Category: Blogs

Making Sense of Ukraine’s Ugly Fall

By Violeta Moskalu

This fall has been an ugly one for Ukraine. Throughout September, October, November, and December, Ukrainian authorities have illegally detained, persecuted, and expelled several foreign journalists and other foreign residents, causing observers to question whether Ukrainian leaders are actively violating human rights and willfully persecuting their political opponents in an effort to maintain their grip […]

What Ukrainians Really Think: 10 Key Insights from Ukraine’s 2017 Opinion Polls

By Anna Kyslytska

Ukraine is a complicated, changing country. It’s far too easy to imagine that the proclamations and positions presented by Ukraine’s government and civil society represent those of the general public. In fact, a close examination of a range of recent national opinion polls—on topics like corruption, the health care system, migration, and Russia—show that the […]

Attack on Peacekeepers in DRC Indicates Increasing Extremist Activity

The attack on United Nations peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) by lesser-known violent extremists called the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) indicates that the group poses a more serious threat than previously believed as it continues to ratchet up its activity in region, capitalizing on the persistent political instability in the DRC, […]

Why I’m Not Giving Up on Ukraine

By Diane Francis

It’s hard to keep the faith in Ukraine, given the attempts to claw back reforms and repeated attacks against anticorruption activists. But a successful Pakistani-born businessman, Mohammad Zahoor, isn’t giving up on Ukraine. He owns The Kyiv Post, a twenty-year-old English language newspaper that crusades for democracy, the rule of law, free markets, and western integration. […]

Frederic C. Hof’s remarks at the NATO Parliamentary Forum

By Frederic C. Hof

Below are remarks by Ambassador Frederic C. Hof at the NATO Parliamentary Forum at the National Defense University on Dec. 11, 2017 that touched upon the evolving US approach to Syria and Iraq. I’ve been asked to discuss the evolving US approach to Iraq and Syria. I will try to do so as accurately and as briefly as […]

Abrams Tanks and the Banner of Hussein: Syria’s Kurds Nervously Watch Ongoing Events

By Samah Rahbeh

In his book entitled Barzani and the History of the Kurdish Liberation Movement, Masoud Barzani President of Iraqi Kurdistan, wrote that his father Mullah Mustafa once said: “We are willing to become the fifty-first American state if that is what it takes for our cause to succeed.” However, once the 1975 Algiers Agreement between Iran […]

Old Ukraine Declares War on New Ukraine

By Vitaliy Sych

The masks have been torn off. Law enforcement officers and lawmakers have launched a frontal attack on the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) for the first time. On December 6, pro-government faction leaders Artur Gerasimov and Maxim Burbak registered a bill to remove the head of NABU, Artem Sytnyk. Wow, consider this: the bill’s […]

TRADE IN ACTION December 7

By Global Business & Economics Program

THIS WEEK IN TRADEThis week saw the much-touted PM May and President Juncker lunch which did not end the way many hoped when Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) objected to the wording of a text on the future operation of the border – read a review of the chaotic events by BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg here.

Reconstruction Funds Will Not Change Assad’s Behavior in Syria

The promise of foreign reconstruction aid will not induce cooperation from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which is why international efforts to rebuild the war-ravaged country should focus on local solutions, removed from the regime’s sphere of influence, according to an Atlantic Council analyst. “A regime that would rather have gone through what it had to […]