Global think tanks (ASPI The Strategist; The Jamestown Foundation; The Soufan Center)
Armenia, Georgia
(Giorgi Menabde – The Jamestown Foundation) Georgian officials congratulated Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on his victory in the parliamentary elections in Armenia, expressing hope for strengthening Georgian–Armenian ties. Many Georgians followed the Armenian elections with great attention, even excitement, as these elections largely determine the future of peace and Western integration of the entire South Caucasus, including Georgia. Pro-Western forces in Georgia view the victory of pro-Western forces in neighboring Armenia as an argument for restoring Georgia’s trajectory toward integration with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union and further distancing itself from Russia. – Armenian Election Results Inspire Pro-Western Forces in Georgia – Jamestown
Cybersecurity, Women
(Renee Burton – ASPI The Strategist) In Australia, women are only 17 percent of the cybersecurity workforce. This long-standing imbalance is a major thorn in the side of the industry and has created a critical gap in digital protection. With AI-driven threats on the rise, diversity in the workplace isn’t just a nice to have; it’s an absolute necessity. There are two sides to this coin: one is that cybersecurity involves complex problem solving, which benefits from differing perspectives; the other is that cyberthreats disproportionately affect women. Women offer diverse perspectives, particularly perspectives that are more commonly confronted with specific types of scams, and the benefits of having them at the decision-making table are numerous. According to reporting by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, women were more likely to report feeling unsafe online. They received more phishing messages, whether by text or email. The study also signalled that women were more likely to be targeted for identity theft. Nearly half of the women surveyed reported that their social media accounts had been hacked at one point or another, compared with 37 percent of men surveyed. – Women in cybersecurity are crucial in the AI era | The Strategist
Russia, Ukraine
(Pavel K. Baev – The Jamestown Foundation) On June 12, RBC-Ukraine, citing a source in the Ukrainian government, reported that the United States had provided Kyiv with information indicating that Russia was preparing a potential Oreshnik strike in the coming days. This warning, which has so far not come to fruition, comes amid a string of Russian setbacks, including a scaled-back May 9 Victory Day parade, Ukrainian drone attacks amid the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, failed influence efforts in Armenia’s elections, and the Oreshnik’s poor performance in previous launches. Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to dismiss evidence of military and economic difficulties, including battlefield communication shortcomings, budget strains, and falling external investment into Russia, reinforcing concerns that Kremlin decision-making is becoming detached from Russia’s worsening realities. – Oreshnik Threat Not Distracting From Kremlin’s Setbacks – Jamestown
US, Iran
(Oorja Tapan – East Asia Forum) Iran’s decision to levy renminbi and cryptocurrency tolls at the Strait of Hormuz is an early example of a state converting geographic leverage into pressure on payment channels. The move draws on years of quietly assembled infrastructure that the crisis has repurposed as a toll-collection mechanism. For other actors with similar geography and access to dollar alternatives, the barriers to replication now look lower than before. But the result so far has been a marginal challenge to dollar dominance, not the arrival of a de-dollarisation revolution. – The Hormuz tollbooth is a precedent, not a de-dollarisation revolution | East Asia Forum
(The Soufan Center) Iran and the U.S. are competing to shape the messaging resulting from the three-month war, presenting the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) as a strategic victory that will reorder the regional power structure. President Trump and his aides are focused on presenting the reported agreement as permanently preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and stricter than the Obama Administration’s 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, the JCPOA. By claiming they will continue to manage traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian leaders are publicly interpreting the MOU as U.S. capitulation to Iran’s demands, in part to blunt domestic criticism of Iranian concessions in the agreement. A main point of contention appears to be the sequencing of relief from U.S. sanctions and the unblocking of Iranian Central Bank assets held abroad. – U.S. and Iran Shape the Optics of an Agreement – The Soufan Center
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