conflict

What are the main Iranian actors and their options in the conflict with Israel? Are negotiations possible? What is the legitimacy of the regime and the potential for change from within the Iranian society? And can Eastern Europe serve as an inspiration for the Iranian reformists? Leszek Jazdzewski talks with Dr. Walter Posch, a trained orientalist who works as a Middle East expert at the Institute for Peacekeeping and Conflict Management at the National Defense Academy in Vienna.

What does the political situation in Germany look like before the European elections? What is Germany\'s attitude to the Russian war in Ukraine? And how are the green and liberal parties faring?

The European Union often struggles with their external policy making, the EU wants a common, thus strong, and reliable external policy, but the member states always had a different point of view.

In this episode, Leszek Jażdżewski welcomes Alicja Bachulska, a MapInfluenCE China analyst in Poland and a member of China Observers in Central and Eastern Europe (CHOICE). They talk about the impact of the Russian aggression in Ukraine in a more global context - with the focus on China.

The Czech parliament has approved the establishment of the Permanent Parliamentary Committee on hybrid threats. This expert platform will be dedicated to monitoring influence operations and issuing recommendations to Parliament.

The decision to remove an old statue of Soviet Marshall Koněv from a square in Prague has led to a chain of very unlikely international incidents, culminating in direct intimidation of political representatives of a member of both the EU and NATO.

Even though Hong Kong operates under separate laws within the ‘one country, two systems’ model, the invisible hand of mainland China is becoming increasingly visible in the territory. In response, mass protests have been ongoing for four months in Hong Kong.

Syrian civil war is ongoing since 2011, but the end of this bloodshed seems to be still far-fetched. On the contrary, the indirect confrontation between Russia and the U.S. on this field seems to grow in tensions in a way that could sometimes remind us of the cold-war period.

The Southeast Asian peace is a term denoting a relatively peaceful environment in East Asia (regarding armed conflict) in the post-Cold-War era. Due to the regional specificity, it is important to analyze which actors and factors contribute to the Southasian peace, and which – despite the absence of the security infrastructure – tend to defuse the potential armed conflicts.

The ongoing civil war in Syria and the war of the West with ISIS that invovles Iraq, Syria and several other countries in the region, is the fourth time during the last fifty years that the West has used the Kurds for its security policy interests. Estonian MP, former adviser to the Iraqi government and Middle East expert, Eerik-Niiles Kross says that the US and the West need to support Kurdish independence.