An attack on a military parade in the southern Iranian city of Ahwaz is likely to prompt Iranian retaliation against opposition groups at home and abroad. It also deepens Iranian fears that the United States. Saudi Arabia and others may seek to destabilize the country by instigating unrest among its ethnic minorities. With competing claims …
Continue reading Attack in Iran Raises Spectre of a Potentially Far Larger Conflagration
The five countries of the Caspian Sea region signed an agreement on the body of water’s official status and agreed to work together with one another to prevent conflicts. President Putin hailed the Convention on the Caspian Sea’s Legal Status for its “landmark significance” because it’s the first time that all the relevant states agreed …
Continue reading Iran’s Responsible for the Caspian Summit’s Success
As the US/Turkish relationship deteriorates it is having spillover effects around the region. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s continued defiance of US’s demands have placed Turkey in the cross-hairs of a vicious hybrid-war attack on the country’s fragile economic foundation. So, I find it very interesting that during the week of the greatest turmoil in …
Continue reading Caspian Deal Highlights Shift in Azerbaijan
The long-awaited deal on the legal status of the Caspian Sea signed on Sunday in the Kazakh port of Aktau is a defining moment in the ongoing, massive drive towards Eurasia integration. Up to the early 19th century, the quintessentially Eurasian body of water – a connectivity corridor between Asia and Europe over a wealth …
Continue reading All Hands on Deck: The Caspian Sails Towards Eurasia Integration
A Trump administration decision to sanction two key Turkish officials in retaliation for the continued detention of an American cleric coupled with unqualified support for Israel and the adoption of a backseat in Syria threatens to further undermine US influence in the Eastern Mediterranean, a key part of the world in which Russia, Iran, China …
Continue reading Big Power Competition in the Eastern Mediterranean: Is Trump Missing the Point?
Erik Prince, the brain behind the infamous private military firm Blackwater, is now in China training security forces. Prince is partially responsible for modernizing the private army for the post 9/11 world, outsourcing militaries to cheap, specialized labor pools and skirting traditional regulations meant to ensure accountability for armed forces. His journey from hiring mercenaries …
Continue reading Mapping Erik Prince’s Private Mercenary Empire
Thousands of young protesters swarmed Tbilisi’s streets as part of what they claim is their impromptu “White Noise” movement that arose in response to the authorities’ latest anti-drug raids against their city’s most popular night clubs last Friday. They allege that too many innocents were unnecessarily roughed up by police after they burst into two …
Continue reading Georgia’s “Rave Revolution” Began in Armenia and Might End in Azerbaijan
“Opposition” leader Nikol Pashinyan’s call for a so-called “general strike” after parliament rejected his bid for Prime Minister has led to the self-imposed blockade of Armenia after “protesters” shut down the only highways connecting the landlocked country with the outside world, bringing this failing South Caucasian state closer to economic suicide and the resultant military-political …
Continue reading Pashinyan’s Self-Imposed Blockade is Economic Suicide for Armenia
Russia was never going to “intervene” in stopping the Armenian Color Revolution (or “people’s revolution” as its supporters at home and abroad are referring to it as), and manufacturing a news event out of this non-existent issue is useful only in furthering weaponized infowar narratives such as maintaining the so-called “Russian threat” and making it …
Continue reading The News That Russia Won’t Intervene in Armenia is an Infowar In and Of Itself
