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UkraineAlert

Apr 19, 2018

How to Build a Real Political Party in Ukraine

By Viola Gienger

Oleksandr Solontay is trying to accomplish the political equivalent of pushing Ukraine’s winter snow uphill. In a country that still struggles to shake its addiction to oligarchs and other figureheads despite multiple attempts at revolution, the thirty-seven-year old is aiming to construct a political party from the ground up. Solontay, an educator and former city […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Apr 19, 2018

Why Ukraine’s Radical Parties Are Sitting Pretty for Upcoming Elections

By Mykola Vorobiov

Ukrainian nationalism is growing quickly, but radical parties have never done well in elections. This may change in 2019, when Ukraine will hold both presidential and parliamentary elections, which are the first national elections after the Euromaidan revolution and the Russian military invasion in 2014. While Ukraine has committed to joining Euro-Atlantic institutions and embarked […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Apr 19, 2018

Why Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Drive Is Failing

By Tetyana Ogarkova

After the victory of the Euromaidan, the demand for combating corruption drastically increased, and new institutions were established to fight high-level corruption. However, there is an ongoing conflict between two of the newly established agencies that greatly diminishes their ability to fight corruption. Below we explain the fight in ten question and answers.

Ukraine

New Atlanticist

Apr 19, 2018

Cuba’s new president sails into choppy waters

By Ashish Kumar Sen

For the first time in sixty years, Cuba will be led by a man whose last name is not Castro. However, this reality is unlikely to herald change in Cuba or soften US President Donald J. Trump’s hard line toward the island that sits just ninety miles off the US coast, according to the Atlantic Council’s Jason Marczak.

Cuba Venezuela

New Atlanticist

Apr 18, 2018

Mike Pompeo’s Secret Mission to Pyongyang

By Robert A. Manning

The remarkable news that CIA Director and US Secretary of State nominee Mike Pompeo made a secret trip to North Korea where he met North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is a measure both of the head-spinning pace of diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula and of the seriousness with which US President Donald J. Trump’s administration […]

Korea United States and Canada

SyriaSource

Apr 18, 2018

Humanity in a Humanitarian Emergency

By Hasan Arfeh

A new chapter began in Eastern Ghouta, part of Damascus governorate, on March 22. The government-imposed siege ended in certain towns and Syrian regime forces seized control of areas through a negotiated agreement between the Syrian regime and its Russian ally on one hand and opposition factions—the Rahman Corps and later Jaysh al-Islam—on the other. […]

Syria

New Atlanticist

Apr 18, 2018

Costa Rica’s new president has his work cut out

By Alberto Matamoros

Carlos Alvarado Quesada’s election as president of Costa Rica on April 1, which defied every recent opinion poll, marks the rejection by Costa Ricans of fundamentalist populism. The thirty-eight-year-old ruling party candidate—a former labor minister, musician, journalist, and novelist—won 60 percent of the vote. Despite taking place amidst rampant corruption, rising crime and inequality, and […]

New Atlanticist

Apr 18, 2018

From Steel Tariffs to an Awesome Trade Deal

By Frances G. Burwell

US President Donald J. Trump’s imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports into the United States has been a significant blow to the US-European Union (EU) economic partnership, but this episode also offers a real opportunity. Though the EU has been exempted from penalties until May 1, the mere prospect of future tariffs has […]

European Union International Organizations

IranSource

Apr 18, 2018

Inefficient Agriculture is Killing Iran

By Sirous Amerian

In January I wrote a piece for this blog after widespread protests in Iran and outlined actions that should be taken by the government to enhance the lives of Iranians. In that piece I talked about the water crisis in Iran very briefly and was told by a reader on Twitter that the water section […]

Iran

New Atlanticist

Apr 17, 2018

Beyond Syria: Moscow’s Objectives in the Middle East

By Stephen Blank

Syria’s civil war has come close to provoking direct kinetic clashes between the United States and Russia. Yet, despite the urgency to understand both sides’ goals, hardly anyone is assessing Russia’s overall objectives in the Middle East. Syria might be the most urgent issue of what the late Zbigniew Brzezinski called the Eurasian Balkans, but […]

Middle East Russia