Europe

Mongolia Moves Toward Europe and Implications for the OSCE
Testimony for The U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (U.S. Helsinki Commission)
by John Tkacik

Published on October 12th, 2011
On the question of Mongolia's application for status as a participating state in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Mongolia has become even more important geopolitically – in every way – to America’s and Europe’s security.  The imperative of giving Mongolia status as a participating OSCE state lies in its geopolitical importance in Eurasia, specifically as a moderating influence in relations between Russia and China.Mongolians themselves are acutely sensitive to their role as a buffer between Eurasia’s two most massive powers. They understand the absolute necessity of not allowing their land to become a satellite of either great power lest the other great power seek to rebalance in the opposite direction. Mongolians descriptively call their strategy the “Third Neighbor Policy.”

Terrorist-Criminal Pipelines and Criminalized States: Emerging Alliances
Prism 2, No. 3
by Douglas Farah

Published on June 1st, 2011
On July 1, 2010, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment that outlined the rapid expansion of operations of transnational criminal organizations and their growing, often short-term strategic alliances with terrorist groups. These little-understood transcontinental alliances pose new security threats to the United States, as well as much of Latin America, West Africa, and Europe.

Looking Forward: The End of NATO?
by Arthur Waldron, Ph.D

Published on October 1st, 2009
Institutionally NATO remains intact but whether it would actually function in a conflict is a question that has long been becoming more and more puzzling.

Briefly: Ataturk and Turkey’s Problems
by Arthur Waldron, Ph.D

Published on May 3rd, 2007
A Turkish professor is quoted this morning as saying that the current political crisis in his country is simply another stage in a struggle that "Turkey has been fighting against radical Islam almost since the founding of the Ottoman Empire." Something like this view frames much contemporary discussion: the rationalist and democratic national hero Ataturk eighty years ago dragging Turkey into modernity, against the protests of ignorant and obscurantist partisans of the Ottomans, the Caliphate, and Islam in general.

Notes from London
by Arthur Waldron, Ph.D

Published on March 21st, 2006
Plenty is being said, but very few people are asking the big and important questions about the future of the Middle East: not in Washington, and certainly not here in Europe, specifically London.

Russia: Looking Forward
by Arthur Waldron, Ph.D

Published on August 24th, 2005
One thing we do know about Russia: its governments plan strategic and foreign policy far ahead, and nearly always have. Failing to grasp this point, and imagining that they are reactive, or entirely driven by internal pressures, is a constant source of error.

Chinese Notes from AeroIndia and IDEX
February 2005
by Richard Fisher, Jr.

Published on February 28th, 2005
An indepth look at the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) programs obtained at two recent arms shows, AeroIndia in Bangalore, February 9-12 and IDEX, Abu Dhabi, February 12-17. Chinese armor, naval, missile and electronics companies were only at IDEX, traditionally one of their largest foreign displays. As a general observation, Chinese military modernization continues to accelerate in breadth and depth. Their general confidence and a growing desire for export sales impel the Chinese to reveal more systems previously kept secret.

Europe's Crisis
Commentary Magazine
by Arthur Waldron, Ph.D

Published on February 1st, 2005
The great transatlantic European-American divorce, about which we have heard so much: is it really going to take place? A few months ago, from the other side of the Atlantic, it looked like a done deal. Seldom had the sheer weight of European opinion seemed so monolithically averse not only to American policies but to the American character, especially as represented by President George W. Bush. Before the November election, polls of the British parliament suggested that 87 percent of that body’s members would have voted for John Kerry; among Tories, only 2 percent stated that they would be “delighted” by Bush’s reelection. After the event took place, Le Soir of Brussels spoke for many in characterizing the reaction of European elites as “no longer about policy, but a matter of rage”—rage, the paper elsewhere went on to explain, over America’s “anaesthetization by a detestable mixture of economic-financial interest groups, blind militarism, religious fundamentalism, and neoconservative propaganda.”