Category: Security

  • KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - SEPTEMBER 23

    Taliban’s Water Claims Ignite Tensions with Neighbours

    When the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, it raised concerns in neighbouring countries about their own security. The governments in most of the Central Asian countries, and in Iran were hostile toward the Taliban when the militant group ruled Afghanistan in the late 1990s. There are now other Islamic extremist groups […]
    Bruce Pannier/
    May 22, 2024
  • China’s Growing Role in Middle East Diplomacy: Navigating Regional Tensions

    China has historically pursued a restrained and economically focused presence in the Middle East, steering clear of direct involvement in conflicts and refraining from taking positions on contentious disputes. In this, Beijing has largely benefited from the security provisions offered by the United States, thus evading the security expenses and strategic challenges encountered by Washington. […]
    Nasser Khdour and Anas Iqtait/
    June 24, 2024
  • The Soyuz MS-18 rocket is launched with Expedition 65 NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei with Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Oleg Novitskiy, Friday, April 9, 2021, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. NASA Photo by Bill Ingalls/UPI Credit: UPI/Alamy Live News

    Emerging space power in Central Asia: Kazakhstan at the crossroad

    After the disintegration of the USSR, Kazakhstan inherited a significant technological artefact of the Soviet space program, the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The management of the spaceport, from which the historically significant Sputnik 1 was launched, was transferred to Russia through a lease agreement from 1994 till 2050. However the Kazakhstani leadership had remained committed to the […]
    Nelly Bekus and Zhomart Medeuov/
    May 22, 2024
  • Baghdad, Iraq. 10th Jan, 2020. Anti-government demonstrators wave a huge Iraqi national flag during a demonstration in Tahrir square, against the breach of Iraqi sovereignty by the US and Iran. Credit: Ameer Al Mohammedaw/dpa/Alamy Live News.

    How Iraq became Iran’s cash cow

    With the October 2021 Iraqi Parliamentary elections recording the lowest ever voter turnout in post-2003 Iraq, there is little doubt that Iraq’s yet-to-be-announced next government already faces a legitimacy crisis. Amid the problems that Iraq faces in overcoming its domestic challenges, there is a massive driver of its cyclical political system in neighbouring Iran of […]
    Bamo Nouri/
    May 22, 2024
  • Could Emirati hold on Socotra resolve conflict in Yemen?

    The UAE’s strategic consolidation of the island of Socotra will not enhance the prospects for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Yemen. Whilst it may further complicate the process, it will not necessarily stymie efforts either. However, what is likely to stymie prospects is the growing rift between Saudi Arabia and the UAE and […]
    Neil Quilliam and Alice Gower/
    May 22, 2024
  • Iran’s Continued Expansion in Southern Syria

    The Syrian regime forces besieged Daraa al-Balad area at the beginning of last August 2021, when the forces of the Iranian-backed Fourth Division brought military reinforcements to the area, and the Military Security Branch set up several checkpoints at the entrances and exits of the area, while closing the rest of the roads. Later, military […]
    Suhail al-Ghazi/
    May 22, 2024
  • Libya at a crossroads, again

    The current strategic and political situation in Libya seems almost unrecognizable from the perspective of just a year ago. For the first time in nearly a decade, Libya appears to have a widely supported transitional administration under recently appointed Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah. There are also ongoing talks to unify the command structures of […]
    Jacob Mundy, Colgate University/
    May 22, 2024
  • China as a new Gulf mediator?

    China’s relationship to the Gulf could be changing. Previously, it avoided conflict and risk, which helped it establish good diplomatic relations and expand its commercial ties in the region. That approach may become harder given the high importance of Saudi Arabia and Iran to Chinese investments and the two countries’ own rivalry and competitive struggles […]
    Guy Burton, Lancaster University/
    May 22, 2024
  • Looking south: Central Asia and Afghanistan

    After nearly two decades, the current manifestation of conflict in Afghanistan may be coming to an end. The United States and representatives of the Taliban signed an agreement in February 2020 that ostensibly sets the terms for the US military departure from Afghanistan. In principle, it also creates conditions for the reconciliation negotiations between the […]
    Roger Kangas, Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies USA/
    May 22, 2024
  • Syrians in Lebanon: A Mobility Crisis

    Covid-19 stopped the motion of many around the world. A drastic decline in airline passengers grounded planes. Cars used for commuting to work sat parked with nearly full gas tanks. Demand for public transit plummeted. But for some of the one and a half million Syrians living in Lebanon, the pandemic’s exacerbation of an already […]
    Kristin V. Monroe, University of Kentucky/
    May 22, 2024
  • Qatar-UAE as rivals in the Horn of Africa

    One effect of the rift between Qatar and its GCC neighbours Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE has been the exportation of this division since 2017. Emirati and Saudi allies Eritrea, Comoros, Mauritania, and Senegal in the Red Sea severed diplomatic ties with Qatar at the beginning of the crisis, and cross-regional divisions only became […]
    Courtney Freer, London School of Economics/
    May 22, 2024
  • Security as strategy? Israeli Arab Gulf states alignment

    A few months after the Abraham accords were signed between Israel, Bahrain and the UAE, the Pentagon announced the transfer of command oversight of Israel from the US European Command (EUCOM) to its key military command outpost in the Gulf, CENTCOM. While the transition may be seen to pave the way for an overt regional […]
    Nasser Khdour/
    May 22, 2024