Defence Minister James Heappey and fellow Ministers from the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) member nations have signed a new Policy Direction for the multinational force. 1 July 2021 JEF Ministers gathered in Helsinki, Finland today to set the roadmap from which the JEF’s 10 northern European nations will evolve to …

Russia first unveiled a ‘Security Concept for the Persian Gulf Region’ in mid-2019, in the aftermath of a series of dangerous and destabilising incidents including tanker seizures, sabotage attacks, and the shoot down of a $200 million US spy drone over Iranian airspace – which nearly prompted Washington to launch …

Commenting on a report in the Washington Post about China’s nuclear capability building, US State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Thursday that the build-up of nuclear forces had become more difficult for China to hide and it appeared to be deviating from decades of nuclear strategy based on minimal …

Turkey’s president is trying to sound more helpful to the West. But his broader policy objectives have not changed. On 14 June, US President Joe Biden met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Brussels. Ankara had long anticipated the meeting, as the transfer …

Despite the failure of their initial proposals to engage in a summit with Russia, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron are still promoting the idea. Far from leading to a productive dialogue with Russia, the Franco-German proposal will only continue to divide the EU and NATO. They …

Poland’s apprehensions that its interests may be sacrificed as a result of the recent US–Russia summit are misplaced. Still, both Washington and Warsaw need to work harder on their relationship. As US President Joe Biden’s recent tour of Europe concluded, it became clear that the analysis of some very senior …

Undoubtedly, China’s communists have achieved a great deal. But the party remains nervous about its hold on power, and hesitant to implement necessary political and economic reforms. Given the inauspicious start of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) – worried about police surveillance, it moved its founding meeting from Shanghai to …

Cyber risk poses a complicated and growing challenge for governments, businesses and consumers. This paper explores cyber insurance’s potential contribution to solving this problem. Governments and businesses are struggling to cope with the scale and complexity of managing cyber risk. Over the last year, remote working, rapid digitalisation and the …

Iraq remains a struggling nation confronting enormous, social, economic and reconstruction challenges yet progressing in critical areas such as resettling its displaced population and preparing for national elections this fall, two ministers of the Baghdad government said. The current government, which assumed power a year ago in the wake of …

Lebanon, unlike many other countries, is actually ruled by a conglomerate of political figures and business elites and organizations. Therefore, a change in Lebanon can neither be about a single politician or party nor can it be led by one political group. In the past 15 years, there were several …