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It is not entirely clear what led to the shooting, with the military reporting that pro-Morsi "terrorists" sought to climb the walls of the Republican Guards headquarters where Morsi is being held and the Brotherhood claiming that the attack was unprovoked. The Muslim Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, called for a general uprising in Egypt and called on the international community to intervene to prevent further "massacres." The military also closed the Brotherhood's Cairo headquarters, claiming that stockpiled weapons were found inside.

The Brotherhood understands that it is unlikely to be able to restore the Morsi presidency and is thus trying to create a situation in which the military cannot impose a new political order.

Such a strategy involves weeks, if not months, of civil unrest, which entails considerable risks. Though the Brotherhood is a well-disciplined organization, some of its elements could be radicalized by the Morsi ouster and the clashes that have been taking place since.

The Israeli and American positions are intimately connected, but the precise nature of the connection is less clear. Israel publicly casts itself as eager to strike Iran but restrained by the United States, though unable to guarantee it will respect American wishes if Israel sees an existential threat emanating from Iran. The United States publicly decries Iran as a threat to Israel and to other countries in the region, particularly Saudi Arabia, but expresses reservations about military action out of fears that Iran would respond to a strike by destabilizing the region and because it does not believe the Iranian nuclear program is as advanced as the Israelis say it is.

From the Iranian point of view, a nuclear program has been extremely valuable. Having one has brought Iran prestige in the Islamic world and has given it a level of useful global political credibility.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States got involved in the region intending to create a cordon around Russia to prevent it from ever becoming a global threat again.

Russia wants to limit the influence of external powers in the former Soviet Union and be recognized as the dominant player there.

Russia is not looking to control Central Europe, but it does not want the region to be a base of U.S. power in Eurasia.

In light of its economic problems and its leadership's waning popularity, the Netherlands will likely soften austerity measures in the short- and medium-term. In May, the European Commission gave The Hague permission to miss its deficit target for 2013. The country will probably fail to meet the required EU deficit goals again in 2014 -- the Dutch government has become increasingly worried about the negative effects of expedited spending cuts. While the European Commission is likely to pressure The Netherlands to implement additional spending cuts, it probably will not punish the country when it does not comply with those demands.

This goes beyond austerity measures; the Dutch parliament is currently assessing its broader relationship with the European Union. In a document released in June, the Dutch Cabinet indicated that no additional concessions of sovereignty should be made to supranational institutions, and that The Hague should keep as many of its own prerogatives as possible.

Because of its physical location in Europe, the Netherlands keeps strong political and economic ties with France and Germany. The Dutch will avoid any meaningful policy decisions until after Germans elections, which are scheduled for late September. The Hague will not openly criticize Berlin or Brussels as Paris has, but it will pursue a more independent fiscal policy by relaxing austerity at home in order to avoid a further drop in popular support.

Rumors have long circulated that Turkey has been aiding Islamic State fighters.

Turkey's dealings with the Islamic State are much more nuanced than has generally been understood. Last year in July, Stratfor shed light on this dynamic, analyzing how the Turks were caught between two very threatening realities — both demanding simultaneous management — on their southern flank: jihadists of various stripes and Syrian Kurdish separatists.

Turkey is all too aware of how Pakistan even today, nearly two generations after it agreed to serve as the staging ground for the U.S.-led effort to counter Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan, continues to deal with the fallout of that war, which has not yet ended.

Russia’s long-term survival depends on such modernization, but the process will require changes and compromise within the Kremlin.

But this trip has a different focus for the Russians. Russia is launching a massive modernization program that involves seriously upgrading — if not building from scratch — many key economic sectors, including space, energy, telecommunications, transportation, nanotechnology, military industry and information technology.

Moscow has seen incredible success at home and in its near abroad. Now the plan is to make it last as long as possible.

The commander of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, Gen. Stanley McChrystal has resigned his command. His resignation is a direct result of his controversial remarks in a Rolling Stone interview broken late June 21, and not a reflection or indictment of the campaign he has led in Afghanistan. But that campaign and the strategy behind it are have significant issues of their own.

the heart of the strategy ultimately comes down to “Vietnamization“.

Meanwhile, a U.S. program to farm out more than 70 percent of logistics to Afghan trucking companies appears to be funding both warlord militias independent of the Afghan security forces and the Taliban itself.

The Taliban were quick to deny a June 27 Al Jazeera report that Afghan President Hamid Karzai had met personally with Sirajuddin Haqqani, the son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, who with his father forms the leadership of the Haqqani network (Karzai’s government also denied the report). The Haqqani network, which straddles the Afghan-Pakistani border, is part of the Taliban under Mullah Omar, but it remains the most distinct individual entity within the diffuse and multifaceted Taliban movement.

The Taliban perceive themselves to be winning the war, leaving little motivation for meaningful negotiation on their part. Kabul also has long been dominated by elements skeptical of — if not downright hostile to — Pakistani intentions in Afghanistan, and these elements remain intent on keeping the Taliban from power.

The report of Karzai’s meeting with the younger Haqqani, however unlikely, does reflect the fact that movement and discussions are taking place at some significant level and that geopolitical shifts are starting to occur in the region. The outcome is far from certain, but the game is undoubtedly under way.

But while the military’s top generals and senior civilian leadership are responsible for providing the president with sound, clearheaded advice on all military matters including the highest levels of grand strategy, they are ultimately responsible for the pursuit of military objectives to which the commander-in-chief directs them.

The strategy of the guerrilla is to make the option to withdraw more attractive. In order to do this, his strategic goal is simply to survive and fight on whatever level he can. His patience is built into who he is and what he is fighting for. The occupier’s patience is calculated against the cost of the occupation and its opportunity costs, thus, while troops are committed in this country, what is happening elsewhere?

The occupation force will always win engagements, but that is never the measure of victory. If the guerrillas operate by doctrine, defeats in unplanned engagements will not undermine their basic goal of survival.

But while Jennings and his crew were traveling with a North Kosanese unit, to visit the site of an alleged atrocity by U.S. and South Kosanese troops, they unexpectedly crossed the trail of a small group of American and South Kosanese soldiers. With Jennings in their midst the Northern soldiers set up an ambush that would let them gun down the Americans and Southerners. What would Jennings do? Would he tell his cameramen to "Roll tape!" as the North Kosanese opened fire? What would go through his mind as he watched the North Kosanese prepare to fire? Jennings sat silent for about fifteen seconds. "Well, I guess I wouldn't," he finally said. "I am going to tell you now what I am feeling, rather than the hypothesis I drew for myself. If I were with a North Kosanese unit that came upon Americans, I think that I personally would do what I could to warn the Americans." Even if it meant losing the story? Ogletree asked. Even though it would almost certainly mean losing my life, Jennings replied. "But I do not think that I could bring myself to participate in that act. That's purely personal, and other reporters might have a different reaction."

Jennings was made to feel embarrassed about his natural, decent human impulse. Wallace seemed unembarrassed about feeling no connection to the soldiers in his country's army or considering their deaths before his eyes "simply a story."

Meet the Press, moderated by Tim Russert, is probably the meatiest of these programs. High-powered guests discuss serious topics with Russert, who worked for years in politics, and with veteran reporters. Yet the pressure to keep things lively means that squabbling replaces dialogue.

Stalin wanted to increase Ukraine’s security and increase Romania’s and the Danube basin’s vulnerability.

After the Soviet collapse, this territory became the Republic of Moldova. The portion east of the Dniester revolted with Russian support, and Moldova lost effective control of what was called Transdniestria.

First, how significant were the leaks? Second, how could they have happened? Third, was their release a crime? Fourth, what were their consequences? Finally, and most important, is the WikiLeaks premise that releasing government secrets is a healthy and appropriate act a tenable position?

The first two consisted of battlefield reports from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Turkey’s near-term energy strategy consists of diversifying its energy supplies and becoming a hub between the energy-rich east and the energy-hungry west.

Energy is one of the pillars of Turkey’s re-emergence as a regional geopolitical force to be reckoned with.

Kazakhstan is currently bound tightly to the Kremlin and Turkmenistan, while expressing an interest in Nabucco remains extremely hesitant to risk Moscow’s wrath by committing to such a project. This leaves Azerbaijan as Turkey’s best option.

Venezuela is in the midst of a severe electricity crisis, with its national electrical grid so stressed that it could, according to the Venezuelan National Electric Corporation (CORPOELEC), be headed for a nationwide system failure within the next two months.

(click here to enlarge image) The center of gravity of Venezuela’s electricity crisis is the Guri dam, which, along with the nearby Francisco Miranda and Antonio Jose de Sucre dams, provides about 70 percent of the nation’s electricity.

Only 37 percent of electricity users have been following rationing plans, according to a recent CORPOELEC study. Questionable government estimates place the reduction of public-sector use at 23 percent and private sector use at 5 percent since 2009.

Certainly I don't think Tom Friedman makes a great foreign policy analyst, but I'm not willing to write off the profession's ideas any more than I'm willing to write off those of IR scholars or other political scientists or anthropologists or sociologists or soldiers or career diplomats or intelligence officers or, for that matter, business people or philosophers or graduate students who blog.

The key, then, isn't so much for publications to stop asking journalists to do their foreign policy analysis, but to get a better mix of people from all kinds of relevant professions to help enrich their content.

Any war is a two-way struggle. The Taliban’s perspective and their information and propaganda efforts are important both in shaping the direction of the war itself, and in understanding it.

There is a clear rationale behind the thrust of American efforts to undermine the Taliban’s base of support. But as recent developments in southern Afghanistan attest, the Taliban are not passively accepting those efforts.

the Taliban’s tactics and measures of success will be profoundly different than those of the United States.

As STRATFOR has noted, despite the politicized debates over changing the deal, the DPJ remains constrained by the same regional and geographic issues that held the LDP to the deal. Further informing Tokyo’s decision to more publicly shift its stance closer to supporting the original agreement, however, is the recent series of Chinese naval operations around Japanese islands.

The European financial crisis is moving to a new level. The Germans have finally consented to lead a bailout effort for Greece. The effort has angered the German public, which has acceded with sullen reluctance. It does not accept the idea that it is Germans’ responsibility to save Greeks from their own actions. The Greeks are enraged at the reluctance, having understood that membership in the European Union meant that Greece’s problems were Europe’s.

Europe feared nationalism out of a very nationalist impulse.

The long take is the opposite: It’s a deeply considered report and analysis, and it often takes weeks, months, or years to produce. It used to be that only traditional media, like magazines or documentaries or books, delivered the long take. But now, some of the most in-depth stuff I read comes from academics or businesspeople penning big blog essays, Dexter fans writing 5,000-word exegeses of the show, and nonprofits like the Pew Charitable Trusts producing exhaustively researched reports on American life.

This is what the weeklies like Time and Newsweek have historically offered: reportage and essays produced a few days after major events, with a bit of analysis sprinkled on top. They’re neither fast enough to be conversational nor slow enough to be truly deep. The Internet has essentially demonstrated how unsatisfying that sort of thinking can be.

First, why is fighting a land war in Asia a bad idea? Second, why does the United States seem compelled to fight these wars? And third, what is the alternative that protects U.S. interests in Asia without large-scale military land wars?

Let’s begin with the first question, the answer to which is rooted in demographics and space. The population of Iraq is currently about 32 million. Afghanistan has a population of less than 30 million. The U.S. military, all told, consists of about 1.5 million active-duty personnel (plus 980,000 in the reserves), of whom more than 550,000 belong to the Army and about 200,000 are part of the Marine Corps. Given this, it is important to note that the United States strains to deploy about 200,000 troops at any one time in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that many of these troops are in support rather than combat roles. The same was true in Vietnam, where the United States was challenged to field a maximum of about 550,000 troops (in a country much more populous than Iraq or Afghanistan) despite conscription and a larger standing army. Indeed, the same problem existed in World War II.

When the United States fights in the Eastern Hemisphere, it fights at great distances, and the greater the distance, the greater the logistical cost. More ships are needed to deliver the same amount of materiel, for example. That absorbs many troops. The logistical cost of fighting at a distance is that it diverts numbers of troops (or requires numbers of civilian personnel) disproportionate to the size of the combat force.