“I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.”— Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) Kurt Vonnegut’s famous novel about the World War II bombing of the German city of Dresden appeared the year I graduated from West Point. While dimly …

As the crisis over Ethiopia’s controversial dam on the Nile River worsens, Egypt considers expediting the construction of the Stiegler’s Gorge dam on the Rufiji River in Tanzania. Egypt is working to build the Stiegler’s Gorge dam on the Rufiji River in Tanzania, at a time when the Grand Ethiopian …

The Turkish-backed opposition is trying to benefit from the experience of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in establishing a new security apparatus to pursue terrorist cells in the areas under its control in north Syria. A new security apparatus is coming together in the areas controlled by the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army …

Incoming Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi is widely discussed as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s successor, but there may be rumblings of a power struggle in the conservative camp. Two days after the Iranian presidential election June 20, Vahid Haqqanian, a senior official in the supreme leader’s office, provided his analysis of …

CENTCOM is trying to deter militia attacks without starting a war. The United States launched airstrikes against targets in Iraq and Syria before dawn on Monday, in response to a series of drone attacks on facilities used by American personnel in Iraq, the Pentagon said. The three targeted sites — …

If the US rate of response is only two retaliatory rounds of strikes to dozens of attacks since January, the US is not deterring the pro-Iran groups. For the second time this year, the Biden administration has responded to threats to US forces in Iraq by carrying out airstrikes. The …

The United States military said on Sunday it targeted operational and weapons storage facilities at two locations in Syria and one location in Iraq. At least four members of Shi’ite militias were killed in “defensive precision airstrikes” which US President Joe Biden ordered against facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups …

Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied charges that he was deliberately trying to harm Israel’s relationship with the Biden administration. Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu was acting “childishly and irresponsible” by attempting to harm ties between the new Israeli government and the Biden administration, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in a …

The World Trade Organization made history last month when its members chose Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as director-general, the first woman and first African to hold that position. A former Nigerian finance minister and senior World Bank official, Okonjo-Iweala enjoyed near-unanimous support, but her candidacy had been stalled by opposition from the …

China has a long history of wielding its immense market power as a tool of economic coercion. During the first half of the 20th century, it fought back against colonial powers by organizing boycotts of goods from the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. Nearly a century later, China …