Section: Atlantic Council (USA)
Here’s How the Kremlin Manufactured a Civil War in Ukraine
The war in eastern Ukraine is a Kremlin-manufactured conflict. The arrival of “little green men” in Crimea in February 2014 transformed the conflict from a domestic altercation between citizens and their government to an international crisis. Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly acknowledged in a government-sponsored documentary...
Putin Isn’t Winging It
After US Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Sochi on May 12, a barrage of articles urged Western leaders to provide Russian President Vladimir Putin with an off-ramp for his various Ukrainian adventures. Even more disheartening than the volume was the growing diversity of reasons for giving Putin a pass. At least three arguments were...
Wake Up Europe. Peace Doesn’t Preserve Itself
Amid multiple signs of an impending battle in Ukraine, NATO and Ukraine have stepped up their response. But so has Russia. Ukrainian officials claim to have 60,000 troops in the field against an estimated 54,000 Russian forces in the Donbas. A large-scale conventional theater in the Donbas is a real danger this summer. But Moscow is not merely...
Why Ukraine Struggles to Reform
Listen to the proclamations of Ukraine’s political leaders and you might think the country is in the midst of rapid change. On June 4, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko declared that “reforms are the key word…The countdown of the period of reforms has started.”There is much talk of reform, but the reality is less...
Nuclear Credibility: What the United States Lost in Ukraine and Pakistan and the Implications for the Iran Deal
As the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 powers continue on past the June 30 deadline, the focus remains on the details of an agreement and whether the negotiators can come to a final resolution. But even as these details continue to be debated, it is important to consider the bigger picture – whether or not an agreement with Iran is...
Exposing Russian Disinformation
Editor’s note: Ambassador John B. Emerson gave the opening remarks at “Exposing Russian Disinformation in the 21st Century,” a conference sponsored by the Atlantic Council, the European Council on Foreign Relations, and the Heinrich Böll Foundation on June 25, 2015 in Berlin. Emerson’s remarks have been shortened below....
Ukraine, China, ISIS Top Long List of Challenges for EU, NATO
The unity and strategic viability of the transatlantic alliance and the US major non-NATO democratic allies, including Japan, South Korea, Australia, Israel, the Philippines, and others, will be severely tested in the years to come. As always, freedom is not free, and its price is constant vigilance.The United States and its allies face...
Youth Platform is Transforming Eastern Ukraine
“We brought down some Lenins in people’s heads,” says organizer Yuriy Didula Days after Ukrainian forces retook the city of Kramatorsk on July 5, 2014, Yuriy Didula and two colleagues from western Ukraine piled into a car and drove building materials into the city.”People in the east felt abandoned by the state,”...
Why the West Should Give Ukraine’s New Spymaster a Chance
Late June in Kyiv can be beautiful. With clear skies, temperatures peaking in the high 70s, the natural beauty of the city and its citizens, it can be easy to forget that the country is at war. In part that is a result of the country’s success. A year ago, few would have predicted that the country’s armed forces would fight the...
Hey, Remember Me? It’s Europe.
The Transatlantic Alliance is in Trouble “We lived next to Russia for 500 years—listen to what we have to say,” Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski said at the Bratislava Global Security Forum on June 20. He’s right. The West needs to pay attention and achieve strategic clarity in Europe and beyond before it’s too...
