Recent Posts

Kosovo And The Lesson From Nagorno-Karabakh – OpEd

It remains an open question whether differing ethnic and/or religious groups – tribes if you will – can share a state without conflict turning into ethnic cleansing. Since antiquity, history offers few examples except at times in large multi-ethnic empires such as the Roman, Ottoman and American. Even in the …

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The End of Nagorno-Karabakh

How Western Inaction Enabled Azerbaijan and Russia The third war over Nagorno-Karabakh, the long-disputed Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan, ended almost as soon as it began. At 1 PM on September 19, Azerbaijani forces began attacking the territory with artillery and drones in what it called an “antiterror” operation. Within 24 …

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Spotlight on Iran

Overview The IRGC commander responded to the Israeli Mossad chief’s threats to increase Israel’s activity against Iran, warning that if Israel continues its assassination policy, its life will be shortened, and Iran will have the upper hand. The Iranian media reported on a visit to Syria by Qods Force Commander …

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Intelligence Work Is Exciting. And Traumatizing

Many people grow up wanting to be secret agents. I fell into the field somewhat by chance—though it turned out I was good at it and advanced quickly. Less than a year into the job, I volunteered to deploy to Iraq, where the United States was hunting down terrorists like …

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Trauma Takes a Toll in the U.S. Intelligence Community

There was nothing that unusual about the day when Karen Sudkamp reached her breaking point. She had spent years as an intelligence analyst watching drone videos of terrorists and military operations in almost real time. She had never thought much about the toll it was taking, until that one day …

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Turkey’s Erdogan meets Azerbaijan’s Aliyev as Armenians flee Nagorno-Karabakh

Ankara is backing the oil-rich Turkic nation’s current drive to seize all of Nagorno-Karabakh. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev in Nakhichevan, an Azerbaijani exclave bordering Turkey, as thousands of ethnic Armenians continued to flee Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia proper in the wake of a …

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