Forget retrenchment: Strategic competition and boosting security cooperation, particularly to counter Iran, will keep Washington focused on the region. President Biden made his first trip to the Middle East last week, visiting Israel and Saudi Arabia. While the trip yielded little in the way of flashy announcements — like new …

After the Solomon Islands signed a security pact with Beijing in April, Kiribati may be considering a similar deal. In April, China signed an unprecedented security pact with the Solomon Islands, sparking regional concerns of a future Chinese military presence there. China’s pursuit of greater military reach in the Pacific …

Putin remains fixed on erasing Ukraine. Ideas for peace talks can’t ignore that. Russia’s Ukraine war, launched in February along the 350 miles from Belarus to the Black Sea, has largely narrowed these weeks to a 45-mile-wide assault on cities in the Donbas region. This and other signals may suggest …