Iran and Saudi Arabia Demand Gaza Cease-Fire

After the Saudi and Iranian leaders finished their speeches, they left the main conference hall for a bilateral meeting. Prince Mohammed’s welcoming of Mr. Raisi amounted to a remarkable departure for the Saudi leader, who once bluntly warned Iran not to pursue expansionist policies in the region. “We won’t wait for the battle to be in Saudi Arabia,” he said in a televised interview in 2017. “Instead, we will work so that the battle is for them in Iran, not in Saudi Arabia.” He also once likened Iran’s supreme leader,…

Syria’s Leader, al-Assad, Visits China in Search of Friends and Funds

The News President Bashar al-Assad of Syria arrived in China on Thursday as he sought financial support to rebuild his country and to improve his international standing after being ostracized over atrocities committed during Syria’s ongoing civil war. His visit takes place as China seeks to present itself as a powerful influence in the Middle East, and a partner to nations that are shunned by the United States and the West. He is expected to meet with China’s top leader, Xi Jinping. Background Mr. al-Assad’s trip is his first visit…

Book Review: ‘On Wars,’ by Michael Mann

ON WARS, by Michael Mann If wars are “the least rational of human projects,” why have there been so many of them all over the world, in every era? This is the question that the sociologist Michael Mann poses in the boldly titled “On Wars.” It is an ambitious book, plumbing the roots of war from the early Roman Republic to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, with intermediary chapters on ancient and imperial China, Mongol conquests, feudal Japan, the carnage of European Christendom, clashes in pre-Columbian and Latin America, the two world…

How Russia’s Allies May React to Prigozhin’s Mutiny Against Putin

Even before President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia broke his public silence on Monday about the aborted mutiny that brought rogue troops to within 125 miles of Moscow, he was on the phone to the leaders of Iran, Qatar and other friendly countries, soaking up their expressions of support while presumably promising a return to stability. For Mr. Putin, who has cobbled together a surprisingly sturdy list of countries that either back his war on Ukraine or have stayed neutral, it was a much-needed display of mutual reassurance. Russia’s message,…

Beijing Signals Optimism for U.S. Ties After Biden-Xi Meeting

The prominent position of the photo on the front page of China’s main official newspaper spoke volumes: In it, the nation’s leader, Xi Jinping, smiled and shook hands with President Biden against a backdrop of Chinese and American flags. For months, the newspaper, People’s Daily, has featured Mr. Xi’s warnings that China must steel itself militarily and politically for an era of strife, denunciations of American policy and Communist Party officials’ warnings that “hostile forces” — that is, the United States — were eager to sabotage China’s rise. A day…

With New Crackdown, Biden Wages Global Campaign on Chinese Technology

WASHINGTON — In conversations with American executives this spring, top officials in the Biden administration revealed an aggressive plan to counter the Chinese military’s rapid technological advances. China was using supercomputing and artificial intelligence to develop stealth and hypersonic weapons systems, and to try to crack the U.S. government’s most encrypted messaging, according to intelligence reports. For months, administration officials debated what they could do to hobble the country’s progress. They saw a path: The Biden administration would use U.S. influence over global technology and supply chains to try to…

A Distracted Russia Is Losing Its Grip on Its Old Soviet Sphere

With the Kremlin distracted by its flagging war more than 1,500 miles away in Ukraine, Russia’s dominium over its old Soviet empire shows signs of unraveling. Moscow has lost its aura and its grip, creating a disorderly vacuum that previously obedient former Soviet satraps, as well as China, are moving to fill. On the mountain-flanked steppes of southwestern Kyrgyzstan, the result in just one remote village has been devastating: homes reduced to rubble, a burned-out school and a gut-wrenching stench emanating from the rotting carcasses of 24,000 dead chickens. All…

U.S. Aims to Turn Taiwan Into Giant Weapons Depot

WASHINGTON — American officials are intensifying efforts to build a giant stockpile of weapons in Taiwan after studying recent naval and air force exercises by the Chinese military around the island, according to current and former officials. The exercises showed that China would probably blockade the island as a prelude to any attempted invasion, and Taiwan would have to hold out on its own until the United States or other nations intervened, if they decided to do that, the current and former officials say. But the effort to transform Taiwan…

Your Monday Briefing: Indonesia’s Stadium Tragedy

An Indonesian stadium tragedy At least 125 people died when soccer fans rushed the field after a professional soccer match in Malang, Indonesia, on Saturday. Many were trampled. The police fired tear gas into the tightly packed crowds, leading to a stampede. Survivors said that the gas was fired indiscriminately into the stands, forcing the overcapacity crowd to rush for the exits. Many are angry at the police response, which observers said had made the situation worse. “If there wasn’t any tear gas shot into the stands, there would have…

Putin Threatens to Escalate War as India Distances Itself From Russia

Underlining Russia’s widening isolation on the world stage, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India told President Vladimir V. Putin on Friday that it is no time for war — even as the Russian president threatened to escalate the brutality of his campaign in Ukraine. The televised admonishment by Mr. Modi at a regional summit in Uzbekistan came just a day after Mr. Putin acknowledged that Xi Jinping, China’s leader, had “questions and concerns” about the war. Taken together, the distancing from Mr. Putin by the heads of the world’s two…