Politics & Diplomacy

Defense: And What Will Europe Do?

By Sven Biscop

The debate about European defense tends to focus on the need to spend more and deploy more. One deceptively simple question is usually ignored: why? Americans seem to assume that more European capabilities will be deployed where it is convenient for the United States. Europeans just seek to avoid the difficult debate that it would […]

The Treacherous Road to Pakistan’s Historic Elections

By Shuja Nawaz

Pakistan’s upcoming elections on May 11 provoke both fear and hope.

Poland’s Foreign Minister: ‘I’m Afraid Conflict in Europe is Imaginable’

By Radek Sikorski, Foreign Affairs

From Radek Sikorski, Foreign Affairs:  Our relations with Russia, like yours, are pragmatic but brittle.

Pakistani Politics: Perils and Paradoxes

By Harlan Ullman

This weekend, many tens of millions of some 200 million Pakistanis will elect new national and four provincial governments. The elections are a remarkable milestone due in large measure to President Asif Zardari’s political navigational skills in the most roiled of waters.

Italy’s Defense Minister Seeks More EU Defense Cooperation

By Julian Hale, Defense News

From Julian Hale, Defense News:  Italian Defense Minister Mario Mauro called for EU leaders to cooperate more on defense at the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee meeting here Monday.

Is Europe Losing Faith in the EU?

By Frederick Kempe

Happy Europe Day! If you don’t know May 9 is Europe Day, then you find yourself in good company with a majority of Europeans. Even in the most buoyant time, this holiday – marking the Schuman Declaration, presented by French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman in 1950, that launched the European Coal and Steel Community – […]

The Peasant’s Revolt

By Julian Lindley-French

High up in the majestic Yorkshire hills I am but a flat-cap stone’s throw from my native Sheffield.  The sheep stand fast protecting their new-born lambs from the scything, sheeting and predatory rain.  This is a place of unforgiving beauty. It was much the same back in 1381 when Wat Tyler and Jack Straw led the Peasant’s […]

Italy’s Andreotti, leading postwar politician, passed away at 94

By Philip Pullella, Reuters