Commentary

The Baltic Defense Line

The three Baltic states jointly announced on Jan. 19, 2024, their intention to build a defensive line along their borders with Russia and Belarus. Initial details are scarce. The defensive line will not include coastal defenses — Baltic coasts...

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China’s Challenge to the International Economic Order

The United States has led the international economic order for the last seventy-eight years, with only the Soviet Union posing a serious challenge. However, China is starting to pose a severe threat to the United States by trying to...

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Testing European Unity on Ukraine

Ukraine’s counteroffensive appears to be stalling. Part of this derives from Western expectations that Ukraine would continue to make significant gains. The other main reason is Russian adaptation and the digging of massive trenches while Ukraine was preparing for...

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China’s Military-Civil Fusion Strategy: A Blueprint for Technological Superiority

In an effort to transform the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) into the most technologically advanced military in the world, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is systematically reorganizing its science and technology sectors to ensure that new innovations simultaneously advance...

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How Is the Philippines Preparing for Conflict in the South China Sea?

On February 2, 2023, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III announced the temporary return of American troops to four new military bases in the Philippines, restarting a military presence there that has been dormant for thirty years. These four new...

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Estonia Catches Taiwan Fever: What Will the Side Effects Be?

In early November 2023, Estonia announced a decision to allow Taiwan to open an unofficial, non-diplomatic economic and cultural representative office in Tallinn. The opening of an office does not mean that Tallinn and Taipei are establishing official diplomatic...

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Doubling Down: Estonia’s Center Party Gamble on Mihhail Kõlvart

In the September 2023 Center Party leadership elections, members chose Tallinn Mayor Mihhail Kõlvart over former Health Minister Tanel Kiik as party chair. Center Party rose to prominence in the 1990s by forging a coalition of disaffected citizens, Russophones...

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Honduras Ditches Taiwan for China

In March 2023, China signed a joint communique with the Honduran Foreign Ministry declaring that “Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinese territory,” breaking relations with Taiwan after over eighty years of Honduran-Taiwanese relations. A few months later, in...

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NATO Vilnius Summit: Defense Takeaways for the Baltic States

This July, the NATO Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, was yet another historical gathering for Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. After facing years of dilemmas with regard to Russia, the allies agreed to bolster NATO’s enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) battlegroups and...

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Empowering Iraq: The $27 Billion Deal for Iraq’s Energy Sufficiency

This past July, Iraq and France’s TotalEnergies finalized the Gas Growth Integrated Project, a $27 billion energy deal aimed at Iraq’s natural resources and improving the country’s electricity supply. Despite Iraq’s natural wealth, decades of conflict and corruption have...

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