On 23 December 2021, Iran’s Foreign Minister (FM) Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, while addressing a joint press meet with his Iraqi counterpart Fuad Hussein hailed the efforts made by the Iraqi government to clear misunderstandings between Iran and Saudi Arabia.1 Abdollahian declared that Tehran would participate in the next round of talks …

Poland’s defense budget, currently over two percent of the country’s GDP, is apparently set to grow further. In October 2021, Polish Deputy Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński announced that his government intended to raise defense spending to “significantly higher” levels. Its headline aim was to double the strength of Poland’s armed …

Today, more than 150 years after the end of the Russian-Circassian War ended, and despite all the twists and turns of Russian policy, there are almost exactly the same number of Russian troops in the North Caucasus as there were at the peak of the war there in the nineteenth …

Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, MI5, is coming under political pressure to explain why it did not alert lawmakers sooner about the activities of a suspected Chinese spy, who the security service now say was “knowingly engaged in political interference in the U.K.” The British security agencies have been warning in …

Russia has deployed “a group of operatives” into Ukraine to foment a pretext for another invasion of that country, Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby said during a news conference Friday. Kirby hastened to say that the U.S. government still believes there is room to solve the problem of the …

Irregular warfare (IW) is a method available for Great Powers to shape or control the global architecture by enabling a state to “influence populations and affect legitimacy” without incurring the heavier losses of blood and treasure typically associated with armed conflict.1 The past decades have witnessed the rise of the …

In 2011 the Libyan people, with a little help from their friends, overthrew the dictator who had ruled them for some 50 years – Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. It is well within the bounds of possibility that by now the Gaddafi regime could again be in power in Libya, with a …

Environmental and social impact is top of mind for investors as climate change and social cohesion top the list of Global Risks 2022. Cryptocurrencies provide both new opportunities and challenges related to ESG across a diverse and often-fragmented ecosystem. To support the global efforts to accelerate the development and responsible …

As Arab states prepare to reconvene this March for the 37th Arab League Summit in Algiers, one topic looms large over the agenda: the readmission of Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, expelled in 2011. An increasing number of regional players have thrown weight behind Syria’s return, both traditional Syrian allies like Algeria …

For months, Ukraine has been a central focus for Western foreign policy as Russia has continued its military buildup on the border, reaching 100,000 troops. Moscow has threatened to carry out a military attack and has now issued an ultimatum for the United States to bless a Russian sphere of …