In the absence of foreign investors, lucrative assets in Russia can be given for safekeeping to anyone who is “one of us.” Those people will owe their wealth to Putin personally, making them directly dependent on the Kremlin to preserve that wealth.Russia’s elites are unhappy about many things, not least …

As Russia’s relationship with the West has deteriorated, the Kremlin’s view of the Taliban has changed. But substantive economic cooperation will be hard to achieve.Russia is one of just a handful of states in the world actively seeking to strengthen its relationship with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. While Afghanistan’s …

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has, or has had, ties to 143 school districts in the United States, including 20 near military bases, through its “Confucius Classrooms,” according to a recent report, “Little Red Classrooms: China’s Infiltration of American K-12 Schools” by Parents Defending Education (PDE), a grassroots organization. Attention …

At the same time as Pakistani officials were negotiating with Russia to import oil and abstaining from anti-Russian UNGA Resolutions alongside China, their country’s arms were being used by Ukraine to kill Russians and therefore undermine China’s diplomatic efforts to freeze the most dangerous conflict since World War II. The …

Abstract: Since the emergence of the global jihad movement, global jihadis have expressed their enmity to “Zionists”—jihadi code for Israel and the Jewish community worldwide—through ideological declarations and operations on the ground. Examining the correlation between global jihadi rhetoric and operational activities against Israel and the Jewish community, the present …

Abstract: Since losing its last semblance of control in Syria in March 2019, the Islamic State has spent the last four and a half years not only attempting to survive, but also working to create the conditions for returning to territorial control. While it is true that the organization’s insurgency …

We are increasingly greeted by stories of a developing partnership between Russia, China, and North Korea. Much of the world has isolated Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Moscow’s constant targeting of civilians and its clear violations of international humanitarian law have only exacerbated this isolation. Running out of munitions …

The EU does not know what to do with the Western Balkans The 20th anniversary of the signing of the Thessaloniki Declaration[2] was recently celebrated in Thessaloniki, followed by the Bled Strategic Forum (BSF), and the summit of the Brdo-Brioni process in Skopje, while the summit of the Berlin process …

Parsing what the consultative meeting in Dushanbe can tell us about the region’s present considerations and future indications. On September 14-15, in the Tajik capital Dushanbe, the fifth consultative meeting of heads of state of Central Asia took place. Expectations about it were quite high, and rightly so. First, this …

Azerbaijan unleashed military strikes against an enclave of about 120,000 Armenian Christians in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region on Tuesday, shelling buildings and firing on Armenian military and civilian positions. The Azeri government on Tuesday called their strikes “anti-terror measures” against “illegal Armenian military formations.” Azerbaijan said the attacks will not …