Convergence theory posits that societies, especially as they industrialise, tend to become more alike. US President Donald Trump’s successful meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in October 2025 suggests that the US has begun to draw closer to China due not to ideological compatibility, but to what Trump characterises as a ‘common sense’ perspective on political legitimacy and a shared aversion to war. Notwithstanding Trump’s transactionalism and bullying, overall convergence could stabilise geopolitical as well as economic relations between the United States and China. Trump has apparently sidelined the China hawks of his previous administration. In turn, Xi has moderated the ‘East Rising, West Falling’ rhetoric and ‘wolf-warrior diplomacy’ that he once favoured, and accepted Trump’s basic argument about trade. China and the United States may thus have an opportunity to strike a grand bargain on trade and Taiwan.

As a putative international order based on treaties, institutions and the rule of law falters, an alternative order based on deals and enforceable by great powers could be emerging. The cumulative effect of US President Donald Trump’s rapidly paced deal-making is to erase red lines over engagement and validate the idea that no dispute is so tricky, and no grievance so profound, that it is not resolvable. Deals are problematic because they are contingent on sometimes fleeting individuals and governments rather than permanent institutions and laws, and tend to be based more on opportunism than deliberation, leaving states without agreed restrictions on what behaviours they will indulge to reach a deal. With Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping seemingly amenable to the deal-making approach, European states and other liberal democracies must choose between resisting or adapting. Hoping that the status quo ante will be restored risks being marginalised as a new order takes hold.

The relationship between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the country’s security establishment reached a historic low during his sixth term (2022–present). Netanyahu, facing intensifying political and legal challenges, has increasingly perceived top security officials as inimical to his interests. This has resulted in the politicisation of his security appointments, the dismissal of warnings regarding the government’s judicial overhaul, attempts to deflect blame for Hamas’s 7 October 2023 assault and sharp disagreements over Gaza war strategy. Civil–military tensions have escalated into a systematic campaign on the part of Netanyahu’s government to subordinate professional military judgement to political loyalty, endangering Israel’s institutions and democratic foundations.

Russia occupies a unique position in the contemporary global order, simultaneously presenting itself as the defender of Western civilisation to the far right and as an opponent of Western civilisation to the Global South. This ideological dualism is strategically anchored in a shared adversary: liberalism. Russia frames liberalism as a source of moral decay for Western conservative audiences, and as a tool of neocolonial domination for the Global South. Moscow deploys modular ideological messaging across geopolitical and affective registers, operating as a flexible interlocutor in a post-liberal world to generate discontent and facilitate ideological realignment that discards the centrality of liberalism.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and US President Donald Trump’s re-election have prompted fears about the health and durability of the NATO alliance. Such fears appear excessive. Alliance members are establishing a new equilibrium, shaped by three critical developments. Firstly, Europe is well on its way to developing a robust defence-manufacturing sector that serves US interests. Secondly, as they engage in significant rearmament, European states are on track to increase their weapons procurement from the United States. Thirdly, this increased defence effort will afford the US and Europe unique and complementary strategic and operational advantages, including industrial depth outside of the Indo-Pacific theatre and specialised capabilities that serve American interests. Increased European defence spending on the one hand, and divergent strategic priorities – Russia for the EU, China for the US – on the other are generating opportunities for transatlantic collaboration that move the allies beyond the imbalanced power relationships that once characterised NATO.

The Russian government has conducted a campaign of sabotage and subversion across Europe targeting countries, companies and individuals that have provided support to Ukraine. Led by the Main Intelligence Directorate, the GRU, Russian attacks have included bombings, drone incursions, sabotage against undersea cables and pipelines, electronic attacks and cyber operations. Russia’s strategy has likely been to coerce European governments and companies to stop providing assistance to Kyiv, deter Russian soldiers and citizens from defecting to the West, sow fear and division in Europe, and undermine public support for the Russia–Ukraine war.

As China and Russia have rejected the United States’ geopolitical primacy, India has shifted its policy from non-alignment to multi-alignment, with an eye to maintaining strategic autonomy and avoiding formal alliances. Friction over tariffs and US President Donald Trump’s claims about his conflict-resolution feats in South Asia have cooled New Delhi on embracing Washington in the context of the defence-oriented Quad, which China tends to view as hostile. In the short to medium terms, India is likely to be more visible in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and BRICS due to the increased opportunities they offer to stabilise relations with China and to engage productively with Russia. But while BRICS and the SCO aim to anchor an alternative to a US-led global order, India’s enthusiasm for advancing this objective will probably remain qualified. India’s relationship with the US remains key to India’s military and security capabilities, and economic growth.

China’s Vulnerability Paradox by Pascale Massot investigates China’s emergence as the world’s largest consumer of commodities such as iron ore and potash, furnishing details that point to China’s ongoing vulnerabilities despite its status as a leading market player. Indeed, the country’s recent decision to extend export controls on rare-earth elements revealed that China is not alone in depending on imports for which domestic substitutes may never be available. Any suggestion that a particular country is ‘winning’ a trade war, therefore, is probably oversimplifying the complexities of global supply chains and overlooking the precarity that even the world’s most powerful countries face in meeting citizens’ needs for energy, food and other essentials.

Capturing the contemporary American zeitgeist on film is proving a difficult task. In Eddington, Ari Aster wants to illuminate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on American politics, from its initial beleaguerment of the Trump administration to the eventual sustenance it provided to the MAGA movement. The film is over-cluttered and nearly devoid of a single rational actor or stable view of reality. To an extent, that is the point – that the United States has fallen prey to the basest predilections of its people – but its snidely outré depiction of MAGA delusion and liberal sanctimony lacks convincing nuance, atmosphere and dialogue. Ethan Coen’s comically noirish crime film Honey Don’t!, self-consciously styled as a B-movie, provides a more sophisticated and shaded take on the quotidian psychological realities of those who neither actively protest nor weakly capitulate.