Jarrod talks with Georg Löfflmann (University of Warwick) and Frank Stengel  (Kiel University) about the changes in German foreign policy in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and, in particular, about the idea that Germany is experiencing a watershed...
This is a guest post by Hanna Kleider, an assistant professor in the Department of International Affairs at the University of Georgia. She is currently on a research leave at the European University...
While the Russia probe is expanding to include naïve 36-year old Harvard graduates, pundits all over the world have been worried about elections in other countries. The massive WikiLeaks dump (pun...
With populism on the march across the West in the past 18 months, conventional wisdom suggests this lurch toward nativism will continue. With the Dutch Trump increasing his seats in parliament,...
If only present day global competition were confined to the World Cup. But while eyes have turned back to a new crisis in Iraq—something I’m not exactly proud of predicting here—at least there has been progress on the Ukraine crisis, which has gone from boil to simmer in recent weeks. At this stage it has become clear that Russia has blinked, and thus will not be swallowing eastern Ukraine whole. Just as important, we now have clear as day evidence that President Putin’s gambit has failed: Ukraine has not only signed the EU trade agreement that former President Yanukovych walked away...
Editor's note: this post first appeared on my personal blog. 1. Tensions in the South China Sea are rising. Exhibit A (h/t Sean B. Rogers), exhibit B (h/t Jay Ulfelder). Right now, all eyes are on Ukraine. And rightfully so. But this is one to watch too. 2. Speaking of Ukraine, the National Interest wonders if that crisis could spark a world war (h/t Charli Carpenter). The article is a bit sensationalistic, and I doubt anyone would have written it if all this had happened in 2013 ("99 years ago" just doesn't have the same ring to it), but there are some good points here. I wouldn't put the...
Much ado. Investors keep getting burned in betting on the exit of members of the Eurozone, let alone the breakup of the currency/monetary union of the EU. And econ/business experts keep getting their predictions wrong. The simple reason: the EU, from its econ/financial area to the vast array of its other policy areas, at heart is a political project. Events continue to show that despite the painful strains of major economic duress, this commitment remains intact. Despite the messy manner in which its member state governments deal with crises--largely explained by institutional reasons,...
Here is part one of this post. The following will make more sense if you start there. I noted that I am participating, today in Seoul (attend if you can), in a USC-CSIS project on Korean unification. This is the final ‘phase’ of their Korea Project on unification. I thought I would post my thoughts on the previous USC-CSIS Korea report (available here) which provided all sorts of suggestions for reconstruction. It’s useful reading if your area is East Asia or Korea, but I actually disagree with a fair number of the analogies of NK to Iraq and Afghanistan. I think Germany is a better model...
The University of Southern California Korean Studies Institute and the Center for Strategic and International Studies are running a joint Korea Project: Planning for the Long Term (pic to the left). CSIS will hold the last of three conferences in this project at the Asan Institute on January 21st next week. If you are in Seoul, you should go. The agenda looks pretty good. (Contact the Asan Institute.) I’d like to thank USC and CSIS for soliciting my participation.. The January 21 conference is actually the last meeting of the Project. The first meeting asked Korea area experts to look at...
So I spend a few years writing a book on American foreign policy and stop paying attention to European politics, only to return and find the whole thing in chaos. I am finding three developments going on in Europe fascinating (if despicable and disgusting).First, the Financial Times recently ran a story on Sarokozy's plan to launch a debate in France on the importance of secularism, which is really just a way to pick on Muslims and draw votes from the National Front, who have been doing very well lately under the leadership of Jean-Marie Le Pen's daughter. (As an aside, how much of a...
As I've already noted, former President George W. Bush is apparently settling some scores in his new memoir. In Europe, his passages about former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder are attracting a good deal of attention.According to press reports, Bush says Schroder was for the Iraq war before it was against it. Because of his own electoral problems, Bush implies, Schroeder flip-flopped. The former president writes that when he said he was considering the use of force in Iraq, Schroder said, "'What is true of Afghanistan is true of Iraq. Nations that sponsor terror must face consequences....
Hasn't it occurred to any of these idiots that adopting Nazi iconography and aesthetics is the last thing a US Presidential candidate would want to do to improve his popularity in Germany?Unless he's aiming for that all-important 14-25 East German demographic, half of whom apparently believe that "National Socialism had good sides" (meaning that the other half believed it had no positive qualities whatsoever, I might add).As Haaretz reported:A poll published Wednesday showed a quarter of Germans believe there wereat least some positive aspects to Nazi rule - a finding that comes after a...