Indian Strategic Studies

12 September 2025

Transformation in Context: Transformation in Contact and the Aspects of Military Innovation

Christopher Jordan

America is “competing with determined adversaries during a period of unprecedented technological change. To guarantee our security, we must recognize change and adapt faster than any army in the world.” In order to fight and win the next war, the Army began a comprehensive plan to modernize and transform the force.

Simultaneous to ongoing, long-term developments, the Army is focused on what it calls “Transformation in Contact” or TIC: rapid developments and changes to existing formations in the near term. Transformation in contact is a new term for an old idea: rapid military innovation. Like previous attempts at innovation, TIC’s success or failure will depend on how the Army integrates key aspects of military innovation and how it understands the effects of the current international system.

There are many components that influence military innovation, but three key aspects drive effective innovation. These elements are technological advancements, new doctrinal applications of technology, and an adaptable organization that accepts the changes provided by the former two aspects. These elements converge and “cluster together to produce a major change in the way people live – or, in the case of the military, the way they die.” Whether the U.S. is at war or peace as well as the international balance of power further shape innovation. Peace and the balance of power alter the dynamics of innovation, shifting both the drivers of innovation, the focus of a nation’s efforts, and the nation’s cost-benefit analysis.

Keys Aspects to Military Innovation

The first key element of military innovation is the most obvious: technology. Technology acts as a catalyst, creating the opportunity for novel solutions to the challenges of a battlefield. As we develop new technologies, existing constraints no longer apply. For example, the development of the steam engine and advancements such as the telegraph enabled effective power projection, invalidating previous planning assumptions based on wind and extended delays in information dissemination. The new technology enabled new possibilities.

Modi’s tactical tango with Beijing and Moscow

Bhim Bhurtel

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin last week has generated significant attention in international politics, academia and the media.

The photos and videos of Modi shaking hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin dominated Western news cycles, quickly becoming the defining image of the event.

Some commentators rushed to conclude that a new “axis of upheaval” was born. Many described the scene as heralding a new chapter in the global balance of power, a sign that India was moving closer to China and Russia in defiance of the West.

Others suggested it reflected the mounting pressure from Donald Trump, whose tariff battles and geopolitical bullying have left New Delhi searching for room for a strategic reset.

Such commentary, however, was dramatic but superficial. Modi’s participation was not a historic pivot. It was a tactical adjustment, a temporary performance dictated by immediate political needs at home and calculated hedging abroad, rather than a structural reorientation of India’s foreign policy.

The composition of Modi’s delegation offered the first clue to the strategic thinking behind the Tianjin visit. The absence of Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s external affairs minister and its principal diplomatic strategist since 2015, was a significant detail.

Jaishankar, first as foreign secretary and later as minister, has been the central architect of India’s international engagements under Modi. His absence indicated that the visit was narrow in scope, focused on security management and tactical balancing rather than grand strategy.

This detail undermines the breathless claims that Modi was charting a bold new path. India continues to consider its relationship with Washington invaluable. Despite frustrations, that partnership remains the cornerstone of New Delhi’s international strategy.

Zelenskyy backs Trump’s tariffs on India

Shuddhanta Patra

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has voiced support for United States tariffs on countries such as India over Russian oil imports, even as New Delhi steps up its diplomatic outreach to mediate an end to the Ukraine conflict.

What Zelenskyy said on India tariffs?

In an interview with ABC News, Zelenskyy said, “I think the idea to put tariffs on the country… continuing to make deals with Russia is the right idea.” His comments came in response to a question about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appearance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in China, where he was photographed alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

The remarks coincided with hints from Washington that further measures against Moscow are imminent. President Donald Trump, whose Alaska summit with Putin last month failed to deliver a breakthrough, announced on Sunday that he was ready to expand sanctions.

National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett hinted that India could be a target of Washington’s next round of sanctions. “We are responsible for making sure that sanctions get enforced and that people who are helping Russia with their war against Ukraine… for example, what India has been doing by buying Russian oil… that we’re ready to respond to them economically,” Hassett said.

His remarks followed fresh Russian strikes across Ukraine, triggering an urgency in Washington.

Meanwhile, India has sought to balance its energy security needs with growing diplomatic efforts to help broker peace. Modi spoke with Zelenskyy twice last month, reaffirming New Delhi’s position that “an early and peaceful resolution” remains essential. He also held consultations with European leaders, including Ursula von der Leyen, Antonio Costa and Emmanuel Macron.

Pakistan nuclear weapons, 2025

Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, Eliana Johns, Mackenzie Knight-Boyle

This issue’s column reviews the status of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and finds that the country currently has a stockpile of approximately 170 warheads, a number that could potentially grow to around 200 by the late 2020s at the current growth rate. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: director Hans M. Kristensen, associate director Matt Korda, and senior research associates Eliana Johns and Mackenzie Knight-Boyle.

This article is freely available in PDF format in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ digital magazine (published by Taylor & Francis) at this link. To cite this article, please use the following citation, adapted to the appropriate citation style: Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, Eliana Johns, and Mackenzie Knight-Boyle, 2025. Pakistan nuclear weapons, 2025. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 81(5), 386-408. https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2025.2543685

Pakistan continues to slowly modernize its nuclear arsenal with improved and new delivery systems, and a growing fissile material production industry. Analysis of commercial satellite images of construction at Pakistani army garrisons and air force bases shows what appear to be newer launchers and facilities that might be related to Pakistan’s nuclear forces, although authoritative information about Pakistan’s nuclear units is scarce.

We estimate that Pakistan has produced a nuclear weapons stockpile of approximately 170 warheads, which is unchanged since our last estimate in 2023 (see Table 1). The US Defense Intelligence Agency projected in 1999 that Pakistan would have 60 to 80 warheads by 2020 (US Defense Intelligence Agency (1999, 38), but several new weapon systems have been fielded and developed since then, which leads us to a higher estimate. Our estimate comes with considerable uncertainty because neither Pakistan nor other countries publish much information about the Pakistani nuclear arsenal.

Balancing China In The West Philippine Sea: Does The Philippines Need A Gray Zone Deterrence Strategy? – Analysis

Christian Vicedo

As China Coast Guard (CCG) and maritime militia vessels swarm Second Thomas Shoal, in which the grounded Philippine warship Sierra Madre serves as a military outpost, Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. expressed the need for deterring China and giving a strong message that its unilateral actions in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) “will not be tolerated by the international community.”

In recent months, the Philippines has sought to enhance its defense posture by deepening cooperation with its treaty ally and strategic partners. These actions range from facilitating the deployment of U.S. missile systems within Philippine territory, participating in defense ministerial meetings with U.S., Japan, and Australia, signing a reciprocal access agreement with Japan, and conducting joint military exercises.

If defending Philippine territorial integrity and sovereignty from China is one of the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. administration’s political objectives, then it is clear that deterring China’s actions through external balancing is among the strategic concepts of this administration.

Given China’s unyielding position, it is worth examining how Beijing sustains its gray zone activities amidst the efforts of the Philippines to strengthen extended deterrence through deeper defense cooperation with the U.S., Japan, and Australia to assert its sovereignty in the WPS and the rules-based international order.

Extended Deterrence in the WPS

The Limits of Xi and Putin’s “No-Limits” Partnership

RUBY OSMAN and DAN SLEAT

LONDON – Much has changed since Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin last stood together atop Tiananmen Square in 2015. When they did so again this week, it was supposedly as equal partners. But, of course, the reality is far more complex.

The conventional wisdom is that China has cemented its position as the dominant partner, especially since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. After all, it is now Russia’s biggest trading partner, accounting for more than half of Russian imports in 2023, whereas Russia doesn’t even make China’s top five. While Russia relies on China to buy roughly half of its crude oil exports, these purchases account for only 17.5% of China’s total oil imports. Simply put, Russia needs China to keep its own economy going.

Yet for all this dependence, China is not dictating outcomes, and the Kremlin is not acting like a junior partner. Consider the war in Ukraine. While it has some significant upsides for China – not least by diverting US resources from the Pacific theater – there is no doubt that Putin is calling the shots on the timing, scope, and endgame.

On paper, China may have the leverage to influence Russia’s policy. But it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which Ukraine could compel China to use it. Doing so would not only jeopardize China’s relations with a key partner, but also contravene its own core foreign-policy principle of “non-interference.” Putin knows that better than anyone.

China-Mongolia-Russia Agreement on Power of Siberia 2 Could Reroute Energy Trade

Bolor Lkhaajav

China recently hosted the 2025 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Tianjin, gathering heads-of-state and high-level representatives. Mongolian President Khurelsukh Ukhnaa participated in the summit, representing Mongolia as an observer state — a status that no longer exists as the SCO reformatted how it labels partners after the recent summit. On the sidelines of the SCO, Gazprom and CNPC signed a legally binding MOU on the trilateral construction of the Power of Siberia 2, a planned gas pipeline from Soyuz Vostok, which has potential to alter energy trade.

During his speech at the SCO Summit, Khurelsukh underscored Mongolia’s commitment to peace, multilateralism, and regional integration. Marking Ulaanbaatar’s active engagement in regional and global multilateral platforms, Khurelsukh emphasized Mongolia’s initiation to host the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in November 2026 and welcomed China and other partners to participate.

But, more importantly, Ulaanbaatar’s dealings with its two giant neighbors – Russia and China – happen at their trilateral summit, held on the sidelines of multilateral events like the SCO Summit.

On September 2, the day after the SCO Summit closed, Mongolia, China, and Russia convened their seventh trilateral leaders’ summit in China. As the host, China’s President Xi Jinping chaired the summit. He offered a three-point proposal on advancing China-Russia-Mongolia trilateral cooperation. First, Xi called for the three countries to cement political trust and thus the political will for trilateral cooperation. Second, he spoke of deepening mutually beneficial cooperation, particularly through infrastructure: “taking physical connectivity as a key direction, the three countries should actively promote their cross-border infrastructure and energy projects, and make such cooperation more substantive.”

During the summit, Khurelsukh attributed “particular importance to the joint projects in such areas as Economic Corridor infrastructure development, transport, logistics, energy and trade.”

The paradox behind China’s military parade

Marcus Loh

When Beijing staged its largest military parade in a decade on Wednesday to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, the pageantry was carefully choreographed. DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missiles and J-20 stealth fighters in a flex of military confidence abroad and reassurance at home.

Once reliant on Soviet imports and fragmented production, China has consolidated its capabilities into vertically integrated conglomerates: AVIC in aviation, CASIC in missiles and space, CSSC in shipbuilding and CETC in electronics.

These state-owned enterprises now sustain a PLA Rocket Force with “survivable” ICBMs, a PLA Air Force with fifth-generation fighters and a PLA Navy boasting over 370 hulls, the largest by count worldwide.

This industrial base has powered cycles of modernization that closed historic gaps in land-based deterrence, as the parade clearly showcased. The question now is whether such an industrial scale can deliver a durable geopolitical advantage.

From vulnerability to primacy

For much of its history, China’s greatest threats came over land, from nomadic incursions to imperial rivals. Today, it has turned centuries of land-based insecurity into continental primacy.

Mongolia now sends a majority of its coal and mineral exports to China. The 2023 opening of the Tavan Tolgoi–Gashuunsukhait rail line – built to Chinese gauge standards – further deepened dependence by giving Beijing control over volumes and pricing.

Across Central Asia, Chinese-built infrastructure underpins transport and energy corridors. CNPC pipelines push hydrocarbons eastward, Digital Silk Road technologies embed surveillance into governance and Chinese finance sustains large shares of Kyrgyz and Tajik debt.

What did China’s Victory Parade reveal about PLA space, cyber, information war plans?

Seong Hyeon Choi, Liu Zhen

Showcasing new branches signals China's push to reshape combat strategy by integrating advanced tech for joint operations, analysts say

China's grand military parade highlighting new space, cyber and information warfare branches underscored the country's push to weave advanced technologies into its combat strategy, according to analysts.

In a show of military strength and modernisation, Wednesday's parade in Beijing marking the 80th anniversary of Japan's defeat in World War II unveiled the People's Liberation Army's most advanced weaponry and its latest command structure reforms.

The spectacle featured formations not just from the PLA's traditional branches - the Army, Navy, Air Force, Joint Logistics Support Force and Rocket Force - but also three newly established arms: the Information Support Force, the Military Aerospace Force and the Cyberspace Force.

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Formations by the new branches were also accompanied by the latest equipment for cyberspace warfare, electronic countermeasures and information support.

Observers said the debut of the new PLA branches signalled Beijing's drive to reshape its combat doctrine by integrating advanced technologies into cross-force joint operations.

Timothy Heath, a senior international defence researcher at the US-based think tank Rand Corporation, said the new branches and related weapons showed that the PLA had "become a force capable of operating in all domains".

"It is also working to improve its ability to integrate capabilities from all services, which can further enhance its lethality and effectiveness," Heath said.

Why the Peace Deal in Ukraine Runs Through China?

Miro Popkhadze

In the past several months, the Trump administration has leaned hard on the Kremlin, seeking to force a breakthrough toward a durable peace in Ukraine. The White House has spent great political and diplomatic capital to bring the warring parties to the negotiation table. Washington has employed multiple instruments of national power, including sanctions, weapons shipments, and political pressure to secure a ceasefire, and lay the groundwork for a long-term peace deal. Predictably, these efforts have failed miserably. Every American attempt to move the needle towards a truce has been met with deliberate delay and stalling by the Russian side. The hard truth is that neither a ceasefire nor any peace settlement can be reached without addressing the factor too often overlooked: China.

Unlike the Biden administration, which isolated Moscow, rallied allies, and armed Ukraine, more or less successfully, the Trump administration placed greater emphasis on brokering a peace deal. In doing so, the White House pressured Kiev and pushed Brussels to align them with its new policy. While managing to keep its allies in line, Washington’s efforts have produced no tangible results with Moscow. A series of direct phone calls and meetings with the Russian counterparts in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Alaska revealed that neither the United States nor the EU possesses leverage or political capacity to compel Moscow into a ceasefire, let alone a peace agreement.

The elephant in the room is China. And to a certain extent, Moscow is fighting a proxy war for Beijing. Considering its political, economic, and technological isolation from the West, Russia is no longer an independent global player as it had been before the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It’s worth noting that today, Russia’s war machine, resource-based economy, technological capacity, and foreign policy are increasingly dependent on China. Hence, Western leaders who seek diplomatic solutions while ignoring the growing power asymmetry in the Sino-Russian relationship, misunderstand the reality of the conflict and risk prolonging the war indefinitely. Only a string of decisive actions that up gun Ukraine, sanction Russia, and engage China will alter Putin’s calculations as a drained, weakened, and cornered Kremlin will have little choice but to acquiesce.

Hierarchical Partnership

Jerusalem in Blood: The War Against Radical Islamism

Ahmed Charai

This morning’s bloodshed in Jerusalem—where terrorists opened fire on civilians at a bus stop, killing six and wounding seven—reminds us of a painful truth: fighting terrorism is not merely a battle against gunmen, militias, or armies. It is a battle against a death-worshipping ideology, a doctrine that teaches martyrdom as glory, hatred as duty, and murder as salvation. Until that poison is confronted at its root, every fallen terrorist will be replaced, and every apparent victory will prove to be only an illusion.

Each time a terrorist leader is hunted down, each time a militia is bombed into rubble, a familiar illusion returns: perhaps this time we’ve won. Yet history tells us otherwise. Hamas could vanish from Gaza tomorrow—its tunnels flooded, its commanders killed, its arsenals dismantled—and still, the threat of terror would not end. The fighters would be replaced, the weapons restocked, the hatred reborn.

Why? Because terror does not reside solely in weapons or organizations. It lives in a death-worshipping ideology. An ideology more resilient than armies, more viral than propaganda, more enduring than regimes. That ideology—the radical Islamist doctrine, seeded by the Muslim Brotherhood nearly a century ago—remains undefeated. And until it is, no battlefield victory will last.

In Washington, glossy proposals are once again circulating: transforming Gaza’s coastline into a “Riviera of the Middle East,” where glittering skyscrapers, tech hubs, and AI-driven megacities rise from the rubble. These dreams are not new. They echo Jared Kushner’s 2019 “Peace to Prosperity” plan, championed by President Trump, which envisioned tens of billions of dollars in investment, a doubling of Palestinian GDP, and the creation of a million new jobs.

The theory was simple but bold: prosperity is the antidote to extremism. Build businesses instead of bunkers. Offer hope instead of hatred. Replace dependence with dignity.

Think tank report exposes U.S. mind colonization

This undated photo shows copies of the think tank report "Colonization of the Mind -- The Means, Roots, and Global Perils of U.S. Cognitive Warfare." The Xinhua Institute, a think tank affiliated with Xinhua News Agency, has released a report titled "Colonization of the Mind -- The Means, Roots, and Global Perils of U.S. Cognitive Warfare," providing an in-depth analysis of the historical facts, the complex operational system, and far-reaching global perils of the U.S. mental colonization. The report, released during the Global South Media and Think Tank Forum 2025 on Sunday, called on all countries, especially those in the Global South, to break off the shackles of mind, regain cultural confidence, and draw a diverse map of civilizations. (Xinhua/Chen Yehua)

KUNMING, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Xinhua Institute, a think tank affiliated with Xinhua News Agency, has released a report titled "Colonization of the Mind -- The Means, Roots, and Global Perils of U.S. Cognitive Warfare," providing an in-depth analysis of the historical facts, the complex operational system, and far-reaching global perils of the U.S. mental colonization.

The report, released during the Global South Media and Think Tank Forum 2025 on Sunday, called on all countries, especially those in the Global South, to break off the shackles of mind, regain cultural confidence, and draw a diverse map of civilizations.

The colonization of the mind, it said, constitutes mental domination predicated on inequality and aimed at perpetuating inequality, mainly manifested in the forms of compulsory transformation, malicious manipulation, covert infiltration and long-term erosion.

U.S. hegemonic dominance on the world's political, economic and military scenes serves as the "hard prerequisites" for its ideological colonization, then the enabling conditions in language and culture, discourse narratives, mass media and academic research constitute its "soft foundation," the report noted.

It added that U.S. activities to colonize the mind have a profound practical foundation and clear strategic planning, having gradually developed a comprehensive supporting system, covering strategic system, organizational system, value system, propaganda system, content system, and technological system.

Blackwater founder and Maga disciple Erik Prince pitching services in Ukraine

Ben Makuch

Amid reports that Donald Trump’s administration is considering using US private military contractors in a postwar Ukraine, multiple sources tell the Guardian one high-profile and controversial American from the “war on terror” era is already circling for business.

In the streets of Kyiv, military hawks and defense privateers have described how Erik Prince, Maga disciple and founder of the now-defunct mercenary company Blackwater, has been aggressively pitching his services and looking to buy.

According to those same sources who spoke on background and on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive defense matters, Prince was pitching himself to the valuable Ukrainian drone sector and seeking meetings with leading industry players.

“Erik is going out there to buy drone companies,” said one of the sources, with another confirming Prince was in the hunt to acquire drone makers with a footprint in Ukraine.

“Whether they would sell them …” the source said. “For the Ukrainians these companies are now strategic assets.”

Prince’s latest gambit in Ukraine coincided with Trump’s attempts at brokering a peace deal between the Kremlin and the Ukrainian government of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in August, which has yet to yield any diplomatic breakthroughs.

Since drones became the main killing tool of the conflict, accounting for an estimated 80% of Russian casualties, western investors and defense companies have flocked to get in on Ukraine’s coveted battlefield data and emergent drone technologies for their own wares.

Now Prince allegedly wants to do the same, which experts say is an unsurprising development for an opportunistic defense contractor who is cozy with the Trump administration and has a history of profit-seeking from foreign wars.

Ukraine proves America’s secret weapon works — now we must double down on it

Chuck DeVore

Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume explains why President Donald Trump should not remove himself from the peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine and more on 'Special Report.'

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, many experts predicted Kyiv’s quick fall. When Ukraine pushed back overextended Russian forces, the same experts confidently said that Russia’s mass — a population almost four times larger than Ukraine — would certainly grind Ukraine down. Triumph for Putin was inevitable. But, an odd thing happened on the way to Russia’s victory parade: Ukraine is outfighting Russia.

Why is that? A big factor comes out of the grinding trenches of Ukraine, where a Russian war blogger known as "Atomic Cherry" recently laid bare a stark truth about Moscow’s persistent military woes. As translated and analyzed by an OSINT enthusiast, the blogger laments how Ukraine’s forces have outmaneuvered Russia’s rigid, Soviet-style bureaucracy in the drone war.

Ukrainian commanders, he notes, have spun up alternative structures to pull resources from the traditional military to innovate rapidly. Meanwhile, Russia’s monolithic Air Force and Navy fumble with technologies that should be in their wheelhouse, like unmanned aerial vehicles and naval drones. The result? Ukraine’s loose system fosters flexibility, while Russia’s top-down control stifles it.

The blogger doesn't name it, but he's describing the essence of Col. John Boyd’s OODA Loop theory — Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. This cycle, in which speed in processing information and adapting trumps sheer firepower, has been America’s edge in warfare for decades.

Why Israel’s security doctrine won’t help it achieve strategic stability in the Middle East

Shahin Berenji

Days after approving strikes against Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor on June 7, 1981, Israel’s then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin publicly defended his decision amid much international criticism, including from US President Ronald Reagan. “Another Holocaust would have happened … we shall defend our people with all the means at our disposal. We shall not allow any enemy to develop weapons of mass destruction [to be] turned against us,” Begin said. This decision inaugurated what has come to be known as the “Begin doctrine”—a security doctrine that lays out how Israel will not permit states that seek its elimination to develop weapons of mass destruction.

After Israel launched air strikes against Iran in June, many drew parallels between Begin and Israel’s present and longest-serving Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. But was the recent operation against Iran as strategically successful as the one against Iraq? Netanyahu’s decision to launch an extensive aerial campaign passes, some argue, “the Begin test with distinction.” This conclusion, however, is premature. Netanyahu may have applied the Begin doctrine, but it does not mean he has achieved the doctrine’s primary objective, here meant to be the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program. Though a very difficult and high bar to achieve, Netanyahu argued Israel satisfied its war aims and declared the military operation a “historic victory.” His triumphant narrative, however, ignores the extent to which Israel failed to achieve its strategic aims because Iran can still reorganize and revive its nuclear program—and may now have a greater willingness and desire to do so.

The uncertainty lingering over the effects of Israeli—and even US—airstrikes makes it clear that a political rather than a military solution is needed to remove, or at least mitigate, the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program. Unless there is a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear question, the region and the international community ought to expect future Israeli preventive strikes and a renewed outbreak of war, perhaps even longer and more intense than what has been referred to as the 12-day war.

Houthi Attacks And Israeli Responses – OpEd

Hassan Al-Mustafa

In late August, Israel launched a new phase of confrontation with the Houthi group, as it targeted a command operations room in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, killing Prime Minister Ahmed Ghaleb Nasser Al-Rahawi and several members of the Houthi government. The operation, backed by intelligence efforts, marked a strategic shift from a limited maritime confrontation to direct strikes targeting Houthi political and administrative leaders. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz described the operation as a “crushing blow.”

Abdul-Malik Al-Houthi’s response did not take long, as he sought in a speech to raise the morale of his supporters, considering that “the assassination of civilian ministers will not weaken Yemen but will rather increase its determination and steadfastness.” Meanwhile, Acting Prime Minister Mohammed Ahmed Muftah vowed revenge, accusing Washington and Tel Aviv of leading an “intelligence empire” that had infiltrated Yemen.

In the days that followed the Israeli strike and the accompanying mobilization on both sides, tensions continued to mount, as the Houthis in Sanaa buried 12 officials, followed by the launch of missiles and drones toward Israel. The Israeli army announced the interception of one missile on Sept. 3 after an alert in Tel Aviv, while another was reported to have fallen in an open area. At the same time, the Houthis announced they had targeted the oil tanker Scarlet Ray in the Red Sea, a step that raised great concern, especially since it poses a threat to energy security and navigation in the Red Sea and raises the risk level.

The Israeli response to the Houthis was not limited to the airstrike but included escalatory symbolic rhetoric. Katz threatened to unleash the biblical plagues on the Houthis, affirming that Israel “will complete all 10 plagues” until the threat is eliminated. This rhetoric reflects a desire for psychological deterrence as well as physical, especially since some Houthi missiles have reached sensitive areas inside Israel. But this rhetoric does not obscure the challenge Tel Aviv faces, as every Israeli airstrike means the possibility of a new Houthi response, even if limited, extending the war of attrition and increasing the likelihood of escalation, including the targeting of new areas.

Show Or Reality?: Hitting Moscow – Between Strategic Desperation And Balance By Force (Part II) – Analysis

Col. (ret.) Dr. Cătălin Balog

This is the central dilemma of the second part of the analysis of the current multipolar confrontation. Beyond the visible demonstrations – American submarines and Russian bombers – and bellicose declarations, an unseen battle is being waged for the control of perceptions, where power is also defined by narratives and emotions, not just by weapons. The paper introduces concepts such as emotional deterrence, controlled spectacle and normative truth to explain the distinct registers of the great actors: American poker, Russian chess, Chinese go and European normativity. The analysis ends with three scenarios – negotiation, accident or unilateral imposition – and with the conclusion that the wars of the future will be won through the ability to impose one’s own version of reality.

I. Prologue – The Visible Theatre and the Unseen Backstage

In the current era, strategic confrontations are not reduced to troop movements, military exercises or official statements. More and more often, reality is played out on two simultaneous planes: the visible one, intended for public opinion, and the invisible one, of perceptions, illusions and manipulations. The central dilemma is whether we are facing solid facts or a directed show, designed to convey messages and condition behaviours. “Spectacle or reality?” thus becomes the key question through which contemporary multipolarity is deciphered.

Since ancient times, thinkers such as Sun Tzu observed that “the art of war is the art of deception”, [2]emphasizing the primacy of illusion over direct confrontation. In modernity, Niccolò Machiavelli recommended that leaders manipulate perceptions in order to consolidate their authority[3], and Otto von Bismarck demonstrated that the balance of great powers depended not only on the ratio of the armed forces, but also on the perception of political will[4]. In the nuclear age, the Nixon administration refined these intuitions through the “Madman Theory”, the stake being the projection of a calculated unpredictability to coerce the adversary[5].

This ambivalence – between reality and spectacle – can be understood through three distinct paradigms: “Madman Theory” in the case of the United States, “Deep Control” in the case of Russia, and “Silence Power” in the case of China. Each represents a different way of orchestrating perceptions, manipulating emotions, and imposing one’s own strategic pace.

Operating System of Influence: How Story, Compute, Money, and Consent Shape US Power

Dinesh S. Sastry

Four hubs—Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and Washington—form a single engine of influence, fueling innovation, defining global norms, and shaping US power.

My career has spanned technology, finance, and politics, giving me a front-row seat to how four centers of American power— Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and Washington have fused into a single operating system of US influence, shaping domestic debates and America’s role in the world.

These four hubs—StoryCo (Hollywood/Los Angeles), ComputeCo (Silicon Valley/San Francisco), MoneyCo (Wall Street/New York), and ConsentCo (Washington, DC)—form the core of America’s operating system of influence. Story drives demand; compute delivers scale; money accelerates both; and consent—law, regulation, diplomacy—sets the outer fence. When these nodes synchronize, the result is strategic speed: new ideas move from lab to living room in months instead of years.

Promise and Peril

The upside of this integration is enormous: faster innovation cycles; global standard‑setting in media, software, and finance; and the ability to scale critical capabilities—chips, biotech, clean energy, defense tech. In 2023, the United States drew roughly $67.2 billion in private artificial intelligence (AI) investment—nearly nine times as much as China—and continued to lead in frontier model development.

But concentration creates fragility. The July 2024 CrowdStrike incident cascaded across Windows endpoints and disrupted digital services at more than 750 US hospitals—an illustration of how failures in one node can reverberate through media, finance, and public services at once.

Did Russia Just Prove It Can Sink US Aircraft Carriers?

Brandon J. Weichert

NATO’s recent madcap effort to track down a Russian submarine in the North Sea shows that the threat to America’s aircraft carriers is far greater than the Pentagon lets on.

Last week, NATO forces engaged in a massive submarine hunt off the coast of Norway—apparently one of the largest such hunts since the end of the Cold War. The search involved elements of the United States Navy, the Royal Air Force, and the Royal Norwegian Air Force (RoNAF) hunting down what the Barents Observer estimated was likely one of three Russian Yasen-class nuclear-powered submarines that was operating dangerously close to the US Navy’s USS Gerald R. Ford nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

The Russian submarine was close enough that it could have probably launched some (or all) of its long-range precision weapons and overwhelmed the carrier’s defenses. Indeed, all three of Russia’s Yasen-class and Yasen-M-class submarines were conspicuously absent from their Nerpicha Russian Naval Base in the Litsa Fjord, just 37 miles away from Norway’s border with Russia.

To be clear: a Russian submarine likely got within torpedo range of the Gerald R. Ford.

This represented a significant escalation on the part of the Russian Navy against NATO at sea. And it sent a very strong message sent by Moscow to Washington (and Brussels) that the Kremlin’s submarine forces are undeterred by the presence of America’s most advanced aircraft carrier operating so near to Russia.

Just a few weeks after the Alaska Summit between President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, in which Trump put on a fantastical display of American airpower, the Russians flexed their own military muscles at America.

Vladimir Putin Is Not Afraid of the US Military

Age of Economic Warfare Challenges U.S. Power

John West

We have left behind the hyperglobalisation of the 1990s, and since 2006 moved into the age of economic warfare, according to Edward Fishman in his book Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare. After working on economic warfare issues at the U.S. departments of State, Defence and Treasury, Fishman is currently based at Columbia University.

Economic warfare refers to the use of economic instruments such as sanctions, export controls or tariffs against foreign governments, companies or people, rather than employing military power. It has become an important way in which great powers including the United States and China compete with one another today.

Countries often conduct economic warfare by exploiting what Fishman calls ‘chokepoints’. One such chokepoint in ancient Greece was the Bosphorus canal, which could be easily blocked to restrict trade between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. In the modern world, access to the dollar, finance and technology can act as ‘novel chokepoints’.

Fishman argues that under the presidency of Barack Obama, Iran was pushed into negotiating a nuclear deal by restrictions on use of the dollar, the currency of oil trade. However, during his first presidency, Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from this deal.

The West’s response to Russia’s occupation of Crimea in 2014 was complicated because Russia was a more important player in world energy markets, and Europe was highly dependent on Russian energy. The result was less ambitious sanctions which only confirmed President Putin’s belief of weakness of the West.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the West devised complex sanctions, while at the same time minimising the risk of increasing U.S. energy prices. However, the effect of those sanctions was mitigated by purchases of Russian energy by China, India and Turkey, along with other assistance. Economic warfare against China has been implemented to maintain U.S. technological leadership by restricting Chinese access to U.S. technology, including some produced outside the U.S.. A particular concern was that the 5G technology of Huawei could create a a chokepoint that China could grip.

The Scale of Russian Sabotage Operations Against Europe’s Critical Infrastructure

Charlie Edwards

Russia is waging an unconventional war on Europe. Through its campaign of sabotage, vandalism, espionage and covert action, Russia’s aim has been to destabilise European governments, undermine public support for Ukraine by imposing social and economic costs on Europe, and weaken the collective ability of NATO and the European Union to respond to Russian aggression. This unconventional war began to escalate in 2022 in parallel to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While Russia has so far failed to achieve its primary aim, European capitals have struggled to respond to Russian sabotage operations and have found it challenging to agree a unified response, coordinate action, develop effective deterrence measures and impose sufficient costs on the Kremlin.

IISS has created the most comprehensive open-source database of suspected and confirmed Russian sabotage operations targeting Europe. The data reveals Russian sabotage has been aimed at Europe’s critical infrastructure, is decentralised and, despite European security and intelligence officials raising the alarm, is largely unaffected by NATO, EU and member state responses to date. Russia has exploited gaps in legal systems through its ‘gig economy’ approach, enabling it to avoid attribution and responsibility. Since 2022 and the expulsion of hundreds of its intelligence officers from European capitals, Russia has been highly effective in its online recruitment of third-country nationals to circumvent European counter-intelligence measures. While the tactic has proven successful in terms of reach and volume, enabling operations at scale, the key challenge facing the Russian intelligence services has been the quality of the proxies, who are often poorly trained or ill-equipped, making their activities prone to detection, disruption or failure.

Russia’s military doctrine deeply integrates Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) sabotage within gibridnaya voyna (hybrid warfare). Europe’s critical infrastructure is particularly vulnerable to sabotage because it is in such a poor state following decades of deferred maintenance and a lack of investment from national governments and the private sector. Russia has targeted critical infrastructure to generate direct strategic gain in its war in Ukraine and as part of its broader conflict with the West. While some initiatives, such as the Baltic Sentry NATO maritime operation in the Baltic Sea, have been somewhat effective, the lack of budget and resources has kept NATO and the EU from adopting a long-term and sustained response. Furthermore, it is unclear, faced with competing national security priorities, how committed European capitals are to deterring Russia’s unconventional war on Europe.

Russia’s New Fear Factor

Andrei Kolesnikov

In the 1920s, the Bolshevik economic theorist and Communist Party darling Nikolai Bukharin was one of Stalin’s closest allies. But as Stalin became entrenched in power, Bukharin found that he was no less vulnerable to the dictator’s wrath than anyone else. Accused of conspiracy in 1937, Bukharin was executed the following year. Bukharin is credited with a grim joke: “We may have two parties—one in power, the other in prison.” He might have added, “or dead.” By the time of Bukharin’s arrest, Stalin was systematically replacing the people who had secured his ascent to power with a new generation of young and ambitious politicians and officials for whom total loyalty to the leader would be everything.

Among elites in Russia today, something like Bukharin’s story is happening once again. On July 7, Roman Starovoit, the minister of transport, killed himself with a firearm a few hours after being sacked by Russian President Vladimir Putin. A few days earlier, Andrei Badalov, the vice president of the oil transportation company Transneft, fell from the window of an apartment building. Badalov was only the latest of a series of top officials in the oil and gas sector who have been purged or died mysteriously since Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine began in 2022. According to Novaya Gazeta, the independent Russian newspaper, there have been 56 deaths of successful businesspeople and officials under strange circumstances since February 2022. Many of them have fallen out of windows. More and more, people who have loyally served Putin’s system are being persecuted, mainly on the grounds of corruption.

In 2024, the Ministry of Defense was hit with a sweeping corruption crackdown. In May of that year, Sergei Shoigu, the longtime defense minister known for his proximity to Putin, was sacked, and appointed to the primarily ceremonial position of chair of the Security Council. Shoigu’s deputy Timur Ivanov was less fortunate: he was arrested on large-scale corruption charges and, in July, sentenced to 13 years in prison—one of the longest sentences for any current or former high-ranking Russian official since the end of the Cold War. Since then, there have been many more arrests—especially of regional functionaries at various levels. As the Putin regime turns on its own people, it, too, has begun to replace them with a new breed of loyalists, people whose primary qualifications are their apparent fealty to the leader, and sometimes their participation in the war. Still, Putin prefers experienced and talented technocrats for the most responsible positions, such as governors and ministers.

CRINK Economic Ties: Uneven Patterns of Collaboration

Maria Snegovaya, Nicholas Fenton, and Tina Dolbaia

The IssueChina, Russia, Iran, and North Korea (CRINK) face obstacles to economic collaboration such as geographic distance, sanctions, mutual mistrust, and self-sufficiency goals.

Reliable data on CRINK’s economic and trade ties is limited due to lack of reported data from Iran and North Korea and the rise of informal and shadow trade since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Existing data reveals uneven patterns, although expanding bilateral agreements, strengthening energy ties, and increasing trade in dual-use technologies point to growing economic cooperation among the CRINK countries.

CRINK also seeks to integrate their financial and payment systems to bypass Western sanctions by prioritizing national currencies over the U.S. dollar.

The post-2022 China-Russia relationship drives most of the momentum, while Iran and North Korea exhibit expanding but considerably weaker integration with the rest of the group.

China is nevertheless a cautious actor that hedges its bets in energy trade with Russia and Iran, avoids flagrant sanctions violations, and faces constraints from its own economic slowdown.

Introduction

This brief explores the post-2022 economic ties among China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea—the so-called CRINK states. Historically, economic alignment among military allies has been uneven and has not necessarily indicated the formation of a cohesive bloc. The World War II–era Axis powers, for instance, had fragmented economic cooperation due to geographic distance, wartime needs, sanctions, mistrust, and a focus on self-sufficiency—factors that also constrain CRINK today.1

Closing the Software Gap

This chapter analyses Europe’s ‘software gap’ that it must address to enable modern military operations: its lack of sovereign hyperscale cloud-computing capacity and consequent dependency on the major US commercial vendors for these services.

Key Takeaways

RELIANCE ON US FIRMS FOR HYPERSCALE CLOUD CAPABILITY

Significant gaps remain in Europe’s defence-related software ecosystem. The region lacks sovereign hyperscale cloud-computing capacity and its armed forces remain dependent on the major US commercial vendors for these services. As Europe introduces cloud capabilities, these have to be compatible with existing software capabilities, likely militating against a fundamental shift away from US commercial hyperscale providers.

FEWER EUROPEAN GAPS IN EDGE CLOUD COMPUTING

In contrast to the hyperscale cloud, Europe has more providers able to deliver edge cloud-computing capability, which is being developed for a range of programmes such as the Future Combat Air System and the Main Ground Combat System.

LACK OF STANDARDS IMPEDES INTER-OPERABILITY

A lack of established frameworks and standards for cloud computing as well as disparate national efforts to develop capabilities, are leading to inter-operability problems between cloud infrastructure at all levels of the battlespace.

EUROPEAN C2: WELL ESTABLISHED

In contrast, Europe’s C2 software sector is well established and leads in many areas, though gaps remain in important facets of C2 such as high-capability datalinks. Providers are working to deliver capabilities required for multi-domain operations. Initiatives such as NATO’s Federated Mission Networking are enabling inter-operability across NATO, but challenges persist at lower levels of command.

For Americans in Ukraine, Opportunity and the Lure of Combat

Andrew E. Kramer

Andrew E. Kramer and David Guttenfelder reported from the Kharkiv region of Ukraine. Both have covered the war in Ukraine for more than three years.Sept. 7, 2025

In the open bed of a pickup truck, half a dozen soldiers were bouncing along a country road in eastern Ukraine when one of them yelled, “Drone!” They all opened fire with their rifles, yet hitting the tiny, swerving speck carrying death was all but impossible.

Buzzing in fast, within seconds it was only about a yard away. In that moment, captured on a helmet camera on a crystalline spring day, the soldiers seemed doomed. In a desperate act of self-defense, one of them, an American, Pvt. Zachary Miller, hurled his empty rifle at the drone — and missed, he said in an interview.

They may never know why, but at the last moment, it veered away, sparing them. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” the soldiers shouted, in English, in the video, which was later posted online by the Ukraine military.

The flow of American volunteers like Private Miller serving in the Ukrainian military dwindled but never stopped after the initial wave that followed the Russian invasion in 2022. Independent estimates of the number of Americans volunteering since 2022 have varied widely, from more than 1,000 to several thousand. The Ukrainian military does not release figures.

But over time, the makeup of American volunteers has shifted, with higher proportions of people who have no military background, are older or are U.S. veterans seeking to restart military careers closed off to them at home because of age or injuries.

Interviews with American enlistees, aid workers who help them and their Ukrainian commanders reveal an array of motivations. Some come looking for purpose and possibilities they found lacking in dead-end jobs back home. Outrage at Russian aggression remains high on the list of reasons, while some soldiers are looking for a way to leave behind troubled lives. Still others want second chances at military careers and to test themselves in combat.

11 September 2025

Weaponizing Ambiguity: China’s Militarization of Low Earth Orbit and the Breakdown of Space Deterrence

Vivaan Mukherjee

China’s current militarization of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) reflects more than a pursuit of technological equivalence with the United States. Rather, it illustrates a calculated strategy to exploit ambiguity in space governance through dual-use satellite programs and unregulated rendezvous proximity operations (RPOs). By incorporating military capabilities within civilian platforms and utilizing its belief in civil-military fusion, China has developed space infrastructure that deliberately undermines the traditional mechanisms of deterrence. This paper investigates China’s approach through the perspective of deterrence theory and hybrid conflict, using case studies such as the Shijian-6 (SJ-6) constellation and the expansive StarNet project. The argument proposed is that China’s space strategy prioritizes coercive flexibility over stability, exploiting regulatory oversights and legal ambiguity in order to challenge international norms. Drawing on multiple sources, this paper critiques the limitations of current global governance frameworks and proposes policy measures aimed at rebuilding transparency and establishing clarity in governance of space operations.

Introduction

The accelerated growth of China’s presence in LEO has often been seen as a natural response to U.S. technological dominance in space. However, this framing oversimplifies the underlying strategic logic. Rather than merely seeking equality, China seems motivated to reshape the rules of orbital activity by exploiting legal ambiguities. This shift reflects broader trends in hybrid warfare, a deliberate policy of mixing civilian and military functions, which was only made possible by Beijing’s civil-military fusion doctrine.

Under this framework, space assets serve dual purposes: while marketed for civilian use—like environmental monitoring or telecommunications—they are tied to primarily military objectives. As a result, traditional distinctions between commercial and military satellites have become practically meaningless, therefore complicating efforts to assess China’s motivations. This ambiguity is essential to China’s approach, allowing them to maneuver in LEO without causing direct confrontations with other political actors or breaching any formal treaties. The argument proposed in this paper rests on three core claims: (1) China’s dual-use satellite systems represent a coercive strategy grounded mainly in ambiguity; (2) the absence of regulatory frameworks governing RPOs has allowed for an arms race in precision orbital maneuver satellites; (3) international responses remain inadequate and out of sync with new realities in space.

Afghanistan’s Qosh Tepa Canal Could Trigger a Central Asian Water Crisis

Galiya Ibragimova

Carnegie Politika is a digital publication that features unmatched analysis and insight on Russia, Ukraine and the wider region. For nearly a decade, Carnegie Politika has published contributions from members of Carnegie’s global network of scholars and well-known outside contributors and has helped drive important strategic conversations and policy debates.

Water shortages have long been a serious problem in Central Asia. They will become even worse when Afghanistan completes a canal diverting significant volumes of water from the Amu Darya River for irrigation purposes. The lack of a water use agreement with the countries of Central Asia—particularly Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan—could end up increasing regional tensions.

The Taliban government in Afghanistan began work on the Qosh Tepa Canal, one of its most ambitious infrastructure projects, immediately upon regaining power in 2021. Construction has progressed remarkably quickly since then, with almost half the planned 285 kilometers complete. The canal is due to be fully operational by 2028, when it will take as much as 10 cubic kilometers of water every year from the Amu Darya—about a third of its flow.

The Taliban hope the canal will help rejuvenate the country’s drought-stricken agriculture sector, which employs about 90 percent of Afghans. At present, Afghanistan is obliged to import food (including wheat, vegetables, fruits, and legumes) that it could grow itself. Taliban officials are also counting on the canal helping to reduce the economy’s dependence on the illegal drug trade, which in 2021 accounted for about 15 percent of the country’s GDP. One reason that poppy cultivation is so profitable for farmers is that poppies require far less water than other crops. The extent of poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has fallen since the Taliban returned to power, but developing the country’s irrigation system should help convince farmers to switch to other crops.

Afghanistan suffers from particularly severe water shortages. In some areas there is not only not enough water for irrigation, but even for drinking. In 2023, an argument over the flow of the southern Helmand River led to an armed confrontation between locals and Iranian border guards. Shortages are even more severe in Afghanistan’s northern provinces—particularly Balkh, Faryab, and Jowzjan—where about a third of the country’s 40 million inhabitants live. People there have to buy water for household needs.

Meet the J-10C: China’s Combat-Proven, Dassault Rafale-Killing Fighter Plane

Jack Buckby

Key Points and Summary – China’s J-10C fighter is emerging as a “turnkey” solution for arming nations outside the Western orbit.

-The jet’s watershed moment came in May 2025, when Pakistani J-10Cs successfully shot down multiple Indian, French-made Rafale fighters

-This combat success proved that Chinese hardware can defeat advanced Western technology, making it a highly attractive export.

Now, after showcasing the jet at its recent Victory Day parade to potential clients from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Beijing is in renewed talks to sell the J-10C to Iran, signaling China’s growing role as an arsenal for the anti-Western world.

J-10C: Beijing’s “Turnkey” Solution for Arming America’s Adversaries

China’s Chengdu J-10 fighter is truly a milestone in Beijing’s long road towards achieving aerospace self-sufficiency.

It’s the country’s first truly indigenous multirole fighter and a decisive break from decades of reliance on foreign technology – particularly the Soviet-derived designs that had long defined earlier Chinese jets.

Its development has compelled the Chinese aerospace industry to master advanced systems, including fly-by-wire controls, composite materials, and modern avionics integration.

That work in itself has proven valuable in terms of simply producing the J-10.

Still, it also paved the way for later projects like the stealth J-20 – as well as the completely unmanned stealth drone, known only as Type B, that was seen at the September 3 Victory Day parade in Beijing.

Why the J-10C Matters

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