Black Sea

Twice this week, drones attacked a building housing government ministries in Moscow. The Kremlin immediately blamed Ukraine. Ukrainian officials remained coy, not directly claiming responsibility for the strikes but noting that Moscow “is rapidly getting used to a full-fledged...

  Introduction The recent mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary force, generated international concern about the control of Russian nuclear weapons and Russia’s future nuclear policy. Therefore we must ask, will Russia change its nuclear policy...

In the 2010s, the global landscape changed. The Arab Spring, the Russian occupation of Crimea, and China’s national security law in Hong Kong were indicative of a profound change in the global system. The era of the unipolar moment,...

  The following is an edited transcript of a live recording of FPRI’s Chain Reaction podcast from the Changing Tides in the Black Sea conference, June 29, 2023. Listen to the recording here.  Recordings of all six panel discussions...

After bulldozing trucks and shooting down government aircraft, Wagner Group’s columns, which had been advancing northward from Rostov, stalled out miles from Moscow. Their leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, had come to an agreement with the Russian government. Belarusian President Aliaksandr...

To join NATO, prospective members typically must follow a MAP, or membership action plan. The MAP has been NATO’s standard bureaucratic procedure to convert applicants into members for over two decades. After Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic joined...

The future of the Wagner Group is in doubt. Less than a week after Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin launched his march on Moscow on June 23, which was then aborted mid-coup, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered Wagner fighters who...

In the spring 1958 issue of Orbis, Robert Strausz-Hupé, Alvin J. Cottrell, James E. Dougherty and Virgil Ney grappled with the question of “protracted conflict” as a way to understand the “complex realities with which the statesman and the...

Abstract Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has once again reinvigorated the debate about the likelihood of conflict spreading into NATO’s frontline states, namely the Baltic republics. This article argues that somewhat paradoxically, the Baltics currently find themselves in both the...

Abstract As Russia’s invasion in Ukraine enters its second year, how is the global system continuing to evolve and change? How is the balance of power and influence shifting? And what might be some of the unexpected developments? Orbis...