Nagorno-Karabakh: The Caucasus Time Machine

Lev Stesin
November 4, 2020
Paper No. 1799

No major power has attempted in earnest to mediate the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis, and some have actively participated in keeping the situation ablaze. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan have been actively preparing for hostilities, but Armenia finds itself at a political and military disadvantage.

Russia and the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Genuine Threat or Misconception?

While government officials and others have alleged a strategy that involves Russian-sponsored security organizations in recent escalations in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, these claims are largely misconceptions. The conventional wisdom fails to recognize these structures as representing alternative security perceptions held by Russia and other participating states rather than traditional NATO-style military alliances.

How Does the International Environment Affect Elections and Grand Strategy?

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 posed a challenge to analysts and scholars. How could the election of so politically inexperienced a candidate, one with a highly controversial personality and a political orientation that differed from that of all his predecessors, possibly be explained? Most of the explanations tend to focus on the socio-economic and cultural grievances of primarily working-class white people from the Midwest and the South. These factors are also considered to exercise major influence on the rise of the “America First” orientation in Trump’s foreign policy. But the international context is also an important factor, and it is often overlooked.

As Turkey’s Lira Tumbles, Erdoğan Pursues Neo-Ottoman Visions

The Turkish lira sank to a record low on October 22—a new blow for the Turkish economy, which has been battered by the coronavirus pandemic. The Islamist government led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is pursuing an increasingly daring neo-Ottoman policy throughout the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean, a push that is motivated in part by the need to help the economy bounce back.

The Quadruple Threat: North Korea, China, Pakistan, and Iran

The vast, uninterrupted territory that contains North Korea, China, Pakistan, and Iran has greater geostrategic importance today than ever before. Of the two outermost countries of that territory, an anonymous senior US administration official recently said that "Iran and North Korea have resumed cooperation in the framework of a project on long-range missiles that includes the transfer of core components."

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.

From Junior Associate to Senior Partner? The Israeli Navy’s Strategic Challenges in the 21st Century

Israel depends on the Mediterranean Sea, and the Israeli Navy bears overall responsibility for safeguarding the country’s strategic, security, and economic assets in and around its territorial waters. For various historical reasons, the Israeli Navy was not originally given the priority afforded to its two brethren services: the ground and air forces. Recent geostrategic trends have altered the security situation of the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean, however, and this has affected the nature of the threats to Israel's national security. These developments have led to an increasingly important role for the Israeli Navy in securing Israel's national interests.

France’s Skirmishes with Violent Islam

France has insoluble problems with part of its Muslim population. This recently became apparent once again when a high school teacher who had shown controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad to his students was beheaded by an 18-year-old Muslim. The French government’s current skirmishes with radical Islam will ultimately be seen as a footnote in a massive and lengthy battle.

France’s Showdown with the Islamic World

The beheading of schoolteacher Samuel Paty, which occurred two weeks after a momentous speech by President Emmanuel Macron in which he unveiled a plan to defend French secular values against “Islamist radicalism,” marked the start of what might turn out to be an all-out war between France and the Islamic world, with Turkey’s Erdoğan leading the Muslim charge. By taking a stand against Muslim extremist violence and suppression of freedom of speech, Macron might find himself facing a new wave of Islamic terror.

The Abraham Accords as an Impetus to Rehabilitate Western Civilization

Biblical morality, which can also be called Abrahamic morality, was born in Mesopotamia and from there spread west. Until Europe freed itself of its yoke, it was the legacy of the West. Europe’s renunciation led to a series of horrendous calamities from which it was rescued by the US and Britain, which, unlike continental Europe, continued to uphold Abrahamic morality. The Abraham Accords were signed at a time when the US, patron of the Accords and leader of the West and the world, is likewise disavowing its moral values and being taken over by progressivism—another utopian European ideology that has broken from morality. The children of Abraham must make the most of the peace they have reached to reconnect the West with the moral roots that took form in the East.

Perspectives Papers