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When NATO leaders descend on Vilnius for next week's annual summit, they will demonstrate that the organisation, newly united behind support for Ukraine, is far from 'brain dead', as French President Emmanuel Macron infamously described ...

Power politics is back with Russia and China challenging Western primacy in the arenas of international economy and politics, while threatening the Western-based liberal order. At the same time, Russia's war on Ukraine has proven that countries across the global South are not bound to the West anymore. It became clear that these states reject […]
The post The Case for a Post-Imperial EU Foreign Policy in a Post-Western World appeared first on The JCMS Blog.

Western Europe is an important destination for international migrants. With Germany, the region contains one of the countries with the highest number of international migrants in the world.

Professor G. John Ikenberry argues that the grand project of liberal internationalism is in crisis today. But he believes there is every reason for the world's democracies to work together to revive the liberal global order.

In his 100th year, Henry Kissinger showed his continuing personal vitality and global relevance by sharing his wisdom and experience in an excellent book on the crucial issue of political leadership. For a man with much already said, there are still important insights to be had in this new project.

An overview of the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa that has been described by the World Health Organization as the largest, most severe and most complex outbreak in the history of the disease.
The epidemic began at the end of 2013, in Guinea. From there it spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal. Many of the affected countries face enormous challenges in stopping its spread and providing care for all patients.
Thousands of people have died and many are at risk as the fatality rate from this virus is very high. As the crisis worsens, as well as the enormous health challenges involved, the social and economic consequences may set these countries back, reversing some gains a number of these countries have made in recent years.
This new page includes more information on the above issues.

Read full article: Ebola Outbreak In West Africa

The American government is taking advantage of its central position in many global networks to pursue its security interests through "weaponised interdependence," according to political economists Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman.

With much of the developed world facing ageing populations and slowing population growth, Africa is expected to play a central role in the global labour market.

America's foreign policy has always been a battleground between isolationist and internationalist forces, according to Charles Kupchan. The tussle continues to this very day, and could intensify if Donald Trump wins the next US Presidential election.

How big a threat is Vladimir Putin to world peace? This is an important question, and one the West needs to address immediately.

It's becoming increasingly difficult to deny the war in Ukraine could have been ended mere months into the Russian invasion — and that the U.S. and U.K. governments worked to prevent this from happening. The latest piece of corroboration comes courtesy David Arakhamia, the parliamentary leader of Zelensky's "Servant of the People" party who led the Ukrainian delegation in peace talks with Moscow. Arakhamia told journalist Natalia Moseichuk in a recent televised interview that "Russia's goal was to push us to take neutrality," meaning to commit to not joining NATO, and that "they were ready to end the war if we accept neutrality."There were several reasons the negotiations ultimately collapsed, he said, including the need to change the Ukrainian constitution (which had been amended in February 2019 to enshrine the country's NATO aspirations), and the fact that Johnson had come to Kyiv to inform Ukrainian officials the West wouldn't sign any agreement with Moscow, instead urging: "let's just fight."Arakhamia also said that Kyiv's lack of trust in the Russian side to fulfill its end of the bargain meant that the peace deal "could only be done if there were security guarantees" — suggesting, obliquely, that negotiations could have borne fruit had they received the backing and involvement of NATO states. Western governments' provision of security guarantees for Ukraine have long been part of the discussion for how to ensure the sustainability of a post-war peace deal, and in fact, Arakhmia himself disclosed in the same interview that "the Western allies advised us not to agree to ephemeral security guarantees."The interview corroborates claims first reported in May 2022 by the broadly Western-aligned Ukrainska Pravda outlet — which reported that Boris Johnson told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky the West wouldn't support any peace deal regardless of what Ukraine wanted, and they preferred to keep taking the fight to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was less powerful than they had thought. Johnson had himself confirmed, albeit not in so many words, in a phone call to French President Emmanuel Macron that he had urged Zelensky against peace.All of it lends further weight to multiple accounts over the course of the past 21 months that have claimed Ukraine and Russia were on the brink of peace, but were blocked by NATO states eager for a prolonged war that would weaken Russia and possibly destabilize it.Former U.S. national security official Fiona Hill reported the two sides had reached a tentative peace deal the same month of Johnson's surprise visit to Kyiv, while former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, and several Turkish officials — all of whom were involved at various times in the talks — have said that NATO officials stopped or undermined negotiations. Multiple U.S. reports documented a divide in NATO, with the United States and U.K. reportedly heading a faction of states who preferred a longer war than a sooner peace. Historian Niall Ferguson reported overhearing an unnamed U.S. official say in March 2022 that "the only end game now is the end of Putin regime [sic]."What's particularly notable is how dramatically these disclosures contrast with the overwhelming thrust of two years' worth of mainstream discourse on, and analysis of, this war. Until recently, both NATO officials and commentators across the political spectrum insisted that negotiations with Moscow were impossible and that the war could only be ended by pursuing victory on the battlefield, usually by pursuing Kyiv's maximalist aims of reconquering all of the territory it had lost since 2014. (According to reports, the tentative agreement reached last April would have seen Ukraine exchange neutrality for a Russian withdrawal to its pre-February 2022 borders). Voices who called for a diplomatic resolution were ignored or viciously smeared, as was anyone who said that Ukraine's possible entry into NATO was at the heart of the conflict, and that adopting neutrality could help end the war. There is now a mountain of evidence backing both of these claims. In fact, Arakhamia's interview further drove home the point about NATO membership. "They actually hoped until nearly the last moment that they could press us into signing this agreement, adopting neutrality," he said in the interview. "That was essentially the main point. Everything else was cosmetic and political embellishments about 'denazification,' the Russian-speaking population, blah blah blah." There are several key takeaways here. One is that Americans, and indeed all Western publics, should be far more skeptical in future of claims from officials and commentators that diplomatic solutions to conflicts and negotiations with adversarial governments are impossible or ineffective, and that military solutions are the only answer. Indeed, we've seen virtually the same arguments deployed against peace talks between Israel and Hamas — a conflict that recently saw a successful temporary ceasefire and hostage exchange — just as we saw them deployed in previous conflicts that likewise ended with successful negotiations. Another is the carnage that could have been prevented. It was only a few months after negotiations were scuttled that Zelensky admitted Ukraine was losing between 60 and 100 soldiers every day. By August this year, U.S. estimates of Ukrainian casualties, which are an official state secret, stood at nearly 200,000, including 70,000 killed. Amputations among Ukrainians have already reached a comparable scale to that suffered by Germans and Britons over World War One, in a fraction of the time. Besides this death toll, the prolonging of the war has meant profound economic, demographic, and even territorial losses for Ukraine. Finally, the effort to prevent peace talks from bearing fruit put not just more Ukrainians in danger, but the entire world. After assuring the U.S. public in February that they needn't fear nuclear war with Russia, by September, President Joe Biden was privately warning that the world was the closest it had been to "Armageddon" in sixty years. The nineteen months that followed the failure of Russian-Ukrainian peace talks saw several near-misses that could have turned the war into one between Russia and NATO, one that would likely escalate to a nuclear confrontation.The decision not to seriously pursue a viable diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine has been a disaster for that country and its inhabitants. The only mild consolation is that it could offer a vital lesson for the United States and other NATO states to apply to and prevent future conflicts — if we dare learn it, that is.Dear RS readers: It has been an extraordinary year and our editing team has been working overtime to make sure that we are covering the current conflicts with quality, fresh analysis that doesn't cleave to the mainstream orthodoxy or take official Washington and the commentariat at face value. Our staff reporters, experts, and outside writers offer top-notch, independent work, daily. Please consider making a tax-exempt, year-end contribution to Responsible Statecraft so that we can continue this quality coverage — which you will find nowhere else — into 2024. Happy Holidays!

At a time when the world is struggling to cope with high inflation, the rising cost of living, and the impacts of the Ukraine war and now the Israel–Hamas conflict, a 30–40% jump in the ...

Jens Jungblut Several people have argued in recent years that higher education has become a more important policy sector in most if not all countries around the world (see e.g. Busemeyer, Garritzmann, & Neimanns, 2020; Garritzmann, 2016; Gornitzka & Maassen, 2014). An increasing percentage of the global population pursues or attains a tertiary education degree, […]
The post Comparative Higher Education Politics. Policymaking in North America and Western Europe appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Jens Jungblut Several people have argued in recent years that higher education has become a more important policy sector in most if not all countries around the world (see e.g. Busemeyer, Garritzmann, & Neimanns, 2020; Garritzmann, 2016; Gornitzka & Maassen, 2014). An increasing percentage of the global population pursues or attains a tertiary education degree, […]
The post Comparative Higher Education Politics. Policymaking in North America and Western Europe appeared first on Europe of Knowledge.

A major survey of 11 European countries, the United States, Russia, and eight emerging regional powers has found that majorities or pluralities in most countries prefer to work with the United States over China on a broad range of issues. But China remains particularly attractive as a trade and economic partner, especially among publics in non-European middle powers.The poll, which was conducted in September and early October, found that geopolitical alliances have become "more fractured and complex" in that national publics generally reject previous "bipolar framings" of the world order."The poll shows that Europe and America are perceived, globally, as more attractive and having more admirable values than both China and Russia, but that this perception does not necessarily translate into political alignment," according to an analysis that accompanied the results."The findings suggest that we have entered an 'a la carte' world, where states mix and match their partners on different issues, rather than committing to a simple allegiance to one side or the other," according to the report, entitled "Living in an a la carte world: What European policymakers should learn from global public opinion."The survey, which was sponsored by the European Council on Foreign Relations in cooperation with Oxford University's Europe in a Changing World Project, polled at least 1,000 respondents in each of the countries that was covered. European countries surveyed included Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, and Great Britain.Besides Russia and the U.S., the "non-European" countries included China, India, Turkey, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, South Korean, and Brazil. Altogether, more than 25,000 respondents took part.The survey found a significant difference between the Western and non-Western countries regarding prospects for their respective futures. Majorities or pluralities in Western countries (and South Korea) were generally pessimistic about their countries' futures, while majorities of respondents in India (86%), Indonesia (74%), China (69%), and Russia (54%) and a plurality in Brazil (40%) expressed confidence in their own country's prospects.At the same time, however, significant majorities of respondents in five of the non-Western countries — South Korea (75%), Turkey (71%), Brazil (68%) South Africa (65%) and Saudi Arabia (62%) said they would prefer to live in the U.S. or an EU country rather than Russia or China if they were forced to choose.Majorities in the same countries plus India (80%), ranging from 50% in Saudi Arabia to 82% in South Korea, also said they would prefer their countries being part of an American bloc rather than aligned with China and its partners. A majority of Russian respondents, on the other hand, said they would choose China, while respondents in Indonesia were divided on the question.Similarly, on human rights, strong majorities of respondents in South Korea, India, Brazil, South Africa, and Turkey, as well as a plurality (38%) in Saudi Arabia, said they prefer that their country be closer to the U.S. and its allies than to China and its partners on this issue. And similar majorities or pluralities, including Indonesia (38%,) indicated a desire to be closer to the U.S. than China with respect to security cooperation.At the same time, however, Beijing's attraction as a trading partner was greater than Washington's in Russia (75%), Saudi Arabia (60%), Indonesia (53%), and Turkey (50%), while respondents in South Korea were roughly equally divided. Only respondents in India and Brazil said they leaned towards the U.S. on the question.Despite the generally pro-Western responses by non-European respondents, they appeared to share the views of Western respondents that the West was in a state of general decline. Thus, outside Europe, 41% of respondents said they believed the European Union may "fall apart" in the next 20 years — a view most strongly held in China (67%), Saudi Arabia (62%), and Russia (54%). Majorities or pluralities in the non-Western states also said they believed that democracy in the U.S. could be lost within the same time period.Views about the EU's decline appeared to be partly correlate with the view that Russia could eventually prevail in the war in Ukraine. Nearly three quarters of non-Europeans who said they believe the EU could fall apart also anticipate Moscow's victory in the war.The survey found a significant gap between U.S. and European respondents regarding Ukraine. On average, one third of European respondents and 42% of U.S. respondents said they believe Ukraine needs to regain all its territory even if it means a longer war and its attendant costs, percentages that were greater than those Western respondents who said the war should end as soon as possible, even at the cost of Kyiv giving up territory.But the dominant view in the non-Western countries is precisely that the war should end as soon as possible. Significantly, majorities in Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey and pluralities in South Africa and Indonesia believe the U.S. is "already at war" with Russia.Moreover, large majorities in China (82%), Russia (71%), and Saudi Arabia (57%), and pluralities in Indonesia (46%), South Africa (59%), Turkey (49%), and India (39%) see the U.S., EU, or Ukraine as the greatest obstacle to peace in the war.