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Dominican Republic Scorecard

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Ukraine’s recent attacks on Baltic Sea oil terminals are part of a strategic bombing campaign to weaken Putin’s war machine by targeting the ports, refineries, and associated infrastructure that drive Russia’s economically crucial energy industry. This has been made possible thanks to Kyiv’s decision during the initial phase of Russia’s invasion to prioritize the development of domestically produced long-range strike drones and cruise missiles. As more drones and missiles become available, the scale of Ukraine’s strikes is steadily increasing.

Zelenskyy has repeatedly emphasized that Ukraine’s expanding long-range strike capability is critical for the current war effort and equally important as a deterrent against future Russian aggression. While long-range weapons provided by Kyiv’s partners often come with limitations on how they can be deployed, there are no such restrictions on the use of domestically produced drones and missiles.

Kremlin officials have certainly noticed Kyiv’s growing reach. In recent weeks, former Russian defense minister and current Security Council secretary Sergei Shoigu warned that Ukraine’s domestic drone program had now advanced to the point where no Russian region is safe from attack.

Ukraine’s ability to conduct large-scale airstrikes deep inside Russian territory has sparked vocal criticism from within Russia’s influential war blogger community, while also generating widespread concerns over the effectiveness of the country’s anti-drone defenses. Many have questioned how slow-moving drones could pass through multiple Russian regions to hit targets often located more than one thousand kilometers from the Ukrainian border.

In fact, the stage for Ukraine’s recent successes was set by efforts to methodically eliminate Russian air defenses and create corridors for long-range strikes. This approach looks set to continue. With much of the Kremlin’s existing air defense capacity already deployed along the front lines in Ukraine or being used to protect major Russian cities along with the palaces of Putin and his cronies, there is now thought to be little left in reserve to counter the growing Ukrainian drone threat.

The scale and frequency of Ukrainian strikes on oil and gas infrastructure will likely continue to increase in the coming months as Kyiv seeks ways to bring Putin’s invasion home to Russia. The Ukrainian authorities are hoping these attacks can help bring the end of the war closer by depriving the Kremlin of vital funding and threatening the foundations of Russia’s economic stability.

So far, Putin has rejected calls for a compromise peace. However, he may finally be forced to rethink his invasion if confronted with the prospect of dangerous destabilization on the home front. The Kremlin dictator remains determined to achieve his goal of erasing Ukrainian statehood, but he is also haunted by fears of a new Russian collapse to mirror the catastrophes of 1917 and 1991.

David Kirichenko is an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

The Gulf states understand this instinctively. For years, some of them pursued a careful balancing act by relying on US security while maintaining pragmatic relations with Iran, even amid accusations that elements within them tolerated or indirectly supported Iranian-linked proxy networks. That strategy collapses the moment infrastructure becomes a target. Ambiguity is a luxury of stability; it rarely survives contact with risk. States whose prosperity depends on uninterrupted energy flows will not tolerate prolonged uncertainty. They will align decisively with the only proven security architecture capable of guaranteeing stability. That architecture is American.

Iran

By contrast, Iran under the current regime risks a historic miscalculation. Its strategy has long relied on asymmetry—pressure without full confrontation, disruption without decisive response. But there is a threshold beyond which such a strategy becomes self-defeating. Targeting the infrastructure that underpins global energy flows is such a threshold. Nations rarely fail because they lack power. More often, they fail because they misjudge the consequences of using power. If Iran is perceived not merely as a regional challenger but as a systemic disruptor of global energy flows, then the response it provokes will not be incremental. It will be structural.

Russia, China, and North Korea

Much has been written about a new alignment among Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea—an emerging axis opposed to the West. In reality, this has always been more fiction than fact. China depends on stable energy flows from the Gulf. Russia benefits from higher prices but seeks equilibrium, not chaos. North Korea follows but does not lead. When the stakes become real, ideology gives way to interest—and those interests diverge.

Europe

Europe may be another major victim of this situation. At precisely the moment when hard power, energy security, and strategic clarity are required, Europe finds itself largely absent from the field. For decades, it built a model based on external energy, outsourced security, and the belief that economic and normative influence could substitute for geopolitical strength. That model is now showing its weaknesses, and a persistent energy shock could diminish Europe’s geopolitical role further. Without unified military capability or independent energy security, Europe is increasingly reacting to events rather than shaping them. It has shifted, quietly but unmistakably, from actor to arena.

The United States

Beneath all of this lies a deeper truth that has stayed with me for years. During my time at the London Business School, my professor Andrew Scott made a deceptively simple observation: oil and the dollar are the liquidity of the world. He was right. Oil remains the physical liquidity of the global economy. The dollar remains the financial system that prices and stabilizes it. Despite years of discussion about energy transitions, alternative currencies, and new geopolitical alignments, moments like this reveal how little has fundamentally changed. The system still runs on dollar-denominated energy flows. Liquidity, in the end, has no substitute.

There is also a historical parallel worth noting. When US President Ronald Reagan entered office, he defined a small number of strategic priorities. These priorities included restoring economic strength and confronting the Soviet Union. But on everything else, he reacted. That clarity allowed events, many of them unforeseen, to move in his favor. A similar dynamic may be unfolding today. US President Donald Trump did not set out to engineer a global realignment through crisis. But history does not ask whether leaders planned events. It asks whether they were positioned to benefit from them.

If the United States maintains economic strength, energy leverage, and military credibility, then shocks of this kind do not weaken its position. Instead, they reinforce it. Because when the system becomes unstable, the world does not look for consensus. It looks for order. And order requires a guarantor.

This is where one’s legacy is ultimately defined—not in moments of calm but in moments when the system begins to fracture, when uncertainty spreads and decisions become irreversible. Reagan understood this. He did not control events, but he shaped the environment in which they unfolded. History rewarded him for it. Trump may find himself in a similar position. If current dynamics continue, this period may be remembered not as a series of isolated crises, but as the moment when global ambiguity collapsed—and when US power reasserted itself, not by design but by necessity.

In geopolitics, power is measured not by who speaks the loudest, but rather by who cannot be replaced. In a world once again defined by energy, security, and liquidity, the United States remains indispensable.

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How the Dominican Republic can escape the ‘middle-income trap’

Marino Auffant — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 16:00:00 +0000

Bottom lines up front

Over the past three decades, the Dominican Republic has consolidated stable electoral competition and durable institutions, in a region often marked by volatility and democratic backsliding.
Institutional continuity enabled the transition from an agrarian base to a diversified, open economy that has delivered sustained growth, rapid income convergence, and resilience.
To escape the middle-income trap, the Dominican Republic must now confront deferred structural reforms—especially in education, institutional effectiveness, and fiscal capacity.

This is the tenth chapter in the Freedom and Prosperity Center’s 2026 Atlas, which analyzes the state of freedom and prosperity in ten countries. Drawing on our thirty-year dataset covering political, economic, and legal developments, this year’s Atlas is the evidence-based guide to better policy in 2026.

Evolution of freedom

The Dominican Republic’s recent political history is defined less by rupture than by consolidation. By the mid-1990s, the country had already resolved the most consequential question of its institutional life: how political power is contested and transferred. Since the decisive elections of 1996, Dominican politics has been characterized by regular, competitive elections, peaceful alternation in power, and the absence of constitutional ruptures or electoral breakdowns. Governments have come and gone, and parties have risen and declined, but the basic rules of the game have remained intact.

In a regional context marked by institutional volatility—coups, impeachments, constitutional rewrites, and contested elections—this continuity stands out. The Dominican Republic institutionalized electoral competition early and maintained it across political cycles—including long periods of single-party dominance—without sliding into electoral authoritarianism. The result has been more than procedural stability. Over time, this durability has produced cumulative institutional returns: greater predictability for investors, incremental strengthening of legal frameworks, and an environment in which political dissatisfaction is resolved through elections rather than systemic crisis. For three decades, this steadiness has underpinned one of the strongest growth performances in Latin America. The Freedom Index captures this trajectory, showing sustained gains from 1995 onward and further consolidation after 2020.

This pattern is most visible in the political dimension, which provides the clearest entry point into the country’s broader institutional evolution. The Dominican Republic’s democratic transition was prolonged and uneven, beginning with the assassination of dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo in 1961 and unfolding through cycles of hope and reversal—including a coup, civil war, US intervention, and decades of semi-competitive elections under Joaquín Balaguer. The decisive consolidation came in 1996, when competitive elections finally became the uncontested mechanism for political power. This continuity is reflected in the consistently high level of the elections component of the political subindex over the entire period.

What is particularly notable is that even prolonged periods of single-party dominance did not translate into electoral authoritarianism. Between 2004 and 2020, when the Dominican Liberation Party governed for sixteen consecutive years, concerns arose about institutional sclerosis, clientelism, and attempts to alter constitutional term limits. The suspension of the February 2020 municipal elections following failures in a new electronic voting system further exposed procedural weaknesses and eroded public trust. Yet constitutional boundaries ultimately held, the electoral framework was restored, and power transferred peacefully to the opposition later that year.

The evolution of political rights over the past two decades reflects a more nuanced reality. From roughly 2010 to 2020, the political rights component shows a gradual decline. This movement does not suggest a drift toward authoritarianism, but rather the accumulated effects of prolonged incumbency. Media outlets became increasingly entangled with government advertising, patronage networks expanded, and civil society grew more skeptical of the political class. These tensions culminated in the large “Marcha Verde” protest movements that began in 2017 and persisted until the 2020 elections, demanding an end to corruption and impunity. Rather than weakening democracy, these mobilizations ultimately reinforced it by channeling discontent through institutional means and contributing to a legitimate transfer of power.

The rebound in political rights after 2020 appears to reflect shifts in political tone and enforcement patterns more than sweeping institutional reform. The arrival of the Luis Abinader administration brought a clearer rhetorical commitment to transparency and accountability, reduced pressure on critical media, and signaled greater tolerance for scrutiny, contributing to improved perceptions of political openness. Civic space widened, even if the formal legal framework governing political rights remained largely unchanged.

Civil liberties, by contrast, have remained relatively stable and high throughout the period. The country did not experience the sharp pandemic-related declines seen in many advanced democracies, particularly with respect to restrictions on movement or assembly. This stability reinforces the broader picture of an open political system that, despite its imperfections, has avoided the authoritarian and electoral backsliding observed elsewhere in the region.

The most puzzling feature of the political subindex is the persistently low score on legislative constraints on the executive, a pattern that in the Dominican case reflects institutional design rather than weak democratic competition. The country operates under a robust presidential system, and the 2010 constitutional reforms aligned legislative and presidential elections on the same electoral calendar. As a result, the party that wins the presidency almost invariably controls Congress as well, reducing incentives for legislative oversight. The limited professionalization of the legislature compounds this structural feature.

However, this does not mean that the executive operates without constraints. In practice, civil society organizations, business associations, trade unions, and protest movements play a decisive role in shaping and blocking legislation. A clear example was President Luis Abinader’s withdrawal of an ambitious fiscal reform proposal in 2021 after strong opposition from business groups and civil society. Similar dynamics have constrained reform efforts in areas such as education, transportation, and labor markets. The low legislative constraint score therefore reflects a misalignment between formal institutional checks and the informal, societal forces that operate in the Dominican political system.

Governments of different political orientations have combined pro-market and social welfare objectives in varying proportions, reducing the likelihood of sharp policy reversals.

The economic subindex reinforces the broader picture of institutional continuity that characterizes the Dominican Republic’s experience since the mid-1990s. Rather than reflecting abrupt policy shifts or ideological swings, the data point to a gradual and largely uneventful expansion of economic freedom, aligned with a stable political environment. One reason for this continuity lies in the country’s distinctive political economy: Across party lines, there has been broad consensus around openness to trade and foreign investment, while redistributive policies have not been the exclusive domain of the left. In practice, governments of different political orientations have combined pro-market and social welfare objectives in varying proportions, reducing the likelihood of sharp policy reversals. Over the same period, the country completed a structural transition from an agriculture-centered economy to a highly diversified one in which tourism, manufacturing, mining, construction, and services contribute in comparable proportions to GDP, strengthening resilience to external shocks. As a result, changes in economic policy have tended to be incremental, allowing the Dominican Republic to maintain a consistently business-friendly framework while adjusting gradually to social and fiscal pressures.

Trade freedom has been among the most stable components throughout the period. The country adopted an outward-looking growth model early on, anchored in tourism, free trade zones, and export-oriented manufacturing. This openness has proven resilient to changes in government and political cycles. Across party lines, successive administrations have actively pursued and ratified trade agreements with regional blocs and major economies, reinforcing a broad political consensus in favor of international economic integration. As such, trade policy has not been subject to abrupt reversals.

Investment freedom follows a similarly stable, though slightly more uneven, path. The Dominican Republic has long been perceived as relatively business-friendly within the regional context. Periodic fluctuations in this component appear to capture moments of regulatory or fiscal uncertainty rather than shifts toward state intervention or capital controls.

Property rights show gradual improvement but remain an area where institutional limitations are most visible. While large investors tend to operate within a relatively predictable legal environment, smaller firms and households continue to face slower judicial processes and administrative bottlenecks. This uneven protection of property rights contributes to the persistence of informality and limits the diffusion of economic freedom across the broader economy.

Women’s economic freedom registers a clear upward trend over the past three decades, reflecting the steady removal of formal legal barriers to women’s participation in economic life. This formal progress has coincided with increased visibility of women in both political and business leadership, including sustained cross-partisan representation at the vice-presidential level. As in many middle-income countries, improvements in formal equality coexist with persistent gaps in labor market outcomes, suggesting that social norms and institutional rigidities continue to constrain full convergence.

The sharp improvement in legal indicators subindex after 2020 aligns closely with a combination of legal reform and changes in prosecutorial practice. On the legislative side, reforms to the penal code helped modernize the criminal justice framework, clarify legal definitions, and strengthen sanctions for corruption-related offenses, contributing to greater clarity of the law and procedural coherence. At the same time, the appointment of an unusually independent attorney general marked a clear departure from past patterns in the enforcement of those laws. For the first time in decades, high-profile corruption cases were brought not only against figures associated with previous administrations, but also against politicians and officials linked to the governing coalition. Investigations involving senior legislators, mayors, and politically connected actors sent a strong signal that prosecutorial discretion was no longer being exercised along partisan lines, and this shift had an immediate effect on perceptions of judicial independence and effectiveness, as reflected in the legal subindex. However, the conversion of investigations into final convictions has been slower and more uneven, reflecting judicial inertia and inherited procedural constraints. This underscores that prosecutorial autonomy does not necessarily amount to systemic judicial transformation.

At the same time, this episode raises an important institutional question. The recent strengthening of the rule of law appears to rest heavily on the personal credibility and independence of the prosecutor, rather than on a fully consolidated system of judicial autonomy. Whether these gains can be normalized—embedded in procedures, safeguards, and professional norms that outlast individual officeholders—remains to be seen. Taken together, the evolution of freedom in the Dominican Republic shows an institutional trajectory shaped by steadiness rather than spectacle. Political competition has remained credible over time, legal institutions have strengthened without abrupt breaks, and economic rules have evolved through adjustment rather than ideological swings. This pattern stands in contrast to much of the region, where institutional change has often been driven by sharp turns, constitutional resets, and recurrent political crises. In the Dominican case, stability has carried weight. It has allowed investment decisions to be taken without persistent institutional uncertainty and has given economic activity room to expand without the disruptions associated with repeated policy reversals. Social demands, in turn, have tended to find expression through elections, courts, and public debate rather than through systemic crisis. The payoff from this understated but resilient institutional framework becomes clearer when attention shifts from rules to results. The following section examines how this steady expansion of freedom has translated into sustained improvements in income, health, education, and overall standards of living.

From freedom to prosperity

The Dominican Republic’s experience over the past three decades suggests that institutional stability, while rarely dramatic, can be economically productive. The country has recorded the fastest GDP growth in Latin America in the last half-century, averaging approximately 5 percent annually—well above the regional average of 3.2 percent. This performance has translated into the fastest income convergence with the United States of any major Latin American economy: From one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere in the 1960s, the Dominican Republic now has a standard of living roughly one-third that of the United States, compared to one-quarter for the region as a whole. This remarkable performance reflects the cumulative effect of a predictable institutional environment in which economic activity could expand over time rather than being repeatedly disrupted. The Prosperity Index captures this payoff, showing steady improvements in income and basic social indicators since the mid-1990s.

The [Dominican Republic] has recorded the fastest GDP growth in Latin America in the last half-century, averaging approximately 5 percent annually.

Rather than relying on a single engine of expansion, the Dominican Republic has built a diversified growth model that has evolved gradually over time. Economic activity has been rooted in a combination of tourism, free trade zones, mining, construction, and services, with each sector playing a stabilizing role at different phases of the cycle. Tourism has provided a steady source of foreign exchange, while export-oriented manufacturing in free trade zones has integrated the country into global value chains, especially in medical devices and electronics. Gold mining—anchored by Pueblo Viejo, Latin America’s largest gold mine—has emerged as the country’s leading export and proved especially valuable during the pandemic when mineral revenues helped offset the collapse in tourism. Construction and related services have supported domestic demand, partly reflecting sustained population growth and urbanization. This diversification has reduced exposure to commodity price volatility and limited the risk of abrupt downturns, distinguishing the Dominican Republic from many regional peers whose growth paths have been more narrowly concentrated.

The United States occupies a central place in the Dominican Republic’s external economic relations, but it does so within a relatively diversified trade structure. Geographic proximity, preferential trade arrangements under DR-CAFTA, and long-standing commercial ties have made the United States the country’s most important single trading partner. The relationship cuts in both directions: The Dominican Republic exports free trade zone manufactures and traditional agricultural commodities—tobacco, sugar, cocoa, coffee—while importing energy, machinery, and consumer goods from the United States. This two-way integration has provided a stable demand anchor and supported export-oriented sectors from traditional agriculture to modern manufacturing, with growing nearshoring opportunities. At the same time, the Dominican Republic has avoided excessive concentration on a single market. Trade links with Europe, the Caribbean, and Latin America have expanded over time, and tourism revenues draw on a broad set of source countries. This diversification has reduced vulnerability to shocks originating in any one economy, allowing the country to benefit from deep integration with the United States while maintaining a degree of external balance.

Education presents a more ambivalent picture. The Dominican Republic made a highly visible and politically salient commitment to education funding during the 2010s, following sustained social pressure to comply with constitutional spending mandates. Public investment expanded rapidly, leading to clear improvements in access, school infrastructure, and enrollment. These efforts marked an important shift in public priorities and are reflected in gradual gains in educational attainment indicators captured by the Prosperity Index.

However, improvements in educational quality have lagged far behind the scale of financial effort. Learning outcomes remain weak by international standards, as reflected in the Dominican Republic’s consistently low performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment, where students score well below the OECD and Latin American averages in reading, mathematics, and science. This gap points to institutional constraints rather than a lack of resources. Rigidities in the public education system—particularly regarding teacher evaluation, incentives, and accountability—have proven difficult to overcome. Opposition to reforms aimed at improving performance has often succeeded in preserving existing arrangements that disproportionately benefit a relatively protected group of workers, while limiting gains in system-wide quality and student outcomes. As a result, education has yet to play the role in productivity growth and social mobility that is required for sustained income convergence.

Health outcomes have followed a more linear trajectory. Life expectancy has increased steadily over the period, reflecting income growth, expanded access to basic healthcare, and incremental improvements in coverage. The Dominican Republic did not undertake a radical overhaul of its healthcare system, but rather expanded it gradually, with uneven quality but broad reach. These gains are consistent with the country’s level of development and contribute meaningfully to improvements in overall well-being, even as efficiency and quality challenges persist.

Inequality has improved markedly over the past decade. The Prosperity Index shows a substantial reduction in income inequality since around 2010, with the inequality component increasing by roughly twenty-five points, placing the Dominican Republic among the stronger performers in the region on this dimension. This improvement reflects a combination of sustained economic growth, rising employment, and gradual formalization, which together helped lift incomes at the lower end of the distribution. Unlike in many neighboring countries, these gains were achieved without the boom-and-bust cycles that tend to reverse distributional progress.

At the same time, the decline in measured inequality masks emerging forms of segmentation that could become more consequential over time. High levels of informality continue to limit upward mobility for a large share of workers, constraining access to stable income trajectories and social protection. While overall income dispersion has narrowed, disparities in job quality and long-term opportunity persist. The Dominican Republic’s experience illustrates that inequality can fall meaningfully even as structural dualities remain entrenched—a pattern consistent with a growth model that has been inclusive in aggregate terms but uneven in how opportunities are distributed across the labor force.

These distributional patterns also shape how migration from Haiti features in the prosperity debate. The issue is deeply polarizing, and this polarization has produced policy incoherence rather than resolution. The 2013 Constitutional Court ruling (TC 168-13) held that tens of thousands of Dominican-born individuals of Haitian descent had never been entitled to citizenship—a decision that drew accusations of creating statelessness from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Subsequent regularization efforts reached only a fraction of the affected population, constrained not only by domestic political backlash but also by Haiti’s limited administrative capacity and inability to provide basic civil documentation for many affected individuals. Meanwhile, mass deportations coexist with the massive use of undocumented labor in construction, agriculture, and services, while Haitian migrants and their descendants represent a substantial share of public spending on schooling and healthcare. The result is neither exclusion nor integration but an intractable ambiguity: pervasive informality, legal precarity, and administrative inconsistency that entrenches inequality even as aggregate indicators improve.

The more consequential challenge lies in the longer-term implications of informal integration. When access to services, education, and employment relies on ad hoc arrangements rather than clear institutional pathways, the risk is not immediate marginalization but gradual stratification. Over time, this can translate into persistent differences in educational trajectories, job quality, and social mobility, even without explicit barriers or discriminatory intent. Haitian migration, therefore, does not currently undermine prosperity outcomes, but it does test the capacity of Dominican institutions to transform informal inclusion into sustainable integration and to prevent new forms of segmentation from emerging alongside otherwise improving inequality indicators.

The path forward

The Dominican Republic approaches the coming years from a comparatively favorable position within Latin America. Democratic norms are consolidated, institutional performance has improved incrementally, and prosperity gains have accumulated without major reversals. The central question ahead is therefore not one of stability, but of trajectory. The challenge is whether the country can move beyond a successful middle-income equilibrium and sustain the kind of productivity gains required to converge toward high-income status.

The central question ahead is therefore not one of stability, but of trajectory.

Externally, the Dominican Republic is unusually well positioned, particularly in its relationship with the United States. Close economic, political, and security ties have long defined the country’s development path, and recent shifts in US trade and industrial policy have, in principle, reinforced this advantage rather than undermined it. Even amid more protectionist rhetoric and policy experimentation in Washington, the Dominican Republic has remained a trusted partner, benefiting from geographic proximity, established supply chains, and a reputation for macroeconomic and political reliability. Yet this favorable positioning has not always translated into concrete gains at the scale one might expect. A telling example is the presence of a US International Development Finance Corporation office in the country, which was initially seen as an opportunity to channel investment and support strategic projects but has so far had very limited activity. This gap highlights a broader risk: Close alignment with the United States creates opportunities, but capturing them requires domestic institutional capacity, project readiness, and strategic coordination. Without these, proximity and trust alone may result in underused potential rather than accelerated convergence.

This places the question of the middle-income trap at the center of the country’s outlook. The Dominican Republic has already captured most of the gains associated with macroeconomic stability, openness, and sectoral diversification. What lies ahead is a more demanding transition toward productivity-driven growth. The risk is not a return to instability or crisis, but a gradual settling into growth rates that are sufficient to sustain middle-income status yet insufficient to achieve convergence with advanced economies. Persistently low educational quality, high informality, limited innovation capacity, and weak spillovers from export sectors continue to constrain productivity. Escaping the middle-income trap will depend on transforming these underlying drivers through improvements in learning outcomes, technical training, and innovation capacity to enable diversification toward higher-value sectors.

Institutionally, recent improvements in the rule of law and anti-corruption enforcement have strengthened public trust and international credibility. However, the durability of these gains remains an open question. Much of the progress since 2020 has relied on leadership choices and informal norms rather than on fully entrenched institutional safeguards. Whether judicial independence, prosecutorial autonomy, and legal clarity can be preserved across political cycles will be a key determinant of future performance. Moreover, prosecution is not the same as prevention, and high-profile cases have demonstrated that corrupt practices persist even under the credible threat of enforcement. A partial rollback would not necessarily trigger immediate instability, but it would weaken the institutional foundations required for higher-quality growth and more complex economic activity, while leaving underlying vulnerabilities in procurement, asset disclosure, and political finance unaddressed.

Regionally, instability represents a more immediate and less controllable risk. The situation in Haiti has deteriorated to an unprecedented degree: Since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, gangs—some designated as terrorist organizations—have seized control of an estimated 90 percent of Port-au-Prince, while state institutions have effectively ceased to function. The violence has displaced over one million people and caused tens of thousands of deaths since 2018. This is not cyclical instability but a qualitatively different breakdown. Persistent institutional collapse and humanitarian distress across the border generate security concerns, fiscal pressures, and diplomatic constraints that the Dominican Republic cannot fully manage on its own. While the country has so far absorbed these pressures without major disruption, prolonged instability in Haiti could increasingly test its administrative capacity, border management, and social cohesion, particularly if international engagement remains insufficient.

A related risk stems from the very factors that have underpinned the Dominican Republic’s success. Relative political stability, improving infrastructure, and deep integration into international trade networks also make the country an attractive transit and logistics hub for illicit activities, particularly drug trafficking and associated financial flows. As enforcement pressures shift across the region, there is concern that criminal networks could seek to exploit the Dominican Republic’s ports, transportation systems, and financial channels. This risk does not reflect institutional failure—in fact, the country has achieved record drug interdictions in recent years—but exposure created by openness and connectivity. If not handled carefully, these dynamics could strain security institutions, distort local economies, and erode public trust, undermining some of the institutional gains achieved in recent years.

Finally, the political economy of reform will remain decisive. The Dominican political system continues to combine a strong presidency with a relatively weak legislature and a vibrant civil society capable of constraining government action. As earlier sections have shown, this configuration has been effective at preventing democratic backsliding and forcing accountability, but it has also made structural reform difficult. This tension is particularly evident in the fiscal sphere. A narrow tax base and extensive exemptions limit the state’s capacity to finance higher-quality public services and consistent public policy execution, as well as to strengthen social protection and further reduce structural inequalities. As a result, the government has increasingly turned to debt: Interest payments alone now approach 4 percent of GDP, and debt service consumes 25 to 30 percent of the state budget, crowding out productive public investment. Meanwhile, intractable problems persist—most notably electricity subsidies required to cover distribution losses—that continue to drain fiscal resources. The result is a budget squeezed between debt obligations, unproductive subsidies, and inadequate investment in human capital and infrastructure.

Whether leaders are prepared to make difficult and politically costly decisions—rather than merely avoiding destabilizing ones—will determine whether the next half-century is defined by incremental continuity or genuine transformation.

Without fiscal reform, efforts to improve education, infrastructure, and social protection will remain constrained, even as parts of the economy continue to advance. The risk is that inequality, which has declined in aggregate, could begin to rise again in more structural forms, producing a segmented society marked by pockets of high prosperity and opportunity alongside regions and communities that remain disconnected from growth. Whether the political system can move from preserving stability to actively reforming itself—making choices that broaden the tax base and strengthen state capacity—will determine whether the country can convert steady momentum into sustained development. In sum, sudden crises or dramatic reversals are unlikely to define the Dominican Republic’s future. Its prospects hinge instead on whether it can leverage its favorable external position, preserve recent institutional gains, and overcome domestic constraints that limit productivity, human capital formation, and social integration. Stability has served the country well. The challenge now is to turn that stability into sustained convergence—by moving beyond a political culture of indefinite deferral that has allowed structural problems to persist even as the economy expanded. Whether leaders are prepared to make difficult and politically costly decisions—rather than merely avoiding destabilizing ones—will determine whether the next half-century is defined by incremental continuity or genuine transformation.

about the author

Marino Auffant is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He is a historian and geopolitical strategist whose work examines global macro trends, great-power competition, and economic statecraft. Based in Washington, D.C., he advises public- and private-sector leaders on structural competitiveness, supply-chain strategy, and industrial policy, with a particular focus on strategic dynamics in the Western Hemisphere and US–Dominican Republic relations. His research and advisory work spans energy markets and semiconductor nearshoring strategy. He holds a PhD in history from Harvard University.

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The post How the Dominican Republic can escape the ‘middle-income trap’ appeared first on Atlantic Council.

How NATO can integrate AI to prevail in future algorithmic warfare

Dominika Kunertova — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Bottom lines up front

NATO’s competitive edge in the era of emerging and disruptive technologies will come from purposeful integration of AI technologies across the Alliance’s digital backbone.
Military AI does not generate new vulnerabilities in kind, but it creates more room for human error and miscalculation.
Victory in algorithmic warfare requires electromagnetic spectrum dominance.

Executive summary
Introduction
Part one: Military AI tech trends
Part two: The specter of algorithmic warfare
Part three: Future scenarios
Part four: Policy recommendations
Conclusion

Executive summary

Military artificial intelligence (AI) is moving from the margins of experimentation into the core of how NATO will fight, make critical decisions, and deter competitors over the next decade. The 2022 NATO Strategic Concept identifies the technological edge to be critical for the Alliance to fulfil its core tasks. Both contemporary warfare and renewed strategic competition suggest that data-driven AI decision-support systems and autonomous battlefield capabilities augmented with AI will define the character of future conflicts. There is a justified focus on evaluating strategic risks associated with such systems.

This report argues that integrating AI into military systems does not generate vulnerabilities that are fundamentally new in kind compared to existing cyber risks. But the difference lies in consequences. Once AI-enabled decision-support systems and autonomous platforms become critical to Alliance operations, interference with data, models, and computing infrastructure may have implications for NATO’s ability to see, decide, and act under pressure. Similarly, the offensive use of AI-enabled capabilities does not, on its own, raise or lower the nuclear threshold. Escalation thresholds in algorithmic warfare will continue to be driven by effects on the ground rather than by whether a system is AI-enabled. Yet the characteristics of AI—the speed, system opacity, and physical infrastructure—create more room for human error, misperception, and miscalculation.

To explore such possibilities, the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative, in partnership with the NATO Office of the Chief Scientist, conducted a foresight study to clarify how adversaries might counter AI-enabled capabilities and to examine what this means for NATO doctrine, strategy, and deterrence. The research combined horizon scanning and expert interviews, an off-the-record workshop held in Washington, under Chatham House rules, and scenario modeling. The project mapped AI technology trends across decision-support systems and autonomous platforms, identified likely AI vulnerabilities and vectors of attack, and explored escalation dynamics through structured discussion and scenario-based exercises.

This project brought a new perspective into the debate on the impacts of transformative military AI on future warfare for two reasons. First, it is innovative in its comprehensive scope that encompasses both physical and cyber dimensions of algorithmic warfare. Indeed, it foregrounds the AI triad of data, algorithms, and computing power and shows how each can be attacked through cyber, kinetic, and electromagnetic (EM) means. And second, it examines the intersection of AI and nuclear weapons from a different angle: Tailored nuclear weapons are treated as a potential countermeasure against military AI for their electromagnetic pulse (EMP) effects.

There are two key findings.

While military AI does not generate “shock and awe” in and of itself, AI can exacerbate existing risk conditions for accidents and inadvertent escalations.

The report finds that the employment of military AI does not make the use of tailored nuclear weapons more likely. Instead, the choice of target, physical damage, and casualties are what matter. Workshop participants ranked responses to a notional AI-enabled drone saturation attack in the Baltic region by their perceived escalatory potential. Diplomatic action and electronic warfare were the most preferred responses, followed by kinetic strikes, cyber operations, and directed-energy weapons (DEW). Tailored nuclear EMP attacks were viewed as highly escalatory and politically unacceptable for NATO to use to repel an attack over NATO territory, even when framed as a tool of “information warfare.”

At the same time, military AI is expected to make the difference in terms of increasing speed, autonomy, scale, and uncertainty. This research, however, revealed that in comparison with all three components of the AI triad, the human remains the most vulnerable element of AI. Humans are routinely exposed to phishing, social engineering, cognitive bias, and already run the risk of deskilling as more tasks are delegated to machines.

Integrating AI into military operations therefore creates dangers along two pathways. First, speed and data are working against their user. Such compressed timelines can create cognitive problems in decision-making. Without safety and quality protocols in place, flooding decision-support systems with noisy or nonpatternable data can further thicken the fog of war for commanders. Second, AI-enabled military systems become increasingly complex and can lead to normal accidents, making foreign interference detection and exposure difficult to distinguish from system failures.

Algorithmic warfare highlights the importance of electromagnetic spectrum dominance.

Digital modernization of defense—the data-centric approach and software-defined capabilities—will make electromagnetic threats more salient. Russia’s war in Ukraine already highlights how GPS jamming, communications blackouts, and electronic warfare shape combat operations. This trend will intensify as NATO begins to lean on AI-enabled and multidomain command and control.

Advances in military applications of AI further strengthen the convergence between the cyber domain of operations (digital code) and the electromagnetic environment (electrons). In a crowded and contested spectrum, where software-defined radios, commercial satellites, and cloud-linked data centers underpin military networks, the distinction between “cyber” and “conventional” attack begins to blur. Further fielding of directed-energy weapons also indicates shifting the center of gravity to energy supplies.

Attacks on AI systems can use several vectors. The adversary can target model weights through espionage and hacking; poison training datasets; blind or spoof sensors on intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms; disable data relays; or physically damage hardware in data centers, cables, satellites, or uncrewed systems. Cyber operators, electronic warfare units, special forces, and conventional reconnaissance-strike systems may all participate in degrading AI-enabled capabilities. In contrast, the ongoing trend of lowering the cost of warfare will make any requirements for new protection measures, such as shielding or hardening, difficult to implement due to the trade-offs in terms of cost, weight, and endurance.

The report develops three future scenarios, including a fourth baseline case, to identify likely implications of future algorithmic warfare for NATO’s doctrine and strategy: guarded opportunism, brave new world, and minority report.

Guarded opportunism outlines a future in which military AI, despite its transformative impacts, does not require the military to dramatically alter the rules of engagement. Instead of introducing qualitatively new risks or vulnerabilities, the challenges related to military AI remain manageable with disciplined cyber hygiene and resilient power supply. On the risk side, this scenario points to heightened dangers of AI-fueled hybrid warfare below the threshold of armed conflict.
Brave new world is a less likely but more dangerous scenario detailing the conditions for escalation spirals. Transformative effects of AI lead to conventionalizing nuclear weapons. Fielding of AI-enabled military capabilities provokes the adversary to use new nuclear-powered EM weapons. Nuclear EMP attacks are viewed as a legitimate use of nuclear weapons that belong to the specter of algorithmic warfare.
Minority report presents a different take on the possible algorithmic future in which AI technology hype drives strategy. This scenario focuses on cognitive challenges for political and military decision-makers, who tend to overestimate near‑term benefits and discount the long-term risks and compound challenges of AI integration. Instead of improving AI operational implementation processes, countries race to achieve phantom AI advantages that destabilize the international security environment.

For NATO to leverage and maintain the advantage from transformative AI technologies, this report makes seven recommendations for NATO leaders that can contribute to NATO’s future strategy and doctrine adaptation.

Master AI literacy. NATO needs to develop standards for continuous AI skill development for commanders, operators, and policymakers. AI literacy is not just a strategic competency but also an instrument of restraint.
Engineer redundancy. Instead of creating a digital copy of all existing procedures, NATO should prioritize maintaining the ability to transmit information on rehearsed secondary systems.
Coordinate approach to AI tech industry. NATO should develop a code of conduct for AI tech company engagements that addresses the formation of an exclusive suppliers’ group, the knowledge gap in the private sector, and the rules for civilian software engineers in war zones.
Maintain information dominance. NATO should develop a functional framework for operationalizing AI in support of algorithmic warfare that prioritizes military objectives over abstract benchmarks and diversify its early warning systems.
Clarify escalation thresholds. NATO should develop a shared understanding of escalation thresholds for algorithmic warfare, decide on response triggers, and predelegate command authority in time-compressed scenarios to avoid escalation risks and decision paralysis.
Assess the electromagnetic layer with accuracy. Future algorithmic warfare will require NATO to treat electromagnetic spectrum operations as a distinct layer of multidomain operations to protect its strategic initiative and command-and-control superiority. NATO should also update its standards to reflect the changing scope of critical infrastructure as AI becomes a strategic asset to avoid underestimating the EM layer.
Deter by ambiguity. NATO should project resilience while cloaking its sensitive AI assets in a black box unexplainable by adversaries. However, such deterrence by ambiguity should not erode internal accountability of NATO-run AI systems.

Introduction

The 2022 NATO Strategic Concept emphasizes the importance of the Alliance maintaining its technological edge to achieve mission success.¹ But NATO’s ability to ensure military effectiveness and uphold a credible deterrence and defense posture faces challenges in the era of emerging and disruptive technologies. In the context of rapidly evolving warfare tactics and renewed strategic competition, AI-powered decision-support systems (DSS) and autonomous battlefield capabilities are expected to shape future conflicts. NATO’s 2022 Digital Transformation Vision therefore intended to accelerate the adoption of data and AI analytics to unlock new advantages for the Alliance.²

Accordingly, NATO’s AI Strategy encourages strategic foresight activities to help allies achieve a reasonable level of AI readiness.³ It also focuses on anticipating new challenges and risks related to algorithmic warfare from adversarial use of AI. While the military potential of AI is versatile and uncertain, it has nonetheless become difficult to overlook its importance to strategic competition. Countries are racing to develop and deploy AI across their civilian economies and militaries. Russia, the most significant and direct threat to NATO allies, and the People’s Republic of China, a strategic competitor seeking to control key technologies, have widely communicated their intentions to field AI for military purposes.⁴

Research objective

The Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative, in partnership with the NATO Office of the Chief Scientist, has conducted a foresight study addressing this crucial topic. This effort seeks to gain more clarity on AI’s transformative military effects over the next decade. This report assesses the vulnerabilities entailed in AI integration into NATO military capabilities in the context of the digital transformation of defense and the growing importance of electromagnetic spectrum operations. Importantly, it identifies ways in which adversaries might counter future AI-enabled capabilities on and off the battlefield. The objective is thus to understand how these developments may affect NATO’s doctrine and strategy moving forward.

This report’s focus on the transformative effects of military AI is highly relevant given NATO’s ambition to conduct multidomain operations.⁵ As outlined in the Digital Transformation Implementation Strategy, NATO political and military leaders intend to use advanced analytics in combination with multimodal data from sensor networks for a consolidated multidomain situational awareness in real time.⁶ While the “digital backbone” is intended to enable command and control across all domains, a broader digital interoperability framework with a secured data-sharing ecosystem will enhance political consultation and decision-making processes.

This report therefore seeks to address the complex question of the likely implications of future military AI countermeasures on NATO’s doctrine and strategy. This means identifying the risks from integrating transformative AI into military systems, examining the vulnerabilities the adoption of AI will create, assessing the severity and probability of corresponding adversarial attacks, and formulating recommendations. Importantly, to limit the dangers of technological determinism, this project examined how political and military leaders and policy planners (at the state level of decision-making) perceive new technologies appearing on the battlefield and craft their responses to escalate or not.⁷

Methodology

In terms of methodology, this report used several data collection and analysis tools. The first phase of the project consisted of horizon scanning and road mapping. Through a structured evidence-gathering process based on desk research of relevant open-source documents and background expert interviews, this report identified the most important drivers of change, as well as the likely future developments at the intersection of AI and the defense sector that are at the margins of current thinking and planning.

In the second phase, the Atlantic Council hosted an off-the-record closed workshop held on an unclassified level in Washington. Through two prescripted discussions, conducted under Chatham House rules, policy and scholarly experts were asked to stress test the assumptions from the first phase. This informed the project on the likelihood of AI countermeasures and conditions for escalation in future algorithmic warfare, as well as to validate recommendations.

The third and last phase of the project centered on future scenario development. This is a useful policy analysis tool that visualizes a set of possible future conditions to help NATO decision-makers to anticipate challenges as they define capability requirements for NATO’s success in future algorithmic warfare.

Structure

This report proceeds as follows. Part One maps AI technology trends and their military applications over the next decade, from the battleﬁeld to the war room. Part Two then proceeds to anticipate the vulnerabilities of AI-enabled systems and to assess the possible vectors of attack to explore escalation pathways in algorithmic warfare; it covers both digital and physical dimensions across the so-called “AI triad” of algorithms, data, and computing power—and adds a human factor.

Part Three outlines three algorithmic futures—guarded opportunism, brave new world, and minority report—based on the likely transformative effects of military AI and their impact on international security. This line of scientific inquiry is highly relevant given ongoing research concerned with the impact of roboticized autonomous systems operating with minimal human supervision on future conflicts.⁸

Part Four discusses recommendations for NATO leaders. Based on the project’s findings, this report raises seven main action points that are categorized into three areas: AI readiness and resilience; military AI doctrine; and deterrence.

Part one: Military AI tech trends

AI is becoming a general-purpose military technology that will sit inside almost every digital system that NATO uses.⁹ Its transformative effects will likely concentrate in two areas. First, decision-support systems will expand the scale of information analytics military commanders can process to make better decisions fast. Second, autonomous and semiautonomous platforms will shift how militaries sense, move, and strike on the battlefield. Together, these developments are driving an AI era of algorithmic warfare.¹⁰

AI can, in principle, be implemented in everything that uses a computer. As defense establishments digitize, AI has never been a single-purpose capability in itself. Rather, AI architecture underpins modern command, control, communications, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, logistics, and weapons systems. NATO’s own definitions reflect this evolution. In 1995, NATO described AI as the capability of a functional unit to perform tasks generally associated with human intelligence, such as reasoning and learning. By 2005, it was also seen as “the branch of computer science” focused on building systems that reason, learn, and improve themselves.¹¹ These definitions now apply across a much broader digital ecosystem. Software has become a defining component of many weapon systems and AI is increasingly embedded in sensors, networks, and command-and-control tools.

The overall expectations about AI’s impact on future warfare can be captured in three concepts: speed, scale, and autonomy. Speed refers to faster sensing, processing, and engagement cycles. Scale refers to the ability to handle vast volumes of data and to coordinate large numbers of distributed assets, including swarms of UASs. Autonomy refers to the degree to which AI systems can operate with minimal human supervision. NATO’s challenge will be to harness these three dimensions without sacrificing control, accountability, or interoperability.

From general-purpose enabler to algorithmic warfare

The military applications of AI span relatively low-stakes use cases such as administrative automation and training, operational functions like logistics and cybersecurity, and high-stakes roles in targeting, electronic warfare, and human-machine teaming in combat.¹² From a functional standpoint, experts in defense and military affairs expect AI to matter depending on the AI model type, broadly divided in four categories: generative AI, classification, prediction, and autonomy.¹³ This includes tasks in which large volumes of data must be processed quickly, where patterns are too complex for human perception, where actions need to follow real-time operational intelligence fast, and where simulated environments can meet high training requirements.

Generative AI: Content, coaching, and cognitive effects

Generative AI models create novel content that mimics the statistical properties of the data on which they are trained in response to human prompts. In the military context, these systems are likely to be used as “agents” or virtual advisers that support commanders and staff in alleviating their daily administrative burdens and automating less critical processes, such as drafting routine reports, summarizing long documents, and translating technical information.¹⁴ In training and simulation, generative AI models can serve as simulation tools in war games and exercises. They populate synthetic environments with plausible adversarial actors and behaviors. This role improves scenario realism and generates alternative courses of action.

At the same time, these features can also be weaponized for offensive information operations. Adversaries can use generative AI to run large-scale, low-cost disinformation campaigns. This may involve producing tailored propaganda or impersonating Alliance leaders, journalists, and civil society voices. Generative AI will therefore be a powerful tool in the hands of adversaries seeking to manipulate perceptions and erode NATO’s cohesion.¹⁵

Classification: Noise and signal in a sensor-saturated battlespace

Classification models excel at recognizing patterns in labeled data and assigning new inputs to categories they have learned. Militaries already use such models for computer vision, facial and object recognition, and behavior detection. Computer vision models can identify vehicles, aircraft, ships, and infrastructure in imagery from satellites, aircraft, and UASs against their regularly updated data libraries. Classification tools can become crucial for early warning systems, from detecting stealthy cyber intrusions to flagging irregular troop movements. In sum, over the next decade, these systems are well-suited to sit at the core of intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting architectures.

Much is expected from AI-enabled electronic warfare too. In a battlespace saturated with sensors, classification tools can automate filtering of the electromagnetic spectrum, such as distinguishing signal from noise and highlighting anomalous signals that warrant human attention. Furthermore, signal processing algorithms can suggest waveforms to counter hostile signals and thus help overcome adversarial jamming in real time.¹⁶ As the electromagnetic spectrum becomes more contested, the ability to recognize and respond to subtle patterns faster than an adversary will be a critical advantage.

Prediction and data fusion: Scaling decision support

Prediction models analyze historical and real-time data to identify trends and forecast likely future events. In military settings, they underpin decision-support systems (DSS) designed to help commanders cope with complexity and information overload. The transition to multidomain operations underscores the importance of such multimodal data fusion and analytics.¹⁷

This type of AI model is therefore suitable to support battle management, as they fuse information from multiple sources and data streams from land, air, maritime, cyber, and space assets, and integrate them into a single operating picture that is updatable in real time.¹⁸ However, this also means that such data-centric decision-making processes can narrow commanders’ perceptions and constrain their choices.¹⁹

They can also highlight early warning indicators, propose likely adversary courses of action, and flag emerging risks in logistics and supply chains. In logistics, in particular, AI can support predictive maintenance of critical stockpiles; forecast demand for ammunition, fuel, and spare parts; and anticipate bottlenecks in transportation networks.²⁰ Predictive systems can also assist with medical support by estimating casualties and optimizing the positioning of medical resources.²¹

Autonomy: From perception to action

Autonomy involves AI systems that perceive their environment, process real-time data from sensors, and make decisions in pursuit of a mission objective without constant human intervention. In this case, AI models can cause kinetic effects, as they can direct hardware and/or software to react within the physical realm based on the input from the immediate environment.

Onboard AI enables uncrewed aircraft, ground vehicles, and maritime platforms to filter and fuse sensor inputs, navigate in contested environments, and pass the most relevant information back to human controllers. Advances in machine vision, for example, allow drones to compare real-time imagery from downward-facing cameras with stored satellite images and inertial data to determine their position without reliance on global navigation satellite systems. This is particularly important in GPS-denied or heavily jammed environments.²²

Autonomy is also extending to terminal guidance and target recognition. Today, many drones operate on autopilot for parts of their mission, with humans in- or on-the-loop for final engagement decisions. Over time, fully autonomous solutions that combine visual navigation, target recognition, and terminal guidance are likely to proliferate. Seamless data flows, however, are crucial. The Ukrainian forces use a practice that resembles “Uber targeting,” where one unit identifies a target, shares the observation on an encrypted network, and the targeting assignment goes to whichever unit is available, even facilitating joint-strike capability from multiple vectors.²³ AI-enabled systems that can collect, process, and act on information in real time will make such dynamic targeting more common, especially when communications with higher headquarters are degraded.

From incremental adoption to algorithmic warfare

Together, developments in these functional areas point toward the algorithmic future of warfare. Broadly speaking, algorithmic warfare refers to integrating automated, autonomous, and AI technologies into the conduct of war, while decreasing the role of human elements.²⁴ In algorithmic warfare, the military conducts operations through AI-enabled capabilities that collect, analyze, and act on data at speeds and scales beyond human capacity. Artificially intelligent means operate when human warfighters cannot and reduce their exposure to danger. Such AI-enabled autonomous capabilities will especially be assigned tasks at the edge of the battlespace to handle time-critical sensing and response functions without human supervision and with minimum guidance.²⁵

Yet the most transformative effects of military AI are likely to appear in two use cases. First, AI in DSS will expand the scale and speed of information processing, giving commanders a richer but more mediated view of the operating environment. Decision-support tools will not only help humans make better-informed choices but also shape the decision space by highlighting some options and obscuring others. Second, AI embedded in weapons platforms will use speed and autonomy to compress the kill chain, shrinking the time between detection, identification, decision, and engagement.²⁶ This has implications for escalation control, the rules of engagement (ROE), and the role of commanders in supervising rapid, machine-driven engagements.

Drivers of change

Several structural drivers are signaling greater reliance on AI and algorithmic approaches to warfare. These drivers are particularly important for NATO as it implements its Digital Transformation Vision and prepares for multidomain operations.

Digital modernization of defense

First, the broader digital modernization of defense is creating the conditions in which AI can thrive. Modern militaries are upgrading their IT infrastructure and moving to software-defined capabilities that deliver new functionality to existing platforms.²⁷ This also means adopting data-centric approaches to capability development through collaborative digital spaces.

As militaries continue implementing digital modernization of their forces, their dominance in the electromagnetic spectrum is crucial for their new dependencies on sensors, satellites, and networked systems. Russia’s war in Ukraine has underscored the importance of EM warfare, including GPS jamming and communications blackouts.²⁸ These developments push militaries to design more resilient, autonomous, and decentralized command-and-control structures with better cybersecurity measures. At the same time, electromagnetic warfare in the West has not gotten the attention it needs and is still seen as largely subservient to or stovepiped from cyber.²⁹

Interconnected domains

Second, the move toward multidomain operations (MDO) requires integrating effects across land, air, maritime, space, and cyberspace, as well as in the virtual and cognitive dimensions. MDO aims to “[orchestrate] military activities, synchronize non-military instruments of power, and deliver converging effects at the speed of relevance.”³⁰ To make this possible, allies are building a digital backbone that can enable command and control across all domains. However, the effectiveness of this backbone depends on interoperable data sharing, secure and reliable communications, and advanced analytics capable of fusing data into a real-time consolidated multidomain picture. Turning well-integrated AI models into C4ISR systems that enhance situational awareness and support decision-making becomes part of the key conditions for conducting multidomain operations.

Autonomy pursuits

Third, recent and ongoing conflicts are accelerating experimentation with AI-enabled autonomous and decision-support systems. In Ukraine, AI-driven platforms already analyze extensive sensor and signal data to generate real-time targeting suggestions and logistical predictions.³¹ In Gaza, reports indicate that machine-learning systems such as “Gospel” and “Lavender” have been used to support dynamic targeting and terminal navigation by combining multi-source imagery with other intelligence inputs.³² These cases illustrate a shift from isolated, weapon-centric AI applications toward more comprehensive systems that inform planning, targeting, and force deployment at all command levels.

Drones are no longer only agents of remote warfare but are fast becoming agents of algorithmic warfare as well. Demand has surged for battlefield drone footage. Thousands of drone-camera videos depicting successful strikes are used to train computer-vision models, while engineers race to design uncrewed systems that can navigate and coordinate in GPS- and communications-denied environments using on-board processing and limited power.

Two motivations stand out: building “mass for precision” and supplementing shrinking human force structures. Swarm tactics and swarm command seek to saturate defenses and compress reaction times through the coordinated use of large numbers of low-cost platforms. At the same time, demographic trends and recruitment challenges will incentivize greater robotic integration and human-machine teaming. Forward-deployed, uninhabited platforms on standby will increasingly redefine how militaries think about force projection and readiness.³³ For instance, large drone formations can provide the aggressor with an edge in the invasion of foreign territory, highlighting the challenge to the capacity of air defenses.³⁴ Across these trends, AI is fast becoming more than just a technological tool; it is a vital strategic competency,³⁵ and will likely determine which militaries can exploit AI—at scale and under stress. For NATO, understanding where AI is most likely to transform operations, and how adversaries might target the vulnerabilities of AI-enabled systems, is a prerequisite for credible deterrence and effective defense in the emerging era of algorithmic warfare.

Part two: The specter of algorithmic warfare

Militaries have not yet realized the full potential of AI technologies, but it is not difficult to see how AI will shape the strategic environment and wartime paradigms. As the AI race intensifies, potent AI-enabled capabilities will be deployed as part of NATO’s digital transformation and decision-support ambitions.³⁶ This section translates interview insights and workshop discussions into a structured analysis of AI’s core components and their vulnerabilities and the likely vectors of adversarial attack. Two case studies used in the workshop—AI applications in autonomous weapons platforms and in a decision-support system—further informed the analysis of the limits of main AI countermeasures and the conditions under which escalation in algorithmic warfare may occur. This is because the likelihood of an adversary attacking NATO for using AI models for predictive maintenance is comparatively low.

AI triad

Military AI rests on three interlocking components often described as the AI triad: data, algorithms, and computing power.³⁷ Each component has a specific implication for offense-defense parameters. For instance, algorithms imply attacks on model architecture, computing power involves disrupting semiconductors and supply chains, while data concern cyberattacks to poison datasets.

Data refers to information about the focus area of the machine-learning system, collected from sensors and other sources, organized, stored, and made accessible. Algorithms are the series of instructions used to process information; machine-learning algorithms derive insights from datasets and the learnable parameters that encode the core capabilities of an AI model in model weights. Computing power provides the speed and capacity to execute algorithms at scale, train models to determine weights, and run inference offline on deployed systems.³⁸ In practice, computing power includes processors and graphics cards, advanced semiconductors, content delivery networks, power supplies, and cooling. Defense applications often need to run offline on edge devices under strict size, weight, and power constraints, or on government cloud resources with limited GPU availability. Data, sometimes dubbed the new “munition” due to their importance for modern warfare, encompasses issues such as volume, quality, salience, and labeling. The amount of training data strongly influences effectiveness, though collecting the right operational data and labeling it correctly are important for accuracy and alignment. Algorithms feed data into model weights through training, and their resulting internal architecture determines future data analysis in real-time operations.

AI vulnerabilities and vectors of attack

Integrating AI introduces several challenges along the entire triad. Core datasets are massive, models can be opaque, and natural-language prompting expands input surfaces. These characteristics create multiple entry points for adversaries and raise the importance of disciplined processes and safeguards. Adversaries will attempt to degrade NATO’s AI-enabled capabilities by targeting the triad across cyber, electromagnetic, and conventional kinetic dimensions. This section outlines how such attacks would prevent the Alliance from enjoying advantages from AI.

Computing power

Vulnerabilities associated with computing power reflect the physicality of AI infrastructure. This is because advanced semiconductors and specialized chips must be sourced, supplied, and integrated into systems that also require stable energy and cooling. The performance of inference-heavy applications may depend on AI-optimized hardware. These dependencies create risks during material shortages, expose weak points in data centers, and constrain performance at the tactical edge.

Adversaries can exploit material attributes of semiconductors. They can disrupt the supply of specialized AI chips, seed vendor-supplied Trojan backdoors, or manipulate cloud architectures built with commercial technology. They can target the electricity supply of data centers and sabotage their water-cooling systems to cause outages, or damage undersea cables and content-delivery networks to disrupt data flows.

Data

Data is vulnerable across the lifecycle of AI models. Adversaries can poison training datasets through cyber operations that mislabel data or introduce hidden triggers that cause the model to misbehave. Poorly labeled or biased datasets degrade performance, making certain classes of objects invisible to the system or misclassifying them at critical ranges. If the wrong data is collected, or if the right data is corrupted, the entire decision-support chain can lead a model to malfunction and reduce its reliability in the long term.

Adversaries can also interfere with real-life data collection. Because drones and other autonomous systems rely on environmental input, adversaries can tamper with surroundings to impact sensory input and cause abnormal behavior. For instance, blinding sensors on ISR platforms with optical illusions, or adjusting the sensors themselves, and generating spoofing signals can mislead the model into inappropriate responses.³⁹ In addition to onboard perception and planning modules, adversaries can target control interfaces, power management, data relays, and user interfaces used to coordinate connected autonomous systems. Alternatively, disabling low-orbit satellites can also stop real-time input and data sharing.

Algorithms

Incorporating AI into the digital architecture makes the existing systems susceptible to attacks that target the AI model itself. Because model parameters encode internal configuration variables crucial for its operation, compromising weights and biases gives an attacker significant leverage. Adversaries can also try to steal model weights through espionage or proxy hackers, gaining access to the core capabilities of the model for manipulation.⁴⁰
Adversaries can thicken the fog of war for algorithms by flooding AI-enabled DSS with inputs that are inaccurate, uncategorizable, or nonpatternable. They can exploit the rare and unpredictable features of the battlefield, since AI models are mostly trained on either synthetic data or on datasets from previous conflicts that may not quite fit the type and circumstances of the current war zone.

Interviewed experts and workshop participants indicated that the most likely adversarial action against military AI architecture would include:

Blinding sensors on ISR platforms to stop the real-time input of new data.
Spreading misinformation to confuse the algorithms with nonpatternable data.
Physically damaging undersea cables to disrupt data sharing.
Conducting espionage in the suppliers’ private lab facilities.

Surprisingly, however, the most vulnerable component of AI seems to be the human; data and algorithms follow, with the computing power being the least vulnerable of AI components. Such human-related vulnerabilities include personalized phishing, social engineering, cognitive bias, and deskilling.

Countering military AI

Having discussed the vectors of adversarial attacks on AI-enabled military systems and capabilities, this section now briefly comments on the means of such attacks. These AI countermeasures include cyber operations, conventional kinetic attack, electronic warfare, directed energy weapons (DEW), and tailored nuclear weapons with enhanced electromagnetic pulse (EMP). Each has distinct advantages and limitations.

Cyber operations

Cyber operations can interfere with how AI models learn and operate by manipulating ones and zeros. Cyberattacks can degrade the model’s performance or integrity, limit its availability by delaying responses or rendering command-and-control systems inoperative at crucial moments.⁴¹ Integrating AI into military systems increases their vulnerability simply by creating more targets for computer hacking.⁴² These AI vulnerabilities include compromising software libraries, poisoning training data, hijacking AI infrastructure, or stealing sensitive AI properties. Such cyberattacks, however, require prior intelligence to target the right datasets and processing centers. Their effects can be difficult to assess and attribute in real time, which increases the potential for miscalculation.

Conventional kinetic action

Conventional kinetic attacks can target ISR assets including space-based systems, airborne warning and control system aircraft, and other hardware components integral in critical AI infrastructure. Traditional air defenses can target offensive AI onboard small autonomous vehicles with low-cost interceptors, nets, and guns. Kinetic action is tangible but can be escalatory depending on target and context, and it may be expensive or resource-intensive if used at scale against saturation attacks.

Electronic warfare

Electronic warfare uses electromagnetic energy to degrade hostile systems by jamming or spoofing. EW can produce reversible, nonlethal effects, but it is constrained by range, power, antennas, and by the need for detailed knowledge of enemy waveforms and code. Focused jamming and signal spoofing in case of multisensor platforms can confuse AI into analytical errors and lead to wrong reactions. Jamming, however, is possible only in the case of collaborative autonomous platforms that communicate among themselves the adaptive course of their action.

Directed-energy weapons

High-power microwaves and high-energy lasers widen the range of electromagnetic spectrum operations (EMSO). They can disable or destroy electronics on autonomous platforms using concentrated electromagnetic energy.⁴³ While microwaves are suitable for area defenses and perimeter denial against swarms of drones, lasers with their energy beams perform point defense similar to short-range air defense and counter-rocket, artillery, and mortar missions. They have low logistics tails and low cost per shot, but they are power hungry and range-limited. Atmospheric conditions, such as rain and fog, can reduce beam quality and effectiveness, as well as increase fratricide risks. Their applications for space missions look promising given their reusability and the potential to degrade or destroy a satellite.⁴⁴

Tailored nuclear weapons with enhanced electromagnetic pulse

Nuclear explosions of all types—from underground to high altitudes—are accompanied by an electromagnetic pulse. The strength and area coverage of this intense time varying electromagnetic radiation depends on the warhead type and yield, and the altitude of the detonation.⁴⁵ This means that while high-altitude airbursts can have a continent-wide deposition region, for explosions in the atmosphere at altitudes below 30 kilometers, the radius ranges from 5 to 16 kilometers.⁴⁶

Since the 1960s, EMPs, either man-made or natural, have been known to have a potential to disrupt, damage, or destroy a wide array of electrical and electronic systems.⁴⁷ Degradation of electrical and electronic system performance as a result of exposure to the EMP may cause either permanent functional damage or a temporary operational impairment, lasting from seconds to hours.⁴⁸ Computers used in data processing systems, communications systems, and semiconductors belong to the category of devices most susceptible to failure.⁴⁹

While airbursts have little or no fallout and no residual radiation, it is difficult to predict their effects and impact on today’s sensitive electronics, as well as avoid collateral damage and civilian casualties. Together with the difficulty to signal limited nuclear use, since the adversary cannot distinguish low-yield from high-yield weapons, such employment of nuclear EMP weapons remains highly problematic and inherently escalatory.⁵⁰ Experimental exercises over the past decades have identified no assurance that a nuclear strike would remain limited.⁵¹

Escalation and algorithmic warfare

The workshop assessed the salience of AI-enabled lethal operations along an escalatory pathway from minor cyber operations to DEW and nuclear EMP. The following paragraphs summarize the expert participants’ discussion on the conditions under which the use of military AI could increase the risk of escalation.

Escalation is defined as “an increase in the intensity or scope of conflict that crosses threshold(s) considered significant by one or more of the participants.”⁵² Escalation thresholds then depend on retaliation in response to some form of attack. The workshop discussion highlighted the distinction between effects-based and means-based escalation logics. While effects-based logic identifies thresholds depending on the impact that is irrespective of the weapons type, means-based logic emphasizes the qualitative difference between nuclear, conventional, and cyber domains. Some means are regarded as less escalatory than others. For instance, cyberattacks have proven capable of restraining the escalation dynamic and even de-escalating geopolitical crises.⁵³ Similarly, attacks on large drones are less likely to lead to escalation than attacks on inhabited aircraft.⁵⁴

Most researchers studying the AI-nuclear intersection focus on AI amplifying existing risks in nuclear command, control, and communications that can spark accidental nuclear confrontation,⁵⁵ undermining deterrence with AI-enabled conventional systems,⁵⁶ incentivizing first strike,⁵⁷ or exacerbating the proliferation/verification dilemma.⁵⁸ This workshop addressed the concern of a possible deliberate use of nuclear weapons as a warfighting tool designed to produce electromagnetic pulse effects to counter military AI. Previous experimental war-gaming showed that although low-yield nuclear weapons do indeed destabilize international security since they are seen as a substitute for high-yield nuclear use, they do not seem to increase the likelihood of crossing the nuclear threshold.⁵⁹

The workshop scenario described an AI-enabled fast and lethal drone saturation attack into the Baltic region. The scenario listed a number of possible responses:

Diplomatic action.
Economic sanctions.
Cyberattack.
Conventional kinetic response.
Electronic warfare measures.
Directed energy weapons.
Tailored nuclear weapons with enhanced electromagnetic pulse.

The workshop participants ranked responses by their perceived escalatory potential. Diplomatic action and electronic warfare tended to come first and often in parallel. Kinetic action, cyber operations, and DEW followed as second-ring responses. Economic sanctions were seen as medium-term tools, not immediate response levers. Tailored nuclear EMP was considered least probable but most escalatory, with a consensus that its use over NATO territory would be unacceptable. Among the most prevalent concerns against the nuclear EMP use, the participants noted: lowering the threshold for strategic nuclear weapon use; observing the nuclear “taboo,” the response’s proportionality, proliferation of nuclear weapons following nuclear use, and setting a negative precedent.

The follow-on discussion highlighted that adversaries may exploit AI structural risks. Complex AI systems can make attribution and intent assessment harder as AI and autonomy create conditions for plausible deniability. In addition, increased speed and data volumes can work against the user, since time-pressured scenarios increase the risk that decision-makers may rely more heavily on potentially compromised AI outputs, without even understanding the source of unanticipated inputs or system failures.⁶⁰

The workshop confirmed that military AI is not escalatory because offensive AI-enabled capabilities do not meaningfully increase the nature or intensity of a conflict. What matters is the choice of target, the physical damage, and the presence of casualties. At the same time, the properties of AI—speed, autonomy, and opacity—can increase the risk of inadvertent escalation. Despite the fight for EM spectrum dominance, the AI status of an attack does not lower nuclear thresholds—effects on the ground determine response. Ultimately, the vicinity of the adversary’s troops continues to be perceived as more escalatory than an AI-powered swarm attack.

Part three: Future scenarios

Juxtaposing the possible transformative effects of military AI against the threat perception (table A), this foresight study outlines three military AI future scenarios: Guarded opportunism, brave new world, and minority report. The goal is to anticipate long‑haul innovation in countering adversarial attacks on NATO’s AI systems and to inform military research and development decisions.⁶¹

The scenarios are modeled after two variables with a graduated level of likelihood. The first variable concerns the transformative impact of AI: whether countries achieve any strategic advantage from integrating AI into their militaries. And the second variable addresses an adversary’s threat perception: whether integrating AI provokes the development of new countermeasures and/or changes on the escalation ladder.

The fourth quadrant—AI fatigue—represents the most unlikely scenario with no decisive AI advantage and no heightened threat perception. It is less policy‑salient but remains useful as a control for future policy planning.

Scenario I. Guarded opportunism

This is the most plausible future scenario. AI meaningfully transforms military affairs and confers comparative advantage on states that integrate it well, yet it does not worsen adversary threat perceptions. Business continues largely as usual. AI‑enabled decision support and autonomy systems transform the character of warfare through expanded scale and increased operational speed yet without changing the nature of war.

NATO’s digital transformation and integrated AI-enabled military capabilities do not introduce qualitatively new risks or vulnerabilities. These remain familiar to cyberspace and can be managed with disciplined cyber hygiene and resilient power-supply architectures. However, AI may heighten some of the existing threat pathways and security risks. As AI becomes integral to the ability to operate and respond, degraded situational awareness and power outages, for instance, could become more consequential—and a new center of gravity—in digitalized, software-defined defense. Decision‑support systems help commanders filter the noise and frame choices faster, but they do not demand new categories of resilience beyond what Part Two already identified for the AI triad.

Hybrid pressure intensifies below the threshold of armed conflict. Cable cuts, data center intrusions, and information operations become routine. Russia continues sabotaging critical AI infrastructure to disrupt supply chains and cyber and drone intimidation campaigns across Europe.⁶² Yet technology knowledge and investments into resilient computer systems limit these escalation attempts. Better engineering and AI literacy shorten detection and attribution loops and make recovery faster.

Two challenges stand out. The first is the intergovernmental character of the Alliance. NATO relies on its member countries for certain types of cyber operations. This dependence on capitals to act creates latency in time‑sensitive crises and may result in inefficient responses that may not prevent further escalation of hybrid warfare. The second is information warfare targeting the Alliance’s reputation. NATO publics in left‑leaning governments are targeted with disinformation campaigns that frame AI‑enabled capabilities as unethical “killer robots,” arguing that NATO violates its own principles of responsible use of AI. Adversaries are further fueling domestic opposition to reduce tech-sector cooperation.

Still, guarded opportunism is defined by low escalation risks. Algorithmic warfare remains bounded by existing ROE and proportional responses. The only time AI and nuclear fields cross their paths with real-world consequences is in the widespread adoption of small nuclear reactors across the military to power demanding computations of AI models.

Scenario II. Brave new world

In the second scenario, AI is transformative and threat perception worsens. The AI triad delivers a real strategic and operational edge. However, AI-related risks grow with it over time due to insufficient literacy, lack of regular training, lagging skill development, and sloppy implementation of zero‑trust policy across armed forces. Furthermore, rapid and widespread integration of AI models creates new vulnerabilities, stemming from limited human agency, which complicate the cognitive aspects of decision-making.⁶³ The result is an increased probability of flash wars among autonomous robotic systems, in which algorithms interact at such a fast pace that humans would not be involved.⁶⁴

Such a degraded security environment sees multiple escalation spirals. Compressed decision-making times and fully autonomous systems contribute to perceptions of asymmetric disadvantage between Russia and NATO. Russia’s doctrine and force structure amplify the problem. Russia’s revision of its nuclear doctrine in 2024—with its greater emphasis on “aerospace attacks,” explicitly including drones, as one of the conditions under which nuclear weapons may be used—seems to lower the threshold for nuclear use.⁶⁵ This demonstrates that Russia became more reliant on its nonstrategic nuclear weapons after its conventional forces degraded in the war on Ukraine.⁶⁶ This seems to strengthen the Russian leadership’s belief that nonstrategic nuclear weapons are Russia’s “competitive advantage” over NATO.⁶⁷ Furthermore, Russia’s vision of new generation warfare builds upon weapons based on new physical principles, including radio frequency, laser, infrasonic, and electromagnetic. Russia has indeed been developing a precision-strike system built on integration of EW, uncrewed strike and reconnaissance systems, hypersonic weapons, and low-yield nuclear warheads.

In contrast, as NATO’s deterrent power derives from advanced conventional capabilities, this scenario portrays a deeper blurring of conventional and nuclear domains.⁶⁸ Yet NATO struggles to attain superiority in strategic command and control, while avoiding dependencies on commercial clouds and satellites. Large‑scale outages and cascading failures are more frequent. Allies hold regular war-gaming exercises to make sure that the Alliance’s responses remain proportionate even when attacks are AI‑generated. Yet Russia’s asymmetric countermeasures to the multidomain concept keep causing electronic damage to NATO command posts and communications centers.⁶⁹

In high tension, states embrace capabilities that manipulate the spectrum—microwaves, lasers, tailored EMP—seeking to blunt swarms and blind sensors. While EW once seemed unbeatable, jamming lost its teeth against uncrewed vehicles that do not use communication and navigation links. And if autonomy was an antidote to EW, then degrading the electromagnetic environment has become the antidote to AI-enabled military capabilities.

Some governments resume nuclear explosive testing of airburst effects, which contributes to further entangling AI with the nuclear domain. The line between conventional and nuclear war will get more fragile with the proliferation of new classes of EMP weapons. Nuclear proliferation gets out of control as more countries strive to develop their own low-yield nuclear EMP deterrent to counter AI-enabled adversaries. Worse, numerous experts inside and outside Russia believe that a nuclear EMP attack does not need to be governed by the same set of considerations as strategic nuclear weapons and nuclear doctrine.⁷⁰ Nuclear EMP weapons are understood within the category of electronic warfare or information warfare, not nuclear warfare. In this increasingly popular interpretation, an EMP attack is regarded as a legitimate use of nuclear weapons within the specter of algorithmic warfare. Even if nuclear EMP is conceptualized as a form of information warfare in some circles, its use would be profoundly escalatory.

Scenario III. Minority report

In the third scenario, technology hype drives strategy. AI does not deliver decisive comparative advantage for the military, yet threat perceptions grow worse. Exaggerated expectations about the game-changing, transformative, and inevitable impact of AI fuel anxiety about falling behind. The fear of missing out, rather than tangible advantages from AI models, pushes countries deep into the AI race. Such alarmism about phantom AI advantages has a destabilizing effect on strategic balance.

Information asymmetries deepen the problem. NATO militaries and Russian officials tout milestones and “breakthroughs,” while major AI firms speak of revolutionary models. The strategic conversation fixates on what might be developed tomorrow rather than what is fielded today. Decision‑makers overestimate near‑term effects and discount the risks and challenges of AI integration work highlighted in Parts One and Two. As a result, nuclear-armed great powers interpret routine military exercises as cover for preemptive strikes at machine‑speeds and tend to see AI-enabled ISR improvements as a direct threat to their second-strike capabilities.

Escalation pathways in this scenario are cognitive. On the one hand, leaders race to push fully autonomous prototypes forward before safety case evaluations are completed. Miscalculation risk rises not because AI-enabled autonomous weapons systems are unstoppable, but because the decision-makers believe they are. On the other, the adversaries deploy cognitive warfare tactics of “algorithmic amplification” to influence how decision-makers reason, degrade critical decision-making processes, and undermine their sense of security.⁷¹

The Alliance faces the challenge of lowering expectations while preserving its technological edge. However, while allies agreed to coordinate their political objectives of developing AI-enabled armed forces, the lack of national resources and ineffectiveness of their national AI strategies to achieve them weakened NATO’s cohesion.⁷² Leading AI countries are reluctant to institutionalize transparent metrics for AI readiness that separate laboratory promise from operational proof.

This scenario points to the need to move beyond the polarizing hopes-vs-fears dichotomy of AI in order to translate technological potential into military advantage through a sound implementation strategy.⁷³ This scenario reminds policymakers and defense planners to budget for the cognitive dimension of technological competition. Publics and markets react to hyped narratives faster than to scientific results. Adversaries will try to exploit this gap with rhetoric about their AI leapfrogging, announcing the winner of the AI race.

Across all three futures, NATO faces distinct challenges posed by future algorithmic warfare. NATO’s advantage from AI models rests on speed, scale, and autonomy delivered by a resilient AI triad under close human oversight. Guarded opportunism is the most likely scenario and highlights AI vulnerabilities in the light of hybrid and information warfare. Brave new world is less likely but the more dangerous of the three futures. In this algorithmic future, NATO is constantly on the cusp of spirals of escalation and de-escalation and points to the dangers from rapid and widespread integration of AI models without correspondingly fast doctrinal adaptation. Minority report, meanwhile, outlines the destabilizing effects of AI hype in the context of lacking safety and transparency standards.

Part four: Policy recommendations

NATO’s advantage in algorithmic warfare will depend on converting AI’s speed, scale, and autonomy into reliable military capabilities while avoiding inadvertent escalation. This report suggests that the Alliance should focus on three lines of effort. First, it must build AI readiness and resilience across the Alliance. Second, it must refine military AI doctrine to preserve information dominance and to clarify response triggers under compressed timelines. Third, it must develop a deterrence strategy for its strategic AI-enabled DSS. These policy recommendations address the AI vulnerabilities and attack vectors identified in the report’s earlier sections, providing practical steps for NATO leaders implementing the Digital Transformation Vision and preparing for multidomain operations. Each recommendation is intended for near‑term adoption to set conditions for long‑term advantages from AI.

I. AI readiness and resilience

NATO should anchor its AI strategy in two core principles—literacy and redundancy—and reinforce those principles through a coordinated approach to the AI tech industry. Such an approach will help NATO avoid the risks of stale knowledge and deskilling.

Recommendation 1: Master AI literacy

AI literacy should be treated as a strategic competency for commanders, operators, and policymakers rather than as a niche topic confined to chief information officers. NATO should integrate AI education into professional military education, operational exercises, and staff development programs so that leaders understand both the promise and the limits of current AI models. AI-literate armed forces are less likely to succumb to tech-centric thinking and automation bias in future strategy and doctrine development.

NATO should also educate wider publics and political elites so that strategy debates do not become hostage to hype. Clear explanations of how models are evaluated, how data shape military performance, and how human judgment remains central are key for preparing policymakers at all levels to make informed AI-related decisions.⁷⁴

Recommendation 2: Engineer redundancy

Maintaining the ability to transmit information is essential for coordinated actions. NATO should assume that outages and system failures will occur. The Alliance needs to exercise capabilities in communications‑degraded electromagnetic environments and design robust and rehearsed secondary systems. This involves mapping cyber and physical dependencies to avoid single points of failure.

The Alliance should pursue controlled geographic decentralization of data centers to improve resilience of its AI architecture. This will require lawmakers to align national legislative requirements on strict data standards and protocols for insider-outsider threat detection. Vetting the data that goes into AI-enabled DSS, together with delineating clear boundaries between training periods and operational deployment of AI models, will improve the ability to isolate “poisoned” data and contain their spread. Training a team of experts to ensure human oversight of AI workings can limit the consequences of system malfunctions, while limiting the number of people with authorized access to base model parameters, can reduce the risk of sabotage and espionage.

Investment priorities should include research programs that work on future novel materials for shielding and protection of high-speed digital computers against EM interference. Given that the adversaries are likely to invest heavily in spoofing and dazzling hardware capabilities, the Allies should consider hardened interfaces against exfiltration. Lastly, NATO should invest in resources for continuous active defenses that constantly look for evidence of deception and run malfunction diagnostics.

Recommendation 3: Coordinate approach to AI tech industry

NATO should develop a code of conduct for private-sector engagements. The code would require AI companies developing products for decision-support systems and autonomous platforms to adhere to safety and ethical standards. The Alliance should create a trusted group of commercial suppliers and establish clear rules for civilian software engineers and technicians deployed in war zones. To prevent adversaries from achieving tech superiority, the Allies should examine their technology dependencies, “friend-shore” supply chains, and tighten export controls of critical components.

The Alliance should try to address the knowledge gap that exists in the private sector on how EMPs affect computer-based systems. NATO should partner with space tech organizations that have experience with the most advanced research into electromagnetic disturbances. As part of coordinating government–industry unclassified information sharing, NATO could also facilitate partnerships between traditional military hardware providers with software developers so that commercial capabilities can be deployed on military‑grade platforms. Lastly, NATO should encourage forward thinking. Routine, joint red‑teaming and data‑poisoning drills with industry will expose weaknesses. Regular brainstorming on risks from new EMP weapons and postquantum cryptography should feed into the life-cycle design of current systems.

II. Military AI doctrine

Doctrine must convert technical possibility into operational advantage while reducing the pathways to inadvertent escalation. Three recommendations on doctrinal adaptation can contribute to preserving NATO’s advantage from AI.

Recommendation 4: Maintain information dominance

NATO should develop a functional framework for operationalizing AI in support of algorithmic warfare that prioritizes military objectives over abstract benchmarks. Commanders should measure success in terms of effects—such as optimized asset‑to‑target allocation on defense—rather than in terms of statistical thresholds.

Investments should focus on early warning systems, electromagnetic warfare capabilities, and a layered counter‑UAS architecture that combines continuous passive radars, electronic warfare, DEW, and point defenses.

Maintaining information dominance also requires the ability to distinguish routine probing in the form of hybrid air denial operations from preparations for larger operations using drone saturation attacks. Exercises should therefore include ambiguous data, degraded sensors, and adversarial attempts to manipulate inputs so that the troops learn to question AI outputs without losing their operational tempo.

Recommendation 5: Clarify escalation thresholds

Compressed timelines will produce decision paralysis unless allies agree on response triggers and predelegate command authority to avoid escalation risks. NATO allies should develop a shared understanding of escalation thresholds for algorithmic warfare, including thresholds defining the strategic effects of adversarial AI-enabled attacks, as well as of attacks on NATO’s own AI architecture.

NATO also should have clear protocols in place for attribution and proportionality regarding the Alliance’s responses. For instance, would poisoning an adversary’s data count as an offensive cyber operation? NATO allies also need to make sure there are clear rules of engagement for autonomous and semiautonomous response systems. In anticipating the adversary’s deniability claims in the event of AI-enabled attacks, such as “accident” or “loss of control,” NATO should not be adjusting its red lines between subthreshold manipulation and armed attack.

Recommendation 6: Assess the electromagnetic layer with accuracy

The electromagnetic spectrum should not be an afterthought. NATO defense planners need to take the electromagnetic spectrum into consideration at the beginning of warfare planning and develop a spectrum plan with assigned frequencies. Future algorithmic warfare may require NATO to update its standards for survivability (STANAG 4145) to reflect the reality that modern critical infrastructure includes data centers and commercial satellites in addition to traditional command facilities.
In planning for EM-contested environments, NATO allies should preposition shielded assets—power, fuel, generators, and communications equipment—in forward locations to avoid logistical shortages during compressed timelines. They could also invest in software‑defined or reconfigurable radios and optical/laser communications. They should also explore the use of UAS or balloon‑based repeaters to restore the ability to transmit information when ground infrastructure is compromised. Treating the spectrum as a distinct layer of multidomain operations will protect the strategic initiative and the superiority in command and control that NATO seeks to maintain.

III. Deterrence

As AI‑enabled systems underpin strategic command‑and‑control functions, NATO must develop a deterrence strategy based on black box ambiguity without locking itself into a rigid declaratory policy.

Recommendation 7: Deter by ambiguity

NATO should project resilience while keeping the internal architecture of sensitive AI systems opaque to adversaries. Black box AI would also deprive adversaries of the ability to assess the real costs of potential attack. At the same time, the Alliance must maintain the diagnostic capacity to distinguish foreign interference from technical failure in case of system malfunctions, so that ambiguity does not erode internal accountability.

Building and demonstrating resilience—technical, organizational, and informational—will enable NATO to signal confidence and control. Its strategic communication should make clear that deliberate interference with decision‑support systems could carry serious consequences, even if precise thresholds and responses remain undisclosed. Taken together, these seven recommendations translate the analytical sections into concrete actionable items. Literacy keeps humans in charge under compressed timelines. Redundancy and industry coordination make the AI triad more trustworthy. Doctrine secures the informational high ground and clarifies action in crisis. Finally, deterrence by ambiguity protects the Alliance’s AI advantage without inspiring its adversaries into building new countermeasures. Implemented in parallel, these steps position NATO to enjoy its AI advantage in algorithmic warfare on terms that contribute to a stable security environment.

Conclusion

NATO’s competitive edge in the era of emerging and disruptive technologies will come from treating AI as a general-purpose enabler embedded across the Alliance’s digital backbone, rather than as a stand-alone “wonder weapon.” AI-enabled decision support and autonomy do not create vulnerabilities that are different in kind from cyber risks, but they raise the stakes by tying mission-critical effects—speed, scale, and autonomy—to software-defined systems that adversaries will target. Escalation will continue to be governed by effects and targets, not labels, while cognitive factors complicate judgment under time pressure. The practical implication for NATO is clear: invest in literacy, engineer redundancy, clarify doctrine, and project resilience with measured ambiguity.

This report addresses NATO’s ambition to protect its AI technological edge while digitalizing defense. Part One showed how AI will matter most in two intertwined areas: decision-support systems that compress time and expand the scale of information processing, and autonomous or semiautonomous platforms that accelerate sensing, movement, and strike. These advantages rely on the secured AI triad of algorithms, data, and computing power. Part Two mapped where adversaries will try to turn those strengths into liabilities—poisoning data, spoofing sensors, stealing model weights, interrupting cloud access and cable backhaul, and attacking the AI physical infrastructure. The analysis emphasized that while attempts to degrade AI-enabled military capabilities will resemble cyberspace operations, the consequences of failure are amplified when AI is made responsible for situational awareness at the core of command-and-control decision-making.

Parts Three and Four translated those findings into future forecasting and recommendations. The foresight scenario exercise underscored that the most likely near-term pathway is one of guarded opportunism—AI improves productivity and tempo without changing the nature of war—while the most dangerous pathway blends real AI advantage with worsening threat perception, making EMSO and directed-energy tools more salient in crisis. The most deceptive pathway is driven by hype: Threat perceptions rise even when fielded capabilities do not correspond to exaggerated predictions. Across all futures, effects, targets, and collateral risk determine algorithmic warfare dynamics.

Crucially, military AI systems do not introduce vulnerabilities that are categorically new, yet the consequences of foreign interference can be greater. If AI-enabled systems are integral to a unit’s ability to operate and respond, then successful attacks on those systems may warrant responses that are more escalatory than tit-for-tat cyber exchanges. Timing matters as well. Loss of real-time situational awareness in a crisis reduces clarity about what happened and who is responsible, raising the probability of misperception and inadvertent escalation. In practice, this report calls for disciplined deployment of decision-support systems that can only rely on rehearsed secondary systems.

The study also clarified the relationship between EMSO and nuclear restraint in the context of tailored, nonstrategic nuclear weapons. Means-based analysis sheds light on how emerging technologies shape modern escalation dynamics. Rather than making technology-centric estimates, this report highlights systemic risks related to AI: How leaders perceive risk under pressure remains decisive.

Literacy is therefore more than a training agenda; it is an instrument of restraint. Educated policymakers, commanders, and publics are less likely to treat AI as “cyber pixie dust” or to confuse reversible electronic effects with strategic attack. They will be better able to choose the right mission for the AI-enabled capability. In parallel, designating data centers, cables, AI labs, and commercial satellites as critical infrastructure and strategic assets will help align strategy and doctrine with the realities of a software-defined force.

This study contributes to AI literacy by stripping away hype and clarifying where algorithmic warfare introduces new challenges. For NATO leaders implementing the Digital Transformation Vision, the immediate tasks are practical: align skill development programs, harden the AI triad, codify response triggers, and show resilience without over-specifying red lines. Doing so reduces the risk that exaggerated expectations about new technology will drive strategy.

The report’s findings point to a future research agenda that looks into how tactical actions can engage strategic effects. AI-enabled autonomy and speed can magnify the psychological impact of hybrid campaigns, especially where the cost of interceptors is high and the pace of exchange is machine-driven. Routine “gray zone” activities are already redefining the baseline of normalcy across Europe.⁷⁵ Such threshold uncertainty permits plausible deniability, keeping the adversarial action away from Article 5 territory.

Open questions remain. How robust is the “firebreak” in escalation theory when algorithmic systems increasingly shape perception and timing? Can allies maintain recognizable qualitative distinctions between domains when effects propagate across them in multidomain operations? And where, precisely, do we draw escalation thresholds when nonkinetic actions in the electromagnetic spectrum generate strategic consequences? Answering these questions will require continued red teaming, transparent metrics for AI readiness, and joint experimentation that links tactical vignettes to strategic decision-making fora.

The Alliance has long excelled at military hardware. In a data-centric, software-defined approach to defense, advantage will come from systems engineering and smart innovation adoption choices. If NATO invests in AI literacy and redundancy, elevates the EM spectrum within the multidomain operations concept, and projects resilience with measured ambiguity, it can protect its AI edge and defend against adversarial attacks. That is the path to credible deterrence and effective defense in the emerging AI era of algorithmic warfare.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the interviewed experts and workshop participants for their generosity in sharing their time and knowledge, the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative staff for making a home for this project, and the NATO Office of the Chief Scientist for choosing to fund this project as part of its 2025 grants program.

About the author

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Dominika Kunertova

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Transatlantic Security Initiative

Artificial Intelligence Central Europe

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The Transatlantic Security Initiative aims to reinforce the strong and resilient transatlantic relationship that is prepared to deter and defend, succeed in strategic competition, and harness emerging capabilities to address future threats and opportunities.

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35 Lena Trabucco and Esben Salling Larsen, 2025, “Artificial Intelligence in Command and Control,” Center for Military Studies, October 10, https://cms.polsci.ku.dk/english/publications/artificial-intelligence-in-command-and-control/.

36 NATO Allied Command Transformation, 2023, “Joint Force Development Experimentation & Wargaming Branch Fact Sheet – Human Considerations in Artificial Intelligence for Command and Control: Augmented Near Real-Time Instrument for Critical Information Processing and Evaluation (ANTICIPE),” ACT Fact Sheet; and SHAPE Public Affairs Office, 2025, “NATO Acquires AI-enabled Warfighting System,” News Release, April 14, https://shape.nato.int/news-releases/nato-acquires-aienabled-warfighting-system-.

37 Ben Buchanan, 2020, “The AI Triad and What It Means for National Security Strategy,” Center for Security and Emerging Technology, https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/CSET-AI-Triad-Report.pdf.

38 Ben Buchanan, 2020, “The U.S. Has AI Competition All Wrong,” Foreign Affairs, August 7, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-08-07/us-has-ai-competition-all-wrong.

39 Takami Sato et al., 2025, “On the Realism of LiDAR Spoofing Attacks against Autonomous Driving Vehicle at High Speed and Long Distance,” Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium 2025, February 24–28, San Diego, California, https://dx.doi.org/10.14722/ndss.2025.230628.

40 Sella Nevo et al., 2024, Securing AI Model Weights: Preventing Theft and Misuse of Frontier Models, RAND, May 30, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2849-1.html.

41 Elena Sokova, 2020, “Disruptive Technologies and Nuclear Weapons,” New Perspectives 28, no. 3, 292–297, https://doi.org/10.1177/2336825X20934975.

42 Pavel Sharikov, 2018, “Artificial Intelligence, Cyberattack, and Nuclear Weapons—A Dangerous Combination,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 74, no. 6: 368–73, doi:10.1080/00963402.2018.1533185.

43 Kelley M. Sayler et al., 2024, “Department of Defense Directed Energy Weapons: Background and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, July 11, https://crsreports.congress.gov R46925.

44 Zhanna L. Malekos Smith, 2024, “The Specter of EMP Weapons in Space,” Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, March 27, https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/media/article/the-specter-of-emp-weapons-in-space.

45 US Department of Energy, 2017, US Department of Energy Electromagnetic Pulse Resilience Action Plan, https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/01/f34/DOE%20EMP%20Resilience%20Action%20Plan%20January%202017.pdf#:~:text=Although%20an%20EMP%20is%20also%20generated%20by,EMP%20events%20produced%20by%20high%20altitude%20detonations.

46 Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan, 1977, “The Electromagnetic Pulse and Its Effects,” in The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, Glasstone and Dolan, eds., US Department of Defense and the Energy Research and Development Administration, 514–531, Digitized and published by Chris Griffith and Eric A. Meyer, 2022, https://atomicarchive.com/resources/documents/effects/glasstone-dolan/chapter11.html.

47 Roger Allen Meade, 2022, “Operation Fishbowl,” Los Alamos National Laboratory, National Nuclear Security Administration, US Department of Energy, October 25, https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1896391.

48 Glasstone and Dolan, “The Electromagnetic Pulse and Its Effects.”

49 Washington State Department of Health, 2003, “Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP),” Fact Sheet 320-090, Division of Environmental Health, Office of Radiation Protection, https://doh.wa.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/Documents/Pubs/320-090_elecpuls_fs.pdf.

50 Richard Wolfson and Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress, 2021, Nuclear Choices for the Twenty-First Century: A Citizen’s Guide, MIT Press.

51 Lawrence Freedman and Jeffrey H. Michaels, 2019, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 4th ed. (London: Palgrave Macmillan).

52 Forrest E. Morgan et al., 2008, Dangerous Thresholds: Managing Escalation in the 21st Century (Santa Monica, California: RAND Corporation), 8.

53 Sarah Kreps and Jacquelyn Schneider, 2019, “Escalation Firebreaks in the Cyber, Conventional, and Nuclear Domains: Moving beyond Effects-based Logics,” Journal of Cybersecurity 5, no. 1: 1–11, tyz007, https://doi.org/10.1093/cybsec/tyz007.

54 Erik Lin-Greenberg, 2022, “Wargame of Drones: Remotely Piloted Aircraft and Crisis Escalation,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 66, no. 10: 1737–1765, https://doi.org/10.1177/00220027221106960.

55 James Johnson, 2021, “‘Catalytic Nuclear War’ in the Age of Artificial Intelligence & Autonomy: Emerging Military Technology and Escalation Risk between Nuclear-Armed States,” Journal of Strategic Studies, 1–41, https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2020.1867541.

56 Steve Fetter and Jaganath Sankaran, 2024, “Emerging Technologies and Challenges to Nuclear Stability,” Journal of Strategic Studies 48, no. 2: 252–96, doi:10.1080/01402390.2024.2433766; Vladislav Chernavskikh and Jules Palayer, 2025, “Impact of Military Artificial Intelligence on Nuclear Escalation Risk,” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), June, https://doi.org/10.55163/FZIW8544; and Jacob Stokes, 2025, Averting AI Armageddon: US–China–Russia Rivalry at the Nexus of Nuclear Weapons and Artificial Intelligence, Center for a New American Security, https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/averting-ai-armageddon.

57 Michael C. Horowitz, 2019, “When Speed Kills: Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems, Deterrence and Stability,” Journal of Strategic Studies 42, no. 6, 764–788. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2019.1621174.

58 David M. Allison and Stephen Herzog, 2025, “Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation: The Technological Arms Race for (In)visibility,” Risk Analysis 45, no. 11: 3839–3859, https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.70105.

59 Andrew W. Reddie and Bethany Goldblum, 2022, “Evidence of the Unthinkable: Experimental Wargaming at the Nuclear Threshold,” Journal of Peace Research 60, no. 5: 760–776, https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433221094734.

60 Matthijs M. Maas, 2019, “How Viable Is International Arms Control for Military Artificial Intelligence? Three Lessons from Nuclear Weapons,” Contemporary Security Policy 40, no. 3: 285–311.

61 Alexander Kott, and Philip Perconti, 2025, “How Accurate Is Forecasting of Military Technologies?,” NATO Defense College, Hindsight Series Paper no. 6, https://www.ndc.nato.int/how-accurate-is-forecasting-of-military-technologies/.

62 Charlie Edwards and Nate Seidenstein, 2025, “The Scale of Russian Sabotage Operations against Europe’s Critical Infrastructure,” International Institute for Strategic Studies, August 19, https://www.iiss.org/research-paper/2025/08/the-scale-of-russian–sabotage-operations–against-europes-critical–infrastructure/.

63 Avi Goldfarb and Jon R. Lindsay, 2022, “Prediction and Judgment: Why Artificial Intelligence Increases the Importance of Humans in War,” International Security 46, no. 3: 7–50, doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00425.

64 Paul Scharre, 2018, Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War, 1^st ed. (New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company).

65 Russian Federation Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2024, “Fundamentals of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence,” per Russian Presidential Order no. 991, https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/international_safety/1434131/.

66 Liviu Horovitz and Lydia Wachs, 2024, “Russian Nuclear Weapons in Belarus? Motivations and Consequences,” Washington Quarterly 47, no. 3, 103–29, doi:10.1080/0163660X.2024.2398952.

67 Jacek Durkalec, 2025, “Counterforce at the Regional Level of War: A European Perspective,” in Counterforce in Contemporary U.S. Nuclear Strategy, ed. Brad Roberts, Center for Global Security Research, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 152–167.

68 Wilfred Wan and Gitte du Plessis, 2025, “Blurring Conventional–Nuclear Boundaries: Nordic Developments, Global Implications,” SIPRI, https://www.sipri.org/commentary/essay/2025/blurring-conventional-nuclear-boundaries-nordic-developments-global-implications.

69 Katarzyna Zysk, 2023, “Struggling, Not Crumbling: Russian Defence: AI in a Time of War,” RUSI, Commentary, November 20, https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/struggling-not-crumbling-russian-defence-ai-time-war.

70 Peter Vincent Pry, 2017, “Foreign Views of Electromagnetic Pulse Attack,” Report to the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, http://www.firstempcommission.org/uploads/1/1/9/5/119571849/foreign_views_of_emp_attack_by_peter_pry_july_2017.pdf.

71 Frank Hoffman, 2025, “Assessing ‘Cognitive Warfare,’ ” Small Wars Journal, November 14, https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/11/14/assessing-cognitive-warfare/#_ednref3.

72 Dominika Kunertova and Olivier Schmitt, 2024, “Assessing NATO’s Cohesion: Methods and Implications,” International Politics 62: 1097–1110, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-024-00641-1.

73 Andreas Graae, 2023, Servers before Tanks? Defence AI in Denmark, Defense AI Observatory, DAIO Study 23|18, https://defenseai.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/daio_study2318_servers_before_tanks_andreas_graae.pdf.

74 Sophia Hatz et al., 2025, “Local US Officials’ Views on the Impacts and Governance of AI: Evidence from 2022 and 2023 Survey Waves,” PLOS ONE 20, no. 10, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0332919.

75 The Atlantic Council has defined the gray zone as “the space in which defensive and offensive activity occurs above the level of cooperation and below the threshold of armed conflict.” See “Adding Color to the Gray Zone: Establishing a Strategic Framework for Hybrid Conflict,” a Forward Defense project, Atlantic Council, December 23, 2023, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/programs/scowcroft-center-for-strategy-and-security/forward-defense/adding-color-to-the-gray-zone-establishing-a-strategic-framework-for-hybrid-conflict/.

The post How NATO can integrate AI to prevail in future algorithmic warfare appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Ten lessons from the first month of the Iran war

Atlantic Council experts — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 22:02:18 +0000

One month ago, US and Israeli forces launched a military campaign against the Iranian regime that has had profound, globe-spanning consequences ever since—from energy markets to the global economy, and from the Gulf and broader Middle East to Romania, Sri Lanka, Russia, and China.

With scenarios for the conflict’s next phrase ranging from diplomatic off-ramps to military escalation, we asked Atlantic Council experts to identify their biggest takeaways from the war so far.

What we’ve learned about . . .

The Iranian regime

The Trump doctrine

The Iranian opposition

The Gulf states

Israel

The global economy

Global energy markets

Russia and Iran

China and Iran

The Iranian regime

One month into the Iran war, the Iranian regime is bruised, battered, and (perhaps irrationally) bullish about its future. The regime’s apparatus has withstood the decapitation of its leadership and more than 15,000 strikes on its capabilities and infrastructure. At the same time, the regime has executed a premeditated and effective response that has imposed significant costs on US Gulf allies and energy infrastructure. The de facto control of the Strait of Hormuz by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has been its most potent weapon, inflicting significant pain on the global economy that has netted the regime unilateral concessions from the United States to relieve stress on financial markets.

Internally, the regime appears stable. The Islamic Republic has proven to be much larger than any one individual. There has not been any significant domestic uprising to date. Most notably, there have not been any defections among political and security elites. The most hardline voices within the system have been empowered. All these factors have led many within the regime to believe it is winning the war despite the conditions of the battlefield.

Yet there are significant challenges ahead for the regime that extend beyond the war. It’s increasingly clear that after rejecting talks with the United States, Iran has no clear plan for what comes next. A reported US offer was nowhere near viable, but the rejection of that offer increases the likelihood of US ground troops invading Iranian territory. A messy situation looks primed to get much worse.

Assuming the Iranian regime does survive the war, it still faces a long-term existential crisis. The regime cannot provide the economic or political opportunities its population craves. To stay in power, Iran will either need to consistently and systematically repress dissent or make significant changes to the Islamic Republic’s core ideologies. Those changes seem unlikely to happen in the short term. Therefore, surviving this war will only delay the next crisis.

—Nate Swanson is a resident senior fellow and director of the Iran Strategy Project at the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. Beginning in 2015, he served as a senior advisor on Iran policy to successive administrations, including most recently as director for Iran at the US National Security Council.

A man holds a poster with the image of Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, during an anti-US and Israeli rally in Tehran, Iran, on March 22, 2026. (Majid Asgaripour/WANA via Reuters)

US military capabilities

The United States can execute fast, precise, and integrated multi-domain operations at scale, but it can’t sustain this kind of high operational tempo over time.

Headlines have highlighted new technologies, such as the US military’s use of LUCAS (Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Aircraft Systems), PrSM (Precision Strike Missiles), and an artificial intelligence–driven battle management system.

The real story, however, is the joint integration of these and other capabilities across at least six combatant commands and thousands of soldiers. The United States is delivering coordinated strikes faster than ever while simultaneously working with allies and partners to effectively defend against Iranian attacks. No other military in the world has demonstrated this level of proficiency. Adversaries can acquire new technologies, but they can’t buy talent and the type of command-and-control culture that empowers US soldiers to act together seamlessly.

Sustaining these capabilities, however, is a perennial challenge. Demand for munitions exceeds available supply, and as Diana Maurer of the US Government Accountability Office noted in her testimony this month: “DOD has been unable to sustain its weapon systems to meet its goals across all domains and faces challenges providing logistical support to US forces, especially in contested environments.”

This is why it’s a national security imperative to invest in domestic capacity. The United States must be able to sustain its military in a longer high-end fight—a topic of Forward Defense’s ReForge Commission.

—Joe Costa is the director of the Forward Defense program of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council. Previously, he served as US deputy assistant secretary of defense for plans and posture in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

The Trump doctrine

One month into the war with Iran, Trump’s actions have us rethinking his “peace through strength” doctrine. Until this point, it was pretty clear that Trump was okay with short, sharp, decisive actions like we saw with the strike to eliminate Iranian IRGC general Qasem Soleimani in the first Trump administration; Operation Midnight Hammer, which targeted Iranian nuclear sites; and Operation Absolute Resolve, which removed strongman Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela. We also know that Trump is uncomfortable with long, drawn-out military campaigns with no end in sight, such as in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Ukraine.

So while I am not surprised by the airstrikes against Iran, I am surprised by the scale of the campaign and by the fact that it now appears Trump is on the verge of sending in ground forces. Some commentators had previously remarked that we were never going to see Trump send the 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East. But that’s exactly what he did this week.

It is still my prediction that, consistent with Trump’s “peace through strength” doctrine, the US president will ultimately declare victory and end the conflict soon rather than allow himself to get into an extended military quagmire.

—Matthew Kroenig  is vice president for geostrategy and fellows and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

The Iranian opposition

Amid conflicting messages from the Trump administration about the goal of continued US and Israeli military strikes on Iran (is it for regime change or to only weaken the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and ballistic-missile capacity?) the Iranian opposition has found itself needing to urgently define the path forward.

This weekend, a group of hundreds of ideologically diverse opposition activists are meeting in London as part of the Iran Freedom Congress to discuss Iran’s future and a pluralistic vision for guiding a transition. Critically, they are not positioning this as a challenge to any other opposition figure, including Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed shah. Rather, it is intended to “broaden the tent” to ensure that diverse voices are represented in any democratic process moving forward. Pahlavi has also made efforts in recent weeks to expand his reach by holding meetings with a wider set of activists and bringing Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Iranian jurist Shirin Ebadi on to chair a transitional justice committee. Ebadi’s involvement is significant not only for her deep global reach and connections to figures leading transitional justice processes in other countries, but also for the fact that she once supported the 1979 revolution that unseated Pahlavi’s father.

While this show of unity was celebrated by some, it has also been critiqued by others who have even called for Ebadi to be stripped of her Nobel (which is a technical impossibility). Meanwhile, still others contend that no movement for human rights and democracy can move forward without an immediate cease-fire, that the bombs only weaken the civil society that is seeking an end to this regime, and that a meaner, harsher regime may be left standing once the strikes end.

In short, much is yet to be determined but will become clear over the next few weeks—including in light of reports from some on Pahlavi’s team that Iranians have organized a ground game that will be activated soon.

—Gissou Nia is the director of the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project and a board member of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center.

The Gulf states

However the Iran war ends, it will not eliminate all of Iran’s attack capabilities. The Iranian regime’s apparent resilience and resolve suggest that the war will not change Iran’s intent to terrorize the region and assert leverage over the Strait of Hormuz either. The United States and Israel may feel comfortable with the dent the war has put in Iran’s long-range missile capabilities and nuclear program, especially as Trump seeks an exit that will quell global markets and relieve political pressure at home. But the threat to Iran’s Gulf neighbors will remain.

Iran’s attacks on all six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) provide an unprecedented opportunity for its member countries to deepen their diplomatic, security, and economic integration in ways that could profoundly strengthen their resilience. GCC solidarity in the immediate aftermath of the attacks demonstrated the potential of such unity, including a historic UN Security Council Resolution.

One month in, however, longstanding fissures are re-emerging, including around how and when to end the war and what the region should look like after the bombs stop. And it appears there is still a rift between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that will jeopardize Gulf unity going forward.

Gulf countries do not have a simple solution for navigating heightened security and economic threats after the war. While there may be frustration with the United States, Russia and China’s responses to the war make it clear that there is no replacing US security support. And while the war’s disruption to oil and gas production reinforces Gulf countries’ efforts to diversify their economies, the disruption to air travel, shipping, and investor confidence underscores that no sector is completely safe.

The Gulf solution to these threats is likely to be intense diversification: deepening security partnerships with a range of different partners, reducing strategic redundancy through new trade and energy corridors, and embracing a range of industries that are less vulnerable to disruptions to the movement of goods and people, such as advanced technology.

—Allison Minor is the director of the Project for Middle East Integration with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East Programs. She previously served as US deputy special envoy for Yemen and as director for Arabian Peninsula affairs at the National Security Council.

Israel

While US and Israeli forces engage in an unprecedented, combined military campaign in Iran with considerable operational achievements—a high point in bilateral military cooperation—views on the conflict diverge considerably among the American and Israeli publics.

In contrast with US polls that indicate around 60 percent opposition to the war, support for the war effort began and remained high in Israel, with initial polls indicating well over 80 percent support, and over 90 percent among Jewish Israelis. More recent polling suggests slight slippage, as four weeks of being sent to bomb shelters by missile attacks wears on the population, but an overwhelming majority still support continuing the war. That steady backing is understandable, considering the Iranian regime’s long-held and oft-stated commitment to Israel’s destruction, and its hostility expressed in sponsoring terrorist organizations, attacks on Israel with ballistic missiles, and pursuit of a nuclear program that could enable Iran to possess a nuclear weapon.

The global interests that animate so much of the American debate around the war—the fear of overstretch in regime-change wars, the global economic shock caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and the impact on strategic competition with China and Russia—feature far less prominently in the Israeli discourse.

While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains a divisive figure in Israeli politics, his political opponents have nearly universally expressed backing for the campaign in Iran. They have echoed his hope that the campaign will weaken the regime to the point that the Iranian people will overthrow it. But that consensus has not translated into a meaningful boost for the prime minister in polls ahead of a crucial election later this year. In a sense, the Israeli consensus, surrounding the need to strike a dangerous foe at its weakest point and take advantage of the opportunity presented by Trump’s willingness to join the fight, exists alongside, and distinct from, Israel’s longstanding polarized politics.

—Daniel B. Shapiro is a distinguished fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. He served as US ambassador to Israel from 2011 to 2017 and most recently as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East.

The global economy

We’ve learned two connected things about the global economy in the month since the Iran war started. The first is that the markets matter for the military. Strikes have consistently ramped up on Friday evenings and over the weekend, while statements about deescalation have often coincided with Sunday evening (when Asian markets open) or Monday morning. This is not a coincidence. There is a direct line of communication between the White House and Wall Street. But Tehran understands this dynamic as well: Many Iranian statements have been crafted precisely to sow confusion in markets at key moments.

But neither market sentiment nor media rhetoric can overcome the hard reality of oil and gas not being transited through the Strait of Hormuz. Time and again, the reality of the closure has rippled throughout the global economy. In the first week, gas prices dominated concerns. In the second, it was helium, a key component for chip-making throughout the world. In the third week, it was fertilizer and the potential strain on the global food supply. Just like the COVID-19 pandemic, the war has reminded us that for all the discussion about resiliency and artificial intelligence, the global economy is still incredibly reliant on a few strategic chokepoints, and the Strait of Hormuz is one of the most vital.

—Josh Lipsky is the chair of international economics at the Atlantic Council and the senior director of the GeoEconomics Center. He previously served as an advisor at the International Monetary Fund.

Global energy markets

Geopolitical risks are and will remain an enduring feature of energy markets, but the next energy crisis could dwarf even the Iran war.

In recent history, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 sent world energy and food prices soaring, further amplifying inflation already triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on global supply chains and revenge consumption. In 2026, the US–Iran war could become the world’s largest energy crisis in living history, with the head of the International Energy Agency warning that the current supply shock could outstrip the two oil crises of the 1970s combined.

While energy-related geopolitical risks are inherently unpredictable, they are generally not unforeseeable. The COVID-19 pandemic was sui generis, but Russian President Vladimir Putin credibly threatened a full-scale military action in Ukraine in early 2021, and analysts have been warning about Iran’s ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz for decades.

Another, greater foreseeable geopolitical risk looms over global energy markets. If the People’s Republic of China (PRC) attempts to coercively absorb Taiwan, probably via quarantine or blockade, Beijing will likely trigger the greatest geopolitical and energy crisis in history. Both the United States and the PRC are nuclear-armed, of course, but both also hold critical leverage over global energy supply chains.

If the PRC initiates hostilities, Beijing would use its monopoly across critical minerals, including graphite for batteries and possibly petrochemicals, while potentially exploiting cyber vulnerabilities embedded in its energy exports. The United States would seek to constrain the PRC’s imports of crude oil, iron ore, and other commodities, although Beijing is assiduously mitigating its Malacca Dilemma and reducing oil-import exposure via electric vehicles and other measures.

Just as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz were foreseeable risks, a cross-Strait crisis, while not inevitable, must be prepared for—starting now.

—Joseph Webster is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center and the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative; he also edits the independent China-Russia Report.

Russia and Iran

Russia has largely been a beneficiary of the war for several reasons. First, US and global attention has shifted from Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine to the war in the Gulf. Second, the United States’ need for weapons in the Middle East may reduce stocks available for Ukraine. Third, the predictable jump in oil prices prompted by the war led Washington to suspend its sanctions on Russian oil, providing a substantial, immediate income boost to Russia’s stumbling economy.

But not every consequence of the war works in Moscow’s favor. The Gulf countries’ air defense, which is heavy on expensive US weapons, has not been fully up to the task of protecting against Iranian drones and missiles, and has prompted some of these countries to make deals with Ukraine for both drones and help in establishing a layered air defense system. This provides money for Ukraine’s growing drone and defense industries, which means more production not just for the Gulf Arab states but also for Ukraine to use against Russia. This has also improved Ukraine’s standing in the Middle East, where many states had leaned in Moscow’s direction.

There is one more important issue related to Russian policy in this war: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to provide Iran with drone components and intelligence that Tehran can use to target US forces, Israel, and the Gulf Arab states. Iran’s drone supply to Russia after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was critical to its campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure and civilians. Russia not only used those drones in its war on Ukraine, but also took the prototype and started improving the drones and producing them in large numbers. Iran has been a beneficiary of these improvements.

Moscow’s aim is clear: To prevent a US victory in Iran, or at least to slow it down and make it more expensive. It also wants the suspension in oil sanctions to continue as long as possible. The perplexing thing here is the Trump administration’s efforts to ignore or explain away this unpleasant fact. While criticizing US allies for not being more supportive in the Middle East—a fair criticism—it lets Russia off the hook for aiding Iran’s attacks on US servicemembers.

This situation is not likely to hold. Washington’s inaction on this matter may be encouraging Russia to provide additional help. According to Western intelligence, Moscow may now be sending drones to Iran. If a Russian drone or an Iranian drone with Russian components strikes and kills US soldiers, that may prompt the Trump administration to take strong measures to force Putin to knock it off. One such step would be to provide Ukraine the weapons it needs to take out Russia’s massive drone factory in Tatarstan.

—John E. Herbst is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former US ambassador to Ukraine.

China and Iran

One month into the war, Beijing increasingly views this conflict as a strategic opportunity. On the energy front, it is less dependent on imported oil than many of its neighbors and has massive stockpiles that it can use to offset near-term shortages. It is in Iran’s interest to keep the oil payments from China flowing, so Tehran is carefully avoiding firing on China-flagged tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Those ships are among the few passing safely through, with Iran’s blessing.

Thus far, the downsides for China are minimal, and Beijing is focusing on a major upside: This war is forcing the United States to draw down military assets in the Asia-Pacific region. For China, that is a massive strategic win, and well worth any near-term disruptions to global energy markets. China has long complained about the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) antiballistic missile system stationed in South Korea. Now, for the first time since its deployment in 2017, the United States is moving some of those interceptors to the Middle East to deal with Iran’s retaliatory strikes.

Across the board, the US military is already running low on munitions, forcing it to consider pulling assets away from Ukraine as well. That will further embolden Russia, which is yet another win for China given that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has said Beijing needs to ensure Russia does not lose that conflict. The Chinese foreign minister told his European counterparts that Beijing benefits when Russia’s actions toward Ukraine keep the United States tied up in that war and unable to focus on China. The Iran conflict is delivering an even bigger distraction from China than the war in Ukraine.

Chinese analysts do not expect the Iranian regime to fall or the United States to achieve its objectives. Instead, they anticipate that the United States will become mired in a protracted war that further drains US resources. One of China’s leading think tankers recently published a piece framing the war as a “strategic opportunity” for China. China’s censors quickly pulled that article down, most likely to avoid angering Iran or undermining Beijing’s message of outrage over the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But make no mistake: That is the inside view. China sees the United States as dropping a rock on its own foot, becoming (yet again) entangled in the Middle East in ways that will make it exponentially harder for the United States and its allies to counter China’s ambitions in the Indo-Pacific.

—Melanie Hart is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub. She previously served as senior advisor for China in the Office of the Undersecretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment at the US Department of State.

The post Ten lessons from the first month of the Iran war appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Deterrence in a two-peer world requires prudence

Kingston Reif — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 16:50:37 +0000

Bottom lines up front

US nuclear strategy must now account for a rapidly expanding Chinese nuclear force alongside a modernizing Russia.
Whether the current US nuclear force is sufficient depends on unresolved questions about China’s nuclear plans, US objectives, and Russian and Chinese doctrines.
Arms control should be pursued now rather than waiting for a buildup that offers the US no near-term bargaining leverage.

Washington’s plans to rebuild its nuclear arsenal conceived in the early 2010s assumed a world in which Russia was not an acute threat, China maintained a modest nuclear deterrent, and arms control constrained US and Russian nuclear forces. None of those conditions remain.

Today, China’s extensive nuclear buildup and increasingly assertive foreign policy, Russia’s continued modernization and nuclear saber-rattling, and the erosion of arms control define a new era. These trends are prompting a reexamination of US nuclear strategy not seen since the Cold War’s end. What conflict scenarios must be anticipated? How large and diverse should the arsenal be to deter both Russia and China simultaneously? And can arms control contribute to US security amid deepening tensions?

Washington faces the challenge of preserving credible deterrence and reassuring allies against two potential nuclear peers—possibly acting together—without fueling dangerous instability or draining resources from other defense priorities. This will require a balanced approach: continuing modernization and hedging against uncertainty, while avoiding counterproductive arsenal growth and pursuing arms control to reduce risks.

The new nuclear threat environment

Nuclear weapons are increasingly salient in international politics. China’s quest to become a world class nuclear power amid rising tensions with the United States is the most striking development. The United States projects China will field about one thousand operational warheads by 2030 and potentially fifteen hundred by 2035—up from roughly two hundred in 2020. Beijing’s construction of hundreds of new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos, focus on increasing launch readiness, and pursuit of more flexible response options reflect a posture aimed at enhancing survivability, countering US advantages, and improving its ability to control the escalation of a nuclear conflict.

Russia continues to modernize its forces, broaden the role of nuclear weapons in its doctrine, and use nuclear bullying to deter Western support for Ukraine. Meanwhile, the arms control framework that once bounded the US-Russia nuclear relationship has effectively collapsed. The last pillar of this framework, the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) expired in February with nothing to replace it.

Longstanding US nuclear strategy has been that credible deterrence of nuclear attack against the US homeland and extended deterrence to US allies and partners requires several elements. These include:

Maintaining sufficient survivable forces in the event of a large-scale strike on un-alerted US forces;
Retaining nuclear counterforce capabilities “to reduce potential adversaries’ ability to employ nuclear weapons against the United States and its allies” (aka damage limitation) to the extent practicable if deterrence fails and;
Ensuring the availability of graduated response options against potential adversary attempts to escalate out of failed conventional aggression.

The United States previously had to deter only one nuclear peer and could treat China as a lesser threat. Now Washington must prepare to face Russia and a far more formidable nuclear China. Russian and China could even coordinate, or one could act opportunistically while the United States is engaged with the other.

Some former government officials and experts warn this shift presents fundamentally new challenges. Ignoring the challenges would leave Washington and its allies vulnerable and would signal waning resolve. The bipartisan Congressional Strategic Posture Commission concluded in its October 2023 report that the current US nuclear modernization program is inadequate. It recommended urgent preparations to upload reserve warheads after New START’s expiration, develop additional limited‑use options, and plan for a larger force in the longer term.

The Biden administration acknowledged that deterring multiple nuclear adversaries might soon require a bigger and more diverse deployed arsenal, but deferred any decision to the Trump administration. Whether the Trump administration will revise US force requirements to address China’s nuclear transformation remains to be seen. The administration’s National Defense Strategy, released in January, stated: “We will modernize and adapt our nuclear forces accordingly with focused attention on deterrence and escalation management amidst the changing global nuclear landscape.”

Nuclear force sizing considerations

Strategic forces

China is the primary driver of the concern that the current US arsenal—1,550 deployed warheads and seven hundred deployed delivery systems—is insufficient, particularly Beijing’s recent construction of more than 300 new silo-based ICBMs. Advocates of increasing the deployed arsenal to hold these targets at risk argue that doing so is necessary to fulfill US nuclear employment objectives, including the damage limitation objective, against both Russia and China simultaneously.

These advocates are correct that there is nothing magical or sacrosanct about 1,550 warheads and that New START was negotiated in a world that has changed markedly over the past fifteen years. Yet other considerations are relevant to the question of whether an increase is needed.

First, analysis conducted during President Barack Obama’s second term concluded that core US targeting objectives could still be satisfied with roughly one‑third fewer deployed weapons than New START allowed. If the US arsenal is more than enough for deterrence against Russia, that suggests some available headroom to address growth in China’s force, at least in the near term.

Second, if a US decision to grow the deployed force triggers offsetting responses from Russia and China, that could erase any relative advantage Washington might have gained from an increase.

A third consideration is why an increase is necessary on a day-to-day peacetime basis, as the deployed force can be generated and uploaded to higher levels in a crisis or escalating war. (A counter to this argument would be that there might not be enough lead time to upload in these scenarios.) Moreover, excessive uploading of warheads could reduce the operational flexibility of the arsenal.

Even if growth isn’t required in the near term, a point might come when it could be necessary if China builds up its warheads and launchers to the high end of current projections—or beyond them. But if Beijing levels off at one thousand warheads, the case for holding steady would be stronger.

Geopolitical risk is not the only challenge facing the US nuclear enterprise. Practical constraints loom large. The ongoing modernization program will yield fewer delivery systems on submarines than today’s arsenal, as the new Columbia‑class ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) will carry eight fewer missile tubes than their Ohio-class predecessors. The program also faces mounting cost overruns, schedule delays, and performance issues, which could force difficult trade‑offs with conventional modernization priorities.

Near‑term options to expand US strategic forces are limited to reactivating four missile tubes per Ohio‑class SSBN deactivated under New START and uploading additional warheads to deployed delivery systems from the reserve stockpile. New delivery systems beyond existing modernization plans cannot begin to be fielded until the mid- to late-2030s, and their acquisition would further increase costs, depending on the scale of expansion. (Modification of some existing systems to make them more capable could potentially be achieved sooner.)

The confluence of the above geopolitical and modernization transition risks means any uploading to address one of the risks would reduce the ability to address the other—as well as any unforeseen technical problems affecting the functioning of a type of delivery system or warhead, or any operational risk caused by advances in adversary capabilities.

Nonstrategic forces

There is also a debate about whether US nonstrategic nuclear capabilities are sufficient in a two‑peer environment. One argument is that Russia and China believe their theater nuclear forces provide coercive leverage and escalation management options that Washington’s lower-yield air‑ and sea‑based weapons cannot match. (The United States fields a small number of B61 nuclear gravity bombs in Europe but has not housed dedicated theater nuclear forces in the Indo-Pacific since the end of the Cold War.) Some allies also worry this asymmetry could undermine US resolve and capacity to defend them.

Russia’s excessive reliance on nonstrategic nuclear weapons (it is believed to possess one to two thousand such weapons) seems to be driven by its perception of a conventional imbalance vis-à-vis the United States and NATO more broadly. According to the 2025 US intelligence community’s annual threat assessment, “Russia’s vast arsenal of nonstrategic nuclear weapons helps it to offset Western conventional superiority and provide formidable escalation management options in theater war scenarios.” The Defense Intelligence Agency added that “Russia almost certainly seeks to avoid direct conflict with NATO because it assesses it cannot win a conventional military confrontation with the alliance.”

New US theater capabilities with different military characteristics—such as a new sea-launched nuclear-armed cruise missile—would give the president additional options to respond to limited Russian nuclear use. But if Russia’s theater weapons are intended to counter NATO conventional superiority, it’s not clear that additional US theater capabilities would have a significant impact on Russia’s threshold for nuclear use beyond existing US and Alliance options. According to Michael Kofman and Anya Loukianov Fink, two experts on Russian nuclear strategy: “One of the misperceptions about Russian nuclear strategy is that it takes advantage of lower-yield nuclear weapons that the United States does not have. This appears nowhere in Russian military writings or deliberations.” Meanwhile, the best way to deter Russian limited nuclear use is to perpetuate Russia’s perception that a conventional war with NATO would be unwinnable for Moscow so that it doesn’t start such a war in the first place.

The Defense Intelligence Agency assesses, “China probably seeks lower-yield nuclear warhead capabilities to provide proportional response options that its high-yield warheads cannot deliver” for its theater-range delivery systems such as the DF-26 missile. A dedicated regional nuclear capability in the Pacific would give Washington a response option it doesn’t currently have. Yet whether China is pursuing low-yield options to gain a coercive edge over the United States in a conventional conflict or to offset perceived US advantages in nonstrategic arms remains uncertain. The answer matters for determining the degree to which a dedicated US option would strengthen deterrence.

Any potential benefits of extra US nonstrategic weapons should be weighed against the potential risks. These hazards include the unintended escalation risks of adding nuclear options to existing or planned conventional ground- and sea-launched missiles (adversaries could assume any dual-capable missile launch as nuclear) and reduced availability of launchers to fire conventional weapons.

An additional consideration is that Washington might face conventional inferiority in one theater in a multi‑peer conflict, forcing it to consider increased reliance on nonstrategic nuclear options for war fighting. But US first use would carry high escalation risks and could require scores—if not hundreds—of additional warheads, a number likely beyond the near‑term capacity of the US nuclear production base.

Key questions

Where one falls on the sufficiency question depends greatly on what conflict scenarios the United States and its allies need to be prepared to deter and respond to, as well as the associated nuclear employment objectives, posture, and force structure one believes is required for deterrence in these scenarios. Reasonable people can disagree on these determinations and how much risk is prudent to accept given competing priorities.

As the Trump administration grapples with the “how much is enough” question, additional analysis would be beneficial for identifying the available option space in the new strategic landscape. Key questions include the following.

Does the United States need to achieve a similar level of damage limitation against multiple adversaries simultaneously? Or would the ability to limit damage from one adversary while inflicting a lesser, though still intolerable, level of damage on the second adversary be sufficient?
Do Russia and China perceive gaps in US nuclear capabilities at both the strategic and regional or theater levels?
How would augmented strategic nuclear capabilities—alongside improved long-range conventional strike and missile defenses—be expected to enhance deterrence, and what potential adversary responses and stability implications should be considered?
What are the potential benefits and risks of additional dedicated US theater nuclear capabilities for shaping adversary decision-making during crisis and conflict, and how might they affect escalation dynamics, intra-war deterrence, and conflict termination?
What are the current and future geopolitical, transition, and operational risks the nuclear enterprise needs to hedge against? What are the options to mitigate them?
Are there nonnuclear alternatives that could meet deterrence objectives, especially considering rapid advances in technology?

Arms control considerations

After returning to office, President Donald Trump wasted little time in calling for negotiations with Russia and China to “denuclearize . . . in a very big way.”

A year later, the president decided not to accept or counter Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offer to continue observing the New START limits for one year beyond the treaty’s expiration. Instead, senior administration officials have doubled down on the need to pursue multilateral arms control that includes additional types of nuclear weapons and both Russia and China.

Russia has indicated it will continue to observe the treaty’s central limits on warheads and delivery systems so long as the United States does. Given there is no immediate need for the United States to expand the deployed arsenal—and even if there were, uploading would take time—the Trump administration should not give Russia a reason to build up. At the same time, the administration should push for the resumption of a dialogue on strategic stability, risk reduction, and a successor agreement to New START. The discussions should address strategic and nonstrategic weapons not captured by New START.

Such steps would preserve at least informal limits on Russia’s strategic forces while Washington reviews requirements to address China, restore communication on nuclear issues, and increase diplomatic pressure on Beijing. In addition, this approach would be consistent with the National Security Strategy’s call to “reestablish strategic stability with Russa.”

As the administration pursues its goals for arms control in the new security landscape, it is important to remember that arms control is a tool and not an end in and of itself. It is a means to manage competition and enhance US competitive advantages. And it is a tool that retains considerable value.

There is value in verifiable weapon ceilings, transparency about weapon holdings, counteracting the potential peril of emerging technology, and addressing particularly destabilizing types of weapons such as the placement of strategic weapons in space. There is value given the limitations on the US ability to keep up in a nuclear competition, due to the constraints on its ability to build new weapons. And there is value in demonstrating US leadership and exercising the skills of a waning US arms control enterprise.

Some analysts assert a nuclear buildup would create leverage for future negotiations. But US-Russian arms control history suggests a more complicated story. Building new strategic systems beyond current plans isn’t possible for another decade and thus offers no near‑term bargaining value. Whether uploading reserve warheads would influence Moscow or Beijing depends on how they factor these warheads into their threat assessment. Decades of US nuclear superiority did not persuade Beijing to negotiate, and Russia conditions discussions of its exotic strategic delivery systems (e.g. Skyfall and Poseidon) and nonstrategic weapons on limits to US missile defenses and advanced conventional strike capabilities.

It remains to be seen if meaningful progress on arms control is possible so long as Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and China’s unwillingness to get off the arms control sidelines continues. But if a process does get underway, several issues will likely arise.

If the Trump administration is open to another bilateral accord on US and Russian strategic forces, what the administration proposes to Moscow is likely to be influenced by an assessment of what is needed to deter China. That assessment could yield a proposal to Moscow with higher limits on deployed strategic weapons than New START, as well as a shorter duration, to hedge against uncertainty over China’s buildup. This would reverse the trend of progressively lower limits in previous agreements. But that does not mean there wouldn’t be value in such an arrangement in terms of stability, predictability, and transparency, especially compared to an alternative with no agreement. (Such an agreement also wouldn’t require the United States to operate at the height of those limits on a day-to-day basis.)

Missile defense will inevitably feature in any negotiation, especially one seeking limits below or beyond New START. Trump’s interest in enhancing US homeland defenses via Golden Dome has prompted unsurprising criticism in Moscow and Beijing, but pursuing arms control need not be in conflict with missile defense. Workable compromises exist if both sides are willing to bargain. Washington can both augment its missile defenses and use them as a lever for securing significant Russian and Chinese concessions.

Non‑strategic nuclear weapons are often viewed as essential to any New START successor. But as Michael Albertson of the Center for Global Security Research notes, the Trump administration should weigh potential benefits against complexity and cost. Given US concerns about Russia’s potential limited use of nuclear weapons if it is losing a conventional war, even cutting Russia’s nonstrategic arsenal in half would not resolve the issue. Greater value could come from data exchanges, notifications, on‑site inspections, and consolidating storage sites.

It remains unrealistic to expect China to immediately join a trilateral agreement with the United States and Russia that limits nuclear weapons. A more achievable near-term approach is to begin a bilateral conversation on risk reduction topics such as crisis management and guardrails at the intersection of emerging technology and nuclear risk, which could later be broadened to a multilateral conversation. If momentum can be generated, seeking a better understanding of China’s arsenal composition and plans should be a high priority. If the United States knew, for example, that China had an end point in mind for its buildup, that would provide much-needed confidence and predictability and help to avoid worst-case planning.

Conclusion

The US response to the new strategic environment must be based on more than just a reconsideration of numbers and types of nuclear weapons. By aligning prudent military planning with purposeful diplomacy, the United States can preserve deterrence, prevent dangerous competition, and strengthen the foundations of global security in an era of unprecedented nuclear complexity.

This issue brief is part of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Great nuclear debate series, a curated anthology of perspectives on arms control, force sizing, and missile defense from leading experts.

About the author

Kingston Reif is a senior international and defense researcher at RAND. From 2021 to 2024, he served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for threat reduction and arms control.

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Forward Defense leads the Atlantic Council’s US and global defense programming, developing actionable recommendations for the United States and its allies and partners to compete, innovate, and navigate the rapidly evolving character of warfare. Through its work on US defense policy and force design, the military applications of advanced technology, space security, strategic deterrence, and defense industrial revitalization, it informs the strategies, policies, and capabilities that the United States will need to deter, and, if necessary, prevail in major-power conflict.

The post Deterrence in a two-peer world requires prudence appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Why US strategic nuclear forces must expand after New START

Paul Amato — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 16:49:34 +0000

Bottom lines up front

The United States needs a nuclear force larger than today’s and flexible enough to influence adversary decision-making at all stages of crisis and conflict.
A US strategic deterrent capable of delivering roughly 2,400 operationally deployed warheads in the near term should be sufficient to meet US strategy requirements.
Force attributes and flexibility matter as much as numbers, though.

Now that the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty has expired, the debate begins over what the United States should do next regarding its nuclear posture. The recently released National Defense Strategy (NDS) sheds little light on the Trump administration’s plans; it does not even mention New START. Instead, the NDS largely eschews details on US nuclear policy and capabilities, noting only that the United States “will modernize and adapt our nuclear forces accordingly with focused attention on deterrence and escalation management.”¹ What this means for US force size and posture will play out over the coming months and years, likely beginning with submission of the president’s annual budget request later this spring.

In anticipation of this debate, many commentators urge caution, suggesting that any expansion in US force size (even in response to actions by China and Russia) could prompt an uncontrolled arms race.² Others argue that the United States has time to prepare for the emerging threats it faces so there is no need to panic, suggesting that adjustments can wait until the country gets closer to the end of the existing modernization program of record.³ Still others contend that the United States already has enough nuclear weapons and that force growth would be expensive and counterproductive.⁴One specific argument points to a 2013 Obama administration assessment that the US nuclear force could be reduced by up to one-third, claiming this extra one-third today provides sufficient headroom to manage China’s emergence as a nuclear peer.⁵

While much of this debate focuses on numbers alone, policymakers and military officials must also account for the attributes of the deployed force necessary for effective and credible deterrence. The question of “how much is enough” is not solely a matter of numbers, but of force size and the overall capabilities of the warheads and delivery systems the United States deploys. US force posture must be capable of deterring a diverse array of nuclear-armed adversaries and, if deterrence fails, must enable the achievement of national objectives against one or more of them. In general terms, national objectives include: restoring deterrence and managing escalation; limiting damage to the United States and its allies and partners; and imposing unacceptable damage on an adversary.⁶ The capabilities needed to achieve these objectives vary from adversary to adversary. They require not just an appropriately sized force, but one with the attributes needed for the array of objectives that US nuclear forces might need to achieve against each.

Given the evolving security environment and growing demands on US strategic deterrence, a force larger and more diverse from that fielded today is needed as a matter of priority—one that provides capabilities responsive to the deterrence challenges now confronting the United States.

New START’s expiration is good news for US security

Despite the New START treaty (NST) now being in the rearview mirror, it is worth revisiting why its expiration enhances US security. First, today’s security environment is significantly more dangerous than when NST was ratified—or even when it was extended in 2021—a conclusion repeatedly documented by the US government over the past decade. In 2010, Russia was viewed as a potential strategic partner of the United States and NATO, and great-power conflict was widely seen as unlikely.⁷ Since then, both Russia and China have demonstrated a willingness to use force to advance geopolitical aims—Russia in Ukraine and China by expanding its territorial sway in and around the South China Sea. And Russia continues to brandish its nuclear capabilities to coerce Ukraine and the West.⁸ Great-power conflict is no longer a remote possibility.

Second, in 2010 China’s nuclear posture was not central to US deterrence planning. China’s nuclear force was often treated as a “lesser included” component of the Russian threat, meaning a force sufficient to deter Russia would also suffice for China. This assumption no longer holds. As two senior Biden administration officials responsible for nuclear strategy observed in 2025, “After decades of maintaining only a minimal nuclear capability, China is on pace to nearly quintuple its 2019 stockpile of some 300 nuclear warheads by 2035, in a quest to attain an arsenal equivalent in strength to Russia’s and the United States.’”⁹ China’s growth places greater demands on the US nuclear force, due not only to the anticipated size of its future arsenal but also to the quandaries it presents for US military planners who must account for crisis or potential conflict with more than one nuclear adversary.

Third, in 2010 the Obama administration still harbored hopes of negotiating a denuclearization pathway with North Korea regarding its then nascent nuclear program. By the mid-2000s, however, North Korea was already pursuing a breakout capability intended to “directly hold the United States at risk.”¹⁰ Today, North Korea possesses a more robust nuclear arsenal capable of striking the United States and its regional allies.¹¹ In fact, to date, the second Trump administration has not restated the 2018 policy (later adopted by the Biden administration) that any North Korean nuclear use would lead to the end of the Kim Jong-Un regime. This omission might reflect a reassessment of that policy’s feasibility in light of North Korea’s expanding capabilities.¹²

Fourth, in 2010 there was little apparent evidence of cooperation among rogue or revisionist actors. Today, such cooperation, if not outright coordination, is evident.“¹³ Few in 2010 would have envisioned North Korean soldiers fighting in Ukraine on Russia’s behalf.¹⁴ It would be dangerously naïve to assume conflict with one adversary would not elicit support from one or more of the others, whether direct or indirect. Simply put, Russia, China, and North Korea all being armed with nuclear weapons means that any crisis or conflict with one risks a nuclear crisis or conflict with one or both of the others. Credibly deterring all three—even if engaged in conflict with only one—requires a force larger than NST permitted and that is tailored to the distinct deterrence and targeting requirements for each.

Fifth, while NST only addressed strategic systems, the urgent need for the United States to develop and field theater-focused capabilities (so-called non-strategic or theater nuclear weapons) was a reason to allow NST to expire. Russia possesses a far larger theater-focused arsenal than the United States, a disparity NST did nothing to mitigate.¹⁵ Other adversaries similarly see value in developing and fielding such capabilities.¹⁶ While the United States is beginning to address this gap by developing a nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile, that system remains a decade away and is likely insufficient by itself. Moving beyond NST allows the United States to field additional strategic capabilities to help offset this imbalance, even if imperfectly.

In short, NST was “the wrong treaty for the current time.” Getting out from under its constraints will enable the United States to prepare in earnest for contemporary deterrence challenges—focusing not only on numbers, but on the force attributes required for credible and effective deterrence against a diverse group of nuclear-armed adversaries.¹⁷

The current US strategic nuclear force is inadequate

The ability to deter an adversary from taking extreme actions is not simply a matter of having a nuclear weapon that can be delivered to a target. As a senior US Strategic Command deterrence thinker has observed, deterrence is “an intentional act or set of actions aimed to influence adversaries’ decision-making, so that [they] choose restraint over aggression.”¹⁸ Because deterrence is directed at a decision-maker’s perceptions, deterrence planners “must assess our capabilities relative to the doctrine, exercises, statements, threats and behavior of potential adversaries.”¹⁹ In other words, the United States must be able to influence different adversaries differently. This approach requires maintaining tailored and flexible strategies, plans, and capabilities that can be leveraged effectively across a spectrum of adversaries and contexts. Simply retaining a force structured and sized consistent with NST would limit this flexibility in important ways.

First, US nuclear forces must be able to support multiple objectives depending on circumstances presented. While there are different ways to articulate these requirements, they generally include:

deterring an adversary from initiating a nuclear attack;
deterring further use if nuclear weapons have already been employed;
and rendering an adversary incapable of continuing large-scale nuclear strikes.²⁰

A force capable of achieving all this requires flexibility and options. This is not a new concept. As the secretary of defense’s fiscal year 1975 annual report noted, to be “credible and hence effective over the range of possible contingencies deterrence must rest on many options and on a spectrum of capabilities . . . to support these options.”²¹ This requires the ability to apply the right force at the right time against the right target or set of targets, consistent with policy guidance and the law of armed conflict.

Numerous factors go into determining how best to service a particular target with a nuclear weapon, factors that multiply with a large adversary target base.²² In a simpler two-party context, planners must carefully examine the resources at their disposal and the characteristics of the specific targets identified to develop specific approaches to meet national objectives.²³ But all US nuclear weapons are not interchangeable. Among other factors, planners must consider the types of weapons available, the phase of conflict for which they are needed, their flight characteristics, their yield, their range, their time to target, the desired effect on a particular target, and long-standing policy guidance to achieve objectives at the lowest level of damage possible and to minimize unintended effects. Today and in the coming years, moreover, they need to make such plans recognizing that other nuclear-armed adversaries might be poised to exploit US distraction to pursue their own geopolitical objectives.

A nuclear force constrained in size and composition by a 2010-era treaty does not provide sufficient flexibility to effectively manage these factors across all potential adversaries. As an example, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are viewed as the most prompt US capability. But the need for prompt options applies to each US nuclear-armed adversary, and the United States might need to retain such prompt options for other targeting priorities that might arise as a contingency unfolds. In this context, targets that require prompt options could exceed the number of ICBMs available. Similarly, efforts to avoid overflight of one nuclear-armed state while striking another can further restrict ICBM options, increasing escalation risk or undermining mission success.

Other examples include yield and range. Policy directs achieving objectives at the lowest level of damage possible. But if only higher-yield weapons are available to the president at a given stage of conflict, presidential options narrow and escalation risks rise. Simply uploading additional warheads onto existing or future delivery systems like Minuteman III or Sentinel, moreover, is not a panacea, as increased payloads can impose range restrictions that reduce flexibility and further constrain planners.²⁴

Given considerations such as these, force adequacy cannot be measured by aggregate numbers alone. Even if the total number of delivery systems and warheads is numerically sufficient on paper to service the required targets, a force constrained by the legacy NST structure would leave little ability to offer the president meaningful options for a force that must be postured to manage a multiple adversary environment. In practice, when facing such an expanded target base, there might be only one or two approaches to a given target set, especially when facing simultaneous or sequential crises or conflicts, sharply constraining presidential decision space.

Second, the US nuclear force must account for operational limitations. For example, analyses that cite bomber payload capacity often ignore attrition that is inevitable in a high-intensity conventional conflict.²⁵ Whether B-52s, B-2s, or B-21s, some will be destroyed while flying conventional missions, bringing into question how many will be available if and when strategic bomber strikes are needed.²⁶ Losses to bombers or critical enablers such as aerial refueling tankers could significantly reduce available nuclear options. Similarly, ballistic missile submarines must periodically return to port for replenishment, and strategic bombers cannot remain on alert indefinitely.²⁷ Moreover, emerging threats spanning from quantum sensing to unmanned systems could further affect availability of strategic platforms in unknown ways.²⁸ Advocates of a size-constrained force often overlook these risks.

Third, simultaneous or sequential crises dramatically increase complexity. Planners might be required to generate deterrence options across multiple theaters at distinct stages of conflict in support of different political and military objectives, and against adversaries that might be coordinating their actions.

Complexity grows as the number of strategic adversaries increases, their level of coordination deepens, and the range of their escalation options expands. In crisis or conflict, this complexity manifests as a high level of uncertainty regarding potential escalation pathways that the United States must consider and seek to influence.²⁹

Further, this complexity can evolve over multiple pathways. Deterrence requirements will differ markedly depending on whether a crisis or conflict originates with Russia, China, or North Korea. Where and against whom a crisis begins will impact the mix of capabilities upon which the United States will lean most heavily because US plans necessarily rely on different mixes of capabilities in each case to deter or to achieve objectives.

What should US strategic force posture look like?

The United States does not need a force equal to the combined arsenals of Russia and China. And China’s nuclear growth alone should not dictate US posture. Rather, a decision on the precise nuclear force mix “will depend largely on the choices adversaries make and on how much risk a president is willing to accept in both the most plausible and worst-case nuclear scenarios.”³⁰

So far, the Trump Administration has not directly addressed nuclear force size. The NDS signals an intent to “adapt [US] nuclear forces,”³¹ and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has similarly pledged to develop “additional options” to support deterrence and escalation management.³² While these statements suggest an openness to nuclear force expansion, it is impossible to divine the Trump administration’s intent at this time.

In the absence of more detail, the administration could be guided in future posture decisions by recommendations from the 2023 Strategic Posture Commission and other commentators, pursuing options in the short-term that include: uploading additional warheads on ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs); reopening SLBM tubes that were capped as part of NST; and restoring nuclear capability to the full B-52 fleet.³³ Retaining a number of Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines as long as technically and operationally feasible could also help, as could potentially re-operationalizing and loading the 50 ICBM silos that were taken offline as part of NST. In the medium and longer-term, accelerating the nuclear modernization program of record where possible and, eventually, increasing the number of new systems fielded as part of the modernization program would also provide opportunities to increase flexibility.

Of these options, the precise mix will ultimately be determined by Trump administration and military officials based upon classified analysis.³⁴Still, the foregoing considerations indicate the need for a force exceeding that previously permitted by NST—an operationally relevant force that is large and flexible enough to influence adversary decision-making at all stages of crisis and conflict, and that is capable of achieving national objectives against more than one nuclear adversary if it becomes necessary.

Specific posture decisions regarding each triad leg bring with them multiple variables that make direct comparisons difficult.³⁵ Still, given the current trajectory of adversary nuclear force developments, a US strategic deterrent capable of delivering of roughly 2,400 operationally deployed warheads in the near term should be large and flexible enough to meet US strategy requirements.³⁶ These increases should be spread across all three triad legs, further diversifying the weapons and delivery platforms available to planners – and to the president – when confronting potential crisis or conflict in today’s multiple adversary environment.³⁷

This posture would ensure the United States retains a capability, if needed, to target either Russian or Chinese nuclear forces and have a credible capacity available to deter or if necessary achieve national objectives against the other; provide the president more options to deal with multiple adversaries in simultaneous or sequential contingencies, thereby expanding decision space and increasing his ability to manage escalation; account for potential attrition to US nuclear forces in conflict; and provide the capability to deal with North Korea should that threat manifest, either before or during a crisis or conflict with a peer or near-peer adversary.

This uptick would represent a reasonable increase over NST levels and would set the stage for a more comprehensive assessment of US nuclear capabilities in the longer-term—whether less capability is needed as Russia and China show interest in meaningful arms control engagement, or more is needed if the security environment fails to improve. But today, arbitrarily adhering to limits designed for a different time and a different security environment is not in the US national interest and would stand in the way of fielding the force necessary to maintain credible and effective deterrence.

It’s not 2010 anymore

US strategic nuclear force levels that made sense in 2010 no longer suffice in 2026. The challenges facing planners today are more diverse and complex—and will only grow more so. To maintain credible deterrence, the United States must be able to deter and must be more capable of achieving national objectives against each nuclear-armed adversary individually or in combination, in both simultaneous and sequential scenarios. A force constrained by legacy NST decisions risks undermining that capacity and inviting the very conflicts US nuclear forces are intended to deter. A larger, more diverse force than the United States fields today is needed to afford the nation the flexibility it needs to maintain credible and effective deterrence in the coming years.

About the author

Fellow

Paul Amato

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Missile Defense Nuclear Deterrence

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1 U.S. Department of Defense, 2026 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, January 23, 2026), https://media.defense.gov/2026/Jan/23/2003864773/-1/-1/0/2026-NATIONAL-DEFENSE-STRATEGY.PDF.

2 Mark Trevelyan, “Explainer: What Is the New START Nuclear Treaty and Why Does Its Expiry Matter?” Reuters, January 30, 2026, https://www.reuters.com/world/what-is-new-start-nuclear-treaty-why-does-its-expiry-matter-2026-01-30/.

3 Rose Gottemoeller, “Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on an ‘Arms Race 2.0,’”US Senate, December 10, 2025, https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/f44409cc-cc99-f286-066b-1283777d682b/121025_Gottemoeller_Testimony.pdf.

4 “Expiration of US-Russia Agreement Could Trigger Rapid, Dangerous Nuclear Arms Race, New Report Warns,”Union of Concerned Scientists, January 12, 2026, https://www.ucs.org/about/news/nuclear-agreement-expiration-could-trigger-rapid-arms-race.

5 Kingston Reif, “Earlier this month Sam Charap and I published an op-ed on where the United States and Russia should try to go on arms control in the near-term. Among our recs: the sides should agree on a…” LinkedIn, June 15, 2025, https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kingston-reif-982a2053_earlier-this-month-sam-charap-and-i-published-activity-7340111754321944576-UrkW?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAFRSmgBZ9X59om6OMkni6whIn4mpEHSAHQ.

6 Each president has historically provided classified guidance to the Department of Defense on his nuclear employment objectives, referred to herein as national objectives. As one commentator points out, historically unclassified or previously declassified literature suggests four such objectives. Pat McKenna, “Counterforce Strategy versus Counterforce Targeting” in Brad Roberts, ed., “Counterforce in Contemporary US Strategy,” Center for Global Security Research, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, May 2025, https://cgsr.llnl.gov/sites/cgsr/files/2025-05/2025-0529-CGSR-Occasional-Paper-Counterforce-In-Contemporary-US-Nuclear-Strategy.pdf. Three of those objectives are the focus of this article. The fourth, according to McKenna, is “managing risks that are inherent to a highly dynamic geopolitical environment.”

7 Reid J. Epstein, “Kerry: Russia Behaving Like It’s the 19th Century,” Politico, March 2, 2014, https://www.politico.com/blogs/politico-now/2014/03/kerry-russia-behaving-like-its-the-19th-century-184280.

8 Alexander Smith, “Trump Calls Russia’s Missile Test ‘Inappropriate’—But Is Putin’s Nuclear-Powered Weapon Actually a Threat?” NBC News, October 27, 2025, https://www.nbcnews.com/world/russia/russia-burevestnik-missile-trump-putin-test-inappropriate-ukraine-rcna239984.

9 Vipin Narang and Pranay Vaddi, “How to Survive the New Nuclear Age: National Security in a World of Proliferating Risks and Eroding Constraints,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2025, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/how-survive-new-nuclear-age-narang-vaddi.

10 “North Korea Military Power: A Growing Regional and Global Threat,” Defense Intelligence Agency, October 15, 2021, https://www.dia.mil/Portals/110/Documents/News/NKMP.pdf.

11 Daniel M. Gettinger and Mary Beth Nikitin, “North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons and Missile Programs,” Congressional Research Service, September 26, 2025, https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF10472.

12 Paul Amato, “Unsettling Allies, Emboldening Pyongyang,” RealClearDefense, January 29, 2026, https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2026/01/29/unsettling_allies_emboldening_pyongyang_1161599.html

13 2025 Worldwide Threat Assessment: Report to the United States House of Representatives Arms Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations,” Defense Intelligence Agency, March 25, 2025, https://armedservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/2025_dia_statement_for_the_record.pdf?utm_source; Amy Hawkins, Andrew Roth, and Helen Davidson, “Xi, Putin, Kim and the Optics of a New World Order,” Guardian, September 6, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2025/sep/06/xi-jinping-vladimir-putin-kim-jong-un-optics-new-world-order.

14 Jared Martin, “The Second North Korean Wave in Ukraine: What Next as Pyongyang’s Troops Arrive on Russia’s Front Lines?” Modern War Institute, August 8, 2025, https://mwi.westpoint.edu/the-second-north-korean-wave-in-ukraine-what-next-as-pyongyangs-troops-arrive-on-russias-front-lines.

15 2024—Report to the Senate on the Status of Tactical (Nonstrategic) Nuclear Weapons Negotiations Pursuant to Subparagraph (a)(12)(B) of the Senate Resolution of Advice and Consent to Ratification of the New START Treaty,” US Department of State, February 25, 2025, https://www.state.gov/2024-report-to-the-senate-on-the-status-of-tactical-nonstrategic-nuclear-weapons-negotiations-pursuant-to-subparagraph-a12b-of-the-senate-resolution-of-advice-and-consent-to-ratification-of/.

16 “Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2025,” US Department of Defense, December 23, 2025, https://media.defense.gov/2025/Dec/23/2003849070/-1/-1/1/ANNUAL-REPORT-TO-CONGRESS-MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA-2025.PDF. (“The PLA is probably pursuing nuclear weapons with yields below 10 kilotons. Such weapons address long-held PLA desires to be able to conduct limited nuclear counterstrikes against military targets and control nuclear escalation.”)

17 Eric S. Edelman and Franklin C. Miller, “No New START: Renewing the U.S.-Russian Deal Won’t Solve Today’s Nuclear Dilemmas, Foreign Affairs, June 3, 2025, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/no-new-start.

18 Kayse Jansen, “New Strategic Deterrence Frameworks for Modern-Day Challenges,” Joint Force Quarterly 112, January 2024, https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1029&context=joint-force-quarterlyhttps://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1029&context=joint-force-quarterly.

19 Terri Moon Cronk, “Policy Official: Posture Review Emphasizes Capabilities, Deters Use of Nukes,” US Department of Defense, February 16, 2018, https://www.war.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/1444722/policy-official-posture-review-emphasizes-capabilities-deters-use-of-nukes/.

20 See, for example: McKenna, “Counterforce Strategy versus Counterforce Targeting.” Greg Weaver, “Alternative Deterrence Strategies for a Two-Peer Environment,” in Roberts, “Counterforce in Contemporary US Strategy,” describes different US historical objectives for deterrence, assurance, and achieving objectives if deterrence fails. See: Jansen, “New Strategic Deterrence Frameworks for Modern-Day Challenges.”

21 “Annual Defense Department Report: FY 1975,” US Department of Defense, March 4, 1974, 38, https://history.defense.gov/Portals/70/Documents/annual_reports/1975_DoD_AR.pdf.

22 Michael Elliot, “Turning Presidential Guidance into Nuclear Operational Plans“ in Charles Glaser, Austin Long, and Brian Radzinsky, eds.,“Managing US Nuclear Operations in the 21st Century,” (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2022), https://www.brookings.edu/books/managing-u-s-nuclear-operations-in-the-21st-century/.

23 Ibid.

24 That is, ballistic missiles that are deployed with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles.

25 Col Mark A. Gunzinger, USAF (Ret.), “The B-21 Bomber: A Cost-effective Deterrent for a Multi-polar World,” Mitchell Institute, September 2024, https://www.mitchellaerospacepower.org/app/uploads/2024/09/The-B-21-Bomber-A-Cost-effective-Deterrent-FINAL.pdf.

26 Northrop Grumman corporation, the maker of the B-2 and B-21 bombers, is a sponsor of the Atlantic Council’s work on strategic forces issues.

27 “Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarines—SSBN,” US Navy, last updated February 27, 2025, https://www.navy.mil/Resources/Fact-Files/Display-FactFiles/Article/2169580/fleet-ballistic-missile-submarines-ssbn/; Oriana Pawlyk, “Putting Nuclear Bombers Back on 24-Hour Alert Would Exhaust the Force, General Says,” Military.com, April 22, 2021, https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/04/22/putting-nuclear-bombers-back-24-hour-alert-would-exhaust-force-general-says.html.

28 Paul Amato, “In Defense of the US Maintaining a Balanced Nuclear Triad,” Atlantic Council, September 29, 2025, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/in-defense-of-the-us-maintaining-a-balanced-nuclear-triad/.

29 Jansen, “New Strategic Deterrence Frameworks for Modern-Day Challenges.”

30 Narang and Vaddi, “How to Survive the New Nuclear Age;” Edelman and Miller, “No New START.”

31 U.S. Department of Defense, 2026 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America.

32 “Remarks by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth at the Reagan National Defense Forum (As Delivered),” US Department of Defense, December 6, 2025, https://www.war.gov/News/Speeches/Speech/Article/4354431/remarks-by-secretary-of-war-pete-hegseth-at-the-reagan-national-defense-forum-a/.

33 Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, America’s Strategic Posture: The Final Report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States (Washington, DC, October 2023), https://ida.org/-/media/feature/publications/A/Am/Americas%20Strategic%20Posture/Strategic-Posture-Commission-Report.pdf; Narang and Vaddi, “How to Survive the New Nuclear Age”; Edelman and Miller, “No New START

34 Admiral Charles Richard, USN (Ret.), Hon. Franklin C. Miller, and Robert Peters, “Nuclear Deterrence vs Nuclear Warfighting: Is There a Difference and Does it Matter?” National Institute for Public Policy, April 15, 2025, https://nipp.org/information_series/admiral-charles-richard-usn-ret-hon-franklin-c-miller-and-robert-peters-nuclear-deterrence-vs-nuclear-warfighting-is-there-a-difference-and-does-it-matter-no-623-april-15-2025.

35 For example, the number of warheads that are available to be delivered by US SSBNs is a function of how many boats are operational; how many are at sea at a given time, how many operational launch tubes are available, and MIRV configuration.

36 This estimate draws from public sources. See Hans M. Kristensen, MattKorda, Eliana Johns, and Mackenzie Knight, “United States nuclear weapons, 2025.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 13, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2024.2441624. This estimate uses NST bomber counting rules (~60 airframes); a rough doubling of deployed ICBM warheads (~900 total); and a one-third increase in SLBM warheads (~1440 total), the latter two of these deployed on either the existing or an expanded number of delivery platforms.

37 To this end, the Joint Staff and USSTRATCOM in conjunction with policy makers will need to assess the optimal mix of platforms and warheads to maximize the necessary flexibility and operational relevance.

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Only additional pressure can push Putin toward peace

Kira Rudik — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 21:19:03 +0000

After more than a year of US-led talks to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there is little sign of progress toward peace. Instead, Moscow is now reportedly aiding Tehran as Iranian drones target United States bases and American allies across the Gulf region. New approaches are clearly needed in order to prevent a further descent into international insecurity.

When US President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025 and began efforts to end Russia’s war against Ukraine via diplomacy, many Ukrainians were not overly optimistic. This skepticism was rooted in their own bitter personal experience of broken Russian promises over the past few decades.

Since Ukraine regained independence in 1991, Russia signed a long list of treaties and agreements obliging Moscow to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and refrain from acts of international aggression. These commitments did not prevent Russian President Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine in 2014 or launching a full-scale invasion eight years later. Understandably, few in Kyiv now believe Putin can be trusted to respect future deals.

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Over the past year, it has become evident that Russia is using US-led negotiations to stall for time and divide the transatlantic alliance. Putin has refused to join Ukraine in accepting an unconditional ceasefire and continues to insist on maximalist goals that would mean the end of an independent Ukrainian state. Meanwhile, the Kremlin underlines its lack of commitment to peace by sending low-level delegations led by figures such as presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, who is best known for penning radically anti-Ukrainian history textbooks.

On the battlefield, Russia’s intentions are equally clear. Despite suffering catastrophic losses over the past four years, the Russian army remains on the offensive and continues to recruit tens of thousands of new troops each month to fill the depleted ranks of Putin’s invasion force.

In parallel, Russia is escalating attacks on Ukraine’s civilian population. During the recent winter months, millions of Ukrainians found themselves without access to heating and electricity amid Arctic temperatures due to a strategic bombing campaign targeting critical civilian infrastructure that aimed to freeze the country into submission. According to UN data, 2025 was the deadliest period of the war for Ukrainian civilians since the first months of the invasion, with the number of civilian deaths rising by 31 percent compared to the previous year.

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With the Kremlin ignoring calls for a compromise peace, the only way to advance negotiations is by putting more pressure on Putin. Failure to do so could have disastrous consequences that would be felt far beyond the borders of a subjugated Ukraine.

The current Russian plan is to drag out negotiations indefinitely while grinding down Ukraine’s resistance and sowing division among Kyiv’s international allies. Moscow seeks to entice the United States with promises of lucrative economic cooperation, while supporting populist political forces across the EU in a bid to weaken European support for Ukraine. If this strategy succeeds, Ukraine may at some point become unable to defend itself.

The collapse of Ukrainian resistance would not bring peace to Europe. Instead, a victorious Russia would take control of Ukraine’s formidable military and the country’s rapidly expanding domestic defense industry. Putin would then command the two most powerful armies in Europe, with unrivaled combat experience and knowledge of drone warfare. In such circumstances, it is dangerously delusional to think that Russia would not seek to go further. At the very least, European governments would be forced to increase defense budgets to levels that would dwarf the current cost of supporting Ukraine.

The steps necessary to secure peace through strength are no secret. First and foremost, this means adequately arming Ukraine. Trump suggested in 2025 that if Russia continues to reject peace efforts, he may provide Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles. This would be a welcome and meaningful step. Other partners including Germany have also spoken of increasing Ukraine’s long-range strike capabilities. Now is the time to do so.

In parallel, sanctions measures targeting Putin’s war economy must be expanded and tightened. This should include steps to increase the costs for international customers who continue to purchase Russian oil and gas exports, thereby funding the Kremlin war machine.

Western leaders have always had the tools at their disposal to counter the Russian threat. Unfortunately, however, they have so far failed to demonstrate the political will necessary to deploy these tools effectively. This excessive caution is counter-productive and only serves to embolden the Kremlin. Moscow believes it is already at war with the West and treats calls for compromise as signs of weakness. If Kyiv’s partners are serious about stopping Russia, they must abandon appeasement and increase the pressure on Putin.

Kira Rudik is leader of the Golos party and a member of the Ukrainian parliament.

The Anthropic standoff reveals a larger crisis of trust over AI

Tess deBlanc-Knowles — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 17:14:05 +0000

WASHINGTON—The recent standoff between Anthropic and the Pentagon over terms of use for the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) models has thrust the role of AI in military and intelligence operations into the national dialogue. As the Pentagon’s contract negotiations with Anthropic broke down and it designated the company a supply chain risk earlier this month, the episode exposed the fraying social contract among leading AI companies, the federal government, and the American public over responsible AI use.

How Americans view AI

Anthropic’s red lines in the negotiations centered on two issues: the use of its models for the mass surveillance of US citizens and in autonomous weapons. Both topics resonate with an American public that remains deeply skeptical of the technology. A 2025 poll conducted by Gallup and the Special Competitive Studies Project found that 60 percent of Americans distrust AI somewhat or fully. This stands in contrast to much of the rest of the world. According to Stanford’s annual AI Index, large majorities in China, Indonesia, and Thailand (75-80 percent) believe AI-powered products offer more benefits than drawbacks. In the United States, that number is a meager 39 percent.

Several factors drive this skepticism. Safety concerns, including fears related to AI-driven psychosis and AI-enabled teen suicides, feature prominently in public discourse, as do worries about the technology’s environmental footprint and its impact on jobs. Search “AI and water” on Instagram and you’ll be flooded with posts from influencers calling on followers to boycott AI over the energy and water demands of the data centers powering it. Recent mass layoffs, such as fintech company Block’s decision to cut 40 percent of its workforce due to the integration of AI into the company’s workflows, have amplified fears around broader workforce contractions. Some studies have extrapolated from initial data around AI adoption to suggest that the technology will create more jobs than it eliminates, but much of the public discussion has focused on the prospect of significant job losses on the horizon, raising anxiety among white-collar workers.

This unease with AI is increasingly visible in politics. More than 1,500 AI-related bills have been introduced in state legislatures in 2026 alone, many focused on protecting consumers and minors from AI-related harms. AI skepticism has come from both sides of the aisle. Data centers have drawn criticism from left-leaning environmental advocates and from deep-red communities alike. A study found that twenty data center projects were blocked in the second quarter of 2025 due to local opposition, representing $98 billion in stalled investment. This year, Democratic and Republican lawmakers have begun backing away from data center investments that they recently championed. At least six Democratic governors used their state of the state addresses to announce plans to roll back incentives or impose new regulations on data centers. And Democratic lawmakers in New York and Maine, as well as Republican lawmakers in Oklahoma, are calling for temporary bans.

The Trump administration’s approach to AI

The second Trump administration has made AI a national priority from the outset. Just three days after his inauguration, US President Donald Trump issued the first of seven executive orders related to AI released in 2025, which signaled the administration’s intent to “sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance in order to promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.” The order set the tone for the administration’s follow-on actions, including a foundational AI Action Plan that positioned the United States as going all-in on AI against the backdrop of a rising global competition with China. So far, the administration has expanded AI education opportunities, worked to harness AI for science, accelerated permitting for data center construction, and attempted to prevent states from passing laws regulating AI.

Yet, even before the Anthropic-Pentagon controversy, tension between the administration’s position on AI and its own political base were surfacing. Upon the release of the AI Action Plan in July 2025, former US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene issued a pointed rebuke. She warned that “competing with China does not mean become like China by threatening state rights, replacing human jobs on a mass scale, creating mass poverty, and resulting in potentially devastating effects on our environment and critical water supply.” The administration’s push to preempt and pause future state laws regulating AI was defeated twice in Congress prior to being advanced by executive order in December 2025. The original congressional campaigns incurred widespread pushback from across the political spectrum, including a request to remove the legislative provision, which was signed by seventeen Republican governors.

Recent announcements suggest the administration is beginning to recognize public resistance. In his State of the Union address, Trump introduced a ratepayer protection pledge that calls on technology companies to commit to covering the cost of increased energy production to support the build-out of data centers. This is intended to prevent those costs from being passed on to local communities. Seven of the largest players in AI have since signed on. A National Policy Framework on AI released at the end of last week reaffirms this push and lays out the administration’s legislative priorities for the technology, including enhanced safeguards for children, increased action to combat AI-enabled scams, and protections for individuals against unauthorized distribution of AI-generated voice or image likenesses.

Despite these moves, the administration’s handling of the Anthropic standoff has intensified debates in public and within the tech sector around the dangers of AI and the necessity of building guardrails for responsible use. The administration’s maximalist position that contracts with AI companies should provide flexibility for the government to employ AI for “all lawful uses” runs counter to US public opinion. Indeed, 80 percent of US adults believe the government should maintain rules for AI safety and data security, even if doing so slows development.

Public distrust on display

Following OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s announcement on February 27 that the company had signed a deal with the Pentagon that it claimed contained the same provisions that Anthropic had been fighting for, public and private reactions were swift, with many skeptical of the company’s claims. Uninstalls of the ChatGPT app jumped 295 percent overnight and a #QuitGPT campaign gained steam on social media. Some OpenAI employees publicly criticized their company’s stance and OpenAI’s hardware lead resigned in protest.

Anthropic, meanwhile, filed suit, contesting the Pentagon’s designation of the company as a supply chain risk following the inability of the company and the Pentagon to reach an agreement on contractual terms. The case has attracted amicus briefs from a wide range of groups, including tech sector workers, Catholic theologians and ethicists, and the American Civil Liberties Union. A brief signed by a group of almost forty employees from Google and OpenAI, including Google’s chief scientist, affirmed a shared belief in the risks underpinning Anthropic’s contractual red lines. Their brief noted the dangers to US democracy posed by AI-enabled surveillance and warned that today’s AI systems are too immature to be relied on for use in lethal autonomous weapons.

While the immediate controversy may be fading, the episode has already provided a revealing window into US sentiment around AI and the ongoing litigation will keep the issue in public focus. A poll conducted by NBC News this month after the standoff found that 57 percent of registered voters believe the risks of AI outweigh its benefits.

That number should command attention. For the administration’s and the tech sector’s AI ambitions to translate into the economic growth and national security gains that policymakers and CEOs envision, it will take a concerted effort to rebuild the social contract with the public on AI. Treating public skepticism as noise to be managed rather than a signal to be heeded risks causing rapid political polarization on AI. This, in turn, could cause a self-imposed slowdown in the United States’ ability to realize AI opportunities at home and compete effectively abroad, stifling government and industry AI initiatives alike.

The post The Anthropic standoff reveals a larger crisis of trust over AI appeared first on Atlantic Council.

After Maduro: Latin America’s policy community reassesses the US-China balance

Santiago Villa, Thayz Guimarães, Parsifal D’Sola — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 15:39:53 +0000

The US capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, coupled with the support the White House has given Maduro’s successors, has significant implications for China’s position in the region. Although Venezuela has been a frustrating partner for China—largely due to prolonged debt repayment delays and corruption-marred joint projects—Beijing has repeatedly stressed its commitment to the bilateral relationship. The day before Maduro’s capture, China’s special envoy for Latin American affairs, Qiu Xiaoqi, visited Miraflores Palace to review more than six hundred bilateral agreements and to express support for the regime amid US operations against Venezuela-linked oil tankers.

Although Maduro has been removed from office, his second-in-command Delcy Rodríguez now leads the same regime, prompting a recalibration of how China’s key bilateral relationships in the hemisphere are understood in light of US intervention in Venezuela. This piece examines whether Latin American policymakers and analysts view China’s reaction to Maduro’s ouster as evidence of a shift in Beijing’s regional diplomatic strategy—and whether this episode is influencing how other countries in the region weigh their US–China relationships.

We interviewed thirteen influential sources across diplomatic, military, and academic circles in Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, and the Dominican Republic, spanning a wide range of political perspectives. While this is by no means a representative sample, respondents with different political views were aligned on key aspects of the new playing field in Latin America as it relates to both China and the United States.

After providing a general overview of how US and Chinese actions are interpreted across the region, we turn to Brazil, China’s largest trading partner in the region, and Colombia, the country most directly affected by developments in Venezuela.

Latin America feels a seismic shift

Most of our sources, both left and right leaning, agree the US intervention in Venezuela is a game changer and it will likely modify the power dynamics in the region. They see it as a hard blow to China and a strengthening of US influence in Latin America. For example, Ernesto Samper, former president of Colombia (1994–1998) and former secretary general of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR, 2014–2017)—who has been close to the region’s left-wing leaders—doesn’t believe the US intervention in Venezuela was meant to combat drug trafficking or strengthen access to oil revenues. Instead, he sees it as a geopolitical strategy. The intervention represents an attempt to weaken alliances between Latin American governments and external powers, particularly China. The objective is to consolidate what might be termed a Monroe Doctrine 2.0, reasserting US hegemonic control over Latin America. Venezuela is a symbolic target in a wider approach that seeks to assert regional dominance in the face of China’s growing influence. “This catches the Latin American region in its worst moment. We had never been so disconnected,” Samper said. “We’re very divided because part of [Donald] Trump’s diplomacy is not having relations with states, but with governments.”

Yet Samper warns against reading this rapprochement as a definitive realignment. Chinese economic penetration in Latin America, he argues, has already reached a point of near irreversibility—China is now the primary trading partner for most South American countries, and its infrastructure investments are deeply embedded in the region’s development strategies. For most major Latin American economies, China is either the largest or second-largest trading partner. The United States doesn’t have the capacity to replace China economically in the region. “The Chinese have a lot of experience in something Trump simply does not have, which is patience,” Samper said. “And I believe they have been penetrating Latin America to the point where those advances should be considered irreversible.”

Carlos Calderón, researcher and defense expert at the military-run Colombian War College, whose views are more aligned with the center-right than Samper’s, nonetheless has a similar take: “‘Operation Southern Spear’ and Maduro’s capture, ‘Operation Absolute Resolve,’ no doubt send tectonic waves throughout the region, and are meant to signal the United States is back and wants to have a stronger influence than China in the region. Events are too recent to say that Latin American countries are reorienting their relations with China, but I’d say it’s very likely that relations with China will be restructured.”

Behind closed doors, according to Calderón, military leaders in Colombia and neighboring countries that struggle with organized crime networks are welcoming the change in US tactics—not necessarily because they agree that operations such as blowing up drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific are appropriate, but because they signal what they feel was a needed change in the status quo. They welcome a United States that is more assertive regarding its military presence in the region. “Behind closed doors, military leaders are glad about Operation Southern Spear,” Calderón said. “They wanted a government, either Democrat or Republican, that doesn’t matter to them, that would kick the chess board, so to speak. We’ve been at that [war on drugs] two decades and no pieces have been moved, then we need a reset. Sometimes you have to introduce a little bit of chaos to make a situation more dynamic.”

As the United States assumes this hard-power stance, China’s lack of such power is starker. Maurício Santoro, a political scientist specializing in Brazil–China relations, said the US operation in Venezuela revealed China has limited capabilities when projecting military power in the Western Hemisphere. China is economically vital to Latin America but is not a strong and effective military actor in the region.

A senior Brazilian source familiar with the matter, who asked to remain anonymous, said Chinese officials had privately expressed concern about how the lack of a Chinese military response after Maduro’s removal might be interpreted in Latin America. According to this source, Chinese officials asked whether the region would view China as weak or unable to defend its political partners against unilateral US actions.

Paulo Filho, a retired Brazilian Army colonel who holds a master’s degree in defense and strategy studies from China’s National Defense University, said China’s leadership is still “learning how to be a superpower” in the sense of projecting power beyond its traditional zone of influence. Retired Colonel Rafael Almeida, who is also a graduate of China’s National Defense University, said that the crisis had produced a “reality check” for the region. He summed this up in a single phrase: “China is economically indispensable, but the United States remains politically central.” Almeida also said the episode stressed the urgency of reassessing security concerns and drove home the idea that aligning with either the United States or China has become dangerous and strategically costly.

Caribbean observers, in the meantime, have their eyes on Cuba and are anxious to determine if there will be a domino effect that will cause the decades-long communist regime to follow a path similar to that of Venezuela. “Dominicans are hopeful that Cuba will have a similar outcome for the best, and that Venezuela’s developments lead to improvements,” said Campos de Moya, former assistant to the vice president of the Dominican Republic and former ambassador assigned to the Foreign Ministry. “There are some voices that don’t agree with this view, but the way the situation has unfolded leads most Dominicans, politicians and business leaders, to support what the US is doing in Venezuela and Cuba.”

De Moya says there were concerns in the region that US action against Venezuela and Cuba could spark a wider military conflict with China and Russia, but recent developments signal that won’t happen. He further suggests it’s a good moment for the United States to pressure the Dominican Republic to flip its diplomatic recognition once again from China to Taiwan. “The business community in the Dominican Republic is very upset with China and everything is in place for the country to step back from that relationship,” de Moya said. “The possibility of flipping back to Taiwan is even stronger now.”

One of our few sources who had a different view and didn’t believe the US removal of Maduro is a game changer for regional diplomatic relations was Ricardo Ferrer, fellow at the Center for Secure Free Society and former national director of criminal intelligence for the right-wing Javier Milei government in Argentina. Ferrer doesn’t think China’s position in Venezuela has meaningfully weakened because Beijing’s influence is structural. Ferrer notes that China’s influence in Venezuela is rooted in telecommunications, digital governance, logistics, data systems, and opaque contracts that persist across leadership changes. As an example, he cited Huawei’s extensive role in telecom infrastructure and ZTE-linked databases tied to citizens’ IDs as forms of durable leverage that shape political control through technology. He thinks China’s muted response follows its long-standing strategy toward the hemisphere: avoid direct security competition with the United States while maintaining embedded commercial and infrastructural influence. “There is absolutely no sign of a decline in Chinese influence, which in Venezuela is not solely determined by the economic situation,” Ferrer said.

Brazil: Adapting to a new context and diversifying

Brazil publicly condemned the bombings of alleged drug boats and Maduro’s removal through an official statement that characterized the US action as a “grave affront to Venezuela’s sovereignty,” a highly dangerous precedent, and a violation of international law that threatens Latin America’s long-standing aspiration to remain a “zone of peace.” President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva echoed this position on social media, calling the events unacceptable and urging a robust response through the United Nations. Collectively, these messages reaffirm Brazil’s emphasis on multilateralism and the principle of non-intervention.

Some recent Lula administration initiatives suggest defense issues are garnering greater attention—at least behind the scenes—following the Venezuelan crisis. This has prompted discussions on budget strengthening, deterrence stances, and expanding the institutional role of the armed forces in Brazil’s national strategy. According to high-level sources, the crisis and the volatile regional environment have emphasized the need to strengthen defense capacities.

Rather than a departure from the country’s diplomacy-first tradition, Brazilian decision-makers are framing this readjustment as an adaptation to a new era of major-power competition in which non-intervention norms are weakened. The US operation has renewed fears that it will apply intervention and unilateral coercion whenever its interests are at stake.

The context of the US intervention also caught Brazil in a sensitive position. Brazil had just resolved its own dispute with the Trump administration, which began on April 2, 2025, when Trump imposed a 50-percent tariff on Brazilian imports in retaliation for the prosecution of his political ally, former President Jair Bolsonaro, over an attempted coup d’etat. The tariffs were suspended on November 14, 2025, after several rounds of diplomatic negotiations.

Against this backdrop, Brazil and the European Union (EU) formally signed the EU–Mercosur agreement on January 17, 2026, concluding more than two decades of negotiations. The agreement, which will need ratification by the European Parliament and national legislatures before entering into force, is described as creating one of the world’s largest bilateral free trade areas, covering roughly 700 million consumers and giving Brasília an additional avenue to diversify trade and investment partners amid heightened uncertainty. The timing suggests an effort to increase economic resilience and reduce strategic vulnerability by deepening ties with other players besides the United States and China.

Colombia: Getting closer to the United States

Colombia’s Ministry of Foreign Relations rejected US military intervention in Venezuela and issued a statement that echoed Brazil’s stance, describing the intervention as “actions that have placed at risk the territorial integrity and political autonomy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.” It called for the issue to be taken to the UN Security Council and treated multilaterally. The day of the attack, the Colombian government also sent thirty thousand troops to patrol the border at several crossings, from northern Guajira to Arauca.

In the days following the capture of Maduro, President Gustavo Petro—whose left-wing politics are aligned with Lula’s—received threats from Trump, who hinted at conducting a similar operation in Colombia. As part of a deescalation approach, Petro sought an urgent one-on-one meeting with Trump in the White House to discuss the US intervention, oversight of Venezuela, and the role Colombia could play, signaling Colombia was willing to work with the United States.

No press was allowed in the room but statements from each side offer a glimpse into the conversation. Petro said they discussed counternarcotics operations targeting transnational kingpins (and that he gave Trump a list of names), skepticism toward the effectiveness of sanctions against Venezuela, ways to reactivate the Venezuelan economy (including energy projects), having the United States mediate tensions between Colombia and Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa, declassifying US intelligence related to violence in Colombia, and diplomatic optics such as inviting Trump to Cartagena and reframing Trump’s slogan as “Make the Americas Great Again.” Trump and the White House said the meeting went well, emphasized counternarcotics cooperation as the main focus, and characterized Trump’s approach as preferring diplomacy.

The rapprochement follows a deeply confrontational 2025 between Trump and Petro. In September, the Colombian president’s US visa was revoked, and in October, he and several members of his family were placed under Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions, despite the absence of any US indictments against them. According to Calderón, one objective of the visit was to persuade Trump to lift those sanctions before Petro leaves office in August. Securing their removal would not only ease personal and political constraints on Petro’s final months in power but also signal a partial normalization of bilateral relations after a year marked by open hostility.

Although the immediate outcome of the US intervention in Venezuela has been a reset in US–Colombia relations, Calderón also noted that, in recent years, the Colombian military has felt a need to diversify its partnerships, including in security cooperation and arms procurement. “We can’t help but see that countries such as Brazil and Peru cooperate tightly with the US, but that doesn’t stop them from also talking and establishing security relations with China or Russia . . . They buy Chinese aircraft and Russian helicopters,” Calderón said.

The end of strategic ambiguity

The removal of Maduro should not be read primarily as a Venezuelan event, nor as a narrow bilateral episode between Washington and Caracas. It was a stress test that clarified the real distribution of power in the hemisphere.

On one hand, the episode exposed the asymmetry that has long structured great-power competition in Latin America. The United States retains escalation dominance and the capacity to shape outcomes through force, while China’s influence remains concentrated in finance, infrastructure, trade, and institutional penetration rather than in deterrence. On the other hand, Maduro’s ouster does not signal the collapse of Chinese influence in the region. It reveals the limits of China’s ability to translate rhetorical commitments about sovereignty into material responses when confronted with hard-power realities. What unfolded was not the unraveling of China’s regional presence, but a clarification of its priorities, its risk tolerance, and the boundaries of its foreign policy reach in the Western Hemisphere.

The operation also clarifies that China’s preferred tools of influence are largely irrelevant in moments of kinetic disruption in the region. Years of loans, political backing, diplomatic cover, and rhetorical alignment did not translate into leverage when the core issue became one of coercive force. This matters because much of the current debate on foreign influence assumes a continuity between influence and power. Venezuela shows that this continuity breaks down under pressure.

Latin America’s apparent conditional tolerance of US intervention does not stem from ideological realignment with Washington, but from exhaustion. The United States had not carried out an overt military intervention in South America in modern times, and the last comparable interventions in the hemisphere occurred more than three decades ago in much smaller Central American and Caribbean states. Given the region’s long historical memory of US interference, one would have expected sharp and unified backlash. Instead, the reaction has been restrained and, in some cases, openly appreciative. That alone signals how disruptive Venezuela had become.

Maduro was no longer simply an authoritarian outlier. Venezuela had turned into a sustained source of regional instability, driving mass migration, facilitating organized crime networks, and deepening cross-border insecurity. Even governments publicly critical of US power were privately aware that the status quo had become untenable. The controlled response to Washington’s action reflects a hierarchy of priorities that has become harder to ignore.

Economic development remains central, and this is where China’s role is most visible. But dealing with migration pressures, drug trafficking, transnational criminal networks, and border security have become immediate political imperatives. In those domains, cooperation with the United States remains indispensable. The convergence of security interests that emerged around Maduro’s removal is therefore significant, but it is also narrow and contingent. It reveals less about renewed faith in US leadership than about the degree to which Venezuela had become a destabilizing force that governments felt unable to manage on their own.

If Washington interprets this moment as a blank check and settles for stability without democratic transition, it risks reinforcing long-standing suspicions that intervention is primarily driven by hegemonic control. Removing a destabilizing authoritarian is not the same as resolving the conditions that produced him. The strategic window created by January 3 is real, but it is not self-sustaining.

Lastly, China is unlikely to retreat from the region. It will adapt, recalibrate risk, and continue expanding where economic statecraft remains effective. The competition is now clearer. The United States demonstrated that it retains coercive primacy in the hemisphere. China demonstrated the limits of its willingness to contest it. Latin America is left navigating a landscape in which the space for ambiguity has narrowed and the costs of miscalculation have grown.

About the authors

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Santiago Villa

Nonresident Fellow

Global China Hub

Africa China

Fellow

Thayz Guimarães

Nonresident Fellow

Global China Hub

Americas Brazil

Fellow

Parsifal D’Sola

Global China Hub

China Chinese

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The Global China Hub tracks Beijing’s actions and their global impacts, assessing China’s rise from multiple angles and identifying emerging China policy challenges. The Hub leverages its network of China experts around the world to generate actionable recommendations for policymakers in Washington and beyond.

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Kroenig published in The Wall Street Journal on rogue states

Atlantic Council — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 13:39:34 +0000

Vice President, Geostrategy and Fellows and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On March 25, Atlantic Council vice president and Scowcroft Center senior director Matthew Kroenig was published in The Wall Street Journal on the Trump administration eliminating rogue states.

Mr. Trump is on the verge of eliminating the world’s rogue states just as new threats emerge, from the return of great-power rivalry to a disruptive technological revolution.

Matthew Kroenig

Staff

Matthew Kroenig

China Defense Policy

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How ISIS and its affiliates might capitalize on the Iran war

Morgan Tadych — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 20:57:48 +0000

WASHINGTON—In the March 5 edition of Al-Naba, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham’s (ISIS’s) global newsletter, the group portrayed the ongoing US-Israeli war against Iran as a “divinely sanctioned” war among the disbelievers on both sides. This should surprise no one, as ISIS has long condemned Iranian Shia Muslims as following a “rejectionist” brand of Islam and labeled the United States and Israel as “infidels.”

What might be more unexpected, however, is that ISIS seems poised to exploit this moment of regional instability to its advantage. Specifically, ISIS appears eager to attract new followers, inspire attacks, and consolidate territory amid the chaos caused by the Iran war and by the security situations in Syria and Afghanistan.

Targeting the West

ISIS views itself as the protector of Sunni Islam, and its adherents have cheered the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei even as they condemn the US and Israeli strikes against Iran. ISIS’s preferred outcome in the Iran conflict would be the downfall of both sides, but it’s not waiting for that outcome. It is instead seizing the initiative by expanding its messaging directed at its followers in the West.

The Islamic State manages a number of regional affiliates under a single umbrella, and these affiliates often share resources such as personnel, training, and funding, enabling the movement of people and expertise across borders. Part of this larger umbrella includes the group’s messaging operations, of which Al-Naba is just one output. Through the internet, including on mainstream social media sites such as TikTok, ISIS distributes messages targeting Western youth to gain traction beyond the Middle East and South Asia.

In particular, ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K), the Afghanistan-based affiliate, has demonstrated its skill at reaching youth online, including developing a growing network of teenagers in Europe, some of whom were involved in a 2024 plot to conduct simultaneous attacks across several cities in Central Europe. Should a European nation, for example, become involved in the conflict against Iran, then an ISIS-inspired cell or individual might use that as an excuse to conduct an attack there.

Concerningly, there have already been two ISIS-inspired attacks in the United States since the Iran conflict began. Although investigations into both events are still ongoing, preliminary details suggest that, in one of the attacks, the young men used ISIS’s online how-to guides to build improvised explosive devices. The two teens who staged an attack outside of the home of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on March 7 had accessed ISIS materials online in the weeks prior to the attack, according to investigators. Some analysts have suggested that they had communication with, and coaching from, ISIS leadership overseas. In the second attack, a known ISIS supporter killed a military officer at Old Dominion University in Virginia. The attacker had previously been convicted of attempting to provide material support to ISIS. The timing of these attacks suggests that ISIS supporters may be seeking to take advantage of the global distraction created by the war, targeting locations and events that they perceive as “infidel.”

Gaining territory in South Asia

ISIS-K is perhaps the Islamic State’s most capable affiliate, and it has demonstrated its ability to conduct and inspire attacks far from Afghanistan over the past three years. A confluence of factors, when combined with the global distraction caused by the Iran conflict, raise the possibility of an ISIS-K attack against Western interests in the medium term.

But ISIS-K is not only focused on its efforts abroad. In addition to the Iran war, the group stands to benefit from the crisis emerging between Afghanistan and Pakistan. In late February, Afghanistan and Pakistan escalated the long-simmering conflict against each other, with Pakistan accusing Afghanistan of harboring the Pakistani Taliban. Much of the fighting so far has concentrated on the ungoverned border areas between Afghanistan and the tribal areas of northern Pakistan.

Historically, ISIS-K has struggled to hold territory in this region due to pressure from the Afghan Taliban. But with the Taliban preoccupied with the fight against Pakistan, the conflict may provide ISIS-K with an opening it could exploit to seize and hold territory in northern Afghanistan. Securing territory can, in turn, provide the group with space to plot further attacks and messaging.

Regrouping in Syria

Similarly, ISIS has leveraged the devolving security situation to gain territory in Syria. Since fall 2025, there has been a notable uptick in the number of ISIS attacks inside Syria, and the group recently declared jihad against President Ahmad al-Sharaa. ISIS perceives al-Sharaa as a puppet of the United States and not sufficiently committed to Sunni Islam. The recent uptick in attacks by ISIS emanating from the Syrian desert indicates that it is likely regrouping in that area, where the Syrian government struggles to maintain security and control.

In addition to increased freedom of movement in Syria, ISIS is also benefiting from an influx of fighters who recently escaped from prison camps in northern Syria. Earlier this year, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) came under pressure from Damascus to relinquish control of the territory it held to the central government. The SDF, which fought alongside the United States in the fight against ISIS, had for years guarded the Al-Hol prison camp, which held tens of thousands of ISIS fighters and their families. When the SDF retreated in January in the face of a Syrian government offensive, the camps were left unguarded, leading to a major prison break. US intelligence agencies estimate that as many as 20,000 people, including family members of ISIS fighters and the group’s affiliates, are at large. These ISIS-linked individuals, many of whom are combat veterans from the Syrian civil war, are expected to increase ISIS’s experienced manpower. Regional reporting indicates that at least some of these individuals are Afghan nationals. If these individuals return to Afghanistan, then ISIS-K could leverage their fighting experience for operations or training.

At present, the Iran war commands the headlines. But it is nonetheless critical to continue monitoring ISIS. The group has already demonstrated its ability to exploit conflicts in Afghanistan and Syria to gain territory. It may have recently added an influx of former prisoners. And it has shown its ability to enable ISIS-linked or inspired attacks in the West. None of these threats disappeared when the Iran war began.

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Kroenig quoted in The New York Times on NATO, Trump, and Iran

cbertrand — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 18:50:08 +0000

Vice President, Geostrategy and Fellows and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On March 25, Atlantic Council vice president and Scowcroft Center senior director Matthew Kroenig was quoted in The New York Times on NATO Secretary General Rutte’s praise of the war in Iran, arguing that Rutte openly criticizing President Trump would undermine the alliance.

Staff

Matthew Kroenig

China Defense Policy

The post Kroenig quoted in The New York Times on NATO, Trump, and Iran appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Negotiating an EU-US biometric information-sharing agreement

Kenneth Propp — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 18:00:00 +0000

Bottom lines up front

The US and EU are negotiating a biometric data-sharing agreement to allow DHS access to EU member states’ fingerprint and other biometric databases.
The EU has never before agreed to provide a non-EU country large-scale access to Europeans’ personal data for purposes of the foreign country’s border security.
The EU aims to secure limits on bulk data collection, human oversight of automated decisions, and reciprocal access to US databases.

The Trump administration has taken adversarial and unconventional approaches with European allies on subjects ranging from trade to content moderation, but in another important area the United States is proceeding more traditionally. The subject is politically controversial: biometric information sharing for purposes of border security. In late January, European Union officials flew to Washington to start low-key formal talks with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) aimed at an international agreement. Despite the sensitive nature of the endeavor, EU member states and the European Data Protection Supervisor have endorsed it.

Why is the United States taking a consensual approach with Europe on border security information sharing, and why is the European Union so far willing to accommodate? Why is this agreement on a fast track in Washington and Brussels when law enforcement initiatives such as the projected EU-US CLOUD Agreement have been paused by the Trump administration? Is the border security information-sharing effort a one-off or could it be a harbinger of a return to traditional transatlantic legal diplomacy?

DHS seeks enhanced border security partnerships

DHS operates an international biometric information-sharing program to assist in “assessing the eligibility or public security risk of individuals seeking an immigration benefit or encountered in the context of a border encounter or law enforcement investigation related to immigration or border security issues,” according to the department’s privacy impact assessment (PIA). The program entails “automatic comparison of the fingerprints collected by DHS or a foreign partner on international travelers, suspected criminals, asylum seekers, irregular migrants, refugees, [and] applicants for visa and/or immigration benefits,” the PIA states. Biometric identifiers potentially include facial and iris scans and DNA, as well as traditional fingerprints.

In 2022, DHS decided that all forty-three countries that benefit from visa-free entry to the United States through the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) must conclude agreements, dubbed enhanced border security partnerships (EBSP), enabling DHS to screen their biometric records for immigration or border security purposes. When DHS queries a name against a foreign state’s identity records and it yields a match, DHS automatically receives the responsive biometric data. Other identity information also could be conveyed by the foreign state. In the absence of a match in the foreign database, no fingerprints or other biometric information would be supplied to DHS.

Shared competence: EU and member-state roles

Twenty-four of the EU’s twenty-seven member states (all but Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Romania) participate in the VWP; they comprise more than half of all VWP members globally. Each EU state maintains its own national biometric information records for border purposes. Thus, DHS could take an important step toward fulfilling the overall EBSP goal by reaching biometric information-sharing agreements with these EU countries.

The EU, for its part, also has two relevant responsibilities: setting rules protecting personal data transferred outside its territory, per Article 16(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU); and setting common policy on visas and external border checks, per Article 77(2) TFEU.

As popular sentiment for stricter border controls has swelled across Europe in recent years, the EU’s policymaking role in this area has become more prominent. In the past year, it has finalized a Pact on Migration and Asylum, a new set of rules on managing migration and asylum applications. In addition, new systems for tracking the entry and exit of foreign travelers and collecting the personal data of those entering EU territory on a visa-free basis are being put in place. These new systems show the EU moving in a similar direction as the United States in collecting information on foreign visitors.

DHS’s demand for biometric information-sharing agreements with EU member states thus touches on an area of “mixed” competence, i.e., one shared between the EU and its member states. In such a situation, the EU and its member states had to decide who would be responsible for negotiating with the United States.

The question took time to resolve. Only in 2024 did the Council of the European Union—which comprises the member states’ national ministers—invite the European Commission to develop a mandate for an international agreement at the EU level. Member states reportedly were eager to bring the collective negotiating strength of the EU to the table with the United States, rather than facing Washington individually.

A year passed before the Commission presented its draft negotiating mandate. It did so based on the understanding that the agreement sought by the United States related to the VWP and thus fell within the EU’s visa policy competence. Negotiations between the Council and Commission on the final contours of the mandate ensued during the second half of 2025.

Finally, in December 2025, the Council adopted a decision authoring the negotiation of an EU-level “framework” agreement with the United States. The framework would provide an overall legal structure for EU member states to conduct bilateral information exchange with DHS, setting the general conditions under which EU member states could provide biometric information to the US border agency. Each eligible member state subsequently would conclude an implementing agreement or arrangement with DHS identifying its relevant databases and operationalizing the data transfers.

Other relevant EU-US agreements

Over the past two decades, the EU has entered into a series of law enforcement and security information-sharing agreements with the United States—ranging from airline passenger name records (PNR) data to financial messaging data (via SWIFT) to mutual legal assistance in criminal matters. DHS is the principal beneficiary of PNR data sharing; the US Department of the Treasury receives SWIFT data used in tracking terrorist finance; and the Department of Justice manages information exchanged for criminal investigations and prosecutions. The United States and the EU also have concluded an agreement elaborating the data protection safeguards that must accompany transfers for law enforcement purposes, the so-called Umbrella Agreement.

In addition, DHS already enjoys access to foreign biometric and biographic data for purposes of preventing and combating serious crime (referred to as PCSC agreements), under a separate negotiating program that commenced in 2009. This earlier generation of agreements assists DHS in border encounters with persons suspected of terrorism and other serious offenses, but they do not apply to all foreign persons seeking to enter the United States.

The EU at that time had also sought to negotiate a PCSC agreement collectively on behalf of its member states, but DHS rebuffed Brussels and instead chose to negotiate individually with each EU member, believing the agency would have better leverage that way. The first two PCSC accords were concluded with Greece and Italy, and eventually all the European participants in the VWP program reached agreements as well.

An EU-level agreement on broad-scale border security information-sharing cooperation with the United States would represent a novel departure for Brussels. “It would be the first agreement concluded by the EU implying large-scale sharing of personal data, including biometric data, for the purpose of border and immigration control by a third country,” the European Data Protection supervisor has observed.

This time, DHS appears to have appreciated the relative speed and efficiency that comes from negotiating one uniform set of access conditions that will apply to all EU VWP participants. The EU and its member states, meanwhile, seem to have reached a sensible division of labor that respects member states’ prerogatives for controlling their own biometric information databases and for managing technical interactions with DHS.

EU negotiating goals

One major EU ambition in setting the rules and procedures governing DHS queries is to preclude generalized processing of all travelers’ data. A Commission press spokesman emphasized the “non-systematic nature of the information exchange and that the exchange is limited to what is strictly necessary to achieve the objectives of this cooperation.”

The EU mandate further stresses that the EU seeks an agreement that would be reciprocal in nature, enabling member states’ border authorities to query corresponding DHS databases. A leaked Council presidency working paper suggested that a monitoring mechanism should ensure reciprocity in implementation: “Information on member states’ citizens should be exchanged under the framework only if the U.S. exchanges information on American citizens.”

It is not clear that the United States and the EU are entering into these negotiations with entirely congruent views on the scope of the framework agreement. DHS envisages checking the biometric databases of travelers from VWP countries on a routine basis. However, the European Commission, as noted above, views the information exchange as “non-systematic.”

In addition, the US international biometric information-sharing program envisages access to foreign databases “in the context of a border encounter or law enforcement investigation related to immigration or border security issues,” according to the DHS Privacy Impact Assessment (italics added). The EU mandate, by contrast, concentrates on security screening and identity verification at the border, with subsequent law enforcement data access to be exclusively governed by other bilateral agreements.

The EU’s data protection rules are its main tool in ensuring that information conveyed to DHS pursuant to the EBSP agreement remains targeted. For example, the negotiating directive insists that processing of personal data be limited to what is “necessary and proportionate in individual cases.” Necessity and proportionality is a key concept in EU data protection law, including in the Schrems jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice, albeit one that is hard to define a priori.

The EU also seeks to include other traditional data protection safeguards in the EBSP agreement with the United States, according to press reports. One reported provision would require human involvement in decisions having significant adverse effects on individuals, rather than permitting entirely automated decision-making. Another would allow for the transfer of “special categories” of personal data—such as sensitive data regarding political opinions, religion, and sexual orientation—only when necessary and proportionate to prevent criminal or terrorist offenses, and with additional protections that limit the universe of individuals who may access it and the duration of retention. Onward transfers of foreign-supplied biometric data to third countries would require the explicit consent of the country from which the data originated.

According to the European Commission version of the negotiating mandate, the EU also seeks to limit DHS retention of transferred personal data to cases of “travelers in respect of whom there is objective evidence from which it may be inferred that there is a continuing risk to public security or public order.” In other words, DHS would not be permitted to store fingerprint data supplied by EU VWP countries on a generalized basis; it could do so only if it has reason to believe that the person would continue to be a threat—a difficult prediction for a security agency to make at the time of the initial border encounter.

The European Data Protection supervisor stated in his opinion that he “largely supports” the proposed approach with the United States. At the same time, he pointed to certain information-sharing constraints the EU would face. Two important EU data repositories prohibit sharing of information with third countries: Eurodac, which contains biometric information on persons who have applied for refugee status in an EU member state or otherwise have migrated irregularly, and ECRIS, which links together member-state records of third country nationals with criminal convictions within the EU. However, the member states themselves regard the exclusive focus of negotiations with the United States on national databases as “without prejudice to any further reflections on the possibility for information exchange with selected third countries from EU databases,” the leaked Council presidency document suggested.

Finally, the EU mandate also seeks the right to an “effective remedy” for persons whose information has been transferred to DHS. This principle, enshrined in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, consistently has proven very difficult to resolve in past EU information-sharing agreements with the United States.

Major issues and possible solutions

The existing web of EU-US information-sharing agreements offer valuable precedents for the latest negotiation on access to biometric data for border security purposes. The PCSC agreements, for example, can provide a template for structuring technical interaction between DHS and EU member-state databases. Equally, the types of data protection provisions contained in the law enforcement Umbrella Agreement could be mirrored in the EBSP agreement, even if the former cannot directly be applied to the border security context.

Remedies for misuse of information likely will prove more difficult to resolve. The Data Privacy Framework (DPF), which offers safeguards against illegal US intelligence agency access to personal data transferred from Europe in the commercial context, provides redress in the form of a special tribunal established within the US Department of Justice. Europeans may not petition an ordinary US court if they believe a US intelligence agency has improperly used their data, however. The Court of Justice of the European Union has yet to decide if this specialized form of recourse meets EU fundamental rights standards.

By contrast, the EU did secure US judicial redress for EU citizens whose information is exchanged for law enforcement purposes, under the terms of the EU-US Umbrella Agreement. It took a US statutory change, through the adoption of the Judicial Redress Act, to extend such a right to foreign persons. (The US Privacy Act otherwise limits the right of judicial redress only to US individuals.) Extending this right to Europeans’ whose biometric data is transferred to DHS for the purposes of border security—as opposed to law enforcement—likely would require a further US statutory amendment. Persuading Congress of the necessity of such a change would be challenging.

The necessity and proportionality concept in EU fundamental rights law serves as a legal technique for balancing data protection rights with legitimate public order and public security interests. In the DPF, the United States accepted explicit reference to the EU’s necessity and proportionality standard—in a sensitive context dealing with potential intelligence agency access to personal data. Incorporating this concept in the border biometric information-sharing setting could similarly assure the EU and its member states that DHS is not engaged in mass data collection.

Legal and political dynamics

DHS faces a complex legal situation in pursuing negotiations involving both the EU and its member states. It is consistently difficult for a US government negotiator to be certain where a particular responsibility lies within the EU’s confederal system. In this case, the task is complicated by the cumbersome division of competences for visa and border policy.

In addition, since DHS seeks information for not just border security but also related law enforcement purposes, it must engage with two separate and varying sources of EU data protection law. Data protection rules for immigration control and visa policy are governed by the General Data Protection Regulation, while the rules for protecting law enforcement data fall under a separate directive.

Political factors in Europe also could slow completion of the agreements with the United States. Some members of the European Parliament who belong to the liberal Renew parliamentary group wrote to the European Commission in January, stating: “Looking at the current geopolitical context, we consider it undesirable for the European Commission to start or continue such negotiations.” Although the European Parliament does not have the power to stop the negotiations, it must approve any international agreement that the EU reaches with the United States.

The Trump administration’s removal of Democratic members serving on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PLCOB) and on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have undermined confidence in European privacy circles in US institutions charged with privacy protection. Moreover, DHS’s proposed rule requiring visitors to the United States to supply five years of details on their social media activity has generated widespread outrage abroad. Although this initiative is formally separate from the VWP program, the European public might well conflate the social media and biometric information demands of the United States.

DHS’s goal of wrapping up both the EU framework agreement and, subsequently, the twenty-four implementing agreements with EU member states by the end of 2026, as has been reported, will likely prove overly ambitious. A more achievable ambition would be to complete the EU framework by that date, with the necessary member states implementing agreements afterward. (The leaked Council presidency document sternly states that it considers “Member States’ commitment to refrain from bilateral negotiations with the US while material discussions on the framework are ongoing to be of critical strategic importance.”)

Nevertheless, there is reason for optimism that the US-EU engagement on border security biometric information sharing will yield success. Both sides appear to have entered talks pragmatically, the EU and its member states by agreeing on a sensible division of labor between themselves, and the United States by accepting the practical benefits of negotiating with both Brussels and member-state capitals. Each is impelled by a desire to have greater control of its borders and sees reciprocal information sharing as a promising approach. However, flexibility on both sides will be indispensable to overcoming divergent positions on issues such as remedies.

Further, by winning support in principle for the framework agreement from the EU’s data protection supervisor, the EU already has shown its commitment to achieving a broadly acceptable agreement. Europe’s collective approach to these negotiations also reflects a sober appreciation of power realities. EU citizens value the ease of visa-free travel to the United States, so member states ultimately will do what is necessary to retain VWP status, within the confines of fundamental rights.

Finally, the EU’s decision to take a leading role in the EBSP negotiations reflects its increased institutional maturity and importance in the field of border security. DHS’s willingness to pursue a framework agreement with the EU may show a corresponding recognition of Brussels’ growing role in this area. As popular sentiment has converged in Europe and America on more tightly controlling borders, there is now an opportunity to achieve a balanced transatlantic agreement on sharing information to that end.

about the author

Kenneth Propp is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center, an adjunct professor of European Union law at the Georgetown University Law Center, and a senior fellow with the Cross-Border Data Forum. His prior experience includes serving as legal counselor at the US Mission to the European Union in Brussels and in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the US Department of State.

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How the Iran war could change the US relationship with Gulf states

Abram Paley — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 16:47:59 +0000

WASHINGTON—The next phase of the Iran war will be defined by uncertainty. At the moment, there is uncertainty over whether the United States, Israel, or Iran will escalate the conflict further. This phase could end abruptly if the conflict does escalate, or it might persist for some time, since even a lull in attacks or a deal might not sustainably address the fundamental issues that led to the outbreak of conflict. What is known, however, is that Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states sit at the center of this uncertainty. It is those states—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—that Iran would likely target with even more drones, missiles, and potentially further asymmetric attacks if the war intensified. And, more importantly, it will be those states that will share their neighborhood with the Iran that emerges from this conflict.

Prior to the current conflict, many in Washington viewed GCC countries as holding the keys to resolving widespread concerns about Iran in ways short of war. I saw firsthand over the years the ways in which the Gulf’s diverse relationships helped advance US interests. Oman, for example, has long served as a quiet mediator between the United States and Iran, including when I served as acting US special envoy for Iran from 2023 to 2025. Oman has continued this role right up to the current crisis. Qatar too maintained channels with Iranian leadership that facilitated negotiations for the release of US hostages in Iran and deconfliction efforts between Washington and Tehran in the region and beyond. Saudi Arabia, while maintaining deep suspicions about the regime in Tehran, had taken tentative steps to rehabilitate its relationship with Iran through a series of high-level meetings following years of effort by the United States, other regional countries, and ultimately China to broker a reconciliation that stabilized the region. And the UAE maintained economic ties with Iran that stretched back decades and served both to tighten sanctions pressure on Tehran and hold out hope of potential economic incentives if the Iranian regime changed its worst behaviors.

But as the war continues, these dynamics that had served the interests of the Gulf states and, in many cases, the United States are shifting, and US policymakers need to be attuned to these changes. This begins with asking the right questions. What the war will ultimately mean for Gulf countries and for the US relationships with them turns on answers to a handful of still-open questions. Five of the most pressing of these questions are explored below. The answers could determine how successful the United States is in securing its interests in the region going forward, both in finding an off-ramp for the conflict and in its broader regional objectives. Iran, too, is likely asking many of the same questions as it seeks to exploit opportunities to shape the Gulf to its own ends.

Will the “new normal” stick?

Since it began its retaliation, Iran has targeted GCC oil and gas infrastructure and commercial interests. Its goal has been to pressure Gulf states to lean on the United States and Israel to cease their strikes. In its more recent and consequential strikes on Qatar’s Ras Laffan Gas Facility, Tehran has shown that it could potentially expand the scope of its attacks, increasing the economic pain on Gulf states and the global economy. Iran can potentially wield this threat to its advantage, but the approach also carries risks. It is dangerous, for example, to assume that Iran can continue to calibrate its strikes to avoid unintended escalation. Iranian forces might strike Gulf economic interests that, whether intentionally or not, would dramatically widen the war. And even without a dramatic incident, experts and advisers have suggested that global companies and even the Gulf countries themselves are considering what the “new normal” in the region looks like, given the lingering impacts and uncertainty from the current conflict and the fact that even a weakened Iran could threaten its neighbors.

Will the Houthis join the fight?

There is an immediate concern that the Houthis in Yemen, either for their own interests or at Iran’s behest, will enter the conflict. If the group does get involved, then it would likely be by restarting attacks on ships transiting the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb Strait—threatening the flow of an additional 12 percent of international seaborne oil transits and 8 percent of global liquefied natural gas trade. For shipping companies, these attacks would add to the already rising costs from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the higher shipping prices as a result of rerouting still occurring from Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in late 2023. These dangers and the costs associated with them would also affect global markets and, even more immediately and profoundly, Saudi Arabia and other GCC member states, given their proximity and the security implications of a re-escalation of the conflict in Yemen.

Aware of the threats the Houthis pose to global shipping and regional security, the US military could continue to carry out new strikes to weaken the group. But regardless of how Houthi actions play out in the coming weeks, Yemen’s instability and entrenched domestic conflict will undoubtedly endure, as it has for over a decade, threatening to amplify instability in the Gulf region in unpredictable ways. As Yemen director at the National Security Council during the outbreak of fighting with the Houthis more than a decade ago, I witnessed firsthand how the conflict in Yemen reordered Gulf security and economic priorities—and over time even led to fissures between GCC member states. Against the backdrop of a worsening conflict with Iran, a second front of fighting in the region might threaten Gulf and US interests in unpredictable ways.

Will GCC unity fracture?

As the conflict drags on, Iran may increasingly try to fracture GCC unity. It could, for example, seek to exploit the differences in interests and perspectives between Gulf countries, each of which has different relationships with Iran, the United States, Israel, and each other. While the GCC does not traditionally have the same rigorous organizing principles as, for example, the European Union, Gulf member states have benefited when they act in unison. To date, there has been a noticeable “rally around the flag” dynamic in the face of Iranian attacks that has papered over differences among Gulf countries. While Iran has engaged with the GCC as a group in prior instances, it has had more success pursuing and maintaining its individual relationships with member states. Iranian leaders likely believe there is value for them in fracturing the group, in the same way that Iran has sought to exploit differences in interests and values between the United States and its other traditional partners and allies.

Memories are both short and long in the region, and GCC member states have not forgotten the Gulf rift that occurred during US President Donald Trump’s first term. Then, years of simmering criticism and concern ignited an escalation of mutual accusations leading Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain to sever relations, close airspace, and enforce a blockade on Qatar, for what they said was Doha’s funding of terrorism, fomenting regional unrest, and ties to Iran. I saw the direct implications for US interests as the head of the political section at the US embassy in Riyadh at that time.

GCC unity will also likely be a factor in how this conflict ends. At times in recent weeks, some Gulf nations have reportedly urged the United States to find an off-ramp. At other times, some have advised escalating strikes to destroy the Iranian regime. These conflicting preferences among Gulf countries augur a worrying trend. The ability of the GCC to maintain a unified voice, which Iran will actively work to divide, will affect the group’s ability to support an end to the conflict that advances the stability of the region as a whole rather than their own parochial interests—as well as its ability to work collectively to advance economic, political, and security goals beyond the Iran war.

Will domestic instability increase in the Gulf?

Since the war began, there has been little news about domestic instability in the Gulf countries, which aim to continue projecting confidence and stability to the wider world. However, the longer the conflict drags on, the more that it could affect each nation in various ways. This in turn could lead the Gulf states to respond in ways that might be antithetical to US interests and values.

Three points are worth considering here. First, citizens and residents’ economic opportunities and physical security have been, and will continue to be, affected by this conflict. If the fighting gets worse, it could reach a tipping point where there is greater public outcry to end the conflict. Second, economic duress will affect nations’ residents and migrant labor populations more acutely than their citizens, given many Gulf states’ economic systems. If this pressure becomes too much, it could lead to wide-ranging and long-lasting human rights and economic issues. Third, in the past few decades some Gulf countries have at times viewed minority populations with suspicion, accusing certain individuals, especially Shia and other minorities, of receiving support, training, and backing from Iran. As Iran’s grip on its proxies in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen weakens, Tehran might seek to take advantage of any preexisting relationships with these Gulf minority populations. At the same time, Gulf states might use such rumors and fears to quell domestic unrest with potentially devastating consequences.

Will Gulf states turn toward China and Russia?

In the current phase of the war, Gulf countries will undoubtedly try to reinforce their security through closer partnerships with the United States. But depending on the outcome of this conflict, some Gulf countries may develop concerns about US reliability as an economic and security partner. Gulf leaders might, for example, fault Washington for an inability to control the conflict or for failing to find an off-ramp at an appropriate time. If this happens, some GCC countries might then choose to reinforce their partnership options beyond the United States by strengthening ties with Russia and China—perhaps economically at first, but potentially also strategically. This in turn could make it more difficult for the United States to pursue its interests in the region, not only in terms of its security goals and Iran policy, but also longer-term strategic partnerships on issues as varied as advanced technology, artificial intelligence, and nuclear energy.

Gulf countries have long proven that they maintain their own relationships with Iran and other groups to advance their own interests, much in the same way that many European countries do. These channels have proven useful to convey messages over the years, but the Trump administration should not underestimate Gulf countries’ ability to use the same channels to take steps with Iran that might undercut US interests and long-term goals if Washington is unable to find a suitable off-ramp that serves GCC interests. Similarly, Iran might try to take advantage of its relationships with China, Russia, and the GCC in ways that run counter to US interests, even if the current conflict has created suspicion in Iran’s relationship with its neighbors.

Mitigating these potential end states will be a long-term project that will require the focused attention of the Trump administration even after a resolution to the immediate conflict.

The Trump administration and GCC countries share an interest in finding a resolution to the current conflict that leaves the region more stable than it was before the launch of Operation Epic Fury. But despite the tactical victories of the US and Israeli campaign against Iran, the war appears to have opened the door to a new wave of uncertainty in the Gulf, which might threaten the very regional stability and economic prosperity it is meant to ensure.

The post How the Iran war could change the US relationship with Gulf states appeared first on Atlantic Council.

How the US can turn an energy emergency into an opportunity for resilience

Troy Warshel — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 16:22:32 +0000

When the White House declared a national energy emergency last year, it wasn’t political theater, it was a warning. The US grid is under strain, demand is outpacing supply, and national security depends on how the country adapts to current and emerging power requirements. The United States is facing a national energy crisis brought on by an aging grid and infrastructure and a significant increase in demand. Energy resilience is not just an economic concern, it is also needed to project military power from the homeland, raising it to a national security imperative.

Rising demand pressure largely comes from consumers like data centers, which are projected to require twice the amount of energy in 2035 compared to 2024. Growing demand contrasted with ever increasing grid fragility creates risks that should be readily apparent, even to those outside of the energy sector. Without significant action, the risk to the energy supply is going to continue to increase, leaving the country and its defense even more vulnerable. Natural and man-made disasters, including cyberattacks, continue to increase in frequency and severity. Continued load growth from data centers, artificial intelligence (AI), electric vehicles, and industrial electrification have created unprecedented demand that only adds to the potential for severe disruptions.

The United States must look differently at today’s energy challenges to avoid wide-scale disruptions that will have a significant impact on the economy, the public, and military readiness. Policymakers and the Pentagon have to act together to ensure energy security for the nation and enable the armed forces to project power no matter what challenge they face.

A roadmap to secure energy supply for both the grid and the military

Policymakers, the power sector, and the public must look at the problem though a different lens. The energy system must shift to distributed generation close to the point of operational need. Advanced nuclear, storage, and renewables must play a part if we are to address real resilience, and this change needs to happen now.

Shifting electricity generation to a decentralized model

To achieve this goal, policymakers and utilities must embrace the concept of “distributed resilience,” which involves creating a system of microgrids and hybrid systems to allow local sourcing of power through systems that combine solar, storage, generation, and dispatchable backup power with the capability to island. These types of systems are available now and could help meet demand and increase resilience. To take advantage of new technology, the Department of Defense (DOD) should look at Energy as a Service where the military departments work with individual bases to contract with a private provider that guarantees resilient power, ideally inside the fenceline, and get away from pulling power from the commercial grid, subject to all of the risks and hazards of the aging infrastructure. A longer-range solution, and the one being championed by the US Army, is the use of advanced nuclear and small modular reactors to provide clean, continuous power while freeing the base from the risks and market fluctuations of fossil fuel generation.

Siting electricity generation on base

To take this approach a step further, the Pentagon could consider siting this distributed energy infrastructure on base through enhanced use leases and offtake agreements from power providers. With ample land area on many bases and heightened security, military installations provide an ideal location to build energy resilience. Experts have argued that nuclear power on installations can advance national security. The Army is already embracing the idea through its Janus Program and has announced plans to build ten to twelve small modular reactors on Army bases in the next ten years. By not relying on power from outside the fence line, military installations ensure their ability to operate 24/7 to defend the nation regardless of disaster or grid condition.

Powering data centers with on-base generation

Further building on this model can also address the growth in data center power demand and the strain and cost it is expected to place on existing infrastructure and consumer electricity bills. To meet the energy needs of future data centers, tech companies could build facilities near military bases and power them with on-base generation resources. The US Air Force has recently gone on record saying they are going to locate data centers on five bases, but the military services should look at co-located power generation to really make this work. On-base generation will provide mission assurance to the base and power to the data center while at the same time alleviating pressure on the public grid and driving down rates for customers.

The advantages, hurdles, and next steps to achieve this model

America is undergoing a rapid energy intensification. With the proliferation of AI, edge computing and 5G/6G, the power demand per square foot is rising rapidly. By co-locating commercial data centers on or near bases that have resilient power, the US grid, consumers, and the tech sector would realize several benefits. First would be low latency connectivity and secure communictions for the installation. Security for the data center would be improved and overall mission assurance for both parties increases. The solutions may be simple, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t hard. Addressing these challenges will require some design and development considerations but, if systems are designed with enough head room at the outset, all of these challenges are surmountable, and if we prioritize advanced nuclear power generation, bases and data centers could support internal power requirements for years.

Ultimately, the United States cannot afford to remain vulnerable to grid disruptions, cyberattack, or weather impacts. Energy is a force multiplier, and the executive order stresses the importance of change and provides the tools necessary to drive that change. Success requires the government to pull together a coalition of stakeholders including DOD, Department of Energy, utilities, data center operators, regulatory bodies, local governments, and financial partners to collaborate and develop actionable solutions. The Army and the Air Force have started to take the first steps, but joint bases would be the next optimal step. Interservice collaboration could combine the Air Force effort to pull in data centers and with the Army’s work to site advanced reactors. This will develop the framework for a distributed, resilient, mission-focused energy architecture that supports national security and digital competitiveness which will benefit all Americans. The time is now to act and secure our energy future.

Troy Warshel is executive vice president at Potomac International Partners. A former senior DOD official and US Marine Corps F/A-18 pilot, he works at the intersection of defense, energy, and innovation, advising on operational energy, emerging technologies, and strategies to strengthen US and allied security.

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US secures new Belarus prisoner release in exchange for sanctions relief

Mercedes Sapuppo — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 20:56:50 +0000

Belarus dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka released 250 political prisoners on March 19 in exchange for US sanctions relief as Washington’s efforts to revive diplomatic ties with Minsk continued. This was the latest in a series of similar agreements brokered by US President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy for Belarus John Coale, who traveled to the Belarusian capital personally to meet with Lukashenka.

“Today’s release of 250 individuals is a significant humanitarian milestone and a testament to the President’s commitment to direct, hard-nosed diplomacy,” Coale commented. In a further indication of the Trump administration’s interest in warmer bilateral relations, Coale stated that Lukashenka may soon visit Washington.

The removal of US sanctions on three major Belarusian fertilizer industry companies comes at a time when the Iran war is driving up fertilizer prices and posing threats to the global agriculture industry. Officials also discussed the possible reopening of the US Embassy in Minsk.

Lukashenka’s decision to release 250 detainees was widely welcomed. Many of those freed had been in prison since the crackdown that gripped Belarus following the country’s 2020 presidential election, which sparked unprecedented nationwide protests amid allegations of massive voter fraud. The released prisoners included Valiantsin Stefanovich and Marfa Rabkova of Belarusian human rights group Viasna, along with journalist Katsyaryna Andreyeva.

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Under President Trump, the United States has sought a thaw with Minsk. These efforts have so far led to the release of hundreds of political prisoners and an easing of US sanctions against Belarus.

Increased engagement between the US and Belarus represents a significant change in strategy following years of growing tensions between Minsk and Western capitals. Western governments have expressed alarm over Lukashenka’s repressive domestic policies, along with his involvement in Putin’s hybrid war against Europe and his complicity in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Trump administration initiative to reengage with Lukashenka has brought clear humanitarian benefits and has had a life-changing impact on released prisoners along with their families. Nevertheless, concerns remain that the current US approach risks creating incentives for the Belarusian authorities to imprison more domestic opponents.

Despite a number of large-scale releases over the past year, human rights groups claim there are still almost one thousand political prisoners in Belarus, with new names regularly being added to the list as arrests continue. Activists have likened this process to a “revolving door” of repression, with new political prisoners regularly detained as others are pardoned and released.

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Beyond the humanitarian dimension, the US diplomatic outreach to Minsk is seen as an attempt to counter Lukashenka’s near complete dependence on Moscow. Since the 2020 protest movement that almost ousted the Belarus dictator, he has been heavily reliant on Russia for his political survival. In exchange for its support, the Kremlin has sought to expand its grip on neighboring Belarus. This has led to what some have labeled as a “creeping annexation.”

Trump has sought to restart dialogue with Minsk against a backdrop of faltering US-led peace efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine War. So far, however, there is little indication that Lukashenka may be prepared to downgrade his backing for Putin’s invasion or offer any assistance to advance negotiations.

The Belarusian ruler has been a key Russian ally throughout the invasion. This support has included allowing Putin to use Belarus as a gateway for Russia’s initial attempt to seize Kyiv in 2022. More recently, Lukashenka has agreed to host Russian nuclear weapons. He is also accused of aiding Moscow’s drone attacks on Ukraine and partnering with China to produce ammunition for the Russian army.

Lukashenka may now be on track to join Putin among the criminal suspects wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. On March 12, the ICC officially opened an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity committed by Lukashenka and his security apparatus against political opponents. In March 2023, the ICC issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest in connection with his alleged involvement in the large-scale deportation of Ukrainian children.

The latest Belarusian prisoner releases are an indication of improving relations between Washington and Minsk. However, it remains to be seen whether the benefits of this diplomatic outreach will extend beyond humanitarian goals and lead to broader gains in the security sphere. Lukshenka is no doubt ready to offer more pardons in exchange for economic incentives, but he has yet to demonstrate a willingness to decrease domestic repression or distance himself from the Kremlin.

Mercedes Sapuppo is a fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Not just a problem for Nicaraguans

While the unfolding situation in Cuba deserves the attention it is receiving, the United States should also turn its focus to another repressive Latin American regime: Nicaragua. The Central American country weighs more heavily on the long-term future of the region than many policymakers admit. For years, Nicaragua’s solidifying authoritarianism has been treated as a contained crisis, with its government considered to be repressive and diplomatically difficult but threatening few far-reaching consequences.

That view no longer holds. Today, the Ortega-Murillo regime is not only dismantling Nicaragua’s institutions, it is also shaping the region around it. United Nations (UN) experts have described the country as an authoritarian state with no remaining independent institutions. And Nicaragua’s persecution of its political opponents extends beyond its borders. The Ortega-Murillo regime is alleged to have denied passports, confiscated property, and even murdered dissidents in neighboring Costa Rica to silence the opposition. According to a report by the UN Group of Human Rights Experts published on March 10, the regime has a “transnational surveillance and intelligence network” that is embedded in diplomatic missions abroad. The malign influence also spills into geopolitics, as Nicaragua publicly backs Russia’s territorial ambitions in Ukraine. In September 2025, the regime signed trade agreements with three Ukrainian regions under Russian occupation, including Donetsk.

The Nicaraguan regime’s transnational repression creates problems across Central America. The Ortega-Murillo regime’s consolidation reinforces the notion that democratic erosion can become permanent. This complicates regional efforts to build a more predictable climate for investment, governance, and international cooperation. The subregion is already strained by migration pressures, weak institutions, and uneven democratic commitment. Any efforts to make Central America’s economies more cohesive will always be limited while one of its states continues to operate as an authoritarian holdout.

Thus, any serious ambition for a more governable, stable, and economically dynamic Central America runs through Nicaragua. The country is too central, large, and significant to work around. Too often, officials from the region have discussed Central American integration in siloed commercial or bureaucratic terms, as though it were mainly a matter of customs modernization, infrastructure, or trade facilitation. All these issues are, of course, important. But fostering a more integrated isthmus also requires political conditions such as legal predictability, credible institutions, and stronger cross-border trust. For any future vision of a more interconnected Central America, there needs to be a regional understanding that authoritarian breakdown in one country weakens the whole.

A new way forward

The subregion’s political conditions do not lend themselves to optimism. Its governments are preoccupied with domestic pressures. Its regional bodies are weak. There may be little appetite now for a broader conversation about reintegration, reconstruction, or long-term strategy for democratization. But that should not prevent US and Central American policymakers from thinking boldly about the future of the region.

A more serious approach to Nicaragua would begin with the United States increasing its economic pressure on the regime. The Trump administration’s decision in December 2025 to levy phased Section 301 tariffs against certain Nicaraguan goods is a welcome start. These efforts should be coupled with regional support for the opposition in Nicaragua and a blanket refusal to normalize the Ortega-Murillo regime’s repression.

A viable future for Nicaragua requires the country’s dictators, Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo, to relinquish power and guarantee free and fair elections as soon as possible. US President Donald Trump should press the regime on this point while threatening greater economic pressure, especially where it would hurt the most: gold. Gold is the regime’s top export commodity, and additional US sanctions on the industry would certainly be felt by the leadership. In addition, the US Congress is currently considering other punitive measure on Nicaragua’s gold trade.

In the end, the White House may decide not to go as far in confronting Nicaragua as it did with Venezuela and Iran, or even as far as it is going with Cuba, where the endgame is still unclear. But the combined effect of these recent US actions elsewhere, together with increased economic pressure on Nicaragua, could motivate the current leadership to seek a peaceful exit.

But Nicaragua also needs more. It requires an amnesty for all arbitrarily detained political prisoners, a restoration of basic civil and political rights for all, and the creation of a more credible legal and regulatory environment. What Nicaragua needs is a government that makes room for the private sector and smaller entrepreneurs, as well as conditions that could eventually support domestic and foreign investment with greater confidence.

In Central America, Nicaragua’s authoritarianism remains an issue that cannot be postponed indefinitely. The region’s democratic credibility, institutional future, and economic potential are all tied to how that question is tackled. Central America will struggle to become more resilient, more coherent, and more ambitious until it is.

The post Will Trump focus on Nicaragua next after Venezuela and Cuba? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Trump is fighting two wars with Iran. He needs to win both.

Frederick Kempe — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 21:33:00 +0000

This article was updated on March 23 at 5:33 p.m. ET.

The newest edition of the Economist puts it this way: “The conflict ravaging the Middle East may best be understood as two parallel wars. One is the campaign of American and Israeli air strikes against the Iranian regime; the other is Iran’s war on the global economy.”

If US President Donald Trump fails to address both simultaneously and successfully, he risks turning what has thus far been a tactical military success into a strategic failure with longer-term consequences for international stability.

The first war is one of missiles, drones, and Israel’s targeting of Iranian leaders, now entering its fourth week. By most measures, Iran is losing that war, as the United States and Israel reduce Iranian conventional military capabilities more every day. Nevertheless, Washington thus far has underestimated the Iranian regime’s resilience, dispersal of critical weaponry, and ability to continue attacking its neighbors.

That brings us to the second conflict unfolding in shipping lanes, in energy markets, and among political leaders. In its war on the global economy, Iran maintains dangerous leverage. Tehran’s moves to halt shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow artery in the global energy economy’s circulatory system, have produced shocks to the global system.

Trump’s ultimatum to Iran over the weekend to fully open the strait within forty-eight hours or suffer attacks on its power plants vividly underscored the linkages between these two wars. The president’s five-day postponement of those strikes on Monday to provide space for talks with Tehran could provide a pathway to ending these wars. But Trump will have failed if these negotiations don’t remove Iran’s capabilities to inflict destruction on its neighbors, Israel, the United States, and the global economy.

How Iran claims ‘victory’

Geoeconomic weaponry will be as critical as military materiel in determining the outcome of this two-front conflict. Iran can’t defeat the United States and Israel militarily, but it may not need to. It only needs to ratchet up the cost of military action to a level that fractures American political will. Iran’s relatively inexpensive tools—missiles, drones, proxies, mines, even just the fear of the use of these tools—can disproportionately disrupt systems built on predictability.

Conventional wisdom holds that Trump must decide which war to prioritize because he can’t win them both. Some argue, for example, that to relieve the economic pressure Iran is applying, Trump should bring his military efforts to a rapid close even if the mission isn’t yet complete. Nothing, however, could be more short-sighted than leaving a vengeful and still formidable Iranian regime in place—one that can further rebuild its military capabilities over time and conduct terrorist attacks, after achieving the “victory” of countering the United States and Israel through asymmetric means.

For Tehran, regime survival would be sufficient triumph. It will tell its people, its proxies, its partners China and Russia, and the wider world that it absorbed the blows of the world’s greatest military power and exposed its vulnerabilities. That narrative will travel far beyond Iran, serving as a playbook that other US adversaries will employ.

How the US emerges victorious

For the United States, winning the two-front war doesn’t mean an open-ended military campaign with maximalist goals. What it would require is something that has been difficult to discern so far: a concerted strategy by the Trump administration that recognizes the larger stakes of this moment for the United States and its still-hedging allies.

What would such a strategy look like in practice? It would start with US forces stepping up their targeting of the missile, drone, and maritime capabilities that underpin Tehran’s asymmetric strategy, weakening them to the point that they are an occasional nuisance but not an ongoing threat. The United States also must decisively break Iran’s ability to hold the global economy hostage, beginning with opening the Strait of Hormuz. This step can be taken together with Gulf allies that now have no remaining doubt that their adversary is Iran, not Israel. These countries will proceed to structure their militaries and defense plans accordingly.

Beyond opening the strait, Trump will need to reach into his familiar geoeconomic toolkit if he hopes to win the economic war with Iran. As the Atlantic Council’s Josh Lipsky has written in the Wall Street Journal, such tools—from shipping insurance to asset seizures—used to be far more commonplace in conflict. On Friday, Trump temporarily waived sanctions on Iranian oil in order to calm global markets, but that was a defensive economic move rather than a proactive one. The United States possesses not only the world’s strongest military but also its largest economy. As his tariffs have shown, Trump is not afraid to leverage that power.

Israeli forces, for their part, should continue targeting the Iranian regime, particularly leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Undermining the IRGC would have the additional benefit of weakening Iran’s regional proxy networks, which have done so much harm over the past half century. If the IRGC remains strong after this conflict is over, it would allow the Iranian regime to regenerate its coercive power—both within Iran and across the region.

Even if the US and Israeli campaign does not result in regime change in Tehran, it should aim to produce a changed regime that lacks capacity to seriously threaten its neighbors, the United States, and the global economy. It may have been wishful thinking for Trump to call on Iranians to rise up against their despotic leadership, particularly after the regime killed as many as 30,000 demonstrators earlier this year. However, the more that the United States, Israel, and its partners defang Iran’s regime and its enforcers, the greater the chance of the regime’s eventual collapse.

His administration also must focus on building what comes after the war: a more resilient and robust Gulf security architecture in which Saudis, Emiratis, and their neighbors join in common cause despite their inevitable differences. Given the economic and strategic significance of the region, the United States will need to join with European allies and Asian stakeholders, including China, to share the burden and responsibility of safeguarding the world’s economic lifelines.

Many US allies opposed the Trump administration’s decision to go to war alongside Israel in Iran. Some supported it. But particularly as the war continues across two fronts, one aimed at the global economy, all have a stake in its outcome. The Trump administration now must stay the course to win both aspects of this war. As it does so, Washington would do well to rediscover the neglected value of coalition-building and alliances in managing a world where continued volatility will require every friend the Trump administration can muster.

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on X @FredKempe.

This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points newsletter, a column of dispatches from a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.

The post Trump is fighting two wars with Iran. He needs to win both. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The Iran conflict exposes the new cost curve of war

Nic Adams — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 21:06:41 +0000

“Shock and awe” was the term of art when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. That conflict saw the United States bring to bear overwhelming military force backed by superior technology in the form of precision-guided weapons, stealth aircraft, and satellite technology, as well as a finely tuned military force built on sound doctrine, world-class training, and a professional cadre of officers and noncommissioned officers. In many ways, the initial strikes on Iran resemble this dynamic—a world-class military with superior weapons and training engaging a weaker foe, aiming to achieve a lightning-fast military victory in service of political aims.

A closer look, however, reveals a shift in the battlefield dynamic over the past twenty years that often gives weaker militaries more tools to offset stronger adversaries. Cheap drones, open-source satellite imagery, and cyber tools give weaker states such as Iran new ways to hold superior militaries at risk, while forcing them to expend munitions and resources at far greater cost. And despite deep capital markets, a strong innovation base, and a growing defense tech sector in the United States, costs remain high and development timelines remain long due to an ornery requirements process, misaligned acquisition incentives, and bureaucratic inertia. The Pentagon’s challenge is to rapidly field innovative, lower-cost technologies alongside its exquisite capabilities, ensuring each is used where it delivers the greatest advantage.

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Consider the overwhelming firepower with which the United States initiated combat operations in 2003. Joint Direct Attack Munitions, aircraft carrier strike groups, and stealth bombers remained out of reach for Iraqi defenders. US bases in the region were also largely untouchable; while Iraqi Scud missiles inflicted serious damage in the first Gulf War, US missile defense systems proved highly effective during Operation Iraqi Freedom, leading to a decisive end of initial combat operations after just a few weeks of fighting, the following insurgency notwithstanding. Much has changed since then, especially with the proliferation of low-cost drone technology, at which Iran has become adept. By producing and exporting the Shahed-136 drone to Russia for use in Ukraine, Iran has refined both the technology and doctrine behind these systems.

The result is a weapon that forces the United States to intercept $30,000 drones with $2-million defensive systems—while still inflicting casualties in the opening salvos of a conflict. Iran’s combination of ballistic missiles and low-cost drones threatens to swiftly deplete defensive systems, leaving US, Arab, and Israeli targets vulnerable to attack. Additionally, Iranian-aligned groups in the region, such as the Houthis in Yemen, militias in Iraq, or even the much-weakened Hezbollah in Lebanon, can employ much of the same low-cost weapons to stretch and harass American and Israeli troops, broadening the battlespace across the region and striking civilian traffic and infrastructure to impose global costs to a growing conflict.

While the United States will continue to enjoy unquestionable military overmatch, both the United States and Israel enjoy another advantage over the terrorist regime in Tehran and its regional proxies: a deep pool of innovation, capital markets, and industry ready to produce in support of national security and defense. While there will always be a place for exquisite weapons systems and precision munitions, cheaper and more attritable weapons systems must be part of the fight to both adequately and economically defend against some of the systems being employed by Iranian forces, as well as weapons the United States might encounter in a future Pacific conflict. The Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System (LUCAS) drone is one example of the United States leaning into more cost-effective weapons, a rare case of reverse-engineering the Iranian Shahed. Other novel and emerging technologies changing the battlefield today include autonomous ground systems, artificial intelligence-driven counter-drone weapons, and energetics (such as propellants and explosives) for artillery strikes.

For example, autonomous ground vehicles armed with counter-drone weapons or sensors could be cheaply and effectively deployed across the Middle East to defend US bases as well as civilian oil infrastructure, allowing soldiers and civilians to take cover while autonomous systems remain exposed and engage incoming drones. This would obviate the need for expensive missiles to take down low-cost drones, allowing the United States to keep its high-cost systems in reserve for bigger targets that may yet be on the way.

In addition to hardware, the United States has a strong advantage over Iran in big data, computing power, and software. US systems are far more networked than they were twenty years ago. Intelligence collection and analysis is now supported by artificial intelligence. Open-source imagery solutions provide the United States with more options to locate enemy capabilities and stockpiles.

Supported by deep capital markets and institutional investors, the United States dominates the defense tech landscape—and will continue to do so. That means it’s up to the Department of Defense and the services to send a strong demand signal. Unless leaders are willing to employ proven innovative systems at scale, the United States will continue to rely on older, slower, and far more expensive weapons systems both in this fight and in the next.

From Nagorno-Karabakh to Ukraine to Iran, drones and loitering munitions have repeatedly demonstrated how inexpensive systems can reshape the battlefield. Now the United States must adapt in order to remain the world’s premier fighting force. The technology is already here. The question is whether policymakers have the vision and the flexibility to deploy it.

Nic Adams is a nonresident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. He also advises frontier technology firms on strategic communications, business development, and government relations. He previously served as a professional staff member on the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and as a commissioned US Army officer.

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The Strait of Hormuz crisis will ripple across plastics and food supply chains, helping Beijing and Moscow, hurting Americans

Joseph Webster and Kate Burnett — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 15:12:26 +0000

Every day that the Strait of Hormuz remains closed brings the world economy closer to a crisis. While the closure has acutely affected oil and gas supplies and prices, it could soon send convulsions through supply chains for other commodities, such as plastics and fertilizers, that are foundational to the global economy and food supplies. This cascade of effects could strengthen China and Russia’s geopolitical influence over impacted supply chains, while hurting consumers around the world, including in the United States. If the Strait of Hormuz closure persists for even a few more months, it could become the single-largest and most consequential energy and supply chain disruption in modern history, all but ensuring a global period of stagflation.

The geopolitical fallout: China and Russia could gain leverage in petrochemicals and fertilizers

Amid outages in the petrochemical complex across ex-China Asia and the Middle East, the crisis could enable Beijing to establish new chokepoints over the near-term or more enduringly. Similarly, Beijing’s close partners in Moscow and Minsk will become more powerful across food supply chains.

Petrochemicals, the feedstock for plastics and other products

The direct and second-order consequences of a Strait of Hormuz closure could reverberate through petrochemical markets with major economic and geopolitical implications. In the upstream segment, the Middle East normally supplies about 30 percent of global seaborne exports of liquefied petroleum gas, which can be used for petrochemicals feedstock. Drewry analyst Anshika Prajapati estimates that prolonged closure of the Strait would reduce 24 percent of global seaborne naphtha, another key petrochemical input. These exports are now largely cut off from global markets.

In addition to the upstream outage, downstream facilities in East Asia could face closure due to insufficient electricity, while Middle East petrochemical export facilities are facing massive disruptions. South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan hold significant petrochemical export capacity. But petrochemical plants are highly electricity-intensive, and powering the electricity grids of these East Asian democracies relies heavily on a now severely constricted liquefied natural gas (LNG) market. Accordingly, if Middle East LNG production outages force these countries to ration electricity, they could choose to curtail certain petrochemical products in favor of higher priority use cases for LNG, such as air conditioning or the manufacturing of semiconductors or high bandwidth memory for artificial intelligence (AI) supply chains.

Conversely, while the oil and gas shortage could harm already-suffering South Korean, Taiwanese, and Japanese petrochemicals industries, it could help Chinese companies consolidate parts of the supply chain. While the profitability of Chinese petrochemical firms could take a short-term hit, they have access to abundant electricity—and China’s partner, Russia, is a major supplier of its petrochemicals feedstock, including naphtha, an ingredient that Asian petrochemical companies are scrambling to obtain. In the wake of the crisis, South Korean petrochemical producers are cutting run rates by up to 50 percent; impacts in Japan are also severe, as about 42 percent of its naphtha supply comes from the Middle East. Thus, the Middle East crisis and its ripple effects could ultimately see the petrochemical sector concentrate in China, giving Beijing yet another leverage point over global supply chains. For example, China, which shifted from a net importer of global polyvinyl chloride (PVC) to a net exporter, now accounts for 78 percent of global incremental PVC capacity additions. Chinese PVC producers largely use a coal-based process that requires no imported oil or naphtha, while top producers in Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea are already cutting output over fears of losing feedstock and electricity. Therefore, while Chinese petrochemical producers will be hit by the crisis, they could yet emerge on top.

The United States, whose shale-based petrochemical producers are insulated from the Hormuz disruption, will likely gain market share if prices spike. Nevertheless, certain nodes of the global petrochemical supply chain could be concentrated in China if the crisis persists, and as the allied industrial base is degraded.

If global petrochemical constraints persist due to upstream supply issues and petrochemical closures, consumer prices will rise, or even soar. US consumers will be disproportionately impacted, as the average US resident used 255 kilograms of new plastics in 2019, versus a world average of 60.1 kilograms.

Fertilizers and food prices

Not only has the Strait of Hormuz closure interrupted global energy trade, but it has also suspended the movement of fertilizer representing roughly 30 percent of globally traded ammonia-based nitrogen fertilizer that is vital before planting season. While the United States is one of the largest fertilizer producers, it relies on ammonia imports to lower costs and meet demand; it has previously relied on imports for roughly half of domestic urea use. Although US ammonia imports do not primarily route through the Strait of Hormuz, the closure constricts global supply, driving up prices that US markets cannot escape. Fertilizer supplies are already significantly lower than normal, and prices are surging. The cost of urea at the import hub in New Orleans rose 32 percent in just one week, from $516 to $683 per metric ton.

The United States will feel the economic impact of rising input costs on multiple fronts. When the cost of producing crops increases, farmers and food processors will pass those expenses through the supply chain, directly increasing the final price consumers pay for goods. Farmers may also be less incentivized to grow nitrogen-intensive crops, such as corn. This could also have cost implications for livestock feed, and thus meat and dairy products for consumers.

Disrupted fertilizer supply chains hold important geopolitical consequences. China, the second largest fertilizer exporter, is shielding its farmers and consumers from price shocks by constricting sales abroad, for now. As China withholds fertilizer exports, countries that previously sourced from Chinese and Middle Eastern suppliers will scramble for alternatives, further tightening global markets.

In the near term, Russia and Belarus are well-positioned to fill any gap left behind. Russia remains the world’s largest exporter of fertilizer, and Belarus is a major agricultural player in potash, a nutrient used for fertilizer. If Russia and Belarus face no export constraints, they are well-placed to exercise greater influence across global fertilizer markets.

China largely uses domestically-sourced coal as feedstock for ammonia and fertilizer production, so its output will not be directly constrained by a Strait of Hormuz closure. Over the medium term, Beijing may selectively step back into export markets if the geopolitical and commercial benefits outweigh domestic food security risks.

If global supply chain outages persist, Beijing, Moscow, and Minsk may cooperate more closely on global fertilizer distribution.

The economic fallout: A long-duration Strait of Hormuz closure will bring waves of economic pain

This analysis is not comprehensive: as during COVID, many acute supply chain vulnerabilities will only reveal themselves with time. However, this analysis on key commodities does reveal that outages in the Strait of Hormuz will quickly translate into waves of economic pain.

The first two waves will crest in the form of higher refined product prices. This is already happening: jet fuel has low storage inventories and is therefore sensitive to supply outages. Accordingly, jet fuel and air ticket prices are soaring, especially in Asia. The rest of the world will quickly follow. Other refined products, such as diesel and gasoline, will be in the next wave.

The third wave of price increases will ripple throughout the US and global economy in the form of higher agricultural prices. As ammonia, fertilizer, and diesel input prices rise, farmers will plant less and crop yields will fall, sending consumer food prices higher. If Beijing, in partnership with Moscow and Minsk, selectively restricts agricultural-related exports, then US and global inflation will run higher.

The next inflation wave may be less visible, but more insidious. Food packaging, medical supplies, clothing, and virtually every manufactured good rely on petrochemicals in some way. Accordingly, petrochemical outages in the Asian democracies would trigger broad-based price increases in the United States. If China imposes export controls on certain petrochemical products (just as it does for critical minerals), US inflation will likely run higher.

Finally, the combination of these waves, along with other latent vulnerabilities, may trigger broad-based, sustained price increases. In turn, the commodity price spike may shape longer-term inflation expectations for consumers. If the Federal Reserve loses its hard-won credibility on containing prices, consumer inflation expectations will rise. All else being equal, this would lift inflation and real interest rates.

Every day the Strait is closed brings higher prices and new risks for the United States and its allies. As allied industrial capacity tightens, especially in petrochemicals and fertilizers, China and Russia will increasingly be able to secure new geopolitical leverage across global supply chains. Every day the war continues gives them more cards to play.

Joseph Webster is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center and the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative; he also edits the independent China-Russia Report.

Kate Burnett is a young global professional at the Global Energy Center.

This analysis reflects their own personal opinions.

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Aquatic Tiger: How long-range submarine drones could play a role in a Taiwan conflict

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 15:11:51 +0000

Bottom lines up front

The Aquatic Tiger wargame explored how long-range autonomous underwater vehicles (LRAUVs) could help the US deter or counter Chinese military action against Taiwan.
LRAUVs showed promise for pre-conflict surveillance, mine countermeasures, and swarming attacks in chokepoints, but showed vulnerabilities in the shallow, constricted waters of the Taiwan Strait.
LRAUVs would be useful contributors—not decisive—if deployed in large numbers, with advance planning, and integrated into broader US and allied military operations.

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Introduction

According to the Pentagon, “[China’s military] continues to refine multiple military options to force Taiwan unification by brute force. Those options include, most dangerously, an amphibious invasion, firepower strike, and possibly a maritime blockade.”

To address this threat, the new National Security Strategy unveiled in late 2025 declares that “deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority” and emphasizes, to this end, “reinforcing U.S. and allies’ capacity to deny any attempt to seize Taiwan. The new National Defense Strategy of January 2026 further reinforces the goal to establish a “strong denial defense along the First Island Chain” and the need to “supercharge the defense industrial base.”

For this approach to succeed, the United States and its allies must rapidly field new military systems to counterbalance China’s military buildup. To offset China’s tremendous rate of military production, US defense thinkers and policymakers are increasingly focused on unmanned systems—particularly those far cheaper and faster to produce than the most advanced manned warships and aircraft. Such low-priced unmanned systems would be a key element of accelerating a buildup of US military capability to deter or defeat Chinese aggression against Taiwan at a feasible cost.

As Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, told the Washington Post: “I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities so I can make their lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything.”

Thanks to both sides’ mass use of unmanned aircraft in Russia’s war against Ukraine, this quote might bring to mind swarms of flying drones dropping munitions or ramming into targets. But Ukraine is largely a land war, and a fight to control Taiwan would be a different kind of warfare. Undersea drones could play a critical role in defending Taiwan, particularly if they could be produced relatively cheaply and paired with AI that would allow them to operate autonomously while submerged and maintain communications silence to preserve their stealth. Given the long distances involved in the Indo-Pacific region and the distance of US bases from Taiwan, such drones could be particularly useful for the US military in a Taiwan conflict if they had a range of over 1000 kilometers. This led to the Atlantic Council’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative (IPSI)’s interest in exploring, through wargaming and analysis, the potential of US LRAUVs in a Taiwan contingency. This issue brief is the result of Aquatic Tiger, an initial two-day wargame and post-wargame analytic effort conducted by IPSI, using the expertise of former US military, intelligence, and defense officials, along with non-government scholars and industry experts. This wargame, conducted over two days in November 2025, was the first of its kind with publicly available results, and is summarized below from the perspectives of a range of participants.

Aquatic Tiger’s initial results suggest that additional analysis, wargaming, modeling, technical experimentation, live exercises, and simulation on key issues related to such LRAUVs are warranted, including: how units of such drones would be best organized and employed by the United States, Taiwan, and US allies in such a contingency; whether such LRAUVs could be produced at a low enough cost and in sufficient scale to be effective; what tactical-level synergies these LRAUVs would have operating in concert with other manned and unmanned platforms; and the potential efficacy of various Chinese countermeasures.

LRAUV capabilities: A submariner’s perspective

The LRAUVs employed in Aquatic Tiger are systems still in development that have not been fielded in large numbers or used in combat. For the purposes of Aquatic Tiger, we made assumptions about the capabilities they would have in the next few years. The LRAUVs for Aquatic Tiger were uncrewed, extended-duration, multi-mission submersible platforms controlled by AI. Due to communications limitations imposed by the need to remain submerged and minimize the risk of detection when approaching their targets, they relied heavily on mission planning, programmed autonomous action, and post-mission data recovery. They were modular and configurable to various mission roles such as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), seabed survey, mine countermeasures (MCM), electronic warfare (EW), and maritime kinetic effects (high-explosive warhead) delivery. For the purposes of Aquatic Tiger, we also assumed that they would have an austere deployment capability, meaning they could be launched directly from the back of a truck or dropped from a ship or aircraft.

LRAUVs reduce personnel risk and are low cost, expendable, and less attributable than crewed submersibles. However, they lack the speed, endurance, mission versatility, stealth and survivability, payload, and real-time situational awareness and decision-making capability of crewed platforms like US attack submarines.

Compared to unmanned aerial systems (UAS), LRAUVs benefit from longer range and time on station, underwater concealment, and reduced exposure to the adversary’s anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities, particularly sensors and missiles. However, LRAUVs are also much slower, lacking the rapid deployment and potential wide-area coverage of UAVs, while their limited communication capabilities preclude the same level of immediate dynamic tasking and constant sharing of situational awareness with other platforms.

Wargame director’s overview of Aquatic Tiger

To explore LRAUVs’ potential in a near-future Taiwan scenario, we conducted the two-day Aquatic Tiger wargame with three teams including former US military, intelligence, and defense officials, along with non-government scholars and industry experts. The Blue Team representing the US military, including notional LRAUV capabilities, was led by a former US Defense Department senior executive with extensive experience with East Asian issues. The Red Team, representing China, was led by a former senior defense intelligence analyst whose career focused on China’s military. The control team planned and ran the wargame, adjudicated the results of player actions, and addressed the roles of countries other than the United States and China as needed. It consisted of former US government and military leaders with experience running wargames and tabletop exercises—including one retired US Navy officer with extensive experience directing wargames on undersea warfare—and a distinguished scholar bringing academic rigor to the analytic methodology.

Road to crisis and first turn: Chinese pressure on Taiwan building

To provide a starting point for the scenario, we began with a notional crisis, set a few years from now, in which China’s military placed unprecedented military pressure on Taiwan to convince its people to seek reconciliation with Beijing and oppose further defense budget increases. As tensions rose, a Chinese military aircraft crashed after a collision with a drone from Taiwan. Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-controlled media claimed several members of the aircrew were killed, and Chinese fighter jets soon shot down three more drones. CCP leadership threatened further escalation, warning that a “wrong decision” would trigger “decisive military action.” For its part, Washington announced stiff new economic punishments against China, warning they would remain in place until Beijing agreed to “maintain peace and to renounce aggression.” With that, the scene was set for a confrontation.

Figure 1: Turn one of the Aquatic Tiger wargame

The Red Team, simulating China, initiated the wargame planning to keep the Taiwan situation “an internal matter,” using an air and sea quarantine to pressure Taiwan while keeping out the US military and preparing for a potential armed conflict. China’s priorities included

enforcing a quarantine of Taiwan framed by the CCP as a domestic law-enforcement action (attempting to force all air and sea cargo to Taiwan to be routed via air and seaports on China’s mainland for inspection);
enhancing defensive military posture, including surveillance assets to detect potential US military intervention; and
conducting a messaging campaign targeting the populations of Taiwan, the United States, and the international community, along with diplomatic actions around the world to underscore that the goal is a peaceful resolution.

The Blue Team’s overall concept at the outset was to “flood the zone” to signal resolve and deter escalation. Its priorities included: surging ISR assets, including LRAUVs, into the area around Taiwan; increasing military posture, including with LRAUVs; and engaging allies and partners for support.

During the first turn of the wargame, US military-operated LRAUVs, along with small numbers operated deniably by the US government and others operated by non-government research entities and private contractors, successfully deployed into key areas to conduct surveillance and support public release of information on Chinese activities—though non-LRAUV assets proved to be more effective collectors of images compelling for public release. Beijing’s calculus and plans were ultimately unaffected. The information campaign built some international support and sympathy, but China leaned into its narrative and US key allies and partners ultimately remained hesitant due to risks and costs.

Second turn: China escalates and the United States responds

Figure 2: Turn two of the Aquatic Tiger wargame

In the second turn of the wargame, the situation rapidly escalated as Chinese coast guard vessels attempted to enforce the quarantine and Taiwanese coast guard vessels moved to escort incoming ships. Chinese military vessels intervened, with a People’s Republic of China (PRC) frigate sinking one of Taiwan’s coast guard vessels. A short time later, this frigate exploded and sank quickly, apparently hit by a torpedo or unmanned underwater vehicle.

The Red Team escalated under the premise that China would “prepare to achieve a resolution to the Taiwan question.” China declared a full blockade of Taiwan and, shortly thereafter, conducted limited joint firepower strikes on Taiwan bases. To stifle international opposition and justify its position, Beijing simultaneously conducted a strategic messaging campaign targeting the international community.

The Red Team’s pivot from pressuring Taiwan to use of force was a major and rapid escalation and a reaction to perceived US direct intervention. China was trying to impose costs to compel the United States to back off, not hesitating to destroy LRAUVs and other “interference” in the Taiwan Strait, while assuming US involvement in LRAUV operations and the sinking of the frigate. The Blue Team’s posture adjusted to provide broader military options and complicate PRC efforts beyond the vicinity of Taiwan, while leveraging allies and partners. LRAUVs were augmenting, but not replacing, a wide range of other surveillance assets and saw some limited use for counter-mine operations.

Third turn: Military conflict to control access to Taiwan

Figure 3: Turn three of the Aquatic Tiger wargame

At the start of the third turn, the Red Team continued wanting to convince the Taiwan government to come to the negotiating table. But it shifted to primarily focus on defeating (but not destroying) US military operations supporting Taiwan, while still attempting to avoid an all-out war with the United States and its allies. The PRC approach included three main elements.

Prevent US/allied military interference and support to Taiwan: Conduct A2/AD focused on chokepoints south and northeast of Taiwan in order to keep the US military at bay and impose costs on Washington, while warning the United States that China has deployed portions of its nuclear triad.
Defeat Taiwan’s forces with standoff attacks: Conduct joint firepower strikes on Taiwan’s military and infrastructure targets in order to damage logistics, disrupt command and control, and reduce Taiwan’s ability to resist.
Control the Taiwan Strait: Reinforce China’s control of the Taiwan Strait in order to deny US support and unity of action, and to enable cross-strait access for an amphibious assault, if needed.

The Blue Team’s overall concept, meanwhile, was to “throw Taiwan a lifeline” by securing access corridors east of Taiwan while countering and complicating PRC military efforts to threaten Taiwan. This included three main elements.

Stop the blockade: Attrit Chinese forces in the Taiwan Strait, continue mine countermeasures, and degrade Chinese blockading forces.
Increase US posture: Neutralize Chinese control of the South China Sea and demonstrate counter-invasion capabilities and rehearsals south and east of Taiwan.
Support Taiwan: Resupply and reinforce Taiwan, prioritizing mine countermeasures, anti-ship weapons, and beach defenses.

China successfully established clear maritime superiority in the Taiwan Strait despite some US LRAUVs entering. The control team, based on analysis of China’s countermeasures, adjudicated that China was able to take advantage of the geographic constriction and relatively shallow waters of the strait to detect, disable, and destroy the LRAUVs through various means faster than replacement LRAUVs could enter the strait through the passages at its north and south ends. China was also able to disrupt and interdict much of the air and maritime traffic coming into Taiwan from the east, particularly given the limited east coast port capacity.

The conflict began to coalesce around four key geographic areas prioritized by Blue Team forces.

The northern end of the Taiwan Strait: China achieved clear air and surface superiority in this area. LRAUVs were the primary US capability directly contesting Chinese control of this area, due to the Blue Team’s unwillingness to risk losing any of its relatively small number of high-value attack submarines.
Ryukyus, including Okinawa: In this area, the United States and Japan established a clear advantage by employing aircraft and warships supported by land-based assets and LRAUVs. China did not attempt to contest US control of this area but was content to block movement toward Taiwan by US and Japanese forces in this area.
The Luzon Strait: This area was heavily contested, including by air, surface, and subsurface forces engaged in intense combat with high attrition on both sides. US LRAUVs were a significant contributor to this fight, swarming and sinking Chinese surface vessels as they attempted to move through the strait.
South China Sea: The United States kept its carrier strike groups in this area well protected and away from the Chinese mainland, which limited China’s ability to find and strike them. There was little role for US LRAUVs in this area.

The wargame concluded with the conflict escalating and no end in sight, with all three teams having learned some important lessons. Observations from key members of the Red Team, Blue Team, and Control Team follow.

Red (China) Team leader’s perspective

For Beijing, managing the Taiwan issue in this type of scenario encompasses three principal components. The first is to convince Taiwanese authorities that actions opposing Beijing’s desires will be punished. China does this by demonstrating the capacity to ratchet up military or paramilitary pressure at points around the island. The second is to convince Taiwanese authorities that they have no realistic hope of decisive support from outside powers. These efforts primarily leverage the suite of US-focused A2/AD capabilities the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been developing for more than two decades. The third is to ensure that China retains a credible capacity to take control of the island by force.

LRAUVs present some, albeit limited, opportunity to impact each of these components.

The platform presents some utility to provide enhanced warning of PRC pressure operations or intent to use violence to impose Beijing’s will. China has been posturing kinetic assets for a short-notice use of force against Taiwan for decades. There has been a marked increase in their coercive posture around Taiwan in recent years. A transition to violent resolution could begin within days, or even hours, of receiving an order from Beijing. With the ability to loiter in place (unlike low-earth-orbit satellites or aircraft), LRAUV swarms in surveillance positions in the Taiwan Strait and off PRC marshalling points could augment national technical means to help differentiate between ambiguous and unambiguous warning.

The platform has the potential to shape PLA operations but not to deter them. The decision whether to use armed force to compel Taiwan to submit to CCP control will be a political decision, with relative military postures being only one of several considerations. Once the decision is made to place military force in the leading role, the PLA will calculate optimized campaign operations designed to mitigate the effect of Taiwanese or US resistance, including the already anticipated presence of LRAUV platforms. Platforms with counter-mine payloads could complicate blockade operations that include mining Taiwan’s ports. Swarming attacks by LRAUV platforms against PRC support vessels or capital ships could complicate PRC countermeasures. Thus, LRAUV platforms might have effect at shaping, but not deterring, PRC military operations.

LRAUVs’ contributions to defeating PRC blockade operations or an invasion will be a function of numbers of platforms, payload types, and their integration into larger US or Taiwanese systems of systems. PLA War Control theory and Systems Warfare doctrine emphasize warfare that is highly intense but also highly focused on carefully defined objectives. The result is a hybrid of maneuver and position warfare fought in a resource-intensive, and therefore potentially highly attritive, manner. PRC emphasis on optimization of military operations includes the ability to adapt to unforeseen battlefield developments. For these reasons, the impact of LRAUV platforms on PRC operations will be closely linked to volume and flexibility.

Strategic level

PRC military and paramilitary elements play a supporting role at the strategic level. Beijing’s objective at this level is to shape political thinking, primarily in Taipei and Washington. This is true even in more extreme strategies such as quarantines or blockades. Military coercion is more central in these strategies, but the objective remains to shape political thinking.

The utility of LRAUVs at the strategic level is less straightforward than at the operational level. It will probably be limited to shaping the choice and execution of China’s military operations to implement its strategy.

LRAUV platforms will likely be ineffective at providing enhanced strategic warning. A PRC decision to turn to armed force to resolve the Taiwan issue will almost certainly be rooted in CCP leaders’ political assessments that peaceful (albeit coerced) unification is no longer possible. LRAUVs are not positioned to monitor political decisions—only their operational manifestations.

These platforms will also likely be ineffective at deterring PRC strategic action. Although LRAUVs, in concert with other systems, have the potential to impose costs on China for military action, PRC leaders will almost certainly calculate that these platforms will be unable to deny them the achievement of key political objectives.

LRAUV platforms will not prove decisive in defeating a PRC strategy to resolve the Taiwan issue by use of military force—but they could play a role in shaping the course of the conflict. The CCP uses military force to drive political outcomes. The theory of victory underlying a blockade or invasion of Taiwan will be based on shaping political dynamics, not strictly military outcomes. By complicating certain types of operations, such as minefield components of blockade operations, LRAUV platforms could—in concert with other systems—help shape PRC military strategies so that Chinese leaders seek offramps from conflict rather than pursue complete domination of Taiwan.

Contextual limitations and political considerations

China has developed a wide range of military tools to deal with a Taiwan conflict scenario. Only those tools that operate in the maritime domain appear to be susceptible to LRAUV influence. This leaves significant elements of China’s toolkit unaffected. Notably, these include the mainland-based ballistic missiles, long-range artillery, and aircraft that would constitute the major part of a joint firepower strike designed to put logistical, communications, psychological, and political pressure on Taiwan’s leadership. Similarly, the majority of the A2/AD tools China has developed to hold potential US or third-party intervention at risk also operate predominately from PRC territory and are therefore beyond the influence of LRAUVs.

It is worth noting that the ways in which LRAUV kinetic payloads shape PRC operations will probably vary significantly depending on which party employs them. LRAUVs or shorter-ranged underwater platforms employed by Taiwan will almost certainly generate a different response than those employed by US forces. China will likely see Taiwan’s use as staying within the confines of a domestic conflict. Under its Active Defense doctrine, China might seek to avoid striking US targets—which would likely draw the United States into the conflict as a direct combatant—unless the United States has already struck PRC targets. Kinetic employment by US forces against PRC targets would likely escalate to a larger exchange of fires between the two sides. Depending on the scope and scale of escalation, this could increase PRC perceptions of the need to project larger amounts of military force across the Taiwan Strait earlier in the conflict, in an effort to compel resolution before the United States could posture forces for open-ended conflict.

Blue (US) Team leader’s perspective

From a US Blue Team perspective, Aquatic Tiger highlighted both the potential value and the inherent limitations of LRAUVs in a plausible China-Taiwan conflict. For Blue Team planners, the appeal of LRAUVs rested less in their ability to deliver decisive military effects than in their capacity to operate persistently and at scale, with comparatively low political and operational risk, in highly contested maritime environments. The wargame demonstrated that LRAUVs could support Blue Team objectives during selected phases of a crisis, while also revealing how quickly their utility narrowed as conflict escalated and China accepted higher levels of military risk.

Blue Team objectives and strategic logic

Across the turns of the wargame, the Blue Team pursued three consistent objectives: deterring further PRC escalation, maintaining access to the Western Pacific—particularly east of Taiwan—and preserving alliance cohesion while managing escalation risks with a nuclear-armed peer competitor. Blue Team decision-making was shaped by concerns related to attribution, proportionality, and alliance politics, which constrained both the timing and visibility of military actions.

Within this framework, Blue Team force posture prior to hostilities served two distinct purposes. The first was signaling—demonstrating resolve to deter PRC aggression, reassure allies and partners, and support diplomacy and strategic messaging with third parties. The second was positioning—quietly placing forces to gain an operational advantage should conflict occur. Aquatic Tiger demonstrated that LRAUVs were far better suited to the latter than the former.

Pre-hostilities posture and strategic messaging

LRAUVs’ low detectability, while operationally advantageous, limited their utility as signaling tools. Unlike air or surface platforms that can be employed deliberately for visible demonstrations of presence, LRAUVs operate largely outside public view. As a result, they contributed little to strategic messaging with allies, partners, or the broader international community.

During the wargame, strategic messaging and diplomatic efforts were more effectively supported by other assets, particularly those capable of generating clear, shareable imagery and data. Although contractor-operated concepts were discussed as a means of increasing volume, LRAUVs remained ill-suited to strategic messaging due to their limited fields of view and constrained sensor outputs. In short, their primary value before hostilities lay in positioning rather than persuasion.

ISR: Tactical value and strategic limits

LRAUVs contributed to intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance during the wargame, but Aquatic Tiger underscored clear limits to their ISR utility from a Blue Team perspective. These systems did not provide the strategic or operational indications and warning that Blue Team decision-makers would prioritize in a Taiwan contingency, such as detecting large-scale mobilization of PRC amphibious forces, munitions, or logistics.

Instead, LRAUV ISR proved most relevant at the tactical level, supporting localized awareness for operators already engaged in contested environments. In this role, LRAUVs complemented rather than substituted for airborne, space-based, and other ISR platforms, which proved more effective for broad-area coverage and early warning. The wargame reinforced that LRAUVs should not be viewed as primary ISR platforms for strategic or operational warning, but as contributors to tactical awareness once hostilities were imminent or under way.

Employment across escalation phrases

As the scenario progressed into the second turn and China declared a blockade, Blue Team objectives shifted from deterrence toward complicating PRC operations and imposing costs. LRAUVs were employed to augment ISR, support counter-blockade efforts, and contribute to mine countermeasures and maritime awareness. These contributions were incremental rather than decisive. LRAUVs enhanced the Blue Team’s ability to contest the blockade at the margins but did not alter the underlying balance of forces in the Taiwan Strait.

By the third turn, once China adopted a more explicit A2/AD posture along the First Island Chain, the constraints on LRAUV utility became more pronounced. Attrition increased rapidly as PRC forces demonstrated a willingness to destroy autonomous systems with limited concern for escalation. In the Taiwan Strait itself, LRAUVs were lost faster than they could be replaced, reinforcing the conclusion that constricted waters close to the mainland favored PRC countermeasures, including unconventional approaches.

In contrast, LRAUVs proved more effective in geographically differentiated areas such as the lower Ryukyus and portions of the Luzon Strait, where Blue Team and allied forces enjoyed greater standoff advantages, and where LRAUVs could complement land-based and maritime capabilities.

Blue Team leader perspectives on LRAUV capabilities in the Aquatic Tiger wargame

Within the wargame, the LRAUV system capabilities in the Blue Team’s inventory resonated with Blue Team planners because they reflected attributes aligned with their team’s operational needs—including long endurance, modular payloads, and forward deployability—without placing personnel at risk. These characteristics made such systems suitable for early deployment and for missions emphasizing persistence and access in contested environments.

At the same time, the LRAUV systems employed by the Blue Team during Aquatic Tiger proved not to be decisive platforms. Limited payload size and maneuverability constrained individual kinetic effects, while relatively slow transit speeds required advance planning and careful positioning. Once PRC decision-makers assumed Blue Team ownership of LRAUV operations, the political advantages of ambiguity diminished and kinetic employment risked escalation.

Kinetic employment and the access problem

During the wargame, the Control Team expressed skepticism regarding the kinetic utility of the LRAUVs in the Blue Team’s inventory, particularly against high-value targets such as large surface combatants or invasion force transports. Concerns focused on warhead size and maneuverability, leading to an adjudication that kinetic effects of individual LRAUVs would be limited.

Subsequent reflection suggests that this assessment might have undervalued the role LRAUVs could play in addressing one of the central challenges of a Taiwan contingency: gaining kinetic access inside heavily defended, shallow-water environments dominated by PRC A2/AD systems. In such environments, the principal constraint on Blue Team operations was often the ability to deliver kinetic effects at scale, rather than targeting information.

Viewed through this lens, the limitations appear less constraining than initially assumed. Employment as a form of point defense or a limited, mobile minefield aligns with the operational reality that adversary forces—particularly invasion and transport elements—must move through predictable maritime approaches. While individual warheads might be insufficient against large platforms, employment at scale could generate meaningful aggregate effects, consume PRC decision-maker bandwidth at multiple echelons, complicate PRC operations, and impose costs in areas otherwise inaccessible to Blue Team kinetic forces.

Constraints and integration challenges

Several clear constraints emerged from a Blue Team perspective. First, scale mattered. Individual LRAUVs had limited impact and were mission constrained by their pre-planned payloads. Only through numbers and pre-positioning could they influence PRC operations, and even then primarily at the tactical level. Second, command-and-control and integration challenges limited effectiveness. In this first iteration of wargaming, LRAUVs were considered largely as a standalone capability, fully leveraging neither the operational benefits of collaboration between and among LRAUVs at scale nor of teaming LRAUVs with other manned and unmanned systems.

Third, geography was decisive. LRAUVs were most useful in areas where PRC land-based sensors, aircraft, and missile forces constrained Blue Team air and surface operations, but least effective in narrow waters where maritime militia and other countermeasures could be employed. Attrition, while expected, raised questions regarding sustainment and replacement under combat conditions.

Strategic implications for the Blue Team

From a Blue Team perspective, Aquatic Tiger suggests that LRAUVs should be regarded as enabling capabilities rather than decisive instruments of deterrence or warfighting. Their greatest value lies in pre-hostilities and early crisis phases, where they can support positioning, access, and selected tactical effects at relatively low risk to personnel. As conflict escalates, their role narrows and must be integrated carefully with broader joint and allied operations.

The wargame also underscored the importance of allied and partner considerations. LRAUVs’ employment by third parties, including Taiwan and regional allies, could complicate PRC political and military calculations in ways distinct from their employment exclusively by Blue Team forces, particularly given Beijing’s sensitivity to legitimacy and escalation dynamics.

Bottom line for Blue Team planners

The Blue Team perspective emerging from Aquatic Tiger indicates that LRAUVs could occupy an important, but bounded, role in a Taiwan contingency. When employed with disciplined expectations and integrated into a broader operational framework, they can improve access, complicate adversary planning, consume adversary decision-maker bandwidth, and reduce risk to personnel. They cannot substitute for robust force posture, alliance coordination, or timely Blue Team strategic decision-making. Their value lies not in decisiveness, but in enabling options in environments where other capabilities face prohibitive risk.

Technical and tactical limitations

A number of technical and tactical considerations arose during the wargame that are relevant to consider in terms of potential challenges to the effectiveness of the small, autonomous, expendable LRAUVs employed in Aquatic Tiger, including limitations on intelligence collection, difficulties in attacking moving targets, and potential countermeasures.

ISR limitations

The collection of optical, electromagnetic, and sonar data by sensors on a small LRAUV is limited by the size of sonar carried and the low height of optics and collection antennas. The high density of maritime traffic along the Chinese coast—particularly of military vessels during a crisis—creates an extremely cluttered environment in which acoustic sensors with limited range and aperture, and lacking accurate positional information, offer limited insight. Small, lightweight, electromagnetic spectrum sensors and limited on-vehicle processing capability offer similarly limited capability to provide intelligence-quality electromagnetic spectrum data. Wide-area collection of limited-quality data can be leveraged to contribute to maritime domain awareness in general, but is more applicable to tracking commercial vessels of interest or sanctions enforcement than supporting military operations. A mast height of about one meter offers limited visibility in open ocean environments, where swells of 1–2 meters are common, offering significant periods of obstructed observation and difficulty ascertaining range, target angle, and vessel identification at more than a few nautical miles.

Target detection, classification, identification, localization, tracking, engagement, and assessment

Many of the challenges to intelligence collection are also relevant to completing a “detect to engagement sequence” or “kill chain” for an LRAUV to attack a target with its onboard warhead. Acoustic sensors for individual vehicles offer limited directional discrimination and require robust communications among swarms to reduce errors by taking directional readings from multiple vehicles. Detecting a potential target in a likely target-rich environment is not necessarily difficult, but the other steps to determine how effectively a target can be engaged pose different challenges depending on whether they are based on acoustic, optical, or electromagnetic sensing. The difficulty ascertaining range makes a decision to start a “run in” especially problematic because LRAUVs have only a limited amount of battery power to make a high-speed run to a target. They must also be close to have reasonable potential to intercept a fast-moving target, or even to chase down a slower target from behind.

The wargame did not explore the specifics of how decisions to authorize individual autonomous lethal attacks would be made. The decision to conduct a kinetic attack autonomously also could add considerable complexity to the planning aspect of the mission. Current US Department of Defense restrictions on autonomous lethal engagement might be difficult to satisfy without communications between a weapon release authority and the LRAUV. The workaround of having a contractor operate the vehicle might not eliminate this complication. These policy restrictions could also affect the viability of foreign military sales. Assuming policy issues can be worked out, aspects of international law (e.g., The Hague Convention on mines) require restrictions on location of use and notification of third parties that complicate planning and operational employment of “indiscriminate attack” by lethal autonomous systems.

Potential countermeasures

A number of potential counters to small LRAUVs were raised in Aquatic Tiger, ranging from broad sweeping using modified minesweeping or fishing gear, localized use of such sweeps to “clear limiting lines of approach,” the use of obstructions (nets, modified oil containment equipment), intervening lower-cost vessels to guard flanks of transit lanes, use of “hunter-killer” unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), and UAVs alone or in conjunction with the above (vulnerability while snorkeling/surfacing might be exploitable). Defensive barrier modifications and active defense systems on ships themselves are possible in analogous fashion to those on tanks for aerial drones. Double-hulled vessels are fairly resilient to contact explosions and are used to sweep areas as attractors. Reviving the historical use of torpedo nets in various configurations could prove effective. The development of torpedoes that ran at depth and exploded under the keel rendered such nets ineffective, but they could effectively counter UUVs impacting the hull at slow relative speed, particularly against ships at anchor or in port.

Recommendations for Congress

Autonomous systems broadly provide US and foreign forces the benefit of ambiguity of attribution and deployed intent. LRAUVs can particularly shine, given their potential oceanographic and environmental use, which might obfuscate the purpose, to be deployed at or before the first sign of indicators or warnings at the strategic level. However, to be effective, the systems must be better resourced and included in existing Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programs or through more creative export means such as encouraging co-production or direct commercial sales.

Oversight and acquisition follow-through: Congress should consider how LRAUVs can be used across theaters. Due to technical requirements, LRAUVs perform best in calmer waters, including in littorals and inland seas such as the Black Sea. Congress has already recognized the importance of such systems and included them in the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (FY 2025 NDAA), Section 1032, which defines LRAUVs as systems that exceed one thousand nautical miles in range and are capable of operating completely submerged at sea with modular payloads. Section 1032 further requires competitive demonstrations of these systems for the services. Congress, however, has not yet passed follow-up legislation on these competitive demonstrations or on the acquisition of LRAUVs. In the medium term, Congress should follow up on the required competitive demonstrations outlined in Section 1032 of the FY 2025 NDAA and solicit immediate feedback from the services on next steps for LRAUV development.
Export controls and dual-use framing: Congress should consider leveraging the oceanographic and environmental uses of LRAUVs with modular capacity to reclassify such systems for export from the more-restrictive ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) list to the less-restrictive EAR (Export Administration Regulations) category. By encouraging the sale of the LRAUVs separate from specific advanced kinetic and electronic effects, the United States can enhance the credibility of such systems for environmental and oceanographic use and encourage further indigenous modular innovations. To support such efforts, Congress should direct the Department of Commerce to consider additional support for the export of US LRAUVs to countries of interest. It should also consider a pilot program for a special license exemption for select countries purchasing such systems for environmental purposes.
Further analysis of LRAUVs’ impact: Congress should encourage more research and wargaming on the utility of LRAUVs as the technology develops. While this report posits that the strategic and operational effects of these systems are presently limited, continued technological development and the integration of LRAUVs into larger frameworks—such as regional maritime surveillance and interdiction—might yield higher-tier effects. Providing further encouragement—and, importantly, appropriations—toward analysis of LRAUVs is essential to maintaining a qualitative edge in this frontier technology and realizing its potential as a contributor to deterrence and war preparedness.

Key findings

The Aquatic Tiger Wargame and follow-on analysis led the authors to a set of key findings.

These types of LRAUVs are uniquely suited to forward deployment into sensitive areas during a crisis prior to hostilities, when US senior leadership is likely seeking to minimize escalation risks and conserve resources for a potential conflict. The lack of personnel placed at risk, along with LRAUVs’ low cost and low signature, could allow these platforms to conduct surveillance for extended periods to provide situational awareness and warning of impending attack. Their long-range capability could also equate to a long dwell time in a target area during an extended, open-ended period of crisis, meaning they offer a lower risk of burnout than other types of surveillance platforms. Their deniable, unclear national origin is also an advantage in terms of limiting the risk of crisis escalation. However, this lower risk profile, deniability, and ambiguity also mean that China could attack or interdict US LRAUVs prior to the outbreak of hostilities (including with unconventional means like fishing nets) with a relatively low fear of uncontrolled escalation.
Geography is a key consideration for LRAUV employment, and chokepoints can be a double-edged sword. US LRAUVs could be deployed into areas—including into constricted areas north and south of Taiwan—where PRC land-based sensors, surface-to-air missiles, aircraft, surface ships, and missile strike forces and sensors make air and surface operations high risk and high cost. Though constricted waters advantage Chinese countermeasures against LRAUVs moving through such areas, maritime chokepoints can also be excellent places for LRAUVs to loiter and detect vessels, as well as a good location to mass large numbers of LRAUVs to conduct swarming ambushes against surface vessels moving through the area. For sustained combat operations in the Taiwan Strait itself, the wargame’s results suggested it would be far preferable to have autonomous underwater vehicles deployed directly from Taiwan’s west coast into the strait rather than attempt to sustain a presence of LRAUVs in the strait by moving them via chokepoints where they could be more easily interdicted.
Sufficient numbers of platforms and sufficient advance planning are key factors for successful LRAUV employment. The limited payload size and relatively slower speed of LRAUVs require advance planning to ensure the right mix of payload capabilities is in the right place at the right time. Swarming capability and multiple types of LRAUV payloads could provide synergy, particularly to better position for attacks against fast-moving military vessels. Though attrition of LRAUVs will likely be high, large numbers of LRAUVs sustained over time could have a great impact.
Alternative uses for LRAUVs discussed in the wargame after-action discussions could dramatically increase their cost efficiency in a conflict if the United States is willing to operate them across an area much broader than the vicinity of Taiwan, particularly against slower, non-military vessels. Use against military targets and in constricted areas close to China could be effective, but this is probably not the most efficient use of such LRAUVs. They could instead be used, for example, to shadow high-value Chinese merchant and transport ships moving through the region to support China’s war effort—selectively signaling the US ability to put these ships at risk to influence Beijing’s calculus and then disabling or sinking them to hamper China’s war sustainment effort. LRAUVs could also be used to block access in and out of China’s mainland ports from a distance, as a sort of maneuverable minefield. LRAUVs could also be used in a conflict to bog down Chinese naval, paramilitary, and commercial vessels in areas north and south of Taiwan as part of a maritime insurgency approach.
The results of this initial Aquatic Tiger wargame suggest that additional analysis, wargaming, modeling, technical experimentation, live exercises, and simulation on key issues related to such LRAUVs are warranted. Subjects to consider include: how units of such drones would be best organized and employed by the United States, Taiwan, and US allies in such a contingency; whether such LRAUVs could be produced at a low enough cost and in sufficient scale to be effective; what tactical-level synergies these LRAUVs would have operating in concert with other manned and unmanned platforms; the potential efficacy of various Chinese countermeasures; and China’s potential employment of its own LRAUVs.

About the authors

Markus Garlauskas is the director of the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and was the wargame director for the Aquatic Tiger wargame.

Nicholas Takeuchi is a retired US Navy submarine officer and was a Blue (US) Team participant in the Aquatic Tiger wargame.

Drew Holliday is a former US deputy defense intelligence officer for China and was the Red (China) Team leader for the Aquatic Tiger wargame.

Paul Vebber is a retired US Navy and former assistant director for wargaming and future warfare research at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. He was a part of the Control Team in the Aquatic Tiger wargame.

Adam Kozloski is a nonresident senior fellow with the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative and former congressional staffer. He was a Blue (US) Team participant in the Aquatic Tiger wargame.

Acknowledgements and disclaimer

The Aquatic Tiger wargame and this associated issue brief were made possible by a financial grant and technical input from Albacore Inc., a developer of autonomous underwater vehicles, but Albacore personnel did not participate in developing the issue brief and the brief does not represent Albacore’s views. The Atlantic Council maintains strict intellectual independence for all of its projects and publications. The Council requires all donors to agree to the Council maintaining independent control of the content and conclusions of any products resulting from sponsored projects.

The authors are especially grateful to Colonel Gittipong “Eddie” Paruchabutr, IPSI nonresident senior fellow (US Army, retired) for his generosity in donating his time and support as wargame coordinator. The authors are also thankful to David Helvey for his time, expertise, and support in the project. Thanks also go to IPSI nonresident fellow Andrew Brown for his contributions to this project, and to IPSI program assistant Audrey Roh for her support.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the individual authors of each section.

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Federal agencies under pressure need smarter systems, not tougher people

Caitlin Thompson — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 20:28:04 +0000

Bottom lines up front

The institutions charged with keeping the United States secure operate under chronic strain that can make them prone to failure.
Many current efforts to fix this focus on helping individuals operate effectively within flawed systems.
But it’s only by redesigning the flawed systems that the US government can create the readiness on which national security depends.

The hours are long and the pace rarely eases, including shifts of twelve to fourteen hours that inevitably erode family and social life. In theory, there are guardrails. In practice, the approval processes meant to limit overwork can become a formality: the reality of excessive hours reduced to a signature on a page, without changing the workload or capturing the extent of the time burden. The culture reinforces it. Leadership may say the right things, but the cycle doesn’t break, and in some corners of the institution, burnout is even treated as a point of pride. The quiet signal that this has become normal: the organization celebrates the 2 a.m. email. People are mentally drained, but stepping back to recover can feel professionally risky because there’s a persistent sense that if you can’t do it, someone else will, and asking for help can damage your credibility.

The above vignette is a composite scenario, drawing on multiple examples raised by participants—national security practitioners, psychiatry and health experts, and think tank experts on individual resilience—across a series of roundtables conducted by Atlantic Council researchers in 2025 and held under the Chatham House rule.

The roundtables focused on an underappreciated problem: The institutions charged with keeping the United States secure—including US military services and combatant commands, the intelligence community (e.g., CIA, National Security Agency), the Department of Homeland Security, and the State Department—operate under chronic strain that can make them dangerously prone to failure in moments of crisis. Many of the “resilience” efforts created to address this problem—wellness training and mindset workshops—focus on helping individuals operate within flawed systems.

Only by adapting those systems can the US government deliver long-term readiness enabling reliable performance under stress that US national security requires. Other key takeaways included:

Individual resilience is not the solution to chronic strain in national security institutions. It is a signal that reveals where systems, incentives, and workload assumptions are misaligned with human limits.
In national security roles, moments of surge, uncertainty, and high-consequence decision-making are frequent. When these moments arise, systems need more than just extraordinary individual effort; they need built-in buffers and redundancies.
Many resilience initiatives are designed to expand coping tools and wellness support programs yet leave the stressors themselves—tempo, staffing, and decision bottlenecks—unchanged. While certainly well-intentioned, these initiatives unintentionally shift the responsibility to overcome the stressors back on the individual. Other incentives then reinforce this overextension as the operating model. A credible systems approach requires measurable leadership accountability, usable leading-indicator data, and explicit trade-offs about tempo, mission scope, redundancy, and availability norms. The goal is sustained readiness and reliable performance under stress.
Leadership behavior is key. Ideally, leaders would express their own vulnerabilities by openly expressing uncertainty, acknowledging moments of strain, and modeling both recovery and the soundness of seeking help. This could increase trust among team members, as well as the likelihood that risks are addressed early.

Resilience is an attribute of systems

Building individual resilience has become a default response to strain across national security institutions. As organizations confront sustained operational tempo, recurring crises, and prolonged uncertainty, resilience is routinely invoked as a way to preserve individual performance under pressure. In practice, however, the term is often used in ways that misidentify both the source of strain and the locus of responsibility.

This issue brief argues that resilience—which the Adrienne Arsht National Security Resilience Initiative defines as “the ability of individuals, societies, and systems to anticipate, withstand, recover from, adapt to, and bounce forward from shocks and disruptions”—is not primarily an individual attribute. It is a property of systems that shape, support, and sustain individual resilience over time. Individual resilience matters, but not because it can be strengthened indefinitely or relied upon to compensate for structural misalignment. Human adaptation and resilience do have limitations, and through insights from research and roundtable discussions with national security leaders, practitioners, and subject-matter experts, we have underscored the need for a more deliberate systems design in national security institutions.

People do not enter national security roles with identical baselines, nor do they experience or recover from stress in the same way. Those differences are important, because prolonged exposure to ambiguity, moral complexity, and high-stakes decisions can be a relentless strain on attention and judgment. These demands cannot be carried indefinitely, regardless of an individual’s motivation or commitment. It is simply a matter of human limits.

Many institutions appear resilient, often because of highly committed individuals whose extended availability and personal sacrifice can compensate for system strain in the short term. Over time, however, that compensatory model becomes unsustainable, and the earliest cracks often show up in decision-making. Attention narrows, teams become less flexible in how they think through options, and risk judgment becomes less calibrated. Those effects can accumulate quietly over time, until an organization is less adaptive precisely when adaptation is most needed.

The strategic costs of system strain are significant. In national security work, one frequently sees surge conditions, leadership transitions, and external shocks as recurring features of the operating environment. Systems that depend primarily on individual efforts and resilience often lack the buffers needed to respond effectively when those stressful moments arrive. When an individual starts to feel that inevitable burnout, their performance falters precisely when resilience is most needed. The appropriate response is not to ask people to absorb more. Rather, it is to relocate responsibility from individuals to institutions themselves; to overhaul systems so that they operate within human constraints, protect sound judgment, retain expertise, and remain effective over time.

Where current “resilience models” fall short

The concept of resilience is now embedded in the language of national security institutions. Here, “national security” refers to the interconnected ecosystem of defense and security organizations that plan and execute operations, generate intelligence, manage crises, and sustain readiness, as well as the enabling systems that support that work (including the military health system and other readiness services). In these settings, the day-to-day reality is high-consequence decision-making under uncertainty, persistent time pressure, constrained staffing pipelines, and recurring exposure to morally complex and emotionally salient material—including, increasingly, remote operations such as unmanned aircraft systems.

Faced with persistent crises, extended operational tempo, and mounting uncertainty, leaders routinely invoke resilience as a way to sustain performance. In many cases, however, resilience functions less as a strategy than as an expectation: that individuals will adapt to conditions the system itself does not adequately address.

Most contemporary resilience efforts rest on a quiet assumption that personnel are broadly interchangeable and capable of absorbing increasing demands if given the right tools or training. From this perspective, resilience becomes a personal skill set, something that can be strengthened through workshops, coaching, wellness programming, or mindset interventions. These efforts are often well-intentioned. They are also insufficient in environments where strain is chronic and the stakes remain high.

The predictable result is compensation, where highly motivated people bridge structural gaps through personal sacrifice. They devote longer hours, defer recovery, and suppress their own distress, all in service of the mission. For a time, this preserves output and the system appears functional. But the apparent stability is misleading. It requires extraordinary effort from a finite group of people, while quietly depleting the attention, judgment, and recovery that sustained performance depends on.

The evidence increasingly reflects this pattern. Burnout is a recurring occupational risk among military personnel, with documented links to work environment factors (e.g., workload and shift work), psychological strain, and downstream consequences that matter for readiness and mission effectiveness. Within the Military Health System, burnout has also been associated with adverse health outcomes and reduced retention—exactly the kind of expertise loss that “individual resilience” programming cannot offset on its own. And concern about chronic psychological risk is not limited to traditional deployment patterns: Recent defense policy has directed the Department of Defense to study mental health impacts among military drone pilots, underscoring the growing recognition that remote and high-tempo operational roles can carry meaningful mental health burden.

When depletion shows up, it often does not look like a dramatic failure. It can appear first as degraded decision quality, with narrower thinking, reduced creativity, lower tolerance for ambiguity, and less willingness to challenge assumptions. It can also surface as interpersonal strain, reduced patience, and a diminished ability to adapt quickly when new information changes the picture. These shifts are consequential in national security contexts because the central work of these institutions is making sound judgments in real time, under uncertainty, with high consequences.

Many resilience initiatives inadvertently reinforce the conditions that require resilience in the first place. When the organizational answer to overload is “be more resilient,” the system signals that overload is expected and adaptation is the solution. This normalizes strain and diverts attention away from the real drivers of chronic demand, including sustained operational tempo, understaffing, unclear priorities, and incentives that reward constant responsiveness. It can also create a double bind: The system continues to demand extraordinary individual effort, while the individual is expected to treat strain as a personal shortcoming to be managed privately.

This brief takes a different view of individual resilience. It is not irrelevant, nor is it the solution. Instead, it should be treated as an important signal. Properly understood, levels of individual resilience give leaders a clearer read on how the system is functioning, where strain is coming from, and what needs to be redesigned. Used this way, resilience does not justify asking individuals to absorb more. It clarifies where institutions are demanding too much and why.

This is the point where individual resilience becomes a critical tool, not as a mandate for people to adapt indefinitely, but as a way to see how systems’ choices interact with human limits and where redesign is most urgent.

Individual resilience is context-dependent, shaped by the relationships, communities, and institutions we are embedded in.

–Roundtable participant

Why individual resilience should force system overhaul

Resilience is ever evolving: It is shaped long before individuals enter national security roles and continues to be influenced by the environments in which they operate. Biology, early development, and cumulative stress exposure contribute to how individuals tolerate and recover from pressure. The point is not to pathologize normal human responses to sustained strain. The point is to be honest about variability and limits.

Institutions typically treat individual variability in one of two ways. Either they ignore it, designing for an “average” person who does not exist, or they attempt to manage it primarily through individual interventions. Both approaches miss the core insight. Individual resilience is not primarily something systems can manufacture. It is something systems must account for and nurture within people. Thinking seriously about individual resilience makes the system’s assumptions visible, including the ones baked into missions, tempos, staffing models, career pathways, and leadership expectations.

People bring vastly different resilience profiles into roles that demand sustained judgment, adaptability, and high-quality decision-making. Some tolerate prolonged stress with fewer immediate effects. Others experience faster depletion of cognitive reserves. These differences are not moral failures or character defects. They are simply predictable variations in human functioning. The systems that assume each person has the same capacity is, in essence, baking inequality into its performance expectations, and then treating individual differences as deficits.

The more consequential issue, however, is not baseline variability. It is the cumulative effect of depletion and what it does to decision-making over time. National security environments place sustained demands on attention and judgment. Under chronic load, the first changes are often subtle: Thinking narrows. People rely more heavily on familiar patterns. Uncertainty becomes harder to sit with. Teams may lock in on a conclusion too early or simplify complex choices. They may default to routine when adaptive thinking is required. Over time, judgment can become more rigid and less reliable, with people either narrowing or widening their threat interpretation in ways that are not well matched to the situation. The work still gets done, but the quality of analysis and the ability to adjust course can quietly erode, leaving the system less adaptable precisely when conditions shift.

This is why the individual resilience conversation matters, but only if it is used correctly. Individual resilience research does not tell institutions to teach more coping skills and declare success. On the contrary, it tells institutions that the operating environment is placing sustained demands on people in predictable ways, and that these effects compound. If leadership does not manage cumulative demand, decision quality will degrade regardless of how committed individuals are.

Some institutional responses can become counterproductive. Institutions often try to “select for resilience” by screening, hiring, and promoting those who appear to handle stress well, but that does not eliminate human limits. Even the most capable people struggle under sustained load; the difference is the timing and visibility of their strain, not immunity to it. Similarly, short recovery windows do not solve the problem if baseline demand remains high. Recovery is not only about time off. It is about whether systems allow genuine disengagement and whether demand is paced in a way that permits replenishment.

The implication is straightforward: Systems that rely on constant availability, chronic overload, and surge-as-normal operation are not built for long-term effectiveness. They not only put decision-making at risk, but they also erode readiness, retention, trust, and institutional memory over time. Individual resilience should be treated partially as a signal about how the system is functioning and where strain is being generated. Taken seriously, it should drive a rethinking of what “systems approaches” to resilience actually mean in practice. In addition to programs that train individuals to cope, it means redesigning the conditions of work (workload, staffing, priorities, and decision processes) so sustained performance is built into the institution. It also means clarifying decision rights and escalation pathways, and protecting recovery time, so the system is not dependent on extraordinary individual sacrifice.

If individual resilience helps identify where strain accumulates, the next question is why many systems approaches fail to correct it. Participants at the three Atlantic Council roundtables pointed repeatedly to a familiar pattern: Even when supports are added, the underlying drivers and incentives remain unchanged.

How systems approaches often fail

Many systems approaches to resilience fail because they stop short of redesign. They add support without changing assumptions. They layer resources without recalibrating expectations. In practice, they still rely on individual adaptation to keep the system running.

This is the central weakness of many resilience initiatives: They look like systems interventions but function as burden-shifting by making chronic demand more tolerable rather than making demand sustainable. Too often, they treat coping as the solution by expanding training, wellness resources, and self-management expectations, while the structural drivers of overload, including tempo, staffing, and decision bottlenecks, remain unchanged. Roundtable participants described this dynamic directly: The organization “puts resources forward,” but the underlying cycle doesn’t change, and resilience becomes a required module to complete rather than a redesign of how the work is structured.

Incentives then reinforce the underlying dysfunction. Leaders may endorse sustainability while still rewarding constant responsiveness, and organizations may speak about boundaries while promoting those who violate them. In practice, incentives foster behavior or action more quickly than policies, and they can lock in a model of success that depends on continual overextension.

The result is a system that appears robust but is structurally fragile. It performs because individuals compensate, stretching time, attention, and availability to keep the mission moving. Over time, the costs show up in quieter but consequential ways: Decision-making becomes less reliable, teams lose range, and experienced personnel disengage or leave, taking hard-won knowledge with them. When surge conditions, leadership transitions, or external shocks hit, there is often little remaining slack to absorb the shock, and systems without real buffers struggle to adapt quickly enough.

True systems resilience is not achieved by adding more support to an unchanged structure. It requires making deliberate choices about how demand is created, prioritized, and resourced, including how tempo is set, how work is handed off, where redundancy is built in, and what leaders are rewarded for. The goal is not comfort. The goal is sustained readiness and reliable performance under stress.

What an overhaul requires

If resilience is to be treated seriously in national security contexts, then systems approaches must be overhauled, not layered. This begins with acknowledging that many current efforts focus on helping individuals operate effectively within flawed systems rather than redesigning those systems.

First, institutions must address cumulative demand directly by treating operational tempo as a design choice, not a fact of life. That means defining what qualifies as a true surge, setting guardrails so that surge mode does not become the baseline, and building real slack into staffing and schedules. High-tempo periods should then be absorbed by the system rather than by individual overextension. Leaders can put this into practice through workload triage and explicit lists of things employees should stop doing during a period of high demand. They can set clearer thresholds for what gets paused during surges and lead routine after-action reviews that examine not only operational outcomes but the cost in capacity. The goal is straightforward: Create pacing, redundancy, and decision space so readiness is protected even when the environment remains demanding.

Second, leadership accountability must extend beyond crisis performance to include sustainability, which must be measurable. Leaders should be evaluated on whether they manage workload and tempo responsibly, protect decision space, and retain and develop talent over time. That means making incentives explicit: rewarding leaders who build redundancy, delegate authority, and normalize handing off work and scheduling time for recovery. Alternatively, it is essential to correct leaders who rely on constant responsiveness and chronic overextension as their operating model.

In addition, leadership behavior matters in a more human, immediate way than institutions often acknowledge. Roundtable participants emphasized that when leaders are willing to show up as humans, including naming uncertainty, acknowledging strain, and modeling both the action of seeking help and recovery without stigma, it can reset the temperature of an entire team. That kind of credible vulnerability builds trust, widens the space for honest upward feedback, and makes it more likely that problems are surfaced early rather than managed privately until they become crises. In practice, it is one of the fastest ways leaders can shift culture without launching a new program.

Third, training should be used to reinforce sound system design, not to compensate for its absence. Institutions can keep resilience training, but they should pair it with concrete changes that reduce avoidable strain. Training should focus on the skills that improve team and mission performance under stress. Examples of these skills include communication under pressure, decision-making in uncertainty, escalation and delegation norms, and how leaders recognize early signs of overload (aided by data, as discussed below) and make appropriate changes. Most importantly, training should come with a feedback loop. What trainees report about friction points and recurring strain should be treated as operational data that informs redesign, not as an individual coping gap.

Fourth, measurement needs to shift from documenting damage to preventing it, and the roundtables made it clear that good data is one of the few levers that reliably alters behavior. Attrition and burnout rates are lagging indicators. By the time they move, the system has already been drawing down its people and its capacity for a while. A more serious approach is to track leading indicators of strain that leaders can act on, including workload distribution, surge frequency and duration, after-hours expectations, backlogs, approval bottlenecks, vacancy and coverage gaps, and the amount of time teams are operating in “urgent” mode.

Equally important, though, is the usability of data. Leaders need a small set of metrics that can be reviewed routinely, not an elaborate dashboard that no one trusts or uses. The goal is to make strain visible early and tie it to decision points. When surge becomes the baseline, something needs to be paused, rescoped, or resourced. When bottlenecks appear, authority and process need to be adjusted. When certain roles show chronic after-hours load, something needs to be redesigned such as staffing, handoffs, and coverage.

In addition, measurement should be paired with accountability and action. Teams should be able to surface what the data means in plain language, and leaders should be expected to respond with a corrective plan, not a wellness reminder. Over time, this creates an institutional habit of using data to manage tempo and protect readiness, rather than using data only to explain why people are leaving.

Finally, institutions should make trade-offs explicit and operationalize them, rather than leaving them implicit and pushing the costs down to individuals. A genuine overhaul requires leaders to define what “sustainable tempo” means for their mission sets, establish thresholds for when work is rescoped or paused, and build redundancy as a deliberate design feature in critical functions. It also requires resetting norms around constant availability by clarifying what truly constitutes an emergency, creating predictable coverage and handoff models, and rewarding teams that protect continuity without relying on chronic overextension.

The practical question is not whether the work is important. It is how the institution will prioritize, resource, and pace the work so that readiness is preserved when conditions tighten. When those choices are made openly, organizations can align expectations with capacity and reduce the hidden risk created by always-on operating models.

Conclusion

National security institutions will always operate in environments defined by uncertainty, periodic surge, and high stakes. The question is whether those institutions treat resilience as a personal expectation or as a systems responsibility. The next step is to choose a small set of measurable indicators, align accountability to them, and redesign the points of highest friction, where chronic strain is generated. Done well, this shifts resilience from a story we tell people to a capability that institutions strengthen.

Caitlin Thompson spent over a decade at the Department of Veterans Affairs, where she served as the executive director’s Office of Suicide Prevention. She holds a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Virginia and is a nonresident senior fellow at the Adrienne Arsht National Security Resilience Initiative.

This issue brief draws on a series of three Atlantic Council roundtables with national security practitioners, experts in psychiatry and health, and think tank experts on individual resilience to identify what national security institutions must redesign to sustain readiness under chronic strain.

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Putin is counting on Western disunity to hand him victory in Ukraine

Mykola Bielieskov — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 20:14:13 +0000

The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine recently entered a fifth year and has now been underway for longer than the entire cataclysmic conflict between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany during World War II.

This historical comparison does not flatter Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has turned veneration of the fight against Hitler into an unofficial state religion. While Red Army troops played a key role in the Nazi defeat and managed to advance thousands of kilometers from Stalingrad to Berlin, today’s Russian army is in many cases still stuck within walking distance of their positions when the invasion first began in February 2022.

Despite this lack of progress on the battlefield, Putin has so far demonstrated zero interest a compromise peace. Instead, he continues to insist on maximalist demands during negotiations that would destroy Ukraine as an independent state and as a separate nation.

This uncompromising stance makes perfect sense when viewed from Putin’s perspective. After all, the invasion he unleashed in 2022 has cost countless Russian lives and plunged the country into a new Cold War. Putin knows that only total victory can justify these sacrifices.

If Putin accepted the peace terms currently on offer, this would leave around 80 percent of Ukraine free and beyond Kremlin control. Most Russians would regard that as a disastrous defeat. Putin’s dreams of entering Russian history alongside Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, and Stalin would be shattered. Instead, he would be condemned as the man who lost Ukraine.

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In a very real sense, Putin is caught in a trap of his own making and has no real choice but to fight on. At the same time, however, it would be wrong to suggest that the Kremlin dictator is merely seeking to postpone the inevitable. On the contrary, he remains convinced that the goals of the invasion are still achievable and is now counting on Western disunity to hand him victory in Ukraine.

Putin’s low opinion of the democratic world is based on personal experience. Time and again throughout his reign, Russia’s aggressive actions have sparked vocal condemnation from Western capitals followed with indecent haste by calls for a return to dialogue and “business as usual.”

Western leaders loudly condemned Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia, but were soon queuing up to reset relations with the Kremlin. The same lack of resolve was on display following Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, with minimal costs imposed on Moscow and multiple European countries actually increasing their dependence on Russian energy exports.

It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Putin treats the proclamations of his Western counterparts with thinly veiled contempt. While he has been unpleasantly surprised since 2022 by the scale of support for Ukraine, the Russian leader’s own dealings with his Western counterparts have encouraged him to conclude that this unity will prove temporary. As the war grinds into a fifth year with no end in sight, Putin believes he can ultimately outlast the West.

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Shifts within the Western alliance over the past year are fueling confidence in Moscow that current levels of support for Ukraine will not last forever. Since returning to the White House in January 2025, US President Donald Trump has cut military aid to Ukraine and sought to reposition the United States as an intermediary in peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.

This has placed the burden of supporting the Ukrainian war effort firmly on Europe. According to recent Kiel Institute data, Ukraine’s European partners have done a good job of filling this gap. However, the majority of aid is now coming from a relatively small group of nations including Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and Britain. This places Ukraine’s war effort on fragile foundations.

Meanwhile, a ninety billion euro financing package agreed by EU leaders remains blocked by Hungary. This is part of long-term pattern that has seen Hungary’s pro-Kremlin Prime Minister Viktor Orban repeatedly obstruct or delay efforts by the European Union to strengthen Ukraine or increase pressure on Putin.

With far-right populist parties currently riding high in the polls throughout Europe, Putin also has good cause for optimism over the possible imminent appearance of more Orban-style allies. This could help the Kremlin in its efforts to divide and weaken Europe from within.

Broader geopolitical developments are also placing new strains on Western unity and threatening to undermine backing for Ukraine. The US-Israeli joint operation against Iran is currently causing unprecedented tension among NATO allies, with European countries reluctant to participate in efforts to safeguard the Strait of Hormuz. This has highlighted a growing transatlantic divide that could seriously weaken Ukraine’s position.

Putin cannot risk a compromise peace in Ukraine, but he remains confident that time is on his side. While the Russian army has been unable to defeat Ukraine on the battlefield, Putin is prepared to wait until Western disunity leaves the Ukrainians stripped of support and at his mercy. While this would not mean an immediate end to the carnage, Putin believes a dramatic decline in Western support would finally allow Russia to pummel an exposed and abandoned Ukraine into submission.

Mykola Bielieskov is a research fellow at the National Institute for Strategic Studies and a senior analyst at Ukrainian NGO “Come Back Alive.” The views expressed in this article are the author’s personal position and do not reflect the opinions or views of NISS or Come Back Alive.

How to think about risk

As a defense and military strategist with experience advising senior leadership in a wartime theater and, most recently, as a Pentagon official from 2022 to 2024, I know there is one aspect of conflict and rivalry that cannot be ignored: War is an exercise in risk management. Risk connects wartime objectives, the ways and means to pursue them, and preferred strategic outcomes. Moreover, wartime strategic risk assessment should be clinical—avoiding preference, and instead using facts and reasonable assumptions to consider the likeliest, the most dangerous, and the most disruptive outcomes.

At its best, risk-informed strategic planning focuses on one animating question: What is the likelihood that the chosen approach will deliver the desired outcomes at acceptable cost? Given how Epic Fury has unfolded so far, it is unclear how much this question informed prewar decision-making and, even now, ongoing US actions. This operation may have been judged as high-risk, high-reward and, therefore worthy of pursuit. But inadequate risk assessment of an endeavor this complex and this consequential can make it a gamble.

Six “gray rhinos”

Experience suggests that war has far fewer of author Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s “black swans,” or high-impact and unpredictable events, than it does author Michele Wucker’s “gray rhinos,” or highly probable, high-impact yet neglected threats. The latter are foreseeable, prone to derail the best intent, and core to strategic risk assessment. Here are six important strategic risk factors US policymakers should consider to remedy any earlier oversights.

The war is being conducted by a coalition of two—the United States and Israel—and they may not be pursuing the same ends against a rival that has so far chosen the only version of “total war” within its reach. Iran’s “mosaic defense” strategy—which prioritized decentralization and asymmetric warfare—might not be an operational war winner. However, it may just be enough to outlast the US-Israeli coalition strategically. Iran’s continued resistance—potentially ultimately made more complex by future political destabilization and civil conflict—may extend US and Israeli commitment longer than either preferred or anticipated. It may also create irreconcilable asymmetries between the two governments’ approaches to terminating the war.
The war is rattling troubled US alliances. Washington reportedly did not meaningfully consult its partners before US-Israeli strikes began on February 28, and the war is having a profound and unanticipated impact on many of them. Given the latest US national security and defense strategies, many NATO allies in particular are already adapting to an emerging US strategy perceived as transactional and hostile to their interests. Downstream, US allies also know that they may have to enter hostilities without the benefit of prior consultation just to protect their own interests and defend against or contain escalation. In combination, these factors complicate already tenuous foreign partnerships, both making them less secure and undermining relationships that the United States relies on to solve many other consequential security challenges. In short, Epic Fury may only widen the “rupture” in trust recently described by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
The war offers US rivals opportunities for strategic mischief. Many US rivals, too, did not see Epic Fury coming (at least not as it has unfolded) but they are certain to avail themselves of any advantages it might offer. US commitment in Iran is an open invitation for rivals to materially tie down and deplete US power. Under circumstances where US activism matters most (especially, in Ukraine/Europe and the tense Indo-Pacific), postwar US exhaustion (material, political, and moral) may engender US self-deterrence to their benefit. Finally, another US Middle Eastern war opens doors for rival military and economic opportunism contrary to US interests. The usual suspects are important to watch here: China, Russia, and North Korea.
Both the scope and consequences of the war are expanding. Iran’s regime will try to open new threat vectors against the United States whether precision strikes end in days, weeks, or months. The Iranian regime’s goal is survival. Therefore, it is likely to try and make the United States’ problem bigger and more costly. It has already closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked targets regionwide.

Iranian allies, proxies, and customers can also be useful extensions of its “mosaic defense,” which employs a decentralized military strategy to help ensure battlefield continuity. Though the United States is currently on the offense against Iran, its proxies, allies, and customers are vulnerable to US offensive action, too. However, they might also perceive exploitable opportunities in the war, as well. They can support Iran directly or free ride on the war for their own purposes. Either way, they complement Iran’s war aims with active resistance or latent threats. For example, a Hezbollah-Israeli second front along the Lebanese border already exists, and Shia militias have attacked US interests in Iraq. The Houthis in Yemen are a wild card. While they have been quiet so far, they are capable of threatening the Red Sea, Israel, and the Arabian Peninsula.

Finally, the US homeland itself may not be safe from direct retaliation from Iran or its sympathizers via kinetic proxy military strike, cyberattack, and terrorism. The United States has been mostly immune to the effects of foreign conflict since the immediate post-9/11 period. But save for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the United States has not presented an existential threat to any capable rival since. Iran’s perception of total war in an existential fight portends unique approaches to dislocate US security and sentiment. Iran’s threats to the US homeland may not be either credible or materially strategic, but that does not necessarily limit their psychological value.
The war has induced a shock on commerce and the global economy. There are enormous direct military costs that will trigger substantial postwar defense investments to reset the Joint Force. However, the big story is Epic Fury’s global economic disruption. Like US partners and rivals, markets were hit by Epic Fury with little warning. The private and public sectors were not prepared to buffer their assets against sharp but ephemeral adjustment (in the best case) or a structural disruption extending across multiple sectors over time (in the worst case). The war’s unexpected economic costs will have global impacts, and their scope and scale are highly dependent on the war’s duration.
The war is unpopular. Less than a month into the war, more than half of Americans oppose it, according to recent polling, and history shows that many conflicts lose support over time. While unpopular wars are not necessarily unjustified, favorable public opinion is the currency of continued military freedom of action. Failure to turn it around will affect the United States’ ability to fight now and, perhaps, more importantly, later, when the stakes are higher and the interests more compelling.

The work ahead

Wartime strategic risk calculation is homework that separates success from failure. It balances the downstream impacts of military action against the nation’s broadest strategic objectives. Risk does not decide. Risk informs. High-risk is not a stop light. It is a warning sign. Leadership heeds and acts on risk—or ignores it, often at the expense of desired outcomes and the safety of those in harm’s way.

My experience suggests significant working-level risk assessments occurred prior to Epic Fury. However, it is not apparent that work drove US leadership toward meaningful risk mitigation. The six factors above are among the key areas of strategic risk that would have benefited from the prior attention of senior US officials. They certainly merit attention now, as well.

Going forward, future wars will engender new strategic hazards. Then, like now, decision makers should put consequential risk-related insight at the center of their most consequential decisions about war and peace.

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Europe should help in the Gulf to serve its own interests, regardless of Trump’s demands

Daniel Fried, Jörn Fleck — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 19:27:26 +0000

WASHINGTON—The Iran war wasn’t their idea, and they may not like the way President Donald Trump is conducting it. But despite bullying rhetoric from Trump, the United States’ European allies might consider what they can reasonably do to support security around the Gulf rather than reject White House demands for it out of hand.

Building a coalition and preparing the battlespace for military action takes time and effort, especially when the conflict is in the Middle East. The United States sought and received significant military help from its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite sharp political differences; help that grew over time. Failure in Afghanistan, mixed success in Iraq, and popular frustration over both wars have not made it easier for the United States to get help this time with Iran. The Trump administration’s approach has hurt too: Trump has swung from initially keeping allies in the dark about the operation to demanding allied military support, to then spurning such help as unneeded. The United States started out from behind after Trump’s public attacks on those allies who did fight alongside US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, Trump has denigrated Ukraine’s actual offers of drones and drone specialists to Gulf countries—a field in which the embattled country is arguably the world leader.

Trump’s March 17 social media post was another sharp rejection of European help: “[W]e no longer ‘need’, or desire, the NATO Countries’ assistance – WE NEVER DID!” That post also included another attack on NATO as a “one way street – We will protect them, but they will do nothing for us.” Given all this, it would be understandable for Europeans to slam Trump for starting a war without consulting with them, only to demand their military support when things start to look complicated.

Nevertheless, European allies would be better advised to consider what they can do to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz and defend Gulf states under attack by Iran. They should do so not to assuage Trump or to help him out of a self-induced jam, but because Europe’s own critical interests are at stake in this conflict.

Why Europe should act

The spiking price of oil hurts the entire free world and has sent European governments scrambling for short-term fixes at the gas pump. Parallel surges in oil and gasoline prices have worsened an already bleak outlook for European industry, its competitiveness, and economic growth. At home, rising costs could cause political instability and benefit pro-Russian challengers on the right and left. Abroad, the price spikes in oil could create an estimated three to five billion dollars in additional revenue by the end of March for Russia, Europe’s most aggressive adversary, whose war against Ukraine remains the defining threat to the continent’s own freedom and security.

That windfall from energy-price shocks risks giving Russia a boost, just as Moscow’s position on the battlefield and the prospects for its war economy were deteriorating. Until the present moment, Russia’s position was weakening , thanks primarily to Ukraine’s bravery, grit, and sacrifice, but also because Europe stepped up to provide the financing needed to keep US weapons flowing to Kyiv over the past fourteen months.

European weapons stocks and production are a well-documented problem, but Europe’s stronger engagement in the Gulf could also present important openings in the defense space. The continent’s defense companies have been among the most effective and nimble partners for Ukraine’s battle-tested drone start-ups, and together they could bring new and more cost-effective means for Gulf allies to defend themselves against future attacks from Iran or other actors. That could achieve multiple European-Ukrainian objectives at once: It would preserve much-needed high-end interceptors that Ukraine needs—and Europe would buy from the United States—to defend against Russian ballistic missiles. It would expand cooperation and build new trust in Europe-Gulf relations. And it might shift the position of Gulf countries that have long sat on the fence when it comes to Russia’s war in Ukraine. It would accomplish all of this while avoiding further deterioration in transatlantic relations.

European leaders, therefore, have plenty of reasons to engage constructively with the United States and partners in the Gulf. Speed matters here. How quickly European countries move in pursuit of their own interests sends an important signal to Washington and adversaries in Moscow and Beijing alike. It matters almost as much as the movement itself.

What Europe can do

Some Europeans had already figured this out. On March 1, a day after the start of the military action, a joint statement by France, Germany, and the United Kingdom declared:

“We will take steps to defend our interests and those of our allies in the region, potentially through enabling necessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran’s capability to fire missiles and drones at their source. We have agreed to work together with the US and allies in the region on this matter.”

That statement suggested a willingness to attack Iranian drone and missile sites. An experienced former senior Pentagon official pointed out to the authors that the United Kingdom and French navies could support the United States in protecting Gulf terminals and cities from Iranian attacks and, possibly, help with escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Ukrainian know-how combined with European resourcing and production, from air defense to drone-based mine-hunting, could make important differences as well. If Trump’s language has made it politically complicated for European leaders to help, then these leaders could arrange to respond to requests from Gulf states or other countries affected by the war.

Trump’s social media posts are unlikely to last; responding to them as they are written risks locking in their bluster and threats. The US military is apt to be a steady partner in figuring out practical details of how European forces can fit into defensive operations intended to limit the war’s damage to the world economy and regional countries. Even if European capabilities are limited, they could free up some US assets elsewhere.

NATO is probably not the institution to organize such operations and, at this point, gaining Alliance-wide consensus might prove too complex. But individual NATO countries working together could offer military support for Gulf states and safe(r) passage through the strait, structured in a way to be most politically acceptable to domestic audiences. European leaders could even make that offer on the understanding that the United States would continue, and even increase, its support for Ukraine, as Finnish President Alexander Stubb has suggested.

It is neither pleasant nor glorious to respond constructively to Trump’s bullying rhetoric. But finding a way forward that meets European interests and avoids damage to transatlantic ties may be the best of a bad deal.

Trump himself could help, as a start by thanking Ukraine for pitching in and calling on Europeans to follow that example and do what they can. Some, for their own reasons, might take him up on it.

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Now that the Iran war is here, the US must complete its mission

Frederick Kempe — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 11:00:00 +0000

What frustrates senior Gulf officials, as Iran aims missiles and drones at their citizens and countries, is that too many in Washington are making the war a matter of US domestic politics and President Donald Trump. For them, what’s at stake is whether the Middle East moves in a uniquely positive direction or reverts to a more familiar, uglier one.

Over the past two weeks, I have spoken with a number of Gulf officials to better understand how leaders in the region view this ongoing war. The conversations have been strikingly consistent. For many of them, this conflict was not a matter of if, but when. One senior Gulf official told me that his country has long known its greatest danger lies in Iran and not in Israel—a reality made obvious in recent days.

The war’s inevitability was not due to any one factor, the officials told me. Rather, it was a cumulative consequence of a revolutionary regime that for nearly half a century built its power through murderous proxies, deadly missiles, nuclear aspirations, and relentless intimidation. Another senior Gulf official told me that his country had long argued to US negotiators from Democratic administrations that they were wrong to think that containing Iran’s nuclear capabilities was sufficient, as that failed to address the missiles and proxies that posed threats to its neighbors.

In the telling of Gulf officials, the region has been living in a form of shadow war for years. Proxy conflicts, cyberattacks, and military strikes on energy infrastructure were part of a sustained campaign designed by Iran to test and erode the Gulf’s security architecture. Look at Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and increasingly Riyadh. They reflect a degree of religious tolerance, political moderation, and economic modernization that contrasts sharply with Iran’s theocracy.

A regime down but not out

Some officials in these countries argued privately against Trump’s decision to go to war alongside Israel. Others argued in favor. But none of those I spoke with now want the United States to cut and run before the job is done. Even those Gulf officials wary of escalation (and that includes most of those I spoke to) see this war as the culmination of a long trajectory that required a response at some point—before the balance of power tilted irretrievably in Iran’s direction.

That doesn’t mean Gulf officials favor regime change in Iran, as no one can accurately calibrate how to pull that off. That needs to be a job for the Iranian people. However, it does mean, in their view, that the United States, Israel, and other willing partners should continue eroding the Iranian regime’s destructive capabilities—particularly as it now will be left in a vengeful state.

Their bottom line: If Iran comes out of this neutered and defanged, it’s better for everyone, even if the regime can’t be fundamentally changed from one that’s run through some combination of theocratic and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders. Put more diplomatically, a senior Gulf official told me: “If Iran is incapable of inflicting harm and exporting instability to its neighbors, that will be a good thing.”

As for Iran’s leaders, they likely are betting that US domestic politics will save the regime from total collapse. For decades, the Iranian regime has believed that its 1979 revolution, including the taking of American hostages, embarrassed US President Jimmy Carter, weakening his political support and costing him the next election. Iranian leaders probably think that they can impose similar political pain on Trump through a drawn-out conflict and elevated gas prices. If that costs Trump’s party control of Congress in the country’s upcoming midterm elections, it would be Tehran’s “own form of regime change,” as the Atlantic Council’s Alex Plitsas put it to me.

The pivotal weeks ahead

My conversations with Gulf and US officials in recent days have reinforced many of my own views regarding the significance of this moment. There are plenty of pessimistic assessments of the war right now, but they obscure a historic opportunity. The conflict with Iran may prove a true inflection point. It could neutralize the Middle East’s greatest destabilizer over the past four decades, creating new openings for regional security and prosperity. And it could splinter the emerging Axis of Aggressors comprised of China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. The White House estimates that Iran, through its direct actions and proxy networks, has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans—including US service members, diplomats, and civilians—since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

So how can the United States get from here to there? Through military resolve, strategic patience, and diplomatic cunning. Above all, the United States should not end its military campaign early. That could inadvertently strengthen the position of a weakened Iranian regime. And the regime is weak; its attacks on its neighbors are more the desperate flailing of a failed regime than the resurgence of the revolution. Even now, it will be years before Iran can rebuild its navy and missile capabilities, or again aspire to a nuclear-weapons arsenal. But the next two to three weeks will be critical, as the United States continues to target Iranian capabilities.

“The good news is that the US military is on course over the next few weeks to achieve the stated objectives to destroy or severely degrade Iran’s missiles, drones, the associated industrial base, navy, and nuclear program,” Plitsas, a former Pentagon official, told me. What’s most likely to result in “failure to complete the military operation in Iran is ending it early due to economic pressure from the risk-based closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which is Iran’s objective.”

That is why the United States and its partners must get control of the strait, enable freedom of movement, and prevent economic damage that could give Iran greater leverage.

US officials have told their Gulf partners that they have made progress in bringing together a coalition of countries to escort ships through the strait, despite several countries publicly refusing to contribute to that effort. More US military assets are arriving in the region to provide protection for shipping while continuing to strike at Iran’s ability to disrupt that traffic.

Even as US forces pursue these objectives, Americans should not lose sight of the larger opportunity. This past week, one Trump administration official spoke to me about a longer-term vision harbored by some in the White House of a Middle East where not only moderate Arab and Israeli leaders normalize their relations—as they have done through the Abraham Accords—but a new Iranian government and Arab leaders eventually do so as well, ultimately leading to Israeli-Iranian normalization.

At this time of war without an obvious end, that vision sounds fantastical. But it is seemingly impossible developments like this one that could become reality, serving both US interests and those of its regional partners, if the Trump administration sees through the mission in Iran that it has set out for itself.

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on X @FredKempe.

This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points newsletter, a column of dispatches from a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.

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The Iran war is good for the Russian economy but bad for Putin’s prestige

Maksym Beznosiuk, Will Dixon — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 15:50:23 +0000

Two weeks since the outbreak of the Iran war, commentators around the world are already declaring Vladimir Putin the winner. It is easy to see why so many seem to believe that the Russian President will emerge as the main beneficiary of escalating hostilities in the Middle East. After all, from energy exports to the invasion of Ukraine, Putin clearly has much to gain.

The Russian economy has been showing signs of severe strain in recent months as the combined toll of international sanctions, Ukrainian airstrikes, and ballooning defense spending negatively impact the Kremlin coffers. The Iran war now threatens to transform this picture in Moscow’s favor.

With energy prices already spiking and the Strait of Hormuz blocked, the world is entering a fuel crisis that could reinvigorate Putin’s war economy. The United States has already relaxed sanctions on the Kremlin in a bid to ease energy pressures elsewhere. If the current conflict becomes a prolonged campaign, Moscow may be able to repair much of the economic damage done over the past four years.

The Iran war could also provide a more direct boost for Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. With the Trump administration now firmly focused on the Middle East, the Kremlin will face significantly less diplomatic pressure to engage in US-led peace talks with Ukraine, while Kyiv will struggle to keep Russia’s invasion high on the international agenda.

Crucially, the US is expected to prioritize the supply of air defense interceptor missiles to the Middle East over Ukraine. With limited numbers of missiles produced annually, this means Ukrainian air defense crews might soon find themselves short of the ammunition required to defend their cities and infrastructure against Russian ballistic missiles. The consequences for the civilian population could be disastrous.

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Despite these potential advantages, there is little sign of celebration in the Kremlin. While Russia appears well-positioned to benefit economically and militarily, the US-led war with Iran has also served to highlight Russia’s declining international influence and has underlined Moscow’s limitations as an ally.

Since the onset of hostilities at the end of February, the Kremlin has restricted itself to a limited number of statements and has largely refrained from any strong condemnation of the United States. While reports indicate that Moscow is providing Iran with military assistance including targeting data and drone warfare expertise, the Russian response has been strikingly muted and has fallen far short of America’s very public support for Ukraine following Putin’s 2022 invasion.

Putin’s cautious reaction is particularly noteworthy in light of the support Iran has provided to Russia over the past four years. Since 2022, Tehran has supplied Moscow with large quantities of drones, missiles, and ammunition. This backing proved especially important during the early stages of the war, before Russia was able to expand domestic production and diversify its lines of supply.

Despite much speculation over an emerging “Axis of Autocrats” including both Russia and Iran, Putin has so far proved unwilling or unable to repay Tehran for its earlier backing. While Russian and Iranian officials hailed the signing of a “comprehensive strategic partnership agreement” in January 2025, this has not translated into significant Russian aid since the current conflict erupted.

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Russia’s failure to robustly support its Iranian allies is the latest in a series of similar geopolitical setbacks since the beginning of the full-scale Ukraine invasion more than four years ago. In late 2022, Kremlin credibility was dented by Moscow’s inability to prevent a renewal of hostilities between Azerbaijan and Armenia, leading to the collapse of Russia’s traditional security role in the South Caucasus. US President Donald Trump has since stepped into the void to lead peace efforts in the region.

The fall of Kremlin-backed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was to prove an even more humiliating blow for Putin. For almost a decade, Moscow had invested significant military and diplomatic resources to keep Assad in power. This engagement was touted by Moscow as proof of Russia’s return to great power status. However, when the Assad regime began to rapidly unravel in late 2024, Russia was unable to intervene. Instead, the Kremlin limited itself to offering the ousted Syrian leader asylum.

Likewise, Russia proved powerless to assist Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro when he was captured by the United States in early 2026. Moscow was seen as a key strategic partner of Maduro and had provided Caracas with a wide range of financial and security backing. Days before the American operation, Russia was still voicing its “full support” for Venezuela. However, the Kremlin ultimately took no action when US forces swooped.

From Armenia and Syria to Venezuela and Iran, Moscow’s obvious inability to aid its allies in times of crisis has seriously damaged Russia’s reputation as a global power. While the Kremlin is still capable of supplying weapons and spreading propaganda, these limited tools are no substitute for the kind of substantial security support that potential partners seek.

For Putin, this matters. Throughout his reign, he has carefully cultivated a strongman image and sought to reassert Russia’s claims to superpower status. However, the world’s leading powers do not maintain their influence through rhetoric alone.

Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s repeated failure to defend its international allies has revealed the underwhelming reality behind Putin’s posturing. This loss of prestige has very practical implications for Moscow’s ability to attract partners and project strength on the world stage. Putin hoped that by conquering Ukraine, he could return Russia to the dominant role it occupied during the Cold War. Instead, he has become bogged down in an invasion that has ruthlessly exposed modern Russia’s geopolitical limitations.

William Dixon is a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Service Institute specializing in cyber and international security issues. Maksym Beznosiuk is a strategy and security analyst whose work focuses on Russia, Ukraine, and international security.

Matthew Kroenig

China Defense Policy

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Chinese narratives around Anthropic highlight contradictions for the US

Kenton Thibaut — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 20:59:44 +0000

TAIPEI—The dispute between the US artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic and the Department of Defense has garnered much attention in the Western press in the past few weeks. It has also been the subject of lively commentary in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). For one, there is no shortage of schadenfreude being directed toward Anthropic in PRC outlets: The company has been vocal in highlighting China’s abuses of its technology and restricting Chinese firms from using its models under the auspices of preventing Chinese entities from advancing capabilities that might threaten US national security.

Given this, Chinese outlets noted with glee that Anthropic, which “has long been one of Silicon Valley’s most vocal proponents of peddling the ‘China AI threat narrative’ to Washington,” later faced US government restrictions on national security grounds. One Chinese outlet argued that this revealed the “chaos at the heart of US tech governance.” Perhaps the most uncomfortable PRC media critique of the Pentagon’s move against Anthropic is one that has long been lodged at PRC-based companies: that the trustworthiness of US AI systems is undermined when the government can compel access to them without restraint.

An analysis of Chinese articles across social media, as well as official and semi-official media, reveals several key themes that PRC observers of the US tech landscape have drawn from this episode.

PRC commentary does highlight a real contradiction in US AI governance.

First, a throughline in many of the PRC sources surveyed is that the conflict between Anthropic and the Department of Defense has laid bare some of the fundamental bargains that US AI companies have made as they have sought to strike a delicate balance: They seek to position themselves and their technologies as core to US national security while also trying to uphold high ethical standards with regard to the development and deployment of AI. In the view of many commentators, US policy has come to increasingly frame AI as a strategic national security capability. As they seek advantageous market position, favorable regulatory policy, and government partnerships, tech companies have argued that there is a need to protect and develop US AI capabilities against Chinese encroachment. As Chinese academician Gao Lingyun put it, the episode shows that “so-called ‘national security’ has become a political tool aimed at making enterprises serve its own interests.”

Much of the Chinese commentary on the Anthropic dispute aims to highlight the consequences of this framing. In the view of several commentators, US technology firms such as Anthropic promote national security narratives to demonstrate their strategic importance; however, those same narratives in turn strengthen the state’s claim to control the technology. In the view of several commentators, Anthropic in particular has embraced narratives that have contributed to the securitization of AI. For example, Anthropic founder Dario Amodei once said that selling high-end chips to China would be like “selling nuclear weapons to North Korea.”

In pushing these national security narratives, these analysts claim, companies such as Anthropic are now victims of their own success, as they are facing demands for full military access to their technologies. That a US firm is now facing a supply-chain risk designation—a provision once only applied to firms located in countries that are considered foreign adversaries—illustrates for many analysts in China the fundamental truth that as national security categories expand, governments will seek to assert greater sovereignty over advanced technologies. As one commentator put it, the dispute shows that the US government is “redefining the boundaries between technology and power within its AI national security framework.” One commentator similarly argues that the dispute “strips away the veil of so-called ‘technology neutrality,” showing that as AI capabilities grow, governments will increasingly deploy state power to integrate these systems into military operations.

More broadly, Chinese commentary examined the growing structural tensions between state power, corporate ethics, and AI militarization. Many commentators argued that the incident reveals a fundamental incompatibility with AI designed to curb its capabilities to not harm humans—as in Anthropic’s “Constitution” for its large language model Claude—while also claiming that developing the same technology for use in military applications is a determining factor in the “race for AI dominance.” In modern warfare, they argue, AI has become essential to intelligence analysis, targeting, and decision cycles, making its development and deployment a matter of strategic necessity, with corporate safeguards subsumed under the will of the state. In other words, when technology enters “efficiency-driven state machinery,” corporate restrictions become unsustainable. Companies may choose whether to participate in defense programs, these commentators argue, but they cannot dictate how militaries employ advanced technologies.

Some commentators pointed to Anthropic’s February announcement of a change in its Responsible Scaling Policy, in which the company would no longer pause training on new models whenever capabilities reached predefined danger thresholds, as evidence that in a battle between company ethics and state priorities, the latter always wins. Firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic, which once shaped global digital platforms and had broad leeway to operate as they saw fit, now face increasing pressure to align with state security priorities or face penalties.

In a bit of irony coming from PRC commentators, several analysts argued that this securitized language allows governments to redefine risks and obligations depending on their own strategic priorities. According to researcher Gao Lingyun, when national security definitions become “arbitrarily defined,” they lose moral authority as policy justifications. This argument mirrors criticisms that the United States has long directed at Chinese technology firms. US policymakers frequently warn that Chinese companies are compelled to assist PRC government authorities, including military and intelligence services, under existing legal frameworks such as the National Intelligence Law and the Data Security Law. PRC analysts have turned this criticism back on the United States, asking how much trust to put into AI technologies if governments possess the legal authority to compel access to them (and to US citizen data to enable surveillance, if Anthropic’s accounting is accurate).

Ultimately, PRC commentary on the Anthropic-Pentagon dispute reveals how the Chinese political apparatus is seeking to frame the incident internally for Chinese audiences. It behooves the PRC to present the US AI governance ecosystem as chaotic and to heighten the perception of risk around US military use of AI. However, PRC commentary does highlight a real contradiction in US AI governance. If US AI firms promote trust, safety, and independence as core advantages over their competitors, how durable are those claims in the long run when national security authorities intervene? And how does this impact the competitiveness and trustworthiness of US systems writ large? As AI systems are becoming increasingly central to military and economic competition, the answer to these questions will shape global perceptions of technological trust and jurisdictional risk beyond this dispute and the context of US-China competition.

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Charai for The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune: JD Vance and the Strategic Logic of Trump’s Foreign Policy

Atlantic Council — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 14:43:20 +0000

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To succeed, Trump’s Shield of the Americas should focus on institutions as well as cartels

Henrique Arevalo Poincot — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 17:55:48 +0000

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration’s new Shield of the Americas initiative reflects Washington’s renewed focus on the Western Hemisphere and the growing recognition that cartel violence poses a hemispheric security challenge. The initiative aims to deepen cooperation among regional governments through intelligence sharing, joint operations, and expanded military coordination to dismantle criminal networks responsible for drug trafficking, migrant smuggling, and rising violence across the region.

To launch the initiative, the administration convened thirteen leaders from across Latin America and the Caribbean at a summit in Doral, Florida. From Honduran President Nasry Asfura to Chilean President-elect José Antonio Kast, the group largely consisted of center-right to hard-right leaders broadly aligned with the Trump administration.

The instinct behind the initiative is correct. A coordinated regional response is necessary to disrupt criminal networks. But if the Shield of the Americas is to achieve its stated goals, it must address a deeper reality: The region’s security challenges are rooted in institutional weakness. A coalition of politically aligned governments is not enough. An effective and durable Shield of the Americas must be built on strong institutions.

The vulnerability of weak institutions

Democratic progress in countries across Latin America has stalled or reversed in recent years. Weak rule of law, systemic corruption, and fragile public institutions have created fertile ground for criminal networks to thrive. Cartels succeed not primarily because of military capability, but because governance gaps allow transnational organized crime groups to infiltrate police forces, judicial systems, and political parties.

The consequences are visible throughout the region. Latin America accounts for roughly one-third of the world’s homicides despite representing less than a tenth of the global population. Criminal organizations have evolved into sophisticated multinational networks that traffic drugs, weapons, and people across borders while corrupting state institutions along the way. The result is not only violence, but also weakened states that struggle to respond effectively.

This institutional fragility affects the United States. Weak governance fuels migration, destabilizes regional economies, and deters the kind of transparent, rules-based investment environment that US businesses require.

At the same time, initiatives centered primarily on military coordination risk addressing symptoms rather than underlying causes. Security cooperation is necessary, but it cannot succeed in environments where institutions remain vulnerable to corruption and capture.

Building an institutional shield

To be effective, the Shield of the Americas should therefore expand beyond security coordination to include a serious investment in strengthening governance and the rule of law across the region. Evidence from the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Index underscores why. Across three decades of global data, the rule of law consistently emerges as the most influential driver of prosperity. Countries that strengthen judicial independence, combat corruption, and enforce predictable legal frameworks create the stable environment necessary to attract investment and resist criminal capture.

Washington should therefore pursue three complementary priorities.

First, the United States should support anti-corruption and rule-of-law institutions that directly undermine the operating environment of criminal networks. This includes funding independent prosecutors, strengthening financial oversight bodies, and supporting judicial reforms that improve transparency and accountability. When institutions can investigate corruption and enforce the law impartially, criminal networks lose the protection they rely on.

While the Trump administration has sought to rein in what it views as excessive foreign aid spending globally, the proximity and strategic importance of the Western Hemisphere should encourage a more targeted approach. Strengthening rule-of-law institutions in Latin America is a strategic investment that advances both US and regional interests.

Second, security cooperation and economic engagement should be linked to governance reforms that make countries more stable and investable. Transparent procurement systems, predictable regulatory frameworks, and professional law-enforcement institutions create the conditions necessary for long-term economic growth and foreign investment. These reforms also make it harder for malign actors to secure opaque deals that undermine security and stability.

Third, Washington should expand the toolkit used to strengthen democratic resilience in the region. Alongside traditional security assistance, the United States can leverage investment financing, public–private partnerships, and democracy assistance programs to reinforce rule-of-law reforms, strengthen oversight institutions, and support democratic institutions. Doing this can help ensure that security gains outlast any single government or political coalition.

Expanding the coalition

One limitation of the Shield of the Americas lies in its composition. Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil—all led by left-leaning governments—were absent from the summit despite being among the hemisphere’s largest and most influential countries. So too were leaders such as Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo and Uruguayan President Yamandú Orsi, who have largely aligned with Washington on security and economic priorities over the past year.

In a region known for its constant ideological tides, a security strategy built primarily around ideological convergence will struggle to endure. Cartels and criminal networks operate across borders regardless of ideology, and an effective response will require engagement with democracies across the political spectrum.

A strategy that endures

The Shield of the Americas could represent an opportunity for regional coordination against cartels. But if implemented narrowly as a security alliance, it risks becoming another short-lived effort that fades with political cycles. If it evolves into a broader strategy that strengthens the institutions underpinning democracy and the rule of law, however, it could help build a safer and more prosperous hemisphere for decades to come.

The United States is right to seek a stronger shield against cartels and malign influence in Latin America. But the strongest defense is not a coalition of friendly governments. It is a hemisphere where institutions are resilient enough to resist and dismantle criminal networks.

2026 Atlas: Freedom and prosperity around the world

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Kroenig on The Beacon of Liberty podcast on the Truman doctrine

Atlantic Council — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 17:16:43 +0000

Vice President, Geostrategy and Fellows and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On March 12, Atlantic Council vice president and Scowcroft Center senior director Matthew Kroenig was interviewed on The Beacon of Liberty Podcast about the Truman doctrine.

Staff

Matthew Kroenig

China Defense Policy

The post Kroenig on The Beacon of Liberty podcast on the Truman doctrine appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The United States and OPEC in a polarized oil order

Mahmoud Rashed — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 13:57:04 +0000

The price of Brent crude oil continues to rise amid the escalating conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran, reflecting a significant geopolitical risk premium as shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint for roughly 20 percent of global oil flows, is severely constrained and tankers have halted movement through the waterway. This is just one of several examples illustrating that geopolitics is now the dominant driver for price formation rather than fundamentals alone. Intervention strategies to mitigate short-term price spikes, including releases from strategic petroleum reserves, have also evolved, and, amid the heightened tensions of today’s crisis, lessons from the past few years underscore the importance of a measured, rather than reactive, approach.

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, oil policy dynamics evolved into a pattern of competing price control mechanisms, with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cutting output production to defend price floors and consumers led by the United States, deploying Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) releases to cap prices. These opposing interventions amplified volatility, weakened market discipline, and, in many markets across the Middle East and beyond, undermined perceptions of US policy consistency and credibility as a reliable producing partner. However, as geopolitical risks play a growing role in price formation, if prices spike further due to the crisis in the Gulf Council Countries (GCC), repeated intervention risks reinforcing the concept that policy reacts to shock instead of shaping stability. This dynamic can complicate US–OPEC policy coordination and create uncertainty for US oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporters that depend on stable price signals and predictable market expectations.

Rather than stabilizing markets, this pattern of intervention has contributed to what many analysts describe as an increasingly fragmented global oil order, where overlapping political constraints, sanction dynamics, and episodic risk premiums shape pricing more than fundamentals alone. In this context, the United States faces a strategic test: Whether to return to reflexive price management or to rebuild credibility by allowing market institutions and producer coordination to absorb shocks, reserving the SPR for genuine supply disruptions instead of reactive price smoothing. In the current escalation, restraint itself is a policy choice. Short-term price spikes driven by geopolitical risk premiums do not necessarily warrant immediate countermeasures.

From price manager to strategic stabilizer

In the past few years, the United States appeared to step away from the role it played in 2022–2023 as an active price manager. During that period, more than 180 million barrels were released from the SPR to counter inflationary pressure amid an extraordinary convergence of shocks. The drawdown reduced inventories to their lowest level since the early 1980s and blurred the line between emergency response and price management.

Since then, the DOE shifted its emphasis to reserve refill as a long-term resilience strategy not a near-term price tool. That repositioning has carried strategic weight because emergency reserves function through expectations as much as through physical deployment. If used too frequently for price moderation, the SPR risks losing credibility as insurance against genuine supply disruptions.

A premature or unwarranted SPR release could also carry unintended consequences for US energy strategy. Frequent intervention risks dampening investment signals for domestic producers and reinforcing the perception that the SPR functions as a political price management tool rather than a strategic emergency buffer. At the same time, sustained geopolitical disruptions in the Middle East, particularly involving the Strait of Hormuz, could drive prices above $120 per barrel, fueling inflationary pressures in the United States and globally, and increasing risks to economic crisis and social instability. A balanced approach is therefore required, one that preserves the credibility of the SPR while retaining the flexibility to act if extreme price spikes begin to threaten broader economic resilience.

In the current environment of Gulf escalation and shipping disruptions, restraint is therefore deliberate. Short-term price spikes driven by geopolitical risk premiums do not automatically justify intervention. Market participants are already adjusting through inventories, rerouting, and demand recalibration. Immediate countermeasures by either OPEC or the United States could amplify instability rather than contain it. However, strategic restraint is conditional, not absolute. Should the crisis persist and prices move decisively above $120 per barrel in a sustained manner, generating broader inflationary pressure and threatening global economic resilience, a calibrated SPR release then would become appropriate. In that scenario, deployment would serve as a temporary stabilization bridge, not as an attempt to override producer policy, and would remain clearly tied to systemic risk rather than political discomfort with high prices.

This sequencing, therefore, is not intervention nor passivity but adaptation. As the oil market becomes more geopolitically exposed, leverage increasingly flows from strategic consistency and selective engagement rather than from attempts to suppress prices directly.

For OPEC producers, this situation signals institutional respect rather than confrontation. In periods of stress, collaboration between Washington and OPEC will matter more than competitive signaling and reinforces the view that instability should be absorbed through market mechanisms and producers’ coordination. This approach aligns with OPEC’s preference for predictable policy environments and limited political interference in price formation.

Toward conditional coordination in a fragmented oil order

Current restraint on reserve releases, with calibrated tolerance of incremental sanctioned supply, reshapes how OPEC production decisions interact with consumer policy. When output adjustments were no longer met by automatic countermeasures, the cycle of competitive price control begins to resolve. OPEC retains space to manage supply without provoking reflexive consumer intervention, especially in a crisis time, while in return, the United States preserve its emergency tools for real supply or inflationary stress.

In other words, the trade-off is clear. Restraint limits the ability to suppress prices during periods of geopolitical stress, particularly if OPEC production cuts coincide with geopolitical shocks. Short-term consumer relief is sacrificed in favor of restoring institutional credibility and investment confidence. Over time, predictable policy frameworks support capital allocation, upstream investment and supply security more effectively than episodic intervention.

However, credibility is not built on inaction alone. If sustained escalation pushes prices beyond systemic thresholds, coordinated stabilization becomes necessary. In such circumstances, a temporary SPR deployment aligned with producer dialogue would function as a crisis buffer rather than a competitive countermeasure. The objective would be to prevent inflationary spillovers and protect global economic resilience, not to undermine production discipline.

In a more fragmented and geopolitically exposed oil market, stability is no longer achieved through opposing acts of intervention than from conditional coordination. OPEC’s production discipline and US reserve policy now have to function less as tools of price control. In this environment, limited sanctioned supply would also serve as a marginal stabilizer, easing extreme price spikes without triggering renewed escalation in producer-consumer dynamics. By allowing market institutions to operate within clearer and more predictable boundaries, both producers and consumers can coordinate to reduce volatility, support investment, and preserve energy security without turning geopolitical risk into a competitive price management conflict.

Mahmoud Rashed is the assistant general manager of exploration studies with the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation. He has more than 18 years of experience in Egypt’s petroleum sector, working at the intersection of upstream exploration, investments, petroleum agreements, and government energy policy.

The views in this article are his own.

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1. Is the US accomplishing its goals in the war?

The post The United States and OPEC in a polarized oil order appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Twenty questions (and expert answers) about the Iran war

Atlantic Council experts — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 20:37:41 +0000

The US and Israeli militaries are hammering Iran for a second week. Iranian forces and proxies are striking back across the Middle East. Global financial and energy markets are full of volatility. And questions abound about the future trajectory of this conflict and its wider consequences.

Below, Atlantic Council experts pierce the fog of war with clarifying answers to twenty of the most pressing questions about these fast-moving events.

Click to jump to a question

2. Is Israel achieving its aims in this conflict?

3. Will the US put boots on the ground in Iran?

4. What would be an acceptable end to this war for the Iranian regime?

5. What would be an acceptable end to this war for the US?

6. What do we know about Iran’s new supreme leader?

7. What happens if the Iranian regime collapses?

8. How is the Iranian opposition responding to the conflict?

9. Is Iran’s nuclear stockpile a danger?

10. What threat does Iran pose to the US homeland?

11. What impact is this war having on US weapons stockpiles?

12. What’s the economic impact on Americans?

13. How is this conflict changing global energy markets?

14. What happens if Kurdish groups launch an armed resistance in Iran?

15. What impact will this conflict have on China?

16. What impact will this conflict have on Russia?

17. Will the Houthis in Yemen get involved?

18. How will this conflict impact Gaza?

19. How will the war impact US-Gulf relations?

20. What other countries could get involved if this war expands?

1. Is the US accomplishing its goals in the war?

Washington’s stated goals have included degrading Iran’s nuclear program, ballistic missiles, navy, drones, and control of its terror proxies. The United States is well on its way to achieving these objectives. All of these capabilities are badly degraded with, for example, more than fifty Iranian naval vessels resting on the sea floor. Going after remaining missile and drone manufacturing capabilities will likely take a couple of more weeks, at which point US President Donald Trump will be able to declare victory.

A better government in Iran that is more cooperative internationally and that respects the human rights of its people is also desirable, but that outcome is largely in the hands of the Iranian people.

Regardless of who governs next, Iran will be much weaker for years to come and less able to threaten the United States.

—Matthew Kroenig is vice president for geostrategy and fellows and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

2. Is Israel achieving its aims in this conflict?

Israel almost certainly has set as a strategic objective the collapse of the Iranian regime. That is an expansion of initial goals following the June 2025 twelve-day war. In that conflict, Israeli and US strikes significantly set back the Iranian nuclear program. But some Iranian ballistic missile attacks also managed to penetrate Israeli and US missile defenses. Given the limited stockpile of interceptors, and Iranian ambitions to ramp up production of ballistic missiles that could reach Israel from roughly two thousand to ten thousand—meaning that they could overwhelm Israeli defenses and pose a strategic threat—Israel was prepared to strike at this threat later in 2026.

But that changed following the popular protests against the regime in January, when it appeared that the Islamic Republic’s internal weakness matched the damage to its nuclear program and deterioration of its regional position and proxy network over the past two years. So in addition to degrading the missile threat by striking launchers, storage sites, and production facilities, Israeli targeting since the beginning of the war has included regime leadership (starting with the supreme leader and others in the conflict’s opening minutes), state security organs that participated in the crushing of the protests (the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Basij militia, and police), and oil storage tanks in Tehran described as essential to the regime’s war machine.

It is understandable that Israelis would seek the demise of the regime. For decades, they have lived with a major regional player openly and ideologically committed to Israel’s destruction, seeking strategic weapons to advance that aim, and arming and funding proxy terror groups that have spilled no small amount of Israeli blood. Tens of thousands of rockets and missiles have been launched against Israeli civilian targets over the past twenty years by Iran and its proxies. Seeing an opportunity to change this reality, which much of the world has taken for granted, has broad appeal in Israel. So far, with a few deadly Iranian missile attacks but Israel’s defenses otherwise holding, the campaign seems to most Israelis to be both necessary and being conducted at a tolerable price.

What is less clear is how well the Israeli goal of regime change matches the United States’ objectives, or if it does, how long that will remain the case. Trump and his administration have offered inconsistent explanations of the war’s strategic objectives, but at least some of those calls—for “unconditional surrender” and creating the conditions that allow the Iranian people to take over their institutions—are consistent with Israeli goals. But as oil prices spike, markets dip, shipping and supply chains are disrupted, and Iran continues to find gaps in its Arab neighbors’ air defense and cause economic and infrastructure damage, it is possible to imagine Trump seeking an earlier off-ramp with a claim of having significantly defanged the regime. Further, the prospects of regime collapse followed by chaos, civil war, instability spilling over into neighboring countries, and refugee flows is of potentially far greater concern to the United States and its Arab partners than to Israel. If such a gap between Israeli and US goals opens up, expect Trump to be the determiner of when the war ends and to impose that endpoint on Israel, even if it is short of regime change.

3. Will the US put boots on the ground in Iran?

The United States is not mobilizing conventional ground forces either in the region or in the United States. Iran is a massive country with very difficult topography and would require hundreds of thousands of troops to occupy. Any use of ground forces would likely be limited to special operations forces for specific missions. Trump has espoused military objectives that are achievable through air and sea power without the need for a ground invasion. The military can seed the conditions for regime change by accomplishing its objectives, but a transition to an organic protest movement that the military doesn’t control or a negotiated settlement with the current regime is a political objective.

Looking back to the Iraq war, Trump has cited the deployment of conventional ground forces and the disbanding of the Iraqi army and government as the reasons the United States became ensnared in a costly insurgency. He is seeking to avoid that by not deploying ground forces and preferring to work with a member of the existing government—if the regime is willing to change its approach. If those conditions come together, Trump can achieve his military objectives and leave at a time of his choosing without a transition to a new government.

—Alex Plitsas is a nonresident senior fellow with the Middle East Programs’ Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative and leads the initiative’s Counterterrorism Project. He previously served as chief of sensitive activities for special operations and combating terrorism in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

4. What would be an acceptable end to this war for the Iranian regime?

There is an assumption among some in Washington that Iran will stop fighting when Trump and Israel want to end this war. This is the same reasoning that led the Trump administration to assume Iran would capitulate in nuclear talks and not respond forcefully to the war that Trump and Israel initiated on February 28. This is a very different conflict than the twelve-day war in 2025 or other conflicts in which Iran rapidly de-escalated.

The Iranian regime perceives that it is in an existential conflict, and it does not appear to be interested in an immediate off-ramp. From Iran’s perspective, a cessation of hostilities would merely be a temporary respite, before the United States or Israel restart the conflict once they have replenished their military supplies.

Therefore, a slow, protracted, war of attrition is probably Iran’s intended outcome. Iranian leaders are calculating that their country is more willing to take casualties and absorb pain than either the United States or Gulf countries. Therefore, if Iran retains the military capability (including asymmetric threats) to inflict pain on the United States and the Gulf, as well as keep energy prices high, then Iran is more likely to determine the end of the conflict than the United States is. In fact, Iran may only accept an off-ramp if it ensures there is not another near-term war. This would likely entail compelling Trump to enforce a cease-fire that Israel adheres to. This type of belligerent approach is a risky gamble for Iran, as it increases the chances that the United States doubles down on the war and that it draws in the Gulf, but it is also probably a risk the remnants of the regime are willing to take.

5. What would be an acceptable end to this war for the US?

The United States is going to come out ahead in this war in almost every conceivable outcome. The president has smashed Iran’s missile capabilities, supported the destruction of some additional nuclear facilities, and killed scores of Iran’s top leaders. Tehran was unwilling to trade its uranium enrichment capability and has never countenanced negotiations on its missiles or proxies. Now it has less of all three.

Iran, of course, also has a vote on ending the war, but once the threat to the regime is gone—and it looks like it’s receding—Iran will eventually return to business as usual. It could keep the Strait of Hormuz closed, but that would require continuing to expose itself to attack and pressure, and it does need oil revenue, too. Israel could conceivably continue the war alone but would likely scale down—think Gaza—once the United States indicated its desire to stop.

Perhaps the only unacceptable outcome for the war is if a sustained opposition movement emerges and either suffers more brutality on the streets of Tehran or manages to liberate some territory and then is violently suppressed by the regime. The conditions required for a US win also change if there is a mass casualty terrorist attack at home or overseas directly related to the war, which the United States would need to justify with a more acute strategic objective. If the regime thus wanted to inflict harm on the United States, it might well strike at the homeland, goad Washington into making a sustained effort to replace it, and then try to make the United States suffer further as a result.

—Andrew L. Peek is the director of the Adrienne Arsht National Security Resilience Initiative of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He was previously the senior director for European and Russian affairs at the National Security Council and the deputy assistant secretary for Iran and Iraq at the US Department of State’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.

6. What do we know about Iran’s new supreme leader?

Iran’s new supreme leader, fifty-six-year-old Mojtaba Khamenei, is the son of the recently deceased Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Many analysts believe that Mojtaba will be a continuation—and potentially more extreme version—of his father. However, less is known about the younger Khamenei, as he rarely speaks or appears in public.

What we do know is that the new supreme leader was trained by a string of hard-line, anti-Western clerics, played a prominent role in past repression of protesters, and was recently embroiled in a corruption scandal. As a former member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and an active participant in Iran’s intelligence and defense, he was reportedly the IRGC’s favored candidate. However, his selection is controversial even within the remnants of the Islamic Republic. According to reports, his appointment contravened his father’s written wishes and was opposed by senior political figures in Iran. In this sense, Mojtaba Khamenei’s selection is about more than just succession. It is about stabilizing a system at a moment when uncertainty poses a strategic risk to the regime.

Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, attends a rally in Tehran, Iran, on May 31, 2019. (Hamid Forootan/ISNA/WANA via Reuters Connect)

In the short term, Mojtaba Khamenei will likely be focused on Iranian defense, ensuring relative domestic stability, and power projection. Israel and the United States have already expressed opposition to his ascension, leaving open the possibility—perhaps even likelihood—that he will be targeted in future US or Israeli military actions.

—Nate Swanson

7. What happens if the Iranian regime collapses?

The end of the regime is less likely to foster democracy as it is to birth what some are calling “IRGCistan”—a military-dominated state in which the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamanei, is a partner but not the final or ultimate authority, as his father was, and with power firmly vested in the hands of the IRGC. Such a result would provide three pathways forward.

An IRGC-run Iran could initially be a bigger regional and domestic threat, staking out even harder-line stances in seeking to consolidate power and focused on ensuring no other insider can outflank it. Second, it could seek to quickly gain the support of the Iranian people by showing greater flexibility for a deal with the United States in exchange for an economic boost in the form of sanctions relief. Third, it could lead to a period of confusion and jockeying for power in which Western states will have to decide how much to try to jump into the fray and influence the outcome.

—Jonathan Panikoff is the director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative and a former deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East at the US National Intelligence Council.

Dispatches

Feb 28, 2026

Experts react: The US and Israel just unleashed a major attack on Iran. What’s next?

By Atlantic Council experts

Atlantic Council experts assess the unfolding Operation Epic Fury and where it goes from here.

Conflict Iran

8. How is the Iranian opposition responding to the conflict?

Many in the Iranian opposition both inside and outside of Iran had welcomed targeted military strikes on regime officials and targets in the lead-up to the war. The thinking was that there was no other way to dislodge a violent regime that over forty-seven years had resisted international pressure, sanctions, and multiple internal nationwide anti-regime protests. The war’s opening salvo in killing then Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and top regime officials was celebrated widely in Iran and seen as an optimistic start to what many believed would be certain regime change. But with Israel’s strikes on oil depots in Tehran that sent a black smoke cloud over the sky in the second week of the war, along with the destruction of cultural heritage sites, moods have started to shift. Some question how much they are willing to sacrifice for a free Iran and whether the regime—which so far has proved resilient—will actually fall, or whether all the war did was replace one Khamenei with another Khamenei who is thirty years younger.

But bright spots remain. Many Iranians say there is no turning back now and that the regime has to go or else it will emerge more brutal than ever before. There are reports of people organizing to take to the streets once the bombing stops. Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed shah, continues to offer to act as a transitional leader for Iran to guide the country to free and fair elections and has attracted new key constituencies to broaden his tent. Inside Iran, seventy opposition activists have joined to form a new group called the Strategic Council of Republicans Inside Iran. Their names have not been declared publicly, but they have made their leadership known to Western governments. And outside Iran, opposition figures are meeting to discuss core transitional issues and encourage pluralistic politics.

—Gissou Nia is the director of the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project and a board member of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center.

9. Is Iran’s nuclear stockpile a danger?

Since Israel’s attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities in Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow in June 2025, it has been difficult for experts to assess how much of Iran’s nuclear stockpile remains accessible and potentially dangerous. Prior to those attacks, Iran’s stockpile had been estimated at about 440.9 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the existing stockpile is “mainly” at Isfahan, while other parts of the stockpile may have been destroyed last year. Some experts believe that the stockpile is largely inaccessible and buried underground. After receiving a briefing from the Trump administration, US Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL) raised concern that the administration “never had a plan for that nuclear stockpile of enriched uranium—to destroy [it], to seize it, or to put it under international inspection.”

If the nuclear stockpile is still accessible, then its future may parallel the political future of Iran; a regime that is compliant with US requirements may wish to take measures to safeguard the stockpile and could even allow inspections to resume. However, if the regime feels that it remains under threat, then it could be more motivated to rebuild military and nuclear weapons capabilities. Additionally, if Iran devolves into political chaos and civil war, then the stockpile could fall into the hands of rogue elements with nefarious purposes.

—Jennifer T. Gordon is the director of the Nuclear Energy Policy Initiative and the Daniel B. Poneman chair for nuclear energy policy at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center.

10. What threat does Iran pose to the US homeland?

Iran’s long history and experience in asymmetric warfare—including being a state sponsor for terrorism and perpetrator of cyberattacks—suggests that the kinetic portion of this conflict could be just a start. In retaliation for the death of IRGC Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani in 2020, for example, Tehran sought to murder both Trump and then National Security Advisor John Bolton. While no specific threats have been identified, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appear to be on high alert. Press reports indicate that the DHS warned of potential lone wolf attacks, which are notoriously difficult to identify in advance, in response to the conflict.

Iran’s proxies across the Middle East are another arrow in Tehran’s quiver. Tehran has cultivated, armed, trained, and financed a network of non-state armed organizations operating across the region with links to Africa and parts of Latin America. These groups include Lebanese Hezbollah, Palestinian militant organizations such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Shia militias in Iraq and Syria, and Yemen’s Houthi movement. Together and individually, they enable Iran to project influence, deter adversaries, and retaliate asymmetrically while preserving a degree of paper-thin plausible deniability.

Currently, Iran’s proxy network remains operational, although increasingly constrained. Hezbollah retains significant military capabilities, though persistent Israeli attacks and the potential that Lebanese authorities work to limit the group’s activities could challenge its efforts to mount a campaign. In Iraq, Iranian-backed militias wield influence yet risk nationalist backlash and sanctions. The Houthis have demonstrated reach but face sustained military pressure.

—Ingrid Small is the deputy director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council. She previously served as a senior analyst and analytic methodologist in the US intelligence community for over three decades.

11. What impact is this war having on US weapons stockpiles?

The problem of prioritizing near-term requirements over long-term priorities is not new. This is why the recently released National Defense Strategy rightly called for being clear-eyed about available military resources and emphasized a ruthless prioritization on homeland defense and China, along with rebuilding the US defense industrial base.

But now the Iran war is degrading US military readiness for homeland defense and China.

While the cumulative readiness impacts of this decision are difficult to quantify in the near-term, the war in Iran will likely drain inventories of critical munitions and parts, with knock-on effects across the force from training schedules to unit strength.

Major assets employed for the war in Iran that are also relevant to homeland defense and/or China include air defense systems, long-range standoff weapons, naval vessels, strategic airlift and aerial refueling, and intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance assets. Moreover, military planners must consider the resources required to monitor, deter, or fight North Korea, Russia, and China simultaneously in the event they join a Pacific conflict or a worst-case homeland defense scenario.

How quickly the United States can regenerate readiness for homeland defense and great power competition remains an open question and will depend both on the Trump administration’s decisions and factors outside the administration’s control.

—Joe Costa is the director of the Forward Defense program of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council. Previously, he served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for plans and posture in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

12. What’s the economic impact on Americans?

Most Americans are likely to feel the war in two ways—gas prices and groceries. Nearly 20 percent of the global oil supply transits through the Strait of Hormuz and right now movement is at a standstill. It’s true that the United States is far less reliant on energy imports than it was during the previous two Gulf wars, but the nature of the energy market is that a price spike quickly impacts everyone around the world. And that’s exactly what has happened.

After some wild swings, the price of oil as of Wednesday is sitting at about ninety dollars a barrel—up from sixty dollars in December. Many Americans are driving by gas stations and seeing a first number starting with a “3.” It may not be long before that becomes a “4”—and it could get worse, depending on how long the crisis lasts. This is something that will be particularly painful for Americans who already list cost of living as one of their top concerns in surveys. The administration is taking a series of actions to try and relieve the pressure: It’s coordinating with allies to put more oil on the market. It’s providing shipping insurance to convince tankers to make the passage. And it’s even temporarily relieving some sanctions on Russian oil. But none of those steps will stop prices from surging higher as long as transit remains blocked and oil production in the Gulf continues to be a target of Iranian drones.

High gas prices would be bad enough, but expect the cost of other items to tick up, too. Everyday grocery items could soon become more expensive as goods transited across the country on trucks face higher diesel fuel costs.

All of this creates a headache for Trump’s choice to chair the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh. Up until the start of the conflict, inflation pressures had been cooling. But if the war continues and Warsh is confirmed, he will face a president who wants lower interest rates but an economy facing price pressures. That means all those looking for relief on mortgage rates and car loans may have to wait a little longer.

13. How is this conflict changing global energy markets?

The conflict is forcing energy markets to price in geopolitical risk that, until recently, was largely theoretical. For years, governments have assessed the energy security vulnerability posed by the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint responsible for roughly one fifth of global oil and gas flows. Today, that vulnerability is no longer a contingency exercise. Even in an otherwise well-supplied market, traders are confronting the real consequences of supply chains tied to a region capable of removing millions of barrels per day from the global market. Oil may be relatively fungible, but the world cannot quickly replace a sudden loss of fifteen million barrels per day. As the conflict persists, the economic knock-on effects compound, and Tehran may be gaining a new layer of deterrence if even the threat of short-range drone or missile attacks can trigger geoeconomic disruption by intermittently halting traffic through Hormuz.

Natural gas markets are even less flexible. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) export infrastructure takes years—often more than a decade—to move from concept to first cargo, leaving Europe and East Asia structurally exposed. Emerging economies may increasingly forgo planned gas buildouts in favor of alternative energy sources. At the same time, upstream capital may pivot toward the Western Hemisphere—particularly the United States, Guyana, and Canada—where geopolitical risk is perceived as lower. That shift could further entrench North America as a global energy powerhouse while simultaneously accelerating political support in vulnerable capitals for technologies less dependent on Hormuz, including solar and battery storage.

—Landon Derentz is vice president, energy and infrastructure, senior director, and Morningstar Chair for Global Energy Security at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center. He previously served as director for energy at the White House National Security Council.

14. What happens if Kurdish groups launch an armed resistance in Iran?

The Kurdish coalition’s entry into the war could hand Tehran a political opening even as it creates a military problem. Kurdish fighters might stretch Iranian forces and expose weak control in the northwest. But Tehran could also use the specter of separatism to rally Persian nationalism, split the opposition, and frame the war as foreign-backed dismemberment rather than domestic revolt, giving itself a justification for mass arrests and violence against Kurds inside Iran.

If Kurdish forces receive sufficient support, they could serve several strategic purposes. They might pin down Iranian security forces in the west, giving space for unarmed protesters in major cities to demonstrate without being massacred. They could stretch the regime’s resources thin and reduce pressure on the Gulf states and Israel. And if the Kurds were to take and hold territory in northern Iran, they could create a buffer zone beneficial to Israel and the West.

For all these reasons, any support for the Kurds should go beyond military backing. It must include political support for Kurdish autonomy in a post-regime Iran, so that the Kurds do not end up being used once again as expendable forces.

—Yerevan Saeed is a nonresident senior fellow with the Iraq Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs.

Dispatches

Mar 6, 2026

How would a Kurdish offensive change the war in Iran?

By Atlantic Council experts

Our experts explain the goals of the various Kurdish groups the United States is reportedly backing for an attack against Iran and how their involvement could impact the wider war.

Conflict Defense Policy

15. What impact will this conflict have on China?

Beijing is in wait-and-see mode. China was Iran’s major oil buyer, but that dependence was mainly one-way: China was buying around 80 percent of Iran’s oil exports, but those purchases accounted for less than 15 percent of China’s total imports.

Chinese leaders have always known that, as a net oil importer, the straits of Hormuz and Malacca (two narrow sea lanes that ships must traverse to deliver oil from the Middle East to China) presented a major energy security risk. Beijing has long feared that Washington would target Chinese oil tankers in a future US-China crisis, and it has been working furiously to reduce those risks. Today, due to that contingency planning, China is less dependent on imported oil than many observers realize. China is working to electrify the nation’s auto fleet and making shocking progress (electric vehicles can run on coal-fired power, which China has in abundance). And Chinese leaders took advantage of the past few years of low oil prices to go on a buying spree, beefing up their domestic reserves to plan for a future supply crisis such as the one they are now facing.

Overall, China is perhaps more prepared than any other major economy to face the energy crisis that could emerge from the situation in Iran. And Chinese leaders are very good at strategic planning. They will be looking for ways to turn this situation into an opportunity. Already, for example, the United States is reportedly moving some of its most advanced missile defense units from the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East—removing systems that, in Beijing’s view, directly threatened China’s security interests in the region. It is impossible to overstate the degree to which those movements are a massive win for Beijing. And if the United States ends up stuck in another Middle Eastern quagmire that cedes the Indo-Pacific to China, the wins will keep coming.

16. What impact will this conflict have on Russia?

The conflict in the Middle East is already playing into Russia’s hands.

The war in Iran has created global anxiety around the supply and availability of crude oil coming out of the Gulf. Earlier this week, oil prices surged to the highest they have been since 2022. To quell oil market fears, the Trump administration eased sanctions on Russian oil. Last Thursday, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a general license to allow for the delivery and sale of sanctioned Russian oil to India for thirty days. Meanwhile, reporting indicates that the administration is considering additional sanctions relief for Russia to enable the sale of Russian Urals.

This is a win for Russia. Russia’s economy has been in a steady decline since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Low oil prices combined with significant Western economic pressure including sanctions on oil majors and shadow fleet vessels as well as the oil price cap, reduced Russia’s energy revenue. US sanctions relief helps Putin sell Russian Urals, generating income for Moscow’s war machine.

It’s important to note that US sanctions relief does not equate to sanctions relief from the United Kingdom, the European Union, or other Western partners. If the United States eases sanctions on Russian oil but its partners do not, then there could be significant confusion in the compliance space. Financial institutions and the private sector will have to navigate a complex sanctions landscape and may risk exposing themselves to British or European sanctions if they facilitate the sale of Russian oil. Hopefully, the US administration is considering these challenges and coordinating its decisions with its coalition of partners that have sanctioned Russia in response to the war in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Qatar’s LNG capacity remains offline. Russian LNG is not sanctioned, and Russia remains a global supplier of LNG. If the Middle East conflict continues and Qatar is not able to restart its LNG infrastructure quickly, then we could expect to see Russia increasing its LNG exports in attempts to fill the gap and generate income.

—Kimberly Donovan is director of the Economic Statecraft Initiative within the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. She is a former senior Treasury official and National Security Council director.

17. Will the Houthis in Yemen get involved?

Coming to Iran’s defense does not provide the Houthis with the same domestic and reputational benefits that their involvement in the Gaza war did. It also carries new risks, particularly related to the detente the Houthis have had with Saudi Arabia since 2022. The Houthis could still decide to get involved in the Iran war, especially if they calculate that it makes sense to break that detente as Saudi Arabia doubles down on its support to the Houthis’ main rival inside of Yemen, the internationally recognized Yemeni government.

There are three scenarios for Houthi involvement:

Limited strikes on Israel to demonstrate solidarity with Iran;
Limited strikes on Red Sea shipping as they seek to test whether this is a new red line for Saudi Arabia or extract new concessions, given that Riyadh is depending on the Red Sea to maintain some oil production with the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed; or
Widespread Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, Saudi Arabia, and/or ground offensives inside of Yemen aimed at finally seizing Yemen’s oil and gas resources. This third scenario risks reigniting the Yemen war after years of calm and opening up a major new front in the region.

MENASource

Mar 10, 2026

Will the Houthis join the Iran war?

By Allison Minor

Houthi involvement in the Iran war could reignite the Yemen war after four years of relative calm, with significant implications for Yemen and the region.

Conflict Iran

18. How will this conflict impact Gaza?

Hamas would not have been what it is over the past twenty years without direct financial and material support from the Islamic Republic of Iran, which turned the terror group into one of its chief proxies, given its presence at Israel’s doorstep. Despite differences in religious orientation and doctrine between the Muslim Brotherhood offshoot and the primary Shia force in the world, Tehran has effectively used Hamas to ensure that there wouldn’t be peace or long-term stability between Palestinians and Israelis, prolonging the conflict, which is foundational for the theocratic regime.

Iran helped undermine the Oslo process of the 1990s, militarize the Second Intifada in the early 2000s, and turn post-2005 Israeli withdrawal from Gaza into a “resistance” citadel. Thus, the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel and Gaza’s subsequent decimation would not have occurred without cumulative Iranian involvement. Furthermore, the regime is constantly meddling in the West Bank, supporting rogue Palestinian militants and plots to destabilize the Palestinian Authority and encourage heavy-handed Israeli military actions, hoping this could trigger chaos and a “Third Intifada.”

A severely weakened regime in Tehran that lacks financial means and reach will likely roll back Iran’s involvement in the Palestinian issue and minimize meddling and sabotage by IRGC agents and officers. This would have various political implications, making groups like Hamas much more vulnerable and unable to rely on Iranian support for armed resistance, while weakening the pro-Iran faction within the group’s politburo.

Alternatively, there is a small but not insignificant risk that the battered and angry remnants of the regime may deploy its limited resources in support of extreme terror activities in Israel and Gaza and the West Bank by using Palestinian elements either sympathetic to Tehran’s cause or purely lured in by financial incentives. Nevertheless, Iranian-aligned elements of Hamas and other Palestinian groups will experience significant setbacks that compound the calamity faced by the Palestinian national project in the aftermath of October 7, further strengthening Israel’s position in the conflict and bolstering its desires for how Gaza’s future trajectory and prospects should unfold.

—Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib leads Realign For Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse and develops a new policy framework for rejuvenated pro-Palestine advocacy.

19. How will the war impact US-Gulf relations?

The war will have lasting impacts on US-Gulf relations, but those impacts are still evolving in the war’s second week. In the near term, Gulf countries will seek stronger US security support, including munitions and other air defense support to help defend against Iranian attacks. They will also want clearer US security guarantees over the long term. How the United States responds to these requests will shape Gulf countries’ calculus as they grapple with whether the benefits of housing US military bases are worth the growing risks those bases bring.

Another critical factor will be what the Iranian threat looks like after US operations conclude and the degree to which the United States coordinates with its Gulf partners as it concludes its operations. Early signs suggest the Iranian regime will prove resilient, and Iran has demonstrated that it can terrorize its neighbors with low-cost drones and disruptions to the Strait of Hormuz that are difficult to eliminate with an air campaign alone. Alternatively, regime collapse and a civil war inside Iran could have lasting consequences for Gulf security. If the Iran that emerges from this war poses a long-term threat to Gulf national security and economic growth, and if Gulf countries assess that the United States is not doing enough to help them combat that threat, then it will create a crippling strain on US-Gulf relations.

—Allison Minor

20. What other countries could get involved if this war expands?

While the United States and Israel are leading operations against Iran, it is Arab Gulf countries that have found themselves on the front lines. The vast majority of Iranian missile and drone attacks have targeted Gulf countries, particularly the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Gulf countries are weighing how best to deal with the Iranian threat both now and in the long term, but it remains unclear if they will choose to confront Iran militarily, pursue targeted actions to restore a degree of deterrence, or seek to negotiate a new detente with Iran. Thus far, the Gulf countries have not responded militarily to Iranian attacks and have refuted claims suggesting otherwise. The UAE is reportedly considering non-kinetic means to restore deterrence with Iran, while Oman is actively pursuing negotiations.

Lebanon and Iraq are also being pulled into the conflict: Israel launched a major campaign in Lebanon following attacks from Hezbollah that included airstrikes in southern Beirut and an expanded Israeli military presence in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese government sees the campaign as a threat to its efforts to navigate Lebanon out of an economic and political crisis and is actively pursuing negotiations with Israel and the United States while demonstrating that it is willing to crack down on Hezbollah in new ways.

The United States is conducting strikes on Iran-backed militias in Iraq in response to attacks on US bases and diplomatic facilities inside the country, and the stoppage of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has forced Iraq to halt oil production. All this comes as Iraq navigates difficult government formation negotiations and threatens to disrupt an era of relative stability in the country.

—Allison Minor

The post Twenty questions (and expert answers) about the Iran war appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Ankara and Washington can build on recent groundwork to improve relations and stability

Murat Yeşiltaş — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Turkish-US relations have long been overshadowed and stymied by crisis: S-400 sanctions, the People’s Defense Units (YPG) and YPG influence in Syria, F-35 defense procurement, competitive alignments in the Eastern Mediterranean, and the normative divisions created by regional conflicts. Despite these complex problems, after President Donald Trump returned to the White House, 2025 became a transitional year in which these problems were not solved but did not paralyze bilateral relations; moreover, the relationship was carried forward by increasing areas of compromise. Therefore, as we move further into 2026, the fundamental question is not whether there will be a major break or rapprochement but whether the two countries transform the pragmatic groundwork laid in 2025 into a more permanent working arrangement and make areas of compromise the main axis driving the relationship.

In this context, compromise should be viewed not as romanticism but as a geopolitical necessity and a cost-reduction mechanism. The interests of Turkey and the United States do not coincide one to one but, when they clash, the costs paid by both sides increase. Therefore, the emerging picture can be summarized as the two countries moving toward greater coordination in areas where they cannot replace each other and managing their disputes by compartmentalizing them. The return of leadership diplomacy, coordination aimed at producing results on the ground in Gaza, the window of opportunity for cooperation in post-Bashar al-Assad Syria and the Middle East, signals of controlled normalization in the defense sector, the institutional leverage created by the July 2026 NATO Summit, and Trump’s visit to Ankara beforehand all lead to the same conclusion: the relationship can progress not only through crisis-producing issues but also through crisis-preventing areas of agreement.

Leadership diplomacy

The first practical result of leadership diplomacy was the reactivation of that crucial channel with President Recep Erdoğan’s visit to Washington in 2025. The critical implication of this is that most of the problems in Turkish-US relations are political, not technical; even those that appear technical carry the burden of domestic politics, bureaucratic resistance, and intra-Alliance bargaining. Leader-level diplomacy does not eliminate this burden, but it does two things. First, it removes a deadlock from being a permanent obstacle; second, it produces the political authorization that makes technical negotiations possible. What is needed to expand areas of compromise in 2026 is to anchor this momentum in institutional channels: regular strategic dialogue, coordination between defense and foreign affairs channels, and rapid contact mechanisms that can be activated in times of crisis. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan’s functional contribution on Syria and Gaza in 2025 serves as proof for the White House of improved Turkish-US relations.

Gaza: Despite differences in rhetoric, results-oriented cooperation on the ground

The Gaza issue in Turkish-US relations can be positioned as an important example of compromise in 2025. Although Turkey and the United States have different discourses and priorities regarding the region, it was possible to produce results on the ground in areas such as establishing a ceasefire, access to humanitarian aid, practical implementation mechanisms, and diplomatic coordination. This stands out as a model in which compromise means producing the same result rather than establishing the same discourse.

In 2026, the strategic value of the Gaza file is twofold. First, it demonstrates that a joint crisis management capacity can be developed despite the long-standing normative divergence in Turkish-US relations. Second, this capacity is not just a momentary agreement. If it evolves into a process that can be sustained through multilateral formats, it creates a common output area that reduces regional costs for both countries. But the lesson of 2025 is clear: harmony is not absolute; it is sustainable when it is functional and goal oriented. Despite Israel’s objections, the White House’s support for Turkey’s participation in the International Stabilization Force and Ankara’s willingness to participate are among the most promising recent developments on the Ankara-Washington front. More importantly, the Turkish foreign minister’s presence as a signatory—standing alongside Trump at the inaugural meeting of his Board of Peace in Davos—underscores the weight Washington assigns to Turkey in addressing the Gaza crisis and highlights the potentially constructive role Ankara could play on the ground.

Syria and the Middle East after Assad

The Syria issue has long been a source of tension in Turkish-US relations. However, the past year has shown that the post-Assad era offers an opportunity to reframe this issue. The survival of the new order, the country’s territorial integrity, the establishment of central authority, the easing of sanctions, and the start of reconstruction processes create broad common ground between Ankara and Washington.

The key point that makes compromise possible here is this: for Turkey, stability in Syria means not only increasing border security but also preventing the risk of fragmentation and ensuring that terrorist threats are not reproduced. For the United States, a stable Syria is an outcome that limits the risk of regional wars spreading and reduces the need for costly military engagement. Therefore, in 2026, Syria might cease to be an area where the two countries pursue the same goal with different means and instead evolve into a partial convergence of means.

The file on the YPG and the YPG-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is not completely closed; however, with the SDF withdrawing from areas it had long controlled in the face of advancing Syrian forces, Ankara-Washington ties appear to be entering a new phase in terms of Syria. In particular, US Ambassador Tom Barrack’s remark that the conditions on the ground—and thus the perceived need for the SDF in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)—have changed could be read as a historic turning point in Turkish-US relations. The critical element that will increase reconciliation in 2026 is verifiable progress on the ground in the post-SDF era: an integration timetable, security arrangements, the alignment of local administrations with the central state, and the limitation of moves by external actors that undermine stability. When this happens, the Syria file could transform from an unsolvable crisis to a manageable transition in the relationship. Furthermore, Washington’s goal is both to align with Ankara on the SDF/YPG issue and to play a role in bringing Israel to an understanding with Syria. Washington and Ankara are on the same page regarding Turkey’s political and military role in Syria providing security for Israel. When considered alongside the constructive and reasonable progress on the Gaza file, this could put the United States, Arab states, and Gulf countries on the same page—and, in turn, create an opportunity for Washington to renew its image as a Middle East peacemaker. This is a new historical threshold and allows for a restructuring of the Middle East regional security architecture that produces security for everyone. With its diplomatic capacity and crisis resolution capabilities, Turkey stands out as a key country in such a process. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan’s evolving defense pact—and the ongoing talks on Turkey’s potential participation—constitute a noteworthy development, signaling that regional security is shifting from ad hoc responses toward a more institutionalized architecture.

The issue of Iran—one of the critical topics in Turkish-US relations in the Middle East—stands out as an area to be managed (rather than to seek full agreement). Before the conflict broke out, Turkey pursued a cautious approach based on regional balance, economic interaction channels, and border security and cautioned against the military option.

Ankara and Washington share many interest vis-à-vis Iran, including preventing instability by Iranian proxy networks, securing maritime trade routes, limiting Iran’s nuclear program, and ensuring the resilience to shocks of regional energy and connectivity projects. However, Turkey’s security concerns related to potential outcomes of regime collapse and a power vacuum take precedence in policymakers decision-making.

Nevertheless, the United States and Turkey need to stay closely coordinated to prevent fallout from the conflict creating shocks to bilateral relations. Turkey is also poised to play a role in an eventual deescalation and resolution, in tandem with other regional countries.

Defense cooperation

Defense cooperation in Turkish-US relations is both the most fragile and the highest strategic lever. Throughout 2025, signals of normalization and controlled progress at the rhetorical level in the defense sector are coming to the fore: the F-35 issue becoming renegotiable, the emergence of more flexible language on US sanctions on weapons and military systems subject to the Countering America’s Adversaries through Sanctions Act, the F-16 procurement and modernization process advancing to a certain stage, and Turkey continuing its air force modernization with different options. Ankara’s Eurofighter initiative is a striking example of this.

It would be wrong to interpret this table as an immediate solution, but to say that there is no solution at all would miss the mark for 2026. In the defense sector, compromise is achieved not through a single major decision but through a series of complementary, small steps: technical working groups, oversight and transparency mechanisms that address compliance and security concerns, supply chain and subsystem cooperation, joint production, and modernization packages. In particular, the emergence of Turkey’s need for critical components such as domestic fighter jets and engines presents an opportunity to shift the relationship from the crisis files of the past to the capacity partnership of the future. Real compromise could grow in 2026 as the parties shift from the language of maximum demand to the language of feasible packages.

NATO and European security

One of the most important topics to emphasize in bilateral relations is Turkey’s hosting of the 2026 NATO Summit. This is not a protocol detail in terms of bilateral relations; it is a strategic framework opportunity. NATO is the historical backbone of Turkish-US relations. When the backbone is strengthened, the management of side issues also becomes easier.

Washington’s approach in 2026, which pushes Europe to take on more responsibility and pressures it to share the defense burden, increases Turkey’s value within the Alliance. For Ankara, this opportunity is not just about rehashing the rhetoric of strategic importance—it is about institutionalizing coordination through concrete agendas: southern flank security, Black Sea balance, defense industrial capacity, readiness levels, and new threat areas. If the summit process is well managed, Turkish-US relations could enter a more predictable trajectory over the next year, fueled by a common Alliance agenda rather than scattered crisis headlines.

Russia-Ukraine and the Black Sea

In the context of the Russia-Ukraine War, Turkey’s mediation and balancing policy is seen by Washington as a complementary diplomatic role. This area offers one of the most realistic forms of compromise: not complete alignment but a division of labor. There are differences between the US approach and Turkey’s concerns about Black Sea balance, but both sides acknowledge the strategic value of keeping diplomatic channels open and striving to manage the war in a controlled manner. Trump’s frequent references to Turkey’s mediation capacity on Ukraine is more than a normative position; it is an indication that Turkey’s military diplomatic capacity is understood.

What will increase consensus in 2026 is the institutionalization of this division of labor: preventing escalation in the Black Sea, managing trade and maritime security risks, and maintaining concrete mechanisms such as prisoner exchanges and humanitarian mechanisms could make Turkey a burden reducer from Washington’s perspective. Success in this area will be measured less by declaring a common position and more by operating a common crisis management capacity.

South Caucasus

The capacity for compromise in Turkish-US relations can be interpreted as a quiet coordination that manifests itself in the Middle East, the NATO axis, and the South Caucasus. Although Washington and Ankara’s perspectives on this region do not always fit within the same conceptual framework, the common ground between the two capitals is clear: strengthening lasting stability in the South Caucasus, ending cycles of conflict, and preventing the region from becoming a fierce proxy arena for external power competition. For this reason, the Caucasus could form a constructive agenda in the Turkey-US relationship, one that does not generate major headlines but makes the relationship more predictable.

The logic of this compromise takes shape on two levels. First, it supports normalization and peace processes (e.g., between Armenia and Azerbaijan). Progress toward regional peace is consistent with Turkey’s goals of security and connectivity in its immediate neighborhood, while also contributing to the erosion of Russia-centered security dependencies. Second, a security approach that enhances the capacity of regional actors but does not encourage conflict requires a more measured form of engagement aimed at deterrence and stability without completely overwhelming the field with military competition.

In these early days of 2026, there is another reason for addressing the Caucasus as a separate point of agreement in Turkish-US relations: this region is a rare area in which the two countries’ interests often produce complementarity rather than competition. Turkey’s proximity to the region, its political influence, and its capacity for connectivity—combined with the United States’ diplomatic weight and its ability to generate international legitimacy—increase the likelihood of producing a solution file rather than a crisis file. Of course, there are vulnerabilities. The slowdown of peace processes, disruptive moves by external actors, and internal political fluctuations could turn this area back into a source of tension. However, precisely because of these risks, the Caucasus will be an important testing ground in 2026 for what compromise means in Turkish-US relations: not complete alignment in rhetoric but coordination that enhances stability on the ground.

Conclusion

In 2026, Ankara and Washington can create strategic breathing room in their relations through well-designed compromises. The common character of these compromises is cost-reducing functionality rather than ideological convergence. This includes results-oriented coordination on the ground in Gaza, common ground for the sustainability of the post-Assad order in Syria and the Middle East, a shift from crisis to process management in the defense sector, a strengthened institutional backbone within the NATO 2026 framework, and a division of labor in the Black Sea. They all point to the same thing: the future of the relationship lies not in denying disagreements but in accumulating enough common ground to prevent disagreements from holding the relationship hostage.

If these areas of compromise are linked to shared timelines, verifiable steps, and regular consultation mechanisms, Turkish-US relations could make a real leap from controlled fragility to institutionalized pragmatism. And this leap would produce what both sides need most in today’s stormy international environment: predictability.

Murat Yeşiltaş serves as director of foreign policy research at the Foundation for Political, Economic, and Social Research, a policy think tank based in Ankara and also known as SETA. In addition, he is a professor of international politics at the Social Science University of Ankara.

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Within the Atlantic Council’s longstanding commitment to strengthening the transatlantic relationship, the Atlantic Council Turkey Program conducts research, provides thought leadership, and offers a platform for strategic dialogue between the US, Turkey, and NATO allies to address the region’s toughest challenges and explore opportunities, including in the fields of energy, business & trade, technology, defense, and security.

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Foe or friend? US-Turkey bilateral relations seem set to improve as interests align

Rich Outzen — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Few alliance relationships generate as much public drama as US-Turkish ties. In the roughly seventy-five years since Turkish accession to NATO there have been ups and downs between Washington and Ankara, with the past twenty years marked by particularly sharp differences over regional policy and frequent bouts of public criticism and recriminations. President Trump’s second term has brought a positive turn in tone and optics—but there are still widespread perceptions in both capitals that the “other” ally is at best unreliable and perhaps more foe than friend.

Mutually antagonistic narratives have served domestic political purposes in both countries and have become something of a staple in the age of populist democracy of the twenty-first century. Yet the two countries rely on each other extensively in matters of trade, diplomacy, and security. State-to-state relationships are sometimes smoothed over in public but fractious in practice; the US-Turkish dyad is the rarer obverse: disagreeable in public for domestic audiences while resting on a high degree of alignment and collaboration.

Where do bilateral relations go when trust is low, mutual perception negative, but operational collaboration frequent? The answer depends less on rhetoric or polemical discourse and more on alignment of practical interests: We therefore must clear away the smoke of domestically motivated rhetoric to instead focus on mutual benefit. If two states pursue compatible goals and interests, room remains to balance internal political benefits with geopolitical cooperation in a form of complex interdependence. Whether that is the case for the United States and Turkey is a matter of substantial interest, given the weight that both have in the international system and the substantial number of crises and international matters that affect them.

Rorschach test

Articulating interests is more of a political than an academic exercise. It also presents something of a Rorschach test: If you ascribe ideological frames as determinative of status for Ankara (e.g., neo-Ottomanism, Muslim Brotherhood Islamism, reckless aggression) it brings you to one implied set of Turkish interests. If you accept declarative policy as the whole story you get another implied set. It is similarly the case for the United States: If you assume hegemonic interests are the primary driver, it takes you down a certain path; however, that road shifts significantly between and sometimes within presidential administrations. American interests as viewed by Trump differ significantly from those of his predecessor. Yet pattern analysis over time—observed behaviors and statements toward particular goals—tell us how specific a US president and his Turkish counterpart actually perceive the degree to which their interests overlap.

As an imperfect but useful generality, we can ascribe the following traits to Turkish foreign policy: multiaxial engagement and balance-seeking, nationalistic, hard power/realpolitik, traditionally but conditionally attached to the status quo. For decades, Ankara has sought to maximize autonomy while pressing for positive coalitions, where possible. For most of the current century, the United States has focused on maintaining a privileged or primary position in the international system, leavened increasingly with a dose of parsimony and pragmatism, but resting on what might be called enduring counter-revisionism (still in the tradition of US naval strategist and historian Alfred Thayer Mahan).

Ankara and Washington have demonstrated a generally cooperative approach across numerous regional and global issues in recent decades because their top-line approaches are compatible: one a retrenching-but-potent leading power, the other a rising middle power, both disinclined to establish imperial arrangements or to allow others to do so. A brief review of these issues illustrates this general (if imperfect) alignment by assigning numeric values reflecting relative alignment of strategic and diplomatic approaches between the two. Any such numbers game comes with attendant risk of overgeneralizing and missing some context, but statecraft and policy analysis at the higher levels of abstraction unavoidably entail some risk in this regard. So the numbers below are presented as suggestive rather than determinative.

In the table below, full interest alignment equals 1, partial interest alignment 0.5, neither alignment nor friction 0, friction -0.5, counteralignment -1. Descriptions of the cases follow the table.

Table 1: Sizing up US-Turkish alignment and friction on sixteen issues

Regional matter	Turkish position	US position	Assessment	Score
Ukraine/Black Sea	Ukraine survives	Ukraine survives	Full alignment	+1
Caucasus	Peace/prosperity deals	Iran, Russia lose influence	Full alignment	+1
Central Asia	Middle Corridor/ Organization of Turkic States	Russia, China influence limited	Full alignment	+1
Africa	Greater engagement	Russia, China influence limited	Full alignment	+1
Syria	Stable, unified	Stable, unified	Full alignment	+1
Iraq	Stable, unified, not under Iranian control	Stable, unified, not under Iranian control	Full alignment	+1
Gaza	Peace/Israel out	Peace/Hamas out	Partial alignment	+0.5
Energy	Diversify supply	Diversify supply/ marginalize Iran and Russia	Partial alignment	+0.5
US global leadership	US leadership conditional	US leadership but with counterbalances	Partial alignment	+0.5
Trade/defense trade	Autonomous Turkey, sales both ways	Turkey buys more/ doesn’t compete with US firms	Partial alignment	+0.5
European Union	Key trade partner, accession woes	Key trade partner, perceived as exploitative	Alignment but not cooperation	0
Eastern Mediterranean	Greater role for Turkey	Protect Greece	Friction	-0.5
Iran	Deterred but engaged, stable	Regime replaced or weakened	Friction	-0.5
Sanctions	Only multilateral	Multilateral and Minilateral	Friction	-0.5
Israel	Constrain Israel	Fully support Israel	Friction	-1
Venezuela	Engaged	Deterred/punished	Unalignment	-1

Black Sea/Ukraine: Both sides wish to see the war end with Ukrainian independence intact; neither recognizes Russian claims over Crimea or Donbass, though Washington has signaled willingness to negotiate the status of territories Russia partially or fully occupies at present. Some differences exist regarding Black Sea access: The United States might like to have access for its own ships and more broadly for a NATO presence and routine access, while Turkey has preferred littoral NATO states do the lifting and a strict interpretation of the Montreux Convention; but neither wants a Russian conquest of Ukraine’s coastline. For a Trump administration interested in some compromise deal with Moscow, the Turkish position is complementary.

Caucasus/Russia: While the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) offers wins for the region and the United States, the Armenian position is a wildcard with elections approaching. Should Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan get the boot in parliamentary elections (to be held no later than mid-June 2026), the United States may tack back to a position that pressures Azerbaijan and marginalizes Ankara. Russian and Iranian pushback on a deal that opens the region to trade on US-friendly terms can be expected. Interest alignment here between Ankara and Washington is solid, though the prospects for realized gain uncertain.

Central Asia: The TRIPP shows US interest in opening up more trade to Central Asia and balancing against outright domination of the region by Russia or China. The Middle Corridor and the Organization of Turkic States both have value in this regard—and have generated more interest from the Trump administration than its predecessor. Central Asia has not traditionally been an area of high investment for the US government; however, energy companies are interested, so having an ally be more engaged is an advantage.

Africa: US investment and engagement in Africa has lagged, but Washington has concerns about Chinese or Russian influence on the continent. Meanwhile, Turkey has dramatically increased its diplomatic, military, and economic presence in Africa over the past two decades. In countries like Somalia and Libya, Turkish presence has lent heft to US diplomatic and counterterror initiatives. Africa demonstrates the complementarity of having compatible goals but varying levels of commitment.

Syria: Trump has made clear his policy that Syria will be stabilized and maintained as a unitary state and that Ahmed al-Sharaa is an acceptable figure to lead. This comports with Turkish policy, despite Israel’s objections. The assignment of Trump confidant Thomas J. Barrack Jr. as special envoy and positive statements from the US-Turkish working group on Syria have shown close convergence on Syria policy, a remarkable turnaround from the previous decade. The January 2026 agreement to reintegrate northeast Syria with the Syrian Transitional Government was a sign that this alignment was proving determinative on the ground.

Iraq: Washington wants a stable Iraq that is: not dominated by Iran; oriented to Western energy markets more than Iranian or Chinese; and working amicably with the Kurdistan Regional Government. Iraq may not fulfill all those interests, but Ankara shares them, and the Development Road project to foster Eastern trade with Europe provides a vehicle for all three countries to earn profits while tightening Baghdad’s ties to Western economies. The presence of PKK fighters in northern Iraq remains a point of friction, but ongoing negotiations to disarm the PKK – and US support for those talks – has taken helped reduce that friction.

Gaza: Washington and Ankara both pressed Israel and Hamas, respectively, to accept a ceasefire deal, return of hostages, and military withdrawal from Gaza in return for disarmament. While the truce remains shaky as of late 2025 and the end state Trump and Erdoğan have in mind may differ somewhat, the coordination on diplomatic efforts has been unambiguous.

Iran: There is divergence here between the hard line taken in Washington toward the Islamic Republic and the modus vivendi approach in Ankara. While Ankara may not want regime change in Tehran, and wants to protect trade with its neighbor, the Turkish government has no illusions about Tehran’s destabilizing regional behavior and shares an interest in deterring it. Ankara has tightened enforcement of multilateral sanctions on the Iranian nuclear program—partially redressing a long-standing US grievance with Ankara. The launch of Israel-U.S. Operation Epic Fury to destroy Iran’s power projection and nuclear capabilities has driven fears of instability and chaos along the Turkish border, turning this from an area of some overlap into an area of friction.

Energy: Ankara’s energy diplomacy has sought to position the country as a hub for multidirectional energy transit and major new gas, oil, and nuclear deals have been signed with Washington. US pressure to decrease oil purchases from Russia has created some strain, as Ankara cannot shift to alternate suppliers as quickly as it can with gas.

US global leadership: American leadership that cooperates with Ankara on key strategic objectives, praising in public and transacting in private, plays like music to the ears of Turks. This contrasts greatly with the constraining approach Turkish leaders called for regarding perceived American overreach in Iraq, Syria, and other regions over the past two decades, including demands to reform the United Nations to lessen the power of the five permanent members. Still, this middle power and the great power have imperfect but positive alignment at present.

Trade/defense trade: The relatively light 15 percent tariff levied on Turkish goods and the $100 billion shared goal for bilateral trade are clear indicators of positive intentions. But defense trade is thorny, with a congressional role and some competition between rising Turkish defense players and US prime defense contractors.

European Union: Ankara and Washington remain at odds with Brussels ideologically and stylistically, while maintaining strong strategic and trade ties with numerous members states. Yet the tensions stem from different sources: Turkish desire to enter the bloc and the American administration’s desire to end what it perceives as the EU’s exploitative trade and security practices.

Eastern Mediterranean: The continuing friction between Greece and Turkey redounds against US-Turkish bilateral relations—a problem that continues to play out in the region and in Congress.

Sanctions: The divergences are clear regarding imposition: Ankara supports multilateral but generally not unilateral sanctions and enforcement, whereas the Turkish track record looks spotty from Washington’s perspective.

Israel: Ankara and Jerusalem pursued a rapprochement in the months before October 7, 2023; since then, rancor, acrimony, and mutual suspicion have become the norm. While regional competition over Syria, the Palestinians, and other issues can be managed, related tensions spill over into US-Turkish bilateral relations in a major way—and that seems likely to persist.

Venezuela: Erdoğan’s quixotic friendship with President Maduro had its roots in terms of oil sales and multipolarity theory, but was a clear point of policy divergence as Trump upped the pressure level on Caracas. With the early 2026 arrest of Maduro and muted response from Ankara, this seems likely to be a decreasing source of tension in U.S.-Turkish relations.

A clear trend and policy takeaway

In conclusion, this assessment sketch of sixteen complicated cases of regional and global policy matters yields eleven that demonstrate substantial bilateral alignment, four with significant unalignment, and one somewhere in between. The aggregate score by the simple rubric of “words and deeds reflect alignment” was positive (+4.5 – with the caveat that these numbers are illustrative but rooted more in subjective alignment rather than formal quantitative criteria). An honest critic might quibble with individual ratings and the framing of the cases or argue for the salience of other matters. Yet sixteen is a reasonable sample size, the thought exercise is revealing, and the trend clear: more alignment than friction overall.

The policy takeaway is equally clear: maintaining a working relationship is vital for both countries. Those arguing for punitive approaches (by the United States) or hedging (by Turkey) disregard potential mutual benefits as well as both opportunity costs and implementation costs. Managing differences and satisfying domestic sentiment require an adaptive response from policy elites in both countries, but the record of cooperation in 2025 indicates that the pragmatism of both presidents fits the moment—and the alignment.

Rich Outzen is a geopolitical consultant and nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Turkey with thirty-two years of government service both in uniform and as a civilian. Follow him on X @RichOutzen.

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Q&A with Rep. James Walkinshaw (VA-11)

Atlantic Council Turkey Program — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Congressman James Walkinshaw is a first-term representative of Virginia’s eleventh congressional district. The Defense Journal of the Atlantic Council Turkey Program recently interviewed Rep. Walkinshaw covering US-Turkey relations, the Caucus on US-Turkish Relations and Turkish Americans, and Congress’ role in foreign policymaking.

This interview was conducted on January 26, 2026 and has been lightly edited for style.

DJ: We’ve heard that you have agreed to join the Caucus on US-Turkish Relations and Turkish Americans—great news for the bilateral relationship and those interested in it. Can you tell us a little bit about the role of congressional caucuses in general and why we need a Turkey Caucus?

Walkinshaw: I served as chief of staff to the late Rep. Gerry Connolly for nearly a decade. During that time, Rep. Connolly was a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and served as a co-chair of the bipartisan Caucus on US-Turkish Relations and Turkish Americans. In my capacity as chief of staff, I supported his leadership on the caucus and, in response to constituent engagement and the strategic importance of the US–Turkish relationship, chose to join the caucus myself.

Congressional country caucuses can play a constructive role in strengthening bilateral relationships, while also providing a bipartisan forum to raise concerns and address areas of disagreement. Rep. Connolly understood the importance of maintaining a strong diplomatic relationship with Turkey, but he was also clear-eyed and outspoken about President Erdoğan’s persistent efforts to consolidate power and suppress political dissent. He used his position as co-chair to consistently sound the alarm about the erosion of democratic norms in Turkey.

I spent years supporting Rep. Connolly’s work in this space, and I intend to use my role on the caucus to continue advocating for a stable, prosperous, and democratic Turkey, and a strong US-Turkish relationship.

DJ: Turkey plays an important role in several major foreign policy priorities for Washington: ending the war in Ukraine, stabilizing Syria, finding a better way out for Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza, and forging a lasting peace in the South Caucasus. And despite the prevailing polarization in US politics, there have been encouraging signs of bipartisan approach in these areas—illustrated by the trip of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, and Rep. Joe Wilson, a Republican, to Syria and the region last August. How hard is it to work across the aisle on foreign policy matters in the current environment?

Walkinshaw: US foreign policy is framed through bilateral ties, diplomatic and security agreements, treaties, and international organizations with guiding principles to promote democracy, ensure stability, and to invest and work with partners while deterring escalation or military action by adversaries.

It requires balancing the three D’s: defense, diplomacy, and development. Congress may not always agree on how the three D’s should be best implemented, but it’s important to acknowledge that one should not exist without the other and that’s the balance we are always trying to strike when working on foreign policy matters in Congress. Nevertheless, my approach is to identify a path to “yes.” Effective governance requires bipartisan engagement and a willingness to work constructively with colleagues across the aisle. Even in such a polarized environment, I am pleased that Congress worked on consequential issues such as reunifying families separated after the Korean War by passing the Korean American Divided Families National Registry Act, repealing the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations for Use of Military Force, and reestablishing the program at the US State Department to support the Ukrainian government in tracking Ukrainian children abducted by Russia. While significant work remains, these efforts underscore that there are serious foreign policy challenges where Congress can, and must, continue to act in a bipartisan manner.

DJ: How do you see the role of Congress—both houses—in shaping US foreign policy and interacting with the executive branch? What is the right balance between oversight/checks and balances on the one hand and “divisions stop at the water’s edge” on the other?

Walkinshaw: Congress is the preeminent branch of government, with broad powers outlined in Article I of the Constitution. What we have seen over the last twenty years, when the White House and Congress are controlled by different parties, Congress finds its Article 1 powers, and when the White House and Congress are controlled by the same party, Congress loses sight of its Article 1 powers. Article 1 of the US Constitution states clearly that Congress has the power to declare war, to lay and collect taxes and duties, and regulate commerce with foreign nations. President Trump is running roughshod and Congress has the responsibility to assert its authorities under the Constitution. President Trump illegally invaded Venezuela with no congressional authorization, putting US service members’ lives at risk, has implemented tariffs unilaterally and illegally, and recently foolishly threatened to purchase or invade Greenland.

Congress must reassert its powers under Article 1 in a bipartisan manner. I’ve supported War Powers resolutions to withdraw troops from hostilities that haven’t been authorized by Congress and voted to terminate the president’s misuse of International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) authorities to implement tariffs on long-standing US allies. This is a consequential moment in modern American history. President Trump has repeatedly undermined the postwar, rules-based international order and pressured long-standing US allies. Congress possesses clear constitutional authorities to act as a check on this behavior. The challenge is not a lack of power, but a lack of political will among some members to exercise it in the face of partisan pressure and potential political retaliation.

DJ: Your district is one of a handful in the Congress that have massive intrinsic interest in foreign policy and foreign affairs—because of a significant foreign-born population, businesses with foreign interests, and constituents involved with foreign policy and defense. Do you get a lot of input from constituents in your district about foreign policy?

Walkinshaw: I’m proud to represent such a diverse district: 31 percent of the residents in my district are foreign-born. VA-11 is home to a vibrant Korean American community, Uyghur community, South Asian community, and many other immigrant communities that enrich our civic life. VA-11 is also home to more than 50,000 federal employees, many of whom bring national security, foreign policy, and public service experience shaped by our proximity to Washington, DC, and the Pentagon. As a result, my constituents are deeply engaged, highly informed, and passionate about international affairs and US foreign policy.

I value that engagement and actively seek input from constituents, welcome substantive dialogue on their priorities and concerns, and work to ensure their perspectives inform the actions I take in Congress. Representing this district carries both a responsibility and an opportunity; to listen, to lead, and to translate constituent expertise into effective policymaking.

DJ: The US-Turkish relationship has traditionally been focused on defense and security and followed the ups and downs of regional crises. Is it possible to broaden that scope a bit through people-to-people ties, parliamentary exchanges, and greater business cooperation? Is there a role for Congress to play in catalyzing that sort of growth?

Walkinshaw: It is possible to broaden and deepen the US-Turkish relationship, and Congress can play a constructive role in catalyzing that progress. Increased people-to-people ties, parliamentary exchange, and greater business cooperation can and should play an important role in advancing the dialogue around the benefits of civil society and democracy.

DJ: Your predecessor, Congressman Connolly, was a co-chair of the Turkey Caucus, and you were a major support to him during your previous work. Is there unfinished work for the caucus, and what do you see as the best priorities for it after several years of being relatively quiet?

Walkinshaw: The late Rep. Connolly was a steadfast advocate for democratic governance and the rule of law in Turkey. He forcefully condemned the 2016 coup attempt and was equally clear-eyed about President Erdoğan’s subsequent consolidation of power and erosion of democratic institutions. I share those concerns.

At the same time, it is important to recognize Turkey’s significant diplomatic role in a volatile region. Owing to its geostrategic position at the crossroads of Europe, the Middle East, and the South Caucasus, Turkey has at times served as a key intermediary, including through its role in brokering the Black Sea Grain Initiative and supporting US efforts to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Moving forward, my approach is to uphold democratic principles while engaging with strategic realities.

DJ: What are your greatest concerns regarding US-Turkish relations currently, and what (if any) advice would you have for leaders in both countries to address those?

Walkinshaw: My primary concerns regarding US-Turkish relations center on President Erdoğan’s consolidation of power and his continued engagement with US adversaries. His suppression of political dissent and pursuit of closer alignment with blocs such as BRICS raise serious questions, particularly given Turkey’s status as a NATO ally.

A stronger and more durable US-Turkish relationship ultimately depends on shared democratic commitments. Reaffirming respect for free and fair elections, the rule of law, and the expressed priorities of the Turkish people would not only strengthen Turkey’s democratic institutions but also improve trust and cooperation with the United States and our allies. With respect to President Trump, his record reflects a disregard for democratic norms and the postwar rules-based international order. While his tenure is limited, Congress retains an enduring responsibility to assert its constitutional authorities. I remain confident that Congress will be positioned to more effectively reassert its role, restore oversight, and serve as a meaningful check on executive overreach in the near future.

Congressman James Walkinshaw is a first-term representative of Virginia’s eleventh congressional district. Congressman Walkinshaw serves on the influential House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, on the Military and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee, and on the Committee on Homeland Security. He is the Founder and Co-Chair of the Federal Workforce Caucus, launched alongside Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)

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Navigating change: US-Turkish defense relations in 2026

Atlantic Council Turkey Program — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Foreword

As we enter the second year of the Trump Administration, US-Turkish relations and developments in regions critical to both have been dramatic and fast-paced. Events in Syria and Libya are trending towards state consolidation and strategic opportunity for both Washington and Ankara, while the continuing Russian invasion of Ukraine at NATO’s doorstep, the volatile situation in Gaza, and the unfolding war in Iran present challenges both sides seek to navigate in complementary ways.

Technological and geopolitical developments have increased the need for close consultation between the NATO allies, and bilateral coordination has been evident across a range of issues. Yet strategic cooperation remains constrained by a variety of factors. This issue of the Defense Journal takes up several of the regional, military-technical, and policy issues of interest to readers in both countries and to those tracking US-Turkish relations. In an era of positive relations between the two countries’ presidents, parliamentary relations and policy influence also carry great weight—and in this issue we are pleased to have interviews with US Congressman James Walkinshaw and the chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the Turkish Parliament Fuat Oktay to add the legislative perspective to bilateral strategic ties.

Rich Outzen and Can Kasapoglu, Defense Journal by Atlantic Council Turkey Program co-managing editors

Articles

Foe or friend? US-Turkey bilateral relations seem set to improve as interests align

By Rich Outzen

Is Syria on the right path?

By Asaad Sam Hanna

Q&A with Rep. James Walkinshaw (VA-11)

By Atlantic Council Turkey Program

Q&A with Turkish Member of Parliament Fuat Oktay

By Atlantic Council Turkey Program

Ankara and Washington can build on recent groundwork to improve relations and stability

By Murat Yeşiltaş

As Ankara rethinks its Libyan policy, the Haftar family stands to gain

By Karim Mezran and Alissa Pavia

Air defense in the age of saturation: Europe after the post-Cold War peace dividend illusion and Turkey’s Steel Dome

By Can Kasapoğlu

Honorary advisory board

The Defense Journal by Atlantic Council Turkey Program‘s honorary advisory board provides vision and direction for the journal. We are honored to have Atlantic Council board directors Gen. Wesley K. Clark, former commander of US European Command; Amb. Paula J. Dobriansky, former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs; Gen. James L. Jones, former national security advisor to the President of the United States; Franklin D. Kramer, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs; Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, former US Ambassador to NATO; and Dov S. Zakheim, former Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) and Chief Financial Officer for the Department of Defense.

Gen. Wesley K. Clark

Chairman and CEO of Wesley K. Clark & Associates & Board Director, Atlantic Council; former Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO

Amb. Paula J. Dobriansky, Ph.D.

Senior Fellow at Harvard University JFK Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs; Board Director, Atlantic Council; former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs (2001-2009)

Gen. James L. Jones

President, Jones Group International and Executive Chairman Emeritus, Atlantic Council; former National Security Advisor to the President of the United States

Franklin D. Kramer

Distinguished Fellow & Board Director, Atlantic Council; former US Assistant Secretary of Defense

Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute

CEO, Cambridge Global Advisors & Board Director, Atlantic Council; former US Permanent Representative to NATO

Dov S. Zakheim

Senior Advisor, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Senior Fellow, CNA Corporation; Board Director, Atlantic Council; former US Under Secretary of Defense

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Q&A with Turkish Member of Parliament Fuat Oktay

Atlantic Council Turkey Program — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Fuat Oktay is the chairman of the Turkish Grand National Assembly’s (Türkiye’s Parliament) Foreign Affairs Committee. He previously served as a vice president of the Republic of Türkiye. The Defense Journal of the Atlantic Council Turkey Program recently interviewed Oktay, covering US- Türkiye relations, the Turkish defense industry, and NATO.

The interview was conducted on February 18, 2026 and has been lightly edited for style.

DJ: Recent developments in Syria appear to have removed a long-standing elephant in the room in US–Turkish relations. Washington and Ankara now seem aligned on preserving Syria’s territorial integrity and on the primacy of a centralized government in Damascus under President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s leadership. How do you assess this convergence, and what does it signal for the future of US–Turkish security cooperation?

Oktay: It is true that Türkiye and the United States have converged in recent years on a number of foreign policy issues. This convergence is visible not only in Syria, but also in efforts to end the war in Ukraine, support a durable framework in Gaza, and encouraging progress in the Azerbaijan-Armenia peace process, among other areas. This convergence is for the establishment of sustainable peace and stability in our region. Our region is tired of conflicts and war. The issues in our region should be solved through dialogue and not through armed clashes and war.

In Syria, Türkiye has been supporting the unity and territorial integrity of this country since the very beginning. Now both Türkiye and the United States support Syria’s territorial integrity and unity and recognize the importance of a centralized and effective government in Damascus. A united, stable, inclusive, and prosperous Syria is, first and foremost, in the interest of the Syrian people. It is also in the interest of the broader region.

This convergence reflects a realistic reading of regional dynamics and a mutual understanding that sustainable solutions require regional actors and inclusive diplomacy.

It is the right time to reinforce the positive momentum in Türkiye–US relations to a resilient, future-oriented, principled relationship, grounded in mutual respect and strategic responsibility.

DJ: Do you see this more constructive atmosphere on Syria translating into movement on bilateral defense ties? In your view, what should both sides do to enhance the defense portfolio? And to follow up, what are the odds of Türkiye’s eventual return to the F-35 program in the near to medium term?

Oktay: Defense cooperation should be viewed in the wider context of the overall relationship. One of the main drivers of a more constructive atmosphere has been the direct and cordial dialogue between President [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan and President [Donald] Trump. Strong engagement at the leadership level has generated momentum across multiple areas of cooperation.

Economically, our bilateral trade volume is approaching $40 billion, and we share the objective of reaching $100 billion. Major items—such as Turkish airline companies’ aircraft purchases, long-term LNG [liquefied natural gas] arrangements, and potential future cooperation in civil nuclear energy—can further deepen our economic ties.

In this spirit, defense cooperation should mirror the positive trajectory in our bilateral relations, as well as the growing convergence on regional policy issues. For this reason, it is important to overcome the existing restrictions affecting Türkiye in the defense industry domain. Restrictions between allies are, by definition, inconsistent with the spirit of alliance and partnership.

At present, there are efforts at the governmental level in both countries to identify a workable path forward, including on the question of Türkiye’s access to the F-35 program. In February, as the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, we visited Washington, DC, and held constructive discussions with our counterparts in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. We conveyed our view that it is neither coherent nor sustainable to maintain such restrictions among partners and allies. We hope to see tangible progress at the congressional level to strengthen defense industry cooperation.

DJ: Türkiye’s defense industry has undergone a remarkable transformation over the past decade. Where do you see Turkish defense industrial capabilities today, and what do they represent for both Türkiye and the NATO Alliance? Looking ahead, what should be Ankara’s strategic priorities in this domain?

Oktay: Türkiye’s defense industry has achieved significant and sustained progress over the past two decades. During this period, we have transitioned from an import-procurement model toward a high-volume domestic design and production model, with a growing export dimension.

The share of local and national production in the defense industry has increased from around 20 percent to more than 80 percent, and we expect this rate to reach 85 percent in the near future.

Today, Türkiye is producing manned and unmanned fighter aircraft, such as the Kaan and Kızılelma jets, warships, armored vehicles, missiles, and rockets, as well as advanced sensors and related systems. At the same time, Türkiye is increasingly localizing critical electronic subsystems, including avionics, data links, communications, and mission computers, as well as smart munitions. Defense exports have now surpassed $10 billion annually. Turkish defense industry exports and cooperation cover 185 countries covering all continents, including such NATO members as the US, UK, Spain, and Italy.

In summary, Türkiye has become an important global producer of advanced defense technologies. These capabilities—both in production scale and technological innovation—represent a valuable contribution to NATO’s collective security, and particularly to European security. In this context, the inclusion of Türkiye in European defense industry initiatives is essential in order for both NATO and Europe to fully benefit from Türkiye’s achievements in this field.

DJ: The KAAN fighter program is widely viewed as a cornerstone of Türkiye’s future force structure. What vision do you associate with KAAN, both in terms of operational capabilities and Türkiye’s broader ambitions for defense cooperation and access to new defense markets?

Oktay: KAAN is among the most advanced fifth-generation fighter projects currently under development. It reflects core fifth-generation design requirements such as low observability, sensor fusion, and network-enabled operational concepts.

KAAN will represent a significant capability enhancement for the Turkish Air Force and will strengthen NATO’s southeastern flank. In addition, the program is a major driver of innovation for Türkiye’s broader aerospace ecosystem, with spillover effects across engineering, production, and advanced systems integration.

A number of countries have expressed interest in acquiring or co-producing KAAN. Last year, an agreement for forty-eight KAANaircraft was signed with Indonesia, and several other countries remain in close contact with Türkiye regarding potential cooperation.

DJ: The next NATO summit will be hosted in Ankara. What does this mean symbolically and strategically for the Alliance and for Türkiye? How do you assess Türkiye’s role within NATO today—and NATO’s importance for Türkiye?

Oktay: We look forward to hosting NATO’s next summit in Ankara on July 7–8, 2026. The summit will be an important opportunity to review progress in implementing the Hague commitments and to take decisions that further strengthen NATO’s deterrence and defense posture.

As the war in Ukraine has heightened Europe’s security concerns and uncertainty is affecting transatlantic relations, the Ankara Summit will be a critical meeting. Key issues will be discussed, and major decisions will be taken on the future direction of the Alliance.

Türkiye has always played, and continues to play, a vital role in the security of the entire Euro-Atlantic region. Türkiye holds NATO’s second-largest army and remains among the top contributors to NATO operations and missions, supporting both the Alliance’s southeastern and eastern flanks. We have already exceeded the 2-percent benchmark in defense spending, and we remain committed to further strengthening our contributions.

As we are committed to the security of our allies, we likewise expect them to be fully committed to Türkiye’s security and defense.

DJ: Türkiye’s influence across the Turkic world has grown, particularly through the Organization of Turkic States. How would you characterize Ankara’s strategic vision in this space, and what does the geopolitical horizon suggest about Türkiye’s long-term role across this geography?

Oktay: Türkiye has deep historical and cultural ties across the Turkic world. The Organization of Turkic States (OTS) is today the principal political framework for multilateral cooperation in this space. It reflects a shared vision to deepen integration and promote regional peace, stability, and prosperity. The OTS also functions as a catalyst for stronger regional ownership, and with the establishment of multiple sub-institutions, it is evolving rapidly into a more structured and specialized organization.

In parallel, the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic States (TÜRKPA) serves as the main platform for strengthening parliamentary cooperation among Turkic states and supporting broader integration efforts. At the parliamentary level, we have also developed a mechanism for bringing together the Foreign Relations Committees of the Parliaments of Turkic States. The first such meeting took place in Azerbaijan, and the second meeting was held in Istanbul last year.

Through these institutions—along with strong bilateral relations—Türkiye is expanding cultural, political, and economic cooperation and coordination among Turkic states, with the objective of promoting peace and prosperity across Central Asia and the Caucasus.Bottom of Form

Fuat Oktay is the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Grand National Assembly of the Republic of Türkiye. He served as the last Undersecretary of the Prime Ministry between 2016 and 2018. In the first cabinet of the Presidential Government System, he served as Türkiye’s first Vice President between 2018 and 2023.

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Western leaders must abandon false hopes of negotiated peace with Putin

Oleksandr Merezhko — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 21:35:07 +0000

For more than twelve years, Ukraine has been defending itself against an escalating Russian invasion that seeks to erase the Ukrainian state from the map of Europe and overturn the existing world order. So far, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has been unable to defeat Ukraine on the battlefield or break the Ukrainian nation’s resistance. Despite this lack of progress, however, he shows no sign of compromising on his maximalist goals.

Many in the West are still in denial over the scale of the threat posed by Putin’s Russia and continue to believe a negotiated settlement is the only realistic option to end the war. This is dangerously delusional. In reality, attempting to make deals with Putin today is as shortsighted as seeking to bargain with Adolf Hitler at the height of World War II. In the 1940s, the allies rejected that idea because they recognized Hitler would never stop and had to be defeated. There is a desperate need for such clarity today.

For the past year, Putin has sabotaged US-led peace talks with endless stalling tactics and diplomatic distractions. It should now be obvious that the Russian ruler is only engaging in negotiations for cynical reasons. First, he seeks to avoid further pressure from the United States. Second, he wishes to buy time to continue destroying Ukraine’s critical civilian infrastructure. Third, he intends to divide the West and deter further support for Kyiv.

Putin signals his lack of interest in peace by making absurd demands that no Ukrainian government could possibly accept. He calls for Ukraine to surrender the country’s most heavily fortified region without a fight, despite the fact that the Russian army has been unable to capture this territory for more than a decade. He demands a Russian veto over security guarantees for postwar Ukraine, while insisting on the right to interfere in Ukrainian domestic affairs. He questions the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government and calls for wartime elections, despite having systematically dismantled Russia’s own fledgling democracy during his twenty-six year reign.

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Putin’s uncompromising position makes perfect sense when viewed through the prism of Russian imperialism. The peace terms being offered by Trump, which would allow Moscow to retain the approximately 20 percent of Ukraine currently under Russian occupation, may seem generous, but the Kremlin dictator knows he cannot accept anything less than Kyiv’s complete capitulation. For Putin, the survival of a sovereign, democratic Ukraine would be a political death sentence. Russian audiences would view such a deal as a defeat of historic proportions. Rather than securing his legacy as one of Russia’s greatest rulers, Putin would be condemned as the man who lost Ukraine.

In practical terms, Putin has also come to depend on the war. Over the past four years, it has become the main source of his legitimacy and power. The Russian economy now relies heavily on war-related spending. Russian society as a whole has undergone a radicalization, making it possible to impose new levels of censorship, repression, and propaganda. Without the war, this entire edifice could collapse.

Then there is the issue of Russia’s military veterans. Almost a million men are currently serving in Ukraine. Most have been brutalized by a daily ration of war crimes amid staggering casualties. The vast majority are also now accustomed to receiving salaries far in excess of anything they could hope to earn in Russia. Putin is no doubt painfully aware that if he demobilizes these damaged and dangerous men, he would be unleashing a destabilizing force that could cause chaos across Russia. The only way to prevent this is by extending the invasion indefinitely.

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None of this means that peace is impossible. In order to secure a sustainable settlement, however, current efforts to appease Putin must end. It is a grave mistake to treat the aggressor and the victim as equals, and an even bigger blunder to pressure the victim into further concessions. Bringing Putin out of international isolation only emboldens him. In Putin’s zero-sum world, goodwill gestures are signs of weakness. It is no coincidence that as calls for a compromise deal have grown louder over the past year, Russia’s bombardment of Ukraine’s civilian population has intensified.

Western leaders must instead send an unambiguous message to Moscow that they are not prepared to reward Russian aggression. The objective should be to raise the costs of the invasion for the Kremlin until continuing the war poses risks to Putin’s grip on power inside Russia. This goal is realistic. With Putin’s army struggling to achieve any major breakthroughs in Ukraine despite suffering catastrophic casualties, rumblings of discontent are growing. Meanwhile, on the domestic front, the Russian economy is beginning to show signs of serious strain. Now is the time to increase the pressure on Putin.

Tightening economic sanctions is critical. This means tougher measures against Russia’s energy exports along with Putin’s shadow fleet of tankers. It also means implementing secondary sanctions against those who fund the war by purchasing Russian oil and gas. Recent decisions to relax sanctions temporarily in response to the US war in Iran and spiraling global energy prices are a step in the wrong direction that threatens to rescue the Russian economy and fuel international instability. Putin will not stop the invasion until he runs out of money.

Kyiv’s partners must also provide Ukraine with the military backing to defeat and deter Russia. This should include credible long-term commitments that dash any Russian hopes of outlasting the West in Ukraine. Western countries must overcome their crippling fear of escalation and provide Ukraine with the long-range weapons that will make it possible to strike deep inside Russia. This will allow Ukraine to target Putin’s war machine and create the kind of deterrence that could prevent future repeats of the current invasion.

If Putin is unable to advance in Ukraine while facing mounting economic costs and escalating destruction on the home front, he may finally have to accept that continuing the war poses very real dangers for the stability of his regime. At that point, genuine peace talks could prove possible.

Subsequent negotiations must focus on protecting Ukraine against further Russian aggression. It is vital that any security guarantees transcend political cycles in Western capitals and leave Putin in no doubt that a renewed attack on Ukraine could spark the collapse of the Russian Federation.

The best security guarantees of all remain NATO membership or nuclear status. If these options are currently not feasible, Ukraine needs to receive clear commitments from its major partners that spell out the responses Russia can expect.

Above all, Ukraine’s own armed forces must receive the necessary support to serve as the country’s ultimate security guarantee. European countries have an obvious self-interest in maintaining Ukraine’s military strength. After all, a strong Ukraine is now indispensable for Europe’s broader defense strategy as the continent confronts resurgent Russian imperialism.

Current Western efforts to broker a compromise peace with Putin are based on false assumptions and wishful thinking. This misguided approach only encourages Russia and other authoritarian regimes including Iran, China, and North Korea to pursue aggressive foreign policies. If the West wants a sustainable peace in Europe, it must work to ensure Putin’s defeat in Ukraine.

Oleksandr Merezhko is a member of the Ukrainian Parliament for the Servant of the People Party and Chair of the Ukrainian Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

The first variable is time. Energy demand tends to be relatively inelastic in the short run. Homes still need heating, vehicles still require fuel, and factories must continue operating. As a result, when disruptions occur in energy supply chains, markets tend to focus less on demand destruction and more on the persistence of supply constraints.

If supply disruptions persist, prices tend to rise. Higher energy prices often feed into inflation expectations, which can ultimately influence monetary policy. Central banks may respond by tightening financial conditions, which in turn can affect interest rates, currency valuations, and economic growth. In this way, what begins as a geopolitical disruption in energy markets can gradually propagate through the broader global economy.

The second variable is uncertainty. Financial markets can absorb significant shocks when the strategic path forward is reasonably clear. What markets struggle with is ambiguity. When investors lack clarity about the trajectory of a conflict or the potential for escalation, they demand a higher premium for bearing risk. This manifests through elevated volatility, wider credit spreads, and shifts toward perceived safe-haven assets.

These same two variables, time and uncertainty, play a central role in how financial markets price geopolitical risk.

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Option play

One way to understand this dynamic is through the lens of options pricing. An option is a financial instrument that gives its owner the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an underlying asset at a predetermined price. The two most important determinants of an option’s price are time to expiration and volatility.

Consider the global economy as the underlying asset. A geopolitical shock introduces the possibility of downside outcomes. Investors respond by seeking protection against those outcomes, which conceptually resembles buying a put option. A put option allows its owner to sell an asset at a predetermined price, even if the market value falls significantly below that level.

The analogy can be framed in the following way:

Within this framework, both time and uncertainty influence how markets price risk.

From a time perspective, prolonged disruptions in energy supply shift the aggregate supply curve of energy and place upward pressure on prices. Rising energy costs can alter inflation expectations, which in turn shape monetary policy responses and influence economic growth.

From an uncertainty perspective, several variables widen the distribution of possible outcomes: disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, escalation of military conflict, supply-chain fragmentation, regional instability across the Middle East and North Africa, and the possibility of broader social or civic disruptions.

Importantly, a put option increases in value not just because the underlying asset has already moved, but because the range of possible outcomes has widened. In other words, the probability distribution around future outcomes becomes more dispersed.

This provides a useful way to interpret current market behavior. Long-dated geopolitical options are effectively being repriced. Markets are not simply reacting to realized economic losses; they are responding to the option value of uncertainty.

What policymakers can do

In practical terms, this means that policymakers themselves can influence how markets price geopolitical risk.

First, they can reduce the duration of the disruption. If Trump sticks with his assessment from Monday, the expected timeline of the conflict shortens. In options terminology, the maturity of the geopolitical risk contract declines, which reduces the premium investors demand.

Second, policymakers can reduce uncertainty by articulating a clear strategic framework. When governments provide credible clarity regarding objectives, escalation thresholds, and pathways toward de-escalation, the volatility parameter embedded in market pricing declines.

Both mechanisms would serve to lower the effective price of what might be called a geopolitical put option on the global economy.

Ultimately, financial markets are not just reacting to the immediate shock of conflict. They are pricing the duration and uncertainty surrounding it. Understanding how these two variables interact provides a useful framework for interpreting market behavior and for understanding how policy decisions themselves can shape the financial cost of a geopolitical risk event.

Khalid Azim is the director of the MENA Futures Lab at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

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‘Energy dominance’ reconsidered: From domestic abundance to global strategic leverage

Sara Vakhshouri — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 13:50:34 +0000

“Energy dominance” has become a defining phrase of President Donald Trump’s second-term energy policy. The administration frequently links the concept to energy abundance, affordability, and energy freedom. Yet despite its prominence in policy rhetoric, the term itself has rarely been clearly defined.

Last year, I proposed one interpretation. Based on the administration’s emphasis on abundance, affordability and freedom, I defined energy dominance as a vision to position US energy as a source of stability, competitiveness, and international leadership, and the ability of a country to utilize its energy and mineral resources in the most efficient and strategic way, making them a central enabler of national strategy.

Recent geopolitical developments—particularly those involving the US-China race on artificial intelligence (AI), the US intervention in Venezuela, and, most recently, the US-Israel war with Iran—suggest that the concept may now be evolving into something broader. On several occasions, Trump and senior US officials have referenced the strategic importance of access to the oil and energy resources in both Venezuela and Iran within the broader objectives of these actions. Thus, energy dominance may no longer refer simply to domestic production or export strength. Increasingly, it appears to involve control over energy assets, strategic chokepoints, and the global energy flow.

In this expanded interpretation, energy dominance becomes not just an energy policy—but a geopolitical strategy.

AI race with China and the United States’ strategic counterweight

While the war in Iran and its impact on energy prices are dominating headlines, the ongoing, broader context for the shift toward an energy-as-geopolitics framework is the intensifying technological competition between the United States and China. Leadership in artificial intelligence is increasingly viewed as a core pillar of US national security, shaping economic security, military capabilities, and technological influence in the decades ahead.

Artificial intelligence requires enormous energy inputs: electricity for AI and data centers, petrochemical materials for advanced manufacturing, and industrial energy for the supply chains and minerals processing that sustain technological growth. China currently holds significant structural advantages in critical minerals across nearly every level of the supply chain, including resource ownership, production, refining and processing capacity that underpin many advanced technologies. Closing that critical mineral gap quickly would be difficult.

One possible strategic response is to focus on energy leverage instead. If China’s advantage lies in mineral supply chains, the United States’ comparative advantage lies in energy production, maritime security, the control of energy flows, and the global financial systems that govern energy trade. By shaping the cost and security of energy flows, Washington could indirectly influence the cost structure of China’s AI expansion.

Energy, in this sense, may be emerging as the strategic counterpart to mineral dominance. While China has built significant domestic energy storage capacity, it is still not energy independent and relies heavily on imported energy, particularly from the Middle East via shipments passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

Venezuela and Iran: Assets and geography

In the midst of the competition between the United States and China in which energy has become a critical lever, the more acute developments in Venezuela and Iran illustrate two different elements of the broader energy-as-geopolitics strategy.

Venezuela represents resource control. The country holds some of the largest proven oil reserves in the world. Increased US influence over Venezuelan energy assets could expand Western control over major supply capacity in the Western Hemisphere, while minimizing China and Russia’s influence over the energy resources in this country.

Iran represents something different: geography.

Its strategic importance lies not only in its oil, natural gas, and significant share of strategic minerals reserves like lithium and copper, but in its proximity and control over the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most important energy chokepoints in the world.

Roughly 20 million barrels of oil per day—about one-fifth of global petroleum consumption—pass through the Strait of Hormuz, along with roughly 20 percent of global liquefied natural gas trade. Most exports from major producers in the region—Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates—must pass through this narrow corridor.

Much of that energy ultimately flows to Asia, particularly China.

For decades the strait has been treated primarily as a security risk. But in a world shaped by geopolitical competition, its significance may be expanding.

Iran war scenarios and the strategic implications for energy dominance

The trajectory of conflict involving Iran remains uncertain. Military confrontations rarely unfold according to predictable timelines, and the political consequences of war often prove more consequential than the duration of the conflict itself.

For global energy markets, the critical variable is not only how long this conflict lasts, but what form of governance ultimately emerges in Iran and how that outcome affects regional energy flows and security.

Three broad governance outcomes illustrate how different political trajectories could reshape the global energy system.

Scenario 1: Political transformation and market reintegration

One possible outcome is a political transformation in Iran that produces a government more willing to engage with international markets. Such a shift could eventually allow Iran’s substantial oil, natural gas, and mineral resources to reenter global supply chains more fully.

In this scenario, regional energy infrastructure could stabilize relatively quickly. Market confidence would likely improve as sanctions ease and new investment enters the country’s energy sector. Access to Iran’s significant resource base could expand global supply and potentially reduce long-term supply risks in the region.

However, such a transformation, while not unlikely, would be difficult to achieve. Iran has built a complex political system around multiple centers of power, making it resilient in the face of external pressure.

Scenario 2: System continuity with managed tensions

A second possibility is that the current political structure in Iran largely survives the conflict, even if it emerges weakened or under increased pressure. In this case, tensions between Iran and Western powers would likely continue, and periodic disruptions to regional security could persist.

Even without large-scale warfare, the risk of attacks on energy infrastructure or maritime shipping could remain elevated. In such an environment, producers across the region would likely rely heavily on continued US naval presence to secure shipping lanes and protect critical infrastructure.

This dynamic would increase Washington’s influence over the security of energy transportation through the Strait of Hormuz, giving the United States greater leverage over the conditions under which energy flows to global markets.

Scenario 3: Fragmentation and persistent instability

A third potential outcome is a period of prolonged instability in which Iran’s central authority weakens and internal fragmentation leads to recurring security risks in the region.

In this scenario, maritime security threats, attacks on infrastructure or disruptions to shipping could occur intermittently. Insurance premiums, transportation risks, and price volatility would remain elevated for extended periods.

While such instability would unsettle global markets, its economic impact would fall unevenly across the international system. Major energy-importing economies—particularly those heavily dependent on Middle Eastern supply routes—would face higher transportation costs and greater supply uncertainty. Countries like China, which rely heavily on imported oil and gas passing through the Strait of Hormuz, would be especially exposed to these disruptions.

None of these outcomes are guaranteed, and war inevitably introduces significant uncertainty. But across these scenarios, the strategic consequences of disruption in the region tend to fall differently on major energy producers and major energy importers, reshaping the balance of influence in global energy markets.

Viewed this way, the conflict does not simply shape regional security. It also reshapes the structure of global energy markets. Whether through expanded access to resources, influence over the movement of energy or market dynamics that raise costs for major importers, each trajectory carries implications for how energy power is distributed in the global economy.

A new mechanism of market management

The geopolitical consequences of this war could raise an important possibility. For decades, global oil markets have been shaped significantly by OPEC and OPEC+, which manage markets by adjusting production in response to supply-demand fundamentals. But if the United States maintains influence over the transportation routes used by many of those producers, the dynamics of market power could shift.

Most major exporters in the region—and many OPEC+ members—rely on the Strait of Hormuz for their exports. If the security of that passage depends on sustained US naval presence, Washington would gain influence over the condition under which energy reaches global markets.

This leverage would come not from production quotas, but from transportation security, insurance costs, and maritime access. Through these mechanisms, the United States could shape the conditions under which energy moves through global markets and how prices are formed.

In effect, this structure of influence would resemble the leverage China holds in critical mineral markets: not by controlling production itself, but by shaping the conditions under which supply reaches global buyers. Through such market influence, Washington could counter the price power China derives from its dominance in critical mineral supply chains.

Trump’s energy price strategy: Short-term pain, long-term leverage

The Trump administration has consistently emphasized energy affordability and low energy costs for American consumers. But global energy prices are not determined by domestic production alone. They are shaped by the structure of global supply routes, geopolitical risk, and the balance between producers and large importing economies.

Periods of geopolitical tension in the Middle East tend to increase transportation risks, insurance costs, and market uncertainty. These dynamics often affect energy-importing economies more heavily than energy producers. Countries like China that rely heavily on imported oil and gas from the Middle East are particularly exposed to disruptions or rising transit costs through chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz.

Over time, higher energy costs can slow industrial demand in large importing economies. If demand growth weakens while production capacity in the Western Hemisphere expands, global markets could eventually move back toward lower prices—bringing the system closer to the long-term objective of affordable energy.

Energy and the emerging strategic landscape

None of these outcomes is guaranteed. Wars rarely unfold according to strategic expectations, and the risks to regional stability and global markets are real. But when viewed through the structure of the global energy system, the implications of the conflict extend beyond the battlefield.

Energy remains a foundational input of industrial power and technological development. As global competition increasingly centers on emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, the cost and security of energy will play a critical role in shaping economic competitiveness. Countries that rely heavily on imported energy are particularly sensitive to disruptions in major supply routes.

From the perspective of energy dominance, influence is no longer determined only by who produces energy. It increasingly depends on who can shape the security, cost, and movement of energy across the global system. As competition between the United States and China expands into technology, supply chains, and artificial intelligence, control over energy flows may become one of the defining sources of leverage in that rivalry.

Sara Vakhshouri is founder and president of SVB Energy International; founding chair of the IWP Center for Energy Security and Diplomacy; a faculty member at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service; and a senior fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

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Strategy for a new nuclear age

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 17:38:58 +0000

Nuclear weapons are once again at the center of great power politics.

For much of the post–Cold War era, nuclear strategy receded from daily headlines. That era is over now. In the last several years alone, Russia routinely threatened nuclear use to limit Western support to Ukraine and tested new delivery systems capable of carrying nuclear weapons. China rapidly and opaquely expanded its nuclear arsenal, built new missile silos, diversified its delivery systems, and may have conducted a low-yield nuclear explosive test in June 2020. The reliability, survivability, and accuracy of North Korea’s nuclear-capable missiles incrementally improved. In May 2025, during the most serious military crisis between India and Pakistan in decades, Pakistan’s prime minister called a meeting of the National Command Authority, the body that oversees Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. The following month, and again beginning in February 2026, the United States and Israel conducted military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites with the aim of destroying Iran’s nuclear program.

Taken together, these developments force the United States to confront the most complex strategic environment since the advent of nuclear weapons—one defined by simultaneous nuclear challenges across geographies and domains. The February 2026 expiration of the New START Treaty further complicated the landscape by removing the last remaining constraints on US and Russian strategic forces, which raises urgent questions about force sizing, modernization timelines, and the future of arms control. US policymakers must now grapple with whether existing nuclear posture remains sufficient, as well as how best to balance deterrence requirements with fiscal realities and alliance commitments.

This debate extends beyond warhead numbers. New concerns are being raised about how offensive and defensive systems interact to impact strategic stability, driven by the potential impacts of emerging technologies and advanced missile defense architectures, such as the Trump administration’s “Golden Dome” initiative.

Questions about how to deter limited nuclear use, how to manage escalation in regional conflicts, and whether new forms of arms control are feasible in a multipolar nuclear order remain unresolved.

In this context, clarity is urgently needed, though consensus remains elusive. With this Great Nuclear Debates series, we present a curated anthology of perspectives from leading experts who approach these challenges from different vantage points. These essays are not designed to rebut one another or to converge on a single position. Rather, they reflect the diversity of informed opinion about how the United States and its allies should navigate a new nuclear era.

The Forward Defense team at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security has long sought to elevate rigorous, nonpartisan analysis on nuclear deterrence, force posture, and strategic stability. Together, these essays illuminate the breadth of the debate—and the trade-offs inherent in any path forward.

Read the essays

Four options for arms control after New START

By Amy Woolf

With the last quantitative limit on the world’s largest nuclear arsenals now expired, Washington finds itself in a new and uncertain era, with less clarity about Russia’s nuclear forces, plans to upgrade its own, and growing concern about China’s. The best option may be trilateral talks—but not about a new arms control treaty.

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New START might be dead, but legally binding arms control isn’t

By Michael Albertson

Who killed New START? Moscow and Beijing’s behavior is mostly to blame—but an arms control community that privileged the aspirational and performative over substantive measures didn’t help.

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Why US Strategic Nuclear Forces Must Expand After New START

By Paul Amato

With the last quantitative limit on the world’s largest nuclear arsenals now expired, the United States must decide what comes next for its own forces. The answer is clear: a larger, more flexible strategic arsenal—because a force designed for 2010 cannot deter the threats of 2026.

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Deterrence in a two-peer world requires prudence

By Kingston Reif

With two nuclear peers now requiring simultaneous deterrence and the last arms control framework gone, Washington faces pressure to expand its arsenal—but bigger isn’t necessarily better. The smarter path is prudent modernization paired with early diplomatic engagement, before a buildup that offers no near-term leverage makes negotiation harder, not easier.

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The future of US homeland missile defense

By Ankit Panda and Henry “Trey” Obering

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Inside Trump’s long-term economic strategy, with EXIM Bank’s John Jovanovic

Katherine Golden — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 23:03:24 +0000

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EXIM Bank Chairman John Jovanovic on US priorities for global competitiveness

AN AC FRONT PAGE EVENT—John Jovanovic, president and chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, discusses EXIM’s role in supporting US manufacturing, strengthening supply chains, and recalibrating trade.

Economy & Business Europe & Eurasia Geopolitics & Energy Security Trade and tariffs

Amid a war in Iran, a slowdown in the Strait of Hormuz, and a surge of tariff uncertainty, leaders around the world have their minds squarely on the risks associated with short-term economic volatility. According to US Export-Import Bank (EXIM) Chairman and President John Jovanovic, “these times call for a very strong, robust export-import bank.”

At an Atlantic Council Front Page event on Wednesday, Jovanovic recalled speaking to President Donald Trump before his appointment as head of EXIM in September, recounting that he told the president, “you need something on the other end of a tariff” to ensure US companies can continue to compete globally.

EXIM, as part of its role, works to shape supply chains in which US companies can be competitive. “We’ve all become overreliant on supply chains that aren’t free, fair, functioning anymore,” he argued, addressing US partners and allies: “It’s not your fault, it’s ours. But let’s solve it together, and if you help us solve it, it’ll accrue value to you as well.”

Below are more highlights from the event, where Jovanovic talked about the supply chains he is working to reshape, from critical minerals to energy.

A look into the vault

Jovanovic offered a behind-the-scenes look at the discussions behind Project Vault, a new initiative to create a critical mineral strategic reserve. “The fundamental problem” that the president was looking to address, explained Jovanovic, is that manufacturers rely on a “just-in-time inventory model,” which presents risks amid geopolitical shifts.
Those designing Project Vault, Jovanovic said, wanted to ensure that the model they set up didn’t allow “free riders,” envisioning a scenario in which a company “latches onto this and the US taxpayer subsidizes.” He explained, “if the manufacturers are the ones for whom we’re solving the problem, they’ve got to be on the hook and help us.”
He also explained that those creating Project Vault intend for it to be “demand-oriented,” because “the market told us what it needed.” He added, “we don’t want to create massive market disruptions.”
Project Vault, he argued, offers partners an “opportunity to collaborate” with the United States and thus serves as an example of “things that we’re doing to solve our own issues,” which “are going to accrue primary and secondary value to our strategic allies.”

An eye on energy

Last month, EXIM approved a $400 million deal supporting US liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports headed to Turkey, one of a slate of LNG export deals over recent months totaling up to billions of dollars. “What we’re doing,” he said, “is acknowledging the realities of the world in which we live,” where countries are wondering how to “make the most secure energy supply decisions.”
Jovanovic said that he’d tell countries considering energy proposals from adversary countries to “think about the holistic risk-reward inherent in it and weigh all the pluses and minuses.”
Today, with support from EXIM, “American LNG exports are going to places in the world they’ve never been,” he argued, “displacing molecules that they otherwise would have procured from adversaries.”
Discussing US energy-security cooperation with the Western Balkans, Jovanovic said that it is “mission critical” for the United States to help the region attain the energy security “that they need and they deserve long-term,” with the Western Balkans’ challenges proving particularly persistent. Toward that aim, he said, there’s an “underdeveloped opportunity” to “work together on supply chain security.”

What US businesses are saying

As EXIM has worked to strengthen supply chains, “we haven’t had to go pound the table and convince CEOs that they need to rethink some of these decisions that they’ve made,” regarding relying on cheaper goods from adversary countries, Jovanovic said. They already understand, he argued, that “what in the near term may yield some financial efficiency opens up considerable operational vulnerability in the mid- to long-term.”
Jovanovic explained that it isn’t just large companies that will benefit from stronger supply chains. “Ninety percent of what the bank does,” he said, “is actually work with small and medium-sized companies.”
Yet, he explained, having “the biggest companies participating” at a meaningful scale “creates the room and opportunity for the mids and smaller guys.”
With artificial intelligence shaking up how businesses of all sizes around the world operate, Jovanovic argued that the technology is “an excellent way to give a shot in the arm to American productivity,” unleashing the country’s “pent-up economic growth.”

Katherine Golden is an associate director of editorial at the Atlantic Council and an anchor of the Council’s flagship newsletter, AC Intel.

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Washington’s limited levers to shape a post-Khamenei Iran

Nate Swanson, Ingrid Small — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 22:01:37 +0000

WASHINGTON—On Thursday, US President Donald Trump said that he must be “involved in” selecting Iran’s next supreme leader. This pronouncement came as signs in Iran pointed to Mojtaba Khamenei, the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s son, as the leading candidate to replace his father.

However, it’s highly unlikely that Trump or any non-Iranian will direct the succession process, absent either an unlikely capitulation by the remnants of the Iranian regime or a massive escalation of the conflict from the United States that includes a sustained troop presence.

At this point, no one either inside or outside of Iran can say for certain who the next leader will be—or whether there will be multiple leaders before the Iran war ends. Nor should anyone assume that Iran will emerge from the conflict with another supreme leader. It is entirely possible that the country departs from Velayat-e Faqih (the philosophy underpinning the role of the supreme leader as head of state) and moves toward a military takeover or constitutional referendum instead.

But whoever emerges in charge will face an important decision. In a post-conflict scenario, a future Iranian leader must choose between prioritizing stability and the well-being of the Iranian people—by engaging rationally with the international community—and continuing to be driven by the revolutionary and ideological ambitions that defined Khamenei’s reign. In 2006, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger summed up this choice as deciding between “a nation and a cause.” Choosing the former could help quell decades of hostility between the West and Iran, while choosing the latter could perpetuate the confrontation well into the future.

In the weeks leading up to the conflict, and prior to the death of Khamenei, we consulted with a group of Iran experts to explore ways the United States and allied nations could coordinate efforts and coax change that might result in a more Western-leaning Tehran. The levers available to Washington are limited, but there are three areas where the United States and its allies can exert influence.

1. Iran’s economy and international integration

In a post-conflict Iran, one of the most important factors shaping a post-Khamenei government will be how it views Iran’s economy. Key economic indicators to watch include inflation, unemployment, the payment of public sector salaries, and the regime’s ability to make necessary subsidy reforms and diversify its revenue beyond oil sales.

To rebuild and transform its economy, Iran will need international investment; for that, Iran will need sanctions relief; and for that, it will need a complete overhaul of its foreign policy. Since the United States put in place many of the toughest sanctions on Iran, there are steps Washington can take to encourage the new Iranian leadership to recognize this reality.

However, this likely requires that regime elites face new eruptions of popular unrest over the failing economy and feel economic pressure in their own lives. One of the downsides of US sanctions is that they have created a robust black market that has allowed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other elites to bypass and benefit from the current sanctions regime. There are numerous examples of the entrenched elites benefiting from the current system. If this trend continues during a transition, it makes a pivot toward a more Western-leaning state more difficult.

Western pressure on regime elites would need to be paired with clear carrots to encourage change. One of the failures of former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s rapprochement with the West was that he could not show how Iran’s nuclear concessions—and his more pragmatic approach—led to a better economic outcome for everyday Iranians. A future Iranian leader will need to be convinced that a pro-Western posture will be economically profitable for both the country and the leader’s interests.

Since the Carter White House, successive US administrations have enacted policies that punish countries that trade with the current regime. In a break with this approach, the United States and its allies could establish benchmarks that, if met, would create a path for a new Iranian administration to move away from trade with US adversaries and competitors. Recent commitments to investing in post–Bashar al-Assad Syria suggest a way forward, such as Riyadh’s pledge to commit $6.4 billion in investments this past July. Seeking ways for a new Iranian leadership to continue and grow emerging diplomatic ties, like the renewal of Iran-Saudi relations—notably brokered by China three years ago—could present initial building blocks for such an approach.

2. Iran’s government

Over the course of his tenure, Khamenei did a masterful job maintaining regime unity and avoiding high-profile defections. Any internal dissent has been sidelined without meaningful repercussions on his reign. Even during the recent massacre of Iranian protesters and the subsequent war, there were no significant defections among regime elites.

This elite cohesion presents a predicament for a potential transition to a Western-oriented state. Anti-regime opposition and human rights advocates understandably seek to hold the regime accountable for its crimes but use rhetoric that paints all members of the Iranian establishment with the same broad brush. This eliminates an outlet for those within the existing regime who may secretly want to free themselves but see no way out.

The 2003 US decision to bar Iraqis from the top tiers of the Baathist party from serving in government and disband the Iraqi military contributed to the challenges in governing Iraq’s multi-ethnic and religious population in the immediate aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s fall. To mitigate the risk of similar fallout, providing a process that isolates apparatchiks from ideologically ambivalent technocrats could spur fence-sitters in the regime to consider life beyond the current political and security construct. In short, to increase the odds of a pro-Western state emerging, there at least needs to be room for a figure like either Reza Pahlavi—the son of the deposed shah—or the Irish Republican leader Gerry Adams to emerge in Iran.

There is room for the United States and its allies to help lay the groundwork for a process that addresses the needs of the Iranian people for accountability and justice. In considering a rebuilding of the state administration, identifying ways to incorporate an Iran-specific truth and reconciliation mechanism could accomplish this. But critically, it would also need to be designed to signal that regime technocrats will not face retribution for their contribution to the running of the state. In this vein, the mechanisms applied in post-apartheid South Africa and Northern Ireland differed based on the nature of the conflicts and crimes committed. Each wrestled, for example, with the concept of amnesty in exchange for confession. Drawing from lessons of recent investigations, such as the United Nations’ Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran, could inform the process and direction of such an effort.

3. Iran’s security structure

In the run-up to the war, the Iranian security doctrine was a three-legged stool—a latent nuclear weapons capability, a robust and capable missile program, and Iran’s network of nonstate regional proxies known as the “Axis of Resistance.” The Islamic Republic’s commitment to this paradigm in the face of crippling sanctions, military threats, and domestic unrest reflect the paramount role that threat perception plays in driving Iranian policymaking.

This will be difficult to change with a new Iranian leadership keen to avoid the same fate of other leaders. In 2003, for example, Libya’s Muammar al-Qaddafi voluntarily dismantled his country’s nuclear program; in 2011, he was driven from power and killed. Hardliners in Iran have warned against limiting military capabilities, blaming Libya’s civil war and Qaddafi’s ultimate demise on forfeiting his weapons program. Khamenei himself criticized Qaddafi for abandoning his nuclear ambitions and chided the former leader of Libya for trusting the United States. Other Iranians point to Ukraine as another cautionary tale, in which Kyiv gave up its nuclear weapons following its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 only to be invaded by Russia later.

However, the key driver shaping Iran’s transition and its future is establishing a security infrastructure acceptable to Iran and tolerated by Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. On its face, this may not seem possible. But the current Iran-Israel hostility has not always existed. They share no borders, and Persians and Jews share more than a millennium of relatively peaceful co-existence.

For a Western-leaning state to emerge in Iran, it will almost certainly be incumbent upon new Iranian leadership to change Israeli perceptions about Iran’s intentions. The United States and its allies should make clear that the key indicator might very well be Iran’s continued support (and specifically lethal assistance) to Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. The irony is that these groups’ degradation since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks makes them more of a liability to Iran than an asset. But even still, an end to Iranian backing for these proxies would be a massive ideological shift for a regime that built a large part of its internal legitimacy on opposition to Israel.

In many ways, Iran’s hostility to Israel, the United States, and the Gulf is more important than the exact specifications of Iran’s missile and nuclear program. If that hostility is reduced, diminished Israeli and US perceptions of threat could pave the way for limiting both programs in ways that are potentially acceptable to all parties.

Ultimately, the choice is in the hands of Iran’s next leader. But the United States and its allies and partners can and should help clarify what is at stake—and these three areas are strong places to start.

The post Washington’s limited levers to shape a post-Khamenei Iran appeared first on Atlantic Council.

How the White House’s plan B on tariffs can give it all the trade leverage it needs

Mark Linscott — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 13:41:01 +0000

WASHINGTON—On February 20, the US Supreme Court ruled that the US president cannot apply tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). In effect, this ruling also poured cold water on the Trump administration’s approach of using country-specific tariffs as leverage to make quick trade deals.

Up until the Supreme Court’s decision, US President Donald Trump and his US trade representative (USTR), Ambassador Jamieson Greer, were able to put together a remarkable number of trade deals with a wide range of partners in record time. This effort ran from the first announcement of a deal with the United Kingdom in May 2025 to the latest ones with India and Bangladesh in early February of this year. According to the president’s 2026 Trade Policy Agenda, issued by the USTR on March 2, the administration concluded eight agreements on reciprocal trade (ARTs) and ten framework deals that will lead to ARTs or equivalent agreements.

Clearly, the IEEPA tariffs were effective leverage as the USTR pushed others to negotiate and conclude groundbreaking trade deals. Many previous administrations had sought trade agreements to address specific trade barriers, particularly high tariffs and persistent nontariff barriers (NTBs), which can restrict trade to a trickle in key sectors. For example, the USTR worked for over a decade in the World Trade Organization (WTO) beginning in the early 2000s to bring major developing countries to the table to negotiate reductions in their high tariffs, but to no avail. This failure was a central reason why the WTO has lost so much relevance and its rules on most-favored (non-discriminatory) treatment have come under attack in recent years. In previous years, the USTR released its National Trade Estimate report cataloguing foreign trade barriers, and each year it generally cut and pasted descriptions of longstanding trade restrictions and updates to add new ones.

What was lacking in these efforts to address foreign trade barriers was effective leverage. And what made the Trump administration’s record of recent achievements in such a short time possible was a new source of leverage—sudden, unpredictable, massive US tariffs under IEEPA with no regard for WTO rules on tariff bindings and MFN treatment. Now, however, that leverage seems to have disappeared in a puff of smoke only days after the Supreme Court ruling. It has been replaced by the thin gruel of a temporary tariff at a maximum level of 15 percent under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act for balance of payments crises. But even this tariff will expire after 150 days without congressional approval, and it, too, may rest on tenuous legal ground.

There are plenty of reasons for US trading partners to be cautious in moving forward.

So, does this mean that Trump’s leverage disappeared with the removal of the IEEPA tariffs? Does it mean that trading partners will walk away from the trade deals already negotiated or drag their feet on concluding the ones that are still pending?

Some countries might indeed reassess the current situation and conduct senior-level discussions on how they should position themselves going forward. After all, their trade negotiations with the United States on the ARTs and framework deals occurred under duress, in the face of tariff increases that had not been seen since the 1930s. With the creation of the multilateral trading system after World War II and then decades of progressive reductions in tariffs in the United States and other major developed countries, they had a high degree of certainty that tariffs would not go up again across the board, especially in the United States. That all changed dramatically with the Trump administration and the announcement of a new system of reciprocal tariffs on April 2, 2025. And now that the Trump administration has been substantially disarmed, some may wonder if tariffs have peaked and could start to drift down.

Since the lifting of the IEEPA tariffs on February 24, Trump and Greer have expressed confidence that the ART program will continue and that trading partners will stick with the deals already negotiated. In fact, there have been few signs of cold feet in this regard. While India cancelled a visit of its chief negotiator scheduled for the week after the Supreme Court decision to finalize legal text for an “interim agreement,” this was understandable. Of course, negotiators would need to double-check their mandate following such a sudden development. The European Parliament on February 23 decided to postpone its consideration of the US-European Union (EU) framework deal, reportedly out of concerns that the Trump administration may raise the Section 122 tariffs to the maximum allowable 15 percent, which could be inconsistent with US commitments under the deal. Otherwise, trading partners do not appear to be running for the exit.

There are plenty of reasons for US trading partners to be cautious in moving forward. It is clear, for instance, that the Trump administration and the USTR are proceeding with plan B, namely the initiation of trade barrier investigations under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act. In the first days of the Trump administration, plan B could have been plan A if the president had not been so focused on imposing tariffs immediately and without the constraints of statutory requirements that might slow the execution of his grand vision of tariffs as a solution to many problems. A more predictable, defensible, and legally credible approach could have been to initiate multiple Section 301 investigations on a country-by-country and sector-by-sector basis. It is a tried-and-true tool that has been around even before the WTO was established, and it has proven durable over the decades since. It has the advantage of providing impressive USTR authority to impose tariffs and other trade restrictions to address a full range of foreign trade barriers. The rub is that Section 301 investigations require a well-established process of consultations, opportunity for comment, hearings, timetables, and published findings that the president likely felt he could dispense with by using IEEPA authority, which, in fact, did not actually exist.

And while Section 301 investigations generally require a year or more to complete, there is a provision for expedited action. This now seems to be the USTR’s plan over the next few months before the expiration of the Section 122 tariffs. What the United States has now, then, is a new kind of leverage that can be deployed to maintain the ARTs negotiated to date, conclude the pending ones, and continue negotiations on new frameworks and eventual ARTs for virtually every other trading partner. It seems quite likely that early results in these Section 301 cases will match the reciprocal tariffs already agreed with multiple countries. These cases also provide discretion to threaten increased reciprocal tariffs as enforcement leverage if a trading partner hesitates to deliver on its end of the bargain.

However, it will be critical for the Trump administration to use this tool wisely. Even with the increased predictability offered by Section 301 procedural guarantees, random threats of additional tariffs or even total bans on trade will undermine the credibility of this plan B. For example, there remain many cases still pending under Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Act relating to national security, including semiconductors and derivative products, medical devices, robotics, and polysilicon. This authority rests with the Department of Commerce, and there have been hints that more cases may be in the works in additional sectors.

If US trading partners find that their good-faith efforts to settle on terms for ARTs are rewarded with additional tariffs, then they may start to withdraw from these agreements, walk away from further negotiations, and reimpose higher tariffs and NTBs that the USTR has so diligently sought to negotiate away. Some may even choose to retaliate with even higher tariffs of their own. This is a true turning point for the Trump administration’s trade policy and an opportunity to set it on a more stable and productive course. While it retains leverage, it can just as easily lose this leverage, and the next time, it may not be so easy to recover.

The post How the White House’s plan B on tariffs can give it all the trade leverage it needs appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Iran war could save Vladimir Putin’s failing Ukraine invasion

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 22:34:17 +0000

The mood in Moscow was strikingly subdued in late February as the country marked four years since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Kremlin officials made little mention of the anniversary, while the heavily censored Russian media offered only minimal coverage. With no end in sight to the increasingly costly war, this lack of fanfare is easy to understand. However, events currently unfolding in the Middle East may yet rescue Vladimir Putin’s faltering invasion.

When Putin first announced the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, he vowed to “demilitarize” and “denazify” Ukraine. He has also sought to justify the war as a campaign against NATO expansion and crusade to revive Russia’s great power status. By almost any measure, Putin has failed to achieve these goals.

The Russian leader’s inability to demilitarize Ukraine has been perhaps his most glaring failure. Indeed, few countries have ever looked less demilitarized than today’s Ukraine. As the war with Russia enters a fifth year, Ukraine possesses Europe’s largest army and is a world leader in drone warfare. From NATO members to Gulf petrostates, countries are now queuing up to access Ukraine’s unrivalled expertise. Meanwhile, a consensus is emerging in European capitals that Ukraine has an indispensable role to play in the future security of the continent.

Likewise, Putin’s bid to “denazify” Ukraine has proved spectacularly counterproductive. The entire concept of “denazification” is Kremlin code for the eradication of Ukrainian national identity, but Putin’s invasion has sparked an unprecedented surge in patriotism among the Ukrainian population along with a deep distrust of all things Russian. As a result, it is now virtually impossible to imagine the emergence of a pro-Russian government in Kyiv, unless permanently propped up by Kremlin bayonets.

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Putin has gone to great lengths to blame the war on NATO’s post-1991 eastward expansion beyond the old Iron Curtain. Far from arresting or reversing this process, Russia’s actions have sparked a new and highly significant wave of enlargement. In response to the invasion of Ukraine, both Finland and Sweden opted to abandon decades of neutrality and join NATO. This has more than doubled Russia’s shared border with the alliance, while also transforming the Baltic Sea into a NATO lake.

On the global stage, the invasion of Ukraine has left Russia unable to project strength or justify its claims to great power status. With the vast majority of his military forces deployed in Ukraine, Putin has proved unable to aid a series of international allies during moments of crisis. Syria, Venezuela, and Iran have all learned the hard way that Putin’s promises of partnership are empty.

Russian prestige has taken a further pounding on the battlefields of Ukraine. Like many others in Moscow and elsewhere, Putin fully expected to secure a quick and complete victory in Ukraine. Instead, his armies have been unable to achieve any decisive breakthroughs despite suffering catastrophic losses. More than four years on, they remain bogged down in brutal attritional warfare.

Putin has tried to distract from this underwhelming military performance by projecting confidence in eventual success, but his boasts of relentless Russian advances now ring increasingly hollow. In February 2026, Ukraine actually liberated more territory than the Russian army was able to seize, making a mockery of Kremlin efforts to portray Russian victory as inevitable.

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With Russia’s prospects in Ukraine looking increasingly grim, the joint US-Israeli operation against Iran could hardly have come at a better time for Putin. While Russia’s inability to assist a key ally is undoubtedly embarrassing, the Kremlin could potentially emerge as a major beneficiary of the escalating conflict in the Middle East.

The scope for economic gains is obvious. With the Strait of Hormuz under threat and key energy export routes out of the Middle East facing major disruption, Russia stands to benefit more than most from rising oil and gas prices. This could reinvigorate Putin’s war economy at a time when it was beginning to show signs of serious strain.

The US focus on Iran may also distract the Trump administration from diplomatic efforts to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. While these US-led peace talks had not resulted in any tangible progress toward a sustainable settlement, they represent a diplomatic challenge to the Kremlin. Putin will now likely be able to breathe a little easier, at least while the United States remains preoccupied with Iran.

Crucially, escalating hostilities in the Middle East may force Washington to limit the supply of weapons to Ukraine. The US, Israel, and the Gulf states are all reportedly struggling to cope with Iranian drones and are already in danger of running low on air defense ammunition.

In particular, the first days of the conflict have reportedly seen unprecedented use of Patriot air defense missiles, which are in limited supply and desperately needed by the Ukrainians to intercept Russian ballistic missiles. If Kyiv finds itself without these missiles in the coming months, Russia will be able to strike critical infrastructure targets across Ukraine with impunity. This could leave large parts of Ukraine unlivable and have a major impact on the country’s ability to maintain the war effort.

None of this is inevitable. If US-Israeli forces succeed in curtailing Iran’s ability to strike back and can conclude their campaign within a matter of weeks, Putin will have little to cheer. However, if the current air offensive escalates into a protracted military conflict, this will likely strengthen Russia economically while weakening Ukraine’s ability to defend itself and prolonging Europe’s largest invasion since World War II.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Access strategic petroleum reserves

Through the International Energy Agency, member countries can coordinate releases from their strategic petroleum reserves. Even countries that are not experiencing shortages should participate because the market can ensure that crude oil is efficiently rerouted to areas in need.

Mobilize additional oil production

President Trump can encourage US domestic oil producers to pump more oil, but producers will only invest in this if they believe doing so will be financially beneficial. If the price of WTI remains elevated and demand for US oil exports grows, frackers should be able to increase production rapidly. To provide additional—if limited—mitigation, Trump can also encourage OPEC+ to raise production quotas so that the producers with the ability to pump and move more oil can do so. Kazakhstan can produce and transport at least 500,000 bpd above its OPEC+ quota. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also have spare capacity, but their export facilities outside of the Persian Gulf are limited. Even though Aramco can produce 12 million bpd of oil if needed, it can only export 7 million bpd from its Red Sea port of Yanbu. The UAE can increase oil production to 4 million bpd, but only 1.5 million bpd can flow through the Habshan-Fujairah pipeline to the port of Fujairah in the Gulf of Oman.

Mobilizing alternative sources of oil could provide some minor relief, but not nearly enough to make up for the 20 percent of the world’s crude oil and petroleum products that typically pass through the Strait of Hormuz. To prevent Asian and European economies from severe crisis, the Trump administration needs to get tankers moving through the Strait of Hormuz.

Military escorts for tankers

During the Iran-Iraq War, oil tankers from Kuwait were permitted to fly the US flag and received US military escorts to ensure their safety as they sailed through the Persian Gulf. If the US military has achieved naval superiority in the Gulf, it should offer physical protection to all non-sanctioned tankers leaving and entering the Gulf. On March 3, Trump indicated that he would direct the US Development Finance Corp. to offer reasonably priced political-risk insurance to all non-sanctioned tankers. He also said that the US Navy would escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, if necessary. It is likely that these military escorts will be a necessity for ships to accept the transit risk, even with lower insurance costs. As soon as naval escorts are available, Trump should arrange a demonstration of safe transit to encourage tankers to start crossing. The US, however, does not have the resources in the Persian Gulf to accompany every tanker through the strait. While resources can be pulled from other areas, the United States should coordinate with other naval powers, like the UK, to support tanker transit—albeit on a reduced schedule—through the strait.

Establish alternate shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz

Since 1979, ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has operated according to Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) established by the United Nations International Maritime Organization. The TSS consists of two shipping lanes, one incoming and one outgoing. Each lane is two miles wide and are separated by a four-mile buffer zone. Both lanes take ships into Iranian territorial waters, less than ten miles from Iran’s shore. But the TSS is not the only navigable route through the Strait of Hormuz. There are other areas that are sufficiently deep to accommodate a fully laden, large-capacity crude oil carrier. In fact, before 1979, the main shipping channel ran through the Inshore Traffic Zone, which is south of the Omani island of Didimar. Oman usually restricts access to this zone to smaller vessels, but it could be used, with US military protection, for oil tankers to avoid entering Iranian waters

Remove Iranian military from islands in the Strait of Hormuz

There are three small islands in the Strait of Hormuz (Abu Musa Island and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs Islands) that frame the maritime shipping lanes and are strategically significant for controlling maritime traffic in the waterway. Iranian military forces occupied these islands in 1971 even though, in the case of Abu Musa Island, Iran and the UAE agreed to share sovereignty. The United States could, in agreement with the UAE, remove the Iranian military from the islands with the immediate goal of ensuring the safety of international shipping and the long-term goal of facilitating a resolution to the longstanding territorial dispute between Iran and the UAE. This option would require ground troops and coordination with Emirati forces, who would remain to secure Emirati presence on the islands until a negotiated agreement with the future Iranian government can be reached.

Conclusion

Unless a cease-fire or negotiated settlement is on the horizon, President Trump needs to take swift action to prevent oil prices from rising to economically detrimental levels. It is implausible to expect maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to operate at normal rates when it is in the middle of an active warzone. However, there are actions the US can take to promote the safety and security of ships transiting the strait, so that shipping can restart at reduced levels. There is still time to prevent an oil energy crisis, but the clock is ticking.

Ellen Wald is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center

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Enforce sanctions to prevent Russia from benefitting in a prolonged Iran crisis

Kimberly Donovan — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 18:03:00 +0000

WASHINGTON—As all eyes turn to the war in Iran, the United States and its Western allies cannot afford to take their sights off Russia. Ongoing US and Israeli strikes on Iran, combined with Iran’s threats to close the Strait of Hormuz and its attacks on energy and military infrastructure across the Middle East, are leading to spikes in oil prices. Some analysts warn that oil prices could rise to one hundred dollars per barrel if there is a prolonged disruption of oil exports from the Gulf. Watching all this is Russia, eager to sell the hundreds of millions of barrels of sanctioned oil it currently has sitting in storage tankers at sea.

Oil’s rise

Oil futures have fluctuated since the war began. On Tuesday, Brent crude traded at nearly $84 per barrel, its highest price since July 2024. While the surge appears to be leveling off, oil prices are up 15 percent this week. Many analysts anticipate that the longer the conflict goes on and risks to the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf energy infrastructure persist, the greater the likelihood of further price increases.

There are global economic implications associated with high oil prices, including higher inflation, negative impacts on markets, and increased prices at the gas pump and for common goods. But there are also more specific implications for the Russian economy: Higher oil prices could help Moscow continue funding its war against Ukraine despite being under heavy sanctions. As policymakers consider next steps with Iran, they should double down on enforcing sanctions against Russia to prevent Moscow from benefiting from the conflict in Iran.

Russia’s opportunity

Russia has been under increasing economic pressure from Western sanctions since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The United States and its allies imposed sanctions, export controls, asset blockings, an oil price cap, and other restrictive economic measures aimed at reducing Moscow’s ability to fund and equip its war. This pressure, for example, includes US and UK sanctions targeting Russia’s four largest oil companies—Rosneft, Lukoil, Gazprom Neft, and Surgutneftgas—and their subsidiaries, as well as US, UK, and European Union (EU) sanctions targeting the “shadow fleet” of Russian oil tankers and facilitators enabling Russian sanctions evasion. These sanctions took the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies’ sixty-dollar price cap on Russian oil, enacted in December 2022, a significant step forward by further restricting Moscow’s ability to sell its oil and reducing Russia’s oil revenue.

As these sanctions have taken hold, Russia’s economy has been hit hard. While the Kremlin has sought to reshape Russia’s economy into supporting its war, its revenue from oil exports has fallen. Prior to 2022, fossil fuel exports funded nearly 40 percent of Russia’s federal budget. In 2025, this dropped to 25 percent. This fall in revenue was due to a combination of a global oil surplus, low oil prices, and Western economic pressure.

After European countries started to phase out purchases of Russian Urals due to the price cap and sanctions, China and India became the primary importers of Russia’s oil. In the past year, however, Beijing and New Delhi reduced their imports of Russian oil due to concerns over US secondary sanctions exposure, tariffs, and, in India’s case, difficult trade negotiations with the United States. China continued to buy oil from Iran and Venezuela, evading US sanctions, and it began importing more oil from Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, India started sourcing more oil from the United States and Gulf states to meet its domestic demand.

But now, as oil prices surge and it becomes more difficult to move oil out of the Persian Gulf, big oil consumers such as China and India will need to shore up their supplies. Russia is ready and waiting for fresh demand for its oil: On Wednesday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said that Russia is getting “signals of renewed interest from India.”

In January, the EU and the United Kingdom reduced the Russian oil price cap to $44.10 per barrel, a move that was intended to further curb Russian oil revenue. But with oil prices over $80 per barrel this week and many analysts expecting those prices to rise, $44.10 per barrel becomes an attractive discount for readily available oil, giving Russia an opportunity to increase oil sales.

The Western response

While the US-Israeli war against Iran is expanding across the Middle East, Russia’s war in Ukraine continues. If Russia is left unchecked and sanctions are not enforced, Russia may have the opportunity to replenish its coffers with oil revenue. This would shore up Russia’s declining economy, provide it with the funds it needs to continue the bloodshed in Ukraine, and weaken US and Western leverage in peace negotiations. The West cannot afford to let this happen.

The United States, the EU, the United Kingdom, and the broader G7 sanctions coalition should step up the enforcement of their existing sanctions against Russia now. This should include levying additional sanctions on Russia’s energy sector, including currently unsanctioned oil companies, refineries, ports, and financial institutions that facilitate oil and gas transactions.

In addition, the United States should align its shadow fleet sanctions with those of the EU and the United Kingdom. Aligning or matching sanctions with allies extends the tool’s reach across jurisdictions and reduces sanctions evasion. In addition to designating the shadow fleet vessels, allies should expand operations to seize them. These seizures reduce Russia’s profits from sanctioned oil and send a clear message that sanctions evasion will not be tolerated. Further, these operations remove dangerous unseaworthy vessels from the water, preventing potential environmental and maritime accidents, as well as potential national security risks, such as undersea cable cutting.

Beyond oil, Western partners should also pursue sanctions on Russia’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector, especially now that Qatar’s LNG capacity is shut down as a result of the war in Iran. Qatar’s LNG exports represent 20 percent of the global supply. Meanwhile, Russia remains the fourth-largest LNG supplier, behind Australia, Qatar, and the United States. With Qatari LNG offline, Russia, if left unchecked, could fill the gap in supply. Further, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the EU should make clear to China and India that sanctions on Russian energy remain in place and it would be in their best interest to comply with them.

The weaker the Russian economy performs, the greater the West’s leverage in negotiations to end Moscow’s war in Ukraine. To maintain and bolster this leverage over Russia, the United States and its allies should enforce and increase their sanctions efforts to ensure that the Kremlin cannot economically benefit from a boost in energy sales as a result of the Iran war.

Energy Sanctions Dashboard

This dashboard focuses on US sanctions and restrictive measures placed on crude oil from Russia, Iran, and Venezuela—including the unintended consequences and the lessons learned.

The post Enforce sanctions to prevent Russia from benefitting in a prolonged Iran crisis appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Russian army faces comms crisis amid Starlink cut and Kremlin crackdown

Katherine Spencer, Marc Goedemans — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 14:05:45 +0000

The Russian army in Ukraine is facing a growing communications crisis amid recent disruptions to Telegram and Starlink, leaving troops increasingly in the dark and exposing mounting strains inside Russia.

The problems began in early February when Elon Musk imposed restrictions on unauthorized Russian access to Starlink satellites operated by Musk’s SpaceX company that provide high-speed internet. The move came following talks between Musk and recently appointed Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.

Starlink made headlines in 2022 as a crucial tool for the Ukrainian military during the initial phase of the Russian invasion. More recently, Russia has acquired thousands of Starlink internet terminals and incorporated them as an important element of the invading army’s communications infrastructure.

Efforts to disable unauthorized Russian terminals operating in Ukraine had an immediate impact, with Ukrainian officials reporting a sharp drop in Russian bombardments and drone attacks on front line positions. In one incident on the Zaporizhzhia front, twelve Russian soldiers were reportedly killed by friendly fire after a Starlink terminal failure.

Ukraine appears to have benefited from Russia’s sudden loss of connectivity. In the first five days following the Starlink cutoff, Ukrainian forces reportedly liberated more than two hundred square kilometers of territory, representing an area roughly equivalent to the Russian army’s gains throughout the whole month of December. This trend has continued into early March.

While there is still some debate over the extent to which the areas reclaimed by Ukraine had previously been under Russian control, the advances provided a boost to Ukrainian morale while strengthening the country’s front line position. According to the Institute for the Study of War, this battlefield success owed much to the disruption caused by Russia’s loss of Starlink services.

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With no domestically produced alternative to Starlink technology, Russian units are now scrambling to find alternative ways to communicate. Some have sought to revive access to the Starlink system, with the Ukrainian authorities warning that Russians are now attempting to pressure the families of Ukrainian prisoners to register terminals.

Russia’s own satellite communications system, which is run by Gazprom Space Systems, has been used in a limited capacity during the war. However, it is regarded as far less reliable than Starlink and is not seen as a viable alternative.

The fallout over the loss of Starlink has sparked a scandal in Russia, with many questioning why the army allowed itself to become so dependent on a communications system owned and controlled by an American company. Critics have attacked this development as both a national humiliation and a strategic blunder which left the Russian military dangerously vulnerable.

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Russia’s recent communication woes are not only due to external restrictions. Days after Musk agreed to cut Starlink access, the Kremlin moved to slow down the hugely popular messenger app Telegram, citing the application’s failure to comply with Russian data laws.

This was widely seen as a significant step toward closing one of the few remaining uncensored communications channels in Putin’s Russia. Telegram serves as a leading news platform among Russian audiences with over 93 million users in the country.

The Kremlin decision to restrict Telegram sparked a rare backlash within Russia’s own ranks, with pro-war bloggers particularly vocal in their criticism. The limitations further undermined connectivity between Russian forces fighting in Ukraine, with many soldiers complaining that the loss of Telegram would hamper their ability to share battlefield information and conduct fundraising activities.

Recent measures against Telegram are part of a much larger effort by Putin to exert greater control over all digital communications. The end goal appears to be the establishment of a “sovereign internet” inside Russia sealed off from foreign influence.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Russia has banned Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, and X. Meanwhile, the Kremlin is now actively pushing Russians to use the new state-controlled MAX app, which contains extensive tracking capabilities for surveillance and is now pre-installed on all phones in Russia.

As the war in Ukraine has progressed, Russia has also restricted internet usage through the widespread implementation of mobile internet blackouts. Putin recently signed a law expanding the ability of state bodies to restrict connectivity, essentially handing the security services a kill switch to the internet inside Russia.

Putin’s readiness to target Telegram despite the challenges this creates for the Russian army in Ukraine has led to speculation that he may be prioritizing domestic regime stability over military success. Some have suggested that he could be preparing for a new and politically risky mobilization; others believe the Kremlin fears unrest as the economic situation in Russia worsens.

Whatever the true motives behind recent efforts to throttle Telegram in Russia, the Kremlin’s actions do not project confidence. On the contrary, they hint at a regime seeking to silence critics and prevent any potential grassroots discontent from gaining traction.

Katherine Spencer is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Marc Goedemans is a Young Global Professional at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

United Kingdom: Trying to stay out of it

European Union: Caught between defending the rules-based order and aligning with Washington

Ukraine: A sense of schadenfreude—but also new risks

Canada: Calibrated, cautious, and aligned with allies

Argentina: A supportive response colored by a history of terror

Spain: Defiance against the US driven by domestic politics

China: A restrained response borne of a bind

While the war with Iran is not all about China, any analysis that neglects Beijing’s role in the war, or dismisses the great-power competition underlying it, is either incomplete or a deliberate red herring.

China’s own decisions have tied it to Middle Eastern geopolitics. In 2018, it proposed a new regional security architecture. In 2023, it brokered the Iran–Saudi rapprochement and hosted Hamas for mediation talks with its rival Palestinian faction Fatah. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Global Security Initiative is presented explicitly as an alternative to the US-led order. Iran has received an economic lifeline from Beijing, secured a berth in the bloc of emerging economies knows as BRICS, and had the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps operate within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Today China is the largest trading partner, the largest importer, and one of the largest foreign investors across much of the Middle East and North Africa. There are over 400,000 Chinese nationals in the United Arab Emirates alone. Now that population is subjected to attacks from Iranian drones and missiles that are most likely made with China-sourced precursor chemicals and components.

Yet China’s public response to the war has been characteristically limp: evacuation advisories for citizens near conflict zones and formulaic condemnations of Israel and the United States.

Beneath that restraint lies an impossible bind. Iran is at its weakest, detested by its population at home and an exporter of radicalism abroad, yet it is also Beijing’s most reliable anti-Western bulwark and a source of deeply discounted oil. Meanwhile, China lacks the means to counterbalance US and Israeli military dominance. Oil prices rose by more than 5 percent on Monday and could spike toward one hundred dollars a barrel with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The Gulf states, which absorb much of China’s Belt and Road Initiative investment and supply roughly a third of China’s crude, are now coming under attack from Iranian missiles and drones.

The irony is acute. It was US military supremacy in the Iraq war and the shockwaves of the Arab Spring that first pushed Beijing toward a more proactive Middle East policy. Now it has gotten a possible regime change and another war in the region, and it is none the wiser.

The pivot point lies with the Gulf monarchies. If they enter the fight, China would face a situation it cannot finesse. But it would also present an opportunity that neither the United States nor Israel could generate alone: to make China a credible offer to stop propping up Tehran and allow for the development of a more stable and prosperous region in which to do business. Whether China is too blinkered by great-power ideology to recognize that opportunity remains the defining question.

—Tuvia Gering is a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub and a researcher at the Diane & Guilford Glazer Foundation Israel-China Policy Center at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).

Russia: Not riding to the rescue—again

WASHINGTON, DC—One of the knock-on effects of the US and Israeli strikes on Iran is that they have exposed—yet again—that Russia is an unreliable ally.

Iran’s rulers are now absorbing the same bitter lesson learned by the autocrats of Syria and Venezuela before them. For all its talk of establishing a multipolar world, for all of its bluster about leading an anti-Western bloc of states, Moscow lacks the will and the capacity to come to the aid of its alleged partners.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is the third Kremlin-backed autocrat to fall in the past fifteen months. When Syrian rebels ousted Kremlin ally Bashar al-Assad from power in 2024, the Kremlin could only grant the deposed dictator asylum in Russia. Likewise, Moscow was helpless to aid Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro when the United States apprehended him in January.

And as Politico reports, when US and Israeli bombs were pounding Iran on Saturday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “offered his Iranian counterpart sympathy and promised his—verbal—support.” And after Khamenei was killed, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered Tehran little more than condolences.

Beyond Latin America and the Middle East, the trend of the Kremlin abandoning allies and partners is also evident in the former Soviet space. When Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey, launched a military campaign to take Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 and 2023, Moscow failed to support its erstwhile ally Armenia.

The cold, hard reality is that the Putin regime is so consumed by its war of aggression against Ukraine that it lacks the bandwidth to defend its geopolitical interests elsewhere.

But while the Kremlin has yet again suffered reputational damage, Moscow still hopes to salvage some benefits from the war in Iran. The resulting higher oil prices will benefit Russia’s depleted war chest. Unrest in the Middle East will distract attention and media oxygen from Ukraine. And should the US-Israeli war against Iran turn into a quagmire, Moscow certainly hopes to be a beneficiary of the chaos. As Chatham House’s Grégoire Roos notes: “Until the situation in Iran is clarified, the keywords for Moscow will be ‘strategic hedging.’”

—Brian Whitmore is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, an assistant professor of practice at the University of Texas-Arlington, and host of The Power Vertical Podcast.

United Kingdom: Trying to stay out of it

LONDON—The overwhelming view here is that military action taken by the United States and Israel on Saturday was not the right thing to do while negotiations were edging forward toward a deal. Comparisons are being made to US President George W. Bush’s catastrophic Iraq invasion and the lasting consequences for the region and interests of the United States and its closest ally, the United Kingdom.

In the United Kingdom, the stock of the Trump and Netanyahu administrations’ foreign policy in the Middle East is not high. The apparently premature abandonment of diplomacy for the military option will not have surprised many and has likely reinforced the view that both leaders are acting more for domestic political reasons and their own narrow interests. Military action does not—at least to British eyes—seem to have followed sufficient careful analysis of the US national interest and the broader interests of US allies.

The British political establishment, media, and public are highly critical and unsympathetic to the Islamic Republic of Iran. There was widespread outrage following the massacre of protesters in January. Nevertheless, what is likely to dominate public discourse in the coming days is the United States’ lack of clear, realizable objectives, a legal basis under international law, or new evidence to justify the rush to war and immediate regional destabilization. Those themes will overwhelm any attempt to justify action as a response to what happened in January and the despotic and brutal Islamic regime.

Some commentators, including former Conservative members of parliament and Reform leader Nigel Farage, have argued that the United Kingdom should prioritize supporting its closest ally, the United States, over debate on the legality of military action or how things reached this point. So far, that argument does not seem to have resonated widely.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the Labour government are between a rock and a hard place given their championing of the primacy of international law. The lack of clarity from them on what the United Kingdom should do next adds to the general sense that this is not the United Kingdom’s conflict, and that the country would be wise to stay out of it. Of course, events on the ground (for example, Iran striking UK military assets defending allies in the region) may rapidly overtake this position. How Starmer and his government align over the coming days is likely to be highly significant for UK domestic politics.

—Nicholas Hopton is a nonresident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative and a former British ambassador to Iran.

European Union: Caught between defending the rules-based order and aligning with Washington

BRUSSELS—Europe finds itself in a structurally uncomfortable position, partly because of events and partly because of its own past choices. For years, European Union (EU) policy toward Iran was centered on Tehran’s nuclear program and anchored in diplomacy backed by incremental pressure. The priority was containment through negotiation and de-escalation. That approach has long run its course. A coherent new strategy has yet to emerge.

The current crisis exposes both this strategic vacuum and the EU’s internal divisions. Competing logics are at play throughout the bloc.

Some leaders are prioritizing international law, condemning the US-Israeli strikes as a war of choice. Failing to mention international law risks eroding Europe’s credibility as a defender of the rules-based order, particularly in the Global South where accusations of double standards resonate.

Another logic prioritizes transatlantic cohesion. Openly confronting Washington could carry risks at a moment of geopolitical volatility. Europe was just able to avoid US President Donald Trump’s grab for Greenland. Restraint on the Iran issue therefore seems prudent for some.

A third logic concerns Iran itself. Many quietly hope that the strikes weaken a repressive regime, reduce nuclear-proliferation risks, and curb proxy warfare. At the same time, there is concern that escalation or spillover could produce something worse.

Europe is trying hard to reconcile these three concerns, but finding common ground is difficult. Some, such as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, have attempted to bridge the divide by shifting the debate toward the “day after,” urging coordination with Washington and European partners on what follows. This forward-looking framing may paper over intra-European tensions. But it also risks bypassing the unresolved question of principle at the heart of the debate.

—Roderick Kefferpütz is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center. The views expressed in this article are his own.

Ukraine: A sense of schadenfreude—but also new risks

KYIV—Iran’s Shahed drones have menaced Ukrainians for more than four years, striking our homes and murdering civilians far from the battlefield. So there was a certain amount of schadenfreude across Ukraine as the United States and Israel hobbled the Iranian regime with airstrikes of their own over the weekend. The display of decisive US force against a key Russian ally may have also applied some psychological pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was once again reminded how devastating US military power can be and may be reflecting on potential scenarios for how that could play out if his own regime came under direct attack. Iran’s response—drone and missile attacks across the Middle East—may also provide an opportunity to showcase Ukrainian anti-drone technology, which may be even more effective than some air defenses currently in the region.

The Iran strikes do pose some risks to Ukraine, too. Russian propagandists will likely have no problem warping the attacks on Iran into a justification for Moscow’s so-called “special military operation” against Ukraine. And retaliatory strikes by Iran place a premium on air-defense interceptors, which are already in short supply and which Ukraine desperately needs for its own defense. Finally, any increase in global oil prices means more revenue for the Kremlin to use to continue its war on Ukraine.

—Major General (ret.) Volodymyr Havrylov is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former Ukrainian deputy minister of defense.

Canada: Calibrated, cautious, and aligned with allies

CALGARY—Ottawa’s response to the US–Israeli strikes on Iran and escalating regional tensions has been cautious, calibrated, and aligned with allies.

Speaking to media from a trade mission to India over the weekend, Prime Minister Mark Carney stated that “Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security,” while emphasizing that Canada is not militarily engaged. He coupled that support with a call for civilian protection and renewed diplomacy, signaling continuity in Canada’s position that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are destabilizing.

The Canadian Armed Forces are not participating in combat operations but maintain a regional footprint through liaison and intelligence roles under Operation FOUNDATION in Qatar, Bahrain, and Jordan. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service has heightened vigilance amid concerns about potential Iranian cyber or proxy activity, though no specific domestic threat has been identified.

Domestically, the conflict resonates deeply. Canada is home to approximately 280,000 Iranian-Canadians, ranking fifth globally among Iranian diaspora populations after the United States, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Germany. The community’s response reflects both fear for relatives abroad and apprehension about regional spillover. For Ottawa, the challenge is strategic balance: uphold alliance commitments, safeguard domestic cohesion, and preserve diplomatic space in a volatile Middle East.

—Marcy Grossman is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs, and a former Canadian ambassador to the United Arab Emirates.

Argentina: A supportive response colored by a history of terror

WASHINGTON, DC—It’s no surprise that Argentinian President Javier Milei has been the most vocal supporter in Latin America of the US and Israeli strikes on Iran. Since the attacks began, his foreign ministry has voiced strong support for the actions, calling Iran a “threat” to “long-term international stability and security.” After the killing of Khamenei, Milei put out a presidential statement commending the operation, calling the ruthless Iranian leader “one of the most evil, violent, and cruel individuals that human history has ever seen.”

Much of the rest of the region called for restraint or respect for international law (Brazil and Mexico, for example) or outright condemned the US and Israeli airstrikes (Colombia). Paraguay (whose foreign minister spoke with his Israeli counterpart on Sunday) stands out for joining Argentina in explicitly being supportive of this past weekend’s actions. There has been wider agreement, however, on condemning Iran’s retaliatory attacks on Gulf countries, from Argentina and Brazil to Ecuador, Guatemala, and Panama.

Argentina’s firm stance in support of the US and Israeli actions is due not only to Milei’s strong support of Israel but also to the fact that Argentina has experienced the scourge of the Iranian regime firsthand. In the early 1990s, Argentina fell victim to two Iran-linked terror attacks that shook the country. In 1992, Hezbollah detonated a truck packed with explosives at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing twenty-nine people and wounding more than two hundred others. Two years later, a car bomb detonated at the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association Jewish Community Center building in Buenos Aires. That day marked the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentine history, with eighty-five people killed and over three hundred wounded.

Thirty years later, Argentina’s highest criminal court found Iran responsible for this latter bombing. For Argentina, these heinous attacks will never be forgotten and are a constant reminder of the need to prevent Iran from continuing to pose threats to the world. Many of the people accused by the Argentine justice system of serving as the architects of the attacks have since risen through the ranks of Iran’s security and military services with impunity.

Since taking office, Milei has also made a point of aligning his foreign policy with Israel and the United States, marking them as Argentina’s twin examples to follow. Given Argentina’s increasing economic alignment with the United States, and the sentiments of many in Argentina when it comes to Iran, expect Milei to continue to lead the region in supporting actions to dismantle the Iranian regime.

—Jason Marczak is vice president and senior director at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

Spain: Defiance against the US driven by domestic politics

After the US-Israeli strikes on Iran began, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez denied the United States the use of jointly operated Spanish airbases and Trump responded by threatening to cut trade ties with Madrid. Sánchez’s decision to pick another fight with the Trump administration should be seen through the lens of Spain’s domestic politics and the prime minister’s attempt to placate the extreme left of his base. As his popularity wanes, Sánchez knows well that standing up to the United States and Israel will resonate with certain sectors of the electorate, as did his decision last year to make Spain the sole NATO member not to commit to increase defense spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product. This all plays well with Sánchez’s base as his Spanish Socialist Worker’s Party looks ahead to regional parliamentary elections this year and the 2027 national elections. By citing international law and the legacy of the 2003 Iraq war, Sánchez can prey on lingering passions of the Spanish left to solidify his own weak position.

But Sánchez will also open himself up to political attacks that question the coherence of these actions. Alberto Feijoó, leader of the center-right Popular Party, has already accused Sánchez of sacrificing Spain’s foreign policy credibility to partisan politics. The European Commission released a statement expressing its solidarity with Spain over Trump’s trade threat. But this issue will nevertheless add to a growing suspicion in European capitals about Spain’s reliability as a strategic partner as Europe prepares to act more independently. As calls for a “two-speed” Europe become louder, Sánchez’s decision to self-isolate Spain may give ammunition to those who prefer to leave Madrid in the second tier of any future multi-tier EU architecture.

—Andrew Bernard is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

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Expanding transmission infrastructure to achieve low-cost, reliable, and abundant energy

Ken Berlin, Frank Willey — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0000

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Electricity demand in the United States is growing rapidly, driven primarily by data centers and electrification. But the buildout of new transmission wires to deliver power from generator to end user has stalled. Expanding and modernizing the US grid is essential to meet surging electricity demand while keeping energy affordable and reliable.

To achieve these goals, however, utilities, policymakers, regulators, and other stakeholders will have to overcome four major barriers to transmission development: slow and fragmented permitting processes involving dozens of federal and state agencies; the high cost of rebuilding decades-old infrastructure; siloed utility planning that prevents regional coordination and cost-sharing; and supply chain constraints on key energy materials.

Recent Department of Energy initiatives, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rulemakings, executive actions, and legislative efforts have made some progress to enable transmission expansion, but much more work is needed. This report outlines what actions utilities, policymakers, and regulators can take to achieve the following: proactive, long-term, coordinated system planning across regions; streamlined permitting with clear deadlines and more effective community engagement; the deployment of advanced transmission technologies like advanced conductors and dynamic line ratings; the implementation of energy efficiency and demand response programs; the development of innovative financing tools; and the diversification of supply chains for critical materials.

These actions comprise a comprehensive strategy to expand and modernize US transmission infrastructure that can yield multiples in savings over time, making grid expansion central to achieving an affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy system.

By the numbers

1,700 miles: the number of miles of new high-voltage transmission lines built per year between 2010-2014.

350 miles: the number of high-voltage transmission lines built per year between 2020-2023.

6.5 years: average time it takes for a project to complete the permitting process.

2,600 gigawatts: the amount of new generation capacity awaiting interconnection to the grid.

$20.8 billion: cost to consumers of grid congestion in 2022.

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Ken Berlin

Global Energy Center

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Frank Willey

Assistant Director

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Nate Swanson: We know the objective—and little else

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Decapitation strikes are not enough to take on Mexico’s cartels. Here’s what else the US should do.

Charlotte Bertrand — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 21:46:24 +0000

WASHINGTON—On February 23, Mexican security forces conducted an operation with US intelligence support against the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), killing its leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, also known as “El Mencho.” The operation decapitated one of Mexico’s most powerful cartels. It also came about a year after the United States designated certain drug cartels, including CJNG, as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs)—one element of a wider renewed US focus on the Western Hemisphere.

But narco-terrorist groups are different from many of the organizations that the United States hunted during the global war on terrorism. Policy responses that transpose traditional counterterrorism frameworks directly onto narco-terrorism are unlikely to succeed, as they neglect the market pressures that influence cartel behavior. This is evidenced by failures in Mexico’s “kingpin” strategy, which began in 2006 and targeted cartel leaders.

To effectively combat narco-terrorism in Mexico, the United States should move beyond the fleeting appeal of decapitation strikes. Rather, it should combine offensive strikes with enhanced supply disruption while bolstering domestic efforts to reduce substance use disorder in the United States.

Differences among ‘terrorists’

For many years, drug cartels were perceived as primarily a law enforcement imperative, not a military one. It was widely believed that while the cartels certainly employ tactics of terror, such as public executions and mass killings, they lack the ideological ambition that defines terrorism. The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), for instance, sought to establish a global caliphate governed by extremist interpretations of Sharia law. Cartels in Mexico have shown no such political ambitions. Instead, they rely on the continued international legitimacy of the Mexican state to sustain the trade flows they exploit to conceal and transport contraband. A Mexico openly ruled by a criminal leader would invite isolation, sanctions, and border closures, undermining the very commercial and logistical networks on which cartels depend.

That’s not to say that the United States’ FTO designations of several Mexican cartels were baseless. Cartels challenge state sovereignty by creating zones of lawlessness in which they conduct their illegal activities. Moreover, Mexican cartels have built infrastructure and distributed humanitarian aid to galvanize popular support, illustrating attempts to present themselves as legitimate providers of social services at the expense of the Mexican government. The rise of narcocultura, the glorification of cartel leaders and crimes, further erodes state sovereignty. Following the killing of El Mencho, for example, news outlets have even made lists of the top ten songs that reference the CJNG leader, illustrating the pervasive impact of cartels on popular culture. The conjunction of these factors grants cartels a politico-ideological dimension, thus placing them squarely within the confines of terrorist organizations.

Still, the profit-seeking logic that drives their behavior makes cartels distinct and demands a new strategy to counter them. While more ideological terrorist organizations are no strangers to crime, groups such as ISIS have relied on illicit activity to finance their ambitions, whereas cartels originate in—and exist to expand—illegal markets themselves. While this distinction may appear technical, it is in fact consequential. Past US strategies targeting drug cartels in Mexico have fallen short precisely because they failed to account for this nuance.

‘Kingpin’ isn’t checkmate

Starting in 2006, to curtail violence in Mexico, the United States supported the “kingpin strategy,” wherein the Mexican government targeted cartel leadership. The assumption, derived from traditional counterterrorism, was that eliminating a group’s figurehead would weaken, if not dissolve, the group. While this might make sense for an ideologically driven organization, it fails to account for the economic realities of the drug trade.

In Mexico, once cartel leaders were decapitated, the cartel would be weakened but other actors would subsume their operations, or brutal infighting between factions occurred. Ultimately, violence in Mexico rose because of the “kingpin strategy.” CJNG itself, now one of the most consequential cartels in Mexico, emerged during this period as a splinter of the decapitated Milenio Cartel. More recently, the arrest of top Sinaloa Cartel leaders last year fomented a brutal internal war as drug flows remain unabated. Scholars attribute these dynamics to the persistence of illicit markets; as long as demand exists, actors will move to supply it.

Consequently, while the strike against El Mencho was a success, expanded US intelligence-sharing to enable decapitation strikes cannot serve as the end-all, be-all US strategy. Doing so risks perpetuating cartel fragmentation and violence, repeatedly generating splinter groups that the United States would be forced to designate as FTOs in an unsustainable and self-defeating cycle. To successfully combat narco-terrorism, facilitating Mexican offensive strikes must be paired with measures geared toward constraining the narcotics market.

What else is required

The United States should continue existing efforts to disrupt narco-terrorist supply chains. Cartels rely on precursor chemicals and pill presses from China to produce fentanyl products. In November, Washington escalated its demand that China halt the exports of fentanyl precursors. Next, the United States should apply sustained pressure to compel compliance. The success of intelligence-sharing with Mexico in the El Mencho operation should spur deeper cooperation focused on identifying and interdicting suspicious shipments. Diplomatically, the United States should continue pressing the Mexican government to address the rampant corruption within its ranks.

In addition, strengthening the US border with nonintrusive inspection technology geared at commercial cargo would help hinder cartel routes. Expanding the use of canines at the border and within the US postal system represents another promising avenue. Given that 86 percent of those charged with fentanyl trafficking offenses in 2021 were US citizens, the United States must also prioritize robust domestic law enforcement and judicial responses.

Furthermore, Mexican cartels would not have a sustainable business model without US drug demand. The United States should continue efforts to address substance use disorder, and it should frame de-addiction as a national security matter, in addition to a public health priority. Since 2000, more than one million people have died of a drug overdose in the United States, while many others likely face a similar fate without help. Pivoting away from purely carceral approaches to drugs toward de-addiction treatment, strengthening cooperation among federal, state, territorial, and tribal authorities, and investing in social and community resources are among the steps the United States can continue to take to save lives and undercut cartel networks.

As the United States enters a new era of counterterrorism policy, it must heed the lessons of history and avoid conflating the temporary satisfaction of decapitation strikes with a coherent strategy that will weaken cartels. To successfully undermine narco-terrorists, the United States should pursue multiple, concurrent efforts to undermine the underlying illicit market—efforts that combine diplomacy, intelligence-sharing, border security, domestic law enforcement, and public health initiatives.

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Experts react: The US and Israel just unleashed a major attack on Iran. What’s next?

Atlantic Council experts — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 14:09:01 +0000

He went big. On Saturday morning, US and Israeli forces unleashed Operation Epic Fury, what US President Donald Trump called “a massive and ongoing” campaign against Iran. He called on the Iranian people to overthrow the regime once the fighting is done. Iran responded quickly by attacking Israel and US bases in the region. Below, our experts assess the unfolding war and where it goes from here.

Click to jump to an expert analysis:

Jonathan Panikoff: The Iranian regime is under unprecedented strain, but beware ‘IRGCistan’

Matthew Kroenig: A high-risk, high-reward campaign

Jennifer Gavito: Iran’s retaliation signals that it is not planning to deescalate

Daniel Shapiro: Trump’s order leaves questions for the American people

Danny Citrinowicz: A campaign with an abstract objective and no clear endgame

Thomas S. Warrick: This war will have a home front in the United States

Celeste Kmiotek: This campaign has serious implications for international law

Rob Macaire: The pathway to a stable Iran just got narrower

Alex Plitsas: Iran could be deliberately holding some of its missiles in reserve

Hagar Hajjar Chemali: The operation will only accelerate the Iranian regime’s economic collapse

C. Anthony Pfaff: Previous strikes have followed a pattern toward de-escalation

Michael Rozenblat: The experiment of the Islamic Revolution is done

Nic Adams: Multiple factors led the US and Israel to strike Iran—and they’re pursuing multiple objectives

Andrew Peek: Now the campaign turns on diplomacy, logistics, and opposition forces in Iran

Joe Costa: Sustaining the operation could impact readiness for other priorities

Colin Brooks: The US has a critical interest in what comes next

Tressa Guenov: Iran’s proxy networks are down but not out

Kelly Shannon: Real regime change requires more than bombs

Fast Thinking

Feb 28, 2026

Iran’s supreme leader is dead. Here’s what it means.

By Atlantic Council

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, was killed in a US-Israeli bombing campaign on Feb. 28.

Iran Security & Defense

We know the objective—and little else

By launching a massive joint attack with Israel on Iran, Trump is gambling that that he can inflict enough damage on the Islamic Republic’s core security and political institutions that the regime will fall.

By choosing to initiate this war, Trump has diverged from his past pattern of decisive actions with immediate and pain-free off-ramps. This is an enormous gamble with questionable legal justification. Trump did not outline an imminent threat from Iran, nor a detailed plan for what comes next in Iran if the United States succeeds in decapitating the regime. Trump also acknowledged the significant risk to US troops in the region.

As this operation moves forward, I am looking at three interconnected questions:

Will Iran successfully inflict costs on the United States? Facing a truly existential threat for the first time since the Iran-Iraq war, the Iranian regime will likely respond with everything it has, including its full missile arsenal and proxies. How much damage Iran inflicts on the United States and Israel could very well determine the regime’s fate.
Polling consistently shows Americans are deeply opposed to intervening in Iran. If there are significant US casualties or impacts on global energy prices, will Trump stay committed to this campaign?
Trump has defined a successful campaign as one where the Iranian people rise up and end the Islamic Republic. Absent ground troops or an armed opposition, this requires significant defections within Iran’s security apparatus. Is there a plan for how that will come together?

Finally, while I am a deep skeptic of this operation, it is important to acknowledge the depravity of the Iranian regime and my genuine desire to see the Iranian people freed. I welcome the prospect of an Iranian government replaced with one that is a responsible international actor and more responsive to its people. But initiating a major war with a nation of 93 million people, 2,500 years of history, significant retaliatory capabilities, and no clear opposition within the county is a significant risk.

—Nate Swanson is a resident senior fellow and director of the Iran Strategy Project at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. Beginning in 2015, he served as a senior advisor on Iran policy to successive administrations, including most recently as director for Iran at the National Security Council.

The Iranian regime is under unprecedented strain, but beware ‘IRGCistan’

Trump’s decision to launch major strikes against Iranian regime targets goes beyond his promise to protesters that “help is on the way.” This is an extensive campaign designed to kill the leadership, not a few hours of targeted, narrow strikes.

But neither protests nor airstrikes alone are likely to end the regime’s grip on power. History suggests it will require either the varying Iranian security forces stand aside, as happened in 1979, or at least a part of the security establishment to switch sides to the opposition. One of those two results may be more likely than it was previously, however. The breadth of economic pain felt across the country, the water crisis, and the regime’s brutal reaction to the protests, killing thousands—perhaps tens of thousands—makes this moment unique among the Iranian public’s history of protests since the revolution.

Indeed, this time, something fundamental has changed in Iran. And even if the regime does not collapse immediately, it’s critical to remember that the 1979 revolution took a year to unfold. This iteration of protests, therefore, should be viewed as the start of a new era, not another failure to bring change to the country.

But what that new era entails is unclear. The end of the regime is less likely to foster democracy as it is to birth what some are calling “IRGCistan”—a military-controlled state that might offer a new supreme leader as a symbolic token to millions of conservative Iranians, but with power firmly vested in the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Such a result would provide three pathways forward.

—Jonathan Panikoff is the director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative and a former deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East at the US National Intelligence Council.

A high-risk, high-reward campaign

Some have argued that Trump has not effectively made his case for US and Israeli strikes on Iran, but this military action became all but inevitable in January. Trump set a redline, warning the Iranian regime not to kill protesters. The clerics ignored the redline and massacred tens of thousands of their own people anyway. Trump’s advisers likely argued that he had to follow through on his threat or risk undermining US credibility. He did not want to follow in the footsteps of former President Barack Obama, who drew a redline over Syrian chemical weapons use only to back down later.

The only remaining question then concerned the target set. In late 2025, it was reported that Israel and the United States were considering strikes on Iran’s reconstituted missile program. Limited strikes on these targets could have made sense, at least as a starting point. Instead, having witnessed the vulnerability of the Iranian regime in January, Trump, his advisers, and regional partners, saw an opportunity to remove the Islamic Republic once and for all.

This path comes with higher risks and a higher potential reward. In past conflicts, like Operation Midnight Hammer last summer, Iran engaged in only token military retaliation, hoping to avoid a massive war with the United States. Now, with their backs against the wall, the clerics have little reason not to hit back with everything they’ve got. On the upside, the Islamic Republic is a card-carrying member of the Axis of Aggressors and has posed one of the greatest threats to US national security for decades. Removing it from the chess board could result in a transformational improvement of the regional and US global security environment.

—Matthew Kroenig is vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and the Council’s director of studies.

Iran’s retaliation signals that it is not planning to deescalate

Iran’s initial response to what now seems to be a regime-change campaign by the United States and Israel reinforces that the regime believes this to be an existential crisis.  As such, the type of de-escalatory responses that we have become accustomed to in previous conflicts, including last summer’s twelve-day war, are at least for now off the table.  The scope, speed, and scale of Iran’s initial retaliation, including against the Gulf countries (excluding Oman), reinforce the potential for this quickly escalating to wider conflict and widespread disruption. Already, air traffic in the region has ground to a halt and shipping flows through the Strait of Hormuz are slowing.

In these early hours, as the United States and its allies acclimate themselves to the potential for instability and economic disruption, key questions that will shape that trajectory remain to be answered. Chief among them are the intent and preparedness of Iran’s proxies to join the fray. In Iraq, Kataib Hezbollah has indicated it will seek to strike US facilities in Iraq in response to “American aggression,” while the Yemen-based Houthi movement is expected to resume attacks on shipping lanes in Red Sea corridor. And already today, the Lebanese government has warned Hezbollah against dragging the country into conflict, but the terror organization’s response remains to be seen. 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ledger, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have already condemned Iran’s strikes on several Middle Eastern countries that have killed at least one civilian in Abu Dhabi. A critical indicator of how this may all unfold is whether Middle Eastern countries lift their restrictions on US use of their airspaces to undertake its operations against Iran—or offer even more direct support for the campaign.

—Jennifer Gavito is a nonresident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. She previously served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Iraq and Iran.

Trump’s order leaves questions for the American people

Many Americans were probably surprised to wake up this morning to discover that the United States was at war in the Middle East. Trump, in his brief statement overnight, as in his recent State of the Union address, described the well-known (and accurate) list of the Iranian regime’s misdeeds: its pursuit of nuclear weapons, its extensive ballistic missile program, its support of terrorist proxies, and its brutal suppression of the Iranian people. What he did not explain is the urgency or the imminent threat that required a war now.

Typically, before launching such major operations, presidents and their senior advisers have explained to the American people the reason major military operations are required, and the strategic objective they are intended to achieve. They also customarily brief Congress, so the people’s representatives can express their view—even authorizing or supporting the operation—and seek allies and partners to join (or at least offer support for) the operation. Except for one briefing for eight congressional leaders, and of course, Israel’s participation, the president did none of these.

For the first time, the president did describe a strategic objective in his statement—to change the Iranian regime. As desirable an outcome as that is, it was a startling declaration for a president who has criticized previous regime-change wars, and had only days earlier sounded content to settle for a nuclear deal (admittedly, one that had little chance of being reached). But he also distanced the United States from responsibility to achieve regime change, calling on the Iranian people to do it. He can now claim he made good, perhaps belatedly, on his pledge to Iranian protesters in January that “help is on the way.” And many protesters may indeed welcome strikes against regime leaders and security organs that crushed the protests. But the linear progression suggested by his statement—US and Israeli strikes on nuclear, missile, and regime targets, leading to renewed protests, leading to the fall of the regime—is far from certain.

Iran’s air defenses, highly degraded in the twelve-day war in June, is no match for the combined power of the US and Israeli militaries. Iran will suffer severe damage, which could well weaken the regime. But Iran will land some blows as well, as it already has on the first day, with missile strikes against US bases and dozens of missiles launched toward Israel. If Iran is able to absorb the punishment, keep launching ballistic missiles, and continue to crush dissent at home, US and Israeli air defenses could soon be stretched and US munitions stocks run down to dangerous levels. So tough decisions may lie ahead, and tough conversations with the American people, if the regime, battered and bruised, manages to outlast aerial attacks, leaving the strategic objective of regime change out of reach with the means the president has employed.

—Daniel B. Shapiro is a distinguished fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. From 2022 to 2023, he was the Director of the N7 Initiative. He served as US ambassador to Israel from 2011 to 2017, and most recently as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East.

A campaign with an abstract objective and no clear endgame

The United States and Israel have launched an unprecedented campaign aimed at creating the conditions for regime change in Iran—through the targeted killing of senior officials, strikes on regime institutions, and attacks against Iran’s strategic military infrastructure.

This is not a classic preventive strike. There was no immediate Iranian threat triggering the operation. Rather, the logic appears to be the exploitation of what is perceived as regime weakness in order to generate profound political change inside Iran.

The campaign is built upon the intelligence and operational advantages of the United States and Israel, as well as unprecedented firepower intended to pressure the regime to such a degree that internal actors—or the broader public—might ultimately move against it.

Despite early tactical achievements, the central question remains unresolved: what is the endgame? Can external military pressure realistically rely on an Iranian public that lacks cohesive leadership, particularly when facing a regime that has operated for forty-seven years under the disciplined control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)?

Complicating matters further is Iran’s apparent preparedness for this confrontation and its determination to preserve retaliatory capabilities over time. The risk of regional expansion is significant—especially following Iranian strikes against US bases in the Gulf and the possibility that Iranian-aligned actors in Yemen and Iraq could enter the conflict more directly.

Yet the greatest danger may be a prolonged campaign that fails to produce dramatic internal change in Iran and lacks a clearly defined termination mechanism, resulting in an open-ended conflict with no visible conclusion on the horizon.

—Danny Citrinowicz is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs. He is also a fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies. He previously served for twenty-five years in Israel Defense Intelligence. 

This war will have a home front in the United States

Trump announced the goal for this operation only after it started: sustained attacks to weaken Iran’s security and strategic targets, including Iran’s leadership, until the Iranian people overthrow the regime. This represents a gamble not just in the skies and streets of Iran but on the home front as well. The American people, by a significant majority, wanted Trump to focus his second term on domestic affairs, the economy above all. Because he did not seek the support of Congress and the American people in advance, he will own the outcome. If it succeeds, he may receive a mild domestic boost, but he risks a significant setback to his domestic agenda if he fails.

Trump’s postwar plan for Iran appears to rest on an obviously untested proposition: that the Iranian people will be able to overthrow an entrenched, if weakened, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps determined to hold onto power.

But there is another untested proposition: that the United States can resist whatever asymmetric efforts the Iranian regime will try here in the United States. Given Iran’s peculiar sense of symmetry, Trump’s targeting of Iran’s leadership will almost certainly lead to attempts to target Trump and other top US officials. The Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the US Capitol Police will all be tested in the coming weeks and can afford zero failures. Iran will try every cyber trick it can mount, testing the Department of Homeland Security, the private sector, and US cyber defenses. Iran tried in the past, unsuccessfully, to meddle in US elections, and would almost certainly fail to have any impact this time. Even though the United States imports very little oil from the Middle East, energy prices may spike, setting back the US economy.

This war will have a home front, and Trump needs to find ways of broadening support at home.

—Thomas S. Warrick is a nonresident senior fellow in the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative and a former deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism policy in the US Department of Homeland Security.

This campaign has serious implications for international law

The Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) is responsible for an untold number of domestic and international human rights abuses and serious violations of international law, including crimes against humanity against the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protesters. Indeed, after Trump promised to “rescue” Iranians who launched the latest round of wide-scale anti-regime protests in January, the IRI responded by massacring, arresting, and executing protesters in the tens of thousands—a scale that is unprecedented in Iran’s history and globally.

However, the US and Israeli strikes on Iran violate international law. Use of force against a state is prohibited under the United Nations (UN) Charter, with exceptions for self-defense and Security Council authorizations. Self-defense must be in response to an imminent threat—and there is no indication such a threat existed to either the United States or Israel. Likewise, there are no Security Council authorizations. As such, this appears to not only violate the UN Charter, but indeed constitutes the crime of aggression as defined by the UN General Assembly and prohibited under customary international law.

US and Israeli strikes against Iran triggered an international armed conflict, and international humanitarian law (IHL) now applies. IHL demands that strikes only target combatants and legitimate military objectives, while taking precautions to limit incidental harm to civilians. Information is still coming in on what US and Israeli strikes hit in Iran, and what Iran strikes hit in Gulf states. Reports that dozens were killed in US or Israeli strikes on a girls elementary school warrant investigation, as do reports of IRI strikes on a hotel in Dubai. If either were hit intentionally or because insufficient precautions were taken to protect civilians, they would almost certainly be clear violations of international law. All parties to the conflict must ensure their actions comply with IHL.

There is much that can be said on the imperative to constrain and hold accountable actors like the IRI, which inflict atrocity crimes against their domestic populations and globally. But flagrant violations of international law against the IRI by the United States and Israel will only continue to erode international norms and further endanger civilians globally.

—Celeste Kmiotek is a senior staff lawyer for the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council.

The pathway to a stable Iran just got narrower

From a European perspective, there is a lot of attention on whether these military strikes are in breach of international law, but that seems not to have been a dominant consideration in the decision process. Arguments about legality would have to focus on the intent of the military action, but the intent remains somewhat obscure. Both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statements as the strikes were launched talked about hitting nuclear, missile, and naval capabilities, but also encouraging the Iranian people to overthrow the regime. “This is the moment for action, do not let it pass,” Trump told the Iranians. And he threatened the IRGC and other security forces with “certain death” if they do not lay down their arms. 

But the IRGC alone has some 190,000 active members: it doesn’t seem realistic that the president can kill them all or, indeed, guarantee their safety if they defect from their posts. If the Iranian regime emerges decimated, bloodied but still in power, its leaders will declare survival as victory. But if these attacks are devastating enough to collapse the regime, despite its preparations and resilience, it is possible that the whole authority of the state collapses with it. Either way, the pathway to a stable resolution that ends Iran’s threat to its neighborhood and oppression of its people may have become narrower.   

—Rob Macaire is a nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. He previously served as British ambassador to Iran.

Iran could be deliberately holding some of its missiles in reserve

The joint US–Israeli strikes against Iran mark a decisive escalation designed not merely to punish but to reshape the strategic equation. Trump has stated that the objective is regime change, pursued through sustained US air and naval operations, which are intended to weaken Tehran’s coercive apparatus while empowering protest elements on the ground.

The opening round of strikes appears calibrated toward degrading Iran’s retaliatory capacity and security apparatus: ballistic missile infrastructure, drone production and launch sites, government and military leaders, and key naval facilities tied to potential attempts to close the Strait of Hormuz. There are also indications of decapitation strikes targeting senior Iranian leaders, though battle damage assessments remain incomplete and confirmation of high-level casualties is pending.

The strategic logic is straightforward. Nuclear negotiations had frozen over nonnegotiable redlines. Rather than accept incremental stalemate, Washington and Jerusalem appear to have concluded that altering the players, not merely the terms, was necessary. Force, in this framework, is being used to degrade capability and change the calculus in Tehran.

Iran’s response thus far has been measured and rational. It has targeted major US military installations across the region: the US Navy Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Al Dafra in the UAE, and Ali Al Salem in Kuwait.

Iran was assessed to possess roughly 2,000–3,000 medium-range ballistic missiles, 6,000–8,000 short-range systems, and thousands of drones. We have not yet seen saturation attacks intended to overwhelm layered air defenses. It is unclear if that is due to US and Israeli strikes on missile stocks, Iran holding missiles in reserve, Iran testing defenses, or a combination thereof.

Whether Tehran is deliberately holding reserves, probing defensive responses, or suffering greater degradation than publicly known remains unclear. The most plausible explanation may be a combination of all three.

—Alex Plitsas is a nonresident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, the head of the Atlantic Council’s Counterterrorism Project, and a former chief of sensitive activities for special operations and combating terrorism in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

This conflict will only accelerate the Iranian regime’s economic collapse

While many are debating the strategy behind strikes against Iran as it relates to regime change, there is an important overlooked fact: the Islamic Republic of Iran does not have an economic leg to stand on. With or without strikes, this regime was already in the process of financially crumbling. It was headed toward an economic implosion that could have forced the regime’s collapse on its own.

In October 2025, one of Iran’s largest banks—Ayandeh Bank—collapsed. This bank was run by regime elites, it fueled their corruption, and it overspent on lavish projects that failed. The Iranian regime quickly absorbed Ayandeh’s debts and merged it with Bank Melli, the largest Iranian state-owned lender. The regime also mass printed rials, causing the already devalued currency to plummet and inflation to skyrocket overnight, sending shopkeepers into the streets followed by the masses of Iranians who joined them. Ayandeh’s collapse is what precipitated the protests that resulted in the regime’s subsequent massacre of its own people.

At least five more of the largest banks in Iran—including banks Sepah, Sarmayeh, Day, Iran Zamin, and Mellat—are at risk of the same fate. This is according to economists and Iran’s own central bank, which earlier in 2025 warned that eight unnamed banks risked dissolution. And because of years of sanctions and economic mismanagement, the regime does not have the billions needed to offer bailouts nor will its international buddies come to save it. What would follow in such a scenario is not only an exacerbated economic crisis, but major defaults and a breakdown in government-paid services and salaries. That would mean the regime’s security forces could go without pay, and dictators are often only as strong as their militaries are loyal, creating a major vulnerability for the regime’s sustainability.

I cannot guarantee this scenario—it is an assessment of how things in Iran could unfold with or without strikes. But understanding the regime’s economics on top of its other weaknesses since the twelve-day war last June offers insight into what helped motivate the United States and Israel to pursue their operations now. The regime was already standing at the edge of a cliff. This operation likely pushes it over the edge.

— Hagar Hajjar Chemali is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. She previously served on the White House National Security Council and at the US mission to the United Nations.

Previous strikes have followed a pattern toward de-escalation

There are two likely outcomes to this recent escalation of the conflict with Iran: the conflict escalates into an asymmetric war with Iran, or, after a series of tit-for-tat strikes, it de-escalates as it has done in the past. Regarding the first possibility, the scope of any escalation is limited by both sides’ inability to settle their differences. For Washington, that entails regime change to one more friendly to the United States, Israel, and the West more generally. For Tehran, that means driving the US military presence out of the region. For both sides, that requires a greater military commitment than either seems willing or capable of giving. While the US may hope that this current round of strikes will mobilize protests capable of toppling the regime, the fact that Tehran’s ability to crack down on protesters remains undiminished suggests that, while worthwhile, that outcome is unlikely. Without a way to eliminate the other side’s ability to resist, all that’s left are asymmetric means such as air strikes and terrorist attacks.

If the above is true, then the second outcome is more likely. In October 2024, for example, Iran conducted a massive ballistic missile and drone strike against Israel in response to Israel’s assaults against Lebanese Hezbollah, including the killing of its leader Hassan Nasrallah.  Israel responded to the Iranian attack by targeting missile production facilities in Iran, underscoring their limited nature. In return, the Iranians downplayed the damage and thus the need to respond. This pattern has repeated itself for some time, going back at least as far as the Iranian response to the US killing Qassem Soleimani in 2020 and the US responses to proxy attacks against its personnel in Iraq. Whether this pattern will continue going forward depends on how expansive the responses are. As long as both sides stick to attacking military targets, de-escalation is more likely. Should, however, Tehran conduct terrorist attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure—more likely if it feels its survival is threatened—then escalation to a larger, regional conflict becomes the only option either side has.  

—C. Anthony Pfaff is a nonresident senior fellow with the Iraq Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs

The experiment of the Islamic Revolution is done

The joint US-Israeli campaign is underway. Until the dust has settled, it will be hard to assess who and what was targeted successfully, and who will remain in Iran after the opening strikes. Reports suggesting that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was targeted at the outset are a good start, hopefully along with the close political and military aides who are key for the regime’s survival. The major figures who carried the regime for decades, accumulating hundreds of combined years in experience, would need to be removed to make way for Iranians to take their fate in their own hands.

With this, the objective for the operation had been marked: hitting the pillars of the regime to a point where its post-war survival would be impossible politically, economically, and militarily.

After years of brutality, corruption, and violation of every right Iranians deserve as humans, they can now see what this regime had come to. The experiment of the Islamic Revolution is done.

Going forward, the pressure on the regime will rise and the groundwork for an opposition to present itself will be laid out. The real question is: Who will take the opportunity to unite the people and present an alternative for this clerical regime—and when?

It’s now time for the Iranian opposition, inside Iran and in the diaspora, to realize this moment. If the regime goes on to survive this war, then it’s hard to see another opportunity for change down the line. However, if the opposition manages to unite around an agreed-upon leader or group of leaders who can claim to be the only legitimate leadership—then Iranians might have a chance at a better future.

—Michael Rozenblat is a visiting research fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs, from the Israeli security establishment.

Multiple factors led the US and Israel to strike Iran—and they’re pursuing multiple objectives

The joint US-Israel operation targeting Iran follows nuclear talks in Geneva this past week that failed to produce an outcome acceptable to the United States. Further, the strikes come as both the United States and Israel perceive the Iranian regime to be at its weakest point since its founding in 1979, where stagnant economic conditions and ever increasing brutality exercised by the regime are indicative of a state that is forced to resort to extreme violence to retain control.

Following the October 2023 attacks on Israel and the subsequent military operations that followed, Iran has lost its most important proxy forces in the region, as well as its client state in Syria. That loss of strategic depth, as well as an increasingly forward defensive posture by Israel, likely drove Jerusalem to seize what it sees as a historical moment to end what it views as its last remaining existential threat in the region.

For the United States, the operation is likely designed to achieve several strategic objectives, including the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program and an end to its use of proxies and missile forces to hold its neighbors at risk. It perhaps also saw an opportunity to reshape Iran and the region in such a way that could see the clerical regime in Tehran replaced by something else, though it remains unclear what may follow.

Regional states such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE will likely continue to call for de-escalation in the coming days as regional instability threatens their economic development models based on energy exports, tourism, and the attraction of wealthy expats. Already there are reports of civilian causalities in the UAE from falling debris when an Iranian missile was intercepted by air defense systems. But so far the Iranian regime has demonstrated its willingness to strike US targets in Gulf countries, and it will likely increase the intensity of its attacks if it perceives operations by the United States and Israel are designed to topple it.

—Nic Adams is a nonresident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. He most recently served as a professional staff member on the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and as senior advisor to Senator John Cornyn (R-TX).

Now the campaign turns on diplomacy, logistics, and opposition forces in Iran

This is the big one. The sustaining elements for Trump’s war against Iran are going to be the diplomacy, the logistics, and the politics on the ground. The diplomacy has broken right, so far. Though US partners such as the UAE have been hit, the immediate aftermath has been positive outreach from estranged regional ally Saudi Arabia, rather than distancing from the US campaign. Compare that to the earlier missile strikes in 2022 against Abu Dhabi, which caused an Emirati softening of policy toward Iran.

The logistics are unknowable to the outside. Patriot and Tomahawk missiles are in demand everywhere, and the production base is slow. But the administration will have been helped by the halting of further Presidential Drawdown Authority tranches in Ukraine and the rolling six-week buildup it has undertaken in the region.

The politics are unknowable to everyone. This is a regime-change war and one that is trying to re-construct basically dormant protests. The most important initial element is to have some area that is relatively free from security forces, where opposition elements can rest and rearm. They’ll also need some weapons to avoid a rerun of January or some tactical link with US air support. They’ll need the opposition to include the upper working class and lower middle class that is the base of support for the regime. And the airstrikes urgently need to remove Khamenei, if he isn’t gone already, and the government’s media infrastructure. Any regime-change struggle is a fight for legitimacy, and that is won by symbols and guns.

—Andrew Peek is the director of the Adrienne Arsht National Security Resilience Initiative of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Sustaining the operation could impact readiness for other priorities

Although the United States retains overwhelming conventional military superiority, Iran and its proxies can impose significant costs through missiles, naval mines, drones, fast attack craft, cyber operations, and other asymmetric tools—raising the risk of broader regional instability. Reports indicate Iranian forces have already struck US and allied assets in the Gulf, including in Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait, and Jordan. Some oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz have been suspended, as well.

Containing a sustained regional escalation will require substantial US military resources and could impact readiness for other priorities, including China. A key question is whether the United States has enough high-end munitions and secured sufficient allied support—such as access, basing, overflight rights, intelligence sharing, and logistics—to sustain a prolonged campaign, if necessary, without enormous costs to other global US priorities.

Another central issue is the “theory of victory”—how military action would translate into durable political outcomes. Will this lead to an end of Iran’s nuclear program? In past cases, such as the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, regime change was achieved militarily, but the aftermath proved costly and destabilizing. It’s entirely unclear who would fill the void and whether their views on the nuclear program would dramatically differ from the current regime.

How would the United States manage the consequences of a destabilized or even collapsed Iranian government? These risks must necessarily be weighed against the core national security interest of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. It will therefore be important to understand the administration’s reasoning on these and related questions in the coming days.

—Joe Costa is the director of the Forward Defense program of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council.

The US has a critical interest in what comes next

As the world watches unfolding strikes in Iran, it’s clear that the joint US-Israeli military operation not only intends to raze Iranian military capability to the ground, but to actively topple the regime—targeting the Iranian political and security apparatus, past, present and future. What comes next has enormous implications for the region and American interests. 

No one should mourn the passing of a regime that has murdered its citizens, weaponized sectarian and religious identities, fueled terror proxies, armed Russia’s war in Ukraine, and murdered Americans. Iran has consistently served as a driver of instability in the Middle East.  It’s also clear that the regime continued to negotiate in bad faith, unwilling to budge on its nuclear program, ballistic missiles, or support for terrorists. Operation Epic Fury is a welcome development.  

However, the United States and our partners have a critical interest in what comes next. Neither the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MeK) nor the Pahlavi family are panaceas. Our American experience in regime change following the Second World War, to the Cold War, to Chalabi in the Iraq war, has met with uneven, often unpredictable results.   

Assuming the theocracy is toppled, what is America’s role in a post-Ayatollah Iran? What policies should the US adopt? 

It’s clear that previous US-Iran policies of containment, isolation, engagement, or considering the nuclear issue in a vacuum, have all failed to address the challenge. Similarly, with the exception of the Marshall plan, American-led post conflict plans have a fantastic failure rate. Hard-earned lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan should be top of mind for US policy makers. 

While the US must remain clear-eyed about the persistent threat posed by Iranian militias, remnants of the nuclear program, or another hardliner assuming control of Iran, the United States does not need to own the post-conflict Iranian landscape. America should not entertain investing in far flung disarmament, demobilization and reintegration efforts, consider American troop presence, or place the Iranian of our choice on a pedestal in the palace.  

Instead, the United States should gain consensus with our regional partners on any emerging political leadership, contain instability to inside Iran’s borders, and use economic levers to influence outcomes.

After all, the US retains powerful non-military tools to incentivize the right behavior in any new Iranian government. As we saw in Syria, an existing sanctions framework is a powerful lever to moderate any new government and incentivize change. 

The same is true in Iran. Iran is among the most sanctioned countries in the world.  This framework provides the US and our partners with powerful tools to shape what emerges next. 

— Colin Brooks is a nonresident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative and a former senior professional staff member on the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

Iran’s proxy networks are down but not out

For weeks and according to press reports, security services around the world have been on the lookout for the increased possibility of Iranian asymmetric retaliation via “sleeper cells” or other proxy groups prior to or in response to today’s attack on Iran.

Iran’s complex proxy networks are down but not totally out. Even if senior regime leaders are killed in the strikes, the IRGC and other intelligence components have likely prepared for such a day. Iran could look to conduct attempted assassinations, terror attacks, cyberattacks, kidnappings, or sabotage against civilian or military targets—all of which it has been linked to dating as far back as the 1980s and in countries as diffuse as Albania, Argentina, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Sweden. It could still look to activate Houthi or Hezbollah proxies, for example, or conduct more expeditionary attacks via recruited individuals in Europe, the United States, or elsewhere.

The Iranian regime has a long memory and has been known to pursue targets for decades, including plots and attempted attacks against dissidents abroad and US officials. It is worth noting that Iran did not appear to activate its most extreme tools of disruption in response to the US-Israeli attack last June, although not surprisingly it did employ cyber, drone, and other attacks. But with the regime now facing the most significant physical assault against its leadership, it remains to be seen whether and how that will alter Iran’s longstanding ability to export chaos and harm.

—Tressa Guenov is the director for programs and operations and a senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council.

Real regime change requires more than bombs

The Iranian people have been clear for the past several years that the Islamic Republic must fall. The United States—both the Biden and Trump administrations—could have taken steps to provide meaningful assistance to Iran’s anti-regime movement ever since the Woman, Life, Freedom movement of 2022-2023 but chose not to. Instead, both administrations attempted to revive a nuclear deal with Iran without discussion of human rights, which legitimized the regime and would have offered it a lifeline had the negotiations succeeded.

The Iranian people pressed on alone in their quest to end the regime’s oppression, risking their lives in mass protests in December and January. The regime cut them off from communicating with the world, slaughtered them in the thousands, arrested tens of thousands, and undertook a campaign of terror that has persisted ever since. Trump promising in January that “help is on the way” and then doing nothing as the regime murdered thousands of people with impunity was morally shameful. It also damaged the Iranian people’s trust in the United States. That the Trump administration’s renewed negotiations with the Islamic Republic these past weeks did not include the Iranian people as a point of negotiation was an additional slap in the face for Iranians who have been risking everything for freedom.

The Iranian people are not pawns. Trump and Netanyahu have called on them to overthrow their government. But the United States and Irael are offering only bombs from the sky. Iranians were already rising again this past week, as grieving families expressed defiance in cemeteries and university students clashed with security forces. The outbreak of war forces these protests to stop while Iranians seek safety. Bombing thus makes a popular uprising more difficult to organize. If the United States and Israel are serious about regime change, they must do more than simply bomb Iran.

Successful regime change will require significant material aid to the Iranian people, coordination with dissidents on the ground, and carefully considered plans for what might happen after the regime falls. The Trump administration thus far appears not to have such a plan. If the regime does fall—as it deserves to—it is in the interests of the United States for the Iranian people to succeed in establishing the secular democracy grounded in human rights and the rule of law that they have long desired. But there are other forces at play who would push Iran’s future in a less democratic direction. The question is, will the United States help the Iranian people chart a positive path forward, or will it leave them to the wolves after the bombs stop falling?

——Kelly J. Shannon is a visiting scholar at the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University. She is also a member of the Atlantic Council’s Iran Strategy Project working group.

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One month in, can Honduras’ new president put the country on the path to lasting economic gains?

María Fernanda Bozmoski, Isabella Palacios — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0000

Bottom lines up front

President Nasry Asfura’s early reforms signal a focus on fiscal austerity and economic competitiveness, sending positive signals to the private sector and to President Donald Trump, who backed Asfura during the campaign.
The expansion of the Temporary Import Regime and steps to rejoin the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes aim to strengthen the investment climate and support trade.
Lasting gains will require structural reforms in trade, investment, and energy, and securing promised deals with Washington and Taiwan, alongside reducing crime.

Asfura’s narrow win

Nasry “Tito” Asfura was sworn in as Honduras’ president on January 27, following one of the country’s most contentious electoral cycles in years. The former mayor of Tegucigalpa won the November 2025 general election with 40.27 percent of the vote, a margin of less than 1 percentage point over Salvador Nasralla, the Liberal Party candidate.

Mirroring the pro-business approach that characterized his tenure as mayor of the country’s capital from 2014 to 2022, when he advanced 1,142 infrastructure projects, Asfura won with a platform emphasizing job creation and legal certainty for businesses. With about 60 percent of Hondurans living in poverty and more than 38 percent in extreme poverty, economic concerns were the main issue for voters. Against this backdrop, Asfura’s “Vamos a Estar Bien [We Are Going to Be OK]” campaign emphasized attracting national and international investment and reducing red tape for starting businesses, while also reforming social services and fighting corruption.

Endorsed by President Donald Trump in the final hours of the campaign, Asfura entered office with a commitment to strengthen cooperation with the United States on shared priorities, one of the pillars of his so-called “Five-Star Vision.” He also campaigned on broader shifts in foreign and commercial policy, including cutting ties with China, rebuilding relations with Taiwan, and strengthening engagement with Israel. In the days leading up to his inauguration, Asfura traveled to Washington to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as well as to Israel to engage with President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

More broadly, the first month of Asfura’s presidency has signaled a sharp departure from his predecessor’s ideological orientation. While former President Xiomara Castro’s LIBRE party pursued a progressive social agenda, including alignment with left-leaning regional partners, Asfura’s National Party is more conservative. The changes in ideology and aligned partners will likely reshape the direction of domestic policy debates, whether concerning education, social spending, or health.

A congress tilted toward traditional parties

In the November 2025 elections, Hondurans also elected all 128 members of the National Congress. In the new congress, Asfura’s National Party makes up the largest bloc with forty-nine seats, followed by the Liberal Party with forty-one and LIBRE with thirty-five. Smaller parties hold just three seats combined.

While no party holds an absolute majority of sixty-five seats, the National and Liberal Parties together control ninety, marking the legislature’s return to the more traditional two-party dynamic that dominated politics for decades prior to LIBRE’s 2021 victory. The legislature’s new makeup also marks a return to a more conservative agenda. The new configuration will generally allow the government to pass legislation without relying on LIBRE’s support, but negotiations between the National and Liberal Parties will still be essential. Tensions from the contested elections remain, with some legislators from the Liberal Party still demanding the verification of electoral results by independent or international entities. Differences over policy priorities and these lingering disputes could complicate efforts to move proposals forward. After such a contested election, translating campaign promises on the economy and social progress into tangible outcomes will be key for consolidating trust.

Early actions in office

Asfura’s governing style became visible within his first hours in office. He was sworn in during an austere ceremony, with no international guests in attendance. In his inaugural address, he framed his presidency’s focus on fiscal efficiency by reducing the size of the state and highlighted infrastructure, education, and health as priority areas. Reporting afterward noted that the government plans to cut or merge twenty institutions to optimize resources. That framing carried into the president’s first policy actions. He closed the inauguration ceremony by signing three bills into law that reflected broader efforts to reallocate public resources and prioritize economic activity. These included authorizing the sale of the presidential plane, broadening the presence of the National Autonomous University by opening new campuses in eight additional national departments, and expanding the Temporary Import Regime. Through this last measure, 125 additional companies will benefit from the duty-free import of inputs used for export-oriented production. The government argued this will lower costs for exporters, improve national competitiveness, and generate approximately forty-seven thousand additional jobs.

One day into the role, Asfura moved on health priorities, requesting that congress declare a national emergency to tackle surgical backlogs, which currently affect more than ten thousand patients, and to ensure the adequate supply and distribution of medicine.

On the international front, the administration initiated Honduras’ return to the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), reversing the previous government’s 2024 withdrawal. This earlier decision came after investors in the Prospera special economic zone filed arbitration claims against the government following the National Congress’s 2022 attempt to repeal the 2013 Zones of Economic, Development, and Employment (ZEDE) law, which underpinned Prospera’s legal and operational framework. Castro’s move last year to withdraw from ICSID contributed to heightened investor concerns about legal certainty and access to dispute resolution mechanisms for companies operating in Honduras. Rejoining ICSID signals renewed adherence to international norms, an important first step toward attracting foreign capital and creating jobs.

Asfura’s early February meeting with Trump was another concrete step in advancing his foreign policy priorities. The Mar-a-Lago meeting reportedly focused on trade, investment, and security. In line with these priorities, Asfura has announced plans to pursue reciprocal trade negotiations with the United States to strengthen economic ties and attract investment. But the context has since shifted, with Trump now imposing global tariffs under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 rather than under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The new legal justification could shift the objective of these engagements. Asfura is also one of a select few Latin American heads of state who will participate in the March 7 regional summit convened by Trump in Miami.

Opportunities ahead: How to turn early reforms into lasting gains

Asfura’s first reforms have sent positive signals to different stakeholders, including local and international investors and the US administration. The follow-through work will now be critical. To deliver on campaign promises and achieve results, Asfura needs to consider structural reforms on trade, investment, and energy, leveraging Honduras’ early engagement with the Trump administration and the possibility of renewed ties with Taiwan.

1. Shape the economic agenda with the United States beyond tariffs

The United States is Honduras’ largest trading partner, accounting for roughly 37 percent of its total trade. With the Supreme Court’s IEEPA ruling, Honduran exports to the United States—primarily textiles, coffee, and agricultural products—will continue to benefit from preferential access under the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR). As Washington continues to advance and sign reciprocal trade frameworks with partners across the region, Honduras could have an opportunity to reframe the bilateral US trade agenda beyond tariffs, focusing more on customs and trade facilitation, as well as long-standing labor concerns. Locking in a reciprocal trade deal would help Honduras address investment fundamentals and better weather US domestic trade volatility.

Asfura and US Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer already met and announced their intent to “launch negotiations as soon as possible.” The Asfura administration should expect Greer to seek commitments in areas that the United States has previously identified as constraints on US economic engagement, including the following:

Reducing trade barriers: Since February 2023, exporters of US poultry products and rice (and onions starting in 2024) must complete an annual registration process andapply for import permits for each shipment. The process requires engaging with multiple Honduran government agencies and navigating numerous administrative steps, which can increase costs and delay shipments. These guidelines were introduced without advance notification or a phase-in period. Reducing duplication and clarifying procedures will be key to opening opportunities for US exporters.
Improving labor standards and oversight: According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Honduras made moderate progress in strengthening labor laws, especially those regarding child labor, in 2024 and 2025. Progress will likely remain slow because the relevant Honduran agencies lack both financial and human resources to effectively carry out their mandates, but it is important that the government continues advancing reforms. Demonstrating progress on freedom of association and collective bargaining, and guaranteeing acceptable working conditions and wages in priority sectors, will be important goalposts.
Intellectual property (IP) enforcement: Honduras must reinforce the implementation of IP laws under CAFTA-DR, addressing concerns about the lack of border enforcement regarding the sale of counterfeit goods, online piracy, and cable signal piracy. Alignment and modernization of IP laws has issue in the new White House’s reciprocal trade frameworks with several partners in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).

With these priorities in mind, the government should start consultations with local private-sector actors and coordinate across relevant ministries to define commitments and ensure their timely implementation.

2. Explore targeted investment and trade deals with Taiwan

Until 2023, Honduras and Taiwan maintained a free trade agreement that was particularly important for Honduras’ shrimp sector, a key component of the country’s aquaculture industry. In 2022, for example, shrimp exports to Taiwan alone generated more than $105 million, accounting for roughly 30 percent of Honduras’ total shrimp exports, which represented the country’s fifth-largest export sector at the time.

As part of its new economic engagement with China, which followed the diplomatic switch from Taiwan in March 2023, Honduras sought to expand shrimp exports through the early harvest agreement. Producers hoped that access to China’s 1.4 billion consumers would increase demand. However, of the 250 containers initially projected for export, China purchased only one in 2024. At the same time, the loss of preferential access to Taiwan and the imposition of a 20-percent tariff led to a significant decline in export volumes to the sector’s main market, which fell to $25 million that same year, down from $51.7 million in 2023 and $105 million in 2022. It is safe to say that Honduran trade with China has been underwhelming.

Producers attempted to mitigate these losses by tapping into alternative destinations, including the European Union and Mexico. These markets, however, could only take in much smaller volumes at lower prices. As a result, total shrimp exports were 67 percent lower by 2025 compared to pre-diplomatic switch levels. This downturn also forced more than sixty companies, including two processing plants, to close, resulting in the loss of about fourteen thousand jobs.

Restoring relations with Taiwan could offer Honduras a pathway to rebuild the sector. Taiwan has a track record of providing targeted assistance and investment to its diplomatic partners, including support for aquaculture sectors in Fiji, Grenada, and Belize.

For Honduras, potential areas of support from Taiwan could include:

aquaculture infrastructure, including processing facilities;
technical cooperation programs to improve production and supply chain efficiency; and
investment in complementary sectors such as transport logistics connecting key shrimp-producing departments, such as Choluteca and Valle, to major distribution hubs such as San Pedro Sula and Puerto Cortes, strengthening the sector’s competitiveness and export capacity.

Recently, Taiwanese business actors have expressed interest in restoring shrimp import levels to pre-2023 volumes. If Asfura moves forward with reestablishing relations with Taiwan, diplomatic engagements could be accompanied by trade missions that include representatives from the aquaculture sector. In parallel, consultations with producers and industry associations would help assess current production capacity and inform the design of a renewed trade framework supported by technical assistance and investment cooperation.

3. Reform the energy sector

During his Washington visit in late 2025, when he was still president-elect, Asfura emphasized the importance of attracting US capital into critical sectors such as energy. The cost and reliability of electricity are among the most significant constraints on Honduras’ investment climate. Energy reform should not be seen simply as a route to fiscal stabilization but as a key part of the country’s national competitiveness strategy.

The state-owned Empresa Nacional de Energía Eléctrica (ENEE) has been in financial and operational distress for years. As of early 2026, according to the new ENEE manager, ENEE carried an accumulated debt of more than $3 billion, including nearly $1 billion owed to private power generators. This high level of debt, combined with limited cash flow, has constrained the company’s ability to invest in critical improvements and maintenance of the energy sector.

Technical and non-technical losses in Honduras’ distribution system remain among the highest in Latin America, at roughly 40 percent. This means that more than one-third of generated electricity is either lost in transmission or goes unbilled. The country’s average industrial electricity tariff also ranks among the highest in Central America, directly undermining the competitiveness of its manufacturing and agro-industrial sectors.

To restore the sector’s stability, the government should work on a multi-layered strategy.

Restructure ENEE’s debt while laying the groundwork for future growth and reforms: While debt restructuring is essential for short-term stabilization, long-term credibility will depend on institutional reform. Honduras should engage with multilateral banks and financial institutions to secure short-term financing and alleviate cash flow constraints. Prioritize clearing arrears with private generators to restore confidence and normalize commercial relationships. In parallel, ENEE’s new leadership should advance a restructuring of ENEE’s cash flow through transparent and competitive procurement processes. This would help ensure that future power purchases are contracted under market-based conditions that improve cost efficiency, reduce structural deficits, and avoid the accumulation of new payment arrears.
Infrastructure investment for today: Upgrade generation and transmission systems to reduce losses and improve reliability. Public-private partnerships and international cooperation could support grid upgrades, including anti-theft measures such as automated meters. Other targeted projects, similar to the Inter-American Development Bank’s Remote Area Rural Electrification Program, could support efforts to ensure adequate supply in remote areas through mini-grids and solar systems. Investments in infrastructure will also be key if the country wants to attract data centers.
Operational and governance reforms: To ensure reliable service and timely payments to generators, Honduras should strengthen billing and collection systems, enforce the legal framework to address non-payment and arrears, and improve ENEE’s operational capacity. In parallel, it should update existing laws to ensure the country’s regulatory framework is aligned with open and competitive market principles. Doing so would also strengthen energy-sector public institutions, provide legal certainty to investors, and establish predictable regulation that sends credible signals for long-term investment, while enabling lower electricity prices and security of supply.

4. Address crime to improve investor confidence

Honduras’ security environment remains a real, tangible constraint on investment, as noted by the 2024 update to the country guide published by the US Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration. While homicide rates have declined from their peak earlier in the decade, the country still faces elevated levels of extortion, gang-related violence, and organized crime—all of which increase operating costs and deter both domestic and foreign investors. A 2022 World Bank “Country Private Sector Diagnostic” report also highlighted crime and insecurity as top obstacles for firms operating in Honduras.

Asfura has signaled a tough-on-crime posture, but the approach must go beyond policing. International experience suggests that sustained reductions in crime require institutional reform in the justice system, professionalization of security forces, and investment in violence prevention programs. For investors, predictability matters as much as headline security gains: clear and enforceable property rights, transparent permitting, and judicial processes that function without corruption are all part of the security equation.

The Honduran government should work with the United States to ensure that cooperation frameworks address both traditional security threats and the governance deficiencies that enable corruption and impunity. Strengthening the attorney general’s office and supporting anti-corruption institutions would reinforce the legal certainty message that Asfura’s early economic moves have tried to communicate.

Conclusion

Asfura has moved quickly to set the tone for four years in office. The early steps on fiscal discipline, trade openness, and alignment with Washington respond directly to Honduras’ most pressing economic realities. The expansion of the Temporary Import Regime, the move to rejoin ICSID, and the outreach to the Trump administration on trade, security, and broader cooperation are all positive signs. Turning these initial moves into lasting results will require technically sound reforms, particularly after a contested election. With favorable congressional alignment, international partners ready to engage, and a population eager for economic improvement, the administration has an opportunity to strengthen Honduras’ investment climate, support broader economic growth, and consolidate the country’s position as a reliable partner for Washington in the years ahead.

About the authors

Staff

María Fernanda Bozmoski

Director, Impact and Operations and Lead for Central America

Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center

Central America

Staff

Isabella Palacios

Program Assistant

Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center

Central America Colombia

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The Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center broadens understanding of regional transformations and delivers constructive, results-oriented solutions to inform how the public and private sectors can advance hemispheric prosperity.

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Standardizing carbon accounting worldwide with a single, robust, cost-effective system

Vincent Aussilloux, Yann Coatanlem, and Karthik Ramanna — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 18:25:51 +0000

Bottom lines up front

Developed economies aren’t just underinvesting in the climate transition—they are missing the mark by an order of magnitude. Because green financing is often characterized as underperforming, the capital they do deploy rarely reaches the projects or regions where it’s needed most.
But decarbonization doesn’t have to be a synonym for “high risk.” The key to unlocking high-impact, high-return investment lies in better risk management. Measuring a project’s carbon footprint with greater accuracy will mitigate the guesswork that keeps capital on the sidelines.
The authors advocate for the Climate Club, an intergovernmental decarbonization forum, to select a single, robust, and cost-effective method for computing products’ carbon footprint. The framework would provide the rigor required to significantly scale climate finance and drive energy security.

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Carbon accounting has gained traction in recent years as the mechanism through which companies and countries can unlock competitive forces to drive innovation in decarbonization and energy availability. However, most emissions tracking today still occurs through a patchwork of carbon disclosure systems rather than through a true accounting framework.

The limitations of today’s carbon disclosure systems are increasingly consequential as governments adopt trade and procurement policies that require accurate emissions data. For example, emerging carbon border tariff policies, such as the European Union’s mandatory Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) that is aimed at encouraging trade in low-emissions products, require that each transaction be linked to a specific emissions footprint. Yet existing disclosure systems cannot consistently provide such granular and comparable information across borders or complex supply chains. To implement the tariffs, jurisdictions have resorted to simplified, partial accounting methods that cover only a narrow set of upstream, easy-to-measure products while excluding many downstream goods. This workaround, in turn, can create inadvertent deindustrializing effects and adds confusion and unnecessary compliance costs in the economy.

Market and policy developments suggest that there is an urgent need for a single, comprehensive, robust, and cost-effective carbon accounting system worldwide: one that identifies low-emissions production across all products and services and across all jurisdictions and consistently over time.

This issue brief proposes a concrete and achievable first step toward such a global carbon accounting system: for a group of proactive member countries in the intergovernmental Climate Club to launch a call for tender to select a single, robust, and cost-effective method for computing the carbon footprint of all products (and, by extension, companies) worldwide.

A common, trusted carbon accounting system would unlock several critical levers in the race to drive decarbonization while meeting global energy demand. It would enable finance to flow more efficiently toward high-impact, high-return decarbonization investments, allow governments to steer foreign trade and public procurement toward lower-emissions options, and support credible carbon labeling for customers seeking “greener” purchasing options.

Together, these mechanisms would accelerate decarbonization while strengthening economic security, energy resilience, and international competitiveness.

view the full issue brief

about the authors

Vincent Aussilloux is an economist at the European Commission’s Directorate General for Trade. Just prior to his current position, he served as special adviser to the general commissioner of France Stratégie, a public think tank responsible for anticipating major challenges for the country, evaluating public policies, and informing and improving the quality of public debate. He served as the director of its economics department between 2014 and 2023. Aussilloux was also general rapporteur for the French National Productivity Council, a member of the cabinet of two ministers, and served in the Office of the Secretary of State for Foreign Trade and the Directorate General of the Treasury in France. He holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Montpellier.

Yann Coatanlem is an economist and the president of Club Praxis, a multidisciplinary think tank that promotes the use of big data in policymaking, in particular in revamping the tax and welfare system. His work has won multiple awards, including the special prize of the political economy, statistics, and finance section of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques. He spent most of his research career at Citigroup as managing director and head of multiasset quantitative analysis. He is also a co-founder of GlassView—the inventors of Neuro-Powered Media^TM—and a member of the board of the Paris School of Economics. He co-authored Capitalism against Inequalities, with a postface from Nobel laureate Philippe Aghion, and was awarded the Prix Turgot and the Prix Louis Marin. He graduated from the École nationale supérieure d’informatique et de mathématiques appliquées and the École des hautes études commerciales de Paris. He is a recipient of the French National Order of Merit, the Gold Medal of La Renaissance Française, and the Médaille d’honneur des Conseillers du commerce extérieur.

Karthik Ramanna is a professor of business and public policy at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government and a fellow at St John’s College. He teaches at the Blavatnik School on managing organizations in polarized times, which led to his 2024 book, The Age of Outrage. He also serves as principal investigator and co-founder of the E-ledgers Institute, a nonprofit organization advancing rigorous greenhouse gas accounting practices. From 2023 to 2025, Ramanna was on partial public-service leave from Oxford to advise the US Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, an “auditor of auditors” in global markets. From 2016 to 2023, he was director of the school’s master of public policy program. Ramanna has also taught at the Harvard Business School in both the MBA and senior executive-education programs. His scholarship has won numerous awards, including the Journal of Accounting and Economics Best Paper Prize, the Harvard Business Review McKinsey Award for “groundbreaking management thinking,” and the international Case Centre’s prizes for “outstanding case-writing.” He has a doctorate from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

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Lessons from Sudan for US economic engagement with Venezuela

Lesley Chavkin — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 14:37:32 +0000

On paper, 2020 and 2021 should have marked the beginning of a new chapter for Sudan. Following the ouster of Sudan’s former authoritarian leader Omar al-Bashir in 2019, the United States removed the country from the State Sponsors of Terrorism (SST) list in late 2020. This ended nearly two decades of trade restrictions, giving Sudan access to support from international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, and opened up the prospect of much-needed foreign investment. The first Trump administration committed to a variety of economic sweeteners, including investment guarantees and development assistance conditioned on reform milestones. And in June 2021, Sudan qualified for debt relief under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative. Under HIPC, Sudan became eligible for a more than $50 billion reduction in its public external debt—the largest HIPC debt relief operation ever undertaken.

The United States and its partners were cautiously optimistic that Sudan could finally right its long-mismanaged economy and make progress toward democratization. But in October 2021, Sudan’s moment of opportunity collapsed. The country’s fragile civilian-military governing coalition fell apart in the wake of a military coup, derailing hopes for an eventual democratic transition and leading to the indefinite suspension of its landmark debt relief program. Five years on, democracy remains elusive.

Today, Sudan is embroiled in a brutal civil war between military factions and suffers one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. Sudan’s experience suggests that sanctions relief and promises of economic support following the removal of an autocratic leader do not automatically dismantle the patronage networks, security coalitions, and illicit economies that sustained the regime. Nor do they spontaneously regenerate the civic institutions and independent organizations destroyed over decades of authoritarian rule.

Sudan’s experience offers important lessons for the United States as it looks to stabilize Venezuela and rebuild its economy following the capture of Nicolás Maduro last month. To be sure, there are important differences between these two cases. Nevertheless, Sudan’s experience during its fragile political transition from 2019 to 2021 is a case study worth analyzing as the US forms its approach to Venezuela.

Both countries, for example, experienced dramatic economic deterioration under decades of authoritarian misrule, leaving poverty in their wake. In each case, natural resource wealth that should have benefited citizens was instead captured by regime-connected actors: Venezuela’s oil industry was gutted through politicization and purges of skilled workers, while Sudan’s gold and oil revenues flowed to military and paramilitary networks. Sudan and Venezuela also both suffered mass emigration crises, decimating their professional workforces. Both face the challenge of entrenched security apparatuses and criminal networks deeply embedded in state structures. And in both countries, decades of repression systematically hollowed out civil society and concentrated power in personalized patronage networks, leaving institutions severely compromised and unfit to constrain authoritarian actors or mobilize for democratic reform.

Sudan’s collapse demonstrates that sanctions relief and economic incentives alone cannot secure democratic outcomes without addressing deeper structural challenges. Drawing from Sudan’s experience, three policy approaches offer the United States a path to avoiding the same mistakes with Venezuela.

Pursue phased, conditional sanctions relief

Phased sanctions relief that conditions each tranche of relief on verifiable, irreversible institutional reforms offers the Trump administration its best leverage for lasting change. The United States removed key sanctions on Sudan in 2017 and rescinded the SST designation in 2020, leaving the United States with limited leverage when military leaders staged their October 2021 coup. In contrast, Venezuela remains under comprehensive sanctions targeting its oil sector, senior officials, and mining operations. This sanctions architecture carries significant weight, but only if deployed strategically. It is essential that the administration articulate specific benchmarks to the Venezuelan government and tie each category of sanctions relief to corresponding institutional changes.

Initial relief tranches could address humanitarian concerns and basic economic functions, conditioned on political prisoner releases and freedom of assembly guarantees. Subsequent phases could then target deeper structural reforms. Sectoral oil sanctions, for instance, would come off only after the establishment of independently audited mechanisms for petroleum revenue distribution that prevent capture by military or criminal networks. Financial sector sanctions relief, in turn, would be contingent on Venezuela establishing demonstrable central bank independence and ending its politicized monetary policy. And unfreezing official assets would be tied to concrete progress on electoral preparations with international observation.

Benchmarks are most effective when they represent institutional changes that are difficult to reverse, such as constitutional amendments, international monitoring mechanisms, or the integration of paramilitary forces into civilian-controlled military structures. Sudan’s experience demonstrates that front-loading sanctions relief without securing irreversible democratic gains creates a dangerous dynamic in which spoilers face no consequences for derailing transitions. Resisting pressure for rapid, comprehensive sanctions removal—and maintaining leverage throughout what will likely be a yearslong transition process—remains in the Trump administration’s clear interest.

Send a clear message to the private sector on sanctions relief

Sanctions relief will be most effective if it is paired with policies that actively facilitate private sector reengagement with Venezuela’s economy and financial system. Sudan’s experience following its 2020 SST delisting starkly illustrates this challenge: Despite formal sanctions removal, US companies remained reluctant to enter Sudan due to persistent political uncertainty, reputational concerns, extremely high levels of corruption and opacity, elevated compliance costs, and a weak and ineffective anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regime. Most critically, Sudan lacked the functioning correspondent banking relationships necessary for commercial transactions. Even as Sudan’s transitional government desperately needed foreign investment to demonstrate the dividends of democratic reform, the country remained largely disconnected from the international financial system. This undermined the country’s attempts at economic recovery, which might have provided political legitimacy to civilian leaders.

While major US energy companies have expressed near-term reluctance to restart operations in Venezuela, preparing the ground for eventual reentry requires directly addressing the structural impediments to commercial engagement. This could include detailed, sector-specific guidance from the US Treasury Department that provides safe harbors for permissible transactions, and reducing compliance uncertainty for companies and their legal counsel. This could also include high-level outreach to major correspondent banks—whose participation is essential for restoring payment channels—to rebuild relationships that have atrophied over years of sanctions. The US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) could also consider establishing clear parameters for political risk insurance available to early-mover companies willing to invest in Venezuela’s reconstruction, explicitly protecting them against expropriation and political violence.

Finally, the Trump administration would benefit from making clear what actions from the Venezuelan government would trigger snap-back sanctions, allowing companies to conduct meaningful risk assessment rather than fearing arbitrary policy reversals. This strategy recognizes that sanctions removal, while necessary, is insufficient: Without deliberate efforts to rebuild commercial infrastructure and reduce transaction costs, Venezuela risks following a path similar to that of Sudan’s—remaining economically isolated even after formal sanctions are removed.

Deploy strategic economic incentives and technical assistance

Sudan’s experience is instructive: while the United States offered economic inducements, these arrived too slowly, at insufficient scale, and without a coordinated strategy to mobilize private capital and rebuild technical capacity in Sudan’s economic policymaking institutions.

In Venezuela, restoring the country’s institutional credibility requires deploying a comprehensive package combining economic incentives with technical assistance. This could include DFC guarantees for infrastructure investments, Export-Import Bank support for US equipment exports, and preferential access to reconstruction contracts for US companies willing to take the lead in a post-Maduro Venezuela.

The United States can also support a negotiated debt restructuring process with Venezuela’s creditors—the country faces roughly $150–170 billion in external obligations, with defaulted bonds alone estimated at $60 billion—and help enable access to resources from the IMF and multilateral development banks. (The IMF’s ties to Venezuela are currently suspended and Venezuela is in arrears to the Inter-American Development Bank). Paired with these mechanisms, addressing the absence of credible economic data and technical capacity remains a critical priority: Venezuela’s central bank and statistical agencies, politicized and hollowed out under the Chávez and Maduro regimes, have failed to produce reliable indicators on inflation, economic growth, employment, and fiscal balances. Technical assistance from the US Treasury Department will be essential to restoring monetary policy independence, implementing transparent foreign exchange mechanisms, and rebuilding capacity for credible economic data collection and reporting. The World Bank and IMF can also provide technical expertise for reconstructing Venezuela’s statistical agencies and establishing transparent budget processes that prevent resources from being diverted to spoiler networks.

Importantly, these incentives are most effective when coordinated with multilateral institutions. This would mean active support for Venezuela’s World Bank and IMF reengagement, coordination with the Inter-American Development Bank for reconstruction financing, and facilitating an international oil company consortium to comprehensively rebuild Venezuela’s state-owned PDVSA rather than allowing piecemeal asset-stripping. The scale and speed of economic support would need to be sufficient to demonstrate tangible benefits quickly enough that Venezuela’s population sees concrete rewards for supporting a democratic transition. This would provide opposition leaders with the political legitimacy to resist military encroachment and the other factors that ultimately destroyed Sudan’s fragile democratic opening.

The comparison between Sudan and Venezuela is imperfect but instructive. Venezuela enters its transition with clear advantages: extensive oil infrastructure, proximity to stable regional democracies, and a large, educated diaspora that could fuel reconstruction if given reason to return. But these strengths will matter little if the United States repeats some of the well-intentioned missteps in its policy toward Sudan—assuming that economic recovery will follow automatically from sanctions relief and disengaging before democratic institutions have time to solidify. Sudan showed how quickly a promising transition can collapse when economic statecraft is poorly timed or insufficient in scale. Venezuela offers a chance to demonstrate that the United States has learned these lessons.

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Why the Arctic matters to the United States

Julia Nesheiwat — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 22:02:46 +0000

WASHINGTON—The recent debate over the future of Greenland sparked by US President Donald Trump has brought Arctic security to the American public’s attention, but there’s a wider story to tell about the region’s importance, too.

The Arctic is an increasingly important region for global energy, security, and geopolitics. Melting sea ice continues to open access, yet heightened great-power rivalry has transformed the High North into a front line of strategic competition. Russia’s dominance over half the Arctic coastline and China’s deepening “no limits” partnership with Moscow are reshaping access to resources, routes, and influence, raising risks of escalation.

While there are many attention-grabbing hotspots in the world, policymakers in Washington besides the president need to focus more on the Arctic—not only on how it is changing and what opportunities are emerging, but also on how Moscow and Beijing are acting in the region.

Significant reserves of oil, gas, and critical minerals

The Arctic holds immense untapped hydrocarbon reserves—estimated at ninety billion barrels of oil (16 percent of global undiscovered totals) and natural gas reserves—as well as significant deposits of valuable minerals essential for cutting-edge technology and the clean energy transition.

Given these resources, Russia’s Arctic development remains a national priority, fueling its economy through projects along the Northern Sea Route (NSR). While lacking Arctic territory but self-identifying as a “near-Arctic state,” China, too, has invested heavily in resource extraction and infrastructure, often through partnerships with Russia. This includes joint ventures in mining, energy projects, and critical minerals, positioning Beijing to secure supplies for its industrial and tech needs. Western sanctions on Russia have accelerated this Sino-Russian economic alignment, with China providing capital and markets in exchange for discounted resources and access.

Greenland also features prominently in this resource competition due to its substantial deposits of rare earth elements and other critical minerals vital for defense, renewable energy technologies, and high-tech industries. While Greenland’s development remains under Danish oversight, and the territory prioritizes strong Western partnerships, concerns persist about potential external interest—particularly from China—in these assets, which could imperil the security of these Arctic supply chains.

New shipping routes and the Northern Sea Route

Thinning ice has made the NSR and the Northwest Passage more viable, promising shorter transit times between Asia and Europe/North America. Russia treats the NSR as a sovereign waterway, promoting it for international shipping while building ice-capable infrastructure. China integrates this into its “Polar Silk Road” extension of the Belt and Road Initiative, funding icebreakers, ports, and navigation tech.

Recent developments include plans for high ice-class container ships, which can maintain their speed through thick ice, and joint training for polar navigation. These routes could disrupt global trade patterns, reducing reliance on traditional chokepoints such as the Suez and Panama canals, but they also heighten concerns over control, freedom of navigation, and potential militarization.

Geopolitical competition: The Russia-China axis

Russia has long viewed the Arctic as core to its security and economy. As a result, it has sought to modernize its military bases, air defenses, and nuclear capabilities in the region while conducting operations to deter NATO. Over half of the Arctic Ocean coastline is Russian, and Moscow has rebuilt dozens of Soviet-era sites and facilities to assert dominance. The shortest route for ballistict and cruise missiles to strike North America is over the Arctic.

China’s role has expanded significantly, from observer status in the Arctic Council (since 2013) to active economic, scientific, and dual-use engagement. Beijing builds icebreakers (five have been completed so far), conducts research expeditions (often paying Russia for access), deploys satellites for polar coverage, and pursues subsea cables and infrastructure with potential military applications. Sino-Russian cooperation has deepened markedly: joint naval and coast guard patrols (including in the Arctic Ocean and near Alaska), air patrols with bombers, maritime law enforcement agreements, and collaborative research. NATO leaders have flagged this as a concern, noting increased joint exercises and patrols that challenge Western presence.

Greenland’s role as a vantage point for surveillance and emerging shipping routes underscores its importance in the broader great-power contest.

This Beijing-Moscow partnership—bolstered by mutual isolation from Western sanctions and shared interests in countering US and NATO influence—displays unity in signaling Arctic ambitions, though underlying tensions persist over sovereignty and influence (e.g., Russia’s wariness of Chinese encroachment). The Arctic Council, once a model of cooperation, faces paralysis due to Russia’s isolation following its invasion of Ukraine, creating governance gaps that Russia and China exploit through bilateral ties and alternative frameworks.

Greenland’s strategic location further amplifies these dynamics. Positioned at the intersection of North America, Europe, and the Arctic, it anchors the western edge of the critical Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) gap, a maritime corridor for monitoring and containing Russian naval forces transiting to the North Atlantic. The United States maintains Pituffik Space Base (formerly Thule Air Base) in Greenland under longstanding defense agreements with Denmark, supporting Golden Dome missile early warning, space surveillance, and homeland defense—capabilities that enhance NATO’s deterrence posture amid rising Russian militarization and Chinese activities in the region. Greenland’s role as a vantage point for surveillance and emerging shipping routes underscores its importance in the broader great-power contest, while respecting Denmark’s sovereignty and the strong allied cooperation that underpins regional security.

New frontier for energy and security implications

Beyond fossil fuels, the Arctic offers potential for both renewable and nuclear power, the latter through small modular reactors. However, geopolitical tensions overshadow these. US policy emphasizes defending homeland interests, including Arctic approaches, amid concerns over Russian militarization and Chinese dual-use activities. Enhanced NATO presence (with Finland and Sweden’s accession to the Alliance) counters this, but it also increases the risk of miscalculation in a confined space.

The Arctic—a fragile home to Indigenous peoples and unique ecosystems—remains threatened by rogue actors and melting sea ice, yet strategic priorities now dominate discourse. Protecting routes, resources, and stability requires robust diplomacy, but the Russia-China dynamic introduces new risks of sub-threshold competition and hybrid challenges.

The Arctic is no longer just a climate or resource story—it’s a geopolitical arena where Russia and China’s deepening cooperation challenges Western dominance, reshaping energy, security, and trade. Multilateral forums must adapt, or bilateral power plays could dominate the High North’s future.

The post Why the Arctic matters to the United States appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The US and Mexico need stronger financial cooperation to disrupt illicit financial flows

Phil Lovegren — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 19:35:57 +0000

When the United States imposed sweeping tariffs on Mexico last year (in a move since struck down by the Supreme Court), the US administration justified the decision by citing the fentanyl crisis. The White House argued that the inflow of the synthetic opioid into the country constituted a “national emergency” and claimed that Mexican drug trafficking organizations had “an intolerable alliance with the government of Mexico.”

Irrespective of the merits of this inflammatory justification—which many experts have questioned—it brought renewed attention to the illicit flow of drugs and money across the US-Mexico border and prompted both governments to intensify efforts to combat organized crime through financial measures. These efforts were punctuated in dramatic fashion by the February 22 killing of Jalisco New Generation Drug Cartel leader Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, carried out by the Mexican government with the assistance of US intelligence.

While moments like El Mencho’s killing generate newspaper headlines and are important in their own right, momentum in combating drug trafficking organizations will only translate into durable reductions in illicit drug flows if the United States and Mexico strengthen their cooperation in targeting the financial flows that sustain cartel activities. Achieving this will require targeted reforms and more effective communication between financial institutions and authorities.

Targeting the money behind the drugs

Illicit financial flows between the two countries are driven in large part by criminal organizations seeking to repatriate proceeds from drug trafficking. To do so, they rely not only on bulk cash smuggling but also on traditional financial channels and virtual currencies. Because access to financial resources is critical to sustaining these operations, disrupting such access has proven to be one of the most effective strategies for weakening organized crime. Targeting these illicit financial flows, however, requires close collaboration between the financial intelligence authorities of the United States and Mexico.

Recent leadership changes within Mexico’s financial authorities have generated new momentum for strengthening collaboration with US counterparts. On January 12, Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) co-hosted the first meeting of a new Transnational Organized Crime Working Group with the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and other foreign partners. This marks a notable departure from UIF’s previous reluctance to engage in international cooperation on transnational security challenges. Coupled with a leadership change at the national banking and securities regulator, the Comisión Nacional Bancaria y de Valores (CNBV), these developments point to a broader shift in Mexico’s approach to combating cross-border illicit finance.

The changes come at an opportune time, as the promise of the country’s security agenda will be limited without modern financial crime-fighting tools.

Mexico’s financial authorities need the tools to fight crime

While this renewed engagement is welcome, the Mexican government can take concrete steps to convert its new posture into more effective policy. The easiest challenge to identify—if not to fix—is the lack of resources at the institutions mentioned above. Mexico’s financial regulators were not spared by former President López Obrador’s austerity policies, and a tight budgetary environment, driven by the government’s fiscal priorities, continues to constrain them. Ideally, financial authorities would receive robust funding in future budgets to reverse years of disinvestment.

Even if the broader fiscal outlook remains unchanged, Mexico still has options to address resource constraints. For example, during the next budget process, the administration can take steps to empower CNBV. In some other G20 countries, including the United States, regulators charge fees to regulated entities and use the revenue to fund their budgets. While CNBV does charge those fees, it currently transfers the revenue to the national treasury before receiving a budget like any other agency. Thus, the source of funding and the mechanism for collection already exists, and Mexico can take the next step by granting CNBV greater budgetary autonomy in the next budget process.

Meanwhile, the UIF does not have enough resources to fully analyze the financial intelligence it receives. Then again, no financial intelligence unit in the world does. But there are ways to address this bottleneck. In the United States, law enforcement agencies have access to the suspicious activity reports FinCEN collects and can use the information to build cases. In Mexico, too much of the burden falls on the UIF. Mexico should design a system, tailored to its national context, to distribute responsibilities more effectively.

Some changes require significant capital; others demand significant political will. But talk is cheap. Both the Mexican government and the US administration can improve the effectiveness of anti–money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) efforts by improving communication with the private sector. In Mexico’s case, authorities could provide more actionable information to regulated entities. The most classic type of feedback would be a financial advisory, which outlines forms of illicit financial behavior—or “typologies” of interest—to the government. Another approach involves governments convening banks for closed-door discussions, sometimes with “safe harbor” protections to shield participants from the risks of sharing potentially derogatory information. Initial roundtables may be stiff and scripted. As relationships develop, however, information flows more freely. Both forms of feedback can create a virtuous circle of information-sharing that improves the quality of financial intelligence available to law enforcement.

US guidance can strengthen cross-border enforcement

Financial institutions on both sides of the border could also benefit from clearer signals from the United States. When the US government takes an enforcement action against a domestic or Mexican institution, other institutions—unsurprisingly—pay close attention. Information published alongside such enforcement actions can double as industry guidance—a “what not to do” message. This could include accompanying advisories with customer or transaction red-flag indicators, as well as details that give the public a clearer sense of the scale of negligence at penalized institutions and explain process failures. Public speeches and public-private dialogues could further reinforce these efforts.

In general, the more communication that accompanies a policy tool, the more effective that tool becomes. While most regulated entities benefit from clear guidance, in some sectors a more basic level of feedback may suffice. This is not the case in AML/CFT compliance, given the sheer volume and technical complexity of the data involved—and the fact that incomplete information is often dispersed across multiple actors. A malfunctioning information ecosystem can undermine policy goals. Generalized anxiety in the Mexican financial sector, combined with a scarcity of authoritative guidance, could raise banking costs without delivering the corresponding benefits from more precise targeting of illicit finance risks.

Mexico already has low financial penetration, with total loans and credit equal to just over 30 percent of gross domestic product in 2024—well below the average for a country of its level of development. While compliance costs are not remotely the primary cause of shallow financial depth, inefficient use of regulatory resources creates additional headwinds to financial sector deepening. This, in turn, could incentivize continued reliance on cash and informal financial channels, impeding efforts to monitor and combat illicit finance. The risk of backfire is real—but well-designed and clearly communicated reforms can help the financial sector become a more effective partner in addressing cross-border security challenges.

Phil Lovegren is a contributor to the Atlantic Council’s Economic Statecraft Initiative within the GeoEconomics Center and a former US Treasury attaché to Mexico and Central America.

Housed within the GeoEconomics Center, the Economic Statecraft Initiative (ESI) publishes leading-edge research and analysis on sanctions and the use of economic power to achieve foreign policy objectives and protect national security interests.

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Can Project Vault fortify the US industrial base against mineral chokepoints?

Morgan D. Bazilian and Lt. Col. Jahara “FRANKY” Matisek — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 18:20:58 +0000

In February 2026, the US Air Force started receiving new F-35s without their next-generation AN/APG-85 radars. This wasn’t a technical failure or a budget cut, but something far more mundane and strategically alarming: a sourcing delay for gallium, a critical mineral under China’s export control since 2023. Beijing is systematically using its near-total control over a range of critical materials to create chokepoints that directly impact the US defense industrial base.

This weaponization of industrial supply chains is the urgent context for Project Vault, launched in February 2026 as a new “strategic critical mineral reserve,” backed by $10 billion in financing from the US Export-Import Bank and an additional $2 billion in private-sector funding. Major firms, including original equipment manufacturers, are joining forces to counter these supply chain threats through market-oriented mechanisms.

It may be tempting to view the Vault as a fresh pile of “stuff” that automatically equals resilience. But stockpiles are no panacea. Like any other government program, they are political instruments vulnerable to bureaucratic turf wars and pork barrel politics. Their strategic value is defined by a series of deliberate governance choices: what form of material to hold, who gets access, when it is released, and at what price. Those choices will determine whether Vault becomes a force multiplier for US defense readiness or a parallel system that competes with the National Defense Stockpile (NDS) by absorbing scarce midstream capacity at the worst possible time.

The baseline: The defense stockpile is real, but limited

It’s worth remembering that China has long had a minerals stockpile that is operated flexibly between military and civilian economic needs. Although there is no public record of China’s stockpiled reserves of grains, minerals, natural gas, and oil, estimates put its stockpiles at 35 percent to 133 percent of the country’s annual demand. Western debates often imagine stockpiles as inert piles of material that act as insurance policies. Beijing treats them as a geopolitical tool: buy when prices are low, tighten when it wants discipline in the market, and wrap the whole thing in administrative opacity.

In contrast, the US system has historically been more rigid. The NDS, formed in 1939 and managed by the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) since 1988, has served as a “break the glass” mechanism for defense critical minerals. Yet even internal government reports have long underscored the gap between what is held and what a national emergency would demand.

A 2023 assessment noted that the NDS contained about $1.3 billion in total assets, but only $912.3 million in actual stockpiled materials. More alarming, the report concluded that this current inventory would mitigate less than half of the military’s estimated shortfalls and less than 10 percent of essential civilian demand shortfalls in base-case national emergency scenarios, such as a prolonged war with China. This is because a significant portion of the material is held in unprocessed, ore-grade forms that would require extensive refining before they could be used in defense applications.

At the same time, the Pentagon has been moving more aggressively to rebuild depth. In 2025, the DLA pushed for spending $1 billion on critical materials including: $500 million of cobalt, $245 million of antimony, $100 million of tantalum, and $45 million of scandium. All have a direct impact on producing weapon systems across the entire defense enterprise.

The policy question, therefore, is not whether to stockpile, but how. This is where Project Vault enters, with its design being a fundamentally different mission than the NDS. While defense stockpiles are tied to statutory wartime requirements, Vault is being framed as a flexible economic security tool to buffer market shocks before a crisis begins.

If that distinction holds, Vault can be a strength: a shock absorber that keeps industrial throughput alive well before a crisis or war. If the distinction collapses, the Vault risks becoming a second buyer, chasing the same bottlenecked materials that the defense stockpile is trying to secure. One way to think of this two-reserve world is that the NDS prepares for a crisis, while Vault prevents one, absorbing the economic shocks and coercive trade pressures that adversaries use to weaken the US defense industrial base. This division of labor makes the NDS the reserve for war, and Vault the reserve for the “war before the war.”

Warehouses of rock don’t win wars

Most commentaries treat critical minerals as a single bucket of sixty different goods. Defense production does not. The journey from mine to missile reveals a series of industrial truths: ore is not a magnet, oxide is not a metal, and even a purified, qualified alloy is still a world away from a flight-critical part. The true chokepoints of defense production happen midstream: the highly specialized stages of separation, refining, conversion, and powder production.

China’s strategic dominance extends beyond just mines. Beijing controls most of the processing, refining, and machining downstream. These processes require immense expertise, much of which has been lost in the United States over decades, leaving only a handful of irreplaceable, capital-intensive facilities. A stockpile of raw ore is strategically inert if the nation lacks the capacity to transform it into a usable form.

This presents Project Vault with a decisive choice. If it warehouses mostly upstream raw materials, it can help stabilize commodity prices but will fail to solve the most pressing operational constraint for the defense industrial base. If, however, Vault is designed to hold a reserve of the processed, high-purity materials needed to keep production lines running, it could preserve the industrial capacity that the Pentagon cannot otherwise surge on command. This choice will determine whether Vault is a tool for economic symbolism or a genuine instrument of national security.

Governance is strategy: Five principles for integration

Every reserve is a set of rules masquerading as a warehouse. While the NDS operates on statutory logic for wartime mobilization, Project Vault’s commercial architecture suggests a more flexible “draw-and-replenish” approach. This begs the central governance question: In a crisis, do Vault’s rules ensure that materials flow where they’re most needed for the industrial base, or do they inadvertently crowd out defense priorities? The risk of creating bidding wars for scarce processed materials or facing allocation ambiguity in a gray zone conflict is real. Aligning Vault’s rules with national security needs is key to making it a strategic asset.

Success depends on five core integration principles. First, form-factor tiering must separate bulk market stabilizers from the processed, defense-usable forms of materials that translate into industrial surge readiness. Second, anti-crowding guardrails must be established to coordinate procurement via the DLA, preventing self-defeating bidding wars. Third, a “trigger ladder” must define release protocols for gray zone coercion scenarios. Fourth, this trigger ladder must include defense priority clauses for a small set of critical nodes, preventing the problem of an existing but inaccessible inventory. Finally, the entire two-reserve architecture must be validated through rigorous stress testing. Joint force and interagency exercises, alongside effective “red teaming,” would help identify where rules break before a real crisis breaks the industrial base.

Vault is a welcome signal that Washington is finally treating mineral supply chains as strategic terrain. If Vault is carefully integrated with the NDS through proper governance, it can harden the entire transatlantic industrial base against gray zone pressures Beijing wields—or any other crisis that disrupts mineral markets.

The choice is now simple. Craft a reserve built to withstand adversarial economic coercion or settle for the expensive illusion of security.

Morgan D. Bazilian is the director of the Payne Institute for Public Policy and professor at the Colorado School of Mines. Previously, he was lead energy specialist at the World Bank and has over two decades of experience in energy security, natural resources, national security, energy poverty, and international affairs.

Lt. Col. Jahara “FRANKY” Matisek is a US Air Force command pilot, nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College and the Payne Institute for Public Policy, and a visiting scholar at Northwestern University. He has published over one hundred articles on strategy and warfare.

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Eight questions (and expert answers) on what’s next for US tariff policy

Atlantic Council experts — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 22:55:35 +0000

Confused about the past week’s tariff news? You’re not alone. On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump imposed 10 percent tariffs on most global imports despite previously announcing on social media that the levies would be set at 15 percent. This latest tariff announcement comes on the heels of the US Supreme Court’s ruling on Friday that the president does not have the authority to impose import duties under of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). It’s made for a busy few days for the Trump Tariff Tracker. But we’re left with several burning questions about how this will all play out. Our experts have the answers below.

1. Will companies get refunds, and if so how?

It is likely that importers of record will eventually get refunds for IEEPA tariffs they already paid. However, the Supreme Court did not address remedies, and the mechanics and timings of any eventual refund are uncertain. In general, it is prudent for companies to keep all options on the table, including administrative protests and filing a lawsuit at the Court of International Trade, to maximize the chances of getting a full refund. Yesterday, for example, FedEx filed a lawsuit against the US government for a “full refund” for the IEEPA tariffs it paid.

—Brian Janovitz is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council GeoEconomics Center and a national security and global trade partner at DLA Piper, where he advises on geostrategic risk, supply chain planning, US trade policy, and trade litigation.

2. Will US consumers get refunds, and if so how?

Refunds would be owed to the importer of record. In the absence of de minimis treatment for low-value goods, it is very rare that a consumer would ever be the importer of record. It is unlikely that consumers that absorbed the tariffs through increased prices, but did not pay the tariffs, would ever be reimbursed at any real scale.

—Brian Janovitz

3. Which countries gain from the tariff changes?

Right now, Brazil, India, and, believe it or not, China, are the biggest winners from the change. That’s because those countries—along with a range of Asian nations including Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand—were facing IEEPA tariffs above 15 percent. Brazil was a particularly complex case, with the stacked IEEPA tariffs reaching 50 percent. But now, with the global rate down to 10 percent—though the White House says it is working on increasing it to 15 percent soon—these countries have at least a temporary reprieve. For China especially, this might mean a surge in exports to get ahead of potential future section 301 tariffs, which are certainly coming based on the new trade investigations the Trump administration opened this weekend. 

—Josh Lipsky is the chair of international economics at the Atlantic Council and the senior director of the GeoEconomics Center. He previously served as an advisor at the International Monetary Fund.

4. Which countries are harmed by the tariff changes?

On the other end of the stick is the United Kingdom and the European Union (EU). Because the Section 122 tariffs stack on top of most favored nation (MFN) tariffs, the EU countries could soon be paying above the 15 percent rate they agreed to in the Turnberry deal last year. For the United Kingdom, it’s not even close. The United Kingdom was proud to be the first one out of the gate with the 10 percent deal and said as much to most other nations. But now they are in the same 15 percent boat and must be asking what the value is of a deal that can change so quickly.

The administration is likely arguing behind closed doors that while its hands are tied temporarily, once it finishes the 301 investigations, it can resume a more country-by-country approach and ensure that the United Kingdom gets better treatment. But whether that kind of arrangement can work for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has as much to do with domestic politics across Europe and the United Kingdom as it does with trade law. 

—Josh Lipsky

5. How is the EU responding?

The EU is responding to the announcement of new tariffs under section 122 by suspending the process of implementing its obligations under the US-EU bilateral agreement. It is seeking clarity about whether the new tariffs are contrary to the United States’ commitment to a 15 percent cap on reciprocal tariffs, since if MFN tariffs are added to the 10 percent levy, then rates for some EU products will exceed 15 percent.

Look for the United States to clarify how these new tariffs will work, as well as a likely resumption of the EU’s implementation process. There has been a pattern of blanket and ambiguous announcements from the United States followed by more precise clarifications; there is little indication that this time will be different since both sides have an interest in maintaining the agreement.  

—L. Daniel Mullaney is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center and GeoEconomics Center. He previously served as assistant US trade representative for Europe and the Middle East in the Office of the United States Trade Representative. 

6. Which countries will try to negotiate new deals?

Countries that have not finalized deals with the United States, such as India, may want to consider delaying finalizing agreements until there’s more clarity from the United States. Already, we saw an Indian delegation temporarily postpone a trip, but they are now planning to reengage. So, much will depend on how clear the administration is on the new tariff rates and what its plans are for future tariffs.

—Josh Lipsky

7. What is happening with the de minimus exemption for goods under $800?

The Trump administration had suspended the de minimis rule (under which duties are not collected on shipments valued at under $800) under IEEPA. After the Supreme Court invalidated the IEEPA tariffs, the administration continued suspending the de minimis rule under a separate executive order on February 20; the administration’s authority to do so is unclear and will likely be subject to further litigation.  

—L. Daniel Mullaney

8. How will the midterm elections play into Trump’s tariff calculations?

The midterms won’t be as much of a factor as some think. It’s unlikely that Congress will be asked to vote on tariffs during the summer going into the elections. But regardless, Trump has made clear that he believes he has all the authorities he needs and has had little interest in asking Congress for more, despite Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch’s opinion in the case, which made it clear that Congress was the answer the president is looking for. The bottom line is that the president believes in tariffs as economic policy. He will continue to wield that tool not just for the next year, but for the next three years. His ability to wield tariffs is more constrained now without IEEPA, but it is still a powerful economic lever. Those expecting certainty and stability on tariff rates will be looking in vain. 

—Josh Lipsky

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In Munich, a reminder that economic security is national security

Kimberly Donovan, Lize de Kruijf — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 22:14:20 +0000

MUNICH—A palpable shift took place at this year’s Munich Security Conference (MSC). While policymakers primarily focused on hard security challenges, as they have for more than sixty years here, they consistently raised economic security as an issue that they cannot cordon off separately from traditional defense and security issues.

On the main stage, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte underscored that bringing an end to the war in Ukraine will require sending more arms support to Ukraine and also placing sustained economic pressure on Russia. He highlighted the need to address China’s evasion of Western sanctions and its role in sustaining Russia’s wartime economy. The message was clear: Military resilience and economic pressure are two sides of the same coin.

The leaders gathering at MSC also discussed trade, highlighting how trade deals and tariffs have become geopolitical instruments. US Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) argued that trade policy and national security are deeply intertwined, warning that if the United States creates an untenable trade environment for smaller economies, it risks driving them toward malign actors such as China and Russia. Economic policy, in other words, can either reinforce alliances or fracture them.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz echoed this concern, pointing to the erosion of multilateralism. He warned that the world has entered an era defined by great-power politics above all else, and that in such an environment, some countries are increasingly deploying natural resources, technologies, and supply chains as bargaining tools. Smaller economies, he argued, must coordinate more closely to avoid being squeezed in the crossfire. In a world in which some weaponize economic interdependence, economic unity becomes a form of defense.

This convergence of economics and security was on display not only in Munich but also weeks earlier in Davos. The World Economic Forum has traditionally been a platform to discuss markets, business, and the state of the global economy, and while this continues to be the case, these conversations now require more consideration for geopolitical issues, which increasingly play a role in shaping markets. For example, US President Donald Trump’s remarks about Greenland, and the tariffs he placed on Europe, stole much of the spotlight, as did Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney when he called on middle powers to band together in the face of coercive economic practices.

Geopolitical challenges are increasingly being tackled in the economic domain. Governments are deploying instruments of economic power and coercion such as sanctions, export controls, investment screening, tariffs, and control over critical mineral supply chains to confront adversaries. Governments are also using economic tools on allies and partners to create leverage in negotiating favorable trade agreements. The use of these tools has required governments to reflect on their longstanding geopolitical relationships and consider how and with whom they will need to work to defend their economic sovereignty and security.

In this moment, smaller trade-dependent economies will need to build coalitions among like-minded partners to preserve the multilateral institutions that maximize their agency. To avoid any vulnerability to coercion by larger powers, these smaller trade-dependent economies will need to invest in their collective resilience by diversifying their supply chains, coordinating sanctions, codifying shared standards, and forming trusted technology partnerships.

Additionally, countries will need to address persistent trade imbalances and perceived inequities in burden-sharing within alliances. If left unaddressed, these imbalances and inequities will continue to drive decision-making that prioritizes short-term economic leverage instead of long-term economic security strategies. Such strategies require sustained alignment between economic and security objectives, not episodic reactions to crisis.

Governments cannot meet the challenge of building economic resilience alone, since it is built in markets, supply chains, capital flows, and innovation ecosystems. As economic tools become central to foreign policy, the private sector increasingly sits at the tip of the spear of national security, implementing export controls, monitoring sanctions compliance, reconfiguring supply chains, and making investment decisions.

Our team at the Atlantic Council’s Economic Statecraft Initiative, in partnership with the United Kingdom House of Commons’ Business and Trade Committee, convened policymakers and business leaders in Munich in a discussion that illuminated the need to redesign globalization in this age of strategic competition, where the line between boardroom decisions and national security outcomes is increasingly blurring.

Economic security will depend on the private sector’s ability to implement governments’ foreign policy decisions, making a new level of public-private partnership essential. Governments must clearly communicate the rationale behind deploying economic tools and provide the private sector with consistent, clear, and sustainable guidance and signals through enhanced public-private partnerships and dialogue. Information sharing related to national security risks will also be vital. Furthermore, governments should seek out and incorporate private sector feedback into their foreign policy decisions to mitigate against unintended consequences in the economic domain.

The MSC has long been the premier forum for confronting hard security questions. This year’s convening made clear that economic security belongs squarely in that category. Thus, at future MSCs, expect to see more and more finance ministers, trade negotiators, sanctions envoys, and business leaders roaming the streets of Munich.

Kimberly Donovan is director of the Economic Statecraft Initiative within the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. She is a former senior Treasury official and National Security Council director.

Lize de Kruijf is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Economic Statecraft Initiative within the GeoEconomics Center.

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Toxins are an escalating global threat. Here’s how governments should respond.

Asha M. George, John T. O’Brien — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 02:16:38 +0000

WASHINGTON—From the rolling hills of California to the bustling cities of India, the households of Australia, and frozen penal colonies in the Russian Arctic, the ancient specter of toxins—poisons derived directly from plant or animal life—has risen to stalk the modern world.

Five European countries recently stated that Russia assassinated opposition leader Alexei Navalny using a lethal toxin called epibatidine, which is found in South American dart frogs. The idea of murdering a political rival with an exotic frog toxin feels like a plot lifted from a spy thriller. In the real world, it echoes the infamous 1978 assassination of Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian dissident writer who was fatally injected with a ricin-filled pellet fired from a modified umbrella. But the exotic toxin and delivery device in these specific cases belie the much more common nature of the threat that toxins pose.

Moreover, weaponized toxins are not just the domain of nation-states with offensive biological weapons programs. They are increasingly the weapon of choice for terrorists, too. In late 2025, the leader of an international extremist group pleaded guilty in New York to soliciting mass casualty hate crimes, including a horrific plot to distribute ricin-laced candy to Jewish children and racial minorities.

In India this past November, authorities disrupted a plot by suspects tied to the Islamic State–Khorasan Province to weaponize and use ricin to attack crowds and water supplies. A highly potent toxin derived from castor beans, just a few milligrams of ricin can cause significant sickness and death.

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence can now also make this threat exponentially worse.

The threat spectrum also continues to expand as nation-states explore novel agents. A recent US State Department assessment, for example, highlighted Chinese military involvement in research about dual-use marine toxins, raising serious concerns about Beijing’s compliance with the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.

This threat also extends to localized murders and tragic accidents. In Australia, the 2025 Erin Patterson case resulted in a life sentence for killing three people with death cap mushrooms during a family luncheon. Difficulties with detection and attribution of toxins made this case, and others like it, particularly difficult to prosecute.

And in California, families recently paid a devastating price for mistaking a death cap mushroom for a safer, edible one. Death cap mushroom poisoning often begins with vomiting and diarrhea, but after a brief period during which patients improve, liver failure occurs. This month, state health officials reported the largest surge of severe poisonings in years, with more than three dozen hospitalizations, three liver transplants, and four deaths as of February.

While the world banned biological and toxin weapons decades ago, that agreed-upon norm never eliminated the materials, knowhow, or intent that make toxins attractive to criminals, terrorists, and rogue states alike. Rapid advances in artificial intelligence can now also make this threat exponentially worse. These technologies lower the barrier to entry, making the complex knowledge required to design, synthesize, and deploy lethal toxins more accessible to bad actors than ever before.

There are those who want to believe that the problem of toxins no longer exists or that it is far less challenging than, for example, the threat of infectious diseases. But ongoing ricin events in the United States and overseas, repeated food contamination with aflatoxin, and growing concern about nation-states weaponizing toxins alongside viruses and bacteria—all demonstrate that the threat of toxins persists and appears to be increasing.

In response, the world needs to treat toxins as a main problem, not a subordinate issue.

Specifically, governments need to invest in and support biological attribution. These investigations are far from easy. They begin with mysterious illnesses, suspected food poisoning, unexplained deaths, and rumored causes. Researchers need forensic methods and investigations that can differentiate among natural, accidental, and intentional toxic exposure. Governments need credible results to move forward with prosecutions, inform intelligence assessments, and allow elected leaders to speak with confidence to the public about what is going on and what they are doing about it.

The United States should make diagnostics for toxins a higher priority, with the ability to distribute them quickly and effectively down to the state and local level. The US government needs to alert the healthcare and public health communities about the current threat that toxins pose so that they can learn to recognize (or at least suspect) this sort of poisoning and use readily available, rapid point-of-care diagnostics during the very short window of time available to treat and save victims. It is not possible to send specimens to reference labs and get results back in time to save lives. Responsible toxidromic biosurveillance, too, can play an important part in identifying public health events and allowing health professionals to better inform citizens. After all, the United States cannot address the threat if it does not pay attention to it.

As the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense convenes policymakers and experts at the Atlantic Council on Thursday, February 26, it is clear that the United States and the world must act now to defend against this enduring biological threat.

Pick your poison: The enduring threat of biological toxins

The Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense at the Atlantic Council will host its latest meeting, mapping the threat picture of biological toxins and its implications for future biological attacks.

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Why Colombia’s veterans are going to war in Ukraine

Erin K. McFee — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 17:39:11 +0000

WASHINGTON—In a memorial park in Kyiv, Colombian flags form a striking patch of what has become a dense blanket of tributes to the fallen. An estimated 300 to 550 Colombian nationals have been killed fighting for Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion began. Though official figures are unavailable, estimates suggest that approximately 25 percent of personnel from the sixty-five countries that have joined Kyiv’s ground forces have come from the Andean nation.

Much has been written about how these fighters perform and perish. Less attention has been paid to why they arrive at all. This is not a story of mercenaries or idealists. It is a symptom of unresolved governance questions: how Colombia transitions its veterans to civilian life and how the international community regulates cross-border military labor. Decades of internal conflict produced a large pool of seasoned fighters, from soldiers versed in the fundamentals of combat to elite counterinsurgency operators. These skills have become commodities on the global market.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s administration has not responded by embracing the country’s role as a de facto supplier of allied combat power; instead, it has recast this flow of fighters as a crisis of exploitation. As winter deepened on the front line in late 2025, I interviewed a Colombian veteran in Kyiv, who shared with me a warning that carries a grim weight: “Tell Colombians not to go there, because more die than return.” Yet still they go—drawn not by glory, but by the grim calculus of limited options.

On December 2, 2025, a forum on this topic held at Universidad Sergio Arboleda in Bogotá convened by the Corioli Institute (of which I am the founder and executive director), the Governance, Policies, and Strategic Security Agency, and several other partners, exposed the far more complex reality driving this exodus and the emerging struggle to govern it.

When reintegration fails, military labor moves

One must look beyond the label of “mercenary” to understand why a Colombian soldier ends up in the Donbas. Across the Bogotá forum, veterans, researchers, and officials converged on a shared pattern: professional soldiers with fifteen to twenty years of counterinsurgency experience retire in their late thirties or early forties, only to fail to reintegrate into an economy that has no place for them. Formal transition and retraining programs exist; however, their disconnectedness from labor-market realities leaves veterans without a credible civilian off-ramp.

November 3, 2025, Kyiv, Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine: Maidan Square, Kyiv: Colombian flags pay respect to the almost 350 Colombian volunteers who have lost their lives fighting Russian and affiliated forces in Ukraine in Maidan Square in Kyiv, Ukraine, on November 3, 2025. Of the international Legion’s foreign volunteers, Colombia’s have lost the most men. The US is second with around 100 killed in action. (© Jeremy Bigwood/ZUMA Press Wire)

A typical mid-level officer earns roughly four million pesos (just over one thousand dollars) per month in active service, with that figure dropping to four hundred dollars for rank-and-file soldiers. Upon retirement, income often falls by half. With anemic transition programs and the domestic private security sector saturated, the contrast with Ukrainian frontline pay is stark. Salaries for soldiers in Ukraine participating in combat operations run from $3,000 to $5,000 a month (including any time in captivity and rehabilitation following injury), plus a potential $25,000 signing bonus and a $350,000 death benefit to families in the event the soldier is killed in combat. While language barriers and a multitude of bureaucratic hurdles have resulted in substantive challenges in obtaining death benefits and repatriating fallen soldiers’ remains, the economic arbitrage remains compelling for those feeling functionally stranded between illegal employment and economic exclusion. Ukraine becomes, as one participant of the forum in Bogotá put it, “the first real door that opens.”

Bogotá’s legal turn: Moral framing vs. practical limits

Such structural pressures and their consequences have shaped Bogotá’s response, which has adopted a tone of criminalization and moral condemnation. At the presidential level, the legal turn has been driven by Petro’s broader rhetorical and policy pivot against what he calls mercenarismo. Since 2024, he has described recruitment for foreign wars more broadly as a form of “human trafficking converting men into merchants of death,” arguing that, in the case of Ukraine, commanders treat Colombians as an “inferior race. . . and cannon fodder.” He called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to free Colombian “mercenaries” from these armies and argued that veterans should not be permitted to, among other illicit activities, put their skills in the service of “other wars abroad” due to the fact that their training had been paid for by the Colombian people.

In December 2025, the Colombian House of Representatives approved a bill with ninety-four votes in favor (with seventeen against) to ratify the 1989 United Nations (UN) Convention against mercenaries. Under that UN convention, a mercenary is defined as a specially recruited person who takes part in hostilities for private gain, is promised material compensation substantially higher than that paid to regular combatants, neither a national nor resident of a party to the conflict, not a member of the armed forces of a party, and not sent on official duty by a state that is not party to the conflict. Colombians fighting in Ukraine’s International Legion—or its army’s regular assault units following the dissolution of the legion in December 2025—are thus not mercenaries according to this definition. They receive the same pay as regular combatants and are members of the state’s armed forces.

Legal experts at the forum warned of the pitfalls of collapsing state military service, private security contracting, and outright mercenary activity into a single category. Blurring these definitional boundaries undermines critical outcomes such as who gets prisoner-of-war status, consular protection, and veterans’ rights. Forum participants described a “witch hunt” that strands hundreds of veterans in a legal gray zone in which they could face prosecution at home for service that is perfectly legal under international law. Meanwhile, the economic realities pushing them to leave in the first place remain completely ignored.

Petro’s reductive framing risks returning fighters to Colombia as stigmatized subjects instead of veterans with recognized needs. Many returning Colombian veterans of the war in Ukraine are simultaneously traumatized, severely wounded, politically delegitimized, and exposed to prosecution. This convergence of stigma and legal peril creates a dangerous reintegration vacuum, one likely to be filled by criminal organizations eager to recruit highly trained personnel who feel abandoned by the state.

Policy priorities for Colombia and its partners

While the forum focused on Colombians’ participation in the war in Ukraine, the scale of Colombian veterans’ movements is global. More than merely joining state-backed armed forces in Eastern Europe, they are also being actively recruited by (and sometimes lured by false promises into) nonstate armed groups across the geopolitical spectrum, from the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan to Mexican cartels. This transnational demand for Colombian combat labor creates a complex threat landscape where the line between lawful military service and criminal activity is increasingly blurred. Any effective response must thus confront illicit and exploitative recruitment networks without mistaking them for the problem itself. Rather, policymakers should address the structural failures that make fighting for foreign forces a rational choice for many veterans. They should also preserve clear legal distinctions so that those who serve through lawful pathways are not further marginalized when they return.

Prioritize the genuine implementation of the 2019 Veterans Law to transform it from a hollow framework into a viable civilian off-ramp. This requires the Ministry of Defense’s veterans directorate to embed financial planning and transition support throughout the military lifecycle. Meanwhile, the Ministries of Labor, Education, and Health must build education and employment pathways aligned with actual market demand to address the governance failures driving veterans abroad.
Establish a permanent interministerial national mechanism and a dedicated Colombia–Ukraine liaison capacity to manage the transnational market for combat labor. Led by the Foreign Ministry (Cancillería) and linking the Ministries of Defense, Justice, and Labour, this body would coordinate veteran policy, regulate recruitment networks, and manage repatriation claims. It would also invest in data systems in collaboration with international partners to distinguish lawful service from illicit trafficking to help protect returnees.
US policymakers and US Southern Command should treat veteran reintegration as a critical node of regional security cooperation to prevent criminal networks from capturing US-trained expertise. US military assistance should match operational training with robust reintegration support to deny cartels access to elite combat and drone skills. This directly supports US priorities on counternarcotics and transnational crime. Force development without credible transition pathways creates downstream security risks.

The growing patch of Colombian flags in Kyiv’s memorial park signals what one veteran at the forum described as a “definitive inflection point.” Colombian combatants will continue to deploy to distant theaters. Unless the structural gray zone of veteran exclusion is addressed, these now globally dispersed front lines will inevitably rebound back home, transforming untreated trauma and economic precarity into fresh, combat-tested, and technologically trained manpower—ideal targets for recruitment by domestic and transnational criminal networks.

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The Long Telegram just turned 80. Our times demand a new one.

Frederick Kempe — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 12:00:00 +0000

The United States gathers an armada around Iran, and President Donald Trump threatens its clerical regime. Russian troops grind forward in Ukraine, as President Vladimir Putin’s war begins its fifth bloody year. Chinese war planes probe Taiwan’s air defenses, even as President Xi Jinping fires his top general and deepens his dictatorship. Trump responds defiantly to a Supreme Court rebuff of his economic policies by doubling down on tariffs through other means. Layer onto this an escalating great-power contest for the commanding heights of artificial intelligence (AI), raising concerns about the future of war.

The headlines are disorienting and the accumulation of events overwhelming.

For those like me who are in the business of connecting global dots, making sense of it all is daunting. The international order of rules and institutions, established in the years after World War II, is morphing in uncertain directions, influenced by a US president who prides himself on his unpredictability. Meanwhile, geopolitical risk grows greater, testing the capacity of great-power leaders who are less focused on common cause than on national advantage.

Eighty years ago this month, US diplomat George Kennan confronted a similar fog in the first months after World War II. It was a historic inflection point of comparable significance. On February 22, 1946, working from the US Embassy in Moscow, he sent his now-famous eight-thousand-word “Long Telegram.” The United States had won the war, but its wartime alliance with Joseph Stalin’s Russia had collapsed. Washington was improvising.

Defining a strategic era

Kennan did something radical for his time—and for ours. He stepped back and took the longer view. He framed the challenges the United States faced in a manner that would help define Washington’s approach to the Cold War. In the clipped language of the telegraph era, he wrote that the Soviet Union was “[i]mpervious to logic of reason” but “highly sensitive to logic of force.” It would probe for weakness, but it would retreat in the face of firmness. In “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” the public version of his telegram published in Foreign Affairs in July 1947 and written under the pseudonym “X,” he prescribed what would follow: not overreaction or accommodation, but rather “long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.”

His writing influenced all that would follow, which included: the Marshall Plan’s introduction in April 1948, NATO’s birth in April 1949, and then allied forces’ success in breaking an eleven-month Soviet blockade of West Berlin a month later, signaling unshakable US commitment to a free Europe with more than two million tons of food, fuel, and supplies. The European Coal and Steel Community, the forerunner to the European Union, would be established in April 1951.

Kennan provided his times with a strategic language and a unifying frame of containment. His Long Telegram and Foreign Affairs essay became foundational documents for US foreign policy during the Cold War, contributing to the strategic patience that ultimately brought US and allied victory.

Taking on the China challenge

What’s missing now is a similar roadmap for navigating our times. The historic stakes are just as great as in the immediate aftermath of World War II and during the Cold War, yet the challenges are more complex and disorienting due to the growing challenge posed by China and to the wider array of powers and issues that shape this moment.

Kennan wrote at a moment when the United States had unmatched military and economic power, which is also the case now, but it lacked an operating theory to confront its challenges. What did Moscow want? How durable was the Soviet system and its increasingly global reach? What military and statecraft tools should the United States employ—and avoid?

What’s similar today is the United States’ strong military capability, economic heft, and technological dynamism. What’s different is that the capabilities of the United States’ primary global competitor, the People’s Republic of China, are far more formidable than the Soviet Union at the height of its power. And China’s capabilities are augmented by supportive autocratic powers that include—but are not limited to—Russia, Iran, and North Korea. This is, however, not a “dictators’ NATO,” as it is not fused by any treaty or shared ideology beyond grievance against the United States. That makes it less cohesive, perhaps, but still cumulatively dangerous.

Russia is waging the largest, longest, and deadliest European land war since 1945. Though the Trump administration has not yet articulated this, ensuring Ukraine’s survival is not only morally right but also strategically crucial. If Putin can change borders through force, then the rule of law soon can be replaced by the law of the jungle, in Europe and beyond.

Once a rising power, China is now the United States’ primary systemic competitor—economically indispensable to its partners, with fast-growing military capabilities and a technological ambition to be second to none. Alongside Ukraine, Taiwan is a dangerous flashpoint due to a mixture of Xi’s determination to absorb it, a sense that Taiwan is slipping away from his grasp, and a feeling that the United States and its allies are not yet ready to defend it militarily.

Kennan’s deeper insight—one that applies to our times in even greater measure—was that US success depended as much on itself as it did on the weaknesses and strengths of its adversary. Most importantly, success required US allies and partners for the economic integration, political cohesion, and credible deterrence they provided.

Today’s democratic world has all the advantages required to prevail again. The United States and its European and Asian allies still account for the majority of global gross domestic product. NATO’s defense spending is rising. After years of neglect, Europe is now addressing its security and economic vulnerabilities. Meanwhile, the United States is deepening its Indo-Pacific partnerships. And from semiconductor manufacturing to frontier AI research, capital markets, and higher education, the United States and its partners continue to dominate key technological fields.

Seeking an antidote to fragmentation

That said, the risk also lies more with the United States than its adversaries.

The democratic world is flirting with fragmentation. Tariffs untethered to alliance strategy can be counterproductive. European leaders are hedging against Washington’s unpredictability, while Asian partners and allies question US commitments. Some Trump administration officials fail to appreciate the risk in sowing such doubts.

In his “X” article, Kennan argued that a primary element of containment was “the adroit and vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points.”

One shouldn’t overestimate China or Russia. China faces slowing growth, demographic decline, and the inevitable brittleness of autocratic rule. Russia’s economic and social weakness is so profound that it would be unable to sustain its war in the face of a more unified and determined West.

Even so, the danger is that democracies lose confidence in themselves and in one another. Kennan turned out to be correct in believing the Soviet system contained “the seeds of its own decay”—but only provided that the democracies remained steady. For the United States, strategic competition is inevitable, but to succeed it can’t be strategically lonely.

The United States needs an updated Kennan, but not to replicate his approach during the Cold War. Rather, it needs to clarify the challenges it is facing at this dangerous new inflection point, set the priorities among them, and prescribe the very different tools required for our times.

With those pieces in place, it will inevitably become clearer why Ukraine and Taiwan matter, as much as West Berlin did in its time. It will also become clear why any solution to Greenland’s future, as a part of Denmark and hence also of NATO, needs to strengthen and not threaten Alliance unity.

Eighty years ago, Kennan’s clarity set the tone for a Cold War victory that would require more than forty years of strategic patience and coherence. The question now is whether the United States can summon the same degree of clarity and allied coherence, or whether our times will instead be shaped by the failure to do so.

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on X @FredKempe.

This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points newsletter, a column of dispatches from a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.

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Ten predictions for the potential US strikes on Iran

William F. Wechsler — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 03:33:03 +0000

WASHINGTON—Experienced foreign-policy observers in the US capital have long learned never to make public predictions. The world is far too uncertain and the downside risks to your reputation are far too high if you end up well off the mark. It’s clearly advisable to wait until events have already transpired and then claim afterward that you saw them coming all along. This is especially the case when it comes to decisions to go to war.

Yet those who carry the burden of policymaking are forced to make predictions to inform their policies. So even as negotiations continue between the United States and Iran, US President Donald Trump and his advisers are undoubtedly trying to assess what Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will do in the face of the “massive armada” that is in the final stages of being assembled in the Middle East, and Iranian leaders are doing the same.

In rare instances, policymakers are fortunate to possess hard intelligence that provides reliable answers. More often, however, they are making their own educated but fundamentally subjective judgments—and those judgments can be usefully informed by credible perspectives from outside of government. Therefore, experienced foreign-policy observers do a disservice to policymakers when they withhold their own predictions. So, as US strikes on Iran appear ever more likely, here are ten predictions of mine. And since not all predictions are created equal, I’ve also offered a rough assessment of my level of confidence for each.

1. Khamenei will not offer a last-minute strong deal.

HIGH CONFIDENCE

The Iranian regime’s power has sharply declined over the past year and a half, during which Israel successfully conducted military operations in Lebanon and against Iranian strategic air defenses; the Bashar al-Assad regime fell in Syria and the twelve-day war concluded with US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites; the Iranian economy continued collapsing, and nationwide anti-regime protests were only put down through brutal force.

Given this fundamentally changed strategic environment, the minimum-acceptable requirement a deal today must include is an ironclad commitment to zero uranium enrichment in Iran. However, I do not see any evidence that the regime is capable of offering this concession, much less offering any compromises on its arsenal of long-range precision weapons or its network of terrorist nonstate proxies, even if Trump would be willing to offer complete sanctions relief in return.

In the immediate aftermath of the crackdown, Iranian diplomats successfully shifted the focus from the butchery of their own people to a more familiar and comfortable subject: Iran’s nuclear program. These same diplomats then busied themselves in drawing out the discussions through delaying tactics.

2. Trump will not accept a last-minute weak deal.

MODERATE CONFIDENCE

Trump has consistently emphasized that he wants a deal with Iran and, in the past, has signaled his flexibility on the details. The likelihood of Trump accepting a weak deal in his first term, for instance, was quite high. If Khamenei had better understood Trump during his first term, then the Iranian leader would have proposed ripping up the deal he struck with US President Barack Obama and allowed Trump to sign a “better” deal, akin to Mexico’s more astute approach to Trump regarding the North American Free Trade Agreement. Trump likely would have accepted this proposal, overruling his much more hawkish advisers.

As Trump’s second term began, the likelihood of him accepting a deal remained high, given that he excluded and publicly denounced many of those first-term Iran hawks, going so far as to cancel security protection for those Iran was trying to kill. This past April, the administration even signaled that Trump would be willing to accept a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action–lite deal. Yet Tehran has still slow-rolled the negotiations. While Trump is eager to find an acceptable off-ramp to war, and he would likely accept provisions that I would find unacceptable, even that may not be on offer.

Now, given the negative experience of Iranian delay and Iran’s fundamentally changed strategic environment, Trump is likely no longer willing to accept an obviously weak deal. But given his repeated previous inclinations and leaks that continue to hint at shifting US goalposts that would allow some Iranian domestic enrichment, my confidence in this conclusion can only be moderate.

3. If Trump appears willing to accept a weak deal, then Netanyahu will preempt by striking Iran.

HIGH CONFIDENCE

Last June, when many perceived that the United States and Iran were on a path to a new nuclear deal, one that might have even been weaker than Obama’s deal, Israel preempted it by striking Iran. Trump did not give Israel the “red light,” and despite his initial attempt to distance the United States from the Israeli strike, Trump eventually decided to order US strikes on the key Iranian nuclear sites—a decision I encouraged in advance and then applauded afterward.

Given Israel’s tactical successes against Iran and its strategic success that resulted in a complete reversal by Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would likely seek to replicate this approach should my second prediction above prove to be incorrect—especially since this is an election year in Israel. Of course, Trump and his advisers likely recognize that, which adds to the confidence of my previous assessment that in the end Trump will not accept a weak deal.

Alternatively, the United States could give Netanyahu a clear “red light” against any such action. But based on Trump’s previous inclination to hedge, I cannot be confident that he would do so. And even if he did, in the face of a coming election Netanyahu is likely to prioritize his domestic political standing over his relationship with Trump.

4. Trump will be presented with three strategic options: “Enforce,” “Degrade,” or “Remove.”

HIGH CONFIDENCE

I’m not privy to the papers going up to the president these days, but if I were again on the National Security Council staff or in the Pentagon, then I would organize three basic option packages for presidential consideration.

The first, “Enforce,” would consist of a nation-wide campaign of strikes against buildings and other infrastructure of the Iranian state security forces most directly responsible for the violent crackdown against protesters. It would specifically target the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its Basij militia. This campaign would likely last only one or two nights, with only modest fatalities expected in comparison to the thousands killed by these forces.

The second, “Degrade,” would involve expanding the target set to include regime assets that most directly threaten the region and US national security interests, notably Iran’s remaining nuclear infrastructure and its missile, rocket, and drone deployments, inventories, and supporting industrial backbones. This campaign would be significantly longer, and it would likely need to be accompanied with a credible threat to repeat it every six to nine months as Iran rebuilt its missile inventories.

The third, “Remove,” would further expand the campaign to seek to decapitate the regime’s political and military leadership, disrupt the regime’s ability to effectively command and control its forces in the short term, and strike symbolic targets associated with the regime’s repression of the Iranian people and its perceived legitimacy to rule. “Remove” would likely acknowledge that there is scant historical evidence in Iran or elsewhere that regime change can be accomplished through air strikes alone, but nevertheless I can’t imagine that any option will be presented to the president that would include US conventional ground forces. Those who advocate for this option would argue, however, that even if the regime doesn’t fall it would be so badly damaged that it could not pose an immediate threat and might open the door to other opportunities, akin to what Israel accomplished against Hezbollah.

While these three options would be presented separately, Trump, like many of his predecessors, would also have the ability to take an à la carte approach to the individual target packages within the three options, mixing and matching as he sees fit.

5. Trump will choose the first option, “Enforce.”

LOW CONFIDENCE

Trump is caught in a trap of his own making, unfortunately. In contrast to the incident back in 2019, when he (correctly) rejected the Pentagon’s strike options designed to retaliate against Iranian forces shooting down a US drone, this time Trump drew a “red line” that the Iranian regime then clearly crossed. Trump openly encouraged the uprising, even promising that US “help is on its way,” and then stood back while protesters were butchered. This is akin to what the United States did to Hungarians in 1956 and to Iraqis in 1991, the low points of the Dwight Eisenhower and George H.W. Bush administrations, respectively. Trump previously mocked Obama’s refusal to enforce his own red line on Syria in 2013, the low point of that administration, and then proudly enforced Obama’s red line himself in 2017 and 2018.

Moreover, the US military assets Trump has amassed can’t stay in place forever. If he orders them to leave without any strikes or deal, then it will be perceived by many, including Tehran, as an embarrassing US retreat. Trump is determined to avoid being perceived as “weaker than Obama.” Therefore, I predict that he will choose to strike.

And yet, everyone I have spoken with who has spent time with Trump over the years discussing the potential for conflict with Iran has come away with the same conclusion: Trump does not want this war. He is, with good reason, extremely concerned with where it could lead. For that reason, if Khamenei is unwilling to offer a deal strong enough to prevent US strikes, and if Trump is now unwilling to accept a weaker deal, then I think he will pick the option least likely to cascade into a full war. Among the three options, that would be “Enforce.” From his perspective, this would likely have the added benefit of shifting the subject of public discussion back to the protests and away from his unsuccessful negotiations on nuclear issues.

In choosing “Enforce,” Trump would almost certainly be disregarding US Central Command’s recommended option, which I assume would be “Degrade.” I am sympathetic to the argument that it would be a missed opportunity not to set the precedent that the United States reserves the right to target Iran’s missiles when it feels threatened, but I don’t think Trump would share this sympathy. I would similarly be surprised if, under “Enforce,” Trump would allow Israel to be an overt part of the operation.

My degree of confidence is merely low for this prediction, however. While Trump is quite consistent and thus predictable over the long term, he has proved to act impulsively and thus unpredictably when presented with immediate decisions. That was the case in early 2020, for instance, when Trump surprised some of his top advisors by quickly choosing the most aggressive of the military options put in front of him by ordering the killing of Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani. And while many commentators initially predicted worst-case scenarios as a result of this action, in the end this decision turned out to be one of the most strategically beneficial of his first term.

After this, the direction of the conflict will depend on decisions made in Iran—by the supreme leader and by the people.

6. Khamenei will order a fundamentally symbolic response.

MODERATE CONFIDENCE

Assuming my fifth prediction above holds, the Iranian regime will have to decide how to respond. It would be unprecedented for Tehran not to respond at all; the regime typically responds in a manner that appears symmetrical according to its own analysis. Therefore, if Khamenei recognizes that Trump limited his strikes to only enforce his red line, and if he is convinced that Trump wants to end the exchange of fire after one round, then his response is likely to be largely symbolic.

An example of this approach is the performative “attack” his forces made on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar last year in response to the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear program. At that time, the response was designed to de-escalate the immediate conflict while allowing Iran to claim that its number of missiles fired matched the count of bombs used by the United States. This time around, the regime planners won’t repeat the exact same response as before, of course. Therefore, US defense planners should anticipate symbolic attacks on different targets, such as a US aircraft carrier or the fifth fleet headquarters in Bahrain.

Given the scale of US military forces in the area, it would be stupid or suicidal for Iran to choose any other approach than a symbolic attack. So this prediction may appear to be straightforward. However, my confidence in this prediction is not high because Iran’s leaders have made especially poor decisions in the recent past, most notably their foolish choice to strike Israel directly with hundreds of projectiles—twice!—which then led to Iran’s current weakened position. It is therefore possible that Iranian leaders will fail to grasp the dangers they face now, leading to another disastrous miscalculation from their perspective.

Some observers of Iran go further and argue that the eighty-six-year-old Khamenei would prefer to be remembered as a martyr rather than a failure. I have never been convinced by the argument that Iran’s theocratic system structurally produces irrational choices, but my concerns about the quality of its decision making have gone up markedly in recent years.

7. If Khamenei miscalculates, then Trump will escalate to “Degrade”—but he will be willing to cut the operation short.

HIGH CONFIDENCE

Instead of acting to deescalate the conflict after a US strike, Iran might escalate with an attack that goes beyond mere symbolism. This attack might, for example, result in US casualties. If this happens, then Trump will be forced to escalate in turn. The easiest way for Trump to do so would be by ordering the “Degrade” campaign to commence. Israel might also be allowed to join the campaign in this scenario.

That said, I think Trump would then behave just as he did last June. He would prove eager to end the US campaign far short of its designed duration and as soon as he assessed that Iran had been deterred from its escalatory path. Unlike the mistake he made last time, however, I would hope that Trump would demand, as a price to halt the campaign, a commitment from Iran to immediately meet for direct negotiations.

8. The Iranian people will rise up again after the US strikes.

MODERATE CONFIDENCE

It would be completely understandable if the Iranian people were sufficiently cowed by the incredible cruelty of the regime. One should never fall into the trap of criticizing a subjugated people who decide to prioritize self-preservation. Indeed, this typical reaction is why despots throughout history have resorted to brutality; for instance, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad’s violent repression in the 1982 Hama massacre successfully deterred further uprisings in Syria for three decades.

Nevertheless, I think foreign-policy analysts have an unfortunate track record of underestimating both the willingness of the repressed to rise up against their overlords and the courage of those who are eager to risk death to support revolution. This is especially true in the Middle East, where analysts in the United States have been surprised again and again—by the Iranian revolution forty-seven years ago and the Arab Spring fifteen years ago, and by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s fall in 2011 and Assad’s in 2024. I fear that some analysts in the United States are making the same mistake again now by underestimating the Iranian people’s resolve, notwithstanding how immediate the threat is to those who oppose Khamenei.

In recent years, the Iranian people have repeatedly shown that they will take almost any opportunity available to them to express their widespread opposition. The Women, Life, Freedom protests in 2022 posed a direct threat to the ideological legitimacy of the regime, and the most recent protests further escalated the threat by putting the regime’s survival itself in jeopardy.

In early January, the Iranian people did respond to Trump’s call to the streets, but his pledge of support proved empty. But the next time they will be reacting to Trump’s actions, not his words, and further inspired by their recognition that the United States actually has the forces in place to protect them. If they do, it is likely to become the turning point for the entire confrontation, and I wouldn’t discount the possibility of the people seeing it in those terms and then taking advantage of the best chance they’ve had in forty-six years to rid themselves of this regime.

9. If widespread protests emerge, the regime will murder en masse, again.

HIGH CONFIDENCE

Of course, if Iranians do rise up again in significant numbers, then the regime will assess those protests to be an existential threat. That assessment will be accurate. Iranian security forces should therefore be expected to respond to that threat in the exact same manner that they have done before. Thousands more Iranians will likely be killed, possibly tens of thousands, depending on the scale of the protests themselves and how quickly the regime acts.

10. If Iranian protesters are again massacred, Trump will quickly escalate to “Degrade” and “Remove.”

HIGH CONFIDENCE

In this scenario drawn by these successive predictions, Trump will be confronted with a challenge that will define the legacy of his second term. He will have publicly committed the United States to a “red line” to prevent an enemy’s behavior and then punished that enemy for ignoring his warning and crossing that line—only to then have that same enemy cross the same line again. Few scenarios could be more destructive to US credibility. The president would then have to escalate further.

At this point, the United States and Iran would be in a war that both correctly assess as existential: For Tehran, to the regime itself. For Washington, to its credibility as the world’s remaining superpower. It is impossible to predict the military outcome, since so much depends on the operational and tactical prowess of each side in the first days of a sharp escalation.

If US forces quickly destroy much of Iran’s ability to project force beyond its borders, and if they decapitate the regime’s leadership (likely with Israel’s help), then that will open a window of opportunity for the Iranian people to try to change their regime. Alternatively, if the regime is able to deploy most of the forces available to it, then it would likely direct them against any target that could pressure the United States into stopping its campaign, including targeting US forces, maritime shipping, and civilian population centers in Israel and elsewhere, looking to exhaust the US-Israeli combined stockpile of interceptors. Israel already appears to be preemptively acting to diminish this threat by killing those it believes would be involved in directing Hezbollah’s response.

Even individual tactical successes by Iran could have large strategic implications. For instance, one rocket hitting one high rise in downtown Dubai could damage the United Arab Emirates’ economic model for years to come. Foreign executives proved their willingness to flee that country during the financial crisis in 2008, and they would likely do the same in larger numbers if they believed their lives instead of just their wallets were at risk. Similarly, when Iran was deemed responsible for the attacks on the oil processing facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais in 2019, it appeared to intentionally target elements that were readily replaceable, thus limiting the economic consequences to global markets. If Iran were to instead target elements that it knows could take far longer to replace, then the results could be much more damaging. And given the unique role Saudi Arabia plays in the global price of oil, the impact would immediately be felt in the United States.

It is even more difficult to predict the political outcome of such a confrontation. Most experts in my circles believe that the most likely result of regime change in Iran is the establishment of a non-theocratic but firmly anti-US “IRGC-istan” government, which rules over the Iranian people with an even more brutal iron fist. But there are other potential outcomes as well. Some experts predict that the collapse of Iran’s central government would set off a civil war, in which numerous outside actors support different internal elements, some divided along ethnic lines. Some Iran watchers expect the current regime to survive in some form, while still others foresee the restoration of monarchy and the return of Reza Pahlavi. Still others hope for the rise of the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, now known as the National Council of Resistance of Iran. Very few experts, however, are optimistic enough to predict a clear path toward Iranian democracy.

I think any prediction along those lines is a fool’s errand. After all, nobody predicted that World War I would end with a small group of Bolsheviks taking over Russia. At this point, it’s impossible to know which faction might ascend to the leadership of Iran in the wake of full war.

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The Supreme Court just struck down most of Trump’s tariffs. What’s next?

Atlantic Council — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 20:43:53 +0000

JUST IN

Call it DeLiberation Day. On Friday, the US Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that the US president does not have the power to unilaterally impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the authority Donald Trump invoked to impose tariffs on nearly every trading partner. Trump responded by imposing a 10 percent global tariff under other legal authorities. What will this mean for global trade and the tariff revenue that the United States has already collected? What should we make of the administration’s plan B? Our experts issue their rulings below.

TODAY’S EXPERT REACTION BROUGHT TO YOU BY

Josh Lipsky (@joshualipsky): Chair of international economics at the Atlantic Council, senior director of the GeoEconomics Center, and former International Monetary Fund advisor
Barbara C. Matthews: Nonresident senior fellow at the GeoEconomics Center and former US Treasury attaché to the European Union
L. Daniel Mullaney: Nonresident senior fellow with the Europe Center and GeoEconomics Center, and former assistant US trade representative

How did the court rule?

With today’s ruling, says Josh, the Supreme Court “told the president that the core pillar of his international economic agenda was unconstitutional.”
The ruling, Barbara tells us, is “both clear and broad: no part of IEEPA can be construed to authorize the imposition of tariffs in response to any national emergency.”
Dan believes this affirmation of the legislative branch’s authority over tariffs “may trigger a more assertive Congress, which has already been showing increasing, but cautious, impatience” with the Trump administration’s use of unilateral tariffs.
Issuing the decision only “days before the Supreme Court sits in front of the president at the State of the Union address was a bold move”— one “perhaps intended to signal the independence of the court,” Dan adds.
“The immediate financial impact” will be “muddled,” Josh predicts, as issues related to tariff refunds play out in lower courts and the Trump administration turns to other tariff authorities.

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How is the Trump administration responding?

Today’s ruling “does not end Trump’s tariffs,” Josh tells us. “It just opens a new chapter.” Relative to the Trump administration’s first year, there will be “more uncertainty, more volatility for businesses to navigate, and more fraught trade deals for countries to negotiate.”
This afternoon, Trump announced an immediate 10 percent global tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974—though, as our Trump Tariff Tracker lays out, the law only allows such a tariff for 150 days unless Congress extends it. Trump also said there will be several new investigations of unfair trade practices under Section 301, which could lead to additional tariffs.
That means, notes Barbara, that the administration “has announced its intention to comply with the Supreme Court decision and withdraw the IEEPA tariffs effective immediately.”
“Trump’s tariff arsenal now must follow ‘regular order,’” Barbara explains, “which requires traditional findings of trade distortions by foreign countries” to justify tariffs against them, which she says is “a slow administrative process.”
Dan tells us that there could be an upside for the White House in losing its favored tariff authority: Trump’s “sweeping tariffs have been problematic for the administration’s agenda in some key respects—resulting in numerous exclusions and unfulfilled threats—so a more tailored approach is probably called for in any case.”
As Barbara notes, Trump also announced today his intention “to fight in court” against lawsuits from companies seeking refunds of the IEEPA tariffs, which add up to $175 billion. The White House seems to be interpreting the Supreme Court’s silence on “whether or how refunds should be provided” as “providing [it] maximum flexibility” in answering these questions.
“Companies have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders,” which “means they need to sue to get refunds even if that risks the ire of the administration,” Josh observes. “But there is strength in numbers here, so expect those lawsuits to come in fast and furious over the coming weeks.”

How will US trading partners respond?

As Josh sees it, the incentive for US trade partners that already have made deals with the Trump administration “is likely to keep the deal you have” even if backup tariff authorities face legal challenges, “rather than risk unraveling an agreement which at least has provided some stability.” He expects Japan and the European Union to maintain their trade agreements with the Trump administration. However, Josh argues, countries still finalizing trade deals with the United States “will now have a little more leverage” after the ruling.
And if trade partners do “choose to unwind or walk away from the 2025 deals,” Barbara warns, “the adverse impact on the US economy could be significant.”

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NATO needs to define the substance of its 1.5 percent pledge

Franklin D. Kramer, Hans Binnendijk — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 16:54:25 +0000

WASHINGTON—At the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague, allies agreed to increase their defense spending to 3.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and their defense-related spending to 1.5 percent of GDP by 2030. Specifically on the latter figure, NATO leaders decided that “Allies will account for up to 1.5 percent of GDP annually to inter alia protect our critical infrastructure, defend our networks, ensure our civil preparedness and resilience, unleash innovation, and strengthen our defense industrial base.” This combination of defense and defense-related spending is how NATO arrived at the now often-quoted figure of 5 percent of GDP.

But beyond those general categories named in the communiqué, NATO provided no further details as to which elements of national GDP should be included in the accounting for the 1.5 percent. Just as the 3.5 percent of GDP defense spending goal is tied to NATO military planning, so should the 1.5 percent be focused on specific ways to enhance the Alliance’s broader defense and security posture.

The percentages may sound small, but the sums involved are quite large. With a combined NATO GDP of around $55 trillion, 1.5 percent adds up roughly $825 billion. Focusing on only the non-US allies, 1.5 percent of their GDP of $26 trillion still generates a sum of $390 billion. It is therefore important for the Alliance to be clear how these very large amounts should be defined within the overall spending categories if NATO defense and security are to be most effectively achieved.

Ahead of this year’s NATO Summit in Ankara in June, the Alliance should establish guidelines as to what will be included in the relevant categories, and it should require nations to utilize common approaches to collect the relevant information. Most importantly, the spending categories should be designed so that the goal is neither unattainable nor already met. The objective should be to incentivize allies to make the most effective contributions to NATO’s common defense.

Below are six recommendations for NATO to inform the establishment of such spending guidelines:

1. Include private-sector spending that enhances defense

A fundamental question is whether private-sector spending should be included alongside government spending. Many of the categories identified in the communiqué as part of the 1.5 percent are substantially private-sector activities, including much of the spending on critical infrastructures and networks, as well as corporate spending on the defense industrial base. Accordingly, as a starting point, private sector spending to “protect” critical infrastructures, “defend” networks, and “strengthen” the defense industrial base should be included in calculating the 1.5 percent. Governments would need to establish procedures to collect this data from their private sectors.

2. Identify critical infrastructures

NATO should establish a list of agreed critical infrastructures, starting with those most relevant to military operations. That would include airports, rail, seaports, roads, electric grids, pipelines, and hospitals. It would likely also include the internet and other telecommunications. For example, private sector spending on such infrastructure that enhances the Alliance’s military mobility capabilities or replaces Chinese telecommunications equipment should fall within the 1.5 percent. Other categories are also important—including water and waste treatment, as well as internet data centers—and worth consideration for inclusion. Following the first point, spending from both governments and the private sector on protecting critical infrastructures should be counted toward the 1.5 percent of GDP.

As part of undertaking this review, NATO will need to determine how spending on its seven categories of national resilience should be counted, as several involve the critical infrastructures identified above. The seven core resilience areas are continuity of government, resilient energy, managing population movement, food and water security, mass casualty response, civil communications, and civil transportation. Of these categories, energy, food, water, mass-casualty response, civil communications, and civil transport will also each involve private-sector spending necessary to “ensure resilience.” Such capital spending by the private sector should also be included in the 1.5 percent.

3. Include protection of critical infrastructure against both cyber- and physical attacks

NATO countries vary in their cybersecurity requirements for critical infrastructures. In determining the 1.5 percent, spending by private-sector entities pursuant to regulatory requirements, such as the interstate electric transmission requirements in the United States or the NIS2 cybersecurity requirements in the European Union, should be included. Likewise, for any critical infrastructures identified by NATO as important to military operations, cybersecurity spending should be included even if not already covered by regulatory requirements.

Protection against kinetic attacks should also be included. This would include spending, for example, to protect undersea and land-based cables and pipelines, as well as spending for stockpiling of materials and repair and rebuilding capabilities for the critical infrastructures most relevant to national defense. Not all spending on critical infrastructures will count, however: NATO will want to determine how to define spending to “protect” critical infrastructures as opposed to ordinary capital and operational spending.

4. Define “defense industrial base,” as well as “strengthen” and “innovation”

The Hague summit communiqué does not set out what is included in these important terms. The defense industrial base, for example, includes both governmental and private sector activities and, like the critical infrastructures, the relevant entities and activities need to be identified. That will likely be an ongoing activity, as the defense industrial base has been expanding to include nontraditional suppliers in areas such as unmanned vehicles and space.

Within that context, NATO will likewise want to define what is meant by “strengthen.” Capital spending by the private sector that expands the defense industrial base—for instance, for a new ammunition plant or an expanded capacity to produce weaponry or enhanced space capabilities—should count as part of the 1.5 percent. Similarly, innovations such as military use of artificial intelligence and drones that strengthen NATO’s defense capabilities need to be identified and counted.

5. Determine how enhancements to important supply chains should be counted

NATO has established a “Defense-Critical Supply Chain Security Roadmap,” approved in June 2024, and the Alliance’s “Updated Defense Production Action Plan,” released in February 2025, includes as an action item the need to “protect our defense-critical supply chains.” The 1.5 percent category should include both governmental and private-sector spending to increase the availability and security of the critical raw materials identified on the NATO list of twelve defense-critical raw materials. A starting place for this category would be expenditures for mining, processing, and stockpiling of defense-critical raw materials. Another area of high significance for defense-critical supply chains might be expansion of industrial capacity for microelectronic production.

6. Establish a process to guide the 1.5 percent pledge expenditures

To accomplish the best use of these funds, NATO will need to ensure effective high-level direction akin to the NATO Defense Planning Process for military requirements. One way to do this would be to task NATO’s Allied Command Transformation with developing guidelines that could be implemented at NATO headquarters, with guidance to nations by the assistant secretary general and with NATO permanent representatives providing national input.

An effective defense for NATO will involve not only military forces and weapons but also the underlying infrastructures required for resilience. Defining the substance of the 1.5 percent pledge will provide NATO with an effective means to ensure that nations generate the required resilience.

Trackers and Data Visualizations

Jun 20, 2025

NATO Defense Spending Tracker

By Kristen Taylor, Julia Salabert

The Transatlantic Security Initiative’s NATO defense spending tracker delves into data and figures to analyze current defense spending trends.

Europe & Eurasia NATO

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How Trump and Erdoğan can turn US LNG energy dominance into Black Sea stability

Nataliya Katser-Buchkovska, Landon Derentz — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 14:49:29 +0000

LONDON and WASHINGTON—US liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to Ukraine via the Black Sea would provide Washington and its allies with a new lever of influence in the pursuit of peace—one that strengthens Ukraine’s resilience and directly pushes back against Russia’s malign activities in the western Black Sea. By encouraging Turkey to change its current prohibitions on large-scale traffic of US LNG through the Bosporus Strait, US President Donald Trump can extend Western economic and strategic presence into one of the most contested theaters of the conflict.

Russia’s ability to finance and sustain its war against Ukraine is already under real pressure. Coordinated US and European actions targeting Moscow’s shadow fleet of oil tankers are constraining the Kremlin’s capacity to move its crude oil, generate revenue, and project power. Applying similar competitive pressure through US natural gas would shift the balance further against Moscow—converting US energy dominance into an additional instrument of strategic leverage.

Trump can do exactly that by acting at the NATO Summit in June—using the moment to broker a three-party agreement between Washington, Ankara, and Kyiv to unlock LNG exports to Ukraine. To do so, the United States will need to ensure that Turkey, which will need to forgo current restrictions on LNG traffic through the Bosporus, emerges a winner too.

At a moment when Russia continues to test NATO’s resolve through drone incursions, maritime harassment, and intimidation across the Black Sea, LNG can serve as more than a commodity. It can become a strategic asset for peace. Delivering US LNG to Ukraine would reshape the regional balance by further reducing Russia’s energy leverage, hardening the resilience of Ukraine’s battered energy sector, and anchoring Western interests in a domain Moscow has long held exclusive influence over.

Despite sustained Russian attacks, Ukraine has kept its energy system functioning. Its electricity grid has been synchronized with the European Union’s since 2022. Its gas transmission system spans more than 38,000 kilometers—one of the largest in the world—and its underground gas storage capacity, approximately 32 billion cubic meters, is the largest in Europe. These facilities already serve European utilities and traders as a seasonal balancing and hedging platform. Integrated with a Black Sea LNG entry point, they would become a strategic buffer for Ukraine and its partners, strengthening security of supply while stabilizing regional markets, complementing other import routes through Slovakia, Poland, Romania, and Hungary.

The principal obstacle to this vision is political, not technical.

For years, Ankara has restricted the transit of most US LNG tankers through the Bosporus. While smaller LNG cargoes have been approved, prohibitions on vessels longer than two hundred meters make shipping natural gas to markets in the Black Sea costly and difficult to scale. Most US LNG is carried on tankers measuring roughly 290 to 300 meters in length, effectively limiting access under current rules.

Importantly, there is no legal prohibition on transporting LNG through the Bosporus under international law. The 1936 Montreux Convention, which governs passage through the Turkish Straits, guarantees freedom of transit for merchant vessels in peacetime, “under any flag and with any kind of cargo,” and it affirms that this principle applies without time limitation. LNG transit through the Bosporus is legally allowed but operationally constrained, politically sensitive, and commercially fragile due to insurance, liability, and risk-management considerations. Turkey has regulatory authority over maritime safety procedures in the strait, and it therefore makes the decisions on what is allowed through.

In discussions with us in recent months, several veteran diplomats in the United States and Europe insist that changing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s position on the Bosporus is unrealistic, arguing that the policy is entrenched and immovable. But this assessment underestimates the power of Trump-style diplomacy. From the Abraham Accords to breakthroughs between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Trump has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to strike deals where conventional approaches have stalled.

As the self-proclaimed “peace president,” Trump now has an opportunity to apply that approach to the Black Sea.

A three-party agreement between Washington, Ankara, and Kyiv—bringing together Trump, Erdoğan, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy—could unlock LNG exports to Ukraine while ensuring Turkey emerges a clear winner. Structured correctly, such an agreement would align incentives, transforming a long-standing constraint into a shared strategic asset.

For its part, Turkey could potentially secure engineering, procurement, and construction contracts to build and operate LNG import and regasification infrastructure, anchoring its role as a guarantor of Black Sea stability and reinforcing its strategic relevance within the Alliance. Ukraine would gain a durable source of energy security at a moment when its infrastructure remains under constant attack. Through a new US-protected maritime energy security corridor via the Bosporus, Trump would help open a new strategic LNG market, converting energy dominance into lasting economic and geopolitical relationships.

Concerns about safety in the Bosporus, often raised in public debate, should be placed in context. LNG has an exceptional global safety record and routinely transits some of the world’s most important waterways, including the Panama and Suez canals. The Bosporus already accommodates far more hazardous cargo, including crude oil and chemicals, while also authorizing small-scale shipments of LNG. The objection to larger LNG vessels transiting the strait is therefore less technical than political—and political barriers can be overcome when leadership aligns interests and incentives.

For NATO, the payoff is substantial. A Black Sea LNG corridor tied to US supply would create a stronger buffer against Russian aggression in the western Black Sea—one Moscow would be highly reluctant to challenge directly. Russia may harass, probe, and intimidate smaller European states, but it is unlikely to risk escalation against infrastructure and shipping linked to US energy interests.

That is what makes the NATO Summit in June—hosted in Turkey—the opportune moment to alter the status quo in Black Sea security. With all the necessary leaders at the same table and allied attention already focused on the region, the summit creates a natural diplomatic deadline for the White House to concentrate political will on the issue.

Industry has the energy, the ships, and the engineering capacity to make LNG a reality for Ukraine. Leadership will determine whether those tools are finally used.

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To bridge the transatlantic productivity divide, Europe needs structural reforms—and AI

Hung Tran — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 14:29:45 +0000

Comparisons between Europe’s sluggish economy and the dynamism of the United States have become a recurring theme in economic debate. Among the large and growing body of work on this topic are David Marsh’s book Can Europe Survive? and policy reports such as Mario Draghi’s “The future of European competitiveness,” which analyze the factors contributing to slower economic growth in the European Union (EU) since the turn of the millennium.

In particular, the analyses focus on the widening gap between strong productivity growth in the United States and near stagnation in the EU. Their policy recommendations emphasize structural reforms to make Europe’s economy more flexible and dynamic, foster a risk-taking culture similar to that in the United States, and encourage innovation and its commercial applications, thereby boosting productivity and economic growth.

While such recommendations are reasonable, it is important to recognize that structural reforms are difficult to implement and tend to face resistance from vested interests. Moreover, reforms take time to yield results and usually produce near-term pain, fueling popular backlash. These factors explain why the EU has made limited progress in implementing Draghi’s recommendations since September 2024. Nonetheless, if Europe wants to preserve its strategic autonomy or sovereignty, especially amid heightened geopolitical contention, it must seriously undertake such reforms.

In the foreseeable future, Europe should also aim to facilitate the diffusion of highly productive business practices already demonstrated by many high-tech firms, particularly in the United States, to domestic businesses. Such an effort could produce tangible results, helping improve economic performance. This challenge mirrors that facing the rest of the US economy, which lags behind the information technology (IT) and artificial intelligence (AI) sector in productivity performance.

Europe struggles to keep pace with US productivity

Since 2000, real GDP annual growth has averaged 1.3 percent in the EU, less than half that of the United States. Factors explaining this underperformance include rigid and burdensome regulations, fragmented markets for services and capital, high energy costs, slow labor-force growth amid population aging, and inadequate investment, including in research and development, particularly in IT and AI sectors. Against that backdrop, EU labor productivity has slowed—falling from 1.5 percent per year between 1999 and 2008 to 1.0 percent between 2010 and 2019 and 0.4 percent since then. By comparison, US labor productivity has averaged 1.5 percent per year over most of the post-2000 period, rising to 2.4 percent in the past two years.

Overall, the productivity gap favoring the United States over the Eurozone has grown to 41 percentage points—more than making up for the period from the end of World War II to the 1980s, when many European countries grew faster than the United States.

The tech sectors behind US success

The better productivity performance of the United States compared with the EU has been driven mainly by the IT sector and later reinforced by AI activities. Indeed, between 1988 and 2023, the cumulative total factor productivity growth in the IT sector exceeded 178 percent while remaining only 12 percent for non-IT sectors. As investment in the IT and AI sectors has outpaced overall capital expenditure, these activities have contributed increasingly to US economic growth.

In 2025, IT- and AI-related expenditures, adjusted for imported equipment, accounted for up to 25 percent of US GDP growth (estimated at 2.2 percent), despite comprising only 4.5 percent of the economy. Excluding the IT and AI sectors, the rest of the US economy would have grown by 1.65 percent in 2025—no different from the EU, estimated at 1.6 percent.

Why high-tech gains don’t reach the broader economy

It is not only in the United States that the IT and AI sectors—and, more broadly, the high-tech sector—enjoy stronger productivity growth than the rest of the economy. In fact, this phenomenon holds true across the member states of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). According to OECD data, high-tech firms that have embraced technological advances in IT and AI are at the frontier of productivity, growing at an annual rate of 3.5 percent. By comparison, non-frontier firms have recorded a meagre 0.5 percent productivity growth, dragging down aggregate productivity figures.

Recent examples of non-frontier firms include those that have failed to embrace technological innovations, such as digital transformation and electric mobility trends. This includes many German automobile companies, which are now under intense pressure in their home market from Chinese competitors and have lost market share in China from 25 percent to 14 percent in recent years. Similarly, about 70 percent of US firms have failed in their digital transformation efforts due to a lack of a clear strategy, poor change management, and employee resistance—thus joining the ranks of laggards. More generally, non-frontier firms tend to be small and medium-sized enterprises, forming the backbone of the US and EU economies, employing the largest share of workers in sectors such as retail, construction, and traditional manufacturing.

The lack or slow pace of technology diffusion from high-tech frontier firms has left much of the US and EU economies populated by laggard firms in terms of adopting technologically enabled productivity improvements. This kind of slow diffusion of new technology isn’t new. For example, it took sixty years for the steam engine, thirty-two years for electricity, and fifteen years for personal computers and the internet to be widely adopted.

Several factors contribute to this phenomenon, including high fixed costs of investing in new technology, workforce training, and organizational restructuring to reap the benefits of innovation. Investment in intangible assets such as workforce training often produces a technology J-curve effect: productivity may dip initially as firms and employees adapt, before accelerating once the new methods are mastered. There is hope that AI technology diffusion might occur faster than in the case of the aforementioned examples, though adoption remains demanding, particularly in terms of the high costs of implementation hurting short-term profitability.

Learning from frontier firms

Instead of waiting for AI technology to naturally diffuse to the rest of the economy, policymakers, business leaders, and investors should actively facilitate, incentivize, and reward laggard firms to adopt productivity-enhancing practices demonstrated by frontier firms. Specifically, these measures should address barriers to technology diffusion. By doing so, laggard firms would improve their productivity, thereby boosting aggregate productivity and supporting stronger economic growth.

For the EU, encouraging laggards to catch up with frontier firms, both domestically and in the United States, could produce measurable results in the near term. But meanwhile, the EU and United States should continue to implement long-term structural reforms to develop the whole innovation ecosystem—including fostering a risk-taking culture to promote innovation and commercialization.

Importantly, for both the EU and the rest of the US economy, shortening the technology diffusion lag carries high stakes—failure would entrench the already dominant frontier firms, weaken market competition, and make it harder for other companies to catch up. This would keep large parts of the US and European economies in slow-growth lanes, exacerbate economic inequality, and fuel social divisiveness.

Hung Tran is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center, a senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, a former executive managing director at the Institute of International Finance, and a former deputy director at the International Monetary Fund.

At the intersection of economics, finance, and foreign policy, the GeoEconomics Center is a translation hub with the goal of helping shape a better global economic future.

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Four options for arms control after New START

Amy Woolf — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Bottom lines up front

The Cold War-era framework of nuclear arms control has broken down, but the need to manage nuclear competition remains urgent.
The confidence and connections that regular talks built is critical to reducing the dangers.
The Trump administration could engage Moscow and Beijing in high-level talks toward nuclear stability, while still pursuing updates to the US nuclear arsenal.

When the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) expired February 5, 2026, the United States and Russia entered a new period without any legally binding restrictions on their nuclear forces. Both countries lost not only the limits on deployed nuclear warheads that New START stipulated, but also the insights and predictability provided by the treaty-mandated monitoring and transparency measures. For decades, these mechanisms helped the two nations manage their nuclear competition while avoiding misunderstandings and worst-case assessments.

The international security environment has changed significantly since New START entered into force in 2011. Russia’s noncompliance with past treaties, its invasion of Ukraine, and its malign activities across Europe have generated concerns about whether Moscow can be a credible partner in arms control agreements. China’s growing nuclear force posture, its broader military expansion, and its challenges to US allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific have also raised questions about whether the United States should engage with China in an arms control process, or expand the US nuclear force posture in response. Taken together, these challenges have reopened debate about the role arms control can play in managing great-power nuclear competition.

For the past thirty years, each new US administration has sought to align its arms control policy with US national security interests by reviewing the threat environment, identifying risks to US security, and assessing changing requirements for its nuclear deterrent. The results of these reviews have then influenced plans for the US nuclear force posture and US negotiating positions in arms control talks.

While the current administration has so far not undertaken a formal Nuclear Posture Review, President Donald Trump has said that he would like to pursue “denuclearization” with Russia and China to reduce the “tremendous amounts of money” spent on nuclear forces.¹ He did not say what he wanted to include in this process, but an agreement would need to balance US interests in restraining Russian and Chinese forces with possible US plans to expand the numbers and types of weapons in its own arsenal. Given this complexity, the question is not simply whether the United States and Russia can preserve or extend existing arms control agreements. Rather, it is whether the United States, Russia, and potentially China can maintain some of the essential stabilizing functions of arms control in today’s competitive security environment.

This essay will assess the strengths, weaknesses, and feasibility of several alternative pathways for the future of nuclear arms control.² It will ultimately conclude that the United States can support its security and arms control interests by engaging Russia and China in a more flexible framework that combines high-level engagement among political leaders with expert working groups that can develop practical measures to foster restraint and mitigate the risks of nuclear use. This approach will both satisfy the president’s interest in engaging in arms control issues and preserve US leadership in shaping global norms.

Option one: Resume negotiations with Russia

The United States and Russia could retain the transparency, predictability, and restraint codified in New START if they negotiated a comprehensive treaty that continued to limit their nuclear-capable delivery systems and nuclear warheads. The two nations began talks toward this goal in 2021 but Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine interrupted the process before they could agree on an agenda or specific provisions.³

Moscow and Washington could agree to maintain their forces within the New START limits even though the treaty has expired. Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested this approach in September 2025, when he said that observing the treaty’s “central quantitative restrictions for one year” would “prevent the emergence of a new strategic arms race and . . . preserve an acceptable degree of predictability and restraint.”⁴ He did not, however, offer to resume the data exchanges and notifications that help the United States remain confident that Russia is complying with its obligations.

Trump initially said that a one-year extension was a “good idea,” but there is no indication that the nations held further discussions on this option. Moreover, a reciprocal commitment to remain within New START limits might not serve US national security interests if it excludes any monitoring arrangements or slows US plans to respond to the emerging challenge from China.

Option two: Include China in arms control negotiations

While China has long participated in multilateral arms control negotiations, it has rejected proposals for negotiations—or even an informal dialogue—on its current and planned nuclear force posture. It has often insisted that it would only participate in formal arms control negotiations after the United States and Russia reduced their deployed nuclear forces to numbers closer to those in the much smaller Chinese arsenal. Guo Jiakun, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, emphasized this position after Trump called for denuclearization talks, noting that it was “neither reasonable nor realistic” to expect China to participate in trilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations because “China and the United States are not at the same level at all in terms of nuclear capabilities.”⁵ China reiterated this position in its recent white paper on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation, noting, “Countries possessing the largest nuclear arsenals should fulfill their special and primary responsibilities for nuclear disarmament and continue to make drastic and substantive reductions in their nuclear arsenals in a verifiable, irreversible and legally-binding manner.”⁶

This, along with its long-standing objections to discussions on transparency or limits on its nuclear forces, makes it unlikely that Beijing would join the United States and Russia in formal treaty negotiations. Even if China were to participate in discussions on measures to mitigate the risks of nuclear escalation, its priorities would likely differ from those of the United States. Nevertheless, such talks could provide an opening for more substantive conversations on transparency measures and restraints on China’s nuclear buildup.

Option three: Pause arms control; prioritize nuclear modernization

Because Russia and China have rebuffed US efforts to hold talks on arms control and risk reduction measures, the Biden administration suggested that the United States could pause its attempts to establish such dialogues while it worked to modernize its own nuclear posture.⁷ With this approach, the United States would “continue to abide by New START limits for the duration of the Treaty,” but would also prepare “for a world where constraints on nuclear weapons arsenals disappear entirely.”⁸

Several policy experts have supported a similar approach, suggesting that the United States should not restrain its nuclear forces while Russia and China add to theirs and that it should return to arms control dialogues only after it has bolstered its own nuclear deterrent.⁹ Others have disputed the notion that a buildup in US nuclear forces would give the United States leverage in future negotiations, arguing that it could instead lead to greater competition, more weapons deployments, and a higher risk of instability among the nuclear powers.¹⁰

Option four: Engage with Russia and China, but not on a treaty

Because Trump seems interested in engaging with Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping on arms control (or denuclearization), an option in which the United States pauses arms control negotiations while it builds up its nuclear forces might not be consistent with Trump’s agenda. The administration might, therefore, consider a fourth option that envisions two tracks—one in which the president and his counterparts in Russia and China address broad principles of nuclear stability, and a second in which expert working groups craft concrete measures to foster cooperation and mitigate the risk of nuclear war.

This approach accommodates the president’s instincts for engagement while aligning with US national security objectives. It recognizes that formal treaty negotiations and reductions in the numbers of deployed nuclear weapons are not realistic options at this time and might not be consistent with US plans for its nuclear force posture. But it could preserve the core benefits of arms control through ongoing communication and cooperation. Moreover, it would demonstrate that the United States remains committed to reducing nuclear dangers in an environment where it faces challenges from both Russia and China.

The high-level engagement addressing broad principles of nuclear stability would provide the United States, Russia, and China with the opportunity to replicate some of the discussions on the dangers of nuclear war that the United States and Soviet Union held during the Cold War. For example, in the 1971 Accident Measures Agreement, the United States and Soviet Union recognized “the devastating consequences that nuclear war would have for all mankind” and affirmed their role in exerting “every effort to avert the risk of outbreak of such a war.”¹¹ They expressed similar sentiments in the 1973 Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War.¹² Then, in 1985, Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev issued their famous statement that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”¹³

These types of statements would do little to restrain the nuclear competition but could offer a low-cost, high-impact avenue for restoring cooperation in an era of renewed great-power rivalry. Where the absence of dialogue among nuclear powers can heighten the risk of miscommunication, agreement on even the most basic statements regarding nuclear dangers can set a baseline for more comprehensive negotiations in the future.

The expert working groups on the second track would likely revisit risk reduction concepts pursued by the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War such as enhanced communication networks, missile launch notification agreements, and rules of the road to avoid military accidents and escalation. The United States and China lack a similar history with these types of measures, but China has taken some steps in recent years to engage on these topics. Bringing these discussions into a three-party venue will give each nation the opportunity to air its concerns about the sources of risk and to work together to identify concrete measures to address those specific risks.

These two tracks will do little in the near term to address the growth in Russian and Chinese nuclear forces or to reduce the risks created by Russian and Chinese malign activities that have targeted US allies and partners. On the other hand, they likely will not impede the US nuclear modernization program or US efforts to support its allies and partners. They can, however, build a foundation for future talks on nuclear dangers, provide an opportunity for the three nations to find common ground on issues on which they can cooperate to manage their nuclear competition, and offer a venue for their leaders to demonstrate their commitment to reducing the risk of nuclear war.

Connections help, even without formal treaties

With the expiration of New START in 2026, the United States faces a future in which the familiar framework of nuclear arms control has broken down, but the need to manage nuclear competition remains as urgent as ever. Therefore, even if the nuclear powers cannot rely on formal treaties to set the framework for their nuclear cooperation, a decision to abandon arms control altogether would leave the United States without tools to influence the emerging complex security environment or to prevent crises from escalating into catastrophe.

Progress in reducing nuclear dangers requires ongoing dialogue, mutual understanding, and clear leadership, even if the endgame does not include formal treaties and high-profile signing ceremonies. Efforts to manage nuclear competition have always included less formal and more flexible tools that focus on political engagement, practical risk reduction, and shared responsibility among nuclear powers.

Thus, the two-track strategy described here provides tangible benefits for US national security. It aligns with the president’s expressed interest in engaging with both Moscow and Beijing and supports the US goal of maintaining flexibility to advance its own nuclear modernization programs. It shows leadership on critical nuclear security issues at a time when both allies and adversaries question the US commitment to stability and restraint. Most importantly, it strengthens the connections—political, diplomatic, and psychological—that prevent competition from turning into confrontation, reaffirming that both deterrence and arms control can help prevent the use of nuclear weapons in war.

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1 “Remarks by President Trump at the World Economic Forum,” US Mission to the European Union, January 24, 2025. https://useu.usmission.gov/remarks-by-president-trump-at-the-world-economic-forum/?_ga=2.152169849.1721170525.1760306105-1756000815.1760306104.

2 For more comprehensive assessments of these alternatives, see: “America’s Strategic Posture,” Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, October 2023, https://www.ida.org/-/media/feature/publications/a/am/americas-strategic-posture/strategic-posture-commission-report.ashx; Rose Gottemoeller, “Arms Control is Not Dead Yet,” Foreign Affairs, April 15, 2025, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/arms-control-not-dead-yet.

3 For a summary of the US negotiating positions, see: Mallory Stewart, “Keynote Address for the Commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Arms Control Association,” US Department of State, June 2, 2022, https://2021-2025.state.gov/keynote-address-for-the-commemoration-of-the-50th-anniversary-of-the-arms-control-association/. For a summary of the Russian negotiating positions, see: “Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov’s Opening Remarks at a Briefing . . . on Arms Control and Strategic Stability,” Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, February 11, 2021, https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1415641.

4 “Meeting with Permanent Members of the Security Council,” President of Russia, September 22, 2025, http://www.en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/78051.

5 “China Rules Out Participating in Denuclearization Talks with U.S. and Russia, as Suggested by Trump,” CBS News, August 27, 2025, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-rejects-trump-invite-nuclear-weapons-denuclearization-talks-us-russia/.

6 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, People’s Republic of China, White Paper on China’s Arms Control, Disarmament, and Nonproliferation in the New Era, November 27, 2025. https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xw/wjbxw/202511/t20251127_11761653.html.

7 This modernization program includes the ongoing efforts to replace its older nuclear delivery systems and warheads; to acquire a new nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile; to update its nuclear command, control, and communication systems; and to invest in its nuclear production facilities.

8 See Pranay Vaddi, “Adapting the U.S. Approach to Arms Control and Nonproliferation to a New Era,” Arms Control Association, June 7, 2024, https://www.armscontrol.org/2024AnnualMeeting/Pranay-Vaddi-remarks; “‘Nuclear Threats and the Role of Allies’: Remarks by Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy Dr. Vipin Narang,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, August 1, 2024, https://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/Speech/Article/3858.

9 Austin Long, “No Zombie Nuclear Treaties,” Strategic Simplicity, August 15, 2025, https://strategicsimplicity.substack.com/p/no-zombie-nuclear-treaties.

10 See, for example: Daryl G. Kimball, “Remarks at a Joint Briefing at the UNGA First Committee on ‘Advancing Article VI Goals as New START Expires,'” Arms Control Association, October 9, 2025, https://www.armscontrol.org/events-and-remarks/2025-10/remarks-joint-briefing-unga-first-committee-advancing-article-vi-goals.

11 U.S. Department of State, Agreement on Measures to Reduce the Risk of Outbreak of Nuclear War Between The United States of America and The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, September 30, 1971, https://2009-2017.state.gov/t/isn/4692.htm.

12 United States Department of State, Agreement Between The United States of America and The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Prevention of Nuclear War, June 22, 1973 https://2009-2017.state.gov/t/isn/5186.htm.

13 Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, Joint Soviet-United States Statement on the Summit Meeting in Geneva, November 21, 1985. https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/joint-soviet-united-states-statement-summit-meeting-geneva.

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What I heard in Munich: ‘We Europeans need a plan’

Anna Wieslander — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 13:47:39 +0000

MUNICH—It was a stunning moment at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) this past weekend, when German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer entered the stage side by side to launch the “Global Europe” initiative. Designed for Europe to navigate with confidence and capabilities in an increasingly multipolar world, the initiative contained ground-breaking, action-oriented proposals along four pillars: innovation, energy security, military capabilities, and societal resilience. Gone was the mutual grouchiness of the Brexit years—the leaders of the so-called “E3” now appeared laser focused on bridging difficulties to build joint strength, thereby inspiring others to follow.

Did you miss it? Well, I am sorry to say that you cannot watch it afterwards on YouTube because, alas, it did not happen. But it should have. By now, Europe ought to have left reaction mode behind and taken some bold steps forward. Not individually, but together. It is not as if the Europeans have lacked time to prepare.

Since 2020, I have shared my impressions from the MSC each year. Already in 2022, days before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I noticed “a lot of bold words but little bold action.” In 2024, I reflected upon the “brutal awakening” that Europe was experiencing as it faced both Russia’s threat to Ukraine and the West and its own insufficiency in countering it. In that US election year, fear “even loomed that at the MSC in 2025, Europe would be squeezed between a fascist Russia and an undependable United States—a Europe that would be pretty much on its own.”

In 2025, US Vice President JD Vance delivered a speech that made that prophesy come true. In it, he signaled that from now on the transatlantic relationship as Europe knew it was no more, and Europe should adapt to the new reality.

This year, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that the United States does “not seek to separate but to revitalize an old friendship and renew the greatest civilization in human history.” In part, he aimed at reassuring European allies, but few left without any lingering concerns.

In the corridors of the conference venue of Hotel Bayerischer Hof, a range of interpretations circulated among participants. Some believed that in practice the transatlantic community prevailed, while others saw the decoupling of Europe from the United States as the only realistic way forward.

This lack of congruency among Europeans constitutes a risk that could fragment the continent at a time when unity is its strongest asset. That is why common steps toward greater European independence, while keeping the United States engaged, are so crucial.

The MSC report that preceded the 2026 conference received a lot of attention with its provocative title “Under Destruction,” referring to the “backlash against core values of the post-1945 order evident not only in the US but in many parts of the world.” Consequently, “sweeping destruction rather than careful reforms and policy corrections is the order of the day.”

Given this severe and threatening situation, I had high hopes for the opening session of the MSC. And yes, there was a shift. Merz spoke early on the first day, instead of on the second day as his predecessors had done, presumably to illustrate his will to lead. But my expectations of joint initiatives by Europe’s big powers fell short. From what I heard, Berlin, Paris, and London were not yet ready. Instead, each country presented various components of a stronger Europe.

Merz announced that the European Commission was set to develop ”a joint roadmap” for a strong and sovereign Europe with its own security strategy. He also called for organizing the European Union’s (EU’s) solidarity clause 42.7, as a ”strong, self-sustaining pillar” within NATO—an idea that so far has been a red line for non-EU allies.

Macron has been advocating for European independence for a long time. When I reported on his vision from the MSC in 2020, not many cheered him on. This year, however, it was different. Even if his ideas of European “preference” go too far for some, strategic autonomy now makes sense to many. Macron proposed that Europe should launch “a series of consultations” on a “new architecture of security” for Europe, with the Europeans, for the Europeans.

Starmer called for building a more European NATO—underpinned by deeper links between the United Kingdom and the EU—across defense, industry, tech, politics, and the wider economy. Claiming that the British companies already accounted for over a quarter of the continent’s defense industrial base, he saw the need to integrate capabilities on spending and procurement and build a joint European defense industry.

Taken together, their thoughts largely intertwined and resembled each other, and some were echoed by the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, which could possibly lead to a roadmap ahead. As the MSC Chairman Wolfgang Ischinger said at the closing session: “What we need now is a plan.” As I stumbled out of the Bayerischer Hof Hotel on Sunday, sleep-deprived after three intense days, I could not agree more.

As Europe shapes its future, it must navigate both uncertainty and insecurity. Neither will go away anytime soon, and moving forward together is the only viable option. Next year, I hope to hear a new beat in Munich.

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Inside the Trump trade strategy with USTR’s Jamieson Greer

the Atlantic Council — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 17:53:48 +0000

In this episode, host Juliette Matos brings you a timely conversation from December 2025 with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on the Trump administration’s trade strategy. As debate intensifies over the upcoming review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement and reports suggest President Donald Trump may withdraw from the trade pact, Greer discusses whether a US withdrawal remains “on the table” and whether there’s a possibility of renegotiation.

In conversation with The Wall Street Journal’s Greg Ip, Greer also addresses tariffs, domestic manufacturing and the future of the global trading system.

Watch the full event and read the complete transcript here: US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on one year of a new global trade system.

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The AC Front Page Podcast, hosted by Juliette Matos, brings you exclusive conversations with heads of state and government, senior US officials, CEOs, and global decision maker—recorded live at the Atlantic Council’s headquarters in Washington, DC, and on stages around the world. From geopolitics and national security to technology and the global economy, this podcast will keep you updated and informed on the policy debates driving today’s headlines.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Full videos and transcripts of our events are available at AtlanticCouncil.org/ACFrontPage.

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AC Front Page harnesses the convening power and expertise of the Council’s sixteen programs and centers to spotlight the world’s most prominent leaders and the most compelling ideas across sectors. The premier platform engages new audiences eager for nonpartisan and constructive solutions to current global challenges. This widely promoted 45-minute program features the Council’s most important guests and content serving as the highlight of our programming.

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National preparedness starts at the state level with governors and the National Guard

Jeanne Thorpe and Sarah Wallace — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 18:52:04 +0000

WASHINGTON—Is the United States prepared for 2026? If the recent past is any indication, the country will likely face hurricanes, fires, and floods that will place significant strain on preparedness systems in the year ahead. The nation’s midterm election and its 250th anniversary celebrations could draw on these preparedness resources, too. And all of this is occurring amid rising civil unrest, persistent cyber threats to critical infrastructure, and an expanding reliance on the National Guard for domestic missions that move troops away from their local communities.

But what distinguishes this moment is not the presence of risk. It’s the convergence of risk with diminished federal surge capacity. The federal disaster workforce shrunk this past year, and several important Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) advisory bodies were dismantled. As a result, US state governments are expected to manage complex, multi-domain crises with fewer federal backstops than in previous decades. In practice, governors are no longer simply implementing federal plans; they are operating as strategic national security actors, often without commensurate recognition or supporting architecture.

It’s clear that US preparedness strategy must evolve to reflect a reality already evident on the ground: Governors, the National Guard, and durable public-private platforms now constitute the functional core of domestic resilience.

The National Guard: A strategic asset hiding in plain sight

Across nearly every major domestic operation—from SEAR-1 events to statewide COVID-19 pandemic responses—the National Guard has been central to mission success. Today, National Guard units routinely support cyber defense, wildfire and severe weather response, public-health surges, mass care and sheltering, infrastructure stabilization, and continuity of government.

The National Guard’s strategic value lies not simply in its scale, but in its dual-mission structure. Guard members operate with military discipline while remaining deeply embedded in civilian institutions, infrastructure systems, and local communities. This hybrid role makes the Guard uniquely suited to contemporary threats that blur traditional boundaries between civil response, cyber defense, public health, and security operations.

Despite this operational centrality, the Guard remains under-integrated into national planning and readiness frameworks. Federal strategies frequently presume that federal agencies will be executing them, even as real-world response increasingly depends on state-led action. The result is a persistent mismatch between responsibility and design: States are expected to deliver outcomes without full integration into strategy, intelligence, or readiness planning. The costs of this misalignment are measurable: wasted public funds, delayed evacuations and restoration efforts, degraded infrastructure resilience, extended economic disruption, and, at times, preventable injury and loss of life.

A model proven in real operations

Across the country, states are quietly building public-private operational platforms that integrate emergency management agencies, Guard units, and private-sector operators into a shared situational picture. In practice, this means co-located coordination centers where state emergency managers, National Guard planners, utility operators, hospital systems, transportation authorities, and major venue security directors operate from the same dashboard during incidents. It means common operating platforms that fuse weather modeling, infrastructure status data, cyber threat indicators, supply-chain analytics, and real-time field reporting into a unified view accessible to decision makers across sectors. It also means pre-negotiated information-sharing agreements, joint exercises, and clearly defined decision authorities that allow leaders to move from awareness to action without bureaucratic delay.

The effectiveness of this approach is not theoretical; these systems have been tested under sustained pressure. During major storms, mass gatherings, and public-health emergencies, integrated platforms have enabled synchronized evacuation planning, coordinated Guard logistics with private fuel and transportation providers, prioritized power restoration to hospitals and water systems, and aligned cyber defense measures with physical infrastructure protection.

As co-chair of the Massachusetts Large Venue Security Task Force from 2019 to 2023, one of the authors—Jeanne Thorpe—worked directly with major venue operators statewide to identify operational gaps, assess cyber vulnerabilities, and strengthen physical security. That effort demonstrated how structured public-private platforms can elevate readiness without expanding formal authorities or adding bureaucratic complexity.

High-profile special events—such as the Boston Marathon, Independence Day celebrations, and other SEAR-1 operations—demonstrate the value of real-time information sharing across public agencies, private partners, and the Guard. The advantage of these platforms is not speed alone, but decision coherence—the ability to align action across institutions operating under intense time pressure.

The complexities of events at large venues, including stadiums and convention centers, further underscore the necessity for this level of coordination. These environments bring together transportation systems, utilities, public safety workers, healthcare workers, and private security, often amid rapidly shifting conditions. Shared situational awareness allows leaders to adapt to crowd dynamics and weather volatility, as well as to manage infrastructure stress without fragmentation or delay.

These same dynamics were evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. Coordinated engagement among hospitals, supply-chain partners, laboratories, emergency management agencies, and Guard units stabilized testing, vaccination, and logistics operations at scale. Across contexts, the lesson has been consistent: resilience emerges from integration, not hierarchy. Traditional crisis models often rely on a linear chain of command in which information flows upward for validation and decisions flow downward for execution. That structure works in discrete, single-domain emergencies. But contemporary crises rarely unfold that way. Wildfires intersect with grid instability. Cyber intrusions affect hospital systems. Severe storms disrupt supply chains and telecommunications simultaneously. In these compound scenarios, a purely hierarchical model slows decision-making and fragments situational awareness across stovepiped agencies.

An integrated approach does not eliminate authority; it aligns it across sectors in real time. Emergency managers, Guard commanders, infrastructure operators, and private-sector leaders work from a shared operating picture and coordinate actions laterally as well as vertically. Decisions can be made at the level closest to the operational problem, informed by cross-sector visibility rather than routed through sequential layers of approval. The result is not less order, but more adaptive coherence under pressure.

Why the National Guard matters to states

The consequences of misaligned authorities and priorities are not abstract. They are felt most acutely by communities already under strain.

For example, West Virginia’s geography makes it one of the most flood-prone states in the country. Each year, floods, mudslides, and other natural disasters devastate rural communities and destroy homes, which risks overwhelming local response capacity. This past year, significant portions of the West Virginia National Guard were deployed to Washington, DC, sent by the governor to support federal missions at the request of US President Donald Trump. While the deployment itself was lawful and aligned with federal needs, its timing exposed a critical vulnerability in the nation’s preparedness architecture.

For West Virginians navigating disaster recovery, the absence of Guard forces is not a political question. It is an operational one. The Guard is often the only rapidly deployable force capable of reaching remote areas, restoring access, supporting evacuations, and stabilizing essential services. When those units are unavailable, the gap cannot be quickly filled by federal assets or private contractors—particularly in rural states with limited surge capacity.

This episode underscores a structural reality: Governors must retain meaningful access to the National Guard as a critical, time-sensitive resource for their own populations, even as Guard units continue to support federal missions. Domestic preparedness is not just a matter of whether the Guard can deploy, but of where and when it is available. When Guard forces are pulled away from disaster-prone states at moments of acute need, resilience becomes uneven and public trust in government response erodes.

The lesson is not that federal missions are illegitimate. It is that preparedness strategy must account for trade-offs in real time and ensure that governors are equipped with both the authority and situational awareness needed to balance national demands against immediate state-level risk.

Why governors must be central to national security planning

If the United States is serious about domestic resilience, then governors must be integrated into national security planning in a structured and sustained manner. This does not require new constitutional authorities, but it does require alignment between responsibility and design. Four principles should guide this alignment:

First, governors and adjutant generals should be formally integrated into national planning processes. National risk assessments, intelligence priorities, critical-infrastructure protection strategies, cyber defense frameworks, and continuity planning all depend on state execution. Federal national security agencies should formally integrate governors and adjutant generals into the design of these strategies, while governors must assert their role as operational stakeholders. Without structured, two-way integration, national plans will continue to rely on state implementation without incorporating state insight, undermining effectiveness downstream.

Second, states require timely access to intelligence and situational awareness. Guard units and emergency management agencies cannot respond effectively without visibility into cyber threats, infrastructure vulnerabilities, public-health indicators, climate-risk modeling, and supply-chain disruptions. Federal departments and intelligence agencies must establish routine, real-time sharing with governors, adjutant generals, and state emergency management directors, reducing unnecessary classification barriers and expanding state access to relevant briefings and fusion centers. Preparedness improves when those responsible for execution have timely access to the intelligence shaping national risk decisions.

Third, sustained investment in state-level resilience platforms is essential. States must prioritize and institutionalize the systems that allow governors to coordinate public agencies, Guard forces, and private-sector partners. At the same time, Congress and federal homeland security agencies should direct funding and grant structures toward interoperable data platforms, joint exercises, and public-private integration at the state level. These systems form the backbone of modern crisis response.

Fourth, national readiness frameworks must reflect state capability. Measuring preparedness solely through federal assets obscures where response capacity actually resides. A framework that treats the Guard as peripheral rather than connective tissue is strategically incomplete.

Building a stronger security architecture

The United States can no longer afford a domestic security strategy that treats states as downstream implementers rather than upstream partners. In emergencies, governors are often the first to act and directly accountable for the systems that keep communities functioning.

Elevating governors—and the National Guard forces they command—does not weaken national security. It strengthens it by distributing resilience, accelerating response times, and grounding strategy in operational reality. In an era defined by compound risk and constrained federal capacity, a whole-of-state architecture is not an alternative to national security; it is its foundation.

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Kroenig quoted in The Guardian on Secretary Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference

Atlantic Council — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 15:03:07 +0000

Vice President, Geostrategy and Fellows and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On February 17, Atlantic Council vice president and Scowcroft Center senior director Matthew Kroenig was quoted in The Guardian on Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference.

[Rubio] did not repudiate anything in Vice President JD Vance’s more pugnacious speech last year, but he presented the same themes in a more positive light, focusing on shared challenges facing both Europe and the United States and how allies can work together to address them.

Matthew Kroenig

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Matthew Kroenig

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A bad Ukraine peace could ignite new wars in Russia’s former empire

Joseph Epstein — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 21:38:40 +0000

A fresh round of US-brokered peace talks between Russia and Ukraine is taking place this week as the Trump administration seeks to reach a deal by early summer. While pro-Ukrainian voices warn that any agreement lacking ironclad security guarantees for Kyiv could embolden Moscow to go further into Moldova or test NATO in the Baltics, the biggest threat may be to countries elsewhere in the former Soviet space.

There are already signs that Russia is turning its imperial appetite toward the South Caucasus and Central Asia, where the groundwork for destabilization appears to be well underway. Any negotiated settlement in Ukraine that ignores these regions will not end the current war; it will merely relocate it.

Russian nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, who is often called “Putin’s brain,” declared last month that no post-Soviet state should possess sovereignty. Instead, he argued, Moscow “has no choice but to restore the Russian Empire.” Days earlier, leading Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov called for Russia to conduct “special military operations” similar to the invasion of Ukraine in Central Asia and the Caucasus.

The Russian Foreign Ministry sought to distance itself from these comments by dismissing Solovyov as a “private journalist,” but few were convinced. In a country where the Kremlin controls news coverage and individuals can face prison for holding up blank signs, any talk of private journalism lacks credibility. Instead, this rhetoric is a further indication that even while bogged down in Ukraine, Russia is already waging shadow wars against other neighbors.

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Evidence of Russia’s intentions goes beyond mere revisionist rhetoric. In early February, Azerbaijani security services released recordings of Ramiz Mehdiyev, the former head of the country’s presidential administration, allegedly coordinating coup plans with Russian FSB agents. This echoed events in Armenia last summer, when the authorities arrested Samuel Karapetyan, a Russian-Armenian oligarch on the US Treasury Department’s Kremlin List, for allegedly plotting to overthrow Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government in cooperation with Gazprom and Russian Railways.

Two alleged Russian-backed coup attempts in the South Caucasus in a single year should be enough to alarm every policymaker in Washington and across Europe. Meanwhile, in Central Asia, leaked Russian military intelligence documents claim to reveal plans for active operations to destabilize Kazakhstan. The initial focus was set to be the country’s northern regions, where Kazakhstan’s ethnic Russian population is concentrated. The plans included bribing elites, weaponizing accusations of “Russophobia,” and funneling propaganda through front organizations; tactics that echo earlier destabilization efforts in Ukraine.

The Kremlin has particular cause for concern due to the growing American presence in regions that Moscow regards as its own backyard. Over the past year, the United States has displaced Russia as the principal mediator between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and has brokered a peace deal including US oversight of a corridor that could become a key trade route connecting Europe to Asia while bypassing Russia entirely.

US Vice President JD Vance’s recent visit to Yerevan and Baku underlined the changing geopolitical balance in the South Caucasus. This was the highest level American engagement in the region for nearly two decades. It represented a statement of strategic intent that the Kremlin cannot ignore.

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US President Donald Trump has made ending wars a signature promise, but his team must know that some peace deals could end up accelerating hostilities elsewhere. If a settlement in Ukraine frees up Russian military resources without establishing credible deterrents against further Kremlin aggression, Moscow will have the means and the motive to reassert dominance elsewhere in its former empire.

History warns us to take this seriously. The tragedy of the war in Ukraine is not only the scale of the killing but its repetition. In his book “War and Punishment,” Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar chronicles how Russia systematically repressed Ukrainians for centuries to extinguish statehood aspirations. Zygar traced this process from the abolition of Cossack autonomy in the eighteenth century to the prohibition of Ukrainian language and literature in the nineteenth century, and on to the artificially engineered 1930s famine, known as the Holodomor, that killed around four million Ukrainians.

Strikingly similar templates exist throughout the former Soviet domains. “Perished Civilization,” a volume published under the nom de guerre “Kuzari” and drawing on leaked Russian archival files, has gained attention in the Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Tajik, and Ukrainian media since Dugin and Solovyov’s provocations. The book documents how Moscow justified its conquest of Muslim Central Asia as a sacred duty to defend Orthodoxy, a civilizational framing that lent permanence to what began as territorial opportunism. Following the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks retained every inch of this conquered land, swapping religious justification for ideological mandate.

The human cost was staggering. Kazakhstan experienced its own artificially engineered famine during the Soviet era, known in the country as the Asharshylyk. This mirrored Ukraine’s Holodomor and annihilated around 38 percent of the Kazakh population. Today’s concerns are not ancient grievances; they are unhealed wounds in societies that understand what Russian imperial restoration could mean.

With painful memories of Russian rule still widespread in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, few residents will accept the argument that Russia’s poor military performance in Ukraine makes further aggression unlikely. Instead, they will point to Moscow’s record of learning from its failures.

Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia was tactically successful but operationally embarrassing. The invasion was mired by aircraft losses, poor coordination, and drunk soldiers wandering through villages and reportedly wobbling at roll calls. Six years later, Russia seized Crimea with “little green men” in an operation that was both remarkably swift and highly professional. A hasty Ukraine peace could once again enable Russia to learn from its mistakes and implement key lessons against new targets.

A number of steps are required to prevent a settlement in Ukraine from serving as the spark for further Russian aggression in Central Asia or the South Caucasus. First, any security guarantees for Ukraine should also cover other at-risk post-Soviet states through bilateral defense pacts or a multilateral framework.

Second, the United States should seek to amplify its economic footprint throughout the region by committing to infrastructure and resource development projects. This will help counter Russian influence while creating incentives for stability. Third, sanctions relief should be dependent on concrete criteria such as halting Kremlin destabilization efforts in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and beyond.

By embedding regional safeguards into a Ukraine peace deal, President Trump can deliver on his promise to end wars without igniting new conflicts. The Kremlin’s propagandists are telling us exactly where they plan to go next. This time, we should listen.

Joseph Epstein is director of the Turan Research Center.

In practice, however, these markets are often thin, sometimes dominated by a relatively small pool of sophisticated bettors, enthusiasts, and speculators. Treating their movements as transparent reflections of public belief risks granting disproportionate narrative power to actors with both the capital and the incentive to shape prices for reasons that may have little to do with forecasting accuracy. This dynamic is particularly concerning when the topics at stake intersect with homeland security, national security, or cybersecurity.

A widening attack surface

The logic of narrative manipulation via markets is already visible in benign commercial contexts. Consider a prediction market on whether a blockbuster film will exceed a $100 million opening weekend. A studio could rationally allocate a portion of its marketing budget to buy the “yes” side to move the price upward, and then cite that movement to entertainment reporters as evidence of strong anticipated performance. The market becomes both a promotional tool and a self-referential signal that justifies its own engineered optimism.

In sports, similar dynamics apply. If newsrooms begin to lean on prediction markets the way they rely on performance analytics, then those markets become attractive tools for agents or teams seeking to influence awards or contract-linked incentives. A concentrated position in a market related to a “most valuable player” award, paired with a coordinated media push, could subtly shape perceptions among voters and fans. While such behavior may resemble traditional public relations and be within the bounds of the law, it expands the surface area on which questions of fairness, integrity, and legitimacy can be raised.

From sports integrity to national security

These seemingly narrow examples matter because they help normalize skepticism about the fairness of outcomes in domains that have historically served as relatively apolitical spaces of shared experience. If fans repeatedly encounter allegations—substantiated or not—that betting lines, awards, or game outcomes are being manipulated, their baseline trust in the integrity of sport erodes. That erosion is not easily contained. It can spill over into attitudes toward other large-scale events and institutions, including elections, financial markets, and government processes or geopolitical maneuvering. You don’t have to look any further than the recent case in the Israeli military. In February 2026, at least two people were indicted on charges of using classified national security intelligence to place wagers on Polymarket to reap as much as $100,000 in profits. To its credit, the Israeli security forces acted swiftly with a first-of-its-kind legal action to maintain civic trust in the military.

Foreign adversaries have already demonstrated the capacity to pair cyber intrusions with information operations, exploiting stolen data to shape narratives for strategic effect. In a world where liquid prediction markets exist on sensitive geopolitical topics—such as regime stability, military escalation, or sanctions decisions—access to privileged information and the ability to move markets provide powerful tools. For example, an intelligence service that has compromised a Fortune 500 firm’s email system or a government agency’s internal communications could simultaneously profit from and weaponize that information by taking positions in relevant markets and then amplifying the resulting price movements as “evidence” of impending events.

Cyber-enabled financial and narrative operations

Even in the absence of cyber espionage, adversaries can use capital and content to similar effect. For example, a thinly traded market on whether a particular regime will fall by a given date could be meaningfully shifted by a single six-figure trade. Once the price moves, coordinated networks of accounts and media proxies might then point to the market as an apparently neutral indicator that the regime’s stability is in serious peril. This approach turns a small financial outlay into a lever for shaping news coverage, investor sentiment, and public expectations.

The same model applies domestically. Markets tied to divisive social or political issues could be used to amplify polarization, with foreign actors selectively moving prices and then framing those moves as proof that “everyone knows” a certain controversial outcome is likely or inevitable. When combined with cheap artificial intelligence–generated content—audio, video, or text—these efforts could be supplemented by fabricated “evidence,” such as manipulated footage further undermining confidence in institutional neutrality.

Policy, governance, and security responses

The goal is not to abolish prediction markets (or sports wagering), which can offer genuine informational and economic value, but rather to recognize and mitigate the security risks they introduce. As these markets proliferate and integrate more deeply into the information environment, policymakers, regulators, and industry leaders should treat them as dual-use infrastructures that require deliberate guardrails.

Several lines of effort merit consideration:

First, media organizations should adopt transparent standards for when and how prediction market data are cited, emphasizing that prices reflect the beliefs and incentives of a limited set of participants rather than objective truths. CNBC, for example, has added a disclosure of its investment in Kalshi when it reports on the platform both on its website and on air.

Second, regulators and platforms should develop disclosure requirements for large or coordinated positions in markets linked to elections, major national security events, or systemically important firms, along with enhanced scrutiny of foreign participation in such markets.

Third, prediction platforms should invest in robust market integrity monitoring, including mechanisms to detect anomalous trading patterns that coincide with coordinated information campaigns.

Fourth, homeland and cybersecurity authorities should incorporate prediction markets into broader threat assessments of the information environment, recognizing that the same tools that can improve forecasting can also be weaponized to erode trust in the fairness and legitimacy of core democratic processes.

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Klein quoted in Forbes article on Russian escalation in space

Atlantic Council — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 15:40:27 +0000

Original source

On February 14, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow John Klein was quoted in a Forbes article on the threat posed by a Russian nuclear-armed ASAT and the need to develop adequate countermeasures. Dr. Klein discussed his recent Atlantic Council report, co-authored with Clementine Starling-Daniels, on Countering Russian escalation in space, and urged US defense planners to employ active defense and missile defense capabilities against the threat of nuclear ASAT weapons.

Fellow

John Klein

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Policy Defense Technologies

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Key questions on how Project Vault can secure minerals supplies

Evan Musolino — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 14:22:54 +0000

The US announcement of a new critical minerals effort, dubbed Project Vault, is a long time in the making. Stockpiling has been at the center of years of debate around the best way for the US to promote mineral supply security. This new investment appears positioned to bring commercial purchase commitments and government stockpiling together to advance US critical minerals supply chain security.

But a stockpile is not a monolithic concept. Stockpiles can be implemented in multiple ways to achieve many different goals, from providing a backstop for manufacturers to a tool for making purchases to bolster new supply options. The wave of recent export controls from China restricting access to commodities like antimony, gallium, germanium, and rare earths has led industry advocates and government officials to call for physical stockpiling of key material to help companies weather supply disruptions. Continued price manipulation that makes it difficult for Western producers to operate competitively has led many of those same groups to call for some form of economic backstop for US and allied producers. Critical minerals cooperation between allies, including on price support mechanisms, has been the subject of high-level dialogues hosted by Secretary of State Rubio and Treasury Secretary Bessent in the last month alone.

With the introduction of Project Vault, the US government has clearly demonstrated it believes that stockpiles have a role to play in promoting supply security. Credit is due to the National Security Council and Export-Import Bank (EXIM), which led these efforts, for moving beyond talk and putting a real solution, backed by real capital on the table. What we don’t know yet is exactly how the stockpile will be designed and in what way it will be used to strengthen mineral supply chains.

What is Project Vault?

Project Vault isn’t the critical minerals version of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which many have drawn comparisons to. Those SPR references elicit images of a government program storing physical piles of material deep within caverns spread out across the country to be released under orders from the president. In contrast, the Project Vault stockpile will be established as a public-private partnership to act on behalf of participating companies based on upfront purchase commitments. Stockpiled minerals will then be procured and stored on companies’ behalf. Upon release, reserves will be sold back to the specific companies who made purchase commitments rather than into the open market. The stockpile will be established as an independent entity with its own management team and board, a more private sector aligned structure than the SPR.

EXIM will provide a loan of up to $10 billion and up to $1.67 billion in preferred equity from private investors, which have not yet been named. This is a big move for EXIM, which more than doubled the size its previous largest investment, a nearly $5 billion loan for a Mozambique LNG project that was first approved in 2019.

Key questions as the stockpile takes shape

EXIM’s Project Vault fact sheet describes the stockpile’s objective as “reducing dependence on foreign-controlled supply chains, strengthening the domestic industrial base, and ensuring uninterrupted access to materials essential for advanced manufacturing and critical technologies.” Those are big, and laudable, goals. While the initial Project Vault announcement outlined the concept for the plan, it’s likely that final terms are still being worked out. As Project Vault moves to implementation, there are a few key areas worth watching that will define the scope and success of the new initiative.

What minerals will be purchased and stored?

The cross-section of companies referenced in initial reporting shows the stockpile will focus on more than just defense applications. That’s positive for some industries that have important economy-wide implications, including automotive (i.e., General Motors) and energy technology manufacturers (i.e., GE Vernova), but have struggled to get government support from increasingly defense-centric funding priorities. EXIM’s Chairman has said the stockpile will include all sixty critical minerals with an initial focus on rare earth elements. In practice, that will be very difficult to do at scale. The size of the budget seems best suited to providing a backstop for low-volume, high-criticality minerals that are necessary in manufacturing processes. It also means the stockpile is unlikely to have a meaningful impact on higher volume markets like copper. Importantly, it appears that the ultimate decision on what will be purchased and stored will be directed by end-customers rather than a centralized attempt to predict future market needs.

Where will these stockpiled minerals be sourced from, and will this stimulate offtake?

Experienced trading houses Hartree Partners LP, Traxys North America LLC, and Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. will manage the initial purchase of material for the stockpile. But where those minerals come from is an open question. Will the US government insist that products be purchased from non-Chinese sources that often don’t exist? If so, can that be done at prices that consumers will be happy with? Or will the structure allow trading firms to buy today at the lowest prices available to build a reserve that can be drawn down when supplies are disrupted?

Long-term offtake is the holy grail for companies looking to develop a Western critical minerals supply chain. Miners and processors have long-lamented the difficulty of getting deep pocketed OEMs or big-tech companies to lock in future purchases for fixed volumes at prices that support Western producers. In the absence of commercial contracts, direct purchasing through a government stockpile is often cited as the next best alternative to provide project developers with the cash flow certainty needed to secure financing. The absence of either option keeps projects stuck in an endless loop of financiers requiring offtake before they’re comfortable deploying capital, and potential offtakers requiring projects to demonstrate that they have financing before they’re seen as serious options for meeting supply needs.

Using the stockpile to purchase from Western suppliers could provide a lifeline to some emerging mining and midstream operations. However, their higher prices may make participation less appealing to end-consumers. Whether the demand signal from the stockpile is enough for Western miners and refiners to invest their own money, and private financiers to put their money on the line alongside them, to bring new supply to market will be critical to the mechanism’s success if the US government intends for the stockpile to help rebuild the US mining industry. While some individual suppliers will undoubtedly benefit from offtake commitments, it’s more likely that the stockpile will act as a shock absorber without the ability to restructure entire mineral supply chains.

What happens to companies not in the club is also an open question. If a significant amount of non-Chinese supply is captured by the stockpile, it risks distorting commodity markets and further squeezing US or allied companies looking for the same feedstock.

Is this enough to incentivize long-term purchasing?

Many within the industry have argued that manufacturers have been reluctant to pay higher prices to secure less vulnerable supplies despite recognizing the threat posed by supply disruptions. Cheap financing from EXIM and bulk purchasing and storage on behalf of multiple companies should result in more attractive all-in economics for participants than if they were looking to secure supplies on their own. The ability to lock in future prices with limited money out of pocket should also incentivize upfront purchase commitments. It remains to be seen whether the Project Vault structure will be enough to change a consumer dynamic that has historically prioritized pricing and flexibility—resulting in an addiction to lowest cost sourcing and an unwillingness to commit to fixed volumes of offtake far into the future. The subsequent announcement of the revamped Minerals Security Partnership, now known as the Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement (FORGE), provides another potential avenue for ensuring that minerals sourced from US and allied producers end up in US supply chains.

There’s no right or wrong answer on some of these questions. How Project Vault is implemented over the coming months will show exactly what problem the US government expects the stockpile to solve, where a stockpile fits with the myriad of other critical minerals actions being taken by the United States and its allies, and how willing industry is to be a partner in that effort. The one thing we do know today is that experts will undoubtedly continue to disagree about the best use of a critical minerals stockpile.

Evan Musolino is a senior vice president in the critical infrastructure practice at Venn Strategies. He was formerly a managing director at the US International Development Finance Corporation and coordinated US government-wide strategic investment on the White House National Security Council staff.

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Dispatch from Munich: Europe is growing stronger, but will it be fast enough to save Ukraine?

Frederick Kempe — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 13:26:13 +0000

MUNICH—In a quiet corner of the Hotel Bayerischer Hof, home to the Munich Security Conference (MSC)*, a senior European official—no fan of Donald Trump—explained to me why he nevertheless would be unhappy if the US president’s Republican Party loses in the midterm elections this November.

“Europe needs Trump,” this official told me with a wink suggesting half-seriousness. Love Trump or hate him, the European argued, no US leader in the official’s lifetime has done as much to advance European defense, political, and economic common cause.

As a result of his threats that he would not help defend allies who didn’t bear more of the burden, European countries have dramatically increased their defense spending in the past year. Through his tariff blandishments and economic bullying, Trump has accelerated historic European Union (EU) trade deals with Latin America, India, and Indonesia—and has triggered progress toward a capital markets union. In response to his threats (since withdrawn) to acquire Denmark’s autonomous territory of Greenland, European leaders showed rare backbone in near-unanimous alignment against him.

Over its sixty-three-year history, the MSC has provided a thermostat for transatlantic relations. By that measure, Trump’s return to the White House produced a bracing chill last year, when US Vice President JD Vance delivered his “bad cop” broadside against Europe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio provided some countervailing warmth this past weekend, but his underlying message was no less tough on Europe’s need to change. “We want Europe to be strong,” he said, “because the two great wars of the last century serve for us as history’s constant reminder that ultimately, our destiny is and will always be intertwined with yours, because we know that the fate of Europe will never be irrelevant to our own.”

What was most important about this year’s MSC, however, wasn’t what it said about US-European relations, but rather what it demonstrated about Europe itself. Last year’s European emotional shock has evolved into a steely determination among the continent’s leaders to address their enduring vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities include insufficient political unity, inadequate economic vibrancy, and—most immediately perilous—inadequate defense capabilities.

French politician Benjamin Haddad, minister delegate for Europe, invoked Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius’s thoughts on stoicism to describe the shift from European hand wringing to more resolute action. “You have power over your mind—not outside events,” the Roman emperor wrote in his Meditations. “Realize this, and you will have strength.”

Haddad’s point was that Europe cannot control US elections or presidential mood swings, but it can control its defense spending, its industrial capacity, its political cohesion, and its resilience. Marcus Aurelius ruled an empire beset by plague, invasion, and political instability, so his writings weren’t abstract philosophy. Europe’s existential test is whether its political experiment of pooled sovereignty can be leveraged and expanded in a world where Russia threatens its security, China threatens its economy, and the United States has become a more uncertain partner.

While Europe might have the luxury of time to address many aspects of this combined challenge, the most immediate danger is its race against the clock in Ukraine, where Russia’s full-scale war will soon enter its fifth year. Meanwhile, Moscow’s hybrid threats to Europe are growing, in particular against countries nearest to its border. Beyond that, The Financial Times reported over the weekend on a growing Russian sabotage network in Europe.

The “European awakening”

The EU’s existential problem is that it was created to integrate Europe peacefully after World War II but was not designed to defend it. At the MSC, one European leader after another addressed this challenge from the main stage as a high priority, while down the street, the inspiring SPARTA conference, a new MSC feature to meet the demands of the times, brought together dozens of European defense startups and prime contractors with private capital and government decision makers who have the authority to deploy, fund, or integrate next-generation defense technologies.

“We must grow a European backbone of strategic enablers: in space, intelligence, and deep strike capabilities,” said Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president and a former German defense minister. “Mutual defense is not optional for the EU,” she noted. It is an obligation in the little-invoked Article 42(7) of the Treaty on European Union, a clause, she said, that now needed to be brought to life.

She speaks as no EU leader before her about the urgency of building up Europe’s military muscle. “As they say in Ukraine, you change or die,” she said. “We must adopt this mantra too.” She urged Europe to “tear down the rigid wall between the civilian and defense sectors,” seeking ways for its formidable automobile, aerospace, and heavy-machinery industries to urgently contribute to the “defense value chain.”

Some progress is already being made. European defense spending in 2025, von der Leyen said, was up some 80 percent since before Russia’s war in Ukraine. By 2028, she added, European defense investment is projected to be even higher than what the United States spent in 2025. Beyond that, European countries are buying US arms for Ukraine worth billions through NATO’s Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List initiative. Europe also recently approved a ninety-billion-euro loan for Ukraine’s budgetary needs, which Kyiv would only be required to pay back if Russia eventually pays it war reparations. At the same time, the EU’s new Defense Innovation Office in Kyiv is merging European scale with Ukraine’s war-time speed and ingenuity.

“This is a true European awakening,” von der Leyen said, laying out a goal of independence. “We need a new doctrine for this—with a simple goal: to ensure that Europe can defend its own territory, economy, democracy, and way of life at all times. Because this is ultimately the true meaning of independence.”

The ticking clock

The question for Ukraine is whether the awakening has come soon enough. The clock is ticking as Russia continues to hammer away at civilian targets, energy infrastructure, and national morale, while the Trump administration continues to pressure Kyiv to make concessions to strike a peace deal that many Europeans feel would only be an interlude before further threats on Ukraine and beyond.

What’s little recognized, one European foreign minister shared with me, is that Vance’s jarring speech last year was followed the next day by European leader-level meetings that set in motion the Coalition of the Willing, led by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron. This group has since grown to embrace thirty-five countries, including Australia, Japan, and New Zealand.

The group has played two roles in the past year: It has stepped up European support for Ukraine as an existential imperative, including deep and continuing discussions over how best to provide Ukraine security guarantees. And it has done so while ensuring that Washington doesn’t abandon Kyiv. What concerned its leading members in Munich this past weekend was that Rubio didn’t meet with them—and also that he didn’t speak at all about continued US support for Ukraine in his otherwise encouraging speech.

In his speech at the MSC, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz noted that the EU’s gross domestic product (GDP), which was over $22 trillion in 2025, is about ten times as big as Russia’s. “Our military, political, and technological potential is huge,” he said, “but we haven’t tapped it to the necessary extent for a very long time.” Add to that the United States’ GDP in 2025 of more than $31 trillion, and the potential of the transatlantic community to shape the global future remains unequaled.

“Dear friends, being part of NATO is not only Europe’s competitive advantage,” said Merz almost wistfully, hoping the Trump administration was listening. “It’s also the United States’ competitive advantage. So, let’s repair and revive transatlantic trust together.” He poignantly reminded his audience that after 1945 it was “our American friends in particular who whetted us Germans’ appetite” for partnerships, alliances, and organizations that fought for freedom based on the rule of law. “We will not forget what you did for us. On this foundation, NATO became the strongest political alliance of all time.”

As for the Trump administration, Washington’s critics here focused on Rubio’s comments on Europe’s “climate cult” and the civilizational threat of mass migration. Alongside that, Rubio’s conciliatory message on shared values and history provided hope that’s worth building upon. “We belong together,” he said.

This year’s MSC made clear what Europe needs to do, irrespective of what happens next in US politics. To paraphrase another of Marcus Aurelius’s axioms, then: Waste no time arguing what should be done. Do it.

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on X @FredKempe.

This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points newsletter, a column of dispatches from a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.

Note: The Atlantic Council has a strategic partnership with the MSC and convenes several sessions in Munich each year.

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The promise and peril of Trump’s Board of Peace

Eric Alter — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 17:04:33 +0000

ABU DHABI—The inaugural meeting of US President Donald Trump’s new Board of Peace will be held in Washington, DC, on February 19. Expectations in the White House are high, with Trump announcing on Sunday that the upcoming gathering would unveil five billion dollars in pledged humanitarian and reconstruction aid for Gaza. “The Board of Peace has unlimited potential,” the US president said.

But with the board’s novelty and ambition also comes uncertainty. It would place Gaza’s administration in the hands of a newly created international body while maintaining a significant role for Israeli security concerns. Its transactional approach and selective membership raise questions about the limits of its effectiveness. Instead of ensuring stability, the plan could falter in Gaza and thereby undermine broader commitments to universalist principles in international law.

While the Board of Peace itself is new, what it is attempting to do, broadly speaking, is not. Historical precedents offer several cautionary examples that international oversight in post-conflict environments often struggles or fails when it does not sufficiently involve local populations or when its authority is poorly defined.

Drawing on lessons from the past

The Board of Peace, established and endorsed by United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 2803 on November 17, 2025, bears similarities to several earlier transitional administrations led by the UN.

The UN established the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) and took full control of the territory from late 1999 until independence in 2002. The mission had to rebuild government institutions and basic services amid major instability following the violence that accompanied the 1999 vote for independence from Indonesia. UNTAET made significant progress in some areas: it helped restore security, organized elections, established new administrative structures, and laid the groundwork for an independent state that eventually became East Timor.

A girl carrying a baby watches as a Portuguese soldier, part of the first contingent of an estimated seven hundred Portuguese troops serving with the United Nations mission in East Timor, stands guard after arriving at Dili’s Komoro airport February 9, 2000. (REUTERS)

Nevertheless, the mission was criticized for being overly top-down. Decisions were largely made by international staff, with little substantive input from Timorese leaders or communities, especially at the outset. Local participation was limited throughout much of the administration, which frustrated many East Timorese and left the new institutions feeling disconnected from everyday people and traditional modes of social organization.

A similar pattern emerged with the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, established in 1999 under Security Council Resolution 1244. Although the mission held a broad mandate to govern the territory and promote self-government, its highly centralized structure, in which international officials retained ultimate control, intensified ethnic divisions, slowed progress toward local rule, and left Kosovo in prolonged uncertainty over its final political status.

Going further back, the League of Nations’ administration of the Saar Territory from 1920 to 1935, established under the Treaty of Versailles, serves as another cautionary example. An international commission administered this coal-rich region as a neutral buffer zone. However, the largely German population strongly resented external rule, and when the promised plebiscite finally took place in 1935, over 90 percent voted to reunite with Germany—even though it was then under Nazi control.

A more recent example is the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq following the 2003 invasion. The US-led authority dismantled the Iraqi army, pushed through sweeping policies that barred many former Baath Party members from government jobs, and attempted to impose new technocratic structures alongside free-market reforms. These decisions played a major role in sparking the rapid rise of insurgency, sectarian violence, and instability that cost hundreds of thousands of lives in the years that followed.

Similar issues appear in other cases. One example is the UN Temporary Executive Authority administration of West New Guinea from 1962 to 1963. The UN temporarily assumed control to oversee the territory’s transfer from Dutch to Indonesian rule, under an agreement between the two countries. The mission focused primarily on ensuring a smooth transition rather than on long-term local governance. However, the rapid transfer and the 1969 “Act of Free Choice” process, widely criticized as heavily managed by Indonesia, left enduring disputes over self-determination among the Papuan population.

The 2003 Road Map for Peace, put forward by the Quartet (the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia) to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, offers another instructive example. Although the plan outlined phased steps toward a two-state solution, including security commitments and institutional reforms, it faced sustained criticism for vague timelines, failure to address core issues decisively, and an inability to halt violence or settlement expansion.

Another relevant case is the post-Dayton governance structure in Bosnia and Herzegovina following the 1995 peace agreement. International high representatives were given extensive “Bonn Powers” to impose laws, remove officials, and override local decisions when deemed necessary. While these authorities helped bring initial stability and enabled early state-building steps, critics argue that they also deepened ethnic divisions, increased dependence on foreign oversight, allowed local elites to evade genuine compromise, and contributed to recurring political deadlocks through expansive veto mechanisms rather than addressing the underlying drivers of conflict.

To succeed in the present

Taken together, these cases reveal a recurring pattern. When external actors rely heavily on top-down governance or loosely designed institutional frameworks, they tend to displace genuine local ownership and undermine the long-term prospects for sustainable self-government.

The Board of Peace incorporates several distinctive features that could potentially improve upon these earlier efforts. With Trump holding the charter-based permanent chairmanship, the body benefits from high-level direction and a deal-making approach reminiscent of initiatives like the Abraham Accords. The tiered membership structure, in which permanent seats are allocated based on a one-billion-dollar commitment, concentrates participation among states and entities willing to make substantial financial investments in outcomes.

If the board emphasizes high-level diplomacy, investment, and reconstruction oversight, it does so, however, without any Palestinian representation. Similarly, the Gaza Executive Board, which includes overlapping members, has no Palestinians among its appointees.

The structure excludes remaining Hamas factions, which continue to hold influence in parts of northern Gaza.

Day-to-day operations are managed by the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, a separate Palestinian technocratic body intentionally insulated from Hamas influence and current Palestinian Authority leadership. This body oversees routine administrative functions and seeks guidance from international experts. Such institutional separation aims to allow reconstruction priorities, including humanitarian aid distribution, infrastructure repair, and institution-building, to advance without becoming entangled in factional political disputes.

Oversight of the arrangement involves Arab administrative staff, potentially significant Gulf financial backing, and a security framework led primarily by the United States, even though it carries a UN label. The structure excludes remaining Hamas factions, which continue to hold influence in parts of northern Gaza. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority remains sidelined pending reforms whose specific details have yet to be finalized.

The charter employs relatively general language. Although UN Resolution 2803 describes the arrangement as a “transitional administration with international legal personality,” the charter itself references only its status as an international organization and does not explicitly define Gaza’s legal status. It establishes no firm deadlines, measurable benchmarks for progress, or clear enforcement mechanisms. This ambiguity could generate prolonged uncertainty and delays, similar to challenges experienced by the UN in East Timor, where the mandate lacked a clearly defined endpoint. Early signs, such as the partial reopening of the Rafah border crossing under EU supervision, indicate that the ceasefire mechanism might, even in a limited and reversible form, provide tangible humanitarian and mobility improvements.

The exclusion of certain political actors, however, may create instability. Marginalizing Hamas elements may resemble aspects of the CPA’s de-Baathification policies in Iraq, decisions that contributed to insurgency and later extremist mobilization in the country. Such exclusions could also reinforce perceptions of inequitable governance, similar to criticisms sometimes directed at the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Past experience indicates that externally driven governance arrangements often face significant challenges when they lack strong local legitimacy. In Bosnia, international oversight halted violence but struggled to bridge deep ethnic divisions. In Iraq, CPA policies contributed to prolonged instability and violence.

The donor-led coalition-of-the-willing model

Legally, the board’s relationship with the United Nations remains ambiguous. Resolution 2803 invokes Chapter VII enforcement authority, yet the open-ended nature of external governance raises complex questions under customary international law concerning Palestinian sovereignty and the application of the 1949 Geneva Conventions governing occupied territories.

The arrangement raises broader questions about the UN Charter’s foundational commitment to equal respect for fundamental human rights. By structuring peacebuilding around donor-led coalitions, an innovative but selective mechanism, the board sidelines less-resourced states. It also risks reducing the influence of neutral institutions such as the International Criminal Court, by centralizing control over territory, aid, and governance, which can obstruct independent investigations, and excluding justice-focused mandates from the peace framework, focusing instead on economic recovery and stabilization without addressing alleged atrocities.

This dynamic could foster the perception that peace is accessible primarily to actors with sufficient financial leverage, potentially weakening principles of self-determination and encouraging unilateral initiatives, including controversial land policies or externally driven regional projects. Over time, arrangements of this nature could also erode established multilateral norms and diminish long-standing commitments to universal fairness.

At the same time, the board’s design attempts to address several common pitfalls. It avoids direct foreign rule by incorporating a Palestinian technocratic governance layer, aims at securing substantial funding from dedicated donors, and promotes active Arab participation to enhance regional legitimacy and sustainability.

Given the increasing fragmentation of multilateral cooperation, this donor-led coalition-of-the-willing model offers a faster-moving alternative to the slower consensus-driven UN mechanisms. By emphasizing results-oriented governance, participating states may help break Gaza’s recurring cycle of destruction and lay a more durable foundation for Palestinian self-governance while also addressing Israeli security concerns.

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Six reasons why Trump should choose the military option in Iran

Michael Rozenblat — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 15:57:01 +0000

The possibility of a military confrontation between Washington and Tehran is on hold, at least for now, as the two countries have begun talks mediated by Oman. However, a strategic breakthrough from these talks—which according to US President Donald Trump should be resolved in the coming month—remains unlikely without substantial concessions by at least one party on topics previously considered out of the scope of negotiations. Iran maintains that its ballistic missile program and the support it provides its regional proxy network are non-negotiable—precisely the areas where the Trump administration demands drastic concessions.

That means diplomacy could stall or break down completely. So what will Trump, who has been steadily building up military forces in the region, do then?

There are two primary pathways he could take for a military strike. The first is a limited coercive strike—i.e. against Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij militia compounds—aimed at fulfilling Trump’s red line about killing protesters and forcing Iran back to negotiations from a weaker position. However, such a strike would probably have a limited effect on the regime’s calculus and would not guarantee a manageable military confrontation, as Iran has stated that it is preparing to carry out retaliatory measures following any strike.

The second option would be a larger campaign aimed at achieving fundamental changes in the current regime’s calculus—such as accepting strict limitations on its ballistic missiles and proxies’ activity—or even bringing about regime change. For this scenario to be successful, the United States will need to present a credible threat to the current regime’s survival. This requires a sustained, well-coordinated military campaign supported by regional allies, forcing the regime to choose between “drinking the chalice of poison” for survival or facing a conflict that threatens its very existence.

The pursuit of regime change carries significant risks, including the potential for internal fragmentation into armed factions or even full-scale civil war. Nevertheless, the benefits of fundamentally changing—or even eliminating—the Islamic Republic could outweigh the risks if the alternative is an emboldened, undeterred Iran.

Here are six strategic reasons why a decisive military campaign is the right move:

A unique moment to reshape the Middle East: Iran is at its weakest point since the 1979 revolution after recent protests, June’s twelve-day war with Israel, and the drastic degradation of its terror network. The Iranian defense doctrine—comprised of a nuclear program, conventional power, and regional proxy network—failed to deter Israel and the United States from striking it, effectively exposing the regime as a paper tiger. A decisive campaign against the regime could be the key to advancing US regional efforts that seem stuck at the moment, from regional integration through the Abraham Accords, to bringing Iranian-backed countries like Lebanon and Iraq closer to Western influence.
The moral imperative: Current diplomatic efforts prioritize the nuclear issue while overlooking the regime’s brutal crackdown on protesters, which brought the current tensions to a boiling point in the first place. Reports coming out of Iran are heartbreaking. While official figures claim “only” 3,117 people killed, some estimates are far higher, ranging from over 6,000 to over 30,000 people killed in two days. Trump’s promise to “come to [the] rescue” of the Iranian people shouldn’t be a lip service, but rather a testament to the United States’ moral leadership. Negotiating is a prize to this regime, as talks could provide it with a much-needed lifeline in sanctions easing and improving its domestic and international legitimacy.
The credibility dilemma: Opting against military force may avoid immediate conflict but risks comparisons to then US President Barack Obama’s “red line” in Syria. In 2013, Obama failed to respond militarily after the Assad regime used chemical weapons on its people, which the president had described as a “red line.” If Trump does not respond in this case, it could signal to Tehran that the Washington will blink under pressure as long as Iran remains resolved in its resistance.
The economic stakes for the United States—and China: A different Iranian regime could reintegrate its massive energy reserves—the world’s second-largest gas and third-largest oil deposits—into Western markets. This aligns with the administration’s view of expending US access to energy resources as a key component in its foreign policy. The combination of ousting Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and a regime change in Iran could severely disrupt China’s energy security, as Beijing relied on both countries for as much as 30 percent of its oil imports due to their discounted prices. Complicating China’s economic calculus and shifting its focus could promote other US efforts vis-à-vis China, such as preventing full-scale conflict in the Taiwan Strait.
Skin in the game for the United States in Iran’s future: Internal systemic failures brought about by the regime—namely hyperinflation, water scarcity, and widespread corruption—along with recent demonstrations suggest the regime is in a state of terminal decline. However, waiting patiently for the regime to collapse while watching from the sidelines isn’t a sustainable strategy to promote US regional interests. Instead, a hands-on approach utilizing military force could allow the United States to actively navigate the situation, ensuring a favorable post-regime landscape while denying Russia and China the opportunity to exploit a power vacuum in Iran. This is not to say that the United States will necessarily need an ongoing presence with boots on the ground like in Iraq, but rather it should economically and diplomatically support opposition groups that could post an alternative to the current regime, backing them in their efforts to bring about positive change to the country.
The ongoing threat of Iran’s nuclear program: While June’s US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities were essential to stall an immediate Iranian breakthrough toward obtaining a nuclear weapon, they likely only rolled Iran’s efforts back by a few months. Iran has already stated it will continue its nuclear program, and its recent work to fortify underground facilities signals its refusal to abandon its nuclear ambitions. The current lack of monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency could allow the regime to utilize enrichment as a dual-purpose tool: either overtly, to secure diplomatic leverage and deter US military action, or covertly, as an “insurance policy” for regime survival. Trump has consistently affirmed that he will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, and he should act on those words.

Pursuing negotiations at this juncture risks providing the regime with a vital political and economic lifeline at the very moment it is at its most vulnerable. The gap between Washington’s and Tehran’s core positions necessitates the use of force to restore US deterrent credibility and force Iran to make drastic changes or risk the regime’s survival. In the current landscape, a decisive US-led coalition effort aimed at regime change may offer a more sustainable strategic outcome than a protracted diplomatic process that could end with a bad agreement and an emboldened Iran.

Michael Rozenblat is a visiting research fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs, from the Israeli security establishment. The views in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of any other entity.

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What Rubio said in Munich, what Europe heard, and what comes next

Atlantic Council — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 19:26:53 +0000

JUST IN

“Both our histories and our fates will always be linked.” On Saturday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered a notably positive message to allies at the Munich Security Conference (MSC), just a month after a transatlantic showdown over US President Donald Trump’s aims over Greenland and with many European leaders speaking more openly about a deteriorating alliance. Below, our experts, several of whom are working the halls at the MSC, look at what was said, what was heard, and what to expect next.

TODAY’S EXPERT REACTION BROUGHT TO YOU BY

Matthew Kroenig (@MatthewKroenig): Vice president and senior director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security
Daniel Fried (@AmbDanFried): Weiser Family distinguished fellow and former US assistant secretary of state for Europe
Philippe Dickinson (@PhilGDickinson): Deputy director with the Transatlantic Security Initiative and a former career diplomat with the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office
Tressa Guenov: Director for programs and operations and senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, and former US principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs

What Rubio said

Rubio “gave a great speech that was well received,” Matt tells us from Munich, where Rubio earned a standing ovation. The US secretary of state “did not repudiate anything in Vice President JD Vance’s more pugnacious speech last year, but he presented the same themes in a more positive light, focusing on shared challenges facing both Europe and the United States and how allies can work together to address them.”
The MSC addresses by Vance and Rubio, Dan argues, display different impulses in the Trump administration: One is “to pick new fights or engage in unresolvable culture wars,” and the other is to “take the win” when it has won the larger argument, in this case on Europe needing to do more.
Dan welcomes Rubio’s positive “free world” message that called for the reform, not the destruction, of institutions such as NATO. However, he adds, “Rubio could have been more explicit in identifying the free world’s adversaries Russia and China. There could have been more than a passing reference to Russia’s war against Ukraine.”
“The substantive focus was on addressing the excesses of globalization,” says Matt. Rubio “argued that it was ‘foolish’ to offshore manufacturing, allow mass migration, become economically entangled with dangerous allies, and wish away the importance of national identities.”

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What Europe heard

Before Rubio’s speech, “European leaders were dialing the geopolitical anxiety up to eleven,” Phil reports from Munich, where Europeans were talking about destruction, disorder, and the world order as we know it being “over.” Lingering tension over the recent Greenland episode was readily apparent in conversations on Friday, he adds.
“Secretary Rubio’s speech in Munich cooled down the transatlantic temperature for now,” Tressa tells us from Munich. “But beneath the political churn and damaged transatlantic trust, there is a clear recognition in Munich that mutual security and defense industrial capacity questions simply need to be solved—and soon.”
Dan notes that the Trump administration’s message to Europe was not only coming from Rubio: US Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby “gave a similarly constructive speech” to NATO defense ministers earlier in the week, “in which he outlined terms for a renewed transatlantic alliance,” including a strengthened Europe and continued US commitment to NATO.
Dan advises Europeans to take the opportunity that Rubio’s and Colby’s speeches provide to work with the administration to reform NATO. His message to skeptics: “Nothing is written. Work the problem. There is a potential path ahead to a better Alliance.”

What comes next

“Europe’s fundamental mission now is to be credibly prepared to prevail in a protracted conflict should one ever come to pass,” Tressa says. “Europe must overcome endemic political fragmentation in order to boost its defense industry” and improve deterrence “at the NATO and national levels.”
To be sure, Phil says, calls for Europe to “step up” will require “many years of steady, diligent work.” But, he adds, “The more encouraging message from Munich is that, away from the main stage, that work is underway,” as officials “are not paralyzed by fatalism.”
“We want allies who can defend themselves so that no adversary will ever be tempted to test our collective strength,” Rubio said in his speech. “Deep down,” says Phil, “even the most alarmist Europeans know that they cannot afford to write off the United States as a partner, and that Europe being compelled to take a strategic grip of its own destiny will, in the long run, be a good thing.”

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Kroenig quoted in Semafor on the future of US-Europe relations

Atlantic Council — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 21:00:00 +0000

Vice President, Geostrategy and Fellows and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On February 13, Atlantic Council vice president and Scowcroft Center senior director Matthew Kroenig was quoted in Semafor on the future of US-Europe relations, arguing that the US will continue to play a leadership role, even as Europe works to bolster its autonomy.

I see a more capable Europe but with the United States still playing a leadership role.

Matthew Kroenig

Staff

Matthew Kroenig

Public Event Thu, February 12, 2026 • 11:00 am ET

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Atlantic Council to host inaugural US–Caribbean Maritime and Ports Forum in Miami

ehopkins — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 14:59:07 +0000

MIAMI, FLORIDA — FEBRUARY 13, 2026 — The Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center (AALAC), in partnership with Florida International University, will host the inaugural US–Caribbean Maritime and Ports Forum in Miami on February 20, 2026, convening senior government officials, port authority leaders, private sector executives, and financial institution representatives to advance cooperation, investment, and policy coordination across the US–Caribbean maritime space. The Forum will take place at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach from 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

Launching a new, long-term platform under the Atlantic Council’s Caribbean Initiative, the Forum will focus on the strategic role ports play in trade, energy security, tourism, and public safety throughout the Caribbean. As global supply chains evolve and regional priorities shift, the Forum will examine how closer US–Caribbean collaboration can strengthen port infrastructure, enhance maritime security, expand workforce capacity, and unlock sustainable investment across the region.

“The inaugural US-Caribbean Maritime and Ports Forum establishes a clear recognition that the Caribbean stands among the United States’ most strategic partners,” said Jason Marczak, vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center. “Maritime and port cooperation shape how that partnership delivers results. Through the Caribbean Initiative, we are creating a sustained space to elevate regional priorities, deepen US engagement, and connect public and private sector leaders around the investments and policies needed to drive trade, security, and long-term economic resilience.”

The Forum builds on momentum from the 2025 CARICOM Heads of Government meetings and will bring together decision-makers from across the public and private sectors to identify practical solutions that support resilient, competitive, and secure maritime systems in the Caribbean.

Confirmed speakers include:

Adrienne Arsht, Executive Vice Chair, Atlantic Council; Founder, Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center
The Hon. Matthew Samuda, Minister of Water, Environment and Climate Change, Jamaica
General Laura Richardson (Ret.), United States Army; former Commander, US Southern Command
Patricia Francis, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Caribbean Initiative, Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, Atlantic Council
Jeffrey Hall, CEO and Vice Chairman, Pan Jamaica Group Limited; Group Managing Director, JP; Chairman, Kingston Wharves Limited
Tim Martin, President and CEO, Tropical Shipping
Wazim Mowla, Senior Fellow, Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy, Florida International University
Captain Gus Andersson, Associate Vice President, Port Development and Marine Operations, Royal Caribbean Group
Lilia Burunciuc, Country Director for the Caribbean Countries, World Bank
Dion Bethell, President and CFO, Nassau Container Port, Bahamas
Erik Bethel, General Partner, Mare Liberum Capital
Felipe Ezquerra, Head of Transport, Infrastructure and Energy Division, IDB Invest
Adam Carter, Managing Director and Head of Investment Banking, FX and Derivative Sales, CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank
Andrew Clutz, Head of Economic Development, Tractus Asia

The US–Caribbean Maritime and Ports Forum is the first in a planned series designed to sustain dialogue, deepen partnerships, and drive action on maritime cooperation between the United States and the Caribbean.

The Forum is held in partnership with Acero Capital, FGS Global, PortMiami, and Tropical Shipping, which also provided support to bring the Forum to fruition.

To register as a participant at the US–Caribbean Maritime and Ports Forum and to view all confirmed speakers and the agenda, please visit here.

Media wishing to attend in person should reach out to Salome Ramirez Vargas at sramirezvargas@atlanticcouncil.org to request accreditation. Media wishing to participate virtually through the event livestream should visit here.

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‘Don’t allow deception to become reality’ on Taiwan, says Congressman John Moolenaar

Katherine Golden — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 22:56:47 +0000

Watch the full event

Congressman John Moolenaar on deterring aggression against Taiwan

AN #ACFRONTPAGE EVENT—Moolenaar, chairman of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, discusses how the United States and Taiwan can strengthen deterrence in the Taiwan Strait.

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When it comes to China, “we can’t be too concerned about provocation,” said Congressman John Moolenaar (R-MI-2) on Thursday. “We just have to realize that’s the world in which we live and then be clear about American priorities.”

Moolenaar’s remarks at an Atlantic Council Front Page event came just a week after US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke on the phone, with Xi calling Taiwan the “most important issue” in US-China relations. He also reportedly told the US president that the United States “must handle the issue of arms sales to Taiwan with prudence.”

“No matter what we do, it’s going to provoke China,” explained Moolenaar, chairman of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Later, he added that in many cases, CCP officials don’t actually feel provoked—they are saying so to “change the narrative” in their favor.

Below are more highlights from the conversation, moderated by Markus Garlauskas, the director of the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

What Taiwan needs today

In December, Moolenaar’s select committee released “Ten More for Taiwan,” a compilation of bipartisan recommendations for preserving stability in the Taiwan Strait. Moolenaar highlighted one recommendation: “We need to make sure we get them the munitions that they have purchased that have been promised, and do it in a timely way,” he explained.
In December, the Trump administration announced an eleven-billion-dollar arms sale to Taiwan. Moolenaar acknowledged that supplying Taiwan with the munitions it has purchased “involves our defense industrial base,” which faces “a challenge across the board” with speed and backlogs.
But, he added, “I think we really have to give special consideration to Taiwan.”

A US policy pivot?

Following the release of the US National Defense Strategy, which does not explicitly mention Taiwan, Moolenaar argued that it is still “clear… what our priorities are,” because of the strategy’s insistence on building “a strong denial defense along the First Island Chain,” where Taiwan lies.
With Trump slated to travel to China in April, Moolenaar said that the “ideal outcome” of that trip would be that “Xi would want to have good relations with Taiwan as a neighbor and view things through an eye of mutual prosperity.” But, Moolenaar continued, “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” with Xi often pivoting to frame the topic as an “internal matter” for China.
He added that, after China “basically fired a loaded gun at our economy” in the form of rare earth export restrictions, he would like to see Trump tell China that if it wants to be considered “some kind of a reliable economic partner” as the United States looks to diversify its supply chains, “there have to be some changes.”
In weighing whether the United States needs to adjust its strategic ambiguity policy with regard to Taiwan and China, Moolenaar warned against moving or adding redlines, in favor of instead reinforcing that the “status quo in the Taiwan Strait is a pretty strong redline.”
“I think what’s more important to me is countering the false narratives every chance we get,” he said. “I think we need to push back” so that “we don’t allow the deception to become reality,” Moolenaar added.

The time is now

In explaining the US rationale for supporting Taiwan, Moolenaar said that the island is a top trading partner, strengthens supply chain resilience, and plays an important role in “reinforcing American credibility and stability” in the region.
“If Taiwan falls, the Chinese Communist Party will control the center of gravity along the first island chain, giving Beijing leverage over supply chains, market access, and maritime commerce that directly underpinned US economic power,” he warned.
In that scenario, he added, China would have a strategic position from which it would be “directly threatening US allies such as Japan and the Philippines, constraining US military operations, and increasing the vulnerability of US territory.”
Moolenaar noted that the CCP has “increased its provocations, incursions, and coercive actions” against Taiwan and others. The most troubling, he added, is a directive from Xi that, according to US intelligence, orders the People’s Liberation Army to be prepared to take Taiwan by 2027.
“The coming years will be decisive in shaping Beijing’s calculations,” Moolenaar said. “We cannot afford complacency.”

Katherine Golden is the associate director of editorial at the Atlantic Council.

Watch the full event

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Vladimir Putin is trapped in a war he cannot win but dare not end

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 22:50:16 +0000

More than a year since he returned to the White House vowing to end the Russia-Ukraine War within 24 hours, US President Donald Trump remains upbeat about the prospects for peace. “Very, very good talks today,” Trump stated on February 6 following the latest round of negotiations in Abu Dhabi. “Something could be happening.”

Few in Kyiv share this optimism. While Ukrainian officials are loathe to dismiss Trump’s peace efforts for fear incurring his displeasure, a majority of Ukrainians remain utterly unconvinced that Russian President Vladimir Putin has any interest whatsoever in ending hostilities. A poll conducted by Kyiv’s International Institute of Sociology in late January found that only 20 percent of Ukrainians think the war will end by July, while 43 percent expect fighting to continue into 2027 or beyond.

Such skepticism is easy to understand. Ukraine agreed to an unconditional ceasefire way back in March 2025, but Putin has so far refused to follow suit. Instead, he has spent much of the past year engaging in blatant stalling tactics while constantly moving the diplomatic goalposts in a transparent bid to prevent any progress toward a lasting settlement. This has resulted in what most Ukrainians and many others regard as a phony peace process.

As fruitless US-led negotiations rumble on, Putin has underlined his true intentions by dramatically increasing Russian attacks on the Ukrainian population, leading to a 31 percent surge in civilian casualties during 2025. The most recent escalation saw Russia attempt to freeze millions of Ukrainians in their own homes by systematically bombing critical heating and power infrastructure amid Arctic conditions. Some believe this ruthless winter bombing campaign qualifies as an act of genocide; it is most certainly not the act of a man seeking a compromise peace.

Trump has difficulty reading Putin’s true intentions because he fundamentally misunderstands the motivations behind the Russian invasion of Ukraine. To Trump, the current negotiations are a geopolitical real estate deal, with the Russians playing hardball to secure better terms. In reality, Putin is operating on a completely different wavelength altogether.

The Kremlin dictator is not looking to make deals, acquire additional land, or push the Russian border a few hundred kilometers to the west. Instead, he wants to secure his place in history. Putin genuinely believes he is on an historic mission to reverse the injustice of the Soviet collapse and revive the Russian Empire. In order to achieve this, he has convinced himself that he must erase Ukraine as a state and as a nation.

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For more than two decades, Putin’s Ukraine obsession has shaped his reign and defined Russian foreign policy. His relationship with the West first became openly hostile in the aftermath of Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution, which Putin bitterly denounced as a Western plot to destabilize Russia.

Since that watershed moment, Ukraine has been at the heart of virtually every single new crisis in relations between Moscow and the democratic world, from the 2014 seizure of Crimea to the full-scale invasion of 2022. Throughout this period, Putin has repeatedly demonstrated his readiness to sacrifice Russia’s other national interests in pursuit of his anti-Ukrainian crusade.

Meanwhile, he has used the full weight of the formidable Kremlin propaganda machine to poison Russian society against all things Ukrainian and prepare the ground for a war of national extermination. Putin has become notorious for insisting that Ukrainians are actually Russians (“one people”), and has repeatedly dismissed independent Ukraine as an illegitimate state and an artificial “anti-Russia.”

Anyone in Ukraine who dares to disagree with Putin’s claims has been dehumanized and branded a Nazi or a stooge of the West. This hate campaign has proved remarkably successful and has contributed to the almost complete absence of visible anti-war sentiment in today’s Russia, despite widespread public knowledge of the atrocities taking place in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s importance to Putin is twofold. As the largest non-Russian former Soviet republic by population and the closest to Russia in terms of shared heritage, Putin sees Ukraine as the key to undoing the verdict of 1991. If he can end what he regards as the aberration of Ukrainian statehood, this will redeem Russia and reestablish the country’s credentials as a great power.

Likewise, Ukraine’s perceived closeness means that the further consolidation of an independent and democratic Ukrainian state represents an existential threat to authoritarian Russia. As a KGB officer in East Germany during the late 1980s, Putin witnessed firsthand how grassroots movements can topple empires. If Ukraine’s transition from Kremlin vassal to European democracy continues, he fears this could serve as a catalyst for the next stage in a Russian imperial retreat that began in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

This helps to explain why Putin has shown so little interest in the seemingly generous peace terms proposed by Trump. The US leader has indicated that Russia would be allowed to keep the territories it has captured in Ukraine while facing no meaningful consequences for launching the largest European invasion since World War II. At first glance, these terms might appear to represent a major Russian victory, but Putin himself obviously does not think so.

Putin’s reluctance to accept Trump’s offer makes perfect sense when viewed from the perspective of the Russian ruler’s revisionist worldview and imperial ambitions. Crucially, Putin is well aware that any peace deal based on the current front lines of the war would leave 80 percent of Ukraine beyond Kremlin control and free to integrate into the democratic world. That is exactly what he is fighting to prevent.

In line with the present proposals, the Kremlin would retain control over the rust belt towns of the Donbas, but would cede iconic Odesa and sacred Kyiv, the mother city of all Russia, to a hostile neighbor. Most Russians would regard this as a defeat of historic proportions. Instead of being remembered as a new Peter the Great, Putin would be doomed to enter Russian history as the man who lost Ukraine.

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With a compromise peace out of the question, Putin has no real choice but to fight on. Doing so offers some obvious advantages. As long as the war continues, Putin can delay a reckoning over the huge Russian losses in Ukraine and the damage done to the country’s international standing. But as the fourth anniversary of the invasion draws near, it is becoming increasingly difficult to disguise the fact that the war is not going according to plan.

Putin’s problems are most immediately apparent on the battlefield. When he launched the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Putin vowed to “demilitarize” Ukraine. Four years on, Ukraine now boasts the largest army in Europe and has emerged as a world leader in drone warfare.

The radically upgraded Ukrainian military has already defeated Russia in multiple major engagements and is now seeking to gain the upper hand in a grueling high-tech war of attrition. Putin’s army suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties in 2025, while seizing less than one percent of Ukraine. At the current glacial pace, it would take the Russian military decades to conquer the country.

In public, at least, Putin continues to project confidence and insist that the goals of Russia’s invasion will be unconditionally met. However, his boasts of battlefield dominance are now starting to ring hollow. With so few actual victories to cheer, he has recently resorted to inventing imaginary advances.

Putin’s habit of exaggerating Russian gains came back to haunt him in late 2025 when he repeatedly claimed to have captured the Ukrainian city of Kupyansk, only for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to personally visit the city and record a selfie video exposing the Russian ruler’s lies. This embarrassing episode underlined the growing credibility gap between Putin’s bold talk of inevitable Russian victory and the far less impressive battlefield reality of his faltering invasion.

Putin’s other stated war aim was the “denazification” of Ukraine. This is Kremlin code for the erasure of a separate Ukrainian national identity and the imposition of Russian imperial doctrine in every sphere of public life, from education and culture to politics and religion. If this was the intention, it has backfired disastrously.

The war unleashed by Putin in 2022 has fueled an unprecedented consolidation of Ukrainian patriotism alongside a wholesale rejection of all things Russian throughout Ukrainian society. As a result, the entire notion of a pro-Kremlin government in Kyiv is now inconceivable unless propped up indefinitely by Russian bayonets, which would be ruinously expensive for the Kremlin.

This geopolitical divorce is also evident in the international arena. For centuries, Ukraine was widely seen by the outside world as indivisible from Russia itself. Putin still clings to this imperial mythology, but his propaganda slogans of “brotherly nations” now sound absurdly outdated. Instead, today’s Ukraine is widely recognized as an emerging democracy and a member of the wider European community of nations.

It would be extremely reckless to underestimate the Russian military, of course. Russia’s sheer size means that it remains a formidable threat and will likely continue to grind forward in Ukraine. However, after nearly four years of limited progress and staggering losses, it is now difficult to imagine how Putin could achieve the maximalist goals of his invasion on the battlefield.

Many Russians had pinned their hopes on a new Trump presidency, but even the dramatic reduction in US military aid to Ukraine over the past year has failed to produce any significant Russian breakthroughs. Furthermore, US weapons continue to flow to Ukraine via the PURL initiative, with indications that the White House has also relaxed earlier restrictions on strikes inside Russia.

America’s withdrawal from transatlantic commitments also means European leaders are more motivated than ever to maintain their support for Ukraine in the coming years. In a rapidly changing security environment, they are acutely aware that the Ukrainian army is now indispensable for the defense of Europe. With Ukraine’s own revitalized defense industry meeting around half of the country’s military needs domestically, Kyiv looks well positioned to continue defending itself despite the decline in support from the United States.

As the war enters a fifth year, Putin finds himself in an unenviable predicament. He has no obvious pathway to victory but cannot agree to a compromise peace without acknowledging what would amount to an historic defeat and placing his own political survival in question.

Faced with a bloody quagmire on the front lines, Putin will likely seek to break Ukrainian resistance in the coming months by expanding Russian attacks on the general population and making as much of the country as possible unlivable. In parallel, he will continue to play for time on the diplomatic stage, while attempting to bribe the United States with wild proposals and bully Europe into inaction with thinly-veiled threats of escalation.

If President Trump is serious about ending the war, he needs to recognize that his Russian counterpart currently dare not risk any peace that safeguards Ukrainian independence. Putin knows that if Ukraine survives, he loses. A sustainable settlement will therefore only be possible if he comes under significantly more pressure and is confronted with the prospect of a fate far worse than failure in Ukraine.

Putin will abandon his invasion when he begins to fear that continuing the war could threaten the future of his regime and the stability of Russia itself. The current occupant of the Kremlin still dreams of emulating Stalin and Katherine the Great, but he has no desire to become the next Tsar Nicholas II.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

This competition for global energy primacy pushes Europe to the sidelines. However, rather than yielding, European leaders have an opportunity to cultivate agency in the evolving global energy architecture to ensure the region’s economic resilience, while strengthening long-standing ties with the United States.

The US dual-pronged overseas strategy

Parallel to the latest US security strategy and mounting geopolitical tensions, the US oil and gas industry is expanding its efforts overseas. It is doing so in two ways: by intensifying exports of domestically produced hydrocarbons, and through direct investments outside of the United States. The directions of export are already shifting as a result of tensions with China and the realignment of Russian hydrocarbon flows. Europe and Southeast Asia have gained importance in US exports of crude oil, LNG, and LPG, and, in the medium-term, India and selected African countries are likely to join this pattern.

In terms of production, foreign assets are designed to complement the US shale foundation—in both production and reserves—while diversifying upstream portfolios and reducing exposure to single‑basin risk. The underlying logic of the current overseas push is to focus on regions and basins where American firms can deploy the competitive advantages they have refined in shale: data‑driven reservoir management, drilling and completion efficiency, disciplined capital allocation, and integrated supply chains. And obviously financial resources.

The closest area of interest geographically is the Montney shale basin in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada. Montney remains attractive for building inventory, offers promising LNG export prospects, and currently features lower asset prices than the Permian Basin. Latin America is another natural theater of expansion. Beyond Venezuela, unconventional resources such as Vaca Muerta in Argentina and emerging production in Mexico are prime candidates for US majors in the coming decade. Production from Vaca Muerta—the largest unconventional hydrocarbon deposit in South America, with a low breakeven price—and other plays may in the near future become significant competition for US LNG and LPG, which further sharpens US interest in being present there as an investor rather than merely as an exporter.

In the Eastern Mediterranean, US companies have been active for almost a decade, particularly in the Levant Basin and on the Israeli shelf. Today, this presence is extending to Turkey, ultra‑deepwater prospects in the Black Sea basin, and attempts to acquire assets previously held by Russian firms, such as Qurna‑2 in Iraq. Chevron and ExxonMobil have long maintained a strong position in Kazakhstan’s Tengiz field (and in ExxonMobil’s case, a stake in Kashagan).

Europe in the new energy architecture: dependence with agency

These developments are profoundly reshaping Europe’s energy landscape. As Russian hydrocarbon flows have been curtailed or redirected, US LNG and, increasingly, US‑linked production in Europe’s extended neighborhood have taken on a central role in the continent’s security of supply. Hydrocarbon exports from the United States to Europe are likely to continue—or even increase—despite rising tensions and growing awareness of the European Union’s energy dependence on American molecules. The growing share of US companies in hydrocarbon production in regions that underpin Europe’s hydrocarbon base—such as Algeria, the Levant Basin, Turkey, and Kazakhstan—further increases US influence over the European energy market.

This trend unfolds against a backdrop of difficult debates among allies. European policymakers and publics have raised legitimate concerns about price levels for imported LNG, about the risk of “replacing one dependence with another,” and about the interaction between US energy policy, domestic industrial support, and European climatepolicy. Transatlantic rhetoric has at times been sharp, and energy has not been immune to broader trade and regulatory disputes. World leaders are still far from resolving these challenges, yet these tensions do not alter the structural reality: for the foreseeable future, a US‑centric hydrocarbon system is becoming one of the pillars of Europe’s energy security.

The key strategic question for Europe is therefore not whether this hydrocarbon-state will exist—that question is already answered by market trends and investment decisions—but whether European actors will remain mostly passive importers, or whether they will claim agency as co‑investors and co‑architects of this new system.

Why European companies should join—not just buy from—America’s hydrocarbon-state

The current investment trend outside the United States is opening a window of opportunity for other players from different geographies—including national oil companies—to collaborate with US firms on joint projects. As long as these partners bring tangible value and can adapt to the US way of operating, there is space for durable partnerships. European companies should be at the forefront of this shift.

There are reasons for that. First, risk management: equity stakes and long‑term partnerships in upstream and midstream projects provide a more resilient hedge against supply disruptions and price spikes than relying solely on contractual arrangements at European terminals. Second, industrial strategy: tighter integration into hydrocarbon value chains can support Europe’s energy‑intensive industries and chemical sector as they navigate an uneven and often volatile transition.

This logic should not be confined to traditional oil and gas majors. Large utilities, midstream operators, and industrial champions in chemicals, steel, and fertilizers, as well as European financial and infrastructure investors, all have a stake in the stability, affordability, and predictability of hydrocarbon supply during the transition period. For them, joining the second wave of US‑led expansion—as partners in the Montney, Vaca Muerta, Eastern Mediterranean, North African gas and LNG, or Caspian projects—is a way to move from the position of pure price‑takers to that of co‑shapers.

Managing asymmetry: toward a balanced transatlantic framework

None of this eliminates the asymmetries inherent in a world where the United States is the central hydrocarbon-state. In crises, Washington and US companies will inevitably hold levers that affect European energy prices and flows. But the appropriate response for Europe is not to wish this reality away, nor to retreat into defensive rhetoric about dependence. It is to embed US strength in a balanced, rules‑based framework and to use transatlantic cooperation to manage that asymmetry.

This implies several parallel tracks. On the commercial side, long‑term contracts and joint investments should be structured to share risks and benefits more equitably across cycles. On the regulatory and security side, closer coordination is needed so that critical energy infrastructure in Europe and its neighborhood is not dominated by adversarial actors, and so that climate and energy security policies on both sides of the Atlantic reinforce rather than undermine each other. On the political level, the difficult conversations among allies about pricing, industrial policy, and climate ambition should be understood as part of the necessary calibration of a maturing energy partnership—not as a reason for Europe to abstain from engaging with the United States’ second overseas wave.

In this sense, the emergence of the United States as a hydrocarbon-state is both a challenge and an invitation. If European companies and policymakers choose to participate actively, they can help ensure that the new energy architecture doesn’t only strengthen US power, but also enhances the resilience and strategic autonomy of the wider transatlantic community.

Michał Kurtyka is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center.

Mateusz Kędzierski is a public and regulatory affairs manager at GASPOL and senior energy advisor at the JTI, a boutique advisory and analytical platform operating at the intersection of energy and natural resources policy, regulation, markets and infrastructure.

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Dispatch from Mexico City: Trump’s latest consideration of USMCA withdrawal meets a measured reaction

jcookson — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 21:39:11 +0000

MEXICO CITY—The pressure is mounting in Mexico’s capital as the country faces a summer deadline that will captivate world attention. For locals in Mexico City, that means the impending June 11 deadline—just four months away—when the World Cup kicks off with an opening match at the iconic Estadio Azteca. This is why crews are working around the clock for a much-needed remodeling of the Mexico City International Airport and why other repairs are being done across the city.

But pressure is mounting, too, on Mexican business and policy leaders, who are also working full-time ahead of the July 1 deadline for the mandatory review of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), the trilateral trade pact US President Donald Trump struck in his first term. These officials and private-sector leaders are devising options for addressing US concerns about the agreement, as well as putting forward their own suggested fixes. The lead-up to that deadline, which falls during the World Cup’s round of thirty-two, is unlikely to capture the world’s attention as much as the major quadrennial sporting event, but it will nonetheless have far-reaching consequences for the economies of countries in North America and beyond. By July 1, the three parties must decide either to extend the trade deal or trigger annual reviews that could lead to its termination.

So, what is the reaction to reports that Trump is considering withdrawing from the agreement? During my visit to Mexico City this week, I sensed concern about the implications of termination but minimal anxiety that this may be the road ahead. Both countries continue to have fluid, regular dialogue around the USMCA. And similar comments have been made previously. There’s also a recognition that the US president is quite adept at making statements that elicit media attention as part of his broader negotiating tactics. Most of all, recent musings are a clear signal from Trump that—like any other deal—nothing is off the table.

The USMCA review is a potential game-changer in the commercial world.

Rewind to December, when both Trump and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer each noted in different circumstances that the USMCA review could yield a number of possible outcomes. This past December 3, Trump said in reference to the USMCA, “We’ll either let it expire, or we’ll maybe work out another deal with Mexico and Canada.” A week later, Greer said at the Atlantic Council that the agreement’s future is far from certain, noting: “So, you know, could it be exited? Yeah, it could be exited. Could it be revised? Yes. Could it be renegotiated? Yes. I mean, that is the purpose of that clause. And all of those things are on the table.” The US trade representative added that “it makes sense to talk about things separately with Canada and Mexico.”

Mexican officials I have spoken with are focused less on the scenarios around agreement termination and instead prioritizing how to address issues such as the Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, which were increased to 50 percent this past June with the removal of previous exemptions. Their attention is also on increasing the competitiveness of the auto industry and ensuring overall predictable enforcement of the USMCA. At the same time, US concerns range from curtailing the rise of Chinese investment in Mexico (including ensuring that rules of origin are not bypassed and that Mexico is not a back door into the US market) to energy access and auto rules of origin.

Another lingering question is how to resolve broader USMCA questions in a context in which Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum have established a good working relationship, but the same cannot be said for Trump and the leader of the United States’ northern neighbor. Relationships matter, and Trump’s relationship with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is fraught. And for Mexico, the United States is the more important USMCA partner. In 2024, for example, more than 80 percent of Mexico’s goods exports went to the United States, and more than 40 percent of imports to Mexico came from its neighbor to the north. The same year, just 3 percent of Mexico’s exports went to Canada. So Greer’s discussion at the Atlantic Council of the possibility of bilateral deals is welcome news for many in Mexico. It’s a path forward to avoid Mexico getting embroiled in the more challenging US-Canada disputes.

The USMCA review is a potential game-changer in the commercial world. It’s a unique mechanism to make an agreement work better without having to go completely back to the drawing board. But it also creates uncertainty as the review deadline approaches. Trump will likely continue to question the utility of the USMCA throughout the spring as negotiators seek to get the best deal. Ultimately, however, with Mexico accounting for 15 percent of US exports, and with the US economy—as it usually does—figuring prominently in midterm elections this year, expect the White House to negotiate the best adjustments to the agreement to benefit US interests, but also to do so with the notion that economic certainty will be increasingly important in this election year.

Just like with the World Cup matches, you will need to watch to the very end to see the final result of the USMCA negotiations. But unlike on the pitch, all the participants can come out as winners and have something to celebrate—if negotiations succeed.

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US critical minerals policy goes collaborative with FORGE

Reed Blakemore, Alexis Harmon — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 14:54:17 +0000

WASHINGTON—The Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement (FORGE), announced last week at the inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial in Washington, DC, marked the opening salvo of the Trump administration’s 2026 critical minerals agenda. Coming on the heels of a frenetic year of executive actions, bilateral dealmaking, and the launch of the twelve-billion-dollar Project Vault stockpiling initiative, FORGE is the Trump administration’s clearest attempt yet to translate its sizeable ambitions around critical minerals into a functional architecture.

At its core, FORGE reflects a belief that the hardest challenges in the minerals markets are better addressed with partners. Collaboration is slower and harder but ultimately more durable and impactful. By attempting to align trade policy, price signals, and market access across partner economies, FORGE aims to elevate cooperation itself as a strategic asset that could reshape minerals markets in a way no country—not even the United States—could achieve on its own. Though operational details and membership are still being clarified, the opening of a plurilateral pathway represents a marked shift for 2026.

Bilateralism meets plurilateralism

The Trump administration has positioned FORGE as a successor to the Minerals Security Partnership, launched in 2022, but with sharper teeth and a commitment to speed. FORGE is not envisioned as a traditional multilateral coordination forum. Instead, it’s designed as a plurilateral coalition, creating a preferential trade-and-investment zone for critical minerals with coordinated price floors to counter adversarial market manipulation.

At the ministerial, US Vice President JD Vance described “reference prices for critical minerals at each stage of production,” maintained through “adjustable tariffs to uphold pricing integrity.” The objective of this approach is to create stable investment conditions for mining and processing projects that often require decades to deliver returns. If successful, it will help protect projects from the predatory pricing that hollowed out Western critical minerals production in previous decades.

Exactly which countries will ultimately participate in FORGE remains unclear. Still, the ministerial produced eleven new bilateral framework agreements—with Argentina, Morocco, Peru, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom, among others—bringing the total to twenty-one deals in five months. US officials claim seventeen more countries have completed negotiations. Beyond several memoranda of understanding (MOUs), the Trump administration unveiled more operational commitments, including a sixty-day action plan with Mexico and a joint commitment with the European Union and Japan to develop coordinated trade policies (such as border-adjusted price floors) and identify priority investment opportunities.

That’s impressive dealmaking velocity, but framework agreements are not operational mines. Each bilateral deal requires different concessions, obligations, and political risks. The administration hopes FORGE, chaired by South Korea through June, will link these disparate agreements into a functioning plurilateral system covering two-thirds of the global economy. That’s a much harder proposition than signing MOUs—but it also could permanently transform the critical minerals landscape.

The overarching question is whether a network built on bilateral leverage can be transformed into genuine plurilateral coordination. There are reasons for optimism. The Minerals Security Partnership’s struggles with similar challenges counsel caution, but the administration’s willingness to back frameworks with capital and concrete mechanisms may give FORGE more bite than its predecessor.

The power of price coordination

In January, Reuters reported that the United States is “moving away” from price floors on critical minerals, leading to panicked discourse among industry stakeholders and volatility in the market. The ministerial clarified the administration’s actual position: Coordinating price supports with partners through both bilateral deals and the FORGE network remains a top priority. The shift is not away from private interventions but toward internationalizing them, moving the burden away from solely resting on US taxpayers and restructuring price supports as a coordinated action among like-minded countries. This approach is arguably more effective given the scale of the challenge: A distributed burden is more sustainable, and coordinated intervention could be effective enough to deter Chinese market manipulation.

FORGE appears to be the forum through which the administration intends to pursue this coordination. Following last year’s Commerce Department 232 investigation into the national security implications of critical mineral imports, the White House concluded that supply chain vulnerabilities pose national security threats but that bilateral dealmaking and possible price interventions remain more effective than tariffs for addressing them—at least for now. The ministerial operationalized that conclusion and revealed an administration attempting something ambitious: practicing statecraft through markets rather than around them.

The challenges lie in the details. Prices vary by mineral, production stage, jurisdiction, and market conditions. Coordinating reference prices that function as effective floors without creating perverse incentives requires sophisticated policy design and sustained diplomatic consensus. The United States and its allies have spent months negotiating on this front, and operational details remain sparse.

Deploying capital and making deals

The meeting last week also highlighted just how much capital the administration is prepared to mobilize in service of supply-chain security. In its post-ministerial fact sheet, the State Department cited more than thirty billion dollars in letters of interest, investments, loans, and support mobilized by the US government over six months. Just days before the ministerial, Project Vault secured ten billion dollars from the Export-Import Bank (more than double the bank’s largest previous financing) plus two billion dollars in private capital.

Beyond government-to-government frameworks, the administration continues to facilitate business-to-business deals. This reflects a broader pattern: the administration positioning itself as dealmaker and convener, connecting companies with partners, projects with financing, and supply with demand across its bilateral network.

This approach raises an unresolved question for FORGE. While explicitly positioned as a successor to the Minerals Security Partnership, it remains unclear whether FORGE will take on a comparable role in catalyzing pooled investment or dealmaking, which was the primary focus of the Minerals Security Partnership and its associated public-private network, MINVEST. Instead, FORGE appears more likely to operate on a “membership by trade” model, in which participation is conditioned on adherence to shared trade rules rather than joint capital deployment. Under this approach, investment would remain largely bilateral, but within a plurilateral market framework designed to reinforce and de-risk those investments. This could allow the administration to shape outcomes across multiple supply chains without the institutional complexity of pooled financing. Whether that trade-led model proves sufficient or whether pooled investment coordination becomes a necessary next step remains an open question.

Digging deeper

The gathering in Washington last week succeeded in establishing an institutional architecture through FORGE, rapidly expanding the network of bilateral deals, and demonstrating a willingness to deploy capital through tools such as Project Vault. It also revealed a fundamental tension: the administration is moving fast, but minerals projects move slowly.

The central questions now are whether frameworks translate into functioning mines, whether coordinated price mechanisms can be operationalized without fracturing under divergent interests, and whether policy commitments outlast electoral cycles. The administration delivered speed and ambition. Execution and durability are the harder tests ahead.

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Despite US exemptions, the show goes on for a global minimum corporate tax

Jeff Goldstein — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 13:45:59 +0000

For over forty years, worldwide statutory corporate tax rates have been falling. At the same time, the number of corporate tax havens has risen sharply, costing governments around the world hundreds of billions of dollars in lost tax revenue.

This is why, since 2016, there has been a global effort to establish a minimum corporate tax—an internationally agreed-upon minimum rate on corporate income. Progress has not been steady, and over the past months, the continued fraying of long-standing alliances and economic relationships—or “rupture,” as Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney recently described it in Davos—has put global cooperation under strain.

Yet the initiative has not stalled. On the contrary, despite a series of technical and political obstacles, it has continued to advance.

The years-long push for a new corporate tax regime

In 2021, the Biden administration helped broker a global minimum corporate tax deal as part of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) initiative, launched by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Since then, over sixty-five countries have begun implementing the framework. Upon returning to office for his second term, however, US President Donald Trump argued that this deal did not apply to the United States, and his administration threatened retaliatory taxes against countries that taxed US companies under the new parameters.

On January 5, under pressure from the Trump administration, 146 countries joined the United States in amending the 2021 agreement. As a result, the global minimum corporate tax framework will now continue, but with one notable change: US multinational corporations (MNCs) will be exempt from the agreement’s country-by-country undertaxed profits rule (UTPR).

The UTPR was meant to work as follows: if a company’s profits are taxed below the agreement’s minimum 15 percent threshold in a country of operation, a top-up tax can be applied by the company’s home country—or by other jurisdictions where the company operates if its home country does not act—to reach the 15 percent rate. The Trump administration viewed this mechanism as an infringement on US sovereignty and unfair, because the United States already imposes a minimum corporate tax on foreign income.

Under Trump, the US has reshaped but not derailed global corporate tax reform

By exempting US MNCs, the update will result in a less effective global minimum corporate tax than the original 2021 agreement. US MNCs must still pay a 14 percent tax rate on foreign profits under the US Net CFC Tested Income (NCTI) rule; however, the update matters more than the one-percentage-point difference in rates. The OECD agreement calculates its global minimum corporate tax on a country-by-country basis, while the NCTI uses a worldwide average, allowing MNCs to blend profits from low-tax and high-tax countries to stay below the 14 percent minimum.

With this change, the amended OECD deal is clearly not as comprehensive or consistent as it could be, but its passage remains a meaningful step forward for several reasons.

First, this outcome preserves a multilateral framework more robust than any previous effort. Major economies around the world and most low-tax countries have implemented it. While not impossible, it will now be harder for MNCs to lower their tax burdens through global profit shifting. This framework is no longer just theoretical; it is already impacting MNC‘s balance sheets. Without a deal—and with US retaliatory taxes derailing the initiative—the global community would be back at square one in a race to the bottom, with no floor for corporate taxation.

Second, for this type of technical and complex policy, the unknowns are vast. Tangible experience and stakeholder engagement are crucial to getting the policy right. By moving forward, public and private stakeholders will become familiar with the system in practice. Eventually, it will become the default. Policymakers will gain hands-on experience in coordinating and collaborating on the system’s features. Without the compromise deal, political and policy focus in this area could stall, and the next push to reform the global corporate tax regime would face the same uncertainty.

Third, implementing an unprecedented global policy apparatus was always going to be difficult, but once in place, it is far easier to adjust rates or make technical refinements. Future policy lessons, political dynamics, and technological advancements will inevitably drive changes in how the OECD agreement operates. Optimizing outcomes is much easier with a framework in place than starting from scratch.

Progress over perfection

Exempting large and profitable US MNCs from the UTPR is not ideal, but incentives for participating countries to stay aligned remain strong. By instituting domestic minimum top-up taxes, they can still collect more revenue from US MNCs operating in their jurisdiction and confidently avoid being undercut by significantly lower rates elsewhere. At the same time, the United States clearly shares the widespread interest in avoiding a race to the bottom on corporate taxation, which is part of the reason why the first Trump administration enacted the NCTI—then known as the Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income rule—and other international tax reforms.

In many areas of international economic policy, global collaboration is far more challenging than in recent decades, and in some cases it is breaking down. The global minimum corporate tax, however, demonstrates that progress is still possible. The broader lesson for policymakers is this: don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Let momentum build, focus on substantive technical details, and find common incentives.

It will still be a long journey for the global minimum corporate tax to reach a stable and effective equilibrium, but with this compromise, there is now an open road ahead.

Jeff Goldstein is a contributor to the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. During the Biden administration he served as the senior advisor for investment activities and director of strategy implementation in the CHIPS Program Office at the US Department of Commerce. Earlier in his career, he was the deputy chief of staff and special assistant to the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama administration. Views and opinions expressed are strictly his own.

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Dispatch from Munich: Present at the destruction or the creation?

Frederick Kempe — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 11:00:00 +0000

MUNICH—Close your eyes and shut out the cacophony—from Trumpian rostrums against Europe to agitated social media clamor opposing the US president—and there’s much more to like about the current world than conventional wisdom would suggest as leaders arrive here for the Munich Security Conference (MSC).

The MSC, arguably the most significant annual transatlantic security gathering, itself contributed to the unsettling noise in its conference-opening report, titled “Under Destruction,” setting the stage for one of the most crucial convenings in its sixty-three-year history.

“The world has entered a period of wrecking-ball politics,” the report explains. “Sweeping destruction—rather than careful reforms and policy corrections—is the order of the day. The most prominent of those who promise to free their country from the existing order’s constraints and rebuild a stronger, more prosperous nation is the current US administration. As a result, more than 80 years after construction began, the US-led post-1945 international order is now under destruction.”

Benedikt Franke, the MSC CEO, tells me, “The transatlantic relationship is in serious trouble. It seems there is insufficient awareness in certain political circles in the US of just how much trust was destroyed and how deep the rift runs.”

“Yes,” Franke continues, “Europeans can distinguish between the Trump administration and the rest of the US. But they are increasingly disappointed by the lack of pushback in the US. We watch with morbid fascination how the land of the free is deconstructing itself and what it has represented for 250 years.”

Getting oriented ahead of Munich

With all that as context, it’s worth taking a deep breath to separate hyperbole from reality. To do so, I recommend reflecting on the good, the bad, and the dangerous as transatlantic and global leaders converge on Munich—with some thoughts on how everyone could come out stronger. First, it’s useful to start with what good the Trumpian disruptive pressures and actions have produced.

After years of underinvestment and political neglect, US allies in Europe are finally spending more on defense capabilities and readiness, training together more frequently, and stepping up more seriously to their security responsibilities in the fourth year of a murderous Russian war on Ukraine—amid growing hybrid threats to Europe. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has generated controversy by telling his fellow Europeans that without Trump none of that would have happened—but he’s dead right.

Second, economic challenges from both China and the United States have shaken Europe into a greater recognition of—if not yet adequate action to resolve—their insufficient technological innovation and business entrepreneurship, their counterproductive overregulation, and their inadequate steps toward creating a true union for capital markets, defense, and foreign policy.

Third, look to the Middle East, where the chances have rarely been better for lasting regional peace and prosperity, and for greater economic and security integration. The region’s spoiler, Iran, has seldom been weaker. Its defensive and offensive capabilities are down, its nuclear capabilities are seriously damaged, its proxies are decapitated, its economy is battered, and its internal opposition is boiling. Those are all good things.

And despite all the talk of geopolitical risk, global equity benchmarks ended 2025 near their strongest annual performance in years, with European shares and the Dow Jones Industrial Average hitting new records this year.

That’s the good side. Now the bad.

What has eroded is confidence in the United States. Confidence in US intentions, reliability, and predictability hit new lows recently when President Donald Trump threatened to take Greenland by whatever means necessary, holding out the possibility of new tariffs on any European country that stood in his way. Allies don’t question US power and influence, but they increasingly ask whether Washington is on their side or whether it is more likely to weaponize its economic might against them when it is seen to serve US interests.

From the standpoint of Europeans, Trump’s second term has transformed transatlantic politics from a shared enterprise into a rolling negotiation, where commitments feel provisional, support for Ukraine comes with growing price tags, and transactions have replaced assurances. When French President Emmanuel Macron, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi all speak in one way or another about a ruptured relationship, they are coming to terms with a fundamentally changed world where an overregulated, disunified Europe with insufficient defense capabilities is in immediate peril of falling prey to the more avaricious Americans and Chinese. As Macron put it this week, “We have the Chinese tsunami on the trade front, and we have minute-by-minute instability on the American side. These two crises amount to a profound shock, a rupture for Europeans.”

That is the bad. There’s also the dangerous, not just for Europeans, but for Americans and freedom-loving peoples everywhere.

The greatest risk in Munich is not that the United States will formally abandon its European or Asian allies, which remains unlikely. The danger is that persistent ambiguity and eroding confidence becomes the norm, a situation adversaries are already exploiting. Russia continues to hammer away at Ukraine with impunity. Russian President Vladimir Putin sees that the Trump administration hesitates to condemn and punish Russian aggression. Observing that, Chinese President Xi Jinping may well decide that his country’s best chance to make a move on Taiwan is with Trump in office.

The larger question at the conference

Franke tells me that organizing this year’s Munich conference has been an exercise in maximum uncertainty and constant change. “We are used to moving targets and the occasional drama,” he said, “but this was the norm this time, rather than the exception. This seems to fit with our report [‘Under Destruction’], which laments the return of wrecking-ball politics.”

Wolfgang Ischinger, long-time chair of the MSC and a lifetime Atlantic Council board member, diagnosed the situation bluntly ahead of this year’s gathering: “transatlantic relations are, in my view, in a considerable crisis of trust and credibility.”

When allies cannot depend on one another’s intentions or actions, some dangerous dynamics emerge. Some European countries are already beginning to hedge against contingencies that assume US support in the event of an attack might arrive late, conditionally, diluted, or not at all. Such hedging weakens deterrence.

At the same time, Russia and China are incentivized to probe cracks and seams in Alliance solidarity, testing how far they can push before a unified response materializes. Russia is doing this every day in Ukraine, and every day it learns more about how far it can go before the United States responds alongside its allies to fully back Ukraine.

In Munich this week, the uncomfortable question is not whether NATO can still deter Russian aggression or whether Europe will really lift its defense spending to its new targets. These are crucial issues, but they are tactical. The larger question is strategic: Can the Alliance, nearing its eightieth anniversary, maintain the predictability that deterrence requires in an age of volatility and transactional politics? If the answer is no, then the Alliance could still appear to hold together—with all its exercises, committees, and flags—but it will steadily hollow out.

Two post-Munich possibilities

I come to Munich worried. Europe’s hyperbolic response to Trump could miss a golden opportunity—the possibility of a fortified and fundamentally improved Europe shaping the next iteration of the international order alongside its ally of the past eighty years, the United States, which doesn’t want to destroy the order that it created so much as remake it at less cost to itself and with more responsibilities laid upon its allies. To its credit, the MSC report also points to that possibility, invoking comparisons to the post–World War II age that Dean Acheson, former US secretary of state and one of the Atlantic Council’s founders, captured in his memoir Present at the Creation.

The MSC report notes, “A lifetime later, Acheson’s contemporary successor, Marco Rubio, invoked this language during his confirmation hearings, arguing the United States was ‘once again called to create a free world out of the chaos,’ because the existing order had ceased to serve US interests and was being exploited by others.”

With all this as context, Franke sums up the challenge: “The key questions we seek to answer this weekend are: Is the global order we have grown used to beyond repair? Are we seeing the end of progress or what [Joseph] Schumpeter has called ‘creative destruction,’ a painful process leading to something better in the end? Or are we seeing destructive creation, where something is built up which leads to the end of everything else?”

It’s hard to imagine a more significant inflection point than one that decides between those two very real possibilities. The stakes have seldom, if ever, been so large as the curtain rises on this year’s MSC.

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on X @FredKempe.

This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points newsletter, a column of dispatches from a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.

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I was wrong about fighting China in 2025. But the US still isn’t ready for that fight.

Mike Minihan — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 21:46:16 +0000

“I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me we will fight in 2025.”

—Leaked internal US Air Mobility Command order, late January 2023

WASHINGTON—Three years after I made that prediction, and with 2025 fully behind us, I can now say that I was wrong. That is good. But I know it was right to sound the alarm.

I was the commander of the US Air Force’s Air Mobility Command when I issued an order to my command to aggressively prepare for possible conflict in the Pacific. I was grappling with a critical question: How can the United States project power across the Pacific—the largest ocean on Earth—fast enough to deter and if necessary decisively defeat a peer adversary that has geographic positional advantage?

When I took over my post in October 2021, I was given clear direction to go faster in preparing for conflict with China. Air Mobility Command moves nearly everything the US military needs to fight—from troops and fuel to missiles and medical care. I was selected for that role because of my experience in the Indo-Pacific, where air maneuver is the difference between arriving in time and arriving too late.

More than a year into the job, despite progress, the pace of change was uneven. Urgency had not penetrated every level of the force. After a decade watching China up close, I could see that Beijing was still accelerating faster than Washington was adjusting.

The author testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee Seapower and Projection Forces on July 23, 2024. (US Air Force photo by Chad Trujillo)

In late January 2023, I issued an internal order to force urgency and action. I was deliberately direct. Military orders exist to change behavior and accomplish missions, not to accommodate comfort. Noting that Chinese President Xi Jinping had secured a third term as president and that presidential elections in Taiwan and the United States were coming in 2024, I shared my gut feeling that war between the United States and China could erupt in 2025. I directed my commanders to accelerate their training with specific benchmarks for the coming months. The goal was a “fortified, ready, integrated, and agile Joint Force Maneuver Team ready to fight and win inside the first island chain,” the line stretching from Japan to the Philippines, with Taiwan at the center.

Within hours of its release, the order was stripped of its classification markings and posted on social media without authorization. What had been an internal directive was suddenly public, detached from its context, and portrayed as reckless rhetoric. The US Department of Defense publicly distanced itself from the memo.

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The controversy was less important than what followed. Later that year, my command conducted an exercise called Mobility Guardian. It was not a scripted display or a tabletop drill. It was a rehearsal for how the United States would bring real forces into a contested Pacific theater. Thousands of airmen, hundreds of aircraft, and equipment moved across long distances into an environment where runways were threatened, communications were degraded, and bases could not be assumed safe.

This was not sustainment of an allied force at a distance, as in Ukraine or Israel. It was a rapid surge of US military force into a theater of conflict, appearing quickly and visibly in the Pacific—right on China’s doorstep. US allies saw what was possible. China noticed too and felt the presence of the United States’ uniquely powerful air-mobility capability.

The exercise exposed strengths and weaknesses. Some planning assumptions held, like partner and ally integration. Others failed. Command relationships as well as command and control suffered most. Redundancy mattered. Simplicity mattered. Speed mattered. Readiness mattered. Integration mattered. Agility mattered. The result was a decisive shift from untested, assumption-based planning to valuable rehearsal-based planning.

The Joint Force is capable, but it is not yet as ready, integrated, or agile as it must be for a high-end Pacific fight. Too much planning remains assumption-driven. Too many caveats are managed rather than resolved. Mobility Guardian and exercises like it provide critical insights to rapidly advance on China. Readiness in a contested environment requires more than traditional availability metrics, such as head count and status of equipment. It requires commanders who drive their units hard and units that train, operate, and rehearse like the future of their country depends on it. Because it does.

Beijing continues to expand its military, rehearse large-scale joint operations around Taiwan, and assert control across the South China Sea. At the national level, the real question is operational: Can the United States deliver winning capabilities to the warfighter more quickly than China can? That challenge extends beyond doctrine into areas such as industrial capacity, supply chains, national will, and risk tolerance. The United States is experiencing a rare moment where executive authority and acquisition reform are aligned for speed.

There is nothing more powerful than a US military that believes in itself. That belief comes from preparation and from knowing the nation will deliver what the mission requires. I am glad I was wrong about the timeline for a US conflict with China, because the Joint Force has become more ready, integrated, and agile in the time since I made my prediction. Those gains matter. But the US military still has much more work to do.

The question now is not whether change is possible. It’s whether the US military can change fast enough.

The post I was wrong about fighting China in 2025. But the US still isn’t ready for that fight. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Narco noir: Drugs, gangs and mercenaries in Latin America

Alia Brahimi — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 19:58:42 +0000

In Season 2, Episode 14 of the Guns for Hire podcast, host Alia Brahimi is joined by Dr Vanda Felbab-Brown, a renowned expert on non-state armed groups and organised crime. They begin by discussing the escalation of gang violence in Haiti over the last year, despite the arrival of the American PMC, Vectus Global, which is led by the Blackwater founder Erik Prince. Vanda points out that a recent air campaign weaponizing off-the-shelf drones was intended to decapitate the gangs but, while hundreds of Haitians have been killed, none of them have been significant gang leaders. They go on to explore why governments in the region allow and coopt street militias, the bunkering of fuel by colectivos in Venezuela, Hizballah’s continuing narcotics operations across Latin America, the IRGC’s role in drug trafficking, and how the regime in Iran ends.

“Whether it’s a private security company like Vectus, or whether it’s the UN gang suppression force, they need to be able to hand over to someone. So, the institution-building requirements becomes inescapable.”

Dr. Vanda Felbab-Brown, expert on non-state armed groups and organized crime

Find the Guns For Hire podcast on the app of your choice

About the podcast

Guns for Hire podcast is a production of the Atlantic Council’s North Africa Initiative. Taking Libya as its starting point, it examines the causes and implications of the increasing use of mercenaries in armed conflicts.

The podcast features guests from many walks of life, from ethicists and historians to former mercenary fighters. It seeks to understand what the normalization of contract warfare reveals about the world we currently inhabit, the future of the international system, and what war may look like in the coming decades.

Further Listening

Podcast Jan 30, 2025

“No, really”: American PMCs in Gaza

By Alia Brahimi

Host Alia Brahimi chats with modern warfare expert Andreas Krieg about the sudden deployment of three private military companies to the Netzarim corridor in the Gaza Strip.

Conflict Crisis Management

Podcast Jul 30, 2024

‘I was a Blackwater mercenary in Iraq’

By Alia Brahimi

Host Alia Brahimi is joined by former Blackwater contractor Morgan Lerette to reflect on Loretta’s experience a private military contractor in Iraq.

Conflict Defense Industry

Podcast Dec 11, 2025

“Youth as merchandise”: Iraqi mercenaries in Ukraine

By Alia Brahimi

In Season 2, Episode 13 of the Guns for Hire podcast, host Alia Brahimi is joined by the Iraqi political analyst Mohammed Salih to discuss the legion of Iraqi men turning up on the frontlines of the war in Ukraine.

Iraq Middle East

Through our Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, the Atlantic Council works with allies and partners in Europe and the wider Middle East to protect US interests, build peace and security, and unlock the human potential of the region.

The post Narco noir: Drugs, gangs and mercenaries in Latin America appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Kroenig on School of War podcast on nuclear weapons

Atlantic Council — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 21:53:52 +0000

Vice President, Geostrategy and Fellows and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On February 9, Atlantic Council vice president and Scowcroft Center senior director Matthew Kroenig was interviewed on the School of War podcast about China’s nuclear arsenal and impacts on US national security.

Staff

Matthew Kroenig

China Defense Policy

The post Kroenig on School of War podcast on nuclear weapons appeared first on Atlantic Council.

How 2025’s US tariff shocks can give way to constructive reforms in 2026

L. Daniel Mullaney — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 21:03:48 +0000

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration’s trade policy over the course of 2025 had the split-screen character of a medieval diptych. The panel to the left, drawing most viewers’ attention, displays unpredictable, ever-changing, and erratic threats of unheard-of levels of tariffs, sometimes threatened over issues unrelated to trade. With this aggressive tariff approach, the White House ignored both preexisting agreements on tariff levels and long-standing obligations to treat trading partners equally.

The panel to the right, by contrast, represents a quest for sound trade-related policy outcomes that are long-standing US objectives often shared by other trading partners. These objectives are largely reasonable and arguably necessary for a sustainable international trading system. This right-hand panel is represented in bilateral trade agreements over the past year and in official statements, such as the administration’s December communication to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on reforming the institution.

For most of 2025 and early 2026, the right-hand panel’s sober, nuanced, and solid prescriptions for fairer trade and a sustainable world trading system were overshadowed by the shocking and sometimes disturbing tariffs and tariff threats in the left-hand panel.

This can and should change in 2026. True, US tariff levels are much higher than previously agreed rates, and the levies discriminate among trading partners. But US tariffs are relatively stable now and generally stand at levels that allow trade to continue. In addition, the power of tariffs as a policy tool has likely diminished since the beginning of 2025, given that the United States has issued a significant and increasing number of tariff exemptions and has not followed through on many of its initial tariff threats over the past year. The Trump administration’s short-lived threat of 10 percent tariffs on several European partners over the recent Greenland dispute, for instance, although shocking, points to the weakening of tariffs as a tool; Trump withdrew the threat without any real concessions from Europe. In part, the administration’s walking back on tariff threats is likely due to the predicted negative effects of tariffs on prices, US manufacturing, and the stock and bond markets. It is also a product of subsequent deals, such as those the White House has recently announced that include tariff reductions with India, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

Returning to the diptych image above, the administration’s tariff-shock approach in the left panel is likely to fade somewhat in 2026, even if it doesn’t disappear entirely. This should create space for more right-panel US trade objectives to come to the fore. So, what are these right-panel objectives for the White House?

WTO reform

In its communication to the WTO in December, the Trump administration advocated several changes to reform the institution. The administration called, for example, for permitting plurilateral agreements, which would prevent nonparticipants from blocking agreements among several member states. The administration also supports applying special and differentiated treatment as a transitional tool for least-developed countries, instead of effectively giving countries a permanent exemption from WTO obligations. And the administration called for improving transparency in the WTO by enforcing and providing technical assistance for notification obligations.

In addition, the United States expressed its long-held view that the WTO is a membership-driven organization whose secretariat should serve a non-substantive administrative role and that acting as an advocate erodes trust in its role as a neutral administrator. It also said that when members invoke the national-security exception to take measures otherwise inconsistent with the organization’s rules, they should be able to do so without being subject to WTO dispute settlement review, which risks politicizing the WTO.

None of these are radical or new notions, and they are all aimed at reinforcing the sustainability of the WTO and the multilateral trading system, not undermining them. To be sure, the Trump administration has also advocated more radical changes surrounding the most favored nation (MFN) principle, arguing that it should no longer apply. But it has done so based on the reasonable argument that MFN status was adopted as a tool in an era of deepening convergence toward trade liberalization that no longer exists.

Far from bomb-throwing against the WTO or the multilateral trading system, these are suggestions that address important and long-standing issues that require thoughtful discussion among WTO members.

The US communication on WTO reform released in December also cites several issues that the organization, as a practical matter, probably cannot take on: trade balances, nonmarket economy overcapacity, and overconcentration of production, economic security, and supply-chain resilience. The argument in the communication is not primarily that the WTO should not take these issues on, should members agree to, but that history indicates that it is incapable of doing so.

With the possible exception of what the White House describes as trade imbalances, these issues are widely recognized as legitimate concerns, even if there is disagreement about whether the WTO can or should address them.

How US bilateral deals fill the gaps

This is where the various US bilateral agreements negotiated over the past year come in. In the absence of effective WTO action, the bilateral agreements address the important issues of nonmarket economy overcapacity and overconcentration of production, economic security, and supply-chain resilience in a way tailored to each partner. The provisions generally encourage or require cooperation and alignment on these issues.

In addition, the US bilateral agreements set out a set of obligations and objectives that are well rooted in traditional US trade policy and WTO rules. The agreements differ in precise wording and level of detail but generally cover the following areas:

Eliminating regulatory and standards-based nontariff barriers, including cooperation on standards development and conformity assessment, sometimes focusing on specific sectors, such as medical devices;
Accepting imports of US products meeting international or US standards, including with respect to specific products, such as automobiles;
Applying the WTO Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade decision on international standards, a regular feature of US free trade agreement negotiations aimed at facilitating exports meeting standards of US-based international standard-setting organizations;
Adopting “good regulatory practices,” a US trade policy staple aimed at ensuring transparency, public input, and nondiscrimination in the development of regulations;
Removing nontariff barriers to US agricultural exports, including specific provisions related to facilitating trade in beef, poultry, pork, and dairy;
Meeting obligations on sanitary and phytosanitary measures on agricultural products that echo obligations under the WTO Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement;
Facilitating digital trade;
Reaffirming and elaborating on commitments under the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement;
Cooperating on labor-related trade issues, including the prevention of forced labor and forced child labor;
Enforcing environmental protections; and
Enforcing intellectual property rights.

What is striking about these bilateral agreement provisions is how well they align with the objectives and substance of the WTO agreements, sometimes explicitly. They also align with the objectives and substance of current US comprehensive trade agreements and prior comprehensive negotiations, including those with the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom.

This is not to say that they represent a return to historic templates for trade agreements—they do not—but that many individual elements of previous trade policy objectives and tools clearly remain valid and worth pursuing from the US perspective.

The “right” approach for the year ahead

What would shifting the focus from the left-hand tariff diptych panel to the right-hand panel mean for US trade policy and bilateral trade relations going forward?

First, US trading partners should focus on nuanced and constructive items on the trade agenda, including pursuing meaningful reforms to the WTO. Ideally, this would result in fewer discussions among US trade partners about whether they should retaliate against US tariffs and more discussions of how to address the underlying challenges that prompted them. A focus on WTO reform would also help build a clearer set of obligations for its members and reshape the multilateral trading system to meet the moment.

Second, US trading partners should prioritize removing regulatory barriers to trade and investment, especially in agriculture, in bilateral negotiations with the United States. The moment is ripe, as more US trading partners are embracing a “competitiveness” agenda that includes the removal of unnecessary regulatory barriers.

Third, as the United States actively pushes back on nonmarket economy policies and practices that result in overcapacity and overconcentration, other trading partners will see increased pressure from nonmarket economy goods and from overreliance on single nonmarket sources of production for key products. This should motivate the EU and other trading partners to take their own defensive measures against nonmarket economy policies and to do so in tighter coordination with the United States.

The substance of this recommended engagement is not new. Working with the EU and other trading partners on these joint objectives has always been important, but for many years it has been stymied by difficult politics and institutional constraints.

What is new is the sense of urgency and necessity. This sense of urgency was proximately caused by the Trump administration’s increased tariffs and tariff threats. But more fundamentally, there is an increasingly clear need for the United States and its trade partners to improve competitiveness, respond to nonmarket economy policies and practices, secure supply chains, and address economic security concerns.

The tariff disruptions and harsh rhetoric from the Trump administration made 2025 a particularly tough year for bilateral relations with many trade partners. But they have perhaps also given US trade partners a sense of urgency about the need to reform the international trading system and respond to legitimate US concerns. And other signals, like those contained in the bilateral agreements and the WTO reform communication, should point to a constructive path forward in 2026 and beyond.

The post How 2025’s US tariff shocks can give way to constructive reforms in 2026 appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Kroenig on BBC on US escalating pressure against Cuba

Atlantic Council — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 15:05:24 +0000

Vice President, Geostrategy and Fellows and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On February 8, Atlantic Council vice president and Scowcroft Center senior director Matthew Kroenig was interviewed on BBC about the US escalating pressure against the Cuban regime.

Staff

Matthew Kroenig

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Transatlantic Security Initiative

China Defense Policy

The post Kroenig on BBC on US escalating pressure against Cuba appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Mining without rules: The risky US bet on the deep sea

Elisabeth Braw — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Bottom lines up front

In April 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order permitting deep-sea mining in international waters.
This is contrary to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and might mean that the United States has violated customary international law.
The executive order raises questions regarding the legal status of any mining that might take place under US license, particularly whether insurers and companies based outside the US would be willing to participate.

The increasingly tense geopolitical landscape has brought into sharp relief Western dependence on rare earth minerals. The minerals exist in minuscule concentrations (hence the “rare” label) in rock around the world, but where the rare earths are found is less important than how they are processed. Because the processing is cumbersome and extremely polluting, Western countries have long been reluctant to permit large-scale processing, which has instead become the domain of Chinese companies.

That has resulted in rare earths overwhelmingly being processed in China: As of 2025, some 90 percent of rare earths are processed there.¹ Western governments have long tolerated this situation, even though it involved minerals crucial to the functioning of modern societies, because they believed in the rules of globalization and calculated that China would not weaponize other countries’ rare earth dependence. (Products such as smartphones, electric vehicles, wind turbines, and fighter jets require one or more rare earths.) However, escalating geopolitical competition has raised concerns that China could ban exports of these minerals to Western countries. At various points, Beijing has suspended rare earth exports to specific countries or threatened to do so. The most infamous case occurred in 2010, when Beijing banned exports to Japan after the latter detained a Chinese fishing-boat captain for trespassing in Japanese waters (over which China also claims sovereignty).² Such actions, however, were so limited that most countries considered continued reliance on Chinese-processed rare earths an acceptable risk. Or, rather, they knew that citizens would vehemently oppose processing the rare earths domestically.³

But as geopolitical tensions between China and the West have intensified, Beijing has increasingly threatened to impose restrictions on rare earth exports to Western countries. In April 2025, China responded to Trump’s announcement of steep tariffs on Chinese goods (as well as goods from other countries) by imposing export restrictions on seven rare earths.⁴ At the end of that month, Trump issued an executive order, “Unleashing America’s Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources,” giving US-based companies the right to mine for critical minerals in seabed areas beyond national jurisdiction; that is, in international waters.⁵ In the order, the president instructs his administration to identify “private sector interest and opportunities for seabed mineral resource exploration, mining, and environmental monitoring in the United States Outer Continental Shelf; in areas beyond national jurisdiction; and in areas within the national jurisdictions of certain other nations that express interest in partnering with United States companies on seabed mineral development.”⁶ In October 2025, Beijing imposed further export restrictions on rare earths. This was an apparent response to the US announcement of significant tariffs on Chinese goods; after the United States lowered the tariffs, China suspended the restrictions.⁷

Mining in the law of the sea

The existence of valuable minerals—manganese, cobalt, nickel, copper, and rare earth elements—at the bottom of the ocean has been known since the 1800s, and the minerals’ locations are well documented. The largest concentrations are in the deep sea; that is, outside countries’ territorial waters and exclusive economic zones (EEZ).⁸ (The Clarion-Clipperton Zone between Hawaii and Mexico is home to particularly large amounts.) The minerals are found in so-called polymetallic nodules the size and shape of potatoes, which lie on the seabed at depths of 3,500–6,000 meters.⁹ Because the nodules reside primarily in international waters, reaching agreement on the circumstances under which they can be mined has long been considered a task for the global community of nations.

In 1982, when the vast majority of the world’s nations adopted, signed, and later ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), they included a section dedicated to the deep-sea mining of these minerals, which Part XI of UNCLOS calls “the common heritage of mankind.”¹⁰ UNCLOS specifies the conditions under which polymetallic nodules can be mined from the areas of the international seabed where they can be found: “All rights in the resources of the Area are vested in mankind as a whole, on whose behalf the Authority shall act. These resources are not subject to alienation. The minerals recovered from the Area, however, may only be alienated in accordance with this Part and the rules, regulations and procedures of the Authority.” UNCLOS continues: “No State or natural or juridical person shall claim, acquire or exercise rights with respect to the minerals recovered from the Area except in accordance with this Part. Otherwise, no such claim, acquisition or exercise of such rights shall be recognized.”¹¹

The authority referenced is the International Seabed Authority (ISA), which was created when UNCLOS came into force in 1994. With UNCLOS universally considered the constitution of the oceans, the ISA is ipso facto the global seabed regulator. (UNCLOS also encompasses elements of customary law.) Since the ISA’s inception, its member states—the countries that have ratified UNCLOS—have tried to reach an agreement governing deep-sea mining. Because the United States has not ratified UNCLOS, it is not a member of the ISA, though it has participated in the negotiations as an observer.¹²

Legal challenges

A key reason why the United States decided not to sign or ratify UNCLOS was opposition to Part XI. This issue aside, the United States has long abided by UNCLOS’s key tenets, not least because a functioning maritime order also benefits the United States. Indeed, the United States has always treated UNCLOS as a reflection of customary international law, save for Part XI. It is also worth highlighting that the part of UNCLOS regarding the settlement of disputes does not, and cannot, reflect customary international law as it lacks a “norm-creating” character, said Iva Parlov, an associate professor at BI Norwegian Business School who specializes in the law of the sea.

This means that if you, for example, are a party to UNCLOS, mandatory settlement of disputes applies to you. You can have certain reservations about it, but essentially another state can bring you to an international court or tribunal, as specified under UNCLOS. When you’re not a party to a certain treaty, you don’t face mandatory settlement of disputes mechanism under UNCLOS, even though that treaty can reflect customary international law, precisely because settlement of disputes is not part of the customary international norm. That means you can be bound by the customary international norm reflected in UNCLOS, but not by the settlement of disputes provisions.

—Iva Parlov

Because UNCLOS codifies and thus functions as customary international law, Trump’s executive order permitting deep-sea mining under US license—which runs contrary to UNCLOS—presents an obvious and immediate legal experiment. The US government can argue that, as a non-UNCLOS signatory, it is free to pursue actions that violate the convention. That argument, however, rests on whether the United States can convincingly present itself as a persistent objector to UNCLOS provisions that reflect customary international law. Under international law, a persistent objector is “a State which persistently objects to a rule of customary international law during the formative stages of that rule will not be bound by it when it becomes established.”¹³

“UNCLOS in general is considered a reflection of customary international law,” Parlov said. “This is clear when it comes to shipping, but deep-sea mining is more complicated. In general terms, the obligation not to unilaterally launch deep-seep mining may be considered customary international law. However, the United States had a problem with Part XI when UNCLOS was being negotiated. This was the main reason why the 1994 Implementation Agreement was adopted—i.e., to bring the United States on board.”¹⁴

Despite the Implementation Agreement, the United States did not ratify UNCLOS, but it did sign the Implementation Agreement and participated in ISA as an observer. That complicates the United States’ potential identification as a persistent objector. “Scholars are divided on this issue. Some US scholars argue that the US is a persistent objector, while others would say that’s not the case,” Parlov noted.¹⁵

To qualify as a persistent objector, the United States would need to demonstrate that it has indeed “persistently” objected to the specific parts of customary international law it wishes to violate—in this case, the prohibition of unilateral decisions and the treatment of seabed resources in international waters as the common heritage of mankind. “Part XI has been conceptualized as an ‘objective regime,’ which, under an orthodox understanding of international law, reaches non-States Parties through CIL [Customary International Law]. The US understood this when it voted for the 1970 Declaration of Principles Governing the Area,” notes Eduardo Cavalcanti de Mello Filho of the Centre for International Law at the National University of Singapore.¹⁶ International lawyer Coalter Lathrop observes that the United States gave up its opposition to the items included in Part XI when it consented to the 1994 Implementation Agreement, with President Bill Clinton writing to the Senate that “the Agreement meets the objections the United States and other industrialized nations previously expressed to Part XI.”¹⁷ James Kraska of the US Naval War College, in contrast, argues that the United States is a persistent objector. He argues that “Part XI of UNCLOS form customary international law, the United States has been a persistent objector to them and therefore is not restricted as a matter of customary international law” and that “the US signature on the 1994 Implementing Agreement does not make it sufficiently clear that the United States intended to be bound by it, especially in light of action under DSHMRA.”¹⁸ (The Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act from 1980 was “an interim measure to allow the United States to proceed with seabed mining activities in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) until an international regime was in place.”)¹⁹

In practice, the issue of whether the deep-sea mining order violates customary international law might matter little to US policymaking: The world’s most powerful nation has the liberty to act in ways not available to less powerful nations. In January 2026, Trump told New York Times reporters, “I don’t need international law.”²⁰

The wider challenge arises around the implications for UNCLOS and the global maritime order. Although nations’ and companies’ commitment to UNCLOS and other maritime treaties has never been perfect, China has openly engaged in violations through its maritime harassment and construction of artificial islands in waters in the South China Sea that are either disputed or officially belong to other countries. So has Russia, through its systematic use and support of the shadow fleet, as have the Houthis through their attacks on merchant shipping. The US executive order risks contributing to an environment in which other nations launch activities that harm the maritime order.

The executive order and any licenses granted also raise questions for any companies that might become involved. Because the mining would be conducted by private companies rather than the US government, the fact that they would be mining outside UNCLOS places them in a novel and challenging position. Although they would be licensed by the US government, their operations would also involve businesses based in other countries, including suppliers, engineering firms, and insurers. It is unclear whether, and how, such companies would be willing or able to work with US-based deep-sea miners, as by doing so they would be violating their own countries’ laws. “When it comes to insurers, it’s unlikely that any of the well-known major names in underwriting deep ocean equipment would be willing to cover it,” noted Stephen Hall, a leading oceanographer and former chief executive officer (CEO) of the Society for Underwater Technology.²¹ “Projects in the EEZ, yes, but not in international waters. They may be willing to insure, for example, an autonomous underwater vehicle or an inspection system, but underwriting the actual mining equipment itself would be a tough, tough call. And that’s going to be the expensive kit.” Hall is currently part of an international undertaking mapping the seafloor.

On January 26, 2026, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that it will map the ocean bed near American Samoa to find minerals for industry. “What an exciting time to know that within the next few years, under this administration, there will be companies pulling deep sea nodules out of the ocean and bringing them to the US,” the New York Times quoted Erik Noble, a NOAA deputy assistant secretary who oversees deep sea minerals, as saying.²²

Practical considerations

Over the years, the International Seabed Authority has granted exploration contracts to twenty-two companies and organizations from different countries.²³ The licenses allow the entities to mine allocated areas in international waters, though not for commercial purposes. Commercial mining will only be allowed once the ISA’s member states reach agreement on whether, and under what conditions, such mining will be permitted. The exploration contracts naturally allow exploratory mining, and some of the companies with such contracts have succeeded in bringing nodules from the seafloor to the surface. They include the Metals Company (TMC), a Canada-based firm that has exploration contracts through the governments of Nauru, Tonga, and Kiribati—South Pacific nations whose surrounding waters are also home to significant amounts of polymetallic nodules.²⁴ Days after the White House issued the executive order, TMC’s US arm applied for two US licenses.²⁵ The company plans to mine more than 1.6 billion wet tonnes of polymetallic nodules from which it will extract nickel, copper, cobalt, and manganese.²⁶ It has not announced plans to extract rare earths.

Commercial deep-sea mining might sound like a larger version of exploratory deep-sea mining, but it presents a host of additional complications. As discussed above, the first complication is the legal status of mining outside UNCLOS—including the challenges involved in getting insurance and equipment, as well as partnering with companies based in countries that adhere to UNCLOS. A perhaps even more significant hurdle involves the equipment transporting the nodules from the seabed to the surface. “The mining is easy,” Hall said. “The hard bit is getting the nodules you’ve mined from the bottom of the sea to the top.” That is because unlike oil and gas, which are extracted from the continental shelf (that is, at much shallower depths) and are soft, the deep-sea nodules are located at depths of several thousand meters and are, naturally, hard. “There have been a lot of people who’ve done small-scale experiments,” Hall explained. “Some firms have done really interesting work on using suction techniques to try to bring things up. Others have tried hoppers of various kinds or an elevator-type system where you’ve got underwater excavators loading up what almost looks like an underwater railway cart and then lifting the whole thing up on wires. There are different ways of doing it, but to do this on an industrial scale where trying to recover thousands of tonnes of material starts becoming quite tricky.”

The technique used, or envisaged, by most companies engaged in deep-sea mining exploration involves a massive pipe that transports the nodules. But, Hall warned, “transporting them to the surface is the point where you start running into complications. If, for example, your valve fails, tons of material suddenly fall back out of the pipe. You’re going to end up with a fallout plume. Then you’ve got to somehow scoop it all back up again and get it back into the pipe. It’s the same issue if you get breakages, cracks, and leaks in the pipeline. You’re going to have a lot of material loss. Depending on where the current is blowing at different depths, you could end up with a multi-directional fallout plume going into all points of the compass, depending on where the current is running at different depths of the water column.”

Such plumes of content being removed from the seabed and accidentally released in several other places would cause harm to the marine environment. In July 2025, NOAA, which is part of the US mining licensing regime, announced plans to accelerate the application process.²⁷ It is unclear how NOAA will assess the risk of environmental harm, but any such accidents bring the risk of lawsuits. (BP’s Deepwater Horizon accident in 2010 resulted in hundreds of lawsuits.)²⁸ “You won’t be able to state that any fallout is only going to go in one direction, because there might be a current going in completely the other direction a few thousand meters further up the water column,” Hall noted. “That means you might have to draw a big circle around the mining area and say ‘anywhere within this circle could potentially be impacted by the fallout from this mining activity.’ That opens you up to a lot of potential liabilities, a lot of litigation, a lot of insurance damages if anything goes wrong with your mining operation.”²⁹

To reduce the risk of such leaks during commercial mining (which would, at hundreds of millions of tonnes, involve far greater quantities than does exploratory mining), the pipe would need to be extremely sturdy. This would add considerable expense. Mining taking place outside UNCLOS would also raise the issue of whether a manufacturer willing to make the pipe could be found.

Any company operating under a US licence, outside UNCLOS, would also face a challenge finding certified engineers and other experts. Such experts are certified by different professional bodies, which might be reluctant to certify an engineer or other expert involved in a project that violates UNCLOS.

Ships taking the mined nodules to port would face related complications. Because the mining would violate UNCLOS, the ships would need to be owned and flagged in the United States. They would, however, still need to call at ports, and ports in countries that have ratified UNCLOS would likely be unwilling to accept ships operating in violation of UNCLOS. “You find out that the ship needs to refuel,” Hall said. “Where does it take on its fuel? Where can it do a crew change? You’ll probably find that the only nation the mothership was able to safely sail to and return to would actually be the US, because everybody else would just turn around and say, ‘As far as we’re concerned, you’re operating in, contravention of UNCLOS and the ISA. We’re not willing to open our facilities to your vessel.’ Instead of paying for only enough fuel to run from the nearest available port, you’re having to load up fuel and crew for a voyage lasting weeks or even months.” Ports in countries such as India and China regularly receive shadow vessels—which violate maritime rules—but that is because these ports benefit from receiving the cargo carried by the vessels. Though a few countries with limited maritime activities might service vessels involved in US-licensed deep-sea mining, it is unlikely that any major nations would do so, as doing so would undermine ISA and thus disadvantage efforts in which they themselves are involved.

Potential outcomes

The legal challenges related to deep-sea mining would naturally vanish if and when the ISA’s member states reach an agreement that allows commercial mining to begin. That is unlikely to occur in the near future, as forty countries including Mexico, Brazil, and most of the European Union have called for a moratorium on commercial mining.³⁰ These and other nations argue that far more research needs to be conducted into the potential implications of deep-sea mining on the marine ecosystem.

The technical challenges are also likely to remain. Many can be overcome, at considerable expense, especially if the ISA’s member states reach an agreement and mining in international waters becomes legal. Any operator would, however, need to weigh the expense involved in mining against the revenues the minerals could bring. That depends on what minerals the operator aimed to extract: copper, cobalt, nickel, and iron, which are relatively easy to extract but currently command low prices; or rare earths, which are extremely cumbersome and dirty to extract but command high prices and will likely become even more crucial to Western economies as China’s on-and-off ban on exports of them continues.³¹ To reduce their dependence on mining of both kinds of metals, from land and sea, countries including those in the European Union have also stepped up efforts to recycle metals currently in circulation.³² At the time of writing, TMC remains the only company that has submitted an application for a US license under the new executive order.

It seems the likely outcome of the executive order is, paradoxically, that it will result in little deep-sea mining but risks undermining the already precarious global maritime order.

About the author

Fellow

Elisabeth Braw

Senior Fellow

NATO Resilience & Society

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