Energy

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.

Today, the Yemeni people are suffering from the actions of outsiders. Regional powers have turned the country into an arena for proxy conflicts that have little to do with the actual interests of the Yemeni nation. Large parts of the country have been devastated, including much of its vital infrastructure. Millions are threatened by starvation and disease. The fighting has left tens of thousands of others dead or wounded.

Chuck Freilich analyzes Russia's growing influence n the Middle East.

"To some it might seem that the devil is in the details of the February 2015 agreement, but, in my view, the heart of the impasse lies in the bigger picture: I believe that the primary reason the signatories to Minsk-2 keep locking horns over the fine print is that none of them—not Ukraine, not Russia, not the West—can be certain that their real minimal requirements for security will be met."

In a bizarre turn of fate, the diehard supporters of Fidel Castro’s left-wing ideology seem to be fighting their last battle in Venezuela, as the frustrated, hungry populationthere pushes for democracy and change. Future of Diplomacy Senior Fellow, David Ignatius, takes a dive into the stalemate in political structure as citizens scour for food.

What does Brexit mean for India? As a former British colony, the country enjoys particularly close economic, trade, political and cultural ties to the United Kingdom. India and South Asia Program Affiliate, Ronak Desai, examines how the relationship could be altered by the British exit from the European Union and possible outcomes.

The tensions unsettling the Saudi royal family became clear in September, when Joseph Westphal, the U.S. ambassador to Riyadh, flew to Jiddah to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, nominally the heir to the throne. But when he arrived, he was told that the deputy crown prince, a brash 30-year-old named Mohammed bin Salman, wanted to see him urgently. Senior Fellow, David Ignatius, discusses Mohammed bin Salman opportunity to transform Saudi Arabia.

World oil prices have been highly volatile during the last decade. Over the past year they have fallen more than 50%. Should we root for prices to go up, down, or stay the same?   The economic effects of falling oil prices are negative overall for oil-exporting countries, of course, and positive for oil-importing countries. The US is now surprisingly close to energy self-sufficiency, so that the macroeconomic effects roughly net out to zero. But what about effects that are not directly economic? If we care about environmental and other externalities, should we want oil prices to go up or down?  Up, because that will discourage oil consumption?  Or down because that will discourage oil production?