Analysis

Not long after late 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan became independent, illegal narcotics trafficking started through the region, mainly coming from drug-producing countries in South Asia, particularly Afghanistan, and being smuggled...

The Czech Republic, in a widely predicted result, returned former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and his ANO movement to power in parliamentary elections held in early October of 2025. While the outcome of the polls was clear, several key...

“The last Fleet was lost to me for want of Frigates; God forbid this should.” Lord Horatio Nelson, letter to Viscount Castlereagh, Oct. 5, 1805   The US Navy is hitting the reset button on its next round of...

On October 20, 2025, a glitch at an Amazon Web Services (AWS) data center in northern Virginia triggered more than 6.5 million website outages, disrupting banking, logistics, and government operations. What appeared to be a software fault was, in...

NATO has finally unveiled its new Alliance Maritime Strategy, refreshing a document that had not been publicly updated since 2011. While high-level strategy texts of this kind tend not to be riveting reads, the new strategy stands out in...

Nearly a year after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime at the hands of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its rebel allies in December 2024, Syria remains in a fragile and uncertain transition. A mosaic of ethnic and religious...

Bamako is living on the precipice. Nervous hotel owners complain about a lack of electricity, but this time it’s worse than usual. In the landlocked capital of the Sahelian country of Mali, business owners have grown accustomed to frustratingly...

For much of the last century, the American state has intervened directly in the economy only in times of extraordinary crisis. During World War II, Washington commandeered entire industries to serve the war effort. In 2008, it took ownership...

Introduction Water-related conflict is among the key concerns for a future marked by rising incidences of droughts, increasing water scarcity, and growing demands. The main aquatic project that has shaped contemporary diplomatic relations in the Nile Basin is the...

Bottom Line The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) has become a central pillar of the Kremlin’s political and informational warfare strategy, which shapes narratives by fusing spirituality with nationalism. Through doctrines like the “Russian World” (Russkiy Mir) and appeals to...