Europe & Eurasia

NATO-EU: Working to fill gaps in defense capabilities

By NATO

From NATO: NATO’s relations with the European Union go back twenty years: the 1992 Maastricht Treaty was the first EU treaty to mention NATO.

EU membership losing its appeal in Turkey

By Kristina Karasu, Spiegel

Through NATO-EU cooperation, Dutch ship frees crew hijacked by pirates

By NATO

From NATO:  On 13 August 2012, the armed boarding team of the Dutch naval vessel HNLMS Rotterdam freed a pirated vessel in the Gulf of Aden and detained six suspected pirates.

European powers no longer have role across Pacific

By Robert M. Farley, the Global Times

From Robert M. Farley, the Global Times:  Over the past decade, NATO has increasingly stepped outside of its traditional regional boundaries and begun operating in far flung corners of the world.

Czech Republic hosting exercise for NATO air forces in September

By CTK

From CTK:  Seventeen NATO countries have confirmed participation in an extensive air force exercise to be held in the Czech Republic in September, the sole such event the Alliance holds this year, Defence Ministry spokeswwman Jana Zechmeisterova has told CTK.

Surrender Not Britain’s Only Option

By Julian Lindley-French

Those of you of a certain vintage will remember those flinty, somewhat silly British war movies of the 1950s. The story line was always roughly the same; a plucky British soldier, invariably called Tommy, armed only with a broken toothbrush, elastic band and a piece of chewing gum would, after suffering much adversity, defeat an […]

EU ambassadors blast Belarus over diplomatic spat with Sweden, mull new sanctions

By Reuters

From Reuters:  Belarus’s relations with the West took a turn for the worse on Friday as EU governments agreed to reprimand Minsk for expelling the Swedish ambassador in a row over a pro-democracy stunt involving an air drop of teddy bears on Belarus’s territory.

Obama’s Europe Pivot

By John Vinocur, the International Herald Tribune

America and Europe’s Pacific Partnership

By Patryk Pawlak and Eleni Ekmektsioglou, the Diplomat

From Patryk Pawlak and Eleni Ekmektsioglou, the Diplomat:  The joint statement touches upon several important issues for the region’s stability: North Korea’s denuclearization, democratization in Burma, territorial claims in the South China Sea, and human rights.

U.S.-EU Statement on the Asia-Pacific Region

By the Department of State

From the Department of State:  Secretary Clinton and High Representative Ashton noted that interdependence between Asia, the United States and the European Union has reached unprecedented levels.