On October 3, 1990, after forty years of division, Germany once again became one state. Less than a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, on November 9, 1989, the territories of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) became part of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) under Article 23 of its Basic Law.

Xi Jinping’s announcement of carbon neutrality is impeccably timed, but the hard part lies ahead.

A full-blown war erupted in the South Caucasus last Sunday, September 27, and as the two belligerents — Armenia and Azerbaijan — mobilize their forces under martial law, no international authority is trying in earnest to stop the hostilities. The conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region ignited 30 years ago as the Soviet Union was collapsing and has never effectively “frozen.” The cease-fire Russia negotiated in May 1994 was not backed by a peacekeeping operation, and clashes have kept occurring, most notably in April 2016.

Located in the heart of a mostly Republican Midwest, Minnesota stood out in the 2016 presidential election, with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton winning 46.5 % of the vote, in keeping with the State’s Democratic tradition. In the 2020 presidential campaign Minnesota has been a battleground state, as President Trump and Joe Biden are both intent on winning its 10 votes in the Electoral College. 

Germany joined the creation of Economic and Monetary Union only with great hesitation and has tried to dictate the spirit and rules of operation of the Union.

When politics catches up to the economy. In the wake of the EU-China summit, what can we expect from the bilateral relations? 2020 was supposed to be the year of EU-China relations. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has quickly disrupted the positive expectations.

Japan has been steadfastly promoting the development of its hydrogen economy at all levels: political, diplomatic, economic and industrial. It is yet to be seen if this excitement can be turned into a credible, cost-effective and large scale deployment.

Since 2014, Russia has notably intensified its policies in Africa, joining the race for local markets and opportunities presented by the rapidly growing and transforming continent.

The European Union (EU) is committed to reach climate neutrality by 2050. Similarly, Norway aims to create a zero-emission society by that same year. 

Beyond national healthcare systems, COVID-19 questions major global balances, as well as the modes of cooperation underpinning them.

The COVID-19 pandemic catalyzed international tensions, in particular between China and the United States.

The recovery plan agreed upon by European Union leaders in July 2020 is unprecedented: for the first time, it creates a common debt that will help revive the economies impacted by the pandemic.

RAMSES 2021. At the Edge?, written by Ifri's research team and external experts, offers an in-depth and up-to-date analysis of geopolitics in today’s world.

More than ten years after joining the European Union (EU), the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) exhibit a puzzle of attitudes and conceptions regarding the EU.

Looking back on the last few weeks, a famous quote by Goethe (from his report on the siege of Mainz in 1793) came to mind: “Better to commit an injustice than to countenance disorder.” In other words, disorder engenders more injustice than it eradicates. But, if one word characterizes the world at the end of summer 2020, it is disorder.

France and Bavaria have a longstanding close and solid partnership. However, the relationship between France and Bavaria is not only marked by a common history and by the structures created over the decades.

The vast gas discoveries in Mozambique, some 160 trillion cubic feet (4,530 billion cubic meters), will make this very poor country (6th lowest gross national income (GNI) per capita – the lowest in Africa) one of the world’s future major producers of liquefied natural gas (LNG) within two decades.

After more than ten years of hectic debates on international ‘land grabs’, academic interest in collapsed land deals or projects with unexpected results is growing.

The coronavirus pandemic has thrown a harsh spotlight on the state of global governance. Faced with the greatest emergency since the Second World War, nations have regressed into narrow self-interest. The concept of a rules-based international order has been stripped of meaning, while liberalism faces its greatest crisis in decades.

This report is part of a joint endeavor of the Centre for Applied Turkey Studies (CATS) at Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), along with Elcano Royal Institute (ELCANO, Madrid), The Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM, Warsaw), Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI, Rome) and the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP, Athens), to open perspectives for the modernization of the European Union-Turkey Customs Union (EU-Turkey CU). 

Japan’s space program has evolved greatly since the end of the Cold War, driven by a rapidly changing geopolitical environment and tailored by the emergence of an “intra-alliance hedging strategy”.

Ever since nuclear weapons were developed by the United States and the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, Europe has lived under the nuclear shadow. A major direct confrontation between “the West” and “the East” could have very likely resulted in the detonation of nuclear weapons on the continent. As the Cold War ended, massive reductions in the US and Soviet arsenals (from 70,300 in 1986 to 13,890 in 2019) and a new security architecture radically transformed the European security environment.

This article analyses Russia’s relations with Latin America in the first two decades of the 21^st century in the light of global political and economic processes.

As Europeans get ready for their summer holidays, the Covid-19 pandemic seems to be winding down, despite hotspots cropping up here and there. However, we are not safe from the next wave. After so many careless speeches, nobody dares to make any more precise forecasts. In any case, any confirmed lull fosters broader reflections both on the disaster’s consequences and the dysfunctions that allowed it to happen.

The French Military Planning Act for the years 2019-2025, is “dedicated” to men and women in the services, showing how crucial the human factor is for the armed forces.

The German Presidency of the Council of the European Union begins on July 1, 2020 at a time of acute crisis. It is facing unprecedented challenges and organizational constraints in a context marked by high expectations from its European partners.

India's new citizenship law is an outcome of Hindutva Constitutionalism that legitimizes the notion of Hindu victimhood. While the opposition to the law has been vocal, it has remained fragmented.

As a frontline zone and a pivot, Southeast Asia is both a testing ground and a showcase of China’s ambitions in developing a grand cooperative scheme. Creating mutually positive linkages is crucial for both partners, if not for the same reasons.

The COVID-19 crisis has hit the countries of the European Union (EU) hard.

COVID-19 acts as a catalyst in international relations.

The term “arms race” does not accurately reflect the events of the Cold War, let alone the multipolar logics that have followed it.

The results of the US presidential election in November 2020 are very uncertain.

In 2016, Donald Trump ran as the candidate for change, and, once elected, he set about deconstructing the legacy of his predecessors.

As I write these lines, the COVID-19 pandemic seems to be following the pathway forecast by those epidemiologists and virologists, who have been telling us for weeks that the wave is past its peak. If it is, this does not mean that we are safe from a second wave some time later, but only that the first surge is over.

The development of Franco-German cooperation can be described as an intergovernmental process. Depending on the perspective, the capacity for innovation of the relationship lies either with central decision-makers at the state level or with decentralized actors at the local level.

Russian strategic culture is evolving fast, despite the consolidation of the ruling regime, which is maturing into a more rigid autocracy, whereby its ideological outlook becomes increasingly conservative.

The coronavirus crisis has affected the countries of the Weimar Triangle to varying degrees. Bilateral relations between Germany and Poland as well as Germany and France have been strongly influenced by border closures, which have led to tensions between the countries. 

The electrification of sub-Saharan Africa is one of the great challenges of the 21st century. It is essential if we are to succeed in creating the 20 million jobs each year necessary to absorb the demographic growth of the region,[1] which is set to have 2.1 billion inhabitants in 2050, compared to 1.1 billion today.[2]

Throughout history, great powers have relied upon forward military bases, either to support their interventions in areas of interest, to re-assure allies or to control a territory.

Will China rise stronger from the pandemic? A flow of media reports and op-eds have recently flourished, forecasting the decline of the West and the triumph of China on the world stage amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Some have declared the dawn of a “post-Western world”.