By Edward Lucas, for CEPA Will a recent spy bust cause Serbia to reconsider its relationship with Russia? Imagine you are the leader of a country that has caught a Russian spy. Here are a few things you should say to the Russian ambassador. First, show your displeasure. Cancel an upcoming visit, freeze trade talks, postpone other events. Also, discuss expulsions. At least one, and perhaps several officials based at…
By Edward Lucas, for CEPA Is Global France Compatible With the Atlantic World? Atlanticists have complained for decades that the European end of the Alliance is timid in its actions and parochial in its outlook. After Emanuel Macron’s explosive interview with the Economist, those complaints need rethinking. The French president’s ambition and vision cannot be gainsaid. He spoke in sweeping terms of the “brain death” of NATO, called for a…
By Edward Lucas, for CEPA Every Pole knows why September 17th, 1939 matters. So do many Ukrainians, especially in the country’s west–which was then part of Poland.But almost nobody else does. The 80th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland will go unmarked in the West. In Russia, it will prompt yet more lies and propaganda obscuring the Soviet Union’s cozy ties with Nazi Germany. This has been in…
By Edward Lucas, for CEPA In September 2014 I was invited to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs committee. I gave its members not only my evidence, but Polish apples and Lithuanian cheese. Russia had just imposed sanctions on European food imports. Polish apple farmers, who exported around half their produce to Russia, were particularly hard hit. So too was the Lithuanian dairy industry A social media campaign was encouraging…
By Edward Lucas, for CEPA Last week’s column looked at six political warfare tactics common to Russia and China, and three that are used (so far) only by the regime in Beijing. That leaves eleven Kremlin-only ones. For convenience, they are in (English) alphabetical order. First is the exploitation of economic, ethnic, linguistic, regional, religious, social, and other divisions. This is a hallmark Russian approach. Chinese divide-and-rule tactics focus on…
By Esward Lucas, for CEPA After 10 years of the “Eastern Partnership” what do we have to celebrate? There is modest, homegrown progress in Armenia; Azerbaijan and Belarus are still autocracies; Georgia is going backwards; Moldova is still a basket case. Ukraine, compared with its plight in 2009, is doing well but has paid a terrible price in blood and suffering. The anniversary should be a time for somber reflection,…
By Edward Lucas, for CEPA The West Needs to Formulate a Belarus Policy Before It Is Too Late Most countries don’t know what goes on in Europe’s last dictatorship. Most don’t care, either. For all but a handful of its western neighbors, Belarus is a geopolitical black hole, neglected and ignored in equal measure. The regime in Minsk has signaled some desire to improve ties with the United States, lifting a cap…
By Edward Lucas, for CEPA Once again, Russia has pushed the line in Ukraine. Here’s how the West should have reacted after Azov. Imagine that it is September 1st 1939. German troops have just attacked Poland. Should the outside world (a) call for calm, (b) denounce Hitler’s aggression, or (c) help Poland? Seen from a modern perspective, the answer is clear. Pre-war Poland, although far from perfect, was the innocent party…
By Edward Lucas, for CEPA Edward Lucas seams together a Soviet chic garment and the Kremlin’s inability to deal honestly with history. Nazi memorabilia is not cool. If you hold your nose and look on the internet, you can find flags, T-shirts and bumper stickers commemorating the Third Reich on sale at outlets that also sell pagan-themed cigarette lighters and Ku Klux Klan regalia. But no reputable retailer would stock…
Edward Lucas explains why the West should not treat the “in-between” states as objects on a gameboard. By Edward Lucas, for CEPA My introduction to geopolitics came from the game of Risk. In our 1970s Cold War household, this board game, invented in 1957, had a particular sizzle. The board features an outsized Ukraine, stretching from the Arctic to central Asia, and territories called Irkutsk, Kamchatka, Siberia, Ural, and Yakutsk…
