Politics & Diplomacy

“You Can’t Get Away with Something Like This,” Families of MH17 Victims Remind Russia

By Michael Bociurkiw

“It is very sad and it doesn’t get easier with each passing year...the roll call of the 298 names just leaves you speechless. But we will continue to fight, because you can’t get away with something like this.”

Below the surface, a game changer in Congolese politics

By Pierre Englebert

“Shikata,” or “remain seated” in Swahili, claim the posters on Congolese President Joseph Kabila’s effigy in the streets of Lubumbashi. But while everyone’s attention is focused on the regime’s contortions to stay in power, despite constitutional impediments to doing so and deep domestic discontent, the 2015 break-up of Congo’s existing provinces has upended politics below […]

Donald Trump and Theresa May: On the Issues

By Ashish Kumar Sen

Donald J. Trump and Theresa May attempted to paper over their differences—at least in public—at a joint press conference on July 13. This interaction followed a controversial interview Trump gave to the British tabloid The Sun in which  the US president criticized the British prime minister’s approach to Brexit. Here’s a look at where the […]

This is How the Liberal International Order Dies

By Paul D. Miller

Last year, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, after meeting US President Donald J. Trump at the NATO Summit in Brussels, “The times in which we could completely depend on others are, to a certain extent, over…We Europeans truly have to take our fate into our own hands.” That she said it on Memorial Day weekend—the […]

Why Djibouti is the loser of the Horn of Africa’s new peace

By Kelsey Lilley

At the least, this tectonic shift will reduce the revenues available to President Ismail Omar Guelleh, in power since 1999, and undermine his ironclad grip on the country.

TRADE IN ACTION July 12, 2018

By Global Business & Economics Program

NATO Engages: Shoring Up the Alliance

By Ashish Kumar Sen

The opening day of NATO Engages: The Brussels Summit Dialogue was marked by passionate endorsements of the transatlantic military alliance that has been credited with giving the West its longest period of peace without a major power conflict in centuries. It also produced an attempt by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to ease the Alliance’s […]

Nord Stream 2 is a Bad Deal for Europe

By Agnia Grigas and Lukas Trakimavičius

This week, Western leaders will gather at the NATO Summit in Brussels to discuss the most pressing issues of the day, likely including the construction of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline. The pipeline, owned by Russian energy giant Gazprom, would significantly increase Moscow’s capacity to export natural gas directly to Germany. Nord Stream […]