Yearly Archives: 2022

The Challenge Of A Multi-Polar Nuclear Age

Of Parity, Assured Destruction, & Mistrust For the last 77 years, since the US first detonated nuclear weapons and annihilated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an eerie ambivalence has prevailed on the subject of nuclear use. On the one hand, some scholars and practitioners are convinced of the …

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Soaring Food And Energy Prices Drive Inflation Higher In May

The May report is mostly bad news. The jump in energy and food prices were expected, nonetheless it will hit consumers hard. It seems likely that the rise in interest rates and slower growth will reverse price increases in more areas soon, notably cars, but it has not happened yet. …

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Putin’s War In Ukraine Gives EU An Opening For Talks With Armenia And Azerbaijan

Because Moscow is focused on its war in Ukraine, the European Union has hosted two meetings with the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan simultaneously to press for an agreement on border delimitation between the two and to exclude Russia from the talks, Russian experts say. But without Moscow which has …

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The War’s Impact On Russia’s Economy And Ukrainian Politics

Moscow grossly underestimated the economic costs of launching its war in Ukraine. Lulled by the limited sanctions that greeted its invasions of Crimea and Donbas in 2014, and a false sense of security provided by its hundreds of billions of dollars in reserves, President Vladimir Putin appears to have believed …

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Turkey Targeting Iraq, Syria, Cyprus, Greece

This means that Turkey will once again attack Kurds in Syria in an attempt to push them out of the region and claim their lands. These Kurdish groups that Erdogan labels “terrorists,” however, just so happen to be US allies who fought ISIS. Erdogan has publicly claimed parts of northern …

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Iran’s Mullahs Score Nuclear Victory

After agreeing to extend the monitoring mechanism of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by reinstalling surveillance cameras a year ago, Iran then announced that it would not allow the IAEA to see images from the devices. The Iranian regime is also refusing to answer the IAEA’s questions about uranium …

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Iran Battles on Multiple Fronts

A new cycle of attacks and responses between Iran and its adversaries threatens regional stability and the potential revival of the 2015 multilateral Iran nuclear agreement. Israel has demonstrated a remarkable ability to execute operations targeting Iranian officials within Iran.Iranian leaders appear to have decided to retaliate against the U.S. …

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Uzbekistan Navigates Relations with Afghanistan

Uzbekistan has sought to engage the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan to ensure its cooperation against Islamist extremist opposition groups. Uzbekistan’s leaders are not demanding that the Taliban include Afghan-Uzbek factions in its governing structure. An extremist opposition group, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), is an ally of Islamic State …

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Turkey has Long Been an Important Support Base for Islamic State

Late last week, Turkey announced the capture of a high-ranking member of Islamic State (IS) in Istanbul, initially believed to be the new leader, though that is now uncertain. Since its rise in 2014, IS financiers and logisticians have cultivated and maintained robust support networks throughout Turkey, but now, it …

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Behind the Scenes of the U.S. Government’s Recent Foreign Terrorist Organization De-listings

Over the course of a single day last month, the U.S. State Department removed five terrorist groups from its Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list, more than it has ever done before in one action. The State Department revoked FTO designations of several groups now considered defunct, including Aum Shinrikyo, Basque …

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