Syria

September 2021 marks the sixth anniversary of the Russian Federation’s intervention in the Syrian civil war. A patient, flexible strategy set against irresolute and muddled Western strategies allowed Moscow to achieve its initial aim of preventing the fall of...

  Executive Summary The United States is examining how to narrow core objectives in the Middle East to focus on improving military readiness and increasing the number of low-density, high-demand assets available for deployment in Asia and Europe. To...

  Executive Summary Changes in the Middle East have not been sufficiently accounted for in U.S. policy towards the region. Instead, policy has lagged, grounded in anachronism. This report provides five policy recommendations to fix this problem: focus Middle...

Aaron Stein has done a real service in his June 15 piece, Assessing the Biden Administration’s Interim Syria Policy. Syria policy for the last two administrations was at center stage. In many ways, it was also the bane of...

After taking office in January, the Biden administration began a review of American policy in Syria and the ongoing civil war there. This review sought to turn the page on Trump administration policies, which shifted U.S. priorities in Syria...

Last spring, as Italy, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and other European countries fought to contain the rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus, a spate of articles discussed how and why Greece’s response to the pandemic had proved so successful...

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...

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...

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...

President Joseph Biden has clearly signaled that his administration will deprioritize the post-9/11 focus on the Middle East and, instead, devote diplomatic energy and finite defense dollars to priorities in Asia and Europe. The focus on America’s peer competitors—the...