How much authoritarianism can a society take when they can have a measure of comparison with the free world? In Russia, citizens are reacting to Vladimir Putin’s military conscription by voicing their dissent or by queuing to exit the country. In Iran, the “guardians of morality” are shock testing their theocracy’s resilience against the resistance of brave women aspiring for…
Russian President Vladimir Putin has always been eager to share an instructive story from his childhood, about how, when he was growing up in poverty in Soviet Leningrad, he used to spend his days chasing rats. And how he once cornered a big rat. With no way out, the rat launched itself at him and bit his face. The threat…
Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has sparked a new introspection in the West. A number of commentators, most of them writing from the US and the UK, have come up with their latest scapegoat: Germany’s to blame, they say, with its decades-long policy of appeasing Russia. Really? People love to dislike Germany. Often for good reasons. Successive Merkel administrations were…
It’s been one crisis after another for the last 20 years. Greece has been at the center of some, and battered by the tidal-wave aftershocks of others. The 21st century began with the attack on the Twin Towers. The West awoke to the asymmetric threat of radical Islam, a threat it would find itself confronting at home (UK, Spain, France)…
From 1992 to 2022: EU still seeking common foreign and defense policy – ekathimerini.com – 21/2/2022
Thirty years ago, in February 1992, in an idyllic city in the Netherlands, 12 leaders signed the Treaty on European Union. The Maastricht Treaty is considered the most important EU treaty, because it paved the way for the euro. However, its as yet incomplete 2nd pillar, that of a common foreign and security policy, could not be more relevant today.…