Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Two years on from the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul, Afghanistan’s neighbors are increasingly concerned that their return to power has emboldened terrorist groups and networks, which are using the hospitable environment to regroup, rearm, and recruit substantially. The main question now for Afghanistan’s neighbors in the region, and the international community more broadly, is just how reliable the Taliban’s counterterrorism assurances to other states really are.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
As the clock ticks down on the repatriation of IS foreign fighters from Syria, a recent development has added a new sense of urgency to the situation. On June 11, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), announced its intention to prosecute 2,000 IS foreign fighters. How-ever, the lack of international recognition for the AANES and its courts renders these trials illegiti-mate, further complicating future international legal efforts to prosecute these combatants.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Paul Scharre’s book “Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” straddles two lines of thought: the transformative impact of AI on power and warfare in the 21st century and the dangers AI presents to human freedoms, individual rights, and the meaning of truth and reality.
India and Israel have embarked on a mission to enhance their bilateral strategic cyber partnership. Private-sector collaboration and investment have laid the foundation for this partnership, which has now expanded to government-level agreements and frameworks.
Several foreign ministers gathered in an Asian capital to negotiate an end to regional turmoil. One of the countries represented at the meeting brokered an agreement to end hostilities between the others.
The Sahel region of West Africa suffers from escalating cycles of inter-communal violence that have resulted in countless deaths of innocent people. As this worsening situation continues to spread, it has come to be one of the most prominent threats to security and socio-political stability in the region.
Now at 100, Henry Kissinger remains a larger-than-life statesman, strategist, and scholar. Alongside intellectual titans such as George Kennan and Zbigniew Brzezinski, his story intertwines with post-World War II American foreign policy. A recent flurry of articles and editorials that spanned news outlets, think tanks, and policy platforms were put out to celebrate Kissinger’s centennial and commemorate his legacy.
Expert regional analysis by MEI scholars and contributors.
To analyze the crossroads Turkey faces in the 2023 elections, it could prove useful to “look back from the alternative futures” and explore how the possible outcomes might play out. What could it look like if we look back from 2030 to another victory by Erdoğan? And how might have the last seven years played out had the opposition won?
With AI development disproportionate attention is given to the world’s technological heavyweights, the U.S. and China, as they seek an innovative edge in their great power competition. But Gulf states like the UAE are also moving rapidly to invest in and adopt AI, with significant implications for bilateral relations. The momentum in both the U.S. and the UAE can be leveraged by anchoring further ideas for political, diplomatic, and military cooperation in the technical evolution of AI.
The U.S. administration is tacitly contributing to growing acceptance and re-normalization of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the 21st century’s most notorious war criminal, putting in jeopardy the continuation of our counter-terrorism mission in Syria. Assad is toasting his survival on the ashes of his victims — but within the small community of optimistic actors in Syria, ISIS is sitting pretty comfortably too.
The Biden administration’s National Cybersecurity Strategy, released on March 2, 2023, revamped the U.S. approach to cyberspace and underlined the ways in which the government aims to build a more resilient, defensible, and values-aligned cyberspace. What does the strategy mean and what opportunities might it present for U.S. partners and allies in the Middle East?