Analysis

The announcement of an agreement to resume diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia on March 10 was not entirely unexpected to those familiar with regional politics. Saudi Arabia and Iran had gone through a series of negotiations in Baghdad...

China has struggled to gain support from its Central Asian neighbors to build the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan (CKU) railway since the 1990s. The CKU railway is crucial to China for two interconnected purposes—to advance its geopolitical interests and to secure favorable...

Editor’s Note: This article expands upon ideas discussed in Lonnie Henley’s recent research report, Beyond the First Battle: Overcoming a Protracted Blockade of Taiwan. To read that report, please visit the website for the U.S. Naval War College’s China...

Barely a week into March, nearly 3,000 delegates gathered at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing for the opening of the Fourteenth National People’s Congress and, separately the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Though the National People’s...

The FIFA 2022 World Cup has put Qatar on the map, making it the first Middle Eastern country and smallest nation ever to host the tournament. However, along with the spotlight of winning the rights to organize one of...

On February 18, 2023, the Carter Center announced that former President Jimmy Carter would receive hospice care. In the days that followed, a flood of articles appeared that praised his core decency, highlighted his post-presidential global health and humanitarian...

American officials are increasingly concerned about China’s growing power and assertiveness. While spy balloons over the continental United States may be the current crisis, Washington should stay focused on the most likely flashpoint in the bilateral relationship: the possibility...

Finland and Sweden grew closer to Western institutions in the post-Cold War era, and EU accession in 1995 meant that Stockholm and Helsinki finally abandoned their neutrality policies. Both countries remained militarily non-aligned but cooperation with NATO increased through...

Since its return to democracy in 1999, Nigeria has been ruled by a male gerontocracy. Muhammadu Buhari, the incumbent president, is eighty, and only 2.6 percent of the seats in Nigeria’s parliament are held by women. People under thirty...

The “Middle Corridor”—a loosely defined trade route that spans the Central Asian steppe, the Caspian Sea, and the Caucasus mountains—has both engendered excitement and disappointment for almost two decades. Also known as the China-Central Asia-West Asia Corridor, it links...