Hal Brands

The world is watching to see whether the Iran war ends soon with mutual de-escalation, or drags on with further damage to Iran, the Persian Gulf and a global economy that depends on that region’s oil.

The war in the Persian Gulf is crystallizing crucial strategic trends, from the weaponization of maritime chokepoints to the use of AI as a vital military tool. Perhaps most important, it demonstrates how the spread of powerful, accurate missiles is changing warfare around the globe. The fight between Iran and its enemies will end at some point. But the age of the missile war has arrived.

Trump has replaced rules with muscle, alliances with transactionalism and stability with wrath. That’s not entirely bad.

On a recent trip, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk gushed over relations with Warsaw’s “most important ally after the United States.” He wasn’t talking about Germany, the UK or any other European power. He was visiting South Korea, a country that is thousands of miles from Poland yet has become vital to arming Warsaw against the Russian threat.

The war in the Persian Gulf has been jarring for nearly all countries, not least America’s closest friends. The conflict has brought economic fallout for allies and partners, and raised painful questions about their relationships with the US.

The Chinese leader knows what he wants next in the rivalry. Does the US president?

How close did the world come to nuclear war in the autumn of 2022? At the time, officials in President Joe Biden’s administration were seriously alarmed that Russian leader Vladimir Putin might use nuclear weapons to stave off defeat in Ukraine. Biden himself invoked the dangers of the Cuban Missile Crisis; years later, former administration officials are offering their own accounts of what happened. Those accounts can’t conclusively answer whether Putin was really on the verge of going nuclear.

You won’t get a better snapshot of a world in transition than two recent great-power summits in Beijing. Last week, Chinese leader Xi Jinping hosted US President Donald Trump for a meeting heavy on atmospherics and light on outcomes. This week, he welcomed Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin to reaffirm the “back to back” strategic partnership through which Moscow and Beijing take on the US-led world.

The world may be transfixed by the US-Iran drama, but countries in the Western Pacific are also closely watching something else: the saga of an arms deal involving Taiwan. The fate of a record-breaking US weapons deal with Taipei has become a test of whether President Donald Trump can pursue strong, competitive policies even while he engages diplomatically with China — or whether he is sliding toward a disastrous posture of accommodation.

Staying ahead of China requires pioneering technology — and stopping Chinese AI from conquering the world.