Indian Strategic Studies

14 July 2025

Marco Rubio’s Difficult Balancing Act in Asia

Miranda Jeyaretnam

The U.S. wants to bolster its relations in the Indo-Pacific to guard against China, but it will have to navigate an environment that’s been stunned by the economic blows dealt by President Donald Trump’s protectionist trade policies.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is on his first official trip to Asia this week to attend the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) regional security conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The State Department said Rubio will focus on “reaffirming the United States’ commitment to advancing a free, open, and secure Indo-Pacific region,” rather than on tariffs or trade. The conference, though, will be attended by officials from a number of the countries targeted by new tariff rates set to go into effect next month.

Earlier this week, Trump announced 25% tariffs on two key partners, Japan and South Korea—which are not members of ASEAN but do have delegations attending the conference—after negotiations failed to materialize deals. On Wednesday, Trump also unveiled an increased to 20% tariff on the Philippines, an ASEAN member and longstanding U.S. treaty ally. He also shared new tariff rates on ASEAN members Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand, effective Aug. 1. Meanwhile, Vietnam—one of three countries worldwide to cut a deal with Trump—will be tariffed at a 20% rate.

Tariffs have already been at the center of ASEAN talks, which began Tuesday.

“This meeting takes place amid the unravelling of assumptions, where power unsettles principle, and calm can no longer be taken for granted. The global order is fraying,” Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said in his opening remarks on Wednesday. “Tools once used to generate growth are now wielded to pressure, isolate and contain.”

Poisoned water and scarred hills

Laura Bicker

When you stand on the edge of Bayan Obo, all you see is an expanse of scarred grey earth carved into the grasslands of Inner Mongolia in northern China.

Dark dust clouds rise from deep craters where the earth’s crust has been sliced away over decades in search of a modern treasure.

You may not have heard of this town - but life as we know it could grind to a halt without Bayan Obo.

The town gets its name from the district it sits in, which is home to half of the world’s supply of a group of metals known as rare earths. They are key components in nearly everything that we switch on: smartphones, bluetooth speakers, computers, TV screens, even electric vehicles.

And one country, above all others, has leapt ahead in mining them and refining them: China.

This dominance gives Beijing huge leverage - both economically, and politically, such as when it negotiates with US President Donald Trump over tariffs. But China has paid a steep price for it.

To find out more, we travelled to the country’s two main rare earth mining hubs - Bayan Obo in the north and Ganzhou in the province of Jiangxi in the south.

In China, Xi’s Rule Slowly Unravels

Victoria Herczegh

Over the past week, Chinese President Xi Jinping intensified his sweeping crackdown on public officials, expelling Vice Adm. Li Hanjun, chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army Navy, and Liu Shipeng, deputy chief engineer at state-owned China National Nuclear Corp., from the National People’s Congress. Neither had been previously reported as under investigation. Additionally, Miao Hua, a former top general tasked with overseeing the PLA’s ideological work, was voted out of the Central Military Commission. Miao had already made headlines last November when authorities placed him under investigation for “suspected serious violations of discipline and law” – a more severe and rare charge than routine corruption. The scale and intensity of the purge suggest that Xi may have lost trust even in his own appointees within the Chinese Communist Party.

However, his own position as paramount leader may not be so secure. Xi disappeared from public view for more than two weeks in late May and early June, a highly unusual occurrence for a Chinese leader, particularly during a busy diplomatic period. When he reappeared, he reportedly looked tired and disengaged, prompting speculation about his health or political troubles. More recently, he skipped the BRICS summit on July 6-7 in Rio de Janeiro, despite the fact that China views and promotes the bloc as an important counterweight to Western-dominated institutions such as the G7 or the International Monetary Fund.

An undisclosed health condition is not impossible (Xi turned 72 last month), but political difficulties are a likelier explanation. Evidence of political erosion is visible in state media and official communications from the Foreign Ministry and the State Council, where references to “Xi Jinping Thought” as the CCP’s guiding principle have fallen sharply. During Xi’s two-week absence, moreover, a major State Council event not only went ahead without him but made no reference to him. This is extremely unusual: CCP protocol says that if the country’s paramount leader cannot attend an event, officials should be reminded of his position and his official political doctrine.

How Can Washington Break Beijing’s Encirclement of Taiwan?

U.S.-China relations are increasingly caught in a spiral of mutual suspicion and reactive escalation. In June, China’s navy deployed its dual aircraft carrier groups — Liaoning and Shandong — beyond the Second Island Chain for the first time,

conducting more than 700 aerial sorties near Japan’s exclusive economic zone. For many in Washington, this unprecedented move signaled a heightened risk of imminent conflict over Taiwan. At the same time, Beijing has intensified its gray-zone pressure tactics, including underwater cable cutting and illegal sand dredging near the island. These developments appear to confirm fears of a looming military showdown.

But a closer look suggests otherwise. These military maneuvers, while visually forceful, are not necessarily preludes to war. Instead, they reflect a strategy of shaping; an attempt by Beijing to project strength, shift psychological balance,

and alter the perception of risks and costs associated with a Taiwan contingency. Rather than an operational rehearsal for invasion, China’s dual-carrier deployment was a carefully staged demonstration, meant to be seen and interpreted, not executed.

To break this strategic deadlock, the United States must act along two lines. First, it must correct its misreadings of Beijing’s intent — particularly the assumption that escalation always signals aggression. Second, it must counter China’s shaping tactics with shaping of its own: not by escalating further, but by designing a stable, disciplined strategic framework that reduces misperceptions and restores regional predictability.

How Rare Earths Became China’s Top Trade Weapon

Christina Lu,

Months of fraught U.S.-China trade talks have laid bare just how reliant the United States is on China for rare earths, the powerful raw materials that underpin technology from fighter jets to wind turbines.

Washington and Beijing have been locked in a bitter trade war since U.S. President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs on much of the world in April, at one point driving up tariffs on China to a staggering 145 percent. China struck back by singling out one of Washington’s key vulnerabilities: rare earths.

Full Stack

China wants to become the global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) by 2030.[1] To achieve this goal, Beijing is deploying industrial policy tools across the full AI technology stack, from chips to applications. This expansion of AI industrial policy leads to two questions: What is Beijing doing to support its AI industry, and will it work?

China’s AI industrial policy will likely accelerate the country’s rapid progress in AI, particularly through support for research, talent, subsidized compute, and applications. Chinese AI models are closing the performance gap with top U.S. models,

and AI adoption in China is growing quickly across sectors, from electric vehicles and robotics to health care and biotechnology.[2] Although most of this growth is driven by innovation at China’s private tech firms, state support has helped enhance the competitiveness of China’s AI industry.

However, some aspects of China’s AI industrial policy are wasteful, such as the inefficient allocation of AI chips to companies.[3] Other bottlenecks are hard to overcome, even with massive state support: U.S.-led export controls on AI chips and the semiconductor manufacturing equipment needed to produce such chips are limiting the compute available to Chinese AI developers.[4] Limited access to compute forces Chinese companies to make trade-offs between investing in near-term progress in model development and building longer-term resilience to sanctions.

Ultimately, despite some waste and conflicting priorities, China’s AI industrial policy will help Chinese companies compete with U.S. AI firms by providing talent and capital to an already strong sector. China’s AI development will likely remain at least a close second place behind that of the United States, as such development benefits from both private market competition and the Chinese government’s investments.

Syria 2025 Is Iraq All Over Again | Opinion

The al-Nusrah Front was removed from the U.S. terror list on July 7, 2025. Officially, it marked a shift. But under the surface, it looked a lot more like a pattern we've previously seen. America has been here before. We saw this exact playbook in Iraq: regime change, a rush to legitimize the replacement, sweeping sanctions relief, and a premature declaration of stability. It didn't work then. And it won't work now.

The backdrop to this sudden policy shift is the meteoric rise of Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria's new president. Less than a year back, al-Sharaa was still going by his old name, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. For years, he led al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate. That group eventually rebranded as Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and now holds real control over large parts of the country. His troops helped remove Bashar al-Assad. And now, he's being treated as a legitimate head of state by Washington.

Syrian Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa attended the Antalya Diplomacy Forum on April 11, 2025, in Antalya, Turkey. Mert Gokhan Koc/ dia images via Getty Images

This normalization has come fast and without accountability. The Trump administration's May 2025 announcement in Riyadh, and subsequent executive order in June, lifting all sanctions on Syria and praising al-Sharaa as a "young,

attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter," which was followed barely two months later by the formal Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) delisting of al-Nusrah. The timing is not subtle. It signals a strategic pivot: from isolation to partnership, from punishment to pragmatism.

The Middle East’s Other Escalating Rivalry

Alper Coşkun

The Europe Program in Washington explores the political and security developments within Europe, transatlantic relations, and Europe’s global role. Working in coordination with Carnegie Europe in Brussels, the program brings together U.S. and European policymakers and experts on strategic issues facing Europe.Learn More

Amid the Middle East’s deepening turmoil, the growing rivalry between Israel and Türkiye is fueling tension in an already fragmented region. Despite a past legacy of cooperation, relations are now at an all-time low. Marked by antagonism, mutual suspicion, and zero-sum calculations, each side views the other’s regional ascent as a strategic challenge, if not a threat. Their competing regional ambitions are now most evident in Syria, where the United States has a chance to help reverse this trend before it boils over.

The situation used to be different. Relations rest on a deep history, going back to the late fifteenth century, when the Turkish homeland was a refuge for Jews fleeing persecution. In 1949, Türkiye recognized Israel’s statehood—the first Muslim majority country to do so. In the 1990s, Israeli-Turkish relations progressed further as the two countries advanced their national interests in tandem: They managed their differences, particularly over the Palestinian issue, while gradually building a partnership that extended into economic, military, and defense cooperation. In an era described as the “golden years,” they advanced free trade and collaborated extensively on military training, arms sales, technology transfers, and even intelligence sharing. Most importantly, they trusted each other.

Now, lack of trust has become a serious issue. Israel’s indiscriminate and increasingly assertive military actions since the Hamas terror attacks of October 7, 2023—including its destruction of Gaza, the humanitarian suffering it has brought upon the Palestinians, and its direct confrontation with Iran backed by the United States—have deepened Ankara’s unease about the regional order and Israel’s broader intentions. Türkiye views these developments, Israel’s growing ties with Greece and Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as its actions in Syria as part of a troubling pattern. Some in Türkiye even suggest that, after Israel’s conflict with Iran, their country could be next.

Zelensky Is the World’s Loneliest Leader

Rym Momtaz

Three years into the unprovoked Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and despite the regular empathic statements of solidarity and support from his European partners, he still has to constantly argue and advocate for real military capabilities.

He attends summits, puts on a brave face even when he goes halfway across the world to the G7 in Canada only to realize that U.S. President Donald Trump has left before meeting with him. He punctuates every statement, tweet, and answer with several thank-yous, to avoid drawing more accusations of ingratitude which he has received from both the Biden and Trump administrations as well as the UK.

European countries have stepped up in some respects. They started ramping up their military support in the last year of the Biden administration, and since Trump’s inauguration in January, the EU has slightly surpassed the United States in military assistance. But even these efforts have not kept up with the pace or scale of Russia’s escalating offensive against Ukraine. And more strategically, nothing the Europeans or Americans have done has forced Russian President Vladimir Putin to rethink his calculus and engage seriously in negotiations to end the war.

Instead of issuing empty ultimatums about ceasefires, the Europeans should have already done three things. First, they should have deployed a beefed-up, multi-layered, properly supplied, integrated air defense system inside Ukraine. Second, they should have paralyzed the Russian defense industry’s production and regeneration capabilities. And third, they should have enabled Ukrainian deep strikes against Russian military installations, central to Moscow’s ability to continue waging this war.

These actions would also force Trump to stop excluding Europeans from his discussions with Putin and see them as worthy security and defense players.

How Russia Could Exploit a Vacuum in Europe

Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Jim Townsend, and Kate Johnston

The NATO summit held two weeks ago in The Hague delivered on the low expectations the allies had set for it. Amid fears that U.S. President Donald Trump would blow up a normal agenda, NATO leaders significantly pared back the program, taking hard discussions on issues such as support for Ukraine, NATO’s relations with Russia, and Russian hybrid attacks in Europe off the table. But the summit did close with a historic agreement by most allies, Spain being a notable exception, to increase members’ defense spending to five percent of GDP over the next ten years, with 3.5 percent earmarked for core military spending and 1.5 percent for hardening civilian infrastructure and overall resilience. The pledge to spend more on defense, in addition to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s sycophantic praise of Trump at the summit, smoothed the way for Trump to stick largely to the summit’s highly choreographed script, keeping the alliance’s cohesion intact. Trump even appeared to leave The Hague with a newfound appreciation for NATO members, telling reporters: “These people really love their countries. It’s not a rip-off, and we’re here to help them.”

Any sense of relief among the allies, however, may be short-lived. The relatively positive headlines coming out of the summit obscure the storm brewing across the Atlantic. The Trump administration is undertaking a sweeping force posture review slated for release in late summer or early fall that could fundamentally reshape the U.S. military’s global footprint. If that process results in a significant and swift reduction of U.S. forces in Europe, an outcome that administration officials have publicly suggested is possible, the alliance will become more vulnerable to further Russian aggression.

Europe is stepping up in a big way, and defense budgets are rising, but it will take time to ramp up production and deliver the capabilities that the United States currently provides on the continent. The United States may see fit to make some force adjustments in Europe that allow it to bolster its defense posture in Asia to counter rising threats from China. But Washington must carefully plan any such shift, leaving U.S. forces in place long enough that Europeans can work to fill the coming gaps and retain their credible deterrent against Russia. It is critical that any drawdown be closely coordinated with NATO military authorities and that allies agree in advance to cover lost capabilities. Otherwise, Russian President Vladimir Putin will be tempted to take advantage of a weakened alliance.

Warning Shots Are a Tactical Risk with Strategic Consequences

John Spencer

Arguably, no modern army is more familiar with the brutal reality of high-intensity, contested, dense urban warfare and fighting ‘small wars’ than the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). In Gaza, the enemy is embedded in hundreds of miles of tunnels, inside a labyrinth of concrete and steel, narrow streets and alleys, with improvised explosives hidden in walls, rooms, and roads. They use civilians as shields and civilian infrastructure as cover.

And now, as the operation has evolved, the IDF is increasingly facing situations where its forces are operating near large groups of civilians. These include humanitarian zones specifically designed to facilitate the delivery of aid directly to civilians rather than that aid having to go through Hamas. While some IDF soldiers provide perimeter security in these zones, other soldiers—often only hundreds of meters away—are forced to make decisions under fire, under pressure, and under constant global scrutiny.

Urban Combat and the IDF’s Dual Role in Gaza

The IDF has a long history of operating around civilians in Judea and Samaria, including during the First and Second Intifadas, and in southern Lebanon. In Gaza, the current Israeli approach is to isolate civilians in designated humanitarian zones while destroying Hamas in other areas. This is a strategy that attempts to separate the civilian population from enemy forces.

This strategy also includes distributing aid directly to the people in four designated distribution sites. The IDF, however, does not distribute the food. Rather, they provide security, almost like police at a major sporting event, so that aid workers can ration the food.

But soldiers are not police. This has put the IDF in the difficult but necessary transition of being asked to conduct combat operations to locate and destroy Hamas in one zone while securing humanitarian centers in another.

The Battle for Display Dominance

Mark Montgomery, and Craig Singleton

Last month, US energy experts uncovered hidden cellular radios inside Chinese-made solar inverters—critical components that link solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicle chargers to the grid. These rogue devices bypass installed firewalls, potentially giving China a clandestine “kill switch” over slices of America’s energy infrastructure.

With China now producing over 70 percent of the world’s display panels and leading in OLED (organic light-emitting diodes) output, every Chinese console and cockpit screen—from fighter-jet helmet displays to submarine sonar monitors—risks a similar back-door shutdown.

Just as Chinese firms used massive state-backed financing to flood global defense markets with cheap drones and batteries, Beijing has poured billions into subsidies, tax breaks, and low-cost loans to build the world’s largest display fabs. These investments have cornered a $182 billion industry—one forecast to double by 2034—driving panel prices so low that no US or allied competitor can viably enter the market. Today,

the Pentagon spends over $300 million a year on mission-critical displays—a figure set to surpass $600 million by 2034. With virtually no non-Chinese suppliers left, global display supply chains—including those underpinning our defense systems—risk being held hostage in the future to Beijing’s strategic whims.

Russia’s Taliban Recognition Signals Potential Domino Effect

Islomkhon Gafarov

The Russian Federation’s formal recognition of the Taliban government on July 3 may fundamentally reshape the international community’s approach to Afghanistan. Since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021,

he regime has made notable diplomatic gains over nearly four years. Unlike the first Taliban government (1996–2001), which received recognition primarily from within the Islamic world, the current recognition by a major non-Islamic power underscores a new, more pragmatic and proactive direction in the Taliban’s foreign policy – what might be termed “Taliban 2.0.”

Impacts of Russia’s Taliban Recognition

The appointment of a Taliban ambassador to Moscow, the raising of the Taliban flag on Russian soil, and the official recognition of the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate government carry significant geopolitical implications.

First, the Taliban have secured recognition from a major global power not on the basis of religious or ideological affinity, but through strategic, political, and economic considerations. This constitutes a significant diplomatic victory for the Taliban and suggests that the regime exhibits core features of statehood and sovereign governance.

Second, this recognition comes from a leading representative of Slavic civilization – a region with which Afghanistan has historically had adversarial relations, particularly during the Soviet era. Yet, both sides have demonstrated the ability to move beyond historical grievances, engaging instead in forward-looking diplomacy driven by realism and mutual interests.

Brazil’s Lula Squares Up to Trump After Tariff Hike and Bolsonaro Defense

Chad de Guzman

Donald Trump has often likened efforts to hold him accountable by the media, Democrats, investigators, courts, and others, to a “witch hunt.” But recently he’s begun also using the phrase to defend his foreign buddies.

From Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose corruption trial Trump has urged the end of, to most recently former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, whose affinity for and similarities to the U.S. President have earned him the nickname “Trump of the Tropics,” Trump has tried to wield the influence of the U.S. government to keep his friends from facing charges in their own countries.

While Trump has begun issuing “letters” on social media to foreign leaders announcing new tariff rates, he deviated from the script used for other nations so far when he posted a letter to current Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Truth Social on Wednesday.

“I knew and dealt with former President Jair Bolsonaro, and respected him greatly, as did most other Leaders of Countries,” Trump wrote. “The way that Brazil has treated former President Bolsonaro, a Highly Respected Leader throughout the World during his Term, including by the United States, is an international disgrace. This Trial should not be taking place. It is a Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY!”

Bolsonaro is currently facing charges related to an alleged coup attempt after he lost Brazil’s 2022 election to Lula, which even involved a storming of the Brazilian capital that drew comparisons at the time to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection in the U.S. by Trump supporters after Trump lost his first reelection campaign.

Wagner Withdrawal Signals Potential Change in Russian Approach to Mali

Russia’s Wagner Group is being withdrawn from Mali after a three-and-a-half-year deployment with a mixed record of battlefield successes that have come at enormous civilian cost.

Wagner’s replacement with the Russian Defense Ministry’s Africa Corps may signal a change in Kremlin tactics. Regardless of the tactics used, the Russian military buildup in Mali suggests that expanded military operations against insurgent and terrorist groups are imminent.

New Russian-Malian partnerships in the energy and mining sectors have accompanied changes in security tactics.

Mali’s relationship with Russia is entering a new stage as the Kremlin withdraws the last members of the Wagner Group, a private military company (PMC), and signs bilateral agreements on trade, development, and the construction of a Russian-designed low-power nuclear plant in Mali (TASS; Business Insider Africa, June 23). Russia and Mali signed the new agreements during Malian President General Assimi Goïta’s second visit to Moscow (Maliweb.net, June 17).

Mali’s military government has also announced a partnership with the Russian Yadran Group to build a gold refinery near the capital of Bamako. The move is in line with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov’s declaration that Russia intends to focus “primarily on economic and investment interaction … This also corresponds to and extends to such sensitive areas as defence and security” within African countries (Al-Jazeera, June 9).

Why you can’t always trust the intelligence on nuclear breakout

Kunal Singh

The recent air strikes by Israel and the United States on nuclear infrastructure in Iran have revived disputes over intelligence on the imminence of a nuclear breakout—that is, how long it would take Iran to build its first nuclear weapon.

In March, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard reiterated the longstanding view in the American intelligence community that Iran had not yet decided to weaponize its nuclear capabilities. Israeli intelligence, on the other hand

indicated that Iran was not only accelerating its weaponization program but also planning for how to mate an explosive uranium core to a missile. It seems that President Donald Trump found the Israeli intelligence more convincing and decided that the United States would join in the air campaign started by Israel.

Much of the controversy over how close Iran was to breakout stems from the fact that intelligence reports tend to feed into a narrative justifying, or denying the grounds for, a preventive war on nuclear programs.

This much is clear: No matter what the intelligence says about a potential nuclear breakout, the global nonproliferation architecture is harmed by preventive attacks. Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has stated, as have former directors-general Mohamed ElBaradei and Hans Blix, that nuclear facilities should not be attacked under any circumstances.

INTERVIEW: New study finds national security officials are way (way) too confident

Thomas Gaulkin

The dust may have cleared from the June 22 US bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities, but the impact of the attack remains clouded by uncertainty: What was damaged? Were uranium stockpiles and centrifuges destroyed or moved? Was any radiation released? Will Iran’s nuclear program survive? What happens next?

Last week, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told reporters that “we have degraded their program by one to two years. At least intel assessments inside the [Defense Department] assess that.” The same day, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian ordered a suspension of the country’s cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

It may be a long while before intelligence agencies, let alone the public, have any clarity about the state of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and whether the US decision to attack was worth the risk.

Meanwhile, a large new study of US and NATO military and intelligence officers’ intuitions about risk and uncertainty makes one thing clear: Overconfidence among national security officials is nearly universal.

In a forthcoming paper to be published in the Texas National Security Review, Jeffrey Friedman details the results of a survey showing that 2,000 relatively high-ranking national security officials were consistently too sure of their assessments. “Overconfidence was so extreme that it essentially canceled out the knowledge that these individuals possessed,” he writes.

Friedman is an associate professor of political science at Dartmouth, where he researches the politics and psychology of foreign policy decision-making. The results of his latest study are, as he tells me in the following interview, alarming. But he also says there’s an easy fix.

The Gulf Countries Want to Stay Out of the Iran Conflict. Each Is Taking Its Own Path.

Andrew Leber

The Middle East Program in Washington combines in-depth regional knowledge with incisive comparative analysis to provide deeply informed recommendations. With expertise in the Gulf, North Africa, Iran, and Israel/Palestine, we examine crosscutting themes of political, economic, and social change in both English and Arabic.Learn More

The past few weeks have been busy for diplomats of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) monarchies, which have successively criticized Israel’s airstrikes on Iran, expressed concern over U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, and condemned Iran’s missile strike on a Qatari military base that hosts U.S. forces.

Amid this flurry of activity, a throughline among Gulf-state responses has been a desire to keep clear of an Israeli-Iranian conflict that stands to define regional geopolitics for the near future. However, even as Israel now rivals Iran as a source of regional instability in the eyes of many GCC officials, different states are taking different approaches to manage the resulting sense of anxiety.

Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, for example, has sought refuge in the eye of the storm, attempting to maintain good ties with all sides through active diplomatic engagement. This continues both the country’s longstanding efforts to be a broker between the United States and a revolving cast of regional actors, and its more specific balancing act in U.S.-Israel-Hamas negotiations over a potential ceasefire.

How BRICS Can Survive ‘America First’

Sarang Shidore,

What does Washington’s dominant “America First” mood mean for BRICS?

As its leaders gather in Rio de Janeiro this weekend, the omens are not propitious. U.S. President Donald Trump has taken direct aim at the 10-nation grouping, threatening to impose a 100 percent tariff on its member states should they try to dethrone the U.S. dollar from its globally dominant role.

Washington has also stepped up a trade and tariff war across the world, including against almost all BRICS states. And a BRICS member state, Iran, recently came under a ferocious military assault from the United States. Can BRICS survive this onslaught, and what must it do to stay relevant in a new world?

How Trump Will Be Remembered

U.S. presidents have big egos—if they didn’t, their chances of reaching the Oval Office would be slim—and they want to be remembered favorably after they are gone. A few presidents, such as George Washington,

Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, enjoy an exalted status in part for their exceptional qualities but also because they overcame challenging circumstances that required extraordinary leadership. Presidents who govern in more normal times, or whose actions in office are tainted by obvious failures, can only hope they don’t end up near the bottom of one of those lists ranking presidents from best to worst.

As in so many other things, Donald Trump’s obsession with his own place in history is in a class by itself. No other president has made his time in office so nakedly about himself or been as transparent in his desire to be remembered as one of the greatest U.S. presidents. Indeed, he seems to believe that he has already earned this accolade.

Israel showed that seizing air superiority isn't gone from modern warfare, but Iran isn't China or Russia

Sinéad Baker

Israel, however, was able to quickly achieve it against Iran.

But Iran, though capable, isn't bringing the same fight that a foe such as Russia or China could.

Israel swiftly seized air superiority over parts of Iran during the latest fight, showing it's still possible in modern, higher-end warfare to heavily dominate an enemy's skies.

But there's a risk in taking the wrong lesson from that win. Iran isn't Russia or China, and as the West readies for potential near-peer conflict, it really can't afford to forget that, officials and experts have cautioned.

Western military officials and warfare experts have repeatedly warned in recent years that achieving air superiority against those countries would be a daunting task.

Russia and China, especially the latter, boast sophisticated, integrated air defense networks with ground-based interceptors well supported by capable air forces, electronic warfare, and reliable space-based and airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

Air superiority in a limited theater isn't the same as breaking through a complex anti-access, area-denial setup.

Israel's victory in the air war over Iran shows air superiority is "not impossible" in modern warfare, explained retired Australian Army Maj. Gen. Mick Ryan, a warfare strategist. That said, he continued, a Western conflict with Russia or China would be "very different."

How to renew world order

Are we truly witnessing the destruction of the rules-based international order that was created, however imperfectly, in the aftermath of the unparalleled world wars and crises of the 20th century? Are we truly on the cusp of a new ‘age of strongmen’ dominated by authoritarian leaders like Trump, Putin and Xi Jinping, in which the strong impose and the bullies get what they can – and the weak suffer and concede what they must?

Unquestionably, we live in a ‘time of turning’, in which Putin relentlessly expands his war of aggression against Ukraine, Xi Jinping’s China advances its own revisionist agenda vis-à-vis Taiwan, and upheaval in the Middle East seems unstoppable.

We are also witnessing how relentlessly Trump seeks to dismantle not only liberal-constitutional government in the United States but also the postwar order whose creation America shaped so decisively. Some observers have claimed that this catapults us back to the ‘might over right’ politics of 19th-century imperialism, which set the stage for a ‘short’ 20th century of extremes. But is the world really bound for endemic disorder in which ruthless ‘mafia powers’ compete for primacy?

It is premature to draw such conclusions. Instead, the focus should be on two different and indeed crucial questions: how can we not only salvage but actually renew the core of the rule-based modern order that was first conceived after 1918 and then created after 1945? What deeper lessons can we draw from the decisive transformation and learning processes that made such advances possible?

To answer these questions, it is essential to map out a wider historical context. To be illuminated is the transformative long 20th century. In my interpretation, this century dawned roughly around 1860, when the globalisation of capitalist and imperialist competition remade the world. It ended around 2022, when its hard-won and unfinished order came to be unmade – or was renewed for the 21st century.

A warning to the young: just say no to AI

Aaron MacLean

I have a warning for you. There is a conspiracy afoot in the land, targeting all of us. The computers in our pockets and the screens all around us have for years paired incredible access to all the world’s information with increasingly ruthless attacks on our capacity for focus, or for what some call ‘deep work’. That’s old news. We all fight this battle every day and it’s important to develop techniques to win it.

But there’s something new under the sun that is far more destructive – and especially for you, the young, who are still in the thick of education, perfecting the ability to reason and really (shocking as it may seem) just at the start of a journey of serious reading and writing that will ultimately reveal, in ten years or so, the questions you ought to be asking.

About ten years after that, you’ll begin to have some tentative and decent answers to those questions, the implications and consequences of which you’ll then spend the rest of your life working out. (Or you could work faster than me, I suppose!)

Of course, I’m talking about AI – specifically, LLMs, or Large Language Models, and the ways in which students use them. The situation overall is serious like a heart attack—or, maybe more appropriately, like a stroke, because the threat is to your mind. And it is a deadly threat. The life of your mind is at stake.

Let me explain.

One of the most depressing conversations I’ve had in the last year was with a former colleague of mine at the United States Naval Academy who now occupies a position of real responsibility at that school. This person is a brilliant, cultured, well-meaning patriot who only wants the best for the young officers in training there. I was genuinely shocked when this person told me that humanities departments at Annapolis would be incorporating the use of AI into class writing. After all, the students were all using AI for assignments anyway, and would be ‘writing’ this way when they got out into the world, so the practice may as well be brought into the light. The students should, as it were, train as they fight.

13 July 2025

The Path to a US-India Trade Deal Lies Through Economic Security

Ishaan Thakker

Negotiations for a U.S.-India trade deal have been progressing at breakneck pace, as officials rush to reach an agreement before President Donald Trump’s July 9 tariff deadline. India being near the front of the line is surprising, given that the two countries have consistently imposed high trade barriers and haven’t signed a deal despite years of discussions.

But Delhi is ready to negotiate because it sees an even bigger geoeconomic play: undercut China’s status as a leading manufacturing hub and destination for investment by securing key supply chains and investing in advanced technologies. To seal the deal, Washington and Delhi should put economic security issues at the heart of the agreement.

Getting to yes will require overcoming a long history of nos. In 2019, the U.S. removed India from the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program, and India imposed retaliatory tariffs on 28 U.S. goods in response to earlier Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum. While mutual tech and defense cooperation increased during the Biden administration, and India joined the non-trade pillars of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, there was little progress in improving market access apart from the removal of previous tariffs and resolution of WTO disputes.

Despite Trump’s recent optimism, ongoing negotiations for a first tranche deal are facing several hurdles, largely due to U.S. demands for lower trade barriers for steel and agricultural products. The task of lowering tariffs and non-tariff barriers for agriculture is especially politically costly for the Indian government,

given that 46 percent of the workforce is involved in agriculture. While still willing to negotiate, Indian officials have signaled their preference for a good deal that puts national interest first rather than just a deal, which may defer discussions on tariffs for key industries and constituencies to a future round of negotiations.

What Pete Hegseth Doesn’t Understand About Soldiers

Mike Nelson

In the summer of 2014, I was leading a company of Green Berets—from the 5th Special Forces Group—in Afghanistan’s Kunduz province. President Barack Obama had recently promised an end of combat operations in the country, and the Taliban understood the tactical implications of his statement, believing that the drawdown of coalition forces meant they could now operate with impunity. They further believed that during the holy month of Ramadan,

our Afghan partners, too tired from fasting during the day, would not conduct large-scale operations against them. My company, along with commandos from Afghanistan’s 5th Special Operations Kandak, decided to surprise them.

Over the course of a week, we would assault Taliban strongholds, striking enemy forces when and where they believed they were most secure.

During one of these operations, in Dasht-e-Archi district, a combined American and Afghan team had just stepped off the helicopters when Taliban machine-gun crews opened fire. Our soldiers responded without hesitation,

killing several enemy fighters and capturing a Taliban machine gunner. At that moment, the team leader radioed me. He was suddenly confronting a scenario that every Green Beret officer prepares for during the Special Forces Qualification Course: His foreign counterpart was about to commit a war crime.

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The machine gunner was severely wounded and, in the dark colloquialism of our profession, circling the drain. An Afghan lieutenant argued that the fighter didn’t deserve mercy; his commandos should finish him off. The impulse was understandable in the lieutenant’s heightened post-combat state; the proposal was also illegal and morally reprehensible.

Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan Expedite Work on Joint Railway Project

Recent meetings between officials from Tashkent, Kabul, and Islamabad have given fresh impetus to the Uzbekistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan (UAP) railway project, with Pakistan leading the way in coordinating final steps before construction.

The railway will provide a direct connection from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean and South Asia while enhancing the three countries’ positions in both north-south and east-west trade.

The lack of a standardized rail gauge for transnational connections, combined with ongoing security concerns, could further delay the project. Islamabad and Kabul, however, have made significant progress in reconciling their border security issues.

On June 3, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Railways, Muhammad Hanif Abbasi, and Uzbekistan’s Ambassador to Pakistan, Ali Shir Takhtae,

reiterated their resolve to complete the Uzbekistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan (UAP) railway project during a meeting in Islamabad (Radio Pakistan, June 3). They also devised a joint strategy for beginning the railway’s construction in the near future. Abbasi declared, “Upon completion of this project, Pakistan will gain the shortest and most efficient route to Central Asia, which will not only increase trade volumes but also place the region’s economy on a more solid footing” (Dunya News, June 3).

The West Can’t Survive the Sanctions It Needs to Deter China

Brett Erickson

In the modern context, sanctions are supposed to act as a line of defense, measures designed to dissuade adversaries before a conflict even begins. But for sanctions to carry weight, they must be seen as viable: not just in concept, but in execution.

At present, that foundation is unstable. While Western leaders continue to invoke unity and strength, the tools meant to apply real economic pressure are disjointed and prone to breakdown under strain. The mechanisms required to turn intent into credible action, coordinated enforcement, reliable escalation pathways, and the stamina to withstand domestic fallout, are either missing altogether or proving insufficient where they exist.

The recent response to Russia illustrates this point. Sanctions were rolled out quickly, but their impact has been diluted by inconsistent implementation, a patchwork of legal frameworks, and the absence of long-term political consensus. Instead of a sustained front, we’ve seen a series of measures that lack follow-through and coherence. Recent reporting by the New York Times highlighted a lack of new U.S. sanctions on Russia under the second Donald Trump administration.

What was meant to project strength has instead revealed systemic vulnerability: goods still move through loopholes, enforcement lags, and even allied governments backpedal when domestic costs begin to rise.

China, in watching all this unfold, is learning exactly where the West’s thresholds lie, and what the United States and its partners are willing to tolerate in practice. The New York Times found that more than 130 companies in mainland China and Hong Kong “are advertising immediate sales of restricted computer chips to Russia.” None of the companies found making such advertisements is under sanctions, illustrating the weakness of the existing sanctions regime.

Connecting the Globe After “Globalization”

Kaush Arha, and James Jay Carafano

Globalization—characterized by chasing the lowest costs of production, including in rival countries’ territory—is at an end. Yet, this does not signal a cessation or slowdown of global commerce and trade. On the contrary, global engagement and interconnectedness are still the bedrock of peace and prosperity. In large measure, the future global economic and security architecture will be shaped by diverse, resilient, and trusted connectivity between the Indo-Pacific and Mediterranean-Atlantic (Med-Atlantic) regions.

Shinzo Abe, the late Japanese prime minister, articulated a vision for a “free and open Indo-Pacific region” that is not beholden to any coercive sphere of influence. One of the virtues of the “free and open” notion is its adaptability to different regional characteristics. Most populations aspire to live in free and open societies,

achieving prosperity through free and open markets. Some nations and regions may interpret the concept of “free and open” as a positive and normative state of being. Others may interpret it primarily as the absence of coercion from malign actors.

Trusted connectivity across digital or physical infrastructures is built on two pillars. It calls for the implementation of the best industry standards and, more importantly, governance by laws and institutions that accord with and are accountable to individual dignity and freedom. Countries like China, Russia,

Iran, and North Korea fall substantially short on the second tenet. Nations adhering to both tenets of trusted connectivity will increasingly devise procedures and rules to prioritize trusted commercial and security engagements among like-minded nations.

No, The Chinese Will Not Invade Taiwan

For years, and with increasing intensity, we have been told that the Chinese government is not only resolved to conquer the island of Taiwan by force, but, thanks to its well advertised build-up of military might, has the means to do so. “The threat is manifest during this decade, in fact, in the next six years,” Admiral Phil Davidson,

the retiring head of the Indo-Pacific command told congress in 2021. The prediction that China would be ready to invade by 2027 has since become official dogma in Washington, spawning untold billions of dollars in defense spending pegged to this threat. Despite constant invocations of China’s expanding navy,

including amphibious capabilities, the Pentagon has studiously avoided telling us exactly how China could manage to move a necessarily enormous force across the stormy seas of the Taiwan strait and subdue the well-armed island.

Fortunately, we now have a clear-eyed examination of the reality behind the much ballyhooed threat. Marine veteran Dan Grazier is Director of the National Security Reform Program at the Stimson Center in Washington D.C. As well as serving tours in Iraq and Afghanistan,

he was specifically trained in amphibious warfare. Grazier has taken the trouble to explore the practical difficulties facing anyone seeking to invade Taiwan. I spoke with him recently to discuss his conclusions, which he and Stimson colleague McKenna Rawlins have now laid out in a report due to bepublished this week.

Connecting the Globe After “Globalization”

Kaush Arha, and James Jay Carafano

Globalization—characterized by chasing the lowest costs of production, including in rival countries’ territory—is at an end. Yet, this does not signal a cessation or slowdown of global commerce and trade. On the contrary, global engagement and interconnectedness are still the bedrock of peace and prosperity. In large measure, the future global economic and security architecture will be shaped by diverse, resilient, and trusted connectivity between the Indo-Pacific and Mediterranean-Atlantic (Med-Atlantic) regions.

Shinzo Abe, the late Japanese prime minister, articulated a vision for a “free and open Indo-Pacific region” that is not beholden to any coercive sphere of influence. One of the virtues of the “free and open” notion is its adaptability to different regional characteristics. Most populations aspire to live in free and open societies, achieving prosperity through free and open markets. Some nations and regions may interpret the concept of “free and open” as a positive and normative state of being. Others may interpret it primarily as the absence of coercion from malign actors.

Trusted connectivity across digital or physical infrastructures is built on two pillars. It calls for the implementation of the best industry standards and, more importantly, governance by laws and institutions that accord with and are accountable to individual dignity and freedom. Countries like China, Russia, Iran,

and North Korea fall substantially short on the second tenet. Nations adhering to both tenets of trusted connectivity will increasingly devise procedures and rules to prioritize trusted commercial and security engagements among like-minded nations.

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