Category: Blogs

A Powerful Case for Swedish Membership in NATO

By Tomas Bertelman, Johan Molander, and Sven-Olof Peterson

This image of a Russia encircled by hostile forces, including an aggressive and growing NATO and European Union, was created to legitimize the regime’s actions.

Ukraine Steps Up Efforts to Recover Stolen Assets Abroad

Two Kyiv-based women—a lawyer who heads a state agency created to reclaim stolen assets abroad and a social activist-turned-politician who’s made a career out of exposing official corruption—spoke August 20 in Washington about their efforts to clean up Ukraine. Olena Tyshchenko is director of the Agency for Asset Recovery at Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs. […]

The Republic of Fear

By Amr Hamzawy

The Egyptian government issued a decree in July placing regulatory and independent agencies under the auspices of the president of the country, authorizing President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to replace the agencies’ leaders. This move effectively puts an end to the agencies’ independent regulatory role by threatening their ability to both ensure the executive authority does […]

Russia, Not Ukraine, is the Questionable Partner

By Melinda Haring

In its August 12 editorial, “Shaky Ukraine: Economics and Corruption Complicate Its War,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette calls Ukraine a “questionable partner” because of “resistance to economic reform and use of Islamist Chechen forces.” Too bad neither charge is true.

In Greece, It’s the End of Syriza as We Know It

By Ashish Kumar Sen

Elections will produce split in ruling party, says Atlantic Council’s Fran Burwell Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ decision to resign and call snap elections in an attempt to shore up support for a harsh bailout package will split his leftist party, says the Atlantic Council’s Fran Burwell. Syriza has been a “broken party” since Tsipras […]

Hacks and Attacks: How Do You React When China Conducts a Cyber Attack?

By Ashish Kumar Sen

World had similar feeling of being violated after Snowden’s revelations, says Atlantic Council’s Jason Healey When the news broke earlier this summer that hackers had breached the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and accessed the records of more than twenty million current and former federal employees, it prompted calls to punish China, which was believed […]

NATO Leaders Participate in Riga Conference on Strategic Communications

By NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence

On 20th August some of the most influential minds from the world of strategic communications, media, defence and security, will gather in Riga to discuss how strategic communications can strengthen the defence capabilities of NATO in the new information environment.

Top News: SOHR Documents 36,000 Civilian Deaths in Syria Over Past Ten Months

By MENASource

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) monitoring group reported on Thursday that it has documented 33,376 air strikes carried out by Syrian regime forces in the past ten months since October 20, 2014, including 18,038 barrel bombs and 15,338 air raids.

Top News: Islamic State Claims Shubra al-Kheima Bomb which Wounded Twenty-Nine

By EgyptSource

Islamic State’s (ISIS or ISIL) Egypt affiliate said it was behind a car bombing that wounded twenty-nine people near a state security building and courthouse in Qalyubiya’s Shubra al-Kheima district early on Thursday.

EconSource: ISIS Made $11 Million Per Month in Iraq Province

By EconSource

The Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL) made $11 million per month from “organized crime” in Iraq’s Nineveh province before seizing Mosul in June of last year, a parliamentary report obtained by AFP says.