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

South Korea president President Lee Jae-myung

Top photo credit: South Korean president Lee Jae-myung travels to of the Group of Seven in Kananaskis, Canada, June 2025 (Ministry of culture, sports and Tourism/ Lee jeong woo/Creative Commons

Trump NSS puts S. Korea at center of US primacy aims in region

It has been half a year since the Lee Jae-myung administration took office in South Korea.

Domestically, the Republic of Korea (ROK) is still recovering from numerous problems left by former president Yoon Suk-yeol's brief imposition of martial law. However, there are also many diplomatic challenges that need to be addressed. The Lee administration faces arguably the most challenging external environment in years.

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Christian evangelicals Israel

Top photo credit: A member of Christians United for Israel during the second day of the Christians United for Israel summit in National Harbor, Maryland, U.S., July 29, 2024. REUTERS/Seth Herald

1,000 US pastors travel to train as 'ambassadors' for Israel

More than 1,000 U.S. Christian pastors and influencers traveled to Israel this month becoming “the largest group of American Christian leaders to visit Israel since its founding.”

At the height of the Christmas season — one of the two most important celebrations for Christians of the year, the birth of Christ, the other being Easter which marks his death — these pastors were on mission paid for by the Israeli government “to provide training and prepare participants to serve as unofficial ambassadors for Israel in their communities,” Fox News reported.

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White house

Top photo credit: Chat GPT

A farewell to Oz: Trump’s strategy for a multipolar world

Washington Politics

The end of the Cold War ushered in a long period of make-believe in American foreign policy. We saw ourselves, in the words of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, as “the indispensable power. We stand tall. We see farther into the future.” And we could use our unmatched abilities to transform the world in unprecedented ways.

Globalized flows of capital and labor would liberalize China and usher in a new age of largely frictionless international relations. Russia would be transformed quickly into a friendly, free market democracy. NATO would shift its focus from protecting Western Europe to reforming and incorporating the states between it and Russia, with little worry that it might ever have to fight to defend new members. The US military would serve as the world’s benevolent policeman, and Americans could re-engineer societies in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan. Americans would be endlessly content to fight endless wars that bore little connection to their own well-being, and foreign creditors would forever finance America’s burgeoning national debt.

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