Reports

Over the past several years, Turkey has become a major player in energy deliveries from the Caucasus to Europe, and its deepening partnership with Azerbaijan has only solidified its position as a regional power. As Russia’s grip on the region weakens, it could lead to serious security concerns, with Ankara ...

The latest violent chapter in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh has rebalanced geopolitical realities in the South Caucasus. Turkey has made significant progress in expanding its role there. Even more disturbingly for the Kremlin, the 2020 war has been associated with a surge in radical political Islam that threatens to spill ...

The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, recently halted by a Russia-backed cease-fire, exposed a new balance of foreign interests in the region. Iran has faced a difficult choice: whether to back a Shia Muslim Azerbaijan that is also receiving support from Israel and Turkey. The prospect of Israeli access to Iran’s northern ...

After three decades of unsuccessful international mediation, conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh has resumed. What has changed in the meantime, however, is Azerbaijan’s relative strength. With oil revenue financing arms purchases, as well as substantial support from Turkey, Baku is determined to settle the matter through military means.

By urging NATO and the European Union to show their support for Belarus, Lithuania is risking Russia’s ire. Military intervention is unlikely but cannot be ruled out, given the Baltic state’s border with the  strategic Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. However, the most likely course of action for the Putin administration ...

Moscow's geopolitical vision of a “Greater Eurasian Partnership” sets Russia at the center of continent-wide political and economic cooperation. Its 2012 pivot to Asia was part of this strategy. To achieve its goal, however, Russia needs to stand on equal footing with Europe. The question is whether its defiance of ...

The Covid-19 crisis presented EU leaders with an opportunity to regain popularity by handing out billions of euros in aid. Doling out such huge sums is sure to weaken the market by emphasizing bureaucratic activity over competition and innovation. For now, the EU’s problems have been papered over, but when ...

It is now likely that Russian President Vladimir Putin will be elected for another six-year term in 2024. In the meantime, he will face significant challenges, including rebuilding healthcare, alleviating poverty and reestablishing voter trust in some segments of the population. Unless oil prices begin to rise, Mr. Putin may ...

With Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy having been in office for more than a year, now is an opportune time to measure his progress in solving his country’s problems. So far, the optics have outshined the actual accomplishments. Several black swan events, top among them the Covid-19 outbreak, have proven enormous ...

 Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is facing unprecedented turmoil at home. Protracted demonstrations have led to a string of politically motivated arrests. However, trouble is also brewing on the foreign front. The Kremlin appears to be losing patience with the strongman’s trick of playing off Russia against the West and could ...

Finland consistently ranks at the top of international lists for good governance and democracy. A big reason behind that success is a culture of self-reliance, robust institutions and national cohesion. However, it faces a huge demographic challenge. Experts say that it may have to increase immigration tenfold to right the ...

Thanks to vast oil and gas resources, Azerbaijan’s regime has been able to keep a tight lid on the opposition while increasing its influence in the South Caucasus in recent decades. However, the shock in oil prices caused by the coronavirus pandemic comes at a time of political instability. Recent ...

Two years ago, a citizens’ movement led to the ouster of Armenia’s president sparking hopes for sturdier democratic institutions and even a turn toward the West. The new leadership, however, has thrown cold water on those aspirations, taking an ever-more authoritarian path and maintaining the country’s heavy dependence on Moscow.

The coronavirus crisis has had a profound effect on Europe, not only bringing changes that no one thought possible just months ago but deepening divisions and intensifying acrimony between EU countries. With these ruptures laid bare, the bloc again faces an existential crisis. It should survive for now, but a ...

Worrisome trends have emerged during the eight-year rule of the Georgian Dream party. Unless the opposition manages to form a coalition in the upcoming October elections, Georgia faces further democratic backsliding and an increasingly corrupt judiciary system – potentially leading to weaker ties with the European Union and closer relations ...

For years, corruption has been one of the biggest hurdles holding Romania’s progress back. Recently, however, several developments indicate the country may be headed in the right direction: corrupt leaders have been jailed, a referendum limiting moves to undermine the rule of law passed overwhelmingly, and the new, transitional government ...

Estonia is one of Europe’s star performers in terms of economic growth and development, technological advancement, freedom and education. It faces three big dilemmas: defensive vulnerability, the non-integration of its Russian minority and rising nationalism. Yet the country seems well-placed to meet all three of these challenges.

At the peak of the European migrant crisis, Germany and Sweden took what they considered “moral leadership” in welcoming refugees. Wedged in between its two morals-driven neighbors, Denmark made it abundantly clear that refugees were not welcome. The Danish example may serve as a crucial reminder to other European nations ...

Sweden may be nearing a political realignment of historic proportions. The mainstay, center-left Social Democrats can no longer deny that public safety problems stemming from mismanaged immigration are real or ignore the alarming erosion in the quality of education, healthcare and social security systems. The future of the party’s alliance ...

The Eastern Partnership has lacked a strategy since its creation in 2009. Designed to promote European values in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, the project has done little to reduce poverty and corruption in participating countries. Furthermore, the latter have often found themselves struggling to balance allegiances to ...

Sweden’s defense budget is to grow by about one third in the next three years, as the country reverses its decades-long policies and aims to rebuild its once impressive territorial defense capabilities. The plan hardly surprises in today’s neo-Cold War context, but given the scope and nature of the challenges ...

Russian ambitions to bypass Ukraine’s gas infrastructure are obviously rooted in political motives, yet Germany insists on backing the project. By doing so, it could reap the economic benefits of becoming a European hub for Russian gas imports, but serious conflicts over the matter are likely to arise within the ...

With its vast expanses, its undeveloped areas and its need to connect east and west, one might think Russia would have ample incentive to develop a world-class rail system. But that has not happened, even after it agreed to work with China on an ambitious Moscow-to-Beijing rail project. Bureaucracy, corruption ...

An unexpected alliance between Russia, the United States and the European Union helped broker a political breakthrough in Moldova – sending corrupt local oligarchs packing. There is no reason to discount the latest developments in Chisinau, which could prove a new dawn for Europe’s poorest country. Yet the West has ...