Video game enthusiasts like me will know what a double tap is. But for any non-gamer/hunters out there, a double tap is a shooting technique where two shots are fired in rapid succession at the same target and can also describe a second fatal shot once the enemy …
Read More »China is Winning, the World is Losing: U.S. is Struggling to Counter China’s Asymmetric Tactics
Recent years have seen a noticeable ramp-up of China’s aggressiveness in the South China Sea. While China previously held a far more passive stance in regards to its neighbors, it seems that shaky footage of Chinese Coast Guard vessels or fishing boats shadowing and attacking Philippine vessels with …
Read More »Erdogan’s Plan to Shape Syria’s Future
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has long longed for this moment of vindication. For him, it is a moment ripe with opportunities — economic, political and geostrategic. It is also a moment when Erdogan and his team could attempt to craft a success story for an Islamist entity …
Read More »Remaking the World Order: No Small Feat
The United States needs to redefine its role in world affairs, what does that mean and what will it take? The liberal rules-based international order it built and sustained in the years after the Second World War is disintegrating at an accelerating pace. After a period of comity …
Read More »Trump 2.0 and Palestinians: From Reversal to Repression and Deportations
In my new book, The Fall of Israel (2025), I examine the activities of all US postwar administrations regarding the Israelis and Palestinians. The first Trump administration did not just differ from its precursors. It turned upside down five decades of US policies regarding Palestinians. In the next …
Read More »The Imminent Consequences of Trump’s Executive Orders
In the past decade, the U.S.-led geopolitics and trade/tech wars have undermined international cooperation setting the stage for stagnation in global economic prospects. Trump 2.0 will escalate the status quo, weaponizing executive orders in the name of “national security.” Over half a decade ago, I first warned about …
Read More »Syria and the Levant: Building Stability Amidst Shifting Ambitions
The Levant has long been a stage upon which the drama of history has unfolded- a region where empires collided, faiths converged, and civilizations either flourished or crumbled. Far from being a mere relic of the past, this ancient nexus remains a cornerstone of global security and economic …
Read More »Jordan’s Political Quagmire: Reform or Relapse?
Eng. Saleem Al Batayneh A society that fails to ask the right questions cannot expect to arrive at meaningful answers, let alone true knowledge. In Jordan, questions critical to our democracy are either silenced or confined far from the decision-making centers that shape our future. Chaos reigns where …
Read More »Is Donald Trump a Great President?
Is Donald Trump a great president? That’s the question posed by John F. Harris in Politico, less in the spirit of endorsing Trump than suggesting that he is nothing less than “the greatest figure of his age.” Trump has now dominated American politics for over a decade. The Biden administration increasingly …
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