Afghanistan One Year Later: What Does America Really Think?
A year later, a majority of Americans (53%) agreed that the fall of Afghanistan was indeed a “generational setback” for the United States.
A year later, a majority of Americans (53%) agreed that the fall of Afghanistan was indeed a “generational setback” for the United States.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine in late February, the policy conversation in Washington and European capitals has revolved around how best the West can put an end to Vladimir Putin’s aggression
The death of al-Qaeda’s leader is an opportune moment to reflect on the dangerous incoherence of the Biden administration’s foreign policy.
At this critical moment, Washington needs a post-JCPOA strategy that will force Russia, China, and Iran to take notice.
Perhaps the most profound impact of Russia’s new war has been to revitalize the West’s oldest and most enduring alliance. Until recently thought by many to be on its deathbed, NATO has found renewed purpose in deterring a revanchist and neo-imperial Russia, and convinced skeptics of the indispensable role it should play in maintaining global security.
It is clear that Israel is working hard to strike a balance between its own economic interests and a new, and changed, global landscape that has U.S.-China competition as a defining feature. Other American allies should be watching closely, because they will soon be expected to follow suit.
Whoever emerges from the inevitable turmoil in Russia, he, she, or they will have to address the open wound that Putin’s Ukraine gambit has opened in the Russian polity itself.
For the Kremlin, the African continent has emerged as a serious strategic priority – and a new battleground in its struggle for influence with the West.
Anyone hoping that President Biden’s sunny prediction that his trip to Saudi Arabia would result in lower prices at the pump in a matter of weeks should not hold their breath.
Given that the United States has committed to a sustainable lunar presence, and committed to promoting norms, the United States should take leadership in an International Civil Lunar Organization.
Standing up to Putin’s blackmail, the European Parliament classifies some nuclear and natural-gas projects as ‘sustainable.’ The U.S. should follow its lead.
Gutavo Petro's election is a potential calamity for the United States and threatens to undermine one of the few success stories America can boast of in our own hemisphere.
Biden’s commitment to reviving the nuclear deal is not only problematic in terms of curbing Iranian nuclear activity, but it also threatens to undercut his effort to restore relations with Riyadh that have become increasingly important to U.S. strategic interests.
On the road to Medina, Saudi officials recently removed signs reading “Muslims only.”
In early February, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced a major new defense initiative when, in an address to Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies, he laid out his administration’s plans for a “laser wall” to protect the country from rockets, missiles and UAVs.
The newly contested region needs serious U.S. attention.
The results of a recent survey suggest that Ukraine represents something of a policy unicorn in this fractious political climate—one that can bring together a wide range of Americans.
However odious the regime on Riyadh, a clear-eyed, sober-minded, prepared Biden can advance U.S. interests when he meets with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
With the proper structure, regional leadership, and underwriting from foreign donors (including the United States and European nations), regional planning could go a long way toward strengthening the continent's most vulnerable countries against the coming economic and societal shocks caused by food scarcity.
Uncritically sustaining an economic relationship with China over the course of five decades has strengthened a country that regards itself as an adversary of the United States.
The trajectory of the war in Ukraine, now in its fourth month, can be characterized by one word: patience.
Establishing the Space National Guard is the smart thing to do. To secure the nation’s advantage, it is essential that both the House and Senate include the Space National Guard language in this year’s National Defense Authorization Act.
The proposed constitutional changes, following five months after the greatest unrest in the country’s modern history, accelerate the efforts by the country’s president to push for controlled political reforms. The EU, while focusing on Ukraine, should continue to engage with strategically important Central Asia.
Washington lacks a comprehensive strategy to constrain Iran’s regime while strengthening U.S. ties to its people. An increasingly realigned Middle East requires more than ever that it develop one.
If we don’t pay attention to the Solomon Islands and the Marshall Islands, China will be too happy to step in.
A cautionary tale for the U.S. as the U.K.’s ‘Conservatives’ choose pointless windfall taxes over investment incentives to deal with energy issues.
The longstanding strategic partnership between Moscow and Tehran is changing.
Just how durable is Iran's clerical regime, really? For years, Iran's ayatollahs have worked diligently to convince the world that their Islamic revolution is a popular—and permanent—enterprise.
Are the United States and its allies willing to pay the price, assume the risks, and support Ukrainian efforts not only to restore the borders of Feb. 23 but also retake Crimea? They may be. But let’s make sure there’s no misunderstanding on that score in Kyiv, Washington, or the capitals of our NATO allies.
As the Ukraine war drags on, the case for a new Russian leader becomes increasingly compelling.
Given the extraordinary size of President Biden’s most recent request, it is well past time for Congress to stop being a rubber stamp and start exercising proper oversight by demanding answers to some fundamental questions—first and foremost being “what is the overarching purpose of this assistance?”
The states of Central Asia and the Caucasus are clearly rattled by Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, and looking for ways to protect themselves against the same in the future.
At some point, Washington will indeed need to stand up a serious, transparent and bipartisan effort to counter the phenomenon of "fake news," but it is already clear that the Biden administration's new board isn't it.
We need to see Iran as the implacable adversary it is and then craft a broad strategic approach to it that makes sense.
It is possible that none of the perpetrators of the war crimes in Ukraine will ever face justice. But doing nothing would be surrendering to injustice.
The United States and its allies must force a Russian retreat through the economic and arms-related steps at their disposal. Their failure to do so risks a more nuclearized world.
Starship will make the concept of Space Solar Power both technically and economically feasible.
Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, Western media outlets are closing up shop in the country, independent Russian outlets are being shuttered, and the last embers of press freedom are being extinguished.
For more than a year, reversing the "maximum pressure" policy of its predecessor and hammering out some sort of nuclear compromise with Iran has been the centerpiece of the Biden administration's Mideast policy.
Let’s not be too hard on President Biden simply for saying what most people believe.
Washington has long considered Tehran the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, recognizing that Iran conducts its terrorist activities largely through the IRGC.
Taking them off the list as a concession to tempt Tehran back into a nuclear proliferation deal would be dangerous — and would undermine the deal itself.
A humanitarian mission in Ukraine? What a great idea.
Yesterday, Iranian terrorist proxies, the Houthi, attacked a Saudi Aramco petroleum-distribution plant at Jeddah, setting a storage facility on fire.
Iran’s economic fortunes — and its strategic ambitions — are already expanding, even ahead of any new deal with the West, thanks to the soaring world price of oil.
Putin’s stranglehold on global energy markets has loosened in the intervening years.
Israel has publicly tip-toed around Russia’s invasion. Since Russia crossed Ukraine’s border in late February, Jerusalem has studiously avoided blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin by name.
Russia rediscovered its imperial vocation before NATO enlargement, and the war in Ukraine is, in fact, about Putin’s great power ambitions.
As the world is distracted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and while President Joe Biden condemns Vladimir Putin on the world stage -- the U.S. is in talks with Kremlin negotiators to revive the agreement with the Islamic fundamentalist leaders of Iran.
The only mention of Iran in President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday was an unintentional one.
The invasion of Ukraine is the worst foreign policy misjudgment to come out of Moscow since the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05.
In their continuing reluctance to impose all possible sanctions on Russia, the United States and its allies were sending a dangerous signal not only to Moscow, but to autocratic leaders in Beijing, Tehran, and elsewhere.
Few things unite the political Right in America as strongly as concern over the malign activities of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Ask any Middle Eastern observer about the current conflict between Russia and the West over Ukraine, and you're liable to get a quizzical look. T
“Society is in a state of explosion,” an official from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warned in a leaked seven-page state document that Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty recently reported on, and “social discontent has risen by 300 percent in the past year.”
The Islamic State (ISIS) is once again gaining momentum.
Some of President Joe Biden's failures, from the Afghanistan surrender to skyrocketing inflation, have gotten extensive—and well-deserved—press attention. But there is another fiasco that has as yet gone largely unnoticed: climate.
At least some of the Russian president's supporters have come to believe the costs of his planned adventurism would outweigh any possible benefits.
These are trying times in the U.S.-Moroccan relationship
Why aren’t Beijing’s ambitions in the region obvious to Washington?
Over the past twelve months, the government of President Vladimir Putin has carried out an unprecedented assault on information within the Russian Federation.
A decisive shift has taken place in Kazakhstan.
The struggle to limit Russian influence in Central and Eastern Europe requires better infrastructure and development to ensure economic progress and increasing wealth.
Instead of the ‘longer and stronger’ pact promised a year ago, the White House is likely to roll out concessions.
Our democracy may be threatened by the U.S. military, but not in the way you might think.
The Abraham Accords have the potential to reshape the region’s politics, economics, diplomacy, and military relationships.
The destruction of a sculpture will serve only to further the cause it stood for.
This history begs the question: What level of risk on the part of current Russian President Vladimir Putin is acceptable to the elites whose collective support is central to his continued rule?
These days, despite the hyper-partisan atmosphere in Washington, there still seem to be two issues that both Democrats and Republicans can agree on. One is the pervasive threat posed by the People’s Republic of China. The other is the overarching importance of space.
[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.
The Solomon Islands Crisis Shows America Needs a New Pacific Strategy.
Why won’t Iran cut a deal? Its regime has taken an uncompromising line in renewed talks over its nuclear program. Although that has left the United States and its allies bewildered and frustrated, the regime has solid reasons for doing so.
The developing crisis in Ukraine is an important test case for President Joe Biden and his national security team. The fact that the crisis is still building shows that they have yet to find a recipe for blunting Russian President Vladimir Putin's imperial designs.
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.
The world’s most notorious terrorist group is making another worrying expansion in Africa. It poses massive implications for the international community.
As talks resume over reviving the 2015 global nuclear agreement with Iran, the United States needs to alter the dynamics of its relationship with Tehran if it hopes to secure a deal that will serve American interests.
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.
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.
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.
China may well be America’s biggest global threat. Nevertheless, U.S. policymakers must remain prepared to confront a hostile leader in Moscow who, too, is committed to challenging America and the West whenever and however he can.
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.
How countries weigh the trade-off between economic relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and military protection from the United States will determine much of the 21st Century’s geopolitics.
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.
Whatever happened to America's Syria policy?
The West faces a key test of its commitment to human rights as the Taliban cements its rigid rule in Kabul.
The message from Israel’s top leadership could not be any clearer: It is prepared to act to prevent a nuclear Iran.