Year: 2015
Forecast The Islamic State will continue efforts to improve its capabilities in communication and offensive attacks in cyberspace. The availability of cybercrime tools and services on underground criminal markets will allow the Islamic State to further bolster its existing abilities. ...
A general view from the presidential palace in Astana, Kazakhstan. (POOL/AFP/Getty Images) Forecast Low energy prices, flat energy production, a volatile currency and demands from the Kazakh people will hurt the Kazakh economy next year as bankruptcies rise among firms. ...
Forecast The Suwalki Gap, which connects Eastern Europe to the Baltic states, is unlikely to become a heavily militarized area in the Russia-NATO standoff like the Fulda Gap was during the Cold War. However, the land connection will be critical ...
The leaders of Libya’s rival parliaments met and rejected a U.N. peace deal on Dec. 16, a day before moderates from both sides were expected to sign it, Reuters reported. The U.N.-brokered deal calls for a unity government and a ...
Summary Editor’s Note: This is the third installment of an occasional series on China’s transformation that Stratfor will be building upon periodically. China’s Communist Party is locked in a struggle for political legitimacy. For most of the past three decades, ...
Turkey will establish a military base in Qatar as part of a 2015 mutual defense agreement aimed at combatting “common enemies,” Turkey’s envoy to the Gulf state said Dec. 16, Reuters reported. The envoy said that some 3,000 ground troops, ...
An introduction: Palmer Kain is a pragmatic politician and an overseas United States military veteran. He spent three years studying in Israel, specializing in International Affairs and Conflict Resolution. He is currently running for the California State Senate. YoungDiplomats’ David ...
Summary Over the past few months, a wave of violence has enflamed tensions between Israelis and Palestinians once again. This time, though, it has taken on a new character, and rumors of a third intifada — the “intifada of knives” ...
Analysis The months-long stalemate between Brazil’s ruling Workers’ Party and the opposition has finally been broken, and President Dilma Rousseff is one step closer to losing her post. On Dec. 2, Eduardo Cunha, the president of Brazil’s lower house of ...
Italy will send 450 troops to Iraq to defend the strategic Mosul Dam from Islamic State militants, according to an announcement by Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, AFP reported Dec. 16. The dam was built by a German-Italian consortium in ...