Carving up Europe’s funding pie
The European Union’s 2014-2020 budget negotiations: a diplomatic analysis.
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Foreign Policy Concepts
Russia and the Rogues
Moscow wants to be seen as a swing state, capable of siding with one party or the other as Russian interests evolve.
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The Arab World in 2013: Forwards or Backwards?
Nationalism, Islamism and the mix of those two will remain the most important ideological forces influencing the Arab world and the Islamic nations in the near future.
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Of life in the mountains and on the shore
Contrary to the Baltic Sea region, in the Caucasus the Great Powers have throughout history considered simple division as a solution to all problems.
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The Strategic Landscape, Europe and Challenges Ahead
The central question of this year’s LMC will be whether a North-South split has emerged within Europe and what its economic and security implications might be.
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Collision of Illusions: the West and the Middle East
Geopolitics rely on a combination of factors that are not necessarily determined by geography but rather by the components and priorities of national interests.
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Europe’s North-South Divide
Divisions in Europe are nothing new, and a continent without them would be bland and uninteresting. But that is no reason to exaggerate them, or to make them more significant than they are.
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The Melian Dialogue 2.0: A Value-Based Pragmatism
We cannot allow ourselves to think that small states, though they would perhaps also like to be pragmatists, cannot possibly afford to do so and must settle for second-rate values instead.
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What Do the Georgians Dream About?
Europe needs to continue working if dreams are to become reality. Otherwise it could happen that another Eastern Partnership country will end up at the wrong destination – the Eurasian Union.
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Forecasting the Baltics’ Future Security Environment
Every few years, the U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC) publishes studies of how the world might evolve over the next two decades. Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds, released in December 2012, is the latest such iteration. Its four scenarios include one in which the United States turns inward and economic globalization stagnates (“Stalled Engines”); one in which non-state actors like activists and corporations assume the lead role in addressing international challenges (“Nonstate World”); a best-case world in which China and the United States catalyze global cooperation on a range of problems (“Fusion”); and a worst-case future of growing inequality and conflicts between and within countries (“Gini Out-of-the-Bottle”).
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