Section: CXSSR
European Games Show Baku’s Progress; Will the West Recognize It?
Friday, in Baku, the first European Games opened. Spectacle and sport, international competition and unity, all of the things the world claims to want when we show our best sides in peace. It is yet another step in Baku’s emergence as a serious and aspiring democracy. It is a sign that decades of reform and growth are producing a profoundly...
Whither the West: Is Russia the Force That Broke the West?
As part of our spring symposia series, we’ve asked our scholars to weigh in on the challenges the West faces today in the former Soviet Union. This week, Rich Seibert and Matt Lina will discuss a revanchist, barely-chastened Russia’s impact on Ukraine and the Baltics, and their relationship with Europe and the United States. Next...
Whither the West: A New Beginning
The Center is now in its fourth year, a truly remarkable achievement many of us never imagined would come to pass. We’ve had growing pains, and we’ve published some great authors, some of whom have gone on to other endeavors. But as much as we’ve changed, the world has changed more. When we began, we had three great questions...
Obama Administration Stonewalls in Face of Evidence of Covert Action Against Azerbaijan
In the last two years, the Obama administration has succeeded in alienating longtime US allies Israel and Saudi Arabia; in offering Moscow a green light to invade Ukraine; and in continuing a strategic re-alignment of the Middle East that sees longtime allies such as Turkey and the aforementioned Israel and Saudi Arabia sidelined in favor of a...
Euronest Session in Yerevan Mocks European Values
In 2010, Belarus had its membership in Euronest — the Parliamentary assembly for the Eastern Partnership initiative of the European Union — suspended because of what was very obviously a rigged election. (Belarus has no other kind.) Armenia undertook a series of war crimes in prizing away Nagorno-Karabah through 1994, and to this day continues to...
European MPs Protest Jailing of Two Men by Armenia’s Puppet Nagorno-Karabakh Regime
For two decades, the world has paid scant attention to the everyday injustices Armenia has perpetrated during its occupation and brutalization of Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding, occupied territory. Today, perhaps, that is changing, and a reckoning is coming. Armenia has illegally occupied twenty percent of Azerbaijan for...
Christmas Approaches
We wish all of our readers a Merry Christmas as 2015 approaches. This year, when so very much has been upended and so many assumptions cast aside, we offer a special wish to our friends in Ukraine, where Moscow seems intent on dragging a reluctant people back into its embrace; and Azerbaijan, where Russia’s puppet Armenia seems to finally...
Russia Stretches, The World Bends
Russia is doing fly-bys of the Baltic countries; sending naval groups to the edge of international waters in Europe and North America; and is undertaking readiness exercises across its territory. It is not 1981. The sanctions have not broken Moscow. It is not 1933. The collapse of oil prices has not driven the Kremlin into retreat. It is not...
Moldova’s Elections Carry Mixed News
Moldova’s elections briefly made the news as a strong affirmation of its commitment to Europe. The news is right and wrong. Undeniably, poor, confused Moldova will keep plodding toward Europe even as the EU bungles opportunity after opportunity in the face of a revanchist Russia — for now. But the real news is not a poll win expected by...
The Customs Union’s Strength is Its Weak Link: Oil Prices Threaten Putin’s Project
Kazakhstan’s bank is about to break, and it’s all because oil and natural gas went cheap fast. Last week, falling in with Moscow, Astana announced that it will be tapping its oil wealth fund to steady its petroleum-dependent economy as the price of crude falls against a worldwide economic slump and what appears to be a budding...
