From global think tanks
The analyses published here do not necessarily reflect the strategic thinking of The Global Eye
Today’s about: Afghanistan; Australia-US; Gaza; Maritime Security; Poland; Portugal; Russia; Russia-Ukraine; US; US-Asia; US-Gulf-Middle East; US-Iran; Women Security
Afghanistan
(UN News) Since September 2023, some three million Afghans have returned – many having been forcibly deported from neighbouring Pakistan and Iran. Often, they arrive exhausted, disoriented, and stripped of their belongings. “They return to a homeland that is dramatically unprepared to receive them,” warned Arafat Jamal, the UNHCR Representative in Afghanistan. UN agencies have stepped in as stabilising forces, providing crucial support at a time of immense pressure. At border crossings for example, returnees receive cash grants to help them build shelters or launch small businesses. – Afghanistan’s returnees at a crossroads between collapse and recovery | UN News
Australia – US
(John Quiggin – East Asia Forum) The re-elected Labor government of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese must confront the uncomfortable realities of Donald Trump’s second term as US president, which has fundamentally altered the US–Australia alliance. While both major parties avoided the issue during the 2025 federal election campaign, Trump’s disregard for treaties, punitive tariffs and potential cuts to intelligence sharing have exposed the alliance as increasingly unreliable. Washington’s politicisation of previously apolitical state institutions and widespread distrust of allies mean that Australia can no longer depend on the United States as a stable or trustworthy partner. – US–Australia alliance wanes under Washington’s whims | East Asia Forum
Gaza
(UN News) Aid is trickling into Gaza after nearly three months of blockade, but it remains far from enough to meet the soaring humanitarian needs, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said on Tuesday. He stressed that the assistance must be delivered swiftly and directly to those most in need. He told journalists in New York that UN humanitarians were sending flour, medicines, nutrition supplies and other basic items through the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing – a day after they managed to bring in baby formula and other nutrition supplies. “The first trucks of vital baby food are now inside Gaza after 11 weeks of total blockade, and it is urgent that we get that assistance distributed. We need much, much more to cross,” he said, speaking from New York. – UN life-saving aid allowed to trickle into Gaza as needs mount | UN News
Maritime Security
(UN News) Addressing a high-level debate of the Security Council, António Guterres said that oceans and seas are “sending a clear SOS,” as maritime spaces face escalating pressure from both traditional threats and new dangers – including piracy, armed robbery, trafficking, terrorism, cyberattacks and territorial disputes. “From time immemorial, maritime routes have bound the world together,” he said. “But maritime spaces are increasingly under strain…and without maritime security, there can be no global security.” – 90 days to economic collapse: UN and experts sound alarm over security at sea | UN News
Poland
(Anna Grzymała-Busse – Brookings) The future of democratic reform is at stake in the upcoming presidential elections in Poland. Depending on who wins, the new president is likely to either advance or stymie efforts to redress the earlier erosion of democracy. In the first round of voting on May 18, the front-runner was Rafał Trzaskowski, with 31.4% of the vote. Trzaskowski is the mayor of Warsaw, who is affiliated with the governing coalition of the center-right Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska, PO). His main rival, running very closely behind with 29.5% of the vote in the first round, is Karol Nawrocki, the head of the Institute of National Remembrance and an affiliate of the right-wing populist Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS) party, which governed Poland from 2015 to 2023. The decisive runoff will be held on June 1. – Poland’s elections will decide the future of its democracy
Portugal
(Andrew Bernard – Atlantic Council) Portugal is going through a historic rightward shift. Initial results from Sunday’s election have the center-right Democratic Alliance (AD) winning, but without an absolute majority, the center-left Socialist Party (PS) falling hard, and the far-right Chega party continuing its meteoric rise. This means that for the first time in Portuguese democratic history, there is not a “center majority” between the center-right and center-left. With new power balances in play, Portugal’s politics may get even messier—with political paralysis the new norm, preventing necessary reforms in key sectors such as housing, healthcare, and defense. This was the third election in three years for Portuguese voters. Among European Union (EU) nations, only Bulgaria has had more elections than Portugal over the past seven years—and election fatigue was evident in this campaign. What Portuguese voters really want is stability, but these results might make that dream harder to come by in the months and years ahead. – Portugal’s shift to the right is accelerating. What does that mean for its future? – Atlantic Council
Russia
(Justin Sherman – Atlantic Council) When the Russian government launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, many Western observers braced for digital impact—expecting Russian military and security forces to unleash all-out cyberattacks on Ukraine. Weeks before Moscow’s full-scale war began, Politico wrote that the “Russian invasion of Ukraine could redefine cyber warfare.” The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) worried that past Russian malware deployments, such as NotPetya and WannaCry, could find themselves mirrored in new wartime operations—where the impacts would spill quickly and globally across companies and infrastructure. Many other headlines and stories asked questions about how, exactly, Russia would use cyber operations in modern warfare to wreak havoc on Ukraine. Some of these questions were fair, others clearly leaned into the hype, and all were circulated online, in the press, and in the DC policy bubble ahead of that fateful February 24 invasion. As the Putin regime’s illegal war unfolded, however, it quickly belied these hypotheses and collapsed many Western assumptions about Russia’s cyber power. Russia didn’t deliver the expected cyber “kill strike” (instantly plummeting Ukraine into darkness). Ukrainian and NATO defenses (insofar as NATO has spent considerable time and energy to support Ukraine on cyber defense over the years) were sufficient to (mainly) withstand the most disruptive Russian cyber operations, compared at least to pre-February 2022 expectations. And Moscow showed serious incompetencies in coordinating cyber activities with battlefield kinetic operations. Flurries of operational activity, nonetheless, continue to this day from all parties involved in the war—as Russia remains a persistent and serious cyber threat to the United States, Ukraine, and the West. Russia’s continued cyber activity and major gaps between wartime cyber expectations and reality demand a Western rethink of years-old assumptions about Russia and cyber power—and of outdated ways of confronting the threats ahead. Russia is still very much a cyber threat. Patriotic hackers and state security agencies, cybercriminals and private military companies, and so on blend together with deliberate state decisions, Kremlin permissiveness, entrepreneurialism, competition, petty corruption, and incompetence to create the Russian cyber web that exists today. The multidirectional, murky, and dynamic nature of Russia’s cyber ecosystem—relying on a range of actors, with different incentives, with shifting relationships with the state and one another—is part of the reason that the Russian cyber threat is so complex. – Unpacking Russia’s cyber nesting doll – Atlantic Council
Russia – Ukraine
(John E. Herbst – Atlantic Council) Both the Kremlin and the White House statements on the two-hour May 19 phone call between presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin suggest that the results were meager—and Trump may be backing off some of his tough rhetoric on Putin. On Truth Social, Trump said: “Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War. The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of.”. For his part, Putin labeled the conversation “informative and helpful,” but he also said that the “root cause of the issue” must be addressed. That means Ukraine must agree to the draconian terms that Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky recently set down in Istanbul, such as the demilitarization of Ukraine and Ukrainian troop withdrawals from Ukrainian territory Russia has “annexed” but does not occupy. In short, this represents zero movement toward ending the fighting since the Ukraine-Russia talks last week in Istanbul. – Putin continues to thwart Trump’s goal of achieving a cease-fire – Atlantic Council
US
(Philip Luck – Center for Strategic & International Studies) On May 16, 2025, Moody’s downgraded the United States’ credit rating, making it the last major rating agency to strip the United States of its Aaa rating. This downgrade is more than a technical market event; it represents an emerging consensus that the United States’ mounting debt burden has shifted from an abstract risk to a strategic constraint on U.S. power and leadership. As borrowing costs rise and fiscal space narrows, the nexus between debt and national security becomes increasingly salient. As interest payments surpass defense spending, global growth slows, and demographic pressures accelerate, the United States faces difficult choices. Without reform, debt is projected to reach 156 percent of GDP by 2055, threatening to erode U.S. power in an era of intensifying great power competition and validating Adam Ferguson’s centuries-old warning that nations may mortgage their liberty through excessive borrowing. – Moody’s Downgrade Signals Deeper Risk: Is U.S. Debt Undermining Global Leadership?
US – Asia
(Daniel Byman – Center for Strategic & International Studies) The rise of China and its growing assertiveness present both a challenge and an opportunity for the United States to strengthen its alliances and partnerships across Asia. While countries like Japan, South Korea, India, and the Philippines are increasingly alarmed by Chinese actions, U.S. efforts to coordinate with these allies are hindered by misaligned interests, weak institutions, occasionally overbearing American leadership, and China’s countercoercive strategies. Problems such as poor intelligence sharing, burdensome arms sales procedures, and limited multinational strategic planning hinder overall cooperation. The United States should institute a White House–led prioritization of China coordination, implement reforms to better respect allied political and economic needs, expand regional institutions like AUKUS and the Quad, and strengthen personal ties among defense and intelligence officials. Implementing these steps is essential to enhancing deterrence and warfighting capability in a rapidly shifting Indo-Pacific security environment. – Improving Cooperation with Allies and Partners in Asia
US – Gulf – Middle East
(Soufan Center) During his trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last week, President Trump sought to reorient the U.S. role in the region from a security guarantor to an economic and technological partner. Trump’s commitment to economic engagement and non-intervention in the region contrasts sharply with that of Israel, which continues to focus on shifting the regional balance of power in its favor. Regional activists and experts question Trump’s repudiation of the longstanding U.S. effort to pressure regional leaders to uphold international standards of human rights practices. The trip’s key deliverable, a U.S. pledge to lift sanctions on post-Assad Syria, was broadly applauded, but there was no progress during or since the visit on ending the conflict in Gaza or ending Houthi missile attacks on Israel. – Challenges Persist as Trump Redefines the U.S. Role in the Middle East – The Soufan Center
US – Iran
(Shibley Telhami – Brookings) During his trip to the Middle East, President Donald Trump addressed one of the issues on the minds of his hosts: policy toward Iran. Certainly, the discussions went well beyond Iran’s nuclear program as Arab states, especially those in the Gulf region, worry at least as much about Iranian influence through proxies as they do about its nuclear program. As I argued a decade ago, while Arab states shared with Israel concerns about growing Iranian influence, their priorities differed as Israel focused on a perceived Iranian nuclear threat, while Arabs worried more about Iran’s conventional and political capabilities. – Trump made clear he wants a deal with Iran. Most Americans agree.
Women Security
(UN News) The UN’s reproductive health agency, UNFPA, has been working to assess the impact of recent steep funding cuts, warning that from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Haiti, Sudan and beyond, a lack of funding for reproductive care or treatment to tackle gender-based violence, is causing untold suffering. Millions of them are already experiencing the horrors of war, climate change and natural disasters. – ‘Keep the lights on’ for women and girls caught up in crisis | UN News
