Global Hotspots: Unpacking the U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal and ASEAN summit

This week, a new front opened in the conflict between the U.S. and Iran as the Yemeni al-Houthi rebel group fired on Saudi oil tankers attempting to cross the Bab al-Mandeb. Meanwhile, Israel began returning control of occupied Lebanese territory to the Lebanese army. In the Indo-Pacific, China conducted two days of live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait and clashed with Philippine vessels in the South China Sea during the ASEAN summit in Manila. In the Russia/Ukraine conflict, Lithuania’s defense minister warned of an increased risk of Russian sabotage operations in the Baltics, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy replaced the head of the Ukrainian armed forces after last week’s firing of its defense minister led to nationwide protests. In the U.S., the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security threatened to prosecute state officials who do not use a DHS database for voter validation, while the U.S. sent the first shipment of $100 million in humanitarian aid to Cuba.

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Marxist Arrow by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

_{^{Photo: Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (R) attends a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio (L) on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Foreign Ministers Meeting in Pasay, Manila, the Philippines, on July 23, 2026. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)}}