Eurasia

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested yesterday he may meet with Taliban leadership. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan called for “face-to-face” dialogue between Turkish officials and the Taliban over stability in Afghanistan as that country descends further into civil war. Khan said efforts would be made to establish such talks after …

Another jobs report, another cheap shot at the former guy. As I always say, this sort of comparison is silly because so many things beyond the president’s control affect job growth and the economy. But, you know that if the situation were reversed, we would be hearing this comparison endlessly. …

Being a radical Leftist of the communist kind has curiously inoculated me from the “brocialist” economism and intimately related class reductionism that disfigures some key parts of the American left, such as it is. It’s not just that there’s no room for downplaying the problems of racism and sexism in …

Ankara believes it has reaped strategic benefits from military involvement in Syria, Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh. Yet it has paid a price as well, discomfiting both allies and adversaries. Now, Turkey hopes to rebuild ties so as to consolidate its new gains. Since 2016, when President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan survived a …

Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom said on August 6 it had slowed gas shipments abroad after fire struck a processing plant in western Siberia. No one was hurt in the fire, which happened at a facility near Novy Urengoy. Russian media said transports of natural gas via Belarus and Poland …

This Week’s Highlights Russia is now supplying more oil to the U.S. than any other foreign producer aside from Canada, Bloomberg reported, noting that U.S. imports of crude and refined petroleum products from its former Cold War adversary surged 23% in May. U.S. imports of Russian goods increased by one …

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, have spoken by telephone about ongoing “strategic stability” talks launched last month after a recent presidential summit. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on August 11 Austin and Shoigu discussed “transparency and risk-reduction efforts following the July 28 resumption of …

With the Taliban sweeping through provincial capitals, and massing near Kabul, the Afghan government is thus far vowing to resist. In this Q&A, Crisis Group experts Laurel Miller and Andrew Watkins explain that outside powers’ priority should now be to minimise further human suffering. Have the Taliban won the war? …

The Taliban has captured three major Afghan cities and a string of provincial capitals in a sweeping offensive that threatens the capital, Kabul. In the past 24 hours, Taliban fighters have seized Herat and Kandahar — the country’s second- and third-largest cities — as well as Lashkar Gah, the capital …

Taliban fighters carrying out a blitzkrieg-like offensive across Afghanistan appear to have the capital, Kabul, in their sights, advancing toward the city even as the first of thousands of U.S. troops to be sent back to the country set foot on the ground. The Taliban on Friday claimed victory in …