The Pacific Council has partnered with a new organization called the Leadership Council for Women in National Security, which has garnered pledges from 15 presidential candidates to seek gender parity in their senior-level national security appointments. Learn more about the organization and hear from co-founder Ambassador Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley.

Those of us who optimistically believe in technical and social progress cannot afford to remain on the fence in terms of globalism—in the building bridges across cultures sense of the word—but rather need to reignite a sense of hope about the world and humanity’s common fate, writes Alex Alben.

Tactics such as the June 14 attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman might allow Tehran to ultimately achieve some “soft compromises” in talks with the Trump administration, including the de-escalation of regional tensions and the easing of some restrictions to allow modest trade between Iran and the rest of the world, writes Banafsheh Keynoush.

Today, on the 10th anniversary of Neda Agha-Soltan’s murder by an Iranian sniper in Tehran, her story remains alive, showing that governments—no matter how powerful and repressive—cannot wholly control what their own people and global publics can learn about their actions, writes Phil Seib.