Podcasts October 9, 2026 Navigating Germany’s Defense Pivot Welcome back to the Ties That Bind, a project of the Foreign Policy Research Institute examining the past, present, and future of NATO and the transatlantic relationship. This season we examine how Western European NATO members like Germany are... Read more	Baltic Bulletin October 1, 2026 Understanding Latvia’s Parliamentary Elections By: Indra Ekmanis The last three months have been a flurry of activity in Latvia as the country entered its pre-election season in June. The 14 parties running for parliament have sought to curry favor among the electorate — passing out pamphlets... Read more	Conversations September 24, 2026 What Stands Out in the US-Greenland-Denmark Agreement By: Rebecca Pincus, Aaron Stein This whole Greenland saga has elicited all sorts of commentary. Let’s step back. The United States has had a presence on Greenland and permissive basing rules for decades. Will anything actually change with this updated agreement? So I want... Read more
Intern Corner September 15, 2026 Words Without Money: China as the Ambivalent UN Power By: Jackson Owen Over the past year, China has been quietly shifting its stance within the international system. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is casting itself as an unlikely guardian of the post–World War II international order, uncomfortable with the rhetorical... Read more	Analysis September 1, 2026 The US-Saudi Nuclear Deal: Abandoning the Gold Standard By: Michael Duitsman Donald Trump is famous for his love of gold. His agreement with Saudi Arabia, however, has undermined the so-called “Gold Standard” for nuclear nonproliferation: the American insistence, for more than a decade, that countries that reach agreements with Washington... Read more	Intern Corner August 13, 2026 Inside China’s Cognitive Warfare Playbook Against Taiwan By: Bram Wells China has been increasing pressure on Taiwan below the threshold of a traditional military attack throughout the past decade. These gray zone tactics include diplomatic, economic, and security measures as well as the deployment of ships and aircraft across... Read more
Analysis August 10, 2026 Reading Germany’s Rearmament: The 2026 Military Strategy Between Ambition and Accountability By: Julian Pawlak On April 22, 2026, Germany published what has been called the first military strategy in the Bundeswehr’s history. Signed by Chief of Defence Gen. Carsten Breuer, it is part of the broader “overall concept of military defence” (Gesamtkonzeption... Read more	Podcasts August 6, 2026 Diaspora and Migration in the Latvian Context In this episode of Baltic Ways, recorded on the sidelines of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies (AABS) conference at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, host Indra Ekmanis speaks with Inta Mieriņa, a political sociologist and... Read more	Analysis August 5, 2026 Can the US and Europe Cooperate in Africa? By: Charles A. Ray Africa’s global role is constantly evolving. Demographically, Africa is poised to occupy a dominant position in the world over the coming decades. By 2050, Africa’s share of the global population will have grown from its current 19 percent to... Read more