War is raging on Ukrainian soil, but the Russian forces have thus far failed to surround and isolate Kiev, the Ukrainian capital. The United States, Great Britain, and the European Union are fully coordinating their response, with a focus on three areas: economic and political isolation of Russia; the supply of military aid to Ukraine; and stepped-up military preparations among NATO countries. It is already clear that Russia’s action upsets the world order that has existed since the end of World War II, and is likely to cause...
President Ebrahim Raisi’s visit to Moscow reflects a strategic decision by the Iranian regime to strengthen ties with the East, at the expense of the trend of openness to the West led by President Hassan Rouhani. This reversal is a point of contention between the political currents in Iran. However, with the support of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the leading interests will continue to be an alternative to ties with the West, military strengthening, and political support in international institutions. Israel must take into...
The events surrounding the Ukraine crisis – irrespective of whether Russia continues to realize its threats to invade, or the NATO countries and Russia reach agreements that at least for now remove the threat of a Russian full-scale attack against Ukraine – already pose challenges to the international order that has existed for the past three decades. Similarly, they have direct and indirect, immediate and longer-term consequences for the Middle East in general, and for Israel in particular. In any case, and even if Israel prefers to...
The joint announcement by the presidents of China and Russia following their meeting on February 4, 2022 sharpens the conclusion that unlike in the first incarnation of the Cold War, where for the most part these two countries pursued different policies toward the United States, in the new version of this war they form a united front against it. The ideological dimension that separated them has been replaced by a set of fairly similar national-political economic and military interests. In the first round of the Cold War, when the...
