Carnegie Connects

On October 27th, Israelis will go to the polls in perhaps the most consequential election in their history.  Politics in Israel are historically fractious, with the length of an Israeli government averaging about 1.2 years since 1948. The current Benjamin Netanyahu-led government, elected in 2022, was the first since 1988 to last through a full four-year term. Many consider this upcoming elec...

The U.S.-Iran conflict is about to enter its eighth month, and it shows no serious signs of abating. If anything, intensified strikes between the Houthis and Saudi-backed forces in Yemen and continuing Iranian attacks on tankers in the Gulf carry the real threat of escalation. Though sanctions and the U.S. Navy’s blockade is taking a devastating toll on Iran’s economy, there is scant evidence that...

The United States of late seems to resemble a modern-day Gulliver—possessing tremendous strength yet increasingly challenged by powers large and small who oppose its interests and aims. The United States seems to lack a clear and realistic vision about its role in the world and a strategy for how best to advance its interests. Indeed, recent policy missteps have undermined America’s traditional al...

Three years after the October 7th attacks, the Middle East is roiled by instability and unresolved conflicts.  Gaza remains divided, impoverished, and sporadically violent with two million Palestinians coping with terrible living conditions. Hamas remains the preeminent political actor in Gaza and Israel continues to increase the territory it controls, while Israeli settler violence in the We...

At the beginning of the U.S.-Iran war, a belief it would be a short conflict, combined with significant pre-war supply, held oil prices down. But reality has now intruded. Two of the planet's most important choke points—the Strait of Hormuz and Bab Al-Mandeb—are no longer free and unfettered; six months of lost supply is eroding commercial and strategic reserves; and the cost of diesel fuel is up...

September 11, 2001, was the second deadliest day on American soil in the country’s history, exceeded only by a single day during the 1862 Battle of Antietam. Events that day produced a rare moment of national unity, only to give way to controversy and heightened divisions over the American response. It would lead to the two longest wars in U.S. history, a global war on terror and a rethinking of A...

Since the state of Israel was established in 1948, the U.S.-Israeli relationship has had its ups and downs. Even with episodic tensions under American presidents of both parties, U.S. support for Israel remained strong. In the last few years, however, the foundational elements of the relationship—shared values, common interests, and strong bipartisan domestic support—have come under unprecedented...

Russia’s war against Ukraine is well into its fifth year. In recent weeks, momentum has swung in Ukraine’s favor amid a remarkable series of strikes on Russia’s energy system, military logistics nodes, and defense industrial base.  Nevertheless, Ukraine remains dangerously vulnerable to Russian ballistic missile attacks with little chance of improvement in the face of the global shortage of missil...

Israel's image and credibility in the United States have fallen to an unprecedented low. A recent Pew poll revealed that 60 percent of American adults have an unfavorable view of Israel, especially among younger respondents. Criticism of Israel among Democrats in Congress has increased substantially, and while Republicans still broadly view Israel favorably, those who hold negative views are growi...

In their 14-point memorandum of understanding (MOU), the United States and Iran have agreed to “negotiating and achieving the final deal in maximum 60 days extendable with mutual consent." However, challenges abound at the negotiating table, including the fragile ceasefire on the Israeli-Lebanese border, the ever-problematic Strait of Hormuz, and the issue of nuclear assets and international overs...

“The America that they believed in was under attack, not from without, but from within,” wrote Admiral William McRaven for the New York Times in 2019, reflecting on what he sensed from his military colleagues during the first Trump administration.  In that op-ed, McRaven stressed the importance of American values in the face of the erosion of institutions and norms that underpin the strength of Un...

More than 100 days into the U.S.-Israel war with Iran, both sides remain trapped between the ever-present danger of serious escalation and an elusive negotiated, pathway out of the conflict. As negotiations stall, Iran and the U.S. are still struggling over core issues while Lebanon and the Strait of Hormuz have emerged as significant triggers for escalation. What are the major obstacles standing...

As the U.S. led war with Iran approaches its fourth month, poised somewhere between escalation and a possible diplomatic off ramp, no relationship has been more important than the Trump administration’s with Israel. Are American and Israeli tactics and strategy on Iran unaligned, if not fundamentally at odds? What about on Lebanon and Gaza? And where does the relationship between President Trump a...

President Donald Trump is in Beijing for a delayed but much anticipated summit with China's President Xi Jinping. A successful meeting—let alone a functional and effective relationship with Beijing—will depend on America reading Xi's China right.  Beyond avoiding war with Washington, what does Xi want in his relationship with the United States? How do issues like the U.S. war with Iran, difference...

Cuba has presented a long-standing dilemma for American foreign policymakers. The nation was at the center of the most fraught moment in recent American history, bringing the U.S. and former Soviet Union to the cusp of nuclear during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the decades since, U.S. presidents have continued to struggle to create an effective their policy for engaging with a Castro-dominated Cu...

Brokered by Pakistan, the United States and Iran have agreed to a fragile two-week ceasefire, dependent on an American condition that Iran agrees to the opening of the Strait of Hormuz. Israel has also agreed to cease strikes on Iran, but its campaign in Lebanon continues. Can this agreement hold? After six weeks of conflict, why did the parties agree now?  What can we expect from the negotiations...

Seven weeks into the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran, and with an uneasy ceasefire in place, it may be too early to predict conclusive winners and losers. How are Russia and China, two of Iran’s closet allies, faring in the balance sheet as the war drags on? And what of Europe, especially France, Germany, and Britain, who appeared blindsided by the war are now under pressure to support the Unite...

More than one month in, the United States and Israel’s war against Iran has resulted in what the International Energy Agency termed the “largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.” Iran’s ability to control what passes through the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted a fifth of the world's daily oil supply, along with the flow of other commodities such as helium, liquid natural g...

The Trump Administration’s war against Iran has highlighted one of the stranger paradoxes of America’s longstanding relationship with Israel—at a time when Israel’s image in the United States is at low point, cooperation and coordination with Washington has reached an all-time high. One would be hard pressed to identify any large-scale U.S. miliary campaign in decades in which there has been great...

On February 28, the United States and Israel launched military, cyber, and intelligence operations against Iran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed and strikes were conducted on a broad array of targets, including other senior Iranian leadership compounds, IRGC bases, and missile launchers and production facilities. In response, Iran launched hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles...

Four years on from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the war drags on, seemingly with no end in sight. The enormity and scale of death and destruction seem unfathomable, with a front line stretching 750 miles and little indication that either side has fundamentally altered the military balance of power. Negotiation under U.S. auspices in various venues and formats continue with no sign that...

A year into President Donald Trump’s second term, the state and fate of the American Republic is uncertain and precarious.  At home, an unprecedented expansion of presidential power has undermined norms and institutions and threatened democratic governance. American politics remain polarized, taking on a tribal and personal character with disagreements often cast as struggles between good and bad....

Protests in Iran have now engulfed its major cities and all 31 provinces, creating a mass movement incorporating all elements of Iranian society, despite a comprehensive internet blackout.  The regime, blaming the United States and Israel for the sweeping movement, is casting the protests as a continuation of its twelve-day war with Israel and is cracking down hard, with the death toll rising. The...

In the first year of his second term, President Donald Trump has pursued an aggressive foreign policy that has shattered the norms and conventions that have guided almost all of his Republican and Democratic predecessors. Although the administration has framed this as an “America first” agenda that will strengthen the nation’s standing around the world and bring prosperity at home, the U.S. nation...

The decision by the U.S. President Donald Trump administration to seize Venezuelan President Nicholás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, to stand trial in the United States reflects the administration’s willingness to undertake a muscular intervention in the Western Hemisphere. Delcy Rodríguez, who served as Maduro’s vice president since 2018, has taken over as the interim president and seems to b...