Taiwan Concludes Huge New Military Exercise

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Since Defense Minister Wellington Koo took office, Taiwan’s military has undergone numerous reforms and restructuring. This is all part of efforts to turn Taiwan into a modern fighting force, centered on asymmetric warfare, and able to conduct a defense in depth.

This week, we got to see a new exercise showcasing what I think is the most modern and advanced military exercise Taiwan has ever carried out.

For 7 days, 6 nights, Taiwan’s Army has been conducting force-on-force exercises in Northern Taiwan. It was the Armored 542nd Brigade (Team A) vs. the 234th Mechanized Infantry (Team B). Each side was supported by one Army Aviation division (601st & 602nd), consisting of AH-64E Apache and AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopters as well as special forces. By in large, this was one of the biggest and most realistic joint and combined arms exercises, with both sides travelling more than 200km or 125 mi. Blank rounds and smoke grenades were used.

This year, the military used a new “firepower value” (火力值) system to keep track of how effective each side was. When two forces engage, reference data like distance, force size, and equipment are computed to judge how lethal an attack would be. The “firepower value” is being compared to a batting average or ERA in various Taiwanese news reports. For example, if a military vehicle suffers a malfunction and its forces do not repair it within a certain timeframe, that vehicle is considered a loss.

For the first time, Taiwan’s military also used Tactical Awareness Systems (TAK) to monitor simulated injuries, casualties, and movements from both sides.

Taiwan’s Army pointed out that the Lu-Sheng exercise is organized into phases: The drills start with a tactical concentration of forces, maneuvers into the battlefield, various encounter battles, offense-defense battles, and finally shifting between offensive/defensive advantage.

Below is a map produced by my team at Taiwan Security Monitor that shows some of the major movements seen during the exercises. The map was pulled together using open-source materials such as news articles and photos from official sources.

Xi-Trump meeting ‘a historic moment’ that will help avoid missteps, China’s top envoy says

Vanessa Cai

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China’s top diplomat has called the summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump “a historic moment” that will help reduce misunderstanding and prevent major fluctuations in their countries’ ties.

According to a Chinese foreign ministry statement on Sunday, Foreign Minister Wang Yi also noted that Shenzhen in southern China was getting ready to host next year’s Apec summit, a key diplomatic event for Beijing, noting that the tech hub would “present a spectacular event to the world”.

Xi and Trump held talks on Thursday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in South Korea, their first in-person meeting since Trump’s return to the White House in January.

The meeting highlighted the personal connection between the two leaders and struck a conciliatory tone for long-term ties. Beijing and Washington reached a truce on thorny issues ranging from soybeans and rare earths to fentanyl.

‘We have a deal’: Trump claims breakthrough after ‘12 out of 10’ talks with Xi Jinping

Wang said observers widely welcomed the summit, “viewing it as highly significant and a positive signal that helps ease tensions”.

“Many believe the meeting marks the start of a more stable and manageable period in bilateral relations. The return of China-US economic and trade dialogue has also boosted global market confidence,” Wang was quoted as saying.

“The leaders’ meeting is seen as irreplaceably important for reducing misunderstandings and misjudgments between the two sides and avoiding major fluctuations in the relationship.”

Wang noted that the summit in Busan was “a historic moment” in bilateral ties and “a landmark event” in international affairs.

That Time When China’s Leader Joked About Espionage

Yan Zhuang

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It’s an open secret that countries spy on each other. That’s probably why world leaders almost never talk about espionage in public.

But over the weekend, it was the punchline of a joke between China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, and President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea.

The joke revolved around two cellphones Mr. Xi gave Mr. Lee — one for him, one for his wife — during their meeting in the South Korean city of Gyeongju on Saturday. The phones were manufactured by the Chinese company Xiaomi, with Korean-made displays, a spokesman for Mr. Xi said as the two leaders inspected them with news cameras rolling.

Mr. Lee picked up one of the phones, still in its box, and admired it. Then he asked how good the security was.

Mr. Xi laughed. “You can check if there’s a backdoor,” he said, referring to preinstalled software that allows a third party to monitor a cellphone. That prompted Mr. Lee to laugh and clap his hands in apparent delight.

The exchange was notable in part because Mr. Xi is rarely seen speaking off the cuff in public. It also deviated from a “sort of old-fashioned gentlemen’s agreement” in which world leaders typically pretend that covert activities aren’t happening, said John Delury, a historian of China based in Seoul.

How China and Taiwan are Preparing for War

Micah McCartney

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With China appearing to be planning for a possible invasion of Taiwan, and the self-ruled island girding itself in response, Newsweek has spoken to analysts about the state of preparations on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

U.S. defense and intelligence officials have warned Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered the People's Liberation Army to be at least capable of moving against Taiwan by 2027. Admiral Samuel Paparo, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, has said Beijing’s increasingly sophisticated military exercises, including simulated blockades, are "dress rehearsals.”

The government in Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, has controlled the island since 1949, after losing the mainland to communist forces. Today it functions as a self-governing democracy with its own military and foreign relations.

The gap between the two militaries is enormous and widening. China spends roughly 10 times more on defense than Taiwan and now operates the world’s largest navy, backed by an expanding missile arsenal and about 600 nuclear warheads. Xi has vowed to build a “world-class military” by mid-century, a goal widely seen as meaning one capable of rivaling the U.S.

Newsweek reached out to the Chinese Embassy and Taiwan's de facto embassy in the U.S. via emailed requests for comment.

Washington has long urged Taipei to invest less in heavy weapons—like tanks and large warships—and more in asymmetric systems such as drones, mobile rocket launchers, and coastal missiles that can slow a far larger invasion force.

The Coming US-China Thaw

JAMES K. GALBRAITH

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AUSTIN – Last year, Texas banned professional contact by state employees (including university professors) with mainland China, to “harden” itself against the influence of the Communist Party of China – an entity that has governed the country since 1949, and whose then-leader, Deng Xiaoping, attended a Texas rodeo in 1979.

Defending the policy, the new provost of the University of Texas, my colleague Will Inboden, writes in National Affairs that “the US government estimates that the CPC has purloined up to $600 billion worth of American technology each year – some of it from American companies but much of it from American universities.” US GDP is currently around $30 trillion, so $600 billion would represent 2% of that sum, or roughly 70% of the US defense budget ($880 billion). It also amounts to about one-third of all spending ($1.8 trillion) by all US colleges and universities, on all subjects and activities, every year. Make that 30 cents of every tuition dollar and a third of every federal research grant.

Moreover, it seems the Chinese made better use of the purloined knowledge than we would have. Compare their growth rate to America’s, or look at Chinese cities, their high-speed railroads, and advanced industries. Then there’s the elimination of mass poverty and the 3.5 million engineers and scientists the country mints every year. Such theft must be akin to stealing emeralds from the Louvre – a zero-sum game. Not only did the Chinese get the good stuff, but they somehow prevented America from using it. How very diabolical.

Of course, the figure that Inboden cites is absurd, though I don’t doubt that the US government said it somewhere. Such claims about China (and not only China) have become routine in recent years. The tactic is straightforward. By saturating the information space with far-fetched assertions too numerous and too pervasive to rebut, disagreement, let alone dissent, becomes tantamount to disloyalty, even treason.

Yet universities obviously cannot be the secret laboratories of a national-security state. We are, by our nature, open. To the extent that we produce useful knowledge or new technologies, these naturally become the common property of the whole world. That is what “publication” is about. As for American companies, they went to China to make money. Many succeeded. That China got something out of it – at the expense of American workers, we can admit – was part of the deal. It’s called capitalism.

The Pacific Islands Challenge

Michael Kovrig

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As the strategic rivalry between China and the United States intensifies across the Indo-Pacific, the Taiwan Strait is often seen as the key flash point. Yet whether the regional balance holds or tips into conflict will also be shaped by choices made in, by, and about the Pacific Islands—the 12 sovereign states and several territories whose archipelagos stretch across the vast ocean between the Philippines and Hawaii.

Since the first decade of this century, China has steadily expanded its presence across the region. Most Pacific governments have leaned in to Beijing’s offerings—seeking infrastructure and investment, as well

Russia’s Latest Nuclear Saber-Rattling: Nuclear Testing?

Heather Williams and Lachlan MacKenzie

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In a November 5 meeting of the Security Council of Russia, President Vladimir Putin directed his military and political leaders to “submit coordinated proposals on the possible first steps focusing on preparations for nuclear weapons tests.” Putin’s comments come a week after President Trump posted on social media that he had “instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.” On the one hand, Putin’s comments fit a wider pattern of nuclear saber-rattling tied to the ongoing war in Ukraine. On the other hand, these statements continue to ratchet up nuclear risks and undermine the existing nuclear order. Approximately six hours prior to Putin’s statements, the United States conducted a test of its Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

We are at risk of escalation by testing. The best way to prevent Russia from resuming explosive nuclear testing is not only for the United States and other nuclear possessors to continue to observe the testing moratorium, but also for the wider international community to hold Russia and China accountable for their suspected low-yield testing in violation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The majority of signatories to the treaty agree with the U.S. interpretation that it obligates states to observe a “zero-yield” ban on nuclear testing. Trump’s recent comments, along with reports from the intelligence community, indicate Russia and China have not been meeting these terms. This rhetorical spat could either escalate to a return to nuclear testing or be an opportunity for strengthening the non-testing norm and highlighting Moscow and Beijing’s ongoing nuclear antagonism.

Q1: What did Putin say about nuclear testing?

A1: At the November 5 meeting, Putin called for “proposals on the possible first steps . . . on preparations” for tests. Effectively, he requested suggestions for potential initial preparations for nuclear testing. Importantly, he did not order Russia’s Ministry of Defense to actively begin preparing for resumed testing. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov subsequently reinforced this point, explaining that “the president did not give instructions to begin preparations for testing . . .The president instructed that the advisability of beginning preparations for such tests be considered.” The Kremlin does not frequently publish transcripts of Security Council meetings, and the choreographed nature of the conversation indicates that Putin intended it as a signal.

Europe Must Create Its Own Future

Dalibor Rohac

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This article is brought to you by American Purpose, the magazine and community founded by Francis Fukuyama in 2020, which is proudly part of the Persuasion family.

It is too easy to succumb to despair about Europe’s future, as the Ukraine war continues and the continent faces two unfriendly global superpowers, China and the United States. The EU, built in more idealistic times, is adapting at a glacial pace to the new reality. Besides the bloc’s notorious incrementalism, European governments face a myriad of internal challenges, including slow economic growth, poor demographics, and increasingly unhinged domestic politics.

Yet there are green shoots of optimism—particularly in the EU’s continued commitment to Ukraine. At its recent meeting, the European Council adopted its 19th package of sanctions against Russia, targeting Russia’s shadow fleet, several Chinese companies involved in oil trade with Russia, as well as companies helping Russia circumvent the sanctions. Just the night before, the U.S. Treasury surprised some with its own sanctions imposed on Rosneft and Lukoil—the first update to U.S. sanctions policy against Russia since Donald Trump’s arrival in the Oval Office.

This is not the first seemingly big swing in U.S.-Ukraine policy. In late September, Trump claimed Ukraine could retake its full territory and hinted at transferring Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. The White House meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in mid-October, which Ukrainians hoped would finalize the deal, saw the plan scrapped. Of course, the encounter came just a day after a lengthy call between Trump and Vladimir Putin, following which preparations began for the now-aborted summit between Trump and Putin in Budapest, Hungary.

Throughout this wild cycle, Europeans stayed the course. The coalescing of European leaders behind Ukraine after the meeting in the Oval Office was instantaneous, accompanied by a 12-point peace plan endorsed by Zelenskyy. With an administration that seems internally divided on how to deal with the war, a united European front remains the best strategy to demand some putative bargain with the Kremlin that would then be imposed by Trump on Ukrainians and Europeans.

Too big to fail? Saving Ukraine would cost Europe almost $400 billion

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In the history of ideas around war and strategic confrontation, there are strokes of genius, grave mistakes, and everything in between. And then, in a category of its own, there is The Economist’s cover story of 30 October, purporting to explain “Why funding Ukraine is a giant opportunity for Europe”. The argument is a breathtaking window into the final bankruptcy of elite thinking on the big issues of statecraft confronting the continent. In a turn to the positively absurd, the liberal paper – a flagship of the “sophisticated” globalist intelligentsia – urges the Continent’s capitals to commit some $390 billion over the next four years to sustain Kyiv’s beleaguered war effort. The paper admits this is “a lot, but still excellent value” for the European taxpayer.

This marks a nadir in the liberal transatlantic discourse on Ukraine, with the last flickers of realism yielding to a kind of messianic arithmetic. The article frames this prodigious outlay not as a burden, but as a kind of historic bargain in which we get to “corner” (not even defeat) Putin and build out Europe’s “financial and industrial muscle” while boosting its military power and thus reducing the dependency on the US.

It is effectively the old trick of presenting bad debt as prosperity-boosting investment. How bad? Just note that much of the money would be poured directly into the bottomless pit of Ukraine’s budget deficit, with negligible benefits to Europe’s economy. And what’s not sent in cash straight into Kyiv’s coffers would be used to buy European weapons that would then be gifted to Ukraine; this is the “defence investment” bit. It will certainly expand Europe’s defence-industrial base, but defence is one of the least efficient areas for investment: low-productivity, capital-intensive, and prone to low spill overs.

Before considering the enormity of The Economist’s proposed sum, it is worth noting the moral hazard involved in the mere principle of it. This is a concept from economics that points to the risk that someone will take more risks because they don’t have to face the full consequences of those risks. Moral hazard arises when one party is insulated from potential losses and can afford to behave recklessly because someone else is bearing the cost. For example, this could a company or industry receiving subsidies from the state, or a bank deemed too big to fail and which can thus count on the state to bail it out. We had an unforgettable experience of this through the 2008 financial crisis.

The Fantasy of a New Middle East

Marc Lynch

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The regional order of the Middle East is rapidly evolving, but not in the way many Israeli and U.S. officials assume it is. U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to end the war in Gaza delivered the release of all the surviving Israeli hostages and a respite from the relentless killing and destruction that has so scarred the territory. That breakthrough raised hopes of a broader regional transformation, even if what comes after the initial cease-fire remains hugely uncertain. Trump himself speaks of the dawn of peace in the Middle East. If his deal prevents the expulsion of

The Regime Change Temptation in Venezuela

Alexander B. Downes and Lindsey A. O’Rourke

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What began in early September as a series of American airstrikes on boats in the Caribbean—which U.S. officials alleged were trafficking drugs from Venezuela—now seems to have morphed into a campaign to overthrow Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. Over the course of two months, President Donald Trump’s administration has deployed 10,000 U.S. troops to the region, amassed at least eight U.S. Navy surface vessels and a submarine around South America’s northern coast, directed B-52 and B-1 bombers to fly near the Venezuelan coastline, and ordered the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group—which the

No, Recent Drone Sightings are Not Examples of Hybrid Warfare

Andreas Foerster 

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There has been a lot of talk in the headlines the past weeks about drone sightings across Europe, and how these are apparently examples of “hybrid warfare.” Normally, common sense would dictate that in order to call something a “war,” there has to be an actual war going on. Or, for something to be an “attack,” something has to actually be attacked. Clearly, clarification is needed. In reality, these events are yet another case of hybrid warfare being confused with gray zone activities, with potentially dire consequences. In this short article, the difference between the two will be explained, and why it matters.

What is a “war”?

What is a state of war? That is a difficult question, and one that is still being forcefully debated by scholars, philosophers and policymakers. Still, there is enough in the literature to determine when some situations are clearly not indicative of a state of war. Clausewitz stated that “War is an act of violence intended to compel an enemy to submit to one’s will.”, and that “war is a continuation of politics by other means.” This firstly means that war is an organized act of violence with a clear target. The threat of violence is not enough to constitute war, being only deterrence or coercion through power projection. Secondly, it means that war is the end of primarily peaceful diplomatic action and the resorting to primarily violent diplomatic action. The end goal remains the same, achieving the state’s political objectives. However, the means have changed, entering into a state of deadly combat. And critically, the primacy of the equation of elements of national power has changed, as the focus shifts from nonviolent to violent action.

Obviously, not all action in war involves violence, but for any conflict to be called a war, it must be primarily a violent affair. If these drones are all Russian, then they are part of a reconnaissance, surveillance and intimidation strategy, not any kind of coordinated kinetic strike against European military and/or civilian targets. Without that essential aspect, it is not only wrong to throw around words like “war,” but extremely dangerous. Make no mistake, this may very well be the latest in a long line of reckless and aggressive actions perpetrated by Russia against Europe. However, if one wishes to avoid worsening the current tensions, one must be careful about the language deployed in international relations.

Welcome to the Western Hemisphere

Michael L. Burgoyne

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Perhaps you were preparing for another round of operations in the Red Sea, or flying multinational patrols over Poland, or training with partners in the Philippines. Maybe you were a strategist who had been running wargames on defending Taiwan or Estonia. That doesn’t matter now, because the Trump Administration is now all-in on the Western Hemisphere and you have orders to US Southern Command! A few months ago in Small Wars Journal, I provided some recommendations to commanders and staff being assigned to Joint Task Force Southern Border. Now, it seems appropriate to facilitate a larger regional understanding. As of this writing, the United States has deployed an Amphibious Ready Group, a Carrier Strike Group, F-35s, and multiple other assets into the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility. These forces have engaged in lethal strikes against more than 10 alleged drug boats resulting in more than 50 deaths. Effective strategy requires a detailed understanding of the operating environment. In this brief guide, I will lay out some key characteristics of the hemisphere, provide some critical homework to better understand the region, and deliver some advice to improve your chances of success.

Historical Context

As with any region, the Americas has its own distinctive opportunities and challenges. From a defense and security perspective, the development of a long-standing asymmetrical alliance and conflict management system is the region’s most vital but underappreciated characteristic. The United States has benefited immensely from its largely calm and friendly neighborhood. Realists like John Mearsheimer have pointed out the importance of maintaining an uncontested Western Hemisphere so that the United States is free to address threats globally. Certainly, the region faces issues like drug trafficking and irregular migration, but interstate conflict has been rare, and the United States has not been confronted by hostile regional powers.

Unfortunately, there is no concise history of defense relations in the region. However, there are three books that together provide a comprehensive understanding. First, L Lloyd Mecham’s The United States and Inter-American Security 1889-1960, provides an excellent survey of early regional security challenges and the structures that were created to alleviate them. Second, John Child’s Unequal alliance: The Inter-American Military System, 1938–1978 extends the narrative further and provides a more in-depth look at World War II and the formation of a hemispheric alliance and conflict management system. If you only plan on reading one of these three, Unequal Alliance is the most useful and succinct. Unfortunately, Child’s book is out of print, but his dissertation is available online. Rounding out the trilogy, Latin America’s Cold War by Hal Brands outlines the threats and responses posed by the US – Soviet rivalry in the hemisphere.

An Unreliable America Means More Countries Want the Bomb

Debak Das, Rachel A. Epstein

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An undated picture released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on Sept. 16, 2017 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un inspecting a launch of the medium-and-long range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 at an undisclosed location.An undated picture released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on Sept. 16, 2017 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un inspecting a launch of the medium-and-long range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 at an undisclosed location.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent foreign-policy moves have alienated the country’s traditional allies in Europe while stirring glee in Moscow. While it’s a catastrophic development for Ukrainian security and democracy, this paradigmatic shift portends much larger risks for global security. The most pressing is the threat of rampant nuclear proliferation that the Trump administration’s actions will elicit.

While on the surface it might seem as though a warmer relationship between two of the world’s largest nuclear powers could reduce the risk of nuclear war, the opposite is true. We are on the precipice of a global turn toward nuclear instability, in which many countries will be newly incentivized to build their own arsenals, increasing the risk of nuclear use, terrorist subversion, and accidental launch. Countries like South Korea, Japan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are all so-called nuclear latent states that could potentially build nuclear weapons quickly—as are Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands.

Electronic Weapons: Russian Cyber War Against Germany

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November 2, 2025: Earlier this year, Russia hired or simply encouraged German based criminal hackers to engage in activities that hampered or just discouraged German support for Ukraine in its battles against Russian invaders. NATO officially and financially supports Ukraine. The German military/Bundeswehr was unable to detect who was responsible.

Western intelligence agencies believe Russia recently tried, and failed to take control of Romanian security cameras. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, its Cyber War unit 26165 has been hard at work all over Europe. NATO investigators have discovered more than 10,000 hacked internet addresses. The goal was to tap into surveillance cameras so that NATO movement of troops and supplies could be monitored. Romania has a 650 kilometers border with Ukraine and its ports use Chinese surveillance cameras. These have been banned by the U.S and European countries because of security concerns. The Romanian government pointed out that it played no role in the deployment of such security cameras. Nevertheless, the Romanians are checking into this.

Western nations have had similar problems for over a decade. In 2014 a new team of hackers was identified. This one had been concentrating on finding and taking political, diplomatic and military data from NATO nations involved in opposing Russian aggression in Ukraine. This group, called APT28, was identified as Russian by numerous patterns in their code, some of which was left behind or otherwise captured. This made it clear that the creators were Russian speakers, were working somewhere in the same time zone as Moscow and using software techniques known to come from Russia. That means hacker tools that are for sale on the black market. Moreover the data being sought would mainly benefit the Russian government. This sort of attack was showing up with increasing frequency and accuracy.

Over the last decade Internet security firms, especially Kaspersky Labs, FireEye and Symantec have developed better tools for identifying the hacker organizations responsible for some of the large-scale hacker attacks on business and government networks. For example in 2013 there was a group from China identified called Hidden Lynx. This group appeared to contain 50-100 hackers, each identified by their coding style and other clues. This group was believed largely responsible for a large-scale espionage campaign called Operation Aurora that was still active. The APT28 campaign, on the other hand, was quite recent and coincided with Western efforts to halt Russian attacks on Ukraine.

Warships, fighter jets and the CIA - what is Trump's endgame in Venezuela?

Ione Wells,South America correspondent and Joshua Cheetham

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For two months, the US military has been building up a force of warships, fighter jets, bombers, marines, drones and spy planes in the Caribbean Sea. It is the largest deployment there for decades.

Long-range bomber planes, B-52s, have carried out "bomber attack demonstrations" off the coast of Venezuela. Trump has authorised the deployment of the CIA to Venezuela and the world's largest aircraft carrier is being sent to the region.

The US says it has killed dozens of people in strikes on small vessels from Venezuela which it alleges carry "narcotics" and "narco-terrorists", without providing evidence or details about those on board.

The strikes have drawn condemnation in the region and experts have questioned their legality. They are being sold by the US as a war on drug trafficking but all the signs suggest this is really an intimidation campaign that seeks to remove Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro from power.

"This is about regime change. They're probably not going to invade, the hope is this is about signalling," says Dr Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at the Chatham House think tank.

He argues the military build-up is a show of strength intended to "strike fear" in the hearts of the Venezuelan military and Maduro's inner circle so that they move against him.

BBC Verify has been monitoring publicly available tracking information from US ships and planes in the region - along with satellite imagery and images on social media - to try to build a picture of where Trump's forces are located.

The deployment has been changing, so we have been monitoring the region regularly for updates.

President Trump Deserves Better Advice

Eric S. Edelman & Franklin C. Miller

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Despite his well know aversion to using the other “N” word and discussing the issues connected with nuclear deterrence and nuclear sabre rattling by America’s adversaries the President, during his trip to Asia this week, dropped a bit of a bombshell of his own. On October 29, President Trump posted a brief statement on Truth Social about nuclear weapons testing, which contained the following key points:“The United States has more nuclear weapons than any other country”

“In my first term in office” the U.S. “accomplished a complete update and renovation of existing [U.S. nuclear] weapons.

“because of other countries testing programs I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis”

The process of testing our nuclear weapons “will begin immediately.”

Sadly, whoever provided the President with the background information for each of his statements is manifestly unaware of the easily ascertainable facts, and so the President is being extremely poorly served by his own staff.

First, the Russian Federation has more nuclear weapons than any other nation. Its stockpile of nuclear weapons available to the Russian military is about 5200 while its overall stockpile is about 5600. The numbers for the U.S. are about 3700 and 4400. This information is easily available in public sources like the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Yearbook or the annual assessments published by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

Second, during the President’s first term progress was made on the “Strategic Modernization Program” initiated in 2010, but no new platforms (submarine-launched ballistic missiles, bombers or land-based missiles) were deployed between 2017 and 2021; we rely today instead on aging systems which are decades old. Very importantly a small number of modified low yield submarine launched warheads were produced and placed in service, and development work began on other new air force nuclear warheads, but none were deployed.

Assessing Israel’s Intelligence Failure

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Ever since the horrifying Hamas terror attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Western reporting on the roots of that attack and the Israeli government’s response to it has suffered from serious misunderstandings. In While Israel Slept—borrowing from John F. Kennedy’s first book, Why England Slept, and, more directly, from Winston Churchill’s 1938 collection of speeches, While England Slept—two prominent Israeli journalists, Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot, set out to correct those misunderstandings. While their opening chapters focus on the immediate context of Hamas’s surprise attack, later chapters explore the deeper roots of that unpreparedness, going back over two decades before. Katz and Bohbot provide the closest thing to a definitive account of the events of 2023 and its causes—even if some prescriptions in their conclusion are debatable.

The biggest error in much of the reporting on Israeli policies over the years leading up to the attack portrays the Israeli government, usually under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as excessively warlike and unsympathetic to the needs of Gaza residents. To the contrary, the authors demonstrate, Netanyahu and his fellow ministers erred by turning a blind eye to the preparations Hamas leaders had been making for war against Israel for at least a decade, accumulating billions of dollars in cash and shipments of materials to construct an elaborate network of tunnels along with an ample supply of drones, rockets, and other weaponry.

Desperate to avoid major conflict, Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu (and for less than two years the ostensibly “right-wing” Naftali Bennett and his “centrist-liberal” successor Yair Lapid), engaged in what political analysts during the Cold War called “mirror imaging.” That is, just as Cold War “doves” like Jimmy Carter’s secretary of state, Cyrus Vance, allowed themselves to believe that Soviet leaders, just like their American counterparts, aimed above all at peace and prosperity, successive Israeli political and military leaders supposed that Hamas leaders, too, wanted prosperity and stability. Accordingly, Israeli leaders believed major financial aid and even “dual-use” tunnel-building equipment would divert Hamas from any aggressive intentions, allowing them to focus instead (as the Israelis did) on advancing their people’s economic well-being.

Google Chrome vs ChatGPT Atlas and Perplexity Comet: The browser wars are back, this time it is personal (AI)

Saurabh Singh

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For the better part of a decade, Google Chrome has dominated the web browser market. Whether it be use cases or conversations around them, not to mention the countless memes that have followed, Chrome is part of internet culture. Not that there has not been any competition. Rather, there's been tons of it. But everyone, from Microsoft Edge to Opera and others, has largely lived and worked around its influence – never outright beating Google at its game. Something that has forced many to sue Google, time and time again, with the jury still out on whether to call it a monopoly or not. If that wasn't enough, some have even offered to buy Chrome. In other words, Google Chrome is a big deal, and you better believe it.

However, the rapid rise of generative AI has disrupted this status quo. Or at least that's the impression you get when hearing some of the conversations that have been going on off late. At the centre of most of these conversations are two companies – relatively new compared to Google – OpenAI and Perplexity. OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, have launched Atlas while Perplexity, with Indian-origin CEO Aravind Srinivas at the helm, has come up with Comet. Both are standalone browsers built to challenge Chrome's dominance and redefine the way users interact with the web. This they are doing, by literally flipping the script that web browsers have been following since the dawn of time. It's a massive change, in a way, marking a make-or-break moment for search and the internet.

What makes this new browser war notable is its fundamentally different focus. Instead of speed or extensions, the competition now centres on smarter, AI-powered co-pilots for navigating daily online life. Both ChatGPT Atlas and Perplexity Comet are built on Chromium, the open-source platform that underpins Chrome, meaning Google's own foundation is being used against it. This is something that the internet also reminded the Perplexity CEO when he tweeted, "Internet is too important to be left in Google's hands." Interestingly, Srinivas had also thrown his hat into the ring to acquire Chrome recently. But we digress.

The core idea behind Comet or even Atlas is straightforward: traditional browsers are considered outdated, with AI-native browsers aspiring to become active assistants capable of reading, understanding, summarising, and acting on behalf of users.

How Afghanistan Became India’s Gateway to Central Asia

Vlad Paddack, and Eldaniz Gusseinov

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Afghanistan’s break with Pakistan has created a strategic window for India.

Afghanistan’s trade and diplomacy are shifting in unexpected ways that reflect broader regional realignments. Four years after India shut its Kabul embassy following the Taliban’s return, bilateral trade has nearly rebounded to pre-2021 levels—even as Afghanistan’s trade through Pakistan collapses. This reversal highlights Pakistan’s waning leverage and India’s quiet re-emergence as a key economic and diplomatic player, a trend that increasingly links Afghanistan’s revival to India’s wider westward strategic turn, with Kabul serving as New Delhi’s gateway to Central Asia.

The Revival of Afghan-Indian Trade

Before 2021, India–Afghanistan trade reached $1.33 billion, with India exporting $826 million and importing $509 million in Afghan goods. After the Taliban takeover, India’s exports plunged to $437 million in 2022–23. But by FY 2023–24, trade surged back to $997.7 million, driven by Afghan exports of dried fruits, saffron, nuts, and apples—now duty-free in India. Afghan exports reached a record $642 million, resulting in India’s first trade deficit with Kabul.

Between April 2024 and March 2025 alone, trade reached $1 billion, signaling full recovery by year’s end. Both sides are exploring Iran’s Chabahar Port, developed by India, as a means to bypass Pakistan. India also plans to reopen its Kabul embassy and expand direct flights, reflecting what Dr. Shanthie Mariet D’Souza calls a shift from “cautious engagement” to reconnecting and rebuilding ties.

Afghanistan’s Breakdown With Pakistan

While ties with India deepen, Afghanistan’s trade with Pakistan—once its economic lifeline—is collapsing. Transit trade through Pakistan dropped from $7 billion in 2022 to $2.9 billion in 2024, an almost 60 percent fall, due to Islamabad’s anti-smuggling drives, tighter customs, and frequent border closures amid rising border clashes.

Though direct bilateral trade rose modestly, Pakistan’s role as a transit hub has eroded. The decline mirrors political tensions: Islamabad accuses Kabul of harboring TTP militants, while Kabul denies it. On October 9, Pakistan launched an unprecedented airstrike on Kabul, coinciding with Taliban foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi’s visit to New Delhi—an unmistakable signal of shifting loyalties.

Japan Can Keep the Indo-Pacific Open and Free

Shihoko Goto

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With America Stepping Back, Tokyo Should Step Up

Containers on a cargo ship in Tokyo, April 2025 Kim Kyung-Hoon / Reuters

SHIHOKO GOTO is Director of the Asia Program and Vice President of Programs at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

As the United States rethinks its role in the international order it has championed since the end of World War II, Japan is on the frontlines of the challenge to rules-based commerce and diplomacy. For the past decade, Tokyo has promoted the idea of a free and open Indo-Pacific, which seeks to ensure that countries from the western shores of the Indian Ocean to the northern reaches of the East China Sea can pursue economic growth without compromising their autonomy by relying too heavily on China. The policies associated with this idea, which include ensuring freedom of navigation in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, peacefully resolving geopolitical conflicts, and establishing common rules to govern trade, have made Japan a stabilizing force in the region. The framework of a free and open Indo-Pacific has also encouraged advanced economies, including the United States, to maintain their military and economic engagement with the region.

But Japan’s ability to promote a viable alternative to a regional order centered on Beijing has been faltering. Japan is on its fifth prime minister in as many years and, in the most recent elections, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party lost its majority in both houses of parliament. Pursuing a foreign policy vision has taken a back seat to navigating domestic politics. Meanwhile, the allure of the development programs that China can offer is growing as countries throughout the region struggle to find new sources of economic growth.

Japan is now in a unique position to reenergize its vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific. Its newly elected prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, is the self-proclaimed successor to Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister who proposed the free and open Indo-Pacific idea in 2016. In her first weeks in office, Takaichi has made clear that embracing this vision will be part of her commitment to carrying on Abe’s legacy. Takaichi, like Abe, has sought to position Japan as the United States’ trusted guide to the region and convince U.S. leaders that it is in their interest to have the United States remain an Indo-Pacific power and support Japan’s strategic vision.

US–China Trade Truce Redux: Risks Behind the Busan Deal

Paulo Aguiar

Sourec Link

The Busan framework agreement between the United States and China, announced after their summit in South Korea, marks a temporary pause in their long and often tense trade and economic conflict. It eases immediate financial and political pressures on both sides by lowering tariffs and suspending some export restrictions. Yet the deal does not address the deeper sources of tension that have fueled years of confrontation between the world’s two largest economies.

In effect, the framework offers a breathing space rather than a solution. China benefits by regaining flexibility and preserving control over key strategic resources, while the United States gains short-term political relief and modest economic stability as it approaches the 2026 midterm elections. Both sides keep the ability to interpret and enforce the agreement as they see fit, which almost guarantees that new disputes will arise.

The next year is likely to be defined by “managed instability.” The two countries will cooperate just enough to avoid a breakdown but will continue to view one another as strategic competitors. Businesses and global markets will see temporary calm but remain wary of another escalation. The deeper technological, political, and strategic rivalries that shape US–China relations remain fully intact.

What Happened

On October 30, 2025, President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping met in Busan, South Korea, to halt a renewed spiral of tariffs and trade barriers that had built up throughout the year. Both leaders faced strong domestic pressure to avoid another economic shock—Trump from US farmers and manufacturers frustrated by high tariffs, and Xi from a slowing Chinese economy affected by weakened exports and tight US trade controls.

The resulting “Busan framework” is a one-year agreement aimed at easing tensions:The United States agreed to reduce its 20% tariff on Chinese imports linked to fentanyl concerns to 10% and to suspend a threatened 100% tariff increase on Chinese goods. Washington also paused an investigation into Chinese shipping practices and suspended certain restrictions on Chinese-owned firms that had been placed on the US Entity List for one year.

The Inside Story of How Gen Z Toppled Nepal’s Leader and Chose a New One on Discord

The revolution started on social media. It ended with protests, violence, and an online poll to pick the new prime minister.

Tulsi Rauniyar  

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At 11:30 pm on Tuesday, September 9, Rakshya Bam stepped down from an army jeep outside military headquarters in a pitch-dark, locked-down Kathmandu. The 26-year-old hadn’t slept in more than a day. Her eyes were red-rimmed and glassy, the whites threaded with thin lines of fatigue.

A wave of youth-led protests had rocked Nepal, born on Discord servers, TikTok feeds, and encrypted messaging apps. In just a few days, Bam had seen friends gunned down, watched parliament buildings smolder, and witnessed the collapse of the Nepalese government. Prime minister K. P. Sharma Oli had resigned, and the army had stepped in to try to restore order. Now, Bam was one of 10 young activists who had been summoned to an unprecedented meeting.

As she walked through the gates of Nepali Army headquarters, flanked by soldiers in full combat gear, Bam could feel her phone buzzing in her pocket. Online, misinformation was spreading fast. Bam’s phone barely stopped buzzing. “The king is here.” “The army has staged a coup.” Discord was alive with chatter. Diplomats were calling, urging, “Save democracy!”

Inside a sterile meeting room—no phones allowed—the 10 Gen Z activists were greeted by Army General Ashok Raj Sigdel, a stern-looking man in a crisp dark green uniform, medals gleaming on his chest. For three hours, Sigdel questioned the protesters on their motives and their backgrounds. Finally, he presented them with an ultimatum. It had been their youth-led movement that had sparked the protests, he said, so they were the ones responsible for shaping the interim government. Just days earlier, these activists had been ordinary young people, lost in the grind of their daily lives. Now they were being asked to help choose Nepal’s next prime minister.

China is already dominating the data war in the Pacific, experts say 'Lack of focus' is slowing needed change at the Pentagon, a former acting SecDef says.

Jennifer Hlad

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HONOLULU—Nine months into the second Trump administration, an acting defense secretary from President Trump’s first term said he thought “we’d be a lot further along” toward a nimbler military.

“I’m seeing a lot of marketing coming out of the department, and not a lot of outcomes,” Chris Miller said during a panel at the AFCEA TechNet Indo-Pacific conference last week.

Miller, who served as acting defense secretary from November 2020 to January 2021, said today’s Pentagon leaders are taking “an approach where if you have experience inside the Beltway, somehow you’re suspect and not worthy. And what I’m seeing are a bunch of like, quote-unquote brilliant business people that do not understand the plumbing of the most bureaucratic, Byzantine organization, probably since [the] Byzantine [Empire], and we’re losing opportunities because there’s a lack of focus.”

Amid a shift in national security strategies from the Indo-Pacific to the southern border, the former Special Forces colonel also criticized the push to focus on one adversary or challenge at a time. “Where’s the leadership? We spend a trillion dollars a year on national security. We can do more than one thing.”

Miller offered his comments during a discussion on ubiquitous digital surveillance in the region, where Sean Berg, a former deputy commander of Special Operations Command Pacific, said China “is already in phase three of that war: dominate” while “we still think of ourselves in phase zero: shaping.”

But when quantum decryption becomes practical, Berg said, China will be able to read untold oceans of once-secure messages that it has intercepted and filed away, then use them to gain unprecedented understanding of the patterns of U.S. forces.

“Whoever gets quantum first and is able to use that metadata to go back and figure out and predict every single move that the U.S. is about to make, whether it's an air crew landing and going to the same hotel, whether it is the fleet gearing up, and all the Copenhagen being bought out from 7-Eleven from a Ranger battalion,” he said.

The challenge of open data and ubiquitous surveillance is particularly relevant in the Pacific, where Rob Christian, the former command chief warrant officer for 311th Signal Command, pointed out that China “is the largest technically advanced enemy we’ve ever seen and could imagine, and they also own the majority of the infrastructure.”

Twenty years ago, operators could use burner phones, get local SIM cards, or even turn phones off to “hide in the noise.” But “hiding in the noise now is much more difficult when you think about the layer of AI and analytics on top of things that are out there and all the stuff we’ve dumped out there through our travels,” Christian said. “I think the challenge is slowly kind of morphing into, ‘OK, you’ve got to project, but you’ve also got to protect’.”

China Started Separating Its Economy From the West Years Ago

Keith Bradsher

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China is able to pressure the U.S. economy, while making it harder for Washington to block China.Credit...Eric Lee/The New York Times

news analysis

Two decades of sustained effort to build national self-reliance and minimize imports have antagonized trade partners but fortified what a senior adviser called Beijing’s “bulwark” against conflicts.

China is able to pressure the U.S. economy, while making it harder for Washington to block China.Credit...Eric Lee/The New York Times

President Trump has used tariffs to try to reduce American reliance on Chinese exports and prevent China’s factory overcapacity from swamping the U.S. economy. But his effort has hit an obstacle: Beijing was already well on its way to weaning its economy from the United States.

For two decades, China has systematically pursued economic self-reliance. China has been able to establish choke points to pressure the U.S. economy, while making it harder for Washington to block China.

Self-reliance has been a cornerstone of Chinese policymaking not just under Xi Jinping, the country’s top leader since 2012, but also under his predecessor, Hu Jintao.

Their program of replacing imported manufactured goods with domestic production has been costly and often inefficient. But it has left the West with dwindling leverage it can deploy during disputes.

China’s leaders have become increasingly public about emphasizing the self-reliance drive. It took a prominent place at an annual gathering of the Communist Party’s Central Committee last month, when the country’s top officials laid out a sketch of China’s next five-year plan.

“We must first and foremost intensify efforts toward achieving greater self-reliance and strength in science and technology,” Mr. Xi said in a speech.

This year, China has wielded one of its most powerful choke points — its almost complete control over the world’s supply of rare-earth metals and rare-earth magnets.

Faced with restrictions on China’s supply of rare earths, Mr. Trump last week accepted a compromise with Mr. Xi.

President Trump with China’s president, Xi Jinping, in South Korea last month.Credit...Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

Their agreement left this year’s new U.S. tariffs for China similar to those for countries in Southeast Asia and lower than the tariffs for countries like India and Brazil, with which the United States has traditionally maintained closer relations.

China’s threat to put extremely tight controls on its rare-earth exports also helped persuade the Trump administration to suspend a policy it adopted in September to expand the number of military-related Chinese companies that Americans are not allowed to do business with.

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China has gained other choke points through its policies of manufacturing self-reliance. It is the world’s dominant producer of the ingredients needed to make antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals. It is also the main producer of a lot of electrical equipment, low-end computer chips and much more.

The United States has been left with fewer options when it needs to fight back. When Washington wanted to pressure Beijing to back down on rare-earth export controls, the Trump administration threatened to restrict some of the last categories of crucial American exports that China still needs, like aircraft parts.

Chinese officials are now calling for their country to become even more self-reliant.

Will Chinese Rare Earth Mineral Bans Cripple Taiwan’s Chip Production?

Brandon J. Weichert

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TSMC insists that Chinese rare earth mineral export bans will not affect its production of advanced semiconductors, and has taken concrete steps to minimize disruption.

China has played its most dangerous hand yet in the ongoing trade war: it has threatened the world with export bans on critical rare earth minerals, using its stranglehold over global markets to undermine would-be competitors.

Not to worry, says the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the producers of the world’s most sophisticated semiconductors. TSMC insists that it has taken precautions to insulate itself from the Chinese rare earth mineral export control and that their operations will be unaffected by Chinese threats.

Even if TSMC can insulate itself from Chinese export bans on rare earth minerals, though, the fact remains that China could invade Taiwan—and knock out TSMC production lines entirely.

China Doesn’t Control All Rare Earth Minerals Everywhere

According to the government of Taiwan, the new Chinese export controls are not expected to have a major impact on the chip sector because the rare earths that China is curbing do not have to do with the rare earth minerals needed for semiconductor production. Further, Taiwan (and TSMC) source many key materials or derivatives from outside China—including from Europe, the United States, and Japan—which means dependence on Chinese exports for those specific items is reduced.

TSMC has indicated that for certain key raw materials (such as gallium and germanium) they have a buffer or alternative supply which gives them time to adjust. Plus, many of the “rare earth minerals” that get media attention are those used in magnets (for electric vehicle motors or certain defense applications). TSMC insists these are not necessarily the rare earths critical for, say, wafer fabrications at the most advanced nodes.

The Tibet Occupation at 75: An Interview with Penpa Tsering

Penpa Tsering, and James Himberger

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After three-quarters of a century under Chinese occupation, Tibet still hopes for genuine autonomy.

Editors’ Note: On October 27, James Himberger, the managing editor of The National Interest, interviewed Sikyong (President) Penpa Tsering of the self-declared Tibetan government-in-exile during the latter’s visit to Washington, DC. They discussed the legacy of the Chinese occupation of Tibet, the life of the Tibetan exile community, the future prospects for Tibetan autonomy, the Dalai Lama’s succession strategy, the deterioration of Tibet’s natural environment, and even the Sikyong’s impressions of the US government shutdown. The following conversation has been edited for style and clarity.

James Himberger (JH): Sikyong Penpa Tsering, thank you for taking the time to sit down with The National Interest today during your visit to Washington, DC. Seventy-five years ago this month, in 1950, troops under the leadership of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party entered Tibet and began an occupation of the region that persists to this day. Nine years later, the Dalai Lama fled to India and established a self-declared government-in-exile, which would later become the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) in 2011. What are the goals of the Central Tibetan Administration?

Penpa Tsering (PT): Seventy-five years ago, on October 7, 1950, China invaded Chamdo [in Eastern Tibet]. On November 17, 1950, His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama, at the age of 15, had to take over the temporal and spiritual leadership of Tibet. And then, six months later, we were forced to sign the so-called 17-point agreement. His Holiness, at a very young age, tried to live under the provisions of the 17-point agreement for eight long years. Within those eight long years, His Holiness went to China in 1954–55, met with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Zhu De, all those leaders of those times. And he also witnessed how the communist government functioned. Everything looked very orderly, but there was no freedom to speak your mind.

Then, in 1956 and 1957, His Holiness was in India. India was in its nascent democracy just ten years after independence. His Holiness went to the Indian parliament, found it quite chaotic, but everybody had the freedom to speak. So, His Holiness wanted to introduce democracy [to Tibet], not even one year after coming into exile under very difficult circumstances. It has been since 1950, as you say, it’s been 75 long years. We never imagined that we would have to live in exile for this long. So one of the main responsibilities of the Central Tibetan Administration or the Tibetan government-in-exile is to resolve the Sino-Tibet conflict peacefully.

Beijing’s New Approach to Taiwan

Arran Hope

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A spokesperson for the Office for International Military Coordination (OIMC) calls for Taiwan’s inevitable return. (Source: PRC Ministry of National Defense)

Executive Summary:In 2025, Beijing has intensified its approach to Taiwan across legal, military, discourse, and political dimensions.

In October, a local public security bureau opened investigation into a sitting Taiwanese lawmaker for the first time, enhancing its legal warfare tactics against the democratic state.

Purges at the top of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) may have precipitated a tactical switch away from He Weidong’s approach, which emphasized persistent gray-zone activities, toward Zhang Youxia’s expressed preference for buying time to build up military capacity.

The Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) has ramped up its media and social media presence in recent weeks, while other parts of the messaging apparatus are foregrounding the phrase “Taiwan’s inevitable return” across official media channels.

The new chair of the Kuomintang, Cheng Li-wun, has shown a willingness to engage with Beijing. She exchanged letters with General Secretary Xi Jinping, and sent a newly appointed vice chair to meet with TAO director Song Tao, who announced a “new starting point” in their relations.

Beijing sees its relationship with the United States as a key variable influencing its behavior toward Taiwan.

Beijing is shifting its approach to Taiwan. Over the course of 2025, it has intensified legal and cognitive pressure toward its small democratic neighbor, advanced a strategy of political warfare, and adapted its military posture. Several factors have informed this shift. Personnel changes within the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) may have played a role. Political developments within Taiwan also likely contributed. And behind all these considerations are the position of the United States under the new administration of President Donald Trump. As General Secretary Xi Jinping has often pointed out, U.S.-PRC relations are “one of the most important bilateral relations in the world” (世界上最重要的双边关系之一) (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, October 16, 2024).

A question remains about whether Beijing’s evolving approach constitutes a change of degree or of kind. Some of the actions taken this year, especially in the legal domain, have relied on instruments that the PRC has created over the past few years for this purpose. Shifts in military posture may similarly have as much to do with the availability of new capabilities coming—or current capabilities meeting capacity limits—than with tactical changes. Possible avenues for political influence, chiefly through the nationalist Kuomintang, similarly are just now becoming clear following the election in October of a new party chair. Whichever the case may be, the general trend of Beijing’s actions is the same: toward greater coercion and a ratcheting up of pressure across all domains.