Recent Posts

SWIFT and Certain Punishment for Russia?

There Are Better Ways to Deter Moscow Than Threatening Its Banking Access In 2014, as Russia solidified its control over Crimea and supported separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic struggled with how best to respond. Although U.S. and EU officials quickly settled on sanctions …

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Erdogan’s End Game

Will He Undermine Turkish Democracy to Stay in Power? Over the past few months, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has looked increasingly desperate. He has stepped up his repression of critics and political opponents, including, most recently, Metin Gurcan, a founding member of the opposition Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA), …

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Sudan’s PM resigns: How we got here, what comes next

Abdalla Hamdok’s resignation is the latest blow to Sudan’s transition to democracy since the Oct. 25, 2021, military coup. Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok resigned late Sunday, Jan. 2, amid a political impasse with leaders of the country’s military junta and a crackdown on protesters calling for full civilian rule, …

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China’s Soft-Power Advantage in Africa

Beijing Isn’t Just Building Roads—It’s Making Friends When U.S. policymakers consider China’s influence in Africa, they often think of big-ticket infrastructure development programs such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Over the past two decades, Beijing has spent billions building dams, highways, railways, and ports in countries from Egypt …

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Russia Is Playing With Fire in the Balkans

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the Yugoslav wars, Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II. Although the Balkan states moved toward democratic governance and integration with NATO and the European Union in the immediate aftermath of the wars, consistent neglect on the part of the …

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