Section: Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (Israel)
Did Putin “Vote” for Biden?
Vladimir Putin, image by Russian Presidential Press and Information Office via WikipediaBESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,826, November 20, 2020 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: After four years of supporting Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to curry favor with Joe Biden days before the US presidential election. He did this despite...
Russia and the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Genuine Threat or Misconception?
Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict, map via WikipediaBESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,798, November 4, 2020 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: While government officials and others have alleged a strategy that involves Russian-sponsored security organizations in recent escalations in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, these claims are largely misconceptions. The...
How Does the International Environment Affect Elections and Grand Strategy?
Donald Trump, photo by Gage Skidmore via Flickr CCBESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,797, November 3, 2020 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The election of Donald Trump in 2016 posed a challenge to analysts and scholars. How could the election of so politically inexperienced a candidate, one with a highly controversial personality and a political orientation...
The Era of Changing Supply Chains
The Indo-Pacific region, image via Wikimedia CommonsBESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,788, October 27, 2020 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The world is an increasingly unstable place. This is reflected in the way supply chains, a pillar of the globalized world, are changing. More and more countries are considering moving away from their dependence on...
Belarus Needs Peaceful US Engagement
Protest rally against Alexander Lukashenko, 16 August 2020, Minsk, Belarus, image via Wikimedia CommonsBESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,775, October 13, 2020 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Peaceful revolution has finally come to the last dictatorship on Russia’s Eastern European periphery. President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus has become an...
The Case of Belarus: Russia’s Fear of Popular Revolutions
Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko, photo via WikipediaBESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,742, September 11, 2020 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Belarus is the last remaining state on Russia’s western border not to have experienced a popular revolution since the 1990s, but revolutionary fervor is growing there. Events in Minsk have great...
Russia’s Troubles with Its “String of Pearls”
A Russia-backed rebel armored fighting vehicles convoy near Donetsk, Eastern Ukraine, May 30, 2015, image by Mstyslav Chernov via Wikimedia CommonsBESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,678, August 6, 2020 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: For geopolitical reasons, Russia has been building a chain of separatist states near its borders since the 1990s. However, as...
As US-China Competition Unfolds, Russia Watches Closely
Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, photo via WikipediaBESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,616, June 26, 2020 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Russia’s position is crucial in the unfolding US-China competition. There are two likely scenarios. In one, Russia is able to maneuver between the powers and score geopolitical goals in its neighborhood and in the...
Iran’s Anti-Israel Bill: Desperation Masquerading as Legislation
Iranian woman with cell phone outside Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque, Isfahan, Iran, photo by Adam Jones via Wikimedia CommonsBESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,603, June 11, 2020 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Iran’s new anti-Israel legislation has banned all contact with the “Zionist enemy,” however indirect, even going so far as to criminalize the use of...
The Abandonment of the South Lebanon Army: A Moral and a Strategic Failure
South Lebanon Army memorial in Marjayoun, later destroyed by Hezbollah, photo via WikipediaBESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,579, May 24, 2020 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: With the May 2000 abandonment of the South Lebanon Army, Israel signaled to its regional allies that it is not a reliable mainstay. This influenced the lukewarm response of the Golan...
