Global Outlook

China’s rising economic and conventional capabilities are now paired with expanding nuclear forces. Strategically, Washington must decide whether it is possible to avoid confronting China and Russia together, and the price to make that happen.

In a post on his 'Truth Social', Trump announced that the United States would resume nuclear testing, in response to atomic threats he said were coming from Russia and China. The move was seen across the board as marking an end to 33 years of restraint since the last US underground test in Nevada in September 1992.

With its present focus on Latin America, the Trump administration is initiating a shift in US foreign policy.

Democracy today is at a critical juncture. Political systems worldwide face pressures that once would have been extraordinary: accelerating authoritarianism, deepening civic fragmentation, and collapsing public trust.

On 29 September, President Donald Trump announced an audacious 20-point Gaza peace plan. I cautioned earlier that there were many potholes to be navigated on the pathway to Middle East peace.

Established democracies are exhibiting governance stresses that were once associated primarily with fragile and conflict-affected states. Polarisation is weakening institutional trust, fragmenting civic norms, and reducing societies’ ability to solve problems collectively. This is the new fragility.