🇺🇸🇨🇳🇷🇺⚓️ After more than 80 years as the world's dominant maritime force, the US Navy faces a new era of competition.

China now fields the world's largest fleet, Russia is targeting undersea infrastructure and European assets, and Iran and its proxies threaten Middle Eastern shipping.

The Navy needs a new theory of victory that exploits the opportunities in new technologies.

In a new report, Bryan Clark, Dan Patt, and David Byrd propose a new model that combines a fiscally sustainable general-purpose force of manned multimission ships and aircraft with tailored forces that hedge against the most consequential situations the Navy could face.

🔗 https://www.hudson.org/national-security-defense/righting-ship-building-relevant-us-navy-fleet-twenty-first-century-bryan-clark-david-byrd-dan-patt

🇨🇳🇮🇷🇸🇦🇦🇪 China wants a seat at the Gulf table

Tehran is savouring the result of Tuesday’s US midterm elections. Iranian officials hailed the Democrats' capture of Congress as a verdict on Trump's war. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said Americans had told Washington "NO TO WAR," and Iranian newspapers ran front pages mocking the US president.

In the Arab Gulf states, the mood is less festive. Conversations here are less about the upset in Congress and more about what Trump does ​next. With the vote over, will he strike Iran again, and will the Gulf end up on Tehran's target list once more?

Behind the gloating, Iran is on high alert. Iranian ‌sources say they fear Trump could try to offset his electoral rebuke with military action. Four European officials said the US had enough forces in place to hit Iran at short notice, possibly this week. Iran's military says it is updating its target lists, and Qalibaf says any response would be unconstrained by geography. In the last round, Iranian missiles hit US bases and Gulf energy facilities. Dread of a repeat dominated this weekend's Manama Dialogue.

CHINA WANTS A BIGGER ROLE IN THE GULF. CAN IT DELIVER AN END TO THE ​US-IRAN WAR?

Beijing stepped up its push for a bigger Middle East role this week. President Xi Jinping told Oman's visiting Sultan the Gulf should not become a battleground for great-power rivalry, and Oman backed China's peace proposals, looking ​forward to a "greater role" for Beijing. On Monday, Foreign Minister Wang Yi met separately with Iranian security official Ali Bagheri Kani and Saudi national security adviser Musaed al-Aiban.

China will send a special envoy to Iran, Oman and Saudi Arabia this month.

On ‌paper, China ⁠has the strongest hand with Tehran of any outside power. It has been Iran's largest trading partner for over a decade and bought more than 80% of its seaborne oil exports in 2025, according to Kpler.

Iran's disruption of the Strait of Hormuz has squeezed Chinese energy supplies for months, and now Iran-aligned Houthis have seized ground on Yemen's Red Sea coast that puts them in a position to control the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a chokepoint for some Saudi oil bound for China.

But China's leverage over the situation in the Gulf, and its willingness to use it, has limits. Beijing has no defence commitments in the region. China must also balance its interests in Iran against far larger ​trade with the Gulf Arab states — worth about $300 billion ​a year — and, above all, the United States. ⁠And its sway over Tehran comes from being a customer, not an ability to coerce.

China's last big diplomatic win in the Gulf shows how different this moment is. In 2023, Beijing hosted Saudi and Iranian officials and announced a deal restoring ties. Both sides wanted an agreement, and China's job was to host and lend prestige. Today's war involves the United States and Israel, and Iran has struck Gulf Arab states and energy shipments. Ending the conflict would mean pressing Tehran, guaranteeing a ​settlement or hashing out a ⁠solution with Washington. Publicly, at least, Beijing has so far avoided all three.

📝 Rory Johnston: I’m old enough to remember when folks said that the Iran War and the closure of Hormuz was an intentional strangling of Chinese energy supplies.

Instead, a mortal wound to the Carter Doctrine and Beijing steps into a bigger regional role.

🔗 https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/china-wants-seat-gulf-table-2026-11-04/

🔽 🇺🇸 🕯 In just 40 minutes, the S&P 500 has now erased -$2 trillion in market cap.

The entire post-Midterm Election rally has been erased in a matter of minutes.

This is one of the fastest market cap losses in stock market history.

📎 KobeissiLetter

🇵🇾💥 — The Paraguayan Chamber of Deputies has called an extraordinary session for this Thursday at 10:00 a.m. to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Santiago Peña, amid massive protests sparked by the collapse of Ueno Bank in the country.

🇵🇾💥 — Paraguayan President Santiago Peña resigns following the UENO bank scandal

🇸🇪🇷🇺 Sweden is reintroducing internal border controls for six months due to the deteriorating security situation in Europe.

The controls will be in place from November 12, 2026, to May 11, 2027.

The Swedish government justifies the decision by pointing to the worsening security environment following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has brought increased hybrid threats and hostile actors into the Schengen area.

The Swedish Police Authority will decide where and how the checks will be carried out.

🔗 GeoInsider

🇫🇷🗳 The French Parliament unanimously rejected the 2027 budget bill. Not even Emmanuel Macron's party supporting the cabinet of Sébastien Lecornu voted for it.

The Parliament spent weeks amending the budget bill trying to cater to everyone's demands but ended up creating a bill that nobody liked.

France's political deadlock continues and risks seeing a repeat of the 2025 deadlock which caused France's credit score to drop from AA- to A+ and a spike in yields. The gridlock was eventually ended by Macron who cut a deal with the social-democrats and socialists and used their votes to pass a budget and appoint Lecornu as PM.

With elections coming close, the social-democrats and socialists will be less inclined to help Macron pass a budget as they risk damaging their image and thus help Jean-Luc Mélenchon's campaign position himself as the only leftist fighting Macron.

@CIG_telegram

🇵🇾 Paraguayan President Santiago Peña has resigned amid a deepening political and financial crisis sparked by the collapse of Ueno Bank, a major digital lender with nearly three million customers and approximately $850 million in public deposits.

The Central Bank seized control of Ueno after it fell into insolvency, leaving millions of customers unable to access their money. Peña, who held shares in the bank’s parent company until 2025, faced impeachment over alleged conflicts of interest, misuse of public funds, and institutional cover-ups.

The scandal resulted in protests in the capital city of Asunción, forced the resignation of the Central Bank chief, and prompted criminal investigations of bank executives. Peña’s resignation comes as lawmakers were preparing to vote on his impeachment, with some of his powerful allies in the ruling Colorado Party withdrawing their support for him.

The scandal highlighted the close ties between the Colorado Party and the country’s financial institutions, drawing sharp rebuke from many Paraguayans.

“Santiago Peña and the Colorado Party have stolen all our savings,” Luis Pineda, a demonstrator in Asunción, told AP. “We are fed up with 70 years of plunder.”

🔗 DropSite

🇺🇸⚡️ — Harmeet Dhillon resigned Thursday as the U.S. Justice Department's assistant attorney general for civil rights, according to Fox News.

Dhillon, who took office in April 2025 and oversaw the department's Civil Rights Division, stepped down following Republicans' midterm election defeats, though no reason has been disclosed.

🇺🇸 Senator-elect Abdul el-Sayed on Vice-president, James David Vance's criticism of the Iran War:

"(...) You see JD Vance now sprinting as hard as he can backwards from this terrible, disastrous war in Iran and I say to him: "Now its not the time my guy, that would've been 8 months ago when you should've spoken up but you never will because you're a coward who decided that whatever Donald Trump says should go until, of course, Donald Trump is a loser at the ballot box and now we have to go a different way".

@CIG_telegram

🇷🇺⚔️🇺🇦 Russian forces continue to launch a large number of KAB glide bombs in the rear of Ukrainian forces in the Dobropolye direction

🔴Impacts from February to August 2026
⚪️Impacts in September 2026
🟡Impacts in October 2026

From what I am seeing, Russia is bombing a lot west of Druzhkovka and Kramatorsk, which shows that they intend to push there. Most of the KAB strikes happen far from the frontline, always in front of the most advanced infiltrated soldiers.

In October, KAB impacts were recorded far from the frontline between Novodonetskoe and Kramatorsk.

🔗 Clément Molin