A three-bell alarm is ringing in Germany, in the European Union, and in transatlantic relations. Yet so far, voters seem oblivious to the threat. That’s why the vote for the European Parliament (EP) next week – normally a sleepy affair…
A Specter Is Haunting Europe
The thirteen-year era of “Mutti” (“mama”) Angela Merkel just ended — not with a bang, but with a whimper. Germany’s most beloved politician for a long decade was not voted out of office. Nor did the veteran chancellor succumb to…
Poland B vs. Poland A
President Andrzej Duda’s veto of two laws this month–they would have subordinated Poland’s independent courts to the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS)–delayed briefly the campaign of the Catholic right-wing PiS to bring all three branches of governance under its…
Gunfight at the Ukraine Corral
2016 promises to be a decisive year for Ukraine. The sudden resignation on 3 February of Economics Minister Aivaras Abromavicius – and the immediate sharp fall of Ukraine’s sovereign bonds – suggest that the showdown is at hand, much sooner…
Debunking an urban myth
It’s time to debunk the lingering urban myths that Germany has resisted imposing sanctions on Russia over its undeclared war on Ukraine and might once again desert the West in a flirtation with Russia. True, Chancellor Angela Merkel favors smart…
Harbingers of Transformation
A few bright spots on Europe’s troubled periphery Even as the future of the European Union’s neighborhood remains under threat, a few developments on the EU periphery – in Ukraine, Romania, and Serbia – show that civil society and rule…
A Useful Stalemate in Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s undeclared war on once-fraternal Ukraine has destroyed Moscow’s influence on Kiev, forged genuine Ukrainian identity in resistance and ended in a roughly stable stalemate in the eastern 3% of Ukraine that Russia now controls. However bitter…
The Waiting Game
No, the West has not (yet) lost Ukraine in Vladimir Putin’s Russian roulette, and the fragile Minsk truce and Western sanctions on Moscow over its land grab in Ukraine have not failed. A more nuanced reading of the current state…
A Farewell to Arms?
(Part 2/2) Link to Part 1: What Next for Ukraine? Four rival scenarios Analysis of the Ukraine crisis by Ukrainian-American historian Alexander Motyl and German Chancellor Angela Merkel differs sharply from that of John McCain and John Mearsheimer in that it…
What Next for Ukraine? Four rival scenarios
As the sober National Interest warns that America and Russia are “stumbling to war,” roughly four Western scenarios compete to explain where we stand in the year-old Ukraine crisis. Let’s call them the McCain, Mearsheimer, Motyl, and Merkel theses of,…