Articles

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.

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.