Middle East/North Africa

For the crime of terrorism to have weight, we must move globally towards a more specific definition that goes beyond the very subjective “violence that we strongly dislike.” Likewise, counterterrorism must adopt a similarly more discerning approach in order to ...

America Doesn’t Have Same Muslim, Immigration Problems As Europe, and Must Avoid EU Mistakes As Americans view today’s ISIS terrorist attacks in Brussels with horror, they should remember how much more integrated American Muslims are than European Muslims and should ...

Author's note: when I wrote this, I was confident Clinton would win but still worried about the chance of a Trump victory being far higher than it should be. I was confident the UK would not vote for Brexit, but ...

Sane Republicans and the rest of America saw little to reassure themselves that a sane dark horse would emerge in time to prevent an extremist from securing the nomination, and after this debate, pundits and the public alike must start ...

With its focus on national security, the mid-December Republican debate, though a month past, can still serve as a stark reminder of how silly and insubstantial leading Republicans are when it comes to dealing with problems like ISIS and Putin, ...

Happy Risky New Year If people thought 2015 was bad, 2016 shows no sign of letting on up on risk. The Middle East, China, Europe, Central Africa, even the United States will all raise serious questions about risk in 2016 ...

2015 was a tough year, but not altogether bad… Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse January 4, 2016 By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) January 4th, 2016; alternate version published on Global Risk Insights AMMAN — The year 2015 ...

This is THE ONE chart / infographic you need to see that breaks down the broad components of Obama's very rational ISIS / counterterrorism / Middle East strategy. It makes clear that in every major area, Obama understand how to ...

People claiming that the withdrawal from Iraq of U.S. forces carried out by the Obama Administration from 2010-2011 explains the rise of the terrorist group ISIS have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. A simple look at the ...

GOP Ideas Help ISIS, Endanger Americans Just because Obama's ISIS, counterterrorism, and Middle East strategy is complex and will not fit on a bumper-sticker or in a soundbite does not mean it is not a good one, and a bit ...

The lengths to which far too many people on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict go to minimize or deny the humanity and suffering of people on the other side and to claim a monopoly of suffering and righteousness for ...

In the wake of Turkey’s downing of a Russian military jet that violated its airspace and Russia’s resulting casualties, tensions are certainly on the rise. Despite the fact that these tensions should not be overblown, important questions about Putin’s aims ...