Category: Blogs

How US Army Europe’s Outgoing General Got the Pentagon’s Attention

By John Vandiver, Stars and Stripes

The resources didn’t match the mission, and it gnawed at Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges during the early days of his tenure commanding U.S. Army Europe.

Austrian Elections Demonstrate Success of Aestheticized Populism

By Adham Sahloul

The victory of Sebastian Kurz’s conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) in parliamentary elections on October 15 is the latest manifestation of the rightward shift in European politics and the consequence of adjustments conservative politicians are making to attract a wider base.  The ÖVP came in at first place with more than 30 percent of the […]

Stanford Cultivates the Next Generation of Ukrainian Leaders

By Sasha Jason

Even within Ukraine’s embattled political sphere, a new generation of leaders is still inspiring change. Stanford University intends to harness this energy through its Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program, a new program for mid-career professionals to study at Stanford for an academic year. Olexandr Starodubtsev, Oleksandra Matviichuk, and Dmytro Romanovych were inducted as the first members […]

RT: A Low-Grade Platform for Useful Idiots

By Monika L. Richter

RT is coming under increasing scrutiny for its role in the Kremlin’s disinformation campaign against the West. The US Justice Department is allegedly requesting that individuals associated with the network’s US branch, RT America, register as foreign agents. Nascent Congressional efforts to investigate and counter the Kremlin’s influence operations have also targeted RT. These are […]

Intra-Kurdish division and Abadi’s options

By Harith Hasan

In the wake of the September 25 referendum in Kurdistan, the Iraqi government announced on October 15 that it began a military deployment to reestablish authority in Kirkuk in coordination with the Peshmerga. It soon became clear that the Peshmerga mentioned belonged to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)—specifically, the Talabani family wing—which views aggressive […]

Raqqa Falls. Now Comes the Hard Part

By Ashish Kumar Sen

As the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) is driven from its strongholds in Syria, US-backed forces face the challenge of stabilizing these conflict-ravaged territories. This task is made more urgent by the fact that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and Iran-backed militias are swooping in on eastern Syria in an attempt to capitalize […]

Post referendum hangovers: The local aspects

By Sardar Aziz

As Tip O’Neill coined it, “all politics is local.” Accordingly, the local dimension of the Kurdistan referendum is a core aspect, but underplayed as the news focuses on regional and international repercussions. The internal political moves that led up to the referendum and the referendum’s results will define KRG politics in the near future, but […]

A Life of Exile: The Continued Suffering of Syrian IDPs

By Hasan Arfeh

Local agreements between the Syrian regime and opposition forces may have lessened the violence, but they have not ended the suffering of Syrians. Such deals, in which the regime uses bombing and blockades to force the opposition to surrender, have moved many Syrians from their towns in the Damascus hinterland towards rural Idlib, where they […]

Ukraine Will Pursue Hard Reforms This Fall, Finance Minister Says

After a week of back-to-back meetings in Washington, Oleksandr Danylyuk is tired. He gladly downs a cup of coffee before we turn on our microphones to discuss Ukraine’s economy. The affable forty-two-year old finance minister is one of the few reformers left in Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers and has a reputation as a doer. He’s […]

Iraqi Operation Will Deepen Rift Among Kurds

By Ashish Kumar Sen

Iraqi government forces on October 16 seized vital oil fields and the city of Kirkuk from Kurdish forces. The military action, which pits two US allies against each other, followed a September 25 referendum in which the Kurds voted for an independent state. The Iraqi government had declared the vote unconstitutional. Kirkuk, which is not […]