Column Archive

The announcement last week that Peer Steinbrück would be the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate in Germany’s next general elections in September 2013 came as a surprise, given the SDP’s insistence over the past month that the decision on the party nominee would be taken closer to date of the actual polls. The party had promised a campaign based on programs, not personalities, even if it was clear that one of the SDP’s ruling troika — party chief Sigmar Gabriel, head of the parliamentary group Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Steinbrück, a former president of the North Rhine-Westphalia lander and finance minister […]

It is an article of faith among American conservatives that Russian President Vladimir Putin is rooting for U.S. President Barack Obama to win the U.S. presidential election next month, and that if Republican nominee Mitt Romney were to take up residence in the White House in January 2013, it would be a major setback for the Kremlin. This is based, in part, on the assessment that Obama has been too willing to compromise with Moscow, but it also fits into a larger narrative of “weakness” supposedly displayed by the current administration, beginning with the whole notion that U.S.-Russia relations could […]

The global landscape has been scarred for decades by conflicts that defy both the passage of time and the efforts of armies and diplomats — conflicts that at times seem so intractable as to appear impossible to solve. That is why it’s worth pausing to take note of a momentous, in fact, astonishing, development that has taken place in recent months: Three of the world’s most durable, deadly and stubborn conflicts appear to be coming to an end. The progress in resolving the decades-old conflicts in Somalia, Sudan and Myanmar will undoubtedly give rise to countless claims of credit. These […]

No bilateral relationship is likely to have a more significant impact on U.S. security than America’s relationship with China. How relations between Washington and Beijing will evolve as China becomes increasingly powerful and assertive remains uncertain. Some U.S. political leaders and policy experts believe that if the United States actively attempts to contain or limit China’s rise, it will stoke antagonism that could be avoided with a more adept strategy and conciliatory approach. The goal, this group believes, should be to allow China to assume a leading role in the existing political and security system to discourage Beijing from challenging […]

Earlier this morning, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili conceded that his ruling United National Movement (UNM) party had lost the popular vote to the opposition Georgian Dream coalition in yesterday’s parliamentary elections. Having pledged to allow the opposition to the form the next government, Saakashvili will further secure his legacy by overseeing the first peaceful and legal transfer of power between opposing political forces in Georgia’s history. This ballot therefore marks an important point in the country’s history, consolidating its democratic transition. Specifically, Georgia has passed what many observers had considered to be its democratic “litmus test” by holding elections in […]

Throughout the European Union’s sovereign debt crisis, the conventional wisdom has portrayed Germany as leading the EU, in particular by imposing its economic policy preferences on the eurozone. A quick glance at Greece, Italy and Spain, suffering ever more acutely from austerity measures imposed at Germany’s insistence, would seem to confirm that perception. Germans are convinced that these countries need still more of the austerity cure, while Athens, Rome and Madrid are trying to convince Berlin that the medicine is just as fatal as the disease. The outcome of this argument will determine who leads the EU moving forward, and […]