By Pierre Tran Paris - France would do well to discard Germany as a military and industrial partner and strike out on its own, Vauban, an anonymous group of defense specialists, said Jan. 24 in La Tribune, a French business news website. “Three years after the signature of the Aix le…
By Peter Jennings The immediate significance of the recent AUKMIN gathering in Sydney (January 21, 2022) was that it took place while a Russian military assault on Ukraine is imminent. Given the threat from Moscow, no one would have been surprised had the UK foreign and defence secretaries delayed their…
By James Durso Afghanistan’s Taliban recently proposed it take a role in aid distribution via the creation of a joint mechanism with international aid organizations to coordinate the distribution of food aid to the country. According to the Taliban, "The goal of this committee is coordination on a higher level…
Some recent news stories highlight a variety of European actions and reactions in the current Russian-generated Ukraine crisis. Ukraine is composed of a variety of ethnic groups, and those ethnic groups are largely from its proximate neighbors. The graph below provides an overview. Source: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/major-ethnic-groups-of-the-ukraine.html The Hungarian government is one…
“Czech Republic is, historically, politically, and alliance-bound to take the side of Ukraine. If Ukraine needs this, we will try to help”, said the head of the Czech MoD, Jana Černochova, stressing the help would be provided based on requirements expressed by the Ukrainian government. The government in Prague noted…
On January 17, 2022, the UK Ministry of Defence published an article by Ben Wallace, the Minister of Defence, with regard to the Ukrainian situation. That article follows: Minister of Defence, Ben Wallace I have lost count of how many times recently I have to had to explain the meaning…
https://sldinfo.com/2022/01/the-nordics-the-uk-and-the-ukrainian-crisis/By Robbin Laird The current Ukraine situation is part of a chain of events. And as such, the Russian threat to Ukrainian sovereignty is simply not about Ukraine. It is about the stability of the current European order. Of course, those with historical knowledge understand that any European order is…
By Pierre Tran Paris - There was perhaps a faint echo of sweeping U.S. sanctions against Vietnam after 1975, as the people of Afghanistan face a winter of starvation due to international restrictions on humanitarian aid and on the Afghan banking system. News pictures of a chaotic evacuation of Afghan…
