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Date: 20/04/2026 The 2026 revision codifies a decade of Chinese economic statecraft. Here is what it means for companies that trade with, source from, or invest in China. China’s Foreign Trade Law is the master framework that governs how foreign companies buy from, sell to, and invest in China. It was last rewritten in 2004, in the afterglow of WTO accession, to fit a country that wanted to join the global trading system. The 2026 version, in force since 1 March, is the first full rewrite since then, and it describes a country that expects the global system to keep fragmenting. The reasons have been accumulating for a decade.  China has been alarmed by foreign pressures. These range from the 2018 US tariff war, to the COVID-era weaponisation of supply chains, to successive US export controls on chips and AI.  Beijing has protested that global commerce is being used as leverage and concluded that trade law needed to do more than facilitate trade. It felt it needed to protect sovereignty, respond to pressure, and serve industrial strategy as a single instrument. The revised law does all three. It elevates national sovereignty and security to a core legislative objective, formalizes countermeasures against foreign sanctions, and folds intellectual property, digital trade, and green supply chains into one architecture. Enforcement is integrated across the board through customs, foreign exchange, and cross-border payments. For China, trade policy is now fused with industrial and security strategy. For foreign businesses, the environment is not closing. In several sectors it is opening faster than at any point since WTO accession. What changes is the conditionality. Access now comes with more scrutiny, more compliance, and more tools in Beijing’s hands when it feels pushed. China will stay open, but on its own terms, and it now has the legal infrastructure to make that stick. Seven takeaways follow. 1. Retaliation becomes a permanent feature The revised law formally codifies and unifies countermeasures against foreign sanctions, policy reviews of foreign trade measures, and trade restrictions on specific entities.  That move matters because of where it places the tools. A retaliatory power that lives in a dedicated sanctions law reads as a response to provocation. But a retaliatory power that lives in the overarching trade law reads as a standing feature of how China wants to trade. Beijing is telling foreign counterparts that its punishment toolkit is no longer reactive but routine. The volumes confirm a shift to China’s aggressive stance towards sanctions. In 2023, Chinese authorities added roughly seven targets to the Anti-Foreign Sanctions countermeasures list. In 2024, more than 100. Through 2025, even during the partial US-China trade ceasefire, China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) added 76 entities to its Unreliable Entity List, against three the year before. The system has also become more surgical. Recent designations target smaller specialized firms, including unmanned systems makers and niche technology suppliers, especially ones producing dual-use (civil-military) components rather than only the large defence primes that dominated earlier rounds. In October 2025, MOFCOM added 14 defence and drone companies to the Unreliable Entity List. Listed entities are barred from importing or exporting to China, blocked from new investment, and their senior executives face entry bans and the revocation of work and residence permits. The legal basis sat in the Unreliable Entity List regulations, but the revised Foreign Trade Law now provides the umbrella under which such actions are explicitly anticipated. For companies operating across US-China lines, the practical implication is that the threshold for designation has dropped, the menu of consequences has expanded, and the legal framework has been hardened against legal challenge. Designation risk is now a baseline planning assumption, not a tail risk. 2. IP shifts from civil protection to trade-enforcement weapon The revised law contains a dedicated intellectual property (IP) chapter, which prohibits imports and exports of infringing goods, enables trade sanctions where IP violations disrupt trade order, and targets specific licensing practices including bundled licensing and restrictions on challenging patent validity. It permits retaliatory measures where foreign jurisdictions fail to protect Chinese IP adequately. This is a meaningful change. For two decades, the foreign complaint about China was not that IP laws did not exist on paper. It was that enforcement was weak, and that the old joint venture structures, combined with informal pressure, amounted to forced technology transfer. The US and EU have both argued that Chinese rules gave Chinese joint venture partners rights that foreign IP holders could not reciprocally enforce. Two changes have run in parallel since then, and they are easy to confuse.  The first is that the old blanket 51% Chinese ownership rule for foreign joint ventures is largely gone. The three old Foreign Invested Enterprise laws were repealed on 1 January 2020 when the Foreign Investment Law took effect. Securities and fund management moved from 49% to 100% foreign ownership between 2018 and 2020. The 50-50 rule for passenger car manufacturing, which had stood since 1994, fell in 2022. The 2024 Negative List, effective 1 November 2024, eliminated all remaining restrictions on foreign investment in Chinese manufacturing. Carve-outs persist in media, basic telecoms, rare earth mining, and parts of education and culture, but the blanket JV-ownership regime is no longer the dominant feature. The second change is that IP itself has migrated from civil protection into trade enforcement. Disputes that would once have been resolved slowly in Chinese courts can now be escalated into customs blocks, licensing restrictions, and cross-border payment friction. Chinese courts have awarded record damages to foreign IP plaintiffs since 2020, partly under Phase One Agreement pressure. So protection has improved. But the state now has direct trade-enforcement leverage where it previously had only the courts, and that leverage cuts both ways. A European licensor of industrial equipment today operates in a country where its patents are more likely to be upheld in court than they were five years ago, and where the state has more direct authority to intervene in licensing disputes than in any previous version of Chinese trade law. Both are features of the same regime. 3. Digital trade is welcomed, but only on China’s terms The revised law incorporates digital trade into the Foreign Trade Law for the first time. It embeds digital trade within China’s existing data governance stack: the Data Security Law, the Personal Information Protection Law, and the Cybersecurity Law.  China views digital trade as part of the conditions which it dictates to allow conditional market access. Foreign companies’ data handling must meet Chinese requirements, their products must pass a cybersecurity review, and their cross-border data flows are properly licensed or cleared.  The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) can effectively bar a foreign supplier from the Chinese market through cybersecurity review. The 2025 Cybersecurity Law amendments added the power to shut down mobile applications and, in severe cross-border cases, freeze assets of foreign organisations. Micron is the cleanest illustration of how this works in practice. In March 2023, the CAC initiated a cybersecurity review of Micron Technology’s products sold in China, the first time the regulator had proactively initiated such a review against a foreign supplier. Two months later, Micron failed the review. CAC cited serious cybersecurity problems and risks to the critical information infrastructure supply chain. Operators of Chinese critical infrastructure were ordered to stop purchasing Micron products. Roughly a quarter of Micron’s 2022 revenue had come from China. Tesla shows the other side. Tesla built a 210-acre data centre in Shanghai in 2021, localized all Chinese vehicle data, and in April 2024 became one of the first automakers to pass the vehicle data security requirements set by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. The result was the lifting of restrictions on Tesla vehicles at Chinese government compounds, airports, and highways.  4. Export controls are critical for rare earths and more The revised Foreign Trade Law does away with blunt export bans. Beijing instead moves toward a calibrated licensing regime that can be tightened, loosened, suspended, and selectively applied.  In October 2025, the country passed a law, requiring Chinese licences for foreign-made products containing even trace amounts of Chinese-origin rare earths or made with Chinese rare earth processing technology. That instrument mirrors a tool Washington has used for decades to restrict semiconductor exports. Its adoption by Beijing is not a coincidence. The concentration that makes this leverage credible is not in dispute. The International Energy Agency reports that China holds an average 70-percent market share across 19 of the 20 most strategic minerals in its role as the leading refiner. That dominance is the foundation on which the licensing regime stands. There is already an example of this. In April 2025, in response to the Trump administration’s tariffs, China imposed case-by-case export licensing on seven heavy rare earth elements including dysprosium, terbium, samarium, and yttrium, together with related compounds and magnets.   Export volumes cratered. With other rare earth prices reaching up to six times Chinese levels, carmakers in the US, Europe, and elsewhere reported production cuts. Some temporarily shut down factories for lack of permanent magnets. Following the Trump-Xi summit in Busan on 30 October 2025, Beijing suspended several of the October 2025 measures for one year. It will turn export controls on and off as a diplomatic instrument. 5. Trade enforcement is far more prevalent The revised law integrates trade enforcement with customs authorities, the financial system, and foreign exchange controls. Non-compliance with Chinese trade rules can now trigger customs clearance blocks, FX scrutiny, and payment restrictions.  For most foreign companies, the daily friction of doing business with China is at customs and for financial services.  The revised law unifies the response across the Ministry of Commerce, Customs, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, and the People’s Bank of China. In 2025, previous changes brought the demand for real-name tax reporting for exports, full traceability across export supply chains, and enhanced documentation requirements that demand consistency between invoice records, customs declarations, and foreign exchange receipts. For foreign companies, the practical effect is that compliance is no longer compartmentalized. A trade dispute can become a customs problem, a tax problem, and a payments problem within the same week.  6. Green trade is written in as a future lever The revised law supports green and low-carbon trade, encourages environmentally sustainable imports and exports, and promotes green supply chains and technologies.  Read charitably, this is China aligning its trade regime with its climate commitments and creating opportunities for foreign providers of environmental goods and services.  But read more carefully, it is setting a legal basis to allow market access based on companies’ environmental credentials.  The current green-trade provisions in the Foreign Trade Law are soft and are designed to encourage foreign companies rather than compel. But the architecture is in place for this to change. If Beijing decides in five years that foreign exporters must demonstrate carbon-footprint compliance for certain categories, or that particular imports face environmental review, the law already provides its authority to do so. This is how conditionality has historically been built in China. Frame first, operationalize later. 7. Alignment with international standards is selective  The revised law positions China as aligning with WTO obligations, while preserving regulatory autonomy in national security, data governance, and industrial policy. China makes it clear it will align with international trade rules, when such an alignment serves its interests. For example, compliance could be expected to gain market access for Chinese exporters, predictable rules for Chinese firms operating abroad, and continued WTO participation. It will not align where alignment would constrain its strategic toolkit.  Foreign companies should therefore read Chinese trade policy as simultaneously liberalising and tightening.  Manufacturing is now fully open to foreign investment. Healthcare pilot programmes allow wholly foreign-owned hospitals in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Nanjing, Suzhou, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hainan.  At the same time, the countermeasures toolkit, the export control regime, and the data governance architecture are all becoming more assertive.  For foreign companies, that means treating Chinese trade policy as a portfolio of sector-specific regimes rather than a single posture. The country that welcomes a foreign-owned hospital in Shenzhen is the same country that bans Micron from critical infrastructure procurement.  Both decisions are coherent within Beijing’s new foreign trade framework.

Date: 14/04/2026 Key Takeaways 1. Ireland’s fuel protests have caused nationwide road closures, fuel depot blockades, and airport access disruption. They are the first European case study of how the Strait of Hormuz crisis translates into domestic civil disorder and transport paralysis. 2. The Irish experience will be replicated elsewhere. Several EU countries with high fuel taxation, limited refining capacity, and transport-dependent rural economies are exposed to the same dynamic. 3. European aviation faces a systemic jet fuel shortage within two to three weeks if Hormuz shipping does not resume at meaningful volume. 4. Business travellers should expect rising fares, schedule volatility, and an increasing probability of short-notice cancellations. 5. On 12 April, the government announced relief measures, sharply reducing taxes on fuel until July. The Irish Warning On 7 April 2026, convoys of tractors, trucks, and haulage vehicles began blocking  major motorways across Ireland. The immediate trigger was the sharp increase in petrol and diesel prices driven by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz following the US and Israeli strikes on Iran from 28 February. In Ireland, the price shock was amplified by a pre-existing structure where taxes account for approximately 59% of petrol prices and 52% of diesel prices. Green diesel prices rose from €0.97 per litre in late February to €1.80 per litre in recent weeks, although the government has acted  to mitigate this. The protests escalated rapidly. By 8 April, demonstrators had blockaded  fuel depots in Galway, Limerick, and Cork, including the Whitegate oil refinery, the only operational refinery in Ireland. The Taoiseach described the refinery blockade as an act of national sabotage. By 11 April, around 600 of Ireland’s 1,500 filling stations had run dry . The Defence Forces were deployed to assist police in clearing blockades. County Clare and the Shannon region were at the centre of the disruption. Slow-moving convoys choked the M18 and N18, the principal access routes for Shannon Airport, from the first day. The Shannon-to-Limerick Tunnel was closed.  While Shannon Airport Group confirmed that flights themselves were not delayed by the road protests, reaching the terminal became difficult for travellers dependent on road transport. Then, 11 April saw a separate but symbolically linked incident compounded the picture. A man breached the airport perimeter, climbed onto the wing of a US Air Force C-130 Hercules parked on a remote taxiway, and attacked the fuselage and wing with a hatchet. The aircraft, belonging to the 139th Airlift Wing of the Missouri Air National Guard and en route to a bilateral exercise in Poland, sustained damage. The attack was the latest in a series of security breaches at Shannon linked to opposition to its role as a US military transit hub, a role that has only intensified since the strikes on Iran began.  From Commodity Shock to Civil Disorder Corporations with frequent business travel in Europe should be watching the Irish example closely as the impact of the Strait of Hormuz causes cascading disruptions. International oil prices rise above $100 per barrel; domestic fuel prices spike, potentially amplified by national tax structures; transport-dependent sectors reach a pain threshold; organised protest action targets road networks and fuel supply infrastructure; cascading disruption affects airports, public transport, emergency services, and commercial activity. Ireland was the first EU member state to experience this full chain. The situation went from motorway convoys to full refinery blockades in three days.  The next question for the rest of Europe is where and when this dynamic will be repeated. The conditions for similar protest movements exist across multiple member states. France, with its long history of fuel tax protests, has both the structural exposure and the organisational precedent. Spain and Portugal have active agricultural and haulage unions with proven capacity to blockade. Poland, the Baltic states, and Greece each face combinations of high fuel dependency, limited domestic refining margin, and politically mobilised rural constituencies. The Netherlands and Belgium, as major logistics hubs, are disproportionately exposed to any disruption in overland freight movement. The European Aviation Fuel Outlook The broader European aviation fuel picture is deteriorating on a timeline measured in weeks, not months. On 10 April, ACI Europe, the trade body representing EU airports, wrote to the European Commission warning that a systemic jet fuel shortage would become a reality for the EU if Hormuz shipping did not resume in a significant and stable way within three weeks.  The International Air Transport Association reported  that jet fuel prices rose 103% month-on-month as of March 2026. The final jet fuel cargoes that passed through the Strait of Hormuz before its effective closure were projected  to arrive at European ports around 10 April. After that date, incoming volumes are expected to drop significantly unless the Strait reopens or alternative supply routes are secured at scale.

Date: 10/04/2026  Where?  The Strait of Hormuz, but bears consequences for global supply chains. Who’s involved?  Iranian authorities, global food and fertilizer supply chain. What happened?  On 28/02/2026 , Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz as  a response to strikes by the US and Israel  on strategic targets in Iran, including military sites, Iran’s missile infrastructure, and the Iranian leadership. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has raised concerns about the global energy supply and has caused oil prices to soar. Beyond its role in energy markets, however, the strait is also crucial for transporting critical resources used in fertilizer production,  making it an important supply route for industries that depend on synthetic fertilizers. Analysis The Gulf region is a key producer of fertilizer  and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has therefore raised concerns about fertilizer shortages. The region especially produces nitrogen fertilizers, of which Urea is the most widely used. Nitrogen fertilizers are used for many types of crops, but especially grains, cereals, and leafy crops. Besides the final product, the Gulf region also exports various raw materials used for the production of fertilizer . The region is the source of 44% of the global sulfur trade  which is a critical ingredient of phosphate fertilizers, and an important exporter of natural gas , both a raw material and the primary energy source for the production of most nitrogen fertilizers. Particularly China, Morocco, and Indonesia rely on the Gulf region for their import of sulfur. Furthermore, fertilizer factories in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan have closed down production due to natural gas shortages. India illustrates the scale of what is at stake. As the world's second-largest consumer of nitrogen fertilizers, India produces around 87% of its urea domestically but depends on Gulf imports for the natural gas and raw materials that make that production possible, with 30-40% of nitrogen imports and 70% of finished fertilizer imports sourced from the Gulf. The Indian government has already rationed natural gas to fertilizer plants. Prices are rising and farmers, many of whom were already trapped in poverty cycles and debt before this crisis, have begun hoarding supplies. The worse may be yet to come. A critical pressure point arrives in May, when procurement begins ahead of India's June planting season. These shortfalls will translate directly into reduced yields at the October-November harvest. The global impact would be significant. As the world's second-largest rice and cotton producer, leading milk producer, and largest beef and veal exporter, a significant drop in Indian food output will ripple through global supply chains. The disruption of the fertilizer supply and production chain will most likely result in a shortage and drive up global prices , which will negatively impact food production. The high price of fertilizer will directly increase the price of food . For instance, the price of fertilizer accounts for about 20% of the total cost of grain. Additionally, farmers might choose to delay planting, switch to crops that are less reliant on fertilizers (like legumes), or choose to reduce the amount of fertilizer used, leading to reductions in the eventual yields. As a result, food shortages might occur, specifically for foods produced with fertilizer-reliant crops. Fertilizer shortages are especially impactful as the spring planting season is about to begin, which is the time when most farmers prepare the soil for planting crops. Most farmers order fertilizer in March for April and May. Therefore, decisions farmers make at this moment will directly affect the available food supplies in a few months time , when the crops are supposed to hit the supermarket shelves.  Rising fertilizer and food prices will hit the poorest countries hardest, as they cannot pay for the increased costs, and negatively impact countries that are heavily reliant on imports for these products. Research on the effects of the increased fertilizer prices in 2021 and 2022, when gas prices increased as a result of the Ukraine war, shows that African farmers were most affected. Projections of the current disruption give similar results, with countries in South Asia and Africa specifically facing the potential of largest losses. Besides stimulating crop growth, nitrogen fertilizers are also often used to make IEDs  (improvised explosive devices). Therefore, increased prices for this type of fertilizer might also affect organised crime and terrorist groups that make use of these materials for their explosives. The full extent of these consequences are hard to determine, however possible consequences could include increased smuggling of fertilizers or increased use of other materials that make IEDS, like gunpowder or hydrogen peroxide. Food insecurity is a known destabilizing factor and driver of conflict.  Hence, if food shortages occur, the affected regions are also likely to become more unstable and see an increase in civil unrest and violence. Conclusion and assessment The blockage of the Strait of Hormuz has severely disrupted global supply chains for both natural gas and finished fertilizer products. As the Gulf region serves as a primary hub for nitrogen-based fertilizers and essential raw materials like sulfur, this closure has created an abrupt supply deficit in international markets. The resulting scarcity and surge in prices are projected to have serious implications for global food production, resulting in higher operational costs for farmers and an increased likelihood of widespread food shortages.  The effects of this are especially severe for developing nations and those with a high dependency on agricultural imports, specifically across Southern Asia and Africa, where the capacity to absorb such price shocks is limited. Given that food insecurity historically acts as a significant destabilizing force that can trigger or fuel regional conflicts, the current disruption poses a critical geopolitical threat. This must be considered when evaluating the future stability of impacted regions.

Date: 08/04/2026 Executive Summary The Trump administration's pressure campaign against Cuba is entering a crucial phase as the White House views Havana as its next priority to bring Latin America into line with its policies.   An oil blockade engineered through Venezuela's forced realignment with Washington has effectively collapsed the island's energy infrastructure. The situation is critical: hospitals have shut down, schools are suspended, and normal business has grounded to a halt. Cuba has responded with visible but carefully bounded concessions: a 2,010-person prisoner release framed around Holy Week, permission for diaspora Cubans to invest in island companies, and continued back-channel engagement with US officials. But it is flatly refusing to negotiate its political structure.  The administration is itself divided between Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who wants the Communist Party out, and a president who has described Cuba as "virgin territory" for US business and let a Russian oil tanker through the blockade saying "they have to survive."  That internal contradiction defines the current impasse. Cuba will not get the deal it wants. The US will not get the Cuba it wants. What happens in between, and how long it takes, determines whether the political, business and humanitarian opportunities that Cuba represents remain theoretical or not. The Pressure Campaign   Cuba's energy crisis has a specific and traceable cause. For over two decades, Venezuela supplied Cuba with between 26,000 and 35,000 barrels of oil per day at preferential rates, a subsidy relationship established under Hugo Chávez in 1999 and maintained through Maduro's tenure.  When US forces captured Maduro in January 2026 and Venezuela's acting president Delcy Rodríguez moved quickly to align with Washington, those shipments stopped.  Cuba had no comparable alternative. Russia provides limited volumes. China has been cautious. Iran is under its own US pressure. The result has been a cascade of infrastructure failures that would be difficult to overstate. In March alone, Cuba suffered two nationwide blackouts in a single week. Schools have suspended classes across multiple provinces. Workers in non-essential sectors have been furloughed to reduce energy consumption. Airlines including Cubana de Aviación have canceled long-haul routes because Cuba does not have sufficient jet fuel to operate them. Hospitals are running on backup generators where generators exist; where they do not, patients dependent on powered medical equipment are at direct risk. The Economist Intelligence Unit projects a 7.2 percent GDP contraction in 2026, a figure that represents a 23 percent cumulative decline since 2019. Survey data cited by Cuban economists suggests 80 percent of the population believes the current crisis is worse than the Special Period - the decade following Soviet collapse in 1991, during which the average Cuban lost up to five and twenty-five percent of their body weight. Trump allowed a Russian-flagged tanker to reach Cuban waters in late March. He described it as humanitarian: "They have to survive." A second is now on the way. The White House subsequently stated it was not a policy change.  That clarification reflects the administration's actual strategy accurately: the blockade is calibrated to produce maximum political leverage without triggering a collapse severe enough to generate a refugee crisis, a regional backlash, or a domestic humanitarian optics problem that would constrain Washington's options.  What Washington Wants  The administration does not have a unified Cuba objective. Rubio's position is the more clearly defined. He has long been a hawk against what he perceives as Communist enemies in Cuba and speaks for much of the right-wing Cuban diaspora in Florida.  He has stated publicly and repeatedly that Cuba requires new leadership, a new governing system, and a new economic model. In congressional testimony in January, he said the administration "would love to see the regime there change." In a Fox News interview in early April, he said there would be "more news fairly soon" on Cuba, and reiterated that the economy cannot be fixed without changing the government.  Trump's stated goals are different in emphasis and substance. He has described Cuba as "virgin territory" and has told advisers he sees opportunities in shipping, tourism, construction, and hospitality.  Lawrence Gumbiner, who led the US Embassy in Havana during Trump's first term, has assessed Trump's core interest directly: he wants economic access, not pluralist democracy, and would accept a compliant leadership figure willing to open Cuba's economy on US terms, structured similarly to the arrangement now in place with Rodríguez in Venezuela.  These two positions are not compatible in their end states. Rubio needs the Communist Party gone. Trump needs a counterparty to do business with. Cuba cannot simultaneously be dismantled and bought.

Date: 24/03/2026 Throughout March 2026, Russia has capitalised on a global energy supply shock to generate substantial emergency revenue.  In the first fifteen days of March, the Kremlin extracted  €7.7 billion from fossil fuel exports, averaging €513 million per day, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. This was up from a €472 million daily average in February. The financial surge was made possible due to a confluence of events: the near-complete closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran and the subsequent emergency suspension of US sanctions on Russian oil.  The resulting capital accumulation provides immediate liquidity to a Russian state sustaining significant wartime expenditure and battling constant drone attacks by Ukraine on its oil and gas refineries and pipelines.  The Supply Shock The Strait of Hormuz historically facilitates the transit of roughly one-fifth of global daily oil consumption. Its closure instantly removed a significant volume from global supply, creating an acute procurement crisis, especially for Asian economies dependent on Middle Eastern exports.  Large-scale refineries cannot pause operations when supply chains are severed. Facing immediate operational risk, international buyers moved to secure alternative physical volume under significant time pressure. Despite Russia’s international pariah status due to the Ukraine invasion, the cold reality of economic necessity made it the perfect alternative supplier as one of the largest oil producers in the world. Additionally, the decision  by President Donald Trump to lift sanctions on Russian crude for a month should not be seen as a diplomatic concession, but as a needed market stabilisation measure. Before the waiver, Western price caps blocked the provision of maritime insurance and shipping services to vessels carrying Russian crude above a set price ceiling. Lifting it allows Moscow's tanker fleet to serve as an immediate substitute for disrupted Middle Eastern supply.  India moved fastest. With its refining capacity far exceeding domestic crude production, Indian buyers had the most urgent need for alternative baseload. Its imports  of Russian crude surged 50 percent in the first half of March compared to February. This is a systemic shift in Russia’s short and middle-term financial outlook. Russian oil arriving at Indian ports moved from trading below Brent to commanding an estimated $5 premium over it. Because Russian extraction costs are relatively fixed, that price shift translates directly into margin. Financial Times market modelling in mid-March estimated  Russia would make a surplus of $110 million to $150 million per day. The longer the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, the more this will increase.   A chart comparing the price of Brent (blue) and Russia Urals crude (red). Source: Sky News. A Fiscal Tourniquet The capital generated by the Hormuz supply shock buys Moscow time, munitions, and short-term budgetary relief. But it does not address the structural condition of a wartime economy dependent on degrading and actively targeted hydrocarbon infrastructure. The €7.7 billion influx in early March, and the billions that follow, are a great help. But unless the war drags on for far longer, it will not be enough for Russia to make a sustainable financial recovery.  Before the March supply shock, the Kremlin was drawing down sovereign reserves to cover wartime expenditure. The National Wealth Fund held approximately  $130 billion in liquid assets at the start of the war. That buffer had fallen to an estimated $50 billion by early 2025. The estimated $150 million daily surplus generated by the Hormuz premium directly offsets. In an economy utterly dominated by wartime expenditure, this can cover soldier signing bonuses, munitions procurement, and near-term budget gaps.  But the Russian economy’s dependency on oil revenue has left it in stagflation . The state has shifted to a war-economy model, redirecting civilian industrial capacity toward the defense sector. The civilian economy contracted  for three consecutive quarters through late 2025. Foreign direct investment has cratered. To finance a 2026 federal budget deficit projected  at 3.8 trillion rubles ($49 billion), the Kremlin has raised  the corporate profit tax  to 25% and the VAT as high as 22%, both of which are accelerating domestic inflation.  When the energy market stabilizes and the Hormuz premium disappears, Russia will revert to its previous position: heavily sanctioned, structurally constrained, and without internal growth mechanisms to compensate. Why Ukraine Targets the Infrastructure Ukraine has exploited this weakness. Kyiv has systematically targeted Russian refineries, oil depots, and pipeline networks on the calculation that degrading the physical supply chain is the most effective way to constrain Russian finances. The scale of the campaign is significant. Across 2024, 2025, and into early 2026, Ukraine has executed  around 200 confirmed strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, hitting almost half of Russia's 38 major refineries, including the Rosneft Ryazan plant , the Volgograd refinery,  and the Slavneft-YANOS facility in Yaroslavl.  On March 23, Ukrainian drones struck  the Russian oil port of Primorsk, on the Baltic Sea. At various points, these strikes have taken up  to 17% of Russia's total refining capacity offline, prompting emergency bans on domestic gasoline exports to protect military and agricultural fuel supply. A map of Russian refineries. Red, orange and yellow icons have been struck or targeted by Ukraine. Source: Caspian Policy Center, March 2026. The Expanding Strike Radius Ukrainian long-range drone development has shifted the geographic scope of the conflict. Its ordnance now has a range exceeding 2,000 kilometers. Importantly, these drones are not constrained geographically, as is the case with several missile systems. This has been confirmed through strikes on the Lukoil-Ukhtaneftepererabotka refinery  in the Komi Republic in February 2026 and the Antipinsky refinery  in the Tyumen region of Siberia. That range places the majority of Russia's industrial and hydrocarbon infrastructure, including facilities in the Urals and western Siberia, within operational reach. This creates a difficult resource allocation problem for the Russian Ministry of Defense.  Air defense assets must be distributed to defend the frontline, industrial bases, energy infrastructure, military bases, airfields, and major cities. There are simply too few air defense assets to provide sufficient coverage among these locations, meaning some are left without any significant cover, leading to predictable outcomes once targeted. Frontline Attrition The revenue surplus also cannot reverse current battlefield momentum.   Throughout 2025, Russian forces were unable  to sustain combined-arms offensives, advancing at a glacial pace while incurring significant casualties. In early 2026, the Ukrainians also conducted a series of localized counterattacks which were accelerated by Russia’s sudden loss of Starlink, as SpaceX, Starlink’s owner, moved to blacklist unverified systems, which the Russians depended on due to sanctions. The reallocation of Russian air defense assets away from the contact line has given Ukrainian forces greater operational freedom. That has enabled Ukrainian infantry to degrade fortified Russian defensive positions and apply pressure to critical logistical nodes in the Donbas and Zaporizhzhia sectors. Domestic Friction The situation in Russia is worsened by escalating controversy at home. Since early March, the government has initiated  severe internet throttling and localized communications blackouts across major cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg.  The recent targeted bans on Telegram and other widely used apps and social media reflect a profound state insecurity regarding domestic stability and may be the precursor to a more permanent type of information control. This has led to surprising protests, with even a traditionally pro-state newspaper publishing direct criticism  of the communication blackouts. Conclusion In the current landscape, Dyami views the fiscal windfall as a temporary bonus rather than an early sign of Russian economic stabilisation.  The Hormuz-driven fiscal windfall is real, but its strategic value is constrained by the same conditions that have made Russia so vulnerable. Moscow can use the surplus to cover immediate wartime expenditure, soldier bonuses, and near-term budget shortfalls. It cannot use it to reconstitute degraded refining infrastructure, replace sanctioned industrial components, or reverse its profound recession. The emergency US sanctions waiver applies strictly to crude oil exports, not to the import of high-technology components needed to repair and maintain oil refineries. Worse, the extra injection of cash may worsen inflation. Injecting surplus petrodollars into a war economy operating at full industrial capacity, with a severe labour shortage and no meaningful civilian output growth, will only accelerate price instability.

Utrecht, 7 September 2023 – Dyami Academy proudly welcomes Charlotte Bakker, an accomplished training actress and contributor, to its team of experts dedicated to enhancing security and awareness across diverse industries. Charlotte Bakker joins Dyami Academy With a rich background in theater and a proven track record as a theater director, Charlotte's unique talents will play a vital role in advancing Dyami Academy's mission. Charlotte Bakker's journey in the world of performing arts began in the theater, where her passion for storytelling and captivating audiences took root. Her experiences as a theater director allowed her to refine her skills in creating compelling narratives and engaging performances. Now, as a member of Dyami Academy, Charlotte artfully blends her theatrical expertise with a strong commitment to improving security awareness in various sectors. In her role at Dyami Academy, Charlotte Bakker will focus on developing immersive and lifelike scenarios that serve as essential training tools for organizations looking to enhance security and awareness. Her creative approach to crafting realistic situations will empower businesses, NGOs, and the aviation sector to train their personnel effectively and prepare them for an array of security-related challenges. "We are thrilled to have Charlotte Bakker join Dyami Academy," said Sophie Buur, head of training at Dyami Academy. "Her unique background in theater and her dedication to enhancing security awareness align perfectly with our mission. Charlotte's contributions will undoubtedly help organizations prepare for and respond to security challenges more effectively." Charlotte Bakker's addition to Dyami Academy's team represents a significant step forward in the organization's commitment to providing innovative and immersive training solutions for a safer and more secure future. For more information about Dyami Academy please visit dyami.services or contact us at info@dyami.services. About Dyami Academy Dyami Academy , part of Dyami Security Intelligence Services is a leading provider of security and awareness training solutions for organizations across various sectors. By offering immersive and realistic training scenarios, Dyami Academy equips personnel with the knowledge and skills needed to respond effectively to security-related challenges. Through a commitment to innovation and excellence, Dyami Academy strives to create a safer and more secure world for all.

Date: 21/03/2026 Three weeks into the US-Israeli campaign against Iran, the security environment across the Gulf has continued to deteriorate. The conflict shows no credible signs of resolution. Iran's offensive capacity, while degraded, remains sufficient to sustain daily strikes across the Gulf and even new targets significantly further afield than anticipated.  Energy infrastructure has been systematically targeted and gas fields, oil tankers, and even nuclear sites are now clearly viable targets. The continued blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has not only sent fuel prices skyrocketing, it has also severely affected fresh food and water supply chains.  Besides this, both Israel and the US continue to send mixed messaging about the potential for a ground incursion into Iran. Dyami’s assessment is that, even without “boots on the ground,” the situation in Gulf States and neighboring countries (UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Iraq) will worsen before it improves.  We urge all companies, NGOs, and multinational organisations with staff and families in the Gulf to reassess their presence now. We recommend to move non-essential personnel to safety while the means to do so remain available, based on a realistic assessment of what the coming weeks are likely to bring. Over the past three weeks, Dyami has been actively working with organisations across the region to plan and execute the safe relocation of hundreds of staff and their families. If your organisation has personnel in the Gulf and wishes to assess its exposure or plan a bespoke evacuation , please reach out to us directly at info@dyami.services . The Nuclear Dimension The Natanz uranium enrichment complex was struck the morning of 21/03, without leakage of radioactive material, according to Iran. Iran informed the IAEA, which confirmed no off-site radiation increase was detected and stated it is investigating. IAEA Director General Grossi has reiterated calls for military restraint to avoid a nuclear accident. This follows ordnance striking the site of the Bushehr nuclear power plant on 17/03, with a projectile landing just 350 meters from the reactor.  The combination of active strikes near nuclear sites and degraded monitoring capability represents a category of risk that has no precedent in this conflict and no reliable mitigation outside a halt to operations. Clients should be aware that a radiological incident, however low its current probability, would trigger immediate and unplanned evacuations across a wide geographic area with very limited notice. The Strait of Hormuz and the Humanitarian Consequence The Strait remains effectively closed to normal commercial traffic. Iran has established an IRGC-run registration and vetting system requiring extensive disclosure of vessel ownership and cargo destination, with at least nine ships understood to have used the corridor and one tanker reported to have paid approximately $2 million for transit clearance. The system provides no guarantee of safety, with rogue IRGC factions assessed as capable of seizing or delaying vessels regardless of clearance status. The humanitarian consequences of the closure are now becoming acute. Saudi Arabia imports more than 80% of its food, the UAE approximately 90%, and Qatar around 98%. The majority of food shipments to the region transit the Strait. With the waterway effectively blocked, alternative routes are costlier, slower, and unable to replace the volume of flow. Approximately 20,000 sailors aboard 3,000 commercial ships are stranded in the Persian Gulf, with reports of fuel and drinking water shortages onboard. The World Food Programme has warned that supply chain disruption may reach the most severe level since the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war in 2022. Shipping companies continue to refuse transit given the insurance environment, and wartime clauses in freight contracts have activated, giving carriers the right to divert shipments to alternative ports. The food security situation across the Gulf will worsen materially with each additional week of closure. Evacuation Assessment Governments across the region have largely stopped evacuation operations and recommend that citizens seeking to leave should use commercial flights. However, while local carriers are operating some flights, most international carriers have not reinstated suspended routes to the Gulf and the broader Middle East and have limited plans to do so.   The operational environment can change rapidly. Dubai International Airport (DXB) has been forced into temporary closures multiple times in the past week alone.  Dyami's assessment is that the conflict will continue for at minimum several more weeks and more likely longer. There is no credible ceasefire framework in place, no agreed US or Israel war objective, and Iran retains sufficient military capacity to sustain pressure across the Gulf indefinitely. Commercial Flight Status Emirates and flydubai are operating heavily restricted schedules from Dubai, prioritising stranded passenger clearance over new bookings.  Etihad is running a limited return service from Abu Dhabi to select hubs. Qatar Airways is operating a reduced schedule subject to rolling airspace clearances. Gulf Air has suspended hub operations in Bahrain entirely. El Al is running a minimal network from Tel Aviv, currently limited to six non-stop flights to New York designated for American citizens. British Airways has frozen all routes to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Amman, and Tel Aviv until at minimum 31 May. Singapore Airlines has cancelled Dubai indefinitely. KLM and Air France suspensions are being pushed back repeatedly without confirmed resumption dates. Air Canada, Lufthansa Cargo, Philippine Airlines, AirBaltic, Aegean, Finnair, and Oman Air have all suspended Gulf and Levant routes until dates ranging from late March to late October. The suspension of international carriers is now compounding an emerging jet fuel shortage that is acute in several key markets. Australia holds reserves for fewer than 30 days. Vietnam's major importers have warned of default in April. China's hard ban on refined fuel exports, combined with South Korea and Thailand's export restrictions, has removed significant jet fuel supply from the Asian market at precisely the moment that rerouted flights around Iranian, Iraqi, and Israeli airspace are consuming more fuel per sector than normal operations. IATA has warned ticket prices could rise by up to 9%. The industry can absorb a geopolitical premium for weeks. It cannot absorb a structural fuel supply contraction of this scale for months. Dyami's assessment is that clients should not plan around a commercial aviation recovery in the near term.

Date: 12/03/2026 Executive Summary On 7 March 2026, twelve Latin American leaders gathered at Trump National Doral, a golf course in Miami, and signed a document. This document, named the Doral Charter, creates a new US-led regional security framework called the Shield of the Americas. And within this is the Counter-Cartel Coalition, a seventeen-nation military alliance chaired by President Trump and committed to using lethal force against transnational criminal organisations. However, membership in the Shield of the Americas appears to be based on a paramount governing logic: Washington will protect you if you side with the United States economically and kick China out. The U.S. offers security guarantees, financial assistance, and trade access to governments that remove Chinese telecommunications infrastructure, replace Chinese port scanning technology, and cancel subsea cable projects connecting the region to Chinese networks. The administration frames this as the Donroe Doctrine (a pun on Donald Trump and the Monroe Doctrine) that asserts the U.S. right to remove opponents already present in the hemisphere. We’ve already seen it in action with the January capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas. But the summit was also significant for who was not there. Canada, Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia, four of the hemisphere's largest economies and three of the primary drivers of the drug trafficking supply chain, were absent.  All have left-leaning governments. All have stood up in some way to Trump. None of them were invited. An alliance seeking to fight cocaine without the main cocaine producer and two critical drug through-points has a problem. Signatories to the Shield of the Americas. Context  The Donroe Doctrine: The Trump administration has formalised a policy it calls the Donroe Doctrine, a portmanteau of Donald Trump and the Monroe Doctrine, asserting the U.S. right to intervene militarily anywhere in the Western Hemisphere to remove foreign rivals. On 3 January 2026, U.S. forces raided Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's compound in Caracas, captured him, and flew him to New York to face drug charges. It was the first time the United States had forcibly removed a sitting head of state in the region in the modern era. Last year, it renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. The Counter-Cartel Coalition. This is a seventeen-nation military alliance whose members have committed to lethal force against drug trafficking organisations. In the week before the Miami summit, US and Ecuadorian forces conducted joint strikes against the Comandos de la Frontera in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Since September 2025, U.S. naval and air assets have carried out 45 strikes against drug vessels in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, killing over 150 people, including in the territorial waters of St. Vincent and the Grenadines without that government's authorisation. Project Vault.  The Shield also announced the creation of Project Vault, a U.S. Export-Import Bank programme that offers governments financing and tariff reductions in exchange for exclusive U.S. access to critical mineral reserves and the removal of Chinese technology from their infrastructure. In practice, this means systematically ejecting Chinese companies from contracts about telecommunications, transport, infrastructure, and mineral rights. 5G networks, replacing Nuctech port scanners with U.S.-approved alternatives, and cancelling cable projects that connect to Chinese network infrastructure. Argentina's $20 billion bailout is conditional on U.S. lithium extraction rights. Bolivia entered Shield membership through lithium negotiations that displaced an existing Chinese joint venture. Panama has already completed the technology overhaul and serves as the template other signatories are expected to follow. The Americas Energy Compact.  Before Maduro's capture, Venezuela's oil moved through Chinese and Russian trading infrastructure. That has now changed. The U.S. Treasury has issued licences for Venezuelan oil exports to private companies operating outside Chinese supply chains, and state gold producer Minerven is now shipping up to 1,000kg of gold doré per consignment to U.S. refineries via Trafigura. Across the rest of the region, U.S. LNG and nuclear technology are being offered as replacements for Chinese-financed dams, grids, and generation capacity in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Central America. The Shield of the Americas: What Happened? The summit at Trump National Doral was a signing ceremony for an architecture that had already been built, deal by deal, base by base, over more than a year. Paraguay On 15 December 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Foreign Minister Rubén Ramírez Lezcano signed a Status of Forces Agreement in Washington that grants U.S. military and civilian personnel operating in Paraguay full immunity from local prosecution -- legal status equivalent to diplomatic staff. Any use of force during joint operations falls exclusively under U.S. criminal jurisdiction. Critics in the region have called it a formalisation of impunity. The administration calls it interoperability. In exchange, Paraguay received an $11 million military modernisation package: fast patrol boats for river border control, advanced night-vision and tactical equipment, and an accelerated contract with Northrop Grumman for a radar system providing 100% national airspace coverage. That last element matters. The Paraguayan Chaco has historically been one of the hemisphere's most active corridors for narco-flights operating below radar coverage. It no longer is. U.S. Navy SEALs are already conducting special forces training in-country. The $11 million buys Washington a permanent forward presence in the Tri-Border Area -- the hemisphere's primary node for illicit finance, Hezbollah-linked money flows, and First Capital Command cartel logistics -- without the political cost of a formal base. The deal was ratified by Paraguay's Chamber of Deputies on 10 March 2026, just three days after the Doral summit, by a vote of 53 to 8. The Senate debate was contentious -- sovereignty concerns were raised and largely ignored. What settled it was the promise of Project Vault financing and inclusion in the U.S. technology replacement programme. Paraguay is the first country to legislatively codify the Doral Charter's lethal force mandate into domestic law. Ecuador Ecuador's transformation over the past fourteen months has been the most dramatic of any signatory state. President Daniel Noboa declared an internal armed conflict in January 2024 after a wave of cartel violence that included a live television studio takeover and mass prison massacres that killed over 450 inmates since 2021. Washington responded with hundreds of millions of dollars in security assistance across Navy and Air Force modernisation and the establishment of vetted counter-trafficking units trained by Homeland Security Investigations. In November 2024, Ecuador adopted the U.S. DARTTS AI and machine learning customs profiling system, integrating its port screening infrastructure directly into American intelligence architecture. In December 2025, U.S. military personnel and intelligence were deployed to the former U.S. base in Manta, weeks after Ecuadorian voters rejected a referendum that would have formally permitted foreign military bases on national soil. By 3 March 2026, US SOUTHCOM was announcing joint operations publicly. U.S. and Ecuadorian forces struck Comandos de la Frontera positions in the Amazon. The same day, a coordinated U.S.-Ecuador-Europol operation dismantled a Los Lobos trafficking network operating into Belgium and the Netherlands. Noboa imposed nightly curfews across four provinces -- Guayas, Los Ríos, El Oro, and Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas -- running from 15 to 31 March, covering the near-entirety of Ecuador's cocaine supply chain from the Colombian border to the container port. At the Miami summit, Noboa expelled the Cuban ambassador as a public demonstration of alignment, pledged to serve as the Coalition's operational vanguard, and formalised U.S. access to Eloy Alfaro Air Base and Galapagos facilities for regional power projection.   Argentina No government in the hemisphere has moved faster toward Washington than Javier Milei's Argentina. Since taking office, Milei has visited the United States sixteen times, withdrawn Argentina from BRICS, and welcomed US SOUTCOM officials to Ushuaia, a strategic port the administration has designated as an access point for Antarctic operations. The ideological alignment is genuine: Milei is a radical libertarian who frames his relationship with Washington as an existential geopolitical necessity rather than a transactional calculation. The transaction is substantial nonetheless. Argentina received a $20 billion bailout backed by the U.S. and multilateral partners, explicitly linked to securing lithium extraction rights under Project Vault. At the Miami summit, Milei was a featured speaker and announced Argentina Week 2026, a major investment roadshow in New York targeting American capital for the country's energy and mining sectors. Argentina's lithium reserves, among the largest in the world, are now effectively committed to the U.S. supply chain decoupling programme. Chile Chile presents the most complex transition of any signatory state, because it is mid-handover. The outgoing Gabriel Boric government was excluded from the summit and has spent its final weeks resisting U.S. pressure to abandon the proposed Valparaíso-to-Hong Kong subsea cable, a project the administration has designated a red line on data sovereignty grounds. That resistance ended on 11 March. President José Antonio Kast and his nominated Defence Minister Fernando Barros attended all major sessions at Doral despite Kast not yet holding office, pledged Counter-Cartel Coalition membership as a first act of government, and signalled that cancellation of the subsea cable will follow inauguration. The transition from one of the region's most vocal critics of US interventionism to a full Shield signatory took less than a week. The Kast government's broader posture, described by the incoming administration itself as Trumpista  on crime and immigration, suggests Chile will move quickly toward full technology compliance. Venezuela Venezuela was not invited to the Doral Summit but it is feeling its weight. The 3 January 2026 raid on Maduro's compound in Caracas and his transfer to New York to face drug conspiracy charges established the Donroe Doctrine's outer boundary: the United States will remove a sitting head of state by military force if it judges him sufficiently adversarial. The country is now governed by an interim administration under Delcy Rodríguez, which has agreed to re-establish diplomatic and consular relations with Washington and accepted the commercial arrangements that followed. Those arrangements are substantial. The Treasury Department has issued licences for Venezuelan oil exports to designated private companies, reintegrating Venezuelan production, which represents approximately 17% of global reserves, into US-accessible supply chains. Minerven, Venezuela's state gold producer, has agreed to ship up to 1,000kg of gold doré bars per consignment to U.S. refineries via Trafigura. Venezuela did not attend the Miami summit officially, but its energy and security planning is fully integrated into the Shield framework.   Panama Panama's alignment with the Shield predates the summit and established the operational template for technology compliance that every other signatory is now measured against. President José Raúl Mulino has committed to removing Chinese-linked companies from Canal operations and replacing Chinese-manufactured port infrastructure with U.S. and allied alternatives. The Nuctech port scanning systems that Washington designated as potential espionage infrastructure have been removed. The Canal itself is being commercially reoriented away from Chinese logistics operators. At the Miami summit, Mulino formalised these commitments and secured expanded U.S. security assistance in return. Panama's importance to the Shield extends beyond symbolism. Control of the Canal's technology and scanning infrastructure gives the United States visibility over one of the world's most critical maritime chokepoints. That visibility was previously shared with Chinese-manufactured systems. It no longer is. Bolivia Bolivia's shift under President Rodrigo Paz has been striking. For years, Bolivia's foreign policy was explicitly anti-imperialist, aligned with Venezuela and hostile to Washington. Paz has abandoned that posture in favour of a pragmatic calculation: Bolivia holds some of the world's largest lithium reserves, and Washington is offering money for access to them. A signal of alignment was Bolivia's withdrawal from the Hague Group, a coalition focused on opposing Israeli military operations in Gaza, a foreign policy adjustment made specifically to bring Bolivian positions into closer alignment with the Trump administration's regional preferences. Lithium negotiations with Washington are now underway under the Project Vault framework. Bolivia is the signatory most exposed to Chinese economic decoupling risk: Chinese infrastructure investment is deeply embedded across the country's energy and transport sectors, and the financial benefits of the U.S. partnership have not yet materialised to offset what severance of those relationships will cost.   The Absent Three The governments of Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia were not absent from the Shield of the Americas by oversight. Each absence carries distinct implications. Mexico, under President Claudia Sheinbaum, has been publicly characterised by the Trump administration as a state where the cartels are functionally in control. Trump has threatened massive import tariffs and raised the prospect of unilateral military operations on Mexican soil. Sheinbaum has responded by extraditing dozens of senior traffickers to the United States and taking U.S. intelligence to kill the most dangerous drug trafficker in the country, CJNG boss El Mencho. But the tariff threat is unresolved and active. Brazil, under President Lula, has condemned the Maduro capture as a violation of the UN Charter and positioned itself as the hemisphere's primary institutional resistance to the Donroe Doctrine. Brazil's deep commercial integration with China makes the Shield's decoupling logic existentially threatening to its economic model. And Colombia, under President Petro, has carried out joint operations with Ecuador, while being heavily critical of Trump and refusing the premises of the Shield. The three governments collectively represent the majority of regional GDP, the primary narcotics production zones, and the most significant trade corridors on the continent.

Date: 06/03/2026 Context At approximately 11:30  on 5 March 2026 , Azerbaijani authorities reported that four drones entered Azerbaijani airspace and struck locations inside the Nakhichevan exclave , damaging parts of the Nakhchivan International Airport  terminal building and a field near a school; two injuries  were reported. Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a formal statement condemning the attacks and demanding an explanation from the Iranian Government, an investigation, and measures to prevent a recurrence. Iran’s Foreign Minister denied that any projectiles were launched from Iranian territory  towards Azerbaijan, instead referring to the role of Israel in “diverting public opinion and undermining Iran’s good relations with its neighbours”. This constitutes the first attack of its kind on Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave and expands the areas affected by the ongoing Iran–US/Israeli conflict. Azerbaijan’s Baku FIR issued two NOTAMs temporarily restricting airspace on 5 March 2026, citing reduced ATC capacity and modified routing. These measures may cause reroutes and delays, especially for traffic transiting southern Azerbaijan and at FIR boundary crossings, although typical air traffic through the area is generally low. ATC sector closure:  Baku FIR ACC Sector South is closed for operational reasons from 07:39 to 19:39 UTC. Expect ATC rerouting/holding and potential flow restrictions through the southern portion of Azerbaijani airspace. Waypoint outages and reroute guidance:  Waypoints ULDUS, BATEV, LALDA, PARSU are temporarily unavailable from 15:00 UTC (5 Mar) to 03:00 UTC (6 Mar). Flights to/from Yerevan FIR should use MATAL as the boundary entry/exit point; flights to/from Turkmenbashi FIR should use MARAL/METKA/RODAR/LARGI. Analysis: airspace risks Aviation risk reporting indicates that the immediate operational impact was driven less by confirmed runway damage and more by airspace risk controls: a NOTAM temporarily closed the southern sector of the UBBA (Baku FIR) around Nakhchivan (UBBN), while noting that the initial visible damage appeared concentrated on the terminal area (with no confirmed runway impact at the time of writing). Flight-tracking sources showed at least one civilian airliner diverting back to Baku, and local media cited the airport/press service as saying that flights were temporarily suspended, supporting the assessment that connectivity to the exclave was disrupted immediately after the incident. Nakhchivan’s airport is a dual-use (civil/military) facility with few international routes. The airport is known to have housed Turkish-acquired (or Turkish-operated) Bayraktar TB2 combat drones as of 2024, kept in hangars near the airport, as well as Mi-35-type gunship helicopters based at the same site. This dual-use role may increase the airport’s exposure to risk in the event of further attacks. Hangers housing military helicopters and TB2 Bayraktar UAVs Source: Google, Airbus, image date 05 March 2024 Despite perceptions of cordial relations, there are signs that Azerbaijan and Iran remain wary of one another. Iran’s mistrust largely stems from Azerbaijan’s strategic partnership with Israel, through which Baku has purchased billions of dollars’ worth of advanced weaponry and supported joint production with Israeli defence firms inside Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan, meanwhile, is primarily concerned about Iran’s influence—however limited—within its society, particularly among religious communities, as well as Tehran’s broader efforts to expand its regional footprint in the South Caucasus. In response, Baku has sought closer ties with Turkey, partly out of concern that Iranian influence could grow. Bayraktar TB2 UAVs in a hangar at Nakhchivan International Airport Looking ahead Azerbaijan is likely to treat the incident as justification for a tighter air-defence and security posture around Nakhichevan, including stricter local airspace controls, sharper attribution messaging, and potentially more restrictive border management—especially given that Azerbaijan’s land borders remain closed to routine passenger movement under the “special quarantine regime”. Further incidents, whether attributable to Iran, a third party, or non-state actors operating from within Iran, would raise the risk of escalation and more frequent NOTAM-driven constraints, such as sector closures, waypoint suspensions and enforced reroutes. If the northern Caucasus air corridor becomes unreliable or closes, there are few comparable alternatives in the region, and a much larger share of long-haul traffic would be forced to concentrate on the Saudi/Red Sea corridor, intensifying congestion, delays and capacity strain in airspace that is already heavily burdened by rerouted flights.

Date:   06/03/2026 Executive Summary Ecuador is entering an active phase of US-supported military operations against domestic criminal groups designated as foreign terrorist organisations (FTOSs) by the United States government. On 3 March 2026, US Southern Command announced joint operations with Ecuadorian forces targeting “terrorist groups.” The US has designated Los Choneros and Los Lobos, the two principal armed criminal networks controlling the country's drug trafficking infrastructure, as FTOs. However, the first action was aimed at Comandos de la Frontera, a Colombian drug trafficking group also operating in northern Ecuador. The same day, a coordinated US-Ecuador-Europol operation dismantled a Los Lobos trafficking network operating into Belgium and the Netherlands. Ecuador's President Noboa has imposed nightly curfews across four provinces, including Guayas, home to Guayaquil's José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport, effective 15–31 March 2026. Interior Minister John Reimberg also told  people in these provinces on March 3 to “stay at home. We are at war.” On March 4, Ecuador revealed US assets had helped plan the operation against Comandos de la Frontera, a heavily armed Colombian drug trafficking group which also operates in Ecuador. While the full extent of US involvement was not revealed, Ecuador’s Joint Command said the US provided logistical and operational support. For aviation operators, the immediate operational consideration is a NOTAM issued in January 2026 covering the Eastern Pacific, citing military activities and GPS interference, valid through 17 March 2026. This reflects active US maritime interdiction operations against narco-trafficking vessels, a campaign that has intensified significantly since late 2025. Ground operations and curfew enforcement in the Guayas province present secondary considerations for crew movements and ground handling. This is assessed as an elevated but stable risk environment. Scheduled commercial operations at GYE are not currently disrupted. The situation is developing, with military engagement expected to deepen through March 2026 and potentially beyond. Details Who US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and Ecuadorian armed forces and National Police joint operations against Comandos de la Frontera, as well as Ecuador's Los Choneros and Los Lobos, both designated FTOs by the US. What Ecuador is simultaneously the subject of overlapping but distinct operations. At sea, US forces are conducting maritime interdiction in the Eastern Pacific targeting narco-trafficking vessels. On the ground, Ecuador is operating under a national state of emergency declared in January 2026, with nightly upcoming curfews imposed across four provinces, including Guayas, home to Guayaquil's international airport, set to run 15–31 March 2026. Since March 3, US assets supported Ecuadorean troops against drug trafficking interests, a situation which may ramp up through March. These lines of operation are coordinated: the maritime campaign disrupts outbound shipments, the ground operations target the domestic infrastructure of the organisations moving them, and international takedowns close off the European end of the supply chain. The result is the most significant security mobilisation Ecuador has seen since President Noboa declared an internal armed conflict in January 2024. Where The Eastern Pacific is the maritime theatre, where US forces are conducting interdiction operations against narco-trafficking vessels in international waters. On the ground, the operational focus is set to be concentrated in the four provinces placed under nightly curfew from March 15:  Guayas, which contains the Port of Guayaquil, the primary exit point for Ecuadorian cocaine; Los Ríos, the inland transit corridor connecting the Colombian border to the coast, dotted with stash houses and clandestine airstrips;  El Oro, the southern gateway bordering Peru and home to the Port of Machala;  and Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, the logistics junction linking the Pacific coast to the Andean interior.  These four provinces map almost exactly onto the cocaine supply chain from border crossing to container ship.  When 2024 - Ecuador receives hundreds of millions of dollars in US security assistance across Navy and Air Force modernisation, elite vetted police units, and direct operational support. November 2024 - Ecuador adopts the US DARTTS AI/ML customs profiling system, integrating port screening into American intelligence infrastructure. September 2025 -  US State Department designates Los Choneros and Los Lobos as FTOs. December 2025 - The US deployed military personnel and equipment to a former U.S. base in Manta, Ecuador for a “temporary operation” focused on anti-narcotics and intelligence gathering. This move followed a November 2025 referendum where Ecuadorian voters rejected a proposal to allow foreign military bases in the country.  January 2026:  NOTAM issued over the Eastern Pacific citing military activities and GPS interference, signalling activation of US maritime interdiction operations. March 3, 2026:  SOUTHCOM publicly announces joint operations against designated terrorist organisations. Ecuador imposes nightly curfews across four provinces to run from March 15-31. Why Ecuador sits between Colombia and Peru, the world's two largest coca producers, and handles an estimated 70% of global cocaine exports, the bulk of it leaving through the Port of Guayaquil. The money and weapons received over the past decade have turned gangs like the Choneros and Lobos into transnational criminal enterprises with the resources to challenge the state directly. Faced with an Ecuadorian state both incapable of dismantling these groups alone and an administration willing to cooperate closely with Washington, the US administration views Ecuador as the next step in militarizing the Latin American drug war after strikes on drug boats in the Caribbean, seizing President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, and assisting in the killing of Mexican drug trafficker and CJNG boss, El Mencho. How The precise nature and extent of US military involvement as of 3 March 2026 is not fully established. SOUTHCOM's announcement of joint operations against designated terrorist organisations was deliberately unspecific, and Ecuador's Ministry of Defense declaration of a "new phase against narco-terrorism" offered no operational detail. But the convergence of simultaneous developments on 3 March, the SOUTHCOM announcement, the curfew decree, Interior Minister Reimberg's declaration that "we are at war," and the Europol takedown, alongside an active Eastern Pacific NOTAM citing military activities and GPS interference, suggests a coordinated operational activation rather than an incremental policy step.  Analysis Los Choneros and Los Lobos are not conventional criminal targets. Over the past 7-10 years, sustained income has transformed them from street gangs into groups with the financial resources, territorial control, and institutional penetration of a parallel state. Their prison infrastructure alone illustrates the problem: Ecuador's penitentiary system, the site of more than 450 inmate deaths in gang massacres since 2021, functions as an operational headquarters from which leadership communicates, coordinates, and commands. The corruption penetration runs deeper still. The December 2025 arrest of Ecuador's former national police chief on charges of collaboration with Los Lobos confirmed that the institutions being deployed against these organisations, including in collaboration with the U.S., have been systematically compromised by them. Vetted units and HSI-trained TCIUs partially address this problem, but they operate within a broader institutional environment that these organisations have spent years corrupting at every level, from beat officers to the head of the national police. Territorial entrenchment compounds the problem further. In significant parts of Guayas and Los Ríos, Los Choneros, Los Lobos, and other gangs are a form of government. They provide jobs, collect revenue, enforce orders, and even deliver basic services the state does not. Displacing an structure with that degree of community embeddedness requires not just military pressure but sustained state presence and service delivery afterward. Ecuador has demonstrated neither the capacity nor the resources to provide that at scale. All four curfew provinces matter, Guayas is where sustained operations carry the heaviest economic consequences. The Port of Guayaquil is Ecuador's primary trade gateway, the exit point for the bulk of the country's agricultural exports, including bananas, shrimp, and cut flowers, and the entry point for a significant proportion of its imports. José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport handles the majority of Ecuador's international passenger and cargo air traffic. Both operate within a province soon to be under nightly curfew, elevated military presence, and active security operations of uncertain duration. In the short term, curfew hours create manageable but real friction: crew transport, ground handling schedules, and cargo movement require coordination with local operators who are themselves operating under constrained conditions. The more significant risk is duration.  Curfews imposed in environments where the underlying security problem is structurally resistant to rapid resolution tend to get extended.

As governments and airlines fail to come to a consensus about evacuation protocols from countries affected by the Iran conflict, it is Dyami’s strong recommendation that travelers based in Gulf States (UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman) should stay put.  There are three main reasons. 1.  The threat to Gulf residents is lower than it looks. Despite highly visible and disruptive strikes on infrastructure such as Dubai Airport or the Crowne Plaza in Bahrain, Iran’s ability to cause widespread casualties in Gulf States is low. Over the four days of the conflict so far, it has expended thousands of missiles and drones, with a strike rate of less than 10 percent. Excluding Israel and US military personnel, which have borne the brunt of the loss of life on the coalition side, fatalities in Gulf States have remained in single-digits.  2. The airport is a worse place to be than your hotel. As the war continues, even assuming Iran retains deep missile stocks and Gulf interceptor reserves are under pressure, Tehran's ability to materially shift the conflict through conventional strikes diminishes over time. Sustained random attacks on Gulf States would likely trigger Saudi Arabia or the UAE as active belligerents long before they achieved meaningful strategic effect. Thousands of foreign citizens crammed into an airport waiting for evacuation flights makes a far more coherent and appealing target. Furthermore, analysis that the IRGC may have decentralised launch authority to regional commanders, meaning individual strikes may not require central approval, only adds to this fear. 3. Evacuation capacity is finite.  Evacuations are finite resources, especially since only Emirates and Etihad, the UAE’s home airlines, are currently planning any whatsoever. Thousands of people trying to force an early exit creates a logistical "bottleneck" that hampers the movement of high-priority personnel, including essential medical staff, technical recovery teams, and diplomatic security details, whose presence is required to maintain the very infrastructure residents rely on for safety. A premature rush to the gates by non-essential personnel compromises the duty of care for those most at risk. Until a stable air corridor is established and verified by multiple intelligence sources, staying put ensures that these channels remain clear for those whose extraction is a matter of immediate life or death.

Date: 11/02/2026 Summary The New START Treaty has long been a cornerstone of strategic stability between the United States and Russia, placing firm limits on deployed nuclear weapons while providing verification measures that reduced uncertainty and mistrust. With the treaty now expired after its final extension, the world enters a new phase where legally binding constraints on the two largest nuclear arsenals are no longer in place. This article explores what New START achieved, why its expiration matters, and how its absence could reshape geopolitical relations and global security in the years ahead. New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) is a landmark arms control agreement between the United States and the Russian Federation that was designed to limit and bring transparency to the two largest nuclear arsenals in the world. Originally signed in 2010 and entering into force in February 2011, the treaty placed concrete limits on each side’s deployed strategic nuclear forces, including caps on 1,550 deployed strategic warheads, 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and heavy bombers, and a total of 800 deployed and non-deployed launchers, along with comprehensive verification measures such as data exchanges and on-site inspections to reduce the risk of misunderstanding or miscalculation. New START was structured to remain in force for 10 years with an option for a single five-year extension, and in 2021 the United States and Russia agreed to exercise that extension, keeping the treaty legally in force through February 4, 2026. This extension preserved the treaty’s limits and monitoring mechanisms at a time when broader nuclear arms control efforts were under strain, and it reflected a shared interest -despite political tension- in maintaining some structure around strategic nuclear forces. As of February 5, 2026, however, the extension period has officially expired, meaning the New START Treaty is no longer legally binding. Its lapse marks the first time in more than five decades that there are no formal, legally enforceable limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia. The expiration has sparked concern among diplomats, arms control experts, and international organizations, who warn that without a replacement framework the absence of binding limits could lead to a renewed arms race and decline in transparency between the world’s two principal nuclear powers. In September 2025, Russian leadership publicly offered to continue observing the established New START limits for an additional year after the treaty’s expiration, provided the United States agreed to reciprocal action, but no formal extension was agreed. Proposals for new arms control arrangements that might include other nuclear states such as China remain under discussion. This integration of the extension into the New START story shows both the historic role of the treaty in stabilizing nuclear competition and the uncertainty now emerging as it lapses without a direct successor in place.   Looking ahead Looking ahead, the expiration of New START removes one of the last remaining formal guardrails in US–Russia relations and risks accelerating a return to strategic uncertainty. Without binding limits and verification mechanisms, both sides may feel increased pressure to modernize and expand nuclear capabilities, not necessarily because of immediate intent to strike, but because reduced transparency fuels worst-case assumptions. This dynamic could further harden geopolitical relations, deepen mistrust, and increase the risk of miscalculation during periods of crisis, especially as conventional conflicts and cyber operations increasingly overlap with nuclear signaling. At the same time, the absence of a successor treaty may push global arms control into a more fragmented era, where nuclear stability depends less on bilateral agreements and more on shifting alliances, deterrence postures, and emerging technologies such as hypersonic weapons. In this context, nuclear arms control is likely to remain a key strategic issue—not only between Washington and Moscow, but also in broader debates involving China and other nuclear states, potentially reshaping diplomatic leverage and global security priorities for the coming decade.   Conclusion The expiration of New START may look like a dramatic geopolitical rupture, but it does not automatically trigger a new nuclear arms race. The treaty’s end removes legally binding limits on deployed US and Russian strategic nuclear weapons and eliminates formal inspection and transparency mechanisms. That weakens predictability and reduces mutual confidence. At the same time, expanding nuclear forces is not a switch that can simply be flipped. Uploading additional warheads or increasing deployments requires available delivery systems, industrial capacity, trained crews, and time. Russia’s defense industry is heavily burdened by the war in Ukraine, and the United States also faces procurement timelines and budget realities. Structural constraints still shape what is realistically possible. The greater risk is therefore not an immediate surge in warhead numbers, but a gradual erosion of transparency and stability. Without agreed limits and verification, both sides may increasingly plan for worst-case scenarios, slowly intensifying strategic competition over the long term rather than overnight.