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 May 14, 2012
On the eve of each election traditional passions are inflamed over the "global confrontation" between Russiaand the U.S. But if to look at both states with unbiased external view, it becomes evident that great French philosopher Raymon Aron was right when half a century ago in his "Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations" called Russia and the U.S. "the enemy partners".
 April 17, 2012
Democracy, free market economy, membership of the European Union - all keys to economic success! Or perhaps not - economic performance as measured by GDP per capita in Latvia is barely ahead of that of our Eastern neighbor, Belarus. The financial crisis has severely dented GDP in Latvia but never really hit Belarus which instead had a crisis of its own, a major devaluation in 2011, which has, at least in the short run, helped GDP performance.
 April 3, 2012
The Western media's coverage of the recent Russian elections and the protests against President Vladimir Putin was seriously distorted, demonstrating that Westerners are once again looking for a liberalization movement that doesn't reflect the broader reality.
April 2, 2012
The Report on Latvian-Lithuanian Co-operation Perspectives was presented in January of this year by the ambassadors Neris Germanas (Lithuania) and Alberts Sarkanis (Latvia). In fact Lithuania's foreign policy is directed toward the U.S., Russia, Belarus and Poland, whereas a close neighbor Latvia is somehow left aside.
March 26, 2012
The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), established in 1991 after the collapse of the USSR, celebrated its 20th anniversary (8 December 2011). The initial aim of the organization was to mitigate the consequences of the collapse of USSR, and promote cooperation among former USSR republics. Unfortunately the CIS didn't manage to become an effective commonwealth of the brotherly states.
March 19, 2012
In a press conference last week, Bank of Latvia governor Ilmārs Rimšēvičs, argued that the Latvian government might consider lowering the VAT rate to lower inflation in order to fulfil the Maastricht inflation rate criterion. While other countries may have used similar innovative ways to get past the inflation criterion I personally do not see that it is a reasonable justification for Latvia to do something similar.
 March 5, 2012
Now that Vladimir Putin has been re-elected president, Russia is going to look remarkably similar to before he was elected. Why? Because Putin, in a sense, never left. Putin was running the government and the economy on a day to day basis. While he had ceded the presidency, and therefore foreign policy, to Dmitri Medvedev, it was really a charade - Putin was behind most of the most important decisions anyway.
 February 27, 2012
Most Chinese think real U.S. decline won't happen during their lifetimes. And Georgia might actually be less endangered by Russia if America declines.
13 February, 2012
In Turkey, where the military was one of the main factors of national stability since the times of Kemal Ataturk, the arrest of a former commander of Armed Forces Ilker Bashbut has been extended. In the Ergenekon case where more than one hundred suspects have been taken into custody, he was accused on allegations of plotting a coup against the R.T.Erdogan government.
 February 5, 2012
Syria is often called Russia's last remaining ally in the Middle East, and Moscow's continuing refusal to support the United States, the European Union, and the Arab League in condemning the Assad regime certainly appears to support that claim. The reasons cited for Russia's allegiance to Damascus are many: Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are said to have a sort of autocratic solidarity, with Putin afraid that the Arab Spring encourages challenges to his own rule; at the same time, Russia is thought to have major economic interests in Syria, including arms contracts, a Russian-leased naval base, and plans for nuclear energy cooperation.
 February 4, 2012
AS a journalist, the best part of covering the recent wave of protests and uprisings against autocrats is seeing stuff you never imagined you'd see - like, in Moscow last week, when some opponents of Vladimir Putin's decision to become president again, for possibly 12 more years, hung a huge yellow banner on a rooftop facing the Kremlin with Putin's face covered by a big X, next to the words "Putin Go Away" in Russian.
January 31, 2012
Most observers seem to agree that 2012 will be a quiet year in terms of Latvian GDP development and I tend to agree. Alas, a slightly different take on recent development and future prospects.
January 23, 2012
In Russian and U.S. political circles, tongues are wagging over the harsh comments of Mikhail Leontyev expressed on Russia's Channel One, in which the government owns a controlling stake, regarding the meeting of U.S. deputy secretary of state William Burns and newly appointed ambassador Michael McFaul with members of the radical opposition.
January 9, 2012
Where is Europe? You might as well ask: What is Europe? For it is a concept as well as a continent, and the borders of both oscillate wildly. For the ancient Persians, it was that small stepping stone separating them from Greece. In the Middle Ages, it became virtually synonymous with Christendom. A relatively recent and generally unaccepted theory sees Europe spanning half the globe, from Iceland to the Bering Strait, nearly touching Alaska.
 January 7, 2012
On June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. What he unleashed that day became one of the most deadly human endeavors in history. These three books explore Hitler's reasons for invading, the Russian resolve in resisting, and the sheer magnitude of the Eastern Front in World War II.
/ December 28, 2011
Eastern Europeans aren't known for being innovative, but in some ways the stereotype is unfair.
December 28, 2011
The mass protests of December 10 and 24 in Moscow, in which an estimated fifty to sixty thousand people (or twenty-nine to thirty thousand people, according to official government reports) demanded fair elections and protested the alleged mass falsifications of the recent Duma-election results, caused widespread euphoria in opposition circles both in Russia and in the West. Many began to talk of a Russian "Arab Spring," the delegitimization of Russian authority and the end of the Putin regime. I shall seek to describe the condition that the authorities and the opposition now find themselves in and their readiness to face each other.
 December 22, 2011
Another year is coming to an end. But before we turn out the lights and move on to the next, let's take one last look at how we got to where we are now. Here is a final glimpse at the big stories and events that made the headlines in 2011.
 December 19, 2011
Vice President of Strategic Analysis Rodger Baker examines the prospects for political stability in North Korea following the death of Kim Jong Il.
December 12, 2011
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may have meant well in stating that Russia's December 4 State Duma elections were "neither free nor fair" and that the Russian people "deserve the right to have their voices heard and their votes counted." Unfortunately, meaning well and doing good aren't always the same. U.S. leaders should be careful in reacting to the elections and to the resulting protests, in which tens of thousands took part on December 10.
 December 8, 2011
Some central banks in Europe have started weighing contingency plans to prepare for the possibility that countries leave the euro zone or the currency union breaks apart entirely, according to people familiar with the matter. The first signs are surfacing that central banks are thinking about how to resuscitate currencies based on bank notes that haven't been printed since the first euros went into circulation in January 2002.
"The Financial Times" / December 4, 2011
As the European sovereign debt crisis grinds inexorably onwards, leaving country ratings and perma-tanned heads of state mangled in its wake, spare a thought for the fledgling fund industries of central and eastern Europe (CEE). With the exception of Russia, these countries are all in thrall to their western neighbours. Those neighbours told them to bring their debt to GDP ratios down and they did, by and large. Now the chill wind blowing in from "developed" Europe threatens their rising prosperity and with it their fund industries.
November 19, 2011
Niall Ferguson peers into Europe's future and sees Greek gardeners, German sunbathers-and a new fiscal union. Welcome to the other United States. Welcome to Europe, 2021. Ten years have elapsed since the great crisis of 2010-11, which claimed the scalps of no fewer than 10 governments, including Spain and France. Some things have stayed the same, but a lot has changed. The euro is still circulating, though banknotes are now seldom seen. (Indeed, the ease of electronic payments now makes some people wonder why creating a single European currency ever seemed worth the effort.) But Brussels has been abandoned as Europe's political headquarters. Vienna has been a great success.
November 14, 2011
The crisis usually means loss or decrease of stability and vitality of something, which leads to negative evaluation of a crisis-driven effect. But does political, economic or social crisis necessarily mean a loss? Couldn't it bring something new and more valuable? The European Union context full of striking crisis examples could be a good example. The same is with the Euro zone crisis and doubts related to the EU future. The crises urges to search for a positive counteraction to this shocking situation.
Morten Hansen / November 7, 2011
For readers of this column it is well-known that I support the Latvian austerity programme - not because I get some perverse satisfaction from seeing the budget axe in use but because Latvian public spending had been allowed to enter a completely unsustainable path in the ‘fat years'. I have mentioned it e.g. here.
October 31, 2011
Kyrgyzstan's prime minister claimed victory in presidential election results announced Monday, paving the way for the first peaceful transfer of power in this strategically important Central Asian republic since it gained independence in 1991. The question now is whether president-elect Almazbek Atambayev can steer his country clear of the internal rivalries that helped spark deadly ethnic rioting last year. Mr. Atambayev has promised to spur Kyrgyzstan's moribund economy by pursuing closer ties to Russia, a major trade partner.
October 26, 2011
Analyst Eugene Chausovsky, currently visiting Riga, Latvia, explores the different approaches taken by Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania toward relations with Russia and the European Union.
 October 23, 2011
The recent Warsaw summit of the EU's Eastern Partnership, labeled a "diplomatic fiasco" by the Brussels-based EurAktiv news service, should prompt Kiev to reconsider its policies on "Europe." The 32 representatives of the EU and its member states condemned the lack of democracy, human rights and the rule of law in Belarus. They clearly expected their eastern partners-Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Moldova-to demonstrate solidarity with "Europe" against the regime in Minsk. Instead, they demonstrated solidarity with each other: all five of the ex-Soviet republics refused to sign the final communiqué.
 October 5, 2011
Jeffrey Sommers and Michael Hudson
This past month's economic data show that the global economic crisis continues to worsen, and by its duration and severity threatens to become known as the Great Depression II. Yet, even though it is evident to most that our problems arose from finance run wild, commentators in several press outlets claim the fault lies with its victim, the public. Instead of curbing finance they advise governments impose radical austerity measures. In this economy such a course is tantamount to throwing the drowning victims an anchor, while tossing the perpetrators a life preserver in the form of cash.
Morten Hansen, September 20, 2011
Whatever government will be formed after Saturday's election and whoever will occupy the ministry seats, one thing is clear: No plain sailing for the economy yet although it - seemingly - has stabilized.
Morten Hansen, August 15, 2011
Watching eurozone politicians' recent dithering has not been pretty and hearing ECB officials speak of Greece not being bankrupt sounds weird so I guess it is not strange that some have started writing about a breakup of the eurozone.
Morten Hansen, August 8, 2011
Sort of an addition to my previous post. Fiscal policy in Latvia is indeed procyclical i.e. it follows the economic cycle, right now with austerity at a time of recession/feeble growth.
July 1, 2011
Despite a flurry of meetings and events, the Baltic states have made little concrete progress in their efforts to diversify energy supplies away from Russia.
Morten Hansen, June 20, 2011
The benefits Latvia has from internal devaluation
June 3, 2011
Steve LeVine: A couple of weeks ago, I ventured a bet that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will run and win re-election in next year's elections; his mentor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, will opt to keep his protégé in place, I wrote. While for a variety of reasons I still think that is the case, it's understandable why many think otherwise: Putin is throwing up a lot of conflicting signals.
 May 27, 2011
The U.S. economy is still only muddling through, according to revised GDP numbers out by the Commerce Department. That's bad news. But more disturbing is the accompanying dollar slump against the euro, and what it says about perceptions of our economy versus Europe's.
 May 18, 2011
An 82-foot-high billboard wrapping Estonia's finance ministry building in its capital, Tallinn, boasts: "The euro, my money." It stands just blocks from the city's cobbled, winding medieval streets and baroque churches, in a downtown where skyscrapers have replaced Russian bunkers, as a symbol of Estonia's transformation from poor Soviet republic to the European Union's rising star.
"European Voice" May 12, 2011
Europe can no longer free-ride on the back of US taxpayers, a lesson NATO's eastern member states should learn now.
May 11, 2011
An economic crisis in Belarus deepened Wednesday when its currency plunged in value after the Central Bank lifted restrictions on the exchange rate.
May 5, 2011
For better or worse, this week's unity agreement between Fatah and Hamas would never have occurred had the ongoing Arab uprisings not changed both parties' political fortunes.
May 2, 2011
President Obama has announced that the United States killed Osama bin Laden today in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and recovered his body. It has been nine years and seven months since Osama orchestrated 9/11, but an American team finally killed him. His body is in American hands. This is revenge, but it's also deterrence and also means that bin Laden won't kill any more Americans. This is the single most important success the United States has had in its war against Al Qaeda.
April 17, 2011
The waiting list outside a currency exchange office at the Korona supermarket here had swelled to 52 people and many were getting desperate. Some had been waiting for three days, sleeping in cars, in an increasingly frantic effort to get dollars and euros.
April 11, 2011
When I saw that the government plans a 2.9% of GDP budget deficit for 2012 for its negotiations with the international lenders I thought it was an April Fools stunt. I then realized that it was not but it is still a joke....
 April 11, 2011
Sending the first man into space was one of the great Soviet Cold War victories over the US-maybe the greatest. To this day Russia celebrates its achievement. The memory of Gagarin's triumphant flight is one of the most important reasons why Russia, in spite of all its economic, political, and demographic problems, maintains a national commitment to manned space exploration. Nations, like people, prefer to remember their successes rather than their failures. For Russia, its first flights into orbit from 1957 through 1961 are to this day a shining memory of a time when they were beating the Americans.
April 4, 2011
International observers point to serious irregularities during the Sunday snap presidential vote in Kazakhstan that resulted in a sweeping victory of longtime incumbent President Nazarbayev.
March 28, 2011
When considering how the United States should deal with persistent foreign policy problems, history can be instructive. Distorted or misremembered history, however, is dangerous. Unfortunately, in the recent debate over U.S. intervention in Libya, journalists and analysts have propagated an array of falsehoods and mischaracterizations about the United States' uses of military force since the end of the Cold War. Believing in these myths -- particularly in their supposedly successful outcomes -- leads to a misunderstanding of contemporary problems and to a more interventionist U.S. foreign policy.
 23 March 2011
If anyone had said at the beginning of the year that, by March, the Arab world would not only be in uproar but would have peaceably got rid of two of its longest serving autocrats, that the UN would have sanctioned a US-led military intervention in a Muslim country and that the world's second largest economy would have been overwhelmed by a tsunami, they would have been dismissed as a sad delusionist seeking what they might dream of, but not what they could reasonably predict.
March 14, 2011
The terrible sequence of events in Japan - massive earthquake, and then a tsunami - make the nuclear crisis different from Chernobyl in 1986. The Chernobyl accident was not a consequence of a natural disaster, but happened at the hands of people. The design of the reactor was such that it lacked a protective containment; once it exploded, radioactive debris was ejected into the air. So far, at least, the Japan nuclear crisis does not appear to have reached this level of danger.
March 7, 2011
Who is to blame for the financial crisis in Latvia and the ensuing recession? Considering that seemingly everybody has someone/something they like to blame it is somewhat surprising to me that a more formal, deep and scientific investigation has not taken place.
 March 1, 2011
These are not the best of times for the Euro-Atlantic community. The European Union (EU) is struggling to shore up the Euro-zone - a task that has exposed worrisome political fissures and raised troubling questions about the overall health of the Union. Meanwhile, the United States is suffering through a prolonged economic downturn and an era of intense political polarization...
 February 27, 2011
Russia and China join west in UN war crimes ruling as Britain revokes immunity for leader and family
February 17, 2011
Latvia is well underway to stabilizing its public finances, but ...
"The Vancouver Sun" (Canada) February 15, 2011
A Canadian researcher is lending credence to the idea that the Cold War-era concept of deterrence can and does work against terrorists.
(Latvia) February 4, 2011
A very small window of opportunity
Conclusion: More budget measures aiming at lowering inflation, please!
 February 1, 2011
It has become part of the political orthodoxy in America that former United States president Ronald Reagan's defense spending catapulted the Soviet Union into bankruptcy and collapse. As broad narratives go, this perspective certainly captures two things accurately: that the Reagan administration aggressively funded the US military and that the Soviet Union did in fact collapse.
January 24, 2011
Moscow explosion: Experts say the explosion, which killed at least 35, will likely be traced to Russia's volatile north Caucasus region, where political murders, bombings, and kidnappings occur almost daily.
January 17, 2011
When Chinese President Hu Jintao comes to Washington this week, there aren't likely to be many surprises: Hu and Barack Obama will probably keep their conversation to a fairly regulated script, focusing on trade and North Korea and offering the expected viewpoints on both. But seen from a different angle, everything in that conversation could be predicted, not from current events but from longstanding tribal patterns.
 January 15, 2011
G. Murphy Donovan recently argued on AT that Russia is such a great partner of the United States that it could be admitted to NATO. To back his assertion up, he provided a number of "reasons," including Harley Davidson motorbikes and Russian women.
 IDSA (India) January 13, 2011
Russia has been able to establish somewhat better relations with the West, after failed attempts of the early 1990s, when the process of systemic transition, disintegration of the USSR and the defeat of communist ideology had created domestic turmoil, undermined its international standing and influence over the former Soviet geo-political space. This had led to Russia being treated as a ‘junior' and not an ‘equal' partner by the major powers. Recent developments however promise Russia a more equal standing vis-à-vis the West. This was evident at the summit held in Lisbon on November 20, 2010 and which was preceded by a Russian, French and German meeting at Deauville, the ‘reset' in USA-Russian and Polish-Russian relations, and the new START treaty. Despite lingering suspicions, both sides are forging better relations. But how enduring is this rapprochement likely to be?
08/01/2011
Inflation is spreading across the world's largest emerging nations, leaving a noisy rattle in what have been the engines of global growth in recent years. Central banks in Brazil, Russia, India and China, the fast-growing so-called BRIC nations now responsible for nearly a fifth of global economic activity, have all raised interest rates in recent weeks, and are testing more exotic measures to stanch rising prices, especially for food: India and Russia banned exports of onions and wheat, respectively, while China has promised price controls on items such as cooking oil.
December 30, 2010
It looks like a relatively calm year for Eurasia, the area encompassing the former Soviet successor states at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. For the most part, the region is politically stable and countries will continue to see slow but steady economic growth. Russia and Kazakhstan face elections in 2012, but both are governed by well entrenched soft-authoritarian regimes. Ukraine is stabilizing, but risks remain in Georgia.
December 7, 2010
A soft landing for America 40 years from now? Don't bet on it. The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines. If Washington is dreaming of 2040 or 2050 as the end of the American Century, a more realistic assessment of domestic and global trends suggests that in 2025, just 15 years from now, it could all be over except for the shouting.
December 20, 2010
Yesterday's presidential elections in Belarus are a powerful reminder that the history of democratic reform is not over in the lands of the East. The incumbent, Aleksandr Lukashenko, remains in office for a fourth term in a vote that has been widely denounced as fraudulent. In a CEPA exclusive, Senior Fellow and long-time Belarus watcher Edward Lucas offers a candid assessment of the elections, what they mean for the people of Belarus and how Lukashenko will use the aftermath to stay in power.
 December 19, 2010
Too many commentators focus on covering the current European financial problems. Although the deadlocked financial situation of the EU cannot be disregarded one should also pay attention to the political/ideological vacuum of the European Union.
 December 18, 2010
The administration endorsed a new defense guideline Friday that focuses on China's growing military activities instead of former Cold War foe Russia and paints North Korea as a regional security threat.
 December 15, 2010
"Conventional wisdom" too often means that otherwise smart people have stopped thinking. You can tell when it takes hold: Buzzwords get repeated. Obvious truths are denied. And the critical faculties, so essential for serious thought, are met with derision.
December 10, 2010
Reaction across the globe to the leaked US embassy cables has ranged from anger and bitterness to extreme indiference
 December 6, 2010
The EU has missed a trick or two in grasping Russia's foreign policy potential, says Fabrizio Tassinari. If they returned to an approach of pragmatic tit-for-tat, the Europeans would have a far better chance of achieving their broader policy goals.
"Center for European Policy Analysis", December 3, 2010
In a thought-provoking forecast, CEPA Senior Fellow Edward Lucas anticipates Russia's palpable decline by 2020, having fallen behind Brazil, India and China. Meanwhile, Central Europe will be on the ascent, with the three Baltic States "overtaking the sluggish, debt-ridden economies of Southern Europe."
 December 1, 2010
WikiLeaks documents reveal how closely U.S. worked with Mideast autocracies despite lofty rhetoric about freedom.
November 28, 2010
A cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the past three years, provides an unprecedented look at back-room bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats.
November 27, 2010
The multipolar moment has arrived -- and it's nothing like Americans imagined.
Looking for a sign of when the multipolar moment suddenly seemed real? You could do worse than mark the day when Brazil and Turkey -- two of the world's most avidly internationalist emerging powers -- joined together this May to announce they had stepped in to broker a nuclear-fuel swap deal with Iran that potentially -- though sadly not actually -- paved the way toward a peaceful solution to the standoff. Turkey and Brazil aren't superpowers, nor are they permanent U.N. Security Council members. But just as U.S. President Barack Obama came into office preaching a renewed focus on multilateralism, rising powers are reminding us that respect for hierarchy is no longer on anyone's agenda.
 November 28, 2010
251,000 State Department documents, many of them secret embassy reports from around the world, show how the US seeks to safeguard its influence around the world. It is nothing short of a political meltdown for US foreign policy.
 November 27, 2010
Korea crisis has shown China is set to rule globe
November 24, 2010
Analyst Rodger Baker explains the history of the Korean Peninsula's Northern Limit Line and how it relates to North Korea's economic and strategic goals. The shelling across the Northern Limit Line between North Korea and South Korea recently has raised a lot of questions as to just what the North Koreans are doing - why they carried out this act at this particular time. One of the elements to that is really to better understand what is the Northern Limit Line, why is it there and how do the North Koreans view this.
 November 23, 2010
Institutions should do what they are good at. And the expansion of NATO is one of the few true post-Cold-War foreign-policy success stories. By including some of NATO's old enemies inside its security umbrella, we ensured, at a minimal cost, the political, economic and ideological "Westernization" of an enormous swath of the continent.
November 23, 2010
Though we're pouring billions into intelligence in Afghanistan, we can't even tell the difference between a no-name faker and a senior member of the Taliban. The tragedy of Afghanistan has descended into farce. In the sort of scene that would have entertained millions if Billy Wilder had made a movie of Kipling's "Kim," it turns out that Afghan and NATO leaders have been negotiating for months with an imposter pretending to be a top Taliban commander - even as Gen.
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