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For Middle Eastern nations, China's expanding stake in the region ranks as one of the most consequential, albeit underreported, trends of recent years.

Quite simply, the MeK believes that, after forty years of active resistance, it has more “skin in the game” than any other personality or faction in the struggle against the Islamic Republic.

Not since the Mao era has the developing world played a larger role in China’s geostrategy.

[T]he United States should be aware of key adversarial developments such as Russia’s emerging unmanned, autonomous, and AI capabilities, and prepare itself in terms of appropriate capabilities, tactics, and plans.  

Turkish democracy isn’t dead. That was the central message behind this past weekend‘s rerun of the mayoral election in Turkey’s famous city, Istanbul.

President Trump’s opportunity at next week’s G-20 summit to reset U.S. relations with close allies is a particularly timely one, for it comes as Washington suffers the downsides of its frayed relations in connection with one of its biggest global challenges of the moment — its rising tensions with Iran.

By now, there is ample evidence that last week's attack on two oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz was the work of the Iranian regime, as the Trump administration has alleged.

Is the long-running civil war in Libya winding to a close? The Libyan National Army (LNA) and its larger-than-life leader, Gen. Khalifa Haftar, seem to think so.

During its first half-year in office, the Trump administration actively flirted with the idea that it might be possible, under the proper conditions, to “flip” the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin and get it to support American attempts to pressure Tehran.

Is behavioral change in Tehran possible without regime change?

Later this month, unless it is delayed by Israel's current political turmoil, the Trump administration will start rolling out its long awaited, much-debated plan for Mideast peace.

Over the past few weeks, the Trump administration has turned up the heat on Tehran. Way up. A

“Every year, we hear that this is the worst year ever for U.S.-Turkish relations,” a prominent Turkish academic wryly remarked to me last month during my visit to the country. “This year, they might be right.”

Since 2002, the Justice & Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, or AKP) has decisively dominated national politics in Turkey.

Washington cannot afford to cede dominance over this important technology to Beijing.

Mr. Pirchner’s little book provides a good summary of the main political events of post-communist Russia, many that we have already forgotten.

City authorities say the planned system will have access to all 160,000 existing cameras.

Washington cannot afford to let rival powers divide America along partisan lines.

Earlier this spring, an invitation-only briefing on Capitol Hill gave congressional attendees a disturbing glimpse into a high-tech research race that is spawning dangerous new weapons, delivery systems, and supporting technologies. It is a contest where China is forging ahead, shrugging off suggestions of restraint.

The Iranian government could wreak real havoc on the global economy not by closing the Strait outright, but rather by narrowing it. By limiting commercial traffic flowing through the crucial waterway (for example, via military exercises), the Iranian regime can successfully drive up the marginal price of world oil without providing the United States with a clear justification to act.

Over the weekend, Volodymyr Zelensky — a comedian best known for his leading role in the popular Ukrainian television series "Servant of the People" — decisively trounced the country's sitting president in the second round of national elections there to capture Ukraine's top political post.

In Latin America, a U.S. retreat that began under President Barack Obama has accelerated under President Donald Trump, creating a vacuum that China, Russia, and Iran are moving to fill.

Ukraine’s presidential election, in which a popular comedian with no political experience is projected to beat a seasoned incumbent with considerable baggage, reflects global trends that continue to shake the global order.

In Israel’s latest national elections on Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu succeeded in securing a decisive electoral victory despite early returns that indicated he and his conservative Likud party were behind in the polls. In truth, however, Netanyahu’s victory was always more likely than not.

The Trump administration is turning up the heat on the ayatollahs.

Without intending it, and quite apart from the U.S. Senate’s stance, trumpet calls for a Green New Deal (GND) perversely heralds a retreat from combating climate change.

Submitted For Testimony before the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission Session on March 21, 2018, “An Emerging China-Russia Axis? Implications for the United States in an Era of Strategic Competition”

Venezuelans are "farming gold" for income while their country is in turmoil.

Iran’s leaders are more convinced than ever that relief from the Trump administration’s policies could be right around the corner with 2020 Democrats.

Notwithstanding newly won status as the world’s largest global oil producer, America’s sway over the global oil market remains incomplete and weak. Worse, it’s reactive, driven above all by politically touchy pump prices. In energy security, the focus continues to be on oil, yet a switch to electric propulsion offers a way out.

The Sovereign Internet Bill, which recently passed its first reading in Russia’s parliament, calls for the creation of a Russian Domain Name System (DNS) and would require all web traffic to be routed through state-controlled servers. If passed, the bill would make it much, much easier for the Kremlin to control the dissemination of information entering and leaving the country.

That’s just one of several high-tech deadlines Putin set recently.

Over the past decade, Morocco's extensive efforts to promote its brand of tolerant Islam as an antidote to the extremism of ISIS and other Islamic radicals has put the kingdom on the intellectual front lines of the "war of ideas" in the Muslim world. Less well known, however, are the country's domestic efforts to mitigate its own internal Islamist problem.

These days, the progressive Left’s ubiquitous use of the words “fascist” and “imperialist” to describe a multitude of political enemies threatens to render those words meaningless. Yet, for those who retain a fondness for the traditional interpretations of the words, a new exemplar has appeared... 

Russia and its allies are not just targeting government, society, and military targets. They are also attacking key economic targets like electric grids and international logistics firms. They aim to undermine the US, UN, and other governments and effectuate what amounts to a criminal takeover of corporations for profit and political gain.

Few things are more infuriating than to hear Western leaders lecture Israel about how it should behave — whether the issue is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or other matters — while they say little if anything about far more serious matters of regional stability or human rights around the world.

What is to be done with ISIS returnees? America's allies and partners have grappled with this question for more than a year now, ever since the Islamic State's self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria began to crumble. But the issue has become more acute in recent days as a result of American policy.

As the contemporary terrorist threat changes, it is being amplified by new technologies that give those actors greater reach and impact than ever before.

Russia’s ongoing development of hypersonic weapons proves nuclear weapons are in fact warfighting weapons — contrary to conventional wisdom in the West.

Moscow’s equivalent of DARPA wants a cold-weather drone that can stay aloft for four days.

Iran’s threats to America’s global interests are mounting as the Islamic Republic celebrates its 40th anniversary, and these threats mock repeated U.S. efforts over the years to appease a dangerous regime.

Morocco’s return to conscription shouldn’t be seen as a catch-all cure.

Since 2014, we have learned just how potent Russian information warfare can be when it targets foreign governments. But as a result, we have tended to overlook the no less disruptive proliferation of attacks against Western corporations.

Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats' January 2019 "worldwide threat assessment" — provides an extensive overview of the risks that the U.S. will face in the near future, and a detailed snapshot of the challenge that America's spies and intelligence professionals see emanating from Iran.

The Jan. 15 instruction follows a year of Russian efforts to better unify public and private AI research.

President Trump hopes to use a second summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un in the coming weeks to jumpstart progress on dismantling the North’s nuclear program, but Kim’s recent statements and Pyongyang’s clandestine work on its program raise serious questions about the President’s approach.

[T]he recent public verbal tongue lashings by Moscow to Iran’s leaders are just that. They are part of a false narrative that Moscow can exert its will over Turkey, Iran and Syria, and that Israel has a reliable and concerned partner in the Kremlin.

President Trump's unexpected December announcement that America would pull its military forces out of Syria has reignited a debate over the future of U.S. counterterrorism policy in Washington.

David H. Shinn and Joshua Eisenman say the bold proclamation of US intent to help African countries resist China’s ‘predatory practices’ carries little weight, given that the Trump administration has failed to allocate sufficient resources for it to succeed

Next month, Iran marks the 40th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution that catapulted the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his followers to power in Tehran. As that milestone approaches, the country’s leaders are working overtime to paint their clerical regime as a resounding success.

President Trump and his isolationist backers may think otherwise, but there is no real alternative to continued involvement.

In February, NATO’s Defense Ministers will convene a ministerial conference and in April they will do so for Foreign Ministers. These meetings should reassess the importance of the Black Sea and the Balkans’ strategic importance, especially in light of recent events.

As the hypersonic weapons programs of America’s adversaries continue to mature, so too does their ability to hold the U.S. military and our allies at risk on a number of fronts.

Apparently not satisfied with persecuting the Muslim Uighur community in its own Xinjiang province by, among other things, throwing an estimated million or more of them in torturous “re-education camps,” Beijing is targeting Uighurs who live outside China. In fact, The Atlantic reported late last year that many Uighurs in the United States say Chinese authorities are contacting and threatening them.

The Jewish state needs an agency to review foreign investments in sensitive areas of its economy.

Moscow is starting to put financial and logistical muscle behind its efforts to develop artificial intelligence.

During the Cold War two of Russia’s four fleets were nuclear ones, the Northern Fleet based out of Murmansk in the Kola Peninsula in the Arctic, and the Pacific Fleet based out of Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk.

Most analysts have maintained that this disposition has remained the case until now.

But can we be certain of that?

...[T}he Administration's unexpected December decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria has left Israeli policymakers on edge, and for good reason.

There was a time when the mere mention of a projected Russian (or Soviet) air or naval base in Latin America would have immediately generated a firestorm in Washington. Those times are now long gone.

European energy security isn’t a pressing concern for most Americans — but it should be. If Europe, the West’s frontline against Russian aggression, falls under de facto Kremlin control through energy domination, America will be left vulnerable.

The United States would be best served not by the creation of a wholly new global media network, but by real reform of the existing one.

A year on, Iran's protests continue - and represent a real challenge to the country's clerical regim

Has ISIS truly been defeated? More and more signs suggest that the answer is “no.”

Giving Russia a pass in the Kerch Strait equates to giving Putin a veto over where you can and cannot sail; in effect daring you to take him on. Seizing vessels and kidnapping sailors are actions more akin to the 18th century than the 21st, it is piracy plain and simple.

Russia’s latest act of aggression is neither extraordinary nor unexpected.

Its [Airbnb] policy for the West Bank subjects Israel to a singular global standard and reflects an all-too-common narrative about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By empowering one-sided Israel-haters, it also makes peace less likely, not more.

Russia is already building missiles outside the INF treaty, according to an October 29, 2018 report from the Congressional Research Service.

By any standard, Russia’s attack upon Ukrainian vessels in the Black Sea is an act of war.

NATO's new mission should be robust, visible and built around two key goals: safeguarding the free flow of maritime traffic in the region (something that Russia's actions have threatened), and bolstering Ukrainian sovereignty by augmenting the military assistance already being provided to the country by the U.S. and Europe.

In August of 2008, Russia used separatist proxies in South Ossetia to attack Georgian villages near the city of Tskhinvali.

As officials in Kyiv have consistently warned, an intensification of the on-again, off-again shooting war between the two countries was only a matter of time.

Two grim words — ‘hollowed out’ — routinely surface when we speak about America’s once formidable industrial and manufacturing prowess. 

On November 25 Russian vessels blocked Ukrainian ones from entering the Sea of Azov, fired on Ukrainian ships in the Black Sea, rammed some of those ships, seized three Ukrainian ships, and wounded six in these exchanges.

Just how solid is the strategic partnership between Russia and Iran?

China is now in full celebration mode, commemorating four decades since it turned away from Mao Zedong Thought and toward Reform and Opening Up — the blend of market and socialist policies initiated in 1978 by Deng Xiaoping that the Communist Party credits for “giving the Chinese people growth and prosperity.”

The U.S.-Saudi relationship is growing paradoxically both more contentious and more collaborative. What does that mean for the oil industry?

Last week (November 9), Russia finally convened its long-heralded peace conference on Afghanistan.

These days, the consensus among connected venture capitalists and savvy entrepreneurs is unanimous: Israel's hi-tech sector is thriving.

In fact, China’s stake in Israeli hi-tech has become so significant that it now runs the risk of impacting the longstanding special relationship between Jerusalem and Washington.

Having illegally annexed Crimea in 2014, Moscow lost no time in seizing Ukrainian energy assets in and around the region.

The Islamic State may be receding in Iraq and Syria, but its militants may soon find safe harbor nearby — in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

On Nov. 6, Americans will go to the polls in midterm elections that are likely to reshape the complexion of national politics. But even before they do, U.S. foreign policy will face a crucial test of resolve vis-a-vis the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism.

As Korean policymakers, aid workers and scientists look to solve challenges, they should turn to Israel to find existing innovations that can make a difference, or create new ones together. 

Let's be clear: the Saudi murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was a despicable act by a regime that, even after enacting modest reforms recently, still tolerates virtually no domestic dissent...The United States needs Saudi support to rein in the America-hating, terror-sponsoring, nuclear weapons-pursuing, regional destabilizing and human rights-abusing regime in Iran.

When people discuss Indo-Russian relations, they generally focus on Russia’s arms sales to India. However, India’s energy relations with Moscow also possess considerable and, arguably, growing significance.