Category: Blogs

The Search for Lebanon’s President

By Matt Nash

The most important question underlying Lebanon’s presidential election is to what extent certain Lebanese parties—and their foreign backers—want to confront Hezbollah. It will not be answered by May 25, when the current president’s term expires, and will be largely influenced by regional developments, particularly the war in neighboring Syria.

Nigerian Government Must Earn the Trust of Local Communities to Find Missing Girls

By Bronwyn Bruton

On April 14, the Nigerian terror group known as Boko Haram (which translates loosely into the phrase, “Western education is sinful”) broke into a secular, all girls’ secondary school in the small northern Nigerian town of Chibok. Dressed in Nigerian military uniforms, the militants tricked some 270 students into clambering into the backs of trucks, […]

Hagel to NATO: We Must Summon ‘the Will to Invest in Our Alliance’

By Chuck Hagel, Department of Defense

America did not make commitments abroad “in search of monsters to destroy.” Instead, President Truman joined the North Atlantic Treaty because he said he was convinced that NATO would serve as “a shield against aggression and the fear of aggression”

Maidan is Ukraine

By Irena Chalupa

Ruslana Lyzhychko, a recipient of this year’s Atlantic Council Distinguished Humanitarian Leadership Award, is the most recognized public face of the Ukrainian revolution known as “Maidan.” This Turkic word for square (as in Maidan Nezalezhnosti, Independence Square) has become a synonym for the new democratic awareness and activism that Ruslana believes have turned Ukraine into […]

DIRECT TRANSLATION: An End to Peace in Odessa

By Irena Chalupa

The Black Sea port of Odessa, Ukraine’s third-largest city and a coveted metropolis both for Ukrainians and Russians, became a battleground between pro-Russian militants and Ukrainians opposed to the country’s division. Accounts in Ukraine’s news media say the city’s police responded much as in the eastern Ukrainian cities hit by separatist violence so far, doing […]

US Nominates Air Force General to Lead NATO Special Operations HQ

By John Vandiver, Stars and Stripes

Air Force Maj. Gen. Marshall B. Webb, U.S. European Command’s top special operations officer, has been nominated for a third star and an assignment as commander of NATO’s special operations headquarters.

#BringBackOurGirls: Social Media Campaign Goes Global

The Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram delivered its most recent shock to Nigeria and the international community when its leader, Abubakar Shekau, threatened in a videotaped message to sell into marriage or slavery the approximately 230 schoolgirls the group abducted April 14 from a boarding school in the north of the country.

Canadian Troops in Poland for Multinational Exercise

By CBC News

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Canada will send soldiers to Poland to take part in NATO exercises amid growing concerns about Russian aggression toward Ukraine.

Putin’s Invasion of Eastern Ukraine: Is It Next Week or Never?

By James Rupert

Ukraine’s escalated violence over the past four days is just the event that seems likely to trigger the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian ground forces massed near its eastern border. Indeed, following the Ukrainian army’s counter-attack against Russian-backed separatists around the eastern Ukrainian city of Slaviansk, and the weekend fighting in the seaport […]

NATO Commander Says Russia Doesn’t Need to Invade to Take Over Eastern Ukraine

By Sara Sorcher, National Journal

Russian President Vladimir Putin may be able to annex pieces of Ukraine simply by encouraging unrest among pro-Russian forces inside the country, said Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, who commands U.S. and European NATO forces.