Recent Posts

The Danger of Regional War in the Middle East

Israel’s campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attacks still overshadows Middle East politics, with the spectre of wider war or other regional instability ever present even as ceasefire talks appear to be making progress. Crisis Group experts offer a 360-degree view. The war in Gaza between …

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How Austria became Putin’s Alpine Fortress

For Vienna, neutrality is simply good business. It didn’t occur to the Austrian chamber of commerce that hosting a cozy networking event on the outskirts of Moscow might raise eyebrows in some quarters. As record cold gripped the Russian capital in January, the local chapter saw an opportunity to pierce …

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The Cold War roots of Scholz’s tank trauma

Olaf Scholz’s long dithering before sending tanks is symptomatic of a deep-seated mindset that détente won the Cold War, not Reagan’s belligerence. In early January of 1984, an aspiring young West German socialist with a shoulder-length curly mane traveled by train to East Berlin with his comrades for an important …

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Putin proving his ambitions don’t stop at Ukraine

The day before Vladimir Putin’s long yearly address to parliament Thursday, politicians from Transnistria, a pro-Kremlin breakaway region of Moldova, asked the Russian president to “protect” it against Moldova’s “increased pressure” — and Moscow responded it considers protecting its “compatriots” a priority. It’s a reminder Putin’s ambitions don’t stop at …

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Can Mark Rutte save NATO?

It’s been more than five years since Mark Rutte earned the nickname “the Trump whisperer.” It was July 2018 and Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, had ushered everyone but the leaders, ambassadors and a handful of staff out of the room at the military alliance’s headquarters. Minutes earlier, Donald Trump …

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Transnistria Ups the Ante Amid Creeping Pressure From Moldova

An extraordinary parliamentary session in Transnistria was a bid to attract international attention and a signal that the de facto state is ready to escalate. The longer the war in Ukraine continues, the more confident neighboring Moldova’s authorities feel in their long-running conflict with the breakaway state of Transnistria. Moldova …

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Putin’s Six-Year Manifesto Sets Sights Beyond Ukraine

Putin’s state of the nation address should have been a mere pre-election formality, but it left an extremely chilling impression of an unraveling spiral of escalation.As Vladimir Putin prepares to run for re-election in less than three weeks’ time for a fifth presidential term, the Russian leader has not troubled …

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