Articles

President Donald Trump’s growing list of failed Middle East deals demonstrates that his attempts to push critical issues into the future have met with limited success.

Many analysts assume that the Iran War has turned even regime-skeptical Iranians against the West. This assumption may be unwarranted.

The Ukraine war has evolved into an innovation contest since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Faced with a larger adversary that it can’t match tank for tank or aircraft for aircraft, Kyiv has compensated with ingenuity—adapting commercial tech for military purposes, pioneering new applications for drones, and refining battlefield tactics for maximum effect. The result has been a conflict in which information is as crucial as firepower. 

Whether it’s Netanyahu or someone else running the show after Israel’s October elections, the country will continue to face attacks from multiple directions. It will continue to respond forcefully, as any nation would.

Last week’s launch of the strategic dialogue between Washington and Belgrade helps to advance all four fronts. What comes next, in terms of concrete deliverables on energy, strategic minerals, defense and regional partnerships, will determine whether the current opening translates into lasting strategic gains for the United States in the Western Balkans.

Back in 2023, when the Malian army, aided by Russian mercenary forces, recaptured the northern city of Kidal, it seemed like the start of a new order in the West African state. Mali’s ruling military junta claimed it had done what the previous government could not: retake the strategically vital town from separatist forces. Russia, in turn, was able to offer evidence that it could serve as an effective security partner for those disillusioned with the West.

As we become an interplanetary species, it is important to protect this multi-year, multi-billion-dollar investment while building a habitable environment. That starts with bolstering the Space Force’s ability to detect and counter asteroid threats to American lunar infrastructure.

Is Russia on the cusp of another military draft? Just a few weeks ago, the idea was pretty much unthinkable, and for good reason. These days, however, it’s becoming more and more difficult for Moscow to avoid the specter of another military call-up.

As long as Armenia’s constitution is still based on territorial claims that conflict with its neighbors, Yerevan’s recent strategic gains can still be reversed. Without that change, the current peace in the South Caucasus might last only as long as the current government remains in power in Yerevan. The United States and Armenia’s allies in the West have a stake in it lasting much longer.

Even while negotiating an agreement with Iran, President Trump, too, can reverse course, shine a consistent light on Tehran’s abuses, and give human rights promotion a global boost.

The Iranian regime has made its atomic ambitions abundantly clear, and has funneled enormous resources into this project over the past several decades. Logic therefore dictates that American policy needs to deny it every pathway for turning those aspirations into a weapon – not simply the most obvious one.

The war in Iran has taken an unexpected turn.

Space is now a key stage in the competition among great powers. No longer peripheral, it is becoming integral to how states pursue dominance and shape the international system. Grand strategy is the long-term (multi-generational) effort by states to secure advantage and shape the international system. When great powers compete, they do so through rival grand strategies, extending their pursuit of security and influence across domains. 

Since the onset of hostilities, Russia has used the war to target sites that anchor Ukrainian national and spiritual identity.

By anchoring itself in Africa's emerging space economy, Washington has a rare opportunity to strengthen its partnerships on the continent and compete more effectively with China in the process. Now, it’s up to policymakers to seize this opening.

“The terms of the new Memorandum of Understanding agreed to between Washington and Tehran over the weekend have now been made public, and the agreement as currently formulated is more lopsided and less favorable than even the skeptics had initially predicted.”

The potential for change within Iran persists—although the mechanism and timing for such a change are still unclear.

It is becoming increasingly difficult for Russians — both Russia’s elites and ordinary citizens — to ignore the growing disaster that has been created by more than four years of Vladimir Putin’s war of choice against Ukraine. 

Though battered by the United States and Israel, Iran is putting renewed emphasis on its network of regional proxies.

Space-based nuclear weapons are a serious matter, and one that deserves the very highest level of national attention. 

Which version of the Russia story will global publics end up believing: the one in which it is a misunderstood friend, or the one where Putin is prepared to bankrupt the state to satisfy his will to imperial power?

The US Coast Guard should work with South American partners to end China’s illegal and environmentally harmful fishing practices.

Mr. Macron’s gambit rests on a fundamental miscalculation. It presupposes that France has the economic heft, military capabilities and political legitimacy to chart a truly independent course in world affairs.

By tying the Accords to the current Iran conflict, the Trump administration risks turning what was previously seen by regional states as a strategic opportunity into something approaching an unwelcome obligation. Doing so would end up serving neither the Accords nor U.S. regional policy well. 

This essay by Dr. S. Frederick Starr was written for the meeting of the World Society for the Study, Preservation, and Popularization of the Culture of Uzbekistan, a body that has brought together Uzbek-sourced manuscripts from all the world’s museums. It has sent teams to the US, France, Germany, Turkey, and Japan, and has vastly expanded the known body of manuscripts from Central Asia, publishing them online and in print editions of superior quality. Dr. Starr has been a trustee since its founding in 2017.

The lesson is clear: both Trump and his successors would be wise to factor in the home front more strategically before the next U.S. military action abroad.

The Iranian regime may be down, but it is far from defeated. It is, moreover, adapting in ways that will invariably pose a problem for Western security—and a political and ideological challenge for its Muslim neighbors.

China believes peace is possible, as long as only the United States changes its behavior.

The Iran war seems to have devolved into a waiting game

It’s the most important story that most people aren’t watching. 

Permanent internet blackouts, child mobilization, and foreign militias have emerged as new features of the Islamic Republic’s crisis governance.

The catastrophic flooding in Dagestan and northern Azerbaijan has exposed the limits of Russian state capacity on its southern periphery at a moment when Moscow's grip on the wider Caucasus is already loosening. 

Recent weeks have made clear that the alliance doesn’t just have a Turkey problem. It has a Spanish one as well, and the latter is likely to emerge as a real headache for U.S.-NATO relations when the dust from the current Iran conflict finally clears.

The strengthening shekel stands as a powerful testament to how both foreign investors and Israelis themselves view the country’s long-term prospects.

The race is on to make the Moon an engine of economic growth. Whoever organizes the Lunar economy will shape the rules, capture the supply chains, and dominate the next era of energy and industry.

Iran’s economy is already crippled, but still resilient. The US economy is less threatened, but its political system is less tolerant of short-term economic pain.

In the wake of this weekend’s failed negotiations in Islamabad, the Iran conflict is back on. So, too, are the Trump administration’s efforts to bring the Islamic Republic to heel.

After the failed negotiations this weekend in Islamabad and the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports and coastal areas, the conflict appears poised to resume. Yet Washington heads into the next phase with a clearer understanding of the stakes because the past six-plus weeks have offered a stark lesson about the insecurity of global energy and the vulnerability of maritime choke points.

The Iran War has temporarily disrupted Caucasus-Central Asia connectivity. The United States must reassure the region that it still wishes to engage with its development.

Ukraine is demonstrating, both in word and in deed, that it can help shape the shared fight against today’s revisionist axis. Here’s hoping that the Trump administration takes notice. 

Although it has since been overshadowed by the new Gulf war, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent state visit to Israel – complete with a historic address to the Knesset – speaks volumes about how New Delhi sees the Jewish state, and how one of Israel’s most promising bilateral partnerships might progress.

Over the past four years of war, the government of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv has been engaging in a delicate balancing act. Western aid – including from the United States – represents a vital lifeline that has enabled Ukraine to successfully battle back against Russian aggression. That support, however, has required careful alignment with Washington and other Western capitals on an array of issues. This, in turn, has meant Kyiv has had to wrestle with just how much it should cooperate with China.

The scale of Secretary General Xi Jinping’s military purges is shocking. More than 100 senior leaders have been removed since 2022. And that number keeps growing, with nine military officers purged just last week and three more retired generals removed from a senior advisory body in early March. 

As of late March 2026, the strategic landscape of Operation Epic Fury has shifted from a high-intensity “shock” campaign to a calculated war of attrition. According to Brig. Gen. (res) Eran Ortal, the conflict has entered a decisive third phase where the combined industrial and logistical weight of the United States, Israel, and the Gulf states is systematically dismantling the Iranian regime’s ability to project power.

This article examines how Uzbekistan can strengthen its economic security by leveraging its extraordinary cultural heritage and strategic positioning to transition from a volume-driven tourism model towards more of a value-driven approach.

The US’ tactical successes against Iran would have a greater effect if they served broader objectives.