Inside the minds of the cyber attackers - opinion

Source Link

As Israel fended off physical attacks from the air, it also grappled with a surge in silent, sophisticated cyber warfare.Since the launch of Operation Rising Lion on June 13, cyberattacks against Israeli entities have surged by more than 700%.The targets? Not just defense systems or infrastructure, but civilians and financial institutions at the heart of the economy.

One particularly widespread campaign came disguised as an act of aid. Thousands of Israelis received a message claiming to be from the Finance Ministry, offering wartime grants to households.The form looked official: clean branding, bureaucratic language, a tone of reassurance. But behind the scenes, it was a data trap.Cyber Attack (credit: INGIMAGE)Victims were asked to submit sensitive personal information: ID numbers, home addresses, number of family members, and bank account details.“It looked completely legitimate,” one recipient said. “I only realized I had handed over everything to attackers after it was too late.”

This is the essence of wartime social engineering, exploiting panic, urgency, and confusion to trick people into giving attackers exactly what they need.These attacks are not only aimed at the public. They have penetrated deep into Israel’s financial sector, where remote work and digital collaboration have become the norm.From phishing emails that mimic IT departments to fake Zoom invites and Slack messages urging urgent action, attackers are targeting the internal systems companies rely on most, especially when they are stretched thin during conflict.In a world where physical borders are fading, the battlefield has moved to the screen. Israel, widely regarded as a global cyber power, is not only a defender; it’s also a high-value target. What drives the attackers? How do they view their operations? And why is Israel such a coveted target?

An expert’s point of view on a current event.

Bhaskar Chakravorti

Source Link

U.S. President Donald Trump, accompanied by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, speaks with members of the media before boarding Marine One on the south lawn of the White House in Washington on July 15.U.S. President Donald Trump, accompanied by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, speaks with members of the media before boarding Marine One on the south lawn of the White House in Washington on July 15. Mehmet Eser/Middle East 

Donald Trump “really gets it.” This is according to no less an authority than Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, who was commenting on the U.S. president’s understanding of AI and ways to maximize its potential.Surely, the fact that Trump blocked time on his very first full day in office to line Altman up along with other tech luminaries in the White House’s Roosevelt Room to announce a half-a-trillion-dollar AI infrastructure project tells us that Trump gets AI’s national significance.

Bhaskar Chakravorti is the dean of global business at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He is the founding executive director of Fletcher’s Institute for Business in the Global Context, where he established and chairs the Digital Planet research program. His next book Defeating Disinformation (co-edited with Joel Trachtman) will be published by Cambridge University Press in January 2025.

Trump Dredges Up the Russian Oil Fight

Rishi Iyengar

Source Link

Russian President Vladimir Putin greets Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a welcoming ceremony for participants of the BRICS summit in Kazan.Russian President Vladimir Putin greets Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a welcoming ceremony for participants of the BRICS summit in Kazan on Oct. 22, 2024. Maxim Shemetov/AFP

India thought it had found clear waters. Initial U.S. and European hand-wringing over New Delhi’s continued purchases of Russian oil despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine gave way to a grudging but quiet acceptance of geopolitical realities.But that was then, 

and this is now. That was under former U.S. President Joe Biden, who saw building ties with India as more important than cutting off a major lifeline for Russia’s economy. This is President Donald Trump, who has gone from admiration to exasperation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, is willing to use trade as a weapon against pretty much anyone, and most importantly, has a complete disregard for norms and precedent—recent or otherwise.

The Great Dismantling

Suzanne Nossel

Source Link

The foreign-policy experts and practitioners who have devoted their careers to liberal causes have had a rough six months. Since U.S. President Donald Trump reentered office, he has upended their life’s work.

The headlines covering his overhaul of the federal government have largely focused on a few earthquakes, such as the demise of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the dismantling of State Department bureaus dealing with human rights and refugees. But Trump’s cuts have also battered scores of civil society organizations and policy centers that received funding from the U.S. government.

I Covered the Epstein Case for Decades. These Are 9 Questions We Actually Need Answered.

Barry Levine

Source Link

This article has been updated to include new information about President Trump’s knowledge of whether his name appeared in the F.B.I.’s files on Jeffrey Epstein.President Trump and members of his administration teased us with the prospect of making public Jeffrey Epstein’s F.B.I. files. Instead, we got zilch.

Mr. Trump then ordered the Department of Justice to seek the release of some grand jury testimony — a request that a federal judge in Florida denied on Wednesday. But even that information, though it might have filled in some gaps in the Epstein story, would have been only a sliver of what’s in the F.B.I. files — which include a mind-boggling “300 gigabytes of data and physical evidence,” according to the Department of Justice and the F.B.I.

The American people — and above all, the victims of Mr. Epstein’s crimes — deserve answers to outstanding questions about how he operated, with whose help and in whose service. With the exception of redactions required to protect the innocent and materials that must be withheld while under court seal, the complete F.B.I. files should be released.

Here are nine unanswered questions about the Epstein case — ones that a curious, non-conspiracy-minded citizen might have — that the files might help answer:

No. 1: How did Mr. Epstein make his money, and how did he finance his sex trafficking over two decades?

At the time of Mr. Epstein’s death in 2019, his estate was worth an estimated $600 million. He worked briefly on Wall Street and built his wealth with the help of several billionaires, including the L Brands founder Leslie Wexner and the Apollo Global Management co-founder Leon Black, for whom Mr. Epstein provided consulting, tax advice and other financial services. But it’s still not clear how Mr. Epstein amassed such a large fortune — or how he was able to fund such a complex trafficking scheme.

Gaza is starving and outrage is spreading. Will Netanyahu listen?

Paula Hancocks

Source Link

Sham Qadeh, a 22-month-old Palestinian girl suffering from severe malnutrition and an enlarged liver, is pictured with her mom in a makeshift tent on June 28 in Khan Younis, Gaza. Doaa Albaz/Anadolu/Getty ImagesThe images of skeletal children that are now pouring out of Gaza are shocking but they should not be surprising. Humanitarian groups with decades of experience distributing aid in the Strip have been warning about this scenario for months, since Israel began throttling aid to a trickle.

Haunting footage of lifeless bodies with sharp bones protruding through stretched skin can be seen around the world. The pictures of starvation in Gaza are horrific, distressing and inescapable.The main United Nations agency for Palestinians said Thursday that “people are being starved, while a few kilometers away supermarkets are loaded with food,” highlighting the stark and uncomfortable reality between life in Israel and survival in Gaza.

On a popular US-Canadian podcast this week, listeners learned that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prefers Burger King to McDonalds, a ‘Whopper’ seeming to be his burger of choice. While Netanyahu did not introduce the topic, the public discussion on fast food by the man responsible for getting food into Gaza is, at its most generous, tone deaf.The US correspondent for Israeli newspaper Haaretz noted that Netanyahu “spent valuable time” on the burger chat “rather than answering legitimate questions about the Gaza humanitarian crisis or the delays in sealing a hostage deal and cease-fire.”

World leaders see the same pictures of starvation as everyone else and yet seem powerless to stop them, unable to pressure Israel into allowing more aid in or returning to the tried and tested UN-led distribution methods.Seela Barbakh, an 11-month-old Palestinian girl who is malnourished according to medics, is held by her mother Najah at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza on Wednesday. Ramadan Abed/Reuters

Russia Is Losing Its Near Abroad

Source Link

Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine is one piece of a broader campaign to restore a sphere of influence in post-Soviet Eurasia. The 2022 invasion came as a shock to many of Russia’s neighbors in eastern Europe, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia, confirming their fears that Russia remained a threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of their countries. Yet because the war in Ukraine has been a massive drain on Russian attention and resources, it has also presented many of these countries with an opportunity. Taking advantage of Moscow’s distraction, they have enhanced their cooperation with one another, cultivated and deepened partnerships outside the region, and loosened some of the bonds tying them to their former imperial hegemon.

Although many governments in the Eurasian interior have been cautious about criticizing the Russian invasion, they are creating facts on the ground that reinforce their sovereignty and independence—a key objective of U.S. policy in the region since the 1990s. As the Russian military’s demand for weapons has left Moscow unable to fulfill promised exports, countries such as Armenia are turning to other suppliers in Europe and India; other regional states are purchasing weapons from Turkey and even China. 

And as Russia has withdrawn forces and equipment from its military bases in the Caucasus and Central Asia to redeploy them to Ukraine, countries in both places are resolving conflicts that Russia has long exploited for its own benefit. Improved cooperation within the wider region is also creating new opportunities to enhance trade connectivity and build alternatives to transit through Russia. By reducing the dependency that once defined their relationship with their former hegemon, countries in the region have become increasingly capable of engaging Russia (and other powers) on favorable terms.

And yet if history is any guide, Moscow could go to extreme lengths to preserve its regional dominion. In 2014, before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia annexed Crimea and intervened in the Donbas region; earlier, in 2008, it invaded Georgia. Today, the Kremlin maintains a proprietary view of not only Ukraine but also many other countries. Ukraine and Belarus remain Moscow’s top priorities, but the Kremlin also aspires to a kind of suzerainty over Armenia, Azerbaijan.

Iran’s Nuclear Program Has Survived

Michael Young

Source Link

Diwan, a blog from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East Program and the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, draws on Carnegie scholars to provide insight into and analysis of the region. Learn More Rosemary Kelanic is director of the Middle East Program at Defense Priorities, a think tank that promotes a foreign policy prioritizing restraint, diplomacy, and free trade to ensure U.S. security. Kelanic publishes widely on energy security, 

great power politics, and U.S. grand strategy in the Middle East. She is the author of Black Gold and Blackmail: Oil and Great Power Politics (Cornell University Press, 2020), and has co-edited, with Charles L. Glaser, Crude Strategy: Rethinking the U.S. Military Commitment to Defend Persian Gulf Oil (Georgetown University Press, 2016). Diwan interviewed Kelanic earlier this week to discuss her publicly expressed scepticism that the recent U.S. attacks against Iranian nuclear facilities did the damage that President Donald Trump and officials in his administration have claimed they did.

Michael Young: You have just been cited in a New York Times article suggesting that the U.S. bombing of nuclear facilities in Iran last month was more successful than initially believed. In your remarks, however, you sounded a cautionary note about this assessment. Can I ask you to explain your reasoning?Rosemary Kelanic: The assessments focus on the three big sites that the United States hit: Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. And while those sites are important, they are not the be-all and end-all of Iran’s nuclear program.

 Iran has been enriching uranium for over 20 years, and its capabilities are entirely indigenous, meaning that it manufactures its own centrifuges and other critical equipment. It has produced an entire generation of nuclear scientists and technicians, numbering in the thousands, that understands the technology and can rebuild what was damaged. The Iranian nuclear complex is sprawling and includes many additional sites beyond Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan that were not hit by airstrikes. Focusing too much on the fate of the big three risks being unable to distinguish the forest from the trees. And the forest is this: Iran has the knowledge to rebuild what was destroyed, probably within months.

Netanyahu’s Hold on Power Is Slipping. Will Trump Help?

Aaron David Miller

Source Link

Buckle your seat belts for the wild ride that Israelis, along with the Trump administration, are about to experience between now and year’s end as the prime minister, a man whose almost every move is tethered to his determination to remain in power, plans and plots his reelection bid, most likely for early 2026. As former U.S. House Speaker Tip O’Neill famously said, “All politics is local”—a truth that holds in Israel as well. Just look at the issue of ultra-Orthodox conscription, which has rocked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition of late.

But one element of Netanyahu’s bid for reelection isn’t local: Donald Trump. Indeed, the U.S. president may not be the only factor shaping Netanyahu’s political future, but he certainly is an important one. That gives Trump, whose relationship with Netanyahu has been rocky at times, significant leverage. He can either help or hurt Netanyahu’s bid to extend his domination of Israel’s political scene. So, how will Trump play his part, and will he continue his propensity to be more supportive of Netanyahu than not?

Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former U.S. State Department Middle East analyst and negotiator in Republican and Democratic administrations. He is the author of The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President. X: @aarondmiller2

The Nvidia Chip Deal Trades Away the United States’ AI Advantage

Sam Winter-Levy

Source Link

Last week, U.S. chip designer Nvidia announced that it would resume sales of one of its best-selling artificial intelligence chips to China after obtaining the go-ahead from the U.S. government. In April, the Trump administration had blocked exports of the chip, known as the H20, but after months of lobbying from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, it has reportedly agreed to lift the ban. Some Trump officials have described the move as a part of the recent trade truce between the United States and China, through which China agreed to resume exports of rare-earth minerals. Beijing has described it as a unilateral concession by Washington.

Whatever the true sequence of events, the move has huge implications for both the future of the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) industry and the Trump administration’s ability to control advanced technology sales to China in the future. Right as powerful AI reasoning systems are emerging, the administration has chosen to allow companies to sell China the AI chips suited to running them. And by linking, at least rhetorically, chip sales to the trade talks—talks in which the United States has shown a striking desperation to reach a deal—U.S. officials have revealed to their Chinese counterparts that national security policies that were once off the table are now up for negotiation. In doing so, they may have hamstrung their ability to impose new chip export controls without reigniting a losing trade war.

Reinventing European Diplomacy

Pierre Vimont

Source Link

Following recent Western allies’ summits—G7 and NATO in particular—European participants have come under fire from their constituents for meekly pandering to U.S. President Donald Trump. And current trade negotiations, with the EU’s repeated failure to impose an economic cost on the United States, despite its trade heft, have only fed the narrative.

In response to these critics, European leaders have stressed their sense of responsibility. The burden-shifting inside NATO in favor of an enhanced European defense cannot be done overnight. It must rely for the time being on an enduring, if gradually reduced, U.S. military presence in Europe. It is this dependence that pushes many European leaders to appease Trump. As for trade, European leaders seem to still be hoping they can avoid a full-fledged confrontation, even though Trump could not be clearer that asymmetrical tariffs are the new norm.

But European leaders are playing for time, because the twenty-seven EU member states do not share a common assessment of the extent and depth of change happening in the United States. They also lack a strategic vision for the new role the EU and their countries need to play in the post–World War II order. But in opting for a wait-and-see approach, they risk programming their own geopolitical obsolescence.

Even though Trump’s foreign policy has been less isolationist than expected, it has been frenetic and often half-baked. The U.S. moves on Ukraine, Israel, and Iran, in Europe’s most critical surroundings, have dire consequences for Europeans unless they snap out of their effacement and establish themselves as power brokers. Trump’s equivocating on Ukraine and his participation in the Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities have worsened these already fraught situations, with Europeans vastly exposed to their indirect effects.

Making America Alone Again

Source Link

Henry Kissinger once compared himself to the lone cowboy who rode into town to sort out the bad guys. But the U.S. secretary of state, who also served as national security adviser, knew different when it came to dealing with major powers. His hero was the Austrian statesman Klemens von Metternich, who somehow brought together the unlikely combination of Austria, the United Kingdom, Prussia, Russia, and a number of even smaller allies and their incompatible leaders into the alliance that finally defeated Napoleon in 1815. As Kissinger understood, even lone rangers need friends.

It is an insight that appears to be lost on U.S. President Donald Trump. Since returning to office in January, Trump has called the United States’ closest allies cheaters and freeloaders. Japan and other Asian trading partners, he insists, are “very spoiled”; immediate North American neighbors stand accused of exporting drugs and criminals. He freely and publicly labels the leaders of some of the United States’ most important democratic partners as has-beens, weak, or dishonest, 

while heaping praise on autocrats he finds easier to deal with, such as Hungarian President Viktor Orban (“a very great leader”), Salvadoran strongman Nayib Bukele (“a great friend”), North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un (“a smart guy”), and—at least until very recently—Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he has called “a genius” and “very savvy” in attacking Ukraine. In what would have been unthinkable in previous administrations, including Trump’s first, the United States in February even sided against its own democratic allies and with Russia and other authoritarian states, such as North Korea and Belarus, in voting against a UN resolution that condemned Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and upheld the latter’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Perhaps most baffling, at a time when Washington is trying to contain China and shore up U.S. defenses in the Indo-Pacific, the administration is preparing punitive tariffs on South Korea and Japan, the United States’ closest Asian allies, as well as on a sweeping list of European partners it is trying to keep away from Beijing. U.S. allies around the world are also rattled by the public musings of Trump and members of his cabinet that the so-called nuclear umbrella under which the American nuclear deterrent was a guarantee for their defense is no longer a sure thing. 

Heeding the Risks of Geopolitical Instability in a Race to Artificial General Intelligence

Source Link

As artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly advances, many AI experts predict that the first state to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI) that can perform a wide range of tasks better than humans will gain huge advantages in military and economic power. If U.S. and Chinese leaders believe that losing the race to AGI would pose a dire threat to their nations, how will they respond if their strategic competitor appears poised to win it? Or, how will they respond if their state successfully develops AGI and then faces challenges to its newly achieved technological dominance?

The author of this paper presents a typology of potential strategic responses, focusing on preventive actions that states might take to undermine an opponent's AI development efforts, and draws on the history of geopolitical power shifts and nuclear proliferation to identify key factors that are likely to affect whether national leaders will decide to launch preventive attacks against rival AI programs. 

Uncertainties about the potential characteristics and implications of AGI might make pressures for preventive action especially powerful but might also discourage leaders from taking great risks when the magnitude and proximity of the danger are unclear. This analysis suggests that strategists and decisionmakers should seriously consider how incentives for preventive action might make the period of transition before and after the emergence of AGI geopolitically fraught. The assessments presented in this paper can provide a starting point for making policy choices to manage the resulting risks of international instability.

One in five children in Gaza City is malnourished, UN aid agency says

Source Link

One in five children in Gaza City is malnourished and cases are increasing every day, the UN's Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa) says.In a statement issued on Thursday, Unrwa Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini cited a colleague telling him: "People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses."More than 100 international aid organisations and human rights groups have also warned of mass starvation - pressing for governments to take action.

Israel, which controls the entry of all supplies into Gaza, says there is no siege and blames Hamas for any cases of malnutrition.The UN, however, has warned that the level of aid getting into Gaza is "a trickle" and the hunger crisis in the territory "has never been so dire".In his statement on Thursday, Lazzarini said "more than 100 people, the vast majority of them children, have reportedly died of hunger".

"Most children our teams are seeing are emaciated, weak and at high risk of dying if they don't get the treatment they urgently need," he said, pleading for Israel to "allow humanitarian partners to bring unrestricted and uninterrupted humanitarian assistance to Gaza".Unrwa workers are "increasingly fainting from hunger while at work", according to Lazzarini, who added: "When caretakers cannot find enough to eat, the entire humanitarian system is collapsing".

On Wednesday, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said a large proportion of the population of Gaza was "starving"."I don't know what you would call it other than mass starvation - and it's man-made," the head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said.Listen: The story behind the harrowing photograph of a starving Gaza babyIn northern Gaza, Hanaa Almadhoun, 40, said local markets are often without food and other supplies.

Trump Makes Some Apparent Trade Deals in Asia, but Could be Poisoning the Waters Long Term

Joshua Kurlantzick,  Annabel Richter,

Source Link

Amidst electoral turmoil in Japan and an upcoming summit between top leaders from the EU and China, President Donald Trump has announced what appears to be the settlement of trade deals with three Asian partners, though there has been little follow-up formalizing some agreements. Months of negotiations seem to have finally paid off this week, helping the United States ahead of a supposed August 1 deadline for new country-specific tariffs to take effect. But despite Trump’s proclamation of his role in securing “the largest trade deal in history” with Tokyo, the needle may not have moved much when it comes to swaying Southeast Asia to make deals that also include their commitments to remove China from their supply chains and transshipments, and ultimately isolate Beijing economically.

On Tuesday, July 22, President Trump shared a post on his Truth Social account declaring that Japan had agreed that exports to the U.S. would face tariffs of 15 percent, a figure which Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru confirmed to members of the press on Wednesday morning in Tokyo.

Additionally, in a development that shocked most analysts of both countries’ business communities, the agreement stipulates that Japan will create a $550 billion fund that would fall under the discretionary direction of President Trump, with 90 percent of the profits from the fund’s investments returned to the United States. U.S. officials have described its intended use to revitalize specific industrial sectors, including energy infrastructure, pharmaceuticals, and minerals processing, but neither Tokyo nor Washington has issued any comments articulating how it would really work. And with the ruling Japanese LDP losing voters to conservative/nationalist parties, the idea of Japan giving in so much could prove politically untenable in Tokyo.

Meanwhile, Indonesia has apparently signed a deal with the United States—again, formal signing and details agreed by both countries remain sketchy—that creates a tariff rate of 19 percent with commitments to roll back a number of significant non-tariff barriers in a move that defies its traditionally protectionist approach. According to a joint statement released on Tuesday that clarified the terms of the deal initially announced on July 15, Jakarta will essentially eliminate tariffs on American goods despite still facing U.S. tariffs on its exports, invest in $15 billion worth of American energy exports and $4.5 billion of agricultural products, and remove key export restrictions on industrial commodities and critical minerals purchased by the United States.

Safeguarding Critical Infrastructure: Key Challenges in Global Cybersecurity

Nidhi Singh

Source Link

Cyberattacks against critical infrastructure (CI) have evolved from isolated incidents to coordinated campaigns by both state and non-state actors. Cyber threats have become increasingly sophisticated and frequent, particularly those that leverage artificial intelligence (AI). Technologists have noted that AI-powered cyberattacks can bypass traditional defenses, with recent breakout times as short as fifty-one seconds, illustrating the rapid evolution of these threats.[1] These advancements are further exacerbated by China’s increasing offensive cyber capabilities that pose rising threats to CIs, thereby shrinking response windows and making real-time defense capabilities essential.

A closed-door discussion titled “Safeguarding Cybersecurity of Critical Infrastructure” was organized at the Global Technology Summit 2025, co-hosted by Carnegie India and the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. The event brought together cybersecurity experts from Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, and France, along with industry leaders, legal experts, academics, and senior Indian policymakers. The discussion aimed to identify vulnerabilities in CI protection, discuss ways to enhance national cybersecurity resilience through international cooperation for incident response, and deliberate coordination required between government, the private sector, and international partners for protecting CI. Based on the discussion, this essay outlines four key challenges: varying definitions of CI across countries, gaps in international cooperation for norm enforcement, difficulties in public-private information sharing, and vulnerabilities in the hardware supply chain.

Inconsistencies in the definition of CI across countries persist because each nation prioritizes and protects different sectors based on its own frameworks and threat perceptions. This creates challenges for a coordinated crisis response, as illustrated during the 2017 NotPetya attack. When the attack stopped container transport at Rotterdam’s port, city authorities struggled to respond effectively because Maersk’s APM Terminals, despite being vital to port operations, was not classified as CI. This definitional gap prevented national support mobilization and delayed crisis coordination. While this example illustrates challenges for national responses, it poses an even greater challenge at the international level, where varying definitions of CI could hinder aligned threat assessment, mutual aid, and collective response efforts.

America Should Assume the Worst About AI

Source Link

National security leaders rarely get to choose what to care about and how much to care about it. They are more often subjects of circumstances beyond their control. The September 11 attacks reversed the George W. Bush administration’s plan to reduce the United States’ global commitments and responsibilities. Revolutions across the Arab world pushed President Barack Obama back into the Middle East just as he was trying to pull the United States out. And Russia’s invasion of Ukraine upended the Biden administration’s goal of establishing “stable and predictable” relations with Moscow so that it could focus on strategic competition with China.

Policymakers could foresee many of the underlying forces and trends driving these agenda-shaping events. Yet for the most part, they failed to plan for the most challenging manifestations of where these forces would lead. They had to scramble to reconceptualize and recalibrate their strategies to respond to unfolding events.

The rapid advance of artificial intelligence—and the possible emergence of artificial general intelligence—promises to present policymakers with even greater disruption. Indicators of a coming powerful change are everywhere. Beijing and Washington have made global AI leadership a strategic imperative, and leading U.S. and Chinese companies are racing to achieve AGI. News coverage features near-daily announcements of technical breakthroughs, discussions of AI-driven job loss, and fears of catastrophic global risks such as the AI-enabled engineering of a deadly pandemic.

There is no way of knowing with certainty the exact trajectory along which AI will develop or precisely how it will transform national security. Policymakers should therefore assess and debate the merits of competing AI strategies with humility and caution. Whether one is bullish or bearish about AI’s prospects, though, national security leaders need to be ready to adapt their strategic plans to respond to events that could impose themselves on decision-makers this decade, if not during this presidential term. Washington must prepare for potential policy tradeoffs and geopolitical shifts, and identify practical steps it can take today to mitigate risks and turbocharge U.S. competitiveness. Some ideas and initiatives that today may seem infeasible or unnecessary will seem urgent and self-evident with the benefit of hindsight.

China’s Brahmaputra dam is also a military asset. It raises alarm for India

Source Link

Chinese Premier Li Qiang, on 19 July, presided over the groundbreaking of what is set to become the world’s largest hydropower dam, on the so-called ‘Yarlung Zangbo’, as China refers to the Brahmaputra River. Within hours, Chinese online platforms erupted in celebration. A Weibo hashtag marking the occasion—#Construction begins on lower Yarlung Zangbo Hydropower Project—amassed over 73 million views.Beyond the spectacle of scale, the Chinese online discourse quickly turned the project into a symbol of strategic ascendancy. India, the downstream neighbour, is cast as anxious and reactive. China, in contrast, is portrayed as visionary and unyielding—a master of its geography and architect of a new regional order.

In contemporary geopolitics, infrastructure has become a strategic language of its own, one that Beijing is speaking fluently.The Medog Hydropower Station is projected to cost $167 billion and boasts a planned capacity of 70 to 81 million kilowatts, roughly triple that of the Three Gorges Dam. Once completed, it is expected to generate 300 billion kilowatt-hours annually. The project will take a decade to build, but its signalling to the region, especially India, is immediate.

Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of the Global Times, a daily Chinese tabloid, criticised Western media for focusing on India’s ecological and geopolitical concerns while ignoring what he called an “engineering miracle”. For Hu, the dam is not just about electricity; it is also a declaration of China’s ability to tame the Himalayas and reshape geography.One Chinese commentator claimed that India’s objections stem not from technical concerns, but from its deeply entrenched “security-first” mindset. New Delhi, the commentator argued, has long prioritised control over collaboration, building its own dams while accusing others of weaponising water. “India’s alarmism,” another wrote, “comes from its own guilty conscience.”

China’s dual narrative

Officially, Beijing is presenting the dam as a developmental initiative, aimed at energy security, poverty alleviation, regional integration, and transforming Nyingchi into the “Little Sichuan” or “Jiangnan of Tibet.” Talk of water weaponisation is being brushed aside as paranoia. Commentators invoke “non-zero-sum” logic and portray China as a responsible upstream actor.

India’s Dalai Lama Reincarnation Dilemma

Ivan Lidarev

Source Link

The 14th Dalai Lama announced his reincarnation plans on July 2 – and, in doing so, confronted India with the prospect of a huge crisis in its relations with China after his passing. For India such a prospect is hardly new. What is new, however, is the international context. It is this context that is likely to make New Delhi’s policy choices after the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation more difficult.

The Dalai Lama’s reincarnation plans, presented in his July 2 statement, and their strategic implications have long been expected. Despite years of public musings that he might not choose reincarnation or identify an external emanation to succeed him, there was little doubt that the Dalai Lama will be reincarnated. All other options would have undermined both the institution of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan movement he leads. His public musings about alternative plans likely sought to disorient Beijing and pressure it to negotiate.

The only surprises in the Dalai Lama’s announcement were its mildness, compared to his 2011 statement, and the fact that it did not say that he will be reincarnated outside China. These surprises might be part of an effort to seek a negotiated agreement with Beijing but are unlikely to change the big picture.Two claimants are likely to emerge after the passing of the current Dalai Lama: one supported by Beijing in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and one supported by the Tibetan movement and the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) in Dharamsala, India.

This prospect presents New Delhi with a huge dilemma. If two Dalai Lamas emerge, the Indian government will have to recognize one of them, either officially or in practice. And India will have to choose the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala for moral, domestic, and strategic reasons. Not only is the Dalai Lama deeply revered inside India, with many Indians feeling that their country has a moral obligation to help both him and the Tibetan movement, but New Delhi likely recognizes that the Dalai Lama represents an important lever vis-à-vis China, India’s so-called “Tibet card.”

Hypersonic Arms in South Asia: Racing Toward Instability?

Zohaib Altaf

Source Link

On July 16, India reportedly tested its most advanced hypersonic cruise missile under the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO)’s classified Project Vishnu. Powered by an indigenous scramjet engine, media reports said the missile reached Mach 8 (around 11,000 km/h), demonstrated low-altitude maneuverability, and struck its target with precision. Designed for deployment from land, sea, and air platforms, the missile is dual-capable – able to carry conventional or nuclear payloads.

While India has not officially confirmed the test, and some later reports denied a test had taken place, there is no doubt that India is moving toward development and testing of such a missile under Project Vishnu.India’s hypersonic trajectory began with the Shaurya missile, tested in 2008 and 2020, which reached Mach 7.5 and laid the early groundwork for India’s maneuverable strike systems. 

The Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle (HSTDV) followed in 2020, reaching Mach 5.9 at 30 km altitude. The upcoming BrahMos-II, developed with Russia, is expected to achieve Mach 8 over 1,000-1,500 km, with flight trials due by 2027. India is also developing hypersonic drones like the RHH-150, reportedly capable of Mach 10 and mid-flight directional agility, potentially transforming regional strike and surveillance dynamics.

These hypersonic platforms are not just technological upgrades; they reflect a broader doctrinal evolution in Indian thinking. Precision strikes at blistering speed are increasingly central to India’s response options under a time-constrained escalation window. During the recent India-Pakistan conflict, India reportedly targeted six major airbases inside Pakistan, including a surface-to-air missile (SAM) site near Mailer base. Drones were used to locate and attack air defense batteries ahead of time, an indication of India’s evolving emphasis on suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) and kill-chain integration.

This operational logic mirrors Israel’s recent campaign against Iran, where coordinated air, missile, and drone strikes systematically neutralized Iran’s air defense networks before penetrating strikes were executed. Israel’s experience in 1973, where it lost over 100 aircraft largely to SAMs, has shaped a doctrine of pre-emptive suppression. Indian defense officials appear to be embracing similar lessons.

Illicit Liquidity as Battlespace: Rethinking Finance in Asymmetric Conflict

Adam Rousselle 

Source Link

Illicit liquidity has emerged as the hidden scaffolding of modern conflict – a decentralized architecture enabling covert influence, conflict financing, and strategic evasion on a global scale. This report examines the continued operation of Huione, a Chinese-language criminal marketplace that facilitates large-scale financial laundering across Southeast Asia, despite public claims of shutdown. It further explores digital laundering tools more broadly, building toward a working typology. Leveraging encrypted messaging apps and informal financial networks, Huione enables the movement of billions of dollars in illicit funds through fiat-to-stablecoin conversions, card transfers, and in-person cash exchanges–critical infrastructure for state-aligned criminal actors, proxy networks, and scam-industrial complexes.

While often treated as a cybercrime or compliance issue, Huione and networks like it reflect a new reality: decentralized financial platforms now function as logistics and influence infrastructure in irregular conflict.This article argues that the U.S. and its allies should view this laundering ecosystem not just as a criminal threat, but as a strategic enabler of adversarial statecraft. Without a shift in how threat finance is integrated into operational planning, on-chain laundering infrastructure like Huione will continue to outpace enforcement, undermine deterrence, and fuel irregular conflict below the threshold of war.

Introduction

Starting in early 2024, blockchain analysts began tracing a set of suspicious transactions flowing out of Shwe Kokko–a lawless border town in Myanmar known for its Chinese-backed casinos and scam compounds. The money trail wound through obscure stablecoin swaps, informal brokers, and encrypted Telegram channels before disappearing into the digital void. According to open-source intelligence, the proceeds, originating from online fraud and forced labor, are ultimately linked to the financial wing of the Karen National Army (KNA), a militia currently engaged in armed resistance against Myanmar’s military regime.

China’s New Mega-Dam Raises the Stakes for Sino-Indian Hydrodiplomacy

David Tingxuan Zhang

Source Link

On July 19, Chinese Premier Li Qiang officially announced the start of construction on a long-planned hydropower project on the lower reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo River. Billed as a centerpiece of China’s clean energy drive, the dam marks a new chapter in the country’s infrastructure history – one with profound implications not only for domestic development, but also for regional stability in South Asia.

This is no ordinary project. First proposed in the 1990s and later elevated to national priority in China’s 14th Five-Year Plan, the Yarlung Tsangpo hydropower station is widely seen as the country’s most ambitious hydro initiative since the Three Gorges Dam, with Li framing it as a “project of the century.”

The dam’s installed capacity will reportedly exceed 60 gigawatts – roughly triple that of the Three Gorges – generating electricity for tens of millions of homes. State media underscored its strategic importance in helping China reach its 2060 carbon neutrality target, ensure energy security in western regions, and promote high-quality development in the Tibet Autonomous Region. It is also part of China’s 2035 long-term development strategy, which calls for the creation of multiple clean energy hubs along major river basins.

But the project’s magnitude also heightens its geopolitical sensitivity. The Yarlung Tsangpo, known as the Brahmaputra once it enters India, originates in Tibet and flows east before making a dramatic U-turn at the Great Bend and descending into Arunachal Pradesh – a territory claimed by both India and China. It eventually reaches Bangladesh and empties into the Bay of Bengal. The river sustains agriculture, fisheries, and livelihoods for over 130 million people downstream. That China’s newest dam is located just upstream of this bend – before the river crosses into Indian-administered territory – has renewed long-standing concerns in New Delhi about Beijing’s leverage as an upper riparian state.

Who Will Rule Crypto? The China-US Battle for Global Financial Leadership

Yingfan Chen and Dingding Chen

Source Link

In May, Hong Kong passed landmark legislation to regulate fiat-referenced stablecoins, underscoring its ambition to become a digital finance hub and align with Beijing’s broader strategy to promote the digital yuan (e-CNY) as an alternative to the U.S. dollar.

Meanwhile, U.S. policymakers and fintech firms are ramping up efforts to expand the reach of dollar-backed stablecoins, reflecting a growing competition over who sets the rules of the emerging digital monetary order.China’s Push for a Multipolar Currency System

China has been actively promoting the e-CNY, with the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) announcing plans to establish an international operation center for the digital yuan in Shanghai. This initiative aims to enhance the global presence of the e-CNY and reduce reliance on the U.S. dollar in international trade. The PBOC aims to integrate the e-CNY into supply chain financing and cross-border payments – particularly between mainland China and Hong Kong – where projected usage is expected to reach $8 billion in 2025.

Yet, analysts at J.P. Morgan maintain that the e-CNY is unlikely to erode the U.S. dollar’s dominance in global transactions, and the data tells a clear story. In 2022, the U.S. dollar accounted for 88 percent of global FX transactions, 70 percent of foreign currency debt issuance, and 48 percent of cross-border liabilities, while the Chinese yuan made up just 7 percent of FX turnover.

However, the e-CNY’s role in facilitating trade within the BRICS bloc and other emerging markets could gradually erode the dollar’s influence in specific regions. At the 2025 BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, leaders reaffirmed their commitment to de-dollarization, calling for alternative payment systems and criticizing unilateral dollar-based trade measures. The bloc has condemned unilateral tariffs, viewing them as harmful to global economic stability.

BRICS is actively exploring alternative payment systems, a strategy reflected in several concrete mechanisms. The New Development Bank has issued more than $2.1 billion in local currency loans to finance infrastructure and sustainable projects, reducing reliance on dollar funding, while the $100 billion Contingent Reserve Arrangement provides member countries with liquidity support in currencies other than the dollar, enhancing financial resilience.

US Security Partner Deepens Military Ties With China

Source Link

Vietnam—a United States security partner in Southeast Asia—is set to participate in a joint army exercise with China for the first time, a neighboring country with which it has maritime disputes.Newsweek has contacted the Vietnamese Defense Ministry for further comment via email.Vietnam and China claim sovereignty over two island groups in the South China Sea—the Spratlys and the Paracels. In response to Beijing's growing presence in the region, which has often led to standoffs and clashes, Hanoi has followed its rival's example by consolidating its presence on islands it controls through land reclamation and the construction of military infrastructure.

Once adversaries during the Vietnam War, the U.S. and Vietnam have gradually expanded their defense partnership since normalizing diplomatic relations in 1995. This includes the transfer of former U.S. Coast Guard vessels and the delivery of U.S. military training aircraft, enhancing the Southeast Asian nation's capacity to protect its sovereignty in disputed waters.A Chinese soldier participates in a mine sweeping training exercise at a minefield along the China-Vietnam border in southwest China's Yunnan Province in late August 2018. Peng Xi/Chinese military

Chinese and Vietnamese ground forces will conduct a training exercise in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region—located in South China and bordering Vietnam—in mid to late July, focusing on joint border patrol, China's Defense Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.According to Beijing, the joint exercise aims to enhance what it calls "mutual learning and exchange of border patrol experiences" and deepen cooperation between the two militaries.

This marks the third cooperative engagement between Chinese and Vietnamese forces since April, when their naval forces and coast guards conducted two separate joint patrols in the Beibu Gulf—also known as the Gulf of Tonkin—off the coasts of Vietnam and China.While the Chinese military did not reveal the duration of the exercise, the state-run Vietnam News Agency reported that the drill began on Monday and is scheduled to end on July 30.

Citing Chinese military expert Zhang Junshe, the report stated that the exercise is essential to maintaining peace and stability along the China-Vietnam border and in the broader region.Beijing and Hanoi agreed in 1999 to clearly define their 900-mile-long land border. Border demarcation and marker placement were completed in 2008, and the two neighboring countries signed three legal documents on land border management the following year.

Full Stack

Source Link

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.