WORLD ROUNDUPTo Get Peace in Ukraine, Trump Should Play the Nuclear Card | A Nation of Lawyers Confronts China’s Engineering State | Syrian Druze Struggle Over Autonomy, and more

Trump and Putin Find Common Ground on One Issue: Biden  (Peter Baker, New York Times)
The Alaska summit between the U.S. and Russian leaders showcased their mutual animosity for the former president.
President Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia did not agree on a cease-fire to the war in Ukraine during their meeting in Alaska. But they did agree on something else: They both despise Joe Biden.
During their private meeting and their public appearance in Anchorage on Friday, both leaders blamed Mr. Biden for the war in Ukraine, never mind that Mr. Putin was the one who ordered troops to invade his neighbor and keeps authorizing strikes against civilian targets.
By Mr. Trump’s account, Mr. Putin behind closed doors also endorsed the lie that Mr. Trump actually won the 2020 election, only to have it stolen by Democrats.
It was unorthodox, to say the least, to see a sitting American president join a foreign dictator accused of war crimes onstage in Anchorage to bash a former American president. But it underscored that Mr. Trump, with his increasingly authoritarian tendencies, in some ways finds more common ground with the repressive leader of Russia than he does with his own country’s leaders.

To Get Peace in Ukraine, Trump Should Play the Nuclear Card (Matthew Kroenig, Foreign Policy)
The White House needs to learn from the Kremlin’s success with nuclear blackmail.

For Syrian Druze, Latest Violence Is One More Chapter in a Centuries-Long Struggle Over Autonomy  (Rami Zeedan, The Conversation)
Fighting has flared on and off in southern Syria for nearly a month, despite a fragile ceasefire. Violence in July 2025 left more than 1,600 people dead, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, including at least 166 civilians. The group, which is based in the United Kingdom, also recorded 401 cases of extrajudicial executions by state security forces.
The full extent of the destruction and humanitarian crisis is still emerging in areas around Sweida, a region that’s home to most of the country’s Druze minority. Fighting first flared in mid-July after Bedouins attacked a Druze resident at a checkpoint.
As violence between Druze militias and Bedouin fighters escalated, Syrian forces entered to purportedly calm the tensions. But forces aligned with the Syrian government have been accused of targeting the Druze, including atrocities such as a massacre at a local hospital and executing unarmed civilians. Despite the U.S.-brokered ceasefire, access to Sweida remains restricted, with only limited aid allowed in.
At the core of the conflict lies Syria’s long-standing challenges integrating peripheral regions and minorities, which has proved particularly dangerous for the Druze. Many leaders in the new regime have roots in the extremist Islamic militia Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, which grew out of a group affiliated with al-Qaida, prompting concerns that the central government will try to impose its religious and cultural norms.

Trump’s Trade Tactics Come for Chip Controls  (Keith Johnson and Rishi Iyengar,Foreign Policy)
With tariffs on one side and shakedowns on the other, the U.S. president is upending years of China consensus.

Why Trump Flip-Flopped on Nvidia Selling H20 Chips to China  (Louise Matsakis, Wired)
Nvidia struck a surprising deal after convincing the president that H20 chips aren’t a national security risk. But whether the reversal is good or bad depends on who you ask.

A Nation of Lawyers Confronts China’s Engineering State  (Dan Wang, The Atlantic)
As the Chinese economy surges forward, the U.S. has lost its capacity for physical improvement.