Publications

Poland’s defense budget, currently over two percent of the country’s GDP, is apparently set to grow further. In October 2021, Polish Deputy Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński announced that his government intended to raise defense spending to “significantly higher” levels....

Introduction  On October 26, 2021, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense released video of a TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) striking a separatist D-30 howitzer in Russian-occupied Donbas. The strike was Ukraine’s first confirmed use of the now ubiquitous TB2,...

As Arab states prepare to reconvene this March for the 37th Arab League Summit in Algiers, one topic looms large over the agenda: the readmission of Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, expelled in 2011. An increasing number of regional players have...

Orbis Issue revisited: Spring 2021 (65:2), “Challenges Facing the Biden Administration The Biden Administration has not yet clearly operationalized the concept of a foreign policy for the middle class. No small share of its values-driven foreign policy rhetoric focuses...

Implementing sustainable farming practices and infrastructure development in Africa has been an ongoing challenge. Foreign resource extraction operations on the continent offer exchanges of raw materials for capital and critical infrastructure development. These infrastructure projects are crucial for cooperative...

It may be a cliché, but Kazakhstan’s ongoing dramatic crisis recalls one of Lenin’s most famous quotes, “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” Kazakhstan has for many years seen neither political change...

Two elections, both postponed for months by authorities citing the difficulties and dangers of voting during the COVID-19 pandemic, were held along China’s periphery in December.  In Hong Kong, elections for the Special Administrative Region’s (SAR) legislature, originally scheduled...

  Executive Summary This report assesses the political impact of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Kazakhstan. Specifically, it examines whether and how the People’s Republic of China can pursue a strategy of economic statecraft to further its...

 Orbis issue revisited: Spring 2021 (65:2), “Challenges Facing the Biden Administration” After serving as a diplomat for thirty years I am always a bit skeptical about catch phrases to describe the practice of diplomacy. A foreign policy for the...

It is sometimes said that when Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined NATO in 2004 each still harbored some lingering regret that they were not joining the NATO of 1949 — an alliance with a resolute and single-track focus to deter...