The I2U2 — that much-heralded “West Asian Quad” of India, Israel, the UAE, and the United States — is gathering dust. Launched with fanfare in July 2022 and billed as a transformative framework for regional integration, it has produced little of consequence since its inaugural summit. Progress stalled through 2024, and its April 2025 revival […]

The back-to-back summits in Beijing revealed not only China’s growing diplomatic confidence but also the emergence of a deeper Sino-Russian axis that increasingly challenges the foundations of the US-led global order. Donald Trump flew home from Beijing with Boeing orders and a framework label. Forty-eight hours later, Vladimir Putin touched down at the same airport, […]

The Middle East is not being remade; it is being contested widely and publicly. The emerging alignment between Israel and the United Arab Emirates appears, at first glance, to signal a decisive geopolitical shift. Yet beneath the optics of normalization and wartime cooperation lies a more complex struggle: not over whether the region will change, […]

New U.S. sanctions against Chinese companies just before Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing highlight the growing tendency to use economic pressure as a primary instrument of American diplomacy. Donald Trump plans to visit China from May 13 to 15. His baggage includes a load of sanctions instead of concessions. Days before his visit to China, […]