Analysis

  When newly elected German Chancellor Friedrich Merz delivered his first major address to the Bundestag in May 2025, following a closely fought election that ultimately saw Merz’s CDU (Christian Democratic Union) forge an alliance with the SPD (Socialist...

Jon Landay has a Reuters piece, “Saudi Missile Plant Expansion May Produce More Powerful Missiles,” on the ongoing expansion of Saudi Arabia’s solid-propellant missile production site at al-Duwadimi. We have been monitoring the site for many years. It was originally...

In Shakespeare’s Henry VI, the rebel Dick the Butcher proposes, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” The line is often read as a backhanded compliment: Those who want to tear down the state begin by...

Introduction Geopolitics, which Webster’s Dictionary defines as the influence of geography, economics, and demographics on a state’s foreign policy, is the axis around which the US-Iranian conflict has revolved since 1979. Although the nuclear issue is highly visible and...

For much of the post-Cold War period, Zimbabwe has occupied an uneasy position in the foreign-policy calculations of the United States and its Western partners. Harare’s relationships with the West have often been viewed through the familiar lenses of...

Since the imagery hold over Iran for commercial providers like Planet Labs PBC was lifted a few months ago, an update on the state of Iranian ballistic missile production sites is in order. This analysis is also in light...

Introduction In April, the UK Minister of Defence, John Healey, gave a speech calling out Russian military activities near sensitive underwater cables and pipelines in and around British waters. He said that, in partnership with Norway and other allies,...

Introduction The Russo-Ukrainian War, if dated to Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, is the longest running conflict in Europe since the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815). It may come to resemble not just these wars in duration and...

Last week, the Andy Burnham government in the United Kingdom announced sanctions on Israeli settlements in the West Bank, in coordination with Canada and 10 European countries. Although Burnham has only been prime minister since July, he broke with...

Divining the intentions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is never a straightforward task. But when it comes to assessing the future of China’s military technology, data from China’s civilian unmanned air system industries and research institutes is a...