Foreign Affairs

To harness AI’s “potential to increase prosperity,” governments should work in concert, write Alex Imas, ‪@elerianm.bsky.social, and James Manyika. “Washington can start by forming a U.S.-led coalition built around trusted partners willing to accept common safety and security standards.”

“An Eisenkot victory is unlikely to change Israel’s foreign policy or approach to the Palestinians,” writes Aluf Benn. “Almost all of Israel’s Jewish political parties, Eisenkot’s included, are opposed to Palestinian statehood, not just Netanyahu’s Likud.”

“For those who still aspire to make the United States work toward John Foster Dulles’s goal of a ‘just and durable peace,’ the story of his high hopes and great disappointments, his vision and his blind spots, is best understood as a cautionary tale,” writes Beverly Gage.

“If U.S. pressure and negotiations cannot stop the energy war, the central question for Ukraine is whether its remarkable capacity to adapt can keep pace with Russian attacks,” write Tatiana Mitrova and Sergey Vakulenko.

“For war planners, faith in technological answers can obscure the most fundamental questions: Who kills, who dies, and who decides?” Read Mara Karlin on why leaders must avoid a fixation on new military technology:

“The jealousies of the traditional national security dilemma are now spilling over into the global economy.” Read @himself.bsky.social, @abenewman.bsky.social, and @yelingtan.bsky.social on the global race to weaponize economic chokepoints:

Despite their promises, neither candidate in Brazil’s presidential election will fix the country’s economic problems, argues Monica de Bolle. “A decisive turn toward illiberalism under Bolsonaro, however, would all but assure economic disaster.”

In a new episode of “The Foreign Affairs Interview,” Pratap Bhanu Mehta discusses India’s mass protests—and what they could mean for both Modi’s grip on power and the future of Indian democracy. Start listening here: https://bit.ly/4ibxgS9

“The United States does not need a defense apparatus capable of fighting everywhere all at once,” writes Barry Posen. “Instead, it would be much better off focusing its attention on a smaller set of issues and scaling down accordingly.”

“Even without active alliance building or coercion, China and the United States can make all other countries that seek access to advanced AI beholden to them,” write Niall Ferguson, Lisa Klaassen, and Eric Schmidt.

Eric Edelman, Franklin Miller, @ytouval.bsky.social, Janice Gross Stein, and Rose Gottemoeller debate whether nuclear deterrence has failed:

Adrian Woolridge’s “The Revolutionary Center” and Daron Acemoglu’s “What Happened to Liberal Democracy?” both argue that liberalism’s current challenges “come more from within than without.” Read Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s review:

“Without experienced leaders—leaders who understand the need to establish legitimacy, to build coalitions, to have clear and attainable goals, to commit to the task, to limit the duration of the fight to only what is necessary—all the power in the world will be irrelevant,” writes William McRaven.

Our November/December 2026 issue is now available online. Start reading here: https://bit.ly/4dJEqvy

The next U.S. administration should not abandon Trump’s foreign policy entirely, argues Charles Kupchan. “Instead of burying ‘America first,’ Trump’s successor should salvage its best elements and implement them more capably.”

“Rather than mourn the loss of its partner in Washington, Europe must find new ones built on the recognition of a different kind of mutual reliance: that most countries have little hope of resisting great-power coercion if they go it alone,” argue Claas Mertens and Ngaire Woods.

Washington’s adversaries are now “fine-tuning their cooperation to make their partners more resilient—and more dangerous to the United States—while limiting costs and risks,” write Andrea Kendall-Taylor and @rhfontaine.bsky.social.

What will happen next in America's war with Iran? For @foreignaffairs.com, I spoke with @alivaez.bsky.social and Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar to find out: www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/ira...

“With the United States pulling back, a new bargain in which Europe carries more of the nuclear burden and has more say in the choice to use these weapons is the only way to ensure transatlantic security,” argues @ivodaalder.bsky.social.

Across the Middle East, liberal values are becoming more attractive to ordinary people, writes Mansoor Moaddel. What explains this shift in public opinion? https://bit.ly/4zBAwgE

In a new episode of “The Foreign Affairs Interview,” Ali Vaez and Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar discuss the state of the war in Iran and examine U.S. and Iranian strategies. Start listening here: https://bit.ly/4zB5DZK

“Modi is in no danger of falling,” writes Pratap Bhanu Mehta. “But the Indian government faces a subtler danger: its writ no longer carries unequivocal sway.”

With the right kind of leverage, the United States and Europe could prompt Putin to accept an aerial cease-fire, writes Eric Ciaramella.

“China’s development as a space power should be a wake-up call for the United States,” write @kathleencurlee.bsky.social and @sambresnick.bsky.social. “The era of unassailable U.S. space power is ending, and Washington has no choice but to adapt.”

Although the “global aura of U.S. airpower” is declining, the United States should continue to prioritize air superiority, argues @justin-br0nk.bsky.social. “Airpower remains the most potent piece of the United States’ conventional forces.”

“So far, the lift from AI has been strong enough to shield the global economy from the geopolitical shocks of the last two years,” writes Ruchir Sharma. “The question is whether AI can sustain the world economy or is a bubble waiting to pop.”

“As robotics technology rapidly develops, China is betting that some of the most consequential advances in AI will hinge on mastery of the physical world.” Read Scott Singer and Pavlo Zvenyhorodskyi on how robots could shape the AI competition:

“The Iran war has not demonstrated that the United States no longer has interests in the Middle East; it has demonstrated, very painfully, that it does and that the way Washington has been pursuing them for a generation is unsustainable,” argues Philip Gordon.

As Trump antagonizes Canada and Mexico, he risks “destroying a precious geopolitical asset: a strong continental base from which Washington projects power,” writes Robert Zoellick.

“The United States may think that it has cornered Iran,” write Narges Bajoghli and @valinasr.bsky.social. “But Tehran disagrees. It does not see itself as on its heels or out of options. Instead, it believes that it has won great-power status.”

Washington should lift its ban on economic spying, argues David Cohen. “The United States could reap crucial benefits from sharing foreign trade secrets with select tech firms.”

Listen to the latest episode of “The Foreign Affairs Interview,” featuring Julianne Smith on the future of the war in Ukraine and what the transatlantic relationship might look like after Trump. https://bit.ly/4yG8DUF

“Ultimately, the Netanyahu government’s strategy has less to do with stabilizing Gaza or even disarming Hamas than with rendering the territory uninhabitable and ejecting its population,” writes @elgindy.bsky.social.

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“As long as each provocation costs Moscow nothing more than a downed drone, Putin has every reason to keep escalating,” writes Julianne Smith. How can NATO stop the Kremlin’s hybrid war in Europe?

Not all African countries will benefit from today’s investment boom—but those that attract sustained foreign capital “could see tremendous growth,” writes Jared Cohen.

To avoid greater instability, leaders in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa urgently need to “recognize how interconnected their security dilemmas have become,” writes Alan Boswell.

“The notion of military victory is a dangerous myth,” write Stephen Biddle, ‪@samwl.bsky.social, and Yuri Zhukov. “Terms and bargaining always matter: no war ends unless both sides choose to accept a settlement and stop.”

“State-backed propagandists do not have to choose between state media and fake accounts, or between covert personas and overt broadcasters,” write @noupside.bsky.social and @joshagoldstein.bsky.social. “They can use all of them together—and they are increasingly doing so.”

“The story of twenty-first-century China is not just one of demographic decline but also one of political paralysis—and what happens when those two intersect,” writes @carlminzner.bsky.social. “It is this combination that makes China’s future especially bleak.”

“Brazil is becoming the object of other countries’ security policies rather than the author of its own,” writes Matias Spektor. What explains Brazil’s waning influence?

According to a recent Arab Barometer survey, the majority of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank favor a negotiated settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, write Michael Robbins, Amaney Jamal, and Mark Tessler. https://bit.ly/47BA3Pm

“This is AI’s promise to every autocratic ruler: the ability to maintain control without delegating tasks to unreliable humans,” write @seva.bsky.social and Bruce Schneier.

Read Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar on Iran’s new approach to the United States, which aims to make maintaining a U.S. presence in the Middle East “so painful that Washington has no choice but to withdraw most of its troops.”

Listen to the latest episode of “The Foreign Affairs Interview,” featuring Kyle Chan and Helen Toner on how the AI competition is shaping the relationship between the United States and China. https://bit.ly/4z8BeBG

Congrats to @joshschwartz.bsky.social of @cmu.edu, winner of the 2026 PWH–@foreignaffairs.com Emerging Scholars Policy Prize! 🏆 Read more: https://perryworldhouse.upenn.edu/news-and-insight/joshua-schwartz-of-carnegie-mellon-wins-2026-emerging-scholars-policy-prize/

The international maritime order is collapsing, and “states are already making moves to control” the oceans, writes @mikealbertus.bsky.social. “The future could see states duking it out to secure their share of the seas.”

Russia’s principal target is now “the will of the Ukrainian people and of their partners,” writes Dmytro Kuleba. “Putin intends to break Ukrainian morale by breaking the country’s economy and external support for it.”

“Latin American countries can do little to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or cool the waters of the Pacific,” write Dan Restrepo and Ricardo Zuniga. “If they are to weather these crises, they will have to band together in ways that have eluded them in the past.”