Posted on September 4, 2020. Tags: Aid, Bashar al-Assad, Belt and Road Initiative, China, Crimea, Russia, Sanctions, Security, Sovereignty, Stephen Krasner, Syria, UN, Veto, war, Xinjiang
‘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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Posted in China, Conflict, Middle East, Russia, Syria, UN, World
Posted on May 22, 2017. Tags: defense, EU, Europe, France, Macron, NATO, Russia, Security, United States
With the recent nomination of his government, President Macron takes a chance to rejuvenate the idea of a European defence, an ambitious plan that collapsed when it failed to obtain the ratification in the French Parliament back in 1954. The European Defence Community emerged from the Pleven plan, proposed in 1950 by the French Prime […]
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Posted in Europe, European Union, France, World
Posted on December 19, 2017. Tags: defense, European Defense Spending, France, Germany, Military, military technology, Security
Europe is currently facing a fundamental shift in its approach to armaments procurement: cooperation both between countries and manufacturers in the development and production of armaments is considered the only way forward in the coming decades. With Germany and France representing the vanguard of the European defense industry, the fate of their KANT project symbolizes […]
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Posted in Europe, France, Germany, Security Issues, Technology, World
Posted on March 27, 2018. Tags: China, Economics, Globalization, Infrastructure, international trade, one belt one road, Politics, Security, Trade, World, Xi Jinping
In the autumn of 2013, China’s president, Xi Jinping, first introduced plans for what has become known as the ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative, the largest integrated international infrastructure project the country has yet undertaken. The plan consists of a land-based economic belt and a string of ports constituting a ‘maritime silk road’, stretching from […]
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Posted in Asia, China, Economic Security, Economics, Global Economy, Political Security, Security Issues
Posted on January 21, 2017. Tags: Belgium, Brussels, Counterterrorism, EU, Security, Terrorism
On March 22nd 2016 the two consecutive bombings at the Brussels’ Zaventem airport and the Maalbeek metro station brought Belgian counterterrorism policy under heavy scrutiny. With the Paris attacks foreshadowing an impending threat, the Belgian security alert had been raised to critical levels since November 2015. Yet in spite of warnings from numerous countries, the […]
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Posted in Europe, European Union, Security Issues, Terrorism, World
Posted on June 19, 2016. Tags: Boris Johnson, Brexit, Conservatives, Constitutionalism, David Cameron, Democracy, Economics, EU Referendum, European Union, Independence Referendum, Labour, Opposition, Populism, Rhetoric, Security, U.S., United Kingdom
In trying to puzzle through the populism animating the right and left after the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2015 European migrant crisis, we can draw a worrying parallel between the UK referenda and social and economic populism in the US. As in the US presidential race, the UK’s Remain/Leave debate is complex: it […]
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Posted in Europe, UK News, US, World