Israel's election left Netanyahu's Likud as the largest party, with his bloc leading Gadi Eisenkot's roughly fifty-three seats to forty-eight, but neither is close to sixty-one. Haredi conscription and broken campaign pledges loom over coalition talks, and prolonged deadlock may favor the incumbent.
Israel's Oct. 27 election gave neither Netanyahu's bloc nor Gadi Eisenkot's opposition alliance a governing majority, so coalition talks begin with Netanyahu as caretaker and new elections possible. The result is expected to affect the wider region and U.S.-Israeli relations, and experts assess its implications.
The article argues African governments and firms need a local "off switch" to stop rogue AI agents, given how central mobile money like M-Pesa and MoMo is to daily commerce. It urges vendor-neutral partnerships, stronger cybersecurity and incident-response capacity, and resilience-focused AI policy.
Analysis argues the Trump-launched Board of Peace lacks institutional capacity, financing, security guarantees and a working partnership with Israel. Gaza's roughly $71 billion reconstruction needs remain unmet and its vision remains disconnected from implementation.
Signs point toward renewed US-Iran hostilities: the US is pulling out personnel and sending a third carrier group to the Middle East, while Netanyahu campaigns on toppling Tehran's regime. Mediation by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey has stalled, with neither side's terms apparently softening.
— via War on the Rocks, WOTR Staff
At the 2026 Global Security Forum in Doha, themed "The Future of Alliances," Arizona State University's Future Security Initiative and New America took part in sessions on intelligence and defense cooperation. A drone panel examined how commercial and AI-enabled systems give non-state actors new surveillance and attack capabilities, with Robert Bunker urging integrated counter-UAS and counter-AI disciplines.
— via Small Wars Journal, SWJ Staff
Eighteen drones and seven cruise missiles got past Patriot batteries in 2019 and briefly halved Saudi Arabia's oil output. The essay argues Gulf states should judge readiness by layered counter-drone defense and cost sustainability, pointing to the Battle of Britain, where fusing radar, human spotters and a central filter room lifted RAF interception rates from 30-50% to 90%.
— via Small Wars Journal, Jaber AlSabah
The UAE has taken more Iranian strikes than any Gulf state, but Kuwait may be the most exposed. Oil supplies about 90 percent of its state revenue before investment income, the US pulled its last forces from Iraq in September, and Iran-backed Iraqi Shia militias sit on its border.
— via Atlantic Council, Jonathan Panikoff
Riyadh's airport was hit three times in three days, leaving at least twelve dead and more than three hundred injured. The new Mecca Agreement with Pakistan and Turkey, signed two months earlier, has so far done little to stop it, and even US support falls short of a binding security guarantee.
— via Atlantic Council, Carmiel Mahony
Ukraine's drone strikes on three Yandex data centers didn't just dent Russia's "Google": they knocked out banking apps, taxis and services for 60,000 businesses across eight countries. Experts are split on whether the attacks really silenced Kremlin bot networks, but the damage to Russia's digital infrastructure looks real and slow to fix.
— via Atlantic Council, Leonid Baratz
Iran-backed militias are calling a halt to attacks after the US withdrawal, but the pause looks tactical. Thirty-six PMF brigades reportedly backed Tehran's war effort against US-Israeli forces this year, and a new parliamentary bill could lock in the militias' parallel army for good.
— via Atlantic Council, Hamdi Malik
Syria's new rulers are copying Iraq's power-sharing playbook, allocating posts by sect and ethnicity. That model bred deadlock and violence there, and the fix instead may lie in local governance, not quotas in Damascus.
— via Atlantic Council, Marie Forestier, Arthur Quesnay
Groups of 100 North Korean workers have been spotted at Russia's Alabuga drone hub, feeding Moscow's war machine alongside Chinese and Iranian suppliers. Elsewhere: Seoul warns OPCON transfer may now be permanently out of reach as conditions keep shifting, and the Pentagon reportedly weighs its "mother of all bombs" for a possible Iran strike.
— via Small Wars Journal, David Maxwell
The UK just struck two sweeping military AI deals, giving it first access to Ukraine's Avengers battlefield data and tighter autonomy ties with Washington, while Westminster quietly worries about a US "kill switch" on its own systems. The payoff comes against a grim backdrop: autonomous weapons already linked to civilian deaths in Gaza, Ukraine and Iran.
— via War on the Rocks, Georgia Cole
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey just turned an informal security arrangement into a NATO-style mutual defense pact, and weeks later invoked it. A Pakistani official says Pakistani jets are already striking Houthi targets, reversing Islamabad's 2015 refusal to join the Yemen war.
— via War on the Rocks, Muhib Rahman
The SDF declared its own dissolution in August 2026 and began handing over oil fields, airports and prisons to Damascus. That announcement doesn't settle much for Turkey, which cares less about the group's name than whether its old commanders still run the show from inside the Syrian army.
— via Small Wars Journal, Efecan Özdem
Iran's Revolutionary Guard sent an open letter to the American public packed with more than 300 factual claims, timed five weeks before the midterms. Rania Kisar breaks down how it reframes "Death to America," cites the 1953 coup and veteran suicides, and urges Americans to vote out their own leaders.
— via Small Wars Journal, SWJ Staff
A White House official has already crowned the Western Hemisphere the "center of the energy universe." The piece argues that framing is an analytical trap: betting capital against the Middle East's irreplaceable scale could backfire badly on energy security.
— via Atlantic Council, Sara Vakhshouri
Israel struck a Syrian airbase to head off a Turkish troop deployment, pushing two regional heavyweights closer to direct confrontation over Syria and Mediterranean energy routes. The feud looks personal and ideological, but it traces back to Cold War-era alliance building, and that history suggests the rivalry can be managed rather than left to harden.
— via Atlantic Council, Alissa Pavia
Google just paid two to three times the going rate for backup fiber through Turkey, as cloud giants scramble for routes around a Houthi-contested Red Sea strait carrying over 90% of Europe-Asia data traffic. Experts warn a single cable cut there could take months to repair.
— via Rest of World, Indranil Ghosh
