Russia

By Maja Zivanovic and Jean Fernand Koena ( RFE/RL ) – Russia is reducing its military footprint in Syria and shifting some of its assets from the Middle Eastern country to Africa, flight data and satellite imagery analyzed by RFE/RL appear to show. Moscow seems to have withdrawn a significant amount of military equipment from its […]

Bashar al-Assad

What the Fall of Assad says about Putin’s Ambitions for Russia’s Great-Power Status

The Conversation

By Stefan Wolff, University of Birmingham (The Conversation) – The lightning-fast collapse of the Assad regime in Syria has sent shock waves across the Middle East. The disposal of the dictator whose family had ruled the country with an iron fist for more than half a century has triggered a potentially seismic shift in the […]

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Assad’s Fall is a Reminder that Russia is not a Global power but a Regional One

Hamdullah Baycar

Trabzon, Turkey (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – When former U.S. President Barack Obama referred to Russia as a “regional power” at the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague, he minimized Moscow’s global influence while recognizing its ability to a have an impact on events within its immediate vicinity. Obama further downplayed the notion […]

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Why Iran can’t Stand up for the al-Assad Government: Russia isn’t Offering Air Support

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The strategic situation in Syria is dire for the Baathist government of Bashar al-Assad. Typically in military history, if an invader takes the capital of the other country, it secures its victory. Damascus is the prize. Damascus has an Achilles heel. It is landlocked, deep in the south of the […]

Bashar al-Assad

Syria as Putin’s Afghanistan: How a Radical Fundamentalist take-over of Damascus could Change the Middle East

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The collapse of the Baathist government of Syria in the north of the country, as the al-Qaeda affiliate HTS (Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham or the Levant Liberation Council) advanced into Aleppo and Hama, could reconfigure the Middle East. The rapidity of the advance and the Muslim fundamentalist leadership of the fighters […]

Israel/ Palestine

The West must end its Two-Tier Approach to Protection of Civilians in Gaza and Ukraine

Human Rights Watch

Published in: The New Arab Yasmine Ahmed Director, United Kingdom YasmineAhmed001 ( Human Rights Watch ) – Britain’s response to the attack, delivered by Ambassador Barbara Woodward at the UN Security Council meeting in Kyiv was unequivocal: the attack was a display of “cowardly depravity,” and Russia’s actions constituted “barbaric acts of violence.” Attacks directed at […]

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NATO must rethink Expansion Plans, step back from Precipice of Nuclear Confrontation with Russia

Richard Penaskovic

Auburn, Alabama (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – There’s a history to the war between Russia and the West going back to the Cold War and the unification between East and West Germany. Thomas Friedman once asked George Kennan, (the architect of the US Cold War strategy on containment), what he thought about NATO expansion, […]

Israel/ Palestine

Israel, Russia and International Law

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Lawrence S. Wittner | ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – International law―the recognized rules of behavior among nations based on customary practices and treaties, among them the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights―has been agreed upon by large and small nations alike. To implement this law, the nations of […]

Israel/ Palestine

Gaza and Ukraine Wars Causing Massive Pollution, Environmental Damage

The Conversation

By Richard Marcantonio, University of Notre Dame and Josefina Echavarria Alvarez, University of Notre Dame | – (The Conversation) – As wars grind on in Ukraine and Gaza, another location ravaged by conflict is taking steps to implement a historic peace agreement. From the mid-1960s through 2016, Colombia was torn by conflict between the government, […]