Poking the United States in the eye appears to be a Saudi pastime. In the latest incident, Saudi Arabia detained five relatives of a US resident whose family in 2020 filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania against the Saudi government in a long-standing commercial dispute involving an oil refinery on the …
Read More »Dispatch from Odesa: Russia escalates its naval war against Ukraine
In recent days, the front line of Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine appears to have shifted south toward the Black Sea—placing major port cities such as Mykolaiv and Odesa directly in the crosshairs of a Russian naval buildup that began just before its full-scale invasion in February 2022. While exact numbers …
Read More »Russian War Report: Kremlin seeks stronger ties in Africa as Wagner eyes Niger coup
Ukraine pushes Russian forces along multiple frontsFighting continues along different parts of the front line in eastern and southern Ukraine as Kyiv’s forces expand their counteroffensive operations. The Russian army retreated from its positions in Andriivka, south of Bakhmut, after a successful Ukrainian attack, according to a July 25 briefing …
Read More »Glimpses Of An Endgame In Ukraine – OpEd
The problem with the war in Ukraine is that it has been all smoke and mirrors. The Russian objectives of “demilitarisation” and “de-Nazification” of Ukraine wore a surreal look. The western narrative that the war is between Russia and Ukraine, where central issue is the Westphalian principle of national sovereignty, …
Read More »Inflation Remains Risk Confronting Financial Markets – Analysis
Central banks may keep interest rates higher for longer than currently priced; given investors’ benign inflation outlook and growing expectations for a soft landing, this could increase financial stability risks and weigh on growth Overall inflation has moderated meaningfully in recent months in the United States and euro area, as …
Read More »Ukraine Military Situation: Wagner Training Belarusian Military Elite Troops – Analysis
Wagner Begins Training the Belarusian Military’s Elite Units Open-source intelligence this week revealed that the Wagner Private Military Company has begun training elite units of the Belarusian Armed Forces in Belarus. Yevgeny Prigozhin’s fighters are now training the 38th Air Assault Brigade, which falls under the Belarusian Special Operations Command, …
Read More »The Primacy Trap – Analysis
In the 2010s, the global landscape changed. The Arab Spring, the Russian occupation of Crimea, and China’s national security law in Hong Kong were indicative of a profound change in the global system. The era of the unipolar moment, when the United States was the world’s sole dominant power, has …
Read More »Ukraine’s Manpower Requirements Reaching Critical Threshold – Analysis
Following Ukraine’s successful Kherson counteroffensive in the fall of 2022, the war in Ukraine has moved into the Materialschlacht, or war of attrition phase, which is rapidly depleting critical resources. Typically, when discussing resources in this sense, Ukraine is most often referring to the tanks, missiles, ammunition and other materiel …
Read More »The War That Defied Expectations
What Ukraine Revealed About Military Power The Russian military was fast. So fast, analysts said, that the Ukrainian military stood little chance of resisting it in a conventional war. Moscow, after all, had spent billions of dollars upgrading the armed forces’ weapons and systems, reorganizing their structure, and developing new …
Read More »Two Georgian Citizens Detained for Links to Terrorist ‘Islamic State’
The State Security Service of Georgia (SSG) announced on July 26 that it had detained two Georgian citizens on charges of supporting the Islamic State terrorist organization. The Security Service said the counter-terrorist operation was conducted simultaneously at four locations in two regions of Georgia. During these operations, officials reportedly …
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