Our five favorite long reads and blog posts from the past week!
American airpower employed against IS lines of communication can be effective at halting its momentum and supporting Iraqi forces in driving it back, but only if the Obama administration couples airstrikes with a strategy to undermine the Islamic State’s strongholds in Syria.
Eight months after constitutional amendments were introduced to reform Mexico’s oil and gas, and electricity sectors, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto took a historic step and signed energy reform bills passed by the Congress of the Union into law.
Thanks to National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, the pro-Assad and rebel groups can finally stop pointing fingers over a country-wide Internet blackout in Syria in 2012.
It is no use saying, ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary. Winston Churchill I woke up in the middle of the night a couple of days ago and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I decided to get up and see what was going on in […]
THE NECESSITY OF PROCURING good Intelligence is apparent & need not be further urged — all that remains for me to add, is, that you keep the whole matter as secret as possible. For upon Secrecy, Success depends in most Enterprizes of the kind, and for want of it, they are generally defeated, however well […]
South Africa is leading the charge of developing renewable energy in sub-Saharan Africa in part due to policy that provides a conducive investment environment to entice developers to investigate projects within the nation. As load shedding is a too frequent event, the nation is adding new options to its energy mix. Recently in South Africa’s […]
This week, we spoke to Dr. Larry Goodson the Dwight D. Eisenhower Chair of National Security and Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the Army War College. Dr. Goodson discussed the role of the U.S. in ensuring stability in the region, the performance of the U.S. military in Iraq from 2003 to present, and what the future could hold for Iraq.
“Iron Dome” has entered our lingua franca as one of the most well-known anti-missile systems globally. It is not commonly known how advanced Iron Dome actually is to most people. To hit planes out of the sky is no longer difficult for modern anti-aircraft systems, but the technology to shoot down cruise missiles, rockets, ballistic […]
The further backward you can look, the further forward you can see. – Winston Churchill One of my pet peeves is a friend or acquaintance coming up to me and saying: “Gail, where have you been? I haven’t seen you around for a long time.” I know I’m being cranky, but what annoys me is […]
It is not breaking news that Iraq sits atop vast amounts of oil. The country has the fifth largest proven crude oil reserves globally with an estimated 140 billion barrels. (For comparison: Iran, fourth globally, has an estimated 150 billion barrels, and Kuwait, sixth globally, has about 104 billion barrels of proved reserves. Iraq […]
Russia and China last month agreed to a landmark natural gas deal nearly a decade in the making that will put the two in partnership for the next 30 years. Russia’s energy giant, Gazprom, and the China National Petroleum Corp. signed the much-anticipated $400 billion natural gas deal on May 21. The exact pricing remains […]
Yesterday President Barack Obama spoke to media in the White House briefing room in order to provide an update on his government’s approach to the situation in Iraq. The Commander-in-Chief, looking visibly tired, told reporters that under his direction the U.S. has increased its intelligence capabilities in Iraq; will continue to support Iraqi security forces […]