Kamran Bokhari

Strategic Forecasting | Intel Analysis | Eurasian Geopol | @NewlinesInst | @MidEastPolicy | @georgetownsfs | Feminist spatiotemporal wanderer | Avid🚴🏍️& ♥️🏔️

[Kamran Bokhari @KamranBokhari]

Burden-sharing with allied and partner nations, maritime strength, and geoeconomic tools.

My assessment of the new National Security Strategy for @Forbes

@NewlinesInst

https://t.co/G34mOyP2Aw

[Thomas Emanuel Dans 🇺🇸 @TomDansCFA]

China, Russia deepen maritime and Arctic logistics ties to secure energy supply

https://t.co/71DCoMNTj2 via @scmpnews

[Kamran Bokhari @KamranBokhari]

Did this one from Islamabad about 3 weeks ago but all the more relevant in what has transpired in the past few days:

https://t.co/Q8uJryYO8I

[Kamran Bokhari @KamranBokhari]

➤ Everyone watches Taiwan and the South China Sea. But the sea lanes China’s economy depends on run farther south, through Indonesia.

➤ As the U.S. pulls back, keeping Beijing from turning that dependence into dominance is falling to regional powers. Indonesia is the natural anchor.

➤ Geography is Indonesia’s greatest asset and its biggest problem. Its 17,000+ islands span a distance wider than the continental U.S., and more than three-quarters of its territory is water. It can’t police all of that alone.

➤ India and Australia are stepping in. India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands overlook Malacca’s western approach, and Australia signed a security treaty with Jakarta in February. The result isn’t an anti-China alliance but a shared balance of power, with the U.S. in a supporting role.

My Oct 9 essay: https://t.co/oaUxX25Dm2

[Kamran Bokhari @KamranBokhari]

➤ The Mecca pact is the region’s clearest response to Washington’s push for burden-sharing. Saudi Arabia, its most exposed member, needed help first.

➤ The two members expected to do the heavy lifting are tied down elsewhere. Turkey is stretched across several fronts, and Pakistan faces Taliban-backed militants on its Afghan border and Baloch separatists along its border with Iran.

➤ Ankara is trying to free up Islamabad by mediating with the Taliban, including its intelligence chief’s first trip to Kabul. But Turkey has little leverage there. It can broker talks, not force the Taliban to rein in their Pakistani allies.

➤ For Washington, a lighter footprint in the Middle East will come slowly, because the partners meant to take up the burden aren’t ready to carry it.

My Sep 22 essay: https://t.co/bhz0BPwKwP

[Kamran Bokhari @KamranBokhari]

➤ Pakistan is being pulled into a Middle Eastern security role it may not have the capacity for. Insurgencies, political turmoil and an overstretched military hold Islamabad back just as Saudi Arabia needs it most.

➤ U.S. burden-shifting is redrawing the region’s alliances. As Washington steps back as the main guarantor, Riyadh needs new partners, and the Mecca accord with Pakistan and Turkey is the result.

➤ Islamabad faces a hard trade-off. Saudi security is a core interest, but a real role in the Gulf would require a new expeditionary force, paid for largely by Riyadh, while Pakistan’s own western frontier will remain unstable for a long time to come.

➤ The irony: the rivalry with India blocks any security order in South Asia, yet U.S. retrenchment is drawing Pakistan into one in West Asia. Security commitments no longer stop at regional borders.

My Sep 29 essay: https://t.co/xYpsIz6EAz

[Kamran Bokhari @KamranBokhari]

➤ The most effective disinformation may not look like propaganda. It can enter through trusted news outlets, anonymous officials, and breaking-news alerts - shaping markets and policy before the facts are established.

➤ Credibility itself has become a weapon. Claims can be laundered through respected institutions until repetition substitutes for verification and their original sources disappear.

➤ The strategic stakes are real. From Iraq’s alleged weapons programs to disputed battlefield claims, unverified information has shaped perceptions, distorted decisions, and raised the risk of escalation.

➤ The lesson for intelligence and policy: A credible outlet is not proof of a credible claim. Trace the source, examine its interests, seek independent evidence, and test competing explanations. In modern geopolitical competition, information literacy is national security.

My Oct 1 @Forbes essay:

https://t.co/EEq7M4XZj9

[Kamran Bokhari @KamranBokhari]

@NegarMojtahedi @dpatrikarakos @AlbertoMiguelF5 @IranIntl_En Wouldn’t have been possible without your direction!

[Kamran Bokhari @KamranBokhari]

Where is Iran actually heading?

Yours truly, @dpatrikarakos, & @AlbertoMiguelF5 sat down with @NegarMojtahedi on @IranIntl_En to discuss the trends unfolding inside the country, what they reveal about the Islamic Republic’s trajectory, and the signals to watch for what may come next.

https://t.co/eaa0p1rGPU

[Kamran Bokhari @KamranBokhari]

The real test is not whether America can reopen a waterway, but whether it can turn military advantage into a settlement that leaves it carrying less of the region’s security burden, not more.

Any closure to the war must enable burden-shifting. If the war ends with American warships as the only guarantee that Hormuz stays open, Washington will have won the battle and inherited a permanent mission at odds with its new geostrategy.

My latest for @Forbes

https://t.co/Ukg8DiQpWL

[Kamran Bokhari @KamranBokhari]

In this convo with @OtherImranKhan & @khansheharyar of @NDF_Pak I talk about shifting U.S. priorities, the evolving strategic landscape in West Asia, and Pakistan’s choices in an increasingly contested world. From regional rivalries to great-power competition, we examine how Pakistan can navigate uncertainty, strengthen its diplomatic position, and respond to emerging risks and opportunities.

https://t.co/CA9XsAlYCg

[Kamran Bokhari @KamranBokhari]

What can and will the Saudis do to counter the Houthi offensive?

My convo with @SanaMaqboool on @PakTVGlobal

https://t.co/TZFx0AYCU2

[Kamran Bokhari @KamranBokhari]

➤ Saudi Arabia has long sought to keep Yemen under the influence of a friendly faction strong enough to contain threats but too weak and divided to challenge the kingdom. That strategy has helped produce the very threat Riyadh now faces.

➤ The Houthis seek to consolidate their control over Yemen and dominate its political order. For Riyadh, preventing that outcome is a strategic imperative, because a Houthi-dominated Yemen would leave Saudi Arabia facing a persistent threat on its southern border.

➤ With the U.S. focused on Iran and Riyadh lacking the military capabilities to counter the Houthi threat on its own, the kingdom has few viable options. Turkey & Pakistan don't want a deeper role, but neither can let the attacks go unchecked.

➤ Washington’s strategic imperative is to keep two battlespaces separate: the war with Iran and the Houthi-Saudi conflict. Yet Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia threaten to entangle them, complicating U.S. efforts to end the Iran war without assuming responsibility for a second front.

My latest: https://t.co/5Yo0pKcJJk

[Middle East Policy Council @MidEastPolicy]

🗞️ [#InTheNews] Seven months into the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, can military gains lead to lasting stability?

In @Forbes, @KamranBokhari examines why diplomacy is critical to reshaping Middle East security.

Read more here ⤵️
https://t.co/gRxdP7rcE4

[New Lines Institute @NewlinesInst]

Can Washington turn its military advantage over Iran into lasting regional stability?

Senior Director @KamranBokhari explores the limits of military power and the diplomatic path toward a new Middle East security order in his latest Forbes analysis.

Read more here ⤵️

[Negar Mojtahedi @NegarMojtahedi]

This is one of the most thought-provoking conversations I’ve had on Iran.

We go beyond the day-to-day headlines to ask a bigger question: Where is Iran actually heading?

We break down the trends unfolding inside the country, what they reveal about the Islamic Republic’s trajectory, and the signals to watch for what may come next.

Really worth a watch or listen.

Link to WATCH: https://t.co/N6kLnJMzlg

Or listen on any podcast platform.

@dpatrikarakos @AlbertoMiguelF5 @KamranBokhari

[Imran Khan @OtherImranKhan]

How is America’s global strategy changing and where does Pakistan fit?

On the latest Geopolitical GupShup, Dr. Kamran Bokhari (@KamranBokhari) joins us to unpack shifting US priorities, a changing West Asia, great-power competition and the choices Pakistan faces in navigating this new geopolitical landscape.

Watch: https://t.co/L0g6gW0TaZ

@MidEastPolicy @NewlinesInst @OtherImranKhan @khansheharyar @jumainasiddiqui @KaleemImam @NDF_Pak

[Negar Mojtahedi @NegarMojtahedi]

The Islamic Republic is in a “slow meltdown,” analysts tell Eye for Iran.

A collapsing rial. A deepening economic crisis. Growing repression. And signs of fractures among the regime’s own hardliners.

“This regime cannot go back to what it was.”

For Eye for Iran, we examine how the pressures are converging — and what could signal that the Islamic Republic is reaching a breaking point.

READ: https://t.co/n3ymIsVhIl

@dpatrikarakos @AlbertoMiguelF5 @KamranBokhari