The instruments of cooperative security created during and since the Cold War to foster mutual confidence and reduce the risks of war, inadvertent escalation, and arms races, in and around Europe, have come under increasing strain.

For some time, Western sources have been accusing Moscow of backing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) called for tailoring assurance across America’s allies, including NATO, as part of an overall deterrence and assurance strategy. 

On 22 June 2018, “OPEC+” oil Ministers (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries members and an ad hoc alliance with several non-OPEC producers, notably with Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan) will gather in Vienna to discuss the status and future of their production limitation agreement which was initiated in November 2016 and runs until the end of December 2018.

This report seeks to explain the main trends in Russia’s evolving Afghanistan policy, with the focus on its regionalization, diversification, and new emphasis on diplomacy that culminated in Moscow regional peace consultations. It argues that none of Russia’s Afghanistan-related concerns can be alleviated as long as the armed conflict there continues in full force. This makes Moscow genuinely interested in stabilization.

How can we define Emmanuel Macron’s foreign policy since he took office? After Nicolas Sarkozy’s brazen style of “gutsy diplomacy” and François Hollande’s “normal diplomacy”, the eighth president of the Fifth Republic seems to have opted for an agile classicism. In substance, he makes no claim to any radical break with the past, but sees his approach as being in line with historical tradition.