Geopolitics

The Handshake and the Gap What the latest Xi-Putin summit reveals about a partnership that talks big but delivers little The photographs were perfect. Two leaders in dark suits, shaking hands in the Great Hall of the People. Xi Jinping smiling. Vladimir Putin smiling back. A photo exhibition of the “everlasting friendship” between their two […]

Partners, Not Protectorates: Hegseth Tells Asia to Pay Up SINGAPORE — The ballroom of the Shangri-La Hotel was full of uniforms. Generals, admirals, defence ministers from forty-seven countries. On the stage stood Pete Hegseth, America’s Secretary of War. He had come to deliver a message that sounded like reassurance but felt like a bill. “America […]

The Return to Beaufort: Israel Captures the Crusader Castle in Its Deepest Lebanon Incursion in 26 Years Beaufort Castle, Southern Lebanon — On Sunday, Israeli forces captured the 900-year-old Beaufort Castle, a Crusader fortress perched on a rocky spur 717 meters above the Litani River valley. The last time Israel held this ridge was the […]

The Hole in the Roof: A Russian Drone Hits Romania and NATO Faces a Question It Has Been Avoiding GALAȚI, Romania — There is a hole in the roof of a ten-storey apartment block in the Stirex-Mazepa neighborhood. The hole is about a metre wide. Around it, the brickwork is charred. Blue plastic sheeting now […]

Buried in the Defense Bill: Congress Quietly Moves to Fuse the US and Israeli Militaries Section 224 of the 2027 NDAA would weave Israeli defense priorities into American national security policy — permanently, and with minimal oversight. The 2027 National Defense Authorization Act runs to thousands of pages. Most members of Congress will not read […]

Iran Restores Gas Production at South Pars — A Wartime Comeback With Limits Three offshore platforms are back online at the world’s largest gas field, but the blockade on Iranian ports means energy recovery remains partial. On Sunday, the head of the Pars Oil and Gas Company, Touraj Dehqani, told Iran’s IRNA news agency that […]

Beijing, May 20 — Vladimir Putin arrived in Beijing last week with a problem. Just five days earlier, Donald Trump had been sitting in the same Great Hall of the People, eating at the same table, declaring a new era of “strategic stability” with Xi Jinping. Now Putin had to pretend this did not bother […]

TEL AVIV — They are men dragged from their homes. Doctors arrested at hospital gates. Teachers taken while fleeing through humanitarian corridors with their children. Journalists who reported on a war that is now consuming them. Every single one is being held in an Israeli prison without being told what they are accused of. The […]

WASHINGTON/TEHRAN — Tehran and Washington are not close to a deal. The ceasefire is a pause, not a peace. And the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow throat through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes — is now a weapon both sides are holding. What Happened On Friday, Donald Trump met his top […]

SINGAPORE — The ballroom of the Shangri-La Hotel is not a place where people speak plainly. It is where defence ministers and generals meet to say threatening things in careful language, so that nobody has to admit they are talking about war. But this year, the polite fiction frayed. Japan stood at the podium and […]