If France and Germany are not able to maintain a pro-democratic message, the liberal world order will lose its foothold in Europe. Fragmentation in German politics is among the greatest threats to the democratic cause.
Hardly a year goes by without learned assessments that under the pressure of internal and regional challenges, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan’s luck may run out. However, this “weak man” of the Middle East continues to be one of the region’s islands of relative stability.
The blockchain movement originated as part of a libertarian solution counter to centralized authority. And now, ironically, it is governments that are increasingly interested in the potential of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies (DLTs). ... Indeed, Blockchain technologies are poised to significantly benefit public services by improving governments' efficiency and transparency. This article argues why and how governments should more boldly pursue the use of blockchain technology as a tool for improved governance outcomes.
Tying U.S. aid to individual recipient countries’ voting patterns in the UNGA ... would ultimately deprive the United States of a great tool with which it has so uniquely built its greatness around the world and the world around it: foreign aid.
The United States will not tolerate any other power establishing “exclusive hegemonic control” over Asia or the Pacific, according to renowned Asia scholar Michael Green. In a magisterial work, Green argues persuasively that this anti-hegemonic impulse has been the central driver of American grand strategy toward the Asia-Pacific for over two centuries.
In Pushkin’s 1822 poem, Prisoner of the Caucasus, the epilogue proclaims, “And the violent cry of war fell silent: All is subject to the Russian sword. Proud sons of the Caucasus, You have fought, you have perished terribly.”[1] The political overtones of the poem’s dénouement are jarring compared to the poem’s earlier verses on romance, natural beauty, and the heroism of the Caucasian people. But the poem’s ending reveals the complicated position of the region in Russian history and culture. The Caucasus is simultaneously a place to be controlled, otherized, and romanticized.
To achieve its goal of deepened integration with ASEAN, India has established and continuously emphasized opportunities for economic and security partnership. All the while, it has simultaneously appealed to socio-cultural ties. Closer integration with ASEAN, India hopes, will allow the two to jointly balance China’s growing regional influence.
In terms of human development potential, Morocco is a nation of immense promise, where gifted fortunes of nature such as wide-ranging organic agricultural products come together with dynamic social development frameworks. Moroccan development opportunities could launch the country into a haven for community-managed projects and change in Africa and the Near East.
For seven decades, the United States has prided itself in being a reliable and committed NATO partner, willing to protect all allies at all times. Today such assurances no longer appear rock-solid. ... In this context, one is reminded of Czech-born writer Milan Kundera’s insightful words regarding the fate of small countries: “What distinguishes the small nations from the large is not the quantitative criterion of the number of their inhabitants; it is something deeper: for them their existence is not a self-evident certainty but always a question, a wager, a risk.”
Since the pivotal event of former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s execution on Christmas Day 1989, and the subsequent fall of the Soviet Union, Romania has established itself as a friend to democratic values and to global security and stability. In less than 30 years, Romania has adjusted its economy to support capital markets, strengthened its institutions enough to gain membership into the European Union, and invested in its security and its internal values enough to gain membership into NATO.
At no point in modern European history have the people of Ukraine occupied as important a role in European geopolitical developments as they do today. Although not yet immediately apparent, the 2014 overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych and the political and economic transformation will have greater geopolitical consequences than European policy makers often assume. If Ukraine’s transformation fails, its example will deliver a shattering blow to those calling for increased liberalization in remaining illiberal states across Eastern Europe.
Retired Army Colonel Fitz Fitzpatrick discusses the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy and Common Security and Defense Policy and the EU’s efforts to address crises in Libya, Ukraine and Syria. He argues that the EU has struggled to establish foreign and defense policies that are independent from the United States, and only an existential crisis will push the EU to fulfill its potential as an actor on the world stage.
