STRATEGIC ANALYSIS
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Europe Dithers As Iran Calls The Shots In Geneva
Another round of nuclear talks opens today in Geneva, with Iran once again dictating the terms of engagement. Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi leads Tehran’s delegation, while representatives from Britain, France and Germany will dutifully attend, in the hope that…
Brussels Aims for the Stars with IRIS² – But Can Europe Compete?
The European Union is not known for moving at lightning speed, yet in one of its most ambitious ventures to date, Brussels is trying to prove the doubters wrong with IRIS². IRIS², a €10.5 billion project to build a sovereign,…
Meeting In Alaska: A Big Deal Without Any Peace Deal
An Inuit proverb says: “Even the strongest eagle cannot fly higher than the stars.” But this truth does not apply to Trump. If one cannot soar higher, then the star must be brought down to earth. And that is what…
Orbán’s Moscow Tilt Risks Turning Hungary into Europe’s Trojan Horse
When European leaders gather to discuss the fate of Ukraine, they now do so with an ever-present unease: the spectre of Viktor Orbán. The Hungarian Prime Minister, once a champion of European integration, has in recent years cultivated a posture…
Lights Out Over the Strait: Taiwan, Blockade, and a Conflict That Could Reshape the Pacific
This week the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) released Lights Out? Wargaming a Chinese Blockade of Taiwan, a detailed simulation-driven enquiry by Mark F. Cancian, Matthew F. Cancian and Eric Heginbotham. Over the course of 26 separate wargames, Beijing…
Europe’s Military Training Crisis: Why the Continent Is Unprepared for War
When Russia crossed the Dnipro in 2022, the shock was felt far beyond the front lines. Europe’s military doctrine—thin, underfunded, and overly reliant on peacetime assumptions—was unmasked for what it is: a hollow structure ill-equipped for the rigours of modern…
Putin’s Illusion of Peace: The Baunov Analysis
Alexander Baunov, distinguished senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, offers a masterclass in reading between the lines of Moscow’s latest peace overtures in his New York Times op‑ed, published on 29 July 2025. In his trenchant analysis, Baunov dissects…
Europe at the Brink: Are the EU’s 27 Member States Ready for War?
It is the kind of question that used to be whispered in think tanks and war colleges—an abstract exercise for Europe’s policymakers and generals. Now it is being asked aloud in parliaments, defence ministries, and increasingly anxious households from Vilnius…
China May Call on Russia to Strike NATO in Event of Taiwan Invasion, Rutte Warns
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has warned that the People’s Republic of China may seek to provoke a Russian military attack on NATO member states in Europe to distract the alliance from a potential conflict over Taiwan. Speaking to The…
H-Hour: Russia’s War Against Europe
Last year, during a working-level exchange with officials from NATO Headquarters, I received a response to an assertion found in one of the Centre for “XXI Strategy”’s studies—something that might seem self-evident in the eleventh year of Russia’s aggression: “the…