Analysis

The election of Donald J. Trump for a second term marks a major shift in global politics. It appears that the neoliberal era, marked by free trade and liberal political norms, has come to an end. It is difficult...

The unexpected fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime on December 8 has put Syria in the spotlight once again. Following over a decade of conflict, the killing of hundreds of thousands of Syrians, the displacement of around half of the...

Under the Biden administration, there have been a number of extraordinary events that have had a significant impact on US diplomatic relations with the Cook Islands, New Zealand, and Niue. Among other things, the Pacific Partnership Strategy changed the...

Sitting down to write my annual assessment on trends in terrorism in early 2025, I am struggling more than usual, fresh off the horrors of an Islamic State (ISIS)-inspired terrorist attack in New Orleans that killed fourteen people and...

Discussions of possible ceasefire negotiations in the war between Russia and Ukraine focus on the concessions that Ukraine could make to stop the hot phase of the war. At the same time, a realistic assessment of the prospects for...

Ten years ago in 2014, Baltic defense was paltry. The defense budgets of the three Baltic states, but especially Latvia and Lithuania, were suffering from the financial crisis of 2008, and their armies were all negligible. Baltic defense was...

The title of this essay would have been a little bit different if I had spent five more days in Odesa as planned. “50 days in Ukraine, 1,005 days in war.” That would be a neat summary of my...

Significant and, arguably, profound changes took place in Baltic high politics over the past four years. The peak pandemic years — 2020 and 2021 — proved quite pivotal for both Lithuania and Estonia, as both saw the emergence of...

Since Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine and invited the largest international sanctions regime against Russia since the Second World War, Central Asia and the Caucasus have been forced into an uncomfortable position at the front of...

This article was originally written as a USAWC Fellow Strategy Paper for the United States Army War College under the direction of Dr. (COL Ret.) Robert Hamilton. On August 23rd, 1989, an estimated two million citizens from the countries...