ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

By Tristan Reed Mexico Security Analyst Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto aggressively pursued a strategy of targeting top organized crime leaders throughout Mexico in the second quarter -- and not just in Michoacan, Sinaloa and Tamaulipas, the states that the country's major criminal groups call home. Michoacan, Sinaloa and Tamaulipas In Michoacan, Mexico City achieved substantial success against organized crime in the first half of 2014. Self-defense militias and Mexican authorities have dismantled most of the senior leadership of the Knights Templar. Only Servando "La Tuta" Gomez Martinez remains at large. Federal forces also continued to inflict significant leadership losses on organized crime groups in Sinaloa, particularly the Sinaloa Federation. The arrest of top Sinaloa Federation leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera on Feb. 22 capped the government's successes in Sinaloa. The Mexican military on June 23 also arrested Fernando "El Ingeniero

The United States and Iran have put off hard decisions on a nuclear compromise for another four months. The gap between the U.S. and Iranian positions was evidently wide enough to prevent the signing of a deal during a particularly eventful week of global crises. With this delay, the United States and Iran have made it harder for themselves to curb domestic resistance to a deal. For such a complex negotiation, the fundamental disagreement between the two sides is fairly straightforward. The International Atomic Energy Agency already has verified that so far Iran has cooperated, halting enrichment and converting its existing stockpile of highly enriched uranium to uranium oxide. The next step will be for Iran to turn that uranium oxide into nuclear fuel over the next four months for use in power plants and research reactors, bringing the country's enrichment activity more in line with a civilian nuclear program. Iran believes it has resolved the most controversial aspect of its nucl

Israeli soldiers hold positions near the Israel-Gaza border July 21. (JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images) Summary Israeli forces in Gaza slowly but steadily pushed west over the weekend as they continued to identify and destroy the infrastructure Palestinian militants use to transport material and conduct attacks. As expected, intense fighting occurred in the eastern fringes of Gaza City, particularly in Shejaiya district, as Hamas confronted the advancing troops. The fighting will only intensify as the Israelis move from rural areas into more urbanized terrain . Analysis Israeli forces have uncovered and destroyed 14 tunnels leading from the Gaza Strip into Israel. Since the ground incursion began , some 39 tunnel access points throughout Gaza have been identified. Though most have been subjected to airstrikes, Israel Defense Forces want to ensure their destruction from the ground, and the search for more tunnels continues, with ground forces moving from building to building in the hopes o

Analysis Editor's Note: The following is an internal Stratfor document listing significant meetings and events planned for the next week. Stratfor analysts use this to stay informed of the activities and travel of world leaders and to guide their areas of focus for the week. Europe July 21-22: EU ministers for ministers responsible for trade, industry, research and innovation, economy and space will hold informal meetings in the Competitiveness Council in Italy. July 22: The EU Foreign Affairs Council will be held in Brussels. July 22: A Central European summit on security policy will be held in Poland. The presidents of Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, the Baltic countries and the Visegrad Group will attend the meeting. July 22-24: European Parliament committee meetings will be held in Brussels. July 23: The EU General Affairs Council will be held in Brussels. July 24: Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu will meet to continue the negotiations

A voter casts her ballot in a polling station during Italy's February general elections.(FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty Images) Summary In recent years, several European countries have made it easier for their citizens living abroad to vote. Some have even created electoral districts to represent emigrants. This is a controversial issue in the countries that grant these rights and in the countries where the immigrants reside, and accusations of foreign meddling in domestic issues abound. Expatriates are becoming an increasingly attractive electoral group for some countries as nationalist parties become more popular throughout the Continent. This will create tension between the countries that impose strict immigration policies and those that want to attract the votes of their citizens living abroad. Analysis Most countries allow their expatriates to vote in elections and referendums, often using their embassies and consulates as polling stations. A few countries still require their ci

Click to Enlarge The pace and scope of North Korean missile and rocket launches have notably intensified over the past few months. North Korea has tested several missile systems at several launch sites, sometimes testing the same system at different locations, other times testing several systems at the same location. The tests could be largely symbolic or like most other countries in the world, North Korea may be carrying out an accelerated technological program designed to improve its weapons systems. There are suggestions that Pyongyang has improved the accuracy, the timeliness of launches and the range of some systems. The North Koreans have also carried out successive drills in various locations, perhaps as a way to gauge the readiness of its armed forces. The North appears to be improving the range and perhaps the accuracy of its KN-09 300 mm Multiple Launch Rocket System. The KN-09 tests showed a 40-kilometer increase in range from last year, now placing most, if not a

Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses a joint session of the Russian parliament in Moscow on March 18.(SERGEI ILNITSKY/AFP/Getty Images) Analysis Editor's Note: As Stratfor readies to look forward in coming days at the implications for Russia -- and its leader Vladimir Putin -- in the downing July 17 of a Malaysian jetliner, we also invite readers to take stock with us of past forecasts of Russia’s geopolitical evolution in the context of global events. Stratfor Chairman George Friedman will examine the likelihood of Putin’s undoing in the next issue of Geopolitical Weekly, to publish July 22. Accordingly, we look back here at 1998, when we predicted the unfolding Kosovo crisis would be the undoing of late Russian President Boris Yeltsin. We share our assessment from 2000, when we assessed how newly elected President Putin was rapidly consolidating absolute power. In 2005, Stratfor reassessed Putin's situation after his first presidential term and laid out how his leadersh

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks at a news conference about the Iranian nuclear program July 15 in Vienna.(JOE KLAMAR/AFP/Getty Images) Analysis Stratfor forecast in 2010 that the United States and Iran, despite decades of hostility and rivalry, would reach an accord around common interests. At the time, our prediction was met with widespread skepticism. It was a difficult to accept such an outcome. Soon after Hassan Rouhani took over the Iranian presidency in June 2013, we updated our assessment to show how the conditions were ripe for the two sides to move towards a detente. Three months later we saw a preliminary agreement on the issue of Iran's alleged bid to build nuclear weaponry. Now the two sides seem likely to extend the July 20 deadline to continue talks toward a permanent agreement, but that does not mean the process is in trouble. On the contrary, the negotiations are expected to take time and there will be many stages moving forward. Thinking About the Unthink