Cities have always competed among themselves. While the final goal stayed the same – to excel –, what has changed over the centuries is the object of this competition. From competing to control ...

Recent internal and regional developments haven’t strategically altered the balance of forces in Yemen, with no concrete steps towards establishing a political roadmap under UN auspices. Months of ...

When the civil war broke out in Sudan in April 2023, gold soon became pivotal in analyses of the conflict, both as a means of waging the war and as one of its causes. The role of the UAE and ...

The conflict between Morocco and the Western Sahara’s pro-independence Polisario Front goes back to the end of Spanish colonial rule. It was ignited in 1975 after Spain relinquished control of Spanish ...

The outbreak of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) crisis on 5 th June 2017 led to dramatic polarization between United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Bahrain plus Egypt and, on the other hand, ...

Adapt to change or be swept along by events. These are the two paths facing the world in 2026, after a 2025 marked by major geopolitical shifts. Donald Trump’s second term in the White House has ...

ISPI is an independent think tank. We address the most important policy issues in the world. The Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) is an independent, non-partisan, ...

Similar to other current global crises – such as those in Ukraine, the Middle East and the Democratic Republic of Congo – the conflict in Sudan appears difficult to resolve through negotiations. There ...

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has produced a shift in Italy’s foreign policy towards the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Over the last year and a half, Rome has significantly intensified its ...

The six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have largely come back together since the Al Ula Declaration in January 2021 ended the longest and deepest rift in the GCC’s 43-year history.

Matteo Villa is Senior Research Fellow at ISPI and co-heads the ISPI Data Lab, monitoring geopolitical and geo-economic trends (among which, migration trends and the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic ...

The Islamist organization in power today in Damascus, Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, is grappling with the management of power and the unification of a country divided and torn apart by years of civil war.