Recent Events

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  Can Operation Epic Fury Transform the Middle East for the Better?

  The Iranian regime is in free fall, with the leadership devastated by targeted strikes and different security forces appearing to act without coordination. American and Israeli forces have dominated Iran’s airspace and decimated large parts of its missile program. Operation Epic Fury is moving at a rapid pace with surprisingly few casualties, as the Islamic

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  Briefing: Russia, Scandinavia, and the Arctic

  The decisions by Finland and Sweden to join NATO, and their accession to the alliance, have been among the most consequential results of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Yet the impacts extend well beyond continental Europe and into the Arctic, which has also drawn growing attention from the Trump administration. On February 25, the Center for

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  President Paul Saunders in The Washington Post: How to Make NATO Great Again

  In a new op-ed for the Washington Post, Center President Paul Saunders and former Under Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky outline a roadmap to revitalize NATO by embracing a new era of burden sharing and industrial cooperation. Amidst the collapse of the old rules-based order, the authors argue that the alliance must adapt to the

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  U.S.-Saudi Arabia Civil Nuclear Agreement: U.S. Interests and Priorities

  In late 2025, the Trump administration notified the U.S. Congress that officials had concluded a so-called 123 agreement on civil nuclear cooperation with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The administration will reportedly present this agreement to the Congress in the near future. The Biden administration had earlier explored such an agreement within a wider effort

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  Iran: What Comes Next?

  Iran has recently seen one of the most significant waves of political protest since the fall of the Shah in 1979. The state repression unleashed to counter the protests appears to have resulted in thousands of deaths. While the intensity of the unrest seems to have ebbed for now, it seems to many observers that

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