In the words of U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, two “handshakes” now define the increasingly intimate Indo-U.S. defense partnership. The “strategic handshake” was examined in detail in my last article for The Diplomat. We will now turn our attention to the “technological handshake,” shorthand for the growth in arms sales, technical cooperation, and defense co-production and co-development.
Ilyas El Omari is on the offensive. The bespectacled 49-year-old activist who heads Morocco's Party of Authenticity and Modernity (PAM) has spent years honing PAM's political message and worldview. Now, with the Kingdom heading into what is shaping up to be a decisive general election on October 7, Omari senses a political opening.
The revelation of recent days that, back in January, President Obama agreed that the United Nations should lift its sanctions against two Iranian state banks which financed Iran's ballistic missile development puts the lie to Washington's claims - stubbornly maintained for more than a year - that it was determined to rein in the Islamic Republic's expanding missile program.
How healthy is Russia, really? Over the past several years, the official narrative of Vladimir Putin's government has been clear and consistent: thanks to firm leadership, the demographic problems that once plagued Russia and the Soviet Union are now effectively a thing of the past.
The problem with high technology is that it can be difficult to understand, leading to what are often confused policy prescriptions. A perfect example is the proposed upcoming transition of the internet-naming function from U.S. to private control - an event that's scheduled to take place just a few days from now, on Sept. 30. While the transition itself isn't necessarily a bad idea, the Obama administration's current plan has definite flaws.