Fiscal sustainability and social cohesion in the face of demographic change
Karen E. Young et al. | T20 Saudi Arabia
Karen E. Young et al. | T20 Saudi Arabia
Iran at Risk From Spillover of Armenia-Azerbaijan Clashes
Brenda Shaffer | Senior Advisor for Energy
Brenda Shaffer | Senior Advisor for Energy
The Myth of the Great Energy Transformation
Mark Mills, Manhattan Institute
For those who profess the belief that a great “energy transition” is underway, Tesla is the talisman. And why not? No single product that we use in everyday life consumes more energy than a car. The furnace in the average home basement is a distant second, and there are far more cars than homes. The car, with its ubiquity and importance, epitomizes how and why energy is used everywhere. It also epitomizes just how difficult and expensive it will be. Read more here.... (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Mark Mills, Manhattan Institute
For those who profess the belief that a great “energy transition” is underway, Tesla is the talisman. And why not? No single product that we use in everyday life consumes more energy than a car. The furnace in the average home basement is a distant second, and there are far more cars than homes. The car, with its ubiquity and importance, epitomizes how and why energy is used everywhere. It also epitomizes just how difficult and expensive it will be. Read more here.... (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

‘the_new_map’_review__tapping_the_untappable_-_wsj.pdf |

the_new_geopolitics_of_energy_-_wsj.pdf |
The Value of the U.S.-Saudi Relations
By Clare M. Lopez, RealClearDefense: "Changes underway within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's leadership are significant and substantive. It is in the U.S. national security interest to acknowledge and encourage those changes, even while urging more progress in areas that concern America’s ethical foundations, like human rights."
By Clare M. Lopez, RealClearDefense: "Changes underway within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's leadership are significant and substantive. It is in the U.S. national security interest to acknowledge and encourage those changes, even while urging more progress in areas that concern America’s ethical foundations, like human rights."
How Western Institutions Benefit from Corrupt Islamists in Saudi Arabia
By Irina Tsukerman, August 27, 2020
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The recent revelations about Sa’ad Jabri, an Islamist and corrupt former Saudi intelligence officer, highlight the discrepancy between Western institutions’ criticism of Saudi Arabia in the name of human rights and their support for the former officials most responsible for human rights abuses and security threats associated with the Kingdom. A tangled web of relations between pro-Brotherhood Muhammad bin Nayef regime apparatchiks, pro-Qatar members of US law enforcement (like Ali Soufan), and ideologically sympathetic intermediaries (like Jamal Khashoggi) are threatened by Muhammad bin Salman’s reforms.
Continue to full article ->
By Irina Tsukerman, August 27, 2020
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The recent revelations about Sa’ad Jabri, an Islamist and corrupt former Saudi intelligence officer, highlight the discrepancy between Western institutions’ criticism of Saudi Arabia in the name of human rights and their support for the former officials most responsible for human rights abuses and security threats associated with the Kingdom. A tangled web of relations between pro-Brotherhood Muhammad bin Nayef regime apparatchiks, pro-Qatar members of US law enforcement (like Ali Soufan), and ideologically sympathetic intermediaries (like Jamal Khashoggi) are threatened by Muhammad bin Salman’s reforms.
Continue to full article ->

‘oilcraft’_review__that_old_black_magic_-_wsj.pdf |
Pulling Back the Curtain on Turkey’s Natural Gas Strategy by John V. Bowlus
How Mediterranean standoff complicates Turkey's natural gas agenda
Too many factors — especially tensions with Greece — are at play to determine whether recent gas discovery in the Black Sea will translate into massive commercial and political gains for Ankara.
Too many factors — especially tensions with Greece — are at play to determine whether recent gas discovery in the Black Sea will translate into massive commercial and political gains for Ankara.