Europe Archive

Armenia and Azerbaijan, former Soviet republics in the South Caucasus, have been at war for two decades over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, a separatist ethnic-Armenian province internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but occupied since 1994 by Armenia. Over the past week, renewed fighting has left eight soldiers dead. The outbreak of violence along the border, which comes as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits the region, underscores the difficulty in resolving this not quite frozen conflict. Amanda Paul, a policy analyst and expert on the South Caucasus at the European Policy Center, talked to Trend Lines about […]

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Vladimir Putin urge the international community to support UN envoy Kofi Annan’s plan on Syria during meetings in Beijing, according to Chinese state media. World News Videos by NewsLook

Stratfor analyst Eugene Chausovsky examines tensions between Lithuania and Poland as Russia tries to prevent the countries from collaborating against Moscow. World News Videos by NewsLook

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the hostilities that historically divided the Cold War’s political and military opponents have cooled, but a heightened intensity in espionage has become evident as well. New antagonists have surfaced as old enemies seemingly became allies; nonstate actors occasionally have become as dangerous and influential as nations with standing armies; and the computer and satellite have replaced lapel cameras and microfilm stashed in shoe heels as preferred methods of espionage. Predictably, the playing field of global espionage has become more sophisticated as well. Cyberspace and outer space have become espionage battlegrounds where fortunes are […]

Probably only few Germans, especially among the younger generation, still remember the events of June 17, 1953, some 60 years ago. After a rise in bread prices, striking workers had started to demonstrate in the streets of East Berlin, in what was still called the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ). As would happen three years later in Budapest and 15 years later in Prague, the strike was broken by Soviet tanks. My grandfather was among those striking Berlin workers, and, having lost his job the day after the crackdown because of his participation, he fled to West Germany along with many […]