The political geography of Kashmir has changed radically in recent months. The start­ing point was the Indian government's decision on 5 August 2019 to divide the state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) into two Union territories. In response, Islamabad published a map on 4 August 2020 showing all of...

Is it not ironic that the Coronavirus pandemic, which arguably began in a Wuhan animal market in late 2019, has accelerated China's rise? Indeed, early interim assessments show that Beijing's draconian, sometimes inhumane, disease control measures have proven highly successful. China's...

Russia and China are seen as the main beneficiaries of the Western withdrawal from Afghanistan regarding their political influence and potential exertion of power. In both the Chinese and Russian debate, however, alongside triumphant comments about Western failure, serious concerns about the...

A European Security Council (ESC) would – so the German government has suggested – make the European Union (EU) better prepared for making decisions about inter­national politics and thus better able to act. It believes that if the EU and its member states do not manage to take and...

On 19 January 2020 a high-level conference was held in Berlin to find solutions to the conflict in Libya between the unity government under Fayez al-Sarraj and the troops led by General Khalifa Haftar. A central agreement in the final declaration aims to stop the unimpeded influx of weapons that...

Although Joseph Biden has now been elected 46th president of the United States, transatlantic relations do not automatically revert to their pre-2017 status quo. Too much has changed in the international sphere, too central has great power competition become to the international order. Europe...

In March 2022, the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) want to adopt a 'Strategic Compass' (SC) that is intended to make the Union a provider of international security by 2030 and strengthen its strategic sovereignty. The first draft of this document has been available since...