Indian Strategic Studies

10 December 2024

IT’S EASY TO GET LOST: THE TEMPTATION OF OVERRELIANCE ON TECHNOLOGY

Carlos Peña

In adopting technology, we need a balanced approach in training that enhances both technological proficiency and fundamental skills.

Consider the challenges in conducting anti-drug operations in Mexico. Officers often operate in rugged terrain, tasked with locating and destroying drug plantations before safely returning to their base. Moreover, they need to maintain unit cohesion to fend off potential attacks by criminals. Essential to their mission is the skill of land navigation. Therefore, officers have increasingly turned to Global Positioning System (GPS) technology. However, reliance on such devices presents risks. Should officers lose their GPS device, damage it, or deplete its battery, they might find it difficult to navigate back through challenging terrain because they are less skilled and experienced using only traditional methods like maps and compasses.

This simple example is illustrative of a broader problem, a dependency on technology that leads to the loss of basic skills which can lead to disaster when technology fails. In adopting technology, we need a balanced approach in training that enhances both technological proficiency and fundamental skills. A strong warfighting culture ensures that soldiers possess the skills and knowledge necessary to perform tasks manually should technology fail. However, commanders often face time constraints that prevent them from incorporating this type of training into their plans. This leads to a potential overreliance on technology, creating a significant vulnerability for any army.

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and robotics into modern warfare is a topic that both fascinates and concerns many. These technologies are reshaping the very fabric of military strategy and operations, potentially redefining what it means to engage in war—a contest traditionally viewed as a test of human will and endurance.

As we delve into the dual role of AI in warfare, it’s essential to consider its impact. AI not only assists in making quicker, more informed decisions but also coordinates hybrid teams, integrating drones and robots with human warfighters to execute complex missions. This synergy mirrors the historical evolution of warfare, from the adaptation to gunpowder to the strategic deployment of nuclear weapons, where each technological leap has offered a new combat advantage.

Wars drove global arms sales to $632bn in 2023: SIPRI

Wars, ongoing conflicts and rising tensions have driven sales of arms and military services by the world’s 100 largest companies to $632bn in 2023, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) report.

This represents a 4.2% real-terms increase compared to 2022. Arms revenues rose across all regions, with significant growth observed among companies in Russia and the Middle East. Smaller producers were notably quicker to meet the increased demand driven by the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, escalating tensions in East Asia, and rearmament efforts in various regions.

SIPRI military expenditure and arms production programme researcher Lorenzo Scarazzato said: “There was a marked rise in arms revenues in 2023, and this is likely to continue in 2024. The arms revenues of the Top 100 arms producers still did not fully reflect the scale of demand, and many companies have launched recruitment drives, suggesting they are optimistic about future sales.”

In the US, 41 companies recorded arms revenues of $317bn, accounting for half of the total arms revenues. Although arms revenues for US companies have increased, they continue to face production challenges.

This was a 2.5% increase from 2022, despite companies such as Lockheed Martin and RTX experiencing a decline.

SIPRI military expenditure and arms production programme director Dr Nan Tian said: “Larger companies like Lockheed Martin and RTX manufacturing a wide range of arms products often depend on complex, multi-tiered supply chains, which made them vulnerable to lingering supply chain challenges in 2023. This was particularly the case in the aeronautics and missile sectors.”

9 December 2024

Mongolia Eyes India as Third Destination for Coal Exports

Bolor Lkhaajav

Mongolia and India are taking major steps to boost economic activities between Ulaanbaatar and New Delhi. Amid disruptions in Australian coal supplies to India, in tandem with Mongolia’s drive to diversify its export destinations, the two countries are embarking on a new deal that may create a new supply line from Mongolia to India.

In late November, the Mongolian and the Indian governments discussed what could be a major deal for both Ulaanbaatar and New Delhi: exports of coking coal, which is a critical raw material for India’s steel industry. The deal concerns two specific companies, JSW Steel and Steel Authority of India (SAIL), but if it succeeds it will pave the way for more companies to follow.

Currently in progress, the India-Mongolia preliminary pact would involve exporting “coal, copper, and transit of these minerals.” Given Mongolia’s landlocked position, the country’s economy requires strategic connectivity with its neighbors for the use of their trade ports. Mongolia’s exports to third destinations will need to transit through either Russia or China, and those logistics will be reflected in India’s cost-benefit analysis.

The Dollar Diplomacy We Need

ANDREW GALLUCCI

Amid the recent maelstrom of political news was an important development for the future of technology-enabled public money. During the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, the Bank for International Settlements revealed that it was withdrawing from the digital-asset and payments initiative Project mBridge.

Bangladesh’s Descent into Islamist Violence

BRAHMA CHELLANEY

In August, popular protests – and a harsh government crackdown – culminated in the military-backed ouster of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who lurched toward authoritarianism. But far from ushering in a democratic transition, the regime change has plunged Bangladesh into deeper turmoil, with mounting human-rights abuses and lawlessness by ascendant Islamist groups threatening to turn the country into yet another global flash point.

Hasina may have forsaken her democratic credentials once in power – in 1990, six years before she was first elected prime minister, she led the pro-democracy uprising that toppled Bangladesh’s military ruler – but the “iron lady” also kept both the powerful military and Islamist movements in check.

As South Asia has seen firsthand, military-backed regimes tend to crush anti-government protests, whereas militaries with unfulfilled ambitions might facilitate violent unrest to create a pretext to swoop in, seize power, and “restore order.” Bangladesh’s military refused to enforce a lockdown even as protesters rampaged through the streets, and as soon as Hasina was gone, it installed an interim administration. Tellingly, the military packed her off to India even before she could formally resign.

Europe in the line of fire as Trump threatens trade war with China

Camille Gijs, Barbara Moens and Giovanna Coi

BRUSSELS — Forget about Donald Trump’s tariffs against the EU. What terrifies Brussels are the tariffs he is threatening against China.

The U.S. president-elect campaigned on a pledge to impose tariffs of 10 to 20 percent on all imports — and singled out China for punitive rates of 60 percent. He warned of a further 10 percent last week if Beijing fails to stanch the flow of fentanyl into the United States. And days later he upped the ante against China and its BRICS allies by brandishing a 100 percent tariff if they abandon the U.S. dollar.

Although those punches have, for now, been aimed squarely at Beijing, Brussels is coming to realize that it may need to get on board with Trump’s looming trade war against China. The fear is that a flood of Chinese exports would be pushed to Europe by an insurmountable U.S. tariff wall.

“The number one issue is not NATO, not even Ukraine, as serious as that is. The number one issue is the displacement of Chinese exports that are going to the U.S. and will now go to Europe,” said Anthony Gardner, who served as U.S. ambassador to the European Union just before Trump’s first mandate.

Can Trump Split China and Russia?

Alexander Gabuev

“The one thing you never want to happen is you never want Russia and China uniting. I’m going to have to un-unite them, and I think I can do that,” Donald Trump boasted in an interview with the political commentator Tucker Carlson in October. On the campaign trail, the president-elect said repeatedly that he would stop the war in Ukraine “in 24 hours” and that he would be much tougher on China than President Joe Biden has been.

Trump has never articulated exactly what his plan to “un-unite” these two countries is, and based on his record, he might simply devise one on the fly. But early indications suggest that the coming administration might seek to damage the Chinese-Russian partnership by reducing tensions (and even improving ties) with Moscow in order to put pressure on Beijing—something like the reverse of what Secretary of State Henry Kissinger orchestrated more than 50 years ago, when the United States pursued détente with China to exploit the Sino-Soviet split.

This school of thought seems to be popular with many people in the Trump universe, including those who have been nominated to his national security team. Michael Waltz, for example, a member of Congress whom Trump has tapped to serve as his national security adviser, advocated in The Economist for the United States to help wind down the war in Ukraine as soon as possible and then divert resources to “countering the greater threat from the Chinese Communist Party.”

The Trump Administration’s China Challenge

Rush Doshi

Predicting the incoming Trump administration’s China policy—and China’s likely response—is a guessing game. In his first term as president, Donald Trump’s transactional approach often differed from his team’s competitive approach. Those contrasting impulses will define his second term. But despite the uncertainty surrounding the Trump administration’s approach, the central challenge it faces is clear: positioning the United States to outcompete China as a critical window in the competition begins to close.

Early in the Biden administration, senior officials got together, read the intelligence, and concluded that the 2020s would be the decisive decade

A Vicious Cycle: War and Famine in Sudan

Arjun Vohra

The Sudan civil war has done more than devastate lives – it has dismantled the very systems that sustain them. Agriculture, once the backbone of the nation’s economy and a lifeline for millions, has been brought to its knees by years of violence. Yet the story doesn’t end there. The resulting food insecurity has become more than a humanitarian tragedy; it is a spark that reignites the very conflict that caused it. In Sudan, hunger and war are no longer isolated crises, but two sides of the same coin, locked in a vicious cycle that threatens to consume the country.

Sudan, Africa’s third-largest country, has endured decades of conflict and political instability, with the situation worsening after the 2019 ousting of longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir. Initially seen as a step toward democracy, the transition quickly unraveled as rival factions within the military vied for control. In April 2023, this power struggle escalated into a devastating civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), two military groups notorious for their blatant disregard of legal and ethical norms. The conflict has displaced over 11 million people, destroyed key infrastructure, and devastated the agricultural sector, which once employed a vast majority of the population. With millions of Sudanese now facing acute food insecurity, the nation teeters on the edge of collapse, locked in a cycle of violence and starvation.

The Collapse of Sudan’s Agricultural Sector

The disruption of Sudan’s agricultural sector stands as one of the most visible casualties of the civil war. In 2011, 80% of the country’s total workforce was employed in the agriculture sector. That number has since halved, with the war forcing many farmers to abandon their fields or flee to urban areas in search of safety. The drop in agricultural productivity also impacts food security, as reduced domestic production forces Sudan to rely more on imports, which are often inaccessible due to the rising costs of transportation and trade blockages caused by the war.

Where does the Syrian Civil War go from here

George Monastiriakos

For years, experts argued that President Bashar al-Assad had “won” the Syrian Civil War. Yet that couldn’t be further from the truth. Assad only survived the war, thanks to Russian airpower and Iranian mercenaries.

Now that his allies are distracted, the Assad dynasty is more fragile than ever. This is why a Turkish-backed militia launched its offensive last week.

So how did we get here? Years ago, Russia, Iran and Turkey aimed to end the Syrian Civil War through the Astana Process instead of enforcing United Nations Security Council 2254. Though three of the four main power brokers in Syria (the U.S. being the fourth) participated in at least twenty rounds of talks in Kazakhstan, the interests of ordinary Syrians — who suffered and sacrificed most to reform their country — were mostly an afterthought.

Why were Russia, Iran and Turkey involved in the Syrian Civil War?

Put simply, Moscow wanted to secure its naval facilities in Tartus and its air base in Latakia — to project power in the East Mediterranean and supply its mercenaries in Africa. Tehran sought strategic depth by arming its proxies to insulate itself from regional rivals, including Turkey and Israel. Ankara sought regime change in Damascus, then to stop the flow of Syrian refugees into Turkey, and finally, to prevent the formation of a Kurdish state in northeast Syria.

In May 2017, this troika agreed to establish four “de-escalation” zones to end the fighting in the non-Syrian Democratic Forces and then-Islamic State-held territory. In typical Russian fashion, this so-called “de-escalation” was one-sided.

Assad, Iran and Russia repeatedly violated the agreement, seizing three of the four zones and parts of the fourth. This eventually left most of the armed opposition and nearly 3 million Syrians — including some 2 million civilians displaced by Assad, Moscow and Tehran — besieged in tiny Idlib along Syria’s northwestern border with Turkey.

Fall of Hama could have dangerous consequences

David Patrikarakos

Once a symbol of Bashar Al-Assad’s power, the Syrian city of Hama has now fallen to rebel forces. That these are led primarily by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a coalition with roots in jihadist movements, makes Hama’s fall not the cause for unadulterated joy it might otherwise have been. The success follows quickly on from the rebels’ capture of Aleppo, and they are, perhaps unsurprisingly, using it as proof that total victory in Syria is now inevitable.

It also, however, raises serious questions about the future of Syria and the region at large.

Hama is important. Situated between Damascus and Aleppo, it is a vital artery linking the north and south of the country. Its capture disrupts government supply lines and further isolates the already embattled Assad regime. Beyond its geography, Hama also carries a symbolic weight. In 1982, the city was the site of one of the Assad regime’s most infamous massacres, when Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez, crushed an Islamist uprising, killing tens of thousands in the process. For many, the fall of Hama to rebel forces feels like justice — the wheel turns, even if it takes decades to complete a single revolution.

Images from the ground are accordingly triumphant: social media bursts with scenes of celebration among rebel factions, of prisoners being freed from Hama’s central detention facilities, and of triumphant fighters parading through the streets.

The rapid advances of opposition forces have exposed the vulnerabilities of Assad’s regime, particularly as its allies grow increasingly distracted by other conflicts. Russia, which has effectively propped up Assad for years, has redirected much of its attention and resources to the war in Ukraine, while Hezbollah, another key Assad ally, has been royally beaten up by the Israelis. The result is that the Syrian government forces — never particularly impressive — are now consistently unable to mount an effective defence against coordinated rebel offensives.

Did the U.S. Defense of Israel from Missile Attacks Meaningfully Deplete Its Interceptor Inventory?

Wes Rumbaugh

Q1: What was the U.S. role in intercepting missiles in the Iranian attack on Israel?

A1: On October 1, Iran fired over 180 ballistic missiles at multiple targets in Israel. The attacks reportedly included a mix of Ghadr and Emad missiles. Iran also claimed that the salvo included Fattah-1 missiles, which it touts as an advanced “hypersonic” weapon but is more accurately described as a terminally maneuvering ballistic missile.

Israel conducted the bulk of the defense engagements using a mixture of Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 interceptors. The Arrow 2 engages targets in the upper atmosphere, while the Arrow 3 is an exo-atmospheric interceptor, used to engage longer-range ballistic missiles while they transit space. Both interceptors are the result of extensive cooperation and U.S. aid to Israel dating back to the 1980s. Initial damage assessments suggest a reasonable, but not unqualified, success for the defenses with a limited number of missile strikes hitting both military and civilian infrastructure. Considering the size of the missile salvo, however, the assessed damage levels provide evidence of significant interceptor success.

Western doctrines, 3D printed weapons, and a PR strategy: Here's how Syria's Hayat Tahrir al-Sham stumped all

Just half a decade ago, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was naught but a struggling Islamist rebel group. It was barely surviving under sustained attacks by the Russian-backed Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria.

Now, the HTS is making headlines for mounting a lightning assault and snatching Aleppo from the government.

According to the Financial Times, the group has become a formidable force now. Its base boasts of a military academy, centralised command, specialised units, and, most importantly, a homegrown weapons manufacturing industry.

In Idlib province, HTS has established itself as a proto-military organisation. Its units are now equipped with tanks, drones, artillery, and snipers. Recent operations, including the high-profile raid across northern Syria, have shown the group's growing capabilities.

"It has transformed over the past four, five years into essentially a polished proto-military," Financial Times cited Aaron Zelin, an expert on the group at the Washington Institute, as saying.

Anticipating Trump’s Foreign Policy

JOSEPH S. NYE, JR.

Prediction is always difficult, but doubly so in the case of the US president-elect. Donald Trump not only speaks loosely and changes his positions often; he also considers unpredictability to be a useful bargaining tool. Still, one can try to get a sense of what his foreign policy will look like from his campaign statements, his high-level appointments, and his first term.

In Washington, it is often said that “personnel is policy.” But while we already know whom Trump wants for key positions, the problem is that their stated views sometimes conflict with each other. With Trump making every effort to avoid the traditional Republicans who hemmed him in during his first term, the common denominator among his choices this time is personal loyalty. But even this quality does not help us predict policy.

Consider the question of China. Trump’s choices for Secretary of State and national security adviser – Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Michael Waltz, respectively – are well-known “hawks” who see China as a dominant threat that demands a strong response. We also know from his campaign that Trump is eager to introduce new tariffs on imports from allies, with even higher tariffs on goods from China.

Trump can make world energy prices tumble, hitting Putin hard

Ralph Schoellhammer

A negotiated peace between Russia and Ukraine shortly after Donald Trump takes office in January of 2025 seems more and more likely. Based on his current personnel picks it is becoming increasingly obvious that the pre-election fears of Trump abandoning Ukraine were not only premature, but false. Let us take a look at the incoming administration and why it could make peace more likely.

First of all, the entire team that Trump has put together believes in the “peace through strength” doctrine that already existed during the first Trump administration and was masterfully executed: Not only did Trump not start any new wars, he was also capable of reassuring traditional allies like Japan and Saudi Arabia of continued US support, strengthened the position of Israel not by simply delivering arms but by brokering lasting peace deals through the Abraham Accords, and kept foes – like Russia – in check. Showing that the United States do not want to but are willing to use the full force of their military if provoked created enough deterrence to create a remarkably stable global order. The Europeans liked to complain because it was not based on rules and regulations (the toothless “rules based international order” that is mostly popular among bureaucrats and academics, but has little meaning in the real world), but on strength. As it turned out, however, the threat of American power has more currency in international relations than the threat of a European scolding by career diplomats. The European political establishment despises Trump not because of his failures, but his successes.

The members of the Trump 2.0 have been selected to continue these successes, and one can be hopeful that they will achieve their goals. Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general in the United States Army and Trump’s freshly minted special envoy to Russia and Ukraine is already a hopeful sign. No dove on Russia, he pushed for an approach that forces both sides to the negotiating table. Everything – from arms deliveries to Ukraine to sanctions on Russia – must be part of a comprehensive strategy to bring the war to an end. And it appears that Trump’s nominee is already having an effect before assuming office: Both Putin and Zelensky have indicated a newfound willingness to talk, and in an interview with a Japanese TV station, Ukraine’s president said that regaining lost territory could also be achieved via diplomatic means.

Europe's center is not holding

Anatol Lieven

The first is that talk of Europe massively re-arming itself and substituting for the U.S. as the chief backer of Ukraine while maintaining existing levels of health care and social security is idiocy. The money is simply not there. The second is that the effort by “mainstream” establishments to exclude populist parties from office is doomed in the long run, and in the short run is a recipe for repeated political crisis and increasing paralysis of government.

Two countries are central to the European Union, the European economy, European defense, and any hope of European strategic autonomy: France and Germany. Within a month of each other, both have seen their governments collapse due to battles over how to reduce their growing budget deficits. In both cases, their fiscal woes have been drastically worsened by a combination of economic stagnation and pressure on welfare budgets with the new costs of rearmament and support for Ukraine.

In both cases, fiscal crisis has fed into the decay of the mainstream political parties that alternated in power for generations — a phenomenon that is to be seen all over Europe (and in the U.S., insofar as Trump represents a revolt against the Republican establishment). This decay is being fed by the growing backlash against dictation by the EU and NATO that is occurring across wide swathes of Europe.

In the French presidential elections of 2017and 2022, Emmanuel Macron defeated the Front National (now the Rassemblement National) of Marine Le Pen by essentially uniting the remnants of all the centrist parties in a grand coalition behind himself. The problem with such grand coalitions of the center however is that they leave opposition nowhere to go but the extremes of Right and Left.

In the case of France, economic stagnation and resistance to Macron’s free market and austerity measures led in June of this year to crushing defeat for his bloc in European parliamentary elections. Macron then called snap French parliamentary elections in the hope that fear of Le Pen and the radical Left would terrify French voters back into support for him. The result however was that Le Pen won a plurality of the vote, and while electoral deals with the Left gave Macron’s bloc a plurality of seats, they are heavily outnumbered by deputies on the Right and Left.

Misunderstanding Escalation Dynamics with Russia

Mike Coté

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022, significant existing fractures, especially on the right, have been exposed in American foreign policy. Democrats have largely aligned behind the policy of the Biden Administration, which has been one of strong rhetorical support though with often-lackluster material aid and an inordinate fear of “escalation.” That term has been the bugbear of the political right when it comes to this conflict, dividing traditionally hawkish Republicans from populist isolationists, who seek a much more limited American role abroad. Both groups criticize Biden’s Ukraine policy but for vastly divergent rationales: one because it is too weak and the other because it is too strong.

While the hawks complain that the White House has failed to deliver military aid in a timely and efficient manner, other Republicans are concerned that supporting Ukraine, in addition to dragging the U.S. into an unnecessary conflict, could potentially spark WWIII. This line of rhetoric, particularly with an impending second Trump Administration, may come to increasingly shape foreign policy.

Escalation is not a one-way street, yet these critics ignore the bigger half of the issue – constant Russian aggression – to focus narrowly and unfairly on Ukraine. This approach is detached from the reality of warfare in general, ignores the specific path of this conflict, lends undue credence to nuclear saber-rattling, and blames America for the belligerence of our enemies.

First, this inordinate fear of World War III and nuclear exchange is disconnected from how escalation dynamics actually work in modern conflict. For a conflict to de-escalate to a point where it is stable enough to reach a sustainable endgame, both sides must be deterred from further escalation. If one side sees it as in their interest to continue fighting, peace will not be reached. Counterintuitively, this often requires greater escalation (escalation dominance) to create a deterrent effect; each belligerent must understand that unacceptable costs will be imposed by continuing. But that escalation – or threat thereof – must be credible to the opposing faction to be successful. Warfare, particularly the existential kind in which Ukraine is currently embroiled, is not something that can be carefully micromanaged. Restrictions on warfighting are counterproductive, only serving to disadvantage the restricted side by reducing the credibility of its threats of escalation. And that prolongs wars and increases their potential to broaden, not the reverse.

Are Democracies Doomed to Gridlock and Dysfunction

Emma Ashford

Emma Ashford is a columnist at Foreign Policy and a senior fellow with the Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy program at the Stimson Center, an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University, and the author of Oil, the State, and War. X: @EmmaMAshford

Matthew Kroenig is a columnist at Foreign Policy and vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a professor in the Department of Government and the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. His latest book, with Dan Negrea, is We Win, They Lose: Republican

Can the Israel-Hezbollah Cease-Fire Hold?

Ravi Agrawal

When Israel and Hezbollah signed a cease-fire agreement in late November, it represented a rare bit of hopeful news since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack enflamed the Middle East. But can the pause hold, and can it lead to a similar end to the fighting in Gaza?

On this week’s FP Live, I spoke with Fawaz Gerges, a Lebanese American academic and professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Gerges is the author of several books on the Middle East including, most recently, What Really Went Wrong: The West and the Failure of Democracy in the Middle East. Before we delved into the Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire, we addressed a shocking development in Syria, where rebel groups took control of Aleppo, one of the country’s largest cities, in less than four days of fighting—a stunning defeat for President Bashar al-Assad.

Why Assad’s Regime Is Collapsing So Quickl

Charles Lister

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A coalition of armed opposition factions has gone on the offensive in northern Syria, capturing some 250 cities, towns, and villages and more than doubling the territory under its control. Syria’s second-largest city of Aleppo was captured in 24 hours, as Syrian regime front lines collapsed one after the other. After nearly five years of territorial lines of control being frozen across the country, these are dramatic, game-changing developments.

Local rebels take most of key southern Syrian region - reports

Barbara Plett-Usher and Kathryn Armstrong

Rebel forces in southern Syria have reportedly captured most of the Deraa region - the birthplace of the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

A UK-based war monitor reports that the "local factions" were able to take control of many military sites there following "violent battles" with government forces.

According to the Reuters news agency, rebel sources saying they had reached a deal for the army to withdraw and for military officials to be given safe passage to the capital, Damascus - roughly 100km (62 miles) away.

The BBC has been unable to independently verify these reports, which come as Islamist-led rebels in northern Syria claimed to have reached the outskirts of the city of Homs.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based war monitor, said on Friday that the rebels in the south now control more than 90% of the Deraa region and that only the Sanamayn area is still in government hands.

Deraa city has both strategic and symbolic importance. It is a provincial capital and is close to the main crossings on the Jordanian border, while also being where pro-democracy protests erupted in 2011 - sparking the country's ongoing civil war, in which more than half a million people have been killed.

Jordan's interior minister said the country had closed its side of the border as "a result of the surrounding security conditions in Syria's south".

A Trumpian Policy for Africa

Ken Opalo

When he returns to the White House, Donald Trump, the U.S. president-elect, will take over an Africa policy riddled with contradictions. Since 2022, President Joe Biden has sought to improve ties between the United States and sub-Saharan African countries with a focus on high-level engagement and stronger commercial relations. In 2023, senior officials made 17 visits to the region. Biden is currently visiting Angola, the first trip to the continent by a U.S. president since 2015. On the commercial side, U.S. firms have concluded over 500 deals in Africa valued at more than $14 billion during Biden’s tenure. The president’s single

Biden’s Greatest Failure in Gaza

Jeremy Konyndyk

On October 13, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sent a letter to the Israeli government. In it, they expressed profound concern about the impediments Israel has placed on the flow of aid to Gaza in the course of Israeli military operations. The letter explicitly noted that U.S. law requires the United States to suspend arms sales and security cooperation with governments that impede the delivery of U.S.-provided aid. And it gave Israel a 30-day deadline to take “urgent and sustained actions to reverse” Gaza’s spiraling humanitarian crisis, delineating

America Is Cursed by a Foreign Policy of Nostalgia

Nancy Okail and Matthew Duss

U.S. foreign policy is adrift between the old order and one that has yet to be defined. Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 U.S. presidential election awakened many in Washington to the reality that despite the political elite’s presumption of an unassailable foreign policy consensus, many Americans questioned the assumptions that had guided decades of the U.S. approach to the world—in particular, the idea that an international order backed by American military hegemony was self-evidently worth maintaining, no matter the cost. The 2024 election has confirmed that 2016 was not an anomaly. The old Washington consensus is

Why Syria Matters to the Kremlin

Nicole Grajewski

Rebel forces swept into Aleppo on Saturday, capturing the city center in a lightning three-day offensive that seemed to show the slackening of Moscow’s grip on Syria. The symbolism was impossible to ignore: The Syrian regime’s brutal reconquest of that very city in 2016 had demonstrated Russia’s military effectiveness. Now Vladimir Putin’s Russia is preoccupied with Ukraine, and Aleppo has slipped from regime control.

But Russia’s commitment to Syria has not actually wavered, and Russia is not really distracted. The advance of Syria’s rebels, led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), reflects the degradation not of Russian attention but of the multinational ground forces supporting the regime of Bashar al-Assad. And Russia is not only not contemplating withdrawing from Syria—it looks poised to double down on its investment there, even if it has to rely on Iranian-backed forces and the cooperation of regional powers to do so.

Syria is important to Moscow because intervening there in 2015 allowed Putin to reverse the narrative of Russian decline that had taken hold since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia would no longer be what then-President Barack Obama dismissed as a declining “regional power”—it was to be a decisive great-power patron of the Assad regime, and as such, it would rewrite the playbook of outside intervention in the Middle East. American-led interventions, such as the invasion of Iraq and the NATO campaign in Libya, shattered states and bred chaos. Russia would have the opposite effect, preserving Syrian sovereignty and regional order.

The Global Consequences of Yoon’s Martial Law Gambit

Sheena Chestnut Greitens

The Asia Program in Washington studies disruptive security, governance, and technological risks that threaten peace, growth, and opportunity in the Asia-Pacific region, including a focus on China, Japan, and the Korean peninsula.Learn More

On Tuesday night, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol declared—and then, under pressure, quickly reversed—martial law. Disapproval spanned the political spectrum, including prominent members of Yoon’s own conservative party, and at the time of writing, the opposition Democratic Party had issued a statement telling Yoon to resign or face impeachment.

Yoon’s move, which appeared to be motivated by his frustration with policy gridlock in a divided government, stunned observers around the world. His subsequent climb-down raised questions about why he had failed to anticipate the legislative and public response and what exactly he had hoped to achieve with such a high-stakes gamble.

While the immediate crisis was short-lived, the South Korean president’s miscalculation will likely have longer-term policy ramifications both at home and abroad. Domestically, Yoon’s political survival is in doubt: he won the presidency in 2022 by a narrow margin, lost ground in the legislative elections earlier this year, and entered this episode with (at best) a 25 percent approval rating. If Yoon is impeached, as appears likely, the incident will add another layer of turbulence to South Korea’s post-democratization politics. Most of South Korea’s democratically elected presidents have eventually been investigated and imprisoned, either during or after their tenures. The previous conservative president, Park Geun-hye, was impeached and convicted of corruption following widespread popular demonstrations.

Some observers have used the swift denouement of this week’s crisis to highlight the resilience of South Korean democracy. In the face of an ill-planned power grab by the president—who backed down in the face of easily anticipated legislative and public backlash, and who apparently failed to notify his own police forces and aides of his plans—there’s no question that South Korea’s pro-democratic assertiveness was inspiring, and successful.

America’s Tech Blind Spot

S. ALEX YANG and ANGELA HUYUE ZHANG

Nationalism has emerged as a potent force shaping global tech policy, nowhere more so than in the United States. With Donald Trump returning to the White House for a second term, his vision for America’s technological future is coming into sharper focus.

8 December 2024

Adani Bribery Scandal Originated in a Dubious Solar Power Auction That Modi Government Scripte

Nitin Sethi & Shreegireesh Jalihal

The Union government designed a solar power auction that discouraged competition and paved the way for Adani Group to secure contracts for assured purchase of its expensive power for thousands of crores of rupees over the next 25 years.

The extraordinary auction conditions and a series of exemptions brought in by the Union ministries of power, the renewable energy and its arm the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) in 2019 ensured that Adani Group was the dominant player in the competition with just two others in the ring--Azure Power India Limited and Navayuga Engineering Company Limited.

Even the sparse competition turned out to be embarrassingly empty as Navayuga Engineering bid the highest permitted tariff and lost. The exit came immediately after it signed a deal worth thousands of crore of rupees with Adani Group to sell its port in Andhra Pradesh, negotiations for which were going on while the two competed for the solar contract.

The other competitor, Azure Power, by now has become well known, with the US authorities accusing it of colluding with Adani Group to pay bribes of more than Rs 2,000 crore to state government officials to buy the expensive solar power that they sold to SECI, an intermediary that buys and sells power.

China-Pakistan’s ‘All Weather Friendship’ Gets Rebuff From Taliban

Shanthie Mariet D’Souza

On November 26, a six-member Chinese delegation headed by Yue Xiaoyong, the country’s special representative for Afghanistan affairs, travelled to Kandahar, where the Taliban’s reclusive head Hibatullah Akhundzada lives. One of the items on the agenda was to discuss Pakistan’s concerns regarding the Taliban sheltering the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Afghanistan.

The Taliban chief, however, refused to pander to Chinese demands and made himself unavailable. Instead, meetings were held with the governor of Kandahar, Mawlawi Shirin, and Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. Islamabad’s attempt to put pressure on the Taliban via the Chinese was unsuccessful. The Chinese, meanwhile, have been left to introspect about the gap between the leverage they think they have over the Taliban and the leverage they actually have.

A week earlier, on November 18, Yue was in Islamabad, holding discussions with Pakistani Foreign Secretary Amna Baloch and other officials. During the meeting, Pakistan shared fresh evidence of the TTP’s use of Afghan territory for cross-border attacks. Pakistani officials reportedly told the Chinese envoy that it was time to take a collective stance against the Afghan Taliban to persuade them to meet the promises they made to the international community. Islamabad has tried to project the TTP as a common enemy and is trying to convince Beijing to act in the face of the Afghan Taliban’s dismissals of Pakistan’s repeated pleas.

Myanmar Insurgents Call Ceasefire After Chinese Pressure For Peace

A Myanmar rebel army has declared a ceasefire in its war against the military, the second insurgent force in days to cite pressure from neighboring China for its willingness to talk peace.

The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, which has been fighting for years for autonomy for the Kokang region on northeastern Myanmar’s border with China, said it would send a delegation to talks with the military to resolve differences through political means.

“From today onwards, our troops will cease fire immediately and will not launch an offensive against military council troops,” the MNDAA said in a statement released on Tuesday.

“We hope that related issues, including Lashio, can be resolved by way of discussion under mediation efforts through China,” the group said, referring to the main town in northern Shan state, which the MNDAA has controlled since driving out junta forces in early August.

The group cited military airstrikes against civilians as contributing to its decision to talk, adding it would defend its territory, suggesting it was intent on self-determination.

To defend Taiwan tomorrow, we must prepare to sanction China today

Max Meizlish and Elaine Dezenski

Taiwan is reportedly considering a $15 billion military package as an overture to President-elect Donald Trump. This comes just as the island nation agreed to spend over $2 billion in American weapons purchases next year. While such agreements may serve to warm relations with an incoming Trump administration and strengthen Taiwan’s military against an increasingly belligerent China, they will do little to address Beijing’s biggest vulnerability in a potential conflict with Taiwan — its “soft economic underbelly.”

This provides Trump a historic opportunity to not just support Taiwan militarily, but to capitalize on the deepening cracks in China’s economy that make it vulnerable to powerful, proactively developed American economic statecraft.

Slow growth, an unraveling real estate market, significant youth unemployment and plummeting foreign direct investment reveal deep vulnerabilities that threaten the Chinese Communist Party. These economic fissures give the United States and its allies a strategic opportunity: by publicly outlining the severe sanctions, export controls and investment restrictions China would face if it invades Taiwan, we can slow the pace of Chinese hostilities toward Taiwan — or even prevent them altogether. However, to ensure this approach succeeds, we must learn from recent history and act before it’s too late.

Myanmar’s Elections Will Be A China-Sponsored Fraud – Analysis

Alexis Turek

The State Administration Council (SAC) junta in Myanmar is in its worst position since the beginning of the civil war in February 2021. Operation 1027, a joint assault in October 2023 by three ethnic armed organisations in northern Shan state, has catalysed rebel victories across the country. The ethnic armed organisations and other rebel People’s Defence Forces have been making significant territorial gains, targeting border areas, junta bases and industry centres.

The SAC has resorted to mandating military service for all men and women, including forcibly recruiting Rohingya into service under threat of arrest. Following the new conscription law, reports have emerged of abductions and illegal detention, with large numbers of young people fleeing to Thailand to escape conscription.

The SAC has faced significant territorial losses, impacting its ability to extract vital resources. While the conflict is unlikely to stop soon, rebel forces now stand a better chance of victory than they have at any other point in the conflict.

China's Digital Strategy – Cyber Espionage ...

Carlo J.V. Caro

Cyber-Espionage Through IoT Standardization in Agriculture

China's infiltration into agricultural IoT (Internet of Things) networks represents a critical yet underexplored dimension of its global technological strategy. Through key players such as Huawei and Alibaba Cloud, Beijing has embedded IoT technologies into agricultural systems in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. These initiatives, often framed as development partnerships aimed at improving food production and supply chain resilience, concurrently enable the collection of extensive agricultural and environmental data with profound strategic and geopolitical implications.

Agricultural IoT systems are revolutionizing farming practices by collecting real-time, high-resolution data on variables such as soil moisture, nutrient levels, weather conditions, pest infestations, irrigation patterns, crop growth rates, and logistical movements. Chinese companies like Huawei and Alibaba are at the forefront of this technological advancement, designing platforms that support precision agriculture through the integration of advanced sensors, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence to optimize farm management.

In Kenya, Huawei has actively collaborated with local partners and the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization to implement smart farming solutions aimed at enhancing agricultural productivity and sustainability. By deploying IoT sensors that monitor critical agricultural parameters and transmitting this data to cloud platforms where AI algorithms provide actionable insights, farmers have reportedly increased crop yields. These initiatives not only boost local agricultural productivity but also strengthen China's presence in the region's agricultural sector.

Senators Warn the Pentagon: Get a Handle on China’s Telecom Hacking

Lily Hay Newman

US intelligence and law enforcement agencies are scrambling to contain the fallout from a far-reaching Chinese espionage campaign into US telecoms. That includes the Department of Defense; in a letter to the DOD inspector general on Wednesday, senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Eric Schmitt of Missouri are calling on the Pentagon to investigate its own “failure to secure its unclassified telephone communications from foreign espionage.”

The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency confirmed publicly on November 13 that the China-linked hacking group known as Salt Typhoon has been embedded in major United States telecom companies for more than a year, running a sophisticated espionage operation that has reportedly targeted high-profile targets like president-elect Donald Trump and his campaign officials as well as subjects of interest on the US Justice Department’s “lawful intercept” wiretap list. Target companies include Verizon and AT&T along with a slew of other domestic and international telecoms; US officials have been investigating the situation since the spring.

CISA and FBI officials told reporters on Tuesday that telecom companies are still working to expel Salt Typhoon hackers from their networks and that the US government is actively helping victims clean house while also assisting them in hardening their defenses to prevent new compromise. But government departments like the DOD are also customers of those telecoms—and were themselves exposed.

A Last Chance to Prevent Nuclear Anarchy

Lewis A. Dunn

As Donald Trump prepares to begin his second term as U.S. president, he is faced with a world sliding into nuclear anarchy. Brinkmanship among major nuclear powers is rising: China is relentlessly expanding its nuclear forces but rejecting serious engagement with the United States on arms control; U.S.-Russian cooperation on nuclear matters, already in a dire state, has deteriorated further with President Vladimir Putin’s repeated nuclear threats in the course of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Recent reports based on information from senior U.S. officials indicate that the United States, too, could modify its posture and expand its arsenal to strengthen deterrence of coordinated Russian, Chinese, and North Korean nuclear adventurism. All these developments have eroded critical pillars of the nuclear order and raised the risk of nuclear warfare. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which was signed in 1968, is the only remaining major, legally binding mechanism to uphold that order. But the actions of nuclear weapons states that are party to the treaty, the disillusionment of many nonnuclear parties, and the consideration by other countries to build their own nuclear programs have placed the NPT’s future in doubt.

Responding to this continuing breakdown in a recent Foreign Affairs article, Doreen Horschig and Heather Williams called for the United States to “uphold existing nuclear norms” by establishing closer relationships with countries in the global South, fortifying partnerships with allies, and creating regional engagement between nuclear and nonnuclear countries. But such efforts are insufficient on their own. At this point, the United States must instead try again to directly engage China and Russia not only as nuclear adversaries to be deterred but also as potential collaborators in a final attempt to head off nuclear anarchy.

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