The Forgotten Benefits of Offshore Balancing

by Paul R. Pillar Discussions of grand strategy often are too abstract and general to be of significant practical use in formulating sound decisions about specific foreign policy problems, but sometimes a concept drawn from such discussion points to an… Continue Reading

US Hawks Ignore Top Israeli Official on Iran

by Ali Gharib Last week, Israel’s top military official made some staggering comments during the course of a security conference in Tel Aviv. Here’s how The Forward‘s JJ Goldberg reported the comments of Lieutenant General Gadi Eisenkot, Israel’s chief of… Continue Reading

How Well Is Russia Doing in Syria?

by Mark N. Katz Numerous reports indicate that Russia’s military intervention in Syria has succeeded in halting the loss of territory that the Bashar al-Assad regime had been experiencing in the months before it began. Moreover, it has enabled Damascus to… Continue Reading

Is Taleh Bagir-zade Baku’s Sheikh Al-Nimr?

by Eldar Mamedov The Muslim world continues to reverberate from the shock created by Saudi Arabia’s early January execution of Baqr al-Nimr, a dissident Shia cleric. Meanwhile, another outspoken Shia cleric, Taleh Bagir-zade, sits behind bars in Azerbaijan. Bagir-zade was… Continue Reading

Are Jihadis Reaching their Limits of Nihilism?

by Graham E. Fuller It is hard to find even the smallest silver lining in the ongoing series of jihadist outrages that now proliferate with each daily news report. The immoral and cynical exploitation of religion (a constant of human… Continue Reading