Новости за 07.02.2019

Nicola Contessi, Yale Global
China's Belt and Road projects offer diversification opportunities for smaller countries that could alter longstanding relations. Such Belt and Road influence is evident in a trade and transit protocol finalized by China and Nepal in September 2018. Nepal, remote and landlocked, a country of 29 million sandwiched between China and India, has deep ties with India. Nepal has historically relied on India for about 98 percent of its transit trade, primarily through the ports of Kolkata and Visakhapatnam... Читать дальше...

Pavlos Papadopoulos, Kathimerini
The ratification of the Prespes agreement signals a new chapter for both Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), and also raises a series of questions regarding the future of the two countries. Here, we address some of these questions and attempt to provide some answers.

Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg View
North Macedonia signed up this week to become the 30th member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. This latest addition to the defense pact, more than any previous one, raises the question of what membership of the alliance really means.

Erlanger & Gladstone, NYT
Our boring neighbor is a moral leader of the free world.

Postol,  Bulletin
The Western press has often treated the Russian claim that US missile defense installations have an offensive capability as rhetorical obfuscation. But publicly available information makes it clear that the US Aegis-based systems in Eastern Europe, if equipped with cruise missiles, would indeed violate the INF.

Gressel, ECFR
Germany is not facing up to the INF challenge. If it does not take a lead, Russian nuclear superiority over Europe will soon be a done deal

Rohana Prince, CSIS
President Donald Trump's first two years in office have left U.S. allies like Australia in a tough spotalways worrying that a tweet will undermine promises made, funds committed, and actions undertaken despite reassurances from the administration. This, combined with an uncertain strategic environment in the Indo-Pacific region, has made Australia feel insecure.

National Interest

Ali Mamouri, Al Monitor
US President Donald Trump's recent statement about the role of US troops in Iraq to keep an eye on Iran has caused a strong backlash among Iraqi politicians who see this statement as an interference in Iraqi matters.

Remi Adekoya, Foreign Policy
Twenty years after its return to democratic rule, Nigeria is on the verge of re-electing a dictator.

Robert Malley & Robert Fadel, The Atlantic
If the president's intervention opened the door for a transition, his hardline stance now risks slamming it shut.

Alexander Fattal, The Conversation
But an ever-changing array of criminal gangs still operate in Colombia, profiting off drug production, illegal mining and extortion. The landscape of their territorial control has simply changed, with the ELN, Autodefensa Gaitanista de Colombia and other armed groups spreading into areas once run by the FARC.

Aluf Benn, Foreign Affairs
There's a lot at stake for the Israeli prime minister in the early election.

Terry Glavin, National Post
Events have forced Trudeau and Freeland to go off script and to finally abandon the silly 'win-win' rhetoric about trade relations with Beijing.

Amy Mackinnon, Foreign Policy
Support is waning for the Venezuelan president, but he still has Russia and China on his side.

Charles Call, Brookings Institution
On Sunday, 37 year-old anti-establishment candidate Nayib Bukele won the presidency of El Salvador. What does it mean?

J. Grunstein, WPR
The standoff pitting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro against National Assembly leader Juan Guaido, who declared himself interim president two weeks ago, continues to paralyze the country. It has also highlighted a political divide outside Venezuelain particular in the U.S. between advocates and critics of the Trump administration's pursuit of regime change in Caracas. That debate has broader implications for the formulation of a progressive foreign policy framework in the... Читать дальше...

Steve Tsang, Project Syndicate
The goal of the Chinese president's guiding doctrine is not to launch a new cold war with the West, or to export China's political model. Rather, Xi wants to shore up the authority of the party-state within his country, including by ensuring that Chinese are not exposed to liberal-democratic ideas.

Hal Brands, Bloomberg View
By detaining a Canadian diplomat after the Huawei arrest, Beijing is losing its best relationships with the West.

Ross Clark, Spectator
When Nissan announced it would not, after all, produce its new X-Trail in Sunderland, this was reported as proof of an impending Brexit disaster. A Labour councillor in South Wales even suggested that