Soldiers of the NATO enhanced forward presence battalion in a German Leopard 2 tank take part in NATO military exercises at the Rukla military base, west of Vilnius, Lithuania, Aug. 11, 2017 (AP photo by Mindaugas Kulbis).

While President Donald Trump was issuing bombastic threats toward North Korea and Venezuela earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis quietly met with his Dutch counterpart, Defense Minister Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, at the Pentagon on Aug. 15. They discussed the ongoing crises in North Korea and Venezuela and continued their talks on NATO defense spending. But, to the surprise of many, they also touched on a more esoteric topic: the idea of introducing a “military Schengen zone” on the European continent, freeing up the movement of troops and materiel between EU member states. Under current laws, the movement of […]

Gay rights supporters with their mouths covered with rainbow colored tape during a protest, Chisinau, Moldova, April 27, 2007 (AP photo by Dan Morar).

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on LGBT rights and discrimination in various countries around the world. While Moldova’s LGBT community enjoys some legal protection against discrimination, public perceptions remain negative, and domestic proponents of a pro-Russian agenda have launched a propaganda campaign that has left LGBT people more and more exposed. Their battle is increasingly focusing on restrictions on their use of media and information platforms to mobilize for their rights. In an email interview, Anastasia Danilova, executive director of the GENDERDOC-M Information Center, Moldova’s only LGBT rights organization, describes the increasingly hostile environment […]

Polish President Andrzej Duda in Warsaw, July 24, 2017 (AP photo by Alik Keplicz).

“There is a question mark over Poland’s European future today,” former Polish Prime Minister and current European Council President Donald Tusk said earlier this month in a remarkable statement for someone intimately connected with both Warsaw and Brussels. His comments came as Poland’s conservative government, which regards Tusk as its archenemy, showed little sign of backing off its populist drive to overhaul the country, despite international pressure and vocal domestic opposition. Last month, tens of thousands of Poles took to the streets to protest deeply controversial reforms to the judiciary that critics say would have handed power over the system […]

U.S. troops, part of a NATO mission to enhance Poland’s defense, prepare for an official welcoming ceremony, Orzysz, Poland, April 13, 2017 (AP photo by Czarek Sokolowski).

Ever since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and military intervention in eastern Ukraine, NATO’s Eastern European member states have expressed mounting concern over their own security. Moscow still holds substantial political capital in the region and, as evinced by upcoming war games that will bring some 100,000 Russian troops to their borders in September, is willing to use its military capabilities to ratchet up tensions. WPR has compiled 10 articles analyzing the politics of Eastern European security in the face of renewed Russian adventurism. Purchase this special report as a Kindle e-book. The Political Battlefield How to Deter Russia From […]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban during a reception ceremony, Budapest, Hungary, July 18, 2017 (MTI photo by Balazs Mohai via AP).

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent trip to Europe brought him to Hungary at a time when the government there was being accused of deploying anti-Semitic imagery and rhetoric in a campaign against billionaire George Soros. During a meeting with Central European leaders, a hot mic picked up Netanyahu bashing the European Union’s policy with respect to Israel as “actually crazy.” In an email interview, Dr. Toby Greene, an Israeli Institute Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, explains why these mini-scandals were somewhat beside the point for a visit focused […]