Rebecca Anne Proctor

Through its Belt and Road Initiative, China seeks to play a larger role in the Black Sea region. China has been wooing littoral states in hopes of securing new markets for its goods and investing in infrastructure projects. But some worry that there is more to Chinese actions in the region than meets the eye. The worry is that China will increase its political and diplomatic clout in a region that is considered vital for Russian interests and create tension between Moscow and Washington. Despite the uneasiness in the West about China’s increasing presence in the Black Sea, there is not enough focus on the issue in the scholarly debates in Western capitals. The MEI’s Frontier Europe Initiative aims to contribute to the debate on the role of China in the Black Sea. We hope the articles in this report will help to address several important unaddressed questions.

In 2018, Assad’s Syrian government forces, with Russian support, managed to regain control of opposition-held areas in Daraa. Russia has emerged as the primary power broker by arranging agreements between the rebels and the regime, which, in turn, has allowed the rebels to keep some of their arms under the banner of the Russian-formed Eighth Brigade. Nevertheless, since 2018, the tight-knit tribal networks in Daraa have functioned as a nucleus for the continuation of the uprising against the Assad regime. The same tribal attributes that create interconnectedness among the people of Daraa, however, also render them susceptible to the regime’s strategy of pitting clans against each other and leveraging the resulting strife to justify the use of force with the goal of asserting full control.

Pompeo’s visit to the small post-Soviet democracy Georgia reflects U.S. efforts to reassure Georgia of its support as a strategic partner. As possibilities for Western engagement in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus are increasingly diminished by Russia’s rising force projection, the visit is an opportunity to consolidate President Donald Trump’s regional focus on great power competition with China and Russia.

It should come as no surprise that Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei is once again predicting America’s “political, civil and moral decline” in the wake of the U.S. elections. But the regime’s preemptive attacks on President-elect Biden as an “iron fist in a velvet glove” and its demands that his administration “compensate for past mistakes” mark a departure from the Islamic Republic’s more restrained approach to previous transitions — and portend a flurry of commentary coming out of Tehran over the next two months.

Tech platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google have come to play a central role in questions of free speech, governance, and human rights in the Middle East. In particular, the question of content moderation — how platforms create and enforce policies which determine what kinds of user-generated content are and are not permissible on their services — has become a focal point of these discussions.

As part of these two countries’ defense and security cooperation, the US provides financial support to the Georgian military, support for Georgia’s territorial defense and sovereignty, and, ultimately, for Georgia’s procurement of US defensive weapons. This triple combination ensures Georgia’s military strength and demonstrates America’s unwavering support for Georgia’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. However, a lack of medium- to long-term US political and military commitment to Georgia’s security could put Georgia in jeopardy.

Though the war in Afghanistan largely went unmentioned in the U.S. presidential race, the incoming Joe Biden administration must make a major decision in the coming weeks and months on whether to follow through on the U.S. commitment to withdraw all troops from the country by the end of April 2021.

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has made Kuwait less welcoming for the 70% of the country’s population and the overwhelming majority of its private sector work force that are expatriates. While Kuwait’s actions and economic pressure might have a short term impact, more permanent, substantial changes to its demographics will only come if the country also changes incentives to encourage Kuwaitis to work in the private sector.  

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Marvin G. Weinbaum, Hafsa Halawa, Robert S. Ford, and Thomas W. Lippman.

Lebanon has a coastline of 120 nautical miles (NM) along the eastern Mediterranean and an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) that encompasses an area of 5000 square nautical miles (SNM). While this wide expanse presents many opportunities, it also represents a pressing security challenge for the Lebanese Navy and the region in general.

The U.N.’s approach to achieving a political solution to Libya’s conflict is now highly vulnerable to falling apart.

Joe Biden is no stranger to Iraq and this informs how Iraqi politicians have responded to his victory in the U.S. presidential election. Some have welcomed the news, while others are more cautious given concerns that a Biden presidency might lead to greater Iranian influence in the country. Indeed, Biden has a mixed record on Iraq. Though a Democrat, he voted for the 2003 Iraq War. But later as vice president, he was President Barack Obama’s right hand and fast-tracked their campaign promise to withdraw U.S. troops in 2011. Looking ahead to his presidency, his familiarity with the political class in Baghdad, forthright proposals about Iraq’s territorial integrity, and previous role in tipping power between major actors may falsely lead to a conclusion that Iraq will be a focus for his upcoming administration. The reality, however, is much different.

‘Passportization’ has been a longstanding policy of Russia as it seeks to maintain control over former Soviet countries. The policy is a functional ideological mechanism that has served as a complementary argument to Russia’s military interventions in the Black Sea region and influence in domestic affairs of post-Soviet countries. In recent years, the consequences of passportization have been felt in the Baltic States, as well as break-away territories of the Republic of Moldova and Georgia. It also preceded the annexation of Crimea and anticipated the breakaway of Eastern Ukraine.