X

April 16, 2026 | Craig Singleton, Duncan Lazarow

China Restricts Access and Expands Reach in the South China Sea

Amid tensions in the Middle East, China is tightening its control over the South China Sea. Satellite imagery shows Chinese vessels have erected a floating barrier at the entrance to Scarborough Shoal,...

April 15, 2026 | Craig Singleton, Jack Burnham

China Criticizes Iran War as Beijing Supports Tehran Under the Table

China is trying to have it both ways in the U.S.-Iran conflict. On April 14, Chinese leader Xi Jinping criticized Washington’s blockade of Iranian ports and called for a diplomatic resolution during...

April 15, 2026 | Angela Howard, Jack Burnham

China Uses Political Leverage To Influence Foreign Courts

The Chinese government’s power to prosecute — or persecute — critics does not stop at its borders. On April 13, a court in Kazakhstan sentenced 19 activists to prison after they protested Beijing’s...

April 14, 2026 | Ivana Stradner |

Center-Right Party’s Overwhelming Victory in Hungarian Election Could Boost EU Support for Ukraine

After 16 years in power, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was resoundingly defeated in the country’s general election on April 12. The victory of the center-right Tisza Party led by Peter Magyar...

April 10, 2026 | David Daoud, Joe Truzman

U.S.-Iran Ceasefire Negotiations With Iran Do Not Extend to Hezbollah in Lebanon

“The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!” So declared President Donald Trump with regard to the representatives Iran dispatched to Pakistan to negotiate with  a U.S. team led...

April 8, 2026 | Ivana Stradner |

What the Kremlin fears more than Ukrainian drones

Major banks across Russia on Friday reported major service breakdowns. Their apps crashed, ATMs stopped working, and other capabilities collapsed. The outages caused major complications in everyday...

April 6, 2026 | Mariam Wahba |

Egypt Welcomes ‘Grain and Energy Hub’ Initiative from Russia

Amid intensifying great-power competition, Egypt is no longer hedging quietly between the United States and its rivals. On April 2, Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Egyptian Foreign Minister...

April 6, 2026 | Simone Weichselbaum |

Time to Lift the Veil on Foreign Funding in K-12 Schools

State lawmakers in Georgia just won a major battle in the long war to reveal foreign influence in America’s K-12 public schools. A new bill, which recently passed both chambers of the state legislature,...

April 3, 2026 | Jack Burnham |

Congress Targets Advanced Chip-Making Equipment To Stifle Chinese Progress in AI Race

Congress is seeking to lock China out of the global advanced chip-making market. Senators Pete Ricketts (R-NE) and Andy Kim (D-NJ), along with Representative Michael Baumgartner (R-WA), introduced a...

March 31, 2026 | David May, Simone Rodan-Benzaquen

Spain Cuts Further Adrift From Western Alliance With Airspace Closure to U.S. Military

Nobody expects the Spanish imposition. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s decision to close Spanish airspace to U.S. military flights targeting Iran will hamper U.S. war planning. Sanchez’s defiance might...

March 27, 2026 | RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery, Richard Goldberg, Max Meizlish, Joe Dougherty

The Strait of Hormuz: The Military, Energy, and Economic Challenges

March 27, 2026 | Justin Leopold-Cohen, Bradley Bowman

Israel Aims To Bolster Domestic Munitions Production

As the military campaign against Iran continues, Israeli leaders are moving to build greater domestic munition production capacity. Israel’s Ministry of Defense (IMOD) declared “munitions independence”...

March 26, 2026 | Janatan Sayeh, Aaron Goren

Iran’s New Security Chief Marches to the Same Tune as His Predecessors

Regime officials in Tehran are playing musical chairs with vacant positions. Israel’s elimination of Ali Larijani on March 16 has left Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) in the hands of...

March 19, 2026 | Leah Siskind, Marina Chernin

Deepfakes on the Front Lines: Iran’s AI Disinformation Campaign

The war with Iran has triggered a torrent of disturbing AI-generated imagery, videos, and narratives circulating widely on social media — such as smoke billowing from a Bahraini high-rise or rockets...

March 16, 2026 | Max Lesser, Kellie McSween

Pro-Iranian X Accounts Posing as Chinese, Russian, and North Korean

Iran has some imaginary friends. The United States and Israel are grinding down Iran’s war machine while Tehran’s fellow travelers, China, Russia, and North Korea, have largely limited their support...

February 24, 2026 | Andrea Stricker |

Countering Iran’s Covert Chemical Weapons Program

February 20, 2026 | Elaine K. Dezenski, Max Meizlish

Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump’s ‘Emergency’ Tariffs, Not His Ability to Reorient Global Trade

The Supreme Court just issued a significant blow to the Trump administration’s trade policy. On February 20, the high court ruled that Donald Trump’s application of tariffs under the International...

February 18, 2026 | Seth J. Frantzman |

Syrian government and SDF continue transition, US strikes Islamic State and withdraws from Tanf

The Syrian government and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) continued transitioning control of portions of Syria as US Central Command (CENTCOM) said it had carried out strikes on the Islamic...

February 17, 2026 | Aaron Goren |

Doctors Without Borders Admits Terrorists Are Using Gaza’s Nasser Hospital

The Nasser Hospital in Gaza reacted indignantly to the accusation by Doctors Without Borders — known by its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) — that armed men have been witnessed roaming...

February 13, 2026 | Jack Burnham |

OpenAI Alleges China’s DeepSeek Stole its Intellectual Property to Train its Own Models

One year on from DeepSeek’s first major release, Washington is probing deeper into the Chinese artificial intelligence firm’s unexpected success. The U.S. AI firm OpenAI publicly released a memo...