Middle East & North Africa

10 Items

Taliban special force fighters arrive inside the Hamid Karzai International Airport

AP/Khwaja Tawfiq Sediqi

Analysis & Opinions - TRENDS Research & Advisory

An Unassailable Position of Total Weakness — U.S. Foreign Policy Since 9/11

| Sep. 11, 2021

Nathaniel L. Moir writes of historical cases in which a U.S. tendency to over-rely on military capabilities and American economic strength proved unwise and how such power eventually proved to be irrelevant. In addition to the Vietnam War as an example, the rapid collapse of the Republic of China and its large military forces in late 1948 and 1949 offers some parallels with the collapse of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan Government, despite the United States investment of trillions of U.S. dollars.

This photo released Nov. 5, 2019 by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran shows centrifuge machines in the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran.

Atomic Energy Organization of Iran

Policy Brief - Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship and the German Council on Foreign Relations

Transatlantic Action Plan: Middle East and North Africa

    Author:
  • Nathalie Tocci
| February 2021

It has become impossible to read conflicts in North Africa and the Middle East in isolation, as regional powers like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, Israel and Turkey weigh in across the region. Likewise, migration, energy, security and climate dynamics have generated indissoluble ties between North and Sub-Saharan Africa, the Gulf and the Horn of Africa as well as between the Eastern Mediterranean and the broader Middle East. North Africa and the Middle East have become a much wider and more heterogeneous geographical space, in which different thematic issues interlock.

Defendants' dock at the Nuremberg Tribunals

NARA/Ray D'Addario

Journal Article - Small Wars Journal

Rethinking Bernard Fall's Legacy. The Persistent Relevance of Revolutionary Warfare (Part I)

| Dec. 07, 2019

SWJ interview with Nathaniel L. Moir, Ph.D., an Ernest May Postdoctoral Fellow in History and Policy at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School. Dr. Moir is completing a book manuscript on Bernard Fall for publication.

U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Jennifer Oberg, background, a communications maintenance instructor, and Senior Airman Raquel Martinez, foreground, check a ground control station during training

USAF

Analysis & Opinions - Real Clear Defense

AI and Quantum Supremacy Will Not Defeat Revolutionary Warfare

| Nov. 13, 2019

Nathaniel Moir writes that Revolutionary Warfare is not insurgency or guerrilla warfare: It is driven by ideology and commitment, not technology. Revolutionary Warfare's foundation is the perceived legitimacy of its political rationale among the population in which it is propagated. No matter how expertly or technologically advanced contemporary conflict is fought, it will not compensate for lack of political rationale.

Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, meets with his counterpart Turkish Army Gen. Yasar Güler, chief of the Turkish General Staff, at the Turkish General Staff building in Ankara, Turkey, Jan. 8, 2019.

Dominque A. Pineiro/ US Department of Defense

Analysis & Opinions - BBC News

Turkey and the US Clash Over Syria

| Jan. 08, 2019

Turkey and the US have been at loggerheads over Syria in the wake of President Trump's decision to pull US troops out of the country. The Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said that the US national security adviser, John Bolton, had made a serious mistake in suggesting the withdrawal was conditional on Ankara agreeing to security guarantees for US-backed Kurdish fighters.

The Gate of Yemen surrounding the old city of Sana'a

Twiga_Swala /Flickr

Analysis & Opinions - METRO U.N.

Yemen – What Each Party to the Conflict Has to Do Now

| Dec. 19, 2018

If one contemplates necessary steps of the parties to the conflict, the nature of this war must be kept in mind. It started as a UN supported intervention by a Saudi-led coalition against the Iran-supported Houthi rebellion opposing the Hadi government. The domestic struggle for supremacy is inextricably linked to its international ramifications: Given the potentially enormous geopolitical consequences the prevention of an Iranian foothold on the Southern tip of the Arabian peninsula is by no means a goal of only Saudi Arabia. 

Syrians walk through destruction in the town of Douma, the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack, near Damascus, Syria. April 16, 2018 (Hassan Ammar/Associated Press). Keywords: Syria, chemical weapons attack, Douma

Hassan Ammar/Associated Press

Analysis & Opinions - METRO U.N.

The Essence of the Conflict in Syria

| Apr. 11, 2018

The war in Syria is the vortex of roughly three crisscrossing conflict fronts.  The origin and the center is the conflict between the Assad-government and the national opposition - enlarged regionally by Iran, Hezbollah and fighters from Pakistan and Afghanistan supporting the government while Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia support the opposition in a sort of Shia-Sunni confrontation. This conflict front has been enlarged geopolitically by the United States supporting the opposition and Russia the Assad-government, indeed, using the conflict to implant herself as a major actor the Middle East.