Research & Commentary Results

China has long sought to brand itself as a “neutral” player and force for peace in the Middle East and elsewhere, willing and able to talk to “all sides.” Beijing’s nascent ambition to play the role of peacemaker and its potential to shape regional events was on display when it succeeded last March in brokering the détente between Riyadh and Tehran. The Israel-Hamas war offers no such low-hanging fruit. On the contrary, it poses a major test of China’s Middle East peace diplomacy — and an opportunity to examine some of our own, perhaps faulty assumptions.

Prigozhin’s coup was a serious warning sign that should prompt Turkey to cool ties with Russia and rebuild its relationship with the West. Yet today, Turkey and the West look at each other in terms of problems not solutions. While the political risks of reengagement are high for both sides, the potential rewards are well worth the effort needed to overcome them.

تخوض دولة إسرائيل والجماعة الإرهابية حماس صراعاً وجودياً، حيث يهدد كل منهما بقاء الآخر، فضلاً عن بقاء المدنيين الفلسطينيين والإسرائيليين العالقين بينهما. وقد يتوسع هذا الصراع ليصبح أزمة إقليمية أو حتى عالمية. وبالنسبة لأسواق الطاقة والاقتصاد العالمي، فإن المخاطر كبيرة ويمكن أن تتغير أو تتسارع استجابة لمتغيرات متعددة.

The latest war over Nagorno Karabakh lasted a single day, ending on Sept. 20. It is the third war over the region disputed between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the last three and a half decades.

But this time, it seems there was really only one party to the conflict. Armenia stayed out, leaving it to the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh to surrender. 

A hundred thousand people have fled to Armenia, roughly 80 percent of the Karabakh population. What’s more, Armenia’s most powerful allies, Iran and Russia, appear to be distracted and marginally engaged. 

اقرأ تقرير MEI الأسبوعي الذي يتضمن تحليلات الخبراء للتطورات الإقليمية الرئيسية للأسبوع المقبل.

As important as it is for Ukraine to work with individual partners and receive their long-term support, the key security guarantor for Ukraine can only be NATO and its Article V umbrella. No arrangement other than full NATO membership will entirely remove the threat of a Russian re-invasion, at least so long as Putin remains in power.

Iran has yet to ratify the 2015 Paris Agreement, but efforts to address the impact of climate change have great potential to create opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation, building on the recent trend of regional de-escalation. Climate diplomacy represents an untapped opportunity for Iran to engage globally by incentivizing it to adopt the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals in exchange for sanctions or debt relief.

مع احتفال الموقعين الأصليين على اتفاقيات أبراهام — إسرائيل والإمارات العربية المتحدة والبحرين — بالذكرى السنوية الثالثة لاتفاقهم المبرم في سبتمبر 2020، هناك أساس كافٍ لتقييم ما إذا كانت اتفاقيات أبراهام حقيقية أم مجرد ضجة إعلامية أم شيء بين بين. وكما كان الحال قبل عام، لا تزال النتائج حتى الآن مختلطة.

Pakistan’s intensifying economic, political, and security instability is not good news for China’s strategic investments. So, what are Beijing’s options?

Moldova is a country with a rich tapestry of multiple ethnic identities and linguistic traditions, but one where policymakers have long grappled with the complexities of preserving minority rights, fostering national unity, and addressing regional autonomy through engagement with the Gagauz minority.

At the start of 2023, optimism was high that China would see a rapid recovery in consumer spending and an acceleration in GDP growth. Since then, however, the world’s second-largest economy has been in the doldrums. China’s ailing economy is a problem not just for China but for the entire world. A prolonged slowdown or a sudden financial crash, were it to occur, would ripple across global markets — including the countries of the Middle East, whose economies have become increasingly intertwined with that of China.

Georgia’s near total reliance on imported Russian wheat forms an extremely dangerous vulnerability that compromises both its food security and sovereignty. Fifteen years after the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, Tbilisi finds itself depending on Russia for over 90 percent of its wheat supply amidst a growing global shortage. In 2022, NATO reiterated its commitment to Georgia, pledging to help build Georgia’s resilience and uphold its political independence.

This study on community leadership and social resilience factors in Moldova in the context of the war in Ukraine is based on in-country interviews with 15 Moldovan experts and community leaders, conducted in May-August 2023.

The war in Ukraine has turned policymakers’ eyes back toward the Euro-Atlantic arena and highlighted the need to reinvigorate NATO’s defense-industrial base. This analysis describes the macro policy environment that shapes the current relationship between Romania and the United States, and considers what steps the U.S. could take to improve Romania’s integration with the Euro-Atlantic defense-industrial base.

The following analysis provides an overview of Poland’s and Romania’s engagement with NATO priorities on its eastern front line since 2022 and outlines their advocacy for increased regional security in multilateral formats. Drawing on the expertise of over two dozen Polish and Romanian security experts, it offers recommendations for an enhanced CEE security strategy for the United States, the leading member of the NATO alliance.