Russia's role on te Post-Soviet space   Disintegration of the Soviet Union, political and economic crisis, colorful revolutions in the former soviet republics,  EU expansion to the East - these factors substantially weakened positions of Russia on the Post Soviet space in the beginning of the 2000th years and created new chalenges for the…

 What happened in July 2002  reminds me of  December 1979 Afghanistan.  Then, Russian Chief of the General Staff Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov heatedly and fervently objected to the fateful decision to invade Afghanistan. “We will turn all of eastern Islam against us,” he prophesied.  “Mind your own business…

It was widely speculated that the exclusion of Russia from leading industrial countries would result into an almost unresolved conflict between Russia and NATO nations. The recent G-7 Summit, if seen in the perspective of bilateral economic and strategic developments between Russia and China, was expected to become instrumental for mounting…

If remembered at all, the Bavarian G-7 Summit will likely be recalled for the entertainment value it created, offering a platform for the “leader of the free world” to deliver a personal attack on the character of the “leader of the evil empire.”
Social media losing credibility as diplomatic tool
According to the Guardian, U…

A Sensible Grading of Obama’s Middle East Strategy, As Opposed to Republican Nonsense: Part I: Introduction, Muslim World Reset, Iraq, Israel/Palestine
 
If you can’t understand that Obama’s overall Middle East strategy is starting to work, you don’t know what you’re talking about
 
By Brian E. Frydenborg…

Today, Russia still lags behind most other European countries in terms of penetration, with roughly half of the adult population connected. Russia is catching up quickly however, with average annual growth in Internet users exceeding 10% over the last few years. In September 2011, Russia overtook Germany as the market with the largest number of unique…

This article was originally published at Russia Direct.
 
It is now clear that China’s struggle to prevent the internationalization of the South China Sea dispute has been a complete and utter failure. Non-claimant states such as India and Japan, not to mention the U.S., all have their eyes on (and sometimes their hands in) the time bomb…

The only alternatives to this deal are the destructive status quo of continued stalemate and standoff that destabilizes the whole region or even more open military conflict that endangers everyone in the region (including Israel). Ignore the naysayers and give this deal a chance.

 

by Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, and…

By Alexey Ilin & Eugenia Shuvaeva
 
“The 19th century was a century of China’s humiliation, the 20th was a century of China’s revival, and the 21st will be the century of China’s domination.” This saying by unknown Chinese politician perfectly reflects the perception of history by the Chinese people. While…

Author: Kazushige Kobayashi, PhD student in International Relations at the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Switzerland The single most important lesson world leaders learned from the Ukrainian crisis is that a policy of exclusive cooperation would be neither effective nor sustainable in the long run. In the…

“This is not the end.  It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps the end of the beginning.”  So said Winston Churchill forging strategy with FDR against the brutal Nazis who occupied continental Europe and northern Africa at the early stage of WWII.
 
Let´s hope that now, at a time when Western…

This piece was originally published on Russia Beyond the Headlines. 
 
When Moscow was celebrating the 70th Anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War in early May, it was the pompous military parade and Xi Jinping’s visit that attracted all the attention of global media. Those following Southeast Asian affairs also…