Recent Posts

Turkey 2030: How did we get here?

To analyze the crossroads Turkey faces in the 2023 elections, it could prove useful to “look back from the alternative futures” and explore how the possible outcomes might play out. Standing in the future, looking back It’s 2030 and seven years have passed since Turkey’s critical May 2023 elections. Since …

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Not so fast: The case for a new SWIFT

In the new Netflix hit series The Diplomat, a fictional UK prime minister accurately ticks through the ways Russian President Vladimir Putin has been punished for his invasion of Ukraine: “We sanctioned Russian debt, embargoed their oil, and banned them from SWIFT.” In the fifteen months since Russia’s full-scale invasion …

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Russian Border Region Says Ukrainian ‘Sabotage’ Unit Carried Out Incursion

The head of Russia’s Belgorod region which borders Ukraine, claimed Monday that a Ukrainian “sabotage group” had infiltrated the region, while anti-Kremlin Russians fighting alongside Ukraine’s forces appeared to take responsibility. “A VSU [armed forces of Ukraine] sabotage group entered the territory of Grayvoron district,” Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote …

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China Looks to Fill a Void in Central Asia

Is the region becoming the next battleground for great power competition? Not if Central Asian states have anything to say about it. As the Group of Seven met at the end of last week in Hiroshima, Japan, China organized a summit with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, marking a …

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How Far Will the Thaw in Russia-Georgia Relations Extend?

The Georgian Dream’s gains from rapprochement with Moscow are quite nebulous, while the risks are very real. But the party itself, which has made a number of unforced errors lately, may see things differently.Russian President Vladimir Putin’s surprise move to scrap visa requirements for Georgian nationals and resume direct flights …

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