James D. Durso is the Managing Director of Corsair LLC, a supply chain consultancy. In 2013 to
2015, he was the Chief Executive Officer of AKM Consulting, a provider of business development and international project management services in Central and Southwest Asia to U.S. clients in a variety of industries including telecommunications, homeland security, and defense. Since 2013, he has mentored graduate students at The George Washington University, Elliot School of International Affairs on the roles of members of the Country Team at an American embassy, security assistance, and the functions of military advisors attached to an embassy.
Twenty-one years ago, the U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq in the erroneous belief that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction and was allied…
After 20 years of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, Central Asia is increasingly connected to the Islamic Emirate and is building the foundation for sustained…
While the U.S., Russia and Europe are trying to quell (or aggravate) crises simultaneously in Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, Israel/Gaza, the Persian Gulf and the Red…
It seemed like a good idea at the time… On Jan. 4, 2024, the U.S. assassinated Mushtaq Jawad Kazim al-Jawari, a commander in an Iran-linked Iraqi militia.…
Azerbaijan’s late September military operation to retake the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, the self-styled “Republic of Artsakh,” caused most of the residents to flee to Armenia and the…
It was a day 32 years in the making, but the American president finally met the assembled leaders of the five Central Asian republics on…
The American filmmaker Woody Allen said, ““Eighty percent of success is showing up.” If he is correct, America is not succeeding in Central Asia. But the…
Recently, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported the progress of Afghanistan’s Qosh Tepa Irrigation Canal, $670 million, 285-kilometer canal to irrigate 550,000 hectares of land by…
America’s economic siege of Iran has been costly for Tehran’s neighbors, and now it is Pakistan’s turn to pick up the tab. On 7 August,…
Almost twenty years to the day after Ambassador Joseph Wilson wrote his op-ed “What I Didn’t Find in Africa” about his visit to Niger to confirm if…
In late May, shots were exchanged by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the Taliban near a border post in Iran’s Southwest Nimroz province. Each side blamed…
The Central Asian republics are self-organizing in the wake of the NATO evacuation from Afghanistan in August 2021. The republics are wedged between Russia, China,…
Instead of being “Being Fustest with the Mostest” in Central Asia, an area of intense interest to China and Russia, the U.S. and Europe may…
In early May, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary was reportedly considering a bill to pressure the OPEC oil producers’ group to stop making output…
In April 2023, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Rasit Meredow, the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Turkmenistan for a working meeting in Washington, D.C.…
Kazakhstan’s president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev believes “Never let a crisis go to waste.” Tokayev has been on a roll since January 2022, when the government requested…
The United States and Uzbekistan recently concluded the second meeting of their Strategic Partnership Dialogue. As Uzbekistan is the most populous country in Central Asia…
In September, a bipartisan group of U.S. Representatives called on the U.S. Secretary of State to impose sanctions on the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria…
“Nobody f*cks with a Biden,” said the U.S. president, and the oil ministers of the member countries of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries…
The negotiations to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States,…