In a lightning strike on Sept. 19, Azerbaijan extinguished more than 30 years of de facto self-governance by ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. For Armenians, its loss is perceived as a catastrophe. For Azerbaijanis, the outcome represents restored sovereignty. But how the conflict ended has key implications for the future.
The Israel-Hamas war has raised serious questions about the political and strategic relevance of the Palestinian Authority. Against the backdrop of recent trends in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the war both reflects and exacerbates the PA’s dwindling authority and the Palestinian national movement’s shifting paradigm.
Iran’s long-range ballistic missiles long have been the focus of international attention. Over the past two decades, though, Iran has also developed and deployed an increasingly diverse array of shorter-range strike systems. Now, the war between Israel and Hamas has raised the urgency of understanding these other strike capabilities.
The belief that the U.S. and France have radically different approaches to secularism and the separation of church and state is now widespread, deeply entrenched—and wrong. In fact, the source of this dispute emerged relatively recently, and it represented a significant shift in the emphasis of French laïcité: the headscarf law of 2004.