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Begin New Search Topic War Content Type Commentary and Analysis Publication Year within 3 Years

1. Between Swords of Iron and the Al Aqsa Deluge: The Regional Politics of the Israel-Hamas War

Author:
Brandon Friedman and Joshua Krasna
Publication Date:
11-2023
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:
The Hamas-Israel war has derailed but not destroyed the trend towards regional de-escalation and integration. Hamas’ “success” has revived fears in the region of a Muslim Brotherhood resurgence and led aspiring regional powers to compete to steer the Muslim world’s attitudes and responses to the crisis . Egypt and Jordan, Israel’s peace partners, face particular domestic challenges that both constrain and incentivize engagement in the crisis. Egypt’s strategic interests have led to a discreet, but more active role, while Jordan’s domestic pressures have led it to keep the crisis at arm’s length. The United Arab Emirates and other conservative Arab states emphasize the need to prevent escalation, to limit civilian deaths, and to implement an immediate ceasefire, and at least publicly, minimize the relevance of “who started” the war.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, War, Hamas, and Regional Politics
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Gaza

2. Russia’s Military Expenditure During Its War Against Ukraine

Author:
Julian Cooper
Publication Date:
06-2023
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:
This SIPRI Insights paper is devoted to an analysis of military spending by the Russian Federation during its war against Ukraine, and the sources of funding for that spending. Russia’s total military expenditure has increased since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but not dramatically. Despite difficulty in accessing information on budget spending, total budgeted military spending in 2023 can be estimated at 6648 billion roubles. This represents 4.4 per cent of forecast Russian gross domestic product. While military spending in early 2023 seemed to accelerate beyond the budgeted amount, the rate of spending can be shown to be similar to that in early 2022 and does not suggest any unusual surge. The Russian government is attempting to restrain spending on the war to minimize the domestic impact and enable the pursuit of policy goals set before the invasion. The Russian economy can afford this level of spending notwithstanding severe sanctions, while leaving open the possibility of increased war-related funding if the government considers it necessary in the future.
Topic:
War, Budget, Military Spending, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

3. European Communities in South America and the Global Total Wars of the 20th Century: An Interview with Dr. María Inés Tato

Author:
María Inés Tato and Salvador Lima
Publication Date:
05-2023
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Toynbee Prize Foundation
Abstract:
Total wars do not just affect the belligerent societies. The two global conflicts of the first half of the twentieth century had repercussions in neutral countries and colonial territories that could not escape of their economic and political impact. This was certainly most evident for the European diasporas in the South American region. How did overseas Europeans participate in the war effort? What were the tensions surrounding the mobilization? What were the effects on the relationship with the adoption countries? These are some of the questions that the authors of Transatlantic Battles. European Immigrant Communities in South America and the World Wars (Brill, 2022) address. The book was edited by María Inés Tato, researcher at the National Council of Science and Technic Research (CONICET), in Argentina, and director of the Group of Historical War Studies of the Institute of Latin American and Argentine History “Dr. Emilio Ravignani”, University of Buenos Aires. Under her coordination, this collective project gathered several historians from different backgrounds, including Juan Pablo Artinian, Norman Fraser Brown, Juan Luis Carrellán Ruiz, Hernán Díaz, Marcelo Huernos, Milagros Martínez-Flener, Germán Friedmann and Stefan Rinke. The main goal of the project was to explore how European communities in South America expressed the transnational nature of their national identities through enlistment in armies and the mobilisation of eco­nomic and cultural assets. As Tato says in the book’s introduction, these immigrants, and their families “had two homelands: they were attached to their countries of origin and, at the same time, exhibited strong connections with the societies they resided in, developing a complex identity that recognized their dual allegiance.” Transatlantic Battles should not be understood as an isolated piece of work, but as a contribution to a growing academic movement that, for the last twenty years, has attended to the global dimension of the twentieth-century total wars. Tato herself has published and directed several books on the subject, working closely with colleagues on both sides of the Atlantic.
Topic:
War, History, Diaspora, and Interview
Political Geography:
Europe and South America

4. War, Plague and Inflation: Is this time different?: An Interview with Dr. Natacha Postel-Vinay

Author:
Natacha Postel-Vinay and Tehreem Husain
Publication Date:
05-2023
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Toynbee Prize Foundation
Abstract:
World economies are facing a troika of challenges in the form of war (in Ukraine), disease (COVID19) and return of inflation, all of which have led to dampened growth globally. This invites us to ask how new these challenges, individually and as a combination, are, and what lessons we can draw from history? To answer these questions, we take a long-run view from more than 100 years of history to discuss the implications of war, disease, and inflation on our economies. This interview features Dr. Natacha Postel-Vinay, an economic and financial historian and Assistant Professor at the Department of Economic History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Dr. Postel-Vinay is an expert on the economic history of the Great Depression. Her research focuses on public finance, private finance, and welfare. More specifically, her research looks at the connections between bank risk-taking, banking crises, banking crisis resolution, public debt, and moral hazard, all from a historical perspective. I seek her opinion on the current economic environment and discuss how history can inform the present. The talk is structured in two parts. The first part focuses on understanding the similarities and differences between the experiences of inflation, war, and pandemic today compared to the interwar period. This section covers rising indebtedness and the impact of war, pandemic, and inflation on bank lending and credit supply. The second part focuses on highlighting some solutions to the present crisis and highlighting the risks to recovery.
Topic:
War, History, Inflation, Interview, and Disease
Political Geography:
Global Focus

5. The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War: An Interview with Nicholas Mulder

Author:
Nicholas Mulder and Mahia Bashir
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Toynbee Prize Foundation
Abstract:
The 2008 global financial crisis and the dislocations it caused sparked a renewed interest in economic and international histories of capitalism, globalization, and internationalism and produced a new corpus of writings that we broadly know as new economic and new international histories. Nicholas Mulder’s new book The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War is the latest addition to this corpus. It details the history of sanctions, their wartime origins in the economic blockade of the First World War, and their evolution from a deterrent to an actively used tool of modern state warfare. In doing so, it raises and answers important theoretical questions about the limits and contradictions of the interwar liberal international order, state sovereignty, and the legitimacy of a totalising instrument that profoundly and rather devastatingly impacts civilian societies. Through the story of sanctions, the book also offers a fresh perspective on the tragic escalatory spiral of the 1930s—the rise of fascist states but also the Second World War. Straddling regions from Albania, Greece, and Switzerland to Manchuria and Latin America, The Economic Weapon has all the trappings of a gripping international economic history: it blends detail and analysis harmoniously. I had the delightful pleasure of speaking with the author, Nicholas Mulder on a balmy spring day about the book. We talked, inter alia, about Professor Mulder’s scholarly journey, the origins and evolution of sanctions, the ethical dilemmas they posed, and the role of historical memory in the history of sanctions. Professor Mulder was also very generous in giving us a glimpse into his exciting new project on confiscation.
Topic:
War, History, Sanctions, and Interview
Political Geography:
Global Focus

6. War Is a Choice, Not a Trap: The Right Lessons from Thucydides

Author:
Michael C. Desch
Publication Date:
07-2022
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Defense Priorities
Abstract:
A careful reading of the Greek Thucydides’ The History of the Peloponnesian War suggests that a U.S.-China war is hardly inevitable. Such a war is a choice, not a trap, and selecting the appropriate U.S. grand strategy is the way to avoid it. China faces important geographical and technological obstacles to expanding its hegemonic position in the region. Thucydides’ fundamental lessons for the contemporary United States in its rivalry with China is that democratic Athens erred when it sought primacy by expanding its empire during the Peloponnesian War; today we do not need to preserve a position of primacy in East Asia but can instead rest content with maintaining a balance of power. Despite China’s rise, the United States and its regional allies are in a strong position to maintain a regional balance of power that keeps a peace and serve U.S. interests in Asia.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Defense Policy, War, History, Alliance, and Geography
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

7. After Deterrence: Implications of the Russia-Ukraine War for East Asia

Author:
Yang Gyu Kim
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
East Asia Institute (EAI)
Abstract:
Notwithstanding explicit warnings of the U.S. and its European allies, Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th. In this Commentary, Yang Gyu Kim, Executive Director at the East Asia Institute (EAI), identifies the Russia-Ukraine war as a case of deterrence failure from the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)’s perspective. He points out weakened U.S. feasibility of military and political punishments against Russia’s Fait Accompli Strategy as the cause behind the escalation of the crisis. Additionally, the author underscores the importance of maintaining the feasibility of punishment in order to deter China and North Korea from launching provocations in East Asia by misperceiving the credibility of the U.S. alliance system’s deterrence posture in East Asia.
Topic:
NATO, War, European Union, and Deterrence
Political Geography:
Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, and North Korea

8. The Inadequacy of Nepal’s Democracy for Marginalized Peoples

Author:
Pradip Pariyar
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
East Asia Institute (EAI)
Abstract:
This May, the Nepalese government released its annual budget for the 2022-23 fiscal year and carried out the second iteration of local level elections since the institution of its new constitution in 2015. In the wake of these events, Pradip Payar, Executive Chairperson of the Samata Foundation, provides an overview of the current state of human rights for minorities and marginalized populations in Nepal, addressing caste-based discrimination against the Dalit population, ongoing challenges to transitional justice for victims of the People’s War, gender-based violence against women and girls, and issues affecting the LGBTQI+ community. Pariyar concludes that, though the new constitution provided hope for an improved future for Dalits and other marginalized communities, the reality of change has been woefully inadequate.
Topic:
War, Democracy, LGBT+, Marginalization, and Dalits
Political Geography:
South Asia and Nepal

9. The Russian invasion to Ukraine: An agribusiness perspective

Author:
Hugo Krajnc
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Argentine Council for International Relations (CARI)
Abstract:
It is quite relevant that the arguments used to justify the Russian invasion to Ukraine do not highlight economic components. Although it may be difficult to assert that such decision was also driven by economic issues, it is quite hard as well to deny that those were not involved, given the traditional Russian geopolitical perspective.
Topic:
War, Economy, Conflict, and Agribusiness
Political Geography:
Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe

10. War, Censorship and Public Opinion in Russia: Putin’s Struggle at Home and Abroad

Author:
Eka Javakhishvili
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Georgian Foundation for Strategic International Studies -GFSIS
Abstract:
Russia’s “special military operation,” as the Kremlin calls its full-scale war against Ukraine, has been underway for the second month in a row. However, the Russian army has not been able to cope with the combat tasks as effectively as Kremlin leaders originally planned. The incredible resilience and courage of the Ukrainian nation has fascinated the world but it has become an additional challenge for the Putin regime. In addition to the fact that the Russian government had to radically change its officially declared military objectives, it also faced the need to tighten measures to maintain control over the situation inside the country. At this stage, the Kremlin has to take effective steps both inside and outside of the country in order to fulfill Putin’s imperialist ambitions.
Topic:
Security, War, Public Opinion, Censorship, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe

11. Georgia and the Baltics: Relations Amidst the War in Ukraine

Author:
Nino Chanadiri
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Georgian Foundation for Strategic International Studies -GFSIS
Abstract:
Georgia and the Baltic states – Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – have a history of friendship that is strengthened through the common Soviet past and shared experiences of Russian influence and violence as well as by the common vision of the contemporary Russian threat towards Eastern Europe. All of this creates the shared desire in these countries to put themselves as far from the Russian sphere of influence as possible. The Baltic states along with Ukraine (and Belarus) are neighbors of Russia and the touch point between Europe and Russia1 while Georgia is located between Russia and Turkey and performs a significant role in linking them. The partnership between Georgia and the Baltic states in terms of decreasing Russian influence in Eastern Europe, as one of the joint aims, requires the cooperation to be on the highest of levels in order for it to be successful. The partnership not only stands on the common past of the four countries but also on their common security visions and shared values which can ultimately contribute to making the partnership stable and long lasting.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Regional Cooperation, and War
Political Geography:
Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, and Baltic States

12. Politics, War and Eastern Mediterranean Gas

Author:
Joshua Krasna
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies
Abstract:
In the past two months, there have been several significant, interlocking developments regarding Eastern Mediterranean gas. In January, the Biden Administration withdrew American support for the Israeli-Cypriot-Greek EastMed gas pipeline. In February, U.S. officials shuttled between Israel and Lebanon for another round of talks to resolve the question of the maritime border and the exclusive rights to exploit gas in their disputed waters. Most importantly, the Russian aggression against Ukraine, which began in late February, has transformed the long-discussed European need to reduce its dependence on Russian gas (and oil) into an urgent priority. It has also exposed the disconnect between optimistic policies that anticipated an imminent shift to renewable resources and the reality that the developed world will, in the short- to medium-term, remain dependent on fossil fuels. Confronted with this new reality, does Europe's need to rapidly diversify its sources of energy increase the strategic value of Eastern Mediterranean gas? And can the Eastern Mediterranean contribute meaningfully to reducing Europe's dependence on Russian gas?
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Energy Policy, Politics, War, and Gas
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, and United States of America

13. Russia’s War in Ukraine: Identity, History, and Conflict

Author:
Jeffrey Mankoff
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine constitutes the biggest threat to peace and security in Europe since the end of the Cold War. On February 21, 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin gave a bizarre and at times unhinged speech laying out a long list of grievances as justification for the “special military operation” announced the following day. While these grievances included the long-simmering dispute over the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the shape of the post–Cold War security architecture in Europe, the speech centered on a much more fundamental issue: the legitimacy of Ukrainian identity and statehood themselves. It reflected a worldview Putin had long expressed, emphasizing the deep-seated unity among the Eastern Slavs—Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians, who all trace their origins to the medieval Kyivan Rus commonwealth—and suggesting that the modern states of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus should share a political destiny both today and in the future. The corollary to that view is the claim that distinct Ukrainian and Belarusian identities are the product of foreign manipulation and that, today, the West is following in the footsteps of Russia’s imperial rivals in using Ukraine (and Belarus) as part of an “anti-Russia project.” Throughout Putin’s time in office, Moscow has pursued a policy toward Ukraine and Belarus predicated on the assumption that their respective national identities are artificial—and therefore fragile. Putin’s arguments about foreign enemies promoting Ukrainian (and, in a more diffuse way, Belarusian) identity as part of a geopolitical struggle against Russia echo the way many of his predecessors refused to accept the agency of ordinary people seeking autonomy from tsarist or Soviet domination. The historically minded Putin often invokes the ideas of thinkers emphasizing the organic unity of the Russian Empire and its people—especially its Slavic, Orthodox core—in a form of what the historian Timothy Snyder calls the “politics of eternity,” the belief in an unchanging historical essence. The salience that Putin and other Russian elites assign to the idea of Russian-Ukrainian-Belarusian unity helps explain the origins of the current conflict, notably why Moscow was willing to risk a large-scale war on its borders when neither Ukraine nor NATO posed any military threat. It also suggests that Moscow’s ambitions extend beyond preventing Ukrainian NATO membership and encompass a more thorough aspiration to dominate Ukraine politically, militarily, and economically. It also helps explain Russia’s military strategy. Moscow appeared to calculate that enough Ukrainians, at least in the eastern part of the country, would accept some form of reintegration into a Russian sphere of influence because of shared cultural, linguistic, religious, and other ties with Russia. Despite pre-war polls showing large numbers of Ukrainians willing to take up arms to defend their country against a Russian invasion, Moscow’s wager was not entirely implausible given the recentness of the shift and the persistence of family and other ties across the Russian-Ukrainian border. Nonetheless, Russia’s war has become bogged down in no small part because this calculation about Ukrainian identity has proven dramatically wrong.
Topic:
War, Military Strategy, Hegemony, Conflict, Rivalry, and Strategic Interests
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

14. Latin America and the New Non-Aligned Movement

Author:
Bryan Pitts
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)
Abstract:
While the Global North has responded as a unified front to the war in Ukraine, in Latin America, countries are choosing their own paths.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, War, Geopolitics, and Narrative
Political Geography:
Ukraine and Latin America

15. For Hemispheric Unity, a Change in U.S. Foreign Policy is Needed

Author:
Brett J. Kyle and Andrew G. Reiter
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)
Abstract:
In the face of a new war in Europe, shoring up support in Latin America will not be as easy as the Biden administration thinks.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Regional Cooperation, and War
Political Geography:
Ukraine, Latin America, and United States of America

16. HOW GERMANY’S COALITION CHANGE CONTRIBUTED TO PUTIN’S STRATEGIC MISCALCULATION IN UKRAINE

Author:
Debra Leiter and Rebecca Best
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Political Violence @ A Glance
Abstract:
Vladimir Putin almost certainly failed to anticipate that Germany would be willing to sacrifice the benefits of cheaper Russian gas to punish Russian aggression in Ukraine. But Tuesday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz indefinitely paused certification of the completed Nord Stream 2 pipeline to “reassess” the situation. While the move didn’t stop Putin from invading Ukraine—by that point Putin already had too much skin in the game to risk the loss of face from backing down—it has substantially raised the costs for Russia. Why did Germany do this, and why didn’t Putin see it coming?
Topic:
NATO, Oil, War, Gas, and Strategic Interests
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Ukraine, and Germany

17. WILL NATO FIGHT RUSSIA OVER UKRAINE? THE STABILITY-INSTABILITY PARADOX SAYS NO

Author:
Andrew Kydd
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Political Violence @ A Glance
Abstract:
Many observers of the current war between Russia and Ukraine have expressed concern that NATO support for Ukraine could escalate the conflict to a direct major conventional war between NATO and Russia, and that from there it could easily escalate to a nuclear war. A group of foreign policy experts have proposed that NATO impose a “no-fly zone” over Ukraine, while other analysts have decried the escalatory potential of such a move. In a recent poll of international relations scholars, 40 percent thought a no-fly zone would lead to large-scale conventional war between NATO and Russia and 13 percent thought it could lead to nuclear war.
Topic:
NATO, Nuclear Weapons, War, Escalation, and Instability
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Ukraine, and United States of America

18. WHY A SETTLEMENT IN UKRAINE REMAINS OUT OF REACH

Author:
Valerie Sticher
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Political Violence @ A Glance
Abstract:
The Russian invasion and unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Ukraine show the limits of diplomacy. Despite warning of an impending invasion, efforts to stop the war failed. And despite the high costs on all sides, efforts to stop this horrific war remain elusive. Why is this the case?
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, War, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe

19. HOW HISTORICAL ANALOGIES WOKE UP THE WEST

Author:
Eric Mosinger
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Political Violence @ A Glance
Abstract:
Policymakers, activists, and ordinary people often make analogies between past and present, for example, by labeling 9/11 “the Pearl Harbor of the 21st century.” In doing so, people hope to better understand surprising events and develop a plan of action for themselves and others. Vladimir Putin employed historical analogies to justify his invasion of Ukraine, while Western leaders drew on their own understanding of World War II history to mobilize a surprisingly muscular response to Russian aggression.
Topic:
War, History, and Vladimir Putin
Political Geography:
Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe

20. WHY OFFSHORE FINANCE LIMITS U.S. SANCTIONS AGAINST RUSSIA

Author:
Menevis Cilizoglu and Chelsea Estancona
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Political Violence @ A Glance
Abstract:
More than 1,000 individuals and entities have now been targeted with sanctions since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including more than 50 oligarchs close to Putin and their families. These measures include the freezing of assets in international banks, seizure of yachts, private jets, and luxury real estate, and travel bans. Western policymakers hope that targeting a wide network of Russian political and economic elites, including oil executives, steel tycoons, media moguls and high-level intelligence officers will isolate Putin and pressure him to reverse course. The million-dollar question is, can these targeted measures actually hurt Russian oligarchs, let alone pressure Putin?
Topic:
Foreign Policy, War, Sanctions, Offshore Finance, and Shell Companies
Political Geography:
Russia, Ukraine, and United States of America