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Can Mark Rutte save NATO?

It’s been more than five years since Mark Rutte earned the nickname “the Trump whisperer.” It was July 2018 and Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, had ushered everyone but the leaders, ambassadors and a handful of staff out of the room at the military alliance’s headquarters. Minutes earlier, Donald Trump …

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Transnistria Ups the Ante Amid Creeping Pressure From Moldova

An extraordinary parliamentary session in Transnistria was a bid to attract international attention and a signal that the de facto state is ready to escalate. The longer the war in Ukraine continues, the more confident neighboring Moldova’s authorities feel in their long-running conflict with the breakaway state of Transnistria. Moldova …

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Putin’s Six-Year Manifesto Sets Sights Beyond Ukraine

Putin’s state of the nation address should have been a mere pre-election formality, but it left an extremely chilling impression of an unraveling spiral of escalation.As Vladimir Putin prepares to run for re-election in less than three weeks’ time for a fifth presidential term, the Russian leader has not troubled …

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Russo-Ukrainian War: The Deluge

As the calendar barrels into another year and we tick away the days of February, notable anniversaries are marked off in sequence. It is now 2/22/2022 +2: two years since Putin’s address on the historic status of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, followed on 2/24/2022 by the commencement of the …

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Alleged Israeli Airstrike in Syria Kills IRGC Officer and Hezbollah Members

Latest Developments An alleged Israeli airstrike in Syria on March 1 killed an Iranian advisor to Hezbollah and two Hezbollah members. Iranian state-run media blamed the strike on Israel and said that it killed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy Col. Reza Zarei. The strike targeted a building used by …

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Palestinians Need New Leaders, Not New Governments

The sole way to “revitalize” the Palestinian Authority is to insist that it rid itself of every leader who has failed his people and who remains in power, disregarding the will and interests of the people. That is hardly likely, at least not in the foreseeable future. No one is …

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Diplomatic Flurry Fails to Quell Gradual Israel-Hezbollah Escalation

Israel and Hezbollah have continued to escalate their cross-border attacks that began after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, although the two sides remain short of full-scale warfare. U.S. and French diplomats are seeking to develop a formula to de-escalate the skirmishing, modeled on some of the past agreements …

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Border Skirmish between Armenia and Azerbaijan Reignites Dispute Over Zangezur Corridor

Just last week, four Armenian soldiers were killed in the first violent incident with Azerbaijan since its mid-September takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh, prompting concerns from Armenia’s government of potential Azerbaijani war plans centered around the Zangezur Corridor. Armenia and Iran each have territory within the proposed corridor and strongly oppose its …

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Iran’s Battles are Fought Out in Syria

Iran’s military presence in Syria enables Tehran to pressure the United States and Israel but also provides targets for military actions against Iran. Since October 7, Iran has increased its reliance on allied militia fighters deployed in Syria in order to avoid exposing senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders …

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Hezbollah Shoots Down Israeli Drone With Surface-to-Air Missiles

Latest Developments Hezbollah targeted an Israeli Elbit Hermes 450 drone with surface-to-air missiles on February 26. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) intercepted one of the missiles with the David’s Sling air defense system, but a second missile struck and downed the Israeli drone. In response, the IDF said it carried …

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