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.

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

And so African countries are now leaning toward the “electro-state” development model advanced by China, in which abundant, low-cost electricity from renewables underpins industrialization and ...

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, ...

For millions of people, the images seemed to herald the arrival of a new age. To understand why those images mattered, it is necessary to remember how threatening Iraq seemed before the war began.

When hostile central governments threaten cities directly, municipal leaders can contest the worst overreaches. Mayors can use municipal resources to restrict or defy the predatory actions of a ...

Since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to office, no state has been too small to find itself in his crosshairs. In his inaugural address in January 2025, Trump pledged to take back the Panama ...

China’s domestic economic slowdown is the primary driver of its export strength, because weak domestic demand in China means that excess production is exported at lower prices. Even using Beijing’s ...