PULASKI POLICY PAPER: R Johnson – Russian Obsessions With Ukraine: What Drives Putin Towards War
Pułaski Policy Paper no 5, 2021, May 13, 2021 For years after the Cold War invading one its neighbours had been deemed largely unthinkable. That is, until Moscow’s military rolled across the border of Georgia in August 2008 and seized two provinces which it still occupies today. A similar land grab of Ukrainian territory was fraught with horrendous consequences. In 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded both Crimea and the Eastern Donbas regions. To this day the latter remains a war zone with massive devastation throughout and more than 13,000 persons killed – 25 per cent of those being civilians. Nevertheless, previous hostilities have not fulfilled Putin’s ambitions vis-à-vis Ukraine, […]
PULASKI POLICY PAPER: R. Johnson – OPK Lost: Ukraine’s Defence Industrial Base In The 21st Century
Pułaski Policy Paper no 2, 2021, March 11, 2021 The Ukraine defence-industrial complex, usually referred to by the Russian acronym (transliterated) as OPK, was at one time a sprawling and multi-faceted – as well as vital – component of the former Soviet Union’s empire of factories, design bureaux and military R&D centres. Ukraine’s contribution to building Moscow’s massive war machine was considerable and involved several areas of specialisation: The only shipyards in all of the USSR that were capable of building an aircraft carrier that could operate short take-off with arrested recovery (STOBAR) fighter aircraft are in the southern Ukrainian city of Nikolayev. The single carrier that was put to […]
PULASKI POLICY PAPER: A. Fałkowski – NATO 2030 – a forced necessity
Pułaski Policy Paper no. 12, 2020, 8 December 2020 The 2010 Strategic Concept adopted in Lisbon, a sort of signpost defining the directions in which NATO member states should move in the next years, became outdated rather quickly due to the dynamic and fundamental changes in the security environment. At the last few NATO summits there were attempts, at least on the part of some of the Allies, to revise it and set new directions for the future of the Alliance. Only in early December 2019 in London the heads of state and the heads of government of NATO member countries resolved to initiate the reflection process on the future of […]
PULASKI POLICY PAPER: P. Przybyło – The last oil peak in the history of the world – geopolitical, sociological, and economic factors that shape the future of the Energy sector
Pulaski Policy Paper no 11, 2020, November 27, 2020 Current global energy consumption forecasts indicate that although renewables are set to expand by 50% between 2020 and 2025, they will not fully replace fossil fuels in our lifetimes. However, if recent geopolitical, economical, and sociological factors are taken into account, this prediction becomes obsolete. The world is about to enter a period of rapid energy transformation. At the end of 2019, modern renewable energy (excluding the traditional use of biomass) accounted for an estimated 11% of the total final energy consumption (TFEC) globally. The highest share of renewable energy use (26.4%) was in electrical uses excluding heating, cooling and transport. […]
PULASKI POLICY PAPER: T. Otłowski – The End of the Arab World’s ‘Unity in Hostility’ Towards the Jewish State? The Implications of Israel’s Deal with the UAE and Bahrain
Pulaski Policy Paper no 10, 2020, November 16, 2020 The announcement of the Israel-United Arab Emirates normalisation agreement in mid-August 2020 and the so-called Abraham Accords between Israel and Bahrain in mid-September have given a fresh impetus to the political dynamics in the Middle East. Undoubtedly, the agreement between the three states—which was formally signed in Washington, D.C. on September 15, 2020—will pave the way for significant changes in the region. In the near future, it will turn out whether the deal will bring peace and stability or will lead to further destabilisation and another regional conflict. The international community cautiously welcomed the agreement between the former enemies, considering the […]
PULASKI POLICY PAPER: S. Koziej – The motives and consequences of the reducing and repositioning of the US forces in Europe
Pulaski Policy Paper No 7, 2020. August 20, 2020 As far as the first goal is concerned, Donald Trump has been using a business-like approach to foreign affairs and security policy since the first day of his presidency. Trump expects that Washington’s allies will pay for the US security guarantees and therefore the US administration has launched a campaign to force the European members of NATO to increase their military spending. First, it is worth noting that some part of the European defence budget could be a funding source for the US troops deployed in the old continent. Second, Europe’s military spending could also support the US defence industry given […]
PULASKI POLICY PAPER: T.Otłowski – Geopolitics of the COVID-19 Pandemic
Pulaski Policy Paper No 6, 2020. July 1, 2020 In the aftermath of the unexpected COVID-19 outbreak, the world has been plunged into a deep socio-economic crisis and chaos comparable with the Great Depression or the First and the Second World War. The coronavirus pandemic will definitely affect the course of history, reshape the global economy and bring revolutionary changes to international relations. The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to severely affect the global economy in the short run. Unlike the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, the pandemic has undermined economic foundations of most states, particularly the manufacturing sector and trade in goods and services. Government restrictions disrupted the mining industry and […]
PULASKI POLICY PAPER: R. Johnson – Putin, Lukashenko and Lessons Learned From Zapad-2021
Pulaski Policy Paper no 10, 2021, November 04, 2021 Russia has conducted Zapad-2021, the latest instalment of its quadrennial joint military exercises with the Republic of Belarus. They lasted from the 10th until the 16th of September 2021. A large part of the exercise took place on the territory of Belarus, requiring a significant number of Russian military units to be transported into the former Soviet republic, where they carried out the various manoeuvres that the Zapad-2021 set of operational objectives required from them. Most of what was seen in the news reporting and in the video coverage of the Zapad exercise, was the, “hot phase” of the entire week-long […]