USA

European leaders talk about Gaza, Hormuz, Tehran and Moscow as though they carry weight there. The continent was not invited to the start of this year's main war, yet it keeps issuing statements. What does it actually want: peace, gas, security, or simply a seat at the table? And why is all this happening now, with gas storage nearly empty, missile stockpiles in the same state, and a budget dispute threatening a political crisis? I am writing from London, and I see the situation at very close range.

Foreign holders are quietly leaving the U.S. Treasury market, and the market will absorb their exit through domestic buyers. The real question is who pays for that digestion. The answer is not a happy one: the cost will fall on the purchasing power of the dollar in your wallet.

A Quiet Exodus Everyone Has Noticed

Labour's delight at the Republican rout didn't outlast a cup of tea going cold. Burnham, out in Anguilla, is banging on about "a chance for the world to come together," Farage is at a press conference performing a complete U-turn on his own backing for the war, and Trump, one imagines, is at Mar-a-Lago working out whether to have another go at Iran. Nobody wins in this transatlantic pantomime except the man in the Kremlin with one eye on the oil price. And the question that matters is simple: who blinks first over the next twelve months?

Republicans have lost both chambers of Congress, and Vice President Vance has openly named the reason: the war with Iran. What exactly did voters say? Why did a market that usually dislikes change respond by rallying? And can the new Congress stop a war the president started without it?

Since mid-autumn, one picture has circulated in Moscow and Washington: Trump, Putin and Xi sit down together in Shenzhen and settle Ukraine's fate. Then Steinmeier went to Beijing and came home with an answer that did not match.

What did the German president actually hear? And why does Moscow want a format that the third participant does not?

What Steinmeier Said

Companies have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on the AI race, only to find that the physical world doesn't accept virtual payment. Power plants, transformers and water can't be bought faster than they can be built. The question is whether the race will end before the first socket appears that can feed a trillion-dollar "mind."

Dark GPUs: A New Asset Class

Over the first ten months of 2026, countries in the region signed documents that pull them in different directions: toward Washington on security, toward Europe on trade, and toward Beijing on political dialogue. We have laid out the events by date and looked at what each one means in practice.

How the Year Unfolded

On October 30, the U.S. State Department approved the possible sale of 500 PAC-3 MSE interceptors to Ukraine for $2.1 billion. The missiles won't arrive before the 2030s. Can Kyiv survive this winter? Why would Moscow rush? And what happens to European security if the war moves faster than the factories?

What Was Actually Approved

With a ceasefire, a nuclear program and the fate of entire regions on the table, Washington has sent the president's son-in-law and an old friend to the negotiating table. What qualifies them? What does the American establishment make of it? And what do flamingos in Albania have to do with any of this?

How we see it in the United States

Who they are

Israeli voters gave neither Benjamin Netanyahu nor Gadi Eisenkot a decisive mandate. Meanwhile, Washington and Tel Aviv are preparing a new phase of the operation against Iran. How do the two developments connect? What do they mean for the region and the world? And where does the current alignment lead?

I am Dr. Hassan, VIGIL Journal's representative for the Middle East and North Africa. I want to take the two stories separately, then show where they intersect.