Month: September 2023

Germany’s Missing Russia Strategy

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has hardly changed the foreign-policy mindset in Berlin. Only a robust, long-term containment strategy can help the West curb Russia’s expansionist ambitions.

Has Russia’s war against Ukraine fundamentally changed the thinking of policymakers in Berlin? Have they really understood that in the future European security must be framed against an aggressive Russia? And that Germany must strengthen its own resilience and defenses across the board because it is in the crosshairs of Russian great-power dreams?

One year on, who blew up Nord Stream 2?

Non-state actors make the perfect saboteurs

So whodunnit? Who destroyed the Nord Stream 2 at three minutes past midnight on September 26, 2021? Explosives set 262 feet below the surface of the Baltic caused a blast registering 2.5 on the Richter Scale. It ripped apart the $11 billion gas pipeline that fed Russian gas directly into Germany and Western Europe and blew up global geopolitics as well.

Why the West’s elites invented a permacrisis

Our desperate rulers are clinging on to a dying world

War, climate change, economic stagnation, political polarisation — there seems to be no shortage of crises these days. Indeed, the situation is so perilous that the rarely hysterical Financial Times last year named “polycrisis” one of its words of the year, defining it as “a cluster of related global risks with compounding effects, such that the overall impact exceeds the sum of each part”. The concept was initially popularised by Adam Tooze and has since been endorsed even by the World Economic Forum. The UN, for what it is worth, prefers to talk of “overlapping crises”.

Armes laser russes testées avec succès en Ukraine. La science-fiction devient réalité

Que sait-on de ces armes sur la base de nouveaux principes physiques ? Enquête internationale approfondie.

Alors qu’il s’adressait au Forum économique oriental au début de ce mois, le président russe Vladimir Poutine a annoncé que la Russie travaillait sur «des armes basées sur de nouveaux principes physiques» qui «assureront la sécurité de tout pays dans une perspective historique proche «.

Présence militaire française en Afrique : le problème ne se limite pas au Niger

Après deux mois de bras de fer avec les autorités nigériennes issues du putsch du 26 juillet, que Paris s’obstine à ne pas reconnaitre, Emmanuel Macron a enfin annoncé un calendrier de retrait pour les 1500 militaires français basés au Niger, où ils étaient restés présents dans un cadre juridique inédit depuis la fin officielle de l’opération Barkhane. L’association Survie, qui n’a eu de cesse d’alerter sur l’effet contre-productif et vain de la «guerre contre le terrorisme» à la française, rappelle que l’enjeu est plus large : c’est l’ensemble des militaires français présents sur le continent (bases permanentes, forces «de partenariat» au Tchad, coopérants militaires) que l’Élysée doit rapatrier en France.

Buletin săptămânal Balcanii de Vest

Se mențin tensionate relațiile dintre Serbia și Kosovo, înregistrându-se violențe semnificative care au avut ca rezultat victime umane.

  1. Noi conflicte etnice care tensionează și mai mult situația în nordul Kosovo și sensibilizează semnificativ situația generală din întreaga regiune a Balcanilor de Vest

În dimineața zilei de 24 septembrie (la ora 3 a.m.), un grup de 30 de sârbi înarmați au atacat o patrulă de poliție kosovară în apropierea satului Banjska (conform unui recensământ efectuat în 2011, ar avea o populație de 465 de locuitori), unul dintre polițiști fiind ucis și un altul rănit. Banjska este un sat situat în regiunea orașului Zvečan, una din cele patru municipalități majoritar sârbe din nordul Kosovo, la 55 de kilometri nord de capitala Priștina. În zona din jurul Mitrovica, din nordul Kosovo, locuiește cea mai mare parte a minorității etnice sârbe din Kosovo.

La «géométrie variable» de Blinken pour une nouvelle guerre froide

La semaine dernière, le secrétaire d’État Blinken, dans un discours prononcé à l’université Johns Hopkins, a déclaré sans ambages :

«Ce à quoi nous sommes confrontés n’est pas un test de l’ordre de l’après-guerre froide. Les pays et les citoyens perdent confiance dans l’ordre économique international – leur confiance est ébranlée par des failles systémiques… Plus ces disparités persistent, plus elles alimentent la méfiance et la désillusion des gens, qui ont le sentiment que le système ne leur donne pas une chance équitable».

India-Middle East-Europe corridor: How feasible is it?

While Türkiye has announced the project cannot happen without its cooperation, experts also warn the new Western-led project could entail a number of logistical issues and comes amid escalating tensions between the US and China..

On September 9, amid the G20 leaders’ summit hosted in India, the US, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), France, Germany, Italy, and the EU signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to construct an economic rail and shipping corridor linking Europe, the Middle East and India.

IntelBrief: Jihadist Groups Threaten to Destabilize the Sahel and Coastal West Africa

As terrorist groups continue destabilizing the Sahel region in sub-Saharan Africa, violence has spilled over into coastal West African states previously unaffected, including Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Togo, and Ghana.

The Wagner Group is active in several sub-Saharan countries, where its role as a guarantor of regime security has granted it outsized access to and influence within the region.

IntelBrief: Tensions Along Lebanese Border a Microcosm of Regional Flashpoints

Tensions continue to rise along the Lebanese border, centered around the town of Ghajar, a disputed area that straddles Lebanon and Syrian territory captured and occupied by Israel in 1967.

What seems to be unfolding as a controlled escalation, deterring all sides from a more intense conflagration, could give way to all-out conflict, a situation most of the belligerents would like to avoid.