Program: International Policy Journal

Arms Without Leverage: Rethinking US Security Assistance to South Asia

In November 2025, the US State Department approved a $93 million arms sale to India that included Javelin anti-tank missile systems and Excalibur precision-guided artillery munitions. While the deal is a relatively modest one in financial terms, it reveals the evolution of Washington’s security assistance strategy in South Asia.  

This Foreign Military Sales (FMS) package is designed to enhance India’s precision strike capabilities and battlefield effectiveness, while reinforcing interoperability with US-origin systems already in service, such as the M777 howitzer. Unlike earlier high-profile deals focused on major platforms — maritime patrol aircraft, helicopters, or transport fleets — this sale prioritizes precision, integration, and sustainment, signaling a strategic shift in US thinking about how best to support India’s military modernization. 

The timing of the sale is equally important. It comes after both signed the 2025 Framework for the US-India Major Defense Partnership and amid a broader push by Washington to deepen defense ties with India as part of its Indo-Pacific strategy, even as political frictions persist over trade, India’s relationship with Russia, and “strategic autonomy.” US officials framed the deal as supporting India’s role as a “major defense partner” and contributing to regional stability, especially in regard to countering China. 

1. Prioritize Restraint-Oriented Systems Over Offensive Platform Sales to encourage information-sharing, escalation management, and responsible military modernization. 2. Link Arms Transfers to Crisis Management Mechanisms to shape how that capability is used under stress—particularly in a nuclearized environment. 3. Re-engage Pakistan at a Functional Level to preserve limited channels of influence and reduce the risk of strategic miscalculation. 4. Integrate Arms Transfers into a Broader Regional Strategy that includes crisis diplomacy, economic ties, and multilateral coordination.

The US has also signed a new $686 million package arms sales deal with Pakistan that the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency approved in December 2025, and which is almost entirely focused on upgrading and sustaining Pakistan’s F-16 fighter jet fleet rather than providing new weapons systems. The inclusion of Link-16 enhances coordination with US and allied forces, particularly in joint operations and counterterrorism missions. Washington emphasized that the deal with Pakistan would not alter the region’s balance, where India maintains its military muscle.

Globally, the United States remains the dominant arms exporter, accounting for roughly 42 percent of total global arms exports in 2021–25, far ahead of competitors. This dominance gives Washington unmatched leverage — but that leverage is unevenly distributed across regions. South Asia is not the largest destination for US arms, but it is among the most strategically sensitive. Asia and Oceania account for roughly one-third of global arms transfers, with India and Pakistan consistently among the top importers. India alone has remained one of the world’s largest arms importers for decades, while Pakistan’s imports have surged in recent years. Data from the Security Assistance Monitor (SAM) at the Center for International Policy, which tracks US security assistance dating back to 2000, complements this picture. SAM data demonstrates that US involvement in South Asia extends beyond major weapons systems to include FMS, Foreign Military Financing (FMF), training programs, and counterterrorism assistance. This broader ecosystem of assistance matters because it fosters relationships, builds interoperability, and shapes the military doctrines of both India and Pakistan.

Yet, what does the United States want to achieve by these arms sales to India and Pakistan? SAM data reveals a pattern: US arms sales are not simply about equipping India and Pakistan, but also influencing the regional order. However, India’s diversification and Pakistan’s pivot to China indicate that US influence through arms transfers is constrained, as it cannot change either state’s behavior. To remain relevant, US policy must shift from transactional arms sales to a more integrated approach that prioritizes systems, crisis management, and political strategy.

India: The Selective Customer

The US–India defense relationship transformed dramatically since the early 2000s. Arms transfers outline the shape of this shift, but they do not tell the whole story.

US arms sales to India are best understood in terms of the capabilities they enable rather than the platforms themselves. From SAM Data, across maritime, air, and land domains, US transfers strengthened India’s maritime surveillance and anti-submarine warfare capabilities through systems such as the P-8I and naval helicopters, while also enhancing precision-strike capabilities with guided munitions such as Excalibur artillery rounds and Javelin missiles. At the same time, heavy-lift aircraft such as the C-17 and C-130 expanded India’s strategic mobility and logistics reach, particularly for high-altitude and rapid-deployment operations. More recent acquisitions—including drones and data-linked systems—underscore a shift toward networked warfare, where sensors, shooters, and decision-making are increasingly integrated in real time. Taken together, these sales indicate that the United States is not simply supplying hardware but helping India build a more integrated force.

Yet, India remains a selective buyer, not a dependent client. Historically, Russia has been India’s greatest supplier of arms, a persistent thorn in US–India defense relationships across administrations. Despite increasing diversification among suppliers and growing US sales — including transport aircraft, helicopters, and surveillance platforms — Russia continues to supply the most arms to India, followed by France and Israel. The efforts at diversification reflect a deliberate strategy rooted in strategic autonomy. India has reduced its reliance on Russia—from roughly 70 percent of imports in the early 2010s to around 40 percent more recently—but has not replaced that dependence with a US monopoly. Instead, it has created a multi-vendor procurement model.

For Washington, this creates both opportunity and limitation. Arms sales remain a key pillar of the broader strategic partnership, reinforcing initiatives such as interoperability agreements and maritime cooperation. Yet, the US cannot fully shape India’s military posture through arms transfers alone. Also, focusing only on the mix of arms suppliers overlooks the other dominant trend governing India’s military spending. India’s growing domestic defense industry is gradually reducing its reliance on imports altogether. This trend suggests that US arms sales to India may plateau—not because of political friction, but because of structural shifts in India’s defense economy.

Pakistan: The Uncertain Partner

SAM data highlights the cyclical nature of US assistance to Pakistan. In recent years, US arms transfers to Pakistan increasingly focused on maintenance, sustainment, and counterterrorism, rather than new high-end capabilities. During the post-9/11 period, Pakistan was a major recipient of US military aid, including aircraft, helicopters, and counterterrorism support. However, since the mid-2010s, US assistance has declined sharply, reflecting growing mistrust and shifting priorities. Two incidents in 2011 forced Washington to view Pakistan through a critical lens, especially in the realm of counterterrorism: the raid in Abbottabad that killed Osama bin Laden and the Salala incident where NATO airstrikes killed Pakistani soldiers near the Afghanistan border. In addition to these high-profile incidents, the formal conclusion of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2014, the US combat mission in Afghanistan, reduced the strategic rationale for expensive military aid to Pakistan. The Resolute Support Mission, which succeeded Enduring Freedom, simply did not have the capacity to provide Pakistan with a high level of US military aid. 

 

Figure: Deliveries of US Arms To Pakistan, 2009 – 2017

Graph: Deliveries to Pakistan through November 2025, Source: Census 2025 Y-axis: $0M to $1600m 2010: $1.1B 2011: $550.0M 2012: $1.6B 2013: $305.8M 2014: $340.9M 2015: $20.0M 2016: $163.4M 2017: $169.8M 2018: $82.2M 2019: $92.3M 2020: $124.7M 2021: $176.0M 2022: $148.2M 2023: $37.3M 2024: $44.7M 2025: $52.5M
Click here to see full size. Source: SAM

The relationship also drew negative political attention, prompting pushback from Members of Congress. In May 2016, a State Department spokesperson cited congressional opposition as the main reason why the Obama administration had decided not to provide FMF, or in other words, US taxpayer-provided money, to Pakistan for purchasing F-16s. Instead, the US welcomed Pakistan to raise its own funds for the jets. Since Pakistan was unable to raise the funds, the deal was eventually scuttled. 

As US security assistance waned, Pakistan deepened its defense relationship with China, which now accounts for roughly 80 percent of its arms imports. Pakistan’s Chinese-supplied arsenal emphasizes advanced airpower and air combat dominance, anchored by platforms like the JF-17 (jointly developed) and J-10C fighters, along with long-range air-to-air missiles and supporting radar systems. These are complemented by integrated air defense capabilities, including systems like the HQ-9 and LY-80 surface-to-air missiles, which provide layered protection against aircraft and drones. China also significantly strengthened Pakistan’s naval and maritime warfare capabilities, including the transfer of modern frigates (such as Type 054A vessels) and submarine technologies, enabling better sea control and anti-access operations in the Arabian Sea.

The result is a bifurcated regional landscape. The United States is a major—but not dominant—supplier to India, and a declining—though still relevant—supplier to Pakistan. China, by contrast, is becoming Pakistan’s primary external defense partner, reinforcing a broader geopolitical alignment.

How Arms Transfers Fuel the India–Pakistan Rivalry

The most enduring driver of arms transfers in South Asia remains the India–Pakistan rivalry. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) data consistently identifies both countries among the world’s largest arms importers, with their competition serving as a central driver of regional militarization. US arms sales have played a complex role in this dynamic. On one level, Washington has sought to maintain a degree of balance, historically supplying both India and Pakistan at different times. On another level, US policy has increasingly tilted toward India, reflecting broader Indo-Pacific priorities.

Figure: Comparison of US Arms Sales Capabilities: India vs. Pakistan

Comparison of U.S. Arms Sales Capabilities: India vs Pakistan Y-axis: Relative emphasis (1 - 5) X axis: Capability Areas Precision Strike (Pakistan 2 India 5) ISR/Surveillance (Pakistan 2 India 5) Air Mobility (Pakistan 2 India 5) Networked Warfare (Pakistan 4 India 5) Airpower Sustainment (Pakistan 5 India 2)

This shift has implications for strategic stability. While US arms transfers to India are often framed as part of a broader effort to counter China, they inevitably affect the India–Pakistan balance as well. Pakistan, in turn, responds through its own procurement — largely from China — creating a triangular arms dynamic. The nature of the arms transfers also matters. As the May 2025 crisis indicated, modern warfare is focused on networks, long-range precision-strike capabilities, and airpower integration, as well as beyond-visual-range engagement. These trends suggest that arms transfers are no longer about platforms alone but about systems integration — something that US assistance is particularly well-suited to provide. 

Compared to China and other major sellers, US arms transfers come with end-use monitoring, congressional oversight, and political expectations attached to security assistance. While these tools often fall short of meaningful restraint, they nonetheless introduce political considerations into the transfer process. Also, unlike private defense firms in the United States that remain institutionally separate from the state, and where US arms manufacturers compete for the same contracts, Chinese firms operate within a political framework that allows the state to direct or integrate commercial innovation into national security objectives. As a result, Pakistan is not simply buying weapons from China but is becoming integrated into China’s technology architecture, which could accelerate elements like military adaptation, networked warfare, and AI-enabled decision-making in future crises with India. This also complicates traditional confidence-building measures in South Asia, which were designed around visible state-controlled military systems rather than commercially enabled, dual-use technologies.

At the strategic level, US arms transfers operate within the constraints of nuclear deterrence. Both India and Pakistan possess nuclear weapons, and their rivalry is structured around mutual vulnerability, which relies on two presuppositions. First, conventional arms transfers do not fundamentally alter the deterrence balance. They may shift tactical or operational dynamics, but they do not change the underlying strategic equilibrium. The US Arms Export Control Act acknowledges the role that conventional arms transfers can play in overall stability by requiring that export control decisions “take into account whether the export of an article would contribute to an arms race, aid in the development of weapons of mass destruction…or prejudice the development of bilateral or multilateral arms control or nonproliferation agreements.”

The second assumption of US deterrence policy is that external actors have a limited ability to shape escalation pathways. The most critical decisions in a crisis — whether to escalate, de-escalate, or signal restraint — are made in New Delhi and Islamabad, not Washington or Beijing. SAM data reinforces this point indirectly. It shows that arms transfers fluctuate with political relationships, but regional crises persist regardless of those fluctuations. In other words, arms sales are not a stabilizing force in themselves.

Policy Prescriptions: From Transactions to Strategy

If US arms transfers to South Asia generate access but not control, the policy challenge is to convert access into meaningful strategic impact. Four concrete steps can help achieve this shift.

  1. Prioritize Restraint-Oriented Systems Over Offensive Platform Sales: Rather than emphasizing additional platform sales that risk fueling regional arms competition, US policy should focus on capabilities that enhance transparency, situational awareness, and crisis management, such as ISR, maritime domain awareness, secure communications, and data-sharing architectures. These systems align with the evolving character of warfare while also supporting restraint by improving early warning, reducing uncertainty, and strengthening command-and-control reliability during crises. Instead of measuring influence through the volume of hardware transferred, Washington should prioritize embedding itself within partner militaries’ operational networks in ways that encourage information-sharing, escalation management, and responsible military modernization.
  2. Link Arms Transfers to Crisis Management Mechanisms: Arms sales should be tied to the development and reinforcement of crisis management tools. This includes supporting nuclear confidence-building measures that are already in place, such as missile pre-notification agreements, strengthening military hotlines, and conducting joint simulations. The goal is not just to enhance capability, but to shape how that capability is used under stress—particularly in a nuclearized environment.
  3. Re-engage Pakistan at a Functional Level: While a full restoration of US–Pakistan defense ties is unlikely, a complete disengagement is strategically counterproductive. The United States should maintain targeted cooperation in areas such as aviation safety, disaster response, and nuclear risk reduction. This approach will not reverse Pakistan’s alignment with China, but it can preserve limited channels of influence and reduce the risk of strategic miscalculation.
  4. Integrate Arms Transfers into a Broader Regional Strategy: Finally, US arms sales must be embedded within a broader political and diplomatic strategy for South Asia. Defense cooperation with India cannot substitute for regional engagement that includes crisis diplomacy, economic ties, and multilateral coordination. In other words, arms transfers should support—not substitute for—a coherent regional policy.

Arms and Ends

US arms sales and transfers to South Asia are best understood not as a standalone policy tool, but as part of a broader strategic framework. They are used to build partnerships, signal commitment, and shape regional dynamics, but they cannot, on their own, determine outcomes.

SAM data underscores this point. It shows that US security assistance is deeply embedded in political relationships and that its effectiveness depends on alignment, trust, and shared strategic objectives. In South Asia, those conditions are uneven. India is a partner but not an ally while Pakistan is a partner of convenience, increasingly aligned elsewhere. Both countries are nuclear-armed, domestically capable, and strategically autonomous.

For US policymakers, the lesson is not that arms sales are irrelevant, but that they are insufficient. Used wisely, they can reinforce relationships, enhance interoperability, and support stability. Used in isolation, they risk becoming an expensive substitute for strategy. In South Asia’s nuclearized and increasingly multipolar landscape, the United States must move beyond the illusion that arms transfers alone can deliver influence. The challenge is not to sell more, but to think more strategically about what those sales are meant to achieve.

Sahar Khan is a 2026 nonresident fellow at the Institute of Global Affairs and a co-host of a new podcast focused on South Asia in the new nuclear age called “Beyond the Lines of Control.” Previously, she served as the deputy director and senior fellow of the South Asia program at the Stimson Center, a research fellow in Defense and Foreign Policy at the Cato Institute, and managing editor of Inkstick Media. Her research focuses on restraint, deterrence, and South Asian regional security and politics. 

A New China Policy Requires An American Reality Check

In the 2026 elections and beyond, Democrats campaign on resetting the Trump Administration’s volatile foreign policy. Trump’s administration started Middle East Wars, sank ships in the Caribbean and imprisoned political dissenters using immigration enforcement. Liberal internationalists have some ideas planned for that Democrat-led reset. In a piece at Liberal Currents, Adam Gurri argues for a return to hawkishness towards China as a crucial part of that future, and a central pillar of any effective campaign.

It’s easy to see why liberals like the idea. China, for its part, has remained relatively unchanged in terms of human rights violations, aims of economic hegemony and other ambitions. In contrast to more fraught international issues like foreign aid or joining the international criminal court, opposing China is an easy bipartisan cause: commissions already exist on security, human rights, and a miscellany of Chinese Communist Party issues. 

Gurri writes: “A new Cold War is upon us, whether we want it or not. We can either retreat from it, and allow China to consolidate its international influence unopposed, or we can pursue a genuine reconstruction of the international system, one that creates a gravity well of liberal democracy into which regimes may be drawn.”

This mindset draws from liberal practices of foreign policy that characterized the Obama and Biden administrations. Also-ran candidates Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris pitched variations of this system, where hawkishness was complemented by bolstering a rules-based international order of alliances and influence. The electoral track record for smarter, more liberal hawkishness remains, at best, deeply mixed. At worst, liberal hawks enable damage that Trumpian foreign policy enacts while resolving none of the recovery efforts that foreign policy requires.

Setting aside the vague fearmongering related to China’s rapid rise at the center of his piece, Gurri’s arguments fall apart based on one crucial factor: the significantly fallen ideological and geopolitical clout of the United States. In a weakened Washington and in New York’s United Nations, America shed many of the tools needed to construct the infrastructure Gurri’s idea requires. Reconstruction of those tools is required before the US can attempt to execute any foreign policy competently, much less one that demands the world follow America’s lead as moral arbiter while overlooking repeated Trump administrations.

The damage that needs repair is deep. As eyewitness accounts from former USAID staff and other career victims of DOGE  emerge, the toothlessness of American bureaucracy only becomes more and more overt. Whatever was left of the foreign policy infrastructure built up since the last Cold War was dismantled. Under the guidance of Elon Musk and his lieutenants, they were, in Musk’s words,  “fed into the woodchipper.” 

The capacity to rebuild is under threat, too.  Scholarships promoting equity in foreign policy such as the Boren and Pickering Fellowships have been suspended, delayed, reduced in scale or canceled. Whatever destruction wasn’t modified or changed by DOGE was simply picked up by an equally eager leadership team led by Marco Rubio. 

A more equitable and effective platform on China should examine what was broken or dismantled and begin a rebuilding process with swiftness and efficiency. If Democrats want a diplomatic corps that bases decisions on knowledge and research, they must give that corps the resources to learn and utilize said knowledge and research. Without an accounting of what was lost in the Trump administration, the United States cannot construct anything resembling an international order worth pursuing. 

The rebuilding process should also center individuals and communities at the epicenter of both Chinese state harassment and American persecution, of which there are many. Guan Heng, an asylum seeker who photographed prison camps in Xinjiang, spent months in immigration detention before he was finally granted asylum. Even so, he was questioned  if his intention in filming the detention facilities and then releasing the video a few days before arriving in the US was to give him grounds to apply for asylum.” Chinese scholars are still reeling from the last Trump Administration’s China initiatives. In the tragic case of Jane Wu, a principal investigator at Northwestern University, institutional harassment pressured her into taking her own life.  

The crass logic of clumsily and brutally pursuing Chinese nationals as a means to an end has become the norm of Marco Rubio’s State Department. Even when Rubio himself departs, bureaucrats that he elevated and promoted will still be embedded within Foggy Bottom. If the Secretary of State himself is any indication, the causes he previously championed in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Taiwan are afterthoughts at best. These communities have not remained isolated from bigotry and mistreatment during the Trump Administration. Without specific attention to their concerns, a new Democratic White House would lose their vital voices in conversations on how to best protect family members and associates still in China. 

Finally, there is the question of whether or not hawkishness produces desired results for the United States. Hawkish competition by the United States has seldom yielded a meeker, more compliant China. Xi’s strongman persona thrives under hardline conditions and allows him to further cement his grip on power and staff up on America-hawks and ideologues. A Democratic President cannot undo the experiences of Guan Heng and Jane Wu, nor can it make amends to minorities targeted by both American immigration police and Chinese authorities. The very least it can do, however, is to audit and assess how to minimize harm to the Chinese diaspora community that calls the United States home. 

A more sensible solution for potential Democratic candidates would be to begin by repairing and refurbishing the pieces of diplomacy, cultural inclusivity and the American academy. Top foreign policy programs get cut from program funding, with the resources redirected towards Christian and Mormon institutions.  The State Department itself requires an overhaul, and safety to consular staff and mistreated contractors and locals are a top priority. They cannot risk a second wave of stranded diplomats and a police-shuttered USIP office building.

While these maintenance tasks aren’t the most rewarding electorally, they are essential to the survival of effective Asia policy and sound decision-making. Instead of satisfying hawkishness for its own sake, proactive recovery and the building of diplomatic institutions must come first.

Rui Zhong is a writer and researcher living in the Washington D.C. metro area. She studies China, censorship, and technology’s role in nationalism and foreign policy.

 

Escaping Europe’s oil straitjacket with decarbonization

The current global energy crisis reveals, once again, that Europe remains highly dependent on imported fossil-fuels. Experts argue that now, it is clear that the only way to secure Europe’s energy security is through rapid and ambitious decarbonisation. 

In Ireland, Norway, France, and the United Kingdom, protesters voice displeasure at the near-doubling of fuel prices following the ongoing energy price shock from the tolling and blocking of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. As people take to the streets and urge action to protect citizens against rapidly rising energy costs, Europe reels from the consequences of its dependency on fossil fuel imports.

If this sounds familiar, it should. 

The current energy crisis is only the latest revealing again how Europe’s energy dependency leaves it vulnerable to geopolitical instability. 

As Europe’s political leadership rushes to find solutions to protect citizens’ pocketbooks in the short term, analysts argue that temporary bandaid measures must not come in the place of more comprehensive policies to transform Europe’s energy system. 

The EU should suspend spending debt and deficit rules and rapidly expand funding for renewable energy projects. Oil windfall profits should be taxed while programs alleviating unemployment and high energy prices for workers will provide immediate relief. . EU member states should follow the examples of Spain, rapidly expanding its renewable capacity and decouple electricity prices from international fossil-fuel markets States should directly invest in public energy projects to ensure renewable power generation is built and held sovereign States must identify key industries to support and protect for economic and geopolitical security.

And yet, while the current shock has hallmarks of previous crises, analysts Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay of the Polycrisis argue that this time is different. It’s the first time that renewable alternatives are both cheap and accessible, saying that the current crisis is accelerating our transition towards an “electric world order.”

Alex Chapman, senior economist at the New Economics Foundation (NEF), says that if there is one lesson to be taken from the current crisis it is “that we need to have an economy that is less dependent on fossil fuels and more self-reliant on domestic renewable energy sources.” 

Leaders may seize the opportunity and frustration caused by the latest crisis to steer their economies away from fossil fuel dependency. But first, they will have to minimize the pain felt by workers from the price hikes. 

Polycrisis Management

In the immediate response to the current crisis, Europe must implement measures to protect workers and purchasing power in the short-term, says Judith Kirton-Darling, General Secretary of IndustriALL-Europe, the trade union federation representing Europe’s industrial workers.

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) estimates that the average annual energy bill for European consumers will rise by around €1800 Euros ($2100) unless immediate actions are taken. The ETUC also notes that EU consumer spending is plummeting, putting even greater pressure on the continent’s economy. 

Kirton-Darling calls for the EU to implement a “SURE 2.0” employment protection program that was used during the COVID pandemic that would provide financial support to prevent layoffs in the short-term.

She also calls for the taxing of windfall profits for fossil-fuel companies – a measure that was taken during the outbreak of the invasion of Ukraine when fossil-fuel companies made record-breaking profits. Oil giants are already expected to make enormous windfall profits by the end of the year. 

Policies that would protect the most vulnerable consumers from energy costs are important, argues Chapman, noting that the most impactful intervention during the energy hikes resulting from the invasion of Ukraine was a scheme that gave all households a specific amount of subsidised energy at a lower rate. 

These policies will offer short-term relief. To escape the cycle of crisis and temporary relief, experts argue that Europe must wean itself from its reliance on imported fossil fuels and address the systemic vulnerabilities it results in. 

Europe’s energy woes are longstanding and systematic

Europe’s energy prices have long been significantly higher than other countries like the United States and China. This contributes to a profound crisis in Europe’s key energy-intensive sectors, such as steel and chemicals, since international competitors can produce with far-lower energy costs. 

“We have an essentially existential crisis in our foundation industries because of energy prices. We’ve already lost something like 100,000 jobs in European steel in recent years. We’ve lost something like 30,000 jobs in the chemical sector”, says Kirton-Darling. 

These high prices are impacted by Europe’s dependency on fossil-fuel imports for its energy. According to Eurostat, the EU’s energy dependency rate is around 60% for all sources of energy; with the shares rising to 85% for natural gas and 97% for oil and petroleum products. 

While much of this energy came from Russia before the invasion of Ukraine, the bloc shifted towards other countries for energy, increasing reliance on the United States and Qatar. Just four years after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Trump’s voluntary war against Iran jeopardizes this reliance, as the Trump administration willingly weaponizes Europe’s energy dependence. Switching suppliers likely prolonged, rather than resolved, Europe’s state of dependency. 

The price that Europeans pay for energy is exposed to international gas market volatility in other ways as well. 

European hourly wholesale electricity prices operate in a way where the price is set by the most expensive source of power in the energy mix at that time. This system of marginal pricing means that when renewables don’t produce enough electricity to meet demand, the market price often gets set by international gas and coal market prices. 

Coupling the price of electricity to the most expensive source means that when international gas prices are volatile and rise sharply, and when renewables are insufficient to meet demand, wholesale electricity prices can rise dramatically. 

A rapid uptake of renewables would mitigate this phenomenon, ensuring that they provide the bloc’s electricity for as much time as possible. An analysis by the policy thinktank Breugel argues that “scaling up non-fossil generation and thereby reducing the share of hours when gas sets the electricity price is the only structural approach to decouple Europe’s electricity prices from fossil prices and future shocks.”

We already see benefits for countries that have gone the furthest in terms of renewable energy capacity. Spain has doubled its renewable capacity since 2019 and as a result, the amount of time that electricity prices were set by fossil fuel prices has dropped by 75%. 

As evidence mounts that greater investment in renewables can offer lower prices and protection against global instability, significant challenges remain stalling Europe’s capacity to install new capacity and expand investments. 

Europe’s homegrown constraints

In the EU, rules dictating the amount of debt and deficit that countries can run in their public budgets mean that governments can be blocked by the EU from increasing public spending, potentially presenting a barrier that prevents governments from raising their investments in transforming their energy systems. 

“At the moment, we have our hands tied behind our backs because we have 7 member states who are subject to fiscal restraints processes”, says Kirton-Darling, who calls for a suspension of these rules given the scale of the emergency at hand. 

Chapman from the NEF also calls for greater coordination between central banks and governments: “central banks are inclined to act to reduce inflation by increasing interest rates, but increasing interest rates makes it harder to invest in the technologies that we need for our own security.”

He also argues for greater state-led initiatives that do not just depend on providing incentives for private capital investments: “we argue that states should be more confident to directly invest and own levers of production and to take some risks on developing new supply chains rather than paying exorbitant amounts of money to de-risk for the private sector.”

Beyond just increasing the amount of renewable capacity in Europe, the continent will have to invest in the infrastructure supporting it. Europe’s underinvested electricity grid is already struggling to handle new capacity. Moreover, the overall electrification of the EU economy has stalled at just over 20%. This means that much of the EU continues to be nearly as dependent on non-electric sources for final energy consumption, like gasoline for transportation, as nearly 20 years ago. 

Nevertheless, we are already seeing decisions from Europe’s political leaders to move quickly to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. The UK government has recently mandated that all new homes be built with heat pumps and new plug-in solar capacity; France has doubled its public aid for electrification. 

Whether or not Europe’s leadership can meet the demands of the current moment, it serves as a potent reminder that a rapid energy transition towards domestically produced renewable energy is not only driven by ecological concerns, but also a pathway towards security in the face of repeated geopolitical tumult. 

Nevertheless, this drive also reflects a newfound geopolitical terrain on which Europe will have to find its footing. 

Castell de Savallà (Savallà del Comtat) MARIA ROSA FERRE ((CC BY-SA 2.0))

New geopolitical terrain and China as the rising victor

The sharp rise in fossil fuel prices and repeated energy price shocks in recent years has already ignited action in countries beyond the EU, most notably within China. 

Sahay and Mackenzie write in the Polycrisis that China is rapidly emerging as an “electrostate”, positioning itself as an alternative global hegemon to the US petrostate model. Through massive investments in the technologies necessary for decarbonization (Electrical Vehicles, Batteries, and Solar), it has made rapid progress in reducing its reliance on fossil fuels while developing cheaper and better technologies at a blistering pace. 

Already, China produces four-fifths of the world’s solar panels and batteries and has considerable control over the supply chains necessary to produce renewables. China’s investments have resulted in the price of new renewable capacity installations falling sharply: now, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) estimates that new renewable installations are cheaper than new fossil-fuel power alternatives in 91% of cases. 

Pakistan has emerged as an unlikely victor as it has shifted a meaningful share of its energy production to renewables in recent years and is estimated to have saved billions by replacing Liquid Natural Gas imports. 

The war in Iran is accelerating China’s sale of renewable technologies and the Chinese electrical vehicle manufacturer BYD has seen a doubling of their orders in some Asian showrooms since the war began, presenting a significant risk to Europe’s historically important car manufacturing sector. 

Concerns persist within Europe on whether these developments mean yet another shift of its energy dependencies on a new international partner. The EU manufacturers a shrinkingly small share of new global renewable capacity and will undoubtedly have to rely extensively on China for new capacity supplies. 

Nevertheless, Alex Chapman says that this reflects a different kind of dependency than that on fossil fuels: “it isn’t necessarily the same kind of reliance. It isn’t an indefinite, permanent relationship the way that our reliance on fossil fuels is.” 

In other words, geopolitical shocks like the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz would not result in suddenly wiping off already installed renewable capacity and doesn’t create a kind of persistent dependency the way that fossil fuels do. Fossil fuel extraction is geographically concentrated and prone to disruption; once a solar array is installed, no one can blockade the sun.

Nevertheless, these changing relations reflect a rapid reconfiguration of international geopolitical relations where we may be witnessing more profound transformations. Sahay and Mackenzie write that “increasingly, the US is not so much the gatekeeper of the world’s only energy system, but the paranoid guardian of an ailing oil order that is rapidly losing primacy. Clean energy alternatives are becoming more attractive, cheaper, and—most importantly—more reliable.”

Europe’s roots in the old order are deep, and the continent has shown itself reluctant to make significant moves that can adapt to new realities. Nevertheless, the European Union is working to boost its own investments in clean tech, partially through the Industrial Accelerator Act, which seeks to invest in modernizing and decarbonizing Europe’s ailing industries. 

Kirton-Darlin says that IndustriALL-Europe is a “proponent of the act and measures to to boost European domestic production of key technologies”, while Chapman adds that countries will need to establish framework of the industries that are fundamentally essential to sustaining quality of life” and take the necessary steps to protect them.

At the same time, however, there continues to be a rising and persistent internal threat: that of the far-right political parties that continue to have steadfast presences in the European political arena and place anti-decarbonisation policies at the centre of their visions of the future. 

Moreover, there is evidence that the perception of worsening economic conditions can drive voters to far-right parties, meaning that the current energy crisis may in fact further push Europe’s voters to parties that would implement the exact parties that may exacerbate the likelihood of crises in the future. 

Chapman notes “this [crisis] is happening against the backdrop of a drive from the right wing across Europe to roll back on green progress, which, in the light of the way our reliance on fossil fuels has been exposed, seems just unfathomable, but that is the reality of where we are.”

While the fears of a revanchist fossil-fuel right are real, European leaders can put decarbonization in the driver’s seat by mitigating price shocks in the short term, and then actively pursuing a policy of renewable power generation and electrification. Twice already this decade, right-wing leaders have launched wars of choice that disrupted European access to fossil fuel energy and plunged the continent into crisis. Freedom from the whim of autocrats comes through lessening their power over power.

Wouter van de Klippe is a freelance journalist focused on labor and politics. He is committed to revitalizing Europe’s labor beat and writes on labor, economic, social, and environmental justice, and social welfare states.

Against those who sow fear: Europe and the end of American Dependability

In 2016, as the world reeled from the surprise election of Donald Trump to his first term as President of the United States, writers across Washington looked for signs they could have missed about how this real estate mogul turned reality star could become president. Writing in The Daily Beast, journalist Ronald Radosh recalled a conversation in the District three years prior. Trump’s campaign manager Steven Bannon, then just the director of far-right Breitbart.com, told Radosh that “I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” 

Deep into Trump’s second term, Bannon’ s invocation of the destruction of an ancien régime reads less like a provocation and more like a statement of intent. Despite the fluctuating relationship between Bannon and the U.S. president, the disruptive, quasi‑revolutionary authoritarian rationale he articulated has become increasingly visible in the trajectory of U.S. politics.

This development is hardly confined to the domestic sphere. The U.S. foreign policy characterized by the erosion of bilateral and multilateral agreements in favour of unilateral arrangements has generated growing concern among the United States’ partners, particularly in Europe. While the rise of reactionary politics is a global phenomenon, the democratic regression of a country with the structural influence of the United States carries disproportionate consequences. Should this trajectory consolidate, it risks accelerating similar dynamics elsewhere, including in Europe, where such tendencies have already taken hold.

Europe should mobilize an additional €10 trillion in investment in sustainable energy sources by 2050, alongside green and technological reindustrialization. To foster a knowledge-based digital economy built on research and technology transfer, promoting digital humanism and environmental sustainability, and strengthening low-emission technological solutions. Member States should allocate at least 1% of their GDP to renewable energy and energy efficiency. Before increasing defence spending, existing resources must be shared more effectively to prevent duplication and address the inefficiencies present in many national armed forces. The EU and member states should increase foreign aid funding for democracy work, to fill gaps caused by a decline in US spending and ensure that pro-democracy activists are not abandoned in their aspirations.

This transformation is already reshaping the strategic environment. As uncertainty surrounding U.S. commitments deepens, states and regions that remain invested in a rules-based international order are increasingly compelled to reassess their partnerships and seek more stable and predictable counterparts.

In this context, democratic actors within the United States retain a central role in reversing institutional erosion. Their efforts will likely continue to find resonance among European counterparts. Yet if current trends persist, Europe will be forced to adapt to a more inward-looking United States, recalibrating its alliances in response to a more fragmented and volatile global landscape.

Regardless of the path Washington ultimately takes, the European Union faces an urgent imperative: to address its own structural vulnerabilities by deepening unity and strengthening sovereignty. Should democratic backsliding in the United States intensify, Europe may find itself assuming a more central role in upholding democratic norms at the global level. The geopolitical void created by a retreating United States offers such a possibility, provided Europe is willing to reduce long-standing dependencies and act with strategic coherence, and stand as a bastion for pro-democracy forces globally.

Democratic Backsliding and its Transnational Effects

The assault on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, marked a watershed in contemporary U.S. politics. Initially perceived by some as an isolated rupture, it increasingly appears as a precursor to a broader and more sustained process of institutional erosion. Trumpism has evolved into a political phenomenon with clear affinities to contemporary far-right movements, reflecting deeper structural tensions within the United States democracy.

In the years since, this regression has not abated. Developments associated with Trumpism, particularly during the president’s second term, pose a systemic challenge to democratic resilience in the United States. For Europe, this evolution is significant for both normative and strategic reasons.

First, the United States is falling short on the expectations that the western and liberal world had placed in it as a central pillar of the liberal democratic order, even though such expectations may have been somewhat unwarranted and even exaggerated. Its current trajectory raises fundamental questions about the durability of democratic institutions, even in what some consider to be historically consolidated systems. Second, Trumpism has demonstrated a capacity to project itself beyond U.S. borders, leveraging transatlantic networks to influence political dynamics in Europe. Initiatives linked to figures such as Bannon, including attempts to establish far-right training centers and think tanks across the continent, illustrate the increasingly transnational character of these movements.

Europe’s dependence on the United States spans multiple domains, but it has not, and should not, do so when it comes to the sphere of ideas. Indeed, the United States is no longer simply affected by global democratic backsliding; it has become one of its principal laboratories. The implication is clear: if institutional erosion can occur in a system as established as that of the United States, it can occur elsewhere.

The Strategic Logic Behind Trump’s “Peace” Agenda

During his second term, Donald Trump has increasingly framed himself as a promoter of peace. This positioning, often interpreted as linked to his stated ambition of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, has nonetheless produced uncertain and, at times, contradictory outcomes.

Beyond its personal dimension, this posture reflects a broader structural logic associated with relative decline. Historically, declining empires facing economic strain—characterized by rising debt and inflation—have sought to secure access to strategic resources and maintain influence through coercive or violent means, frequently under the rhetorical cover of stability or peace. The United States and Donald Trump have in fact taken the concept of peace and turned it into subjugation, the notion that under the direction of the President the country is entitled to rob, exploit, dominate, and undertake any course of action to ensure that existing privileges—by being an empire—are maintained and protected.

Recent U.S. actions can be interpreted within this framework. Trump’s threats against Greenland’s sovereignty marked a significant rupture in transatlantic relations. For many European governments, it challenged a longstanding assumption: that the United States would not question the territorial integrity of allied nations. The episode has accelerated debates across Europe regarding strategic autonomy, particularly in defense, technology, industry, and energy.

Economic relations have also come under strain. Tariff measures targeting key European sectors, including automobiles, agri-food products, steel, and aluminum, have been widely interpreted as a direct challenge to the transatlantic economic partnership. As a result, confidence in the United States as a stable and predictable partner has been significantly weakened.

At the same time, in conflicts such as Ukraine, Palestine, and Iran, U.S. positioning has often appeared misaligned with that of its traditional allies. At the same time, Trump has shown greater synergy with the aggressors, like Putin and Netanyahu, than with the victims, like Zelenskyy, who have suffered public and televised humiliations coming from the U.S. president. This perception has contributed to a growing sense of strategic divergence across the Atlantic.

Public opinion reflects this shift. Survey data in recent years indicates a decline in European trust toward the United States, with increasing skepticism regarding its role as a security guarantor. Longstanding alliances, especially NATO, are being reconsidered amid growing doubts.

Europe in an Age of Strategic Reassessment

For decades, Europe, like much of the Western world, outsourced key dimensions of its sovereignty. Industrial production shifted to Asia, energy dependencies formed with Russia and North Africa, and responsibility for defense was largely delegated to the United States. This model has created the structural vulnerabilities that today undermine Europe’s position on the global playing field.

In a global environment increasingly defined by geopolitical competition and authoritarian tendencies, such dependencies are no longer tenable. Yet this moment of disruption also presents an opportunity. The European Union has the capacity to redefine its role, positioning itself as a central actor in the defense of democratic governance without replicating the coercive dynamics of traditional great powers.

Strategic autonomy, however, should not be equated with disengagement. Europe faces a strategic inflection point: adapt to instability and redefine its role in international order. This includes strengthening multilateral frameworks, investing in international institutions, and building coalitions with like-minded democracies.

To translate potential into capacity, structural adjustments are required. Reindustrialization and the revitalization of the primary sector are essential to reduce dependency on external supply chains. Equally critical is the development of an autonomous energy strategy centered on renewable sources. In parallel, advancing a coordinated European defense framework would allow for more efficient use of resources while reducing reliance on external actors.

Therefore, and willing to synthesize the lines of action that the European Union should adopt in order to move towards a strategic reassessment that brings more sovereignty, the following recommendations should be applied:

  1. To mobilize an additional €10 trillion in investment in sustainable energy sources by 2050, ensuring a green transition that allows us to achieve climate neutrality objectives while maintaining a competitive industrial base. 
  2. A European plan of public social and ecological investments designed to reindustrialise Europe, with a focus on the new economy and the green and technological industries, while also strengthening our autonomy and sovereignty.
  3. To foster a knowledge-based digital economy built on research and technology transfer, promoting digital humanism and environmental sustainability, and strengthening low-emission technological solutions.
  4. Investing in the energy transition: Member States should allocate at least 1% of their GDP to renewable energy and energy efficiency. The European Commission should present a multiannual investment strategy to plan the investment needs for the EU’s energy transition. We estimate that public and private investment needs in energy efficiency, renewable energy and sustainable technologies across the EU amount to €1.7 trillion by 2030.
  5. A common European security and defence policy, based on genuine cooperation in security matters across the EU. Before increasing defence spending, existing resources must be shared more effectively to prevent duplication and address the inefficiencies present in many national armed forces.
  6. The EU and member states should increase foreign aid funding for democracy work, to fill gaps caused by a decline in US spending and ensure that pro-democracy activists are not abandoned in their aspirations.

Conclusion: From Dependency to Agency

As the United States becomes increasingly inward-looking and more authoritarian, Europe faces a decisive strategic moment. The erosion of U.S. position within the democratic international order does not automatically produce a successor, but it does create an opening.

Whether the European Union can assume a more central role will depend on its willingness to act collectively, invest in its own capabilities, and articulate a coherent vision for its place in the world. This is not simply a matter of geopolitical positioning; it is a question of political responsibility.

If the United States no longer defends the democratic order, the question is no longer whether Europe should act, but whether it can afford not to.

Oriol Junqueras i Vies is the leader of the Catalan party Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya. He was the Minister of Economy and Finance of the Government of Catalonia from 2016 to 2017. He also served as a Member of the European Parliament (2009–2011 and 2019–2020), as a member of the Spanish Congress (2019), as a Member of the Parliament of Catalonia (2012–2019), and as the mayor of Sant Vicenç dels Horts, near Barcelona, from 2011 to 2015. He holds a degree in Modern and Contemporary History and a PhD in History of Economic Thought from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

Exiting American Hegemony Under A French Nuclear Umbrella 

Transatlantic relations since World War II have followed a familiar, and often toxic, pattern: one side pushes, while the other insists it wanted to be pushed all along. As Europe recovered after 1945, its leaders, particularly in France, periodically declared their plans and wishes for greater autonomy, while American presidents urged Europe to take on more responsibility. Yet in practice, this dynamic has resembled an unhealthy family relationship: a parent demanding independence from a child, but resisting it when it happens, and a child that ultimately returns when faced with real life constraints. While this struggle has repeated about once a decade since the 1960s, it is time for Europe to grow up, and move out of the American nuclear umbrella and into its own stable shelter against catastrophe. 

Donald Trump began 2026 straining US relations with Europe. His stated desire for a US annexation of Greenland, often dismissed as a meme on the campaign trail, suddenly became a stark possibility, rather than just an attention-grabbing remark. In response, European decision-makers presented a strong and united front and said, “absolutely not”. 

France led the conversation, from Emmanuel Macron’s sunglasses in Davos to his “for sure” speech and even private messages leaked by Trump. Close behind was the UK’s Keir Starmer, who, alongside the wave of TikToks, shared an AI-generated meme of himself and Macron as Top Gun characters. Germany joined in as well, with Foreign Minister Wadephul and official institutions posting a nihilist penguin edit to showcase European unity. Sunglasses sales soared, memes circulated, and political popularity followed, drawing even younger audiences, however briefly, into conversations on European unity and strategic autonomy.

This unity was not only shown through social media, but also through military deployments to Greenland from Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, UK, Finland and Netherlands. While this deployment was framed as a joint exercise against Russian and Chinese threats, diplomats and analysts also concluded that it was meant to show an example of NATO defence without the US. Furthermore, at the Brussels’ ambassadors summit on January 19, European officials planned an anti-tariff retaliation, while the ratification of the US trade deal was paused. This has led to Trump taking a step back from the Greenland idea, at least for now, and to Europe catching a glimpse of what coordinated messaging and unity can achieve.

Draft a concise, independent ESS that sets Europe’s priorities rather than reacting to the US. Develop contingency plans to support and protect Ukraine if US backing falters. Define a coherent Middle East strategy based on European interests, not American imperatives. Coordinate with France and the UK to outline the scope, obligations, and operational rules of a potential joint nuclear umbrella, with an emphasis on No First Use in keeping with best deescalatory practice. Ensure that smaller European powers are protected and not overshadowed by leadership from stronger states in the bloc.

All of this was followed by foreign relations enthusiasts’ favourite holiday: the Munich Security Conference. In the shadow of last year’s J. D. Vance’s speech, the more polished one delivered by Marco Rubio still sent the same message: the US would pursue its own interests, and Europe needed to get on board. France, under Macron, placed the European project at the centre of the debate, urging Europeans to take pride in their values, noting that “a stronger Europe would be a better friend to its allies.” He also moved beyond Charles de Gaulle’s traditional anti-Anglosaxon and go-it-alone approach, instead emphasizing the indivisibility of European and British security and calling for greater coordination and spending. While Keir Starmer reaffirmed the importance of the US alliance, he also supported reducing dependence on it, pointing toward deeper UK–EU defence integration and a more European NATO, which certainly is a turn in their foreign policy, which previously relied upon being the closest American partner in Europe, at the cost of their relations with fellow Europeans. Chancellor of Germany Friedrich Merz struck a more cautious tone. Although he acknowledged the breakdown of the international order and supported greater European cooperation, he ultimately prioritized Germany’s role as a reliable partner to the United States, suggesting that European strategic autonomy should not come at the expense of alignment with Washington. 

The Umbrella of Île Longue

On March 2, Emmanuel Macron delivered a speech in Brittany, one that is perhaps the most significant speech on nuclear policy by any Western leader since the end of the Cold War. Speaking at Île Longue, the base for France’s nuclear submarines, Macron outlined a strategic shift. Notably, the original French nuclear deterrence, force de frappe, was never meant to be able to defeat Russia (USSR at the time) in a nuclear stand-off, but rather to be able to inflict enough damage and guarantee that the United States would have no choice but to come to European’s defence, with full force. Charles de Gaulle never trusted Americans to defend Europe as they would their own country, no matter who was in the office. Force de frappe was created as a symbol of national pride and independence, part of de Gaulle’s bigger plan to restore French grandeur after World War II. Through the Cold War and beyond it evolved pragmatically: de Gaulle pulled France from NATO’s integrated military command in 1966; Mitterrand in the 1990s and post-Soviet collapse cut costs by scrapping land missiles and reducing subs, but kept the core – no first use, defensive only, and total control in Paris. Hollande and earlier presidents reaffirmed this amid terrorism and new threats without big shifts. While Macron continues to uphold Gaullist independence and the policy of no-first strikes, since 2020 he has introduced a response to multi-domain threats that go beyond state borders, such as cyberattacks, into the French nuclear doctrine. Alongside this, he has announced arsenal growth, for the first time since 1992.

What Macron is offering is broadly familiar: the shelter of a French nuclear umbrella for Europe is the offer that has been on the table since the 1960s. What is new this time is that Europeans seem more inclined to accept it. The UK, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden and Denmark have agreed to participate in a new “advanced deterrence” strategy. Macron set to increase the size of the French nuclear arsenal, and to no longer share with the world what that arsenal contains. This is another example of him breaking away from the past French doctrine, that has since 2008 meant a self chosen obligation to have less than 300 warheads. Unfortunately, this opacity aligns with the lapse of bilateral arms control agreements like New START (expired in February 2026), mirroring US and Russian trends toward reduced disclosures. France frames it as enhancing “strict sufficiency” deterrence without proliferation risks, maintaining its NPT commitments and abstention from stockpile growth races. Macron has declared that the reduced transparency is just a dynamic update to the previous doctrine, now needed in order to keep scaring away the enemies, but without entering into an arms race. He has also emphasized that the new goal of the arsenal is that “no State, however powerful, could shield itself from it; and no State, however vast, could recover”, in case of France’s red lines being crossed. Notably, the concept of red lines has been kept deliberately vague, except saying that they do go beyond France’s national borders, in contrast to being strictly defined during the de Gaulle era. 

This proposal ultimately reinforces a return to power politics and spheres of influence. And while Macron presents it as a path to peace, Ronald Reagan’s warning still holds: “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought”. Moreover, the concept of the nuclear umbrella relies on enemies fearing it, and allies trusting their guarantor. In a context where great powers are increasingly moving away from transparency, as Emmanuel Macron calls on middle powers to unite in response to the dominance of the United States and China, and as Europe seeks to reassert its role on the global stage, France, together with its partners, would be better served by setting a stronger precedent of transparency and cooperation, and by upholding and reinforcing the non-proliferation community, rather than following in the footsteps of the prevailing hegemons.

Prime Minister Robert Golob is on a working visit to Paris, where he met with French President Emmanuel Macron. They stand under French umbrellas

A few days before Macron’s speech, Germany officials stated they would not be footing the bill for an arsenal that is only French, and recent issues with the Franco-German-Spanish project FCAS (Future Combat Air System) go to show they mean it. FCAS is a joint €100 billion project, launched in 2017 to build a 6th-generation fighter jet by 2040, as well as drones and a “combat cloud” network. At the beginning of the year German officials stated that they would not pay equal share for a fighter customized to French needs: nuclear-armed and carrier-launched. Macron himself stated that the usage of the nuclear arsenal remains solely at France’s discretion, more precisely, the President’s – hence, his. One of the main reasons why this concept has never come to fruition before certainly is because Europeans trusted the external ally, the US, more than they trusted each other. And even if they have overcome this, France is set to hold presidential elections in 2027, and Macron cannot run. So, what happens when someone new is in his office? While most French presidents have ridden the de Gaulle wave of foreign policy, no one more than Macron, there is no guarantee that his successor will be of the same beliefs. The umbrella could contract as easily as it was unfurled.  

Many have urged the UK to act as a second guarantor, the only other European country with a nuclear arsenal. Yet while France’s force de frappe has always been independent, the British arsenal was built for NATO use, with sovereign UK authority limited to cases of “immediate grave danger”, a term never fully defined. Still, London has noticeably shifted away from the US and closer to continental Europe. Case in point: their backing of Macron’s nuclear umbrella project and the cooperation agreement signed with France last July, which has created an Anglo-French “oversight committee”. Germany, meanwhile, published a joint statement on March 2, showing alignment with France, but the very next day while Merz was in Washington, Trump used this occasion to publicly berate Spain, as their prime minister strongly refused the possibility of the US using Spanish military bases for attacks on Iran. The German chancellor stayed quiet and did not defend its European ally at all – although he later claimed he did so in private. When Merz visited the UK only a day after Macron last July, it was seen as the return of the E3 group, as the driving force of European security. If we take the history lessons into consideration, it would most likely be Germany to back away from any real European autonomy and go right back to the US. After all, if European countries do go through with it, the place of the American closest ally within Europe will be available, and Trump has already favored Merz in comparison to other European leaders.

Strait Talk

The beginning of March also brought the US and Israeli war against Iran, a true test of Europe’s united front and its seriousness about independence from Washington. Remarkably, European leaders have stood firm: this is not their war, and they will neither participate nor allow the US use of their bases. True to form, Trump expressed disappointment, warning that their choices could imperil NATO, a body he has long treated as little more than a burden. Yet even if Europe stays out of the fighting, the consequences ripple across the continent: soaring oil and gas prices, and a missile striking Cyprus in early March. While it starkly resembles 2003 and European discontent with the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, this moment will reveal whether European unity is performative theater or the first steps toward genuine strategic autonomy.  

The central question remains: is Europe’s new push for sovereignty real, or merely an illusion crafted to capture Washington’s attention? The answer will emerge in the coming months, but policy must act now. Recommendations for the European Commission, as it develops a new European Security Strategy (ESS), are clear: 

  1. Draft a concise, independent ESS that sets Europe’s priorities rather than reacting to the US.  
  2. Develop contingency plans to support and protect Ukraine if US backing falters.  
  3. Define a coherent Middle East strategy based on European interests, not American imperatives.  
  4. Coordinate with France and the UK to outline the scope, obligations, and operational rules of a potential joint nuclear umbrella, with an emphasis on No First Use in keeping with best deescalatory practice.  
  5. Ensure that smaller European powers are protected and not overshadowed by leadership from stronger states in the bloc.

What emerges from this analysis is that a more militarily autonomous Europe has the potential to act not as a destabilizing force, but as a moderating one. Moving beyond its longstanding role as a deferential ally, Europe must begin to trust in its own collective strength and in the reliability of its partners within the continent, rather than defaulting to external guarantees. For too long, both European foreign policy and, at times, internal political dynamics have been shaped by electoral cycles in the United States, with each new one bringing a recalibration of priorities. Strategic autonomy would allow Europe to break from this pattern and act with greater consistency and confidence, engaging the United States as an ally when interests align and as a competitor when they do not. Freed from automatic alignment with Washington’s strategic choices, Europe could position itself as a more cautious and deliberative actor on the global stage, one less inclined toward interventionism and more committed to diplomacy, multilateralism, and restraint. Unlike in past decades, where European support often enabled US-led wars of choice, a truly independent Europe could instead serve as a counterweight, slowing escalation rather than facilitating it. In doing so, Europe would move from being a geopolitical battleground for great powers to an actor in its own right, contributing to a more balanced, stable, and predictable international order.

Tijana Bauer (Tijana Bauer | LinkedIn) is a researcher and writer working on European security, transatlantic relations, and nuclear deterrence, with a Master’s degree in Comparative International Relations from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Her work combines primary-source research, OSINT, and policy analysis, and has appeared in academic and research publications on European autonomy, Balkan security, and intelligence cooperation.

Assessing The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Iran Deal: Its Provisions, Verification Results and Political Support

David Cortright is a visiting scholar at Cornell University’s Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies and professor emeritus at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.

Read the companion piece here.

The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Iran Deal (JCPOA) was an historic agreement that established significant constraints on Iran’s nuclear program. The core bargain involved the acceptance of nuclear restrictions and transparency measures by Iran in return for the lifting of nonproliferation sanctions imposed by the US and UN Security Council. It was the result of several years of intensive negotiations with Iran led by the US, with the involvement of with the involvement of Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union. Iran made significant concessions in accepting the agreement and complied fully with its terms. 

In 2013 Iran accepted and complied with an interim agreement, the Joint Plan of Action prefiguring the final accord, which required Tehran to restrict its uranium program and accept an enlarged International Atomic Energy Agency inspection regime. Iran complied with the interim agreement, building trust and laying the foundations for the final, more extensive joint comprehensive agreement.1  

The JCPOA blocked Iran’s pathway to developing nuclear weapons and provided unprecedented monitoring and verification systems for assuring implementation. According to a 2017 public statement by dozens of former arms control officials and weapons inspectors, the JCPOA2

dramatically reduced the risk posed by Iran’s nuclear program and mandated unprecedented Iran Deal and transparency measures that make it very likely that any possible future effort by Iran to pursue nuclear weapons, even a clandestine program, would be detected promptly. By blocking Iran’s potential pathways to nuclear weapons, the JCPOA has also decreased the likelihood of destabilizing nuclear competition in the region. 

Details of the agreement

Under the terms of the JCPOA Iran dismantled more than 13,000 centrifuges and placed them in monitored storage. It shipped more than 11 tons of low-enriched uranium, 98% of its stockpile, out of the country. 

Iran also did the following:

  1. Dismantled most of its centrifuges and reduced the number of operating centrifuges to 5,060 IR-1 machines for a ten-year period.
  2. Agreed to cap the level of uranium enrichment for 15 years at 3.67 percent uranium-235, the threshold for medical use and far below the 90% level required for nuclear fission. 
  3. For 15 years, confined enrichment to the Natanz site.
  4. Ceased the production of additional IR-1 centrifuges for a decade
  5. Maintained a lowered stockpile of uranium of all types equivalent to 300 kilograms.3

Iran’s potential pathway to a plutonium bomb was shut down. The core of its heavy-water reactor at Arak was removed and disabled. The facility was reconfigured with Russian and Chinese assistance so that it could not produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.4 Plutonium production fell ten-fold. Iran agreed to refrain from research or work on reprocessing spent fuel to extract plutonium for potential weapons for at least 15 years.

The JCPOA provided guarantees that Iran would not be able to have a nuclear weapon for at least a period of 15 years. To verify these terms, Iran accepted “accept the kind of inspections that no other country in the world has ever accepted”the kind of inspections that no other country in the world has had to experience, as Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, stated.5

Verification

In signing the JCPOA Iran agreed to the most comprehensive and intrusive IAEA weapons inspection system ever negotiated.6 In all previous nuclear weapons inspections, the focus had been on fissile material, to verify that nuclear materials were being used only for peaceful purposes and could not be diverted to bomb production. The JCPOA went beyond this approach to look at potential bomb-making equipment. As Ali Vaez put it, inspectors examined “every nut and bolt” that could be used for centrifuges or other machinery involved in Iran’s nuclear production.

The Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement and the Additional Protocol established with the JCPOA created procedures granting IAEA full access to Iranian nuclear sites and other sites where undeclared activities were indicated. Under the terms of the agreement, scheduled to last 15 years, the IAEA had the right to access any site in Iran, including prompt entry to suspicious sites, in some cases within 24 hours.7 The agreement “undoubtedly placed Iran’s nuclear program under broader and stricter safeguards than existed before the accord,” wrote Olli Heinonen.8 The nuclear material monitoring mechanisms of the agreement were “robust.”

When Iran confirmed its acceptance of these terms, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2231 (July 2015) lifting sanctions.9  The resolution created the legal framework for member states to engage in economic trade, investment, banking, and travel with Iran. The termination of sanctions was the quid pro quo that motivated Iran to accept these strict limitations to its nuclear program.

Compliance

The record shows that Iran complied with the terms of the JCPOA.10 In testimony before the US Congress, officials from the Department of Defense, the State Department, and the US intelligence community stated that Iran was abiding by the agreement. In April 2018, the State Department’s official report on the agreement said Iran is “transparently, verifiably, and fully implementing the JCPOA” and reported no material breach of the agreement.11 

The IAEA issued more than a dozen reports on Iranian compliance from 2016 through 2018 and found no evidence of substantive Iranian violations of the agreement.12 The reports described consistent Iranian fulfillment of its obligations under the agreement. Typical was the IAEA report of June 6, 2018,13 issued soon after the announcement of US withdrawal from the agreement. The report made clear that, contrary to claims by the Trump administration, Iranian officials were still implementing their obligations. Its findings included the following: 

  1. Iran’s stockpile of low enriched uranium at that time was 123.9 kg, below the 300 kg limit set by the accord.
  2. The number of installed IR-1 centrifuges at Natanz remained below the 5,060 limit set by the agreement.
  3. Iran enriched uranium only to 3.67 percent uranium-235, the limit set by the deal. 
  4. The stockpile of heavy water of 120.3 metric tons was below the negotiated 130 metric ton limit.

IAEA monitoring extended to all nuclear facilities, research and development activities, and all associated mining, milling and industrial production facilities. It is significant that the IAEA was able to measure stockpiles to the nearest 100 grams and enrichment levels to 3 figures. This was an indication of accuracy and added intelligence value of enhanced IAEA inspections and reporting.14 

Official validation 

Many senior U.S. government officials and nuclear experts recognized the intelligence and security benefits of the JCPOA and urged the White House to continue to comply with the agreement. Former Republican Senator Daniel Coats, the Director of National Intelligence, stated in the directorate’s May 2017 Worldwide Threat Assessment that the JCPOA has “enhanced the transparency of Iran’s nuclear activities” and “extended the amount of time Iran would need to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon from a few months to about a year.”15 Prior to commencing negotiations with Iran in 2013, that timeline would have been 2-3 months.

In October, 2017, Defense Secretary James Mattis confirmed that Iran was complying with the nuclear accord. When asked by then Rep. Ruben Gallego of the House Armed Services Committee if Iran was compliant, Mattis replied, “I believe fundamentally they are.”16 In September 2017, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Iran was complying with the JCPOA and that withdrawal would have “unfortunate” ripple effects.17 Former Secretary of State Colin Powell described the JCPOA as “a pretty good deal” with a “very rigorous verification regime.”18 These and other security concerns were brushed aside in the decision to withdraw from the accord. 

Positive assessments of Iranian compliance also came from the governments of Britain, France, and Germany. Conservative British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said breaking the agreement would be a “mistake.” Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said that Iran “kept the letter of the agreement quite systematically.”19 

In October 2017, President Trump charged that Iran “has committed multiple violations” of the agreement and was preventing IAEA inspectors from doing their job. The website FactCheck.Org thoroughly debunked the claims. IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano issued a statement that “the IAEA has had access to all locations it needed to visit. … As I have reported to the Board of Governors, the nuclear-related commitments undertaken by Iran under the JCPOA are being implemented.”20

Rejection

Evidence and informed opinion notwithstanding, on May 8, 2017 the White House officially reneged on the Iran deal and announced US withdrawal from the JCPOA.21 U.S. sanctions were reimposed and intensified. It was a day of infamy in the history of nuclear nonproliferation.

Iran continued to comply with the JCPOA into 2019, but in the face of continuing sanctions and hostility from Washington, Tehran abandoned its policies of nuclear restraint and began enriching uranium to higher levels. The country produced substantial amounts of higher enriched uranium, bringing their stockpile closer to levels that could be further enriched for the production of nuclear weapons. While IAEA inspectors remained in Iran, they issued alarming reports of Iran’s expanding enrichment program. A May 2025 BBC report cited an IAEA assessment that Iran possessed over 400kg of uranium enriched to 60% purity – far above the level used for civilian purposes. This was a nearly 50% increase in three months.22 

These were dangerous developments that increased tensions in the region. They provided the justification Israel and the United States used to attack Iranian nuclear production sites during the 12-day war of June 2025.23 Following the 12-day war, the Iranian government halted its cooperation with the IAEA and suspended verification visits at sites illegally bombed in June in violation of IAEA Safeguards agreements.24 Tehran allowed IAEA inspectors back for  site visits at the civilian Tehran Research Reactor.25 

Although Trump said the June 2025 attacks obliterated Tehran’s nuclear capacities, the US joined Israel on February 28 2026 in renewed strikes against Iran’s nuclear capabilities, launching a devastating war that continues as of this writing. 

Read the companion piece here.

1 Davenport, K.  2022, January. Implementation of the Joint Plan of Action, Arms Control Association. https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/implementation-joint-plan-action-glance. 

2 Arms Control Association, Statement from Nuclear Nonproliferation Experts on the Iran Nuclear Deal September 2017, https://www.armscontrol.org/sites/default/files/files/documents/Experts-Statement-on-JCPOA-Sept2017.pdf

3 Arms Control Association, “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) at a Glance, Last reviewed February 2025, Kelsey Davenport, https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/joint-comprehensive-plan-action-jcpoa-glance

 4 “Iran ‘fills nuclear core with concrete,’” BBC, January 11, 2016, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35285095

5 Ali Vaiz, “What Trump Didn’t Know About Iran,” The Ezra Klein Podcast, March 14, 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/14/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-ali-vaez.html

6 US Department of State. 2015, July 14. Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. https://2009-2017.state.gov/e/eb/tfs/spi/iran/jcpoa/. 

7  Institute for Science and International Security, Verification of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, July 28, 2015, https://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/Verification_of_Iran_JCPOA_Final.pdf

8  Olli  Heinonen, “Strengthening the Verification and Implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, November 2015, https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/pantheon_files/files/publication/Heinonen_Strengthening_Verification_and_Implementation_of_JCPOA.pdf

9  United Nations Security Council. 2015, July 20. Resolution 2231 (2015). Adopted by the Security Council at its 7488th meeting. https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/unsc_resolution2231-2015.pdf. 

10 United States Congress. 2018, June 6. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, U.S. House of Representatives. Protecting America from a bad deal: Ending US participation in the nuclear agreement with Iran. Testimony of James Walsh. https://oversight.house.gov/wpcontent/uploads/2018/06/Walsh-Iran-testimony-6.6.18-fin.pdf. 

11 United States Department of State. 2018. 2018 Report on Adherence to and Compliance With Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments. https://2017-2021.state.gov/2018-report-on-adherence-to-and-compliance-with-arms-control-nonproliferation-and-disarmament-agreements-and-commitments/#Iran3. 

12 International Crisis Group, The Iran Deal at Two: A Status Report, Report No. 181/Midde East & North Africa, 18 January, 2018, https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/iran/181-iran-nuclear-deal-two-status-report; see also Verification and Monitoring in the Islamic Republic of Iran in light of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 (2015)”, GOV/INF/2016/1, 16 January 2016; GOV/2016/8, 26 February 2016; GOV/2016/23, 27 May 2016; GOV/2016/46, 8 September 2016; GOV/2016/55, 9 November 2016; GOV/2017/10, 24 February 2017; GOV/2017/24, 2 June 2017; GOV/2017/35, 31 August 2017; and GOV/2017/48, 13 November 2017. Also see “Secretary-General report on the implementation of Security Council resolution 2231 (2015)”, S/2016/589, 12 July 2016; S/2016/1136, 30 December 2016; S/2017/515, 20 June 2017; S/2017/2010, 8 December 2017.

13 Arms Control Association, IAEA Report Confirms Iran’s Compliance with the JCPOA, n.d., https://www.armscontrol.org/blog/2018-06-08/iaea-report-confirms-irans-compliance-jcpoa

14  Kelley, R. 2025, November…

15  Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Statement for the Record, Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, Daniel R. Coast, Director of National Intelligence, May 23, 2017, https://www.intelligence.gov/assets/documents/archive/SASC%202017%20ATA%20SFR%20-%20FINAL.PDF

16 Iran Watch, “Defense Secretary James Mattis Confirms that Iran is Complying with Nuclear Deal,” October 3, 2017, https://www.iranwatch.org/library/governments/united-states/executive-branch/department-defense/defense-secretary-james-mattis-confirms-iran-complying-nuclear-deal 

17  Paul McLeary, ”Trump’s Top General Says Iran Honoring Nuclear Deal,” Financial Times, September 26, 2017, https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/09/26/trumps-top-general-says-iran-honoring-nuke-deal/

18 Alexandra Jaffe, “Colin Powell: Iran Deal is a ‘Pretty Good Deal’”, NBC News, September 6, 2015, https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/iran-nuclear-talks/colin-powell-iran-deal-pretty-good-deal-n422551

19 All quotes from Walsh, United States Congress. 2018, June 6. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, U.S. House of Representatives. Protecting America from a bad deal: Ending US participation in the nuclear agreement with Iran. Testimony of James Walsh. https://oversight.house.gov/wpcontent/uploads/2018/06/Walsh-Iran-testimony-6.6.18-fin.pdf.

20 Kiely, E. 2017, October 13. Trump on “multiple violations.” FactCheck.Org. https://www.factcheck.org/author/eugene-kiely/page/50/. 

21 Mark Lander, “Trump Abandons Iran Nuclear Deal He Long Scorned,” New York Times, May 8, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/world/middleeast/trump-iran-nuclear-deal.html

22 Ghobadi, P. 2025. Iran significantly growing uranium stockpile, warns UN nuclear agency. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1mg7kx2d45o. 

23 Mark Fitzpatrick, “Attacking Iran and Tempting Fate,” Survival Online, 1 August 2025, https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/survival-online/2025/08/attacking-iran-and-tempting-fate/

24 Erika Solomon, “Nuclear Inspectors Leave Iran After Cooperation Halted With U.N. Watchdog,” New York Times, July 4, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/04/world/middleeast/nuclear-inspectors-iran-iaea.html

25 Arms Control Association, “U.S. Negotiators Were Ill-Prepared for Serious Nuclear Negotiations with Iran,” March 15  (updated), 2026, Kelsey Davenport, https://www.armscontrol.org/blog/2026-03-11/us-negotiators-were-ill-prepared-serious-nuclear-negotiations-iran

Trump’s War on Iran is the obliteration of diplomacy

Trump’s most consistent stated objective for launching his war against Iran is to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons. It is an end that many supporters of the war believe can only be achieved through force. Negotiations and diplomatic agreements were tried in the past, they argue, and failed. 

Trump never wanted diplomacy to have a chance. He made that abundantly clear during his first term when in 2018 he reneged on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. That agreement was effectively blocking Iran’s path to the development of nuclear weapons when the White House pulled the plug. (A documented account of the JCPOA is provided here as an historical annex.)

The administration’s disregard for diplomacy was evident in the weeks preceding the February 28 start of war. Discussions were underway, with significant Iranian concessions on the table. Mediators and close observers of the talks believed progress was being made, but the US and Israel proceeded with military action. A similar pattern played out in June 2025 with the U.S. – Iran talks preceding the 12-day war. These negotiations were cut short when Israel launched military strikes on Iran and Iran retaliated. 

Last resort?

That negotiations were taking place up to days before the launch of the war undermines any claim that Trump’s war of choice was a last resort to avert future harm. The harm that the war was intended to prevent, Iran’s possible future development and use of a nuclear weapon, was not imminent, nor was stopping it only possible through the use of military force. Ethical principles on the use of force hold that military action against an adversary is permissible only as a last resort, if other viable means of countering aggressive threats have been tried and found wanting. 

Most successes in nonproliferation policy are the result of diplomatic bargaining and the deft use of threats, sanctions and incentives to induce cooperation from potential proliferating states. These means were working before Trump walked the United States out of the JCPOA, and they have been effective means to halt a nuclear program on other cases. Diplomacy should be thoroughly explored before any consideration of the use of force. This is especially true in the Iran case where diplomacy has been effective in the past, and active discussions were underway prior to the attack. 

Follow ethical principles on the use of force, including last resort, before making the grave decision to initiate military hostilities. Recognize that diplomatic bargaining and the use of sanctions and incentives to resolve political disputes are effective means of countering weapons proliferation. Rely on experienced diplomats and knowledgeable scientific experts to negotiate for arms control and nonproliferation.

If the threat from an adversary is imminent and the risk of attack is grave, diplomatic options may not be feasible or morally appropriate. If the adversary shows no interest in negotiated solutions, that may also reduce the utility of diplomacy in achieving the desired outcome. Neither of these conditions applied in this case. 

No imminent threat of nuclear weapons existed in Iran. Tehran increased the level of uranium enrichment in recent years and has a stockpile of near weapons grade enriched uranium, but it was not currently enriching and had made no conscious effort to create a nuclear weapon. IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi stated on March 2 that his agency did not see a “structured program to manufacture nuclear weapons.” The 2025 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US intelligence community stated “We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.” The recently released 2026 threats report omits that sentence, but it does not include an assessment that Iran made the decision to weaponize.

A potential breakthrough?

Twice in the last year the United States started military action in the midst of negotiations that might have placed tighter limits on Iran’s nuclear program. US military threats in each instance prompted backlash among certain factions in Tehran but they also quickened Iranian diplomatic activity and in the recent round prompted concessions to avoid war. 

The Geneva talks prior to February 28 were significant in showing Iran’s apparent willingness to curtail its nuclear program. Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi told reporters after the last round of talks on February 26 that the parties made “good progress” in reaching agreement. Araghchi reported that technical teams would meet the following Monday in Vienna to work out the details. “It was one of our best negotiating sessions,” he added. The mediator of the talks, Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, also reported hopefully, by declaring that the United States and Iran made “substantial progress” toward a nuclear deal. IAEA Director Rossi was less optimistic in his assessment but said there was a possibility of an agreement and confirmed that technical talks were scheduled.

Indications from press statements and interviews at the time suggest that Iran offered significant concessions that went beyond anything they had proposed previously, in some respects surpassing the limits established in the 2015 JCPOA. On offer was a plan for substantially curtailing uranium under international inspection. 

  1. Negotiators offered a three-to-five year pause of uranium enrichment and a pledge not to accumulate enriched uranium gas. They agreed that no stockpiles of highly enriched uranium would be built up in the future.
  2. They agreed to blend down highly enriched uranium under the supervision of the IAEA, irreversibly reducing their 440kg stockpile of 60% uranium to lower levels. 
  3. They accepted comprehensive International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) oversight.

Al Busaidi summarized the Iranian package this way: “zero accumulation, zero stockpiling, and full verification.” Iran’s proposals were presented in a seven-page memo and accompanying annex, which Araghchi showed to US envoy Steve Witkoff but did not allow him to keep. 

The British security adviser and experienced mediator, Jonathan Powell, was present in Geneva at the talks. British officials who were briefed on the Iranian offer said they were impressed that Iran was prepared to make the proposed deal permanent, unlike the JCPOA, with no cut-off dates or sunset clauses.

In addition, Iranian diplomats dangled the option of a “commercial bonanza” if the US signed an agreement, no doubt appealing to Trump’s penchant for trade deals. Deputy foreign minister Hamid Ghanbari told Iranian businesspeople that the US would be given the chance to participate in a future civil nuclear program in Iran, as well as joint interests in oil and gas, investments in mining, and even the purchase of civilian aircraft.

It is impossible to know how serious Iranian officials were in offering these proposals. They were negotiating with a figurative gun to their heads and multiple US Aircraft Carrier Groups in a threatening position, and were likely desperate to continue negotiations that would avoid war. No doubt there were nonstarters among their proposals, but they included an important gem: the offer to halt and curtail enrichment. The Omanis believed this proposal was a breakthrough that meant agreement was within reach. 

The Iranians were willing to give President Trump more than they gave President Obama in the JCPOA, said Ali Vaez. If Trump wanted a better deal than what Obama achieved, it was available.

The failure of the White House to follow up these Iranian diplomatic offers was a colossal act of diplomatic incompetence. It was a sign of the Trump administration’s willful disregard for negotiating a peaceful resolution of the crisis.

As reports of the talks were being circulated, Israeli and US bombing began, shattering whatever prospects existed for a diplomatic solution. The US-Israeli attack seemed intended to derail negotiations at a potentially crucial moment. The strikes that were targeted at sites in Iran were exploding at the bargaining table in Geneva.

Amateur hour

Trump’s disdain for diplomacy was evident in his choice of envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner as US negotiators. Tehran sent its Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, an experienced diplomatic player. Washington sent the clowns, uninformed and inexperienced minions with no knowledge or interest in the matters at hand. 

When the latest round of talks began in Oman in early February, Witkoff committed the faux pas of inviting Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of US Central Command, to join him in full uniform. Witkoff’s explanation was that “he just happened to be in the neighborhood”. The admiral was politely asked to leave by the Omani hosts. 

In media appearances during the talks Witkoff made it clear that he did not have the technical expertise or diplomatic experience for effective diplomacy. His statements were riddled with errors and showed that he was out of his depth technically. 

At one point, Witkoff expressed surprise that Iran was producing centrifuges, which it has done for decades. He and Kushner wrongly described the use of 20% enriched uranium at the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) as a bomb threat. The facility, well known to nuclear scientists and nonproliferation experts, was built by the United States and has been used for civilian research for nearly six decades.

The ignorance of Witkoff and Kushner and their mischaracterizations of Iran’s positions and programs likely influenced Trump’s assessment that talks were not progressing and that Iran was not negotiating seriously. A Gulf diplomat who was close to the talks said the Americans acted as if they were “Israeli assets that had conspired to force the US president into entering a war.”

The end?

The consequences of this war for the future of diplomacy are dire. Trump has poisoned the well once again, this time at the cost of more than a thousand Iranian lives and the deaths of the regime’s top leaders. It’s unlikely that the surviving leaders will rush to return to the bargaining table with Washington or accept a climb-down in their security objectives without countervailing US concessions.

US and Israeli assaults have reduced Tehran’s strategic options to survival and revenge. This may stir an impulse to play the remaining ultimate card. The tragic irony is that a war supposedly to prevent Iran from building a bomb may increase the propensity to do just that. 

David Cortright is a visiting scholar at Cornell University’s Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies and professor emeritus at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.

Energy Finance Is Making The Fuel Crisis Worse

In November 2025, Mauritius Commercial Bank closed a $400 million financing facility to expand floating power plant operations across Africa. Four months later, in response to attacks by the United States and Israel, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, drastically curtailing oil supply and spiking oil prices globally.The countries now absorbing the worst of that price shock did not become vulnerable when the first missile struck. Their economic vulnerability was written into contracts signed years earlier.

Growing energy demands, immediate need, and planning for the future are often framed as in-tension for countries plotting out their energy futures. Unfortunately, thanks to current structuring of debt and financing for energy infrastructure projects, these tensions are often manifest in contracts, when they don’t have to be. Clearer up-front information on vulnerability to oil shocks, as well as a better rebalancing towards renewable infrastructure that takes into account their resilience to price shocks, would go a long way towards lessening the acute financial strain placed on infrastructure by an energy crisis.

Create a renewable infrastructure carve-out in the LIC Debt Sustainability Framework, assessing clean energy loans on long-term fiscal impact rather than upfront cost. Build oil price shock scenarios into every debt sustainability assessment for fuel-dependent countries as a primary scenario, not a footnote. Distinguish between debt that creates price-exposure risk and debt that eliminates it, treating them differently in debt ceiling calculations. Introduce a climate shock carve-out allowing temporary suspension of debt ceiling rules when fiscal distress stems from an externally generated energy price spike. Require disclosure of contingent fiscal liabilities in long-term energy contracts as a condition of debt sustainability assessments.

Floating Power Prices

The standard floating power plant contract is a take-or-pay agreement: governments pay whether they use the electricity or not, at a fuel cost tied directly to global oil prices. There is no price ceiling. Contract terms run ten to twenty years. Every design feature transfers risk downward, from the company onto the government, and from the government onto the population least able to absorb it.

Ghana signed one of these agreements in 2014 with Karpowership, a Turkish floating power plant operator, in response to a genuine electricity crisis. By 2024, Ghana had accumulated $3 billion in total energy sector debt, with $379 million owed to Karpowership alone. In 2025 — before Hormuz closed, before oil reached $100 per barrel — Ghana required a $1.47 billion emergency bailout just to stabilize its energy finances. The war did not create Ghana’s crisis. It arrived on top of one already in progress.

Sierra Leone paid $90 million to Karpowership in 2025 alone and still faces daily blackouts. Across the Caribbean, over 90 percent of electricity generation runs on imported fossil fuels. Fossil fuel imports in the Eastern Caribbean averaged $444 million per year between 2016 and 2021 — more than 17 percent of the entire trade balance. Guyana is paying $0.32 per kilowatt-hour for powership electricity. Solar costs $0.09. That gap, compounded across every hour of every day, is the fiscal cost of the emergency decision. It is being paid right now, on top of an oil shock that nobody modeled into the original contract.

The institutions responsible for overseeing these countries’ fiscal health are not ignorant of the risk. Demetrios Papathanasiou,Global Director of Energy and Extractives at the World Bank, stated in May 2023 that “poorer countries are stuck in a vicious cycle where they pay more for electricity, cannot afford the high upfront cost of clean energy, and are locked into fossil fuel projects.” The World Bank coined the term “fuel trap.” Its Caribbean research identified fossil fuel dependency as a “major fiscal vulnerability” years before Hormuz closed.

Mixing In Renewables

At the January 2025 Mission 300 Africa Energy Summit — ten months before the war started — the World Bank committed $40 billion and the African Development Bank committed $18 billion to African electrification, with half of the funding aimed at renewable energy projects. Several country plans embedded in that commitment include natural gas investments as part of a more traditional mix of energy infrastructure. Some of that power capacity is being floated, literally, through offshore ship-based power generation.  Karpowership’s chief commercial officer stated in October 2025 that “almost every day a new country approaches us.” These floating power plants can rapidly offer energy generation, reacting capacity within two weeks of a deployment, but they run on liquid fuel initially, before transitioning to natural gas in months. While immediate, their reliance on fossil fuels makes that expanded capacity particularly vulnerable to price shock. Funds meant to steer countries towards energy independence and renewables can end up committing governments to the vulnerable and volatile fossil fuel markets.

The mechanism connecting these failures is the IMF-World Bank Debt Sustainability Framework for low-income countries. The framework governs how much countries can borrow before lenders flag fiscal distress. In practice, it treats a solar infrastructure loan and a powership contract as equivalent — assessing both against the same debt ceiling without distinguishing between debt that creates long-term fiscal fragility and debt that eliminates it. A solar farm carries high upfront cost and near-zero operating cost. A powership contract carries low upfront cost and permanently variable operating cost tied to global oil prices. Under the current framework, the solar loan looks riskier. The Iran war has demonstrated which one actually is.

Economists and the Carnegie Endowment have proposed a specific reform: create a carve-out for renewable infrastructure investment, assessed on long-term fiscal impact rather than upfront cost. Build oil price shock scenarios into every debt assessment for fuel-dependent countries as a primary scenario, not a footnote.The UK government made exactly this call at the 2025 IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings, urging “full integration of climate and nature risks and the benefits of adaptation investments.” The Iran war has now provided the empirical data that makes that argument unanswerable.

Solutions, Distilled

The IMF should act on it. Specifically:

  1. Create a renewable infrastructure carve-out in the LIC Debt Sustainability Framework, assessing clean energy loans on long-term fiscal impact rather than upfront cost.
  2. Build oil price shock scenarios into every debt sustainability assessment for fuel-dependent countries as a primary scenario, not a footnote.
  3. Distinguish between debt that creates price-exposure risk and debt that eliminates it, treating them differently in debt ceiling calculations.
  4. Introduce a climate shock carve-out allowing temporary suspension of debt ceiling rules when fiscal distress stems from an externally generated energy price spike.
  5. Require disclosure of contingent fiscal liabilities in long-term energy contracts as a condition of debt sustainability assessments.

If those reforms had been in place in 2014 when Ghana signed its Karpowership contract, the official debt assessment would have modeled what that contract costs when oil hits $100 per barrel. It would have assessed the renewable alternative on its long-term fiscal benefit rather than penalizing it as debt. Ghana might still have signed, the emergency was real. But the decision would have been made with accurate information, visible to every creditor and development partner at the table.

The $400 million Karpowership expansion facility is live. The company is in active negotiations with new countries. The next Ghana is being contracted now, by governments with no better options, assessed by a framework that cannot see the risk it is underwriting. The Iran war did not reveal a hidden vulnerability. It confirmed a prediction that the institutions’ own researchers had already published. The question is whether the people writing the next round of checks have read what their analysts wrote, and whether, this time, they will act on it.

Amber Dembnicki is an independent policy analyst and writer covering geopolitics and international policy.

Parenthood, Surrogacy and the Labor of Childbirth

In early October 2025, Reem Alsalem, a United Nations special rapporteur, submitted a report calling for a ban on surrogacy, and describing it as a  “system of exploitation and violence”. Alsalem went further to liken the system of surrogacy to the system of prostitution, saying she found a lot of similarities between the two in terms of how they exploited women. 

She isn’t the only international figure to take such a strong stance against surrogacy. Pope Francis, who passed in 2025, had also called for a worldwide ban on the practice which he believed was exploiting the women who became surrogates. 

This call – which has seen equally heated criticism and support – comes at a time where more and more celebrities have been posting about their surrogacy journeys. The latest was actress Lily Collins earlier that year, who faced a slew of backlash to her announcement about welcoming her baby via surrogacy, including from many people who blamed the rich for exploiting women for their own desires to have children. While some celebrities like Kim Kardashian have been open about their reasons for using surrogates, others like Collins and Priyanka Chopra haven’t shared why they chose this particular path. 

But as stories where parents welcome babies via surrogacy become more and more commonly shared publicly, the harms and complications of surrogacy have also been coming to light. More than the stories themselves it’s the fact that so many of these cases are now becoming public knowledge that is allowing people to look deeper into the impact of surrogacy and explore it from different perspectives. Treating surrogacy as inherently exploitative isn’t a recent phenomenon – in fact countries such as France, UAE, Saudi Arabia and even India have long banned the practice, regardless of whether or not the surrogacy is commercial or not. Other countries like the UK and Canada allow altruistic surrogacy but have banned it commercially – which means that surrogates cannot be paid, except beyond reasonable expenses in certain cases. On the other hand, most states in the US do allow gestational surrogacy commercially, although compensation and protections around this vary by state. Across the world, experiences around surrogacy can vary significantly, as governments, families, and agencies work within (or sometimes around) the law to match the desires of would-be parents in wealthy countries while respecting what exists of local law for the birth family and the child. This is much like how experiences have played out with international adoption, where the lure of a payday can complicate and confound the process.  

“It would be incorrect to say surrogacy is always exploitation and incorrect to say surrogacy is never exploitation. That’s why it is so important to have proper legal protections, for the parents but also for the surrogate,” says Janene Oleaga, a family formation attorney and reproductive rights advocate, who works closely both with surrogates and intended parents. But for many others, like advocates working with Stop Surrogacy Now, who see it as categorically harmful, or intended parents who see it as the best decision they’ve ever made, the situation isn’t as nuanced. Which brings about the question of who is surrogacy really for? Who benefits from the system and what can be done to protect those most vulnerable? 

International Approaches, Varied Responses

With so many emotional, financial and physical considerations coming into play with any decision around surrogacy, reactions to both bans or a lack of them can get quite heated, especially as different groups are affected in very different ways. India’s legislative ban on commercial surrogacy was advanced in 2019 and adopted in 2020, after many critics called international surrogacy an India a system that exploited poor women, but the ban is also seen as discriminatory against LGBTQ couples as altruistic surrogacy is now only allowed for heterosexual couples who’ve been married for 5 years. Italy’s ban on surrogacy has also been criticised for similar reasons. But for anti-surrogacy campaigners, their stance against surrogacy is not discriminatory, simply protective of the women they are hoping to release from this system. 

Lexi Ellingsworth the founder of Stop Surrogacy Now UK says that the “euphemistic language disguises the brutal reality. Surrogacy exploits women for their reproduction ability, their fertility and denies newborns their mothers from birth,” she says adding, “Exploitation, human trafficking, obstetric violence, and coercion is rife. And the numbers are increasing. As we are against surrogacy as a whole, we do not discriminate. We reject the practice regardless of sex, sexual orientation, age, religion, income, marital status and circumstance.” 

A recent case where a stillbirth in a surrogacy case turned into a legal battle is just one of many examples that campaigners like Ellingsworth point towards to showcase just how easy it is to harm surrogate mothers within this process. 

Ellingsworth also points out that support for surrogate mothers who may feel exploited or harmed in the process is rare, and it’s not just the mothers campaigners like Ellingsworth are concerned about. Olivia Maurel, a spokesperson for the Casablanca Declaration also shares Ellingsworth’s views regarding the importance of protecting both surrogate mother and child. For Maurel, the issue is also deeply personal. 

“My activism began with a double awareness, that of a child and that of a mother. As a child born through surrogacy, I quickly realised that this practice tramples on the most fundamental rights of the child: the right to know and be raised by the woman who carried and gave birth to them, and the right to an identity that isn’t fractured by contract,” shares Maurel, further adding, “Behind the glossy marketing lies a global market going to be worth 200 billion dollars by 2032, one that operates with virtually no oversight. Reem Alsalem’s report calls this what it is: a form of gender-based violence and reproductive exploitation. She urges states to recognize that consent obtained under structural inequality is not true consent.” 

But Oleaga, who’s worked in cases where parents from various countries have come to the US for surrogacy still sees the positive in it, even as she agrees that safety and protections are crucial. “So I’ve had intended parents come from China and Europe to the US for surrogacy because it may be less expensive to go to other places but it’s oftentimes less legally secure. In the US it is a legally secure process,” she says adding that while the bad stories deserve to be reported on and exposed, “For every negative story you see in the news, there are hundreds if not thousands of opposite stories not just for the intended parents but surrogates as well. That’s why you see surrogates coming back” 

And while financial exploitation remains a major concern, Rachel Goldberg, a licensed marriage and family therapist finds more nuance in working around that and safeguarding clients than calling for an outright ban. “If someone is pursuing surrogacy out of financial desperation, it can feel like I’m preventing them from moving forward, but my role is to protect them as much as the intended parents. When someone is in a desperate situation, there is more room for exploitation,” she says, adding that she will also consider many other factors including stability in the home and emotional readiness before assessing whether a client is ready to take this step. 

In a 2023 paper, Dr Yingyi Luo argues for the application of labor law to bolster surrogate rights and protections while operating in a global market of cross-border surrogacy. Building on the example of Bulgarian labor law and safeguards for non-standard workers, Luo writes, “Surrogate mothers, even those who have not signed a surrogacy contract, do not need to validate their employment status. Once a surrogate mother becomes pregnant with the child of the intended parents, her status transitions to that of “employed.”” This labor-law forward approach could ensure accountability, financial and health protections, standards of care and due diligence, and compliance that can all be lost in the often informal or discreet nature of facilitating surrogacy.

An Inside Look At What Works, And What Doesn’t

For those who’ve worked in the surrogacy industry or been connected to it, the gaps are clear. Belal Breaga Bakht used to run a concierge service that provided on ground services between surrogacy companies based in the US and surrogates in India between 2007 and 2011. Bakht’s job became a way make sure the surrogates were cared for and looked after, both medically and financially and he shares that his position as an Indian who had been raised in the UK allowed him to connect well not just with the surrogacy company and intended parents, but also with the surrogates themselves. 

 “There are many working parts of this complex process, you’ve got marketing company and surrogacy company in US (or anywhere else), you’ve got the IVF side which is usually not linked surrogacy side – and they are the crucial part of this equation, if they are complicit in exploiting the women you can’t really stop it. So we took over that role slightly, even though we were not supposed to, and that’s because we had a very very strong Indian team,” Bakht shares. While Bakht was mindful of the gaps in the industry and where exploitation was possible he shared that would ideally like to see a regulated but legal surrogacy industry, where with the right care and protections both sides could benefit. 

Yessenia Lattore, a mother of three in the US, who is currently undergoing her second surrogacy journey shares her own experience of what it meant to be working in an industry that is largely self regulated. Despite the fact that she’s aware of bad actors, and has seen bad experiences, she chose to come back as a surrogate because of her own positive experience. 

“I don’t think surrogacy should be illegal, but in the US its not regulated and I personally think it should be regulated,” she says adding, “The first time I did it I was very naive, I kind of went with the first agency that responded to me – was communicative with me.” Still Lattore got lucky, both with the family she chose and her agency, although she chose to work with a new agency this time around. 

Focus on the birth mother and child - policy makers building laws and restrictions around surrogacy need to put the health and safety of the surrogate mother and baby first and foremost. This means safeguards that limit exploitation and restrictions where needed No Cookie Cutter Approach - communities and countries across the world will need localised policies, with countries with higher rates of exploitation of women needing stricter laws and maybe even bans where necessary. Labor Protections Protect Laboring - clear, transparent protections built not just on human rights but labor law frameworks could improve conditions, protections, and accountability while protecting against exploitation.

For Lattore, the decision to become a surrogate was motivated from her own experience with pregnancy loss, and when she was able to have healthy children after that she realised that she wanted to help other women have children too. She likes to joke that she can’t be doing it for the money because she receives “minimum wage” – if she looks at it compared to the hours being put in. But even for someone who’s had a positive experience, she knows the industry can do better in making sure it’s the same for everyone. “Surrogacy should be done ethically, so a surrogate isn’t left with 3 babies that aren’t her own. We have a psych evaluation, contracts, and  our own lawyer. I personally think it should be regulated because right now it is done in different ways,” she says.

Both Oleaga and Goldberg, who’ve worked with different actors within the industry, agree that self regulation is difficult, but question the extent to which regulations may be the answer, particularly under the current US administration. 

“I do think safeguards are important, but when they become overly restrictive, they can prevent families from growing. More regulation means more red tape, which is the challenge when involving politics. At the end of the day, even though it shouldn’t be this way and doesn’t feel fair, consumers still have to do their own homework to protect themselves from bad players,” Goldberg says. 

Oleaga also agrees that regulation is important and there needs to be more consistency, particularly in laws that offer protection to surrogates, intended parents and children. 

While Oleago and may seem like they’re miles apart from what Ellingsworth or Maurel are saying – and in some ways of course they are – what all of them are asking for and working towards are protections for the women and children often left most vulnerable in the world. And that should be the main goal for the industry, regardless of what side of the argument you lie on. 

Anmol Irfan is a Muslim-Pakistani freelance journalist and editor. Her work aims at exploring marginalized narratives in the Global South with a key focus on gender, climate and tech. She tweets @anmolirfan22

Operation Epic Fury, Regime Change, and the Collapse of Legal Constraint 

On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched joint military strikes against Iran in what the Pentagon designated Operation Epic Fury. The operation came two days after the most substantive round of U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations in years had concluded in Geneva, with both parties agreeing to continue talks. Within hours of those assurances, the bombs fell. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed. Strikes targeted the Iranian president, military chief of staff, and extensive military infrastructure. A strike on a girls’ primary school in Minab reportedly killed nearly one hundred children between the ages of seven and twelve.

This article is not primarily about those facts, though they deserve full moral weight. It is about what those facts represent in the architecture of international law: not an aberration, but the latest and most severe instance in a deliberate, escalating pattern of U.S. policy that treats the prohibition on the use of force as optional, the Security Council as a procedural nuisance, and unilateralism as astrategic doctrine. From Venezuela to Iran, from Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025 to the military raid on Caracas on January 3, 2026, to Operation Epic Fury in February 2026. The question for the international community is whether it will respond with proportionate seriousness or retreat, once again, into diplomatic ambiguity.

This article draws on the author’s prior analysis, examining U.S. strikes in Venezuela and the legal framework governing the use of force, as well as a companion analysis on civilian protection and the prohibition on the use of force in the Iranian context. It argues that the time for legal cataloguing alone has passed. What is needed now is a dual-track approach: constraint from within the United States, and constraint from without.

The Illegality is Not in Dispute

The legal analysis of Operation Epic Fury is straightforward. Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. Two exceptions exist: Security Council authorization under Chapter VII, and individual or collective self-defense in response to an armed attack under Article 51. Neither applies here.

The Security Council did not authorize the use of force against Iran. The United States did not request such authorization. Iran was not attacking the United States or Israel at the time of the strikes. Whatever residual concern might be derived from earlier Iranian actions had long ceased to generate an ongoing armed attack capable of activating the self-defense exception. Iran was, by all accounts, engaged in active negotiations. The U.S. Director of National Intelligence had testified as recently as March 2025 that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon and its supreme leader had not reauthorized the program suspended in 2003. The IAEA affirmed it had found no proof of a systematic weapons effort.

The strikes were also launched in violation of Article 2(2) of the Charter, which requires good faith in the fulfillment of Charter obligations. Launching military operations during active diplomatic negotiations, operations that the U.S. president had, days earlier, indicated would wait, is a breach of the most elemental duty of good faith that the Charter’s architecture depends upon. Iran’s Foreign Ministry characterized this correctly.

Separately, the stated U.S. objective of regime change, explicitly framed by President Trump as a goal of the operation, and echoed by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who declared the aim was to “remove the existential threat posed by the terrorist regime in Iran,” constitutes an independent violation of international law. The prohibition on forcible regime change is not a contested doctrine. It flows directly from Article 2(4)’s protection of “political independence” and from the customary norm of non-intervention. It is, in the language of the International Law Commission, a peremptory norm from which no derogation is permitted. 

A Pattern, Not an Episode

What distinguishes the current crisis from earlier controversies is not merely its scale. It is the administration’s explicit abandonment of any pretense of legal compliance. In the living memory of every diplomat, lawyer, and policymaker currently active in international institutions, the United States has consistently sought to present its uses of force as legally defensible, however strained those defenses sometimes appeared. The post-September 11 doctrines of preventive self-defense and the “unwilling or unable” standard were legally contested, but they were doctrines, attempts to operate within an interpretive framework rather than to discard it entirely.

In Venezuela, beginning in September 2025, the United States conducted lethal strikes against boats in the Caribbean, framing them as law enforcement operations to avoid triggering the War Powers Resolution. In January 2026, U.S. forces conducted a military raid into Caracas, killing dozens, capturing President Maduro, and announcing that the United States would “run” Venezuela until a new government was installed. The attempt to reframe a manifest use of armed force as a domestic law enforcement action is not merely legally incorrect; it is a deliberate attack on the conceptual architecture that makes international law legible.

The cumulative effect is the construction of a new operational norm, one in which the most militarily powerful state on earth reserves to itself the right to use lethal force anywhere, against anyone, for purposes it defines unilaterally, accountable to no external legal authority. This emerging pattern of blatant disregard of international law, if allowed to consolidate, will not remain the exclusive property of the United States. China, Russia, India, and regional powers are watching. Every precedent accepted becomes a precedent available. The erosion of the jus ad bellum (use of force) framework is a problem for every state that has historically relied on that framework for its own security.

The Regime Change Trap

Beyond the immediate illegality of the strikes, Operation Epic Fury has another grave problem: it has no plausible endpoint. With Khamenei dead and the Iranian command structure targeted, the power vacuum is not a side effect; it is the current situation. History provides no encouraging precedent.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq, similarly framed as targeting a dangerous regime with weapons of mass destruction, produced a multi-decade military presence, hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties, a regional security vacuum exploited by non-state actors, and a country that has never returned to the stability that even its imperfect prior condition represented. Libya in 2011 demonstrated that air operations designed to facilitate regime change produce state collapse, not democratic transition. These are empirically established outcomes.

Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab photos from Mehr (Abbas Zakeri, (CC BY 4.0))
Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab photos from Mehr (Abbas Zakeri, (CC BY 4.0))

Iran is a country of almost 90 million people, with a sophisticated military establishment, an extensive regional network of proxy forces, missile capabilities capable of striking U.S. bases throughout the Middle East, and a political culture that has historically rallied around national sovereignty under foreign pressure. The killing of Khamenei does not eliminate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It does not dissolve the Quds Force. It does not prevent successor leadership from emerging. It may, as multiple analysts have noted, accelerate Iran’s determination to acquire a nuclear deterrent, the very outcome the operation was ostensibly designed to prevent.

President Trump has urged Iranians to “take over your government,” a statement that confuses aspirational rhetoric with operational planning. There are no credible exile groups capable of assuming state functions in Iran. There is no post-conflict stabilization plan of record. Instead, there are many indicators of a prolonged military engagement, regional escalation, and the kind of unsustainable occupation that has defined the two-decade aftermath of every comparable U.S.-led regime-change operation. 

A protracted military presence in Iran, even through proxy arrangements, would constitute one of the largest strategic and humanitarian failures in the history of modern warfare, in a country whose geography, population, and political culture make external occupation far more complex than any preceding U.S. intervention. International law prohibits this operation not because lawyers are squeamish, but because the legal prohibition reflects hard-earned collective wisdom about what such operations produce.

International Law Ignorance as Policy

It would be a mistake to treat the current administration’s approach to international law as simply incompetent or uninformed. The pattern suggests something more deliberate: a calculated decision that the costs of legal compliance exceed its benefits, and that U.S. structural advantages, Security Council veto, dollar-denominated global finance, and unmatched military projection capacity all insulate Washington from meaningful accountability. This calculation may not be wrong in the short term. What it ignores is the systemic consequence.

There is a further assumption embedded in this posture that deserves direct challenge: that the chaos generated by unilateral force can be managed, contained, and ultimately directed toward preferred outcomes. This has not proved true. The history of U.S. military interventions is a history of second and third-order effects that escaped prediction, planning, and control; sectarian fragmentation in Iraq that persists two decades on, state collapse in Libya that turned the country into a transit hub for migration and arms across the Sahel, and a counter-terrorism campaign in Somalia now in its third decade with no measurable endpoint.

Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Delbert D. Black (DDG 119) fires a Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) during operations in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, Mar. 2, 2026. Delbert D.
The USS Delbert D. Black destroyer fires a Tomahawk missile. (U.S. Navy Photo)

The assumption of controllability flatters the intervening power. It imagines that military and economic superiority translates into the capacity to shape political outcomes in deeply complex societies. It does not. Even the United States, with its unmatched alliance networks, its forward-deployed forces, its intelligence apparatus, and financial leverage, has repeatedly discovered that it can destroy a government far more efficiently than it can build a successor one. The chaos that follows the removal of even a repressive order does not wait for instructions. It does not respect the preferences of the power that unleashed it. And it does not remain contained within the borders of the state where it begins.

The international legal order, imperfect and unevenly enforced as it has always been, functions not because powerful states are compelled to obey it but because most states most of the time conclude that compliance serves their interests better than defection. The Charter system’s prohibition on the use of force exists because states recognized, after two world wars, that a world of unilateral military discretion produces catastrophic outcomes even for the powerful, and it persists because most states still recognize this truth. When the most powerful state in the system openly repudiates that framework, the signaling effect is global and immediate.

We are already observing the downstream consequences. Western partners have responded to Operation Epic Fury with studied ambiguity rather than unambiguous condemnation. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement calling on Iran to negotiate, as if Iran were the aggressor, while carefully avoiding any characterization of U.S. and Israeli strikes as unlawful. Australia’s prime minister expressed support for the strikes as “acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” These responses legitimate the legal theory underlying the strikes: that anticipated capability development, assessed by the striking state alone, constitutes sufficient grounds for military action against a country engaged in active negotiations. The logic, once accepted, has no limiting principle. It applies to any state that any powerful neighbor believes might at some future point develop threatening capabilities. Its adoption by Western governments is not a minor diplomatic concession. 

Inside the United States

The question that follows from legal analysis is not merely descriptive. It is operational: what can be done? The answer requires distinguishing between actions available within the United States and those available in the international system. Both tracks matter.

Within the United States, the War Powers Resolution of 1973 requires that presidentially initiated hostilities be reported to Congress within 48 hours and terminated within 60 days, absent explicit Congressional authorization. Operation Epic Fury has not been authorized by Congress. The administration’s prior pattern, invoking Article II Commander-in-Chief authority, is constitutionally contested and legally fragile. 

Congressional oversight mechanisms also provide near-term leverage. Appropriations authority gives Congress the power to prohibit the use of funds for specific military operations or for operations directed at the stated objective of regime change. The annual National Defense Authorization Act process, combined with supplemental appropriations, provides multiple leverage points. The New York City Bar Association has called explicitly on Congress to halt the administration’s violations of U.S. and international law in Venezuela; the same call applies with greater force to Iran.

Outside the United States

Following the Caracas raid of January 3, the Security Council convened in emergency session but produced nothing; no resolution was even tabled, because the structural reality of the U.S. veto foreclosed any attempt. This paralysis is itself the clearest evidence that the Security Council cannot currently function as a constraint on the United States.

The United Nations General Assembly retains authority under the Uniting for Peace procedure, established in 1950 for precisely the contingency in which Security Council paralysis prevents collective response to a threat to international peace and security, to convene emergency special sessions, pass resolutions characterizing the use of force, and authorize collective action short of binding enforcement. A General Assembly resolution characterizing the U.S.-Israeli strikes as a violation of Article 2(4) would carry significant normative weight, particularly if adopted by a large majority. 

States with sufficient institutional capacity should also consider referrals to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). While the Court cannot compel the United States to pay damages or halt operations; Nicaragua v. United States demonstrated in 1986 that a favorable ICJ judgment is unenforceable when the respondent holds a Security Council veto, an ICJ finding of illegality produces legal record of the highest authority, shapes subsequent customary law development, and imposes reputational costs that affect U.S. alliance relationships and diplomatic leverage across multiple issue areas.

The Responsibility to Respond Lawfully

This article has argued throughout for the legal constraint of U.S. military power. It is important to be precise about what that argument does not mean. It does not mean indifference to Iran’s internal repression. The Iranian government’s violent response to protests, its systemic violence against dissidents, and its documented human rights violations are real and serious. They generate legitimate humanitarian concern and justify a robust multilateral response.

What they do not generate is a unilateral legal entitlement for military intervention, including the intervention that has now occurred. Responsibility to Protect (R2P) was constructed within the institutional architecture of the Charter. It recognizes that sovereignty entails obligations, not only rights. But it equally and deliberately rejects the theory that individual states may determine unilaterally when intervention is justified. The moment humanitarian concern becomes accepted as a self-licensing basis for military action, it ceases to be a protection mechanism and becomes a standing authorization for the most powerful states to intervene wherever they characterize conditions as sufficiently dire.

International observers, United Nations mechanisms, and human rights organizations have documented patterns of lethal repression, arbitrary detention, and systemic violence against protestors and dissidents. Yet the existence of atrocity risk, however grave, does not create a unilateral legal entitlement for external military intervention.

The System Holds Only If States Make It Hold

Operation Epic Fury is not the end of international law. Breaches of law do not invalidate the law; if they did, no legal system could function. In 1986, the ICJ found the United States in violation of international law for its operations in Nicaragua. The United States vetoed Security Council enforcement. The law remained. What changed was the willingness of the international community to hold the line.

The current moment requires a similar choice. States that have spent decades insisting on their commitment to a rules-based international order must now decide whether that commitment is conditional on the identity of the violator. The ambiguous responses from London, Paris, Berlin, and Canberra suggest, so far, that it is. That decision, too, has consequences, not only for Iran, but for the precedents that will govern the next use of force, and the one after that.

Hossein Zohrevand for Tasnim News Agency
Damage on Tehran’s Ghandi Hospital after attack by the U.S. and Israel (Hossein Zohrevand for Tasnim News Agency)

The United States built much of the legal architecture now being dismantled. American lawyers, diplomats, and policymakers shaped the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, the Rome Statute, and the norms of customary international law that govern the use of force. The prohibition on the use of force was built on the ruins of the last catastrophe. The task now is to ensure it does not have to be rebuilt on the ruins of the next one.

Finally, there is a deeper conceptual error embedded in any sustained posture that disregards international order. National interest, properly understood, is not a free-standing concept that exists before and independent of international order. It acquires meaning and practical traction only within a system in which the interests of states are mutually recognized and can be pursued through stable frameworks of interaction. A state can have a foreign policy objective; it can identify resources it wishes to secure, alliances it wishes to maintain, and threats it wishes to neutralize. But the pursuit of those objectives, their translation into durable outcomes rather than momentary impositions, depends on a surrounding order that holds. When that order is replaced by an ad hoc revolving door of unilateral force and managed instability, national interest dissolves. The powerful state finds itself not in a world it controls but in a world it has made ungovernable, one in which its own preferences can no longer be reliably projected, its own commitments no longer credibly made, and its own security no longer structurally guaranteed.

Davit Khachatryan is an international lawyer and lecturer focusing on the intersection of armed conflict, emerging technologies, and international law.