Articles

Propaganda enables Putin’s aggression

December 20, 2021 Ilan I. Berman The Hill

[T]he Russian government’s current mobilization is designed with some clear goals in mind: to advance its standing at home and improve its strategic posture abroad. It’s an approach that’s succeeding on both fronts — and the reasons have everything to do with propaganda.

Bosnia: The Next Hotspot Russia Creates Trouble In?

December 7, 2021 Kate Flaherty 19FortyFive

Last month marked the 26th anniversary of the Dayton Accords, a monumental and controversial peace agreement that ended one of the most violent wars in Southeastern Europe’s history. On November 21, 1995, the United States brokered the agreement that ended three years of ethnic violence and genocide in Bosnia & Herzegovina, which had broken out in the wake of Yugoslavia’s dissolution. The Dayton Accords, signed by the presidents of Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia, laid out new terms for the people of Bosnia, including a tripartite presidency that would represent each of the three major ethnicities: Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats. The accords resulted in an uneasy, but relatively stable peace.

China’s Environmental Threat to Antarctica

December 1, 2021 Alexander B. Gray The Wall Street Journal

While much of the world was focused on the recent climate summit in Scotland, China had its eye on a very different environmental issue. For the fifth year in a row, China, with Russian assistance, used an international forum to prevent the establishment of new marine protected areas along the coast of Antarctica. Beijing is increasingly interested in the southern continent, and for all the wrong reasons.

Tehran sets the table in Vienna

November 30, 2021 Ilan I. Berman Washington Examiner

What precisely does the Biden administration want to accomplish in its diplomacy with Iran? With new talks over Iran's nuclear program now underway in Vienna, it’s a question worth asking.

Iran, Like China, Isn’t a Responsible Stakeholder

November 26, 2021 Ilan I. Berman Newsweek

In a much-publicized address in 2005, then-Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick laid out the prevailing wisdom in Washington regarding the proper way to approach the People's Republic of China (PRC). "Chinese leaders have decided that their success depends on being networked with the modern world," Zoellick argued before the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. As a result, he contended, the U.S. needed to make every effort to turn the PRC into a "responsible stakeholder" on the world stage.

Egypt’s Biggest Worry Is Its Population

October 27, 2021 Ilan I. Berman Al-Hurra Digital

Today, the Egyptian state faces no shortage of strategic threats, ranging from instability emanating from the ongoing crisis next door in Libya to an escalating conflict with nearby Ethiopia over access to the Nile. Yet its biggest long-term challenge is a distinctly domestic one: the quickening pace of its own population.

Is a sanctions rethink in the works?

October 21, 2021 Lawrence J. Haas The Hill

The Biden administration’s announcement that it will limit economic sanctions as a tool of foreign policy could prove significant, since it follows two decades in which policymakers of both parties dramatically increased the use of sanctions against governments, individuals, and entities that they considered bad actors.

What Morocco’s Elections Mean

September 27, 2021 Ilan I. Berman Al-Hurra Digital

When Moroccans went to the polls earlier this month to elect a new parliament, the result was a massive repudiation of Islamism – and a resounding affirmation of the North African nation's current geopolitical trajectory.

Biden is losing Latin America

September 24, 2021 David Wilezol Washington Examiner

[T]here’s another, less-recognized setback happening for the United States far south of the Rio Grande or the Sonora Desert: crumbling relationships with Latin American countries.

Is ISIS Making a Comeback in Libya?

September 8, 2021 Emily Milliken Newsweek

In July, a U.N. panel of experts released a new report on global terrorism, with some alarming conclusions. In it, they noted that East and West Africa have been the world regions hardest hit by terrorism over the past year, and that terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria are fast becoming "an entrenched insurgency."

America’s Iran Policy Pendulum

August 4, 2021 Ilan I. Berman Tactics Institute

For the second time in a half-decade, U.S. policy toward Iran is undergoing a profound redefinition, as the Biden administration abandons the "maximum pressure" of the Trump era in favor of a broad effort to reengage the Islamic Republic.

Great Power Strategic Competition on Earth and in Space

July 20, 2021 Lamont Colucci, Joshua Carlson The Space Force Journal

The United States Space Force was established due to rising threats in space, a domain that is vital to U.S. national security and economic interests. Strategic competition among great power on Earth and in space is likely in the coming decades. Analyzes strategic competition among great powers to make predictions about future conflict in space.  

America’s Critical Strategic Vulnerability: Rare Earth Elements

June 22, 2021 James Grant, Ariel Cohel Foreign Policy Research Institute

The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) dominance over global critical mineral supply chains presents one of the largest strategic vulnerabilities to the United States and her allies since the Arab oil embargo-triggered energy security crisis of the 1970s.