Geopolitics

Jay Clayton, nominated to lead US intelligence, spent his confirmation hearing refusing to answer a simple factual question: who won the 2020 presidential election. In his Senate confirmation hearing for Director of National Intelligence on July 15, Jay Clayton, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, repeatedly declined to say that Joe […]

Russia is running out of fuel. Ukrainian drone strikes have hit every major refinery in the country. Gas stations across nearly all 83 federal regions are rationing, running dry, or closing. The war Moscow started has reached Russian drivers queuing for hours with empty tanks. This is the story of how Ukraine’s “kinetic sanctions”, the […]

The argument against NATO enlargement is stuck in the 1990s. New members are not liabilities that need defending. They are bringing military capability, industrial capacity, and strategic thinking that the alliance desperately needs. The debate over whether to let more countries into NATO has been dominated for years by a single question: does expansion provoke […]

China’s new rules governing artificial intelligence companions take effect Wednesday, pushing the country’s largest tech companies to disable customizable chatbot personas as Beijing moves to rein in an industry that has grown to tens of millions of users. The regulations, published in April by the Cyberspace Administration of China, require AI companion services to regularly […]

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries announced Tuesday that he will oppose an amendment to strip $3.3 billion in annual US military aid to Israel, setting up a clash between Democratic leadership and the party’s progressive wing. The amendment, introduced by Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, would cut Israel’s military funding from a State Department […]

WASHINGTON, Senate Democrats blocked the annual defense spending bill on Tuesday, refusing to advance a $1.15 trillion package that funds the Pentagon in protest of President Donald Trump’s war against Iran. The procedural vote failed 50-46, falling short of the 60-vote threshold needed to proceed. Every Democrat present voted no. Senate Majority Leader John Thune […]

President Donald Trump has threatened to destroy a mysterious underground nuclear facility buried so deep in Iran’s Zagros mountains that even America’s most powerful bunker-buster bombs may not reach it. “We’re going to take out Pickaxe Mountain. Tell the Iranians to be ready,” Trump said in an interview on the Hugh Hewitt Show on Monday. […]

President Donald Trump abandoned his plan to charge a 20 percent fee on cargo ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, reversing himself one day after announcing the measure. The fee was meant to cover what Trump called the cost of protecting the world’s most important oil shipping lane. Instead, he said Gulf nations […]

The European Union wants Americans to know that the money is real, the factories are opening, and the old assumptions no longer apply. In an opinion piece published Tuesday in Defense News, EU Ambassador to the United States Jovita Neliupšienė laid out the case that Europe’s defense build-up is not a temporary surge but a […]

Ukraine has agreed on a roadmap to acquire 16 Rafale fighter jets from France, together with accompanying weapon systems, President Emmanuel Macron announced Monday. Deliveries are expected in 2028 or 2029, with pilot training beginning in the coming months. The agreement was announced at a press conference in Paris, where Macron also confirmed that France […]