As the United States withdraws from Afghanistan, Washington is considering options to ensure its intelligence-gathering and counterterrorism capabilities are maintained. Recent reporting suggests that United States is looking to use bases in Pakistan and in the former Soviet Republics in Central Asia — although without success so far. Washington is …
Read More »The Rumsfeld Rules
“A number of human beings have been liberated and they are out from under the heel of a vicious, brutal regime,” I rarely read the newspapers these days (what’s the point?) but that statement caught my eye during a quick glance last week. That was Donald ‘Defense’ Rumsfeld at a …
Read More »Rumsfeld-lie – Iraq, Afghanistan devastated
Former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld has died a few days back. The death-news pulls back the lie the US political leader uttered and sold forcefully around the world. That was not a petty lie. That was a devastating lie – creating a premise for an imperialist invasion of a …
Read More »Massive exercise in Black Sea with US comes after Russia warning
Russia has warned the US and UK not to “tempt fate” in the Black Sea – only one place where there are naval tensions. On June 21, the US Sixth Fleet announced it would participate in the Sea Breeze exercise that will take place from June 28 to July 10. …
Read More »IDF on alert in the South after latest round of Hamas clashes
MILITARY AFFAIRS: A month and a half after Guardian of the Walls, it’s back to ‘normal’ for the IDF on the Gaza border. A month and a half after Operation Guardian of the Walls, the border between Israel and Gaza is quiet but tense. The stores and roads are open …
Read More »Israel needs to stop neglecting wartime media front – opinion
Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kohavi’s recent decision to appoint two officers without media experience to key roles in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit is puzzling. Imagine for a moment that the IDF chief of staff decided to appoint an officer from the Spokesperson’s Unit to serve as the commander of …
Read More »‘The Worst Seemed Very Far Away’: Andrew Exum on the Afghanistan War
Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden announced his decision to fully withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan by Sept.11. After 20 years and two generations of American service members fighting there, America’s longest war will come to an end. What will the legacy of that war be for the U.S. military? …
Read More »What the ‘Restrainers’ Get Wrong About U.S. Alliances
Proponents of a U.S. grand strategy of “restraint” are perhaps most well-known for advocating the end of America’s “forever wars” and reducing the country’s military footprint in the Middle East and Afghanistan. But the so-called restrainers have also questioned the rationale for maintaining the United States’ extensive networks of alliances …
Read More »How the U.S. Should Respond to Russia’s New Escalation in Ukraine
For the better part of six years since Russia and Ukraine signed the Minsk II cease-fire accord for the disputed eastern Ukrainian region of Donbass, one question has loomed: How will the U.S. and NATO respond if Russian troops again cross back over the so-called Line of Contact, dividing Ukrainian …
Read More »Russia Grants Qaterji Militia Investment in Deir-ez-Zor Oil Field
Russia has awarded the al-Qaterji militia an investment contract lasting five years, for the al-Taym and al-Ward oil wells in Deir-ez-Zor, each producing 2,500 barrels per day. Russian forces gave the investment of the al-Taym and al-Ward oil fields in the Deir-ez-Zor governorate to Arfada company. Last year, this company …
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