During the recent flare-up between the United States and Iran, US President Donald Trump tweeted that he was prepared to bomb ‘52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago)’. …
Articles by: "Carl Bildt"
Recognising that the European Union is facing a number of vexing challenges on the world stage, Ursula von der Leyen, the new European Commission president, has promised to lead a ‘geopolitical’ commission. Echoing this sentiment, …
Once again, the United States is undergoing the profound drama of presidential impeachment proceedings. But, unlike in the past, this time the implications for the rest of the world could be substantial. Consider the two …
Recent events in Syria have naturally raised two questions: Who lost the country? And where might the international community go from here? The first one is easier to answer. Looking back, Syria has probably been …
Suddenly, opinion polls find that Ukrainians are more optimistic about their future than are citizens of most other countries. That will come as a surprise to many, given Ukraine’s manifold challenges. And yet it is …
This month marks 30 years since Europe—and human civilisation generally—began to undergo a miraculous transformation that is now etched in the world’s memory. By the summer of 1989, the Soviet Union was already in terminal …
Our man, the American journalist George Packer’s new 600-page biography of Richard Holbrooke, is a masterful book, not just for what it says about the late US diplomat himself, but also for how it portrays …
While the European Union gears up for new leadership in the northern autumn and US President Donald Trump gets his 2020 re-election campaign going, Russian President Vladimir Putin is sitting steady in the saddle with …
As the European Parliament election approaches, Europe is abuzz with speculation over who will lead the main European Union institutions for the next five years. Among the positions up for grabs are those currently held …
Five years ago this month, a small force of ‘little green men’—soldiers wearing no national insignia—seized control of a police station in Sloviansk, a small village in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast. Thus began the second …
In August 1941, even before the United States had entered World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt met secretly off the coast of Newfoundland to discuss how the …
It was at the 2007 Munich Security Conference that Russian President Vladimir Putin first signalled a cooling of Russian–Western relations. Soon thereafter, Russia invaded Georgia; and in the years since, it has annexed Crimea, launched …