TEL AVIV — There is one country on earth where Donald Trump could plausibly win a national election, and he knows it. “I could run for Prime Minister,” he joked in May, claiming 99% approval here. No poll has ever shown that. But the joke landed because it is only half a joke. Thirteen days before […]

The post Welcome to Israel, Trump’s country appeared first on Asia Times.

Just as Vladimir and Estragon waited for Godot in Beckett’s famous play, the world may now be waiting for Xi Jinping in the present political drama. America is stuck in two wars. In Ukraine, it would like to reach a compromise with Russia. In the Middle East, it is trying to bring down Tehran’s regime, […]

The post Wars and the oil blockades may be waiting for Xi’s party congress appeared first on Asia Times.

The Australian government has introduced its digital duty of care legislation to parliament today. The bill includes an “off switch” to allow social media users to opt out of recommender algorithms. If passed, Australians could choose to switch off their algorithmic recommendation and consume a news feed populated by the accounts they subscribe to. It’s […]

The post China previews a world where the algorithm is switched off appeared first on Asia Times.

North Korea’s recent underwater launch of strategic cruise missiles underscores its accelerating drive to field a survivable, sea-based nuclear deterrent, even as significant engineering hurdles and platform limitations continue to constrain its naval ambitions. North Korea test-fired two types of submarine-launched strategic cruise missiles into the Sea of Japan, marking its first public underwater cruise […]

The post What do North Korea’s sub missile tests really prove? appeared first on Asia Times.

The drone has become the signature weapon of the Russo-Ukraine war. On any day in Ukraine, tens of thousands of drones are out hunting the battlefield for targets. These could be individual enemy soldiers or vehicles, or they could be larger targets such as depots, headquarters, bridges or power plants. Yet, this drone war has […]

The post When the US slows down Starlink in Ukraine appeared first on Asia Times.

A spike in diesel prices is hammering broad sectors of the US economy – especially agriculture and shipping – and becoming a flash point ahead of the November 2026 midterm elections. This squeeze has prompted Republicans from hard-hit farm states to call for a ban on US diesel exports, with President Donald Trump reportedly weighing […]

The post Is the world pricing the risk of a US diesel export ban? appeared first on Asia Times.

The US Navy’s bunker-busting Tomahawk push reflects growing recognition from the Iran war that striking deeply buried missile sites protected by robust air defenses requires long-range standoff weapons. But the missile faces serious operational, logistical and escalation challenges against China. The US Navy plans to award Raytheon an exclusive, sole-source contract for low-rate initial production […]

The post US banks on bunker-busting Tomahawks to crack China’s missile wall appeared first on Asia Times.

Russia’s drone and missile attacks on Ukraine’s population and infrastructure continue to dominate coverage of the conflict. But on the ground, Ukraine has been making significant, if still limited, gains. In mid-September, Ukraine formally announced the existence of Operation Vivaldi, which has retaken territory near Lyman and disrupted a Russian advance toward the fortified cities […]

The post Operation Vivaldi: Ukrainian gain on a drone-filled battlefield appeared first on Asia Times.

A deadly Houthi attack on Riyadh’s international airport has highlighted how the Yemeni group is reframing its perceived “Iran proxy” role and shifting its regional focus to its ongoing battle against Saudi Arabia. The October 10 strike, in which 13 people were killed and hundreds injured, was the most violent episode on Saudi Arabian soil […]

The post Houthis reframing the narrative casting them as an Iranian proxy appeared first on Asia Times.

The Ukrainian government on Tuesday night said that its access to the SpaceX-owned Starlink satellite internet service was throttled, prompting critics to question the wisdom of depending on any company owned by far-right billionaire Elon Musk. According to a Wednesday report in The New York Times, Ukrainian officials suspect that orders to restrict their access […]

The post Throttling Ukraine’s Starlink access heightens concerns over Musk appeared first on Asia Times.

The most consequential changes in a democracy do not always arrive with a constitutional crisis. Rather, they come through appointments, legal amendments and seemingly ordinary political bargains, accumulating one after another until the political system begins to look different from the one that came before. That is the real value of the “boiling frog” metaphor. […]

The post The slow boiling of Indonesian democracy appeared first on Asia Times.

The International Monetary Fund warned Tuesday that the global economy faces serious risks from Big Tech firms taking on massive debt to fund the buildout of artificial intelligence data centers worldwide. The IMF’s latest Global Financial Stability Report outlines a number of risks to economic growth in the coming years, including a reliance on AI […]

The post IMF warns of debt-fueled AI spending as bubble fears grow appeared first on Asia Times.

For most of the past thirty years, the semiconductor industry ran on a remarkably clean division of labor. Everybody knew their place. The caricature was almost this simple: TSMC printed. Memory makers crammed capacitors. Designers drew. And the money followed the drawing. TSMC took designs from Nvidia, Apple, AMD, Broadcom and others and reproduced them […]

The post The Frontier Express: when Samsung gets money appeared first on Asia Times.

The deal struck by Donald Trump with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on October 9 to allow Russia to sell millions of tonnes of diesel is a major departure from US policy and runs counter to Ukrainian and European interests. It also directly contradicts a law signed by the US president in September to authorize […]

The post Trump aligns with Putin yet again, squeezing Ukraine and Europe appeared first on Asia Times.

When Australia’s Lowy Institute think tank released the 2025 edition of its Southeast Asia Aid Map in July last year, it projected that Western aid cuts would shift the region’s development finance toward Asian partners. Specifically, the report expected the center of gravity to “drift East, notably to Beijing but also Tokyo and Seoul.” Lowy’s […]

The post No, China is not filling the Western aid gap in Southeast Asia appeared first on Asia Times.

The Iran conflict has exposed a glaring blind spot in US war strategy. America can escalate in hours, but it can take years to rebuild the arsenal it consumes. Washington has begun addressing the arms-replenishment problem, a calculation it should have made before escalating. The Pentagon’s recent awards reflect the intensity of the challenge. In […]

The post Iran war-depleted arsenal making US a less potent power appeared first on Asia Times.

While the US is arming its long-serving B-52 with potent ship-killing missiles to take on China’s expanding navy, severe munition constraints and operational vulnerabilities could undermine its strategic impact. This month, multiple media outlets reported that the US Navy plans to award a sole-source contract to Lockheed Martin to integrate the AGM-158C Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile […]

The post US turning B-52 bomber into long-range China ship killer appeared first on Asia Times.

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is moving to bar every Chinese lab from testing electronics for the US market, a sector China dominates. And Chinese media and commentators say that Beijing, having already retaliated with three countermeasures, is ready to strike back again. The FCC said on October 7 that it will vote on […]

The post FCC product testing ban deepens US-China tech decoupling appeared first on Asia Times.

During a quarter-century in power, Vladimir Putin has led Russia into three wars, in part aimed at restoring his country’s status as a world power via violent conquest . Each war began in a blitzkrieg-style display of fearsome power meant to climax in a swift victory. Instead, each conflict, whether the 1999-2009 war on the […]

The post Putin’s scorched-city policy hits Ukraine hard appeared first on Asia Times.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly making its way into national defense. Reconnaissance, early warning, target detection, mission planning—everywhere, machine-learning systems promise faster analysis, faster responses, and faster decision-making. In a military context, this sounds like progress. In reality, AI exacerbates a security problem that cannot be solved technically. Anyone who attempts to do so anyway risks […]

The post When AI takes control of weapons systems appeared first on Asia Times.