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 affairs expected to ... ... 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 ...
Media outlets and government circles both cringe and squirm when the subject of Westerners leaving the West to go fight in Syria and Iraq with the Islamic State arises. While acquiring data and calculating accurate numbers wildly diverges from source to source, there is no doubt that ANY number simply makes countries like the United States uncomfortable and perplexed: in short, how could anyone want to leave the land of the free, the tolerant, the open, the just and go fight for a group that represents...
... 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... ... 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... ... objective was successful but they were certain that the drone was not American, Chinese, or Russian: IDF claimed it to be an Iranian drone assembled in Lebanon and flown by Hezbollah...
... 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... ... price slide has clearly put greater teeth into the American sanctions imposed against Russia, as it has hurt the Russian ruble significantly. Sanctions alone for the first... ... 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’...
... 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, declaring that ‘it was important to keep things in perspective. Russia doesn’t make anything…Immigrants aren’t rushing to Moscow in search of opportunity. The life expectancy of the Russian male is around 60 years old. The population is shrinking.’ Judging by these rather truculent comments,...
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...
