“By every indication, the Biden Administration appears to have given away the store…. What is more, the deal appears likely to deepen Iran’s financial and security relationship with Moscow and Beijing, including through arms sales.” — Statement from 49 US Republican Senators, March 14, 2022.
From the very start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the risk of it escalating into a nuclear conflict has been a feature of much commentary about the war. From explicit as well as thinly veiled mentions of it by Russian President Vladimir Putin to the warnings of Western observers about the dangers of any direct confrontation between NATO and Russian forces, the nuclear dimension to this war has never been far from the surface.
On Feb. 27, nothing less than a revolution took place in Germany. In a 30-minute speech to parliament, Chancellor Olaf Scholz overturned all the old certainties that have dominated German security policy for over 30 years. He replaced them with an ambitious agenda that had defense, a topic with which Germany normally only reluctantly engages, at its core.
At the NATO summit this week, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine lamented what he viewed as the failure of the United States and its allies to help establish a “no-fly zone in any way” over his nation. This follows his earlier pleas for a no-fly zone imposed by NATO or the United States soon after Russia began bombarding Ukraine. The Biden administration and NATO leadership as a whole have continued to reject proposals to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine. They are right to do so.
Just like the rise of cryptocurrencies as a three-trillion-dollar digital asset class has evoked both enthusiasm and ire in the world of traditional finance, the next wave of technology-powered financial innovation is sparking a blend of anxiety and exuberance. It’s called decentralized finance (DeFi), referring to the use of blockchain technology to allow users to cut out intermediaries and directly lend, invest, and access capital markets.
Germany is considering buying gas from Qatar amid the war in Ukraine and the United States has been pushing the Gulf state to send more gas to Europe.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced today that Russia will accept gas payments in rubles and not euros or dollars. Putin said the stipulation applies to an unspecified list of “unfriendly” countries, the official TASS news agency reported.
With the war in Ukraine raging, and no sign of an exit in view, a Polish peacekeeping proposal is unlikely to gather steam. But it is not too early for policymakers to start thinking about what tasks a future peace operation might undertake.
The Russian stock market opened Thursday for limited trading under heavy restrictions for the first time since Moscow invaded Ukraine, coming almost a month after prices plunged and the market was shut down as a way to insulate the economy.
Trading of a limited number of stocks, including energy giants Gazprom and Rosneft, took place under curbs meant to prevent a repeat of the massive selloff on Feb. 24 that came in anticipation of Western economic sanctions.
While the world’s attention is focused on Ukraine, Afghanistan has plunged into darkness. The Taliban are tightening their control amid growing reports of detentions, rapes, and summary executions of minorities, rights advocates, women, and people associated with the old government or the new resistance.
Removing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from a U.S. terror list would be “a dangerous capitulation,” three former senior Trump administration officials, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said in a joint statement exclusively shared with Axios.