Month: October 2024

What Are Iran’s Nuclear and Missile Capabilities?

Iran’s nuclear program and missile arsenal have garnered increased international scrutiny amid its flaring conflict with Israel.

Introduction

Many foreign policy experts warn that if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons, it would be broadly destabilizing for the Middle East and nearby regions. A first-order concern is that Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons would pose a major, perhaps existential threat to Israel, its longtime foe. Other foreign policy experts say Iran would be assuring its own demise if it were to launch a nuclear strike on Israel, a close U.S. defense partner and possessor of its own nuclear weapons arsenal, which is undeclared. Either way, there would be a dangerous potential for miscalculation that could result in a nuclear exchange, analysts say.

Identifying and DisruptingKey Antisemitic Actors— A Five – Step Guide

Since the HAMAS attack on Israel on 7 October, 20231 and the ensuing war in Gaza, many countries have seen an unprecedented rise in reported antisemitic incidents.1 Dozens of research and policy reports have since been published, many of them aiming to count and map the extent of these antisemitic incidents.2 Other reports have focused particularly on the online dimension of antisemitism since 7 October.3 Few reports, if any, have aimed at identifying and understanding the key antisemitic actors behind many of
these incidents.

Civilian Militias in Mali, Niger, and Mozambique

Eliminating or Exacerbating Violent Extremism?

For more than a decade, the Sahel has been subject to a protracted insurgency carried out by affiliates of the global terror networks of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. As the first country affected by this insurgency, Mali has responded by drastically modifying its response to violent extremism. The regional spillover of violent extremism has elicited similar counterterrorism responses from Bamako’s neighbors, with Niger most recently adopting a counterinsurgency model shaped by Mali’s and Burkina Faso’s policies. Although not in the Sahel, Mozambique has faced similar struggles in containing violent extremism and, like Mali and Niger, has implemented multiple counterterrorism programs to curtail the expansion and public support of jihadist groups. Conventional responses to violent extremism—such as the deployment of national military forces and the enlistment of international counterterrorism support—have not been successful and instead have resulted in each state adopting more localized approaches to eliminating the jihadist threat. This increasingly localized approach is often conducted through the deployment of civilian counterterrorism militias—also known as community-led self-defense groups, local militias, local forces, or simply civilian militias. Sometimes sponsored by the state, these local militias are intended to operate independently of national defense forces. However, tangential state status has not only afforded these groups funding and equipment, but it has also justified illicit behavior and discriminatory practices that have added additional threats to national counterterrorism agendas.

Israel’s Forever War on Palestinian Refugees

Since 1948, Israel has made a habit of targeting Palestinian refugee camps, striking the people it’s already displaced.

During the thick of summer, around 8 a.m. one day in late July 1971, bulldozers crept into the Gaza Strip’s Jabalia refugee camp. The Israeli military had already warned several families of their impending evictions, and a large show of Israeli forces gathered to confront any potential resistance. Soldiers stormed homes Palestinian families refused to evacuate, clubbing them with sticks and batons, and dragging them out into the morning heat. Within a few days, the bulldozers had leveled around 50 homes on the edge of the camp. Some 500 people, refugee families who had already lost their homes elsewhere in historic Palestine some 23 years earlier, were now homeless once again. Another week passed and the number of homes Israeli forces destroyed swelled to 400.

Clausewitz’s Definition of War and its Limits

Hugh Smith is a Visiting Fellow in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy. He is the author of On Clausewitz: A Study of Military and Political Ideas, (Palgrave Macmillan: 2005).

THE GRAND STRATEGY OF CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

However, Clausewitz offers a notion of grand strategy not in his theory of war but in his theory of the state.

As the affairs of states continue to evolve into a complex web of interdependence, cooperation, and competition, pressure mounts on states to effectively employ the tools of statecraft to attain their political objects. The contention of this essay is that Carl von Clausewitz implicitly defined grand strategy in his magnum opus, On War, as the sum of the tools of statecraft. Consequently, states should use this definition of grand strategy accommodated to present political conditions.

What Is The Talmud?

The Talmud is a huge collection of doctrines and laws compiled and written before the 8th Century, A.D., by ancient Jewish teachers. The Talmud, which often cites the Old Testament, is the basic book of Jewish law.

Pourquoi l’Occident veut-il détruire la Russie ?

Dans le conflit actuel, l’Occident collectif suit la voie du suicide

Jean Luc Schaffhauser, ancien membre de la commission des Affaires étrangères et de la défense et de la sécurité au Parlement européen, a récemment publié une série d’articles sur la nécessité de faire la paix avec la Russie.

Des «trouposol» françaises en Roumanie pour s’entrainer à la guerre contre la Russie

La France est un des pays les plus impliqués dans le conflit en Ukraine orchestré par l’OTAN (NdT : Organisation Terroriste de l’Atlantique Nord) ; elle a ses forces spéciales présentes depuis le début du lancement de l’Opération Militaire Spéciale (OMS) russe en 2022. Pour une raison inexpliquée, Paris recherche simplement une bagarre avec la Russie au lieu de se focaliser sur la pléthore de problèmes bien chauds sur son sol. Le larbinisme honteux de la France envers toutes les politiques de l’OTAN a tourné le pays en un véritable vassal, laquais des États-Unis, ce qui ne fait que toujours lui créer plus de problèmes, même résultant à toujours plus de soutien de Moscou envers les mouvements souverainistes africains, une action qui est en train d’efficacement démanteler ce qu’il reste du vieil empire néo-colonial français sur le continent. Paris a même été aussi loin que de préparer une invasion du Niger, une possibilité qui a provoqué l’annonce par le Mali et le Burkina Faso que ces pays combattraient aux côtés de leur voisin en cas d’attaque par qui que ce soit.