Key Takeaways Kazakhstan Cracks Down on Gasoline Smuggling — Amid severe fuel shortages in Russia caused by Ukrainian drone attacks, Kazakhstan has set up police checkpoints on nearly 60 border roads and introduced daily crossing limits to stop “gasoline tourism” and illegal exports. Kazakhstan Extends Ban on Petroleum Exports — …
Read More »Beyond The Trophy: Is The FIFA World Cup Losing Its Political Neutrality?
Altaf Moti Key Takeaways Trump’s Intervention Turned a Sporting Decision into a Political Issue — The US President publicly confirmed calling FIFA President Gianni Infantino to request a review of Folarin Balogun’s red card, leading to the suspension being overturned and sparking widespread debate about political influence in football. …
Read More »What’s Behind Serbia’s Economic Rise? – Analysis
Key Takeaways Serbia’s Economic Rise is Multifaceted — The country’s strong growth over the past decade is the result of political stability, proactive development policies, strategic infrastructure investment, successful attraction of foreign direct investment, and fiscal discipline. Tangible Improvements in Living Standards — Average net salaries have nearly tripled (from …
Read More »The Bear With The Bomb: How Russian Nuclear Coercion Is Reshaping European Deterrence – Analysis
Rafael Loss with Katrine Westgaard Key Takeaways Russia is building up its arsenal of nuclear-capable long-range weapons and planning for victory in a confrontation with Europe. The Russian goal is to fracture NATO and disrupt the West’s deterrence strategy while extracting political concessions from Europe. Europe has not …
Read More »Balochistan is not Pakistan
Hadi Elis For nearly eight decades, the conflict in Balochistan has been portrayed by Islamabad as a separatist insurgency threatening Pakistan’s territorial integrity. Yet for many Baloch nationalists, the struggle is not about separation from Pakistan—it is about liberation from what they regard as a historical occupation. Their …
Read More »Saudi’s strategy for Yemen: a stick for the southerners, a carrot for Europe’s defense ministries
Willy Fautre Saudi Arabia’s Yemen policy master, Riyadh’s ambassador Mohammed al-Jaber, believes in stick-and-carrot diplomacy—he shows the stick to Yemen’s dissenters and the carrot to Europe’s defense ministries. And it’s a contradiction that now runs straight through Europe’s own legal order. Al‑Jaber is no ordinary envoy. Since 2014 …
Read More »Why the Russia–Ukraine War Has Become a Contest of Endurance?
“The Russia–Ukraine War has now exceeded the duration of the First World War, yet Russia is short of achieving its original political objectives, and Ukraine, supported by NATO, hasn’t given up.” This prolonged contest of wills has morphed into a grinding, industrial-age war of attrition fought with twenty-first-century …
Read More »The Return of the Rivalry: Latin America in the New Great Power Contest
Until not so long ago Latin America had been considered a quiet region, located far from the world’s superpower main strategic confrontations, with sporadic but crucial moments that helped to shape the international order as we know it today. The Cuban Missile Crisis is the clearest example: it …
Read More »NATO’s Credibility Crisis: When the Alliance Survives But the Guarantee Dies
National flags of NATO members flutter at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium April 2, 2025. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo/File Photo Last Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told European defense ministers that Article 5 the collective defense clause binding NATO together for 75 years was now conditional on …
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