The German public may not trust Vladimir Putin personally, but they are readily buying the Russian argument that Moscow feels encircled and endangered by the West.
It has been a year since the United States, European Union, and other allies first sanctioned Russia for its illegal annexation of Crimea and aggression toward Ukraine.
If it chooses enlargement, NATO could reassert itself in security discussions in the post-Soviet sphere by engaging its eastern neighbors through concrete measures aimed at closer integration.
The difficult process of choosing the new president of the European Commission, undertaken at today’s meeting of the European Council, reveals a split emerging throughout Europe.
Over 400 years after Europeans received exclusive trading rights in Japan, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe returned the favor last week with a nine-day, six-nation tour of Europe.
During his 11-day European tour, Xi dramatically elevated China’s all-dimensional strategic partnership with Germany, reiterated Beijing’s special ties with Paris, and strengthened the strategic partnership with the EU.
The recent bombings in Volgograd, Dagestan, and Pyatigorsk - the last less than 350 miles east of Sochi - have come as a shock, but not as a surprise, to the Russian public.
There was a time, not that long ago, when the question of whether “Asian values” — whatever they meant — were compatible with democracy was being hotly debated.
