Friday’s Alaska summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin is not shaping up well for Ukraine. Every indication is that Trump believes he and his (once again) good friend Putin will conjure some land swaps and bring peace. Of course, the land in question will be bits and pieces of Ukraine’s territory, not Russia’s, with Moscow probably […]
READ MORE.ALTHOUGH LONG a factor in American strategic thinking, the Arctic now receives far more attention in Washington than in decades. Several forces are at play: increased use of Arctic maritime passages for military and commercial purposes; Russia’s historical focus on its northern territories, now magnified by its aggression against Ukraine; and, most salient geopolitically, China’s […]
READ MORE.As Donald Trump’s tariffs begin to bite more widely, considerable amounts of hard data on their actual consequences will soon arrive. Of course, the rationale for many of Trump’s tariffs remains opaque, and, despite the August 1 “deadline,” negotiations continue with several important trading partners. The tariffs’ economic impact continues to emerge, but their international […]
READ MORE.Last Thursday, America’s ambassador to Turkey was saying that sought “de-escalation and dialogue(https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/syrian-israeli-officials-discuss-de-escalation-paris-meeting-us-envoy-says-2025-07-24/)” in Syria’s ongoing conflict. On Friday, US special forces struck(https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/25/us/politics/us-raid-syria-isis.html) deep into Syria, near Aleppo, killing a senior ISIS leader. This vivid contrast exemplifies just how complicated Syria’s future is, and how high the regional and global stakes are. And, since Israel […]
READ MORE.At the June Group of Seven meeting in Canada, Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, answered a reporter’s question about Israel’s attacks on Iran that were then taking place: “This is the dirty work that Israel is doing for all of us.” He added to the German journalist, “We are also affected by this regime. This mullah […]
READ MORE.Bibi Netanyahu’s Oval Office meeting with Donald Trump on Monday could be a game-changer. They will undoubtedly focus on Iran, Gaza, and Syria’s new regime among other subjects. But how close are the two leaders’ positions, and can their differences be reconciled? Both will declare the meeting “successful,” but the reality may be quite different. […]
READ MORE.Satisfaction and frustration most accurately capture what should be America’s reaction to last month’s Israeli-U.S. military strikes on Iran. Satisfaction because the raids, particularly against the nuclear-weapons program, may have achieved what decades of illusion, naïveté, misguided diplomacy and inadequate economic sanctions failed to achieve, and frustration because the strikes were terminated early and unnecessarily. […]
READ MORE.Iran’s war against Israel took another turn for the worse last week as Operation Rising Lion struck Tehran’s nuclear-weapons program, air defenses and military leadership. Iran’s retaliation has so far been uneven and ineffective. Contrary to the scaremongers, World War III hasn’t broken out, nor will it. But what next? The 1979 Islamic Revolution retains […]
READ MORE.Donald Trump was widely seen in his first term as a knee-jerk defender of Israel. Not so now. Whether and how far Washington splits from Jerusalem, especially on Iran’s nuclear-weapons program, has enormous security implications for America, Israel, and the wider Middle East. For Trump, personal relationships with foreign heads of government equate to the […]
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Donald Trump’s remarks on the Gaza Strip after his February 4 meeting with Israeli Prime Minster Bibi Netanyahu precipitated enormous controversy and confusion. They were not idle musings, but written in advance. Typically, Trump wandered off-script, speculating about using US military force in Gaza, which White House handlers walked back the next day. Trump himself […]
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