United States (U.S.)

Since October 2026, discussions in Washington about using the GBU-43, known as the ‘Mother of All Bombs’ (MOAB), against Iranian nuclear sites and energy infrastructure have raised a question about how the United States could scale back its military involvement. The case for a large strike rests on the assumption that Washington could point to a tangible military result and use it to begin drawing down its forces. Yet a strike intended to end the mission could extend it. If Iran can repair the damage or move its activities elsewhere, U.S forces may have to stay in the region to prevent it from restoring those capabilities.   The costs of sustaining the results of a strike arise in three areas. First, surface damage is easier to document than the fate of nuclear material and activities protected underground, which may require on-site verification. Second, continued defensive operations put pressure on both budgets and stockpiles. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that replacing missile defence interceptors expended through 1 August 2026 would cost about $13.1 billion, compared with $7.3 billion for land-attack cruise missiles. Third, risks to commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and the exposure of energy markets can persist regardless of the damage to any one nuclear facility.   Whether a strike makes disengagement easier depends on the military, verification and maritime commitments it leaves behind. A temporary halt could give Washington time to secure inspection arrangements and reduce tensions at sea, allowing a gradual drawdown. If maintaining that halt requires a continued military presence, the strike could further deplete defensive inventories and narrow the options available to the United States and governments in the region.

The Middle East is undergoing rapid geopolitical and military changes that have reshaped the decades-long confrontation between Iran, on the one hand, and the United States and Israel, on the other. After years dominated by "shadow wars", cyber operations and indirect confrontations involving allies and armed groups, the conflict has expanded into direct military confrontation. As US–Iran negotiations have approached an impasse, reports have proliferated suggesting that US President Donald Trump may be preparing a new military campaign against Iran following the midterm elections.   These developments have coincided with Israel providing the United States with intelligence concerning alleged nuclear activity at a facility beneath Pickaxe Mountain near Natanz, alongside allegations of Iranian plots to assassinate Trump and assessments of Tehran's possible readiness to use chemical weapons. These claims have, however, prompted disagreement within the US administration, amid growing suspicions that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to use these threats to persuade Trump to resume the war. This is particularly significant given the circulation of proposals and claims concerning the possible use of a nuclear weapon against the Pickaxe Mountain facility.   Among the principal military dilemmas driving this debate is the extent to which Iran's deeply buried, hardened facilities can be neutralised using conventional weapons, including the US GBU-57 bunker-busting bomb. Uncertainty persists over the effects of earlier strikes and the extent of Iran's remaining nuclear capabilities. Open-source estimates suggest that the Pickaxe Mountain facility may lie between 80 and 100 metres below the surface, while some intelligence-related speculation places the tunnels at depths of approximately 300 metres. Their precise depth and internal configuration remain difficult to verify.   This raises a particularly sensitive strategic question concerning the limits of the force Washington might employ to achieve its objectives towards Tehran and the possibility of moving beyond conventional weapons if confrontation resumes or efforts to contain it falter.   Against this background, the analysis adopts an "Only If" framework to examine the determinants that keep nuclear weapons within the range of possible options and the critical conditions that might prompt US decision-makers to employ them in the ongoing conflict with Iran. It also considers the potential consequences of a transition from conventional confrontation to nuclear use for Middle Eastern security and international stability.

In June 2026, as a heatwave pushed London past 34°C and evening demand outpaced the grid’s fading solar supply, a homeowner in Shropshire, England did something that would have made little sense a decade earlier: he discharged the 200-kilowatt-hour battery in his garage, charged hours earlier with cheap daytime power and pocketed roughly £60 in a few hours, about what an apartment dweller pays for electricity in a month. Andrew Austin hadn’t set out to become an energy trader.   For most of the grid era, homes have occupied a single role: consumers, buying electricity at prices set by utilities and market conditions. Solar panels, batteries, smart meters and digital trading platforms are rewriting that arrangement, letting a growing number of households generate, store and sell power instead of simply paying for it. Batteries are becoming financial assets rather than backup equipment, and homes are starting to resemble miniature power plants, which is really the question this piece is chasing: what happens once millions of households stop being customers and start behaving like traders?

Opinion polls influence the political environment they seek to measure. By shaping perceptions of electability, they affect voters’ choices, media attention, campaign funding and access to electoral competition. The paper examines how these interactions can transform polling from a means of observing electoral sentiment into an instrument for shaping it. Its central finding is that influence does not require fabricated figures: selective publication, concealed sponsorship and the presentation of uncertain forecasts as assured outcomes can turn genuine data into a misleading account of public opinion.   Evidence across several countries illustrates how this influence operates. In the 2018 US General Social Survey, 23.6% of respondents considered spending on ‘welfare’ insufficient, compared with 73.2% when the question referred to ‘assistance to the poor’, demonstrating the significance of wording. During the 2023 Republican presidential debates, the minimum polling threshold rose from 1% to 6%, illustrating how measured support can become a condition for gaining the visibility needed to attract further support. The paper also examines how electoral expectations affect financial markets, drawing on India’s 2024 election and the controversy surrounding privately commissioned polling during the Brexit referendum.   The consequences extend beyond inaccurate predictions. Favourable polling narratives can distort campaign decisions, concentrate resources and narrow the alternatives visible to voters, while disappointed expectations can be exploited to undermine confidence in elections. Artificial intelligence introduces further risks through fabricated responses and synthetic substitutes for human participants. Nevertheless, the paper distinguishes methodological error from deliberate deception and argues that effective safeguards must preserve independent polling. Disclosure of funding, questions, sampling methods and weighting assumptions, alongside responsible reporting and independent scrutiny, can help ensure that polls inform electoral choice without presenting the outcome as predetermined.

The international system faces complex geostrategic pressures that place global supply chains under unprecedented strain. Escalating military tensions, particularly disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, are putting pressure on oil and liquefied natural gas flows. In 2025, this passage carried around a quarter of seaborne oil trade and 19% of global trade in liquefied natural gas. These developments coincide with a shift in the Russia–Ukraine conflict towards attacks on energy infrastructure, alongside tighter restrictions on Black Sea shipping and disruptions to key export routes for strategically important grains. This convergence leaves the world caught between declining oil supplies and restricted access to part of the available food supply, complicating procurement and threatening the foundations of national security.   Faced with these shortages and rising shipping costs, some major powers and emerging economies are expanding biofuel production as an instrument of national policy to ease the energy crisis, alongside pursuing environmental objectives and supporting agricultural production. Agricultural producer countries are consequently choosing to redirect part of their strategic crop output, including maize, sugar cane and palm oil, towards biofuel plants to meet transport needs. This analysis advances the hypothesis that expanding biofuels derived from food crops may heighten the vulnerability of importing countries when demand growth outstrips the capacity of production and stocks to accommodate it, while trade policies restrict exportable supplies. The scale of this effect depends on the feedstocks used, the volume diverted and the responsiveness of production. It does not apply to the same extent to fuels produced from agricultural residues or used oils.   Import-dependent countries, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, may bear the cost of these pressures through diminished food security and domestic stability. An inability to secure food can, in this context, undermine social stability and signal the risk of political crises whose severity varies according to institutional effectiveness and the capacity to protect the most vulnerable groups. This complex situation poses an urgent question: how far can importing countries withstand the convergence of energy and food policies, and what protective mechanisms can safeguard their national security as competition intensifies between the use of crops for food and for fuel?

Longevity is moving beyond the domain of medical research to become a potential source of economic and strategic power. Advances in genomics, regenerative medicine, cellular reprogramming, and AI-enabled drug discovery are attracting growing private investment and government attention, even as evidence for dramatic extensions of healthy human lifespan remains limited. Against a backdrop of population ageing and declining fertility, even incremental improvements in healthspan could reshape labour markets, pension systems, healthcare demand, and national productivity.   However, longer healthy lives present a fundamental paradox. While they could expand individual freedom, preserve human capital, and create opportunities for education, creativity, and multiple careers, they could also extend working lives at the expense of personal choice, delay inheritance, compound wealth, and allow political, corporate, and scientific elites to retain influence for longer. If access to longevity interventions remains concentrated among wealthier individuals, existing inequalities could deepen across both generations and societies.   The geopolitical implications are equally significant. The United States, China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Singapore represent different approaches to building longevity research, investment, regulatory, and biotechnology capabilities. Countries that develop and deploy effective interventions could strengthen their human capital and technological competitiveness, while those lacking research infrastructure or access to advanced therapies risk greater dependence on external suppliers. The convergence of AI and biotechnology adds further concerns surrounding biological data, dual-use capabilities, cybersecurity, and the concentration of technological power.   This Special Edition identifies the signals that could indicate a transition from scientific promise to systemic change, outlines plausible future scenarios, and examines how governments can prepare. Its central argument is that the strategic consequences of longevity will depend not only on scientific progress, but also on how societies distribute additional healthy years, regulate emerging technologies, and adapt the institutions governing work, wealth, retirement, and political authority.  

The US economy experienced a rapid macroeconomic shift marked by rising prices and slowing growth following the implementation of a 27% weighted average applied tariff rate. This policy shift triggered stagflationary indicators by mid-2026, with real GDP growth decelerating to 1.5% in the second quarter and inflation rising to an annualized 5.1%. Concurrently, monthly job creation plummeted from an average of 125,100 in 2025 to a forecasted 34,600 to 55,200 in 2026. The trade environment also underwent structural changes, most notably in agriculture, where the United States permanently lost 7.94 percentage points of the Chinese agricultural import market, largely replaced by Brazil.   At the sectoral level, agriculture and manufacturing saw divergent outcomes that masked deeper financial vulnerabilities. The agricultural sector transitioned heavily from market-earned income to federal transfers, with government direct payments surging to $44.3 billion in 2026, comprising roughly 25% to 30% of total net farm income. Despite these government bailouts, total farm sector debt reached a record $624.7 billion, accompanied by rising family farm bankruptcies. Meanwhile, the manufacturing sector saw a modest 1.93% increase in its industrial production index between March 2025 and July 2026, yet manufacturing employment actually contracted by 0.43% during the exact same period.   The long-term fiscal trajectory of the United States points toward unprecedented debt levels, driven by simultaneous revenue constraints and expanded deficit spending. Recent tax legislation is projected to add $4.7 trillion to the national deficit over a decade. Consequently, federal debt held by the public is projected to eclipse the historic 1946 World War II peak of 106%, reaching 108% of GDP by 2030 and climbing to 175% by 2056. Over this extended horizon, net interest payments are forecast to become the largest single line item in the federal budget, while the United States' projected share of global output on a purchasing-power basis declines from 20.42% to 13.88%.    This publication was written in August 2026

The Memorandum of Understanding did not constitute a comprehensive or definitive settlement of the nuclear issue. Rather, it served as a temporary truce to freeze military strikes and maritime and nuclear threats, buying time to negotiate a comprehensive agreement that would address the enrichment crisis at its roots. These developments come in the wake of the collapse of the 2015 nuclear agreement following the United States' withdrawal in 2018, which gave Tehran considerable room to expand uranium enrichment, restrict international inspections and accumulate large quantities of uranium enriched to levels approaching those required for the production of a nuclear weapon.   Against this backdrop, the nuclear programme stands out as the Iranian leadership's principal bargaining chip. Although Tehran does not currently possess a nuclear weapon, it has accumulated the technical expertise, established the necessary infrastructure and secured the enriched uranium needed to produce one within a relatively short period should the political decision be taken to do so. This reality underscores that Iran's leverage at the negotiating table is no longer merely theoretical. It is tangible leverage, rooted in Tehran's ability to move rapidly towards weaponisation.   On the operational front, despite US and Israeli strikes targeting nuclear facilities inside Iran, assessments have confirmed only limited damage. Tehran is still strongly believed to retain substantial capacity to continue uranium enrichment. However, experts remain divided over the true extent to which the attacks have set back its nuclear programme. These assessments indicate that military action alone has failed to resolve the nuclear issue, naturally increasing the likelihood of an eventual resumption of negotiations and a return to the diplomatic track.   Against this complex backdrop, a fundamental question remains: will the terms governing the nuclear issue be revised in any future memorandum, or will they remain unchanged from those set out in the "Islamabad Memorandum"? If the parties move towards introducing new amendments, how far can each side go in making concessions to negotiate an end to this chapter?

Congress now has a lobbyist that never registers, never discloses a client, and never leaves a paper trail, and it sits open in a browser tab on nearly every staffer's desk. The House Office of Legislative Counsel, the institution responsible for turning policy ideas into legally binding text, has reportedly been inundated with AI-generated bill proposals so riddled with incorrect statutory references and sloppy drafting that its lawyers now spend more time fixing them than they would spend writing the bills from scratch. Around the same time, it became clear how far this had spread. Members of Congress and their staff are increasingly using systems such as ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, and Gemini for policy research, legislative drafting, speeches, and constituent replies.   On the surface, this looks like any workplace chasing efficiency. But Congress is not any workplace. The information lawmakers receive, the way problems get framed, and the exact language that ends up in statute can affect millions of people. So the real question is not whether chatbots make congressional offices faster. It is what happens once the systems helping policymakers research, frame, and write legislation become an active participant in the political process itself.

The latest AI boom is creating an unusual paradox. The more AI companies need high-quality information, the more aggressively they are buying the physical books that contain it, and in some cases destroying those books once their contents have been absorbed. In recent months, independent booksellers in the United States, Britain, Europe, and elsewhere have reported sudden surges in unexplained bulk purchases, sometimes involving hundreds of unrelated and obscure titles. Some of these books are subsequently being sent to facilities where their bindings are removed, their pages rapidly scanned, and the remains discarded or recycled.   The scale could become far larger than the cases already exposed. ISBNdb, a major book database, now facilitates purchases ranging from 1,000 to one million books per order, while booksellers have described previously unsold titles suddenly becoming highly sought after. At the same time, an Amazon facility in Las Vegas has been identified as a site where employees described cutting book spines, scanning loose pages, and disposing of the resulting paper. The controversy raises a question that extends well beyond publishing. What happens if the race to build better AI systematically removes the physical sources from which that intelligence was created?

Humanity today confronts one of the most striking and complex paradoxes of the modern age. While the world's leading technology companies race to present artificial intelligence as a silver bullet for saving the planet and addressing the climate crisis, a troubling physical reality is quietly taking shape beneath the surface. The very technology that promises a sustainable future is silently consuming one of the most vital and scarce resources on which human survival depends on freshwater.   This profound contradiction between the dazzling promises of the digital age and harsh environmental realities goes beyond a passing technical problem. It raises a fundamental strategic and geopolitical question: will the boundless ambitions of artificial intelligence ultimately collide with the planet's hard physical limits? This silent struggle between technological advancement and the scarcity of natural resources raises a critical question: which will ultimately give way to the other, the immense power of data servers or the life-sustaining drops of water?

For over two decades, The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) stood as the clearest example of what concentrated donor power could do: one country's political will, translated into billions of dollars a year, credited with saving more lives than any single global health program in history. That era is now ending, not through a managed transition but through an abrupt, largely unplanned withdrawal that began within days of the second Trump administration taking office in January 2025. The story that follows is not simply about cuts to HIV/AIDS funding, but it is about what happens when the architecture of global health financing loses its dominant pillar, who scrambles to fill the resulting vacuum, whether the countries left exposed can build the fiscal and institutional capacity to stand on their own, and whether the system that emerges is more fragile or more resilient than the one it replaces. The transition is already producing real costs: closed clinics, disrupted treatment, and rising infections in countries that had spent years bringing their epidemics under control. Besides, it is also accelerating financing reforms, regional cooperation, and domestic manufacturing that donor dependence had, for twenty years, made largely unnecessary. Both of these things are true at once, and this analysis traces both.