By far the greatest issue of concern for most Central Asians as they react to the ongoing Iran crisis is stability. They recognize that they live in an unstable neighborhood, sandwiched as they are between Russia and China, with Turkey, Pakistan, and Afghanistan also looming large. Iran was an important provider of agricultural goods and […]

As an international megaproject, AI is achieving what decades of diplomacy could not. In the United States and many other countries today, AI is developing a bad rap. Propagandists are using the technology to flood the information commons, while autocrats supercharge state surveillance. A mounting obsession with digital sovereignty risks further fragmenting the internet into […]

On his eightieth birthday, President Donald Trump announced what many in Washington, Jerusalem, Abu Dhabi, Manama, and beyond had been waiting to hear: the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran had reached a framework aimed at ending a dangerous war, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and beginning a new round of negotiations over […]

In contemporary studies of international relations, the cultural background of foreign policy has become a central analytical tool for understanding how nations and non-state actors behave on the global stage. Scholars such as Alexander Wendt, Peter Katzenstein, and Benedict Anderson have demonstrated that states do not act solely according to material interests; rather, their foreign […]

Artificial Intelligence is not merely the latest sector of industrial advancement. It is the architect of a new global paradigm — rapidly becoming the operating system of economy, politics, governance, and military force. The historical trajectory of human progress has always been dictated by the relationship between the tools of production and the structures of governance. The […]

Even after “Operation Roaring Lion” and America’s “Operation Epic Fury,” Israel’s presumptive nuclear weapons remain essential for deterrence of nuclear threats. There are also foreseeable circumstances in which these weapons could deter certain non-nuclear threats. Most plausible, in this connection, would be circumstances in which the enemy threats referenced large-scale conventional attacks (whether first-strike attacks […]

The new Hungarian Tisza government promises to adhere to the strict immigration policies of recent years. But what does the European Union have to say, since it imposed a heavy fine on Hungary for precisely those policies? And what can foreign workers expect, given that – according to preliminary statements – the new administration would […]

Knowledge is a power tool. It is arguably the most potent one in the human toolbox. As a global knowledge-leader, America’s knowledge ecosystem has allowed the United States to dominate world affairs for the past 80 years, but today our knowledge ecosystem is at risk, threatened by foreign adversaries as well as by domestic challengers. […]

Former First Lady Jill Biden’s new memoir is called View From the East Wing. Not “a” or “the” view (which, in any case, no longer exists, at least for now, as President Trump has demolished the East Wing as part of his mission to construct an opulent ballroom). Instead, the blandly noncommittal wording makes it […]

For years, the dominant geopolitical language surrounding the Middle East revolved around multipolarity. China rising. Russia returning. America declining. The end of the unipolar world. BRICS, resistance blocs, parallel systems, Eurasian realignment. But reality inside the region is moving in another direction entirely. The Middle East is not entering a multipolar age. It is entering […]

In May, The New York Times reported that Iran’s former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had allegedly been recruited by the United States and Israel to assume power if the Iranian regime was toppled. Ahmadinejad has long had a troubled relationship with the Iranian establishment. He publicly accused senior regime figures of corruption, was later barred from […]

Suddenly, it seems, the Abraham Accords are back on the agenda. Three years ago, hopes for a further expansion of the Middle Eastern political normalization wave unleashed by the Trump administration during its first term in office were still running high. Back then, numerous states – most conspicuously Saudi Arabia – seemed to be mere […]