Geostrategic Media Political Commentary, Analysis, Security, Defense
Harjeet Johal Like a petulant phantom, the theme of Europe has haunted British general elections for decades. Remember 1992 and the “No, No, No!” chant and other Maastricht machinations of the then-departed prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, echoing around John Major’s campaign? Those chants ended up in the heavy …
May, 2026
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14 May
Why Is Israel’s Governing Coalition Moving to Dissolve the Knesset Itself?
The core reason is straightforward: the ruling coalition wants to control the timing and narrative of its own collapse, rather than allow the opposition to claim it brought the government down. What is unfolding inside Israel is not simply a parliamentary procedure. It is a calculated political maneuver …
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14 May
With Iran at the Top of a Fraught Agenda, Trump Arrives in China for Summit with Xi
Amid a dense cluster of contentious files—foremost among them Iran—Donald Trump arrived in China on Wednesday ahead of a summit with Xi Jinping, in a visit shaped by escalating trade tensions and intensifying geopolitical crises, including the war involving Iran and the fallout from disruptions in the Strait …
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14 May
Can Iran Be Defeated?
The overwhelming military, intelligence, and technological superiority possessed by the United States and Israel in their war against Iran has led many cheerleaders for Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu to assume that crushing Iran is merely a matter of operational sequencing. Yet such assumptions ignore a range of …
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14 May
Why a War Between Turkey and Israel Remains Deferred
Jack Sullivan The headlines suggest inevitability: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan condemns Israel as a “terror state,” while Benjamin Netanyahu warns those who dream of rebuilding empires to forget it. The rhetoric is sharp, theatrical, and often personal. Yet behind the thunder of speeches lies a quieter truth: Turkey and …
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14 May
Infrastructure Attribution and the Invoiced Passage at Hormuz
The Persian Gulf Strait Authority, launched by Iran on 5 May 2026, is the institutional capstone of a longer manoeuvre. Its visible apparatus reduces to an email address, a logo, and a permit form. Its operating significance is the formalisation of a coherent instrument for discretionary, sanctions-resilient pricing …
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14 May
The Trump–Xi Summit and the Decline of American Crisis Management
The upcoming meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Beijing is not a bilateral summit between two competing powers. It is a test of whether the United States can still manage major international crises on its own terms. The agenda is expected to include Iran, Taiwan, trade, …
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14 May
Trump and Xi Meet: The Key Issues Behind America’s Most Important Summit of 2026
Trump is heading to Beijing for the most consequential foreign policy meeting of his second term. He arrives as the first US president to visit China in nearly nine years — the last visit was his own, in November 2017, when Xi rolled out a “state visit-plus” with …
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14 May
Al-Makahleh: The Beijing Summit: Trump’s High-Stakes Pilgrimage to the Court of Xi Amid a Fracturing World Order
Dr. Shehab Al-Makahleh On the eve of his arrival in Beijing, Donald Trump chose a phrase that was deceptively simple: “I respect Xi, and I hope he respects me.” Beneath that carefully calibrated diplomatic phrase lies a far more consequential reality: this is not a courtesy visit between …
