Pentagon leaders expect Cybercom 2.0 to help thwart Chinese actors ‘living off the land’

Jon Harper

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Senior officials at the Defense Department say the Pentagon’s new cyber force generation model will help the military boot out Chinese threats from America’s critical infrastructure networks.

A digital tactic known as “living off the land” has been a concern for U.S. officials in recent years as actors linked to China, such as Volt Typhoon, have infiltrated networks in the United States.

“The Chinese have executed a deliberate campaign in order to compromise U.S. networks and then use native commands and native features inside those networks to move around to look like legitimate traffic. That makes it difficult for us to define those,” Army Lt. Gen. William Hartman, acting commander of U.S. Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency, told lawmakers during a Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Cybersecurity hearing.

AI and Grand Strategy: The Case for Restraint

Erica D. Lonergan and Benjamin Jensen

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Conventional wisdom holds that an AI arms race will define the twenty-first century and could be decided as early as 2030. The second Trump administration’s National Security Strategy proclaims that AI “will decide the future of military power,” echoing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warning in 2017 that whoever leads in AI “will become the ruler of the world.” But what if the defining technology of the twenty-first century actually rewards the most nineteenth-century of strategies: a cocktail of strategic parsimony and geopolitical fatigue, served neat and called “restraint”?

The AI arms race is well covered, but it is still unclear what it means for American grand strategy. Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. grand strategy has largely oscillated between variants of liberal internationalism and efforts to ensure that the United States remains the world’s dominant military, economic, and political actor. The new race concerns which groups—not restricted to states—can best mobilize and deploy the resources required to build AI infrastructure and foundation models. It also concerns who defines a new set of

AI and the Future of Education

PINELOPI KOUJIANOU GOLDBERG

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NEW HAVEN – The rapid progress of large language models (LLMs) over the past two years has led some to argue that AI will soon make college education, especially in the liberal arts, obsolete. According to this view, young people would be better off skipping college and learning directly on the job.

I strongly disagree. Learning through hands-on experience is valuable and always has been. But it works best when people have a good sense of which jobs and skills will be in demand. If there is one thing we can be confident about, it is that the future of work is highly uncertain. Advising young people to forgo college in favor of early entry into the labor market is misguided, at best.

Countering the Swarm: Protecting the Joint Force in the Drone Age | CNAS

SWJ Staff

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After decades of air dominance and a near monopoly on precision strike, the United States now faces a dramatically different, more hostile world as the proliferation of cheap drones has democratized mass precision fires. It is likely that in any future conflict, drones will pose an unavoidable threat to American forces.

As this report’s analysis of U.S. defense spending reveals, the Department of Defense (DoD) has invested in both legacy and emerging counter–uncrewed aerial systems (C-UAS) capabilities for nearly a decade. However, these efforts have been hindered by insufficient scale and urgency. Despite the Pentagon’s shortfalls in procuring purpose-built C-UAS capabilities, U.S. counter-drone operations in the Middle East have been notable.

Guevara in Myanmar: The Enduring Logic of Guerrilla Warfare

Patrick Goldman

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On October 18, 1967, the American Embassy in La Paz, Bolivia, confirmed the death of the infamous Communist revolutionary, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, following a firefight with Green Beret-trained Bolivian soldiers in the Bolivian mountains. Following his death, Che Guevara’s fame lived on as a figurehead and representation of the Communist struggle against Western capitalism and the rights of the rural peasant. From posters in college dorm rooms to quotations in impassioned speeches, Guevara’s legacy has lived on in the decades following his death. However, Guevara’s legacy ultimately lies within his seminal work, Guerrilla Warfare, where he lays out the fine details and theories of conducting an insurgency.

Guevara’s theories are heavily influenced by the teachings and principles of Mao Tse-Tung and steeped in Communist ideology. This article explores Guevara’s relationship with Mao to better understand his intellectual foundations and explain his modern application. Using the present civil war in Myanmar as a case study, this article argues that Guevara’s core principles of guerrilla warfare maintain their relevance in modern insurgencies.

India And Pakistan Both Think They Won “Operation Sindoor”—That’s The Problem

Robert Farley

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Operation Sindoor’s three-day clash in May 2025 delivered a paradox: restraint without resolution. India struck Pakistani-linked militant targets to reassert deterrence below the nuclear threshold, while Pakistan claims it bloodied India’s air arm and proved it could impose costs. That “win-win” perception is the real danger—both sides are drawing confidence rather than caution. India is accelerating modernization in intelligence and acquisition, while Pakistan leans into Chinese weapons and support. Meanwhile, geopolitics complicates crisis control: India hedges with Russia and the West, Pakistan deepens reliance on China, and Washington’s role appears unpredictable. T

Operation Sindoor Was Only Three Days. Its Next War Risk Could Last Much Longer. In May of last year, India and Pakistan fought a short, sharp conflict that has come to be called “Operation Sindoor,” after the Indian code name for the campaign. India launched the campaign in response to a terrorist attack perpetrated by two Pakistani-based militias.

Taiwan at a Techno-Geopolitical Nexus: Challenges and Opportunities across Critical Technologies

Alayna Bone, Chiang Min-yen
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As geopolitical competition intensifies and technology becomes increasingly central to national power, Taiwan finds itself at the nexus of economic indispensability and strategic vulnerability. Its global leadership in semiconductors and information and communications technologies has long underpinned both its prosperity and security, yet mounting pressure from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), shifting U.S. industrial policy, and rapid technological change are forcing Taipei to rethink how it sustains this position. 

This Asia Policy roundtable series brings together a diverse set of essays that examine Taiwan’s evolving technology and industrial strategies across emerging and established domains from frontier technologies enabling artificial intelligence (AI) to drones, satellites, energy systems, and trusted supply chains. Taken together, this roundtable explores how government policy, international partnerships, and domestic capacity-building intersect as Taiwan seeks to remain a reliable partner to democratic economies while safeguarding its autonomy. At stake is not only Taiwan’s competitiveness, but its ability to translate technological strength into long-term resilience in an era of techno-geopolitical uncertainty

Ancient Doctrine, Digital Tools: China’s Enduring Model for Irregular Governance

Erika Lafrennie

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When Beijing moves on Taiwan, it is unlikely to improvise post-invasion governance. The Chinese state appears positioned to apply strategic principles refined over more than two millennia, recently field-tested in Xinjiang, and now scalable through modern technology.

Western analysis often treats China’s irregular warfare toolkit—surveillance, lawfare, demographic engineering, narrative control—as novel products of Xi-era authoritarianism. This framing misses the deeper pattern. The tools are modern; the governing logic reflects much older traditions. China’s approach to Xinjiang, Taiwan, and Belt and Road partner states appears to follow enduring strategic principles inherited from imperial statecraft. The tactical implementations are modern—AI surveillance, global infrastructure investment, real-time social control. But the strategic logic suggests continuity with ancient methods: comprehensive absorption through legal, economic, demographic, cultural, elite, and informational domination.

China's Demographic Window to Action is Closing

CDR Salamander

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Of all the theories out there about if/when/where the People’s Republic of China may decide to claw back more territory they “lost” during their century of humiliation, there is one common thread that is there, but is not given the attention it deserves: demographics. The demographic collapse we are all about to see over the next few decades will arrive in East Asia first, then Europe. The greatest impact on the globe will be in East Asia, simply by the numbers, if nothing else.

Demographics are one of those things you really cannot spin your way out of. You can’t catch up. A baby is born and reaches adulthood—or it does not. You can try to hide numbers and lie to your boss for just so long; eventually, the bodies simply will not be there. In South Korea and Japan you have relatively transparent societies where decision makers and leaders can at least plan for what is coming, but for the largest nation in East Asia—and the U.S.A.’s greatest global competitor, that is not the case.

Is China quietly winning the AI race?

Lily Jamali

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Every month, hundreds of millions of users flock to Pinterest looking for the latest styles. One page titled "the most ridiculous things" is filled with plenty of wacky ideas to inspire creatives. Crocs repurposed as flower pots. Cheeseburger-shaped eyeshadow. A gingerbread house made of vegetables. But what would-be buyers may not know is the tech behind this isn't necessarily US-made. Pinterest is experimenting with Chinese AI models to hone its recommendation engine. "We've effectively made Pinterest an AI-powered shopping assistant," the firm's boss Bill Ready told me. Of course, the San Francisco-based tastemaker could use any number of American AI labs to power things behind-the-scenes.

But since the launch of China's DeepSeek R-1 model in January 2025, Chinese AI tech has increasingly been a part of Pinterest. Ready calls the so-called "DeepSeek moment" a breakthrough. "They chose to open source it, and that sparked a wave of open source models," he said. Chinese competitors include Alibaba's Qwen and Moonshot's Kimi, while TikTok owner ByteDance is also working on similar technology. Pinterest Chief Technology Officer Matt Madrigal said the strength of these models is that they can be freely downloaded and customised by companies like his - which is not the case with the majority of models offered by US rivals like OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT.

China's Renewable Energy Transformation in Tibet Autonomous Region

Dr Y Nithiyanandam

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While the previous edition of the Geospatial Bulletin examined solar energy harvesting in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) in depth, this edition turns to the other pillars of electricity generation on the plateau: geothermal, wind, and hydropower. The focus is not simply on where these projects exist, but on what they are designed to achieve: the scale of deployment, the stated purpose of these sites, the technological shifts enabling high-altitude operations, and the way infrastructure is being arranged and connected across TAR.

This assessment sits within a broader national context in which China’s renewable build-out has crossed a historic threshold. Total installed renewable capacity has reached 1,889 GW, accounting for 56% of the nation’s power capacity: wind and solar alone amount to 1,482 GW, overtaking thermal power at 1,451 GW. China also met its 2024 target of 1,200 GW of wind and solar six years ahead of the 2030 deadline announced by President Xi in 2020. By current estimates, China accounts for 44% of global renewable capacity and hosts approximately 64–74% of the world’s utility-scale renewable projects under construction. Against that scale, the TAR’s contribution is surprisingly modest: it holds less than 0.5% of China’s renewable capacity, about 7.176 GW out of 1,889 GW, roughly comparable to Austria’s solar photovoltaic capacity. Yet this small base masks a turning point: the region is now entering an acceleration phase, with substantial additions anticipated during 2026–2030.

China’s Economic Statecraft Is Working

Audrye Wong

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With the second Trump administration has come a dramatic shift in U.S. foreign economic policy. Washington is imposing tariffs on partners and rivals alike, slashing foreign aid, aggressively renegotiating trade deals, and rejecting multilateral diplomacy. The United States, in other words, is acting like a bully. And as countries around the world grow more wary of dealing with the United States, they are turning more and more to its main economic rival, China. That trade is one of several factors contributing to China’s rise in exports in 2025—which resulted in a trade surplus of nearly $1.2 trillion, a 20 percent increase.

Washington’s policies have, in fact, been a double boon for Beijing. Not only have China’s economic offerings become more attractive to partners looking for an alternative to working with the United States but U.S. pressure tactics have also made it more permissible for China to coerce others. Beijing’s increasing use of export controls and its flooding of foreign markets with cheap goods still generate unease in many of the countries with which it wants to do business. Yet its record of economic statecraft does not have to be perfect to succeed. China is honing its approach to the trade war with the United States while using multilateral deals, development projects, and strategic financing of key sectors to secure other countries’ place in Chinese supply chains. It may never pull most of these countries fully into its orbit. But using its economic carrots and sticks may give Beijing enough leverage to advance an important goal: minimize global opposition to China’s domestic and foreign policies.

Is the US preparing to strike Iran again?

Jonathan Beale

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Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump sent a message to Iranians who were protesting against the regime, that "help is on its way". Since then, there has been a slow, steady and significant build-up of US military forces in the region. America, which is the world's most powerful military, has already shown it can strike Iran. Last June's operation "Midnight Hammer" targeted its nuclear facilities. It involved more than 100 aircraft, with B-2 stealth jets flying all the way from the United States to deliver their "bunker-buster" precision guided bombs. 

The question now: Is the US getting ready to hit Iran, again? Donald Trump's latest social media post suggests he may, with him warning Iran that unless it makes a deal to limit its nuclear programme then "the next attack will be far worse!" The US president said a "massive Armada" was heading to Iran and - like in Venezuela where the US seized Nicolás Maduro - it was "ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfil its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary". He called for Iran to come to the negotiating table but added that time was "running out".

Trump Briefed on Intelligence Saying Iran’s Government Is Weaker

Tyler Pager, Julian E. Barnes and Eric Schmitt

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President Trump has received multiple U.S. intelligence reports indicating that the Iranian government’s position is weakening, according to several people familiar with the information. The reports signal that the Iranian government’s hold on power is at its weakest point since the shah was overthrown in the 1979 revolution. Protests that erupted late last year, according to the reports, shook elements of the Iranian government, especially as they reached into areas of the country that officials thought were strongholds of support for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader. 

While the protests have died down, the government remains in a difficult position. Intelligence reports have repeatedly highlighted that in addition to the protests, Iran’s economy is historically weak. Economic hardship ignited sporadic protests in late December. As the demonstrations spread in January, the Iranian government found it had few options to ease the financial difficulties families were feeling. Officials resorted to a heavy handed crackdown that further alienated wide swaths of the population.

Caspian Less Safe for Shipping as Russia and Iran Increase Military Use of Sea

Paul Goble

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The recent sinking of an Iranian ship in Turkmenistan’s sector of the Caspian Sea on January 14 may or may not have been the result of hostile action (Telegram/@istories_media, January 14). According to Nurani, an Azerbaijani columnist writing under a mononym, it has called attention to how “the weapons corridor” Russia and Iran have established in the sea means that the Caspian and its littoral are no longer safe. As far back as 2023, reports arose that Iran was sending weapons across the Caspian to Russia for attacks on Ukraine or from Russia through Iran to their allies and partners (Meduza, August 19, 2025; Minval Politika, January 17). Nurani continues, “From [the Caspian], Russia has launched Kalibr missiles at targets in Ukraine, and these are most often civilian targets. Even earlier, before the start of the Ukrainian war, targets in Syria were attacked [by Russia] from the Caspian Sea” (Minval Politika, January 17). Russia’s use of its Caspian Flotilla against Ukraine is also important, as it has done so by moving ships from the Caspian to the Sea of Azov via the Volga-Don Canal (see EDM, August 16, 2022).

The Azerbaijani analyst explains that Ukraine openly targets Russian vessels in the Caspian. Nurani notes, The base of the Red Banner Caspian Flotilla in Kaspiysk, Dagestan, was attacked by Ukrainian drones. Oil platforms in the Russian sector of the Caspian have repeatedly come under attack. Finally, there have been attacks on a Russian control ship in the Caspian” (Minval Politika, January 17). The columnist further suggests that “it is even possible that tomorrow the United States and its allies will enter the game … [since] the issue of strikes on Iranian targets is on Washington’s agenda” (Minval Politika, January 17). Russia feels confident that it can develop ties between itself and Iran—given that both are littoral states, something the 2018 Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea permits—even as it declares that expansion of ties between other littoral states and foreign powers such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are impermissible under the terms of the convention.

The Israel-Iran Détente Won't Last

Raphael S. Cohen

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If there is a single through line of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's foreign policy, it has been his hard-line stance on Iran. For decades, he has been warning of the dangers posed by nuclear weapons in the hands of the ayatollahs. Understandably, he sees a regime whose refrain is “death to Israel” and that has a countdown clock to Israel's destruction prominently displayed in the middle of Tehran as a threat to his country's survival. Israel and Iran fought a shadow war for many years and, since the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre perpetrated by Iran-supported Hamas, three bouts of direct confrontation that culminated in a limited 12-day war last June. And the conflict shows no signs of being over.

But as occasionally happens in the Middle East, the unexpected transpired. As Iran faced widespread unrest spurred by high inflation and popular dissatisfaction with the regime, longtime Iran hawk Netanyahu backed off. Israel reportedly cut a deal with Iran for neither to attack the other and, together with Gulf states, helped talk U.S. President Donald Trump out of bombing Iran this time.

Post-Khamenei Iran: Who’s Who Among Potential Alternatives

Masoud Kazemzadeh

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Iran is at a turning point. The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is 86 years old (born in 1939). The 12-Day War with Israel and the United States in June 2025 was a catastrophic defeat for Khamenei and his regime. The economy has been deteriorating fast in 2025. Rather than changing course, Khamenei’s response has been to rebuild Iran’s missile and nuclear programs as well as rejuvenate it’s proxy groups. Officials and observers in Iran, Israel, and the United States have publicly stated that if Khamenei’s policies continue, another far more devastating war is forthcoming.

The political situation in Iran is volatile and fluid. Khamenei’s policies have come under criticism from figures inside the regime and Iranian citizens opposed to fundamentalism. Iranian society is highly fragmented and polarized. No leaders and no popular movements have succeeded in garnering the support of even a simple majority. In this article, I will discuss alternative scenarios for Iran’s future and analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each group and personality that might play a major role in Iran’s politics.

Trump, Diego Garcia and the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ in the Indian Ocean

Nitya Labh

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On 20 January, Donald Trump said that the UK’s deal to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius was an ‘act of total weakness’ and ‘great stupidity’. He argued that such weakness on the part of US allies is a reason why the US must acquire Greenland. Trump has justified his insistence on US control of Greenland in part by concerns about the encroaching presence of China and Russia in the north Atlantic and Arctic regions. Now this argument is being extended to the Indian Ocean over sovereignty in the Chagos Archipelago.

The strategic importance of the Indian Ocean

In a new era of great power ‘spheres of influence’, and as global warming opens up new trade routes across the Arctic Ocean, it is possible that the region could become a battleground between the US, Russia, and China as the president suggests. But these proposed polar routes are still not enough to sustain significant shipping volumes. Indian Ocean shipping routes are far more significant. Today, two-thirds of the world’s oil shipments and one-third of the world’s cargo shipments travel through the ocean.

Clausewitz and the American Center of Gravity: A Look at the National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy Together

David Maxwell

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Carl von Clausewitz wrote about centers of gravity in an era of monarchies, armies, and capitals, yet his insight remains unsettlingly current. Power, he argued, does not rest everywhere at once. It concentrates. It binds. And when it fractures, the state weakens from within. His warning was blunt. The blow must be directed against those elements that hold a system together. When applied to the United States in the contemporary global geostrategic environment, this insight forces a hard reading of the 2025 National Security Strategy and the 2026 National Defense Strategy. Not as bureaucratic texts, but as signals of where American power truly resides, and where it is most exposed.

The center of gravity is real, and it is vulnerable. The question facing American strategy is whether it will defend that center deliberately or continue to assume it will hold on its own.

The question is not whether the United States faces threats. The NSS and NDS assume that as a given. The harder question is whether these strategies correctly identify America’s own center of gravity, and whether they protect it or unintentionally place it at risk.

NATO Chief Says Europe Is ‘Dreaming’ if It Thinks It Can Defend Itself Without U.S.

Jeffrey Gettleman

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Mark Rutte, the secretary general of NATO, warned Europe on Monday that it could not defend itself without the United States in remarks aimed to address the growing worries that the United States and Europe are pulling apart over President Trump’s ambitions for Greenland.

“If anyone thinks here again that the European Union, or Europe as a whole, can defend itself without the U.S., keep on dreaming,” Mr. Rutte told members of the European Parliament in Brussels. “You can’t. We can’t. We need each other.” Mr. Rutte’s remarks followed days of anxiety that crested last week after President Trump said in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that he would not seize Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, backing off earlier threats. Mr. Trump used the same speech to belittle Europe, essentially saying that it wouldn’t exist without America. Mr. Trump had also threatened to impose additional tariffs on European countries that resisted his bid to control Greenland, but he backed away from those as well. Mr. Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister, has cultivated a chummy relationship with Mr. Trump, and that has raised some eyebrows in Europe. On Monday, Mr. Rutte backed up the American president’s strategic vision for the Arctic and a stronger defense of Greenland.

Geopolitics in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Jake Sullivan and Tal Feldman

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Everyone has a theory of artificial intelligence. Some believe the technology is progressing toward superintelligence—powerful AI that will bring epochal changes beyond any previous technology. Others expect that it will boost productivity and scientific discovery but will follow a more uneven and potentially less dramatic path.

People also disagree about how easily breakthroughs can be replicated. Some argue that rivals will fast-follow (that is, quickly imitate), whereas others believe catching up will become slower and costlier, giving first movers lasting advantage. And whereas many are sure China is determined to beat the United States at the frontier, others insist it is focused on deployment of existing technology while seeking to distill and reproduce leading-edge American innovations once they appear.

The Case for Upending World Trade

Peter E. Harrell

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Over the course of a year, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has become the most disruptive force in global trade since the 1930s. But the destruction of the post–Cold War trade order—a rules-based international trading system that sought to set economic principles for participating governments—provides a necessary opportunity to correct an overly rigid attitude toward trade.

Between the end of World War II and the early 1990s, U.S. presidents generally supported free trade and encouraged other countries to lower trade barriers with initiatives such as the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which encouraged countries mostly outside the Soviet bloc to mutually reduce their tariffs. But U.S. administrations balanced this preference with pragmatism, taking a flexible approach to policy that considered distinct challenges discretely. When necessary, U.S. presidents were willing to use tools such as tariffs, sector-specific deals for politically-sensitive products such as textiles, and hard-nosed negotiations to tackle discrete trade tensions. The idea that strictly governing international trade with a set of universal rules would deliver economic and geopolitical benefits to all countries is historically abnormal.

Fortress Ukraine

Eric Ciaramella and Sophia Besch

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In January, amid Russia’s continued assault on Ukraine and U.S. President Donald Trump’s haste to reach a peace settlement, the leaders of more than two dozen European countries and Canada gathered in Paris to discuss security guarantees for Kyiv. Although European leaders hailed this “coalition of the willing” summit as a breakthrough, its publicly known outcome was a frustratingly familiar, if slightly more detailed, repetition of previous commitments.

The coalition’s signature idea is a multinational European-led force that will deploy to Ukraine if a cease-fire is reached. Planning for this force, which will include land, sea, and air components, is already underway among European militaries and defense ministries, with a headquarters set up near Paris. The force’s mission is twofold: to “support the rebuilding of Ukraine’s armed forces and support deterrence.” Ukraine’s European partners are also discussing a set of binding commitments modeled after NATO’s Article 5 guarantees to come to the country’s defense if it were attacked again after a cease-fire.

Making Industrial Strategy Great Again It Has Worked for America Before, but Trump’s Approach Is All Wrong

Mariana Mazzucato

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For decades, many U.S policymakers have talked like Thomas Jefferson while acting like Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson, the United States’ first secretary of state and third president, championed limited government; Hamilton, its first treasury secretary, argued for active state support of emerging industries. The political rhetoric in Washington, extolling free markets and minimal state intervention, has been Jefferson’s. The reality has been Hamilton’s: the government invested in projects that drove U.S. competitiveness and innovation. Examples abound. Beginning in 1958, the Department of Defense funded the research that led to the Internet, and other public agencies were the source of all the technology now found in smartphones, including GPS, touchscreens, and Apple’s Siri. Investments by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), totaling hundreds of billions of dollars over many years, created entire pharmaceutical industries.

This dynamic is what I documented in my 2013 book, The Entrepreneurial State, and later in a 2015 Foreign Affairs article, “The Innovative State.” The federal government was willing to take risks that private capital would not and was patient enough to fund decades-long research. It was far-sighted enough to build markets at the forefront of innovation. The government understood that only patient, long-term public capital could absorb the uncertainty of transformational research; private investors, beholden to quarterly returns, systematically underinvest in precisely the breakthroughs that drive sustained growth.

Finding the Signal within the Noise: What Information Warriors Need to Know About Human Pattern Recognition.

Douglas Wilbur 

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In 2022, Russian state media launched a coordinated narrative campaign portraying Ukraine’s government as “neo-Nazi” and its citizens as victims of Western manipulation. The “neo-Nazi” narrative worked unusually well because it activated deep cultural memories from Russia’s World War II mythology, where defeating fascism is central to national identity. This signal’s Russia tried to construct was simple but powerful: Russia is morally righteous, Ukraine is inherently dangerous, and military action is not just justified but necessary. Within days, thousands of automated social-media accounts began repeating the same story frame across Telegram, VKontakte, Twitter, and YouTube. The repetition created a sense of coherence that transcended evidence. Users were not persuaded by facts. 

They were reassured by familiar patterns, heroes, villains, and moral redemption, that felt intuitively true. Analysts at RAND later described this “firehose of falsehood” approach as a system that overwhelms critical thinking through volume and repetition rather than logic. These operations succeed because they weaponize the way human beings naturally seek order in chaos. Cognitive research shows that when people face missing or confusing information, the brain automatically fills in the blanks to create a complete picture. If part of an image, story, or message is unclear, the mind supplies the missing detail from memory or expectation to make it feel whole. This process reduces uncertainty and creates a sense of order, even when the available data are incomplete or misleading. This bias toward pattern completion makes intuitive judgments feel accurate even when they are wrong. When adversaries shape those patterns, they shape belief.

Trump hails Rubio as diplomatic mentor as secretary of state's power grows

Diana Stancy 

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President Donald Trump credits Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the one for training him to become a diplomat, comments that come as Rubio has increasingly secured more responsibility and influence over the president during the second Trump administration.

Trump described Rubio’s guidance as he described his relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping and shared an anecdote about how Xi requested that Trump stop referring to COVID-19 virus as the "China virus." According to Trump, Xi requested that the president use a different name – an ask that Trump said he chose to respect.

Cognitive Warfare Without a Map: Why Current Targeting Logic Fails in a Fast-Moving Information Ecosystem

John Wilcox, Ryan Walters |

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A unit prepares to deploy as a deepfake video begins circulating online, amplified by bot accounts and picked up by mainstream outlets and influencers within hours. As staff officers coordinate a response, lawyers review courses of action, and platforms deliberate content moderation, the narrative mutates, spills across audiences, and triggers legal challenges, partner hesitation, and public pressure. By the time a response is finally authorized, the original claim has already evolved into something new, and the operational conditions it created have hardened. The force did not fail to act; it acted on a timeline measured in days against an adversary iterating in hours. 

This contradiction is not a failure of intent or effort. It is a failure of mental models.

Over the past two decades, the Joint Force has increasingly recognized the centrality of the human and information environment in contemporary conflict. Doctrine and strategy emphasize influence, narratives, legitimacy, and perception as decisive factors in competition and war. Yet operational practice reveals a persistent contradiction: cognitive warfare is still planned using conceptual models designed for kinetic operations in the physical domain.

Combat-Tested Integrated Defense: What Ukraine and Israel Reveal About Endurance Under Air Attack

Sarah Fainberg, Yuval Peleg and Tomer Fadlon

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At dawn, on August 25, 2024, air-raid sirens wailed across Israel. Seconds later, the sky filled with arcs of interceptors rising to meet an incoming salvo of rockets, missiles, and drones. Many expected a massive Hezbollah retaliation after the Israel Defense Forces eliminated senior commander Fuad Shukr the month before. When the all-clear sounded, the damage to Israel was negligible.

Israel’s success that morning was not the result of interception alone. While active defense systems intercepted most of what Hezbollah managed to launch, two additional lines of defense proved decisive. Shortly before the salvo, Israeli fighter jets struck launcher clusters and command nodes across southern Lebanon, sharply reducing the volume of fire before the salvo could even be launched. This use of preemptive strikes to degrade an adversary’s attack capacity (what we term here offensive defense) constituted the first line of protection on August 25. The final layer was passive defense (early warning, shelter, and disciplined civilian behavior) that absorbed what penetrated outer defenses.

Ukraine Becomes World Leader in Unmanned Ground Vehicles

Taras Kuzio

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Russia’s war against Ukraine has transformed Ukraine into the world’s leading defense innovator (see EDM, November 8, 2024, October 5, 2025). In 2023–2024, aerial and sea drones became central to Ukraine’s defense against Russian military aggression (see EDM, August 18, November 15, 2023, March 11, August 13, October 8, 2024). In 2025 and into this year, Ukraine has been launching and expanding the production and use of ground drones—Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs, often referred to as “robots”) (see EDM, October 25, 2025). Production will be scaled this year, lowering cost per unit. Ukraine plans to produce upwards of 20,000 units in 2026 (The New Voice of Ukraine, January 7).

In March 2025, United24 Media wrote, “Ukraine is among the global leaders in ground robotic systems. No other military has its level of real combat experience. Foreign tech solutions can be impressive, but the real test is battlefield performance, not theoretical capabilities” (United 24 Media, March 3, 2025). Lyuba Shipovich, a technical entrepreneur who returned to Ukraine from the United States to launch the Dignitas defense company, said, “Ukrainian engineers are creating the future of warfare, not just for Ukraine, but for the world” (Euromaidan News, August 19, 2025). As of April 2025, according to an expert at the Ukrainian government-backed defense company Brave1, 55 Ukrainian UGVs had been codified to NATO standards (The Telegraph, April 22, 2025).

Never Fight Alone

William H. McRaven

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In 2006, I helped establish the NATO Special Operations Forces Command in Mons, Belgium. It included commandos from more than 19 nations. Over the course of the next two years, we trained and exercised together, drank together, and spent family time together. In doing so, we learned that our common values were much more important than our national differences. We also developed a bond that only men preparing for combat can appreciate.

By 2008, I was back fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, I was blessed to have the British Special Air Service (SAS) and Special Boat Service (SBS) serving alongside my Rangers, SEALs, and Delta Force operators. The Brits took on one of the toughest missions in our counterterrorism fight: the suicide-bomber network operating in Baghdad. Their work unquestionably saved the lives of American soldiers and our allies. And they paid a high price for standing alongside us. In 2005, British special military units lost 10 personnel when one of their C-130s was shot down outside the city. We mourned their loss as if they were our own.

All eyes are on Trump’s reaction to the ‘mother of all deals’ between India and the EU

Holly Ellyatt

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The ink is barely dry on the European Union and India’s historic trade deal but all eyes are now on how President Donald Trump will react to the free trade agreement that’s widely seen as a strategic hedge against the U.S.′ volatile trade policies and tariff threats. The deal, which was confirmed earlier Tuesday, has taken almost two decades to agree and will see the trading behemoths gradually cut tariffs to zero on the majority of each other’s imports, except on some key products and sectors.

Trump is yet to react publicly to the EU-India deal, which was announced in the early hours of Tuesday morning European time, but he and the White House are unlikely to be happy with the deal. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has already criticized the EU for forging ahead with a trade agreement with India. “The U.S. has made much bigger sacrifices than Europeans have. We have put 25% tariffs on India for buying Russian oil. Guess what happened last week? The Europeans signed a trade deal with India,” Bessent told ABC News on Sunday.

An Unlikely Source of Crypto Innovation: Afghanistan

Aryn Baker 

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People in Halfaya, Syria, waiting to receive humanitarian aid. The funds were being distributed through HesabPay, a blockchain-based system developed in Afghanistan. The repressive Taliban government is suspicious of the internet. But a start-up in the country is building blockchain-based tools to transform humanitarian aid.

People in Halfaya, Syria, waiting to receive humanitarian aid. The funds were being distributed through HesabPay, a blockchain-based system developed in Afghanistan.Credit. At a bustling money changer in northwestern Syria, a 46-year-old farmer gripped a plastic card like a lifeline. She had never heard of cryptocurrency, but the card held $500 of it to help restart her farm after nearly 14 years of civil war.

What’s Going on with China’s PLA?

Anushka Saxena

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The investigation into one of China’s top generals is the latest episode in Xi Jinping’s purge of the People’s Liberation Army. On January 20, 2026, at a high-level study session for China’s principal provincial and ministerial officials, there was a conspicuous empty chair. Official reporting surreptitiously noted that “both” Vice-Chairmen of the Central Military Commission (CMC) were in attendance, yet the footage told a different story. General Zhang Youxia, the second-in-command of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), was missing.

Four days later, the other shoe dropped. China’s Ministry of National Defense confirmed that Zhang, alongside CMC member and Chief of Joint Staff Liu Zhenli, had been placed under investigation for “serious violations of discipline and law.” While Beijing is no stranger to either military corruption or political indiscipline, Zhang’s case is much more incendiary than business-as-usual. Since 2023, the PLA has been in a state of perpetual churn. What began in July 2023, when the CMC Equipment Development Department (EDD) called for whistleblowers to report corrupt procurement practices dating back to 2017, first resulted in the targeting of relatively replaceable officials—Defense Minister Li Shangfu and PLA Rocket Force (PLARF) Commander Li Yuchao. But the crisis soon metastasized—in late 2025, the purge swept through the so-called “Fujian gang.” These are officials like CMC vice chairman He Weidong and Admiral Miao Hua, who rose through the ranks of the erstwhile 31st Group Army in Fujian and the PLA Navy.

Xi has absolute control over China’s military. Now he wants more

Simone McCarthy

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Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s decision to place the country’s top-ranking general under investigation is a stunning move that leaves Xi virtually alone at the top of the military hierarchy – raising deep questions about the implications for the world’s largest armed forces, as well as Beijing’s ambitions to take control of Taiwan.

But the purge also makes one thing clear: Xi sees no target as too big to be taken down as he remakes the military according to his vision – and prioritizes loyalty over all else.

EMP Weapons Expose PRC Military Vulnerability

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In a recent analysis published by The Jamestown Foundation titled “EMP Weapons Expose PRC Military Vulnerability,” Guermantes Lailari, Yu-cheng Chen, and Tin Pak assess how electromagnetic pulse weapons expose critical vulnerabilities in the People’s Liberation Army’s increasingly informatized force structure. The authors argue that EMP capabilities have moved “from theory to reality” and now provide a speed-of-light, non-kinetic “electronics-kill” option capable of disabling drone swarms, missiles, and command networks at scale.

Chinese military and state-affiliated scientists openly acknowledge doubts about the ability to fully harden systems against multi-vector EMP threats, even as the PLA deepens its dependence on integrated digital “kill webs.” In a Taiwan contingency, the authors conclude that EMP weapons could disrupt early PLA attack phases while also threatening civilian infrastructure that underwrites Chinese military power.

EMP weapons deliver pulses of radiation that induce electrical charges in conductive materials, which can disable or destroy electronic systems… non-nuclear EMPs are more targeted, with a narrower range, and focus on specific frequency bands… EMP weapons are rapidly moving from theory to reality… the importance of EMP weapons as a speed-of-light, non-kinetic “electronics-kill” (以电能为主要“弹药”) option… vulnerabilities to EMPs continue to grow.