Trump’s War with the Intelligence Community Is Not About Peace

by Charles Davis When the most powerful and belligerent man in the world began casually exploring the idea of invading Venezuela—this, after Caracas’s state-owned oil company gave $500,000 to the U.S. president’s inauguration party—it was an establishment general, H.R. McMaster,… Continue Reading

China Adds Security Component to Belt and Road Initiative

by James M. Dorsey China appears to be shifting gears in its multi-billion dollar Belt and Road initiative. Long projected as driven by economics and the benefit of infrastructure linkages, China appears to be increasingly adding a security component to… Continue Reading

Making Sense of U.S. Moves in the Middle East

by Rebecca Gordon My father and I always had a tacit agreement: “We will never speak of That Part of the World.” He’d grown up in an Orthodox Jewish family in Norfolk, Virginia. His own father, a refugee from early-twentieth-century… Continue Reading

Stabilization of Afghanistan: The Little Engine That Couldn’t

by Diana Ohlbaum “Between 2001 and 2017, U.S. government efforts to stabilize insecure and contested areas in Afghanistan mostly failed.” Those are not my words. They’re not from some partisan pundit or ideological crusader. It’s the conclusion reached by the… Continue Reading

Middle East: History Threatens to Repeat Itself

by James M. Dorsey If the notion that history repeats itself is accurate, it is nowhere truer than in the Middle East where the international community, caught by surprise by the 2011 popular Arab revolts, has reverted to opting for… Continue Reading