Syria

A new gas deal with Germany may help, but the Gulf states are taking a risk by intertwining urgent Western energy requests with seemingly tangential regional issues.

To offset the destabilizing measures coming from Turkey and the Assad axis, Western governments need to offer more development assistance—but in a targeted way that reassures local authorities and minimizes mismanagement.

Interviews with thirteen activists reveal a deep sense of disappointment but also a shared conviction that a new reform movement will eventually rise and deliver lasting change to the region.

So far, official statements from the region have ranged from rejecting Russia’s moves to treating them as a natural extension of existing policy.

Two scholars of jihadism assess the group's evolving approaches to conventional and insurgent warfare, and U.S. options for combating them.

Washington needs to show Putin that this will not be the limited intervention he was able to get away with in Syria, but rather a catalyst for dramatic NATO entrenchment and strategic setbacks.

The military response to a major prison attack exhibited the strength of the U.S.-SDF partnership, but it also highlighted ongoing counterterrorism shortcomings.

If Washington wants Putin to act differently, it must demonstrate less risk aversion, whether in Ukraine or in Middle East conflict zones like Syria and Iraq.

The lessons Moscow learned from the 1991 Gulf War and the 2015 Syria intervention reveal much about the strategy, tactics, and weapons systems it might use (or already be using) in Ukraine.