Each recent decade has witnessed its own tectonic shifts that recast the world. Commentators called them revolutions. In the late 1980’s it was the “Velvet Revolution,” which began in Eastern Europe, included the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and ended with the multiple civil wars... MORE

Russia’s abstention on the UN Security Council Resolution 1973 helped open the door to Western military action on a limited scale in Libya. The Obama administration led the military action initially, under its rubric of humanitarian intervention and an assumed responsibility to protect. Barring a... MORE

The United States and Western Europe’s residual military powers have undertaken in Libya another war of choice. Russia ushered them into it by not vetoing the UN Security Council’s resolution that authorized the intervention. The conflict quickly turned into a stalemate, which Russia is now... MORE

As the debate on the NATO-led military operations in Libya intensifies, Turkey continues to hold a key position in alternative scenarios for the future of Libya. In the aftermath of the contact group meeting in Doha, which failed to strengthen the military option, Turkey’s approach... MORE

Executive Summary:After nearly two months of fighting in Libya, what began as a revolution against Mu’ammar Qaddafi’s repressive regime has turned into an internal and international struggle for control over Libya’s oil and gas reserves. Of the country’s four major oil basins, the most productive... MORE

Unlike many other parts of the world, Libyan leader Mu’ammar Qaddafi enjoys widespread support in Africa as a result of years of Libyan diplomatic and economic engagement in the continent. Libyan money and arms have boosted the stability of many African regimes.Clearly, Qaddafi's moves in... MORE

A new disagreement between Somali president Shaykh Sharif Shaykh Ahmad and parliamentary speaker Sharif Hassan Shaykh Aden over extending the mandate of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) is disrupting a successful offensive by TFG and African Union troops against the radical Islamist al-Shabaab movement.Under an... MORE

The protests and revolutions that are sweeping across North Africa since the beginning of 2011 pose a serious test for Chinese diplomacy. The circumstances forced Chinese diplomats to adapt quickly to the unfolding situation, a measure Beijing has been adept at doing elsewhere in Africa... MORE

As the surge of revolutionary fervor that has taken the greater Middle East by storm continues to spread, many observers are grappling with the political uncertainties that the tumult has produced from Morocco to the Persian Gulf and beyond.  The popular uprisings that prompted the... MORE

Background Khalifa Haftar, a dissident Libyan Army colonel and long time foe of Colonel Mu’ammar al-Qaddafi, reappeared on March 14 in Benghazi, the opposition’s supposedly temporary de facto administrative center, to lead Libya’s chaotic rebellion (al-Jazeera, March 14). For many years Haftar has been the... MORE