(This article was written By Peter Huessy and appeared in the RealClearDefense. Do Nuclear Numbers Matter-realcleardefense)

Last year, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) concluded that both Russia and China are increasingly dependent on nuclear weapons to achieve their national interests. Combined, they are projected to exceed the U.S. strategic nuclear force in numbers, creating a multiple challenger problem for the U.S. and raising the possibility of a dangerous collaboration between adversaries.

In short, the nuclear landscape does not look good. For the 400 land-based ICBMs that DIA forecasts for Russia, 50 are Sarmats, each capable of carrying 20 high-yield warheads (WHs) (500 kilotons to 1 megaton each), for a total of 1,000 WHs. The remaining land-based 350 ICBMs will be the Yars, carrying 4 (tested with 6) medium-yield WHs (300-500 kt) for a total of 1,400 WHs, giving a grand total of 2,400 land-based ICBM WHs. The Bulava submarine-based sea launched ‘s ballistic missile (SLBM) carries 6 WHs each, or 1,152 WHs, for a total of 3,552 ICBM/SLBM warheads. Russian strategic bombers can carry another approximately 1,000 WHs on various air-launch missiles. This implies a total Russian long-range strategic force of up to 4,552 WHs, exceeding the 2010 New START treaty limitations by 300 percent.

For China, the newly projected 700 ICBM figure for 2035 was a shock, given DIA’s historical underestimation of the growth in Chinese nuclear forces. Hopefully, this means an end to the agency falling victim to China’s ongoing strategic deception. China is currently producing 50-75 ICBMs per year. China has 400 ICBMs, so another 300 ICBMs by 2035, at 30 ICBMs/year, is feasible. In terms of warheads, the Chinese DF-31A can carry 3 re-entry vehicles (RVs) and the DF-41 up to 10 WH’s. Simple calculations indicate that China has the potential to deploy 2,100 to 7,000 ICBM warheads. Regarding Chinese SLBMs, the DIA forecast is for 132 SLBMs — 72 JL-3 SLBMs, each with 3 WHs, and 60 new SLBMs for the 3 new Type 096 SSBNs. Assuming the JL-3 carries 3 WHs, that gives China 216 SLBM warheads. Assuming the new SLBM carries at least 6 WHs, that gives China another 360 WHs, bringing the grand total to 576 SLBM WHs, for a range of 2,616 to 7,616 nuclear warheads on 832 SLBMs and ICBMs.

The DIA also predicts that China will deploy 60 fractional-orbit bombardment systems (FOBS) by 2035, a force that grants China a new, more dangerous, and heightened capability. The FOBS are likely to attack the U.S. early warning, C3, and leadership nodes, whose survivability is required to execute any U.S. retaliatory response. Also, of great concern are the additional 4,000 Chinese hypersonic speed weapons, which can largely evade current defenses and attack from any direction or altitude. It is possible that some of these could be tipped with a nuclear warhead. Especially given that China has the materials and manufacturing processes to produce large numbers of M10-20 hypersonic vehicles and does so at far lower cost than the U.S..

North Korea, with some 50 DIA-predicted ICBMs, exacerbates the multiple challenger problem and increases the possible collaboration between Russia, China, and North Korea during a crisis or conflict.

Now let’s look at the USA. The strategic modernization program of record consists of 400 ICBM Sentinel missiles to be deployed in silos through an estimated time frame out to or through 2045, with 400 but possibly 800-1200 warheads. Add to that 12 Columbia-class submarines, each with 16 missiles, and each missile with a maximum of 8 warheads or 1,536 warheads. That gives the U.S. a grand total of 2,736 total fast-flying warheads if all systems are loaded at their maximum. America’s strategic nuclear bomber force of 60 B-52 and B-21 bombers, each with between 8-12 cruise missiles or gravity bombs are in the mix and together could add upwards of 720 warheads for a hypothetical total of 3,456 strategic long-range warheads—although this may exceed the number of warheads available in our entire available stockpile and the USAF planned cruise missile acquisition.

Deploying such an expanded or uploaded warhead force would require at least an additional four years, according to nuclear Triad experts. When compared to a potential and projected Russian and Chinese deployed force of over 11,000 long-range strategic warheads, the USA could be left with at least a 3-to-1 numerical disadvantage. Of critical importance is to note that the USA’s total deployed force described here is the maximum number the USA can build, as the Sentinel and D-5 missiles would be “maxed out” under the assumed numbers used in this hypothetical force.

While the USA could add additional strategic bombers to our planned nuclear force, those bombers would probably be necessary for other conventional purposes, as the USA is the only country in the free world with such capability, and current planning is for 100 new B-21 strategic bombers although there is growing support for upwards of 150-200 such aircraft. If additional ICBMs, submarines, or bombers are to be produced, current USA acquisition schedules would probably add such platforms, but at the end of the current build schedule or generally after 2040. The USA does have 50 additional ICBM silos (now empty) that could bolster its arsenal. Even so, this projected new window of vulnerability may not close for decades.

One could argue that relative levels of nuclear warheads don’t have a strategic impact. Such an assumption may apply to possible USA strategic assumptions, but not necessarily for our adversaries. Arms control deals from SALT in 1972 to New Start in 2010 began with the proposition that parties to these treaties would be operating under the same rules and warhead limits. That is the underlying basis for sound inspections and verifications, and for President Reagan laying down the key requirement— “Trust but verify.” If warhead levels don’t matter, why require verifiable limits in arms control deals? Why worry if no arms deals are in place?

History tells us that nuclear superiority may have significant value. President Kennedy believed superiority enabled the USA to stare down the Soviets during the Cuban missile crisis, declaring the newly deployed Minuteman ICBM force was “my ace in the hole.” Not dissimilar to his previous belief that the newly deployed Polaris submarine force enabled the USA not to yield to Soviet blackmail over Berlin in 1961.

Having such superior military capability doesn’t eliminate the need for sound diplomacy and strategy in the nuclear age. The USA must be mindful of Dr. Kissinger’s explanation that while military force without a sound diplomatic framework is but bluster, diplomacy without the threat of force is without effect.

If the 2023 Strategic Posture Commission is correct that Russia and China are in the nuclear blackmail and coercion business, then the USA cannot assume Russia and China have the same strategic assumptions or altruistic goals regarding nuclear weapons numbers and arms control as the United States.

While the USA and Russia curbed nuclear warheads by some cuts of 4,500 each under the Moscow and New START agreements (down from 10,000 actual allowed warheads under START I), the decline under both deals was down to the neighborhood of as low as 1,700-1,800 deployed strategic warheads. This may indicate Russia wanted to limit USA-deployed nuclear forces to fewer than 2,000 warheads for about 24 years (2002-2026), while Russian nuclear modernization was eventually completed, and the post-Cold War economic decline in Russia could be overcome.

Superior nuclear weapons numbers for China and Russia could translate into tangible strategic leverage and altered international behavior. Meanwhile, recent proposals from nuclear abolition advocates urge the United States to unilaterally abandon its long-standing deterrence strategy, including extended deterrence and leave the U.S. with markedly lower strategic nuclear forces than our adversaries. Such a move could signal a weakened U.S. commitment to its NATO and Indo-Pacific allies, undermining confidence in existing deterrence arrangements and potentially compelling allies to seriously consider developing their own nuclear capabilities.

This is highly ironic, as this very outcome was what many critics of the Trump administration assumed would happen when the administration pushed for more defense spending for non-U.S. NATO nations. A stronger NATO, including the U.S. as a NATO anchor, is better for everyone’s security, especially a conventional buildup that encompasses all NATO members rather than most defense spending being primarily centered in the USA.

There is an adage that says the enemy always gets a vote. While the USA may wish for our adversaries to see nuclear forces as a deterrent against the use of force, the reality is starkly different. The enemy has voted. Escalate to win it is. For our enemies, nuclear force is an adjunct of military blackmail and aggression as well as serving as a handmaiden to the unrestricted warfare the U.S. now faces.

Because nuclear weapons underpin America’s overall deterrent strength and provide the umbrella under which U.S. military and diplomatic power operates, it is urgent that the United States complete its planned nuclear deterrent modernization programs which now goes beyond the previous program of record and adds important theater/tactical nuclear capability. These forces now and will serve as a critical firewall against the use of force directed at this nation. There is no substitute for this capability, regardless of how strongly abolition advocates may wish otherwise.

Developments in Iran can no longer be treated as a domestic political issue. What is unfolding there is already reshaping the security environment confronting Europe, the United States, Israel, and the broader region. Whether the Islamic Republic survives through force or whether a political transition takes shape will have direct external consequences. Suppression is unlikely to restore calm. It is far more likely to deepen existing military, political, and security threats. A managed transition would remove the primary sources of these threats and substantially strengthen the international order.

The current revolution is not comparable to earlier rounds of unrest. Protests have spread across 400 cities, with more than 100 protest points in Tehran alone. This is not a single social group or political faction mobilizing temporarily. Workers, students, middle-class professionals, political activists, and even athletes have taken part. What is striking is not only the scale of this mobilization, but the consistency of its message across cities and social groups. Protesters are demanding a complete break with the Islamic Republic and the establishment of a transitional government with recognized leadership. These demands have been reinforced by Iranian expatriate communities and international civil-society networks. The result is a movement that challenges the regime itself rather than its policies.

The state’s response has been uncompromising. More than 40,000 people have reportedly been killed, over 50,000 arrested, and tens of thousands injured. Domestic legitimacy, already limited, has collapsed to its lowest point in 47 years. The regime now survives primarily through coercion. Historically, even its base of support extended little beyond a narrow circle of loyalists. Widespread repression has weakened that circle as well. Under these conditions, internal weakness does not produce caution. It pushes the leadership outward, toward military force, external pressure, and proxy warfare.

This shift is visible in Iran’s foreign behavior. Deterrence has given way to destabilizing assertiveness. When under strain, Tehran has repeatedly exported crises, activating proxy networks in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen and escalating indirect attacks on Western interests. These actions threaten global energy routes and trade flows. They also have consequences closer to home for Europe, from migration pressures to energy exposure and the risk of covert operations. Iran-backed proxies, including the Fatemiyoun Brigade, have become visible on European soil. In the February 2025 attack in Munich, Germany, the perpetrator, an Afghan national, shared a speech by Khamenei online, prompting questions about possible links to the Fatemiyoun. Members of these networks often maintain direct ties to Tehran while presenting themselves as refugees, extending Iran’s threat into Europe’s security space.

Missile and military capabilities remain central to the regime’s calculations. Investment in medium-range missiles and drones continues, while long-range missile claims serve a psychological function. According to MEMRI, Iranian expert Mehdi Seif Tabrizi reported that Iran tested an intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of approximately 10,000 kilometers, reportedly launched toward Siberia with Russian approval. Confirmation of such a test would mark a significant expansion of Iran’s strategic reach and raise serious questions about coordination between Tehran and Moscow. Even without fully operational ICBMs, approaching this threshold complicates U.S. defense planning, strains European and NATO systems, and increases the risk of miscalculation. Domestic repression, in this context, amplifies Iran’s external threat rather than containing it.

Israel faces particularly acute risks. The Islamic Republic has long treated Israel’s destruction as a legitimate objective and has justified the development of its proxy infrastructure on that basis. Continued suppression at home would likely harden this posture, strengthening Hezbollah and other aligned groups and reinforcing a cycle of escalation that undermines regional stability. This hostile framing also extends internally: during the Iranian revolution, authorities labeled protesters as agents of Israel, portraying them as legitimate targets, even those wounded in the streets, who were later executed in hospitals. Many of those arrested were subsequently executed en masse under the same accusation of being Israeli agents, yet the regime counted them among those shot in the streets to conceal the killings. Protesters awaiting execution have likewise been charged with cooperating with Israel and espionage.

Europe is not insulated. Following the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization, Tehran warned that retaliation against European policymakers was possible, arguing that such measures would harm European interests and further strain relations. In a retaliatory and ironic move, the Islamic Republic’s parliament subsequently designated all European military forces as terrorists, effectively framing them as legitimate targets. Even before these developments, Germany’s Ministry of the Interior reportedly warned that Iranian dissidents faced serious and aggressive intelligence operations on German soil. What began as domestic repression in Tehran has thus evolved into a tangible European security challenge, affecting political freedoms and placing sustained pressure on security services.

While the West faces these immediate security challenges, concerns about state collapse in Iran are often overstated. Iran retains a strong national identity, lacks the deep ethnic and sectarian fractures seen elsewhere, and possesses a substantial middle class alongside an active civil society. Its history as a centralized modern state matters. The destabilizing role played by the IRGC in Syria and Iraq, where it helped sustain conflict and enable terrorist groups, reflects conditions absent inside Iran itself. The revolution underscores this distinction. Protesters have increasingly rallied around a single alternative leader, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, chanting his name in the streets and expressing support for his 100-day transitional plan.

A successful transition would carry clear security benefits. Missile and military threats would recede. Proxy networks funded by the IRGC would weaken. Migration pressures and regional instability would diminish, while security and economic cooperation with Western states would replace the previous threats. Supporting such an outcome aligns directly with Western strategic interests.

Western governments now face a strategic choice. Managing recurring crises is no longer sufficient. Supporting structured transition planning, protecting Iranian dissidents in Europe, and strengthening coordination among the United States, Europe, and Israel on intelligence, military, and threat assessment are necessary steps. Beyond the IRGC designation, measures such as closing Iranian embassies across the EU, expelling regime diplomats and their families, recalling European diplomats from Iran, and recognizing a transitional authority should be considered as part of a coherent strategy.

Iran’s trajectory will shape more than its own future. It will influence European security, U.S. deterrence credibility, and stability across the region. Continued suppression is unlikely to resolve the crisis. It is more likely to produce a longer and more dangerous phase. A controlled transition, by contrast, represents one of the few realistic opportunities for lasting threat reduction. Ignoring that possibility would carry costs far higher than the deliberate management of change.

Sheina Vohoudi is a associate Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C. based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written By Peter Huessy appeared in the RealClearDefense. Restraint or Escalation: America’s Nuclear Future? – RealClearDefense

Some analysts argue that a new international arms-control framework is the best path forward, contending that the only alternative to contrived restraint is escalation and global instability. But does this paradigm actually make sense?

Consider first the U.S. Program of Record (POR)—the congressionally approved and funded modernization of America’s land-based, sea-based, and cruise missile forces, along with new ballistic missile submarines and strategic bombers. Under the assumptions of some arms-control advocates, this modernization effort would constitute an arms race and therefore represent an unnecessary escalation that should be avoided.

This is a peculiar conclusion. When both the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) and the POR were adopted in December 2010, it was widely understood that New START fully accommodated—and, in practice, endorsed—the forthcoming U.S. nuclear deterrent modernization program. Even supporters of arms control described the POR as consistent with New START. That treaty with Russia reduced deployed strategic nuclear warheads to roughly 1,700–1,800, down from the 1,700–2,200 levels established under the 2002 Moscow Treaty.

How can the retiring New START framework—now under a new administration yet retaining the same modernization elements—or any future treaty be characterized simultaneously as arms control and as an arms race? Such a conclusion requires a deft sleight of hand, one that conveniently discards or forgets much of the history of arms control itself.

First, arms control with Moscow has not necessarily been beneficial. During the 1972-77 SALT I (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) agreement and the subsequent 1979 SALT II framework with the Soviet Union, Moscow could increase its long-range strategic nuclear weapons by 600-1,200%, according to a 1983 Net Assessment of Soviet nuclear strategy. This included deploying over 3,000 high-yield, accurate warheads specifically designed to preemptively attack America’s key nuclear triad assets. This “window of vulnerability” widened dramatically during this period, leading to a sharply deteriorating strategic balance between the USA and the Soviet Union, as described by General Richard Ellis, Commander of the Strategic Air Command, in striking testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in early 1981.

Second, the U.S. must always keep in mind that Moscow has routinely cheated on every arms control agreement that it ever signed, including the SALT agreements of the 1970s.

Third, many assume that restraint works. But history is not on their side. President Reagan, not Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter, acquired and deployed Pershing II and Ground-Launched Cruise Missile missiles in Europe, which the arms control community widely opposed. Only with these deployments did the US gain the leverage to secure the elimination of all Soviet SS-20 missiles deployed in Europe and in Asia.

In December 1987, the United States and the USSR signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which eliminated thousands of SS-20 warheads. The agreement was historic in that it abolished an entire class of nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. Yet even at the time, opponents of the treaty continued to advocate a nuclear freeze, opposed U.S. counter-deployments of regional nuclear weapons, and lobbied for American restraint and retrenchment—restraint that was not reciprocated by the Soviet Union.

Fourth, the START I reduction proposals, officially announced by the Reagan administration in a November 1981 address at the National Press Club, called for the first 50 percent reduction in U.S. long-range strategic nuclear forces. Ironically, when President Reagan first advanced these proposals, they were widely ridiculed by arms-control specialists, who insisted that Moscow would inevitably reject such deep cuts. Instead, the Soviet Union favored agreements like the 1972 and 1979 SALT accords, which permitted substantial growth in Soviet nuclear forces—particularly heavy, first-strike warheads—while relying on U.S. restraint.

President Reagan’s strategy of “peace through strength” ultimately turned the tables on Moscow, particularly after it was fully endorsed by the bipartisan Scowcroft Commission in its 1983 report. Moreover, Reagan’s March 1983 missile defense initiative—known as the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)—further pressured the Soviet leadership to enter negotiations. This approach was reinforced by Reagan’s clear-eyed understanding of the nature of the regime he confronted, articulated in his March 1983 address to the National Association of Evangelicals, in which he famously described the Soviet Union as an “evil empire.”

President Reagan—and later President George H. W. Bush—proved highly successful, with the first arms-reduction treaties, START I, adopted in January 1991 and START II in January 1993. In particular, START II represented a major breakthrough by banning multiple-warhead land-based missiles—the very Soviet force elements that had created the destabilizing “window of vulnerability” identified more than a decade earlier. By that point, after engaging in sustained economic and strategic competition with the USSR, the United States had made the continuation of the Soviet empire—and the massive military forces required to sustain it—untenable.

Years later, while the arms control community was actively working to dismantle the American-proposed missile defenses, Moscow’s Duma in 1996 rejected the START II treaty despite a plea from US Secretary of Defense Perry to ratify it. Moscow claimed ratification was “problematic” and suggested it should be “set aside.”

Members of the Duma criticized START II as favoring the United States and weakening Russia’s nuclear deterrent by requiring the elimination of MIRVed ICBMs, which they viewed as essential to maintaining parity. Supporters of ratification acknowledged these concerns but argued that Russia lacked the resources to sustain such forces. Many in the Duma also raised broader economic concerns and linked START II to U.S. missile defense plans, warning that missile defenses would further erode Russia’s deterrent once MIRVed ICBMs were eliminated.

Today, the alternative being offered to nuclear modernization—a congressionally mandated effort tied directly to the 2010 ratification of New START—is effectively unilateral disarmament. Under this approach, arms control constraints on adversaries such as Russia and China are ignored or rejected, while unilateral U.S. restraint is enthusiastically embraced.

The clearest example is a proposal advanced by Senators Sanders, Warren, and Markey, which would unilaterally reduce U.S. nuclear forces from the 800 missiles and bombers permitted under New START to just 182—a reduction of more than 77 percent. One is left to ask: where are the corresponding proposals from Beijing or Moscow? Were any such commitments even sought before advancing this plan?

Arms control requires deploying measures that the reluctant party opposes. The brothers mayhem—North Korea, Iran, China, and Russia—have no interest in nuclear restraint. They believe in the coercive use of nuclear weapons—to blackmail their geopolitical adversaries into inaction—as aptly described by the 2023 Strategic Posture Commission of the United States.

Restraint does not work. In 1991, for example, President George H. W. Bush unilaterally withdrew tens of thousands of U.S. regional, or theater, nuclear weapons. Russia did not reciprocate, despite promises to do so. Today, Russia is assessed to possess between roughly 1,900 and 4,000 such theater warheads, while the United States maintains only a few hundred gravity bombs, deployed in limited numbers in certain NATO countries—and none in the Middle East or the Indo-Pacific. Moreover, China fields hundreds of theater-range missiles capable of carrying low-yield nuclear warheads. The 2025 report to Congress on China noted that Beijing has shown little willingness to engage in nuclear risk-reduction discussions, whether bilaterally or multilaterally.

Given the minimal deterrent being proposed by Congressionally based abolitionists, there is no possibility of securing any kind of arms limits with China and Russia. With the USA having such a reduced force, these autocratic nations have no reason to pause their own massive force modernization, and it would actually embolden them to serially threaten the use of conventional or nuclear force, free from being challenged by any countervailing US nuclear military capability.

(This article was written by Adelle Nazarian, and appeared in NEWSMAX. Saudi Arabia a Fluent Capital, Logistics, and Economic Force | Newsmax.com)

There is a moment in every serious relationship when both parties stop performing for the crowd and begin speaking honestly to each other. The posturing fades, grudges lose their power. What remains is a clear recognition of interests, limits, and long-term intent.

That’s where the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia now stands.

The emerging $1 trillion economic framework between Washington and Riyadh is neither a romantic gesture nor an attempt to rehabilitate reputations or rewrite history. It’s far more durable and consequential. It reflects two systems which have grown tired of caricature and chosen instead to deal in leverage, capital, and reality.

In geopolitics, as in markets, maturity reveals itself not through rhetoric but through aligned incentives.

For Washington, the logic is straightforward. Supply chains are fragile, energy markets remain volatile, and strategic competition with China demands partners that possess not only capital, but scale and long-term ambition.

Saudi Arabia is no longer content to be flattened into a single storyline or reduced to legacy labels. It’s asserting itself as a global capital allocator, a logistics hub, and an economic force fluent in the language of the modern world.

This is not a return to old habits; it’s a recalibration. And it is unfolding in plain sight — on balance sheets, in infrastructure, and increasingly in public life.

The current U.S.-Saudi economic deepening is not about ideological conformity or symbolic alignment. It’s about interdependence. American innovation and institutional depth are converging with Saudi capital, infrastructure, and long-term planning. The result is not dependency, but durability.

If the trade framework represents the architecture of this new phase, then Riyadh Season represents its proof of execution.

Often dismissed as spectacle, Riyadh Season — which began in October and will go through March 2026 — is better understood as a live demonstration; an operational stress test of openness, investability, and global integration. The festival draws millions of visitors, hosts international concerts, sporting events, and cultural exhibitions, and transforms the Saudi capital into a functioning crossroads of commerce and culture.

This is not window dressing. It’s signaling.

That signal is inseparable from its leadership. His Excellency Turki Al-Sheikh transformed Riyadh Season from an idea into a global benchmark, proving that Saudi ambition paired with execution can reshape an entire industry. With instinct for scale and precision for delivery, he has made entertainment not just a spectacle, but a strategic language through which Saudi Arabia speaks confidently to the world.

Saudi Arabia welcomed more than 27 million international tourists in 2023, a sharp increase from pre-pandemic levels. The expatriate population now exceeds 13 million, including a growing cohort of Western professionals who are not merely visiting, but relocating.

Tourism is projected to contribute 10% of GDP by 2030, while the entertainment sector alone is expected to surpass $23 billion annually within the decade. These are not abstract ambitions; they are measurable shifts backed by capital, regulatory reform, and execution.

Crucially, Riyadh Season is not about Westernization. It’s about global legibility.

Saudi Arabia is not abandoning its identity; it’s translating it into a language that global investors, talent, and institutions can understand. This is something the United States can certainly appreciate. Mixed-gender public spaces, global brands, English as a working business language, and reforms improving foreign ownership and dispute resolution are not ideological concessions. They are economic enablers.

This evolution did not occur in a vacuum, nor is it naïve about global scrutiny. Saudi Arabia understands that headlines linger, particularly those shaped by moments that once dominated international discourse. But the Kingdom has chosen not to remain trapped in a single narrative frame. Instead, it’s moving forward through performance rather than protest, delivery rather than defensiveness. In geopolitics, relevance is earned through outcomes.

Riyadh Season also serves as the cultural gateway to a broader transformation embodied by projects such as NEOM — a large-scale experiment in urban design, clean energy, advanced manufacturing, and logistics. Together, they form a continuum under Vision 2030, which has already seen hundreds of billions committed across infrastructure, technology, and human capital.

For the United States, this matters. The partnership offers access to capital at scale, a stable anchor in a volatile region, and a counterpart willing to engage without illusions.

Saudi Arabia is not asking to be understood as a Western democracy; it’s asking to be recognized as a serious actor operating in the world as it exists.

Riyadh Season is not a party. It’s a message. And the message is that Saudi Arabia is no longer asking the world to imagine its future. It’s inviting the world to participate.

Adelle Nazarian is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C. based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Hermann Terscht and appeared in the El Debate. Hermann Tertsch – España | Thank you to Donald Trump!)

The social democratic media chorus in Spain launched from the outset to condemn the US military action that has brought about the liberation of our compatriots

Yesterday the Spaniards set foot on Spanish soil, kidnapped for one or more years in Nicolás Maduro’s dungeons until the day before. The first thing that all the Spanish authorities should have done, from King Felipe VI to the all-meaning tiny minister Albares, is to have thanked the president of the United States, Donald Trump, for having taken them out of the sordid pit in which the hitmen of the miserable drug trafficking and socialist dictatorship had put them. ally, partner and accomplice of the Spanish government of Pedro Sánchez and the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). They also had to express their gratitude to the thousands of U.S. soldiers, police and members of the DEA who risked their lives and participated in the search and capture with great success of the leader of the criminal gang that has kidnapped the Spaniards and for 25 years the entire Venezuelan nation.

What has happened in Spain, however, has been something very different from what common sense and decency recommended to us and should fill us with shame. We have seen how the head of the government, Pedro Sánchez, and then unfortunately also King Felipe spoke of our compatriots “held” in Venezuela under the Maduro dictatorship and freed by Trump. You are “held back” by a traffic jam, a flight delay, or bad weather on a trip. The Spaniards were imprisoned, kidnapped without any defense or guarantee in torture prisons. Euphemisms become worse enemies of truth than lies. And if there is one thing that Donald Trump is hated so much for in progressivism and this reign of euphemism and hypocrisy that is social democratic Europe, it is because, in addition to his will to act to create a new favorable reality for his homeland and his compatriots, there are his direct and implacable ways of saying things.

The social democratic media chorus in Spain launched from the first moment to condemn the US military action that has brought about the liberation of our compatriots. And we have reached the paroxysm of vileness with very serious insults to Venezuelans for rejoicing that Donald Trump, yes, Donald Trump and the U.S. Army, have given the initial resounding blow to begin the dismantling of the dictatorship that has tortured and murdered without pause and flooded all of Venezuela with pain and misery for a quarter of a century. “Fascist worm” is what one of the doctors of the television Chekist left calls the large colony of Venezuelan exiles in Spain, only part of the more than eight million spread around the world, fleeing the curse of socialism and organized crime. You know, the victims of socialism have no right to complain.

Stalin sent to the Gulag anyone who complained about the quality of soup in the army and Kim Jong-un executed anyone who did not applaud his tyrant enough. The Spanish public television RTVE, which competes in vileness with the television stations of Cuba or Venezuela, already dedicates practically the entire day to political propaganda programs that demonize, criminalize, defame and target all those who do not applaud the criminal and corrupt socialist government. Venezuelans are guilty, like Cubans, of not enjoying the criminal regimes that crush them, but that pay well to Spanish socialists and communists who choose talk show hosts.

The European authorities who have been waiting for decades for evolution in the socialist dictatorships of Latin America, and who therefore finance the communist mafia in Cuba and financed Nicaragua and Venezuela, have now been a week since Maduro’s capture and consider it intolerable that we do not already have an exquisite transition towards the most perfect democracy. The transition to democracy began when María Corina Machado designed with her people a formula to go despite all the impediments to elections under the dictatorship, make a prodigious mobilization and guarantee, in a miraculous operation, the possession of the electoral records. Since then, no one can doubt that criminals are criminals, usurpers are usurpers and drug traffickers cannot hide behind a presidential institution.

But the world remained the same until Trump confirmed what was already true in his first term: that Venezuela with drug traffickers, money laundering, Chinese agents, Russian military, Islamist militants of Hezbollah and the Iranian guard, plus all the mercenaries of the worst kind, posed a threat to the security of the United States. And that is infecting the entire subcontinent from its total command in Cuba with Mexico, Colombia and Brazil as very dangerous exponents. Thanks to this, democracy and freedom will return, not tomorrow or the day after, to Venezuela. Delcy Rodríguez, with the gun to her temple of all the positions that await her in New York, if she does not serve as a submissive in charge of disarming her comrades, will open all the necessary resources for the United States to control and put an end to those omnipresent mafias in the structures of the State and outside them.

And the heroic María Corina and the democrats will begin to have their legitimate role as protagonists of the political life and future of Venezuela when the enemies of everything they mean do not have the capacity to set the country on fire. What is Trump interested in about oil? Thank goodness. That way neither the Chinese, the Russians nor the Iranians will have it and it will serve, as has happened in the past, for Americans and Venezuelans to make Venezuela a prosperous, rich and happy country.

Those who ask for full sovereignty and full democracy today and now in Venezuela have not asked for it in 25 years. They were not in a hurry. Thanks to María Corina Machado and thanks to Donald Trump, Venezuela will be democratic much sooner than those arrogant European politicians who are destroying democracies in their own countries with increasing censorship and social engineering believe.

The good news is that, apart from Trump in the US, there are many forces in the West determined to end the euphemisms and moral misery of cowardice. Thus, Vox has just denounced Rodríguez Zapatero in the National Court for his collaboration with Maduro’s criminal regime. And Zapatero’s victims have begun to speak. Soon we will have, apart from the cases that are already being investigated in the United States, documents and evidence of all the links of corruption and complicity between that gang of murderers in Caracas and the organized crime gang that governs in Spain.

Very good things are happening. And we have Donald Trump to thank. The criminal regime of Islamist clerics in Tehran may also fall these days. Also with a lot of help from Israel and Trump. It’s a good start to 2026. Just seeing the faces, the cries and the tears of the Spanish leftist scoundrel confirms it.

Hermann Terscht is a Distinguished Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C. based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Adelle Nazarian and appeared in The Western Journal. When Rumor Becomes a Death Sentence: Bangladesh’s Crisis and the Test for Democratic Leadership)

The fatal beating, lynching, and burning of Bangladeshi Hindu Dipu Chandra Das, followed days later by the mob killing of fellow Hindu Amrit Mondal, was not spontaneous violence. It was a failure of the state: clear, deliberate, and lethal.

Dipu was a 25-year-old garment worker, a husband, a father, and the sole provider for his family, including two elderly parents, one disabled. Above all, he was a Hindu in a Muslim-majority country, a member of a vulnerable minority. His life mattered. And the state failed him.

On December 18, a rumor spread that Dipu had spoken negatively about Islam. There is no verified evidence that he did. What is verified is that he begged the police for protection and was instead handed over to an Islamist mob.

He was beaten to death, stripped naked, tied to a tree, and burned along the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway, in full public view. This did not happen despite the police. It happened because they allowed it.

The mob killed Dipu because they did not need proof. That is the danger of blasphemy-driven violence: When rumor replaces evidence, fear replaces law.

Days later, Amrit Mondal was beaten to death. Authorities rushed to downplay communal motives, but pattern matters more than intent. Two Hindu men. Two public killings. Two mobs. Two state failures.

That is not a coincidence. It is a trajectory.

There is no confirmed evidence that Dipu’s and Amrit’s killers were formal members of a single political organization, and that distinction matters legally.

But it does not erase reality. Both killings bear the hallmarks of Islamist mob violence: the weaponization of accusation, the targeting of minorities, and the social permission to kill without consequence.

This is how plausible deniability works. Leaders remain insulated while mobs do the dirty work.

Bangladesh has seen this before. In 1971, at least 2.8 million Hindus were massacred by the Pakistani Army and allied Islamist forces in less than a year.

That trauma never fully healed. It merely went dormant, resurfacing whenever political authority weakens and extremist actors sense opportunity.

In 2022, the U.S. Congress introduced House Resolution 1430, “Recognizing the Bangladesh Genocide of 1971,” a resolution seeking to formally recognize those atrocities as genocide and crimes against humanity. The effort that stalled legislatively, even as international genocide scholars officially affirmed that designation in 2023. That opportunity is now visible.

The return of Tarique Rahman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party after roughly 16 years in exile is not a neutral political development. It signals the reactivation of old power networks at a moment of institutional fragility.

His arrival ahead of the upcoming elections coincides not with stabilization, but with a surge in street-level intimidation, communal violence, and state paralysis. And it brings with it the likelihood that Bangladesh will soon be run by the radical Jamaat-e-Islami, which means no minorities will be safe.

Even if the BNP gains ground, Tarique Rahman’s leadership from exile leaves him ill-positioned to govern or unify the country.

That weakness creates an opening for Jamaat-e-Islami to gain outsized influence through coalition politics, advancing Islamist priorities without winning outright.

The danger is not a sudden takeover, but the quiet erosion of Bangladesh’s secular foundations from within the government.

Fear is the factor that shapes elections in fragile democracies. When minorities are publicly brutalized, and the state hesitates, a message is sent about who is protected and who is expendable.

For India, this is not merely a human-rights crisis. It is a strategic warning. Bangladesh sits on India’s eastern flank, and when the rule of law collapses there, India feels it first through instability, radicalization, and refugee pressure.

Anti-Hindu violence in Bangladesh does not exist in isolation. It feeds directly into India’s internal security calculus, particularly in border regions already vulnerable to extremist Islamist influence.

For years, New Delhi invested heavily in a stable, secular Bangladesh as a regional partner, one that stood in contrast to Pakistan’s chronic instability and Afghanistan’s descent into Islamist rule.

The ousting of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina placed that assumption in jeopardy. What India is now witnessing is not simply a political transition, but the early signs of a dangerous drift toward religious majoritarianism, institutional erosion, and extremist accommodation.

In a recent interview with New India Abroad, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina underscored why her leadership had helped make Bangladesh a more stable and prosperous nation.

Reflecting on her departure amid escalating unrest, she stated, “My instinct has always been to protect our country and our citizens, and it was not an easy decision to leave while my country erupted into lawlessness. I regret that I was compelled to leave, but it was a decision I took to minimize any further loss of life, and to ensure the safety of people around me.”

She went on to outline the conditions necessary for her return, emphasizing that legitimacy must rest on law, not force.

“For me to return, Bangladesh must restore constitutional governance and the rule of law,” she wrote. “This means lifting the unlawful ban on the Awami League, releasing political prisoners detained on fabricated charges, and holding genuinely free elections. You cannot claim democratic legitimacy while banning the party elected nine times by the people.”

The killings of Dipu Chandra Das and Amrit Mondal are not isolated crimes. They are indicators. With elections approaching and authority fragmented, Islamist street power is testing how far it can go. And the answer they are giving is far enough.

That erosion of trust places responsibility on the United States as well. On Dec. 28, the U.S. State Department issued a statement condemning the killings and urging Bangladesh to protect religious minorities and uphold the rule of law.

The statement was necessary. It was correct. And it now requires tangible follow-through.

For generations, America has claimed the mantle of democracy, pluralism, and freedom of belief. Those ideals only retain meaning when defended under pressure. Jamaat-e-Islami and groups associated with them must be actioned accordingly.

Instability does not begin with coups or wars, but with the normalization of violence against the defenseless.

When mobs replace courts, democracy becomes theater. When the state fails to protect its weakest citizens, it signals to extremists that the cost of violence is low.

These were not random deaths. They were warnings.

India is watching because it must. The United States is watching because it still has the capacity and the responsibility to stand for justice at a moment when the meaning of human rights is being challenged and steadily eroded.

Adelle Nazarian is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C. based foreign policy and defense think tank.

This article was written by Peter Huessy and appeared in the RealClearDefense. (https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2026/01/06/protecting_our_national_sovereignty_1156957.html)

A key thesis of the recently published National Security Strategy of the United States is that this country should get down to serious business in this Western Hemisphere especially about our borders. The important message: protect and restore our sovereignty, with control over immigration being at the top of the list along with stopping trafficking and drug dealing.

Here, a new essay by Andrew Sullivan, a Never Trumper subscriber, and regular writer for the New Yorker and National Public Radio, argues that the administration is losing ground among previous supporters due to the too aggressive enforcement of immigration law.

Sullivan appears to support stopping illegal aliens at the border but not those working inside the country. President Obama deported 250,000 annually but these were stopped at the border and never came into contact with most working Americans. That is the kind of law enforcement Sullivan seems to like.

Those in the interior were deported 150,000 a year under Mr. Obama and they were arrested by ICE after an immigration judge issued an order of deportation.

What is different today?

Well, the same judges are issuing the same deportation orders. Except open border enthusiasts are going outside the immigration court system and judge shopping to stop the regular enforcement of immigration law.

The success of the administration is no one is trying to get across the border—which means at least 250,000 of our potential “neighbors” are annually not getting into the US. Same result as under Mr. Obama.

Why then does enforcing immigration law qualify as fascist? Which is what some never Trumpers and their friendly judges have described even though it is all sound legal law enforcement.

True, the US government is now deporting 600,000 illegal aliens a year but almost entirely from the interior. Some of these people are criminals, some have been unlawfully working in the country, and some are relying (illegally) on our social welfare programs. And some, including those here legally are apparently fraudulently ripping us of for literally billions annually.

So, what is it progressives and apparently some previous Trump supporters object to?

Well, progressives call these illegal aliens “our neighbors;” although the term previously used was “undocumented.” Why? In at least the 1970’s, supporters of open border immigration wanted to soften the crimes these illegal aliens committed—unlawfully entering the country, working here illegally, stealing someone’s identity, the fraudulent use of a social security number; and often evading income taxes. (Why else offer them amnesty that requires paying back taxes?)

But all these crimes are somehow to be overlooked because these people do landscape, agricultural or household chores and are our “neighbors.” Some argue that since LEGAL immigrants commit criminal acts at a rate less than that of native Americans, we somehow should be allowed to lump all legal AND illegal immigrants together and ignore the huge number of illegal aliens sitting in various prisons and jails around the country!! No one can ignore that ICE finds and arrests thousands of illegal aliens guilty of violent crimes every week.

Even those illegal aliens “working” in the country are in professions where 95% of the jobs are held by American citizens or legitimate guest workers, also “our neighbors.” Ignored is the fact that some of these neighbors are also killers— one arrested 70 times who knifed a young Ukraine woman legal immigrant. And indeed, the illegal alien shooters, rapists, traffickers, and killers are also “our neighbors.” Do they get to stay in America too?

But if arrested by an ICE officer, which the ICE officer has been sworn to do, opponents of ICE contend that is somehow beyond the pale. And because the “optics” make folks uncomfortable—like academic microaggressions—interfering with such law enforcement, which itself is against the law, is universally condoned or even undertaken by members of the Democratic party, blurring completely the distinction between lawful immigrants—which this President in 5 years in office has brought in over 5 million—vs those not here lawfully, particularly career criminals and cartel members attracted to the sanctuary status they enjoy in major US cities and some key states.

And “Oh Sacre bleu,” Mr. Sullivan is mad the ICE officers are masked! Why is this the case? Because the criminal cartels are offering bounties to have them identified and killed.

At issue is a simple issue. Should immigration laws be enforced elsewhere than at the border? And should ICE agents publish their own names and addresses to facilitate the cartels, criminals, and rioters to harm them and their families? And should their vans be gayly decorated so they can be easily rammed and the agents inside harmed or killed?

What is the difference between those impeding the work of ICE and the activities of those seeking to sway the judiciary—such as the thug who threatened to kill Judge Kavanaugh following Senator Schumer threatening the judge with “you won’t know what hit you.”

Getting serious about our sovereignty means going beyond just border enforcement. Taking down sex traffickers of children and drugs is not a pretty business. That is why the administration is taking such tough measures to take Venezuela out of that business, (which Sullivan opposes).

Deliberate interference with law enforcement is a serious crime. But the fiction that only the border needs to be defended is simply a political fairy tale that our drive-by media, academia, and entertainment community have subscribed to for the last half century.

Then as early as 1975 illegal immigration was largely dismissed as just a few “undocumented workers” crossing the Rio Grande. Or some seasonal fruit pickers occasionally working in America. All part of the normal demographic landscape.

But then as the former Attorney General told Congress at least 8.5 million additional unvetted migrants were let into the country between 2021-4, including an estimated ten thousand Chinese men of military age according to Brian Kennedy, the founder of the Committee on the Present Danger-China.

Getting rid of potential terrorists and cartel gangs requires internal law enforcement, not just border patrols. That is the job of ICE. We have to stop pretending such law enforcement is mean spirited and that American sovereignty means little to the American people, because after all we are all neighbors.

Tanzania map