Category: Blogs

Content

IranSource

May 11, 2017

Dispute Over Helmand Water Spills into Iran Presidential Race

By Fatemeh Aman

During the second Iranian presidential debate on May 5, a candidate from the conservative camp raised an issue of great importance and political sensitivity: Iran’s disappearing water reserves.

UkraineAlert

May 10, 2017

Q&A: Will We Ever Get to the Bottom of Russian Hacking in the US Election?

By Melinda Haring

President Donald Trump fired FBI director James Comey on May 9. Comey had been leading a criminal investigation into whether Trump’s advisers colluded with the Russian government to influence the results of the 2016 presidential election. Trump justified the firing by pointing to the way Comey handled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server, […]

Russia

UkraineAlert

May 10, 2017

Ukraine Needs Tough Love and IMF Conditionality, Leshchenko Urges

By Diane Francis

“The IMF should not give one more dollar to Ukraine until the Anti-Corruption Court is in operation,” said Sergii Leshchenko in a May 9 telephone interview. Leshchenko is a hero of the Revolution of Dignity, a lanky and serious journalist-turned-politician who has risked his life and career for years to fight corruption in Ukraine. He’s […]

Ukraine

MENASource

May 10, 2017

Factbox: Algeria’s Parliamentary Election

By Elissa Miller and Husayn Hosoda

On May 4th, Algerians went to the polls to cast their ballots in the country’s parliamentary elections. The ruling coalition of the National Liberation Front or Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) and the National Rally for Democracy (RND) emerged victorious, respectively winning 164 and ninety-seven of the 462 seats in the national assembly.

North Africa

New Atlanticist

May 10, 2017

The Avoidable Return of Geopolitics in the Balkans

By Florian Bieber, Dane Taleski and Nikola Dimitrov

Political crises, regional tensions, and the decline of democracy point to an increased risk of conflict and instability in the Balkans. Peace, democratic reform, and stability in the Balkans have been guaranteed for the past two decades by the prospect of European Union (EU) membership and by US and NATO security guarantees. Both pillars of […]

European Union International Organizations

SyriaSource

May 10, 2017

Arming the YPG

By Frederic C. Hof

On May 9, 2017, the United States Department of Defense (DoD) announced President Trump’s approval of a DoD proposal to provide arms to the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), a militia that has emerged over the past two-plus years as the principal ground combat component in the military campaign against ISIS (ISIL, Daesh, Islamic […]

Syria

Rebuilding Syria

May 10, 2017

Rebuild Syria by Supporting Syrians—Not Their State

By Nate Rosenblatt

The fall of Aleppo in December 2016 marked a turning point in the Syrian uprising from a civil war where the opposition still had a chance, to one where the regime was on the path to victory. Amid this pivot marked by widening military asymmetries and international accommodation to the Syrian regime; governments, multilateral donor […]

Syria

SyriaSource

May 10, 2017

Is a Ceasefire Taking Hold?

By Frederic C. Hof

On May 4, 2017 in Astana (Kazakhstan) Iran, Russia, and Turkey signed a memorandum “on the creation of de-escalation areas in the Syrian Arab Republic.” Four such areas were listed: “Idlib province and certain parts of the neighboring provinces (Latakia, Hama, and Aleppo provinces); certain parts in the north of Homs province; in eastern Ghouta; […]

Syria
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nato/33879097041/in/photolist-TZiHdd-T9KgWa-TAj3WL-Ro1HbJ-TKyXpd-TKyWMb-TKyXzo-TKyXkf-TKyWRE-TKyWSb-TKyXwC-TKyWPf-TKyXxQ-TKyXn9-TKyWVN-TKyXcj-TKyXrC-TKyXA5-M7GuGE-TKyX6s-DE87yA-TBMedM-TKyWYJ-RDvQuA-JxJ9qN-Tzivhj-TKyX31-TKyXgh-TPeCjn-TKyXa5-TKyXkq-TKyXeU-NtxXvG-PMaK7U-TekzsC-Tekz8E-Nyp5os-RbJMwY-NzPQqN-NSkjum

NATOSource

May 10, 2017

Trump Asking NATO to Join Coalition Fighting Against ISIS

By Matthias Gebauer and Peter Müller, Spiegel

In Donald Trump’s eyes, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg was actually the head of an alliance that history had made superfluous.

NATO Security & Defense

UkraineAlert

May 10, 2017

Russia Deploys Banned Missile and Brags about It

By Semen Kabakaev

Thirty years ago, on December 8, 1987, Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), which entered into force on June 1, 1988. The parties pledged not to produce, test or deploy ballistic and cruise land-based missiles of medium range (from 1,000 to 5,500 kilometers). Elimination of all declared missiles and […]

Russia Ukraine
Load More