The Mecca Pact Redraws Asia’s Security Map – Analysis

Credit: OpenAI / Ramesh Jaura


August 27, 2026

By Ramesh Jaura

Key Takeaways:

Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan pledged in Mecca that an attack on one would be treated as an attack on all; they are now adding ministerial mechanisms, exercises, and defense-industry ties—but the pact still lacks NATO-style command, definitions, or automatic obligations.

The deal grew from Gulf insecurity after Iran-related strikes and doubts about U.S. guarantees; Washington has welcomed it as burden-sharing, while China, Iran, Egypt, and India each read it through their own interests.

Ambiguity is both deterrent and risk: members do not share the same rivals, nuclear implications are unofficial and unproven, and a crisis involving India, Iran, Yemen, or the Mediterranean could test whether the promise holds.

Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan have pledged to treat an attack on one as an attack on all. Egypt is weighing membership, Washington has welcomed the move, Iran wants reassurance, China sees opportunity, and India is watching closely. A new security order may be forming, but its direction is unclear.

The place was chosen with care: Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, where Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met on 7 August and declared: “Any armed attack against any one of the three States shall be regarded as an attack against them all.”

It was a short sentence with a long shadow.

For Saudi Arabia, it offered protection when American guarantees no longer felt sufficient. For Türkiye, it gave Erdoğan another route to make his country an independent centre of power. For Pakistan, poor but militarily important, it reminded others that Islamabad cannot be ignored.

Together, they bring a rare mix. Saudi Arabia has wealth, energy power and influence across the Arab and Muslim worlds. Türkiye has NATO’s second-largest army and a fast-growing defence industry. Pakistan has a large, battle-tested military—and the only nuclear arsenal held by a Muslim-majority country.

It did not take long for commentators to call the new grouping an “Islamic NATO,” or sometimes a “Sunni NATO.” The description is tempting. It is also misleading.

NATO was built over decades. It has integrated command, military plans, shared procedures and a bureaucracy that works even when leaders disagree. The Mecca pact has none of that yet. It does not define an attack, say who decides one has occurred, or spell out what each member must do.

Would military support be automatic? Could one member decline to fight? Would Türkiye’s obligations under the new pact conflict with its duties as a NATO member? The agreement leaves these questions open.

But dismissing the pact as a ceremonial gesture would now be equally misleading.

Six days after the signing, Türkiye’s Defence Ministry began giving the pact substance. The partners plan political and military mechanisms linking foreign ministers, defence ministers and commanders. They intend to hold exercises on land, sea, air and cyberspace, and to cooperate on drones, artificial intelligence, electronic warfare, military production and technology transfer.

Reuters reported that the three defence industries would also be brought closer together.

The Mecca Agreement is not yet an Islamic NATO. But neither is it merely a piece of paper. It is an alliance being built while the surrounding region burns.Subscribe
A pact born in a frightened region

The agreement emerged, at least in part, from fear.

The United States and Israel attacked Iran on 28 February 2026, triggering a confrontation that crossed borders and sea routes. Iranian missiles and Tehran-aligned armed groups threatened Gulf states, oil facilities and commercial shipping. The Houthis intensified attacks from Yemen. The Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb again became places where one strike could raise prices and shake governments.

Soon after the pact was signed, three Pakistanis were killed in a Houthi attack on a vessel in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Their deaths underlined a hard truth: conflicts in the Gulf, Red Sea and South Asia can no longer be kept apart.


The immediate danger explains why they signed the agreement. But behind it lies an older anxiety: can the United States still be trusted to protect its partners?

For decades, Gulf monarchies lived under an American security umbrella. US troops, intelligence, weapons and political commitments sustained the regional order. That relationship still matters. Saudi Arabia buys vast quantities of American arms, and no regional combination can easily replace America’s military reach.

But trust has thinned.

The 2019 attacks on Saudi oil facilities Abqaiq and the Khurais oil field exposed how vulnerable the kingdom had become to inexpensive missiles and drones. Washington did not retaliate directly against Iran. Riyadh remembered.

Then came America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Regional governments watched how US forces left. The circumstances were different, but the question travelled beyond Kabul: if American priorities changed, who might be left next?


Washington was turning towards China while its Middle Eastern partners dealt with Iran, proxy forces, missiles, drones and the aftershocks of the Gaza war.

Donald Trump’s return to the White House did not remove uncertainty. His administration has shown it is willing to use enormous force. But that does not mean partners always know when America will act, how far it will go or what they will endure when it does.

Saudi Arabia is not breaking with Washington. It is doing something more careful: ensuring Washington is no longer its only option.

The kingdom has strengthened relations with China, restored diplomatic ties with Iran, kept channels open to Russia and invested heavily in its defence industry. The Mecca pact adds two more layers of protection: Türkiye and Pakistan.

It does not announce the end of American power in the Gulf. It shows that American power is no longer accepted as the only pillar on which security rests.
America applauds—but may not control what follows

Washington’s response has complicated the idea that the pact is an act of rebellion against the United States.

On 16 August, Trump said he was “very happy” that Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan had “recently, and finally” signed the agreement. He called it a “big, bold, and important first step” and praised the three governments for becoming better able to defend themselves. Anadolu Agency reported his remarks.


Trump has long argued that America’s allies should spend more and carry more of their own defence burden. From that angle, the Mecca pact is useful. It could allow regional states to handle more of their security without repeatedly calling on Washington.

The arrangement does not immediately threaten America’s position. Türkiye remains in NATO. Saudi Arabia still depends heavily on American weapons, intelligence and logistical support. Pakistan continues to work with Washington on terrorism and regional diplomacy.

For the moment, the United States can welcome the pact as burden-sharing.

But there is a catch.

If the three countries produce weapons together, exchange intelligence and build crisis procedures, they will need less American permission and protection. Greater capability will give them more freedom to make choices Washington may dislike. The pact may not be designed to push America out, but it could help create a region where America is no longer central to every calculation.
What the three partners want

Each of the three countries sees something different in the agreement.

For Saudi Arabia, the attraction is protection—and access.

Pakistan has trained Saudi officers and soldiers for decades. Pakistani troops have served in the kingdom before. The military relationship is not new; the pact gives it a more formal and politically stronger shape.

Türkiye offers something else: a defence industry that can supply weapons more cheaply and often with fewer conditions than Western governments impose. Its drones, missiles, warships, armoured vehicles and electronic-warfare systems have attracted buyers across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia wants to produce more of its own weapons under Vision 2030. Joint ventures with Turkish and Pakistani companies could help reduce its dependence on expensive Western imports.

For Türkiye, the pact is an opportunity to expand its reach.

Erdoğan does not want Türkiye seen merely as NATO’s difficult southeastern member. He wants it recognised as a power in its own right, with influence from the Black Sea and Mediterranean to the Middle East, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean.

Weapons are now an important part of that ambition. Turkish drones have affected the course of several wars. Defence exports bring money, influence and long-term political relationships. The Mecca pact opens a much larger field for all three.


Pakistan’s gains are different but just as important.

Islamabad’s economy remains fragile. Saudi loans and deposits have helped it through crises. Türkiye has supported Pakistan politically, especially over Kashmir, and the two countries have developed close defence ties.

By standing beside the rulers of Saudi Arabia and Türkiye in Mecca, Pakistan sent a message: whatever its economic troubles, it remains a country whose military strength and nuclear weapons give it strategic value.

The agreement also confirms the weight of Pakistan’s military establishment. Field Marshal Asim Munir has been publicly credited with helping to bring it about. In Pakistan, the most important ties with China, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and the United States are rarely shaped by civilian diplomacy alone.

Yet the three partners do not share the same enemies.

Pakistan’s principal conventional rival is India. Türkiye is preoccupied with Syria, Kurdish armed groups and its disputes involving Greece, Cyprus and Israel. Saudi Arabia is focused on Iran, the Houthis, missile and drone attacks, Red Sea shipping and the security of its oil installations.

Sooner or later, those differences will matter.

Would Türkiye and Saudi Arabia regard an Indian strike on Pakistan as an attack on all three? Would Pakistan be expected to help Türkiye in a clash with Greece, another NATO member? If the Houthis struck Saudi Arabia, would Islamabad and Ankara be required to join a war in Yemen? What if a Saudi–Iranian confrontation escalated?

The pact does not answer.

Ambiguity can deter. An adversary may hesitate if it cannot predict how three countries will respond. But it can also tempt an ally to take risks, expecting support that may not arrive.

Even NATO’s celebrated Article 5 does not automatically send every member to war. It allows each ally to take “such action as it deems necessary.” Political leaders still decide what solidarity means.

The Mecca pact will face the same test. Promises made in a palace are one thing. Keeping them when soldiers may die is another.
The nuclear question no one can avoid

Pakistan’s nuclear weapons hover over every discussion of the agreement.

Has Islamabad quietly placed Saudi Arabia or Türkiye under a nuclear umbrella? Would Pakistan threaten nuclear retaliation if the Saudi state faced an overwhelming attack?


Nothing in the public text says so. Pakistan has announced no nuclear guarantee. No evidence shows it has transferred weapons or control to either partner. Saudi officials insist the agreement is not tied to nuclear ambition or an arms race.

That caution matters. Speculation should not be mistaken for fact.

Saudi Arabia is a non-nuclear member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Türkiye is also an NPT member and already participates in NATO’s nuclear arrangements. Any transfer of nuclear weapons would create an international crisis.

But nuclear deterrence depends as much on uncertainty as on published doctrine.

A country considering a devastating attack on Saudi Arabia must ask whether Pakistan would remain uninvolved if the kingdom’s survival were at stake. The absence of an answer may be part of the deterrent.

It may also make the region less safe.

Israel has an undeclared nuclear arsenal. Iran has advanced nuclear capabilities. Pakistan has tested weapons. Türkiye belongs to a nuclear alliance. American forces are spread across the region. Now a new defence pact enters this crowded landscape with unclear nuclear limits.

There is another source of concern. The Trump administration has pursued a civilian nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia that reportedly drops safeguards Washington previously demanded, including a categorical Saudi renunciation of uranium enrichment and reprocessing and acceptance of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Additional Protocol.

Reuters reported that arms-control advocates and members of Congress feared that the proposed terms could weaken non-proliferation standards.

A civil nuclear programme is not a nuclear-weapons programme. But in this region, intentions are viewed through a lens of fear. Iran’s capabilities, Pakistan’s arsenal and weaker safeguards around Saudi nuclear development would inevitably be considered together.

A shield built to make Saudi Arabia feel safer could deepen the nuclear anxieties of everyone around it.
Is Iran the enemy—or a neighbour to be reassured?

Because the three signatories are Sunni-majority countries, the pact has often been described as an alliance against Shia-majority Iran.

The timing strengthens that interpretation. Iran and armed groups aligned with it have attacked Saudi interests. Türkiye cooperates with Tehran in some areas while competing with it in Syria, Iraq, Central Asia and the Caucasus. Pakistan shares a difficult border with Iran and has exchanged cross-border strikes with it.


But the relationship cannot be reduced to an old sectarian divide.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan says the pact identifies no enemy. Pakistan calls it “purely defensive.” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei initially responded with caution rather than outrage. Iran, he said, need not fear regional self-reliance if it remained inclusive and addressed the real causes of insecurity.

Hard-line voices in Tehran were less forgiving. They asked how Pakistan could join a defence agreement with Saudi Arabia while claiming to be an honest mediator between Iran and the United States. Others warned Riyadh that a written pact would not guarantee its safety.

Erdoğan then demonstrated how the new allies hope to use their position.

On 17 August, Erdoğan urged Trump to return to talks with Iran and offered Türkiye’s help. Ankara said it would keep working with the United States, Iran, Pakistan, Qatar and other mediators. At the same time, Erdoğan praised the Mecca pact as a contribution to regional security—Reuters reported Türkiye’s attempt to combine deterrence with diplomacy.

Pakistan is trying to do the same.

Field Marshal Munir was due in Tehran on 24 August for talks with senior Iranian officials. The agenda was expected to include Pakistan’s efforts to mediate between Washington and Tehran, the Mecca Agreement, the Houthis and the dispute over the Strait of Hormuz. Reuters reported that the planned visit to Washington would pave the way for another round of punishing sanctions against Iran.

Munir’s visit carries special weight. He is not only Pakistan’s most powerful soldier but also a central figure behind the Mecca pact. Iranian officials will want to hear from him directly: is this alliance a shield, a sword or both?

Pakistan has placed itself in a difficult position. It must persuade Saudi Arabia that it is a dependable defence partner while convincing Iran that it has not joined a hostile front. It must keep Washington engaged without becoming an instrument of American pressure.

The pact’s first serious test may therefore come not on a battlefield but in a room in Tehran. Can Pakistan and Türkiye help deter Iran without making dialogue with Iran impossible?
Egypt stands at the door

Türkiye has made clear it does not want the alliance to remain a three-member club. Egypt is the most obvious prospective member.

Cairo is no longer merely observing. Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty says his government is studying membership “very seriously,” though any decision must fit Egypt’s constitution and legal commitments. Chatham House sees the hesitation as political as well as legal. Egypt has long avoided binding military blocs and wants to preserve its role as mediator. Joining could look like taking sides against Iran, Israel, the UAE, Greece, Cyprus or India without giving Cairo clear security gains. For now, Egypt has reason to wait, watch how the pact works in a crisis and keep its options open.


The Gulf states face the same problem. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates do not always agree on regional priorities. Qatar and its neighbours recently emerged from a bitter blockade. Oman prizes its independence and role as mediator.

The Mecca pact is therefore unlikely to become a military organisation embracing all 57 members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

A smaller core is more plausible, surrounded by looser arrangements for tasks: protecting Red Sea shipping, sharing intelligence, coordinating missile defence, countering drones, fighting terrorism and producing weapons.

That may sound less dramatic than an Islamic NATO. It could prove more useful.
China: The Power Outside the Pact

China did not sign the Mecca Agreement, and no evidence shows Beijing designed it. Yet its influence is impossible to ignore.

Pakistan’s “all-weather” partnership with China is one of Asia’s deepest military relationships. Beijing supplies aircraft, missiles, air-defence systems and warships, and the two countries jointly produce the JF-17 fighter. In April, Pakistan commissioned the first of eight planned Chinese-designed Hangor-class submarines, four to be built in Pakistan under a technology-transfer deal. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute⁠, China supplied 80 per cent of Pakistan’s major arms imports between 2021 and 2025.

The pact could bring Chinese, Turkish and Western systems into the same network. Türkiye offers drones, missiles, electronic warfare and a growing defence industry. Saudi Arabia brings money but still relies mainly on American and other Western equipment. Making these systems work together will require compatible communications, command procedures, maintenance chains and training.

That helps explain why Türkiye’s Defence Ministry has put joint exercises, production, technology cooperation and “sustainable maintenance and logistics support” at the centre of the deal. Reuters reported⁠ that cooperation will span land, sea, air and cyber operations, with attention to drones, electronic warfare and artificial intelligence. Over time, this could create a military-industrial network that Beijing does not control, but that depends less on the West.

China’s economic presence matters too. The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor links western China to Gwadar on the Arabian Sea. China is also a major buyer of Saudi oil and an investor in the kingdom’s infrastructure, telecommunications and renewable energy. Its mediation of the Saudi–Iranian rapprochement in 2023 showed it can exercise influence in a region long dominated by Washington.

Saudi Arabia does not expect China to replace the United States as its military protector, and Beijing has shown little interest in assuming that burden. But China offers trade, investment, technology and another option. Türkiye’s ties with Beijing are more guarded because of NATO, Europe and differences over Uyghurs. Even so, Erdoğan values relationships that widen Ankara’s room for manoeuvre.


Beijing can stay outside the pact and still benefit. It may gain from a less American-centred region, finance infrastructure and supply weapons without defending the alliance. For India, already facing China’s military partnership with Pakistan, that is hardly reassuring.
India has reason to watch—but not to panic

India’s ties with China have steadied slightly. Talks on the disputed frontier have resumed, but the damage from Galwan remains: troops are still deployed, claims unresolved and mistrust deep.

China’s support for Pakistan adds another layer to India’s concerns.

The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor runs through territory India claims. New Delhi sees it as both an economic project and a breach of sovereignty. Indian planners must still weigh pressure from Pakistan and China at once, even if neither side wants a two-front war.

The Mecca pact could connect this tense South Asian picture to West Asian politics.

Pakistani forces, already heavily supplied by China, may gain access to Turkish technology, Saudi money, shared intelligence and joint planning. Such shifts rarely appear overnight; they gather force slowly.

India’s government has said it is examining the pact’s implications for national security and regional stability and will take the necessary steps to protect Indian interests.

New Delhi is right to seek clarity.

Türkiye has backed Pakistan on Kashmir. The two countries cooperate on warships, exercises, training and aircraft modernisation. Saudi Arabia’s 2025 defence agreement with Pakistan laid the ground for the trilateral pact.

In a future crisis, Pakistan could invoke the Mecca Agreement even if Riyadh and Ankara had no wish to fight India.

Would the pact apply only after an unprovoked attack? Could Islamabad invoke it after a terrorist incident or an exchange across the Line of Control? Who would decide who started the conflict?

India is asking those questions quietly without turning concern into panic.

Saudi Arabia’s ties with India have deepened. The kingdom supplies energy, invests in India and hosts a large Indian community. The two governments cooperate on trade, terrorism, technology, maritime security and defence.

Riyadh has no reason to sacrifice this relationship for Pakistan. Saudi foreign policy has become practical and flexible. It can maintain a defence pact with Islamabad while expanding relations with New Delhi.


India appears to be taking the same approach: deepen Gulf ties, seek assurances, monitor Pakistan’s defence links with Türkiye and China, and strengthen its naval presence in the Arabian Sea.

The Ministry of External Affairs has dismissed reports that India sought an urgent mutual-defence pact with Israel as fabricated. India already has close defence ties with Israel. Turning them into an openly anti-Muslim alignment would damage decades of careful diplomacy across the Arab world.

India’s strength has long been its ability to deal with rivals at the same time: Saudi Arabia and Iran, Israel and the Arab states, the United States and Russia.

The Mecca pact makes that balancing act harder—and more necessary.
A promise waiting to be tested

The agreement does not prove that a new regional order has arrived. Its members may find unity easier to declare than to practise.

But it does show that the old order is fading.

Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan are not abandoning old relationships; they are adding new ones. They want choices and no longer want security to depend on a single power whose priorities can shift after an election, war or crisis.

Trump sees burden-sharing. China sees opportunity. Iran wants to know whether the pact targets it. Egypt is weighing membership. India is asking whether Pakistan’s reach has grown.

The pact remains several things at once: a shield, a warning, an arms partnership, a diplomatic tool, and a claim to greater independence.

It could make the three countries safer. It could also spread conflicts across regions.

An India–Pakistan crisis could gain a Middle Eastern dimension. A Saudi–Iranian confrontation could draw in Pakistan and Türkiye. A Turkish dispute in the Mediterranean could test commitments Riyadh and Islamabad never expected to keep.

The stronger the alliance becomes, the more restraint it will need.

Its members must define aggression, set clear consultation procedures, keep politics in control of military decisions and clarify where conventional cooperation ends and the nuclear shadow begins.

Mecca produced a dramatic promise: an attack on one will be treated as an attack on all. Weapons, exercises and political machinery now support it. Its meaning, however, will remain uncertain until someone asks the three countries to keep it.

When that day comes, the question will not be what leaders signed in Mecca, but what they are prepared to sacrifice—and whether their shield makes a frightened region safer or gives it new reasons to fear.

About Ramesh Jaura
Ramesh Jaura is a journalist with 60 years of experience as a freelancer, head of Inter Press Service, and founder-editor of IDN-InDepthNews. His work draws on field reporting and coverage of international conferences and events.
View all posts by Ramesh Jaura →

SPACE ENTHUSIASTS

Looking up: Amateur meteorite hunters search for clues to origins of universe

French astronaut Sophie Adenot made history this month as the first French woman to perform a spacewalk. Back on Earth, space enthusiasts across France are finding their own ways to reach for the stars. In the third of a five-part series, RFI hears from volunteers in south-west France who are searching for meteorites as part of a citizen science project designed to help researchers recover fragments from space.


Issued on: 26/08/2026 - RFI

Concentration, patience and sharp eyesight are needed to find a meteorite no bigger than a golf ball. © Baptiste Coulon / RFI

At the Fleurance Astronomy Festival in south-west France, 50 volunteers have gathered across four freshly cut fields of wheat. The group, kitted out in caps, rucksacks and trainers, includes space enthusiasts as well as families with young children.

The volunteers have been told that a meteorite fell to Earth during the night, just a few hundred metres from where they are standing.

“We saw a huge flash of light at an altitude of 30 kilometres, then the fireball broke into many pieces. The aim is to find them,” said planetary scientist Sylvain Bouley, who is leading the search.

This meteorite hunt is actually just an exercise, a fact the volunteers are aware of. An hour before the public arrived, Bouley hid 20 meteorite fragments across the fields. The group then split into four teams and began searching.

The task quickly proves tougher than it first appears. The fragments are no bigger than a dice and the search area covers about five hectares.

“When we have to find a two-centimetre stone over such a large area, we need members of the public – citizens who've learned how to observe,” Bouley said. “So the aim is to train people all over France so we can call on them when a real meteorite falls to Earth.”

That is not a hypothetical scenario. In February 2023, a 650-kilogramme fireball broke apart over Normandy and scattered around 100 fragments across an area seven kilometres wide.

Within hours of the impact, Bouley and his team had gathered 200 volunteers to search the area. Several pieces were found.

A meteorite fragment about two centimetres across and weighing around 10g, found by a participant. © Baptiste Coulon / RFI

'Fan of rocks'

The apprentice hunters in Fleurance are hoping to do the same. Their search involves two hours of walking in closely spaced lines, eyes fixed on the ground.

Aurélie has joined the exercise with her daughter Abygaëlle, an energetic little girl who describes herself as a “fan of rocks”.

“I'm a very big collector,” Abygaëlle says, making her mother laugh.

“She has a whole shelf in her bedroom,” her mother says, suggesting the collection has become somewhat overwhelming.

So far, Abygaëlle has found only “pretty rocks” rather than meteorites. She thinks she knows how to tell them apart.

“Meteorites don't have too many holes, whereas other rocks have very deep holes,” she says.

The reality is a little more complicated.

“A meteorite has a black fusion crust, caused by the heating of the rock through compression and friction as it enters the atmosphere," Bouley explains. "It also has flat, rounded and fairly clean surfaces that can be distinguished from rocks that have been there for some time. They might look like meteorites, but they aren't.”

The possibility of finding a meteorite only to discover that it is an ordinary rock makes the search demanding. After an hour of careful observation, none of the meteorites has been found.

The teams turn around and begin searching in the opposite direction, led by Claire Loubière, one of the supervisors. A physics and chemistry teacher at a school in the Paris region, Loubière says she was excited by the citizen science project.

“It's great to think that we've helped a scientist move forward with their research. It's not at all the image of the researcher alone in their laboratory or out in the field," she explains. "You realise that it's a field open to everyone, including 10-year-olds who can find rocks that are useful to science."

Adults and children take part in the hunt for meteorites. © Baptiste Coulon / RFI

Scientists unearth meteorite from the birth of the solar system

Clues from space

The first find is eventually made by 10-year-old Emmanuel, to applause from his group. He immediately puts the fragment into their bag.

Brigitte Zanda, the astrophysicist who first recovered the fragment – dated to 4.56 billion years old – says it could provide information about the origins of the universe.

“Most meteorites come from small bodies that have changed very little since the formation of the solar system and were therefore present when the sun was forming," Zanda explains. "Until we've analysed a new meteorite, we can't know whether it might have incredible information to teach us."

Involving members of the public has become increasingly important because the number of meteorites recovered in France has fallen sharply over the past 200 years.

"We found 45 during the 19th century, but only nine during the 20th century," Zanda says. Yet the number of impacts remains stable, at about two to three per year in France and several tens of thousands worldwide each year.

“To find a meteorite, you have to see it fall,” Zanda says. “But our lifestyles have changed. We look at the sky less than we used to because fewer of us live in the countryside. And television and smartphones also distract us from the stars.”

The 364-kg Mont Dieu meteorite, found in the Ardennes region in 2010, is 4.65 billion years old and one of the largest ever found in France. Sold for €51,000 at auction, the owner refused to let it go, considering the price too low. AP - Thibault Camus

Watching the skies

Some of the search work is now automated. In 2014, Zanda and Bouley created the FRIPON programme – a network of about 100 cameras installed at observatories, universities and museums. The cameras monitor the sky day and night to detect meteorite falls.

Since then, similar networks have been established across Europe as well as in Africa.

After two hours, the organisers signal the end of the hunt. Not all the hidden meteorites have been found. Fortunately, Bouley and his teams had recorded the exact location of every fragment they had hidden, so the remaining pieces can be recovered.

At the end of the day, all the participants – including those who found nothing – leave with a meteorite and a certificate of authenticity.

Abygaëlle and her mother Aurélie found two fragments.

“We'll be able to add them to our collection, but these ones will have a special value,” Aurélie says with a smile.

Abygaëlle already knows where they will go: “On the shelves of the bookcase in the living room.”

This article has been adapted from the original version in French by Baptiste Coulon.

Looking up: French collector gathers lunar photos that changed our view of space

Astronaut Sophie Adenot made history this month as the first French woman to perform a spacewalk. Back on Earth, space enthusiasts across France are finding their own ways to reach for the stars. In the last of a five-part series, space historian and collector Victor Martin-Malburet talks to RFI about his passion for Nasa's Moon missions and the photos they produced. He began searching around the world for original prints aged 15 and has now amassed a collection of 1,500 photographs.


Issued on: 27/08/2026 - RFI

Martin-Malburet holding one of 1,500 photographs he's collected from Nasa's lunar programmes. He inherited his passion from his father, a collector of modern and contemporary art. © Baptiste Coulon / RFI

Martin-Malburet keeps his precious photo collection in 50 acid-free boxes, protected by plastic film. They're stacked away from the light on a shelf in his Paris living room.

The pictures trace 11 years of Nasa's race to the Moon, from 1961 to 1972. They include the US space agency's Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions, all painstakingly catalogued.

He carefully takes the "Apollo 11" box, documenting the first mission to put humans on the Moon in July 1969, and selects the picture that kicked off his collection.

“In this image, we see Buzz Aldrin in his spacesuit on the lunar surface. In the reflection of his visor, we can see Neil Armstrong taking the photograph. It's a bit like the Mona Lisa of the Moon,” Martin-Malburet says.

An original Nasa print showing Buzz Aldrin in his spacesuit, photographed by Neil Armstrong, whose reflection can be seen in the astronaut's visor. © Baptiste Coulon / RFI


A new perspective

The photographs show all of Nasa's crewed space missions from Mercury to Apollo.

“We don't realise that these missions were also photographic missions,” Martin-Malburet says. “At that time, every minute was a first and every mission was an opportunity for a new, extraordinary view that humans had never seen before and that the astronauts captured.”

Nasa produced the prints a few days after the astronauts returned to Earth. Their value comes from their authenticity, the texture of the paper and the quality of the colours captured by Kodak cameras.

“They record light in a way that digital doesn't,” Martin-Malburet says.

Each photograph also has an identification number and an original Nasa stamp, adding to the value of the prints.

The collector began the painstaking search for the photographs when he was 15. In some cases, it took him as long as 10 years to find the original prints.

“I went to get them from the archives of astronauts, former Nasa employees or scientists who worked on these lunar programmes,” he says.

Nasa astronaut and Artemis II mission specialist Christina Koch peers out of one of the Orion spacecraft's main cabin windows, looking back at Earth, as the crew travels towards the Moon, 2 April 2024. @ NASA via REUTERS

Astronaut artists

Part of the reason the search took so long is that Nasa simply threw away some of the prints. Their value was not always recognised at the time.

“Photography was mainly used for scientific purposes. We didn't realise its artistic value,” Martin-Malburet says.

He regards the astronauts themselves as artists.

“They have the status of explorers. They brought humanity a new visual vocabulary that goes beyond science and becomes art,” he insists.

The collection is not intended to remain in Martin-Malburet's living room.

He is in contact with museums about displaying the photographs to the public and sharing this visual record of the space race.

The idea is particularly fitting, the collector says, as Nasa prepares for another Moon landing in 2028.

This article was adapted from the original version in French by Baptiste Coulon.

USA

The Looming Election

Tuesday 25 August 2026, by Against the Current Editors

MIDTERM U.S. ELECTIONS are traditionally predictably unpredictable, the main question being how much loss the party of the sitting President will suffer. Conventionally that should go double or triple for the Republicans this November.

But amid a deeply unpopular ruinous war, and frightening insecurity for tens of millions of Americans fearing for their future, this year’s November 2026 elections are unpredictably unpredictable. The question goes well beyond whether the Democrats — and which Democrats — might overturn the narrow Republican Congressional majorities.

National and even international attention — and $61 million of dark money — were drawn to the August 4 U.S. Senate Democratic primary in Michigan, and the victory of progressive insurgent candidate Dr. Abdul el-Sayed. More will be said below on its meaning and implications.

Much will probably change between the writing of this editorial and the election. Multiple swirling uncertainties include:

1) What might be the state of the U.S. war with Iran? Another truce, more negotiations and stabilized oil prices, or massive escalation and a war spreading through the region, with oil at or over $150 a barrel, or — perhaps most likely — something messily in between?

2) What might the U.S. economy look like with down-and-up fuel prices, Trump’s off-and-on tariffs, and sectors of health care, construction and agriculture potentially crippled by mass immigrant detention and deportation?

None of these can be known, particularly when Trump’s own policies shift with every day’s half-deranged Truth Social posts.

3) To what lengths could Trump and the Republican cult go to preserve their power? Last-ditch moves to ram through Trump’s massive voter-suppression Enslave America Act, if not at the federal level then adopted by some states, or to block voting by mail? Among the openly discussed scarier scenarios, ICE or Border Patrol agents stationed at polling places? Attempts to seize ballots, or to prosecute state election officials who refuse to obey unconstitutional government orders?

Presidential proclamation of a phony “state of emergency”? Rightwing mobs unleashed to block counting of votes? Sabotage of postal delivery of mail ballots?

Right now, the likelihood of such extreme and high-risk events may seem relatively low. The consequences, however, could bring a fundamental crisis of government legitimacy and what remains of Constitutional process.

Insurgencies Right and Left

Assuming for the moment a generally “normal” election process, we do know that the Trump 2 administration is more unpopular by the month, and Republican incumbents in critical Congressional district and Senate races look to be in serious trouble. Yet the Democratic Party is even more unpopular, if possible, than the Trump-cult GOP.

Undoubtedly the immediate primary factors driving popular anger are economic: food and fuel price inflation, health insurance costs making medical care inaccessible for millions, fears among technical workers that rampant Artificial Intelligence might wipe out their current jobs and future employment chances.

There are insurgencies within both capitalist parties, most obviously in the Democratic Party and left-moving parts of its voter base, but also among MAGA voters disillusioned over Trump’s broken promises to “fix the economy” and “end forever wars.”

On the MAGA-GOP side, Trump deflects with raves about “radical left Democrats” and the fantasy specter of a Cuban-driven “Communist threat,” while advertising the brilliant successes of his tariffs which people increasingly can see as disastrous in their own lives. The gangster administration doubles down on sadistic immigration detentions and deportations.

Trump’s antics aren’t working terribly well as some former loyalists peel off toward (even more) irrationalist and antisemitic extremism. The administration itself is divided between, for example, the traditional militarism of the late Senator Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio — now Trump’s viceroy to run Venezuela — and J.D. Vance, whose neo-isolationist streak combines with open admiration for Europe’s far right and affinity with Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Nonetheless the Republican machinery with its bottomless resources of corporate and dark money, the still-powerful Trump cult following, and the power of partisan and blatantly racial district gerrymandering enabled by the far-right Supreme Court majority, remains formidable. Its defeat is by no means certain. By most counts there are only 20 or so House of Representatives districts, out of the total 435, that are genuinely competitive outside of a massive “wave” election.

The Republicans’ open intention to reject election results if they don’t win brings a higher level of volatility, fear and more unpredictable unpredictability into the political climate.

Among the Democrats

We need to be clear on two points. (1) The capitalist Democratic Party will not be “transformed” by some progressive or democratic surge; but (2) in the absence of viable independent politics nationally, what’s happened in the primaries reflect popular anger and political volatility and can’t be ignored.

The open revolt against a sclerotic entrenched party leadership reflects a confluence of issues where the Democratic leadership has failed, retreated or collapsed. Running scared, the establishment’s backlash is already on display.

Rahm Emanuel, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, mentor and chief of staff of Barack Obama, and former mayor of Chicago where he fought a bitter and losing war to break the Chicago Teachers Union, writes in The Wall Street Journal that the progressive or democratic socialist left would “spoil” the Democrats’ prospects.

When party progressive activists demand actual solutions to the crises that are crushing people’s lives and hopes, establishment corporate centrists respond with calls for “realism,” gradualism and the stagnant consultant-driven campaign tactics that lose elections over and over again. The centrist Third Way promises a $15 million drive to attack democratic socialism.

The critical issues include the corruption of politics by corporate PAC and billionaires’ money; the crying need for national “Medicaid For All” health coverage; the obscene concentration of wealth at the top; the Trump gang’s deregulation spree and “drill baby drill” lunacy while North America and Europe literally burn; and the anti-immigrant terror that has sparked anti-ICE mass resistance.

Not least is rising fury over Israel’s state genocide in Gaza, murderous ethnic cleansing in the occupied West Bank, and annexationist invasion of south Lebanon. It’s remarkable and unprecedented that a majority of Americans — among all sectors except older Republicans — view Palestine more sympathetically than Israel. Even Rahm Emanuel warned an Israeli audience, despite his undying Zionist loyalty, that Israel’s behavior is hemorrhaging support in the United States.

The Wire, the newsletter of Jewish Voice for Peace, reports that since the election of Zohran Mamdani “11 JVP Action-endorsed candidates, including six congressional candidates have won their primaries — not in spite of but because of their unwavering support for Palestinian freedom.” (Special JVP Action PAC issue, July 31)

The Biden-Harris administration is quite rightly despised for enabling the Gaza genocide, even though it knew the magnitude of the slaughter from the beginning. Israeli prime minister Netanyahu is widely despised for luring Trump with flattery and the prospect of quick, world-changing “victory” over Iran.

Battle Grounds

These combined factors have brought about an insurgency that’s seen the mayoral election of Zohran Mamdani in New York City and some notable Democratic primary challengers, although of course there are losses too like Cori Bush’s defeat in Missouri. Francesca Hong lost the Wisconsin gubernational primary by less than half a point.

In media reporting as well as Trump vitriol, the Democratic Socialists of America are seen as the driving force behind the anti-establishment upsurge. Undoubtedly DSA plays a significant role in some of these races (as in Mamdani’s victory, and for example in promoting a notion idea of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez running for president in 2028). But DSA is not the only factor.

In the nationally spotlighted open Senate race in Michigan, public health expert Dr. Abdul el-Sayed took on an established AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) centrist Democrat Haley Stevens in the August 4 primary. Identifying not as a socialist but as an outspoken advocate of Medicare for All and ending aid to Israel, El-Sayed was targeted by “pro-Israel” and corporate PACS with some spent on toxic attack TV ads and mailers.

El-Sayed’s campaign energized Arab community, progressive and pro-Palestinian activism including the formation of “Jews for Abdul” and “Women for Abdul” to counter the attacks.

Meanwhile AIPAC (which generally devotes its resources to primary rather than general elections) openly says it will continue its effort to defeat El-Sayed. Undoubtedly its ads will especially target Jewish, Black and women voters with the same toxic lies they spread during the primary.

A significant test of Democrats’ “unity” will be whether Michigan and national figures — from outgoing governor Gretchen Whitmer to former president Obama — will energetically support El-Sayed as he runs against rightwing Trump Republican Mike Rogers, in what will be an exceptionally expensive and dirty contest that may decide which party controls the U.S. Senate.

Some progressive fantasies to the contrary notwithstanding, under the most optimistic scenarios — should the Democrats take control of the Senate and maybe even replace the discredited Chuck Schumer with someone like Senator Chris Van Hollen — the Democrats might become a genuine liberal opposition party in action rather than mostly empty talk.

That could be a big improvement — and no doubt revive many dormant illusions about the Democratic Party — but far from the transformation of social-democratic dreams. Frankly, on the national level this outcome is pretty much the ceiling of possibilities that might be achieved electorally.

In the House of Representatives, a swing to a Democratic majority would put the Speakership in the hands of Hakeem Jeffries — a committed centrist and the party’s number-one beneficiary of AIPAC support.

In addition to the Democratic establishment counter-offensive, not to mention Trump’s raving about the Communist menace (although his White House rant was pretty much a dud), there are deeper obstacles to the success of progressive Democrats or for that matter, activist movements.

The movements’ outreach to the most critical sectors of society remains limited. This was not only visible in the No Kings Day mobilizations of the past couple years — large, creative and energetic but mostly white in their large majority. The Black community is politically engaged, but with its own urgent concerns.

African American voters, who constitute the backbone of the Democratic vote in many states including especially the South, have been a bulwark of the party establishment at strategic moments. This was notably shown in the 2020 presidential primary in South Carolina, where the leading Black Congressional representative James Clyburn rallied the vote for Joe Biden, scuttling the rising Bernie Sanders candidacy.

The Detroit vote was also a big part of why Abdul el-Sayed’s razor-thin victory in Michigan was so much closer than polls predicted. Indeed, in the final stage of the primary Clyburn came in to support Stevens, whose campaign heavily promoted her advertised connections to the African American community, to Black women in particular, and the endorsements she received from Black elected officials (as well as prominent white Michigan establishment of course).

There are powerful Black-led and multi-racial protests around numerous cases of police brutality and murder of African American community members. The difficulty arises because much of the community sees the supposedly “more electable” Democratic mainstream as its only solid defense against the Trump-Republican rampage that ravages Black people’s lives and rights.

For the left, the continuing tragedy is the absence of a meaningful political option independent of the Democratic Party. Local independent political campaigns are a viable possibility and important to be pursued, but only a first step in a very long march to any kind of national political alternative.

For independent politics to become a viable factor in the United States, Black as well as Latinx movements must be central forces from the outset. That’s an enormous challenge, especially in the face of the very real intense menace from the right.

At this moment, the only really predictable thing in crisis-ridden America is how much hangs in the balance, and not only in the looming midterm elections. Elections don’t determine the future, but they help create the terrain of battles to come.

September-October 2026, ATC 244.

• Against the Current Editors

  Against the Current is published by Solidarity, USA, a sympathizing organization of the Fourth International. It is a bi-monthly analytical journal explaining its goal: as part of our larger project of regroupment and dialogue within the U.S. Left, the journal presents varying points of view on a wide variety of issues. As such, debates are frequent and informative, with the goal of promoting discussion among activists, organizers, and scholars on the Left.

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DSA’s Ella Teevan: ‘Socialism has broken containment in the United States’

By Ella Teevan & Isaac Nellist

Published 26 August, 2026

Building on the momentum won after Zohran Mamdani’s historic victory in the New York City mayoral race last year, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have won several primaries, defeating establishment Democrats in the lead-up to the United States midterm elections in November. Isaac Nellist was joined by Ella Teevan, a member of DSA’s National Political Committee, its highest leadership body, to discuss the midterms, how DSA can build on its successes, and challenging US imperialism and President Donald Trump’s far-right agenda.

What do DSA’s recent wins in the Democratic primaries reveal about the political situation in the US?

It reveals that socialism has broken containment. This is really exciting and I think the shift happened in the past few months. First, Chris Rabb won in Philadelphia in May, and then DSA candidates swept the primaries in New York City in June, before Melat Kiros won in Colorado in July. This showed the public what we already knew in DSA — that socialism can win everywhere. This is a national phenomenon, it is so much bigger than Zohran Mamdani. DSA is being taken seriously as an electoral force both by regular people and establishment parties and media.

It turns out that socialist ideas are popular. We already knew that after the Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns: people are looking for an alternative to the Democrats and the Republicans. Especially when Trump is starting so many foreign wars and interventions, ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is kidnapping and killing our neighbours and regular people are feeling the crisis of affordability. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is rolling overhead, and they are similarly responsible for the genocide in Gaza and the extreme levels of wealth and income inequality in the US. So, DSA is here and ready to provide not just different ideas, but also organisation and even hope to those people who believe it is possible to live in a different kind of society.

We have a right-wing news network, Fox News, who post clips trying to paint DSA as scary and extreme by talking about our program, Workers Deserve More. They point to things such as healthcare for all, free Palestine, abolish ICE, changing our voting system to be more democratic. Then you will see people in the comments say: “Oh, this is what socialism is? I guess I’m a socialist”, so that’s really exciting to see.

Of course, this new power comes with new attacks on DSA. The centrist think tank Third Way plans to spend US$13 million on opposition research on us. The New York Times is going back to the old stand of running hit pieces about how all DSA does is fight itself. That might play with the affluent liberals who read the NYT, but to me it says the establishment is scared. So, we are doing something right.

To look ahead, we may have up to seven socialists in Congress, eight if you count Sanders in the Senate — he is not technically a DSA member but has done so much to bring people into DSA, starting in 2016. There are so many possibilities with a true socialist bloc in Congress. It is worth nothing that we had “The Squad” in 2018 — made up of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley — which was more of an informal group that largely became known because of how the media framed it.

We are doing something much more intentional this time, and DSA is much bigger and more like a party. DSA plans to work with these socialists in office to advance the demands of our program. It will be important to work out if we want to pass policy, or think we can, given we are still a small bloc. This would have to happen after 2028, if the Democratic Party re-takes Congress and the Presidency. Another option is to play an agitational role, to call out the total inadequacy of the Democratic Party, and bring more people into the socialist movement.

As for labour struggles, the biggest event on the horizon is May Day 2028. A couple of years ago, the United Autoworkers Union leadership proposed that unions align their contracts to all expire on May 1, 2028 and use it to increase workers’ leverage and put a spotlight on labour struggles. To date only a few unions have done this, but there is still a possibility of using May Day 2028 to bring labour struggles to the fore.

Our vision of electoral work is that it supports labour organising and class struggle. DSA electeds from Congress to City Council could play a role in making May Day a huge show of force and a starting point for an eventual new party.

DSA acts like a party in many ways, even though election laws intentionally make it very difficult to get the legal designation. But eventually we will stop running on the Democratic Party ballot line and form a party of our own — a party of working people to oppose the two parties that represent the interests of billionaires and CEOs. We also support moving the US to a system of proportional representation, because right now, the two-party system effectively keeps anyone but the Democrats and Republicans out of power.

We also need to grow DSA dramatically, while maintaining our socialist character, which is a tricky balance. We recently hit 120,000 members, making us the largest socialist organisation in US history in absolute numbers (it is still smaller as a proportion of population than Eugene Debbs’ Socialist Party). So 120,000 is great, but still more marginal than we would like. You can imagine a DSA of 200,000, 500,000 or 1 million dues paying members, all participating in our organisation’s democracy and organising in their local chapters for socialism.

Finally, there is the question of whether DSA endorses a candidate in the 2028 Presidential primary, and if so, which candidate. This is the most hotly contested debate in DSA right now. I cannot say too much, except that we are in the middle of a democratic process to decide that.

What impact could the upcoming midterms have on domestic politics? Could we see DSA and DSA-backed candidates make further gains?

Looking at the 2026 midterms, I think there is a distinct possibility that popular discontent with the Republican Party might sweep the Democratic Party back into power. That might make a few affluent liberals happy, but I do not think that is going to meaningfully change things for people in the US who are suffering from this crisis of affordability or are watching while the US kills people abroad and sends weapons to Israel.

That is why it is really important what our socialists in office do. As I mentioned, it is likely that the seven DSA-endorsed Congressional candidates will win: Tlaib and Donovan McKinney from Michigan; Kiros from Colorado; Darializa Avila Chevalier, Claire Valdez and AOC from New York; and Rabb from Pennsylvania. The role of these socialists will be agitational, rather than trying to pass reforms, at least until 2028.

It is likely that the Democrats will win in 2028, though we do not know, and even so, a milquetoast Democrat in the White House will not fix all of our problems. But having an agitational role can be really good. You can imagine having a staunchly pro-Palestine bloc in Congress for the first time. Of course, they will be under immense pressure to cave to the Israel lobby and forces behind US foreign policy. Some have stronger records on Palestine than others.

You can imagine seven DSA congresspeople all calling together to end US military funding to Israel and end the devastating economic warfare on places such as Cuba and Iran. You can imagine them putting out the same message about Medicare for all, and how the Democratic Party is on the side of healthcare CEOs and not regular people who are filing for bankruptcy or becoming unhoused because of their medical bills.

These socialists in office have the ability to demonstrate to people that another kind of society and government is possible, the way Sanders and Mamdani have done. But it needs to go beyond viral videos and raising expectations — they should be calling for people to join DSA.

There is also potential for material gains, if socialists use our leverage, particularly in the vote over who is going to be speaker of the house (presuming the Democrats take back the house in 2026). The presumptive nominee is Hakeem Jeffries, who is a centrist Democrat. Socialists in Congress could withhold their votes for him unless he agrees to certain conditions, such as supporting Medicare for all or an arms embargo for Israel. We have seen attempts at this in the past. The Squad tried to do this under [US President] Joe Biden, but they squandered a lot of their bargaining power.

So, this time it is important that DSA electeds work closely with DSA’s federal socialists in office committees to coordinate their votes, and then vote no to a speaker candidate if they do not agree to our demands.

How real are Trump’s threats to ignore or overturn the results?

It is hard to say how real they are, but my guess is that Trump will at least rhetorically challenge the results, that is his modus operandi. What we can say is that the Republican Party knows it cannot secure a majority unless a ton of people are blocked from voting, as they are already a minority. And that is what Trump is trying to do.

We should be alarmed at the erosion of our already sclerotic democracy. The Republican’s Save America Act would dramatically restrict who can vote by requiring the kind of documentation at the polls that many voters just do not have. One estimate said that 12% of registered voters do not have the documentation that would be required to vote.

If Trump and his administration try to overturn the results, I am not sure we yet have the popular organisation and muscle to fight back, although I know a lot of the liberal non-profit organisations and NGOs are thinking about this. For instance, a large motivation for the big “No Kings” protests we have seen over the past couple of years is to get people ready to protest if there was an attempt to overturn the results.

Zohran Mamdani win was an important victory for the left, how would you assess his first seven months in office?

Zohran’s first seven months have been largely positive for the socialist movement, but there are a few important caveats that we should not overlook. I should preface this by saying I am not a New Yorker, so I cannot claim to know what it was like to canvas for him or be at his victory party, though I have heard it was electrifying.

The most important aspect of Zohran’s victory is that it has given people a visible example of what socialism and DSA are, which has led directly to socialism breaking containment as we talked about earlier. So many people that we talk to either know and like DSA because they like Zohran, or they do not yet know DSA and we say that Zohran is one of us and they go: “Oh I like him!”

On a related note, a close comrade of mine recently said to me: “I have to tell you Ella, you were right, I was wrong, Zohran has been good for socialism”. Their fear was that Zohran would be under intense attacks from both parties and the mainstream media, and there would be every incentive for him to turn away from principled socialism. And then, when that compromised vision failed to deliver, all the people who were inspired by him would get the impression that socialism cannot actually do anything for them and they would check out of politics or go back to one of the other parties and DSA and socialism would be severely setback.

Luckily, that has not come to pass, and Zohran has been largely committed to representing democratic socialism rhetorically, and to delivering material gains for people, demonstrating that the government can do things to make our lives better, and go after billionaires and tax the rich. He is still vocally pro-Palestine, despite the omnipresence of these bad faith allegations of antisemitism. He said he would like to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he came to New York. His administration has won US$1.2 billion in state funding for universal childcare, they are building public bathrooms, affordable housing, publicly-owned grocery stores, and the pied-à-terre tax on second homes worth more than $5 million, part of his promise to tax the rich, is currently going forward despite a lot of legal challenges.

There is a question about what it means that Zohran is doing these things “for” New Yorkers, rather than these victories coming out as bottom-up fights that would grow people into socialists, labour militants or organisers. It is going to take a huge amount of popular power to pass his more ambitious plans, such as full, universal free childcare, and it would be a huge missed opportunity if Zohran does not use his significant charisma and communications skills and competency to bring people into DSA or other organisations.

Despite all of these successes, there have been contradictions within the Zohran administration and places where DSA has had to stake out an independent position and even put pressure on his administration. I could get into specifics, but the most important deficiency of his tenure so far has been his hesitance to use his pulpit to go after establishment Democrats, to mobilise supporters in mass struggles to achieve the toughest parts of his agenda, and his use of language around re-aligning the Democratic Party and claiming he is going back to the New Deal era of the Democratic Party. That is not DSA’s policy or outlook on the Democrats, and it is not even really historically honest about the New Deal era.

There was also a moment at the start of his term when he endorsed the sitting governor of New York for re-election at the same time as she was locked in a fight with the city’s nurses union which was on strike. Zohran has been a strong supporter of organised labour in the city, especially delivery and rideshare workers, but the nurses strike incident shows that his attempts to build relations with the establishment wing of the Democratic Party creates tensions with his commitment to socialist politics.

Still, despite these limitations there is no denying what Zohran’s campaign and mayoralty have done to grow DSA and popularise democratic socialism. I never thought when I joined DSA in 2018 that we would have a socialist mayor of New York City and seven DSA electeds in the house.

Trump’s second presidency has featured an expansion of imperialist interventions, how can socialists challenge this war drive?

This is a really big and urgent question. Under Trump we have seen a continuation of the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza, an expansion of the war into Iran and Lebanon, a far more interventionist approach in Latin America and even a challenging of European and Canadian sovereignty. We also continue to see bipartisan sabre rattling towards China, in the context of a new “Cold War” of sorts.

Defeating the US war machine is not only a key task of the US left and the workers movement, but it has super majority support among regular people in the US. It is a major contradiction in US politics — there is a fundamental disconnect between popular opinion and government action when it comes to imperialism and government intervention.

This is in part because the power over foreign policy is concentrated in our imperial presidency, which means it is insulated from popular pressure. It is also in part due to the huge power of the arms industry, military contractors, surveillance technology companies, mercenary groups, the so-called foreign policy blob and the Israel lobby. Finally, the disconnect reflects the fundamental democratic deficit in US politics, which is maintained by the two-party system, the huge role of money in politics, our totally undemocratic Senate and congresses multi-decade long unwillingness to take responsibility for war powers.

DSA has mobilised in the streets in response to Trump’s attacks on Venezuelan and Cuban sovereignty, as well as against the illegal and immoral war on Iran. Our strongest anti-imperialist work has been against the genocide in Palestine. Our greatest successes have been in the student movement, the labour movement and in electoral politics.

On campuses, our youth and student wing Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) played an essential role in the pro-Palestine encampment movement a couple of years ago. Encampments at schools with strong YDSA chapters were able to build far greater power and were some of the few universities across the US that won substantial gains.

For instance, at San Francisco State University (SFSU), students won divestment of their university's endowment from weapons manufacturing companies, including Caterpillar, Palantir and Lockheed Martin and established a human rights clause in SFSU’s investment policy to ensure they no longer invest in these companies profiting from war and human rights violations. In another example, at the University of Oregon, students won scholarships and visa sponsorships for students escaping from Gaza, and a framework to investigate and move towards divestment and a student-controlled cultural centre for Middle Eastern students.

Looking at the labour movement, DSA is building a campaign called Labour for an Arms Embargo, which is focused on supporting DSA members in unions to organise with their co-workers and pass resolutions in their unions supporting a total arms embargo against Israel, and to activate union members against the genocide and use the political influence of unions against corporate politicians. During the height of the genocide, DSA members helped pass resolutions through a slew of unions throughout the US in support of a ceasefire.

Finally, DSA has been able to channel the pro-Palestine movement's energy and sentiment into major electoral wins. We are certainly not the first to work on Palestine, there are longstanding movements in support of Palestine around the country, but seeing someone like Zohran get elected on a pro-Palestine platform is relatively new.

In all five of our new congressional wins, support for an arms embargo on Israel and a commitment to fight for a free Palestine were defining issues that helped our candidates win. This overturns the narrative that you cannot win if you are pro-Palestine or that the Israel lobby money will defeat you. This upcoming congressional session will have more people championing Palestine who will continue to raise the issue on a national scale.

Is there a unified view on anti-imperialism within DSA?

Within DSA there are major debates about how we should approach our anti-imperialist work. There is a large tendency of DSA members, and on the US and international left more broadly, who feel that it is not our place to criticise governments or parties that are victims of US imperialism or who self-identify as left-wing or who are the US’s inter-imperialist rivals. At best, they call this criticism a form of Western chauvinism and distraction, and at their most extreme say that criticising these governments advances the cause of US imperialism.

I am a member of an internal tendency of DSA called Bread and Roses (B&R). We, along with various other tendencies, reject this notion. We do not find it contradictory to say that we oppose US imperialist attacks on Venezuela and Cuba, while recognising that their systems of government are not what we envision within a democratic socialism. Similarly, we do not find it contradictory to oppose the US’ war on Iran, while supporting the Iranian people in their domestic struggle for democracy, women’s liberation and secular government. We also think it is quite possible to reject US warmongering on Russia and China while recognising the two as imperialist and revanchist authoritarian powers that we should loudly oppose.

When we talk to regular people about democratic socialism, we need to be able to say that the world we envision is not this repressive, authoritarian society of China or Venezuela, or what they have in their mind about the Soviet Union, but one of expansive democracy and freedom. More than that, if we make political support for governments targeted by US imperialism a litmus test for joining anti-imperialist struggles, we restrict the ability to grow our movement to the size and power it is going to take to end US imperialism.

So, the fundamental tasks of the anti-war and anti-imperialist movement are to grow our student and labour movements in size, power and militancy; win over the labour movement to anti-imperialist politics; elect more anti-imperialists into government; and struggle to make our society more democratic, through getting money out of politics and establishing proportional representation, so we can begin to translate what are supermajoritarian positions in US society into actual changes in public policy.

Trump is a figurehead for the global far right, which has seen a resurgence in recent years. What is behind this rise of the far right? Can socialists provide an alternative?

In his campaigns, in 2016 in particular, Trump did offer working people something, or at least he appeared to. He acknowledged their suffering was real rather than dismissing it like the Democrats did. Regular people are struggling to get by these days. There is a reason why Trump and Mamdani both talk about affordability, although obviously with different explanations and proscriptions for it.

Meanwhile, especially in the Biden era, all of these Democratic pundits were saying that the economy was really strong. When I listen to the Financial Times podcast to hear what the capitalists are saying to each other this is what I hear. They were using this cringey term in the Biden era, the “Vibes Session”, to say that there was a gap between the strength of the economy and people’s perception of it, in other words that regular people’s struggles were all in their head. So, it is no wonder that people were turned off by that.

But the far-right’s explanation for why people are suffering involves scapegoating the most vulnerable, most often immigrants, but also these days, trans people. They claim that there is a competition for resources and that immigrants are taking them away from the people who “deserve” the resources.

Of course, under capitalism we do live in a competition for resources, but it is between the working class and the ruling class — and the working class has been getting less and less for the past 50 years with the rise of neoliberalism in the 1970s. That meant union busting, tax cuts, deregulation, bringing everything under market control and defunding public services.

This is especially pronounced in the US where we have seen waves of gutting the welfare state and the ability of the government to actually do something for people. It happened in the 1990s with Bill Clinton and then most recently when Trump got re-elected. He slashed funding for everything from food aid, to research, to education, to library and museum services — I work in libraries so that is a personal one for me. But even the European social democracies that had strong labour parties in the 20th century have been moving to privatise social services over the past few decades, leaving people's lives much more threadbare. Of course you see this in Australia too.

In the ’90s there was the claim that we had reached the “end of history” and that we had reached this enlightened liberalism, or perhaps neoliberalism, and that social and economic relations were just going to stay that way forever. Of course, they did not. Neoliberalism and the market just stripped more and more of people's lives away, and it created this opening for the far right to say: “Look, you don’t have enough, but if we just take your share back from immigrants you can have the life that your parents or grandparents had”.

Can socialism provide an alternative? I think so. The reason socialism can provide a real alternative is that we as socialists also have an explanation for why people do not have enough and feel so powerless in their own lives. But the explanation that we offer is not punching down, but punching up. Who is hoarding all the resources? Who is making all the decisions that shape everything from how we get to work, to how many hours we work, to what kind of books we read, to just how underfunded our kids' schools are? It is the capitalist class.

In my experience, people are really feeling the anti-billionaire sentiment right now, regardless of who they have voted for in the past, or even if they have been tuned out of politics. Someone in my life, who grew up working class and voted for Trump three times, recently told me they are a socialist and thinks that our society should be run totally differently. That means there are real stakes for what DSA and our electeds do publicly, because for so many people it will be their first exposure to whether socialists can change their material conditions and offer them some power in their lives.

Are ecosocialist ideas gaining traction on the left in the US? How can socialists challenge Trump’s push to undo climate protections and relate to the immense challenge of the ecological crisis more generally?

I do not know if I could confidently say that ecosocialist ideas are gaining traction in the US, but I can confidently say that there is a significant ecosocialist current in DSA and the left. I would also say the theory of change behind the DSA’s Ecosocialists [also known as the Green New Deal Campaign Committee] is very strong. Their Theory of Power document says they are going to “win non-reformist or structural reforms that increase public sector capacity”, “build core elements of a party apparatus”, “win class struggle elections” and "prioritise labour solidarity and class struggle as workers”. This gets so much right about ecosocialism.

We have had some inspiring campaigns in various local DSA chapters. In the transit arena, Louisville DSA in Kentucky has been fighting alongside local unions to fully fund the local transit authority. Metro Detroit DSA is campaigning to bring back rail transit and to fully fund its totally underfunded transit system. In Texas, which has had serious climate disasters in the past couple of years, Corpus Christi DSA has been fighting against polluters on various fronts and recently has been opposing a desalination front.

Public power is another huge question for ecosocialism. New York City DSA had a really high profile victory in 2023, when they passed the Build Public Renewables Act, which directs the publicly-owned New York Power Authority to build public wind and solar using union labour to hit 100% decarbonisation of the electric sector by 2040 — a really ambitious goal and a good first step towards something like a Green New Deal. Recently, we have seen a ton of interest in fighting against artificial intelligence data centres, which is at the intersection of ecosocialism and fighting big tech.

I do want to say that some strategies and theories of change on the left have some serious limitations, which we have to reckon with if we are going to build a mass movement that includes lots of regular working people for the climate. I owe a lot of my ideas on this issue to Matt Huber, a fellow DSA member and professor of geography and the environment at Syracuse University. I highly recommend his book Climate Change As Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet.

To briefly explain, a lot of climate activism follows the values of the professional class. It centres things like science, awareness and knowledge rather than building the organised class power it is going to take to challenge capitalism. In mainstream and even left climate activism, there is a prevalent politics of offering people less, or telling them that when we win the sustainable world they will have to live with less. This can look like degrowth, which is an active debate on the left, or even just telling people that their consumer and lifestyle choices are not climate friendly enough and that their decadent lifestyle in the imperial core is part of the problem.

This is not going to build the organised popular power that we need. Instead, again coming from Huber, we need a planetary working-class solidarity and an anti-austerity climate politics that actually offers working people something. For example, robust public transit (which has been a popular part of Zohran’s campaign), green public housing and cheaper public energy for everybody.

Tragically, in recent years, climate activism is on the wane and the Green New Deal has all but disappeared from popular discourse in the US. It used to be on everyone’s lips, especially with Sanders elevating that demand.Socialists have a special responsibility to fight against fatalism and use this resurgence that we are having to fight for climate demands based on public ownership, public investment into infrastructure, regulating corporations and rapidly decarbonising. This is one of the most exciting possibilities for the new bloc of socialists in Congress.