Articles

Some 32 former top Iranian officials are demanding Tehran withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty “in the shortest time possible,” which would eliminate a major hurdle for the regime to pursue nuclear weapons.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Washington last week was a grand affair, full of pomp and circumstance designed to convey a clear message...

In Russia, we know elections are stage-managed affairs, with outcomes predetermined well in advance and then triumphantly presented as evidence of pluralism and representative government.

Last month, Japan released its latest annual defense white paper. The document has a great deal to say about the threats now confronting the island nation, ranging from an increasingly assertive China to a nuclear North Korea. But one of its most important themes concerns something else entirely: the changing nature of warfare itself.

The dream of the “Trump Route” in the Caucasus will remain unfulfilled without further connectivity to Central Asia. 

As the Trump administration grapples with how best to confront Iran, its efforts remain centered on sporadic military action and the promise of aggressive economic sanctions. Meanwhile, inside the country, a human rights crisis is escalating—one that Washington is uniquely positioned to help counter.

Earlier this month, Chinese President Xi Jinping made a very public state visit to Egypt. Officially, the three-day trip, the first of its kind by a Chinese leader in at least a decade, was intended to commemorate 70 years of bilateral ties between Cairo and Beijing.

On Oct. 1, a new mobilization law will take effect in China — one that puts Xi Jinping’s stamp on mounting war preparations.

"President Putin, thank you so much for having us,” U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff gushed recently in Moscow, where he and fellow U.S. Special Envoy Jared Kushner sought to coax Putin into making peace with Ukraine by offering more economic cooperation and the lifting of sanctions. “When we retire,” Witkoff added, “we’ll have all these incredible stories and memories, and yours will be right at the top of it all.”

On February 24 Vladimir Putin began the fifth year of his disastrous war against Ukraine. It has sacrificed a million men killed or wounded in order to gain a fragile hold on only a fifth of Ukraine’s territory.

When the Trump administration launched Operation Epic Fury back in late February, its expectation was that the fight against Iran would be quick and decisive.

In recent weeks, authorities in Tehran have stepped up the execution of political opponents, deepened the persecution of religious minorities and imbued the country’s domestic repression apparatus with new authority and freedom.

Falling launch costs, private investment, and advances in orbital power are turning space-based solar power from a distant concept into an emerging industry.

A year ago this month, President Trump launched the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, TRIPP for short, in partnership with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Israel’s political exhaustion and total war mindset are convincing many Israelis that their future lies elsewhere.

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