Regions - International Studies of Strategic and Geopolitics

Iran’s Raisi welcomes invitation from king to visit Saudi Arabia

19Mar

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Iran’s Raisi welcomes invitation from king to visit Saudi Arabia

Iranian president has received an invitation to visit Saudi Arabia following reconciliation deal, Iranian official says. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has favourably received an invitation from Saudi Arabia’s King Salman to visit the kingdom following the reconciliation deal between the two countries, an Iranian official has said. “In a letter to President Raisi … the King of Saudi Arabia welcomed the deal between the two brotherly countries [and] invited him to Riyadh,” tweeted Mohammad Jamshidi, the Iranian president’s deputy chief of staff for political affairs, adding to this Sunday message that “Raisi welcomed the invitation”. The two regional heavyweights announced on March 10 a Chinese-brokered deal to restore ties seven years after they were severed. Riyadh cut relations af...

Geopolitical and Technocratic: EU International Actorness and Russia’s War Against Ukraine

16Mar

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Europe

Geopolitical and Technocratic: EU International Actorness and Russia’s War Against Ukraine

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 marked the start of the largest and most brutal war at the heart of the European continent since World War II. It inevitably came as a "cold shower" for the EU and Member States' politicians, demonstrating with absolute certainty the fragility of the international and European security order. The EU responded to the invasion with unprecedented sanctions against Russia and Belarus and multi-faceted resolute support to Ukraine. The latter included the breaking of many previously existing taboos, such as the first ever use of the European Peace Facility to procure weapons for a third country at war or offering collective protection to about 8 million Ukrainian citizens and residents, fleeing the war. The war prompted EU le...

Iraq’s new geopolitics and the importance of regional engagement: A view from Brussels

16Mar

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Middle East, Regions

Iraq’s new geopolitics and the importance of regional engagement: A view from Brussels

By *Domènec Ruiz Devesa, Emiliano Alessandri Following the shock of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States’ invasion of Iraq in March 2003 marked one of the opening salvos of what has so far turned out to be a conflict-ridden 21st century. Whereas the 1990-1991 Gulf War was heralded by then-President George H. W. Bush as the founding moment of a “New World Order,” as Washington successfully mobilized a vast United Nations-mandated coalition to repel Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the second Gulf War epitomized the emerging instability in the international system caused by the excesses of America’s “unipolar moment,” the retreat of multilateralism, a Global South increasingly critical of Western-led initiatives, and the rise of non-state actors and terrorist networks. Although the high...

Nigeria’s cities are growing fast: family planning must be part of urban development plans

15Mar

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Africa, Family Planning, Maternal and Child Health, and Immunizations

Nigeria’s cities are growing fast: family planning must be part of urban development plans

Nigeria is rapidly urbanising, with more people living in urban areas than in rural communities. A recent World Bank estimate shows that 53% of the 213 million Nigerians live in urban areas. That’s projected to rise above 70% by 2050. Lagos, Nigeria’s biggest city, already has over 15.9 million people. The country’s urban growth rate is 6% and the general population growth rate is about 2.4%. Although urban areas are hubs for socioeconomic development, many large cities are unsafe and unhealthy. Unfortunately, infrastructure development and service delivery aren’t keeping pace with urban population growth in Nigeria. Millions of urban residents face enormous challenges like housing deficits, overcrowding and limited economic opportunities. Poverty, air and noise pollution, insecurity, h...

The Quiet War between Israel and Iran Iran’s Hegemonic Drive

24Feb

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Middle East

The Quiet War between Israel and Iran Iran’s Hegemonic Drive

by Jonathan Schanzer Middle East Quarterly A major war has been underway for a decade in the Middle East though it infrequently makes headlines. Month after month, week after week, and night after night, the Israelis have operated across the region against the Islamic Republic of Iran in what the Israeli government calls "the-war-between-wars" (or "the-campaign-between-wars").[1] The genesis of this war is clear. Since the early 1980s, Tehran has financed, armed, and trained terrorist proxies to target Israel. This includes Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, and more recently, Shiite militias in Syria and Iraq. Historically, Israel has battled many of these proxies in short but painful border wars. Tehran never paid a price. The Islamist regime preferred ...

Is China Losing Patience with Russia’s War?

24Feb

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Asia

Is China Losing Patience with Russia’s War?

By NOAH ROTHMAN * China’s supposed peace overture is likely a product of its unease with how its junior partner in Eurasia has prosecuted the conflict. All Our Opinion in Your Inbox NR Daily is delivered right to you every afternoon. No charge. SUBSCRIBE For months, political observers have been confronted with growing evidence that the formerly durable consensus in the West around the need to support Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s war of territorial expansion is eroding. This developing trend has been met with both trepidation and jubilance, depending on the observer’s political affinities. The risks associated with drawing a potentially fallacious straight-line projection into the future notwithstanding, the trend is real, and no one can afford to ignore it....

A year after Russia invaded Ukraine, a walrus discovery is caught up in geopolitics

16Feb

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Americas

A year after Russia invaded Ukraine, a walrus discovery is caught up in geopolitics

By Kavitha George, Alaska Public Media - Anchorage Last October, research biologist Tony Fischbach made a startling discovery. Using satellite imagery, Fischbach and his team counted 200,000 Pacific walrus on one Russian beach at Cape Serdtse-Kamen’, bordering the Chukchi Sea. It suggests that the most recent population estimate, which measured about 260,000 Pacific walrus in the world, may have been an undercount. A year ago, Fischbach would have been able to quickly confirm the finding with his Russian colleagues. But since the U.S. severed many research ties with Russia at the start of the Ukraine invasion, he doesn’t know when that will happen. Fischbach studies walrus populations for the U.S. Geological Survey, a federal agency that studies natural resources and the ha...

16Feb

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Europe

Geopolitics in the Baltic Sea Region

By Göran Swistek and Michael Paul / Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik The “Zeitenwende” in the context of critical maritime infrastructure, escalation threats and the German willingness to lead. Due to its strategic immensity and opportunities for covert action, the maritime domain has become the most prominent arena of modern-day great power rivalry. In the shadow of this confrontation and the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, the Baltic Sea is now the focus of geopolitical interest and conflict. An expression of this is the increase in hybrid activities, from acts of sabotage to the use of unidentified drones. For the Western states of the Baltic Sea region in particular, all of this highlights their dependence on fossil resources, critical maritime infrastructur...

China sanctions Lockheed Martin, Raytheon for Taiwan sales

16Feb

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Asia

China sanctions Lockheed Martin, Raytheon for Taiwan sales

China has imposed trade and investment sanctions on Lockheed Martin and a unit of Raytheon for supplying weapons to Taiwan, stepping up efforts to isolate the island democracy claimed by the ruling Communist Party as part of its territory. Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies' Raytheon Missiles and Defence are barred from importing goods into China or making new investments in the country, the Ministry of Commerce announced on Thursday. It said they were added to the "unreliable entity" list of companies whose activities are restricted because they might endanger national sovereignty, security or development interests. It wasn't clear what impact the penalties might have. The United States bars most sales of weapons-related technology to China, but some mili...

How Chinese Development Loans ‘Captured’ Angola

10Feb

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Africa

How Chinese Development Loans ‘Captured’ Angola

By Douglas Burton * For years The Republic of Angola has been called Africa’s “richest poor country,” chock full of oil and diamonds, but wasted by 40 years of proxy wars and looted by native kleptocrats. After a bloody civil war ended in 2002, the government looked for international investors, and in two years bankers from the Chinese regime arrived in Luanda with the message, “We’re from Beijing, and we’re here to help.” Yet, nearly 20 years of Chinese state-backed projects later, Angola is on the hook for $21 billion owed to China despite the fact that Angola has negative growth, and more than 50 percent of its population is desperately poor. That’s the case presented by a panel of subject experts assessing Angola’s predicament at the Hudson Institute in Washington on Feb. 7. ...