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A good piece by David Wallace-Wells on how growing technological precision in warfare has not actually led to growing precision or limitation in the targeting of warfare. This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about as I revise my undergrad Political Violence class for the fall and thinking about future research areas – the blurring of categories of war (internal/external, criminal/political), the blurring of technologies (drones are now heavily used in African civil wars, for instance) , the blurring distinctions between war and normal politics (how precisely would be categorize pro-Iranian militias in Iraq or the Houthis in Yemen?). Some salient passages:

“All around the world, civilian power supply — technically off-limits, according to international law, wherever that still applies — has become a “frontline target” in a new kind of conflict, four experts wrote in the report, published last month. Electricity plants, substations, transmission grids — military planners have always taken note of these systems, along with hospitals and water systems and other logistical features of civilian infrastructure. But for decades it has been rare for great powers to openly target energy supply, and often a kind of humanitarian outrage followed when anyone did, which meant that a broad expectation of civility prevailed. “Such sanctuary,” the authors of the West Point report wrote, “is over.” Energy infrastructure has become a much more common target, particularly as conflicts drag on in regions temptingly full of power plants and pipelines. “All of a sudden,” says Morgan Bazilian, an energy-systems scholar at the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines and an author of the report, “our distaste for anything outside of the rules of war doesn’t look all that strong.” . . . .

There are more wars than there used to be — worldwide, the number of conflicts has nearly doubled over the last 15 years. These wars are bloodier, too, with the annual death toll more than twice as high in the 2020s as it was in the 2010s and nearly five times as high as in the 2000s. . . . .

In certain ways, drones have made war more precise. But they have also helped widen the scope of conflict. The front may be effectively frozen, but Ukrainian drones are now frequently striking Russian energy targets that not very long ago seemed not simply too far to reach but beyond the pale as well. Between 2022 and 2024, Ukraine’s attacks on Russian energy infrastructure roughly doubled. . . .

In Iran, we are seeing something different — not just energy warfare but energy war, a conflict fought over and within energy markets, with military operations designed primarily to shape global prices and global supply of fuel. . . . .”

A thoughtful piece by Asfandyar Mir on how Pakistan has situated itself in the Iran-US war:

“as both the Biden and Trump administrations have learned at great cost, modern conflicts cannot be walled off. Alliance-centric strategies, which promise that pooling the military and economic weight of many states will deter threats and, if necessary, defeat adversaries, have proved incapable of preventing or ending wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and Iran. In a disordered world, that rigid approach is a liability. Creating pockets of stability requires flexibility of the kind practiced by Pakistan and its peers. . . .

To foster relationships with these mediators, the United States must show the same willingness to cross divides that the mediators themselves have displayed. Until 2024, a near consensus in Washington held that because the United States needed strong ties with India to balance China, it would have to shut out Pakistan. Trump defied that logic and took a personal interest in the relationship with Islamabad. When the crisis came, that departure proved valuable.”

Saheb Singh Chadha has a new Carnegie-India report out on understanding current trends in Indian policy toward China. He argues:

“Four key imperatives guide India’s approach to China at this moment. This section explains each imperative, why it arises, and how the Government of India is pursuing its interests in its engagement with China. The four imperatives are:

The need to keep a channel open with Beijing amidst the churn in regional and global geopolitics driven by a change in U.S. foreign policy.

India’s necessity of managing the disputed border with China, that is resolving the standoff in eastern Ladakh, formulating new border management protocols, and settling the boundary question;

India’s economic challenges and opportunities with China, including supply chain and trade vulnerabilities, and China’s potential as a source of capital and technological investment;

New Delhi’s attempt to develop a new political understanding with Beijing in the aftermath of the breakdown in Sino-Indian political relations in 2020

The need to keep a channel open with Beijing amidst the churn in regional and global geopolitics driven by a change in U.S. foreign policy.”

This post by Ananth Krishnan includes an interview with Vijay Gokhale, a set of excerpts from various recent articles, and thoughts by Krishnan on issues in how China understands India. It’s hard to summarize, so good to read it all. I was struck by this assessment of Chinese writing on its relations with India:

“There’s lots of debate and writing in India on our China policy, what we got wrong, and where it should go. If you’ve read my book, you’ll find lengthy critiques of India’s foreign policy and how it looks at relations with China. Yet increasingly, I find there is no such introspection on the Chinese side. Not one Chinese scholar has made a serious attempt to deal with the source of the rupture in relations. Perhaps it’s because how, unlike 10-15 years ago, discussions of foreign policy have become so straitjacketed. But a conversation can’t go very far if the basic premise is that every problem in the relationship is because of the other side’s insecurities, which is what I increasingly hear and read in Beijing. It wasn’t always this way.”

A clear-eyed assessment of what India-US ties now involve, in the Indian Express. A couple good excerpts:

“What does India want from the US, and what does the US want from India? The answer is that India’s wants have remained stable. America’s have changed. As a result, the special relationship with the US is over. Looking ahead, the India-US agenda will be far more modest and transactional. . . .

The war in Ukraine demonstrated to the US that India would be no brake on Russia. Indeed, with its neutrality in the conflict and its purchases of Russian oil, it seemed to play the opposite role even if that was not New Delhi’s intention. . . .

when the US’s war with Iran moved towards termination and a deal had to be struck on Iran’s enriched uranium and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the Trump administration saw Pakistan and not India as the intermediary. . . .

More fundamentally for India-US ties, under both Joe Biden and Donald Trump, America’s China challenge has changed. It is less about Taiwan and the security of Asia against China and more about economic and technological competition in commerce (the trade deficit), chips, computer software (AI), and critical minerals. In the US view, India is not a crucial player in any of these four Cs. It cannot replace China as an exporter to the US (indeed, India is now a trade worry). Nor is it a big player in chips, AI computer software, or critical minerals”