Who Is Allowed to Coordinate in the Middle East Crisis
In late May, with the talks to end the Iran war stalled, the US president threatened to blow up Oman if it did not,...
Who May “Toll” the Strait of Hormuz
On 20 June, Donald Trump posted that there would be no tolls in the Strait of Hormuz during the sixty-day ceasefire, and none after...
How Foreign Policy Became Portfolio Management
On 27 May the United States Treasury placed the Persian Gulf Strait Authority on its sanctions list, the body Iran had set up three...
Why Washington Would Buy Diego Garcia: America’s Strategic Calculus
In June 2026, reports surfaced that Washington had begun considering a plan to purchase the Chagos Islands outright from Mauritius, bypassing London and dealing...
The US-Iran Memorandum and the Coercion It Leaves in Place
On 17 June, at a dinner hosted by Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles, Donald Trump put his signature to a memorandum of...
Hegemony, Sovereignty, and the Price of the American Guarantee
The American attempt to end the war with Iran on its own terms has also been an attempt to rearrange the region around it....
What the Pacific Pivot Reveals About Europe
When Pete Hegseth told the Shangri-La Dialogue at the end of May that the United States would prioritize its “model allies,” moving the most...
What Washington Now Wants From Its Allies
On 30 May 2026, speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told an audience of mostly Asian defense officials...
Behave or Be Destroyed: Oman and the Vassal Clause in the American Guarantee
On 27 May, asked at a Cabinet meeting whether he would accept a short-term arrangement under which Iran and Oman would share control of...
How Unpredictability Is Rewriting the Atlantic Alliance
There is a point at which unpredictability ceases to function as a negotiating instrument and begins to function as noise. Donald Trump has not...