Worldcrunch
As Western sanctions have proven ineffective, Russian economy has been growing, along with defense and security expenditures. The world’s singular superpower in Washington has three cards it could pull to squeeze the invading country. Yet something is holding it back.
Updated Dec. 23 2023 at 12:00 p.m. On this day in 1979, the Soviet Union intervened in support of the Afghan communist government in its conflict with anti-communist Muslim guerrillas during the Afghan War, after Afghanistan’s centrist government was overthrown by left-wing military officers led by Nur Mohammad Taraki. Why did the Soviets invade Afghanistan? […]
Nuclear weapons are a constant fear simmering in the background of modern-day conflicts. With the potential for Iran to join the Israel-Hamas war, and a threatening Russia at war with Ukraine, there is a more urgent necessity of reestablishing communication channels and confidence-building measures among nuclear powers.
China shares praise, Cambodia throws shade, Germans show pride … and from Moscow?
There are certain watershed moments where the world comes together in defense of an idea or a people, or maybe both. A call from afar to stand up in the name of the Palestinian people.
Retired Major-General Alexander Vladimirov wrote the Russian “war bible.” His words have weight. Now he has declared that the use of nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine is inevitable, citing a justification that consigns the principle of deterrence to the history books.
With $6 billion freed up to go in the coffers of the corrupt and repressive regime in Tehran, nobody is happy. But sometimes there is no alternative to the imperfect nature of international diplomacy.
Beijing recently placed an export ban to the U.S. of two key metals. The move is a retaliation for U.S. bans of Chinese tech. The question remains of whether the superpowers can compromise before a total tech war breaks out.
Marder infantry fighting vehicles, Leopard 2 tanks, thousands and thousands of rounds of ammunition: the armament company Rheinmetall is running flat-out, around-the-clock to supply Ukrainian forces. For the first time, Die Welt was granted access to the production floor at the Rheinmetall factory, which is churning out arms as quickly as it did during the depths of the Cold War.
The U.S. Secretary of State is visiting Beijing — but even if it’s a sign of de-escalation, tensions remain high between the two sides, and it’s clear the détente has yet to arrive.
Military spending has increased dramatically worldwide, driven by war in Ukraine and Chinese-Tawian tensions. With $2.24 trillion spent globally in 2022, the amount looks likely to continue to increase.
The just completed G7 in Hiroshima has locked both sides in the simmering Cold War in Asia into what appears an inevitable confrontation that recalls the U.S.-Soviet showdown. But there are key caveats that make both the limits and risks harder to anticipate.
Five former Soviet states have arrived for a key summit in China, and the absence of Vladimir Putin signals Central Asia’s desire to distance itself from Moscow — and China’s rising global dominance.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accepted an invitation to attend the next NATO summit in July, but he will arrive with expectations that the alliance is ready to pave the way for the country’s accession to the military alliance, even as the state of the war itself remains crucial to the decision.
The French President begins a three-day visit to China. He has the difficult task of forging a “third way” for Europe between U.S. and Chinese interests in an increasingly polarized world.
With a decisive deal with Putin out of the question, the only way to create a lasting peace is to recreate some fundamental dynamics of the Cold War.
To some, tensions between the U.S. and China look like a remake of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War. Yet the West’s nemesis this time is more sophisticated and tied to us commercially in ways Moscow never was. There are, however, also new kinds of danger.
In order to begin to alleviate decades of tension between the U.S. and Soviet Union, Switzerland hosted the Geneva Summit of 1985 where American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev would begin to lead the world out of the Cold War Sign up to receive This Happened straight to your inbox each […]
Unlike the U.S.-Soviet showdown in 1962, Vladimir Putin’s allusions to his nuclear arsenal come with no sense of rules or limits, and with a more distant memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The dominance of a single narrative of globalization and liberal democracy is over.
The war in Ukraine has set off the dynamics of a new Cold War: a standoff between democracy and authoritarianism, whatever the ideological stripe. Faraway parts of the world will be affected by what happens on the ground in Ukraine.
Facing geopolitical devastation caused by the war in Ukraine, the African continent cannot be subordinate and obliged to choose one power over another. It must bring about an African foreign policy for a new multipolar world.
Less than a week after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered a new cleavage in international affairs, U.S. President Joe Biden outlined a vision for confronting Moscow as necessary for the pursuit of America’s ambitions at home and abroad.
Western states are taking democratic governance for granted and responding feebly to threats in their midst. With the crisis at the Ukraine-Russia border coming to a head, the 1930s offer lessons on the dangers of complacency in the face of a kind of semi-democracy.
As Russia and China push their way to the top of the power heap, and the United States balks at playing global police force, expect fundamental changes to accepted norms governing international affairs.
Demonizing the adversary, often in much the same way, was central to the script of the Cold War in the second half of the last century. Now with Moscow and Washington facing off again, old habits are back.
Experts in geopolitics and the workings of world leaders have accelerated a two-decade long quest to understand the motivations of the enigmatic man in the Kremlin.
A resurgent, ambitious Russia has taken the West by surprise, just when the United States was pivoting and bracing itself to face down China.
In the year since the arrest of Vladimir Putin’s last opponent a new Cold War has begun. In the absence of internal enemies, Russia’s increasingly powerful yet isolated ruler must turn to external targets.
The eyes of the world are on the Russian-Ukrainian border as Putin threatens an invasion. However, the more vital stage of the Kremlin’s military ambitions is the Baltic Sea, where the likes of bordering countries like Finland and Sweden are mobilizing troops as Moscow tries to undermine the allegiance of the EU and former Soviet states.
Asia has become the new center of the world because of China’s growing power, which in Washington’s eyes has turned Japan from an important ally to the most important. But is Tokyo ready for the newfound responsibility?
With new targets, the United States is trying to impose more of the same binary thinking that set the Middle East on fire.
While the U.S.-China rivalry is not yet a repetition of the Cold War, it will have repercussions for Latin American states at a time of acute regional weakness.
A closer look at the iconic photo of the three Allied leaders gathered to bring an end to World War II, and shape the map of the coming Cold War.
From Spain’s Podemos to Noam Chomsky, many left-wingers around the world are too blinded by ideology to see the Venezuelan crisis for what it really is.
Built on a soggy bed of sand, the German capital isn’t an ideal place for underground infrastructure. And yet, there’s a relatively unknown maze of tunnels, bunkers and other surprising spaces down there.
The bipolar world of yesteryear is gone. In its place is a shifting geopolitical landscape of circumstantial alliances and ascendant authoritarianism.
-OpEd- TURIN — Fifty years ago, in January 1968, the reformist leader Alexander Dubcek rose to power in Czechoslovakia. His ascent began a brief era known as the Prague Spring, which ended when peaceful protests against the presence of Soviet troops in the country were violently put down by Russian tanks as the West passively […]
Since the conflict in Ukraine, Western military leaders are operating under the assumption that an armed conflict with Vladimir Putin’s Russia will eventually happen. Signs of tension are everywhere.
Barack Obama’s recent trip to Cuba and Argentina are the crowning achievement on his administration’s efforts to consolidate peaceful ties with and among Latin American countries.