Hi, I'm Ravi Agrawal, Foreign Policy's Editor-in-Chief.

This is FP Live.

So will the United States attack Iran?

A massive military buildup in the Middle East certainly suggests so.

No one can predict what President Trump will ultimately decide to do,

but we can game out how he might do it and the fallout it would create. In a moment, I will speak

with an expert who ran U.S. and Allied forces in the Middle East during the wars in Iraq and

Afghanistan and also ran the CIA.

First, one thing that's not the Middle East, Ukraine.

As I record this episode on Tuesday, the 24th of February, we're marking exactly four years

since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In looking back

at these four years, a few things stick out to me. This is a war that has consistently defied

expectations. Most observers thought it would be over in a few days. We're entering a fifth year.

Ukraine has been more resilient, more innovative, and more brave

than almost anyone imagined. This war has also been a lot more global than most people expected.

On Russia's side, it's drawn in assistance from Iran, North Korea, and China. Ukraine has gotten

help from the United States, and as that's fallen off a bit, from Europe,

in a way that spells a generational shift.

Whenever this war does end, I think it's increasingly clear that Europeans will be spending

more and more on every component of military might, from naval to aerial and cyber.

And that in turn will have profound

geopolitical and financial implications.

...