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​If deterrence fails and diplomacy falters, how can small states defend themselves against adversaries that outnumber, outgun and outmatch them? This study seeks to contribute to the ongoing scholarly discourse on how "the few" can achieve a military upset - not just a political or a propaganda one- against "the many." In an era where asymmetric war has become the most anticipated type, understanding the innovative ways of warfare that enable the smaller forces to endure and even prevail is of paramount importance to strategic analysts, military commanders, and policymakers alike. To do so, the study coins a definition for the concept of "Hybrid Defence," contributes a new definition of "Multi-Domain Combined Arms Operations" and examines their correlations with, and impacts on, "Military Effectiveness" and "Combat Effectiveness." It then analyses selected operational arts and tactical adaptations employed by the relatively smaller forces - such as the Ukrainian Military and Security Forces, as well as nonstate forces, exemplified by the Palestinian Resistance Factions in Gaza - for confronting numerically and technologically superior adversaries. The study extracts seven key lessons and concludes with their comparative implications for the defence policies of small states, particularly in the Arab world and beyond.

This paper shed light on the impact of the sports phenomenon on international politics and how it can be thought of through the lenses of positivist approaches in the field of international relations, especially since sports in today's world are no longer just a hobby or form of entertainment but have become a globalised phenomenon that has been institutionalised globally. This necessitates careful consideration of its influence on the movement of theorising within the field of international relations in the future because of the impact it carries on the masses in various parts of the world, which are no longer, as globalisation heralded, a small village but rather have become today more like a large residential tower as a result of the revolution of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the associated widening spread of the use of social media.

There is no supranational authority that can solve international water disputes; thus, the UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (UN Watercourse Convention) may be the answer. However, as is shown in this article, when it comes to the Eastern Nile water dispute, namely between Egypt and Ethiopia, both sides can use different articles of the UN Watercourse Convention to support their legal arguments. As a result, there is little that the UN Watercourse Convention can offer to solve this dispute. This article summarizes the relevant articles of the UN Watercourse Convention and discusses the contentious, historical treaties that allocated the rights to the Nile River water over the past century. The paper also discusses how both Egypt and Ethiopia can use principles from the international water law to support their legal position rendering the dispute difficult to be solved legally. Thus, we turn to a discussion of the current state of the recent initiatives to solve the ongoing water dispute between the riparian countries in the Nile River Basin. The article concludes with the current state of dispute after the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile.

​​​AI technologies are drawing increasing attention among international relations (IR) scholars. Ingvild Bode reviews this literature through considering, in particular, the extent to which such literature continues to use or expand on well-traded analytical frameworks. She finds that scholarship on AI in IR can look back at a longer-than-expected trajectory and centres on four key themes: the balance of power; disinformation; governance; and ethics. Much of this literature works with well-established IR conceptualisations, while studies across three emerging themes – (re)conceptualising technology, beyond the AI arms race, and unpacking relevant actors – push and expand established disciplinary frameworks​.​​

Documents of Democratic Transition in the Arab World in Algeria and Sudan.

The 2011 Arab uprisings sparked hopes for positive change in the regional politics of the Middle East. The uprisings not only challenged the authority of states at the domestic level but seemed poised to disrupt regional geopolitics and alter the position of the Middle East in the international system. With the outbreak of civil wars in Syria, Libya, and Sudan, military interventions in Bahrain and Yemen, and the unprecedented proliferation of armed non- state actors in the region, the uprisings seem to drive important changes in the nature of the state and its regional and international role. Despite its artificial inception and its puzzling survival throughout the 20 th century, the Arab State faces challenges in the post- 2011 era and its vulnerabilities have been exposed. While the uprisings may have weakened Arab states, changes at regional and international levels created permissive conditions to challenge the regional state system. Hamas's 7 October 2023 operation and Israel's ensuing wars in the region have further exacerbated state erosion and reinvigorated post- 2011 regional dynamics. This paper examines how structural international and regional conditions have reshaped statehood and agency in the region post- 2011. It also explores how the responses of Arab states to international conditions and the regional reverberations of the uprisings have further generated disintegrative effects for the Arab state.

In this paper we develop a relational understanding of populism informed by urban political ecology. We argue that an urban political ecology of populism is necessary for a popular- democratic denunciation of the environmental claims of the far right. This article thereby aims to further develop a critique of liberal environmentalism and right-wing populism. We do so by first staging a dialogue between literatures in urban political ecology and Gramscian inflected readings of populism. Both have sought to interpret how spatial – and ecological – claim making becomes central to struggles over hegemony. The second half of the paper analyses these tensions in the Dutch farmers movement, which has become one of the most important political forces in the Netherlands since 2019. Abstracting "the local", "the rural" or "the farm" out of the broader processes of urbanisation is central to struggles over the representation of farmers. Right-wing movements thus seek to further a broader disillusionment with formal politics, while effectively deploying spatial and ecological abstractions that pit the "rural" against the "urban". We conclude by instead emphasising the crucial connections between populism and ecology, and call for a popular-democratic political ecology.

The Islamic Republic's foreign policy, grounded in a revolutionary commitment to Shi ʿ i transnationalism, has long been viewed as a central mechanism for securing Iran's regional influence and post-revolutionary identity. Yet recent developments, most notably the June 2025 war with Israel, raise critical questions about the sustainability of this approach. While much scholarship has explored Iran's identity-driven foreign policy, less attention has been paid to the chronic contradictions it generates within Iran's ontological security framework, or how these contradictions both shape and constrain Iran's regional conduct. This study approaches the problem by theorising Iran's predicament as an ontological trap, a condition in which identity-affirming foreign policy routines produce chronic insecurity rather than stabilisation. It introduces the concept of a security dilemma of influence to explain how transnational networks (once strategic assets) now provoke nationalist contestation and narrative fatigue in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon.

​​​​​This study examines the role of civil society organizations in supporting and enhancing youth participation in peacebuilding within the current peace process in Yemen. It investigates how these organizations' programs affect the type and effectiveness of youth participation in the peacebuilding process. The study uses in-depth interviews with representatives of civil society organizations as well as youth activists who participate in the peacebuilding programs. The results demonstrate that while organizations play an important role in supporting youth participation in peacebuilding, their programs do not necessarily lead to substantive and effective participation for youth either in the negotiation process or decision-making. Furthermore, the study highlights the differences between youth and civil society organizations regarding the peace process definition, the expected roles of actors involved, and the program outcomes. Additionally, it identifies several factors that influence the effectiveness of programs, including the expected role of the United Nations vs. reality, the coordination process between civil society organizations and alliances, the impact of funding, and challenges posed by the conflict environment in Yemen and its effects on program implementation and youth participation. Overall, this study provides a detailed analysis of the insights, challenges, and opportunities for youth engagement in the peacebuilding process through civil society in Yemen, offering observations and results that can be applicable and useful in other conflict contexts.

The success and widespread deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) have raised awareness of the technology's economic, social, and political consequences. Each new step in the development and application of AI is accompanied by speculations about a supposedly imminent but largely fictional artificial general intelligence (AGI) with (super-)human capacities, as seen in the unfolding discourse about capabilities and impact of large language models (LLMs) in the wake of ChatGPT. These far- reaching expectations lead to a discussion on the societal and political impact of AI that is largely dominated by unfocused fears and enthusiasms. In contrast, this article provides a framework for a more focused and productive analysis and discussion of AI's likely impact on one specific social field: democracy. First, it is necessary to be clear about the workings of AI. This means differentiating between what is at present a largely imaginary AGI and narrow artificial intelligence focused on solving specific tasks. This distinction allows for a critical discussion of how AI affects different aspects of democracy, including its effects on the conditions of self-rule and people's opportunities to exercise it, equality, the institution of elections, and competition between democratic and autocratic systems of government. This article shows that the consequences of today's AI are more specific for democracy than broad speculation about AGI capabilities implies. Focusing on these specific aspects will account for actual threats and opportunities and thus allow for better monitoring of AI's impact on democracy in an interdisciplinary effort by computer and social scientists.