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September 18, 2026 8 Questions Facing the United Nations at UNGA 81 The United Nations was formed “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” Yet more armed conflicts rage worldwide today than at any point since the world body’s formation at the end... September 16, 2026 The Heart Attacks Fueling Suspicion in Syria When a commander in the Syrian army’s 52nd Division died in March, a Syrian Telegram channel announced the news in the language of an ordinary obituary: Nader Mutlaq, better known as Abu Hatem... September 9, 2026 Qatar still hosts Hamas’s top brass, one year after they were targeted One year ago today, Hamas officials in Qatar narrowly escaped death. On September 9, 2025, Israel launched an airstrike on a Hamas meeting in Doha. The strike failed to wipe out Hamas’s upper ranks.... September 9, 2026 Russia’s AI Blueprint Exposes an Authoritarian Playbook Russia, China, and Iran are all sharing the same playbook for corrupting Western elections. The U.S. is on track to be the next target this November. A trove of Russian documents leaked in... September 2, 2026 7 Ways the U.S. Is Trying To Defend Its Water System From Hackers In the wake of nationwide cyberattacks on America’s water infrastructure, the Trump administration launched Project Watershed 250 on August 31. The six-month pilot, based in Texas, pairs local water... September 2, 2026 Ankara Is Baiting Israel, Not the Reverse Before dawn on August 18, Israeli jets destroyed the runway at Syria’s Abu al-Duhur air base in Idlib. Within hours, America’s ambassador in Ankara, Tom Barrack, pronounced the raid an unnecessary... August 27, 2026 Operation Economic Outcast Commences, And Where It Could Head And so, it begins. On Monday, the U.S. Treasury Department launched Operation Economic Outcast in a bid to expand the architecture of U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran and its network... August 26, 2026 5 Things To Know About Turkey’s Relationship with Syria Turkey has emerged as one of the leading patrons of Syria’s new government under President Ahmad al-Sharaa, following the December 2024 fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Ankara had built ties with... August 25, 2026 5 Things To Know About China’s Coercion Campaign Against Taiwan and the Limits of Leader-Level Diplomacy President Donald Trump emerged from his May 2026 summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping embracing a new framework for U.S.-China relations. The White House said the two leaders agreed to build a “constructive... August 21, 2026 What an Egg Cartel Can Teach Us About Critical Mineral Markets While Americans were paying more than $6 for a dozen eggs, the CEOs of America’s largest egg companies conspired to jack up prices even higher. Unfortunately, this kind of behavior... August 4, 2026 Insurers Should Require a Cyber Safety Standard of Care for the Built Environment The American built environment has become more digitally connected, and the insurance market is increasingly exposed to cyber-physical losses that traditional underwriting categories do not fully capture.... August 3, 2026 A Bipartisan Fix, 30 Years in the Making Bipartisan lawmaking is alive and well, at least when it comes to a dangerous but little-known loophole in America’s system for enforcing trade policy. This flaw can be seen in the case of $14.4 million... July 31, 2026 10 Iranian Judges Sanctioned by U.S. Allies — but Not Washington Iranian authorities hanged two individuals in public who participated in the January 2026 Lion and Sun Revolution, the largest anti-regime uprising in the Islamic Republic’s history, in which millions... July 31, 2026 Bulgaria approved U.S. Tankers Over Tehran’s Objections Bulgaria’s parliament approved a U.S. request to station up to eight KC-135 aerial refueling aircraft and 250 military personnel at Bezmer Air Base in southeastern Bulgaria despite direct, public objections... July 23, 2026 Mr. Aoun Came To Washington. Lebanon Now Owes Results. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun’s July 21 meeting with President Donald Trump clarified the terms of the U.S.-Lebanese relationship but did not resolve Lebanon’s central problem: Hezbollah’s weapons... July 21, 2026 Protected in Name Only: HIPAA’s Health Data Gap Is Becoming a National Security Risk Bloomberg reported on April 23, 2026, that records from 500,000 participants in the UK Biobank, the world’s largest repository of health, lifestyle, and biological data, had been listed for sale on the... July 20, 2026 How Congress Is Pressing the U.S. Space Force To Mature “Space is no longer a sanctuary. Adversaries, particularly the People’s Republic of China, are rapidly fielding counterspace weapons that threaten critical joint force capabilities,” the House Appropriations... July 10, 2026 Selling the S-400 to Qatar or the UAE Solves Turkey’s Problem, Not Washington’s Turkey’s decade-long standoff with Washington over the S-400 may finally be nearing an inflection point, though not in the tidy way Ankara once imagined, and not without a fresh dose of frustration... July 6, 2026 Don’t Launder Erdogan’s Record at the NATO Summit The NATO summit convening in Ankara next week will offer Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan an opportunity to present himself as a vital ally: one with a military capable of blunting Russian aggression,... July 6, 2026 5 Cyber Developments From Europe and Ukraine You Might Have Missed Facing relentless cyberattacks, the European Union and its member states are building out defenses for themselves and for frontline neighbors like Ukraine. These mechanisms span government, the private... July 6, 2026 7 Fault Lines NATO Must Address in Ankara As NATO leaders gather on July 7 to 8 in Ankara, the summit’s true test lies in unresolved faultlines over U.S. force posture cuts in Europe, host nation Turkey’s disruptive role within the alliance,... July 1, 2026 How Trump’s Understanding With Iran Echoes Obama’s 2015 Nuclear Deal If you want to understand Iran’s negotiating posture for the new nuclear deal with the United States, listen to what Washington and Tehran said about the nuclear deal of July 2015. At the time, President... June 30, 2026 Treasury License for Iranian Petroleum Is Unwise and May Be Inconsistent With Statutory Requirements The Treasury Department’s issuance on June 22 of a license pausing Iranian petroleum sanctions appears to be inconsistent with the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA), which prohibits such relief... June 26, 2026 10 Cases of UN Abuse, Waste, and Subversion of U.S. Interests The United Nations is hurtling toward self-inflicted insolvency, and it has itself to blame. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres needs to secure $8.68 billion to keep the lights on for regular operations... June 25, 2026 5 Reasons Why CISA Is Indispensable to America’s Cyber Defense Some 70 percent of cyberattacks in 2024 targeted critical infrastructure, yet Congress is weighing cuts to the lead agency responsible for defending it. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security... June 23, 2026 Fly Me to the Moon: 4 Ways Artemis Builds on Apollo’s Giant Leap The last time Americans walked on the lunar surface, the Soviet Union was the enemy and a flag plant was the finish line. Today’s competition bears little resemblance to the Cold War space race that... June 9, 2026 VIPs This Way Please: FDD Exposes New Stage in Persistent Iranian Recruitment Operation While Iran hasn’t enjoyed much success on the battlefield against Israel, its covert efforts to degrade Israel’s resilience have been unrelenting. Since October7, 2023, Iran’s intelligence agencies... June 4, 2026 6 Reasons Why Qatar’s U.S. Financial Footprint Warrants Scrutiny Qatar, a Persian Gulf emirate roughly the size of Connecticut, possesses outsized wealth by sitting atop the world’s largest natural gas reservoir. FDD has meticulously documented that this tiny country... June 3, 2026 Beyond the Embargo: A Toolkit for Squeezing the Cuban Regime Opponents of U.S. sanctions often cite Cuba as “Exhibit A” for why sanctions don’t work. The United States has maintained an embargo on the island for more than six decades — but to what end? Cuba’s... May 29, 2026 6 Essential Requirements for a Good Iran Nuclear Deal A new U.S.-Iran nuclear deal may soon emerge — or at least an initial memorandum of understanding (MOU) to be fleshed out over 60 days. President Donald Trump pledged on May 27 that the United States... May 27, 2026 The U.S.-China Superpower Stalemate For two days in Beijing last week, U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping leaned into the familiar theater of great-power diplomacy. Trump said it was an “honor” to be Xi’s friend... May 26, 2026 Evaluating the Damage to Iran’s Ballistic Missile Arsenal Has the Islamic Republic of Iran been defanged, or did the United States and Israel fail to set back the Middle East’s preeminent ballistic missile power? The answer is more complex than headlines indicate. With... May 21, 2026 Iranian Oil Exports Nosedive After U.S. Blockade Begins Despite Iranian intransigence, the U.S. blockade of the Islamic Republic’s ports, which began on April 13, is already generating real pain — and real results — for the Islamic Republic. Iran exported... May 6, 2026 5 Ways Iran Is Exploiting AI in Warfare The Islamic Republic of Iran has quietly become one of the world’s most aggressive adopters of artificial intelligence (AI) for warfare, deception, and repression. Tehran’s strategy is coherent and... May 6, 2026 When Ransomware Hits, Governors Are Calling the National Guard Minnesota called in its National Guard last month. Not because there was a flood, a fire, or even civil unrest. This time, Winona County needed support after a cyberattack. It was the second such attack... May 5, 2026 Iraq Is Envisioning New Oil Pipelines — But They Are Likely a Pipe Dream Iraq’s reliance on oil exports through the now-closed Strait of Hormuz may spell financial disaster for Baghdad, which has limited options to avert a crisis. More than 94 percent of Iraq’s oil exports... April 30, 2026 When will Britain protect its citizens? There was a time that Britain prided itself on protecting its citizens – whatever their religion – wherever they were in the world. Now the government is reluctant to defend them from foreign... April 30, 2026 5 Things To Know About China’s Wartime Support for Iran China is Iran’s top trading partner and one of the regime’s most important economic lifelines. Beijing is not seeking a wider Middle East war, especially one that threatens energy flows through the... April 24, 2026 Will the Next UN Leader Be Good for America? UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s time in office is coming to an end, which raises the question: Who will lead the world’s most important multilateral body next? The 2026 secretary-general... April 24, 2026 America’s Ambassador to Turkey Is Undermining U.S. Interests U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack raised eyebrows last weekend at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum when he stated, “Turkey is not a country to be messed with,” –– a remark intended to blame Israel... April 23, 2026 Evaluating the Economic Damage to Iran From Operation Epic Fury: An Initial Estimate With the conflict still unfolding, FDD estimates economic damage to Iran at approximately 40 percent of its pre-war GDP — a first accounting that speaks to the breadth and depth of Iran’s losses. Specifically,... April 19, 2026 The Imperative for the Connected Built Environment As information technology and operational technology converge into a cyber-physical systems across the built environment, professional engineers must now account for a category of public safety risk that... April 14, 2026 8 Things To Know About Marine Expeditionary Units Two U.S. Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs) are poised to play a role in the Middle East as a tenuous ceasefire takes hold between the United States and Iran. The 31st MEU, based in Okinawa, Japan, arrived... April 10, 2026 The Islamic Republic of Iran Attacks U.S. and Allied Critical Infrastructure Iranian hackers are targeting industrial equipment and causing operational disruptions to multiple types of critical infrastructure, warned the U.S. government on April 7. Despite the ceasefire announced... April 6, 2026 5 Men Now Running Iran The joint U.S.-Israeli campaign has eliminated the Islamic Republic’s former supreme leader Ali Khamenei, and his son and successor Mojtaba has yet to appear publicly. However, the regime remains intact. The... April 1, 2026 6 Things To Know About Handala — Tehran’s Hackers Making Front Page News U.S. law enforcement confirmed on March 27 that Iranian hackers operating under the name Handala compromised the FBI director’s personal email. The group claims to be an independent, pro-Palestinian... March 25, 2026 8 Key Regime Figures Killed in U.S.-Israeli Strikes on Iran March 21, 2026 Funding the Enemy: Trump Rolls Back Sanctions on Iran Without Any Guardrails On the evening of March 20, the Trump administration issued Iran General License U (GL U), a one-month authorization for the sale of what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says will be approximately 140... March 20, 2026 Defying Trump, Swiping at Israel: Pedro Sanchez’s Brilliant, Empty Foreign Policy Spain formally withdrew its ambassador from Israel on March 11. The announcement, published in the Boletin Oficial del Estado, terminated the appointment of Ana Maria Salomon Perez, downgrading Madrid’s... March 13, 2026 5 Things To Know About Mojtaba Khamenei Mojtaba Khamenei, a mid-ranking Shia cleric and son of the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has been named the Islamic Republic’s new supreme leader. “Khamenei became young again,” Iranian state...

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