Military and Security

The regime may eventually use larger vessels to project power beyond the Gulf, but even its more modest recent additions portend further confrontations and weapons proliferation in local waters.

A French diplomat and a leading scholar of Islam explore the region’s crises and their effects on Western policy, assessing what has changed since the Arab Spring.

Three veteran observers of Iranian naval forces and doctrines assess the country's ability to punch above its weight in the Persian Gulf.

In 2008, the IRGC established a new branch that remains little known or studied today: the Provincial Guard. Operating in all of Iran's thirty-one provinces plus Tehran city, the IRGC-PG carries out the regime's revolutionary aims at the local level, inculcating conservative religious values, shaping educational curricula, and even sponsoring

Two experts assess the recent attack patterns and future prospects of a group that once seemed on the cusp of defeat in both countries.

For almost four decades, the Multinational Force & Observers has protected Israel-Egypt peace and anchored stability in the Sinai Peninsula, but a new Pentagon initiative could end the American contribution by late next year. Defense Secretary Mark Esper has indicated that all military endeavors must now fall within a National

Is it too late for the UN to counter the Assad regime and its allies on their abuses or to salvage cross-border mechanisms for humanitarian aid? Former UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura joined a virtual Policy Forum to probe the prospects.

Given the Syrian army’s recent deployments in Deraa and Russia’s half-hearted attempts to halt them, the situation may soon lead to renewed shelling of civilian areas and myriad complications for Israel and Jordan.

Whatever combination of factors spurred the latest withdrawal of U.S. military equipment from the kingdom, the administration is tempting fate given Iran’s ongoing challenges and shifting tactics in the Gulf.