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Migrant smuggling to Europe remains a lucrative illicit industry and continues to pose a significant security challenge, requiring law enforcement to keep pace with smugglers’ rapid adaptation to countermeasures. In the context of the European Union, smugglers were estimated to be responsible for more than 90 percent of irregular migrant entries around 2016. Sovereignty, security, […] The post…
Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the Department of Defense to reduce joint military exercises with South Korea, a longstanding American ally and a critical partner in the Indo-Pacific region. These joint military exercises have taken place since 1955, so even scaling them back is cause for concern among partners from Tokyo to Manila. Security […] The post The Wrong Approach to…
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is expected to unveil the details of new U.S. sanctions that President Trump has characterized as an “Economic D-Day” against Iran, referring to the 1944 Allied landing in Normandy. Trump has characterized the U.S. sanctions package as a “crushing” operation to “cripple” Iran economically. According to Trump and other U.S. […] The post Iran and the Region…
Tensions between the Ethiopian Government’s National Defense Force (ENDF) and the ethno-nationalist Tigray’s Liberation Front (TPLF) have been escalating in recent weeks, with a drone strike on the city of Mekelle, nestled in the south-east of the Tigray region in Ethiopia, marking the most recent incident. This development follows months-long clashes between the two forces, […] The post Renewed…
It was perhaps inevitable that the U.S.-Iran war would reignite the dormant conflict between the Iran-backed Houthi movement and forces of the Saudi-backed ousted government of Yemen. The Yemeni people and the country’s infrastructure still have not recovered from the civil conflict during 2015-2022 that killed tens of thousands of people, uprooted millions, caused a […] The post Yemen Moves…
This week marks the five-year anniversary of the fall of Kabul to Taliban rule in Afghanistan. The swift Taliban takeover was in the immediate wake of U.S. military withdrawal, closing a nearly-twenty-year period of American military presence in the country. The rapid withdrawal process and Taliban victory marked the start of a new chapter in […] The post Five Years After the Fall of Kabul,…
Last week, the Tuareg-led rebel group Front de libération de l’Azawad (FLA) released 82 Malian Armed Forces soldiers whom it had held captive. Many of the soldiers had been taken on April 25, 2026, when the group and its ally Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), al-Qaeda’s affiliate in the Sahel, launched their spectacular joint offensive […] The post How Stable is Mali’s Junta? appeared…
As the defunct June U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) formally expires on Monday, U.S. and Iranian assessments of traffic flows through the Strait of Hormuz will determine the next steps in the nearly six-month-long conflict. Iran’s war strategy has centered on attacking ship traffic through the waterway as a means of triggering critical global energy […] The post Strait of Hormuz…
Pakistan has experienced high-volume, high-fatality terrorism attacks in recent years, but the attacks in 2026 have grown in both frequency and intensity. Pakistan ranked first on the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP)’s 2026 Global Terrorism Index and “is the country most impacted by terrorism.” According to the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies, […] The post Onslaught of…
The Middle East region demonstrates the limitations of coercive diplomacy to accomplish strategic objectives. Non-state and state actors that might otherwise be considered, under classic definitions, to be militarily “defeated,” or at least severely weakened, are able to frustrate their domestic and international adversaries seeking to achieve war termination agreements on acceptable terms. Iran…
The U.S. is continuing to build out its pressure campaign against the Cuban government. The CIA has recently established a clandestine task force with the purpose of monitoring the ruling government’s financial activity and laying the groundwork for a U.S. ‘strategy’ in the island nation, following months of speculation about a potential U.S. military intervention […] The post The U.S. Ramps Up…
Europe is confronting a convergence of crises that, while distinct, are all impacting the European political, economic, and security landscape. Devastating wildfires and extreme heat have strained emergency-response systems across the continent, a sudden migrant rush in Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta has sparked renewed debate on the contentious subject of migration, Russia’s war […] The…
Pressuring the Arab Gulf monarchies militarily has been central to Iran’s war strategy. From its own territory, Iran has launched missiles and drones on targets in Saudi Arabia, aiming particularly at facilities that host U.S. forces, such as Prince Sultan Air Base. But Tehran has calibrated its direct assaults on Saudi Arabia so as not […] The post Saudi Arabia Responds to Encirclement appeared…
The cyberattacks targeting water systems in dozens of municipalities across at least seven states represent the latest string of suspected Iranian cyber operations against U.S. critical infrastructure. Although the attacks did not compromise drinking water quality or result in prolonged service disruptions, they demonstrate how hostile actors can exploit vulnerabilities in decentralized…
