Analysis Reports

On the morning of February 1st, 2021, the military of Myanmar seized control of the government after the general election in which Aung San Suu Kyi, the current head of the government, and the National League for Democracy (NDL) party won by a landslide. The military is now currently in charge and has declared a year-long state of emergency. The military had backed the opposition in the election, who were demanding a rerun of the vote, claiming widespread fraud. The election commission of Myanmar said there was no evidence to support these claims of voter fraud. The coup was staged shortly after as a new session of parliament was set to open. Ms. Suu Kyi is currently under house arrest and has been charged with possessing illegally imported walkie-talkies. Many other NLD officials have also been detained. Power has been handed over to commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing, who has overseen the military of Myanmar for many years now and has declared that the country will have a “free and fair” election after the state of emergency is over.

In the last few months, Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, has been rocked by a series of bombings. Although Bangladesh has struggled with terrorist attacks in recent decades, the pace at which they are happening seems to be more frequent. This report reviews ISIS’s history in Bangladesh and an analysis of what the Bangladeshi authorities can do about the situation.

See Part I Here

This past week marked a monumental step for the United States’ presence in the Middle East. From an airport in Baghdad, the closing ceremonies of the U.S. war in Iraq were held. There was no celebration, just a simple ceremony and then it was over. Just a few hundred miles away, however, a new chapter opened. A top secret U.S. drone, called the RQ-170, was captured nearly 140 miles into Iran. Iranian officials were not pleased about the incident and have demanded an apology from President Obama before they are willing to return the highly valuable piece of military equipment. With troops finally exiting Iraq, but tensions rising in Iran, the question must be asked: Is the United States really done in the Middle East? And if not, what does the future hold?

The subject of marijuana growth, distribution and use has been a hot topic in our society today. There are many arguments both for and against the legalization of marijuana in the United States on a federal scale and ideas on how to monitor and tax marijuana that is legal in certain states. When observing cannabis policy debates among our politicians and leaders the focus is on home-grown cannabis and cannabis produced and transported to the United States from Mexico; small Caribbean islands are hardly on anyone’s mind.

“Indian Muslims hold a scratched photo of Jaish-e-Mohammad group chief, Masood Azhar, who was added to a UN sanctions list on Wednesday” (Gupta 2019)

The United States faces an enduring and potent threat from the Islamic State (ISIS hereafter) terrorist group. Any decrease in efforts to dismantle both the group and its ideology worldwide is likely to grant the group the minimal operational space and security it needs to reorganize, rearm, recruit, and attack.

Russia and the US are the world’s top two possessors of nuclear weapons, holding 92 percent of nuclear weapons globally (Ploughshares Fund). Russia is modernizing its nuclear arsenal and some of its modernizations, such as the SSC-8 ground-launched cruise missile system, led the US to plan an exit from the INF Treaty in August 2019.

The endgame for the Taliban is relatively straightforward. They have two main objectives and are determined to meet them. Their two objectives are to get all foreign troops out of the country and to implement Sharia law throughout all of Afghanistan. They will continue to wage terror on US troops and the Afghan people until these objectives are met.

On March 31, Ukrainians will head to the polls to elect their next president. Leading the candidates are incumbent Petro Poroshenko, former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, and newcomer to the political field, comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who are polling within 10 percentage points of each other.

Prospects for continued peace talks in the near future are not promising given the abrupt ending and confusing aftermath of the February 27-28 Hanoi Summit. U.S. and DPRK blame each other for the premature conclusion but tell the same story: The U.S. walked out rather than accept a deal that gave sweeping sanctions relief for the dismantlement of the Yongbyon nuclear reactor but, in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s words, “still leaves missiles, still leaves warheads and weapons systems.” While it’s not the outcome world leaders were hoping for, it didn’t come as a surprise to US Intelligence officials who have dealt with North Korea’s unwillingness to give up their nuclear program in the past.

Putin proved a major influencer in the US presidential election in 2016. Russian influence on the election first appeared four years before the actual election, when two Russians, working for the Internet Research Agency, acquired knowledge about US social media to help provide information to the Russian propaganda machine (Shane, Scott; Mazzetti, Mark. 2018). Additionally, his Russian spy agency, the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU) hacked the Democratic National Committee’s network to further reach his goal of getting Americans to vote for the candidate he wanted to see win.