Foreign Affairs

How technology empowers—and imperils—dictators.

Tehran’s strategy to drive America out of the Middle East.

Over the last half millennium, societies around the globe competed to divide up the world’s land. Nearly every square inch of soil outside Antarctica is now owned and tucked within national borders. But the oceans have largely been spared that fate. There were times throughout history when countries tried to gate and regulate the seas, but they were too vast to be controlled for long periods. During the Cold War, as technology made it far easier to imagine partitioning the world’s waterways and seabeds, great powers avoided an unrestrained race to grab the oceans. Most governments agreed to deal with them through a patchwork of treaties and multilateral bodies that sought to guarantee freedom of navigation in international waters and assign coastal seabeds to adjacent littoral states.

Why the region must brace for a new wave of turbulence.

What Kyiv needs to survive.

Why America and Iran fight on without victory.

America and its allies must scale together for a new era of war.

But Washington risks missing out.

Use today’s calm to prepare for the next perfect storm.

The lessons of Tehran’s use of precise mass.

The Greenland deal proves self-reliance is not an option.

A new stage in Russia's confrontation with Ukraine—and the West.

A diplomatic strategy to end the war.

The real barriers to competitiveness and innovation are still in place.

How shock therapy threatens the post-Assad peace.

In humanity’s quest to constrain the dangers from fast-advancing artificial intelligence, many have looked to the most revolutionary technology that preceded it: nuclear weapons. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has called artificial intelligence “far more dangerous than nukes.” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who assigns The Making of the Atomic Bomb to employees and has likened himself to the Manhattan Project scientist Leo Szilard, describes the most powerful AI models as “weaponizable nuclear materials.” When asked how a technology such as AI can be regulated, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman often references the world’s nuclear materials watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. Even the director of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, has made the same comparison.

The Trump-Xi summit gives Washington a chance to buy time.

The next secretary-general must get back to basics

Congo’s warning for the global health system.

The U.S. military needs to build up its endurance.