Europe Archive

One of the effects of the Western military drawdown from Afghanistan has been to strengthen Russian-Indian security ties. Whereas New Delhi has tried in recent years to diversity its defense relationships, including by seeking out better ties with the United States, the need to prevent the pro-Pakistani Taliban from returning to power in Afghanistan has given a second wind to its security alignment with Moscow. Until now, their mutual engagement regarding Afghanistan was mostly diplomatic. But media reports have now emerged of a new arms-transfer arrangement in which India will buy weapons from Russia for delivery to the Afghan military […]

In Ukraine, language politics is so contentious that politicians will go to almost any lengths to deny that the issue even exists. Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko once dismissed regional divisions between Eastern and Western Ukraine as “children’s fairytales.” More recently, opposition leader Vitaly Klitschko told a German news magazine that people in the East and South of Ukraine “are only superficially concerned about language, history and national identity.” Ukrainian politicians commonly say that the language issue only comes up during election campaigns, but then these same politicians have also come to blows in the parliament over this issue. This […]

Portugal and other European nations have seen their social safety nets stretched following the eurozone crisis and years of austerity measures. In an email interview, Arne Heise, a professor of economics and director of the Center of Economic and Sociological Studies at Hamburg University, discussed the eurozone crisis’s impact on European social welfare policies. WPR: Which European social programs have experienced the greatest impact from austerity measures? Arne Heise: Almost every European Union member state had to implement changes to their economic policies after the 2007 global financial crisis. However, the size and concrete types of measures taken were very […]

In the wake of the Ukraine crisis, Finland and Sweden are facing increasing pressure to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as full members. While the NATO debate has been simmering in both countries for some time, especially after Russian bombers practiced attacks against targets in Sweden in an exercise during Easter last year, Stockholm and Helsinki are now being encouraged to seriously consider membership by their Nordic and Baltic neighbors, as well as the United States. NATO leaders and security experts believe that the Ukraine crisis has exposed a real vulnerability on NATO’s northern flank, where Sweden and Finland […]

“Russia, whatever they’re doing right now, is not the Soviet Union,” said Washington Democratic Rep. Adam Smith yesterday at a discussion of the U.S. defense budget. Although most of his congressional colleagues would likely agree with that statement, there is no consensus on Capitol Hill about how to respond to a crisis in Ukraine that appears to leave the United States with few options. And while the differences in large part follow party lines, internal divisions within each camp have also surfaced. Democrats appear to generally support, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, the Obama administration’s approach of gradually increasing pressure […]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama today amid escalating tensions in Ukraine and lingering mistrust over NSA spying revelations. In an email interview, Sudha David-Wilp, senior trans-Atlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, explained where the two countries’ interests overlap, and where they diverge. WPR: How closely do the U.S. and Germany’s political and economic interests converge—within Europe, in the trans-Atlantic context and globally—and where do they diverge? Sudha David-Wilp: Germany and the U.S. refer to the trans-Atlantic partnership as one steeped in common values. Under that broad justification for working […]

As British troops withdraw from Afghanistan, the U.K. must make hard choices ahead of its forthcoming Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR), due for release in the months following the U.K.’s May 2015 general election. Yet efforts to realign Britain’s defense strategy as part of this process are likely to be constrained once again by financial considerations and the need to maintain continuity in certain areas. Overcoming these tensions will therefore require sound judgment in the coming months. Otherwise, Britain could be left with a strategically incoherent defense posture insufficient to meet the demands of the post-Afghanistan operating environment. The […]

China and Russia have launched a global campaign to regulate content on the Internet that, if successful, would slowly destroy cyberspace as a means of self-expression, freedom and unregulated speech. While they are still far from achieving their goals, Moscow and Beijing sense an opportunity in the outraged reaction to former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden’s leaks to change the global conversation and continue nudging stakeholders in the direction of censorship as the universal default norm. The Russian and Chinese governments already heavily regulate the Internet at home, but they are increasingly seeking to use international forums, organizations and […]