Nationalism is disappearing, democracy is inevitable, nuclear war can’t happen: Ukraine shows old certainties were wrong I used to believe several things about the 21st century that Vladimir Putin’s invasion …

Is the Ukraine crisis a turning point in world history? And is this also a potential wake-up call for the “liberal American-dominated Western world order,” due to a conflict whose …

Following the Second World War, the standard German explanation as to events was, that nobody knew anything and that they all just did as they were told. Today, German politicians …

This terrifying, world-changing conflict in Ukraine did not start in 2022. Nor did it start in 2014. It began a decade and a half ago when Russia invaded Georgia and …

When war becomes a reality, time is of the essence. Slow political responses raise questions about underlying reasons for reluctance. And as Russia wages war on Ukraine, how the situation …

Russia’s war with Ukraine is in full swing. By now, everyone has figured out that Putin planned the war all along, that he repeatedly lied with a straight face, claiming …

It was only after the annexation of Crimea in 2014 that NATO broke off cooperation with Russia. Until then, Ukrainians themselves were largely against NATO membership. To frame NATO as …

The strange tragedy of Angela Merkel’s Ostpolitik in 2005–2021 was that the highly intelligent and committed chancellor showed herself incapable of departing from the wrong track in Germany’s Russia policy …

But there are no Churchills, either. And Ukraine will fight alone. In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain arrived home from a conference in Munich. He and other leaders had …

How Afghan refugees aren’t offered real solutions More than half a million Afghans were displaced in 2021, adding to many more forced to flee over decades of uninterrupted violence. But …

When I discuss the energy crisis with others, it always comes down to the point, that we’ll have to start cutting back.  But the question is, what exactly will we …

“Conflict is a theme that has occupied the thinking of men more than any other, save only God and love.” Anatol Rapoport What is a conflict? Is conflict always undesirable? …

A journalist who signed the Cursor code in Presence on Thursday, October 23, 1924, on page 642, questioned whether politics had any logic. If so, then the logic is unique. …

A pluralist mainstream requires a flourishing media ecosystem outside it. The mainstream has important democratic roles, but catalysing change is not one of them. By the time reports of the …

Interview between Martin Ulč and the Czech historian and anthropologist Professor Ivo Budil, on the “Old World” versus new geopolitical constellations.

How Slavenka Drakulić made space for women’s issues in Yugoslavia

When I think about the near future of Europe, I’m at a loss.  My thoughts run between a dynamic and at the same time crumbling Europe, a fully integrating Europe …

Coup attempt or assertion of supremacy? It is still not clear what has happened in Kazakhstan. Whatever the case, the hijacking of the demonstrations has severely damaged prospects for the …