A pause in military strikes by both U.S. and Iranian forces held for a third day Monday after weeks of escalation in the war. Regional sources say mediators led by Qatar and Pakistan scrambled for a third day and made some progress toward returning U.S. and Iranian officials to the negotiating table.

The developments come weeks after the violent collapse of the major ceasefire and memorandum of understanding deal that President Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed last month. Tensions reached a crescendo last week with an attack by Iran-backed Houthi militants on Saudi oil assets and a retaliatory Saudi strike that hit a port in Yemen’s Houthi-held city of Hodeidah.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz says American military action remains a possibility. “What the president is doing right now, as we’ve seen all along, is giving the talks some space,” Mr. Waltz told NBC‘s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “Talks are ongoing. They’re happening at every level, from the more technical aspects of it all the way to the highest levels.”

Two Romanian F-16 fighter jets scrambled from an air base under NATO’s operational command Sunday and shot down a suspected Russian drone that had crossed into the Eastern European country’s airspace. 

It was the third such incursion and interception in as many days in Romania, which is both a NATO ally and European Union member nation. Romanian President Nicusor Dan said one of the drones intercepted in recent days appears to be “a Shahed type, used by the Russian Federation in the war of aggression against Ukraine,” according to The Associated Press.

Before the last three interceptions, Romanian jets shot down a drone in the skies above Estonia in May, according to Mr. Dan. Romanian pilots and planes are based in Lithuania, from where they have broad strike capabilities as part of NATO’s force posture.

Japan is set to launch a new counterintelligence agency, the National Intelligence Bureau, and hold the first meeting of its new National Intelligence Council on Friday. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi will chair the inaugural meeting of the 10-member NIC. Kazuya Hara, director of Cabinet intelligence and a former senior police official, will lead the new NIB.

Asia Editor Andrew Salmon reports that the moves by Tokyo to upgrade intel collection, analysis and sharing may be overdue. The Royal United Services Institute, a British defense think tank, in June dubbed Japan a “spy paradise” for its lax counterintelligence and related laws.

According to a Sunday editorial in Kyodo News, Japan’s agencies lack appropriate numbers of analysts and, due to a culture notoriously embedded in the nation’s bureaucracies, do not share intelligence beyond their own silos.

International law “need not be an obstacle; it can be an asset to America’s political objectives,” according to James S. Gilmore III, who writes in an op-ed for The Washington Times that “we must go back to international law, adhere to it and insist that Iran do the same.

“I also propose adding a diplomatic initiative,” writes Mr. Gilmore, a former governor of Virginia and former U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. 

“President Trump should convene a conference of the nations of the world to call on Iran to surrender its aspirations to control the Strait of Hormuz and restore it to its proper status as an open waterway under international law,” he writes. “That conference would rally the world to constrain Iran. Every nation has a stake in the global oil and fertilizer markets. No nation would choose to be held hostage by Tehran.”

While war continues in eastern Ukraine, a project is taking shape in the country’s south that could define Ukraine’s future for decades: a deep-water seaport known as the Berezan Port project.

“For Ukraine, the project provides an opportunity to rebuild its industrial base near a modern, private, world-class shipping hub,” writes Jon Queen, CEO of Berezan Port LLC. “For the United States, it is an opportunity to secure a position in the strategically vital Black Sea region and gain access to resources that America urgently needs.”

Mr. Queen writes in an op-ed for The Times that “the United States and its allies should view Berezan Port as a strategic investment in the postwar order of the Black Sea.”

• July 29 — The Democratic Republic of Congo at a Crossroads: Presidential Succession and Conflict in the East, Brookings Institution

• July 29 — North Korea’s Post-Party Congress Economic Course and Implications for the Korean Peninsula, Stimson Center

• July 30 — Responding to Global Threats: A Conversation with Sen. Rick Scott, Florida Republican, Hudson Institute

• July 30 — Future of U.S. Land Power: Under Secretary of the U.S. Army Mike Obadal, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• July 30 — The Board of Peace’s Gaza Plan: Broken or Working as Intended? Arab Center Washington, D.C.

• Aug. 4 — Navigating the Strait of Hormuz Energy Crisis: Global Policy Responses, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• Aug. 4 — Taiwan’s Ever-Changing Security Environment, Hudson Institute

• Aug. 4-5 — 2026 Air Force & Space Force Procurement Conference, American Defense Alliance

• Aug. 5-6 — Border Security & Intelligence Summit, Defense Strategies Institute