If there is one place Saudi Arabia was happy to be low on the totem pole, it was Iran. Those days are over. Strategic thinkers in Tehran have upgraded their perception of the threat posed by the kingdom. Rather than simply viewing Saudi Arabia as a Middle Eastern extension of …

What happened at the end of Soviet times and ultimately killed off the USSR is happening again in Russia today, Boris Grozovsky of Important Stories says. The country is producing rockets and tanks “but people don’t feel” any benefit from this as a result because those increases are being paid …

The sudden unannounced arrival of the top US military officer General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a dusty American base in Syria’s remote northeast on Friday may call to mind a famous quote by Dick Cheney, vice-president in the George W Bush presidency: “The good …