By Damimola Olawuyi, Divergent Options: "For the foreseeable future, any foreign policy towards Africa will need a robust counter terrorism component."
By Col. (res.) Dr. Dan Gottlieb and Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Mordechai Kedar, May 4, 2020
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is constantly looking for opportunities to enhance its status as a regional superpower and promote its Islamist ideology in the Arab Middle East. Libya is the newest arena in which Erdoğan is trying to capitalize on inter-Arab rivalries, this time in service to his desire to lay claim to gas under the seabed of the Mediterranean.
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Tunisia announced on Wednesday that the state of emergency in force since 2015 will be extended by an additional month, according to a presidential statement. The announcement coincides with the government’s plan to ease the coronavirus-linked lockdown beginning next week. Tunisia has been under a state of emergency since November 2015, when a suicide bombing in Tunis claimed by the Islamic State killed 12 presidential guards.
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By Trita Parsi, RealClearDefense: "Mindful of the dwindling importance of Middle East oil to the U.S. and the U.S.’s lack of resources and expertise to “fix” dysfunctional states in that region, the cost-benefit analysis of retaining military hegemony in the Middle East no longer makes sense."
In Defense of Deterrence
By Michael Rühle, National Institute for Public Policy: "As the international environment is characterized by increased competition, the concept of deterrence, after over two decades of having received scant attention in the West, has re-entered the strategic lexicon."
By Dr. James M. Dorsey, May 4, 2020
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: It is early days, but first indications are that the global coronavirus pandemic is entrenching long-drawn Middle Eastern geopolitical, political, ethnic, and sectarian battle lines rather than serving as a vehicle to build bridges and boost confidence. Gulf states are taking contradictory approaches to the problem of ensuring that entrenched conflicts do not spiral out of control as they battle the pandemic and struggle to cope with the economic fallout.
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