Emma Ashford

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A Ukrainian soldier in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine, December 2023. Viacheslav Ratynskyi / Reuters

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On December 12, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to Washington to make an in-person request for military and economic aid for Ukraine, but he left empty-handed. For over a month, Republicans on Capitol Hill have been blocking an emergency spending bill that would provide about $60 billion in new funding for Ukraine. They will approve the money, they have vowed, only if Democrats make major concessions on immigration policy. Until then, funding for Ukraine remains in the balance.

Zelensky’s disappointing visit highlights the larger problems facing Ukraine. Its much-anticipated counteroffensive last year failed to retake territory lost to Russia, public support for Kyiv across the West is declining, and the conflict is at a stalemate.…  Seguir leyendo »

U.S. President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington, D.C., December 2022. Kevin Lamarque / Reuters / Foreign Affairs illustration

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At the Munich Security Conference in February 2022, mere days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s newly minted foreign minister, argued that Europe faced a stark choice between “Helsinki or Yalta”. To one side was the 1975 conference in Finland, where 35 countries signed an agreement that recognized Europe’s post–World War II boundaries as final and called for the promotion of international cooperation and human rights; to the other was the 1945 summit in Crimea, where Western leaders betrayed the countries of eastern Europe by granting Stalin free rein in the region. The choice, Baerbock said, was “between a system of shared responsibility for security and peace’’ or “a system of power rivalry and spheres of influence”.…  Seguir leyendo »

A Ukrainian soldier, Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, September 2022. Dmytro Smolienko / Reuters

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By late August 2022, the West’s focus on Russia’s war in Ukraine was diminishing. The two sides were bogged down in an extended stalemate, freeing Western leaders from making difficult choices or thinking too hard about the future of the conflict. Events since early September—dramatic Ukrainian gains, followed by Russian mobilization, annexations, missile attacks on civilian areas, and nuclear threats—have shattered that illusion, pushing the war into a new and more dangerous phase.

Since the start of the war, the Biden administration has effectively maintained a balanced realpolitik approach: arming and funding Ukraine yet continuing to make clear that the United States will not engage directly in the conflict.…  Seguir leyendo »

President Biden, center, with other Group of 7 leaders in Elmau, Germany, on Sunday. Kenny Holston for The New York Times

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President Biden is in Europe, and talk of unity fills the air. At the Group of 7 meeting in Bavaria, Germany, leaders congratulated themselves for their decisions over the past few months and restated their support for Ukraine. They even took time for a “family picture”, the often awkward group shot of world leaders. At the NATO summit in Madrid, which begins on Tuesday, we can expect more of the same.

The self-congratulatory atmosphere is quite new. Just three years ago, NATO — frayed by failed interventions in Libya and Iraq, internally divided over its future and buffeted by Donald Trump’s derision — was declared “brain-dead” by President Emmanuel Macron of France.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Greece's economic turmoil will come to a head this Sunday when Greeks vote in a referendum on whether to accept EU bailout funds. The expectation that Greece will leave the eurozone and default on its IMF loans has led to a run on Greek banks, the imposition of capital controls and volatile financial markets.

But while these financial woes are roiling Greece and destabilizing Europe's economic order, the security implications of a potential "Grexit" could be at least as ominous as the financial ones.

First, it is almost certain that a Greek exit from the eurozone would push the country closer to Russia, a scenario that would deepen divisions within NATO.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Yemen’s volatile civil war has been depicted as merely a battleground between Sunni Arab countries and Shiite Iran for dominance in the Middle East.

The Houthis, northern tribal rebels who have waged a prolonged insurgency against the Yemeni government, took the capital, Sana, in September and have continued to seize territory since, drawing near to the southern port city of Aden, forcing President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi to flee and prompting a Saudi-led military intervention last month. But in fact, the conflict in Yemen is local, not regional. And the Saudi-led, American-backed bombing campaign is doomed to failure. It will fuel Yemen’s internal strife, condemning it to a protracted torment that could rival Syria’s four-year-old civil war.…  Seguir leyendo »