Blog Posts

"Iraqi security forces fired live bullets and tear gas against protesters in Baghdad on Thursday, despite a curfew that was announced in the Iraqi capital hours earlier amid deadly violence gripping the country and anti-government protests that killed 19 people this week."

"A major incursion could prompt Trump administration to withdraw troops, essentially ending fight against Islamic State in Syria."

"Israel is fighting off Iranian expansion across the Middle East, but danger for the Jewish state lurks near its own borders. Painstaking work by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and their loyal proxies has succeeded in laying the groundwork for a second Iranian front with Israel in the Golan Heights."

"The Taliban announced Wednesday they are sending a high-level delegation to Pakistan’s capital as part of a tour that has included Russia, China and Iran in a push to resurrect an Afghanistan peace deal with Washington that seemed imminent just a month ago."

"U.S. forces in northern Iraq, working with partners on the ground, are confident that the remnants of the Islamic State can be confronted, two years after ISIS lost the last pockets of land it held. It has been five years since Washington committed forces to Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve."

"Russia and European powers, eager to end a protracted military conflict in war-torn eastern Ukraine, welcomed a new accord between Ukraine and Russia-backed separatists, but many in Ukraine dismissed the election agreement Wednesday as a capitulation to Moscow."

"There are several reasons Afghan officials are struggling to determine how people voted in the presidential election last week — possible fraud, misplaced biometric data and the country’s vast geography. But there is one factor that has complicated the effort more than any other: the Taliban’s tactic of destroying cellphone towers."

"It would be erroneous and dangerous to believe that ISIS has been defeated. ISIS today is no longer confined to the territories it held in Syria and Iraq but has a wider international presence. It is more dispersed and is geared up for an unrelenting insurgency. It is time that the United States takes ISIS’s resurgence seriously and develops a clear strategy for combating the group on multiple fronts."

"Iran has no interest in a wide-ranging conflict that it knows it could not win. Israel is satisfied with calibrated operations in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza but fears a larger confrontation that could expose it to thousands of rockets. Saudi Arabia is determined to push back against Iran, but without confronting it militarily. Yet the conditions for an all-out war in the Middle East are riper than at any time in recent memory."

"Talks to end the five-year conflict in eastern Ukraine produced the first major breakthrough since a lapsed 2015 peace accord, paving the way for an international summit to cement progress."

U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban political negotiators have arrived in neighboring Pakistan amid a renewed diplomatic push to resurrect peace talks between Washington and the insurgent group.

"The shadowy head of Iran's elite Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, gave an insight on his role in Lebanon during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, in a rare interview broadcast Tuesday on state television."

"War simmers in battle for Tripoli, with neither side getting decisive support."

"A flurry of recent developments, including Saudi Arabia’s reported agreement to a partial cease-fire in Yemen, are recognition that the Houthis remain an obstinate enemy that’s gaining in military sophistication."

A reporting crew from state-run First Channel television flew to the Central African Republic to investigate how Russia was ostensibly helping to stabilize the impoverished, violence-ridden country. There were more than 100 military instructors, a top Russian adviser in the country, told the channel, for that reason.

"U.S. aircraft dropped more bombs in Afghanistan in the month of August than during the past six years for that month as peace negotiations between the Taliban and U.S. entered into the final stages."

"Facing Taliban threats, voters took risks simply by showing up."

"The U.S. military says it has carried out an airstrike against the Islamic State group in Libya, the latest in a series of airstrikes by the U.S. in the North African country over the past 10 days."

"Chinese President Xi Jinping presided over a grandiose military parade marking the 70th anniversary of Communist rule, a projection of strength as the country wrestles with a challenge from President Trump, while Hong Kong braced for another round of anti-Beijing protests."

CSIS Senior Adviser Mark Cancian annually produces a series of papers on U.S. military forces, including composition, new initiatives, long-term trends, and challenges. This first white paper in the series analyzes the strategy and budget context for building forces in FY 2020, criticisms of the strategy, budget and resulting force plans, and risks for sustaining force levels in the future.

As Afghans await the results of a presidential election roiled by Taliban threats, the government used its platform at the U.N. General Assembly on Monday to tell the insurgents: "Join us in peace, or we will continue to fight."

"The U.S. military said it launched retaliatory airstrikes targeting al-Shabab militants following the group’s brazen attack on a U.S. commando outpost."

"Nearly 18 years after U.S. forces first dropped into Afghanistan, yet another administration is struggling to get out of the quagmire. And the struggle is not going well."

"There are now up to 12,000 Chinese troops in Hong Kong, diplomats tell Reuters. Among them: members of the People’s Armed Police, a paramilitary force that answers to Xi Jinping."

"Somalia’s Islamic extremist rebels on Monday launched two attacks on U.S. and European military targets, officials said."