Recent geopolitical flashpoints — the four-day military engagement between India and Pakistan and the 12-day war between Iran and Israel—have unveiled two compelling realities.

First, despite the shifting tides of multi-polarity, the United States remains the most consequential actor in global power politics. Second, the long-standing regional myths of invincibility and dominance by India’s in South Asia and Israel’s in the Middle East have been irreversibly challenged.

In both crises, the US emerged not only as a mediator but as the ultimate arbiter of dispute resolution and end of hostilities between the said warring nations.

President Donald Trump’s assertive and decisive phone calls, whether by official design or calculated spectacle, succeeded in arresting escalations that could have spiraled into regional wars - a feat that a world body like the UN could not have achieved so decisively and in so short a time. Washington’s capacity to stop two simultaneous conflicts in volatile regions underscores its unmatched diplomatic leverage and military deterrence even in an era of a waning uni-polarity.

Equally significant, however, is what these conflicts revealed about the internal dynamics of their respective regions. In South Asia,........

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