Raising awareness of both existing and emerging foreign and security policy challenges facing the European Union, EUISS Briefs provide key information in a concise, focused format.
Despite routine declarations that connect Sahelian terrorism to climatic and environmental factors, available scientific evidence does not allow us to conclude whether (and what) climatic factors impact (and how) conflict variability and terrorism. This Brief explores why.
Policy experts and decision-makers can improve their ability to think about the future in a number of ways, including by admitting that future developments may invalidate current assumptions and actions. This Brief shows how applying the discipline of strategic foresight to the...
China’s and Russia’s shared antagonism against the West fuels cooperation at bilateral and multilateral levels. In its normative dimension, this cooperation is driven by the overarching aim of defining and re-interpreting existing international norms in a way that reflects the...
Concerns about the erosion of the ‘taboo’ on chemical weapons use have deepened in recent years, in particular following the chemical weapons attacks that have taken place in the Syrian conflict. The sanctions regime against the proliferation and use of chemical weapons which...
Despite the direction offered by the EU Global Strategy, there is as yet no common approach to how member state governments understand threats to the EU’s security. Under the new Strategic Compass initiative – designed to provide enhanced politico-strategic direction for EU...
This Brief analyses the current dynamics underpinning the Belarusian-Russian relationship and its possible future trajectory in the light of new factors which limit Belarus’s room for foreign policy manoeuvre. It highlights how, under increasing pressure from Russia and faced...
Beijing’s new activism in the Middle East reflects the evolution of Chinese foreign policy thinking, in line with the country’s rise as an economic superpower. Economic goals rather than ideological considerations have become key criteria in China’s selection of partners in the...
The global crisis caused by the Covid-19 outbreak has had particularly disruptive consequences for conflict-affected countries around the world. Armed groups have capitalised on the crisis, while the global distraction caused by the pandemic has made it difficult to seize...
In recent years Japan has sought to rekindle diplomatic, political and economic ties with Eastern Europe. This Brief examines how Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 may have motivated this charm offensive, prompted by Tokyo’s fears that such aggression could potentially be...
China has sought to demonstrate that its authoritarian political system has been more efficient at dealing with the coronavirus crisis than Western liberal democratic systems. This Brief examines the validity of this hypothesis, and concludes that predispositional factors –...
