Recent Posts

Biden leaves Syria on back burner as war marks 10 years

In his first months in office, President Joe Biden’s team has signaled that Syria’s civil war won’t be among his top foreign policy priorities. “We failed,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said of the Barack Obama administration’s approach to Syria. “Not for want of trying, but we failed.” …

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Brexit Still Hasn’t Solved the Problem of Northern Ireland

The two main political parties in Northern Ireland announced a deal last month to restore the region’s power-sharing government, which had ceased to function three years ago. Within 24 hours of the announcement of the deal on Jan. 10, which was brokered by the British and Irish governments, Northern Ireland’s …

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In the Aftermath of Brexit, What Can ‘Global Britain’ Be?

Over the past four years, as the United Kingdom has wrestled with the consequences of its narrow vote to leave the European Union, there has been little to no broader foreign policy debate in the country. Instead, Britons seem to have become caught between three temperaments. There are the catastrophists, …

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The U.K.’s Incoherent China Strategy

Earlier this month, the United Kingdom’s foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, delivered a speech in Parliament setting out measures to ensure that British businesses do not profit from what he called the “industrial scale” forced labor of minority Uighur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region. However, Raab’s remarks made no mention of …

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Syria: In the Middle of a Long Cycle

On 6 March 2011, the local security services in the small town of Daraa, southern Syria, detained fifteen teenagers painting anti-government graffiti on fences and buildings. During the subsequent interrogations, the teens were allegedly subjected to unjustifiably cruel treatment and even torture. Since all the detainees were born to prominent …

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Israel unveils the ‘Iron Sting’ laser, GPS-guided mortar munition

A ‘networked precision fire system’ that engages targets accurately and prevents collateral damage • 10-year development concludes with successful trials As the IDF completes preparations for possible combat in both the southern and the northern fronts — where it is expected to encounter a smarter, well-organized enemy —the Defense Ministry, …

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