Category: Expert Opinion
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Alex Vatanka Middle East Institute, Washington D.C. Download PDF Europe did not choose the war with Iran, and most European governments still resist describing themselves as participants in it. But six months of military basing, missile-defense drawdowns, energy shocks, sanctions pressure and planning for possible migration crisis have made that distance harder to sustain. The…
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Victoria Vdovychenko Centre for Geopolitics, University of Cambridge Download PDF For a brief period in 2024 and early 2025, it seemed that the worst of the Black Sea’s wartime disruption was behind it. Ukraine’s unilateral shipping corridor, launched in August 2023 after Russia tore up the UN-brokered Grain Initiative, proved remarkably resilient. By January 2026,…
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Aleksandre Kvakhadze PhD candidate at the University of Birmingham, UK Download here Introduction Over the past several years, numerous media outlets have reported on Ramzan Kadyrov’s deteriorating health and the possibility of a future transfer of power in Chechnya. At the same time, Kadyrov’s sons have been increasingly promoted in the regional media, while experts…
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Alex Vatanka Middle East Institute, Washington D.C. Download PDF When the war between the United States and Iran flared again in mid-July, the battlefield was already much larger than Iran. On 18 July, American strikes hit areas stretching from Ahvaz and Yazd to Bandar Abbas, Qeshm and Chabahar. Tehran claimed in return to have hit…
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Tornike Zurabashvili Researcher, political and security affairs in Georgia and the Black Sea region. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Tbilisi State University. Download PDF Introduction Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has had serious political and economic reverberations both within the immediate neighborhood and across the wider region. One such…
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Nino Chanadiri Georgian researcher and analyst focusing on political, social and security developments in Eastern Europe and Baltic Sea Region. Download PDF Introduction Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has since affected the politics of many European countries, both externally and internally. The war in the heart of Europe has created opportunities for political…
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Medea Ivaniadze International Relations specialist, China Researcher, and Master’s Student at the University of Tartu. Download PDF In an ever-evolving digital environment, information operations have become one of the main features of contemporary geopolitical competition. One active arena is the Indo-Pacific region, where China aspires to further its regional and geopolitical objectives, while another major…
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Megi Benia Founder and Director of the Strategic Security Initiative (SSI) and Contributing Editor at New Eastern Europe. Download PDF Introduction Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine has accelerated NATO’s return to territorial defence, high readiness force generation, regional planning, military mobility, and higher defence expenditure, thereby confirming that major interstate conflict in Europe can no…
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Nino Imedashvili Associate Professor, Caucasus University. Download PDF Introduction On 25 June 2024, the European Union officially launched accession negotiations with Moldova, a decision that was decisively determined by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, in which Moldova assumed a critical strategic role. The country simultaneously functions as a logistical corridor, ensuring the transit of Ukrainian agricultural…
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Revaz Topuria Research Fellow, UG Security, Policy and Nationalism Research Center; Lecturer at University of Georgia Download PDF 1. Introduction In March 2026, China’s National People’s Congress approved the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030), a document that mentions artificial intelligence over 50 times. For comparison, the previous five-year plan referenced the term just six times (Flanders-China…