The BLA has become South Asia’s most capable active insurgent group, with growing manpower, sophisticated attacks, and strong social legitimacy among alienated Baloch youth. Pakistan’s security-first approach and new counterterrorism laws are fueling—not containing—the insurgency, pushing more Baloch toward militancy and entrenching anti-state resentment. The... MORE

Executive Summary: Russia’s 2022 invasion triggered a surge in Ukraine’s defense sector, experiencing a 350 percent growth since 2022. Ukraine leads globally in tactical and long-range drones, aiming to become the world’s “drone capital.” Upcoming artificial intelligence (AI)-driven swarms are anticipated to replace one-operator systems,... MORE

In memory of Janusz Bugajski, friend, colleague, and promoter of Promethean Ideas Executive Summary: Moscow is increasingly alarmed by the spread of Prometheanism, a set of ideas developed in pre-war Poland that posits that the Muscovite state is an empire, joint efforts can best achieve... MORE

Executive Summary: The Ministry of National Defense announced on October 17 that nine generals—including Central Military Commission Vice Chairman He Weidong and Political Work Department Director Miao Hua—had been expelled from the Party and the military. The purge centers on personnel mismanagement and alleged job-related... MORE

Executive Summary: Xi Jinping’s personal imprimatur on the Party-state’s policies in Xinjiang are unambiguous, according to a new white paper published to coincide with a central-level delegation to the region in late September. The Party uses cultural and historical arguments to justify its ongoing policies... MORE

Executive Summary: Trade between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is now defined by selective weaponization, not interdependence or decoupling. Both sides are learning to use high-value channels of exchange—technology, materials, and capital—as instruments to shape the other’s behavior. Neither seeks... MORE

Executive Summary: The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) influence in Central Asia is growing, and it presents a greater challenge to Russia, the traditional regional hegemon, through multilateral summits such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the China–Central Asia Summit. PRC–Central Asia cooperation is... MORE

Executive Summary: Leading candidates in the KMT party chair elections strongly self-identify as Chinese and are advocating to resolve cross-Strait tensions with a dialogue approach rooted in the 1992 Consensus. Notably lacking amongst the leading candidates is someone who represents the “Taiwanese” faction of the... MORE

Executive Summary: Military procurement documents show that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is adopting homegrown artificial intelligence (AI) systems like DeepSeek to accelerate its shift toward “intelligentized warfare.” PLA experts describe DeepSeek not as a single product but as an evolving system architecture. They envision... MORE

Executive Summary Paresh Baruah, the long-time leader of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), remains at large in Myanmar and along the China border, sustaining a weakened but still symbolically potent Assamese separatist movement through criminal networks and transnational alliances. Though ULFA-I’s operational capacity... MORE