The countries of Central Asia — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — are divided between the remaining influence of Russia, the heir of the Soviet Union, which plays a considerable cultural and military role (e.g., within the Collective Security Treaty Organization) in the region, and the growing economic influence of…

The rapidly escalating conflict that has recently exploded between Israel and Palestine caught many extra-regional observers by surprise, even though many in West Asia had been expecting something of the sort for quite a while already. The hybrid military-political movement Hamas accused Israel of violating the Palestinians’ rights after the Israeli…

President Joe Biden said in his speech on 14 April 2021 that he is now “the fourth American president to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan.” He further noted, “I will not pass this responsibility to a fifth,” announcing that the troops’ withdrawal would start on May 1 and be completed by September 11.Omar Sobhani/Reuters…

In 2013, conflict began to boil when the former Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, put off an agreement between Ukraine and the European Union, which was interpreted as choosing Russia over “the West.” Very shortly thereafter, the Euromaidan revolution occurred, with pro-Western Ukrainian nationalist forces overtaking the Ukrainian government…

Dr. Dmitry Kulish is a molecular pharmacologist by education and an expert in modern pharmaceutical industry by experience. Dr. Kulish earned his PhD in biochemistry from the Moscow Institute of Molecular Genetics, then continued his postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School and obtained his MBA degree from the Wharton School of Business. Dmitry…

The recent announcement by Indian Prime Minister Modi that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to establish the 2+2 format of talks between their Defense and Foreign Ministers will synchronize the grand strategies of the two great powers. There have been noticeable concerns from both sides over the past few years that these special and…

North Macedonia has had a troubled history since it gained independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Disputes with Greece have been settled only recently, and tensions between the ethnic groups in the country, mainly between ethnic Macedonians and a large Albanian minority, regularly come to a head. Like many countries in the Western Balkans, North…

Dr. Salam Al Rabadi According to International Labor Organization (ILO) reports, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused severe damage to the work sector, with more than 250 million jobs lost, not to mention the negative impact of the pandemic in terms of slowing or reversing the trend of rising wages around the world, which affected low-wage earners1…

The Five Eyes (FVEY) is an alliance comprising five members — Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States — sharing Signal intelligence (SIGINT)1 and, more generally, all-source intelligence regarding internal and external threats to the member states and their allies. These countries are parties to the multilateral…

We are currently witnessing a dangerous escalation on the Ukrainian-Russian borders and around the Crimean Peninsula that indicates that the period of frozen conflict has quickly passed and increasingly strong confrontations are returning. From the region that was once under Soviet influence to the Middle East and Africa, there are various crises…

Eurasian Air-Power As I have demonstrated on other occasions, the “best” US combat aircraft for export, the F-35, is basically worthless. The decades old F-16 and F-18 in updated configurations are better. F-22 is truly remarkable but is in limited numbers, will not be built anymore (tools destroyed), and is not for export. The EU Eurofighter is…

From a humanist and democratic point of view, it makes sense to recognize these “de facto” states on a case-by-case basis as legitimate, for the sake of egalitarian representation. When the Soviet Union fell in 1991, the disintegration of a centralized nation into individual nation states did not occur without problems arising. Due to various…