• Can Europe Escape Gazprom's Energy Stranglehold?

    When it comes to gas supplies to the EU, Russia’s state-owned corporation Gazprom steps on the brakes, and natural gas reservoirs are unusually low. Is Russia building up political pressure in order to push through the operation of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline?

  • Islamic World “Actively Collaborating” with China's Global Campaign against Uyghurs: Researchers

    A new report documents how governments — predominantly from Muslim-majority countries across the Middle East and Asia — have cooperated with Beijing to surveil, detain, and repatriate Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities from China who have fled Xinjiang.

  • Assessing China’s Presence and Power in the Caribbean

    Foreign policy discussions around China-Caribbean engagement have been uniformly skewed toward speculation on China’s intentions in the Caribbean. Rasheed Griffith writes that it is not too late for the U.S. to arrest the deepening of China-Caribbean engagement, which could result in policies which are contrary to U.S. strategic interests. “But assessing U.S. interests in this area requires wrestling with the facts on the ground and countering Chinese influence with realistic and robust alternatives,” he writes.

  • From Visits to Vaccines: The Evolving Nature of China’s Military Diplomacy

    A new report details the growing role of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) military-to-military cooperation in response to the global coronavirus pandemic – a move which signals the greater involvement of the PLA in China’s diplomatic activities.

  • Can the West Devise an Alternative to China's Belt and Road?

    Since it was announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has channeled hundreds of billions of dollars into foreign infrastructure, boosting trade, and clearing the way for China to forge political and economic links around the world. But a combination of growing disillusionment among partner countries with the resulting projects, room for more investment, and increased unease about the strategic implications of the BRI might have opened the door for an alternative to emerge.

  • Next Major War Will Be “Very Different”: Def. Sec. Austin

    Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has warned of emerging cyber and space threats, along with the prospect of much bigger wars. “We can’t predict the future,” he added. “So what we need is the right mix of technology, operational concepts and capabilities — all woven together in a networked way that is so credible, so flexible and so formidable that it will give any adversary pause.” His remarks come amid concerns over China’s growing military assertiveness.

  • Money Alone Can’t Fix Central America – or Stop Migration to U.S.

    To stem migration from Central America, the Biden administration has a $4 billion plan to “build security and prosperity” in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador – home to more than 85 percent of all Central American migrants who arrived in the U.S. over the last three years. The Biden plan is based on a sound analysis of Central America’s dismal socioeconomic conditions. As a former president of Costa Rica, I can attest to the dire situation facing people in neighboring nations. As a historian of Central America, I also know money alone cannot build a viable democracy.

  • China: Crimes Against Humanity in Xinjiang

    The Chinese government is committing crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in the northwest region of Xinjiang, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Monday. The Chinese leadership is responsible for widespread and systematic policies of mass detention, torture, and cultural persecution, among other offenses.

  • U.S. “Monitoring” as Iran Sends Fuel Tankers to Venezuela in Defiance of Sanctions

    As Iran sent three gasoline shipments to fuel-starved Venezuela in recent months in defiance of U.S. sanctions, the Biden administration apparently did nothing to stop the tankers, signaling a reticence to enforce the sanctions and a savviness by the anti-U.S. allies in evading them.

  • Shining Light on China’s Secretive International Lending Program

    A new study and dataset reveal previously unknown details about China—the world’s largest official creditor—and its lending practices to developing countries. A cache of documents shows that Chinese loan contracts have unusual secrecy provisions, collateral requirements, and debt renegotiation restrictions.

  • Increased Migration at U.S. Border Linked to Climate Change, Violence in Central America

    Thousands of families and children from Central America continue to arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border, as the Biden Administration is developing strategies to address these migration challenges. Given that the number of migrants is expected to increase, policy research and analysis on the drivers for migration are vital for implementing long-term solutions.

  • World Leaders Call for Treaty to Prepare for Next Pandemic

    COVID-19 will not be the last pandemic. Leaders from 23 countries, the World Health Organization and the EU called for a new international treaty to better prepare for future pandemics in an op-ed published on Tuesday.

  • Pandemic Apologies and Defiance: Europe’s Leaders Increasingly Rattled

    European leaders are handling rising public frustration, economic distress and mounting coronavirus case numbers in different ways, with most showing the strain of dealing with a yearlong pandemic, say analysts and commentators, who add that the leaders seem to be rattled by a third wave of infections sweeping the continent.

  • Water Wars Are Here

    In 2009, the U.K. intelligence services submitted their annual intelligence report to then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, warning of the coming threat of “water wars” between states vying for diminishing fresh-water resources. Rising water-related tensions between India and Pakistan and between Ethiopia and its neighbors bear out the report’s warnings. The recent decision by Turkey to use its dam system to limit the amount of water flowing into Syria is a demonstration of using the control over water sources for exerting pressure on neighboring states.

  • Kurds in Northern Syria Warn of Water Crisis

    Turkey has reduced the volume of water flowing downstream toward Syria, and the first to feel the pinch are the Kurds in Syria’s Kurdish region. In the last decade. Turkey has built twenty-two dams in southeast Anatolia, leading to fears in Syria and Iraq that Turkey was going to use its control over the sources of the Tigris and the Euphrates to apply political pressure on both countries.