European Institute

A frail-looking, wizened old man mounts the stage to address an audience assembled at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Washington office, near Dupont Circle. His manner is informal, almost jovial – a contrast to the seriousness of topic he is speaking about: the annexation of his homeland, Crimea, by Russia, against the will of his people, the Crimean Tatars. "We are in a trap," explains 70-year old Mustafa Djemilev, the leader since 1989 of the Crimean Tatar National Movement, the main political party representing Crimean Tatars.

The short term trend for the dollar is up. The recovery of the U.S. economy, and the combination of FED tightening on one hand and easing by the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan on the other, creates a fatal attraction for the dollar. On top of this, U.S. sanctions against Russia push Russians and ruble holders to exchange declining rubles for dollars. Overall this situation will increase the value of the dollar, making it attractive for investors but more burdensome for American exporters.

This dollar surge, however, hides a longer term trend toward de-dollarization. Monetary diversification has become a key political goal for many governments, countries, and institutions.

Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election has produced worldwide bewilderment. Some of this may prove justified, depending on how Trump performs. But in part it is a reaction to the way we Americans conduct our election campaigns – the oceans of money, the media’s overweening role and the tested and proved tactics of “going negative”.

NATO’s 28 heads of state and government meet in Warsaw this Friday and Saturday in what has become a biannual event, whether or not the times demand it. Until Britain on June 23 voted to leave the European Union—the so-called Brexit—the NATO summit would have been pretty routine. It would have been limited to building on past decisions, though some with major consequences for European security, but it wouldn’t have set out in new directions. But now the summit will of necessity be anything but routine—or it will fail the test of history.

“Special relationship” is used so often to describe Anglo-American ties that it has long since become a cliché. But it still has force, reflecting not just tangible interests but the intangibles of culture, history, and shared roots of law and politics.

As a bridge between East and West and gateway to a chaotic Middle East, the strategic importance of Turkey has never been greater. While Turkey’s government faces sustained criticism over its worsening human rights record, the rebukes are being drowned out by the more pressing security challenges of the Syrian refugee crisis and Islamic State (ISIS) control of parts of Iraq and Syria. A rapprochement is taking place between Turkey and the West, one motivated more by pragmatism than principle.

For his first overseas trip since the failed coup of July 15 that killed 246 people, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, tellingly, chose Russia as his destination. Seated next to Erdogan in St. Petersburg on August 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin reassured him: “I was one of the first people who called you on the phone [after hearing of the coup attempt] and expressed my support.”

The Turkish military incursion into Syria is yet another chapter in the continuing tragedy for that country, for Syrians of all confessions and ethnicities, and indeed for most of the Middle East. Ankara is acting, it says, because of a threat from Kurdish fighters (which has a long history) and forces of the so-called Islamic State (a relatively new phenomenon). “Enough is enough,” Turkey seems to be saying. Unfortunately for just about everyone of good will, ample evidence of “enough” has not produced means for ending the Syrian bloodbath, finding a way out of the mess in the region and, in the process, preventing more damage farther afield.

The leader of the United Kingdom affirmed in a much-heralded speech that her country will leave the European Union to regain control over immigration and other national laws, but equally stressed the critical need for a strong Europe and a trade arrangement that would minimize any economic fallout from Brexit as Europe’s recovery remains unsteady.

The zero dollar contract under which the U.S. Department of Commerce designated ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) to provide the crucial “IANA (Internet Assigned Number Authority) function" expired last weekend. Proposed legislation sponsored by Senator Ted Cruz was not adopted as part of a continuing resolution — and a last minute injunction sought by attorney generals of four states was turned down by a federal judge.

So Chuck Hagel is leaving the Defense Department. That’s a wise decision on his and President Obama’s part. Hagel was chosen as Secretary of Defense when the task ahead was to shrink the Pentagon’s budget and withdraw American forces from conflicts bequeathed to Obama in Iraq and Afghanistan. A leader, in other words, for a period of American withdrawal from the world in response to twenty weary years of war since 9/11. But the world has proved it won’t wait. The United States confronts new challenges; and the mid-term election results suggest, like the opinion polls, that voters realize, however incoherently, that America has little choice but to meet them. Relish it or not, the United States remains “the indispensable power” --- a phrase given currency by Madeleine Albright, President Carter’s Secretary of State, but echoing the view of her predecessors back to Dean Acheson after World War Two.

The ruling government in Ukraine, hailed as the inheritors of the Maidan protests’ legacy, is now tottering in crisis mode after PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s bloc has lost the support of two parties in the ruling coalition and must seek out new partners in 30 days of face new elections. This follows President Petro Poroshenko’s earlier backing of an eventually unsuccessful effort to sack Yatsenyuk with a no-confidence vote in the Ukrainian legislature (Rada). 

Editor’s Note:  Later this week,  from Thursday May 22 and through Sunday May 25, in accordance with national election laws,  Europeans in 28 EU member states will go to the polls to elect  751  members of the European Parliament for a new five year term.  This is the first parliamentary election since the enactment of the new and more powerful role for the Parliament in the Lisbon Treaty which is the governing document for the EU.

Just as the French economy started giving signs of recovery, albeit belatedly, spectacular demonstrations and strikes have hit the country, paralyzing significant parts of transportation systems including roads, subway (RATP), rail (SNCF) and air (Air France), as well as oil depots and EDF nuclear plants. Some of the demonstrations have been violent, destroying numerous stores and brutally attacking people, including police. Normal daily activities have been disturbed. Sometimes, it is impossible to find fuel in gas stations because refineries paralyzed by the strikers did not deliver their products. Metro and trains stopped providing regular services. This chaotic situation is taking place on the eve of the UEFA 2016 European Soccer Championship scheduled to bring one million visiting fans to France. And this on top of continuing concerns about terrorist attacks.

With the 100^th anniversary of the beginning of World War I approaching on June 28, European Affairs presents two articles on the Great War.

Michael Mosettig looks at the day of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and the shots that inalterably changed the face of Europe and the global balance of power.

Brian Beary takes the longer view and looks at the turbulence of WWI as a historical warning that today’s national borders are not sacrosanct, even in Europe. On June 28, 1914, after the Sarajevo assassination, it would have been impossible to predict what ensued and emerged.  We also provide Michael Mosettig’s annotated reading list on World War I.

On June 26, the political leaders of the EU’s 28 member states will gather near the fields of Flanders in Ypres, Belgium, for a working summit. The meeting will take place on the eve of the 100^th anniversary of the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the event that plunged Europe into the chaos and destruction of World War 1. The leaders will visit In Flanders Fields Museum, which presents the story of the “Great War,” and the Menin Gate Memorial, which commemorates the millions of soldiers who lost their lives in the war.