The Internationalism

Internationalism No. 89, July 2026 Page 2 On June 17th, during the closing banquet of the G7 summit in Evian against the highly symbolic backdrop of Versailles, Donald Trump, accompanied by his host Emmanuel Macron, initialled a memorandum of understanding with Tehran. The president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, did the same via video-conference in Tehran. The document had already been digitally signed in Geneva on the 14th. For former diplomat Michel Duclos, this was a surprise organised by the French presidency, which had taken care to invite Egypt, the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia to the G7 proceedings. Trump, aware of the criticism within the Republican camp over his backing down in the face of Iran , and of the fact that his international prestige did not emerge strengthened from the third Gulf War , was offered a lavish stage on which to save face. Or, in Japanes...

Internationalism No. 88, June 2026 Page 11 We are living in an era in which the ‘Pax Americana’ is nearing an end without any substitute order taking its place . So wrote, in a 1980 report, the study group on Comprehensive national security , established by the then Japanese Prime Minister Masayoshi Ōira. According to Michitaka Kaiya, deputy editor of the Yomiuri Shimbun , this observation remains valid today, given the Trump administration’s dismissive attitude towards allies , a China that challenges the US-led order, the war in Ukraine, and the conflict in the Gulf. At the end of April, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi attended the inaugural meeting of the committee of fifteen experts tasked with conducting the review of the National Security Strategy (NSS), presented at the end of 2022, through which Tokyo has defined its rearmament. On March 31st, the operational deployment of domestica...

Internationalism No. 87, May 2026 Page 6 At the time of writing, the third Gulf War , which began on February 28 th and escalated in April with a fresh Israeli intervention in Lebanon against Hezbollah, has reached an uncertain truce. Brokered by Pakistan's diplomats, it was agreed as part of a four-way Islamic agreement – bringing together Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey – and backed by China. According to the Japanese newspaper Nikkei , the diplomatic initiative's origins date back to the extraordinary summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), of which Iran is also a member, and was sealed at the March 24 th summit of the Islamic Quartet in Islamabad. First came the meeting between the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan; then came Chinese backing and Sino-Pakistani talks, which produced a five-point proposal for a ceasefire. The proposal ...

Internationalism No. 86, April 2026 Page 2 The joint attack by Washington and Tel Aviv on Iran, which began on February 28th and was dubbed Operation Epic Fury by the Americans, has been described as an epic gamble by the vast majority of international commentators, starting with the decision to eliminate Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader and a key figure for Shia Islam in Iran and beyond. While Tel Aviv is said to be intent on degrading Iran's military capabilities, and thus weakening it in the long term, what motivates US intervention, even according to Israeli sources, is regime change : something akin to the script followed in Venezuela at the start of the year. However, according to Le Monde , Washington's approach amounts to an exercise in strategic improvisation , owing both to the unilateral decision to attack and to the contradictory series of justifications put forward to l...

Internationalism No. 77, July 2025 Page 10 The crisis between Israel and Iran, which began on June 13 th , took a qualitative leap with the American decision to strike three uranium enrichment sites just ten days later. The attacks were carried out with cruise missiles and strategic bombers and, at the Fordow site, which is buried under more than 100 metres of rock, four teen of the so-called MOABs (the mother of all bombs ) were used. This is the most powerful conventional weapon in the US arsenal. In 2017, Donald Trump authorized its use in Afghanistan against an Islamic State base. American military doctrine also provides for the use of tactical nuclear weapons for the same type of mission. In any case, writes the Beijing-based Global Times , Washington has set a dangerous precedent by attacking nuclear sites in a country that is a signatory to the NPT, the Non-Proliferation Treaty, with...