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Iran’s New Grand Strategy
At the outset of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran in February 2026, the Islamic Republic appeared battered and weakened. Large-scale bombing had destroyed industry and infrastructure, and a U.S. naval blockade had devastated an already ailing economy. In early March, U.S. President Donald Trump told rep
The Inertia of Russia’s War
Most analyses of how to end the war in Ukraine focus on the intentions of one man: Russian President Vladimir Putin. This assumes that the person who single-handedly launched the invasion can also single-handedly stop it. But after more than four years of conflict, Russia’s economy and society have
Iran Embraces a Forever War
For the last two months, Iran and the United States have carried out fitful, unsuccessful peace negotiations. After striking a very shaky cease-fire agreement at the beginning of April, officials from both countries have traded—and then rejected—long-term proposals. They have announced that they are
Hezbollah’s Trap for Israel
Over the past week, the status of the conflict in Lebanon has careered wildly between escalation and attempts at statecraft. On May 30, Israeli and Lebanese military delegations met at the Pentagon to prepare for a fourth round of diplomatic negotiations intended to end the fighting between Israel a
How Migration Helps Authoritarians
Thousands of educated workers leave their home countries every day for more developed and stable economies. In turn, these emigrants deplete their homelands of resources—their talent and intellect, as well as their purchasing power and ingenuity. This phenomenon is known as “brain drain.” But there’
The End of Foreign Aid Is Not the End of Development
On February 3, 2025, exactly 20 years after former South African President Nelson Mandela stood in front of a cheering crowd in London’s Trafalgar Square to launch a historic global campaign to “make poverty history,” employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) received an ema
Ukraine Turns the Tide
The war in Ukraine has reached a turning point. Since the failure of Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive, Russia’s full-scale invasion settled into a predictable rhythm of summer and winter offensives, between which the pressure of attacks would ease while Russian units rotated and regrouped. At first g
Cuba’s Only Choice
Ever since U.S. commandos removed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power in January, Washington has piled unprecedented pressure on Cuba, Caracas’s beleaguered former ally. The island’s economy had already been spiraling as a result of the first Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” sanc
China’s AI Heist
A new front has opened in the U.S.-China competition in artificial intelligence: open-weight, local AI models. Until recently, the most capable AI models were too big and too costly to run anywhere but in giant data centers packed with expensive, specialized chips. But now these systems are rapidly
The Coming Crisis of NATO Deterrence
President Donald Trump is making a dangerous bet in Europe. This month, the United States announced that it was canceling the deployment of a long-range precision strike battalion to Germany and withdrawing some 5,000 troops from the country. It also abruptly canceled a rotational 4,000-to-5,000-str
Trump’s Least Bad Option in Iran
Three months after joint U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran started a war in the Middle East, the United States remains stuck in strategic limbo, with no clear resolution to the conflict in sight. Dueling U.S. and Iranian blockades have closed the Strait of Hormuz to nearly all maritime traffic, removing
The Right Way for Europe to Spend More on Defense
The United States’ security ties with Europe are fraying. Even before the war in Iran returned the Middle East to the front of policymakers’ minds, the United States was already shifting its focus away from Europe and toward deterring China in the Indo-Pacific. The move is occurring at a perilous mo
Iran and the Forever War Trap
For years, U.S. President Donald Trump berated his predecessors for plunging the country into “forever wars” in the Middle East. His war on Iran may not last forever, but he is now finding it very hard to extricate the United States from a conflict that he has good reason to regret. Over the weekend
The G-2 Reality
President Donald Trump’s visit to China in mid-May was filled with carefully choreographed photo ops, diplomatic pageantry, and announcements of blockbuster commercial deals. The deeper significance of the summit, however, is that Washington and Beijing are beginning to accept that neither side can
The War in Ethiopia Isn’t Over
A few months after coming to power in April 2018, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed signed a peace deal to end a decades-long insurgency in the country’s Oromia region. The same summer, he struck a peace agreement with Eritrea, resolving a border dispute that since the late 1990s had produced a tw
The Middle Power Delusion
In January, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney warned leaders gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos that states caught between Washington and Beijing needed to stop negotiating alone. “If we’re not at the table,” he said, “we’re on the menu.” The line captured the mood of the moment. Across
Japan’s Point of No Return
Over the last ten years, Japan has shed its pacifist identity. After promising, post–World War II, to maintain only a tiny military, Tokyo is now building up truly capable armed forces and a sizable defense industrial base. In December 2018, for example, the country announced plans to modify its Izu
Hormuz Is a Warning for the Indo-Pacific
In late February, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) moved to close the Strait of Hormuz, issuing warnings that “if anyone tries to pass, the heroes of the Revolutionary Guard and the regular navy will set those ships ablaze.” By targeting ships with drones and antiship missiles and lay
The Crumbling Pillars of Global Peace
The long peace of the past eight decades has rested on two revolutionary convictions: that wars of aggression are intolerable and that empires must end. The first principle emerged from the carnage of two world wars, which together killed a hundred million people. The second came from centuries of c
Why Mexico’s Cartels Are So Hard to Defeat
On February 22, cartel boss Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” was killed in a hideout in the town of Tapalpa, a well-known tourist center in Mexico’s Jalisco state. The Mexican military soon presented a broad version of the events: the country’s intelligence agencies, aided by U.S. c
Iran as Vietnam, Ukraine as Korea
It has taken the Trump administration just two months to race through all five years of the Johnson administration’s Vietnam policy: entry, escalation, frustrated stalemate, and negotiations. Now, it’s on the Nixon administration’s turf: first blustery threats, then gradual realization of the need t
The Not-So-Quiet American
In the months after Robert Prevost became Pope Leo XIV, in May 2025, he kept a relatively low profile. He fulfilled prescheduled trips to Turkey and Lebanon and released just one pontifical document, on the church’s love for the poor, begun by Pope Francis. But in 2026, Leo has come into his own wit
Orban’s Fall and Europe’s Rise
Sometime during the late 1800s, when the Austro-Hungarian Empire still stretched from the Adriatic Sea to modern-day Ukraine, a Hungarian entered a bookstore in Vienna and asked the clerk, “Can you sell me a globe of Hungary?” Although likely apocryphal, the story has been widely repeated because it
A New Order for the Gulf
The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has put the Gulf states in an impossible position. The American forces they host have become the main reason their hotels and energy infrastructure are under Iranian attack. Although Iranian military assets are badly degraded, Tehran retains the capacity to strike the
Spheres by Default
Since U.S. President Donald Trump took office last January, analysts have debated whether he is pursuing a sphere of influence strategy—an approach by which great powers divide the world into privileged blocs, with little concern for the interests or preferences of the smaller states that those bloc