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Once, the “European idea” helped unite a war-weary continent. Now, overbearing central authorities, suffocating bureaucracies and reams of red tape are limiting the freedom that idea once promised. Europeans are losing trust in their institutions, and worry for their own security. At the heart of the problem is weak leadership.

Botched decolonization in the 20th century has saddled sub-Saharan Africa with the nation-state concept and social designs that are alien to its indigenous societies. The result is the twin scourge of perennial conflict and economic weakness. The outside world should rethink its stand on the decentralization of African states and ...

The United States appears to have adopted the strategy of the British Empire when dealing with the Middle East, creating dissent and lending assistance to whichever side opposes its enemies. However, history shows this approach is likely to backfire.

European countries say they base their foreign policies on values – but doing so has led to inconsistency in how they treat international partners. Consequently, Europe has taken the wrong stance on military exports, the Iran nuclear deal and the U.S.-China trade dispute. Recent events, however, may have provided a ...

Under the guise of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation, which was implemented in 2018, EU governments are collecting and sharing citizens’ financial data in ways that violate democratic privacy rules and go well beyond the legitimate needs of combatting tax evasion and money laundering or terrorism. This overreach is part ...

Election results in Saxony and Brandenburg show the Christian Democrats and the Social Democratic Party are losing ground. Unless voter concerns like migration, safety and a credible approach against pollution are addressed, both parties will fare poorly in the federal elections.

President Donald Trump’s offer to buy Greenland was dismissed as a joke, but it reflects both American practice and a legitimate strategic concern.

The world is rightly concerned about China’s violation of Hong Kong’s autonomy – but such moves are not limited to authoritarian regimes. India, the world’s largest democracy, has recently abolished autonomy for the region of Jammu and Kashmir. The situation there deserves even more attention since the region is at ...

Two legal challenges to the EU central bank’s most controversial policies have been working their way through Germany’s Federal Court of Justice, the country’s supreme court equivalent. In one of the cases, the justices in Karlsruhe already ruled that the authority of the EU Banking Union ought to be limited. ...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s party took the largest share of votes in the country’s parliamentary elections, paving the way for him to initiate a new dialogue with Russia. For the West, it presents an opportunity to ratchet down tensions with Moscow and even normalize relations. The alternative – battered economies, ...

History contains many examples of what happens when politicians gain control over the currency. Few of them end well.

British Conservatives must pick a new prime minister from two candidates: Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt. With the United Kingdom’s political leadership paralyzed and relations with the EU at an impasse, an enfant terrible might be the better choice.

The European Union has decided to prolong its ineffective sanctions on Russia. That’s hardly surprising, since no one has come up with any new solutions. Moreover, some countries, like Germany, make a strong stand for sanctions while at the same time supporting other initiatives – like Nord Stream 2 – ...

The absorption of social democratic ideas into Europe’s mainstream has made its continued existence as an organized movement superfluous. As recent elections have shown, the unmet demand for political ideas and representation is appearing on the center-right of the political spectrum, among Christians, conservatives and supporters of free markets.

If information is the raw material that will fuel 21st-century business, then it must have some value. Yet people give away their personal data to companies for free. And though governments have created complicated regulations to protect users, they themselves forcibly extract an increasingly large amount of information from their ...

Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s defeat of Petro Poroshenko in Ukraine’s presidential election had more to do with the economics than relations with Russia. While resolving the conflicts in Crimea and the Donbas region will help boost economic growth, streamlining and cleaning up Ukraine’s bloated and partially corrupt bureaucracy will be the president-elect’s ...

British Prime Minister Theresa May is taking the blame for a debacle that is not of her making. But even now, in the shadow of a hard Brexit, the damage can be contained if cooler heads prevail on the other side of the Channel.

Apparently, the president of the United States is not going to be charged with cooperating with the Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. An in-depth investigation has found no proof that any collusion occured. The talk in Europe that the Kremlin is hell-bent on corrupting the electoral process here ...

Some say the global economy is slowing down due to Brexit and the U.S.-China trade dispute – but these developments are not the real dangers. Far more insidious is the trend toward increased government influence in economies and large public debts. Yet, even many economists have adopted the notion that ...

As Iran becomes stronger and more assertive in the Middle East, two blocs – pro- and anti-Iran – are beginning to take shape. This was exemplified by two high-profile summits in mid-February: one led by the U.S. in Warsaw, and the other in Sochi between Russia, Turkey and Iran. Although ...

The mountainous border between India, China and Pakistan is a dangerously underestimated trouble spot that could wreak havoc between Asia's two emerging superpowers.

Political interventions rather than markets are causing economic crises in the world. Misguided attempts to centrally plan and manage the complex transactions of millions of different players are bound to produce unexpected results. In 2007-2008, politically inspired intervention in the housing market in the United States caused an international financial ...

The U.S. has announced officially that it walks away from the 1987 treaty banning intermediate- and shorter-range nuclear weapons, removing a cornerstone of the existing arms control system. The chances of it being replaced with a better, multilateral agreement involving China and a handful of other nuclear powers appear to ...

The hysteria over inequality continues to grow, with calls for higher taxes and more regulation. None of that will achieve what should be the real goal, however: reducing poverty. To do that, entrepreneurs and innovators need to be freed from burdensome red tape and interventionist governments reined in.