E-Notes

The first combat zone utilization of the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) device by the U.S. forces in Afghanistan (USFOR-A) on 13 April 2017 brought the Islamic State–Khorasan Province (ISKP) to the headlines. ISKP emerged in Afghanistan and...

“Tranquil” likely is well down the list of words that come to mind when describing the worldview of Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin. It is a fair descriptor, however, in one sense. Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin, different as...

The most important lesson of the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war is that there is no such thing as a clean war. That war was very short and stunningly decisive militarily; it has been anything but politically. From the Israeli...

President Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia did not, as some expected, result in an announcement of an “Arab NATO.” Nevertheless, the May 20-21 Riyadh Summit, which brought more than 50 Arab and Muslim leaders to Saudi Arabia,...

The growing protest movements in Russia and the recent gains of the opposition, such as the anti-corruption marches led by Alexei Navalny, did not lead to a radical weakening of the Putin regime. The government’s power is not currently...

Through the run-up to South Korea’s presidential election that took place on May 9, 2017, much of the international attention was focused on Moon Jae-in—the clear favorite to win—and his foreign policy ideas and pronouncements. Tensions on the Korean...

As the United States looks toward developing policies for a post-ISIS Iraq, preventing violence between Kurdish factions in Iraq will continue to be a key strategic interest. As this report argues, the United States would benefit greatly from a...

Several weeks after winning a plurality in Bulgaria’s late March parliamentary election, Prime Minister Boyko Borissov did something unprecedented: he brought the nationalist United Patriots (Obedineni Patrioti) into his coalition government. The United Patriots is an electoral alliance of...

“One only comes out of ambiguity to their own detriment,” this maxim often repeated by former President François Mitterrand sounds like a premonitory warning in the aftermath of Emmanuel Macron’s election in France. Indeed, for the new president whose...

On January 29, 2016, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto signed a law changing the official name of Mexico’s capital region from Distrito Federal, or D.F., to Ciudad de Mexico. Beyond altering nearly two centuries of dialectical urban description—the region...