The rise of the citizen soldier

A staff member holds a dummy as staff and customers take shelter at a storage room, during an air raid exercise at a PX Mart supermarket as part of the civil defence drills in Taipei, Taiwan. July 10, 2025. Credit: REUTERS/Annabelle Chih

Over the weekend, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi marked his country’s Independence Day by announcing the creation of a “massive” volunteer civil defense force. Calling India’s existing civil defense capacity “outdated,” Modi said the country of 1.4 billion people must protect the new targets of modern warfare, including refineries, the banking sector, or data centers – reflecting a growing view that infrastructure and the internet have become the new front lines of war.

Taiwan is preparing for the same reality. Last week, its government deliberately slowed mobile internet during its annual military exercises, simulating what civilians could face if China attacked communications systems. It marked the first time Taiwan involved civilians in such a drill, taking a page from Ukraine, where Russia has repeatedly targeted communications infrastructure since the full-scale invasion in 2022. Read more