"The U.S. is providing humanitarian assistance to Druze, Christian, and Bedouin communities in Southern Syria."

THE ARMED FORCES OF CENTRAL ASIA - CHAPTER IV: UZBEKISTAN 🇺🇿🇺🇿🇺🇿 …is being launched with a RUSI hosted webinar this Thursday (links below) 170+ pages of detailed information covering everything from Uzbekistan’s command structures to its military capabilities and budgets.

Gas lines, fears of a coup (?), a potential banking crisis, and new US sanctions: Russia's negative path from Mr. Putin's war, by Melissa Lawford telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/…, via The Telegraph

With Syria still in transition and the US slowly pulling out, the Islamic State is starting to re-emerge, by Sudarsan Raghavan wsj.com/world/middle-e…, via The Wall Street Journal

Something astonishing is underway in the Israeli Arab educational world. For the first time ever, a higher percentage of Arabs are passing their high school matriculation tests than Jews, 78.3% to 77.8%. Among the Bedouin of the Negev, a group that historically trails far behind

Not one in 10 people uses the term “decimate” properly.

On tap: An investment-security review panel for Japan like the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Another step in Japan's multi-year effort to strengthen economic security reuters.com/world/asia-pac…, by Makiko Yamazaki via Reuters

The Asian trade deals the U.S. is negotiating have an interesting twist: language that boxes out China. Pending: how they will be interpreted and enforced ... and China's reaction, by Christopher Smart, PhD CFA leadingthoughts.substack.com/p/a-new-front-…

As one may recall, Mali's junta who took power after a coup kicked out a Western (French + US supported) counterterrorism mission and turned to Russia's Wagner group for help against terror groups Here's the results of that

Those interested in innovation and industrial secrecy/gatekeeping/IPR, should read about Italian glassblowing in Murano. Classic economic history. Proximity in learning and control, sometimes with dire consequences. e.g. tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10… Photo: invaluable.com

You say proxy, I say 34th province-level administrative division* -- six of one, half dozen of the other ... *Not counting Taiwan in that total.

"Choosing a special envoy in Iraq signals that the Trump administration views Iraq not as another portfolio in the State Department—but as a key arena needing direct, elevated attention." Dler Mohammed on new U.S. envoy to Iraq Mark Savaya kurdistan24.net/en/story/87150…, via Kurdistan 24 English

A great conductor could seek to lead an already great orchestra, but it seems that Gianandrea Noseda is taking a different path -- he is building National Symphony Orchestra into a great orchestra, by Barton Swaim of Wall Street Journal Opinion wsj.com/opinion/at-the…

Military food: How U.S. military chefs find new recipes and techniques to feed thousands, by Katie Lange. Naturally, it all starts at the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Soldier Center's Combat Feeding Division ... war.gov/News/Feature-S…, via Department of War 🇺🇸

Syria's "Sharaa ordered civil servants with luxury cars to hand over the keys or face being investigated for illicit gains" A challenge: pivoting from insurgency to civilian government "without replicating the endemic corruption of Assad's reviled police state." H/T Raphael Gluck

My only comment on the recent infighting on the American right, involving not only political actors but a number of Internet personalities I neither know nor care to know: History records many cases in which cities fell to siege because, even with the enemy at the very gates,