The people living in Europe are facing worrisome times. This is not only due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which poses a direct threat to people’s health and constitutes an enormous challenge for the national economies, but also due to the geopolitical – and thus military – threats that are once …

In October 2014, I hosted an American friend who has extensive policy experience and is considered a leading China hand. Over dinner in Beijing, I asked him, “Do you think the ‘engagement consensus’ still holds in Washington?” My question was laced with a sense of hidden anxiety, given the rather …

The troops are not yet back at their bases, but the war alert along the Russo-Ukrainian border has passed. In fact, a war was never in the cards. Yet the alert, while it lasted, was profoundly disturbing. For the West, it highlighted the dangers of a large-scale direct clash between …