Articles

The CCP is trying to escape blame for COVID-19 and take advantage of recovery. Don’t let it.

With the coronavirus forcing Iran to dig mass graves for its victims, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei rejected U.S. aid offers of recent days and suggested that America “specifically built” the virus “for Iran using the genetic data of Iranians which they have obtained through different means.”

The New York Times’ decision of recent days to make a “clarification” to one sentence in the lead essay of its “1619 Project” won’t do much to quell a growing fight over the meaning of America’s founding — a fight with profound implications for the nation’s continuing influence around the world.

The Islamic Republic is profoundly sick – and getting sicker. Since the global outbreak of coronavirus in recent weeks, Iran has emerged as one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic.

Why, exactly, has Iran been particularly hard hit by the coronavirus?

ith the advent of COVID-19, matters have become much, much worse for the Iranian regime -- so much so that it isn't unreasonable to think that the Iranian regime could buckle under the weight of its own internal contradictions.

The ongoing Saudi social and cultural transformation discourages religious extremism and encourages deradicalization as the Kingdom attempts a “course correction” toward moderation.

U.S. Central Asia policy has room to improve, but the Trump administration is steering things on the right track.

This week, the city of Prague will commemorate the fifth anniversary of the slaying of Russia’s freedom-promoting opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov, by renaming for him the square where Russia’s embassy is located.

The most important takeaway from the killing of Qassem Suleimani doesn’t just have to do with Iran.

What if you held a national election and no one turned out? That’s the situation currently confronting Iranian officials, who are grappling with the aftermath of a truly disastrous outcome in last week’s parliamentary elections.

Iran’s clerical army could decide that an internal transition is the best answer, and move to remove (or at least subordinate) the country’s current clerical elite. Such a step, after all, would allow the IRGC to preserve its current, extensive grip on national power while simultaneously working to alleviate economic pressure from the U.S. and reintegrate into the international community.

What does Riyadh really think about China? It was one of the questions on my mind last week, when I led a research delegation to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at the invitation of the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

This month, the Trump administration released its strategy for Central Asia.

Yet while shale production has dramatically cut reliance on Middle East and other imported oil, trumpeting our “energy independence” is premature.

Venezuela’s tale is hardly a unique one. In recent decades, socialist nations across the world have scrapped their doctrinaire visions and incorporated elements of free enterprise to rescue their ailing economies.

On Jan. 28, British officials announced that, after extensive internal deliberations, the government had decided to move forward with a limited partnership with China’s Huawei corporation to build 5G telecom networks in the country.

It's your move, Mahmoud Abbas. That's the basic message behind the Trump administration's long-awaited "deal of the century," which was unveiled publicly on Tuesday at a joint press conference between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Signs are mounting that in Tehran, which faces rising pressures at home and abroad, the country’s powerful hardline conservatives are circling the wagons, raising the odds of still more Iranian global provocations. The question is whether Washington — which continues to tighten the economic screws on Tehran — is ready for what might come next.

For years, Iran’s ruling ayatollahs have grappled with a profoundly vexing problem: how best to maintain the loyalty of the country’s growing (and increasingly unruly) population. The question isn’t strictly a political one. It is also made significantly more complicated by the age of the Islamic Republic’s population, which cuts against the regime in key ways.

The latest proposals laid out by the president are simply too little, too late.

Recently, while participating in a wargame, I was asked by a military officer whether today’s Space Force has the equivalent of an Air Corps Tactical School, the military institution which originally matured the modern theory of airpower.

The Islamic Republic is too weak to wage a conventional war on the U.S. — but that doesn’t mean it poses no threat.

His Wednesday speech acknowledged difficulties Russian researchers, engineers, and entrepreneurs face, particularly in the realm of finance.

One of the main tools of Russian influence across Central Asia remains poorly understood.

Moscow’s efforts to keep data on home soil are of interest to other authoritarian states — and even some liberal democracies.

Here are a list of important questions for Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett to ask prospective candidates in her quest to find the CSO with the right vision for the future:

The world is witnessing a modern-day nightmare in Xinjiang, China. Estimates vary, but by some counts over 2 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Muslims are detained in “vocational skill education training centers,” the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Orwellian moniker for reeducation camps.

Quite suddenly, the Islamic Republic finds itself facing serious setbacks in the Middle East.

The targeting of Soleimani – which followed on the heels of U.S. military strikes on multiple facilities in Iraq operated by Kataib Hezbollah, a key Iranian regional proxy – has ushered in a qualitatively new phase in the Trump administration’s confrontation with Iran. Chances are, it will be one punctuated by heightened hostilities

The current quest for an Iranian constitution reflects a realization by opponents of the Iranian regime that, if they hope to galvanize support from the Iranian “street,” they need to paint a much clearer picture of the future they desire.

The United States must make it abundantly clear that the CCP can no longer enjoy the benefits of American policy without fulfilling its obligations.

Next year is shaping up to be a crucial test for one of America's most enduring Middle Eastern alliances.

China is actively looking for partners to show that the BRI is a truly international project, rather than simply a geopolitical expansion plan.

Iran is a complex and cosmopolitan melting pot made up of multiple, competing ethnic identities kept in check by a strong central authority — but just barely.

Seventy years after the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty and the formation of the Atlantic Alliance, the West's most powerful and enduring military bloc is suffering from deep systemic dysfunctions.

After centuries of being played against one another, the Central Asian states have linked arms to advance their common welfare.

The proposed military branch is not just a stunt or a campaign promise. It is a path to a better future.

History has shown that a U.S. policy that relies on Chinese pressure on North Korea will fail, and that progress toward peace can only be achieved despite Beijing’s involvement, not because of it.

Suddenly, Russia has emerged as the Middle East's indispensable nation.

Just how durable is the Iranian economy, really? As the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran marks its one-year anniversary, that’s the question many policymakers in Washington are asking.

On November 5th, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani announced that his government was planning to restart sensitive nuclear work prohibited under the 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

On the heels of his controversial decision to pull out of Syria and abandon the Kurds, our close allies in the fight against the Islamic State, the President’s move to cap Iraqi refugees is sure to raise further doubts about why people in foreign lands should risk their lives to work with the United States.

Beijing won’t tolerate dissent at home. But when foreigners criticize its geopolitical tactics, it listens.

China and Russia have not only expanded their military cooperation but are also undertaking more extensive technological cooperation, including in 5G, artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology, new media and the digital economy.

Sino-Russian relations have been adapting to an era of great-power rivalry.

Today’s anti-regime activism actually has more than two dozen public faces. And if they become better known globally, these personalities could help galvanize still greater resistance to the country’s clerical regime.

Trump administration should not be tempted to consider its mission accomplished. ISIS is an enduring threat to America, its interests and its allies.

The October 22nd deal should thus be seen for what it is: a clear victory for Moscow.

A new phase of the Syrian civil war appears to have been averted — at least for now.

Oil-rich Azerbaijan is undergoing a major process of top-down modernization. Here’s why the reforms are happening now—and why Washington should take an interest.

The White House's October 6th announcement that it plans to pull U.S. troops out of northern Syria, paving the way for a Turkish invasion of the territory, has been greeted with widespread dismay both in the United States and abroad. Yet in truth, it should not have been altogether surprising.

President Donald Trump’s controversial interactions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky must not distract attention from the important question of U.S. policy toward Russia in connection with its war in Ukraine.

The US armed forces are waking up to the fact that cities are likely to be the main environment for tomorrow’s battles and that they have some catching up to do with their rivals, as Jacob McCarty reports.

[T]o compete with the CCP, think like the CCP. Bringing this imperative to scale will require Washington to relearn the basics of grand strategy.

Suddenly, Iran's clerical regime doesn't seem quite so powerful.

Today, there is near-universal acknowledgement that America’s critical satellite infrastructure is at risk and needs to be better protected.

Both nations need to work closer together on this critical issue.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is betting big on China.

With joint dialogues, incubators, and technology parks, Beijing and Moscow are seeking to overcome deficiencies and compete with the United States.

A famed Russian technical university is helping to lead the government’s push for public-private efforts to develop AI technologies and applications — including a joint project with China’s Huawei — and to stop top talent from flowing to the West.

[W]hatever happens on the political front, the country's foreign policy outlook, and its security priorities, will stay largely the same.

The breakdown of Hong Kong’s autonomy is a failure for China, as its current President Xi Jinping has no good options from which to choose.

After forty years of draconian religious rule, meaningful change may be possible in Iran.

At a time when the relationship between Israel and American Jewry is already under significant strain, this would be an added stressor, and perhaps a significant one.

[H]ow Washington responds to the incident will have profound implications, both for its continued credibility in the region and for the future of its relations with Iran.

- President Tokayev seeks to "maintain continuity" yet nonetheless calls for "systemic reforms." He appears to mean both.
- In the effort to engage society more deeply in governance, Kazakhstan will institute and seek to manage reforms from above.
- In continuing the principle of balance in its foreign policy, which Tokayev invented two decades ago, Kazakhstan will seek increased engagement and investment from the West.

On August 29th, Iran attempted to put its newest commercial satellite, the Nahid-1, into orbit from a test range in the country's north.

Israel’s Syria campaign has demonstrated that, despite their best efforts, Iran and its proxies “have no deterrence whatsoever” against Israel. But this may not last.

This week’s revelations that the International Atomic Energy Agency found traces of uranium at an undeclared nuclear site in Iran’s Tehran Province — revelations which the regime has refused to explain — shows that the Iranian nuclear issue is far more complicated than U.S. and Iranian jockeying of recent days suggests.

The draft, produced by the country's largest bank, focuses on data, training, and ethics. The final version is due next month.

China has well and truly arrived in the Middle East. After years of relative passivity, the People's Republic of China (PRC) is now making a concerted effort to expand its strategic presence and economic clout in the region.

Does the United States have a vision of future spacepower grand enough around which to organize a new space force?

The Voice of America's Persian News Network opts out of covering protests

Tomorrow, the Trump administration will formally inaugurate the newest U.S. Combatant Command, U.S. Space Command.

Israel's activism, showcased in the mid-July airstrike in Iraq as well as other recent sorties against Iranian-linked targets in neighboring Syria, is understandable.

There is a second trade war happening in Asia, and it is in America’s interest to take action.

In late July, Mousa Ghazanfarabadi, the conservative head of Tehran's Revolutionary Court, announced publicly that the Iranian regime had identified a new "hostile government" with whom interaction was henceforth banned, punishable by up to a decade in prison.

Sept. 1 marks the 80th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland — an event that heralded the beginning of World War II.

With the stand-up of the U.S. Space Force and initial operating capability of U.S. Space Command, it is time to revise the Unified Command Plan (UCP) to reflect the geographic responsibilities of U.S. Space Command, and align their formal responsibilities with the expectations of the American people.

Moscow detains nearly 1,400 protesters after a bloody crackdown and returns its most prominent opposition figure to jail after what he suspects was a state-ordered poisoning that put him in the hospital. Beijing hints that it will send its army to quell protests against Hong Kong's China-backed government.

When it comes to influence, the future lies in the cities.

The Turkic people has an ancient language and traditions. Even Mao didn’t expect to erase it.

Iran's strategic position atop the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global waterway through which a fifth of world oil passes, is a key asset for Tehran – and a serious worry for regional oil suppliers and foreign oil consumers alike.

With massive protests continuing in Hong Kong against China’s efforts to erode its freedoms, Washington is missing a sizable opportunity to promote our ideals, encourage democratic forces elsewhere, and leverage Beijing’s need for a trade deal.