Archive: News & Articles

President Trump has been in office for two years now. In the previous Brussels Backdrop, we covered President Trump as a person and his statements on NATO before becoming president. In this Brussels Backdrop, we will assess US foreign policy under Trump and his course of action towards NATO and the European allies. Is NATO […]

We are living in fascinating times we could not even imagine just a few years ago. And we enjoy freedom: We can buy products in our cities that were made on the other side of the world. We can travel almost anytime and anywhere, we can communicate almost free of charge with anyone on the […]

If the UK’s contortions over Brexit were portrayed in art form, something by Hieronymus Bosch might provide a useful model. At the time of writing, British MPs have voted twice (possibly more by the time you read this) to reject the deal that Theresa May’s Government agreed with the EU last November; they have also […]

Military expediency dictated that Britain retained an interest in having a foothold in Ireland for many centuries. But on 9 November 1990, Peter Brooke, the then Northern Ireland (NI) Secretary of State, declared that Britain had “no longer any selfish, strategic or economic interest” in NI and would accept unification.” The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) […]

There are any number of ways to gauge the mood of the ordinary man and woman in the street, and, frequently, the most accurate is the most unsophisticated – listening to them where you meet them, on trains, taxis, and in public places. The talk in Ireland today is about many things, and just one […]

At the time of writing this viewpoint only two weeks remain before the United Kingdom is officially due to leave the European Union. There is still no clarity as to how, when or even if departure will take place. The resulting political crisis speaks volumes about the inadequacy of Britain’s political class to deal with […]

With our societies increasingly dependent on modern information technologies, rapidly evolving cyber threats pose a growing threat. NATO will have to find a response. Since the 1990s, billions of people worldwide have been using information and communication technologies (ICT). The Internet has evolved from a simple information exchange platform to the backbone of modern economies […]

Relations between Turkey and the United States have been the subject of many analyses. The transatlantic perspective has been presented in great detail. To restore balance, this article looks at the Turkish perspective to understand the reasons for Turkey’s action as an important NATO member. International relations can be symbolised by a Rubik’s Cube game […]

Deterioration of the European security system in the aftermath of the Ukrainian crisis and worsening of relations between Russia and the West led the four Visegrad Group countries to renew their partially abandoned defence cooperation in order to enhance current and adopt new regional security measures. On July 1, 2019 several thousand soldiers from the […]