Category: Blogs

Taking Stock of the Transatlantic Relationship After One Year of Trump

By Ellen Scholl

Open-ended questions surrounding US relations with its European allies have direct implications for the ratcheting up of tensions and “managed competition” between the United States and Russia, according to Christine Wormuth, director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Center for Resilience. Russia represents a nexus between challenges facing US policy at home and abroad, as […]

Ukraine Headed for Perfect Storm of Demographic Decline

By Peter Dickinson

In January, the Czech government announced plans to double its annual quota for Ukrainian fast-track migrant workers from 9,600 to 19,600. Three years ago, the quota had been just 3,800. Prague’s message is clear—Ukrainian workers are not merely welcome but vital to the Czech Republic’s economy. The Czechs are not the only ones in Central […]

Navigating the Saudi road to success

By Alex Damianou

In 2016, in the face of low oil prices and rapidly declining foreign reserves in an unsustainable, oil dependent rentier state, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) was faced with two scenarios: an ‘Open Road’ where social and economic reform would transform the country into a diversified, moderate, and prosperous society; or the ‘Rocky Road’, […]

Syria: Which Way Forward?

By Faysal Itani

Official statement presented to the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, on the hearing for “Syria: Which Way Forward?”

A Plan to Thwart Russian Meddling

US Rep. Will Hurd [R-TX] has a strategy to check Russian meddling in the midterm elections later this year and the US Department of Homeland Security would have a pivotal role in that plan. “We have a model that we should be thinking about when countering disinformation, and that’s CVE: Countering Violent Extremism,” said Hurd, […]

Will Russia Reinterpret International Law and Get Away With It?

By James J. Coyle

Russia’s disinformation activities have reached a new level: the government is now attempting to reinterpret international law. And the international community appears to be largely ignoring these audacious, unlawful efforts. The latest effort began on January 14 when the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee for CIS Affairs, Konstantin Zatulin, acknowledged that Russia […]

Five Reasons Why Reform Is Not Dead in Ukraine

By Taras Kuzio

Western reports about Ukraine are inevitably laden with doom and gloom comments mentioning “stagnation,” “a crisis in reforms,” and even “counterrevolution.” Meanwhile, concerns are circulating that the United States and Europe have reached another cycle of Ukraine fatigue. But while Ukraine still has many reforms to undertake, this should not blind observers to the real […]

Wall Street is Freaking Out

By Ashish Kumar Sen

US stocks saw another volatile day on February 6 as ripples spread to global markets. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped more than 4 percent—a nearly 1,200-point decline—on February 5. The declines for the S&P 500 index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were the biggest single-day percentage drops since August 2011. The Dow closed […]

Syria’s Disappearing Safe Areas

By Hosam al-Jablawi

The city of Afrin is at the forefront of events in Syria. Armed opposition forces and the Turkish army have launched Operation Olive Branch in an attempt to remove the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) from the Turkish border and impede the establishment of an independent Kurdish enclave in the north of the country.