Category: Blogs

Something Is Very Wrong in Kyiv

By Josh Cohen

Ukraine Brags about Reforms and Harasses Activists Oleksandra Ustinova does not scare easily. Ustinova—Ustik to her friends—is a member of the board of the most outspoken watchdog in Kyiv and has led lobbying campaigns which successfully pushed through anticorruption reforms in Ukraine. She’s also a recognizable face with her straight blond hair and light blue […]

From Russia with Hate: The Kremlin’s Support for Violent Extremism in Central Europe

By Péter Krekó and Lóránt Győri

In 2016, the mayor of Ásotthalom, a small Hungarian town close to the country’s southern border, celebrated the opening of Gagarin Street with an obelisk to Soviet astronaut Yuri Gagarin and a speech about Russia’s greatness. The mayor was László Toroczkai, an extremist politician who serves as the vice president of the far-right Jobbik party; […]

Crimea’s Virtual Blackout Means Anything Goes

By Yuriy Lukanov

On Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, the Russian authorities are suppressing freedom of speech so that no one will really know what has happened there. Journalists in particular are under threat. The case of Ukrainian journalist Mykola Semena is one example of the situation in Crimea, which Russia has illegally occupied since 2014. His opinions were published […]

The Future of the Islamic State: Less Territory, More Brutality

By Belal Alaa

The Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) is a radical organization with vast capacity for recruitment and cultural domination – yet lacks its own literature, even a zealous, superficial manifesto. That is not a mistake or an oversight: the organization simply doesn’t need one. Daesh did not need to sow the seeds for the cultural dominance […]

‘If We Can’t Afford to Protect it, Then We Can’t Afford to Connect it’

The ransomware attack that shut down a number of hospitals in the United Kingdom (UK) on May 12 should serve as a wake-up call to defend critical infrastructure against cyberterrorism, according to an Atlantic Council analyst. “I was never worried that ransomware was going to deliberately kill someone,” said Joshua Corman, director of the Atlantic […]

Trump Expected to Shake Up NATO Summit

By Anne K. Walters, DPA

US President Donald Trump made very clear his presidency marked a new era of “America First,”

Strategic Lessons from the Ejection of ISIS from Sirte

By Dr Alia Brahimi and Jason Pack

Though accompanied by curiously little fanfare, the Obama administration’s most significant victory against the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) came not in Iraq or Syria, but in Libya. After eight months of fighting, the coastal city of Sirte was ‘liberated’ in December 2016, by a coalition of forces allied to the UN-backed government in Tripoli.

The Battle for Idlib

By Ahmad Abazeid

Northwestern Syria, consisting of Idlib city and the surrounding province, northern Hama and western Aleppo provinces, forms the biggest inhabited zone under the control of the Syrian opposition. It is also home to the biggest concentration of pro-Assad forces, including multi-national Shiite militias. Despite the presence of the Nusra Front and other jihadist groups in […]

Trump Shared Secrets with Russia. Here’s Why It Matters.

By Ashish Kumar Sen

The Washington Post reported on May 15 that US President Donald J. Trump disclosed highly classified information to two Russian officials—Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak—in their White House meeting on May 10. “The information the president relayed had been provided by a US partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement […]