Middle East & North Africa (MENA)

Soldiers of Peace

Estonian, Finnish and Irish troops serve under a combined battalion in the UNIFIL mission in south Lebanon. The size of the contribution these three states make to UN peacekeeping is perhaps not well known – they are respectively the fourth, second and first largest European contributors, per capita, to UN missions. For each of them, UNIFIL is their single largest contribution to peace support operations.

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The European Union Global Strategy: How Best to Adapt to New Challenges?

The writing of the new European Union Global Strategy comes at a difficult time. The world has become more and more volatile and there are crises on Europe’s eastern, southeastern and southern flanks. Although the conflicts in the south and the east are very different in nature, they both highlight the need for the EU to strengthen its foreign and security policy to better respond to a hybrid blend of challenges, which involve military and non-military, conventional and unconventional methods and tactics. The Global Strategy has the difficult task of setting the EU’s interests and objectives in respect of global security as well as the means to achieve them in the medium and long term.

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Helga Kalm in Välismääraja

ICDS Research Fellow Helga Kalm together with Member of Parliament Mr Marko Mihkelson commented on the radio program Välismääraja on the crisis between Saudi Arabia and Iran. They discussed the implication of the current crisis on the wider region and whether the lifting of sanctions might escalate tensions even further.

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