Poland has declared its ambition to become the strongest military power in Central Europe. A NATO spending-leader already, Warsaw is eying a two-fold expansion of its armed forces, even though this will entail huge costs and defy demographic trends. Can it succeed?
“The champion of our petrochemical industry.” So boasted Todor Zhivkov, then-communist leader of Bulgaria, when the country’s first oil refinery at Burgas on the Black Sea coast launched operations in 1963.
Nearly six decades later, Bulgaria’s planned economy may be long gone, but the so-called champion continues refining oil into gasoline and other petroleum products. It is not only the largest such energy enterprise in Bulgaria but the entire Balkans region.
Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has unveiled a new ballistic missile with a range of 1,450 kilometers (900 miles), which enjoys high agility and is capable of striking its designated targets with pinpoint accuracy.
The Perils of Macron’s Shuttle Diplomacy
Just two months before he stands for reelection, French President Emmanuel Macron has launched a bold effort to mediate between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the West over the standoff at the border with Ukraine. After meeting with Putin for five hours on February 7, Macron struck a hopeful tone, telling reporters that Putin had assured him that there would be “no degradation or escalation” of the crisis by Russia. But the following day, as Macron met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv before flying to Berlin to meet with his German and Polish counterparts, the Kremlin denied that Putin had made any specific commitment to Macron. From the start, it had been unlikely that these meetings would have much effect: Russia and Ukraine remain very far apart on the status of the Donbas and Ukraine’s sovereign right to decide its own future, and Russia has made de-escalation contingent on demands regarding NATO that many in the West view as unacceptable. Yet this bleak outlook didn’t discourage the French president: such long-odds shuttle diplomacy has been characteristic of Macron, who has made high-profile, if often exceedingly ambitious, diplomatic interventions a hallmark of his five years in office.
Even though the “almost imminent” war with Ukraine has been dominating the media in Russia, another important issue has been debated almost constantly: the recent actions of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a person with the unique status in Russia’s political elite of not being subject to any laws existing in the Russian Federation.
The U.S. government should not repeat the mistake made by the Nigerian government of designating the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) as a terrorist group.
In October, an American scholar argued in a Washington Times op-ed that the United States should designate the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a secessionist group in Nigeria’s South East region, as a terrorist group. To the casual onlooker, this could seem logical: IPOB has long been proscribed as a terrorist group by Nigeria’s government, and it reportedly boasts a 50,000-strong army. But doing so would be a mistake that risks causing a massive human rights crisis in Nigeria and West Africa.
Reports out of Washington suggest worry over a Russia-China partnership that would facilitate Vladimir Putin’s presumed ambition to absorb Ukraine and undermine the NATO-based European security system. So let’s examine that relationship to assess the US concern.
Sometimes the hypocrisy of the US government, especially when it comes to foreign affairs, is just too much to let pass.
The latest example of this is the Ukraine crisis, where the US pretty much stands all alone (unless you count Britain’s embattled and embarrassed Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who parrots US policy like a trained bird), accusing Russia not just of preparing for an “imminent invasion’ of Ukraine, but of violating international law and “rules-based international order,” as Secretary of State Antony Blinken likes to put it.
The statement comes amid a standoff between the Kremlin and the West over the list of security demands Russian authorities made last year, which Moscow says are needed to defuse the crisis in Ukraine and lower tensions in Europe.
French President Emmanuel Macron is pursuing a poisoned peace plan, say critics in Europe, who fear the outcome of his talks this week with Russian President Vladimir Putin could be to strengthen Moscow’s hand in the crisis over Ukraine.