A roadside bomb exploded near a vehicle carrying security forces in restive northwestern Pakistan, killing four officers and wounding five others, officials said Thursday, and the same day two schoolchildren were killed when a mortar exploded near them elsewhere in the northwest. The roadside bombing happened Wednesday in South Waziristan district, a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban, local police […]

There’s no such thing as a winnable warIt’s a lie we don’t believe anymore We share the same biology, regardless of ideologyBut what might save us, me and youIs if the Russians love their children too So sang Sting. He was – I think he still is – a marvelous singer. But the naïve notions expressed in that 1985 song […]

Making the Case for Trump’s Foreign Policy Si vis pacem, para bellum is a Latin phrase that emerged in the fourth century that means “If you want peace, prepare for war.” The concept’s origin dates back even further, to the second-century Roman emperor Hadrian, to whom is attributed the axiom, “Peace through strength—or, failing that, peace through threat.”

The Contours and Consequences of a Second-Term Foreign Policy Agray rhino—a predictable and long-foreseen disruption that is still shocking when it occurs—has crashed into American foreign policy: Donald Trump has won a second term as president of the United States. Despite polls predicting a nail-biter, the final results were fairly decisive, and although we do not know the precise composition […]

JeI: Political reinvention Since the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina’s government on August 5, 2024, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) is back to the political forefront in Bangladesh, trying to expand its own area of influence and weigh its political options within the current chaos and instability. On October 28, 2024, at a JeI protest rally at the Public Library ground against […]

The pressure toward the diversification of world currency reserves intensified after 2008, escalated following 2022 and is accelerating, as evidenced by the recent BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia. In the past 15 years or so, BRICS have rapidly grown into a geoeconomic front of the Global South. Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates attended their first summit as […]

Climate change could present an opportunity for meaningful political and economic change in Azerbaijan. But the country’s green transition may instead serve to sustain the institutions that reinforce the regime’s stability. The 2024 meeting of the UN Climate Change Conference—known as COP29—will be held in Baku on November 11–22. Azerbaijan’s hosting of the summit has come under considerable scrutiny—both because […]

At least 11 people were injured when militants threw a grenade at Indian security forces on Sunday in a crowded flea market in Srinagar, capital of India-administered Kashmir, a police official said. Militants missed their target and instead injured at least 11 people, the official told Reuters. The official wished to remain unnamed as he was not authorised to speak […]

The trajectory of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka—widely known as the Tamil Tigers—is often cited by proponents of Israel’s stated war aim of entirely eliminating Hamas from Gaza. The Tamil Tigers were one of the most effective and brutal terrorist formations in the world, responsible for the murder of a sitting Sri Lankan president, a […]

Indian media has recently reported that the Indian Ministry of External Affairs stated that China and India have reached an agreement on issues concerning border areas. Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said on October 21 that Indian and Chinese diplomatic and military negotiators have been in close contact with each other, reaching the agreement “on patrolling arrangements along the Line […]