Whilst some schools of thought argue that poverty is the cause of many civil wars in sub-Saharan Africa, the world’s most poor region, other schools argue that poverty is also a consequence of wars, hence the two-way relationship between poverty and war. The aim of the present article is to draw attention especially to the […]
Recent articles about Venezuela draw attention to the lack of basic goods in stores. People can hardly find groceries in supermarkets and the situation has gone to such an extent that nervous purchases have generated an unnatural sharp increase in demand. But what is the root cause of this phenomenon and does the United States […]
The concept of threat Above the slightly megalomaniac self proclamation of the Anthropocene era, the human individual constituent of the species is trapped in a fortress of Darwinism and its constant battle for survival and perpetual quest for perennity. Evolution represents competition. Competition is by nature at least dual if not, predominately, multipolar. So, if […]
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, NATO invoked Article 5 and the US declared war against terrorism. Then came the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 and Iraq in March 2003. A few years into the war, the initial shock of the tragedy faded away so, the public support for the intervention against Al – […]
At present, the global governance system suffers from a chronic disease: it is outdated, overwhelmed by the rapid changes happening in the international environment. Periodically, new issues are identified and labeled as “challenges” or “threats” to the global peace and security. Some of them are real; others are just perceived as such, or intentionally taken […]
Europe’s energy dependence is no longer a secret, as is the fact that most of the gas and oil imports are of Russian origin. Russia has used its energetic supremacy with great skill, managing to wield this strategic advantage in order to fulfill its geopolitical aspirations. Some European countries have fared better than others under […]
In the beginning, the Arab Spring was a game of chess. All of the pieces were on the chessboard when Bouazizi made his first move in Tunisia two years ago. At the dawn of each revolution there were many hopes at stake, because those involved believed that their life will be different at the end […]
If you asked somebody a month ago about In Amenas, few would have probably known even where it was on the map. But for about two weeks now, the world has been paying attention to this small town in eastern Algeria. This is because of the four day siege at the gas plant there that […]
From the point of view of international relations the Caucasus is a “subregional security complex” for Europe, being at the same time coagulated around a zero sum relationship (Armenia and Azerbaijan) to which are added relations of circumstantial cooperation/competition between Armenia and Georgia or Azerbaijan and Georgia. All of these states being consumers of security, […]
The Doha Development Agenda is the ninth WTO multilateral trade round of negotiations launched in Doha, Qatar in November 2001 that was to be concluded by early 2005. Some of the main points on the agenda were reduction of barriers in the services sector, environmental issues, and freer trade in agricultural goods. Moreover, Doha was […]