Wars, diplomacy and power struggles happen in specific places, between specific governments, with specific histories behind them. This page brings that geography back in focus. Browse coverage by where it is happening. The argument is always global but the story always starts somewhere.
International institutions, great power competition, international law and the forces shaping world order. Pieces here cover the United Nations, the international courts, multilateral diplomacy and the systemic pressures on the rules-based order — stories that belong to no single geography but implicate all of them.
All in Global
The Trump administration’s approach to alliance management has a consistent logic: pay up or we withdraw. NATO members are being billed. Trade partners are being tariffed. The message is transactional and deliberate. What it is not is an alliance. It is a protection racket.
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the subcontinent's defining tensions. Coverage spans nuclear brinkmanship, cross-border conflict, water rights disputes, the politics of religious nationalism and the widening gap between democratic promise and democratic practice.
All in South Asia
Trump claimed credit for the ceasefire 80 times. Modi never contradicted him once. India sent seven multi-party parliamentary delegations — 59 members, 32 countries and the EU headquarters — to make one argument: Pakistan is a state sponsor of terrorism. Not one government said what India asked.
The US-Israel war on Iran, the Gaza war, ceasefire diplomacy and the region's interlocking conflicts. Coverage tracks the gap between what governments say and what they do — in Washington, Jerusalem, Tehran and the capitals that watch from a careful distance.
All in Middle East
Jonathan Pollard served 30 years in an American federal prison for selling the United States' most classified secrets to Israel. Israel granted him citizenship, lobbied for his release and sent Netanyahu when he landed. He announced he is running for the Knesset. Nobody in Washington said a word.
China's strategic ambitions, Taiwan's precarity, the Korean peninsula and the Indo-Pacific contest between Washington and Beijing. Coverage focuses on the decisions being made here that will shape the international order for decades.
All in East Asia
Japan has scrapped its postwar ban on arms exports. Framed as a response to North Korean missiles and Chinese naval expansion, the decision is also a generational shift in Japanese strategic culture — from the pacifism written into the constitution to the realism written by events.
NATO, Ukraine, ICC politics and the performance — and limits — of European solidarity. Coverage tracks transatlantic relations, the erosion of post-Cold War assumptions and what European governments do when their stated values meet hard choices.
All in Europe
Bulgaria’s President Radev has resisted NATO pressure to close Black Sea ports to alliance logistics. The stand is not pro-Russian — it is a calculation about vulnerability. Sofia sits between two wars and is betting neutrality offers more protection than alliance solidarity.
African institutions, African decisions and African consequences. Coverage focuses on the continent's own political dynamics — coups, regional organisations, sovereignty disputes and economic agency — rather than treating Africa as a backdrop for outside powers' ambitions.
All in Africa
Mali’s military junta expelled French forces, invited Wagner in and declared a new era of sovereignty. The Bamako attack this week killed dozens in the capital. The junta bet that Russian mercenaries would deliver security where French forces had failed. The bet has not paid off.
US foreign policy and its costs, Latin American politics and the distance between Washington's stated values and its conduct abroad. Coverage spans coercion disguised as diplomacy, democratic backsliding and the hemisphere's unresolved tensions with American power.
All in Americas
The United States opened talks with Cuba by first threatening economic strangulation. Washington framed it as leverage. Havana called it coercion. The distinction matters: negotiations conducted under explicit threat produce agreements that last only as long as the threat does.
