Black Sea

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...

What is driving Armenia toward a policy of cooperating with its neighbors in the South Caucasus and across the Caspian Sea? To answer this question, one must look to the country’s September 2016 government reshuffle that resulted in the...

As thousands of Russian soldiers marched through Moscow’s Red Square on May 9 to celebrate the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat in World War II, the only foreign politician that stood alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin in the front...

The conflict in Transnistria is the last secessionist conflict in the post-Soviet space that remains “frozen,” in the sense that unlike in Georgia or Nagorno-Karabakh, both sides agree on the boundary line, and there is no ongoing fighting. Nevertheless,...

Montenegro’s recent accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) sent an important political message to Russia’s post-Soviet neighbors: NATO’s door remains open to new members no matter the security environment. This signal will likely propel many post-Soviet countries...

Abstract Transnational Ethnic Alliance Theory at its core posits that the majority ethnic group in one state will come to the defense of its ethnic brethren that are a minority in a neighboring state, if that group is facing...

Abstract Russia’s foreign policy decisions towards Ukraine in the context of the “Ukraine crisis” have been portrayed largely in a negative light which crudely paints Russia’s actions as being imperialistic, evil and largely irrational. This article argues that by...

The recent NATO Heads of State and Government Meeting in Brussels highlighted NATO’s declining relevance in the South Caucasus and the declining relevance of the region to NATO. The reasons for this lie both within NATO and within the...

Established in 1997, GUAM—a platform named after its members Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova and originally created to improve multilateral collaboration between member states—is now celebrating its 20th anniversary. Despite this milestone year, the organization now lacks a clear...

In early March 2017, Vlad Plahotniuc, media mogul and head of the ruling Democratic Party in Moldova, proposed a bill to change the country’s parliamentary electoral system from proportional to first-past-the-post. Plahotniuc realized that under the current proportional electoral...