Taiwan is often described as one more negotiable item in a crowded US-China agenda.

That is a mistake.

The island is the factory floor for US leadership in AI, and Taiwan's autonomy is indispensable to US interests, @alexanderbenard and David Feith argue.

A thread 🧵 Trump has rightly put AI dominance at the center of his national strategy.

AI will shape economic growth, military advantage, medical innovation, intelligence collection, and geopolitical influence.

For years, India's opposition believed India's overwhelming diversity is ultimately incompatible with Modi's rule, and it will naturally backfire.

Instead, Modi's party captured a massive win. The opposition should learn from its latest loss, @bill_drexel writes.

A thread 🧵 On Monday, Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party captured one of the states that should have been most impossible for it to appeal to: a fiercely independent, culturally distinct region home to more people than California, Texas and New York combined.

The Iran war reveals that the US and Europe operate from different assumptions about risk, responsibility, and results—what makes the international system work, or not.

Recognizing these differences is the first step to rebalancing the alliance, Nadia Schadlow argues.

Thread 🧵 The US and Europe have long had different appetites for risk.

Trump judged that the risk of acting against Iran was worth taking.

Europe, by contrast, has tended to view Iran through the prism of stability, assuming that preserving a tenuous status quo is the paramount objective.

Iran's survival depends on three pillars:

1. Ideology
2. Patronage network
3. A coercive apparatus drawing legitimacy from a founding idea

To bring the system down, all three must fail simultaneously.

@zriboua in @NYPostOpinion

A thread 🧵 Iran was already decomposing when Operation Epic Fury began.

The regime had been losing grip for two years, from the Hezbollah pager attack to the 12-day war that exposed its hollow air defenses.

The deterrent Tehran spent decades building turned out to be largely performative.

The protests in Iran expose a deeper confrontation with the Islamic Republic's political order itself.

At the same time, Iran's core pillars of economic viability, coercive capacity, and external deterrence are falling.

The regime may not survive, @zriboua argues.

A thread 🧵

nationalinterest.org/blog/middle-ea… Iran's accelerating water crisis has evolved from an environmental strain to a political fault line.

Iranian power generation depends on water-intensive infrastructure, and chronic blackouts now disrupt daily life.

The US-India relationship is at a troubling inflection point.

@NikkiHaley and @bill_drexel explain why getting US-India relations back on track is critical for the administration's foreign policy goals:

1. outcompeting China
2. achieving peace through strength

A thread 🧵 Trump is right to target India's massive Russian oil purchases, which are helping to fund Vladimir Putin's brutal war against Ukraine.

India has also traditionally been among the most protectionist economies in the world, with an average tariff rate more than five times the US average in 2023.

As China grows more aggressive, South Korea's next government must navigate the challenge of reinforcing security and economic ties with the US under President Donald Trump's America First agenda.

In a new report, @PMCroninHudson explains how Washington and Seoul can sustain and strengthen their alliance. Read his 10 key takeaways⬇️ Security recommendations. To strengthen security cooperation, the US and South Korea should:

1. Restore the warrior ethos and accelerate OPCON transition: Increase joint training, improve combat effectiveness, and set a deadline for transferring wartime operational control to South Korea.

2. Establish a "Golden Dome" missile defense consultative group: Form a consultative body to co-develop next-generation, layered missile defense systems.

3. Forge a US–South Korea maritime power partnership: Combine South Korea's shipbuilding expertise with US naval modernization efforts to counterbalance China's maritime dominance.

4. Expand alliance defense industrial base cooperation: Capitalize on South Korea's defense manufacturing capabilities to co-produce precision munitions, expendable drones, and advanced military systems.

5. Establish a "3D" deterrence, defense, and diplomacy council: Create a high-level council to coordinate nuclear deterrence strategies, missile defense planning, and diplomatic initiatives.

In case you missed it: @LukeDCoffey hosted @GoncharenkoUa to discuss Ukraine's fight for sovereignty.

Some key moments ⬇️ .@GoncharenkoUa on why Odesa is geopolitically important to Europe and the US.

Hudson experts have identified the 7 weapons systems #Ukraine needs to liberate its territory.

As the world awaits Ukraine's counteroffensive, the US should move with speed to arm Kyiv with following items: hudson.org/national-secur… DPICMs would help Ukraine penetrate Russian defenses and serve as an artillery force multiplier that could propel operational breakthroughs.

NOW LIVE: @FBI Director Christopher Wray and Hudson’s @wrmead discuss China’s threat to the United States and ways to counter the CCP’s attempts to influence American institutions

hudson.org/events/1836-vi… .@FBI: “The people of the United States are the victims of what amounts to Chinese theft on a scale so massive that it represents one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history.”

LIVE NOW: Ambassador @NikkiHaley.

.@NikkiHaley: “I came here today with a simple goal. To remind us why capitalism is the best economic system the world has ever seen.”