World News Insights: Opinion Articles

On March 5, France is going to pass the hat for Lebanon’s perennially broke military, hosting a fundraising conference for the Lebanese Armed Forces. But potential donor states - and especially the United States - should hesitate before opening their wallets. The LAF’s need is real. It faced…

As the world anxiously held its breath amid threats and rising tensions between Iran and the United States, the Russian-Ukrainian war entered its fifth year - a war with no end in sight. The combined number of casualties on both sides, according to recent reports by Western defense research centers…

The “Al-Aqsa Flood” war, the “support war,” and the fall of the Syrian regime were not just seismic events of war; they were also a momentous ideological event that brought down the militant narratives that had reigned over the region for decades. The Sunni Islamist ideology, through Hamas, was…

US President Donald Trump exposed the deep crisis of governance in Iraq with a tweet that threatened the future of the political system and paralyzed the towering figures of Iraqi politics. These partisan elites emerged, under exceptional conditions, as a result of the intersecting interests of…

Iran does not have many friends, neither in the region nor internationally. Amid American threats of war over the past couple of months, however, Iran’s neighbors have voiced a desire to see conflict averted, as well as fears that it could spread if it were to erupt. They have urged both sides to…

Then what? This is the question that theoreticians of war from Sun Tzu to Jomini and Liddell-Hart and passing by Clausewitz advise leaders to ask before they order the firing of the first shot in a war. Thus, one may suggest that US President Donald Trump should also ask that question before,…

Four years have passed since the Russian–Ukrainian war began. Its protagonists could hardly have imagined it would last this long. Those who launched it in Russia believed it would be resolved in a matter of days, but days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years. Although…

Everything about the trip of Rapid Support Forces Commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti) to Kampala at the end of last week appeared carefully staged and meticulously choreographed, both the form and content. From the flashy outfits to his meeting with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, to his…

A new Iran means an Iran different from the one we have known for four decades. Perhaps a modern civilian system could emerge, or the current system itself but with different policies, moving toward openness, including toward the West, ending its status as a “state of war” and engaging in political…

Algeria and Saudi Arabia are rapidly pursuing closer strategic alignment and coordination. Driven by increasing regional convergences on geopolitical and geo-security issues across the Arab and Islamic space, which extends into the Afro-Asian sphere, the trajectory of this bilateral relationship is…

“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” has long been a fundamental maxim of common political wisdom. Recent global and regional developments - all the ambiguity, ad hoc deals, and the conflation of strategy and tactics - are showing us why. Look, for example, at the behavior of the United…

Will it be just another round, or will it be greater and more dangerous than that? Is it the end of the war or the end of an era? Will it be a violent passing storm or a deadly earthquake that is enough to change features? Is it true that the approaching fleets are seeking to end half a century of…