The Politics of Shared Scarcity
Five weeks before the war against Iran began, the Pentagon published a strategy warning that the United States could find itself facing simultaneous major...
The Hormuz Trap: American Superiority and the Cost of Iranian Leverage
On 31 August, two supertankers carrying Saudi crude were struck by unknown projectiles within minutes of one another as they sailed out of the...
How the United States Is Responding to the CRINK Coordination Threat
There is a temptation to read current American foreign policy as incoherent. A transactional presidency dismantles alliances, antagonises partners, and lurches between confrontations without...
Who Brokers When the Forums Fail
The way states reach one another is changing. For most of the period since 1945, conflict diplomacy was organised institutionally, through seats, mandates and...
What Two Days in July Taught Europe About Its Own Defence
On 13 and 14 July, France put on a show of European strength. On the eve of the national holiday, in his last address...
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...