The bombs are falling on Tehran, Natanz, and Fordow. Missiles threaten oil tankers trying to navigate the Hormuz Strait. The headlines tout US and Israel’s deadly sorties and missile attacks while Iran retaliates. But when the dust settles, the country likely to win the war will be one that has not joined the fight: China.
On the morning of February 28, 2026, America went to war. Not in the way it has gone to war in the modern era—with congressional authorization, lengthy intelligence briefings, and months of public debate—but with an eight-minute video posted on Truth Social. Bombs fell on Iran before most Americans had finished their morning coffee.
The US, in coordination with Israel, has launched a major military operation against Iran, striking multiple targets across the country. President Trump on Saturday evening announced that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had been killed in the course of the operation — a claim formally confirmed by Iranian authorities on Sunday morning.
The updated U.S. National Defense Strategy (NDS) marks the most consequential reordering of U.S. commitments since the late Cold War. It replaces the implicit post-1945 contract with a conditional model in which Washington concentrates on homeland security, hemispheric control, and the Indo-Pacific as the primary external theater.
The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling striking down President Trump’s tariffs goes beyond dismantling a central pillar of the administration’s trade policy. It also significantly constrains the executive branch’s ability to impose tariffs unilaterally, shifts authority in tariff decision-making back to Congress and alters the strategic calculus of U.S. economic statecraft.
Since assuming office in January 2025, President Donald Trump has attempted to fulfill his campaign promise to end the Russia–Ukraine war. While the administration has made significant progress toward a settlement, negotiations remain stalled over the Donbas region and the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
The capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro by U.S. special forces has altered Kim Jong Un’s strategic calculus by collapsing the distinction between wartime and peacetime threats to regime survival. For Pyongyang, the nuclear deterrent no longer functions as a bargaining chip, but rather as a core instrument of regime survival.
The Ukrainian political and military system stands at a critical juncture, as rival factions risk deepening internal divisions. Recent developments suggest that President Zelensky’s appointment of former military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov as chief of staff was not merely an administrative change. It marked the beginning of a subtle but consequential redistribution of power.
NATO’s role in the Arctic has undergone a dramatic transformation, shifting from a Norwegian policy of “High North, Low Tension”—designed to promote regional stability and cooperation with Russia after the Cold War—to one of strategic necessity. Yet NATO’s expanding political commitments have outpaced its actual capacity to sustain forces in extreme latitudes.
As US President Trump endeavors to form a global coalition to reopen the Strait of Hormuz amid the ongoing escalation, the US is mulling the seizure of Iran’s oil infrastructure on Kharg Island if disruption to tanker traffic continues, a scenario requiring US boots on the ground. So, will the island ignite the region?
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