ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

By Peter Hitchens  - " Daily Mail " - Let us first raise the level of debate: This will take a bit of muscular effort. For the level of some contributions is quite low. For instance, Mr ‘skh.pcola’ writes: ‘Herr Hitchens is an anachronism. He would have fit right in the gang with Neville and the other quislings back in 1939 or so. Idiots that don't learn from history doom the rest of us to repeat it. What a misanthropic microencephalitic moron Hitchens is.’ And I took part (at about 9.30 this morning) in a brief discussion on BBC Radio 5 Live, in which a listener raged for some time against Russia and Russians, diagnosing that country as ‘paranoid’(I do not know what her qualifications were to make this diagnosis). By contrast, I would urge readers to study an article by Sir Rodric Braithwaite, the best ambassador this country ever sent to Moscow, profoundly knowledgeable about Russia, who is also more than fluent in Russian, and the author of ‘Afgantsy’, a fine study of ...

Beijing intends to reorganize China's seven military regions into five military zones tasked with overseeing domestic and international security issues. Each zone reportedly will be coordinated by a joint operations command with control over the army, navy and air force, as well as a strategic missile unit, in its area of responsibility. The effort is a key part of a broader reorientation of the Chinese military from a force focused largely on domestic defense and internal security to one better able to meet emerging external threats . A Yomiuri Shimbun report released in January provides few details about the demarcation of the new military zones. At the core of the plan, however, three of the zones will be designed to cover the Yellow, East and South China seas and take over functions that currently fall across three military regions (Jinan, Nanjing and Guangzhou) within five years. Meanwhile, China's inland provinces will fall under the control of two additional zones cove...

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier speaks to journalists in Switzerland on March 4 after meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. (PETER KLAUNZER/AFP/Getty Images) Summary The European Union is unlikely to approve substantial sanctions against Russia because it would go against the economic interests of most of its members. There will be a period of cold relations between EU members and Russia, but eventually EU members will return to their previous strategies of seeking a pragmatic relationship with Moscow. The crisis in Ukraine is having political repercussions for most members of the European Union. In the west, countries such as Germany, France and the United Kingdom are trying to strike a balance between criticizing Russia's actions in Crimea and ensuring that their economic links with Moscow are unaffected. The crisis is reminding countries in Central and Eastern Europe such as Poland and Lithuania that their alliances with the European Union and NAT...

The extreme winter weather pounding the eastern half of the United States is keeping many drivers at home. That means less demand along with lower prices at the pump compared to last year. Unless something gives, however, geopolitical issues in Ukraine could spell trouble for consumers, AAA said Monday. AAA reported a national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline in the United States of $3.46, a price that's 17 cents higher than the same time last month but 30 cents less year-on-year. The national average price for Monday, however, is the highest since Sept. 24 and marks the 24th straight day of increases. Select the reports you are interested in: Who Will be the Big Winners in the Coming LNG Bonanza How to Play the Coming Boom in Advanced Fracking Technology Why the Subsea Processing Sector will See Huge Gains in the Near Future Investment Opportunities in Geothermal Power Generation Machine to Machine Technology – A $1 Trillion Opportunity! Our Top Water Techn...

The headquarters of Alibaba in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. (STR/AFP/GettyImages) Summary The growth of large online investment platforms has captured the attention of Chinese authorities in recent months. Non-state enterprises such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., which runs the e-commerce website Taobao, and Tencent Holdings Ltd., a social media conglomerate that runs the popular WeChat online messaging program, are an emerging force in China's financial system. The question is whether these online financing platforms could start to chip away at state-controlled banks' effective monopoly over the country's vast pool of household and corporate savings. For now, funds invested into new online financing platforms such as Alibaba's Yu'e Bao are equivalent to a little more than 1 percent of the state-controlled banking sector's roughly 74.2 trillion yuan ($12 trillion dollars) in consumer deposits. But the platforms are growing rapidly. Their growth, and Beijing...

Pro-Russian activists demonstrate at the regional administration in Donetsk on March 3. ALEXANDER KHUDOTEPLY/AFP/Getty Images Summary With Crimea now under Russian military control, the center of gravity of the Ukrainian crisis is shifting to the Russia-oriented eastern part of the country. Anti-government and pro-Russian protests were held throughout cities in eastern Ukraine , including Donetsk, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk, during the weekend and into March 3. Despite Moscow's military moves in Crimea, Russia's actions in eastern Ukraine are likely to be more political than military. The status of the east will play a key role in Ukraine's future political evolution and in any potential diplomatic settlement between Russia and the West. Analysis As Russia fortifies its position in Crimea , eastern Ukraine will be the next region to watch in assessing the evolution of the Ukrainian crisis. Eastern Ukraine, like Crimea, is politically oriented toward Russia , in contrast w...

Georgia's President Giorgi Margvelashvili (L) and his Armenian counterpart, Serzh Sargsyan, in Yerevan, Feb. 27. (KAREN MINASYAN/AFP/Getty Images) Summary As Russian forces encircled strategic Ukrainian military installations in Crimea on March 1, Armenia's deputy foreign minister said that his country will have completed its preparations to join the Russia-led Customs Union by mid-April. Armenia announced its intention to join the Customs Union in September , and by February, Yerevan had completed about half of the prerequisites for accession. Armenia's decision to expedite what is normally a lengthy accession process indicates the government's desire to further integrate with Russia. But while countries such as Armenia are moving closer to Moscow, other countries in the former Soviet periphery are attempting to strengthen their ties with the West. Analysis The March 1 announcement came at the conclusion of Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili's weeklong vi...

March 3, 2014 - Russia's Black Sea Fleet has told Ukrainian forces in Crimea to surrender by 5 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Tuesday or face a military assault, Interfax news agency quoted a source in the Ukrainian Defence Ministry as saying. The ultimatum, Interfax said, was issued by Alexander Vitko, the fleet's commander. The ministry did not immediately confirm the report and there was no immediate comment by the Black Sea Fleet, which has a base in Crimea, where Russian forces are in control. "If they do not surrender before 5 a.m. tomorrow, a REAL ASSAULT will be started against units and divisions of the armed forces across Crimea," the agency quoted the ministry source as saying. Meanwhile, Ukraine's first president, Leonid Kravchuk, has slammed Russia's invasion of Ukraine and said he would take up arms to defend his homeland if Moscow does not retreat. In an op-ed written for Russian website snob.ru, Kravchuk said that Putin had gone too far. "The...