An Even Better Trump Solution for Gaza

Khaled Abu Toameh

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The Arab and Muslim countries, including Pakistan, will not disarm Hamas.

Pakistan -- which does not recognize Israel and does not regard Hamas as a terrorist organization –- was the first country to recognize Iran's Khomeini regime in 1979, just as, in 1947, Iran was the first country to recognize Pakistan's independence. Since then, not only has Pakistan had far closer relations with Iran than with Israel, but, after the Gaza War in 2023, has repeatedly called for Muslim nations to "unite against Israel."

Meanwhile, it is simply not realistic to assume that the Palestinian terror groups will voluntarily hand over their weapons.

These Arab and Muslim heads of state will only take action against Islamist terrorists when they pose a threat to their regimes, security and stability.

Afghanistan’s Post Opium Drug Trade – Another Challenge for Pakistan?

Qurat-UL-Ain Shabbir

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The Pakistan Navy ship Yarmook seized two dhow sailing boats in the Arabian Sea on 27 October, carrying for about 2.5 tons of crystal methamphetamine, also known as Ice, and 50 kg of cocaine. It was one of the largest drug seizures in maritime history, with the haul estimated to be valued at a staggering 972 million dollars. Besides the sheer magnitude of these numbers, there is an underlying reality that is more disturbing: a booming regional drug economy that is becoming increasingly rooted in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has long been the center of the international drug trade. Its drug economy generates billions of dollars every year which are then used to fuel terrorism, transnational organized crime and cross border militancy. Afghanistan was producing about 80-90% of the world’s opium, making it the largest producer globally before 2022. Over time, Afghanistan’s southern and eastern regions, long known as hotbeds of militancy and centers of opium cultivation, have also emerged as significant producers of methamphetamine. The ephedra plant is used for meth production and is found in abundance in the Afghan mountains. As per a UNODC report a surge in methamphetamine trafficking has been noted in recent years from Afghanistan to neighboring countries.

The Top 10 Global Risks for 2026

Ian Bremmer

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2026 is a tipping point year.

That’s not because we should expect a coming confrontation between the two biggest powers, the U.S. and China. Nor are tensions between the U.S. and Russia likely to spiral out of control this year. Instead, 2026 looks set to be a time of great geopolitical uncertainty, because the U.S. is unwinding its own global order.

What began as tactical norm-breaking has become a system-level transformation: President Donald Trump’s attempt to systematically dismantle the checks on his power, capture the machinery of government, and weaponize it against his domestic enemies. With many of the guardrails that held in Trump’s first term now buckling, we can no longer say with confidence what kind of political system the U.S. will be when this revolution is over. Ultimately, the revolution is more likely to fail than succeed, but there will be no going back to the status quo. The U.S. will be the principal source of global risk this year.

Exclusive: Closer look at new Chinese structures near Pangong Lake and what they mean

Ankit Kumar

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New high-resolution satellite imagery sourced by India Today shows China continuing to upgrade its permanent military presence in the disputed Eastern Ladakh region of Pangong Tso. China has controlled this position near the Sirijap post since the 1962 war, when it was lost from India’s control, though India continues to consider it part of its territory. The imagery clearly shows construction work on a new complex with multiple permanent structures coming up only meters away from the water body.

This is significant as it could allow China's People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to station more resources closer to the current buffer zone

Tehran’s Moment of Reckoning

Aviva Klompas

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The capture of Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces this weekend was not merely a Venezuela story. It was a message to Tehran.

For years, American foreign policy has been defined less by enforcement than by signaling. Warnings were issued, deadlines announced, negotiations perpetually extended, and consequences endlessly deferred. President Trump appears determined to reverse that pattern.

The operation against Venezuela made one thing unmistakably clear: Trump expects to be taken seriously.

That matters most for Iran, which has spent years betting that U.S. threats are rhetorical, reversible, or constrained by fear of escalation. That bet is beginning to look reckless.

Trump NSS Reshapes US Engagement in the South Caucasus

Aytac Mahmmadova

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The South Caucasus has long occupied an ambiguous place in US foreign policy, neither central to US national security nor irrelevant to it. The region has historically mattered insofar as it intersected with larger geopolitical contests: between Russia and the West, between energy producers and consumers, and between stability and fragmentation along Eurasia’s inner frontier. The 2025 US National Security Strategy codifies a shift that will sharpen this logic, moving the United States decisively away from expansive regional engagement toward selective, interest-driven involvement.

While the document does not explicitly address the South Caucasus in its regional sections, its underlying principles, such as restraint, burden-sharing, transactionalism, and rejection of transformational agendas, will fundamentally reshape Washington’s engagement with the South Caucasus states. This recalibration reflects broader strategic realities: finite American resources, diminished appetite for open-ended commitments, and recognition that regional outcomes will ultimately be determined by local power dynamics rather than external patronage.

Europe's last hope in the AI race

Bernardo Kastrup

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The global AI boom is built on staggering inefficiency: repurposed videogame chips, vast energy waste, and escalating costs. While the US and China race blindly ahead, philosopher of mind and the Founder and CEO at Euclyd, a Dutch company developing chips and systems for core AI datacentre compute, Bernardo Kastrup, argues that Europe has an overlooked opportunity to redesign AI hardware itself, and in doing so reclaim technological sovereignty.

As a philosopher of mind and computer engineer, AI is the one topic that connects both of my professional aspirations. And since this powerful new technology is bound to shape the future of civilization, either supporting or undermining our ways of life, the survival of European values so consistent with my own idealist views—such as personal liberty, liberal democracy, human rights, equality of opportunity, consumer protections, distribution of power, etc.—will largely depend on how we manage the ongoing technological transition. To ensure the survival of its way of life, Europe must thus have the means to control the deployment of AI in its territory, so it happens on our terms.

The $20 Trillion Question: How to Spend It and How Not To

William Murray

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$20 trillion is a lot of money.

One would expect a big bang to follow the spending of twenty-thousand billion dollars. It’s a lot of money! It’s pretty much the total present value of America’s GDP.

This is the sum that was globally spent — largely by Europe and the United States — in a coordinated effort by the developed world to decarbonize the global economy. China, in contrast, sold the world windmills and solar panels while it opened a new coal-fired power plant per month.

What was the net effect of this “Green" Marshall Plan? Hydrocarbon consumption continued to increase anyway. All that was achieved was a tiny reduction, just 2%, in the share of overall energy supplied by hydrocarbons. Put simply, as the energy pie got bigger and all forms of energy supply increased, hydrocarbons ended up with a slightly smaller share of a larger pie.

The U.S. Captures Maduro: Deterrence, Legitimacy, and What Comes Next?

Brigham A. McCown

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The United States has used force abroad when it has judged its security or strategic influence to be at risk, particularly in regions it considers vital to its interests. The military operation that apprehended Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela fits this pattern, reasserting deterrence in response to Washington’s diminished influence in its own hemisphere. But the administration’s ultimate success depends on returning Venezuela to the path of democracy without getting bogged down in another doomed nation-building project.

Much of the initial commentary has focused on oil markets or alleged violations of the War Powers Resolution. But since the resolution’s enactment in 1973, presidents of both parties have authorized limited military actions without congressional authorization when they judged core U.S. interests to be at stake. Action against the Maduro regime reflects a broad, if sometimes understated, bipartisan concern. Congress should now be fully briefed and engaged in its proper oversight role.

The Maduro Raid: A Military Victory with No Viable Endgame

Mark F. Cancian

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The capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife has electrified the world and generated immense discussion about its impact on the future. In thinking about that future, it’s important to separate the military, political, economic, and legal strands. The military operation was brilliantly executed. However, this was a raid, which means that all U.S. forces withdrew. Maduro’s officials, including his vice president, remain in charge of Venezuela. The Trump administration proposes to work through these officials, not through the Venezuelan opposition. This will likely fail, requiring additional air and missile strikes. President Trump wants a revival of oil production, but stability is a prerequisite. In the background, the courts will decide the constitutional issues raised by this operation. Those decisions will shape future U.S. operations but will have little effect on the situation in Venezuela.

A Brilliant Military Operation

At the January 3 press conference, President Trump and other administration officials were effusive in their praise for the operation and the service members who conducted it. Many observers tend to discount the president’s exaggerated rhetoric, but in this case, it was appropriate. This raid will likely be regarded as one of the classics in military history.

The Maduro Raid: Early Reports & Cautions

Salamander

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If you didn’t get a chance to listen to Sunday’s Midrats Podcast with Mark and me, give it a listen to hear a broader discussion with some additional detail thrown in. Today is going to be a bit different.

We are still just ~72-hours from the events, so there is an order of magnitude more of what we don’t know than we do, but some items are breaking out from the fog.

On yesterday’s podcast, I briefly mentioned a framework for discussion that I think is helpful to flesh out here—an addendum to my comments on the podcast, so to speak.

As we stand here the Monday after the events of Friday night/Saturday morning, what are some clear items of consideration at the Tactical, Operational, Strategic, and Political levels?

After Venezuela, Trump Offers Hints About What Could Be Next

David E. Sanger

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Barely 48 hours after toppling the leader of Venezuela and asserting U.S. rights to the country’s oil, President Trump threatened Colombia with a similar fate, declared that Cuba was not worth invading because “it’s ready to fall,” and once again claimed that Greenland needed to come under American control as an issue of national security.

Mr. Trump’s claims, in interviews on Sunday and then a lengthy back-and-forth with reporters aboard Air Force One as it returned from his private club in Florida, offered a glimpse of how emboldened he felt after the quick capture of Nicolás Maduro, the strongman who was seized on narco-trafficking charges.

More than 150 fighters, bombers and other aircraft took part in Venezuela strike

Nicholas Slayton

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The Saturday attack on Venezuela to capture President Nicolás Maduro was carried out by U.S. Army special operations units, who inserted via helicopter into Caracas and grabbed Maduro and his wife after a firefight with Venezuelan forces. While they were carrying out the raid, roughly 150 aircraft covered them in the skies and carried out airstrikes on Caracas and other parts of Venezuela.

The force included a mix of Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps bombers, fighter jets and electronic attack planes, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine said on Saturday. Speaking at a press conference with President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Caine said that the force used included “F-22s, F, 35s, F-18s, EA18s, E-2s B-1, bombers and other support aircraft, as well as numerous remotely piloted drones.” The various aircraft hit several targets in Venezuela, including the La Guaira port, the military headquarters complex at Fort Tiuna in Caracas and multiple airports.

The Trump Doctrine in Venezuela

RICHARD HAASS

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NEW YORK – Nicolás Maduro is now the former president of Venezuela, a prisoner in US custody. His ouster at the hands of US Special Forces is, however, best understood as the end of the beginning rather than the beginning of the end.

To be sure, few in Venezuela, or anywhere, will mourn Maduro’s removal. He was an autocrat who stole an election, repressed his people, ran his country’s economy into the ground despite possessing enormous oil reserves, and trafficked in narcotics.

But that does not mean that this military operation was either warranted or wise. In fact, it was of questionable legality. It was also of questionable strategic value: Maduro hardly posed an imminent threat to the United States. Make no mistake: this was a military operation of choice, not of necessity.

Trump wants Venezuela's oil. Will his plan work?

Archie Mitchell

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Donald Trump has vowed to tap into Venezuela's oil reserves after seizing President Nicolás Maduro and saying the US will "run" the country until a "safe" transition. The US president wants American oil firms to pile billions of dollars into the South American country, which has the largest crude oil reserves on the planet, to mobilise the largely untapped resource.

He said US companies will fix Venezuela's "badly broken" oil infrastructure and "start making money for the country". But experts warned of huge challenges with Trump's plan, saying it would cost billions and take up to a decade to produce a meaningful uplift in oil output. So can the US really take control of Venezuela's oil reserves? And will Trump's plan work?

With an estimated 303 billion barrels, Venezuela is home to the world's largest proven oil reserves.

From Caracas 'fort' to New York court: Maduro's capture in pictures and maps

Tiffany Wertheimerand

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The US says its military operation to capture Venezuela's president took months of planning, but when Donald Trump gave the order to launch, "Operation Absolute Resolve" only lasted about 150 minutes. The surprise early-morning attack on Saturday marked an unprecedented event in modern politics and culminated in the arrest of Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.

Captured by troops from an elite US army unit as they tried to flee into a fortified safe room, the pair are now being held in a detention centre in New York and face narco-terrorism charges. As the sun rose on Saturday, the scale of the military operation in Caracas, Venezuela's capital, was clear. Pictures from Fuerte Tiuna, a huge military complex where top government officials live, show bombed out buildings and charred, smouldering cars.

Spies, drones and blowtorches: How the US captured Maduro

Gareth EvansWashington

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For months, US spies had been monitoring Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's every move.

A small team, including one source within the Venezuelan government, had been observing where the 63-year-old slept, what he ate, what he wore and even, according to top military officials, "his pets".

Then, in early December, a planned mission dubbed "Operation Absolute Resolve" was finalised. It was the result of months of meticulous planning and rehearsals, which even included elite US troops creating an exact full-size replica of Maduro's Caracas safe house to practise their entry routes.

The plan - which amounted to an extraordinary US military intervention in Latin America not seen since the Cold War - was closely guarded. Congress was not informed or consulted ahead of time. With the precise details set, top military officials simply had to wait for the optimal conditions to launch.

The Fall of Maduro—and the Future of Venezuela.

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It’s Monday, January 5. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Iran’s revolutionary moment. An interview with New York City’s most controversial city council member. Coleman Hughes interviews anthropologist Anna Machin on the science of modern love. And more.

But first: The capture of Nicolás Maduro, and the future of Venezuela.

Barely 48 hours have passed since the audacious U.S. operation to grab Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. The mission was a stunning success, with no loss of American life. By Saturday night, Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were in jail cells in New York City.

Trump’s Attack on Venezuela Could Change the World. Here’s How.

RYAN BERG

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Ryan Berg is director of the Americas Program and head of the Future of Venezuela Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Trump administration is serious about the Western Hemisphere strategy outlined in the recent National Security Strategy document, with a Trump Corollary over the hemisphere. The fact that President Trump launched this operation hours after Nicolás Maduro met with China’s special envoy sends a clear and unequivocal message to China and its role in the Americas. It also sends the message that the ‘axis of authoritarians’ is strong during peacetime, but not decisive for one another in moments of greatest need, when it comes to questions of regime security. Trump already pointed it out in his remarks on the military operation today, where he specifically drew attention to other successful U.S. attacks on adversaries, including against Iran. The axis of authoritarians, and especially Russia and China, may feel additional urgency to prove their value in the face of pressure against their allies such as Venezuela.

A Trained Eye Sees Strategic Patterns in Venezuela

Masoud Andarabi

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Masoud Andarabi is the former Minister of Interior of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and previously served as the Acting Director of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Afghanistan’s lead intelligence agency. He has over a decade of experience leading national counterterrorism operations, intelligence reform initiatives, and regional security coordination.

OPINION -- Venezuela presents a long-standing challenge tied to narcotics trafficking and transnational criminal networks. For years, the country has functioned as a major transit hub for illicit drug flows, money laundering, and organized crime, with direct consequences for U.S. domestic security and for stability across the Western Hemisphere. These realities alone justify sustained U.S. attention.

In Washington and Caracas, the vision for administering Venezuela in the weeks and months ahead appears uncertain and stubbornly complex.

Adam Taylor, Samantha Schmidt, Natalie Allison and Karen DeYoung

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The Trump administration’s bold operation to capture strongman Nicolás Maduro from his home in Venezuela was a startling tactical success. But as the smoke clears in Caracas a day after President Donald Trump said triumphantly that the United States would now “run” Venezuela, the reality of how Washington will administer that country in the weeks and months ahead appears uncertain and stubbornly complex.

Maduro’s allies in Caracas are still in power, some defiantly haranguing about U.S. “imperialism.” The democratically elected opposition leaders are effectively exiled, bluntly sidelined by the Trump administration. And Washington continues to hint at more military action, not only against Venezuela but other perceived enemies in the region such as Cuba and Colombia.

Trump Says U.S. Is ‘In Charge’ of Venezuela, While Rubio Stresses Coercing It

Edward Wong 

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President Trump on Sunday night asserted again that the United States was “in charge” of Venezuela, hours after his top diplomat had pivoted away from such earlier suggestions of direct control to say that the administration would instead coerce cooperation from the new leadership in Caracas.

“We’re dealing with the people that just got sworn in,” Mr. Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington from Florida. “And don’t ask me who’s in charge, because I’ll give you an answer, and it’ll be very controversial.”

“What does that mean?” a reporter asked.

“It means we’re in charge,” the president said.

Mr. Trump did not provide details, but he appeared to be referring to control over the Venezuelan government, whose top officials made defiant statements after the U.S. military entered the country early Saturday and seized Nicolás Maduro, the autocratic leader.

The Real Challenges and Risks for U.S. Policy Are Still to Come

Juan S. Gonzalez

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The United States’ use of military force to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro marks a turning point for Venezuela and for U.S. policy in the Western Hemisphere. But it would be a mistake to confuse drama with resolution. Images of Maduro in U.S. custody create the impression of finality. Yet this is not the beginning of the end of Washington’s long struggle with Venezuela. It marks the end of the beginning, and the start of a far more difficult and perilous phase.

The Trump administration is treating the removal of Maduro as a tactical success that speaks for itself, even as it deliberately assumes responsibility for what comes next. President Donald Trump has been explicit about that choice. By announcing that the United States will “run Venezuela” for a while, he is not merely projecting confidence. He is intentionally assuming responsibility for the political, economic, and security consequences that follow.

The collapse of Venezuela’s air defense exposes the limitations of Chinese military systems in the face of the U.S. operation

Redaccion Zona Militar

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The U.S. military operation in Venezuela, which neutralized air bases, military barracks, and strategic nodes across the country—and ultimately achieved its objective of removing Nicolás Maduro from power—laid bare one of the main structural weaknesses of the Venezuelan Armed Forces: the fragility of its Chinese-origin air defense system when confronted by an adversary with supremacy in electronic warfare, intelligence, and precision strike capabilities. During the short duration of the operation, U.S. assets succeeded in degrading and blinding key sensors within the defensive network, paving the way for the employment of expeditionary air-mobile capabilities from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, known as the Night Stalkers, and the Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta (1st SFOD-D).

At the core of Venezuela’s defensive architecture was a network of radars supplied by the China Electronics Technology Group, including JYL-1 three-dimensional surveillance systems and the JY-27 metric-wave radar, which for years had been promoted as a supposed “stealth aircraft hunter“. Based on assessments of the swift and decisive operation, these sensors were disabled during the initial phase through intensive electronic jamming, leaving the integrated air defense system without early-warning capability. This was compounded by a widespread electrical power outage across large areas of Venezuela, aimed at dismantling command-and-control capabilities.

The Fragile Foundations of the Intelligent Age

Klaus Schwab

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Beneath a surface of political volatility and technological acceleration lie two quietly deteriorating foundations: truth and trust. Their erosion is reshaping the global landscape more profoundly than the events that dominate headlines.

Truth and trust are often treated as virtues, but they function as conditions: the prerequisites for coherent societies, functional institutions, and stable international systems. Without them, even the most advanced technologies fail to deliver progress; without them, democratic debate becomes impossible; without them, economic and social life slowly lose their connective tissue.