After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia actively borrowed Western—primarily European—legal and bureaucratic practices. Now that the European path appears to be closed off entirely, the Middle East is fast emerging as an alternative route.Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Moscow’s subsequent rupture with the West, the Middle …
Read More »Georgia’s EU Candidate Status Will Test Its Relations With Russia
The announcement of EU candidate status is both a boon for Georgia and a geopolitical challenge, given possible retaliation from Russia.The European Union recommended on November 8 that Georgia be granted its long-awaited candidate status, an essential step to future membership of the bloc. The recommendation is, however, contingent on …
Read More »Israel and Russia: The End of a Friendship?
Moscow’s rapprochement with Hamas and the subsequent deterioration in ties with Israel signals the failure of Russia’s long-standing goal of appearing as a great power by acting as a mediator in the Middle East.Israel is an important partner for Russia in the Middle East, but amid the war in Gaza …
Read More »Iraqi FM says unless US stops Israel, conflict in Gaza will ‘burn all of us’
Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein worries that the conflict in Gaza will drag on and expand beyond Israel’s borders. Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said the United States needs to put more pressure on Israel to end the conflict in Gaza, just as Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani urges Shiite …
Read More »Ukraine challenges conventional wisdom of war on the high seas
Ukrainian successes in driving Russian naval vessels away from Odessa offer important lessons for US Navy strategy. In an extraordinary, but little noticed development in the war in the Ukraine, Vice Admiral Oleksly Neizhpapa, head of Ukraine’s Navy, indicated on November 12 that his country had broken the Russian naval …
Read More »Yemen’s drone doom loop: A model of instability for fragile states
The proliferation of cheap but effective UAVs will allow even the least sophisticated armed groups to wreak havoc. Yemen faces a drone doom loop that is a harbinger of things to come for many countries. The increasingly rapid diffusion of drone technology offers endless new opportunities for non-state, near-state, and …
Read More »What if Israel didn’t set out to ‘destroy Hamas’?
The notion that a restrained reaction to outrageous provocation is often the wiser course has wide relevance. For example, it certainly applies to the U.S. reaction to 9/11, which cost trillions and led to well over a hundred times more deaths than the impelling event. And a case can be …
Read More »Reflection of European and West Asian cooperation perspective in the light of the Gaza War
Europeans are more concerned about the continuation of war and violence in the occupied Palestinian areas than ever because the international community has once again attracted the attention of the West Asian region. The issue of Ukraine is gradually being forgotten. The statements of Ukrainian President Zelensky and Poland President …
Read More »A Russian winter offensive Meduza’s updated Ukraine combat map shows developments in Avdiivka, Kupyansk, Bakhmut, Orikhiv, and the Dnipro
Like our earlier reports on the combat situation in Ukraine, this article takes stock of the recent developments in the battlefield based on open-source information. Meduza has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from the very start, and our detailed military analyses are part of our commitment to objective reporting on …
Read More »The Houthis’ Seizure Of An Allegedly Israeli-Connected Ship Discredits The Red Sea Council
The Council’s neglect of its raison d’être in securing this waterway per its founding mission inadvertently created the pretext that NATO might soon exploit for militarizing the Red Sea, which could create unexpected security challenges for some of its members like Eritrea and Sudan. The Red Sea Council of littoral …
Read More »