Politics & Diplomacy

Germany, EU Tell Turkey to Show Restraint Amid Protests

By Deutsche Welle

From Deutsche Welle:  Berlin has urged the Turkish government to refrain from heavy-handedness in its treatment of protesters. A senior EU official echoed the comments but said Brussels remained committed to Turkey’s accession to the bloc.

The Economic and Political Decline of France

By Mathieu von Rohr, Spiegel

The Ghosts of Task Force Smith

By Pete Dillon

Here we are again. Since World War I the United Sates has consistently entered into a post conflict reduction of military capacity that attempts to rebalance the national ledgers and reign in spending.  The contemporary conversation inside the Beltway is saturated with opinions on the best way to proceed this time, even though our nation is […]

EU Foreign Policy Needs a Reset

By Ulrich Speck

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is a skilled negotiator; the recent Serbia-Kosovo breakthrough will probably secure her a place in the history books. It is rather unlikely, though, that 2009 – the year EU leaders chose Ashton as High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy – will be remembered by […]

Connecting the Baltic States to Europe’s Gas Market

By Matthew Bryza and Emmet Tuohy

More than two decades after the end of the Soviet occupation, and eight years after they joined NATO and the European Union, the Baltic republics remain disintegrated from the rest of Europe in one crucial way:  their natural gas infrastructure isolates them into “energy islands.”  But, for the first time in their histories, Estonia, Latvia, […]

Erdogan’s Self-Inflicted Wounds

By Ross Wilson

In soccer, an “own goal” is scored when a player accidentally hits the ball into his own net. The poor handling by Turkish authorities of demonstrations in Istanbul’s Taksim Square that spilled over to Ankara, Izmir and cities all over the country constitutes an own goal that now undermines the political prospects of Prime Minister […]

Merkel: German Military Unlikely to Become Part of European Force

By Spiegel

From Spiegel:  Excerpt from interview of German Chancellor Angela Merkel by Spiegel.

EU’s Foreign Policy of the Willing

By Vivien Pertusot

The EU’s foreign policy is in disarray after clear disagreements on the lifting of the arms embargo on Syria, many say. Is it really? This reading of events is skewed, because it assumes that every EU foreign policy action requires a consensus and an active participation of each member state. But this has seldom been the […]