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21 march 2014
Look for more assertive Russia in Middle East
The sooner the tension surrounding Ukraine eases, and the global players return to their prior forms of cooperation, the better it will be for the Middle East.
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29 january 2014
Syrian crisis: Book with an open ending
The stakes are high for both the U.S. and Russia as Geneva II gets underway.
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18 january 2014
Russia plays the Iran card
Moscow believes that Iran's role in the Middle East will only become more prominent in the future, prompting it to further boost relations at the expense of US regional influence.
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26 december 2013
New Contours of U.S. Foreign Policy
The United States is backpedaling – reducing the range of tasks, gathering the resources of its allies, separating the timeframes for reaching its goals. An authentic review of the priorities of American policy will occur if and when the resources of adaptation strategy are exhausted.
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23 november 2013
Russia's Turnaround in the Middle East
Russian foreign policy in the region has benefited from a steady, non-ideological focus, as well as the missteps and neglect of other powers.
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7 november 2013
Vladimir Putin as World's No. 1: The Burden of Responsibility
All ratings are constructs which reflect not so much the real state of affairs as their compilers’ perception of it.
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27 october 2013
The Iranian Key to the Middle East Door
(1)The view on national development and foreign policy has been firmly mixed in the minds of Iranians with a skeptical, and one can even say ironical, perception of the West’s attempts to portray its way of life and values as the only “civilized system.”
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5 september 2013
Putin See US on Dangerous Course in Syria Russia
(1)The Americans are confused. They do not understand what to do, but they see the use of force as the solution to every problem, even when the consequences are unknown. Russia does not know how to work with such a partner.
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30 june 2013
The Arab Spring and the Elusive Fifth Model?
If the Arab Spring were to bring about meaningful changes to Arab societies, what is needed is a political order that is not only democratic but also inclusive. To be credible, the Arab world, including its Islamists, will have to tread the long and painful path of consensus building. This method is inclusive and hence more enduring than electoral democracy.
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15 april 2013
The Arab Spring and the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict: international implications
The main impact of the Arab Spring has not been to increase, but to diminish the importance of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict for the broader politics of the Arab World.
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15 april 2013
Syria As a Mirror of the Changing World Order
(1)The Arab Spring and the crisis in Syria merely aggravated contradictions that had formed a gap between Realpolitik and the observance of the de jure intact norms of international law. Today’s question is this: Is the international community able to take concerted actions or will inflated ambitions of regional centers of power gain the upper hand?
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15 april 2013
A Hazy Outlook
The time must come for the Middle East to witness the dawn of a new era – that of common sense, when all of us finally understand that this long-suffering region can and must be turned from a place of hostility and rivalry into a site for building a new, fairer, and lasting peace. A conflict of civilizations would be the sole alternative to that scenario.
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24 june 2012
A Turning Point in the Middle East Geopolitics
(1)The geopolitical changes brought about by the Arab Uprising showed that there is a rivalry between regional actors (Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel) and international actors and great powers (United States, Russia, China and the European Union) to bridge geopolitical and ideological gaps.
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25 march 2012
A Greater Middle East Spring? Or War?
The tight knot of contradictions surrounding the Iranian nuclear program and Tehran’s policy in general has affected so profound international policies that any attempt to cut it may blow up peace already in the short term, and not only in the Greater Middle East.
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24 september 2011
Moving From the Bottom Up and Back Down Again
Many analysts believe the dramatic changes that the global international system is undergoing now are a continuation of a long-term reconfiguration of the world that started back in the 1980s.
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7 july 2011
Out of the confusion, conspiracy theories emerge
The past year in global politics offered plenty of fodder for conspiracy theorists.
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22 june 2011
When Dreams “Come True”
The culture of tolerance and respect for the rights of minorities is much more important than a democratic form of government and the related procedures, such as free multiparty elections. However, such a liberal political culture is absent from the Arab-Muslim world – and the introduction of a new, formally democratic form of government will not lead to the triumph of liberal values.
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22 june 2011
When the Dust Settles
The fallout from the turbulent events of the winter and spring of 2011 is gradually subsiding.
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23 april 2011
Arab spring - after the euphoria has faded
The unrest in the Middle East and North Africa has not stopped, but the feeling of sensational novelty it created in winter is fading.
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31 march 2011
Those peace-loving Germans
(1)The vote in the UN Security Council that sanctioned military intervention in Libya may have serious consequences for European politics.
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27 march 2011
Revolutions and Democracy in the Islamic World
With growing presence of China, India and Iran the composition of players and the alignment of forces in the Middle East in the 21st century will look more like that in the 17th century than the 20th. This fits in perfectly with the theory of historical cycles, although it may appear disappointing, if looked at from the positions of Paris, London, Brussels or Washington.
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27 march 2011
Putin, Medvedev split over Libya
The bombing of Libya has already had unexpected consequences: an unprecedented split between Russia’s ruling tandem.
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18 march 2011
In pursuit of common sense
(1)Global politics seems to have been going slightly mad for quite a while now, but the past few months have seen this outbreak rise to critical levels.
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25 february 2011
Learning from Libya and Singapore
The revolutionary fervor that has gripped the Middle East has not yet spread to the relatively stable former Soviet republics of Central Asia.
A new world order: A view from Russia
Since around 2017–2018, the world has been living through a period of progressive erosion, or collapse, of international orders inherited from the past. With the election of Donald Trump and the rapid increase of US containment of Russia and China—which is both a consequence of this gradual erosion and also represents deep internal and international contradictions—this process entered its apogee.
Will US pullout from Syria increase risk of conflict with Russia?
The announcement of the US pullout from Syria was received with caution in Moscow. Besides the security and political challenges it may bring about, the Trump decision could mean the end of a practical, relatively constructive US-Russian approach to conflict at flashpoints.
What is the ‘New Era’ of the Sino-Russian Relationship?
For a long time, Western commentators did not take the close relationship between Russia and China seriously, because conventional wisdom held that the foundation of this link is fragile. Russia has its “Eurasian complex,” which is considered ephemeral and opportunistic, whereas in China there has been a strong distrust of Russia since the 1949 Communist revolution, as typified by the Mao-Stalin alienation. Today, such analytical logic can no longer hold water.
Is There Life After Arms Control Death?
For several years, serious experts in Russia and the West have repeatedly warned the public about the threat of the collapse of the international nuclear arms control system. They spoke about the system, to be precise, because in the past half a century arms control developed as a sum-total of supplementary elements rather than an eclectic set of separate unrelated bilateral or multilateral agreements.
The INF Treaty: Mirror or Abyss?
The number of nuclear weapon states, their respective arsenals, and transatlantic nuclear arrangements make Europe one of the most “nuclearized” continents. Luckily, even when the total warhead numbers were even higher, nuclear use had been avoided – although the threat remains real.
Common Dreams or Vulgar Delusions? Elite Preoccupations in Discourses about the ‘Commons’
Our age is witness to a proliferation of discourses about the ‘commons’. They are emerging from more and more quarters, and the word is being applied to more things than ever before. One important strand of discourse, claiming to be communist, seeks to apply it to all kinds of spheres, from the earth and its natural bounty to culture, and to all sorts of resources, from the most immaterial, such as common knowledge, to the most material, such as the use of the earth’s finite natural resources. Internet activists refer to information and knowledge that exits on the web as the ‘digital commons’.
Globalization: New Pathways Along the South–South Axis
The year 2018 was marked by escalation in trade tensions among the world’s largest economies, mostly via bilateral trade restrictions.