Domestic repression and external autonomy of Belarus have developed in cyclical patterns since its independence. The country's narrowed action space that followed its elections in August 2020 has affected, not least, the security situation in the Baltic Sea region. Relations between Minsk and...

When Nicolas Zarkozy became president in 2007 he proclaimed a break with the past: France was no longer automatically to go it alone as during de Gaulle's presidency, but was to be integrated fully into NATO. Instead of competing with the strongest power on earth, France - as well as the EU -...

This paper takes an in-depth look at the European great powers France, Germany and Britain and their foreign policy reactions vis-à-vis the Russo-Georgian War in August 2008. It explains the different reactions from a certain interplay between present and past geopolitics that shape the foreign...

The South China Sea is subject to competing claims of sovereignty by the littoral states. Due to the number of claimants and the complexity of claims, it is called the "mother of all territorial disputes". China is far the biggest country in the region and claims sovereignty over almost all the...

EU policy towards the Southern Mediterranean remains painfully fragmented across different lines: member states initiatives vs. EU as a whole; bilateral EU policies vs. multilateral frameworks. Underpinning these tensions, there is a continuing “securitization” of the Mediterranean debate,...

For at least the last seven years, Lebanon has been in a deep economic and political crisis that has sparked several mass demonstrations in the heart of Beirut. Every time demonstrations were joined by up to more than a hundred thousand demonstrators with vast participation from the Lebanese...