Archive d'auteurs: Alexandra Gheciu

It is unfortunate—though not surprising—that a meeting in Istanbul this weekend revealed persisting divisions among governments who oppose the regime of President Assad. The U.S., European and Arab states that constitute the group called the Friends of Syria do agree that with more than 70,000 killed and millions of people displaced, the Syrian crisis… Read More

Just as the international community was beginning to enjoy a new sense of optimism about North Korea following the ascension to power of Kim Jong-un, last week we were unceremoniously brought back to an old script. Pyongyang launches a long-range rocket; the United Nations condemns it and imposes further sanctions on the recluse country; and North Korea t… Read More

These days, when Western politicians or analysts discuss the possibility and likely consequences of an international intervention, they tend to refer to Syria. This is understandable, given the gravity and complexity of the crisis unfolding there.  But the focus on Syria has led us to overlook the growing international support for intervention in anot… Read More

“The European Union has reached a decisive juncture. The ongoing sovereign debt crisis and the ever accelerating process of globalization pose an unprecedented dual challenge for Europe. We will have to master it if we want our continent to enjoy a bright future and effectively promote our interests and values in a more polycentric world.” T… Read More

Following a long conversation between Presidents Obama and Putin at the recent G20 Summit in Mexico, U.S. officials claimed that progress had been made in identifying areas where U.S. and Russian interests coincide. “We agreed that we need to see a cessation of violence, that a political process has to be created to prevent civil war,” President Obama stat… Read More

On March 23, the European Union announced that it would expand its anti-piracy mission, Atalanta, to include for the first time the Somali coast itself and waterways inside the country. The statement said the EU would be working with Somalia’s transitional federal government and other Somali organisations to support their fight against piracy fr… Read More

These days, statements issued by NATO and U.S. officials tend to portray an optimistic picture of the situation in Afghanistan, suggesting that the insurgency remains on the back foot, that the transition to Afghan lead (the process by which security responsibility for Afghanistan is gradually transitioned to Afghan leadership) is continuing, and tha… Read More

Le CÉPI est heureux d’annoncer le lancement du Réseau en études de sécurité (RÉS), dont la mise sur pied reflète la force de l’Université d’Ottawa en tant que lieu de premier ordre pour l’étude des enjeux de sécurité nationale et internationale. Le RÉS – coordonné conjointement par Michael Williams, Mark Salter et moi-même – offrira un lieu commun pour les c… Read More

In a recent article in Foreign Policy , the Brussels-based journalist Gareth Harding argues that “the European Union was built on the myth that we are one people with one common destiny”. In his view, “[w]e are now discovering that regional and national differences are not dissolving and that Europeans think and act very differently from one another.̶… Read More

At the NATO Lisbon Summit in 2010, the U.S. and its allies expressed the hope that Russia would become a partner in a new missile defense system designed to protect Europe from a nuclear-armed ‘rogue’ state such as Iran.  Those hopes seemed to fade in the months following the summit, and appear to be particularly distant today, after the televised statement i… Read More