Conflict Trends Update

IRAN

In a 30-2 vote (with three abstentions), the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Board of Governors on Wednesday passed a resolution censuring Iran’s lack of cooperation in answering agency safeguards concerns on activities at undeclared sites.

With Lavrov in Turkey, a different war may dominate talks

When Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visits his Turkish counterpart, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, in Ankara this week, Turkey’s proposal to establish a safe transport corridor for Ukrainian grain exports will be a top agenda item. If realized, the Black Sea corridor would require a naval escort, mine-clearing, and inspections to ensure that grain ships do not transport weapons—delicate tasks that necessitate a Turkish role because of the country’s geography. There is plenty at stake: The United Nations and economists are warning that continued blockage of Ukrainian grain exports could lead to famine and instability in Africa and privation elsewhere. Meanwhile, Ukraine has accused Russia of looting its grain.

As Europe withdraws from Mali, Russia gets the upper hand

When Mali’s government saw Tuareg separatists and jihadists storming from the north toward the capital Bamako in 2012, it turned to France—a former colonial power—for help. Operation Serval stopped the advance and was later transformed into a regional counterterrorism operation, dubbed Barkhane. France was gradually joined by other European countries, and the Sahel region had come to host the largest deployment of European forces abroad—with around eight thousand troops.

Allied resolve: NATO perspectives on the Russian invasion of Ukraine

The Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security is delighted to invite you to a conversation on “Allied resolve: NATO perspectives on the Russian invasion of Ukraine” with four former NATO Secretaries General on Wednesday, June 15 from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. EDT (16:00 to 17:00 CET) on Zoom. This edition of the Atlantic Council’s Front Page event series will feature Secretaries General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Lord George Robertson, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, and Javier Solana in a discussion on how to better address the crisis.

Vietnam Modernizes Its Military With a Wary Eye on China

Ukraine’s successes in resisting and even turning back an invasion by a numerically superior Russian force has raised expectations in East Asia that smaller nations in the region could conceivably fend off an attack from a large military like China’s. Taiwan, of course, has long struggled with executing such a defense strategy, but since its strategic considerations are in many ways unique, other countries nominally threatened by China may not be able to draw as many lessons from Taipei’s experience. Ukraine’s performance in its war against Russia, on the other hand, may look to them like a more relevant model—for better or worse.

Turkey Is Playing With Fire in Syria—Again

While the war in Syria has receded from the international spotlight, residents in the country’s northeast are bracing for a new wave of armed conflict. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has for months threatened to launch a military invasion of the region to push back Syrian Kurdish fighters and create a buffer zone in the border area between the two countries. Turkish military deployments and diplomatic outreach to Russia suggest that a decision from Ankara to launch a military operation is likely and may even possibly be imminent.

Syria’s ‘Cold’ Civil War Could Easily Get Hot Again

Back in June 2011, when news began to filter out from Syria of the first signs of armed resistance against the Baathist regime of President Bashar al-Assad, few could have predicted the level of disruption to the global order that the conflict in Syria would go on to produce. After months of brutal violence against protesters inflicted by the Assad regime, local inhabitants around the town of Jisr al-Shughour in the northern province of Idlib seized a police station on June 4, triggering a major shift whose implications few observers fully understood. Two days later, armed resistance led by police officers who had defected to the opposition in the face of approaching Syrian military units marked the beginning of a conflict that would reshape the politics of the Middle East and Europe.

Moroccan Navy Rescues 385 Migrants Crossing Mediterranean To Reach Europe

The Moroccan Navy rescued 385 migrants heading for Spain last week, the official news agency MAP reported on Wednesday. The migrants, including women and minors, are mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, the agency quoted a military statement as saying. They were traveling in several inflatable boats in the Strait of Gibraltar, which separates Africa from Europe. Some of the migrants were in poor health condition and received first aid from the navy, before being brought back to different Moroccan ports, according to the report. Morocco has become a transit country for African migrants seeking to reach Europe for better living conditions. The shortest distance from Morocco’s Mediterranean coasts to Spain is only 14 kilometers at the Strait of Gibraltar.