern Theatre Navy)

Location. This base is located 18 km East North East of Qingdao (36o 06.5’ N, 120o 35.1’ E) in a wide bay (1.9 km x 1.1 km), the mouth of which has been partially constricted by the construction of breakwaters at either end (Fig 1). Given that the facility is located in the Yellow Sea with easy access only to the East China Sea and Sea of Japan—both of which impose constraints on operations either due to shallow depths or transit through restrictive straits—it was not the ideal location for basing nuclear submarines.

What Is a Superpower?

George Friedman

The end of the Cold War and the dismantling of what had been a bipolar world order raised the question of what exactly constitutes a superpower. The question has been bandied about even more over the past few years, given some people’s perception that U.S. global influence is weakening relative to the rest of the world’s. China, after all, is seeking to emerge as a major player, and Russia has clawed back from destitution to become more than merely a shadow of its former self.

Indeed, the term “superpower” has been used to describe Russia – occasionally in the context of its partnership with China. Whether or not either is a superpower in its own right, there is an assumption – and a particularly vexing one in the West – that together the two would be a decisive force in the world. But this is a flawed or at least premature assumption.

To understand why, consider the nature of a superpower. After World War II, the term was reserved only for countries that had a nuclear arsenal – that is, countries that possessed a decisive means of victory against even the strongest of enemies. Certainly the public saw them as such. But the military never had a clear definition of what a superpower was. This is largely because the military understood that the concept of mutually assured destruction was baked into any equation of confrontation, and why both largely worked to confine their grievances against each other into smaller threats.

US Government Says Relying on Chinese Lithium Batteries Is Too Risky

Zeyi Yang

Analysts at the US Department of Homeland Security shared an internal report to local agencies in August, warning them about the economic risks of using Chinese utility storage batteries. It warns that the dependence on Chinese batteries could hurt developing a secure supply chain in the US.

The document, first obtained by national security transparency nonprofit Property of the People and seen by WIRED, accuses Chinese companies of “using People’s Republic of China state support to quickly and cheaply enter the emerging US utility battery energy storage industry and create supply chain dependencies on China,” and asks that any suspicious activity be reported.

Specifically, the report alleges three companies—Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL), Build Your Dreams (BYD), and Ruipu Energy Co. Ltd. (REPT)—have “benefited from the various forms of state support and leveraged this to further business strategies for gaining US market share.”

Iraq Stuck Between Israel And Iran As Tensions Rise – Analysis

James Durso

Iraq’s leaders have a lot on their minds, stuck between Israel and Iran as the two countries veer closer to open conflict.

Iraq is still recovering from the reign of Saddam Hussein, the 1980-1988 war with Iraq, decades of sanctions that followed the 1991 invasion of Kuwait, liberation by the U.S.-led “coalition of the willing” in 2003, a post-invasion reconstruction that wasted much of the $60 billion spent, and the Islamic State insurgency of 2014-2019.

The U.S.-led sanctions campaign against the Saddam Hussein regime disrupted the Iraqi economy, causing inflation to skyrocket, unemployment numbers to hit record levels, a dramatic fall in living standards, the collapse of the infrastructure, and a serious decline in the availability of public services. But it was OK, as Madeleine Albright (then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations) informed Americans, “we think the price is worth it.” All that, plus Saddam’s crimes against his own people for almost 25 years, weigh on Iraq’s as they navigate to a peaceful, prosperous future.

US intel leak shakes Israel’s plan to hit Iran, and more

Stephen Bryen

“Middle East Spectator,” is a pro-regime Telegram outlet based in Tehran, as all media channels based in Tehran are – by law. Last week, Middle East Spectator leaked two sensitive intelligence documents. The documents originated in the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and the information pertained to Israel’s preparation to retaliate for Iranian missile attacks.

I have not re-published the documents leaked on Telegram. Interested readers can go to the link provided above.

Middle East Spectator claims it is an independent operation in Tehran. It says it got the documents from an “informed source in the US intelligence community.” If we take this at face value, then a source in the intelligence community contacted the Spectator and shared the two documents. To further clarify, in a subsequent post Spectator says the source was in the US Defense Department.

Because “news” and information in Iran are very tightly controlled, Spectator could only have published these documents with permission from the regime.

It is extraordinarily valuable material that Iran can, and likely will, use to prepare its defenses.

Crossroads of Commerce: How the Taiwan Strait Propels the Global Economy

Matthew P. Funaiole, Brian Hart, David Peng, Bonny Lin, and Jasper Verschuur

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has made it unequivocally clear that the use of force remains an option for resolving Taiwan’s ambiguous political status, stoking fears about a possible invasion of the island.

But Beijing has a range of options short of invasion at its disposal. CSIS research suggests that less kinetic actions, such as a coast guard–led quarantine of Taiwan, are more likely in the short term than an amphibious assault on the island.

While lower in intensity, such contingencies could still threaten the trillions of dollars’ worth of trade that moves through the Taiwan Strait each year.

Taiwan produces over 90 percent of the most cutting-edge chips used in smartphones, data centers, and advanced military equipment. Disruptions to the supply of these technologies could wipe trillions of dollars from global GDP.

It is a critical hub for other goods as well. CSIS estimates that Taiwan’s ports handled approximately $586 billion worth of trade in 2022, including transshipments between other economies. Yet nearly all of this activity flowed through a handful of ports located as little as 100 miles from the Chinese mainland—leaving them uniquely vulnerable to Chinese provocations.

The Pentagon Needs a Quantum Strategy

Elise Stefanik

As our adversaries across the globe become increasingly emboldened, it has never been more critical that America maintain its technological edge by investing in quantum computing. Air Force Research Lab’s Information Directorate in Rome, New York, has long been the epicenter of the Air Force’s quantum information science research and development efforts. For years, the lab has worked diligently to conduct critical applied research across many quantum technologies and drive the Air Force’s ability to maintain superior information technological advantage against our adversaries. It is time the Department of Defense (DoD) did the same. As quantum advantage approaches, we must prepare for it by ensuring our quantum computers are industrially useful and able to solve critical operational problems for the DoD.

In pursuit of this goal, the DoD must execute three critical lines of effort. First, it must fully embrace, and Congress must fully fund, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI) program. This program, in partnership with AFRL-Rome’s systems engineering and broad quantum expertise will benchmark industrial efforts to build a useful quantum computer. This novel effort has yet to be conducted anywhere else across government. DARPA’s innovative approach to running the QBI program is the most significant federal work done in quantum computing to date and must be fully supported within the DoD and by Congress.

A U.S. Reset With Mexico Is Still Possible

Shannon K. O’Neil

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who was inaugurated on October 1, has come into office with more political power than any Mexican leader since the country’s transition away from single-party rule in the 1990s. As the protégée of and successor to Andrés Manuel López Obrador (also known as AMLO), she received a record 35.9 million votes—nearly 60 percent of those cast for the top office—and effectively controls a two-thirds supermajority in Congress. Her party, Morena, governs 22 of the country’s 31 states, enough to ratify constitutional reforms.

The Danger Is Real: The Deep State’s Plot To Destabilize The Nation Is Working – OpEd

John and Nisha Whitehead

If the three-ring circus that is the looming presidential election proves anything, it is that the Deep State’s plot to destabilize the nation is working.

The danger is real.

Caught up in the heavily dramatized electoral showdown between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, Americans have become oblivious to the multitude of ways in which the government is goosestepping all over our freedoms on a daily basis.

Especially alarming is the extent to which those on both sides are allowing themselves to be gaslighted by both Trump and Harris about critical issues of the day, selectively choosing to hear only what they want to hear when it casts the opposition in a negative light.

This is true whether you’re talking about immigration and border control, health care, national security, the nation’s endless wars, protections for free speech, or the militarization of the U.S. government.

Ron Paul: Why Should We Fight Wars For Ukraine And Israel? – OpEd

Ron Paul

When you take on the role of the world’s policeman, don’t be surprised when countries who cannot fight their own wars call “911.” That is exactly what is happening to the United States on two fronts and it is bankrupting our country, depleting the military that should serve our own national interest, and threatening to drag the US into World War III.

Last week, Ukraine’s “president” Vladimir Zelensky publicly presented his “Victory Plan.” It was delusional: immediate NATO Membership for Ukraine, NATO strikes against incoming Russian missiles, and permission to use Western long-range missiles for strikes deep into Russia including Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The real intent was not hard to understand. Ukraine is on the verge of losing its war with Russia and is desperate to draw the United States military into the fight. There were numerous opportunities to avoid this bloody war but at every step the Ukrainian leadership listened to western neocons (like Boris Johnson) and decided to keep fighting Russia down to the last Ukrainian.

Is Jabalya the key to defeating Hamas? - analysis

SETH J. FRANTZMAN

The IDF is continuing its operations in Jabalya, a neighborhood and suburb of Gaza City in northern Gaza. The area is home to a large number of Palestinian civilians who remained there throughout the war and also returned over the last year. It is estimated that there are hundreds of thousands of Gazans in northern Gaza, with many thousands living in Jabalya.

The military began operations in Jabalya for the third time in a year when the 162nd Division was pulled from Rafah and sent back into the area on October 6. This movement of troops set the stage for two important incidents. First, it led to the death of Yahya Sinwar, who was eliminated by troops searching Tel al-Sultan 10 days after the Jabalya operation began. Second, it has led to Israel’s demand that civilians evacuate large areas of northern Gaza.

It’s unclear if the Jabalya operation led to the finding of Sinwar. It is possible that he felt he could wander around more freely because he believed the IDF was shifting its focus to northern Gaza and Lebanon. What matters, though, is that Hamas continues to lose ground.

National Defense Strategy Commission: We Are Not Prepared

Tom Jurkowsky

Findings Should Serve as Wake-Up Call

The Commission on the National Defense Strategy, a bi-partisan group of eight individuals authorized by Congress to examine the national defense strategy of the United States, released its findings in July of this year.

The group of eight, all with experience in national defense matters, were charged with reviewing our nation’s most recent national defense strategy, including the assumptions, strategic objectives, priority missions, operational concepts and strategic and military risks associated with that strategy.

The commission was also tasked with conducing an assessment of the strategic environment to include the threats to the national security of the U.S., including both traditional and non-traditional threats; the size and shape of the force; the readiness of the force; the posture, structure and capabilities of the force; allocation of resources; and the strategic and military risks in order to provide recommendations on the national defense strategy for the U.S.

Trick Question: Who Will Defend Europe?

Edward Lucas

If Britain were properly governed, Keir Giles would still be “institutionalized in the Ministry of Defence” as he tells me. But Britain is in a mess, and one sign of this is that he is out of public service and able to describe its plight.

In 2010, the UK government dissolved the Conflict Studies Research Centre, a defense analysis outfit with a decades-long record of analyzing Kremlin behavior and thinking. Giles, along with its other experts, was considered surplus to requirements. Insights on Russia were, to use George Orwell’s phrase from 1984, “oldthink”: no longer necessary. Worse, they were “wrongthink”. Russia was a big emerging market, not an enemy. The priority was promoting trade and investment, not reviving pointless, expensive security worries from long ago.

Giles (disclosure: a long-term friend and ally of mine) has sounded the alarm with exemplary prescience and clarity in articles and think tank pieces. His books include Moscow Rules: What Drives Russia to Confront the West (2019) and Russia’s War on Everybody (2022). His latest, published this week, is called Who will Defend Europe? An Awakened Russia and a Sleeping Continent.

Ukraine Must Turn the Tide Before It Can Negotiate

Jack Watling

President Volodymyr Zelensky has spent recent weeks endeavoring to sell his “victory plan,” the core elements of which he unveiled to the Ukrainian parliament on October 16, to Ukraine’s partners. The plan includes expanded military assistance to stabilize the front, security guarantees through membership of NATO, and defense-industrial cooperation. The details of the plan have been met with significant skepticism among Ukraine’s partners, who fear that without reforms to Ukraine’s recruitment and training of military forces, equipment alone will be insufficient to stabilize the front. Nor are they sold on the willingness of the alliance to guarantee Ukraine’s security.

Though the details remain in question, the underlying analysis that shapes Zelensky’s pitch is sound. Russian President Vladimir Putin will negotiate seriously only if he believes he is losing militarily. To conclude the war on favorable terms, Ukraine must first stabilize the front, gain maximum leverage over Russia, and obtain security guarantees to ensure that it can prosper and remain secure after the conflict. To achieve those aims, Kyiv must be clearly aligned with its international partners.

Biden's 'leadership' is blowing the lid off two wars

Anatol Lieven & Ted Snider

President Joe Biden hascalled America “the world power,” and hasreferred to his “leadership in the world.” If Biden does indeed see himself as a, or the, world leader, then he has been disappointing in his job and has mismanaged it.

The world today stands on the brink of larger wars, even potentially world wars, on two fronts simultaneously. That is, perhaps, a more precarious position than the world has found itself in in over half a century, since the Cuban Missile Crisis, and perhaps longer. Then, the danger came from a single front: today, there is danger on two or even three.

The Biden administration seemingly subscribes to a foreign policy doctrine of nurturing wars while attempting to manage them so that they remain confined to America’s foreign policy interests and do not spill over into wider wars. But such fine calibrations are not easily done. War is sloppy and unpredictable. Though a nation’s plans may be well understood by its planners, calibration of what might push the enemy too far and cause a wider war depends equally on your enemy’s plans, calibrations, passions and red lines: all of which are harder to profile or understand.

The shallow triumph of Sinwar’s deathHis assassination doesn't rid Israel of its enemies

Giles Fraser

At dawn on 22 March, 2004, a half-blind paraplegic cleric was returning home after his prayers in the Mosque in Gaza City when he was assassinated by two low flying Israeli helicopters. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was the founder of Hamas, an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and its spiritual mentor. A few weeks later, Yassin’s successor, Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, was himself assassinated in his car by another Israeli helicopter. The head had been cut off the snake. Much comment at the time was given to the ethics of such targeted assassinations. The British Foreign Secretary at the time, Jack Straw, called the Yassin assassination "unacceptable, unjust". Tony Blair called it a "setback" for the peace process.

But, ethics aside, how effective was it as a military strategy? I was in Gaza city later that year. A new Hamas leader was in place. Militancy was undimmed.

Mercenaries of Influence: How Russian PMCs Redefined Power Projection

Eric J. Uribe

Russian use of hard power has been displayed on the global stage for nearly 20 years. Since the invasion of Georgia in 2008 and subsequent invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin’s apparent tool of choice in foreign policy has been military action and coercion through force. With the appearance of “little green men” in Crimea in 2014, the use of deniable means by the Russian government signaled a shift in the methods by which it sought to further its national interests. Among these methods, the Russian private military company (PMC) or сhastnaya voyennaya kompaniya (ЧВК) has grown in utility and effectiveness to achieve the objectives of the Russian government. The most overt actions of Russian PMCs often correlate with hard-power applications such as the use of Wagner PMC in combat for strategic cities in Ukraine and its use in Donbass in 2014-15. However, PMCs have become more than just a hammer for battlefield operations; they have become a critical component of the Kremlin’s “hybrid” or gray zone doctrine.

Since 2014, Russian PMCs have emerged as Russia’s most successful tool of soft power diplomacy, allowing the Kremlin to increase its influence and power across the globe by expanding alliances and partnerships, accessing resources and minerals, and challenging US interests abroad and in the Western Hemisphere. In Africa, the Middle East, and even Latin America PMCs have opened the door to bolster relationships and regional access by providing security services or security force assistance. In Africa, PMCs have enabled the Russian government to successfully convert positive Russian sentiment and approval into formal trading agreements, increasing the Kremlin’s grip on local natural resources. Finally, across the globe, Russian PMCs have undermined US interests. Chief amongst these are their operations in Latin America, which have given Russia a foothold in the American hemisphere, threatening the idea of US regional or even global hegemony.

Hybrid Threats and Grey Zone Conflict Symposium – The Challenge for Liberal Democracies

Mitt Regan & Aurel Sari

The idea of great power competition is now a prominent lens through which to view international relations. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine reminds us that such rivalry may take an intensely violent form. Large-scale conflict has not gone away. Most geopolitical competition today, however, takes the form of continuous contestation below the threshold of armed conflict, in which major States use various aggressive and sometimes coercive means to gain advantage and influence.

This post introduces a series based on our recent book, Hybrid Threats and Grey Zone Conflict: The Challenge to Liberal Democracies published with Oxford University Press.

Hybrid Threats and Grey Zone Conflict

The terms “hybrid threats” and “grey zone conflict” are the most common terms to describe this activity, but they focus on different dimensions of the phenomenon.

Hybrid threats refer to actions that involve combined efforts across multiple dimensions—political, cyber, disinformation, military, financial, and others—to harm a State by attacking its vulnerabilities through measures that are more hostile and aggressive than widely accepted forms of competition but are below the level of armed conflict.

How to Manage AI Big-Data Risks

Georgianna Shea & Zachary Daher

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer a science fiction fantasy—but AI systems are only as good as the code, training data, and algorithms used to create them. As AI continues transforming industries, understanding and addressing its inherent risks is paramount. What’s needed now is a robust framework to manage AI vulnerabilities. Cybersecurity is light years ahead of AI. By applying lessons learned from cybersecurity, effective strategies can be developed to ensure the responsible and trustworthy advancement of AI technologies.

That AI systems are only as good as their inputs—and, consequently, can do great damage—is indisputable. Consider, for instance, a scenario where an AI system designed to monitor water quality inadvertently underreports contaminants due to flawed training data. This could lead to entire communities consuming unsafe water, resulting in public health crises and loss of trust in technology and government.

The recent introduction of MIT’s AI risk repository offers a promising tool for categorizing and analyzing these threats. The repository serves as an invaluable resource. Aggregating hundreds of AI-associated threats across various environments and categorizing these risks based on their causes and natures—whether related to privacy, security, disinformation, or other concerns—enhances the probability of risk mitigation.

26 October 2024

The India-South Korea-US Triad’s Emerging Roles in the Indo-Pacific

SeungHwan (Shane) Kim and Shubhankar Agarwal

The United States and India inaugurated the U.S.-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) in January 2023. That was followed by the U.S.-South Korea Next Generation Critical and Emerging Technology Dialogue in December 2023. As a follow-up initiative, all three nations held their first inaugural trilateral technology dialogue in Seoul in March 2024. India, South Korea, and the United States were able to solidify their trilateral cooperation in various areas, including economic security, supply chain resiliency, and emerging technologies in the broader Indo-Pacific region.

There are various opportunities for this triangular dynamic that can foster innovation, enhance strategic alliances and partnerships, and benefit each of the three nations, even as certain challenges exist.

Military Cooperation

Trilateral defense cooperation between India, South Korea, and the U.S. aligns with strategic objectives in the Indo-Pacific to enhance collaboration among like-minded regional actors. In February 2022, the United States released its Indo-Pacific Strategy, highlighting the importance of strengthening security and upholding a free and open Indo-Pacific region. To achieve this, the U.S. supports a “strong India” and South Korea as key partners and allies in realizing this regional vision. Similarly, India advocates for a free, open, and rules-based Indo-Pacific through its vision of Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR), and South Korea reiterates a free, peaceful, and prosperous Indo-Pacific through its Indo-Pacific Strategy.

China Undermines Its Interests By Boosting Support For Myanmar’s Faltering Junta – Analysis

Zachary Abuza

China borders 14 countries, tied with Russia for the most in the world, and Beijing takes great pains to ensure the security of its interests and defend against conflicts from spilling over. Despite that, China’s Myanmar policy is based on faulty assumptions and is undermining its own interests.

China’s policy since the February 2021 coup – which Beijing simply labeled a change in government – has never been good. Nonetheless, it refrained from offering initial support for the State Administrative Council (SAC), as the junta formally calls itself, and put pressure on them not to ban the National League for Democracy, which they ultimately did in March 2023.

For the first two years, Beijing clearly hedged their bets. But since then, the Chinese have doubled down on the junta.

China continues to sell weapons, and there is evidence that Chinese technicians are working in Myanmar’s defense industries. There is clearly some technology sharing. A new shell designed for drone warfare is a copy of a Chinese-produced munition.

ASEAN Must Reform Or Face Decay – Analysis

Collins Chong Yew Keat

ASEAN has a long and rich history, but its main tenets and essence of its self-induced mantra of principles have many times failed to spark new confidence in bracing for the tough challenges to come.

The recently concluded ASEAN Summit and Related Summits in Vientiane have also portrayed the same old trappings within the entity and beyond exposing the deep lying structural and systemic loopholes and internal weaknesses that have over the decades slowed progress and frustrated many within and without, over the road not taken.

The division within ASEAN has weakened unity and collective resolve, giving other powers the advantage of dealing with member states individually rather than with ASEAN as a whole. Previous mechanisms, such as the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties (DoC) and efforts to accelerate the Code of Conduct (CoC) process, are seen as only preventive frameworks that establish guardrails and norms of behavior in the South China Sea. These mechanisms do not directly address the resolution of disputes but merely ensure that behaviours in the contested zones adheres to an agreed code of ethics and procedures, relying on the goodwill of involved states to follow norms and exercise self-restraint.

The CCP’s Two-Track Approach to AI Training

Joshua Levine

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has made clear its intention to become a world leader in developing and deploying artificial intelligence (AI) models. For now, the United States and American companies are still leaders in developing cutting-edge hardware and software to deliver ever-more-powerful AI models. Access to data, however, is an increasing concern for American AI developers, as lawsuits allege that analyzing copyrighted data as a part of model training infringes on copyright holder’s rights. In order to have competitive AI models and provide an alternative to China’s authoritarian vision, access to data and the freedom to train and further improve models within the United States will be paramount.

The Chinese government is taking a two-track approach to AI governance: aggressively regulate and control input data and outputs as it relates to public-facing generative models while imposing few, if any, restrictions on the development and deployment of models in enterprise, research, and military contexts.

The CCP’s approach to regulating AI training illustrates the dangers of letting China overtake the United States in AI development. In 2023, the Cybersecurity Administration of China (CAC) issued guidance outlining certain restrictions and rules for training generative AI models and providing them to the Chinese public, including guidance on the types of data that can be used to train a model, such as copyrighted information. The CCP’s National Information Security Standardization Technical Committee (NISSTC) recently released new draft regulations governing the development and use of generative AI. The updated regulations impose additional requirements on data used by model providers, such as requiring express consent for using copyrighted information, ensuring model outputs do not undermine core socialist values, and removing any data that includes obscenities or violence.

How Israel decimated Hamas and Hezbollah leadership in three months

Barak Ravid

One by one, Israel has tracked, targeted and eliminated the leadership of its greatest regional enemies in a sprawling decapitation operation with little precedent in modern history.

Why it matters: The killing of Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar this past week capped an astonishing three-month streak in which a succession of top Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, as well as several Iranian generals, were taken out by Israel.

The series of killings, a year after the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks, has dealt a crippling blow to the so-called "axis of resistance" Iran has been building, arming and funding for years.

While the death of Sinwar marked the most important symbolic victory, it was distinct in that it was not a targeted assassination — and not the product of a sophisticated operation or pinpoint secret intelligence.

Driving the news: One of Israel's top goals since the start of the war has been to kill the leaders of Hamas and any militants involved in the Oct. 7 attacks.

A special unit inside Israel's domestic intelligence service, the Shin Bet, was formed to do exactly that.
U.S. intelligence services and special operation units worked with the Israelis for months to hunt down Sinwar and his deputies, investing a huge amount of intelligence and operational resources.
Time and time again, the forces got close to Sinwar inside the Hamas tunnels in southern Gaza — but time and time again, he managed to evade them.

Israel will attack Iran – likely before October 31st, 2024.

Ken Robinson

There have been extreme rising tensions between Israel and Iran in October 2024, particularly over Iran's recent missile attacks against Israel.

Israel has long viewed Iran's nuclear ambitions as an existential threat and has considered striking key nuclear sites like the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and other strategic locations across Iran.

Following the series of missile attacks by Iran earlier in the month, Israel is weighing significant retaliatory actions, and might see this as their best "Just Cause” opportunity to attack the heart of Iran’s nuclear ambitions versus a proportional retaliatory strike against Iranian strategic infrastructure.

The US has recently delivered special munitions to Israel, while the world holds its breath.

Israel has the ability to attack Iran, but do they have the ability to achieve their strategic objective to cripple Iran? Likely not, without further US involvement in the Air Campaign - with days to go before a Presidential election.

Despite concerns about the wider regional consequences of such a strike, reports suggest Israel might still target nuclear-related sites in response to the escalating conflict.

Sinwar Is Dead. Hamas Is Very Much Alive.

Steven A. Cook

In 1948, Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmoud Fahmi al-Nuqrashi took the dramatic step of banning the Muslim Brotherhood, believing that if the group were dissolved, stability would return to his country. In the three years prior to that move, the Brotherhood had taken a leading role in fomenting riots, strikes, and violence, including the assassinations of a prime minister and a former finance minister.

Yet the ban on the Brotherhood produced more violence. Unmoored from their leader—Hassan al-Banna—armed cadres of Muslim Brothers took matters into their own hands in a vengeful spasm of violence, culminating in the assassination of Nuqrashi. The government responded by locking up thousands of Muslim Brothers, and in February 1949, Banna was assassinated in what was widely believed to be a government-sanctioned killing. Almost 76 years later, the Egyptian government is still trying to repress the group.

It has become cliche to say, “You cannot kill an idea.” Fair enough, but there is a finer point to this story: It is hard to kill your way out of the problem posed by a resistance movement. The committed do not get the message; they just redouble their efforts.

Lebanon feels it is being punished for a decision Hizbollah made - Opinion

KIM GHATTAS

A month after the start of Israel’s multipronged shock and awe military campaign against Hizbollah and Lebanon, the Lebanese are barely coming to grips with the enormity of what has befallen their country.

A quarter of Lebanon is now under Israeli evacuation orders. Almost a quarter of the population is on the move, sleeping in schools, on the street, in rented houses or hotel rooms — whatever they can find or afford. After two weeks of intense shelling of the densely populated southern suburbs of Beirut, there were a few quiet nights. But drones buzz loudly, incessantly over the city. The war rages on in the south and the Bekaa Valley. More than 2,300 people are dead, many of them women and children.

Whole towns have been razed to the ground. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to turn Lebanon into another Gaza and demanded that UN peacekeepers deployed in the south get out of the way. Meanwhile, the man who exerted a chokehold on Lebanon’s politics for two decades, adulated and hated in equal measures, Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hizbollah, is dead.

In this maelstrom, Lebanon faces multiple challenges. First, the social pressures are tremendous. The displacement of more than a million people from areas targeted by Israeli strikes has squished people against each other in different parts of the capital.

The ‘How’ over the ‘What:’ Israel’s dilemma beyond target selection in Iran

Janatan Sayeh

Israel’s war cabinet has reportedly agreed on what Iranian targets to strike in response to Iran’s October 1 missile attack. So, the question now is what method Israel will employ to carry out the attacks to effectively deter Tehran without escalating this battle into a full-scale war. In doing so, Israel has two choices: either publicly demean the regime or launch a series of covert attacks, and the latter is less likely to provoke Tehran’s retaliation.

After a series of meetings with US officials, Israel has reportedly reassured Washington that its upcoming response to the Islamic Republic will target the regime’s “military and intelligence” infrastructure. In contrast, an attack on Iranian oil facilities would have major repercussions for the global economy, a concern shared by both the United States and Iran’s Gulf Arab neighbors. Fearing the possibility of an all-out war, the Biden administration also allegedly discouraged Israel from targeting Iranian nuclear infrastructure. Washington and Jerusalem seemed to have reached a compromise where Israel’s response would avoid striking nuclear and oil sites while the US supplies Israel with the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile system.

Iran’s Ballistic Missile Gift to Russia—And Vice Versa

Behnam Ben Taleblu

After two years of warnings that Iran was planning to supply missiles to Russia, the other shoe has dropped. Tehran has finally provided Moscow with Fath-360 close-range ballistic missiles (CRBMs), marking the Islamic Republic’s first-ever proliferation of missiles to the European continent. While the Fath-360 does not give Russia much in the way of new capability, it does pad Moscow’s missile stocks and complement Russia’s existing capabilities. The missile deal is also a harbinger of tighter Russo-Iranian ties, whose ramifications may extend well beyond Europe.

Missile Delivery

On September 10, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the U.S. Treasury Department confirmed that Iran had provided Fath-360 CRBMs to Russia. “Dozens of Russian military personnel have been trained in Iran” to operate the Fath-360 system, Blinken said. According to the Treasury, the training occurred in the summer of 2024 pursuant to a contract signed in “late 2023” for the delivery of “hundreds of missiles,” and the first shipment had arrived “as of early September.” Various media outlets, citing unnamed Ukrainian officials, reported that Russia received more than 200 Fath-360 missiles.

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