Europe is witnessing the worst security crisis since the end of World War II. The conflict in eastern Ukraine and the illegal annexation of Crimea demonstrated again that military conflict is still possible in Europe.

This is aggravated by a general increase in military activity, including the stationing of Russian and NATO forces along strategic borders, a rise in military exercises, as well as large-scale sea and air maneuvers. This …

Europe stands at a crossroads. Internally, populist forces question the basis of our liberal democracies and the Brexit vote has shaken the very foundations of the EU, probably the world’s most successful democratic project.

Externally, the list of challenges seems almost infinite; vast parts of the Middle East and Central Africa are held back by devastating civil wars and collapsing states. People in the Southern Neighborhood of the EU are …

Wherever we look, we see wars and armed conflicts: Syria, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Eastern Ukraine. We have witnessed violations of international law, burgeoning isolationism and looming trade wars. We are confronted with flows of migrants that are increasingly difficult to control. Radicalization, fanaticism and violent terrorist acts have struck at the heart of our society.

On the one hand, hacker attacks, shitstorms, hate speech and social brutality are increasingly …

It may be overstating the case to claim that US President Donald Trump’s inauguration signals the start of a new world order, but his policies will set off a new dynamic in the geopolitical “parallelogram of power” comprising the United States, Russia, China and Europe.

A possible American-Russian rapprochement is already causing concern in Europe, although the attitude of the US president and his ministers towards Russia is very nuanced …

The world is “at war,” said António Guterres in 2015; but 2017 should be “a year of peace.” The nations of the world seem to be losing their way amid raging egoism, but Guterres, at he was sworn in as secretary general of the United Nations on Jan. 1 of this year, recalled the original mandate of the UN: “to prevent war by binding all members in a rules-based international …

The United Kingdom is leaving the European Union. Is the EU fragmenting, or will EU governments consolidate while finally getting their act together on defense? Donald Trump is the president of the United States. Is NATO increasingly obsolete, or will Europeans contribute more and convince Washington not to scale back its military commitment to European security?

No one knows for sure. Russia is unpredictable, and the wars across the Middle …

When Germany’s President Joachim Gauck, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier argued at the Munich Security Conference in early 2014 that Germany would need to assume greater responsibility in foreign and security policy, the world was still comparatively stable and European security relatively intact.

Since then, however, with the annexation of Crimea and the war in Ukraine, Europe’s security order has plummeted into a grave …

At the end of January, fighting in Eastern Ukraine escalated again. On that weekend, newly elected US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone for the first time. Many in Ukraine saw a connection between this call and the fighting for the town of Avdiivka. But this renewed escalation in the war’s third year follows a very different, far more general pattern – winter is fighting …

During the first two decades of the post- Cold War era, nuclear weapons as a factor of European security disappeared from the public eye. They only gained intermittent prominence as part of a broader discussion of non-proliferation, the Iranian nuclear program, or of abolition after President Barack Obama’s speech in Prague in 2009. Nukes had become unreal in the European context. The fact that the Western nuclear powers maintained robust …

America’s political pendulum has swung back once again – and this time in a “huge” and unparalleled way. GOP Congressman and Donald Trump supporter Tom Cole put it succinctly when he commented on the 45th president’s inauguration: “It really is a leap into the dark. And I think that’s true for the country and that’s true for Trump.” It is also true for Europe and the rest of the world.…