At this year’s Munich Security Conference, European leaders will once again rehearse the familiar script: America remains committed. NATO is indispensable. Burden-sharing must be fair. The applause lines are well known. The reassurance is ritualistic. And yet, beneath the choreography lies an uncomfortable truth: Europe no longer trusts …

Omar H. Rahman President Donald Trump’s maximalist demands on Iran are making the chances of US intervention more likely. A US F-35 fighter jet takes off. F-35 fighter jets may be used in a US strike on Iran ( Shutterstock/Gece333). Escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran appear to …

Stephan Richter and Uwe Bott Donald Trump has blown up any notion of the United States continuing to act as a benevolent hegemon to Europe and the so-called “free world”. Even before, that benevolence always came with significant commercial and financial benefits the country and its corporations derived …

While the world fixates on tariffs, sanctions, and military posturing, a quieter shift is reshaping international influence. At the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, Brand Finance launched its 2026 Global Soft Power Index and the results tell a story that runs counter to almost everything dominating …

Antonia Dimou Syria’s energy sector undergoes a transformative process after a decade of conflict, transitioning from severe damage toward a delicate recovery. The downfall of the Assad regime and the instatement of the transitional government in Syria revealed several challenges pertaining to the Syrian energy sector. The first …

Contrary to popular belief, colonialism did not end with the mid-century independence wave. Instead, it took on novel (‘neo’) and more subtle disguises such as financial institution control, labour exploitation and, perhaps most importantly, constant resource extraction. It is no secret that rare minerals are largely sourced from …

European Union leaders are meeting at Belgium’s 16th-century Alden Biesen castle for an informal “retreat” aimed at confronting a growing strategic concern: how to prevent the bloc from falling further behind the United States and China economically. The EU faces mounting external pressure from U.S. trade measures under …

Fareena Habib On 10 January, China, Russia, and Iran launched joint BRICS Plus naval exercises in the strategic waters of South Africa. It is being marked as a significant display of military cooperation among countries increasingly aligned against the policies of the administration of President Donald Trump. The …

The world faces an immediate strategic challenge because global energy demand currently rises at a faster rate than previously expected. The recent developments in Venezuela’s oil exports, combined with China’s changing energy consumption and the United States’ renewed control of heavy crude from Caracas, all point to a …