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Search Results for: Kazakhstan – Page 4

With the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the Islamic Republic of Iran found a new avenue through which to carry on its anti-Western and anti-Israeli missions. Tehran has pledged to support its Russian ally in Ukraine and is sending weapons and other supplies to the Russian war effort. It is similarly assisting Armenia, its ally in the Caucasus, in its ongoing conflict with Israel- and-Turkey-backed Azerbaijan.
Following the withdrawal of the US from Afghanistan, Washington is allegedly trying to reestablish a military presence in Central Asia, similar to what it did in the early 2000s. Though some level of cooperation is possible with Russia within the framework of great power relations (and much still depends on Moscow’s goodwill), China opposes any American military or security expansion near its restive Xinjiang province.
A nationalist Turkish television station with close ties to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has dug up a 12-year-old map that projects Turkey’s sphere of influence in 2050 as stretching from southeastern Europe on the northern coast of the Mediterranean and Libya on its southern shore across North Africa, the Gulf, and the Levant into the Caucasus and Central Asia.
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.
Saudi support for religious ultra-conservatism in Indonesia contradicts Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman’s promotion of an undefined form of moderate Islam intended to project his kingdom as tolerant, innovative, and forward-looking. It also suggests that Saudi Arabia is willing to work with the Muslim Brotherhood despite its denunciation of the group as a terrorist organization.
There are signs that the current escalation between Armenia and Azerbaijan, far from being incidental to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, is driven by Russia’s and Iran’s economic warfare against a competing state and the need to return Europe to dependency on their oil and gas in light of US sanctions. Armenia benefits from the bellicose activity thanks to a sophisticated information warfare campaign in a heated US election year that has been unmatched thus far by Azerbaijan. But Baku can still turn its underdog position around by pursuing an assertive and affirmative policy against aggressors on military, political, media, and legal fronts.
Russia and China are widely perceived as the rising powers in the Middle East as a result of America’s flip-flops in Syria and President Donald Trump’s transactional approach to foreign policy. This perception also reflects an acknowledgement of Russian and Chinese support for regimes irrespective of how non-performing and/or repressive they may be. But they could both ultimately find themselves on the wrong side of history in an era of global breakdown of popular confidence in political systems and incumbent leadership and increasingly determined and resourceful protests.

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