Israel’s Vote Solved Nothing, Washington Tests Tehran, and Asia Rearms

Here are five geopolitical developments worth knowing today, and where the details matter.

1. Israel voted. The governing question is still wide open.

Nearly all votes are counted, but neither Benjamin Netanyahu nor Gadi Eisenkot appears able to form a 61-seat coalition without breaking campaign commitments. Netanyahu’s bloc is currently expected to hold 53 seats; Eisenkot’s, 48. Weeks of negotiations may follow, with Netanyahu remaining caretaker prime minister if no coalition emerges.

Worth watching: The election produced numbers. It did not produce a government.

2. Washington is testing whether talks with Tehran are still possible.

Vice President JD Vance reportedly sent a letter to Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei outlining a possible framework for renewed negotiations. President Trump says he approved the outreach. At the same time, Iranian officials described separate Qatari-mediated ideas as unacceptable.

3. North Korea fired around ten ballistic missiles.

South Korea said Pyongyang launched roughly ten short-range ballistic missiles from the Wonsan area toward the sea off its east coast. The missiles flew about 250 kilometers, and Seoul said it was maintaining readiness for additional launches.

The timing matters: tensions are already elevated ahead of Pyongyang’s deadline to activate propaganda loudspeakers along the border.

4. The U.S. and Japan are moving missile production closer together.

Washington and Tokyo finalized an agreement to establish a Japanese production facility for the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile over the next seven years, following a $20.7 billion Pentagon contract.

This is not just about buying weapons. It is another step toward distributing defense production capacity across allied territory.

5. A Western Hemisphere anti-cartel coalition is moving from agreement to operations.

Defense and security leaders from 19 countries met in Santo Domingo to develop an operational campaign plan and governance framework for coordinated action against transnational cartels and so-called narco-terrorist networks. The effort includes intelligence-sharing and combined operations across the Americas and Caribbean.

U.S. officials said recent operations had degraded several maritime trafficking corridors and described the coalition as moving toward targeting the financial, logistics and procurement networks that enable cartels.

Worth knowing

South Africa selected Durban as its preferred candidate to pursue Africa’s first Olympic Games, targeting 2036 or 2040. Ethiopia says it has received 12 Russian Su-35 fighter jets and plans to acquire four S-400 air-defense systems. Christine Lagarde announced she will step down as European Central Bank president in February 2027. The IAEA said it was informed that an employee of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant was killed in a drone attack today. The victim was reportedly a welder at the plant’s centralized repair workshop.

Plus, this:

That’s what mattered today.

— Olga