What if The Houthis were in Malacca?

Posted on February 12, 2025 by Assistant Editor

Strait of Malacca (Oct. 23, 2014). The Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigate USS Rodney M. Davis (FFG 60) conducts a passing exercise with the Indonesian Navy Sigma-class corvette KRI Sultan Hasanuddin (366). Rodney M. Davis, stationed in Everett, Wash., is on patrol in the 7th Fleet area of responsibility supporting security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Derek A. Harkins/Released)

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 13, No. 1, January 2025

By Vaibhav Panwar

“For in tremendous extremities human souls are like drowning men; well enough they know they are in peril; well enough they know the causes of that peril; nevertheless, the sea is the sea, and these drowning men do drown.” — Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Between October 7th and most of 2024, the Houthi militia of Yemen earned its entry into the pantheon of global armed resistances— and the wider world’s list of threats to everyday life— with their attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. While nowhere close to some of the infamous acts of terrorism committed globally in measures of human fatalities, the Houthis, however, have managed to hit the world where it hurts: commercial shipping chokepoints. Despite multiple countries’ naval efforts, the Red Sea and Suez Canal have observed a sizable drop in maritime traffic as ships opt to take the safer, but much longer routes to European ports. This often adds tens of thousands of nautical miles to their journeys, and with it inefficiencies to their cost, lead time, and the environment.

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Putin’s Nightmares and the Threat of a Nuclear “Accident”

Posted on December 13, 2024 by Assistant Editor

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 12, No. 12, December 2024

By Christopher Shove, Ph.D.

A mural of Putin, Hitler, and Stalin with a slogan “No More Time”. Anthony D Barraclough via Flickr.

As Russian losses mount, Putin’s threat of a nuclear incident becomes all the more likely. According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine report dated 10 December 2024, Russian casualties from February 24, 2022 to December 10, 2024 include the following: 755,940 personnel, 9,524 tanks, and 19,596 infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs). While Ukraine’s estimate may appear high, there is consensus from many intelligence sources that Russian losses are substantial. A recent example is the increase in losses in the Russia Kursk oblast where Ukraine counter-attacked and has occupied since August 6, 2024. Here, Ukrainian soldiers report 10 or more daily waves of Russian attacks on the Kursk battlefield with almost all stopped, resulting in massive Russian losses. As a result, Russia has transferred soldiers from other areas to the Kursk battlefield – with only losses and no gains against Ukraine’s clever tactics. Continue reading →

Why the UN Fails to Prevent Mass Atrocities

Posted on August 10, 2022 by Assistant Editor

Violent Incidents and Reporting Bias in the South Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo from 2017 to 2022

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 10, No. 8, August 2022

The image depicts UN forces alongside military equipment and vehicles in Minembwe in South Kivu, DRC.

UN forces in Minembwe, South Kivu taken on 2 April 2019. Source: Delphin Ntanyoma.

Delphin Ntanyoma
Erasmus University

Fidele Sebahizi
Liberty University

Prosper Baseka wa Baseka
Bircham International University

1. Introduction

This study includes preliminary analysis of 324 violent incidents in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) recorded by Kivu Security Tracker (KST) and 29 reports of the United Nations Peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, known as Mission de Nations Unies pour la Stabilisation du Congo (MONUSCO).[1]

Since its creation and deployment in 1999, MONUSCO is now facing unprecedented protests as local populations in Eastern DRC are demanding its immediate withdrawal. Between July 25 and July 26, 2022, protesters from the main cities in North Kivu and South Kivu stormed MONUSCO bases in Beni, Butembo, Goma, and Uvira to express their anger at the 22-year-long UN mission’s failure to stabilize the region. Following these incidents, including the one that took place at the Uganda-DRC border, it is believed that 32 civilians and 4 peacekeepers died. Continue reading →

The Old World Order Endures

Posted on June 3, 2022 by Assistant Editor

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 10, No. 6, June 2022

President Joe Biden is depicted addressing the nation in the Roosevelt Room. He is flanked by flags with a painting in the background while he speaks into a microphone with one arm raised.

President Joe Biden addresses the nation in the Roosevelt Room, 2022. Source: CNN.

William R. Hawkins
President of the Hamilton Center for National Strategy

President Joe Biden has been using the term “inflection point” in his speeches. At the U.S. Naval Academy on May 27 he said, “Class of 2022, you are graduating at an inflection point not only in American history but in world history. And I mean it. The challenge we face and the choices we make are more consequential than ever. Things are changing so rapidly that the next 10 years will be the decisive decade of this century, because they’re going to shape what our world looks like and the values that will guide it not just for the immediate future, but for generations to come.” Yet, he didn’t lay out what those changes would be. He moved directly to a discussion of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, “A direct assault on the fundamental tenets of rule-based international order. That’s what you’re graduating into.” He then told them “You’ll learn to crew the most advanced ships in the world, train the most elite combat units, conduct undetected submarine missions, fly the most advanced fighter planes. But the most powerful tool that you’ll wield is our unmatched network of global alliances and the strength of our partnerships.”

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Putin’s Folly

Posted on February 28, 2022 by Assistant Editor

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 10, No. 2, February 2022

Protestors against 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine, at the Hachiko square in Shibuya, Japan. Protesters drop the Ukrainian flag over the shoulders and hold up signs.

Protestors against 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine, at the Hachiko square in Shibuya, Japan. Wikimedia.

Richard Shortt, Ph.D.
Leader of New Zealand’s multi-agency Combined Threat Assessment Group

The work of unravelling Putin’s folly in the Ukraine began February 24 with the firing of the first missiles and artillery shells that signalled his invasion. It will be slow, time-consuming work, assuming no national uprisings in either the Ukraine or Russia by ordinary folks demanding an end to the killing and destruction, or more significant interventions by Western powers – both of which I consider unlikely. It will, in all probability, take longer than the time Putin has left sitting on the Russian imperial throne. But it will happen.

We are currently in what I term the Chaos Phase of the work. This is where invasion leads to death, destruction, despair and defiance. It is the defiance that will ultimately lead us to the next phase, meanwhile, troops and civilians will die, infrastructure will be destroyed and damaged and people on all sides of the issue will watch in stunned horror at what modern warfare and forced occupation means in a modern-day European country.

The Russian forces will emerge victorious. There is very little doubt about that, but not before the Ukrainian efforts deliver martyrs who will fuel the next phase – Resistance. Continue reading →