Category: Blogs

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 […]

NATO Frantically Tries to Trump-Proof President’s First Visit

By Robbie Gramer, Foreign Policy

NATO is scrambling to tailor its upcoming meeting to avoid taxing President Donald Trump’s notoriously short attention span.

Why Ukraine’s Worst Enemy Is Not Vladimir Putin

By Peter Dickinson

Identifying Ukraine’s enemies has become a popular pastime. Unsurprisingly, Russia was the first one to be listed after the Kremlin dropped any pretense of Slavic fraternity and invaded the country. Corruption was next. Whereas Russia was the enemy at the gates, corruption was the enemy within. An eclectic collection of lesser enemies has since joined […]

Turkey’s Post-Referendum Economy

By Merve Hande Akmehmet

Throughout the referendum campaign, President Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) promised to move the economy back to the top of their agenda. This was easier said than done, as the field dynamics changed drastically from 2002. During the AKP’s first twelve years of governing, Turkey was a strong EU candidate, with better […]