Recent Posts

Tesla’s China Game

It has not been a great spring for Tesla. As the American electric vehicle manufacturer’s stock led the recent market nosedive and its provocative CEO Elon Musk obsessed over his bid to buy Twitter, his beefs with the Biden administration and an allegation of misconduct by a private jet flight …

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As Ukraine loses troops, how long can it keep up the fight?

As soon as they had finished burying a veteran colonel killed by Russian shelling, the cemetery workers readied the next hole. Inevitably, given how quickly death is felling Ukrainian troops on the front lines, the empty grave won’t stay that way for long. Col. Oleksandr Makhachek left behind a widow, …

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On Iran, Biden should reverse Trump’s imaginary statecraft

After countless ups, downs and near-death scrapes, the negotiations to restart the Iran nuclear deal appear to be hung up on one final disagreement: an end-of-game demand by Tehran to have the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps removed from the U.S. list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. On this question likely hangs …

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Lebanon just had an election. Its result? Curb the optimism.

There’s little to celebrate about the outcome of Lebanon’s parliamentary elections on May 15. While the results demonstrate that an active minority are angry, the low voter turnout—41 percent—in an election billed as “decisive” for Lebanon’s future reveals that the country’s citizens are largely apathetic or disillusioned about the prospects …

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The impact of the war in Ukraine on Russian-Turkish relations and Black Sea security: Three potential scenarios

Russian-Turkish relations are in large part based on the personal chemistry, affinity, and trust between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put these personal ties to the test. While President Erdoğan also maintains a close working relationship with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Turkish-Ukrainian …

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