Open Dialogue Research Journal
In his second term, US President Donald Trump has gone the way of past executive tribunes of the American imperium in seeking land and resources like a kleptomaniacal pincher. This has been bracing, not least for a foreign policy establishment inured to the hypocrisies of virtue concealed in the international […]
Fighting in Yemen has entered a new and more dangerous phase. Yemen’s internationally recognised government, backed by Saudi Arabia, says it has retaken ground from the Iran-backed Houthi movement near the Bab el-Mandeb strait, the narrow waterway linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. The Houthis say Saudi […]
Russia might be reluctant to sell lethal equipment to the Taliban amidst its ongoing undeclared war with Pakistan despite the threat posed by ISIS-K to Afghanistan due to concern that they could be used in that conflict at the expense of the hard-earned Russian-Pakistani rapprochement in recent years. The Afghan […]
Twenty-five years after al-Qaeda struck Washington and New York, the organization’s most active theater of operations isn’t in the Middle East or South Asia – it’s in a stretch of West Africa most Americans would struggle to locate on a map. New figures from the conflict monitor Acled show violence […]
This incisive article by CRG Research Associate Robert J. Burrowes was first published in July 2025. On about 20 September 2001, just ten days after the destruction of the World Trade Centre buildings on 9/11, recently retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark was visiting the Pentagon for meetings with Secretary Rumsfeld and […]
When Aliko Dangote’s oil refinery began listing shares on the Nigerian stock exchange, it wasn’t just Africa’s largest-ever public offering – it was the culmination of a bet that reshaped an entire country’s relationship with its own oil. If the flotation of Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals goes as planned, […]
The trend was already tracing itself through the corridors of power, but the world’s most powerful defence department has fallen, most heavily, for the use of artificial intelligence at virtually every level of its operations. Even before the Pentagon’s intoxicating pursuit of artificial intelligence was announced, the Defence Advanced Research […]
For decades, Iran has been considered one of the most influential and challenging powers in the Middle East. In fact, its geographical position, missile capabilities, drone industry, nuclear technology, and extended network of regional allies have given Tehran the ability to pressure its neighbors and change the whole scene in […]
At the end of September, the US leadership officially announced that “Inherent Resolve” operation had been completed and American troops were withdrawing from the country. This ended the 23-year occupation of Iraq, although troops had previously withdrawn in 2011, but returned in 2014 under the pretext of fighting the ISIS […]
Hashim Thaçi went from commanding an armed independence movement to serving as Kosovo’s president, and that same trajectory has recently concluded with a 25-year prison sentence for war crimes committed during the very conflict that made his political career possible. The verdict from the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague […]
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