Rusia

Le service de renseignement extérieur (SVR) de la Russie a déclassifié le rapport complet de l’un de ses résidents sur l’envoi d’un contingent militaire français en Ukraine en mars de cette année. Le texte intégral du rapport du résident du SVR sous le pseudonyme Felix sur le sujet est publié dans la revue «Éclaireur».

Le chef du SVR, Sergey Naryshkin, a déclaré le 19 mars que Paris se préparait déjà à envoyer un contingent militaire en Ukraine, dont le nombre sera d’environ 2 mille personnes. La France l’avait alors démentie.

As NATO convenes in Washington, it faces internal tensions and Trump’s potential return as U.S. president. But it is the alliance’s approach to Russia that will determine the future of transatlantic security.

NATO has a few worries as its leaders meet on July 9-11 in Washington for a summit marking the alliance’s seventy-fifth anniversary.

Vous vous rendez compte, n’est-ce pas, que tout ce qui se passe autour du fiasco de l’Ukraine du côté de l’OTAN est complètement fou ? Les gens qui dirigent le gouvernement américain – Barack Obama et sa bande de sorcières – ont tout déclenché là-bas, de concert avec une bande d’acteurs du monde des affaires (BlackRock, diverses compagnies pétrolières et gazières, des types d’Haliburton, des fabricants d’armes, un tas de grandes banques), plus l’ignoble WEF pour les «guider» (ha !), cherchant à s’emparer des richesses minérales de l’Ukraine et, en fin de compte, de la Russie elle-même. Belle tentative. Ça n’a pas marché. Des tonnes d’argent ont été jetées dans un trou à rats.

Despite promises to support Ukraine for as long as necessary, many NATO Allies are starting to reach a tipping point in their military assistance to Ukraine. That reality, and the specter of Donald Trump’s reelection this November, has led some within the Alliance to call for the NATOization of the war in Ukraine. Absent consensus on extending Ukraine an invitation for NATO membership, NATO Allies have spent the last few months finalizing plans for alternative ways to show support for Ukraine at the upcoming Washington Summit. Intended to be a ‘bridge’ to NATO membership, the new measures—which will see NATO taking a larger role in coordination of allied training and security assistance—are unlikely to resolve the underlying dilemma the Alliance has faced since 2014: determining how far NATO should go in supporting Ukraine absent a formal collective defense security guarantee by the Alliance. Moreover, by fundamentally altering NATO’s role in the conflict, the new measures could actually increase ambiguity surrounding the Allies’ commitment to the defense of Ukraine, prompting Russian president Vladimir Putin to potentially test the Alliance’s resolve.

Continentalism, a geopolitical concept coined by Algis Klimaitis, adviser to Algirdas Brazauskas, the first President of Lithuania after it became independent, stands for a Europe focused on itself. (1) Continentalism is directed against transatlanticism, because it stands for a European social market economy, in other words the continental model of “Rhenish capitalism” and not the Anglo-Saxon model of “shareholder/stakeholder capitalism”, for a Christian-conservative culture, as opposed to the “woke” ideology that has come from the United States, and for a European security system that eclipses NATO.

The military spending race that has begun in the world in recent years (primarily because of the war in Ukraine) has become a burden on the budgets of many countries, but for Russia in particular, dependence on military injections could prove disastrous, believes Oleg Itskhoki, professor of economics at the University of California, Los Angeles. While military spending in the world is growing from 2% to 3% of GDP, in Russia it is already almost 9% of GDP and 40% of the budget. And even if the war ends tomorrow, it will not be possible to simply get off this needle of military spending, and the money will run out sooner or later.

The whole point of rebranding what was first conceptualized as the “Baltic Defense Line” is to market this project as an inclusive pan-European one that’s supposedly being built for the “greater good” of the bloc’s citizens.

How the Fight Against Climate Change Can Overcome Geopolitical Discord

The clean energy transition has reached adolescence. Its future direction is not yet set, and in the meantime, its internal paradoxes make for a volatile mix. Political leaders fret that ambitious steps to address climate change will aggravate geopolitical problems in a world already troubled by wars and humanitarian crises. Governments worried about energy security after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have advocated for strategies that embrace both fossil fuels and clean alternatives, lest dependence on imported oil give way to reliance on imported lithium. Rising inflation and economic slowdowns, too, are exacerbating concerns that the energy transition will lead to job losses and price hikes. The warnings are coming in quick succession. In March, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink championed “energy pragmatism” in his most recent annual letter, and a few weeks later, a JPMorgan Chase report called for a “reality check” about the transition away from fossil fuels. In April, Haitham al-Ghais, the secretary-general of OPEC, wrote that the energy transition would require “realistic policies” that acknowledge rising demand for oil and gas.