Patrick Fox Whatever the final disposition of coalition forces in Afghanistan, personnel trapped in Taliban-controlled territory must be secured and evacuated. The current situation in Afghanistan grows more dire by the day for the fate of the thousands of American, coalition, and Afghan civilians trapped by the Taliban. …
Read More »The Turkey-Russia Relationship: Why “Compartmentalization” and Not Conflict?
Carter Boon Russia and Turkey maintain an interesting and volatile geopolitical relationship. The two states share many common interests and have significant economic ties to one another, and the leaders of both states have a good personal relationship. Despite the many areas of cooperation, there are still many …
Read More »What starts in Afghanistan does not stay in Afghanistan: China, India, and Iran grapple with the fallout
James Dorsey Taliban advances in Afghanistan shift the Central Asian playing field on which China, India and the United States compete with rival infrastructure-driven approaches. At first glance, a Taliban takeover of Kabul would give China a 2:0 advantage against the US and India, but that could prove …
Read More »How Not to React to Incidents in the Gulf of Oman
Paul Pillar In many cases, following a murky encounter at sea, people are eager to jump to conclusions about the evil intentions of local powers. Strange things have happened over the past several days in the Gulf of Oman. Some crews reported that they temporarily had lost control of their ships for …
Read More »Tehran’s Troubling Role in the Middle East Security Showdown
Paul Pillar Ostracizing Iran isn’t going to resolve America’s problems. There are other ways for Washington to deal with an adversary that don’t require it to weaken its ability to use diplomacy. Ostracizing another state—isolating it and refusing to conduct normal business with it—to punish or debilitate the …
Read More »Russia and China: The Taliban’s New Best Friends?
Mark Episkopos Moscow has found a like-minded partner in its handling of the Afghanistan crisis in the form of Beijing, holding joint military drills of an unprecedented scale with the People’s Liberation Army on Chinese soil earlier in August. With the Taliban on the verge of victory in Afghanistan, Russia and …
Read More »After Afghanistan, the Crux of Biden’s Mideast Challenge Lies in Tehran
Ahmad Charai When he took the oath of office in January, President Joe Biden vowed “to make America, once again, the leading force for good in the world,” as well as to “repair our alliances and engage with the world once again.” In the months since, he and …
Read More »Cyberspace and world politics
Giancarlo Elia Valori Politics in the world now refers to merely technical rather than purely political issues. In recent years, cyberspace issues, including cybersecurity, Internet freedom and governance, have quickly become ‘politicised’ and a natural global public issue. Important signs of the politicisation of the cyber world are …
Read More »The problems of climate change
Giancarlo Elia Valori Part two As we continue to examine the studies on climate change that is raising the average temperature of the planet, it must be said that the impact of temperature on production efficiency at too low or too high temperatures negatively affects production efficiency and …
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