How Hezbollah Stands to Benefit From an Israeli Invasion

Anchal Vohra

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As Israel moves to occupy parts of southern Lebanon, Hezbollah appears to be calculating that a war of attrition would play to its strengths as a guerrilla group, allowing it to reprise its tactics from a previous occupation and force an Israeli retreat.

The group is facing a broad backlash across the country for plunging Lebanon into another conflict by launching rockets at Israel on March 2, two days after Israel assassinated Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Tehran. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has complained that Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel were meant to avenge the Iranian leadership and had “nothing to do with” Lebanon.

The Afghanistan–Pakistan War Poses Awkward Questions for Russia

Ruslan Suleymanov

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The latest fighting between Afghanistan and Pakistan may have been overshadowed by the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, but for the Kremlin, the conflict poses a challenge. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan are important Russian partners, and each subsequent military escalation weakens regional security and undermines the concept of the Global South that has been heavily promoted by Moscow. Despite claims by Russian officials that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS group of developing nations could form the basis for a new world order, the practical help these groups can offer in conflict situations has been shown—yet again—to be limited.

The Afghanistan-Pakistan confrontation began on February 26, two days before the start of the war in the Middle East. While the fighting has received little attention, hundreds have been killed on both sides. After an eleven-day ceasefire for Eid al-Fitr, hostilities resumed on March 29, and further escalation is possible at any moment.

Some Countries Are Better Prepared for an Energy Crisis This Time

Noah Gordon

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With the Strait of Hormuz still effectively closed, the world faces a severe economic crisis. One-fifth of global trade of oil and natural gas is blocked in. Prices and borrowing costs are rising in the United States, while countries across Eurasia are cutting fuel consumption by decree: Egypt is closing restaurants early, the Philippines is closing public offices on Fridays, and Bangladesh is closing its universities altogether. Europe fears it must ground planes for lack of fuel, while South Koreans are hoarding plastic bags. Their president, Lee Jae Myung, said he “can’t sleep at night.”

This energy supply shock, with 11 million barrels a day missing from markets, is the inverse of the COVID-19 demand shock, when oil demand fell by 9 million barrels a day in the lockdown-marred year of 2020. At nearly $120/barrel, oil prices are reaching the heights of the last major energy shock in 2022.

In Its Iran War Debate, Washington Has Lost the Plot in Asia

Evan A. Feigenbaum

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As the United States wages war with Iran, much of Washington has been consumed with a geopolitical debate about what it will mean for America’s strategic competition with China. But this abstract debate belies the harsh realities now facing governments, firms, and people across Asia—the very region that Washington’s strategic class views as the cockpit of competition with Beijing.

The war threatens budgets, welfare programs, and ordinary livelihoods in Asia, a deeper and potentially existential set of challenges that seem sure to influence perceptions of whether and how American goals and interests intersect in the real world with the region’s priorities and its people’s daily realities.

More Than ‘Boots on the Ground’: Pentagon Wants Bunkers for the Middle East

Peter Suciu

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The Pentagon has solicited proposals for prefabricated bunkers to be delivered to its bases in the Middle East, hinting at preparations for a longer-term conflict. As the United States military begins to mass ground troops for a potential invasion of Iran, including its Kharg Island, there are signs the Pentagon could expect to see personnel deployed to the region for far longer than the weeks that President Donald Trump has so far indicated.

Last week, the Department of Defense (DoD) issued a federal contract notice seeking private contractors to provide “prefabricated, transportable, hardened shelter systems designed to protect personnel from blast and fragmentation threats.” “All proposed solutions must be deliverable to the Aqaba Air Cargo Terminal at King Hussein International Airport in Aqaba, Jordan,” the request read. It requested that potential vendors submit delivery options with timelines for three days, 15 days, and 30 days, as well as the highest level of protection the bunker could provide.

Kharg Island: Iran’s Oil Lifeline and a Tempting U.S. Target

Will Merrow

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The United States carried out a large bombing raid of the island on March 13, hitting more than ninety Iranian military targets, including missile and naval mine storage facilities. U.S. President Donald Trump said on social media that the attack “obliterated” every military target on the island but he chose not to “wipe out” oil infrastructure there. However, he warned he would “immediately reconsider” that decision if Iran continues to disrupt global shipping in the Strait of Hormuz—the choke point for nearly one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas supply.

Trump has indicated that his administration is considering seizing the island, telling the Financial Times on March 29 that “Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t. We have a lot of options.” While the United States has been ramping up its military presence in the Middle East, experts say an attack or invasion of Kharg Island could further drive up global oil prices by curbing Iran’s oil exports, provoke retaliation, and endanger the lives of U.S. military personnel who could be deployed to the island.

Can Middle Powers Gel?

Sarang Shidore

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Middle powers are having a moment. But that moment has been long arriving. The decline of unipolarity—with its roots in the 2008 global financial crisis and the disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003—led to a world of three great powers: not only the United States but also China and, to a lesser extent, Russia. The latter two are working increasingly in tandem. Moreover, a set of rising nations in the global south also contributed to the waning of Washington’s hegemony.

Conditions are favorable for the emergence of a third force in international politics: middle powers. These major regional players—including Brazil, France, India, and South Korea—possess material capabilities in their region (GDP, defense spending, etc.) and enjoy appreciable global influence. They also now sense an opportunity. The past few years have provided still more fodder for their collaboration. First, Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, igniting the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II—and then, amid Kyiv’s long, grinding war with Moscow, the Trump administration pulled back on its financial support, further unnerving Europe. Second, Washington’s brazen territorial claims on Canada and Greenland shocked its NATO allies. Meanwhile in Asia, China stepped up harassment of Philippine craft in pursuing its illegal claims in the South China Sea and gradually enhanced its military shows of force around Taiwan in the context of a growing U.S. military footprint in the region.

Putin’s Moves Against Internet Alienate Russians

Paul Goble

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has been making moves against Telegram channels and restricting the Internet in recent months, especially in the last few weeks (see EDM, March 19; Important Stories, March 30). These moves have alienated many Russians and angered regime allies in business and government who depend on the web and who—in a sign of opposition—have not come to the defense of these Kremlin policies (Kommersant, March 11; Telegram/@agentstvonews, March 23; Verstka, March 27; Russian Field, accessed April 2). A new poll confirms that Russians are overwhelmingly opposed to many of the steps Putin has already taken (Novaya Gazeta, April 1. 

In addition and likely even more important, many in the Kremlin appear to recognize that moves against the Internet are increasingly undercutting the Kremlin leader’s own goals both in the short term regarding prosecuting the war against Ukraine and in longer term regarding ensuring that his regime can continue to reach the population via the media and boosting the birthrate (Novaya Gazeta, March 20; Yesli Byt’ Tochnym, March 19; Noviye Izvestiya, March 30, 2026). So far, this alienation and anger have not led to massive protests. When these have been attempted, the regime has responded harshly (7x7 Gorizontal’naya Rossiya; Agenstvo; Radio Svoboda, March 30). 

The Houthi Threat: Is Trump Underestimating One of Iran’s Key Remaining Cards?

Will Todman

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On April 1, President Trump announced that the United States’ strategic objectives in the war with Iran were “nearing completion.” He threatened to send Iran “back to the stone ages” if it did not make a deal within three weeks, and said “we have all the cards, they have none.”

Yet, Iran does have other cards to play. A few days before President Trump’s address, the Houthis entered the fray in the Middle East. After months of signaling their readiness to escalate, they launched missiles toward Israel. Iranian officials had warned that their Yemeni proxies would be activated if the United States and Israel escalated further or if Arab Gulf states entered the war. But despite these threats and the Houthis’ past willingness to target international shipping, they have not attacked maritime traffic through Bab al-Mandab so far this year.

Who Is Winning the Iran War?

Daniel Byman

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It is difficult to tell which side is winning in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran because the objectives and strategies for victory of the combatants are so different. This is even further complicated by the fact that, for the United States, many of the highest costs of the war lie outside the theater of conflict and involve the economic costs to U.S. allies and the diplomatic damage to the United States.

President Donald Trump and his advisers have laid out multiple goals for the United States, some quite limited and others expansive. These include ending Iran’s nuclear program, degrading its missile capabilities and conventional military stocks, stopping Tehran’s support for Hezbollah, Hamas, and other proxy forces, and, most ambitiously, regime change in Tehran. To achieve these goals, the United States and Israel have killed Iranian leaders and bombed Iran’s military forces and infrastructure.

The Best- and Worst-Case Scenarios of Iran’s Strait of Hormuz Closure

Milton Ezrati

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The war in the Persian Gulf—whether one supports the effort or not—presents all sorts of frightening prospects. News of negotiations briefly offers hope of an end to destruction and a clear path forward, while denials that talks have begun dash those hopes. As long as the fighting continues, it is hard to see an end to the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, much less allow an assessment of the conditions that might ultimately impinge on shipping there. Possibilities—good, bad, and ambiguous—seem endless.

For business and the economy, however, some things are certain. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has, for the time being, denied the world some 20 percent of its seaborne oil and natural gas supplies. That includes every bit of Iran’s production, just about all of it going to China, but also much Saudi, Kuwaiti, Qatari, and Emirati oil and gas, most of it going to Europe, Japan, and elsewhere in Asia. The other stark fact is how oil and natural gas prices have soared. The price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) has risen over 60 percent from $62 in mid-February to just over $100 at the time of writing. Bent crude has seen its price rise by a comparable percentage, approaching $110 a barrel.

Illusory Security: Lessons from Historical Settlements for the Ukraine War

Murad Fataliyev

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The Ukraine war poses a formidable challenge for diplomats and conflict-resolution experts: both parties maintain demands that are difficult to reconcile, and the trade-offs are so substantial that neither side is inclined to yield. After the Alaska and Washington meetings, however, the central item on the peace agenda has become security guarantees for Ukraine; provisions that, in theory, could satisfy the principal stakeholders and support durable regional peace.

The media is not talking too much about security guarantees for Russia, which is understandable since Moscow is the aggressor and proposing protections for the invader can sound counterintuitive. However, it is worth remembering that the Russian narrative frames the war as a response to perceived threats from the West toward Moscow’s security. Thus, what is required is a creative security architecture that not only terminates the current conflict but also removes incentives for future disputes by credibly satisfying both parties’ core security demands.

The U.S. Already Won Operation Epic Fury — The Question Is Whether It’s Smart Enough To End the Iran War

Harrison Kass

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The U.S. Can Destroy Targets in Iran All Day — It Can’t Control the Strait of Hormuz Is America getting ready to quit the Iran War and not end up controlling the Strait of Hormuz? Doing so would indicate a major shift in U.S. priorities. In fact, leaving the conflict without full strategic control would raise questions about the basic merits of Operation Epic Fury.

But if the war’s primary objectives were always limited, then staying longer for the sake of objectives not listed in the administration’s initial list could create more strategic risks than potential benefits.

What Epic Fury Achieved

The United States has degraded Iranian military infrastructure, hitting naval assets, missile sites, and command nodes. In tactical terms, the United States has already won by limiting Iran’s ability to project power in conventional terms.

Power, Not Law? Venezuela as a Breach of Jus ad Bellum and State Sovereignty

Baya Amouri

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On 3 January 2026, a military operation was executed on the sovereign territory of Venezuela, culminating in the apprehension and coercive transfer of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to the United States. There, he was presented before federal judicial authorities to answer criminal charges. While publicly characterized as a law-enforcement action directed at alleged transnational criminal activity, this intervention, from the standpoint of international law, prima facie constitutes an unlawful recourse to force and a manifest violation of the principle of state sovereignty foundational to the Charter of the United Nations.

This analysis asserts that the operation, conducted without territorial consent, Security Council authorisation, or a circumstance precluding wrongfulness, constitutes an unlawful act of aggression. More critically, it signals a dangerous regression from a rule-based order to a system where powerful states unilaterally enforce their domestic law abroad. The precedent threatens to unravel the core architecture of the United Nations Charter (UN Charter), substituting multilateral legal process with power-based coercion and thereby undermining the very foundations of international peace and security.

A Year After ‘Liberation Day,’ Experts Review the Costs of Trump’s Tariffs

Inu Manak

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President Donald Trump declared a national emergency on foreign trade on April 2, 2025. Calling it “Liberation Day,” he announced unprecedented tariff rates for every U.S. trading partner at a level not seen since 1909. The ultimate goal was to reduce the U.S. trade deficit by forcing countries to the negotiating table.

But the Trump administration has sealed an underwhelming amount of trade deals in the ensuing year, and Americans have often borne the knock-on effects. Although the U.S. Supreme Court struck down some of Trump’s tariffs in late February, it appears that the White House is gearing up to get their tariff agenda back on track by other means. Five CFR experts break down how Trump’s tariff agenda has increased geopolitical and economic uncertainty over the past year and what implications it has for Americans.

Analysis: Iran likely transferred highly enriched uranium to Isfahan before the June strikes

François Diaz-Maurin

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Working with a team of visual investigators that included the Bulletin, the French newspaper Le Monde has analyzed a previously unreported satellite image of the Iranian nuclear site at Isfahan, showing a large truck loaded with containers. In a Le Monde article published Saturday, experts said they could not be certain what the containers held. But the timing of the image, the type of load, and other indirect evidence suggest that Iran may have placed a significant quantity of highly enriched uranium—possibly all of its inventory—at the facility ahead of the June 2025 strikes by Israel and the United States against Iranian nuclear sites.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has mentioned the possible presence of highly enriched uranium at the Isfahan nuclear complex several times—a presence implicitly acknowledged by Iran’s own recent declarations. The IAEA has made multiple requests but was unable to access the underground tunnel complex at Isfahan, which was spared during Israeli and American military strikes in June. The satellite image could be the first publicly available evidence of the presence of highly enriched uranium at Isfahan.

The Shocking Speed of China’s Scientific Rise When will Chinese research pull ahead of the U.S.’s?

Ross Andersen

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If China finally eclipses the United States as the world’s preeminent scientific superpower, there won’t be an official announcement. Neither will there necessarily be a dramatic Promethean demonstration, a bomb flash in the desert, a satellite beeping overhead, a moon landing. It will be a quiet moment, observed by a small, specialized subset of scientists who have forsaken the study of the stars, animals, and plants in favor of a more navel-gazing subject: the practice of science itself.

This moment may now be at hand. American science has been the envy of the planet since the Second World War at least, but it has recently gone into decline. After President Trump took office last year, his administration started vandalizing the country’s scientific institutions, suspending research grants in bulk and putting entire lines of cutting-edge research on ice. In August, Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services canceled $500 million in mRNA-vaccine research, less than two years after Americans won a Nobel Prize for pioneering that technology. More than 10,000 science Ph.D.s have left the federal workforce, according to one group’s estimate, and the White House has been withholding money from frontline researchers in computer science, biomedicine, and hundreds of other fields that will define the human future. As one historian of science put it to me in July, “This is an unparalleled destruction from within.”

Wars Fought for Fun Cannot Be Won

TIMOTHY SNYDER

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Many commentators have tried to divine a policy justification for the US war in Iran. But the simple explanation is that US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of “War” (Defense) Pete Hegseth attacked the Islamic Republic because they could, and because they take pleasure in killing or dominating other people.

TORONTO – Setting aside the moral, legal, and political arguments against the United States attacking Iran, US President Donald Trump’s latest war cannot be won for a more fundamental reason: it is based on whim.

Iran Threatens to Start Attacking Major US Tech Firms on April 1

Dell Cameron, Louise Matsakis

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Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned Tuesday that it plans to begin attacking more than a dozen American companies across the Middle East on Wednesday in retaliation for the killing of Iranian citizens in the ongoing war with the US and Israel. The list of companies includes Apple, Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Tesla, and Boeing, which the IRGC accused of enabling United States military targeting operations. The IRGC urged employees of the US firms to evacuate and civilians in the region to stay away.

Tuesday's warning, posted to the IRGC's Telegram channel, extends a campaign of threats by Iran against American commercial infrastructure since the US and Israel launched their first attack on Tehran on February 28. Iranian drones struck two Amazon Web Services data centers and damaged another in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain on March 1, in the first publicly confirmed attack on American-owned hyperscale cloud infrastructure. Banking sites, payment processors, and consumer services across the region crashed as redundancies meant to prevent outages were taken offline.

The US Military’s GPS Software Is an $8 Billion Mess

Stephen Clark

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Last year, just before the Fourth of July holiday, the US Space Force officially took ownership of a new operating system for the GPS navigation network, raising hopes that one of the military’s most troubled space programs might finally bear fruit.

The GPS Next-Generation Operational Control System, or OCX, is designed for command and control of the military’s constellation of more than 30 GPS satellites. It consists of software to handle new signals and jam-resistant capabilities of the latest generation of GPS satellites, GPS III, which started launching in 2018. The ground segment also includes two master control stations and upgrades to ground monitoring stations around the world, among other hardware elements.

What do Trump's latest comments on leaving Nato mean for the alliance?

Lyse Douce

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Of all the warnings in President Trump's arsenal, quitting the Nato military alliance is among those he's wielded the most.

Now he's doing it again.

Asked by Britain's Telegraph newspaper if he is reconsidering US membership of Nato, he said: "Oh yes… I would say [it's] beyond reconsideration" – fuming again that his partners weren't joining America's military operations, alongside Israel, against Iran.

"I just think it should be automatic," he emphasised in his remarks to the paper.

Trump's invective underlines again his misunderstanding of how this 32-member alliance works.

Nato's Article 5 does commit it to collective defence. An attack against one member is deemed to be an attack against all but invoking this principle requires a consensus. And the 1949 treaty only referred to crises in Europe and North America.

Eisenhower’s lessons in alliance management

Mary S. Barton and James Graham Wilson

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In October 1958, the British Chiefs of Staff proposed to hold inter-service exercises to identify vulnerabilities in the defence of the British Commonwealth. The following year, the Royal Air Force (RAF) sponsored the first of them, ‘Triumvirate’, in 1961, which planned for a hypothetical conflict in the Far East. Because Australia and New Zealand were especially vital to British plans, the UK Chiefs of Staff hoped that the combined services of those countries would send representatives to the top-secret ‘Closed Exercise’.

Defence officials in both Australia and New Zealand expressed doubts. Surely the (uninvited) United States would be ‘a most important, if not a preponderant power in these operations’. Australia’s Ministry of Defence registered concern that the exercise would slow progress on their efforts to establish ‘Four Power Planning’ in the Pacific with the United States – a project Australia and New Zealand called ‘Hydration’.

AI may revive old-school tradecraft even as it transforms intelligence work

DAVID DIMOLFETTA

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Artificial intelligence is widely expected to revolutionize intelligence-gathering, enabling faster, cheaper and more scalable collection of information. But a new analysis suggests the technology may also spur a return to some of espionage’s oldest methods. A recent article in Studies in Intelligence, the CIA-backed academic journal, argues that as AI degrades the reliability of digital communications like text messages and video calls, traditional human intelligence tradecraft — like dead drops, brush passes and in-person meetings — could regain renewed importance.

The same technologies that improve intelligence gathering may make it harder to trust the data those tools produce or transmit, argues the author, Thomas Mulligan, a RAND Corporation researcher who served in the CIA from 2008 to 2014. AI is already being used to generate convincing deepfakes and fabricate messages. Mulligan argues that these introduce a new source of “noise” into digital communications, which makes it harder to distinguish between authentic and synthetic signals.

Trump Has Got Europe All Wrong

Anthony Luzzatto Gardner

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President Donald Trump has long disdained the European Union. In his first term, he frequently railed against the bloc, describing it as a “foe” and “worse than China.” In his second term, Trump’s attitude has morphed into outright hatred. His desire, now, is to fracture the EU: a leaked draft of an earlier version of the 2025 National Security Strategy included the objective of “pulling” certain countries “away” from the bloc. That aim is also evident in Washington’s decision to impose high tariffs on the EU’s exports and in the final version of the National Security Strategy, which suggested that the U.S. government would support far-right, anti-EU parties across the continent.

Trump’s objections to the EU are numerous. In February 2025, he told his cabinet that the EU “was formed in order to screw the United States. That’s the purpose of it, and they’ve done a good job of it. But now I’m president.” He has recently attacked its leaders for their unwillingness to support U.S. military actions against Iran. He believes that the continent’s democratic institutions and Judeo-Christian heritage are being destroyed by its supposedly permissive approach to immigration. He views its trade and technology policy as unfair, and, fundamentally, he seems to regard the EU as determined to undermine the United States.

Remaking Europe’s Energy System for the Age of AI

LUCREZIA REICHLIN

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Europe will never have the abundant fossil-fuel resources of the US, but it can still achieve the kinds of energy diversification and cost reductions seen in China. This would protect Europe from price spikes and enable the EU to compete in the defining economic race of our time: turning electricity into intelligence.

LONDON – The US-Israeli war on Iran is a wake-up call for the European Union: energy remains a critical strategic vulnerability. But addressing this vulnerability by weakening elements of the European Emissions Trading System, as the European Council seems to want, would do nothing to confront a challenge that extends well beyond dependence on imported fossil fuels. The real source of Europe’s vulnerability is an energy system that is fundamentally incompatible with economic power in the 21st century.

Iran War Showcases Strength of South Korean Defense Sector

Aaron Krolik and Farah Stockman

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The Cheongung-II, an air defense system made in South Korea, had never been tested in combat until Iran launched waves of ballistic missiles at the United Arab Emirates last month. It reportedly shot down 29 out of 30 missiles and drones it targeted, according to South Korean news media and a government official. Although it was only a small fraction of the missiles and drones intercepted during the first month of the war, the success drew praise from politicians and military analysts from Dubai to Seoul.

The strong debut of the Cheongung-II — which translates roughly to “Heaven’s Bow”— is the latest sign that South Korea’s defense manufacturers have become important players in the global arms market. Several nations are looking for additional options as American defense manufacturers have struggled to keep pace with demand. Some countries have waited years for air defense systems because of a backlog for American systems.

Turkic States Work to Develop Lapis Lazuli Corridor

Nargiza Umarova

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On March 15, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation organized the shipment of eight cargo exports via the Lapis Lazuli Corridor to Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, the United States, Australia, and the European Union (Ariana News, March 15). The Lapis Lazuli Corridor, which runs from Afghanistan to Europe, was launched in 2018 and is of particular interest to Türkiye, one of the project’s initiators (CGTN, December 14, 2018). 

Ankara views this initiative as an opportunity to diversify export routes to Afghanistan and other South Asian countries while effectively realizing its own transit potential. Turkish transport policy designates the Lapis Lazuli Transit Corridor as an additional route of the Middle Corridor (Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, accessed March 31). Running from the Afghan border towns of Aqina and Torghundi through Turkmenistan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, it provides access to the Eurozone via Türkiye’s land and sea borders.

PLA upgrades ageing tanks with protection system for potential Taiwan operation

Liu Zhen

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The People’s Liberation Army has upgraded its ageing tanks for a potential Taiwan operation, equipping them with a system to counter drone attacks and anti-tank missiles, according to state media. Type 96A main battle tanks with the GL-6 active protection system, or APS, installed were shown in video footage released by official newspaper China Youth Daily on Monday.

The tanks belong to the 71st Group Army unit under the PLA’s Eastern Theatre Command, which is mainly responsible for possible amphibious operations across the Taiwan Strait. The GL-6 is China’s response to the rapid development of anti-tank drones and loitering munitions – weapons used extensively in the war in Ukraine. It uses 360-degree radars, infrared and optoelectronic sensors to detect incoming threats – including drones, missiles and rockets – and automatically deploys interceptor munitions to neutralise them.

China plans AI-powered smart shipping system by 2027

Sylvia Ma

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China is ramping up efforts to deeply integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into its shipping industry by 2027, targeting breakthroughs in core technologies to build a smart maritime system as global competition intensifies.

A new action plan by the Ministry of Transport and three other government bodies outlined a road map that includes creating at least three comprehensive pilot zones, launching more than five trial routes, developing over 10 replicable smart-shipping use cases and deploying more than 100 smart vessels by that year.

As arms agreements fray, China secretly expands its nuclear weapons infrastructure

Tamara Qiblawi, Thomas Bordeaux, Yong Xiong, Gianluca Mezzofiore

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When three villagers from China’s Sichuan province wrote to local officials in 2022 asking why the government was confiscating their land and evicting them from their homes, they received a terse reply: It was a “state secret.” That secret, a CNN investigation has found, centered on China’s covert plans to massively expand its nuclear ambitions.

More than three years after the evictions, satellite images show, their village has been flattened and, in its place, new buildings erected to support some of China’s most important nuclear weapons production facilities. The expansion of the sites in Sichuan province, observed in satellite imagery and a review of dozens of Chinese government documents, supports recent claims by the administration of US President Donald Trump that Beijing has been conducting its most significant nuclear weapon modernization campaign in decades.

Why Chinese tech companies are racing to set up in Hong Kong

Sylvia Chang

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In a hotel lobby on Hong Kong Island, a delivery robot pauses outside one of the lifts as the doors open, and a guest steps out. The robot waits, and then rolls neatly inside. The move looks simple, but it isn't. To work in the busy hotel, owned by an international chain, the robot must navigate a building that won't slow down for it.

People are often getting in the way, and it must be able to take the lift to the correct floor, and then find the right room. The company behind the robot, Yunji, is a mainland Chinese tech business that is aiming to use Hong Kong as a springboard for successful overseas expansion.

Why it's a big deal that Iran destroyed an AWACS plane, an eye in the sky for U.S. forces

Sig Christenson

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When Iranian forces damaged a U.S. AWACS command-and-control plane sitting on the tarmac at a Saudi air base, they took out a jet often called the “crown jewel” of the Air Force. The loss of even one AWACS — leaving just 15 in service worldwide — was a blow to the military's ability to project power and protect U.S. forces. An AWACS (short for Airborne Warning and Control System) is a flying command center whose powerful radar and sensors can identify and track enemy planes and ships over a vast area.

The four-engine craft, a tricked-out military version of a Boeing 707 airliner, can transmit information on enemy movements and ensure that friendly aircraft don't mistake one another for an adversary, a vital function known as "de-confliction." The AWACS has been described as a "chess master" of the battle theater, an eye in the sky that knows where all the other chess pieces are and what they're up to.

Coordinated conflict: how the Ukraine and Iran wars are starting to overlap

Julian Borger and Pjotr Sauer

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The Iran and Ukraine wars are becoming more intertwined with every passing week – to the point that some analysts argue the two conflicts are beginning to merge. Quite how each war will affect the trajectory of the other is hard to predict, but it is already clear that their interconnectedness is drawing more countries into both cauldrons, extending an arc of instability that straddles Europe and the Middle East.

From Ukraine’s point of view, the connection is nothing new. Russia began using Iranian-made Shahed drones in September 2022, seven months into Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion. What is new is Moscow’s return of the favour to Tehran, with a reported flow of intelligence, targeting and drones to Iran after the US-Israeli assault on 28 February.

Hormuz disruption will change trade — and defense — at other chokepoints

Michael Kidd

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Major disruptions to maritime chokepoints always send ripples through the entire global network. Like voltage through an electrical grid, maritime commerce will shift to the path of least resistance, with nations forced to redistribute security assets accordingly. The current conflict with Iran is testing this concept in real time — and US government planners need to be paying attention, both for short-term and long-term planning.

Maritime canals, straits, and capes are not independent waterways with unchanging risk profiles. They are, in fact, interconnected points in a system within the global maritime network on which international commerce relies. Disruption in one location redistributes traffic worldwide, altering shipping costs, delivery timelines, and global capacity.

The Kurdish Side of the Iran War

Hamit Ekinci and Vassilis K. Fouskas

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Rojhelat (Iranian Kurdistan) has long been a core arena of Kurdish politics, even as the epicentre of mobilisation has shifted at different times to Iraq, Turkey or Syria. Many of the organisations active there today were founded before the Islamic Republic itself and have survived repeated waves of repression and exile. On 22 February 2026, five of the most prominent Iranian Kurdish parties (PDKI, PAK, PJAK, Khabat and Komala) announced the Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan, a new joint front. In their founding statement, they committed to working for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic and to securing the Kurdish right to self-determination through a democratic political framework in Rojhelat. 

Shortly afterwards, US and Israeli airstrikes destroyed many military and security facilities across Iranian Kurdistan. For observers in and around Rojhelat, the timing looked far from accidental: the creation of a unified Kurdish front and the sudden weakening of state infrastructure were widely read as connected developments and expectations quickly grew that Kurdish forces might move to take control of key cities.