Responsible Statecraft

In a renewed diplomatic drive, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner travelled to Moscow this weekend to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. They then traveled to Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said the pair presented him with some "worthwhile ideas."Yet, as the war drags closer to five full years of fighting, chances of success at the negotiating table appear slim. Don’t hold your breath for an end to the Ukraine war before the midterms in November. More likely, Pu

Twenty-five years ago, 19 hijackers took control of four American airliners and crashed them into symbols of American power, killing upwards of 3000 people. The American population watched the events unfold in real time. It was an emotionally jarring event that changed the country. In some respects, the events of 9/11 needed no explanation. The destruction of the World Trade Center buildings and the massive, and random, loss of life were horrifying to all. The meaning of the attacks, however – a

From the start, the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has been a story of unintended consequences. Contrary to President Donald Trump’s hopes for a quick victory, the conflict has morphed into a sustained crisis, one that has driven up oil prices, driven down tourism in the Middle East, and reshaped the region’s geopolitical map.Now, a new unintended consequence has emerged: the return of piracy to Somalia’s coasts. This shift, which comes after a decade of quiet, threatens some of the world’s most impor

This year’s anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks should serve as another reminder that the criminal prosecution of the accused plotters remains in limbo. One of the biggest cases in U.S. history, and potentially one of its most consequential, has continued to unfold in something of a vacuum at the U.S. Navy base on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, against five long-held detainees. Ten additional war-on-terror detainees remain on the base; two of them also have cases in the military commissi

Legislative elections in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt have ended with a huge victory for the nationalist-populist Alternative for Germany (AfD). The final results have AfD with just under 44% percent of the vote and the incumbent Christian Democrats (CDU) at just over 17%, followed by the Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and the Left (Linke) at about 9% each. The left-populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) received 5.3% and won five seats. The turnout was above 75%.Although the pop

A Truth Social post in which President Donald Trump declared that there are "too many non-working holidays in America” and demanded that “it must change,” went viral on X this week, with analysts — incorrectly — labeling the post Trump’s 2026 “Labor Day message” to Americans. The post was actually written on June 19, 2025, more than a year earlier, yet its content and the economic conditions it describes have changed little enough in the interim that the mis-dating is almost irrelevant.As the Wa

In his first non-Congressional public speech since his Republican primary loss to Ed Gallrhein, Thomas Massie brought some of the loudest energy to the Ron Paul Institute’s Washington conference on Saturday. He was full of jokes and promise for the future.Massie said he was not interested in mourning the defeat and declared that he was, in a way, happy he had lost. When addressing what he planned to do next, he joked that “you could scan my head” for an answer and still come up empty because he

According to new data quietly added to the Pentagon's casualty base, there were 36 new injuries in the last two weeks, mostly Army, as fighting renewed between the United States and Iran in the Persian Gulf. This brings the total wounded count to 794 and 18 killed since the war began on Feb. 28.The White House, including Vice President JD Vance just this week, likes to say this isn't "a war" but a "operation" but for the soldiers, sailors, and airmen who have been killed and injured, these seman

On August 19, 2026, President Donald Trump announced that “ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences . . . It all needs to stop NOW. . . This will be an ECONOMIC D-DAY.”Far from crippling Iran’s “ability to project terror worldwide,” or ensuring that “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon,” the White House’s new measures will not force Iran’s capitulat

U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will reportedly travel to Moscow and Kyiv this weekend in an effort to revive negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. It will mark the diplomatic duo’s first trip to Kyiv since President Donald Trump’s return to office, and follows CIA director John Ratcliffe’s visit to Moscow last week.“It is unclear whether the Americans are bringing new proposals to the two presidents, or are pushing them to close the gap on the remaining issues, which include who w

This article, which originally appeared in Arab Digest, is republished with permission.Last week, Syria’s Kurds entered a new stage in their struggle for political recognition. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) formally announced their dissolution as part of a complicated process of integration into the Syrian state. Shortly after the announcement, interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa appointed SDF commander Mazlum Abdi as a presidential adviser.After more than a decade as a major mili

Tucked away in the funding package passed by Congress this week is a provision that extends the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) through the end of 2028.The two-year extension of AGOA — a preferential trade deal that offers eligible sub-Saharan countries duty-free access to the U.S. market for thousands of goods — answers the White House’s request that the agreement be extended on a short-term basis while negotiations take place over its long-term future. Originally signed into law by P

The House passed legislation Thursday that would put federal funding at risk for universities that participate in certain boycotts of Israel, despite warnings from critics that the measure could chill political expression and effectively extend anti-boycott protections to Israeli settlements in occupied territories.The Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act, introduced by Reps. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) and Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), would bar colleges that receive federal funds from engaging in

This summer the Pentagon handed NATO members a questionnaire asking whether they support in part, “U.S. foreign policy priorities.” Dubbed a “loyalty test” in the press, it was seen by many Europeans as the most recent sign that the alliance is coming apart because of American petulance. Yet what is actually happening is that the U.S. is putting stress on an inherently flawed and now exhausted form of alliance politics. The roots of the present discord were planted not in the 2024 reelection of

See an insect crawling in the corner of the room? It might be a surveillance robot, thanks to research at Carnegie Mellon University to develop cockroach-like robots with, and for, the Israeli military.Robot cockroaches, “terror-network” mapping, and rapid missile guidance are just three examples of at least 70 research projects U.S. universities have conducted on behalf of the Israeli Ministry of Defense (IMoD). Over a thousand pages of internal university and U.S./Israeli military documents re

The Bunker appears originally at the Project on Government Oversight and is republished here with permission.President Trump designs aircraft carriers the way kids build paper airplanes. It’s just that his cost billions and can inflict far more pain than paper cuts. Nearly a decade ago, he concluded that the Navy’s plan to help launch planes from aircraft carriers using new-fangled electromagnetic-force catapults instead of the tried-and-true steam-powered versions was stupid … apparently based

A final deal between the United States and Iran is slipping further out of reach. Since the Memorandum of Understanding collapsed in July, the prospects for reviving it have deteriorated by the day. While Tehran publicly demands a return to the MOU, Trump’s current position is that even if Iran reopened the Strait of Hormuz, he would neither return to the agreement nor lift the blockade on Iran. And even in the unlikely event that he did, the MOU could not come back into force as long as Israel

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned this week, raising a flurry of questions about whether his departure is part of a larger political reordering that has pushed skeptics of President Donald Trump’s war policies to the margins.A long-time friend of Vice President JD Vance, Driscoll drew widespread praise for his efforts to modernize the Army. But he has clashed with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, particularly over the latter’s firing of numerous senior military officials, including Army and

Israeli settlers attacked an NBC News crew in the village of Jalud over the weekend, injuring the network’s correspondent, Matt Bradley, as well as two other crew members and Aida Ahmed Abdullah, the Palestinian woman they were interviewing. “They jumped out, beat us, then jumped back in the car,” Bradley, who was treated at a clinic, said of the incident. Abdullah was hospitalized following the attack. This is the latest episode in a surge of settler violence throughout the occupied West Bank,

President Donald Trump announced Friday that the United States “has just entered into an Agreement” with Venezuela covering more than 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, secured “at no cost to the American Taxpayer.” He then proceeded to name Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez as the chief negotiators. The White House then released a fact sheet late Monday evening, without the underlying legal text. It offers one