NATO’s 2023 summit in Vilnius was dominated by Russia’s war against Ukraine. The summit in Washington, D.C., in July 2024 will be influenced by an additional major conflict in NATO’s neighbourhood: the war in Gaza and the related heightened tensions in the Middle East. These have also...

Germany is being met with rejection from the governments of Arab states when it calls for human rights to be respected. If those being addressed do not outright refuse to engage in dialogue, they usually rely on four patterns of argumentation to ward off corresponding demands: (1) the human...

Across public sectors in the Arab world, international consultancy firms already play a pivotal role and are further expanding their operations. Among other projects, con­sultancies have (co-)designed such high-profile strategies as Saudi Arabia's "Vision 2030" and Morocco’s "Green Agenda"....

Any conflict with a nuclear power like Russia carries the risk that nuclear weapons could be used, and President Vladimir Putin is aggressively exploiting such concerns. With its nuclear threats, the Kremlin is moving away from Russia’s doctrine that ascribes a protective role to its nuclear...

Even though the six Western Balkan countries (WB6) have close political ties with the EU, their alignment with the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) has in­creasingly come into focus since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. The EU should take a...

Since February 2022, Ukraine has been defending itself against yet another Russian war of aggression. Now that immediate support - military, diplomatic, financial and humanitarian - for Ukraine has improved, the country’s long-term security needs to be addressed. Looking ahead, security...

Turkey’s policy in the Black Sea region is the result of not only a complex relationship with Russia but also of a difficult relationship with the West. In particular, US policy in the Middle East has a major impact on how Ankara positions itself in the Black Sea region. An important feature...

Due to its strategic immensity and opportunities for covert action, the maritime domain has become the most prominent arena of modern-day great power rivalry. In the shadow of this confrontation and the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, the Baltic Sea is now the focus of geopolitical...

In its war of attrition against Ukraine, the Kremlin is counting on outnumbering the enemy over a long period in terms of both hardware and personnel. Following the unpopular partial mobilisation in autumn 2022, the recruitment of contract soldiers and volunteer fighters was stepped up...