It’s tempting to frame the final matchup of the FIFA Men’s World Cup between Spain and Argentina primarily as a battle of rival soccer superpowers. But there is a deeper story that connects these two countries. foreignpolicy.com/2026/07/17/s...

U.S. negotiators and leadership seem to have failed to understand the details of their own agreement, leading to conflicting efforts to control the Strait of Hormuz.

Thousands of blue helmets deployed in Lebanon will soon be on their way out. Whether anyone, or anything, can replace them is far less clear.

The central challenge for the United States and China is institutional rather than geopolitical.

With the U.S.-Iran conflict escalating once again, what will it take to bring the parties back to the negotiating table? Nate Swanson, a former director for Iran at the National Security Council, joins FP Live on July 20 to discuss next steps. Register here: foreignpolicy.com/live/nate-sw...

Trump said the United States is “looking into” whether Cuba is stockpiling Iranian drones and suggested that Washington could take action if that’s the case.

Taking away Hormuz as a trump card would leave the Iranians vulnerable and deprive them of their key leverage, argues Dennis Ross.

Latin America’s relative geopolitical neutrality and distance from the Iran conflict has made its oil more attractive to global buyers during the crisis.

Trump’s recent decision to lift secondary sanctions on Turkey will have wider consequences for Moscow’s strategic partners across the Indo-Pacific region.

The Trump administration wants it both ways: a world in which Washington continues calling the shots despite less commitment and involvement from the United States.

Andy Burnham is on the verge of taking power—and of being confronted with his own limitations. foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/30/a...

Only Germany has the potential to replace the United States as the military backbone and integrator of NATO. But today, the Bundeswehr is far from strong enough to play that role.

Relying on economic isolation alone to compel North Korea’s denuclearization is no longer a viable strategy in an era of intense geopolitical rivalry.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has been guided by a concern about safeguarding liberal democracy in the country’s immediate neighborhood.

Ukraine offers lessons for the Gulf in how to keep infrastructure alive in wartime.

Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that she plans to return to the country in December and voluntarily present herself in court.

Xi’s assimilationist policies have targeted education and culture as well as the language of instruction and expression.

The European Union is the latest set of countries to expand a sanctions regime on Sudan as famine and massacres mount amid the country’s four-year civil war.

Two hundred years on, the legacy of the largely forgotten Congress of Panama remains relevant as the region once again confronts pressures from Washington.

Kyiv is developing its own missile defense systems—and a new European coalition is ready to help.

Despite the optimism that recent strikes have fueled, analysts caution that Ukraine’s drones may not be enough to collapse Russia’s battlefield position.

The Trump administration’s strikes in the Caribbean are extrajudicial killings under international law and murder under domestic law, writes Charlie Trumbull.

Sunday saw the 10-year anniversary of the ruling against China’s nine-dash line. Fourteen countries reacted by reaffirming the ruling. China, predictably, reacted with saber-rattling.

AI companionship is already a substantial and rapidly growing trend in China, prompting Beijing to rein in the industry.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte are making fundamentally different arguments about the future of the trans-Atlantic alliance.

Ordinary Russians are struggling amidst mass fuel shortages, but the West should not expect collective political action.

The more Trump has doubled down on maximum pressure against Iran, the more Tehran has hardened its position over the strait.

The Gulf Cooperation Council states have found themselves on the front line of a war they neither wanted nor started.

World Brief: U.S. President Donald Trump scraps his toll idea for the Strait of Hormuz, Houthi rebels attack a major Saudi international airport, and the Chinese Communist Party expels a senior Politburo member. foreignpolicy.com/2026/07/14/t...

China has become increasingly unforgiving toward countries it believes have offended it, writes Deng Yuwen.

The Houthis’ entry into the war renews the threat to another vital shipping lane: the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, at the entrance to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.

It is unclear whether a renewed settlement would encompass the Kurdish regions of Iran and Iraq.

The “military-industrial complex” is too weak, argues columnist Matthew Kroenig. The most important U.S. defense spending priority may be revitalizing the defense industrial base.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is developing a working-class approach to foreign policy.

The carnage that Kyiv’s drone fleet has wreaked on Russia's oil assets is without precedent.

Western analysts have a bad habit of reading too much into Chinese behavior, over-indexing on the assumption that Beijing is trying to send messages with its every move, argues Decker Eveleth.

World Brief: U.S. President Donald Trump shifts his Strait of Hormuz strategy, Houthi rebels accuse Saudi Arabia of attacking Sanaa International Airport, and the European Union announces plans to impose age-based social media restrictions. foreignpolicy.com/2026/07/13/t...

Enlargement no longer merely extends the alliance’s security guarantees; it increasingly strengthens NATO itself.

As “Lula” by Andre Pagliarini recounts, Brazil’s three-term leader rose from humble roots as a factory worker to build a union movement and then a party.

What transpired in Ankara was a deliberate and mostly successful effort to ignore the obvious tensions, avoid big headlines, and kick the can down the road.

While Americans often indulge in nostalgia about a military that has remained above the fray of party politics, the historical reality is quite different.

A new book sets the record straight on what really went wrong in communist Albania.

This month, FP editors are reading novels about two communities—Cajuns in Louisiana and a Tamil immigrant family in Toronto—coping with the hardships of North American life.

A new book makes clear that there are no winners in the global game of scamming.

For film historian David Thomson, cinema is a window to an imagined reality, but also a mirror back to the audience.

Trump’s second term has forced a reckoning: Can the trans-Atlantic relationship be salvaged, or is the damage permanent? @nathalietocci.bsky.social and Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer will join FP Live on July 14 to debate the future of the relationship. Register here:

Sleuthing by a global community of military analysts is transforming our understanding of the biggest military modernization of any nation since World War II, write Sam Roggeveen and David Vallance.

Netanyahu is deeply troubled by Trump’s hints that he may sell F-35 fighter jets to Turkey.

The development of Ukraine’s decentralized defense ecosystem may represent a turn in the evolution of the military industrial base.

World Brief: Regional powers urge U.S. and Iranian forces to de-escalate, ousted Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina plans to return to Dhaka, and Spain battles one of its deadliest wildfires in history. foreignpolicy.com/2026/07/10/u...