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Title: August 6, 2025

AI VS. HACKERS 

Anthropic pits Claude AI model against human hackers

Anthropic’s AI model, Claude, has recently begun outperforming human teams in student hacking competitions—such as PicoCTF, Hack the Box, and the Western Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition—with minimal human intervention. In one contest, Claude solved 11 out of 20 increasing-difficulty challenges in just 10 minutes, ultimately ranking among the top 3–4 percent of competitors. In another event, five of eight AI teams—including Claude—completed 19 out of 20 tasks, far outpacing human teams, only 12 percent of which managed as many. Despite these achievements, Claude still struggles with unconventional inputs like animations. Anthropic’s red team cautions that security experts should take AI’s growing offensive capabilities seriously and begin leveraging similar systems for defense functions. (Axios)

NOTE: When this capability is coupled with anonymity, and incorporating deceptive techniques, AI platforms can form attacking forces that will be difficult to defeat without shutting down infrastructure. While Capture the Flag (CTF) events are often based more on knowledge than skill, the ability of AI to rapidly scan its information resources gives it an edge. Building RAG based AI, focusing only on hacking, can lead to an increase in AI being used in computer attacks.

LEBANON

Security in Lebanon. The Lebanese army has asked the country’s army to develop a plan that will ensure state institutions are the only entities in the entire nation that possess weapons by the end of the year. The decision, announced by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam after a Cabinet meeting, would effectively mean every militant group in the country, including Hezbollah, would need to be disarmed. It comes amid continued U.S. pressure to neutralize Hezbollah. Ahead of the announcement, Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem said the group would not disarm.  

RUSSO-UKRAINE WAR

Russian strike. Russian drones struck the Orlovka and Novoselskoye areas of Ukraine’s Odesa region near the Romanian border, on the night of Aug. 5. The apparent target was the Orlovka gas compressor station, a key component of Ukraine’s pipeline infrastructure that helps deliver natural gas to Europe and reserve supplies to other parts of Ukraine. It’s also part of a recent agreement for Ukraine’s Naftogaz to import gas from Azerbaijan's state energy company SOCAR.

RUSSIA & CHINA JOINT PATROLS 

Cruising the Asia-Pacific. Russia’s and China’s navies are preparing to launch joint patrols in the Asia-Pacific region, just a day after completing joint naval exercises in the Sea of Japan. According to the Interfax news agency, the two countries have been conducting such involving its air force and air defense forces. They will include a live-fire component in the second stage of the drills. Meanwhile, Russian military personnel and equipment arrived in Belarus ahead of the joint Zapad exercises set to take place in September.

TAIWAN

Taiwanese defense. Taiwan received its first batch of Altius-600M drones from U.S.-based Anduril Industries this week. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense reiterated its commitment to integrating emerging technologies into Taiwan’s military through both procurement and innovation.

INDIA & THE PHILLIPINES 

Stronger ties. India and the Philippines elevated their bilateral relationship to a strategic partnership during President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s state visit to New Delhi. The two countries also signed cooperation agreements on defense, security, trade, science and technology, tourism, maritime cooperation and space exploration. Modi and Marcos emphasized their shared commitment to promoting a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region.

BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA 

Leaving office. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Central Election Commission revoked the presidency of Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik after an appeals court banned him from participating in politics for six years. Dodik was also sentenced to one year in prison for not complying with the decisions of the high representative, who is tasked with enforcing the 1995 Dayton Accords that ended the Bosnian war two decades ago. The electoral body said Dodik has the right to appeal the decision.

INDIA & CHINA 

India and China Summit talks. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to visit China for the first time since the Galwan clashes in 2020 to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin later this month. The trip will come amid U.S. pressure on New Delhi over its continued purchase of Russian oil, with U.S. President Donald Trump announcing last week that Washington would impose new tariffs on Indian goods and additional penalties. (See more in the INFOCUS.)

GZB INFOCUS: U.S. & INDIA RELATIONS 

In 2025 the world no longer has an anchor around which to organize itself. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the downturn in U.S.-India relations. New Delhi assumed that its relationship with Washington was immune to the shifts in America’s global strategy, but that has not been the case. The Trump administration’s efforts to manage its two biggest adversaries, China and Russia, have revealed the limits of its decadeslong alignment with India. India still boasts the world’s fastest-growing economy, so it will remain a key U.S. partner, but it is unlikely to retain its special status as the U.S.-China competition heats up.

On Aug. 6, U.S. President Donald Trump slapped an additional 25 percent tariff on Indian goods in response to India's continued purchase of Russian oil. The move brought overall tariffs on the world’s most populous nation (and close American ally) to 50 percent – among the steepest faced by any U.S. trading partner. Also on Aug. 6, Indian media reported that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to China on Aug. 31 – his first trip to the country since the border clashes of June 2020 – to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit. Elsewhere, Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval is leaving for a trip to Moscow ahead of another visit to the Kremlin by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar.

These developments constitute a dramatic turn of events. Until recently, the United States saw India as a strategic ally, especially with regard to its foreign policy objective to contain China. This has been the case for every U.S. administration, including Trump’s first one, since the early 2000s. Central to that view is that over the past two decades, India’s has become the world's fourth-largest economy, in terms of nominal gross domestic product, overtaking Russia’s, Italy’s, France’s, the United Kingdom’s and Japan’s. It also has the world’s fourth-largest military.

For these reasons, Washington has cultivated New Delhi as a critical partner on the military and economic fronts. In 2017, it revived the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and combined the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean basins into a single command known as INDOPACOM, making it easier to integrate India into its strategic plans for countering China. It also hoped India would be able to become an alternative industrial destination to help reduce global exposure to Chinese manufacturing.

But after promising starts, Washington has come to realize that these are long-term efforts. And in a post-COVID, post-Ukraine war era, Russia is dramatically diminished, and Chinese economic growth has plateaued. The Trump administration wants to take advantage of these new realities to reduce U.S. exposure to global risks and has tried to forge a new strategy accordingly. Trump’s retrenchment efforts are essentially two-pronged: have allies and partner nations take the lead in security for their respective regions, and use tariffs to correct trade imbalances, defend U.S. industries and reshape global commercial norms in the United States' favor.

As the U.S. pursues this strategy, Russia and China are the priority. Washington must bring an end to the war in Ukraine, so it’s trying to force Russia to accept a negotiated settlement of the conflict. At the same time, the Trump administration must bargain with China to ensure that its geoeconomic influence is kept in check, especially on the technological front.

Here is where the U.S. view of India has shifted. Trump needs the Modi government to stop purchasing oil from the Kremlin because this would help Washington squeeze Moscow at the bargaining table. India’s refusal to do so has led to a serious breach in bilateral relations. (The failure to reach a trade deal didn’t help, nor did the concurrent disagreements over Washington’s role in ceasefire talks between India and Pakistan.) But this isn’t just a tactical move born of Washington’s need to force Russia’s hand; it is a strategic shift in U.S thinking about India’s utility in managing China.

Washington understands that there are limits to how far it can derisk itself from Beijing, especially in specific areas like rare earths. It thus needs to reach a strategic accommodation with China. Talks toward that end include demands that China cannot expect to do business with the U.S. – something Beijing badly needs – while continuing to be a military threat. Beijing’s interest is largely economic, but if it shows some flexibility on, say, Taiwan, then in return it would expect the U.S. to deprioritize its strategic partnerships with India.

Regardless of the specific give and take they settle on, the reality is that the U.S. doesn’t need India as much as it once did. India understands as much and is trying to improve its standing with China. But it came to that realization too late, and Indian leaders believed for too long in the old paradigm, by which New Delhi could continue to do business with Russia and remain indispensable on China. U.S. ties to India are still important, but as Washington reconsiders its strategic options, so too will it reconsider the perishability of its partnerships. It’s not personal, it’s just the business of geopolitics. 

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