Back in March, Saudi Arabia reportedly offered to join the Abraham Accords in exchange for the transfer of U.S. civil nuclear technology, among other things. Washington is reluctant to do so, as that technology could be used to develop nuclear weapons. But a nuclear-armed Saudi Arabia should not be particularly concerning for Washington.
The need for European states to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels has never seemed greater, and opinion polls indicate firm support for the measures needed to do so. Yet growing signs of disquiet among some voters over the tradeoffs needed to make green policies work signals that public support cannot be taken for granted.
FIFA has gone to great lengths to keep soccer and politics separate, and in the past has applied the same apolitical facade to both the men’s and women’s game. In recent years, though, and especially following the 2019 edition of the tournament, the Women’s World Cup has become an event in which politics is a part of its brand.
With NATO membership for Kyiv off the table in the immediate term, some are calling for an alternative mechanism dubbed the “Israel Model,” in which the U.S. would provide Ukraine with the kind of security it provides Israel so it can defend itself after the war ends. But there are several reasons why that approach is inappropriate.
Some observers are worried that the U.S. decision to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine will damage the international norm against their use. But while there are many other good reasons to be concerned, the reputational impact of this decision will likely fall on the parties themselves for violating the norm, not on the norm itself.
This week’s NATO summit was an opportunity for the alliance to take a clearer position on its own role in the war in Ukraine, while also setting the direction for NATO’s future evolution. But rather than paving the way forward, the summit indicated that the alliance members are only ready for more of the same.
There is a general consensus in Washington that the Abraham Accords—the series of normalization agreements between Israel and Arab countries launched in 2020—have been an overwhelming success and that expanding them to include Saudi Arabia will only increase their benefits. That might be an overly rosy assessment.
When news of Yevgeny Prigozhin and Wagner Group’s march to Moscow broke, there was palpable shock among EU and U.S. officials. The extent to which Western governments were blindsided by a crisis that had been building for months was a reminder of how institutions in the U.K., EU and U.S. struggle to manage geopolitical risk.
The true danger for NATO is not the emergence of European defense capacity, but the lack of it. A rebalanced alliance will require a new paradigm based on closer NATO-EU cooperation with a stronger European pillar within NATO. That will only happen if Europe adopts, and the U.S. supports, a more ambitious European defense agenda.
The U.S.-China rivalry will shape the course of international politics in the 21st century. Hence, any insights that can be gleaned on the state of bilateral relations from the meeting two weeks ago between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and President Xi Jinping are worth evaluating. And the insights to be gleaned are encouraging.