This week, the International Olympic Committee votes to name Los Angeles and Paris as hosts for the 2024 and 2028 Olympics; Iraq declares victory against ISIL in Mosul; China sets up its first overseas military base; and more.

This week, North Korea successfully tests an intercontinental ballistic missile that is potentially capable of striking the United States; President Trump and President Putin hold their first face-to-face meeting at the G-20 Summit; the UN Security Council approves a major reduction of peacekeepers in Sudan’s Darfur region; and more.

Normalizing a nuclear North Korea offers the United States the opportunity to cauterize the nuclear risk by reducing tensions just as Nixon's normalization cauterized nuclear China in the 1970s, writes Bennett Ramberg.

Although moderate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani won reelection last month, hardliners made significant gains and could win the presidency in the next election, Koichiro Tanaka told Pacific Council members during the Edgerton Series on Iran and Turkey.