In the five weeks since the Germans first requested peace negotiations, half a million casualties had been added to the war’s toll. As the delegates talked, Germany continued to collapse from within: inspired by the Russian Revolution, workers and soldiers were forming soviets, or councils.
The Syrian Civil War is the world’s bloodiest conflict, and much of the blame can be laid at the feet of Syria’s neighbours and the world’s major powers. So far, France, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the UAE, the United Kingdom and of course the United States have all intervened—and this long list of countries excludes the dozens of other coalition members that back U.S. efforts or otherwise played smaller roles.
Since the European Union’s migration crisis peaked in 2015, the number of illegal migrants arriving in the EU has fallen by 95%. Migration challenges remain, and reform of the EU’s methods for managing immigration is desperately needed, as the recent scandalous treatment of the Aquarius rescue vessel, which Italy and Malta turned away, made all too clear. But the timing of the immigration talks held by European leaders in Brussels last month was more a reflection of domestic political crises than a response to a spike in new arrivals.
In the past, Europeans often diminished the value of geography, which would have demanded a closer relationship with Russia, in favour of the geography of values, which justified a transatlantic orientation. When the US is led by an administration that is betraying those values, however, that argument no longer applies.
Photo released by German Chancellor’s office shows the isolation of U.S. President Donald Trump at the just-concluded G7 summit.
President Donald Trump said the United States will not sign a joint agreement with other G-7 countries, an abrupt reversal that will further erode relations with key U.S. allies and underscore the country’s increasing isolation under Trump.
With a wayward president at the helm in the United States, the world has become a more dangerous place. In response, though, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is once again steering Germany to the foreign policy sidelines, clearing the way for French President Emmanuel Macron.
He’s been known as the “French Obama” to some, and the Roman god “Jupiter” to others. But this week, French President Emmanuel Macron has earned himself a new nickname: “Trump Whisperer.” The French president was anointed with the new moniker on the eve of his visit to Washington, where this week he becomes the first foreign leader to be hosted by President Donald Trump for a formal state visit.
Helmut Kohl (b. 1930) oversaw the reunification of Germany…Kohl’s tenure as chancellor—second in length only to that of Otto von Bismarck—ended in 1998 when the Social Democratic Party defeated the CDU. When Kohl passed, he was given an “EU state funeral,” a testament to his commitment not just to a united Germany, but to a united Europe as well.
Populist movements have been on the rise for at least two decades, but anxiety about the phenomenon reached its high point a year ago. That should be no surprise. 2016 was the year in which populism went primetime: Over the course of a few disorienting months, the people of Britain voted to leave the European Union and the people of the United States made Donald Trump their president. Most commentators around the world assumed that 2017 would bring even more shocking news. The world as we knew it might be about to end. A year on, it is clear that such fears were exaggerated.
