Articles

As he prepares to enter the White House, Donald Trump should recognize that even a weakened Tehran is still dangerous.

Prioritizing the Americas after decades of neglect marks a return to traditional U.S. strategy.

Suddenly, Israel has a Syria problem. For years, officials in Jerusalem had banked on a relatively predictable balance of power with the neighboring regime of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. Despite Assad's enduring hostility toward the Jewish state and the inherent weakness of his regime, a tenuous status quo had been struck between the two countries, making it generally possible to anticipate how the Syrian dictator would behave. This has served as a perverse source of comfort over the past 14 months, as Israel has found itself preoccupied with the threat of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and more recently, that of Hezbollah in Lebanon.

When might meaningful change come to Iran, and how? Nearly 50 years after the country's last major political transformation – the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's radical Islamist revolt against the monarchy of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi – that question continues to bedevil policymakers, both in Washington and far beyond the Capital Beltway.

For years, Russia’s main tactic to compete with Western news media has been to create alternative outlets, like its television channel RT (previously Russia Today) and the Sputnik multimedia news agency. Now, however, Moscow is stepping up its efforts in two areas where Western media and foundations have long enjoyed an advantage: journalism training and fact-checking.

What if Russia loses its war on Ukraine? Some consider the question frivolous because, as President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan has asserted, “Russia cannot be defeated in a military sense.” Such thinking has prompted Tokayev, as well as many in the West, to advocate for a deal with Putin, one that would more than likely result in Kyiv’s loss of land that the United Nations, the United States, and Europe all consider Ukraine’s sovereign territory.

The U.S. Congress still has a month of legislating ahead. If current conditions hold, China policy appears poised to dominate a significant portion of Capitol Hill’s time. In September, House Speaker Mike Johnson telegraphed his desire to restrict U.S. outbound investment to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and moves in this direction are expected this fall. 

On November 28, 2024, the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party explicitly announced a change in Georgia's foreign policy trajectory, despite overwhelming public opposition to turning away from European integration.

As Georgia approaches parliamentary elections in October 2024, the South Caucasus state stands at a pivotal juncture. 

When the second Trump administration takes office next month, it will face a thoroughly crowded Mideast agenda. Near-term priorities for the new White House include helping Israel to wind down its war in Gaza, resuscitating the Abraham Accords, and reviving a policy of "maximum pressure" against Iran. But arguably the most pressing item confronting Team Trump will be changing the status quo in the Red Sea.

Western observers are neglecting important developments: Judging by what is being said on Russia’s home front, Putin has already lost the war and the only question is what face-saving measures can be extracted through a settlement.

The Biden administration has loosened some restrictions on how Ukraine can use U.S.-supplied missiles in its ongoing war with Russia. But this move is too little, too late.

President-elect Trump will likely transform U.S.-Israeli relations — and U.S. relations across the Middle East — by providing more military and diplomatic support for Israel, working to weaken Israel’s adversaries and pursuing more Arab-Israeli peacemaking.

America is often called a nation of problem-solvers. So it's not surprising that, virtually from the start of Israel's war with Hamas last fall, U.S. officials have been pressing Israel to lay out a plan for a "day after" in the Gaza Strip.

The incoming administration has a unique opportunity to cultivate a dynamic partnership with Africa that transcends conventional diplomacy, intensifies economic ties, balances security commitments, and revitalizes development efforts

The campaign of terror carried out by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, succeeded in denting Israel's aura of military invincibility, while the resulting conflict in Gaza helped isolate Jerusalem on the world stage. Israel's normalization with the Gulf States, which had started to profoundly marginalize the Islamic Republic, also seemed to be a casualty of the new war. Meanwhile, timid American regional policy, and the Biden administration's overriding fear of a wider Mideast war, led to a persistent failure on Washington's part to hold Tehran accountable for its regional troublemaking.

In recent years, the Biden administration has promoted the need for “resilient, diverse, and secure supply chains” and urged the identification of vulnerabilities that could affect the country’s national security. Interestingly, one of the most visible components in the nation’s supply chain—ocean shipping—matches this description yet is rarely afforded the attention it deserves. That’s a costly mistake because Chinese state-owned shipping is thoroughly embedded in and integrated within the logistics infrastructure of the United States and the West more broadly.