The BERLIN POLICY JOURNAL has relaunched as INTERNATIONALE POLITIK QUARTERLY. Please continue reading us. now on www.ip-quarterly.com ! The post Hello, Internationale Politik Quarterly! appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog ..read more

An interview with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on criticism and conflicts, the role of the United States, and Germany’s possibilities—75 years after the foundation of the United Nations. © REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz The United Nations is celebrating its 75th birthday in the middle of the coronavirus crisis. Yet the international community is failing to get the pandemic under control by means of globally coordinated measures. Has the UN outlived its usefulness? On the contrary, we need the United Nations today more than ever. The COVID-19 pandemic in particular has shown that we cannot tackl ..read more

A bloody border clash exposed how tensions are building between India and China. With Europe reassessing its own relations with Beijing, it should pay more attention. © picture alliance/ZUMAPRESS.com/Idrees Abbas On June 15 of this year, the armies of India and China clashed in the Galwan valley region of the Himalayas, resulting in the death of 20 Indian soldiers. While India and China share a long and contentious border, this clash was of vital importance for a number of reasons. First, this was the first time in decades that the India-China border has seen this level of violence, as well ..read more

Despite a shambolic handling of the coronavirus crisis, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has largely maintained his popularity. This is mostly down to a combination of delivering on the promise of Brexit and abandoning austerity in a bid to tackle the economic impact of the pandemic. © Charlotte Graham/Pool via REUTERS Can a leader be incompetent and lacking in ideas—while at the same time be convinced that he is a revolutionary? In the case of Boris Johnson, the answer seemingly is “yes.” Britain’s prime minister, courtesy of Eton College and Oxford University, makes for an unlikely agi ..read more

Young people in Belarus want more than the stability Aleksander Lukashenka has offered for almost three decades. Organized, educated, and tech savvy, they are much better placed than the generation of 1989 to capitalize on the democracy they demand. © REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko Belarus is an example of a country that made one wrong decision, and then for three decades its citizens have had to live with that choice—or in some cases die or languish in prison as a result. In Belarus, the death penalty is carried out with a shot to the back of the head. This is the case with politically motivated ..read more

Belarus’ disputed presidential elections and the violent aftermath has exposed the gradual erosion of trust among young people in the regime. © REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko A new generation of Belarusians has clashed violently with the security forces this week in reaction to what is widely perceived as a rigged presidential election on Sunday. The incumbent, Aleksander Lukashenko, was officially declared the victor on August 14, with 80.1 percent, while the promising challenger, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, was attributed just 10.1 percent. These results, which had been provisionally published earli ..read more

The key to energy transition is energy replacement—quitting coal. That’s proving difficult for Poland, for whom EU climate policy is trending in the wrong direction. Source: Ember/Agora Energiewende The public discourse about the energy transition tends to focus on the additive side: can we add enough wind turbines so that they produce a quarter of our electricity? From a climate protection point of view, however, it is the subtractive side of the transition that is relevant. The objective is to avoid burning fossil fuels, and it doesn’t matter to the atmosphere whether we do so by running t ..read more

Olaf Scholz is the SPD’s best—and only—hope for the chancellery. In terms of politics and character, he is a close Merkel look-alike. But neither time nor the numbers are on his side, and his early nomination bodes ill for the stability of Germany’s new European policy. © REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch Try to picture what Angela Merkel would be like as a man, slightly younger and of West German origin. But just as solid, rational, and pragmatic as the woman who has governed Germany for the last 15 years. Unimaginative, yet endowed with a wicked sense of irony (mostly kept private). Combining politi ..read more

For its own sake and that of the EU, Germany needs to say goodbye to its geo-economic approach to foreign policy. © REUTERS/Annegret Hilse Seven years ago DIE ZEIT foreign editor Jörg Lau provocatively wrote of the “German love of dictators,” pointing to Germany’s uncritical embrace of autocracies, kleptocracies, and theocracies in the name of smoothly doing business, be it China, Russia, or Iran. Lau criticized the German tendency to value “stability” above all else and to characterize the alternative to dictators like Vladimir Putin always as “chaos, separatism, nationalism or even Communi ..read more

The French are self-involved, or so the cliché goes. But they are no chauvinists—just ask the French president. There is no doubt that the French are a self-sufficient bunch. After all, it was a Frenchman who once wrote, “Hell is other people.” COVID-19 or not, the French rarely travel abroad for holidays. In terms of food, most French people think they have it best. And at housewarming parties in Paris, the music playlist is usually primarily made up of chansons and French rap classics. And despite President Emmanuel Macron’s attempts to turn Europe into a global “balancing power,” what happ ..read more