Search: International Relations,Middle East,Security,USA (10 materials)

Walk the Line: Russia as the New Chair of the UN Security Council

October 1st began what could be one of the more interesting Chairships of the United Nations Security Council, with Russia taking over and being charged with a rather delicate balancing act: between conducting the numerous ... ... relationship have been exhibited within the UNSC itself. On the general business front, Russia will see issues dominating the Middle East and Africa at the top of the schedule: · developments in Syria; · settlements and their legality in ...

26.10.2016

American Jihadi: Why Westerners Fight with the Islamic State

... and malleable minds. Only now it is being powerfully pushed through the technological and virtual advantages of the 21st century, making its reach and scope far beyond anything the West could ever think plausible. Against this backdrop, it is inexcusable that American agents find themselves at a loss to understand the appeal of that small percentage willing to abandon the U.S. and go fight in a land that America says is barbarous, for a group only more barbarous and a cause most ignoble. To see ...

18.04.2015

The American UAV Attempted Apartheid

... forms other than just anger over actual attacks. There is growing dissent across the Middle East at what is perceived to be a total lack of transparency and scrutiny by... ... has been unwise to ignore and the honest answers, based on previous American drone usage, probably carry some severe repercussions for American foreign and military policies:... ... weapons. How does any country not feel that the U.S. is purposely compromising its own security and risking the lives of its people? Indeed, less than a year after the announcement...

05.04.2015

The Saudi Bait-and-Switch

... incompetent. Rather, you find a cunning sense of strategic analysis that is built more upon long-term economic and national security priorities, which is an approach that woefully few Western countries ever find themselves in a position to emulate. ... ... as you can see, nothing is ever as it seems in the world of high economic ‘political finance,’ especially in the Middle East when it comes to global energy markets. Saudi Arabia is ‘punishing’ itself for one year so as to reward ...

06.01.2015

Twisting in Our Own Tortured Noose: American Verbal Duplicity and Torture

... were valuable necessities that saved lives. Well, ok, maybe they didn’t, but surely they caused the offering of intelligence that otherwise would not have been obtained. Well, alright, maybe I cannot prove that was actually the case, a direct causal link, but I am pretty sure SOME information EVENTUALLY came out because of the atmosphere created by that tor…I mean, EITs.” In another time and place this would most assuredly end up fodder for Monty Python or Saturday Night Live. ...

15.12.2014

Obama v. Putin: A Tale of a Posturing President

Less than two weeks ago President Obama, sitting for an interview with The Economist magazine, basically went ‘old school’ on President Putin, dismissing his Presidency, his country, and the future of both. While his words were certainly blatant and blunt, what might be even more revealing is the subtle subtext hidden inside his cavalier attitude: apparently even Presidents are not above being petulant. There can be little debate about President Obama’s intent to insult and offend...

22.08.2014

Yemen's Special Interests, or, Horton Hears a Houthi

... with Yemeni affairs. The Yemen government has always made connections and leveled accusations of Iranian involvement and support to the Houthis, what with the common Shia... ... has a long history of generating support for whatever groups it can find across the Middle East, especially if those groups might share a particular hatred for Israel.... ... considered anathema to the Saudis and a potential danger to their sovereign national security interests in the Gulf and beyond. So while it is undoubtedly at least partially...

23.07.2014

The Strange Bedfellows of a New Deadlier Iraq

... accounted for more by the absence of diligence on the part of Western analysts covering the Middle East than by any miraculous strength of force on the part of ISIS. The ISIS movement... ... from post-conflict Iraq over the last decade, most of us that deal in academia with international relations have long known that it is a tricky and messy path to move from... ... foreign-policy strategy in the region but also perhaps as a direct threat to its own national security goals, given the open declarations from ISIS that it wants to create something...

01.07.2014

It's a MAD MAD MAD Cyber World

... is a relatively constant and shared weakness across all modern great powers (whether that be the United States, China, Russia, Iran, India, Great Britain, France, etc). In other words, every state that is concerned about the cyber realm from a global security perspective is equally deficient and vulnerable to offensive attack and therefore defensive cyber systems are likely to remain relatively impotent across the board. Like the nuclear realm before it, a cyber M.A.D. doctrine (in this case, ‘mutually ...

29.05.2014

Spies Don't Tweet: Why Social Media is Only a Grassroots Tool

The Intelligence Community, regardless of regime type, has famously always tried to co-opt and ultimately adopt advancements and evolutions in technology, especially in terms of media. Newspapers, radio, and television have long been appropriated in order to influence, massage, and outright manipulate messages and events important to the national interest. Often the question is not so much whether a country’s intelligence community engages in such activity but rather how explicit and open will...

21.05.2014

Poll conducted

  1. In your opinion, what are the US long-term goals for Russia?
    U.S. wants to establish partnership relations with Russia on condition that it meets the U.S. requirements  
     33 (31%)
    U.S. wants to deter Russia’s military and political activity  
     30 (28%)
    U.S. wants to dissolve Russia  
     24 (22%)
    U.S. wants to establish alliance relations with Russia under the US conditions to rival China  
     21 (19%)
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