Will 2018 bring renewed attention to Eastern Ukraine?
The past year has been one of chaos and upheaval. At the outset of 2017, the Islamic State still controlled huge swaths of Iraq and Syria and aimed to make new land claims world-wide; now, it has virtually no territory to speak of. At the beginning of the year, the threat from North Korea felt dormant; now, Pyongyang is flexing its muscles with...
New draft law proposes up to 5-year sentence for denying Russian aggression against Ukraine
A new draft bill criminalizing denial of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine has been strongly criticised by human rights activists for several reasons, including its authors’ failure to take into consideration the persecution Ukrainians living under occupation in Crimea or Donbas face simply for using words like...
The Middle East Helps Russia’s Comeback as a Global Power
Not for decades has there been such public hand-wringing over Russian intentions in Syria, Libya and the Mediterranean. European and American media keep reminding us that Russia’s moves are evidence of aggressive policies, similar to Russian military actions in Ukraine and Crimea. Ethan Chorin, a former US diplomat, in “Russia Strategic...
December 8th, 2017
CAMBODIA Cambodia Calls On US To Reconsider Visa Restrictions, Despite Ongoing Crackdown RFA Cambodia’s government on Thursday urged the U.S. to reconsider visa restrictions announced in response to an ongoing crackdown against the political opposition and freedom of expression, but maintained that the move would not influence the internal...
Money Laundering for 21st Century Authoritarianism
In Money Laundering for 21st Century Authoritarianism: Western Enablement of Kleptocracy, Ben Judah and Belinda Li explore how loopholes in the U.S. anti-money laundering regime are being exploited by kleptocrats and their professional “enablers.” On December 1, 2017, Hudson Institute hosted the launch of the report with Ben Judah, Raymond Baker...
The Polish-Ukrainian Battle for the Past
A dispute about the different interpretations of their common past is poisoning relations between Poland and Ukraine in ways that benefit Russia. …read more Source: Carnegie Endowment for International...
German-Russian Gas Relations
In the context of the security crisis in and over Ukraine, natural gas imports from Russia have become a source of debate in Germany and the European Union. Natural gas relations with Russia are often analyzed either through the prism of commercial and market-based transactions or that of foreign policy and geopolitics. In that respect, this...
During our Winter of Discontent, the UN is More Important than Ever
By giving a clearer voice to the Global South, the UN can be revitalised and strengthened from within, and avoid the fate of its predecessor, the League of Nations, in being relegated to obscurity.Download the article (PDF)The UN has made headlines in 2017 for all the wrong reasons. Just this month, fifteen of its Tanzanian peacekeepers were...
No-Fly Zone Effectiveness: From Military–Strategic Tool to Political Shorthand
No-fly zones have become a popular foreign policy tool over the past two decades, but they are rarely effective. In fact, no-fly zones are generally used for solving political rather than military–strategic problems.Download the article (PDF)No-fly zones have become the one-size-fits-all solution to a wide range of foreign policy problems and...
The World in 2018
Summary It’s difficult to ignore how dramatically the world has changed since 2008, when the global financial crisis shook the foundations on which the international order was built. The systems that had been in place for a generation have since begun to slowly fall apart. And though they have not yet crumbled entirely, the possibility that...
