On the sidelines of last month’s NATO summit, the United States and Germany announced that Washington will begin episodic deployments of long-range conventional capabilities to Germany. In 1987, the United States and Soviet Union agreed to eliminate these systems under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, but Russia’s violations led the United States to withdraw from the treaty in 2019. Three years later, Russia invaded Ukraine and has engaged in nuclear saber-rattling since then. Washington plans to deploy these systems to strengthen deterrence, but Moscow has criticized them.

Type: Question and Answer

Global Policy

July 2024 marked the third time South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol joined a NATO summit along with the leaders of the alliance’s other Indo-Pacific partner countries (Australia, Japan and New Zealand), informally known as the IP4. This represents a new phase in South Korea’s relations with the Atlantic alliance, but building a lasting friendship will take time and requires navigating a series of challenges. Amid an emerging global division of democratic and authoritarian camps and the challenges posed by China and Russia for both the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic regions, it is incumbent on both Brussels and Seoul to build a more cooperative relationship. That journey, however, has just begun.

Type: Analysis

Global Policy

Almost 30 months into Vladimir Putin’s brutalization of Ukraine with a full-scale invasion that has pulverized vast swaths of its farmlands, towns and cities, Ukrainians have surprised Putin and the world by driving the war back into Russia — a move that, if nothing else, has altered the current narrative around this conflict. Ukraine has again brandished its determination, initiative and innovation, effectively resetting assumptions in its defense against its much larger attacker. The possible outcomes of Ukraine’s strike remain varied and unpredictable — and its eventual implications will rest on the evolutions of several questions, both military and political.

Type: Analysis

Global Policy

The Ukrainian military seized a chunk of territory in the Kursk region of Russia as part of a surprise incursion that has left the Russian military in “a panic,” says USIP’s Donald Jensen, adding that Putin’s strategy until now did not “take into account that Ukraine could strike back, and they certainly have.”

Type: Podcast