International Peace, & Security

No easy fixes for NATO
No easy fixes for NATO

Blogs, Harlan Ullman., International Peace, & Security, Issues

No easy fixes for NATO

To paraphrase Shakespeare: Alas poor NATO. We knew it well. My second column for 2013 bemoaned the absence of even the mention of NATO--the North Atlantic Treaty Organization--- in the strategic dialogue that accompanied the start of President Barack Obama’s second term. Founded in Washington in April 1949 as a counterweight to the emergence of a hostile Soviet Union, NATO became the most successful military alliance in history. Clearly, the strategic “pivot” to Asia announced last year by the White House had overshadowed and eclipsed the importance of Europe. And, today’s violence in Egypt and Syria as well as the ongoing chaos in Iraq, Afghanistan with Iran’s nuclear ambitions still [...]

By Harlan Ullman|2013-09-03T14:53:22+03:00August 20th, 2013|Blogs, Harlan Ullman., International Peace, & Security, Issues|0 Comments

Criogenia conflictelor înghețate
Criogenia conflictelor înghețate

Alexandru Grumaz, Blogs, International Peace, & Security, Issues, Studies and Analysis

Criogenia conflictelor înghețate

Finalul secolului anterior cu a sa perioadă marcată de Razboiului Rece ne-a obligat sa dezvoltăm o noua terminologie politico-militară pentru a defini conflictele de tip nou: înghețate sau asimetrice. Pentru analişti era limpede că se intra într-o nouă epocă, iar instrumentarul consacrat după cel de-al II-lea Razboi Mondial nu mai era valabil şi nu mai acoperea/măsura realitatea. Dintre pericolele actuale cu mare risc la adresa securităţii şi stabilităţii globale/regionale pe primele locuri s-au situat „conflictele îngheţate”. Cum le definim? Acele conflicte în care violenţele etnopolitice suprapuse cu secesiunea duc la stabilirea de facto a unui regim care nu este recunoscut de comunitatea internaţională şi nici de statul din care s-a [...]

By Alexandru Grumaz|2017-11-14T21:28:34+02:00August 2nd, 2013|Alexandru Grumaz, Blogs, International Peace, & Security, Issues, Studies and Analysis|0 Comments

Mr. President missing in action?
Mr. President missing in action?

Blogs, Harlan Ullman., International Peace, & Security, Issues, Studies and Analysis

Mr. President missing in action?

Regional crises abound. Massive protests in Egypt that ended the flailing Morsi government to continued bloodshed from Afghanistan to Syria are representative of these crises. Meanwhile, at home, political Tsumanis batter the landscape. Supreme Court actions to strike down parts of the Defense of Marriage (DOMA) and Voting Rights Acts and the White House decision to defer parts of the new Health Care law regarding small businesses for a year rile politics as brutal heat and forest fires torment the West and torrents of rain drench the East make this a long, hot and so far bitter summer for the United States. Yet, where is President Barack Obama “the world [...]

By Harlan Ullman|2017-11-14T21:28:36+02:00July 15th, 2013|Blogs, Harlan Ullman., International Peace, & Security, Issues, Studies and Analysis|0 Comments

Too many archdukes, too many bullets
Too many archdukes, too many bullets

Blogs, Global Governance, Harlan Ullman., International Peace, & Security, Issues

Too many archdukes, too many bullets

Ninety-nine years ago this Friday, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his pregnant wife Sofia were gunned down in Sarajevo by a nineteen-year old Bosnian Serb nationalist named Gavrilo Princips. The assassinations quickly provoked a crisis that more quickly erupted into world war. Ironically, many of the elites in Europe believed that an early 20th century version of globalization and economic interdependencies on the continent made war too expensive to contemplate or to wage. Indeed, Nobel Prize winner Sir Norman Angell’s The Great Illusion, written in 1910 and required reading for the intelligentsia, made that case eloquently and, as it turned out, entirely wrongly. Today, the nearly four hundred year old Westphalian [...]