(By Khalid Masood) November 3, 2026 I. The Scene DES MOINES, Iowa — At 7:14 a.m., as the sun burned through October’s last fog, Marlene Kesterson pulled her Ford F-150 into the parking lot of the Franklin Township Community Center. The 61-year-old corn and soybean farmer had already fed the hogs, checked the diesel tank—prices…
Analysis: The 2025 vote confirms a permanent rightward shift, but reveals a society traumatized, fragmented, and increasingly isolated from global democratic norms. (By Khalid Masood) I. Introduction: The Verdict of a War-Weary Nation The polling stations had not yet closed when the first exit polls flickered across Israeli television screens, but the mood in Tel…
Pakistan, Iran, Türkiye and Saudi Arabia in Tehran — 26 October 2026 (By Khalid Masood) PART I — EXECUTIVE SUMMARY On 26 October 2026, Tehran hosted the first quadrilateral security meeting of Iran, Pakistan, Türkiye and Saudi Arabia, hosted by Major General Mohsen Rezaei, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and attended by Saudi…
(By Khalid Masood) The 21st century’s defining geopolitical theater is the Indo-Pacific, and its central axis is the triangular relationship between the United States, China, and India. As the structural rivalry between Washington and Beijing deepens into a comprehensive contest for global primacy, New Delhi finds itself in a position of unprecedented strategic leverage. However,…
An analytical assessment, with a Pakistani strategic counterpoint (By Khalid Masood) I. The Thesis: Multialignment Under Stress India enters the final quarter of 2026 practising a doctrine its diplomats call multi-alignment — a deliberate evolution from Cold War non-alignment into something more muscular: deep, simultaneous, issue-based partnerships across every major power bloc, with no permanent…
(By Khalid Masood) Statecraft is not a spectator sport, yet the modern media landscape often treats it as one. In an era defined by 280-character geopolitical analysis, algorithmic outrage, and the relentless 24-hour news cycle, the signal is routinely drowned out by the noise. Mainstream coverage frequently prioritizes speed and sensationalism over context, leaving the…
(By Khalid Masood) Introduction In the autumn of 2001, the United States discovered that counterterrorism was the most convertible currency in international politics. Within weeks of the September 11 attacks, Washington had assembled what senior State Department officials described as “a coalition against terrorism unlike any other”: more than ninety nations arrested or detained over…
Explainer: How counterterrorism evolved from a purely military doctrine into a multidimensional instrument of foreign policy — and why 2026 exposed the limits of that transformation. (By Khalid Masood) On May 6, 2026, the White House released its new Counterterrorism Strategy, promising a “return to common sense.” Four months earlier, on January 7, presidential memoranda…
(By Khalid Masood) Introduction: The Most Allied Ally — and the Most Distrusted Partner No bilateral relationship in modern diplomatic history has been described in such contradictory terms as the Pakistan-US alliance. Pakistan has been called America’s “most allied ally” — yet it has also been labelled its “most sanctioned ally.” Washington has poured more…
(By Khalid Masood) Introduction Few countries occupy as consequential a geopolitical position as Pakistan. The world’s fifth-most-populous nation, the only Muslim-majority nuclear power, and a state situated at the crossroads of South Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, and the Arabian Sea, Pakistan is simultaneously a frontline state, a trading corridor, a nuclear power, and…
