European Union foreign ministers have announced a ban on the import of Iranian oil. The new oil sanction against Iran prohibits any new deals and calls for existing contracts to be stopped by July this year. READ MORE

Polls opened in Croatia this Sunday in a key nationwide vote to decide whether the Balkan country should join the European Union. Surveys show that some 60 percent of voters back EU membership. READ MORE

Writing in National Review, Daniel Vajdic of the American Enterprise Institute mounts a confused and almost incoherent attack on the Obama administration’s Russia policy. Having read Vajdic’s piece several times, I am genuinely unsure of what his actual substantive criticism is. He seems not to be presenting a structured critique of either the formulation or execution of the administration’s policy. Rather, he lays a number of inconvenient and undesirable Russian policies at the feet of “the reset” despite the fact that many of the policies in question actually predate the Obama administration (or even dear Barack’s election to the US senate). READ MORE

Russia’s Tough Talk on Foreign Policy Suggests Fear of Internal Revolts. READ MORE

In 2011 Chairmanship in the European Union for the first time was trapped in the arms of two East European states. For the first time Hungary and Poland did it and it has become a significant event for each of the country. READ MORE

For much of the fourth quarter of 2011, it appeared the eurozone was doomed. Debt was piling up for several key states, and those with the ability to assist lacked the political will to do so. But the European Central Bank (ECB) stepped in in December with measures that have postponed -- not solved -- the European crisis. READ MORE

The January/February 2012 issue of the magazine Foreign Affairs features an article with the shocking title: Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike Is the Least Bad Option. It is indicative of the current mood and may set the tone for the rest of the year. READ MORE

On December 20, 2011, members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) reached an agreement that makes it impossible for any individual country in the group to host a foreign military base on its territory without the full consent of all other members of the organization. The initiative empowers Russia to veto any foreign basing plans in Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Hence, the move serves as a continuation of Russia’s efforts to counteract the influence of the US military and reassert its own role in its immediate neighborhood (Interfax, December 21). READ MORE

One of the most iconic images of the American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- as well as global U.S. counterterrorism efforts -- has been the armed unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), specifically the MQ-1 "Predator" and the MQ-9 "Reaper." Unarmed RQ-1 Predators (which first flew in 1994) were flying over Afghanistan well before the 9/11 attacks. Less than a month after the attacks, an armed variant already in development was deployed for the first time. READ MORE

Nordic-Baltic cooperation was the focus of this year’s traditional informal Snow Meeting of experts in international and security politics from Europe and North America in Trakai on June 11-12. The discussions were opened by Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Audronius Ažubalis, who highlighted the strengthening of economic ties and shared cultural identity regionally. READ MORE