Practical Strategy

                                               Israel - Palestine Conflict Introduction  The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is the ongoing struggle between Israelis and Palestinians that began in the mid-20th century. This conflict is one of the most highly publicized and bitter struggles of modern times. Although the two groups have different regions, religious differences were not the cause of the strife. The conflict began as a struggle over land. For the Palestinians the last 100 years have brought colonization, expulsion and military occupation, followed by a long and difficult search for self- determination and for coexistence with the nation they hold responsible for their suffering and loss. Background   By the end of 1800s, a political movement, Zionism was established to address the increasing persecution and anti-Semitism in Europe. The...

Introduction                                          The Syrian Civil War is an ongoing multi-sided armed conflict with international interventions taking place in Syria. More than 250,000 Syrians have lost their lives in four-and-a-half years of armed conflict, which began with anti-government protests before escalating into a full-scale civil war. More than 11 million others have been forced from their homes as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and those opposed to his rule battle each other - as well as jihadist militants from so-called Islamic State. History of Syria  Archaeologists believe the original civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth. Seeing as its part of the Fertile Crescent, where some of the first people on earth practiced cattle breeding and agriculture, the land is chock-full of Neolithic remains. Syria was finally recog...

The seeds of hostility between the United States and the USSR began near the end of World War I. The Bolsheviks (later Communists) overthrew the existing Russian government. In December 1922 began the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) under Communist control. The United States refused to recognize the Soviet state until 1933. The profound ideological differences between the USSR and the United States were problematic and made worse by Joseph Stalin, who ruled the USSR from 1929 to 1953 as a ruthless dictator. In July 16, 1945, the creation of the first atomic bomb came to fruition in the United States and was tested at Alamogordo, New Mexico at a site called "Trinity". The atomic bomb had two objectives: a quick end of World War II and possession by the US (and not USSR), would allow control of foreign policy. In 1947 president Harry S. Truman authorized U.S. aid (The Truman Doctrine) to anti-Communist forces in Greece and Tu...

Overlooking China’s past objections, India, Japan and the United States are conducting joint naval war games this month in the Pacific Ocean, adjacent to the East China Sea. India’s decision to proceed with the trilateral exercise after five years of keeping Japan out, so as not to provoke China, indicates a new brand of maritime assertiveness. At the same time, both Indian and Chinese navies are actively building ‘blue water’ capabilities – an ability to carry out operations much farther than their territorial boundaries, across the deep oceans. As India juggles the dual imperative to simultaneously befriend and hedge against an economically and militarily rising China, the outcome of its blue water quest will influence the balance of power in Asia for years to come. Why Develop ‘Blue Water’ Capabilities? Almost unnoticed by the rest of the world, India has built one of the largest and most powerful navies in the world. However, there exist a number of drivers for further e...

The connectivity initiatives that China and other Asian countries are pursuing across Asia and the Indian Ocean region—building new infrastructure, institutions, and interlinkages—is arguably redrawing the continent’s map. That has not just economic implications, but geopolitical ones. India has been relatively silent on perhaps the most talked-about of the initiatives, China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR). But, at the inaugural Raisina Dialogue, hosted in New Delhi in early March by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and the think tank Observer Research Foundation, the Indian government signaled Delhi’s concern about Beijing’s approach toward connectivity and the region more broadly. In three speeches over three days, Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Minister of State for External Affairs (or deputy foreign minister) V.K. Singh, and Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar provided the clearest exposition yet of India’s official perspective on and approach toward conn...

When Sen. Marco ­Rubio stands before Miami’s historic Freedom Tower on Monday and announces that he is the second Cuban American to join the 2016 race for president of the United States, Gabriel Perez, Emilio Izquierdo and Mike Valdes will share a powerful sense of pride. This is the big sign that Cuban Americans have finally made it, they all say — accepted not only as refugees from communism or as successful businesspeople but as serious contenders for the most American job in the land. But let the wave of pride surrounding the candidacies of Florida’s Rubio and fellow Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas subside, and Perez, Izquierdo, Valdes and many of their fellow Cuban Americans find themselves in surprising discord. The idea of the Cuban American monolith, the notion that the estimated 2 million immigrants and their offspring constitute a single-issue ramrod that for a half-century has forced Washington into a hard line against the Castro brothers’ regime, is crumbling ...

They landed in Israel late at night — a man in a dark suit and traditional headdress, wheeling a suitcase; a mother, veiled, in a long black robe and holding a sleeping toddler; and a rabbi carrying a Torah scroll believed to be more than 500 years old. They were among a final group of 19 Yemeni Jews who were spirited out of their war-torn country in recent days, the Jewish Agency announced on Monday, bringing a monthslong clandestine rescue operation to a close. Photographs taken at Ben-Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv by a representative of the Jewish Agency, a quasi-governmental body that deals with Jewish immigration, documented the arrival late Sunday of the last of the Yemeni Jews who wanted to go to Israel. They are remnants of an ancient and once-vibrant group that became increasingly imperiled by violence and anti-Semitism as Yemen descended into civil war. “From Operation Magic Carpet in 1949 until the present day, the Jewish Agency has hel...