Africa-India Ties: The Continent’s Next Big Relationship or Over-Hyped?

Barnaby Joseph Dye and Punkhuri Kumar

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As India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi embraced the African Union’s then-chair, Comoros’ President Azali Assoumani, at last year’s G-20 summit in New Delhi, a number of commentaries touted India-Africa relations as the next big thing. India, during its presidency of the G-20, styled itself as representing the Global South, asserting Africa’s voice and rights.

One year on, where does the relationship stand?

Far from displaying signs of a rapid take-off, ties between continent and country are bumpy, with considerable barriers preventing opportunities from being seized. This will only change when, or if, New Delhi is able to increase governmental capacity to boost political ties and development cooperation.

The Case That Africa-India Ties Will Blossom

During New Delhi’s extravagant hosting of the G-20, India proclaimed itself a leader of the Global South, particularly by drawing on its strong relations with Africa. This helps India explain its importance on the global stage, adding weight to New Delhi’s calls for global governance reform.

Bad news for India, Russia and US as China's new HQ-19 defense system to challenge THAAD, S-400, it can...

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In a concerning development for India, China is working relentlessly to strengthen and advance its military power. At the 15th Zhuhai Aerospace Show, China will unveil its new air defense system, the HQ-19, to the world. The show will start from November 12. The latest system is being compared to many advanced systems of the world like United States' like THAAD and Russia's S-400. The capabilities of this modern system have raised concerns in countries like the United States and India.

The HQ-19 has the capability to intercept multi-level attacks, which could make it highly effective in wartime situations, according to Chinese state media 'Global Times.'

Here are some of the capabilities of HQ-19:

• The HQ-19 can intercept multi-level attacks, which could make it highly effective in wartime situations
• The HQ-19 uses a "hit-to-kill" technology similar to the U.S. THAAD system
• These systems can identify and destroy enemy ballistic missiles mid-air.
• If this technology proves to be as effective as claimed, it could significantly impact the global security equation.

The THAAD was developed by the United States to address the rising threats in the Middle East and strengthen Israel's security system. Meanwhile, China's new system has sparked heated discussions among India's defense experts as well.

Review – India’s Near East

Prashant Singh

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The sudden collapse of the Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh on 5 August evoked a mixed emotion of surprise, anger, and worry in India. However, what’s missing from the discourse is a sense of introspection of India’s neighbourhood policy, especially its troubled eastern flank. This is where Avinash Paliwal’s latest book, India’s Near East, fills the void by exploring the contours of India’s near east policy in terms of protection of its territorial integrity, protection of Hindu minorities and management of ethnic conflicts in its periphery which are the very same issues that concerned the Indian intelligentsia and establishment in the post-Hassina era. Thus, the book gives the reader a glimpse of India’s trials and tribulations in its near east over seven decades in a descriptive rather than prescriptive manner.

The book is divided into three parts and ten chapters, each covering India’s particular approach to its near east, i.e., solidarity, security, and connectivity, chronologically. The solidarity part covers the 1947-1970 period and describes how India deals with the aftermath of partition and the initiation of ethnic insurgencies in its near east. The security part focuses on the 1971-1990 period. It covers the Bangladesh liberation war, the assassination of leaders like Sheikh Mujib and Jia Ur Rahman, and India’s support of pro-democracy elements inside Myanmar. The last part, i.e., connectivity, covers the 1990-2024 period and describes how India calibrated its near east policy to adjust to new realities of economic liberalization and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The Next Dalai Lama: Preparing for Reincarnation and Why It Matters to India

Vijay Gokhale

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Introduction

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama is eighty-nine years of age. He has been living in exile since 1959. He assures his followers that he will live for several more years, possibly until he is 113.1 Since the early 1980s, there have been attempts by the Dalai Lama to reconcile with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Thus far, these efforts have not borne fruit. Although a reconciliation in the future that might permit him to return to Tibet cannot be ruled out, the likelihood of this happening appears to be remote. He could likely pass away in exile. In 2022, he said that he would prefer to die in a free and democratic country like India rather than be surrounded by Chinese officials at the time of his death.2

As a Living Buddha, he is expected to reincarnate, but the question of his succession remains shrouded in uncertainty since the current Dalai Lama has forewarned of the possibility that the line might end with him. He has also indicated at various times that he might reincarnate outside Tibet. The PRC, which has ruled Tibet since 1950, says there will be a successor to the 14th Dalai Lama and that the next incarnation will be born inside China and approved by the Chinese government.

Taiwan Sees a Higher Price for U.S. Support as Trump Returns to Power

Chris Buckley and Amy Chang Chien

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In 2016, Taiwan’s president called Donald J. Trump to congratulate him after he won the presidential election. Mr. Trump took the call, becoming the first American president or president-elect to speak to a Taiwanese leader in decades.

This time, after Mr. Trump won a second term in the White House, Taiwan was quick to deny reports that its current leader, Lai Ching-te, was seeking a similar phone call with the president-elect.

The contrast was telling.

Taiwan appears to be preparing for a more delicate, possibly testy, relationship with Mr. Trump upon his return to the White House. On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump had suggested that Taiwan should pay the United States for helping defend the island from China, and complained that Taiwan had stolen America’s business in semiconductors.

“There is more anxiety this time” in Taiwan about Mr. Trump’s taking office, Chen Ming-chi, a former senior adviser on Taiwan’s National Security Council, said in an interview.

Perhaps It Would Be Better If Myanmar’s Civil War Became A ‘Forgotten Conflict’ – Analysis

David Hutt

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It’s become fashionable in some quarters to suggest the three-year-old Myanmar civil war might be solvable if only more people remembered that it was taking place.

Julie Bishop, a former Australian foreign minister appointed the UN Special Envoy on Myanmar in April, recently gave her first address to a UN General Assembly committee, in which she warned that “the Myanmar conflict risks becoming a forgotten crisis.”

One might enquire by whom this conflict is apparently becoming “forgotten.”

One can hardly say with a straight face that it has been forgotten by the 54 million people of Myanmar, nor by the 3.1 million people who have been displaced, nor the million or so Rohingya who must still live in hell-hole refugee camps abroad because they know the military junta wants to finish the genocide it started years ago.

The Chinese Approach to Gray Zone & Irregular Competition

Monte Erfourth

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Introduction

China's approach to Irregular Warfare (IW) is integral to its broader military and geopolitical strategy, designed to complement conventional forces and expand influence through non-kinetic means. China is weaving an irregular strategy that extends beyond traditional battlegrounds into the social, economic, and informational realms by leveraging information, influence, and non-state actors. China calls IW “Hybrid Warfare,” but we will use IW interchangeably in this discussion.

To confuse matters even more, the U.S. refers to the realm between peace and war as the gray zone. In contrast to China’s ambiguous and integrated approach to competition short of conflict, the U.S. approach to IW and gray zone activities has often been compartmentalized, focusing heavily on Special Operations Forces (SOF) and a mixed bag of diplomatic, economic, and informational conventional tools. U.S. intelligence services likely have the most success exploiting the gray zone, but they must be better coordinated and revelatory about the effects. A U.S. and China comparison of gray zone approaches shows significant differences in the scope, patience, and flexibility between the two nations, with China embracing a more diverse and integrated approach.

The United States should revise its gray zone strategy to counter China and effectively advance and protect its national security interests within the context of Great Power Competition. This article aims to enhance understanding of Beijing's perspective on Irregular Warfare (IW), including its historical context and the application of IW operations in the gray zone. A comparison between the two approaches will demonstrate the need for strategic adaptation in the U.S. approach.

The Hamas-Hezbollah-Iran-UN Axis Of Evil – OpEd

Paul Driessen

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Incredibly few Palestinian civilian casualties in Israel’s war of survival – yet only Israel is condemned

On October 7, 2023, Hamas butchered 1,200 innocent people, maimed 5,400, kidnapped 250, and drove tens of thousands out of southern Israeli towns. The next day, to show solidarity with Hamas, Hezbollah began launching rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel, driving 80,000 from their homes.

Israel’s war rages on, against Hamas and Hezbollah, ISIS, Houthis and their Iranian theocracy puppet masters. It is a conflict that Israel did not start and did not want, a war for the Jewish state’s very survival. It was preceded by suicide bombings and other deadly attacks by Palestinians going back many decades.

Hamas leader Sinwar is now dead. So are Hezbollah leader Nasrallah, his successor, the successor’s replacement, his successor and dozens of other top terrorists. But Hezbollah still demands “appropriate and suitable” terms for ending the conflict.

By the numbers: US missile capacity depleting fast

Mike Fredenburg

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Regardless of the merits or demerits of the Biden administration’s policies on the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the wider Middle East, it has become clear that the United States has been using and giving away its missiles faster than it can produce them.

It is also clear that from the perspective of missile inventories and production, the United States is far from prepared to engage confidently in a sustained direct conflict with a peer competitor like China.

This is demonstrated by the fact that U.S. missile and artillery shell reserves are currently inadequate to provide Ukraine with what it needs to keep its missile defense systems supplied with interceptors. Indeed, the inability of the United States and its NATO allies to provide enough air defense missiles — a.k.a. interceptors — has made it easier for Russia to attack and destroy key military targets, as well as cripple Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

This missile deficit parallels the well-documented lack of U.S. artillery shell production that has enabled Russia to increase the rate at which it’s taking control over territories in Ukraine today.

An Army general’s final ‘walk’ at the Tomb of the Unknowns

Matt White

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At exactly 10 p.m. on the warm, last night of May, Maj. Gen. William Zana received his orders and began his final guard shift on the smooth marble stone plaza at the center of Arlington National Cemetery. In two hours it would be midnight, a new day and new month. A new guard would relieve him at his post, he would march off the plaza and suddenly, instantly, be a civilian.

But for the final two hours of his 37-year career, Zana wanted one last chance to stand a shift he had held as a young sergeant: keeping watch over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

“I was Pvt. Zana when I showed up to the Old Guard,” Zana told Task & Purpose.“You know, all of us who raise our right hand and serve, there’s things that define you. First combat tour, first loss of personnel. For me, volunteering for and serving at the Tomb was absolutely both defining and shaping.”

In the early 1990s, Zana served for two years as a Sentinel, as fully qualified Tomb Guards are known, leaving in March 1991 for the Virginia National Guard. He earned a commission and over the next three decades led units in combat as an infantry officer and, later, led joint task forces as a general, including as the commander of Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa in Djibouti. He retired as the National Guard Bureau’s director of strategic plans and policy and international affairs at the Pentagon.

50,000 Russian and North Korean Troops Mass Ahead of Attack, U.S. Says

Julian E. BarnesEric Schmitt and Michael Schwirtz

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The Russian military has assembled a force of 50,000 soldiers, including North Korean troops, as it prepares to begin an assault aimed at reclaiming territory seized by Ukraine in the Kursk region of Russia, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials.

A new U.S. assessment concludes that Russia has massed the force without having to pull soldiers out of Ukraine’s east — its main battlefield priority — allowing Moscow to press on multiple fronts simultaneously.

Russian troops have been clawing back some of the territory that Ukraine captured in Kursk this year. They have been attacking Ukrainian positions with missile strikes and artillery fire, but they have not yet begun a major assault there, U.S. officials said.

Ukrainian officials say they expect such an attack involving the North Korean troops in the coming days.

For now, the North Koreans are training with Russian forces in the far western part of Kursk.

Trump on Day 1: Begin deportation push, pardon Jan. 6 rioters and make his criminal cases vanis

COLLEEN LONG AND DAN MERICA

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Donald Trump has said he wouldn’t be a dictator — “except for Day 1.” According to his own statements, he’s got a lot to do on that first day in the White House.

His list includes starting up the mass deportation of migrants, rolling back Biden administration policies on education, reshaping the federal government by firing potentially thousands of federal employees he believes are secretly working against him, and pardoning people who were arrested for their role in the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill,” he said of his Day 1 plans.

When he took office in 2017, he had a long list, too, including immediately renegotiating trade deals, deporting migrants and putting in place measures to root out government corruption. Those things didn’t happen all at once.

How many executive orders in the first week? “There will be tens of them. I can assure you of that,” Trump’s national press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told Fox News on Sunday.

Yesterday’s, Today’s, and Tomorrow’s Small Wars

Kerry Chavez & Rick Newton

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Small wars are far more common than large-scale combat operations. Indeed, they are the venue where great powers clash while carefully avoiding crossing the threshold into total war. They are also more diverse, and therefore harder to study systematically. We agree with SWJ’s animus that, for better or worse, regardless of how difficult or distasteful, small wars are an enduring feature of modern politics. The United States (US) and its allies must be prepared to fight and win them just as much as major theater war. This held true during the long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and it holds true now as leaders shift focus to great power competition. All along, SWJ has refused to look away from these constant currents that lie barely beneath the surface of what has been securitized and deemed salient.

War is Nuanced

Encompassing a hefty portion of the continuum of competition and conflict, studying small wars is no small task. We commend SWJ for spotlighting this less sensational segment of the spectrum of war. Even more, however, the journal’s most inspiring contribution has been to dimensionalize small wars and bring attention to their breadth and depth across the various analytical frameworks employed to ensure all elements of national power receive proportionate consideration (DIMEFIL – diplomacy, information, military, economic, financial, intelligence, law enforcement; PMESII – political, military, economic, social, information, infrastructure; ASCOPE – areas, structures, capabilities, organizations, people, events; etc.).

‘America First’ and Threading the Needle on Tech Sovereignty

Corey Lee Bell and Elena Collinson

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Donald Trump’s return to the White House is expected to usher in a raft of changes to the United States’ foreign policy posture. But there is at least one area in which the Republican president-elect is in agreement with the Democratic incumbent, Joe Biden: Both believe that China constitutes the nation’s primary great power rival.

For both the Biden administration and the first Trump administration (2017-2021), one of the pivotal tasks for meeting this challenge has been to retain or extend U.S. supremacy in relation to the design and production of certain critical technologies including, but not limited to, those that have dual military and non-military applications. However, how the United States should go about this has been the subject of markedly differing strategies.

Key among them, and the subject of considerable attention, has been the two leaders’ respective approaches to green energy technologies.

Big Sneaker Brands Promised a 3D-Printed Revolution. These Are the Disrupters Making It Happen

Carlton Reid

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Though additive manufacturing wouldn’t exist for another 40 years, the prolific American sci-fi author Murray Leinster penned a 1945 short story featuring a spookily prescient description of what we now know as 3D printing.

As Leinster’s hero, Dirk Braddick, races to face an alien invader, he instructs a robotic arm to form, layer by iterative layer, a workshop spaceship. “The plastic constructor worked tirelessly,” describes Braddick. “It makes drawings in the air following drawings it scans with photo-cells. But plastic comes out of the end of the drawing arm and hardens as it comes. This thing will start at one end of a ship and build it complete to the other end.”

Braddick’s spaceship took more than 24 hours to form, or just a little longer than the time it takes today to spit out a highly complex sneaker from a fused deposition modeling (FDM) 3D printer. Some of these 3D-printed sneakers look and feel like injection-molded Crocs. But they can also be printed in one piece with a stiff, grippy sole, a stretchy, textile-like, breathable upper, and a midsole with an internal lattice mesh and optimized zones of density, providing tuned bounce and support.

Donald Trump Isn’t the Only Chaos Agent

Steven Levy

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Eight years ago, the November US election results profoundly shocked the small staff at Backchannel, the boutique tech publication I headed. The morning after, an editor posted on our Slack that working on a technology story seemed tone-deaf, if not futile. On a plane from New York to San Francisco, I wrote a column to answer that impulse, directed as much to myself and my colleagues as it was to readers. I argued that regardless of the enormity of this event, one thing hadn’t changed; the biggest story of our time was still the technological revolution we were living through. Disruptive politicians, even destructive ones, may come and go—or refuse to go. But the chip, the network, the mobile device, and all they entailed were changing humanity, and maybe what it will mean to be human. Our job was to chronicle that epic transformation, no matter who was politically in charge. The headline of my column was “The iPhone Is Bigger Than Donald Trump.”

This week, Trump was once again elected president despite … oh hell, I won’t go through the litany of what would seem to be slam-dunk disqualifiers. You’ve heard it all, and to the majority of voters it doesn’t matter. It’s an unbelievable story, and the next few years will undoubtedly be the stuff of history. Maybe not in a good way. Maybe in a very bad way for a country where many expected to celebrate its continuing values on America's 250th birthday. (In the spirit of unity, I’ll use the “maybe” qualifier since losers should be humble, and who knows what’s ahead.)

Trump Won’t Bring Radical Change to US Foreign Policy in Asia

Vivek N.D.

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Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 US presidential election has reignited global discussions on US foreign policy, especially toward Asia. As a region marked by geopolitical tensions and economic dynamism, Asia is central to US strategy, which will continue to be shaped by the ongoing US-China rivalry, North Korea’s nuclear capabilities, and the need to secure strong partnerships with allies like Japan, South Korea, and India. Trump’s return to the presidency has prompted concerns and speculation that his “America First” approach might lead to shifts in US policies. However, while Trump’s tone and tactics may differ from his predecessor, the underlying direction of US foreign policy in Asia is unlikely to see major changes.

This continuity is largely due to the bipartisan consensus that has taken root over recent administrations, emphasizing the need to counterbalance China’s growing influence and maintain stability in the Indo-Pacific. Both Democratic and Republican leaders have increasingly viewed Asia as central to US strategic interests, a perspective that has become entrenched within national security and foreign policy institutions. Trump’s campaign rhetoric and policy statements reflect a clear commitment to shared strategic goals, signaling a continuity in objectives, even though his administration may pursue them with a more assertive approach, especially in trade and economic policies.

Welcome to the American petrostate

Michael E. Mann

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The United States is now a failed Democratic state. With the reelection of Donald Trump, a candidate who has flaunted his desire for autocracy—aided and abetted by a Republican-controlled Congress that will not constrain him with guardrails—the United States is now poised to become an authoritarian state ruled by plutocrats and fossil fuel interests. It is now, in short, a petrostate.

The oligarchs who control the Republican party do not intend to waste valuable time—as they did during Trump’s first term—in implementing their fossil fuel-driven agenda. They already have a blueprint—Project 2025—ready to go on day one, which will gut government agencies and programs focused on renewable energy and climate action and double down on fossil fuel infrastructure and production.

What does this mean for global climate action, on the eve of the 29th UN Conference of the Parties (COP29) to be held next week in Baku, Azerbaijan (yes, a petrostate), following yet another devastating summer of record heat waves, droughts, and wildfires and a devastating Atlantic hurricane season that continues on into November?

What to expect from Trump’s second term: more erratic, darker, and more dangerous

François Diaz-Maurin

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Those who managed to see Trump’s strategic plan for the country through the smoke screen of his brash and boisterous campaign should feel privileged. But most of us—including myself—are still trying to figure out what to make of Trump’s nationalist and isolationist grumbling in his off-script rallies, and whether he’ll stick to a Project 2025 template that the candidate distanced himself from during the campaign, but now his supporters say is the agenda.

The uncertainty does not exist only in the United States. Officials and analysts the world over wonder what Trump’s “peace through strength” approach means, and what they should expect from an erratic and unpredictable president-elect who may not have a concrete plan—or even “the concept of a plan”—for dealing with allies and adversaries.

Will Israel feel emboldened to extend its war to the Middle East? Should Europe worry about the United States reducing, or even ending, military aid to Ukraine? Should China prepare for a new confrontation with Washington? These are only a few of the many questions that have emerged from this year’s US presidential election outcome.

Evolving Challenges, Enduring Principles

Sheena Greitens

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I’m delighted to write this introduction as the new editor in chief of the Texas National Security Review. I write this having just returned to the University of Texas at Austin from a conference at the U.S. Army War College, where I am a visiting faculty member working this year on projects related to China and Indo-Pacific security. It’s a privilege that reminds me, on a regular basis, of the stakes of getting major questions of national and international security right — questions that are a big part of the reason I am both excited and daunted to take up this new role with the journal.

A few months ago, TNSR’s board chair, Frank Gavin, wrote an introduction that he titled, “What Exactly Are We Doing?”1 This issue seems like a good time to revisit that question — both in the broader sense of America’s approach to national security after the 2024 election, and in the sense of what the role is for an academic journal like TNSR today.

By the time this issue (7.4) of the Texas National Security Review appears in print, the November 2024 presidential election will have come and gone, and readers in both the United States and worldwide should have more information about where America is headed in its foreign policy and national security strategy for the next four years. (I say “should,” recognizing full well that it can be a foolhardy errand to prognosticate with any degree of confidence in advance of a major, albeit regular, inflection point in American domestic politics and foreign policy.)

Trump now faces 'out of control' conflict in the Middle East

Jonathan Hoffman

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President-elect Trump faces a tall order in the Middle East.

More than 13 months after Hamas’ terror attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, and Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon, there is no end in sight to the violence. The Middle East remains on the brink of full-scale, region-wide war, with the potential for direct U.S. involvement. The decision by Washington to place itself at the center of these conflicts is a symptom of a broader self-defeating U.S. Middle East policy.

To fix this, Trump should center U.S. Middle East policy on two chief objectives: disentanglement and deprioritization.

The most immediate issue in the Middle East is America’s deep involvement in Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon, and in the continued escalation between Israel and Iran.

From the very first days of the war in Gaza — and now, Lebanon — it was clear that Israel was in the driver’s seat, with the United States in tow. Washington’s regional strategy has been reactive in nature, often responding to developments with tepid warnings and empty threats while continuing to provide the arms, military aid, and diplomatic cover that allow Israel’s wars to continue.

What Trump Can Do for the Military

Gary Anderson

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Donald Trump correctly realized that this election was about domestic 'kitchen table" issues and not foreign policy or military readiness. He alluded to the fact that there was much wrong with the Pentagon and vowed to fix it. The voters were interested in other issues, and he did not have to go into details. Now that he is President-elect, he has an opportunity to fix what is wrong with the Pentagon while fulfilling his promise to reduce the size of government. Here are some ideas of how he can do it.

First, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has grown from a cottage industry in the Pentagon to a mega-juggernaut that produces nothing but resentment and a devastating impact on recruiting, particularly children of veterans. It will likely be high on the list of cuts on Elon Musk's efficiency task force agenda. The whole concept should be scrapped, and revert back to a merit-based promotion system for both service personnel and civilian employees.

The Biden administration, like many before it, attempted to turn the military into a social experimentation laboratory. Most of the red-blooded American men which the military needs do not want to participate in group self-deprecating seminars. They want to join an organization dedicated, if necessary, to locate, close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver, or repel the enemy assault by fire and close combat when the nation needs it. The Biden administration ignored this, and that is largely why we have a military recruiting problem.

The AI Machine Gun of the Future Is Already Here

Jared Keller

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Amid a rising tide of low-cost weaponized adversary drones menacing American troops abroad, the US military is pulling out all the stops to protect its forces from the ever-present threat of death from above. But between expensive munitions, futuristic but complicated directed energy weapons, and its own growing drone arsenal, the Pentagon is increasingly eyeing an elegantly simple solution to its growing drone problem: reinventing the gun.

At the Technology Readiness Experimentation (T-REX) event in August, the US Defense Department tested an artificial intelligence-enabled autonomous robotic gun system developed by fledgling defense contractor Allen Control Systems dubbed the “Bullfrog.”

Consisting of a 7.62-mm M240 machine gun mounted on a specially designed rotating turret outfitted with an electro-optical sensor, proprietary AI, and computer vision software, the Bullfrog was designed to deliver small arms fire on drone targets with far more precision than the average US service member can achieve with a standard-issue weapon like the M4 carbine or next-generation XM7 rifle. Indeed, footage of the Bullfrog in action published by ACS shows the truck-mounted system locking onto small drones and knocking them out of the sky with just a few shots.

Weaponising Memes: Reflections on Digital Propaganda

Mihaela-Georgiana Mihăilescu

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In today’s hyper-connected world, memes – those trivial and satirical messages – are anything but that. They have morphed into strategic tools of propaganda that shape opinions, spread ideologies, and, at times, disrupt social harmony, their appeal lying in their simplicity, making complex issues digestible for audiences worldwide. This evolution from humorous content to strategic tools of influence reveals profound implications for how societies communicate, perceive truth, and negotiate power in the digital age. Hence, we must ask ourselves: how do memes shape our beliefs and identities?

At the heart of memes’ influence is their capacity to distil complex ideologies into digestible messages that resonate emotionally and intuitively with audiences. Memes have become ideal vehicles for a form of psychological and ideological warfare. Hence, the meme becomes the weapon, influencing public thought through humour, satire, or fear. This perspective reframes the way we think about conflict in the digital era. Unlike traditional forms of warfare, which rely on physical force, memetic warfare operates on the cognitive level, using images and symbols to affect public opinion and sway ideological perspectives.

Army examining best approach to fight electronic warfare at echelon

Mark Pomerleau

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The Army is still determining how best to wage electronic warfare at echelon with various platforms.

A series of events will help officials determine what the concept of employment for EW will be at the division level and what programs of record will look like.

Those events included a tabletop exercise at Fort Eisenhower, Georgia, focused on how electronic warfare will be done at division and higher; an October Fires Symposium at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, examining how network, intelligence, cyber and EW will integrate into fires; a capabilities-based assessment for electromagnetic warfare conducted by the Cyber Capability Integration Directorate at the Cyber Center of Excellence in Augusta, Georgia, that will be completed over the next year; and a sensor-to-shooter event focused on challenges in the Indo-Pacific region and long-range precision fires at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

“We’re doing a deep dive on that now,” Col. Leslie Gorman, Army capability manager for electronic warfare, said in a recent interview regarding how the service is thinking about fighting electronic warfare at echelon and with what platforms. “I had a sit-down with some folks at the Pentagon yesterday. One of the things that came back was truly, what does that concept of employment look like at the division?”

In South Asia, Expect Continuity From Washington

Michael Kugelman

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The highlights this week: U.S. South Asia policy will likely have considerable continuity in Donald Trump’s second term, Indian firms and individuals are caught up in U.S. sanctions for Russian business connections, and Canada accuses Indian Home Minister Amit Shah of orchestrating a campaign against Sikh activists on its soil.

Inside China’s cognitive warfare strategy

Aleksandra Gadzala Tirziu

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Amid rising geopolitical tensions, much attention is being paid to the need to rebuild and revitalize Western defense industries, particularly in the United States and Europe. The growing threat of conflict with China, especially over Taiwan, has sharpened this focus. Chinese President Xi Jinping has made clear that China is preparing for “worst-case and extreme scenarios,” ready to face “high winds, choppy waters and even dangerous storms.” Its military is fast modernizing, with a shipbuilding capacity that outstrips that of the U.S. by a factor of 200, and a nuclear arsenal expanding faster than that of any other nation. Meanwhile, the U.S. lacks the shipyards needed to build and maintain its fleets, and Europe’s military capacity is weak, at best.

In this context, the Western preoccupation with bolstering its military hardware is understandable. Yet what such a focus overlooks is that, for Beijing, the true battlefield is not one of missiles or ships, but in the domains of information and cognitive warfare. People’s Liberation Army manuals describe cognitive warfare as its “fundamental function” and “the basis for the ability to accomplish military tasks.”

Soon after he took control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), President Xi urged China’s military to expand an “ideological concept of information warfare,” to spread Beijing’s preferred narratives and silence global dissent, as well as one of cognitive warfare, to shape the perceptions and behaviors of its adversaries.

I Study Guys Like Trump. There’s a Reason They Keep Winning.

Ben Rhodes

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In December 2019, I traveled to Hong Kong, where a heavy unease hung in the air. For months, young people had taken to the streets to protest the encroachment of the Chinese Communist Party on what was supposed to be a self-governing, democratic system. On walls they had scrawled: “Save Hong Kong! If we burn you burn with us!” All the protesters I spoke to knew their movement would fail; it was a last assertion of democratic identity before it was extinguished by a new order that saw democracy as the enemy within.

I met with a government official preparing to resign and told him I was writing a book about the rise of authoritarian nationalism. “The nationalism in the U.S. and Europe is somewhat different,” he told me. “Yours started with the financial crisis in 2008. That’s when liberalism started to lose its appeal, when people saw this wasn’t working. The narrative of liberalism and democracy collapsed. This spilled over into China, too. This is when China started to think — should we really follow a Western model?” We were sitting in a hotel lounge, the invisible forces he described surrounding us: capitalism, but not democracy; cultural elites cloistered away from the working class. “The nationalist movements in East and West were both a response to the collapse of the Western model,” he added.

Everything I’d experienced told me he was right. Eight years serving in the Obama White House after the financial crisis felt like swimming upstream, against the currents of global politics. A radicalized Republican Party rejected liberal democracy at home, mirroring far-right leaders like Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary who spoke about installing “illiberal democracy” (a polite term for “blood and soil” nationalism) across Europe. In Russia, Vladimir Putin set out to undermine — if not dismantle — the liberal order helmed by the United States. In China, Xi Jinping began to shift Beijing’s strategy from rising within that order to building a separate one, drained of democratic values. Barack Obama’s political skills and cultural appeal allowed him to navigate those currents, but they didn’t always transfer to other Democrats.

The National Security Imperative for a Trump Presidency

Kori Schake

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Most U.S. allies are sure to be worried by the choice Americans made on November 5. Many observers are confounded by voters’ willingness to roll the dice and reelect the intemperate Donald Trump as president. But Americans have long had an outsize risk tolerance, a characteristic that is integral to both the dynamism of the country’s economy and the vibrance of its society. As the poet Robert Pinsky wrote in 2002, American culture is “so much in process, so brilliantly and sometimes brutally in motion, that standard models for it fail to apply”—an analysis the election result only reaffirms.

Since his arrival a decade ago on the national political stage, Trump has broken the Republican Party and rebuilt it in his image. The GOP is no longer the party of figures such as Senator Mitt Romney and the late Senator John McCain (for whom I once worked), both of whom ran unsuccessful presidential bids on traditional Republican platforms. In their place are figures such as JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, and Josh Hawley, the Republican senator from Missouri, who hew more closely to Trump’s brand of populist politics. American voters delivered a resounding victory for this new brand of conservative leadership. It is right and proper that Trump now get a chance to enact the policies he campaigned on and the latitude to respond to events as they happen, supported by a cabinet and an executive-branch bureaucracy that are responsive to his direction. It is in the United States’ interest that its president succeed.

But making Trump’s presidency successful does not mean simply adopting his ideas wholesale. Any new administration needs to square its sweeping campaign rhetoric with the realities of market behavior, fiscal constraints, and the actions of U.S. adversaries. In Trump’s case, the former president’s unpredictable, even erratic approach to decision-making could lead to foreign policy choices that reduce American power and increase the risk of conflict. It is therefore especially important to find ways to pursue Trump’s goals while avoiding potential harm.

Pentagon officials discussing how to respond if Trump issues controversial orders

Natasha Bertrand and Haley Britzky

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Pentagon officials are holding informal discussions about how the Department of Defense would respond if Donald Trump issues orders to deploy active-duty troops domestically and fire large swaths of apolitical staffers, defense officials told CNN.

Trump has suggested he would be open to using active-duty forces for domestic law enforcement and mass deportations and has indicated he wants to stack the federal government with loyalists and “clean out corrupt actors” in the US national security establishment.

Trump in his last term had a fraught relationship with much of his senior military leadership, including now-retired Gen. Mark Milley who took steps to limit Trump’s ability to use nuclear weapons while he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The president-elect, meanwhile, has repeatedly called US military generals “woke,” “weak” and “ineffective leaders.”

Officials are now gaming out various scenarios as they prepare for an overhaul of the Pentagon.

“We are all preparing and planning for the worst-case scenario, but the reality is that we don’t know how this is going to play out yet,” one defense official said.

Trump’s election has also raised questions inside the Pentagon about what would happen if the president issued an unlawful order, particularly if his political appointees inside the department don’t push back.

“Troops are compelled by law to disobey unlawful orders,” said another defense official. “But the question is what happens then – do we see resignations from senior military leaders? Or would they view that as abandoning their people?”

Democracy Without America?

Larry Diamond

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Since the beginning of this historic “year of elections” worldwide, it was apparent that none would be more important in shaping global democratic prospects than the presidential contest in the United States. Across a broad span of countries and partisan leanings, people who value freedom, democracy, and the rule of law—including leaders of government, opposition parties, civic activists, businesspersons, journalists, or ordinary citizens—watched with growing trepidation as political polarization intensified in the United States and Donald Trump drew closer to retaking the White House. With Trump’s decisive victory in the election, these admirers of the long arc of the United States’ democratic journey, if not necessarily all its global policies, now fear what might come next for the country and, by extension, democracies across the world.

The rise of autocratic regimes across the world over the last decade and a half has put democrats on high alert. In the last year, successful efforts to beat back antidemocratic movements and governments have provided some indication that this protracted “democratic recession” could be reversed. But Trump’s victory has dealt a blow to these hopes. His triumph in the Electoral College and the popular vote leaves democratic friends and allies of the United States wondering: Will a Trump presidency demand more burden-sharing from them, or even abandon them altogether? And will the United States remain a liberal democracy, or will its institutions gradually erode beyond recognition or repair?

Early analysis of the election results suggests that Trump’s victory was more attributable to issues like the economy and immigration rather than an endorsement of his autocratic tendencies. And yet whatever the reason Americans may have had for supporting Trump, his campaign made it clear that he will be unencumbered by any global checks on his and his administration’s antidemocratic impulses. As has been the case in other backsliding democracies in the last decade, the defense of democratic norms in the United States will therefore depend on the actions of other leaders of government and society in Congress, state and local governments, the civil service, the armed forces and local police, business, civic institutions, and perhaps most of all, the courts. Their success or failure in upholding the Constitution and the rule of law will heavily determine global democracy’s outlook in the coming years.

Analysis: Trump election win could add 4bn tonnes to US emissions by 2030

Multiple Authors 

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A victory for Donald Trump in November’s presidential election could lead to an additional 4bn tonnes of US emissions by 2030 compared with Joe Biden’s plans, Carbon Brief analysis reveals.

This extra 4bn tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) by 2030 would cause global climate damages worth more than $900bn, based on the latest US government valuations.

For context, 4GtCO2e is equivalent to the combined annual emissions of the EU and Japan, or the combined annual total of the world’s 140 lowest-emitting countries.

Put another way, the extra 4GtCO2e from a second Trump term would negate – twice over – all of the savings from deploying wind, solar and other clean technologies around the world over the past five years.

If Trump secures a second term, the US would also very likely miss its global climate pledge by a wide margin, with emissions only falling to 28% below 2005 levels by 2030. The US’s current target under the Paris Agreement is to achieve a 50-52% reduction by 2030.

Carbon Brief’s analysis is based on an aggregation of modelling by various US research groups. It highlights the significant impact of the Biden administration’s climate policies. This includes the Inflation Reduction Act – which Trump has pledged to reverse – along with several other policies.

The findings are subject to uncertainty around economic growth, fuel and technology prices, the market response to incentives and the extent to which Trump is able to roll back Biden’s policies.

The analysis might overstate the impact Trump could have on US emissions, if some of Biden’s policies prove hard to unpick – or if subnational climate action accelerates.

What Trump’s Victory Means for Climate Change

Coral Davenport and Lisa Friedman

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The fight against climate change has taken a body blow with the election of Donald J. Trump, who calls global warming a “scam” and has promised to erase federal efforts to reduce the pollution that is heating the planet.

Mr. Trump told a jubilant crowd Wednesday that the United States, which signed a global agreement last year to transition away from fossil fuels, will instead amp up oil production even beyond current record levels. “We have more liquid gold than any country in the world,” said the president-elect, who won with substantial financial support from the oil and gas industry. “More than Saudi Arabia. We have more than Russia.”

But Mr. Trump’s zeal to repeal the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the landmark climate law that is pouring more than $390 billion into electric vehicles, batteries and other clean energy technology, will quickly face a political test.

Roughly 80 percent of the money spent so far has flowed to Republican congressional districts, where lawmakers and business leaders want to protect that investment and the jobs they bring.

And voters in some states approved policies to fight climate change, setting up tension between states that want to accelerate climate action and an incoming federal administration that intends to slow it down.

In Washington State, voters upheld an ambitious new law to force polluters to cap their fossil fuel emissions. In California, voters backed a ballot initiative to create a $10 billion “climate bond” for climate and environmental projects.

The US is about to make a sharp turn on climate policy

Casey Crownhartarchive page

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In the days leading up to the election, I kept thinking about what four years means for climate change right now. We’re at a critical moment that requires decisive action to rapidly slash greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants, transportation, industry, and the rest of the economy if we’re going to achieve our climate goals.

The past four years have seen the US take climate action seriously, working with the international community and pumping money into solutions. Now, we’re facing a period where things are going to be very different. A Trump presidency will have impacts far beyond climate, but for the sake of this newsletter, we’ll stay focused on what four years means in the climate fight as we start to make sense of this next chapter.

Joe Biden arguably did more to combat climate change than any other American president. One of his first actions in office was rejoining the Paris climate accord—Trump pulled out of the international agreement to fight climate change during his first term in office. Biden then quickly set a new national goal to cut US carbon emissions in half, relative to their peak, by 2030.

The Environmental Protection Agency rolled out rules for power plants to slash pollution that harms both human health and the climate. The agency also announced new regulations for vehicle emissions to push the country toward EVs.

And the cornerstone of the Biden years has been unprecedented climate investment. A trio of laws—the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act—pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into infrastructure and research, much of it on climate.

Musk Believes in Global Warming. Trump Doesn’t. Will That Change?

Brad Plumer

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Elon Musk has described himself as “pro-environment” and “super pro climate.” But he also threw himself wholeheartedly into electing as president someone who has dismissed global warming as a hoax.

Now, as President-elect Donald J. Trump prepares to enter the White House, one big question is how much sway — if any — Mr. Musk’s views on climate change and clean energy might have in the new administration.

During the campaign, Mr. Trump noticeably softened his rhetoric on electric vehicles as he grew more friendly with Mr. Musk, the billionaire chief executive of Tesla. After months of bashing plug-in cars and promising to halt their sales, Mr. Trump backtracked slightly this summer.

“I’m constantly talking about electric vehicles, but I don’t mean I’m against them. I’m totally for them,” he told a crowd in Michigan. “I’ve driven them and they are incredible, but they’re not for everybody.”

At the time, Mr. Musk claimed credit for Mr. Trump’s apparent shift, telling Tesla shareholders at a June meeting, “I can be persuasive.” Referring to Mr. Trump, he said, “A lot of his friends now have Teslas, and they all love it. And he’s a huge fan of the Cybertruck. So I think those may be contributing factors.”

Now Mr. Musk, who spent election night at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and posed for a group photograph with the president-elect’s family, is expected to have a direct line to the White House in the coming months. Mr. Musk’s companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, already make billions from government contracts and federal policies, and he is expected to seek additional advantages for his businesses.