Central & Eastern Europe Archive

Russian President Vladimir Putin has a busy schedule next week in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. On Aug. 26, along with the heads of Belarus and Kazakhstan, the other states that make up the Eurasian Customs Union, Putin will have a face-to-face trilateral summit with Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko and a European Union delegation headed by its foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, and Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger. The summit has an ambitious agenda on the table to try and defuse the Ukraine crisis: ending Russia’s not-so-covert support for rebels in eastern Ukraine; brokering a political settlement between the separatists and […]

“The System Worked.” That is the title of a new book by Daniel W. Drezner reviewing the role of institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization in the global financial crisis. Although the world economy tanked in 2008, Drezner argues, multilateral organizations helped save it from collapse. It is unlikely that anyone will write a book about the current wars in the Middle East and Ukraine with a similar title. A pithy summary of the United Nations’ rifts over Syria or NATO’s inability to halt Russia from seizing Crimea could be “the system flopped.” While the […]

Last week Bulgaria nominated Kristalina Georgieva to be the European Union foreign policy chief. Her nomination appears to be gaining momentum after several countries, mostly in Central and Eastern Europe, raised objections to Italy’s candidate, Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini, given her close ties to Russia. The debate over the selection of the next EU foreign policy chief highlights the east-west divide that has existed since the bloc’s 2004 enlargement, when 10 countries in Central and Eastern Europe joined the EU. The very different histories of Eastern and Western Europe since World War II have shaped the political, cultural and economic […]

Ironically for Poland, World War II—a conflict that officially started in order to defend Polish sovereignty and territorial integrity—resulted in the country ceasing to exist as an independent state and military actor. During the Cold War, the Polish People’s Republic military, which was the second-strongest member of the Warsaw Pact after the Soviet Union, primarily served Moscow’s plans, rather than Polish national interests. Formed with little divergence from Soviet vision and doctrine, it was large, with over 400,000 troops in peacetime; heavy, with over 7,000 tanks and armored vehicles; hierarchical; and devoid of indigenous strategic guidance. The fall of the […]

Nations across Europe are commemorating the centennial of World War I, but in Hungary the bitter memory of the war has always lingered. Hungary lost two-thirds of its territory in the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, which left roughly one-third of ethnic Magyars in neighboring countries. Even today, maps with the pre-Trianon borders are a common sight in Hungary, a country whose nationalist drift is increasingly a source of alarm within the European Union. In April, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s conservative Fidesz party maintained its majority in parliament in national elections, which also saw 20 percent of the vote go to […]

A recently released paper of the Defense Committee of the U.K. House of Commons on Russia’s seizure of Crimea and the implications for Western security concludes that “events in Crimea and Ukraine represent a ‘game changer’ [that] will have significant implications for resources, force structures, equipment and training.” In addition to their excellent analysis of Russian strategy and tactics, the authors offered useful recommendations meant to inform both the next U.K. Defense and Security Review and the upcoming NATO summit. The alliance will need to adapt its capabilities and approach to collective defense if it is to avoid being caught […]

Global attention remains focused on the conflict in eastern Ukraine, especially in the wake of the tragic downing of the Malaysian commercial airliner MH17. But in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, the ongoing war with Russia is only one of several competing priorities. Attempts to restructure and reform Ukraine’s troubled economy have led to a series of political earthquakes. Two weeks ago, the governing coalition, which had been assembled after the Maidan protests drove former President Viktor Yanukovych from power, was dissolved, and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk offered his resignation. Then last week, Yatsenyuk’s resignation was rejected by Ukraine’s parliament, […]

As U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry bustles around the world attempting to staunch conflict after conflict, one question arises with increasing frequency: Why bother? Kerry has certainly had a rough year. Major peace initiatives he had personally pursued, ranging from January’s Syrian peace conference in Geneva to the Israeli-Palestinian talks, have collapsed. His early efforts to defuse the Ukrainian crisis through direct talks with Russia also failed, while Israeli officials have poured scorn on his recent push for a cease-fire in Gaza. At a time when a majority of U.S. voters favor less engagement with foreign problems, Kerry’s ill-fated […]

During the years of George W. Bush’s presidency, members of the Democratic Party’s foreign policy brain trust mocked his administration’s invocation of “coalitions of the willing” as a way to legitimize U.S. action in the international arena. They even derided Bush’s efforts to find other states to endorse U.S. policy as “coalitions of the billing.” Once back in control of the Oval Office, they maintained, Democrats would be able to utilize the United Nations and leading regional organizations, starting with NATO, to generate genuine support on the part of other major countries to back U.S. initiatives. Indeed, the first years […]