Kurdish Rivalries Create New Challenges for Islamic State Fight

by Robert Olson and Derek Davison The U.S.-led anti-Islamic State (ISIS or IS) coalition is being challenged by a new but fairly predictable problem. Tensions between the Turkish Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), along with its Syrian affiliate, the Democratic Union… Continue Reading

Failed States and States of Failure

by Tom Engelhardt One of the charms of the future is its powerful element of unpredictability, its ability to ambush us in lovely ways or bite us unexpectedly in the ass. Most of the futures I imagined as a boy… Continue Reading

US Fight Against Islamic State: Long Haul Ahead

by Wayne White As 2014 draws to a close, there is no shortage of alternative suggestions about how to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS or IS). Most of them involve US escalation, driven by exaggerated notions of IS capabilities. Retaking… Continue Reading

Learning the Wrong Lessons from the Wrong Wars

by James A. Russell The apparent beheading of American journalist James Foley adds a particularly gruesome and tragic twist to the sports event-like reporting of our attempts to thwart the advances of the Islamic State in Iraq over the last… Continue Reading