Fact. Analysis. Idea. Impact

What the B-21 and H-20 Actually Change for Indo-Pacific Airpower Working paper — Indo-Pacific series | August 2026 _____ Team InfinIdea On the night of 21 June 2025, seven B-2 Spirits left Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, flew more than thirty hours round trip, and dropped fourteen 30,000-pound GBU-57 bunker-buster bombs on Iran's Fordow and Natanz nuclear sites. It was the first combat use of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, and by the Pentagon's own accoun

In the early hours of January 3, 2026, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were captured by a brilliant US Delta Force raid in Caracas. They were subsequently transported to the mainland USA and taken into federal custody. This was a classic textbook Special Forces operation - executed through enviable US military professional excellence, featuring lightning speed and surgical precision. The country is likely to be run according to US guidelines thr

Russia and China are apparently heading towards ever-deepening relationship of mutual interest. Recent leaked secret documents attained by the Black Moon hacktivist group reveal alleged Russian arming and training of Chinese forces for potential Taiwan operations. The 800-page classified document is authenticated by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). According to the documents, Russia is to supply China with necessary military equipment to arm and train a complete

Photo Courtesy: "How Imminent Is A Potential Sino-Taiwanese Conflict?" US General Douglas McArthur once labeled Taiwan “an unsinkable aircraft carrier” – an island fortress, meant as a bulwark for the US Island Chain Strategy against China and the erstwhile Soviet Union in the West Pacific. China always considered Taiwan as a breakaway province, which, if controlled by China, would nullify historic US influence over the region through it. It would host Chinese bases into the

The Rakhaine State in Myanmar bears varied strategic importance to Bangladesh, regional and the global powers. The Rohingyas are an indigenous Muslim minority from Rakhine. Roughly 3.5 million Rohingyas are dispersed worldwide. Before August 2017, the majority of the Rohingyas in Myanmar resided in Rakhine State, where they accounted for nearly a third of the population. Ethnically, linguistically, and religiously, they diverge from Myanmar's dominant Buddhist population. Den

Minilateralism may be defined as voluntary, non-binding, consensus-based informal and more targeted issue-specific partnerships among nations with shared interests and security concerns. Designed to temporarily address any specific threat, contingency or security issues, such collaborations may encompass numerous fields of international cooperation like security, climate change, economy, trade, connectivity, terrorism, natural disasters and other humanitarian aspects. Despite

Why is Rakhine so contested? Because Rakhine holds truly a critical position in Myanmar and has a strategic standpoint equally for China and India. For last couple of decades, China has been highly instrumental in investing significantly in Myanmar. The China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) aims to provide China comfortable entree to the Bay of Bengal (BoB) by linking Kunming in Yunnan in China to the erstwhile minor port town Kyaukphyu in Rakhaine through both land route

Asian giants India and China, world’s two most populous countries, share a long border of 3488 kilometers and a long history of border disputes. Sino‐Indian relations remain strained by their territorial disputes throughout the last decades. The countries continuously vie for dominance along their bordering landmass - resulting in occasional armed clashes, and also across the vast swaths of the Indian Ocean and towards the Pacific. The dynamism of Sino-Indian relations is an