Following Ukraine’s successful Kherson counteroffensive in the fall of 2022, the war in Ukraine has moved into the Materialschlacht, or war of attrition phase, which is rapidly depleting critical resources. Typically, when discussing resources in this sense, Ukraine is most often referring to the tanks, missiles, ammunition and other materiel that it needs from its partner countries.
Abstract: Despite dominating the headlines for almost a decade, surprisingly little is known about the Islamic State’s internal organization. After the declaration of the caliphate in June 2014, the organization’s center of gravity rested in the offices of the caliph and the spokesman and the Delegated Committee. Yet, with the deaths of successive caliphs, the territorial demise in the Levant, and the growing importance of its external provinces, the General Directorate of Provinces has emerged as the organization’s most decisive body. This is the first exhaustive account of the Islamic State’s most important, yet little understood, institution.
Introduction:
Maritime tensions between Greece and Turkey, rendered in opposing mythologies of national sovereignty, are nothing new. The hostility between both states dates back to their founding periods. These conflicts have typically taken the form of a dormant conflict with periodic flare-ups.
Pakistan’s security landscape has become increasingly volatile, as evidenced by the recent spate of attacks on military bases and law enforcement officers. A newly emerged group, Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistan (TJP), has claimed responsibility for a brazen assault on a military base in Northern Balochistan, resulting in casualties among soldiers.
Rivalries between great powers, even for regions like the Illyrian Empire, go deep into the twilight of history. For a long time, the competition for dominance in this region was between the big ones such as the USA and the USSR; whereas today the USA, Russia, Turkey and China face each other. Whatever the constellation of these powers with the EU, the geopolitical realignment of our two republics is clear.
In a world where consumerism is our religion and Ikea catalogs are our bibles, the subject of psychological warfare in the military might seem far removed, if not wholly irrelevant.
Psychological warfare, it’s not just for soldiers on some distant battlefield, no. It’s playing out every day in boardrooms and on social media. Whether we realize it or not, we are in the constant crossfire of psychological warfare.
At the Konstantinovsky Palace in St. Petersburg, Russian President Vladimir Putin held his first meeting with Dilma Rousseff, President of the New Development Bank (NDB), established by the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) in 2015. Rousseff, the first woman to lead the bank, was appointed to head it earlier this year by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
In a recent development, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan issued a stark warning about the escalating tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, raising concerns over the potential outbreak of a new war. The two nations have a long history of conflict over the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh, with efforts toward a lasting peace treaty showing limited progress. Diplomatic mediation by the European Union, United States, and Russia has yielded few results, leaving the situation highly volatile and complex.
The U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on July 25 repeated U.S. warnings that Russia could use sea mines to blow up a ship and blame the attack on Ukraine.
Ambassador Michael Carpenter said Russia would use such an incident — known as a false flag attack — to justify further attacks against civilian ships in the Black Sea.
In recent years, the Maghreb has been showing signs of an accelerated regional disintegration in the midst of heightened intra-regional conflict. It remains to be seen whether this is a temporary period of tension or if the region has become immersed in a ‘cold war’ that could heat up.