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Mar 4, 2014

Transatlantic Focus is Key to Helping Moldova Join Europe

By Damon Wilson

As a Small Nation Faces Russian Pressure, Europe’s Future is on the Line Moldovan Prime Minister Iurie Leancă’s meetings at the White House today are a crucial sign of US support for his leadership and for Moldova’s Euro-Atlantic future, especially alongside Russia’s invasion of Moldova’s neighbor, Ukraine. In November, Moldova, alongside Georgia, signed a European […]

Eastern Europe Moldova

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Mar 3, 2014

Russia, Ukraine, the Neighbourhood: Changing Putin’s Risk Calculus

By Matthew Bryza

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is part of the highest-stakes gambits of President Putin’s career. Putin is not bent on war or on dismembering Ukraine. Rather, he seeks to reverse his humiliating defeat in failing to intimidate Ukraine into abandoning its return to Europe.

Russia Ukraine

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Feb 28, 2014

Countering the al-Shabaab Insurgency in Somalia

By Joshua Meservey

Africa Center Assistant Director Joshua Meservey co-authored a Joint Special Operations University monograph with Dr. James Forest, professor and director of the Security Studies program at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and the late Dr. Graham Turbiville, Associate Fellow at JSOU’s Strategic Studies Department, on the al-Shabaab insurgency in Somalia.

East Africa Somalia

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Feb 14, 2014

East Asia’s Dangerous History Wars

By Rajan Menon

At the annual Davos World Economic Forum, which convened last month, Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe disrupted the conviviality by offering an historical analogy that jarred his listeners. Abe likened the polemics and gunboat diplomacy (he did not characterize it thus) that China and Japan have been using against each other of late to the rivalry between […]

China East Asia

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Feb 5, 2014

Urbanization in Latin America

By Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center

Cities are global leaders whose innovative policies are increasingly transcending boundaries to shape domestic and international trends. The relative power of cities to influence the global agenda will only increase in the coming decades. More than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas; by 2050, 70 percent, or more than six billion people, […]

Latin America

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Jan 31, 2014

Spotlight Brazil

By Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center

What Will be the Legacy of the 2014 World Cup for Brazil? From June 12 to July 13, Brazil will host the 2014 FIFA World Cup across twelve cities. During the tournament an estimated 600,000 foreign visitors and 3 million Brazilians are expected to travel across the country of more than 200 million people. Over […]

Brazil

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Jan 30, 2014

After Ukraine: Moscow’s Next Offensive

By Marik String

While the outcome of Ukraine’s upheaval may not be clear, this much is: Russia has successfully used sanctions, a pile of cash and natural gas discounts to set back Ukraine’s effort to build itself a European future. Even as Russia shifts focus to ensuring the safety and prestige of next month’s Sochi Olympics, the Euro-Atlantic […]

Russia The Caucasus

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Dec 5, 2013

Spotlight Colombia: December 5

By Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center

How might the FARC peace negotiations impact Colombia’s presidential election? President Barack Obama emphasized “the tremendous progress that’s taken place in Colombia” after meeting with President Juan Manuel Santos at the White House on December 3. His comments come at a pivotal moment as Colombia enters an electoral season. Download PDF

Colombia

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Nov 26, 2013

Localizing Power in Libya

By Jason Pack and Mohamed Eljarh

Its Prime Minister briefly kidnapped, its oil trapped in the pipelines by protesters, its capital city in chaos, and its high-end hotels increasingly devoid of businessmen, Libya is now reaping the “benefits” of 42 years of ideological one-man rule, eight months of polarizing armed struggle, and two years of seemingly endless and aimless “transition.” In […]

Libya

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Nov 20, 2013

Rouhani’s First One Hundred Days: Cautious Domestic Reforms as Nuclear Crisis Continues

By Yasmin Alem and Barbara Slavin

After eight turbulent years during which conservatives monopolized Iranian politics, the election of centrist cleric Hassan Rouhani on June 14, 2013, marked a new, yet in some ways familiar chapter in post-revolutionary Iranian politics. It was new in the sense that his sweeping victory demonstrated unprecedented popular desire for change and elite recognition of the […]

Iran