Newsletter Archive

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought some clarity to regional realignments and strategic partnerships in the Middle East, with the changing relationship between the United States and the oil-producing members of the Gulf Cooperation Council in particular coming into sharp focus. War has a tendency to cause states to pay closer attention to and accelerate policy decisions on issues that they might otherwise prefer to defer action on or to leave ambiguous or unresolved. But after more than a week of fighting in Ukraine, one thing has become clear: Washington’s partners in the Middle East are increasingly confident about […]

Just over a week into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the shock has begun to fade, while the outrage continues to mount. The tenacious resistance of Ukraine’s military, its president and its people in the face of what have become increasingly indiscriminate attacks by Russian forces has created a rising tide of support and solidarity across Europe and the world. That has translated into stepped-up deliveries of military aid by European countries, mass rallies in capitals across the continent and an open-door policy for the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees now fleeing the war. While the Russian military continues to […]

A national conference in Burkina Faso has approved a charter setting out a three-year transition period before the country schedules national elections, following the coup that overthrew former President Roch Kabore in January. Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, the officer who led the coup and was already serving as Burkina Faso’s interim head of state, was immediately sworn in as president for the duration of the transition. He subsequently appointed a transitional prime minister to head the 25-member Cabinet, while pledging to make improvements to security and the restoration of “territorial integrity” his key priorities as head of state. The announcement of the charter came after […]

As the war in Ukraine enters its second week, the continent’s eyes are already turning toward neighboring Moldova. The European Union’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, made an emergency visit there yesterday, while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made a last-minute visit next door to Romania. The main reason given for the pair of visits was to discuss the large wave of Ukrainian refugees pouring into Moldova, a tiny country with limited resources. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, 1 million refugees have fled Ukraine in the past week, and almost 10 percent […]

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to draw outrage and reprisals from the international community, China is maintaining the cautious distance from Moscow it has taken since the onset of the crisis, with many observers suggesting that Beijing may have been caught unaware by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to authorize a full-scale invasion, after months of tensions between Kyiv and Moscow. Yet behind China’s heavily censored internet firewall, where media outlets disseminate Russian propaganda and blame the West for instigating the conflict, Chinese internet users see Putin as a hero and are cheering Russia’s incursion on. In a joint statement issued on the […]

Ever since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine last week, comparisons to the United States’ 2003 invasion of Iraq have inevitably and understandably emerged. After all, at transformative moments in world history like the one we’re currently witnessing, analysts naturally draw historical analogies to make sense of contemporary events, mining the past in search of patterns and causal connections that bear some resemblance to what is unfolding today. And while no two situations are ever exactly alike, the comparison to Iraq in 2003 is particularly important, since it has considerable bearing on whether and how the United […]