The UN Security Council is due to make a decision on a particular and particularly controversial issue pertaining to the humanitarian disaster in Syria by July 10, and Russia positions itself as the key part of the problem and a necessary contributor to a solution. The discord in the UN Security Council (SC) on the… Read more »
Author: Pavel Baev
The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Geopolitics of the non-ceasefire
In a series of brief blog posts, researchers of the PRIO Middle East Centre offer their reflections on the unfolding Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. The proposition for cessation of violence in the suddenly exploded Israeli-Palestinian conflict appears so natural and necessary that the lack of any progress in its advancement after ten days of rocket salvoes and… Read more »
What a Biden Presidency Could Mean for the Middle East
With a winner finally announced in the US election, researchers at the PRIO Middle East Centre present a few thoughts on what a Biden presidency could mean for the Middle East. What are likely to be the guiding foreign policy principles of a Biden administration and how will regional and international actors’ positions be impacted?… Read more »
Is there a hope for peace in the new/old war in the Caucasus?
A full-blown war erupted in the South Caucasus last Sunday, September 27, and the two belligerents – Armenia and Azerbaijan – are proceeding with mobilizations under martial law, but no international authority tries in earnest to stop the hostilities.
Long Live Peer Review – Expand and Differentiate
In today’s blog in PRIO’s series marking this year’s Peer Review Week, Pavel K. Baev reflects on his own experiences reviewing and being reviewed and the challenges posed by unclear expectations on reviewers. He suggests that a partial solution may lie in a clearer delineation between different types of review.
The Specter of Post-Pandemic Revolutions Haunts Russia
This piece is part of our blog series Beyond the COVID Curve. COVID-19 has quickly changed everything from our daily routines, to the policies of governments, to the fortunes of the global economy. How will it continue to shape society and the conditions for peace and conflict globally in the near future and long after… Read more »
Boris Nemtsov Still Marches with the Russian Opposition
PRIO Director Henrik Urdal included Russian NGOs standing against the rise of autocracy, and personally Alexei Navalny, in his short-list of candidates for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize. Last week, Russian opposition remembered Boris Nemtsov, murdered five years ago, by a march in downtown Moscow, which gathered some 25.000 people. This article reflects on the… Read more »
SIPRI says that Russia keeps cutting its military spending, but the margin of error keeps widening
Military force remains the instrument of choice in Russian policy-making, yet the expenditures on its building keeps going down. This paradoxical picture comes out of the recent estimate by our sister-institution Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which is eagerly picked up by the Russian media. SIPRI methodology is long-established and respected by experts, but… Read more »
Russia Is Set to Support Maduro to the Bitter End
Russia has positioned itself as the main supporter of Nicholas Maduro regime in Venezuela, taking the risk of turning a crisis in a far-away country into an embarrassing political defeat. Official propaganda has amplified this issue, so that 57 percent of respondents in a recent poll confirmed that they were following the developments, but only… Read more »
The INF Treaty Demise: Natural Causes and Bad Blunders
Dan Smith, Director of SIPRI, has published a very informative and thoughtful blog on the apparently imminent breakdown of the INF Treaty. Following up with a week-old second thoughts, I can share this article (adapted from the Order from Chaos, published by the Brookings). The discussion of the pending U.S. withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear… Read more »