Since October 5, reported fighting between the Taliban and Pakistan has largely consisted of border clashes along Afghanistan’s southeastern Paktia province and Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa...
A new front in the U.S.-China competition is taking shape along the Middle Corridor, the critical trade route linking China and Europe while bypassing Russia and Iran. This corridor, also known as the...
As Israel moves to prevent Turkish military encroachment in neighboring Syria, officials are bracing for Ankara to shift pressure to the eastern Mediterranean. Turkey remains a member of NATO, and such...
Blackouts across Central Asia should be a light-bulb moment for Washington as it seeks to diversify critical-mineral supply chains. An August 14 blackout across Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and...
As Western sanctions work to isolate Russia’s economy, Moscow is investing in trade backdoors. The intergovernmental council of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) concluded its 47th meeting with the...
On July 26, the Israeli government’s cabinet approved the entry of forces from the International Stabilization Force (ISF) into Gaza in the near future. The development envisions an...
In Kyrgyzstan, criticism of Chinese influence can end in public shaming or an arrest warrant. On July 20, a Kyrgyz presidential administration official published photographs, names, birth dates, and social...
“Support for Israel around the world is declining,” former Chicago mayor and potential Democratic presidential candidate Rahm Emanuel declared in Israel last week. “The only diplomatic achievement...
Landlocked Kazakhstan is seeking port access, and Astana is banking on Iran to provide it. On July 8, Kazakhstan signed an agreement to build a logistics and transport terminal at Iran’s largest seaport...
Russia is running short on gas. On June 24, Reuters reported that Russia petitioned Kazakhstan to provide 50,000 metric tons of AI-92 gasoline to alleviate domestic shortages. Despite its status as...
The US-backed peace plan for Gaza has continued to progress slowly, though ceasefire talks held in Cairo in the first week and a half of June appeared to stall over the issue of Hamas’s disarmament,...
The critical question of how to handle Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile will be addressed in a long-term peace agreement between the United States and Iran, to be negotiated over the 60 days following...
The United States is vulnerable to Chinese control over critical mineral supply chains. To reduce its dependence on Beijing, Washington is increasingly looking to Central Asia. On June 10, U.S. special...
A new U.S.-Iran nuclear deal may soon emerge — or at least an initial memorandum of understanding (MOU) to be fleshed out over 60 days. President Donald Trump pledged on May 27 that the United States...
Russia depends on foreign jurisdictions to help it circumvent Western sanctions — but secondary sanctions have raised the cost of abetting this sanctions evasion, deterring at least some facilitation...
May 14 occupies a symbolic place in Russia’s military imagination. It marks the anniversary of the creation of the Warsaw Pact in 1955 and, nearly half a century later, the founding of the Collective...
The Kosovo Security Force (KSF) announced on April 26 that it had sent a team to Gaza to examine an area where its troops may operate in the future. “During this visit, the team will conduct a preliminary...
The Chinese government’s power to prosecute — or persecute — critics does not stop at its borders. On April 13, a court in Kazakhstan sentenced 19 activists to prison after they protested Beijing’s...