Author: M Barbu

Cold Capitalism And The Carbon Curtain – Analysis

Imagine yourself as a civilian in eastern Ukraine in autumn 2022. Only a few months ago, an apartment building in your neighborhood was obliterated by a HIMARS rocket, which sent a wave of concrete dust careening in every direction. You and your family moved your belongings to a friend’s cellar, a humid, drafty, and claustrophobic space but somewhat safer from the rockets screaming daily overhead. The air outside is murky with a perpetual haze of smoke that infiltrates the lungs.

Blundering on the Brink

The Secret History and Unlearned Lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis

There aren’t enough palm trees, the Soviet general thought to himself. It was July 1962, and Igor Statsenko, the 43-year-old Ukrainian-born commander of the Red Army’s missile division, found himself inside a helicopter, flying over central and western Cuba. Below him lay a rugged landscape, with few roads and little forest. Seven weeks earlier, his superior—Sergei Biryuzov, the commander of the Soviet Strategic Missile Forces—had traveled to Cuba disguised as an agricultural expert. Biryuzov had met with the country’s prime minister, Fidel Castro, and shared with him an extraordinary proposal from the Soviet Union’s leader, Nikita Khrushchev, to station ballistic nuclear missiles on Cuban soil. Biryuzov, an artilleryman by training who knew little about missiles, returned to the Soviet Union to tell Khrushchev that the missiles could be safely hidden under the foliage of the island’s plentiful palm trees.

Is Wagner Pivoting Back to Africa?

Ukraine Isn’t the Only Place Where America Must Counter Russia’s Mercenaries

Russia’s infamous Wagner paramilitary company may be headed for defeat in Ukraine. The group has sustained enormous losses in the last five months, and its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is embroiled in a high-stakes feud with Russia’s top military brass, who have accused him of indirectly aiding Ukraine by “sowing rifts” among Russian forces. Late last week, Prigozhin publicly castigated Russia’s senior military leadership for not supplying Wagner with enough ammunition and threatened to withdraw his forces from the city of Bakhmut. According to the British Ministry of Defense, the Kremlin may be looking to replace the Wagner contingent in Ukraine with forces from another private military company—one that it can more tightly control.

Afghanistan Webinar

On Thursday, The Soufan Center hosted a virtual discussion on the security, political, and human rights dimensions of the current situation in Afghanistan. Moderated by TSC’s Colin P. Clarke, the conversation featured Arian Sharifi, Amira Jadoon, and Ioannis Koskinas, with an introduction by our Executive Director Naureen Chowdhury Fink.

Sudan: Fighting Forces 130,000 Refugees to Seek Safety in Ethiopia

Thousands of Sudanese refugees fleeing the conflict in Sudan are expected to arrive in Ethiopia, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) announced.

It anticipates the arrival of up to 130,000 refugees, including 100,000 Ethiopians and the remainder being foreign nationals.

U.S. Is Interfering In Türkiye’s Elections, Says Interior Minister

The U.S. is meddling in Türkiye’s upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections, Ankara’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu claimed on Friday.

Speaking to CNN Turk, Soylu weighed in on the decision by presidential candidate Muharrem Ince, who leads the opposition Homeland Party, to drop out of the race on Thursday ahead of Sunday’s vote.

Russian Eurasianism and its Eastern European counterparts 100 years ago and today

Political-geographical imagery, imagination and geopolitics.

The Eurasian Complex

Russian Eurasianism, whose centenary we celebrated in 2021, is a complex phenomenon that can only be fully understood if we carefully consider the context of its birth and development.

Russian Eurasianism as a specific philosophical and political current emerges in the specific Russian philosophical and cultural space of the Silver Age. This space was already characterized by a “turning to the East”, a reflection on the “East” and “pan-Mongolism” by Vladimir Solovyov, and a literary current of “Scythianism”, in which Solovyov’s reflections and fears were reversed into an acceptance of the “Scythian”, “Eastern” dimension of Russian identity. In the 1917 revolution, some Silver Age figures (e.g., A. Blok in “The Scythians”) saw precisely this dimension of Russian origins emerge.

The Zionist Plan for the Middle East

“A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties”

Published by the Association of Arab-American University Graduates, Inc.
Belmont, Massachusetts, 1982
Special Document No. 1 (ISBN 0-937694-56-8)

Publisher’s Note

1

The Association of Arab-American University Graduates finds it compelling to inaugurate its new publication series, Special Documents, with Oded Yinon’s article which appeared in Kivunim (Directions), the journal of the Department of Information of the World Zionist Organization. Oded Yinon is an Israeli journalist and was formerly attached to the Foreign Ministry of Israel. To our knowledge, this document is the most explicit, detailed and unambiguous statement to date of the Zionist strategy in the Middle East. Furthermore, it stands as an accurate representation of the “vision” for the entire Middle East of the presently ruling Zionist regime of Begin, Sharon and Eitan. Its importance, hence, lies not in its historical value but in the nightmare which it presents.

Greater Middle East: Sequel

However, the apparent victims of what is happening remain people of the Middle East and European countries themselves, which take hundreds of thousands of refugees and forced migrants. The bombings and military operations are in areas far from Brussels, Washington and Moscow. To clarify the situation we will try to answer the fundamental question – Quid prodest – who benefits?

The Balkans and the Middle East: Byzantine heritage and realism

Understanding current market or economic conditions and the interests of various competitors is not sufficient to adequately comprehend ongoing geopolitical processes. This is especially true for the Middle East and the Balkans. A deep analysis and deconstruction of existing regional systems are needed to identify elements of interdependence and develop possible responses to all sorts of challenges.