Analysis

Analysis offers a new angle on a contemporary or historical issue. These articles are policy-oriented and cover current developments around the globe that impinge upon American foreign policy and national security priorities.

Building Soft Power Back Better?

The Biden administration has multiple competing priorities: COVID-19 and its economic impacts, long-ignored racial fissures, and a growing tenuous relationship with truth, reality, and trust among the populace, just to name a few. President Joseph Biden also has the...

Read more »

China’s Two Sessions—And What They Mean for the United States

Every March, nearly 5,000 delegates descend on Beijing for the meeting of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political and Consultative Conference (CPPCC), generally simply referred to as the lianghui, or two meetings. The NPC,...

Read more »

Rosneft, Gazprom, and Russia’s Failure to Adopt Green Policies

The Russian Federation is on a collision course with climate change. In 2019, it ranked fourth in annual carbon emissions, and the country’s largest gas producer, Gazprom, was the world’s third largest emitter of industrial greenhouse gases between 1988-2015,...

Read more »

The Jihad Legacy of World War I

Known as a pious Muslim, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi said in 2015 that it is most difficult to change religious rhetoric and how people use their faith. The outcomes will take many years: “Radical misconceptions were...

Read more »

Germany’s Transatlantic Ambiguities

Hopes for a spectacular relaunch of the European Union’s Franco-German “motor” after Brexit have thus far failed to materialize. Quite the contrary, now that Paris and Berlin find themselves without the British “third wheel,” almost every issue seems to...

Read more »

Reciprocity and Coercion: Ending the Downturn in U.S.-Iran Relations

Just days after the United States struck Iranian-linked targets in Syria, militia members fired a volley of rockets at Ain Al-Asad air base. The U.S. strike was conducted in response to an attack on Balad airbase in Iraq on...

Read more »

Beyond Oil: Lithium-Ion Battery Minerals and Energy Security

Oil has long dominated concerns about energy security because oil products have fueled nearly all of the world’s transportation for over a century. But that may be changing as vehicles powered by electric motors have become competitive with those...

Read more »

Russia’s Permanent War against Georgia

As the Biden administration works to develop its strategy to counter the Russian Federation, it is useful to reexamine traditional features of Russian foreign policy. Moscow has developed its own particular approach to strategy as the Kremlin continues its...

Read more »

Jihadist Groups in Sub-Saharan Africa: Assessing the Threat

As the Biden administration surveys the litany of foreign policy challenges that exist—Iran, China, Russia, and North Korea, to name a few—counterterrorism in sub-Saharan Africa likely falls outside of its top priorities. Throughout the Trump administration, there were high-level...

Read more »

Thank You for Being a Friend: NATO, Iraq, and the Benefits of the Alliance

After a recent meeting of defense ministers in Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced that the Alliance would expand the size of its security training mission in Iraq, increasing troop levels from 500 to 4,000. The move comes less...

Read more »