Eurasia

The government of President Ebrahim Raisi blames the previous government of Hasan Rouhani for all its shortfalls and social, economic, and international incompetencies. Before that Rouhani blamed Ahmadinejad, President of Iran from 2005 to 2013 for the same things. Despite their blaming game, all these government officials and authorities have …

China has become a strategic partner for many countries in the Middle East. China’s role has expanded greatly with Chinese President Xi Jinping‘s announcement in 2013 of the Belt and Road Initiative, which is the cornerstone of the modern Chinese strategy. Egypt became the first Arab country to recognize the …

Amid the looming threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, Western nations continue to use a wide-ranging toolkit of policy options, including diplomacy and security assistance, to avert the risk of a full-blown war in Eastern Europe. The U.K. is supplying short-range anti-tank missiles to Ukraine. Canada is deploying a …

China’s positioning with regard to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been in the spotlight in recent weeks, and it is likely to be a central topic of discussion at the China-European Union Summit scheduled to be held this Friday. But for Beijing, which is seeking to mend fences and shore …

As the Biden administration prepares to release its National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy, observers are searching for clues on how those reviews will grapple with the framework of “great-power competition” that anchored the previous administration’s high-level policy documents. That framework has achieved substantial bipartisan traction in the intervening …

The grim realisation that our world has changed is starting to sink in among strategic analysts. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, hot on the heels of a landmark China–Russia joint statement, is ushering in a new era of ideological competition and great power confrontation that is upending many …

Ukraine and Russia face the sharpest economic contractions, but other countries could also fall into recession this year. The humanitarian catastrophe in Ukraine is reverberating across Europe. Some 5 million refugees have already fled the fighting in the largest exodus the continent has seen since the Second World War and …

The Islamic State (IS) province in Iraq (Wilayah Iraq) stabilized its operations in 2020 and increased them in 2021 (Jihad Analytics, January 24; Jihad Analytics, February 4). After the fall of IS as a territorial entity and the death of the previous caliph, Abubakar al-Baghdadi, IS reorganized its multiple Iraqi …

A German woman suspected of supporting the Islamic State was repatriated from Syria along with her three children last month, in the first case of an adult European ISIS member brought home through official channels. On Nov. 22, the family was released from the overcrowded detention camp in northern Syria …

Is Russia’s lucky streak in Syria and Libya finally running out? The Kremlin has gambled big on proxy warfare in both countries, deploying thousands of private military contractors with the so-called Wagner Group to back its favorite strongmen. But after a recent run of misfortunes for Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, …