Section: Atlantic Council (USA)
It’s Time to Invite Georgia to Join NATO
On a visit to Tbilisi in March, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg reiterated a decade-old promise: Georgia will eventually join the Western military alliance. However, despite Stoltenberg’s comments, there is little discernible evidence to suggest membership for Georgia is in the cards. At NATO’s Bucharest Summit in 2008, the...
US Sen. Chris Murphy Warns Allies to Be Vigilant About the ‘Quiet Things’ Russia is Doing
Says Russia funding ‘fight clubs and biker clubs’ in the Baltic States to exploit domestic instability US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) on April 3 warned NATO allies to be “constantly vigilant about the very quiet things that the Russians are doing that could ultimately lead to a traditional military confrontation.” Pointing to Russian support...
Ukraine’s Presidential Election: How a Comic Secured the Most Votes and Won a Ticket to Round Two
The outcome of the first round of Ukraine’s presidential election on March 31, in which a TV comedian received almost twice as many votes as the incumbent president, is a reflection of the level of “disenchantment” with the “state of domestic affairs,” according John E. Herbst, director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a...
What Makes an Ally? Sweden and Finland as NATO Partners
When NATO kicked off Trident Juncture, its largest collective defense exercise in decades in Norway in October 2018, militarily non-aligned Sweden and Finland not only contributed substantial troops, they were actively involved in planning the exercise from the start. Over the years, Sweden and Finland have moved closer to NATO, more so than any...
Revisiting the Narrative About Hungary’s Relationship with Russia
Editor’s Note: This article is a response to Stephen Blank’s essay, Putin’s Energy Strategy Is More Ambitious than You Think, which was published by the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert blog on January 4, 2019. Since arriving in Washington in the summer of 2017, I have grown somewhat baffled by the narrative about Hungary,...
International Support Urged For Ukraine in Face of Russian Aggression
“There is a war going on in the middle of Europe. A very hot war,” according to Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, Ukraine’s vice prime minister for Euro-Atlantic integration, who urged policy makers to confront this “uncomfortable truth” about Russian aggression. Speaking in a panel discussion hosted by Ukraine House Davos in Davos, Switzerland,...
Opposition to Nord Stream 2 Gathers Steam on Both Sides of the Atlantic
Natural gas pipeline would connect Russia to Europe Opposition to Nord Stream 2—a pipeline that will transport natural gas from Russia to Germany while bypassing Ukraine—is building on both sides of the Atlantic. On December 11, the US House of Representatives passed a bipartisan resolution expressing opposition to Nord Stream 2. The nonbinding...
The Negative Consequences of Putin’s Strategy
It has become an accepted line of thought that Russian President Vladimir Putin is playing chess on the international stage while the majority of Western leaders play checkers. His high-profile appearances among other world leaders at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires and the centenary of the end of World War I in Paris were noted by some as more...
It’s Time to Stop Appeasing Putin – Here’s How to Deter the Emboldened Russian President
MUNICH – There are few better places in the world than here to reflect on the need to end Western appeasement of Vladimir Putin and his growing list of international crimes. The latest was last Sunday’s Russian attack on Ukrainian naval vessels in the Black Sea — and its purpose of asserting Kremlin control over its still-sovereign...
Trump Cancels Meeting With Putin
‘Better no meeting than a bad one,’ says the Atlantic Council’s Daniel Fried Hours after the Kremlin confirmed a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald J. Trump on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires on December 1, the US president cancelled the appointment with his Russian counterpart citing the continued...
