Middle East & North Africa

8 Items

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin

Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik

Analysis & Opinions - Real Clear Politics

Counterterrorism in a Time of Great Power Rivalry

| Oct. 02, 2017

Since 11 September 2001 the United States has been able to drive the global counterterrorism agenda as it saw necessary. Those days are over. The global environment has permanently shifted. The open rivalry with Moscow and growing competition with China are going to increase the potential costs on U.S. counterterrorism activity and outright restrain it in others.

President Donald J. Trump addresses the nation on the South Asia strategy during a press conference at Conmy Hall on Fort Myer, Va., Aug. 21, 2017. (DoD photo by Army Sgt. Amber I. Smith)

DoD photo/Army Sgt. Amber I. Smith

Analysis & Opinions - Just Security

Trump's War-More Risk Than Reward for US Military Involvement in Afghanistan

| Aug. 22, 2017

It is ironic that when President Trump finally made his first major foreign policy decision, he ran with the advice of his “cooler heads” — the Generals he admires — over his own instincts to cut U.S. losses and get out of this jungle. In extending U.S. involvement in Afghanistan for the narrower purpose of battling the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, ISIS and associated groups, every U.S. soldier killed and wounded in Afghanistan from this day forward becomes in effect a casualty of the scourge of terrorism the president is determined to thwart.

In this Tuesday, July 15, 2014 file photo, Jordanian children chant anti-Israel slogans during a Muslim Brotherhood Islamic movement protest in front of the Israeli embassy in Amman, Jordan. A diplomatic standoff between Qatar and a quartet of Arab nations accusing it of sponsoring terrorism has thrust a spotlight on an opaque network of charities and prominent figures freely operating in Qatar. (AP Photo, File)

AP Photo, File

Analysis & Opinions - The Telegraph

The Saudi Coalition Is Right. Qatar's Support for the Muslim Brotherhood Must Not Stand

| July 19, 2017

The Saudi coalition knows what the experiences of numerous Muslim governments have long proven: the Muslim Brotherhood is an oppositionist movement that does not represent a sustainable form of governance, offers little in the way of  social or economic programmes, and some of its members have been linked to political violence and jihadist terror.

Paper - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

The Meaning of Russia's Campaign in Syria

    Author:
  • Stephen R. Covington
| December 9, 2015

Stephen Covington explains the strategic and tactical reasons for Russia’s deployment to Syria and helps the reader see the world through the eyes of President Putin and his advisors. Together with his earlier paper, “Putin’s Choice for Russia,” published with the Belfer Center in August 2015, this paper provides the reader with the strategic threads that run through contemporary Russian geopolitics. His insights into Russian strategic thinking are based on years of study and practical experience with the Russian military and, his opinion matters as a person who advises NATO’s senior military leaders on Alliance security anddefense matters.

(From Foreword by BG Kevin Ryan (U.S. Army retired), Director, Defense and Intelligence Projects)