The End of the American Middle East: Iran and the Last Gasp of a Failed Order - "The American Middle East is finished. The regional order that has prevailed since 1991 has been one of the many casualties of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. The American and Israeli failure to dislodge the regime in Tehran has proved the bankruptcy of decades of sanctions and violence. The inability of the United States to protect its Gulf allies from Iranian attacks or to keep the Strait of Hormuz open has fatally undermined the core security bargain that justified its network of military bases in the region. And Israel’s increasingly threatening posture and abandonment of any pretense of interest in reaching an accommodation with the Palestinians have ended Washington’s decades-long mission of bringing its Arab allies and Israel together into an enduring security partnership.
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"The Trump administration, contemptuous of democracy and the rule of law at home and abroad, is not going to change that. It is difficult to imagine Trump, who vacillates wildly between strategies, designing a new regional order of any kind. But his successor will have a real chance to break with the status quo and craft a more coherent and more effective Middle East strategy. That starts with renouncing the use of military intervention as a first resort and ending the practice of diplomacy by airstrike. Washington’s priority should be defense, not offense. One way to make that intention clear is to forgo the restoration of damaged or destroyed U.S. military bases across the Gulf and focus instead on investments in intelligence sharing, missile defense systems for Gulf partners, and the preservation of freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz."
The Next Global Economic Crisis Could Be Made in China: How Overcapacity Ends - "China’s remarkable path of economic development over the last several decades has been made possible by a benign international environment in which other countries were eager to accept low-cost manufactured goods in exchange for efficient supply chains and consumer welfare. But that international environment has turned toxic. The political appetite for accepting the deindustrialization and critical dependencies that come with the flood of Chinese imports is finite and shrinking. As these trends continue, protectionism is likely to rise, cutting off Chinese manufacturers’ market access and thereby short-circuiting Beijing’s strategy, introduced in 2020, of 'dual circulation,' which promotes both domestic economic self-sufficiency and continued engagement in international markets."
