Global Crisis Roundup: Middle East Escalation, US-China Space Tensions and Europe Sabotage Threats
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The international security environment is becoming more interconnected as three separate areas of strategic competition intensify at the same time: the renewed U.S.-Iran confrontation in the Middle East, the accelerating U.S.-China contest in space, and a growing European focus on sabotage, cyberattacks and other forms of hybrid warfare. None of these developments by itself means that a global war is inevitable. Together, however, they illustrate how modern geopolitical competition is increasingly moving across military, economic, technological and civilian domains. The immediate crisis is in the Middle East, where the United States and Iran have entered another dangerous cycle of attacks after a period of relative calm. U.S. forces carried out a new wave of strikes inside Iran on September 1, targeting systems that U.S. Central Command said included air defenses, radar installations, maritime assets, mine-laying capabilities and communications facilities. Iran subsequently launched mi...