Op-ed

Giancarlo Elia Valori Let us see how oil barrel prices have really fluctuated in recent weeks: in April, in fact, the European and Asian Brent benchmark, in parallel with the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI), decreased by about 1 U.S. dollar per barrel a day. The WTI, however, …

Desmond Lachman Lenin famously observed that there are decades when nothing happens and then there are weeks when decades happen. Since the coronavirus pandemic struck early this year, we now seem to be living in such tumultuous weeks. In this new world of rapid change, and with five …

The demise of Open Skies bodes ill for the New START agreement, which caps the number of strategic nuclear weapons Washington and Moscow can deploy at 1,550. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty is unfortunate but hardly surprising. In the months prior to …

TNI editor Jacob Heilbrunn investigates the aftermath of looting and rioting in Washington, DC. Last evening, as I strolled through my neighborhood in Friendship Heights, I stumbled onto several gangs that were intent on trashing businesses along Friendship Heights. I had enough sense to avoid continuing on to …

Farzad Ramezani Bonesh Senior Researcher and Analyst of International Affairs Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and his rival, Abdullah Abdullah, have finally signed a political agreement to form an inclusive government after months of disagreement over the outcome of the 2019 presidential election. The agreement was signed in …

Dr. Andrey KORTUNOV The term “multilateralism” is not specifically elaborated in Russian international relations theory. For a long time, it has remained in the shadow of the much more popular term “multipolarity,” although the latter is gradually being replaced in Russian literature by the term “polycentrism.” Sometimes, it …

Paul R. Pillar The methods and motivations behind the U.S. arms sales in the Middle East are not the stuff of sound regional policy. One of the latest steps in the Trump administration’s never-ending pressure on Iran in its attempt to extend a United Nations-imposed embargo prohibiting the export to, or import …

Jacob Heilburnn TNI editor Jacob Heilbrunn interviews Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov about the New START Treaty and the state of U.S.-Russia relations. Jacob Heilbrunn: What is your assessment of the state of U.S.-Russia relations? Sergei Ryabkov: The current state of our bilateral relations is probably worse …

James Holmes  “Southeast Asians—and lovers of freedom of the sea everywhere—must come to terms with China’s bid for sovereignty. They must act, making common cause with likeminded partners and fashioning counterstrategies to meet Beijing’s high-plains offensive. Otherwise the region courts an American Indian fate.” This week I had …