A Time for Specialization?: Overcoming European Failures in Defense Collaboration

August 12, 2022 As Ian Bond and Luigi Scazzieri of the Centre for European Reform have recently written, “Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February has established a new political and military reality in Europe. The threat of repeated Russian military action is now more severe, and the EU and NATO will have to reorient

Under the Radar Reports

July 29, 2022 Due to scheduling issues this week—and in lieu of the usual paper looking at a singular topic—I thought it would be best to resume a practice that I like to do at least a few times every year: highlighting a couple of the more interesting papers, commentaries, and briefs that many people

Sleepwalking Into Disaster: U.S. and EU Foreign Policy in the Western Balkans

July 15, 2022 Back in June of this year, European Council President Charles Michel visited North Macedonia in an effort to begin EU membership talks with the country, and its neighbor, Albania. While the two nations are currently blocked in their path to EU accession by Bulgaria, Michel argued that the war in Ukraine has

The 2022 NATO Strategic Concept: A Troubling Lack of Specificity

July 8, 2022 With the ongoing war in Ukraine, Russia and China deepening their ties, rising nationalism and authoritarianism around the globe, and increasing incidences of extremist terrorism on the Euro-Atlantic periphery, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is facing one of the sternest tests of both its cohesion and purpose since at least the end

The Long Shadow of the War in Ukraine: Managing Escalation, Reconstruction, and NATO Force Planning After the Russian Invasion

April 29, 2022 The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs this week, in their weekly Humanitarian Impact Situation Report for Ukraine, noted that, “the ongoing war continues to exacerbate a massive humanitarian crisis,” and that, “over 24 million people – more than half of Ukraine’s population – will need humanitarian assistance in

The UK’s Integrated Review at One: Not Fit for Purpose

April 8, 2022 Just over a year ago, in late March 2021, the United Kingdom published its long-awaited national security strategy document, “Global Britain in a competitive age: The Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy.” While the Integrated Review attempted to provide a comprehensive reimagining of UK policy around the globe—paying attention

Lurching from Crisis to Crisis: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the Untenable Status Quo

April 1, 2022 On Wednesday, March 29, a Palestinian gunman, allegedly armed with an M-16 assault rifle, murdered five people in Bnei Brak, a religious suburb on the outskirts of Tel Aviv in Israel. The incident brings the number of those killed by militants in recent days to eleven, and has heightened fears of another

Unforced Errors: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Turkey’s Domestic and Foreign Policy Crises

March 25, 2022 Early last summer, Pavel Baev, writing for the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri), wrote that, “the tumultuous year 2020 tested and significantly degraded the always ambiguous Russian-Turkish partnership, which had become transactional at best and certainly not ‘strategic’”, and that, “the maturing of autocratic regimes in Russia and Turkey does not

Demography as Destiny in the Sahel?

March 18, 2022 Twenty years ago, authors John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira wrote a book that would, for a few years at least, become highly influential in Democratic political circles and thinking. Their work, The Emerging Democratic Majority, posited, “that Democrats should take advantage of a set of interrelated social, economic, and demographic changes…”

The Russian War in Ukraine: A Truly Global Problem

March 11, 2022 In today’s globally interconnected world, war and strife in one part of the Earth can, and often does, have an enormous impact not only on the immediate region, but the rest of the planet. Indeed, the effects of the war even reach beyond the Earth, as well. While the majority of U.S.