Category: Blogs

Gene Editing: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

In the 2016 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US National Intelligence Community, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper noted: “given the broad distribution, low cost, and accelerated pace of development of this dual-use technology [genome editing], its deliberate or unintentional misuse might lead to far-reaching economic and national security implications.” The CRISPR-Cas9 (clustered regularly […]

A Return to Civil War in South Sudan?

By Julian Wyss

While South Sudan’s First Vice President Taban Deng Gai carries out a public relations offensive in New York and Washington this week, all indications suggest that the country is teetering dangerously close to collapsing back into civil war.

NATO ‘Best Deal’ the United States Has Ever Made

By Ashish Kumar Sen

Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warns against placing conditions on defense of allies In a thinly veiled swipe at Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former secretary general of NATO, said on September 29 that it is in the United States’ best interests to be the world’s “policeman,” and it […]

The Lessons of Babyn Yar: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

By Kateryna Smagliy

“No gravestone stands on Babyn Yar,” wrote the Soviet poet Yevgeniy Yevtushenko in 1961. He was condemning the Soviet regime’s failure to acknowledge the Babyn Yar tragedy twenty-five years after World War II had ended. When a monument was finally erected in 1974 to commemorate the deaths of 100,000 people generically characterized as “Soviet citizens,” […]

Secretary of Defense: NATO is Updating its ‘Nuclear Playbook’ to Deter Russia

By DoD News and Department of Defense

From Jim Garamone, DoD News:  Defense Secretary Ash Carter kicked off a visit to DoD’s nuclear deterrence enterprise

The Geopolitics of Peak Demand

By Robert J. Johnston

This article is part two of a two-part series. From 1973 to 2011, when policy makers in Washington thought about energy, they thought in terms of concerns about peak supply. These apprehensions were triggered by the oil shock in 1973 that roughly coincided with the peak in US domestic conventional oil production and rise in […]

Kuwaiti-Iranian Relations: The Energy Angle

By Giorgio Cafiero and Cinzia Miotto

Although oil-rich, Kuwait has modest gas reserves. Consequently, the Arab Gulf state has been a net importer of the resource since 2008, and in 2009 Kuwait became the first Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member to import Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). As a host of obstacles (contract structures, geological challenges, etc.) have hindered rapid expansion of […]

South Sudan’s First Vice President Blames Roads, Criminals for Blocking UN Efforts

By Ashish Kumar Sen

South Sudan’s First Vice President Taban Deng Gai blames the absence of roads, the presence of criminals, and weak governance structures for the obstruction of UN peacekeeping and humanitarian efforts in his country. Deng spoke in response to a confidential report from United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to the UN Security Council that […]