Eastern Europe and CIA Black Sites

More creepy allegations about former CIA black sites, this time in Lithuania. This is something to keep in mind regarding Eastern European concerns over U.S. commitment to the region, which is most often linked to the Obama administration’s missile defense policy shift. But I suspect it also has to do with the very different apporach the Obama administration has taken toward counterterrorism compared to the Bush administration. You really get the sense of the shoe getting ready to drop here: Hammarberg visited Vilnius last month and said he personally urgedLithuanian officials to take the issue more seriously. “I told them […]

After the Color Has Faded from the Revolution

Five years after the Orange Revolution, neither conditions on the ground nor the popular view of those in power has changed in Western Ukraine. Outrage, it seems, has been replaced by apathy, and now the country risks tilting back eastward. This, too, seems like a predictable but nonetheless saddening outcome: “One thing I can say with certainty: There will be no repetition ofthat revolution,” Mr. Antypovych said. “People will no longer go outinto the streets for a politician. They simply will not go out. Basedon our surveys, most voters expect there to be mass falsification. Theyare already accustomed to the […]

Off the Radar News Roundup

– After meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao calls the G-2 appelation premature, saying everyone should remain “sober-minded” about it. – After going online in August 2009, the Chinese Defense Ministry’s Web site was cyberattacked 2.3 million times in the first month. Payback? (Much more of interest in a People’s Daily interview with the site’s editor.) – China and Vietnam signed an agreement definitively demarcating their 800-mile land border, a process that took 10 years. They agreed to continue negotiations regarding their maritime boundary disputes. It’s important to remember when considering China’s rise that in addition […]

France, Turkey and Sarkozy’s Strategic Vision

Yesterday, I half-jokingly noted the long trail of mediations necessary to get the Israeli-Syrian peace track back in gear. What I forgot to mention regarding a French role in that process is that before France can mediate between Israel and Turkey, someone’s got to mediate between France and Turkey. That’s because of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s vocal opposition to Turkey’s EU accession. There’s been some recent chatter that France and Turkey have arrived at a modus vivendi on that issue. But I would be very surprised if Sarkozy doesn’t reverse positions on Turkey completely should he win a second term […]

Observers might disagree about what to call the situation in tiny Ingushetia, a federal republic in Russia’s North Caucasus wracked by an increasingly bloody Islamist insurgency. But whether the violence that has claimed hundreds of lives in the past few years qualifies as a civil war, a colonial war, a war on terror, or just persistent instability, one thing almost everyone agrees on is that Ingushetia increasingly displays the features of a failed state. Perhaps nowhere is that more evident than in the small territory’s dysfunctional security forces. Deteriorating relations between Russian federal authorities and the local police in Ingushetia […]

Madam President for Europe?

With all the geographical and political calculations going into the selection of the EU president and foreign minister, there’s one consideration that’s been getting less attention: gender. As Jean Quatremer pointed out last week, women have been largely absent from the list of names circulating as potential candidates for the posts. But that’s changing, with a late push for the appointment of a woman to one of the top spots. Today, Quatremer advocates for former Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga as a viable candidate. But even if a woman does end up being named to one or both positions, the fact […]

BEIJING — Although nuclear arms control is not likely to be a major agenda item during President Barack Obama’s visit to China, it should be. One of the obstacles facing the president as he seeks to realize the ambitious goals endorsed by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee is the need to transform the primarily bilateral strategic arms control relationship inherited from the Cold War into one that places greater emphasis on multilateral frameworks. Although Moscow and Washington have made progress in negotiating a replacement for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) that expires this December, other nuclear weapons states must […]

Israel, Syria, Turkey and France

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, fresh off a visit to Paris where he met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, reportedly told an Israeli cabinet meetingthat he was prepared to hold peace talks with Syria, either directly orelse through an honest broker. Netanyahu ruled out Turkey for such arole, saying that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan would notbe a “fair mediator.” Since Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ruled out direct talkswith Israel in a meeting with Sarkozy two days after Netanyahu’s Paris visit, that could mean aFrench role. But the French side stated it supported the Turkishmediation effort. So France might […]

Obama Losing Patience With Iran

President Barack Obama met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during an Asia Pacific summit in Singapore. Though in Asia, the leaders took time out to discuss the persisting standstill in nuclear negotiations with Iran. “We are now running out of time,” Obama said, referring to Iran’s current tacitness. Both leaders say they are prepared hold a tougher line on the matter.

Counterterrorism, Real and Imagined

I’ve felt for a while that the “safe havens don’t matter” argument — the idea that somehow terrorist networks can’t substitute online connectivity for actual physical space — is the weakest argument against the strategic relevance of the Afghanistan war. For all sorts of reasons having to do with training, esprit de corps and loyalty bonds, actually having a physical place to solidify operational networks is probably essential and definitely advantageous. That said, one area where online connectivity really does outweigh the importance of physical space is in the financing networks that make farflung terrorist operations possible. So an EU […]

Germany’s Returning Soldiers

This NY Times piece, “No Parade for Hans,” is a great illustration of how Afghanistan has remilitarized European militaries, but not European opinion. Apparently, that goes double for Germany. There’s been increasing pressure on Germany to assume a higher military profile globally. This article gives a good idea of what that pressure is up against. The same popular opposition to the Afghanistan war exists here in France, as does the indifference to those serving. But anecdotally, I haven’t sensed any hostility toward French soldiers themselves for their involvement in Afghanistan. Of course, France has a less complex relationship to its […]

Russia’s Hidden Iran Sanctions

This point by Flyntt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett about the recurring “Russia okays sanctions on Iran” meme is well-taken. For a while now, the bleak prospects on the Iran nuclear standoff have caused us to hear what we’d like Moscow to be saying, rather than what it actually is saying. That said, one thing the Leveretts don’t mention is that Russia’s recurring delays in bringing the Bushehr nuclear reactor online represents in some ways a hidden sanction on Iran.

Russia’s Pipeline Politics

From Ukraine’s ongoing payment issues to a new gas pipeline that would circumvent a number of Central-Eastern European countries, Russia continues to use gas as a way to strengthen some relationships and cause fissures in others. As Russia warns Europe that Kiev may have a particularly cold winter, EU citizens are feeling the burden of picking up the tab for their Ukrainian neighbors.

Off the Radar News Roundup

– Interesting, given the climate of anxiety in Washington over China’s military intentions, that in the week before President Barack Obama’s first state visit to the PRC, Beijing announces plans for closer military cooperation with Togo and Khazakhstan, to say nothing of Macedonia yesterday. – Fresh off a successful counterinsurgency campaign, a general quits his command amid rumors of a future in politics. Yet another reason Gen. David Petraeus will be keeping an eye on Sri Lanka. – When all you’ve got is nukes . . . In a leaked internal review, Russia’s military gets low grades on combat readiness. […]

Off the Radar News Roundup

– Good thing Greece blocked Macedonia’s NATO bid in 2008. Now the Macedonian army chief of staff is in Beijing looking to improve military cooperation with China. – For that China-Taiwan MoU on banking regulation, the signature’s ready, but the title it goes over is holding things up. – After Malaysia, Chinese President Hu Jintao visits Singapore. His way of letting President Barack Obama know just whose neighborhood it is? – Don’t hold your breath on Turkey-Armenia reconciliation. – France and Turkey have reportedly reached an agreement on Turkey’s EU accession: France will continue to oppose it, without blocking continued […]

This Week’s WPR Video Highlights

Here are a few of the week’s highlights from WPR’s video section: As Germany celebrates 20 years since the Berlin Wall crumbled, some vintage footage from PBS’ NewsHour provides a look back to what policymakers and pundits of the day were thinking. From utter shock and surprise to apprehension, then-Sens. Richard Lugar and Sam Nunn, arms negotiator Paul Nitze, former National Security Adviser Walt Rostow, and former ambassador and economist John Galbraith explore what this new East Germany might look like. So, how did they do? In Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s latest dig at Thailand’s current government, Cambodia has […]

Last month, two rounds of high-level meetings on the future of Bosnia took place at the military base of Butmir, on the outskirts of Sarajevo. The meetings recalled similar talks held almost 15 years ago, at another military base in Dayton, Ohio. Those talks ended Bosnia’s raging civil war, and the Dayton Peace Accords of 1995 laid the foundations of the post-war Bosnian state. The current efforts to revise the country’s constitutional foundations, and hence make it more functional, have already been called “Dayton 2” by commentators. For now, though, they are unlikely to repeat the success of the original. […]

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