In mid-March, Turkey and Egypt confirmed they’d had their first diplomatic contact since breaking off relations in 2013. Though the talks were described by Egyptian sources as preliminary, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was quoted as saying, “Contacts at the diplomatic level have started.” The thaw comes after a decade …

Philippine Foreign Minister Teodoro Locsin Jr. was peeved at Beijing. It was early May, and hundreds of Chinese vessels had been regularly intruding into the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea, where the Chinese government has made expansive maritime territorial claims. After lodging numerous complaints through formal …

On July 2, 2021, Vladimir Putin approved Russia’s updated national security strategy, the previous version was authored in 2015. The national security strategy gives the appearance of a laundry list. It runs the gamut from military concerns to building internal consensus and defending Russia from pernicious Western ideas. The doctrine …