On the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion, leading thinkers from Central and Eastern Europe examine the war’s impact.
The difficulty of quickly providing mechanized and armored equipment to Ukraine, training Ukraine to employ this equipment in combined arms operations, and ensuring Ukraine can maintain and sustain combat power should not be underestimated. As the examples of Turkey’s 2016 military operation in Syria and the U.S. operation in Fallujah in 2004 illustrate, dislodging Russia from its prepared defensive positions will be a daunting task for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Expert regional analysis by MEI scholars and contributors.
West Bank coordination is vital to Mahmoud Abbas’s and the Palestinian Authority’s survival. It’s also hugely unpopular among ordinary Palestinians.
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With the acute impacts of US-Chinese global tech decoupling becoming clearer, MENA is slowly emerging as an important region to watch. Economic and geopolitical ties with the West have long dictated the shape of the region’s digital environment, but more recent great power competition and Middle Eastern countries’ pursuit of economic and technological sovereignty have slowly deconstructed these dynamics.
Netanyahu is skillfully building a set of menacing tools, mechanisms, capabilities, and policies that create a credible threat to the current order. Today, he is executing this strategy to achieve success on three key issues: annihilating the Oslo Accords and the two-state solution, curbing Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and carrying out what is effectively regime change in Israel. The U.S. must swiftly and decisively confront and foil Netanyahu’s destructive leverage vectors or else it will find itself on the wrong side of history on some or all of these three critical fronts.
The lack of a nuclear deal with Iran, the risk of escalating tensions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the increasingly complex relationship with Turkey are just some of the thorny regional issues facing the European Union. A breakthrough on any of these three issues this year will be exceedingly difficult.
This week, the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) concluded what it called on social media, “the largest ever U.S.-Israel combined exercise.” The drills reasserted U.S. support for partnerships, deterrence, and integration, despite posture reductions and continued concern among partners about Washington’s commitment to the Middle East.
Azerbaijani-Iranian relations have been strained since Azerbaijan’s victory in the 2020 war with Armenia. However, the situation dramatically worsened in the last few months, with Iran holding two large-scale drills near the border with Azerbaijan and accusing Baku of colluding with its enemies and interfering in its internal affairs.
Facing the profound challenge of trying to diversify its energy supply while a destabilizing war rages on in Ukraine, Germany has looked to several Gulf monarchies to forge new energy partnerships. Notwithstanding heated domestic debates over controversial topics such as their human rights record, Berlin should consider a more comprehensive strategic approach toward the Gulf monarchies that encompasses issues beyond energy supply, such as joint efforts in regional integration and development.
A movement of Israelis who resist the new Netanyahu government is crystallizing and taking initial steps to push back against democratic erosion. It will need to evolve quickly and effectively to make an impact and could benefit from some international helping hands along the way.
The Dec. 30 vote at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) regarding Israel reflected once again that the international community does not generally accept the Israeli narrative regarding the Palestinian issue. It also highlights that the Palestinian issue, while not a top priority on the global agenda, is still one of concern around the world.
Listening to students and young professionals is instrumental in understanding the Ukrainian perspective. A series of interviews, conducted in summer 2022, centered around their identity as Ukrainians, how the war is impacting their lives, and how they viewed Russia and the West before and after Feb. 24, 2022. The participants in these interviews have only known an independent Ukraine, and their negative feelings toward Russia will not improve anytime soon.
