Europe

Hrair Balian On August 8, 2025, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia signed a joint declaration for peace at the White House, with President Donald Trump as witness. Their foreign ministers also initialed, pending “further actions” before signing, an Agreement on Establishment …

George Asatrian Cooperation among leading non-Western countries is increasing. Russia and India will increase the scale of economic cooperation, including in the energy sector. This news has become especially relevant and important in light of recent geopolitical events. It reflects important trends in world politics. Days before, the …

Dimitra Staikou Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s presence at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Tianjin at the end of August underscores a shifting global order in which India is emerging not as a junior partner to China and Russia, but as a pivotal swing power. While …

Paul R. Pillar Even if they don’t solve the fundamental issues of a conflict, ceasefires are still preferable to continuing carnage.  Ceasefires—the stopping of a war without full resolution of the underlying political issues—have not been in vogue lately. A recent feature article in The New York Times …

Emily Day Nuclear Energy Now tracks the latest nuclear energy developments across technology, diplomacy, industry trends, and geopolitics. Poland Announces Plan for SMRS  Poland is moving ahead with plans to deploy small modular reactors (SMRs), after state energy giant Orlen reached an agreement with Synthos Green Energy (SGE). The project will …

Graham Alison Ukraine faces a difficult choice: end the war and risk conceding territory or fight on and absorb more material, manpower, and territorial losses. Ukrainian president Zelensky brought a map of Ukraine to his meeting with President Trump last week. But he need not have bothered. When …

Resource competition has intensified between the two great powers, the US and China, due to trade and tariff wars. Recently, both the countries have made major policy shifts in the strategically significant rare earth sector. China discreetly issued 2025 rare earth mining and smelting quotas to its state-owned …

Noureen Akhtar It was no normal day in Kabul on the 20th of August 2025. The city, once ravaged by war and suspicion, welcomed an event that could redraw the region’s map, the sixth Pakistan-Afghanistan-China trilateral meeting. For decades, Afghanistan has been considered a theater of disorder, characterized …

Bushra Ikram The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the only remaining bilateral arms control agreement between the United States (US) and Russia, is set to expire on February 5, 2026. The New START, which accounted for 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, was signed in …