WORLD ROUNDUPApproaching the War on Terror in the Sahel | Cold War Lessons for Export Controls Against China | How Japan Built a Rare-Earth Supply Chain Without China, and more

How a US “Suez Moment” Could Hollow the U.S. Alliance System  (Bence Nemeth, Texas National Security Review)
This article contends that while the United States still fields potent military capabilities, the narrowing military balance with China means that a future Indo-Pacific clash in which Beijing gains a regional edge is no longer implausible. Using the 1956 Suez Crisis as an analogue, the study asks how a public exposure of US capability shortfalls—an American “Suez moment”—would reverberate through Washington’s global alliance network. The article employs a five-factor theory of defense cooperation—covering three structural and two situational factors—to evaluate two post-setback scenarios. In the first, multiple factors erode simultaneously, hollowing NATO and Indo-Pacific hub-and-spoke ties into nominal shells. In the second, enduring structural and favorable situational factors allow the alliances to adapt, with the United States reemerging as first among equals. The study concludes that credible remedies to underlying US capability deficits and thoughtful alliance management based on the studied five factors will determine which path prevails after a potential US “Suez moment.”

A Weakened Hamas Still Dominates Gaza, Building Day by Day  (Adam Rasgon, New York Times)
A cease-fire after two years of war with Israel has allowed Hamas to tighten its grip on power again. “It’s still standing,” one Israeli official said.

Approaching the War on Terror in the Sahel  (Jordyn Abrams, Small Wars Journal)
Since President Trump took office, he has focused on the American homeland, leading to a foreign policy characterized by isolationism and transactions. For Africa, this has meant expecting little support in areas that do not directly benefit the United States, exemplified by the Trump Administration’s rollback of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which in 2024 provided $6.5 billion in humanitarian assistance to the sub-Saharan Africa region alone. However, the Trump Administration has taken some, albeit selective, interest in countering the terrorist threat in Africa, which is enveloping parts of the continent. In Somalia, President Trump began “dramatically increasing” counterterror drone strikes, already fast approaching the total number of strikes during Biden’s term, 51. While the threat of al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda’s official East African affiliate, is prevalent, the larger terror threat looming in the Sahel has received little attention—until recently. The abduction of an American Christian missionary in Niger, conducted potentially by Islamist forces, who is perhaps being moved to Mali, which is near collapse due to a different Islamist group, along with President Trump’s recent focus on entirely different Islamist groups in Nigeria, all point towards the need for the US counterterrorism efforts to focus on the threat in West Africa.

The U.S. Gave Mexico a List of Russian Spies. Mexico Let Them Stay.  (Maria Abi-Habib, New York Times)
Moscow has ramped up covert operations in Mexico, with spies meeting handlers in its bustling capital and seaside resorts, U.S. officials say.

Cold War Lessons for Export Controls Against China  (Jennifer Lind, Michael Mastanduno, Texas National Security Review)
We sit down with Dartmouth national security scholars Jennifer Lind and Michael Mastanduno as they compare Cold War export control strategies with modern attempts to limit China’s access to sensitive US technologies. They delve into key lessons from the historical COCOM regime, discuss the evolving technological competition with China, and reflect on the feasibility of current US policies.

How Japan Built a Rare-Earth Supply Chain Without China  (River Akira Davis and Kiuko Notoya, New York Times)
The 15-year effort by Japan is a model for countries now scrambling to reduce their dependence on Beijing’s critical metals.

Can Germany Stop Extremism by Banning a Far-Right Party? Some Want to Try.  (Aaron Wiener and Emma Talkoff, Washington Post)
In an address to commemorate Kristallnacht —the 1938 Nazi pogrom against Jews —German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier last month offered a solution for the resurgence of right-wing extremism: banning the nationalist, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Surveys show that the AfD, now the second-largest faction in the German parliament, is at least as popular as Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s center-right Christian Democratic Union and attracting far more support than Steinmeier’s center-left Social Democratic Party.

Zelensky Rules out Ceding Land to Russia, Refusing to Bow to Putin or Trump  (Steve Hendrix and Lizzie Johnson, Washington Post)
The unequivocal declaration that Ukraine would not surrender land could mark the collapse of Trump’s latest plan to end the war, which critics condemned as fulfilling a wish list of Russian President Vladimir Putin.