... North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the main threats to security include the proliferation of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, the spread of terrorism, the threat of cyber-attacks and fundamental environmental problems.
NATO seeks to strengthen international security through cooperation. Greater efforts will be spent in this regard in terms of arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation, with an emphasis on an open door policy in relations between all the European nations and significantly ...
The struggle for offshore resources has intensified in East Asia, and Japan-China tensions seem of particular concern. Due to its alliance treaty with Japan, the United States is also involved in the conflict. The Japanese Ministry of Defense has, for the first time ever, qualified the situation around the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands as “neither peace nor war, but some ‘grey zone’”
[1]
. The situation is unfolding against a backdrop of a quantitative and qualitative improvement...
Russia Needs a Step Forward
Although Moscow's official documents and statements consider Hanoi a key Asian partner, the reality of the bilateral relationship after the breakup of the USSR has actually been inertia, thereby opening opportunities for the U.S.A. and the People's Republic of China (PRC) to gain a strong foothold in Vietnam. With Russia once again intent on achieving a meaningful presence in Asia-Pacific, it appears appropriate to analyze the role of a strategic partnership with Vietnam...
On November 18, 2014 in Washington, DC, the German Marshall Fund of the United States held seminar “
Helsinki+40: the Significance for Transatlantic Relations
”, the second one in the series initiated by the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly within
project “Helsinki+40.”
Last September, a similar event
took place in Moscow
. The Washington session was attended by GMF President Karen Donfreid, OSCE PA President Ilkka Kanerva, Cochairman of “Helsinki+40” project Joao...
There’s Still Time to Prevent Chaos in World Politics
President Putin’s speech at the recent Valdai Club meeting in Sochi evoked a strong, and somewhat contradictory, reaction from both Russian and foreign observers. It was an extremely frank speech that touched upon a wide range of issues. Everyone who listened to the speech and the subsequent Q&A session seemed to hear only what they wanted to hear.
Some observers concluded that the Russian leader had lost all hope of re-establishing any...
... Ivanov and Dr. Kortunov presented RIAC's policy paper on the future of the OSCE prepared jointly with the German Marshall Fund of the U.S.A. and SIPRI, Sweden.
Dr. Ivanov also met Vice Chair-Designate of the Atlantic Council's Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security Ellen Tauscher to discuss cooperation of the two think tanks in 2015 and in the next years.
U.S. President Barack Obama will visit Estonia on September 3, 2014. The visit will mark one of the key stages in the preparation of the NATO Summit in Wales (which will take place on September 4–5) and partial redesign of the European security architecture.
After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, NATO experienced a goal-setting crisis. Instead of communism, NATO’s enemies were now global terrorism and ‘antidemocratic regimes’. However, the Ukrainian crisis brought the Alliance...
...
Last week a Chinese worker was killed and several factories were set on fire by Vietnamese protesters who reacted violently to China’s placement of rig in disputed waters in the East Asian Sea. Taiwanese factories were the prime target, and thousands of Chinese nationals were evacuated from Vietnam.
All this anecdotal evidence goes to show that, instead of the decoupling of economic and politico-security issues, they are, as suggested in the hypothesis above, very closely linked.
China’s ...
In March 2014, the US Department of Defense published another of its Quadrennial Defense Reviews. The review analyzes defense policy priorities in light of foreign policy “re-balancing”. It puts a particular emphasis on the US’s capacity to respond to challenges during a period of fiscal austerity.
The Pentagon has to respond to the changing nature of external threats and must rely on any available opportunities to sustain US national interests. The ongoing shift in the “centre...
The Atlantic Council of the United States issued report "The United States, Russia and Europe: Trilateral Security Dialog in Absence of Strategic Partnership" prepared by Isabelle François, the Council's senior fellow.
The publication was preceded by two working meetings of experts in Brussels and Moscow with participation of RIAC Director General Andrey Kortunov and Program Director Ivan Timofeev.
Report "The United States, Russia, and Europe: Trilateral Security Dialogue...
