Middle East & North Africa

5 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.

Journal Article - Terrorism and Political Violence

Book Review: The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West

| 2021

David Kilcullen, a professor at the University of New South Wales, contributes to the debate of  whether contemporary great-power resurgence constitutes a second bi-polar competition by assessing resurging state and non-state competitors and the challenges they pose to the United Statesled world order. While the emerging security environment might not be a new Cold War, Kilcullen contends it may be more dangerous than in the past.

Dover House, Whitehall

Creative Commons

Analysis & Opinions - Haaretz

Coat Bomb and Explosive Prosthesis: British Intel Files Reveal How the Zionist Stern Gang Terrorized London

| Dec. 02, 2017

"MI5's dossiers on Stern Gang members released this week cast the early years of the Cold War in a stark new light — terrorism, not the Soviet Union, was the main threat. The newly released files also have an enduring legacy. Many of the security techniques British intelligence developed to deal with the Irgun and Stern Gang — surveillance of extremist groups, border and port checks, liaison with foreign police agencies — were the same counterterrorist procedures later used against the IRA and current Islamist terror groups."