The Caucasus: Regional Security Crossroads at the Beginning of 2024

The policies of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia, as well as their foreign policy orientations, play a key role in shaping regional security and stability in the region. The problem is that the South Caucasus has never been a unified geopolitical space throughout its modern history.

The Coming Storm of Autonomous War Robots and the West’s Dangerous Phobias

The war in Ukraine is acting as a super-accelerator in the development of low-cost, low-tech, mass-produced robotic military systems – robot armies, in other words - by actors with little financial or technological ability. One of the biggest questions weighing on the future global and regional balance of power is who will be the first to link these robot armies to artificial intelligence, which would allow them to operate autonomously. The West is possessed by phobias and obsessions that hinder it from adopting such systems. By contrast, forces that place a strong emphasis on the development of asymmetric capabilities – including both state and non-state actors hostile to the West – have absolutely no such inhibitions, creating a dangerous potential new reality.

Azerbaijan and Armenia: Political Stand in the Aftermath of October 7

The ongoing war between Israel and the radical Islamist terrorist movement Hamas has a substantial symbolic and practical impact on the domestic political discourse and foreign policy of countries involved in military and geopolitical conflicts in other regions of the world, including the South Caucasus

Iron Swords II: ‘It is a New Regional Order, Stupid’, and it must include the Demilitarization of Political Islam

In the coming years, global attention to the Middle East will diminish except in extreme crisis situations. The Israel-Saudi-moderates coalition will mainly bear the burden of stabilizing regional security. The current crisis, in which the United States is aligning with Israel in full capacity, must be used to establish - at both the ground and the political levels - the principle of stopping political Islam from controlling any military capabilities. The campaign to defeat Hamas is a step in this direction.

Five Short and Medium-Term Scenarios of Conflict Dynamics in Post-Soviet Countries

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 marked the completion of a series of changes that gradually reshaped the balance of power and diplomatic relations that had established in the post-Soviet space since the collapse of the USSR in 1991. This event created a considerable strategic uncertainty.

China and Russia: A New Vision for Central Asia

Emil Avdaliani
July 7, 2021
Paper No. 2090

The Kremlin's fixation on competing with the West might cost Russia dearly, as its clout in Central Asia is under strain from a rising China. Moscow will try to mitigate the tilting balance of power by applying methods of the post-liberal world order to the region. China and Russia might reach a condominium in which issues of economy and security are subdivided between them.

Iran, Russia, and Turkey: A Eurasionist Model of Foreign Relations

Emil Avdaliani
June 22, 2021
Paper No. 2078

Iran, Turkey, and Russia are building a new model of bilateral ties. Unshackled by formal alliances, the trio is showing it can work together to limit Western influence while avoiding an overreliance on one another. This mixture of correlating and contradictory interests, which characterizes the new Eurasianist model of bilateral relations, is a product of the changing global order.

Politics, America, and Culture: Behind Saudi Arabia’s Hesitation

The official Saudi denial of a meeting between Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu proves that the meeting did not produce the result Netanyahu had hoped for. Riyadh does not yet see sufficient reason to make the groundbreaking change of open and normalized relations with Jerusalem.

The 75th Anniversary of North Korea’s Kim Dynasty: A Striking and Strange Spectacle

Kim Jong-un recently presided over an extraordinary military parade in Pyongyang to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Kim dynasty’s control over North Korea. While the parade unveiled some gargantuan hardware that was clearly intended to inspire awe and fear in Kim’s adversaries, it also highlighted the wastefulness and imbalance of Pyongyang’s military machine.

China and Iran Reach a New Stage in Their Strategic Partnership

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Tehran in January 2016 laid the foundations for the Iran-China comprehensive strategic partnership agreement. The two countries are now said to be in the final stages of negotiating an economic and security partnership that has military implications. This would create new and potentially dangerous flashpoints in the balance of power in the Middle East and would contribute to the ongoing deterioration of China-US relations.

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