Blair Glencourse

Articles

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Georgia and Russia: The Search for Peace, Stability and Territorial Integrity

Georgia is strategically located at the juncture of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, on the Black Sea between Russia, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Post-independence in 1991, the bloodless Rose Revolution deposed President Eduard Shevardnadze after a fraudulent election in 2003, and the Western-leaning Mikheil Saakashvili came to power. The government has since put in place a series of institutional reforms leading to impressive economic growth, based on a movement away from agriculture and towards a more service oriented economy.

September 21, 2009
Blair Glencourse
Ethnic and Sectarian Challenges - September 2009

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The Other Energy Crisis: Europe's Increasing Dependence on Russian Natural Gas

Despite the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, relations between the West and Russia remain critically important to global peace, security, and prosperity today. Sustained and predictable dialogue between the two is essential to ensuring cooperation on a host of global issues, from trade to climate change to conflict resolution. As part of the latest discussions, the European Union (EU) and Russia launched talks in early July 2008 on a new partnership between Brussels and Moscow. A new agreement is especially important now, given recent developments such as the enlargement of the EU, the leadership transition in Moscow, and changed global dynamics which see Russia playing a far more assertive role in world affairs than in the recent past...

August 21, 2008
Blair Glencourse
August 2008