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.

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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, ...

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 ...

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.

By most accounts, China has the upper hand in its growing economic confrontation with the United States. In April 2025, after Washington levied heavy tariffs on China, Beijing res ...

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 ...