On March 27, 2016 thousands of Moldovans marched through the streets of Chisinau demanding reunification with Romania on the 98th anniversary of Bessarabia and Romania’s political union. Some observers view this demonstration as yet ...
Recent terrorist attacks in Paris, Istanbul and Brussels should not come as a surprise. The Islamic State’s rise in Europe has been more than four years in the making. By 2012, casual social media ...
I’m first generation American, with a Pakistani-born father. My dad and his older brother both left Pakistan at the same time, but that is where their similarities end. My uncle, an engineer working for ...
“Japan always criticizes others, so how can it explain its own actions?” charged the Chinese Ministry of Defense’s spokesman Yang Yujun. He was referring to Japan’s activation of a military radar station on Yonaguni ...
The revolution in Tunisia has arguably been by far the most successful of the Arab Spring movements to date. Longtime president Zine El Abadine Ben Ali has been deposed, a new Constitution has been ...
This essay is the companion to an earlier one in which the author attempted to divine a "Trump Doctrine" in the realm of foreign affairs and national security. It suggests a name for Mr. ...
Discussions of security in the Baltic states often focus on the countries’ need to control their border with Russia. These countries’ complicated electricity relations with Russia raise important security questions, too. Some Baltic security ...
On this morning of March 22, 2016, the long tail of terrorism once again struck Europe. Less than a week after Belgian authorities arrested Salah Abdeslam, one of the Paris attackers, explosions have shaken ...
The March 9-11 state visit to Washington by Canadian PM Justin Trudeau was the first such by a Canadian prime minister in 19 years. Reflecting Trudeau’s rock star persona in Canada, the visit was ...
Over the years I have come to appreciate the reality that a book is about as good as it may be useful to its particular reader. And since the experience, intelligence, and purposes of ...
To fathom the support from Christian Americans (Evangelical and Roman Catholic) for Donald Trump, perhaps a comparison to Turkey will help. The republic of Turkey has a long history of religious and secular ...
When warned that his willingness to strike compromises on difficult questions would hurt his political career, Henry Clay offered in response the immortal line: “I’d rather be right than President.” That has become one ...
E-Notes
Divining a “Trump Doctrine”: Finding the Contours of Donald Trump’s Foreign & National Security Policy
The ancient Greeks maintained that divination — how mortals learn the will of the gods — requires inspiration in the form of phrensy or madness. It was thought especially useful when some calamity shows ...
Last Thursday Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump told CNN’s Anderson Cooper “I think Islam hates us…we can’t allow people coming into this country who have this hatred of the United States.” It is rhetoric ...
In September 2015, as part of the festivities marking the 70th anniversary of victory in World War II, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would cut 300,000 troops. ...
The focus of applied methods of conflict has altered in the direction of the broad use of political, economic, informational, humanitarian, and other nonmilitary measures – applied in coordination with the protest potential of ...
E-Notes
A Strategic Strangulation Campaign for North Korea: Is the International Community Ready for What May Come Next?
The United Nations Security Council passed what has been called the toughest sanctions regime (UNSCR 2270) against North Korea in response to its nuclear weapons program and the threat it poses to the Republic ...
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il in Vladivostok, Russia in 2002. (Photo ITAR-TASS / Vladimir Rodionov) North Korea’s nuclear test on Jan. 6, 2016 and long-range missile launch on Feb. ...
Every week that passes seems to bring a new development in the South China Sea. Over the last few months, China finished the construction of military-grade airfields on several of the islets that it ...
Georgia and the EU Executive SummaryIn recent years, Georgia made major advances in its relations with the EU and Georgia’s pro-Western orientation has always enjoyed high approval ratings from the public. However, recent trends show ...
Russia possesses a tremendous amount of control over the Baltic states’ rail infrastructure—including the ability to cut off all international train service between them. There is no direct passenger train service connecting the Baltic ...
Since February 16, 2016, the media has breathlessly covered the painfully public dispute between the FBI and Apple, Inc., over the government’s demand that Apple provide access to the iPhone 5c used by (but ...
Māris Kučinskis (Credit: Ernests Dinka, Saeimas Administrācija) The last few years have seen parts of East-Central Europe turn to the populist right. Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party won the 2010 and 2014 parliamentary elections ...
Over the past few weeks, Israel has been facing quite a bit of political drama—complete with screaming matches and the physical removal of parliamentarians from the Knesset plenum. This has been all in response ...
At the beginning of 2015, a united Europe prided itself on the continental freedom of travel citizens of the Schengen Area enjoyed. By year’s end, terrorist attacks and asylum seekers had fractured the borderless ...
The February 3 resignation of Ukraine’s Minister of Economic Development and Trade Aivaras Abromavicius sparked another political crisis in Kyiv, a crisis that deepened with a failed vote of no-confidence on February 16. The ...
The American Review
America, the West, and The American Review: Challenges and Opportunities in the Continuing Conversation
These are difficult times in the United States and Europe, the primary interest of FPRI’s Center for the Study of ericaerica and the West. The combination of economic malaise, demographic gloom, and geopolitical chaos ...
Arthur Brooks, The Conservative Heart: How to Build a Fairer, Happier, and More Prosperous America (New York: Broadside Books, 2015). Hardback, 246 pp. $27.99. Donald Trump’s popularity in the primary marathon has upended several ...
This month’s American Review opens the conversation on the future of the West. Editor Ron Granieri contemplates the challenges and opportunities ahead, while guest contributor Mark Brennan reviews the latest book from AEI President ...
Prince Khaled bin Sultan Al Saud, the co-commander of coalition forces during the 1990-1991 Gulf War, argues in his 1995 biography Desert Warrior that Israel took its “bomb out of the basement” during the ...
E-Books The Philadelphia Papers
Parliament without Politics: The Effort to Consolidate Authoritarian Rule
Introduction General Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, Egypt’s ruler since July 2013, brooks no dissent. Having “saved” Egypt from the Muslim Brothers, he has ruled by decree in the absence of a parliament, supported by a handpicked ...
Eleanor H. Porter’s 1913 classic, Pollyanna, bequeathed to the English language a new and concise term for oblivious, overweening optimism and its dangers. Barbara Tuchman’s flawed but popular 1984 book, The March of Folly, ...
When Taiwan’s soon-to-step-down President Ma Ying-jeou made a pre-Lunar New Year’s visit to Itu Aba / Taiping Island in late January 2016, the international-lawyer-turned-president was reaffirming a long-standing claim that the Republic of China ...
E-Notes
Structure, Strategy, and American Power: Insights from America’s Last Geopolitical Resurgence
1979 was a bad year for U.S. foreign policy. At home, the country was being battered by stagflation and the second oil shock, developments that raised fundamental questions about the economic underpinnings of American ...
Geopoliticus
Silicon Valley Meets The Snake Eaters: State Department’s Countermessaging Goes Back To The Future
“Bring in folks from Silicon Valley and Madison Avenue….” That’s right, the three sexiest characters in modern lore, ad men, Steve Jobs disciples and Special Forces bubbas will come together in a unbelievable mashup ...
A growing number of terrorist attacks in the United States and Europe have a North African connection — yet Washington policymakers continue to pay far less attention to the region than is warranted. ISIS ...
European heads of state and government meet in Brussels 18-19 February 2016 to discuss the terms of a proposed renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with the EU. The UK’s future hangs on these talks. Success ...
Gray, it seems, is the new black. The concept of “gray zone” conflict has generated significant attention and controversy recently, within both the U.S. government and the broader strategic studies community. Some analysts have ...
When Taiwanese voters went to the polls on January 16, 2016, they did something that has become admirably routine in Taiwan’s robust democracy: mandating a change of the party in power and setting the ...
We are pleased to share our 2015 Annual Report ...
This is the second in a series of three essays on the challenge of strategic foreign policy planning for the next administration. In Part One, I described problems with the national security decision-making process ...
E-Notes
Foreseeable, Foreseen, Ignored: Is Iran Advancing Its Missile Program at Home While Offshoring its Nuclear Program to North Korea?
A 1994 exposé published in the Russian language newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda asked, “Will Kim Il-sung Explode Our Atomic Bomb?” Today one might substitute “Iran” for “Russia” given the Islamic Republic’s continuing aspirations in the ...
Photo Credit: www.kremlin.ru Relations between China and Russia became noticeably closer in the past year and, if the numerous agreements they have appended their signatures to come to fruition, they are apt to become still ...
We are delighted to share with you a preview of our Winter/Spring 2016 calendar. More is certain to be added as we go along. For those not in the area, some programs are webcast ...
________________________________________ “Don’t criticize what you don’t understand, son.” -Elvis Presley _____________________________________ Asked about Russia’s Syrian intervention, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper acerbically turned on President Vladimir Putin, whom he and others seem to ...
Why the Baltics? Of the European Union’s half a billion residents, scarcely more than 1% live in one of the Baltic countries. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are tiny countries in terms of their landmass ...
