March, 2023

• 26 March

  As Ukraine war drags on, NATO steps up war readiness

  When two Russian fighter jets forced down an American surveillance drone above international waters a week ago, it was yet another incident driving home an urgent question for NATO planners: How will the alliance respond if Russia attacks a member the alliance has pledged to defend? In fact, NATO has …

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• 26 March

  Ukraine to invade? Russia plotting? Rumors fly in Moldova amid protests.

  

  Crowds are surging through the streets of Chisinau, the capital city of tiny Moldova, as pro-Russian demonstrators complain about deteriorating living standards and creeping authoritarianism by officials. It’s just another way the war in neighboring Ukraine is destabilizing the post-Soviet region more broadly. But what makes Moldova’s situation especially dangerous …

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• 25 March

  Oil Geopolitics: Revisiting Petrodollar Recycling – Analysis

  

  Background Global economic growth and prosperity in the last two centuries was fuelled largely by fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas). Oil in particular became fuel for defending national security, promoting economic activity and sustaining global trade after the first world war. Academic narratives such as ‘peak-oil’ and ‘energy …

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• 25 March

  Prigozhin Rejects Report Wagner To Shift Attention Away From Ukraine

  

  (RFE/RL) — Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the owner of the mercenary group Wagner, has rejected a report saying he plans to scale back his military operations in Ukraine and instead concentrate on Africa, where Wagner was previously involved in local conflicts and businesses. …

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• 25 March

  Netanyahu Is Warned: Don’t Attack Iran – OpEd

  

  Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – known less formally as the UN’s nuclear watchdog – spent March 4 and 5 in Tehran as the guest of the Iranian regime. After discussing nuclear matters with Iranian officials, he met foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, and then Iran’s …

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• 25 March

  The System Is Blinking Red Over Iran – Analysis

  

  In his testimony to the 9/11 Commission, then-CIA Director George Tenet described the harrowing intelligence picture that had emerged in the summer of 2001. “The system was blinking red,” he famously recalled. What followed, of course, was the well-documented, multi-agency failure to prevent an avoidable disaster that changed the course …

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• 25 March

  Seven Lessons From Latvia A Year After Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine – Analysis

  

  A year has passed since Russia escalated its war against Ukraine to a full-scale invasion. When writing about the first Latvian reactions to the Russian attack, we noted the geographical proximity with both aggressor and victim made Latvians feel emotionally invested in the conflict. Latvia also realized that, by attacking …

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• 25 March

  China’s Naval Strategists Dissect Ukraine’s USV Strike on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet Base

  

  The attack on Sevastopol six months ago may not have had the intended impact, but could have reverberations for the naval rivalry in the western Pacific. In shaping patterns of future warfare, there is little doubt that militaries across the world will be seeking to absorb the key lessons of …

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• 25 March

  Two decades later, it feels as if the US is trying to forget the Iraq war ever happened

  

  In framing the Ukraine war as a fight between democracy and autocracy, Biden shows that the US hasn’t learned from Iraq Two decades ago, the United States invaded Iraq, sending 130,000 US troops into a sovereign country to overthrow its government. Joe Biden, then chairman of the Senate foreign relations …

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• 25 March

  America Never Learned the Lessons of the Iraq War

  

  The (Continuing) Costs of Failing to Learn Iraq’s Most Obvious & Painful Lessons – Twenty years ago today, President George W. Bush told the American people that at his orders, “American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and …

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