Sources: Atlantic Council; Chatham House; Council on Foreign Relations; Crisis Group; Jamestown Foundation; Lawfare; RUSI
Georgia – Azerbaijan – Iran
(Beka Chedia – The Jamestown Foundation) On June 22–24, Tasu’a commemorations in Marneuli and Tbilisi—featuring imagery of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei—sparked a political controversy in Georgia, with the opposition warning of an Iranian influence network in Kvemo Kartli and the government dismissing the claims as religious incitement. Since independence, Georgia’s ethnic Azerbaijani community, now 268,832 people, up 15.4 percent since 2014, has been bound to Baku by ethnic, cultural, and linguistic ties, a dynamic that reinforced Georgia–Azerbaijan cooperation. Iran’s growing use of shared Shia identity as an instrument of soft power now threatens to displace that traditional influence. The contest carries risks for both capitals, including the erosion of Baku’s cultural influence among Georgian Azerbaijanis, and a danger for Tbilisi that the politicization of a long-integrated community turns religious practice into a domestic fault line. – Iran Contests Baku’s Influence Over Georgia’s Shia Community – Jamestown
Mexico – Sinaloa – US
(Crisis Group) Rivalry between two factions of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the world’s largest drug trafficking groups, has sparked vicious fighting since 2024. The Mexican military has curbed the worst violence in Sinaloa’s state capital, but the dispute has shifted to rural areas and killings continue. President Claudia Sheinbaum is battling to deter U.S. military intervention in Mexico by clamping down on organised crime, while also seeking to quell the country’s chronic violence. But preserving strong ties with Washington risks derailing plans to build a more effective security apparatus and puts strain on her political coalition. U.S. pressure has forced Sheinbaum into concessions, but it could also help her overcome political resistance to taking on the powerful networks sustaining organised crime. To curb violence in Sinaloa and elsewhere, Mexico should strengthen intelligence gathering and prosecution of those supporting illegal groups, prevent criminal recruitment and protect victims. – Sinaloa’s War of the Splinters: Fighting Crime in Mexico under U.S. Threat | International Crisis Group
NATO
(Sharon Hudson-Dean – Chatham House) This week’s NATO summit in Ankara takes place at a pivotal moment in the alliance’s evolution – and for US–Europe relations. In Ankara, the agenda will rightly focus on defence spending targets and score cards for national budget commitments and appropriations. There will be an accounting of who has signed (and paid for) big defence contracts and who is stuck at the political rhetoric stage. Like the businessman he is, US President Donald Trump will want to see concrete numbers from allies to prove there is action behind the 2025 Hague summit’s target of 5 per cent GDP spending on defence. If last year’s summit was about setting ambitious new targets, this summit will be about delivering on those promises. Beyond delivering on commitments, NATO faces another key challenge. Recent announcements of reduced US defence presence combined with President Trump’s disparaging rhetoric on NATO and threats to take Greenland has not only damaged political relations but has also affected European public opinion on US leadership and reliability. This erosion of trust undoubtedly poses a challenge but is also an opportunity for European governments to build public understanding of and support for the funding and process changes needed to meet ambitious defence goals. – NATO summit is Europe’s moment to turn crisis into opportunity | Chatham House – International Affairs Think Tank
(Matthew Kroenig and Torrey Taussig – Atlantic Council) NATO’s Ankara summit comes amid growing tensions between the United States and its European and Canadian allies. Allies can strengthen the Alliance by continuing to increase defense spending, accelerating joint capability development, and sustaining their support for Ukraine. European leaders should focus on demonstrating burden sharing and maintaining transatlantic unity to keep NATO strong and the summit on track. – NATO can emerge from the Ankara summit stronger. Here’s how. – Atlantic Council
Russia
(Paul Globe – The Jamestown Foundation) The death of Sergei Ivanov, a longtime Russian official and close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, at 73, has focused new attention on Putin’s age and the certainty that at some point he too will pass from the scene. At the same time, it called attention to the aging of the entire Putin elite and the likelihood that there will be a parade of funerals among it in the near future, much as happened between the death of Soviet Leader Leonid Brezhnev and the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev. That historical comparison, in turn, has intensified speculation that Russia may change radically after Putin leaves the scene, something that he and his team want to prevent but that many others hope to see happen. – Putin’s Aging Inner Circle Resembles Brezhnev Elite – Jamestown
Russia – Belarus
(Dmitry Bolkunets – The Jamestown Foundation) Russia and Belarus conducted joint nuclear exercises in May involving Belarusian missile units and aircraft training to receive, handle, and prepare Russian tactical nuclear weapons, signaling deeper integration of Belarus into Moscow’s nuclear command structure. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Belarus has increasingly functioned as a Russian military and hybrid operations staging ground, shifting the line of strategic confrontation to NATO’s eastern borders. Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s dependence on Moscow after the 2020 protests has reduced Minsk’s defense and foreign policy autonomy. Belarus’s official abandonment of a non-nuclear status in 2022 and the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear warheads and advanced delivery systems on Belarusian territory in 2023 have dismantled the post-Soviet security architecture, establishing a permanent platform for Russian nuclear blackmail against NATO. Any future European security arrangements that fail to address Belarus’s military status will leave a critical source of instability unresolved. Belarus’ military sovereignty and demilitarization should be a central issue on the future diplomatic agendas. – Nuclear Integration With Russia Eroding Belarusian Sovereignty – Jamestown
Russia – Syria
(Crisis Group) As Syria’s new leadership has transformed the country’s international relations, it has maintained ties with Russia, albeit at a lower level than the previous government. To many observers, this choice has been surprising. Moscow was a key supporter of the former regime led by Bashar al-Assad – indeed, he has taken refuge in Russia – and Russian President Vladimir Putin wielded tremendous influence in Syria during its fourteen-year civil war. Under President Ahmad al-Sharaa, Syria has severed ties to the former regime’s other main backers – Iran and Hizbollah – while quickly establishing positive relations with Türkiye, the Arab Gulf states, the U.S. and Europe. Yet even amid this dramatic geopolitical pivot, Syria has retained constructive links with Russia: al-Sharaa has already visited Putin in Moscow twice (in October 2025 and January 2026) and has thus far allowed Russia to keep its main military bases – the Tartous naval facility and the Hmeimim air base – on Syria’s Mediterranean coast. Several factors inform Damascus’s calculations: Russia’s shift in approach during the rebel offensive that overthrew Assad; practical ramifications of the Kremlin’s decades-long support for the Syrian military; Russia’s continued importance to Syria’s economy; and Russia’s veto power in the UN Security Council. Syria’s new Western partners have thus far largely refrained from pressing Damascus to reduce engagement with Russia, but the issue remains sensitive. For example, Republicans in the U.S. Congress recently added an amendment to key defence legislation requiring the Pentagon to report on its efforts to “work with the new Syrian government to reduce Russian influence in Syria or secure the departure of Russian forces from Hmeimim and Tartous”. As al-Sharaa attempts to put his nation on a firmer footing, one of his challenges will be to manage Moscow’s lingering influence on his own terms. A distinct pattern has emerged: al-Sharaa has scaled back Russia’s role where alternatives exist, while re-engaging where Syria has no near-term substitute, particularly in regard to military equipment and oil supplies. More broadly, he has tried to avert costly confrontation, diversify Syria’s external partnerships and avoid the kind of dependence on outside powers that marked the Assad era. – Does Russia Still Matter in Syria? | International Crisis Group
Russia – Ukraine
(Emily Ferris – RUSI) Ukraine’s ‘logistical lockdown’ programme has unleashed a sustained and coordinated series of attacks on Russia’s military supply chains in recent weeks. If previous salvos targeting Russia’s infrastructure had demonstrated what Ukraine’s evolving drone capabilities were able to do, the latest campaign represented a concerned and coordinated effort to shut down Russia’s military supply chains and fuel supplies, revealing serious weaknesses in Russia’s rear defences. But the campaign also demonstrated some of the practical and political limitations of attacking infrastructure in this way. In the latest campaign, Ukraine has zeroed in on Russia’s logistical supply chains around Crimea, particularly localised around the R-280 Novorossiya highway, which runs from Russia’s Rostov region to Crimea via the occupied territories. It is an alternative route to the Kerch Bridge, which itself has come under attack numerous times since the invasion. While an integral part of the tyl (rear), these logistics routes were believed by Russia to be deep behind the frontlines and therefore relatively immune from attack. These latest sustained attacks have proven how vulnerable Russia’s tyl can be. Delivery routes to Crimea have been blocked – no heavy duty trucks are able to cross the Kerch Bridge, and private logistics carriers are struggling to get insurance for vehicles. The land corridor is the only route to supply the occupied territories of the south and east. As a result, truck freight is being moved in long vulnerable convoys to Crimea, with trucks rerouted onto secondary roads and protected by soldiers. Ferries across the Kerch Strait have been struck by the Ukrainian Armed Forces since 2024, rendering all three vessels out of service. Fuel storage in warehouses on the peninsula is problematic, risking explosions if sites are attacked. The problem extends not only to Crimea but also the Russian occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as parts of Russia’s south such as Belgorod. Trucks appear to be locked in traffic jams attempting to cross the pontoon bridge by the damaged Chongar bridge, easy prey for drones. Bridges such as the Genichesk, Chongar and Armyansk rail and road passages have been hit – while pontoon bridges remain operational, they are a temporary emergency measure, and cannot support large axle loads nor be adequately defended by Russian air defences. – Ukraine’s Logistics Targeting Raises Questions for Russia’s Rear Defences | Royal United Services Institute
US
(Mia Beams – Council on Foreign Relations) U.S. onshoring of clean technology manufacturing is critical to job creation, economic development, and strengthening supply chain security. However, clean technology manufacturing projects and investments have plummeted in many industries since the beginning of the Trump administration and face further declines following the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) in July 2025. This downturn threatens the United States’ ability to become competitive in these essential industries. – How OBBBA Reshaped U.S. Clean Tech Manufacturing, in Charts | Council on Foreign Relations
(James Goodwin, Arvind Salem – Lawfare) When Anthropic, the U.S. company behind the Claude artificial intelligence (AI) tool, refused to allow its product to be used for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons, the Department of Defense took the extraordinary step of designating the company a “supply chain” risk—a move that would bar Pentagon contractors from doing business with Anthropic. Much of the focus on this episode has centered on the legal questions Anthropic raised in response (for example, its First Amendment rights and applicable requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act) as well as practical concerns around proposed carveouts to avoid a full bar. While these questions are important, they obscure a more far-reaching problem: democratic accountability implications of the government’s growing dependence on AI systems like Claude. Policy experts have long worried about the democratic accountability implications of outsourcing core governance functions to for-profit companies. AI replicates that dynamic, but with systems designed to mimic or even substitute for human reasoning and deliberation. That this is occurring against a backdrop of decimated state capacity and erosion of long-standing democratic norms makes it all the more concerning. As AI’s capabilities and prevalence grow, the temptation to shift government functions away from the career civil service and toward these systems is likely to follow. A consequential side effect of this development is that procurement will take on increased significance as a policymaking venue, gradually displacing more democratically accountable channels such as notice-and-comment rulemaking. This shift will further reinforce the marginalization of the career civil service. – Can Government of and by API Still Be Government ‘for the People’? | Lawfare
(Michael Feinberg, Julia Curlee – Lawfare) The intelligence community has had a trying few weeks. On June 21, the Washington Post reported that Tulsi Gabbard, the most recent director of national intelligence (DNI), might have been taking political marching orders throughout her entire career from someone often described as a cult leader. A few days after this story broke, the paper provided the receipts and highlighted specific incidents where her speeches and commentary seemed to be based on memoranda provided to her by mysterious third parties. Prior to the publication of the Post’s stories, Gabbard had already resigned from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), for familial reasons, and President Trump, via a Truth Social posting, named Bill Pulte to act in her stead. Pulte, an individual with zero experience in any and all fields related to the ODNI’s responsibilities, most recently served as the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. In that capacity, he became most known for finding supposed mortgage fraud in innocuous loan documents, much the same way Don Quixote could see a lumbering giant in a harmless windmill. This tendency to extrapolate and publicize conspiracies without foundations, in a steadier era, might disqualify someone from a role requiring the rigorous analysis of facts, particularly when the nation’s ability to project force upon the world stage, navigate international relations, and formulate the nation’s domestic security policies are at stake. The reaction across the political spectrum, including from elements of the president’s own party, was unusually frank. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said the country does “not need a weaponized” DNI. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the vice chair of the intelligence committee, said Pulte was picked because the White House believes he will “provide the narrative it wants, not the intelligence we need”, while Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called Pulte a “partisan thug” with no experience in intelligence. One can debate whether the current state of the U.S. intelligence community most resembles a tragedy or a farce, but history is certainly repeating itself. The abuses and missteps of the FBI and CIA in the first decades of the Cold War led to a spate of hearings and reforms in the 1970s, which substantially limited the operational latitude of both agencies. A little under 30 years later, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, much ink was spilled arguing that the earlier reforms might have been too constricting, and another massive reform liberalized intelligence authorities and added a coordinating department at the top of the community in the form of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. But now, two decades hence, the ODNI appears to be acting in a manner similar to the FBI and CIA’s modus operandi before the very first round of reforms. For anyone acquainted with the workings of the intelligence community, as well as a familiarity with the stakes of its decisions, the ODNI’s limited effectiveness is not surprising, and the political constraints hamstringing its influence are, in many ways, the fault of its prior directors. But it still maintains access to an astounding amount of both raw and finished intelligence, and its statutory authorities are vague enough that it can still chip away at the concept of an apolitical national security state. – Gradually, and Then Suddenly: The Decline and Fall of ODNI | Lawfare
US – Iran
(Naysan Rafati – Crisis Group) Since it was concluded in mid-June, the memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran has frequently been measured against the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The comparisons are inevitable: as the last major diplomatic agreement involving Washington and Tehran, the 2015 nuclear deal struck among the Islamic Republic, the U.S. and five other world powers is the default point of reference. Politics also plays a determining role in the exercise. For President Donald Trump, who pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 agreement during his first administration, the earlier deal is still anathema, and casting the present memorandum as superior is a point of political pride. The White House’s talking points about the memorandum include a section entitled “How This Beats the JCPOA”. For the administration’s critics, however, the memorandum is just as plainly inferior to the 2015 accord. They say it gives Tehran more in exchange for less as the hollow reward of the misbegotten war the U.S. and Israel launched in February. While there is much to critically assess about the objectives, timing and operational assumptions behind the U.S. and Israeli decision to go to war in the first place, that judgment needs to be separated from the matter at hand, which is how the U.S. and Iran will manage their relations going forward. That historical chapter has yet to be written, and there is little chance that comparing the memorandum of understanding to the 2015 nuclear deal – two arrangements made more than a decade apart, whose substance, scope and very nature diverge in important ways – will help anyone understand how it will unfold. – Why Comparing the 2015 Nuclear Deal to Trump’s Memorandum is Not Useful | International Crisis Group
US – South Africa – Afrikaner refugees
(Mattie C. Webb – Lawfare) Afrikaner refugees arriving in the United States will soon receive a welcome packet consisting of copies of the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, alongside literature criticizing civil rights laws and “promoting claims of discrimination against white people.” No other refugee population receives gifts of this kind, which are part of a broader policy that treats Afrikaners as exceptional refugees while excluding most others. The Trump administration has largely frozen refugee admissions into the United States, yet it has created a loophole for Afrikaners, the Dutch-descended white South Africans whom the administration falsely claims are victims of a “white genocide.” The administration recently announced that it would admit 10,000 additional Afrikaner refugees in 2026, bringing the total to 17,500. President Trump’s policy has hardened an already deteriorating relationship between Washington and Pretoria, South Africa, extending well beyond the refugee question. Despite Washington’s diplomatic pressure, including public criticism of South Africa’s land reform policies, condemnation of its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), objections to Pretoria’s ties with Iran, and the suspension of HIV/AIDS assistance, South Africa has refused to alter its domestic or foreign policy agenda. This approach is diplomatically costly for Washington. South Africa’s periodic clashes with Washington reflect not only contemporary policy disagreements but also the lasting legacy of apartheid-era solidarity networks that sustained the African National Congress (ANC) in exile and shape its worldview today. This is coupled with a memory of Washington’s support for the white minority regime throughout much of the Cold War. Following South Africa’s democratic transition in 1994, bilateral relations generally improved as Washington embraced the new democracy. Recent disputes, however, have strained that relationship. While the Afrikaner refugee policy may earn Trump support from his domestic base, it actively undermines U.S. credibility abroad amid an era of global power competition with China and Russia. – Afrikaner Refugees and the Limits of U.S. Pressure on South Africa | Lawfare
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