New Neocon Mantra: Iran, like Soviet Union, on Verge of Collapse

by Jim Lobe Iran hawks suddenly have a new mantra: the Islamic Republic is the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, and the Trump administration should work to hasten the regime’s impending collapse. It’s not clear why this comparison has… Continue Reading

The War that Changed the Middle East

by Mitchell Plitnick Fifty years have passed since Israel’s stunning military victory over the countries surrounding it in 1967. War transforms countries, regions, the entire planet as no other event can. And perhaps no war ever transformed a country and… Continue Reading

Syria and the Call of the Quagmire

by Paul R. Pillar After the Soviet Union launched a full-scale invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, President Jimmy Carter remarked to a television interviewer that this event had “made a more dramatic change in my opinion of what the… Continue Reading

Russia’s Colonial Allergy

by Alexander Morrison “The history of Russia is the history of a country that colonizes itself.” This phrase, first coined by the historian Sergei Solov’ev in the 1840s, gained widespread currency thanks to Vasilii Kliuchevskii’s Course of Russian History, first… Continue Reading