On November 5, 2024, Donald Trump was reelected the next president of the United States. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated “his friend” for winning reelection on X (Formerly Twitter). However, regardless of the cordial personal rapport between the two leaders, a Trump presidency has the potential to create issues for India, including human rights, China, Russia, and Iran, many of which stem from Trump’s erratic personality.

Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine have had a detrimental impact on the respect of arms control treaties between Russia and the United States. There is a need for the U.S. to formulate a plan to reinstate these agreements in the aftermath of the Ruso-Ukrainian war and eventual leadership change in Russia. To do so, the United States must evaluate Cold-War era efforts to foster communication.

The first 2024 presidential debate between Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump reaffirmed the disenchantment of many with contemporary American politics. An oft-stated grievance of voters and pundits alike is the uncivil speech and conduct of political candidates, which may no longer be “unprecedented” but ubiquitous in our system. The bitter aftertaste of the debate provokes the question of whether common decency has been abandoned by our politicians.

But is this perception accurate? And can we assess how the behavior of political candidates has changed, not only within the past ten years but also since the first televised presidential debate took place between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon almost six and a half decades ago? 

On February 2nd, 2023, just two days before the U.S. shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon, the Republic of the Philippines and the United States announced the increase in American military presence in the country amid rising tensions in the South China Sea. This event marks yet another escalation in an area that has seen two Taiwan Straits Crises, overlapping territorial claims, and many naval skirmishes

From a trade war to human rights crisis, the deterioration of the U.S.-China relations have accelerated in recent years. In the latest of a series of geopolitical crises, a Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon was detected in U.S. airspace on the 2 February, just 48 hours before Secretary of State Antony Blinken was scheduled to travel to Beijing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping. 

Read about the most recent developments by both China and the United States as they race for dominance in space.

How will Mars exploration change as more countries become involved, and how will these trends impact the scientific and political community as a whole?