Hello and welcome back to the Daily Review. | U.S. President Donald Trump has abruptly announced a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, which is scheduled to go into effect at 5 p.m. Eastern time today. Trump said the agreement followed conversations he had with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, both of whom Trump invited to the White House to engage in direct peace talks. | The deal is welcome news for the Lebanese people who have endured a brutal Israeli bombardment in recent weeks. It also comes as the Trump administration prepares for a potential second round of peace talks with Iranian officials, who have maintained all along that Lebanon was supposed to be included in the Pakistan-mediated ceasefire deal they agreed to last week. | Whether the truce holds will depend on whether Israel and Hezbollah share a common understanding of their respective obligations, and agree to abide by them. Soon after the deal was announced, an Israeli security official told Reuters that Israel’s forces have no intention of withdrawing from southern Lebanon while the truce is in effect. That is likely to be a sticking point for Hezbollah, which has signaled it will abide by the ceasefire while maintaining that the continued presence of Israeli troops on Lebanese territory gives it “the right to resist.” | Today at WPR, senior columnist Frida Ghitis argues that Peter Magyar’s big victory against Viktor Orban in Hungary contains some valuable lessons for other countries seeking to push back against the tide of right-wing populism. And Siddhant Kishore goes deep on Pakistan’s misguided war against Afghanistan, which is on pause for now but could reignite again in the near future. | But first, here’s editor-in-chief Elliot Waldman’s take on today’s top story: | NATO’s Expanding Ties With Japan |  | Japanese Defense Minister Koizumi Shinjiro and German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius review an honor guard at the Yokosuka military base, Kanagawa prefecture, Japan, March 22, 2026. (The Yomiuri Shimbun via AP) |
| A major delegation of NATO envoys is visiting Japan this week to discuss deepening security cooperation amid concerns about whether the United States can be trusted to uphold its alliance commitments. | The size of the delegation is unusual, with 30 of the trans-Atlantic alliance’s 32 members attending. The itinerary includes meetings with Japanese Cabinet officials and a tour of the Yokosuka naval base, south of Tokyo. Japanese media outlets reported that the NATO officials are also interested in learning from Japan’s experience in managing ties with the Trump administration. | European powers have long recognized the importance of the Asia-Pacific and have been quietly building regional partnerships for years, with Japan as an anchor for those efforts. As I wrote back in 2021, a growing number of Western powers were even then embracing Japan’s vision for a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific,” with France, Germany and the U.K. all stepping up their joint military cooperation with Japan through a range of joint exercises. | For NATO, a closer relationship with Japan makes sense for a few reasons. For starters … Purchase a subscription now to read the rest and get the full top story in your Daily Review email every day. |
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| | Hungarian voters last Sunday dealt a crushing blow to Hungary’s far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the self-described “illiberal democrat,” bringing an end to his 16 years of consecutive rule. They voted overwhelmingly for Peter Magyar’s Tisza party, which won a two-thirds majority in the legislature. Just as Orban wrote the playbook for the success of far-right populists around the world, Magyar’s victory could provide a blueprint for defeating it, Frida Ghitis writes in her weekly column. |  | Hungary’s Lessons for Democracy | If opponents of right-wing populists elsewhere hope to reprise Peter Magyar’s victory, they will need to learn from Hungary. |
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| | As Pakistan stepped onto the global stage to mediate a ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran, another conflict was simmering with Islamabad’s old foe to the west. While Pakistan’s diplomats shuttled between Washington and Tehran, its armed forces were engaging Afghan Taliban forces along the 2,600-kilometer contested border that separates the two nations. China-mediated peace talks in early April have resulted in a temporary pause in the fighting, but recent failed attempts to secure a comprehensive agreement—combined with Islamabad’s strategic miscalculations—risk reigniting the conflict in the near term, Siddhant Kishore writes. | | | Armenia: “Anti-corruption authorities in Armenia detained 14 people connected to a pro-Russian opposition party on Thursday on suspicion of electoral bribery, less than two months ahead of a parliamentary election in the South Caucasus country,” Reuters reports, citing Armenian media outlets. Ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for June 7, the pro-Russian party, known as Strong Armenia, is currently polling second behind centrist Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party. | As we explained in the Daily Review in March 2025, Armenia’s wars with neighbor Azerbaijan in 2020 and 2023 over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh “combined to distance Yerevan from Moscow—its historical ally and security guarantor—especially after Russian peacekeeping forces stationed in Nagorno-Karabakh did little to prevent Azerbaijan’s 2023 offensive.” That invasion resulted in the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh, as more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians were forced to flee to Azerbaijan. Since then, Armenia has sought to strengthen its political and security ties with both the United States and European Union. For more background on the recent evolution of Armenia’s relationship with Russia, see this Frida Ghitis column from June 2024. | | Taiwan: A bipartisan group of U.S. senators told Taiwanese lawmakers in a letter that the United States will approve pending weapons sales to Taiwan in a matter of weeks and urged Taipei to pass a $40 billion defense budget that is currently stalled in the Legislative Yuan, the country’s parliament. | As Bryce Barros wrote in a WPR briefing in December 2025, the budget sends an important signal to the U.S. that Taiwan is willing to take ownership of its own defense in the face of a growing threat from China. But the “primary obstacle” it faces is passage through the fractious and polarized legislature in Taipei. In the Daily Review in January, Elliot Waldman looked at the origins of the political gridlock that threatens Taiwan’s stepped up defense spending. | | The paid edition of today’s newsletter includes additional On Our Radar items on Pakistan and Bulgaria. | Purchase your all-access subscription now to make sure you don’t miss important news and analysis. | | More from WPR | Ali Wyne on why Xi has the upper hand going into his meeting with Trump. Ulrike Franke on the past, present and future of drones. Luca Mattei on how the increasingly complex global coffee trade will impact farmers, traders and consumers alike. Mary Gallagher on the troubling implications of China’s new supply chain rules for foreign businesses.
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Welcome to my geopolitics blog site. This is a Hawaii Island news site focusing on geopolitical news, analysis, information, and commentary. I will cite a variety of sources, ranging from all sides of the political spectrum.