New Atlanticist

As Turkey Votes Sunday, Democracy and Stability Are at Stake

By Sabine Freizer

Voters in Turkey will elect mayors and local councils Sunday in an act that will resonate far beyond the local issues that typically dominate municipal elections. They will deliver a referendum on the 11-year rule of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. And the balloting will open a cycle of three elections in coming months that […]

Keystone XL as the Greens’ Waterloo

By Robert A. Manning

Protesting the pipeline won’t rekindle the cooling climate-change issue The Keystone XL pipeline has become a holy cause for environmentalists to rebel against, as evidenced by candlelight vigils in 49 states and a parade of protests across the country. It is also an agonizing decision facing President Obama. While both sides of the Keystone debate have wrongly […]

The Value of Human Rights Advocacy with Friends and Foes

By Barbara Slavin

With Ukraine still dominating the headlines and the carnage in Syria overwhelming other stories from the Middle East, there was still a news item this week from Egypt that was breath-taking in demonstrating how far that country has fallen in terms of respecting basic human rights.

Are Russian Troops Preparing to Seize All of Southern Ukraine?

By James Rupert

As Kyiv Asks Citizens to Donate to the Army, its Military Weakness May Encourage Moscow Russia has massed an invasion-ready force on Ukraine’s eastern border and NATO’s top commander, US Air Force General Philip Breedlove, said Sunday that the deployment may be aimed at annexing a part of Moldova, to Ukraine’s west. To do so, […]

Fears of Further Russian Military Action Have the West on Edge

As Russian troops moved to occupy Ukraine’s last outstanding military bases in Crimea, Ukrainian leadership called for its forces to withdraw.  The West continues to worry over how far Russia will go and uncertainty abounds as to what, if anything, NATO will do in response.

Hitting Russia’s Economy: What Obama and EU Must Do Wednesday in Brussels

By Frances G. Burwell

President Obama and his European Union colleagues will gather Wednesday in the most important meeting so far for Western governments as they decide how to respond to Russia’s egregious, illegal seizure of Crimea from Ukraine. US and European sanctions so far have targeted individuals among Moscow’s elite, rather than the broader Russian economy. At the […]

How the Crimea Crisis Will Breed Nuclear Bombs

By Taras Kuzio

Ukraine’s dismemberment by Russia dangerously weakens global security by inadvertently encouraging Iran, North Korea and other governments to stay determined in their efforts or dreams of building nuclear weapons. In any nuclear disarmament negotiation now, international assurances of protection for a de-nuclearizing state will ring hollow when measured against those given to Ukraine two decades […]

New US Sanctions on Russia Remain Too Little

By Adrian Karatnycky

The new US sanctions against Russia announced today by President Obama over Moscow’s seizure of Crimea continue a limited response – a tough signal, but insufficient alone to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin from further aggression against Ukraine. The new steps freeze US assets and transactions for twenty more Putin allies, and for a bank […]