Geopolitics

By Tom Nichols A few weeks ago, I directed Harvard Extension School’s “Crisis Game,” in which students had to play out a hypothetical Cold War crisis involving nuclear weapons. The realization that a crisis could escalate to nuclear war shocked younger students who had never given much thought …

Allyson Beach As a requisite resource, water and its infrastructure are decisive targets in the self-declared Islamic State’s (IS) strategy for regional expansion in the Middle East. Although IS has not demonstrated the capacity to operate technologically intensive water infrastructure, it continues to pursue control of dams and …

Why did Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates provide a pulpit for a firebrand cleric who calls for the destrcution of Shiites, Alawites, Christians, and Jews? Oren Adaki, David Weinberg  Foreign Policy As Saudi Arabia expands its involvement in wars across the Middle East, the kingdom has …

By Vasudevan Sridharan The Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council is set to hold major talks in the presence of French President Francois Hollande over the handling of the Yemen crisis. The Sunni-dominated Council of Gulf monarchs is expected to call for a partial humanitarian truce in Yemen, at least …

Jeremy Friedman At its core, the proposed nuclear deal with Iran is a bet on the future direction of the Iranian regime. Two former Secretaries of State, Henry Kissinger and George Schultz, argued in a recent critical piece in the Wall Street Journal that the central claim of …

“Innumerable analysts have predicted that the twenty-first century will belong to China, yet it seems worth considering whether the current millennium will not belong at least equally to India.” Christopher Whalen Back in August of last year, TNI described why India’s economic prospects are brighter than those of …

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman’s bold steps to consolidate power might trigger backlash from his rivals.  New steps taken by King Salman bin Abdel Aziz al-Saud might lead to a possible political storm in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Intelligence Review IHS Jane’s 360 reported. The reason to expect political disorder within Saudi governing circles …

By SOMINI SENGUPTA Wearing pinstripes and a pince-nez, Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations envoy for Syria, arrived at the Security Council one Tuesday afternoon in February and announced that President Bashar al-Assad had agreed to halt airstrikes over Aleppo. Would the rebels, Mr. de Mistura suggested, agree …

By HUSSEIN IBISH When, at its March summit meeting, the Arab League announced that it intended to create a unified command for a joint Arab military force, eyes rolled. Given how divided the Arab states are, and how poorly most historical efforts at Arab military coordination have fared, this …