Articles

When it comes to China, President Joe Biden has proven himself something of a wild card.

No matter how warm relations between Washington and Delhi become, history shows that some level of non-alignment will always be part of India’s policies.

VOA can play a crucial role in outreach to the Iranian people. But the White House should get serious about fixing its problems.

Last week, five Pacific islands countries withdrew from the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), the region’s premier multilateral organization.

The Pacific Island Forum is in danger of breaking apart and may only make great power tensions with China worse.

The Space Force is an indispensable part of that forward-looking vision; it represents a key instrument of American technological leadership and diplomacy.

A year into the coronavirus, the progression of the disease in the Middle East is decidedly mixed. Some countries, such the nations of the GCC, have weathered the pandemic comparatively well as a result of what scholars have termed "authoritarian management." Other nations, however, have been profoundly ravaged by the illness.

Make no mistake. Whatever they might proclaim publicly, Iran's leaders are desperate for a new diplomatic agreement with the West.

Biden has said that he wants to take a more conciliatory approach with Iran, but the Iran-al-Qaida relationship makes that challenging.

Suddenly, Iran's ayatollahs are on the offensive once again.

[T] president has one unresolved China item on his desk that could be his administration's most consequential China policy yet: a formal finding, under the Genocide Convention, of genocide in Xinjiang.

[T]he Israel-Morocco deal should also be seen as a boon for the incoming Biden administration

For decades, America’s close military, diplomatic, economic, and other ties with Israel have generated vast benefits for both sides. At a time of such hopeful change but also serious challenge across the Middle East, it’s a relationship that each should nourish carefully, avoiding the unnecessary missteps that can cause significant damage.

Last month, in an about-face that was as astonishing as it was abrupt, Xi Jinping told Asian leaders that China is “actively considering” joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (CPTPP)

Through last week's killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Israel was signaling to Iran's nuclear scientists that their chosen vocation could turn out to be downright hazardous to their health.

Iran’s deepening footprint in Syria represents what is arguably the most significant flashpoint in the Levant.

While pundits and policymakers in Washington lock horns over a new strategic direction to counter China, the Department of Defense (DoD) is quietly working to blunt the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) advance into the Pacific Ocean.

Forget the seduction of grand theories and presentist moral judgments. To learn the lessons of the past, the great foreign policy analysts of our age must rediscover the art of historical discernment.

The news that Bahrain's foreign minister is meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel this week highlights the predicament that president elect Joe Biden faces in the Middle East: he wants to restore a U.S. approach to the region that relies on increasingly out-of-date assumptions.

The long-term damage resulting from Armenia's miscalculations outlined are plain to see. While part of the damage is physical, even more significant is the mental damage: Armenia’s feeling of military superiority is now broken, and its feeling of isolation palpable.

The Kingdom of Morocco ranks prominently on the list of prospective peace partners.

How will a Biden administration handle the Middle East?

Since his Senate confirmation this summer, new United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) CEO Michael Pack has come under fire for calling out his own organization for an array of glaring security shortfalls.

[T]he Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed earlier this Fall between NASA and the U.S. Space Force represents a major forward step in comprehensive national spacepower.

As the U.S.-China relationship grows increasingly confrontational, few issues have captured Washington's attention more than the egregious ongoing violations of human rights in Xinjiang.

The administration’s refugee policy will jeopardize America’s ability to secure the cooperation of local populations when, at some point in the future, the United States again must take military action.

With the U.S. election around the corner, the contours of a second term Trump Iran policy – or a first term Biden approach – are already coming into view.

Russian peacekeeping is not the solution

Can Washington parlay increasing negative views of China into a competitive strategy?

"Electing these dictatorships as UN judges on human rights," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based watchdog group, "is like making a gang of arsonists into the fire brigade."

The resumption of fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan threatens a broader regional conflict that threatens Western interests. While America has paid growing attention to Central Asia, it has forgotten to do the same in the South Caucasus, the Western gateway to Central Asia.

This unorthodox university event reflects the moral confusion on issues of global concern that afflicts all-too-many institutions of higher learning these days. For while the university justified the event on free speech grounds, it applied the notion of free speech with striking selectivity.

China is fast transforming into the global epicenter of totalitarian terror.

Washington is facing a critical arms control dilemma, with the New START Treaty due to expire, Russia developing a range of strategic weapons outside the treaty, and China meanwhile significantly building up its nuclear forces.

[T]he Palestinian Authority needs to join the new political wave, or get left behind.

[W]hile most don’t know it, the Space Force is positioned to be among the most powerful organizations enabling and advancing a global green agenda.

Last week marked the 19th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon that ushered in what has come to be known as the "global war on terror." The occasion provides an opportune moment to take stock of the prevailing trends in America's longstanding struggle against Islamic extremism. Unfortunately, the news is anything but encouraging.

Congress should adopt legislation applicable to U.S. firms similar to that it imposes on Europeans and impose retroactive financial sanctions on the companies which are bringing millions of tons of Russian crude oil to America.

[T]he current turmoil at USAGM is politically motivated. It isn't. It is, rather, a contest between the status quo and a new way of doing business that is less favorable to underwriting mere advocacy that contributes little to the actual fight for internet freedom, and is more focused on responsibly funding effective technology to counter censorship abroad.

It’s a fairly common occurrence for lower-level documents to be superseded by new policy decisions, requiring framing and language to be rewritten. But it doesn’t often happen to documents of such importance.

Suddenly, a revolution seems to be brewing in Belarus.

On August 13, President Donald Trump announced that he had succeeded in brokering a peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

America’s vision for space is evolving. Rapidly.

That Hezbollah wields so much power in Beirut is partly a function of Lebanon’s governing structure and partly of its own designs.

As support builds to mandate the newest branch adopt a maritime culture, so do the arguments against it.

The recent capture of thirty-two of Moscow’s mercenaries gives the Belarusian leader at least some leverage in future talks with his Russian counterpart.

The new strategic pact between Iran and China is a lifeline for the regime in Tehran... and a serious threat to America's efforts to contain Iran's global menace.

The past few days have been momentous ones for America's approach to space.