President Biden recently declared that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not doing enough to reach a deal with Hamas to free the hostages the terrorist organization has been holding since last Oct. 7. This pronouncement was both ill-targeted and ill-timed, proving once again that Washington often doesn’t know when and when not to meddle in the affairs of other nations.
The more nations there are connected to China's satellites, the smaller the global audience share left for Starlink or other Western conglomerates will be. Conversely, if Starlink succeeds in its current bid to make gains in places like Africa and Latin America, it will create an inherently pluralistic, open global media environment—one in which it will be much more difficult for the PRC to propagandize, isolate, and influence. Only one of those pathways benefits American security. It's up to policymakers in Washington to empower it.
What all this might mean for Russia is still too early to tell. Policymakers in Moscow have initiated an array of measures in response to the Ukrainian incursion, ranging from declaring a state of emergency in Kursk as well as the neighboring Belgorod region, surging troops into the area, and creating new administrative units to manage the crisis). Still, as NATO officials have noted, Russia’s official response has been “slow and scattered” — at least so far. Whether it stays that way is still an open question. It’s already clear, however, that Ukraine has accomplished one of the principal aims of its daring military raid: to bring the conflict home to ordinary Russians and underscore that the war of choice embarked upon by their president carries potentially dire consequences for them personally.
Over the past two weeks, Ukraine has taken its fight with the Kremlin onto Russian soil. Kyiv’s offensive consisted of a daring raid into Russia’s Kursk region designed to bring the fight to Russian forces and draw the Kremlin’s combat troops away from its own territory. Aside from a few headlines, though, Ukraine’s bold strategic gamble has gone largely unnoticed. That’s a shame because Kyiv’s initiative—and Moscow’s response to it—has made clear that persistent Western fears of Russian brinkmanship are overblown.
The Republic of Georgia faces a critical juncture ahead of parliamentary elections in October 2024 as escalating political tensions, driven by the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party's increasingly authoritarian tendencies, threaten the country’s democratic future and its pro-Western trajectory. This situation demands a nuanced understanding of Georgia's complex political landscape and a strategic response from Western partners.
Whatever the cause, this sense of momentum has led the Kremlin to rebuff recent Ukrainian peace overtures, and to stake out a maximalist position as a prerequisite for any negotiations with Kyiv. But Moscow's triumphalism masks a more sobering reality—by almost every empirical measure, Russia's war of choice has proven ruinous for the Kremlin.
Under a landmark U.S.-Saudi security deal that the Biden administration is reportedly finalizing, the United States could be closer than ever to jumpstarting Saudi Arabia’s nuclear program –– and brushing off more than a decade of warnings not to.
Since the start of its war on Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has experienced a massive population exodus.
The new agreement between the terrorist group Hamas and Fatah, the political party of the Palestinian Authority, to form a unity government would — if implemented — threaten Israel, hurt the Palestinian people and create new obstacles to Israeli-Palestinian peace. No one who seeks peace should support it.
…supporting an enhancement of India's naval capabilities marks the logical next step. It aligns with America's interest in countering an increasingly assertive China, and it helps to deepen the already-robust bilateral ties between Washington and New Delhi.
Up to now, Washington and its international partners have been loath to retaliate forcefully to Houthi aggression, fearful of precipitating a wider Mideast war. But the lack of a serious Western response has only emboldened the Houthis further, to the point where the group is now threatening to target America's regional presence directly.
As such, the current discussion about strengthening lines of communication is little more than political theater.
Nor would Pezeshkian be the first “moderate” Iranian president to disappoint those hoping for real change in Tehran.
Iran's involvement is just part of a much larger story. All of the available evidence suggests that today's "pro-Palestine" activism is an instrument of statecraft—one that is actively being weaponized against the U.S. by an array of hostile actors.
This week’s NATO summit in Washington is, by any measure, a grand affair, full of the pomp and ceremony befitting the bloc’s 75th anniversary. It also offers up a useful opportunity to reflect on the state of the most successful military alliance in history.
Deterrence and containment are as critical to U.S. global strategy today as they were during the Cold War. NATO has been a lynchpin in that strategic effort.
Thus, the U.S. approach to an Israel-Hezbollah war – i.e., the extent to which Washington sticks by its closest regional ally as deaths mount in southern Lebanon – will have huge implications for the strategic calculations to come in Tehran, Moscow, and Beijing as they each plot their next expansionist moves.
In other words, the Palestinian Authority is asking the international community to empower one failed state to rebuild another.
The league’s latest behavior continues its thoroughgoing capitulation to China in pursuit of profit.
It has become painfully clear that America is losing the information war in the Middle East.