Middle East

The Cipher Brief spoke with John Cohen, Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University and Former Acting Under Secretary for Intelligence at […] More

On Sept. 28 in New York City, the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) co-hosted with the U.S. State Department the first Global Youth Summit Against Violent […] More

Since before 9/11, Al-Qaeda and other jihadi groups have been quietly investing in cyber jihad, which is now disseminated and promoted by a new, Internet-savvy […] More

The Cipher Brief spoke with Doug Brooks, the President Emeritus and Founder of the International Stability Operations Association (ISOA) to better understand the role of […] More

Although oil is often regarded as the Arabian Gulf’s lifeline, the construction industry has emerged as a new economic driving factor in the region. The […] More

The Cipher Brief spoke with Amgad Husein, Managing Partner of Dentons’ Saudi Arabian operations. He said that recent Saudi Arabian construction priorities have moved from […] More

The Cipher Brief spoke with Sachin Kerur, Head of the Middle East region for Pinsent Masons LLP about the current construction market in the Middle […] More

Internal and external dimensions of security have become inextricably linked to regional security threats and domestic challenges in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. The […] More

A fifty-year veteran of American intelligence recently told me how once, as a young officer, he had blurted out that a situation he had been […] More

A fifty-year veteran of American intelligence recently told me how once, as a young officer, he had blurted out that a situation he had been […] More

Kurdistan is a transnational patchwork quilt of territories spread across Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Iraq. Though only six million out of a total of 32 […] More

There has been no shortage of speculation about the motives behind Russia’s recent military deployment to Syria following the September 28 meeting between Russian President […] More

The recent infusion of Russian weapons and other military materiel into Syria has gotten the chattering class in Washington in a tizzy. “Inside-the-Beltway” policy experts, […] More

The global oil industry is going through a lesson in Economics 101:  When supply increases, prices go down.  Crude oil prices are currently hovering around […] More

Global oil markets are in flux.  Significant price swings—from triple digits to double digits, back and forth, over the past decade—are an indication of a […] More

The business and geopolitical history of the 20th century was written in oil…black gold…Texas tea. Indeed, the need to secure abundant energy supplies has been […] More

In the seven months since arriving on the throne, new Saudi King Salman has brought fundamental changes to the Saudi power line-up and to succession […] More

CIPHER SNAPSHOT: At a time when the Middle East is ablaze, the arrival of the Hajj presents a complex security challenge. September 22 marks the […] More