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Regional Integration: A Latin American Viewpoint and Implications for the MAGHREB
March 12, 2010
Valladao’s analysis explores the Latin American experience in building regional cooperation, and offers possible lessons for integration efforts in North Africa.

Russian Coal: Europe’s New Energy Challenge
March 10, 2010
The paper looks at the complex relationship between natural gas and coal within Russia’s energy and power sector and how this relationship influences energy security and climate change.

Less Military May Not Mean More Democracy
March 9, 2010
A quarrel has erupted within the Turkish judiciary over an investigation into Operation Sledgehammer- an alleged plot by some elements in the military to take over the government. Despite complaints of improprieties committed in the process of arresting people and searching homes, the government has decided to back the investigation.

Rethinking Climate Diplomacy: New Ideas for Transatlantic Cooperation post-Copenhagen
Nigel Purvis
March 8, 2010
In this paper, authors Nigel Purvis and Andrew Stevenson argue that the most dangerous thing Europe and the United States could do is ignore the strategic implications of Copenhagen and fall back into old strategies with a new sense of patience. They recommend a fundamental shift in thinking.

Turkey-Israel Relations: Where to Next?
Soli Ozel
March 3, 2010
Don’t jump to simple conclusions about Turkish-Israeli relations. The periodic crises between Turkey and Israel are more a function of structural causes and the changing strategic environment in the region than the proclivities of the principal actors.

Can Turkey Live with a Nuclear Iran?
Ian Lesser
March 2, 2010
Could the emergence of a nuclear Iran be accommodated comfortably in the Turkish security scene? Or would it spell a fundamental and negative transformation of the strategic environment? The answer to this question should inform the Turkish calculus as the international community grapples with the challenge of a near-nuclear Iran.

Relating to defense
Dhruva Jaishankar
3/1/2010
It would be little exaggeration to say that India-U.S. ties may produce the first egalitarian great power defense partnership since the Sino-Soviet split, and would therefore be unlike any other relationship in recent memory.

Mediterranean Natural Gas: Greater Supply, Less Interdependence?
February 26, 2010
Taking stock of recent changes in the natural gas market, this brief explores the implications for transatlantic relations and interdependence between Europe and the Southern Mediterranean.

The Underestimated Giant
Jörg Himmelreich
2/24/2010
Everyone is talking about the super alliance between China and America, but there is a new long-term partner for Washington on the rise; its importance for the new evolving world order is growing as rapidly as its economy – this is India.

Chinese Checkers
Bruce Stokes
February 20, 2010
As China grows more powerful, the diplomatic game becomes harder, something the Obama administration discovered to its dismay in year one of its China policy.

Turkey’s Kurdish Opening: Shifting Into Reverse Gear?
Amberin Zaman
February 19, 2010
Nearly a year after Turkish President Abdullah Gül declared that “good things are going to happen concerning the Kurdish issue,” the government’s attempts to solve what remains the country’s knottiest problem appear to have fizzled out. Both sides are blaming the other for this worsening state of affairs.

Friendship, Warily
Bruce Stokes
February 13, 2010
The United States and India have become closer than at any time in recent history. But two magnets can repel as well as attract.

Why Japan is Important to the West
February 12, 2010
Just as the United States has gone back-and-forth on the strategic importance of Japan, Tokyo has debated the nature of its role in the international system. The resulting oscillation by both states necessitates a careful examination of Japan’s importance. The U.S.-Japan security alliance enables strategic stability in Asia, and Japan remains both a potent economic force and a democratic anchor in the region. Both the United States and its European allies must consequently step up strategic dialogue and cooperation with Japan.

Ukraine’s Post-Election “To-Do” List
David J. Kramer
February 11, 2010
Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko has yet to concede defeat to Viktor Yanukovych, but Yanukovych looks likely to assume leadership of the country in the near future following the February 7 presidential election widely deemed free and fair by international observers. Western leaders need to get over their “Ukraine fatigue” and engage the country, its new president, and its people more than they have in the past out of recognition that Ukraine matters enormously to the future of Europe.

Quitting Isn't An Option
Daniel Twining
2/9/2010
World leaders meeting in London recently to discuss Afghanistan's future have dealt themselves a weak hand. The principal obstacles to success in Afghanistan have not been the adversary's strength or any lack of support for the international mission by the Afghan public. Rather, the primary obstacles to victory have been western temporising, irresolution and planned force reductions on a timeline that better suits the Taliban's strategic objectives than our own.

The Revolution is Dead. Long Live the Revolution.
David J. Kramer
2/8/2010
Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych's apparent victory in yesterday's presidential election over Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko -- at last count, he had about a 3 percent lead and was pushing Tymoshenko to concede -- has many observers ready to proclaim the death of the Orange Revolution. Indeed, the revolution's hero, Viktor Yushchenko, got less than 6 percent of the vote last month in the election's first round. If his prime minister, Tymoshenko, loses too, the election will certainly mark a reverse-changing of the guard. This year's victor, Yanukovych, was the very leader ousted after hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians took to the streets of Kiev in chilly November and December, 2004.

The Imperialists from Moscow
Ronald D. Asmus
2/6/2010
Eighteen months ago, a war took place in Europe between Russia and Georgia. It was a little war by the standards of modern warfare but it nevertheless shook the world. It sparked the greatest crisis in European security since the Balkan wars of the mid-1990s and brought Russia and the West to the edge of a new Cold War. Moscow not only invaded a neighbor for the first time since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. It broke the cardinal rule of post-Cold War European security that borders in Europe would never again be changed by force of arms.

Cracking Chimerica
Dhruva Jaishankar
2/4/2010
American foreign policy concepts can be as fickle as fashion trends. The most recent catchphrase is “G-2”, popularised by Zbigniew Brzezinski, and meant to reflect a necessary and desirable duopoly between the US and China. The Obama administration was seen as buying into this concept when it institutionalised a strategic and economic dialogue between the two countries last year.

Economic rebalancing is coming, whatever the EU wants
Bruce Stokes
February 4, 2010
Obama wants to change the balance of the international economic order. Europe will need to adapt or to persuade him otherwise.

Splitting Europe's budget bill
Jack Thurston
2/3/2010
Who are the misers and who are the gold-diggers among the EU's 27 member states? Some are Gold Diggers, happy to reap the benefits of integration and let others pick up the tab. Others are Misers – fans of budget discipline and a smaller CAP, but keen to claim compensation for their net balance deficits. Others still are Fence-Sitters: quick to pay lip service to the idea of budgetary discipline, they are still keen to maintain CAP spending levels. That is the conclusion of a new paper analysing the EU member states' responses to the “fundamental” review of the EU budget, which the European Commission launched in 2007.

Transforming Economies through Green Investment: Needs, Progress, and Policies
February 3, 2010
Authors from the Ecologic Institute lay out a roadmap for the United States and European Union to transition to a clean energy economy and protect the climate. The roadmap calls for policymaking that drives investment in clean energy technologies at an annual level of $1 trillion by 2026, much of which will come from the private sector.

The Difficult Triangle of the Pacific Powers
Jörg Himmelreich
2/2/2010
India, China, and the United States rely on each other as littoral states of the Pacific, but they also compete with each other at the same time. Washington’s rapprochement to Beijing will fail in the long run if it does not consider the encumbered Chinese-Indian relationship.

Farming should protect Europe’s environmental resources, not use them up
Jack Thurston
1/29/2010
In 2009, farm incomes fell across the whole of the EU, not least in France. This is despite the EU spending 55 billion euro on the common agricultural policy (CAP), one of whose aims is to ensure farmers a fair standard of living. The data shows that across Europe, 85 percent of aid goes to the top 17 percent of recipients.

Ukraine and the EU: A Family Portrait
Alina Inayeh
January 27, 2010
The incoherence of the EU's approach to Ukraine has pushed Ukraine to believe the European Union has lost interest in the country. Ukraine's leadership blames the EU for closing the door. The European Union, in turn, blames Ukrainian leaders for their lack of political will to reform and to act on promises made after the Orange Revolution.

Turkey and the EU: Looking Back on 2009
Diba Nigar Göksel
January 26, 2010
Since 1999, Turkey has been a candidate for membership in the European Union. Early on, the process of accession united divergent political and social camps and triggered a virtual cycle of change. For the past few years, however, both the pace of reforms to meet the EU's political criteria and the enthusiasm for membership have declined.

Better NATO-EU relations require more sincerity
January 26, 2010
Following an agreement on a new NATO Strategic Concept, the EU needs to take compatible steps. A number of practical arrangements need to be put in place in such a way as to embrace all non-EU European allies.

Some American Priorities For 2010
Francois Lafond
1/23/2010
U.S. President Barack Obama’s greatest achievement during his first year in office has been to dramatically improve the image of the United States around the world. His actions and ideas are viewed favorably by most Europeans. This “Obama effect” has also affected U.S. foreign policy. From a European perspective, Obama now has four main foreign policy goals to achieve. The most crucial test for the Obama administration in 2010 will be the so-called “clash of civilizations.” The Israeli-Palestinian peace process is stalled, and Iranian nuclear negotiations are in a deadlock. Nevertheless, Obama’s open-handed and global rhetoric will help the regional actors to better engage with one and other and lead to new paths of progress. Obama’s three other foreign policy challenges are: “afghanizing” the ongoing “war of necessity,” trying an open-handed approach to Russia, and putting back on track the fundamental issue of strategic alliances such as NATO. These are the four areas on which U.S. foreign policy will be assessed.

A Social Democrat Wins In Croatia ~ And The Balkans Move Forward
Ivan Vejvoda
1/22/2010
The landslide victory of Ivo Josipovic in the January 10 presidential elections in Croatia bodes well, not just for the country, but also for the Western Balkans as a whole -- not least for the region’s hopes for membership in the European Union.

Power Shift: How the West Can Adapt and Thrive in an Asian Century
January 22, 2010
How can the United States and its transatlantic allies overcome the primary security dilemma of the 21st century, that of sustaining an economic system that will fuel the rise of China, a power whose growing clout threatens to challenge Western control over the international system? This paper explores solutions to overcoming this quandary.

Moldova’s window of opportunity
Pavol Demeš , Alina Inayeh, David J. Kramer
1/20/2010
WASHINGTON - Ask most Americans and Europeans to identify Vladimir Filat or find Moldova on a map and you're likely to get a blank stare. Both, however, are worth getting to know. Filat is the new prime minister of Moldova, a small country of four million people that emerged from the break-up of the Soviet Union nearly 20 years ago and borders Ukraine and Romania. Despite its size, Moldova is an important piece to the puzzle of trying to achieve the vision of a Europe whole, free, and at peace.

Ukraine: Democracy in Progress
Pavol Demeš , David J. Kramer
January 19, 2010
Voters in Ukraine went to the polls on Sunday to cast their ballots for the country’s next president. As expected, none of the 18 candidates secured enough votes to win in the first round, necessitating a second round between the two top vote-getters: former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and current Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko. Both candidates speak of improving relations with Russia and deepening ties with the European Union and the United States.

Controlling the human tide
Delancey Gustin, Zsolt Nyiri
January 18, 2010
When the Lisbon Treaty entered into force on December 1, the European Union took a large step toward establishing a common immigration policy. This is the dream – or the nightmare, depending on whom you ask – of many leaders in Europe.

The Farm Bill and Beyond
Dan Morgan
January 13, 2010
This paper examines the 2008 farm bill, with a view to setting the stage for the next phase of the debate in the United States and Europe over climate, energy, farm subsidies, food safety, trade, and agricultural aid to farmers in developing countries.

Putin Is Medvedev’s Biggest Spoiler
David J. Kramer
1/13/2010
Comments by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in late December must have come as an unwelcome surprise to Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev as they try to conclude a new U.S.-Russian arms control agreement to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, that expired on Dec. 5. But this was not the first time that Putin has thrown cold water on Medvedev’s efforts.

Security Choices After the Election: New Direction for Ukraine?
Joseph R. Wood
January 13, 2010
Although NATO membership is not getting headlines in this year’s Ukrainian presidential election, the broader issue of Ukrainian security is very much at stake.

What are the transatlantic lessons for East Asian institution-building?
January 12, 2010
East Asia is today home to a crowded, multi-layered landscape of regional organizations. While initially suspicious of adopting European models for regional cooperative institutions, Asia has now become more open to such concepts.

Energy Security for Ukraine and Europe
Jörg Himmelreich
January 11, 2010
Reforming Ukraine’s energy sector is vital for the future of Ukraine’s economy and security.

Eine deutsche Pakistanstrategie
Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, Daniel Twining
January 9, 2010
Ignoring Pakistan is dangerous for a country that has troops in Afghanistan -- even if it is only a midsize country and has no historical ties to Pakistan or interests there.

The Economic Crisis and the Mediterranean: Mixed Effects, Longer-Term Questions
January 7, 2010
This brief, the first in a series on the Mediterranean and the economic crisis, explores the impact of the global pressures on key countries in North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean, including Israel and Turkey.

A new decade and a new transatlantic strategy?
Bruce Stokes
January 7, 2010
A new year, a new European Commission and a U.S. president who can no longer get by simply by not being George Bush create an opportunity to take a new look at the U.S.-EU strategic relationship for the new decade.

Ein ganz normaler Präsident
Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff
January 6, 2010
A year after taking office as the 44th President of the United States Barack Obama has transformed himself from a modern day Messiah to a perfectly normal President. Some speculate whether a failed presidency is in the making. But, by any measure, this is anything but a failed presidency, at least so far. Three accomplishments mark Obama’s first year as President: he has prevented a recession from becoming a depression by coordinating the global response to the crisis and introducing financial market reforms; he has presented a package of economic and social reforms to modernize America; and he has reconceptualized American foreign policy to fit the era of multipolarity. Failure this is not.

More than a Neighbor: Why Ukraine Matters
Joerg Forbrig
January 5, 2010
With expectations disappointed among Ukrainians, and impatience widespread in the West, it may be tempting to disregard the January 17, 2010 presidential election as just another in an endless series of polls that have done little to advance Ukraine in recent years. That verdict, however, would be as premature as it would be irresponsible.

Corruption and Confidence in Public Institutions: Evidence from a Global Survey
Zsolt Nyiri
January 5, 2010
(Written with Bianca Clausen and Aart Kraay, World Bank) The authors use data from the Gallup World Poll to document a quantitatively large and statistically significant negative correlation between corruption and confidence in public institutions.

The Self-Chained Republic
Constanze Stelzenmüller
1/1/2010
German security policy, 20 years after the fall of the Wall: less than necessary, less than possible. A polemic in five theses and recommendations.