Experts say US sanctions failed to reach their ultimate objective of forcing Iran into major political and military concessions
The Islamic Republic of Iran will receive an entire squadron of Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets from Russia as Tehran and Moscow strengthen their defense and economic collaboration in defiance of broad sanctions and coercive measures, Al-Manar news reported on 28 December.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent shock waves round the world. As our look ahead to 2023 shows, several other crises loom as well.
Will he or won’t he? This time last year, that was the question. Russian President Vladimir Putin had massed almost two hundred thousand troops on Ukraine’s borders. U.S. intelligence warned that Russia was preparing for all-out war. All the signs pointed to an assault, bar one: it seemed unthinkable.
L’Azerbaïdjan et la Turquie s’efforcent d’établir le « corridor de Zangezur », en contradiction directe avec les intérêts de l’Iran et de l’Arménie, car il implique le blocage du corridor de Lachin, qui constitue une ligne de vie pour les Arméniens du Haut-Karabakh.
Alors qu’aux États-Unis (qui fabriquent et vendent la moitié de toutes les armes de guerre du monde), les fabricants d’armes de guerre sont des sociétés privées qui ne réussissent qu’à enrichir leurs investisseurs, les fabricants d’armes de guerre russes sont majoritairement détenus par le gouvernement et ne réussissent qu’à gagner les guerres de la Russie – en servant le gouvernement, qui contrôle ces sociétés, au lieu de servir les investisseurs privés, qui contrôlent le gouvernement lui-même par le biais de lobbying et de dons politiques.
Since September, Kosovo’s fragile stability that has endured since 1999, following intervention by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), has grown progressively precarious. Clashes between ethnic Serbians and Kosovo security forces saw Serbia’s military placed on high alert in November. Several high-profile Serbian officials, including President Aleksandar Vučić, announced that the Serbian military could be deployed to northern Kosovo to protect the ethnic Serbs, who make up the majority of the population in the region.
In the early days of the Covid pandemic, pro-Kremlin commentators praised China’s successful Zero-Covid policy as proof of the superiority of authoritarian regimes in protecting their citizens. China’s recent difficulties with this policy as exemplified by the harsh lockdowns and the mass protests that they have sparked, has not produced a reassessment of the original viewpoint. The earlier triumphalism had vanished, once Russia itself experienced difficulties in coping with the pandemic.
On November 1, the deputy director of Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation downplayed remarks made on October 30 by an agency official, who warned of Western weapons bound for Ukraine being smuggled into Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Nonetheless, the affair generated significant attention and reflected previous concerns expressed by European authorities over Ukraine’s vulnerability to organized crime and the repercussions for the continent.
Colossal structural shifts are taking place in the global economy, as evidenced by the huge challenges during the ongoing year. In 2023, China seeks recovery, but the West – the US, the Eurozone and the UK, and Japan – will cope with recession and the specter of a debt crisis.
In a recent Foreign Affairs commentary, Mohamed A. El-Erian warned that we are not facing just extraordinarily challenging business-cycle fluctuations, but structural and secular long-term pressures. As a result, “the global economy may never be the same.”
Anatoly Nesmiyan, who blogs under the screen name “El Murid,” says that Putin is putting in place “a mechanism for conducting permanent war since his regime cannot exist in a peaceful form” and must find enemies in order to justify the kind of rule the Kremlin leader prefers in Russia.
The US says the two allies are giving each other ‘unprecedented support’ in Ukraine.
Iran is now Russia’s biggest military backer.
That’s the warning from the US National Security Council.