Earlier this year, the U.S. Departments of Defense and State submitted the 2012-2013 Foreign Military Training Report to Congress.  Mandated by law, this report details “all military training provided to foreign military personnel by the Department of Defense and the Department of State during the previous fiscal year and all such training proposed for the […]

This post extracts key trends and information from the Middle East and North Africa portion of the 2012 Foreign Military Training Report, which details United States military and police training activities around the world. The top recipients of U.S. training in 2012 – Lebanon and the Gulf States: (To see the numbers underlying these graphics, […]

The United States military has substantially stepped up its counternarcotics assistance training programs with a number of Central Asian states, according to recently released documents from the U.S. State and Defense Departments. According to the documents, in 2012 the U.S. trained over 800 officers from the region under the Department of Defense’s Section 1004 Counter-Drug […]

Below is a roundup of some of the top articles and news highlights from around the Middle East and North Africa over the last week: Egypt: In an interview with a Kuwaiti newspaper, Egypt’s Defense Minister General Abdul-Fatah Al-Sisi stated that it would unwise for Egypt to significantly alter its relationship with the United States. […]

A roundup of some of the top articles and news highlights from around Central Eurasia over the last week: The Caucasus and Turkey For the first time in two years, the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan met to discuss the resolution of the conflict over Nagorno Karabakh. Both sides said little about the result of […]

 Below is a roundup of some of the top articles and news highlights from around Africa over the last week: The Open Society Justice Initiative, in conjunction with Muslims for Human Rights (MUHURI), published a report titled, “We’re Tired of Taking You to the Court: Human Rights Abuses by Kenya’s Anti-Terrorism Police Unit.” The report […]

Next week, Lithuania will host the third Eastern Partnership Summit, bringing together high-level officials from the European Union and the Eastern European Partnership states.  The Eastern Partnership initiative (EaP) intends to strengthen the EU’s relationships with six of its Eastern neighbors, including the South Caucasus states of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia. The EaP initiative may […]

As the European Union prepares to hold the third Eastern Partnership Summit in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius later this month, the United States is supporting moves to strengthen EU ties with countries on its eastern border, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. At a hearing on November 14 in the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations’ […]

Recent reports out of Algeria suggest President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s intends to push through a series of constitutional reforms that will weaken the country’s Department of Intelligence and Security (DRS). Led by General Mohamed “Toufik” Mediene, the DRS is known to be extremely opaque and maintains significant control and influence over the country’s political system. According […]