The situation in the Western Balkans is increasingly inching toward a showdown in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) sparked by separatist tendencies in the Serb entity of the country, Republika Srpska. This would most likely drag the rest of the region into a wider confrontation and would also most certainly have implications for the rest of Europe. […]
History is unfolding before our eyes and both the US and EU have decisions to make in about how they are approaching their attempts to deter Russia from invading all or part of Ukraine. There has been no lack of proposed solutions to the problem at hand, but what is often missing is the proper understanding and context of Russia’s actual aims for Ukraine. […]
On September 15th, President of the European Union Commission Ursula von der Leyen delivered the annual State of the Union Address. Noteworthy key priorities were the continuation of the fight against COVID-19, climate change, migration, respect for rule of law, and a European defence policy. After the speech, many were left with further questions, be it from a public health policy perspective or from a security standpoint. […]
“Global warming is a security threat”, former UN Secretary General Kofi suggested. Data indicate that over 40% of intrastate conflicts in the last 60 years have been partially driven by competition over natural resources. Consequently, 7 out of the 10 countries most impacted by climate change already host or had hosted international peacekeeping missions. […]
Europeanization has transformed from an aspiration to an obligation and this in term has created a need for sacrificing internal democracy in terms of EU integration. Subsequently, in most cases, this results in not only a lack of implementation but more importantly a lack of ability to implement legislation. The difference being that lack of implementation may come due to lack of political will, whilst lack of ability to implement comes from the weak absorption of transformative power that the EU intends to achieve. […]
As is well reported on by now, Belarusian authorities ordered a Ryanair flight traveling from Athens to Vilnius to make an emergency landing in Minsk just a few days ago. The flight was accompanied by a MiG-29. Their aim was to arrest dissident journalist Raman Pratasevich, which they brazenly did, and trotted him out to do a coerced speech where he was clearly shaken and physically assaulted. What was even more bizarre was the fact that the Belarusian government blamed Hamas for putting a bomb on the grounded Ryanair flight. Of course, Hamas denied any responsibility. […]
Back in November, the pro-EU candidate Maia Sandu won the Moldovan race for Prime Minister against pro-Russian incumbent Igor Dodon by a margin of 57.75% of the vote to 42.25%. While not a major event even in European politics, this election could be a bigger sign of a major shift in Moldova from a traditionally stalwart Russian ally to a country with budding EU aspirations, or even possibly reuniting with their Romanian siblings to the West. […]
The automation of the production and circulation of disinformation has never before been so easy and cheap. We now have automated social bots that can rapidly disseminate a post containing disinformation on average more than fifty times a day. However, their role is not limited solely to that; they are also used to rapidly generate ad revenue by directing traffic. We have only recently started to awaken to the consequences of this technology for our societies and democracies. […]
Last November, in the Ethiopian region of the Tigray, an ethnic-based political crisis broke out and quickly transformed into a military conflict. The war escalated and several thousands of civilians were killed and many more became displaced. The fighting is likely to significantly impact the unstable political situation present in the Horn of Africa: Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and Sudan, as well several ethnic-based conflicts in the region. What could be the role of the EU in such a fragile context? […]
Terrorist attacks and weapons of mass destruction: these are just a few of the threats that come to mind when considering international security. As the United Nations warns of a new climate crisis each week, climate change is deemed as the security threat most pertinent. By threatening resource scarcity and growing global unrest with conflict potential, the climate crisis is consistently growing larger in scale and clearer in outline. […]