Geostrategic Media Political Commentary, Analysis, Security, Defense
Owen Kirby The Middle East – for many Western observers – is something akin to Long Covid. One day you believe you are through the worst of it, turning a corner, and the next you are back reliving all the headaches, fatigue and brain fog, short of breath …
July, 2026
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15 July
Is a Turkey–Israel War Actually Coming?
In March, Israeli F-35s struck three sites in central Syria that Turkish planners had quietly earmarked for a future airbase. No Turkish soldier had set foot there yet — Ankara had not finished the paperwork. But the message needed no translation: Israel would rather bomb a location pre-emptively …
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15 July
Renewed Gulf Hostilities, Elevated Regional and Global Uncertainty
Dr. Dan Steinbock The United States and Iran traded new attacks overnight into Thursday, intensifying an exchange that has threatened the collapse of their agreement to end the war. According to President Trump, the ceasefire between the United States, Israel and Iran was “over.” The deadly exchanges included …
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15 July
Netanyahu’s Defiance and the Global Populist Challenge
Israel’s government has crossed a line that previous governments had avoided. In early July 2026, the cabinet openly declared that it would not recognize decisions made under a Supreme Court ruling, creating what opposition leaders and legal figures described as a potential constitutional crisis. The unanimous resolution rejected …
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15 July
Why Can Neither Washington Nor Tehran Talk Without Pakistan in the Room?
Sanal Kan U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner walk with Pakistan’s Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar after arriving for peace talks with Iranian officials in Islamabad, Pakistan, …
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15 July
Who Is Allowed to Coordinate in the Middle East Crisis
Arthur Michelino Vessels at the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, July 8, 2026. REUTERS In late May, with the talks to end the Iran war stalled, the US president threatened to blow up Oman if it did not, in his words, behave like everybody else. …
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15 July
Is China Filling America’s Vacuum?
Sachin Yadav America’s retreat from the developing world happened fast, and the numbers back that up. Foreign aid from OECD countries dropped by about 23 percent between 2024 and 2025, and most of that fall came from the United States, whose foreign aid shrank by nearly 57 percent …
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15 July
Old Dogs, New Alliances: NATO’s Realignment Begins in Ankara
Hadi Elis “Who cares about the NATO agenda? I’m here to see my good friend—an authoritarian, sure, but a loyal friend to the US—President Erdogan. I stopped him from attacking Israel. And just in case anyone disagrees too much, I gave everyone a handgun to shoot each other …
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15 July
Imperial Symbolism, Revisionist Strategy: Rethinking Neo-Ottomanism
Dr. Yashwant Singh Turkey’s contemporary foreign policy is better understood as a project of “middle-power revisionism,” in which imperial symbolism serves the pursuit of strategic indispensability rather than imperial restoration Empires do not die the way states die. A republic can be founded on a single date, a …
