Edwin Meese III is an American attorney, law professor, author and member of the Republican Party who served in Ronald Reagan's gubernatorial administration (1967–1974), the Reagan presidential transition team (1980–81), and the Reagan administration (1981–1985). Following the 1984 presidential election, Reagan considered him for the White House Chief of Staff position, but James Baker was chosen instead. Meese was eventually appointed and confirmed as the 75th United States Attorney General (1985–1988), a position he held until resigning in 1988 amidst the Wedtech scandal.
World War III, also known as the Third World War, is a hypothetical future global conflict subsequent to World War I (1914–1918) and World War II (1939–1945). It is widely assumed that such a war would involve all of the great powers, like its predecessors, as well as the use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction, thus surpassing prior conflicts in geographic scope, devastation, and loss of life.
The president of Turkey, officially the president of the Republic of Türkiye, is the head of state and head of government of Turkey. The president directs the executive branch of the national government and is the commander-in-chief of the Turkish military. The president also heads the National Security Council.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organisation, established in 1974, that provides policy recommendations, analysis and data on the global energy sector. The 31 member countries and 13 association countries of the IEA represent 75% of global energy demand.
The Heritage Foundation, sometimes referred to simply as "Heritage," is an activist American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1973, it took a leading role in the conservative movement in the 1980s during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, whose policies were taken from Heritage Foundation studies, including its Mandate for Leadership.
Square Leg was a 1980 British government home defence Command Post and field exercise, which tested the Transition to War and Home Defence roles of the Ministry of Defence and British government. Part of the exercise involved a mock nuclear attack on Britain. It was assumed that 131 nuclear weapons would fall on Britain with a total yield of 205 megatons with yields of 500 KT to 3 MT. That was felt to be a reasonably realistic scenario, but the report stated that a total strike in excess of 1,000 megatons would be likely.
Elections for the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) were held in Palestinian Autonomous areas from 1994 until their transition into the State of Palestine in 2013. Elections were scheduled to be held in 2009, but was postponed because of the Fatah–Hamas conflict. President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to stay on until the next election, but he is recognized as president only in the West Bank and not by Hamas in Gaza. The Palestinian National Authority has held several elections in the Palestinian territories, including elections for president, the legislature and local councils. The PNA has a multi-party system, with numerous parties. In this system, Fatah is the dominant party.
The Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) is a global effort that aims to stop trafficking of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), their delivery systems, and related materials to and from states and non-state actors of proliferation concern. Launched by United States President, George W. Bush in May 2003 at a meeting in Kraków, Poland, the PSI has now grown to include the endorsement of 105 nations around the world, including Russia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Argentina, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Singapore, New Zealand, Republic of Korea and Norway.
Able Archer 83 was a military exercise conducted by NATO that took place in November 1983. It simulated a period of heightened nuclear tensions between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, leading to concerns that it could have been mistaken for a real attack by the Soviet Union. The exercise is considered by some to be one of the closest moments the world came to nuclear war during the Cold War. It was the annual Able Archer exercise conducted in November 1983. The purpose of the exercise, like previous years, was to simulate a period of conflict escalation, culminating in the U.S. military attaining a simulated DEFCON 1 coordinated nuclear attack. The five-day exercise, which involved NATO commands throughout Western Europe, was coordinated from the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) headquarters in Casteau, Belgium.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is an Iranian principlist and nationalist politician who served as the sixth president of Iran from 2005 to 2013. He is currently a member of the Expediency Discernment Council. He was known for his hardline views and nuclearisation of Iran. He was also the main political leader of the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran, a coalition of conservative political groups in the country, and served as mayor of Tehran from 2003 to 2005, reversing many of his predecessor's reforms.
The German Institute for International and Security Affairs is a German think tank in international relations and security studies. A semi-official organization with close links to the federal government, it advises the Bundestag and the federal government on foreign and security policy issues, and also advises decision-makers in international organisations relevant to Germany, above all the European Union, NATO and the United Nations. SWP is regarded as one of Europe's most influential think tanks in international relations. It is headquartered in Berlin and incorporated as a foundation.
Saeed Jalili is an Iranian hardline principlist politician and diplomat, who was secretary of the Supreme National Security Council from 2007 to 2013. He is currently a member of the Expediency Discernment Council, and is the former nuclear negotiator for Iran.
Wendy Ruth Sherman is an American diplomat who served as the United States deputy secretary of state from April 2021 to July 2023. She was a professor of the practice of public leadership and director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, a senior counselor at Albright Stonebridge Group, and a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Antony John Blinken is an American lawyer and diplomat currently serving as the 71st United States secretary of state. He previously served as deputy national security advisor from 2013 to 2015 and deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 under President Barack Obama. Blinken was previously national security advisor to then-Vice President Joe Biden from 2009 to 2013.
Jacob Jeremiah Sullivan is an American attorney who is serving as the United States National Security Advisor, reporting directly to President Joe Biden. He previously served as Director of Policy to President Barack Obama, National Security Advisor to then Vice President Biden and Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary Hillary Clinton at the U.S. Department of State. Sullivan also served as senior advisor to the U.S. federal government at the Iran nuclear negotiations and senior policy advisor to Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, as well as visiting professor at Yale Law School. On November 23, 2020, President-elect Biden announced that Sullivan would be appointed the United States National Security Advisor. He took office on January 20, 2021.
Military exercises are conducted by the Pakistan Armed Forces to increase combat readiness, and to identify problems in logistics, training, and current military doctrine. They also test the ability of units to work together. Lastly, they act as a visible expression of military might, which acts as a deterrent to potential enemy action. An important component of each exercise is the after-action assessment. Since 1989 the four branches services have increasingly begun coordinated exercises.
Russell "Russ" Thurlow Vought is an American former government official who was the director of the Office of Management and Budget from July 2020 to January 2021. He was previously deputy director of the OMB from 2018 to 2020 and acting director from 2019 to 2020.
The Transition Integrity Project (TIP) were two distinct series of political scenario exercises in the United States. The first, ran during June 2020 and involved more than 100 current and former senior government and campaign leaders, academics, journalists, polling experts and former federal and state government officials. These exercises examined potential disruptions to the 2020 presidential election and transition. TIP was not an organization, but rather a short-term project run under the auspices of the organization Protect Democracy. The second, the Transition Integrity Project 2024, ran over the course of ten days in June 2024 and involved more than 50 former high-ranking federal officials, retired military and law enforcement officers, attorneys, journalists, and academics, with former Democratic U.S. Senator Robert Torricelli notably playing the role of President Joe Biden. As with the 2020 effort, the 2024 academic exercises determined that the greatest threat to a peaceful and routine transfer of presidential power comes from the incumbent president and that, in Biden's case, the threat is amplified by his frequent violation of the Constitution and his claims that former president Donald Trump represents a threat to democracy.
The presidential transition of Joe Biden began on November 7, 2020, and ended on January 20, 2021. Unlike previous presidential transitions, which normally take place during the roughly 10-week period between the election in the first week of November and the inauguration on January 20, Biden's presidential transition was shortened somewhat because the General Services Administration under the outgoing Trump administration did not recognize Biden as the "apparent winner" until November 23.
The presidential transition of Ronald Reagan began when he won the 1980 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect, and ended when Reagan was inaugurated on January 20, 1981.
