Recent Posts

Turkish Journalist Details Russian Oligarchs’ Investments In Turkey

On March 15, 2022, Turkish journalist Aytuğ Özçolak published an article titled “Russian Oligarchs In Turkey: Initiatives, Relations, And What They Own.”[1] Özçolak reviews the assets and investments in Turkey of Russian oligarchs including: Leonid Mikhelson, Vagit Alekperov, Vladimir Lisin, Vladimir Potanin, Alexy Mordashov, and Mikhail Fridman. While Western media …

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How Ukraine Can Build Back Better

Use the Kremlin’s Seized Assets to Pay for Reconstruction The world’s attention has understandably been focused on the military side of the war in Ukraine. But in the next stage, the political-economic strategy may be decisive. As Tacitus once wrote of the Roman strategy in Britain, “they make a desolation …

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How Autocrats Endure

Viktor Orban and the Myth of the Self-Destructing Strongman The timing could not have been more striking. On April 3, nearly six weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine had apparently reinvigorated and reunified the liberal democratic West, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was easily reelected to his …

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The New Nuclear Age

How China’s Growing Nuclear Arsenal Threatens Deterrence In late June 2021, satellite images revealed that China was building 120 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos on the edge of the Gobi Desert. This was followed by the revelation a few weeks later that another 110 missile silos were under construction in …

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Factional infighting escalates in northern Syria

Infighting continues among the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army factions in light of a power and influence struggle, conflict over crossings and smuggling corridors, and the lack of a unified military institution. Clashes and confrontations are taking place almost daily between the armed factions in the areas controlled by the Turkish-backed …

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