Global Politics

‘War is the continuation of politics by other means’. This well-known quote from 19th century Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz epitomises the Russian and Chinese role in the Syrian conflict, which is now in its tenth year. The conflict began in March 2011 after pro-democracy protests in Syria were brutally crushed by the Syrian […]

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University of Nottingham (Ningbo Campus) Assistant Professor Nicholas Ross Smith argues that while arming Ukraine may be the right thing to do, it naively underestimates the geopolitical reality of Eastern Europe and could result in a far worse outcome for both Ukraine and Europe. Donald Trump’s recent decision to approve the sale of more lethal arms […]

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The futility and danger of nuclear weapons in the post-9/11 world is indisputable The 2003 Oscar-Winning documentary The Fog of War, containing Robert McNamara’s post-Vietnam mea culpa, also highlighted one of the former US Defence Secretary’s greatest concerns – nuclear weapons. “The indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will destroy nations,” McNamara maintained. […]

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The Atlantic explores President Obama’s decision not to bomb Syria after Bashar al-Assad’s army killed more than 1,400 people with sarin gas. It offers a new and insightful evaluation of Obama and his legacy.

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Donald Trump is correct: The American intelligence community misled us about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. So that means it’s also mistaken about Russian cyberattacks on the United States. Right? Wrong. On New Year’s Eve, Trump called the Central Intelligence Agency’s claims about WMD a “disaster”—his signature slur—and implied that the agency was fibbing […]

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The baltic states responding to the threat posed by a resurgent Russia is understandable, but the nature of this threat and the means to reduce it need to be re-examined. From 2014 onwards, Western commentators covering Russian aggression in the former Soviet space have repeatedly issued stark warnings of a potential threat to the Baltic […]

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14,000 feet beneath the frozen surface of the Arctic Ocean at the North Pole, a Russian flag forged in titanium rests on the seabed. The flag, planted by a manned submersible during a 2007 expedition, was conceived as a publicity stunt intended to promote Russia’s territorial claims in the Arctic. The expedition was immediately rebuked […]

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  War will never again be the same. Autonomous weapons have nearly arrived, and so far nothing has been able to stop them. At the 2015 International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, an open letter—signed by over three thousand of the world’s most relevant robotics experts, and endorsed by luminaries including Stephen Hawking, Nobel Laureate […]

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  Vladimir Putin’s Russia has, especially in recent years, come under heavy criticism from many in the West. Much of this criticism, however, deals with Russian aggression toward Ukraine, the extrajudicial killings of critics of the Putin regime such as Alexander Litvinenko, or accusations of widespread corruption. All of these issues are clearly in violation […]

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By Eugen Iladi It’s no secret that Russia is using military means and disinformation to try to reassemble its Soviet Union footprint. Ukraine has drawn the most headlines in this effort. But the Kremlin has long been working its land-grab plan in Georgia, Moldova and Azerbaijan. Russia’s economic failure and social challenges in the 21st […]

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  On the cusp of a war in which millions lost their lives, borders shifted and modern warfare was revolutionized, Winston Churchill made an observation of Russia: “It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.” For decades, Russia has fascinated […]

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The violence in Syria is escalating and the international community’s efforts to resolve the situation through the United Nations peace plan have failed, leading to Kofi Annan’s resignation as the UN’s Syria envoy. Syrians are in dire need of a peaceful, sustainable resolution but owing to the number of factions involved and the serious human […]

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The South Caucasus is a tribally divided region, rich in natural resources, that could wield considerable influence if unified, and could economically compete with Russia and the West. When asked to describe “the Caucasus”, most people reply with a blank stare. Some might guess you are referring to one of the more unusual facets of […]

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Due to the International Association of Athletic Federations’ (IAAF) June 17th decision to maintain the suspension of the All-Russian Athletic Federation (ARAF), Russian track and field athletes will be largely ineligible for competition in the 2016 Olympic Games. Due to contrasting statements by the IAAF and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on June 21st, however, there reportedly remains […]

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Just three weeks after entering office, Polish President Andrzej Duda’s first official visit to Berlin on August 28 allayed concerns in some quarters that his presidency would resurrect the combative foreign policy his right-wing party, Law and Justice, practiced the last time it was in power from 2005 to 2007. Back then, prickly ties with […]

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In light of wider Danish strategic priorities, Danish Foreign Minister Martin Lidegaard’s restrained reaction to Russia’s decision to target Danish military frigates with nuclear weapons was understandable. In a recent op-ed piece for the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, the Russian ambassador to Denmark, Mikhail Vanin, wrote that Danish warships would “become targets for Russian nuclear missiles” should […]

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Gender inequality is a thing of the past. This is the narrative we are fed; that any incidences of violence or discrimination regarding gender, particularly towards women, are anomalies often attributed to developing countries. We are all quite content to think, “We’ve got this under wraps” and the discussion is closed. The fact of the […]

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Last year I criticized some of the hawk-like voices, including that of David Brooks of the NYT, which were calling for Barack Obama to increase the fear factor in dealing with Vladimir Putin over Ukraine. I should point out that I am decidedly not a fan of Putin, whose actions in Crimea and Ukraine have been reprehensible. However, we need […]

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As anyone who has spent any length of time travelling in India will attest, it is a country of stark contrasts. In few ways is this more obvious than the vast disparities in wealth between 500 million of India’s total 1.27 billion citizens living on less than $1.25 per day and a small but increasingly wealthy elite […]

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