Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the peninsula’s demographics have changed. Thousands have left and new arrivals – Ukrainians fleeing conflict in the east of their country and Russians – have moved in.

The reasons for the result of the UK’s June 2016 referendum reveal nothing we didn’t already know. They have to do with the development of British society and political debates particular to the UK.

During François Hollande’s five-year term French defense exports have reached quite spectacular results. Arms sales abroad have increased at least fourfold since 2012, when the former presidential team came to power.

There is still a big gap between the discourse and the reality of what Japan wants - and what it can achieve in Africa.

Ukraine’s conflict with Russia has highlighted the catastrophic state of Ukraine’s defense apparatus.

This paper documents new features of Japan's diplomacy that tends to gradually integrate Africa into Japan's strategic interests.

Macron's presidency offers a rare chance to revive the French-German relationship just when Europe needs it most.

This Edito highlights how oil, since its discovery in 1859, has played a major role in the US international policy and economy throughout decades, becoming a key tool of the american leadership. 

2016 proved to be a most challenging year for Mozambique. Small-scale conflict, which started reappearing between the government and the opposition party, the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), in 2013, intensified over the course of the year, whilst peace negotiations stalled. 

This paper provides an overview of the womenomics strategy launched by Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and shows how a plan designed to mitigate Japan’s demographic crises and labor shortages also evolved into a foreign relations strategy to help manage Japan’s reputation abroad on gender equality.

It remains difficult to predict who will be the eventual winner of France’s upcoming presidential elections, with the first round to take place April 23 and a runoff between the top two candidates set for May 7.

This book was authored by the Insight_e European consortium, in which the Ifri Center for Energy was involved between 2014 and 2017. It is based on the key research projects carried out over the last three years on the Energy Union, greenhouse gas emissions reduction policies, security of gas and electricity supplies and the societal dimensions of the energy transition.

For many observers, a change in perception of the African continent occurred in the 2010s. Attention has focused on the relatively high rates of economic growth and a high population growth associated with urban expansion; both indicators interpreted as promises of economic “emergence” leading to potential new markets.

The concept of survivability is central to the design of combat vehicles and to the elaboration of doctrines for the employment of military forces. 

France’s current presidential campaign has created an unprecedented situation fuelled by revelations and a total absence of restraint, but it has not truly taken account of the disruptions of the last year: Brexit, the attempted coup in Turkey, the election of Donald Trump, the recapturing of Aleppo by Bashar al-Assad, Xi Jinping’s declarations about “economic globalization”, or the behavior of North Korea. The debate, or rather its absence, can be looked at in two ways.

As the US-led international system struggles under the strain of multiple challenges, the complex web of relations between Russia, China, and India will be critical to the formation of a new world order.

The AfD - Alternative for Germany – founded in opposition to Angela Merkel’s policy line of supporting southern European countries, has quickly become part of the political family of "right-wing populism" in Europe, with whom it cultivates close ties.

A more capable, nuclear-armed, North Korea will pose very substantial challenges to the U.S. deterrence posture. 

A saying claims that trade has no religion; it even adapts to a war situation, as demonstrated by the real-time reorganisation of trade channels at the Turkish-Syrian border. 

Since the fall of the Derg regime in 1991, cordial relations have developed between China and Ethiopia, forming a positive political backdrop in front of which the two countries’ interests have increasingly converged.

Has Madagascar really emerged from the crisis which started in 2009? In purely formal terms, it is customary to consider that the December 2013 presidential election ended a political sequence of relative institutional paralysis since the coup in March 2009 and the transitional regime then put in place. 

Storage technologies have the potential to significantly support the EU’s electricity system, bringing a number of flexibility services. There are numerous electric energy storage (EES) technologies, tackling different magnitudes in terms of quantity of energy, ramp-up time, duration of discharge, costs, and lifetime. 

Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election is an expression of the crisis of American democracy.

In the second half of the 20th century, Kissinger evokes the fundamental choices underpinning American diplomacy.

Japan’s cyberdefenses remain underdeveloped compared to the country’s great reliance on information and communications technology. Despite Japan’s initial slow response to the security challenges emerging from cyberspace, this paper posits that cybersecurity under the administration of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has moved to the core of the country’s national security policy. The 2020 Olympics Games are a major catalyst for this.

Today’s democratic governments appear less legitimate and their longevity less assured than ever.

The new American administration’s protectionist tendencies need to be taken seriously.

Surprising coal markets: while the world coal demand is diminishing, the steam coal price doubled in 2016. After five years of uninterrupted price decline and a sluggish world demand, this strong price hike might appear as paradoxical. This paper explains the principal reasons for this situation.

This paper analyses the phenomenon of “Kadyrovism” as a relatively coherent ideology which possesses its own internal logic and propaganda tools and which reflects the reality of Ramzan Kadyrov’s rule, based on submission to Vladimir Putin while also being marked by provocative acts directed at the paternal figure of the Russian President.

More than three years have already passed since China’s new silk roads were launched by President Xi Jinping. When he first mentioned the idea in an autumn 2013 speech in Kazakhstan, questions quickly emerged on the meaning of this general concept, which soon became widely promoted through a large-scale and well-coordinated public diplomacy strategy both in and outside China.

Germany introduced a minimum wage on January 1^st, 2015 – a first in a country that had hitherto left it to the social partners to agree on salaries. This introduction came after vivid debates between those who fought against ever deeper inequalities and those who defended the nation’s competitiveness. 

The United Kingdom chose to leave the European Union at a crucial moment for the Energy Union, and in a period when the necessity of leading a coherent energy transition is strongly shared by EU countries. In the light of this conjunction of events, this study analyses the determining factors of the UK energy policy. 

Russia has recently accused the United States and NATO Allies of violating the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) by arguing that NATO's nuclear sharing arrangements are not permitted under the Treaty.

Despite being geographically distant, France and Japan share a number of converging interests.

Twenty-five years after the fall of the Soviet Union and the declaration of independence by the republics of Central Asia, the issue of guaranteeing stability and security still looms large on Central Asia’s agenda.

This essay examines the need for growing coordination between the Japan Coast Guard (JCG) and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) to better cope with gray-zone situations.

This study analyses the likelihood of cyber attacks against European energy infrastructures and their potential consequences, particularly on the electricity grid. It also delivers a comparative analysis of measures taken by different European countries to protect their industries and collaborate within the European Union. 

This paper assesses the current state of the jihadist threat to France, as well as the French authorities’ security response. With the upcoming presidential election, 2017 will be a decisive year for the country. Terrorism will be at the heart of the campaign and ISIS will most likely try to strike again.

Europe’s southern neighbourhood is a diverse but interlinked geopolitical ensemble, whose specificities need to be carefully assessed before Europeans devise dedicated security strategies, divide responsibilities and make policy decisions.