The funeral of Ayatollah Khamenei is the Islamic Republic’s biggest political ritual since the funeral of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 and one of the most consequential political events in the Islamic Republic’s history. Coming after the U.S.-Israel war on Iran, it marks both the end of one era and the beginning of another.
Every aspect of the funeral has been carefully choreographed. Its scale, symbolism, religious rituals, foreign attendance, and even the route of the procession communicate different messages to different audiences. Like other major state ceremonies in the Islamic Republic, the funeral serves not only to honor the dead but also to shape the political landscape for the living.
Domestically, the central message is continuity. The country’s Supreme Leader was killed in the U.S.-Israel war on Iran, yet the Islamic Republic seeks to demonstrate that its institutions remain intact, succession has taken place, and the state continues to function despite the gravest external challenge it has faced in decades. The funeral projects order rather than uncertainty, stability rather than crisis.
It is also a demonstration of resilience. By portraying Ayatollah Khamenei as a martyr who died during a foreign aggression, the leadership is framing the U.S.-Israel war on Iran as one of national resistance rather than mere survival. The message to supporters is that sacrifice has strengthened, not weakened, the Islamic Republic.
Religious Symbolism
Religiously, the funeral draws on the powerful symbolism of Shi’a mourning, reinforcing the close relationship between political authority and religious legitimacy. Its timing added another powerful layer of symbolism. Islamic tradition generally calls for burying the deceased as soon as possible, but the U.S.-Israel war on Iran delayed the funeral by weeks, allowing the leadership to transform it into a much larger political and religious event.
Held during Muharram, the holiest month of mourning in the Shi’a calendar, the ceremonies deliberately drew on themes of sacrifice, injustice, victimhood, and martyrdom that lie at the heart of Shi’a religious memory. Those themes were reinforced by the highly publicized presence of Ayatollah Khamenei’s family, including his young grandchild, connecting the family’s personal loss to the broader national narrative of war, resistance, and sacrifice.
Regional and Global Signals
Regionally and internationally, the funeral also carried different messages. To supporters and allies, it reassured them that the Islamic Republic remained intact despite the war and the loss of its highest leader. To rivals, it signaled that Iran had absorbed a devastating blow without political collapse. To the United States and Israel, it sought to demonstrate that military pressure had not dismantled the Iranian state or fractured its governing institutions.
The attendance list itself offered a snapshot of Iran’s postwar geopolitical position. The presence of friendly governments and members of what Tehran calls the “Axis of Resistance” underscored the partnerships Iran considers strategically important after the war. Equally telling were the absences. Few European governments sent senior representatives, reflecting Tehran’s view that Europe had aligned politically with the United States and Israel during the conflict. Some Persian Gulf Arab states also kept their representation limited, illustrating the limits of regional rapprochement after a direct war. Attendance — and equally, absence — became a visible marker of Iran’s postwar diplomatic alignments.
The funeral’s regional dimension extended beyond diplomacy. The decision to take Ayatollah Khamenei’s funeral procession to Iraq before his burial linked Iran’s political leadership to the holy Shi’a cities of Najaf and Karbala, reinforcing both his religious stature and Iran’s enduring influence across the wider Shi’a world.
“The Islamic Republic’s unifying theme is that the U.S.-Israeli regime change war has failed. Domestically, they enjoy broad popular support and national unity. Militarily, they remain strong. Politically, they will continue to resist Western aggression, the MOU with Trump notwithstanding,” Nader Hashemi, Professor of Political Science at Georgetown University told CIP.
Perhaps the most striking image, however, was someone who never appeared. Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, remained out of public view throughout the ceremonies. Security concerns following the war, together with reported injuries sustained in the strike that killed Ayatollah Khamenei, and years of careful image management, likely contributed to his absence. Unlike Ayatollah Khomeini or Ayatollah Khamenei before him, he assumes leadership without decades of public visibility or a well-established political persona.
His absence highlights one of the defining challenges of the postwar transition: protecting the country’s highest authority while gradually building his public legitimacy. That balancing act may become one of the first major tests of the post-Ayatollah Khamenei era.
War, Society, and Domestic Politics
The funeral also offered a window into how the U.S.-Israel war on Iran has reshaped Iranian society and politics, at least for now.
One of the war’s most immediate consequences has been a rally-around-the-flag effect. External military attack tends to strengthen national cohesion, and Iran has been no exception. For supporters of the Islamic Republic, the war reinforced long-held beliefs that the country faces an existential external threat and that resistance remains necessary. The funeral became an extension of that narrative, honoring not only Ayatollah Khamenei but also those killed in the war and presenting their deaths as sacrifices made in defense of the nation.
The impact, however, extends beyond the Islamic Republic’s traditional support base. Many Iranians who oppose the political system also opposed the U.S.-Israel war, viewing it as an attack on Iran rather than simply on its leadership. For them, nationalism and patriotism do not necessarily translate into support for the Islamic Republic. Rather, they reflect a broader attachment to Iran’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national dignity. A large funeral crowd, therefore, should not automatically be interpreted as broader political support for the state. It may equally reflect grief, religious conviction, patriotism, or rejection of foreign military intervention.
The war has also temporarily reshaped Iran’s domestic political landscape. External conflict naturally pushes internal divisions into the background as national security becomes the overriding concern. Political space has narrowed, security has tightened, and organized dissent has largely been pushed off the streets.
That should not be mistaken for the disappearance of public grievances. The economic hardships, political frustrations, social demands, and calls for greater freedoms that fueled repeated waves of protest over the past decade remain unresolved. They have not disappeared; they have simply become less visible during wartime. Once the immediate security environment recedes, many of those demands are likely to resurface.
The funeral therefore should not be read as evidence that Iran’s internal political debates have ended. Rather, it reflects a temporary shift in national priorities. History shows that societies under external attack often postpone internal confrontation until the immediate threat has passed, and Iran is unlikely to be an exception.
A Transition and an Uncertain Future
The funeral also marks the beginning of a new political chapter. Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei inherits a country transformed by war, a region undergoing rapid geopolitical change, and a political system entering its first leadership transition in more than three decades. His leadership will be judged not only by how he preserves continuity but also by how he addresses the political, economic, and social challenges that long predate the war.
In the immediate aftermath of the conflict, the funeral appears to have achieved its principal objectives. It projected continuity after the loss of the country’s highest authority, reassured supporters, signaled resilience to adversaries, and reminded allies that Iran remains a central regional actor despite the U.S.-Israel war on Iran.
Whether those messages endure will depend less on the symbolism of the funeral than on what follows. As wartime emotions recede, Iran’s leadership will once again confront familiar challenges: rebuilding the economy, addressing public demands, navigating relations with the United States, maintaining regional deterrence, and establishing the authority of a new Supreme Leader.
The funeral closes one chapter in the history of the Islamic Republic. Whether the next chapter is defined by continuity, adaptation, or deeper transformation will depend not on the symbolism of the funeral, but on the choices the leadership makes after the mourning ends.
When Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command, condemned Iran’s use of cluster munitions against Israel as “inherently indiscriminate,” he underscored a legal and moral critique long associated with these weapons — one that sits uneasily alongside the Pentagon’s own recent decision to purchase them.
On September 30, 2025, the Department of Defense quietly awarded an indefinite-quantity contract with a ceiling value of $829.1 million to Tomer, an Israeli-government-owned weapons company, for the manufacture, testing, and production of the 155mm High Explosive Advanced Submunition XM1208 projectile: a cluster munition. The contract was not publicly reported until February 2026 and represents the largest recorded weapons procurement by the Department of Defense from Israel.
Then, on December 5, 2025, the Army announced a market survey “to identify potential sources within the United States” for production of the XM1208 projectile, seeking responses from sources capable of consistently producing 30,000 cluster munitions per year. The stated purpose is to “broaden the target set, enhance lethality, and extend the reach of the current cannon platforms beyond the current…capability.”
These recent actions suggest the United States is recommitting to cluster munitions. Although it has not destroyed its existing stockpiles and has transferred cluster munitions to other countries, the U.S. has neither purchased nor itself used cluster munitions for almost two decades. Such a shift implicates international humanitarian law, breaks with longstanding policy and international consensus, and demands an according response from Congress.
Cluster Munitions and International Humanitarian Law
Cluster munitions are explosive weapons that disperse submunitions, or “bomblets,” over broad areas. The XM1208 cluster munition scatters nine submunitions that in turn explode and release around 1,200 tungsten steel fragments. These fragments have been found to disproportionately maim and kill children in Gaza.
By design, cluster munitions are explosive weapons with wide area effects. They saturate broad zones rather than strike discrete targets, making them exceptionally difficult to direct with precision. In practice, their effects often extend far beyond intended military objectives, with devastating consequences for civilians. Cluster munitions are among the deadliest weapons for civilians, who accounted for 91% of recorded casualties from cluster munitions in 2025.
The risks posed by cluster munitions persist long after active hostilities cease. Many submunitions fail to detonate as intended, with dud rates ranging from 2 to 40 percent depending on the system and conditions of use. These unexploded bomblets effectively become landmines, contaminating fields, roads, and residential areas. Their enduring presence renders land unusable, delays reconstruction, prolongs displacement, and poses acute risks to civilians — especially children. The small size of unexploded ordnance and, at times, their brightly colored casings or ribbons, make them particularly attractive to children who can mistake them for toys. Children accounted for 71% of deaths from cluster munition remnants in 2022 where age was recorded.
International humanitarian law (IHL) imposes clear limits on the means and methods of warfare. Central among these is the principle of distinction, which requires parties to a conflict to distinguish between civilians and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives. The principle reflects both customary international law and U.S. treaty obligations pursuant to the Geneva Conventions. Articles 51 and 52 of Additional Protocol I prohibit directing attacks against civilians and strictly limit lawful targets to objects that make an effective contribution to military action and whose destruction offers a definite military advantage.
Cluster munitions raise serious concerns with respect to distinction. Their effects are typically indiscriminate when used in areas where civilians are present: they disperse submunitions over large areas and often leave behind unexploded ordnance that continues to threaten civilians long after the initial attack. This combination makes it exceedingly difficult—if not impossible in many contexts—to ensure compliance with the rule of distinction. It was this concern that led Adm. Cooper to characterize cluster munitions as “inherently indiscriminate.”
Even where a legitimate military objective is present, the principle of proportionality further constrains attacks. Proportionality does not prohibit incidental civilian harm outright, but it forbids attacks in which the expected civilian harm would be excessive in relation to the anticipated, concrete and direct military advantage. The use of cluster munitions, especially in densely populated areas, complicates compliance as their wide-area effects and high dud rates create foreseeable risks of significant civilian harm both immediately and over time. Indeed, leading human rights organizations regard the use of cluster munitions in a populated area as a violation of IHL.
Experience bears this out. Laos is the most heavily bombed country in the world: during the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s, it endured intense aerial bombardment by the U.S. More than two million tons of cluster munitions were dropped on the country. Roughly one-third failed to detonate on impact, leaving about 30% of Laos still contaminated with unexploded ordnance more than 50 years later. In Lebanon, Israeli cluster munitions have contaminated some of the country’s poorest regions. Dropped in the final 72 hours of Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah, more than 4 million unexploded submunitions continue to kill and maim Lebanese civilians, particularly children, and have caused the displacement of some 200,000 people. Today, Russian forces have consistently deployed cluster munitions in densely populated areas in Ukraine. Ukrainian forces have also deployed cluster munitions supplied by the U.S., discussed below. The 2025 Cluster Munition Monitor reported over 1,200 civilian deaths and injuries from cluster munitions across Ukraine since the full-scale invasion began.
In light of the inherent civilian harm risks that cluster munitions pose, 111 countries have ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), which bans their use, development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, and transfer. The United States—alongside Israel, Russia, Ukraine, and China—is not a party to the Convention. Yet before recent developments, the United States recognized the risks of cluster munitions and committed to policies and soft-law frameworks to constrain their use.
U.S. Policy Regarding Cluster Munitions
Historically, the United States has acknowledged the humanitarian risks associated with cluster munitions and taken steps — albeit short of a complete ban — to mitigate them. The U.S. has been a global leader in funding the clearance of unexploded ordnance, contributing more than $2.8 billion since 1993 to programs in over 100 countries. It has also endorsed the Political Declaration on Strengthening the Protection of Civilians from the Humanitarian Consequences of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas (EWIPA), committing to avoid the use of such weapons in populated areas and to improve civilian harm mitigation and response.
The United States has not used cluster munitions in combat since 2003, aside from a single reported strike in Yemen in 2009, and no U.S. company currently produces them. A 2008 Department of Defense directive phased out the use and transfer of cluster munitions with high failure rates. And a longstanding U.S. law restricts the export of cluster munitions with a failure rate above one percent and requires specification that the cluster munitions will not be used against civilians, subject to only an override by the President in exceptional circumstances. Against this backdrop, renewed procurement marks a notable departure from prior U.S. practice and from the broader trajectory of international norm crystallization.
At the same time, U.S. policy has grown increasingly inconsistent. The longstanding 2008 policy (adopted under George W. Bush in 2008 and continued by Barack Obama) was significantly relaxed in 2017 by President Trump, allowing continued use of existing stockpiles and transfer to replenish munitions. President Biden also waived the appropriations restriction at least seven times to enable the transfer of cluster munitions to Ukraine, drawing bipartisan criticism from Congress, other States, and the United Nations.
While these actions represent concerning backsliding in practices around stockpiling and transfer, the U.S. purchasing and seeking to produce cluster munitions for its own operations marks a troubling step toward renewed use.
Where Is Congress?
This episode reflects a broader pattern whereby the Executive branch plays a leading role in shaping—and at times weakening—international norms governing the conduct of war, often with limited legislative input despite relevant constitutional and Congressional authority.
Congress has several tools to respond to this procurement and to reassert its constitutional role and oversight function, especially with respect to the “power of the purse.” Other relevant constitutional authorities include Congress’ power to “make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces” and to “define and punish… Offenses against the Law of Nations.” As far as transfers are concerned, the Foreign Commerce Clause assigns to Congress the authority to regulate exports from the United States.
When it comes to cluster munitions, Congress can convene hearings and oversight inquiries. It may also impose conditions through the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) or appropriations legislation, which may include requirements for reporting or limitations on the use and transfer of cluster munitions. Rep. Sara Jacobs (CA-51) has led amendments to the NDAA aiming to restrict cluster munitions transfers in recentyears.
In exercising its authorities, Congress should focus on increasing transparency around the rationale and implications of cluster munition procurement and use, and determine how the Department of Defense is assessing compliance with international humanitarian law and our commitments under the EWIPA framework. It should also seek information on stockpile management, ascertain the dud rates of cluster munitions in U.S. possession, and exercise scrutiny over further entrenching a partnership with Israel, which is credibly accused of gross human rights violations. Irrespective of passage, these measures serve important record-building interests and reinforce Congress’ authority in this space.
Absent meaningful congressional engagement, this procurement risks further enabling an Executive branch that has undermined and politicized international legal norms.
Consequences far beyond the battlefield
Taken together, the Department of Defense’s recent procurement and market survey represents a clear regression from prior U.S. policy commitments and normative leadership and undermines broader international efforts to protect civilians. Specifically, the policy shift risks alienating key NATO allies, many of whom are legally bound under the CCM. By moving in a direction that diverges from allies’ legal obligations and political commitments, the United States may introduce friction within alliance coordination and operations and weaken its credibility and role. For example, when the U.S. transferred cluster munitions to Ukraine via Germany, Germany violated its obligations under the CCM to not allow transshipment of cluster munitions.
More broadly, the move contributes to an erosion of the emerging norm against cluster munition use. Norms of restraint are sustained not only through formal legal obligations but through consistent practice. When leading military powers signal renewed reliance on controversial weapons, it lowers the political and reputational costs for others to do the same. Lithuania’s 2025 withdrawal from the CCM—citing security concerns related to Russia—illustrates how quickly such norms can come under pressure absent a robust, mutually accountable, shared-values based approach rooted in respect for international humanitarian law.
Concerning also is the brazen inconsistency in how cluster munitions are regarded. This article has already mentioned Admiral Cooper’s comments concerning the legality of Iran’s use of cluster munitions against Israel. Similarly, States have widely condemned Russia’s use of cluster munitions against Ukraine. The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, has said to Russia that cluster munitions “have no place on the battlefield.” Yet the U.S. supplied cluster munitions to Ukraine, which have been deployed on the front lines, and it is now pursuing further procurement apparently for its own use. This contradiction risks undermining the credibility of legal norms and invites accusations of selective enforcement and lawfare. A consistent application of principles is essential—not only for maintaining legitimacy, but for ensuring the strongest possible protection of civilians in conflict.
Perilous next steps
Ultimately, the Department of Defense’s recent purchase and market survey is a quiet deal with loud consequences. It signals a potential renewed reliance by the U.S. on a weapons type widely regarded as among the most harmful to civilians, and risks deepening fractures with allies and weakening emerging norms designed to protect civilian populations. And when America sneezes, the world catches a cold; these actions may encourage similar backsliding by other countries.
Most importantly, the decision carries human consequences that extend far beyond the battlefield. Long after conflicts end, unexploded submunitions remain embedded in fields, villages, and cities, continuing to injure and kill civilians, especially children.
It is too early to know whether and how the U.S. will put its procurement to use. But to maintain the norm against the use, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster munitions, States, civil society, and Congress must use their influence to oppose and scrutinize U.S. actions and enforce the norm.
Mina Nur Basmaci is a former Advocacy & Legal Fellow at Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC). John Ramming Chappell is an Advocacy & Legal Advisor at Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC).
On June 21, the U.S. military struck a speedboat in the Caribbean, killing at least two people in the attack. In a statement posted to X with black-and-white video of the strike, U.S. Southern Command described the killing as “a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations,” and declared the dead to be “narco-terrorists.”
The death toll from the United States’ killing spree in international waters has now surpassed more than 200 people, and at least one international law expert is calling for criminal accountability. As the 25th anniversary of 9/11 quickly approaches, it is critical to recognize that the legal structures, tactics and rhetoric with which the Trump administration is purportedly combating these “threats” come straight from the grim collection of unlawful, immoral, and counterproductive choices that make up the so-called ‘Global War on Terror’ playbook.
The loaded gun left behind
Three days after the 9/11 attacks, Congress passed the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) which granted broad powers that all post-9/11 presidents have used to justify U.S. military operations against groups they designate as “terrorist” in a total of 22 countries. While the Obama and Biden administrations retreated from “global war on terror” rhetorical framing, they maintained its core premise by asserting the authority to lethally target those they deemed to be associated with terror groups outside of actual on-the-ground armed conflict, including against U.S. citizens and groups that didn’t even exist in 2001.
The post-9/11 era also ushered in a more explicit framing by the U.S. government that immigrants are inherently suspicious potential “terrorists,” particularly those from Muslim-majority countries or people of color. This frame was used to justify and enable a host of rights-violating programs and practices, aimed especially at Muslim and South Asian noncitizen men. More than 1,000 were detained domestically by the FBI without charge immediately after 9/11. Close to 800 were seized abroad and held at Guantanamo, where 15 still remain in indefinite detention.
The abuses also included an openly discriminatory Muslim registry during the Bush administration, renditions to torture (like that of Canadian citizen Maher Arar), and the CIA’s own black-site torture program. On a structural level, Congress enshrined the notion that immigration law and policy was, first and foremost, a matter of counter-terrorism in the eyes of the U.S. government, by creating the Department of Homeland Security and its sub-agencies, including Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Both courts and Congress have declined to meaningfully check any of these blatant illegalities, leaving in place a dangerous legacy as Donald Trump was elected for president a second time.
In its first show of performative cruelty, the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime authority from the 1700s to send over 200 Venezuelan men to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador without due process on the theory their migration was an “invasion.” Former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem posed for cameras in front of detained men, celebrating their detention and torture. Next, the administration began transferring immigrants from the U.S. to Guantanamo Bay, and became the first to transfer individuals from the continental U.S. to the base, including holding some in one of the military detention facilities. In parallel, they sent people to South Sudan, Libya, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and other third countries where the government’s own reports document human rights violations like torture, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. This violated the principle of non-refoulement, enshrined in international and domestic law, and echoed earlier “war on terror” renditions.
Inside the United States, immigrants the administration claims are undocumented are also subjected to secretive detention and possible torture. A person who was formerly detained at the now-defunct “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention facility in Florida calls the place “a copy of Guantanamo.” Of the administration’s strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly described the individuals and groups as “al-Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere.” The comparison is not incidental, it is the point. The administration has underscored these actions by designating transnational drug cartels as “terrorist” in part because of their alleged role in facilitating U.S. border crossings. Each of these actions are part of the administration’s unified theory that migration is warfare, immigrants and cartels are terrorists, and so the war on terror continues.
What’s next
The counter-terrorism language and rationale are increasingly coming closer to home. The administration has unleashed militarized enforcement deployments to target immigrants throughout American cities and in response to protests. National Security Presidential Memorandum – 7 blurred the lines between counter-terrorism, immigration enforcement, and domestic dissent by directing federal agencies to expand investigations and surveillance against groups who oppose Trump’s vision of America. The White House’s Counterterrorism Strategy made this official in May by identifying “narcoterrorists” and transnational gangs, and “violent left-wing extremists, including anarchists and anti-fascists” alongside groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS as threats.
We saw it in practice earlier this year when Renee Good and Alex Pretti of Minnesota were killed and labeled “domestic terrorists” before their bodies went cold. We continue to see it as the administration “designates” “antifa” as a terrorist group (despite there being no such thing legally as a domestic terrorist designation), and prosecutes left-leaning activists as “antifa terrorists.”
Until the U.S. meaningfully reckons with the legal and moral wreckage of the post 9/11 era, this cycle will not end. A real end to post-9/11 abuses means, at a minimum, eliminating mechanisms that allow for discretionary “terrorist” designations and repealing laws that punish peaceful speech and associations rather than actual violent conduct as “terrorism.” It means repealing legal authorities that have enabled presidents to wage open-ended military campaigns around the world, ending the use of force outside actual armed conflicts, responsibly ending military detention at Guantanamo Bay, and ensuring the base is never again used to house any groups. It means declassifying and releasing the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s “torture report,” providing redress to victims, and holding those responsible accountable. It also means abolishing all programs that militarize local law enforcement agencies and deputize them in the service of a system that treats migration like terrorism.
The idea that the U.S. president gets to decide who is and is not a “terrorist” and unleash the full power of the U.S. security state on those so labeled was wrongheaded from the outset and only becomes more so as it morphs and grows over time. Unless this framework is dismantled, the targets may change with the political winds, but the harms will remain the same.
Yumna Rizvi is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for Victims of Torture. Elizabeth Beavers is an assistant professor of law at Widener University Delaware Law School.
The humiliating strategic defeat of the United States in Iran is the predictable consequence of the decision to use force and the failure to realize the limits of military power. When Trump abandoned diplomacy in favor of war, the White House traded a policy with a track record of success for a militarized approach that was likely to fail. By acting in defiance of US and international law and without the consent of Congress or the support of allies, the administration forfeited any pretense to legitimacy. The resulting ceasefire agreement is a one-sided memorandum of understanding that provides benefits for Iran while securing none of the administration’s prewar goals.
The widespread public outcry against this ignominious outcome provides an opportunity for much needed public debate on what has gone wrong with American foreign policy and how it can be corrected. This requires an understanding of the reasons for failure and the consideration of alternative policies to avoid such calamities in the future.
The negative results of the war are no surprise to those familiar with the history of failed US military interventions in the Middle East over the decades. As Phil Gordan, Andy Bacevich and others document, the US losses in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond, are tragedies that can be traced to the hubris and folly of decision makers in Washington choosing war rather than diplomacy and containment.
The recent conflict makes clear the limits of force. US and Israeli bombing caused significant damage and loss of life, but the attacks did not destroy Iran’s nuclear program or its substantial missile force. Tehran’s large stockpile of higher enriched uranium, enough for building ten bombs, remains in a buried site near Isfahan. Iran retains large quantities of lower enriched uranium and tens of thousands of advanced centrifuges in deep underground sites. Iran’s nuclear capability is larger and more dangerous now than it was previously.
What Arms Cannot Do
Military force is incapable of preventing the development of nuclear weapons capacity. As former nuclear security officials Matthew Sharp and Nate Swanson observe, Iran has developed technical knowledge in centrifuge production and operation “that cannot be bombed away.” Harvard nuclear expert Matthew Bunn argues similarly that Iran’s vast array of material, equipment, and expertise cannot be eliminated by military means.
The history of nuclear nonproliferation shows that when states have signed away the bomb they have done so in exchange for security guarantees and economic inducements achieved through negotiated agreements. There is no case where the use of force alone has been able to eliminate nuclear capability.
US and Israeli attacks also failed to eliminate Iran’s substantial missile capabilities. Secretary of State Marco Rubio identified this as one of the primary goals of the military operation, but thousands of bombing strikes were unable to achieve it. A recent analysis in the New York Times revealed that Iran still has about 70 per cent of its prewar mobile missile launchers and weapons stockpiles, which contain both ballistic and short-range missiles. Iran has also retained access to 30 of its 33 missiles sites along the Strait of Hormuz.
The tragedy of the failed war in Iran is compounded by the administration’s rejection of available diplomatic options. Trump made clear his disdain for diplomacy in his first term when he reneged on the original nuclear deal in 2018. That agreement was effectively blocking Iran’s path to the development of nuclear weapons when the White House pulled the plug.
The administration’s disregard for diplomacy was also evident in the weeks preceding the start of attacks on February 28. 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 ignored Iran’s conciliatory offers and proceeded with military action. The strikes were targeted at sites in Iran, but they exploded at the bargaining table in Geneva.
The unprovoked US and Israel attacks have hardened political opinion and anti-Americanism within Iran’s new political leadership and may have stirred an impulse to move toward the weaponization of its nuclear capacity. As Bunn writes, the US/Israeli attack has created an embittered, hardline regime that is now determined to have weapons capability. The tragic irony is that a war supposedly to prevent Iran from building a bomb may increase the propensity to do just that.
Failed Bullying
The one-side agreement Trump and his team have negotiated has been denounced widely. The President has responded to the criticisms of the memorandum by misrepresenting its content and threatening Iranian leaders. At the G7 meeting, he said “we’ll go back to shooting at them.” If they “misbehave,” he ranted, “we’ll go back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their heads.” It was a grotesque remark, a threat simultaneously impossible and unrealistic.
The recurrence of US military attacks against Iran would be self-defeating politically and militarily, prompting retaliatory Iranian strikes across the region and a renewed shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz. All of this would send markets spinning downward again and would further diminish the sagging political prospects of Republican candidates in the midterm elections.
The Iranians have Trump over a barrel, literally. They can control outcomes through their power to threaten the flow of oil from the Gulf. The White House cannot prevent this and, having tried and failed to change it with military force, has no other options available. Multilateral diplomacy is the only way out of the hole Trump has dug for himself.
Talking Through It
It may be possible to salvage at least some benefit from the current disaster by negotiating an agreement that re-establishes limits on Iran’s nuclear program. Negotiating such an agreement will be difficult, and the terms of a new deal, if there is one, may be less favorable than the original 2015 program. Achieving a new agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear capabilities is nonetheless important and worth the continued effort.
The major problem for negotiating a new agreement is the administration’s demonstrated incompetence in diplomacy. Iranian leaders have seen their previous negotiating proposals spurned and their leaders assassinated and have been reluctant to engage with administration representatives. They refused to meet directly with Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and have relied instead on intermediaries from Pakistan and Qatar.
A different approach will be needed and could be possible if the US would consider working with states in Europe and the Gulf to create a new international authority, perhaps under UN auspices, to negotiate a new nuclear deal and establish International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring and verification.
The model for such an authority could be the multinational coalition that negotiated the nuclear deal in 2015, which included the US, Iran, the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China cooperating under the authority of the European Union and the UN Security Council. A new arrangement would include Gulf state participation and could be tied to parallel negotiations to maintain open passage through the Strait.
The proposed authority could be connected to the new UK-France multinational naval protection force. In April the United Kingdom and France announced the creation of an independent security mission to safeguard commercial shipping through the Strait. In May defense ministers from 38 states expressed their support for the task force. The mission is intended to be “strictly peaceful and defensive” and will become operational as the fighting ends. French and British naval ships are now deployed to the region for that purpose.
The role of the Gulf coalition is solely protective now, but it could serve as the springboard for a broader multilateral diplomatic effort to negotiate a sustainable end to the conflict. The UK, France and other states could request UN Security Council action to create such an authority.
This approach could only work if the US agrees to participate, which is highly unlikely at present. The idea of multilateralism is anathema to this administration. If current approaches continue to fail, however, White House officials may begin to recognize the potential benefits of a new international authority for preventing war and nuclear proliferation in the region.
As political leaders in Washington question what went wrong in Iran, they need to take responsibility for creating needed changes in US policy. It is time for members of Congress to step up. For too long they have granted war making authority to presidents who then abused that power. The current crisis has revealed levels of arrogance and incompetence that demand attention.
Recent congressional efforts to invoke the War Powers Act are a step in the right direction, but much more is needed to rein in presidential war making. Congress can use its power of the purse to withhold funding for further use of force in the Gulf region and can withhold military assistance for Israel until it upholds human rights principles and respects the rights of the Palestinian people.
Congress must also address the need for a fundamental change of direction in US policy—to put a definitive end to the era of forever wars, to reject the false promise of military predominance, and to establish a new security paradigm based on military restraint and a greater commitment to diplomacy and international cooperation.
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.
In April, U.S. prosecutors indicted the sitting governor of Sinaloa state in Mexico along with nine other current and former officials for colluding with the Sinaloa Cartel to traffic fentanyl and other narcotics into the United States, and for violence carried out by cartel gunmen armed with machineguns and other firearms. Two of the officials have since turned themselves in to U.S. authorities – presumably to turn state’s evidence – while the rest remain in Mexico. The Trump administration declared the cartel as a foreign terrorist organization last year, so the indictment charges Mexican officials with colluding with terrorists.
During 2017 through 2020, the years that some of those same Sinaloa officials were allegedly colluding with the cartel, the United States licensed gun companies to legally export weapons that went to the Sinaloa police forces the officials ran – licenses that were approved or extended by the State Department during Trump’s first term.
Sig Sauer, Inc., based in New Hampshire, exported at least 243 firearms to Sinaloa state and municipal police from 2016 to 2020. During that time, José Antonio Dionisio Hipolito was Director of Sinaloa State Police and is accused in the indictment issued in April of being on the cartel monthly payroll.
Sig Sauer and Glock were founded and are still owned by Europeans. Sig Sauer’s CEO, Ron Cohen, was arrested in Germany in 2018 after firearms produced in that country for export to the United States were re-exported to Colombia, without a German export license to do so. (He was later released.) Since then, Sig has moved all of its production to New Hampshire. Glock is Austrian, but beginning in 2022, it began exporting thousands of firearms to Mexico from its U.S. production location in Georgia, according to Arms Trade Treaty records.
Glock exported 11,125 handguns to Mexico in 2022-2023. At least 58 of these firearms were sold to Sinaloa state and local police agencies during those two years, according to receipts for these transfers obtained through a public records request to the Mexican army.
During 2022-2023, according to the indictment, Dionisio Hipolito as well as other state and local police officials in Sinaloa were colluding with the cartel in exchange for bribes.
Mexico legally imports, by far, more firearms from the United States than any other Latin American country, in some years nearly as much as the rest of the region combined. The growth of such U.S. gun exports began with the Mérida Initiative in 2008, a U.S. assistance plan modeled on the militarized approach of Plan Colombia, but these sales continued after military and police assistance declined in 2010. It just meant that Mexico bought the weapons and other gear from U.S. companies, instead of having them paid for by U.S. taxpayers.
In some respects, this reflects an arms race of the Mexican military with criminal organizations, which have nearly unlimited access to military-grade weaponry in the U.S. retail gun market, and plenty of cash. But the acquisition of ever great amounts of weaponry by the state also assumes that the most effective means of weakening these criminal organizations, whose raison d’etre is to make money, is through military force. This turns out not to be true.
Since the declaration of the drug war in 2007 in Mexico, there have been more than 450,000 homicides and over 120,000 disappearances, most carried out by or against criminal groups, although many victims were simply in the wrong place, or fell to armed misogyny or conflicts between individuals.
Enter Trumpian hubris. Its peculiarity is to believe that going after the heads – of states or criminal groups – will eliminate the structural problems that lead to their behaviors. The current version builds on the kingpin strategy, in place for decades, by which the United States arrests or kills leaders of narcotics traffickers, who are then replaced through bloody succession battles.
Guns R Us
Even more U.S. weapons flow through the illicit trade to the Sinaloa Cartel and others in Mexico from retail gun shops and private sales in southwestern states. Between 70% and 80% of firearms seized in Mexico and submitted for tracing came from the United States. According to an investigation published in 2023 by N+, when one of the sons of cartel capo ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán was arrested earlier that year, dozens of weapons recovered during the operation were traced to gun purchasers in Arizona and Texas who illicitly trafficked them directly to his faction of the Sinaloa Cartel – the same faction that the Justice Department is now accusing of bribing state government officials in Sinaloa.
The pipeline of weapons trafficked from Arizona to Sinaloa has only gotten worse since then, according to data obtained from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). In 2024, an intra-cartel war erupted in Sinaloa after one of its leaders, ‘El Mayo’ Zambada, was betrayed by a competitor and shipped to the United States. Last year, the Mexican army seized more than twice as many crime guns in Sinaloa as in any other Mexican state.
In 2024, according to ATF data, most crime guns trafficked to Mexico with a short “time to crime” – the time between purchase and confiscation in Mexico, a key indicator of deliberate trafficking – came from one state. 62% of U.S.-sourced guns with a time-to-crime of a year or less were procured from Arizona. In fact, a majority of these firearms were purchased in a single county – Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located. Arizona and Texas, even more than most states, have enormous, permissive and militarized retail gun markets. There, if you have the cash, it is easy to purchase a .50 caliber Barrett rifle that can penetrate armor and shoot down helicopters. It can even be done without a background check.
In other words, U.S. weapons go both from U.S. retail gun shops to the cartel that the U.S. has designated a foreign terrorist organization, and through licensed exports to police forces that the U.S. Department of Justice says collude with the cartel.
The Trump administration is beholden, politically and ideologically, to the firearms industry, whose vision of peace is no-holds-barred on weapons commerce. The ATF recently announced over 30 changes to firearms regulations that will make it easier to traffic weapons over the border to cartels in Mexico.
Still, if the administration has political will to weaken the hold of violent cartels in Mexico, it can effectively address its means of violence by focused efforts to reduce the illicit traffic of weapons to them from gun retailers. In March, the DOJ indicted an Arizona gun dealer for selling weapons to cartel operatives and materially supporting a foreign terrorist organization. It could do more by deploying the ATF to inspect gun dealers instead of removing their enforcement authorities.
It should also control the end use for legally exported U.S. firearms to exclude police and military forces credibly documented to collude with criminal groups or violate human rights. The administration could accomplish this through policy or support for congressional passage of the ARMAS Act, which would establish stronger transparency and accountability for the export of U.S. firearms, while also increasing interagency coordination and international incentives to disrupt firearms trafficking.
Finally, the federal government should prohibit the retail sale to civilians of .50 caliber rifles highly desired by cartels through passage of the Stop Arming Cartels Act.
U.S. firearms enable a wide range of violence in Mexico and the United States – narcotics trafficking, violent conflict between criminal groups and state forces, homicides, forced disappearances, extortion, femicides, and control of migration routes. Any strategy seeking to reduce these harms must address the guns that make them possible. Reducing the illicit flow of firearms and working to keep those weapons – both licit and illicit – from those who would further the harm will benefit many thousands of families, on both sides of the border.
John Lindsay-Poland is coordinator of Stop US Arms to Mexico, a project of Global Exchange.
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 persistover 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.
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 enhancingprecision-strike capabilitieswith 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
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 arsenalemphasizes 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
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 technologyarchitecture, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The two-week uneasy ceasefire between the United States, Israel and Iran was set to end Tuesday April 21, and holds tenuously as of publication. In the media reports of talks about talks and of concessions float, while Iranians inside and outside the country are taking it day by day. A video blogger from Tehran posts images of the city, saying “We breathe and gulp down the air, like a drowning man who surfaces briefly, knowing he will be subsumed again soon…We live the lives we never lived, knowing we may never live them.”
As the uneasy truce continues, commentators and analysts the world over focus on ‘who won’? As if the month of missiles and bombs barreling into homes and hospitals was a high-stakes football match, destined to have a winner and loser.
Wars are never so simple. They are fought on many fronts: the operational and strategic, the narrative and societal. On most levels, this war has surprised the world.
Keeping Score
Operationally, the Trump administration expected its shock and awe assassinations of key Iranian figures on the first day of the war to wrap things up quickly. Instead, the killing of the 100 children in the schoolyard in Minab grabbed the headlines. Within days, the Iranian forces managed to extract a toll against US military and naval assets accumulated in the Persian Gulf. Reports of the US aircraft carrier the Gerald Ford limping to port with sewage problems and a purported fire in the laundry room spread widely, while commentators claimed that Iranian drones damaged the behemoth. Iranian media claimed that missile attacks forced the retreat of the USS Abraham Lincoln from a position 350 km off the coast of Iran to a 1100 km position. Tactically the Iranians deployed a decentralized security system yielding better resilience, despite the 30,000 missiles and bombs that the US and Israel dropped on the country in the first 25 days. The Iranian regime also revealed a sophisticated array of missiles with accurate targeting capacity. It is textbook asymmetrical warfare. Iran, by far the weaker military power, ‘wins’ with every punch and bruise landed while every hit or retreat the US and Israel take is a loss.
Strategically, the Iranian regime gained the upper hand at least for now. Knowing it could not dominate the nuclear-armed US and Israel militarily, Iran opted to target the US’s weakest spot – the global economy – and trust in the status quo of a world dominated by the US. By controlling the Straits of Hormuz, Iran pinched the world, and the world cried out in economic pain.
Meanwhile the US has shot many an own goal geostrategically. Its European allies, already offended by Trump’s derision regarding their contributions to NATO, his grasp at Greenland, and his tariffs, were wary of being dragged into another deadly and endless war in the Middle East. The Nordics spoke out first, followed by Spain, France, Italy and Austria. Even the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, overly amenable to appeasing the US, found himself struggling to avoid speaking against Trump, while still trying to protect his ‘special relationship’. Russia has benefitted, now no longer the only one of the UN Security Council Permanent Five members waging an illegal aggressive war on another UN member state – a clear breach of the UN Charter. China has quietly ascended, diplomatically rising above the fray and benefitting economically. Its ships have clear passage through the Straits of Hormuz, with the Yuen as a currency of choice for those seeking to get ships through the Iranian-controlled waters.
As for the narrative of war, Iran has shocked the world with its sophistication and humor. The West, wrapped up in its own perception of the Iranian leadership as the Mad Mullahs and Ayatollah Khamenei as the be all and end all, was ill-prepared for the reality. In any other dictatorship – or even democracy, the assassination of the long-standing leader and other senior political and military figures would topple the government. In Iran though Khamenei’s death was a moment in time. The system had anticipated it, absorbed it and carried on. The ‘crazy ayatollahs’, it turns out, are not crazy. But they played into the image as it disarmed their adversaries.
As the war and peace negotiations unfold, the Iranian state has been represented by experienced diplomatic and military strategists who know that as the weaker military entity, they need to understand their more powerful adversaries in depth. The late Ali Larijani, the senior figure directing policy, had a PhD in Western Philosophy. He, like others, knew he was on the assassination list, and yet did not go underground. Foreign minister Abbas Araqchi and Speaker Mohammad Baquer Qalibaf may be loathed and revered in equal measure domestically, but on the world stage they have demonstrated resolve– especially in comparison to their European and American counterparts. Even the robotic sounding spokesman for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) built a following with his ability to communicate in Farsi, Arabic, English and Hebrew. Iranian President Pezeshkian, a surgeon by profession, has been performing surgery. He sent a four-page letter directly to the American people referencing the French philosopher, Alexis de Tocqueville, of whom he wrote “I am sure most Americans have read”.
Meanwhile the American President’s message was: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell”. As adversaries go, and given his rantings against the Iranian civilization, and the Pope, Donald Trump has proven to be the best enemy any country could wish for.
On social media too, Iranians set new standards for propaganda, fact and narratives. The Legomen videos, produced at a fast clip with over 2 billion views, are a source of entertainment and information for many. The Iranian embassies’ humorous trolling of the US has changed many observers’ perceptions of the Iranian state. According to the New York Times, they have invented ‘slopaganda’ – a new form of state messaging, blending propaganda with trolling to appeal to GenZ audiences globally.
If we are treating war as a horrific game, in these realms the score is 3-Nil to Iran.
Uneven Terrain
It is in the domain of real life that such scorekeeping becomes untenable. Hidden from view is the societal dimensions and impact on the people and nation. If Americans experienced the war at all in the past month, at most, it was as a price increase at the gas pump, or as videos showing fighting across the globe.. The college students went on their annual Spring Break pilgrimage to Florida. Neither Harvard nor MIT, the Statue of Liberty nor the Golden Gate bridge, Dulles Airport nor Reagan National were affected. No iconic national stadium was hit, no schools were destroyed, no hospitals bombed. The National Health Institute, the country’s premier center for medical research, was unscathed. In towns and cities where steel mills still work, petro chemical plants operate or nuclear power plants hum day and night, there was no fear of chemicals or radiation spewing in the air and water, no distribution of iodine tablets in case of radiation leaks, no children evacuated from hospitals in anticipation of strikes against the electricity and water grids.
Day labourers and salaried people continued their lives, never worrying about their day’s pay suffering from the conflict. As usual in America, many gambled on the war, making money, losing money with every day that passed. The Pentagon’s always opaque and never audited accounting system obscures the monetary cost of war, but the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington based think tank, estimated $11.6 billion for the first 6 days of the war. Others have tallied the month-long cost at $25-35 billion dollars. The administration’s demand for $200 billion from Congress however, indicates serious longer term and hidden costs. Yet, America the nation, Americans as people, have barely noticed. The war is another foreign policy folly, a ‘bad idea’ as J.D Vance said, but nothing seen or felt at home. In the nation’s capital, the Cherry Blossom Season brought in the crowds. As Tehran was being carpet bombed, restaurants in Georgetown were packed with locals and out of towners.
In Iran a different story unfolded. Behind the bravado of the embassy tweets and LEGOmen videos, the harsh reality of war “in real life” is unmissable. The bombed-out rubble of apartment buildings, the carcasses of national institutions like the Pasteur Institute for Health – Iran’s NIH, Sharif University – the MIT of Iran – heritage sites like the Chehel Sotoon Palace in Esfahan, and Tehran’s Rafia-Nia synagogue and the mangled ruins of steel, gas, and petrochemical plants reveal the true burden of the war.
Tehran’s army of street sweepers are out every day in their signature orange jumpsuits, wielding their brooms of twig and twain, clearing dust and rubble. Alongside them the volunteers of the Red Crescent society, Iran’s branch of the international federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC), continue to assist civilians. The state, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, is providing reparations where it can, to those who lost their homes. But it is a drop in the bucket.
Ordinary Iranians, men and women, the elderly and the children – born and unborn- carry the true effects of this war on their bodies and in their damaged lungs and traumatized souls. Over 3000 lost their lives, tens of thousands were injured. Families are traumatized. Parents of the children of the Minab Elementary school that the US targeted with tomahawk missiles reportedly sleep in the graveyards alongside their dead children, unable to leave them alone in the dark. Estimates of the unemployed range between 100,000 to 300,000, all in an economy already impoverished by the toxic mix of international sanctions and domestic corruption and mismanagement.
As a civilization, we lost iconic national sites that held so many memories of our lives long gone.
The bombs destroyed 30 hospitals and 600 schools. Industrial facilities, the engine of the nation, are gone, no longer providing jobs and insurance for thousands of workers. The soil, air and water near the bombed-out oil depots and petro-chemical plants will likely be polluted for decades to come. On Gheshm Island, where water desalination plants were hit, the fragile UNESCO biodiversity site is likely damaged forever too.
Aftermaths and Upheavals
In January, Israel and Reza Pahlavi, the deposed Shah’s son, weaponized Iranians’ aspirations for freedom and dignity as a justification for war, even though most Iranians never had a say in the matter. But Iranians and Iran the nation are the wars’ greatest losers.
Politically too, the fall out is detrimental for Iranians. The regime that is so reviled has revitalized its public image and its hold on power. Thanks to the US-Israel assassinations, Khamenei-the-father has ascended to martyrdom and Khamenei-the-son has risen to leadership – a position he craved but would never have attained without this war.
Despite the war, the Iranian state pursued its domestic political opponents. Women’s Rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh was re-arrested. Calls for the release of political prisoners go unheeded. The judiciary, led by Mohsen Ejai, feared and loathed in equal measure, continues to invoke the death penalty.
When the dust settles, Iranians will face two grim outcomes. If the regime does not survive, the Iranian state will be decimated, and the country’s territorial integrity will be lost. A nation of 93 million torn apart will have implications for the region and the world. Even a small fraction of the population flowing out as refugees to Turkey and across the Mediterranean will cause an already overburdened humanitarian crisis to break.
If the regime does survive, it will be bloodied, bruised and still paranoid, about foreign infiltration. It will be an ugly reckoning as the state will likely exact a heavy price from dissident and oppositional voices, accusing them of being agents of the US or Israel. Already there is talk of expropriating the Iranian homes of diaspora who advocated for war.
This is not the end of the Iranian story, though.
The regime will also be left to face the people. This public is a formidable force, whose struggle for change and liberation dates back over a century and will continue. Iranians are aspirational by DNA. They want a better life and work hard to achieve it. They look outwards to the West for liberties and the East for economic opportunities. Though they face a state that has wielded its monopoly on violence both physically and structurally, they do not bow. As a civilization the Iranian identity is also rooted in pluralism and independence. Iranians are intolerant of bullies — be they external or internal. In the face of overpowering physical might and violence, their greatest talent is in changing the language and rules of the game.
The public demonstrated this on April 9th. When the US threatened to bomb away the “Iranian civilization”, the Tar musician, Ali Ghamsari, sat alone on the hillside in front of Tehran’s electricity plant, playing music to ward away the spirits of violence. In Dezful women and children stood along a bridge dating back to 255 AD, holding hands to protect it. Around the country, Iranians converged around power plants and bridges. Threaten us and we will stand, was their response to the might of the US military.
It is the same spirit that fueled the Women, Life, Freedom movement in 2022. Then the brute force was the regime itself, and the nonviolent spirit of the protesters – mothers and daughters, with their brothers and fathers standing alongside them – eroded its power. Like water on rock.
The women’s victory against the mandatory hijab was not simply a social issue. It was a blow to the ideological identity of the state, because the hijab was the most visible and physical symbol and tool of its repression and attempted control of women.
The WLF movement is not yet completed, with the other two demands of that powerful trifecta – Life and Freedom – still in motion.
The demand for ‘Life’ is foundational. It is the ability to live with dignity, to work and have a livelihood, to afford a family and a life. The sanctions regime combined with the corruption it exacerbated and the mismanagement that is inherent in this system of governance, has mired people in an economic bog of inflation and joblessness. The war and the damage have caused significant regression. But the silver lining – if this ceasefire evolves into a peace deal – could be the revocation of sanctions, breathing new life into the economy.
As for freedom, the war paused this too. But just as women’s rights have been won culturally in every home, the legal changes needed to give Iranians greater social and political freedoms will come. In other countries the laws exist providing rights and protections that are often unacceptable to wide swathes of society and culture. In Iran, the reverse is true. The sheer force of social change has overridden the anachronistic theocratic laws that govern people’s lives. The age of marriage may be 13 by Sharia law, but the civic code requires national identity cards for marriage – that are issued at 15 years of age, while the average age of marriage among Iranian women is 25. In typical practical asymmetrical Iranian fashion, the strategy for change has not been to confront – it has been to override, undermine and erode the obstacles.
For decades, proponents of regime change in Iran pursued a narrative akin to a Hollywood political action thriller with caricature heroes and villains, espionage and warfare. But the story of Iran is a slow paced, nuanced human drama where right and wrong, good and evil coexist, merging and changing, challenging our perception with every turn. The enduring character is the Iranian soul, rooted in this ancient land, whose drive is to evolve and survive to absorb the good and the bad but never give up its inner essence. Centuries ago the Arabs brought Islam but Iran emerged with Shi’ism. The Moguls came as barbarians but transformed into lovers of Persian architecture and poetry. The Islamic Republic came but it too is being challenged-slowly and inside out. But if we follow the people’s lead, the change will come. Then, Iran, the nation and the civilization can claim victory.
For now, that dream is caught in the lungs of those who hold their breath from this day to the next, in equal measures of hope and dread.
What next?
Below are three recommendations to policy makers:
Peace: Militarized regime change is a failed policy. The ceasefire needs to be sustained and expanded to a comprehensive agreement including the removal of sanctions to enable ordinary Iranians to secure their livelihoods. Spoilers on both sides will try to scuttle – with arguments of “let’s finish the job”, but this is a recipe for endless war and devastation regionally and globally. The US and the wider international community has a once in a generation opportunity for a grand bargain to bring peace and security for Iran, Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon. It is a matter of political will, vision and courage.
Life: Given the depth of mistrust, there needs to be a recalibration of relations with the Iranian state to build confidence: politically security-wise and economically. There should be a coalition-based approach to engage Iran to reintegrate into world AND address domestic human rights issues such as: freeing political prisoners, suspending death penalty, stopping the seizure of assets and businesses and supporting recovery and restoration – especially for the unemployed, health and education institutions,, heritage sites, civilian manufacturing, housing and heritage sites which have been destroyed.
Freedom: Iran needs a national dialogue, truth and reconciliation process for a transformed future. Countless Iranians of every generation, across social strata are traumatized and fearful. This causes and enables societal polarization that the extremists will exploit. But if this trend is reversed, the space for transformation opens to envision an Iran for all Iranians. The depth of state violence needs to be addressed to enable accountability, reparations, memorialization and transformation of laws to guarantee equality and freedom. An inclusive process – comprising differing political forces, regional, ethnic, generational and equal representation from men and women is needed to collectively envision the future. It must be homegrown but Iranians could benefit from the experience of others, notably South Africa, Colombia, Yemen and elsewhere.
Sanam Naraghi Anderlini, MBE, is the British-Iranian Founder and CEO of the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN). She has 30 years of global experience as peace strategist, is an architect of UN SR Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security and was the first Gender and Inclusion Expert on the UN’s Standby Team of Senior Mediation Advisors.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
