Category: Blogs

Post-War Croatia and Serbia Ink Landmark Military Deal

By Reuters

From Reuters:  Former Balkan foes Croatia and Serbia signed a military cooperation deal on Tuesday in another sign that the region of former Yugoslavia is overcoming the legacy of ethnic wars fought in the 1990s.

NATO Allies Poised to Slash Military Budgets

By Craig Whitlock, the Washington Post

From Craig Whitlock, the Washington Post:  European allies are bracing for their deepest cuts in military spending since the end of the Cold War, fueling concerns in Washington that an already wide gap in military power between the United States and the rest of NATO will grow.

Gates: If Turkey is Moving Eastward, It was “Pushed by Some in Europe”

By Reuters

From Reuters:  The United States is concerned at a breakdown in Turkey’s relations with Israel and fears Europe’s rebuff of Ankara’s EU aspirations is pushing the pivotal country "eastward," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday.

Putin Says Russia will Buy Mistral Only with Technology Transfer

By RIA Novosti

From RIA Novosti:  Russia is interested in purchasing Mistral class amphibious assault ships from France only together with the accompanying technology, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on the eve of a visit to France. Russia is negotiating the purchase of at least one French-built Mistral-class amphibious assault ship and plans to build three more vessels […]

Exploiting a Possibly Dangerous Summer

By Harlan Ullman

With official summer 12 days away, the temperature in Washington is already blistering. Whether this is a metaphor for an overheated political summer remains to be seen but signs and symptoms of lurking danger are in abundance. The consequences of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill will resonate for a long time. Already, the economic […]

Russia Needs Mistral to Protect Kuril Islands – General Staff

By RIA Novosti

From RIA Novosti:  Russia needs Mistral class amphibious assault ships to boost the combat capabilities of its Navy in the Far East and ensure protection of the disputed Kuril Islands, Russia’s top military commander said on Tuesday. Russia is negotiating the purchase of at least one French-built Mistral-class amphibious assault ship, worth 400-500 million Euros […]

Turning Russia into a Euro-Atlantic Stakeholder

By Nikolas Gvosdev

At the Naval War College’s 2010 Current Strategy Forum, Georgetown professor and CFR fellow Charles A. Kupchan spoke on the subject on transforming former adversaries into future partners and described Russia as "the prize." Can we turn Moscow into a stakeholder in the architecture of the Euro-Atlantic world without simultaneously frightening allies in "New Europe" […]

Georgia Drifts Away from the West

By Matthew Czekaj

The West is losing Georgia, and the West has only itself to blame.  Since the April 2008 NATO Summit in Bucharest, at which the Alliance declared that Georgia (and Ukraine) would become a member, Europe and the United States have done almost nothing to more fully integrate the Caucasian country into the transatlantic community.  The […]

A New Middle East Triangle?

By Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera