On Saturday, April 13, the Islamic Republic of Iran launched an unprecedented aerial attack on Israel. The Israeli military and its allies and partners were successful in defending against the attack. FPRI Senior Fellow Afshon Ostovar and Aaron Stein, President of FPRI, discuss the attack and its implications below. Tempting Fate Afshon Ostovar, Senior Fellow  The Iranian-Israeli feud has steadily escalated over the last decade and Iran’s missile attack on Israel over the weekend marks a dangerous new phase. The shadow war, as the Iranian-Israeli conflict is often called, has been typifie ..read more

Executive Summary In the early 1990s, Kyrgyzstan was often referred to as an “island of democracy” in Central Asia. The “island’s” shores have receded over the years, but relative to its neighbors, Kyrgyzstan remained the most democratic country. Three distinguishing features of Kyrgyzstan include an active political opposition, a vibrant civil society, and independent media outlets. The current government is eliminating all three of those distinctions. Political opposition leaders have been jailed, civil society has been intimidated and prevented from holding public meetings, and independent ..read more

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Russia’s war against Ukraine has revealed stories about the heroic resistance efforts of Ukrainian women: from a grandmother launching a pickle jar against a drone to volunteers with territorial defense units. However, comparable stories have been entirely lacking on Russia’s side: How come? On this episode of Report in Short, Aaron Schwartzbaum is joined by Egle E. Murauskaite, author FPRI’s new report “Russian Women in the Face of War Against Ukraine,” to discuss the multifaceted role of Russian women in the conflict.   ..read more

On March 26, a majority in the Tallinn City Council declared no confidence in its elected mayor, Mihhail Kõlvart, who has governed since 2019. His replacement by Acting Mayor Madle Lippus (Social Democratic Party) marks the end of almost two decades of unbroken Center Party tenure in the capital. It has been a truism in Estonian politics since the early 2000s that many Tallinn voters supported the Center Party, providing it with a solid base of support. Kõlvart’s ouster marks the loss of the Center Party’s loyal bloc. One begins to wonder how Estonian politics may look without the Center Party ..read more

Fear and lack of knowledge of cryptocurrency at the highest levels of the US government pose a major threat to national security.  The emergence of the technological solution provided by the Bitcoin protocol in 2008 (and the myriad of blockchain-based protocols that arose thereafter) and related payment channel networks (PCNs) (global peer-to-peer wealth transfer networks) has opened a Pandora’s Box that forever changes global peer-to-peer wealth storage and transfer. Add to that the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence capable of nearly any solution creation in PCNs and the globa ..read more

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The mighty Mekong River, a life source for millions across Southeast Asia, now faces an existential threat. An ambitious regional plan developed by ASEAN incorporates Lao PDR as the “Battery of Asia” to generate hydroelectric power for export across the region. However, this massive engineering project could trigger severe ecological consequences, disrupting vital sediment flows, devastating wild fisheries that feed over 60 million people, and increasing the risk of droughts, floods and saltwater intrusion that threaten the global rice basket of the Mekong Delta. Southeast Asian nations face i ..read more

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