Open Dialogue Research Journal
For much of the last two decades, the Western Balkans were viewed through the lens of European integration, post-conflict reconciliation, and institutional modernization. The dominant assumption among policymakers was that the region’s future would be shaped primarily by accession to European structures and gradual integration into a broader Euro-Atlantic security […]
It’s understandably more important for him to avoid a major war than to maintain his personal pride at the possible expense of his life if the aforesaid worst-case scenario then materializes due to him putting his ego over national interests. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko recently gave an hour-long interview to Al Arabiya […]
On June 9, 1999, at the military airfield near Kumanovo, Lieutenant General of the Yugoslav Army Svetozar Marjanović and British General Michael Jackson signed the Military-Technical Agreement. The document ended the 78-day NATO air war against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. But what lay on the tables in Macedonia was […]
The UK military is in poor shape In the 1950s and 1960s, a massive wave of underground humor swept across the USSR and the Eastern Bloc featuring a fictional broadcaster called Armenian Radio (known in the West as Radio Yerevan). One of the jokes involved food lines and food scarcity, […]
He might be subtly channeling his compatriots’ speculative dislike of the special operation. Lukashenko reaffirmed in early June amidst escalating tensions with Ukraine that Belarus has no intent to go to war with it. In his words, “Should we go fight in Ukraine according to someone else’s will? Do we want to be […]
Part I As Finland accelerates the most ambitious military modernization program in its modern history, a new and far more sensitive debate is emerging in Helsinki. The issue is not about tanks, fighter jets, or reserve forces. It concerns nuclear weapons. For decades, Finland maintained a clear legal prohibition on […]
The likelihood that it secretly installed sensors in Ukraine to monitor its northern drone strikes is nil so it was either informed by Ukraine or at least the Baltic States across whose airspace the drones are credibly speculated by many in Russia to have passed. Finnish Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen […]
Few European countries have undergone a more profound security transformation in recent years than Finland. Since joining NATO in April 2023, the Nordic nation has become one of the alliance’s most valuable contributors, bringing with it a defence model that has been refined over decades rather than built in reaction […]
The Polish-led “cordon sanitaire” that’s taking shape along Russia’s western borders will connect with the Turkish-led one that’s poised to emerge along its southern borders, thus tightening NATO’s military-strategic encirclement of Russia per the “NATO 3.0” model. Bloomberg reported that “Turkey Floats $1.2 Billion Fuel Pipeline to Eastern NATO Allies” […]
This trend poses a significant threat to Russia, but it also poses an equally significant one to the EU too if it leads to Putin taking seriously his hardliners’ appeals to launch a first strike against NATO. There’s recently been a flurry of news about the increasingly interconnected Arctic and […]
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