Latest Articles

One year has passed since the start of coalition air strikes against ISIL in Syria. Over that year ISIL has endured setbacks and defeats in a number of areas, perhaps the most important of which are Ain al-Arab (Kobani) and Hasaka. However, it succeeded in expanding its influence and incorporated new towns and villages such as Tadmur, the eastern Rif Homs, northern Rif Aleppo, Qalamon, and the Yarmouk refugee camp in the capital into its “state”. In this way it cut up the majority of Syrian territory and threatened strategic centers and urban areas such as Homs and the capital Damascus. The paper concludes that ISIL is imposing the rhythm and variables of battle in various parts of Syria. The international coalition remains unable to eliminate it or degrade it in the short or medium term. Eliminating ISIL may take years if the piecemeal US approach to confronting it continues as now.

Beginning in 1995, Qatar underwent a major transformation in its foreign policy, adopting an independent and neutral foreign policy as a result of being located in an important vital, geopolitical and economic region, with tensions between the influential regional powers. Given the importance of mediation in resolving disputes and bringing peace to a region raging in conflict, Qatar adopted a foreign policy approach of dialogue, good offices, mediation, and preventive diplomacy, and worked to settle disputes and crises peacefully, remaining impartial and independent, in accordance with the provisions of international law and the Charter of the United Nations. This study explores Qatar policy and experience in mediation and dispute settlement and highlights its active role and contribution over the past twenty years, by clarifying the features of its foreign policy, strategy, and principles, and highlighting case studies of previous Qatari mediation.

This study examines US foreign policy and the changes that occurred under former President Donald Trump, compared to other post-Cold War administrations, assessing their impact on the future of US hegemony and the liberal international system, with projections for current president Joe Biden's rule. Two main questions arise: First, what foreign policies did Trump pursue? Second, what impact do they have on the future of US hegemony and the liberal international order? The analysis studies the concept of hegemony in international relations theory. It concludes with three possible scenarios awaiting the future of US hegemony under Biden's rule, with his administration likely to move between partial reform and catastrophic failure.

The post-Cold War environment has produced a world distribution structure different from that of the system prevailing in the 1945-1991 period. Geographical regions of pivotal value have emerged as important arenas of competition among the great powers, each drawing strength from the prominent features of location and resources. Referencing these same features, this study examines the geopolitical importance of Arab and Islamic countries within the international system. It posits a set of factors to inform an understanding of the international system's evolving nature: energy, the distribution of power and hegemonies in the geopolitical spaces of Europe and Asia.

The paper investigates and analyzes the regional and international interactions with the conflict in Libya, focusing on the period following the December 2015 political agreement in Skhirat, Morocco. The paper argues that this agreement is the result of a limited consensus among domestic and regional forces. These forces have moulded their foreign policies, over the course of the conflict, based on a balance between concerns over the political and economic effects of the Libyan democratic transition and their interests and ambitions for greater control and influence. The conflict of interests between the external forces was a substantial factor along with other internal determinants that have contributed to obstructing the democratic transition process. Therefore, this paper explores a series of research questions, mainly focusing on the role and behavior of the influential external forces in Libya's domestic politics.

Through the contributions of an important number of experts, the book is trying to analyze China's strategy and the impact of its role at the international level, from the end of the Cold War to 2016.

​This paper agrues that although the Arab Gulf is strategically located and of economic importance to China, the Gulf states did not fall along the original routes demarcated by the Belt and Road initiative roadmap. Nevertheless, both China and these states have begun to engage with the initiative and its projects by signing strategic partnerships, and to enmesh these projects with perspectives on national development in the Gulf. This has unsettled the United States and its allies, some of whom have begun to view this expansion as a serious challenge. As a result, there has been an attempt to impede the initiative's projects through debt-trap debate, geopolitical alliances, and putting forth alternative economic proposals. This study argues that the Gulf is of great concern to China and the requirements of the Belt and Road initiative, identifying where the Arab Gulf states are located on the initiative map and illustrating the way in which each state has gradually become involved in associated projects. It considers Western mechanisms and alternative projects in response to respond to and impede the initiative and the degree to which these mechanisms may apply to the Gulf states. The paper presents deductive observations as to China's likely approach in the event that the initiative is obstructed and its interests undermined. Will it modify its foreign strategy – and will this impact the Gulf?

​This study is about the state-building impasse in the Arab World in General, and in Libya in particular. These states have suffered, since the beginning of the Arab Spring, from lack of political prospects, eruptions of civil wars, and obstacles of political settlements among different actors in the public space. These elements have inhibited the achievement of state building, the formation of a pluralist political system and the realization of an integrated national identity. This study endeavors to analyze the obstacles that have obstructed state-building in Libya until now. It focuses on tribalism and regionalism as main obstacles to that process. In addition, it analyzes the role of external factors and actors in the light of tribalism and regionalism. It argues that state-building in Libya has stumbled and has not followed a gradual path of modern state-building and formation, and it has not gone through the necessary stages of political transition. The former has trapped Libya within narrow loyalties which are short of the wider loyalties necessary for the national state.

Today, India is actively engaged in projecting its influence beyond its geographic proximity. It has a proactive policy based on national interests and driven by its growing needs, particularly for energy imports, and an ambition to achieve a position of global prominence. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is of great geopolitical importance to India's strategy because of its geographic proximity, the abundance of energy resources, the great financial assets, and as the place with the largest Indian immigrant community. Nevertheless, many regional contenders may challenge India's interests in the region. This article discusses the geopolitical and economic importance of the GCC states and their current position in India's strategy. It explores the driving forces behind novel strategic partnerships between them. It also analyses how third-party relations with the GCC states or India may affect their relationships, such as China, Pakistan, and Iran. It also focuses on the new containment policy of India and China and their geopolitical contest over the Gulf and the GCC's hydrocarbon and financial assets.

Mercantilism presents itself as an explicit model of economic nationalism. Since its early application to the new protectionism, economic nationalism has theorized that economic activities must be subject to the maximization of the power of the state. This article aims to explain economic nationalism and track the evolution of its application, primarily to analyse its viability as a theory in the midst of economic globalization which threatens to bring about the de facto end of the state's interventionist economic system in a borderless world. As the article refutes the premise that globalization and nationalism are two sides of the same coin, national economies continue to be driven by disguised new forms of economic nationalism.