Since the Egyptian military ousted former President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood government in a coup in July 2013, a stricter and an increasingly oppressive rule governs Africa’s third most populous country, but one that may not be that unwelcome with the U.S. or its allies.
While Canada’s contribution of air assets and special forces to the coalition campaign has enhanced its effectiveness, it should send more special forces and expand reconstruction aid to help the coalition achieve its ultimate strategic aims.
With two new armed forces opposing the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Iraqi politics and security continues to get even more complicated.
Was the British Army an effective force in bringing stability and order to Iraq’s Shiite heartland in Basra? Were British troops efficient and effective in confronting the insurgencies they faced in Afghanistan and Iraq? And, as a major Western military power, did they study their enemy?
Ambassador Hill sat down with Reza Akhlaghi of the Foreign Policy Association to discuss his new book and share his views on U.S. foreign policy.
There has been a lot of discussion on how to help Kurdish forces and other opposition forces in the fight against ISIS. One of their most notable and consistent requests has been for help Western weapons systems that are strong enough to neutralize these advanced weapons.
Even if war is not always good for business, it is at least a business. Whether dealing in arms, antiquities, oil, grain, taxes or international aid, the Islamic State is building the basis for the sort of exploitative economy whose inequities and corruption (ironically) helped its star rise among the poor and discontented.
As a U.S. ally and member of NATO, Turkey has a large, well-trained, and well-funded military with more than a half-million personnel in uniform. It is also the only NATO nation that shares a border with both Iraq and Syria, where the Islamic State continues to take and hold significant territory.
The threat the Islamic State (IS) poses to Western nations is very real — witness in recent weeks the thwarting of a public beheading in Sydney, the raids on terrorist cells in Melbourne, raids in The Hague and Brussels, possible threats to subways in Paris and New York, and the recent averting of a terrorist plot in London.
While the U.S. and the coalition against ISIS make attacks on targets in Iraq and Syria, there remains an uneasy relationship between Assad’s government and the U.S.
Qatar’s financial habits have been the subject of a lot of media coverage lately due to the successes of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and the setbacks the Syrian opposition actors the Gulf states were pinning their hopes on have suffered at the hands of ISIS. Kuwait, through its relative openness, plays a […]
The mere mention of the name ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham) frightens Muslims and no-Muslims senseless, and there are plenty of reasons for that. But, who are they, and where does their campaign of terror lead to?
The Arab Spring could certainly be seen as having moved on to a dark winter as dictatorships re-established themselves and protestors were met with little support against those governments that took the option of brutality over negotiation.
After the end of the Cold War, Ukraine and the Soviet Union’s former Warsaw Pact neighbors agreed to remove some of their security apparatus in order to maintain stability in the region.
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.