Thucydides
Week of May 9-15, 2026
Welcome to TRACKING THE CRISIS, a weekly round-up from The Democracy Collaborative tracking the administrative, legislative, and other actions of the Trump Administration as well as the many forms of legal and movement response from across a broad range of social, political, and economic actors. TDC is providing this service for collective informational purposes, as a tool for understanding the times during a period of disorientingly rapid flux and change in the U.S. political economy. This round-up is produced by humans, not by Artificial Intelligence. TDC should not be understood as endorsing or otherwise any of the specific content of the information round-up.
TRUMP TRACKER: Administration actions
The ‘Thucydides Trap’: All eyes on U.S.-China relations as Trump goes to Beijing; Iran, Israel, Gulf States reposition for war as rest of the world braces for crisis; Araghchi appeals to BRICS. Tensions in the “ceasefire” over the Persian Gulf region rose to dangerous levels even as Trump’s much-anticipated state visit to Beijing this week took center stage. The United States and Iran traded direct strikes last week as the U.S. attempted to capture two Iranian tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, although Trump did not consider it an end to the ceasefire as no damage was reported other than some hull damage to a South Korean vessel. Israel continued to bombard Lebanon, killing an average of 20 people per day even as the Lebanese government continued peace talks with Israel, claiming ‘progress in Washington. It was revealed this week that both Saudi Arabia and the UAE had secretly launched offensive strikes on Iran during March and April 2026, with UAE claiming responsibility for strikes made after the ceasefire had gone into effect. Iran and the United States also mutually rejected each other’s ceasefire proposals once again, insisting on their maximalist ‘red lines’. Trump declared the ceasefire on ‘massive life support’ on Monday night after dismissing Iran’s latest 14-point proposal as a “piece of garbage” he didn’t bother to read through; Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Baghaei said Tehran’s offer to reopen the Strait was ‘generous’ and had only demanded “Iran’s legitimate rights,” while chief negotiator Ghalibaf mocked Trump on social media, saying “Operation Trust Me Bro failed.”
As Trump headed to China to meet with President Xi Jinping on Wednesday, Iranian forces allowed nearly 30 mostly Indian- and Chinese-flagged vessels to pass the Strait of Hormuz as it began implementing a new ‘management protocol’ over the waterway. A second Japanese-linked ship also made a successful passage. Neither ‘fully open’ nor ‘fully closed,’ Iran says it is open to ‘everyone but adversaries’ and granted passage to Chinese traffic after an ‘arrangement’ had been made between the two countries based on their ‘deep relations’ and ‘strategic partnership’, and after reaching “an understanding about Iranian management protocols of the strait.” Iranian officials rejected suggestions they are using the Strait of Hormuz as a weapon, insisting vessels can still move safely through routes coordinated by the IRGC Navy (published on a map released on May 4). Ships are expected to submit detailed information – including cargo details, ownership information, destination and route plans, and transit timing – in advance through what Iran calls the “Persian Gulf Strait Authority” (PGSA), after which vessels can wait to see if they are granted a transit permit from the Iranian agency. Iran decided not to reveal specific information about which countries are being allowed passage or if a toll is continuing to be charged, although the widely rumored $1 per barrel is still believed to be in place. Rumors also circulated regarding Iranian plans to seize control of the seven undersea data cables that pass along the bottom of the Strait of Hormuz, which carry 15-20% of global internet and financial data traffic linking Europe, the Gulf, and Asia. Gulf states rely on these cables for over 90% of their internet, banking, and cloud services. Commentators suggest Iran is learning from Egypt, which apparently collects a similar tax for cables running under the Suez Canal.
An analyst for Al Jazeera said that “two parallel mechanisms” of diplomacy were underway this week as Trump visited Beijing to meet President Xi, and Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi headed to New Delhi for a pivotal meeting of foreign ministers at a BRICS summit hosted by India. Trump had postponed the meeting in China, which was scheduled for last month, hoping to be able to gain some leverage through a war victory and approach the bilateral summit from a position of strength; under the current detente, however, the opposite seems to be true as the United States appears to be “asking for help from China to pressure Iran” to do something about the Strait of Hormuz. The two-day summit in Beijing opened Thursday to pomp and fanfare as Trump and an entourage of business leaders, including Elon Musk, were received by Chinese officials. Both leaders characterized the talks as very positive, but perhaps for different reasons. Trump and U.S. officials came away touting the ‘agreement’ they had reached that the Strait of Hormuz ‘should be open,’ implying that the Chinese would help pressure Iran to lift their control of the Strait; however, China analysts say nothing had been solidified other than a vague agreement on principle that commerce should be open.
On Thursday, Xi posed to Trump that the major question the two superpowers will need to answer is whether they can “avoid the Thucydides Trap and create a new paradigm for major country relations.” The Thucydides Trap is a geopolitical concept named for the ancient historian of the Peloponnesian War and based on the historical transition between Spartan and Athenian primacy in ancient Greece; the idea that a declining world power, unable to accept its fate, would resort to open conflict with the new up-and-coming regime or generation of regimes. Trump did not understand the inference until later, when he posted a lengthy piece on Truth Social clarifying that what Xi meant by the declining power was obviously Biden, not him. China’s main concern, besides the ever-looming threat of a confrontation between superpowers, was also the main point over which they hoped to press the United States; not Iran, but Taiwan, which Xi stressed to Trump as the “most important issue in China-U.S. relations.” Trump appeared to back off of a planned arms sale to Taiwan, which read as a win for China; when asked about the longstanding question of whether the United States would defend Taiwan in case of a takeover, Trump dodged the issue while saying “the last thing we need right now is a war.” Readouts from the U.S.-China summit summarizing the two days of talks reflected the divergence in emphasis, with theUnited States reporting on business deals and detailing points of agreement with China on Iran, while China’s report simply mentioned discussions on the “Middle East” while emphasizing the Taiwan question. Markets were cool on the meeting, which produced very little in terms of concrete economic or political commitments.
Meanwhile, Iran continued to shore up its options and possibilities on the diplomatic front as Araghchi delivered a seven-minute manifesto of a speech at the BRICS summit in New Delhi, appealing to the bloc not only to condemn war, but to take on what he characterized as their historic role in the vanguard of a new global order, one in which the “Global South is the primary architect of the world’s future.” Having arrived in an Iranian jet decorated with “#Minab168,” a tribute to the schoolgirls killed in the first wage of strikes in the war, Araghchi appeared to have negotiated critical rights of passage through the Strait of Hormuz for Indian ships, resolving a point that had kept India on the fence through recent negotiations and critical for Iran to demonstrate that friendly nations can gain access to Gulf resources. In the speech to BRICS, Araghchi celebrated Iran’s resistance efforts, saying he speaks for a people who, “under horrific bombardment, chose to stand firm… for young people who refused to let the dust of war erase their bright futures, and for a nation that, despite all pressures, continue to believe in a free, stable and just world.” Saying that “it should be clear by now that Iran is unbreakable,” he reiterated that they will “never bow to any pressure or threat,” but will “reciprocate the language of respect.” He made common cause with other Global South nations that have encountered, in various forms, the “same repugnant coercion” of U.S. primacy over the last half century, and warned that “imperial power in decline wants to turn back the clock, and is desperately lashing out on its way down.” Therefore, said Araghchi, “the battle Iran has fought is in defense of all of us, of the new world that we are building together,” calling upon BRICS nations to “jointly step up our work towards ending the [U.S.] sense of entitlement that has no place in today’s world,” and work “towards making clear that those practices belong in the dustbin of history.”
As Trump headed back to Washington and hostilities appeared likely to resume, Iran’s Gulf state neighbors are beginning to arrest Shi’a citizens within their country claiming ties to Iran, while mostly hedging their positions to avoid active engagement during the ceasefire for the sake of their flagging economies. Professor Robert Pape explains that despite Pentagon officials doubling down on claims that Iran’s ballistic missile capacity is degraded, Iran’s attack on the UAE’s Fujairah pipeline last week ‘sent a strong message’ to Gulf states against throwing in their lot with U.S./Israeli forces and relying on their ’false promises’ of security. The UAE in particular, being the most explicitly aligned with Israel, has drawn distrust from Iran and Gulf neighbors; Israel released a statement saying Netanyahu had ‘secret meetings’ with the UAE’s president during the height of the war, which UAE denied hours later. UAE also stymied efforts at a BRICS joint statement on the war; without naming it, Araghchi confirmed that a “single member state” had blocked the resolution, and left UAE with a cryptic warning on X, saying Tehran knew of the meetings with Netanyahu as he posted: “Enmity with the Great People of Iran is a foolish gamble. Collusion with Israel in doing so: unforgivable.” On Thursday, Saudi Arabia floated the idea of a ‘non-aggression pact’ between Iran and Gulf states this week, gaining European support for a regional agreement modeled after the 1975 Helsinki Accords that eased tensions in Europe during the Cold War.
The Empire as Paper Tiger: Pentagon reports reveal critical shortcomings in U.S. military power as resumption of hostilities loom; Hezbollah drones break Israel’s Iron Dome. In the face of the current diplomatic deadlock between the United States and Iran, Israeli media has hinted that strikes could resume as soon as Trump’s return to Washington from China, with the IDF raising the country’s preparedness to the ‘maximum level’ for possible retaliatory action, perhaps for the long haul as a prolonged conflict appears increasingly likely. As Israel and the United States prepare for renewed strikes in an operation the Pentagon is planning to call “Sledgehammer,” leaked intelligence reports reveal some contradictions in the Pentagon leadership’s account of U.S. military readiness to resume active hostilities against Iran. Contrary to Trump Administration claims that Iran’s military capability has mostly been “destroyed,” a new intelligence report indicates that Iran has restored operational access to 30 out of the 33 missile sites it maintains along the Strait of Hormuz, still fields about 70% of its mobile missile launchers across the country, and has retained up to 70% of its prewar stockpile of ballistic and cruise missiles. In contrast to reports that U.S. missile stockpiles are running critically low, intelligence reports also indicate that Iran has recovered 90% of its underground missile storage and launch sites that had been buried under U.S. intensive bombing, most of which are now “partially or fully operational.” In contrast, new and independent assessments of damage done by Iran to U.S. assets in the Gulf showed that the damage was much more extensive than had been previously disclosed or acknowledged by the Pentagon. A Washington Post analysis of available satellite images for the region showed that Iranian strikes had “damaged or destroyed at least 228 structures or pieces of equipment at U.S. military sites across the Middle East since the war began, hitting hangars, barracks, fuel depots, aircraft and key radar, communications and air defense equipment.”
During a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Ed Case told the committee of an independent defense report that indicated that during the 40 days of active engagement during the Iran war, 39 U.S. military aircraft have been destroyed; Pentagon chief financial officer Jay Hurst declined to confirm or deny the report. Hurst also testified on Tuesday revising the cost of the war upward from $25 billion to $29 billion, as Hegseth repeatedly sidestepped questions from lawmakers on how much more money outside of the Pentagon’s regular budget would be requested for the war, or when he expected to be requesting it. A confidential CIA analysis delivered to lawmakers last week concluded that Iran “can survive the U.S. naval blockade for at least three to four months before facing more severe economic hardship,” in stark contrast to Treasury Secretary Bessent’s triumphalist assessment of Operation Economic Fury, reporting that Iran’s economy was at an ‘industrial breaking point’. An emergency War Powers resolution vote in the Senate nearly ended up in a dead heat Wednesday as more Republicans crossed the aisle to vote with Democrats, showing that the patience within Trump’s own party is wearing thin as the conflict deepens and the prospect of a lasting ceasefire fades.
A similar situation involving underreported damages affecting Israel and its disadvantage against innovations in asymmetric warfare in south Lebanon is also emerging, as reports indicate that Hezbollah’s mastery of the cheap, fiber optic cable-bound FPV drones are wreaking havoc on Israeli forces in the occupied territory, and on Sunday demonstrated the capability for breaching the Iron Dome’s defense shield over Israel proper by taking out a key battery. Having carefully observed the use of these types of drones in the Russia-Ukraine war, Hezbollah turned to the low-cost drone technology after supply lines from Syria were cut off in 2024, finding their own ways to manufacture the drones locally at a cost of about $300 each. Controlled by fiber-optic cables that can stretch to several kilometers, the drones are able to evade the radio jamming technologies used by the IDF, and depending on the type of warhead used can be devastatingly effective against heavy artillery assets in Lebanon without an easy or ready answer from the Israeli side. This week, Israel announced that it was building its own factory to manufacture thousands of its own FPV drones, not only showing how influential the cheap and scrappy technology has become to modern warfare, but also setting the stage for a protracted drone war that analysts say can complicate prospects for the kind of ceasefire in the region that will be key to the wider U.S.-Iran peace negotiation.
War on U.S. voting rights dramatically raises stakes for midterms as state houses erupt in conflict; scrutiny focuses on SCOTUS conservatives and the dark money network behind them. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ long-game bid to dismantle the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has dramatically accelerated into a full court press since the Supreme Court’s fateful ruling two weeks ago in Louisiana vs. Callais, which opened the door for states to eliminate districts that were created to ensure political representation for minority and marginalized groups, especially for Black populations in Southern states. With the upcoming midterm elections threatening political disaster for the Republican Party, the ruling provides a ‘cheat code’ that both parties are scrambling to take advantage of; but in Southern states especially, Republicans are ramping up fast-tracked gerrymandering efforts and provoking fierce opposition from Democrats and voting rights groups. In Louisiana, the original state where the VRA provisions were contested, Governor Jeff Landry used the ruling to suspend primary elections in the middle of the voting period, discarding over 45,000 ballots that had already been cast. In an interview with 60 Minutes on Sunday, Gov. Landry was pressed about the 45,000 votes that he had essentially negated. “It’s not a big deal,” the governor replied as the host was taken aback; “if anyone has a grievance,” he added, “take it to the U.S. Supreme Court.” In Virginia, where the Republican-controlled State Supreme Court voided a voter-approved Democratic redistricting measure, state Democrats dropped their bid to press the matter by forcing resignations on the Supreme Court, chalking up another win for Republicans and the Trump Administration.
In Tennessee, where a special House redistricting session was met with raucous protests from Black Democratic legislators as well as the public, the Republican House Speaker stripped Democratic lawmakers of all committee assignments as punishment for their role in last week’s disruption, citing offenses such as “interlocking arms in the well of the House” and “blocking aisles on the House floor,” as well as using “prohibited props and noisemakers.” House Democrats make up approximately a quarter of the legislative body. State representative Justin Jones, who represents Nashville, said on social media that the move fits “the same pattern of racial discrimination and authoritarian abuse we have come to expect.” House Democratic leader Karen Camper, representing the Memphis district that is being redrawn, called the redistricting “one of the most troubling abuses of power this legislature has seen in recent memory”; of the disciplinary action, she said, “when Democrats stand up, speak out, and expose what is happening in this chamber, the response from this supermajority is retaliation… but we are not intimidated.” Many Black residents of Fayette County, outside of Memphis, still hold in living memory the time of Jim Crow and the fight for the Voting Rights Act in the Civil Rights era, as well as the ongoing fight for representation as decades of underfunding, lack of services, and redistricting schemes eroded the gains made as well as hope for Black families in the area.
The dramatic shifts taking place as a result of the SCOTUS ruling, as well as the unusual nature of the ruling itself, is drawing much attention to the history and background of the Supreme Court’s conservative bench, particularly Chief Justice John Roberts, who has been agitating to undermine or overturn the Voting Rights Act since his time as a young lawyer in the Reagan Administration over 40 years ago. Jamelle Bouie in the New York Times lays out the ideological and legal scaffolding Roberts and his fellow conservative justices, particularly Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, have been quietly laying down during his time as Chief Justice that paved the way for this fateful decision, all the while trying to convince lawmakers and the public that the Justices were acting logically from an ‘impartial’ or ‘neutral’ framework that was racist at its very core. That framing seems to be breaking down, as recent polls found that 6 out of 10 Americans view the Justices as “political actors” rather than impartial arbiters. More evidence of collusion with the Trump Administration surfaced this week as the Guardian reported that misleading data analysis from the Trump DOJ was quoted and cited in Justice Alito’s majority opinion justifying the Callais ruling. Many analyses this week are recalling ProPublica’s investigative expose of dark money mogul Leonard Leo and his role in shaping the contemporary Supreme Court. South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn slammed Roberts on CNN, saying that Roberts “is going to take his place alongside some other infamous justices like [former Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger] Taney, who gave us the Dred Scott decision.” All this said, SCOTUSblog writer Carolyn Shapiro carefully unwinds the knot of decisions that made the voting rights rollback possible, revealing possible tactical openings to push back and/or overturn the ruling and the efforts of the Roberts Court.
MOVEMENT TRACKER
Chicago immigrant community defenders shift tactics as ICE raids persist, and the long-term legacy of ICE militarization and occupation of cities continue to hit communities. Although the Iran war has pushed immigration enforcement out of the media spotlight, and the DHS shutdown, successful resistance of Minnesota communities, and the firing of Kristi Noem have somewhat slowed the momentum and overt violence of ICE operations, the incursion of immigration enforcement into communities has not stopped, but is quietly becoming a ‘new normal’ in U.S. cities. A WBEZ/Chicago Sun-Times analysis of data from the Deportation Data Project, a collective of lawyers and academics, has found that 580 people have been detained in the Chicago area from Jan. 1 through mid-March. Building upon lessons learned from the high-profile cycles of active struggle in Chicago and Minneapolis since last year, local activists are reflecting on and adjusting their tactics, and adapting them for the long haul. Some examples include building hyper-local systems of text chats and group threads that connect neighbors to each other, using innovative rapid-response systems that will enable communities to respond faster to raids as they are reported. Hundreds of community members who have been attending know-your-rights training sessions have been schooled in how to respond to more aggressive immigration enforcement tactics and deal with obstacles immigrants might face when detained, through role-playing exercises and teaching various de-escalation tactics. Ground response teams are also figuring out and training on best practices when immigrants have already been detained and taken to detention centers. Other groups are concentrating on dealing with chemical agents such as pepper spray and tear gas that have been widely deployed by ICE during urban confrontations, and creating emergency plans to deal with injuries, detentions, or other types of violent arrests. Immigrant community defense activists are also preparing for potential crackdowns against them for their efforts; this week, federal agents raided the homes of members of a Ventura County activist group, VC Defensa, serving search warrants in the middle of the night and seizing some items. The activists plan to file a civil lawsuit against the raids in federal court.
A ProPublica study released this week identified at least 79 children who have been harmed by chemical agents used by ICE as the agency stepped up their use in U.S. neighborhoods. The study highlights how since no national standard governs the use of pepper spray and tear gas by law enforcement, federal agents have been free to use chemical agents at will to quell domestic unrest; ProPublica found that use of chemical agents by Trump’s federal forces “has been so extreme – with some children exposed multiple times – that the only research ProPublica found that might approximate the impact is a 2018 survey of Palestinian refugees in the West Bank subjected to the chemicals by Israeli security forces.” The long-term effects of exposure – and sometimes repeated exposure – to children is unknown. In her ruling prohibiting the use of chemical agents in Minneapolis, U.S. district judge Sara Ellis wrote that ICE and CBP often used excessive force “without justification, often without warning” against people who didn’t pose a physical threat,” adding that “Tear gassing expectant mothers, children, and babies shocks the conscience.” ProPublica also reported this week on a massive lawsuit being filed by residents of the South Shore apartment building that was ransacked in a military-style raid by ICE agents in Chicago last September. Their claims against federal agents include warrantless entry into apartments, as well as having caused “physical injuries, emotional trauma, “brutal detention” and financial loss,” as many tenants reported having lost or stolen personal belongings, electronics, and even missing cars once detained. The 17 plaintiffs, 15 immigrants and two U.S. citizens, are being represented by attorneys from the National Immigrant Justice Center, who hope that this and several other civil cases being prepared against ICE in the coming months will help to act as a “check against the most aggressive and reckless forms of (immigration) enforcement.”
Resistance to AI data centers has become a cultural norm across the U.S. political spectrum. Negative opinions amongst the public toward data centers appear to be widespread across political lines nationwide, according to the latest polling data released by Gallup; the poll, published on Wednesday, found that 71% of Americans are either somewhat or strongly opposed to the prospect of a data center being built in their area. Environmental impact concerns topped the list of reasons for their opposition, although a majority of Americans also said they would rather see a nuclear power plant being built in their neighborhood than a data center. Data center construction has become a battleground issue in many state and local governments, as those in opposition cite increased utility costs and utility shortages, concerns over noise and chemical pollution, taxpayer burden under development incentives, ecological impact, impacts on local cost of living, infrastructural impacts on land and utilities, public safety and health, and lack of regulation as primary concerns. This stands in contrast to the federal government’s attitude towards the AI industry, where a ‘circular economy’ among the largest ‘Magnificent Seven’ tech companies props up at least half of the entire U.S. stock market. The Guardian describes the sheer scale of the AI bubble and government efforts to keep it going at all costs, despite the flagging state of the rest of the economy: “Washington has doled out billions in lucrative federal subsidies and contracts to the cash-rich sector, bloating an AI bubble that experts warn may imperil the entire economy while prohibiting any guardrails on the fast-moving technology.”
Recent laws and proposals have arisen to limit, regulate, or pause data center construction in Texas, New York, California, Seattle, Portland, and Iowa, amongst others, although many have expressed an expectation or experience of significant pushback by state and federal government. The firm Data Center Watch found that by the end of 2025, nearly $156 billion worth of data center projects have been blocked by local communities, as opposition to data centers “consolidated into a national political force.” The scale of the competition for resources perceived by local communities is often so great as to be transformative of the quality of life for many residents. In Lake Tahoe, California, over 50,000 residents of a famed resort city will lose access to local electricity service as the current provider, NV Energy, plans to redirect its entire output to a data center complex being built near Reno. In Georgia, a data center outside of Atlanta had been stealing water from the nearby community, which had gone unnoticed until residents began complaining of low water pressure. The U.S. Army has contracted with two tech companies to build two hyperscale data centers at U.S. military bases, with plans to build more in the future, which will, per an Army press release, “serve as the operational engine for the Army’s transformation into a data-centric force.” Astra Taylor and Saul Levin, writing in The Guardian this week, argue that this transformative quality of AI data center buildout raises the stakes of these site fights to the question of democracy itself: “The remarkable organic growth of the datacenter resistance movement across geographies, economic interests and ideology reflects the myriad harms that come with AI infrastructure and growing anger at the tech elite. The tremendous energy unleashed by these fights, and their sensible and unifying demands, have the potential to form the foundations of a new and powerful populist coalition, one poised to help define a working-class agenda that meets this moment and resonates with disaffected voters. This excellent organizing should be cultivated rather than dismissed.”
House Democrats demand transparency from the Trump Administration regarding Israel’s nuclear armament. In light of the Trump Administration’s hard-line stance regarding Iran’s nuclear program, a group of thirty House Democrats are pushing for transparency on what has been an open secret in Washington for decades: the clandestine growth of Israel’s nuclear capabilities through the patronage of the United States. Israel is the only country believed to possess nuclear weapons in the Middle East, and the only nuclear-armed country that has not formally acknowledged its possession of nuclear capabilities, maintaining a policy of ‘deliberate ambiguity’ and thus evading jurisdiction of the Non-Proliferation Treaty under the aegis of the United States. The letter, addressed to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and signed by a group of progressive Democrats led by Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro, is a rare public comment from U.S. lawmakers that openly acknowledges Israel’s nuclear capability, which is known to have been secretly developed in collusion with U.S. intelligence and the Pentagon since the 1980s. The demand comes as support for Israel is collapsing precipitously among voters of both parties, straining the bipartisan commitment to Israel that has been maintained for decades by way of AIPAC-affiliated lobbyists and large donors. In the letter, Rep. Castro and the signatories ask that Israel be held to the same standards of accountability that the Trump Administration is asking of Iran: “We cannot develop coherent nonproliferation policy for the Middle East, including with respect to Iran’s civil nuclear program and Saudi Arabia's civil nuclear ambitions, while maintaining a policy of official silence about the nuclear weapons capabilities of one party central to the ongoing conflict in which the United States is a direct participant. We ask that you hold Israel to the same standard of transparency that the United States expects from any other country that may be pursuing or retaining nuclear weapons capability.”
