More: premium
Owning the Weapon Is No Longer Enough: Starlink and the New Military Sovereignty
One Hundred Miles an Hour
On the night of 14 October, Ukraine's military satellite link stopped working above 100 miles an hour. Ground units using...
Rubio in Samarkand: Why Central Asia Now Treats US Sanctions as a Bargaining Chip
A Waiver Two Days Before Samarkand
Marco Rubio landed in Samarkand on Sunday for his first trip to Central Asia as secretary of state, with...
Below the Threshold: Why the Black Sea Is NATO’s Hardest Flank to Defend
In little more than a week, three merchant ships have gone to the bottom of the Black Sea inside the exclusive economic zones of...
The Bypass Is the Target: What This Week’s Gulf Escalation Reveals About Energy Security
On Tuesday, a Houthi missile strike set fire to part of Saudi Aramco's executive headquarters in Dhahran, the administrative heart of the kingdom's oil...
Sanctions as a Price Lever: What the Diesel Deal Reveals About the Transatlantic Split Over Ukraine
When Donald Trump announced on 9 October that Vladimir Putin would release Russian diesel onto world markets, it read at first like another episode...
The Black Sea Has Quietly Closed
Twenty-One Ships
In August, Ukraine's Black Sea ports recorded 21 ship calls, about 90% fewer than a year earlier. A month later, on 16 September,...
Ukraine’s Refinery Strikes Have Become a US Election Issue
"Don't Hit Refineries"
On 10 October, standing outside the White House, Donald Trump gave Ukraine a targeting instruction. "Don't hit refineries. There's plenty of targets,"...
Make or Break in Beijing: Can the EU Get Anything Real From China by October?
A Chemical Nobody Had Heard Of
On 3 October, five days before EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič landed in Beijing, China's commerce ministry opened an...
Bab al-Mandab: Saudi Arabia’s Hormuz Escape Route Under Fire
On 4 October, Rashad al-Alimi, head of Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council, went on television from Saudi Arabia to announce a campaign to retake the...
Ban Keun and the Quiet Expansion of China’s Overseas Military Bases
A Runway Next Door to Wing 23
In August, Chinese J-10C and J-11 fighters and an airborne early-warning aircraft spent eleven days flying out of...