Foreign Policy
August 2026
Beijing and Washington Can Build AI Safety Despite Mutual Distrust
U.S.-Iran Fighting Reignites
Iranian military hovercrafts take part in naval maneuvers on the Iranian island of Larak
A large amount of debris has been deposited, and that is posing us a big challenge to open the tunnels,
The state of neither war nor peace cannot be a sustainable solution,
This dangerous escalation constitutes a blatant violation of the UAE’s sovereignty, security, and stability, and a direct threat to the safety of its citizens and residents,
Jordan Sees Bigger Threat From Israel Than Iran
It’s Time to Rein in Trump’s ‘Wars on Terror’
Early September marks the anniversary of two “wars”—one an actual armed conflict with a real, albeit stretched and abused legal framework, the other a completely counterfeit enterprise from the get-go
China Is Trying to Make AI Work for Health Care
Trump Has Peaked
Ice, Ice, Baby.”
This is not our war,
Iceland’s EU Ambitions
This is very difficult to comprehend,
The international system we have lived with since the end of World War II is shaking,
Why Are Yields on U.S. Treasury Bonds Rising?
The fluctuations could have huge impacts on the U.S. and global economy
Yes, We’re in an AI Bubble. Just Look to 1980s Japan.
When the artificial intelligence sector’s overwhelmingly dominant chipmaker, Nvidia, announced quarterly results this week, many took this as a reason for confidence in the economic future of AI
The company makes its own best products obsolete on purpose. It ships a new chip architecture almost every year. Each replacement is so good that people fight to buy it at a higher price.”
What in the World?
Why America Is Running Out of Munitions
Russia and North Korea Are Scrambling Trump’s Alliance Strategy
He is also a nonresident Kelly fellow at Pacific Forum
Japan’s Narrowing Path to Permanent Residency
As Japan takes a harder line on immigration, its nearly 2.6 million foreign workers are caught in a puzzling bind—desperately in demand yet steadily pushed away
Facilities are so happy to have them,
Japanese businesses need to have the mindset, resources, and manuals to create an environment that accepts foreign workers,
Concerns voiced in regional areas are suggesting the situation is becoming critical,
There’s a much higher hurdle for recruiting foreign workers in rural areas,
We’ve seen thousands of foreigners quit because of poor conditions,
We are seeing steady growth in our recruitment and placement of foreign staff, well above the Japanese staff,
There are now more risks for foreign workers around prejudice, especially care workers, who have to interact with patients in person,
More and more companies in the Japanese countryside are realizing they need to think strategically about how to encourage young people from other countries to be a part of the local community,
The SCO’s Diminishing Usefulness for India
Much like BRICS, the China-dominated Shanghai Cooperation Organisation offers few benefits to New Delhi
Settler Violence Is Consuming the West Bank
An Israeli settler is seen attacking a left-wing activist in the West Bank
Kim’s longer-term diplomatic strategy is to just wait out countries until they come to the realization that we have to live with a nuclear North Korea,
We are in regular dialogue with partners about improving stability and security in the West Bank,... We condemn criminal violence by any party in the West Bank.”
Death Toll Rises in Nepal-Tibet Flash Flood
Rescuers are racing to find survivors before more potential flooding occurs
What I want to look at is whether the relevant bill that got passed meets the needs of the nation, and whether it meets the various needs for our defense self-reliance and for developing the entire drone and unmanned vehicle industry,
The U.K. is behind you today and for as long as it takes,
China’s Success Is Forcing a U.S. AI Rethink
Five people sit in folding chairs pushed up against a wall, all of them on their phones and several looking board
Why North Korea Doesn’t Want to Meet With Trump
Hey, listen, in times of trouble I need to have somebody to reach out to, and I do now. And we’ve advanced the relationship, and we’ve agreed to work on this moving forward.”
If the U.S. side attempts to promote the measures they have taken this time as some kind of ‘goodwill gesture,’ they will not get the answer they desire,
You have to accept us on our terms; we’re a nuclear power, we are no longer interested in talking about denuclearization
Don’t Freak Out Over the Pentagon’s Europe Plans
The U.S. military is considering what units to cut and what to keep in Europe as part of the Trump administration’s rethink of force posture on the continent
These reviews are always a lot of hype, and then the changes are always less than what we expect,
I think the scope of things that are likely to change in the near term, realistically, is probably pretty small,
I think in the naval domain, you’re unlikely to see any major changes,
You may have a different political party assuming the presidency in 2028, so you want to cement as many gains as you can to make it very difficult to undo,
A Cabinet Full of Roy Cohns
Today, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the darker qualities of leadership—rather than the nobler—are gaining the upper hand in far too many places,
Singed by his experience with staff he saw as ‘traitors’ in his first term, Trump harbored a suspicion and paranoia that could be set off by the flimsiest of accusations,
While there was fear during the McCarthy era, it wasn’t the deep existential sense of fear and a ‘longing for the past’ that followed the Obama presidency and set the stage for a significant backlash,
To Trump, this was unforgivable,
Trump would soon fill the senior ranks of the Justice Department with his most devoted loyalists—shattering the department’s post-Watergate history of independence and effectively turning the DoJ leadership into his personal law firm,
Roy’s story really suggests that Trump is not an aberration,
Not unlike the bedrock supporters of Donald Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) movement decades later, McCarthy’s constituency included Midwestern, agrarian populists, who often harbored suspicions against urban sophisticates, college professors, pin-striped diplomats, Jews, immigrants, and Blacks—anyone who might be labeled ‘the other.’ Their instincts were isolationist and nativist,
The President’s true goal was to drag into court the New York attorney general who had won a nearly half-billion-dollar civil fraud judgment against him,
Where’s my Roy Cohn?”
Roy Cohn not only mentored Donald Trump, but in many ways Roy Cohn was Donald Trump,
Trump’s Missile Math Problem
Turkey’s Rise Is Israel’s New Problem
The Middle East’s newest rivals in the Levant region are Washington’s two key allies there
Turkey is poised to be a Sunni power in the region,
Jerusalem is trying to convince Washington that the tensions between Israel and Turkey are not merely rhetorical and that, if left unmanaged, they could escalate into an unwanted military confrontation,
Erdogan is very close to the Muslim Brotherhood,
No actor other than the nation itself can dictate Turkey’s course or set the boundaries of its foreign policy,
We cannot allow Turkey to deploy troops on our borders,
Whether it is Erdogan or another liberal leader, Turkish policy for the region would be exactly the same—expanding influence,
Trump wants deals—not democracy—in Syria,
The Geopolitics Behind Rising U.S. Bond Yields
This summer’s rising global bond yields reflect investor concerns across advanced economies over ballooning government debts, persistent inflation, and shrinking central bank balance sheets
The ‘Stability-Instability Paradox’ Comes for Markets
The impasse in U.S. President Donald Trump’s war against Iran has now lasted for so long that even jokes about Groundhog Day have grown stale
Iran, Oman Agree to Temporary Strait of Hormuz Deal
Several ships are anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Bandar Abbas, Iran
The U.S. is obstructing this process, causing progress to be delayed,
They provided a shield for this criminal act,
When a bully declares that every bank, company, port, and government must choose between obeying Washington’s whims or facing American vengeance, this is no longer just about Iran,
A tragedy involving children is an irreparable loss,
You can’t hold a gun while you play the air guitar,
Administrative failure and regulatory oversight lapses have turned these institutions into danger zones,
Taking the law into one’s own hands, particularly by public figures, is unacceptable,
There was no rain in Nepal, so we were not expecting anything like this,