Pulse: Eastern Europe


Wishing our world for a peaceful 2024

While I studied at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, our founding dean and senior diplomat Professor Kishore Mahbubani optimistically told us, “War, after centuries of being a scourge for humanity, is now becoming a sunset industry.” Unfortunately, nowadays that “sunset industry” is reviving, from the Russia-Ukraine war to the Israel-Hamas war.

Parallel Universes: EconVue Spotlight April 2022 - Has the 4th Estate Eaten Up the Other Three?

Most Russian experts and military strategists I follow doubted Putin would invade Ukraine. I agreed with their rational arguments, but here we are. I’m reminded of the Haruki Murakami novel 1Q84. The heroine alights from her taxi and gradually discovers that she is living in a world where everything is almost the same, except there are two moons. Since Covid began, I doubt I’m alone in feeling that I have somehow gotten off at the wrong stop, and am living in a hellishly perverse alternative universe.

Lessons from Russia's Latin America engagement over Ukraine

Russia’s engagement with Latin America after its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and the Latin American response to the invasion, illustrates the growing strategic challenge to the U.S. from the survival and proliferation of populist authoritarian regimes in the Western Hemisphere.

IFF Remarks on Deepening China and EU Economic and Financial Cooperation

The title of this session is leadership dialogue and the focus is “deepening China and EU economic and financial cooperation” in what this forum is calling the new global context. I’d like to use my time to look briefly at two dynamics that are affecting the evolution of this China/EU cooperation and then conclude with a comment about the importance of political leadership for quality outcomes as well as for a more peaceful world order.

FinTech Marketing

International FinTech startups are looking to the United States as a vast consumer and business market for their applications and services. Despite the difficulties posed by a dual regulatory system, in which multiple federal regulators join agencies in all 50 states, the wealth and size of the market beckons.

Decline of Putin's Russia - My Comment

Review and commentary on Putin's (and Russia's) dilemma: