At the end of June, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave an interview in which he declared, once again, that Russia would win its war against Ukraine. The Russian army, he said, was advancing along ...

In some cases, ambiguity can help countries settle wars. Leaders, for example, can leverage uncertainty to de-escalate a conflict or reach a stable peace agreement by letting both sides claim victory.

After the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, there were wide expectations that the market would respond negatively to his unexpected victory. And yet stock markets rose globally and remain up ...

Although Han Chinese make up more than 90 percent of the country’s population, China’s constitution and subsequent laws grant minority nationalities autonomy in specific regions and promise them ...

Yet overall, the Middle East emerging out of this upheaval looks a lot like the one that existed before it. Outsiders continue to play their balance-of-power games within the borders of weak Arab ...

For centuries, the conduct of international relations “was left to the foreign offices of the world,” former U.S. Secretary of State Elihu Root wrote in the first issue of Foreign Affairs in September ...

In April 2025, Chinese coast guard personnel stepped onto Sandy Cay, an uninhabited sandbar in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, and unfurled the Chinese flag. In much of the world, this act ...

The clean energy transition has entered a new phase. Ambitious net-zero emission pledges made over the past decade have fallen glaringly short of their goals. But the rise of artificial ...

Browse all articles written by Jonathan Panikoff for Foreign Affairs.

The Chinese navy, too, maintained at least 190 vessels operating around the island monthly. After a brief and unexplained drop in early 2026, air and naval activities have been escalating again. And ...

Browse all articles written by Andrei Kolesnikov for Foreign Affairs.

With the prospects for diplomacy between the United States and Iran uncertain, it may seem premature to contemplate the postwar future. After all, following the June 17 memorandum of understanding, ...