Carnegie Moscow Center
In recent years the nature of Russian-Turkish relationship has proved to be nuanced. For Moscow and Ankara it is important to separate cooperative wheat from antagonizing chaff.
In isolation, Turkey’s actions in Iraq and Syria appear strategically myopic and potentially self-defeating, but they do accept that even an assured victory against ISIS irregulars could end up empowering the same regime Ankara has pledged to remove from power.
South Asia is more vulnerable to a possible nuclear conflict than any other region. It is necessary to take a number of urgent steps to stabilize relations between India and Pakistan and prevent a nuclear threat.
Most Islamic State fighters on the ground are local Syrians and Iraqis. Many of them are conservative and religious, but the vast majority are not ideological Salafi-jihadis.
If common sense prevails and the West resumes its cooperation with Russia, the consolidated response to security threats in Afghanistan will be far more effective than the current disjointed efforts by various countries.
Even though tensions over Ukraine will inevitably cast a shadow over the bilateral relationship, Russia and Turkey—a NATO member—continue to share a range of important interests.
Islam-state relations embody a range of political and ideological issues that are inseparable from factors of ethnic tradition, culture, and migration.
The Ukraine crisis has betrayed fissures in the Russo-Kazakh relationship. It is difficult to predict a post-Nazarbayev Kazakh policy toward Russia, but developments in Ukraine suggest that future Kazakh leaders will have to deal with a new source of friction with the Kremlin.
The apparently long-term rupture of Russia’s relations with the West offers an opportunity to China to enhance its already close relationship with the Kremlin and thus turn the global geopolitical balance in its favor.
The world can be an awfully dangerous and unpredictable place.