Eurasia

I’m sitting in Ukraine as I write this. In a case of perhaps the most awkward timing imaginable, I arrived here on the day the Trump-Zelensky Oval Office meeting went off the rails. I was having dinner with Ukrainian...

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian government accelerated the preexisting trend of centralizing control over regional power and economic assets. This centralization drive has manifested in several ways including tightening control over regional and municipal political institutions,...

One of Taiwan’s most significant foreign policy achievements since the COVID-19 pandemic was the expansion of its unofficial diplomatic cooperation with Lithuania. Both countries opened unofficial representative offices in each other’s capitals—in 2021, Taiwan’s office opened in Vilnius, and...

It is well known that the three Baltic States, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, are distinct yet share many similarities. They are comparable in size and have similar social, political, and economic development. They are situated in similar geostrategic positions...

The lives of Central Asian migrant laborers in Russia have become much worse since the terrorist attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall on March 22, 2024, that left more than 140 people dead. Prior to that attack, these migrant...

  Introduction In late September, a US HC-103J Super Hercules spotted four foreign vessels operating about 440 miles southwest of St. Lawrence Island, Alaska. Upon closer inspection, the patrol turned out to be Russian Border Guard and Chinese Coast...

The election of Donald J. Trump for a second term marks a major shift in global politics. It appears that the neoliberal era, marked by free trade and liberal political norms, has come to an end. It is difficult...

Discussions of possible ceasefire negotiations in the war between Russia and Ukraine focus on the concessions that Ukraine could make to stop the hot phase of the war. At the same time, a realistic assessment of the prospects for...

Ten years ago in 2014, Baltic defense was paltry. The defense budgets of the three Baltic states, but especially Latvia and Lithuania, were suffering from the financial crisis of 2008, and their armies were all negligible. Baltic defense was...

The title of this essay would have been a little bit different if I had spent five more days in Odesa as planned. “50 days in Ukraine, 1,005 days in war.” That would be a neat summary of my...