Sportswashing: A masterstroke of foreign influence operations (Video) | Responsible Statecraft

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Analysis | Washington Politics

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Sportswashing is the next frontier of foreign influence in the United States. Authoritarian regimes are investing billions of dollars in the sports that Americans love — from the NBA to WWE, UFC, and, the PGA Tour.

In many cases these investments come with strings attached. Foreign powers aren’t just trying to make money, they’re hoping to launder their reputations and censor their would-be critics in the U.S. This can have potentially dire consequences for Washington foreign policy, given that many of these regimes seek to pull the agenda in a decidedly unrestrained direction via U.S. military entanglements.

(Video production by Khody Akhavi)

Analysis | Washington Politics

As Iran strikes loom, US and UK fight over Indian Ocean base

TOP IMAGE CREDIT: An aerial view of Diego Garcia, the Chagossian Island home to one of the U.S. military's 750 worldwide bases. The UK handed sovereignty of the islands back to Mauritius, with the stipulation that the U.S. must be allowed to continue its base's operation on Diego Garcia for the next 99 years. (Kev1ar82 / Shutterstock.com).

As Iran strikes loom, US and UK fight over Indian Ocean base

As the U.S. surges troops to the Middle East, a battle is brewing over a strategically significant American base in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he would oppose any effort to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, arguing that a U.S. base on the island of Diego Garcia may be necessary to “eradicate a potential attack by a highly unstable and dangerous [Iranian] Regime.” The comment came just a day after the State Department reiterated its support for the U.K.’s decision to give up sovereignty over the islands while maintaining a 99-year lease for the base.

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Bill White Belgium

Top photo credit: US ambassador to Belgium Bill White talks to the press after a meeting at the offices of the Foreign Affairs department of the Federal Government in Brussels, Tuesday 17 February 2026. BELGA PHOTO MARIUS BURGELMAN

US diplomat accuses Belgian officials of anti-semitism on X

A number of Donald Trump's ambassadors have very questionable experience for the jobs they are doing. That is not unusual — presidents throughout history have given out posts as favors for fundraising or other political or personal supports. The problem with some of these diplomats is they seem to forget they actually have a job to do — and it's not ingratiating the boss by insulting his host country because they think that is what the boss wants to hear.

Case in point: Bill White, who worked for and ran a museum for the USS Intrepid before quitting abruptly amid a pay-for-pay state pension scandal for which he eventually paid a $1 million settlement in 2010. He used to raise money for Democrats. Then he shifted to raising money for Trump in 2016 and was installed as Trump's ambassador to Belgium four months ago. It's not going so well.

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New US cluster bombs pose ‘severe, foreseeable dangers’

Top image credit: A US soldier carries a 155mm cluster munition

New US cluster bombs pose ‘severe, foreseeable dangers’

Military Industrial Complex

A coalition of human rights organizations, anti-war groups, and Christian churches are urging the U.S. to cancel its $210 million purchase of next-generation cluster munitions from an Israeli state-owned company, citing the “severe, foreseeable dangers” these weapons pose to civilians.

In an open letter shared exclusively with RS, the organizations write that cluster munitions “disperse submunitions across broad areas, making it exceedingly difficult to confine their impact to lawful military targets.” By expanding its cluster munitions stockpiles, the U.S. is putting itself “dramatically out of step with civilian protection practices,” the groups argue.

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