When Xi Jinping departed Washington at the end of September, the verdict was already plain. Another carefully choreographed encounter produced a short extension of the trade truce, a modest $30 billion reciprocal tariff arrangement on non-sensitive goods, some coal purchases, an AI dialogue, and the familiar language of “constructive strategic stability.” Ceremonial pomp, pandas, and mutual professions of personal friendship filled the space where real structural progress was absent. The outcome matched what I had advised readers to expect in the runup—namely, that the deeper frictions,...

Barely four years after the Pretoria Agreement formally ended one of the deadliest wars of the twenty-first century, large-scale fighting has returned to Ethiopia. In late September the principal anti-government force, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), seized key airports in Mekelle, Axum, and Shire, launched attacks into Afar and Amhara, and declared itself once again at war with the federal government in Addis Ababa. It did so days after joining six other armed groups in the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival, which aims to remove Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. By early...

Barely four years after the Pretoria Agreement formally ended one of the deadliest wars of the twenty-first century, serious fighting has returned to northern Ethiopia. As we begin October, Tigrayan forces have seized the airports at Mekelle, Aksum, and Shire, launched coordinated attacks into neighboring Afar and Amhara regions, and declared themselves once again in a state of full-blown war with the federal government in Addis Ababa. The Ethiopian military responded with drone strikes, artillery, and claims to have killed or captured hundreds of attackers. Flights were suspended,...

When President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Beijing this past May, the outcome was largely as anticipated: ceremonial pomp, a handful of commercial commitments, rhetorical emphasis on “stability,” and little progress on the structural frictions that actually define the relationship. Trump invited Xi for a reciprocal state visit, and that visit is now underway. Xi arrived in the Washington area on Wednesday evening for a tightly choreographed program of White House ceremonies, closed-door talks, a state dinner, and a brief National Archives tour before departing...

The 55th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting, held in Koror, Palau, from August 31 to September 3, offered a revealing window into the limits of an increasingly ambitious external security agenda in the Pacific. The immediate subject was Australia’s expanding network of defense and security arrangements. The larger question, however, was what these arrangements mean as Washington intensifies its strategic competition with Beijing—and whether Australia is becoming an increasingly important vehicle for extending that competition into the Pacific. The Forum’s Leaders’ Communiqué and...

It must be said at the outset that what follows is necessarily speculative. There is no evidence that Washington has decided to back Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), much less that such a policy shift is imminent. But enough developments involving the RSF, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Somaliland, and the Red Sea make the possibility worth considering. The United States entered Sudan’s civil war with a fairly straightforward public position: both sides were responsible for atrocities, neither should win militarily, and the war should end through negotiation. Washington has sanctioned...

For decades, one of the keys to Washington’s power has been its ability to use favorably inclined allies as force multipliers. Now, facing its first peer competitor in generations, Washington has been busily alienating pretty much everyone it can. This alienation can be measured, and the results are striking. Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes surveys track favorable views of the United States and China across dozens of countries. In 2023, the United States still held a clear edge. A median of about 59% of respondents across surveyed nations viewed America favorably, compared with just...

While the tenor of U.S.-China relations cooled somewhat from the hysteria of Donald Trump's first term and the Joe Biden years, recent events have made clear how thin that veneer of stability remains. President Trump’s May 2026 state visit to Beijing and the planned September 24 White House meeting with Xi Jinping briefly suggested a shift toward “strategic stability.” Reciprocal visits returned to the agenda, and open talk of full decoupling subsided. That moment already looks precarious. This week the Trump administration expanded its Iran-related sanctions campaign—“Operation Economic...