Latest Articles and Blog Posts

Russia's Real Threat? Failure
Decline breeds new and perplexing dangers

February 1, 2010  •  Washington Times

There's an old saying, familiar to historians and foreign policy practitioners, that "geography is destiny." A modern twist to this rule is that demography is no less decisive.

Russia is finding this out the hard way. Over the past several years, under the direction of former President (and current Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin and his handpicked protege, Dmitry Medvedev, Russia may have re-emerged on the international scene with a vengeance. But behind all of the Kremlin's contemporary geopolitical bluster, the successor state of the once-mighty Soviet Union is caught in a demographic and socioeconomic death spiral.

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Thinking Beyond Petroleum
Iran's economy is adapting. So should U.S. sanctions.

January 19, 2010  •  Forbes.com

The funny thing about windows of opportunity is that they have a way of closing.

Over the past year, spurred by mounting worries over Iran's nuclear ambitions, Congress has taken up the issue of economic pressure against the Islamic Republic in earnest. The result is a series of sanctions bills aimed at targeting what is commonly viewed as the regime's economic Achilles' Heel: its deep dependence on foreign refined petroleum.

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Refocusing U.S. Policy On The War On Terror

January 6, 2010 at 1:16 pm

The near-disaster that took place in the skies over Detroit on Christmas Day has refocused domestic attention on an issue that has dominated headlines for much of the past year. That issue is the state of U.S. counterterrorism strategy, and the picture isn't pretty.

Since taking office last January, Team Obama has focused extensively on the most obvious battlefields in what was once known as the "War on Terror." It has moved ahead with its pledge to draw down troops in Iraq, where stability is slowly but surely returning. And it has bolstered its commitment to Afghanistan through a significant troop surge and a new policy approach that takes a more holistic view of the causes and consequences of conflict there.

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Stagnation Threatens U.S. Arms Superiority

January 4, 2010  •  Defense News

A funny thing happened in the skies over Norway last month. On Dec. 10, as U.S. President Barack Obama geared up to deliver his acceptance speech before the Nobel Prize Committee in Oslo, spectators outdoors were treated to a spectacular display of spiraling light. The cause was not a UFO, as some contended, but a failed test of the Bulava, Russia's newest sea-launched intercontinental ballistic missile.

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Defiant In Tehran
Antagonism Toward Clerical Regime Broadens

December 27, 2009  •  Washington Times

Another month, another fissure within the Islamic Republic. In the six months since Iran's fraudulent presidential elections brought protesters out into the streets en masse, the Iranian regime has weathered a profound and sustained domestic crisis of confidence.

The latest sign of this discontent began on Dec. 7, when tens of thousands of students clashed with regime security forces on university campuses throughout Tehran in days of unrest. This protest and numerous others like it serve as a telling reminder that the rift between the Iranian people and the thuggish theocracy that rules them remains as deep as ever.

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Books by Ilan Berman