Stimson

Editor’s Note: In early 2025, reports about pollution on the Kok River running from Myanmar into Thailand began to show up in local media — and that local dialogue and calls from various communities and NGOs on the ground led to a much broader conversation about the impacts of mining of rare earths, the economic and geopolitical pressures surrounding critical minerals development, and what this industry growth means for the health and future of the Mekong River system.

Intelligence chiefs rarely arrive in the same capital within days of one another by coincidence. Recent visits to Tripoli by the heads of the Italian, Turkish, and Egyptian intelligence services reflected more than routine diplomatic engagement.

WASHINGTON, D.C. / OTTAWA, CANADA — July 1, 2026 — Today, the Stimson Center and the Weapons Threat Reduction Program of Global Affairs Canada (GAC) announced the launch of the Brian Finlay Innovation in Threat Reduction Award, an annual award established in memory of Brian Finlay, former President and CEO of the Stimson Center who was a proud Canadian and a respected leader in international security and nonproliferation.

In recent years, U.S. narratives about Taiwan’s dominant role in semiconductor manufacturing have taken a self-destructive turn. Efforts to shift more chip production to the United States are sensible and enjoy broad bipartisan support.

Today, a new generation of North Koreans who grew up with a hybrid awareness of markets and illicit foreign media is driving a quiet paradigm shift against the regime’s extreme tightening of ideological control. This panel explores the frontlines of this information warfare.

Editor’s Note: While the Stimson Center rarely publishes anonymous work, the author of this commentary is a Tehran-based analyst who has requested anonymity out of legitimate concern for their personal safety. The writer is known to appropriate staff, has a track record of reliable analysis, and is in a position to provide an otherwise unavailable perspective.

Editor’s Note: Andrew Latham is a professor of international relations at Macalester College in Minnesota, a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities, and a scholar of war, geopolitics, and grand strategy. Before entering academia, he worked with the Government of Canada, shaping national security policy and Canada’s role in the broader geopolitical landscape.

The Red Cell series is published in collaboration with The National Interest. Drawing upon the legacy of the CIA’s Red Cell—established following the September 11 attacks to avoid similar analytic failures in the future—the project works to challenge assumptions, misperceptions, and groupthink with a view to encouraging alternative approaches to America’s foreign and national security policy challenges.

Street gatherings in Iran during the war with the U.S. and Israel initially functioned as arenas of national cohesion and collective solidarity. Following the ceasefire, however, some gatherings gradually evolved into public forums for hardline political demands, particularly opposition to negotiations with the United States.

As negotiations between the United States and Iran begin in earnest over Iran’s nuclear program, history offers a clear warning: The greatest proliferation risks lie not in what states declare, but in what they conceal.