Eurasia

The West Surrenders its Strategic Ambiguity in the Black Sea

In the face of Russian threats, Western allies must urgently fashion a credible deterrence policy for the Black Sea, or risk their strategically important ties with regional partners. Russia’s massive military build-up around Ukraine is causing alarm in the transatlantic community, reflecting the fear that the Kremlin may decide to …

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Russia and Ukraine: ‘One People’ as Putin Claims?

As Russia’s military threats to Ukraine intensify, it is worth dissecting President Putin’s use of historical props to justify the claim that Russia and Ukraine are one nation. In July, Russian President Vladimir Putin published an extraordinary essay denying Ukraine’s independent history, an argument amplified in a later Q&A. Former …

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A UK–Russian Conversation on Arms Control, Strategic Stability and Ukraine

An exchange of views between UK and Russian experts on the growing tensions between Russia and the West. RUSI and the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) recently brought together experts from our two countries to discuss how to bring ‘strategic stability’ to the relationship between Russia, the UK and NATO. …

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Ad-Hoc European Military Cooperation Outside Europe

This Occasional Paper examines the emergence of European-led ad-hoc military coalitions, why these forms of cooperation have emerged and what value they add to the existing European security architecture. Europe’s security architecture is dominated by NATO and the EU. They are, respectively, the primary hard and soft security providers to …

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Tough Talk And Tough Talks: At Annual News Conference, Putin Sends Signals On Ukraine And NATO – Analysis

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s message to the United States, NATO, and Kyiv at his annual press conference could arguably be summed up like this: Happy Holidays — and after that, we’ll see. The choreographed, nearly four-hour event on December 23 came with attention riveted on Russia’s military buildup near Ukraine’s …

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Confrontation With China, Domestic Crises Test India In 2021- Analysis

India grappled with serious security and domestic challenges this year. Military tensions with China showed no signs of easing, a deadly second wave of the coronavirus pandemic devastated India and the biggest farmers protest in decades challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s authority. The Asian giants, India and China, ended their …

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Armenia Has Continued To Lose Land To Azerbaijan Since 2020 Ceasefire Declaration – OpEd

Many people assume that the 44-day war in 2020 ended with a new ceasefire line that both Azerbaijan and Armenia were committed to observing, Grant Mikhaelyan says. But in reality, Baku has continued a low intensity conflict that has allowed it to take control of land along that line; and …

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Moscow’s Proposed US-Russia Treaty – Analysis

Russia proposed a new security treaty between Washington and Moscow on December 17th. The Kremlin contends it will de-escalate tensions surrounding Ukraine, if the U.S. agrees to the terms of the “Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Security Guarantees”. An examination of the draft …

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The Price of Nostalgia

America’s Self-Defeating Economic Retreat Anew consensus has emerged in American politics: that the United States has recklessly pursued international economic openness at the expense of workers and the result has been economic inequality, social pain, and political strife. Both Democrats and Republicans are now advocating “a trade policy for the …

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The Art of War

Can Culture Drive Geopolitics? Around 1949, fresh out of college at Northwestern University, my mother moved to New York to take a job at NBC. She arrived at the dawn of U.S. television. NBC had entered the business just about a decade earlier. Rather than being assigned to a sitcom …

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