By Robbin Laird The numbers tell a stark story. In early 2026, the United Kingdom fields a Royal Navy whose surface combatant force has shrunk faster than its modernization programs can backfill, while Iran has assembled a numerically larger and, in some respects, more dynamically evolving regional fleet. This is…
By Pasquale Preziosa In June 2026, the world watched with concern as the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz unfolded. Once again, a stretch of sea just a few dozen kilometers wide proved capable of influencing energy markets, military strategies, and political decisions of powers thousands of kilometers away. During…
By Robbin Laird and Kenneth Maxwell Brexit was sold, in significant part, as a restoration of sovereign control over Britain’s borders. By leaving the European Union, the United Kingdom would regain the ability to regulate migration flows, end free movement, and reassert national authority over who enters the country. Yet…
By Robert Czulda The period of sympathy and mutual understanding between Poland and Ukraine has effectively ended. The authorities in Kyiv have once again taken a provocative step, antagonizing their key strategic partner. By mid-2026, what seemed possible just a few years ago feels like distant history. Following the 2022…
By Pierre Tran Paris – French and German ministers are due to meet this summer, providing a timely target for concluding a dispute over a European project for a new generation fighter, a senior German government official said May 29. “I hope that we will come to a conclusion this…
By Kenneth Maxwell In a week when President Donald J. Trump visits President Xi Jinping in Beijing, the war between Iran and the U.S. (and Israel) is in a precarious truce with the Strait of Hormuz remaining closed to the vessels that keep many of the world’s economies running, while…
Brazil was supposed to be one of the cleaner chapters in the story of China’s global industrial rise. BYD, the Shenzhen-based electric vehicle giant that has become a symbol of Beijing’s technological ambitions, was not arriving as a resource extractor or a commodity trader. It was coming as a manufacturer—bringing…
When a former NATO secretary general warns that Britain is “underprepared, underinsured, under attack” and “not safe,” it is more than a routine shot in the Westminster blame game. Lord George Robertson’s recent intervention goes to the heart of the United Kingdom’s war‑fighting credibility in an era of state‑on‑state confrontation.…
