Articles

History rarely announces its turning points. More often, we wake up to find that the world we assumed was fixed has begun to shift beneath our feet. That is happening now.

Sometimes, it is said, in order to make a problem smaller, you need to make it bigger first. So it is with the Ukraine war, which is now fast approaching its grim fourth anniversary

Today’s Central Asian reformers are picking up and reviving neglected approaches to politics and society that Islam’s Golden Age turned its back on a millennium ago. They do so as Muslim believers or at least as officials respectful of Islam. 

Over the past several years, China's information warfare capabilities have grown by leaps and bounds as Beijing has tapped into the disinformation expertise of its longstanding strategic partner, Russia.
But the most immediate target of Chinese messaging remains Taiwan. As officials and experts there made clear on a recent trip, the People's Republic of China's informational assault is changing—and intensifying.

The Trump administration’s success in brokering the Armenia-Azerbaijan deal demonstrates what’s possible when the United States engages seriously in the region. As the TRIPP corridor begins development, American policymakers would do well to look beyond immediate economic opportunities to the strategic landscape taking shape around them. The Caucasus is no longer Russia’s exclusive domain. The South has transformed. The North may follow, with consequences extending far beyond Russia’s borders.

The taps are running dry in Tehran. Iran's capital is now experiencing a massive and deepening water shortage. After months of drought and scorching heat, the five reservoirs feeding the city of more than 10 million are mostly empty.

In a quiet room high in the Himalayas, I sat with a monarch attempting something almost unseen in our time: the peaceful reinvention of a nation. For hours, King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck guided me through maps, water tables, demographic curves, and the architectural outlines of a city not yet built but already alive in his imagination.

A recent week of meetings in Vietnam with Communist Party leaders, government officials, and other influential figures reveals how Hanoi views today’s economic and geopolitical challenges, as well as how Washington might reassure the country about its commitment to a deeper U.S.-Vietnam relationship after months of unhelpful friction between the two.

On October 10, 2025, the CIS heads of state summit was held in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Multiple packages of documents were signed, targeting trade, crime, and most importantly, security. Security challenges from Afghanistan, including extremism and border conflicts, have continued since the Taliban takeover, and these recent agreements make up another component of Central Asia’s lengthy efforts to reduce the recurring concerns that can potentially spill over into their territories.

Big changes are afoot in the South Caucasus. Back in August, in a move that passed largely unnoticed in the American press, the Trump administration pulled off a major diplomatic coup when it brought together Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to ink a joint declaration formally ending decades of hostility between the two regional rivals. 

The Middle East is no longer asking whether it should develop domestic space capabilities; it’s deciding with whom it will develop them. If the United States wants to be the country of choice ahead of China, it must create a joint space partnership agreement framework to align American and partner nations’ industry, government and financial goals.

A regime stalwart who has long carried Putin’s water (and boosted his neo-imperial agenda), Lavrov has been conspicuously absent in recent days from a number of high-profile functions. The Foreign Minister, usually a fixture, failed to attend a meeting of Russia’s National Security Council on November 5th – purportedly “by agreement” (presumably with Putin). He was also cut out of Russia’s delegation to the upcoming G20 meeting in South Africa later this month, with a much more junior official, Deputy Chief of Staff Maxim Oreshkin, tapped to lead the Russian team instead. 

For decades, the Kremlin has sought to intimidate foreign powers by threatening to use nuclear weapons. In the current Ukraine war, nuclear threats have been a key way by which Russia’s government has sought to restrain Western aid to Kyiv. The efficacy of Moscow’s nuclear brinksmanship, however, seems to be waning.

As rivals flood the world with propaganda, Washington is dismantling its best tools to respond.

These days in Europe, there is a near-unanimous consensus about the threat posed by Russia and the need to continue to support Ukraine against Moscow’s aggression. But Europe’s steadfastness could be undermined by a different factor—a sustained and growing dependence on Russian energy among a number of its members.

Sixty-eight years ago, the Soviet Union shocked the world by launching Sputnik 1 and igniting the space race. Today, new Sputnik moments loom on the horizon, and the stakes are far higher. The country that emerges as a preeminent space power will guarantee its own economic and national security, and shape the “rules of the road” that govern the international community for decades to come. Who will that be?

The plan relies on a future international force to dislodge the terror group, a scenario deemed highly unlikely. By failing to remove Hamas, the ceasefire merely sets the stage for the next inevitable war.

After two years, the war in Gaza appears to be over. Following the Trump administration's active mediation last week, a tenuous ceasefire deal was struck over the weekend, and Israel's hostages have returned home. Of course, only time will tell whether this agreement will truly hold. Even so, it's not too early to draw some preliminary lessons from the conflict that just ended.

The question is no longer whether SpaceX can deliver payloads into orbit; it is whether America’s present, profound dependence on this company could be politically weaponized in the future. The simmering summer-long feud between President Trump and Musk, which largely stemmed from the latter’s objections to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and which saw access to SpaceX used as a key bargaining chip, suggests that the answer to this question is “yes.”