Section: The American Interest (USA)
EU to Swim the Backstroke?
Ahead of an EU summit in Riga on its Eastern Partnership program, which starts tonight and extends into tomorrow, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin announced that he wants concrete assurances from the EU’s leaders that Ukraine will become an EU member state, and that visa-free travel will be extended to its citizens next year....
Georgia’s European Dream
Is a Georgian entitled to speak about the future of Europe? Perhaps not. However, the United States, whose Marshall Plan—and the political, economic, and military strings attached—very much propelled the project of European integration, has earned that right. And that’s before we mention the traditional role of the U.S. as the global...
Baltics Demand a NATO Presence
The Baltic nations, rattled by Russian moves in Ukraine, will ask NATO to permanently station troops in their countries. A Lithuanian army spokesman said that the request would be put in a letter to the Supreme NATO Allied Commander Europe, and would be for at least a brigade—3,000 to 5,000 troops—to be put in each country. The U.S. currently...
John Kerry’s Sochi Misadventure
On Monday, the day before John Kerry’s arrival in Sochi to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement blasting the United States. “Russian-US relations are passing through a difficult period caused by targeted unfriendly actions by Washington,” the statement said. “The White House...
Ukraine Faces Its Western Creditors
Debt talks appear to have stalled in Ukraine weeks ahead of a June deadline. The Ukrainian government released a strongly-worded statement lambasting its creditors for their opacity and intransigence. At stake is whether the creditors will be forced to take a haircut on their holdings. The Financial Times has more: Negotiations between...
Syrian Lies, and an Iranian Surmise
In light of the latest dispatches from Syria, we ran a short post on Monday recalling my argument, from back in the early autumn of 2013, that the Syrian government had never given an honest declaration of its chemical weapons stock to the OPCW. The excerpt the guys in the machine room pulled out was not bad—it made the main points: The Syrians...
A Post-Mortem for European Shale
Europe has watched the American shale revolution with envious eyes these last few years, and a number of countries—from the UK to Poland to Lithuania—have attempted to replicate U.S. success. But no one has been able to manage to put together the unique set of circumstances that have helped shale flourish here in the states, and the momentum...
The Nemtsov Files
Boris Nemtsov, the Russian opposition figure assassinated right outside the Kremlin earlier this year, is speaking from beyond the grave: a report he had been researching at the time of his death, on Russia’s involvement in Ukraine, was released today by his colleague Ilya Yashin.Russia has anywhere between 8,000 and 10,000 troops in...
Obama Mulls Sending Ships to South China Sea
The Obama Administration is set to make some bold moves in Asia, if the Wall Street Journal‘s sources prove to be reliable: The U.S. military is considering using aircraft and Navy ships to directly contest Chinese territorial claims to a chain of rapidly expanding artificial islands, U.S. officials said, in a move that would raise the stakes in...
Georgian President: Russia is Alien To Us
Shockingly enough, it turns out that bold irredentist moves by the biggest country in a region tend to spook its neighbors. That, at least, is the tone set by Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili as he spoke to reporters during his first trip to Brussels to meet with EU and NATO officials.On the precedent of Ukraine: “A country that is...
