A profound transformation is underway in the politico-military-industrial complex that has dominated the US defense realm for over seven decades.

As drones, AI, autonomous systems, satellites, robots, and networked platforms reshape the battlefield, Silicon Valley is quietly edging out the US defense market’s big five: Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman.

On October 6, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tapped SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey, the co-founder of defense technology firm Anduril, to lead “Project Meridian: The Future of Warfare,” a new 120-day initiative tasked with identifying the technologies and capabilities required for future military dominance.

“We are witnessing rapid advances in artificial intelligence, autonomy, directed energy, robotics, biotechnology, among other critical high-tech areas. Combined, these new domains, new ways of fighting, and technological developments will profoundly alter the character of warfare,” Hegseth said in his one-page memo while announcing Project Meridian on September 30.

“To maintain global dominance, the United States must anticipate future operational environments and act decisively to develop the tools to dominate in them.”

Defining the scope of the study, Hegseth said: “Project Meridian will study the battlefields of the future, identify which weapons and technologies warfighters will need to harness to dominate in these environments, and propose actionable solutions to start developing, testing, and fielding these capabilities such that America will have overmatch for the 21st century and beyond.”

In his memo, Hegseth hinted that the center of gravity is shifting over who defines and decides the parameters of future defense weapons, technologies, and requirements.

“Project Meridian will leverage critical perspectives from outside the Pentagon, drawing upon a group of top technologists, innovators, business leaders, policymakers, and national security experts.”

Its primary function will be to map the trajectory of future warfare, identify critical capability gaps, and propose actionable solutions, Hegseth said.

The Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey-led panel will therefore discuss not a particular weapons platform, but what American warfare and the battlefield will look like in the future.

What they will discuss and define is not merely a change in weapons technology, but the way the Pentagon sees warfare and organizes the production of military power itself.

The study’s co-directors will “identify the domains that we must conquer, and capabilities we must master,” Hegseth said at Marine Corps Base Quantico on September 30.

“The Project Meridian effort will examine the technologies and operational concepts required to sustain U.S. military advantage across the full spectrum of future warfighting domains across a 10-20 year time horizon,” said a spokesperson for the Department of Defense.

The Musk- and Luckey-led study could therefore shape the Pentagon’s defense procurement decisions for decades.

It’s no accident that while SpaceX’s Musk and Anduril’s Luckey are on the panel, the executives of the Big Five are conspicuously missing.

Silicon Valley to Replace US’ Military-Industrial Complex?

The US military-industrial complex started taking shape in the 1950s.

While the two World Wars saw large-scale mobilizations and the channeling of industries toward weapons production, the distinctive military-industrial complex emerged in the 1950s.

US President Eisenhower himself later described the “conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry as new in the American experience.”

In April 1950, the top-secret U.S. National Security Council (NSC) policy (NSC-68) concluded that the “only plausible way to deter the Soviet Union was for President Harry Truman to support a massive build-up of both conventional and nuclear weapons.

In other words, the US should maintain elevated defense spending even during peacetime.

U.S. military budget jumped from USD 13 billion to USD 60 billion within a couple of years. Most of these funds went to private contractors, rather than government bodies.

For nearly the next seven decades, military production and weapons procurement in the US followed a set pattern.

The Pentagon defined its requirements, the US Congress approved the budgets, defense production firms, mostly a handful of prime contractors, submitted bids, and the winner developed platforms with lifecycles ranging from a few years to a few decades.

Fighter jets, bombers, submarines, aircraft carriers, missiles, radars, military communication platforms- all these platforms were developed this way.

For decades, they remained industrial objects; however, these platforms gradually became computational systems. The F-35, for instance, has been described as a flying supercomputer.

New-age military platforms, however, are first and foremost computing platforms.

Drones, for example, are all these systems rolled into one.

They are at once a fighter jet and a bomber, equipped with radar seekers, missiles, a network of sensors, a communication system, and a software platform that integrates AI into flight paths and target selection.

Satellite constellations are becoming central to military communication and targeting by drones, as seen in the critical role Starlink is playing in the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian drones use AI to select flight paths that exploit gaps in Russia’s layered air defense network.

Command-and-control software and Battlefield Management Systems (BMS) fuse information from diverse sources, including satellites, drones, ground-based radars, and AWACS, within seconds to create a unified, simplified battlefield picture and propose the most critical sites for targeting.

Underpinning all these systems are software, computing systems, and AI, not just hardware.

In this new warfare, large, expensive defense platforms are often a liability, rather than an asset.

In short, military value is shifting at an unprecedented speed.

Defense platforms costing millions of dollars and once considered invincible could now be targeted by a drone costing just a few thousand dollars.

This shift is also forcing military suppliers to change. Software firms in Silicon Valley that combine artificial intelligence (AI), autonomy, and machine learning (ML) to deliver innovative defense solutions are now at the center of this shift.

In recent years, they have won contracts worth tens of billions of dollars, edging out the Big Five of defense production.

The rise of these new military technology firms marks the biggest shift in the US arms industry over the past five years.

“Companies like SpaceX, Palantir, and Anduril have been tapped for multi-billion-dollar contract awards from the Pentagon for communications, targeting, unpiloted vehicles, anti-drone defenses, and hypersonic weapons. The funds from these awards will flow to the companies over time, which should put them in the top ranks of Pentagon contractors by value of awards within the next several years,” a recent report from the Costs of War project said.

For instance,

has received awards for countering Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) from the Marines (US$642 million); a contract for its Roadrunner UAV interceptor system (US$250 million); and contracts for its Ghost Shark autonomous underwater vehicle as part of the U.S.-UK-Australia AUKUS project, to name a few.

Anduril has also been selected to build the next generation of Army goggles, the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), which are “intended to give soldiers everything from night-vision capability to warnings of incoming airborne threats.”

In June this year, the U.S. Air Force awarded engineering, manufacturing development, and production contracts for Collaborative Combat Aircraft Increment 1 to both Anduril (FQ-44) and General Atomics.

However, Anduril’s most lucrative contract could be in border security technologies. The Big Beautiful bill commits over US$6 billion for various border security technologies. However, as Eurasian Times reported earlier, the bill’s conditions mean Anduril is the only firm that qualifies for these border surveillance tenders.

SpaceX is launching most of the U.S. military’s satellites. It is also receiving funding for the military version of its Starlink system.

Separately, the Pentagon is considering investing in SpaceX’s Starship system.

SpaceX and Anduril could also win billion-dollar contracts in the upcoming ‘Golden Dome’ project.

Established tech firms are also challenging the Big Five’s dominance. For example, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, and IBM are collectively investing US$10 billion in the Pentagon’s cloud computing program.

“To the extent that the Pentagon moves towards AI-driven weapons systems, including swarms of drones and uncrewed aircraft, ships, and combat vehicles, the dominance of the Big Five firms may be reduced,” the report by the Costs of War Project added.

In fact, a recent essay on the Anduril Industries blog, ‘Rebooting the Arsenal of Democracy,’ dismissed the Big Five defense contractors as ‘remnants of the Cold War’ that need to be supplanted if America is to take the lead in developing and producing the weapons of the future.

“Why can’t the existing defense companies simply do better? The largest defense contractors are staffed with patriots who still lack the software expertise or business model to build the technology we need.

“Tomorrow’s weapons – autonomous systems, cyberweapons and defenses, networked systems, and more – are enabled through software, while these companies specialize in hardware. These companies work slowly, while the best engineers relish working at speed… These companies built the tools that kept us safe in the past, but they are not the future of our defense,” the essay said.

The trend, therefore, has already started.

Project Meridian, which could profoundly impact US defense procurement for decades, will further accelerate this trend.

Musk and Luckey’s appointment to lead this study suggests Silicon Valley tech firms are quietly edging out the US military-industrial complex’s Big Five.

• Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from the University of Sheffield, UK. 
• He can be reached at ahlawat.sumit85 (at) gmail.com

The post No Boeing, Lockheed or Any of the Big Five: Musk & Luckey Co-Lead Project Meridian on America’s Future Warfare appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

From Assam’s rhino to the Himalayan red panda, India’s wildlife stamps showcased biodiversity and the growing case for conservation. They also recognised regional identity, projected national strength, and carried a subtle message about sovereignty.

Pakistan has outrighty rejected a New York Times (NYT) report that claimed PAF fighter jets were involved in strikes against Houthis, calling the claim “fake and fabricated.”

“The claim in the above-referenced NYT report that Pakistan Air Force aircraft are being used against the Houthis is fake and fabricated,” Pakistan’s Information Ministry said.

In an X post, Pakistan’s Ministry of Information & Broadcasting wrote: Fact Check | Ministry of Information & Broadcasting NYT above referred story attributing employment of PAF aircraft against Houthis is fake and fabricated. International Media houses are again asked to avoid speculative reporting with regards to employment of Pakistan’s Military Forces under Makkah Joint Defence Agreement. Details of any employment, if necessary will be given by concerned authorities. Truth Prevails over Falsehood.

The report came days after Pakistan and Turkey agreed to deploy troops to Saudi Arabia under the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement.

Earlier, a senior Pakistani military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told NYT that Pakistan Air Force jets were being used in strikes against the Houthis.

Another Pakistani official said Islamabad’s role was aimed at degrading Houthi drone and missile threats through air support rather than a ground offensive in Yemen, the NYT claimed.

Col. David O. Smith, a former U.S. Army attaché in Pakistan and former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, said he had no classified figures, but that the analyst consensus was about 8,000 Pakistani troops deployed in Saudi Arabia. He said the force included a Pakistan Air Force contingent and Army air-defense units, that they would likely help secure oil infrastructure, and that Pakistani soldiers were unlikely to fight the Houthis directly because Islamabad is trying to preserve its relationship with Iran.

Pakistan’s military spokesman, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, confirmed to CNN that Pakistani troops are already in Saudi Arabia and described any role as defensive, without saying whether they would operate across the border in Yemen.

Interestingly, Pakistan earlier furiously denied a social media buzz that claimed Pakistan had lost three JF-17 fighter jets due to a Houthi missile attack that targeted King Abdulaziz Air Base in Saudi Arabia.

“This is absolutely fake. No credible or official source has also reported any sort of damage to PAF JF-17s,” the Ministry of Information reportedly said in its statement. The “deliberate fabrication of damage to PAF aircraft and their alleged evacuation is only blatant Indian propaganda, part of Hindutva deceit and a deceptive mindset,” the Ministry said.

The Pakistani Air Force jets and support aircraft, including JF-17 jets, arrived in April 2026 under the Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed in September 2025.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s foreign minister has rejected sending troops to Yemen, despite the “Mecca pact” with Saudi Arabia.

“This is a defense agreement,” said Hakan Fidan, adding: “If one of the countries is attacked, you support its defense. This is not an offensive agreement.” Turkey “will not send its troops to another country’s territory to launch an attack”, he emphasized.

Fidan said Turkish and Saudi military delegations would work together to assess what defensive measures might be needed, without giving details.

• By ET Desk
• Mail us at editor (at) eurasiantimes.com

The post Pakistan Fighter Jets Bombing Houthis “Fake & Fabricated”. Islamabad Rejects NYT Report appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

There are wheels within wheels in the ongoing protests, with the Left keeping a distance from the Congress, which is uneasy about the CJP. But as long as they continue to flag the attempted destruction of democracy, they will have achieved something.

The writer and translator discusses Kashmiri literature, language loss and cultural memory, and how younger Kashmiris are reclaiming their language through digital culture.

The Swedish Academy has awarded the Canadian poet, recognising her inventive writing and her engagement with ancient Greek literature.

Veteran diplomat Rajiv Dogra’s new book argues that the well-being of a nation depends on the quality of its leadership, and that expansion carries within itself the seeds of exhaustion that eventually bring empires down.

Using the 20th century as a case in point, the book shows how authoritarianism can take hold of a society, grow, and sustain itself. 

After claiming it intercepted foreign aircraft on two separate occasions last year, China has made another major claim: a “foreign warship” lost power while pursuing a People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA-N) Type 055 destroyer, seemingly an indirect reference to the USS Benfold.

Zhang Jun, a captain on the PLA Navy’s Type 055 “Zunyi” destroyer, said a foreign warship lost power while his warship, engaged in a routine training exercise at the time, the Chinese state-owned publication Global Times claimed.

Speaking on China Central Television (CCTV), the officer said the destroyer had multiple encounters with foreign warships and aircraft during the exercise. 

“During that mission, we were conducting routine training exercises when a foreign warship began tracking our ship. As we sailed at high speed, the foreign vessel had to match our speed. While we were in a standoff, its power and electricity all suddenly went out, its radar stopped emitting, and its navigation lights went dark,” Zhang said. “This lasted for nearly half an hour. But our equipment and our crew had no problems at all,” he added.

When asked whether the engagement made him nervous, the Chinese officer said, “Why should I be nervous? I was definitely not nervous. As long as you are within range of my missiles, I can definitely destroy you.”

The officer stopped short of providing more details, including the time and place of the encounter and the name of the foreign warship. However, the claims appear aimed at the US Navy warship USS Benfold, which apparently lost power and was stranded in the South China Sea in July 2026, as previously reported by the EurAsian Times.

“On July 24, 2026, while conducting routine operations in the Indo-Pacific, Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold (DDG 65) reported an engineering casualty involving its generators, causing a loss of power,” Navy Cmdr. Matthew Comer, spokesperson for the 7th Fleet, said in a statement to USNI News in August  2026.

“There were no injuries to the crew, who demonstrated resilience, grit, professionalism and unwavering steadiness in their response,” he added.

The incident reportedly occurred while the USS Benfold was engaged in routine operations in the Indo-Pacific as part of the USS George Washington carrier strike group (CSG).

After the power loss, the guided-missile destroyer reportedly drifted for four days and was supplied by other ships in the South China Sea, which China claims as its sovereign territory and where frequent standoffs occur between Beijing and other forces.

The Seventh Fleet spokesperson did not mention a high-speed pursuit of a Chinese vessel or any engagement between the US carrier strike group and PLA Navy warships, although these encounters are not uncommon in the region.

When asked whether China’s claimed scenario is plausible, Indian Navy veteran and commentator Rear Admiral Girish Kumar Garg (retd) told the EurAsian Times, “For an Arleigh Burke-class ship, high-speed propulsion has nothing to do with total power loss. Complete power failure can happen if all onboard power generators fail or the power distribution system malfunctions. Although rare, it is not impossible.”

Further, when probed about potential reasons for the complete power loss, Rear Admiral Garg said, “Can be many reasons- fuel contamination can be a major cause. Power overload due to too many systems operating and loaded on the running generators can also cause them to trip. However, generally, if all onboard power generators are running and connected, then they cater for full ship’s electrical load plus some extra load margin.”

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The USS Benfold power loss incident was not the first of its kind. Earlier, the USS Higgins had an “engineering casualty” in its electrical system in May 2026,  which caused it to lose power and propulsion for many hours in the Indo-Pacific area. No chase of another vessel had occurred at the time.

Nonetheless, state media and Chinese experts used the opportunity and their purported claims to highlight the enviable capabilities of the PLAN’s Type 055 warships.

Chinese military expert Shi Hong told the Global Times that the Type 055 is considered the world’s best large destroyer in terms of comprehensive capabilities. Meanwhile, Xu Yi, another crew member on the ship that was involved in the purported encounter, said, “We have a powerful offensive and defensive system. In the future, we will definitely conduct operations externally in formation. In fact, we have already begun integrating multiple formations and exploring what makes for the best combination.”

Some pro-PLA observers on social media widely amplified the Chinese claims, aligning with similar previous instances.

However, Beijing deliberately makes specific claims while avoiding direct naming of the foreign assets to avoid a diplomatic response and to eliminate the possibility of a counter-narrative from official sources and a potential bilateral tussle.

Chinese Military Keeps Confronting Foreign Assets

In the past few years, China has claimed to have intercepted and expelled unidentified foreign aircraft from the same region on multiple occasions.

No Boeing, Lockheed or Any of the Big Five: Musk & Luckey Co-Lead Project Meridian on America’s Future Warfare

Last year, Chinese state media, CCTV, released a video on June 29 showing two J-16 fighter jets—considered the cornerstone of the PLA Air Force’s interception efforts—being dispatched to warn and drive out a “foreign aircraft” that allegedly breached China’s territorial sea boundary. 

“The foreign aircraft flew over at a low altitude, not very disciplined, almost at a vertical 90 degrees, breaching our territorial sea line,” air force aviation brigade member Zhang Zhanfang stated on the broadcast at the time.

The Chinese media did not disclose the exact date or location of the incident, making it challenging to identify the foreign aircraft in question.

Later that year, Global Times reported on a documentary shown on CCTV in October 2025, in which a PLA Air Force (PLAAF) pilot from the special mission aircraft formation claimed he could simultaneously lock two foreign stealth fighter jets while flying the J-16 fighter jet and force both jets to withdraw.

“They headed straight toward our two aircraft. Their intention was very clear—it was a provocation. With our backs to the territorial sea line, we had to intercept them,” Li Chao, a pilot from the People’s Liberation Army’s Western Theatre Command, said while recounting the incident that allegedly took place during a coastal training exercise in 2024.

Although the Chinese did not disclose which foreign stealth aircraft it was referring to, only two aircraft fit the description: the F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Lightning II of the US Air Force (USAF).

Both aircraft are frequently deployed in the Indo-Pacific for training, war exercises, and other operational missions, as the EurAsian Times noted in a detailed report published at the time. 

Washington did not acknowledge the claim, but the incident drew a wide debate over whether a 4.5th-generation jet could intercept US fifth-generation stealth fighters.

Separately, US and Chinese ships have had sporadic encounters in international waters, as the US Navy conducts regular FONOPs (Freedom of Navigation Operations) in the region.

Earlier this year, in January 2026, reports noted that a Chinese warship, CNS Taiyuan, encountered a foreign warship during “a long-range training exercise” in undisclosed waters. The report said the foreign ship meant to provoke the Chinese crew, but the crew instead followed orders and drove the vessel away.

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Similarly, in January 2025, reports noted that China had claimed that its navy “drove away” a “foreign warship that attempted to spy on its Shandong aircraft carrier during a long-distance training mission. At the time, a Chinese sailor attached to the Type 055 destroyer CNS Yan’an crew said a foreign warship attempted to engage in “illegal reconnaissance” and infiltrate a formation led by the carrier during a routine training mission. 

In June 2023, a US destroyer, USS Chung-Hoon, had a close encounter with a Chinese warship in the Taiwan Strait. The US Navy alleged that the Chinese ship executed an “unsafe” maneuver, crossed the US ship’s path, and forced it to slow down to avoid a collision.

Another significant incident occurred in 2018 when a Chinese warship came dangerously close to the USS Decatur in the South China Sea. The US Navy described the action as “unsafe and unprofessional.

Despite a thaw in ties between Chinese and US leaders, the fight over Indo-Pacific dominance continues.

• Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
• Follow EurAsian Times on Google News

 

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A discussion paper from the Principal Scientific Adviser proposes a middle path for AI data flows: keep strategic data in India, while allowing other data to cross borders under safeguards tailored to its sensitivity and identifiability.

OPED by Rear Admiral Girish Kumar Garg, VSM (Retd)

The difficulty in ending the Iran war is not identifying the ingredients of peace. The nuclear issue, missiles, sanctions, regional armed groups, freedom of navigation, and Israel’s security concerns are all well known. The harder question is: how adversaries who deeply distrust each other can take the first step without believing that they are making themselves more vulnerable.

Military action can change the battlefield, but it cannot by itself create a durable political settlement. The longer the conflict continues, the greater the danger that military calculations become disconnected from the strategic objective.

The answer may not lie in one grand bargain, but in a sequence of reciprocal bargains, each limited in scope, independently verifiable and linked to the next. The objective should not be to create trust between Iran, Israel and the United States. That is unrealistic in the foreseeable future.

The objective should be to create a system that can function despite the absence of trust.

The broad issues are already clear. Iran wants recognition of its sovereignty, sanctions relief, and protection from military attack.

Israel wants assurance that Iran cannot acquire a nuclear weapon and that Iranian-supported groups cannot threaten its population. The United States wants to prevent nuclear proliferation, protect regional stability and avoid another open-ended war.

These objectives are not necessarily irreconcilable. The difficulty lies in sequencing them.

Iran fears that surrendering strategic capabilities before receiving meaningful concessions will leave it exposed. Israel fears that sanctions relief before Iranian capabilities are constrained will simply give Tehran resources to rebuild. Washington fears that concessions without Iranian compliance could be interpreted as weakness.

This is the classic security dilemma: each side sees its own actions as defensive while viewing the other’s actions as a threat that must be countered.

A successful peace process must therefore address not only what is negotiated, but how concessions are exchanged.

Replace the Grand Bargain with Reciprocal Bargains

The first step could be a time-bound Strategic Pause, perhaps lasting 30 days. During this period, the parties would freeze specified offensive operations, avoid attacks on civilian infrastructure and commercial shipping, and suspend actions that materially escalate the confrontation.

Compliance would need independent monitoring. More importantly, neither side should have to make a leap of faith. Each concession should trigger a corresponding concession by the other side.

A verified Iranian reduction in a specified category of nuclear activity could trigger suspension of particular sanctions. A verified reduction in attacks by regional armed groups could trigger defined relaxation of maritime or economic pressure. A verified violation would automatically suspend the corresponding benefit.

The settlement would therefore be built incrementally, with each step creating the conditions for the next.

Address Israel’s Security Dilemma

No settlement can succeed if it ignores Israel’s fundamental security concerns. From Israel’s perspective, Iran’s nuclear program is only one part of the threat. Iranian support for Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis has created a network of armed actors capable of imposing military pressure on Israel and disrupting regional security.

The practical approach would be to negotiate capabilities and behavior rather than political allegiance.

Iran could progressively restrict the transfer of specified advanced weapons, particularly long-range missiles, precision-strike systems and sophisticated drones, and commit to preventing attacks that deliberately target civilians or expand the conflict beyond agreed limits. In return, Iran would receive progressively stronger security assurances against direct attack.

The exchange is straightforward in principle: Iran reduces the forward military pressure it generates through its regional partners, while its security becomes less dependent on maintaining that forward deterrence.

For Israel, the benefit would be reduced military pressure on its territory. For Iran, the benefit would be a reduced perceived need to maintain an extensive regional deterrence architecture.

Hezbollah, Hamas & Houthis Need Different Solutions

These three groups should not be treated as one problem.

For Hezbollah, the central issue is Lebanon’s sovereignty and the presence of a heavily armed non-state actor on Israel’s northern frontier. A settlement should strengthen the Lebanese state’s authority and provide for a phased reduction or relocation of heavy weapons from sensitive areas. The immediate objective need not be the disappearance of Hezbollah as a political organization, but preventing any non-state actor from initiating a major interstate conflict without the Lebanese state’s consent.

Hamas presents a different challenge because it is inseparable from the unresolved Palestinian question. Requiring Hamas simply to disappear is unlikely to be realistic. A more viable pathway would involve Hamas relinquishing governance in Gaza, progressively reducing heavy weapons and transferring administration and security responsibilities to a legitimate Palestinian structure supported by the international community.

That process would need reconstruction and a credible political horizon for Palestinians. Otherwise, disarmament could simply create a vacuum for another armed movement.

The Houthis should be addressed through a separate Red Sea security arrangement. Iran could restrict the transfer of specified missile, drone, and maritime-strike capabilities, while a Yemeni political process provides the Houthis with a legitimate political future.

The objective would be to separate Yemen’s internal conflict from the wider Iran-Israel confrontation and restore freedom of commercial navigation.

Turn sanctions into an instrument for peace

Sanctions relief should also be redesigned. Iran is unlikely to make major concessions today in exchange for benefits that may arrive years later.

A Peace Escrow Mechanism could address this problem. Sanctions would be suspended in stages rather than simply lifted. Oil revenues, access to frozen funds, and selected financial channels could be released automatically when independent monitors verify specified Iranian actions.

The same principle would operate in reverse. If commitments are violated, the corresponding benefits would automatically pause.

Iran would therefore not have to trust that sanctions relief will eventually materialize; the economic benefit would be directly linked to verified compliance. At the same time, the United States and its partners would retain leverage until Iran demonstrated its commitments.

Sanctions would cease to be merely punishment or bargaining leverage and become an instrument for implementing the settlement.

Make Hormuz The First Test

The Strait of Hormuz offers an immediate opportunity for confidence-building because its security affects the entire international community.

Iran could provide a verifiable commitment to the safe passage of commercial shipping, while the United States and its partners could suspend specified maritime pressure measures during the Strategic Pause. An independent mechanism could investigate incidents and determine responsibility.

If commercial vessels can move safely while military forces exercise restraint, it would demonstrate that reciprocal commitments can work even when the parties remain deeply hostile.

That lesson could then be applied to the nuclear program, missiles and regional armed groups.

Peace Through Managed Distrust

The central mistake would be to expect trust to precede the agreement. Trust is more likely to result from repeated compliance.

The settlement should therefore rest on four principles: reciprocity, verification, gradualism and automaticity. Every concession should have a corresponding benefit; important commitments should be independently verifiable; major concessions should be broken into manageable stages; and agreed rewards or penalties should operate automatically rather than depend on renewed political bargaining.

This approach also gives each government a politically defensible narrative. Iran can present the process as an exchange of specific military concessions for tangible economic and security benefits rather than capitulation. Israel can demonstrate that its security concerns are being addressed through enforceable restrictions rather than political assurances. The United States can retain leverage while reducing the risk of another prolonged regional war.

Most importantly, the framework recognizes a basic reality of international politics: peace does not always begin with trust. Sometimes it begins with managing distrust.

The parties do not have to agree on history, ideology or regional ambitions. They need only agree that certain actions are too dangerous to continue and that restraint can produce tangible benefits.

A durable peace is therefore unlikely to emerge from one dramatic handshake or a single comprehensive treaty. It is more likely to emerge from a chain of smaller agreements in which each side discovers, step by step, that restraint produces greater security than escalation.

The real diplomatic breakthrough would not be an agreement that ends all disagreements. It would be an agreement that makes continued disagreement less dangerous, more predictable and progressively less dependent on the use of force.

The ultimate test of diplomacy will not be whether Iran, Israel and the United States learn to trust one another. It will be whether they can construct a system in which they do not need to trust one another to stop fighting.

• OPED By Admiral (R) Girish Kumar Garg
• This is an Opinion Article. Views Personal of the Author
• The writer is a retired Rear Admiral and was the Naval Officer-in-Charge (A&N Islands)

The post Hezbollah, Hamas & Houthis Cannot Be Disarmed With a Single Deal: U.S. & Israel Need New Mechanism: OPED appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

Indonesia is awaiting the first batch of Chinese J-10C multi-role fighter jets in the first half of next year, according to new reports.

Once and if the aircraft arrive, the Indonesian Air Force could become the first in the world to operate both the Chinese J-10C and the French Dassault Rafale jets.

Indonesia could receive its first Chengdu J-10CE fighter jets in six months, Republika Online, a local Indonesian news outlet, reported. Citing informed sources, the report claimed the first delivery could take place as early as April 2027, although the number of jets to be delivered is currently unknown.

So far, neither the Chinese nor the Indonesian side has officially confirmed it. EurAsian Times has reached out to Indonesian authorities and awaits a response.

However, Indonesian Air Force Chief of Staff Marshal Mohamad Tonny Harjono urged the public to “just wait” for the arrival of the Chinese Vigorous Dragons, according to Republika Online, suggesting a purchase may have been made.

Notably, the reports come a year after the Indonesian Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin confirmed in October 2025 that the country would soon buy the jets from China as part of its military modernization drive.

“They will be flying over Jakarta soon,” Sjafrie said, without providing further details. Separately, Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa had confirmed that his ministry had approved a $9 billion budget to purchase the Chinese aircraft, as the EurAsian Times reported at the time.

Interestingly, Indonesia communicated the decision to buy the aircraft months after its J-10C fighters made their combat debut against the Indian Air Force in an intense four-day conflict in May 2025.

At the time, Pakistan claimed to have downed multiple Indian fighters, including the Rafale, using long-range PL-15 air-to-air missiles launched from the J-10C. India, in turn, claimed to have downed multiple Pakistani jets, including JF-17s and F-16s, but the list did not include China-supplied J-10Cs.

The Rafale shootdown claims, although unverified and not officially accepted by India or Dassault Aviation, were blown out of proportion and amplified by Beijing to promote the J-10C in the international market. French intelligence officials even accused Beijing of running an anti-Rafale campaign to discredit the Rafale jets.

China offered Indonesia a “battle-tested” J-10C less than a month after the May 2025 Indo-Pakistan conflict, according to Indonesia’s Deputy Defense Minister Donny Ermawan Taufanto. By then, only Pakistan had acquired the combat jet, even though Beijing positioned it as an affordable alternative to the F-16, Rafale, and Eurofighter Typhoon.

If reports are to be believed, Indonesia is on track to become the third buyer of the type after Pakistan and Uzbekistan. The latter released footage of its newly acquired J-10CE fighter jets on August 28, 2026, as part of the country’s Independence Day celebrations. In a state broadcast, at least six J-10CE fighters were shown flying in formation, approaching the runway, and receiving a water-cannon salute.

Bangladesh has been exploring the purchase of China’s J-10CE fighter jet to modernize its aging Air Force since 2024.

Separately. China is also reportedly trying to sell the aircraft to Azerbaijan. Last month, it displayed a full-scale J-10CE mock-up in Azerbaijani markings at the sixth Azerbaijan International Defense Exhibition (ADEX-2026), in what appeared to be a targeted appeal.

J-10C & Rafale To Fly Together?

There is no doubt that J-10CE has drawn significant international attention after the Indo-Pakistan conflict. Armed with PL-15 missiles, the J-10CE’s beyond-visual-range air warfare capabilities are impressive.

Meanwhile, Jakarta is undertaking a massive modernization drive to replace aging aircraft like its US-made F-16A/Bs and Russian Su-27 and Su-30 fighters. 

As part of this effort, Jakarta signed a contract for 42 Dassault Rafale F4 fighters from France in 2022, and the first of these jets were delivered earlier this year. In addition, the Southeast Asian country signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) to acquire additional Rafale fighters during French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit in May 2025.

Indonesia also signed a contract to acquire 48 KAAN fighter jets from Turkey in July 2025, covering extensive collaboration in manufacturing, technology transfer, and engineering. 

Beyond these acquisitions, Indonesia had also committed to co-developing the KF-21, but reportedly abandoned those plans in June this year after a “comprehensive evaluation” of the program’s effectiveness, technology transfer, economic value, and internal defense requirements.

Nonetheless, it would still buy the South Korean jets.

It is currently unclear how the Indonesian government would finance these varied fighter jet acquisitions amid budgetary constraints, and whether buying J-10Cs would mean Jakarta would not place an additional order for French Rafale jets.

If Indonesia goes ahead and acquires J-10C jets, it would be an interesting development because the two aircraft are often compared as rival 4.5-generation multirole fighters in the export market. Both jets use a delta-canard configuration, feature advanced AESA radars, modern electronic warfare suites, and beyond-visual-range missile capability.

However, China is pitching the jets as more cost-effective alternatives with little to no strings attached.

An early delivery of Chinese jets could temporarily strengthen Indonesia’s air combat posture while the Rafale fleet builds up. However, acquiring the J-10C may come with its own risks, particularly those of operating a diverse fleet. Analysts like Nitin J Ticku, who also serves as editor of EurAsian Times, wrote in an article that a mixed fleet could become a logistical nightmare for Jakarta.

Meanwhile, Chinese experts argue that buying weapons from multiple sources would be a smart move to safeguard Indonesia’s interests rather than ‘putting all eggs in one basket.’

• Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
• Follow EurAsian Times on Google News

 

The post Rafale & J-10C: This Asian Country Could Become The Only Air Force to Fly Both French & Chinese Jets appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

The US Air Force’s next strategic bomber, the B-21 Raider, is moving from flight test to the flight line, and the industrial base is expanding to match that pace. As part of this effort, the Department of the Air Force and the manufacturer broke ground on a new bomber final assembly line at Plant 42 in Palmdale, California.

“It’s more than construction… we’re moving fast to build B-21s! The Department of the Air Force & @northropgrumman have broken ground in Palmdale, CA, on over 1M sq ft of new facilities that will be the final assembly line at Air Force Plant 42,” Secretary of the Air Force Dr. Troy E. Meink recently wrote in a post on  X.

The B-21 Raider is the USAF’s next-generation nuclear- and conventional-capable, long-range penetrating bomber optimized for highly contested environments.

The new assembly line likely supports an agreement signed in February 2026 to increase annual B-21 production capacity by 25% using $4.5 billion in funding from the fiscal year 2025 reconciliation legislation.

Separately, Northrop Grumman is investing approximately $2.5 billion of its own capital over several years in related facilities and capacity. In September 2026, the company also opened the East Gate 3 manufacturing campus in Layton, Utah, to produce key B-21 components.

The construction of an all-new assembly line shows that expansion at the B-21’s production facility has moved from planning and funding to active construction.

This expansion is meant to give the service extra manufacturing capacity as the B-21 advances through flight testing and into initial operational deliveries. 

The USAF plans to buy at least 100 B-21 bombers to replace the B-1B Lancer and B-2 Spirit and eventually complement the B-52 Stratofortress.

The B-21 Raider program remains in low-rate initial production, meaning Northrop Grumman is building a small number of aircraft to test and refine the production process before full-rate production begins.

At the same time, senior officials have said the Air Force may need more than the current minimum of 100.

In April, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he believed “a lot more” B-21s were needed. Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo had earlier said he would favor a fleet of 200 for nuclear deterrence and penetrating strike.

A Mitchell Institute report has likewise argued that 100 is a raid force, not a campaign force. None of those comments changes the program of record, and the Palmdale construction is tied to the February capacity agreement, not to an approved increase in the buy.

Furthermore, a report by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies said the USAF’s current plans to purchase “at least” 100 B-21s match one-time operations into hostile airspace but are insufficient to maintain pressure in a larger conflict because they are “a raid force, not a campaign force.”

Meanwhile, the USAF has said the sixth-generation bomber—which currently has no analogs in the world—is “close” to entering service. In fact, it is expected to reach Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota, one of the three bases selected to host the Raider, in 2027.  

This bomber project has moved at a breakneck pace, going from the official public unveiling in December 2022 to the maiden flight in November 2023. In fact, an operational test pilot flew alongside a developmental test pilot, sharing the B-21 cockpit for the first time in June this year, underscoring the urgency of fielding the bomber.

The B-21 Raider’s rapid path from first flight to operational ramp at Ellsworth AFB in 2027 marks a striking acceleration in how the US fields a complex new strategic bomber.

Observers have lauded the speed, remarking that it has been unusually compressed for a program of this scale and sensitivity. This speed, however, was made possible because of a more fundamental shift: the B-21 was built virtually before it was ever built in metal.

B-21 Raider Rewrote Pentagon Acquisition Rules

For decades, major US defense programs followed the process, but aspirational designs fell behind schedule and prototypes revealed problems missed earlier, delaying programs and driving up costs. Northrop claims to be breaking away from this pattern.

Northrop states that it built the B-21 virtually first, using an extensive digital ecosystem and high-fidelity digital twins long before cutting metal. Succinctly put, unlike previous bombers that were primarily analog and later adapted for the digital era, the B-21 was built to function, endure, and evolve in the contemporary environment.

Developing and producing combat aircraft previously involved designing, building a prototype, testing it, discovering problems, and redesigning. However, Northrop essentially inverted this sequence, using a constantly changing digital model for the Raider.

This gave engineers, manufacturers, and operators a common reference point, enabling them to evaluate and implement design changes almost instantly.

This method enabled engineers to model aerodynamic performance, stealth features, structural loads, and systems integration long before components entered production.

This meant that design modifications that once required expensive rework could be assessed and verified virtually, often in a few hours rather than months. 

The team simulated and refined structural loads, stealth characteristics, flight dynamics, and systems integration in the virtual environment before committing to physical hardware.

As a result, the physical aircraft that emerged from this approach matched or even outperformed the models’ predictions, according to the manufacturer.

This, in turn, has allowed the program to compress testing timelines, accelerate production, and keep costs under tighter control.

Unsurprisingly, the result was an unusually mature aircraft when the first Raider took flight. Northrop earlier said, “Before the B-21 ever took to the sky, the flying test bed completed more than 200 test sorties totaling more than 1,000 flight hours, testing production hardware, software, and sensors in a dynamic environment and enabling teams to tackle discovery well in advance.”

The speed with which B-21 moved from production to testing and into an operational setting at a USAF airbase was best demonstrated by the approach the manufacturer and the Air Force took during flight testing. A major 180-day test cycle was reportedly completed in just 73 days, as revealed in May 2026.

Officials have even stated that the program is exceeding expectations, as test aircraft are achieving high “code one” rates, which is the rate at which the aircraft is ready to fly again with minimal issues

The Combined Test Force achieved half the originally planned missions in less than half the planned time, while supporting significant contract value.

This compression was not the product of rushed flying, and reflected fewer surprises, higher aircraft availability, real-time data analysis, and the ability to clear multiple test points on single sorties.

The advantage of building the aircraft digitally has reportedly extended to the production lines. “Where the digital environment meets the production floor, this digital technology expedites configuration management, facilitating communication between technicians and engineers during the build, in some areas already reducing manufacturing hours by roughly a third,” according to the Northrop Grumman newsroom.

Nonetheless, the B-21 is not without risk, though experts think careful digital engineering, precise digital twins, and a conscious move away from sequential physical prototypes can break the long-standing pattern of delays.

• Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
• Follow EurAsian Times on Google News

 

The post B-21 Raider: Northrop, US Air Force Break Ground on New Palmdale Line. Flight Test Runs Ahead of Schedule appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

After hesitating for weeks amid a deteriorating security situation in the Red Sea, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Türkiye (Turkey) have finally agreed to activate “deterrence measures” under the mutual security agreement, the Makkah (Mecca) Pact.’

Under the agreement, Pakistan and Türkiye have agreed to “rapidly deploy forces” in Saudi Arabia to counter the attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

This is the first time that the ‘Mecca Pact,’ signed in August, has been invoked.

“The committee agreed to activate collective deterrence measures, within the framework of the Alliance, in response to the attacks and all those responsible for them,” Khalid bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s defense minister, said.

The ‘Mecca Pact’ has a mutual defense clause, similar to NATO’s Article 5, that an armed attack against one country would be considered an attack on all three.

Under the agreement, Ankara could deploy its soldiers in the southern Arabian peninsula for the first time in over a century.

The last time Turkish soldiers served in Yemen was in 1919 under Ottoman rule. After the Ottomans’ defeat in the First World War, Ankara agreed to surrender garrisons outside Anatolia under the Armistice of Mudros.

After the Armistice, signed between the Ottomans and Allied nations in 1918, Ottoman garrisons in Yemen surrendered to the British forces one by one.

Therefore, activating the Mecca Pact could see Turkish forces return to the southern Arabian Peninsula after more than a century.

In fact, while the Mecca Pact was signed only in 2026, Turkey has been waiting for an opportunity to return to Yemen for over a decade.

In 2015, when Saudi Arabia intervened militarily in Yemen against the Houthi rebels for the first time, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that “Depending on the course of events, we may consider providing logistical support.”

However, Ankara should not celebrate too soon, as history holds a sobering lesson for the Turks.

The mighty Ottoman Empire once ruled across the three continents of Asia, Africa, and Europe; controlled three of Islam’s holiest sites, including Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem; and controlled a huge territory in the European lands of the Balkans and southern Europe.

Ottomans, however, could never fully subjugate the Zaidi tribesmen of Yemen, the historical ancestors of today’s Houthi rebels.

Yemen, in fact, was frequently called the “graveyard of Anatolia” or the “graveyard of Ottoman soldiers”.

Yemen – The Graveyard of Turks (Ottomans)

Victoria Clark, in Yemen: Dancing on the Heads of Snakes (2010), writes that by the 1890s Yemen was already “renowned as the ‘graveyard of the Turks'” during Ahmed Feyzi Pasha’s campaigns.

She also quoted an Ottoman official: “Yemen has become now the graveyard of Muslims and money.”

Turkish journalist and author Mustafa Balbay titled his book ‘Türkler Mezarlığı Yemen,’ which means “Cemetery of the Turks”.

In fact, describing Yemen as a “graveyard of Turkish soldiers” is a recurring theme in Ottoman (Turkish) historical memory.

Yemen Türküsü is a famous Turkish folk song that serves as a tragic lament for Ottoman soldiers who marched off to fight in Yemen during World War I and never returned.

Another Turkish folk song remembers the difficulties faced by Ottoman soldiers in Yemen and pays homage to Turks who went to Yemen but never returned.

“There are no clouds in the sky, what is this smoke?
There is no death in the neighborhood, what is this commotion?
These lands of Yemen are so treacherous
Oh, Yemen, its rose is a meadow
Why do those who leave not return?”

Ayşe Hür, in her article “The largest Ottoman cemetery: Yemen,” recounts that the Ottoman rule in Yemen was fiercely opposed by Zaydis, the ancestors of Houthi rebels.

According to the Zaydis, the Ottomans were ‘turbaned infidels’.

In his work titled “My Lament,” Ahmet İzzet (Furgaç) Pasha, who was sent to Yemen in early 20th century to supress a Zaydi revolt against the Ottomans described the period of Ottoman struggle in Yemen (1635-1840) in following words: “After a century of conflict in Jabal, with internal revolts and constant wars against the Zaydi imams, which continued until the year 1045 AH (1635), the entire Yemen region fell under the rule of the Zaydi imams due to the siege and pressure exerted on Haydar Pasha, who was forgotten and left in Jabal by the central government.”

Ottoman sources do not specify how many people died in the wars with the Zaydis during these 100 years, merely stating that “thousands of people died.”

“Going to Yemen and not returning” has been the fate of Ottoman soldiers since the 16th century, Ayşe Hür wrote in her article.

In the article titled “The Situation in Yemen” in the 15th issue of the Ottoman Newspaper dated 1316 (1900), it was stated: “As a result of Ahmet Fevzi Pasha’s wrong policies, approximately 4,000 soldiers died every year.”

Ayşe Hür also quoted an Ottoman official in her article who said that 1,30,000 Ottoman soldiers were buried in the Hijaz and Yemen between 1871 and 1894.

Marshal Galip, who served as a captain in Yemen in the 19th century, wrote: “Since I worked under the General Staff, all the general staff records passed through my hands. In these records, I noticed a wide and terrible gap between the new soldiers joining the army and those who were replaced or disabled… Yemen was a permanent war zone at that time.

“I compared the number of those who joined their factions or were mobilized en masse and sent away due to rebellions with the number of those who survived and returned to their homeland. The conclusion I reached was this: In the 22 years that had passed, a total of 130,000 Anatolian youths had been buried in the deserts of Hejaz and Yemen.”

In 2011, then-Turkish President Abdullah Gül renovated and inaugurated a Turkish Memorial Cemetery (Yemen-Türk Şehitliği) in Sanaa to commemorate the Ottoman soldiers who died in Yemeni campaigns.

Just one year later, in 2012, Houthi rebels demolished part of the memorial.

For centuries, the memorial has symbolized the Ottoman presence in Yemen. The deliberate attack on this memorial serves as a reminder of how the Houthis recall Ottoman campaigns in Yemen.

It was also a clear message to Ankara that they would not accept any Turkish involvement in Yemen.

Writing in Politics Today, Ahd Yaseen Al-Tamimi said: “History textbooks, which were adopted after 1962, presented a positive view of the Ottoman Empire and its rule over Yemen. Nevertheless, this did not prevent Zaydi supporters from maintaining their strict and extremist position on the Ottoman Empire.”

Of course, Turkey is a strong military power, and its influence extends in Yemen as well.

It has achieved remarkable military success in Syria, Libya, and in combating Kurdish insurgents in Iraq. Its military support to Azerbaijan was perhaps the deciding factor in its war against Armenia.

However, Yemen is a different ballgame altogether.

And if history is anything to go by, then Yemen, often described as a “graveyard of the Ottomans,” could once again become a quagmire for Turkey.

• Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from the University of Sheffield, UK. 
• He can be reached at ahlawat.sumit85 (at) gmail.com

The post Why Yemen Could be a Graveyard for Turkish & Mecca Pact Soldiers: History Has The Answers: OPED appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

Protests demanding Gyanesh Kumar’s ouster and the scrapping of SIR protests have rejuvenated the opposition, uniting parties once at odds and making it harder than ever for the BJP to discredit its critics.

Francis Halzen turned Antarctic ice into a neutrino telescope and finally traced cosmic rays to their sources; Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai figured out why life prefers left-handed molecules, and how to make chemistry do the same.

The movement’s leaders connect education, jobs and institutional accountability, and point to early successes. But critics question whether the CJP can take on so many causes, or whether its expanding agenda signals political ambitions.

The ECI’s promise to issue meeting minutes will be useful only if they are public and record members’ decisions and dissent. Five other bodies show how regular disclosure can make collective decisions more transparent.

Washington has sent two contradictory signals on Taiwan in the last few days. Whether these signals reflect strategic ambiguity or strategic confusion in the coming days has become a matter of debate among the strategic experts.

On the one hand, Trump is holding back a $14 billion arms package for Taiwan, pre-approved by the U.S. Congress, despite a bipartisan group of senators explicitly urging him to “formally notify . But the U.S. President has described his decision to pause as a “very good negotiating chip” for his talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Whether that worked in his summit meeting with Xi last week in Washington is not known. But Taiwan’s Defense Minister Wellington Koo confirmed yesterday (October 6) that he has “not heard” of any new sale being cleared, even in smaller chunks.

On the other hand,  the Pentagon is seemingly doing the opposite of this pause.

According to reports, the U.S. Department of Defense will station two representatives on a long-term basis inside Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense headquarters in Taipei from 2026 to 2028.

One official will come from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy [OUSD-Policy] — the office that writes U.S. national security and defense strategy. The second will come from the Institute for Defense Analyses [IDA] — a federally funded think tank that does mathematical modeling for war games and combat capability assessment.

The program is called the “Taiwan-US Defense Ministry Joint Cooperation Assessment,” with a total budget of NT$471 million [$14.8 million], including NT$152.5 million this year for personnel, consultancy, travel, data collection, and even interpretation for classified-level meetings.

If confirmed, this will be unprecedented.

This would mark the first time U.S. defense officials are permanently embedded inside Taiwan’s military headquarters, shifting cooperation away from traditional channels managed through the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), Washington’s de facto embassy.

The military relationship between the United States and Taiwan is highly integrated yet formally unofficial. It is governed by the legal framework of the “U.S. Taiwan Relations Act” (TRA), which Congress passed on April 10, 1979.

Congress enacted it immediately after the U.S. formally terminated its previous “Mutual Defense Treaty with the Republic of China (Taiwan)” to officially recognize “the People’s Republic of China (PRC)” in Beijing.

Rather than abandoning Taiwan, Congress designed the TRA as a legal framework to ensure that “robust, unofficial security, commercial, and cultural ties” continue uninterrupted.

In short, the TRA provides a domestic legal workaround for treating Taiwan as a country without formal diplomatic recognition. However, under it, the U.S. is also obligated to maintain Taiwan’s capacity to resist force or coercion in general and the forcible annexation by the PRC in particular.

Over the years, U.S. personnel have served in Taiwan as trainers and advisers. Hundreds of active-duty U.S. military advisors—often colloquially referred to locally as “English teachers” to maintain a low profile—are routinely deployed across Taiwan.

U.S. military observers are present within Taiwan’s annual “Han Kuang live-fire military exercises”. They actively guide Taiwan’s defense strategy toward decentralized command, logistics, and real-world combat readiness.

Taiwanese fighter pilots undergo advanced combat training at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona.

The US remains Taiwan’s primary foreign weapons supplier, with a total backlog of orders nearing $20 billion.

In fact, Taiwan received its first new batch of two advanced Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 fighter jets on October 2.  This was part of an $8 billion deal approved in 2019 for 66 new-build F-16 Block 70 jets, with the remaining 64 aircraft scheduled for future delivery.  out of a 66-aircraft fleet on order.

However, all these coordination efforts between Washington and Taipei are usually routed through the AIT intermediary, as the U.S. adheres to its  One China” policy. In that sense, the new proposal to station Pentagon personnel directly inside the Taiwanese Defense Ministry represents a shift from this historical status quo.

The new arrangement puts Americans directly into the core of Taiwan’s defense policymaking, including policy coordination, Han Kuang exercise planning, asymmetric warfare doctrine, and major weapons procurement evaluations, it is said.

Of course, the U.S. routinely sends military and civilian defense officials to work directly inside the defense ministries of partner and allied nations. Established by the Pentagon in 2009, the Ministry of Defense Advisors (MODA) Program specifically trains and deploys high-performing senior U.S. Department of Defense civilians.

These advisors are embedded in partner-nation defense ministries to support institutional capacity building, strategy, financial management, and logistics.

The U.S. also actively deploys specialized defense consultants directly to the defense ministries of nations looking to transition away from historical adversaries such as Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, and various Balkan nations looking to exit Moscow’s orbit.

The U.S. has a long history of embedding liaison officers in allied countries. For example, it has a Joint Political-Military Group in Israel that embeds officers in missile-defense cooperation for Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and now Iron Beam. But American officials do not operate inside the Kirya (Israel’s defense headquarters).

Similarly, despite 54,000 US personnel stationed in Japan, no U.S. officer sits inside Japan’s Ministry of Defense to assess combat capability.

Perhaps in NATO countries and South Korea, U.S. military officials are believed to sit together often.

There are also “Offices of Defense Cooperation” (ODC), or United States Military Groups, which are technically attached to the local U.S. Embassy for diplomatic protection. These teams provide security assistance and work in routine, day-to-day coordination with host ministry personnel.

However, what makes the proposed U.S. officials sitting directly within Taiwan’s military headquarters unique is that Taiwan is not an ally of America in the strict sense, as the U.S. lacks formal diplomatic recognition of Taiwan, and these officials will bypass the traditional AIT.

Of course, multiple reports in recent years have claimed that U.S. special forces are permanently stationed in Taiwan to assist its 101st Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalion special operations force, though Washington has officially denied it.  The same has been the case with the speculations about the coming and going of U.S. military personnel from the Army Special Operations Command base in Taoyuan.

How will Beijing React?

At the time of writing, Beijing had not issued an official reaction, possibly because Taiwanese media outlets only recently brought details of this long-term Pentagon deployment to light. It has not been declared officially.

But it goes without saying that Beijing would be “certain to protest” and could respond “with expanded exercises and intimidation”, according to  Zivon Wang, a military analyst at the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies in Taipei.

He expects U.S. personnel not to wear uniforms at the Ministry of National Defense because it could be interpreted as a more formalized US-Taiwan military relationship and might further provoke Beijing.

Incidentally, China has made more air and naval incursions across the median line in the Taiwan Strait since 2022. Although Chinese military aircraft had occasionally crossed the median line (established informally in 1954) in the past, the practice became significantly more frequent from 2022, particularly after Nancy Pelosi (then Speaker of the House of Representatives) visited Taiwan in August that year. What had once been an informal but largely respected buffer increasingly became a zone of routine Chinese military activity.

Therefore, it remains to be seen whether China will respond to the Pentagon’s proposed deployment with loud exercises.

It may also remain silent, as nothing is official yet and Trump has his “negotiating chip” of holding back Taiwan’s military package.

Trump’s admirers often see his unpredictability as useful in negotiations with an adversary, because the other side cannot be sure how far he is willing to go.

But his critics argue that his unpredictability becomes counterproductive when allies cannot distinguish a negotiating threat from a real change in American policy.

It remains to be seen who will prove to be right in the case of Taiwan.

• Author and veteran journalist Prakash Nanda is Chairman of the Editorial Board of the EurAsian Times and has been commenting on politics, foreign policy, and strategic affairs for nearly three decades. He is a former National Fellow of the Indian Council for Historical Research and a recipient of the Seoul Peace Prize Scholarship.
• The author can be reached at prakash.nanda (at) hotmail.com

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