REGIONS

Giancarlo Elia Valori No official meetings between President Xi Jinping and Pope Francis are officially scheduled on the agenda for the Chinese President’s next visit to Italy. Neither party wants to jeopardize the agreement reached last September on the appointment of bishops and, however, as is well-known, both …

Geostrat: Terrorists throughout the world are made. Since Jordan has borders with Syria and Iraq amidst a turbulent region, many Jordanians due to economic hardships and political dismay have resorted to initiate a caliphate in Iraq and in Syria in cooperation with many extremists and terrorists who stormed …

Thomas Callender Whatever the promise of emerging technologies, combatant commanders still want more floating mobile airfields. The Pentagon reportedly wants to cancel the mid-life refueling for the aircraft carrier USS Truman, an unexpected move that would save $1.5 billion in fiscal years 2021-23, but only $16.9 million in 2020. More …

Robert Scales The flurry of self-congratulatory prose emerging from multi-domain warfare literature today obscures the fact that a slogan such as “multi-domain” is not doctrine, and doctrine rooted in the fundamental tenets of warfare is a prerequisite for meaningful reform. Nowhere is the gap between sloganeering and meaningful doctrine more …

Judy Twigg The current conversation about Russia sanctions centers around targeting and scope. Are we punishing the people whose behavior we most want to change? Is there pain, well inflicted, on those individuals responsible for creating chaos in Ukraine and Crimea, for reckless attacks on Sergei Skripal and …

US Defence Department Deputy Secretary Charlie Summers told reporters that Turkey could face great consequences if it procures the S-400s. However, President Erdogan has claimed that the purchase of the S-400 missile systems by Turkey is not connected with the security of NATO or the United States. Sputnik …

Terrorism is a security and political challenge that Jordan will face in the next decade. The country has been a target for terrorist groups (Daesh and al-Qaeda) for many reasons due to Jordan’s proximity to Iraq and Syria, which have been suffering from terrorism for many years. As …

James M. Dorsey When Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meets Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi next week, the elephant in the room is likely to be what weighs more: the issues the two men agree on or the ones that divide them. As a matter of principle, …

Giancarlo Elia Valori Syria is the great rotating platform of the Middle East. Paraphrasing the statement by Mackinder, the well-known British geopolitician of the early twentieth century, “who  rules Syria commands the Middle East, who rules the Middle East controls Europe and Africa”. This is the profound meaning …