The crisis in Ukraine seems at first to be the result of the impact of two misunderstandings of Russian and Western approaches.

Methodological debates about the stages of growth and the way in which a country goes through political modernization are long-established and manifold. 

Historically, states have indebted themselves to finance military campaigns. They do so nowadays for other reasons such as financing productive investment.

President Obama presented the case for his foreign policy last week – again.  He addressed the cadet corps at West Point in what was billed as a comprehensive strategic statement for the balance of his tenure in office, and for America's future.  Obama's speech came just over a week after John Kerry issued his own call for America to take a large and active role in the world — urging Americans not to "allow a hangover from the excessive interventionism of the last decade to lead now to an excess of isolationism in this decade."  It set the pitch and tone for the President's address. [1]

The strategic value of missile defense remains in considerable debate in Europe but less so in the United States.

Since oil was discovered in Uganda in 2006, East Africa has been an arena for a race in the exploration for hydro-carbons. Yet the oil reserves in Uganda, the more recent and modest ones in Kenya and the few pockets of gas in Ethiopia are on a completely different scale from the enormous gas resources discovered since 2010 in the off-shore waters of Mozambique and Tanzania.

This study seeks to lay the foundations for a better understanding of the Chinese middle classes. It goes beyond the traditional classification by revenue and identifies the distinctive features of China’s middle classes by taking into account relevant historical events, current sociopolitical and economic contexts, and key expectations of the population.

By the end of 2013 the numerous miscalculations of the Yanukovych regime had deepened the systemic crisis in Ukraine, the crux of which was the tension between the people's hopes of independence and the inefficiency of the country's post-Soviet political and social system.