EDITORIAL

A “new beginning?”

Q&A

Tassos Symeonides
(RIEAS Academic Advisor)

Copyright: Research Institute for European and American Studies (www.rieas.gr) Publication date: 3 March 2019

Note: The article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the views of the Research Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS).

Last December we witnessed the inaugural US-Greece strategic dialogue meeting in Washington between Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo and then Greek Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs George Katrougalos. Is this truly a new beginning?

Greek-American relations are full of “new beginnings.” Diplomatic language, irrespective of the point in time, tends to stress the positive for obvious reasons. What lies behind such statements, however, is an altogether different matter. Perceptions from Athens and Washington vary: Greece, for instance, as the vastly weaker partner, seeks an American “umbrella” against the perennial Turkish threat; the US, on the other hand, focuses on a complex global and regional security scheme in which Greece is one of many pivots, an important one perhaps but, still, one of many...Read more

Dr (Col.Res) Shaul
(Senior research fellow at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzeliya (IDC) and former Deputy Head of Israel National Security Council.

Copyright: Research Institute for European and American Studies (www.rieas.gr) Publication date: 24 February 2019

Note: The article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the views of the Research Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS).

US President Donald Trump’s administration is pursuing plans to establish a new security and political framework with US regional allies. It will include all Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE—as well as Egypt, Jordan, and the United States..Read more

Musa Khan Jalalzai
(Security Expert)

Copyright: Research Institute for European and American Studies (www.rieas.gr) Publication date: 17 February 2019.

Note: The article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the views of the Research Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS).

Intelligence organizations of the twenty first century make outstretched distinction between operations, analysis, and functions. Field officers collect intelligence, analysts analyze information, and processors categorize it to help policy makers in designing military strategies. Any civilian or military government that wants to professionalize its intelligence infrastructure, and prevent it from decaying needs statecraft, which is comprised of economic power, and a strong military force and mature diplomacy. The case is quite different in India and Pakistan, where emerging contradictions in the state system, ethnic and sectarian divide, and failure of intelligence and internal security strategies generated a countrywide debate, in which experts deeply criticised the waste of financial resources by their intelligence agencies in an unnecessary proxy war in South Asia. Intelligence reform in India has been the most controversial issue as reform committees have been hijacked by political and bureaucratic stakeholders...Read more

Greece and corruption
Q&A

Τάσσος Συμεωνίδης
(RIEAS Academic Advisor)

Copyright: Research Institute for European and American Studies (www.rieas.gr)

Publication date: 10 February 2019

Note: The article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the views of the Re-search Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS).

For as long as anyone can remember corruption has been at the center of the perennial Greek crisis of politics, society, and economic stability. Even after nearly ten years of unprecedented punishment by the EU “bailouts” Greece remains as corrupt as before. Is there anything that can be done to break this fatal deadlock?

Corruption, both private and public, enjoys such a long tradition and roots so deep that it would take a cataclysmic jolt to bring about even moderate change. Corruption is practically synonymous with Greek “government” and public “ethics.” Bankruptcy, and the disastrous “bailouts” that have turned Greece into a subject nation of limited sovereignty, has only made a bad situation infinitely worse....Read more

Turkey, Russia, and East Med Gas

Q&A

Tassos Symeonides
(RIEAS Academic Advisor)

Copyright: Research Institute for European and American Studies (www.rieas.gr) Publication date: 27 January 2019.

Note: The article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the views of the Research Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS).

Turkey’s neo-sultan and President Putin met in Moscow to discuss Syria. Ankara and Moscow appear closer than never before. What are the implications of this rapprochement for Western security and stability in East Med?

During a radio broadcast in October 1939, Winston Churchill spoke of Russia thus: “I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.”...Read more

Τάσσος Συμεωνίδης
(RIEAS Academic Advisor)

Copyright: Research Institute for European and American Studies (www.rieas.gr)
Publication date: 20 January 2019.

Note: The article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the views of the
Research Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS).

Q & A

The international community is heaping praise on PM Tsipras for narrowly winning an acrimonious confidence vote and saving his lame duck government from resorting to a snap election. Is this good or bad for Greece?

The meaning of words in Greece has suffered irreparable damage since the 2010 collapse and the transformation of the country into a de facto Brussels protectorate. Thus, to Greece’s foreign “friends, ”good” has come to have meaning only in relation to what Berlin, Brussels, and the creditors want and “bad” when one refers to what the Greek people desire or hope to see as their country struggles to return to “normalcy.”..Read more