Our Times

06/05/2026

EUROPE/CHINA: For decades, the United States and many of its Western and Asian allies have pressed Beijing to embrace greater transparency across multiple domains, including military modernization, strategic doctrine, and nuclear capabilities. Concerns regarding Chinese opacity long predate Xi Jinping’s rise to power and were already present in post–Cold War strategic dialogues and U.S. defense assessments during the 1990s and 2000s. However, these concerns intensified considerably under Xi Jinping as China accelerated the modernization and expansion of its military and nuclear forces while adopting a more assertive regional and global posture (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists).

The road toward transparency about nuclear weapons—both within the Western political tradition and during the Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union—was long, gradual, and deeply contingent. The tools developed during the US-Soviet experience cannot simply be replicated in the Chinese context. T...

06/05/2026

CHINA: Young people in China are increasingly turning to the Selected Works of Mao Zedong for strategic guidance and psychological resilience to navigate a highly competitive job market and shifting global economic landscape. As previous career expectations adjust to new realities, some youth embrace more laid-back lifestyles, while others actively draw on Mao’s dialectical philosophy to manage workplace complexities, set professional boundaries and safeguard their inner peace. This trend reflects the younger generation’s pragmatic adaptation to evolving labour–management dynamics, illustrating their earnest pursuit of agency, fair working conditions and employment stability amid profound social and economic transitions (East Asia Forum).

Mao Zedong Thought is resurging as a source of guidance for China’s youth navigating growing global economic uncertainty and domestic fierce competition.

06/05/2026

ARMENIA: Armenia’s parliamentary election is significant beyond its domestic political context. The vote will test whether Yerevan can sustain a strategy of strategic diversification after the re-establishment of Azerbaijani control over Nagorno-Karabakh while balancing Russian pressure, growing Western engagement and an unfinished normalisation process with Azerbaijan and Turkey. The result is unlikely to produce a clean geopolitical realignment; but it may show whether Armenia can create greater strategic space for itself in a region where security has long been shaped by dependency and external competition (Royal United Services Institute).

Testing Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, future integration with Europe is a live issue in the country’s first election since military defeat in Nagorno-Karabakh.

06/05/2026

AFRICA: Jihadist violence has significantly increased since midway through the first decade of the new century, with epicenters in Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, and the wider Sahel, as well as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mozambique. Violence spills across borders, having come to affect 22 sub-Saharan countries altogether. Jihadism has claimed more than 190,000 lives to date, contributed indirectly to military coups, and continues to expand geographically (German Institute for Global and Area Studies).

The attacks in Mali in late April are part of a larger trend: Sub-Saharan Africa has become the region most affected by jihadist violence worldwide, especially the wider Sahel. A strong upwards trend has led to a majority of armed conflicts in the region now involving jihadists. New GIGA data and an...

06/05/2026

AFRICA: This policy brief addresses the impact of credit rating agencies’ (CRAs) ratings on development in Africa, with a particular focus on the adequacy of the methodologies of CRAs and the risk premium of African countries. It also offers recommendations for addressing the high risk premiums faced by African countries and negative CRA ratings. These recommendations are based on the ongoing work aimed at structuring and establishing an African CRA, along with global discussions on the establishment of a global fiscal body to better address global fiscal shortcomings, such as irregular assessments by CRAs based on subjective methodologies (South African Institute of International Affairs).

The AU supports establishing the Africa Credit Rating Agency to reduce bias against African sovereigns and better reflect African economies.

06/05/2026

TURKEY/EUROPEAN UNION: The EU is evolving from a liberal market project into an assertive geoeconomic actor. Its shift toward economic security and strategic rebalancing is generating an underexplored structural tension with Türkiye, as it is reshaping the conditions of a deeply integrated economic relationship without a corresponding integration of decision-making structures. In this context, the EU’s reorganization of trade and industrial policies around resilience, security, and strategic capacity leads to increasing misalignment with the institutional logic of EU-Türkiye trade relations (German Marshall Fund).

Breadcrumb Home Press The EU-Türkiye Interdependence Dilemma Insights The EU-Türkiye Interdependence Dilemma It’s time to rethink the trade relationship for the new geoeconomic era. March 23, 2026 by Kadri Tastan Dr. Erdal Yalçın 11 min read Share Energy Security and Geopolitics Trade, Economi...

06/05/2026

SYRIA: “The lifting of sanctions is the primary step toward revitalizing the Syrian economy,” Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa told President Donald Trump during a phone call on May 31. In fact, Trump had already rolled back most sanctions on Syria. In June 2025, the president revoked a set of executive orders that anchored the Syria sanctions regime. With Trump’s support, Congress repealed the Caesar Act in December, lifting tough human rights sanctions aimed at the regime of former President Bashar al-Assad (Foundation for Defense).

“The lifting of sanctions is the primary step toward revitalizing the Syrian economy,” Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa told President Donald Trump during a phone call on May 31.  In...

06/05/2026

ROMANIA: In the canon of European development stories, Romania should be a success. It has fertile agricultural land, a large and relatively young population, a tradition of strong technical education, an IT sector that consistently outperforms the country’s economic weight, abundant natural resources, and a diaspora of several million citizens who have built careers and businesses across Europe and beyond. Since joining the European Union in 2007, it has received over 100 billion euros in structural and cohesion funding. Its location on Europe’s Eastern Flank has acquired new strategic significance since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine (New Eastern Europe).

A country with every ingredient for success is trapped in a cycle of structural self-sabotage, and the fall of Ilie Bolojan is only the latest act.

06/05/2026

BALTIC STATES: The rippling impacts of the US-Israeli war on Iran have quickly spanned the globe, and the Baltic countries are no exception. Most immediately, thousands of Baltic nationals were in the region when attacks began, necessitating quickly organized repatriation flights as Iran retaliated on civilian infrastructure in the Gulf states. A complex housing the Estonian Embassy in Abu Dhabi was among the high-rises struck (Baltic Initiative, FPRI).

How war in Iran is impacting the Baltic states

06/05/2026

RUSSIA/UKRAINE: Mediation efforts toward a ceasefire accelerated significantly with the start of the second Trump administration in the United States, as frequently promised by Donald Trump during his election campaign. Following summit meetings with both Russia and Ukraine and mediation efforts, the Trump administration presented a new ceasefire proposal in November initially spanning 28 points. This proposal was streamlined to 20 points due to opposition from Ukraine and Europe as well as the presentation of counterproposals. Concrete negotiations are currently underway based on this revised content (Japan Institute of International Affairs). (Link: ▶️ https://www.jiia.or.jp/eng/report/2026/05/Outlook2026en06.html.)