Europe Archive

Turkey has become increasingly assertive in the Western Balkans in recent years, with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan saying only last week that his country would be happy to mediate in bilateral talks between Kosovo and Serbia. While Turkish involvement in the region is welcomed in many quarters, some say Ankara may be overplaying its hand. Turkey’s ambitious vision for the region, which the Turkish Ottoman empire held sway over for centuries, is no secret. “The Ottoman centuries of the Balkans were success stories,” said Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on a visit to Sarajevo in October last year. “Now […]

On the morning of Jan. 1, 2009, Russia’s state-owned gas-export monopoly Gazprom halted natural gas deliveries to Ukraine. Gazprom blamed the disruption on Kiev’s refusal to pay its debts on past deliveries and its unwillingness to accept an increase in its gas prices. Although Gazprom continued to transit gas through Ukraine for delivery to other European countries, by Jan. 5, five European Union (EU) member states, including Poland, Hungary and Romania, had announced that they were experiencing gas-supply disruptions. On Jan. 7, Russia shut off all gas deliveries through Ukraine, accusing Kiev of siphoning off gas destined for Europe to […]

The rapid economic growth of the People’s Republic of China has fueled a demand for energy that has now outstripped domestic sources of supply. As a result, China can no longer sustain its economic expansion without importing massive quantities of energy. To compensate for the projected underproduction of domestic energy sources as well as further increases in anticipated energy consumption, the Chinese government has pursued a subtle energy security strategy that includes three major components: first, reforming the domestic energy sector to maximize production and attract foreign direct investment; second, expanding China’s energy mix to reduce the nation’s dependency on […]

BEIJING — Forty years after the establishment of modern diplomatic ties between Italy and China, Rome has become one of Beijing’s most-trusted partners in Western Europe. Following recent high-level talks in both capitals, the two countries have enhanced cooperation in a range of areas. With China keen to increase its influence in the Eastern Mediterranean and Italy in desperate need of fresh economic impetus, the potential benefits to both sides could be significant. In contrast to China’s engagement with resource-rich and emerging nations, its interest in Italy is motivated by the Mediterranean country’s geographic advantages and advanced technological capabilities. Since […]

At a summit in late-September 2010, the European Union and South Africa both expressed interest in concluding protracted negotiations over closer trade ties. In an e-mail interview, Stephen Hurt, senior lecturer in international relations at Oxford Brookes University, discusses relations between the EU and South Africa. WPR: What is the historic context of EU-South Africa relations, and where do they stand today? Stephen Hurt: Coordinated EU policy toward South Africa dates back to the mid-1970s, a time when foreign policy was usually seen as the preserve of EU member states. The two main initiatives during the apartheid era were a […]

It’s pretty rare that a politician does an about-face as flagrant and publicly documented as French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s stance on human rights in the conduct of foreign policy. Here he is back in the summer of 2007, just before his first meeting with Russia’s then-President Vladimir Putin: Mr. Sarkozy has promised to confront Mr. Putin about human rights violations in Chechnya and about the slaying last October of Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist who wrote scathingly of the Russian president. Here he is yesterday before his meeting in Paris with Chinese President Hu Jintao: “China should not be seen as […]

On the same day that voters in the United States went to the polls to throw a punch into the gut of the political establishment, some 5,000 miles away, police in Greece had their hands full with a series of bombs mailed to foreign embassies. Greek investigators say the bombs, 11 of them in all, were probably the work of militant activists who, in their own violent way and to a much greater degree, also aimed to overturn the political and economic order. In recent months, angry efforts to take on the system have gained steam throughout the developed world […]

It would be easy to dismiss the French-U.K. defense pact signed yesterday as a shotgun wedding between two second-tier military powers. But it still represents a sea change in military relations between the world’s only two expeditionary militaries outside of the U.S., NATO and perhaps Russia. The areas of cooperation are also significant, because they go to the heart of both countries’ historical military identity — nuclear deterrence and the ability to project force — as well as in the areas that will dominate future security postures, such as satellite and UAV drone development, and cyber security. What’s also striking […]

Expeditionary warfare is built into the DNA of the British military establishment. Historically, Great Britain conducted war not by creating a great continental army, but rather by using the Royal Navy to deliver the relatively small British army to its enemies’ weak points. Wellington’s expedition to the Iberian Peninsula helped defeat Napoleon, and even the great formations sent to France in 1914 and 1939 were called the British Expeditionary Force. The idea that wars should be fought at a distance has informed British military policy for centuries. To this end, the United Kingdom has historically structured its military forces with […]

Given the timing of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to the Kuril Islands, it’s hard to see it as anything other than an intentional effort to destabilize Japan, and particularly Prime Minister Naoto Kan. Coming in the aftermath of Tokyo’s standoff with Beijing over the Senkaku Islands, it reinforces the perception of a weak Japan unable to make its territorial claims respected. The fact that this was a peripheral and largely frozen dispute that had until now not seriously affected improving bilateral relations adds to that impression. The move also comes in the aftermath of Russia’s refusal to support South […]

Although opinion polls show that foreign policy will have little impact on today’s congressional elections, the war in Afghanistan will certainly be an important subject of concern for the new Congress. And last week’s unprecedented joint Russian-U.S. drug raid against several narcotics laboratories in Afghanistan is a hopeful sign. The raid suggests that Russian-American differences over the war are narrowing, and raises the possibility that Moscow will provide additional support to the coalition’s war efforts in Afghanistan in coming weeks. In a commando operation that took place in the early morning hours of Oct. 28, Russian counternarcotics officers for the […]

Writing recently in the Financial Times, long-time economic journalist Gideon Rachman lamented the passing of a post-Cold War “golden age,” in which “countries shared a belief in globalization and Western democratic values.” In Rachman’s calculation, that consensus has been battered by the global financial crisis, which ushered in a “new, less-predictable era.” Rachman, whose book entitled “Zero-Sum Future” comes out next February, is clearly prepping the literary battlefield by positioning himself as an “anti-Robert Wright.” The latter’s book, “Non-Zero: The Logic of Human Destiny,” argued that human progress has been characterized by — and thus depends on — our increasing […]

Israel is increasingly turning to Greece to compensate for the decline in its relationship with Turkey. Israel recently held air force exercises in Greek air space, and the two countries have signed a civilian aviation agreement. In an e-mail interview, Efraim Inbar, professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University and director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, explains the growing relationship between Israel and Greece. WPR: What is the historical military and political relationship between Israel and Greece? Efraim Inbar: Politico-military cooperation between Greece and Israel is a new phenomenon. Greece has been one of the least-friendly states in […]