A nation must think before it acts.
The previous article, The Post-Soviet Wars: Part I, advanced a causal explanation for the post-Soviet wars, the wars that broke out in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, and Ukraine during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. To...
Read more »Russia’s intervention in Georgia in 2008 and, more recently, in Ukraine awaked many in the West to a category of wars they had assumed to be resolved and, in any case, of little consequence to Western security: the post-Soviet...
Read more »By some measures, Eurasia’s energy landscape has changed more in the past several years than in the previous several decades. The price of oil remains at half its level of four years ago and shows no sign of rising....
Read more »It is an honor to have been invited to present the twenty-first Templeton Lecture on Religion and World Affairs at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. It is humbling to be part of a series that has included scholars whose...
Read more »For decades, the United States has been at the forefront of international engagement. It has settled disputes and advanced democracy through supporting elections, civil society development, and often through educational exchanges. Yet, today, America’s disengagement is in the headlines....
Read more »“There are three hundred million of us,” people in Montenegro once boasted. “Together with the Russians,” they would hasten to add. The tiny state, tucked between the Adriatic Sea and the Dinaric Alps and whose population is a little...
Read more »Having not yet cooled off from the 2016 presidential election, the Republic of Moldova now faces preparations for its upcoming parliamentary elections in 2018. Moldova’s main political entities, in both rhetoric and behavior, have been overwhelmingly absorbed by narrow,...
Read more »Since 2006, the Baltic states have hosted two major annual conferences on defense and security: the Annual Baltic Conference on Defense (ABCD) and its larger sibling, the Riga Conference. These flagship conferences present the cutting edge of Baltic thought...
Read more »“The greatest propagandist of Moldova pretends to be the great propaganda fighter,” remarked Maia Sandu, the pro-European leader of the Action and Solidarity Party, about Vladimir Plahotniuc’s recent legislative initiative. In June 2017, Plahotniuc, the chairman of Moldova’s Democratic...
Read more »As Ukraine’s recent economic difficulties persist—the country registered a modest growth rate of 2.3% in 2016, and painful IMF-mandated reforms continue to progress slowly—optimistic commentators forecast an increase—and eventual surge—in Chinese investment in the country. Speculation has been driven...
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