The Arab awakening is about people claiming democratic rights to emancipate themselves from the traditional influence of the West, rather than trying to join it. Instead of being a region mired in the past, the clash of modern practices in the Arab world might offer some lessons for the future world order.
The Geneva II conference on Syria will finally convene in Switzerland next week. Prospects for an immediate or dramatic breakthrough are decidedly bleak, yet that should not be the bar against which the merits of convening Geneva II should be measured.
The Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham (ISIS), a transnational ultraconservative Islamist group has been a thorn in the Syrian revolution since its inception in April 2013. The group is at the centre of a new round of infighting in rebel-held Syria.
Can Europeans safely ignore rising tensions in the Asia-Pacific? European policymakers may want to focus on their near neighbourhood and the transatlantic relationship but one way or the other they will have to deal with the fallout from rising tensions in Asia
Next week Egyptians will vote in a referendum on a new constitution. Few people doubt that the constitution will be approved, but there is more at stake in the vote than merely adopting a new legal framework for the country.
The panic in Britain over prospective Bulgarian and Romanian immigration is based on a misunderstanding of European rules. It is also at odds with the country's best traditions.
The decision of the Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovitch not to sign the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement has plunged the EU into a deep crisis. Seen in its most positive light, this shock offers a potential “new start” for the policy. The EU should seize this chance.
A transformed world poses fundamental military and political questions that Europe's national leaders need to answer. Perhaps the most useful thing this week's summit could do is open the door to a thorough debate on the future of Europe's foreign policy.
At their end-year summit, Europe’s 28 national leaders will take time out from their interminable wrangling over the economic crisis to discuss defence. Many Britons will find this very proposition bizarre, if not offensive.
ECFR's new innovative project – the Two-State Stress Test – provides an annual health-check on whether developments across seven different areas are serving to strain or sustain a possible two-state outcome for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict