From global think tanks
The analyses published here do not necessarily reflect the strategic thinking of The Global Eye.
Today’s about: China; Critical Minerals; Europe-New START; Haiti; Iran-US; Japan; Lebanon-Israel; Nigeria; Nuclear Disarmament; Pakistan; Russia-Ukraine; US-Middle East
China
(Arran Hope – The Jamestown Foundation) Party-state media has framed anti-corruption work as a top priority since the October 2025 fourth plenum. This can be read as signaling that Central Military Commission (CMC) Vice Chair He Weidong’s downfall was in fact the end of a new beginning in Xi Jinping’s struggle to control the military. An unusually long 26-part series in PLA Daily on anti-corruption published across the last six weeks of 2025 warned of leading officials abusing their power—possibly a veiled reference to CMC Vice Chair Zhang Youxia. A clearer parallel to Zhang appeared in a lengthy PLA Daily article published exactly a week before the investigation into Zhang was announced. The article contained an “unimaginable” story about a Korean War hero who decades later was found guilty of corruption. Parsing evidence from Party-state media sources is an inexact science, and conclusions are often only verifiable after the fact. But a review of PLA Daily coverage in the run up to the investigation into Zhang suggests that his downfall may have been more readily anticipated. – State Media Signaled Purges Prior to Zhang Youxia’s Demise – Jamestown
(Anouk Wear 華穆清, Rana Siu Inboden – The Jamestown Foundation) After years of focusing efforts on defending its own human rights record, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has shifted its attention on the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to shaping norms and advancing a more assertive agenda. The PRC has pursued varying tactics to do so, such as framing its initiatives in broadly agreed upon terms, seeking to limit language around accountability and protections against transnational repression, and invoking “wolf warrior” rhetoric. The PRC continues to see challenges to advancing it’s agenda in the UNHRC, but growing support from the Global South and peer authoritarian states has already led to political victories. – PRC Attempts to Shape Norms at UNHRC – Jamestown
(Shijie Wang – The Jamestown Foundation) Beijing is transitioning fusion investment from fiscal budgets to society-funded models to mitigate short-term fiscal constraints and manage the capital requirements of fusion’s long-term research and development cycles.
This is part of the “Four Chains Integration” framework that links innovation, industrial, capital, and talent chains, utilizing a “whole-of-society” approach to developing fusion by transferring operational and incentive costs from the state budget to social financing platforms. Formerly a local experiment, this framework is now a national strategy for the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) fusion engineering pivot. – Hefei’s Fusion Sector Drives New Approach to Development – Jamestown
Critical Minerals
(Michael Froman – Council on Foreign Relations) Five months ago, I wrote an essay for Foreign Affairs where I argued that “open plurilateralism”—groups of like-minded countries coming together to define a set of rules—would rise from the ashes of the fully multilateral rules-based global system. These coalitions of the willing would share interest in working together in specific areas, even in the absence of more traditional trade agreements and outside the reliance on legacy international institutions. The question was whether the United States would play a role in developing this network of agreements or choose to go it alone. As it turns out, this phenomenon is playing out in real time, with the United States leading the way. Take this week’s critical minerals ministerial in Washington, where representatives from more than fifty countries—from Angola to Uzbekistan—met to lay the foundations of a new critical minerals value chain designed to break China’s dominant market position. At the ministerial, the United States pitched its new Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement (FORGE) initiative, a coalition of countries aimed at quickly scaling up public and private investment in critical minerals supply chains. Or as Vice President JD Vance described it, FORGE is a “preferential trade zone for critical minerals protected from external disruptions through enforceable price floors.” The new initiative follows the Pax Silica, an earlier plurilateral initiative for secure artificial intelligence (AI) supply chains. – U.S., Allies Aim to Break China’s Critical Minerals Dominance | Council on Foreign Relations
Europe – New START
(Gabriela Reitz, Benjamin Harris – Council on Foreign Relations) European leaders are beginning to recognize that the United States may be unlikely to prioritize European security as it did during the Cold War and its immediate aftermath. Following U.S. President Donald Trump’s escalating threats of aggression toward Greenland, European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said last month that Europe must adapt to new realities and that “NATO needs to become more European to maintain its strength. The expiration of the final bilateral nuclear arms control agreement between the United States, which serves as NATO’s nuclear guarantor, and Russia, Europe’s principal security threat, leaves European countries in a precarious security position. Some European leaders are considering whether this new uncertainty requires unprecedented action. The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the last major U.S.-Russia nuclear arms control agreement, expired February 5, 2026. The treaty limited the number of nuclear warheads each country could deploy on strategic systems to 1,550. Although Russia and the United States were reportedly conducting last-minute negotiations to informally abide by the numerical limits after the treaty’s expiration, Trump renewed uncertainty about the agreement’s future when he posted on social media that New START was a “badly negotiated deal” and that the United States should “work on a new, improved, and modernized Treaty. Barring an agreement, some experts predict that in the coming decade, the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals could grow to as many as 3,500 and 2,600 deployed strategic warheads,respectively. Despite not being parties to the agreement, European leaders consider New START a “crucial contribution to international and European security.” – Europe Faces Uncertainty as New START Ends | Council on Foreign Relations
Haiti
(UN News) Haiti is facing one of the world’s most acute humanitarian crises, driven by escalating gang violence, political paralysis, and deep economic distress. Armed groups control large swaths of Port-au-Prince, forcing more than 1.4 million people from their homes and cutting access to food, health, water and education services. Half the population is not getting enough to eat, and malnutrition among children is rising sharply. Humanitarian efforts are hampered by insecurity and blocked access routes. According to the UN, six million people of Haiti’s population of around 11.4 million need some form of humanitarian assistance in 2026. – Keeping hope ‘alive for younger generations’ in Haiti as funding falters | UN News
Iran – US
(Mariel Ferragamo, Jonathan Masters, Will Merrow – Council on Foreign Relations) Many foreign policy experts warn that if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons, it would be broadly destabilizing for the Middle East and nearby regions. A first-order concern is that Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons would pose a major, perhaps existential threat to Israel—a worry that drove Israel to launch a full-scale attack on Iran’s nuclear and military facilities in June 2025. Other foreign policy experts say Iran would be assuring its own demise if it were to launch a nuclear strike on Israel, a close U.S. defense partner and possessor of its own nuclear weapons arsenal, which is undeclared. Either way, there would be a dangerous potential for miscalculation that could result in a nuclear exchange, analysts say. An added concern is that Iran’s possession of a nuclear weapon could spur other regional rivals, including Saudi Arabia, to pursue their own program. International scrutiny of Iran’s nuclear and missile programs intensified in late 2024 following a historic exchange of direct military strikes between Iran and Israel, as well as the reelection of Donald Trump. The first Trump administration pulled the United States from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and imposed a severe sanctions regime on the country. In Trump’s second term, Washington has agreed to resume talks with Tehran for the first time since it withdrew from the accord seven years ago. The initial negotiations in Trump’s first year didn’t produce any concrete proposals. Then in June 2025, after the UN nuclear watchdog declared Iran in violation of its nuclear nonproliferation agreements, the United States bombed Iran’s major nuclear facilities. Despite the Trump administration’s assurances that the strikes rendered Iran’s program obsolete, the two countries have revived negotiations in 2026. – What Are Iran’s Nuclear and Missile Capabilities? | Council on Foreign Relations
(UN News) UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Friday welcomed the resumption of talks between Iran and the United States. The development follows weeks of tensions surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme and threats of a US military attack. Delegations headed by US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held indirect talks in Oman, according to media reports. This marked the first time the sides had met since last June when the US and Israel launched airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities. The talks come as the US has amassed forces including a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, off the Iranian coast. – Guterres welcomes resumption of Iran-US talks | UN News
Japan
(Sheila A. Smith, Chris Baylor – Council on Foreign Relations) The outcome of this Sunday’s election will have significant consequences for Japan’s national security policy. Yet unlike the other issues shaping party alignments, it is the absence of contention over Japan’s defense policy that is striking. For much of the postwar era, political parties have staked out positions on national security that revolved around interpretations of Article 9 or contention over U.S. military bases and other issues related to the alliance. In 2026, a consensus seems to be forming around Japan’s national security needs. The government has already doubled its security spending, and Prime Minister Takaichi has hastened to complete the five-year plan, under which spending will reach 2 percent of GDP. She has also called for a revision of Japan’s national strategy by yearend. Undoubtedly, China will loom large, and the recent tensions between Beijing and Tokyo over Japan’s approach to a contingency in the Taiwan Strait have helped the prime minister. In the midst of a deteriorating regional military balance, fewer politicians are calling for restraint on national defense. Today virtually no opposition party is calling the government out on its aim of bolstering national security preparedness. – Japan’s 2026 Election: National Security | Council on Foreign Relations
Lebanon – Israel
(UN News) The UN reiterated concerns on Friday over reports that Israeli forces sprayed a highly toxic herbicide over areas north of the Blue Line separating Lebanon from Israel on 1 February. The development poses a “serious humanitarian risk” to civilians living there, maintained the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), briefing journalists in Geneva. “The use of herbicides raises questions about the effects on local agricultural lands and how this might impact the return of civilians to their homes and livelihoods in the long term,” said Alessandra Vellucci, Director of the UN Information Service in Geneva. Reiterating remarks made by the UN Spokesperson in New York on Thursday, Ms. Vellucci highlighted the obligations of all parties under international humanitarian law. “Any activity by the [Israel Defense Forces] IDF north of the Blue Line is a violation of resolution 1701,” she told journalists. – Concerns persist over herbicide spraying reports on Blue Line between Lebanon and Israel | UN News
Nigeria
(The Soufan Center) Designated as a terrorist group by Abuja in 2025, Lakurawa initially emerged in 2017 as a vigilante group protecting banditry-exposed communities in Northwest Nigeria and has again become highly active in the region since late 2024. Lakurawa, a Hausa term derived from the French les recrues (“the recruits”), combines militant Islamist governance with bandit style extortion and kidnapping. At a regional level, the group functions as a strategic conduit linking the territorial ambitions of Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP) and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). Some analysts speculate that the 2025 Christmas Day strikes on the group by the U.S. military is connected to the kidnapping of an American missionary in Niger in October 2025. – Lakurawa’s Growing Presence in Nigeria and the Crime-Terror Nexus – The Soufan Center
Pakistan
(Alexander Palmer and Alexander Margolis – CSIS) The morning of February 6, a suicide bomber attacked a Shia mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan. The attack risks worsening regional instability amid a deteriorating security situation in Pakistan. – What Is Next After the Suicide Attack in Pakistan?
Nuclear Disarmament
(UN News) The global system governing nuclear disarmament is facing its most serious crisis in decades, driven by growing mistrust among major powers and the steady erosion of arms control agreements, a senior disarmament expert has warned. Yet even as the architecture weakens, signs of progress – including nuclear-weapon-free zones and rising youth engagement – offer grounds for cautious hope, a UN researcher on nuclear non-proliferation has told UN News. Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova, a fellow with the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) – an autonomous institute studying disarmament and international security issues – said that decades of arms control built through painstaking negotiations are now at risk of unravelling. “The situation right now is very difficult,” she added. “We are observing the disintegration of the arms control architecture that was built primarily through negotiations between [the then] Soviet Union – and subsequently Russia – and the United States.” – Nuclear disarmament at breaking point as mistrust grows – but hope remains | UN News
Russia – Ukraine
(UN News) Attacks on Ukraine’s power system highlight how the ongoing war threatens the safety of the country’s nuclear facilities, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned on Friday. Russian forces have been carrying out strikes on critical infrastructure amid freezing winter temperatures as their full-scale invasion approaches the four-year mark next month. IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said the electrical grid was again the target of military activity this past weekend, leading to significant impacts to several regions and nuclear power plant operations. – Ukraine war keeps nuclear safety on a knife-edge, UN watchdog warns | UN News
US – Middle East
(Brian Katulis – Middle East Institute) In the first year of his second term in office, US President Donald Trump focused considerable time and energy on the Middle East, but the results so far have been uneven. While the Trump administration signed major investment deals with Gulf partners and had notable tactical successes against adversaries like Iran as well as terrorist groups like the Islamic State (ISIS), it has not yet produced durable gains for regional peace and security. Moreover, Trump’s unpredictable decision-making style, along with long-standing questions about America’s commitment to the region, has motivated key partners to subtly hedge and diversify their relationships globally. The first year of Trump 2.0’s approach to the Middle East offers some important insights about how America is recasting its relationship with this key region of the world. The following report assesses the US government’s actions over the past 12 months, from January 2025 through January 2026. It represents the independent analytical judgments of one analyst at the Middle East Institute based on his policy research and research support from key colleagues, as well as the independent feedback from colleagues in a peer-review process. It is part of a regular, quarterly assessment that includes a report card with grades on five key policy areas based on long-standing US national security interests in the Middle East and priorities set by the current US administration. – US Policy in the Middle East in the First Year of Trump 2.0: A Report Card – Middle East Institute
