Beijing’s Changing Invasion Calculus | Post-Sindoor, A New Reality for India and Pakistan | Brazil Rejects U.S. Request to Designate Two Gangs as Terrorist Organizations, and more

This strategic picture is growing bleaker with each passing unchallenged rehearsal, as the Chinese Communist Party creates a new normal that favors their aggressive actions. Taiwan, the United States, Japan, Korea, and all nations that benefit from a free and open world order should prepare for the possible eventuality that a Joint Sword exercise or similar rehearsal turns into a wider blockade of Taiwan. It will likely fall on the United States and others to call out these actions for what they are: a blockade of Taiwan and an act of war.
Although American naval forces would likely come into play to counter a blockade, America’s most likely immediate response option is strategic airlift of vital supplies. The successful Berlin Airlift in the earliest phase of the Cold War offers both potential objectives and serious challenges of carrying out such a mission.

Why a Global “Moratorium” on Solar Radiation Management Deployment Should Get a Chilly Reception  (Sue Biniaz and Daniel Bodansky, Just Security)
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Climate intervention is a case in point. As interest has grown in pursuing research into ways to intentionally reflect sunlight so as to cool the planet (“solar radiation management” or “SRM”), calls for a “moratorium” on SRM deployment have proliferated.
The question, then, is whether an internationally agreed moratorium on SRM deployment is the best way to put the brakes on such deployment while not deterring necessary research. A moratorium is not the right answer and that its spirit would be better addressed through the bottom-up proliferation of a “deployment is premature” norm, in the context of pursuing research.

The Second Trump Administration Turns a Blind Eye to Afghanistan  (Madiha Afzal, Lawfare)
The administration’s dismantling of humanitarian and refugee programs will profoundly affect Afghans.

AfD’s New Designation as Extremist Group  (Ajit Maan, HSToday)
For the first time in modern German history, a party with nationwide representation in parliament has been formally designated as an extremist group. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency designated the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) as an extremist organization. State-level AfD branches of AfD in the eastern states of Thuringia, Saxony, and Saxony-Anhalt were previously designated extremist.
Under the German constitution, adopted four years after the Fall of the Nazi regime, parties that “deliberately undermine the functioning of Germany’s free democratic basic order”  and act in a “militant and aggressive way” can be banned. The extremist label is the first step toward banning the party. 

Brazil Rejects U.S. Request to Designate Two Gangs as Terrorist Organizations  (Reuters / Guardian)
Security minister says US delegation wanted classification for PCC and Comando Vermelho to aid immigration policy.