Geopolitics

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China’s and Russia’s Aggressive Foreign Policies: Historical Legacy or Geopolitical Ambitions?

Beijing and Moscow are among the states across the world pursuing aggressive foreign policies, including towards their neighbours. Beyond mere threats, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine demonstrated that deterrence could fail, with catastrophic consequences. How is Russia’s war against Ukraine perceived in Taiwan and in the wider Indo-Pacific region? What are the long-standing strategic goals of the Kremlin and the CCP, and what role do Ukraine and Taiwan play in them?

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Rapprochement Despite Strategic Divergence: The Significance of the 2024 Japan-China-South Korea Summit

After four and a half years of interruption, Japan, China, and South Korea finally held their trilateral summit. Initiated in 2008 and planned to be held annually, the summit has promoted three-way economic, trade, and cross-sectoral cooperation. Over the years, historical grievances, territorial disputes, and strategic divergencies between the three neighbours often derailed mutual engagement, thus disrupting the trilateral framework.

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No Gain Without Pain: Estonia’s Views on EU Enlargement

In Estonian politics, there is a widespread agreement on the security and prosperity benefits of EU enlargement, particularly regarding Ukraine, but also for other candidate countries. However, nuances exist among different parties regarding the trade-off between the geopolitical argument for enlargement and the potential losses that Estonia might face.

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Europe’s Broken Order and the Prospect of a New Cold War

The Russian and western visions of European security have profoundly different ideational roots: balance of power embedded in realist geopolitics versus liberal rules-based order. Russia is a revisionist power aiming to re-establish a European security order based on the balance of power, including a recognition of its empire and sphere of influence. Russia’s aggressive pursuit of this vision has forced the West to defend the rules-based liberal order in Europe and beyond.

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AP/Kremlin Pool Photo/Scanpix

What Are the Legacies of Sino-Russian Relations?

The Sino-Russian relationship was, for many years, a subject that failed to excite. Very few experts committed time and effort to exploring its ups and downs. Those that did spent their time debating whether the relationship was really a marriage of true minds or a marriage of convenience.

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Reuters/Scanpix

Turkish Foreign Policy in Shifting Political Landscapes

Following WWII, Türkiye linked its security to the Western defence system, joining NATO in 1952. This connection protected it against Soviet expansionism, helped modernise and expand its armed forces, and integrate them with the community of democracies that it aspired to join. Also, Türkiye’s economy based on import substitution was extended support by its allies in return for the security value that the country offered.

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Why Russia Went to War: A Three-Dimensional Perspective

Since Ukraine’s independence became a recognised fact in 1991, the spectre of war with Russia has arisen on several occasions, only to subside. To many outsiders, the war of 2014 was a ‘hybrid war’ launched by ‘separatists backed by Russia’, rather than a fully-fledged war, and the ‘Minsk process’ was defusing it. Until the United States presented details of Russian war plans at the end of 2021, very few observers expected Russia to transgress the bounds of coercive intimidation in its dealings with Ukraine. Once war broke out in February 2022, the pervasive question was ‘why?’

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Europe’s Indo-Pacific Tilt: Estonian and Japanese Interests

Reshaped by the new great power competition, the international order has been undergoing revolutionary transformations. Revanchist Russia has unleashed a barbarian war against a sovereign European nation, while increasingly militarised and contentious China looms as a not-so-insidious threat in the Indo-Pacific. In response to these shifting dynamics and mounting geopolitical tensions, Europe is now awakening to the new reality and paying greater attention to the far-away region.

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