Patrick Adams (Strategic Analyst & RIEAS Research Associate)
A victory for the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria would have a wide range of economic, social and political consequences. Economically, there would be a significant and damaging effect on the world's oil supply. Socially, not only would Iraq and Syria be affected but any…

Quentin de Pimodan
(Author based in the Middle East)

Al Baghdadi's major strategic failure has been his choice of the Fertile Crescent as the region for the establishment of his Khilafa. His dream of reestablishing a Sunni caliphate with roots in Iraq and Syria will eventually be crushed by the field's realities and only exposes his own…

A strain of the Ebola virus has killed 5,000 people in a handful of West African nations with Mali the latest addition to the list. Meanwhile, an Ebola strain has spread to the United States, Western Europe and possibly elsewhere.
 
Turning the fear factor into a pandemic greater than Ebola itself, the Washington Post on October 25th, published…

 
This work is about how a specific conceptualization of ‘culture’ in intelligence studies, amongst scholars at first but subsequently practitioners as well, has taken on too powerful a role, one that has become too restrictive in its impact on thinking about other intelligence communities, especially non-Western ones. This…

One single Muslim convert has just succeeded in paralyzing the  executive and legislative branch of Canada.  The parliament building has been locked down for many hours.  A Canadian soldier has been killed.
On the same day  is another news item of concern; the car bomb killing of an American citizen and his child in Jerusalem…

An important prior question needs to be addressed before arriving at the question of whether democracy should have the same meaning in every country. We need to ask what is meant by "democracy?" If taken seriously, as meaning "rule by the people," democracy doesn't exist anywhere. In no modern state do the people actually rule…

The Ukrainian crisis is currently the leading factor weighing on Western international relations, with the EU being caught in an unstable position, torn between the U.S.A.'s pressure on one side, and the economic interdependency with the Russian Federation on the other. This article examines the current state of the issue from a diplomatic…

Even under the regime of the strategic partnership China can hardly be named the true advocate of the Russian interests on the Far East and North East Asia. The dynamic of the regional cooperation witnesses on poor development of local cooperation mechanisms – investment activity and amount of the implemented projects aren’t covering…

 In the face of two world politics game-changers, Ebola and ISIS, our situation is growing increasingly serious – worse every day.  Yet, the Obama administration is still soft-peddling these threats,  prevaricating that failures are partial successes and doing everything not to alert the sleepy public.  America is awaking…

With the Brisbane G20 Summit approaching, some voices in Australia are pushing PM Tony Abbott to ban Vladimir Putin from attending the meeting. Can this move bear fruit?
 
Anticipation of the November G20 Summit in Brisbane, Australia has been emotionally charged. Feelings run high as pressure groups, including those representing Australian…

Protesters are unarmed. They have no self-defense force. What they have is an umbrella – for the sun, for the rain, and perhaps for the tear gas.
 
Protesters demand universal suffrage, a genuine one, which is promised by Hong Kong Basic Law Article 45. They are neither overthrowing the current system nor the government; they ask for a…

Nikolay Mezhevich, Ph.D. (Economics). Professor, School of International Relations, St. Petersburg State University.   Amidst a severe lack of Russian-language media coverage of the elections in Latvia, the web portal Delfi published an article with the headline: “Scandal? Putin’s Fan Wins Latvian Elections.” The Ukrainian…