From Responsible Statecraft

  • 20 years after Abu Ghraib scandal broke, victims still in court

    “To this day I feel humiliation for what was done to me The time I spent in Abu Ghraib — it ended my life. I’m only half a human now.” That’s what Abu Ghraib survivor Talib al-Majli had to say about the 16 months he spent at that notorious prison in Iraq after being captured and detained by American troops on October 31, 2003. In the wake of his release, al-Majli has continued to suffer a myriad of difficulties, including an inability to hold a job thanks to physical and mental-health deficits...

  • Gulf states renew close ties amid Gaza war

    Last year’s Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel and the subsequent Israeli war on Gaza, which has killed roughly 35,000 Palestinians, have impacted relationships within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) — members appear to be moving closer together. As the Gaza war expands into Lebanon, Yemen, the Red Sea, and elsewhere, and while Iran and Israel’s hostilities brought the region into uncharted waters earlier this month, the monarchies on the Arabian Peninsula are strengthening ties within...

  • A Putin collapse? The dangers of wishful thinking

    The Carnegie Center’s Maksim Samorukov recently published an article in Foreign Affairs entitled “Putin’s brittle regime. Like the Soviet one that preceded it, his system is always on the brink of collapse.” The argument is driven by a straightforward historical analogy. The Soviet system appeared strong and immutable, and virtually no one predicted its collapse. But collapse it did. Likewise, the Putin system appears strong and resilient, and few people can imagine its collapse. But collapse it...

  • European parliament: virtue signaling on Iran, with a sting

    As most EU governments and the bloc’s high representative for foreign policy Josep Borrell try to emphasize the need to de-escalate tensions between Iran and Israel, the European Parliament has moved sharply in the opposite direction. During its plenary session on April 25 the body adopted a resolution on “Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israel, the need for de-escalation and an EU response” which included a series of ostensibly tough measures to set that response into motion.Already the title...

  • The shortsighted US-Japan-South Korea military pact

    Driven by their common perception that North Korea and China posed growing threats to their nations’ security, U.S. President Joe Biden, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida agreed at last August’s summit at Camp David to elevate trilateral military ties to an unprecedented level. They have been demonstrating this commitment everyday since, some say to the detriment of stabilizing relations with Pyongyang and Beijing.In recent years, North Korea has...

  • New Israeli military outposts risk even bigger crisis in Gaza

    Israel is ramping up its development of a strategic route that bisects the Gaza Strip, according to new satellite imagery, which shows that Israeli forces have been modernizing two military outposts at the crossroads of key pathways Palestinians used to flee south in the earlier stages of the war. This road, part of the so-called “Netzarim Corridor,” runs east to west from the Gaza-Israel border to the Mediterranean Sea, just south of Gaza City. The Israeli army’s Engineering Corps has...

  • Staging ground for US military aid pier in Gaza attacked

    The Gazan beach staging area for the future American "surge" of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians there has already been attacked, according to official reports.According to U.S. and Israeli sources, United Nations reps who were on the beach prepping the area for the new pier came under limited mortar fire early Thursday. No one was hurt, and there was minimal damage to some engineering equipment. Early reporting from i24 News speculated that Palestinians were targeting Israeli Defense Forces...

  • PBS on William F. Buckley: Not quite getting it ‘right’

    The latest addition to PBS’s American Masters series — “The Incomparable William F. Buckley, Jr.” — makes for engrossing viewing, which isn’t surprising since Buckley himself was compulsively watchable (and readable).The story of Buckley’s life and career has been well and often told, not least by the protagonist himself. A much anticipated biography two decades in the making by Sam Tanenhaus is expected early next year. A globe-trotting journalist, editor, author, television personality, friend...

  • Americans go home: Both Niger and Chad yank the welcome mat

    The U.S. military presence in Central and West Africa is proving increasingly unwelcome. On Wednesday, the State Department announced that the U.S. would soon begin “an orderly and responsible withdrawal” of its more than 1,000 U.S. service members currently deployed in Niger.” A mere 24 hours later, came reports that the Pentagon will withdraw its 75 Army Special Forces personnel as early as next week from neighboring Chad amid uncertainty about whether Washington’s status of forces agreement...

  • Diplomacy Watch: Is new Ukraine aid a game changer?

    When the Ukraine aid bill hit President Joe Biden’s desk Wednesday, everything was already in place to speed up its impact. The Pentagon had worked overtime to prepare a massive, $1 billion weapons shipment that it could start sending “within hours” of the president’s signature. American officials even pre-positioned many of the arms in European stockpiles, an effort that will surely help get the materiel to the frontlines that much faster. For Ukraine, the new aid package is massive, both...

  • What the US should learn from Israel's aerial tit-for-tat with Iran

    The recent exchange of aerial attacks between Israel and Iran was a salient enough event to stimulate much commentary about the episode being a turning point in Middle Eastern affairs. The attacks were indeed sufficiently significant to have implications wider than the physical damage they caused. But it is important not to overstate how much turned at this turning point as well as to understand lessons the episode holds for future U.S. policy toward the Middle East.Although Iran’s missile...

  • Russia, China dump the dollar as Moscow announces new trade corridors

    Russia announced this week that its bilateral trade with China has almost completely moved away from using the U.S. dollar, highlighting the two countries’ commitment to reducing their reliance on the U.S.-led economic system.Aside from reducing dependency on the Western-dominated global currency, these ‘de-dollarization’ efforts allow Russia and China to avoid the myriad sanctions now preventing Moscow from doing business on the international market. Western sanctions have helped lead to a boom...