The fall of Kabul in August 2021 prompted discussions about the end of Western influence in the country and an opportunity for China and Russia to dig their heels in the ‘graveyard of empires’. In the immediate aftermath, in contrast with Afghanistan’s other neighbours, Russia didn’t close its embassy in …

U.S. and partners should unify their support for Moldovans’ aim to join the European Union. At a sensitive edge of Russia’s war on Ukraine, Moscow is sustaining a campaign to regain control in Moldova, the small, ex-Soviet republic landlocked between Ukraine and Romania. Russia has maneuvered for years to scuttle …

An eighth coup around the Sahel shows we need better responses to the world’s most unstable region. This morning’s coup d’etat in Niger only deepens the pattern of instability across Africa’s Sahel and damages what has been a rare process of fairly steady democracy building in the region. Niger’s democratically …