Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
81 to 90 of about 1529
It would be foolish to assume the American withdrawal from Afghanistan will be repeated everywhere else that there is a U.S. presence.
Nothing remotely resembling the “inclusive government” that the Taliban have promised is likely to appear in Afghanistan, while drug trafficking and religious extremism will mushroom.
Not so long ago, Minsk scored foreign policy points by positioning itself as a force for regional stability; a counterbalance to an aggressive Russia. Today, Moscow’s unwillingness to get embroiled in conflicts with NATO at the whim of its ally could be the only factor exercising any restraint on Lukashenko.
In the last two years, President Zelensky has managed to strengthen his personal power considerably. His battle against the influence of Ukraine’s oligarchs, therefore, may not be as hopeless as it might first seem.
Polish society will not accept the Russian interpretation of World War II and vice versa, so the two nations should stop trying to force their revisions onto each other and jeopardizing their relations over every historical bone of contention.
For Kazakhstan, cordial relations with the United States are an important part of its strategy for counterbalancing Russian and Chinese influence.
Testing the possibilities of internationalizing the Chinese currency in Russia is a tempting prospect for both Beijing and Moscow, but agreements on paper simply aren’t enough to change reality.
The agreement between Germany and the United States, which at first glance appears to be to Russia’s advantage, is in fact beneficial to all parties—even Ukraine.
In theory, climate change and green energy are areas in which there is scope for joint international projects, new investment, and the transfer of green technology to Russia. Yet drastic differences in targets set and regulatory frameworks make such an optimistic scenario unlikely.
As the largest Arctic states, Canada and Russia have the most to lose if we allow differences to stymie cooperation.