International

The international system that has underpinned decades of relative stability is facing mounting stress. A new global security assessment warns that aggressive political disruption, driven largely by US leadership, is accelerating the erosion of long-standing rules, alliances, and shared norms.According to the Munich Security Report 2026, the world has entered a phase defined by what it describes as “wrecking-ball politics,” a style of leadership that prioritizes forceful disruption over continuity and consensus. The report argues that this approach is placing the postwar international order under its most severe strain since its creation, with consequences that extend well beyond traditional geopolitical…

A war or political conflict thousands of miles away can raise the price of everyday goods at home through a chain of economic and logistical links. Modern supply chains are tightly interwoven, and essential inputs such as energy, metals, food, and shipping capacity are concentrated in a relatively small number of producing regions. When conflict disrupts production, trade flows, insurance, or finance in those regions, the cost of inputs rises and producers pass those costs on to consumers.Primary transmission pathwaysCommodity supply shocks — Conflicts that interrupt exports of oil, gas, wheat, fertilizers, or metals directly reduce global supply and push…

Freshwater is essential for life, food production, energy generation, industry, and ecosystem services. Yet the global distribution of accessible freshwater is limited and uneven. Only about 2.5% of the planet’s water is freshwater, and a very small fraction of that—roughly 0.3% of total global water—is readily accessible on the surface for human use. At the same time, population growth, urbanization, changing diets, and economic development are driving rising demand. Climate change, shrinking glaciers, groundwater depletion, pollution, and deteriorating infrastructure are reducing supply reliability. These forces combine to elevate water from a local resource management issue to a source of transboundary…

Energy is more than fuel and electricity: it underpins industry, transport, household welfare, and military capability. That centrality makes energy an unusually effective lever in international politics. States, companies, and nonstate actors use supply, price, infrastructure, regulation, and technological control to advance strategic aims. The practice persists because of four enduring features: uneven resource distribution, long-lived infrastructure and contracts, the immediacy of economic pain when supplies are constrained, and the broad knock-on effects on alliances and domestic politics.Core mechanisms of energy geopoliticsSupply manipulation: producers may restrict or reroute exports to engineer shortages or penalize partners, doing so openly through quotas…

The presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel in Italy ahead of the upcoming Winter Olympics is raising heightened concern among both lawmakers and the wider public, as debates intensify over jurisdictional authority, security methods, and previous incidents reported in the U.S.The Italian government faces mounting attention after reports surfaced that ICE officers are set to assist with security at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, a development that has revived debates over the presence of foreign law enforcement in Italy, especially in light of recent violent episodes tied to ICE activities in the United States.The U.S. Department of Homeland…

Democratic stability depends on citizens who remain well-informed, institutions capable of earning public trust, a shared foundation of widely acknowledged yet continuously debated facts, and transitions of power conducted with order. Information manipulation — the deliberate shaping, distorting, amplifying, or suppressing of material to influence public attitudes or behavior — gradually erodes these foundations. It weakens them not only by spreading falsehoods, but also by reshaping incentives, corroding trust, and transforming public attention into a lever for strategic gain. This threat functions at a systemic level, producing compromised elections, polarized societies, reduced accountability, and environments in which violence and authoritarian…