Section: Research Organizations & Think Tanks about Ukraine
Facing Russia’s Strategic Challenge: Security Developments from the Baltic to the Black Sea
The EU and NATO are facing an increasingly uncertain and complex situation on their eastern and south-eastern borders. In what the EU has traditionally conceived as its ‘shared neighbourhood’ with Russia and NATO its ‘eastern flank’, Moscow is exhibiting a growingly assertive military posture. The context of the Baltic and the Black...
The coup d’etat in Luhansk
On 25 November, as a result of an armed coup, Igor Plotnitsky, the leader of the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic, was replaced by Leonid Pasechnik. …read more Source: Centre for Eastern Studies...
Hacker Admits Aiding Russian Agents in Yahoo Breach
One of two FSB agents indicted by U.S. in same case may have been playing a double game. …read more Source: Transitions Online...
Putin Pledges Money to Boost Birthrate
The knock-on effects of the social chaos in the 1990s will depress population growth for years to come, Russia’s economy minister says. …read more Source: Transitions Online...
Don’t Merchandise Doubt
This article comes from The Buzz Around the Ballot edition of Visegrad Insight 2/2017 devoted do media landscapes and disinformation in Central Europe. Read full contents page here. One afternoon this past summer, Visegrad Insight spoke with HE Rastislav Káčer, Ambassador of Slovakia to Hungary and the Honorary Chairman of the Board for Globsec....
Chinese manoeuvres further confounding Middle East
I was in Doha, Qatar, for a conference on 13-14 November 2017, which was being held against the backdrop of the continued Saudi Arabia-led blockade of Qatar since June 2017 and the occurrence coincidentally of three other sensational, Saudi-related events on November 4. The first and most astonishing of the three events was the arrest and...
November 28th, 2017
CHINA Beijing Hinders Free Speech in America Wang Dan, NYT I spent nearly seven years in a Chinese prison for being a leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. I was freed in 1998, and the Chinese government let me leave the country. I chose to go to the United States, where I could freely speak my mind without fear of being thrown in prison....
Arms control, security cooperation, and U.S.-Russian relations
By Steven PiferFor nearly 50 years, arms control agreements have contributed to more stable and predictable relations between Washington and Moscow. Beginning in the late 1980s, agreements such as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty followed by the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) went beyond mere limitations to...
Mixed Results for Emerging Europe in Legatum Prosperity Index
World prosperity increased in 2017 and now sits at its highest level in the last decade, being 2.6 per cent higher than in 2007, according to the 11th edition of the Legatum Prosperity Index. However, the gap between the highest and lowest scores has increased and the spread between nations is growing. Each country has been measured on nine...
Isolationism is Not an Option
Editor’s Note: This blog is part of an ongoing series of contributions from participants in The German Marshall Fund’s flagship leadership development program, The Marshall Memorial Fellowship (MMF). I received a typical American education. In high school, I was taught that the United States’ love of isolationism was a root...



