... the European Union on a number of fundamental issues
The new Global EU Strategy is a landmark event. It formalizes an attempt to transform the European Union into the independent center of world politics and further growth of its responsibility in international security matters. In case of its successful implementation, the EU will attain a greater potential and political weight. The EU will become a new qualitative political player, cooperating closely with NATO and solving a wide range of security ...
Limited War is Back
The anniversary of the Victory in World War II is an occasion to reflect on the danger of a new war breaking out between great powers. The end of World War II ushered in the nuclear era. Ever since that time scholars have been ceaselessly debating two problems
[1]
. First: Is a direct military showdown between the nuclear powers possible? And if so, will they dare use nuclear weapons? Second: Can nuclear war be interpreted according to the Clausewitz formula whereby “war...
Task Force on Cooperation in Greater Europe Position Paper IV
Task Force
on Cooperation in Greater Europe Position Paper
The context
Large swathes of the Middle East have collapsed into a state of violence, chaos and division, causing unimaginable amounts of human suffering. We now face a highly dynamic and very dangerous situation in the Middle East, with the prospect of further instability, but also some hope for improvement following a pause in the Syrian civil war.
During our recent meetings...
... of trust will be with us for a long, long time even under the best possible circumstances. And without trust it is practically impossible to consider a comprehensive and long term common strategy in such a sensitive and politically loaded sphere as international security.
Second
, there is no common vision about the future of the international system at large or about the future of Euro-Atlantic space in particular. The perceptions of how the new world order should look like are too different in ...
... matter is required.
According to a foreign participant, Russia's operation in Syria may add to its tarnished image in the EU since it generates one more driver for the refugee flow to Europe.
The participants agreed to continue their exchanges on the international security issues.
List of participants
Roundtable "Russian and Western Views on International Conflict Settlement and Security Challenges"
I felt a sense of deja vu reading Troitskiy’s polemical
response
. The very title of the article “Why Nuclear Weapons Are Strategically Useless?” gives rise to troubling associations. More than once in history has a particular kind of weapon been declared “strategically useless.” In the early twentieth century, French military commanders declared that airplanes had no place in the army and their scope of application was just in sports. In the 1930s, a notorious group...
... characteristics to nuclear weapons that they do not have – in the first place the ability to protect a state from any threats other than a direct and large-scale (and therefore unlikely) military aggression.
By contrast, the risks these weapons pose for international security are very real. Fenenko rightly notes that terrorist groups, fortunately, have not been able to gain access to nuclear materials over the past 20 years or so. However, most developed countries, including Russia, recognise the growing ...
Why the nuclear weapons is not the main security guarantee
Commemorating the 70-year tragic anniversary of the A-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it seems appropriate to once again ponder over the role of nuclear weapons in the world, as well as over their impact on security of separate countries and the entire world. The countless human losses and unbearable sufferings inflicted by the August 1945 attack unveiled the dangers of possessing nuclear weapons, while future developments seemed convincing...
The relationship seems to have returned to Mubarak’s times
The U.S.-Egypt strategic dialogue was reset on August 2 in Cairo which signifies restoration of a full-scale partnership of the two countries at the level of the Hosni Mubarak rule.
The bilateral relationship was shattered in July 2013 when the Egypt's top brass ousted legitimately elected Islamist President Mohammad Morsi. Washington condemned the coup, although never using the word, as well as the subsequent repressions against the Muslim...
Several Possible Lines of Regional Cooperation
The official end of the West’s military campaign in Afghanistan has been followed by the start of another mission in the country, which held presidential elections in 2014 but where the situation seems to be deteriorating ever faster. Other actors are becoming more visible and seem strong enough to shatter not only Afghanistan but also Central Asia’s inherently fragile states. At the same time, these countries and regional organizations...
