Military & Security

Washington should avoid committing more US ground troops in the latest Middle Eastern conflict, CIA veteran Paul R. Pillar notes, adding that the exploitation of the Daesh (IS/ISIL) issue by American politicians is likely to continue. While the majority of the US presidential candidates are banging war drums over the …

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya This article first published by GR in November 2006 is of particular relevance  to an understanding of the ongoing process of destabilization and political fragmentation of Iraq, Syria and Yemen. “Hegemony is as old as Mankind…” -Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Advisor The term “New …

Low oil prices are eating into defense spending in the Gulf region, one of the world’s largest arms markets, with budgets trimmed for the first time in a decade this year and deeper cuts expected in 2016, according to a report published on Thursday. Overall spending fell to …

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya Because of the Turkish government’s role in the multi-spectrum US-led war against the Syrian Arab Republic, a war of words has ignited between Ankara and Moscow. Russia, however, is not alone in accusing Turkey of being involved in the theft of Syrian and Iraqi oil. …

Turkey’s latest and controversial move near Mosul have aroused the fury of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s government in Baghdad and brought Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani to Ankara. He also supplied invaluable technical details of the military dimension of the move. Turkey is already entangled in …

Saudi Arabia has formed a military coalition of 34 countries to fight “terrorism” including powerful Gulf states, Egypt and Turkey but excluding Iran, the SPA state news agency announced Tuesday. The Saudi-led alliance will be based in Riyadh “to coordinate and support military operations to fight terrorism”, the …

David Barchard The announcement on 3 December that Turkey had sent a detachment of 150 soldiers and seven tanks over 100km south of the border to the town of Bashiqa in Iraq added a new and confusing strand to the tangle of international disputes Turkey is currently involved …

The Saudi-led forces sustained heavy casualties in the Yemeni army’s missile attack on the Bab al-Mandeb region in Southwestern Yemen. The Yemeni forces missiles hit the Saudi-led coalition’s command headquarters in Sha’ab al-Jen region near Bab al-Mandeb, killing over 150 coalition servicemen, including 23 Saudi troops, 9 UAE …

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar have a unique opportunity to re-shape the future of post-Gaddafi Libya, but instead they are fuelling an insurgency in the North African region, US experts Giorgio Cafiero and Daniel Wagner note. Since toppling of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi the UAE and Qatar …